Faithful in Babylon | The Truth About Power

I'll just give you kind of a highlight reel of what we've

experienced so far in this book so you can feel all caught up.

So, so far in our journey, we've seen how Daniel and his friends

have been captured and taken into exile in Babylon.

How God honors their faithfulness and even at times

gives them favor with their captors.

How Daniel receives from God this ability to interpret dreams

and how Daniel uses that to save his life and the lives of

others. And how God rescues Daniel's

friends from death in a fiery furnace when they refuse to

worship Babylon's idols. And we are not even in chapter 4

yet, so a lot has happened. Suffice it to say that Daniel is

a gnarly book, as we would say in Southern California.

And hold tight, friends, because it's about to get even gnarlier.

So today we're going to jump ahead to Daniel 5.

Daniel Chapter 4 is kind of summarized within Daniel 5, so

Daniel 4 · chapter mention

that'll be helpful. But at the center of this

chapter is this strange and unnerving vision that gave rise

to the phrase the writings on the wall.

Now I grew up in the 90s in the early 2000s, so when I hear the

writing's on the wall, I think of the album by Destiny's Child.

If you don't know who Destiny's Child is, that was the girl

group that gave us the gift of Beyoncé.

And I actually own that album when I was a tween, which

thinking about is maybe a problematic, but I never

understood what the title meant until now.

And the writings on the wall means that there are clear,

unmistakable signs that failure or disaster is imminent.

So it sounds ominous, right? But it fits the scene.

In Daniel 5, we have this Babylonian king who is throwing

like a debaucherous feast with his Lords and wives and

concubines, when suddenly a disembodied hand appears and

begins to write on the palace wall.

And that writing on the wall turns out to be a dire warning

that the arrogance and the idolatry of the king has finally

caught up to him and God is about to bring an end to the

Kingdom of Babylon. So, like the mysterious

overtones of the story, I would say make it pretty engaging, but

it might be kind of difficult to relate to.

I mean, has anyone here ever, like, interpreted words written

by a disembodied hand and like, predicted the imminent downfall

of your oppressors? Anyone.

No show of hands, no happy Mother's Day, by the way.

I feel like this is a really good already you can feel you

can feel the thematic vibes. No, we didn't choose something

for Mother's Day. We just went straight to the

next chapter in Daniel. But OK, so with as with many

biblical prophecies, it can really help to take a step back

from, you know, all the like Addams family vibes and to

really look at the heart of the message and at the heart of the

message. We discover some themes that

might actually feel closer to home, like we see a challenge to

the arrogant abuse of power. We see this exhortation to

choose humility over our own egos, and we see a question of

whether we will continue to build our selfish kingdoms or

seek God's eternal Kingdom. So just some like light easy

topics for us to dive into this morning.

But before we dive in, let me just take a moment to pray for

us that God would really speak to us through his word this

morning. Lord God, we, we come before you

grateful for your Word and also aware of all the ways in which

it challenges us. We are grateful because it talks

about things that are so relevant in our world today.

And also, sometimes it talks about things that we're not

currently thinking about, but that we really need to sit with,

to be challenged by, to ruminate over, and to be asking the

questions of how is it that you, God, are inviting us to live in

this world? Who are you?

What are you doing? And how are you inviting us to

respond to what you were doing? And so we would come before you,

God, and we ask that you would give us this morning humble

hearts to receive your teaching, to be present to how your Spirit

is speaking. And I think you got in

particular that your word puts on full display your character.

God, we are in awe of you. God, when we think about the

brokenness in the world, when we think about the powers of this

world who throughout so many centuries have repeated these

patterns of violence and arrogance and corruption and

brokenness, we thank you that you, Jesus, are good.

We thank you that you are a God of grace.

We thank you that you are a God of steadfast love.

We thank you that you are a God who invites us to become like

you and to live differently in this world.

And so this morning, God, I ask that you would just speak to

each of us and bring us a deeper into that invitation to separate

ourselves from the things of this world that are not of you,

that are not like you, and to draw nearer to you that you

would make us more like you through your word.

By your Spirit. We thank you that you were able

to do that. Jesus, we pray all that in your

name, Amen. Amen.

All right, So I don't think this is on your handout.

So I'm just going to start summarizing the parts that we're

missing. But at the beginning of Daniel

Daniel 5 · chapter mention

chapter 5, we are just abruptly introduced this new king of

Babylon named Belshazzar. So the book suggests that

Belshazzar is either the son or like an immediate descendant of

King Nebuchadnezzar, who is who we've been hanging out with in

recent chapters. So we first meet Belshazzar as

he is throwing like this extravagant party full of

indulgence and lust and depravity.

And then he figures, you know, what's a party without a little

sacrilege? And so Belshazzar takes these

golden cups that were looted from the temple in Jerusalem.

So these cups are like holy vessels, right?

They're, they're used by Israelite priests in their

rites. But Belshazzar fills them with

wine and offers up like a toast to his Pagan gods.

So at first glance, it might seem like Belshazzar is just

kind of like a party animal who has no reverence for the God of

Israel. But historians note that it

doesn't really make sense that Belshazzar would be throwing

like a raucous feast at this particular moment in time

because things are not going well for Babylon.

They're no longer the biggest, baddest nation in all the land.

They are an empire that is on the decline.

And their enemies, the Medes and the Persians, are like on the

rise. So at this point, the Medes and

Persians have already conquered neighboring regions.

So Babylon should be fully aware that their enemies are coming

for them next and that they are likely not strong enough to

stand up against them. So this wild feast that

Belshazzar is throwing is probably like 1/3 denial that

disaster is coming. Maybe like 1/3 political bravado

because, you know, obviously they wouldn't be partying unless

they were confident that they could defeat their enemies.

And then maybe like 1/3 distraction to kind of keep the

other nobles and Lords from realizing how bad things are or

how scared Belshazzar really is. So that act of kind of drinking

from these holy Israelite vessels probably falls under the

category of political bravado. Like, you know, it's this

attitude of we're not afraid of foreign nations and their gods.

We've conquered our enemies in the past and we'll do it again.

But instead, this act of arrogance is immediately met

with a warning from the God that they've affronted.

Belshazzar sees like that floating hand riding on the

wall. And he's like, shook.

Like the level of detail in the book about the King's reaction

is like an underlying, like, all caps emphasis that Belshazzar is

like, not OK. It says the King's color

changed. And his thoughts alarmed him and

his limbs gave way and his knees knocked together.

Like, it sounds like a cartoon character, like he's reacting

very strongly to what's happening here.

But for some reason none of the wise men, the Babylonian wise

men, can read or interpret the writing on the wall until

someone says, wait, isn't one of the Jewish exiles gifted in

interpreting visions? I think his name is Daniel.

And so Daniel is fetched and he is able to read the four words

that are written in ancient Aramaic on the wall.

They say meanie, meanie, tackle, and Parson, which roughly

translates to numbered, numbered, weighed and divided.

God has numbered the days of the Kingdom of Babylon.

The king has been weighed in the balances and been found wanting,

and so Babylon will be divided and given over to its enemies.

So this is like the centre point of the story, like the end of

one ancient empire and the rise of a new power.

So as we explore Daniel chapter 5, the major task ahead of us is

Daniel 5 · chapter mention

to bring like this dramatic, otherworldly story down into our

reality today. So to do that, we're going to

focus on like 3 key lessons that we can learn from the

Babylonians, tragic mistakes and from Daniel's courageous faith.

So first, we need to know where real power comes from.

Second, we need to humble our hearts.

And 3rd, we need to choose the Kingdom that will last.

So first, as followers of God, we need to know where real power

comes from. So when Belshazzar calls Daniel

in, he kind of starts by buttering him up.

He's like, I have heard that the spirit of the gods is in you and

that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in

you. And in exchange for his service,

Belshazzar offers Daniel 3 gifts.

So purple clothing, which is like a symbol of high status, a

chain of gold, which is like a token of wealth, and then the

position of third ruler in the Kingdom.

So significant influence, status, wealth and influence are

what Babylon is built on, like what most empires have been

built on. And so when King Belshazzar is

desperate, like these are the rewards he offers.

This is what he assumes anyone would want except for Daniel.

Daniel says to the king, let your gifts be for yourself and

give your rewards to another, which is kind of another way of

saying you have nothing to offer me worth having.

King Belshazzar, I'll speak this prophecy because God compels me

to, but I can't be bought. Mic drop.

Like it's a fierce reply, right? And it reveals a lot about

Daniel's mindset. He sees through the illusion of

worldly power because the secret of worldly power is that it is

fragile. Babylon coming to power through

violence. Like that's how it works for

ancient monarchs. Like you'd conquer and oppress

foreign nations, you'd like assassinate the existing rulers

and take their place. But once you were in power, you

had to just keep showing how formidable and fierce you were

so that no like ambitious young whippersnappers would get any

fancy ideas. But that explains why so many of

the rulers that we see in scripture and throughout the

history books are like deeply paranoid and even like quick to

execute anyone who shows the smallest sign of dissidence.

Their titles declare that they are powerful men, but their

actions declare that they are controlled by fear, enslaved by

self preservation, because on some level they know that their

power depends on everyone around them giving their yes.

Because nobody can build an empire alone, someone has to

believe that it benefits them to keep the king on the throne.

They might hope to share in his power or his protection.

And so they give their yes, while others are maybe just

trying to kind of stay small and stay out of the way to survive

another day. And so even passively, they give

their yes. But the powerful lesson in this

story is that Daniel refuses to give his yes to this corrupt and

idolatrous king. His integrity and his priorities

cannot be swayed. Think about how extraordinary

that is. Daniel is living in captivity,

and yet he doesn't respond to King Belshazzar as if he has

ultimate power. Essentially, he says, keep your

gifts. I'm not interested.

I serve a greater king church. We also live in a world that too

often rewards arrogance and violence.

But that doesn't mean that we have to give in or just like

take what we can get and try to be content.

We can decide that we answer to a higher power, that we don't

give our yes to anyone but God. When I think of resisting with

integrity, I think of the civil rights movement, the bus

boycotts, the acts of civil disobedience that declared we

will not give our yes to a system that denies basic human

rights to an entire class of people.

I think of survivors of sexual violence who insist on justice,

even if it comes at a steep cost to themselves, but still they

say we will not give our yes to a system that protects predators

and silences our voices. Or I think of the many people of

faith today who are pushing back when they see the name of Jesus

being misrepresented. And these are not necessarily

people who make headlines or who go viral, but instead they are

not giving their yes to any of the ideologies of this world,

but they are faithfully walking in the way of Jesus in their own

communities. Church, we are also called to

walk in the way of Jesus. Jesus doesn't negotiate with

corrupt rulers. He did not feel the need to

justify his faith when people slandered him or even threatened

him. He did not even try to

circumvent suffering when it came because his commitment to

God led him straight to the cross.

Jesus only gave his yes to God the Father.

And the path that he walked was not one of force and might and

striving for victory. It was a path of humility and

submission and self sacrifice and deathless love.

And that is where true power is. I mean, I've never met anyone

today who celebrates the power and glory of King Belshus heart

of Babylon, right? Like most people don't even know

his name. I know countless people who

celebrate the power and the glory of Jesus because His power

is one that lifts up the powerless, that heals the broken

hearted, that cultivates mercy in a hurting world.

And that is where real and lasting power lies.

Jesus walks in true power, and the story of Daniel reminds us

that at the end of the day, worldly power is ultimately an

illusion. It's like that scene in The

Wizard of Oz where Toto, like, pulls back the curtain and it

turns out the mighty Wizard is like, just some guy with a smoke

machine. You know?

That's how Daniel can so confidently reject the King's

rewards. He knows the offer is empty.

Like Belshazzar can present Daniel with gifts today, but he

can't promise him tomorrow. And within hours of their

conversation, Belshazzar is killed by his rivals, and his

promise of, like, status and wealth and influence becomes

completely worthless. And still, I mean, I find it

really inspiring how swiftly and confidently Daniel rejects the

gifts of Babylon. Because this is easier said than

done. As humans, we are also tempted

by the promises of status and wealth and influence.

You know, we want to be admired by others.

We want material comfort and even luxury.

We want to feel like we're in control of our environment and

our relationships. But the more that we are willing

to sacrifice to fulfill those desires, the more we slip into

idolatry. And the one thing that the book

of Daniel has really underscored for me is that idolatry can

point to this desire for power. You know, if we start like,

feeling unimportant or invisible, we crave the

affirmation of others. So we desire status, you know,

to have the power to shape how other people see us.

Or maybe the discomfort and the anxiety and the unpredictability

of this world starts to get to us.

And so we desire wealth so that we have the power to get

anything we want to kind of buy a sense of security or

distraction, you know, from our existential angst.

Or we resist the vulnerability of not being in control of other

people, of our circumstances. So we desire influence, the

power to persuade others to do what we want, to kind of make

the world operate the way we think is best in every

situation. We are being sold the illusion

of power. And if we pursue them, these

idols will disciple us in the way of selfishness.

Or just think of Belshazzar as an example.

Like enemy armies are at his doorstep and instead of taking

action to protect his people, he throws a self indulgent party.

He sacrifices his Kingdom to keep up appearances.

He distracts himself from his own fear by like indulging in

pleasure. His commitment to his own

status, his own wealth, his own influence has made him deeply

selfish. Now compare that to Jesus.

Instead of seeking wealth, Jesus doesn't even seek a home to call

his own. He goes wherever people need to

hear the good news of God's Kingdom.

Instead of seeking influence, Jesus uses his actual spiritual

authority to bring people healing and freedom.

Instead of seeking status, Jesus lays down his life to pay for

our sins. Jesus doesn't offer us shallow

gifts or temporary band aids. He invites us to find fullness

of life in Him, to find true and lasting peace and faith in Him.

Now God is the only one who doesn't have to strive and self

protect to maintain His power. Because only God has actual

power. And how does he use it to serve,

to heal, to love and to save? And he will use your life if you

give him your Yes, he will give. He will use your life to serve,

to heal, to love and to save, to be a part of the better world

that He is bringing about. S 1st, we need to understand

where true power comes from. And secondly, Daniel's story

warns US against the mistakes of King Belshazzar and instead

calls us to humble our hearts. So before Daniel interprets the

writing on the wall, he kind of gives a little history lesson.

He compares Belshazzar and his predecessor Nebuchadnezzar, and

says that God gave Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and

greatness and glory and splendor.

But when Nebuchadnezzar, when Nebuchadnezzar's heart became

arrogant and hardened with pride, he was deposed from his

royal throne and stripped of his glory until he acknowledged that

the Most High God is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and

sets over them anyone he wishes. That's what it says.

So here's the icing on the prophetic cake.

Daniel concludes that you, Belshazzar his son, have not

humbled yourself though you knew all this.

Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of Heaven.

You praise the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, wood, stone

and iron, which cannot see or hear or understand.

But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life

in all your ways. So Belshazzar has witnessed like

a real life cautionary tale of what can happen when a ruler

elevates himself above God, and yet he brazenly does the exact

same thing. This is the height of hubris.

This is the sign of a deeply fallen human ego.

And you know, ego as we'll use it today is like that inflated

sense of self, that false superiority, like a refusal to

admit that anything might be wrong with us or like the way

that we're living. When I think of the ego, I think

of the Garden of Eden and the fall of humanity.

Many of you will know the story how Adam and Eve lived in

comfort and security and relational richness with God.

And the one boundary that God set was that they were not

permitted to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And all was well until the serpent came along.

And the voice of the serpent subtly pushes the word of God to

the side when he says, did God actually say you shall not eat

of any tree in the garden? And then the serpent shifts to

directly contradicting the voice of God.

He says you will not surely die. And finally, the serpent offers

an alternate version of what is good and what is worth pursuing.

He says God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be

opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.

The voice of the ego follows a very similar pattern.

It starts by subtly pushing God's word to the side.

Did God actually say? And then if like no consequences

seem to immediately appear, the ego gets bolder and begins to

directly contradict God's word. And finally, when the ego

becomes powerful enough, it gets to work building its own

Kingdom, setting its own rules, defining good for itself.

So we can even see this playing out in real time with King

Belshazzar. Like, he knows the story of

Nebuchadnezzar, but he pushes it to the side.

Like, surely that won't happen to me.

And then as the ego gains momentum, Belshazzar might

think, like, how do we really know what happened anyway?

Like, maybe the God of Israel had nothing to do with what

happened. And as the ego gets more and

more inflated, Belshazzar might say to himself, the God of

Israel can't touch me. I'm too powerful.

I'll drink with his holy vessels and toast my own gods, and

nothing will come of it. But of course, he could not be

more wrong. See, the ego is a tricky thing

because it's subtle. Like, it's smooth, like the

voice of the serpent. It builds the momentum slowly,

kind of starts with an argument that sounds reasonable, and then

it builds towards more and more selfishness and self-reliance.

I'll give you an example of how this might look for someone who

is not a Babylonian king. Maybe more relatable.

So there was a time in my life when I was really frustrated

with someone. Is that relatable so far?

Have you guys ever been frustrated with someone?

Yeah. Have you ever been frustrated

with someone and started, like, rehearsing little stories about

why you're right and they're wrong or that's hilarious?

I heard I never, well, sarcasm in the audience keeping you guys

lively. Have you ever started out, let's

say you started out feeling hurt, right?

But then you get angry, Angry maybe that the person isn't

fixing the fact that you're hurt.

So then you start blaming them and resenting them to the point

where you actually become hardened against them, where it

even changes how you treat them and how much grace you're

willing to extend to them. So that was what was happening

in my heart. In my situation, I felt that I

had done something kind for someone and that their response

was ungrateful and even a little cold.

And in my heart, I started making up like little stories

that justified my being cold in return.

Because the the ego feeds on self justification.

Like it starts whispering things like you deserve better.

You just stop being so nice. If it's not going to be

reciprocated, you should leave them on red and see how they

like that. Fortunately, that internal

dialogue did not last long because the Holy Spirit was not

having it. So God, that's what happens when

you like pray for wisdom about something is like sometimes God

just comes down with the hammer of conviction.

You're like, oh I see what I'm doing.

And in this situation I feel like God revealed to me that

what I was actually doing is my ego was giving me permission to

withhold love from someone and that my friends, is not the way

of Jesus. So instead of extending grace

and even seeking repair, it justified the the grudge that I

was holding. Instead of seeking the good of

the other person, I had structured a sound argument as

to why I shouldn't have to. And maybe this seems like a

fairly tame example compared to like, the big problems in

society. But a little platform for the

ego is all that it takes. A little leaven leavens the

whole lump. Like justifying our selfishness

and our resentment, rationalizing our resistance to

loving others is our downfall. Listening to our egos is how we

got the broken world that we're living in today.

So how do we resist? Like, how do we recognize the

voice of the ego and silence it? Well, I'm going to propose today

that the antidote to ego is worship, specifically of Jesus.

We need to flip the hierarchy so that our opinion of our own

greatness, our own rightness, is lowered and God is elevated to

the highest position in our hearts.

Because the ego wants to worship itself.

The ego longs for power, and so it'll build alliances with

anything that will help it to secure power.

So to resist, we have to choose to lay our power down at the

feet of Jesus, and Jesus even models this for us.

Like during his earthly life, he was continually submitting

himself to God the Father before he chose the 12 apostles.

He spent all night in prayer before going to the cross again.

He was labouring all night in prayer, like wrestling with the

hard path that lay before him and then surrendering to God's

plan. Jesus walked in beautiful

humility. Philippians 2538 says that Jesus

being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God

something to used to his own advantage.

Rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a

servant. He humbled himself by becoming

obedient to death, even death on a cross.

If that last sentence is insane, he humbled himself by becoming

obedient to death. And maybe another way to look at

it is Jesus did not seek full satisfaction in this life.

He thought full satisfaction in doing God's will and in building

towards an eternal Kingdom. So Jesus is modeling the path

that we are invited to take, where instead of building like

little fragile kingdoms to support the whims of our egos,

we are invited to delay our egos down to give our allegiance to

the true and eternal King. I attended a prayer meeting this

week with some folks across several different churches in

the Boston area. And just being there, I was

thinking. It really reminded me how being

in a room with other people who are really focused on seeking

God's will feels freeing. Like there's like a lightness to

surrendering to God, which is so different than the feeling of

giving in to our egos. Like there's like a tension in

like a striving when we're operating in our egos.

Because again, the ego is self protective.

It has to like posture itself against others to like defend

it's logic because it doesn't have the benefit of resting in

God's truth and God's way. The path of the ego is tempting,

but if you walk it long enough, you'll discover that it's

burdensome. But worship unburdens our souls

and opens us up to receive the fullness of joy and peace that

can only come from God's Spirit. So God's invitation to us is to

humble our hearts and to receive him as our King.

And finally we reach the interpretation of the writing on

the wall. So in verse 25 it says this is

the inscription that was written.

Meanie, meanie tackle Parson. Here is what these words mean.

Meanie God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to

an end. Tackle You have been weighed on

the scales and found wanting. Periods.

Your Kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

And then in verse 30, that very night Belshazzar, king of the

Babylonians was slain and Darius the Mede took over the Kingdom

again. This is an example of how

fragile worldly power really is. And it kind of feels symbolic

that the entire reign of King Belshazzar can be just

summarized in a single chapter. Like he appears suddenly at the

start of chapter 5, and by the end of the chapter, he's gone,

like blinked twice and it's all over.

The writing on the wall is clear.

The Kingdom of God will outlive the Kingdom of the ego every

time. And the lesson that's really

been standing out to me as we've studied the book of Daniel is

that empires rise and fall, but as followers of God, the calling

on our lives remains the same. Like no matter our external

circumstances, we're facing the same challenge to decide what

kind of Kingdom we are building towards.

And both today and throughout church history, there have been

people who believed that it's our job to make the Kingdom of

God common earth. And so they'll try to do it by

force, by trying to conform the world around them to whatever

they think a Christian society ought to look like.

That's how we got the Crusades. My question is, when do we see

Jesus doing that? Like when do we see Jesus

leading by force? When do we see Jesus persecuting

those who disagree with him? When do we see Jesus even acting

concerned about his platform or his power?

The radical countercultural thing about the ministry of

Jesus is that it was humble, it was relational, it met people in

deep places of pain and brokenness with transformative

power. And that's the reason that the

Kingdom of God can still flourish in exile, in captivity,

when external circumstances are at their most dire.

It's because the Kingdom of God is about the transformation of

the human heart. And so it flourishes when people

choose worship over ego. It flourishes when people choose

truth and justice over compromise and conformity.

It flourishes when people choose sacrificial love over self

preservation. That is the power that Jesus

offers us. No matter what challenges we

face, we always have the option to choose faith and to trust God

for the outcome. There's this great story in the

book of Acts where Paul and Silas, who are evangelists and

church planners, they're thrown into prison basically because

they liberated a slave girl who is possessed by a demon.

So they're imprisoned, and Paul and Silas are praying and

singing hymns to God in the middle of the night.

And the other prisoners are all listening to them, when suddenly

there's this big earthquake and the whole prison is shaken and

the doors fly open and everyone's chains are undone.

And their jailer responds by falling down before Paul and

Silas, trembling with fear. And he says, Sirs, what must I

do to be saved? And of course they tell him

about Jesus, and the man and his family are baptized that very

night. This is the Kingdom of God on

full display in this story. You would think that the chains

had power, that the prison Doras had power, that the jailer had

power. You would think that the Roman

Empire would be the ones to get the final say on Paul and

Silas's fate. You might even wonder why God

would bring these two faithful men into this desperate

situation where they're imprisoned literally for doing

good. But in the most unexpected way,

God is actually answering their prayers.

They were preaching the Gospel, longing for people to come to

know Jesus and to be saved. And God brings them right where

they need to be, into a jail cell so that they can proclaim

the good nose of Jesus to their own jailer.

Daniel and his friends are in exile, so you would think

Babylon has all the power. You would think Daniel shouldn't

speak so boldly to the king or he might be executed.

You would think that God's Word can't breakthrough in a place

like this. But God works through Daniel and

his friends to put his glory on display.

And when needed, he even speaks directly through extraordinary

visions and dreams to show that he is present and at work.

Because the things that we see as limits, these external limits

are not limits for God. The worldly powers that we see

as in control are blips in the history book.

But the Kingdom of God will last forever.

And that means that the Kingdom work that God does through our

lives will last forever. So what are you building towards

in your life right now? You don't need a flashy job or

ministry or a big platform to make an impact.

You don't need status or wealth or worldly authority.

You need faith. The kind of faith that humbly

submits to God's plans. The kind of faith that sees

beyond external circumstances to the invisible Kingdom that God

is building all around us. The kind of faith that faces

every challenge the world can throw at you.

With this response, God is able. God is able to save us from the

fiery furnace. God is able to preserve our

souls. God is able to bring corrupt

leaders to justice, whether in this life or the next.

God is able to disrupt the momentum of evil.

God is able to work through our lives for good, even in exile.

God is able to bring his Kingdom to earth as it is in heaven.

God is able. Where do you need that phrase

today? Where do you need to counter

your fears, or the lives of the serpent, or the force of your

own ego? With these words, God is able.

So as we close, I'm going to read just a list of different

ways you might fill in the blank behind those words.

God is able. So just listen, let the phrases

wash over you, and just notice if one stands out.

And if it does, lift that up as a prayer to God, and we'll trust

that the Holy Spirit can speak what each of us needs to hear

this morning. God is able to heal.

God is able to rescue. God is able to change you, to

give you a new heart and a new spirit.

God is able to cover your darkest sins with his redeeming

love. God is able to take what man

meant for evil and use it for good.

God is able to restore the years that the locusts have eaten.

God is able to transform your current suffering through the

glory of His cross. God is able to use your life to

bring others into eternal life. God is able to save and redeem

in the places you cannot reach. God is able to keep His

promises. Let me pray for us.

Lord God, we thank you that you are able.

Jesus, we're so grateful that it is not down to us or our own

abilities or our own power. God, we are thankful that the

power is with you, God, and you are building towards a lasting

eternal Kingdom. God, we pray that you would help

us to take the things that we grieve, the things that we are

maybe angry about, the injustices that we see, the

things that feel like obstacles in our own lives, the things

that weigh us down. We thank you that we were

invited to lay all of these things down at your feet and ask

you to work. God, would you give us the gift

of greater faith? Jesus, a faith that would help

us to lay down our pride, to lay down our idea of how things

should go, what things should look like, and to really trust

in your plan and your ways. God, and the kind of faith that

makes us hold. The kind of faith that enables

us to keep singing hymns and praises from a jail cell.

The kind of faith that enables us to speak truth to power what

we're called upon to do it. The kind of faith that enables

us to live humbly and faithfully every single day in obscurity.

God, whatever invitation is before us this morning, we pray

that you would give us the faith to say yes to you, to say yes to

you, and to continue to walk in Your ways.

Thank you, Jesus, for being present to us.

Thank you for the gift of your love and your forgiveness.

We pray that all in your name, Amen.