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In this sermon, Pastor Aaron Shamp introduces the new series called Courageous Faith, which focuses on the life of Daniel. He highlights the challenges of living in a culture that is opposed to the gospel and emphasizes the importance of standing out for God. The world's strategy is to make believers think, talk, and act like the rest of society, but the courageous response is faithful resistance. Pastor Aaron explores how Daniel and his friends resisted the Babylonian culture and made a predetermined decision to not defile themselves. He encourages listeners to make resolutions ahead of time and rely on God's provision and reward.
Takeaways
Takeaways
- Living in a culture opposed to the gospel requires courageous faith and standing out for God.
- The world's strategy is to make believers think, talk, and act like the rest of society.
- Faithful resistance involves making predetermined decisions to not compromise on values and beliefs.
- God rewards and provides for those who stand for Him.
Creators & Guests
What is Redeemer City Church - Lafayette, LA?
Pastor Aaron Shamp preaches about the Gospel and facets of Christianity at Redeemer City Church. These podcasts are his sermons.
Aaron Shamp (00:00.554)
The graphics said February 18, that was the old date, but we're gonna be pushing it back. And I didn't update everybody on that change. So sorry, Jennifer. Thank you for making the graphic though. So yeah, that'll be the first day of March, I believe it's March 3rd. So yeah, all you guys who've been having children around here lately, mark your calendars for that date. And it'll be a good time. We'll be sending home more information about that with your children through Redeemer Kids next week.
Today we're going to be starting a new series called Courageous Faith, and we are going to be looking at the life of Daniel in this series. So if you have your Bible with me, you can go ahead and open your Bible and turn to the book of Daniel. We're going to be starting at the beginning in chapter one today. If you don't have your Bible with you, we'll have the text on the screens next to me so that you can follow along there. You can use or if you have your app, you can look it up in your app. But once again, we're meeting Daniel chapter one. I'm going to be covering talking about
really the majority of the chapter, but for the reading, I'm just going to read the middle section, but I'll be referencing other parts throughout the sermon as we go. So we're in Daniel chapter one, and I'm going to start reading in verse eight once we all get there.
Aaron Shamp (01:23.886)
Okay, well if we're all ready, we're all there, we're gonna start the reading today in Daniel chapter one, verse eight.
Aaron Shamp (01:34.206)
In Daniel 1 verse 8 it says, Daniel determined that he would not defile himself with the king's food or with the wine he drank. So he asked permission from the chief eunuch not to defile himself. God had granted Daniel kindness and compassion from the chief eunuch. Yet he said to Daniel, I fear my lord the king who assigns your food and drink. What if he sees your faces looking thinner than the other young men your age?
you would endanger my life with the king. So Daniel said to the guard whom the chief eunuch had assigned to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, please test your servants for 10 days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then examine our appearance and the appearance of the young men who are eating the king's food and deal with your servants based on what you see. He agreed with them about this and tested them for 10 days.
At the end of 10 days, they looked better and healthier than all the young men who were eating the king's food. So the guard continued to remove their food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables. So we are beginning this new series today that's going to last for five weeks called Courageous Faith. We're going to be doing the series, learning about courageous faith by looking at the book of Daniel and particularly the first half of the book of Daniel, which contains the stories.
We're looking at this series because it is a major part of the vision of our church that we would declare the gospel of Jesus Christ, that we would declare the Lordship of Christ over all of Acadiana, that we would as members of this church, not just treat it as a social club that we come to spend an hour once a week in fellowship or small talk with one another, but that this would be an outpost.
an outpost of the kingdom in the middle of Acadiana that sends you out week to week to declare the gospel, to share the gospel, to find opportunities, to tell others about the good news of Jesus Christ, to invite them to church, to invite them to your groups, invite them to foundry rooted, to introduce them to your Christian friends and fellow church members so that opportunities to share that gospel might be presented. Now, this sounds great.
Aaron Shamp (03:56.126)
And it's exciting to talk about, but we recognize that it's very difficult to live out. Why? Right. And that's because we not only live in an area that has many lost people, many, you know, we had Dusty Durbin here a few weeks ago, and he shared with you guys some of the stats and numbers about lostness in Acadiana. You know, if I can just remind you, I don't have any of the exact numbers in front of me, but I just know, you know, the church to population ratio here in Acadiana.
if you count evangelical churches, if you count the evangelical church to population ratio here in Acadiana, it is it is higher or lower would lower be the right word. It is higher than New Orleans. So many people often think of like New Orleans as the center of lostness in Louisiana, which like New Orleans has its issues, right? But there are actually more churches per capita in New Orleans evangelical churches than they here are in the Acadiana area.
In fact, the IMB, which is the International Mission Board, the Missional International Missions arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, sends mission missionaries to areas of the world that are more reached than Acadiana. So it's a it's a big mission that we are called to be sent out from here every week to declare the gospel because the need is great. But we also recognize that there are challenges.
that come with that mission, because it's not just that the lossness is great, right? That there are many out there who need to hear the gospel. But we recognize that we also live in a nation, in a culture, in a society that is opposed to the gospel, that is opposed to Christianity. There were times in previous history, you know, whether that be here in the States or in other places in the West where Christianity was the dominant force in culture.
It was the air that everyone kind of breathed. And so whenever you shared the gospel, whenever you talked about the existence of God, whenever you talked about God's will, His control over history, His desire for our lives, even if people didn't personally follow it, they were still open to it. They still saw it as probably right or at the very least plausible. Whereas today, we recognize that we live in a culture that is, that rejects...
Aaron Shamp (06:19.37)
that Christian worldview that rejects Christian assumptions and is increasingly opposed to them. And so much in our culture today is all about getting you to let go of those Christian assumptions and to adopt this secular worldview presented by our culture rather than holding on to the Christian worldview. So whenever we go out on mission, we also have that added challenge, that added obstacle of not just trying to communicate the gospel.
or finding opportunities to communicate the gospel, but to also work against all those forces that oppose our mission in the kingdom. And so whenever we consider this, we might look around and say, well, how do we find ways to equip ourselves in such a unique time and place as this? Well, when we look at scripture, we recognize that we are not the first believers to be living in a culture that is alien or even hostile.
or rejecting of the gospel of the kingdom, that this has happened to believers throughout history in the Old and New Testament, that they find themselves in places and cultures where they are the minority. They are marginalized and their worldview, their values, their lifestyle is marginalized in the culture. And they had to figure out how do we live faithfully and on mission in our time and place? There's some obvious examples in the New Testament, of course.
right, whenever in Acts, whenever the church goes out on a mission. But there's also very famous examples in the Old Testament and one of the major ones being the life of Daniel. Right. Daniel was a Hebrew boy born in Israel, most likely from Jerusalem, who, whenever the Babylonians took over Israel, was removed from his home as a captive and then brought to Babylon. Right. And the difference between Jerusalem and
Babylon is definitely as great as the distance that we feel today in our own, in our faith, that we hold, and like that we hold in this church, but then the views, the values, the worldview of the culture outside these walls, right? The distance was just as great. And so we can learn from Daniel how we ought to live on mission and even in our culture today that rejects and is even opposed to the Christian worldview.
Aaron Shamp (08:46.078)
So that's why we are learning about courageous faith through the life of Daniel. Today, we're looking at this first story in Daniel and also his three friends who they're more commonly known by their Babylonian names Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. That's the three other guys with him. We learn about their first experience of navigating the challenges of being in Babylon while still remaining faithful to the Lord.
We're going to look at that. We're going to look at first the world's strategy and then what is a courageous response to the world's strategy because what Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon was trying to do to them is the same exact strategy that our culture in our world does to us today in order to try to separate us from God. All right, so let's begin by looking at the world's strategy. So, as I just mentioned, this is at the beginning of the book it gives us kind of a time
Aaron Shamp (09:40.774)
was growing in power, King Nebuchadnezzar was expanding the empire of Babylon to become the dominant world power. He had gained an incredibly large foothold and he started to work his way down that eastern side of the Mediterranean, which is where Israel lied, towards Egypt as he was pushing back the power and influence of the Egyptian empire down back into Egypt and him establishing his own sovereignty.
and influence in the region and, of course, increasing himself and power and wealth as well. And so the connector there in between Babylon and Egypt would have been Israel. So he sends he leads his armies through and he actually goes into Jerusalem himself and sacks Jerusalem. He removes their king, takes him captive. And then what he does is where he goes and he destroys Jerusalem is he goes and he raids their temple. He doesn't just take over the city and say, OK, I'm in control now.
But he goes and he raids the temple of the treasures that would have been held in the temple, many things that were seen as connections to their history and to their worship of God. He took those things and he brought them back to Babylon. But what he also did was he went and ordered his commanders to take the best and brightest youth from Jerusalem as captors back to Babylon. So you can read about this in verses three through five, it says, the king ordered
Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility, young men without any physical defect, good-looking, suitable for instruction in all wisdom, knowledgeable, perceptive, and capable of serving in the king's palace. He was to teach them the Chaldean language and literature. The king assigned them daily provisions from the royal food and from the wine that he drank. They were to be trained for three years, and at the end of that time, they were to attend to the king.
So Nebuchadnezzar comes in, he sacks the city, he destroys the temple, takes out its treasures. In other words, he's destroying their present, right? But then he also takes the best and brightest that they had of their youth, their hope for the future to continue their nation, and he takes them too. Nebuchadnezzar is taking away not only Israel's present, but Israel's future by destroying their city and then taking away their youth that would be the leaders of their future.
Aaron Shamp (12:04.29)
to now go and serve him. He's saying, I own all of this, right? I own all this is now mine, whereas it was all once directed towards the worship of Yahweh and the continuing of Yahweh's kingdom. It is now about my rule, my sovereignty, and my kingdom, which is why they are told, Ashpenaz, that chief eunuch, is told to go and take those young men.
and to begin training them. He says, you know, I want you to go and get the best and the brightest. I want you to get the most intelligent perceptive, and they're going to be taught the Chaldean language, right? That was one of the dominant languages of Babylon at the time. It was not Hebrew, and so they had to learn. They were going to speak like the Babylonians, right? But not only were they going to learn the Chaldean language, but they were going to be taught the literature and wisdom of the Chaldeans. They were going to be educated thoroughly.
in a Babylonian education so they would be taught how to think like Babylonians. But then not only that, he tells Ashpenaz, you're going to make them eat from my food. They're going to eat from all the royal table as they are being prepared to serve Nebuchadnezzar. So they're also expected to act like Babylonians. You see what Nebuchadnezzar is doing in this strategy here, taking these young men and bringing them into Babylon.
He's not saying you're just going to be captors here and retain your lifestyle, your assumptions, your beliefs, your values and your identity. They took them and brought them into Babylon and tried to thoroughly assimilate them into Babylonian culture, teaching them to talk like Babylonians, think like Babylonians and act like Babylonians. And this is the same strategy of the world today.
The enemy's work continues to work in this way today, arranging our culture and the forces and influences in our culture and society to not make it easy for you to continue to live in the Babylon of today, retaining all of your assumptions, values, beliefs, and lifestyles, and so on, that are faithful to the Lord, but instead using all of the influences of culture.
Aaron Shamp (14:16.974)
of the influences of work and of money, the influences of education and so on, to do everything that he can to remove you from that identity. So that today you might think, talk, and behave just like the world today. And so this is our first big point on the enemy strategy. The enemy strategy is to make you think, talk, and behave in any way that separates you from God.
You see, whenever we look at what Daniel and his three friends were asked to do, is there anything that breaks one of the Ten Commandments, for example? Right? Did it break the Ten Commandments to speak the Caledonian language? No. Did it break any of the Ten Commandments or the law to read and learn their literature? No, not at all. You know, even eating from the royal table, did that break any of the Ten Commandments? Well, you know, there, that one's, that one's questionable.
You know, but they were not they didn't take them and say, OK, you know, we're going to bring you to the temple where they would typically hold in these ancient cultures, ancient pagan cultures. They would hold a group of temple prostitutes and say, you know, you're going to live like us Babylonians go and sleep with the temple prostitutes, you know, something outrageously grossly sinful. Right. They didn't do any of that. They just said, look, just you're going to talk like us. You're going to think like us. And you're going to act like us.
but in small steps, removing them from their former identity as belonging to Yahweh, belonging to the Lord, right? And removing them by small steps and small measures away from their identity, their thinking, their values, and their relationship with God. And the enemy works the same way today. He doesn't have to get you to commit any major sin in order to make you far from the Lord, right?
unsuccessful in your Christian life and completely ineffective in missional living. He doesn't have to get you to commit any major sin, do anything, you know, grossly immoral, if he can just get you to take small steps away from God and into the world. The enemy does not have to get you to, you know, to make you ineffective from the mission today. The enemy does not have to get you to do something like commit adultery.
Aaron Shamp (16:43.082)
if he can just distract you with social media.
He doesn't have to get you to do anything large, like embezzling from your career, if he can just get you to go with the flow at work. Whenever conversations and values and so on are moving in a direction that is not honor the Lord, or where there are opportunities to share the gospel, you hold back from because you don't wanna rock the boat, and just keep blending in.
The enemy strategy continues to work the very same way today. One of C.S. Lewis's most famous books was a small book called The Screwtape Letters. If you haven't read it before, you put it on your list this year. You have to read it. It's fantastic. There's a reason it's a classic. But in The Screwtape Letters, what Lewis is doing is the chapters are set up like letters. And they're letters from a master tempter demon named Screwtape writing to his nephew, whose name was Wormwood.
And Wormwood was a brand new tempter, and the tempters would be assigned to different people, and their whole goal was to pull them away from the enemy, which was God, right? And so Wormwood's patient, as they call him, Wormwood's patient became a Christian. And now Wormwood is trying to figure out how he's going to remove this Christian man and place barriers in between him and God and, you know, separate him from
from God and so on. And he's really disappointed that all of these things he's trying to do aren't working. You know, he's trying to, like I said, get him to do the big thing, get him to embezzle or to have an affair or to murder or to do something like that because he thinks, you know, if I get him to do one of those, that'll get him separated from the enemy, which is, you remember, which for them would be God. And here's what Screwtape says to him. Screwtape writes, he says,
Aaron Shamp (18:42.546)
and doubtless like all young tempters. Oh, sorry, he was saying, instead, tempt him with just small things. And so he says to him, you will say that these are very small sins and doubtless like all young tempters, you are anxious to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But do remember, the only thing that matters is the extent to which you separate the man from the enemy. It does not matter how small the sins are, provided that their cumulative effect is to edge the man away from the light
and out into nothing. Murder is no better than cards, if cards can do the trick. Indeed, the safest road to hell is the gradual one, the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. And the same thing is true today. Consider how just in the air of the culture that we live in, everything is stacked and turned in such a way that it might pull you away from the light
and out into the darkness, to pull your mind away from thinking on the Lord and instead thinking on whatever kind of wickedness the culture wants you to think on, from being faithful to the Lord, being devoted to the Lord, and instead just pursuing your own desires and pleasures. And so on. Everything in our culture is pointed towards that way. And so once again, the enemy does not have to make you do anything spectacularly wicked to make you ineffective in the mission, if he can just get you to think and talk.
and even in the small ways, behave like everyone else in the world. You know what, just blend in. Just blend in. Don't stand out. You know, don't rock the boat. Just blend in, that's all you gotta do. We might think to ourselves, and occasionally start to deceive ourselves into thinking that that's okay. You know, that as long as we go to church, and as long as we avoid all the big sins, and we...
Maybe we read our Bible every now and then, maybe pray every now and then, and that's okay. And in the rest of our life, maybe we aren't spectacularly victorious in our Christian life. Maybe we aren't as on mission as we could be, but we're not doing that bad, you know. The rest of our lives, we're just, once again, we're not causing any trouble, just kind of blending in. But let me just point out to you that it is impossible to be a sort of Christian
Aaron Shamp (21:08.426)
and have any kind of spiritual success. You cannot be a part-time Christian in our culture today and have any kind of success. You cannot be a part-time Christian in your own spiritual life and have any kind of success over sin. You cannot be a part-time or sort of Christian and expect to have any kind of effectiveness in the mission by just saying, well, I can go to church for an hour a week, maybe less than an hour, depending on how late you get here. And...
and continue to have success. You know, it's like saying, I can work out, you know, once a year and be really fit, right? That's foolish. You can't just go do one really hard workout once a year and expect to be healthy. It's like saying, you know what? I'm gonna eat pizza and chocolate candies and Chick-fil-A and then, but then for one of my meals, I'm gonna have a salad and I'm gonna be really healthy. No, that's not how it works.
You know, that's absolutely foolish to think that way. You know, it's foolish to think that you can have a strong and healthy marriage if you only dedicate, you know, one time a month to really investing time and energy, you know, into that marriage. You're not gonna have a healthy marriage that way with, you know, one date night or whatever else every so on occasionally. It's something that you have to be continually devoted to. You need consistency in your diet and in your exercise.
day by day to expect to be healthy, to be fit, right? You need consistency in your career in order to expect to be, have any kind of success in your career and so on, and it is the same in your spiritual life. And in your calling to be on mission for the Lord. You cannot just go to church once a week or maybe read your Bible for five to 10 minutes, two to three times a week, whatever else, and then in the rest of your life,
absolutely blend in and talk and think and act like the rest of the world and expect to be effective in the mission. There's no part-time Christians in the kingdom.
Aaron Shamp (23:14.79)
So how do we respond? We live in Babylon that is trying to get us to talk and think and act just like the Babylonians. How do we respond? Well, let's look at how Daniel and his friends respond. So one of the things that they do whenever they bring them into Babylon is there's two main things that they impose upon them, other than just the education.
So one is that they give them new names. And I didn't read that section, but in 6 and 7, it says, so they bring Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. That's their Hebrew names. It says the chief eunuch gave them new names. He gave the name Belt-Shazar to Daniel, Shadrach to Hananiah, Meshach to Mishael, and Abednego to Azariah. So one of the things they do is they give them new names, and they are expected to eat from the royal table. Right?
The new names and diets are intended not just to be superficial changes here, but are intended once again to signal a complete shift in identity, to signal a complete shift in that person's life. Their old names of Daniel and Hananiah and so on, their old names were Hebrew names, right? But they weren't just, it wasn't just like a difference in language, right?
It was a difference in significance of what those names meant. Their old Hebrew names were given to them with meanings that were connected to the worship of Yahweh. They were names that held within them the significance of being, of having that life and that person dedicated to the Lord. But then the new names that was given to them by the Babylonians were names that were no longer connected to the worship of Yahweh, but that were connected to the worship of the Babylonian gods.
They're given a new identity and along with this to eat the food from the king's table. Now here comes the problem. You see the food from the king's table, which I imagine had to have been the best food, right? But they don't want to eat it. The problem is that because they knew that the king from the food's table before it would have been placed on the table as a part of the preparation, it would have been devoted to the idols of the Babylonians, to the gods of the Babylonians. It would have been
Aaron Shamp (25:31.806)
offered to them and dedicated to those pagan gods. And so it's at this point that Daniel and his friends feel a sting of conviction in their conscience, recognizing that if they were to, you know, like I said before, speaking the Caledonian language, obviously there's nothing wrong with that, right? That's not disobeying the Lord. Reading their literature, that's not disobeying the Lord. But eating the food prepared for their gods, dedicated to their gods, they saw that and they recognized
don't think we can do that. That's participating not just in a meal, but that's participating in their worship, in their religion.
So there comes the rub. There comes the problem. The food is dedicated to those pagan gods, which is why Daniel and his friends ask if they can abstain from eating that food and have something else. So let me give you the second point that we're going to unpack that some more. The second point is this. The courageous response to the world strategy is faithful resistance. Whenever the world, whenever Babylon tries to get you to think and talk and act just like the Babylonians, the courageous response.
is faithful resistance. That's what they did here. Notice what they do, their tactic and strategy. Daniel doesn't make a public protest. Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they don't create picket signs and then start walking around the table saying, we won't eat, we won't eat. They don't start doing anything like that. They don't go on a hunger protest or hunger strike, anything like that saying.
We're not going to read our books, and we're not going to eat and do anything like that until you give us, you know, non-pagan food. They don't do anything like that. That would have been pretty counterproductive. Instead, what they do is they, as Daniel respectfully goes to the chief eunuch, the man who was in a direct authority over them, and he asks permission. He asks permission from him to say, look, we don't want to defile ourselves. You see, he's saying, look at what you've already done.
Aaron Shamp (27:36.466)
You're taking us from our homes, you're teaching us to think like you guys, to understand your literature, your philosophy and so on. You've given us new names, but at this point, this is where we just, we can't do it. So can we be, can give us permission to not have to eat that food, but to eat something else? He shows respect for the authority over him and devises a plan that will
be most successful by going to just ask permission. And then even whenever that chief eunuch says, look, I can't do that, he says, if my boss, the king, finds out that I'm not making you guys eat the same food, then I'm going to get in trouble. Something's going to happen to me. He's going to take my life. I'm going to be thrown into the dungeon. And so even then, Daniel doesn't say, well, look, you just got to do it. Or instead, he comes up with a plan. He says, how about this? Let's just do a test and see how it goes. And then ends up being successful.
Right? At the end of that test, they look great. They look better than anyone else among the other King's students. And so they're able to continue in that way. And now Daniel and his friends are able to continue living in their faithful resistance to Babylon and continue their missional presence where they are in Babylon and in Nebuchadnezzar's court. He respects the authority and he proposes a plan which ends up leading to the most success.
Because of his success though, Daniel and his friends would have stood out from among their peers at every single meal, every single day, every single meal, every single day, whenever the rest of the friends were eating that the best food that there would have been in Babylon, right? The king's food at the royal table. Whenever they are all enjoying that, Daniel and his friends were having vegetables and water rather than the royal food and wine. And every single day, at every single meal,
Whenever they all sat down among their peers, they would have been standing out to all the other students around them. And you can imagine, what would have come with that? Outright mockery, perhaps? Or maybe if it wasn't even outright mockery, maybe just talking behind their backs, maybe some light joking behind their backs or so on. You know, maybe it was direct opposition challenging them on why they wouldn't eat the food, maybe tempting them by putting some of their plates and some of their meals in front of them to see if they would take a bite, putting their cups.
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of wine before them to see just take one sip. It can't be that bad. But every single day at every single meal, they would have stood out in their commitment to faithful resistance and Babylon. But they were successful in being able to continue their faithful resistance because they stood out for the right thing, which was obedience to the Lord. Right. That's what the faithful part of resistance means. Obedience to the Lord by resisting the enemy.
It was successful because they stood up for the right thing, obedience to God, right? Something that mattered, not participating in pagan worship, but they did it in the right way. Daniel's wisdom here, because the scholars think that Daniel and his friends were most likely teenage boys, is about the age they were, somewhere 12 to 15 or so on, something we would consider either middle school or high school age. He showed an incredible amount of wisdom for his age here.
and that he devised the best plan that brought out success here, because once again, they didn't just put up a protest, they respected the authority over them and proposed that plan that gave them that success. After the examination, he found that no other student was comparable to them and to Daniel and his friends.
And that leads to history being made with this story and the stories that come afterwards in the book of Daniel, because if you know anything about the life of Daniel, and of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we have some incredible stories coming up before us. But what would have happened if they would have started to blend in just a little bit right here? Once again, just eating food, sacrifice to gods that don't exist. How bad can that be? But they decided to take a stand right here.
And because they chose not to just blend in here, they continued to stand out. And then in continuing to stand out, we get the incredible stories that come afterwards of interpreting dreams, of surviving through fiery furnaces and in the lion's den, because they didn't compromise in the little way right here. But if they would have blended in, maybe that would have led them to just blend in a little more, and a little more, and a little more, and we would have got none of that.
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but instead they chose to stand. And let us just take note of how God rewards their faithfulness. Because it's not just Daniel and his wisdom, but it was the Lord's provision, and it was the Lord's work. You see, note that number one, it says that God gave them favor with the eunuch. It doesn't say the eunuch was just a nice guy. It doesn't just say that Daniel and his friends were really cool, and so the eunuch liked them.
It says specifically, God gave them favor with the eunuch. He created the opportunity and made it effective for them to take that step of faithful resistance. And then afterwards, whenever they had looked better than all the other students, you know, if you nutritionally like that doesn't make sense, they would have been extraordinarily calorie deficient. Right. So how did they look healthier? Because that's what the eunuch was worried about. He said, you're going to look really thin. Everyone's going to know something's up.
So how do they look better than everyone else? The Lord provided. The Lord protected them. They took the steps of faithfulness, that God was placing before them, and he gave them favor, he gave them grace, he made it effective. You might say, you might look around at the small opportunities that you have for faithful resistance, the small opportunities that you have to step into mission.
or whatever else it might be and say, well, what's the point? It's not that big a deal. Once again, it is a big deal because small steps of compromise and of just choosing to blend in will continue to grow. And because God is inviting you into something in that moment. Even if it's a small resistance, even if it's a small opportunity, a small conversation, a habit that you need to install into your life, God is providing opportunity there that when you take that step,
he will bless and that he will bring about more fruit and effectiveness than you can imagine.
Aaron Shamp (34:29.762)
We are called to take a stand for God in our Babylon, just as Daniel and his friends did in their Babylon. Listen to Ephesians chapter six, whenever Paul tells us about putting on the armor of God. Do we put on the armor of God to not engage in the battle? No. Do we put on the armor of God so we can go and sit on the bench? No, we put it on so we can get into the field, so we can get into the action.
We don't put on the armor of God so that we can lay down, but so that we can stand. In Ephesians 6-11, he says, put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the schemes of the devil. You put it on so you can stand. He says, for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this darkness, against evil spiritual forces in the heavens. For this reason.
take up the full armor of God so that you may be able to resist in the evil day. And having prepared everything to take your stand.
You are called to stand for God. You are called to not just blend in your neighborhoods, in your workplaces, in your social activities, but to stand out for God. This is why he calls you to put on the armor, so you can stand. So you can be active, not passive, so that you might not just lay down and give up, but that you might resist against the evil of the world. I love what Pastor Craig Rochelle said here.
He said, if you are never standing out and you're always blending in, then you are not truly committed to follow Jesus.
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Consider your life. Are you standing out in the situations, the circles, the places that God has put you, or are you always just blending in? Maybe you've been rationalizing it and giving yourself really good reasons for blending in, but perhaps God's been calling you to stand out.
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What's the key to their success and how can we be successful? The key is in verse eight. In verse eight it said, Daniel determined that he would not defile himself with the king's food. The key word there, determined. In other translations it translates it in such a way that gives more of a nuance to saying that this was a decision made ahead of time. In other translations it says he previously decided or he predetermined.
Daniel had made a decision ahead of time that he would not defile himself. Daniel had predetermined before he got into this situation in Babylon, in Nebuchadnezzar's palace, that he would stand for God. He made the decision ahead of time. Daniel didn't wait until the food was before him to say, I don't know if I can do this or not. He didn't wait to make the decision whenever he was sitting at the table with the king's food and the king's wine.
right in front of him because in that moment he could have rationalized it. Like I said before, he could have said, you know, it's not that big a deal. It's just food. It's just idols that don't exist. You know, I guess it's OK for me to participate in this. He made the decision ahead of time. It was a predetermined resolution that he would not defile himself by taking part in any of the Babylonian worship. You see, he recognized whenever it came to the names.
He didn't put up a resistance or a protest there because, you know, he said, you can you can call me whatever you want. Right. That doesn't change who I am. There's a change what I choose to do in my commitments. But participating in worship, even if it's the small participation of eating the food sacrificed to their gods or dedicated to their gods, he says, that's too far. He may he thought about it and made the decision ahead of time. He made the resolution ahead of time that he would not partake.
so that whenever the opportunity came and he was in the situation, the decision was already made. So all he had to do was stand on that resolution. If you want to stand out for God, so much of your success will be predetermined by the decisions that you make ahead of time. Resolutions like, I will always do X or I will never do Y, right? Decisions that you make ahead of time. Don't wait
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or in the situation to make those decisions. For example, things as obvious as sexual purity in dating. For those of you guys who aren't married yet, and you're dating or you're engaged, it's making those decisions ahead of time. Not only that, I will not have any kind of sexual activity with someone that I'm not married to yet, but I will not even put myself in the situation. If you are in the backseat of the car somewhere,
It's already too late.
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Same thing with fidelity and marriage. It's making commitments and decisions, you know, that I will not spend one-on-one time with someone of the opposite sex that I am not married to. I'm not even gonna put myself in that situation. If you are already, you know, having a private lunch, a private conversation, even messages with someone online that is of the opposite sex, that is not your spouse, you've already crossed the line.
You've put yourself in the situation already. It's the same thing with conversations at work. You know, whenever everyone else starts to talk bad about the boss, whenever everyone else starts to backbite and gossip about one of the coworkers. If you didn't pre-decide already, what are you gonna do in the moment? It'll be a lot easier to just participate in the moment if you don't decide ahead of time and make that resolution. Or if it is the resolution that, that when given the opportunity,
by the Lord, I will obey him to talk about the gospel, to tell someone about Jesus. Last week, Joe Wood came here and he said that for a lot of us, what we need to do to be effective in evangelism is to plan it, to prepare for it. And one of the things that means is, is not just like orchestrating the opportunity, but every single day in your Bible reading, in your prayer time, in your devotion time as you pray, praying to the Lord, help me to see the opportunities you're putting before me.
and give me the boldness to step up into the opportunity. Every single day, praying it, making that commitment, that resolution. And then if you pre-decide that, and your eyes are more open to it, your spirit is more sensitive to God presenting those moments, you'll be more likely to speak, to be bold, to share, to give someone that word of hope, to tell someone about Jesus, to ask someone about how they're doing, to ask someone, have you considered?
going to church, I've got somewhere I'd like to take you. Have you ever thought about Jesus? Have you ever read about Jesus? And share with them the hope of the gospel. You know, things like being at church, being at your D group or your community group, being in those coffee conversations with accountability partners or other covenantal friends, making those decisions ahead of time that, you know,
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On Sunday mornings, if we are in town and we are not in our sick bed, we will be there.
you know, on X day at X time, whatever time your group is, I will be there. You make the decisions ahead of time, and it's more likely that you will step in.
That's the key to success. That was the key to Daniel's success. He pre-decided, he pre-determined that he would not defile himself. And so that helped to lead to their success. Something super practical that can help us as we resolve that we will stand for God in the Babylon that we live in today. And of course, we do this, we stand for God in our Babylon today because Jesus stood for us before the world, right? Because Jesus did not just blend in whenever he could have been given the opportunities.
He didn't just blend in, disobey the father, and then not experience the cross, not experience the persecution, but instead before the mobs and Judas that led them, he stood. Before the synagogue, sorry, before the Sanhedrin, he stood. Before Pilate, he stood. With one word, he could have avoided all of the pain of his trial, his torture and beatings, and of the cross. He could have recanted.
but he stood and all the way until being on the cross, facing the wrath of God, he still stood for you and I. And because of his stand, he ended up being crushed. He ended up being destroyed, taking on the condemnation, the consequences for our sin that we should have experienced. But because he stood and he was crushed for his stand, we are now given life.
Aaron Shamp (43:51.33)
We are now filled with his spirit that enables us to take the same kind of stand that he took. But we have the confidence of knowing that in whatever stand we might take, even if we were to be so extreme in the case of a stand that takes our life, no one can truly take our life because it is in God's hands.
And because even if someone took my life on this earth in time right now, I will be resurrected by my God because of what my savior and king did for me. So we can stand, we can make those decisions, we can be bold and hold those resolutions because Jesus stood for us. Remember, you cannot be a part-time Christian and expect to stand out and have victory. So stand since Jesus took a stand for you. Let's pray.
So Father, we come before you and we ask for your help and your blessing, your grace, Lord. Let us be encouraged by the fact that you prepared the way, that you fine-tuned the circumstances, that you gave favor with the chief eunuch for Daniel and his friends so that their Boltonism might be rewarded with success in the mission, so that their stand for faithful resistance.
would be successful, Lord, and you do the same for us today as well. Help us to recognize the Babylon that we live in and how, though we might not be participating in extraordinary wickedness, there are still small influences and small steps and small ways of blending in that we can participate in that slowly draw us away from you and make us unsuccessful in our spiritual life and ineffective in the mission that we have been given.
And so Lord, fill us with your spirit to give us grace, confidence in your plan and to give us boldness. Give us wisdom to see how to stand for the right things in the right way.
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And then when given the opportunity, equipped with the armor of God, that we might stand and that we might resist. So that you might receive the glory.
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you might receive those who are lost experiencing the gift of salvation and coming to your family. So that you might receive the glory of churches full of people singing your praise, standing upon no righteousness of our own, but only upon the righteousness of Christ that has been gifted to us in the gospel. Because he stood and by his stand we are raised up and we stand upon his work.
We thank you for that gift, Lord, and we pray these things in the name of our Savior and our King, Jesus Christ. Amen. Let us stand now together, recognizing that we have been called by God and filled by His Spirit to take a stand before the world. So as a resolution, as a pre-decision to stand before the world, let us stand together now and worship our Father.