[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
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[00:00:24] Speaker B: I I'm so glad you were here. I'm really enjoying our new series that we're in called Happy New you. And I hope you're having a great new year. 2024 is here. But the thing I like about our series is I love the book of Daniel. I don't know how familiar you are with the book of Daniel. Most of you, if you've been in church at all growing up, you've heard some of the stories. Like the story of Daniel and the lion's den, where Daniel refuses to pray to any God but the real, true God, his God, right, our God. And because of that, he is told he's going to be thrown into a lion's den. And before he's thrown in, it's interesting because the king says this. May your God, whom you serve, continually rescue you. And he's thrown into this lion's den. And what does God do? He does God things. And he begins to shut the jaw of every lion in the den. How amazing.
Or maybe you're familiar with the story of Daniel's friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Or if you watch veggie tales, Benny, anybody ever seen that? But it's a story of these three friends who make a decision not to worship the idol that the king had made, but to only worship God. And so the king decides to throw them into this fiery furnace, and they tell him that their God is going to rescue them. But I love this response that they say after that, they say, but even if he does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your God, nor worship the golden statue that you have set up.
The boldness of their faith.
How many of you have heard the writing is on the wall? You've heard that phrase before, meaning that the situation has pretty much already been decided. It's not going to be good for that person. Well, this actually comes from the book of Daniel in chapter five, where the king is throwing this party. And out of nowhere, in the air, literal fingers just appear. And they begin to write this message on this wall. Now, to be all transparent with you, there was a little bit of drinking going on at this party. Okay?
But even bigger than that, God had a message. And who was the only one who could interpret this message?
Daniel. Daniel, who worked for the king, had to get in front of the king and tell him this. I'm just going to give you a couple things he had to say. Which man? This is the boldness of Daniel. He said, God, this is to the king. God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. And then he said this. You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.
Now, being that it's a new year, a lot of us, maybe for the first time in a long time, we are actually starting to stand on a literal scale. And we're realizing that we're not found wanting or lacking, but if anything, we're found fattening because it's a new year. You want to look and you want to start evaluating things in your life so you can begin to make changes so that your life can be better. Right?
And so this morning, we're going to take a look at some of the things that Daniel did that I find so respectable. I look at his physical health, which he had that right, like it talks about in the book of Daniel. He had a very strict diet. He refused to drink the king's wine. But even bigger than that, his physical health was his spiritual health that I look at and I long for. And so this morning, we're going to look at some of the things that he did that allowed him to have the walk with God that he had as a young man. He's taken captive. He is kidnapped. He is captured from his land and taken to Babylon under a new reign, a new kingdom. And he was there. But not only, probably about the age of ten to 15 years old is what we think. But he grew up in a new land under a new king and worked his way up to became. He became one of the highest ranks under this king, who was not his king. Not only was it one king, but if you've been coming, you heard Pastor Bill tell us it was four different kings, that he had the same high position where he oversaw most of the workers in the kingdom. Think about that for just a second.
I put this into today's terms. So we have presidents, right?
So every president has a chief of staff.
How impossible and unlikely is it that four different presidents would have the same chief of staff in a row?
It's impossible, right? No president is going to do that. So think about that in reference to what Daniel got to do for four different kings, four different kingdoms, who believed in all kinds of different things, had different ways of doing things, but yet they all respected Daniel so much that they kept them in this high position to oversee most of the things in the kingdom.
I love that he wasn't a missionary like Paul.
I love that he wasn't a preacher like Ezra, but this was someone who was taken captive to a foreign land, and he was a government worker.
God will use anybody if they are willing. So I was curious, what was it about Daniel that he was allowed and that he could even be able to work under four different ungodly kings? That he would be so respected and honored that they would keep him at that position? And also, how could someone like Daniel be so godly? How'd he get so good at being so godly?
Malcolm Gladwell has a book. It's called the outliers, the story of success.
And he studied extremely successful people, and he came up with this, that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field.
And he had seen some research in the early 90s by some psychologists in Berlin who studied the top violinist in the world. And by the age of 20, elite violin players had averaged over 10,000 hours of practice, while less able performers had only 4000 hours of practice because they were slackers.
And then he goes on in his book to tell the story of this band that played in Hamburg, Germany, so much night after night. Altogether, they performed over 270 nights in a little over in a year and a half. And here's the crazy thing. When they played in Germany, they were said every night they would play over 8 hours a night.
That's a lot of playing. And by the time they had their first success in the US, which was very small, they had performed live and estimated over 1200 times, which is more than most bands play in a lifetime. So if you do the math, you can see that this band had already logged over 10,000 hours before coming to America. And when they came to America, very little success. Most of us probably have never even heard of this band. And the band is called the Beatles.
They had played so much a week that they would say to play eight days a week.
They would play so long in the evening that the next day they would have a hard day's night.
All right, let's stop. Let's all come together, okay? We'll just let it be. All right?
I could do this all day, y'all. I'm serious.
But what's my point? It's pretty simple to be good at something, at anything, whether it's music, sports, art, for business, you have to practice, and you have to practice a lot. You have to have actions in your life that are going to allow you to grow in whatever area you want to grow in. And that includes your faith.
See, the thing about Daniel is he had something that connected him to God in a way that most of us long to have. And I believe it started with his discipline. Daniel had discipline in his life from an early age. But why is discipline so hard for most of us? I know it's hard for me sometimes. Hebrews 1211 says this, for the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant. We can agree with that, right? I know that if I have it in my head, I'm going to get in shape, and it's starting today. I'm going to the gym, and I'm going to work out for 3 hours, and I'm going to bust it. I'm going to work so hard. I know this. I know I'm going to be sore for the next three months for working out so hard today.
And I think about that. I think about the pain, and then what's going to happen? I'm going to wake up tomorrow, I'm going to look in the mirror, and I'm going to look the same I did today, which is not very encouraging to myself.
So why should we hang on and have that discipline and do these things, have these actions that are going to help us get better in life? Because later in that verse, it says this, for the moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant.
But later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Not only when you have discipline do you get to later see the fruits of your discipline in your life, but also something else comes along with it. Something comes with discipline. Proverbs twelve one tells us this. Whoever loves discipline, loves knowledge.
When it comes to your faith, if you have discipline in things that are going to help you grow in your faith, and you are faithful in those in a daily basis, guess what else happens? You get knowledge in your faith. You get the knowledge that passes all understanding that comes from God the father, you start to see things in a different way. And when you start to see the things that God wants in your life, you start to look at your current life and say, wow, I need to make some changes in my life. And you know what it says about those of us who don't want to make changes in our life? It continues on and says, but he who hates reproof is stupid.
This is God's word, not mine. Don't be offended by me, but stupid. When we don't take the disciplines, have the knowledge of God, and make the changes in our life. Why? Because God is sitting here saying, I have a life that is so amazing and I want you to experience so many things in this world while you're here on the earth until you come and you're with me forever.
But until then, you have a choice. The choices are love the discipline, have the knowledge and grow in your faith, or to be dumb. The thing about Daniel is he didn't seem to have this problem, and he didn't seem to be very stupid. He seemed to have discipline that would connect him to God in a way that most of us would love to have.
So this is what I want to do this morning.
How many notetakers do I have out there?
Okay, if you take notes. Awesome. I want to encourage you to take notes. How many of you. You never take notes.
Awesome. I want to encourage you to take notes this morning. How many? Some of you are like, I take notes sometimes.
Awesome. Take notes this morning. Okay. And here's why. Because at the end of the message, I'm going to have something for you to do this week. And I know you're like, oh, gosh, it's not going to be that bad, okay? I promise. But I think some of the things that you hear and you take notes of today will help you during the week to look back on. Okay. So I'm going to give you a second. I'm going to take a drink. I'm on medication. It's okay.
But get ready because I'm going to give you the first thing that we see that it all started with Daniel in. Okay, the first thing is this. Daniel had strength of purpose.
Daniel had strength of purpose. We see this in Daniel one eight, it says. But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself. Some translations say he made up his mind. Some say he determined. Some say he resolved. The thing about Daniel is from a young age, he made up his mind that long before he got in a situation, he was going to know how God wanted him to handle that situation.
I mean, he was taken into Babylon, think about 1015 years old. And he had moral convictions and he had biblical standards, and he made a commitment that he was going to follow God in those ways and he was not going to waver no matter what.
But he also knew that he had a part to play. He couldn't just sit there and wait for God to do all these things in his life. There was actions on his part. But I want you to hear this this morning, please.
When I talk about actions, I want you to know, when it comes to your salvation, it is nothing that you can do.
Salvation is a gift from God, and it's by grace that he gave it.
It's not the works of us that can earn it, but everything that Jesus did. When God sent him to die on the cross for our sins, that's the work that was done. And now it's here for you and me to accept or not to accept, to believe or not to believe. But there's nothing we can do to earn it.
It's not about works.
Salvation is not about works. But when you have salvation, guess what? It's time to work. It's time to start doing things for God. Why? Because the process, the sanctification process that allows us to become more and more like Jesus happens once you accept and believe in Christ.
Okay, you with me on that? Just want to be clear about that. Okay. Awesome. There is a part on your end once you have salvation. We see it in psalm 37 five. We see it in proverbs 16 three. It says this, commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him, and he will act. Proverbs 16 three, commit your work to the Lord, and your plans will be established. There is a response from God from your action, meaning God moves when you move in your faith. Let me read those verses again and let you see this. Your action. Commit your way to the Lord. Trust in him, God's response, and he will act your action. Commit your work to the Lord, God's response, and your plans will be established. James four eight. A verse that my family and I just decided we wanted to memorize together altogether because it was a part of our devotional in this 21 day of prayer that you probably got. But it's this. James four eight, your action. Draw near to God, God's response, and God will draw near to you. You have a part to play in your faith. It's not just waiting on God to move and to do things, even though he can, and he will sometimes. But you have a responsibility as a believer to do things that are going to allow you to see God move even more in your life.
God is ready to move in your life this morning.
Are you ready to have the actions so that you can see him move? So the first discipline that we see that Daniel had to see God move was he had a study of promises.
Study of promises.
Daniel chapter nine, two through three. It says, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish 70 years in the desolations of Jerusalem. Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make requests by prayer and supplication with fasting, sackcloths and ashes.
This shows us that Daniel, we don't know. We don't know what access he had to the Bible. We don't know how much of the Bible he had there. I know the Torah was around. I know when he got captured, they took everybody, which means they took the priests, they took the rabbis, they had the access to God's word to some extent.
And we see in these verses that not only did he listen when they talked about God's word, when they told him scriptures and they told him prophecies that were going to come to fruition later, not only did he just listen, but he believed and he remembered and he memorized and he took it on. So he knew in this situation what was going on and how he was supposed to respond, because he knew God's word.
They show us that he was a student of scripture who built his life on the word of God.
Guys, this morning, God's word, I want you to hear. This is so crucial for us, knowing and understanding how we are supposed to live our lives and respond in a way that we know God wants us to respond and live.
But I also know this. The Bible is a big old book and it is intimidating.
When you look at, it's thick and it's got a lot of words. Let's be honest, how many of us have taken the Bible and said, God, I know you got a word for me and you stop here, say, God, what do you got? And you look, it says you're stupid, right? Like that verse, but it's intimidating. And I get that. And so I want to give you something this morning. You may think, oh, I don't need that. And if you don't, awesome. But I think a lot of us may need this. This morning, I'm going to give you an acronym that's going to help you when you read scripture, to help you kind of break it down a little more. Okay? So when you get to the verse, I want you to do this. I want you to stop. Say it with me. Stop in the name of love. No, I want you to stop the acronym. Stop s.
Ask yourself this. When you start reading a scripture, what is the situation?
What's happening in the scriptures that you are reading. Ask your things. Like, hey, let me do some research. What is the year? Who's the king at the time? Where is the place? Like, where is this all happening? What's the scenario? Get some context. And I'm telling you online, there's a lot of stuff that you can find online. Okay? One of my favorite websites is called got questions. And it's legit. Like, I look up stuff all the time on there. Very biblical. It's awesome. Find some research on what you are reading so you have some understanding. Okay. S is situation, t type of literature.
What kind of book are you reading in the Bible? Because the Bible has different kinds of books. It has poetry. Some of the books are poetry. Some of them are historical. Some of them are books of prophecy telling of things that are to come. Some are just letters. They're called epistles. You have the Pauline epistles that were written by Paul, and then you have general epistles that were different people writing these letters to different groups of people. So situation type of literature, o, what is the object of the passage?
Who is it being written to that gives you some understanding how to read it? Also, who is writing the passage that helps so much? And then lastly, the p is prescriptive or descriptive. You need to ask yourself, is this prescriptive meaning? Is this telling us something as believers, that this is how we have to do it? These are things God says, do this as a follower of Christ. Or is it descriptive meaning it's describing or telling a story or something like that, not Necessarily saying, these are things that we have to do as christians. Right. I'm telling you this is important because if these get confused, it could get ugly. Let me show you an example. David and Goliath. Well, David was there. Goliath was out on the battlefield. He started blaspheming God. What did David do? Took a rock, hit him in the temple, killed him, and then took his head off. Okay.
Descriptive.
This is not prescriptive, meaning every time you hear somebody take the Lord's name in vain, you hit them with the rock and take their head off. Okay?
There's a difference.
Understanding what it is, whether it's prescriptive or descriptive, helps you a lot.
Not only did Daniel study God's word, but he memorized it. He memorized God's word. And when you memorize God's word, it helps you keep it at the front of your mind, but also at the front of your heart. Joshua one eight says this.
Do not let this book of law depart from your mouth. Meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. And then what happens? Catch this. Then you will be prosperous and successful.
Talking about David and Goliath. What's interesting is when David showed up, he was just there to deliver bread to his brothers who were in the battle. And he was sitting there and he heard Goliath talk about his God. And even though he was small, he was ready to step up. And when he was ready to step up and step out there, he didn't have to go looking around for rocks. He wasn't like, oh, where's the equipment that I need to take on this battle? Why? Because he had the rocks in his shepherd's bag that he had collected along the way. The same is true for scripture, for us.
Get into God's word, begin to understand. And not only just read it, but memorize God's word. Because when you do, what you're doing is you're taking that verse and you're putting it in your shepherd's bag. You may not need it today, you may not need it tomorrow, but maybe next year at a time where you're in a situation, you don't have to go around looking for verses God, which is fine if you need to do, but you don't have to go around because you were prepared to handle the situation with God's word that you had in your heart from a time's past. Keep God's scripture on your heart, on your mind. Memorize it. Keep it in your shepherd's bag, and wait to that time when you can pull it out and use it for whatever situation you're going through. He had a study of promises, and he also had a system of prayer.
System of prayer.
Daniel six, verse ten says now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, this is the decree about him praying to the gods that the king wants him to pray to and not. He can't pray to God anymore. He has to switch over.
This is what he did. When he heard the response, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened towards Jerusalem. Three times a day, he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to God, just as he had done before. See, Daniel had a discipline not only of reading God's word, he had discipline of prayer. Our prayers are not just words that float up into the sky and disappear. Our prayers are an opportunity for you and I to have spiritual communion with God of the universe.
You have access to the creator and the most powerful God ever. The king of kings, the lord of lords. And he wants to talk to you and to me, which I get. That can be scary because you're like, what do I say to that God? But here's the thing. When you pray, God comes to you wherever you are, in whatever situation you're going through.
And the awesome thing about prayer, not only is it an opportunity for you to have communion with God, but what he does in that communion is he begins to change you. He begins to help you understand and have a closer relationship with him. And you become more and more like Jesus.
Prayer changes you. Prayer changes me. Prayer changes lives, and prayer changes history.
I think it's time that we begin to pray even more.
And one of the major outcomes that comes from prayer is answered prayer. But even bigger than that is an ever growing, unending communion with God the Father.
Daniel prayed at least three times a day.
David prayed at least three times a day. Peter prayed at least three times a day. Jesus prayed at least three times a day. And the neat thing is, when you begin to study God's word and you begin to take time and have prayer and communion with God, something cool happens, because there's a deep connection with both of those. Charles Spurgeon, a great pastor, says this. Oh, that you studied your bibles more. Oh, that we all did. How we could plead the promises, how often we should prevail with God, when we could hold him to his word and say, fulfill this word unto thy servant, whereon thou hast caused me to hope. Oh, it is grand praying. Catch this. When your mouth is full of God's word, for there is no word that can prevail with him like his own.
You can't ask for the promises of God in your prayers if you don't know what they are. You can't know when they happen, if you don't know what to look for. But when you know them and you pray them, you begin to see them.
See, Daniel experienced God's promises through his commitment of knowing God's word and his prayer life, which led to what I believe to be his mindset for life. And we see it in Daniel, chapter four, verse 26. He is interpreting a dream to the king, and this is what he says.
The command to leave the stump of the tree with its roots means that your kingdom will be restored to you when you acknowledge this, that heaven rules.
Did you catch the mindset of Daniel?
Heaven rules no matter who he served on an earthly throne, no matter what persecution came his way, no matter what fiery furnace or den of lions was said was going to happen to kill him if he didn't obey what the kings of the day said.
He knew this didn't matter because heaven rules.
This morning I want to encourage you and I want to ask you to do something with me. Okay?
Don't be scared.
Okay. I'm going to ask you to do this with me this morning.
I want you to stand on the scale.
It's not one that's going to say my weight out loud. I already tested, okay.
And I looked at it this morning and I'm like, it's because I have my shoes on.
I think this morning we need to stand on the scale and see where we're wanting and lacking when it comes to our faith.
And I'm going to encourage you and I'm going to ask you to join with me. And a lot of you were doing the 21 days of prayer with our church, which is awesome. It's actually going to help you with what I'm about to say. But I want you to do two things this week for seven days till next Sunday when it comes to looking on the scale and see where you're wanting and lacking in two areas. And that is your study of promises and your system of prayer with your study of promises. I want you to do this this week and I don't think it's asking a crazy amount, but I just want you to read through the book of Daniel.
It's awesome. There's a lot of exciting stories that are engaging. It's not boring, I promise. It's only twelve chapters. A lot of you could probably sit down in 30, 40 minutes and knock out all twelve. But I want to ask that you this week start reading the book of Daniel. And as you read it, when you get to the verses, I want you to do what? Stop.
I want you to ask yourself what is the situation?
What is the type of literature that I'm reading? What is the object of the text? And is it prescriptive or descriptive?
And then I want you to have a system of prayer. And I know they prayed minimum three times a day. They started in the evening because that was the day for them, starting evening, morning and noon. But here's what I'm going to encourage you to do, and I'm going to do it with you minimum of twice a day in the morning when you wake up and before you go to bed. And if you're on this 21 day challenge with us and your prayer challenge, you're doing that. You're going to get a prayer in the morning. So there you go. You already got one knocked out. Now, this is minimum. If you need to pray during the day, please pray during the day. But I'm asking that we do this together this week. Read through the book of Daniel and pray twice a day, morning and night, together. And I want to ask that when we go to prayer, let's go to God with all the things going on in our life, but let's also not to forget to say thank you for all the blessings that he has given us. Amen.
And as I say this out loud, I know that there's the devil, right? Like, I know that he hears. I know that he has all this kind of thing. So I know once we say it out loud, this week is going to be the busiest week of your life.
When it comes the morning and you're like, I'm ready to pray. Your kids are going to come running in. I need this. My outfit doesn't all this kind of stuff. And you're going to be like, lord, help me. There's a prayer right there, right?
But I know that there's going to be things that happen this week that are going to cause you to say, I just don't have time to do this. And so I want you to do this this morning like Daniel did when he was young. And I want you to purpose your heart to make a commitment that no matter what happens this week, I'm going to do everything I can to read the book of Daniel and to pray in the morning and pray in the evening. And I just want you to do that. And by the end of the week, I want you to see what God will do.
Because this is what I know, not only in my life, but reading all the people in the Bible. When you have action in your life to do things, to grow in your faith and to follow God, God always moves. Let's pray.
God, thank you for your word and your presence this morning.
I pray that this morning we purpose our hearts and our lives, not only for this week, but for the rest of our lives.
God, may we get on the scale and see where we're lacking in our faith, God, may we have discipline that gives us knowledge, that brings change to our lives so that we can become more and more like Jesus Christ.
Open our eyes this morning.
Open our hearts this morning, God, and help us have the strength to commit daily to serving you, to living for you for the rest of our lives as long as we're here on this earth.
Use us, God, just like you used Daniel to do amazing things and may you receive all the honor and glory for everything. It's in your name that we pray. Amen.
[00:34:50] 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. Bye.
