Rick Warren - Will You Stand Strong For God Publicly Part One

Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I'm so glad you're here.

Today.

We're going to continue our series called Unshakable. Rick is

taking us through the Book of Daniel and that so

we'll be equipped to handle whatever curveball life throws at us,

even the most difficult trials. And now here's Rick with

part one. And it's actually a question. The message is

called will you stand strong for God? Publicly?

We've been in this series on Daniel now for a

long time, and we come to the eighth major test

in Daniel's life. Now, at this point, Daniel is an

old man. We started when he was a teenager. He

was a prisoner of war at fifteen, and we saw

three or four tests in his life even while he

was a teenager. And then we look at some tests

in his twenties and in his thirties, and then in

his middle years. And now Daniel is about eighty two

years old. He has survived through at least two three

now his third king, two different empires, the Babylonian Empire

which crushed the Assyrian Empire, and now the Persian Empire.

This is all in history. Crushed the Babylonian Empire and

Daniel was such an amazing man and leader and a

man of integrity that every single leader wanted to keep

him on. You know, usually when he gets a new administration,

a clear house, and all of the people who were

serving in the previous administration they're all gone. But Daniel

keeps getting rehired, rehired, and actually keeps getting promoted. Now

we're going to pick up from where we ended last time,

that he had outlasted two Babylonian kings, Nebukanezer and his

grandson Belshazar. And now he gets a new boss called

Darius the Mead, who is a general with another guy

named Cyrus the Persian. Cyrus the Great and Darius the

Mead actually killed Daniel's previous boss, Belle Shaser, and ransacked

the city of Babylon. He destroys the city, takes it over,

but says, I'm keeping Daniel. This is an amazing man.

Now look up here on the screen. Here's where we

left off last time. King Belshasle. Remember that's the guy

who saw the writing on the wall. Remember that, and

he said, your days are numbered. It's over, buddy. You

didn't honor God. King Belshazer promoted Daniel, here's another promotion

to be the third highest ruler in his kingdom. However,

that wasn't a very long promotion because it says 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 Daniel is still in the royal Palace in Babylon,

but he's got a new boss, and the guy's not

a Babylonian, he's actually a Mead and a Persian. And

once again he gets promoted to a more powerful position,

changing bosses, but the new guys keep promoting him. My

first question before we actually get in into what I

want to speak about this weekend is why what was

it about this guy so unique that he kept getting

promoted at work? Because if we could bottle that, I'd

sell it to you. Who doesn't want to be promoted

in life? Who doesn't want to be progressing up a

ladder to greater effectiveness, greater efficiency, greater influence, greater income,

and things like that? So why did Daniel keep getting

promoted at work? Well? In Daniel Chapter six, which is

the chapter we're in this week, in the next reverses,

it tells us the three reasons. So listen, if you're

interested in getting a promotion at work, pay attention to

the next reverses, because these are the three reasons Daniel

outlasted everybody else at his workplace. I want you tell

last everybody at your workplace. I want you to keep

getting promoted. And there were three reasons why Daniel kept

getting promoted from teenager until now he's eighty two years old,

and he still hasn't done his best work. His best

work was actually done at age eighty five, so he's

not finished. He doesn't believe in the word retirement, and

by the way, neither do I, because it's not in

the Bible. Okay, now you may change jobs. You know

you earlier in life. You may be paid to good,

do good. Now you're good for nothing. All right, So

here are the three reasons Daniel kept getting promoted a

work Number one, his professional competence made him stand out.

His professional competence made him stand out. It is clear

this guy is a gifted leader. But more than that,

he learned. He was a student. We talked about this

a few weeks ago. All leaders are learners. The moment

you stopped learning, you stopped leading. He was a student

of God's word. He was a student of people. He

was a student of history, he was a student of culture.

The Bible says that he spent his entire life learning.

He just kept getting wiser and wiser and wiser. Now,

if you make wisdom a goal of your life, there's

no end to that one. You can just keep getting

better and better and better. You know, there are some

careers that peak pretty early in life. I once did

a study of this. For instance, if you want to

be a female Olympic gymnast, you peak at about seventeen,

and then you're going to be replaced by somebody else

who's fourteen or fifteen or sixty, because your body just

isn't that limber when you're twenty five. It's certainly not

at thirty five. If you're going to play in the NFL,

you know you're going to peak at maybe twenty eight,

twenty nine years old. In different careers, you know you

peak at a certain level and then it's over. But

if you decide to be a woman or a man

who says I want to be a woman of wisdom,

I want to be a man of wisdom at eighty

five years old, you'd be a whole lot wiser than

you were at eighty four and eighty three and eighty two.

And it's one area you can just keep growing it.

So he kept growing in competence. He was more skilled,

he was more effective. The Bible says this in Daniel six,

verse three. Now Daniel so distinguished himself above all the others,

the other governors and the administrators that were called the satraps,

by his exceptional qualities, that the king planned to put

Daniel in charge of the entire kingdom. You know, the

Bible tells us in the first verses before that that Darius,

when he took over the kingdom, he reorganized and he said,

I'm going to have one hundred and twenty provinces in

the Babylonian Empire, which I now run. He wasn't Babylonian

one hundred and twenty, and I'll have an administrator over

each one, and have three governors over that. And he

chose Daniel as one of the three governors. So Daniel

was one of the three most powerful men in the empire.

But he did such a good job that it says

here Daniel so distinguished himself above all the other governors.

There were three of them, and all the administrators the

state tripes. That's one hundred and twenty. By his exceptional qualities,

the king planned to put him in charge of the

entire kingdom. He's eighty two years old. He's getting another promotion.

That's a wise leader. Professional competence number two. Second reason

he kept getting promoted. His personal character made him stand out.

Not just professional competence, but personal character. This was a

man of integrity. He was a man of generosity. He

was a man of humility. He was a man of

godliness and goodness and kindness and wisdom. And the Bible

says in the next verse, verse four, when the administrators

they were called say traps in that day, when the

administrators heard the news, they tried to find a reason

to undermine Daniel in his work, and they accused him

of misconduct. But they were unable to do so. They

could not find anything to say against him. WHOA He

was honest, reliable, hard working, and incorruptible. He was never

lazy or negligent in any task. Well, no wonder he

kept getting promoted. I'd like to hire this guy, and

so would you. Now notice we don't know why but

these underlings who were in the provinces, they didn't like

Daniel being their boss, probably because he was Jewish, but

they started trying to undermine him. You may be in

a work situation right now that there are some people

who are conspiring against you at work because of your faith,

because you're a Christian, and you know, they don't really lie,

they don't have any reason. They're not like you. You're

a good person, but because of your faith, they just

want you out. And sometimes you get into an office

where everybody's familiar with office politics, and people are scheming

and conniving behind your back, and they want your office

and they want to get you moved out. And this

is what happened here. The administrators in this new administration

here that Daniel, who's one of the top three guys,

is going to be given the whole kingdom, and they

know we're not going to have that happen. We're not

going to serve that guy, and so they start looking

for a way to trap him, to say traps, set

up a trap for Daniel, and it says they couldn't

find anything to say against him. What a testimony that's

certainly not true of me. There's a lot of things

people can say against me. It's probably not true of you.

There's probably a lot of things people can say against you.

But this guy says when they went looking for dirt, scandal,

a skeleton in the closet, hypocrisy, bad character, whatever, they

were looking for anything, it says they could not find

anything or unable to find anything to say against him,

because he was honest and reliable and hard working, and

his personal character made him stand out. He was professionally competent,

but he was also personally a man of character. But

there's a third element, and this is the most important

one of all, and it's this. His public commitment to

God made him stand out. His public commitment to God

made him stand out. He just didn't have personal professional

competence and personal character. He had a public commitment to God.

Daniel's very open. He's very public about his faith, about

his love for God, about his commitment. He praised in

the open. He talks about God in the open. Remember,

he had led nebuchon Nezzar to faith in Christ or

faith in God. And everybody knew where Daniel stood religiously,

where his faith was, where his allegiance was, and including

his jealous coworkers. And it says in verse five that

his coworkers these enemies who were conspiring to get him

fired at work. That's what's happening here. And you may

have some co workers who are conspiring to get you

fired at work. He says, his coworkers concluded, our only

chance of finding any grounds to get rid of Daniel

will find something to accuse in his religious practices. Wow,

he said, the guy's done nothing wrong. He's spotless. Do

we need leaders like that in America? Don't get me started.

Don't get me started. We need leaders of integrity like this.

They said, we can't find anything wrong with him today?

Can you find anything right with him? And so the

say traps concloct a Daniel trap, and let's read the

story and then we'll extract some lessons for today. Up

here on the screen, it says this verse six to nine.

So the officials who wanted Daniel removed from office went

to the king. This is Darius, and they said, King Darius,

live forever. They're buttering them up. Oh you're so great,

you are the man Darius, You live forever, buddy. And

he says, we've convened everyone of course not Daniel. And

we've all agreed that for the next thirty days everyone

should pray to you. What are they doing. They're appealing

to this guy's ego. Oh you're so great, you're the man.

We just think, you know, yeah, everyoney's got the religion here.

And actually the Babylonians and the Persians, they really didn't

care so much about what you leave. There wasn't a

standard religion. But they said, we really think everybody should

pray to you for thirty days. Now they're setting this

up just to make a trap for day Daniel. And

they said, and we think that you should issue an

edict saying that anyone who disobeys your order by praying

to anybody else during the next thirty days will be

tossed into the pit where your lions are kept. Ever

heard of Daniel in the lions den? This is the story.

And let's put this decree in writing so it can't

be altered or repealed, according to the laws and the

Meds and the Persians. So that's exactly what King Darius did. Now,

the law of the means in a Persian is very

famous in history, and it's this. If a king made

a law it could never be reversed, and even the

king couldn't reverse it if he'd signed it into the law.

According to the law leads in person. Once it was law,

it could not be rescinded, could not be revoked, could

not be repealed, and the king couldn't even do it

himself even if he made the law. And so that

that's why they said, don't just make this edict, make

a law and write it and sign it. And what

are they doing. They're kissing up to this guy's ego,

And in a moment of weakness and ego, Darius goes, sure,

why not, So he signs this law. Everybody has to

pray to me for the next thirty days. Now, these

guys are so desperate to get rid of Daniel that

they pass a national law just to hurt one guy.

There's only one guy there worried about. This is one guy,

because then everybody knows Daniel is a believer, and he

prays in the open and he talks about God in

the open. Now, how do you think Daniel responded to

this test? Everybody's got to stop praying to anybody else,

and you got to pray to the emperor for thirty days. Well,

he's got a lot of options, so let's put us

up here on the board. Here's some options he could.

Number one, he could accept the law and kind of

fake pray to the king for thirty days. He wouldn't

obviously be praying to him, but he could pretend. He

could just go, Okay, I'm just going to go with

the flow the law of the land, and so I'm

gonna I'm just gonna go ahead and fake pray to

the king for thirty days. That's an option. Okay. Here's

a second one. He could publicly protest the law with

picket signs. Okay, he could go down to the palace

with the biggest say I won't pray, I won't pray,

I won't pray. Okay, Okay, that's a possibility, but it's

not going to do any good because the law of

the meeds and Persian. This is not a democracy in America.

Law is going to be changed, and you can protest

and you can change laws, but this is not a democracy,

so there's no way this law is going to be

presented no matter how much he protests. Here's the third possibility.

He could appeal privately to the king. Obviously, Darius liked him.

He had promoted him to the third in command and

then was going to put him over the entire kingdom.

So he's got a good relationship with the king. He

could probably just go back to our channel and say, heiking,

come on, cut me some slack on this. You know

I'm Jewish, you know I believe in the true God,

and you know, once you just cut some corners here

and let me do it. He could appeal privately, but again,

even the king couldn't reverse this law. Here's another possibility.

He could just stop praying to God for thirty days.

Not pray to the emperor, but just stop praying to

God for thirty days. That's an option, not a good one,

but it's an option. Here's another one. Number five. He

could keep praying to God, the real God, just do

it in secret. Now some of you think, what's wrong

with that? Okay, the law says you can't do it,

but you're canna break the lodges. Keep praying, but pray

in secret. Well, although Daniel could do this, if he did,

his enemy just won what they wanted because they wanted

to embarrass him. They wanted him to back down off

his faith and he was the kind of guy who

prayed in public. He prayed before meals. I know some

Christians who are afraid to pray before meals in a restaurant.

What will other people think? Maybe they think of a fanatic,

and so I'll pray in secret. But I'm not going

to pray when I go to Chile's or when I

go to some other restaurant, and I'm just afraid of

what other people think. Well, he could have done that.

But if he'd done that, then those guys actually win

because they're trying to get him to back down and

to cave in and to be ashamed of his God.

Then there is of course a sixth option, which is

keep praying in public, as he'd done all his life.

In other words, it was his habit and it was

his customer. Now, which of those six options would you

choose if you were Daniel, The easiest one, the convenient one,

or the one that in all likelihood would throw you

into a pit with a bunch of alliance. I think

the big question of this text is this, how far

are you willing to go for your faith? Or, as

the title of the messages, will you stand strong for

God publicly? Hey?

Thanks so much for listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope.

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