Speaker 1: A few things we are going to be today in the book of Daniel, chapter 2.
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Speaker 1: We want you to have a nice Bible.
Speaker 1: I think just it would be important for me in this moment to just point out that I've talked to several of you this morning, this morning that we're suffering, going through a real fierce trial in the moment, and I think it's really important to just point out there are people like you right now suffering in the room.
Speaker 1: So if you're thinking about that right now and thinking that you're alone, I just want to tell you you're not alone.
Speaker 1: There are many who are suffering here today and, um, I've been thinking about this quote all week and it's not on my notes, so I'll get it wrong, um, but it's this quote from a guy named Charles Spurgeon.
Speaker 1: He was a pastor and he suffered a lot and he said I'm going to butcher it, but God keeps his choicest wine in the cellars of suffering.
Speaker 1: God keeps his choicest wine in the cellar of suffering.
Speaker 1: So I know a lot of you are suffering right now and it's, it's hard, and I don't want to say it's good that you suffer, but I want to say that there is a God there who is with you in your suffering and he's not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: And I'll just tell you this too Like there are many things that we can only learn through suffering.
Speaker 1: I wish I could say that differently, but I can't because I'm honest usually.
Speaker 1: Um, okay, so let's get to Daniel two.
Speaker 1: So week one um, we had these guys, uh, who had been taken from Israel as refugees and they had been sent to Babylon to be under the king there and his leadership, and so the day one, he decides to change their names.
Speaker 1: So basically, hello, hebrew captives.
Speaker 1: Your name in Hebrew was God is most gracious.
Speaker 1: Now it's going to be like jerky, jerk face, satan lover, that's your new name.
Speaker 1: Now, that's what he was doing Already, trying to intimidate and control people.
Speaker 1: It wasn't exactly that, but it was close, but he couldn't change their identity.
Speaker 1: Week two Brother Ruben shared with us that the king tried to change their diets, but they responded with humility and they refused to sin Like Lord.
Speaker 1: What if we didn't drink your McDonald's?
Speaker 1: This is what they're saying to, and they refused to sin like Lord.
Speaker 1: Um, what if we didn't drink your McDonald's?
Speaker 1: This is what they're saying to the master, to the King Um, what if we didn't, uh, have your McDonald's and your malt liquor sacrifice to idols.
Speaker 1: And instead we tried to eat these things called vegetables.
Speaker 1: That's basically, they had to stand up for what was right, and, and and.
Speaker 1: So now we're going to be in a new section of daniel, where the king is going to challenge them once again.
Speaker 1: And and I want to remind you, we tell these stories because of their bravery, not because god delivered them.
Speaker 1: Do you understand what I'm saying?
Speaker 1: Like, we tell these stories because of their bravery and their willingness to trust god, even if they wouldn't be delivered.
Speaker 1: They chose to do the right thing.
Speaker 1: All right, so we're in daniel.
Speaker 1: In Daniel two, there's a little bit longer passage today, but I promise we'll uh, I got no promise.
Speaker 1: Daniel two in the second year of his reign, nebuchadnezzar had dreams that's the king that troubled him and sleep deserted him.
Speaker 1: So the king gave orders to summon the magicians, mediums, sorcerers and Chaldeans to tell the king his dreams.
Speaker 1: When they came out and stood before the king, he said to them I have had a dream and I'm anxious to understand it.
Speaker 1: The Chaldeans spoke to the king.
Speaker 1: Aramaic begins here.
Speaker 1: May the king live forever.
Speaker 1: Tell your servants the dream and we will give the interpretation.
Speaker 1: But the king replied to the Chaldeans my word is final.
Speaker 1: If you don't tell me the dream and its interpretation, you will be torn limb from limb.
Speaker 1: Your houses will be made a garbage dump.
Speaker 1: But if you make the dream and its interpretation known to me, you'll receive gifts, a reward and great honor from me.
Speaker 1: So make the dream and its interpretation known to me.
Speaker 1: They answered a second time Uh, may the king tell the dream to his servants and we will make known the interpretation.
Speaker 1: The king replied man, I know for certain you are trying to gain some time, because you see that my word is final.
Speaker 1: If you don't tell me the dream, there is one decree for you.
Speaker 1: You have conspired to tell me something false or fraudulent Until the situation changes.
Speaker 1: So tell me the dream and I will know you can give its interpretation.
Speaker 1: The Chaldeans answered the king.
Speaker 1: No one on earth can make that known what the king requests.
Speaker 1: Consequently, no king, however great and powerful, has ever asked anything like this of any magician, medium or Chaldean.
Speaker 1: What the king is asking is so difficult that no one can make it known to him except the gods, whose dwelling is not with mortals.
Speaker 1: Because of this, the king became violently angry and gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.
Speaker 1: The decree was issued that the wise men were to be executed, and they searched for Daniel and his friends to execute them.
Speaker 1: Daniel 2, verse 14.
Speaker 1: Then Daniel responded with tact and discretion to Ariok, the captain of the king's guard, who had gone out to execute the wise men of Babylon.
Speaker 1: He asked Ariok, the king's officer, why is the decree from the king so harsh?
Speaker 1: Then Ariok explained the situation to Daniel.
Speaker 1: So Daniel went and asked the king to give him some time so that he could give the king the interpretation.
Speaker 1: Then Daniel went to his house and told his friends Hananiah, mishael and Azariah about the matter, urging them to ask the God of heavens for mercy concerning this mystery.
Speaker 1: So Daniel and his friends would not be destroyed with the rest of Babylon's wise men.
Speaker 1: The mystery was then revealed to Daniel, then revealed to Daniel in a vision at night, and Daniel praised the God of the heavens and declared May the name of God be praised forever and ever, For wisdom and power belong to him.
Speaker 1: He changes the times and the seasons.
Speaker 1: He removes kings and established kings.
Speaker 1: He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.
Speaker 1: He reveals the deep and hidden things.
Speaker 1: He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with him.
Speaker 1: I offer thanks and praise to you, god of my ancestors, because you have given me wisdom and power, and now you have let me know what we asked of you, for you have let us know the king's mystery.
Speaker 1: This is God's word.
Speaker 1: Would you, pray Father, thank you so much for that wisdom that only comes from you that as much as we seek to find truth in these books, in these education, it just doesn't do it.
Speaker 1: We thank you that you offer this wisdom.
Speaker 1: You are accessible with this wisdom to little children.
Speaker 1: Please give us understanding.
Speaker 1: When we see the problems of the world, the hatred, the war, the confusion, we want to put our hands in the air, but you've made us to be peacemakers, and so we ask that, in your wisdom, we might bring your peace to our neighbors, family and our friends.
Speaker 1: We ask that you would protect the people of Gaza, the people of Israel, the people of Haiti, the people of Ukraine and Russia.
Speaker 1: Lord, let us see revival where love and kindness reign supreme, and let it begin in Mount Hope.
Speaker 1: Please Let it begin in our homes and in our hearts here today.
Speaker 1: Let it begin as we see our enemies in a new light.
Speaker 1: Please teach us this morning from your word.
Speaker 1: May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our hearts be pleasing to you.
Speaker 1: We pray this all in Jesus name, and all God's people said amen.
Speaker 1: By the way, kids zero to six are welcome to go into a kid's life over there, if you'd like, or they're welcome to stay in the service as well, okay.
Speaker 1: So last week we know that, uh, pastor Ruben, or brother Ruben, excuse me he talked about God's cookbook.
Speaker 1: You remember that some people like to use the sugar in the cookbook, but they don't like to touch the spice, right, like it's the love of God, without justice.
Speaker 1: And then you've got other people.
Speaker 1: They want all the spice and they want no sugar.
Speaker 1: Give me the truth and give me the wrath of God, but give me no mercy for others.
Speaker 1: I just want to follow that idea just for one more moment.
Speaker 1: For those of you who don't know, I love cooking.
Speaker 1: I love cooking.
Speaker 1: I just got this like flat top grill too.
Speaker 1: Oh, my gosh, like things are changing, um and.
Speaker 1: But I also just love making soups and I love making chili and I love making all these like variations and um.
Speaker 1: And I love just like adding wine to something or like, because, like, no wine is the same.
Speaker 1: And I love adding like honey to something, because no, honey is the same, it always changes.
Speaker 1: I love adding spices, spices from different regions, because it changes Like.
Speaker 1: Cooking is art.
Speaker 1: But you know, what I cannot do is I cannot bake.
Speaker 1: If cooking is art, then baking is science.
Speaker 1: Baking is truth.
Speaker 1: The problem is I try to fix baking like I fix art.
Speaker 1: Oh, these pancakes, they're too dense.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna throw in just like another egg.
Speaker 1: Let's see what happens.
Speaker 1: And you can hear my wife sigh from the other room Because I make it worse.
Speaker 1: Um, or I'll be like.
Speaker 1: You know what tastes good in this?
Speaker 1: Some vanilla, and then all of a sudden it gets all soupy and you're like this is a problem, right, like maybe it needs more sugar.
Speaker 1: Oh, oh, it just got thinner again, like it's burning now for some reason I don't even understand.
Speaker 1: Like they're thinner than crepes.
Speaker 1: Now, like whenever I try to fix my baking using art, I make it worse, and this is a bit how our world works too, though.
Speaker 1: Like we don't always use the recipe book, we see a bad system over here and we say you know what we're going to try and fix it with this bad system over here that we think is really great.
Speaker 1: We make it worse.
Speaker 1: Um, so it's always that something happens and then a new group comes along to fix that system and somehow we make it worse.
Speaker 1: Somehow, people over here are so sick of being oppressed that they're going to make a new system and then they oppress people and I, and it's weird the way we do this.
Speaker 1: But as long as the world tries to fix the world with imperfect people and imperfect systems without God, we're mostly just going to fail Now, and so today I'm going to give you three points for when the world has problems.
Speaker 1: Three points for when the world has problems, and the first one is this the world will never fully solve them.
Speaker 1: When the world has problems, the world will never fully solve them.
Speaker 1: In verse one it said in the second year of his reign, the king had nightmares and he struggled to sleep.
Speaker 1: You guys have those moment where sleep evades you Like.
Speaker 1: I know that I do.
Speaker 1: I know we had some people up till two o'clock or up at two o'clock.
Speaker 1: Usually, for me, I just wake up, no matter what, but it's usually when someone tells me I'm an awful person, like one to two hours before bed.
Speaker 1: That is when I struggle to sleep the entire night.
Speaker 1: I'm like I'm going to give this to the Lord and my subconscious is like no, we're going to talk about it, we're going to think about it.
Speaker 1: We're going to remind you how you shouldn't have said it that way.
Speaker 1: You shouldn't have said that thing.
Speaker 1: We're going to remind you that you are a monster, like how I was wrong to send that text.
Speaker 1: Like how I was wrong to send that text.
Speaker 1: Um, how I shouldn't have said that bad thing in 2007 to someone.
Speaker 1: You, you get that when you're asleep.
Speaker 1: Um, like man, what, what were you thinking in 1994?
Speaker 1: You know, and I try to go back to sleep, but good luck, I'm not getting back to sleep.
Speaker 1: Um, and here the King had something going on and he go.
Speaker 1: He could not go back to sleep.
Speaker 1: So he called all his wise men to help him understand his dreams.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't a request, was it?
Speaker 1: It was a demand.
Speaker 1: And the king was unwilling to tell them the dreams.
Speaker 1: His advisors boxed excuse me, tell us the dream so that we can interpret it.
Speaker 1: Nope, if you're so magical and you're so wise, why don't you tell me my dream?
Speaker 1: And if you can't, then you aren't really legit, and so I'm gonna have you killed and I'm gonna build a freeway over your house.
Speaker 1: It's basically what the king is saying.
Speaker 1: And they responded Um, no one on earth can do this.
Speaker 1: Nobody on earth can do this.
Speaker 1: Okay, so here we, we see.
Speaker 1: Maybe they are wise men Because they realize that they don't have the wisdom and it can't come from them.
Speaker 1: They understand that their wisdom, their deception and their witch has limits.
Speaker 1: No one on earth can do that.
Speaker 1: Friends, what are you currently staring at?
Speaker 1: That feels impossible.
Speaker 1: No one on earth can fix that for you.
Speaker 1: It is impossible, but we know with God, all things are possible.
Speaker 1: Back to verse 10,.
Speaker 1: No one on earth can make known what the king requests.
Speaker 1: Consequently, no king, however great and powerful, has ever asked this of anyone.
Speaker 1: Why was the king being so unrealistic?
Speaker 1: Like you'll hear about it next week?
Speaker 1: But in the dream, a Babylonian statue is destroyed.
Speaker 1: It crumbles.
Speaker 1: Now Indian Bible scholar Ankur Kali Rotaka I'm sorry thinks maybe the king was worried.
Speaker 1: The dream was a warning of a plot to assassinate him.
Speaker 1: She says who knows if these wise men were involved?
Speaker 1: So the king thinks the best way to discover what the dream truly means is to test the authenticity and loyalty of their men and their skills.
Speaker 1: So what she's saying is is the king maybe thinks his dream means one of these wise men are going to try and have me assassinated?
Speaker 1: So I'm going to, I'm going to challenge them instead.
Speaker 1: Verse 11, what the king is asking is so difficult.
Speaker 1: No one can make it known except the gods, whose dwelling is not with mortals.
Speaker 1: Because of this, the king became violently angry, gave orders to destroy all the wise men of Babylon.
Speaker 1: The decree was issued that the wise men were to be executed, and so they searched for Daniel and his friends to execute them.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you see, um, the Babylonians had a system, they had a king and they had a supernatural advisors.
Speaker 1: Um, you might know them as magi, the magi who came and we're searching from the East, that we're searching for Jesus.
Speaker 1: You might know them that way, but there usually comes a point when the world systems fail us.
Speaker 1: I'm sure somebody has felt this before.
Speaker 1: Right, like the world system, no matter how good its intentions were, have failed you.
Speaker 1: The king was fed up.
Speaker 1: He realized those guys around him.
Speaker 1: They were performers, right, they were professional liars.
Speaker 1: It was a dog and pony show.
Speaker 1: It wasn't real.
Speaker 1: Now, most people, we discover the truth at some point, don't we Like?
Speaker 1: There's that point when you realize your psychic, ms Cleo.
Speaker 1: She's not helping you.
Speaker 1: There's a point when you realize therapy and meds may help, but they don't fix everything, do they?
Speaker 1: When another beer or another hit doesn't make you feel any better?
Speaker 1: Social media isn't helping you.
Speaker 1: Sex won't fix you.
Speaker 1: An MBA or a doctorate may make you look good in the eyes of others, but it doesn't fix you.
Speaker 1: See, true wisdom is seeking God and his kingdom.
Speaker 1: First, king Nebuchadnezzar realized he was the most powerful man on earth and it didn't matter, because it couldn't give him peace.
Speaker 1: He had surrounded himself with yes men, but now he just wanted truth.
Speaker 1: But truth doesn't always say yes to it, does it?
Speaker 1: Doesn't always say yes to you, does it?
Speaker 1: Sorry, truth doesn't always say what you want to hear.
Speaker 1: What does a mirror tell you Truth?
Speaker 1: An acquaintance might tell you you look great, but a mirror won't sugarcoat it, will it?
Speaker 1: You have a booger in your nose.
Speaker 1: True wisdom, though, is seeking God and his kingdom first seeking truth.
Speaker 1: Now, I've noticed sometimes people in this church make bad decisions without consulting their church friends.
Speaker 1: I get it Cause a lot of times when I want to make a bad decision.
Speaker 1: I really don't want anyone to speak into that.
Speaker 1: Like, I know it's a bad decision, so I'm not going to ask anyone about it.
Speaker 1: Some of you show up with a new boyfriend, and he's already.
Speaker 1: We can already tell.
Speaker 1: Like you.
Speaker 1: I know why you didn't ask about this.
Speaker 1: I know why you didn't bring him around until now.
Speaker 1: You just showed up with that new car.
Speaker 1: You're like man, it's awesome.
Speaker 1: Payments are $500 a month lease for this 1997 Tercel.
Speaker 1: And you're like, you wanted a car that bad that you didn't even ask if it was a good idea.
Speaker 1: But that's what we do, it's in all of us, right, um, do you think?
Speaker 1: But then others have shown up in this church and say, hey, I want you to see if this guy's right for me, cause I trust outside help.
Speaker 1: Some of you have shown up and said hey, should I take this job?
Speaker 1: Should I take this job?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I need help.
Speaker 1: 11 years ago I didn't plant this church because I just thought I should.
Speaker 1: I sought the Lord and I sought godly counsel and I was willing for them to say you're wrong, dale, that's not God who's speaking to you.
Speaker 1: The problem with the church, the gift of the church, is the problem of the church.
Speaker 1: We are fully known here.
Speaker 1: The more you're here, the more you're known.
Speaker 1: It's the same problem with the mirror.
Speaker 1: It's the same problem with God and his word.
Speaker 1: It speaks truth to us.
Speaker 1: He doesn't tell us what we want to hear.
Speaker 1: He speaks truth.
Speaker 1: We like God, though, as an advisor.
Speaker 1: Right, like all.
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, I'll let you speak into this one issue, but God's not an advisor.
Speaker 1: He's the creator.
Speaker 1: He wrote the cookbook, remember.
Speaker 1: He made us.
Speaker 1: He knows what we need.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to read to you a quote from CS Lewis, and he describes this battle.
Speaker 1: If you don't know who CS Lewis is, he was an atheist who gave his life to God.
Speaker 1: This is what he says.
Speaker 1: Imagine yourself living in a house as a house.
Speaker 1: Excuse me.
Speaker 1: God comes in to rebuild that house.
Speaker 1: At first, perhaps you can understand what he's doing.
Speaker 1: He is getting the drains right, stopping the leaks in the roof and so on.
Speaker 1: You knew that those jobs needed doing, and so you're not surprised.
Speaker 1: But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts and does not seem to make any sense.
Speaker 1: What on earth is he up to?
Speaker 1: The explanation is that he is building quite a different house from the one you thought of.
Speaker 1: Throwing out a new wing here, putting an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards.
Speaker 1: You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage.
Speaker 1: He is building a palace.
Speaker 1: He intends to come and live in it himself.
Speaker 1: Guys, a lot of times we just say, hey, you can have that little spot over there, that little spot where the dog keeps going.
Speaker 1: Do can you help me with that?
Speaker 1: But I don't want you to touch any of the rest of this.
Speaker 1: But God says, nah, I want all of it.
Speaker 1: Many of us like to take a bit of God and then a bit of something else.
Speaker 1: But God doesn't want your weekend, he wants your heart.
Speaker 1: God doesn't want your weekend.
Speaker 1: He wants your marriage.
Speaker 1: God doesn't want your Bible study time.
Speaker 1: He wants your addictions.
Speaker 1: He wants your trauma.
Speaker 1: He wants your pain.
Speaker 1: He wants all of it.
Speaker 1: He wants your unforgiveness and he wants to turn it into love.
Speaker 1: Now you can't trust any philosophy or workout that gives that, that that can try to give us what God gives.
Speaker 1: We only know it's God.
Speaker 1: We know that no drug can give what God can give.
Speaker 1: We don't know sport.
Speaker 1: No spiritual advisor, no church, not even us, can give you what God can give you.
Speaker 1: But true wisdom is seeking God and his kingdom first.
Speaker 1: And just as the king had a system, the world has its systems too, doesn't it Like?
Speaker 1: We have all kinds of systems, all kinds of things set up.
Speaker 1: We got communism, we got secular humanism.
Speaker 1: We got capitalism.
Speaker 1: We got republicanism, a direct democracy.
Speaker 1: We have all kinds of systems.
Speaker 1: Now I love reading books.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you know that, but it seems like every culture has multiple views on how to do things.
Speaker 1: But our human systems never fix anything, do they?
Speaker 1: They might be better than the other one, but they're not going to fix things.
Speaker 1: But the worse the other system is, the worse the response seems to be doesn't it?
Speaker 1: Now I'm reading about Chile right now, the country of Chile I'm planning on visiting with my wife for our 21st anniversary.
Speaker 1: Chile, right now, the country of Chile.
Speaker 1: I'm planning on visiting with my wife for our 21st anniversary, and so I want to understand the country, and so I've been reading about Chile, and there was a time, in the 60s and 70s, when Chile was moving further and further towards socialism and communism, and you had Presidente Salvador Allende, and he was seeking to make this utopian Chile.
Speaker 1: I think he had good, good motives, and what he did, though, is he took the land from the wealthy and he gave it to the people.
Speaker 1: Ok, well, ok, this idea.
Speaker 1: We hate seeing people starve, so now your farm and your factory belong to all the people.
Speaker 1: The problem is is that it ended up only going to certain people, and the only certain people got a good job where they could be pushing paper, and everybody else was dying, and there were many human rights violations.
Speaker 1: It was terrible.
Speaker 1: So if you think I'm up here just to talk bad about communism, just wait.
Speaker 1: So then we have General Augusto Pinochet.
Speaker 1: He took over with this idea of like we're moving Chile to a capitalist, like republic type of a country and everybody's like, yeah, and then he was a dictator and then he took over and so suddenly you had the enemies who maybe like, liked socialism.
Speaker 1: They started to disappear.
Speaker 1: And you had all these good people who maybe had bad ideas or different ideas that just disappeared and you're like, wait, was this the solution?
Speaker 1: The solution was just as bad, it was terrible.
Speaker 1: Had all these good people who maybe had bad ideas or different ideas that just disappeared and you're like, wait, was this the solution?
Speaker 1: The solution was just as bad, it was terrible.
Speaker 1: And eventually they had to oust general Pinochet.
Speaker 1: Um, he had votes where he'd be like all right, guys, would you like to vote for the wonderful, beautiful Pinochet, greatest general of all time who loves his people, or do you hate puppies?
Speaker 1: Um, their vote that they had Very similar.
Speaker 1: I'm maybe a little off, but then you have the two Koreas.
Speaker 1: You have South Korea.
Speaker 1: South Korea is the light to North Korea.
Speaker 1: Strip clubs, mass pornography factories springing up everywhere.
Speaker 1: This is good, but more than half the deaths of South Korea in their 20s is by suicide right now.
Speaker 1: Then you have North Korea, a country where everyone has medical care and food right, but the food runs out, the electricity runs out, the water runs out.
Speaker 1: The doctors are made to go into the mountains for a month every year to go find some medicine.
Speaker 1: Maybe, hopefully, they can find some medicine amongst the herbs and berries that they find in in in the mountains scavenging.
Speaker 1: Um, the hospital rarely has electricity, hungry people and people disappearing.
Speaker 1: So you have this thing where it's like the solution and then you have another solution, and then you have a solution and you have a solution and people disappear, and people disappear.
Speaker 1: And and it's the problem is is that we think things are going to get better if they just do our way.
Speaker 1: And, um, this, this idea of progressivism, this idea that the world is getting better, that we can make it better, that we're making it better, like I would say, in many ways I seek to be progressive, in that I seek to make it better, not in the ways that the world is going to define it, but at the same time, the world is not always getting better, it's not, no matter how hard we try.
Speaker 1: And then someone might say, well, capitalism makes the world better.
Speaker 1: Well, we can go to some places where you can see some terrible things because of capitalism, socialism, communism, same problem there's a good idea, and then a ton of people are hurt, because these are all human systems trying to solve God-sized problems.
Speaker 1: None of them work.
Speaker 1: True wisdom, though, is seeking God and his kingdom first.
Speaker 1: Now there's an episode of the Simpsons with this guy, this evil, mr Burns, and there's this young girl, lisa, and she tries to teach him how to be a good person.
Speaker 1: So he ends up opening the little Lisa recycling plant.
Speaker 1: This is his effort to be a human being, and she wants him to recycle the plastic rings on those six packs of soda, because fish get caught in them, and so what he does is he recycles them by tying them all together, making them into a ginormous net that scrapes the seafloor dry, bringing in whales and dolphins and scuba divers or whatever, and just smashes them into this little Lisa slurry.
Speaker 1: Mr Burns is trying to do the right thing.
Speaker 1: He's trying to do all the good things.
Speaker 1: He's trying to recycle.
Speaker 1: Lisa says even when you're trying to be good, you're still evil.
Speaker 1: Mr Burns says he doesn't understand.
Speaker 1: He's using 100% recycled animals.
Speaker 1: He's still evil.
Speaker 1: See, true wisdom is seeking God and his kingdom first.
Speaker 1: No other kingdom, no other political system can compare to the kingdom of God and its wisdom.
Speaker 1: Now, there was a time once when a Roman governor named Pontius Pilate went to Jesus and he wanted to know if he was truly establishing a new kingdom on earth.
Speaker 1: That's a threat to the Roman kingdom.
Speaker 1: Pilate wanted to know if Jesus was a revolutionary or just crazy in his head.
Speaker 1: And so he asked are you a king?
Speaker 1: And in John 18, jesus says my kingdom is not of this world.
Speaker 1: If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would fight that I wouldn't be handed over to the Jews.
Speaker 1: But as it is, my kingdom is not from here, so you're a king.
Speaker 1: Then you say that I'm a king.
Speaker 1: I was born for this and I have come into the world for this to testify of the truth.
Speaker 1: Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.
Speaker 1: See, this is the beauty of the kingdom of God.
Speaker 1: Jesus doesn't care about the world systems.
Speaker 1: They were all trying to figure out what system are you a part of?
Speaker 1: And he's like I'm not.
Speaker 1: All the systems are weak and passing away.
Speaker 1: There's no respecter of the king of Babylon, the premier of China or the president of the United States.
Speaker 1: When it comes to God's kingdom, power is fleeting.
Speaker 1: Kings come and kings go.
Speaker 1: I know people with gold records.
Speaker 1: I know people that were OG shot callers.
Speaker 1: I've talked to people who have won national championships in football and when we are at the bottom looking up to them, looking at the kingdoms they've built, we think it will fix things in our hearts.
Speaker 1: But it never fixes things for them.
Speaker 1: So do we despair?
Speaker 1: No, why?
Speaker 1: Because we look to Jesus.
Speaker 1: We know how this story ends.
Speaker 1: He wins.
Speaker 1: He wipes every tear away, death is made untrue and condemnation for our sin is gone.
Speaker 1: And that's our second point.
Speaker 1: When the world has problems, our God is the answer.
Speaker 1: That's a very churchy answer, but it's a true one.
Speaker 1: And even though we have the right, even though we are right to honor God first, we still have to respond to the world with humility and tact.
Speaker 1: Right Verse 14, daniel responded with tact and discretion to the captain of the king's guard who had gone out to execute the wise men of Babylon.
Speaker 1: Now, the root word here for the captain is taba, which means to slay.
Speaker 1: Basically, this was a man who was supposed to slay all day.
Speaker 1: Okay, he was the executioner.
Speaker 1: That was his job.
Speaker 1: He was the executioner.
Speaker 1: Daniel needed to be careful, he needed to use tact and he needed to use discretion.
Speaker 1: Proverbs 16, 7 says when a man's way pleases the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.
Speaker 1: That's what we're seeing here, right, because Daniel asked the king's executioner, why is the decree from the king so harsh?
Speaker 1: And Ariok explained the situation to Daniel.
Speaker 1: So Daniel went and asked the king to give him some time so that he could give the king an interpretation.
Speaker 1: Okay, first off, why is the king even giving him time?
Speaker 1: He said I'm not giving any of you time, you're wasting time.
Speaker 1: But here, instead, the king says okay, that's weird, isn't it?
Speaker 1: Then Daniel went to his house and told his friends Hananiah, mishael, azariah, about the matter, urging them to ask the God of the heavens for mercy concerning this mystery so Daniel and his friends would not be destroyed with the rest of Babylon's wise men.
Speaker 1: See, daniel didn't seek to tell the king anything at that point, did he?
Speaker 1: He just wanted to understand.
Speaker 1: First, woo, he asked for a little time to seek the Lord.
Speaker 1: Now, something good to note here Daniel had clearly already built up a positive relationship with the captain of the guard and king.
Speaker 1: How do I know?
Speaker 1: Because he was alive.
Speaker 1: That takes a serious relationship.
Speaker 1: The executioner's boss just said, you need to go kill that guy.
Speaker 1: Do you know what happens to a hitman who fails to do his job?
Speaker 1: He moves to the top of the list.
Speaker 1: That's your next hit.
Speaker 1: So why would he listen to Daniel?
Speaker 1: And there are only that.
Speaker 1: There are people we talk to about very sensitive subjects and we only get to speak because we've earned their respect.
Speaker 1: We've earned the right to speak.
Speaker 1: We've shown them love and respect, so they show it to us.
Speaker 1: I continue to have to learn this lesson though church.
Speaker 1: I'm going to be honest, um.
Speaker 1: I confront people when I should pull them aside with tact.
Speaker 1: I speak truth to power on the internets, which does nothing.
Speaker 1: I do it all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm an idiot.
Speaker 1: I know your pastor is still learning this, okay, but Daniel?
Speaker 1: Daniel didn't come out with his guns blazing, did he?
Speaker 1: He asked the captain for clarification when it was explained to him.
Speaker 1: He went to the king on behalf of God, on behalf of the better way, and when you go before a king, um, and you're not invited, you are putting yourself at risk again.
Speaker 1: But he did it respectfully, because true wisdom is seeking God and his kingdom first.
Speaker 1: Friends, the people around us are tired.
Speaker 1: They are tired of scrolling on their phones.
Speaker 1: They are tired of trying to find hope in politics.
Speaker 1: They've searched for hope in so many things.
Speaker 1: Some of you put hope in churches and religion and you were let down.
Speaker 1: There was once a great teacher who tried everything and he found nothing satisfied him.
Speaker 1: He once said in the book of Ecclesiastes, 2 in the Bible when I considered all that I had accomplished and what I had labored to achieve, I found everything to be futile and pursuit of the wind.
Speaker 1: There was nothing to be gained under the sun.
Speaker 1: But, friends, before we lose hope, listen to the words of Jesus from Matthew 11, 28.
Speaker 1: Come to me all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Speaker 1: Come to me all of you who have stayed up, been up at 2 am because your kid was screaming, and I will give you rest.
Speaker 1: Come to me all you who are so tired of having to go to doctors, and I will give you rest.
Speaker 1: Come to me who are so tired of the people around you and how disrespectful and hateful they are, and I will give you rest.
Speaker 1: Come to me you who feel like you cannot provide for your family.
Speaker 1: Guys, jesus offers something that no spa vacation can offer you.
Speaker 1: Because if you save up and you go to a spa and you get the rest that you need, what happens next after that?
Speaker 1: You run out of money and that makes you stressed, and then you go home feeling more stressed, having to make up for the money you just spent and the time you lost at work.
Speaker 1: You're behind.
Speaker 1: Now you got to.
Speaker 1: You got to stress yourself out.
Speaker 1: That's not the answer.
Speaker 1: Is it Now?
Speaker 1: Daniel wasn't the answer.
Speaker 1: Our good God was the answer.
Speaker 1: Daniel was a kid who loved God and sought him first in everything.
Speaker 1: Bible scholar Chun-Liang Hsiao says this of Daniel A mere trainee in the Babylon Academy will outperform all the full-fledged experts.
Speaker 1: A lowly exile will enlighten his mighty captor.
Speaker 1: Daniel's success is owing neither to his personal gifts nor to his Chaldean education, but to the wisdom and power of God alone.
Speaker 1: Friends, you may be young, you may be a refugee, you may be untrained, but you have a good God who loves you, you have his word, you have the wisdom in his church, you have his Holy Spirit and you have the gift of prayer.
Speaker 1: And that's our third point.
Speaker 1: When the world has problems, our response must be prayer and praise.
Speaker 1: Verse 17.
Speaker 1: Then Daniel went to the house, told his friend, hananiah Mishael Azariah about the matter, urging him to ask the God of the heavens for mercy concerning this mystery, so Daniel and his friends would not destroy it with the rest of the wise men.
Speaker 1: The mystery was then revealed to Daniel in a vision at night and Daniel praised the God of the heavens and declared may the name of God be praised forever and ever, for wisdom and power belong to him.
Speaker 1: He changes the times and seasons.
Speaker 1: He removes the Kings and established Kings.
Speaker 1: He gives wisdom to the wise, knowledge to those who have had understanding.
Speaker 1: He reveals the deep and hidden things.
Speaker 1: He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells in him.
Speaker 1: See, daniel said something big here.
Speaker 1: I offer thanks and praise to you, god of my ancestors.
Speaker 1: Daniel was remembering what God did for his ancestors.
Speaker 1: So much of our prayer and worship is remembering the things God has already done.
Speaker 1: Daniel worshiped a God who already saved his people from slavery and the evil Pharaoh.
Speaker 1: Daniel worshiped a God who used a woman named JL to save Israel from the evil King Sisera from Canaan, and it's pretty cool because she took a railroad spike.
Speaker 1: Basically put it in his head.
Speaker 1: Daniel worshiped a God who had provided a land flowing with milk and honey for his people.
Speaker 1: The God who saved Noah and his family from a great flood and the earth that had turned evil.
Speaker 1: The God who gave Abraham children after he was a hundred years old.
Speaker 1: The Jewish people had reason to worship God, who had not always been, they had not always been faithful to their promises, but he had always been faithful to his.
Speaker 1: They could trust that.
Speaker 1: So Daniel said I'll for thanks and praise to you, god of my ancestors, because you have given me wisdom and power, and now you have let me know what we asked of you, for.
Speaker 1: You have let us know the King's mystery, now church.
Speaker 1: I want you to notice the timing.
Speaker 1: Daniel had not yet gone to the King.
Speaker 1: He had not yet actually been saved yet.
Speaker 1: He still had a hit out on his name when he was praising God.
Speaker 1: The king could have run out of patience and had him killed in that moment, but he was so confident in his God that he stopped to worship first.
Speaker 1: He didn't rush to the king, he rushed to the king of kings.
Speaker 1: He didn't rush to the king.
Speaker 1: He rushed to the king of kings Before Daniel was even delivered the king.
Speaker 1: He rushed to the king of kings Before Daniel was even delivered.
Speaker 1: He went to the only king whose opinion matters God who sits on the throne.
Speaker 1: That's the king he needed to go to, dr Tony Evans says, before Daniel went public with the information, he praised the God of the heavens.
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 1: Because when we are experiencing chaos, we need to remind ourselves that there's a God in heaven who reigns over the confusion on earth, and we need to give him thanks.
Speaker 1: See, like Daniel and his buddies, let's make prayer our first response to struggle.
Speaker 1: Let's also make prayer our first response to victory.
Speaker 1: True wisdom is seeking God and his kingdom first and celebrating him in every moment.
Speaker 1: Messianic Jewish scholar Amir Sarfati says these teenagers knew what most Christian adults forget when you have a problem, the first thing you do is to get on your knees and pray.
Speaker 1: I think it's more important to note that Daniel didn't pray alone.
Speaker 1: He had friends who had his back.
Speaker 1: Jesus encourages us to make our requests known to God in private, not as a way of showing off, but beyond that, most prayer in the Bible is together.
Speaker 1: We call it corporate worship.
Speaker 1: There are a few leaders in our church that have been putting together a prayer team.
Speaker 1: They're praying in the mornings, on zoom, at 6am.
Speaker 1: There is a God at 6am, seeking God's face before anything else.
Speaker 1: We're having a prayer night on Monday, july 28th.
Speaker 1: All we're doing is coming here and seeking his face and thanking him.
Speaker 1: Also, after services, we will always have people available here to pray for you.
Speaker 1: We value prayer.
Speaker 1: We believe it.
Speaker 1: Do you need forgiveness?
Speaker 1: Pray.
Speaker 1: Do you need help?
Speaker 1: Sleeping?
Speaker 1: Benadryl and melatonin can be great, but have you sought the Lord?
Speaker 1: Are you lonely?
Speaker 1: We understand that.
Speaker 1: There are apps for that, but seek the Lord first.
Speaker 1: God is waiting for you to go to him, to ask him for help.
Speaker 1: He is the answer, but you can't get the answer without seeking him first.
Speaker 1: It's like saying you want to win the lottery but you never bought a ticket.
Speaker 1: And then, when God meets us, we need to respond.
Speaker 1: We need to sing, we need to shout.
Speaker 1: We should tell everyone we know we were made to worship him, to thank and adore him.
Speaker 1: This is why we sing on Sunday, you guys.
Speaker 1: It's not killing time before the sermon, it's because we have to.
Speaker 1: We have been saved from certain death and destruction.
Speaker 1: How can we not sing church?
Speaker 1: True wisdom is seeking God and his kingdom first and celebrating him in every moment.
Speaker 1: Friends, we've seen God do so much in our midst.
Speaker 1: How can we not thank him?
Speaker 1: He is just, he is kind, he is loving, he is merciful.
Speaker 1: He has saved us from the sting of death.
Speaker 1: This is why we sing like fools.
Speaker 1: Did you guys know I'm a musician?
Speaker 1: I am.
Speaker 1: I have been in several punk bands and you're like that's not music.
Speaker 1: Watch it.
Speaker 1: Um, I have toured about a half of the United States, um, in my worship band and our band was called shine like stars.
Speaker 1: Um, and I don't know if you know this, but a lot of musicians are meticulous like um.
Speaker 1: So we had an album called beauty in the storm and we we went through it and we worked through every single second of music on there where we actually took notes, and each one of it.
Speaker 1: And we worked through every single second of music on there where we actually took notes and each one of us had to look through every second and say I heard a click there.
Speaker 1: I didn't like what that sounded like there.
Speaker 1: That guitar was too loud and we did it for every single second of a one hour album.
Speaker 1: It's probably more like 40 minutes.
Speaker 1: But I tell you every feedback, every pitch, every tune.
Speaker 1: I care about making my album as good as possible.
Speaker 1: So, yes, I am meticulous, fastidious, particular, obsessive.
Speaker 1: But let me tell you how I feel about worship.
Speaker 1: When God answers my prayers, when we are in a service and I feel God's presence when he saves one of you, when I'm going through a personal hell and God encourages me, I worship and and there's tears and there's snot, my hat's all messed up, my belly's hanging out.
Speaker 1: I don't care what I look like in that moment.
Speaker 1: I am not being meticulous in that moment.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm just there at the throne of grace.
Speaker 1: I don't know if, like you've experienced this in worship.
Speaker 1: It's a lot like when you're in the car and you got that favorite song on and you know that that note is too high for you and you sing anyway.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 1: You know that that note is too high for you and you sing anyway.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 1: You know you sound terrible, but but you sound great too here in this place.
Speaker 1: That's how we should worship.
Speaker 1: A matter what we sound like.
Speaker 1: It matters what our heart is doing to thank him.
Speaker 1: We need to understand that we needed him and he answered.
Speaker 1: And even the things he's not answered yet, he will answer.
Speaker 1: Guys, I don't care, he's not answered yet, he will answer Guys, I don't care what you look like when we're worshiping, I don't care if you sing on tune.
Speaker 1: Last week, you remember, I'm a little obsessive, I'm a little persnickety, I'm a musician.
Speaker 1: Last week, someone from the worship band came to me and they were frustrated at how bad they sounded and they're like asking me, like what they?
Speaker 1: What I thought, and I was like I don't know, I don't know what you sounded like.
Speaker 1: I was with Jesus.
Speaker 1: When I recognize the goodness of God, I'm loud and I'm teary and I don't care as much about pitch.
Speaker 1: It's important that your worship team cares about pitch and they practice and they practice being on pitch, but then, once it's time to go, they just need to worship God.
Speaker 1: I just need to worship God, you just need to worship God, because when we're desperate, none of that stuff matters.
Speaker 1: We're just there with him and each other worshiping God in each other's presence, loving each other in God's presence.
Speaker 1: I'm just there with him and it's because he saved me from so much and I know where I was headed and I know many of you knew where you were headed to.
Speaker 1: And if you don't belong to Jesus, let me tell you this Jesus died for you.
Speaker 1: Jesus came to this earth, gave his life up for you because he loved you.
Speaker 1: And I know you want to fix it with all the other things, but I promise you they won't work.
Speaker 1: You can come back later and talk to us if you're still around, but I'm just telling you he died because those things won't work.
Speaker 1: And I tell you, as someone who absolutely believes this, that when Jesus died and then he rose again, showing he was bigger than death, he showed us his compassion and his power.
Speaker 1: Some of you are waiting for the right time to belong to Jesus.
Speaker 1: This is the right time.
Speaker 1: You've been asking for a sign.
Speaker 1: You've been going and trying to find some hope and all these other things.
Speaker 1: This is the sign.
Speaker 1: This is the time.
Speaker 1: Be baptized.
Speaker 1: We baptized 15 of you a couple of weeks ago.
Speaker 1: I've been talking about it to everyone who will listen.
Speaker 1: It's not because I did something, because God did it.
Speaker 1: Beth Moore says sometimes we confuse humility with timidity.
Speaker 1: When God comes through for us, a timid, tentative thanks is not only out of place, it's anticlimactic.
Speaker 1: We should be all in Guys.
Speaker 1: We were made to worship God.
Speaker 1: We were made to go to him with thanksgiving, to dance, to shout, to seek him daily, to remember what he has done, to remind each other what he did for us.
Speaker 1: There was a time when the king of Israel his name was King David.
Speaker 1: He was overjoyed because the ark of God's covenant was returning home to his people.
Speaker 1: The ark was the sign of God's promise and presence among his people.
Speaker 1: It was holy, it meant God was there with him.
Speaker 1: And so King David basically stripped down to his long underwear.
Speaker 1: And he, david, basically stripped down to his long underwear and he, uh, like homeboy, danced in the streets like a parade.
Speaker 1: There were sacrifices, there were horns and shouts of the people.
Speaker 1: David celebrated God's blessing and his arc by giving food to the people when he went home to bless his family.
Speaker 1: But then his wife, michal, she confronted him.
Speaker 1: She said Hmm, how the king of Israel honored himself today.
Speaker 1: He exposed himself in the sight of slave girls, of his subjects, like a vulgar person would expose himself.
Speaker 1: Basically, you are the king.
Speaker 1: Why are you dancing around in your chones when people can see?
Speaker 1: He replied to say I will dance before the Lord and I will dishonor myself and humble myself even more.
Speaker 1: In other words, it doesn't really matter what anyone thinks when I honor God.
Speaker 1: If they think I'm wrong or crazy, so be it.
Speaker 1: But I'm going to honor God.
Speaker 1: Guys, God's presence is here with his followers today, right now.
Speaker 1: When we surrender to him, we get the kind of joy that makes us want to dance and sing and shout, and that's okay.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't matter what people think about you.
Speaker 1: Don't be ashamed when the world mocks you and offers you something better.
Speaker 1: They may call you archaic, they may call you outdated, bigoted, whatever they say, but they said that to King David too.
Speaker 1: They said that to Daniel, and God delivered them and Daniel rejoiced.
Speaker 1: Christians should party.
Speaker 1: Christians should party and celebrate more than anyone else.
Speaker 1: Maybe we could do it at a reasonable hour, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: But one day we will celebrate with the Lord forever.
Speaker 1: We should invite people into our celebrations too.
Speaker 1: Right, like we baptize 15 people.
Speaker 1: We celebrate well when that happens, but we have more people that want to be baptized now.
Speaker 1: I hope many of you will make a priority to be there to pray, to celebrate and party at our next baptism.
Speaker 1: It's going to be September 7th.
Speaker 1: We're going to do it again.
Speaker 1: We're going to run it back, okay.
Speaker 1: So I hope that some of you will be there to celebrate that other person who got baptized.
Speaker 1: Maybe you got baptized.
Speaker 1: You're like I don't got to go anymore.
Speaker 1: No, no, no.
Speaker 1: Now it's your turn to celebrate somebody else.
Speaker 1: I hope this next week, when you see someone on social media or in an article subtly questioning the ways of God, that you will seek true understanding of what they're trying to say and that you will seek true wisdom from God.
Speaker 1: I hope that when you are suffering, that you will go to God and I pray that you, like Daniel and his friends, find him to be enough City, life, church and guests.
Speaker 1: True wisdom is seeking God and his kingdom first and celebrating him in every moment.
Speaker 1: Let's pray.
Speaker 1: Father, I thank you for this day and those four people that clapped.
Speaker 1: Bless them, lord.
Speaker 1: We thank you that we get to be here in this moment, that we get to be reminded of when we are faithful it doesn't always mean we're going to die, that when we are faithful, it doesn't always mean we're going to lose our job.
Speaker 1: But when we are faithful, we get you.
Speaker 1: No matter what, god, we say to you that no matter how things go in the future, we want to be faithful to you and God, even sometimes we don't want to be faithful to you, but we want to want to be faithful and so, god, we think about all the times that we've not been faithful to you this week, all the ways that we've sinned against you, all the things that you've called us to that we've left undone.
Speaker 1: We bring those things and we silently confess them to you in this moment.
Speaker 1: Oh, good and loving God, I often care way too much what people think of me, christians and non-Christians alike, and yet I know that you love me and all my faults.
Speaker 1: God, today we confess all these sins to you, knowing that you are good to forgive us if we belong to you.
Speaker 1: And so we repent of our sins, and we know that as far as the east is from the west, so our sin is from your sight, lord, that when you look upon us, you see the righteousness of your son Jesus, and you call us holy in your sight.
Speaker 1: Thank you for that gift, thank you for your forgiveness, thank you for hope for tomorrow.
Speaker 1: We love you, lord, and we pray this all in Jesus' holy name, amen.