Such an honor to be here today and with with Chuck and Taryn,
two of our favorite people on the planet.
When when Chuck said reached out to me a few months ago and said,
would you be able to come over and we're yes, we even look at
our diary. We're just yes, we can come.
They're such humble leaders and as we've been able to be with
them several days this week and they invited us into their home
even. And they just care deeply about
you. They care about what God is
doing in your lives. They care about this this church
and what God is up to. And I, I love seeing that.
I have to say, Sherry and I, we very much love England.
We love the UK. We might love England the most,
but don't tell anybody else. We first came about 15 years
ago. We met Chuck and Taryn at that
time. And we get to come over about
once or twice, once or twice a year.
And I've told, I've told some people, I think I was supposed
to have been born British. OK.
My name is spelled Geoffrey, which no one in America spells
Jeff that way. My mom has never been to
England, but I think she meant me to be born in England.
Some people have even said I have a British sense of humor,
which I take as a huge compliment.
But I know I'm not supposed to be British because I cannot
drive on your roads. I hired a car.
I hire a car every time we come over and every time it is
helpful because Sherry is much closer to Jesus now than she was
earlier because I hear her over and over again.
Please, Jesus. Please, Jesus, save us.
We love being here. Love what we're learning about
Verso and to be here today, I was asking Chuck.
Chuck. So there's somewhere between 80
and 85 nations represented in this one church.
That's awesome. Well, I need to check real
quick. Any Americans?
OK, 86. All right, because Sherry and I
are from Denver and we said that my wife Sherry is here with us
and she's an amazing speaker. You would have been better off
to hear from her, but I got in front of the line and got ahead
of her. So I get to, we have a couple of
kids, today's Father's Day in the US as well.
And so I'm missing my kids, Mike and Hillary.
They're both or Mike and Brittany, they're both grown.
They're both married, Mike married to Hillary, Brittany
married to Freddie, and they're lovely.
We love them, miss them. We're going to celebrate when we
get back. But they matter not that much,
because what matters is we have grandkids, right?
Any other grandparents here? You know what I'm saying?
Right? Exactly.
Kids were fine. We're glad we didn't kill them
because we have better ones now. 4 grandkids.
We have two girls and two boys and they're just the delight of
our lives. They live about 20 minutes from
us and we spend as much time as we can with them and we're we're
I, I miss them. I miss my dad.
My dad's 92. My dad was a pastor.
My dad just gave up his teaching his Bible study the other day
and I did the math. My dad had been preaching or
teaching for 77 years when he gave up his Bible study.
But love being here and I love being here on Father's Day
because normally on Father's Day I go to church and then I spend
the rest of the afternoon barbecuing.
And I like barbecuing. My wife knows I like it because
I have 3 monstrous barbecues and I like doing it, but it's a lot
of work to do it for the entire family.
Today when we're done, Chuck and Karen have said we're going for
a lovely Sunday roast and someone else cooked it, so that
is phenomenal. But before we dive in today, you
know, I understand you're happening to translate an
American accent. And I will say some things today
that make no sense to you. And I apologize for that, but I
don't want you to hear me. I want us to hear from God.
So would you pray with me as we dive in?
Father, it's just such an honor today.
And we honor you as we talk about Father's Day.
But Lord, I thank you for just the honor and privilege to be on
this amazing platform at this church.
Lord, Lord, it's humbling to know that I, my job is to share
your word and to speak in your in your presence.
So, Lord, I pray you'll speak through me.
Maybe if you're listening, you might pray a prayer.
We pray this every single Sunday at my church.
Lord, I'm here, I'm listening, speak to me.
Maybe you'll pray this for someone sitting next to you.
Maybe you know them, maybe you don't.
But just pray, maybe something like this.
Lord, I, I pray for the one next to me.
I pray that they will listen and that they will have the wisdom
and courage to respond to you. Are we asking your name?
Amen. So Father's Day makes me feel a
little bit nostalgic thinking about growing up as a kid And,
and I, I, I, I, I try to be as humble as I can, which is not a
word Americans use a lot, but I try.
But I, I have some amazing skills and I want to share some
of those skills. I think we have a slide that
illustrates some of those skills.
So in the middle is that many of you don't know what that is.
That's called a telephone. I know how to use it.
I can dial A number on that telephone.
On the other side there's a the black and red with all of that
coming out of it. I can do think two things with
that. That's a cassette tape.
I can make a mixtape. Any of you know how to do that
mixtape there? There's my people.
I also know how to take a #2 pencil, which you don't know
what that is, and I know how to re spool the cassette tape,
which you don't know how to do. Yeah, I also know how to ruin a
marriage and a relationship trying to drive using the other
thing which is a folding map. I can read a map, I can dial a
telephone and I can re spool A cassette tape.
Skills that are of no use whatsoever.
They will never be of use again. If we had had to go with a with
a paper map while we have been in the UK we would have died on
Tuesday. But it makes me wonder what else
is no longer going to be important.
What is we see society and information increase and now AI
and is there a point in time where not just the skills I
have, but will I become obsolete?
How do I honor the legacy that was passed on to me for my
grandfather and my father? How do I pass that on to my kids
and my grandkids? What am I leaving for the next
generation? And I wonder about you.
Do you ever stop to think about your legacy?
What will be here when you are gone?
What are you building that will bear fruit after you are with
Jesus in heaven? And so that's what I want to
talk about today. I want to look at a guy that if
you've been around church, you're familiar with in the Old
Testament called Daniel. And if you have your Bible with
you, you can open it to Daniel or have the verses on the
screen. But we're going to look a lot at
the book of Daniel. But he is a man who left an
incredible legacy. Now, his story begins with
challenges. Daniel was taken as a slave into
another country when he was 16 years old.
And when they captured him and took him to the country, they
made him a eunuch. And I'm not going to explain
that today. That'll be a fun conversation
with the kids that over lunch today.
I'm just going to say it's not a good thing he was made of
eunuch. He was forced to serve
Nebuchadnezzar, the very man who destroyed his homeland and
killed his family. Daniel had no money and he
really had no real power. And yet his legacy is
incredible. Later in the Old Testament, the
prophet Ezekiel calls Daniel one of the three most righteous men
to ever live. Jesus quotes Daniel as a great
prophet. He leaves a legacy that
thousands of years later still influences people.
People all over the world know some of the stories we'll talk
about today about Daniel. And So what we'll do is we're
going to talk about four stories.
We're going to talk about four, Four things we learned, 4
building blocks for a legacy. And then we're going to finish
by saying, what does that mean to me?
So let's dive into the first story.
The first story is a meal. A meal.
So the Kingdom of Judah is defeated by the Babylonians, and
the Babylonians take the best and brightest of mostly the
young men and take the young men and take them as slaves into the
kings of palace. And the goal here is to take all
of the Babylon is conquering the world really.
And they want to bring the best and the brightest.
They want to educate them and then they want to turn them into
useful servants in that Kingdom. And so Daniel is is captured,
his friends are captured, they're taken to the palace and
they're educated, created and groomed for leadership.
And part of this program is they went, they're giving the best
food in the Kingdom and a banquet of meats and fruit and
delicacies from around the world is put before them.
And I don't know if if buffet is a big thing here.
I love a buffet because I just get all of everything that I
want. And I start at the beginning and
I get too much and then I need another plate, you know, to get
the rest. But they have this banquet, this
buffet before them. The problem is, is the food did
not conform to Jewish law. Now, Daniel and his friends have
been raised as as as very devout Jewish young men, and they know
the law. But they look at this food and
they realize we have been told by our faith, by our religion
that we should not eat. Stop right there.
What would you do? Like, what would you do?
You're you're in this foreign country.
You are a you are a servant, you are a slave.
This food is put before you. It's amazing.
It's like wow. But you know, it violates the
principles that you grew up with.
Maybe you would eat the food and ask for forgiveness later, you
know, Hey, sorry about that God, but man, were those shrimp good,
you know, or something like that prawns.
Sorry. Or maybe you would pretend to
eat the food and just keep. Quiet about it.
Sherry when she was young, her mom would, would, would fish,
would, would, would make fish fingers.
OK, Sherry didn't like fish fingers.
She wouldn't eat fish fingers. So.
She would take her fish fingers and when her parents weren't
looking, she would hide them behind the radiator.
OK, Oh, you know where this story is going.
In the summer, not a problem, but when it would get cold and
those fish fingers, it sat there for a little while and the
radiator comes on and the smell of old fish begins to fill the
house. She was discovered.
Sherry would. Have hidden the food, but here's
what Daniel did. In Daniel 1/8 it says that
Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and
wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to
defile himself in this way. See, Daniel knew that his
decision was bigger than Justice himself.
He. Wasn't just making a decision
that will impact him. He knew that the other young
leaders that were captured. With him.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. He knew that they were watching
him and so he lived by his his convictions.
And so our first building block. If we want to build a legacy.
Something that outlives us is to have deep convictions, to live
by our convictions. See, people who leave a legacy
decide what they believe. Before they are tested, Daniel.
Didn't at that moment decide what he believed about the food.
He had decided ahead of. Time people who build a legacy.
They choose faithfulness over comfort and conviction over
compromise. Daniel's convictions led to a
legacy that outlived his challenges.
And so we see the next few verses.
We see the result of Daniel's stand.
It says in verse 11. Daniel then said to the.
Guard whom? The chief official had appointed
over Daniel Hananiah Michelle and as I can't say those names,
you can't. Either, so we're on the same
page. Here we go, please.
Test your servants for 10. Days give us nothing but
vegetables. To eat and water to drink.
Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat
the royal food and treat your servants in accordance with what
you see. So he agreed to this and tested
them for 10 days. At the end of the 10 days, they
looked. Healthier and better nourished
than. Any of the young men who ate the
royal food so the. Guard took away their.
Choice food and wine. And they were.
They were to drink and gave them vegetables instead.
Which, by the way, did not make Daniel very popular.
With the other guys, however. He stood by his deep
convictions. So story number one is the meal.
Story #2 is the dream. So.
Nebuchadnezzar, the ruler of this.
This empire, Babylon, he he has a.
Dream. And so he brings.
In all of his wise men. And he says, OK guys, I want you
to tell me, what does the dream mean?
And the wise men say. Absolutely.
We'll tell you. Tell us what the dream is, he
says. No, no, no, no, no.
That's not how this. Works you.
Tell me what I dreamed and then you explain what that means to
me. And if you can't do that, I'm
going to put you all to death. You think your line managers
tough, right? Guess what your job is and then
do it. Really.
Well, well, Daniel hears about
this and he knows that not only the guys in in of the King's
presence, but all of those in the palace, including him and
his friends, are going to be put to death.
So he sends word to Nebuchadnezzar that he, Daniel,
will tell him his dream and he'll explain it.
And here's what's interesting about this part of the story is
at this moment, Daniel had no idea what the dream was.
He had no idea what it meant. He was stepping out in.
Faith. He was believing God will show
up. God will act.
I will move before. I know what the next steps are
going to be. And then God honored his faith
and allowed him to interpret the dream.
And that's our second building block of a legacy is bold faith.
So we have deep convictions. We have bold faith.
Daniel's faith enabled his legacy to outlive his fear.
Extraordinary faith is common among people who leave legacies
in Hebrews 11/8. The writer says that by faith,
Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as
his as his inheritance, obeyed and went.
Look at this last phrase, even though he did not know where he
was going. I've thought about that a lot.
I've thought about what if I walked into Sherry and I said,
hey, Sherry, I think God's leading us to a new place.
And she would say, yeah, let's talk about that.
Let's pray about that. Let me hear about it.
Where do you, where is it that you think God's leading us?
And I said, no idea, but I think we should sell our home and just
start heading east. That would not go well at all.
That would not be a good conversation.
But Abraham had that conversation with Sarah.
The results of Daniel's faith when he when he told the king
his dream and interpret it is that the king then placed Daniel
in a high position and lavished many gifts on him.
He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and
placed him in charge of all the wise men.
So Daniel stands on his faith. He steps out when he doesn't
know what God's going to do. God shows up and then Daniel
becomes one of the leaders in the Kingdom.
So the first story we talked about the meal, we talked about
the dream. The next story is the party.
So eventually Nebuchadnezzar dies and his son Delshazzar
becomes king, and Daniel is forgotten.
Daniel winds up behind a desk. He's shuffling scrolls, he goes
to endless meetings, and he's just another office worker in
Belshazzar's Kingdom. So Belshazzar throws a party.
It is what we call an America, a rager.
The music is loud. The wine is flowing.
People are making decisions they're going to regret
tomorrow. Like this is a wild, wild party.
And then in the middle. Of the party.
Suddenly a hand appears out of nowhere.
Not a arm, not a person, just a hand.
And the finger begins to write on the wall.
And I don't know about you guys, but nothing stops a party like a
disembodied hand. So it writes on the wall.
Everybody stops drinking, the music stops, they don't know
what's going on. No one can read the writing.
And suddenly Belshazzar's mum, Nebuchadnezzar's wife, remembers
Daniel. And she says, I remember this, I
remember this guy. And Nebuchadnezzar had a dream.
I think he can interpret stuff. Let's go get this guy.
So they go find Daniel. They bring him in to read the
writing, and he's offered all kinds of gifts and a big job if
he can do it. And Daniel turns down all the
bribes, all the offers, and he doesn't mince words he says to
the most powerful man in the Kingdom, a man who doesn't even
know he exists. He reminds Belshazzar of
Nebuchadnezzar's failure. He tells Belshazzar that he has
made the same mistake. And then he reads the writing on
the wall. He says, this is the inscription
that was written. Many, many.
Tackle, Parson, here's what these words mean.
Many means God has numbered the days of your reign and brought
it to an end. Tackle You have been weighed on
the scales and found wanting. And Paris, your Kingdom is
divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.
How would you like to deliver that message to your boss?
Like that would be a tough one to say, but the reality is
Daniel stood on courageous truth.
He didn't hide, he didn't shade it.
He just said the truth. He was bold in his faith and he
was courageous in truth. His commitment to truth meant
that his legacy overcame his circumstances and the Bible is
full of people who spoke difficult truths.
If you remember the story of of David and Bathsheba, you
remember the date the prophet Nathan who had to come and
confront David and I'll never you that one of the phrases that
stands out in the Bible is Nathan looking at the king and
saying you are that man. In the New Testament we read
about John the Baptist and Herod had had had married his
sister-in-law and John the Baptist stood up to him and in
front of the public said that is not right.
David wrote this in the Psalm Psalm 15.
He says, Lord, who may dwell in your sacred tent, who may live
on your holy mountain? The one whose way is blameless
and who is does righteous, who does what is righteous.
Let me let me start that phrase again.
The one whose way of life is blameless, who does what is
righteous, who speaks the truth from the heart.
That's what Daniel did. Daniel had this amazing faith.
He was he, he, he, he stuck to his convictions and he spoke the
truth boldly. One more story and this is the
story that people all over the world know.
Some of them know it and they don't even know where it came
from. This is the story of the lions.
Belshazzar dies the night of the party.
He dies that night. Darius the Mead becomes the
king, and now he he rules. By the time we get to the story
of the lions, Daniel is now 80 years old.
He was captured during the he was 16, so he's been living as a
captive slave most of his life. He's now serving under his
fourth king since being captured.
And Daniel's just a normal guy. He's just a guy going to work
every day, trying to do his job, trying to live his faith out in
a faithless nation. He's once again made one of the
top officials in the nation because he is a faithful person
that can be relied on. But it didn't make him popular
with the other government officials.
They were jealous and they went to Darius and they said, Darius,
you are an amazing king. You're awesome.
Here's what you should do. You should make a decree.
You should make a law that if anyone prays to anyone in the
Kingdom except for you for 30 days, they get thrown into a den
of lions. Now I think it's interesting why
they chose punishment by lion, right?
I don't know. They had tried if you if you
know the story, they tried to burn some of Daniel's friends
up, but that didn't work. So they say, well, maybe the
maybe the lions will eat him. And so they they Darius loves
this. That's great.
I am so, so great. People should pray to me.
All right, let's do that. So he signs this decree and then
it's interesting. Some guys go to tell Daniel.
Daniel, hey, did you hear about this decree?
Did you hear about this law and we.
Pick up the verse or. We pick it up in Daniel 610.
Now, when Daniel learned that the decree had been published,
he went home to his upstairs room where the windows open
towards Jerusalem. And three times a day he got
down on his knees and he prayed, giving thanks to God, just as he
had done before. I love this picture.
Daniel's 80 years old. He gets the news.
He's an old man. He's faced death many, many
times. Most of his friends, they were
captured with him, have died of various things.
And they tell in the news, Daniel, if you're get caught
praying to anyone but Darius, you're you're going to be thrown
into the den of lions. You're going to die.
And he goes. All right, Thanks for letting me
know. Let me know.
I I got to go. Where are you going?
Oh, it's it's 3:00. I I pray at three.
I got to go pray. Wait.
Hey, didn't you hear us? If you pray, you'll get thrown
into den of lions. And Daniel goes, Yeah, I'm old.
I'm not deaf. I heard you, but you're making
me late. I got to go, and I think about
Daniel climbing the stairs. I know when I climb the stairs,
it sounds like somebody's playing the drums, like all the
clicks and clacks gets to the top of the stairs.
And he goes into his prayer room.
And this is the same room that he prays in every day.
Three times a day, he kneels at the same place that he kneeled
every single day, and he opened his windows toward Jerusalem.
And that's interesting to me. Why did he open his windows
toward Jerusalem? Jerusalem was 500 miles away
when Daniel prayed. Jerusalem was in ruins.
It had been abandoned for decades.
Wild animals roam the streets of Jerusalem.
Why did Daniel pray facing Jerusalem?
Because Jerusalem represented hope, and Daniel had never given
up hope. So three times a day he kneels
in the same spot. He opens his windows toward
Jerusalem, and he prays just as he had always done.
And what's amazing is we know how his prayer began.
His prayer began. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our
God, the Lord is 1 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and
with all your soul and with all your strength.
And why do we know that? That's how he started his prayer
because that's called the Shema and faithful Jewish men always
started their prayer with the Shabba.
Faithful Jews almost always still 2500 years later begin
their prayer with hero Israel the Lord, our God the Lord is 1.
Daniel's faithfulness in prayer. His life was rooted in year
after year after year, the faithful prayer.
The last building block of legacy is this idea of
consistent prayer. Daniel has established prayer as
such a habit in his life that he can't imagine not praying.
This day is no different. He's done this every day for
year after year after year. His legacy is built on his
consistent prayer. It's there's incredible strength
in that image. It reminds me, it reminds me of
my grandfather on Father's Day. I was thinking about grandpa and
my grandfather grew up in the 1930s in America.
And if you've seen old movies of the, of the the West in America
or the Depression and how crazy, how wild it was, that was my
grandpa. My grandpa grew up in the state
of Oklahoma. He worked as a farmer.
He didn't own the land, he just worked the land.
And to make extra money, he made what we called moonshine, which
was illegal in the 1930s in America.
So he made moonshine and he sold it.
He sold it to roving gangs of guys who went around robbing
banks. That's who my grandpa hung out
with. My grandpa was a mean man.
In fact, he was known as the meanest man in town.
That was a label that he had. He would go every Saturday night
to the barn dance, and he didn't dance.
He fought. He went to fight.
He carried A handgun, a pistol with him everywhere he went.
And he actually, he told me this, he filed the works of the
pistol down so that if he shot somebody, it had a hair trigger,
it would fire first. That's who my grandfather was.
He was a mean man, a dangerous man.
One day he caught someone stealing the whiskey from his
still from his his moonshine, and he pulled out his gun.
They pulled out their gun and my grandfather got into a gunfight
and he shot a man in the elbow and crippled the man for life.
The man shot him with a shotgun. There was a little tree in front
of my grandpa, and it kept the shot, the buckshot from hitting
his heart. And that's how he survived.
That's who my grandpa was. But one day my grandmother got
really, really sick. In fact, she was going to die.
The doctor said there's nothing else we can do for her.
And so they sent her home. And my grandmother heard about a
couple of ladies who are traveling through that part of
Oklahoma, and they were doing what were called tent revivals.
They would do church services just out in a wheat field, and
people would come and listen to them.
And my grandma heard about that and she asked my grandfather to
take her to this church thing. They've never been to church.
They had no church connection at all.
My grandfather thought she's going to die, hits her dying
wish. I'll take her.
So he loaded her up in the car and they went to this field.
My grandmother was too weak to get out.
So they just sat in the car and they roll down the windows and
they could hear what was being said.
And at the end of the sermon, one of the ladies preaching
said, if you want to follow Jesus, if you want to become a
Christ follower, just raise a hand.
Well, my and grandma in the car weekly raised her hand.
She couldn't get out, she couldn't walk forward.
No one saw it. She didn't know what following
Jesus meant. She had no idea.
She just knew that she had no other choices.
She raised her hand and then nothing happened.
And so they drove home. But then she began to get
better, and she began to Her health was beginning to be
restored. And she told my grandfather when
I'm well enough. I want to go to.
Church. And I want to go to the church
that was sponsoring that revival.
Well, that church. Was a crazy Pentecostal
charismatic pre vineyard vineyard.
Church like they did they. Ran around and yelled and jumped
and they did all the stuff. Right, my grandpa said it and no
there and I'll. Never do that.
Said some other words I won't. Repeat.
He just. It was.
Just bad. He stormed out of the house he
was so angry and he was walking down a red.
Clay St. in the. In in in a little village in
Oklahoma. And this is my grandpa's story,
not mine, but what he. Said is something.
Knocked him on his face and he fell face down in the dirt and
he thought that God was going to kill him.
He said, God, if you let me live, I'll figure out how to
follow you. And he got up and he went back
to the house and he told my grandma we're going to go to
that church. So they went and he tried, he
figured out how to be a Christ follower.
And I, one of the things he did in that church that they would
raise their hands like we do here, right?
And during the worship, well, there were some ladies raising
their hands and they were just keeping them up.
And my grandfather thought that how do they do that?
He pulled his watch out and started timing how long they
could keep their hands. That was my grandfather.
But he followed Jesus eventually.
If you ever read The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck, that's my
grandpa's story. They moved to California, they
became farmers. And then he wound up in Northern
California and he wound up putting together enough money.
He bought a little store and a gas station and he got committed
in the church. He became a lay pastor in the
church. But he and his his boys weren't
didn't follow Jesus. They were teenagers, My dad, my
uncle. And every day at 1:00, my
grandpa would go in the back of the store and he'd begin to
pray. But my grandpa somehow thought
that God didn't hear too well. So he prayed at the top of his
lungs. He just, oh, God, I can imagine
how that went over in the store. But he was praying for his boys.
He's praying for his boys. God, you've got to get a hold of
my boys, get a hold of their hearts.
And one by one, first my uncle, then my dad, they did commit
their lives to Christ. And my grandpa felt that he was
supposed to be a church planter and he was kind of like Abraham.
He said. It's supposed to be back in
Oklahoma. I don't know where God gave him
a picture of a building. He didn't even know where that
building was. He just saw this picture of a
abandoned building in a wheat field.
He sold the store. He loaded up their furniture and
that they headed toward Oklahoma and they just drove.
They're driving through a wheat field, and my grandpa stops the
truck and he says that's the building.
They go. They find somebody who knows
about the building. They said it's abandoned, you
can use it, whatever you want to do.
And they started a little church.
And my grandma started inviting the children to come and hear
Bible stories and built the church.
And then he moved on and planted another church and planted
another church. My grandpa, my grandpa died at
70. And at 70, he knew he'd lived a
better life than he started out, and he knew that his kids
followed Jesus. But my grandpa never knew his
legacy. His legacy was built on that
prayer. I remember as a kid, we'd go see
grandpa and grandma and we'd stay with them.
And at one O clock we'd have lunch.
And at one O clock we would all go into the room.
Had a sofa? Had a chair and my grandpa would
kneel down at his chair and the kids, we'd kneel down at this
scratchy sofa and grandpa would begin to pray at the top of his
lungs. And after about 3 minutes as a
kid, I'd prayed everything I needed to pray.
I was good to go. 30 minutes later, grandpa still pray and
still pray, and I'd fall asleep with my face on that sofa.
But my grandpa never saw his legacy.
His son, my dad became a pastor. His other son became a pastor.
His daughter married a pastor. All their kids became pastors.
All their grandkids became Christ's followers and pastors.
Today across the world there are over 25 or 30 different pastors
speaking as I today preaching to congregations that are all
directly related grandkids of my grandpa.
But what my grandpa never saw and I I'm not sure if we have a
picture. I must not have got the picture
there. I apologize.
Few weeks ago I stood. And watched as my son.
There it is, baptized. My oldest granddaughter, my
grandpa's great, great granddaughter being baptized.
Why? Because this was a man who was
faithful in prayer. This was a man who was knew what
his convictions were. He stood in faith and he spoke
the truth. And that's the example I have.
So let's finish Daniel's story. He was in trouble.
He was praying. He got caught praying to God.
And they go and tell Darius and Darius.
Throws him in the pit with the. Lions and the next day, Darius
comes to see. What happened?
And it says in verse 19, at the first light of dawn, the king
got up and hurried to the lion's den.
When he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguish
voice. Daniel, servant of the living.
God has your God. Whom you serve continually been
able to rescue you for the lions.
And Daniel answered, May the king live forever.
May God, my God sent his Angel, and he shut the mouths of the
lions. And they have not hurt me
because I was found innocent in his sight, nor have I ever done
any wrong before you, Your Majesty.
The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the
den. And when Daniel was lifted from
the den, no wound was found on him.
Why? Because he trusted in God.
Because Daniel trusted in God, a powerful legacy was built.
It was built on his deep convictions and on his bold
faith, and on courageous truth, and on a consistent prayer.
Now, most of us will never have be called on to interpret a
King's dream, or to confront a king with his sins, or to spend
the night in a lion's den. Any night with cats is bad, but
I'd sight. But every one of us will decide
what kind of life. We're building.
Building a life that lives beyond us.
A lasting legacy. It's rarely built in dramatic
moments. It's built in one decision at a
time. It's built in one conviction 1.
Step of faith one difficult. Truth.
One prayer this week Which building block needs your
attention is God calling you to? Stand.
Firm on a conviction is God calling you not to take a leap
of faith, but a step of faith? Is there a difficult truth?
In a relationship that God saying you need to speak up, you
need to say the truth or is God saying, let's rebuild that
prayer life, no condemnation, no guilt.
You know, you promised I'm going to pray every day and I'm going
to pray in the morning. And it didn't follow through.
And God saying, let's take a next step.
Daniel's legacy wasn't built in a day.
It was built over a lifetime. And for some of us, we hear a
message like this and we think that would have been great when
I was 20. It would have been great when I
was 30. It was been, it would have been
great before I made this mistake.
It would have been great before these things happened with my
kids. But it's too late.
There's a. Phrase we use at our church all
the time from this day forward, from this day forward, God is
not here to condemn you for your past.
We ask for his forgiveness. We're forgiven.
God is saying, what is your step today toward the legacy that you
will leave for the next generation?
Kind of pray with you guys. Lord, I am so thankful for the
legacy that I have for my grandfather, for my father, for
my family. Lord, I know that so many times
I have come short of stewarding that legacy, but Lord, you are
faithful. Lord, I pray for those who are
here today. Chuck talked about Father's Day
being a tough day. It can be so, so bad.
Many of us didn't receive a legacy from our Father.
Some of us are not in a place where we can leave a legacy to
our own children. The Lord, every one of us, man
or woman, we can take a step today that will impact the next
generation. Lord, give us wisdom and guide
us in your name.