Craig Groeschel - Living for Jesus in a Culture of Compromise
At all of our churches, raise your hands if relationally right now, you're experiencing any tension, any complicated conversations, or have any friends going crazy on social media. Raise your hand. Raise your hand. Online, you can type in, "I'm there. I'm there". If your hand's not up in the air right now, I wanna have lunch with you 'cause everybody else is driving me crazy. It's like it's really, really complicated in our culture today, and I don't know about all of you, but it seems like it's more difficult to faithfully follow Jesus and to stay close to Jesus in a culture that's constantly pulling us away.
When you think about it and just look at the messages we hear over and over again from our culture, how do you honor marriage in a world that devalues marriage? How do you live with sexual integrity in a world filled with sexual darkness? How do you raise your kids to love and follow Jesus when their friends don't see any need for Jesus? How do you love your neighbor when they don't mow their grass? Right? I've actually got a whole story behind that, and I just need to say.
Years ago, we had a next door neighbor with cute kids, and one of the kids came over to my house and said, "My dad says you have the ugliest yard in the whole neighborhood," and I said, "You need to tell your dad he needs to spend more time with his kids and less time in the yard". True story. You look at culture today, and it seems like more and more people are becoming increasingly hostile toward the values that we look at in God's word, and it raises the question, how do we stand strong? What do we do? Do we just like dig our feet in and say, "This is truth," and lose relationships? Or do we kind of compromise a little bit here and there, maybe just on a few of our convictions and just roll with the current of culture?
I wanna remind you of very, very important truth. If we trade our convictions for convenience, we risk losing the very foundation of who we are in Christ. If we start to compromise and we start just to drift and conform to the image of this world, we become less like who Jesus calls us to be, and we become more like the world, and if we love the world, the love of the Father is not in us. So what do we do? How do we navigate it? How do we stand strong for our faith and love well?
Over the next few weeks, we're gonna look at Daniel in the Old Testament and his friends in the book of Daniel, and we're gonna let their story teach us how to live with conviction and a culture of compromise. Today, would you pray with me?
Father, we ask that your living word will speak life to us and build our faith, and God, as we experience your truth in our hearts, transform us, conform us to be more like Jesus and to love well while sharing truth but sharing truth in love. We pray this in Jesus' name, and everybody said... amen.
Online, type it in the comments section amen so that we know you're with us. All right, let's dive in. We're in the book of Daniel today. We're gonna be in Daniel chapter one, and we're gonna meet the main players in the book of Daniel. The first guy I wanna talk about is the evil King Nebuchadnezzar. Now my pastor Nick, whenever he talked about Nebuchadnezzar, he always told us to boo. I'm gonna say his name a bunch. So if you boo the whole time, you're gonna slow me down, and I don't have time for that, but I do wanna go ahead and just in honor of my pastor Nick, I'm gonna introduce one of the main players today in the book of Daniel, and we're gonna talk to you about King Nebuchadnezzar.
That's really, really good, and now let's move on with the text. King Nebuchadnezzar was a very, very evil king, and we see the story in verse 1 of 1. "In the third year of the reign of Jeholakim, the king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it". Now for context, Babylon was the most dominant superpower in the ancient world, and they were bullies. In 605 BC, King Nebi and the Babylonians, they invaded Jerusalem and demolished it. They destroyed the walls.
If you read about Nehemiah where they're rebuilding the walls, they destroyed the walls of protection. It was the most humiliating, brutal attack, and probably the hardest thing is they destroyed Solomon's temple, and they took all of the things of the Jewish faith, their faith symbols and the things they used to worship God. They destroyed those to mock the Jews' faith in God. So there's evil King Nebuchadnezzar, but he's not the main character of the book of Daniel. See who's paying attention from Jonah. Who do you think the main character is in the book of Daniel? Very good. Many of you were paying attention. Daniel is not the main character in the book of Daniel. Daniel takes center stage, but God is orchestrating every moment in the book.
Daniel is our example, but God is the main character. Hint, in every book of the Bible, God is the main character. So here we have this culture where there's evil now, and there's chaos, and the people are afraid and didn't know what was gonna happen. Many scholars would say that the key verse in all of the book of Daniel is Daniel 2:28. I'll introduce it to you where scripture says, "But there is a God in heaven". For somebody here where you're in the middle of a hopeless situation and you feel like you don't know where to turn, I want you to remember there is a God in heaven. Would you elbow the person next to you? Look at him and tell him, "There is a God in heaven". Type it in the comments section, "There is a God in heaven".
Look at your second choice, the other person, the person you didn't choose. Tell him, "There is a God in heaven". Whatever you're going through, be assured our king is still on the throne. No matter what happens in the next few weeks, our king is still on the throne. We are a kingdom people in the kingdom of God. Our king sets up kings and tears down kings. No matter what you're going through, there is a God in heaven. And so Daniel and the people were in a really bad place, and the evil king besieged Jerusalem. Verse 3 tells us this. "The king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring into the king's service some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility".
Now, who did he bring, okay? They're going in, they're taking the Jewish people, and they want "young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king's palace". Lean over the person next to you and say, "It sounds like they're describing me," okay? I want you to choose the guy voted to be prom king. Go find the quarterback. Go find the valedictorian. Go find the most likely to succeed. Go get the best of the best of the Jewish nation and choose them and bring them in, and then, "The king was to teach them," the brightest of the brightest, "the language and the literature of the Babylonians".
"So we're gonna pick the brightest, steal 'em from you, and we're gonna indoctrinate them in the Babylonian ways". "The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king's table". This is gonna be important in a moment. "They were to be trained for three years, and after that, they were to enter the King's service". There is a lot there. After destroying the city, the king took the most talented, the most popular, the best educated young boys, and Daniel was one of them with his three friends. They were probably, according to most scholars, teenagers.
So imagine a 14 year old, a 15 year old being taken out of their home, their parents very possibly killed, being taken into this government, and indoctrinated in the Babylonians' ways. Now, what the king wanted to do is he wanted to strip these boys of their identity, take everything away from their heritage and their faith in God. So what was the king's strategy? He decided to start by changing their names. He thought, "If I can change their names, I can change their identity". Verse 6 tells us this. "Among those who were chosen were some from Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The chief official gave them new names. To Daniel, he gave the name Belteshazzar, Belteshazzar".
This is the most difficult name week in the history of my preaching, okay? "He gave him the name Belteshazzar, to Hananiah, he gave Shadrach, to Mishael, he gave Meshach, and to Azariah, he gave Tobedwego". That's an old preacher joke. He gave Abednego, okay? Their original names, their original Hebrew names all related to Yahweh, the true God. The new names that the king gave them related to Babylonian gods. He stripped their names that were worshiping their God and gave them new names, and I can just give you one example. Daniel, the el part, it means Elohim. Daniel, Elohim, means God is my judge. He changed his name to Belteshazzar. Bel is a false God. Bel protect the king. Their original names related to Yahweh. Their new names all related to Babylonian gods.
Side note, do you wanna learn something fun? You wanna learn something interesting? Every time Daniel referred to himself in writing, he spelled his name correctly. For example, if he were writing in English, he would've spelled it D-A-N-I-E-L. He spelled it the right way. Every time he refers to his Babylonian name, Belteshazzar, he misspells it every time. Now, Bible scholars thought for years that what happened is, when the scribes were copying a manuscript, so they'd have a manuscript, and the scribe would copy word for word, line for line, they thought that the scribes probably made a mistake, you know, a typo until the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947.
The oldest known manuscript of Daniel, and in the oldest one, the name was spelled wrong there as well. It's very likely most scholars think this was a jab. He was intentionally poking back saying, "Hey, you can change my name, but you can't change who I am. You can change my name, but you can't change the God I serve," and every time he misspelled that other name, because they couldn't label him what he was not, and that's why it is indescribably important for you to know who you are in Christ. When we talk about knowing God's word, it's not just so you can be academic and be like, you know, the first to turn to the book of Ezekiel in the Bible and win the Bible quick drill game. No, it's so that you can know who God says you are in order to live out his purpose and calling in your life because the devil is almost always gonna attack you first at your identity.
The devil's probably not gonna say, "Hey, you're such a Belteshazzar," and you're like, "Oh, I know, I'm a Belteshazzar". No, you're not gonna do that, but he is gonna say, "You're worthless. You're pathetic. You'll never make a difference. They would never love you if they know what you really do, what you're really like, what you're really thinking. God will never forgive you. God doesn't want you. God couldn't use you," and that's why, whenever the devil tries to tell you what you're not, you have to remind yourself of who God says that you are, and the good news is, if you are in Christ, God says, "You are a new creation in Christ. The old is gone and everything is new".
You are fearfully and wonderfully made in Christ. You are an overcomer by the blood of the lamb, and by the words of your testimony, you are more than a conqueror through Christ Jesus. Whenever the devil tries to change your name, "No, I belong to Jesus. I'm a child of the living God. I'm a spirit-filled, Bible-believing, truth-speaking, love-giving ambassador of the most high God". You have to remember who you are. When the devil tries to change your identity, remind yourself, "This is who God says I am".
Now, this is a part of the story I don't want you to miss. Verse 5 says this, "The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king's table". Now, why does this matter? Well, the food would've been like delicious, the best of the best, the richest and finest food possible, and the king said, "Hey, you guys eat this food". He was basically wanting them to dishonor their God. The reason is because this delicious food was dedicated to pagan gods, and so for Daniel as friends to eat this would actually be a betrayal to the one true God. I want you to think about this. Teenage boys stripped from their homes, taken as slaves to a new land, new names in a new culture surrounded by Babylonians, and they're hungry, and the king puts some delicious food in front of them.
Do you know how easy it would be at that moment to compromise your values and just say, "Well, I mean, I'm doing everything else. I'm still serving God, you know, and the food is really delicious, and who's gonna really even know? I mean, I just take a little bit," and to compromise their values. And the truth of the matter is if you haven't been there recently, you'll probably be there tomorrow, and the devil's gonna tempt you. "Hey, you can do it. Nobody's gonna know. What's the big deal? Everybody else is doing it". And remember, if we trade our convictions for convenience, we risk losing the very foundation of who we are in Christ.
So the king wants Daniel to give in and eat this pagan food, but he stays faithful to his God, and this next verse is really important. Scripture says, "But Daniel resolved," he decided, he resolved, he was firm in his commitment, "he resolved not to defile him himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself in this way". So he was resolved. "No matter what, I'm not gonna compromise," and then he said respectfully and politely, "Is there another way we can get this done"? And I wanna show you why this word is so important. This word in the Hebrew is translated four different ways. The NIV says, "He resolved not to defile himself". The NLT says, "He was determined". The NASB says, "He made up his mind". The King James says, "He purposed in his heart".
I like this. He resolved. He determined. He made up his mind. He purposed in his heart not to do anything to dishonor God. At some point, you're gonna wanna resolve and determine and make up your mind and purpose in your heart. "I will do what God calls me to do and that alone". Why does this matter? It matters so much to us today because Daniel was forced to live in Babylon, but he wouldn't let Babylon into him. He was forced to be in a foreign world, but he wouldn't let the foreign world into him, and the reality is, we are always gonna live in this world until we don't, but we're gonna be in this world, but we don't have to be of this world. We don't have to be sucked into the hate and the division and all of the stuff that dishonors God if you predetermine and make up your mind, "I'm gonna do what honors God".
So if we're going to love well and live with conviction in a culture of compromise, we're gonna wanna make some predetermined resolutions. In other words, we wanna decide ahead of time. Before Daniel got in and goes, "Mm, that strawberry shortcake looks good, maybe just one bite," before he ever saw that whipped cream on light, fluffy cake and fresh ripe strawberries made in the kings, before any of that, he determined what he would do and what he wouldn't do. To faithfully follow Jesus, we should decide ahead of time, and I don't know what it would look like for you, but maybe for you is, "I have predetermined, I've preresolved".
The first thing I do after I go to the bathroom and get my cup of coffee, the first thing I do is I spend time every day in God's word and in God's presence. You may predetermine, "I'm going to seek God the first of the day," or you may predecide, "As long as we're in town, no matter what, we're gonna worship God together in church, and if we're out of town, we're on church online. Why? Because we're people of God. We're people of church". You may predetermine with your money, "Whenever something comes in, we always live beneath our means. The first 10% goes back to God". I'm not gonna pray about later on what to do. I preresolve to honor God first. You may decide not to do some things.
You might decide, "Hey, there's a lot of gossip in my office. Before I go in there, when they start talking, I'm not joining in," or you might predetermine, "Hey, I like the Gram, but I'm not gonna spend more time on the Gram than I do on God's word," and you predetermine, or you might be crazy and scripture says that we should reserve the gift of lovemaking until the gift of marriage, and so you may pre-decide, "I'm not going to have sex until I'm married". Don't wait until you're on the sofa watching Netflix and buttons start popping and zipper start. Don't decide then. "Oh wait, let me pray about it.
Let me think about it. Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Let me think. What do I wanna do next"? No, you resolve. You're determined. You make up your mind. Your purpose in your heart. "I will always honor God". So how do we do this in a world full of cray cray? I mean cray cray, like cray cray cray cray cray, and I'm talking to a lot of you like, "You, yes, you, you. Cray cray". How do we stand strong and love well? Well, what did Daniel not do? He didn't make a public protest, did he? He didn't take the food and say, "This food is dedicated to pagan gods. Pleh"! Right? He didn't run outta the room and then send a text with all capital letters, "I hate all y'all. You're going to hell where the worm never dies and there's weeping and ashing of teeth"! No, he respectfully asked, and what you're gonna find out is he made a difference.
I'm gonna say this, and some of you're gonna get mad, and you're just gonna have to get mad is some of you are so right, you're not making any difference at all. You are so right, you're not listening to anybody, and you're down there, blah, blah, blah, blah. You have to ask yourself if you genuinely want to stand for truth, you have to ask yourself, do you wanna make a point or do you wanna make a difference? Because they're not the same thing. Do you wanna just make a point? 'Cause you can say all that kind of stuff. If you wanna make a difference, you wanna get involved in the lives of people. He was respectful, he was honoring, and he asked a question. He didn't throw a fit and storm out. "Blah, blah, blah, and you didn't vote that, blah, blah". No, he came in and said, "Hey, do you mind if we try something different"?
And so what do we do? We speak the truth in love. We speak the truth in love. We speak the truth in love. We speak the truth in love. We speak the truth in love with compassion and with caring. We speak the truth in love, and this is what Daniel did. The dude was rock solid, man. He wasn't bending at all, but he was loving, and he was strategic, and he was very prayerful in his resolutions. He made a kind request and asked the leader there, "Hey, can I permission not to do that against my values"? And so here's what scripture says. "Please test your servants for 10 days. Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food and treat your servants in accordance to what you see".
Let's just try it, let's just try it. Give it a test. So scripture says, "The chief official agreed to this and tested them for 10 days. At the end of the 10 days, they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food". What happened? They honored God and God honored them. They honored God and God honored them. They were healthier, and they were stronger, and they were more vibrant, and they stood out. And what did God do? God gave Daniel knowledge. He gave him the ability to interpret dreams and visions, and then in verse 19, scripture says, "The king talked with them, and," oh my goodness, "he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah".
Uh oh, look at those names. Those are the names of the Hebrew God. Ooh, how'd we get that in there? He found none equal to the one who says, "God is my judge," to Hananiah, to Mishaal, and to Azariah. What did they do? These guides stood strong, they stood out, and they were different, but not just different odd. You know what I'm saying? Some Christians are just odd, like weird, like dumb weird. No, they were different better! They were close to God, and they were loving, and they were strong and they were healthy! They took care of themselves, and they were a witness, and they were bold, and they were strong, and they stood strong, and they loved well, and they didn't compromise, and they were loving! They weren't just different! They were better, and all hell had broken loose!
These boys were ripped from their homes! Imagine your kids taken from here to another nation and they're on their own. They're kidnapped! They're slaves! They're separated from their family! They have no support system whatsoever! They're called by pagan names and they're indoctrinated by a false worldview. What do you do then? Because there's no hope! Your life's over! There's no way to ever have any meaning again! How are you gonna worship God? How are you gonna make a difference? You've been stripped of everything that matters, and I've got a message to somebody here today who's hurting and afraid and doesn't know what you're gonna do and don't know where to turn! You need to remember that scripture says, "But there is a God in heaven".
No matter what you're going through and no matter where you are, there is a God in heaven, and what the devil meant for evil against these boys, God used for good, and God is gonna use a few teenage boys to turn the heart of an evil king and change the course of a nation and eventually be a story that's told around the world. Think about it. If Daniel and his buddies had simply compromised, compromised their values, blended in, "Ah, yeah, it's no big deal. We're just gonna be like the rest of the world. We're just gonna believe what everybody believes and not stand by our God-honoring values".
If they had compromised their convictions, nothing historic would've happened. Nothing would've changed, or, on the other hand, if they had been Facebook warriors, blasting out the truth nonstop, "Don't care what any of you think, my four friends all agree with me," I'm gonna say it again. "It doesn't matter what any of you think. All four of my friends agree with me". If they had been blasting out that kind of truth but not truth in love, they'd have been executed. But what'd they do? I mean, they stood strong. They didn't compromise at all. They stood by their values, and they loved well. I'm gonna tell you right now, it would've been so easy for them and even tempting to compromise somewhere along the way. It also would've been easy for them to throw a fit and stood up and stormed out and been angry, and in the same way, it's true for us.
Every single day, every single day, we're gonna have the chance to compromise and do things that are opposed to the will and the heart of God, or we're gonna be tempted to stand up and to yell back. But if we trade our convictions for convenience, we risk losing the very foundation of who we are in Christ. And so church, please remember this, we have a spiritual enemy. He is the father of lies. He is attacking and scheming to come against you. His mission is to steal, kill, and destroy. His greatest weapon is to lie to you, to attack your identity, to tell you who you're not and what you can't do, to lure you away, to be desensitized and go with the currents of culture and the current message of this world instead of standing true to God's word, and before you're tempted to sin, the devil will whisper to you, "Hey, it's no big deal. Everybody does it. Go ahead, it doesn't matter".
And after you do, he shouts at you condemnation. "You should be ashamed of yourself. God doesn't love you". He's gonna put you in an environment where you just become anxious and overwhelmed and isolated and depressed and afraid where most people are living today. That's why I wanna remind you, but there is a God in heaven. There is a God in heaven. There is a God in heaven, and he is still on the throne, and no matter what happens in a couple of weeks, he's still gonna be on the throne, just like he was a couple of years ago and in the future. There is a God in heaven, and you need to remember that greater is he.
If you're in Christ, greater is he that is within you than he that is in this world. No matter what you face, there is a God in heaven, and that's why God is the main character of this story, and because our God is a good God, a loving God, a righteous God, a God of compassion and a God of mercy and a God of justice, because our God is always faithful, you can stand firm and you can love well because you may be forced to live in Babylon, but you don't have to let Babylon live in you.
And so Father, I pray that you would stir up our hearts to be faithful to you. God, help us to be a church that does stand firm but also a church that loves well.
Today, as you're praying at all of our different churches, nobody looking around, if you want that, for those of you that are followers of Christ, I'm talking to those of you that are committed to following Jesus. If you want to be able, no matter what is going on in this world, to stay true to the values that honor God and you want to love well, I'm gonna pray a prayer for you right now. If that's you, you say, "Yes, I wanna be faithful, and I wanna love well". Would you lift up your hands right now? All of our church, lift up your hands. Those of you online, just type it that way. "I wanna stand strong and love well. I wanna be faithful and love well".
God, would you empower us with your Holy Spirit to be wise in the moment like Daniel and his friends were, not reacting to whatever's going but responding with a heart of prayer and with love, and God, I pray that you would give us the courage and the faith to speak up when we need to speak up but always to speak the truth in love. God, give us influence because we care and because we serve. God, help us never, ever to blend in but always to stand out but to stand out in a good way, God, with marriages that honor you and with finances that are generous to others and with integrity in the way that we live. God, help us to be different in a good way, standing strong and loving well.
As you keep praying today, nobody looking around, let me just tell you right now, there is something that's gonna be first in your life. There's something. Something's gonna be first. It might be your job, your career or your education or your image or your lifestyle, whatever it is. There's something that's gonna be first, but our God is actually a very jealous God, and he gave first, he loves us so much that he sent, the New Testament says, his one and only son Jesus.
Who is Jesus? The one and only son, the Son of God. Jesus is God in the flesh, and he came on a rescue mission, and he didn't come for the best of the brightest. He came for the broken, the sinners, those who are far from God had fallen, and he came and he loved them, and Jesus gave his life for us on a cross. He was the innocent sacrifice who died in our place, but there is a God in heaven, and he didn't stay dead. He raised Jesus from the dead so that anyone, and this includes you, who calls on his name, who pushed Jesus first, the Bible says that our sins would be forgiven, that we become a new creation in Christ. We would be transformed and we would become new.
What does God want? He actually wants to be first. He wants us to surrender our whole lives and say, "Jesus, would you not only save me, but would you be the Lord of my life, first in every way"? I want you just to hear this for a moment and think about it. Is Jesus first in your life? If not, you can predetermine, pre-decide, resolve in your mind, make up your mind that, from this day forward, you choose to follow him. From this day forward, you trust him. From this day forward, you seek him, and when you do, God will hear the cry of your heart, and he'll make you brand new today.
At all of our churches, those who say, "Yeah, that's me. He's not first. Today, I'm turning away from myself. I'm turning away from my sin, and today by faith, I'm calling on Jesus. I wanna make him my Lord. I wanna make him my savior. Today by faith, I wanna be saved, forgiven, and changed. Jesus, I give my life to you". That's your prayer. "I wanna make you first".
Would you lift your hands high right now? All over the place right here, God bless you. Up in this section, praise God for you. Right over here. Oh, come on, church. Others of you today say, "Yes, Jesus, I surrender to you". Over here, praise God. Others, right back over here. Oh, come on, church! There is a God in heaven. Others of you say yes. Type in the comments section line, "I'm surrendering my life to Jesus". Just type that, "I'm surrendering my life to Jesus," and today at all of our churches, would you just join your faith with mind and pray aloud? Pray:
Heavenly Father. I wanna put you first. Jesus, save me and be the Lord of my life. Fill me with your spirit so I could know you and serve you and stand strong and love well. My life is not my own. I give it all to you. Thank you for new life. You have mine. In Jesus' name I pray.