(9.6.26) Sermon | The Story of Daniel, Week 4 | Patrick Hardy

Well, hey, good morning.

It's good to be with you on this.

What is it?

Is Labor Day weekend?

Is that what this is?

I don't even know.

But it's good to be together.

If you don't know who I am, I'm Pastor Patrick.

I'm a lead pastor here on staff.

And if this is your first time joining us, I just want to say welcome.

We're so glad you're here.

My hope is that you felt welcome from the moment you walked in this morning.

What we know is finding a church home is really hard.

You may church shop, you may have jumped around, been to other churches, had bad experiences.

And today I just hope that you feel like you're welcome, that we're glad that you're here.

And if this is your first time, would you do me a favor after service, would you stop by our welcome tables out there and fill out a connection card for us?

It's our way of stealing your identity so that we can make more money around here.

You know, uh it's just a chance for us to get to know you, to be able to connect with you.

Um I'd love to just shoot you a text this week and let you know how much we appreciate you being here uh today.

And I also believe that God's got something to say to us this morning.

So uh would you buckle up with us?

Uh back in 2024, uh, Alyssa and I, we we had recently bought our first home and we were living in it for a little bit.

Um and it was it was a great first home.

It was about eight minutes from the church that I was working at.

Uh it was about 10 minutes from her job, the other direction.

It was in a central location.

Um, it was in a little neighborhood, and it was a little starter home, and we absolutely uh loved it.

But when we were buying the house, it was it was COVID, which meant that you know, houses were going like crazy and you had to bid like crazy above asking price.

And we had looked at several houses and you know put in offers on some and didn't get it.

And uh this house was special because our realtor had a connection with another realtor who was actually flipping this house.

So the first time I walked into our home, uh there was no flooring, there was actually no kitchen at all, uh, the paint wasn't done yet, and it was just like bare bones.

But I knew from the moment we walked in, I was like, this is this is where we want to stay.

So we actually wrote up a purchase agreement saying, hey, when you finish renovating this home, uh we will buy it from you for this price.

And it was like, this is awesome, like we got a little bit more time to finish out our apartment and all of that stuff.

And uh the one thing that we missed, and we should have gotten this in writing and on paper, was what exactly he was going to renovate and what he was gonna get done.

There were things that as we walked through, he said, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, this is what we're gonna do.

And I went, that's awesome, that's great.

Uh, but there were some things that he said he was going to do or had mentioned that we had assumed he was gonna do that that didn't quite get done.

And one of those things was was our showers.

The showers were the original showers from uh when the house was built.

Uh they were they were a little bit gross, and they had the original shower head and handle.

You know what I mean?

Like when you have like the hard water and it's like all crusty and white.

Yeah, that's what these look like when we moved in.

Um so we just kind of dealt with it for a long time while we were living there.

And then eventually one week my dad came to visit, which that's a whole nother sermon for another day, but he had this idea and he was like, you know what?

Those are really gross.

You and I, we can we can switch them out.

Like, let's just do it, we'll do it this week while I'm here.

It'll be no problem at all.

And I went, Dad, do you know how to do that?

And he's like, nah, but we can figure it out.

And I was like, I don't know how to do that.

Uh and that's the recipe for a really bad story to come.

So one day we were during the week while he was visiting, we went from store to store, store to store, picking up all of the different things that we needed in order to take on this project.

Um, and while we were going from store to store, my dad the whole time is on FaceTime with my Uncle Mark.

He's on FaceTime with this plumber at his church all the way out in California.

They're talking about all these things that he needs to do.

And I was like, Do you know what he's talking about?

And my dad's like, Yeah, and I'm like, he doesn't know what he's talking about.

Like, he doesn't even he's not even explained this right.

So we get back to the house, we have all the supplies that we think we need, and we start, you know, messing with things.

And it was easy to change the shower head, that was no problem.

But when we went to change the controller, the the handle that would change the temperature, uh, it's supposed to just, you know, unscrew it and then a couple things, and you're supposed to just be able to pull it off.

Well, this had been rusted and we had copper pipes and everything, so it wasn't coming out.

So my dad just thought, you know what, the best idea would be that you just yank on it.

Like you just pull on it really hard.

And I was like, Dad, like, okay, I don't know if we're supposed to be just like yanking on this.

He's like, no, no, don't worry.

Your Uncle Mark told me that we could just pull on it, it'll come right off.

And so he's in the bathroom and he's just yanking on this control arm, like as hard as he can.

And I can just see the pipes just like moving behind.

I'm like, this is not gonna end well.

Eventually we did get it off, and we got the controller in, and we thought, hey, this is all good, everything's gonna be fine.

Um, until later that night, uh, someone went to go take a shower, and our, you know, our whole living room was just flooded with water.

It was dripping down.

Um, and not to mention, this was shortly after our first daughter Savannah was born.

Um, so let's just say my wife Alyssa was not very happy about all of this that was going on.

It's actually good she's not in here because I think she's blacked out this entire day in memory.

So the day ends with a very uh expensive emergency uh plumbing call to repair the leak.

We had a giant hole in the drywall from where he cut out to be able to fix it and patch it behind.

And then at the end of all of it, it was all done.

Uh, whatever we did, I don't know what we did.

Obviously, we didn't know what we were doing.

Uh, our our handle to change the temperature of the water, if you turned it to hot, we got cold water, and you when you turned it to cold, you got hot water.

So we put it on backwards or something was broken.

I don't know what happened.

We just dealt with it, sold the house, and someone else's problem today.

You know, it's all we didn't even patch the hole in the wall in the closet.

I don't think he ever saw it until he moved in.

We thought, how hard could it be?

The answer is it was just hard enough for two hardy men to not be able to fix the problem.

Our pride told us that even though we didn't know how to do it and we knew nothing about the project and we had done no preparation, we thought we could figure it out, we could do it anyways.

And as water leaked down from the ceiling, we ate a whole bunch of humble pie that day.

You see, pride, it blinds us, it clouds our vision, it distorts our judgment.

Pride makes us think, I've got this, no problem, I know what's best.

I got all the answers that I could possibly need.

I've got Chat GPT to answer my questions for me.

But just like my dad and I fixing out the the shower head on this plumbing job, pride blinds us of our own abilities and blinds us of the authority that we are truly under.

At the deepest level of pride, we are left to think that there is nobody who has authority over our lives, that we are completely in control of it all.

But the truth is, we all know that pride is a problem.

Every one of us in here would say pride is an issue for somebody else.

Nobody actually thinks that they have a real pride problem, but we all know someone who does, don't we?

It's easy to look at others and say they have a pride issue, they need to get their pride in order, but it's really hard to look at ourselves in the mirror and identify our own pride.

And if you're here today, I have some news to share with you.

You have a pride problem.

We all have a pride problem.

Although we can uh we cannot oftentimes see it for ourselves, we could all use a little bit of perspective in our lives to realize that we don't have it as under control as we think that we do.

We're not as big of a deal as we think that we are.

You may think you're in control, you may think you've got this, that there's nothing that this life can throw your way that you can't handle, but that's not true.

There is only one who's in control, and his name is Jesus.

So today, as we as we continue through the story of Daniel, we're gonna see how pride blinds, how it clouds and destroys our vision to be able to see clearly.

And King Nebuchadnezzar, who's the most powerful man in the world at this time, even falls victim to his own pride.

So if you got your Bible this morning, open up to Daniel chapter four.

We're gonna be looking at verses nine through eighteen in just a moment.

Uh speaking of my dad, my dad's also a pastor, and every week when he would get up here, he'd say, Hey, would you go to math class without your textbook without your math textbook?

Well, then why would you go to church without your Bible?

And I'd always look at my dad and say, Dad, I've never once taken my math textbook to math class.

Uh so he it never worked, he never changed, he still does it to this day, and you probably didn't, but it's I guess it'd probably be a good idea to bring your Bible to church.

So next week, when you bring your Bible to church, you won't need to use all of this up on the screen.

But for this week, if you don't have it, all of our scripture texts will be up on the screen for you to follow along.

So in our series, it's called Daniel Unshaken, where we're looking at the life and story of Daniel in order to learn how to have a faith that's unshaken no matter the circumstances of our lives that come our way.

And we've watched how Daniel has navigated living for God in the midst of a hostile culture.

You see, in the book of Daniel, the Israelites, God's people, they are conquered by the evil Babylonian nation.

Because of Israel's persistent rebellion against God, God allowed Babylon to conquer Jerusalem and carry his people into exile.

So Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they are stripped from their land, their culture, and they are forced to live as exiles in a hostile nation towards the God that they serve.

And in Daniel 1, we see that the king, he selects those from this exiled land to come and they are to be trained in order to be in the king's service.

And Daniel has to stand firm in his faith by not eating the king's food and defiling himself.

Instead, God makes a way for Daniel and his three friends to not only eat the diet that God has called them to, but they would perform better than everyone else who is being trained.

God makes a way for them to stand firm in their faith, on their convictions within a hostile world.

And then in Daniel 2, Pastor Gabe did an incredible job and showed us that Daniel is able to know and interpret the king's the King Nebuchadnezzar's dream when no one else was able to.

Daniel taught us that it's not about knowing everything, but it's about knowing the one who does.

And last week we saw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, these three guys, they are faced with pressure to bow down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has created and built.

And they refused to compromise their worship of the God they serve, and that meant that they were going to be thrown into the fiery furnace.

But God met them in the fire.

He delivered them through it and used their faithfulness to reveal the power to the king.

They taught us that unshaken faith trusts who God is and what God will do.

So up to this point where we are in Daniel chapter 4, King Nebuchadnezzar has seen God move in powerful ways.

Daniel 4 · chapter mention

He's even acknowledged the God of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as powerful and real, but we continue to see this same cycle unfold over and over as he goes back to his wicked ways as if he's experienced nothing before.

So in Daniel 4, we see King Nebuchadnezzar and he's at home.

He's in his palace, he's content, he's prosperous, when he has another one of these vivid dreams, and this dream terrifies him.

And he calls all of the wise men of Babylon to come together and to tell him what this dream means.

But all these men who come to interpret the dream, they are unable to do it.

And that's when Daniel walks in for us.

So would you stand with me out of the respect of the reading of God's word?

We're gonna read Daniel chapter 4, verses 9 through 18 together.

Daniel 4:9–18

It says this I said, Belteshazzar, who is Daniel, chief of the magicians, I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you, and no mystery is too difficult for you.

Here's my dream.

Interpret it for me.

These are the visions I saw while lying in bed.

I looked, and there before me stood a tree in the middle of the land.

Its height was enormous.

The tree grew large and strong, and its top touched the sky, it was visible to the ends of the earth, its leaves were beautiful, its fruit abundant, and on its food, uh and on it was food for all.

Under it the wild animals found shelter, and the birds lived, and its branches from it every creature was fed.

In the vision I saw while lying in bed, I looked, and there before me was a holy one, a messenger coming down from heaven.

He called in a loud voice Cut down the tree and trim off its branches, strip off its leaves and scatter its fruits.

Let the animals flee from under it, and the birds from its branches.

But let the stump and its roots bound with iron and bronze remain in the ground in the grass of the field.

Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven, and let him live with the animals among the plants of the earth.

Let his mind be changed from that of a man, and let him be given the mind of an animal till seven times pass by for him.

The decision is announced by messengers, the holy ones, declare the verdict, so that the living may know that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of people.

This is the dream I, King Nebuchadnezzar, had.

Because he has this vivid dream, right?

And when he has these dreams, he he calls all of the magicians, the enchanters, the astrologers, the diviners to come and to interpret the dream.

But none of these men who come are able to interpret it.

So he calls Daniel, who he remembers back in Daniel 2, who interpreted his dream the last time.

And what he says to Daniel when he comes is very interesting.

In verse 9, he says, Belteshazzar, who's Daniel, chief of the magicians, I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you, and no mystery is too difficult for you.

Here's my dream, interpret it for me.

You see, the other men, they had come and they had tried to interpret the dream for the king.

They were known for their positions and their talents and their gifts and their titles.

But Daniel was known for far more than just his title of being the chief of magicians.

No, Daniel is known not for his position, he's known for the God that he serves.

King Nebuchadnezzar knew that Daniel is different from everybody else.

Daniel's ability to interpret the dream was not associated with his abilities or his title, but it was tied to the God that he serves and the God who could give him the knowledge he needed to interpret this dream.

You see, Daniel wasn't the chief of the magicians because he could interpret dreams on his own.

He was given the position and influence because of his relationship with God.

The world tells us to chase positions of power and influence.

That's what we're after oftentimes.

If I can just get the title, then I'm good.

But Daniel's identity was never in his position.

Sure, Daniel had influence, and sure he had the title, but his influence was never about him.

It was only about the God that he serves.

You see, the wisdom that Daniel has come to is only from walking closely with God, not from his position or power.

You see, we want we want the girl, we want the job, we want the promotion, we want the salary, we want the influence.

But have we slowed down to look in the mirror to see if we are the people that God has called us to be in order to live out his mission within those positions?

You see, Daniel's wisdom was not tied to the position or influence that he had, it was tied to the God that he serves and the character that had been formed deep inside of him through years of walking closely to God.

When your identity is rooted in God, your circumstances and position don't determine who you are.

You live that way because of the God you serve, and then God blesses you by putting you in the positions that you're in.

So Daniel he hears the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar, and his initial reaction was confusion, like, oh, what does this mean?

And then as thoughts start to come to his mind, he he begins to be kind of terrified.

He's scared about what it is that this dream means that he has to tell the king.

And the king he looks at Daniel and he sees that Daniel is worried, that his wheels are turning up there, and he goes, Hey, it's okay.

You could tell me this dream.

You don't need to be alarmed, just tell me what this dream means.

And Daniel's concern comes from the dream not being favorable towards the king that he's about to tell it to.

And it says that my he says, My Lord, if only this dream applied to your enemies and its meaning to your adversaries.

He goes on to tell the king that the tree that's in this dream is actually representative of him as king.

The king's greatness has grown like the tree to be so big and so far reaching.

But he's going to be humbled, he's going to be driven away from his people, he will live among the animals, and he will remain there until he acknowledges the most high God as sovereign over all, including him.

And Daniel finishes this interpretation of the dream by making a plea to King Nebuchadnezzar.

And he says, Therefore, your majesty, be pleased to accept my advice.

Renounce your sins by doing what is right in your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed.

It may be that then your prosperity will continue.

See, Daniel, he had some he had some options in front of him when he's faced with interpreting this wild dream.

He could have just softened the message a little bit to King Nebuchadnezzar to make him feel a little bit better.

He could have avoided the difficult parts and just said, hey, you're this, you're this tree, you're so big, you're so powerful, but he doesn't do that.

He could have just excused the king's behavior and said, you know what, this dream doesn't mean anything.

You didn't actually do that kind of stuff.

Or he could have just told the king what he wanted to hear.

He could have said whatever it was that he wanted.

But instead, Daniel tells him the truth.

And it's important to recognize the motivations behind Daniel telling the king the truth of his dream.

Daniel doesn't share the truth in order to put King Nebuchadnezzar in his place.

He shares it for the king's good, so that the king will recognize his sins, so that he'll recognize who God is, so that the king will repent and turn of his wicked ways.

I want you to remember where the book of Daniel gets started.

It starts with Babylon and King Nebuchadnezzar conquering Daniel's homeland.

Daniel is stripped from his land, he's stripped from his culture, and he's forced to live within a nation that's hostile towards the God that he serves.

Daniel has every reason to relish in the news that God is going to humble the king and that he's going to suffer just like him.

But that's not what Daniel does here.

He wanted what was best for the evil king who had taken everything away from him to that point.

You see, unshaken faith means that your circumstances don't get to shape your character.

Your God does.

The next time that you want to get even, you want to celebrate someone's misery, or you want to see someone unworthy of your compassion, I want you to remember Daniel.

Your character is shaped by the God you serve, not based upon the circumstances that are around you.

So Daniel he interprets the dream and he encourages the king to repent of his ways.

And then he just leaves the king to do with that message as he wishes.

And twelve months pass by and nothing has happened, nothing has changed with King Nebuchadnezzar.

And while King Nebuchadnezzar is walking on the roof of his palace, he's looking out at all of Babylon, this great nation that he's built with all of its beauty and all of its splendor, and he says, Is this not the great Babylon I built?

What's happening is the king is taking the glory of everything that Babylon has become for himself.

He believes that all power on earth is his and there is no authority over him, not God or anybody else.

And look at what happens next.

Even as the words were on his lips, a voice came from heaven.

This is what I decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar.

Your royal authority has been taken from you.

You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals.

You will eat grass like the ox seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes.

This one's not covered in veggie tales, right?

The dream that King Nebuchadnezzar had, it wasn't figurative.

It was a literal thing that happens.

The best guess of modern scholars of what happens to the king is that he gets a condition called lyncanthropy, which means he has a mental disorder in which he believes that there are an that he is an animal and he acts according to it.

He literally leaves his kingdom and he goes out and he lives among the animals like an animal.

Wild story.

Whatever goes on here, it's clearly debilitating to the point where this illness renders the king unable to function as.

As the king and leads him out into this field to live like an animal.

King Nebuchadnezzar doesn't necessarily deny Daniel's God, but he refuses to bend a knee to him.

Think about that for a moment.

Throughout the book of Daniel, we see King Nebuchadnezzar and he sees God show up.

And when he sees it, he's never slow to acknowledge the God that they serve.

He's never slow to really even give God the credit.

But it doesn't change anything about him or the way that he lives or the authority he thinks that he's under.

It's almost like we're reading a conversion story at the end of every one of these chapters, like, oh my goodness, he's got it.

And then we go to verse one of the next chapter, and it's like he has forgotten everything that has just happened before.

Don't you think that after Daniel and his three friends are more fit than anybody else by eating the diet that God had called them to, that the king would change?

Don't you think that after Daniel interprets the first dream that the king would seek Daniel first when he gets another one?

Don't you think that after seeing Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in this fiery furnace come out unscathed and see a fourth man in the fire with him, that he would submit to their God, the one true God.

And yet he doesn't.

Instead, he refused to bend a knee to anybody other than himself.

This is what pride looks like.

Pride, it says, look at what I've built.

Look at what I've done.

Give me all the glory.

Whereas humility says, look at what all that God has done.

In your life, what have you taken credit for when you should have given God the glory for it?

In what ways are you acknowledging God but not submitting to Him?

You see, King Nebuchadnezzar is not a story of just what happened.

No, this is a story of what can happen to each and every one of us if we allow our pride to blind our vision.

So King Nebuchadnezzar, he's gone crazy, and he's out in this field living among the animals, eating the grass just like them.

And in this moment, he raises an eye towards heaven.

And it's in that moment that God restores his sanity.

It says that King Nebuchadnezzar, he praises the Most High God and gives him honor and glory, saying that God is the one with authority and rule and reign over everything on earth and in heaven.

And at the same time his sanity was restored, so was his position in Babylon as king.

As his advisors they came and they actually sought him out in this field, and he became greater than he ever was before.

And then King Nebuchadnezzar says, Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just.

And those who walk in pride, he is able to humble.

You see, the point of the story is not that God humbled the wicked, evil King of Babylon.

The point is that God was trying to bring King Nebuchadnezzar to a place of surrender in his life.

God gave him a warning, gave him time, gave him the opportunity to repent, then gave him another 12 months.

You see, this is not a story of God's wrathful judgment, but God's merciful patience with every one of us on display.

To live in God's kingdom means humility is the heart posture that's required.

We cannot live under God's rule while insisting ruling ourselves in our own lives.

Humility means recognizing that God is God, that God is sovereign, that God is in control, and when we humble ourselves under God's authority, it's where we experience God's blessing in our lives.

You see, Paul says in Romans 3.23, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Let me translate that for you into really simple terms.

All you and I deserve is death and hell, and maybe a bag of chips on the side.

Because God's patient mercy and grace offered to us through Jesus, through his death and resurrection on the cross, we can humbly turn from our prideful ways towards Jesus.

What have you been holding on to for long enough that God's been trying to break your grip of, but you just won't let go out of your pride.

Like King Nebuchadnezzar, God is calling you to let go, to bend a knee, and humbly put Jesus on the throne of your life where he rightfully should be.

So as we get ready to close this morning and the band comes on up, I want to remind you that we have a pride problem.

I don't have a pride problem, you have a pride problem.

Just kidding.

You're all saying he has a pride problem up there.

See, what pride does is it blinds us, it clouds our vision, it distorts our judgment, it convinces us that we've got it all together on our own.

But the truth is none of us truly got this.

And desperately we are in need of Jesus.

And maybe the most important thing we see in this story of Nebuchadnezzar is that acknowledging God is not the same as surrendering to Him.

Nebuchadnezzar, he had seen God move, he knew Daniel's God was powerful, he had watched God reveal the impossible, and he had watched God deliver Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery furnace.

And he acknowledged God over and over again, and yet he still refused to bend a knee to him.

And maybe that's where you are today.

You believe in God, you know Jesus is real, you've actually seen him move in your life and the lives of others, but believing that Jesus is Lord is much different than making him Lord of your life.

It's much different than placing him on the throne, giving him the authority over everything.

Because the question isn't whether Jesus is Lord, he is Lord.

The question is whether you will humble yourself and acknowledge that he's the Lord of your life as well.

Paul says it in Philippians 2, 10 through 11.

At the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

And every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.

Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess, and there will come a day when every person who has ever lived will acknowledge that Jesus is Lord.

The question is it isn't if you will bow.

The question is when you will bow.

You can bow on this side of heaven or you can bow on the other side of eternity.

You get to choose when you surrender today.

You could choose to stop trying to sit on the throne of your life for yourself and you can actually put Jesus where he belongs.

Because the good news of the gospel is that Jesus isn't asking you to just surrender because he wants to take something away from you.

No, he's asking you to surrender because he wants to give you life and life more abundant.

You see, King Nebuchadnezzar had to lose his kingdom before he realized who was really in control, who was really in charge, who was really king.

But you don't have to wait until everything falls apart in order to surrender.

You can choose humility today.

So what are you holding on to?

What are you trying to control?

What part of your life are you telling God, no, no, no, I've got this one?

What would it look like for you to open up your hands, get off the throne, and to bend a knee to Jesus?

Because unshaken faith begins with a surrendered heart.

And this morning we're gonna have the opportunity for you to do exactly that.

Maybe you've acknowledged Jesus for a long time as your savior, but you've never placed him as Lord, as the authority within your life.

And today you have the opportunity to surrender it over to him.

Maybe you've never said, Jesus, you are my Lord, you are my King.

So as the band leads us in this closing song, we're we're we're going to pray together as a church at the end of it.

And I'm gonna give you the opportunity, if you want to, bend your knee to Jesus for the very first time.

Because the King of heaven is calling you to surrender.

The question is will you bend your knee?

Would you pray with me?