Daniel, How do you live?
Notes
Transcript
How do you live
How do you live
Today we start a new series, 12 weeks in the book of Daniel, looking at his life & those of others who honoured God.
As alway let’s read from the Bible, which is Gods word to us & for us, that guides us in our lives, then, now & in the future times to come.
Ok some historical facts about the book of Daniel & what also was happening at the same time in history
Daniel lived in the 6th century before the birth of Jesus.
Daniel was written at the same time as the Acropolis in Athens, the Mayan civilization is flourishing in Mexico. At the same time As Daniel, Aesop is writing his fables, Confucius & Buddha lived, the Greeks introduced the olive tree to Italy & Greek art began to excel & the Phoenicians made the first known sea journey around Africa.
There has been some doubts that Daniel in this book is the same Daniel that wrote the Book. Part of that is because of the incredible prophecies in the book & because it is written mostly in the form of the 3rd person & only some in the form of first person, ( I Daniel).
But most ancient manuscripts are written in 3rd person form. One exception is Nehemiah which is in the form of a personal diary. Even God switches between the two.
“I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.
first person.
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.
Third person.
Then Jesus settles it for me in
“So when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by the prophet Daniel, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand),
605 BC Jehoiakim is King of Judah, the King & the people are not walking in ways that honour God, the prophets had been bringing Gods warning to the people for years, but no one listened & so God allowed the chaldeans to have success over His people. Daniel was taken in the first of the 3 tiimes that Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem, the first being 605BC Daniel & his friends taken captive. 597BC (2 Chronicles 36:10) he takes King Jehoiakim & 586BC he burns the Termple, destroys the city & carries off all the treasures of the Temple to Babylon. (2 Kings 24:13)
Something we need to understand at the beginning of this series is that the outcome of disobedience is life without God, Daniel is faithful, he finds a way to follow God even when in a Kingdom that is anti God.
Daniel, Hannaniah, Mishael, Azariah followed God, they clung to God.
It’s interesting, it’s their Babylonian names apart from Daniel that we know them by Shadrach, Meshach & Abed-nego. Wev’e taken that as the norm, the Babylonian names are the norm, what else has slipped in to your life to be the norm, that Sin, it’s ok everyone does it, gossip everyone does it, bad mouthing, everyone does it. To act in the same way towards others as some people do, with disrespect for our leaders, unloving, in an angry way, a confrontational way because they don’t agree with what they said.
What else has slipped into our lives because we haven’t spotted it or have allowed it in because that is what everyone else does, where do we get our vision of what life for us should be like, how we should act from. That’s not judgemental, it’s fact. Who do you follow?
Whose example speaks loudest to you? is it Jesus or others?
Can i just say this, if it’s not Jesus way then it’s the Devils way, theres no inbetween.
They didn’t hunger strike or stand with placards, the facebook of the day, i’m unhappy or angry so i’m gonna hold up this great big sign so you can understand & see i am.
If someone makes a mistake, lovingly go to that person & talk about it, don’t post it & get into a post war on whatever platform you use.
Daniel & the guys found a way to live in a Kingdom that was anti God in a Godly way, how you doing with that?
the guys let the changing of their names go.
No making correction sound under their breath when called by their Babylonian name, that wasn’t going to bring honour to God.
They were about to do 3 years of intensive training designed to wipe out their past, their heritage, they were supposed to look to the King for everything they needed, food, drink, spirituality but they looked to God instead.
Calvin wrote that Nebuchadnezzar knew the Jews were a stiff necked people & that he used the sumptuous food to soften up the captives, the Devil uses similar strategy against believers today, it looks good how can it not be good for you, wanting to indoctrinate us into the world system, he wants us to: Identify (name) us in reference to this world; Feed us what the world offers; Miss-educate as i’m going to call it, that is fill us with wrong information about God & how this world works or should work.
Daniel is faithful, he understands that his relationship with God effects every part of his life, including what he ate. Significantly for him, that the root of sin goes back to eating forbidden food, first it’s not kosher, 2nd it would have been sacrificed to idols, 3rd eating the Kings food implied fellowship with Babylons cultural systems.
He didn’t object to the name change because he knew who he was, he didn’t object to the education because he knew what he believed. He objected to the food, by eastern standards sharing a meal was to commit yourself to friendship, it had covenant significance.
By rejecting the Kings food it could have been seen as rejecting the King & so put him in serious trouble, many others eat the food.
How would you react to being kidnapped & separated from family & home, would you feel like God had let you down?
Daniel didn’t nor did Meshach,Shadrach or Abed-nego, God had not fulfilled their expectations but they were still committed to being obedient to God.
seriously some of us, the smallest things push us out of obedience to God.
God gave Daniel favour, God does not abandon those who stood for him then & he doesn’t today, Daniel entrusted himself to God & God came through, although it was no doubt a very stretching experience.
Daniel didn’t do a hunger strike, he didn’t protest with placards on how wrong the King was to make him eat their food. Instead he made a polite request, came up with a plan, an alternative, approached the right person & said put us to the test.
In the ways these young men acted, showed faithfulness to God & in return favour came upon them from the highest authority in the land, the King.
These 4 young men would have been exemplary employees, they would have been role models. some didn’t like them, they were jealous because of the favour that was shown to them.
these guys were incredible servants of God, they lived in the culture, served in the culture but didn’t lose their identity, they knew who they were & who they served. They did what they were supposed to do & honoured God at the same time, they didn’t hinder the Gospel, through how they lived they furthered the Gospel.
Me being a courier (sextapes stuff)
How we act can either further or hinder the Gospel.
Christians often moan about the way they are treated at work & sometimes it’s true, it’s because of what they believe, but other times it’s because they have just not been a good employee.
We have to be a good witness of what Christ has done in us.
People keep talking about a new normal & how the church is meant to change & i think it’s right but people keep talking about how the services should change, that now that we have been forced to change through the pandemic it’s how we need to go on & find new ways to meet, structure change but i don’t agree.
I see in this time that the Church has mobilised, i think that the change needs to come in us the church, we are called to gather & that’s good & we need to find ways that people can key into that. But it’s us the church that need to wake up be who we were intended to be, act in the way we were intended to act, be like Jesus, somewhere along the way we have lost it, but we need to get back to being the church that Jesus built & intended us to be, that Daniel could see, a people that honoured God in all that we do.