Will You Stand Strong for God Publicly? — Part 1

Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I'm so glad you're here. Today we're gonna 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. And now here's Rick with part one. And it's actually a question. The message is called, will you stand strong for God publicly?

We've been in this series on Daniel long time. And we come to the eighth major test in Daniel's life. Now, at this point, Daniel is an old man. We started when he was a teenager. He was a prisoner of war at 15. And we saw three or four tests in his life, even while he was a teenager. And then we look at some tests in his 20s and in his 30s, and then in his middle years. And now Daniel is about 82 years old. He has survived through at least two, three. Now his third king, two different empires, the Babylonian empire, which crushed the Assyrian empire, and now the Persian empire. This is all in history. Crushed the Babylonian empire. And Daniel was such an amazing man and leader and a man of integrity that every single leader wanted to keep him on. You know, usually when you get a new administration, they clear house. And all of the people who were serving in the previous administration, they're all gone. But Daniel keeps getting rehired. Rehired. And actually keeps getting promoted. Now we're gonna pick up from where we ended last time that he had outlasted two Babylonian kings, Nebuchadnezzar and his grandson Belshazzar. And now he gets a new boss called Darius the Mede, who is a general with another guy named Cyrus the Persian. Cyrus the Great and Darius the Mede actually killed Daniel's previous boss, Belshazzar, and ransacked the city of Babylon. He destroys the city, takes it over, but says, I'm keeping Daniel. This is an amazing man. Now look up here on the screen. Here's where we left off last time. King Belshazzar. Remember, that's the guy who saw the writing on the wall. Remember that? And he said, you days are numbered. It's over, buddy. You didn't honor God. King Belshazzar promoted Daniel to be. Here's another promotion. To be the third highest ruler in his kingdom. However, that wasn't a very long promotion. Cause it says that very night, King Belshazzar was killed by Darius the Mede, who took over the kingdom at the age of 62. So now Daniel is Still in the royal palace in Babylon. But he's got a new boss. And the guy's not a Babylonian. He's actually a Mede and a Persian. And once again, he gets promoted to a more powerful position. Keeps changing bosses, but the new guys keep promoting him. My first question before we actually get into what I want to speak about this weekend is why, what was it about this guy so unique that he kept getting promoted at work? Cause if we could bottle that, I'd sell it to you. Who doesn't wanna be promoted in life? Who doesn't wanna be progressing up a ladder to greater effectiveness, greater efficiency, greater influence, greater income, and things like that? So why did Daniel keep getting promoted at work? Well, in Daniel chapter six, which is the chapter we're in this week, in the next three verses, it tells us the three reasons. So listen, if you're interested in getting a promotion at work, pay attention to the next three verses, because these are the three reasons Daniel outlasted everybody else at his workplace. I want you to outlast everybody at your workplace. I want you to keep getting promoted. And there were three reasons why Daniel kept getting promoted from teenager until now. He's 82 years old, and he still hasn't done his best work. His best work was actually done at age 85. So he's not finished. He doesn't believe in the word retirement, by the way. Neither do I. Cause it's not in the Bible. Okay? Now, you may change jobs, you know, earlier in life, you may be paid to do good. Now you're good for nothing. All right, so here are the three reasons Daniel kept getting promoted at work. Number one, his professional competence made him stand out. His professional competence made him stand out. It is clear this guy is a gifted leader. But more than that, he learned he was a student. We talked about this a few weeks ago. All leaders are learners. The moment you stop learning, you stop leading. He was a student of God's word. He was a student of people. He was a student of history. He was a student of culture. The Bible says that he spent his entire life learning. He just kept getting wiser and wiser and wiser. Now, if you make wisdom a goal of your life, there's no end to that one. You can just keep getting better and better and better. You know, there are some careers that peak pretty early in life. I once did a study of this. For instance, if you wanna be a female Olympic gymnast, you peak at about 17. And then you're gonna be replaced by somebody else who's 14 or 15 or 16, because your body just isn't that limber when you're 25, and certainly not at 35. If you're gonna play in the NFL, you're gonna peak at maybe 28, 29 years old. In different careers, you peak at a certain level, and then it's over. But if you decide to be a woman or a man who says, I wanna be a woman of wisdom, I wanna be a man of wisdom at 85 years old, you can be a whole lot wiser than you were at 84 and 83 and 82. And it's one area you can just keep growing in. So he kept growing in competence. He was more skilled. He was more effective. The Bible says this in Daniel 6, verse 3. Now, Daniel so distinguished himself above all the others, the other governors and administrators, they were called satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to put Daniel in charge of the entire kingdom. You know, the Bible tells us in the first verses before that that Darius, when he took over the kingdom, he reorganized. And he said, I'm gonna have 120 provinces in the Babylonian empire, which I now run. He wasn't Babylonian. 120. And I'll have an administrator over each one. And I'm gonna have three governors over that. And he chose Daniel as one of the three governors.

So Daniel was one of the three.

Most powerful men in the empire, but he did such a good job that it says here, Daniel so distinguished himself above all the other governors. There were three of them, and all the administrators, the satraps. That's 120. By his exceptional qualities, that the king planned to put him in charge of the entire Kingdom. He's 82 years old. He's getting another promotion. That's a wise leader. Professional competence number two. Second reason he kept getting promoted, his personal character made him stand out. Not just professional competence, but personal character. This was a man of integrity. He was a man of generosity. He was a man of humility. He was a man of godliness and goodness and kindness and wisdom. And the Bible says in the next verse, verse four, when the administrators. They were called satraps in that day, when the administrators heard the news, they tried to find a reason to undermine Daniel in his work. And they accused him of misconduct, but they were unable to do so. They could not find anything to say against him. Whoa. He was honest, reliable, hardworking and incorruptible. He was never lazy or negligent in any task. Well, no wonder he kept getting promoted. I'd like to Hire this guy.

And so would you.

Now, notice, we don't know why, but these underlings who were in the provinces, they didn't like Daniel being their boss, probably because he was Jewish. But they started trying to undermine him. You may be in a work situation right now that there are some people who are conspiring against you at work because of your faith, because you're a Christian and you know, they don't really like you. They don't have any reason to not like you. You're a good person, but because of your faith, they just want you out. And sometimes you get into an office where everybody's familiar with office politics and people are scheming and conniving behind your back and they want your office and they want to get you moved out. And this is what happened here. The administrators in this new administration hear that Daniel, who's one of the top three guys, is going to be given the whole kingdom, and they go, we're not going to have that happen. We're not going to serve that guy. And so they start looking for a way to trap him. The say traps, set up a trap for Daniel. And it says they couldn't find anything to say against him. What a testimony. That's certainly not true of me. There's a lot of things people could say against me. It's probably not true of you. There are probably a lot of things people could say against you. But this guy, it says, when they went looking for dirt, scandal, a skeleton in the closet, hypocrisy, bad character, whatever, they were looking for anything, it says they could not find anything. They were unable to find anything to say against him because he was honest and reliable and hard working. And his personal character made him stand out. He was professionally competent, but he was also personally a man of character. But there's a third element, and this is the most important one of all, and it's this. His public commitment to God made him stand out. His public commitment to God made him stand out. He just didn't have professional competence and personal character. He had a public commitment to God. Daniel's very open. He's very public about his faith, about his love for God, about his commitment. He prays in the open, he talks about God in the open. Remember, he had led Nebuchadnezzar to faith in Christ or faith in God. And everybody knew where Daniel stood religiously, where his faith was, where his allegiance was, including his jealous co workers. And it says in verse five that his co workers, these enemies who were conspiring to get him fired at work. That's what's happening here. And you may have some co workers who are conspiring to get you fired at work. He says his co workers concluded our only chance of finding any grounds to get rid of Daniel will be find something to accuse in his religious practices. Wow. They said the guy's done nothing wrong. He's spotless. Do we need leaders like that in America? Don't get me started. Don't get me started. We need leaders of integrity like this. They say we can't find anything wrong with them today. Can you find anything right with them? And so the satraps conclocked a Daniel trap. And let's read the story, and then we'll extract some lessons for today. Up here on the screen, it says this verse six to nine. So the officials who wanted Daniel removed from office went to the king. This is Darius. And they said, king Darius, live forever. They're buttering him up. Oh, you're so great. You are the man, Darius. You live forever, buddy. And he says, we've convened everyone. Of course not Daniel. And we've all agreed that for the next 30 days, everyone should pray to you. What are they doing? They're appealing to this guy's ego. Oh, you're so great. You're the man. We just think, you know, yeah, everybody's got the religion here. And actually the Babylonians and the Persians, they really didn't care so much about what you leave. There wasn't a standard religion, but they said, we really think everybody should pray to you for 30 days. Now they're setting this up just to make a trap for Daniel. And they said, and we think that you should issue an edict saying that anyone who disobeys your order by praying to anybody else during the next 30 days will be tossed into the pit where your lions are kept. Ever heard of Daniel in the lion's den? This is the story. And let's put this decree in writing so it can't be altered or repealed according to the laws of the Medes and the Persians. So that's exactly what King Darius did. Now, the law of the Medes and the Persians is very famous in history. And it's this. If a king made a law, it could never be reversed. And even the king couldn't reverse it if he'd signed it in the law. According to the law leads in person. Once it was law, it could not be rescinded, could not be revoked, could not be repealed. And the king couldn't even do it himself. Even if he made the law. And so that's why they said, don't just make this edict. Make a law and write it and sign it. And what are they doing? They're kissing up to this guy's ego. And in a moment of weakness and ego, Darius goes, sure, why not? So he signs this law. Everybody has to pray to me for the next 30 days. Now these guys are so desperate to get rid of Daniel that they pass a national law just to hurt one guy. There's only one guy they're worried about, this one guy. Cause everybody knows Daniel is a believer, and he prays in the open, and he turns. Talks about God in the open. Now, how do you think Daniel responded to this test? Everybody's gotta stop praying to anybody else. And you gotta pray to the emperor for 30 days. Well, he's got a lot of options. So let's put some up here on the board. Here's some options. He could, number one, he could accept the law and kinda fake pray to the king for 30 days. He wouldn't obviously be praying to him, but he could pretend. He could just go, okay, I'm just gonna go with the flow. It's the law of the land. And so I'm just gonna go ahead and fake pray to the king for 30 days. That's an option. Okay, here's a second one. He could publicly protest the law with picket signs. Okay, he could go down to the palace with a picket sign. I won't pray. I won't pray. I won't pray. Okay, that's a possibility, but it's not gonna do any good. Because the law of the Medes and the Persian. This is not a democracy. In America, laws can be changed and you can protest and you can change laws, but this is not a democracy. So there's no way this law is gonna be rescinded no matter how much you protest. Here's a third possibility. He could appeal privately to the king. Obviously, Darius liked him. He had promoted him to the third in command and then was gonna put him over the entire kingdom. So he's got a good relationship with the king. He could probably just go back to our channel and say, hey, King, come on, cut me some slack on this. You know, I'm Jewish, you know I believe in the true God. And, you know, why don't you just cut some corners here and let me do that? He could appeal privately, but again, even the king couldn't reverse this law. Here's another possibility. He could just stop praying to God for 30 days. Not pray to the emperor, but just stop praying to God for 30 days. That's an option. It's not a good one, but it's an option. Here's another one. Number five. He could keep praying to God, the real God, Just do it in secret. Now, some of you think, well, what's wrong with that? Okay, the law says you can't do it, but you're gonna break the law. Just keep praying, but pray in secret. Well, although Daniel could do this, if he did, his enemies just won what they wanted. Cause they wanted to embarrass him. They wanted him to back down off his faith. And he was the kind of guy who. He prayed in public. He prayed before meals. I know some Christians who are afraid to pray before meals in a restaurant. What will other people think? Maybe they'll think of a fanatic. And so I'll pray in secret, but I'm not gonna pray when I go to Chili's or when I go to some other restaurant and say, I'm just afraid of what other people think. Well, he could have done that. But if he'd done that, then those guys actually win because they're trying to get him to back down and to cave in and to be ashamed of his God. Then there is, of course, the sixth option, which is keep praying in public, as he'd done all his life. In other words, it was his habit and it was his custom. Now, which of those six options would you choose if you were Daniel? The easiest one, the convenient one, or the one that in all likelihood would throw you into a pit with a bunch of lions? I think the big question of this text is, how far are you willing to go for your faith? Or as the title of the message is, will you stand strong for God publicly?

Hey, thanks so much for listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I hope you were as blessed as I was from today's show. And now here's Rick to tell you about today's offer.

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