Character In Crisis

Intro:

Santiago Peak

Landing Point: Life isn’t a mountain with multiple ways up, it’s a mountain with ONLY ONE correct trail and the rest are dead ends

Topic: Tonight in Daniel ch.2 we see 2 routes you can take when life gets tough, The worlds or Gods

Need:

The issue is at your stage of life there are different routes everywhere with signs saying come this way,

If you go to the worlds wisdom for answers to life’s greatest problems you will receive nothing, it’s a long hard road that leads to a dead end

You really are at a crossroads in life; statistically most people decide to either follow Christ or Deny him in these teenage years - you need to know the consequences of following the world and blessing of following God

When life is hard, maybe a loved one passes away, a relationship ends, drama is all around, or you’re just discontent, you WILL either listen to the world which digs a deeper hole or listen to God which leads to joy, fulfillment no matter the circumstance.

Which means if you are UNHAPPY - not just one bad day - but regularly and consistently unhappy, you have taken the worlds route, you’ve listened to the worlds wisdom maybe unconsciously ONLY Gods way can bring you out and give the solution.

Credit the word: In Daniel 2 God exposes the shallowness of the world and the sufficiency of Him, will you follow His ways?

Prop: The Worlds way is worthless, God’s way is best

Thesis: Which way will you take? The worlds or Gods

1. The World’s Way

Explain

Neb’s Problem v. 1-9

Neb had a nightmare that woke him up and wouldn’t let him go back to sleep

So he brings in the WORLD’S WISEST dream experts to help him out

Archeological evidence shows that these guys had HUGE libraries that would help them interpret dreams

World’s Answer v.10

Illustrate

There is nothing new under the sun, the worlds ways are worthless and their advice is unhelpful

whats the problem?

Sad —> Try to have positive thoughts

Anxious —> Manage your anxiety by giving yourself 10 min in the morning & 10 min at night to be anxious (Real advice from Scholarly writings)

Depressed —> Take this pill, or list what you like about yourself

Break Up —> Cut off your hair

Apply

Where do you go for answers or help?

When something causes anxiety do you find yourself going to shallow solutions?

Distracting yourself w/ entertainment

Do you get advise from unwise friends?

2. God’s Way

Explain

Daniel’s Problem v.13-18

Step 1: PRAY v.18 - When Daniel is faced with possible death, he doesn’t just walk in to the kings court and say “I’ve got the answer” meanwhile hoping God will tell him what the dream was. He doesn’t make a plan and assume God will just go along with it. He went back to his friends so that they could pray for compassion from the God of heaven

When Crisis comes it’s time to pray.

Phil 4:6 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.”

When do you pray? If you are walking into tough situations, or big decisions without prayer you’re a fool following the worlds ways which lead to nothing.

But God’s way is a prayerful way which leads to answers, look at his answer to Daniels prayers in v.19

So does Daniel immediately run to the king and tell him the interpretation? No he takes time to praise...

Step 2: Praise - Daniel stops to thank God for showing him compassion & answering his prayers

How often do you thank God for answering your prayers?

ILLUS: You now my nephew is now 5 years old, and his room is just filled with toys. He is slightly spoiled. But when we go to a place with an arcade he loves it and plays games the whole time, and then he will run out of money and go to his parents for more money and then play and then run out of money, go ask for more money and eventually the say “no you’ve played enough” and its just a disaster. He’s like crying, what do you mean, you don’t care about me, you don’t love me.

Meanwhile they're like “Dude we gave you SO MUCH money and you never stopped once to say thank you” - God gives us so much that we become used to it, we stop saying thanks and then when something goes wrong we complain and point the finger at Him.

Jesus in Luke 17 healed 10 people w/ leperousy and sent them on their way and when the realized they were healed 1 of them turned back to go give thanks to Jesus, and you know what He said “Where are the other 9?”

It mattered to Jesus that they say Thank You

Make it a point to not be a spoiled kid, and take Gods gifts for granted but thank Him

Each night when you go to sleep come up with 10 things to thank him for from that day - if thats difficult its not God’s fault

God’s answer v.19-30

God’s answer is for God’s glory

Daniel tells Neb in v.27 it’s impossible for any man to help you BUT God can and did help you by giving me the interpretation of your dream

And look at how Neb responds in v. 47

Neb gives glory to God - he went from skeptic in the beginning to praising God at the end

God will always do what brings him the most glory because God’s way is best and when we follow God way we are blessed

Daniel chose God’s route and his life was saved, v. 46 the king paid homage, v.48 He was promoted

But God’s plan did not come to a culmination on this day with Daniel, this was just a small part of Gods ultimate plan

See Neb had a bigger problem than a bad dream, Daniel too had a bigger problem then possible death, the problem was sin and its the same problem we have

Our sin is our lives biggest problem, all these scientist today are spending their lives to get to mars, to make renewable energy but they should really be expensing their resources on solving the problem of sin.

Because no matter what you do on Earth you will die and you will pay for your sin so you can go around the world now and ask the modern day magicians for a solution but the answer will be the same, a shoulder shrug, a band-aid, a pill and the result will be your destruction in hell

But God has an answer and it is sacrificing his own son to pay the price for your sin, so that if you chose God’s way of repenting from your sin and placing your faith in him you can be saved.

The worlds way is worthless, it will lead to discontentment now and hell for eternity, God’s way is best - it leads to joy now and heaven with God forever

Which route will you take? Only one way provides the answer, only trail leads to the top.

And if you have placed your faith in Christ, he’s brought you this far up the mountain why would you go back down to your old ways? leave them there

The worlds way is worthless, God’s way is best. Follow Him.