Determine To Be Different

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Thanks for tuning in to the Met church podcast. Here at the Met, we are all about connecting people to God and one another. If you have any questions or want more information about what's happening here at the church, then head to our [email protected], we would love to stay connected with you throughout the week through social media, so be sure to connect with us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Now. Enjoy the message. [00:00:25] Speaker B: It's great to see all of you. Happy new year. Thank you for beginning your year with us. And as Corey said, we are challenging our church family toward 21 days of prayer. And many of you may join with times of fasting, might maybe for a meal or maybe just withdrawal from something that you normally would do. Instead spend that time in prayer and studying God's word. We just want to see our church kind of get reoriented in the right way as we move into this new year. And nothing does that better than prayer because there is nothing God cannot do. As Chima said, he's a God that can move a mountain, and I'm glad we serve that kind of God. We're in a new series, kicking it off this weekend and talking about how to be a new you. And that's the only thing that will be different from this year to next or from last year to this year, I should say, is the changes that we make in our life, the way we think and the way we act and how we respond and the people we meet and the things that we learn. And I can't control a lot of things in my life, but I can sure control what I do or what I refuse to do. And so we're going to be talking about that. In fact, this morning I want to talk to you about determining to do. You will not do anything you do not, first of all, determine to do. Now, what I love about kids are kids are imaginative. They are so creative. Kids believe they can do anything. Child development specialists say kids go through a machiavellian stage of development where they can be superheroes. They can just morph into anything. And you know what that was like when your kids were doing that. Some of your kids are in the zone now, but it's fun, it's enjoyable. And there's something that's very unique about a child's ability to dream. And we know as we get older, we try to align our dreams into our design and see, is this what God has designed me to do? And we try to make sure those align. And we know God has a purpose and a plan, and we discover that as we get older. But what bothers me about a lot of people who know Jesus, or claim to know Jesus, is they allow the stuff in life, they allow the adversity of life, they allow the problems of life to scuttle their dreams, to crush their dreams, where they're no longer optimistic and their outlook is pessimistic, and they no longer believe that God has something very unique and very special for them to do. And they resign themselves to mediocrity, just living a mediocre life. And the word mediocrity or mediocre is an interesting word. It's from the Latin. It means to stop halfway. It's like an ascent up a mountain, and about halfway, it gets hard, it gets tired, and you just say, quit. I'm just going to stay, Robin. It's got a camper out here as far as I'm going to go. Mediocre, its first cousin, is status quo. You know the status quo. Status quo is another latin term that means the mess we're in. I don't think it means that. But the point is, you kind of surrender, you get beat up and you get beat down. And I understand that everybody in this room, if you're over a certain age of life, you're going to get beat up. From time to time in life, you're going to be betrayed. And if you don't stay on your game, if you don't determine, if you just don't say, by the grace of God, I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired, and I'm going to make some changes in my life that will make a difference. If you don't determine, you will never do. And the young man that we're going to look at this morning was a young man that made that determination as a teenager, 15 years old. In fact, many believe he was probably between 15 and 17 when he made a life altering, life changing decision that would affect the rest of his journey on earth. And God used this young man in a phenomenal way to do so many incredible things. The young man we're going to look at is the man named Daniel. Many of you are familiar with Daniel. He's written a lot about prophecy concerning end times. And Daniel was a remarkable young man. But Daniel was caught up in a great despora, a great dispersing, a great gathering away of God's people from the land of Judah into the land of the Chaldeans, into the babylonian empire. And during the time of Daniel, Babylon was the greatest, strongest, most powerful empire of the then known world. The capital city of Babylon, they say, was incredible, phenomenal. In fact, if you study history, you can read about ancient Babylon and you'd be amazed, you'd be impressed with the magnificence and the opulence of that ancient city. In fact, many believe now Babylon is Iraq and the capital city is where Baghdad is. And in that era, and in the time of Daniel, he was carried away captive, along with all of God's people, to be subservient to the chaldean people in the land of Babylon. And within the capital city, the city of Babylon, its walls were 300ft high. Can you imagine? The walls were 300ft high and they were 85ft wide. In fact, it's said, history says that they had chariot races on sections of that wall. Kind of like early version of Nascar, I would imagine, but they had chariot races on the wall. The river of Euphrates. In fact, several rivers ran in and around the city and the river Euphrates ran right through the center of the city. I think about that. The only thing I can relate to is the Trinity river. You know, growing up in Fort Worth, and now they're talking about developing the Trinity and making it into something really nice. And right now, you go down there and there's bodies there and some carp and, no, I don't know if that's true. How would I know? But it's not as magnificent at this point, but it's going to be. I've read what they're planning to do and I think it's going to be a beautiful development. But imagine that huge, massive, beautiful river, Euphrates. And on either side of the river are these incredible shops and restaurants and all kinds of places to live. And that was in the center of the city. In fact, Nebuchadnezzar was the king. He was the emperor over Babylon and that empire. And in his palace, his wife loved gardens, so he had hanging gardens designed for her. And they say the hanging gardens of ancient Babylon were one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. So if you could somehow go back and you could read history, you could realize that these people were being brought into a place of opulence, of sophistication unlike anything they had ever experienced. Daniel, for everything we know about him, was a smart kid, a bright kid, but he was just a country boy. These were country, ordinary people, and they're being brought into this opulence and into this sophistication and into this culture that they had never even seen before. Reminds me of that old farmer and his son that had never gone to the big city. And so they pulled up in front of this place. It was a big name, big sign said such and such hotel. And so they had the mother wait out in the car while he and the boy went in the car, went in the hotel to check things out. And he noticed something he'd never seen before. He heard a bell ring, and he saw the wall open up, and he saw this little old lady step through the wall, and he saw a bell ring, and he saw the wall close. He had never seen anything like that in all of his life. So he stood there for a while with his boy just watching it. And all of a sudden, the bell ring, and the wall opened, and this beautiful young woman stepped out. The old man looked at his son and said, boy, go get your mom. You'll get that on the way home. But they were exposed. I've got. They're exposed to things that they have never seen before, walls opening up. Okay, I'm not going to work the joke anymore. The point is, they're being thrust into this. And so you had all this pressure, you had all these things that were happening around these young men. And what was amazing about the story when it opens in Daniel is it opens with a reality that is hard for some people to get their minds around, especially people who follow after God. And that is what I've called in YOUr ouTline, a persecution. You can expect. So many people seem to think that if you know and you love and you follow God, you never have persecution, you never have problems. Well, the STory of DaNIEL opens with Them being led into captivity. These are the people of God. And the people of God are being led into captivity, into the BAByLOniAN empire. Look at DAniel, chapter one, and look at verse one. In the third year, the king, rather, of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. Now, let me stop and say that's a historical fact. If you didn't accept the biblical record, you could read HisTory, and you would find during the reign of JEhoiakim in Judah that NebuchaDNEzzar did indeed lead the chaldean people, the babylonian people, to besiege JeRusalem. And they took all of those hebrew people into captivity and led them back into BABylon. In fact, it goes on to say in verse two, and this is where your faith gets stretched, and the Lord gave JEhoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand. God let it happen. That's a theological fact. Here is a historical fact that runs into a theological fact. And you and I face those every day. We face the harsh reality of the difficulties and the disappointments of life, and we try to balance that with our faith. We try to say on one hand, I'm going through this. This is a bad experience. It isn't right, it isn't fair. It doesn't make sense. I don't know why this is happening. And we balance that against the theological fact that God is in control and nothing can happen to me or you unless he either causes it or permits it. And there are some people, honestly, that don't navigate that well. There are a lot of people who aren't in anyone's church today and may not be for some time, because they came upon an experience, not unlike Daniel, where they went through something that made no sense, they didn't deserve it. But the facts were it happened. And the theological reality is God could have prevented it, and he didn't. And that's where your faith gets stretched. This is how the book opens. I mean, this is young, this guy. But remember, I tell you, he was 15 to 17 years old when this is happening. You talk about a rude awakening for a young man. I mean, he had been brought up. He knew the God of Abraham. He knew the writings of scripture as they had him at that time. He had followed everything the Old Testament required of the ceremonial law and all of those. He ate the right food. He did the right thing. He went to synagogue. He understood the teachings of God. He understood biblical history as they had it at that point. He did everything the right way. And despite that, he has one of the greatest periods of tribulation that anyone could ever imagine. The historical fact has clashed with a theological reality. There's a verse in two Timothy, chapter three, and verse twelve that comes to mind, and here's what it says. All of those people who choose to live godly in Christ Jesus, listen to this, now will suffer persecution. In other words, every one of us in this room who makes a determination to follow after God's leadership in our life at some time or another will hit a very tight place in life. We're going to go through something. Laws of physics tell us anything moves will have friction, and we know that. Man, when you say, okay, I'm starting the year off, 21 days of prayer and fasting, okay, I'm in. I'll join with all those other people. I'm going to make that a part of. I'm going to try to get my family in church. I'm going to try to work on my marriage, or I'm going to try to be a better parent, or I want to do better on my job, on expand, whatever that resolution is, whatever that determination is. Can I be honest with you and tell you once you've made that determination and once you make that declaration, you've given some information to the enemy that's going to do everything to discourage you from doing that? Now, I'm not saying that to try to describe. I'm just forewarning you. They say to be forewarned is to be forearmed. And I can't tell you the numbers of people who said, bill, boy, once I determine I'm going to do the right thing, all hell seemed to just came against me. That's by design. I've told you, the devil has a twofold objective in your life and mine, and that is objective one, to keep you away from God. And he'll hide the ball. He'll try his best to keep you from ever trusting Christ. And if you make that decision to trust Christ, the next part of the decision is he wants to keep you from making a difference for God. He wants to take you off the field. He doesn't want to just put you in the grandstands. He wants to get you out of the stadium. And he'll use that. He'll do that through all types of adversity. But one of the things that happened in the midst of adversity is God has a way of strengthening his people. I mean, what we'll learn and what I'll touch on a little bit is that young Daniel, because of his faith in his God, was made stronger by the persecution that he faced. You ever done resistance training? You can look at me and tell I haven't done a lot of it. But when you do resistance training, the weight is on the bar, and you press the weight off of your chest up as far as you can, and then the weight comes right back down. And in that process of resistance training, the muscles are broken down only to be strengthened. And they don't get stronger without the resistance training. Sometimes the problems of life press down, and you know what you do? You press your prayers up. As the problems come down, the prayers go up. It's resistance training. God is strengthening his people. I pray more when I'm in trouble than when I'm not. Do you, don't you think Daniel pressed into God a little more? And here's what persecution will do. It will do inevitably, one of two things. Draw you closer to God or drive you farther from him. And I hope it does draw you closer to him. I mentioned a moment ago there are people that aren't in this room and won't be in anybody else's church because the persecution they face drove them away from him. And I'm not critical of them. Don't get me wrong. Don't mishear what I'm saying. I'm not critical. I understand. I've stood alongside too many people and heard their story and had to agree with them. This is not fair. This does not make sense. This is not right. And I know I'm a pastor, and I'm supposed to have answers, but I'm not going to lie. If I don't know, I'm just going to say. I don't know. You're looking at a guy that's still trying to connect dots. I mean, I've told you, Cindy, my wife Cindy, she was the most spiritual person I ever knew. Loved the Lord Jesus long before I met her, had committed her life. And when we found out she had a terminal neurological disease. Incurable. Don't you think I struggled a little bit with that, and times still do. And yet I strolled out here every weekend, not as a hypocrite, but tried to be as honest and as authentic. And time. Time just broke down like a mess and just tried to tell you how and why and where. I was in the middle of that. That's why I relate to people who go through stuff. I get it. I understand that. You heard Chima up here a moment ago. First service. He just broke down in the middle of worship, this service. His heart was so heavy and so broken. Chima'sister died about two days ago. They said, chima, do you think you'd be up to leading worship? He said, I need to be there. I got to worship my way through this. You were led worship by a man with a crushed heart. This morning you hear somebody preach to you every weekend whose heart's broken. I still hadn't put the pieces together. They may not ever get put back together. So if you want to talk to me about confusion, that's why I say I'm as confused as a termite and a yoyo. I have not figured it out, and I've told you before, and I'll sig into your heart this morning, there may be things in Life that we go through we won't figure out until we're in the presence of God. And I'm just suggesting you. God didn't explain to Daniel why he was going through. None of those people you read the 137th psalm. In verse one. It says, by the rivers of Babylon, we wept when we remembered Zion. We remembered Home. We remembered how it used to be. We remembered going to the Synagogue, and we remember. And now we're carried away captive. And he said, our captives say, sing us one of the songs of Zion. You people used to be so happy, and now you're so burdened down, and you're under so much pressure and stress. You're happy. You're not happy. Now sing. And they said, how do we sing? We hung our harps on the willows when we walked out of Babylon. Walked out of Judah. What's my point? I'm saying, people of God who go through persecution will also go through periods of time when they lose their song, when they just can't sing anymore. That's why the biggest thing you lose when you go through a hard time, if you don't navigate it right, you don't lose your salvation. You know what you lose? You lose the joy of your salvation. When David had messed up and he was coming back to God, read this in Psalm 51. You know what his prayer was? He said, lord, restore unto me the joy of thy salvation. He didn't say, restore my salvation. He hadn't lost that. He said, here's what I lost. I lost my joy. I lost my joy. I'm not a joyful person. I used to look forward to church, and now I just go because it's time. I used to worship, and now I just worship because they're singing and I got to sing along. I may like what they do. I may not like what they do. If I don't like, I won't sing. But used to be joyful. I'm not joyful anymore. People who go through persecution can go through that. I get that. I understand that. And I'm just saying, guys, when you are in that situation, you've got a decision to make. And Daniel made the right decision. You got to make a determination. There were people who wondered, can I come back after Cindy went to heaven? I didn't know at the time. I had a couple, you in the room who came to me and said, bill, if Cindy goes to heaven, do you think you'll be able to think you'll be able to do that anymore? And I was real honest with him. I said, I don't have a clue. I don't know. I don't know. She was my best critic. She was my best counselor. Now I have to just hope it went over and somebody is honest. I could sit in the car on the ride home, and I say, honey, how do? She said, you went too long, sweetheart. You know how many times they've heard that joke? Said, honey, they're still laughing. But I'm just saying we had that banter. You know what I mean? You know what that is? I met that girl. We were 17 years old. We were the first serious, however serious you can be at 17. Just turned 18 when we got married. 42 years until it wasn't. And I determined one time what helped me was John. Eleven, when Lazarus was in a dead place, after a period of time, God called him out. You see that, Lazarus? You got to get up. If you don't get up, you stay in that dead place, you're going to die. You got to get up, and you got to get out, and you got to get going again. And he did. And that's what I've tried to do. And I'm saying, you. That's what Daniel did. Bad situation. Didn't make sense, wasn't fair. All the above. But you know what happens when you read the story of Daniel? God never forsook him. God never left him. There were times when I'm sure he felt that way. Have you ever prayed and wondered if God heard you? Can I tell you, I have. Have you ever read your Bible and you didn't feel like you got anything out of it? Can I tell you, I have. I've read the Bible sometimes. And I said, well, okay, I guess that's good for me. It's like taking a bite. And I didn't feel any wham, bam, but okay, here we go. I knew it was good for me, but I did it anyway because I'm supposed to. Sometimes you do what you should do because you're supposed to do it, not that you feel like it. Sometimes you play hurt. I'm convinced Daniel learned how to play hurt. He learned how to do what he knew he was supposed to do and be determined and dedicated, even though he didn't feel that it was fair, but he did it anyway. And what he found in the middle of all that stuff is God did not forsake him, took care of him. You remember that Titan submarine that went down to try to get pictures and to see the Titanic? You remember that? You had that where they went down, and there was some kind of a catastrophic failure on the vessel. They think maybe the front glass may have cracked and the vessel just imploded, killing everyone on board. They sit instantaneously. You remember that. That just happened not long ago. I was like you, I was kind of mesmerized by it. And I read up about. It was fascinating to see what had happened. And yet at the same time, I've seen pictures of the Titanic, the wreck of the Titanic, and swimming around the Titanic are these little tiny fish. I'm thinking, man, they're not in a sub and yet they're living at that depth. They say a scuba diver, if you can go down, I don't know, maybe 200, 250ft before the pressure gets so great that humans can't dive that deep or any deeper than that, I couldn't tell you that. I've been down about ten foot in a pool and my ears pop. I don't have a lot of diving experience, you know what I'm saying? You don't see me in swimming suit anyway, so that's really good for both of us. But I'm saying they had to have that vessel special equipped to handle the pressure at that depth that's so great. The pressure is so enormous. And they say the reason those little fish and those marine species can live at that level is because the pressure on the inside of them is equal to the pressure on the outside. You know, how Daniel survived is the power of God within him was greater than and equal to the pressure on the outside of him. And can I tell you, when we go through life, and I'm really cutting this message very short, because I went long at 930 and I wanted to promise you 11:00 people, I can do this, but the reason so many people get crushed by the pressures of life is because they've never pressurized themselves. They've never allowed the power of the spirit to equalize the pressure that's on the outside of them. And you'll get crushed. Life can crush you. Pressure problems can crush you. Your marriage, there's so many things in life you're going to navigate through that will crush you. So Daniel, he pressed into God, he said, there's some things I'm not going to eat. I've made a commitment to God. I'm going to follow this kosher diet that was part of that era, part of that dispensation. There's some things that I'm going to be respectful about it, but I'm just not going to do it. And Daniel, not only did he respond to the providence of God, but he absolutely made a commitment to God that there's some things he just wasn't going to do. And he was respectful. He told the king, compare us to the other guys and if we are healthier then the way we're living might be better than the way your guys are living. And he did, and they were. And he gained favor with the king. And you see Daniel, after he's gone through that time of testing, make that determination, and you see the providence of work in that young man's life, and you see his life begin to go on an upward trajectory. And God's hands all over that boy. He's working in and through his life. It's amazing to study. In fact, when you get to the end of chapter one, the Bible said Daniel served until the reign of Cyrus the king. Now, let me put this together. Here's what happened under Daniel's time. Serving the king of Babylon started with Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar two, I forget the third joker. And then you had Cyrus. But during those four kings, Daniel served all four. He was placed over the scientists, who were also called the Magi. Remember that? From Christmas, he was in charge of them. He was in charge of all of the kings, a lot of the king's personal staff. Daniel was in charge for four kings. I mean, from Nebuchadnezzar to Cyrus, there's four kings. And that says that young man, that 15 to 17 year old man, made a decision, made a determination, decided to live his life in such a way that it impressed those four emperors so much that they promoted him to that place of influence. And for 70 years, Daniel served in that capacity. Wow. You remember when we studied the magi at Christmas time, the wise men, you realize they came from that part of the world, right? A little bit of this is speculation, but I think I could support it biblically if I had time. I believe the hebrew influence in that part of the world was so strong, their faith and belief in their God, even though they were in the chaldean culture. And then they were under the reign of the Medes and Persians, under Cyrus. I think their commitment to God, like Daniel, was so strong that it permeated society. The Magi, who were scientists, they were also theologians. And so they knew of those prophecies concerning the sign of the Messiah will be a star that'll be in the east. And so they studied the stars. They were astronomers and scientists, and so they studied that, and they understood the biblical correlation to that. So when they saw that phenomenon, they wondered, could this be the things that we've studied in those hebrew scriptures? Maybe that's it. And it sparked their curiosity enough that they traveled all the way to Herod and said, we're here searching for the one who's been born king. And can I suggest to you that the Magi were influenced by a 15 year old boy who said, I will not quit, I will not bend, I will not bow. I'll be respectful, but I'll do the right thing and I'll live my life the right way. And the God of heaven honored that commitment. Ladies and gentlemen, if you don't determine, you never will do. And I encourage you, as we kick our year off together, to say, by the grace of God, I want to make a difference. I want my life to matter. I want to do the thing God has designed me and called me to do. And I want to do it until he calls me home. Would you pray with me, Father, thank you for your word that, as Isaiah said, never returns void. It always accomplishes the purpose for which it was sent. And we're grateful for that. I pray your word will find lodging in our hearts. And I pray even before we go home and we sleep tonight, that we'll take time to read chapter one of Daniel, read through that story and let it really permeate our thinking to see the decisions that he made and see the way in which you honored and blessed him. Father, I pray we'll have a host of people in this room and hundreds watching online that will join with us as Pastor Corey talked about and do 21 days of prayer. And many will enter into a time of fasting for you to move in our life and the life of our church and in and through the CRC in ways like we have never imagined before. You're a God that can do anything. You're the mountain mover that Chima talked about. You're the problem solver. You're the sin forgiver. You are the burden lifter. And I pray for my friends that may have never trusted you. This might be the moment when they, right where they are would say, lord Jesus, with all that I know about me, I now trust all that I know about you. Come into my heart. Forgive my sin, and I pray this in Jesus name. Amen. [00:29:38] Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in today. If you have any questions or prayer requests, please contact us by visiting metchurch.com so that we can follow up with you this week. We look forward to seeing you next week.