We're feeling alright, yeah
We're feeling good, we're feeling alright
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
We're feeling alright, yeah
We're feeling good, we're feeling alright
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
Well, it's about that time for us
to look around and meet somebody new.
Well, let's all welcome in familiar faces,
perhaps somebody who has a conflict in their life.
All right.
Tell them you're sorry, but there's ways to change.
They're wrong to right.
See, we can't sit in a distant haze
and watch rain clouds for thoughts of joy.
Welcome to Ocean Water.
We hope you feel refreshed by the living water of Jesus Christ
as we help people receive drinking water from the ocean
for free.
Thanks for joining us for this weekend's message.
And if you enjoy it, please share it with a friend.
I'm Ryan with Ocean Water.
Did you know that 75% of the world's surface
is covered in ocean water, and yet one out of eight people
in the world have a water problem?
It doesn't need to be this way, and we aim to fix that.
I'm here today at the beach where I live in California,
and we work every day on providing
a decentralized free solution to this problem.
It's called small-scale desalinization.
This is where we remove salt from the water that
makes it drinkable.
Why is this important?
Did you know that the one in eight people who also
have the highest cost per person on the planet, that's right.
The people with the worst access and quality
pay the most for it.
This should really make us angry if we follow Jesus,
because Jesus always cares about justice.
In fact, he's going to distribute
all the justice in the world when we get to heaven.
Now, we provide a relatively low-cost solution
in rural and remote coastal areas where these systems are
deployed on really fun trips.
We install these systems and also start a church
and work through the church, because they're
the hands and the feet of Jesus all over the world,
just like they've always been.
Now, we do this at zero cost, because we've
learned that you can start and operate a church from about 2
to 60 people for free using simple, scalable tools.
So that's what we do.
Did you know that church is not a building?
It's just a group of people.
That's all.
So since we started before COVID-19,
it was already in our DNA to meet for free in homes,
in coffee shops, and beaches, because there
are thousands of small, rural coastal areas in the world
with the most beautiful people.
And I believe God is going to use us to become friends
with them and serve them and see more people be in God's
family.
Now, we've been in this series now for eight weeks in Daniel.
Today, we come to the eighth major test in Daniel's life.
Now, at this point, Daniel's an old man.
When he started as a teenager, he was 15.
He was a prisoner of war.
He's passed all these tests.
And now he's in the latter stages of his life.
Some of these tests he passed in his 20s, some in his 30s,
some in his middle years.
Well, now we find himself in his 80s.
And he survived through his third king now.
Two different empires, three kings,
Syrians and the Persians.
This is all history.
They crushed the Babylonian empire.
Daniel was such an amazing man and leader
and a man of integrity that every single leader wanted
to keep him on.
Usually, when you get a new administration,
they sort of clear house.
And all the people who were serving in the previous
administration, they're all gone.
Well, Daniel keeps getting rehired
and actually keeps getting promoted.
And we're going to pick up where we ended up last time
and that he outlasted these kings and now his grandson, who
gets to call him Darius Meade, who's
a general with another guy, Cyrus the Persian,
and Cyrus the Great.
Now, we find Daniel with his eighth test in Daniel 6.
Why did Daniel keep getting promoted?
Well, one, his professional confidence made him stand out.
It says, so Daniel distinguished himself
above all the other governors and administrators
by his exceptional qualities that he
planned to put Daniel in charge of the entire kingdom
in Daniel 6.3.
He was the best at what he did.
His professional confidence made him stand out.
It's clear this guy is a gifted leader.
But more than that, he was a student.
We talked a few weeks ago.
All leaders are learners.
And the moment you stop learning, you stop leading.
He was a student of God's word.
He was a student of people.
He was a student of history.
He was a student of culture.
The Bible says that he spent his entire life learning.
And he just kept getting wiser and wiser and wiser.
Now, if you make wisdom a goal of your life,
there's no end to what you can do.
You just keep getting better and better and better.
There are some careers that peak really early in life.
Did you know that if you want to be an Olympic gymnast,
you basically peak at about age 17?
So you'll be replaced by someone who's like 14, 15, or 16.
Because our bodies just aren't that limber when
you get into your later 20s.
Certainly not into your 30s and 40s.
If you're going to play in the NFL,
you're going to peak at maybe 28 or 29.
Now, in different careers, you peak at a certain level.
And then it's over.
If you decide to be a man or a woman who says,
I want to be wise, well, that's something
that you can get good at your entire life.
At 85 years old, you can be a whole lot wiser
than you were at 80 or 75 or 70.
It's one area that you can just keep growing in.
Now, Daniel kept growing in his confidence.
And he was more skilled.
He was more effective.
The Bible says in Daniel 6.3 that Daniel distinguished
himself above all the others, the governors
and the administrators, by his exceptional qualities
that the king planned to put Daniel
in charge of the entire kingdom.
The Bible tells us in the first verses
before that Darius, when he took over the kingdom,
he reorganized and said, I'm going
to have 120 provinces in the Babylonian Empire, which
I now run.
Now, he was in Babylonian.
In 120, I'll have an administrator over each one.
And I'm going to have three governors over that.
Daniel was one of the three most powerful men in the empire.
He did such a good job that it says
that he distinguished himself above all the other people,
all of the administrators, all of the other leaders,
by his exceptional qualities.
What were those qualities?
When he's into his 80s, he's getting another promotion.
That's a wise leader, professional confidence.
Now, number two reason why he kept getting promoted
was because of his personal character made him stand out.
It says when the administrators heard the news,
they tried to find a reason to undermine Daniel
and accuse them of misconduct.
But they were unable to do so.
They could not find anything to say against him.
He was honest, reliable, hardworking, and incorruptible.
He was never lazy or negligent in any task.
He had more integrity than everybody else.
And the third thing was his public commitment to God
made him stand out.
His coworkers concluded, our only chance
of finding any grounds to get rid of Daniel
would be to find something to accuse
in his religious practices, Daniel 6.5.
So they developed a conspiracy and they were trying
to trap him.
Now, it's a sad fact of life that from time to time,
people will try to trap you and actually work against you.
Now, when that test comes, it's your job, our job,
my job to maintain our integrity.
That's the challenge in the test.
Those are difficult tests.
They're really hard tests.
They're tests that we need prayer and guidance to.
When I face big decisions, I always consult God's word
and I always consult with my wife.
That's 90% of making a good decision.
Now, how did Daniel respond to this new test?
This is when Daniel learned that a new law had been signed,
he went home and knelt down to pray,
as usual in his upstairs room.
It's windows wide open towards Jerusalem.
He prayed three times a day,
just as he had always done his entire life,
thanking and praising God.
So Daniel's enemies went together to Daniel's house
to catch him, praying and asking for God's help.
Why was Daniel unafraid to stand out and speak up for God?
Well, he remembered that God was faithful in the past tests.
He remembered that God had been faithful to him
in every test that had come prior.
Every one of those tests, he didn't back down.
He stands for the truth.
In fact, every single one of these tests
we've looked at before really come down to the question,
will you stand publicly every time for God?
Daniel says, yes, I will.
Now, God took care of him,
and God will take care of us.
God took care of us when they said,
you've got to bow down to the statue of Nebuchadnezzar.
Daniel didn't do that.
God took care of him when he had to deliver bad news
and say, you're actually gonna lose your kingdom
and your mind.
God took care of him through that.
All of these different tests, every single one of them,
he remembers God had been faithful in the past.
So when you start to get fearful,
what will people think about me?
What would people say about me about the things
that I believe in, the things that I value?
Things that I know are right and true.
Remember how God has taken care of you
in every part of your life.
Now, the second reason he was unafraid,
and this is the secret of courage,
he had a conversation with God three times a day.
The more conversation we have with God,
the more courage we get.
He knelt down to pray as usual,
he prayed just as he had always done his entire life.
Ask a question, do you think if you prayed three times a day
and had a conversation with God,
you'd have more courage in your life?
Joshua 1.9 says to be strong and courageous,
I have that in my garage where I do all of my work
when I'm at home.
It helps me be more confident, less insecure.
Helps me to be more immune to the disproval of other people.
Helps me to not fear rejection.
If you don't get anything else, get this.
Because the secret of standing strong is kneeling off.
You know, in the last over a year of time,
I've spent more time praying in my garage by myself
than at any point in my entire life.
And I have found that the more I pray,
the more quietly courageous I feel in my life.
Daniel's not worried about what other people think
or what they'll try to do,
God's been faithful to him in the past.
Now here's the third thing that kept him from being shaken.
He just goes home and done what he's done every time before.
He doesn't even wince about this because he was unshaken.
He knew the rewards were greater than the risk.
Is it risky to break the law?
Well, yeah.
Will there be punishment?
There could be.
Daniel could have even lost his life.
Peter and the apostles before the Sanhedrin said,
we must obey God rather than men.
Now this is important because we get this confused.
We have to learn to follow God, not our culture.
So we have to decide,
am I gonna be like Peter and the apostles?
Am I gonna obey God rather than men?
Now what's Daniel doing here?
Well, he's doing passive civil disobedience.
He's saying, I can't obey that law.
My number one allegiance is to God.
I can't put anything before that.
You should have no other gods before me.
That's passive civil disobedience.
He says, I'm gonna go home.
I'm gonna throw open my windows
and I'm gonna pray in public.
He's not hiding.
He's not going, oh my gosh, I'm gonna get in trouble.
I might get put in jail.
Something bad might happen to me.
I could lose my job.
Somebody might look at me in a way that I don't like.
He knew the rewards of doing the right thing
were greater than the risks of doing the wrong thing.
The wrong thing can be devastating, so he wasn't shaking.
He wanted us to look at a few of the benefits
of standing in our faith with God.
Anytime you wanna defeat fear in your life,
any kind of fear, there's a few things that can help us.
It might be the fear of disapproval
or the fear of telling people,
yeah, I believe in God and I follow Jesus.
Now you need to minimize the negative possibilities
and maximize the benefits of doing the right thing.
We need to get our eyes off of,
well, this could happen or this could happen
or this might happen.
I might lose my job.
I could lose my salary.
I could lose my reputation.
We wanna minimize the negative possibilities
and we wanna see it as an act of faith
that can maximize the benefits of helping others.
So there are a few things that we benefit from
every time we take a stand for God.
One is we get a victory over fear.
Fear is just a feeling and it cannot last.
Whenever you have a feeling, particularly negative ones,
you think you're gonna feel that way
for maybe the rest of the day or the rest of the week
or the rest of your life.
You know, when you're depressed,
you feel I'm gonna be depressed.
This is never gonna end.
Reality is feelings always fade,
both negative and positive.
You know, when you're grieving,
you feel like it's never gonna end.
But our emotions by their very nature don't last,
whether they're good ones or bad ones.
Does fear last?
No, not at all.
No emotion lasts.
Every single one, the good ones and the bad ones,
are just temporary.
They're to be persevered through with a faithful perspective.
So we don't trust in our emotions
because that's not the way that we're gonna feel tomorrow
or even in two days.
Fear is just a feeling that can't last.
Fear is uncomfortable, but it won't kill us.
You know, someone once said that fear is false evidence
of fearing real.
That's fear.
It's not real.
Only Jesus is real.
Doesn't matter how you feel, only Jesus is real.
Fear is just a feeling.
Fear is uncomfortable, yeah, but it won't kill us.
It's something we can lean into and actually grow from.
Now fear grows when I get into it,
but it lessens when I move against it.
So we wanna pray like the first Christians,
Lord, you know the threats of the people,
so make your servants speak your word without fear,
Acts 4.29.
The next thing is standing for God
builds my faith and my character.
We should never be ashamed to tell other people
of our love for Jesus, the strength it gives us,
how we're ready to suffer if necessary,
2 Timothy 1.8.
And the third thing is it gives God an opportunity
to do a miracle.
At the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried
to the pit filled with lions.
He got there, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice.
Daniel, the servant of God,
whom you've been serving continually,
has been able to rescue us from the lions.
Daniel answered, oh king, my God.
God sent his angel, shut the mouths of the lions,
and Daniel wasn't hurt at all.
That's a great reminder for us.
Daniel came out of the pit,
Daniel was lifted out of the pit,
there wasn't a single scratch on his body
because he had trusted God.
Daniel 6.
Now it also encourages other believers to stand up.
Paul said, because of what I've been through,
many of the Christians here actually gained confidence
and became more bold in telling other people
about Christ, Philippians 1.14.
Now, how do you stand for God every day?
Well, when you have the confidence
that you get from his word every day,
you get more courage.
We just finished reading the Bible over the last year.
We're gonna start again on August 1st.
We'd love to have you join us.
I believe this is where we get our quiet,
confident courage every single day
when we make God's word a part of our life.
God's word never changes,
so we wanna make sure that we make sure
that we hear from him every single day.
We have a simple tool that we do to use this,
and you can actually just hit play
and it'll speak to you and do that for you in your life.
You know, the average person spends four hours a day
on their phone, surely we have 10 minutes a day
to hear every word from God every day
and every year of our life.
Now, I wanna be clear, this is what I expect.
If you're a disciple of God,
if you're a disciple of Jesus,
I expect you to take Jesus's words to you seriously,
which means that we take time to hear them
and think about them every single day.
This is the most important character trait and discipline
that you can develop in your life, God's word.
Now, the fifth thing is it's a powerful example
that unbelievers, Peter and John,
they knew that they were just ordinary men,
but that they had been with Jesus,
according to Acts 413, what happens?
Well, the king became a believer,
he said, this is the God who rescues and saves us.
18 generations later in Matthew,
we get the lineage of Jesus.
And then the last thing is that we'll be rewarded
in eternity, Jesus said, blessed when people put you down
and speak wise about you because of me,
if that happens, be happy,
knowing that you'll be greatly rewarded in heaven.
And remember, you're in good company,
they did the same to all of my witnesses
who were before you in Matthew 5.
Now, every week we end our time together with a simple prayer
that we would walk with God this week
and follow him in our lives.
Would you pray this simple prayer with me?
Just say, God, thank you for this day,
a new day to follow you.
I repent from my sins, I know I fall short.
Help me to follow you today and this week,
tell me to listen to you each day through your word,
help me to serve you by serving others.
I put my trust in you, take control of my life,
in Jesus' name, amen.
I'd like you to go to oceanwater.com today,
we've been developing our site so you can have the content
that you need to learn and grow and keep moving forward.
You'll find info there on God's Word,
our series of water talks, all of our other beach talks,
upcoming trips, a place to give,
generosity is a part of our worship.
We're most like God when we give.
The Bible says, for God so loved the world that he gave.
Now, in the next year, we're gonna be doing work
in four different countries and four different languages.
God always grows our perspective
until if he comes global, just like he is.
Now, the more we have at Ocean Water,
the more people we can help and serve.
So I'd like you to go online today at Ocean Water.
If we can't give, you can set up a monthly contribution
and you can make it part of your worship.
Thank you for being with us today and have a wonderful week.
You'd like more information about Ocean Water Church,
how to join us on an upcoming trip,
how to be part of one of our Clean Water projects,
how to financially support our movement,
or even information on how you can start
an Ocean Water Church yourself.
Please look us up at OceanWater.com.
We'll see you next time.