Consistency is Key

In a culture constantly trying to shift our values, consistency in God's Word and prayer is the ultimate solution.

In this sermon on the book of Daniel, Pastor Wade Burgess examines the life of Daniel through both a micro and macro lens across three pivotal chapters (Daniel 1, 6, and 9). Moving past surface-level familiarity with these well-known stories, Pastor Wade outlines how Daniel maintained an uncompromising faith, from his youth to his 80s, by demonstrating respect for authority, unwavering consistency, and a deep commitment to intercessory prayer. Discover how living out daily, practical obedience equips us to stand firm and glorify God in our own communities.

In this episode, we cover:

• Youth & Boundaries (Daniel 1): How Daniel demonstrated respect for authority and confidence in his convictions from a young age.
• Consistency Under Pressure (Daniel 6): Examining Daniel’s untarnished trustworthiness and daily prayer habits in the face of political traps and the lion's den.
• Intercessory Prayer (Daniel 9): Unpacking Daniel’s heart of repentance, humility, and prayer "for God's sake" amidst news of coming judgment.
• Macro Lessons for Modern Believers: Why we must not waver from absolute truth, the impact of intentional parenting, and keeping faith without adopting doom-and-gloom attitudes.
• Living Examples Over Debates: How real-life experiences and consistent actions speak louder to an unbelieving world than mere arguments.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:04

This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God. For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.

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God, thank you for what you've done. Thank you that if we used all of the oceans and turned them into ink, we could not write all the things you've done. You've saved us. And it was your idea. Not because of who we are, but because of what you've done. And it wasn't because of anything we had done, all because of who you are. That's what you did. And if that weren't enough, you demonstrated yourself just this year alone with new life, calling life home to you, with recovery, remission, support, comfort, light in the darkness. God, you've done all of that. That's just a year. Thank you for how long you've done it. Thank you for your consistency. So, God, I pray for your consistency this morning that you will once again open your word, illuminate our minds and our hearts with it. Let us have application and live out what you're calling us to. Let us understand from the holy word of you, God, how we're supposed to live, what it looks like when we do. God, we recognize we are not where we ought to be at times. We recognize that you're not done with us. But we also praise you that we're not where we used to be because of you and your salvation. I pray all of this in your name, Jesus. Amen. Well, good morning. If you were expecting our lead pastor Neil McClendon, let me say, so was I. Neil contacted me last night and uh he has an illness. I guess uh he started his New Year's Eve one night too early. So we will get through this together. No, he is um he is suffering from uh, I think catching a bug that's kind of going around. And so that hit him last night. And uh here we are together. Now, I recognize that today we could talk a little bit about New Year's resolutions and things. I'm not about resolutions, I'm about solutions. Amen. All right, so uh here's my suggestion to you related to New Year's resolutions. Don't make those. Do this instead. And Clyde kind of uh sort of mentioned this a little bit before we sang that song. He said, Hey, think back about all the things that have done. Uh I got this from an author named Tim Ferris, and he says, perform a PYR, a prior year review. I think that's a great thing to do over the next few days. Just asking, God, where were you that I might have missed you? Where was it that I demonstrated you to others? Where did I miss it? What is it that you did for me? Let me be reminded of that. That prior year review, I think, sets us up well for what we're going to talk about today. And it is consistency is the key. How do we live the Christian life with consistency? Not resolutions, but instead solutions, and not necessarily solutions that we would come up with, but instead just living day to day the way the Bible demonstrates to us. Now we're going to use the biblical character Daniel to do this. And for a lot of you, this is going to be very familiar. Let me challenge you with this. Let's not let the familiarity blind us to maybe a new revelation today. Let us not say, oh, yeah, I know those names. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know all about that. I want you to listen as best you can with new ears today. Under this umbrella of consistency is key. Now let me warn you, we're going to read three separate passages here. And it's going to be a little bit long. I'll stop after each one and unpack those uh for us. And um, we'll go through that. That's not an apology that we're gonna use the Bible a lot, it's just a recognition of that. So turn in your Bibles if you would, or you can follow on the screens behind me to Daniel. If you go to Psalms and just kind of hang aright a few chapters over, if you go to the New Testament, go back to the left, uh, just past Jeremiah. So take a look at Daniel chapter one. We're gonna read verses one through 16 first, and let's see as we look at this idea of a macro and micro lens honing in on the character of Daniel. So let's read together Daniel chapter 1, starting in verse 1. In the third year of the reign of Joachim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord delivered Joachim, 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 in the treasure house of his God. Then the king ordered Ashbanaz, chief of his court officials, to bring in 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 these were some from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Meshael, and Azariah. The chief official gave them new names. To Daniel, the name Belshazzar, to Hananiah, Shadrach, to Meshael, Meshach, to Azariah, Abednego. But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine. He asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. Now God had caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel, but 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, whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Meshael, and Azariah, Please test your servants for ten 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 ten days. At the end of the ten days, they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. So the guard took away their choice food and wine, and they were to give them vegetables instead. Now, a friend of mine recently told me, he said, Wade, a vegetarian and a vegan jumped off a cliff. Who do you think won? And I went, I don't know. And he said, society. This is not a uh a reading about veganism or anything else. As Rudy's likes to say, I'd inclined to the top of the food chain to eat vegetables, although I like vegetables. That's not the only intake, but that's not what this is about. Let's take a look at this micro lens. Let's really zoom in on Daniel, and I want us to see what was it like for Daniel in his youth. Now, at this point in the story, Daniel is about 14 years old. He's been separated from family, from his home, even his name. It tells us everything was trying to be stripped away from him. But in this micro lens, what do we see? Well, I think we see a couple of things. Number one, we see a respect for authority. Look at verse 8 with me. It says, But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine. And here it is, and he asked the chief official for permission. Now, a lot of people today, they don't ask for permission, they just start showing out. I tell you what, you're not gonna tell me what to do. I'll be the one to decide. I Daniel had lost everything. He probably had a pretty decent excuse to rail against authority. You're not gonna take over. You've I tell you what, you're not gonna change my name. And instead, he went along with these things, but yet didn't defile himself and still was asking for permission. May I? Could we try this? What if we were? Sometimes that might be the way we ought to be with our boss, who is an unbeliever, perhaps maybe a taskmaster, or maybe that's the way we ought to be with kids we go to school with, instead of giving in uh in a way that puts a barrier between us, perhaps we ought to be respecting authority a little bit more. Whether or not we agree with it, it doesn't change our position, nor our showing respect. And that's what Daniel demonstrated to us. Now, it might be the teacher at school or the guy in the big white house on Pennsylvania Avenue, or it might not be, but it is a respect for authority. It would be real easy for people to lump us as Christians in along with everyone else. Oh, see, they just rail in too. I mean, even Jesus had some zealot, right? Didn't he have somebody that was politically against everyone? Yeah, he did, but I promise you, he still insisted on a respect for authority. The second thing we see in Daniel at this point in the story, this micro lens, we see a confidence in his belief. Look at verses 12 and 13. Now, look, Daniel's going out on a limb here, okay? And it demonstrates that. He says, Please test your servants for 10 days. Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. I mean, 10 days. That's not a lot of time, okay? Keto, I think, says, take 30 before it kicks in. I mean, this is not a lot of time. And he says, 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. He had confidence in his belief. Now, this is what was probably going to happen. Daniel and his friends eat the vegetables, drink the water. If they lose any weight, any muscle mass, anything like that, they're going to be up a real creek. Because anything Daniel asked for in the future, likely this guard is going to go, you mean like what happened last time? Daniel had confidence in his belief. I think we ought to ask ourselves, what would have given Daniel that kind of confidence? Now, I believe what gave Daniel that kind of confidence was experience. Certainly, I believe in Revelation. We're going to talk a little bit about that in a minute. I think Daniel was being prompted by God and his spirit, yes, but I also believe that experience told him, I think Daniel, even in his youth, was experiencing intimacy with God. He knew. It's what I call kind of that tightness in your chest that you get when that spirit gets on you and you're like, oh, I'm supposed to do something. I think Daniel had already experienced that for a while now. And likely he had said yes to some and no to some, and he knew the difference in those. And I think at this point, he probably experienced that little tightness and said, Oh, I don't know if I can eat and drink the things you're given. In fact, I'm going to start separating myself. And here's the first way I'm going to do it. I bet his prayer life was consistent and his time of listening to God was constant. You don't respond this way in that setting unless that's true. Prayer life consistent and your time with God constant. Well, let's fast forward the story just a little bit. And I want us to look at, okay, so this was youth, but what happens when Daniel was in charge? So let's look at that micro lens, and I want you to flip a few pages over for me. Let's take a look at Daniel chapter six. Now I'm going to read verses one through four to kind of set it, and then we're going to fast forward to verse 12, okay? So stay with me as we as we do that. So this is Daniel chapter 6, starting in verse 1. It pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel. The satraps were made accountable to them so that the king might not suffer loss. Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exemption, excuse me, exceptional qualities, that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. At this, the administrators and satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel and his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy, and neither corrupt nor negligent. By the way, they find no fault in him, might be one way you would read it. That should maybe sound familiar. Let's fast forward now. Move over to verse 12. So these folks are out to get Daniel. He's not doing what they want him to do, right? He's kind of showing them up. He's showing up and showing out, but in a right way. Here we are in verse 12. So they went to the king and spoke to him about his royal decree. Did you not publish a decree that during the next thirty days anyone who prays to any God or man except to you, O king, would be thrown into the lion's den? You can hear the setup, right? Isn't it true? The king answered, The decree stands in accordance with the laws of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed. Then they said to the king, Daniel, who's one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or to the decree you put in writing. He still prays three times a day. When the king heard this, he was greatly distressed. He was determined to rescue Daniel and made every effort until sundown to save him. Then the men went as a group to the king and said to him, Remember, O king, that according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, no decree or edict that the king issues can be changed. So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lion's den. The king said to Daniel, May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you. A stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den, another familiar verse there. And the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the rings of his nobles, so that Daniel's situation might not be changed. Then the king returned to his palace and spent the night without eating and without any entertainment being brought to him, and he could not sleep. At the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lion's den. When he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice, Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve, continually been able to rescue you from the lions? And Daniel answered, O king, live forever. My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight, nor have I ever done anything wrong before you, O king. The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God. What does it look like when Daniel is in charge? Now, at this point in our story, Daniel is somewhere around 70, maybe 80 years old. He's been separated, remember, from family, from home, from his name. And in this particular micro lens that we're looking at, we see an attempt has been made to even separate him from his faith. So what do we see when Daniel is in charge? Well, I think first what we see is trustworthiness. Take a look at verse 4. Way back in verse 4, we read at this the administrators and satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. In today's society, when you can't hardly blink without finding something wrong with certain people that are in charge, they're actually looking really hard. I mean, they got the full FBI background check on this guy, and they can't locate anything. And they're like, man, what are we gonna do? We can't even get him. Daniel was so trustworthy that even his enemies said, I got nothing on him. Daniel never thought, I think this. Daniel never thought, you know what? This place owes me. I mean, I've been here for a long time now. They took me from my home, took my name. You know what? I'm gonna start taking mine back. Maybe a pen or pencil from work, maybe that. I tried to take a fax machine once and I got caught at the door, but maybe it's a few extra miles of my expense report. By the way, it never starts real big. Do you ever notice trustworthiness when you lose it? It never starts huge. It's never, oh my gosh, how did they steal a million dollars all at once? It always starts with that little seed, that little, that little glimpse of, ooh, if I, what if this little thing, this little what if I were to take a glance at my classmates' test? You know, I started the new year. I mean, I had a little bit of a rough last year, but I'm gonna rebound this time. Maybe just a little, let me just check my answers. Does he have B? I have B, oh, you don't have B. Daniel was trustworthy in everything he did. The next thing we can see is he was consistent. Look at verses 16 and 20. Let's look at verse 16 first. Now, so the king gave the order, and I think this is very interesting, by the way. So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lion's den. The king said to Daniel, May your God, whom you serve continually rescue you. By the way, that that's fascinating to me. We'll get back to that in just a second. Look down at verse 20. And this is the king, when he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice, Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve, continually been able to rescue you from the lions. Now, don't miss this. This is a guy who has just ordered a 30-day decree that nobody worships anything but him. And he's saying to an exile, not even somebody from his own country, that you might say, well, he stood up for him, or he had, not at all. He watched Daniel's consistency so much that he said, Daniel, the God that you continually serve, may he save you. I think, now, I'm not sure about this, but it's just my guess. This is probably one of the few places you're going to find in the Bible where a non-believer is saying, I sure hope God does what you want him to. Most of the time we read stories about them saying, No, I don't want God doing, my heart is hardened or whatever. And instead we see this guy saying, Whew, I hope that God you pray to is going to save you. That's how consistent Daniel was. I mean, he said twice, can that you continually serve. How big of a demonstration must Daniel have been making? Well, my answer to that would be, I bet it wasn't very big. I bet it wasn't showy. I think it was just consistent. The guys that were out to get him said, Man, he does it three times a day. Can you believe that? I mean, shoot, I've talked to some people and they're like, yeah, I got too busy to pray. I realized three days later I hadn't even prayed. This guy's doing it three times a day. The consistency is what we see in that micro lens as we zoom in on that. I think many times we think that we're like others, we'll have, you know, better relationships, and that'll produce opportunities to witness, and we'll make sure that people like us first, and then we'll be able to tell them, you know, where we go to church and we'll invite them and we'll do those things. Daniel didn't wait for that. Daniel shows this idea that we need to be consistent in our faith, and that produces a greater testimony. We're going to talk more about that when we kind of pull the lens back and look at a micro lens of this whole story together. But Daniel is demonstrating I didn't have to do anything great, I just had to be consistent. He also, I think, points out to us, by the way, that there's a difference between who you work for and who you answer to. You hear the difference? Who I work for might be that person in that particular office. Who I answer to, well, that might be the creator of the universe. Continuing this micro lens view, I want us to look at what do we see when Daniel has revelation of desolation? Now that sounds kind of uh maybe ominous, but uh let's take a look here. Now, are you still with me for just a few minutes longer? This would only go maybe five or twenty, I'm not sure, but uh let me read to you what I think to be a terrific prayer. Flip over a few more pages if you have your Bible with you. It's Daniel chapter nine. Now, this is a little bit of a long reading, so I want you to brace yourself. But let's look at this idea. Now, Daniel has been given a revelation of desolation. I'm talking about famine is coming, God is bringing down the hammer on these people. And this is what happens. Chapter 9, verse 1. In the first year of Darius, son of Xerxes, Amede by descent, who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom. In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the scriptures, according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting and in sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed, O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands. We have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled. We have turned away from your commands and laws. We have not listened to your servants and prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame. The men of Judah and people of Jerusalem and all of Israel, both near and far, and all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you. O Lord, we and our kings and our princes and our fathers are covered with shame because we have sinned against you. The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving. Even though we have rebelled against him, we have not obeyed the Lord our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants, the prophets. All Israel has transgressed your laws and turned away, refusing to obey you. Therefore, the curses and sworn judgments written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us because you have sinned, because we have sinned against you. You have fulfilled the word spoken against us and against our rulers by bringing upon us great disaster. Under the whole heaven, nothing has ever been done like what you've done to Jerusalem. Just as it is written in the law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us, yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God by turning from our sins and giving attention to your truth. The Lord did not hesitate to bring the disaster upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in everything he does, yet we have not obeyed him. Now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and who have made for yourself a name that endures to this day, we have sinned, we've done wrong. O Lord, in keeping with all your righteous acts, turn away your anger and your wrath from Jerusalem, your city, your holy hill. Our sins and the iniquities of our fathers have made Jerusalem and your people an object of scorn to all those around us. Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, O Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. Give ear, O God, and hear. Open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. Oh Lord, listen. Oh Lord, forgive. O Lord, hear and act for your sake. Oh my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your name. What do we see in this revelation of desolation? Daniel has gotten this vision, and it's gonna be 70 years of destruction. 70 years of this, what Daniel fears might be silence from God, might be complete abandonment from his God. And what does he do? The first thing he does is he gets on his knees and pray. And by the way, just a little footnote here great prayer for us today. If that doesn't sound familiar to what our world, our nation, our county, our city looks like, then you might ought to read this again and then watch 30 minutes of the news tonight. And that's not railing necessarily against anything political. I'm just saying, people, we have lost our way. And we better be careful. Now, I think the first thing we see is Daniel prays. Verse 4, he picks it up and it just says, And Daniel prayed. Daniel knew what was coming and he prayed. By the way, you notice Daniel didn't celebrate? Daniel didn't say, Well, goody for them. They are getting what they deserve. Daniel is saying a couple of things worth pointing out. Number one, he is including himself in this idea of, I am still Jerusalem. I am still part of your chosen people. And the second thing he does, I don't know if you noticed it, but throughout his prayer, he kept saying, for your sake, God, for your glory. He never said, God, be merciful to us, for we're he was saying, for you, so that your name is great. God, you've stamped this city and these people and this country with your name, so let's make sure it's for you. A lot of us start our prayers with, now, God, here's what I'd like to have. And look, I'm as guilty as anybody. I kind of go through that list of here's all the things I need. Here's my calendar for today, here's my to-do list for this week. Oh, and if you could keep my wife, you know, quiet. And then here's some other things. Is she in here? Um, oh, she is. Okay. And because I want her to hear how much I love her. And have you ever noticed that when it all comes down to it, you'll hear this at times. Well, all we can do now is pray. Daniel said, That's the first thing I'm gonna do. Remember now, we just talked about the fact that he'd been praying three times a day. He'd been praying so much that he had the eyes of his enemy on him. He'd been praying so much that the guy that was in charge of an ungodly nation said, Whoo, Daniel, pray to your God and I hope he saves you. So Daniel prays. It's one of the longest prayers in the Old Testament. Daniel was constantly in prayer, and it didn't take 70 or 90 years of captivity for Daniel to finally come to his senses. Daniel was always praying. My guess is this particular prayer that's recorded for us was just probably very similar to what he had already been praying all along. I think he was praying, God, it whenever it's your will, release us from captivity. I think he was probably praying, God, if you would let me do a good job here and demonstrate. But always, he didn't just come up with for your sake. I think he was always praying that. And I think what it tells us is we might ought to change the focus of our prayer. Instead of God, what are you doing for me? What is it that I need? God, how do I serve you? Great prayer for us today. And just another little footnote here. I think this prayer reminds us of something, and it's this He cannot be God if He's not God, period. Let me say that another way. He cannot be the God that saves you if you don't recognize him as the God that does all the other things in the Bible. We really enjoy when God saves us. Ah, we're not so sure about this other God that kills people when he gets jealous. We're not so sure about this other God that didn't answer my prayer to heal my grandmother or do this or that or save me from, oh, we like it when he saves us. We're not sure about the folks, he's God no matter what, always, all the time, period. And he cannot be the saving God unless you let him be the other God as well. My God is a God of love, absolutely, and he's also jealous. And some people say, Well, you know what? I'm not sure I can worship a God that would strike down and bring disaster and all of that. Well, you'd better be careful about what you're subscribing to the God that not only created the universe, but he spoke it into existence. How many things have you made by speaking? All right, so let's move now to this macro lens. I want us to back up a little bit. What do these three different sections show us? Well, here's what I think these snippets of Daniel show us. Number one, he never waned from what he knew to be true. He never wavered. Now, um, not to get off on a rant here, but when I was in school, and this has been a while, we had two genders. Now there is, and I think at latest count, uh, it's estimated that there are 105 gender recognitions out there. What's my point? My point is we should not waver from what we know to be true. And sometimes our kids are our grandkids, maybe our schoolmates, are likely gonna be some of the greatest challenges to what we know to be true. And that's hard. I can't explain that. I don't know what to do with that sometimes, other than keep reminding myself, I know what is true, and I'm not gonna waver from that. The second thing we see in this macro lens across this spectrum of Daniel is that he was raised right. I don't believe that you see what we saw in that micro age at 14 if he's not been shown the way well before that. I promise you this he didn't get to Babylonian and learn that stuff. Okay? We don't get to send our kids out or ourselves out into the world and go, man, I sure hope I learned from God out there. Also, by the way, it doesn't just happen in here. This is not an advertisement for coming to church. This is an advertisement for you to get in the word and for you to pray. It's imperative that you have absolutes and you do not allow yourself to be moved from those. And let me say this: your influence on your kids will be tested, sometimes in ways you never thought possible. And while this might be a little bit exclusive to the parents in the room, let me just continue to remind you it is imperative that you spend time with your kids, and that is in both quality and quantity. You cannot wait for the weekend and have quality time if you don't have quantity time during the week. It has been my experience that parenting is like a good raffle. You got to be present to win. I think that's what happened to Daniel from age zero to about 13 or 14 before this uh Babylonian takeover happened. If not, we're not seeing what we saw. Daniel was raised right. And third, what do we see in this macro lens as we see that Daniel kept the faith? Notice in none of that prayer, in fact, in none of the things that we read, do we see Daniel blaming God? He never had this self-talk that relies like, well, I guess God stopped loving me. I don't know why that happened. Or it must not matter to God. I guess he's too busy doing something else. Daniel never did that. And by the way, he probably had some pretty decent excuses to do so. I wonder if Daniel on the way to the lion's den was, you know, was his feet digging in, or was he like, let me add that lion, I'm ready. He kept the faith. He never let his flesh or preferences or appetites take over. And he never adopted a doom and gloom. I this is just my own personal belief. I don't know that you could prove it out, but I don't think Daniel was walking around uh the Empire of Babylon going, hmm, I guess it's not gonna be my turn. I guess I'm not to get me. He didn't get good at his job by doing that. And by the way, that's not biblical. If you're going to work on Tuesday and you're kind of like, man, the world's going to hell in a handbasket. I don't know what's going to happen. Nobody's helped by that, except for those that are also negative in doom and gloom, okay? And I'm not sure those are the ones you want to be friends with. I think people are looking around saying, please, for the love of all that is good and decent, would you be different than anything else I see? And while I may not explain it and you may not explain it to me, I just I've got to know there's something different than what I feel. Doom and gloom is not biblical, and I promise you, Daniel didn't demonstrate it. In his book, Redeeming Heartache, Dan Alender, he's an author that we've had here a couple of times, he says this change rarely comes through request or debate. Rarely comes through request or debate, but only through foolish, and he put that in quotes, only through foolish acts that step outside of the normal route. Foolish acts. Maybe that's buying a stranger groceries. Maybe it's being bold in the lunchroom at school asking, hey, I don't know you, but if I were to pray for you today, what would that include? What would that look like? They might give you their chicken nuggets if you were to do that. Most people do not need a perfect example, they need a living example. Works always go before the words. Even the bit biggest critics cannot argue against action or experience. If you ask me, well, wait, tell me a little bit about God. How do you know he's real? What does it look like? Blah, blah, blah. And I were to tell you my experiences, you know what you couldn't do? You couldn't go, uh, that's not true. Yeah, it is because it happened. Uh, yeah, I don't know about that. I mean, you didn't really prove anything. I'm telling you my experience. I promise you that goes further than me saying, now, here's what happened in the book of, and that's a great thing to do, but sometimes the people we're around are just looking for a living example, and they want to hear your experiences. It's as simple as our testimony, the thing that we're so worried sometimes to talk to people about, it's just telling them what God's done for us. And it should be a long list, even after just this year. Now, I don't want us to think that Daniel was a rare case, especially related to that revelation. And I want to just get off on a tangent for only a moment. That revelation is so rare, you know, it seems that only a few have that gift. This is my personal position on this that yes, revelation is a gift, but I also believe it's sometimes global. Here's what I mean by that. I think we've all had maybe we call it visions or revelations of what would come. For example, if you're my age, maybe a little bit older, and you were watching movies way back when, and you thought to yourself, man, these movies have come a long way. They let a lot of things happen in these movies. Or that PG 13 rating that came out a long time ago. Now, if you watch that, you're like, who's 13 watching this? This is not right. I think that revelation of, oh yeah, we're getting in real trouble. And we may have said or heard, boy, I tell you what, before long, this stuff's gonna be everywhere. Well, now it's on TV and it's not just on TV after 9 o'clock at night. Now it's everywhere you look. I think that's what I would call, maybe wrongfully, but I would call that kind of this global revelation. We're experiencing something that we know, something's not right here. And if this thing keeps going the way it's going, this is not gonna turn out too good for us. Perhaps we also heard that saying, you know, from a long time ago, boy, this country's going to hell in a handbasket. I tell you what. And it's not a phrase that I would say would be applied to just maybe even the last few months, maybe the last few weeks would demonstrate to us that that might be true. Think about how your grandparents were feeling in the world way back when. My parents were born about two years after the depression. By the way, we kept everything related to food. If there were two green beans, we had a Tupperware dish that those green beans went in, and then we ate them the next night. Two green beans. What's my point? My point is what they experienced, they thought, man, are you kidding me that this world could get any worse? And then they look up and say, uh-oh, I think it did. That theologian Merle Haggard back in 1981 sang the song, Are the good times really over for good? And he's asking the question, are we done yet? Is it gonna get any worse than this? I promise you, Merle, it did. From 1981 to now, yeah, it might got a little worse. What's my point? We like Daniel have realized the deep weeds we're in, the deep weeds in our community and in our county and in our country. And it's easy to be overwhelmed at the state of the world. So what do we do? We're overwhelmed, but we've got to focus on the immediate. Recognize this. Jesus' great commission, this tell the world about me. Do you remember that it started with local? So let's just focus on the local. How do I pray for my community the way Daniel did? How do I stay focused on God the way Daniel did? Well, here's how you do it. With consistent intake of God's word and a consistent prayer life. Speaking of prayer, let me pray for us. God, thanks for the consistency of your word, the applicability. Words written thousands of years ago about a young man that got caught up in captivity. They did everything they could do. They threw all kinds of things at him. Today it would be movies with uh clothes being off or language being used that we wouldn't use in our worst bar fight. And God, we take that on as if, oh, this is just normal, oh, this is just entertainment. Heck, we even give awards to some of that stuff. God, how far have we come? How far have we disappointed you? How far have we gotten from your decrees? God, what I pray is that you would bring each of us back individually and collectively to a place where we say, God, for your sake, for your glory, do what you want to do because you are God, period. So discipline where you need to, destruct and destroy if necessary. Save us, however, your will would determine. And let us be consistently for you, consistently in your word that gives life, and consistently in prayer, so that our will will align with yours. I ask all of this in your name, Jesus. Amen. Well, we like to give you just a few moments to consider what's been said today, not necessarily by me, but by the Holy Spirit. And so I want you to give your direction to the screens behind me in what we call mental worship. Take just a couple of minutes to consider these. I'll be back to closes. Well, let me say this. Thank you for your attendance and attention this morning. I appreciate the fact that you're here. For those of you that are longtime members or attenders of Grand Parkway, thank you for your continued support of the church, of its people, and of its staff. You know that if today is a day that you worship through giving, you can do that at any of those exits in the wooden boxes. Let me also say that if you're new to Grand Parkway or maybe you're still trying to figure us out, you're welcome to ask any questions. Right after the service, myself and a couple of our pastors will be here. We're available to you. You can text welcome as the screen indicates. We're glad to come alongside of you wherever you are and help you navigate this world. Let me also make you all aware of a couple of things coming up in the life of our church. Now, the new year has got some uh same thing and some new things. So I want you to pay attention to the three or four announcements we have for you. Make sure you take advantage of these.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

Here's what's happening at Grand Parkway Baptist Church. Did you know that we have a church app? You can use it to get involved, register for events, listen to sermons, podcasts, and more. Find it wherever apps are available for your devices. January 14th will kick off our first starting point of the year. Come and learn what it means to be a member of Grand Parkway Baptist Church. It'll be held during second service in the Fellowship Hall. DNow is an in-town, overnight, weekend-long student experience. It has several key factors, including worship, teaching, and service projects. There will also be relationship building that happens at the church, work sites, and host homes. The theme this year is Bear Witness from John, focusing primarily on the fact that we are witnesses of God's kingdom here on earth. The cost is $100 and we're so excited for it. Women's Weekend is a two-day gathering at our church of women from all across our city. We'll learn, connect, and sing songs that remind us of the sustaining reality of God and his word. It will be on February 23rd and 24th here at Grand Park Way Baptist Church. Finally, midweeks begin on January 9th and 10th. Our midweek experience is designed around two priorities: transformation and connection. Tuesday mornings, we have studies just for women. Wednesday evenings are designed for your whole family with classes for every age. We even take care of dinner with registration. For more information or to register for these events, please visit our website at grandparkway.org. If you have any questions or want someone to pray for you, find one of our pastors at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.

SPEAKER_02 43:54

By the way, that church app, that thing's handier than the pre-naught and necktie. So if you've not availed yourself to that, take a look. It's got all kinds of things on there. You can find uh previous sermons, register for events as the slide was indicating. So be sure to take advantage of that. Midweek's is coming. That's going to be a great uh spring curriculum that uh Blake and other talented teachers are gonna be a part of, and uh the midweek meal will return as well. So look forward to that. Well, stand to your feet. Let me offer a blessing. May your consistent God maintain a consistency in you so that you can be living proof of who God is and what God has done. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.