Living With Lions | Part 2: The Babylonian Mentality

And week two and part four of our series, Living with Lions. Now here's the reason why we're calling it that. Now I know that Daniel and the physical lion's den may be the most widespread and well-known story in the book of Daniel, but we've named it this because the truth is that was just a small part of a much larger scope of issues that Daniel was dealing with while he was living in a Babylonian culture. He was surrounded by an entire society that was trying to devour his faith and his belief in the one true God. And the reason I felt so compelled to teach this series to you is because there is no doubt that we are living in an ever-shifting culture where there is a greater rejection of what we believe and hold sacred as followers of Christ and Christians than I have ever seen in my lifetime. And I would dare to say many of you in your lifetime, no matter how old you may be, and if we don't learn or understand how to respond the right way, it has the potential to not just discourage us, but to cause us to just look at the world pessimistically and to have this horrible outlook on life and this idea that we're just holding on until Jesus comes or takes us out of this world,

or even worse, it can cause some people to even lose their way and lose their faith and turn their back on God, and that's happening. And so it's a serious issue, and that's why I felt like God wanted us to wade through this. And last week, I gave you the takeaway truth for the whole message that we're gonna revisit every single week, and it's this central idea that God has called us as his followers to set the culture, not reflect the culture. God has called us to set the culture, not reflect or be a reflection of the culture. In Matthew chapter five, Jesus said that we were to be salt and light. Jesus said that we were gonna be a city that's set on a hill that cannot be hid. He said that we would live our lives with such good works that the world would take notice of how we live our lives and not glorify us, but they would glorify our Father, which is in heaven. In other words, the world would take notice of how differently we live our lives, how differently we talk, how differently we conduct ourselves, and that they would recognize ultimately that we're not just good people trying to be good, but that we are people of God, and God is doing a work in and through our lives, and we have been saved by Christ

and left on this planet on purpose, with a purpose, and for a purpose. We have been saved and transformed by Christ and left purposely on this planet, on purpose, with a purpose, and for a purpose. I'll show it to you. Jesus actually prayed to the Father and asked it to be so in John chapter 17. Jesus said, my prayer, God, is not that you would take them out of the world, but that you would protect them from the evil one that's in the world. They are not of this world. Don't miss this. They are not of this world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth, not your truth. Don't live your truth. Don't find your truth. Don't think there is a subjective truth out there. No, no, no, your word, oh God, is the truth, and we can build our lives on it. As you sent me into the world, I also am sending them into the world. Jesus said, look, I've saved you, transformed you, and you are to live your life by a different code, your life by a different kingdom. And in other words, you may be in this world still, but you are not of this world. You may be in this world, but you are not of this world. And that's the challenge and what we learn from Daniel's life, because Daniel was a Jewish man

from Israel who worshiped Jehovah. He was living in a foreign land and surrounded by Babylonian pagan worship. Daniel was in Babylon, but he was not of Babylon, and he knew it and lived that way. He was in Babylon, but he was not of Babylon. And so today, what I felt led to do is to address. We talk about shifting culture in this series. Today, I wanna kinda go for the throat. I wanna expose something to you. I wanna address how it actually happens. How is it that a culture actually begins to shift and pivot farther and farther away from God and the things of God? Where does that happen? What is the driving force behind this shift when people and a society begin to drift and go farther and farther away from God, God's will, and the original plan of God for a people and for a society? So that's what we're gonna talk about today. I'm gonna show you what I'm calling the Babylonian mentality and the reason I'm calling it that is because it's not just found here in the book of Daniel. I'm gonna show you in a moment that the Babylonian mentality was alive and well in the beginning of time. It's gonna be alive and well at the end when God makes all things new. and judges it, and it's alive and well in the middle of the Bible and even right now

in our life and in our culture. Because Babylon was an actual geographic location. It's true history. Thousands and thousands of years ago, it was called Babylon. But if you were to travel there today, that exact piece of dirt is called Iraq. It's modern day Iraq. But what I wanna show you is that Babylon is not just a locality, it is a mentality. It is not just a locality, it is a mentality. It's not just a place, it's a posture. It's a spirit. It's an attitude towards life and God that existed then and still exists today. And as your pastor, I just felt so oddly moved and compelled by the Holy Spirit to show you this so that you can see it, so that you can be aware of it, so that you and I can be on guard against it, so that the enemy doesn't slowly infiltrate my life and your life and cause us to drift away from God in the wrong direction. Because again, he's been doing it since the beginning of time and since humans walked on this planet. In fact, he shows up in just the second chapter of Genesis and he does two things that started this downward spiral that still exists today. The enemy begins to Adam and Eve question the word of God and the mode of God and begins to elevate humanity.

So when you go read Genesis one and two, when the serpent shows up, here's basically what he said to Adam and Eve that started this whole thing happening. Satan's great lie was, look, I need you to know, I am all about you, but you need to know God is all about himself. He said, look, I want you to live your best life now. I'm for you. I want you to experience everything that you've ever wanted in life. I really do want you to know what life is all about. I want you to experience every pleasure, every desire. I want you to be able to live the fullest life you can live. And by the way, the other part of it is, you gotta understand, God doesn't want that for you. God just is all about himself and he's not being upfront with you. He's not leveling with you. He's not telling you the truth. He's not giving you all of the truth. He wants you to just do what he wants you to do, but he's holding out on you. But not me. No, no, no, see, I'm all about you. I want you to experience the best in life. See, this is what the enemy does. He doesn't come and ever tell the truth because he didn't look and even say, let me go ahead and tell you what's about to happen.

You're gonna eat of this. God's gonna judge you. He's gonna kick you out of the garden. You are gonna begin to die. Childbirth is gonna be extremely painful. Thorns and thistles are gonna come. You're gonna have children that are gonna be at each other's throat. In fact, one will murder another. I am going to use this moment to unleash hell on this entire planet through you. That's not what he says. That's what happened, but he never comes that way. He never gives you the end of your life. He just comes and through subtle deceit says, I want you to have what's coming to you now. I want you to live your best life and God cannot really be trusted anyway. And this is a pattern that is repeated over and over from the enemy. And it comes in many different versions, but I'm just telling you, at the heart of all deception is this idea right here. And then just a few chapters later, we are then introduced for the first time into the Babylonian mentality or Babylon as a whole, okay? So let me just show you some things. I'm gonna lay a foundation. And in a minute, we're gonna go to Daniel chapter four. And I wanna show it to you in the book of Daniel,

something amazing that happened that brings all of this to a head. But let me just read it in Genesis chapter 11. Here we go. They said one to another, come, let us make bricks and fire them thoroughly to harden and strengthen them. So they used bricks for stone and they used tar for mortar. And they said, come, let us build a city for ourselves and a tower whose top will reach into the heavens. And let us make a famous name for ourselves so that we will not be scattered and be dispersed over the surface of the earth. Now the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord said, behold, they are one people. They all have the same language. This is only the beginning of what they will do in rebellion and now no evil thing they imagine will be impossible for them. So come, let us go down and mix up their language so that they will not understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad there over the surface of the entire earth and they stopped building the city. Therefore, the name of that city was Babel. First introduction to Babel in all of the Bible. The word Babel literally means confusion. It literally means confusion. It was God's will for the people of the earth

to be populated all over the earth and to have diversity all over the planet. And they were fully committed to their own agenda and to make themselves famous. I want you to hear this. The enemy is. all of his bets on our desire to live only for our self-interest and our drive to live only for ourselves. That's what he's, he's hedging all of his bets. He knows that if he can promote us and give us a little nudge in the right direction of our own self-interest, he wins every time. But every time we choose our self-interest and our desires over God's will and God's way, it will always lead to confusion and chaos. In fact, this Babylonian mentality is such a big issue that it literally shows up and is addressed all over the Bible. So we see it in the beginning of the Bible, in Genesis. Did you know that it shows up again at the end of the Bible, in Revelation? In fact, there are two entire chapters, verse 17 and 18 of Revelation, that are dedicated to God judging the Babylonian mentality. But I'll just pull out one to show you where the genesis of it is. Revelation 17, five. John is writing what he is seeing. He is a disciple, he has been exiled to Patmos,

and while he's there, the book of Revelation is God giving him all of these visions about end-time prophecy, and he's just writing down what he sees in the book. And on her forehead, he saw this woman riding on a beast and written on her a mystery, the Babylon the Great, the mother of prostitutes. Amplified Bible says, false religions and heresies and of the abominations of the earth. In other words, what he's saying is, everything that is unholy in this world, everything that is ungodly in this world, everything that denies God, turns its way from God and his ways, and that walks after itself, and everything that is false and unholy comes out of this Babylonian mentality. But it's not just found in the beginning, not just found in the end. It's also right in the middle of your Bible, not just in Daniel, but it's actually found in the prophetic words of Isaiah. If you go to Isaiah chapter 47, at the top of the heading, it reads the fall of Babylon, and it goes through that. And in Isaiah chapter 47, verse 8-10, watch this. Now then, listen, you lover of pleasure, lounging in your security and saying to yourself, I am, and there is none besides me. I am, and there is none beside me. You have trusted in your wickedness. You've said, no one sees me.

Your wisdom and knowledge misleads you when you say to yourself, I am, and there is none beside me. Ladies and gentlemen, this was the Babylonian creed. It's all me. I'm the only one. There's nobody as special as me. There's nobody as good as me. There's nobody as important as me. There's nothing else that matters in this world. I am the only thing that matters. It is self-worship. It is replacing the worship of God with the worship of self. It was a Babylonian mentality that leads to two dangerous extremes. Number one, here's what it does. It makes me and my desires the most important thing in this life. It makes me worship the wrong trinity. Instead of worshiping God, the Father God, the Son God, the Holy Spirit, we begin to worship me, myself, and I. The biggest scheme and trick of the enemy is to make us think that life is all about me, to get us to believe, watch this, that we're smarter than God, that we know better than God, that we could do a better job of running the world than God.

We could surely do a better job of running our own lives than God. It's the ultimate elevation of self. And when we begin to fall into this Babylonian mentality, it leads to some really, really dangerous traps. For example, it leads to overt self-adoration. It leads us, again, to worship ourselves more than God. And if you don't think we're obsessed with ourselves, take a two-second scroll on Instagram. Get the angle just right now. Don't go low, it gives you double chin. Don't do that. Take a two-second scroll down Facebook. We are obsessed. They have literally dubbed it the selfie generation. The selfie generation. Way too many people are living and dying based on how people perceive them. They live and die on the likes. Look at me, affirm me, recognize me, acknowledge me, praise me, love me, look at me and see what I'm doing. Look at what I'm wearing, do you like it? Do you like it? Look at what I'm not wearing, do you like it? Y'all know I'm preaching now. And too many young women, I mean young women, have learned if they just take it off, they'll get more likes. That if they just take it off and if they just show everything,

that people will affirm them, that people will like them. It's the lie of the enemy and it's the self-adoration. Let me just tell you something, to live and die. by the likes, to live and die, by the shares, to live and die, by whether people affirm you on social media or not is a horrible and unhealthy way to live. But it's where the enemy has taken us and it leads to self-adoration, overt. Not healthy self-esteem, overt self-adoration. Let me tell you what else the Babylonian mentality leads to. It leads to self-building and self-promotion. It's the idea, I got a plan for my own life, God, thank you very much. I've written my own script and I'm gonna focus on doing and building my thing. I'm not even concerned if, God, you have a will or a plan or a purpose for my life. I'm gonna write the plan for my own life. Now, I'm not gonna abandon you because, God, I need you over here in the corner. That way, if something happens along me living out my script that blows up in my face, I need you to bail me out and redeem me. But I'm gonna do me and I just want you to stay over there. Don't call me, I'll call you. If I need you, I'll let you know. But I don't believe that I'm here to serve you. No, no, no, I'm gonna write my own script for my own life

and you're here to just back up my plan. Self-promotion, never seeking the will of God, leads to a third dangerous thing, dangerous self-indulgence. It's this idea that if I like it and it makes me feel good and it seems right to me, then I'm just gonna do whatever I want. I'm gonna live my truth, you live your truth. That means anything and everything goes as long as you're doing what makes you happy, your satisfaction, my personal fulfillment. It's the only thing that matters in life. That is the slipperiest slope and the most dangerous thing that we could ever adopt in life, that I'm just gonna do me whatever makes me happy. Babylonian mentality makes us think only of ourselves, but it's not enough to do that. The enemy's too smart for that. He even takes it a step further. It's not enough just to make you the most important thing in life. No, no, no, he's gotta go farther than that. The Babylonian mentality actually minimizes God and makes us lose trust and think less of him. It's not enough to just make you the most important thing. It actually has to minimize God. And the enemy fuels this by feeding us lies and leading us where he wants us to go. And so there's a bunch of people in this culture and generation that when they hear the truth of God and they hear the word of God, that they have embraced this.

And I've heard it from young people for the last decade of my life. Here's lie number one. Enemy says, well, man, God doesn't really love you because if he did love you, he'd just let you do whatever you want. If he did love you, he would let you do whatever feels right to you. It's the lie that says no loving God would ever tell me to deny myself something that I feel is right or exciting or fun to me. Anybody in this room got any children? Let me see your hands. Yeah, all right, lots of you. How many of you in this room let your children eat ice cream for breakfast every morning? Anybody? No? That's weird. Anybody let your 10-year-old on school nights stay up till 2 a.m. in the morning playing their video games? Anybody? No? Does anybody in this room have five-year-olds that you let play out in traffic because it seems exciting to them and they wanna do it? Anybody? Y'all must hate y'all's kids. No?

No. You love your kids. You love them more than they'll ever fully understand. You love them more than they can comprehend. You love them enough to set boundaries in their life because you wanna keep them from destructive things. And you're willing as a good parent to have conflict with your kids now on this side even though they don't appreciate it or fully understand it and sometimes think you're just a fuddy-duddy and trying to kill their joy. And trying to take away all the fun. But you're willing to do it because you know what they don't know, your ways are higher than, oh man, that's Bible, I think. We gotta be careful about that. That your ways are above their ways. You've lived longer than they are. You've been 10, but they've not been 35. So you understand some things about life. Did you know that even if you don't discipline your kids, even society, this dark, difficult society will deem you a bad parent because you don't create boundaries? And if it goes far enough, they'll even take those children away from you because they're in danger because you don't discipline them enough to put boundaries in their life.

Then why would we ever believe that if we would love our children enough to create boundaries, that if God really did love me, he would just let me do whatever my heart tells me to do? Bible says in Luke chapter 11 that if you think you love your kids, it cannot even be compared to the love that our Heavenly Father has for us. And if we set boundaries for our children because we love them, why would we ever expect God not to set boundaries for us out of his great love? But the enemy comes in and says, ah, man, if he really loved. He just let you do whatever you wanted to do. It's one of the biggest lies the enemy ever tells. How about this one? Here's another one. He's not really for you, man. He's trying to manipulate you. All that Bible stuff, all those principles, all those instructions, they're just trying to kill your joy, trying to manipulate you, trying to control you, trying to get you to do what God wants you to do. It's not really about your best interest in mind. God's just trying to pull one over on you. He isn't for you. He's for himself, and he's after his own self-interest. But if that were true, when we brought him pain,

which we do every day through our disobedience, if God was really just for himself, he would not continuously endure us. He would not continuously be gracious with us. He would not continuously be redemptive with us. He would just do what a God has the power to do. I tried with these, didn't work. Let me just erase them off the planet and start over with a fresh batch, a better batch, maybe more obedient. I don't know if you ever thought about this or not. Bible says that when the enemy fell out of heaven, when he was cast out of heaven, that a third of the angels were cast out with him because he won them over. Do you know there's no plan of salvation or redemption for the angels? No, we're in the Bible, only you. They're better than us, they're smarter than us, they're bigger than us, they're more powerful than we are, and yet God only, if he was only after his self-interest, when we stumbled, when we fell, when we fell out of grace, when disobedience and death came into the world, the very last thing that a God who was only about his self-interest would do is send his only begotten, spotless, sinless son to die on the cross to redeem you and I that were worthy of death. That's not, that doesn't sound self-serving to me. I'm telling you right now, I'm telling you right now

that every instruction in the Bible is for you and me. Every direction in the Bible is for our best interest. Every scripture that is in there, even when you don't agree with it, is for there to protect us and provide the best opportunity at a life that will, yes, bring glory to God, but also fulfillment and peace to me. So, that's the foundation. Now, I wanna go to Daniel because I wanna show you this. I wanna show you a moment where this Babylonian mentality comes crashing down on the Babylonian king that possessed it and what happened that caused God to actually show up in Nebuchadnezzar's life and restore him and redeem him. It's an amazing story. It's an incredible and, quite honestly, a little bit of an odd thing that happened, but it's fascinating and I want you to stick with me. I'm gonna tie all of this together in the next 10 minutes, okay? So, I'm gonna bring everything we talked about, I'm gonna bring it all home and I wanna show you at the end of this message, there are three things that we learn from Nebuchadnezzar, which is wild to me. Three things we learn from Nebuchadnezzar that if you and I can commit to it every day, not only will we survive a dark, difficult, shifting culture, but we can actually thrive in it

and God will do greater things through us and we will not just be a reflection of our dark culture, but we can actually bring light to the darkness and affect it positively. We can do it, but we have to resist and fight this Babylonian mentality. I'm gonna show you what it's about, but let me start right here. Nebuchadnezzar was eaten up with the Babylonian mentality and in Daniel four, he says, I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at home in my palace, content and prosperous. Now, the message translation says it like this. Message says, I was at home taking it easy in my palace, comfortable, rich, and I didn't have a care in the world. What he was literally doing, if you read all of it, is that he was walking around and he began to look at the landscape of Babylon. He's standing on the balcony of his palace and he's literally saying, I have to be the greatest king who's ever lived. Nobody is as smart as me. Nobody is as powerful as me. Nobody has ever done it as good as I've done it. Just look at Babylon. I am the man. He's sitting back, basking in his own self-importance. He's full of himself, self-reliant, self-absorbed, and reflecting on the amazing life that he has created for himself.

Now, I'm not gonna read. I got a lot of scripture I'm about to read, but let me just give you what happens that brings us to this head and point in the story. He's doing that. He goes to bed that night and he has a dream. And Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that's so vivid and so frightening and so compelling that it wakes him up and he's scared to death. And what he sees is he sees this massive, massive tree that is full of fruit and full of branches that is branching out, literally covering the entire nation of Babylon. And then he sees a messenger come down and literally cut that tree down at the stump, leave the stump, leave the roots, but the tree falls over. And when he gets up, he's so perplexed by it and so bothered by it. that he calls in all of his sorcerers and all of his magicians, he tells them the dream, and he says, what does it mean? It was so vivid. I lived it, I was there. I literally feel this dream. What does it mean? And none of them could answer. And somebody in the group said, what about this Hebrew kid Daniel? We've heard he knows stuff. He's interpreted dreams, he understands visions.

Let's go call this Hebrew kid in. Daniel comes in, he says, tell me the dream, old king. And the king tells him the dream, and Daniel says, yeah, I know what it means. And he says, well, what does it mean? And here's what Daniel says. Your majesty, I got bad news, bro. You, the tree. You have become great and strong. Your greatness has grown until it reaches the sky. Your dominion extends to distant parts of the earth. Your majesty saw a holy one, a messenger coming down from heaven and saying, cut down the tree and destroy it, but leave the stump bound with iron and bronze and the grass of the field. This is so important. I'm gonna tell you in a moment. Leave the stump while its roots remain in the ground. Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven. Let him live with the wild animals until seven seasons pass by for him. That's seven years. This is the interpretation, your majesty. And this is the decree. The most high God has issued against my lord, the king. You will be driven away from people and you're gonna live with the wild animals. You're gonna eat grass like an ox. You're gonna be drenched with the dew of heaven.

Seven years will pass for you until you acknowledge that the most highest sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anybody he wishes. Immediately, what he, oh, well, let me stop right there. Let me go back. So here's what, again, he sees this vision. And by the way, how much guts does it take for a king that is that powerful for this young Hebrew boy to actually tell him? Because the temptation would be, yeah, I don't know it either, man. I don't know what it means, even though you might know what it means. Because if you tell this guy what you really know, he could take your head. But he was so compelled by it that Daniel had the courage to tell him the truth. And so the Bible says 12 months later, you would think that that would shake him up, but it didn't. Bible says 12 months later, he is standing on his balcony again and he literally says out loud to himself, I am the man. I am truly the greatest king who has ever lived. Nobody's given me anything. I did all of this myself. And as soon as those words come out of his mouth, verse 33, immediately, what had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He lost his mind.

He went insane. He was driven away from the people and he ate grass and deed like an ox. His body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle, his nails like the claws of a bird. I mean, can you imagine it for seven years? You know how long? Seven years is a long time. I mean, if this happened for seven days, that'd be a long time. But for seven years, they would just see Nebuchadnezzar like a deer out in the field just going nuts, crazy. And they were like, what in the, bro? And somebody would try to approach him and he would just growl at him like a bear. And they were like, dude, I mean, can you just imagine literally how weird and odd and awkward this was? Seven years. But at the end of that seven years, watch what happened. He's speaking in the first person. I, Nebuchadnezzar, I finally raised my eyes toward heaven. And when I acknowledged God, my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High. I honored and glorified him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion. His kingdom endures from generation to generation.

All the strength of the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand. And nobody can say to him, what is this that you have done? In other words, nobody questions God. He is the creator and we are the creation. At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honor and splendor were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisors and nobles sought me out. I was restored to my throne and became even greater than before. This is the power of the stump and the roots. Because even though God humbled him, God did not totally reject him and he was waiting for the day that he repented and God's grace came back into his life. He left the stump, left the roots so that he could grow his kingdom again. God never cast you aside. He'll never cast you aside. It doesn't matter what you've done or what you've said. God's grace is always ready to run back when we repent and turn back to God. Okay, now, I, Nebuchadnezzar, the testimony that this king gives is wild. Now, I, Nebuchadnezzar, listen to the testimony. Praise and exalt and glorify the king of heaven

because everything he does is right and all of his ways are just and those who walk in pride, he is able to humble. Boy, he learned that lesson. Now, all of this is amazing to me, but I want to show you three things that we learn from Nebuchadnezzar, that if we will walk away today and not just say, man, I heard a good sermon today. No, no. It's got to be more than that. It has to be deeper than that. It has to be fuller than that. It has to be more. We have to come to this more serious than that because we are living in a dark, difficult world that is doing everything in its power to try to turn us away from God and turn to ourselves and the Bible says that if the days were not shortened, even the very elect would be deceived. It's serious. And so there are three things that Nebuchadnezzar did that you and I, if we will commit to every single day, we will not only survive a dark shifting culture and it will not get its claws into us, but if we do these three things every single day, we will be able to thrive as the people of God and actually be salt and light, actually be a city that set on a hill that cannot be hid, not only survive and make it to heaven, but thrive and bring glory and honor to the name of God through our lives every day. So we learn it from Nebuchadnezzar. Let me show you what he did that we need to do. Here we go. Starts with this one. It may not be profound to you, but it really is. I will exalt God every day as the most high, not myself. I'm going to make much of God, not much of myself.

I am going to reject the notion. I am going to reject the notion that it is all about me. Here's what he said. Nebuchadnezzar, then I praise the most high, I honored and glorified him who lives forever. Just a while back, seven years ago, he was standing on his porch, glorifying himself, honoring himself, making much of himself. What it means is I'm going to reject the notion every day that I get up, no matter what the world tells me, no matter what social media tells me, no matter what the news tells me, no matter what my friends tell me, no matter I love my mama, but no matter what my mama tells me about how special I really am. I am going to reject the notion that life is all about me, and I'm going to turn from worshiping myself and worshiping and pursuing my desires in life, and I am going to exalt the true king. I am going to make much of the true king. I'm going to keep close accounts with my own soul, and I'm going to remind myself daily that God is first, not me, and that I exist to serve him. He does not exist to serve me. Psalm 145, the psalmist David said, I will exalt you, my God and king. I will praise your name forever and forever. I will praise you. What's that word? Every day. Why? Because every day you're going to get inundated with the lie. It's about you. Every day they're going to try to make it about you. Every day the enemy's going to try to nudge you in the direction of your self-interest and your self-promotion. Every day the world's going to tell you, no, no, no, no, no. Do you.

It's you. You're the most important thing. That's why David said every day I'm going to praise him. I will praise you forever. Great is the Lord. He is most worthy of praise, and no one can measure his greatness. I will exalt God over myself. Number two, I make a decision that I'm going to acknowledge that God's ways, not my ways, but God's ways are true and they're right. I'm not going to let the enemy or the world make me question the motive of God or the word of God and make me not trust him and think less of him like God's not leveling me with me or telling me the truth. Look what Nebuchadnezzar did. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the king of heaven. I love what he says. He says, I now know everything he does is right and all of his ways are true. Everything he does is right and all of his ways are true. I'm going to reject the notion that I know better than God. I'm going to reject the notion that just because I feel something means that it must be true, and even though God is against it, I'm going to do what makes me feel right. No, no, no. I'm going to recognize that I can get confused, that I can be limited, that my ability to know the truth can be squandered. It can be clouded, but God knows the beginning from the end, the end from the beginning, and he can be fully trusted to lead and direct my life because he's a loving heavenly father that actually cares about my best interest. Now if you do that every day, you will learn that when you feel something and it goes in opposition to God's word, you will learn that I have to reject my feeling and go with God. I will accept his word as the standard in my life in every area. Acknowledge God.

Watch this. Proverbs chapter 3. You ever read this one? Trust in the Lord with how much of your heart? Some of it. You know, I'll give God Sunday. You know what I mean. I mean, Sunday, God, that's you. And I'm going to sit and I'm going to amen when the pastor makes a good point. But Monday through Saturday. I don't know man There is no power in the partially surrendered life There is no power in The partially surrendered life you will not experience the fullness of what God promised in our life Until we surrender all of our heart to him do not lean on your own Understanding just because you feel something don't think it's true and there it is again This word keeps creeping up on us. Don't it in all your ways? Acknowledge God, what does that mean? It means in your marriage acknowledge. God is first How does God want me to treat my wife? How does God want me to treat my husband in your finances acknowledge? God don't just tip him but say Lord. What do you want from my life? What do you require from my life? I don't think you're just trying to pull a fast one on me or get something from me I believe that there is a purpose and a reason for generosity in my life And I want to make you the Lord over my finances and all of your speech and all of your habits and all of your ways And every conversation Acknowledge that God is first Look what he'll do He'll make sure your path works out You attract the favor and the power of God into your life when you obey him So here we go three things Every day I choose to exalt God over myself

Number two, I choose to acknowledge that his ways not my ways are always just and right and I'm gonna go with God and trust Him. Here's the third one buckle up I Will remember daily to humble myself Watch what Nebuchadnezzar says now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and exalt and glorify the king of heaven because everything he does is right and all Of his ways are just and let me tell you what I know I've learned firsthand Nebuchadnezzar said people who walk in pride. He knows how to humble I'm 51 I've now lived long enough to understand Hear me now. I'm wrapping it up. I now have lived long enough to understand that humility Will come into your life one way or the other We can initiate humility or God in life will initiate humility and you don't want that Let me tell you the difference true humility is beautiful and it happens when we are mature enough to understand God and ourselves and then to do it on our own acknowledging that God is greater than we are but Humiliation is horrible and happens when we ignore God and leave it up to life to bring us back down humility or humiliation Did you know the Bible never tells us anywhere in the scripture to pray for humility Here's what it says James 4 and 10 Humble yourself before the Lord and when you humble yourself before the Lord He loves to lift you up in honor Standing strong in a self-inflated culture starts by staying down on your face before God We'll say it again standing strong in a self-saturated self-inflated culture Starts by staying face down before your God I Was in a group of pastors meeting And there was a lot of us pastors in this little it was a little small group

we were at a conference, but we got together we were just hanging out as pastors and there was a young church planter in the group and an older seasoned pastor that we all admire that has been pastoring for 32 years and Has a gigantic church and God is used in an incredible way and we admire this guy so much and I was over here in The conversation and this young church planner was asking him I'm about to launch our church and and and and and here's my dreams and here's my ambitions and here's my hopes and that's great That's wonderful. I had them we all have them but he was telling this guy all of his dreams and his hopes and his ambitions and and he said you got any advice for Me and and I overheard him say this and I just thought dude, man Holy smoke because here's what he said. He said yeah, I got a lot of stuff for you And what he was hoping he was going to tell him was you know Here's what you need to focus on if you want to build your church Here's what you need to focus on if you want God to reach a lot of people Here's what you need to focus on in the year one year two He was looking for strategy and he didn't get strategy He just got wisdom because that man looked at him and said listen to me and listen to me carefully a man on his face Can't fall from grace And he said to him he said if your church grows and God moves and uses you in a great way People will try to lift you up and make much of you and act like you're special and you're different than everybody else But you have to understand that that is what the enemy wants to happen And if you buy into it, he's got you right where he wants you the enemy He has nowhere for you to fall if you stay on your face before the Lord. And I said, note to self, that was for me. Because God knows my heart. God knew that in my own mind, I felt like that all of the dreams that I was willing to work for and sacrifice for to make Canvas what it is, was pure. I really believed that. And I still think a lot of it was. But then as I grew older and God dealt with me and the Holy Spirit convicted me and of course I got older in life and I was able to really be self-aware and examine my heart

clearly and look at my motives for what they are and be around some good, wonderful men who were able to speak truth into my life. I began to realize that not every motive was pure. Not every desire to see this place filled two, three times on Sunday was pure. Not everything that I was doing was really driven. Some of it was out of my own insecurity just to be able to prove to people I could do something successful. I'm just being honest with you, man. I don't know how to be any other way. And God in his infinite love and wisdom for me crushed me and crushed me and crushed me and crushed me and crushed me and crushed me and crushed me until I was finally able to say, truly Lord, less of me and more of you. None of this is about me and none of this is even about you. God has called us as a church to be salt and light to a watching world who is looking for peace and truth and hope and the enemies trying to make them chase their tail to find it in everything else and you and I know the truth, whom the sun sets free is free indeed. And when we resist the pull of this culture and we acknowledge we're going to exalt God above ourselves, we are going to accept that his ways are just and right and that we are going to humble ourselves daily and not make much of us but make much of him, we are ready for God to use us to do what only he can do. Come on, let's worship the Lord one time.