"Women's Day" By Brother Andy Giebler May 28th,
2017
Give the Lord a praise. You know, we've—this is the time when we come to the end of our songs, and everything, and, normally, that's the sermon time. You know what? I've got a few words to say, but the sermon's been preached. The ladies that shared, that sang, took time to break through, you preached the message. We heard about women who went against the grain, women who heard from God, and weren't afraid to do what God called them to do, when no one else would, that went against the culture, when it wasn't the culture to do it. And I'm thinking of some women, I'm looking at the women in this room, and a lot of you went against the way you were raised and your cultures. I was blessed to hear, in a phone call, Nazira, when she was in Kirghistan, she said—let me make sure I get this right—she talked about how, basically, she was looked down on, because she was now a Christian, in a Muslim nation. When she wasn't welcome in her family's homes, she wasn't welcome in her friends' homes, she said, “I don't have time for that! I've got a God to serve.” She said, “I don't have time for that!” She didn't care. And that's just a recent one that sticks out in my mind, because it was her on the phone, and she was there. She didn't have time to come back and think up a flowery testimony, no, she was there in the midst of that, “I don't care; I don't have time for all that!” She's got too much to do right now. And I can say that about each one of the women here. They're taking the time to draw closer to God. I'm encouraged when I get reports of ladies, and you get together for your meetings and your prayers, and I hear of women making a break-through. Same thing with the guys, when we get together and those break-throughs come. When you came back with the report from your women's retreat. You didn't go for a vacation; you went to go find something. You went to take your time to be before God. We've got women—Ashley, you, you went against the culture you were raised in, and you said you didn't even realize the impact you would have. And there's still impact to come you haven't seen. You were able to witness to your mother. You were able to bring her closer to God. And what you're providing for your children, and the children here in this ministry. And each and every one of your labors aren't in vain. I kind of want to tie it together; I was reading from Esther, and I had all this planned out; I was going to go through a lot of it, but, there's a lot of drama in that story, a lot of things that we don't hear when we're taught that. But Esther was in a position because someone else didn't do what they were supposed to. Queen Vashti, she was royalty—but, it's very simple: All it said was, the king got drunk, and said, “Come meet my queen, and wanted to show her off.” Which probably wasn't a very good thing to do; probably wasn't a righteous thing, but that's what the king said to do. And she just said, “No.” What you don't see in there is any mention of her saying, “God, this is an unrighteous thing.” She didn't do that; she just said, “No.” But, Esther, being chosen as the queen, being chosen—the king went out, and said, “Well, I've gotten rid of one queen, I've got to get another one.” And, immediately, her being a godly woman, finds favor in the king's house, with all those around her, before she even meets the king, and then finds favor with the king. And another man comes up who hates the Jews, and hates the man who raised her, and wants to wipe out every Jew from the entire land. And I'm painting a picture to show what she did. Because, she, being a Jew, she hadn't revealed that she was a Jew to the king. When it all came about, she said, “Okay, this is my day. I'm going to do this. If I live, I live, and if I die, I die. But she knew that God spoke, so she knew what was at stake. So, what did she do? She said, “I'm going to fast and pray with my maidens,” and she sent word to Mordecai, saying, “Have the people fast for our nation. Have them fast and pray. Because of that, it set some things in motion. It set some things, so that Mordecai became favored with the king. Without that favor of the king, this wouldn't have come out so well. And there was a lot in that story, that the king had made a decree that, on a certain day, in a certain month, it was fair game to go kill the Jews. That's how big this was. I mean, it was just open season on the entire Jewish nation; it was going to be the Jews against everyone. And, because she was faithful, and the king heard her petition. Because she was faithful, even before the king heard her petition, she was faithful in prayer, and Mordecai found favor, and all that turned into play that Israel had the power and the strength to defend themselves, to take out the enemy before them. And there's a bigger story if you want to read that, but I just want to point out the fasting and prayer. The fact that she said, “I have this before me.” And I hear women here saying, “I've got this before me.” And I want to encourage you, fast, and prayer, getting together with your sisters; there's individual prayer, and there's time to get together with your sisters, time to pray with your families, time to pray as a congregation. Don't think that your prayers are any different than anybody else's. You have a voice to God. Esther had a voice to God; she heard from God, and she did what God called her to do. And, at this time, Parrish and I want to take the time, Sonia started to speak a blessing over you, we want to take the time to pray with you, because you're important to this ministry. And I'm going to say it this way: A lot of times, we see in the Bible where they went to God, they went and told God on them, whatever the problem was. Also, in ministry, we've got a long way to go. We're still learning, we're still growing, sometimes, Parrish and I, I'll put this on us, sometimes we don't hear, we don't quite grasp the situation. Sometimes things don't go the way we think they should, things aren't going right. I'll say this: Go tell God on us. I don't say that flippantly, I mean that with all sincerity. Go tell God. Because, that's what happened to Esther; she went and told God. She didn't go running to the king, and say, “Hey, this is wrong!” She put her face to the ground, and said, “God, You have to take care of this.” And, sometimes, no matter what the situation is, whether it's in ministry, whether it's at work, our culture says, with women's liberation, “Go and fight!” And there's a time to stand up, but there's a time to be on your face in prayer. That's the times when God will make a way that shouldn't work. A way that doesn't even make sense until it's all said and done. “Wow. Only You worked that out, God. At this Time, we're going to anoint each lady here with oil, and we're going to pray over the women in this ministry.
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