Sermon Transcript

0:00:14.0

I want to take you back 2000 years ago to a little undisclosed room in the city of Jerusalem.  It’s Passover time in Jerusalem, just hours before Jesus goes to the cross.  And He’s meeting with His disciples is upper room.  And He’s having a conversation with them.  And toward the end of that time together, Jesus prays for His disciples.  That conversation, that upper room experience, is recorded in John 13-17.  And the prayer that Jesus prayed is found in John 17.  It’s the entire chapter.  Some people refer to it as the high priestly prayer of Jesus.  Other people refer to it as the real Lord’s Prayer.  It’s a fascinating prayer.  It’s an encouraging prayer as He prays on behalf of His disciples.  In verse 14 He says, “Father, I have given them your word, and the world,”—are you ready for this?—“the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.”  And then He says in verse 15, “Father, I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.  They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.”

0:01:44.8

You ever heard the phrase “Be in the world, but not of the world”?  That’s kind of where we get it from.  The idea that as believers in Jesus Christ we are living in this world- this fallen, sinful, evil world.  But we’re not to be of the world.  That’s a delicate balancing act, isn’t it?  To be in the world but not of the world.  James tells us that if you want to be a friend of world, you’re an enemy of God.  Try that one on for size.  James suggest, and even Jesus suggests there is no middle ground when it comes to following Jesus.  You’re either all in with Him, or you’re not.  You can’t have one foot in and one foot out.  That’s hard to do, isn’t it?  To live in this world, but not be of the world.  Paul, in his letter to the Romans, says, “Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed.”  How?  “By the renewing of your mind,” starting with the truth of God’s Word.  Don’t be conformed to this world.

0:03:03.0

I love the way J.B. Phillips paraphrases it.  He says, “Don’t let this world squeeze you into its mold.”  Isn’t that a great picture?  You ever feel squeezed into the mold of the world in which we live in?  You drink in too much of the world, suddenly your life begins to look very worldly.  You’re in the world, and you’re of the world.  But we’re to be in the world but not of the world.  Jesus didn’t pray that the Father would take us out of the world, because, no, He says we’re salt and we’re light.  We need to be a positive influence for the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ in the world in which we’re in.  How do you be in the world but not of the world?

0:03:47.5

Today I’m beginning a brand new series of messages that has a single purpose, and that is to help us stand strong in our faith.  Because what Jesus said to His disciples 2000 years ago is still true today.  The world hates Jesus.  I know that’s a strong word.  That’s Jesus’s word.  He said, “Father, I gave them your word, but the world hates them.  Jesus said earlier in the upper room...He says, “If the world hated Me, guys, it’s gonna hate you.”  If you ever thought for one reason that people were going to applaud you for your faith in Jesus, that maybe something might turn in our culture and in the media and people would start applauding people because of Jesus, that’s just not going to happen.  Jesus never promised that.  And He said that we’re going to be following Him in the midst of culture that is hostile to our faith.  He said, “But, guys, I want you to hang in there.”  And He prayed for His disciples as He prayed for us at the same time.  “Father, don’t take them out of the world, but keep them from the evil one.”  He taught us to be in the world but not of the world.

0:04:56.0

I’m starting this series of messages called “Standing Strong” to help us stand strong in our faith.  I don’t know if you’ve noticed or not, but our particular culture, the one in which we live, is becoming increasingly hostile to our faith.  Quite frankly, it used to be easy to be a Christian here in America.  It really did.  We called it cultural Christianity.  Everybody went to church and everybody…you know, it was a good thing to be a Christian.  A lot of people went to church just for the business contacts and all of that.  If you were an agnostic or an atheist, you were…shh, you know, you didn’t say that.  That’s gone today.  What we called cultural Christianity is gone.  And now the fangs have come out.

0:05:37.4

And it’s almost like it was 2000 years ago.  The same culture into which the church of Jesus Christ was born.  Read the book of Acts.  Oh my, the apostles, the early disciples, the early followers of Jesus, they were in the word but not of the world.  And the church was born into a culture that was hostile to the faith of Jesus Christ.  They’d just crucified the founder.  But if you go back even further, about 500-600 years before the time of Christ, we find another culture that was hostile to the Hebrew faith and to the Jews in the Old Testament that were following the one true God called Yahweh.  But there were people back then that stood strong in their faith.  I’m talking about a guy named Daniel and his three friends that we know so much about.

0:06:35.2

This series of rooted in the Old Testament book of Daniel.  I’ve titled it “Standing Strong” because even before the early followers of Jesus and even before many of us in this day and time were challenged to stand strong in their faith in a culture that was hostile to the faith, there was a guy named Daniel 2500 years ago that faced the same challenges.  And we can learn so many encouraging lessons to help us stand strong in our faith.  I love this guy Daniel.  Daniel was God’s man in a godless culture.  That’s the best way to describe him.  He was God’s man in a godless culture.

0:07:21.2

Now, it’s interesting.  Jesus refers to Daniel as a prophet.  And when I hear the word “prophet” I think of a prophet or a priest or a pastor, kind of a professional clergyman.  But that’s not Daniel.  Daniel was not a professional clergyman.  He was God’s man in a godless culture and in a secular culture and a secular vocation.  We’ll find as time goes on that Daniel, though he came to Babylon from Jerusalem as a teenager, as he grew up and as he was educated and as God gave him favor, he began working in the Babylonian government.  He was a government official for all the years of his life there.  And he lived into probably his 80s and was in Babylon for maybe 60, 65, 66 years some people estimate.  He worked in the government, and he was God’s man in a secular role, in a secular government.  That’s an encouragement, I think, to every one of us in this room that God can use us even in a prophetic way and in a way to minister.  You don’t have to be a professional clergy to have God use you and have an impact.  In fact, in many ways when I made the decision based upon the call of God in my life to leave the business world as I did in my mid to late 20’s and enter into vocational industry, I lost an opportunity for influence in that world.  You have opportunities to influence people for Christ like Daniel did in ways that I never will as a pastor because that’s not where my vocation takes me.

0:08:57.1

Daniel is God’s man in a godless culture.  He is as a character, an Old Testament character, a unique blend of moral character, competence in the way he worked.  He not only had the favor of God upon his life, but even those in the Babylonian world.  The Babylon government recognized how Daniel distinguished himself above all the others.  Had a good attitude and a good work ethic.  He had character.  He had competence.  But, oh, did Daniel have courage.  Courage to stand strong in his faith when the pressure came on and when the heat was on.  And when the line was drawn in the sand and said, “You will be loyal to the pagan gods of Babylon or else,” Daniel and his three friends inspire us as they stood strong in their faith.

0:09:50.0

Daniel outlasted kings.  His ministry and his time in Babylon was upwards of six decades.  Kings came and went.  He inspired his friends.  He predicted the future.  God gave Daniel the unique gift of visions and dreams and being able to see into the future.  And there is much in the book of Daniel.  Daniel is kind of the book of Revelation of the Old Testament.  There is so much Bible prophecy, especially in the latter half of the book of Daniel, chapters 7-12.  And we’ll get to those chapters.  But God used Daniel to look into the future and to predict the future.  And we’re going to be amazed by the predictions he made that have already come true.  And we can document that in history.  But predictions that go all the way to the end of the age and that link up even with the book of Revelation in the New Testament.

0:10:45.5

But Daniel also escaped the fiery furnace and, yes—this is the one we love the most—he escaped the lion’s den.  All these great stories, maybe stories that you learned from your youth up in children’s church and Sunday school about Daniel and the lion’s den.  And we used to talk about daring to be a Daniel.  All of that is in here.  I mean, Hollywood couldn’t come up with a better script than the book of Daniel and the character of Daniel.  And this book and this man’s life and the stories that are preserved for us by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and are contained here in the Word of God are as applicable to us today as they were 2500 years ago when Daniel lived and when he served his God.

0:11:32.2

Now, let’s begin in verse 1.  It says, “In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.”  Almost 600 years before the birth of Jesus Christ.  The Babylonians, who were the military superpower of the time, invaded Jerusalem, the holy city of God, besieged the city, and took captive the best and the brightest of the Hebrews.  Took them back to Babylon and held them captive for 70 years.  Verse 1 places Daniel and all the stories that we’ll read about in a historical context.  This is not mythology.  This is not fairy tale.  These are real people who lived at a real time in a real place.

0:12:28.7

There are two cities mentioned in verse 1 and two kings mentioned in verse 1 and two sort of spiritual history lessons I want to draw from it.  Number one is that the Bible is a tale of two cities, those two cities being Jerusalem and Babylon.  You go all the way back to the book of Genesis and you find that there are two cities that quickly become center stage.  The city of Babylon, which really started in Genesis 11 as Babel.  Remember when mankind gathered in the plains of Shinar and built that tower?  Well, from that came not only the city of Babel and later the Babylonian civilization, but then there was another city at that time known as Salem, which later became Jerusalem.  Babel, or Babylon, is known as the city of man, and Salem, or Jerusalem, is the holy city of God.  And they both appear in the early chapters of Genesis, and they take center stage, even at the end of the age.  Even in the book of Revelation these two cities, Jerusalem and Babylon, become center stage.  But between Genesis and Revelation they rise, they fall, and they rise again.  This is the story and the tale of these two cities.

0:13:59.9

The book of Daniel begins in Jerusalem, then quickly it moved to Babylon at the height of the Babylonian civilization.  And when you fast forward to the end of the age and to the book of Revelation, you see the culture and the civilization, and, yes, I even believe that literal city of Babylon rising out of the ash heap of history and spiritual history.  If you remember, Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, rebuilt the city of Babylon.  He was on his way.  He saw himself as the new Nebuchadnezzar.  And you can go there today, and there are actually physical buildings and shops and commerce.  I believe as many others do that the literal city of Babylon will become center stage and will be one of three cities that the antichrist will operate out of—Babylon, Rome, and Jerusalem—to control the religious world, the economic world and even the financial world.

0:15:02.5

Babylon at the end of the age is called a mystery.  And the book of Revelation refers to Babylon as the “mother of prostitutes.”  The mysteries of Babylon are many, including all the mysteries of Babylonian idolatry and pagan worship.  Remember, this is the city of man, not the city of God.  And the spiritual prostitution that it yields reaches full bloom in the worship of the antichrist in the end of the age.  That’s Babylon.  There is nothing mysterious about Babylon’s end.  Revelation 18:2 says, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great.  She has become a dwelling place for demons and a haunt for every unclean spirit.”

0:15:49.7

Why do I take you on that little journey?  Because you need to understand the culture into which Daniel and his three friends were dropped.  Daniel was God’s man in the most godless, pagan culture you can imagine at the time.  When the Babylon civilization and the Babylon culture and the Babylon superpower, militarily that it was, was at its zenith, that’s when God used King Nebuchadnezzar and this pagan culture and this pagan army to invade the people of Israel.

0:16:26.5

Which brings me to the second lesson from spiritual history, and that is never confuse God’s patience with His indifference to sin.  The invasion happened because the Lord directed this pagan nation to go discipline His children, the children of Israel.  Why?  And why did He allow them to be taken into captivity for 70 years?  Why so specific and why so long?  Well, it had to do with the sabbatic laws.  Remember, Israel was in a covenant relationship with God, and there were terms to that covenant relationship, some having to do with the Sabbath.  They were to work six days of the week, and then they were to rest on the Sabbath day.  We understand that from the creation story.  But the sabbatic laws under Moses also had agricultural implications.  They were plant and plow and harvest the land for six years, and then the seventh year they were to give the land rest.  And the Lord said, “Just trust Me.  I’ll provide for you during that seventh years.”  Can you imagine the faith that it took to say, “We’re not going to plant anything this year.  We’re not going to have a harvest this year, but the Lord will take care of us.”  But that was part of the covenant relationship.  The problem is the Israelites had disregarded that part of the covenant relationship in the law for 490 years.  They skipped 70 sabbatic years.

0:17:57.5

Another historical note here and the other king that is mentioned in verse 1 is Jehoiakim.  Jehoiakim was the son of Josiah.  And Jehoiakim was among the long list of kings in the Old Testament that were wicked.  You know, you read 1 and 2 Kings and Chronicles, and it’s just one wicked king after another after another.  They erected all these pagan worship sites.  And Jehoiakim was one of them.  But he was the son of Josiah.  Josiah was a good king.  Josiah was the king who came along and uncovered the law of God.  And he enacted reforms in Israel.  And he tore down the pagan worship sites.  And for a whole generation they were doing what was right in the eyes of God.  The problem is Josiah’s reforms didn’t touch his own family.  And his son Jehoiakim, who became king after Josiah died, went back to the evil ways.  And I think it was at that point that the Lord said, “Fine.  Enough is enough.”  And he sent the (0:19:00.1)Babylonians into Jerusalem to invade them, to besiege them and to just ransack the city and to take the best and the brightest of the Hebrews into captivity for 70 years.

0:19:12.6

Do the math.  Why 70 years?  “Because you’ve been disobeying the sabbatic laws for 490s years.  I want My Sabbath years back.”  And like a father who disciplines his kids in a loving way, God disciplines the nation of Israel.  We call this the Babylon Captivity in Old Testament history.  And there are lessons to learn there.

0:19:38.2

Now, let’s go back to Daniel 1.  When Nebuchadnezzar went in and besieged the city of Jerusalem and took the best and the brightest with him, he engaged in an effort to indoctrinate these young Hebrew kids, much like what Hitler did during the Nazi era. (0:20:00.0) You ever heard of the Hitler Youth Program?  When he was trying to change culture, Hitler got ahold of the youngest and the best and the brightest, and brought them into a Nazi indoctrination system.  Maybe he learned something from Nebuchadnezzar.  I don’t know.  But as these young people, including Daniel, were dropped into this pagan culture, there were five or six things that Nebuchadnezzar ordered to have happened that were meant to indoctrinate them.

0:20:34.6

First, when they were besieging the city, they robbed the temple.  Look at it in verse 2.  It says, “And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God.  And he brought them to the land of Shinar.”  Remember Shinar, tower of Babel?  Babel, Babylon, is rising up again.  They're in the land of Shinar.  “He brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god,” Nebuchadnezzar did.  So when they went to Jerusalem, one of the things they did…and this was just a poke in the eye and a kick in the chest to the Hebrews…they went into the temple and ransacked it.  And they took the temple vessels, the gold vessels used in worship and all that, grabbed them up, took them back to Babylon and put them in their pagan temples as vessels that were used to show loyalty to their god.

0:21:40.2

Let me put it in a context we can all understand.  It would be like the Redskins going to the Cowboys’ stadium and grabbing up the…come on now, we just finished the Super Bowl…grabbing up those Lombardi trophies that the Cowboys have won, taking them back to RFK stadium and putting them in their stadium.  We got any Cowboys fans here?  I know it’s been years since the Cowboys won, but there are some Lombardi trophies back there.  How dare the Redskins do that?  How dare the Babylonians do it to the Jews?  But that was just one way of poking them in the eye, kicking them in the chest.  They robbed the temple.

0:22:17.2

Next, they took them to a different environment.  This was part of their indoctrination system.  We’re going to take you out of Jerusalem and put you into Babylon, into our culture.  Thirdly, they probably emasculated these boys.  Read on verse 3.  “Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel;”—not all of them, but some of them—“both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king's palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans.”  Several things happening here.  He is changing their environment, an old secular play card.  Our environment is what influences us.  Not the choices you make, but environment.  If I can change your environment, then I can change you as a person and all that.  But he changes their environment.

0:23:22.9

The reason we suggest that they probably emasculated these boys too is because Ashpenaz, who is the chief of the eunuchs who served the king, he was now given authority over these young boys.  And you don’t come under the authority of the chief of the eunuchs without becoming a eunuch yourself.  And anybody who serves the king…and these boys were being prepped and educated and culturized to one day serve King Nebuchadnezzar…you don’t serve the king unless you have one passion.  And so they stripped these boys of their ability to have any other passion so that their singular passion would be like Ashpenaz and the eunuchs.

0:24:04.1

Next, they gave them a secular education.  They didn’t have their Hebrew education, the Hebrew upbringing.  Now they’re being dropped into the University of Babylon to learn all the literature and the understanding of the Chaldeans.  After that, their diet changed.  Look in verse 5.  “The king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate, and of the wine that he drank.  They were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time they were to stand before the king.”  A lot of cultures have unique diets, and the Hebrew culture had a unique diet that was tied to their worship practices.  Their kosher meals and they were to eat this and not eat that.  It was all part of the Law of Moses.  And they knew that was an important part of their culture.  And “if we’re going to indoctrinate these boys, we’ll even change their food.  We’ll feed them from the king’s table.  They’ll enjoy that just fine.”

0:24:59.9

And then finally, they stole their identity.  They changed their names.  Verse 6, “Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah.  And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names: Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego.”  Do you remember the Veggie Tales Rack, Shack and Benny?  We remember them as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, right?  Those are their Babylonian names.  Names were important back in this time and in this culture.  And when you named your child, you were also identifying for them a loyalty.  Daniel’s names and all these names up here—Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah—the meaning of these names relate to the God of Israel, the one true God.  But the names they were given in Babylon speak of a loyalty to the Babylonian gods.  Belteshazzar means “Bel protect his life”; Abednego, “servant of Nebo.”  Nebo and Bel were two of the big, popular pagan gods that they served in this culture.  If Babylon had a sports stadium and they sold the naming rights for it, they would call it Bel Field or Nebo Park.  They were that into their worship of their false gods.  And this was meant to be just kind of a final indoctrination.

0:26:37.9

Nebuchadnezzar changed their names.  He changed their identity.  But ultimately he could not change their loyalty.  And the great story of Daniel and his three friends is that they stood strong in their faith.  They were in this world.  They were dropped into just the most godless, pagan culture you can imagine.  There was no Christian education.  There was no homeschooling.  Chances are their parents were gone.  These guys were teenagers at this time.  And Nebuchadnezzar thought, we’ve got them.  We’ve got them.  We’re going to school them.  We’re going to feed them.  We’re going to name them.  We’re going to culturize them.  But they underestimated Daniel and his three friends and how loyal they were to the one true God and how willing they were to stand strong in their faith.

0:27:33.4

Does any of this ring a bell today?  We’re living in a culture, friends, that is becoming increasingly hostile to our faith.  A culture that Jesus even told His disciples about 2000 years ago.  And He said, “Listen, the world is not friend.”  You want to be a friend to the world?  Fine.  Consider yourself an enemy of God.  There is no neutral ground here.  Choose where you’re gonna be.  “Choose you this day whom you will serve,” Joshua said years earlier.  There is no neutral ground when it comes to Jesus.  So how are you going to stand strong when the culture says, “Ah, just compromise a little bit this way”?  “Put one foot over here and one foot over there.”

0:28:15.4

I remember when I was in the business world and I was in sales and marketing.  I always loved the regional meetings and the national sales meetings.  And it brought everybody together.  But there was always a group of guys that, after the meetings, wanted to go out to the strip bars and hang out.  And there were a few of us over here who were followers of Jesus.  And we just said no.  You can’t have one foot in and one foot out and call yourself a true follower of Jesus.  And it probably cost us something because, you know, these were the higher-ups.  And we weren’t willing to play in their reindeer games.  And so when it came time for promotions and other things, I don’t know, maybe they looked the other way.  There’s no neutral ground.  Jesus says you’re either in and you’re all in, or you’re a friend of the world and an enemy of God.

0:29:10.0

Daniel and his friends stood strong.  How do we stand strong in our faith in a godless culture when the pressure is on, when the heat is on?  Two things I just want to wrap up with.  Number one is to make a determined decision.  Look at verse 8.  “But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank.”  Interesting that of all the five or six things that Nebuchadnezzar used to try to indoctrinate these boys, Daniel chose to say no to the diet.  He couldn’t control whether they were invaded.  He couldn’t control whether the city was besieged, whether they were taken captive.  He couldn’t really control the changing of the names.  Couldn’t control a lot of things.  A lot of things were out of his control.  But one thing that was in his control is what he put in his mouth and in his stomach.  And his conscience, which had been trained by the Law of Moses, would not allow him to compromise here.  And he made a determined decision.

0:30:20.8

My translation says here, “But Daniel resolved…”  You know what a resolution is?  You know what the world “resolve” means?  It means “to make an earnest or definite decision about something.”  Daniel had resolved.  I think he had made this resolution, he had resolved, he had purposed in his heart to be loyal to the one true God long before he ended up in Babylon.  That’s the time to make the resolution.  That’s the time to decide.  That’s the time.  When you’re heading off the sales conference, to the national sales meeting, and you know all the reindeer games that go on, the time to resolve not to defile yourself is before you go.  And you make a determined decision on this end.  Are you willing to make that determined decision?  Have you resolved to say, “I have decided to follow Jesus,”?  “There is no turning back.  There is no compromise.  There is no neutral ground here.  I am so in, and I am so all in that, yeah, I’m willing to let the world hate me, choose not to promote me, choose not to be my friend.”

0:31:31.7

I love the way Daniel resolves here.  He’s rather polite about it.  I want you to notice.  He doesn’t organize a protest.  It says in the latter part of verse 8, “Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself.”  He just asked him.  He didn’t pitch a fit.  He didn’t organize a protest.  He didn’t yell and scream and demonize these people.  He was very polite about it.  I’m just impressed with this about Daniel.  Later in the book of Daniel as Daniel rises to a place of prominence in the Babylonian government, you know what they say about Daniel?  He had an amazing spirit about him.  He was just somebody who didn’t rub people wrong.  He was loyal to his God, but he didn’t have this jagged edge about his personality.  And people just liked Daniel.  He had a good and positive attitude, and he created a good vibe in the workspace even though everybody knew he was a Yahweh follower.  And they promoted him along the way.  Yeah, because God’s hand of favor was upon him.

0:32:48.2

A little bit later in chapter 1 Daniel says to the chief of the eunuchs…because the chief of the eunuchs was a little bit concerned that if Daniel and his three friends didn’t eat from the king’s table, they would appear weakened to the king.  And that would be bad for the chief of the eunuchs.  You know, he was responsible for preparing these youths and getting them ready for service.  And if they showed up kind of weak and not very strong-looking…  And Daniel says, “Listen, I understand.  I understand your concern there.”  He says, “But I’m just asking.  And why don’t we just put this to a test, a 10-day test.  You feed me my vegetables and my Hebrew diet for 10 days, and then let’s compare me and my friends here with everybody else.”  And they put it to the test, and you know what happened?  Daniel and his friends were stronger.  They were more alert.  They were more vibrant.  It worked.  He was polite.  He was kind.  He was reasonable.  And, again, no protesting, no demonizing, none of that kind of stuff.  No jagged edges to his personality.  And God favored Daniel.

0:33:51.5

How do you stand strong in your faith?  You’ve got to make a determined decision.  But you don’t have to be rude about it.  You don’t have to be ugly about it, right?  Why?  Because Daniel knew that God’s hand of favor was upon him.

0:34:08.0

Second thing, if you're standing strong in your faith, join a community of faith and a community of faithful friends.  Verse 6 says, “Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.”  You know what I believe helped Daniel stand strong?  He had a small group.  He had a life group.  Can I just put it in those terms?  He had a tribe.  He had some guys to be strong with.  Friends, life is not meant to be lived alone in isolation.  The Christian life doesn’t work in isolation.  All the way back to Genesis, God looked at Adam before He created Eve and said, “There is something not good.  It’s not good that the man is alone.”  You isolate yourself in the Christian life and it’s sort of like taking a hot ember out of a fireplace and setting it on the hearth.  In time the hot ember grows cold.  That’s what isolation does for you.  But you put that ember back into the fireplace, and it warms up.  And that’s what biblical community is all about.  Long before Acts 2 and the glimpse inside the early church and biblical community and all that, Daniel had community.  He had a tribe.  He had some friends who were just as passionate about following the one true God as Daniel was.

0:35:47.0

My question for you is this.  Do you have a tribe?  Do you have a small group?  Are you connected in a life group?  Do you have some people that are as inspired by Jesus as you are?  Are you running hard after Jesus with some other people?  Oh, it’s great to be here at a large worship service, but it’s really easy to walk in here, you know, five minutes after the service starts and to even beat the pastor to the door and not really be connected to a tribe.  Nobody really knows you.  And you go back out into that harsh hostile world, and you don’t have anybody to encourage you when the heat is on and you get tossed into the lion’s den.  When they got thrown into the fiery furnace, it wasn’t just Daniel that went in.  It was Daniel and his three friends.  When they got thrown into the lion’s den, you know, they were all there.  And together they celebrated the favor of God upon their hands.  It’s why we say over and over and over again and why we make it hopefully abundantly easy to get connected in a life group.  
We say tell us where you live and we’ll get you connected with people in our church who are passionate and following Jesus who live in your neighborhood and in your community.  That’s your tribe.  Cathryn and I have a tribe.  We have a small group in our Kellum High School district.  And we’ve got a tribe of people that we hang with that just know us as Ron and Cathryn.  And we can encourage one another and strengthen one another and help each other stand strong in our faith.  You need a tribe like that, and I need a tribe like that.  Don’t miss that in the book of Daniel.  All of these great stories, all of these powerful experiences, Daniel and his three friends went through them together.  And we’re always stronger together than we are apart and isolated.

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Standing strong in a godless culture.  I love this guy Daniel.  We’re going to dare to be a Daniel.  We’re going to learn from Daniel.  We’re going to be inspired by Daniel.  And, Lord willing, we’re going to learn how to stand strong in our faith and stand stronger than we ever have.

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