Sermon Tone Analysis

Search Engines are not value neutral

Every day millions of people use search engines for business, research, entertainment, and other various tasks.

Many likely use search engines the way they would use a dictionary or, in days gone by, a phone book.

The assumption might be that the search engine is value neutral: you plug in search terms and your desired result pops up with the answer.

But we should recognize that few things in life are truly value neutral.

Software programmers have made decisions on how search engines work, and they have made value judgments about how the search engine should function.

There are several different ways their value judgments appear in the seemingly innocent use of a search engine.

Some groups will attach key words to their sights in order to insure they get a higher ranking on your search.

Other businesses will pay google add words to ensure that your businesses sight gets a higher listing and priority.

How does our culture today determine what it values the most?

Well, just look at what we spend our money on and where we spend the majority of our time and you will see what we value the most.

When we value other things or people more than we value God we fail to fulfill our greater purpose which is to reveal the Glory of God.

If we are not revealing the glory of God we are robbing God of His glory.

This is exactly what King Nebuchadnezzar was guilty of in our story today.

INTRODUCTION

The sovereignty of God over nations and individuals has already been clearly established throughout Daniel.

God gave wisdom to his faithful servants in the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream; God gave wisdom in the preservation of the three witnesses in the fiery furnace; now in chapter 4 God gives wisdom as Daniel confesses the sovereignty of God on the part of a heathen king.

The fact that this may be an accurate reflection of an actual event in history has frequently been minimized by scholars.

No record is said to exist of such a change of heart by a Babylonian king.

Yet, beyond the pages of Scripture some secondhand evidence exists that a strange event did occur in Nebuchadnezzar’s life.

It would make sense that the events that took place in this chapter and recognized a sovereign holy God were not likely to be recorded in the Chronicles of Babylon - especially when it is remembered that the Babylonian monarch was through of in terms of a deity.

OUTLINE OF EVENTS

Daniel 1 “The first of three exiles to Babylon found Daniel front stage with a test for the king and his subjects.

Daniel had been preparing for this moment all of His Life.”

We asked the question “Are you living for the City of God, or the City of Destruction.”

Daniel 2 “The King had a dream that he was asking the impossible task of being told what he dreamed as well as the dream itself or Daniel and his friends along with all the other wise men in the kingdom would be destroyed.”

Your life shows what you believe about the God of the impossible.

Daniel 3 “The King set up an enormous statue that is to be worshiped by all his kingdom at the peril of being thrown into the fiery furnace.

Everyone obeyed the command to bow except Daniels three friends.

They told the king that they believed their God could and would deliver them from the flames, but even if in His sovereign will He chose not to they would still not bow.”

“God delivers you in the furnace not from it.”

“Because God is supremely glorious, He will not allow others to steal His glory”

BIG IDEA: Will you be a Glory Stealer or Glory Revealer?

Note: You were created to reveal the Glory of God period.

The most high rules the kingdom of men and gives to whom he will.

The world’s purpose is to attempt to steal the glory of God and His image bearers.

What was God’s purpose in creating Israel, a people for himself.

Down at the roots of displaying or revealing the glory of God is not as if God somehow needs us to be complete, or by giving Him glory God somehow becomes more glorious.

Let’s look at Genesis 11:4 “They said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in heavens, and “let us make a name for ourselves.”

Now look at Genesis 12:1-3 “Now the Lord said to Abram: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.

And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great.”

The people working on tower of Babel said, “Let us make a name for ourselves!”

God chooses the father of the Jewish nation and says, “ I will make your name great.”

Glory = is synonomous with the word BEAUTY

When God say’s that he created us for his glory, it cannot mean that he created us so that He would become more glorious.

It is impossible and unthinkable that God can become anymore glorious than he is right now.

Anything that is not God came into being by God and through God.

1.

A Glory revealer is a Telescope, not a Microscope

We are not called to be microscopes.

We are called to be telescopes.

Christians are not called to be con-men who magnify their product out of all proportion to reality, when they know the competitor’s product is far superior.

There is nothing and nobody superior to God.

And so the calling of those who love God is to make his greatness begin to look as great as it really is.

That’s why we exist, why we were saved, as Peter says in 1 Peter 2:9, “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”

The whole duty of the Christian can be summed up in this: feel, think, and act in a way that will make God look as great as he really is.

Be a telescope for the world of the infinite starry wealth of the glory of God.

This is what it means for a Christian to magnify God.

But you can’t magnify what you haven’t seen or what you quickly forget.

Therefore, our first task is to see and to remember the greatness and goodness of God.

So we pray to God, “Open the eyes of my heart!” (Ephesians 1:18), and we preach to our souls, “Soul, forget not all his benefits!”

(Psalm 103:2).

When is the last time you laid down outside at night and gazed into the vastness of the universe.

Everything is brought into focus and magnified.

A telescope simply magnifies what is already there and exposes it in a big way.

A microscope is trying to discover things that cannot yet be seen.

Remember in Romans 1 Paul tells us that man is without excuse for not knowing God.

Namely we have seen his creation and the work of his hands in creation.

What is going to happen to Nebuchadnezzar is the result of his unwillingness to reveal the glory of God that he has now already seen revealed four times and yet he still chooses to make His name great and bring glory to His great name.

Note: This does not mean that his glory was somehow lacking.

This is the goal of God which we must be aligned.

When we choose to keep some of the glory for ourselves, or our own fame, or our own purposes we are robbing God of His GLORY.

We Are Made to Reflect God's Glory

Paul likens us to shining stars, and the word shine means to reflect.

The scientific term is albedo.

It's a measurement of how much sunlight a celestial body reflects.

The planet Venus, for example, has the highest albedo at .65.

In other words, 65 percent of the light that hits Venus is reflected.

Depending on where it's at in its orbit, the almost-a-planet Pluto has an albedo ranging from .49 to .66.

Our night-light, the moon, has an albedo of .07.

Only seven percent of sunlight is reflected, yet it lights our way on cloudless nights.

In a similar sense, each of us has a spiritual albedo.

The goal?

One hundred percent reflectivity.

We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord.

You cannot produce light.

You can only reflect it

HOW DO WE MAGNIFY THE GLORY OF GOD?

We glorify God when we throw a spotlight on how great God is.

To glorify God is to make much of him - in the same way a mother or father dotes on their children.

We make a big deal about everything our children do and say.

Think of a new parent cannot help but post every picture they take on social media.

Why?

Because they are so proud of everything their children do, they want to make sure everyone knows.

*We magnify God by trusting His word.

Why is this true?

It is true because trusting a person calls attention to that persons trustworthiness.

However, when we take God at His word and show the trustworthiness of God it magnifies his greatness.

The scriptures are meant to protect our hearts, lead us to freedom and away from bondage, guards us from error.

Apparently King Nebuchadnezzar did not trust the revealed word that God had given him through Daniel, look what happens next in Daniel 4:28-33

How do we show God that we trust His word?