Traveling Into A New Year with Esther: Selfishness or Sacrifice

February 18, 2026

Selfishness or Sacrifice?  Which will characterize your behavior, your action, your walk with God in this New Year?

It is in the Book of Esther we find a tremendous example of sacrifice…

The Book of Esther tells the story of how Esther...

...a Jew, became queen of Persia and thwarted a plan to commit genocide against her people.  This is the background to the Jewish celebration of Purim or the Feast of Lots.  The day of deliverance is celebrated with “feasting and gladness, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor” (Esther 9:22). 

Each year Purim is celebrated by exchanging gifts of food and drink, donating charity to the poor, eating a celebratory meal, reciting additions to the daily prayers and grace after meals, as well as other customs including drinking wine, wearing of masks and costumes, and various other public celebrations. 

Most importantly, every year at Purim there is the public recitation, usually in the synagogue, of the Scroll of Esther.

In the Book of Esther, Esther has become queen of Persia…and along with her cousin Mordecai…are Jewish.  Haman, captain of the princes under king Ahasuerus (uh-has’yoo-er’uhs) of Persia, upset that Mordecai refused to bow before him, plots to eliminate all Jews.  He convinces the king to issue an edict that all Jews in the empire will be slain in a single day eleven months hence.

Mordecai, as well as other Jews across the different provinces of Persia, hearing of the edict, tears his clothes and puts on sackcloth, a symbol of deep mourning…

Esther wants to know why Mordecai was wearing sackcloth…why he was in mourning…

Esther 4: 4-8 (NIV) -

When Esther’s eunuchs and female attendants came and told her about Mordecai, she was in great distress.  She sent clothes for him to put on instead of his sackcloth, but he would not accept them.  

Then Esther summoned Hathak, one of the king’s eunuchs assigned to attend her, and ordered him to find out what was troubling Mordecai and why.  So Hathak went out to Mordecai in the open square of the city in front of the king’s gate. 

Mordecai told him everything that had happened to him, including the exact amount of money Haman had promised to pay into the royal treasury for the destruction of the Jews.  He also gave him a copy of the text of the edict for their annihilation, which had been published in Susa, to show to Esther and explain it to her, and he told him to instruct her to go into the king’s presence to beg for mercy and plead with him for her people.

Now Esther’s first response is one of fear…

Esther 4: 9-11 (NIV) -

Hathak went back and reported to Esther what Mordecai had said.  Then she instructed him to say to Mordecai, “All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that they be put to death unless the king extends the gold scepter to them and spares their lives.  But thirty days have passed since I was called to go to the king.”

Esther understands that to go before the king without permission could result in death.  It almost seems her first response is one of selfishness, more concerned about her own welfare than her people. 

Esther 4: 12-14 (NIV) -

When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer: “Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape.   For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish.  And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”

Mordecai is sure that “relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise” whether it is through Esther or another, but Mordecai tells Esther, “perhaps you have come to your royal position for such a time as this.” 

Perhaps God is working behind the scenes, placing you in a position, to save His chosen people.

It is then, Esther chooses to make the ultimate sacrifice for her people…

Esther has everything living in the palace, all the riches of this world.  She makes the decision to not only give all that up, but to lay down her life if necessary for her people. 

Esther 4: 15-16 (NIV) -

Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me.  Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do.  When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”

And Esther follows through with her choice…we read in Esther 5:1 (NIV) - On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace, in front of the king’s hall.

In John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”     

It is here we see Esther’s willingness to sacrifice for her people, for others. 

She is heard by the king…and through a series of events, Haman is executed for his plan of genocide and the Jewish people throughout the provinces of Persia are allowed to defend themselves and are not massacred.

The scriptures show us that when we sacrifice for another, we model God’s own character…John 3:16 (NIV) - For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Like Esther, might we ask if we are placed in a certain position, a certain setting, for “such a time as this”...

Are we called in the moment, in the setting we find ourselves, to model the character of God by sacrificing for others…to model God’s Son, Jesus Christ by sacrificing for others…

…as Christians…is the willingness to sacrifice for others part of our DNA?  Certainly, Paul believed it needs to be…He writes, in Philippians 2:4 that we should “look not only to [our] own interests, but also to the interests of others.” 

The writer of Hebrews tells us, “Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God” (Hebrews 13: 16). 

John writes in I John 3: 16-17, “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world's goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him?” 

And Jesus said, "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it” (Luke 9:24).

We are called to serve, to give, to sacrifice…

What our sacrifice looks like in each of lives cannot be generalized…each of us are placed in different settings, with different gifts, and are held by different fears and things of this world that God declares we must let go of in order to help others…

We only discover what sacrifice looks like for us by listening for God’s “still, small voice”…and once we hear, if we obey His directions, if we trust and step out of the boat, we will discover that it is actually not a sacrifice God is asking us to make, but an invitation and privilege God is offering us, His children…

Missionary David Livingstone once said, “People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply acknowledging a great debt we owe to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind, and a bright hope of a glorious destiny?

It is emphatically no sacrifice. Rather it is a privilege. Anxiety, sickness, suffering, danger, foregoing the common conveniences of this life--these may make us pause, and cause the spirit to waver, and the soul to sink; but let this only be for a moment. All these are nothing compared with the glory which shall later be revealed in and through us. I never made a sacrifice. Of this we ought not to talk, when we remember the great sacrifice which He made who left His Father's throne on high to give Himself for us.”

How are you sacrificing for others?  Are you fighting through the selfishness and working to put others ahead of yourself?  Is there someone who needs your sacrifice, needs you to step up and step out to help them?  Do you see the opportunity to serve and sacrifice for God, for His Church, as a privilege…a blessing? 

Pray that God will help you take on His character, to lead and act each day like His Son, who sacrificed Himself that we might have life.

Selfishness or Sacrifice?  Which will characterize your behavior, your action, your walk with God in this New Year?