Pause

This morning I'd like to press pause on the Lord's Prayer. We know the New Year is coming up and we know the tradition of our church is to begin the year with a fast. I have been thinking and praying about this fast a good bit and want y'all to please do the same. I think Pastor Gregg is so wise to encourage and challenge us to fast. First of all, it's Biblical. So why don't we see more Christians fasting? 

I'd like for us to look at Daniel's life this morning. When Daniel was 15 years old, he was carried off to a foreign land, basically as a prisoner of war. The nation of Babylon prized the strongest, smartest and wisest. So Daniel was already a good looking, popular, smart, athletic guy. But the king wanted to take these guys and keep them in a program for 3 years to see who was really the top of the top. This was not a nation that knew God. 

Our nation is treasuring God less and less as time goes on. Our culture is going farther and farther away from living life according to what God calls best. There are laws that we don't agree with, there are standards that are too low. We will look less and less like the culture we live in. We have decided that Gods way is best. He created us and when we read his word and he tells us how to live, we believe him. And we believe he cares for us, that he is love through and through, and that he will reward those who follow his ways.

Daniel shows this amazingly clear. He was in a nation that did not honor God but his heart still did. So he had to decide from the very beginning if he was going to slip into the culture of Babylon or stand apart. 

Daniel stayed in this country even after his people were able to go home. He rose to a very high position in the government and worked alongside 4 kings. These 4 kings all had encounters with God because of Daniel. God gave Daniel incredible strength and wisdom to live in this culture. He was persecuted because of his prayer life and sent to die. I just read an article that showed how Daniel being sent in the lions den was very much like the crucifixion of Jesus. He was sent to die because he believed God. He should not have lived. Neither should his friends have lived being sent into the fiery furnace.

Daniel understood dreams, had visions and prophesied about the future of Gods kingdom. He was visited by angels and told about what was going on in the very real spiritual world that we cannot see. Some of his prophecies came true while he was still alive! Pastor Gregg said the reason why the wise men were looking for the star when Jesus was born was because Daniel had made such a lasting impact of God's words in that land.

I would like to challenge us-- all 5 of us-- to look at Daniel and see God as he did. Let's trust that God's ways are worthy to stand for in this culture that is slipping away from God. Let's trust God in the way we eat and pray in this fast and proclaim who God is. Let's ask God to choose us to be bold for his kingdom and in proclaiming who he is. Daniel was exceptionally wise. That wisdom was from God. 

Please read this first chapter of Daniel. This began when he was 15. He lived in Babylon for 70 years. He worked with 4 kings, that means he outlived 3 kings. He was in this training school for 3 years but interpreted his first dream for King Nebuchadnezzar after 2 years.

Instead of thinking about what food you can live without during the fast, let's look at Daniels life and think about what God could do in our life, the wisdom and opportunities he could give us. Let's be bold with this fast.

I made a few notes in aqua and put a few sentences in italics.

Daniel 1

In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah Gods people into his hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god. Then the king commanded Ashpenaz, his 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 stand in the king's palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. This was Daniel and his friends, read that description again. The king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate, and of the wine that he drank. But God had given his people instructions of how to eat and this was not clean food. They were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time they were to stand before the king. Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah. And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names: Daniel he called Belteshazzar, Hananiah he called Shadrach, Mishael 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 the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. And God gave Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs, 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? So you would endanger my head with the king.” Then Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had assigned over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, “Test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. 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 ten days. At the end of ten days it was seen that ***they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than all the youths who ate the king's food. So the steward took away their food and the wine they were to drink, and gave them vegetables.

As for these four youths,*** God gave them learning and skill in all literature and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. At the end of the time, when the king had commanded that they should be brought in, the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. And the king spoke with them, and among all of them none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. 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. And Daniel was there until the first year of King Cyrus.