Voices of Truth // Having Conviction (Daniel) // Guest Speaker Pastor Cody Kishimoto

Hey, can we give it up for Makea who gave our communion talk this morning?

I think she did such a great job.

Makea is one of our youth interns, so that was part of her internship giving a communion talk.

Man, it's not an easy thing to do to get up here in front of the church and speak.

So awesome job, Makea.

We're so proud of you.

Hey, you guys get to be here on a very special Sunday.

If you didn't know this, today is next gen Sunday because one of our values here is that the next generation is not the church of tomorrow, but the church of today.

We are in a series called Voices of Truth, looking at some Old Testament prophets and how they spoke truth into their culture, truth into this time.

And we're gonna be talking about a young man named Daniel this morning.

And Daniel's only about 15 years old.

When we get to meet him today, just a young man, young teenager, really.

You know, for me, I'm used to preaching or being around the kids and kingdom kids or youth in youth group.

And I'm always like the old guy in there.

Like I'm kind of they call me Unk, like you're the Unk in the room, right?

But something I love about Sunday morning is I look around.

It's like I you guys make me feel a little younger.

That's all I'm gonna say.

You guys didn't like that one?

All right.

Made me feel younger, so thank you guys for that.

However, however, I am getting older.

I'm not old yet, but I'm getting older.

And something that happens when you get older, besides all the aches and the pains, and you know, waking up and you slept wrong, so now your neck doesn't work right for no reason at all.

Something that happens as you get older is you start to become a little more like your parents.

Maybe you've experienced this if you have kids, you start to say things your parents used to say, and all the parents go, You watch out, you're gonna grow up to be just like me.

That's when you tell your kids, right?

Maybe you say things like your kid asks you to buy them something at the store.

You're like, what do you think?

Does money grow on maybe I don't know if your parents ever told you this lie.

I don't know if this was unique to me.

But if you're driving in the car at nighttime and your kid turns on the light in the car, did you guys ever get this lie?

It's like you can't turn the light on in the car, your parents are gonna give you a ticket.

Who whose parents told them that lie?

Yeah, we all had the same child that it's crazy.

Or how about this one?

If a kid's eating a watermelon and there's seeds in the watermelon, it's like you can't swallow the seeds, otherwise a tree's gonna grow in your tummy, right?

We've all kind of heard these things, say these things, repeat them.

Why?

Because our parents shaped a lot of who we are, they influenced us throughout our lives, they shaped a lot of who we are, but I think one of the mistakes we make is we think that who we're becoming stops at childhood.

We think that who we're shaped into kind of stops when we turn 18.

That's not true.

We are constantly being shaped by everything that's around us.

Everything is telling us what to think, what to do.

Here's the question: what is shaping who you are becoming?

All around us, things are telling us what we're supposed to be, who we're supposed to be.

Something is shaping us.

We just don't always realize it.

Every moment of your life is shaping who you are.

And today we're gonna look at a young man named Daniel in Daniel chapter one.

This 15-year-old kid, are you guys ready to dive in if you are?

Would you say amen?

Amen.

All right, Daniel 1, 3 through 7, this is what it says.

The king ordered Eshpanaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the Israelites from the royal family and from the nobility, young men without any physical defect, good looking, suitable for instruction in all wisdom, knowledgeable, perceptive, and capable of serving in the king's palace.

He was to teach him the Chaldean language and literature, and then it goes on.

They were to be trained for three years, and at the end of that time they were to attend the king.

Among them from the Judites were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishel, and Azariah, or you might know them as this.

The chief eunuch gave the names, he gave them the name Beltishazzar to Daniel, Shadrach to Hananiah, Meshach to Meshel, and Abendigo to Azariah.

So, what's happening in this text?

What do we learn from this?

The first thing is this number one, Babylon seeks to reprogram them.

Babylon tries to reprogram them.

This is just to give you context, what's going on in Daniel?

There is a nation of Babylon that goes to war with the nation of Israel.

And Babylon defeats the nation of Israel.

They go through this massive war, and Israel's now living in what is called the Babylonian captivity.

That Babylon has captured them, and now they're living under Babylonian rule.

And after Babylon defeats Jerusalem, there's this king, this big bad guy named Nebuchadnezzar.

And Nebuchadnezzar doesn't just want land, he doesn't just want an empire, he wants to control the future.

So that's why he tells them to go out.

He takes the young, good-looking, talented Israelites, the ones from royal nobility, and he tells his servants, like, go get all the best-looking, all the influential people, and I want you to bring them to me.

Here's why they did this.

This is how ancient empires would work.

Instead of ruling from a distance and like trying to quell their subjects and keep them under control, they would take these young influential people and they would try to reprogram them.

They would train them how to act like good Babylonians so that they could release them to go influence their friends to become just like them.

They would teach them the Babylonian language and culture.

They would train them in Babylonian ideas and values.

They would even change their names to fit Babylonian gods and identities.

In other words, Nebuchadnezzar is trying to reprogram them, retrain them to turn them into royal Babylonians to go and influence the children of God to change who they are, to change their identity.

And this same type of cultural takeover is still happening today.

We think this is like an old, ancient thing that they did in empires.

This is exactly what our culture is still doing right now.

Here's how Babylonians change them versus how culture tries to change us.

Number one is this education changes.

What shapes your mind?

Babylon, they're taught Babylonian language and literature.

Man, today culture shapes your mind through school systems, through social media.

Everything we're constantly looking at is constantly giving us messages of what we're supposed to be.

Podcast, media, music, content that we consume every day is all designed to shape us, to re-educate us.

Number two is this environment changes.

What surrounds you?

In Babylon, they're placed in the king's palace, away from all their godly friends, away from all their godly influence.

Today culture will keep us busy, even with good things like work, sports, family events, to say, ma'am, I'm too busy to be in a growth group, I'm too busy to be there on a Sunday to try to remove us from these environments where Christ-like people are.

Number three, their identity changes.

Who you believe you are.

Babylon, they would change their names and say, Hey, you can't go by your old name anymore.

We're gonna give you a new identity.

Today's culture gives us labels based on success, relationships, performance, sexuality, appearance, how we look, these are all the things that define us.

Here's why this is so important is because culture doesn't need to destroy your faith.

It just needs to slowly redefine it.

Just needs to slowly the things you used to think were bad, just hey, maybe that's not so bad.

Maybe this is actually okay.

We say things like this there used to be truth in the world.

Now we say, what's your truth?

Or what's true for you?

Now we used to have tolerance, which just meant like, hey, we can disagree with each other and still love and respect one another.

But tolerance has kind of shifted to if you don't affirm everything that I am and everything that I believe, you don't love me, you don't care about me.

Identity.

We used to have a God-given identity for who God says we are to hey, you can identify however you feel like, however you want to be.

You can just place an identity on yourself, and that's who you can be.

And these things have just slowly shifted over time.

And if we're not careful, we can wake up one day and realize that we've allowed culture to shape our beliefs, allowed culture to shape our convictions in our lives.

Their algorithms every day being fed on our phones are teaching us how we're supposed to think.

Did you guys know this?

The average person sees 4,000 to 10,000 advertisements every single day.

On the low end, you see 4,000, on the high end, you see 10,000, and you probably don't even realize it.

Every day someone's trying to sell you, if you get this, you're gonna be cool, you have to dress like this, you have to think this way, you have to talk this way.

If you buy this new workout program, you're gonna be ripped and shredded.

Every single day we're being fed all of these things to try to change who we are.

So here's the question in today's culture: how do we stand strong?

How do we stop from allowing culture to define us and make sure that it's God that is defining us?

Number two, this is what Daniel shows us Daniel's determination.

Daniel's determination, he says this in Daniel 1, verse 8.

Daniel 1:8

He says, Daniel determined that he would not defile himself with the king's food.

Or with the wine he drank, so he asked permission from the chief eunuch not to defile himself.

There's a key word here that says, determined.

Daniel made a decision when he was captured, taken away from his family, taken away from godly influence.

He determined that he was still gonna follow the ways of God.

He made a decision that for me, no matter what happens, I'm gonna do things God's ways.

That's something we would call a conviction.

Daniel made a conviction in his life.

Here's what a conviction is a conviction is a deeply held belief that determines how you live.

It's a deeply held belief that determines the way you're gonna live, the things you're gonna do, the things you won't do.

The way Daniel was able to stand strong in this culture is that he had convictions, decisions that you predetermine before the temptation comes, before the temptation happens, you've already decided this is what I'm gonna do, this is how I'm gonna react.

Daniel shows us that the way we stop culture from reprogramming us is that we have to stop compromising in our walks with God by having convictions in our life.

And here's why.

If you don't determine your convictions, culture will determine them for you.

If you don't determine what your convictions are, culture are gonna feed them to you.

They're gonna tell you what you're supposed to believe, they're gonna tell you how you're supposed to feel about everything you see.

If you don't determine your convictions, culture will determine them for you.

Babylon wanted Daniel to adopt their values, their beliefs, their lifestyle, but Daniel had conviction in his life.

When they tried to give him the food, he refused it.

Not because he didn't like Babylonian cooking, but because he wanted to follow God's way for his life.

He understood this it's the small daily decisions that form who you become.

He understood that small compromises, something as small as just eating food, can create huge consequences in your life.

And then the chapter continues.

Daniel does something super bold.

He actually challenges them and he puts his conviction to the test.

Verse 11, it says, So Daniel said to the guard, whom the chief eunuch had assigned to Daniel, Hananiah, Misha, and Azariah, please test your servants for ten days.

Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink, then examine our appearance and the appearance of the young men who are eating the king's food, and deal with your servants based on what you see.

Daniel says, Hey, let's test this out.

Daniel was the original vegan.

He said, We're gonna go on this vegan diet, we're just only gonna eat vegetables for ten days, and then come back and see who's better, God's way or your way.

And they come back, and here's the surprise: God's way worked.

They find Daniel healthier and all of his friends healthier than any of the other people.

Daniel tested God's way and it worked.

The same test of convictions and biblical truth is happening today in our culture right now with this upcoming generation.

There's a generation that has been fed things like, hey, if you want to be happy, just do whatever makes you feel good.

If you want to find identity in your life, you can just decide who you are.

You can decide your gender, you can decide whatever you want to be and just claim that as your identity and manifest it into existence.

Hey, if you want fulfillment in your life, just follow your heart.

Do whatever feels good if you want to be fulfilled.

And there's a generation out there who have been fed these lies, but they're realizing something that it's not working.

They're starting to ask a question is this actually working?

Because the stats are telling a much different story.

There's a study that came out from the CDC, according to the CDC's Youth Riskment Behavior Survey, among high school students in the United States.

Here's what it says about 39% reported persistent feelings of sadness and hopelessness.

When they asked them, like, do you feel like there's purpose in your life?

Do you feel like you have hope in your life?

39% said no.

About 29% reported poor mental health, anxiety, depression, mental health struggles.

About 20% seriously considered attempting suicide.

About 9% actually attempted it.

Gen Z is the most depressed, anxious generation that we've ever seen, that we've ever studied.

Here's how I can put these stats to you.

Nearly four out of ten teenagers in America are saying they feel hopeless.

If you took ten teenagers, four of them would say there's no purpose for my life, I feel no hope in my life.

One out of five has seriously considered taking their own life.

One out of ten have actually attempted it.

If you took a group of 10 teenagers, statistically, one out of ten of them have tried to take their own life.

This is a generation that has been trying culture's way, and these are the results that they're getting.

And I think we can all agree, man, this is sad.

But there's actually some good news.

Gen Z and Gen Alpha have realized something.

They're realizing, hey, this isn't working anymore.

They're starting to ask some questions, they're starting to look for truth, and the good news is they're finding it in the church.

We read some bad stats, we're gonna look at some good ones.

Did you know this?

Gen Z is outpacing every generation in church attendance.

Gen Z attends church more than millennials, Gen X, boomers.

We have any boomers in the room?

Where's my boomers at?

Come on.

They're outpacing uh millennials, Gen X, boomers in church attendance and in church frequency.

So they attend church more and more regularly than every other generation before them.

Recent Barner research has found this.

Uh, or sorry, this study came out that from Harvard that if you go to church regularly, this is what this Harvard study found, those that go to church regularly have an 84% less likely chance of taking their life.

When they start attending church services, when they go to church regularly, they have an 84% less likely rate of suicide.

Another study came out that says that if they attend church regularly, they have a 49% lower likelihood of experiencing major depression.

There's a generation that's been testing the promises of culture and they're discovering the world can't give them what only God can give.

And they're turning to the church to find those answers.

They're turning to the church to find the truth.

This is why conviction is so important in our lives.

Now I want to be, I want to be sure here we we read these mental health statistics.

That doesn't mean Christ's followers will never struggle with mental health.

We're human, we're still gonna go through these things.

But it does show something that Daniel already knew that God's design is good and following God's way worked, and Daniel's testing Babylon's way, and we have a world that is watching us because they're curious to see if there's something different among Christians.

They're seeing that their way isn't working, they're looking around.

So, what does work?

Where can we find truth?

And here's what we find that when God's people live faithfully, when God's people live faithfully, God uses that influence to influence others.

I think we have a slide for that.

When God's people live faithfully, God uses that influence to influence others.

This is why conviction in our life is so important, because it gives us influence on the world around us.

Before we came here to FCC, before Kelsey and I came here, we were we lived in the Christian capital of the world, San Francisco.

And we were a part of a church planning team in San Francisco for a few years.

And I worked a job there.

I worked at an apartment and I was the apartment maintenance manager, and I had a small crew there in this apartment building.

And I worked with this guy, I won't say his real name, his name was, we'll say Bill.

You guys ever worked with someone that just hated being at work?

Like you walk, you know, they're just there for a paycheck.

You know they don't want to be there.

You'd walk and be like, hey, hey, Bill, good morning.

Nothing good about it.

He was just a grumpy guy, and even more so, he knew I was a Christian, and he let me know that he hated Christians.

He's one of those dudes, if you had like, oh, that fairy tale bologna, you're just trying to get money from people.

Like he was adamantly against Christ followers and Christians.

And I worked with him for two years, and then here's what's amazing: I got promoted and I got transferred to another building, and I didn't even care about the promotion.

Oh shit, like I get to be away from Bill.

So I got moved to a different building, and I'm there for like two weeks, and then I get an email that says, Congratulations, you have a new employee joining your team.

And Bill's name pops up.

So I was bill free for like two weeks, but he found his way back to me.

And Bill came back, but here's what happened.

So I keep working with him, he's super grumpy.

But there is this thing that would happen as I worked there.

Part of my pay was based on something called room turns.

So when someone moves out, you have seven days to get the room turned around so that someone else can move in.

So you got this time frame.

And every quarter, if I hit this goal, if I kept it under seven days, I would get a$5,000 bonus.

Like pretty good money.

So the report comes out, it's like two days before the quarter ends.

We're looking at the numbers, and our building is at 7.1 days.

And our team's there, and we get this and Bill leans over to me.

And he's like, hey man, like we can just change a couple of the numbers.

We'll make it to seven to six point nine.

Because it was kind of the honor system.

Like, you just put in how long it took you.

And he's like, I won't tell anyone, you can get your bonus, it'll be all good.

I just looked at him, I was like, Man, I just that's lying, and I just I can't lie.

And he looked at me and he said, Man, I don't believe anything you believe.

But I really respect that you live it out.

This was the only compliment this Bill guy ever gave me in two years.

But here's how this is important.

Two weeks later, a couple weeks later, Bill knocks on my door.

He's like, Hey man, can I talk to you?

I'm like, Yeah, of course.

Come on in, Bill.

He never wants to talk to me, so this is weird.

Talks to me, he said, Hey, hey, my dad's having some heart issues right now.

Will you pray for me?

So, will you pray for my dad?

He said, I don't understand it.

I don't believe what you believe, but I know you really believe it, and I could use some prayer.

Will you pray for me?

Well, I tell you this story, this guy who went from, hey, God's not real, God's stupid, all that stuff is dumb, went to, hey, will you pray for me?

Because someone had a conviction.

He saw a Christian who really lived out what he believed, and that pointed him to God.

The point of conviction for us is not so we can be super holy and people can look at us and we can think we're better than people.

The point of conviction is the world is looking at Christ's followers, trying to see, is there anything actually different about you?

And they have to see that there's a difference.

That's why it's so important for us to have convictions in our lives because when God's people live faithfully, God uses that faithfulness to influence others.

Here's what we have to know Daniel's conviction didn't take him out of Babylon, it didn't save him from Babylon.

Daniel's conviction allowed God to use him in Babylon.

We as Christ followers and we have conviction.

The conviction doesn't take us out of the world, but it allows God to use us in the world.

God is looking for faithful people who will stand up to do what is right so he can use us to be an example for those around us.

And number three, it takes us to this God uses faithful people to reach others.

God uses faithful people to reach others.

Daniel became influential because God uses faithful people to accomplish his verses or his purposes.

Look at verse 17, it continues on.

Said God gave these four young men knowledge and understanding in every kind of literature and wisdom.

Daniel also understood visions and dreams of every kind, and then verse 19 the king interviewed them, and among all of them, no one was found equal to Daniel.

Hananiah, Michel, and Hezariah.

So they began to attend the king.

In every matter of wisdom and understanding that the king consulted them about, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and mediums in the entire kingdom.

Because Daniel was faithful, God put him in a position where he could influence an entire kingdom.

He was able to whisper into the king's ear and influence the kingdom of Babylon because God takes ordinary people who are willing to trust him and he uses them to accomplish his purpose.

At 15 years old, God used Daniel to influence an entire nation.

That's why we say that the next generation is not the church of tomorrow, but the church of today.

The next generation isn't just the church that's to come, but they're working right now.

And today I want to show us a picture of what God can do through the next generation as they follow Him.

We've got some students in the room.

We're missing a few, but that's okay.

We'll bring you guys up here.

This is why the next generation, not the church of tomorrow, but the church of today.

Yeah, we can clap for them.

They're super brave.

As they there they are.

They made it.

Can we give a hand for them for being willing to come up here?

Hey, the ones who ran in, it's because they were serving in preschool nursery, okay?

Come on.

One, two, three, four, five.

Alright, they're all here.

Here's something they have in common.

All of them have one thing in common.

They're all taller than Pastor Nate.

I'm just joking.

All right.

Why are they up here?

I want to introduce you guys to Lucy, Naomi, Samuel, Eva, Abby, Lucas, Finley.

Okay, you guys have all those names memorized?

I'm just kidding.

Alright.

This is all of them.

Why are they up here?

They're all up here because they have one thing in common.

Before all of them, there was a girl named Faith.

Some of you know her.

Faith is a young adult now.

Faith was willing to step out into Babylon, step out into the world, and she invited a friend of hers.

That friend was Lucy.

Lucy started coming to FCC, started coming to church, started coming to youth group.

And Lucy made the decision to follow Christ in baptism.

She got baptized.

Then Lucy, yeah, we can clap for that.

Then Lucy invited her sister, Naomi, and Naomi started coming.

And Naomi heard the gospel.

And Naomi trusted Christ as her savior, and Naomi followed Christ in baptism.

And then they have a brother named Samuel.

And Samuel started coming.

And Samuel got saved.

And Samuel followed Christ in baptism.

And then their parents started coming and they joined and they became partners of our church.

And then Lucy had a friend that she goes to school with named Eva.

And Eva came, started coming to church, started coming to a youth group.

She made the decision to follow Christ in baptism.

And then Lucy and Eva have a friend named Abby that they went to school with.

And Abby started coming a couple years ago.

Abby heard the gospel preached.

And our last celebration Sunday, Abby made the decision to get baptized.

And then they all go to school with a guy named Lucas, who Lucas is also Eva's twin brother.

And he corrected me last service, the older brother.

The older twin brother.

Okay?

And they invited Lucas, and guess what?

Lucas came.

Lucas made the decision to get baptized.

And then all of them go to school with a young man named Finlay.

And Finley came.

Then he made the decision to follow Christ in baptism, and all of them have been faithfully attending FCC, faithful followers of Jesus.

Why?

Because one teenager said, I'm gonna be brave, and I'm gonna go out into Babylon and I'm gonna point people to Jesus.

This is why conviction matters so much.

This is why it matters that we look different, that we're different than the world around us, because there are people in your lives that God has put in front of you that are watching you and trying to decide is this whole Jesus thing real?

We have a handful of teenagers up here who are willing to be obedient and making Jesus known.

And lives have been changed for all of eternity.

Imagine what God could do with the church that takes making Jesus known seriously.

If that one student had said, nah, I can't do this, I can't share my faith.

None of this happens.

There's people all around you that God has put in your life because He wants you to reach them with the gospel.

In a couple of weeks, we have something called friend day, where we are challenging you to invite your friends, to invite your family members to come here.

Why?

Not so there's a bunch of people packing up this room, making it hotter than it needs to be, okay?

Because there is a world that is searching, and you have the answer.

I want to challenge you this morning.

If there's names in your mind, people you know you should invite, invite them.

All it takes is one simple invitation that could change someone's eternity, that could change a family's eternity, that can change lives all the way down the road.

God has given you influence.

Will you use it to bring people to Him?

We so often say this that it's our job to pass our faith on to the next generation.

I think the next generation right now is challenging us.

Will you take on the challenge?