The Book of Daniel: A Tale of Two Kingdoms

Pastor Fletcher begins our new sermon series on the book of Daniel. Discussion points: The Babylonians aimed to convert and assimilate the Israelites in exile so they wouldn’t rebel, our modern culture can work in a similar way to separate us from our faith, God will help us to stand firm against the current of culture.

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  Scripture reader: [Daniel 1:1-8] In the third year of the reign of Jehoash king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoash king of Judah into his hand with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of ShinR, to the house of his God and placed the vessels in the treasury of his God. Then the king commanded Ashpenaz his chief eunuch to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding, learning and competent to stand in the king's palace and to teach them the literature and the language of the Chaldeans.

  The king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate and of the wine that he drank. They were to be educated for three years and at the end of that time, they were to stand before the king. Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah. And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names: Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego. But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food or with the wine that he drank.

  This is the word of the Lord.

  Preacher: All right. Well, we have a little election this week, don't? We thought I would just start with something to get your attention. little election going on. You know, we have two parties and it feels very much like we have two very different visions of the future of the United States. Does it not? We have, we have these two parties. It feels like there's a lot at stake. And, you know, I grew up believing that one party had the moral high ground over the other party. And I believe that's strong. In fact, it was like a repulsive thing and I, I think that people still believe this in different places and I wouldn't be surprised if many of you still believe this, that if someone told me they were voting for the other party, I would almost have like a, a visceral reaction.

  Like it was just something deep within me that just felt like it was morally wrong to vote for the other party. I felt like one party represented the cause of Christ more than the other. It was out of my, my religious beliefs in many ways that I was fueled, to think this way but the older I've gotten, the more I have felt like a political misfit, is anybody with me? The more I feel like I just don't fit in to either. The more I've realized that neither party really has a corner on the vision of the good life that Jesus proclaimed. It's not like one party is espousing the sermon on the mount while the other one is just spewing hate and vitriol. Ok? It is not like that at all.

  Both parties have might have different visions for the future of America. But neither of them necessarily have a Jesus vision for the United States of America. It's hard to defend it like that deep down. In fact, I think that both of the parties are more similar than what they would care to admit they might have different policies. But these policies come out of a secular world view that fuels just different ways of expressing the same secular world view.

  There's one author named Mark Sayers. He's an Australian theologian, philosopher guy. He wrote a book called Disappearing Church and this was almost 10 years ago now. So one of these is, is kind of dated at this point, I feel like, but he came up with seven different ways that our culture has these beliefs that shape what we, what we believe and how our politics work. So here are several different ways and all of them you'll find are at odds with Christianity in one way or another. The first view, both both of the left and the right. I think they both believe these things and just have different applications of it.

  Number one, the highest good is individual freedom, happiness, self definition and self expression. Number two traditions, religions received wisdom, regulations and social ties that restrict individual freedom, happiness, self definition and self expression must be reshaped, deconstructed or destroyed. Number three, the world will inevitably improve as the scope of individual freedom grows. Technology and particular, the internet will motor this progression toward utopia. And this is the one that I'm like, we don't think so positively anymore. I don't think that we're thinking that technology is going to usher in utopia. This was eight years ago.

  Number four, but we do still have this idea that that the world will inevitably improve as the scope of individual freedom improves. That is something that our world still believes. Number four, the primary social ethic is tolerance of everyone else's self defined quest for individual freedom and self expression. Any deviation from this ethic of tolerance is dangerous and must not be tolerated. Therefore, social issue, social justice is less about economic and class inequality and more about issues of equality relating to individual identity, self expression and personal autonomy.

  Number five, humans are inherently good. Number six, large scale structures and institutions are suspicious at best and evil at worst. And number seven forms of external authority are rejected and personal authenticity is loaded.

  And so as Christians, when we read through these things, we should feel like we are swimming upstream against the current of the current culture. We do feel a slight resistance to these things. And if you don't feel any resistance upon your faith from the way that the the world view of the modern secular person is, it's probably because you're either one secluded. So you're not talking to anyone who doesn't share your worldview or two, you are assimilated. You've been converted by the culture and you now hold the culture's views to be your own views instead of allowing your world view to be shaped by the teachings of Christ.

  John Mark Ker puts it this way. He says a growing number of our secular friends and neighbors think of us, not just as weird because we skew premarital sex, give away a percentage of our income and refuse to be held captive by a political party or ideology. But they actually view us as dangerous as a threat to secularism's alternative vision of human flourishing. Now. No longer can we hold the moral high ground because it's been flipped on us. And from the secular perspective, we are now the bad guys in many people's eyes, the biblical world.

  The biblical word that best describes what we're currently experiencing as Westerners in the 21st century is the word exile, exile. The theologian Walter Brugman defined exile like this he says that exile is the experience of knowing that one is alien and perhaps even in a hostile environment where the dominant values run counter to one's own. Another definition by Wendy and Wendy Everett and Peter Wagstaff, put it, puts it like this, the, the sense of exile or alienation may result for the individual who is marginalized, cast adrift by the inability or unwillingness to conform to the tyranny of majority opinion, the tyranny of majority opinion. Anybody else feel that I feel like a strong, a strong sense of what the majority opinion is and that I should conform to that or I will be further exiled.

  Culture seems to be coming at us as a rushing river. Does it not coming at us quickly? How do we stay afloat? How do we as Christians survive the barrage of the cultural waves that are battering us at all times as we're maligned, misrepresented and pressured to conform? Where can we find the strength to stay faithful to God's kingdom? This is where Daniel helps us. Daniel is a book of the Bible that was written in in the time after the the people of God have been exiled. So this is after David, after Solomon way after Adam and Eve. Way after Noah. OK. And so this is a book about a group of people who have been exiled in a foreign nation. And there it follows four young men and their path to staying faithful while living in exile.

  Daniel tells this story about these four men. They, they find themselves thrust into the foreign culture where their faith, their identity and loyalty to God are tested in every way. And so today's passage is about Babylonians attempt to convert the Israelites to assimilate them into the culture. So we're just gonna walk through the passage. That's how I like to do it. We're gonna open up the Bible. If you have your Bibles, you can turn it to Daniel. Daniel's kind of about two thirds through your Bible is where you'll find it in the English Bible. And it's right after Ezekiel. So if you find, if you find Jeremiah, if you find Ezekiel, just keep going a few more pages and you'll get to Daniel. And I'm just gonna read the, this whole first chapter and we'll, we'll pause and reflect as we go through.

  In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim - we'll also have the words on the screen if that's helpful for you - in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And if you're thinking right now, I've heard this story somewhere before. It may have involved dancing, singing vegetables. OK? Maybe. But there's a lot more to it than the singing vegetables. Tell you 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.

  OK. So we, we read this and we think snooze fest, ok. This is kind of boring with what's happening right here at the beginning. It says in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim. Now this is ancient language to tell you what year this occurred in. They didn't have the AD BC system that we have instead, what they would have to tell you is who was king and what year it was in their reign. And that's, that is orienting us to when all of this is happening in history. This is basically like saying not a long, long time ago in a, in a place far, far away. This is saying in 605 BC, it happened where one came, came and, and, and kidnapped an entire people and moved them to a different land.

  This is a historical story, something that actually happened. It's not a fairy tale. This is something that we have archaeological evidence for that. We have language evidence for this being accurate to the time in 605 BC, the nation of Judah, which is the southern half of Israel. So if you're unfamiliar with ancient Israel in the Old Testament, basically, what happens is the nation of Israel is established. King Saul is the first king, King David is the second king. King Solomon is the third king. And after that, there's never a single king that reigns over all of the land of Israel. The, the nation splits into two. You have Israel, that's the north half and you have Judah, that's the southern half. And Judah remains more faithful to God than Israel, but they both go they both go in and out of faithfulness.

  And so Israel is captured first, the upper kingdom, Judah is remains as part as unconquered for a little while. But then eventually they are also conquered. And so they are conquered by the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar and they are torched. I mean, Babylon takes over. They have got no shot at all. Babylon is this nation to the east in modern day Iraq. they're the strongest nation in the area at the time and, and the, and they represent a way of life that's completely contrary to the people of Israel. Completely contrary, if we think back, we've heard Babylon before, have we not? Where, what does that sound? Kind of like Babel. Genesis 11 is the same general area where the people and what does Babel represent? But they're building a tower to reach to the heavens and this was all about them being self sufficient. They're saying we want to live without God, we can reach the heavens without God.

  And so Babel and Babylon represent everything contrary to what Israel represents. Israel says, we depend upon God Babylon says we can be self sufficient without him. So after conquering the land, the Babylonians know that the likelihood of rebellion is far greater if they leave the people of Israel in the land. Ok. So just think about it, a foreign nation takes over our land. If they leave us all here, maybe we're familiar with the land, we know our neighbors, maybe we can band together and revolt one day we can rebel, rebel. If they take us and move us to a land that we're unfamiliar with where no one speaks our language. We're going to have a hard time even buying food like it's just difficult to make it.

  So this was an ancient way of control. And so they said we're not gonna leave them there. We want to control them. So we're going to move them out of their land and into our land. It was a common tactic in the ancient days that was used. And the Babylonians, they don't just move the people, but they move the items from the temple out of the temple into their own. And it's basically a way for them to say, look, our God beat your God, we're taking your stuff. All your God's stuff now belongs to our God. They have dominated Israel here and Israel is taken off into exile in a foreign land, hundreds of miles away from where they're used to. Not speaking the language, everything is different.

  Verse three. Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, the chief, his chief eunuch to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding, learning and competent to stand in the king's palace and to teach them the literature and the language of the Chaldeans. Now, Nebuchadnezzar is brutal. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon. He's a strong man. He's brutal, but he's not stupid. He's a smart dude. And so what he knows is, hey, if I take them force only lasts so long, they will revolt against me. What I need is I need to convert some significant influential leaders of Israel and get them to advocate for me. So this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to go look in their nobility and find impressionable young attractive men and I'm going to indoctrinate them with the cultures of Babylon.

  So that as they grow older and the people become restless, these guys might be my mouthpieces. They can code switch and they can communicate to people that they should remain faithful to Babylon. So what does he look for? He goes looking for some strapping young leaders. This is the ancient version. What we see him say is that he's looking, he's looking for some, some young men without blemish, good appearance, skillful and wisdom. This is an ancient version of, I'm looking for a man in finance, trust fund, 6-5, blue eyes. All right. So if you got a dating profile and you want to make that more biblical, you can just say I'm looking for a man like Daniel, youthful, without blemish, endowed with knowledge.

  So he goes and finds those men and he finds these four men and we know them from the, the stories and you probably know them more from their Babylonian names than their, their Hebrew names. But let's listen to what he says. verse five, this is his plan to convert them to the Babylonian way of life. The king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate and of the wine that he drank. They were to be educated for three years and at the end of that time, they were to stand before the king. Among those were Daniel, Hananaiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah and the chief of the eunuchs gave them names: Daniel, he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego.

  So in this little passage, we see how he is converting the Israelites to Babylon. And he has four basic tactics that we can outline. There might be other things, but I'm gonna summarize it in four. And the first thing he does is he isolates them. He takes them out of their home, out of their community. Of faith and he brings them into probably his own palace. Where else could they be educated, where else could they receive the king's food? But in the king's own palace. And so he isolates these young impressionable young men away from their community of faith.

  Second, he indoctrinates them. He, he teaches them the language and literature of the Chaldeans. He educates them for three years, relearning history, literature and language from a different point of view. I just want you to imagine that you have to go, you, you're moved to Russia and you relearn world history is gonna be pretty different. They're gonna have a much different perspective on the way that the world has developed in the history of the world and all the wars that we've been in, it's gonna be two completely different. So he re educates them. He indoctrinates them with the Babylonian thought process.

  Next, he provides for them provision. So he isolates them. He indoctrinates them, then he provides for them. They're given food from his own table. Now, what does that mean? It's gonna be some good food, right? Like the king is not, he's not eating table scraps. The king is eating well. And so these young men they're being provided for well, it's like he gives them a good salary, basically is what they say he's gonna provide for them. But also it's got this ulterior thing where he's like, remember, remember who feeds you, remember who provides your daily bread. It's Nebuchadnezzar. It's Nebuchadnezzar.

  You, you remember that young young men? And last he re identifies them, he reifies them. Finally, they're given these new names, Daniel and they're these new names. It's really, it's really terrible in ancient days. Your name means a lot. It says something dear about who you are. It, it communicates something and so he gives them these new names and it's significant what he changes them to. Daniel goes from Daniel is a Hebrew word that means God is my judge and he renamed him Belteshazzar, which means oh lady wife of the God Bell. Protect the king. The significant thing with Daniel is that Daniel never refers to himself with that name. It's like he doesn't accept it. He continues to refer to himself as Daniel and it's, it's actually really funny. the author of Daniel who many people believe to be Daniel himself, which is one reason why Daniel is referred to as Daniel over and over and not Belteshazzar.

  The author is like misspelling the Babylonian names all the time when you look at the original languages. Daniel is one of the only books of the Bible that's written partly in Hebrew and then a big chunk of it is in Aramaic, which is a a language that we don't see very often in other places of the Bible and then it goes back to Hebrew and when he's using the Aramaic. He's misspelling the Babylonian names often. It's almost like he's saying like these names. They don't matter as like they, many scholars are like, why is the author mispronouncing it? Maybe it's a scribe. That's messed up. No, it's like the author just as intentionally. I don't care about these names. It's, it's actually kind of funny, you know, ancient language is funny. So Hananiah goes from Yahweh is gracious and then he becomes Shadrach commander of Aku, the moon, the moon God. Mishael, his name means who is what God is, he becomes Meshach, which is who is like Aku. Azariah, he goes from Yahweh is a helper and he becomes Abednego, servant of the shining one. Never.

  And so he gives them these Babylonian names. And this is a classic tactic of cults that you see even used to today where if, if someone joins a cult, if you join a, a religious movement and they ask you to change your name that should the light should be going off. Ok? Not a good sign, not a good sign. And, and Colts, they oftentimes are given a new name by their leader. In fact, I think it's a power move to give someone a nickname, which is why if anyone calls me Fletch, I am suspicious of them. What are you trying to do to me? What are you trying to convince me of is a power move? When we look at these methods of indoctrination and assimilation and conversion.

  What we actually see is that our culture today uses the same methods. Boston uses the same methods that Babylon used isolation. Just think about the way that the evil one uses these things in our city to lead people away from God isolation. Many people moved to Boston to study or for a job. Many of you several of you grew up here. I will proudly say several of you grew up here. Many of you did not and you moved here for a job or for study. OK. Let's just quick show of hands. OK. Boston natives. Let me see you. Let's what's up. Let's go. All right. If you moved here for study or for, or for work. All right. So we're not quite 5050. OK. The transplants are still winning right now. One day we'll, we'll get up.

  What you see happen over and over again is that people move to Boston and they had these strong communities of faith where they grew up, people that knew them and loved them and then they moved to Boston and they don't know anyone and they're isolated. In fact, I don't know if there's a more lonely city in the United States than Boston. There's people from all over the world here. The sun goes down at 4 p.m. for half the year. It's hard to make friends at times. Everyone's competing against one, everyone else. It can be a lonely place to live. And so we feel isolated, not only that, but people are busy, amen. People are busy, too busy for people and too busy for friends. The second thing that we see Boston doing that similar to, to Babylon is indoctrinating.

  I've seen this hundreds of times. So someone moves here for school or they move here for a job and then all of a sudden they have a, a coming of age moment where they say, you know, when I was a kid and back when I was in my strong community of faith that held me to the truth. I used to believe those fairy tales that we see in the Bible. But now that I've grown up, I've realized that I don't believe the Bible anymore. I don't believe in God anymore. And then you ask them. So tell me the strongest argument that led you away from that belief against God. Tell me the strongest argument against God that you've got crickets. It's like they do. They believe the story that you grow up and move beyond God, but they don't actually look at the arguments, rarely do. They do. And if they do, it's usually a pretty weak argument that can be quickly and easily handled with a quick Google search like it's not very hard to, to help people work through these things.

  Sometimes people have real doubts and if you are here, someone, if you are here today as someone with real doubts, we welcome you. We're so glad you're here. We want to be a source for you because there are answers to your questions and we want to be part of God's purposes in helping you with those things. But what we see over and over again is that people just get caught up in the current of what the culture believes. They start to assimilate into the commonly held beliefs of this area and just feels right to deconstruct. They don't know why it just feels right to deconstruct and they don't have their faith family to remind them of the truth.

  And then third provision, we see that, that people in Boston, they oftentimes forget that the Lord provides their daily bread. Eventually people will bow their knee to their career. We get so busy, do we not so much going on? And we just end up prioritizing Jesus out of our lives. Church attendance starts to slide in the hustle culture of this city is something that's really hard to say no to. And if you're new to Boston, you need to stand warned, you need to know that there's a magnetic pool for these things here and that you have to be on guard against it.

  If you're going to make it as a whole person following after Christ here and it ends with re identification much as it did with, with Babylon are we might not have a shift in our names. But we have a shift in the way that we identify ourselves. So no longer am I Christian first, but I'm doctor first or engineer, first or scientist first. And I start with the second. You start allowing your career to define who you are. Babylon is winning the battle for your heart.

  Friends. I I need you to see this though. I know I've depicted a culture as this raging river and many of us feel that. But what I really want you to see is that culture is not a raging river. It is a lazy river. It moves so slowly that you don't even see it. These changes are gradual. That's by design. It takes years. It took them three years to be indoctrinated in the ways of the Chaldeans. It takes years for us to slowly come around. It's like when you're at the beach and you're out playing in the water now you can catch me in the water in New England. It is way too cold. Ok? We gotta fly south somewhere and find a warmer beach where I can play in the water. But there's some of you that like playing in the water here in New England, you're crazy, but that's ok. But when you're out in the water and you're playing the first it happens all the time, you look up and it's like my towel is a mile away. How did I end up over here? I didn't even know I was moving. I've just been standing here the whole time.

  That's the current of culture. And how do you fight against the lazy river when you don't go swinging and slashing? And you just have to lean against it. That's all there is to it. You just have to stand firm. It's so easy to let go and to just float along and what the world says is true and what the world says we should do, but we just stand firm. My brother Michael preached a sermon two weeks ago on the armor of God. And what does it say? Ephesians chapter six, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. All we have to do when we see the current of culture is just stand firm and lean forward, lean into it against it.

  And how does Daniel do this? How, how do we stand firm? How can Christians remain faithful? Let's look at like how Daniel did it verse eight, but Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food or with the wine that he drank. Therefore, he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. So what does he do? Daniel says, I'm resolving in myself not to compromise. He resolved not to defile himself with the king's food.

  Now, why is it that, that's where he draws the line he's like, you can call me Belshazzar. That's fine. But I'm not eating your food. Why is it that he drew the line? We're not 100% sure. No, it doesn't really say exactly why that was the line. Some people think that it's because the food of Babylonia of Babylon is not kosher. And so Daniel is like, I will not defile myself with un un kosher, not kosher food. And, but if that's true, then any food prepared by the Babylonians would not be kosher. And so he asked for vegetables after this and maybe it's like a level of, you know, maybe he's eating pork and then he's like, OK, maybe I can be somewhat, not kosher, but I can't eat pork. And so I'm just gonna eat vegetables, something like that. That could be true, but it could also be true. And I think it's more likely that he would not eat the king's meat because it was a compromise to his allegiance to eat from the king's table is to commit oneself to serve the king. It's acknowledging that my food comes from Nebuchadnezzar. And so he refuses to commit himself wholeheartedly to the king and he has so he can stay loyal to Yahweh, his God.

  And so let's look at verse nine and what happens after he commits himself to, to not eat the food. And verse nine, and God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs and the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, I fear my Lord the king. He who assigned your food and your drink for? Why should he see that you are in a worse condition than the youths who are of your age? So you would endanger my head with the king. And then Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had assigned over to Daniel, Hananiah, Meshael, and Azariah, "Test your servants for 10 days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king's food be observed by you and deal with your servants according to what you see." So he listened to them in this matter and tested them for 10 days.

  I don't know how many of you work in the pharmaceutical or biotech industry, but this is a proper clinical study. OK. He's, he's got his experiment group himself, give me veggies. He's got the control group, which is the other youths who are eating the meat and then he's got a time, he's got a hypothesis. Let's test it. Let's test and see if this is right. He's using the scientific method right here. And so what basically he says is give us only vegetables and water, they can eat meat and wine. And then let's see what happens after 10 days. Who's healthier.

  Verse 15 at the end of 10 days. It was seen that they were in better appearance and fatter and flesh than all the youths who ate the king's food. So the steward took away their food and the wine that they were to drink and gave them only vegetables. It worked, they only ate veggies, they only drank water and they ended up healthier than everyone else. And all the vegan said, I've seen some silly and I'm gonna just go ahead and say it's silly. Biblically sponsored weight loss plans called the Daniel Diet. Has anybody ever seen these? Now, if you want to just eat veggies and drink water? Awesome. That's great. It's not prescriptive. You don't have to. Ok. But I'm sure you might lose a few pounds if that's what you do. Ok? You eliminate wine, you eliminate a lot of protein. Yeah, you're gonna lose a few pounds. But in no way that's like the worst b for you to say this is the way that God wants us to eat. You can't make that stuff. Ok. But it is, something that people do often. This is not prescriptive. It's merely descriptive.

  Actually, when we read about the diet, it's, it's actually quite the opposite. Ok. Eating veggies and only drinking water is supposed to make them look weaker. It's not the quality of the diet that gives them the strength. It's the quality of God. It's set up to where they're supposed to fail. But yet God is faithful and he blesses them, despite the fact that they're eating worse, that's the whole point. And so really the Daniel diet is kind of opposite of that. It might be nice for a fast. It's something that you can do be my guest. But that's not the point. The point is to prove that God is superior. The God of Israel is the real God and that he took care of Daniel.

  Verse 17, as for these four youths, God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom. And Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. At the end of the time when the king had commanded that they should be brought in, the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar and the king spoke with them and among all of them, none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, therefore, they stood before the king and in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them 10 times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in his all in his kingdom. And Daniel was there until the first year of King Cyrus.

  And so Daniel resolved himself to stand against the culture and God gave him success. So how did he stand firm in this culture where he was a minority, a religious minority that many of us feel? The primary thing is that God was with him. That's the primary thing OK, we can't look after that. We can't, we can't look past that. The second thing is that he resolved within himself to serve only God. He resolved within himself to serve only God. Something that we learned later in Daniel. We're gonna get to this in a few weeks. This series is going to be about eight weeks. We're gonna do four and then we're gonna break for four for advent and then we'll pick it back up after the new year.

  But in a few weeks, we're gonna see that Daniel practiced regular spiritual habits. We might call them spiritual practices, spiritual disciplines. He practiced these and it is one of the ways that he leaned against the current of the Lazy River of culture, allowing himself to stand firm and he still worked with the king. He was in the king's government. He was he worked in the government of Babylon. Yet he prioritized his identity as a person who follows God.

  And so I want you to consider, as we're considering, as we're kind of rounding the corner here, as we're considering what it looks like to compromise for our culture and all the different ways that the world wants to assimilate us to their way of thinking and its way of being. I want you to think, where have you been compromised by the culture? Where have you been sliding into assimilation? Where have you been lacking? Just that little lean of resistance? Maybe you're way over committed to your identity and your career, the cultural, the culture of the city will tempt you to prioritize networking, reputation, and advancement over family, church and spiritual practices. I want you to think about these.

  I'm gonna list off a few more. I you can just take some time later this week. Write down two or three different ways that you have not been leaning against the current of the lazy river of culture. Maybe you're constantly hustling, you simply don't have time for community or personal spiritual development. Maybe you've de prioritized Sabbath rest in your life. Maybe your political identity has overshadowed your identity in Christ. If you give God a moment, if you just take a moment and you say to God, show me where I've compromised and you give him two minutes of silence, I almost will guarantee you that you'll, you'll, you'll hear from Him that you'll think of where you've compromised. It's, it will come. The Holy Spirit will help you in that.

  If you're not actively leaning against the current of culture, you will end up far away from where you belong. How many of us have had friends who have done this? And you look, and you're like, how did they end up there? It was a slow and gradual without the lean.

  So to conclude, I want you to think about this, let's consider, where do we, where else do we see these tactics that work in scripture, nowhere else but Matthew chapter four in Matthew chapter four, we see our Lord Jesus Christ being led out into the wilderness into a kind of exile isolated from his community and vulnerable. And Satan shows up and launches into a series of tactics that look familiar to what we see in Babylon attempting to convert and indoctrinate Jesus with twisted versions of his own teachings, quoting and twisting the scripture manipulating Jesus saying things like if you are really the Son of God, you could command these stones to become bread. He's re identifying Jesus. He's making Jesus, he's trying to make Jesus doubt his identity as the son of God, attempting to cause him to question who he really is. And Satan promises Jesus prosperity. He leads him up to a tall place and he says, I'll give you everything you can see if you will just follow me instead of God.

  But Jesus stands firm. He doesn't waver. He confronts the lies with truth. And here's the good news that Jesus did all of this, not just as an example, but as our savior because the reality is that everyone in this room has compromised, we've all drifted down the lazy river, have we not? We've all given in to the lies that we're surrounded with and we felt that subtle drift, but Jesus doesn't leave us there, condemned to live, live a life of compromise.

  He loves us in our weakness and in our failure to stand firm. Jesus loves you in your weakness and in your failures in the places where you have compromised He is pursuing after you. He was uncompromising on our behalf and therefore we can return to God time and time again, knowing that Jesus was our perfect sacrifice, knowing that we have right relationship with God because of Jesus's faithfulness that He lived, the life that we should have lived and that He died, the death that we deserve to die all. So we could be brought back into fellowship with God. Made new, given a fresh start over and over again, fresh start every day.

  And so let's take some time as we contemplate these things, these ways that we're subtly giving in to the culture. And let's confess them to the Lord and draw near to his grace again this morning. I know some of you wanna go home and think about that. But this morning, if you would like someone to pray with you, we'll have some prayer leaders in the, in the back and then after the service, they'll be up front to pray with you. And they would love to, to just pray with you, lay a hand on you, speak a word of truth to you, hear you. They're here to help, they would love to do that with you. So if you would, let's stand and welcome the band back up as we prepare our hearts to respond to God.

  Father, as we prepare ourselves to receive this meal, we ask that you would move in our hearts and in our lives that you would give us insight into the ways that we might be yielding to the current of culture and help us to be people of light, people of faith, people of strength, help us to stand firm. Father, you have gifted us with, with who Jesus is and help us to keep our eyes on him and not on the current that that lays below, but keep our eyes on Him striving for what you have already done for us. And God, we thank you for this meal, help us to be reminded that your work is complete and that we're accepted because of what you have done. And we ask these things in Christ's name, Amen.