Introduction:
Daniel 1
5 Responsibilities While We Are Away From Home:
- Maintain Perspective. (Dan 1:1-4)
- Heaven is our Home. (Dan 1:1)
- God is in Control. (Dan 1:2)
- Live as Undefiled. (Dan 1:5-8)
Colossians 3:5-10
- Pray . (Dan 1:9, 2:17-18, 6:10)
- Pray for Wisdom
- Pray for Provision
- Pray for Leaders
Jeremiah 29:7 - But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
- Test your Faith . (Dan 1:10-16)
- Do your Job . (Dan 1:17-21)
Micah 6:8 | 1 Timothy 5:8 | Titus 3:1-2
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There have been a lot of things said about home.
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Home is where the heart is.
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Home sweet home.
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There's no place like home.
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A man travels the world over in search of what he needs and returns home to find it.
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Home is where one starts from.
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Or the more cynical out there say, "Home is the place where when you have to go there, they have to take you in." or as my coworker's Skype message says, home is where the Wi-Fi connects automatically.
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Whatever your definition of home, I think that most of us see home as a place where we wanna be.
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And when we are away from our home, especially when we don't wanna be, we can get anxious or irritated.
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Webster defines exile as the state of forced or voluntary absence from your home.
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And there are many reasons that people go into exile.
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Sometimes it's a form of punishment, like Napoleon.
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He was exiled from France because he kept taking over Europe, which is frowned upon.
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And Dante Alighieri, think like Dante's Inferno, he was exiled from Florence, Italy because he wouldn't support the current Pope.
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And Nelson Mandela was exiled from the mainland of South Africa because he wouldn't accept the injustice of apartheid and he wouldn't keep his mouth shut.
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So sometimes it's a form of punishment, Other times it's to flee punishment, like Benedict Arnold, who realized that America was not going to welcome him back, and so he went into self-exile.
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Or how the Rolling Stones told England that you can't always get what you want, like nearly a decade of back taxes that they owed.
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Sometimes people go into exile to avoid danger, like Albert Einstein went into exile from Germany because the Nazi form of Jewish science was not something that he wanted to be a part of.
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And the current Dalai Lama is an exile from Tibet because China doesn't share power very well.
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Sometimes it's to avoid danger, but other times the danger is unavoidable.
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Like Louis Zamperini from The Unbroken Story, which is an amazing story of heroism.
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But he was the Olympian-turned-Army air bomber who was taken captive as a Japanese prisoner during World War II the Pacific Ocean. Or you go into exile because of unavoidable danger like the heroes in our story here in Daniel chapter 1. Today we are going to look at this example of how to live well while in exile. So our story begins as Judah, the southern kingdom of ancient Israel, falls into captivity at the hands of the Babylonians. And to orient us in time, we're looking at the last days of the earthly Jewish kings around 600 years before Christ.
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And I selected this text at least in part because our main characters are some of my most favorite people recorded in the Bible.
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First, we see Daniel, of whom I am a namesake, and his friends.
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These boys were likely only teenagers when they were captured and yet we still talk about them today as incredible examples of faith.
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Second, we get King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.
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I have decided that he is the first non-family person that I plan to find when I get to heaven.
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I just find him very entertaining in the whole book of Daniel, but here in our story today, he doesn't really do all that much exciting.
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But Nebuchadnezzar does kickstart our story.
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So let me read verses one through four.
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"In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, "king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it.
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And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand.
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And with some of the vessels of the house of God, he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his God, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his God.
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Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, the chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish, of good appearance, and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding, learning, and competent to stay in the king's palace and to teach them literature and the language of the Chaldean.
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When Nebuchadnezzar captured Jerusalem, he took the best prize of the stuff and he took the smartest and brightest youth from Jerusalem.
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This is how Daniel and his friends and many others were taken into exile to Babylon.
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So you might rightly ask, "Why do we need to learn how to live in exile?" I think it's very reasonable for you to maintain some healthy skepticism of how I'm going to make the concept of exile applicable to our lives.
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I mean, in our modern age, what kind of exile could we possibly face?
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Well, I would like to suggest to you that there are several types of exile that we do actually face.
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First, on a cosmic scale, as Christians, while we live on this earth, we are away from our true home, which is in heaven.
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Having been born in a foreign land, we await a day when we will first arrive in our true country.
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This is macro-level exile that affects all who profess Christ as Lord and Savior.
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And second, on a personal level, any one of us may find ourselves, whether at work or at school or even in our own families, as the only believer in sight.
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In this micro-sense, we are in exile in the foreign world around us of people unwilling or unable to understand our desire to serve Christ.
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Lastly, there is a mid-level exile that specifically applies to us as American Christians.
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We find ourselves in a country that is becoming increasingly foreign to us, and not in a xenophobic sense, but in a way where we see the fundamental principles and values of our country's founding eroding away with each generation.
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This type of exile leaves us as strangers in a strange land.
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So as we look at Daniel, Think of whatever form of exile to which you can most relate.
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The Apostle Paul reminds us all that we are ambassadors for Christ.
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And with that in mind, it is my hope that you will learn from Daniel's example of how to live well while in exile.
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This past fall, I spent two weeks in Thailand, and two weeks is the longest I had ever been away from Alicia in our marriage, and the longest I had ever been away from any of my girls since they had been alive.
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But when you go to a foreign country, there are certain responsibilities that you have.
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Like, I had to have my passport with me anywhere that I went.
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Or I had to check in regularly with my family to see how they were doing and to get up to speed on what was going on.
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Or this one, which I failed, which was to not bring my work phone to Hong Kong.
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Oops.
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But wherever you go, there's always certain responsibilities that you have to do while you're away from home.
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So today we are going to look at five responsibilities while we are away from home in exile.
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And there's definitely some overlap with these points.
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This isn't so much as a five-step plan, but as tools for us to consider as ambassadors for Christ.
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So our first responsibility in our exile is to maintain perspective.
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Maintain perspective.
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Look, let's face it, exile sounds pretty bleak.
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was really only a boy when he was taken from his holy homeland by pagan oppressors, taken from everyone and everything that he ever knew. He had no real hope of ever returning home and as far as we know he never did. Similarly, it would be easy for us in our exile to say to hell with this world, get me to heaven now, forget about everything else going on.
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We could look at our godless work environment, keep our head down, put our nose to the grindstone and just collect our paychecks, ignoring those around us.
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Or we could pine about the good old days in our country and cynically fantasize about moving to Australia or something, depending on the results of the next election.
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But Daniel reminds us that we have a higher calling.
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We must maintain perspective of at least two things.
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We must remember A, that heaven is our home, and B, God is in control.
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Well, how did Daniel do this?
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Look back at verses one and two.
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As the author of this book, Daniel includes two important details.
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In verse one, he reminds himself and informs us that he is from Jerusalem.
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No matter where he goes, no matter what happens to him, he is from Jerusalem.
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We too need to be regularly reminded that our true home is in heaven.
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Wherever we currently spend our time, whatever goes on around us, heaven is our home.
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This is a great comfort, but we don't need to wait for heaven to live as if we are already there.
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Jesus told us, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand." The perspective that heaven is our home gives us hope for the future, yes, but it also gives us great purpose for right now.
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The other detail that Daniel included is in verse 2.
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He recorded for us that God is in control in the midst of what looked like chaos.
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Daniel makes it very clear that it was the Lord's hand that gave Jehoiakim and Nebuchadnezzar's hand.
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Remarkably, God was in control during this Babylonian captivity.
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With this fact understood, Daniel can move past the doubtful question of why is this happening, Lord, to the faithful response that says, "Behold, I am a servant of the Lord.
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"Let it be to me according to your word." If we want to live well in our exile, we have to see God's hand in every situation which we find ourselves. We must know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. We must trust him with all of our circumstances, even those beyond our ability to control or understand. Our perspective about God makes all the difference, right? Small God, big problems. Big God, and our problems get small. So our first responsibility in exile is to maintain perspective. Secondly, in exile we are to live as undefiled. Let's read verses 5 through 8. The king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate and of the wine that he drank. They were to be educated for three years and at the end of time they were to stand before the king. Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Meshach, Azariah of the tribe of Judah. And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names. Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Meshach he called Meshach, and Azariah he called Abednego. But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food or with the wine that he drank. Therefore, he asked the chief of eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself." This is the part where I had this whole thing planned out for Justin or Jeff, but neither of them are here.
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So I'll just skip past that and get on to the real part of the situation.
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Because we spent our time in Thailand, there were long stretches where we spoke only in puns, so I'll save you from those terrible dad jokes.
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But let's recap Daniel's situation.
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Daniel and his friends are taken into captivity.
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They're renamed with Babylonian equivalents of their names.
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And over the next three years, they were to be educated and indoctrinated in Babylonian culture.
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Nebuchadnezzar was no dummy.
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He took the best and brightest from each of the very different tribes that he ruled, and he would take care of all their needs and make them as smart as possible, all for the low price of Babylonian conformity.
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The king very effectively consolidated the collective genius of the lands that he conquered and repackaged it in his image.
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Political genius.
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Daniel understood this political strategy or not, he resolved to not defile himself with the king's food or wine. So what's the big deal with this food and wine? Well, for these Jewish boys, there were at least two problems. First, with all the cleanliness laws and dietary restrictions, it was almost certain that this food was unclean and would inherently be not permitted by Mosaic law. Now that they were 500 miles away from the temple, which is the only place that they could get clean, they had a strong incentive to avoid unnecessary unrighteous acts.
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The other problem is that this food and drink was likely devoted to idols.
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In Exodus, before they entered the promised land, God had specifically warned his people that eating this food and engaging in idolatry would result in the people getting kicked out of the promised land, which is exactly what is being passed on to Daniel and his friends right here.
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Daniel and his friends determined that this was the line that they would not cross.
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With this stance on food, these boys were going to maintain their identity as God's holy people and their commitment to him.
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See, compromise in and of itself is not wrong.
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'Cause other than this food thing, these guys were pretty agreeable with the demands of captivity.
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In his commentary on the book of Daniel, David Gozick points out that Daniel did not object to the name given to him because he knew who he was and people could call him what they wanted.
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He did not object to Babylonian education because he knew what he believed.
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But Daniel did object to the food from the king's table because eating it was a direct disobedience to God's word.
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Each of us needs to decide before God and in accordance with his word, how are we going to keep ourselves from being defiled by the broken world in which we live?
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What boundaries are we going to place upon ourselves to keep us from sin?
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God commands us be holy because he is holy.
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Holiness sounds complicated, but it can be simple enough to understand.
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To be holy means to be set apart for a purpose.
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And the Aero students already know where I'm going with this because my favorite example of holiness is a toothbrush.
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And a toothbrush can do lots of things, right?
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Like it can rub crayon marks off your walls, it can massage your cuticles, and it can scrub the tile grout on your bathroom floor.
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And of course it can clean your teeth.
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However, there is a very holy assignment to my toothbrush.
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It can only be used to clean my mouth.
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And if it were ever used for one of these less holy purposes, it would be unable to serve its primary duty any longer.
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In fact, most people consider their personal toothbrush so holy that it must be thrown away if another person were to use it, or even if a stink bug were to land on it.
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So our toothbrush can teach us about holiness because it is set apart for a very exclusive purpose.
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In the same way, we are called to be holy, set apart to be God's ambassadors in this world. It is his desire that our lives would reflect his word in our actions, words, and thoughts. This is a very high calling, but thanks be to our gracious God that he has cleansed us from all our defiling deeds, past, present, and future. The blood of Christ is able to wash us white as snow to go from being an object that should be thrown away to the holy vessel which is set apart to do its holy job. The washing comes from God. That's his part. That's his job. Our job is once clean to stay clean. And even when we do defile ourselves with sin, to quickly repent and act like what we really are as God's undefiled servants. The Bible talks about this everywhere. But I'll just bring up Colossians 3 which says, "Put to death therefore whatever belongs to your earthly nature, sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways in the life you once lived, but now you must also rid yourselves of such things as these.
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Anger, rage, malice, slander, filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge and the image of its Creator. Put off and put to death the old, put on the new. We must stop defiling ourselves by acting like the sinful world around us. We must flee from the things and places that we know will distract and degrade our holy calling.
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This is critical in our state of exile. If we look the same as everyone else, how will they see our God? If we go along with the current of this world, we will be swept out to the sea of hell. Or even if we are saved, when we go with the flow we are in no position to save others who are caught in the current.
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So, our second responsibility is to live as undefiled. Number three, we must pray.
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Look at verse 9, "And God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of eunuchs. So at this point you should rightly call me out for cheating, because at no point in this passage does it say anything about prayer, and that is very true and we should never read anything into the text that's not there. However, Daniel lived in exile for a very long time, and I only have this one sermon to preach these points, so if you bear with my spygate of future chapters of Daniel, I think this point will make itself. If you read through the book of Daniel, which we're not gonna do today, you will very clearly see that Daniel is a man of prayer.
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In chapter two, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that he wants interpreted, but he's not willing to share what the dream is, a nearly impossible task.
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In verses 17 and 18, Daniel gathered his friends together to pray for an answer from God, and their prayers were answered very quickly that night.
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And Daniel gets the interpretation of the dream.
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Later on in chapter six, when jealous political rivals sought to disqualify Daniel, the only thing that they could trap him in was that he would not stop praying to God.
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Prayer is actually what sent him to the lion's den.
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So knowing how dedicated Daniel was to prayer, I find it very reasonable to claim that Daniel prayed here in chapter one somewhere in verses eight and nine.
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See, Daniel's resolve not to defile himself came from his relationship with God.
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For him to have the wisdom and commitment take this stance as one so young, he must have spent some time with God in prayer. And God's answer was to give Daniel favor with his captor, and God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of eunuchs. This entire situation happened as the result of prayer.
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For us, we often turn to prayer as a last resort. I guess all we can do is pray, And here at Harvest, we know that that is a terrible thing to say.
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Instead, we like to say the best thing that we can do is pray.
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And that's especially true when we are in exile.
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The only way in which we would be successful in doing any of these other four responsibilities is if we are connected to the source of our strength.
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We must speak with God openly and often, because our exile is far more spiritual than it is physical.
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So we must face these spiritual problems with spiritual solutions.
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And in Ephesians, the Apostle Paul encourages us to put on the spiritual armor of God and to face the spiritual forces of darkness in this world. As he goes through each piece of the armor, he ends by telling us that each one is put on with prayer.
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So we must pray as we are in our exile, but what should we pray for?
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Well, the simple answer is everything.
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But here are some starting points. A, we should ask for wisdom. The book of James tells us that when we ask God for wisdom, he will give it to us generously. He did that for Solomon, he did that for Christ, and he certainly did that here for Daniel and throughout this entire book.
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We must ask God for how to navigate in this world in a way that honors him. Yes, we have his word, but prayer is the process of applying the principles of the Bible into the individual decisions that we make on a day-to-day basis. So first, ask for wisdom. Second, we need to ask for provision. In the Lord's Prayer, we are to ask, "Give us, Lord, our daily bread." This is daily and it is basic. We have needs and God has unlimited resources to meet them.
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It is a matter of trusting him every day that he will continue to provide. Right here, Daniel receives literal provision through the vegetarian meal selection.
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In our exile, we need to ask ourselves if we trust God to provide for us every day.
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Do we trust God to provide for this world that seems so against him?
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Do we trust God to provide for our workplace or our school or our family?
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Do we trust God to provide for our country? Ask for wisdom, ask for provision, and lastly, pray for leaders. Right before the very popular verse, Jeremiah 29 11, in verse 7, God gives an interesting command that I'm not sure I remember reading before. It says, "But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare." Daniel worked for at least four pagan kings, and most of them thought very highly of Daniel. And this wasn't because he always did or said what they wanted.
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This was because God gave Daniel favor with these leaders. Through Daniel's prayers, God extended favor to Daniel and to these kings. Well, at least the kings had favor whenever they humbly listened to God's warnings. But when we face the difficulties of our exile, How often are we praying for our bosses or our teachers or our difficult family members?
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How often are we praying for our president and our government officials, whether they're elected or appointed, whether they're federal or local?
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Our Harvest Prayer Services are a great opportunity to gather as a community and do exactly that.
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Because no matter what the situation is that we face, the answer is to pray.
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So it is our responsibility to pray while we live in exile.
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Our fourth responsibility in exile is to test your faith.
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Let's continue reading verses 10 through 16.
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And the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, "I fear my Lord, the King, "who assigned your food and your drink, "for why should he see that you were in worse condition "than the youths who are of your own age?
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"So you would endanger my head with the King." Then Daniel said to the steward of whom the chief of the eunuchs had assigned over Daniel, "and I am Mishael and Azariah.
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"Test your servants for these 10 days.
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"Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink.
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"Then let our appearance and the appearance "of the youths who eat the king's food "be observed by you and deal with your servants "according to what you see." So he listened to them in this matter and tested them for 10 days.
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At the end of the 10 days, it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than the youths who ate the king's food.
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So the steward took away their food and the wine that they were to drink gave them vegetables. Though he does like Daniel, the steward in charge of him also likes his own head. And he's worried that if he lets these four skip out on the normal food, then it will be him that suffers if they fall behind in health. Daniel simply responds with the request to give it a try. In his combined boldness and reasonableness, Daniel is able to convince his caretaker to try his plan. This again reflects Daniel's wisdom and trust in God. For us, there are moments when after we have mentally prepared to maintain the right perspective, we have resolved to stay undefiled, and we have been spiritually nourished through prayer, after we have done all these things, we still need to be willing to put our money where our mouth is. We need to test God at his word. And the Bible is filled with examples of this, but the analogy that I always think of is the levels of faith as shown by a chair. If we look at this chair, we could say, "Will the chair hold my weight?" And the first level of faith is intellectual agreement. I could sit there and say, "Well, the chair looks like it's made out of strong materials. It appears to be holding everyone else in the room in their similar chairs, so it could probably hold my weight." The first level is intellectual agreement. The second level of faith is evidence-based conclusion. This is where we, this is where we measure whether this chair has the strength of materials. I could take tests on the metals and determine, yes, this chair can hold this much weight with it all assembled this way. Or I can look over there and say it's clearly holding Darren, so if it can hold Darren, then it can hold me. This is an evidence-based conclusion. But the third level of faith about whether this chair can hold my weight is what? Sit down in it. And so when I sit in this chair, I show that I really have this action-oriented commitment to my faith that the chair can hold me. And when we live in this third level of faith, we must live in the obedience to God, which includes repentance when we screw up. It is not just enough to know God's word and to commune with Him in prayer. At some point, we must act upon our faith and test God at his word. If we know that this dark world is in desperate need of Christ, will we test that by sharing Christ with others? If we know that love is a more excellent way, will we test that by sacrificially loving those difficult family members, coworkers, or classmates? So as we live in exile, we must test our faith.
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And very similar to this is the last point.
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When you live in exile, you must do your job.
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Let me finish the chapter.
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As for these four youths, God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom.
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And Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.
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At the end of the time when the king had commanded that they should be brought in, the chief of the eunuchs brought them before Nebuchadnezzar.
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And the king spoke with them.
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And among all of them was none found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
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Therefore they stood before the king, and in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all his kingdom.
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And Daniel was there until the first year of King Cyrus." See God is faithful in Daniel's faithfulness.
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And the food test proved successful.
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In fact, the boys looked so much better than the rest that the guard agreed to continue giving them only vegetables and water for the remainder of their three years of training.
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And while this is a testimony to God's faithfulness, I actually think that these last few verses are an even better testimony.
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Daniel worked hard for the remainder of his life.
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God continued to bless Daniel and his friends through God extending grace to them.
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Daniel lived a pretty amazing life.
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interpreted crazy dreams. He predicted events hundreds of years into the future with incredible precision. In fact, so much precision that that's what the Book of Daniel is criticized for. It's too accurate. It couldn't have possibly been written before these events happened. And he saw visions of revelation that have yet to come. And for most of his adult life, he served in positions of near supreme authority. And even Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they stood in the fiery furnace with the pre-incarnate Christ and saw God's faithful deliverance there. These guys did not waste their exile. They served Nebuchadnezzar in spite of his character. A pagan king who ransacked the temple and kidnapped Daniel and his friends and he likely killed members of their family. On top of that he's married to a foreign woman and who knows how faithful he was.
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Nebuchadnezzar was an emotional powder keg and really used to blast out proclamations from the ancient equivalent of Twitter. He certainly didn't act very kingly.
29:34-29:38
People would say, "He's not my king." Sounds like familiar criticism, right?
29:40-30:51
Yet in all of that, Daniel served him anyway, and he was greatly blessed by his obedience to God and being an approved workman and a good citizen. We cannot take a holier-than-thou position when it comes to engaging in the world we live in. We must do our job like Daniel. And he's not unlike some of the famous exiles that I mentioned at the beginning. During his first exile, Napoleon created a plot to take over Europe again, and for a hundred days it looked like it might actually work. And while in exile, Dante wrote his Divine Comedy, which is his most famous work about Inferno, Purgatory, and Paradiso. Whether it's Albert Einstein, Nelson Mandela, the Rolling Stones, Louis Zamperini, and the Dalai Lama, all these people are famous because of the things that they did during their exile. On this earth, while we remain in exile, God has given us some jobs to do. And just like with Daniel, there is a priority here to ensure that we do these jobs without neglecting the higher priority ones. And in general, God has made us his ambassadors in this dark world. So our job is to represent him well. What does that look like? Well, I think I think Micah 6.8 captures that most succinctly.
30:52-30:56
We need to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God.
30:57-30:58
Are you doing this job?
31:00-31:02
In our families, God has called us to be providers.
31:03-31:15
1 Timothy 5.8 says, "But if anyone does not provide "for his relatives, and especially for members "of his household, he is denied the faith "and is worse than an unbeliever." That is a scary verse.
31:16-31:18
What ways are we to provide for our family?
31:18-31:21
Parents are called to provide financially and educationally.
31:21-31:24
Children are called to provide honor and obedience.
31:24-31:26
Husbands are called to provide love and understanding.
31:27-31:29
Wives are called to provide respect and support.
31:30-31:32
Children are called to provide unity and loyalty.
31:33-31:35
Are you doing this job?
31:36-31:39
In our church, he has called us to be disciples.
31:40-32:10
And here at Harvest, we say that a disciple of Christ three things. Worships Christ, walks with Christ, and works for Christ. Are you doing this job? In your workplace or your school, God has called you to be a worker approved by God. This means that we need to work with excellence using the gifts God has given to us. It means that we need to be trustworthy, being honest even if it costs us something. It means we must care for others and not move about our day indifferent to the needs of those God has placed around us.
32:11-32:16
Are you doing this job? In our country, God has called us to be good citizens.
32:17-32:39
This means we need to pay what is due. Honor, duty, taxes, all described in Romans 13. In our country, we have the freedom and the responsibility to vote. I've been saying to people at work, in the primaries our job is to vote for the best candidate, and in the actual election it's our job to vote against the worst, but we cannot sit on the sidelines.
32:40-32:45
Being a good citizen means that we need to speak out against injustice like Esther did.
32:45-32:59
In our world where we value money over meaning, we value convenience over compassion, and we value liberty over life, as a result, injustice abounds, often without a voice on behalf of those who are afflicted.
33:00-33:03
Or even when we do speak up, our approach condemns us as well.
33:04-33:22
Titus 3.1 says, "Remind them to be submissive to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready for every good work, to speak evil of no one, to avoid quarreling, to be gentle and to show perfect courtesy to all people." Sure doesn't sound like our world.
33:22-33:24
So are you doing this job?
33:25-33:29
We need to model Christ-like behavior in all aspects of our life.
33:29-33:33
We need to do our jobs while we still have breath in our lungs.
33:34-33:43
when we reach heaven, we want to hear, "Well done, good and faithful servant." So whether we like it or not, we are in some form of exile.
33:43-33:48
And everything that I've described so far today describes the exile of a believer in Jesus Christ.
33:49-33:54
However, there is another exile that's far worse, but also it has a more immediate solution.
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For everyone who does not know Christ, you are in exile of your own making from your creator.
34:01-34:09
Like Adam and Eve when they sinned, hid and ran from God, we too are fleeing from the holy king of this world because of our rebellion to his rule.
34:09-34:16
If you live in exile from God, repent, turn around, come home to your heavenly father who awaits for you to return.
34:17-34:19
Confess your sin and submit to his rule.
34:19-34:23
Renounce the citizenship to your own kingdom and become a citizen of heaven.
34:25-34:28
End your self-exile by falling to the foot of the cross.
34:30-34:35
But for us as believers, because we are away from our true home in heaven, we remain in exile in this world.
34:36-34:40
As a result, we have some responsibilities that we need to own.
34:40-34:45
We must maintain the perspective that heaven is our home and that God is in control.
34:45-34:56
We must live as undefiled, both by avoiding sin and by walking in the reality that we are seen as white as snow in the eyes of God as a result of the cleansing blood of Christ.
34:57-35:03
We must pray because the wisdom and provision and authority to do any of this comes only from God.
35:04-35:09
And we must test our faith to prove to ourselves that obedience to God is the best way.
35:10-35:19
And finally, we must do our jobs in this world, in our home, in our church, in our job or school and in our country.
35:20-35:23
Let us make the most of our exile and finish well.
35:24-35:25
Please pray with me.
35:27-35:30
Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to look at your word.
35:30-35:34
Lord, I thank you for the fact that you provide power for us in our exile.
35:35-35:37
God, you have given us a holy purpose.
35:38-35:45
I pray, Lord, that we would live up to this calling, God, by the power of your word and by the spirit that lives inside of us.
35:45-35:52
Lord, I pray that you would convict us where we need conviction and you would change us to do more to live in exile.
35:52-35:56
God, I pray that we would look to you for our strength and our source of power.
35:56-35:58
All these things we ask for in Jesus' name. Amen.
Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANK
Hint: Highlight blanks above for answers!
Small Group Discussion
Read Daniel 1:1-21
Do you ever feel as though you are in exile? How so?
Of the responsibilities listed, which one encouraged you the most? Which one convicted you the most?
What job are you neglecting? How do you plan to fix this?
Breakout
In what ways are you “defiling" yourself? Pray for repentance there and for the proposed actions above.