Scripture: Daniel 1:1-7;Matthew 22:27; Psalm 119:105; 2 Timothy 3:16-17; Matthew 6:5-13; Matthew 5:13-16
Theme: Staying True during Exile
Title: Living In A Strange New World
We live in an interesting world to say the least. We live in a time when a great deal of upheaval is happening all around us. A great many of our traditional Christian beliefs are either being replaced, ignored or reinterpreted. How do we stay faithful?
INTRO:
Grace and peace from God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!
Let’s travel back in time this morning to around 586 BC.
You and your friends are between 18 and 20 years of age. You live in the city of Jerusalem. You are part of the tribe of Judah and for the past 400 years one of your relatives has been the king.
Life has been good. It’s always good if you are a part of royalty or at least related to royalty. You have never known what it meant to want for anything. It’s been a good 400 years for the most part.
But now all of that was yesterday. It’s all history. Because today, you and your friends find yourself being led out of Jerusalem with chains around your feet. For the past few months King Nebuchadnezzar’s army has been trying to tear down the walls and conquer your city and as of yesterday they finally succeeded.
Today, you are a captive. You and your friends are now captive slaves, being forced to walk towards the city of Babylon. It’s a journey which will take you and your friends at least 3- 4 months to finish.
Your life and the lives of your friends will never be the same.
Most of the homes of Jerusalem are in flames. The Temple of the LORD GOD Almighty has been ransacked. Your home has been turned into rubble. Everything you and your friends possessed is now gone.
The king has been taken captive and most of governmental leaders have been put to death. Sadly, that includes most of your relatives. The ones that are left are in other groups walking in chains as well. You know deep down that many of them won’t make the 3–4-month journey alive.
How did all of this happen?
Where is the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY in all of this?
Without being able to go to the Temple how does a person worship the Lord God Almighty?
These Babylonians who are taking us captive don’t speak our language, they don’t share the same values as we do, and they are making us leave the place that we love.
That is where we find ourselves as we look at the first part of the book of Daniel and that is where I would like for us to spend some time this morning.
The book of Daniel is not only an interesting book, it is one that if we read it, study it and allow the Holy Spirit to teach us, it can help us live in the world in which we find ourselves today.
We live in an interesting world to say the least. We live in a time when a great deal of upheaval is happening all around us. A great many of our traditional Christian beliefs are either being replaced, ignored or reinterpreted.
Traditional views of what is right and wrong, views on gender and sex, views on Jesus’ identity, views on the Incarnation and Resurrection along with what it truly means to be Born Again and filled with the Holy Spirit all are under some intense scrutiny.
A great many things that were considered either right or wrong now are being questioned.
This has not only been happening outside of the doors of the church but in many places even inside the doors of the Church.
1. Does the Church still believe in the statements that we find in the Apostle’s Creed?
2. Was Jesus born of a Virgin or was that just a made-up story to make Jesus look like a god figure?
3. Did Jesus really raise from the dead and does it even matter?
4. Is the Bible right in saying that God made male and female and can that be a fluid and every changing existence?
5. Do you really need Jesus, or can you just replace Him with some other religious person, belief or philosophy?
6. Does any of this really matter?
Like Daniel we find our present world becoming unlike the world that we grew up in and with values that are so different than the values we were taught as children and young adults.
Daniel’s life story can help us this morning if we allow it.
After arriving some like Daniel were given the chance to begin a new life in service to King Nebuchadnezzar. It was to be a life that would require them to forget about their past lives and take hold of their new lives.
As we read chapter one, Daniel and others were to undergo a complete physical, mental, emotional and spiritual transformation.
They were to understand that no longer would they be members of high society. They were now slaves. They were King Nebuchadnezzar’s property. He could do whatever he wished with them. They would never be free again.
Mentally, they were to replace their native language with learning the Babylonian language.
Spiritually, they were to understand that all that had belonged to the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY – to Yahweh – had either been destroyed back in Jerusalem or had been brought and placed in the temple of Marduck to become Marduk’s possessions.
If these items were going to be used, they would be used to serve Marduk. Yahweh worship was to be set to the side and now Marduk would be Israel’s god.
So, how did Daniel and many of his friends handle all of this – physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually?
How did they stay faithful for that is what the book of Daniel shares with us – how did they stay faithful in a strange land that at every turn was doing everything it could to replace their faith, their heritage and their basic beliefs.
Let’s look at that for a few moments and maybe we can glean some insights into how we can stay faithful during our turbulent times in the world and in the church.
For we all know that like Daniel our world is trying to physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually get us to transform into its image. To let go of what we thought was right and wrong and adopt a new way of thinking and believing.
I don’t have to tell you what is going on here this morning because many of you are already living with it or else you have already felt its effects.
So, as we find ourselves both in and out of the Church with more and more people who no longer believe in Jesus, no longer believe in what is right and wrong and no longer care about any of those things – how do we stand fast?
How do we live in a world in which more and more people are turning to false gods and unrighteous living while at the same time saying that it is all the will of the Holy Spirit.
For that is exactly what is happening in some areas of the Church. The Holy Spirit is being said to be the One who is revealing all these new thoughts that disregard the Incarnation, the New Birth and the Infilling Presence of the Holy Spirit. It is being said that it is the Holy Spirit that is leading the Church into a new age of progressive thought and living.
However, we must understand that what is being said and promoted is not the truth.
The Holy Spirit after 2000 years has not suddenly changed his mind and the way of Holiness. He had not suddenly, nor will he ever go against us understanding the truth – the truth that Jesus is the only way to the Father and that only through Jesus is there salvation and everlasting life. The Holy Spirit will not, nor will he ever tell us that we are to radically change what the Bible has been saying and teaching.
The Holy Spirit testifies to the truth and the truth is what the Bible says it is not what some people now think that it is.
So, how did Daniel stay faithful for all their lives and stay true even amid severe temptation, trials and tribulation? Trials that included being condemned to die numerous times over their lifetimes.
Let’s see what Daniel did this morning.
1. Daniel was 100% committed to God – heart, mind and soul.
Daniel drew a spiritual, emotional, mental and physical line in the sand.
He put all his belief in God – the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY.
He believed that the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY was the Good God of Creation. He believed that only the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY was truly God.
It didn’t matter that he was now living in Babylon and all around them others were worshipping Marduck or one of the other Babylonian gods or goddesses.
Daniel put all his trust in God – the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY.
Only what God said and the way that He had told them to live was what mattered.
We live in a time when I believe we must draw our line in the sand. We must answer the question - Will we put all of our trust in the LORD GOD ALMIGHTY as well. Will we give to the LORD all our trust, all our hearts and all our minds and bodies.
Or will we try to live a half-committed life?
Will we for the sake of pleasing others and getting along decide to let things just slip?
Every one of us in this life is being tempted or will be tempted to live a half-committed life. We will be tempted to just go along with the flow, to not stir the waters and to understand that we must adjust to this new age.
We must reject those thoughts. Like Daniel, we must draw a line in the sand – we must commit to the LORD fully – all our heart, all our mind and all our soul.
Jesus tells us that this is the First Commandment – that means that this is the commandment over all else –
“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all you mind. This is the great and first commandment. (Matthew 22:37-38 ESV)
II. Daniel was committed to God’s Word
“Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” – Psalm 119:105 ESV
Although Daniel was young, he knew what was right and wrong. That’s because he had studied God’s Word; he had committed himself to living by the 10 Commandments. He had made God’s Word a part of his very existence.
We can do the same today by reading, studying and living by the Word of God – the Holy Bible.
The LORD GOD ALMIGHTY did not make it hard for us to understand how to live the life of being a disciple of Jesus.
We find everything we need in the Bible.
All we must do is to read it and allow the Holy Spirit to speak to us through it.
It is good for us to read some theology and some other good books and even to know what a denomination or a non-denominational church puts down as its beliefs.
But if those dictates, if those beliefs go against what we can plainly read in the Bible, then we must forgo those beliefs.
John Wesley used to say that while he would study and learn a great deal from a lot of sources that he was a man of one book – the Bible.
“I want the whole Christ for my Savior, the whole Bible for my book, the whole Church for my fellowship, and the whole world for my mission field.”
The Bible is God’s love letter to us. It is also His book of instruction and guidance.
If we want to know what God wants us to know and how God wants us to live then just open the pages of His Bible and start reading.
“All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be competent equipped for every good work.” – 2 Timothy 3:16-17 ESV
III. Daniel was committed to Prayer
When you look over the life of Daniel, the area that I believed that he excelled the most was his prayer life. For it was from his prayer life that all the wisdom, insight and miracles had their beginning and end.
Like Adam, like Abraham and like Moses, Daniel believed that God wanted talk to him.
God would meet and talk with Adam in the cool of the day.
Abraham and God would meet and talk at night, early in the morning, on a mountain top or just walking along the road.
Moses built a special meeting place where many times he and God would meet and talk.
Throughout his book we see Daniel not just talking to God but talking with God. We see this especially in chapters 8, 9 and 10.
Talking to God and talking with God are two very different things.
There are a number of people who talk to God – who have this one-sided conversation with God – telling God all kinds of things – how things are going in their lives good and bad.
But like Adam, Abraham, Moses and millions of other people that have lived, Daniel took his prayer life to the next level – He walked with God.
He would talk to God and then listen for God to talk back. As we see in his book at times that would include direct conversations, at times special dreams, at times even special visits from an angel or God impressing something on his heart through His Holy Spirit or His Word.
These times with God were so important to him that Danie was willing to die in a lion’s den before he would give up his prayer time.
His prayer time was where he and God just shared life. His prayer time was where he would intercede for others – including the very kings that kept him a slave. He prayed for Nebuchadnezzar, then his son Belteshazzar, Darius and Cyrus.
Think about that just for a moment. These four men – four rulers were by no means holy in any stretch of the word when they first met Daniel. They constantly kept him a slave.
He could have hated them. He could have spent his time with God telling God how bad they were and how bad they were to him.
But instead, he prays for them, he prays that he may serve them to the best of his ability. He prays for their success, for their repentance and for the nation of Babylon and then the nation of Persia.
Wow! Does he have something to tell us today when it comes to our rulers. Instead of demeaning them and spending time on facebook, Instagram or X trying to convince everyone how bad and evil this one or that one is what a Daniel concept of just praying for them, praying for their repentance and their personal relationship with God and then for them to be a success.
Jesus gives us a pattern this morning to help us in our prayer lives. We find it in Matthew 6:5-13 (ESV)
5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.[a]
10 Your kingdom come,
your will be done,[b]
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us this day our daily bread,[c]
12 and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.[d]
IV. Daniel was committed to Being God’s Vessel
13 “You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that[a] they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:13-16 ESV
From the time Daniel came to Babylon in chains to the time he laid down his head for the last time wanted to be a person who made a difference in his world and in the lives of others.
We see that with the whole diet thing in chapter one.
We can see it throughout his whole life – His encounters with King Nebuchadnezzar, with his son and with Darius and Cyrus.
He prays, He gives counsel and He becomes God’s vessel in sharing secret knowledge and wisdom.
Even though Daniel is in exile and having to live as a slave he is determined to make a difference for others – Hebrews, Babylonians, Persians – it doesn’t matter who it is all that matters is that he will be salt and light for the world to see.
Daniel is determined to be God’s person for others no matter where he finds himself.
Daniel would have wholeheartedly agreed with the Apostle Paul as he writes to the Church of Corinth:
19 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings – 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 ESV
So, what do we do when we find ourselves in a place be it outside of the church or inside of the church that is promoting a lifestyle that is radically opposed to how we believe – how the Bible teaches.
How do we live in a world who values want to accept God’s teaching or His word?
How do we work within a denomination that seems determined to misuse the Bible, tell us that the Holy Spirit is leading this or that direction when it is not and is teaching others that basically everything is okay as long as it allows people to feel loved and accepted?
1. We draw a line in the sand and stand for God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
2. More than ever, we read God’s Word, we study God’s Word and we do our best to live by God’s Word.
3. We take the time to not just talk to God but spend time talking with God. We share with God as we walk, as we wake up, as we look at the stars, as we live out our lives. We might even have a special place like Moses that we just spend time with God.
4. And we do what we can to be God’s vessel for our time. We do all we can to be salt and light for our world to see and receive Jesus as Savior and LORD.
Invitation – Prayer – Blessing or Holy Communion
