Influencer – How to Have influence

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason Burns and Access Church in Lakeland, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Let's get after it today, starting a new message series of talks that I'm excited about called Influencer.

And here's what we're going to talk about for the next few weeks.

Here's the question we're going to wrestle with how do you live a godly life when culture shifts?

How do you continue to live a life that honors God and pursues the things of God when culture changes?

And here's the news culture is changing and it will continue to change.

And one of the funny things is so many people ask questions like, Well, how much darker can it get?

And how much worse can it get?

The truth is, culture is always changing around us.

For the next few weeks, I want to look at the life of one of the heroes of the Old Testament, a man named Daniel.

Many of you have heard his name before.

Even people who aren't really church people have maybe heard of Daniel in the lion's den or the stories like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace.

All of these are found in the book of Daniel, but I want to look at it through a completely new lens to ask the question: what do we do when culture continues to change?

A few years ago, my family and I went to this trampoline park, one of those indoor trampoline parks where they got trampolines and the foam pits you can flip into.

And we were there, and my son Joey was a lot smaller at the time, my oldest son, and he found this cool place where there was a platform with the soft cushion at the bottom, and he was just enjoying flipping.

He would just do a front flip and land on his back, and he did another one.

And he did one that he thought was really cool, and he said to me, Dad, did you see that?

I said, No, I was distracted.

I'm sorry, do it again.

And he got up to the top and he yelled the Polk County motto, hey y'all, watch this, you know, and um, it's usually how every bad story starts.

And and he did a flip, and when he landed, I'll never forget how I felt in the moment.

Now I'm gonna be honest, I'm a sports guy.

I love sports, I love football and basketball, and I have watched sports so much in my life that when a player hurts themselves, when they grab a knee or when they grab an Achilles, it's almost immediately I can tell you what the injury is.

I'm like, oh, that's an Achilles, that's at least a year out of sports.

That's an ACL injury, he'll be out for nine months.

I I can tell you where it's a sprain, I can tell you if it's gonna be four weeks or a month, I can tell you, I could tell you how long the injury is going to take just by watching sports.

And when I saw my son Joey hit the mat, he writhed in pain, and my immediate thought was, oh my God, he's paralyzed.

He his body seized up, he froze up and he couldn't move, and he screamed in pain, and it's like he tried to move, but his whole body was locked in pain.

And immediately I thought my whole world had changed.

Immediately I thought everything that was true three minutes ago is no longer true for my family.

I thought the whole world had changed for me.

If you've ever had a moment like that before, hold on to that tension.

Just as a quick side note for people who are like, you don't finish your stories, he's completely fine.

He just landed awkwardly.

He's good, okay, we're fine.

But in that moment, I didn't know.

Wait, we've all experienced this in our lives.

We've all had a moment where we went to bed one day and we woke up the next day and the world was completely different.

Whether it was because of a Supreme Court decision or because terrorists flew planes into buildings, whether it was because a president was assassinated or a rocket blew up in the sky, whether it was because a global pandemic swept the world in the midst of all the racial and social tension and political tension.

Like we've all experienced days where one day is entirely different than the next and it feels like culture changes.

What do you do in that world to live a godly life when culture changes?

And I want to look at the life of Daniel.

Now, let me give you some background because I think it's important when we approach scripture to know what we're reading and why it matters.

First thing you need to know is the Old Testament of the Bible, it's not written chronologically.

Now, this is important for you to understand because sometimes you'll read the Bible and you'll get to like 1st and 2 Samuel, and you'll read about David, who lives this big life, and then he dies at the end of the book, and then you get to Psalms later, and he's alive again, and he's writing Psalms, right?

It doesn't make sense.

The reason is the Bible, the Old Testament is grouped in sections of Scripture.

So the first five books of the Old Testament are called the books of law.

The next set of books are the books of history, it's the history of the people of Israel.

The next set of scriptures are what's called the poetic books.

You got like Psalms and Proverbs and Ecclesiastes in that section.

And then the whole rest of the Old Testament is lumped together in a section called the prophetic books.

And there's two sections of prophetic books there's the major prophet books and the minor prophet books.

And they're not called that because some are better than others, it's because some are just longer than others.

And Daniel is one of the major prophetic books, and here's the reason.

The first six chapters of the book of Daniel are all about the history of Daniel.

The last six chapters are all prophetic.

Why does it matter?

It matters because if we don't pay attention to history, we will be doomed to repeat the same thing we've seen happen over and over and over again.

And Daniel should serve as a warning, like a beacon of light in an incredibly dark world.

And I just want to say for these next few weeks, I want to challenge you to ask God, God, what do you have for me to learn from the life of Daniel so that I can be a person who lives a life full of influence?

Here's how Daniel's world changed.

Daniel chapter 1, verse 1.

Daniel 1:1

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

Here's what you need to know.

Daniel went to bed one night in Judah, his place, a part of Israel.

Everything was normal for him, and then the next day his country was besieged.

It was captured by the Babylonians.

Just for context, Babylon would be like modern-day Iraq.

And it comes and it takes Daniel and his people into captivity.

It says, and the Lord delivered Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand, along with some of the articles from the temple of God.

Next verse.

These he carried off to the temple of his God in Babylonia and put the treasure in the house of his God.

So here's what happens.

The people of Babylon come, and they take over and they make all of these people from Judah into their slaves.

And to rub it in their faces, they take all of the things of God.

These are things like the Ark of the Covenant, these beautiful treasures, and they put them in the house of a Babylonian God.

Then it goes on.

Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, that's an important name to remember, chief of his court of officials, to bring into the king's service some of the Israelites from the royal family and nobility, young men without any physical defects, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, kind of kind of like your pastor.

Anyways, God, quick to under that's more like a woo moment, not like a laugh.

Whatever, I'll get it, I'll work it out with my therapist.

Quick to understand and qualified to serve in the king's palace.

Let's just hit pause here for just a moment.

Here's what's happened.

They've taken all these people.

And the king says, I want you to take all the young men and I want you to put them out in the fields to do manual labor, but those of nobility, those of royal lineage, and the brightest and smartest, pull them out and let's use their brains to further our empire, not just their physical labor.

It goes on to say this.

He was to teach them the language and the literature of the Babylonians.

Those people who were the smartest and brightest, we were going to indoctrinate them in the language and the theory of this new nation.

They were to be trained for three years.

Next slide, please.

They were to be trained for three years, and after that, they were to enter the king's service.

Among those who were chosen were some from Judah.

Daniel, you know his name, Hananiah, Meshael, and Azariah.

You got all these people, and they're all taken out of their homeland.

Their whole world is flipped upside down.

And the question is, what would you do if something like that happened?

Now the truth is that may never happen to us.

Our nation may never be overtaken.

We don't know what's going to happen, but here's what we do know.

Things around us always change.

We are one decision away as a country from a completely different country.

We are one vote away from a different country.

We are one decision.

We are one social uh social justice movement away from a different country.

Like life can change very quickly for us.

And here's what you need to understand: culture changes.

But here's what I came to say today: God doesn't.

Culture changes, but God doesn't.

And you need to make this decision as a declaration in your heart that no matter what happens around me, nothing in me gets to change because God's word has the final word in my life.

Story goes on in verse 7.

This is the chief official, that's that guy Ashpenaz again.

He gave them new names.

I want you to pay attention to this.

He renames them.

Daniel, he gave the name Belteshazzar, to Hananiah, Shadrach, to Meshael, Meshach, and Tazariah, Abednego.

These are the names that maybe you heard growing up or in Sunday school, or let's be honest, veggie tales, right?

Like you've heard, you've heard these names before.

And I want you to pay attention to this because this is so important.

One day they go by one name, the name that was given to them, but the next day they are renamed.

Culture is always going to change, and here's what I want you to get.

When culture shifts, it will try to rename you.

And I want you to understand why this matters.

Your name has significance, and it matters.

My name, my full name is William Jason Burns.

I'm one of those people who go by my middle name.

Now, here's what you need to understand.

In my family, for generations now, the firstborn son has been given the name William J.

Burns.

It goes back many generations.

And my parents chose the name William Jason.

William means resolute protector.

That sounds strong, but I found another definition.

It says warrior who protects.

And that one feels way better to me, right?

And then my middle name, Jason.

It's kind of interesting because I've got this tough one for William, but Jason means healer.

My whole life, I've heard that.

I had a little plaque when I was a kid that said healer on it.

Didn't know what it meant in my whole life.

I've never really seen this to be true in my life.

And then a few weeks ago, I kind of had one of those, oh.

Maybe our names are prophetic.

Maybe our names draw us to the future God has for us.

Because I had this waking, this awakening and this realization that for years people that have been broken, hurt, left out in the cold, people whose story is littered with church hurt and religious pain have come to our church and they have found hope and they have found healing from their issues.

Our names matter.

Why does this matter?

Because in Daniel and his friend's story, they are given a new name.

Some of you have been given a new name, and someone else has tried to give you a name that's marred your identity.

They called you worthless or stupid or insignificant.

They said you're unlovable, and they tried to put a name on you, and it isn't your name.

Let me say this to someone in the room.

And God named you.

What did he name you?

You are his son, you are his daughter.

You are chosen, you are loved, you are redeemed, you are restored.

You have value immensely to God.

How much are you worth?

The life of his own son.

Don't you dare let someone else try to rename you.

Some years ago, my wife and I got caught up in this phenomena called the Medea movies.

Has anybody watched these?

And they're all the same movie.

They really are.

They're just the same movie in a different place.

And here's how every single movie goes.

There's a girl, she's down on her luck.

She's a little like rough looking.

But you can tell she's pretty, but she's just a hat, she's a little weathered by life.

And she meets this guy, and he's always wearing a flannel shirt.

His arms are always huge, and he is so good looking.

And he meets her and he takes interest in her and he likes her, but she won't give him any attention because she's been so hurt by men in the past.

And then eventually she falls in love with him.

Eventually she stops looking weathered and she gets gorgeous looking, and they get married in this ridiculous wedding.

There's like angels hanging from the ceiling that are actual people.

Like, it's always ridiculous, right?

And I've watched probably 10 of the Medea movies, and there's only one line I remember from any of the Medea movies.

And here's what it is it's not the name people call you that matters.

The only thing that matters is the name you answer to.

Culture will try to rename you.

Let me show it to you in Daniel's life.

Daniel is given the name Daniel, which means God is my judge.

The name he's given that is Babylonian is Beltashazzar, which means lady, protect the king.

Let me take a little side trail and show you this for a moment.

He's given a manly, masculine kind of name.

His new name is feminine.

Let me point something out to you.

In every culture that's ever risen in prominence to that of an empire or a kingdom, the beginning point of the downfall is when there's sexual ambiguity and confusion and gender confusion.

And Daniel's given a name that is not his gender.

He's given a female name.

To Hananiah, one of his friends, his name meant Yahweh has been so gracious.

His new name, Shadrach, means I am fearful of God, afraid of God.

Think about this.

Meshael, his name means who is what God is?

Like how great is he.

His new name, Meshach, means I am despised, contemptible, and humiliated.

Terrible.

Azariah, his name means Yahweh or God has helped.

His new name, Abednego, means servant of Nebo.

Nebo was one of the Babylonian gods.

He was the God of writing, like literature, and the God of vegetation.

That makes no sense to me, but it is what it is.

And they're all given new names.

And I just want to say this to you.

It's not the name you're called that matters.

To quote that girl Medea, it's the name you answer to that matters.

Culture will try to rename you.

Number two, when culture shifts, we need to understand that we we have to know.

We must know who we are.

If you're gonna stand up in a world that demands you to bow to the pressures of culture, you have to know who you are so you can know that which you'll stand for.

The verses go on, chapter 1, verse 9.

But Daniel resolved not to defile himself.

He resolved not to defile himself.

Like integrity is what you do when no one's looking.

Integrity is what you do when it feels like there will be no consequences, and he made a decision that I will never live a life that bows to the pressure of culture.

I'm not going to defile myself with the royal food and wine.

Why did this matter?

Well, the food and wine that was offered to these guys in the king's household, number one, it was outside of the Jewish dietary restrictions.

But number two, it had been offered as a sacrifice to one of the Babylonian gods.

It was seen as dirty and evil.

So he refused to defile himself with the royal food and wine.

And he, I want you to see this, he asked the chief official for permission to not defile himself in this way.

He didn't demand it, he didn't make some big stink, he didn't post on social media, he didn't do anything like that.

He just asked for permission.

And I want you to understand this culture will always ask you to compromise your standards.

It's just casual.

It's not that big of a deal.

Everyone's doing this, everyone's experimenting now.

It's just a website, it's just cutting the corner on your taxes, it's just this, it's just this, it's just this.

And culture will always ask you to compromise.

The problem with compromising is it sets you down a path that is almost impossible to come back from.

Daniel resolved in his heart not to defile himself.

The verses go on to say this.

Now God had called the official to show favor and compassion to Daniel, but the official told Daniel, Look, I'm afraid of my Lord, the king, who has assigned your food and drink.

Why should he see you looking worse than the other men your age?

The king would have my head because of you.

Then Daniel said to the guard, whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Meshael, and Azariah, please test your servants.

This idea of testing happens about a dozen times in the book of Daniel.

Some people call Daniel the book of test for this reason.

It says, test me in this for ten days, and ten is an interesting number in Scripture.

It's one of the powerful numbers.

It's like a number of completion, like you've got the Ten Commandments.

Please test your servants for ten days.

Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink.

I'm gonna be honest, that would be a test for me too, right?

Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.

So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days.

I want you to notice again that Daniel made a decision.

I'm not going to compromise my integrity by eating something that I shouldn't, but I'm going to put God on the hook and put God to the test.

And he does this.

Now, why does this matter?

It's because culture will always try to create a confrontation.

Culture will always try to create a fight or something that you must respond to.

And here's the third thing you need to know.

When culture shifts, here's what we do.

We must respond the right way.

The right way.

Last week, I love how God seems to orchestrate messages together.

Last week I ended by talking about the dilemma that a lot of Christians find themselves in.

When it comes to standing for that which is standing up, which is right.

Here's the dilemma.

We're caught between the conundrum of truth and grace.

Truth and grace.

Well, what is this?

Well, there's there's two extremes, it seems like.

There's people who are truth tellers.

You're sinning, you're going to hell.

Turn or burn, change your ways or die and spend eternity away from God.

Is it true?

Yeah.

Do I agree with them?

Yeah.

Do I agree with the methods?

No.

But that's one extreme.

On the other extreme is the grace crowd.

The grace is, oh, grace, grace, grace, grace.

You can't do anything wrong.

God is full of grace.

He lets everyone into heaven.

Grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace.

And I just want you to hear this from me.

In both extremes, both of them are both right and wrong at the same time.

I want you to notice what Jesus does.

John chapter 1, we read this last week.

John 1 · chapter mention

It says, The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son who came from the Father, full of grace and truth, full of both.

So let's define these words because this is where we're going to land today.

Truth is God's standard.

Grace is God's favor.

Let me show it to you like this.

If you can imagine your life as being like on a scale, we have the truth of God's word.

And there are some people who believe that what life should be like as a follower of Jesus is all truth.

All truth.

It's the word of God, it's the rules of God.

You must do exactly what God says, and if you don't, you are going to hell.

But then there's the other audience, they're the grace people.

These people are all love, love, love.

Everything's good.

And so it's all grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, grace.

And I just want to say this to you.

Both of these are important and in some contexts they're both right.

I want you to understand that grace matters.

The book of Ephesians, Paul says this.

Paul says, God saved you by his grace when you believed.

It's not by your works.

He saved you because of his grace.

And you can't take credit for this.

It is a gift from God.

Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.

A lot of people feel like if I can just do enough, if I can just do enough things, if I can give enough and serve enough, eventually I'll get right with God and I'll get into heaven.

But you you miss the point.

In either extreme, you miss the point.

Let me say it to you like this.

Without truth, if it's all grace, we are corrupt.

But without grace, we are condemned.

Like we need both, but we need to live with both in proper balance, the way Jesus did.

The problem is, our world tends to believe this lie, and the lie is that if I can do just enough to earn God's permission, to earn his favor, to earn his blessing, then I'll then I'll get into heaven.

It's what I call the law of 51%.

Have you ever been to a funeral of someone who we didn't know if they were a Christian or not?

And the preacher gets up there and listen, I've done funerals for people who were not believers.

It is hard.

1 Thessalonians 4 says that we don't grieve like the rest of the world who have no hope.

A funeral for a person who is not a believer can feel heavy, can feel hope less.

But then you'll get someone who they're well-meaning and they're well-intending, and here's what they're trying to say.

Well, look, I know they weren't perfect, but they did enough to tip the scales.

51% it tips the scales in their favor.

I'm sure they're good with God.

I'm sure they're in again.

And in my opinion, they missed the point.

Because according to Scripture, what does it take to get to God?

Not 51%, 100%.

But who can get to 100%?

Nobody.

Mother Teresa on her best day could never get to 100%.

Only by the grace of God do we ever get in right standing with God.

So let me try to summarize it like this Truth without grace is mean.

But conversely, grace without truth is meaningless.

But together, grace and truth in balance is medicine.

It is what our world needs.

We have to tell the truth, but it should always be prefaced by grace.

If you study the life of Jesus, he modeled this better than anyone, and he always led with grace.

Say it like this grace invites us to be free, but truth is what sets us free.

We need to balance both if we're going to have influence in a world without compromising our integrity or without bowing to the pressures of culture.

Jesus modeled it better than anyone, and I'm going to end.

With this story today.

It's one of my favorite stories in scripture.

John chapter 8, verse 1 says this.

John 8:1

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, but early the next morning, he was back again at the temple.

A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and he taught them.

And as he was speaking, the teachers of the religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery.

That they bring to Jesus this woman.

It's the Sabbath.

And they bring this woman caught literally sleeping with someone she wasn't married to.

And it says this, it says, they put her in front of the crowd.

Teacher, they said to Jesus, this woman was caught in the act of adultery.

This is such an interesting moment for a bunch of reasons.

Number one, why were they there in the first place?

Number two, where was the man who was involved in this?

It takes two to tango, right?

Like where was he?

Why this woman?

And they try to corner Jesus.

They said to him, The law of Moses says to stone her.

So what do you say?

I want you to see this.

They were trying to trap him into saying something that they could use against him.

Culture will always try to create a confrontation.

But Jesus, he didn't respond.

He stooped down and he started riding in the dust with his fingers.

So the people did what culture does, and they kept demanding an answer.

So he stood up again and he said, Alright.

And then he says something that even non-church people have heard before.

Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone.

Old translation says, Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.

This woman is trembling, potentially holding on to anything she can find to cover her nakedness, but more importantly, to cover her fear and her shame.

And Jesus says, Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, and then he stooped down again and he wrote in the dust.

We don't know what Jesus wrote.

A lot of scholars have a lot of different theories as to what he wrote.

Some people think he started writing the names of the men who were standing around with stones in their hand to kill her.

I like to believe that Jesus was writing the names of the mistresses of all the men in the crowd.

He's like, Sally.

Right?

And so imagine it cinematically.

They've all these men had these stones.

You see the movie screen as the stone hits the sand and a cloud of dust goes up.

When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest.

Why the oldest first?

Because they probably had a longer track record of sin.

Till only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with this woman.

Then Jesus stood up again and he said to the woman, Where are they?

Where are your accusers?

Didn't even one of them condemn you?

No, Lord, she said.

Then I want you to see this.

And Jesus said to her, Neither do I.

Watch this, ready?

Grace.

Neither do I condemn you.

But watch Jesus.

He says, Now go and sin no more.

Truth.

He always leads with grace, but he always comes back to the balance of grace and truth.

How do you have influence in the world?

Here's what you do: you hold high God's truth and you freely give God's grace.

You hold true the word of God.

It is the final word of God.

It is the ultimate authority in your life.

I have people say to me, things like, Well, Pastor Jason, what do you think about?

And ask me a question about something happening in the world.

I said, I don't have a thought on it.

My thought is God's word is the final word.

I hold his word as the final authority.

But if I'm going to be like Jesus, I throw grace around like confetti at a party.

Would you join me in making this decision from the onset of the series that if we're going to be people who make a difference, we refuse to bow to the pressure of culture, we hold high the authority of God's word.

We resolve in our hearts to stand for what is right, and we are going to be people who throw grace around like confetti.

Wanna make a difference?

Grace and truth.

Grace and truth.

Would you bow your head and close your eyes with me all across this place?

So, Jesus, that's our prayer today.

Make us more like you in an increasingly difficult world, in a world where it does feel like, like for Daniel, everything could change overnight.

Thank you that your word is still the final word.

It is the final authority in our lives.

May we hold your authority and your word high.

But may we also be people characterized by grace.

May we be like Jesus instead of being judgmental and angry and trying to condemn everyone around us to hell.

May we be like Jesus and may we offer grace first.

But then may we balance it with truth.

God, in a world that wants to polarize us to one side of the aisle or the other, may Access Church be full of people, characterized, marked by the teachings of Jesus.

That it's not either or, it's both and full of grace and full of truth.

Thank you for it, God.