A Future of Faithfulness (Daniel 1)

We're gonna jump right in as Jonathan share with you,

and you could probably tell about the jacket I'm wearing,

because I would not be wearing it otherwise, is it.

Uh.

I'll be bringing the word today, and so as we

begin this morning, I want to encourage you to consider something.

I'd like you to consider. What are some of the

biggest adjustments that you've had to make in your life?

What are some of the greatest times of change that

have come in your life. Many of our graduates that

were just up here, they're stepping into new seasons of life,

new areas that are marked by change, and change that

will undoubtedly.

Come with its challenges.

And for those of us who are a little older

and and way older, we know that the life has

challenges and that as they go on this journey into

college or into the workforce or whatever it may be, that.

Those challenges are going to come.

You know, I recall some of the biggest change in

my life personally was when I when I started a family.

Marriage is very, very, very different from life as a

single person.

It's very different. It was an adjustment, you know.

Adding a child into the mix was a huge change,

and it continues to be a change every day. He's

waking up at at three am every night, and so

that's an adjustment because he was a great sleeper for forever. See,

we go through change, graduation, we get new jobs, we

get married, we have kids. These are all positive changes

that many of us grow through in our lives. And

you can probably list many, many, many more changes and

adjustments that you've had to make.

In your life.

But do you ever recall maybe some unpleasant change in

your life. Times in your life where you've had to

make adjustments that it wasn't too fun, it wasn't pleasing

to you, It was difficult, and it was hard or painful.

Maybe you lost a job, or you lost a loved one.

Maybe for some of us, your health has declined. You know,

it's not easy to go through change, especially when that

change is painful. You know, today we're going to be

in Daniel chapter one. If you have your Bibles, I

encourage you to go ahead and turn there. We'll be

in Daniel chapter one, and in this passage we see

events unfold that are a painful change for the Hebrews

in the southern Kingdom of Judah. You see, God had

allowed King Nebuka Nezar to conquer Judah, to besiege Jerusalem

and lead them into captivity in Babylon because of their

disobedience and because of their sin. And it was not

just around one hundred years before this that the Northern

Kingdom had been conquered by the Assyrians. And so in

this first Chace, though, in the midst of all this change,

in the midst of this challenge for the Hebrew people,

as they're suffering the consequences of their sin and going

into captivity, we're gonna read a little bit about a

guy named Daniel and his three young friends. You know,

can you imagine how difficult this change was for them?

Many of us in this room we're familiar with this passage.

We're familiar with the story of Daniel. But oftentimes in

my own personal reading, I struggle to take the time

to really think about the effects that the things that

are happening had on the people that we read about.

How must it have felt for Daniel and his friends

to be conquered and taken his exiles into Babylon. And

as we read, will uncover the answers to these questions.

But I have you consider, how will these Hebrew boys

respond to being taken captive from the land of their God.

How will they respond to being surround by ungodliness in

this new land? Listen, Church, we are no strangers to change.

We all experience change on a personal level at some

point in our lives. But even universally, change is constant.

The world around us is changing fast, isn't it. And

we'll find ourselves in situations where we're outnumbered. We'll find

ourselves in situations where no one around us believes like

we do, in situations where we're holiness.

Where the fear of the Lord is lost. This is

our reality.

And so surrounded by the world by a people that

have abandoned God, how will we respond? Would you stand

and read with me? We're going to look at the

example of Daniel. Starting in Daniel, chapter one, verse one,

it says, in the third year of the ragin of Jehoakim,

king of Judah, nebeca Nezar king of Babylon, came to

Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoakim, king

of Judah, into his hand with some of the vessels

of the House of God, and he brought them to

the land of Shinar, to the House of his God

and placed the vessels in the treasury.

Of his God.

Then the King commanded Ashbinas as chief eunuch, to bring

some of the people of Israel, both of the royal

family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, of good

appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding, learning,

and competent, to stand in the King's palace and to

teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. The

king to signed them a daily portion of the food

that the king ate and of the wine.

That he drank.

They were to be educated for three years, and at

the end of that time they were to stand before

the King. Among these were Daniel, Handanaiyah, Mishayoh, and Azariah

of the tribe of Judah. And the chief of the

eunuchs gave them names. Daniel he called Beltishazzar, Hanna, and

Ayah he called Shadrack, Mishael he called me Shaq, and

Azariah he called a Bendigo. Will pause there, would you

pray with me, Lord, to thank you for your word,

thank you for the time.

You've given us.

To celebrate graduates God, to sing into worship the Lord

as we answer into your word.

God. I pray that you would speak through me.

God, that you would remove any any spotlight from me

or attention from me. God, that my words would be

merely a tool that you use this morning to to

bring attention to your words. And so Lord, thank you

for your grace to us.

God.

I'm broken and I need your help this morning, as

we all do. And so God, as we study this word,

rest on us, and we thank you for your goodness.

Is in Jesus name. Amen.

We'll continue to read later on and finish this entire chapter.

But the first thing from this passage that I want

you to see and understand is that the world desires

to strip you of your faith. The world desires to

strip you of your faith.

You know these words. They sound strong, to strip.

You of your faith, to destroy your faith, But the

enemy and his forces have proven them to be true.

The desire of the enemy is not just to cause

you to stumble, but to completely destroy.

Your faith, that you would throw the whole thing out.

You know.

In John fifteen, Jesus says that if the world hates you,

know that it hated me before it hated you. And

the truth is that the world's desire to strip you

out of your faith is first and ultimately here it's

a rejection of God. The world rejects God, and therefore

the world rejects you as a believer.

You know.

In verse two we read how nebukin has He had

besieged Jerusalem. He had come into the city, and he

entered into the temple, and he was taking vessels from

the temple and taking them from Jerusalem to his own place,

the house of his own God in Chinar, and he.

Was placing them there.

In besieging Jerusalem, neb Canezer, he ultimately sought to conquer,

not just the House of Judah. It wasn't just the

Hebrews that he wanted to conquer. It wasn't just the

house of God and the temple and all the vessels

that he wanted to conquer.

It was a display of power that he wanted.

To conquer their God, that I'm stronger than your God.

I'm greater than your God, and I will conquer him,

and I will take his vessels, and I will place

them in the place where I worship my gods. You know,

in the king he's gonna take He's instructed his men

to gather of the conquered peoples, those with the most

prowess and those with the most potential, the best of

the best of whom.

We read where Daniel and his three friends.

And he's going to take these promising young people and

he's going to run them through a program of sorts.

One commentator called it a royal academy. And so for

three years they're going to be taken through this program

where they will learn the ways of the Kaldeans, they'll

study their literature, they'll perfect their practices. You know, the

king's goal was to take these Hebrew boys, take them

out of their land, strip them of their identity. You know,

they're roughly fifteen sixteen years old at this time, and

the king's goal is to take these young boys and

to strip them of everything that made them Hebrews, and

to make Chaldaeans out of them, to strip them of

their identity and belittle their God. You know, not too

long ago, in northern Ireland, there's a retired pastor whose

name is Clive Johnson. And the story goes, and it's true,

is that Clive was outside of a hospital and he

was preaching, and he was preaching from John three point sixteen.

And it turns out that the laws and the way

that they operate in Northern Ireland that they have safe

zones where preaching like this is not supposed to happen,

where you're not supposed to try to influence people, especially

when it's surrounding a hospital where abortions are happening. You know,

in Clive, he was not preaching against abortion, He wasn't

preaching anything other than the gospel in John three sixteen.

But he was still he was arrested and Clive he

eventually was fined an amount that would roughly translate to

six hundred US dollars. And so, you know, this is

another country, this is on across the sea. But the

truth is that it wasn't long ago that we were

in COVID and there was a threat that our churches

were going to be shut.

Down by the government.

You know, it hasn't been long I've heard stories recently

of things like this happening in Canada. It wasn't long

ago that the people marched into a church in Minneapolis.

All these different things are happening in the world around

us is changing. It's becoming a place full of people

that want to strip us of our identity as believers.

They want to take our faith and to crush it,

to ruin it and spoil it, and to conform them

to their image. You know, Graduates, whether you plan to

enter college or a new workplace, chances are that you're

stepping into a workplace or you're stepping into an environment

that wants to effectively hinder your faith. You know, time

and time again, we've seen solid teenagers, teenagers who believe

in the Word, who have been faithful in church. They

graduate high school and they go off to college, and

what happens, and many of them never come back.

They go and they sit under unbelieving.

Professors who destroy the foundation of their faith that they

previously had in church. Listen, your setting may not be

changing in the same way that it is.

For the graduates today.

You're setting may be set in stone that you've been

working the same job for thirty years. Maybe you've been

retired for thirty years, and your setting is not really

looking any different. But this doesn't change the fact that

the world around us is changing. The community that we

live in is looking less and less like Jesus' day

after day in efforts.

Whether you see it or not.

Efforts are being made to silence you, to strip you

of your faith, to cause you to hear me, to

cause you to question truth, and to accommodate sin. So

I don't care what stage of life you're in. I

don't care if you're in school or working, or if

the only time that you ever leave your home is

to come here. The world around you is changing. The

laws are changing, Censorship on television is changing. What's considered

acceptable behavior is changing. And unfortunately, much of the change

that we see is a direct attack against our God,

seeking to soften you to sin and conform you to

the world's image. You know, the world wants to take

out biblical values, to take the values that we maintain

from scripture, to label them as traditional, as outdated, or

to call them misinterpretations, and to throw them out.

They want you to join.

Them and spitting in the face of God and conforming

to their image. To listen to me, Church point two,

you must not be conformed. You must not be conformed.

We continue the passage in verse eight read with me.

It says, but Daniel resolved that he would not defile

himself with the king's food or with the wine that

he drank. Therefore, he asked the Chief of the eunuchs

to allow him not to defile himself. And God gave

Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief

of the eunuchs.

And the chief of the eunuchs said to.

Daniel, I fear my lord, the king who assigned your

food and your drink, For why should he see that

you were in worse condition than the youths who were

of your own age, So you would endanger my.

Head with the king.

Then Daniel said to the steward whom the Chief of

the eunuchs had assigned over Daniel, Hannah, and I am Michel,

Eelle and Azariah. Test your servants for ten days. Let

us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink.

Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths

who eat the King's food be observed by you, and

deal with your servants according to what you see. Well

pause there, you know, as I was saying, in the

tempt to make the best new Chaldeans that he can

out of these men, Nebukanezer, he had taken these captives,

and he had forced them or told them that they

were going to be eating his food and drinking of

his wine.

And so Daniel's left with a choice here.

It's a choice, am I going to honor God by

refusing to eat this food? Or am I going to

defy God and conform to the way of the Chaldeans.

And you know, you may ask, well, what does food

have to do with denying God or honoring God? And

the truth is that as a Hebrew, this food was

forbidden to Daniel. According to the law, he wasn't supposed

to eat it, you know, And the scripture doesn't really

outline whether the food was inherently defiled or whether it

was defiled because it had been sacrificed to the gods

of the people in Babylon. But either way, Daniel knew

that eating of this food would dishonor the Lord.

And so Daniel makes his choice. He's confronted with change.

He's confronted with the decision choose the Lord honor him

or defy his word. And in the face of this change,

Daniel he doesn't conform. And his request to the chief

of the eunuchs is simple. He says, you know, feed

us something that won't defile us. Just feed us something

that won't defile us. But the chief of the eunuchs,

who's described as having compassion for Daniel, he wasn't willing

to put his own life on the line by going

against the order of the king, and so he refuses,

I'm not going to give you food that the King

didn't tell me to give you. And so Daniel, however,

he was able though, to convince the steward that the

Chief of the eunuchs had placed over him, to allow

him and his friends to be given only vegetables and

water to see the results. And sofully he was able

to maintain God's law because Daniel spoke up. Because Daniel

would not be conformed, he was able to continue to

honor the Lord in this. You know, the scripture, as

I was saying earlier, it doesn't give much detail into

the emotions that Daniel's going through. We don't get much

a picture of the internal conflict and the difficulty of

this decision or even making such a request. But I

think it's clear that there are routes of conformity that

he could have chosen that would have been less challenging.

It would have been a little easier on him, because

it's easy to conform.

Is it not route one. Daniel could have said. You know,

the King's food, though defiled, will.

Provide better sustenance for me than vegetables and water will.

And eating it means that I don't have to cause

a fuss with the king or with the chief of

the eunuchs.

I don't have to cause any issues. So, you know what,

I'll just eat the food.

Why didn't Daniel take the route.

It's because he understood something. You see, Daniel understood.

That God's way is always better. Daniel chose trust, and

he chose obedience.

You know. A second route that I was considering that

Daniel could have taken.

Was to have this attitude. You know, God, he allowed

me to be taken into captivity. He caused me to suffer,

and so out of spite to God, I'll eat whatever

I want and do whatever I want. Why didn't Daniel

take this route? Because Daniel understood that his circumstances were

a direct result of the sin of his people. It

was not unjust for him to be where he was,

and suffering isn't a reason to defy God because God

is just so. Instead, Daniel chose humility, and he chose

accountability by not conforming. Daniel was humble, he was accountable

to the Lord, He trusted the Lord, and he was

obedient to him. You know, how many times have we

looked more like the world than like Jesus because we

fool ourselves into thinking that our ways are better than his.

How many times have you been there? I don't have

enough fingers for.

How many times that I've assumed that my ways are better.

Than the Lord's ways. Let's take this a step further.

Do we ever choose our own ways because we haven't

taken the time to know what God's ways look like.

We haven't studied his word, We don't have a relationship

with him strong enough to even know what his ways

look like, and so we choose our own ways because

we don't know any better.

But we're without excuse.

If we don't study his word and know his ways, well,

if we don't walk in step with the spirit, then

we will naturally walk in our own ways and listen

due to our sinful nature, are not our ways often

the ways of the world. You know, how many times

have we used frustration over circumstances, or maybe stress that

we're going through, or exhaustion All the things that we

struggle with How many times have we used these as

an excuse for sin and conformity? How often do people

blame God for the negative change in their lives while

refusing to recall that their own sin is what has

led them to where they are.

You know, listen to me. The Lord is the hero

of this story.

But Daniel, Daniel's strong willed. We talked earlier about change,

how change is often difficult and painful. Not even the

change of being captive in a foreign land was enough

to cause Daniel to conform to the ways of his captors.

The decision that Daniel had to make is the same

decision that you and I have to make every single day,

every day. Younger students, will you conform when your friends

start using language that you know is wrong? It's hard,

It's hard not to conform under peer pressure.

Graduates?

Will you conform and deny God when your atheist professor

challenges your faith? Professionals? Will you conform when your colleagues

invite you to hang out in a setting that you

know you probably shouldn't be hanging out in? Retired adults,

will you conform when the enemy or a discourager makes

you think that your days of impact and purpose are over?

Will you conform?

You know there are a thousand ways that you and

I can conform to the world, a thousand examples that

I could give you. And if we even for a

second think that we are too strong and somehow exempt

from the possibility of falling into conformity, then woe to us, Because,

as the proverb says, goes before destruction and a haughty

spirit before a fall. So instead, let us fight. Let

us fight not to be conformed. And Scripture talks in

Romans twelve about renewing our minds. This is not something

that we do once, but this is something that we

do daily. Well, we renew our minds where we seek

the Lord. Let us remember that God's ways are better

than our ways. Let us remember that in all of

our circumstances, all of our circumstances, no matter how painful,

no matter how.

Difficult, that God is just and he is good. And

let us not forget.

Listen here, that's the best way to keep from conforming

to the world is to instead conform to something else.

It's Jesus. Let us conform to the image of the sun.

To Jesus, how better and alternative is it to be

obedient to the Word and look like Jesus as a result,

compared to looking like the world. How much better of

an alternative is that? And so, Church, the world around

you is full of sin, it's full of lies, and

it's full of temptation, and it's seeking to strip you

of your faith and conform you to its own image.

Don't be conformed. Don't be conformed. We'll get the example

of Daniel, and do not be conformed. Lastly, I'll share

with you zero point three is the blessing of faithfulness.

Remember we read a minute ago that Daniel requested of

the steward that he and his friends be tested for

a period of time to eat vegetables and water, just

long enough that they could be compared to the others

who ate the king's food. And so we pick up

in verse fourteen and it says, so he listened to

them in this matter and tested them for ten days.

At the end of the ten days, it was seen

that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh

than all the youths.

Who ate the king's food.

So the steward took away their food and the wine

they were to drink, and gave them vegetables.

As for these.

Four youths, God gave them learning and skill in all

literature and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions

and dreams. At the end of the time, when the

king had commanded that they should be brought in, the

chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuconezzar, and

the king spoke with them, And among all of them

none was found like Daniel, Hananaiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

Therefore they stood before the.

King, and in every matter of wisdom and understanding about

which the king inquired of them, he found them ten

times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were

in all his kingdom. And Daniel was there until the

first year of King Cyrus. How is it that a

diet of vegetables and water caused them to be better

fed and sustained, more sustained than all the other youths

who were eating the rich and luxurious foods provided to

them by the king. You know, there's nothing in the

scripture that I've seen that specifically tells us this, But

it sounds to me like a miracle. Sounds to me

like the Lord had his hand on this. Even in captivity,

God allowed them to prosper. God blessed their faithfulness, and

he blessed the obedience of these Hebrew boys.

He gave them strength that no vegetable can take credit for.

And throughout the three year program, remember this is three years,

they're taken from Jerusalem, they're brought into Babylon, and for

three years they're in this royal academy where they're going

to be stripped of their Hebrew identity and taught all

the way to the Chaldeans. Because Nebukanezar wants the best

of the best in his people. And so throughout the

whole three year program, the Lord he continued to bless Daniel,

Hanna and I and Misheil, Yelle and Azariah.

Your scripture says that he gave.

Them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom, and

Daniel was given understanding in visions and dreams. And at

the end of the program, King nebut Canezzar he spoke

with them, and none were found like Daniel and his friends.

We just read.

The scripture says that the King found them ten times

better than any magician or enchanter in all.

Of his kingdom. The Lord blessed them to prosper.

You know, in all of their study of the Chaldeans,

their ways, and their practices, one thing that Daniel and

his friends did not do is practice in any way

engage in any divination or enchantments that would have dishonored God.

See.

God sustained them physically. God sustained them mentally, emotionally, and

spiritually to make the most of the situation that they

were in. I was living on campus at Southeastern in

wake Forest, and I was involved in a Bible study

with somebody who was on staff at Southeastern, and he

was just about ten years older than me, and so

he was a good mentor somebody to learn a little

bit from while I was there. And he was involved

with Southeastern's prison ministry. And every week, this friend of mine,

he would go into a prison and he would teach

theological courses to inmates, many of whom who are incarcerated

for life. And through through the teaching and the courses,

he was offering them the ability to get degrees to

study theology in God's word. You know, these are the

kind of redemptive stories that they give you chill bumps, right,

or someone who made decisions and choices that placed them

in prison for the remainder of their life. Find Jesus

behind bars, you know, through programs like this these men

and I believe women too. They're discipled and they grow

into strong, faithful, seasoned believers in Jesus.

The truth is, though for.

Me, any of them, they'll still never see the outside

of that prison. They never will. Are these believers behind

bars not blessed? They are see the blessing. It may

not look exactly how they may want it to, but

I'll tell you God is faithful and they are blessed right.

And many of these men and women behind bars, they

are joyful, more joyful than many of us walk around

in our day to day lives, because their joy is

found in the Lord. You see, the evidence of scripture

and history lead most to believe that Daniel never returned

to Jerusalem.

He died in Old Man in Babylon.

You know, how could God not allow someone so faithful

to never return home, to never get back to the

land that was promised to his people by God many

years before.

Listen to me, God's blessing don't always look the way

we want them to.

He provides, and he blesses in some ways that we

would rejoice about. But sometimes we don't get to have

things just the way that we like them, just the

way that we want them, which leads me to believe

something that God's blessings for the faithful have a less

to do with their circumstances and more to do with

what they look like the individual looks like. Less to

do with what their circumstances look like, and more to

do what the individual looks like. And so when you

are faithful to the Lord, when you refuse to conform

to the ever changing world around you, the truth is

that the world will continue to hate you because it

has hated Jesus before you. And you may never hear

the news that you want to receive. You may never

receive the recognition that you feel that you have earned.

You may never be blessed in the way that you

want to be blessed. And that's because the blessing of

faithfulness is that God has changed you and He has

sustained you by his spirit that you might look like Jesus.

That's the blessing.

The blessing is a transformative work.

Of conformity to the Son, that you might continue to

honor Him with your life, no matter where you are,

no matter what the circumstances are.

The blessing is to look like Jesus. You know. As

we close.

Of studying this passage, and Jonathan was in New York

this week, and so me and Devin hashed it out together.

We did our normal sermon lab and Devin pointed me

to Jeremiah.

And in Jeremiah twenty five we.

See that the Lord foretells of this Babylonian captivity.

It's because of their sin.

He tells them that they will serve the King of

Babylon for seventy years. And as we've begun to study today,

we've seen that this came into fruition. That's chapter twenty

five of Jeremiah. But then if you skip ahead and

you go to chapter twenty nine, starting in verse ten,

it says, for thus says the Lord, when seventy years

are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I

will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back

to this place. For I know the plans I have

for you, declares the Lord. Plans for welfare and not

for evil, to give you a hope or future and

a hope.

So listen to me today graduates Church.

No matter where you've been, no matter what sin you've

partaken in, no matter the pain that you've endured, no

matter the desperation that you feel or I felt, your

God has not abandoned you. You know, though we are

deserving of this fate, he hasn't left us in desolation

to spiritually starve and wither. He didn't leave Daniel and

his three friends. He didn't leave them to wither away

and to die.

But He's provided hope. And so your story, your future.

Is not one that ends in destruction. It's set for you, believer.

It's attainable for you, unbeliever, that you might find hope

in the future.

And what is this hope? What is this future?

What is this prosperity that God promises to his people.

What is the prosperity that he promises to you?

It's Jesus, Jesus.

And looking like him, And so place your hope in

Jesus because Jesus is listen. Jesus is the blessing of

your faithfulness. He's worthy of all praise, he's worthy of

all honor, and we are blessed not only when he

gives us the things that we want, not only when

our circumstances look the way we want them to, but

we are blessed when in the midst of whatever setting

we are, in, whatever area of life we are in,

or season of life. We are blessed when in the

midst of that we are obedient to the Lord, and

we look like Jesus and honor him. Well, would you

pray with me, Lord, I thank you for your word,

thank you for the time that you've given us to

worship God.

I pray that we would be a people who.

Look at the world around us and see its brokenness,

see the sin around us God, and that we would

not conform God, no matter the attacks against us, the

ploys of the enemy to make us look like the

world around us, to cause us to stumble and to sin,

to cause us and our faith to be destroyed. That

no matter those attacks that may come, that we would

remain strong and firm, as Daniel did, in the midst

of whatever setting we are in, trusting that you will

sustain us by your spirit, that you're faithful to do so. God,

That we would not conform to the image of the

world around us, but that we would conform into the

image of the Sun, pursuing Jesus, knowing that he is

faithful and he is good, and it is in him alone.

That we can have hope for our futures. So God,

we thank you today for salvation. God, we thank you

that you have not left us, that you have not

abandoned us.

That no matter where we are today, believers in this

room that may have wandered God, that maybe have been

conforming to the world around them. God, we are not perfect,

but I pray that in our weakness, then we would

turn to You today.

Lord. For those in here who may not know.

You, who may not have made a decision to follow you, Lord,

I pray that today would be the day that we

choose that we.

No longer want to.

Look like the world, because what the world has to

offer has never fulfilled us, and it's never satisfied us

in the way that we wanted to. And that today

the unbeliever would say that I choose to place my.

Hope in Jesus.

God, we thank you for your word, thank you for

your faithfulness to us. It's in your name we pray.

Amen.

Jesays Today