When You’re Pressured to Conform — Part 2

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I'm so glad that you found us today. And whether you're at home or in your car, we're so glad that you're here.

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You hope in times of difficulty. Rick is taking us through the Book of Daniel, and that's so we'll be equipped to handle whatever curveball life throws at us, even the most difficult trials. Hey, before we get started, I'm very excited because I want to let you know about Rick's new the Daily Hope devotional. 365 Days of Purpose, peace and promise. Please tell your friends and family about it. It's now available at your favorite bookstores. Go grab your copy today. Well, I can't wait to get to today's powerful message. So here's Rick. This is part two of a message called when you're pressured to conform.

Now Daniel reveals integrity. He doesn't forget who he is, who God made him to be. Second test. Second thing. Test revealed is discipline, Personal discipline. And Daniel, in this situation, controlled his ego and his appetite. The Bible says Daniel made up his mind not to eat the food and the wine given to them by the king. And I'm sure it's like gourmet stuff. But Daniel shows tremendous discipline in spite of this great temptation. Now think about this. If you were Daniel, okay? You're a teenager. This is you. You're 15 years old. You're taken by force from your country. You're never gonna see your parents again. You're in a foreign country with no parental supervision. You're 15 years old, and then the most powerful man in that country offers you all kinds of perks and says, okay, look, you're gonna be in my personal staff. I'm gonna give you power and prestige and pleasure. And now you're gonna get the best of everything. You're gonna get all the perks of living in the palace and the luxury. You're gonna be pampered. You're gonna be given preferential treatment. You're gonna be given the best education in this culture. You're gonna be given the very best, most expensive gourmet food. Could you turn that down? You're 15 years old and you're by yourself without your parents. We see this happen all the time today where in sports, where young kids are good at football or basketball or soccer or whatever, and then all of a sudden they're pulled off the street and they are drafted by the NBA or the NFL or somebody else, and all of a sudden they're given enormous amounts of salary, they're treated like gods, they're taking limousines everywhere, they're given all kinds of perks. Anything they mess up on is covered over by their publicity, by publicist. And they can't handle that kind of success. We see it happen all the time. Good kids ruined by too much success too early. And we hear all the time about like guys who two years ago won the Heisman trophy award are now cut from the team because of their character problem. They still got the talent, they just are partying too much and they got cut from the team. That actually happened. And Daniel is incredibly disciplined as a 15 year old kid without his parents. And he says this to the most powerful man in the world, Nebuchadnezzar. Okay, I'm gonna serve you because God put me here. I'm not here without his permission. So I'm gonna serve you, your pagan king. But I'm not gonna be indebted to you and I'm not gonna be co opted by you, and I'm not gonna be conformed by you, and I'm not gonna be seduced by you. And you can give me all these kind of perks, but I'm never gonna forget that I'm not you. I'm not one of you. I'm Jewish, I'm not Babylonian. And God made me to do this. And I'm not gonna just cave in because you're offering me all kinds of perks. And just because I can do something doesn't mean I should do something. Something that is an amazing amount of maturity for a 15 year old kid. I know adults who've never learned that lesson. Just because you can afford it, doesn't mean you should buy it. I drive a 17 year old Ford truck. I could buy any truck. But I don't need it. Why? Just cause I can afford it doesn't mean I should buy it. It still gets me where I need to go. I haven't had a car payment in 16 years. Aren't you jealous? Okay, why? Cause. Just cause I can buy it doesn't mean I should buy it. Just because I can do it, doesn't mean I should do it. That's discipline. And God honors discipline. The Bible says this in Romans 6, 13. Never let any part of your body, your head, your mind, your eyes, your organs, your hands, your feet, your ears. Never let any part of your body become a tool of wickedness used for sinning. Instead, give yourselves completely to God because you wanna be a tool in the hands of God used for his good purposes. This is the decision Daniel made as a teenager. I wanna be used by God, not used by the world. I wanna be used by God, not used by culture. I wanna be transformed by God, not be conformed to the world. He had integrity and. And he had discipline. The third thing we see in his life. And you need this in your life if you're gonna have God's blessing on you. Courage. Daniel had courage, which, I mean, he was willing to stand alone. Now, it took a great amount of courage for Daniel to ask the most powerful man in the world to exempt him from his eating and food plan. I mean, this is an insult to the king. Sorry, King, your food isn't good enough for me. I can't eat it. He's a conscientious objector. Now, what made this even more difficult is he wasn't the only Jewish boy in the program. He had three friends who went along with him. But there were a lot of other Jewish young men who had been taken captive, who saw no problem in eating the king's food. And I'm sure the people said, but everybody's doing it. How many times did you use that one on your parents? But everybody's doing it. And Daniel goes, I don't care if the whole world does it. It's not right. I'm not gonna do it. And he stands with courage, willing to stand alone. He's willing to say, the majority is often wrong. History has proven that the majority's wrong much of the time. And just because the majority likes a particular value or passes a particular law doesn't mean that value of that law is right or what's right is right. And it'll always be right. And no matter how many people say something is wrong is right doesn't make it right. Only God decides what's truth. Not us. We don't. Well, that's true, and that's not. No, only God decides what's true and what's right and what's wrong. It's not up to majority vote. And so Daniel goes, I don't care if everybody's doing it. I'm not. That kind of courage is the kind of thing that God blesses. Exodus 23, verse 2. Never follow the crowd in doing wrong. Oh, man. How many times have we been tempted by that? And don't be swayed in your testimony by the mood of the majority. Hmm? How many times you been standing at the office, in a water cooler, at school or at work or somewhere, and somebody starts talking about a value and you know that's flat out wrong. But you don't say a word because you're manipulated by the moods of the majority. And your testimony gets shut down because you don't have the courage to speak up. Daniel did, and he kept getting promoted. Cause God looks at people who have courage. That guy's good. She's good. We're gonna promote her. Never follow the crowd. Don't be swayed by the testimony of the mood and majority. First Corinthians 16:13. Stand true to what you believe. Be courageous. Be strong. And we need women and men of courage today in a culture that's turning wrong into right, and darkness into light, and sweet into bitter. And all those things we looked at last week. Now, there's a fourth test revealing in Daniel's life, and that is that this test revealed his humility. And God loves humility. And Daniel's humility shows in how he was tactful with the authority when he couldn't do what the authority asked him to do. He says, I can't do this. It's against my values. It's morally wrong for me. It violates my conscience. He still is very tactful with the authority, showing great humility. And the way that Daniel made his appeal to King Nebuchadnezzar and the authorities show his respect. And he knew that God had allowed this pagan leader. He wasn't a Christian, he wasn't a godly man, but he knew he had allowed this pagan leader in his life to be his boss. Some of you have bad bosses. God allowed them in your life. God allowed them in your life. Some of you are gonna have bosses who ask you to do something that is dishonest or wrong or whatever. And you gotta know how to make an appeal. Now, here's what the Bible says. Daniel 1:8 and following then, Daniel asked the chief official, this is the chief of staff of the palace, for permission to eat other things instead. Now, no, he didn't demand. He didn't rebel. He didn't say, I demand my rights. No, he just asked permission. Can I have permission to be exempted from this? That's the first thing he does. He's very respectful. Can I have permission to not do this? Now, God had given the chief official great respect for Daniel. Now, he'd only been in Babylon less than a year. He's 15 years old. But evidently this kid is doing something spectacular, that he earns the respect of a pagan official. And whatever he had done, it was a good thing. But this official said to Daniel, I'm afraid of my lord the king, who ordered that you eat his food and wine. And if you aren't as healthy as these other guys in the program, I fear the king will have me beheaded. Now, that's a legitimate concern. If somebody threatens to cut your head off, that's not a fake fear. That's a real fear. And this officer is saying, hey, man, doesn't matter to me what you eat. I couldn't care less. But you, you're supposed to eat what the king said. And if you don't eat it and you don't look good and you're not healthy, I'm the guy who's gonna lose his head over it. So I'm worried about me. That's a legitimate concern. So it says. So next, Daniel talked it over with the guard appointed to look after him. See, he's going to his supervisor now. And notice, he says he talked it over. He doesn't make demands. He's not belligerent. He just talked it over. He talked it over. He gets a discussion, not a demand. Talked it over with the guard appointed to look after Daniel and his three friends. And Daniel offered a suggestion. See how humble he is? He says, okay, how about this? How about this, you guys? How about you test us for 10 days on a diet? Let's just make it simple. Vegetables and water, okay? Okay, how about that? You know, that way you don't have to prepare anything, you don't have to cook anything. Just vegetables and water. So how about this? We'll do it for 10 days and then see how healthy we look compared to the young man eating the king's food. And then you can decide. You can decide. He leaves it up to this guy, the authority, whether or not to let us continue eating our diet. So the attendant, the guard agrees, goes fine, let's try it. Okay, he's getting a compromise here. Can we have a win win here? And at the end of the 10 days, Daniel and his friends looked healthier and better nourished than any of the others in the king's training program. So after that, the guard let them eat their own food. Go ahead, man. So he wins. And when the two or three, when the three year training program was completed, this indoctrination program, all the young men were brought to King Nebuchadnezzar, who talked with each one of them individually. None of them impressed the king as much as Daniel and his three friends. So they were each promoted to positions in the king's service circle. The word promoted, this is the first promotion we're gonna see five of em in Daniel's lifetime. That even though he never gives up on his integrity, he never compromises his convictions, he. He still soars, he still thrives in a pagan, ungodly, secular, anti culture, anti God culture. And so this is the first of his promotions. He's not just surviving, he's thriving. He's growing in influence. Now remember, after three years of training, he's still only 18 years old. This guy's a young man. He's a young man. Now, I wanna stop right here before we go any further and explain to you something. What do you do when someone is in authority and they ask you to do something to violate your conscience? You need to know how to make an appeal. You need to know how to make your case. What do you do when somebody in authority asks you to violate your conscience? Do something you know is wrong. Do something you know would be disobedient to what God says to do. Now, there are many, many examples in the Bible of this very situation. This test, you're gonna have this test in your life. Lots of people had it in the Bible, and many of them came up with good appeals. Queen Esther makes the appeal in her story. Joseph makes the same appeal to Pharaoh Paul in the Bible many times. Had to appeal to pagan Roman government officials as he was doing his missionary work through the Roman Empire. Daniel does it here, makes an appeal. How do you make a case to an authority? You need to know this skill that I'm about to teach you because you're gonna have to use it maybe with your boss someday your employer. You may have to use it with the government. You might have to use it with the irs. How do you make an appeal to courts? How do you make an appeal to law enforcement? How do you make appeal to a teacher who asks you to do an assignment in school that you really can't? How do you make an appeal? You need to know how to do this. And if you're a parent, you need what I'm about to teach you. You need to teach it to your kids. You need to teach your kids. Because as our society gets more secular and more anti Christian, people are gonna need to know how to make an appeal to an authority. Here's what you do. And there's six things. Daniel did this the right way. Number one, first thing you do is develop a. A reputation for responsibility. Now, before you ever make an appeal to your employer or anybody else, you gotta develop a reputation for responsibility. Notice that in that passage it said the chief officer had great respect for Daniel. He had done that. He had developed a reputation for responsibility. Evidently, Even as a 15 year old kid, Daniel stood out for his good attitude, for his responsibility, for his consistency, for his loyalty, for his other character qualities. Let me show you a verse. You might wanna write these verses down cause they're not on your outline. But the Bible says this. Proverbs 22:29. If you do your job well, leaders will notice and you will serve before kings. Serve before kings means you're gonna get a promotion. This literally happened with Daniel. If you do your job well, leaders will notice and you'll serve before kings. The fact is, people with great responsibility notice people who are responsible. People with great responsibility. Leaders notice people who are responsible because they understand how important responsibility is. You see, Christians should have the best reputation in the marketplace. We should be known as the most responsible employees. We should be known as, as the best citizens in the nation. We should be known as the hardest workers. We should be known as the most trustworthy people, that we're the most consistent. You see, if you go to work and you're a slacker and you take time off all the time, and you leave early and you take longer lunch breaks and you use up office resources and you talk on the phone and you play solitaire on your computer and you. And you're just a general slacker. And if somebody comes along and says, I want you to do this, well, I can't, cause I'm a Christian. Eh, wrong answer. They're not gonna pay any attention to you at all. If on the other hand, you're the best employee, you're the most responsible, you're the most consistent, you're the hardest worker, they're gonna listen. And somebody listens to Daniel. Cause he already had a track record of being consistent. And he was already being exactly who God wanted him to be. So the starting point is to develop a track record. Now number two, the second key to making a case is to be humble, not belligerent. Be humble, not belligerent. Because attitude determines acceptance. When I'm teaching you how to make a case to an authority, school, work or whatever, I'm not teaching you how to make a demand. Daniel is not. Once he's told this new law, he's gonna have to eat this food, he doesn't make a sign said I won't eat. And he, you know, protesting around the courthouse, I won't eat no bad food. You know, he's not turning this into a national situation here. He's not rebelling he's not hardening the attitudes. He's humbly going behind the scenes saying, can we work on this? Okay? Can we work this thing out? He's not making a demand. He's humble. He's not belligerent. Notice this verse. Write it down. Proverbs 25, verse 6 says this. When you stand before the king, and anytime you see the word king in the Bible just means leader, an authority. Anytime you see somebody, when you stand before somebody in authority, your boss or anybody else, the judge, whatever, don't try to impress him and pretend to be important like, well, we've got all this voting block here and we could really take you out of office. And you threaten them. Threats never work. Be humble or you'll stumble. Develop a reputation for being responsible. Be humble, not belligerent. Okay? Number three, don't be deceptive or manipulative. Don't be deceptive or manipulative. If you've got a case to make with the government, with the irs, with your boss, with a teacher, anybody, and you're going, sorry, I just can't do this, okay? It's against my conscience. It violates my beliefs. You can't lie about it. And if you try to strengthen your case by being deceptive or manipulative or deceitful, God does not honor dishonesty. And if you lie, God says, okay, you're on your own. You don't have my defense. And now I'm not gonna help you out in this situation. Cause you're lying about it. And so you don't try to strengthen your case with deception. Here's what the Bible says. 2nd Corinthians 4. 2. We reject all shameful and underhanded methods. In other words, we don't do office politics. We're not politicking behind the scenes to get the corner office. We reject all shameful and underhanded methods. We do not try to trick anyone. And we do not distort the word of God. This is integrity here. We tell the truth before God and all who are honest, know that God will honor your honesty.

Such a great message by Rick today and every day. I sure hope you were just as encouraged as I was. And now here's Rick with an important message.

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