Sermon Tone Analysis

Being A Person of Integrity in a Culture of Duplicity

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Daniel 6                Countercultural Faith Series # 2

 

 

We are working together in a series on confronting our culture with faith.

We’re looking at the issue of what is shaping us—are we being shaped by our faith in Christ, or are we being shaped by the culture around us and the ways that the American people tend to do things.

Specifically, as we began, we looked at Romans 12:1-2 and talked about this question of, am I being molded by the culture, or am I being molded by the Lord.

The bad new is, we are being molded by someone.

Everyone is in someone’s mold.

The good news is, I can choose which mold I want to be in.

As we think about this issue today, I want to remind you of the statement in Romans 12:1-2 where he says that we should be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

He is calling us to think like Jesus Christ thinks, to use the Word of God to cause ourselves to think differently.

And I want to encourage you to think about this whole process of what do I do to renew my mind, what do I do to cause the Word of God to be changing me?

We talked last time about two key questions.

Number one, who does God want me to be?

If I look ten years down the road into my life and answer the question, what should I look like?

Who should I be as a believer in Jesus Christ?

What should my life be like?

And then, asking the second question, and that is, what will I do to mold my life so that I eventually look that way?

Who should I be?

And how will I get there?

With this first specific topic, as we think about being molded by the Word of God rather than being molded by the culture around us, is the subject of integrity.

If you have your Bible, look with me at Daniel chapter 6. I’ll be reading the entire chapter.

This is an incident in the life of Daniel, in which Daniel as one of the high officials in the government of a foreign country, he was not a native here.

A high official, and he came into a severe trial in his life as some people around him, motivated probably by jealousy, attempted to take his life.

Daniel 6:1

“It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes, which should be over the whole kingdom; 2  And over these three presidents; of whom Daniel was first: that the princes might give accounts unto them, and the king should have no damage.

3  Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm.

4  Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him.

5  Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God.

6 ¶  Then these presidents and princes assembled together to the king, and said thus unto him, King Darius, live for ever.

7  All the presidents of the kingdom, the governors, and the princes, the counsellors, and the captains, have consulted together to establish a royal statute, and to make a firm decree, that whosoever shall ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions.

8  Now, O king, establish the decree, and sign the writing, that it be not changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.”

They had a law among the Medes and Persians that if the king made a law, it cannot be revoked, even if he wants to, even if it’s a ridiculous law, even if it begins to harm him and his people.

It stands, and you will see the text reiterating that at several different times.

“9  Wherefore king Darius signed the writing and the decree.

10  Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.

11 ¶  Then these men assembled, and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God.

12  Then they came near, and spake before the king concerning the king’s decree; Hast thou not signed a decree, that every man that shall ask a petition of any God or man within thirty days, save of thee, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?

The king answered and said, The thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which altereth not.

13  Then answered they and said before the king, That Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah, regardeth not thee, O king, nor the decree that thou hast signed, but maketh his petition three times a day.

14  Then the king, when he heard these words, was sore displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him: and he laboured till the going down of the sun to deliver him.

15  Then these men assembled unto the king, and said unto the king, Know, O king, that the law of the Medes and Persians is, That no decree nor statute which the king establisheth may be changed.

16  Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions.

Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee.

17  And a stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; that the purpose might not be changed concerning Daniel.

18 ¶  Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting: neither were instruments of musick brought before him: and his sleep went from him.

19  Then the king arose very early in the morning, and went in haste unto the den of lions.

20  And when he came to the den, he cried with a lamentable voice unto Daniel: and the king spake and said to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?

21  Then said Daniel unto the king, O king, live for ever.

22  My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt.

23  Then was the king exceeding glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den.

So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in his God.

24  And the king commanded, and they brought those men which had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions had the mastery of them, and brake all their bones in pieces or ever they came at the bottom of the den.

25 ¶  Then king Darius wrote unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth; Peace be multiplied unto you.

26  I make a decree, That in every dominion of my kingdom men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel: for he is the living God, and stedfast for ever, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be even unto the end.

27 He delivereth and rescueth, and he worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth, who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.

28  So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.”

One tells the story of a high school daughter who had a teacher whom she absolutely idolized.

She thought the man was a great teacher, she enjoyed his classes, she took several classes from him and worked very hard for him.

About November of her junior year, some of the students went to his house to speak to him, and found that he was not home.

But they looked in his windows, and they saw in his house stolen computers, stolen sound systems, things that had been taken from the school district and from the courthouse and from a college nearby.

They went and reported to the police what they had seen, and the police came.

They got a search warrant, confiscated the items, and brought charges of theft against this teacher.

The man was never brought to trial.

For some reason, the charges were dropped, but he was fired from his job, and he left the city, and never came back.

The shock and disappointment in the life of this young daughter was incredible, when she found out that this man was not the person he was billing himself to be.

This man discouraged a trainload of high school young people in that city, because his public persona was different than his private reality.

In the end of the 1800’s and into the early 1900’s, there was a very famous preacher in England.

His name was Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

He preached in London for almost thirty years.

He had written a number of books, and had personally read over 10,000 books.

He was a person who built the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London, building up to over 4,000 people in worship every Sunday morning.

During the course of Spurgeon’s life, he kept chickens, and kept laying hens.

He had a tremendous number of eggs that he was getting from these chickens.

And he was selling the eggs.

And during the course of his ministry, Spurgeon came under attack from some people in his church who said, “You shouldn’t be selling those.

You should give those away to the needy, you should give them to people who are suffering.

It is greedy on your part to take a salary from your church and also to sell eggs.”

Well, Spurgeon would not stop selling the eggs.

In fact, his entire life, he kept those hens, he sold those eggs.

He refused to give them away.

Finally, after his death, almost five years after his death, some friends were pressing his widow about this issue and still would not leave it alone, saying, “why would he never stop selling those eggs?”

And his wife said to them, “My husband and I were supporting a destitute widow and her children with the egg money.”

Spurgeon was a person who was preaching generosity in his pulpit, and he was practicing generosity in secret at home.

He was the same person in the pulpit as he was in the chicken coop.

He was just one man.

I want to ask you to think with me about this issue of integrity and duplicity in our lives and in the culture around us.

There is the story of a high school teacher who was two people.

He had a public image he was presenting, but he had a different identity in his own life.

And there is the story of the preacher who was one person.

He was a person of integrity.

He was the same person in the pulpit as he was at home.

The questions I want us to think about today are, number one, how do I become a person of integrity even though I live in a culture of duplicity?

And number two, how do I ensure that my life stays in this realm of integrity?

I want to discuss those questions by looking at the life of Daniel, looking at the story we read in chapter 6, perhaps a very familiar story to you.

I want to begin by talking about Daniel 6:, verses 4-13, as the reality that Daniel lived in a culture of duplicity.

Daniel lived in the middle of people who were different than what they projected themselves to be.

In Daniel 6:4-13, as we just read, we find a group of people who were projecting themselves to be very loyal subjects to the king.

They were passing themselves off as people who cared about the king, and who cared about the kingdom, and who were deeply committed to the best interests of the king.

In reality, they were people who were scheming, they were deceitful, they were extremely jealous, and they did not care about the king.