When Nothing Seems to Change

Me

There are moments as a pastor that you don’t forget

When you have loved someone deeply for years.

And then you watch them walk away from Jesus.

It is not just disappointing.

It is soul crushing.

Those are the moments that come back to you when you can’t sleep

The “if I had only said…”

The “if I had not done…”

Replaying those conversations.

Trying to figure out what went wrong.

But then there are other moments.

Where you see someone come to Christ.

Where you baptize someone.

Where something finally clicks in a persons mind and their walk with Jesus

Those moments are incredible.

And somewhere in between those highs and lows,

There are long stretches where it feels like nothing is really changing.

It feels like for every person that comes to church, or grows, another person leaves

It leads me as a pastor to question it all

There have been moments where I have wondered,

Should I step away?

Like maybe I am the problem.

Maybe I am getting in the way of what God wants to do.

Am I am the kink in the hose?

After all, I love this church too much to stand between it and the blessing God might want to lavish upon it

If I am honest, the hard truth is,

I probably am a kink in the hose.

But I’m not the only one.

So leaving would not suddenly fix everything.

And that is where the question sits.

And I don’t think that is just a ministry question.

I think that is a human question.

What do you do when nothing seems to change?

We

When you are trying to do the right thing,

And it feels like it is not making a difference.

When you keep showing up, keep praying,

keep trying to grow, and the same struggles are still there.

The same patterns.

The same frustrations.

When you are trying to follow Jesus, and life does not seem to look any different.

When your marriage is still just as hard

When Your family is still just as fractured

When Your friends are still just as disinterested in your faith or in Jesus

That is where most of us start to drift.

Not because we stop believing.

But because it feels like following Jesus is not doing anything

So over time, faithfulness can start to feel pointless

And that is exactly where this passage meets us,

In the tension of following Jesus and not seeing the changes we long for

God

Long Faithfulness, Little Change (v.1–5)

Because when we open to Daniel 6,

We are not meeting Daniel at the beginning of his story

We are meeting him after decades of faithfulness

Seventy years,

Seven decades,

The best and strongest years of his life,

Spent in exile under Babylon

Serving under different kings

Living in a hostile foreign land

Yet, remaining faithful to God the entire time

So what is striking is not just his faithfulness

What is striking is what has not changed

The system is still broken

The leaders are still corrupt

God’s people are still in exile

There is no revival

There is no widespread turning back to God

No visible transformation of the culture

After these seventy years

Babylon is still Babylon

And Daniel is still in Babylon

Being faithful

And when we read the opening verses,

We see that even after all this time,

Daniel is still being entrusted with leadership,

Still set above everyone else, because of his integrity

And when his political adversaries look for something against him, they cannot find anything

No corruption

No negligence

No failure

The only way to trap him is through his faithfulness to God

And yet, the only thing his faithfulness produces is opposition

Which means by the time we get to Daniel 6

Daniel has spent decades being faithful to God,

And yet, there is little change in the people or the culture around him

Which raises the question what does faithfulness look like when nothing seems to change?

Costly Faithfulness (v.6–10)

Will you remain faithful?

That is the question Daniel now faces

After a lifetime of following God,

And being a faithful witness to God,

It all leads to this moment where his faithfulness is tested

Will he bow to the edict of the king and compromise his faith with God?

Or will he remain so secure in God, that whatever this world offers or threatens does not sway him?

So in v.6-9 we see this plan to dispose of Daniel

The officials come together, and they go to the king

They propose a law that for thirty days,

No one can pray to any god or man except the king

And if they do, they will be thrown into a pit full of lions!

This is not random, it is premeditated

They could not find corruption in Daniel

So they build a trap around his faithfulness

And Daniel remained faithful

Verse 10

He knew the document had been signed

He knew the consequences

And this is the moment

Where everything could change

After decades

After years of not seeing much change in following God,

This is where he could finally assimilate

become like everyone else around him

All he has to do is just not pray

He could have closed the window

He could have made it less visible

He could have kept it to himself for thirty days

Oh, how it would be easy to justify,

Think, if you were in Daniel’s place, these excuses that would roll off our lips:

I’m old now

I’ve been faithful for decades

I’ve done enough

I’ve earned the right to take it easier

I’m near the end

Why not just ride it out with comfort and security?

But he doesn’t

He goes home, the windows are open

He gets on his knees

I can almost picture that spot, worn into the floor,

From years of faithful prayer before God

And he prays

Just as he had done countless times before

When faced with a royal edict, aimed squarely at him, Daniel changes nothing

The same habit

The same posture

The same faithfulness he has built over decades

And this is where we see what real faithfulness looks like

Abiding is remaining faithful to God

Even when nothing seems to change

Daniel remains faithful anyway

And for that, he bears the punishment of the plot against him

God Is Working Beyond What Can Be Seen (v.11–28)

And just like that, everything falls apart

From the outside, it looks like nothing has changed

It looks like faithfulness has accomplished nothing

It looks like following God has only made things worse

Because following God has led him straight into a den of lions

That should not surprise us

Psalm 1 says the righteous flourish

But Psalm 2 reminds us the nations rage

The world does not just ignore God

It rebels against Him

And Jesus tells us the same thing in John 15.

If the world hates you

Know that it has hated me before it hated you

Daniel shows us what faithfulness looks like in suffering

but he is not a promise that God will always rescue us from it

Faithfulness to God

Will not always be rewarded with visible change

Sometimes it leads to opposition

Sometimes it leads to suffering

Sometimes it leads to a den of lions

And Scripture is honest about this

Hebrews 11 tells us that some were delivered

They shut the mouths of lions

Sound familiar?

But others were not.

They suffered

They were mistreated

And the world was not worthy of them

And yet

God had planned something better that together with us

They would receive the fullness of His promise

They did not receive what was promised in their lifetime

And yet, all of them are called faithful

Which means faithfulness cannot be measured by what we see

Abiding is remaining faithful to God, even when nothing seems to change

So we have to see beyond what is visible

Verse 11 cuts through all the build up and tensions

Daniel has his room burst into by the very men plotting against him

He is found praying, and immediately they go to the king

They remind him of the law

They accuse Daniel

And the king realizes what has happened, everything falls into place

Notice, unlike the previous pagan kings in Daniel, he seeks to save Daniel and undo his mistake

He is distressed

He tries to rescue Daniel

He fasts through the night

But he cannot

Because even the king is bound by his own decree

And from the outside this looks like the end for Daniel

Faithfulness has led nowhere

Integrity has changed nothing

Following God has led him straight into a den of lions

So, Daniel is brought

And thrown into the den

A stone is laid over it and it is sealed

But there is a hyperlink here, this should make our Bible-spider sense be thinking of earlier in Daniel

Back in Daniel 3, Daniel’s friends stood before the fire and said, “even if God does not deliver us”

Even if He does not rescue

Even if He does not step in

We will still be faithful

And now in Daniel 6, Daniel is standing in that same kind of moment

The test has not changed

Only the setting has

Back then it was a furnace

Now it is a den of lions

Back then it was three men

Now it is one

But it is the same question

Will you remain faithful even if God does not deliver you?

And Daniel answers that question, not with a speech to the king,

But with a prayer on his knees before God

Faithfulness is not based on the outcome, it is based on who God is

But now there is nothing Daniel can do, hungry lions surround him

It can feel like God is absent, like He is not doing anything

No more choices

No more actions

No more opportunities

From every human perspective,

This is the end of another faithful servant of God

And yet

God is still at work

The king cannot sleep

He fasts

He is restless through the night

At first light, the elderly king runs to the den

And he calls out

“Daniel, servant of the living God has your God whom you serve continually been able to deliver you?”

And Daniel answers

“My God sent His angel and shut the mouths of the lions”

God was at work

Not just in the outcome but in the entire moment

He preserved Daniel

He exposed the injustice

He revealed Himself to the king

And just like that, a pagan king is declaring the greatness of God

So the king makes a decree

That all should fear and tremble before the God of Daniel

Which means

What looked like the end

Was not the end

What looked like failure

Was not failure

What looked like nothing changing

Was God at work the whole time

And that is not just Daniel’s story

That is the reality we live in

You

There are moments in our lives, where everything feels sealed

Where it feels final

Where it feels like God is absent, like He is not doing anything

Where we have prayed, and nothing has changed

Where we have stayed faithful, and nothing seems to move

Where we look at our lives, and it feels like the den has closed in around us

And in those moments, our hearts start asking questions

Did we do something wrong?

Did we miss something?

Is any of this actually doing anything

So let me remind you of a powerful truth from 1 John 3:19-20

1 John 3:19–20 NIV

19 This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence: 20 If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

Or in the MSG:

1 John 3:19–20 MSG

19 This is the way we’ll know we’re living in God’s reality. 20 It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.

Because our hearts will tell us

Nothing is happening

God is absent

This is the end

Or we start to say, “It’s because I did/said/etc this thing, God hates me or has abandoned me”

Our hearts do not see everything, but God does

This is where the story of Daniel points us to the greater story of Jesus on this Palm Sunday

A stone was placed over a den

And a stone was placed over a tomb

Both were sealed

Both looked final

From every human perspective, it was over

But God was still at work

And on the third day, what looked final, was not final

Jesus rose

Which means

The God we are trusting

Is not just the God who shuts lions’ mouths

He is the God who raises the dead

and that hope, gives us perspective on our lives

So I must ask, what is your hope based on, your abilities, your wisdom, money, schooling, resume, or family and friends, or connections?

Those things are gifts from God, but they can never save you, they are so fleeting in this life

Just think how many of us know someone like Daniel, faithful spouse, worker, friend, just to be scorned and lose everything in their twilight years

Come to Jesus and ask that he be the one you serve and follow and worship, because this world is hard and difficult,

Jesus does not remove us from this world

He walks with us through it

So come and confess your need for his presence and help in your life, and he will take away your sin, your shame, your fear, and walk with you through all of your lion’s den moments

Daniel spent seventy years in Babylon

Seventy years

It is easy to look at that, and say

Look, God doesn’t care, he’s abandoned Daniel and Israel!

Nothing changed!!!

But God was already at work in ways Daniel was not fully aware of

Raising up Zerubbabel who led the first group of Israelites back to the promised land

Even when they had forgotten their own language, so they can’t read or understand their own Scriptures!

So, God sends Ezra, to start a spiritual reform among the people

God sends Nehemiah to start to rebuild the physical city of God, Jerusalem

God is restoring, even when it could not be seen

And during that same time, Daniel is so faithful, that even his peers recognize it

Daniel is named in the book of Ezekiel as a picture of righteousness while still in exile!

Ezekiel 14:13–14 “13 “Son of man, suppose a land sins against me by acting faithlessly, and I stretch out my hand against it to cut off its supply of bread, to send famine through it, and to wipe out both people and animals from it. 14 Even if these three men —Noah, Daniel, and Job —were in it, they would rescue only themselves by their righteousness.” This is the declaration of the Lord God.”

Daniel is considered one of the spiritual faithful in the vein of Noah and Job! What incredible praise!

While Daniel was interpreting dreams and dealing with the politics of Babylon,

Ezekiel was in a refugee camp as a Levite that had lost his temple and priestly role, and God was working through both of these men!

God was working through Daniel,

In ways he could not fully see

In a time he could not fully understand

And the same is true for us

Abiding is remaining faithful to God, even when nothing seems to change

So that means, we keep praying

Even if all we have are a few honest words before God, or no words at all

We keep trusting

Even when we do not understand what He is doing, or not doing

We keep following Jesus

Even when it costs us relationships, comfort, or clarity

Not because we see the outcome, or understand the difficulty,

But because we know the One who sees the outcome, and knows the difficulty

And one day

What feels sealed

What feels final

What feels like nothing is happening

Will be revealed, for what it really was:

God at work, the whole time

Just like the raising up of faithful leaders for Israel after exile

Just like the empty tomb revealing God’s plan in Jesus

Just like the mystery stone from Nebuchadnezzar being the church

And one day soon, Jesus will return and reveal all the hidden evil, and right the wrongs, and bring redemption to this broken world

But until that day comes, we are stuck in that difficulty, of feeling like God is still or indifferent at times

When I opened this message, I told you of the frustrations that come from ministry, and my own ineptitude, or at least feeling that way

So when I feel like Daniel, that what I’m doing is not making a difference, that I am the kink in the hose, what do I do?

Well, the only thing I can do

I have to change how I view things, I have to change the measurement

So instead of wondering how hearts are changing or not, or if behavior is what is going on both inside and out the heart,

I’ve come to realize what I think Daniel came to realize

The success of my ministry is not based on how many people convert or proclaim God’s name

The success of my life is that I am drawing close to Jesus, and listening to his leading

Whether it leads to the king’s palace, or to the king’s lion den

Whether it leads to rescue from the den of lions, or I am fed to the lions of the Colosseum

Circumstances do not change the character of Jesus, and so I have decided, I will follow him best I can, all of my days, wherever he brings me to and through

Because God has already proven these things through Jesus

I can trust Him now

I count on one thing

The same God that never fails

Will not fail me now

You won't fail me now

In the waiting

The same God who's never late

Is working all things out

You're working all things out