Relentless Faithfulness: Daniel 6 - Jayden Zwerner

In this week’s message, studying Daniel 6, Jayden walks us through the story of Daniel in the lions’ den and the ordinary faithfulness that formed his life long before the crisis ever came. In a world where compromise feels expected, we’re reminded that faithfulness to God is built in the small daily moments of prayer, obedience, and trust. As Daniel’s life points others toward the goodness and power of God, we’re invited to consider what is forming us, what we fall back on in difficult seasons, and what it looks like to remain faithful to Jesus no matter the cost.

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Transcript

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So I don't know maybe what moment with the Lord you're uh breathing in and breathing out right now, but I pray it continues and it expands as we open up his word together. Um if you're new or new-ish, um my name is Jaden and I'm the pastor here at Young Adults. Um and one of uh the really fun seats I get to sit in on a weekly basis is in a meeting called Teaching Team, um, which is a group of us teaching pastors here that meet together on Tuesday afternoons, um, which, you know, if you're the praying type, what a what a fun time to set a reminder to pray for God's word in our church. Um, but Tuesday afternoons, we uh come together and we go through kind of the rough draft of what will be being preached on a Sunday. And it's really fun, especially if you're a Bible nerd like me, because you just sit in this room and you're like, oh yeah. And then what about that connects to this passage and you could do that? And then it's like, oh my gosh, have you read this book? Like this book has this really cool um quote that could be really helpful in explaining, and it's just kind of like and you walk out and you're like, I'm jazzed for the Lord. And it's really fun. And two weeks ago, we were sitting in uh this meeting and we are preparing um for what would be one of the sermons that um you probably, if you came to church on a Sunday, you got to hear. And um one of the other pastors um was like, Hey, what about what if you used this book? And he and he set a book uh by a certain author, and you could see the rest of us in the room kind of just like, you know, and you kind of just make make eyes with other people in the room and you're all saying something, but no one's saying something. And finally someone was like, um, probably not that guy right now. And we like, we and he kind of just like chuckled and was like, yeah. And we moved on. And about five minutes before the meeting was over, you could just, I looked over and I just saw in his face, just the color in his face had like fully drained, and he was just like staring at his computer screen. And as we had continued through this feedback time, he had Googled, why not said author, and found out that this incredible, brilliant theologian who hadn't contributed so much to our biblical understanding landscape and just had libraries of books that I guarantee you you probably know a little bit about. Um, just a few months ago, there had been an eight-year affair that had come forward about his life. Brilliant, brilliant theologian who has who has known an intimacy with the Lord, who knows truth like the back of his hand, somewhere along the way, chose compromise. And it was revealed and admitted to that there was uh almost a decade-long affair hiding beneath the surface of his ministry. And I can still see the look on his face. It was just heartbroken and like a like a twinge of anger. And it made me think of all the moments in my life where I've in some microcosmic way or even in big ways felt that way. Someone I respected and admired or or had a had an influence in my life let me down. Can you think of someone? You're like, man, I thought you were different. Maybe it's uh someone in your family, maybe it's someone like that, someone that you respect who has maybe spoken into your faith in one way or another. And somewhere along the way, something about their life was compromised. And it left you in this puddle of wondering, can't can I trust you? Can I can I hold on to the billions of things that you have taught me? Are they all invalid now? Can I can I bank on some of the things? Were those done in good faith? With just one mistake absolutely crush every credibility that you've maybe had in my life? Have you ever felt that way about someone or something? Where you're like, now what do I do with all of the impact that you have had on my life? And I watched, in a moment I watched across this room in this meeting, I watched one of a pastors just look at his screen and feel and go through all of those emotions. And if I could be so honest with you, me sitting in that meeting was like, can we move on? Just add him to the list. Like there's a number of people like this. And maybe it's just because I'm a little bit more pessimistic naturally, but I but I think we live in a world now where we almost expect to find something out about someone more than we just expect to find an actual good person under the surface. And I I don't think life should be that way. But somewhere along the way in life, daily, monthly, yearly, or sometimes catastrophically, we are presented with opportunities to compromise. And we're left with a choice and a conviction and a belief and a knowing and a following of Christ that says, I have to make a decision here. Will I make the quick compromise, or will I choose to remain faithful to the way that God had invited me to live my life? I had a friend text me this week and she used this phrase that I, it like, you know when words just kind of stick with you and you just mull them over in your head? And she had said it not connected to this sermon at all, but it felt like it, it felt like it gave words to what I where I felt like this sermon as as I was preparing and studying for it was was heading. And it's I'm not one to title sermons, but maybe tonight I am. I'm a new girl today. Um and I just sat there and I think tonight, if you are taking notes, or maybe if you even want to just mull it over in your brain too, tonight I hope that we could maybe sit in God's word in such a way that we would discover the lost art of relentless faithfulness. That in a world where we just expect someone to have compromised in their life, maybe catastrophically, add them to the list, what does it look like to live in such a way that we are relentlessly faithful? Not perfect, but relentlessly chasing after faithfulness to our Lord and Savior. We're gonna be diving into the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den, a children's ministry classic. Um and it's a it's a story that screams about um God's provision and God's protection and his activity, but there's also a story about the person that the book's named after, and it's a story of a man who is relentlessly faithful. And so I'd love to open us up in word in prayer, in a word of prayer, and then we're gonna open God's word there. Sound good? Awesome. You guys are fun tonight. That was a heavy way to start, and you're you're still fun. So thanks for jumping in with me. Um, God, thank you for who you are. Thank you that uh even as we open up a topic like faithfulness, we know that we will never even scratch the surface of your faithfulness toward us. Thank you that there is not a moment that you do not sleep, you do not slumber, there is not a moment that you have turned your face away from your children, but that you chase after us relentlessly. Faithful to be good and kind and just and merciful and graceful right toward us, even in the middle of our brokenness, even in the middle of our greatest mistakes. God, I pray in this moment as we open up your word that we would find you. Your word says that when we seek you with all of your heart, we can find you. I pray that we would find you this evening. And God, I pray that there would be just a little bit more fire stirred in our soul by your spirit that would ignite in us the desire to live a life that is set apart. Set apart for you. We love you, we thank you. It's in your name we pray. Amen. All right, Daniel chapter six, it's pretty much like kind of in the middle of your Bible if you have one with you. Daniel chapter six opens with a um a puppet show of people trying to ruin Daniel's life. It's a really fun way to start um a chapter of scripture. Um, he is serving in uh the a foreign government and he's thriving, and his success has put a target on his back. Turn with me, verse one. It starts this way. It pleased Darius, Darius is currently the king of Babylon, pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom, with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel. So what you're hearing is just a friendly governmental org chart, okay? So you've got king, you've got administrators, and then you have all, you have 120 people that are that are being governed by these three administrators. The satraps were made accountable to them so that the king might not suffer loss. Now, Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. At this, the administrators and the satraps f tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could not find, they could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. Finally, these men said, We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God. So this new king, King Darius, is appointed and he is basically setting up his governmental affairs, and so he sets up a system where Daniel actually has a really high level of authority in the kingdom. And he's doing so well that the king actually has already set in motion a plan for him to actually become even more in charge. So the king is like the king is is in a fan of him. Like he likes Daniel, he thinks he's a good guy, and he's actually going to give him more authority soon. And basically, everyone else is naturally jealous. Exactly. They're naturally jealous because this guy is a foreigner. This guy, for some reason, is just such a good guy, and they become angry because he's also gonna be he's getting a promotion, and they also are just like, there's no way he's actually that good. Like, this is annoying and this is frustrating. And so they basically set in motion a plan to try to trap Daniel. They couldn't find anything wrong with him, they tried to take him down, and so they have decided the way in which we're gonna be able to make anything happen is if we somehow find a way to cut into his faithfulness. Look at this in verse 6. It says, So the administrators and the satraps went as a group to the king and said, May King Darius live forever. So basically, what this is right here is um all right, you've got the best kid in class, okay? You've got just like teacher's pet 101. And then you have everyone else in the class who wants to like be the person who gets to take the mail to the principal's office when the teacher needs a runner, and they're jealous, and the teacher always picks the teacher's pet. And so all the other people in the class decide we're going to band together because there's no way the teacher's gonna deny the 29 of us coming to the teacher saying, We love you, and we came up with a really good plan, like powers in numbers, right? So here's that's what's happening. Powers and numbers, they're going to, they're gonna basically manipulate the king to turn on the teacher's pet. You tracking with me? We're turning on the teacher's pet. Verse 7 the royal administrators, perfects, satraps, advisors, and governors have all agreed, they band together to tattletale. They have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or human during the next thirty days, except to you, your majesty, shall be thrown into the lion's den. Now, your majesty, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered, in accordance with the law of Medes and the Persians, which cannot be repealed. So King Darius put the decree in writing. So we pick up our story where there is a man who has been good and faithful, and he is an incredible leader over Babylon. Everyone else is jealous, and so they all band together, they go to the king and they say, You've got to put this into writing. And he's like, Okay, well, if all of you agree, right, if all of you agree, this must be a good thing, he puts it into play. And you have this man who has been relentlessly faithful, and all of a sudden they just used his faith against him. The only shot they knew to take him down was to somehow use God and following God against him in order to get their way. I think one of the most devastating comments that could ever be said about me at my funeral is if someone walked in and went, I had no clue she was a Christian. Think about how cool it is that every single person, it said administrators, satraps, governors, they all knew that the only way to take this guy down was to somehow make a law that would interfere with his faithfulness. Somehow, some way, Daniel's faith had become so evident in his life that they knew it was the only way they were gonna take him down. See, a faithfulness to the Lord, it invites us to live in such a way that whether with word or deed or a beautiful combo of both, the world knows we live differently. Somehow, some way, everyone that Daniel was leading, everyone who led alongside him, everyone who was three, four, five rungs down the totem pole, knew that there was gonna be no way to find fault with this guy unless somehow they interfered with his ability to be faithful to his God. Man, what if that could be said about us? There is, I could scan your text messages, I could scan your browser history, I could interview all of your friends, starting in like, you know, the ones that you like, the neighborhood kids, all the way to your college besties. I could scan the internet for anything on you. And if I went into your boss and I tried so hard to get you fired, the only thing that I could say was, I don't know, you gotta tell him that he he can't read his Bible on his phone. That's like the only way I'm gonna get this guy fired. Like what a beautiful image of faithfulness. When everyone in the world knows the only way we can take you down is if somehow we interfere with your faithfulness because we know you're gonna keep doing that. And and while it may, maybe you're sitting there like, okay, well, yeah, Daniel's just in a really good season. Like he probably, you know, like is just on fire for the Lord. Like I've had seasons like that where you could have, you know, for for that span of three years, you could have tracked me. Like I would have been found faultless. But but I think it's really important to note that Daniel that we're reading about in Daniel chapter six doesn't just come onto the scene as a good guy. He we actually have chapter after chapter after chapter that we see this relentlessly faithful follower of God be built. So I'd love if if you would with me, we let's go backwards. You good with that? Daniel chapter one. You don't have to turn there. I'm gonna try to summarize and build the character arc of Daniel for you. Daniel chapter one, if you open it up, you're gonna find that the story begins with invasion. Babylon invades Judah and conquers them. And so he actually, as a teenager, is taken away from his people, and he is enrolled in this like three-year, almost like military um school. He gets set into the school and they are going to try to coach him into becoming a Babylonian. They give him a new name, he has a new home, he has a new language he has to learn. And Babylon's not trying to kill him, they're just really trying to slowly tweak him so that he doesn't stand out. Like, okay, we're gonna put you in this school and we're gonna form you in such a way that you can just blend in with the Babylonians and you no longer look like someone who belongs to Judah. No longer looks like you belong to the people of God. And you see, Daniel, he he he weighs every decision and he's like, okay, this isn't compromising what God has asked me to do. This isn't compromising what God asked me to do, until you get to an invitation to eat something that in the Torah it's been told is unclean. And he says, I'm not gonna compromise what the Torah tells me to do. And the and his life isn't necessarily on the line right there, but a lot of consequences are on the line. And this is a teenager, and he says, The Torah has told me I should not eat that and I will not eat that. And hey, he sticks to eating his vegetables like we all should. And and in the in the most secret and private and even just small way, he says, I'm not willing to compromise here. Daniel chapter one. Isn't that how compromise works? Just like this little, this little tiny decision, and it's usually led with the tagline or the lure of this can just make life just a tiny bit easier. And I promise you, in Daniel chapter one, life in this like military academy of Babylonia, like it would have been so much easier if he just would have eaten the bacon. But he stirred the pot and he said, right here, uh with this with this plate of food that you're asking me to eat, right here, I'm not willing to make this compromise. You get to Daniel chapter two, the pressure grows a little bit. King Nebuchadnezzar, who's the the king at the time, he has this really disturbing dream. Maybe you've heard this story. He brings all these people in, magicians and famous people, and he's like, please tell me what this dream means. No one can figure it out. And he and someone says, There's this guy, Daniel. He he can do this sort of thing. He's been gifted in such a way that he can interpret dreams and he's like, bring them to me. If he can interpret, if he can interpret this dream, good. If he can't, he's gonna die. And so what do they do? They summon Daniel. And now it's not just about like eating plate and getting a slap on the hand at military school. Now he has to interpret a dream, and if he doesn't interpret it correctly, the king has just said he's gonna kill him. And so you see Daniel in chapter two summoned summoned to interpret this dream, and he doesn't go straight to the palace. He doesn't go straight to the king's quarters. He gathers his friends and he prays. Because here's the thing: Daniel knows this isn't just some sort of talent that he has mustered up. This is a gift that he has been given from the Lord. And so he can't just march into the king's quarters and interpret this dream. He needs God to interpret this dream. And so he's not just gonna do immediately as he's summoned to do. He's gonna stop and he's gonna be with God and he's gonna pray about it, he's gonna beg the Lord to show up. Then you get to Daniel chapter three, and now the spotlight shifts over to Daniel's friends. Maybe you know this story in Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And now King Nebuchadnezzar decides that it's time to build this beautiful golden statue, and there's gonna be a decree, and everyone needs to bow down to the statue. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are also God's people, and they said, We can't do it. We know what God's word says, we shall not bow down to any other idols. And they say this in Daniel 3. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego reply to him, King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we're thrown into the blazing furnace, our the God we serve is able to deliver us from it. And he will deliver us from your majesty's hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, your majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of the gold that you have set up. They say this beautiful line of trusting faith. They say, We know God can, and we believe that God will. And even if he does not, we will not bend to what it is that you're asking us to do against the Lord. We believe that God can show up. We are trusting that he will, and even if he doesn't deliver us in this specific way, we still will not compromise what God has asked us to do. See, the worthiness and and their faithfulness of and their ability to remain faithful to God, it was not dependent on God's, like, it wasn't dependent on God showing up in this moment. They had banked their faithfulness, they had banked his worthiness and his character on who he was. And they said, My faithfulness is not going to be contingent on if he shows up, then I'm going to be okay. My my faithfulness in this moment is God's worth it regardless. And even if he, even if I cannot find him, he is still worth it for me to not bow down to the idol that you have created. See, the faithfulness of Daniel and his friends, it has been has been a thread all throughout the book. Over and over again, it is the story of him and his people remaining faithful and foundational upon God's character as able and willing and worthy of their faithfulness, not contingent upon his deliverance or his or his like interjection into their situation. And so when we come back to Daniel chapter six, you can expect someone who has already been through the fires of compromise opportunities. And yet he remained faithful to the law, faithful to the Torah. He remained faithful to the first king's summons and interpreting a dream and using his gift for the glory of the Lord. He has remained faithful far away from home. He has remained faithful in a place where he does not belong or fit in. And so when we arrive at the story of the lion's den, this is what you need to understand. Daniel has faced a lot of tiny little fires already. His character has been chipped away at and molded and crafted in such a way that of course he would be found faithful now. How could he not be? It's been tested and tried, and God has shown up again and again. So when the stakes are higher and a lion's den is on the line, look at where you pick up in verse 10. Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home upstairs to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God just as he had done before. See, when the pressure came, when the king put a decree that absolutely had a target on his back, he was the target of this law. Daniel didn't just somehow rise to the occasion. He fell back on the things that had already formed him for years. He fell back into the rhythms and the patterns and the relationship that had been pre-existing all the way up until this point. And this relentless faith had formed him in such a way that he he just didn't know how not to. That before it was costly, before things were on the line, before the crisis, he had already formed and lived his life in such a way that how could he not go pray? Three times a day, every day it's what he did. I was listening to a sermon by Annie F. Downs on a podcast a few weeks ago, and she was teaching at a church out in New York City. She was sharing about just the desire to live a life of wisdom, to live life in such a way that fruit would be evident and what that even means practically. And she broke it down in almost like disgusting simplicity. You know, when people get there and you're like, that is so simple. How have I never thought of that? And she's just started going one by one through each fruit of the spirit, and she was like, You wanna, you wanna know how to be patient? Like, just stand in the long lines every time you go. You're gonna build the muscles of patience in your life. And she said, you know, you wanna be like a good person, a trustworthy person. She said, when you go to work and you're five minutes late and your boss looks at you, don't tell them that there was traffic on the freeway when there wasn't traffic on the freeway. She said, tell them that you stayed up late watching 50 more Instagram reels than you should have. And so you so you snoozed your alarm too many times and you're late and you're sorry. Because then the time when the fire's there, the time where like big things are on the line and you really, really, really want to lie, you will have built such honest muscles in your body, it will feel so uncomfortable to not tell the truth. And right now, in this story, what we're seeing in Daniel is muscles and memory that is so deeply ingrained and baked into his life that he cannot even fathom the idea of not just going home and praying like he has done every single day, three times a day. He has been formed in such a way that prayer and a life that is dependent upon communication with God is so deeply pivotal, piv pivotal and important and just essential to his walk with God that he cannot understand or even have time to just, and maybe I'll just think about it today. Maybe I'll just, you know, I won't pray today, and I'll and tomorrow I'll decide if I should, and maybe they won't be looking for him anymore. He just immediately falls into the rhythms that have formed him. And he how could he not pray? And I think it begs the question of us, and and I hope maybe even just in the quiet places of your heart and with the Lord right now, you could, in pure honesty, say, God, what what rhythms in my life would I just naturally fall back into if a crisis hit right now? Like, what are the things that I do on a daily basis that if if absolutely everything started falling apart and I just went about my daily life, what would I do tomorrow? Or that maybe if someone zoomed in on your life and all of a sudden they had security cameras in your house, what what's really going on behind the scenes that nobody actually sees? What rhythms and moments with the Lord are forming you in such a way that when the trouble and the trial and the crisis comes, what do you have to fall back on? What relationship with the Lord has been forged through the good and the bad and the highs and the lows that you can bank on and rest in and fall back on when you feel like someone just slapped you across the face with life? And then when? When that thing does maybe just slap you across the face, is there a relationship with God there that actually would be costly to let go of? Daniel found himself in a place that it would be far too costly to let go of his relationship with the Lord than have a relationship with everyone around him. Because if the fire came and it actually wouldn't be costly for you to let go of a relationship with the God of the universe, with your best friend in the whole wide world. If prayer is just this thing that you do sometimes or you do because I do in a microphone, and so you bow your head and you maybe say it with me, if prayer is just something that you that you do as a part of the Christian experience, it's not gonna be costly if someone told you you can't pray. But man, if God is your lifeline, if he is your best friend and Lord and Savior, and if time with him is so sweet and essential and you cannot imagine a day without it, when the fire comes and if culture or someone or something tries to rip you out of your relationship with the Lord, it would be so costly to walk away. I cannot imagine not being able to have access to my savior. Is having to let go of a relationship with God, would it be costly to you? Daniel knew that everything that he could gain in this moment, freedom from the lion's den, number one, favor in the eyes of everyone around him, even just uh, you know, life and maybe not death, everything that he could have gained in this moment, the cost of all of those things was not worth it in comparison to the cost of losing a relationship with God. It's what Paul picks up in Philippians 3 when he says, uh, everything now, everything else I consider lost for the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. It's all garbage, he says. There is nothing else of this world, even just like we just sing, there is nothing else in this world that can satisfy me more than you can, God. And so every losing and letting go of everything else, that cost is just not greater. The cost of losing you is the greatest cost I could ever pay. Daniel chapter 6, verse 11. And so they watch him. They watch to see if he'll still bow, they watch to see if he'll still pray, and like really good tattletales. In verse 16, so the king gave the order, they brought Daniel and they threw him in the lion's den. The king said to Daniel, May your God, whom you continually serve, rescue you. A stone was brought, placed over the mouth of the den, the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the rings of his nobles, so that Daniel's situation might not be changed. Then the king returned to his palace and sent the night without eating or without any entertainment being brought to him, and he could not sleep. At the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lion's den. When he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice, Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions? Daniel answered, May the king live forever. My God sent his angel and shut the mouth of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight, nor have I ever done anything wrong before you, your majesty. The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den, and when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him because he had trusted in his God. Here's the thing. What a what a what a story, right? And yet God didn't keep Daniel from the lion's den. A relentlessly faithful man who did the hard thing and went against culture, went against decree, went against his friends, went against his coworkers, wasn't protected from having to still pay the consequence. The punishment still came, his life was still turned upside down. I think some of us maybe find ourselves in such a place where you're like, God, I have been so faithful to you and yet still I'm paying the price of a punishment I don't deserve. God, I remained faithful and still that friend turned on me. God, I am working hard as unto the Lord, and yet my boss singles me out and hates me. God, I have, I have done my best. I know my best is it pales in comparison to you, but I have done my best, and yet somehow, somehow, I still find myself in the middle of fill in the blank. Daniel didn't get spared from having to go into the den. And if we hold such expectations upon God that are so contingent upon our faithfulness, then we can go down one of two pathways really quickly. The first one being, I just must not be a good enough Christian. Where there's a whole other sermon in there, and uh that's just not how it's not how the world works, and it's definitely not how God works. Or God has failed us, and so we're mad at him and we're angry with him and we run away. But can you just imagine with me? Can you imagine with me the closeness Daniel must have felt being in the den with that angel? Can you imagine what it would have felt like to be sitting in a place with roaring lions? The stone has been shut, it has been sealed, and somehow, somehow, he is protected and sheltered and seen and held and kept by the Lord. Can you imagine the presence of God he must have felt and experienced inside that den? See, trouble and trial and pain, they're promised in this world. But his presence always is promised in this world too. And if we find ourselves living in such a way that we are desiring to be relentlessly faithful to the Lord, and then we find ourselves in a trial, and we just say, I must not have been him. Man, I believe we can miss one of the most intimate, close seasons of our life if we say, God, you must be here. The protection and the provision can still exist inside the middle of it. And sometimes the stone gets rolled away and the lions don't even exist, and sometimes there's some battle scars. But he always tells us that his presence will be with us. Always. Verse 25, the story ends this way. Worship team, you can come back up. It says, Then King Darius wrote to all the nations and peoples of every language in all the earth, may you prosper greatly. I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel, for he is the living God and he endures forever. His kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end. He rescues and he saves. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions. The decree shifts from being a decree against worship to a decree to worship. Can you imagine that? In this past month and a half, we have talked about this idea of bearing witness, what it means to live in such a way that our lives tell the story of the gospel, tell a testimony of the ways that we have met and experienced and known intimacy with Jesus. Live in such a way that we would live a beautiful life that would just even compel curiosity from people. And I love this story because it doesn't just, it's not like a, you know, Daniel just doesn't have this one moment where everything gets fixed and solved, and so everything is now peaching. But he has this muddy, messy living in exile journey where over and over and over again his faith is pressed from every side, and yet King Nebuchadnezzar turns to Jesus. King Darius decrees uh a worship to serve this Lord because of an ordinary guy who lived ordinary faith. And so when it mattered, it was able to come to the surface. Glenna Marshall, in her um book, Faithfulness is for Everyone, says it this way. She says, Faithfulness is an everyday calling. It's regular, it's ordinary, it's taking a really long view of the Christian life. It's reshaping our desires for immediate fruit and committing to follow Jesus for the long haul. It's getting up every single day and believing that God is your treasure, that the gospel of Jesus is worth your very breath, and that he is enough. Faithfulness is doing this again tomorrow and the next day and ten years from now, because faithfulness is ordinary, it's unremarkable, it plods. It's also precious in the sight of God, who works out lifelong sanctifying perseverance in your life for your good and for his glory. I believe so deeply that the Lord desires to capture our attention for the little and the small things. That the path towards not having a cavity is really just brushing your teeth every day. The path towards a healthy marriage, in the words of Jake Scott, it's the Tuesdays. And the path towards a relationship with Jesus that can stand firm in the face of opposition and changing culture, and the worst of the worst, is actually just built through what you do today and tomorrow. The 9 a.m. and the 9 p.m. and all the all the hours in between. And I believe that the best witness that you and I may ever get to have in someone's life is actually just being the person that we say we are. And if that's a Christian, just being a Christian. And so my prayer for us now as we head into a time of worship and maybe even just sit with the Lord is to just maybe invite him, God, what's what's forming me? Is it a relationship with you? Is it what I'm what I think I'm supposed to do, or is it an intimacy with you that it would be so costly to let go of? Because relentless faithfulness is not perfection. It's choosing day in and day out. God, I'm gonna seek you again today. I'm gonna seek your grace and I'm gonna seek your face. And so in these moments, would you just invite him there? God, show me what is forming me so that when the highs and the lows come, I can't even imagine not being able to do them with you. Would you pray with me? It's not easy sometimes. Maybe there's people in this room who find themselves in a really sweet season, and they would say faithfulness has been sweet lately. My time with the Lord has been full of gratitude and just joy and and peace and hope, and I feel like I have a cup that's overflowing. God, we pray for more. But God, maybe there's some in this room who find themselves uh in a little bit of just the mundane middle. Doing all the things and sometimes it feels okay, and sometimes it doesn't. God, I pray that they would be reminded in this moment that you are a present God that meets them day in and day out. That you have something for them right now. And God, I pray for the people who feel like they are standing in the middle of a lion's den. God, where are you? And how did you let me get here? God, I pray that in this moment you would remind them that you have the ability to do anything and everything. You are a God of miracles, you are a God of healing, and you are a God of supernatural peace despite anything this world throws at us. And I pray in these moments that they may find an all-knowing, all-powerful God sitting with them in the middle of the mess, reminding them that he can and he will, and even if he doesn't, he's still worthy of our worship. And God, I pray that we would live lives in such a way that as the little and the big compromises come, we would be found faithful, set apart in such a way that we would be who we say we are, as a signpost to this world that God is worth it. That he has the ability to breathe and bring new life into this world as we surrender our lives to him, declare him as Lord, and allow him to take the reins of all that follows. As you receive worship from your children now, it's in your name of God. Amen.