Who Are You | In Not Of - Daniel 1 | September 8

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Music.

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar,

king of Babylon, long came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

And the Lord gave Jehoiakim 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 Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people

of Israel, both of the royal family and 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 teach them the literature

and language of the Chaldeans.

The king assigned 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, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah of the tribe of Judah.

And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names. Daniel he called Belshazzar,

Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego.

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 are in worse condition

than the youths who are 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, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, test your servants for 10 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.

So he listened to them in this matter and tested them for 10 days.

And at the end of the 10 days, it was seen that they were in better appearance

and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king's food.

So the steward took away their food and 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 Nebuchadnezzar.

And the king spoke with them, and among all them none was found,

like Daniel, Hananiah, 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.

Thank you, Michelle, for reading, and welcome, everybody.

We are going to be starting the book of Daniel today, so it's exciting news.

And that means for the next three months, the next 12 weeks,

which will take us right up to the end of the year, almost to the end of the

year, and we'll spend some of the end of the year reflecting on Daniel as well.

We'll be reading through the book of Daniel together and our time here together

on a Sunday in our small groups, family groups.

Throughout the week, we'll be reading this story and we'll primarily be asking

one very important question, and that is, who are you?

So, this is the fundamental question that Daniel's answering. Oh, there we go.

Trying to interject a little. Bring my fondness of old music.

It will stop eventually. There it goes.

So, Daniel is primarily answering one question. That's the question,

who are you? We don't have to play it again.

But Daniel answers a lot of questions in the story of Daniel.

It's answering a lot of questions.

It's talking about, it's about a lot of things. It's talking about how to faithfully

live in the midst of a culture that is opposed to God.

It's about God's comfort in the midst of oppression.

It's about longing for the hope and hoping for God's future promises for him

to fulfill his promises.

It's about all these things, but primarily it's about identity.

Daniel is a story, as a story, it's filled with, we talked about it a little

bit, but it's filled with these

fantastical apocalyptic visions that we'll meet eventually, not today.

And as such, it serves primarily to encourage and strengthen God's people,

to remind them who they are, to stand firm in who they are, and for them to

hope for a future that God is ultimately in control.

Past, present, and future, God is in control, and it's in his hand.

So Daniel passionately believed that there was a God in control of all of human history.

This is something that Daniel passionately believed, even the exile.

So we're gonna talk about that a little bit, but the exile that brought Daniel

and his friends to Babylon, even that was a sign for Daniel that all of global

history, as well as Daniel's small history, were all in God's hands.

So let's take a moment. Let's take a step back.

And kind of talk about how we got here. Let's give some perspective and context

on where we are in the Bible, where we are in the story of the Bible.

We just heard in these opening verses, during the third year of King Jehoiakim's

reign in Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

The Lord gave him victory over King Jehoiakim of Judah and permitted him to

take some of the sacred objects from the temple of God.

So Nebuchadnezzar took them back to the land of Babylonia and placed them in

the treasure house of his God. So this is where we are in history.

God is in control of history. He is king over all nations. He rules over all of history.

When we get to Daniel 5, verse 21, we'll read that the most high God rules in

Daniel 5:21

the kingdom of men and appoints over it whomever he chooses.

He lifts up one and brings down another.

So the Lord gave Nebuchadnezzar victory.

That's the context where we're at right now. This is not clever PR.

This is not the first record of spin.

God permitted it. In fact, we read here that the Babylonians were God's method

of redemption for his people, which may seem strange.

We see this in the book of Habakkuk as well. This story is all throughout the

Bible, but Habakkuk prays and watches for God to redeem his people.

And God says, I'm sending the Chaldeans. The Chaldeans are the Babylonians.

So, this is God's chosen method of redemption. This is what we call the exile.

So, the exile is life outside of Jerusalem.

It's life outside of the promised land. It's life outside of Eden,

if you will. This is life in exile.

But that doesn't mean, it doesn't mean that this is life outside of God's control.

God is still very much in control. Future and past, it's in his hands. God is in control.

2 Kings chapter 24 gives us a little bit more information of how Daniel got here. Thank you.

2 Kings 24 · chapter mention

It says that in verse two, the Lord sent bands of Babylonian,

Aramaean, Moabite, and Ammonite raiders against Judah to destroy it,

just as the Lord had promised through his prophets.

These disasters happened to Judah because of the Lord's command.

He had decided to banish Judah from his presence because of the many sins of

Manasseh, who had filled Jerusalem with innocent blood.

The Lord would not forgive this. So God sent his prophets to speak his truth,

to speak his word to his people, to bring his people back to his covenant,

that they might be his people, that he might be their God and they might enter

into his rest and his peace. But the people continued to rebel.

They continued to rebel. They served the false gods. They worshiped the false

gods of the people around them.

They turned their back on the one true God and they built for themselves.

They replaced him with images that they made by the hands of men.

So they committed They did the

same atrocities as the people of the other nations that were around them.

And so, God let them be taken is the context.

In fact, again, we read here that God commanded it, that this is God's will.

He sent the Babylonians to do it.

So, Daniel's presence in Babylon, we know, is ordained by God. It's not an accident.

It's not a concession that Daniel was where he was for a purpose.

He was there for a purpose. And so if you don't know who you are,

then you won't know what to do.

But Daniel knew who he was. Daniel knew his identity.

Daniel knew who he was. He knew who God was. And Daniel had a great purpose.

And this is not a wild assumption.

This is not just something I'm making up to prove a point here on a Sunday morning.

Daniel was a student of God's word. He had read the prophets.

He read letters sent by the prophets. prophets, Daniel knew the heart of God.

And so Daniel knew his identity and he had purpose.

And the only way that you will be able to answer that question,

who are you, is if you can answer the question, who is God?

The only way you can answer and know who you are is if you know who God is.

And Daniel knew God and so he knew himself.

This is the logic that we're working with this morning, but this is strange

because we're talking about exile and exile is a place where people lose lose their identities.

What happens when oppressive empires run over the little guys?

They get rid of their national identities.

So we read here in Daniel chapter one that the King Nebuchadnezzar ordered his

chief of staff to bring to the palace some of the young men of Judah,

royal family and other noble families who had been brought to Babylon as captives

and train these young men in the language and literature of Babylon.

So Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah were four of the young men chosen all from the tribe of Judah.

The chief of staff renamed them with these Babylonian names.

Daniel was called Belteshazzar, Hananiah was called Shadrach,

Mishael was called Meshach and Azariah was called Abednego.

And this is social engineering at its finest, right?

This is making everybody the same in terms of their identity,

telling them who they are, getting rid of all of their national differences

and assimilating them into one homogenized culture.

This is the message. Don't be different. Conform.

This is the way, right? Be a part of this culture. Forget where you came from.

And so Daniel and his friends were trained. They were educated in the finest

universities that Babylon had to offer.

They were given food from the king's rations, from the king's table,

and they were given new Babylonian names, which are quite offensive to the sensibilities

of any true God-fearing Hebrew. Daniel.

Daniel is a name that means God is my judge. And this is not meant to be a fear-inducing sentiment.

This is a celebration of the God of justice who makes all things right in the end.

Yes, that God doesn't allow anything to to go unpunished and also God fiercely

loves and he shows grace in equal measure. This is the name that Daniel had.

God is my judge, the God who won't forget his people.

Daniel was renamed. He was called a new name, a Babylonian name,

Belteshazzar, which means Baal protects his life.

And so, this is different than the word Baal. This is Baal.

But Baal, so the main god, the main deity in Babylon was the god Marduk.

And instead of pronouncing or spelling out the name, they would replace the

name with the word Baal, which means something like Lord, which should sound familiar.

This is something that people of the ancient Near Eastern world did all the

time. Israel did this as well, right?

They didn't pronounce the God's name Yahweh and they didn't spell it out.

And so, this is actually something that the Bible often does in clever storytelling

is it adopts, the authors adopt a trope or a practice or a symbol of the culture around them,

but then they change it in a very

significant way to make a definitive statement of the supremacy of God.

They take something that the culture is used to, a story or a symbol,

but then they changed the details of it in a significant way to say that God

is not just similar in among other gods, but he is far and above all other gods

because the Bible has always been written.

The Bible has always been written to be read by the nations,

to be heard by the nations.

It was always expected that these words were not for the people of Israel themselves,

but that the nations would hear them and hear the God of Israel who was far

and above love all other gods. So Daniel, God is my judge.

Hananiah, which means the Lord shows grace, was called Shadrach,

which means command of Akun. Akun was the moon god.

So Mishael, which means who is like God, was called Meshach,

who is like Shach, another Babylonian deity.

And Azariah, which means God has helped, was called Abednego,

servant of Nebo, which was the son of Marduk.

So it's almost as if the Babylonians here are giving these young men new names

as a way to almost like mock them for their perceived ignorance in somewhat,

but also to take their meaning.

Directed at Yahweh and change it to a congruent statement, except this time

directed towards a Babylonian God.

And their names were changed as a way to encouraging them, as a way to encourage

them to forget their traditions and the God of their homeland and be conformed

to the ways and the God of Babylon, to erase their identity.

And all of this, the strange thing is that all of this is fine to Daniel and

his friends. They don't protest it.

Indeed, we hardly even know the names Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

It seems like for the remainder of the book, the names that are primarily used

are their new Babylonian names.

And that's how we know them best. When we think about the story,

we don't think of those names.

We think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, which I know I'm probably saying

wrong because it's not English and there's a D there somewhere.

So, it's probably more like Abednego or something like that,

but that's beside the point. Those are the names that we know.

We hardly even know their true Hebrew names.

And so, in this first chapter of Daniel, there seems to be little exception

taken to the assimilation into

their culture, but for the food rations provided from the king's table.

Daniel protested the royal food, which may seem strange in today's context,

in our modern context, I think that we would care little about the food that

we were given and we would care a whole lot about what we were called.

But for these young men, it was the other way around.

They refused to eat the king's food, the king's rations.

And they instead insisted in this moment to maintain their cultural identity, to fight for it.

And God honored it. God honored and blessed their devotion so much so that we

We read when the training period ordered by the King was completed,

no one impressed him as much as Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

Whenever the king consulted them in any matter requiring wisdom and balanced

judgment, he found them 10 times more capable than any of the magicians,

enchanters in his kingdom.

I can't really say why they cared so little about their names and so much about their diets.

God had taken special care to give all of these laws about what should and shouldn't be eaten.

And he did that as a way to separate and to mark his people from among the nations.

So diet was very important. important perhaps what Daniel ate said more about

his identity than what he was called.

We knew though that specifically Daniel's protest was with regard to meat and with regard to wine.

So there's probably some sort of pagan ritual component here that is involved

in the eating of those items.

But I suppose the lesson we can learn is they can call you whatever they want,

and you can call yourself whatever you want.

But if your identity is in God, then that is an identity that will never change.

That is a sure foundation that will never change.

And so, they were sure to preserve their national identity, not necessarily

as Israelites, Hebrews, but definitely as God's set apart people.

That's what they were preserving. And I guess that's the point to be made,

but there's also another important note, and that is there are times to concede

and there are times to fight.

And this is, they conceded their names, but they fought for their diets.

And in exile, life in exile, our identity is exactly what we need to remember and fight for.

In exile, rather than forgetting our identities, we need to remember them and

we need to fight for them because with every decision you make,

with every decision you make, you are becoming someone different.

And you are either being conformed to the patterns of this world,

or you are being conformed to the image of Jesus.

Romans 12 teaches us that, that we need to be transformed into his image by

allowing him to renew our minds, to change what we care about,

that God would change what we care about so that we know his will,

so that we will know where those important battle lines are to be drawn.

So we should know what we should care about.

What are we gonna care about? What are we gonna fight for? And what are we gonna let go of?

Because even though this is Daniel's story, and this is what Daniel said,

that he did in his day and his circumstances.

And he's not necessarily telling us what

we should do in our day and our circumstances. This is Daniel's story.

And even though that's true, this is also our story.

We haven't been taken to a new place. We haven't been taken to a new culture somewhere else.

We've stayed and the culture around us has changed.

Our culture is changing drastically around us and it will continue to do so.

So we have to know who we are. We have to know who God is so that we can know who we are.

We have to know who God is so that we can know who we should be.

So we can know where to draw the lines.

Faithfulness will look like two things. Faithfulness will look like maintaining

our devotion to God and faithfulness will look like maintaining our witness for God.

Faithfulness will look like maintaining our devotion and our witness without compromise.

And we must draw the lines. we must choose to draw these lines wherever we are told to disobey God.

We must draw these lines wherever we are asked to compromise on matters that

our conscience tells us will undermine our identity.

We must draw the lines wherever we are pressured to elevate man above God.

We must draw the lines and resist the temptation to withdraw from and then so privatize our faith.

We must must also resist the temptation to politicize our faith.

And some of us will be more tempted than others to draw the lines and fight

where faithfulness doesn't require it.

And others will be tempted to keep our heads down and compromise when faithfulness

looks like drawing the line and gently but firmly refusing to cross it.

Sometimes it's straightforward to know where these lines should be drawn. Sometimes it's not.

And our unity depends on humbly accepting the difference, humbly knowing,

recognizing the difference between those scenarios, because the truth is that

God is in control of all things.

God's throne is, is constant. His rule is sure.

Even when one oppressive empire gives way to another impressive empire,

which will happen in Daniel's story, the Babylonians will be overcome by,

I think, the Syrophoenicians, if I remember.

But there's two oppressive empires that Daniel spans.

So, even when one oppressive empire is replaced by another oppressive empire,

God is in control of all rule and authority.

He was in control of Daniel's little story, and God is in control of your story as well.

We must know what to care about. We must know who God is so that we can know who we are.

We must live in this world in in exile, but always remember that we are not of the world.

We have been taken out of the world and then sent back into the world.

Have you heard this phrase before that the in, but not of that we are to be

in the world, but not of the world.

You've heard this before. It sounds familiar. It's a bit of a Christian mantra, you might say.

And it's not exactly in the Bible.

I mean that you won't find that exact phrase, but the idea is clear.

It mostly comes from John 17, which we were already introduced to,

where Jesus is praying over his disciples and he prays to the Father,

I have given them your word and the world hates them because they do not belong

to the world, just as I do not belong to the world.

So I'm not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one.

They do not belong to this world any more than I do.

So here's verse 17 that we read, make them holy by your truth,

teach them your word, which is Jesus' truth.

So through believing in the word of truth, putting our faith and our trust in

Jesus, we have been taken out of the kingdom of this world, the kingdom of darkness.

We now in Jesus belong to the kingdom of God, the kingdom of light.

So as believers, Christians, as believers, we are no longer a part of this world.

We are no longer of the world. We are no longer ruled by sin.

We are no longer bound by the principles of this world.

Our cares are changing. We are instead being changed in the image of Christ,

causing our interests in the things of this world to become less and less.

Looking less like the world and more like Christ, we have been set free.

And so Jesus goes on in this chapter to say, just as you sent me into the world,

I am sending them into the world.

So I'm praying not only for these disciples, but also for all who ever believe

in me through their message.

So the disciples were taken out of, not of, they were sanctified and then they

were sent back in to testify.

That to proclaim, as we have said, the universal reign of Christ and to embody

Jesus to the world around them.

That we are here for the world, not against the world.

It's not us versus them. It's for them.

That we are not trying to escape from the world.

The primary message, the primary Christian message is not a longing to be somewhere else.

It is a longing to see heaven come to earth and overlap it for God to renew and redeem.

It is a command to be in the world, just in the same way that Jesus was in the

world to do what Jesus did and to accept the risk, the guarantee that the world

will hate us as Jesus was hated.

Not because our actions deserve hate, as some people might get wrong,

but because our message of love is an unwelcome antidote to the poison of sin

that still has its grip on all of mankind.

That we are meant to do as Jesus did, to love as Jesus loved.

That is why we were sanctified in the first place, that our salvation is for other people.

And so I recently read an article from a disenchanted believer who is so convinced

of the compelling love of Christ, but is so disheartened by the reality that

many of the people of God fail to look like him in any way.

So even as we step into this reality of family, even as we step more into this

reality of family, there's always the potential for us to fall into the same trap.

And even though what we will continue to hear me say is that our family exists,

this family of God exists for those who are not here yet, even though that's

what I will continue to say, there's always this temptation that we must be

vigilant to look out for in ourselves.

And so the author writes this, I do not see Christian people laser focused on

the mission that God gave us of continuing to love all people on his behalf.

Instead, I see holy huddles where we become somewhat okay at loving other Christians if we're lucky.

I do not see Christian people knowing that they are here for a reason.

Instead, I see people waiting to be taken away from here.

I do not see Christian people living in the world they're in.

Instead, I see them afraid of the world while setting up camp just outside of

the scary parts of town so they don't get any sin on them.

Jesus wants us to be here, not separate. But I see Christians doing everything

they possibly can to stay separate from the world.

You are sent into the world to make God's love known and to leave his mark upon

it in the most Christ-like way possible, to show love to those who hate us and

wrong us and disagree with us and want to hurt us and misunderstand us or seek to use us.

And we are to give without thought of ourselves and without even dwelling on the decision.

We are called to be Jesus in this world, to be like Jesus is already to be different

from this world inherently.

Inherently, as long as we are becoming more like Jesus, we are already becoming

less like the world in all the ways that matter to God.

Our focus is not on becoming less like the world.

Our focus is on becoming more like Jesus. And as we become more like Jesus,

we will be less like the world in all the ways that matter.

So Daniel knew who God was. He knew who he was. And as a result,

Daniel had immense purpose.

Again, this is not a wild assumption.

Daniel tells us this in chapter nine. He tells us that, I, Daniel,

learned from reading the word of the Lord as revealed to Jeremiah the prophet,

that Jerusalem must lie desolate for 70 years.

So I turned to the Lord and I pleaded with him in prayer and fasting.

So Daniel was reading the word of God. He had heard from specifically here, the prophet Jeremiah.

This is what, we know what Daniel read.

Here's what Daniel read. This is in Jeremiah chapter 29.

Jeremiah 29 · chapter mention

This is what the Lord of heaven's armies, the God of Israel says to all the

captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem. It's Daniel and his friends.

Build homes, plan to stay, plant gardens, eat the food they produce,

marry and have children, then find spouses for them so that they,

that you may have many grandchildren.

Multiply, do not dwindle away in work for the peace and the prosperity of the

city where I sent you into exile.

Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare, for its welfare will determine your welfare.

And this is the verse that you all know, but probably haven't realized the context

for, for I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.

They are plans for good and not for disaster to give you a future and a hope.

There's an interesting twist there, right?

God says to the land that I sent you into exile, aisle.

Perspective that Daniel understood was he was not taken into exile captive,

that he was sent there by God. He had a purpose. Daniel knew his purpose. He had a future.

He had a hope that God, the God who was in control of all history,

the God who is in control of all history, the same God who,

orchestrated their past and had made way for their present, that same God had

given Daniel and his his friends a bright future and a spectacular hope.

And that purpose, we learned, was to work for the peace and the prosperity and

the welfare of the land to which they had been sent.

Not to the land which they had been taken captive, but to the land that the

God of history had orchestrated for them to be in.

Their purpose was to pray for them, to love them, to testify to them about the Lord.

God essentially is saying, tell them all about me. That's what he's saying to

us as well. And the result, the future hope that God is talking about,

the result is redemption and rest in the presence of the living God.

And this is the gospel that changes us. So what does it look like to live as

a Christian in a society that doesn't like what Christians believe,

what we say and how we live?

It looks like knowing God as Daniel did, that God is in control,

that he will keep his promises.

That God may at times deliver us from the fire, but if not, he will always deliver us through the fire.

So I asked my question again, who are you?

This one's shorter, I think. There you go. If you don't know who you are,

then you won't know what to do. You won't know what, how to act.

Identity reveals action. Identity leads to action. And we always,

we already spent several weeks talking about the mission of God,

the mission of this church.

The reality is if you don't know who you are, then you will always spend your

life on the sidelines of God's mission instead of engaged in God's mission.

We have to know who we are.

We have to know who we are so that we can know whose we are and so that we can

have confidence of what we are to do.

And so as we wrap up our time, this is the thought I had.

Who's seen the movie, Cool Runnings? Have you seen this movie? Most of the adults.

It is a bit of an older movie. I recognize that. And this is probably a movie

that you could show to your kids. I'm just saying.

I mostly say the movies that I mentioned, I would not recommend watching them.

This is probably one you can watch and you can probably show it to your children.

But there is a scene in that movie where the character Yul Brynner,

the character, not the actor, that's the character's name.

Yul Brynner is giving a pep talk to Junior Bevel and he tells him to look in

the mirror and tell me what you see. You guys remember this scene?

And he says, I see pride. Anybody remember it? I see power.

I see, yeah, don't finish that one. He says bad mother, but actually the end

of it isn't the bad word is before that.

So maybe get the edited version of that scene, particular scene.

But I want to end our time together doing this exercise where we are reshaping our identity.

We are reforming, renewing our minds as we read in Romans chapter 12,

Romans 12 · chapter mention

that we are proclaiming these identities over ourselves.

And what I want to do is, what I would love to happen is that throughout the

week that you would repeat this to yourself as well.

And we can come back together next Sunday and we'll remind each other of this

truth, of these identities.

And if you, it's okay, take a picture when we get to it so that you remember

them or they'll be online on the website.

Even if you just pick one or two, like what is the one or two that you struggle

with the most to believe about yourself? yourself and repeat that throughout the week.

And in your family groups, share which one that you struggle to believe most about yourself.

And let us encourage one another into the reality of these identities.

Because when I look at each and every one of you, this is what I see. I see a child of God.

I see a beautiful creation made in the image of God.

I see a warrior stands firm on the truth.

I see a vessel of love and grace and strength filled with the Holy Spirit.

I see a citizen of heaven who is redeemed, chosen, and set apart for the purpose

of God, for God's purpose.

I see a follower of Christ who walks in victory and refuses to bow to fear.

I see a pillar of truth who doesn't take any lie from the enemy.

I see a servant sent into the world to shine his light.

I see a messenger of hope sent to proclaim the good news and live out the love of Jesus.

I see an ambassador bringing peace, justice, and mercy wherever you go.

I see a glorious expression of the King sent to make him known. This is your identity.

So go ahead and stand up with me. Join me in speaking this truth and proclaiming

this identity of yourselves, that you may know who you are, that you may know whose you are.

And again, that you may know with confidence, what are you to do as you live

your life, as we live our lives together in exile in this world with great purpose.

Go ahead and stand up and tell me who you are. Tell me what you see.

I see a child of God. I see a beautiful creation made in the image of the Almighty.

I see a warrior who stands firm on the truth. I see a vessel of love,

grace, and strength filled with the Holy Spirit.

I see a citizen of heaven who is redeemed and chosen, set apart for God's purpose.

I see a follower of Christ who walks in victory and refuses to bow to fear.

This is you. This is your identity.

I see a pillar of truth who doesn't take any lies from the enemy. me.

I see a servant who is sent into the world to shine his light.

I see a messenger of hope sent to proclaim the good news to live out the love of Jesus.

I see an ambassador bringing peace, justice, and mercy wherever I go.

I see a glorious expression of the King sent to make him known.

So this is your identity. This is who you are.

And so if you have the wherewithal, the remembrance Remembrance throughout the week.

Again, you don't have to say them all. If it's helpful, each morning,

wake up, look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself what you see.

But if you can only remember one or two, or if there's one or two that particularly

for you, you struggle with to remind yourself of that identity.

If there are one or two that you struggle to believe, maybe because of a season

of a life, maybe because of a history or a past, Just remember,

this is who you are and the God who is in control of all history.

The God who is in control of Daniel's little story is the God that's in control of your story as well.

And we'll come back together next week and remind each other of these truths.

Thank you for listening to Mountainside Church's podcast. We hope you found

inspiration and encouragement in today's teaching.

To learn more about our church, stay connected or partner with us,

visit mountainsidechurch.org.

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