Identity in Exile (Daniel 1:1-21)

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Good morning church, you can go ahead, grab your Bibles, open up to Daniel chapter one. As Kyle mentioned, we are starting a new series this morning in the book of Daniel. We’ll be here right up until Advent, in fact. So next 12 weeks, this is where we’ll be. So Daniel chapter one, as you’re turning there, I read a story a week or so ago. Was a very odd story. I’m just going to say that up front. So it was a Tiktok influencer who was a Trad wife, which, if you haven’t heard that before, it means a wife was like, all about kind of going back to that stereotypical 1950s ideal of womanhood, you know, the lipstick, the high heels, the Martini ready for the husband when he gets home, all that kind of stuff. So traditional wife, Trad wife, she’s doing a cooking show there on Tiktok, and in the middle of it, drops the most notorious racial slur, somewhat casually, as you’d expect, bit of a backlash, right? Everything you’d expect to happen did, in fact, happen where, you know, she lost her job, lost her sponsors, all that stuff. But then the story takes an interesting turn, because what we would expect to happen next is for all the apologies to come out, trying to kind of get back into that position of influence and everything like that, so she can make a Michael Scott apology video, whatever it’s going to look like. And instead, she doesn’t. She doubles down on the racism every video she makes now is she’s just dropping slur after slur after slur because she figures I already lost this group. So I’m gonna go ahead and try and win over the alt right group, see if I can be an influencer there. They like cooking. They like Trad wives, whatever it might be. Except that the alt right, like the Neo Nazis, don’t care for her because they don’t think her racism is authentic enough, like it’s just surface level racism, not a core belief that she’s got or something like that. So they dig around and find old tweets from like summer 2020 and stuff where she’s calling out racism as this grievous evil, which in fact, it is, of course. And so she gets canceled again on the other side, like it would be amusing if it weren’t so disgusting at the same time, because this whole story just abounds in these grotesque ironies. I mean, here you’ve got a career woman cosplaying as a Trad wife, and then who is canceled because she’s a racist, but canceled again because she’s not racist enough, and you’re like, okay, so where’s pastor going with this? Because this has nothing to do with my life. I think it has a lot to do with our lives, actually, in subtle ways, because it’s such a snapshot of our cultural moment, because we live in a culture that is unmoored adrift on a sea or, you know, like a boat where the ropes have been cut, so it’s not tied to any anchor anymore. There’s no moral foundation, there’s no truth foundation. So we are adrift. So what do we do? That means we’re on our own at that point, and so as a culture, we’re the individuals who are changing our identities the way we change clothes. That’s what we see in this woman, right? She doesn’t actually care about race, one way or the other. She doesn’t care about motherhood or anything like that. What she cares about is herself. She wants to be famous, she wants to be rich, she wants to be an influencer. She has no core convictions. She’s just vainly seeking fleeting happiness wherever she might be able to find it. And she’s willing to change herself to get it. She’s willing to compromise. She’s willing to conform to new cultures. It
is so selfish.
I mean, one question I had reading this story, and it didn’t show up in the article or anything like that, what did her husband like that. What did her husband think about this? What about her kids? Like those would be fun videos to find when they’re pulling stuff together for her funeral. It didn’t even occur to her, because, again, her community didn’t matter either. It was all about her. Are we all that different now, hopefully, when it comes to the racism, yeah, we’re different, but still, and then we live in a culture of expressive individualism. You do, you right? Whatever that is, and if it changes, fine, we’re malleable. We will change and conform to kind of fit in with whatever we think is going to give us that identity and happiness at this particular moment. So we’ve got no core convictions or identity, which means we’re constantly asking ourselves the question like Derek Zoolander staring into the puddle after he lost, you know, hottest male model, who am I? Who am I? That’s a really hard question to answer, except it feels like a really important question to answer, also like we need to get it right, or else we’re gonna end up again, maybe not quite as grotesquely ironic, but we’re gonna end up like that, Trad wife. So where are we gonna go for answers? Where can we go to find this anchor to be moored, founded again. We’re gonna head to where we’re. The odd place we’re going to head to late seventh century, Babylon and to a group of Jews who are living abroad involuntarily, I might add, these are prisoners of war. These are captives and exiles who’ve been taking there and identity. If you’ve ever lived overseas for any extended period of time, you know what I mean by this, identity takes on a new significance in exile. And so because your your culture and convictions are constantly under threat. And we see this, of course, you look at immigrant communities here in the United States, for example, often will band together, and you know, they’re gonna establish things like school so they can teach the language and the culture all of that. And so that’s kind of what we’re seeing here. The identity is under threat when it’s in exile. What can we learn from Daniel and his friends about understanding who we are and maintaining a core identity in any and every circumstance? Do that, we’re now look at three questions that Daniel answers, three questions that we need to answer as well. The first question is, in whom will you trust? In whom will you trust? Let’s look at Daniel chapter one, verses one to seven, and we’ll see how he answers this question. In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it, and the Lord delivered Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the Temple of his god in Babylonia and put it in the treasure house of his God. Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring into the king’s service some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility, young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand and qualified to serve in the king’s palace. He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians. The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that, they were to enter the king’s service. Among those who were chosen were some from Judah, Daniel Hananiah Mishael and Azariah. The chief official, gave them new names to Daniel, the name Belteshasar, to Hananiah Shadrach, to Mishael Meshach and to Azariah Abednego. Pause there. So we are in the year 605 BC, when Nebuchadnezzar first invades Judah. Now Judah is the southern half of what used to be Israel. The northern half had civil war, and Northern half gets carried away into exile by the Assyrians sometime before this, we’re in the southern half of Israel called Judah. And when he invades here in 605 he begins the first of three sets of exiles that happen under him, and it begins with the Royal and noble families. That’s usually where it happens. You take the leadership class out of a culture. And so verse one gives us what happened right there from a human perspective, in that it is all because of Nebuchadnezzar activity and authority. History is written by the victors, and here’s history from the victor’s standpoint, no other explanation is needed. Nebuchadnezzar was bigger and stronger, and he won. And then in verse two, we get the heavenly perspective, because what looked like Nebuchadnezzar activity and authority was actually God’s activity and authority. It was God, the Lord, who delivered Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into Nebuchadnezzar hand. And this is a bold statement, when you think about it too, because this is the god of vanquished Israel, saying, this is actually because of me. So there’s more going on than meets the eyes. It looks like Israel’s God is weak, that’s why his people get defeated, and why his treasures from his temple get taken and put into the temple of Babylon’s God. Like, that’s their way of saying, See, our God is stronger than your God. But no, this was according to God’s will. God gave Jehoiakim to Nebuchadnezzar. It’s actually a major theme in Daniel we’re going to see it starting even next week, that God gives and takes away kings and kingdoms he rules what look like the most powerful people on Earth are really just marionettes. And right here in verse two, we see the strings for the first time. So God may have looked weak, except he told everyone he was going to do this, which is a power move, by the way, to be able to predict what’s going to happen decades or centuries in advance, is something only a real God could do. And he told how it’s all going to end as well. So we read prophecies like this in Isaiah chapter 39 This is during a serious invasion of the northern kingdom. So this is decades before Isaiah says this The time will surely come when everything in your palace, speaking to the king of Judah here, Jehoiakim’s Ancestor, when everything in your palace and all that your predecessors have stored up until this day will be carried off to. To Babylon, which was not a world power at this point, interestingly, nothing will be left, says the Lord, and some of your descendants, your own flesh and blood, who will be born to you will be taken away, and they’ll become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon, exactly what we’re seeing right now. And so what happens after Isaiah says this to Hezekiah, the king. At that time, the kings of Judah get worse and worse, and the people of Judah turn from God. So he brings about the judgment that he promised, in fact, the judgment that He’d promised he was going to bring on them all the way back during Moses’s day, which was 800 years previously, where he talked about foreign invasions and siege life, and ultimately them being scattered among the nations, the people of Israel and Judah. They knew this, so they knew what was happening at this point. And that’s why we read statements like Second Kings, 24 verse three. This is their summary of what we just read about here in Daniel one, Surely these things happen to Judah according to the Lord’s command, because he told us he was going to do it according to the Lord’s command in order to remove, you know, these sinners from his presence, from his land. There is more going on than meets the eye. The Lord is reigning even in the hardest moments, like when your country is defeated and you’re carried off into exile, God is in control, and that is a reminder that Daniel and his friends need, because they’ve not only been taken away as prisoners of war, but they’ve also now been chosen for royal service. And look at the characteristics of these men, because these are the ones who are going to be chosen for royal service. I mean, these are up and comers who have it all. They’ve got looks, they’ve got brains, they’ve got connections. These are people who are going places which matters, because those are the sorts of people who tend to trust in themselves and in their abilities. This is like getting picked for American Idol or something like that, where you’re thinking, right? Because I’m a good singer, I’ve got chops. That’s why I’m here. So they might trust in their own abilities. They certainly are going to trust in the people who helped get them there. They’re going to trust in the talent scout and the vocal coach and their manager who’s going to turn those chops into a contract. That’s what Daniel and their friends have an opportunity to get right now. But at what cost? Because managers have a nasty habit of rebranding talent so they’re more palatable to the culture that they think they can reach. So it might be like a Trad wife turning, you know, alt right for a contract. This is a threat to one’s self. This is this is that moment when the ropes get cut and the boat is adrift. We’re attacking our very integrity. But what’s interesting here is that this isn’t something freely chosen. Of course. It’s not like they said. I want to be rich and famous, so I’ll do whatever it takes to get there. No, this is being inflicted on them. They’re being trained for three years. This is what we would call re education, which is not necessarily a good thing. This is honestly this Braveheart in action. Y’all remember Braveheart while ago? All right, so a lot of good lines in this movie. One of my favorite ones, my brothers and I, we are of Scottish descent. We quoted a lot. And so we said, the trouble with Scotland is that it’s full of Scots.
And that’s kind of what’s happening here. The Babylonians are looking at these Judeans, and they’re saying, the trouble with these Judeans is that they’re full of Judah. They’ve got the culture of Judah in them, and that’s what we need to get rid of here, so we’ve defeated God’s people militarily. Now we’re going to defeat them psychologically, personally, so they are utterly vanquished. I mean, just look what’s happened. They’ve been isolated from their home culture and influence. They’re being indoctrinated at this point, right? They’re being taught the language and literature of Babylon. They’re being compromised because they’re given food and drink. Gonna go out and live here and guess it’s probably not kosher food and drink, so they shouldn’t be eating it, drinking it, being compromised and confused as well, especially when it comes to changing their names. I mean, you think about how important your name is to your identity, and many of us carry many names. Like to live with two names is not unusual. You probably have more than two honestly, right? Most people call me Brandon. Some people in this room call me Pastor when I was a teacher down in Columbia for all those years I was Cooper, that whole time makes sense, right? Be coops sometimes. And then my family, my dad and my brothers in particular, they call me goose. That’s it. I’ve never called me anything else, to the best of my knowledge, and so that’s fine, like all those different names. But. Still is me, at least like, I know who’s being talked about in those times. That’s not what we have here. This isn’t like Daniel and Danny Boy, you know. No, it’s something totally different. This is more like when you’re the freshman who makes the varsity team, and the varsity captain gives you the nickname that’s meant to be insulting, and it just sticks with you. Even when you’re captain of the varsity team, everybody still calls you captain, stinky, something like it look. That’s what just happened to Daniel and his friends. They’ve been given a new name, a new identity, to show Babylon’s authority over them and to erase their cultural heritage and their identity. It also confers new status on them, like again, this is their moment to become up and comers, because it is the shift to from the Old God to the new gods. So all of the names that these men have, they all somehow exalt the one true God. You see the word el in the ends of two of them, right? Daniel and Mishael. That’s how you say God. And then you see the yah at the other two names. And that’s Yahweh, the covenant name of our God. Well, that’s all getting erased. Remember, he was the weak God. Anyway, you probably want a better God. And all the names that they’re given in their place have Babylonian god names in them, Bel and Nebo and Marduk and all the rest. So this is this seductive invitation, as much as it is a changing of their their identity, like why not trust the strong gods who brought you here? And so it’s a moment of truth for these men. They don’t have to live life and tension from here on out again. They don’t need to choose their names when they’re standing before the king, so they got two names now two identities. They’re serving in the Babylonian court, but they also want to be faithful Jews. In the meantime, that’s interesting. We’ll see even by verse 11, just in a few verses, they still call each other by their Jewish names, but then at other times, when they’re in the Babylonian call, they call each other about the Babylonian names, like they get it. I actually kind of love that, because they’re they’re loving their neighbors, like they’re okay with the nickname that culture has given them. Is they, we know they’re familiar with Jeremiah because Daniel quotes it later and stuff. But you know, like they get Jeremiah 29 when it says, You be carried off in the exile of Babylon and hey, love that city. Well, I send you like, plant gardens, build houses, dig into the culture and influence. That’s what they’re doing. They’re loving their neighbors. They’re loving Babylonia while staying Jewish. But man, that is a hard balance to strike. If we do it, we have to answer the question first, in whom will you trust? Will it be your strength, your wealth, your fame? Will you trust your circumstances so that when it looks like your God lost the battle, you stick with him or abandon him? Or do you trust that God is sovereignly arranging circumstances which can look like defeat? It is actually kind of the centerpiece of Christianity, the defeat of Christ on the cross, which was actually, of course, his victory over sin and Satan and death. But trusting in any of that circumstances, the idols that the world offers us, and trusting in any of that to fulfill your deepest longings, to provide security. You do that your life will lack stability. You’re the kind of person who will become racist in order to get famous. That’s what happens there, because we live in unstable circumstances, so trusting in anything that’s built on those circumstances, well, that’s building your house on sand, like you trust in marriage or Parenthood to give you your sense of self. What happens if the marriage crumbles, or your kids just leave home like they’re supposed to at a certain point? Now, who are you? Or you’re trusting in your achievements, right? Your grades, but then you graduate, or your your, you know, athletic prowess, but then you stop playing sports after a while, because you get old, like the rest of us, you compromise yourself to try and get your selfish desires in. Whom will you trust? Will you trust? I mean, you really are. What gets you, what you want, or will you trust? God, Daniel makes his choice, which leads us to the next section, very closely related, right? In whom will you trust? Second question, on what will you depend? And here’s the difference between these two questions. The first one is really a matter of the head and the heart, like, what am I thinking? What am I willing? But then this question is a question of the hands. What am I doing at this point on? What will you depend? Let’s keep reading verses eight to 16. But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the Royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. Now God had caused the official to. Owe favor and compassion to Daniel. The official told, Daniel, I’m afraid of my lord the king who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you. Daniel then said to the guard and the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, please test your servants for 10 days, give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink, then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food and treat your servants in accordance with what you see. So he agreed to this and tested them for 10 days. The end of the 10 days, they looked healthier and better nurse than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables. Instead, there are three aspects of Daniel’s character that stand out in this section. And the first one is, without question, his firm purpose. He takes decisive action in this moment, he resolved. It says, And this is not a New Year’s resolution, but something much deeper that’s happening here. It’s the difference between somebody who says around January 1, yeah, I think I want to drink a little bit less, and then somebody who joins AA, like, that’s the difference, okay? And Daniel’s in that latter court. This is a true resolution. I’m not going to do this because I’m not going to lose my identity. He knew what Babylon was trying to do, and he was committed to standing against it, and I love that he makes the decision before it matters. That’s a really important lesson for all of us, especially for the youth. We know that, right? But for all of us too, because culture is going to squeeze us into its mold, and culture is constantly pressuring us to to dress a certain way, or to laugh at certain jokes, to participate in certain activities that we know we shouldn’t participate in, and we have to decide up front to purpose in our hearts, like Daniel does. So let me just give you an example. Here. You may be somebody you know, teen heading off to college soon, and you go, you know what? I’m not gonna do, underage drinking. When I get to college, I’m gonna be in submission to the governing authorities. Legal age is 21 that means I will not drink until I am 21 when do you think you got to make that decision? Do
you think the summer before or when somebody offers you a beer at your first frat party? Like which one of those is going to stick? Do you think that’s what I mean by preparing yourself like Daniel prepares himself for what’s coming with this resolution. I’m not going to do it. This is who I’m going to be, just such a lost art today, the power of true resolution. So Jonathan Edwards, arguably the greatest mind the United States, has produced. He wrote a series of resolutions when he was 18. By the way, 18, they say things like this, resolve never to do anything but that which tends to the glory of God. Tough resolution to keep, by the way, but that was his resolution, resolve to live as I will wish I had when I come to die, the amazing resolution, by the way, I love that. That’s what you see in Daniel here, who is in high school. By the way, like this is fitting when I talk about youth and whatnot. Daniel’s in high school, but you can hear it in his heart resolve never to let Babylon defile me, no matter what the consequences may be. But why is the question we’re probably all asking, what’s the big deal about the choice food and wine. Why vegetables and water? Is it that they’re not kosher? Well, sure, but nothing in Babylon is kosher. Has it been offered to Babylonian idols? Yes, absolutely, it has, because they offered all of their food to the idols, but that means the vegetables also. So it doesn’t really matter there either. Is it intrinsically evil, the meat and the wine or something like that, probably not, because Daniel actually eats it later, kind of once he’s made his revolution. Go back to the underage drinking example. It’s just like I did not drink until I was 21 and now I’m cool with a glass of wine with a fine steak, something like that. So Daniel eats it later, so it can’t be intrinsically evil. So why? The answer is closely tied to this story, of course, because what’s happening here, Daniel’s being prepared for service by the king, and so if Daniel and his friends prosper, then it will be because of what, because of Babylon and Babylon King Daniel is zealous for God’s honor. So he wants to prove to himself. He wants to know himself, that it was God’s favor that led to his prosperity. He wants to know it. He wants to show it also. He wants everyone else to see. He Nope, this was my God, not the Babylonian king who is responsible for this. And that’s what leads to the next character traits. We see his firm resolve, on the one hand, but then second, his modesty as he sets his plan in motion, Daniel doesn’t rail and rage against the evil culture that he’s a part of. Now, if you’re here today and not a church goer, let me ask you this, and don’t look at the person next to you, just in case it’s them. But have you ever met an obnoxious Christian? Lucky? They are everywhere, unfortunately, and this is what it looks like, right? Like it’s clear they hate the people around them, the culture that is trying to defile them. That’s not Daniel. Daniel doesn’t go to the garden. Say I’m not eating your food. I might have nothing to do with you. I’m pulling my kids out of your school, whatever else it looks like. No, he doesn’t do any of that. He asks permission really respectfully, I might add, if I could put it this way, it’s gonna sound political. I don’t mean it politically, but he works within the system to live a countercultural life. It’s a lesson for us. The culture around us should see Jesus not only in our firm resolve and our counter cultural living, but also in our counter cultural loving, in our gentle spirits, that is, we should actually look like Jesus, who I think I could put this way again, worked within the system to the point where the system killed him, which was all part of his plan. Anyway, when he was reviled, He did not revile. In return, he were paid insult with blessing. This is what we’re called to be right. We are to be in the world, not of it, but in the world, still loving our neighbors, loving even our enemies. The chief official, though, is concerned, because his neck is quite literally on the line. And you see that Daniel’s modesty again, and that he’s unwilling to risk the safety of someone else. He’s not okay with some random guard dying, even though this guard is holding him prisoner, with this guard dying for his sake. So he levels down, he goes from the chief official to the guard and tells this guard His plan, you notice? He says, Please, there it is again, right? That’s his modesty, his politeness. He says, please. But he’s got this plan test us for 10 days. He’s not going to see Nebuchadnezzar in 10 days. So we got three years still, right? So just give us 10 days, see if this works, and then King’s not going to know. Well, nobody’s health is on the line at this point. If we look worse, we won’t endanger you, he says. But in that plan, we see the third characteristic, so his firm resolve, his modesty, but third his confidence. Daniel proposes this plan because he knows that God will show him favor, because God is who He always is, a God of compassion and grace. You see it in verse nine. Now, God had caused the official to show favor and compassion. Again. Why is this happening? It’s because God is faithful. Daniel is confident that God would act to show his power and to glorify himself. Now this is not an unconditional confidence, but that’s chapter three. So hang on, come back. I’ll see you in two weeks. We’ll talk about it more there, but we’d see the confidence here, and it is the confidence again, that comes from living for God’s glory, like if you are seeking your own glory, you can have no confidence. You could sell your soul to be a Tiktok influencer among the alt right and still not be famous at the end of it. But if what you’re doing is for the glory of God, Well that brings a different confidence entirely. We need to build our lives on a solid foundation, on the foundation of a God who keeps His promises and who gives us all the desires of our hearts. In the end, part of that, of course, involves him reworking the desires of our hearts that they’re in tune with him, but he gives us the desires of our hearts. It is a promise of Scripture. You see, though, that for Daniel, this is not a momentary reaction. It can’t be a momentary reaction from us either. It needs to be the settled purpose of our hearts. And you see what they’re doing in this moment. They are training themselves for this. They are growing in this. Daniel Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they were not born heroes. That’s so important for us to remember the rest of the book, the lion’s den, the fiery furnace, all those moments where we go, wow, these people are amazing. That’s only. Because Daniel and his friends chose early and then grew in the grace that God gave them. I think it’s so important, too to mention that that was Daniel and his friends like I wonder. It’s not here in Scripture, in this passage, anyway, but if it had just been Daniel, would he have done what he did? And that just gets the importance of the church community that we need. But this little community of exiles chose early and chose with a firm resolution, what about you? Takes us then to the third and last question for what will you live? Verses 17 to 21 read the rest of the chapter to these four young men. God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning, and Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds. At the end of the time, set by the king to bring them into his service, the chief official presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. The King talked with him, and he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. So they entered the king’s service in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them 10 times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom. And Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus. This is a very subtly subversive passage, because it looks like Babylon has won again,
because everything that the king wanted back in verse four is accomplished here, right? I want these sorts of men. Here are these sorts of men now. But here’s the subversive part. It is so clear that it is God who gave them the knowledge and understanding, even of Babylonian religious literature, God gave them knowledge and understanding, not the king. Just like God gave the kingdom to that King. He didn’t win it for himself. And we know God gives it, even if we’re like, I don’t know. Maybe this is just like a Jewish retelling of this story or something. We know that he gives it because only Daniel was given the ability to interpret dreams and visions, as we will see throughout the rest of the book. That’s not something you learn in school. That is a divine a supernatural gift the Babylonians can’t teach it, which is why, then Daniel has no equal among his advisors. King finds them 10 times better than the magicians. You might know them better as the Magi and enchanters. What is this passage telling us? All that’s telling us is this is the one true religion, and that paganism doesn’t hold a candle to it, and paganism can’t do what God can do. But simply by going, here you go, Daniel, here’s what the vision means. Wait till we see this next week, by the way, it’s me really exciting. Make sure you come back for that. So Daniel and friends trusted in the Lord depended on him for life and learning, and now Daniel sets about living for God’s name and glory and honor like he’s in service to King Nebuchadnezzar, absolutely, but he’s really in service to the King of kings, which is a Babylonian title, by the way, we’ll see it next week. So it’s a little bit like work for us today. This is a wonderful passage to take with you tomorrow morning when you head off to work, because we all work for a company. Insert company name here, but really, we work as for the Lord. That’s what Daniel is doing here. We will see it again and again and again and again throughout this book, that Daniel and friends are consciously living for God above all that is why they get into trouble, why the company sometimes decides to execute them, which hopefully your company does not do, but that’s why they get tossed into a lion and thrown into a fiery furnace and all that, though, despite the fact that they’re not living in defiance like they are set apart in terms of their faith and lifestyle, yes, but not in terms of their rebellion, let’s say like they are truly serving Babylon and Kyle said it for us earlier, like this is exactly what we try to do here at Cityview, our tagline where we made to magnify, sent to serve the made to magnify. That’s the countercultural part. That’s the firm resolution, that’s the being trained and prepared. But we do all that so that we can then be sent to serve the people around us, our neighbors, even our enemies, and we see the culmination of Daniel’s work, his truly serving the Babylonians centuries after his death in about the year two BC, in a little town about seven miles outside of Jerusalem Matt. Matthew tells us what happens after Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw a star when it rose. We’ve come to worship him. How did they know what was happening now? Is it 100% guaranteed that it was Daniel who did this? No, but it is really, really likely, because you see the position of authority and influence that Daniel had, Daniel read the prophecies, taught the prophecies to the people around him. Of course, it prophesied him self. They knew his character, the Babylonians and the Persians who supplanted them, they knew his character. They trusted his wisdom, and so they paid attention to these prophecies, ones like Micah, where it says a little town of Bethlehem, a ruler is going to come out of you. This helps us. This helps us, like seeing where it culminates in Bethlehem, because it reminds us, and I’m have to remind us of this throughout this series, that Daniel is not the hero of this story. Like, let me just help you with the Old Testament as a whole here, all the characters you know and love are never the hero of the story. God is the hero of every story in the Old Testament, and that’s true with Daniel also. So Daniel’s not the hero of this story, but he did point the people he served to the hero of every story, even in exile, even as a prisoner of war. And we got to ask the question like, how was he able to do this, why not give in to bitterness and hatred towards the people who have stolen you from your land? The answer is, he knew whose he was. Daniel had something that Babylon couldn’t take from him, and it was his trust in the Lord, and that trust bred hope in his heart, instead of bitterness or hatred. When I say hope, what I mean is something like this. This is a quote from Vaclav Havel, who was a Czech dissident during the time of the Soviet empire, and was actually eventually the first president of Czechoslovakia, back when that was a thing, and he writes this when he’s fighting for Czech independence. He says hope is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced. That’s a long way of saying circumstances. Transcends circumstances and is anchored, not on moored, anchored somewhere beyond its horizons. I love this. Then hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out. And that is a little different than Christian hope, because, of course, we know things will turn out well in the end, we know how the story ends, but we don’t know how our story ends, and it might not go well. We don’t know if the Soviet empire will fall while we’re fighting for independence. That kind of a hope that there is meaning, regardless of how it turns out, is exactly Daniel’s perspective, and we actually can see it, just this tiny little hint of it in the last verse. Hint of it in the last verse, Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus. And why do we mention Cyrus’s first year here? Daniel actually lived longer. We have a vision from the third year of King Cyrus that we’ll come to in a few weeks. So why I mention that first year? Because that’s the year the exiles return to Jerusalem. Do you see it? Daniel outlived exile. He outlasted exile. And what a word for us so often in need of hope and trying circumstances, the exile will end like we know how the story ends, but now our story ends. Daniel outlasted exile. Daniel never goes home. He dies in Persia, still
so, so what? It
didn’t shake him, because he lived for something beyond himself. He lived for God and His Kingdom, and it is ironic, but thinking of yourself less is the key to maintaining your identity, because you can’t be shaken then you have a higher purpose beyond yourself. Daniel was firm, resolved in all that he did because his life wasn’t about him. He trusted someone else, depended on somebody else, and lived for somebody else. So again, we ask that question, Who am I? And then we try and craft an identity to answer. It may lead to conforming to our culture, compromising with. Our beliefs. Daniel didn’t ask, who am I? Am I? Daniel or Belteshazzar? No, Daniel asked, whose am I? Whose am I? He had an identity outside of himself, and it was an identity that was conferred on him. It was given to him. You are a child of God, and that can’t be lost. Robert read it for us earlier, right? There’s an inheritance that is kept for us in heaven, which means no one here can touch it. Don’t spoil, perish, fade, be stolen, anything like that. That is kind of the big idea for us today. Like, if you had a takeaway from today, it is this, if you want a stable identity in an unstable culture, no matter the circumstances right, remember whose you are. If you want a stable identity in an unstable culture, don’t ask, who am I? Ask, whose am I? Get over yourself and get into Christ. That’s how you anchor your soul, by the way, get over yourself, get into Christ, but get into community also, right? That’s still a key part of all this like, that’s how you keep that culture going. Get into a church. So if you are here this morning and believe like, you are all in on Jesus, remember that you are living in exile. You are not an American, whatever else you may be, first and foremost, only secondarily, you are a citizen of heaven. Philippians three, verse 20, and that then means what, again, Robert read for us in first Peter one that you are chosen exiles. We are living in exile. So what’s our application? Takeaway, live well in exile like Daniel. Peter goes on to tell us what this should look like. One of the most important verses in the New Testament about how we do evangelism and outreach. It’s this First Peter, 211, and 12, I urge you as foreigners and exiles to abstain from sinful desires. Resolve not to be defiled. Abstain from sinful desires. Wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. They may see your good deeds and trust you so much that they would read your prophecies six centuries later to figure out where the real King of Kings is going to be born like. This is a description of Daniel’s life. It should be a description of ours as well. But if we’re going to do this, it takes preparation, it takes a firm resolve. It takes the power of community, but that’s what will shape us to be a faithful presence in the world, not resisting culture exclusively, not compromising with culture, but reaching culture. But man, that’s a high bar. Just Just go live like Daniel. Actually go live like Jesus. Even better. Now, let me pray for us, right like the reality is we all get squeezed. We have all compromised, and the point of this story isn’t Daniel’s faithfulness, although it is a model for us absolutely but the point isn’t Daniel’s faithfulness, but God’s faithfulness and his favor and the grace that He has given us. So when we fall, when we don’t live well in exile, we remember that we can trust in the greater than Daniel, who was himself exiled for our sakes Jesus’s home is heaven, the throne of God, right? And he willingly left it. He was not carried away as a prisoner of war. He willingly left his home culture. We could put it that way, to come and live among us, not to be compromised, not to, you know, resist it absolutely and just yell at everybody, hooraying everybody who walks by, but to reach the culture, ultimately, to die for the very people who killed him. You and me, we get just a hint of the beauty of that gospel in verse four. Do you remember the kind of people that Nebuchadnezzar was looking for, young men without any physical defect? It’s a very specific word that’s used there. It gets used quite a bit in the Old Testament. It does not get used of handsome young men. You know, who gets used of
sacrifices?
This is the sacrifice you were supposed to have. You’re supposed to bring a lamb, a goat, whatever it is you’re bringing without defect. That’s not us. We are not young men and women. Right, even if you are a young man or woman without defect, we got flaws. Not talking physically, I am talking spiritually. And so we remember this. First Peter once more. Peter is the great apostle to the exiles. First Peter 118 and 19, for you know you were redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, a Lamb without blemish or defect. It is His perfect life in exile that we trust in. Of course, we strive to live like Him, but when we fail, we rest in the knowledge that there is grace it depends on his performance and not ours. Now if you’re here this morning and questioning, perhaps somebody invited you because, you know, we got a picnic after know, we got a picnic afterwards. So great time to come to church, all that good stuff. What should you take away? One thing is, I would say, pay attention. Maybe it’s even to the people who invited you like see if that first Peter verses is true of them. Do their lives look different? And if so, why? And maybe just inquire about a great conversation to have at lunch. But the other takeaway here is that the key to that stable identity is the gospel of Christ, Jesus, the Lamb without defect, who was slain in our place like quit trying on new identities. Quit trying to find yourself and express yourself. Quit trying to figure out who am I, but ask whose you could be if you were to trust in Jesus. And then just think of the freedom and joy that would be yours when you have that identity kept in heaven, untouchable by this world, let’s pray, Father, we long to live well for your name’s sake. We long to see you exalted and glorified in our lives. We long to live well in exile so that we reach the people around us. The reality is that we don’t always and we know that we confess it, Lord, we confess our failures. At times we have been squeezed into the world’s mold, and we thank you Lord, that we have the assurance of pardon, because there was one without defect who came and took our place and guide the death we deserved so that we could receive the welcome that he won for us. May we trust in Him now, and may that trust breed hope in us and the fruit of a changed life for those who are here and questioning, Lord, I pray that you would open eyes to see your goodness and grace, that you would be drawing them to yourself even now we pray in Christ’s name, Amen.