When You’re Pressured to Conform — Part 1

Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I'm so glad you're here. Today we're going to continue our series called Unshakeable. 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 book, 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.

Okay.

Here's part one of a message called when you're pressured to conform.

If you'll take out your message notes, welcome to part two of the series, Unshakable, thriving, no matter what they throw at you. And we're looking at lessons from the life of Daniel, a great hero of the Old Testament. Now, last week in part one, I mentioned that there's more adventure, more political intrigue, more death threats, more raw courage in the life of Daniel than all of the blockbuster movies put together. I'm talking about Raiders of the Lost Ark and Mission Impossible and Bourne Conspiracy and Identity and Star wars and everything else. But to get. And those are fake stories. This thing really happened to this guy named Daniel, and the story starts when he's 15 years old and ends up when he's 85. And it's an amazing, amazing story. Now, I told you last week, the background is that the nation of Israel had fallen into real spiritual decline. And God was pretty ticked with the nation of Israel because they had fallen into idolatry, immorality, and injustice. And we've got those in our society today. So there's a reason for God to be ticked with us. But there are prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah and Zephaniah who are saying, guys, if we don't get our act together, we're gonna lose our freedom. We're gonna lose our freedom as a nation. And if we don't shape up, we're gonna ship out. And that's exactly what happened. And in 586 BC, God allowed the most powerful empire of the time, the Babylonian empire. A guy named Nebuchadnezzar was the emperor to swarm into Israel and devastate the country. They destroyed the capital of Jerusalem, and they took 25% of the population of Israel as prisoners of war back to Babylon. For 70 years, some of those people lived and died in a foreign country. One of those carried off in that prisoner of war situation was a young teenager named Daniel. He was 15 years old. He was separated from his parents, never saw him again, Never got to go back to his home country. But the rest of his life is an amazing rags to riches where he starts off as a prisoner of war and he ends his life at 85 as the most powerful man in the empire, except for the emperor. Saves the emperor and saves the empire and actually outlasts three administrations, Nebuchadnezzar and Belteshazzar, who were the Babylonian empire, who'd taken over for the Assyrian empire. And then when the Persians came in and Cyrus the Great took over their empire, they said, we're killing all you guys, but we're keeping Daniel. And he actually leads two of these three emperors to faith in God. And at 85 years old, he is retired. And they have to pull him out of retirement to save the empire one more time. It's an amazing, amazing story, and we're gonna look at it in the weeks ahead. Now, today we begin with the tests of Daniel from Daniel's model of life at every stage, whether he's a teenager and then midlife and then even in retirement. There's something for everybody in this story. And he goes through a number of tests. Now, the Bible says in Proverbs 17, three fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but the Lord tests the heart. Now, I wanna give you a life principle. Write this down. Before every blessing, there's always a testing. The Lord tests the heart. He tests your heart. Before every blessing, there's always a testing. If you're gonna be blessed by God, you're gonna be tested by God. If you're gonna be used by God, he's gonna test you first. He wants to be sure you're ready to handle the power, the blessing, the influence, whatever he wants to give you. And he wants to make sure you can handle it. What does God test when he tests you? He tests your character, integrity, humility, generosity, loyalty, faithfulness, truthfulness. He tests your character. And if you pass the test of God, you get promoted. And if you get promoted, you get more power, more influence. And actually, God tells you things that he won't tell anybody else if you pass the test. This is why Paul was taught so much and actually wrote so much of the Bible. Because God spoke to him more than he speaks to you or me. Why? Well, Paul says in 1 Thessalonians, chapter 2, verse, we speak God's message because God tested us and trusted us to do it. When we speak, we're not trying to please people. He said, I'm not conforming to anybody but God. We're trying to please God who tests our hearts. Now circle God tested and God trusted. Tested us and trusted us. Daniel's character in this story we're gonna look at in the weeks ahead is tested many, many times. And each time he passed the test. God gives him more influence, more power, and here's important, more insight. He tells him stuff he wouldn't tell anybody else. In fact, Daniel is the only guy in history besides John the apostle who wrote the book of Revelation. John and Daniel are the only two guys in history that God told how the world's gonna end. He told them how history's gonna happen. And he gives Daniel these visions and they're actually in this book. And Daniel predicted all kinds of things in history long before they ever happened, like the Roman Empire and the Greek Empire and so many other things. And actually God showed him how the world is gonna end. It's in this book. And why did God show that to Daniel? Because he had tested him. He passed the test and so he trusted him. Now let me give you another life principle. Write this down. God tests us with stress before he trusts us with success. God tests us with stress before he trusts us with success. Now Daniel is tested many, many times. And every time, as I said, he passed. He gets prayed. And we're gonna see this in the weeks ahead. Now, each of the messages in this series, we're going to look at a different test that you're gonna go through in life. You may as well know em God tells you in advance what the test will be in your life. Last week we looked at the first test, which is when you go through major change, you will go through major change many times in your life. This is a test. And in it we talked last week about the five things God wants to do in your life. The five things you need to learn when you're going through major change. If you miss that message, you need to go listen to it online. Cause you need to know how to handle major change in your life. You need to go listen to that part one online. Today we're gonna look at a different kind of test. Not major change, but the test of social pressure. What I'm talking about there is when you are pressured to conform to something you know is not right by your boss, by the government, by any authority in your life and you feel pressured by the peer pressure of others to do something, you know, this isn't right. This is what I wanna do it doesn't fit me. It's violating my conscience. How do you do that? Now, this king Nebuchadnezzar, this Babylonian king, after he takes all 25% of Israel hostage and takes them to Babylon, moves them there, he then says, okay, pick out the smartest, brightest, best looking, most gifted teenagers in the whole brunch and bring him to the palace. And he gets a bunch of these young Hebrew boys, these Jewish boys. And Daniel happens to be one that's picked. He's 15 years old, and King Nebuchadnezzar says, okay, we're gonna go through a three year indoctrination program. We're gonna wipe out your memory of Israel. You don't need the Bible anymore. You don't need God anymore. We're gonna secularize you. We're gonna enculturize you, we're gonna brainwash you, really is what he's doing. And you're gonna be trained for three years. And then you're gonna serve in my court, you're gonna serve in the royal palace, and some of you are gonna get promoted to even higher positions. And so they teach them a new language, they teach them a new culture, they teach them new habits, they give them a new religion, they even give them new names. I covered this last week, but I wanna look at it again. Look up here on the screen. Daniel had three friends, and it says the boys were all given new Babylonian names. Daniel was renamed Belteshazzar. Hananiah was renamed Shadrach. Mishael was renamed Meshach, and Azariah was named Abednego. Now, what does this mean? What's going on? Why are they getting new names? Because all of their Hebrew names refer to God, the true God, in Hebrew. And so they're all renamed after pagan gods. For instance, Daniel in Hebrew means God is my judge. That's what Daniel means. God is my judge. He's renamed Belteshazzar, which means BAAL protects me. BAAL was a pagan, phony, fake God of Babylon. And then Hananiah, his name in Hebrew means God is gracious. And he is renamed Shadrach. That's the moon God, okay? That's the moon God of Babylon. Mishael, whose name means in Hebrew, who's like God. In other words, nobody's as great as he is who can compare to God, who is like God, is renamed Meshach, who's a fertility God in Babylon. And Azariah, whose name means in Hebrew, God has helped me, is renamed Abednego, which means servant of Nebo, who is another pagan God. Now, not only do they give new names, new identities, new jobs, new clothes, they said, you're getting a whole new diet. You don't get to eat your Jewish food anymore. And so you're only gonna be allowed to eat Babylonian food. You're gonna eat what the king. This is a total reprogramming, a total assimilation process. And that's where we pick up the story today in Daniel chapter one, verse five. So then the king ordered that the young men in his program should eat the same food and wine served at the king's table while they're being trained during this three year period. Now, after that, they were to become servants of the King of Babylon. But here's the big but. Daniel resolved not to defile himself by eating the royal food and wine. And he asked the chief official, that's the chief of staff in the palace, for permission to not defile himself this way. Now, what's going on here? Well, anybody who's. If you've been in a serious athletic team, a college team or a pro sports team, or if you're an Olympic athlete, you know what a training table is? That when you're in training you don't get to eat whatever you wanna eat. The coach tells you what you're gonna eat. It's called the training table. And Nehemiah goes, okay, we're not only gonna change this, we're gonna change their diet. They're gonna eat what I eat and spare no expense, they get all the king's food. This sounds like a good thing. But Daniel refused to go along with the program. He says, I'm not going to defile myself. Now, what does the word defile mean? Defile is an Old English word that means to corrupt. It means to pollute. It means to contaminate. It means a loss of purity. If you go down to the beach and you're at Laguna beach and you have a party and when you leave, you leave a bunch of junk and trash and cans on the beach. You have defiled the beach. You've polluted it. It was nice and now it's not nice. Cause you left a bunch of junk there. If you pour chemicals or toxic waste or sewage in a river, you have defiled that river. You've corrupted. You've polluted it. If I were to say to my wife, kay, honey, let me run a bath for you, and I run a bathtub of water, and I put in some bubble bath, light some candles, and right before she gets in, I toss in a Can of garbage. I just polluted that bath. I just defiled the bath and it's not pure anymore. Now he says, I'm gonna defile myself. So what's wrong with eating Babylonian food? I mean, what's the big deal? Why did Daniel, he's 15 years old, take on the most powerful man in the world, say, sorry, your food's not good enough, I'm not gonna eat it, okay? I'm not gonna eat it. What's going on here? There were three reasons Daniel refuses to conform here in this situation. First is literally a health reason. The king's food wasn't really good food. It was kind of junk food. It was heavy on sauces and a lot of sugar. And it wasn't really healthy food in the first place. And so there's a physical. By the way, this text right here is why we have the Daniel Plan. The Daniel plan comes from this story. When Daniel goes, I'm not gonna eat the junk food. Now, the Daniel plan is not a diet. It's about total health. It's about five areas of health, not just food. It involves faith, what you believe affects how healthy you are. Focus, how you think that affects how healthy you are. Fellowship, friends, your relationships affect how healthy you are. Fitness and food. So it's far more than a diet. Which, by the way, it's kind of interesting to me. I'm sure that Daniel, when he's 15 years old and he says no to the king of Nebuchadnezzar, had no idea that 2,600 years later, millions of American would be using his plan, okay? And say, let's get healthy, let's make good choices. Which by the way, this is not sermon. But here's a little point. You never know how a small decision you make is gonna influence future generations. You don't know. You don't know how a simple choice that a 15 year old made then, it actually influenced millions of people later on now. So there's a health reason. He goes, nah, I'm not gonna eat it. There's a cultural reason too, a national reason. You see, God in the Bible gave the Jews the nation of Israel, very strict dietary laws. Today we call them kosher laws. And God did this because he said, I want you to never forget that you are unique from everybody else. You, you don't get to eat like the rest of the world eats. Now. It wasn't cause God thought the Jews were better. It's just God says, I have chosen the nation of Israel to give us the ten Commandments. To give us the Bible, to give us the Messiah, the son of God, Jesus. And he said, I chose this nation above all. They're not better, but I chose them to be the conduit on which I'm gonna do. And you're to never forget that you're unique and so you're gonna eat different than everybody else eats. They're called the kosher laws. And so to define Daniel goes, wait a minute, I'm supposed to eat this way. I'm a Jew. And there was a cultural and a national and a religious region. But I know that Daniel is not just rejecting this for what else is said in the Bible. Let me show you two other verses. Look at this verse. Here's what Paul says. False teachers will order people to abstain from certain kind of foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving. For everything God created is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer. So God says, if I made it, you can eat it. Does that make sense? God says, I didn't make any junk food. God says, if I made this food, you can eat it. Now he didn't say you can eat man made food. A Twinkie is not made by God, okay? And if you read a label and it's got 50 chemicals on it that you can't read, you probably shouldn't eat it. So if God made it, like we say, if it grows on a plant, good. If it's made in a plant, probably not good, okay? And so God's saying, anything that I made is okay. So there's no off limit meat or anything. God says, it's all good. Now even more important than what Paul said is what Jesus said. Look at this verse. Jesus said in Matthew 15:11, you're not defiled by what you eat, you are defiled by what you say and do. Does that make sense? Okay, so what he's saying, it's not what goes in your mouth that defiles you, it's what comes out of your mouth that defiles you. Jesus said that. He said it's not what you eat that makes you unclean. He goes, it's all from God. You can eat it all. But he said, it's what comes out of your mouth. Those vile words which come out of your heart and your bad attitude. He said, that's what's wrong. So what's going on here? Why is Daniel rejecting this? Well, health, national culture. But there's a real third reason, and this is the big one. And it was a spiritual attack on Daniel's identity. This is another attempt to reprogram him, to get him to forget God, to forget the values that he was taught as a kid. They want these boys to forget their spiritual heritage. So they're changing everything, including their names and their diet. We are going to reprogram you. We're going to secularize you. You're not gonna be spiritual Jews anymore. You're gonna be secular Babylonians. Now, this is the first test that Daniel has. And in this first test, he shows four character qualities. This is so important to you, because if you want God's blessing on your life, you gotta build these four character qualities in you if you want to be promoted in your life. And you're in a hostile situation where not everybody agrees with what you believe. Here's Daniel getting promoted and promoted and promoted and promoted for his entire life. He's one success story after another, in spite of the fact that nobody in that nation agreed with his beliefs, with his faith. There are four qualities that God loves to bless in people's lives. And when he sees these in your life, get ready for a blessing and a promotion. What do we see in Daniel's life from this story? Number one, this first test, the food test, reveals Daniel's integrity. And what I mean by that is that he never forgot who he was. He said, you can change my address. I live in Babylon. You can change my clothing, you can change my name, but you're not gonna change my heart. Daniel resolved not to defile himself. I'm not gonna be conformed to the society's values in this society. Romans 12:2. The Bible says, don't conform yourself to the values of this world. Instead, let God transform you by a complete change of how you think. Then you'll be able to know the will of God. You got two choices in life. You'll be conformed or you'll be transformed. You'll be conformed to the world. You're like everybody else in the world. You look the same, smell the same, talk the same. You're conformed to the world, or you're transformed by God. You're conformed by the world, or you're transformed by the Word. And if you are transformed by the Word, then it says, then you're gonna know the will of God. I talk to people all the time. I don't know what God wants me to do with my life. I don't know. I can't figure out. I don't know what is God's will for my life. It's cause you're conformed to the world. You're more interested in being like everybody else than you are interested in being unique and being who God made you to be. And as long as you're worried about conforming, look the same, talk the same, act the same, speak the same, be cool, have everybody else like you. As long as you're worried about conforming, you're never gonna be worried about transforming. And then you're not gonna know the will of God. But if you go, okay, I don't really care what other people think. I want God's best for my life. You're gonna be transformed and then you're gonna know the will of God.

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today here on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. You know, as we look at the unprecedented things going on in our world today, it is so clear that we need to be equipped with the biblical wisdom that gives us power to handle whatever life throws at us. So that's why Pastor Rick created a life changing Bible study called Unshakable. And it's based on the book of Daniel. In these eight powerful video lessons, Rick will teach you how to handle life's most difficult trials and situations and, and how to thrive under extreme pressure, how to pray, the kind of prayers that God answers. And this video study includes a workbook. It's perfect for individual or small group Bible study. Please request your copy today when you give a gift to help Daily Hope take the word of God to people around the world. You just go to pastorrick.com to get your copy. That's pastorrick.com or just text the word hope to 70309. Again, the word hope to 70309. And thanks so much for your support. Your gift to Daily Hope means so much to us because it helps us share the hope of Jesus Christ to people all around the world. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God's word for our Daily Hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.