Daniel 3: Bloom Where You're Planted
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Bookmarks & Needs:
Bookmarks & Needs:
B: Daniel 1:17-21
N:
Welcome
Welcome
Again, welcome to Family Worship with the church family of Eastern Hills. I’m senior pastor Bill Connors, and I’m blessed to get to be a part of such a wonderful church family. I’d like to give a special shout out of thanks to our Bible Study leaders who teach the Scriptures every week. If you’re not involved in a weekly Bible study group, you can get more information about classes from the Welcome station in the foyer.
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Opening
Opening
We’ve been in our sermon series through the book of Daniel for the past couple of weeks, and I can tell you that I’ve really enjoyed my study time in Daniel, and I’ve been really challenged by what I’ve learned. Last week, we saw how Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah held fast to their conviction that they would not partake in the food and wine that Nebuchadnezzar had provided for the captive young men in order to keep from defiling themselves. My take on that was that, “[They] had to be in Babylon, but that didn’t mean that Babylon had to be in [them].” They determined, or literally placed upon their hearts that they would not defile themselves, and so they chose holiness, but did so in a way that was humble to those above them, and trusted in God who provided for them. We saw the short-term results of this stand last week. This morning, we will see the long-term results as we consider our focal passage.
So turn in your Bibles or your Bible apps to Daniel 1, and then as we are able, let’s stand in honor of God’s Word as we read verses 17-21 this morning:
17 God gave these four young men knowledge and understanding in every kind of literature and wisdom. Daniel also understood visions and dreams of every kind. 18 At the end of the time that the king had said to present them, the chief eunuch presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. 19 The king interviewed them, and among all of them, no one was found equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. So they began to attend the king. 20 In every matter of wisdom and understanding that the king consulted them about, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and mediums in his entire kingdom. 21 Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.
PRAYER (CareNet; CBA Staff: John Torrison and Bethany Anderson)
Way back in the year 2003 or 2004, just a couple of years after I started serving full time in student ministry, I was also leading our praise band every Sunday. I loved doing so. At the time, we had two worship services each Sunday: the “contemporary” service with praise music and the praise band (which we called “First Light”), and the “traditional” service (called “Son Light”) with piano, organ, and hymns. I was obviously a part of the first service. I still really love to be a part of leading God’s people in worship through music when I get the chance.
Well, during that particular time, just about every week people would suggest that I should go into music, that I should try for a record contract, or something like that. And I really started to pray and think on that option, and even started exploring ways to get into the music industry.
But to be honest, I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I wasn’t sure how to get into music, even if it was what I wanted to do. I was really loving doing student ministry, loving leading music in the church, loving being on staff full time. It was great. I wasn’t sure that the music industry was what I should be pursuing. It was about then that a new band came onto the Christian music scene. They are still around today. They’re called Casting Crowns.
Casting Crowns exploded into popularity in 2003 with their first, self-titled album. What people might not know is that the lead singer, Mark Hall, was (and still is) a youth pastor, and Casting Crowns was kind of his youth praise team (some were adults). When I heard Mark’s story, I took a chance (fully not expecting to hear back from him), and sent him an email, asking how he knew that God was leading in the direction Casting Crowns was now on, and what steps he had taken to go that way. He actually answered.
While I no longer have the email because it was on an account that has since gone away, I’ve held onto Mark’s words since then, because they had a profound impact on my life—one youth pastor to another. He said that they had never sought a record label or contract, had never sent out a demo. They just were making music to challenge believers to live out the Gospel, and they were “discovered.” They never meant to make it big. It was something that God did. So his final advice to me was this: “Bloom where you’re planted. God will do the rest.” What a great challenge, and what a powerful statement to me in the midst of a confusing time. It’s what I’ve striven to do here at Eastern Hills.
And blooming where they were planted is what we see in the life of Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. These were teenage Hebrew boys, and they were stuck in Babylon—a place completely hostile to their way of life. They could have decided that their lives were ruined, that God had abandoned them, and that they might as well either give in or mourn what they had lost for the rest of their days, like the exiles did in what was likely written during the time of Ezekiel:
1 By the rivers of Babylon— there we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion. 2 There we hung up our lyres on the poplar trees, 3 for our captors there asked us for songs, and our tormentors, for rejoicing: “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.” 4 How can we sing the Lord’s song on foreign soil?
But these four young men had decided to pursue their relationships with God even in the darkness of the culture around them, even in the midst of what was essentially slavery, even in the face of immense pressure to fit into the Babylonian mold. They understood that God had a plan for their time in Babylon, and that He would use that time for His purposes and His glory in His own way. So they chose to live the life of faith, trusting God as we saw last week.
So this brings us to a question that we have to ask ourselves: “How do we bloom where we’re planted?” The first step is to remember that it’s God who gives growth:
1: God gives growth.
1: God gives growth.
Last week, we considered the question, “How do we live a life of faith in a place like Babylon?” And we saw that the example of these four Hebrew teens was that they chose holiness. But that didn’t mean that their choice of holiness is what brought about their growth. No, from the Hebrew perspective, it meant that they didn’t disqualify themselves from service to God. If they hadn’t chosen to walk with God while they were in Babylon, God still would have accomplished His purposes and His glory. He just would not have used these boys to do it.
We ended last week with the fact that after Daniel’s 10 day test of eating what was basically a vegetarian diet, these four boys looked so much better than the other lads in the University of Babylon that their guard or steward kept taking away their rich food and giving them only the special diet they had requested. God had to have given that health to the boys.
But that’s not all that God did in their lives. We see in verse 17 that God also gave them other special gifts for His purposes in Babylon:
17 God gave these four young men knowledge and understanding in every kind of literature and wisdom. Daniel also understood visions and dreams of every kind.
Daniel and his three friends were endowed by God with a particular giftedness to be able to learn, remember, and interpret the history, literature, and laws of Babylon (the Hebrew term “literature” would have included all three things). God also provided them with the ability to understand how to live wisely in Babylon.
But Daniel was given a special giftedness: the ability to interpret both visions (messages from God while awake) and dreams (messages from God while asleep). In the Babylonian culture, this particular gift was very highly regarded, because they believed that the gods spoke through dreams. Those who could interpret dreams were given important responsibilities and positions. This fact also sets the stage for what we are going to read about Daniel for much of the rest of the book.
Remember that the hero of the book of Daniel isn’t Daniel: the hero is Yahweh, the Lord Almighty, the Maker of Heaven and Earth. He gave King Jehoiakim over to Nebuchadnezzar (1:2). He gave Daniel kindness and compassion in the eyes of Ashpenaz, the chief eunuch (1:9). And now He is the One who gave Daniel and the boys what was necessary for them to fill the positions to which He had called them. These gifts were exactly what they needed to live the life of faith while in Babylon, even if they weren’t exactly the gift that they wanted.
God enabled Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah to grow in the ways that they needed to, in order to land in the positions that God needed them to, with the abilities that He wanted them to have, so that they could be most effective in their future roles in Babylon. James tells us that God is still the giver of all gifts that are good and perfect:
17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
Do you have special gifts or talents? I’m sure you do. We all can do different things well. And yes, these gifts are things that we have been a part of learning and honing and mastering, but we are able to have these gifts and talents because of how God has made us in His likeness. This is one of those areas of common grace that we see in the world—where even those who do not acknowledge God experience it simply because we all bear His divine image. And sometimes, God gives extraordinary giftedness to someone for His purposes and plans, so that He might be glorified. That’s up to Him.
But there is one good and perfect gift that He has given for all of us in equal measure, because He gave this gift once, and never needs to give it again. That gift is the His perfect Son, Jesus Christ. The Scriptures tell us that because of God’s great love for humanity, Jesus was given so that those who believe in Him can have eternal life:
16 For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
We have each turned away from God, becoming corrupt, as the Scripture says in Psalm 14. This corrupting influence is called sin. We rebel against our Creator God who loves us, and as a result, we deserve to perish—to spend eternity in death, separated from God: the definer of reality, the designer of the universe, the author of life, the One who is love itself. But for Him to simply overlook our sin would violate His moral perfection. So a price has to be paid. We owe it. We deserve death.
But instead, Jesus lived a life that doesn’t deserve death, so that He could take our place in death, paying the penalty that we owe because of our sins. When He died on the cross, He gave Himself so that we could be forgiven. And He overcame death according to Scripture, proving that He is the Almighty Son of God, never to die again, so that if we believe in Him, trusting in His death for our forgiveness, then we will also receive His eternal life, living forever with our Lord in a place we call heaven.
Jesus is Savior—He died to rescue us from death and to cover our sins. And He is also Lord—He is sovereign over every aspect of existence, including over your life. Believe that He is Savior. Surrender to Him as Lord. And receive eternal life today, right now where you are. And then God will bring the growth to make you more like Him, because only He can.
Believers, we have the blessing of getting to share the hope of the Gospel. The fact that God is the One who gives the growth should be freeing to us—we don’t have to save people, because we can’t. Our task is to plant the seed, and to water the seed. God gives the growth.
6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So, then, neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.
God is the One who causes the seed of the Gospel to grow in the soil of the heart. He is the One who saves the lost. He is the One raises the dead. We can’t do any of those things. All we can do is to be faithful to the task that God has given to us: to plant the seed when we can, to water the seed that others have planted as we have the opportunity, and use what God has given us for His magnification. In short, we can bloom where we’re planted, which is our second point.
2: Bloom where God plants you.
2: Bloom where God plants you.
I want us to think for a moment together on this point. Often, one of the things that we struggle with when working through narrative or historical parts of Scripture is maintaining our sense of time. This is especially true of the book of Daniel. We read in the beginning of Daniel that these four were “young men” in 1:4. So, likely they were about 15 years old in 605 BC when they were taken. But we see this, and then somehow in our mind’s eye, the four of them don’t age through the rest of the book (except for maybe that we see Daniel as old and gray in the last six chapters… the prophetic/apocalyptic ones). Because of the speed with which the narrative progresses, we lose track of time. Look at verse 18:
18 At the end of the time that the king had said to present them, the chief eunuch presented them to Nebuchadnezzar.
“At the end of the time...” What time? The time of their training. How long was that? Verse 5 of chapter 1 tells us that it was to be for three years. So catch this: Verse 17 is a summary verse. It summarizes the boys’ existence for three years. It tells us that over the three years of their training in Babylon, God gave them those gifts of knowledge and understanding. Throughout those three years, they remained faithful. Throughout those three years, they did the things that they were expected to do in order to learn the things they were expected to learn. God had planted them in Babylon. They were to bloom in Babylon.
These are no longer 15-year-olds. Depending on how the years were being reckoned, they could have been 19 by now. There’s a big difference between a 15-year-old boy and a 19-year-old man. And throughout that entire time, God was working on them. He provided for them physically. He provided for them mentally. He provided for them spiritually. And now, they are presented to the king, who finds them to be the best of the best:
19 The king interviewed them, and among all of them, no one was found equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. So they began to attend the king.
They were interviewed by the king. Nebuchadnezzar finds that these guys exceed all the others, and they are given the position of serving as attendants to the king. Now, this position may have started with them just bringing the king coffee and donuts, but as we’ll see in just a moment in verse 20, it eventually meant much more than that. These four Hebrew young men had truly bloomed while in Babylon.
I want to take a moment and make application of their example first to our students this morning. Most of you aren’t going to go on to work in a full-time ministry position, most likely. Probably most of you don’t want to do that at this moment, even. You have dreams and ideas about what you want to do and become. There’s nothing wrong with that. Full-time ministry is really a calling from God, and something that He has to prepare you for. And if He calls you to it, you should respond and begin the learning and growing now.
But most of you are going to be called to something else, something that we might call a “secular” profession. If you’re in Christ and you walk with Him, there’s really no such thing. Unless you are actively promoting and practicing sin or evil in a given profession, any job you set your hand to can be a means of worshiping Jesus. How do we know this? The lowest position in human society has basically always been the position of slave. And in Ephesians 6:5-8, Paul writes specifically to slaves who are in Christ. The lowest of the low. Look at what Paul says to them:
5 Slaves, obey your human masters with fear and trembling, in the sincerity of your heart, as you would Christ. 6 Don’t work only while being watched, as people-pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, do God’s will from your heart. 7 Serve with a good attitude, as to the Lord and not to people, 8 knowing that whatever good each one does, slave or free, he will receive this back from the Lord.
If a slave in Rome in the first century could honor God in how he served, then certainly any of us can honor God in whatever career or life-path He puts us on, be it a butcher, a baker, or a candlestick maker. The thing that I want you to get from the examples of Daniel and his friends is this: yes, God worked in their lives, but along with that, they did all they could do to be prepared when the time came for them to serve in the place that God made ready for them. They were the top of the class of the captives in Babylon University.
I’m not saying that you have to get straight A’s. I’m saying that God has planted you in school, and like Daniel and the boys, you don’t really have much choice in the matter. So like them, you can start honoring God right now with how you approach your education, you can bloom where you’re planted in school, whatever your school situation is. Commit to being the best student YOU can be, and then later, you’ll be the best you can be in whatever God has you do—whether you’re a homemaker or a CEO. Both, and just about everything in between, can bring glory to God:
31 So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God.
This same principle applies to those of you in college or trade school as well, although you do have somewhat more choice in the matter than the students do.
Adults: To make application here, I have to ask a question first: Do we believe that God sovereignly allowed these boys to become captives in Babylon? I believe that I made a strong argument back in the first message of the series that this is the case. And it appears, given what we see in verses 17 and 18, that Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah saw it the same way. And though they were in a foreign land, they held onto their convictions, and it appears that they were content to honor God in the place they found themselves in.
Similarly, I believe that it is possible for us to trust that God has sovereignly placed us in the context in which we find ourselves, and to be content to honor God in that context. One of the biggest reasons that we adults don’t bloom where we’re planted is a lack of contentment. We’re so busy looking at what we’re lacking that we don’t fully appreciate the blessings that we do have, whether that be in our marriages, our jobs, our finances, our possessions, our locations, or our churches.
Now, please hear me for a second: I’m not saying that you can’t change jobs if another job offer comes up. I’m not saying that you can’t move to a different house. I’m not saying that you can’t try to make more money or get a new car. However, I am saying that we are called to bloom where we are planted regardless of those things, because none of those things should define our relationships with Jesus. Our ultimate satisfaction should be found in HIM. The Hebrew boys saw that their situation didn’t change who they are or who God is, and so they could bloom where they were planted in Babylon until God chose to change their situation through the promotion that came through how they excelled in their training.
Paul addressed the concept of contentment, at least from the perspective of finances, in 1 Timothy chapter 6:
6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out. 8 If we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. 9 But those who want to be rich fall into temptation, a trap, and many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and by craving it, some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.
Godliness is great. But being discontent will diminish your godliness. Being content is great. But being ungodly will eventually ruin any contentment because of sin. Godliness with contentment is great gain. In Philippians, Paul wrote that with Christ he had learned to be content whatever his circumstances:
11 I don’t say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. 12 I know how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content—whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. 13 I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me.
And I think that we can extend the application of these passages beyond just the financial realm. We can face any situation with peace and grace when we are content first in Jesus, seeking His will in His strength. And if we aren’t content with the foundational Rock of our salvation (2 Sam 22:47; Ps 62:2, 6; 89:26; 95:1), we will find it difficult, if not impossible, to find lasting contentment in anything else.
We can face a difficult job with grace when we are content in Christ. We can work to bring peace to a difficult season of marriage when we are content in Christ. We can face difficult financial issues with hope when we are content in Christ.
Let me address one additional thing very quickly: by no means am I saying by this point that you must remain in an abusive situation, whether that be familial, marital, or occupational. You don’t have to find contentment in being physically or emotionally abused by a spouse. You don’t have to try to be content in being taken advantage of or abused by an employer. My point here is that in the normal difficulties of life, we can bloom where we are planted through finding our contentment in Christ, until He makes it clear that it’s time to change, which takes us to our last point.
3: Keep blooming as you grow.
3: Keep blooming as you grow.
At about the age of 19, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah started to attend the most powerful king in the world at the time. Likely, their first tasks were menial, or they were just to be in place to meet any need that the Nebuchadnezzar might have. But one thing that’s amazing about how God worked in the lives of these four Hebrew young men is that as they attended king Nebuchadnezzar, their influence and responsibility grew. They didn’t stop growing, so they didn’t stop blooming:
20 In every matter of wisdom and understanding that the king consulted them about, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and mediums in his entire kingdom.
I think the best way to compare this to our modern context is that it was like they had been studying political science in high school, then were immediately hired as interns in the Oval Office when they graduated, and then given positions on the President’s cabinet because of how much they were trusted. It was that big of a deal.
Daniel and his friends kept obeying, kept following, and even kept serving Nebuchadnezzar, because it was what they were called to and where God had placed them. Again, like verse 17, verse 20 is a summary verse that covers a large passage of time. We will see later in the book that during this period of service, they did not compromise their faith or their convictions. And so they became not just Nebuchadnezzar’s attendants—he actually started to seek their advice and counsel in matters that he had formal advisers for. And just like they approached their situation during their training, they continued to approach their role in the court of the king.
And they did this long term. We don’t hear anything about Hananiah, Mishael, or Azariah after chapter 3 (there are some people who are have the same names in Ezra and Nehemiah, which were written after Daniel, but these are almost certainly not the same guys). But we know that Daniel faithfully served for the rest of Babylon’s existence and into at least the first three years of the Medo-Persian Empire (who defeated Babylon in 539 BC).
21 Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.
This isn’t saying that Daniel died during Cyrus’ first year, because this would contradict something that Daniel himself wrote later in the book:
Daniel 10:1a (CSB)
1a In the third year of King Cyrus of Persia, a message was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar.
Verse 21 means that Daniel served as adviser to the king of Babylon until Babylon fell. So if Daniel was about 15 in 605 BC when he was deported to Babylon, and if he lived until at least the third year of King Cyrus (536 BC), then Daniel lived to be at least 84 years old. He served faithfully that entire time as he had opportunity, which we will look at in the coming weeks and months.
Now, Daniel’s context was different from ours. He was a captive in Babylon, so he had to continue serving. We have the ability to retire at a certain point, which is a great blessing for us compared to Daniel. But the application that I want to make in this point is that part of our context, part of our blooming where we are planted, is in the church herself. We are never to stop growing in Christlikeness. We are never to quit on our walk of following Jesus. We should, like Paul, see that being like Jesus is our ultimate goal and desire, regardless of our context:
10 My goal is to know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, being conformed to his death, 11 assuming that I will somehow reach the resurrection from among the dead. 12 Not that I have already reached the goal or am already perfect, but I make every effort to take hold of it because I also have been taken hold of by Christ Jesus. 13 Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and reaching forward to what is ahead, 14 I pursue as my goal the prize promised by God’s heavenly call in Christ Jesus.
Paul wrote that from prison in Rome. He wanted to bloom where he was planted even there.
The fact is that if we’re in Christ, we’re all on mission. We’re just missionaries disguised as something else. You might be a missionary disguised as an electrician, or a doctor, or a student, or a grandma, or a barista, or a zillion other things. You’ve been planted where you are so that you can bloom and fulfill God’s purposes for His glory in those places.
Closing
Closing
Church, we are here in this location in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at this time for a particular purpose: to be an outpost of God’s Kingdom on earth to proclaim the Gospel for His purposes and His glory. This is where we are growing. This is where we’ve been planted. Let’s bloom by walking in obedience, sharing the hope of Christ, and serving others in love, while standing for the truth of God’s Word.
And this morning, there may be someone here who has never believed the Gospel: never surrendered to Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. The Bible says that “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Rom 10:9). Will you believe the Good News this morning, and surrender to Jesus? And if you will surrender to Jesus this morning, will you come and share that with one of us? The band is going to come and lead us in a song of invitation in a moment, and you can come and share with one of us so we can celebrate with you. Email me if you’re on the web.
Church membership
Prayer
PRAYER
Closing Remarks
Closing Remarks
Offering
Bible reading (Genesis 34-35, Psalm 21)
No Pastor’s Study tonight for business meeting
Prayer Meeting this week, starting a look at some of the prayers of the Old Testament
Instructions for guests
Benediction
Benediction
23 Whatever you do, do it from the heart, as something done for the Lord and not for people, 24 knowing that you will receive the reward of an inheritance from the Lord. You serve the Lord Christ.
See you tonight at business meeting.