When the Soul Looks Up | Daniel 4

Amen, church.

Please remain standing as we read God's word together this morning.

We're gonna be in Daniel chapter 4, as we've been in the past couple of weeks, and so as we stand, may God honor the reading and the preaching of his word.

Daniel 4 · chapter mention

Starting in verse 18.

This dream I, King Nebuchadnezzar, saw, and you, O Betheshar, tell me the interpretation, because all the wise men of my kingdom are not able to make it known to me the interpretation.

But you are able, for the spirit of the holy gods is in you.

Then Daniel, whose name was Betheshezzar, was dismayed for a while, and his thoughts alarmed him.

The king answered and said, Betheshar, let not the dream or the interpretation alarm you.

Beltheshar answered and said, My lord, may the dream be for those who hate you and its interpretations for your enemies.

The tree you stall, which grew and become strong, so that its top reached to the heavens, and it was visible to the ends of the whole earth, whose leaves were beautiful and the fruit abundant, and it when which was food for all, under which beast of the field found shape, and in whose branches the birds of the heaven lived.

It is you, O king, who have grown and become strong.

Your greatest has grown and your greatest has grown and reached to the heavens, and your dominion to the ends of the earth.

And because the king saw a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying, Chop down the tree and destroy it, but leave the stump of its roots in the earth bound with a band of iron and bronze and in the tender grass of the field, and let him be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his fortune be with the beast of the field till seven periods of time pass over him.

This is the interpretation, O king.

It is the decree of the most high which has come upon my lord the king, that you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and you shall be wet with the dew of heaven, and the seven periods of time shall pass over you, till you know that the most high rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.

And as it was commanded to leave the stump into the roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be conformed for you from the time that you know that heaven rules.

Therefore, O king, let my counsel be accepted acceptable to you.

Break off your sins by practicing righteousness and your iniquity by showing mercy to the oppressed.

That there may be perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity.

All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar.

At the end of twelve months, he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon.

And the king answered instead, It is it not this great Babylon which I have built by my mighty power as a royal resonance and for the glory of my majesty.

While the words were still in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken, the kingdom has departed from you.

And you shall be driven among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beast of the field, and you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you until you know that the Most High rules the kingdoms, the kingdom of men, and gives it to whom he will.

Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar.

He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of the heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles' feathers, and his nails were like birds' claws.

Let's pray.

God, thank you so much for your word.

Thank you so much for your faithfulness.

God, thank you for God-forgiving sinners like me.

God, may your word be preached faithfully today, and may we not leave the same we came in.

We ask all this in your precious name.

Amen.

Amen.

You may be seated.

There are some people who become larger in life, like you, Bobby.

Lance Armstrong was one of those people.

He became a brand.

He became a movement.

He had beaten cancer.

He had won the Tour de France and was celebrated for winning seven times.

He built a foundation.

He really became a story.

And the story was powerful because it said something that we're all so desperately want to believe.

It says that you can win, that you can overcome, that you can make a name for yourself, that you can become untouchable.

But underneath that message that resonates with so many of us, there's a deep ache, one that churns away in the human heart.

And it raises the question: how do I finally build a life that says I matter?

See, the world tries to answer that question, and it says, well, maybe if you win enough, or if you build enough, or if you earn enough, or buy enough, or maybe if enough people depend on you, then maybe you can become enough.

So what do we do?

We build.

We build careers and reputations and platforms and houses and bank accounts and resumes and families that look like success.

We do everything within our power to build a life that says, I'm enough, I'm secure, I matter.

What makes it so dangerous is that it looks like it can work for a while.

But here's the problem: a life built by you and for you has to be maintained by you and defended by you.

When we try to build security from a place of insecurity, eventually the cracks will begin to show every time.

And for Lance Armstrong, it was a life that was built on a lie.

And it looked incredibly strong for a while, but eventually it collapsed under the weight of the truth.

And when the truth came out and the victories were stripped away, a story that looked larger than life suddenly looked painfully human.

And that's exactly what we see here in Daniel chapter 4.

Daniel 4 · chapter mention

Nebuchadnezzar, he had the platform, he had the power, he had the admiration of the world, but he's about to learn that a life built on the illusion of pride will always mistake success for security.

And by the end of this chapter, Nebuchadnezzar will testify those who walk in pride, God can humble.

That's the first thing I want us to see here this morning is the warning of pride.

See, pride comes before the fall.

It had been twenty-five years since the fiery furnace.

It had been twenty-five years since Nebuchadnezzar saw men heat up the furnace and be killed upon impact of the heat.

It had been twenty-five years since he saw men pulled out of the furnace, and not a single hair on their head or their clothes even smelled like smoke.

He had seen the fourth one with them in the fire.

It had been some time.

But as time passed, the palace was still standing, the kingdom was still prospering, the applause was still coming, and so over time the miracle became a memory.

And Nebuchadnezzar is now at ease in his palace.

And the Lord, in his mercy, sends him a dream.

Because God can see what Nebuchadnezzar can't see.

In verse 5, it says, Nebuchadnezzar, he awakes from a vision and he's so afraid that he calls all the wise men of Babylon.

But the magicians, the enchanters, the Chaldeans, the astrologers, none of them can interpret this dream.

So finally, Daniel comes in, chief of the magicians, and Nebuchadnezzar tells him the dream.

Nebuchadnezzar, he saw a tree in the middle of the earth.

And this tree, it's enormous.

It's height, it reaches to the heavens, it can be seen from the ends of the earth.

All of the birds nest there, all of the beasts stay under there.

It actually supplies all of the feeding for the earth.

And it's a picture of greatness.

It's a picture of stability, of success, of security.

But then in the dream, a holy watcher comes and he says, he cries out and he says, Chop down the tree, strip its branches, scatter its fruit, drive away the beasts, drive away the birds, but leave the stump and its roots.

Then the dream changes from a tree to a man, and as you see here on the screen, he says, Let his mind be changed from a man's, and let a beast's mind be given to him, and let seven periods of time pass over him.

And then God tells us the purpose of this dream.

He tells us very clearly here in verse 17.

He says, That you may know that the Most High rules, that the kingdom of men, he rules the kingdom of man, and he gives it to whom he will.

That is the whole point of this chapter.

It's that the most high rules, not Nebuchadnezzar, not Babylon, not the kings of the earth, not the kingdoms that we build by our own hands, but in fact, the kingdom of heaven rules over every single kingdom on earth.

And that is not bad news.

In fact, that is the only truth that can save Nebuchadnezzar.

So Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar, as JB read just a minute ago, this tree is you.

Your kingdom is real, your influence is real, your power is real.

But this divine decree, this warning, is also real.

The command to chop down the tree means that you're going to be driven from among men, and you're going to dwell with the beasts of the field.

You're going to eat like an ox.

You're going to eat grass.

And seven years will pass until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men, and he gives it to whom he will.

You see, Nebuchadnezzar is a great tree, but he is not the gardener.

The kingdom of heaven, it rules over all of the kingdoms of men, and he gives it to whom he will.

Every tree grows by his mercy.

And that's where Daniel 4 can become a mirror for us.

The problem with Nebuchadnezzar, it's not that he had power.

I mean, it's not that he had influence, it's not that he had success, it's that he interpreted all of his greatness without any reference to God whatsoever.

In his mind, God isn't even in the equation.

And that is pride.

Pride looks at the gift and assumes that we're the giver.

Pride looks at success and assumes that we're the source.

Pride looks at the kingdom and believes that we are the king.

See, 400 years earlier, Solomon had already given this warning.

He said, Pride comes before the fall.

And God, in his mercy, God warns him before pride ruins him.

But notice here too, in verse 27, Daniel doesn't just confront pride with a proud spirit.

He tells the truth, but he doesn't delight in the judgment.

In verse 27, he says, Break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed, that there may be perhaps a lengthening of your prosperity.

See, this is what faithful confrontation looks like in the middle of the story.

He says, I need you to stop pretending.

I need you to stop ruling as though everything exists only for you.

It's going to ruin you.

God has been merciful to warn you.

Now I want you to live out his example of mercy.

He's saying, humble yourself before God has to humble you.

And that is the warning.

That is the danger of pride.

A proud person is usually not lacking warnings.

A proud person is usually lacking humility to receive them.

Over and over again, Nebuchadnezzar had seen the power of God on display in his life.

Over and over again, he had seen the strength and the wisdom of Babylon be humbled by the God of Daniel.

But the lie of pride continued to be louder than the warning from God.

And that's what makes pride so dangerous.

Is that pride can make us unteachable.

Pride can hear critique and call it control.

Pride can hear correction and call it an attack.

Pride can hear the truth and call it a lie.

But humility leans in and it says, Lord, I want to hear from you.

I know that I need the truth.

Lord, what are you trying to tell me?

Humility understands that we all have blind spots.

Pride is deceptive, it lurks in the corners of our life.

It's hard for us to see ourselves.

It's easy to spot in others, but we aren't meant to walk this Christian life alone.

Meant to walk with brothers and sisters who will faithfully tell us where pride is going to carry us off in a direction we never intended to go.

So God's warnings are an expression of his mercy.

So I need us to think this morning.

Where is God warning you right now?

Maybe it's through a spouse, maybe it's through a friend, maybe it's through your own exhaustion, maybe it's through your own defensiveness, maybe it's through your anxiety, maybe it's through a growing sense that the thing that you have built to make yourself feel safe is now controlling you.

What would it look like to receive a warning this morning from the Lord as mercy?

Nebuchadnezzar, he hears the warning, and maybe he feels the weight of it for a while.

Maybe God has his attention for a moment.

But eventually, Nebuchadnezzar, he rejects the warning by revealing what's been in his heart the whole time.

See, twelve months pass.

Twelve months of patience, twelve months of prosperity and security, and slowly pride does what it always does.

It mistakes God's patience for permission.

Nebuchadnezzar, he walks out on the palace, and in verse 30 we see he says out loud, shouts to the world, is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power for the glory of my majesty.

That's the second thing I want us to see here this morning.

Pride is the soul turned inward.

If you have a pen in your Bible, I want you to circle these words.

I want you to say, by my mighty power, and for the glory of my majesty.

My power, my glory, right?

I mean, that is the heartbeat of pride, is it not?

For my glory.

By my power.

See, pride says, I did this, and it is for me.

Pride makes me the source, it makes me the center of it, it makes me the goal.

C.S.

Lewis said it like this: pride is the obsession on the self.

It is the soul curved inward on itself.

You see, pride is not merely thinking too highly of yourself, it's the fact that you can't stop thinking about yourself at all.

It's the soul curved inward until every single thing in your life becomes about me, my kingdom, my power, my majesty, my accomplishments, my control.

He's talking about my comfort, my security.

Everything is about me, my glory.

See, pride can say I'm better than everyone, but pride can also say I'm worse than everyone.

Because pride's not always loud.

Sometimes it's quiet, sometimes it's the fear of being misunderstood, sometimes it's the desperate need to be noticed, sometimes it's the ache for more and more, and sometimes it's self-pity.

But both loud pride and quiet pride are both obsessed with the self.

And that tells us something very important.

It tells us that often the engine underneath our pride is actually insecurity.

Insecurity keeps the soul trapped in the exhausting question of what about me?

How do I look?

How am I being perceived?

Am I safe?

Am I enough?

Do I matter?

And so pride often becomes the armor that we put on to cover our fear and inadequacy and shame and insecurity.

And that's why pride is so fragile.

It looks strong, but it's actually easily threatened.

And if I don't know how to receive my security from the Lord, then I'm gonna start building it for myself.

And that's exactly what Nebuchadnezzar is doing here in this passage.

Nebuchadnezzar's problem is not that Babylon was great, Babylon was great.

Nebuchadnezzar's problem is that he took gifts from the Lord that he received and he turned them into evidence of his own greatness and his own ability.

See, your ability may be real, your work may be real, your influence may be real, your leadership may be real, but unchecked pride says, I am the center, I am the goal.

This is all about me.

I am the source.

And once that happens, everything in your life begins to turn inward.

And this is where we have to be careful because many of us aren't going to walk out onto our balcony and shout, look at what I've built for my glory.

We're too polite for that, right?

But I think we all know what it's like to look at our work and say, I did this.

I think we all know what it's like to look at our kids and say, I'm I need you to reflect well on me.

I think we all know what it's like to look at our home and our money and our achievements and our reputation and our intelligence and our relationships and begin to let them tell us who we are.

You know what we need, when we need to prove that our life matters, is when our life actually becomes the most fragile.

The more you need your life to prove that you matter, the more fragile your life actually becomes.

And this is why anxiety and pride are so closely connected together.

Pride says, I have to be enough.

And anxiety says, but what if I'm not?

Pride says, I have to hold this together.

And anxiety says, but what if I can't?

You see, we need control to calm us.

But the more we control, the more anxious we actually become.

Because pride is actually trusting yourself to heal the insecurity underneath yourself.

There's a difference between faithfully carrying what it is that God has given you to carry and then carrying a weight that God never asked you to carry in the first place.

And when the self becomes the center, relationships start to bend inward.

People stop becoming people that you love and they start becoming resources to use.

My spouse becomes a mirror for my worth, my children become the proof of my success, my work becomes the reflection of my value, my money becomes the protection of my fear.

And that's why pride ruins relationships.

Because everything is about me.

And I can't truly love you if everything is about me.

I need you to affirm me.

I need you to need me.

I need you to reflect well on me.

I need you to make me feel secure.

And when I don't, what happens?

I get angry or defensive or withdrawn or controlling or cold or critical.

Because pride can't simply receive people as gifts.

Pride has to use people as evidence.

And that's why pride is so exhausting.

Because a life built by you and for you has to be maintained by you.

And it has to be defended by you.

If I'm the source of my life, then I have to keep producing.

If I'm the savior of my life, then I have to control every aspect.

And if I'm the glory of my life, then I have to manage how every single person sees me.

If my security depends on me, then I'm always going to need more.

I'm going to need more control and more approval, and I'm going to need more resources.

I'm going to need more evidence that I actually matter.

That's exactly what Nebuchadnezzar is doing here this morning.

He's standing over Babylon and he's looking at his kingdom, but he's seeing himself.

You know, historians say that every single brick that was created in Babylon, it bore an inscription.

It said, I am Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.

See, his identity was fused with Babylon.

If Babylon's great, then I'm great.

If Babylon is strong, then I'm strong.

If Babylon is glorious, then I am glorious.

But what happens if Babylon is taken away?

And that is the problem.

An identity built on yourself is not capable of making your soul secure.

Because we were never created to save ourselves.

We were never created to carry the weight of glory that belongs to God.

Eventually, the cracks begin to show.

See, pride turns our soul inward until we begin to draw identity from things that were never meant to carry the weight.

So what happens?

With the words still in his mouth, God immediately takes his kingdom away by my power for my glory.

God takes away the very things that Nebuchadnezzar used to define himself, his majesty, his sanity, his kingdom are now gone.

The most powerful man in the world is driven away.

He eats grass like an ox.

His body is wet with the dew of heaven.

His hair grows like the eagle's feathers.

His nails become like bird claws.

It's a shocking picture.

Nebuchadnezzar says, My reason, my power, my majesty.

And God's let him lose his reason, his power, and his majesty.

The humiliation, it fits the lie.

God is simply revealing outwardly what has already been done inwardly.

But even here, even this is a mercy.

Because God does not take away the tree and dig up the roots.

He leaves the stump.

God humbles him, but God does not abandon him.

And sometimes God loves us enough to let whatever we're leaning on, whatever lie that we're leaning on, crumble.

God loves us enough to bring us low because it's the only way we will look up.

There are places in every one of our lives where God wants us to grow.

There are sins that need to be confessed.

There are wounds that need healing.

There's relationships that need repair.

There are ways that we need to mature.

But the first step is not by staring at yourself.

First step of fixing yourself is not by staring at yourself.

And that's what I want us to see here today.

Humility is the soul opened upward.

It's Nebuchadnezzar's restoration that begins with him opening his eyes.

Look at verse 34 here on the screen.

He says, At the end of days, I, Nebuchadnezzar, I lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me.

Nebuchadnezzar, he finally receives the warning that Daniel had announced that God had intended.

And for the first time, the Most High rules is not a threat to him.

For the first time, the Most High rules actually sound like freedom.

Because before he sees himself differently, he sees God clearly.

He begins to see God clearly.

He sees that there is a kingdom who is king over everything in heaven, and the kingdom of heaven, and the king of heaven rules over every single kingdom here on earth.

Look at the rest of verse 34.

Look at what happens.

So he begins to praise God with a heart that's full.

He says, His dominion is everlasting, his kingdom endures from generation to generation.

He does according to his works.

His works are right, he is just.

Isn't this amazing?

The king who once demanded worship is now surrendered himself in worship.

The king who thought that he had seen glory in Babylon now finally gets a glimpse of what true glory looks like.

And look what happens.

Everything about his life changes.

As he sees God clearly, his eyes are opened and he begins to understand for the very first time who he actually is.

See, this is humility.

Humility is not acting like you have nothing to offer.

Humility is not weakness.

Humility frees us from constantly having to think about ourselves.

It frees us from constantly having to build for ourselves.

It frees us from bearing the word, the weight and the burden of saving ourselves.

Humility is saying, I am not the most high who rules.

So when he sees the king clearly, his reason begins to return.

The kingdom is restored, but he's not the same man that he was, right?

Because now he knows the truth.

And he testifies in verse 37.

He says, Those who walk in pride, God is able to humble.

Those who walk in pride, this is the warning.

God has every power and every right to humble them.

See, Cody mentioned last week how quickly we are to identify with Daniel rather than Nebuchadnezzar.

But I need us to see this is our story.

This is my story.

In Daniel chapter 2, God showed Nebuchadnezzar that every single kingdom of man would fall before the kingdom of Christ.

Daniel 2 · chapter mention

Now in this chapter, you see that the kingdom inside has to fall as well.

Because there's a little Babylon inside of all of us, right?

Kingdom of self, a kingdom of control, a kingdom of image, a kingdom that says, My power, my glory, my security, my name.

And that's why the story about Lance Armstrong is so haunting.

It's not just that the titles were stripped away, it's that the story that he had built his identity on, it could not hold up the weight of the truth.

And some of us know what that feels like.

It's exhausting, right?

Inside, you're exhausted from trying to prove yourself and from trying to perform, from defending, from managing how people see you, from building an identity on things that were never meant to carry the weight.

And this is where the gospel is so beautiful.

Because Jesus did not come to help us build a life on a bigger lie.

He came to give us a new identity of grace.

Jesus came from for people who were absolutely exhausted from trying to save themselves.

Instead of saying, prove yourself to me, Jesus said, Come to me.

Instead of saying, I need you to build your worth, he said, I purchased you with my blood.

Instead of saying, hold everything together, it's all dependent on you, he said, In me all things hold together.

Instead of saying, I need you to make a name for yourself, he said, I've got a name for you.

Instead of saying, climb higher, he's the one who lowered himself lower than any one of us ever could.

He said, I am the true king who lived in true glory, and I didn't hold on to it.

Instead, I humbled myself and I crossed eternity and I came and chased you down because you couldn't come to me any other way.

He came to us through eternal glory to bear our shame, to carry our sin, to die our death.

But death couldn't even hold him.

And so he raised from the grave, alive forever, and he's been given the name abundant, every name that now in his name, grace is offered to proud sinners like me and proud sinners like you.

Grace sets us free from the captivity of pride.

So we have to see that if the engine underneath pride is ultimately insecurity, that the engine underneath humility is ultimately grace.

You can keep turning the wheel all you want, but insecurity, if it's the engine, is going to keep driving you to places and carrying you to places that lead to exhausting patterns.

But when gospel, the gospel of Jesus Christ becomes the truth underneath your life, then you know that you are loved and that you are forgiven and that you are held and that you are secure in Christ, you begin to see everything differently.

You begin to see that pride is the thing that actually blocks us from the grace that we so desperately need.

Humility allows us to see, finally, so we can open up our hands and receive.

If the King in heaven rules over the kingdoms of man, then you no longer have to sit on the throne of your life.

God has something better for you than that.

God opposes the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

So you can lay down the burden of trying to be enough.

You can lay down the burden of managing everyone's perception of you.

Lay down the burden of building an identity out of things that could never hold the weight.

Grace teaches us that we don't have to fear the future because the King of heaven rules.

We don't have to control every outcome because he's already in the outcome.

We don't have to prove that we matter because in Christ our identity has already been secured.

He has given you a name.

Adopted, accepted, redeemed.

You are his.

And that is true security.

See, pride collapses because it builds an identity on a lie.

But humility opens up the soul to receive grace.

So lift your eyes upward to the King.

The Most High, He rules.

And because He does, you no longer have to.

Let's pray together.

Father God, we just thank you for your grace.

God, we thank you.

Thank you for what your word says.

And if we see you clearly, we can understand that we don't have to carry the burden of being you.

You've already given us every single thing that we need.

God, thank you for giving us an identity that is secure in you.

Thank you for your grace.

God, we know that you have always been there for us.

God, we know that it was always you in the fire that was saying, Child, you are safe with me.

God, we know that it was always you holding the mouths of the lion shut until they fall asleep.

God, we know that it is you that was holding back the waters until our feet barely got wet.

God, we know that it is your heart that draws us closer.

God, it is your hands that guide us.

It is your shoulders, Lord, that carry us.

It's your shoulders that we cry on.

God, we know it's your ways that we're still learning.

God, it's your word that is a lamp into our feet.

God, show us how to surrender our lives to you.

Show us how to open up our hands and receive grace from you.

Help us to follow you.

Help us to become more like you.

Help us to be changed by you.

Help us to receive grace.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.