Have you "cycled" the throttle to set the safety override function? Place throttle lever at low position and turn on transmitter. The ESC should beep once. place throttle lever at full high position, it should beep agan. Lower throttle to low position. Now the ESC should beep maybe 4 times. It is armed and ready to go.

The three wires from the motor doesn't matter which wires they attach to on the ESC except for rototion. You can't hurt the motor by incorrectly hooking it up. If the motor runs backwards, simple switch any two leads.