Hang In There

Bill Connors

One-Off Messages • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

Daniel 6:1–28

Suffering

Steadfast

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Notes

Transcript

Bookmarks & Needs:

Bookmark: Daniel 6

Housekeeping Stuff & Announcements:

Welcome everyone to the family gathering.

While we may not be together in the building, it’s so great to see so many here this morning to worship together, as we haven’t done in over a month. Even though we’re just all here on the parking lot, we get to see on another, to a certain extent. I look forward to when we all get to be in the building again. If you are here in Albuquerque, and would like to get more information about EHBC, you can text the word “WELCOME” to 505-339-2004. It will text you back, asking for some more information from you so we can connect with you better. But during this time, we’ve also actually connected with many new people all around the country. Thank you to all who are joining us when we stream this a little later this morning. We would love to be able to communicate with you more directly. If you’re just visiting Eastern Hills online, you can text the word “LIVE” to that same number 505-339-2004, and then it will ask you to click a link just to provide us with your name and email address. We want to be able to pray for you, follow up with you if you have any questions, and keep you apprised about things as we look forward into the coming weeks and months. WELCOME if you’re in Albuquerque, LIVE if you live somewhere else.

Our church staff is praying for you throughout this time each week as we meet as a staff online. We would be honored to be able to lift up your prayer requests as well. We keep a church prayer list that we call our PrayerLIne, and you can get a copy of the Prayer Line in PDF format from our website. Just go to ehbc.org, visit the Family Life section, and go to the Prayer link. If you have prayer requests to add to the PrayerLine, you can email those to Rebecca or Shanna at info@ehbc.org.

GRAD SUNDAY DRIVE-IN 5/31 at 9 am, bring or mail cards from now to then. Unfortunately, I don’t think you can give to the grads online. It’s not there right now, but we will have a list of the grads on our Announcements page later this week, so you can know who is graduating from our Student Ministry.

Next week, we will receive our one-day-only Mother’s Day offering to support the NM Baptist Children’s Home in Portales. I was there at the State Convention last October, and I just want to testify that it is a really important and vibrant ministry to children in need of foster care. We only take that offering up on Mother’s Day, and our goal next week is $3,800. Pray and ask the Lord to prepare your heart to give next week.

Use online giving. Go to our website, and right there on the front page is a button linking to our online giving page. It’s even mobile-friendly. You just choose the fund you want to give to (Church budget or something specific, like Children’s Home), and walk through the steps.

Thanks so much to all who have been involved in our ministry partnership with SHINE. It’s so great that we have successfully gathered enough food to finish out the commitment that we made to support the 50 most food-insecure students at Kennedy Middle School through the end of the school year. We are praying about our next step with SHINE, and what that will look like for next year. Thanks to Trevor, Michael, Mark, and all who have so faithfully served and will continue to serve as we pack and deliver for the next three weeks.

This morning, here on site we’re in cars. Later this morning, people will be watching online. Let’s participate together in worship this morning, regardless of where we are. I will ask those of you here to participate in some ways that are similar to how I’d have you participate in the sanctuary, like by flashing your headlights for a moment instead of raising your hand. For all of us, If you would sing out or clap your hands during the time of praise and worship through song, do that. As we pray, pray together with me. When we study the Word, make sure you get your Bible out and join in.

We do have this morning’s service all set up on YouVersion, so you should be able to see it if you get on YouVersion and look for our Live Event.

MUSIC:

Lay Me Down (G)

Whom Shall I Fear (G)

Yes I Will (G)

Do It Again (E)

PRAY

Opening

Having just finished a series last week, and with Mother’s Day next week and then grad Sunday on the 31st, I’m planning on starting my next focused long-term sermon series in June. For today, I wanted us to take a minute and reflect on the life of a Bible hero whose life of faith prepared him for being able to “hang in there” when everything seemed to come against him at the same time.

Joe has been teaching on Daniel during his kids’ video teaching on Saturday and now Sunday nights during our time staying at home, and this week he’s moving on to the life of Jesus. I wanted to sort of “finish up” the Daniel narrative part of Daniel with an encouragement for all of us to “hang in there.”

To set up what we will be looking at, in Daniel 5, King Belshazzaar of Babylon had defiled the items from the Temple of God that Nebuchadnezzar had taken from when he captured Jerusalem, and a hand had appeared and wrote on the wall a prophecy of Belshazzar’s doom, which Daniel interpreted for him. That very night, Belshazzar was killed, and the Medo-Persian empire took over Babylon under Darius.

Our focal passage is very familiar: we’re going to read all of Daniel chapter 6. I’m not going to ask us to stand together, given that we’re in cars. On the Internet, you all can stand if you’d like:

Daniel 6:1–28 CSB

1 Darius decided to appoint 120 satraps over the kingdom, stationed throughout the realm, 2 and over them three administrators, including Daniel. These satraps would be accountable to them so that the king would not be defrauded. 3 Daniel distinguished himself above the administrators and satraps because he had an extraordinary spirit, so the king planned to set him over the whole realm. 4 The administrators and satraps, therefore, kept trying to find a charge against Daniel regarding the kingdom. But they could find no charge or corruption, for he was trustworthy, and no negligence or corruption was found in him. 5 Then these men said, “We will never find any charge against this Daniel unless we find something against him concerning the law of his God.” 6 So the administrators and satraps went together to the king and said to him, “May King Darius live forever. 7 All the administrators of the kingdom, the prefects, satraps, advisers, and governors have agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an edict that for thirty days, anyone who petitions any god or man except you, the king, will be thrown into the lions’ den. 8 Therefore, Your Majesty, establish the edict and sign the document so that, as a law of the Medes and Persians, it is irrevocable and cannot be changed.” 9 So King Darius signed the written edict. 10 When Daniel learned that the document had been signed, he went into his house. The windows in its upstairs room opened toward Jerusalem, and three times a day he got down on his knees, prayed, and gave thanks to his God, just as he had done before. 11 Then these men went as a group and found Daniel petitioning and imploring his God. 12 So they approached the king and asked about his edict: “Didn’t you sign an edict that for thirty days any person who petitions any god or man except you, the king, will be thrown into the lions’ den?” The king answered, “As a law of the Medes and Persians, the order stands and is irrevocable.” 13 Then they replied to the king, “Daniel, one of the Judean exiles, has ignored you, the king, and the edict you signed, for he prays three times a day.” 14 As soon as the king heard this, he was very displeased; he set his mind on rescuing Daniel and made every effort until sundown to deliver him. 15 Then these men went together to the king and said to him, “You know, Your Majesty, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no edict or ordinance the king establishes can be changed.” 16 So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lions’ den. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you continually serve, rescue you!” 17 A stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den. The king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the signet rings of his nobles, so that nothing in regard to Daniel could be changed. 18 Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting. No diversions were brought to him, and he could not sleep. 19 At the first light of dawn the king got up and hurried to the lions’ den. 20 When he reached the den, he cried out in anguish to Daniel. “Daniel, servant of the living God,” the king said, “has your God, whom you continually serve, been able to rescue you from the lions?” 21 Then Daniel spoke with the king: “May the king live forever. 22 My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths; and they haven’t harmed me, for I was found innocent before him. And also before you, Your Majesty, I have not done harm.” 23 The king was overjoyed and gave orders to take Daniel out of the den. When Daniel was brought up from the den, he was found to be unharmed, for he trusted in his God. 24 The king then gave the command, and those men who had maliciously accused Daniel were brought and thrown into the lions’ den—they, their children, and their wives. They had not reached the bottom of the den before the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones. 25 Then King Darius wrote to those of every people, nation, and language who live on the whole earth: “May your prosperity abound. 26 I issue a decree that in all my royal dominion, people must tremble in fear before the God of Daniel: For he is the living God, and he endures forever; his kingdom will never be destroyed, and his dominion has no end. 27 He rescues and delivers; he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth, for he has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions.” 28 So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

PRAY

While it is so great to all be here together, I have to admit to something: this week has been a struggle for me. Maybe it has for all of you. This time has been a struggle for me. Maybe it has been for you as well, and maybe in ways that I can’t even begin to grasp. I know that many are struggling with job loss, maybe with getting the things you need, with suddenly having to change your whole way of doing things to a more online presence, or even suddenly having to help your children navigate remote learning. Maybe you’ve even been sick, or are waiting for an important medical procedure, and waiting is all you can do for the moment.

And as we sit here this morning (at least here in NM), we’ve seen the first glimmers of the practical light at the end of the tunnel: mention of the beginnings of transition to a more “normal” way of doing things, relaxing some of the precautions that were put in place to ease the burden of this disease on the healthcare industry and society as a whole. I know that people have different opinions on that, but I’m not here to debate those or take sides in this moment.

This morning, I want to take a minute to just encourage us, those of us who are believers in Jesus Christ, to consider what we have gone through and are going through during this time, and to maybe take a flyby at this moment in Daniel’s life and maybe find some hope to hang in there. When I say “hang in there” in this message, I’m referring to continuing to trust God and walk with Him.

I think about the times when times of struggle and trial came on the people in the Bible. Jacob had to work for 14 years tending his uncle’s sheep to cover the brideprice for his wives. Joseph was sold into captivity in Egypt and served for years there before he saw his brothers and father again (in many ways, Joseph and Daniel are similar). Moses tended sheep in the desert. The people of Israel had to wander in the wilderness for 40 years awaiting their entry into the Promised Land. David had to hide from Saul for years, even though he had already been anointed the next king. Even our Lord, Jesus, had to go fast in the desert for 40 days… just a little less than the amount of time we’ve been in stay-at-home mode… but at least we get to eat, as evidenced by my scale at home.

For each of them, their faith sustained them through the trial that they faced. The possible exception would be the people of Israel wandering in the desert, but their faith certainly came to play when it was time for them to cross the Jordan and take what had been promised to them by God. When we look at Daniel 6, we see 3 different times Daniel’s faith allowed him to hang in there, and one incredible result.

1) Hang in there in the day-to-day.

I don’t know about you, but when I spend a long time away from someone, they tend of kind of freeze in my mind. I have several nieces and nephews. Four of them live out of town. Of the ones that live out of town, three of them (all three are nephews) are not adults. Every time I get to see those boys, which isn’t all that often, I’m shocked at how much they’ve grown, how they have matured. Sure, Abbie is doing the same thing… but I see her every day. Somehow in my mind, these three nephews are frozen in the state I last saw them in until I see them again. Anyone else experience this? Flash you lights for just a second if you’ve ever experienced something like this.

I think that we tend to do this with Scripture as well. We read about Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego), these four probably teenage boys taken from Jerusalem in what was likely the first deportation in about 605 BC. And in some ways, they kind of always remain teenagers in our minds. So they’re teens when they are thrown into the fiery furnace, even though Scripture calls them “men” in Daniel 3:12.

Years… decades go by in just a few short chapters. And when we come upon Daniel in chapter 6, he is an old man. He’s probably 80 or older. At this point, he had been serving God faithfully where God had put him for at least 67 years, maybe even more, nearly the entire time in captivity, albeit as a slave appointed to a high-ranking governmental position, but a slave nonetheless. And what we see in our focal passage is not a bitter, frustrated, angry old man who had just had to “gut it out” for the last six-and-a-half decades, but a man whose faith was so real, whose focus was so on His God, that it didn’t make a bit of difference what happened to him: He was going to hang in there.

The picture of Daniel in chapter 6 is one of great faith that allowed him to hang in there when the crisis came. Notice that Daniel’s faith wasn’t crisis-oriented—it didn’t show up when a crisis came about. It’s the day-to-day of Daniel’s walk with God that allowed him to be ready when the crisis came:

Daniel 6:1–3 CSB

Daniel’s day-to-day life of faith, here referenced as that “he had an extraordinary spirit,” is what distinguished him from everyone else. Darius wisely appointed Daniel as one of his top three, and was eventually going to make him the top administrator in the realm. Verse 4 gives us an even deeper inside look:

Daniel 6:4 CSB

4 The administrators and satraps, therefore, kept trying to find a charge against Daniel regarding the kingdom. But they could find no charge or corruption, for he was trustworthy, and no negligence or corruption was found in him.

They couldn’t find anything wrong with him. He did everything he was supposed to do, and didn’t do anything he wasn’t supposed to do in his position as administrator of the Medo-Persian Empire. Daniel’s day-to-day walk of faith is what enabled him to hang in there for so long, through multiple kings, in a land that he wasn’t from, among people who weren’t his countrymen, serving a nations that I’m sure he would rather not serve if given the choice. But he hung in there. For more than 60 years, he had hung in there with God, and this time would be no different for Daniel.

For many of us, perhaps this time in social isolation has really rocked your faith. I’ve had some existential contemplations myself. But its in the day-to-day that we’re going to put down the deep roots. It’s in the day-to-day of loving Jesus and walking with Him that we’re going to grow strong. If we only decide that we’re going to walk with Jesus when things are hard, we’re going to have a hard time hanging in there, because we won’t have the foundations to stand upon.

Look at what Jesus said at the end of the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 7:24–27 CSB

24 “Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded that house. Yet it didn’t collapse, because its foundation was on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house, and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash.”

Hearing the words of Jesus and putting them into practice, just like Daniel heard the words of God and put them into practice, is what will allow us to be ready to hang in there when trouble comes. Our daily communion with God will shape our character and strengthen our resolve so that when we truly need to count the cost, we will be able to hang in there. I hope and pray that during this time, you’ve taken the opportunity to develop some new spiritual disciplines and habits for the day-to-day, or to strengthen those that you already had in place. Because what you’re doing now is determining what you will likely do later.

2) Hang in there when it might cost you.

The men that Daniel served with and over knew that he was Darius’ favorite, and we’ve already seen that they looked for things to bring against Daniel in how he did his job, but they couldn’t find anything. So they realize that it’s only in relation to God that they will get Daniel in trouble. So they create this situation where they play against Darius’ pride:

Daniel 6:7–8 CSB

7 All the administrators of the kingdom, the prefects, satraps, advisers, and governors have agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an edict that for thirty days, anyone who petitions any god or man except you, the king, will be thrown into the lions’ den. 8 Therefore, Your Majesty, establish the edict and sign the document so that, as a law of the Medes and Persians, it is irrevocable and cannot be changed.”

They lied. They said that ALL the administrators of the kingdom, as well as others, had come up with this. Daniel wasn’t a part of it. Wasn’t he a part of “all?” They play against Darius’ pride by telling him that he was deserving of being treated like a god, and that since he was deserving of it, then he should make a law to that effect, and as long as he was at it, he should make violating the law punishable by death. The Medo-Persians had a law that said once the king made a law, it could not be revoked or changed. It had to be carried out. Darius bought their flattery, and signed the law into effect. The stage was set for Daniel’s faith to cost him something.

And what did Daniel do? He prayed anyway. Not defiantly. Not disrespectfully. Just normally. He didn’t make any changes. His day-to-day walk with God had prepped him for this moment, and it didn’t make any difference to him if it cost him.

In his commentary on Daniel, Danny Akin wrote, “Christian character is not forged in the moment of adversity. Christian character is revealed in the moment of adversity.” Daniel’s character does not change. God is still God, and he will worship God the way he always has. He prays in front of his open window facing Jerusalem the way he had always done. He didn’t hide. I wonder if he didn’t reflect on David’s prayer in Psalm 57 as he considered the situation and prayed:

Psalm 57:4–8 CSB

4 I am surrounded by lions; I lie down among devouring lions— people whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords. 5 God, be exalted above the heavens; let your glory be over the whole earth. 6 They prepared a net for my steps; I was despondent. They dug a pit ahead of me, but they fell into it! Selah 7 My heart is confident, God, my heart is confident. I will sing; I will sing praises. 8 Wake up, my soul! Wake up, harp and lyre! I will wake up the dawn.

They catch him, and tell Darius. Daniel’s faith, the fact that he has hung in there with God, is going to cost him something.

I had a little bit of a pity party for myself this week at one point, wrestling with the stress and strain and uncertainty of this pandemic time, feeling uncertain about my own leadership during it, and honestly, whining to God a little bit. Then I listened to a sermon by David Platt, which he was preaching to pastors. In it, David spoke about the great pastor Charles Simeon, who pastored Holy Trinity Church at Cambridge University for over 50 years, and when I heard what he faced in his first decade with that church, my whining stopped.

I’ll keep this short. At 23, he was called by the local bishop to serve as pastor. They people wanted someone else. The bishop said no. The congregation staged a vicious campaign to make Simeon miserable. Most of them didn’t come to service in the morning, and worse, many of them locked their pews so no one else could sit in them. They did this for ten years. They paid the guy they wanted (not Simeon) twice Simeon’s salary to preach Sunday afternoons for five years. They told Simeon that he couldn’t preach a Sunday evening service, locking the doors and telling Simeon that even though he was the pastor, he had “no right to go into the church whenever he saw fit.” When he was asked how he had managed to pastor that church for so long, Simeon said, “In this state of things, I saw no remedy but faith and patience." There was no remedy but to hang in there, even though it cost him something.

We need to hang in there, walking with God even though it might cost us something. Even though there might be a risk. Even though it might cost us time, or comfort, or rest, or entertainment, or even relationships, we must hang in there, walking by faith with the Lord.

Darius respected Daniel, and it’s apparent that he doesn’t want it to go this way. He tries to rescue Daniel, but the people who talked him into his silly edict now remind him that he can’t change it.

Daniel 6:14–15 CSB

14 As soon as the king heard this, he was very displeased; he set his mind on rescuing Daniel and made every effort until sundown to deliver him. 15 Then these men went together to the king and said to him, “You know, Your Majesty, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no edict or ordinance the king establishes can be changed.”

There’s nothing he can do. Daniel is going to have to go into the lion’s den.

3) Hang in there when suffering comes.

So Daniel, the 80-something year old, is to be thrown into the lion’s den, which was probably more like a pit where they kept lions for this very reason, barely feeding them enough to survive, so that when someone was convicted of a crime deserving death, the lions would be ready to kill. As Daniel is thrown in, Darius offers a well-wish to him:

“May your God, whom you continually serve, rescue you!”

They roll a stone over the entrance to keep the 80-year-old from jumping out of the pit (ha ha), and seal it with all of their administrative signets. The king spends the night and fasted, unable to sleep, and then rushes to what he fully expects to be Daniel’s tomb, calling out to him, “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you continually serve, been able to rescue you from the lions?” What kind of answer do you think he was expecting?

Daniel blesses the king, and then explains that God has indeed delivered him from the lions, because Daniel had done nothing against the king, and more importantly, had done nothing against God. Daniel had hung in there, humbly walking with God in spite of the price that he would have to pay as a result. Despite the suffering that he might have to endure. Having survived his death sentence, Daniel is set free, and the really dark side of this story is that those who tried to trap Daniel, along with their entire families, are thrown into the lion’s den instead. They are not delivered.

Trials and suffering are going to come our way, brothers and sisters. Jesus said in John 16:33:

John 16:33 CSB

33 I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace. You will have suffering in this world. Be courageous! I have conquered the world.”

And Paul wrote in 2 Timothy 3:

2 Timothy 3:12 CSB

12 In fact, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

I’m not saying that trials and struggles are going to be easy. Far from it. But that doesn’t mean that God is absent or that He’s somehow forgotten us. He is at work. We should not be surprised when trials come. Peter wrote this in 1 Peter 4:

1 Peter 4:12–14 CSB

12 Dear friends, don’t be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you as if something unusual were happening to you. 13 Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may also rejoice with great joy when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are ridiculed for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you.

Suffering is not the time to turn your back on God. It’s the time to hang in there, because His glory is coming. And this takes us to our last point very quickly:

4) Hang in there for God’s glory.

King Darius is so impressed by God’s work in Daniel’s life that he issues a new edict for the Medo-Persian empire:

Daniel 6:26–27 CSB

26 I issue a decree that in all my royal dominion, people must tremble in fear before the God of Daniel: For he is the living God, and he endures forever; his kingdom will never be destroyed, and his dominion has no end. 27 He rescues and delivers; he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth, for he has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions.”

Because Daniel hung in there during this trial, Darius was now in a position for God to use him, a pagan king, to proclaim God’s glory to most of the known inhabitants of the planet at the time! This is quite a reversal!

Dale Davis wrote, “Sometimes God may allow hardships to reach us because He wants His mercy to reach beyond us.” We face hardships so that we can bless others by our example in our hanging in there in faith, so we can bless others with the comfort that we ourselves have received from God during our struggles, and so if we are delivered, God gets the glory for our deliverance, and not us. We are but little children, according to 1 john 4:4:

1 John 4:4 CSB

4 You are from God, little children, and you have conquered them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.

In the greatest reversal in history, the perfect Son of God was Himself subjected to death, not because of His sin… but because of ours. He would receive the death penalty because WE deserve it, and He would die in our place. He would be placed in a cave and have a stone rolled over the entrance, much like Daniel. He would also step out of that tomb alive… not because He hadn’t died, but because instead of defeating the hunger of lions, He had defeated death itself! And we can have that same victory to the glory of God! God calls us to trust Him with our lives, with our futures, to follow Him, hanging in there in the day-to-day, when it looks like it’s going to cost us, and when suffering actually comes. When we surrender our lives to Jesus, declaring Him to be Lord and Savior, then we will be delivered from the punishment due to us for our sin, and be made right with God, and we will live forever with Jesus because He has defeated death in our place. Nothing will be able to separate us from His love, and we will be part of another incredible reversal:

Romans 8:35–39 CSB

35 Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written: Because of you we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Nothing will separate those who trust in Christ from His love. Nothing. In fact, we are more than conquerors of those things that would even try. Only God could do such an incredible work for such an undeserving people. He deserves all the glory.

Closing

Invite to believe.

Here’s My Heart (Capo 2 in G)

Recognize restaurant workers and owners who have pivoted to stay open and allow us to still be able to enjoy food out.