And here at the end, we will shut the streaming down
and we will have a time of prayer.
So make sure that you get a prayer list.
If you have a prayer request,
you can grab one of those slips and fill that out
and turn that in.
And we will make sure to get that prayer request
on the prayer list for the next few weeks and months.
And so that'll be what we do.
If you have your Bibles, grab those.
We're gonna be in Daniel, Daniel chapter number one.
Daniel chapter number one.
We're gonna be starting a new series tonight
and I'm really excited about this new series.
It's gonna be a six week series
and then we're gonna, it's gonna be really, really good.
I want you with the two or three people
that are around you ready.
I want you, everybody,
I think most people had this experience.
When you came home from school growing up,
what was your favorite show?
If you, did you ever watch the show?
Anybody watch shows after school?
Okay.
You never watch shows after school.
Okay.
Or, okay.
If you don't have that, if that's not part of it,
give me an old show that you haven't seen in a long time
that you really like, ready, set, go.
Talk to each other.
Okay.
All right.
Let me ask you a question.
Is the old show that you hadn't seen in a long time,
how many of you guys was it from the, from the 90s?
Anybody from the 90s
Is it the one that you mentioned?
Okay, Isaac's.
Okay, that makes sense, Isaac and John.
How many of us are from the 80's?
Show from the 80's?
70's?
70's? 60's?
Maybe a bunch of you raised your hand for the 60's.
Okay, here's a trivia question.
There was a show in the 60's that primarily featured...
Wait, am I messing this up?
I said what I was going to say.
I can't.
Okay, there was a carat...
I almost messed it up.
Okay, there was on this show a pet that was under the stairs.
And it was a show from the 60's.
You got it.
What was the name of the pet?
Spot.
Does anybody know what they're talking about?
They said it's the monsters.
Okay, and the pet was Spot, right?
What was...
What was Spot?
Does anybody remember that?
What was Spot?
It's a dragon.
The dragon that lived.
How many guys are my age and you have no idea what they're talking about?
Yes, okay.
Yeah, we're all kind of showing our age.
That's fine.
So, the monster's stairs open like the hood of a car.
And Spot would appear if you remember and he would breathe fire or whatever.
And it would be kind of cool to own a dragon.
Who would like to own a dragon?
That would be kind of neat.
You could have like...
You could have a backyard, you know, barbecues all you want.
But probably they would cost more than you could afford.
Who agrees? Probably the feeding will be hard.
And, yeah.
Of course, that was a fictitious pet.
And, of course, some of the best shows and stuff are fictitious, obviously, and otherworldly.
Several shows in the 60s depicted people living in an unfamiliar place like...
Like the monsters being there.
They were kind of these like...
There are monsters in real everyday life and that was kind of the shtick.
Who remembers other shows like that from the 60s?
Like people not in where they're supposed to be.
Like, for instance, who remembers Beverly Hills, right?
They're kind of out of place because they're from the country and they're stuck in, you know, Beverly Hills.
Anybody else thinking something like that?
Yeah, I'm a sue.
My favorite Martian, okay.
Gilligan's Island was that way.
Yeah.
People lost in space.
Hey, good job.
That's the one.
For sure. Lost in space was that way.
You guys got exactly the right...
That's the ones I wrote down.
Sometimes...
So you have these people that are out of their element, right?
We're starting a series called...
Staying True in a World Far From God.
And there is a sense in which people that are trying to...
And we're all at different places in this, okay?
I'm not trying to make anybody in here feel bad.
Some of us are new in our journey following Christ.
Some of us have been coming to church and trying to follow Christ for a long time.
So we're all in different places.
But sometimes what happens is the more and more God changes you.
And I believe that God does change us.
Do you believe that?
I believe that the testimony of so many lives that I've known.
And I know the testimony of my life is that outside of knowing God from His word and in my life,
I know where I would be.
I know where I would be if I didn't have this.
Because I know where I am with it.
And I'm not everything I could be.
But I'm not everything I could be.
Do you get it?
And so the more that God grows us, the more that like...
I think there should be a sense in which we become less and less comfortable in this world.
That we're not...
And here's kind of what's happening in our culture.
Our culture is getting further and further away from God.
So how do you...
This is the big question of this series.
How do you stay true to God in a world that's growing further and further away from Him?
What are some of the things you can do living in a culture that's not driving you towards morality, ethics, right spiritual thinking?
How do you stay true to God?
Who agrees there's lots of temptation out there, right?
And here's the other thing.
I think one of the toughest things for us to...
One of the toughest tests to pass in terms of wanting to be spiritual, be godly as you go through life is the test of prosperity.
That like when you have a lot and here's what you need to understand about where we live in history and in this world, we have a lot.
The poorest among us have a lot.
Okay?
Now I'm not saying that there aren't people that don't have problems and needs,
but facing that test can be very, very difficult.
And coming out the other side having been godly.
There ought to be a culture shock.
Have you ever experienced culture shock?
I know my wife and I before we were married, we, for one summer for like seven or eight weeks, we talked.
We were just friends.
And we talked on this old school thing called Microsoft Messenger.
Does anybody remember that?
Well, instant messenger was the other kind of one.
Did you ever do that, Dustin?
We would talk online and she was just falling head over heels for me.
And I thought she was pretty cool too.
But we were talking online that way because she was in Thailand.
She spent a summer in Thailand teaching English as a second language and working with the missionary and getting people into church and doing that.
And I remember talking about the differences in the culture.
I'm looking over here at Jessica who spent four years in Taiwan.
And like, I'm sure Jessica could tell us because I talked to Corey and her both about like you're in a place and then all of a sudden you hear somebody speaking.
I've heard people, they haven't told me this, but stuff like this happening where you're in a culture where you're not around people like you.
Everybody you see is Taiwanese.
Everybody you see is speaking another language and thinking a different way.
And all of a sudden you hear an American accent and you're like somebody from home, you know, because you're in a different place and you have that culture shock that happens.
The Old Testament prophet Daniel, I believe, experienced exactly this.
This was a guy.
Daniel and his three friends that we hear about, commonly known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
These were the best and brightest of the Hebrews.
Babylon, this Babylonian empire had invaded just like God had predicted that they would.
And they took these three Hebrew boys, they took Daniel.
And part of the way that they would do things is they would take the best and brightest from the culture and they would bring them into their culture and they would try to make them in their mold and in their image.
They would try to make them Babylonian.
For those who grew up in church, our first thought concerning Daniel is likely of the king throwing him in the lion's den.
How many of you have heard that story before, right?
We've all heard that story.
This centuries old story highlights the world's antagonism towards the thing of God and his followers.
The conflict has existed since Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden and continues till today.
The division between the world standards and God's standards is not a thin line in the sand.
Today it's growing as an ever increasing chasm.
And the differences are seemingly becoming greater and greater and ever increasingly rapid.
To the point at which the thing I've experienced, I've been in full time ministry since about 2003.
I was in school some of those years and I started an internship in ministry then.
I've not been forever but I've been around it for a while.
There's ebbs and flows in this.
What I've experienced the past couple of years is that we start engaging with people more and more.
That they're not necessarily saved or even bought in traditionally Christian.
What's happening is they're beginning to look towards the things of God and hear what I'm hearing.
I felt like I needed to come to church because the world is getting so crazy.
Just because there's things that are being questioned that I never thought were questioned.
It's not necessarily like, oh, tell me about this Jesus.
It's more like, you guys seem like you're a little bit more sane.
You know what I'm saying?
I'm not a little bit of a trove but I'm having that conversation a lot more than I ever have.
Daniel in the lion's den is but one snapshot of this story where these guys were taken out of a culture that revered the things of God at least at some level.
They were placed into a foreign culture.
They're out of their element.
They're in a place that they don't totally understand.
Our behavior that stands out is one behavior that stands out among many things is his convictions.
In fact, over the next six weeks we're going to be looking at what it means to stay true in a world that's far from God.
Daniel did this and you'll see it on your sheet as you look at the handout.
These are the six lessons we're going to do.
Daniel stood out and these boys stood out in a world far from God and a culture that they lived in, the Babylonian culture that was far from God,
by number one, developing strong convictions.
Number two, praying with passion.
Excuse me.
Number three, speaking truth boldly.
Number four, living courageously.
Number five, confessing wholeheartedly.
And then number six, preparing for battle.
Today we're going to start with this first idea and that idea is developing strong convictions.
If you're going to stay true in a world that's growing farther and farther and farther away from God, you've got to have some convictions.
You've got to have some things you say, you know what?
This is the line in the sand, this far and no farther.
In fact, I'll say this and this is kind of the theme of the lesson.
Our convictions, not our circumstances, define who we are.
Who agrees?
Our circumstances can change.
What's true in the 90s and what's true in the 2000s and what's true in 2023, that changes.
Our location can change, right?
Our, the culture changes.
Sometimes our circumstances are thrust upon us as you find Daniel having that kind of situation.
Who we will be determines what we do and what we do comes from what we believe.
If we want to do the right thing and honor our God, we must be people who do that regardless of where we are and what's happening to us.
So to do that, we have to develop strong convictions.
So developing and living out strong convictions are exemplified for us by Daniel's experience and decision making here in Babylon in Daniel chapter one.
And we're going to see three choices that he made that we should make too.
Here's the first choice that he made.
Number one that we got to make.
Don't conform, don't conform to the world around us.
Here's what it says.
Daniel chapter one, let's start in the verse three.
And let me just set this up again just to make sure you totally understand the context.
Daniel, the book of Daniel was written by Daniel and he was a prophet of God.
In fact, there are prophecies in Daniel that have been already fulfilled.
There are some prophecies in Daniel that have yet to be fulfilled.
So that's a pretty interesting thing about this book.
Daniel chapter one gives us an insight into what happened with him as he and his friends were taking out of Israel to Babylon.
They're put with a bunch of the people and we'll see this in just a second.
They're put with a bunch of people that are trying to change their values.
And that's exactly what we find.
Look at verse three, Daniel chapter one verse three.
And the king spake unto Asphanas, the master of the eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel and of the king seed and of the princes, children in whom was no blemish but well favored and skillful in all wisdom and cunning in knowledge and understanding science
and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace and whom they might teach the learning of the tongue of the Chaldeans.
And the king appointed them with a daily provision of the king's meat and of the wine which he drank, so nourishing them three years and that at the end thereof they might stand before the king.
Now among these were all the children of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Michiel and Azariah, unto whom the princes of the eunuchs gave them names, for he gave unto Daniel the name of Balthashazzar and the Hananiah of Shadrach and then Michiel and Meshach and the Azariah of Abednego.
So you have something interesting going on here, you have the king giving Asphanas, that's the guy's name right, verse three, the master of the eunuchs, the eunuchs were people who were physically altered, we'll just leave it at that, so that they would not be married so they could give their full service to a king.
Now think about this, we're in a small group setting a little bit, not as big as Sunday morning, what are some of the things that they were trying to use to influence these boys, what did they try to change about them?
Give me some stuff, we just read it, what are some of the things that they were trying to influence them with?
Yes, the eunuchs for sure, yeah absolutely.
Right, they're trying to cut off their ability to even propagate.
Did you see that, they're teaching them the tongues of the Chaldeans, we want you to speak in our language, right, yeah.
What else, somebody else, huh, change their names, changing their identity, did you guys see that?
I make joke all the time about my brother and I, I think I've done that, my brother is named Joshua Shadrach Jennings, so we call him Shad, you guys haven't met him, Shad you need to come to Ohio, why haven't you come?
He's not watching, he doesn't watch, okay, but Shadrach is his name and my name is Benjamin which means favorite son, son of the right hand, and Shad's name, Shadrach is, I think it means literally circuit of the son, I think it was the Babylonian,
it was a name that was a tribute to the Babylonian son God, and so I bring that up a lot, Shad's name is that, but so these names that they gave to these boys honored their, that was me, honored their gods,
so now your identity is not in your Judaism, now your identity is not only in our Babylonian ways, but in our Babylonian religion, what else?
We got, we got language, we've got name, what did you say?
Yeah, they're diet, who agrees?
We'll get back to that one, there's another one, what did you say?
Yeah, so I'm going to say their education, I believe what they're describing when he says they're going to come and live here and learn the language and change the name and eat the way they're doing,
and to have that for a period of three years before they stand before the king, essentially what they're saying is we're going to educate them, we're going to brainwash them, we're going to make them think the way that we think.
Now, it seems as if the boys probably didn't have a choice, but they would respond to the names they were given.
I'm sure that at some level they probably dressed in the way that they were told to dress.
I'm sure that what you find at some point is that the king, and we're going to see this later, but the king kind of keeps putting Daniel in charge of things and that happens later on.
That's part of that whole story with Daniel and the lion's den.
So I think that they did the best they could at their studies, does that make sense?
So they adapted to their culture, they adapted to what was going on, but there was something that happened that was, and we're going to see that in the next section, dealing with compromise.
But here's the point, the point that I'm trying to make with you is this.
Their culture had an agenda.
Their culture had an agenda for them.
And that culture, here's what I say, not all culture, culture in general is not, it's not, there are some things that are culturally not bad or not good, they just are.
But Satan wants to use culture to affect us.
So we need to be in the culture but not of the culture.
Who agrees with me?
We need to be in it and not of it.
There's so much that's cultural.
I'm wearing shirts and jeans.
Many of you are too.
You're wearing, nobody came in with robes on like they would wear back in Jesus' day.
Those are some things that are cultural.
They're not moral or immoral, they're there.
But the truth of the matter is Satan wants to use the culture to drive us into a certain way.
The world wants to conform us.
This passage reminds us that the enemy wants to put the world around us.
It wants us to get from around us to inside of us.
You get it?
The apostle Paul warns us against allowing this to happen in Romans 12, 1, and 2.
He says this.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice,
wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
And then he says this.
And be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove
what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
You can either be conformed to the world or you can be transformed by the truth of the word of God.
This helps us know how to think, how to do, and how to live.
And we self-to-be in the world, we still eat, we speak language.
That's all part of it.
But wherever we're tempted to go past the line that God has drawn in the sand,
we've got to make sure we don't go past that line.
And we need to recognize, this is so important, that the culture has an agenda.
The world has an agenda.
That's number one.
Don't conform to the world around us.
Number two, don't compromise like the world around us.
Don't compromise like the world around us.
Look at verse number eight.
I love this.
Here's where Daniel had to draw a line.
But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with a portion of the king's meat,
nor with the wine which he drank.
Therefore, he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.
What do you think it means when it says purposed in his heart?
What do you think that means?
Somebody raise your hand and, Brian, we think.
Who agrees that there's a decision that's made, right?
What else?
Doran.
Right. That's good.
So there's a meditation.
Right.
That's good.
Yeah.
I agree.
There's a line that he puts in the sand.
Okay.
He definitely, we know at least this way.
Yeah.
Why would Daniel make that decision in the first place?
It's right down the line with what you're saying, Dave.
He recognized that there was a line in the sand that he wasn't supposed to cross because he knew God's opinion on it.
Does that make sense?
If he hadn't been taught, who do you think taught Daniel?
We don't know for sure, but when he came from a Hebrew culture, that was a discipleship culture, right?
Deuteronomy 6 tells people that the law tells parents that the law of God should be in their heart and that they would teach it diligently to their kids when they walk in the way when they sit down and when they rise up.
And so Daniel, even though he might have not have had the word of God in terms of scrolls there in front of him, he had the word of God in here.
So when the culture tried to get him to go in a certain direction, there was a hard choice that had to be made.
I think it's interesting too, he purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself.
That was a decision, but was it just one decision?
No, there's multiple decisions.
I think there is a decision that looks a lot like, you know what?
No, I'm not doing that.
Okay, once you make the decision, I'm not doing that.
What decision do you have to make next?
What am I going to do then?
Because there's coming a dinner, there's coming a situation where they're going to put a plate of food in front of me that I've been told I'm not going to do it.
That's why the second half of the verse is there.
Look at verse 8.
Asked verse 8, but Daniel purposed his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor the wine that he drank.
What's the next word?
Therefore, because he made a hard decision and made a purpose and a plan, he had a purpose and a decision in the line, there has to be a therefore.
Okay, what's my plan then?
Well, I'm going to go have a conversation.
What's the conversation?
He requested of the prince of the eunuchs, Ashfinaz, that he might not defile himself.
Now, here's what's cool.
I love this.
You got something you're going to say?
Right.
He knew that it was whatever level breaking God's law.
Now, there is meat that we know that the Jewish people back then could not eat.
Right, it's pork.
So you know that there's going to be some kind of meat that was there that at that time was wrong for that, for him and for those people.
It was wrong for him to eat that.
So we don't know all the details, but we know it's pretty clear from the text that he had something he wasn't supposed to eat.
And when he says, therefore, he requested the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself, there was a decision to have a conversation.
But as you read, as you read what he's about to do, I believe part of purposing in his heart was not just the decision that, no, I'm not going to do it.
It was also the decision, okay, I need to talk to somebody and I need to have a plan.
What's the plan?
He's going to say, no, you probably need to eat this and I'm going to say what?
Who agrees?
Look at verse 10.
And we'll come back to verse 9.
What was he saying?
Summarize it for me.
Anybody want to?
Hey, yeah, Mr. Deb.
Right.
And essentially, you're exactly right.
If you eat that way, you may not look like you should.
And I've got a temperamental king who will have my head.
I don't need any more problems physically from a king.
And so I just don't want to lose my head.
Now, do you think that that response by Ashfinaz was a surprise to Daniel?
Right?
Who agrees?
Probably not a surprise.
That's like asking the jailer, hey, I know you want me to stay in this jail cell, but I really need to go outside.
Can I go outside?
What's the jailer going to say?
No, right?
So he goes and does it.
I think what's amazing is that I think part of Daniel's purposing in his heart was not just a decision to not do it.
I think he purposed in his heart to talk to the man and then to think through what's my response going to be so that I can convince him so that I won't defile myself.
So he says, verse 11, then said, Daniel to Melzar, who the prince of the eunuchs had said over Daniel, hand on eye, and I am a shea on Azariah,
prove thy servants I beseech thee ten days and let them give us pulse to eat and water to drink.
Then let our countenances be looked upon before thee and the countenance of thy children that eat of the portion of the king's meat, and as thou seest, deal with thy servants.
Do you think he had that planned?
I believe he did.
We don't know for sure.
Here's what I do know.
If you're going to stand up for what's right, you've got to first of all notice and know what your conviction should be.
Who agrees?
And then before you even get to that situation, then go, okay, if I'm going to do that, what's the plan I'm going to have to be obedient?
Now here's the part that I didn't read that I think is so cool.
Look at what it says in verse 9.
Now God had brought Daniel into favor and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs.
Who thinks that's cool?
Here's what I know.
I know that God wants you to obey as much as we want to obey, more than we want to obey.
And when you purpose in your heart, I'm just going to do what God wants me to do, because if God said it, I'm going to do it.
I believe there may be times where God helps you out.
You agree?
That God wants to do that.
My dad, I love my dad so much.
I felt like God was calling me to ministry.
And so in those days that just was an automatic.
In the church that I was in, that meant I'm going to Baptist Bible college in Springfield, Missouri.
And so that's what I'd already promised my dad I would do that for a year anyway.
And then once I felt the call to ministry, that's where we ended up going.
And so I knew God, a call to ministry is a call to be equipped.
That's what he told me all the time.
And I believe it with all my heart.
So we jump in the car in August of 2000 and drive all the way to Springfield, Missouri from St. Pete, Florida.
And I was like, oh, I'm going to go all the way there.
It was like my dad was doing like last minute parenting on the way up.
It's like, if I didn't tell you this, I'm going to tell you it now.
And that was the whole ride up, was just him trying to pour as much of the last minute.
Like I got to leave you there.
And so that's how it is.
One of the things he taught me was this.
He said, listen son, if you're going to Missouri to train to be in the ministry and to go either if you're going to be a missionary or a pastor,
whatever you're going to do, you feel a calling to go into the church ministry, right?
So if you're going to be trained to go into church ministry, to lead in the church, to serve in the church,
then when you go to school, you should go to church.
But dad, what if I need to work?
What if I need a job?
Don't you think God can help you find a job where you don't have to skip church?
I think I do.
So you know what that meant for me?
Now I'm not saying, here's what I know.
Don't take this the wrong way.
I know we need, who agrees we need Christian police officers?
Who knows we need Christian nurses and doctors?
Who knows that we, there are certain things that like we need those people who are Christian to do that.
And so I'm not saying everybody should be at church every single time no matter what.
Because I'm glad that there's a Christian nurse at the hospital so that somebody gets in an accident and they can help.
Are you with me?
I'm not saying that.
But what he was saying to me in that moment was, don't, you're here to train to be in ministry.
Go to church.
And you know as silly as that may seem, I went to Bible college and there are some people that on a Sunday,
they're training to go be pastors and on Sunday morning they're at bedside Baptist.
They wouldn't go to church.
That's a bad idea.
So you know what happened with me?
I went and my first job I went, I found this job.
It was going to be a great job.
It was five to nine Monday through Friday.
And I realized man, I think this is the right job for me.
But Wednesday night, it's five to nine.
So if God wants me to have this job, then I need to talk to the guy.
So I went in and I said, listen sir, here's what I got to tell you.
I would love to do this job.
The shift that you have is from five to nine Monday through Friday.
I said, I'll be the best employee you got.
I'll come early.
I'll stay late.
Could this job on a Wednesday be done from like two to six instead of from five to nine?
He said, oh yeah, probably.
I said, do you care if I come in on Wednesdays from two to six so that I can be at church?
And he said, sure, no problem.
And so I got this incredible job, but I didn't have to skip church.
Isn't that cool?
Are you glad I didn't skip church?
You want to pass through the unskipped church, right?
You want me here?
My point is I believe that God gave me favor with that guy and I still got the job and it still worked out.
Isn't that cool?
No, I'm not trying to be the hero of my own illustration.
My point is it's kind of the same thing.
You got to have a conviction, a line in the center.
What is that you need to do and then you need to do it.
And I believe God sometimes does that and helps us with that.
Number three, here's the third one.
Don't cut off from the world around us.
Verse 17, as for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill.
Oh, by the way, we need to know what happened, right?
What happened was, if you look at verse...
Well, let's just read it.
It says, as for these four children, God gave them knowledge and skill and all learning and wisdom and Daniel had understanding and all visions and dreams.
Now at the end of the days that the king has said he should bring them in, then the prince of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar and the king communed with them.
And among them all was found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Michele, and Azariah.
Therefore stood they before the king.
Isn't that good?
What ended up happening?
And we see in these three verses that Daniel served where he was situated.
He functioned for wherever he found himself.
It became his reputation that he was going to do, that he was a man of his convictions, that he did the right thing.
And what was amazing was that even those who were trying to conform him respected him.
And that's exactly what happened with King Nebuchadnezzar.
He actually ended up eating with the king.
And it seems to me that that meant that he in verse 19, the king communed with him.
That means he ate the right things and not the wrong things there in the presence of the king.
In other words, his circumstances did not circumvent his walk with God.
And as a result, the non-God followers could see his excellent spirit, his noble character, and his spiritual gift in this.
And this is what Christ meant when he told his disciples and when he told us that we are the salt of the earth.
We are the light of the, what is it?
The light of the world, right?
Instead of being, I'm having you say the word because what's the name of our series?
Saying true to God in a world that's far from God, right?
Instead of being influenced by the world, what was happening?
They were influencing the world.
That's exactly what Jesus told us to do.
Don't be influenced by the world.
Influence the world.
Be salt and light and that we should let our lives so shine so that lost people can see our good works and glorify the Father, our Father, which is in heaven.
We can't evangelize those in darkness if we evade the darkness.
We have to be in the world but not of the world while we're trying to be a witness to the world.
There ought to be a difference.
But in that difference, we ought not to be arrogant or haughty or prideful.
When we see people that maybe aren't living out the convictions that we have, that doesn't make us better.
We can't be angry and mad and enemies with our mission field.
They're our mission field, right?
And if we see a brother or sister in Christ that may not have the exact convictions we do, again, we're not better or worse than them.
If it's from the Word of God, then maybe you have a conversation with them.
Like if it's clear that what they're doing is wrong, then you do the Matthew 18, the Galatians 6 thing.
But you do it, Galatians 6 1 says, if a brother be overtaken in an offalt, ye who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of meekness.
Consider it in yourself, lest you also be tempted.
You don't do it in an I'm better than you way.
You do it in a way that restores, that brings hope and care.
And you do it in a way knowing that, hey, I'm probably not perfect in every area of myself.
How do you have convictions in the way that helps you to stay true in a world far from God?
Number one, you don't conform to the world around us.
How do you not conform to the world?
Well, you've got to be able to identify what's wrong and what's right.
And that's where this comes in, right?
Number two, you don't compromise like the world around us.
And number three, you don't get cut off from it either.
You become salt and light redeeming the culture for the Lord.
Let me ask you this.
How does being a part of a church help us develop strong convictions?
Have you guys ever found it easier?
Have you found it?
Let me ask you this question.
Have you ever been influenced by when you're in a group of people who don't want to live for the Lord or don't want to do right to do wrong?
Right?
When you're running with the wrong crowd, it's easier to do wrong.
Who agrees?
When you're running with the right crowd, is it easier to do right?
Yeah.
We need encouragement from other people to help us do that.
I think there's a sense in which that's what church is supposed to be.
I think Daniel had an easier time because of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
What do we see happen with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego later?
What do they do?
They say that for what's right.
Don't you think that that was help that Daniel and what he did in Daniel chapter one helped them when it came to that point?
I believe that with all my heart.
While they're in the ungodly culture, there was a culture among the four of them that helped.
I think you know our church has a culture, doesn't it?
The ways we think, vocabulary we use.
I hope that being a part of this body helps you to try to want to do the right thing and not just be dismissed but sent and all the things we talk about.
That's a part of it.
Yeah, for sure.
All right, let's go lower to prayer.