This is Daniel one verse 3 through 9.
Then the king ordered Ashronash, chief of his court officials, to
bring into the king service some of the Israelites from the royal
family and the nobility. Young men without any physical
defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of
learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to
serve in the King's palace. He was to teach them the
language and literature of the Babylonians.
The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the
King's table. They were to be trained for
three years, and after that they were to enter the King's
service. Among those who were chosen were
some from Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
The chief official gave them new names.
To Daniel the name belted Shazar, to Hananiah Shadrach, to
Mishael Meshach, and to Azariah Abednego.
But Daniel resolve not to defile himself with the royal food and
wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to
defile himself this way. Now God had caused the official
to show favor and compassion to Daniel.
A couple years ago, on a Friday morning, police and firefighters
responded to a fire alarm at a University of Iowa fraternity
house. When they entered the basement,
they found several dozen young men standing shirtless and
blindfolded. The alarming footage revealed
that these weren't hostages, but they were fraternity pledges.
The university immediately suspended the fraternity and
investigated, and the chapter was later suspended.
Apparently, when the police interrupt your secret initiation
ceremony, the evening has officially gotten out of hand.
Not every fraternity hazes its members, but most fraternities
do have some form of initiation process.
A young person has left home, family, old friends and
everything familiar, and they arrive on campus looking for a
place to belong. And the group comes along and
says we want you. So first comes recruitment, then
the invitation or bid, and after that the student becomes a
pledge, not quite an outsider, but not yet fully accepted.
And during that period, the fraternity teaches him its
history and traditions and vocabulary, values, songs,
symbols. And there may be tests and
secret rituals, assigned mentors, matching shirts, Greek
letters, the whole 9 yards. And the goal of all of this is
clear. Learn our story, adopt our
values, prove your loyalty and become one of us.
The pledges at this Iowa fraternity learn the hard way
that not every tribe has their best interests in mind.
Have you ever? Been in an environment with
people trying to influence you to do something or become
someone for their purposes. You know, maybe that
uncomfortable meeting with the higher ups at work where you're,
you know, encouraged to maybe bend the truth just a smidge.
Or the moms hangout where the conversation topic was about
someone who wasn't in the room and it wasn't necessarily
positive. It's like a river with a swift
current. It is so easy to get swept up
and carried off when you're in an environment that's
influential and impressing upon you every day.
We live in a culture trying to initiate us to its customs and
its norms and values and ideas. We live increasingly in what?
Psychologists and sociologists. Call a post Christian world with
constantly shifting values. You know, the culture of the
1950s post war America where everyone goes to church on
Sundays. That's long gone and even the
influence of moral thought leaders like pastors is waning
as mistrust of religious figures is at an all time high.
And so we need to recognize our American culture is
predominantly secular, not religious.
It's rational. Rather than believing in the
supernatural, and whether we pay attention to it or not, we are
constantly being formed intellectually and spiritually
by the values and ideologies of our host culture today.
The question for us becomes then, how can we live faithfully
to Jesus while prospering in a culture that at best is
ambivalent towards God and at worst is hostile toward Him?
Do we, do we, you know, flex and fight back and resist?
Do we separate and isolate, or is there a different way to
operate? We're going to dive into that
question as we kick off our sermon series in the book of
Daniel. And so we always encourage you
to bring physical Bibles if you have them.
You can open up your phone. Just get this in front of you if
you could. Some way we have Bibles in the
back. It'll be on the screen as well.
And so as you turn there, the book of Daniel has two major
sections. So the last half of the book,
chapters 7 through 12, focus on visions and prophecy in the end
times. But our main focus for this
series is going to be on chapters one through 6, which
detail the life of Daniel and his three young friends from
Judah. OK, so Daniel chapter 1, it's
right after the book of Ezekiel. If you're newer to the word,
we're just glad you're here. Daniel one verse one.
It says this in the third year of the reign of Jehoakim king of
Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and
besieged it. And the Lord delivered Jehoakim
king of Judah into his hand, along with some of the articles
from the temple of God. These he carried off to the
temple of his God in Babylonia, and put the treasure and put to
the treasure House of his God. So Daniel opens up with the
events taking place in 605 BC. So this is before Jesus and
God's people are being overthrown by this foreign
power, and they're being carried off into what's called exile.
Now, the people of Judah here, they're not overthrown by just
any foreign power. They're overthrown by the big
bad Babylon. OK, now ancient neo Neo Babylon
of Mesopotamia was one of like the major superpowers at the
time. Their driving goal was to
overthrow Egypt and conquer all the other nations around them.
But Judah Daniels, Judah was geographically positioned in a
strategic location for them back of the sort of a buffer to the
other nations. When it comes to the culture of
Babylon, the Greek historian Herodotus claimed that Babylon
surpasses in wonder any city in the known world.
That's kind of a big claim, surpasses any city in the known
world. It was known for its impressive
fortifications. Its walls were said to be so
grand that Chariots could race along the tops of them.
This is what's called a ziggurat.
It was like the skyscraper of of the day.
Some believe the Tower of Babel was actually not like a pyramid
or a or like a circular tower, but a ziggurat.
It's kind of interesting. But Babylon is more than just a
fancy city or more than just a superpower.
In the Bible, Babylon represented much more than that.
In fact, in Scripture, Babylon represents an archetype of
stubborn rebellion of human achievement, wickedness,
idolatry. Theologian Joyce Goldingay, she
highlights this as she writes, Babylon was synonymous with
opposition to God. It was a place where wickedness
was at home and uprightness could expect opposition.
So the very act of Nebuchadnezzar taking sacred
items from God's holy temple and placing it in the in the temple
of their gods was like a way of proclaiming their God's
superiority over the one true God, Yahweh.
So this is like insult to injury happening here.
Now, at first glance, an outsider might read this story
and see powerful Babylon overcoming Judah as just a part
of, you know, how things work, how nations are conquered all
the time, right? The big guy swallows up the
little guy with his impressive might and his military strategy,
etcetera. And, you know, we might be
tempted to look at Judah and being like, maybe you guys
should have increased your defense budget, you know, or
something like maybe have better allies.
I don't know. But the author of Daniel makes
it really, really clear here that that is not what's
happening here. Daniel 12 the Lord delivered
Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand.
So not just that, it's not just that Babylon's mighty and and
was able to overthrow. No, no, no, this was actually
God's doing. In other words, He's letting his
chosen people be carried away into exile at the hands of the
Babylonians. Why?
Despite God's abundant patience with His children, their hearts
were still just far from Him. They practiced all kind of
idolatry. They were practicing child
sacrifice and more. And all of this led to the
events leading up to Daniel verse 3.
Then the king, this is King Nebuchadnezzar.
Then the king ordered Ashpinaz, chief of his court officials, to
bring into the King's service some of the Israelites from the
royal family and the nobility. Young men without any physical
defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of
learning, well informed, quick to understand and qualified to
serve in the King's palace. He was to teach them the
language and literature of the Babylonians.
So here we see that it's not just the sacred items of the
temple that are taken from where they belong and placed into a
corrupt area. No, it's also happening to the
people. So Daniel and his three friends
here are taken along with the others from the royal line of
Judah. And so Judah's nobility is
captured here. They're hauled away in chains.
They're on a long journey, and they're placed inside a new
culture, a Babylon. Now notice how Nebuchadnezzar is
intentionally choosing young men who already had understanding
and wisdom. So these would have been men who
have been trained in Hebrew proverbial wisdom, and these
would have been men of nobility. So they would have had like sort
of a predisposition towards royal customs and politics.
It'd be really useful as your empire's expanding to have young
men who could you could kind of tame and shape, and they could
be the ones sort of leading in the future.
But they're not just looking for guys with brains, they're
looking for some men with some brown, right?
It's they're looking for the guys without any physical
defect. These are the handsome fellas.
Ladies, where you at? Right like these are good
looking young. Guys here, OK.
Paul dark and handsome. That's what the Babylonians
wanted. So we we actually see that in
ancient Mesopotamia art, they actually valued beauty quite
highly. You can take a look.
I think there should be a picture, hopefully coming up.
Yeah. Take a look.
So whenever you see the Mesopotamians, they're like
fully bearded, great physical features, right.
And look at those outfits. I mean, come on.
Right. The black and the gold in the
middle with the with the loafers, Right.
Like, talk about drip. Like, that's sick.
OK. They valued appearances very,
very highly. And So what we see here is
they're being taken and they're being groomed here.
Verse 5, The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine
from the King's table, King's table.
They were to be trained for three years, and after that they
were to enter the King's service.
Among those who were chosen were some from Judah, Daniel,
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The chief official gave them new
names, It's important new names to Daniel, the name Beltigezar,
to Hananiah Shadrach to Meshach, and to Azariah Abednego.
So here what we see is that Daniel and his three friends are
being groomed into the evil King's service.
They're being taken away from the people in the land so they
can be fully assimilated into their Babylonian culture.
I don't know if you remember that scene from The Avengers
where like mighty Titan Thanos comes in and he wipes out the
whole population. And then there's this young girl
named Gamora, who like kind of watches her whole thing.
She loses her people. And what does Thanos do?
He he kidnaps Gamora and he trains her and raises her as his
own daughter in order that she could grow up to be one of his
assassins. She's she's grooming her into
the royal service of Thanos. That's kind of what's happening
here with these young men. Daniel and his friends are being
reprogrammed to now learn the ways of Acadian language in
cuneiform writing. They're learning the ways of
what's of these magicians called the Chaldeans.
So picture this. Daniel is being trained in arts
like divination, like he's looking to the stars and
celestial bodies, looking for phenomenon and astrology.
He's they would even have his practice where they'd cut open
sheep. They'd look at their livers and
by the shape and by the color of their livers, they'd be able to
determine the future. And you thought your health
class was weird growing up, right?
Like I grew up learning reading, writing and arithmetic.
Daniel's learning reading, writing and astrology.
OK, it's, it's a different kind of educational system here.
And verse 7 in verse 7, we see it wasn't enough just to change
their language or their location or their education.
Babylon changed their names. This matters because like Hebrew
names when they're given, when the the Hebrew names they had
were all related to Yahweh, they're one true God.
But now they're being renamed after Babylonian gods, after the
pantheon of gods that Babylon worship the false gods.
And Mishael here, he gets the biggest slap in the face here,
right? So Daniel, his name is Yahweh
was Yahweh is my judge, and he's renamed to something that means
treasure of Bell, which is another name for Marduk, the
king of the Babylonian pantheon. Again, Mishiel, his original
Hebrew name means who is like Yahweh, and then check this out.
He is renamed to Meshach, which means who is like Aloo, the moon
God. This is an intentional slap in
the face. This is an intentional reshaping
and reforming by giving them a new name.
It's more than just a name change.
It's an attempt to imprint an identity onto these young men.
You guys following so far, This is intentional.
What's happening here. Now in our culture, names don't
mean a whole lot. My name is Benjamin, which means
son of the right hand, which is pretty sick.
I mean, that's kind of cool. All right, OK.
But let's be honest. Like, it doesn't impact my life.
It doesn't tell my my story today in our culture, like we
name babies based off like, what's popular, what's trending
or your favorite Harry Potter character or whatever, right?
But in the ancient Near East, a name was so much more than that.
A name represented your origin. It represented your identity.
It represented your destiny, who you were going to become.
And so with names, with these names for Daniel and his
friends, Babylon was attempting to rewrite their identities away
from Yahweh into their gods. So it's kind of like the
University of Iowa fraternity situation all over again here,
right? Like they're reprogramming them.
OK, maybe a bit more extreme, but to recap real quick, the
Babylonians are taking young noblemen from their homes,
moving them all the way across the desert, attempting to
indoctrinate them with their customs, teaching them dark
arts, and erasing God from their names.
And what's remarkable about this story up until this point is
that the young men don't protest it Isn't that interesting?
They're they're not fighting back up until this point, right?
They've gone along with it. In fact, they've graduated Magna
cum laude in their class. They've moved through the
program, and they almost seem indifferent to the names.
They went along with the customs of their culture until they
couldn't go along any further. And it's in this next section
that we see one of the most important verses in the entire
book of Daniel. Here it is kind of our our theme
verse for the morning as well, says this.
But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal
food and wine. Daniel resolved not to defile
himself. So this is a radical turning
point in the story. Up until this point, all of the
momentum was heading towards Babylon.
All of the momentum was heading towards their gods, their
values, culture, apart from the one true God, Yahweh.
And it's until this moment, this is the moment where Daniel
finally made a choice. And the choice was this, I'm not
going to defile myself. I can't do it.
I have to draw a line. Now, we don't exactly know
exactly what it was about this food and wine that would have
been defiling to Daniel. There's a lot of leading
theories, first theories that the Babylonians, they actually
believe that their statues of their gods were the actual
presence of their God here on Earth.
So check this. They would perform these, like,
really weird secret nighttime rituals where they would attempt
to, like, chant over their statue as an attempt to open
their eyes and open their ears. Creepy, creepy stuff, right?
And what they do is they would even place, like, sacred
ornaments on them. And they believe that they were
actually coming to life in this way.
And they were so dedicated to this idea that their gods were
alive that they would place meals in front of their gods,
and they'd give them privacy behind a curtain so they could
eat them. What's interesting is that the
leftovers of these meals, they would go to the King's table.
So the king would eat the same food as the gods and the same
drink. And in in doing so, by eating
the same food as the gods, what they were doing was they were
receiving the very blessing and divinity of the gods.
So it's almost like saying I eat at the same table as the divine
gods I'm worshiping. Does that make sense?
So that's maybe the first reason is that it was this meal was
literally being sacrificed to an idol.
Second, to receive the King's food was more than just
receiving like a free lunch. In the ancient Near Eastern
Time, royal food of the king signified a covenant
relationship of allegiance to the Kingdom.
So to eat with someone saying, like, I'm at your table, I'm
with you. And finally, another theory is
that being that Daniel, you know, still ate the vegetables,
maybe it was because the meat that he was being offered wasn't
kosher due to Jewish dietary laws, right?
So for instance, maybe they're trying to serve him pork and
pigs, or maybe they're even trying to serve him horse or
something like that. Which fun fact, I was watching
the like David animated movie and there's this scene where
Goliath comes up and he's intimidating the guys and he's
like, oh, I like eating horses or something like that.
And we're like, that's ridiculous.
But then I found out they used to actually eat horses.
So anyway, it's like true to the culture.
Whatever it was, though, whatever the exact reason was,
Daniel's decision to not eat likely functioned as a boundary
of allegiance to God. Over the Babylonian powers, a
boundary of allegiance to Yahweh.
It's as if Daniel is saying I'll serve in Babylon's court, I'll
learn Babylon's language, I'll even answer to a Babylonian
name. But Babylon's gods and powers
will not become the source of my flourishing, will not become the
source of my identity. It is not the nourishment of
gods or kings of Babylon that blesses me and causes me to
excel. It is only the nourishment of
God. It's as if he's saying if I'm
going to succeed here, if I have to live a life here in Babylon
and I'm going to excel, I'm going to make it clear it's
because I'm doing things God's way.
I'm doing things his way. You see, Babylon had taken God
out of Daniel's name, but they failed to take God out of
Daniel's heart. He was resolved.
He knew who his God was. His core identity was still a
royal member of the House of Yahweh, the one true God.
And it's this moment, right? This moment kind of causes us to
pause and it causes us to ask, like, is that our same resolve
that we have here today? Like is this our approach to
health and success and personal integrity?
Have I, have you, have we resolved to do things God's way
even when it's like completely counterintuitive, even if it's
like greatly inconvenient or costs us a lot or risks our
reputation? Like, is it our resolve that we
will honor God and not defile ourselves?
Daniel made a choice and the choice was not to defile
himself. But he also acknowledges
something. He acknowledges that he's at the
mercy of those who are in authority over him, right?
And so in his God-given wisdom, he follows up his choice with a
challenge. Daniel 18 says, and he asked the
chief official for permission not to defile himself in this
way. Notice this.
Daniel asks for permission from the official to go against the
customs. He's like, is it cool with you?
It's all right with you? Is that all right?
And of course, the official at first, like he's hesitant about
sticking his neck out for this young man and going against
protocol. But know what it says in verse
9. This is important.
Verse 9. Now God had caused the official
to show favor and compassion to Daniel.
Who caused it? God caused it.
God had caused the official to show favor.
In other words, God is still in the story.
Daniel and his friends are hundreds of miles from home.
They're surrounded by foreign gods, foreign kings, foreign
lifestyles. I mean, they've got magicians,
they've got cults, they've got omens, divination, food, wine,
power, women, clothes, vanity, all of it.
And he is literally, in this moment, experiencing God's
punishment and exile because of his people's idolatry.
And yet we see here in this verse, God has not abandoned
him. God has not abandoned him.
God's still in the story, He's still with Daniel and his
friends, even in the midst of exile.
So catch this, catch this, this is a central theme to Daniel.
And it's this, despite present circumstances, God is still in
control. Despite how it may look out
there, despite how it may feel, despite being in some of the
worst circumstances imaginable, God is still in control and he's
still writing the story. Daniel verse one or chapter one,
verse 11 here, next slide. There we go.
Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had
point pointed over. Daniel, Hananiah, Michelle and
Azariah, please test your servants for 10 days.
Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink.
Then compare our appearance without of a 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 the wine they were to drink and gave them
vegetables instead. And all the vegans in the room
cheered and said, we told you so.
OK, In boldness, Daniel gives the challenge.
He takes a risk for God and it pays off.
Daniel proves something here. He proves that you can thrive in
Babylon not by the strength of men or false gods or the
nourishment of the King's table, but by the power of the one true
God. Again, in verse 17 we see God's
hand on them in the midst of hostile territory. 17 says to
these four men God gave knowledge and understanding of
all kinds of literature and learning, and Daniel could
understand visions and dreams of all kinds.
And at the end of the time set by the king to bring them into
his service, the chief official presented them to
Nebuchadnezzar. The king talked with them, and
he, quote, found none equal to Daniel Hannan.
I am Michelle and Azariah. So they entered the King's
service. Dana resolved not to defile
himself. And yet he was still crushing
it. He was excelling, right?
I mean, Daniel's on the cover of GQ at this point, you know what
I'm saying? Like, he's headed to the corner
office. He's giving main character
energy. I don't know what that actually
means, but I heard someone say it once.
OK. Like Daniel was able to thrive
in exile by remaining true to his identity and allegiance to
Yahweh alone. He was able to thrive because
God was with him, even at great risk to he and his friends
well-being, their reputation, and their future God.
Or Daniel decides not to defile himself.
And So what we see here is that Daniel offers us a different way
to resist, a different way to thrive in the ungodly culture of
our influence and influence of our host culture.
No, like Daniel's not thriving through violent uprising.
He's not resisting through outrage or through revolt,
right? And it's not even just, you
know, through his clever subterfuge or mind games that
he's playing. That's not how he is succeeding
here. But, and, but what he's doing is
he's resisting through a quiet, resolute decision to do the
right thing, A quiet. There's all that he has in his
heart to say. I just can't do it.
Honouring the authority over you as far as you can until you
can't go any further. This was Daniel's way.
So Daniel learned the ways of Babylon.
He studied hard. He did what he was told.
And he still found a way to bloom where he was planted.
But he also knew when he couldn't go any further.
Theologian Tremper Longman puts it this way.
He he writes, Daniel endured much cultural assimilation, yet
he knew where it was appropriate for him to draw the line of
distinction. In other words, he knew when to
say, I can't do it. It's not who I am.
It's not what I'm meant to be doing.
Again, verse 8, Daniel resolved not to defile himself.
Daniel knew we had to make a choice and he knew where he had
to challenge his culture back. So the question for us then
today is how can we know when and how to draw our line of
distinction and our host culture, right?
Like when do we, when do we draw the line?
How do we know when too far is too far here in our world today?
And what can Daniel teach? Us about thriving in our sort of
Babylon that we live in. First, one of the most important
things that we need to understand is that each of us
are currently living in a form of exile here and now, today.
In fact, the idea of God's people being in exile is
highlighted all throughout the Bible from the very beginning
with Adam and Eve. What do we see?
We see that Adam and Eve were banished from their home and
they had to live in hostile territory because of their
breaking fellowship with God and their sin.
In a similar way, we as believers, we have to recognize
that you and I, we're not ultimately where we belong.
We're we're not where we're meant to be.
Ultimately, Hebrews 1314 reminds us that here we do not have an
enduring city, meaning like this city of Ankeny is going to be
long gone one day. The the state of Iowa or the
Kingdom of America or whatever, all of it is going to pass away
at some point in time. It's just a matter of hundreds
or thousands or 10s of thousands of years.
But it's all going to go away here.
We don't have an enduring city. But what does it say in verse
14? It says, but we are looking for
a city that's yet to come. We're looking towards heaven,
we're looking towards eternity, Philippians 320 reinforces as
Paul says, but our citizenship is where in heaven, say it with
me in heaven. That's where we ultimately
belong. In fact, the idea of believers
currently living in exile, Peter makes it really explicit.
Check out what he says first, Peter 1, he says Peter, an
apostle of Jesus Christ to God's elect.
That's us. And he says exiles scattered
throughout the provinces. He literally calls the believers
exiles. And then he buttons up his his
letter in verse in chapter 5 by referring to the church as this
she who is in what Babylon? Isn't that interesting?
He's saying church, you are exiles, you are in Babylon.
You're the ones living far from home in a land that is not your
own, in a you are. You are not citizens ultimately
of this place. You belong to a higher Kingdom.
Why does he refer to the the church as being in Babylon?
Why? It's because like Daniel and his
friends, we too are far from home.
We're in a corrupted host culture and we are waiting our
return to our future Eden, the future garden where all things
are made right. Like Daniel in the Christians
living under the hostility and influence of Babylon and Rome,
we too now live under the hostility and influence of post
Christian Western culture, which by the way, raises all sorts of
questions about how we're meant to live here and now.
Practically, would you agree? It is not easy to to to navigate
through through this world and through our culture right now
for most of us, unlike Daniel, chances are, chances are that
like you and I aren't going to, you know, get thrown into a
Secret Service van and be like driven to Washington, DC, to the
White House and like offered a Big Mac that's been, you know,
sacrificed and offered to a God of consumerism or pride or
wealth or whatever, right? Like that probably isn't going
to happen to us, unlike Daniel. And yet each of us still has to
face choices and make choices every single day, right?
It's we have to make this difficult decisions to remain
faithful and distinct in our time.
We have to answer questions like, should I send my kids to
public school or to private Christian School or
homeschooling? I figured we we could just take
a vote right now on which one's best.
OK, just kidding. All right?
We're not going to do that. I don't want people rioting.
OK, can I, can I watch Game of Thrones and still pursue
holiness as a Christian? Do we attend the same sex
wedding of our beloved family member?
Do we use preferred pronouns with our transgender friends?
Do we attend the bachelor party with questionable entertainment?
These are all questions we have to answer in our culture and our
world today. Do I DoorDash McDonald's for the
second time this week? All right.
And if that's not OK, is Chick-fil-A more appropriate?
Right? Like we all have to figure it
out. Look, we're faced with choices
every single day about how we're going to respond to the world
around us. And when confronted with the
values that conflict with our own, we have to make a choice.
Are we going to retreat and separate ourselves?
Or maybe we're going to like fight back, right?
We're going to get on Facebook and we're just going to start
blasting the the people we don't agree with, right?
Owning the libs or whatever, whatever people do on on social
media, right? Like, or do we keep our heads
down and we blend in just kind of like looking like the culture
around us? How should we respond to our
culture in 1951? There's a man named Richard
Nieber in his influential book Christ and Culture, and he
identifies 5 general ways we can view and relate and react to our
cultural moment here today. So I'm going to lay these out
real quick. Five, I'm not going to go
through them all, but there's five different kind of options
that he sees when it comes to Christians reacting to culture.
Number one is Christ against culture.
This is the idea that that Jesus and the surrounding culture are
fundamentally and always in conflict and that faithfulness
requires separation. Are fighting back, right?
So this may include people like the Amish who are like, I'm not,
we're not going to be corrupted by all the like fancy bells and
whistles of society and all the allurements of modern world.
We're actually going to go off and do our own thing.
So it's Christ against culture. For many people, they react by
#2 which is the Christ of culture.
So this is the idea that Jesus is presented as the fulfillment
of culture's highest needs in that moment.
So as many, many of the people who subscribe to this, they say,
well, well, Christianity needs to mold and it needs to adapt.
Like it needs to be able to accommodate itself to the, you
know, the values that are considerable considered most
admirable in society today. So this is like puts a high
emphasis on like social reform and social values, but maybe at
the expense of like personal holiness and the conversation
about sin. Next is Christ above culture.
4th is Christ in the culture paradox.
It's basically the idea that we live in the paradox of the fact
that we have two competing kingdoms happening
simultaneously. Yes, we ultimately belong to
God. We have to follow, follow his
ways, his values, but we also are called to live under the
Kingdom of our governments, our authorities over us.
So there's like a paradox that happens like an overlap of two
kingdoms, but the fifth one is the one I want to focus on.
And this is the idea of Christ, the transformer of culture.
It's the idea that culture is fallen, yes, but it's
redeemable. It's the idea that Christians
are to enter into society, enter into education and politics and
art and economics and other institutions, right?
Where we're to press in to seek to bring them under the lordship
of Jesus, not just run away from them, right?
So it's the idea that Christians, we carry with us
Jesus, we carry with us the power of the Holy Spirit to come
into any environment in which we come.
And we can be light in the darkness.
We can actually be agents of transformation wherever we may
go and whatever sphere we find ourselves in, right?
And so it's not that we run away.
It's not that we just shake our fist and blast people on social.
It's the idea that we are carriers of the mercy and grace
and love and holiness of God himself wherever we find
ourselves in Christ. The transformer of Christians of
culture, the transformer of it. The last view of this idea of #5
is what theologians would call a creative minority.
It's a community of followers of Jesus that seek to rediscover
the teachings of Jesus and the practices of the early church
and apply them to the very soil of our post Christian world.
It's the idea that we're not to just survive our times, but we
are called to thrive as we seek to bring the transformative
power of Jesus everywhere we go. Daniel didn't retreat.
Daniel didn't revolt, but he worked with the culture to bring
influence. But you and I have to ask.
It's a very fundamental question.
You and I have to ask this. Do I really believe that I can
flourish in this world without compromising?
Do I really believe that? Do I really believe I can
actually excel and live out my purposes without having any
compromise right when when I'm gunning for the promotion at
work? Do I really believe I don't have
to compromise when when my grade depends on tomorrow's test and I
could use a little help? Do I really believe I can thrive
without compromising when my friends invite me out on that
Saturday night get together or whatever, right?
We have to ask ourselves, do I really believe that God's way is
better, even when it's counterintuitive or it's harder
or it's scary? Look, like us, Daniel lived in a
culture that was counter to the ways of God.
Like Babylon, our culture sees the rise and fall of regimes as
being at the hands of men and their strength.
Yet we learn that it's God who raises up kings and removes who
he pleases. Like Babylon, our culture looks
to outward appearances, but we know that God looks at the heart
of a man or a woman. Like Babylon, our culture trusts
in systems of human learning and education, But it's God who
gives true wisdom through his Word and understanding through
his Spirit. Like Babylon, our culture takes
what is sacred, marriage, children, sexuality,
Christianity, and attempts to defile and deform them into its
own image. But we have an opportunity as
Christians to elevate what is beautiful, what is sacred, and
what is good for the positive transformation of our world.
Amen. Like Babylon, our culture
imposes and imprints its own identity, its own plans for us
onto our lives. But God has already mapped out
His plans and His identity for your life.
And His plans are this, that you would be saved, that you would
be sanctified, and one day you would be glorified as an adopted
child of the Almighty God. That is your true identity, and
nothing the culture can do can take that away from you.
You are a beloved child of the one true God, the King of Kings,
the Prince of Peace, the one who is above all names.
You belong to him. That's who we are.
Daniel thrived in his culture, and he did it God's way.
In other words, it is possible to resolve to resolve, not to
defile ourselves. It is possible, even in the
midst of a Dark World, to not defile ourselves.
Look, church, there's a lot of things you can't control in this
world. You can't always choose the job
that you want. You can't always choose who's in
charge of you. You can't choose where you're
born or the culture that you grew up in.
We're in control of far less than we would like to believe,
right? But sometimes the only thing you
can control is whether or not you're going to do the right
thing, whether or not you're going to resolve not to defile
yourself. Sometimes that's all you got.
So don't lose it. Is your identity in Christ
strong enough to resist culture's attempts to imprint on
you? Do you?
Do you know who you who you are and who's you?
Who's you are, right? Is your identity strong enough
to resist? Look, Daniel may have been in
the courts of Nebuchadnezzar, but he remembered that
ultimately he belonged to the courts of Judah, right?
Daniel knew his real name. He hadn't forgotten it.
Daniel knew his family line and where he came from.
He knew that he was royalty. He knew that he belonged to God.
It was his identity that gave him strength.
Daniel's identity. And God was strong enough to
withstand the forces and influence of those around him.
How about your identity? What about you?
Have you settled? Have you settled in your heart
and your mind that your your truest identity is in Christ, in
Christ alone? Have you resolved that no matter
where you're placed, no matter what names you're called, or no
matter what what kind of unholy things people put on your plate,
have you resolved that you can live a holy life in an unholy
world just like for Daniel? Remember that that God isn't
somewhere far off back in Judah. God is right here in your actual
life. He's in every decision.
He's in every interaction. He is in every moment of our
lives. He is a very and very present
help in time of need. He is with us.
And so, let me put it this way, don't miss this.
Our ability to live for God is determined by the strength of
our identity in Jesus. Look, you are not going to be
able to live live for God in a world like we have out there
unless you are just rooted in your identity in Jesus.
First Peter 115 says, But just as he who who called you is
holy, that's Jesus, just as he has called you is holy.
So be holy in all you do. For it is written, be holy
because I am holy. Since you call on a Father who
judges each person's work impartially, live out your time
as what foreigners here in reverend fear.
Peter's addressing the exile and he calls them like Daniel to
live holy. He says to all the aliens and
the foreigners in this strange world have a reverend fear for
God above fear of man. In other words, you can live
like Jesus, you can be like your Savior, you can live like Jesus
who left his perfect home. Live like Jesus, who is willing
to become an exile in the world that was hostile to him.
Like Jesus who overcame every influence and every temptation
known to man because he knew that this world didn't belong to
Nebuchadnezzar. Jesus knew that this world
didn't belong to Caesar. He knew that this was his
Father's world and that he reigned supreme and he was in
control. Jesus, who ushered in the
Kingdom how would last for all time.
Jesus himself resolved not to defile himself, and it was
because of that, and he was willing to go to the cross to
pay for your sins and mine, that we could live eternally with
Him. If we put our faith in that, we
too can live a life of holiness, even in exile.
It's not by our own wisdom, smarts, power, or good looks.
Not all of us have that, but by the power of the living God
living in US and through us, never forget what Jesus prayed
for his followers when he prayed.
My prayer is not that you take them out of the world, but that
you protect them from the evil one.
We may be in the world, but we are not of it.
And so as, as we begin to close, I just want to ask you, between
you and the Holy Spirit here tonight or this morning, are
there any areas of compromise in your life where God may be
calling you to have courage? Are there any areas of
compromise where God is calling you to have courage?
Look, church, I personally have had many, many moments where I,
I partook in something or I did something where I knew it went
against my identity in Jesus and my calling to minister.
I've done many things. Well, it was, you know, caving
into peer pressure and drinking in college even though I was a
ministry major at a Christian School.
Or whether it's not just like watching the movie, but like
buying it, even knowing like there's like really shady scenes
in it or even like listening to the podcast that, if I'm honest,
makes me angry towards Christians or angry at the
broken church rather than loving them, right?
Like whatever it is, for me, it wasn't just about what I was
letting into my mind and my body.
Like for me, it's, it's not what went in that defiled me.
It's what it was producing in my heart.
You know, it was more about the fact that that I knew that I
knew God had clearly told me where he said something like,
you know, others may, but you may not.
And it was it was the violation of the defilement of that, like
that calling and that identity in so many ways throughout
throughout the years, right? Like that's what is at stake
here. That's what it means to not
defile ourselves. And so are there any areas of
compromise in your life and just be honest about that.
Allow the Holy Spirit to search you in the what is it for you?
Maybe it's alcohol. And please hear me like I'm not
saying that having one drink, you know, with friends is
automatically the issue. But but maybe for some of you,
like drinking has slowly become more than just the enjoyment.
Like maybe it's how you relax or how you cope or how you avoid
what's really going on inside of you.
Maybe for others of you, it's it's your sexuality, right?
Like maybe you keep crossing the boundaries and telling yourself,
that's OK, we love each other. It's not hurting anyone.
Maybe it's pornography or a secret relationship or even just
like a private message you know you shouldn't have sent, but you
you wouldn't want your spouse to know about it.
For others, maybe it's your kids activity, right?
Like sports are good and the show choir concerts are good and
opportunities are good, right? But like, maybe your family has
become so busy chasing all of these opportunities that things
like worship and community and rest are like the first things
that are being sacrificed for, for some of you, maybe it's
money or consumerism, right? The bigger house, the newer
vehicle, the next renovation, the next vacation, whatever it
is, keep spending the money so you can maintain a lifestyle
that you're not even sure you're enjoying anymore.
Maybe it's work, right? Like I'll just bend the truth a
little bit. I'll just kind of cut the corner
no one will know about. I'll just leave that one detail
out or I'll just choose to take the credit, right?
After all, I got to make the sale and I got to do whatever it
takes. Maybe it's politics, allowing
politics and news stations, allowing your party or a
candidate or a network to disciple your emotions and
attack other people. Maybe it's gambling, or maybe
it's gossip or whatever it is. Are there any areas of your
life? Or, if you're honest, you may be
compromising and the goal of sharing these things is not to
to like, shame you into legalistic behavior.
It's not. It's not the goal, as a matter
of fact, it's to free you from the shame you're already
experiencing and you may not acknowledge.
Does that make sense? If there's one thing the entire
Bible in the mission of Christ is all about, it's helping
people be free from their guilt and shame.
It's helping people embrace and experience the love of Christ by
finally having some means by which the sin and the darkness
and the burden and the pain and the guilt can somehow be
released and placed onto something else that is higher
than us. You and I were not designed to
carry the weight with the weight and the burden and the pain of
shame and guilt and sin. We were not called to bury the
bear, the weight of defilement. We are called to live in
freedom. It is for freedom that Christ
has set you free. And so maybe there's a way.
You just need to consecrate yourself before the Lord.
And it may mean praying something like this just in your
heart. You can even pray it now,
praying something like Holy Spirit, Come search my heart
like only you can. God, I want to be fully open and
honest with you. I want nothing in the way of
your deepest desires for me. Holy Spirit, would you bring to
the surface everything you want to forgive and set me free?
Maybe you want to practice consecration by just inviting
the Spirit to convict you of sin, or show you burdens or
fears or doubts, disappointments.
Whatever it is, there's there's a long list here.
Just invite the Holy Spirit to search your heart to test you
and to see if there's any unclean way within you.
And look, if you if you carry shame, if you've done some
things that defiled you, hey, you're, you're in good company.
We've all been there. But we are people to pursue
holiness. So as we close to the outside
observer, the first chapter of Daniel, Daniel appears to be
about how the strong conquer the weak, how those who are
beautiful and powerful get the opportunity, how the clever
young Daniel outwitted this rival by his own smarts.
And it may even be tempting to treat Daniel and his friends as
the heroes of this story and the ones we're going to talk about
in the future. And you may be hearing the
story, maybe thinking to yourself, look, I'm not wise.
I'm not beautiful. I'm not resolute like Daniel.
I don't have that type of conviction in you.
But one thing as we close, I want to make really clear as we
read this story about Daniel, it's that God is the hero of
this story and Jesus is the hero of your story.
It was God's presence in exile that enabled Daniel to thrive,
nothing more. So in the same way, church,
because our God is present here and now, even in our hostile
culture, we can remain faithful to our identity in Christ.
We can refuse compromise, we can seek the well-being of our city,
and we can flourish wherever God has placed us because God is in
control forever. And because of that fact, we can
honor him today. May we all learn from Daniel.
May we all learn from Daniel that it's possible to not defile
ourselves in our world today.