Hebrews 11:6 states, “And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”
Do we believe in God? Do we desire a good life?
Faith is the key to life! God tells us in His Word, Christians are saved by faith and are to live by faith!
It is then crucial that we have an understanding of faith. What is faith?
Write down your definition of faith…..
Hebrews 11:1 states “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. We can note the strong positive words in this truth; and so, faith is about total belief even without seeing. And lets us also note from Romans 10:17 that faith comes from hearing the Word of God. And so, faith is total belief in what God says! Is that all we need to know about faith??
We must never forget what God says in James 2:17 “In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.”
And so, if we put all of this together, we can biblically define faith = taking action in what God says!
Now, we have been studying the Book of Daniel; Can we say that Daniel was faithful? God cites Daniel in Hebrews 11:32-33, “and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions!”
What made Daniel faithful?
We really don’t know much about Daniel except of what we read in the Book of Daniel. We read in Daniel 1:3 that Daniel came from a royal family; in other words, Daniel was a rich kid! Let us note that even though Daniel grew up as a rich kid, he became a slave as a teenager but remained faithful to God! Faithfulness has nothing to do with material things (rich or poor)!
The major thing we can note which helped Daniel’s faithfulness to God was his experiences with God! God spoke to Him and God performed miracles through him; but what really made Daniel faithful was his actions! We will note more of Daniel’s actions in Daniel 6.
Here are the questions for us today:
What makes us faithful today?
How can we be faithful like Daniel?
Please open your Bibles to Daniel 6 and read along with me v1-16………
The basic story is this: The king had such confidence in Daniel that he was ready to make Daniel Ruler, Second only to the King. Many were jealous of Daniel and jealousy led to a plot to hurt Daniel. The only thing the plotters knew would work against Daniel was his faith in God. Daniel obeyed his God rather than man and he was thrown into a den of lions to be killed
What biblical principles can we apply to our lives today?
First of all: What made the King so confident in Daniel? Look again at v3…….
What kind of a worker do you think was Daniel??
Biblical Principle #1 for us:
We should be workers like Daniel!
Secondly, was it right to be jealous of Daniel??
We can note the word jealousy several times in the New Testament listed along with many other sins. What’s wrong with being jealous??
Jealousy is about pride and ego; and we learned about how God views this from earlier chapters of Daniel. And also, as presented in this Chapter of Daniel, jealousy leads to harming others.
Biblical Principle #2 for us: Watch out for jealousy! Guard your heart with Jesus Christ! We are to always humble ourselves before God. Remember what we are supposed to think about every time we drink something? Every time you drink something, think H2O = God is Holy! Humble ourselves! Obey God!
And, what was the most significant sign of Daniel’s faithfulness to God??
The best sign of faith in God is Prayer!
And can we say that prayer should be so private that no one should know you pray? The people knew Daniel was a man of prayer! Look again at v10……
How often did Daniel pray?? And did Daniel just pray in response to troubles? The end of v10 tells us that Daniel always prays! It didn’t matter to Daniel what the troubles were; Daniel was focused on what he needed to do before God – PRAYER! Prayer was a priority to Daniel!
Martin Luther King Jr. once said “To be a Christian without prayer is no more possible than to be alive without breathing.” Many Christians today are gasping for life because they are not praying! Praying says you believe in God. The more we pray, the more we will experience God! The more you pray, the more you will experience God!
Prayer must be a priority for us all! We are to proclaim our faith in God by showing people we pray!
Biblical Principle #3 for us: Make it a habit to pray always!
Like Daniel, we Christians today are to live by faith!
To be faithful, we are to do whatever God tells us! Easier said than done isn’t it?
How can we be faithful like Daniel?
Daniel was faithful because:
1. God spoke to him and he listened
2. he experienced God’s miracles
3. he spoke to God regularly!
Is God still speaking to us??
The question of course is “are we listening?”
Has God miraculously intervened in our lives?
How’s our prayer life?
And of course, true faith in God starts with belief and obedience to Jesus Christ. Jesus calls all His believers to regularly remember what He did on the cross. God tells us in 1 Corinthians 11:26, “whenever you eat the bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”
Let us be faithful and celebrate God’s faithfulness to us through Communion……..
