Increasing My Courage

It is super fun to have Kyle here as the pastor of College Ministries and also Garrett who leads worship for high school and junior high college as well. So this is pretty cool because Tuesday is junior high group here. Wednesday is high school group here. Thursday is the college group here. And the attendance in these groups has shot up so much. So generally speaking, from Tuesday to Thursday, we have about 400 young people here age 12 to 22. About 400. And that's remarkable. And I want to thank Kyle and Garrett, the whole team, for doing just a wonderful job.

True story. Levin Merritt was just five years old when his family took him to the zoo in West Sussex in the UK. And Levin was so excited about this because Levin loved animals, especially he loved gorillas. And so Levin was so eager to go up to the gorilla enclosure and to get a better view, he leaned up over the fence. And even though his parents told him not to, he even climbed up over the fence. A little too far and Levin fell in. 20 feet down into the gorilla enclosure where for a while he was unconscious as the biggest silverback in the zoo, a huge gorilla named Jumbo, shuffles there, looms over him. Surprising everyone, including his petrified parents, Jumbo tenderly reaches out a hand to calm little Levin. Other younger gorillas aggressively move in, but Jumbo stands and protects Levin for several minutes until human EMTs could jump in and rig ropes to lift Levin out.

Now, I only heard the story this past summer when Levin, now 44, gave an interview about it because that zoo is celebrating its 40th anniversary. He says he still loves gorillas. In fact, he's bringing his own three kids to see them at this same zoo this fall. And I heard about that and I thought, I'm pretty sure he's going to be the most protective father in the entire zoo. Don't get, stay 10 yards away. Just go to the gift shop and look at the stuffed gorillas, right?

Well, today we're going to look at an even more famous story of someone who falls into a wild animal den, only this person is infamously pushed. So grab your message notes. If you open up your bulletins on the inside, there's a sermon outline that you can follow along with. Courage in Chaos is what we call our series in the book of Daniel. My name is Renée, another one of the pastors here. And we call this series Courage in Chaos because the book of Daniel in the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures of the Bible, it's about a time of chaos, about a time of total cultural disorientation.

Just to give you an overview, as it opens, Jerusalem falls and Jewish captives are taken to Babylon. And one of the Jewish captives, Daniel, serves King Nebuchadnezzar and his six successors rising through the ranks until the Persians conquer Babylon. Now there are brand new Persian rulers, different culture, different language. Yet, for some reason, they trust Daniel too. In fact, throughout this book, Daniel serves nine different rulers, many of whom were rivals and even enemies. Daniel lived through so much unrest and violence and unstable political environment, unpredictable economy, uncertain world order, an unknown personal future. Kind of like you might feel about your life in the world today.

And so this book asks the timeless question, how can I be calm and courageous in a culture of chaos? And the iconic story about this is the one we finally get to today. I've been so looking forward to preaching this story in Daniel 6, the classic story of Daniel in the lion's den. It's the icon, right? The iconic image of somebody who remains calm and courageous literally in just this dark den of snarling chaos.

Now, to help you kind of imagine this story, I just want to take you on a little tour of how artists throughout the centuries have envisioned this story. I love this engraving by Gustave Duret, who was a great French engraver from the 1800s. You should look up his work because it's just exceptional. Or this, Daniel praying when he's literally surrounded, being staked out by snarling lions. And how good is this more recent painting from the late 20th century? I love the impressionism of this one. And the more you look at it, you see the malice in the lion's eyes. They're literally glowing green, sort of coveting Daniel, but for some reason they can't quite get to him.

And then I love this medieval engraving because as they often put in their engravings in those days, there's human skulls and bones showing the lion's previous victims. And I really love this whole painting. I've never seen this before this week. It's a painting on wood from the Middle Ages. There's lions everywhere. And way back in the corner, there is little Daniel who is praying. And I love this because it shows just what he was up against, right? Just how outnumbered Daniel was. And these are all great. Pardon me. There's just one thing. Do you know how many words we have describing this scene in the biblical text?

Let me put it this way. There are 153 verses in the book of Daniel describing Daniel, his character and his outlook on life and who he served. 153 verses about Daniel before he gets to the lion's den moment and then zero in the lion's den. That's actually, we actually don't know what happened down there because there's no description of it in the Bible. Now, why do I bring this up? All of us know there are going to be these lion's den moments in life, right? There's going to be pressure to compromise, as Daniel faced, or other pressures in life. There's going to be illness, financial pressure, job pressure. When life feels like I've just been thrown into a dark pit and the lions are circling and snarling. And I want to stand up and be brave now in this moment.

But here's the thing. Daniel did not decide to be courageous once he found himself in that sudden situation; he has been developing his character for 153 verses before this moment. He's 80 years old, by the way, when the story happens and still at it, still very valuable as a member of society. But for 80 years and 153 verses, he's been molding himself, his identity, his character, his principles. And my point is, if you want the courage of Daniel, I recommend making the choices of Daniel in the years leading up to that moment. And you can begin this today or double down on it today.

I see him making three choices that cultivate courage, no matter what the pressure. And here's the setup. As the curtain opens on our story in Daniel 6, Persia, which had been a regional power, has expanded to much of the known world. And to govern all this extra real estate, they need some new administrators. And we open the story in verse 3 of Daniel 6. Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional abilities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. But when the other guys who got passed over for the promotion hear about this, they are furious. They want him out.

And so, you know, politics never changes. They look for some kind of a scandal. They're looking for some email, some text, something that he did in his past, and they can find nothing. It says they could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor even negligent. No sins of commission, no sins of omission. So now what are they going to do? Well, they hatch a plot. And it's really genius. Without mentioning Daniel to the king, because clearly the king likes Daniel, they say, King, we want to pass a law in your honor because we think you're just great. Flattery, right? We want to do something like the National Day of Prayer to you. No, let's make it the National Month of Prayer to you. Pray to the king month.

And everybody agrees on this. We've all agreed. This is like just unanimous vote, king, that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or human being during the next 30 days, except to you, your majesty, of course, shall be thrown into the lion's den. Now, I want to pause for just a second and ask, why the lion's den? Why didn't they just say, you know, shall be beheaded or something? I mean, if you really want to hurt someone, just insert them into the starting lineup of the San Francisco 49ers. That's all you have to do. Why go to these efforts?

Lions were a huge part of the imagery of the Persian culture. This is a carving of a lion from the walls of Darius's palace, the king in this story. Pardon me. This was a lion that was on the walls of the Ishtar Gate in Babylon in the 500 B.C. era. So Daniel and all these people in the story would have seen this lion. There were many other lions like this. Because the lion was sort of the symbol of Persia. It's like I'm from Switzerland. If you go to Bern, the capital of Switzerland, the symbol is the bear. That's what Bern means. And so for centuries they've had a bear enclosure there with bears in it. Because that is the animal of Switzerland. And a lot of these ancient cultures did this, right? And so they had a lion pit there because this was the icon. It was sort of the spirit animal of the Persian kingdom.

And so throwing somebody to the lion's den is symbolic, right? The empire's literally eating you up. And these were not African lions. They were Persian cats. And I don't mean this kind of Persian cat because that would not have been a miracle. Well, Daniel survived, but he does have bad allergies, so he cannot stop sneezing. No, the Persian lion was a lion subspecies. They're endangered now, but they still survive in very small numbers in India. And they're known for being very aggressive. In fact, you might remember last year, summer of 2024, a 34-year-old man jumped into a Persian lion enclosure in a zoo in India because he wanted to take a selfie. And almost instantly he was dead because they're very territorial, very aggressive. So that helps you imagine this story.

And to understand the genius of their plot, you have to understand this next verse. They say, now your majesty, we've all agreed about this and you need to issue this decree and put it into writing, next verse, so it can't be altered in accordance with the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be repealed. So one of the Persian innovations in human history was the rule of law. Before this, most kingdoms in the world, and really after this, most kingdoms in the world, the law was whatever the king said the law was. But the Persians invented this airtight system where the law ruled and not the whim of a king. It was known as the law of the Medes and the Persians.

For the first time, if a law was made, even the king himself was subject to the law. And this was designed to bring stability to a country so it didn't just operate according to the whims of a king. But the enemies of Daniel try to use this against him because they know something that the king doesn't know. Daniel prays with his windows wide open three times every single day. And so the king agrees. Great idea, everyone. Pray to me for the next month or you die and I'm not lying. Thank you. But that gets us to Daniel's first choice. Choose consistency over convenience. Consistency.

What do you do when you discover that your enemies have passed a law aimed at one person and you are that person? How do you respond? Here's how Daniel responds. Verse 10. Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went into hiding. No, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. And three times a day, he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. Knowing that his enemies would see him, he would not change who he was or what he believed. Just, you know, for convenience sake, under any pressure.

Now probably, you know, most of us want to be that principled, but it's hard to be that principled. And so the question is, how do you make this choice to really stick with your principles and your beliefs? Your core principles, we all have to compromise on things, but your core principles. How do you resist pressure to compromise those things? Well, I'm going to say it in one word. And it's a word that many of you are not going to like. She already doesn't like it. It's a very unpopular word. We cringe when we hear this word. It's a word I, frankly, don't like. Here it comes. Are you ready for this word? Discipline.

I know. That's point two. Choose discipline over disorder. Daniel was disciplined. Remember that verse? Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed. And he was a busy guy. He was responsible for many, many things. A governor. Again, at this point, Daniel's about 80 years old. And let's just say he started this three times a day habit when he was 15. I did the math over a lifetime. That comes out to over 71,000 prayers. That's a hard habit to break. No wonder he just went back to his room and started praying. This is, you know, get into good ruts. Good ruts.

This is why the Bible says many times things like this, discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. Now I just want to address something here to a lot of us including me. The word discipline comes with a lot of baggage, right? It sounds legalistic. It has been weaponized maybe in your life by weirdos, super zealous religious leaders or coaches or something like that that they've overdone it. When I was younger and I heard about discipline, spiritual disciplines in church, I usually had two responses. Number one, immediate guilt. And then number two, the big plan. I need to be more disciplined. For the rest of my life, I'm going to get up at 5 a.m. and have an hour of silence like the monks did. And what happened three weeks into it or less, burnout, and I stopped and I felt even more guilty than before and like a failure.

I don't know if anybody's ever been there, but that happens with discipline in any area of life, right? So let's talk about what discipline is not. Discipline is not a way to earn extra credit because God already loves you 100%. Nothing you do can make God love you more or less because God's love for you is eternal and is unconditional. Here's what discipline is. I love how Paul puts it in Romans 12. In view of God's mercy. Not to earn God's mercy. In view of, because God is so merciful to you already, offer your bodies back to him as a living sacrifice. In other words, commit your life to him. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the Renéwing of your mind.

That's all it is. It's simple. It's all about what you put into your mind. You put peaceful things in, you'll be more peaceful. You put joyful things in, you'll be more joyful. You put in angry bloggers, even angry Christian bloggers, you'll just get angrier. You put in sexual imagery, you'll be more lustful. You know, this isn't rocket science. And listen, every day, every minute, you are transforming your mind all the time. You are never static. You are always changing. And the way you are changing is determined by the content that you are pouring in.

And this is why Christians for centuries and centuries have talked about the spiritual disciplines. Things like fasting, worship, meditation, memorization, prayer, Bible reading, silence, and solitude, and Sabbath keeping, and so on. Now, if you don't like the word discipline, if it still has too much baggage for you, then cross this out and put habits. That's just another word for discipline. Spiritual habits. Try to make these things into habits. And what it's going to do is it's going to stabilize you so that you can live by your principles.

Now, I know that's a long list and it's overwhelming, so just start with one or two. Like the easiest ones, I think, on the list are prayer and meditation. You know, when you wake up, you pray for a minute. At least one meal, you pray and give thanks. When you go to bed at night, you say, well, that's a great idea, but what do I pray and meditate on? I'm so glad you asked. Because that introduces the discipline of memorization. Just memorize four or five Bible verses to start with that you can quote from memory when you pray. You say, what verses? Well, I'm glad you asked. I put some of my favorites on page three of your notes.

And for me, there's a story behind every one of these. Like I will never forget one day early in my ministry here when I was feeling very discouraged in my role as a pastor. And that day, I get a letter, a little card from my little sister Heidi. She lives up in Oregon, a couple years younger than me, but she's my little sister. And she sends me this letter and she says, I'm praying for you. And then she wrote out this next verse. Therefore, my dear brothers, and she crossed out the S, so it said, my dear brother, stand firm, let nothing move you. Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord because you know your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

So since she sent me 1 Corinthians 15:58, I have thought about this, meditated on this, memorized this many, many times. And I always think of this as my Heidi verse. Because it still comes with the fragrance of her personal encouragement still on it for me. Or you probably know this one from Psalm 23 already. Even though I walk through the darkest valley, you know, the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. I prayed through that. I prayed that with people, you know, in hospital rooms and so on hundreds of times.

Or if you're still thinking, I can't memorize these are all too long. Here's one. Psalm 46:10. Say this with me. Be still and know that I am God. Let's say that one more time. Be still and know that I am God. Now everybody close your eyes. Close your eyes. And say that again. Be still and know that I am God. Now open your eyes. You just memorized a Bible verse. See how easy that was? And you can apply this tonight. When you're tossing and turning because of some pressure and you're wondering how you're going to sleep, you can remember God saying to you, be still and know that I am God. And you just meditate on that for a little while.

These habits build stability. You know, I was thinking about this here at TLC. We have nearly 3,000 people who attend each week if you put together in person and live stream. Suppose each one of us just decided to pray three times a day like Daniel. And suppose we all prayed for Santa Cruz, for God to bless Santa Cruz through us. Do you know how many prayers would be offered to God just by our congregation each year? About three million. These little habits add up. So Daniel praying three times a day as a habit, this changes him. It molds him so he can face what happens next.

Back to the story. The conspirators see him praying. And they run to the king. Oh, oh, oh, king, king, king. There's a guy over here and he's not obeying your decree. We saw him with our own two eyes. And the king's, who is it? It's Daniel. And suddenly the king knows that he's been played. It says, when the king heard this, he was greatly distressed. He was determined to rescue Daniel and made every effort until sundown to save him. He tries to find a loophole all day long, but he can't find one. And so the king gave the order. And they brought Daniel, and they threw him into the lion's den.

And the king said to Daniel, may your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you. And a stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den. And then the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the rings of the nobles so that Daniel's situation might not be changed. In other words, there is no possible way out. And again, we, the readers, we don't stay with Daniel there in the lion's den to find out what happens. We leave with the king, not knowing Daniel's fate, for a whole sleepless night. And the king tosses and turns because Daniel's his best guy, and Daniel's become a good friend.

And as soon as dawn breaks, he rushes to the lion's den. And when he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice, Daniel, servant of the living God, is your God whom you serve continually been able to rescue from the lions? And Daniel answered, may the king live forever. My God sent his angel and he shut the mouths of the lions. They haven't hurt me because I was found innocent in his sight. By the way, I've heard pastors say, see, Daniel was sinless. He was not sinless. Nobody's sinless. Later in chapter 10, he actually confesses his sin. What he's saying is he's innocent of the charges against him, right? It's kind of like ball don't lie in the NBA. Lions don't lie. He's innocent of the charges against him. Nor have I ever done any wrong before you, your majesty.

And the king was overjoyed. And he gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him because he had trusted in his God. And the king turns to the conspirators. And they get the fate that they had planned for Daniel. And it turns out that those lions are very hangry. They've been looking at Daniel all night long. So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

Now, I think we can miss how incredible this was. Serving all of these kings. We hear these names and we can miss that these guys and the other guys he'd been serving were, some of them were enemies. But Daniel is somehow able to thread this needle, to remain nonpartisan and completely trustworthy with total integrity, yet without compromising the core principles of his faith. So much so that he's an influence to them all by his service to them. And this is the third, and this has to be a very deliberate choice you make in life. Because otherwise, you're never going to do this. But it's the third choice you see Daniel making all through this whole book. And it's this, choose devotion over domination.

Devotion over domination. And by devotion, I mean loyalty and service to others. In the long run, if you want to be an influence in Babylon, don't look for power to seize. Look for people to serve. That's Daniel's story. And that is exactly what we're called to be as Jesus followers, isn't it? Jesus said, you're the salt of the earth. You're the light of the world. Let your light shine before others. How? By having a provocative podcast? By winning every argument? No. So people can see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. That's how we are in influence and that's really Daniel's life in a nutshell, isn't it?

And this is really the whole point of our acts of kindness emphasis at TLC and I gotta give you an update here. So just yesterday we collected hundreds of pajamas for project pajamas and what this is all about is we get asked for help with kids in transitional housing who are often removed from home without even pajamas to wear and this is one way for them to feel someone cares. And yesterday just in three hours we sorted nearly 600 pajamas so let's thank the whole team of volunteers for that project it was amazing.

We also put together gift bags for Valencia Elementary School, their entire staff with gift cards and thank you notes also, hundreds and hundreds of hygiene bags for the unhoused. These were filled with shampoo, soap, toothpaste, combs, protein bars, socks, info on our own food pantry and others. And then Stuff the Truck, hundreds of you came by for this. It was unbelievable. You donated stuff to Goodwill and for each truck we got $1,000 for people's pantry. People worked so hard, even though I have to say it was very, very hot. I myself did not hydrate enough and it led to some dire consequences.

Also, a big shout out to our junior hires. They were amazing. They had baked goods available, and they raised $500, and again, all proceeds went to our people's pantry. And I love how when my wife, Lori, who organized this, said, called Goodwill and said, we need five semi-trucks. The folks at Goodwill said, nobody ever fills up even one. So they just showed up with one. And as the day went on, it was kind of like that famous line from Jaws, I think we're going to need a bigger truck, right? And so they called for one more truck, and then another truck, and then another truck, and then another truck, in the end, five trucks, and thousands of dollars for people's pantry. So let's thank everybody who volunteered. It was amazing.

Now, if you missed it, and you're like, oh, I forgot that it was Saturday, too bad you're going to regret it for the rest of your life. No, there are tons more projects. Four more weeks of this emphasis. Go to tlc.org/AOK for all kinds of projects we're doing all around the community here in Santa Cruz.

But here's the thing. I want you to think again about this choice of Daniel's. Listen carefully. Not every leader in the Bible makes this choice. You know, the Bible is not a kid's book, even though you probably learned Daniel in the lion's den when you were a little kid, right? Daniel is a book for grown-ups. I mean, the Bible, the whole Bible is. And books for grown-ups don't come with clear, like, and therefore the moral of the story is. They expect you to draw conclusions based on, you know, what you're reading in this work of, this inspired, divinely inspired work of art and literature.

For example, there's all sorts of leaders in the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament. You've got, for example, Samson, who sort of is the archetype of one type of leader, all about power and force and revenge. And then you've got leaders like Daniel who serve. So how did they turn out? Well, here's the last verse of Samuel's story. He had led Israel 20 years, 20 years of tricking Philistines and slaughtering Philistines. And after 20 years, after he's done with his leadership, what's he leave? Chaos, murders, war, just bizarre things happening. Israel is worse off than ever after 20 years of that kind of leadership.

Then there are leaders like Daniel. Decades of service, even to enemies. After he is done, what's the result? The return of the Jews to Jerusalem, rebuilding, and revival. And you're expected to make the conclusion which kind of leadership is best, right? Yet I'm afraid today that many Christians are acting more like Samson than Daniel, thinking that we need to lead like our culture can sometimes be aggressive, combative, and win at all costs. I even heard a Christian pastor say the other day, Christians can only be stomped on so long before we stomp back. No, we never stomp back. Jesus actually said to never stomp back. Turn the other cheek. Daniel never stomped back. And we're called on to lead like Christ. Selfless, sacrificial, serve at all costs. Just like Daniel. That is how we roll.

So look back at your notes. What do you do when they call for the lions? You know what you do if you're like Daniel? You don't change a thing. Because you've been already making these three choices. When life gets uncontrollable, you control what you can control, your own choices. And when it comes to what you can't control, you give it to God and let the chips fall where they may. Right? You can't control the lions and their appetite. However, even Daniel is about to encounter something so terrifying, so Halloween-level scary, that he passes out from fright. Now, what could possibly scare a man who's not even afraid of lions? We will see next weekend.

But look how the story ends. The king gives God glory. Look at this hymn the Persian king sings to God. He is the living God and he endures forever. His kingdom will not be destroyed. His dominion will never end. He rescues and saves. He performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions. And this is the constant theme of Daniel. And it's the overall theme to courage. Believing really God reigns. God rules. Say this with me, God reigns. God reigns. When I gesture toward you say, God reigns. Ready, God reigns. This is the point. God reigns, not kings. God reigns, not lions. God reigns, not enemies. God reigns, not you. God reigns. And you can find comfort in that. No matter what lions you are facing right now. Amen?

Let's pray together. Would you bow your heads with me? With your heads bowed, I want to invite you to pray this prayer in your heart. Just pray this line silently in your heart as I pray this, just line by line. Lord, give me courage. Thank you that my life is in your hands. Help me to control what I can control, my own choices. Help me to live with integrity. And help me to release what I can't control into your hands because you reign. And above all else may you be glorified in my life so that others will praise you and I pray this in the name of Jesus Christ the Lion of Judah. Amen.