Unshakable Conviction - Daniel 1

Ben Miller

Indestructible Kingdom • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

Daniel 1:1–21

Conviction

Kingdom

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Big Idea: Allow the ultimate King to develop unshakable conviction in your heart.

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I believe the events that have consumed our news the past weeks and months… if they have shown us nothing else… have shown us that the world in which we live desperately needs the God whom we serve.

Our world needs the God of hope and resurrection life to show us how to face sickness and death.

Our world needs the God who breathes life into every person to show us the value of every person created in his image from the unborn to the oldest adult, in every color and socio-economic condition.

Our world needs the God of ultimate justice to show us how to seek HIM for that justice through the gospel of justification by faith alone.

Our world needs the God of Peace to rule in our troubled hearts.

And yet, our world proves time and time again to REJECT the true God... to reject his solutions… and go after false gods that promise more immediate gratification of our flesh.

If there was any a time when God’s people and God’s ways held a position of favor in our society, that time is quickly ending.

Most researchers agree that America is becoming what is called a “Post-Christian” society…

A society in which Christians once held a dominant voice in the culture, but now find themselves on the margins.

And we seem to be simply following the trends of Europe and Canada...

John Dickerson, in his book, The Great Evangelical Recession, cites

6 Trends that Point to a Post-Christian Culture

Or as Dickerson calls it, “An Evangelical Recession”… I don’t know if he uses the word “Post-Christian Culture,” but it is what others would call it…

Now before I cite these trends, I want to be clear… I’m stating these as observations that have been made in order to show the reality of our society...

I am NOT suggesting that we need to fight tooth and nail to regain ground in these areas...

And I’m NOT suggesting that Jesus has stopped building his church and it’s all hopeless…

I’m not suggesting that these trends are true in every individual church or even our church specifically...

I just want us to have an accurate view of the role that traditional, Bible-believing Christianity plays in American society so that we can see more clearly the world in which we live...

So 6 trends that point to a Post-Christian culture…

1. Bible-believing Christians are a smaller movement than many have thought.

Bible believing, sincere Christians are about 1 in 10 Americans, versus the former assumption that we are 1 in 3 or 1 in 2.

2. The Church is losing many of our own young people.

Three different studies have shown that 2 out of 3 young people raised in the evangelical church walk away from the faith between the ages of 18 and 29.

3. Giving to churches, Christian ministries and missions is declining among younger generations.

68% of giving comes from the oldest two generations, which will create a massive challenge to funding mission efforts as they pass on.

4. Bible-believing Christians hold a declining percentage in the population due to high population growth and low conversion growth.

To maintain the same percentage of the population, we need to see about 400,000 new converts per year, but 75% of church growth comes from church transfer (people leaving one church to go to another).

5. Hostility from the outside of the church is on the rise.

Where at one time the culture just didn’t care about Christian beliefs, NOW culture is becoming increasingly hostile to God and his word, especially in the cultural engines of higher education, mainstream media, and government.

6. When we most need each other, the Church allows non-central issues to divide.

In the midst of a changing culture, the church often divides over how to respond to those changes.

NOW… that’s the picture… what does it mean for us?

Well, it does not mean that our primary goal is to change the culture… our primary goal is to preach the gospel so that people, through faith, can be transferred from the kingdom of darkness to the Kingdom of God’s Beloved Son...

And that will have an affect on the culture… but our primary goal is a faithfulness to the gospel and to the Kingdom of which the gospel makes us a part…

Like I said before, this post-Christian culture does not mean that Jesus has stopped building his church...

But it DOES mean that we need to be keenly aware that we are, as we studied in 1 Peter, “elect exiles” in a hostile world.

We need to be awake and ready to face the changing society with the conviction and boldness that is ours in Jesus Christ.

We need to understand, as Paul equipped the new believers in Acts 14, that through many trials and tribulations we MUST enter the kingdom of heaven.

And we must live with HOPE that through the ultimate power of our Savior King, we WILL enter his Kingdom that will never end.

And so how do we live with undivided allegiance to the indestructible Kingdom of God? [series vision]

That’s the question and the goal we are pursuing this summer as we study the book of Daniel.

That we as believers would live with undivided allegiance to the indestructible kingdom of God.

That’s where Daniel and his friends found themselves as they were carried off into exile into Babylon...

Babylon was the ultimate Godless nation… the nation that would come to be the code-word for every godless nation who came after it...

A nation hostile to the ways of God, and yet used by God to draw his people back to himself.

I believe that’s what God wants to do in us… and through us… as we see our nation revealed as a type of Babylon before our eyes...

He wants us to know that in any place, our faith can thrive because our God is ultimate....

Whether we live in communist China or post-Christian America… we can live with undivided allegiance to the indestructible Kingdom of God.

Today in Daniel chapter 1, we are going to see that our undivided allegiance needs to start with an unshakeable conviction.

Here’s our Big Idea for today:

Big Idea: Allow the ultimate King to develop unshakable conviction in your heart.

If we are going to thrive as believers in a post-Christian, anti-God culture, we need to allow the ultimate King to develop unshakeable conviction in our hearts.

Your Bibles are open to Daniel 1…

Daniel was a prophet of God who lived in the hostile land of Babylon with an undivided allegiance to God.

He was writing to the citizens of Judah who were still in exile so that they would know that God is the one who still had a plan for them…

God brought them into exile and he was going to preserve them through exile as godless nations oppressed them…

The book is called Daniel because he wrote it… but the book of Daniel isn’t ultimately about Daniel like you might have been taught in some Sunday school class as a kid…

the book of Daniel is ultimately about Daniel’s God.

It’s about a God who is the Ancient of Days… whose Kingdom is indestructible… and who sovereignly develops conviction in the heart of his people so that they can endure in the land of exile.

If you are going to develop a conviction toward God, it has to be a work of God in your heart.

That’s what we see in Daniel 1...

5 Ways God Develops Our Conviction:

And the first is this...

1) He delivers the consequences of sin. (v. 1-2)

Look at Daniel 1:1… [read 1:1-2]

Explain: OK… so maybe you are sitting there reading those names and places and saying, “WHAT did we just read? That’s like a foreign language...”

So I want to do a QUICK recap of the biblical story up to this point… if you watched our Tuesday devotional or read the reading plan this week, this hopefully is familiar to you… here we go:

I’m going to pick things up in near the beginning in Genesis 11… This is a few hundred years after God wiped out the entire population of earth with a great flood as a consequence for sin… everyone that is, except for the family of Noah, who was saved on the ark...

As Noah’s family began to repopulate the earth, they passed their sin nature down from generation to generation...

Until all of the people gathered together on the plain of Shinar… the same place we read about in Daniel 1… it was there that humanity said, “We WILL NOT fill the earth like God told us to do… instead we will become OUR OWN GODS… we will stay right here and build a name for OURSELVES and build a tower to heaven...”

And so God said, “Oh no you won’t!” And he confused their languages and scattered them over the face of the earth… and that place on the plain of Shinar was then called Babel… it became the ancient foundations of an empire that would later be called Babylon.

And it was out of this same general area that God called a man named Abram. And he said, “Go to the land I will show you (which was what would become the land of Israel)… and I will make your name great and your offspring many and through you all the nations of the shall be blessed.

And so through the offspring of Abram, Isaac and Jacob, God created the nation of Israel.

And through a series of events, God allowed this family to live in the land of Egypt… away from the land of promise… and over the next 400 years, they became a great nation who became enslaved to the Egyptians...

And after 400 years, God said, “It’s time,” and he delivered them out… he made a covenant with them and made them his people… he gave them a law… they promptly broke that law… and he gave them the consequence of wandering 40 years in the desert until that generation which he delivered died out.

So on the brink of the Promised land, he restated the law in the book of Deuteronomy (Charlie preached there last week)… and as they entered the promised land, he said, “If you follow me as the only true God, I will bless you in this land, and if you reject me and my ways, I will curse you and you will be carried off to a foreign land.”

So God establishes them in the land… and they continue being unfaithful to him, but he is patient… Fast forward to the time of the Kings… God repeats the same promise to his chosen Servant King, David and then to his son Solomon...

But Solomon rejects God and marries a bunch of women who worship other gods and so he starts worshipping these foreign gods too...

And therefore God delivers on his consequence and divides the nation in two… Israel in the North and Judah in the south...

Israel, the Northern Kingdom, is always wicked… Judah is only usually wicked… with a few exceptions.

The most wicked King in Judah is Manasseh… he does what is evil in the sight of the Lord… he starts worshiping false gods IN the temple of the only true God… he sacrifices his own son to one of those false gods...

And so God promises that he is going to deliver the full measure of the consequences he had promised all the way back in Deuteronomy… Exile is coming.

But it doesn’t come right away...

Manassah’s son Amon is made King, and he is evil, but he is killed by his servants, and his 8-year-old son Josiah is made king in his place.

And it’s during Josiah’s reign that the law was found and the worship of God was restored.

And it’s toward the end of Josiah’s reign that Daniel and his friends were born.

But the consequences promised to Manasseh were still coming upon Judah, and so Josiah dies in battle against Neco, King of Egypt.

The people put Josiah’s second-born son Jehoahaz on the throne (he’s wicked despite his father’s reforms), but Neco promptly removes him and put’s Josiah’s firstborn son in his place to run his evil puppet government… Jehoiakim.

Now Jehoaikim was not on the throne very long at all before Nebuchadnezzer king of Babylon defeated Assyria and Egypt at the battle of Carchemish… and Nebuchadnezzer made Jehoiakim his slave… and took 3 deportations of Israelites from Judah to Babylon.

OK… so that’s the history… hopefully now maybe these names and places make more sense: In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god.

Do you see what’s happening here? The Lord is making good on his promise to punish Israel for their sin.

Israel had rejected God… they had turned his temple into a showcase for other, demonic gods… and so the Lord says, “OK, here is the result of that… I’m going to deliver you into the hand of those foreign gods… you want to SERVE THEM… you are going to get what you asked for...

For a time, they will see the destructive consequences of their sin...

EVEN THOUGH it would LOOK LIKE a defeat for God...

EVEN THOUGH some of the current generation had turned to back to God and knew his ways...

God STILL had to follow-through on his promise to deliver them into exile.

Without following through on that consequence, he would not develop conviction in his people.

Illustrate: It’s like when I discipline my kids…

If I say, “Come here now or you will go in time out.”

And then they don’t come...

And I say, “No I mean it… don’t make me count to three!”

And they still don’t come...

And so I say, “1… 2… 2 and 1/2… 2 and 3/4… 2 and 15/16”...

Are they developing a conviction that I am ultimately in charge, or that they are ultimately in charge?

They are developing a conviction that THEY are ultimately in charge!!!

God MUST deliver on the consequences of sin… or else he would not be the ultimate King.

And yet God would take it a step further in showing them the consequences of sin… the story doesn’t end with Israel in exile… after the time of Daniel he would bring them OUT of exile and back into their own land where they would be ruled by foreign governments...

And there he would have mercy on them… so much that he would send his only Son… born of the line of David… born to live a sinless life...

And to take on the ultimate consequence of sin for them: death and separation from God.

And he would rise again so that through faith in him, they could be counted righteous. Their sin could be washed clean. And their relationship with God could be restored.

You see, ultimately, God delivered the full consequence of our sin upon Jesus, his only son… so that we could live with unshakeable conviction that he is the ULTIMATE KING.

God develops unshakeable conviction… deep-rooted faith and trust… in our hearts… by delivering the consequences of sin… upon his people directly… and then upon Jesus ultimately.

So let me ask you this:

Apply: When you experience the consequences of sin, does it convince you to move toward God or away from him?

When you find yourself enduring the evils of society, does it make you rush toward the gods of society (who perpetuate those evils), or toward the true God?

And when you hear that Jesus endured the consequence of sin on your behalf by dying on a cross in your place, does it make you want to continue on in that sin, or does it convict you to turn from your sin and trust him?

I pray that you would experience that conviction of the Holy Spirit this morning.

When we see God deliver on the consequences of sin, it develops unshakeable conviction in our hearts.

That’s what God was doing for Israel… and that’s what God was doing especially in the lives of four youths that we read about next:

[read Daniel 1:3-7]

Here we see a second way God develops conviction in our hearts:

2) He places us in an anti-God world (v. 3-7)

Explain: This may seem backwards to us, but living in an anti-God world is actually a tool God uses to move our hearts toward conviction.

You see, the devil loves subtlety… he loves to take the truth, and twist it EVER so slightly so that it is no longer truth, but we would never notice that.

And he does that again and again and again until we’ve drifted far from the truth of God.

But when we live in an anti-God world, the choices of conviction become all-the-more clear.

When a government like Iran says, “You are not allowed to lead a house church or you will be jailed for five years” (like they did this past week)... you know where you have to take a stand.

So here’s how it was working for Daniel and his friends… Historically, Nebuchadnezzer had spent all of his energy and resources on defeating Assyria and Egypt…

And so after he finally controlled the kingdom, he had a hard time subduing all of the people of this vast empire he had acquired.

And so his plan is pretty sneaky… I’ll take the brightest of the young people out to my palace in Babylon...

I’ll feed them the best food...

I give them the best education...

They will become like puddy in my hands...

And then I’ll set them loose to lead THEIR OWN people into my ways...

The King is literally brainwashing the most elite youth of Judah to lead them away from YHWH so they will follow him and the Babylonian gods.

We see this in the way he changed their names…

Daniel means God is Judge or God has Judged... and the chief of the officials, Ashpenaz, changes it to Belteshazzar which means "Wife of Bel, Protect the king" - referring to one of the main gods of Babylon… Bel

Hananiah means "YHWH has been gracious to me"... and they changed it to Shadrach, meaning "the command of Aku," the Babylonian Moon god.

Mishael means "who is what God is"... and they changed it to Meshach, or "who is what Aku is?"

Azariah means "YHWH Helps"... and they changed it to Abednego, or "Servant of Nebo," who was the son of the god Bel.

So the plan is to remove their association with the God of Israel... their identity in YHWH… and then recreate their identity with the Babylonian gods...

Sound familiar?

Illustrate: Do you remember earlier one of the points I made about the indicators of a post-Christian society?

2/3 of young people leaving the church.

Why? Because the enemy works hard to shape each generation into his mold.

That’s why the passage Charlie preached last week, Deut. 6, is so important…

We must model a love for God… and teach God’s ways to the next generation… and talk about his ways all the time… and even write them all over our house...

Because if we don’t, there is a world that will write the names of their own gods on our kids hearts.

They will drip a godless way of thinking in through their media and literature and peer pressure...

And listen… I’m not suggesting that we isolate our youth from those things… don’t hear me advocating for a certain educational choice or specifics on HOW to do this…

In fact, we don’t see isolation from the world’s attempts in Daniel 1… we will talk about that more in a moment…

But I am suggesting that we must disciple the next generation to develop a conviction regarding Christ that will endure the attempted indoctrination of our world.

You see, in our youth, we are kind of like playdough… very moldable… and as we grow older, our convictions solidify.

And the world is trying to squeeze us… and especially our youth... into its mold.

And if we haven’t developed our convictions regarding Christ, we WILL conform to the worlds way of thinking.

But if we develop a rock-solid commitment to Jesus, we won’t give in.

Romans 12:1-2 says, I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (ESV)

When we put our faith in Jesus, when we experience the mercy of God rescuing us out of the Kingdom of Darkness… he changes our lives...

He calls us to live for him!

He doesn’t rescue us out of the bondage of sin only so that we can return to it as our master!

He says… Do not be conformed… do not let the world press you into its mold!

Apply: Are there any ways you have been conformed to the thinking of this world (definition of success, views of sexuality, perspectives on racial identity, perspectives on one way to God vs. many ways to God, etc.)? Commit to renewing your mind in God’s word so that you will be transformed from the pattern of this world and conformed into the image of Christ.

God has left us in an increasingly hostile world to show the goodness and perfection of HIS will… and we must hold fast to it with conviction.

Ultimately… he doesn’t LEAVE us alone there… he is WITH US in it...

That’s the good news of Jesus… that God ENTERED INTO a hostile world… he came into exile FOR US… so that we could follow him out of exile and into eternity…

Jesus demonstrated whole-hearted conviction in an anti-God world by going to a cross and dying… and through his death and resurrection we can endure in that very same world.

So Daniel and his friends are in a hot predicament...

Imagine being a teenager… invited into the palace of the King who just conquered your land… you are thousands of miles from home… separated from your parents if they are even still alive... in a place where everything is acting against your faith in God...

Teens, you think public school is hard… public school ain’t got nothing on what these guys are going through...

And so are their convictions strong enough to hold?

Look at verse 8 [read Daniel 1:8-13]

Here’s the third way God develops our convictions...

3) He tests our controlling fears. (v. 8-13)

Explain: I find this amazing… out of all the pagan literature Daniel is being required to read… and in the midst of his name being changed to reflect a Babylonian god… and in the midst of having to learn the language of his conquerors… Daniel doesn’t throw the flag once at any of those things… he doesn’t whine about his rights...

The place where Daniel draws the line is at eating the king’s food. Why is that?

Because you can teach me things about your culture… but I can evaluate them in light of God’s truth...

And you can change my name… but you can’t change my identity in who God is...

And you can teach me a new language, but I can just use that language to speak of the One true God...

But if you feed me your food… your food that was sacrificed to your idols… your food that was used to worship your gods...

That violates the clear commands of my God.

You see, Daniel knew the one true God. He knew God’s law.

Remember, I said he was probably BORN under the reign of Josiah...

Which means his parents would have lived through Josiah’s reforms where Josiah found the law and read it to the people and reinstituted the Passover meal...

And I don’t think it takes too much imagination or guessing to assume Daniel’s parents would have taught him that law and those meals...

They would have taught Daniel how God delivered his people out of Egypt and how he showed how all the gods of Egypt were powerless.

Daniel feared God. And so he refuses to eat this meat that the King offered him.

But we see a competing fear in Asphenaz… the chief of the King’s Eunuch’s...

He apparently likes Daniel (God had given Daniel favor in his sight)… and so he’s like, “Dude… would you just eat the meat… I’m afraid you are going to start looking scrawny and the King is going to blame ME and kill ME!!!”

The Bible calls that the fear of man… he feared Nebuchadnezzar… and understandably so… he was Babylonian… he didn’t KNOW YHWH.

But he was about to see what YHWH could do.

So Daniel comes up with a plan...

Feed us vegetables for 10 days and then do a weigh-in…

If we’ve lost weight, deal with us accordingly (that means put us to death, by the way)...

If not, then you will know that God is for us...

You see, Daniel may have feared the King, we don’t know… but what we do know is that he feared God more.

Conviction is formed at the crossroads of competing fears.

Illustrate: This week we did a fire drill with kids at our house...

And one of our plans is that if the fire is downstairs and we are upstairs, we are going to go out our balcony window onto the roof of our sunroom. It’s only one story and we should be able to get down from there.

But here’s the thing… if the fire is too bad, Daddy is going to have to jump down first to help everyone off…

So the question is… do I fear jumping off a one story roof… I fear it a little more than I did when I was 25...

But do I fear getting burned in a blazing hot fire more? YES! And so I will gladly jump off the roof to help my family get away from the fire…

Conviction is formed at the crossroads of competing fears.

Apply: What fear controls your life? (the fear of God? the fear of man? the fear of death?)

God develops our conviction by testing our controlling fears.

Think about Jesus in the garden… in his humanity crying out to God, “If you are willing, take this cup from me. Yet not my will but yours be done!”

The fear of the Lord… the perfect recognition that God the Father is ultimate and would ultimately vindicate him… that’s what drove Jesus to endure the cross.

And his death and resurrection conquered the power of every other fear in our lives… the power of sin and death.

Because fear of man and the fear of death has been broken, the righteous fear of God can control us.

The fear of God was certainly controlling Daniel… In this test, Daniel really has his neck out there. Do you think God is going to pull through?

Kids, tell your parents if you think God is going to rescue Daniel...

Look at verse 14 [Read Daniel 1:14-16]

The fourth way God develops our conviction is...

4) He upholds our steps of faith. (v. 14-16)

Explain: God pulls through!

Daniel stepped out in faith… in conviction… based on what he saw in God’s word… and God took care of him!

Not only did he not look WORSE than the other youths… he looked BETTER… healthier!!!

Now this is not in the Bible so that you can start going on the Daniel Diet Plan… vegetables only…

Don’t read your Bible like that...

The point is that God upholds the steps of the faithful.

Illustrate: So many people say, “Well I couldn’t possibly do what God says… it will destroy my life!

Maybe someone watching is saying, “I can’t stay in this marriage… my spouse will never change. I’m just destined for a life of misery if I stay with them.”

Stay faithful. Move toward your spouse in self-sacrificing, never-giving-up love. God upholds our steps of faith.

Maybe someone is saying, “I couldn’t possibly go against my boss who is asking me to do something illegal… I’d lose my job, and THEN where would I be!”

Stay faithful. You might lose your job, but God might have another one for you. God upholds our steps of faith.

Maybe someone is saying, “I couldn’t possibly share the gospel at my school... everyone would make fun of me.”

Stay faithful. He might just spark a revival at your school. Or he might comfort you in other ways you can’t imagine. God upholds our steps of faith.

Maybe someone is saying, “I couldn’t possibly speak out against the prejudice that I heard my neighbors expressing the other day… it will just make them turn on me...”

Stay faithful. You may just help someone see their need for Jesus. God upholds our steps of faith.

Apply: How have you seen God uphold your steps of faith in the past? Allow that to develop your conviction in the future.

Take time, as a regular part of your prayer routine, to thank God and praise him for the ways you have seen him uphold you…

for the ways he has proven the superiority of his character to you...

If you do that, you will develop a rock solid conviction for the future.

What steps of faith might he want you to take this week based upon your knowledge of his faithfulness to you in the past?

I’m praying you have wisdom to discern them… to discern his good and acceptable and perfect will in your life.

What we see in Daniel’s life and throughout the rest of this book is an ever-increasing wisdom to live in a godless world with unshakeable conviction...

What we read in verses 17-21 form a summary statement over the ways God worked in Daniel and his friends’ lives: [Read Daniel 1:17-21]

How does God develop unshakeable conviction in his people?

1) He delivers the consequences of sin. (v. 1-2)

2) He places us in an anti-God world (v. 3-7)

3) He tests our controlling fears. (v. 8-13)

4) He upholds our steps of faith. (v. 14-16)

and then last, but not least:

5) He establishes us in his wisdom. (v. 17-21)

Explain: Really, God has been doing this all along in this story… like I said before, this is a summary statement over the ways God worked in the lives of these four young men.

GOD gave them learning… and skill in literature… and skill in wisdom...

He gave them skill in their studies…

These guys graduated at the top of their class in the most secular, anti-God high school or university in the WORLD at the time…

And these kids were going to need A LOT of wisdom in order to live with conviction in Babylon.

Eating food sacrificed to idols is just the first of many HARD, life-on-the-line judgement calls they would need to make.

They were many times in their lives when they would need to know when to hold onto a conviction, and when God gave them freedom of conscience…

This is so important… Daniel didn’t fight against everything the king commanded… just what clearly violated God’s law and made him follow after false gods...

That takes a ton of wisdom and a ton of careful thinking that many Christians are not willing to employ.

It’s a ton easier to just write our own list of laws and then feel good about not violating them.

But ultimately, on our side of the cross, our wisdom comes not just through the law of God, but through Christ himself who fulfilled the law for us...

I love what Paul wrote to the church in Corinth, Greece: And because of [God who chose you], you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, (1 Cor. 1:30 ESV)

Jesus… when we trust him for salvation… becomes WISDOM to us from God…

His life and teaching becomes the standard by which we measure everything in the world around us...

He becomes the grid through which we process everything...

Not the news… not social media opinions… always. only. Jesus.

He becomes the perfect plumbline for righteousness...

He becomes the goal of our growth in godliness...

He becomes our only hope for freedom from slavery to sin...

And so if we are going to respond to this Post-Christian world wisely, it is going to mean we develop a deep-rooted conviction that Jesus is the ONLY Savior and Lord worthy of ALL of our lives.

Jesus is all the wisdom we will ever need to respond rightly to the world around us.

Illustrate: I was in a conversation last week where someone who claims to be a believer in Jesus (not from our church) was saying some very unloving things about the fellow believers in his church and also about his unbelieving neighbors.

And in that moment I was praying, "God, help me know how to respond in a way that reflects Christ and his priorities for this main who says he knows him."

And honestly I think I probably could have been more wise in that conversation… more bold... but I'm still seeking the Lord on how to return to that conversation with him to demonstrate (NOT MY OWN WISDOM, BUT) the wisdom of Christ.

The wisdom that humbles us and says, “We all deserve the consequence of sin, but Christ took it upon himself.”

The wisdom that says, “Christ died for those fellow believers and also for your neighbors and he wants you to lay down your life for them.”

The wisdom that says, “Don’t be controlled by fear of what something might look like… just be faithful to God just like Jesus was obedient to death.”

The wisdom that says, “God will uphold you, if you walk by faith in him, not judging the way that man sees.”

The wisdom that says, “Jesus… and Jesus alone… is my wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”

Apply: Is Jesus your ultimate source of wisdom? Is his gospel the grid through which you evaluate everything in of your life?

We cannot take our talking points from the world around us… it does not know God...

Our wisdom must come from God.

Allow the ultimate King to develop unshakable conviction in your heart.

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