Rick Warren - When You Stand for God, He Stands for You

To open your Bibles and to pull out your message notes.

We're in this series that I've been calling Unshakable Thriving

in the Tests of Life, and we've been looking at

the life of Daniel. Now we're going to pick up

where we ended out last time. That Daniel has outlasted

a couple of different kings, and actually he's now an

old man. As we start chapter six, Daniel is about

eighty two years old. We've looked at many of the

tests that he went through as a teenager, and he

passed all those tests, and he kept getting promoted. And

then in the twenties and thirties, he had some other

tests that he went through, and he passed those tests,

and he keeps getting promoted. And then later on in

his years of the fifties and the forties, fifties, sixties,

he has some more tests. And now we come to

his later years and even as an old man, and

he's not through. He's going to do his greatest work

at eighty five years of age. Now let's pick up

where we were last time, where there's a change of kingdom.

The Babylonian Empire had crushed the a Serian Empire, and

now the Persian empire has crushed the Babylonian and so

Daniel's got a new boss again, and it's changed. Let's

watch this on the screen. The Bible says this in

Daniel five twenty nine. King bel Shazar. Remember that was

the guy who had the writing on the wall. Remember him, Okay,

King bel Shazar, he was the grandson of Nevagadazer. He

was the emperor of Babylon. He promoted Daniel to be

the third highest ruler in his kingdom. Now that's the

shortest promotion on record, because it says, but that very

night King bel Shazar was killed by Darius the Mead,

who took over the kingdom at the age of sixty two.

So now the Meads and the Persians have come over

and they've taken over. This is modern day Iraq, and

it's taken over by modern day Iras in the Persians

have taken over the Babylonians. And so there's a new king,

there's a new empire. And usually when you have a

new administration, you clean house and everybody who's serving the

previous guy, they're all gone. But Daniel is such a

man of character that they keep him in the new kingdom.

And Darius the Mead, who has sacked Babylon and has

become now the new king, says, I'm keeping that guy.

I'm keeping that guy. In fact, he puts him as

one of the three governors over all of the empire

that they're now running. Now, why did this guy, Daniel

just keep getting promoted over and over and over. We

see this all through his life. I don't really have

time to cover this, but it's in the text, so

I'm going to give you the fill ins. So write

this and then we're going to get to the real

message here. If you are interested in being promoted at work,

you need to study this text because there are three

reasons Daniel kept promoted at work. Number One, his professional

competence made him stand out. His professional competence made him

stand out. He was a gifted leader, and he never

stopped learning. And there's a lot to say about that,

but I'm not going to say about it. Number Two,

his personal character made him stand out. He was not

just gifted in abilities. He was a good guy. And

the Bible tells us that he was honest, and he

was reliable, and he was hard working, and he was incorruptible.

And they couldn't find anything to attack in his character.

And then the third reason that he stood out was

because of his public commitment to God. And this is

the secret sauce in Daniel's life. He's very open and

very public about his faith and his commitment to God.

And everybody knew where Daniel stood. He prayed in public,

he prayed over his meals, he prayed at home in public.

And the Bible tells us in Daniel, chapter six, verse

five that his co workers concluded, our only chance of

finding any grounds to get rid of Daniel will be

to find something to accuse in his religious practices. They

couldn't find anything wrong with this guy. Now here's the scene.

New Emperor Darius. He appoints three guys to be the

governors over the empire. One of them's Daniel, and under

that he points one hundred and twenty administrators over provinces.

These guys did not like Daniel. We don't know why,

but maybe it was because of his faith. Maybe he

was Jewish. Some of you have faced that kind of

persecution or at least prejudice at work. That there are

people at work who scheme against you. They want your office,

they want you can they want you sacked, they want

you out of there, maybe just because of what you believe.

And so these administrators, they're actually called say traps in

that period, these say traps set a trap to get Daniel,

and they're saying, Okay, we don't want this guy being

our boss. We don't want this guy being our supervisor.

He's just too good, and we're jealous of him. He's

not even from our area. He's Jewish, and so they're

trying to trap him. And they said, the only way

we're gonna be able to trap him is going to

be something to do with his religion. And in Daniel,

chapter six, verse six to nine, here's the plan they

come up with. So the officials who wanted Daniel removed

from office, they go to the king. Now the King

likes Daniel because he's appointed him. Went to the King

and said, King Darius, live forever. You know, they're smoothing

this guy live forever. Now we've convened everybody, and we

all agree that for the next thirty days, everybody should

pray to you. Now this is appealing to the King's ego.

They're going, we got this idea. Why are they making

this law up? Because they know the one guy who

won't obey it will be Daniel. And so they think, well,

now we've got a trap. And so they say to

the king, we're gonna everybody's gonna worship you for thirty days,

this new king. The guys, hey, it sounds like a

good idea. You are the man, Man, you are the man.

And so then it goes on and it says, and

we think that you should issue an edict saying that

anybody who disobeys your order by praying to anyone else

besides you will be tossed into the pit where your

lions are kept. Have you ever heard of Daniel in

the lions den? That's this story, okay. And so he said,

anybody who doesn't pray to the Emperor, we're gonna make

this rule. They're gonna be thrown into the lions, they'll

be eaten to death. And he said, let's put this

decree in writing, so it can't be altered or repealed,

according to the laws of the Meads and the Persians.

So that's exactly what King Darius did. Now, what's going

on here? The Meads and the Persians had a rule

that if you made a law, it could never be rescinded,

It could never be repealed, It could never be revoked.

Even if the king made it, the king could not

revoke it. So they're going, Okay, here's how we're gonna

get rid of this Daniel guy. We don't like this guy.

He's too good. He makes us look bad. And so

what we're gonna do is we'll get a rule that

we know he won't keep because of his faith, and

we'll get it in writing. So then even the king

can't revoke it, because king actually likes Daniel. And so

that's exactly what they did. What are these guys doing.

They're so desperate to get rid of Daniel that they

pass a national law just for one guy's benefit, their

benefit from one guy's hurt. Now, how does Daniel respond

to this rule? He hears about the rule, and he's

got a lot of options. Let me I wrote down

some of the options he could have done when he hears, okay,

for the next thirty days, you can't pray to anybody.

You can't pray to your own god. You can only

pray to the emperor. You can only pray to the king.

So here's some possibilities he could accept. The law and

just fake pray to the king for thirty days. He

could go around and publicly protest with picket signs, will

not pray, will not pray. That's not even to do

any good because it's not a democracy in our country.

You can change the laws, but this is a law

that's now been passed. You can't change it. So all

a protest isn't gonna work. He could appeal privately to

the king. Remember the king liked him so much. You

put him over one third of the kingdom, and he

said he did such a good job. He said, I'm

gonna put him over the entire kingdom. And that's when

the people got jealous. They're gonna put Daniel over the

whole kingdom. No, we got to get him out of there.

And so he could have gone to the king and said, hey, King,

you know we're buds here, can you cut me some slack?

You know I'm Jewish, I worshiped the One True God.

But he doesn't do that. How about this. He could

just keep praying to his God, to the real God,

but just do it in secret, and somebody think, well

why not that? That's okay if you're in a place

and all of a sudden, it's illegal to pray. You

can just still pray in secret. And yes, Daniel could

have done that, but his enemies would have still won,

because the whole purpose of this law was to make

this one guy, Daniel, pull back on his faith, to

be embarrassed by it, to be ashamed of God, and

to not be public about his faith. Daniel, Chapter six,

verse ten eleven says this, When Daniel learned that the

new law had been signed, he went home and knelt

down to pray as usual, so it's his custom. He

does is not what he normally does. He goes home,

he kneels down, he prays in his upstairs room with

the windows wide open toward Jerusalem, so anybody can see

him praying. He's not doing this in secret. And he

prayed three times a day, just as he had always

done his entire life, thanking and praising God. So he's

not going to back down on what he does. And

it says so Daniel's enemies went together to Daniel's house

to catch him praying and asking God for help. Of course,

he knew this was going to happen. They knew what

was going to happen. It's the whole reason they did this. Now,

why did Daniel do this? Why was he unafraid of

this law? He goes what I know I'm about to do,

I'm going to be penalized for it. In fact, I

could lose my life. I'm going to be thrown into

a pit with a bunch of lions. This is capital

punishment for what I'm doing praying in public. I know

many of you use the Daily Hope Devotionals as part

of your regular Bible study, and so I want to

share some exciting news. We've put three hundred and sixty

five of the best devotionals into a brand new book

that we're calling the Daily Hope Devotional, Purpose, Peace, and

Promise for every Day. This devotional book is designed with

clear practice biblical teaching to help you make knowing God

your number one priority. I believe it will help you

stay focused on God throughout the day as He provides

you with real purpose, lasting peace, and his unfailing promises.

Imagine starting every day like that. This book is a

great way to share the hope you have in Jesus

with your friends, co workers, and relatives. I hope you'll

get a copy for everyone you know.

Be sure and request your copy when you partner with

daily Hope to take the word of God to a

hurting world.

Now, why was Daniel fearless? Why was he unafraid to

stand out at work? Why was he afraid to speak

up for God at work? Well, I studied this text

and let me give you three summary statements. Write these down,

and if you want to have courage at work, you

need to know these three things. If you want to

stand out at work and you want to speak up

for God at work, you need to know how Daniel

did it. Number one, he remembered that God was faithful

in past tests. He remembered that God was faithful in

past tests. And what I mean by that is through

his entire life. He looked back and goes, you know,

every time I'm going to through one of these tests

or threats, I trust God and God takes care of me.

When I was a teenager, I said, I can't eat

that kind of food. I have to eat koshier food.

And God took care of him. When they in the

previous king said you got to bow down before this

golden idol or you get thrown in the furnace. He said,

we're gonna have to trust God, and they trusted God,

and God took care of him. And when he had

to deliver bad messages to previous kings and say, sorry,

your time's up, You're going to die tonight. Nobody wants

to tell a king you're going to die tonight. But

he told him the truth, letting the chips fall where

they may be, and God took care of him every time.

You when you start to feel frightened and think, I

can't talk about God at work, I can't talk about

God at school because other people may get threatened or

they may threaten me, and I could lose my job,

and I could lose my house, or I could lose

my promotion, or I could lose my friends or reputation. Whatever.

You need to remember how God has been faithful to

you in the past. The second reason he was fearless

is because he had a conversation with God three times

a day. That's what that verse just said. It says

that he would kneel down to pray as usual in

his upstairs room when does wide open, and he prayed

three times a day, just as he'd always done his

entire life. Okay, he has a conversation with God three

times a day. Do you think if you talk to

God three times a day, every day of your life

for eighty two years, that might make you more bold? Yeah?

You think if you had that kind of you had

a conversation with God three times a day for your

entire you think that would make you more confident, less

worried about what other people think, less worried about the

disapproval of other people. Yes. Absolutely. Now I'm going to

give you a sentence right now. If you don't get

anything else, I say this weekend. This is the message summarized.

The key to standing strong is kneeling often. You might

write that down the key to standing strong is to

kneel often. The more you pray, the more confidence you're

going to have as a woman, as a man at work,

at school, when you are called to do the right

thing and you go. Everybody's against it, but it's the

right thing to do. The more you kneel, the more

you'll stand strong. Daniel had a conversation with God three

times a day. That gave him his strength. And then

there was a third reason why Daniel wasn't worried about this.

He'd been through all these tests. He was talking to

God every day. And the third reason is he knew

that the rewards were greater than the risks, The rewards

of doing the right thing were greater than the risks. Now,

was it risky for him to disobey the law? Of course?

Was there a punishment? Yes? Was he actually thrown in

the pit? Yes, God could have kept him out of

the pit of lions, but he allowed him to go

and then shut the lion's mouth, which was a bigger miracle. Now, listen,

there's some problems you would like God to keep you

out of. But God's gonna let you go into those

problems and then he's going to solve them in a

miraculous way. And there's more glory for him in that

He's not gonna keep you out of every problem. He's

gonna put you sometimes in the pit. Some of you

are in the pit right now. Some of you could

put names on your lions. The people are trying to

vour you, The people trying to eat you up. The

people are trying to ruin your life. They don't like

you for whatever reason. You're in the pit, or you're

facing a bunch of hungry lions who want to eat

your lunch and God often will not keep you away

from He'll let you go in the pit, and then

he'll do the miracle of shutting the mouths of the lions,

which is an even bigger miracle. But there were rewards

to doing the right thing. But there are also risk,

but Daniel knows the rewards are greater than any risks. Now,

most people I know deal with fear their entire lives.

You have secret fears you don't want anybody else to

know about. There's certain things that make your heart palpitate,

that make you go into sweat, that you go into

a panic. How do you deal and defeat a controlling

fear in your life? Here's the key. Anytime you want

to defeat a controlling fear in your life. Daniel has

this fear. Hey, I could be eaten by onlines, but

he obviously isn't worried about it. What you do is

you minimize the potential problem, so the potential negatives in

this risk, and you maximize the positive benefits of it

of doing the right thing, even when you're scared to death.

Let me say that again. One of the ways you

deal with fear in life is when you're afraid to

do something and you start to think, but this could happen,

and this could happen, and this could happen, and this

could happen. What if and what if? And what? That's

the potential negatives, And you spend all your time focusing

on that, you're just going to become more and more

and more fearful. You have to mentally choose to shift

your focus from the potential negatives, to minimize the potential negatives,

to maximize the benefits of doing the right thing. If

I do the right thing, even though I'm scared to

do it, what are going to be the benefits of it?

And when you focus on that, it dramatically lowers your fear. Now,

for that reason, what I want to do this weekend

is talk to you about six benefits. You may have

never thought of. These six benefits that happen in your

life every time you stand strong for God in the

face of opposition, at work, at school, or anywhere else.

Six things that happen to your life for good when

you do the right thing instead of giving in to

your fears. All right, let's look at these. Number one,

and we learn all of these in the life of Daniel.

The first benefit is this every time I do the

right thing, I stand for God. I stand for truth.

I stand for morality and ethics and good things. Everything.

Standing for God is a victory over fear. Standing for

God is a victory over fear. And that is one

of the biggest controlling factors in your life. If you

can get victory over fear, you're gonna be fearless. You're

gonna be amazing. You can do things that other people

will never be able to do because most people are

in a prison of self imposed fear and any think

I can't do this because of this, this, this and

this and this and this. What is fear. Fear is

false evidence appearing real. Fear it's not real. It's fearful.

In fact, the fear is always bigger than the reality.

A lot of times you're afraid of you know what's

in that closet, and you open the closet. It's not

a boogeyman, it's a teddy bear. The fear is always

worse than the reality because the reality doesn't last a

long time, but the fear can keep going on and

on and on if you allow it to keep coming

into your life and you keep thinking about it, thinking

about it, and thinking about it, and you can make

yourself miserable. And you know, if you have an event

that's out there in the future and you're afraid, I'm

going to be so nervous at that event, and then

you spend a year getting nervous about it, and you

ruin an entire year when that event would only be

maybe ten minutes, fifteen minutes. Now, there's a lot I

could say about this, but let me just give you

a few pointers. Write these down. Number one, Fear is

just a feeling, and it cannot last. Fear is just

a feeling, and it cannot last. By their very nature,

every feeling is temporary. Every emotion is temporary. No emotion

can last, whether it's good or bad. This happiness lasts no. See,

when you are having a particular feeling, you think I'm

going to feel this way the rest of my life.

But you're not. You're not gonna feel that way the

rest of you all because no feeling can last forever.

They're just temporary. They run out of steam. So if

you're depressed, and you feel depressed, you think I'm going

to be depressed the rest of your life. No, you're not. No,

you're not you're projecting in the future. You're taking a

temporary feeling and projecting it as a permanent lifestyle. I'll

always be depressed, No you won't. If you feel guilty,

I'm always No, you won't. If you have grief, I'm

always going to be in grief. No you won't. Every

emotion is temporary, whether it's anger, or whether it's joy,

good or bad, happiness, sadness. They said, I'm frustrated, I'll

be frustrated the rest of my life. No you won't.

You just need to remember that you should not ever

let your emotions control your decisions or control your commitments.

And if you know the right thing to do at work,

and you know to say the right thing at work,

you say, well I feel this way right now. The

person who says I just go by my feelings is

manipulated by their moods. Your feelings lie to you all

the time. They are f e a are false evidence

appearing real. It feels real, but it's not real. It

doesn't matter how you feel. Only Jesus is real. And

so the first thing I would say is if you

want to stand for God, but you're afraid to take

a stand for God at work. It's because you're listening

to your feelings and no feeling. Fear is just feeling.

Can't last forever. Here's a second thing. Fear is uncomfortable,

but it won't kill me. Now, when you're afraid, you

think it's gonna kill you, because your palms get sweaty,

and your heart starts pumping extra and you get a

little shortness of breath, and you feel a tightness in

your chest, and you feel like your world is spinning

out of control, and you start to panic, and it

feels like you're gonna die. But you're not gonna die.

People don't die out of fear. It's uncomfortable to do

something that's fearful, but it's not gonna kill you. And

once you've done it, the fear subsides. Here's another truth.

Fear grows when I get into it, but it lessens

when I move against it. Fear grows when I give

into it, but it lessens when I move against it.

If you keep giving into fear, like I know I

should make amends with that person, but I'm afraid to.

I know I should ask forgiveness, but i'm afraid to.

I know I should offer forgiveness but I'm afraid to.

I know I should do this, I know I should

talk to that person about the Lord, but I'm afraid to.

Every time you give in that fear, the fear gets

bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and

pretty soon it dominates your life. It keeps pushing you

further and further back till you're cornered in a corner

and you can't do anything with your life. Now, how

do you get rid of that fear? You move against it.

Fear does not respond to logic because it's illogical. It's

false evidence appearing real. Fear does not respond to logic.

The only way you get rid of fear is this,

Do the thing you fear the most, and when you

do it, it starts to subside. You have to stay

into the Jordan river before the water's part, and then

the water's part. God didn't say stand on the edge

and keep saying I'm afraid, I'm afraid, I'm afraid. I'm afraid.

God part the waters, then I'll walk through. God said, no,

you first, that's called faith, that's called faith. Will you

trust me? I've told you this many times that over

thirty six years at saddleback. Every single major decision in

the history of this church, from when it was just

K and me in an apartment, Every single major decision

I was scared to death to do. But I did

it anyway. Why Because I'm not gonna let fear dominate

my life. Because I believe that we are to build

our lives on great promises and great promises, principles, and

great purposes, but not on great panic. And so you

just do the thing you're afraid, And you know what,

the fear goes away that you move against your fear,

You do what the thing you fear the most. What

is it that you're most afraid? Well, I'm afraid to

talk to people about my faith. Why well, what will

they think of me? I might lose my job? Are

you kidding? Are the rewards worth the risks? You gotta

think this one through. Anytime you let fear dominate your life,

your life gets smaller and smaller and smaller. But every

time you stand firm, stand strong for God, and you

move against your fear, the fear is just kind of subside.

They move away. I know many of you use the

Daily Hope devotionals as part of your regular Bible study,

and so I want to share some exciting news. We've

put three hundred and sixty five of the best devotionals

into a brand new book that we're calling the Daily

Hope Devotional Purpose, Peace, and Promise for every Day. This

devotional book is designed with clear, practical biblical teaching to

help you make knowing God your number one priority. I

believe it will help you stay focused on God throughout

the day as He provides you with real purpose, lasting peace,

and his unfailing promises. Imagine starting every day like that.

This book is a great way to share the hope

you have in Jesus with your friends, coworkers, and relatives.

I hope you'll get a copy for everyone you know.

Be sure and request your copy when you partner with

Daily Hope to take the word of God to a

hurting world.