Craig Groeschel - When You're Under Attack
I'm trying to remember, is there anything going on this week at all? I'm trying to remember, like, especially those of you in the U.S., we got people around the world, anything going on this week in the U.S.? Anything? There's something, I can't remember what it was. How many of you are thankful that there is a God in heaven? Come on. How many of you are thankful that there is a God in heaven? Scripture tells us that we have a God and he is in control. I saw an Instagram post and somebody said, "If you just follow God, everything will fall into place". I wish. "If you just follow God, everything will fall into place".
So many people tend to believe something like that. Like if you just believe in God and give him your whole life, God will always make your life easier. Unfortunately, that's just not true. In fact, when you devote your life to God, that doesn't eliminate hardship. In fact, serving God faithfully often makes you a target. That's right. When you're living boldly for God, your spiritual enemy will tend to take notice. And so if you ever feel like, man, I might be under attack, the reason is because you might be under attack.
If things get difficult, sometimes, I know people think, well, I must not be in God's will right now, and you might not be. But when things are going wrong, it might be evidence that you're in the will of God because your spiritual enemy doesn't like what you're doing for the glory of God, and he's taking notice and is coming after you. And I want you to remember, because there's a lot going on right now, I want you to remember that a spiritual attack isn't a sign you're doing something wrong. It's often evidence you're doing something right And we're gonna see that truth this week in Daniel 6. We're in a message series called Unshakeable. We're gonna skip ahead and we're actually gonna come back later. We're skipping it ahead to a famous story in Daniel 6 about Daniel and the lion's den.
Now, how many of you know that story? Raise your hands. Online, you can type in, "I know that story". Type it, "I know the story of Daniel in the lion's den". It's a very powerful Old Testament Bible story. If you grew up in Sunday school, if you don't know what that is, that's like church for little kids. If you grew up in Sunday school way back in the day, and this is gonna date you, how many of you remember a felt board? Raise your hand. Felt board. I'm gonna show you my version of a modern-day felt board on the back screen. We're gonna do Daniel in the lions den. And we're gonna start with Daniel. We need Daniel. There you go. And now we need some lions. Those are the mean, ugly-cute lions.
Now, in Daniel's story, they were much meaner than that. If you didn't have the felt board, you might've had the finger puppets. This is Daniel. And this, again, it's funny how they make these lions cute. And these are the lions. Daniel in the lion's den. I trust God. I trust God. I trust God. How many knows how does the story end? Does Daniel die or does God save him? God saves him. God saves him. And that's important 'cause we're gonna look at that in a little bit. I trust God. Okay.
Now, if you look at the Daniel on the screen, if you look at this Daniel, I always thought that Daniel was kind of this young kinda cool dude that had faith in God. This is actually not true. Daniel was an old cool dude that had faith in God. He was probably in his 80s. And when you recognize this, it actually makes the story way more meaningful today. And I'm gonna show you why. He was probably in his 80s, which means he actually had a lotta wisdom. He was older. It also means he probably went to the bathroom two or three times a night. And for those of you that're younger, nobody tells you that, but, like, when you're in your 50s, it hits you, like, it ain't no fun. It's two o'clock and now it's four o'clock. And there we are again.
So nevertheless, I'll save that for another day. But I wanna show you why this is meaningful. He's in his 80s, and Daniel had actually served under four different kings when he was taken away and deported into Babylon. Four different kings, actually three different kingdoms or three different nations. He served under Nebuchadnezzar, which we talked about in that last week. Everybody gets one boo. He served under Nebuchadnezzar. Boo, the very evil king of Babylon that conquered Jerusalem, conquered God's people, deported them out of the nation into Babylon. And Daniel is one of those guys. And then there's King Belshazzar, which was actually Nebuchadnezzar's grandson.
And if you remember the writing on the wall in the Book of Daniel, that's him. And he was later assassinated. And then you have King Darius. We're gonna look at Darius today. He's an administrative genius. Then week four, we're in week two, week four, we're gonna look at Cyrus, who is actually the Persian king that conquered Babylon. And then said to the Jewish exiles, you can go back to your homeland. All that to say, this is why it matters so much. During his seven decades of captivity, Daniel shared his faith with each of the four different kings, and watch how he did it. If you'll notice, he didn't criticize them, he didn't condemn them. He didn't call them stupid and demonic because they had a different political view.
Are you saying something, pastor? Oh, I don't know. I don't even know. I don't know. But through four different regimes, Daniel consistently and lovingly shared his faith in God, and he influenced kings without compromising his beliefs. I wanna say it again. With love and faithfulness and consistency, he influenced kings without compromising his faith and and convictions. And I'll show you Daniel 6:1. This is powerful. "It pleased Darius to appoint 120 sat satraps to rule throughout the kingdom". This guy, he was a very good systematic leader. "With three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel".
So you got Daniel and two other administrators. "The satraps were made accountable to them so the king might not suffer loss". So he was setting up his systems and his accountability. Now, Daniel did what? Let's say it aloud. "Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and satraps". Why? Because he had exceptional qualities. The king therefore planned to set him over the whole kingdom. I love this line. Daniel, because of his faith in God, so distinguished himself that he stood out and another king noticed him and said, oh, I think you are worthy of being promoted.
Now, the Hebrew word translated as distinguished is right therein Hebrew. It's the word mitnassah. Everybody say mitnassah. It's really fun to say. Mitnassah. This is the only time this Hebrew word is used anywhere in the Hebrew Bible. And this word means to excel, to stand out, to prevail, or to distinguish. Daniel so excelled, he so stood out, he served with such faithfulness, he was so excellent in all that he did that he stood out. He distinguished himself so much so that the king said, I think you should be promoted. Mitnassah.
As believers, wherever you work, whatever you do, wherever you serve, whatever you post, however you treat people, you should mitnassah. You should thrive, you should excel. You should always bring your best. As believers, we should stand out in the places that we work of being people who are good to our word, faithful and true. Show up early, stay late. Bring our best. Treat people well, honor those around us. We should stand out. It was Paul who said this. "Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, whatever it is, you do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ". Mitnassah. We distinguish ourselves and stand out. I have some friends that are kind of griping right now. Do you have any of those anywhere in your life? They're griping. Our nation's going to hell in a hand basket.
I have one question. How does it go to hell in a hand basket? Like, a hand basket? Like, what does that mean? I don't even know. That's a whole nother thing. But it's going to hell. The world is so dark. Yeah, maybe so. It's time for some Christians to stand out. It's time for some people to thrive and to excel and to love and to have grace and to preach. Whenever the world grows darker, the light should shine brighter. We should be so distinguished that you stand out in how you care for people, love people, serve people. And make it. We excel. We're distinguished. The other leaders, they saw this. Like, there's Daniel, all getting all the attention. Teacher's pet, right? And so what'd they do? Did they like him? No, they hated him. They were jealous.
So what'd they try to do? Very same thing that goes on today. They tried to get him canceled. You think cancel culture is just in our lifetime? Cancel culture was very, very real there. They came after him and tried to cancel him, and they tried to make some accusation against him. Do I have the Bible next? What do we have next? Here's what scripture says. "At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs". We're gonna find something that he did wrong so we can take him down. "But they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. Finally, these men said, 'We'll never find any basis for charges against him unless it has something to do with the law of his God.'"
What do we see going on? They were looking to find something wrong with him. Can we find it? Can we point it out? That's a very long intro, and I wanna get into the body of our message and I'm gonna give you the three qualities of unshakable impact. Three qualities of unshakeable impact. In a world that's growing darker and darker, how do we as people of Jesus shine brighter and brighter? Thought number one is we serve God with integrity. We serve God with integrity. Everybody say that if you will. Say, what do we do? We serve God... With integrity. Say it again. What did we do? Serve God with integrity. You can type that in the comment section.
We serve God with integrity. Daniel served God with integrity, so much so the king wanted to promote him and the other leaders were jealous. And they said, let's find anything wrong with this guy. Pull up that text again one more time, if you will. They looked in and they said this, they're looking for something wrong. "And they couldn't find any corruption in him". Why? "Because he was trustworthy, neither corrupt nor negligent". The Babylonian leaders, they were looking for any reason to discredit him. What did he do? He was a person of his word. He didn't cheat on his taxes. He didn't gossip about the king. He was faithful under four different U.S. presidents. Just joking. I'm just, like, I'm just playing with you. I'm just playing for fun.
Under four different Babylonian kings or presidents or leaders or administrations, whatever, he served God faithfully. The same thing we do. No matter who's in office, God is on the throne. No matter who's in office, we're gonna mitnassah, we're gonna stand up, stand out for the glory of Jesus. Daniel served God faithfully with integrity in Babylon, and his life demonstrated the truth that you may live in Babylon, but you don't have to let Babylon into you. You may live in this world, but you don't have to let the world into you. As followers of Jesus, we will not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but we transform by the renewing of our minds. You may live in a culture that's growing dark, but you don't have to let the darkness into you. Daniel continued to live with integrity.
And the other two, remember there's three administrators, there's Daniel and there's two others, they were jealous. And so what'd they do? They decided to kiss up to the king. And they came to the king and they said, hey, King Darius, your style game's strong. You're the GOAT, you're the living legend. And he said, why don't you make a law that if anyone prays to any God except for you in the next 30 days, then you throw that guilty person into the lion's den? And what do the king do? The king's like, I'm down. I am the GOAT. And so if anyone prays to anyone but me in the next 30 days, they're gonna be thrown into the lion's den.
What does Daniel do? Daniel loved God, right? Daniel worshiped God. Daniel needed God, and now he's forbidden to talk to God. What do you do when the decree tells you to do something that's different than what God tells you to do? He had three distinct options. The law says don't pray to God. Option number one is he can stop praying, right? He can say, I'm gonna take a month off praying because if I do pray, they'll kill me. And it's so much easier to have a good ministry when you're alive than when you're dead, right? So I just stop praying for a month. I'll take a month-long sabbatical. Or number two, he could pray silently, right? He could be like, I'm not praying and I'm not praying, and I'm not praying. And he's really praying. I'm gonna pray, but not close my eyes. I'm gonna trick 'em. Or he could stop praying, pray silently, or he could keep praying.
And if he's caught, what happens? He is risking his own life. They'll throw him to the hungry lions. So what does he do? Well, Daniel keeps praying and his enemies rat on him. And he's eventually thrown in the lion's den. I'll ask again, did he die or did God save him? God saved him. Did he know God was gonna save him at that moment? Did he know? I mean, was there a guarantee? Did God tell him he was gonna save him? No, he didn't know. He had faith in God when he didn't know the outcome. Dude, that's intense. I mean, what would you do in a case like that? Pray. I mean, like be faithful to God when it could cost you your entire life because he didn't know that God was gonna save him and then one day people were gonna name their kids Daniel. He didn't know that.
Lemme tell you how this story could have ended. It could have ended, the lions ate Daniel and there was blood everywhere. That's how it could have ended. It's really hard to make finger puppets that look good with that. But nevertheless, that's what could have happened. In fact, that's what was likely to happen if he continued to pray. But what did he do? He kept on praying. How do we have faith like Daniel? How do we live with conviction in a culture of compromise? Well, number one is we serve God with integrity. And number two, we trust God with consistency. We do what's right before God. We trust him with consistency.
In fact, Daniel 6:10 tells us this. "Now, when Daniel learned that the decree had been published," you cannot pray or you die. "When he learned that it was published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened towards Jerusalem. And three times a day, he got down on his knees and he prayed, giving thanks to his God". I love this. "Just as he had always done". Think about this. Daniel didn't wait until he was thrown into the lion's den to learn how to pray. Oh, I better pray now. No, he did what he had always done. He had always sought God. He had faithfully cried out to God. Three times a day, he was praying to God. So he did what he had always done.
Now, why does this matter? And believe me when I tell you it does, because it is not what we do occasionally that makes the difference. It's what we do consistently. It's not what we do every now and then that makes the difference, it's what we do with a rhythm before God. And when you think about it, I promise you, you will never ever be really close to God if you occasionally seek him. You will never consistently strong in the spirit and dying to your flesh and living faithfully, walking by faith and not by sight, and being able to quench the fiery darts of the evil one, you will never do that consistently if you only seek God occasionally. Got quiet in here. That's why we're people of the word.
There's a little app called the YouVersion Bible App. I recommend it to you. Daily get that streak up there where we're feeding on the word. Because the word of God is living, it's active, it's powerful, it convicts you, it directs you. It goes out before us to do the work and the will of God. We seek God in prayer. We fellowship with other believers. We call 'em a life group. We get together, we pray for each other. Like, when you don't have Christian fellowship, how do you make it? Like seriously, when your marriage needs prayer and there's no one praying, when your kid's sick and no one's visiting, when you're hurting and no one's standing with you, we stand together as people of God.
And I'm talking to the choir right now 'cause you are here at church, praise God for you. I'm talking to all you that aren't gonna hear this. You're not here, like, because there was football this weekend or it's rainy or it's too cold or it's too hot or you wanted to sleep in. We're people of God. We gather together with the body of Christ. It's who we are. It's what we do. It's not what we do occasionally that makes the difference, it's what we do consistently. So Daniel prayed as he'd always prayed before. He's under attack, and what's his first response? Cry? Run off and throw a fit? Post, "Help, help, help"? No, our first response is not to panic, but to pray. And I see it all the time. I mean it's like, can we think? All hell breaks loose in our life and we panic, we go crazy, and then we try everything we can.
We manipulate, we try this and we try that, and we try to control this and we try this. We make the phone call. And then we say, all we can do now is pray. I'm thinking, like, if I'm God, that hurts my feelings. All we can do now is pray, and God goes, well, you're screwed 'cause I'm not all powerful or anything. All we can do now is pray. People are worried about our country. What can you do? We can vote. Hope you vote. You can vote. Hope you vote. You can pray. Hope you pray. You can vote, you can pray, you can seek God, you can mitnassah, you can be a light, you can stand strong. And you don't have to panic because there is a God in heaven. There is a God. He's been doing this for a long time, and he'll be doing it until he calls us home.
In fact, there's another little verse in Daniel that's pretty cool, Daniel 2:21, that says, "God controls the course of world events. He removes kings and he sets up other kings". God's in control. He removes the kings... In the Hebrew, it actually can be translated as U.S. president. It's a joke, but it's serious. Like, it's world leaders. God sets up leaders and God is ruler over the courses of this. He is in control. And so what do we do? We seek him. We stay plugged into him. We consistently, we are connected to the vine, living off all the nourishment of God. And what does Daniel do? When he prays, how does he pray?
This is so special to me. When he prays, remember what the text says? How did he pray? Was he standing up? He was kneeling. He was kneeling. Recently, I just had one of those prayer times where I was kneeling before God. If you ever find yourself, like, it's really hard to pray. Sometimes it is. I mean, I'm the ADD pray guy. Like, you know, God, I'm begging you to please do this. And oh my gosh, I forgot I gotta get that thing ready. Oh, okay. You know? And I'm just like that. But if you ever find yourself like that, you know what you can do? It's just like get down on your knees before God. And there is something about both the humility and the reverence where you're just reminding yourself, like, I am not in control.
I'm seeking and I'm worshiping the one that is. You're gonna kneel sometime or another, 'cause scripture says that one day every knee will bow and every tongue will confess. So every now and then, you just wanna, or often or every day, God, I need you. God, I worship you. God I trust you. And this wasn't just when he was desperate. He just did this daily, kneeling before God. How could he stand so strong? Daniel stood before men because he'd knelt before God. Daniel could stand strong because he was kneeling, dependent, on a good God. What do we do? World's going crazy. How do we live by our convictions? Well, we serve God with integrity. We trust God with consistency and we honor God with faithfulness. We honor him with faithfulness.
If there's one quality that we want to embody as disciples of Jesus is we want to embody faithfulness, the fruit of the spirit, faithfulness. Because one day when you stand before God in heaven or Jesus or whoever welcomes you in, the thing you wanna hear is, well done, my good and... Faithful. What you won't hear is, well done, my good and important servant. Well done my good and wealthy sermon. You got your 401k way up there and you invested wise. Well done, my good and power... Well done, my good and popular servant. You won't hear that. What you're gonna hear is, if you do it right, is, well done, my good and faithful servant. And this gets so emotional to me.
So emotional. Daniel's in his 80s. For 80 years, God has been faithful to Daniel. For 80 years, through four different kings in a foreign land, stripped of everything that matters to him, ripped out of his homeland, taken from his family, indoctrinated with Babylonian views. And for 80 years, God has been faithful to Daniel. So Daniel chooses to be faithful to God. And he resolved, I'll do what's right. I'll trust God if he saves me, and I'll trust God if he doesn't. And so he prays. Well, King Darius, we know he likes Daniel, but he's trapped. Like, he's like, oh, Daniel, why'd you do that?
Now I gotta stand by my word. And so he feels bad, but he's gotta throw Daniel in the lion's den. And he whispers to him, I like this. He whispered, "Hey, Daniel, dude, bro, man, I hope that God that you continually serve rescues you". 'Cause he likes Daniel. And the king couldn't sleep all night 'cause he's worried about this guy. And in the morning, the king comes up and he's shouting out, first thing, "Daniel, Daniel, did your God rescue you"? And after a night in a lion's den with a lion who looked much more ferocious than this, Daniel says this, "My God sent his angel, and my God shut the mouths of the lions". He said, "They have not hurt me because I was found innocent in his sight. Nor have I ever done anything wrong before you, Your Majesty. The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. And when Daniel was lifted from the den and no wound was found on him".
Why? "Because he had trusted in his God". There was no wound found on him because he had trusted in his God. And because Daniel honored God, he spiritually impacted four kings. And King Darius issued a decree, hey, everyone in the nation should now fear the God of Daniel. If his God can do that, then his God should be your God. Now... My God shut the mouth of the lions. My God delivered me. My God was faithful. My God has always been faithful. If you missed last week, who is the main character of the Book of Daniel? God. God is the main character of the Book of Daniel. God is the main character of every book in the Bible.
But every story in the Bible points to Jesus. God is always the main character, but every story always points to Jesus. What's so rich and meaningful and emotional to me is that this story foreshadows the story of Jesus. Just like Daniel, men conspired against Jesus. And just like Daniel, men set traps for Jesus. And just like Daniel, Jesus was falsely accused by his enemies. And just like Daniel, Jesus was condemned to die a very violent death. And just like Daniel, he was put into a cave that was sealed so no human could intervene. And just like Daniel, Jesus walked out of that cave alive and risen from the dead because that's how good our God is.
There is a God in heaven. There is a God in heaven. There is a God in heaven, and he is in control of the course of this world. So no matter what you're going through today, and no matter what happens this week, you can trust in the goodness of God because there is a God in heaven, because he is worthy of our praise, he's worthy of our devotion. You can trust in God. No matter what you're going through, no matter what, you can trust in God because there is a God in heaven.
So Father, I know there are so many people going through so much right now, help us to put our trust in you.
I wonder how many of you, you're worried and burdened about anything. I mean, it's the election, it's financial weight, concern. You're in a spiritual battle. You got opposition right now. You got opposition against your marriage. Someone questioned your integrity. You were hurt by a friend and you're trying to forgive. You got a concern, you got a burden. There's something weighing on you, and you wanna put your trust in God today at all of our churches, if that's you, there's a burden and you wanna put your trust in God, would you lift your hands right now? Just lift them up and say, that's me. Online, you can just say, I want to trust. Whatever it is, I wanna trust this to God.
And Father, we do. We thank you, God, that we can trust you with all of our hearts, that we don't have to lean on our own understanding but, God, in all of our ways, we can acknowledge you, we can know you, we can follow you, we can trust you. God, help us to trust you. We pray for our nation, God. We pray for our leaders. We thank you, God, that we are people of the kingdom of God. May your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. God, we put our trust in you. We put our trust in you. Whatever it is that's weighing on you, just say, God, I trust this to you. I trust this person. I trust this, this fear, God, I trust it to you.
God is the main character of every story in the Bible, and every story points to Jesus. And this story foreshadows Jesus. Who is Jesus? He is the son of God, the sinless son of God, who came not for the healthy but for the sick. He didn't come for the righteous, he came for the sinners. He came for people just like me and people just like you. Who is Jesus? He's called the Lamb of God who's slain for the sins of this world. Because of our brokenness, because of our sinfulness, our sin separates us from a holy God. But God loved us, God loved you so much that he became flesh in the person of Jesus.
And Jesus died on a cross for the forgiveness of our sins. He was buried, and three days later, the stone was rolled away. Why? Because God raised him from the dead, defeating death, hell, and the grave so that anyone, and please hear me, anyone, and this includes you, doesn't matter what you've done, doesn't matter how bad you've been, doesn't matter how low you feel, doesn't matter how far from God you were or you are right now, anyone who calls on the name of Jesus, your sins would be forgiven and you would be brand new. There are those of you, your heart might be beating fast right now. You're wondering like, is this me? Is this me? Is it me? If that's you, it's you, it's you, it's you, it's you. God's been loving you. He's reaching out to you.
And this is your moment. Don't think about it. Don't wait on it. Just say, "yes, I'm stepping away from my old life. I'm stepping away from my sin, and today I wanna trust God. I wanna trust him to save me, forgive me, change me, fill me with the spirit". Today to all of our churches, those of you online, you don't know where you stand with God, that's about to change. You're gonna call on the one who heals, who saves, and who forgives. And when you do, you become new. The old is gone and he makes you new today.
All of our churches, all of the world online, those who say I need him, I'm putting my trust in Jesus today. "Jesus, you save me. I'm giving my life to you". That's your prayer. Lift your hands high right now all over the place and say, yes, that's my prayer right here. God bless you. Others today who say, Jesus, I need you, right back over here. Others say, yes, "Jesus. I call on you. Save me, be the Lord of my life". Those of you at church online, just type in the comment section, I'm surrendering my life to Jesus. I'm surrendering my life to Jesus. And together as the people of God, would you pray with those being born into the kingdom and pray:
Heavenly Father. Forgive my sins. Save me. Make me new. Fill me with your spirit. So I could be faithful to you. So I could know you. And I could show your love. And do your will. My life is not my own. I surrender it. I give it all to you. Thank you for new life. You have all of mine. In Jesus' name I pray, (and all God's people worshiped God in said) amen, amen.