How to Stay Faithful When Culture Pulls You Away | Pastor Kurt Brodbeck

Well, today, we're gonna continue our 52-week series. It's a long series, all right, on the key central figures of our Bible, helping us all understand the story of the Bible, but also understanding how do these people relate to our lives? And today, we're gonna be talking about a man by the name of Daniel. Now, if you grew up in church, you probably know at least one story of Daniel's life, Daniel in the lion's den, and we will talk briefly about that today, but we're gonna talk about the entire book of Daniel in the next few minutes, so we're gonna go kind of fast, all right? So we're gonna start off by reading from Daniel 1, and then as soon as I finish this, I'm gonna ask that we just pray and let God clarify all of this in our hearts. We're gonna read the first seven verses. It says, in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim, 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 in the house of his God. Then the king ordered Aspenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring into the king's service some of the Israelites

from the royal family and the nobility. These were to be young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well-informed, quick to, hey, if you're sitting next to a man that fits these, just puff him up a little bit and be like, hey, that's you, okay, quick to know, and qualified to serve in the king's palace. He was to teach them the language and the literature of the Babylonians. The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king's table, and 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. Here's our guy, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The chief official gave them new names. To Daniel, the name Belshazzar, to Hananiah, Shadrach, to Mishael, Meshach, and to Azariah, Abednego. All right, let's pray, and let's ask God to kind of help us interpret. What is he speaking to each one of us? God, as we are spread out across 10 locations, 13 if we count the prisons, those joining online, God, there are so many of us that enter into this space with different things on our minds and our hearts. God, for these next few minutes, would you just clarify what you want to speak to us? God, you're an amazing God, and you can individually, through the power of your Holy Spirit, speak a direct message to us.

God, I pray you would specifically reveal yourself to each of us and give us a next step. Don't let us leave here the same as we entered. Speak whatever it is you want, and we're listening, in Jesus' name, amen. So if you were here last week, we had a student takeover weekend. Weren't our students amazing last week? If you were here, some of our students down here. And Pastor Dylan, he spoke on the prophet Jeremiah. And Jeremiah, well, he's known as the weeping prophet because he was bringing the bad news to Israel. And what was some of that bad news? It was, hey, just so you know, you know how early on God was leading this nation, and then you wanted a king, and God said, no, you don't want a king, and then you said, yes, I do want a king, and then God said, well, if you take a king, what's gonna happen is this king's gonna make it all about him, and it's gonna become his kingdom and his nation, and you're gonna start worshiping the king and stop worshiping God, and you're gonna turn your back on me, and eventually I'm gonna turn my back on you because you turned your back on me. Do you remember that? And Jeremiah said, it happened. And he said, and because of that, well, there's gonna be a new empire that comes,

and they're gonna besiege you, and they're gonna capture you, and they're gonna take your nation captive, and it will no longer be about you, it'll be about them, and it'll no longer be about me, it'll be about them. And what happens in Daniel 1, verse one? It says, Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. So here's our problem. The Israelite nation is now in captivity, but we need to understand who is Babylon, because in order to understand our message today, we need context. Here's the thing I need you to know. Babylon represents two things. One, it is a physical place. Babylon existed. In Daniel's day, Babylon was the most powerful empire on earth. It was thought that Babylon would reign forever. Why? Well, they were located in what is now modern-day Iraq, about 55 miles south of Baghdad, right on the Euphrates River. The Euphrates River was the major trade route, so they were the wealthiest nation on earth. They also had the most military power on earth. In their engineering, what we found through modern archaeology is that their engineering was second to none. They had double-walled cities, guard towers, taller than any other guard towers found in the day.

It was thought they are impenetrable because the Euphrates River went right through the city. So they had all the waters of course, all the money, all the power. They were a physical entity. But here's what I want you to know. Anytime you see the word Babylon in the Bible, it's also talking about a spiritual reality. And here's the spiritual reality of Babylon. Babylon represents human civilization organized apart from God. Okay, Babylon represents human civilization organized with no need for God. Now, did you know that every single one of us, we have what's called a worldview. That means the way that we interpret the world that we live in is interpreted by a lens of the values, the beliefs, the behaviors in our background. That kind of helps us make sense of the world we're seeing. As Christians, we're supposed to have what's called a biblical or a Christian worldview, meaning that as we see the world, we look at it through the lens of this Bible. And we understand it through the lens of who our God is. But not everybody has that worldview. The worldview for somebody who lived in Babylon, well, it would be a different worldview, and it's a prevailing worldview even today. It's this, it's secular humanism. So if you see, if you're taking notes,

anytime you see the word Babylon in the Bible, write down secular humanism. Here's what a secular humanist believes. Humans can determine right and wrong without God. All morality is defined by the human race, not by a God. Human reasoning and science, well, those are the best guides for truth. If you wanna know what is true, it's based on my experience, my emotions, my feelings, what I'm about to see, right? Third, human flourishing is life's highest goal. The whole purpose of life for a secular humanist is pleasure, human pleasure, human success. My personal experience is my highest goal. That is my aim in all of my life. It's where I find my purpose. And the last one is that there is no need for divine revelation or supernatural authority. So this is what you need to know when you see the word Babylon. Now, I want you to love your Bible. I want you to love it a lot. I want you to read it every day, because if you would, I believe it would change your life and start to develop a worldview in you that would change your life. But also you would find that you'd be like, this Bible's amazing. We've talked about this before. The Bible was written in 66 different books

with 40 different authors over 1,500 years. Yet it tells one story. There's no errors, no inconsistency. And what I love about this is when I'm talking about Babylon, did you know that Babylon was not first brought up in the book of Daniel? And it wasn't first brought up in the book of Jeremiah. Actually, we find Babylon first in the book of Genesis. As God is talking about the creation of the world, we actually find the start of Babylon. And I'm gonna read it to you because it talks about human innovation. You ready? Genesis chapter 11, verse one. It says, now the whole world had one language and common speech. As the people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar. Where is that plain? The plain of the Euphrates River in Iraq, 55 miles south of modern-day Baghdad, and settled there. They said to each other, "'Come, let us make bricks and bake them thoroughly.' They used brick instead of stone and tar for mortar. Then they said, "'Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches to the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves. Otherwise, we will be scattered over the face of the whole world.'

But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building. And the Lord said, "'If as one people speak in the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse the language so that they will not understand each other.' So the Lord scattered them from there over all of the earth, and they stopped building the city. That is why it was called Babel, because the Lord confused the language of the whole world. And from there, the Lord scattered them over the face of the earth." Now, here's what I want you to know. This word confused in Hebrew is balal. So when something's confusing, it's balal. Where does the word Babel come from? Well, it sounds like confused, right? In Babylon, it's confused. And I love this. Why does God give this city the name confused? Because when you try to do life on your own, apart from God, it's confusing. Life doesn't make sense apart from God. Secular humanism will say something like this. Come, let us build ourselves a city with a tower that reaches the heavens so that we may make a name for ourselves. The problem isn't building the tower.

That's not the problem. The problem is they said, we don't need God. We create our own greatness. We establish our own security and we make our own name great. Let me ask you, do you think there's any cultures that you've experienced that are similar to Babylon this day? A name that says, yeah, I'm not sure about this God, but man, we can figure this out on our own. But what we find is the more we try to figure it out on our own, man, life gets really confusing. 1 Corinthians 13 says it this way. Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you are wise by the standards of this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. Babylon says, I can do this on my own. Israel was meant to be a nation guided and led by God. So now we come to Daniel and Daniel is one of the exiles brought into captivity. What do we know about Daniel? Well, here's what we know. Daniel, scholars say, was probably between the age of 15 to 20 years old. Daniel was a teenager. Again, we just talked about it last week. Pastor Dillon said, students, you are not the church of tomorrow. You're the church of today.

In today church, we are gonna learn from a teenager about what it means to stand in the face of a culture that says we don't need God. Daniel's really starts by asking this first question. The book of Daniel says, do you believe in God? That's the first question that we're gonna answer today. Daniel grew up in Israel. He believed in God. He knew the stories of God from the past. He understood the Holy Scriptures and he is pulled into a culture, but he believed in God. In church, there may be some of you at some of our locations that showed up today that are asking that question. Do I even believe in God? Let me tell you, I do. As a pastor, I don't just believe in God, I know there's a God. And you might go, well, how can you be so confident that you know there's a God? Well, there's two reasons, okay? The first is something we call general revelation. What that really means is that God has generally revealed himself to the world that we can see God just by looking at the world we can know that God exists. The Bible says it this way in Romans chapter one, it says, for since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made so that people are without excuse.

So just by looking at the world, we have no excuse not to believe there's a God. Some people are like, when I see the sunset and the beauty of it, I just go, there has to be a God. Other people are like, when I'm in the mountains and I'm walking around, I just go, there has to be a God. For me, what blows my mind is just the complexity of this world and how it all works together. But when I say complexity, I need you to understand something about me. I'm not a super smart guy. I got through middle school, high school, and college because I had smart friends that I sat next to, okay? So I'm not super smart guy. I operate at like a fourth grade smarts, okay? So I thought we would do something today about the complexity of the world. I thought we would do fourth grade science together as a church. And we're gonna play a little game of, are you smarter than a fourth grader with your neighbor, okay? So here's what we're gonna do. Every one of us, we are all going to take a deep breath in. Are you ready? Let's take a deep breath in. Okay, turn to your neighbor. What was the essential gas that you just breathed in that was essential to your human life? Turn to your neighbor.

What was it? I heard oxygen as a question mark. That is correct. It is not just a question mark. It is, last night we had somebody yell out H2O. And I'm like, well, you're not a fish. That's water. I'm not smarter than a fourth grader. Oxygen. What would happen to our bodies if we went without oxygen even for a minute? We would die. Why? Because oxygen, it comes in, it goes into our lungs, it goes into our bloodstream, spreads throughout our entire body. It's cell regeneration, cell growth. It helps our organs, brain function. We need oxygen. But we're not done with our test, everybody. We're going to breathe in, now we're going to breathe out. What did you just breathe out? Turn to your neighbor. What did we just breathe out? Oh, now we got the O2. Carbon dioxide, right? We just breathed out carbon dioxide. If you are doing this, you got them both right, this is awesome. If you didn't, there are remedial fourth grade courses online that you can get into and figure this all out.

You breathed out carbon dioxide. What would happen if we breathed up all the oxygen in the atmosphere and breathed out all the carbon dioxide? What would happen to the human race? We'd all die, it's poison to us. But how? How have we not done that over all the years of the Earth? Why is there still oxygen? Fourth grade science, you ready? What is the essential gas for plants to grow and to flourish? Turn to your neighbor, tell them what is it. It's photosynthesis, but what promotes photosynthesis is? Carbon dioxide. And what is the byproduct? I mean, we're getting really simple here. I'm giving you the answer at this point. If you're not there, what is the byproduct of the plant back into the atmosphere? It's oxygen. And you start to go, wait a second. This world, it operates on this cycle, and that's just like one basic cycle. But there's all these other crazy cycles that you could start to think of. And you're like, in that plant, how did that plant come to be? Well, it needed the soil, but it needs nutrients in the soil, because when it grows, it takes nutrients. So when something dies, it replaces nutrients in the soil. It creates a fertile environment for a seed to fall.

And then the next thing you know, there's rain that comes. And where did the rain come from? Well, it was sucked up from the oceans into the clouds, and then it was transferred over. And then this weekend, it rains the entire weekend. But it's good, because the water is coming down, and it's landing on the soil, and it's creating an environment for that seed. And then the sunlight comes out, and then it grows. And then that plant produces oxygen, but it also produces food. And the next thing you know, you're like, how did that all happen? And you're like, it can't be chance. It's too complex, even for my fourth-grade mind. And I go, there has to be a God. There's no other way to explain it. Now, I'm not going to get into this, because this is a little more like sixth-and-a-half grade, but where do babies come from? You can't see the miracle of childbirth and not go, oh, my gosh. Like, that's mind-blowing. There has to be a God. That's general revelation. But then there's specific revelation. God specifically revealed Himself to this world. And I know there's a God, because I've seen Him do it in my life. I can go on and on with countless times

where I've seen God answer prayers in miraculous ways for me, people that He's brought into my life to speak truth and love unto me, to support me and care for me. I've watched God show up in my life. But even more than that, specific revelation. God gave me this, His word, which can be trusted, who reveals His character and who He is and His plan for salvation, His plan for us on this earth. This is God specifically revealing Himself to us. And then His greatest specific revelation, His son Jesus, who lived on this earth a sinless life, didn't deserve to die, but He goes to the cross and He willingly dies for you and for me. But He doesn't stay dead. He rises from the dead. And then He ascends into heaven. He sits at the right hand of God the Father, making a way for you and me to have eternal salvation with Him. And you go, oh, Kurt, that's not specific revelation. You just found that in here. So how can you claim that as an extra specific revelation? Because we know of a historical Jesus outside of the Bible. We have historians. We have architecture or archaeology that shows us that Jesus really lived. And those historians say their followers claim that Jesus, He rose from the dead, but His body was never found.

And there are people that claim they saw Him in person after He rised. I know that God revealed Himself to this world. So you say, do you believe in God? I'm like, yes, I believe in God. And Daniel, he walks into a culture that says, we don't need God. And he's like, mm-mm, I believe in God. But what happens when he walks into that culture? Let's check out the first thing that happens. Daniel chapter one, verse six. It says, among those who were chosen, we already read this, there were some from Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The chief official gave them new names. To Daniel, the name Belshazzar, to Hananiah, Shadrach, to Mishael, Meshach, and to Azariah, Abednego. Did you see the first thing that happened as soon as they took him out of a culture that was supposed to be focused on God and put into a culture that is void of God? What did they try to do to him? They tried to change his identity because that's what our culture does. Wait, God says you're a child of God? Let me strip that off of you and give you a new identity. Names have meaning. Did you know that the name Daniel means God is my judge? And they were like, yeah, that name doesn't work in this culture. No, no, we'll name you Beltshazzar, meaning Maybel, where your purpose in life is to protect the king.

You see, Babylon wanted to reshape Daniel's identity, his worldview, and his loyalty. The first thing that Babylon did when they took Daniel over was not asking him to bow down. It was simply just asking him to belong. Just belong with us. Guys, that's what our culture often does. We walk in here, we're like, I believe in God, I trust God, and then it's like you step into another culture. It's like, hey, just kind of ignore some of that and just belong with us. Romans 12.2 says it this way, it says, do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. We are to walk into this culture that we are surrounded with, a culture that believes secular humanism is the prevailing worldview in our culture, where we don't really need a God. It's all about human flourishing and pleasure, but we're to walk in it not forgetting who we are. You are a child of God, designed with purpose to do good works that he prepared in advance for you to do. So he believed in God. But that really wasn't the whole point of what we were talking about today. Because James says it this way, 2.19, it says, you believe there's one God, good. Even the demons believe that and shudder. You know, I'll talk to people sometimes and they'll be like, hey, I believe in God. I'm like, oh, so you're a Christian? Well, yeah, I mean, I believe there's God. Like, no, I asked, are you a Christian? You see, a lot of people go, well, I believe there is a God, but I don't live like there's a God. So today's message, I thought if I could make it really, really simple, it'd be three words. Because I'm a fourth grade mindset, right? Believe in God.

And I thought, that's really complicated. What if we had a two-word sermon? So if everybody could walk out going, what was the point of the sermon? Two words. Everybody can take these notes. Ready? All right, we're just gonna have, here's our sermon. Believe God. Just believe God. Daniel didn't just believe in God, he believed God. He trusted God in the midst of this culture. And you might say, how? We're gonna go through it pretty fast so we can get through this. Ready? First thing is, Daniel believed God's control. He believed that God reigns. Do you believe that God is in control in your life and in this world? Even when everything else seems to be spinning out of control around you, do you have enough belief in God to believe that his characteristics can sustain you in a world that seems out of control? Daniel did. Daniel was in captivity so long, he ended up in service of multiple kings. So we're gonna go to Daniel chapter nine, and it says, in the first year of Darius, son of Xerxes, a Mede by descent, who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, Daniel's writing this, understood from the scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, who we talked about last week, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last 70 years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting and in sackcloth and ashes. What does this tell us about Daniel?

Daniel already knew the scriptures enough to know, I knew this was gonna happen, God already told me. So instead of getting all panicked and worried and stressed out about what's going on, I'm just gonna trust that God's in control and that at some point, he will redeem his nation. And it's not me to worry about, I'll just continue to pray to that Lord. What about you? Do you know God enough and know his characteristics enough to trust him when life seems out of control? Maybe a tough diagnosis, a broken relationship, a failed dream that comes in your life. Do you trust God to go, I believe you're in control? There's a few things that are really important that we trust. Here's the first question, is do you believe that God is sovereign? We've been talking a lot about that. this summer, whether God wills it or God allows it, he's still in control, it's not outside of his control. Do you believe that he's sovereign? Daniel did, Daniel 4.35. He, God, does as he pleases with the power of heaven and the people of the earth. Daniel was like, I trust that he's sovereign. But you can't just trust that he's sovereign, you gotta believe something else. Do you believe that God is good? Because it'd be one thing if he was sovereign, but if he wasn't good, well then we'd have to go, but I don't know if this is good for me, right? But if you believe that God is good, Psalms 34.8 says, taste and see that the Lord is good, blessed is the one who takes refuge in him. Do you believe that God is good in your life?

Not only that, do you believe God's faithful? Do you believe that he will continue to care for you? Well, that's an important belief. You can't just believe that he's sovereign, you can't just believe that he's good, you gotta believe that God is also faithful. Lamentations 3.22-23 says, his compassions never fail. They are new every morning, great is your faithfulness, God. Last one, we can go on and on, but do you personally believe that God is loving? Do you believe that God is loving? 1 John 4.10 said, this is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Do you believe that? Daniel did, he walks into a culture which is trying to change his identity, cause him to belong, strip away his God, tell him life is out of control and everything he knew is gone, and Daniel says, no, I believe God is in control because I know my God and I don't have to worry about it. Do you know your God? Do you believe God when he says he has those things? Daniel didn't just believe God was in control, Daniel also believed God's care. He believed that God would provide for him. Now we read in Daniel 1.5, we read this about how the king had assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king's table

and that they were to be trained for three years. What we didn't get to was verse eight, where we see how Daniel handles that. Let's go to verse eight, it says, but 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 that way, why? Because Daniel knew God's law and there were certain foods that were forbidden for the Israelites to eat. And Daniel said, I'm not doing it. Even in this culture, I'm not doing it. Some of this food's been sacrificed to idols and to the king, I'm not doing it, even though it was the best. Think about this, a 15 to 20 year old standing up in the midst of a culture that says, hey, I'm gonna give you something really awesome and you're gonna love it and it's the best of what we have to offer in our entire society. And then Daniel goes, nope, because God said, no, I'm not doing it. Well, where's the food come from? Says, now God had caused the official to show favor and compassion to Daniel, but the official told Daniel, I'm afraid of my lord, the king, who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse

than any of the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you. Daniel said to the guard, whom was the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, 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 have eaten the royal food and treat your servants in accordance with what you see. So he agreed to this and he tested them for 10 days. And at the end of 10 days, they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. Here's what Daniel says, I know that you're giving me this, but I know it's against God's law and I'm gonna trust God to provide even if I say no. In fact, Daniel says something which takes a lot of courage. He says, test us, just wait and see. You test my God and I bet you'll see that when you test God, he always comes through. And it kind of reminded me of the only time I know in the Bible where God tells us to actually test him. Did you know that God asked us to test him? It comes from Malachi chapter three, verse 10. It says, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse that there may be food in my house. God says, test me in this, says the Lord Almighty. So now we're gonna talk about tithe for just one.

Second, what is the tithe? Tithe is 10%. God said to his people, hey, 10% of everything that you own, it's actually mine. Actually, 100% of it's mine, God says. But you just bring 10%. Live your life open-handed with that. And bring it into the storehouse. What's the storehouse? The temple, the church. He says, allow me to use what I've already given you. And then he says, and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be enough room to store it. Now, I've heard pastors turn this passage to mean something it doesn't mean. Guys, this is not an investment strategy. God's not saying, hey, you bring 10%, and I'm gonna bless it, and the next thing you know, that's gonna be 30%. So if you wanna make some money, come here and bring it to Northview, and we're gonna help you make money. It's not what he's talking about. God says, hey, you bring your 10%, and you bring your 10%, and you bring your 10%, and you bring your 10%, and you bring your 10%,

and we put that together, and you watch how we use the gifts, the talents, and the treasure of you, you, you, you, and you, and watch what happens in this kingdom. We won't be able to contain it. God's kingdom will expand. Kids will come to know Jesus. Students will find their purpose and passion in life. There will be people that find their calling and go into ministry. There'll be missionaries sent all over the world. There'll be communities that'll be changed because we'll meet the local needs of that community. There'll be temporary things that change and spiritual things that will change. We'll be able to actually change the entire world because the local church came together as the body of Christ, and what we're able to do with those resources is we were actually able to change the world. God says, watch, test me in it. Some of you are still going, I still don't like that you're talking about money right now when we're talking about God providing. Well, here's the thing. Jesus himself talked about money a lot. He actually talked about money in over one third of his parables, and on one of his most famous sermons, he said this to his people.

In the Sermon on the Mount, he goes, hey, don't store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. Store up treasures in heaven. Because why? He said, because you can't serve both God and money. In a message where I'm talking about, do you believe God, that God will provide? I have to talk about that because in a culture that says you can be your own God, what is the main idol of that culture? It's money. Because if I have enough of it, man, I can be my own God. And so what do we end up worshiping in a secular humanist culture? Money. It becomes our God. And Daniel says, I'm gonna trust that God provides and I'm gonna live his way. And Jesus said, hey, by the way, don't store up treasures on earth, live open-handed. Why? Because it's God's anyway. And then, here's what I want you to know. I will provide. Here's the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Right after Jesus talks about you can't serve God and money, he says, look at the birds of the air. They don't sow or reap or store away in barns,

and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you, by worrying, add a single hour to your life? And why do you worry about your clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow? They do not labor or spin, yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all of his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you? Oh, you of little faith. You see, Daniel, he trusted God, and he said, I'm just gonna live by your commands, and if I do it, God, you'll provide, and God did. Not only did he provide him with the nourishment his body needed, but he showed him, man, this guy rises above all the rest. I'm telling you, Daniel found favor in the eyes of every king because of his integrity, his hard work, and because he was loyal to the real king, not to the king that was earthly. In doing so, I already told you, he was promoted multiple times to multiple kings, and we're gonna get to our last point here, and that is that Daniel also believed God's commands. He didn't just believe God's control. He didn't just believe God's care. He trusted God's command.

He believed that God knew what was best. So the story of Daniel in the lion's den, you probably heard it as a kid, and you're like, I remember that story. Daniel was thrown into the lion's den. God shut the mouths of the lions and protected him. Do you remember why Daniel got in the lion's den in the first place? Daniel had found so much favor in the eyes of the king that he was made second in command in all of Babylon, and the other administrators, they were jealous, and they were like, we wanna take this man down. We don't need this Israelite serving and leading here. It should be us. And so they said, we have to find a reason for him to be taken out of his power. And we're gonna read it from Daniel chapter six, verse four. It says that this, the administrators, the satraps, tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him. Why? Because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. Finally, these men said, we will never find any basis for charges against this man, Daniel, unless it has something to do with the law of his God. So what did they do? They went to the king and they said,

oh king, we believe that you should issue an edict because you are so great that if there should be any person that bows down in praise to any God or any person except you, they should be thrown into a lion's den. And the king was like, that sounds pretty awesome. Let's have a 30-day festival in my honor. I think that sounds wonderful. But he loved Daniel. He had no idea that Daniel would not follow it. But Daniel, he knew, what does God's law say? You should have no other gods before me. You should not bow down to worship any idol or person. And so what did Daniel do? Three times a day, he would get down and he would pray to the king of kings and the Lord of lords. And eventually they came to the king and said, your servant Daniel, he broke the edict. It's time to throw him in the lion's den. And we know the story. Daniel was thrown into the lion's den and the king was heartbroken because he loved Daniel. And he said, may your God protect you. The next morning, he runs to the lion's den and he's like, Daniel, has your God protected you? And Daniel yells back, oh king, live forever. My God has protected me. And he shut the mouths of the lion.

And what happens? The king pulls him out, throws the other guys into the lion's den. We don't talk about that in Bible school. And with their wives and kids, yikes. Can't tell that to fourth graders. And then the king says, we've got this all wrong. Everyone should be worshiping the God of Daniel and glory should go to him. You see Daniel, he walks into a culture and he says, man, I trust God. I believe in him. And by his example as a 15 to 20 year old kid, he shows the world how to glorify God in a culture that is against to God. Here's the thing, guys. We believe God, we believe God because of who God is. He's in control. But we also believe God because of what he does. God, he cares and he provides. But we also believe God because of what he says. This right here can be trusted. In a world that says you don't need a God, I'm telling you, you need a designer. You need a creator and you need a savior. Now there's some of you maybe that came today at some of our locations and maybe you've never put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Maybe you've never said, hey, I believe in God and I believe God.

The Bible tells us that there's a way to have eternal life and salvation forever, to live with God forever. I want you to know that today you could actually make a decision and declare something that would secure your salvation for eternity. The Bible says that when God created us, he created us for relationship with our God. But the Bible says that each one of us, we've sinned and fallen short of God's glory. And the Bible said the wages of sin is death, eternal separation from God. The Bible tells us that you and I, we deserve to die for the sin in our life that we're separated from him. But in Romans it said, but God demonstrated his own love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. You see Jesus Christ, he came, he lived on this earth, he never sinned, he didn't deserve to die, but he willingly went to the cross for you and me, but he didn't stay dead. He overcame the power of hell, death, and he resurrected. And he ascended into heaven. And the Bible says that if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus is Lord, you will be saved. Church, you could walk away today knowing. that you are going to heaven, and that you have eternal security.

The Bible makes it very clear. It's not about us. It's not about works so that no one can boast. It's about grace. It's God's love that he gives to us. And here's the thing. It's not just enough to believe in God. We also have to believe God. Believe in God is, I know I'm not God, and there is one. Believe God is, I'm letting God run my life, and I'm trusting him to tell me what to do.