Twenty five hundred years ago, there was no question about who the superpower of the world was. The Babylonians had come and gone, the Medes had risen and fallen, and the Persians had taken over. The Greeks and the Romans are yet to come, but the Persians were the rulers of the world. King named Xerxes was the pharaoh of his time. We're going to read here in chapter one about all the lands that they controlled. But his story reads like a modern day Hussein in Iraq. He had palaces all over his region. But one of his favorite places to go was his winter palace, which is in the southern part of Iran today. and in the capital city of Susa. And we're going to read about the excess of the Persian people and the dangers that come with that. So if you'll stand with me, we're going to read about a lot of what we just watched. And Hollywood did a very good job of depicting this story. But this is what happened during the time of Xerxes. The Xerxes who ruled over 127 provinces stretching from India to Kush. At that time, King Xerxes reigned from his royal throne in the citadel of Susa. And in the third year of his reign, he gave a banquet for all of his nobles and officials. Military leaders of Persia and Media, the princes, the nobles of the provinces were all present. For a full 180 days, he displayed the vast wealth of his kingdom and the splendor and the glory of his majesty. When these days were over, the king gave a banquet lasting seven days in the enclosed garden of the king's palace. For all the peoples, from the least to the greatest, who were in the citadel of Susa, the garden had hangings of white and blue linen, fastened with cords of white linen and purple material to silver rings on marble pillars. There were couches of gold and silver on a mosaic pavement. made of marble and mother-of-pearl and other costly stones. Wine was served in goblets of gold, each one different from the other, and the royal wine was abundant in keeping with the king's liberality. By the king's command, each guest was allowed to drink in his own way, for the king instructed all the wine stewards to serve each man what he wished. Queen Vashti also gave a banquet for the women in the royal palace of King Xerxes. On the seventh day, when King Xerxes was in high spirits from wine, he commanded the seven eunuchs who served him to bring before him Queen Vashti wearing her royal crown in order to display her beauty to the people and nobles, for she was lovely to look at. But when the attendants delivered the king's command, Queen Vashti refused to come. Then the king became furious and burned with anger, since it was customary for the king to consult experts in matters of law and justice. He spoke with the wise men who understood the times. Verse 15, according to the law, what must be done to Queen Vashti? She's not obeyed the command of King Xerxes that the eunuchs have taken to her. Verse 19. Therefore, if it pleases the king, let him issue a royal decree and let it be written in the laws of Persia and media, which cannot be repealed. That Vashti is never again to enter the presence of King Xerxes. Also, let the king give her royal position to someone else who is better than she. Verse 22. He sent dispatches to all parts of the kingdom, to each province in its own script and to each people in its own language, proclaiming in each people's tongue that every man should be ruler over his own household. God, I ask you now to cut through twenty five hundred years of history, culture and language and deliver a message to us. God, we dare to believe that your word is exactly what it says, living and breathing and active. And you wouldn't have written this story down if you didn't have a point for us. So, God, I pray that into our worlds of excess that you will speak to us, that your spirit will draw us close to you tonight. God, I pray it in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. You may have heard the story about the pastor who had been preaching and preaching and preaching. He was so frustrated no matter what he preached on, nothing ever changed. Nobody ever made a decision. There were just no changes in anybody's life. So one day he decided he was going to get some change and he replaced the grape juice in the communion with prune juice. And I asked him why he did it. He said, well, if the spirit won't move them, the prune juice will. Now, it's not hard to move people. I have found that out. But it is difficult sometimes to move people toward the kingdom of God. People will grab almost anything. When you talk to people in our culture today, they're willing to grab anything in excess. You saw a couple of fun examples on the screen. But it doesn't matter whether it's good or bad. We have a tendency to grab for as much of everything as we can possibly get. We live a supersized life. Everybody makes a big deal about, you know, we're all probably are having issues with our health and everything else because of supersizing ourselves at McDonald's. But I think McDonald's is the least of our worries. That's how we live our lives in this culture. We want more money, more prestige, more power, bigger, better, faster. We've got to have everything. It's nothing new. Cultures throughout history have been Very good at this, it's just that excess has sort of become our middle name in the American culture, and I think I can tell you why. Because when you and I excess, I don't care what it's over. It can be something wonderful, like a hobby, or it can be something that will destroy your life, like alcohol or some other drug. It doesn't make any difference. The reason that we excess is so that we never have to really deal with who we are. We don't have to face ourselves. We never have to face our God. We never have to deal with reality because we just fall back into whatever our style of excess is. And then I can pretend that I don't have to deal with that. Now, what's interesting is that in scripture, it tells us just the opposite is true. Speaking about the Messiah who was coming when Isaiah wrote in chapter fifty three about Jesus, he said these words. He said after the suffering of his soul, he will see the light of life. and be satisfied. Where does the satisfaction come from? By having it all or by giving it all away? In Psalm 103 that Charles read before we took communion, it reminds us that God will satisfy our souls. But human beings, and I think Americans in particular, our Western culture in particular, we're prone to be people of excess because that's the way we hide from our spiritual emptiness. And in this text that we read in the movie illustrated, we're going to take a look at the dangers of excess. The first. Excess, the first problem with excess is that it devalues our wonderful savior. Now you say, I don't even see that in those opening verses when you read all about the party, I never once saw God even mentioned you're absolutely correct, because when you begin to get involved in excess and again, whether it's The party scene or whether it's the voting scene or whatever it is, anything to excess, God will get shoved out of your life. Most of you have figured out by now that I'm a Cardinal fan. Albert Pujols, the great power hitter for the Cardinals. He, like most big power hitters, the first thing they do when they go up to the plate is they take their foot and they rub out the back line in the batter's box, rub out the chalk line. Now, why do they do that? Well, because there's the guy 60 feet, six inches away that's throwing a ball 98 miles an hour at them. And if you can get an inch and a half further away from that ball, you've got another split second to give your chance, give yourself a chance to hit that ball. Now, it makes a little bit of sense in baseball, but you and I live in a generation and in a culture where we've tried to wipe out all the lines morally, physically, emotionally. We think we can wipe out all the lines and everything's going to go on before. But Paul wrote in Colossians three, he said, put to death all of this junk, whatever belongs to the earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust. Now, can I tell you something about that verse? If you don't believe the Bible is true, then there is no such thing as sexual immorality. If you don't believe the Bible's true, there is no such thing as impurity. There is no such thing as evil or lust. You can't play it both ways. Either you believe the text or you don't. But he said you put it to death, those old ways of excess. Now, these Persians had it going on. Xerxes sees himself as God, like most of the guys. All right. This is like Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. It's like the Pharaohs of Egypt. It's like the Caesars of Rome. The story is all the same. But this guy's a little more generous than the others. And he's a young guy and he believes in having a good time. And it is a party all the time for 180 days. And some people think the party went on for 180 days and it may have. And then he had a special party for seven days. But at the very least, it says he showed all the wealth of his kingdom. It'd be like just opening the doors to all of his palaces. Here's all the gold. Here's the treasury. Here's all of this just showing off. Then he has a party. Now, check this out for the city of Sousa. I know it says all the nobles and officials were there, but it says from the least to the greatest. So this is like the New York City of our time. Right. Having a party, everybody come. for seven days. And then you read about the food and the wine and the marble and all the all the expensive traffic. I'm telling you, this is Wayne's World on steroids. This is party all the time. That is the concept that's going on here. Even down when you get to verse eight, it says, by the king's command, each guest was allowed to drink however he wanted. Well, now, that may not mean a whole lot to you in American culture because everybody drinks however they want. But when you're in the presence of a king, You don't pick up your cup and drink until the king does. But when the king picks up his garment, you pick up yours and you drink. This guy's so either so cool or he's so drunk one that he just says, look, I don't care. Let him drink. Let him have as much as they want. And when you get involved in excess, when you go too far in any area, good or bad, God gets shoved out because that excess will actually become your God. And my guess, I'm talking to a whole lot of people here who have been there and done that, or maybe are stuck in some of those situations right now. But what's interesting is about our God is in Romans 5, 8. And if you don't know this verse, you ought to memorize it. It says that while you and I were still in our sin, Jesus died for us. Let me play with that text just a minute. While you and I were still in our excess. While you and I were still trying to bury ourselves in this world and not face ourselves and not deal with our problems and not face God, Jesus came and died for us because he knew that someday the party would end and you and I decide that we want something better. So what are the keys to overcoming excess that devalues God in our lives? Well, first of all, I suggest you study the lives of people who live in excess. Don't study their lives when they're on the top, because if you look at Howard Hughes, when everything was going great for him, you said, I want some of that. But remember how he died as a paranoid old man curled up in a ball. You got to remember how. the stories and now we go back and you look at the opening verses. It says the exercise is very specific. There were, you know, there's a lot of them. All right. It's like Pharaoh. So there was Pharaoh, this and Pharaoh, that, but this, they want you to know he was the one who ruled 127 provinces, actually from India, all across The Middle East, Iran, Iraq, all across Israel, Greece, Rome, Egypt, North Africa, South, down through Sudan and Ethiopia today. He ruled it all. He really was the man. But the party's going to end one day for this king and for all of us. Number two, we got to study the word to see the results. You see, sometimes you don't see the end, so you need to go and say, well, what does the Bible say about this? What does the Bible say about this activity that I'm engaged in, whether it's money or sex or power or a drug or whatever it is? What does the Bible have to say about this? Then number three. Decide to live a higher life than the high life. You know, we're told in our culture, you know, you got you got to grab it all. And, you know, you watch and I'll just pick on the beer companies for a while. But, you know, when you when you watch their commercials, interestingly enough, they never show you a rehab. They never show you a divorce. They never show you all the destruction. They just put a little disclaimer down the bottom, drink responsibly. You know, they throw that in. But maybe what you and I need to do is decide to live a higher life than the high life. And so you know what? If this is that dangerous, maybe I just need to walk away from it. And then number four, decide that God's the only thing really to excess over. Now, this to me is funny. You know what? It's OK to go to church, but you start really serving God. You start giving faithfully. You make a commitment to go to Kenya and start taking care of AIDS orphans. And somebody is going to say, well, you're crazy. Why would you go to all of that excess? Because my God's worth it. But the guy that would spend his life sitting in a bar drinking himself to death in this generation, that seems to make a whole lot more sense to people than selling out to a God who loves us. Let's go on to the second danger. If I didn't hurt you yet, it's going to get worse. So hold on. But nobody hit me after the last service. So I'm going to go on. Danger number two, excess devalues wisdom. I heard the story, I'm not sure how true it is, but there were curfews back a few years ago in Belfast, Ireland. because of all of the fighting going on between the Catholic and Protestant divisions. And it was pretty ugly. It wasn't very religious, but there was a lot of fighting that was going on, a lot of people getting killed. And they put a curfew in effect for 10 o'clock. And they told people, there's a chance that you'll get shot if you're on the streets after 10 o'clock, regardless of who you are. The story goes that one night a guy got shot at 945 and they went to the soldier and they said, why did you shoot him? It's not 10 o'clock. He said, I know where he lives and he wasn't going to make it. Now, Proverbs 9, Proverbs 9, verse 10 says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. I want to point out a few things about this little verse. All right. It does not say the fear of a higher power. It does not say the fear of a God. In fact, only in our English Bibles is it and gets messed up when you see the Lord in capital letters like that, which it is in your English text. It is the covenant name of God. It's Yahweh. It's Y-H-W-H. We're not sure how to pronounce it. We've been through that road before. But the point is, it's very specific. This is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is the God who took on flesh and came to us in the name of Jesus. The fear of the Lord, the God, is the beginning of wisdom. Not the end of it, but that's where it starts. And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. But excess will pull you away from wisdom. It will pull you away from all things that are of God. You read this text and it says that when the king was in high spirits, I think you know what that means. They called for the queen. Now, there's a lot of discussion about this, and I was taught when I was in college that when he asked her to come out with her crown, that that's all he wanted her to come out in, that she was supposed to come out naked. and show all of these clowns how beautiful she really was. But I don't even know that that's necessary. I think you see a tremendous wisdom in this lady here because. All these nobles, all these officials, all of these men have been drinking for seven days, OK? They're all stoned out of their mind, so I don't care what. He wants her to wear. Can you blame her for not wanting to show up in the middle of this drunken crowd? And the Hebrew is a little hard to translate here, but basically she says, no, I ain't coming. And you don't tell God no. And you see, this is where, again, the excess, you lose your mind. This man loved her. You saw that from the concept in the picture. He loved her. In fact, I think when he's asking his advisors, what do I do? He's looking for a way out. Because he didn't want to lose this woman. But when you're given to excess, you make a whole lot of dumb decisions that you wish you had enough. Now, I don't know how many of you, and I won't even ask, who are cynics here, but I'm pretty good at cynicism. My wife reminds me of that from time to time, and I'm working on it. But one of my favorite verses, and if you're a cynic, Job chapter 12, verse two is your verse. All right. You need to get it. Memorize it. You're going to love this. All right, Job. If you know the story, Job goes through all kinds of pain and suffering because Satan is attacking him. His kids die and he gets boils all over him. And his wife says, why don't you just curse God and die? And then these wonderful friends show up. And they sit down with him and they say, Job, you are one corrupt dude. If you were a holy man like we are, then you wouldn't be having all of these problems. And Job said, you're nuts. I love God. I've always loved God. I'm the one that's been faithful to God, not you guys. He said something is wrong with this picture. And they said, no, we're telling you, man, you are messed up. You've done something to make God mad and you need to get yourself right with God. And this is Job's reply. Doubtless, you are the people. And wisdom will die with you. Don't you love that? I put that on some cards I've read. Have you ever gotten a card for me and it's gotten that text at the bottom? You know, I wasn't in a real good mood when I responded to your letter. It's a reminder that there are people that think they have all the wisdom in the world and they got nothing. Let me show you how this plays out. I have people all the time that say to me, hey, don't try to tell me about the Bible. I've read the Bible. I know what it says. Then why are you living a life that's taking you straight to hell? You see, there's a huge difference between knowledge and wisdom. Knowledge is knowing something and certainly nobody knows more than Americans. Wisdom is applying what you know. It's one thing to say, yeah, I know the Bible says I'm not supposed to do this. Wisdom is saying I'm not going to do it and I won't do it. That's the application. Now I'll show you how this comes together. So how how can we how can wisdom be restored in our lives? Let's go ahead and put them all up there. You've got to read the word. You've got to apply the word and you've got to live the word. And then you repeat one through three. And you just keep going. All right. Let me let me show you what I mean by this. About 50 years ago in our culture, the American church stopped living the word. They went to church because we go to church. Church is the right place to be. Respectable people go to church. We wear the hats. Ladies, we wear the fancy dresses. The guys wear the ties. You may live like hell the rest of the week, but we make sure that we go to church. But we stop living the word. Well, then one day somebody woke up and said, well, shoot, why are we trying to apply the word if we're not going to live it? So we stopped applying the word and then it was only one step from there before we stopped reading the word. And now the American culture is almost totally devoid of an understanding of the word of God. But we quit reading it. Now, that's one of the reasons why we're pushing you to get you into these home groups. Because it's one thing for me to teach you this stuff. It's a whole nother thing when you're forced to apply it. And that's what we're going to do in these small groups. It's going to be, you know, Joe talked about how excess can really pull wisdom out of our lives. How does that happen for you? And then you're forced to say, well, you know, this is something dumb that I do in my life has been hurting me and you can go as deep as you want or as shallow as you want, but it's going to force you. Bring it home in your life, because if you just read the word and you don't apply it, it won't do you any good. If you apply the word, but you don't live it, it won't help you either. It's a process that's got to continue in our lives. Again, Solomon wrote to his son in Proverbs four. He says wisdom is the principal thing. Get wisdom. Get understanding. What does that mean? Well, how do you get it? I can get knowledge, but how do I get wisdom by applying the knowledge that I've gained. Now, if I haven't ticked you off yet, number three, I ought to do it. The third danger is that excess devalues women. Now, I don't think it's too difficult to understand the story here. What took place Vashti is really not even a part of the book. I mean, this is it. This is all you're going to see about this woman. We think she was an Elamite, which means nothing to you. And she was from another country and she's moved aside in the story. And then Queen Esther comes into the story. And that's where we're headed as you read ahead for next week. But the man lost somebody he dearly loved because of his excess. Now let's talk about that just for a second. We live in a sex-saturated culture, whether it is adultery, whether it's fornication, whether it's sex outside of marriage, whether it's pornography. You name it, we are a sex-obsessed culture. And again, don't think we invented this. All right, the Romans had this down, the Persians had this down, the Greeks had this down. All right. The sexual issues have been a problem for mankind probably all the way back to Adam and Eve. All right. This is this is nothing new. But when when a culture gets out of control sexually, women are the ones that pay the price. Maybe you heard the story about the couple that was on their their honeymoon. They went on some fancy cruise and when they got home, she called her called her mom, the bride did. So how did it go? Oh, she said it was nice. It was romantic. It was it was just special. And then she started to cry. And her mother said, honey, what's the matter? She said, oh, mom, on the last day, he started using the most horrible language to me. He started using some of the worst four letter words I've ever heard. And she said, honey, it's OK, you can tell me I'm I've been around a while and you won't surprise me. She said, Mom, I'm so embarrassed. She said, honey, it's OK. You can tell me what what did he say to you? She said, Mom, he used words like dust and wash and cook, and the mother said, I'll be right there, honey. We live in a culture where women have been some of you just joining me, that's OK. We live in a culture where women are used and there's no other way to say it. But again, it's nothing new. It's just a matter of what is the biblical position on all of this. You see, the world wants to tell you that the church is the one that repressed women. That's not true. Women have been repressed through the centuries. Jesus came to liberate women. Now, I'm not telling you the church has always done it right, but I'm telling you, when you read the scriptures, Jesus came to set women free just like he came to set men free. In 1 Peter 3, verse 7, guys, I recommend you read this if you're married. Husbands, in the same way, be considerate of your wives and treat them with respect. They're weaker partners. That has to do with being physically weaker. They're heirs of the same gracious gift of life that you have, because if you're not, God won't hear your prayers. That's what it says that you can read the next two or three verses. They speak to it, too. But the whole point is, Peter is saying, guys, we've got to change. We're not going to live our lives. We're not going to treat our wives the way this culture treats their wives, because you and I are followers of Christ. Now, there's an interesting statement down there at the very last in verse twenty two. He says when he made this big decree, he said the husband should be the rulers of their household. I think men should be leaders in their home. But guys, if you're trying to rule in your house, you probably won't have much of a house to rule over very long, because that's not what God had in mind. It's supposed to be a partnership. Now, you know, what really concerns me is when this issue is in the church. And it seems to me that I might as well just take all the shots right here and be done. But it seems to me there's two two areas that people get into on this subject. There's one group of people that say, woman, sit there. Don't talk. Don't say anything. You're lucky to be a part of the kingdom of God. There's another group over here that says, hey, do whatever you want. I think the biblical miles in the middle, there are certain roles that God has designed each of us for. But I want to tell you, when women serve me communion, I love it. You know why? It's the only church I've ever been in that a woman served me communion. Now, I know I've heard all the sermons, and I grew up in that church that said you can't do that. Show me a scripture that says a woman can't serve communion, or can't pray, or can't lead worship, or can't be someone that's leading a major ministry in a church. I'm awful glad they're not there because all those things I just told you are happening in this church. Two or three of the biggest ministries in the church are run by women who are very gifted women, very talented. Why should the church put women down because they're of a different gender? Now, do I think there are roles for each of us? Well, absolutely. Just like there are things that a wife can do, a mother can do that a dad's not very good at. I understand that we're all gifted differently. But when we get involved in excess in a culture or in the church, Women get devalued. Ephesians 5, 8 says that for you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light. Take a look at that first part's knowledge. You used to be darkness. It didn't say you were in darkness. It said we were darkness. All right. That's what Paul said. But now you are light because you're in the Lord. Here's that's that's the fact. That's the knowledge. Where's the wisdom? Live it. live as children of the light. So how should women be treated? Now, I wrote myself a note when I wrote that down. I cannot even imagine sharing this to my dad's generation. I mean, he would just look at me and say, well, how dumb can you people be? Because his generation, nobody had to talk about this kind of stuff. But in our culture today, it has to be dealt with. Now, what doesn't seem right in an era of women's rights Why have women been devalued? Because we've missed the biblical picture. Let's just look at some words here. How should women be treated? I think, first of all, with praise. I think that's very important. Number two, with grace. Paul said that we are to treat them as gracious members of The kingdom of God, we're all going to the same place, the same heaven. That's our goal. Number three, we love an unconditional type of love. Number four, I just use the word chivalry because I didn't know what else to do. I probably didn't know how to spell it either, but there it is. Now, again, can you imagine having to explain this to men a generation ago? I don't I don't think so. Let me show you how this play. This is one example. When I when I get off an elevator, I am super conscious of this. And I don't care if I'm standing in the front of the elevator, I stand there and let the ladies off the elevator. And the reason I know that this is an old fashioned thing to a lot of people is the ladies will stop and say, thank you. Because they're used to getting knocked down by the men as they're trying to get off, and you know that I'm telling you the truth. You see, what Jesus was saying is women need to be treated the right way. It doesn't mean that there's a limit, but it means there are some things that are right and some things that are wrong. Guys, if you're married, you ought to be opening the car door and you ought to be going the extra mile to love your wife because that's what you and I were made to be, helpers. We can talk about the lady's role another time, but I think you got this, guys. Number five is the issue of modesty. And all I mean by this is that, well, ladies, you need to help us and you need to dress as modestly as you can. But, guys, we need to be super careful not to expose our wives. We need to protect our wives. Where the king here went one direction, you and I need to go the other direction. Our job is to safeguard our wives, to protect them physically, spiritually, mentally in every possible way. In Ephesians 5, 3, it says, among you, he's speaking to the church, among you, there should not even be a hint of sexual immorality, impurity, or greed because these things are out of place for God's people. That's pretty direct, isn't it? Not even a hint. There shouldn't be anything that even looks like sexual immorality in the church or anything that's improper because God's people are different. But if we're not careful, we'll get caught back up in this culture of excess. Because if I'm caught up in my excess, I'll never have to really deal with who I am now. How do I know that we're a culture of excess? Well, if you're traveling somewhere, how many of you have ever stopped to see some paupers house? I'm guessing nobody, but somebody built a castle, no matter how he built it, he might have cheated the rest of the world to get his money to build the castle. Well, we'll stop and pay twenty dollars. To tour that castle, because we're people of excess, I like what David wrote in Psalm 119, verse ninety two. He said, God, let your word be my delight. Father, I pray for all of us as we struggle. It's almost impossible, God, not to struggle in this culture with excess, whether it be money or things or alcohol or meth or cocaine or pride or sex or cars or land or even ego. God, we have a tendency to just want more and more. I pray that we'll come to the place where we say, God, you're enough. Thank you for all that I have, and I'm going to use it for your glory, but you're enough. You're really all I need. God, speak to us. For those who don't know the Lord, may you draw them tonight, reach out into our worlds of excess, God. and remind us that the party's going to end. I thank you in Jesus' name, Amen.