Don't Give Up and Don't Give In

Well, grab your message notes that look like this. They're on the inside of your bulletins that you got when you came in. Good morning. My name is René. I'm another one of the pastors here. I have not come back from a sabbatical, but I'm also energized, just like Mark is, as we start our brand new series, Courage in Chaos. Say that out loud with me. Courage in Chaos. How much do we need to hear that message right now? I'll tell you, there is a national sense of chaos, of tension right now as the country responds to the murder of Charlie Kirk. And I'll say no matter what you thought of him or whether you'd ever even heard of him, obviously that's a horror. And we're grieving today as a nation because life is precious and free speech is precious.

And I address this because it's not a political church, but I address this because no matter what side of the political divide you fall on, this has become part of our national conversation, our zeitgeist right now. Now, I realize that other people here today, your personal life has been so overwhelming in the last week, you haven't even had time to read the headlines. But either way, this is why what we come together to do here in church is so important. Because we get together here every week with people across every divide and from every imaginable circumstance to get reoriented.

My job as your pastor, my role, is never to repeat what you and I could hear on any podcast that we might choose to listen to. It's something different. It's to help us get reoriented when life, for whatever reason, is disorienting, right? Reoriented on Jesus and reoriented on the Jesus way of living, loving our enemies, fighting evil, not with evil, but with good. And if we don't get reoriented, then our hope to have a church that has unity across every divide is impossible. Reorientation is what makes that possible.

So I don't know about you, but I came to church needing reorientation today. So you may not have. You may be all set. But I needed that because life has been disorienting and distracting, and that's one of the reasons I so appreciated the worship set that Elizabeth and the team chose. It was all about reorienting on God in worship. So now let's get reoriented with a word of prayer. Would you bow in a word of prayer with me?

Lord, we want to reorient it on you. Get reoriented. We want to bring you all of our concerns right now. We pray as a church for our nation right now. We pray for peace. We pray for calm. We pray for love across divides. There is a grieving widow with two young children in Arizona today, and we pray for them. And there are also worried parents of teenagers at a hospital bedside in Colorado today, and we pray for them. And there is a shocked and saddened and disoriented nation today. And yet help us remember that there's also an eternal kingdom today.

Help us remember that you're still on your throne today. Help us remember that there's still the body of Christ lifting each other up today. Help us remember the Holy Spirit is with us here today to guide us into all truth. And so we pray that you would open our eyes and our hearts now to your truth in your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

So having been reoriented, what's next? We got to ask, how should we as Jesus followers be responding to kind of the atmosphere in the nation right now? Well, I cannot think of a more relevant series to launch this weekend than this series. Because if you've been asking, how can I be calm and courageous in a culture of chaos, a culture where there's unrest and violence, an unstable political environment, an unpredictable economy, uncertain world order, unknown personal future, that might sound like I'm describing today's headlines. That is the world of the book of Daniel, which is in the Old Testament of the Bible, and that's where we start our seven-week series today.

Let me just show you how much these words described the world of Daniel. Check this out. Here's a timeline to understand the context of Daniel. You have to go way back to around 1000 B.C. There's a unified kingdom of Israel under Kings David and King Solomon. But just 70 years later, there's civil war. The nation is polarized, and the kingdom ends up being split into north and south. And not only is the nation polarized, but in 722 BC, there's a big new enemy up north, the Assyrian Empire. And they look down at the northern kingdom and think, delicious. And they gobble it up, and it's wiped off the map forever.

But you know what? As they say, there's always a bigger fish. In 626 BC, Babylon looks at Assyria and thinks, delicious, and gobbles it up, and then turns to the southern kingdom and thinks, dessert, and gobbles it up, destroys Jerusalem. Many Jews are carried as captives back to Babylon. And this is especially bad because it is Babylon. In the Bible, Babylon is referenced over 300 times and it's never good. Babylon in the Bible is the icon of evil. And now it looks like evil has won. The Jews are captives there. But there's always a bigger fish.

Seventy years later, Persia destroys Babylon, and that is the context where the book of Daniel takes place. Daniel is a book about living in almost total disorientation. Daniel's world was all of these things that I described earlier. Can you see that? And what I love about the book of Daniel is it's not just a book about, here are some principles about how to live in a nation where things seem unstable or whatever. It's a story about a guy who lived through it and how God was with him through it all. So it's very inspiring. It's full of spies and intrigue and danger. I think you're going to really love it because Daniel's a teenager when he's carted off to Babylon. Daniel's an old man when the Persians take over 70 years later.

And yet in between, he becomes a well-respected leader in Babylon. In fact, second only to the king and the prince. How in the world did he stay holy and yet become a man of influence? Well, he did not give up. He did not give into culture. Really, the theme of the book of Daniel is the title of the message today. Don't give up and don't give in. Don't give up, meaning don't give up to despair, and don't give in, meaning don't just cave to an ungodly culture. This is the theme of the book of Daniel, and I think we need to hear that today. Anybody need to hear this today?

And so let's say this together, because I don't want you to forget the theme of Daniel and the theme of church today. Here we go. Say it with me. Don't give up, and don't give in. When I kind of go like this throughout the message, I want you to say it, so let's try it. Don't give up, and don't give in. Turn to somebody next to you. Somebody needs to hear this today. Say, don't give up. Don't give in. I really want us to soak in this message for the next seven weeks.

So here is how we are going to do that. One of the things that really excites me about this series is we're doing it in conjunction with Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, where Adrian Moreno and Sarah Bentley are now co-leads. And the three of us put together a whole package. There are seven weeks of daily video devos. If you haven't signed up yet, you can do that at tlc.org/Daniel, plus seven small group lessons. Week one looks like this. It is available at the tables in the back after church, and also it's available online at tlc.org/Daniel. You can download the whole book, print it out for yourself, just use it digitally, plus seven video discussion starters for the small groups.

Here's a peek. Each 10-minute video has Sarah Bentley and Adrian Moreno from Vintage and me in kind of a small group setting of our own, kicking off the discussion with a couple of questions from the group guide that I just showed you, and then we turn it over to your group to continue. And we have groups all over the county every day of the week. We even have a group starting right after the 11 a.m. service today, 12:15 over here in building 7,000. So grab the questions. You can even do a group with your family. I really encourage you to get into a group because we need each other so much right now.

So let's dive in. The book of Daniel, chapter one. It has three acts. It happens very fast like a great movie. Here we go. Act one opens with cannons, or rather chariots, thundering, smoke rising, city in ruins. Verses one and two, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. The Lord gave him victory over King Jehoiakim of Judah and permitted him to take some of the sacred objects from the temple of God. Now, the author says something very surprising here, but it's sort of hidden. I don't know if you noticed it. The Lord gave him victory and permitted him to do this.

The author of Daniel here is saying something that he could see that most people at the time could not see, and it's this. God had a plan in what seemed like total catastrophe. The backstory is for hundreds of years, God had been warning his people, disaster is coming if you keep living your life of sin. Life had gotten so bad spiritually in Israel that they were actually performing child sacrifice, among many other horrible things. And so finally God allows this to happen. And in their Babylonian captivity, they're spiritually revived. And 70 years later, the Bible says they go back strengthened.

But see, the author is revealing something here that the characters inside the story can't see. We know about that eventual light at the end of the tunnel. They don't see it yet. The point is that God always has purposes I cannot see. I don't know about you, but you might need to hear that today. Maybe for you it's not about the headlines. It's personal. You're in a situation where all your dreams seem dead. I want to tell you God is at work. He really is. He'll even take seeming disaster and bring amazing good out of it so don't give up and don't give in.

Let's try it again. So don't give up and don't give in. Great. Act two, you see a hint of how God's plans will start to unfold. Verse three, the king ordered his chief of staff to bring to the palace some of young men of Judah's royal family and other noble families who had been brought to Babylon as captives. And part of this group is Daniel and his three best friends, at the time four teenagers. They were to be trained for three years and then they would enter the royal service.

So just think about this. They had their country taken from there, their city taken from them, their families taken from them, seemingly their future taken from them, and then it gets worse. How could it get worse? Verse 7, the chief of staff renamed them, literally trying to take their identity away from them. Let me explain this. Names, even in modern times, are so important to us. They become part of our identity. And a small side note, this seems like a really good time to mention that we have a new name in our family attached to a new person, Heidi Rosemary Schlepfer, our granddaughter, born to our son David and his wife Anna this week. Isn't she beautiful? Everybody's doing great. That's our seventh grandchild in eight and a half years. It's Rosemary Schlepfer. Ah, I love it.

And here's why I love it so much. Heidi is my sister's name, and Rosemary was my mom's name. And so when they told me the name, I mean, you know, I cried. It's very meaningful. Plus, Heidi means noble, noble one. I love that because I love name meanings. That's why we named our oldest son Jonathan, which means gift of God. Our daughter Elizabeth means promise of God. And our youngest son David means beloved. Because we wanted them to know that's your identity in Christ.

My name, René, for years growing up I hated my name. Because my parents were Swiss. They gave me the name René, normal in Switzerland. But you know, I grew up in San Jose, and feeling like every day in elementary and junior high school, it was René. That's a girl's name. What's your middle name, Jennifer? So I hated it, right? René Welty, you know what I'm talking about, right? But then I discovered that in French, it actually means born again. And so now I love it because it's part of my identity in Christ.

Your name becomes part of your identity, which is what makes this so insidious. Because what's happening here is the Babylonians are adding to all their other cruelty, they're trying to squeeze out the last vestiges of their identity. Because watch this, let's do a deep dive. Daniel means El is my judge. El is a Hebrew name for God. And they change this to the Babylonian name Belteshazzar, which means may Bel protect him. Bel was a Babylonian god. And then Daniel's three friends, Hananiah means Yahweh is gracious. The Babylonians change it to Shadrach. And by the way, we're thinking of Shadrach Schlepfer for the name for the new baby, but we decided against it. No, just kidding. But that means I fear Aku, which was the Babylonian sun god.

Mishael, who is like El, or God becomes Meshach who is like Shaq. And Shaq, not a retired NBA player. Shaq was another God in Babylon. Azariah, Yahweh or Jehovah, helps me. Abednego, his new name, which means servant of Nego, the Babylonian fire god. So do you see what is happening here? All of these pagan names trying to erase who they are, trying to completely reboot them as entirely new human beings in the Babylonian mold. And so what are these four Jewish teenagers going to do about that? Well, there's not much they can do. The Babylonians change a lot about these young men.

But, verse 8, and here's the big dramatic conflict in this part of the story. Daniel was determined not to defile himself by eating the food and wine given to them by the king. So the word defile apparently related to the food and wine. It wasn't, I'm guessing, it wasn't a Jewish kosher diet. And so he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself. Very respectful. Please, he said, test us for 10 days on a diet of vegetables and water, Daniel said. See how we look compared to the other young men who are eating the king's food and then make your decision in light of what you see.

No, I want you to notice how respectful Daniel is to authority, to Babylonian enemies. In fact, you'll notice throughout this entire book, Daniel is never, ever disrespectful. The principle here is you can state your position with a spirit of peace. And this is very, very important in the cultural moment we all live in right now. You don't have to be a jerk to be righteous. And so what happens next? At the end of the 10 days, they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food.

Now, the point of the story is not that you and I should live on veggies and water, although you can if you want to. The point is, in any place, I can live for God. In any place you are, there are always ways that you can live for God. I mean, Daniel was in Babylon and found a way to be distinct and holy. You might be in a school environment where you feel kind of awkward as a believer. You might be the only believer in your family. You might be in a tough workplace. But there are still ways that you can live for God there, that you can even have ministry there.

So many examples, but one of the most unusual, you might remember the Vietnam War era story of James Stockdale. Jim Stockdale still has the record of being held longer than any other prisoner of war, 2,714 days in captivity. That's almost seven and a half years. And he was in the brutal, what was nicknamed as the Hanoi Hilton prison camp. And he writes in his book on this how, because he was the senior officer, they would take him out regularly for horrific beatings in front of the other prisoners and then throw him back into the cell to demoralize everybody.

Well, he recounts how after one horrific beating, he hears in the background snap, snap, snap, and he realized it's a snapping of towels. And then he realized there's a pattern to the snapping, and he starts to recognize the letters are being snapped out in Morse code. G-O-D, God, B-L-E-S-S, God bless. And as he keeps decoding it, somebody is saying, God bless you, Jim Stockdale. And it catches on. Other prisoners start sharing other encouragements and then Bible verses in Morse code by snapping towels. And as time went on, they found new ways. This is true. They would send messages by the noises they made when they belched and when they blew their noses. Some of you, that's the only thing you'll remember from this entire message.

But Stockdale says that when they did that, it just lifted the spirits of everybody because it was so hilarious. But if there's a better illustration that you can shine in any place, I don't know what it is. They ministered to each other in captivity, just like Daniel did. You can live for God in any place. So don't give up and don't give in. Great. So what happens to these young men? That's act three. God gave these four young men an unusual aptitude for understanding every aspect of literature and wisdom. God gave. When God puts you in a situation where you feel weak, he will give you the strength you need to do what he calls you to do.

And that means if you feel overwhelmed today, if you're facing challenges at work today or with your family or in your marriage or with your kids, wherever you are, God goes with you and he will give you the power that you need to do what he wants you to do. So watch this, verse 19. And the king spoke with them, these young men, and among all the young men, he found no one equal. In fact, it says they were 10 times better. There was no one equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. So they entered the king's service.

In fact, watch this, verse 21, Daniel remained in the royal service until the first year of the reign of King Cyrus. That is 70 years later. Now, clearly, Daniel's doing more than just sort of grudgingly doing the absolute minimum required of a captive, right? He's exceptional at his job. He's promoted eventually, as I said, above everybody else except the king and the prince. And I really want to zero in on this because our own culture in America has changed so fast that it's very easy, especially for Christians, to feel confused about culture, angry about culture, attacked by culture. Or maybe you're just kind of battle-weary about all the culture wars to the point where you just want to withdraw from culture and be a hermit or give up and conform to culture.

But God calls you and me to be distinct from culture yet still influential within culture. And that was Daniel. He was holy, but he wasn't a hermit. He was holy, but he wasn't in a holy huddle. He was in the mix. Influential. You know, sometimes I listen to the podcast Freakonomics. Now, this is not a religious show. It's about economics. And once they had an episode called, Is Religion Good for You? And it was based on a study led by MIT researcher Jonathan Gruber. The study was called Religious Participation and Outcomes. Is religion good for you? This is not even a religious guy putting this study together.

Watch what he concluded. This is on the podcast. I'm quoting. The religious are more likely to have higher incomes, higher education, more stable marriages, less likely to be on welfare, essentially be more successful on any economic measure you want to use. Almost like what happened with Daniel and the other three teenagers. You know, after they lived in a holy way, the king looks at them and, or the advisor to the king looks at them and thinks, wow, I mean, they're really, they're truly successful young men.

Now, of course, this isn't universal. He's talking about overall this is the trend in his research. So then the podcast host asks him an interesting question. Has your research made you more religious? And he says, no. But it has blown away my prejudice against religion. Watch this. I used to have what I would call the standard academic elite critique of religion. It's bad. Now I see it as good. But I was prejudiced against it because I hardly knew any religious people myself. Now here's my question. Whose fault is that? Not his? Either what's happening is there were people that he knew who were so not distinct from culture that he really had no idea that there was anything different about them or there were Christians that he knew maybe in his neighborhood who were so siloed and all their friends were only Christians.

Either way there had not been people in his life who were somehow distinct from culture and for details on that see the Sermon on the Mount right love your enemies even pray for those who persecute you, yet still influential within culture. This is a major theme of the book of Daniel. And of course, this has implications for work, for school, for how we live with our neighbors, the people in our building, if you're in an apartment. And if you have questions about this exactly, what does this mean? Well, stay tuned because this theme pops up all through the book of Daniel.

Back to verse 21. There's a hint of hope because in the first year of Cyrus, this is the king of Persia, guess what happens? The Jewish captives are released and sent home, and they rebuild. Yay, there's a celebration. But until then, for 70 years, in Babylon, God blessed Daniel. Daniel did not want to go there. Daniel did not want to stay there. But he served faithfully there, and God blessed him there. And the point is that God can bless me right where I am.

You know, maybe you're wringing your hands wondering, is my life wasted in this captivity I'm in? My health, my job, my dreams are dead or they're dying. I'm in a rut. God can bless you right there. Right in that job you hate. Right in that house you dislike. Right where you are. Dallas Willard has this great quote. God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are. He says, if we faithlessly discard situation after situation, moment after moment, as not being right, we will simply have no place to receive his kingdom into our life.

Now, that's one deep quote. Think about that for just a second. God has yet to bless anyone except where they actually are. And if you and I keep saying, I got to, you know, the key to happiness is moving into a new area, new town, new situation. This situation's too hard. I don't see God working. What happens is you're never mentally in a place where you are aware of the ways that God could bless you right there. He can bless you right now. So don't give up and don't give in.

Why shouldn't I? Well, let's review. God has purposes you cannot see right now. You can live for him right now. He can bless you where you are right now, even if you're in Babylon. But Daniel is about to face a big test of all three of those beliefs because the king of Babylon is about to arrest him and drag him into the court and say, Tell me what my dream means before I even tell you what my dream was. And if you can't do that, I'm going to kill you. How in the world is Daniel going to get out of that one? We will find out next weekend.

But don't miss this overarching message of the book of Daniel. God is in control. In fact, let's skip toward the end of the book. There's a series of visions that start in Daniel 7. Daniel says, I saw one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He was given authority, glory, and sovereign power. All nations and peoples of every language worshipped him, and his kingdom will never be destroyed. That was a vision of Jesus. That was a vision of how one day the Messiah will return and set all things right. That was a vision of how in the book of Daniel, in spite of appearances, God is still in control. God still has a plan. And in your life today, in spite maybe of appearances, God is still in control.

And the best example of this in history was the cross of Jesus, right? All seemed lost, but actually God's plans were being fulfilled when Jesus died for our sins and rose again, and that is the biggest reason ever that you should, and say it with me one more time, don't give up and don't give in. Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we love you so much, and I know that there's people all over this room and joining us online right now for whom life is difficult. I pray that we would all have the courage to believe that you are at work right now, to trust that even when our lives do not turn out the way we hoped, your goodness has not changed. You are working in our lives and in this world. And, Lord, again, we pray for our nation right now. And we pray for calm. And most of all, we pray for faith. We pray for people to turn in faith not to any idol but to you, the living and risen Jesus Christ. And open our ears and open our hearts so that we could hear you and see you showing us the path forward, that you would empower us to live the Jesus way as agents of hope and godly influence. And it's in his name we pray today. Amen.