whatever

A Sermon Manuscript

Sep 18, 2026

I. Whatever — Meditation and Prosperity

Psalm 1:1-3

Blessed is the man... his delight is in the law of the LORD, and in His law doth he meditate day and night... And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he doeth shall prosper.

This is where we begin — and it's where the word first lands on us: whatever.

Notice the order. It's not "do whatever and you'll prosper." It's meditate first — dwell, chew on, delight in the Word day and night — and then whatever flows out of that life bears fruit. The prospering isn't detached from the meditating. It's the fruit of it.

This is a man planted, not striving. Rooted by the water, not hustling for rain. Out of that rootedness comes a whatever that ripens unforced, unhurried, alive, in its own season.

Hold that picture. It's the soil everything else in this message grows out of.

II. Whatever — Asking and Receiving

Mark 11:24

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire (whatever), when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

Here's the word again, from Jesus's own mouth: whatever you ask.

This isn't a blank check tossed carelessly into the world. It's an invitation into the same posture as Psalm 1 — a life rooted in Him, asking from that rootedness, believing, receiving. Jesus is handing His people the same kind of authority a king hands a trusted servant: not "I will grant your requests one by one, if I approve them," but "whatever you ask — believe, and it's yours."

That's a staggering amount of trust to place in human hands. And it should make us ask: what kind of people does He expect to carry that kind of whatever well?

That question is where the story of Esther steps in — because it shows us both answers. A wicked whatever, and a godly one.

III. The Wicked's Whatever — Haman's Lots (roll of the dice)

Esther 3:7

In the first month... they cast pur, that is, the lot, before Haman from day to day, and from month to month... to the twelfth month, that is, the month Adar.

Word Study — Pur / Purim

The Hebrew word פּוּר (pur) means "lot." It's not even originally a Hebrew word — it's a loanword, almost certainly borrowed from Akkadian or Old Persian, where it named a small cast object: a die, a marked stone, something thrown to produce what people believed was a "random" or fate-determined outcome.

Haman didn't simply pick a date to destroy the Jewish people. He consulted chance. He rolled the dice — likely through some form of astrological or divinatory casting — to find the "luckiest" day for annihilation.

This is the wicked's whatever: chance and cruelty fused together. "Whatever the lot decides" becomes the cover story for a plan of genocide. It looks impersonal — just fate, just the dice — but underneath it is a will bent toward destruction.

And here's where the name of the whole holiday comes from: Esther 9:26 — "Wherefore they called these days Purim after the name of Pur." Purim is simply the plural of pur — "the lots."

Think about what that means. The Jewish people didn't rename the holiday to erase what Haman did. They named their celebration after his weapon. The very tool the enemy cast to destroy them became the name stamped over their deliverance forever. Every time someone says "Purim," they are saying: the thing meant to kill us, God turned into the reason we feast. (sound familiar to you? The bells are ringing cross, the finished work of Jesus!)

Proverbs 16:33 — "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD."

Haman thought he was rolling dice. He was actually handing God the calendar.

So here's the contrast we're building: when the wicked roll their whatever — when they do as they please, plot as they please, cast their lots as they please — it doesn't matter. God is still sovereign over the dice. Their whatever, cast in cruelty, falls into the hands of the righteous.

V. The Godly's Whatever — The Ring and the Pen

Esther 8:8

Write ye also for the Jews, as it pleaseth you, in the king's name, and seal it with the king's ring: for the writing which is written in the king's name, and sealed with the king's ring, may no man reverse.

Word Study — "As It Pleaseth You"

The Hebrew is כַּטּוֹב בְּעֵינֵיכֶם (katov b'eineichem) — literally "as good in your eyes." Tov is good; ayin is eye. It's an idiom for "whatever seems right to you."

Look closely at what the king does here — and don't miss it, because this is the heart of the message. He does not write the decree himself. He does not solve it for them. He hands Esther and Mordecai the ring and says, in effect: You write it. Whatever is good in your eyes.

This is staggering. The king already told us in this very verse that a decree sealed with his ring "may no man reverse." So what Esther and Mordecai write with their own hand, from their own desire, becomes as unchangeable and authoritative as if the king had spoken it himself. He doesn't just permit them — he transfers the full, irrevocable weight of his own throne into their pen.

This is the same spirit we already saw seeded in chapter 1 — "no compulsion, only ratzon" — now handed directly into the hands of God's people, at the moment their whole future is on the line.

The Bride's Pen

In a like manner, Jesus and His bride, God and His people, operate the same way. He doesn't just tell us what to do and write it out for us like a script we perform. He doesn't solve every situation for us and hand it over pre-written. He gives us the ring. He gives us the pen. He gives us the authority to write as we please, as we desire — and He backs it with the full weight of His own name, unchangeable, unreversible.

Psalm 37:4 — "Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart."

Notice: this isn't generic. It's your desires — the particular shape of what delights you. God isn't handing out a form letter. He's handing Esther a pen for Esther's specific burden, and He hands you a pen for yours. The ratzon is kept particular to the person holding it.

IV. The Kingdom's Governing Spirit — No Compulsion, Only Ratzon

Before we get to Esther and Mordecai receiving the ring and the pen, I want you to see something planted all the way back in Esther 1:8 — before Esther even enters the story. It's the operating law of this entire kingdom, and it's going to matter enormously later.

And the drinking was according to the law; none did compel: for so the king had appointed to all the officers of his house, that they should do according to every man's pleasure.

Word Study — No Compulsion

The Hebrew is אֵין אֹנֵס (ein ones) — "there is no compelling." Ones means to press, to force, to insist. The king's own decree establishes, from the opening chapter, that his house does not run on coercion. It runs on ratzon. (News alert! So does God's house. Runs on ratzon)

Word Study — Ratzon רָצוֹן (ratzon) 

And what does it run on instead? כִּרְצוֹן אִישׁ וָאִישׁ (kirtson ish va'ish) — "according to the ratzon of each man."

Ratzon is one of the richest words in the Hebrew Bible. It means will, delight, pleasure, favor, desire. It's the same root behind language like "the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4) and "he will fulfill the desire of them that fear him" (Psalm 145:19). Ratzon isn't cold permission. It's an invitation into personal, particular desire — into what delights you specifically.

So here's the pattern already laid down before Esther walks on stage: this kingdom's law is "no compulsion, only ratzon." Nobody is forced. Everybody is invited into their own particular pleasure. That's the spirit of the throne — and it's the exact spirit the king will later extend to Esther and Mordecai when the stakes are no longer wine, but the survival of a people.

VI. What They Wrote — Purim Inaugurated

So what does Esther and Mordecai's whatever actually produce, once the pen is in their hand?

Esther 9:22

...the month which was turned unto them from sorrow to joy, and from mourning into a good day: that they should make them days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor.

Word Study — Gladness and Feasting

"From sorrow to joy" is מִיָּגוֹן לְשִׂמְחָה (miyagon l'simchah). שִׂמְחָה (simchah) isn't mild relief — it's the same full-bodied joy-word used throughout the Psalms for worship, celebration, the presence of God. This isn't "the danger passed, everyone can exhale." It's "turn this into a party."

And "days of feasting" is יְמֵי מִשְׁתֶּה (yemei mishteh). מִשְׁתֶּה (mishteh) comes from the root "to drink" — it's a banquet word. It's the very same word used for the extravagant wine feasts back in chapters 1 and 5, the king's court of indulgence. Watch what happens: the vocabulary of Persia's excess gets picked up, redeemed, and repurposed as the vocabulary of God's people rejoicing. Nothing about their whatever is wasted — even the language of the enemy's table becomes the language of the feast of deliverance.

And notice what they chose to write with the pen they were given. Not just an end to danger. Not merely safety. They wrote feasting. They wrote gladness. They wrote gifts to the poor. Given the ring, given the pen, given a blank check of "whatever is good in your eyes" — their desire was for good things. That's what a ratzon shaped by grace produces. It doesn't run toward indulgence for its own sake; it runs toward generosity, celebration, and joy shared outward, especially toward the poor.

VII. Grace Above the Law

Here's the deeper theology underneath all of this, and it's the heartbeat I want you to walk away with.

Esther 1:8 already told us: the king's own decree ran on "no compulsion" even while it was still called dat — "the law." Even within Persia's legal order, ratzon (desire) was the operating principle, not force.

Esther 8:8 goes further. The old decree — Haman's decree — was still technically on the books. It was sealed, and by the king's own words, irrevocable. But the new word Esther and Mordecai wrote, written from their own desire, didn't erase the old decree — it overcame it in power and effect. A higher word, written in love, moving faster and further than the old one ever could.

This is exactly the movement the Apostle Paul describes:

John 1:17 — "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."

Romans 6:14 — "For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace."

Grace doesn't say the law was bad. It says something higher has entered — something the law, by its very nature as law, could never produce on its own: desire fulfilled through relationship, not obedience extracted through obligation.

Think about where else this shows up. Love is above the law — Paul says in Romans 13:8-10 that love doesn't ignore the law, it fulfills it, and it does so by exceeding whatever the law could ever require. A law can say "do not steal." Only love gives. A law can say "do not murder." Only love lays down its life. Marriage works the same way — no law can compel real intimacy, real self-giving, real delight in another person. Those only ever come from ratzon — desire, freely given.

This is Bella Eden's whole heartbeat, isn't it? Grace over performance. Rest over striving. Not because the law was wrong, but because something higher has come and taken its place at the center — Jesus, who finished the work, and who now hands us the pen and says: write as you please.

And here's the mystery in it: when God shapes a person's ratzon — their desire — through grace, that desire doesn't run wild. It runs toward what's good.

Esther and Mordecai, given an unrestrained "whatever," wrote feasting, joy, and gifts to the poor. That's what a heart formed by grace does with freedom. It doesn't need the law standing over it with a whip. It has already been given something better than compulsion — desire itself, redeemed, delighting in the very things grace loves.

VIII. The Church's Whatever

So bring it home.

Jesus lived, suffered, died, and rose. And in the aftermath of that so-great salvation, He does exactly what the king did for Esther and Mordecai — He hands us the ring. He hands us the pen.

He says: whatever you ask, believing, you will receive. Whatever is good in your eyes — write it. He doesn't do it for us. He doesn't write it for us. He gives us the authority.

The question is the same one Esther and Mordecai faced with the pen in their hand: what will we write?

They didn't write more sorrow. They didn't write bare survival and call it enough. They turned the fast into a feast. They wrote gladness, generosity, gifts to the poor — because that's what a ratzon shaped by grace reaches for when given the freedom to reach for anything.

We have that same blank check today, in light of everything Jesus has already finished. And the call on us is the same: use the whatever for good things. For feasting instead of striving. For joy instead of anxious performance. For gladness. For generosity toward the poor, because of this so great a salvation.

We shouldn't be fasting. We should be feasting — for all He has done for us.

Whatever.