Full Service | Sunday August 15, 2021

[Music] hey good afternoon athy creek let's all stand together we get the opportunity to do communion later in today's service so if you didn't get a chance to grab a packet yet there's going to be some guys walking around handing them out if you're joining us online make sure to also have your communion elements ready let's all worship together jesus you endured my pain savior you bore all my shame all because of your love maker of the universe broken for the sins of the earth [Music] [Music] my sins are washed away [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you died to set the captives free all because of yours [Music] for you all because of your love [Music] [Applause] is me [Music] [Music] you did it for me you [Music] you did it for me [Music] jesus [Music] [Music] is right [Applause] [Music] and in your time you have heard me [Music] you preserve me you preserve me and all those [Music] [Music] set me free [Music] redemption [Music] [Applause] [Music] neither wind [Music] you have shown such mercy to me you know [Music] is [Music] is [Music] [Music] mountains god can move mountains sing praising praise for he's our salvation and he's our salvation [Music] this is our salvation [Music] he's praise our salvation [Music] [Music] you always answer me always have compassion always find redemption at your feet i sing father [Music] is our god sing with me how great is our god we'll see how great how great it is [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] is [Music] [Music] in my heart [Music] oh [Music] [Music] is is is is [Music] [Music] see how great [Music] worthy of every song we could ever see worthy of all the praise worthy of every breath we could ever breathe [Music] jesus jesus the only one who could ever sing [Music] worthy of every breath we could ever [Music] open up my eyes [Applause] you are [Music] [Music] worthy of every song we could ever see worthy of all the praise we could ever breathe [Music] [Music] jesus [Music] [Applause] [Music] there is [Music] show me who you are [Applause] [Music] is [Music] show me who you are [Music] me [Music] [Music] uh [Music] i will play [Music] and i will now is [Music] who you are [Applause] is who you are [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] now [Music] [Applause] i will put my trust in you love you and i will not be shaken how thankful we are lord that we can put our trust in you lord the immovable unshakable uh firm foundation lord you're the rock of ages we can put our trust in you lord in a world that's so shaky right now and divided and angry and troubled lord we're thankful that you are the source of a peace that passes understanding that you're the one lord that has the plan and the future all ready to roll you know exactly what's going to happen lord so for that reason i pray that we just tune in to you and focus in on your word lord and i pray that you just build us up in faith that today would be a day where we sense your power and your presence in our lives and in your church thank you for all that you've done for us lord i pray that you'd find this 12 o'clock service an attentive bunch lord that we just really tune into your word and have your heart in your mind lord bless this time we pray in jesus name amen amen and why don't you have a seat and get all situated thanks worship team nice job well we're uh getting into the book of daniel why don't you grab your bibles and uh turn to daniel chapter two have you ever struggled going to sleep it's something i don't know much about because i could sleep anywhere anytime i could lay down right here right now and go to sleep and you guys would be sitting there watching and then i'd be baby like i i could sleep with the best of them i i'm good at that's a gift that i have but i know people that struggle with uh with sleep and sometimes it can be brutal and there have been a few times in my life where i couldn't go to sleep it's one of those things i think some people wrestle with all the time but for me there was there was times where i was super tired i knew the next day was going to be brutal and busy and i knew that my body needed sleep but i also couldn't shut my brain down and your brain just keeps buzzing buzzing buzzing and thinking thinking thinking and you just can't go to sleep and it's frustrating and then by the time the next day rolls around you're tired and the world looks horrible and pretty soon you're depressed and anxious and uh it can be very compounding as far as a problem the sleeplessness and i know some people deal with that all the time well we have some lessons i want to learn feedback from an insomniac right here in daniel chapter 2. it just so happens our insomniac is nebuchadnezzar the king of babylon and he's got a problem and so we're going to take a look at that it's daniel chapter 2. we'll start right here in verse 1 of this chapter it says and in the second year of the reign of nebuchadnezzar nebuchadnezzar dream dreams wherewith his spirit was troubled and his sleep break from him then the king commanded to call the magicians the astrologers and the sorcerers and the chaldeans for to show the king his dreams so they came and stood before the king and the king said to them i have dreamed a dream and my spirit was troubled to know the dream so here we have it the king is troubled if you notice here in both verse 1 but also verse 2 we see this word troubled uh and and what is that what is that about you know the king's troubled you know what kind of a trouble could a king have a king who's got everything he's got money more than he might be the richest man in the world this time he's got power he's conquered pretty much everyone around them um you know he's got a harem in all worldly you know kind of things he's got everything going on but he finds himself and that word troubled some of your translations there you know like if you have a a new king james or a new american standard i think what's the word i'm anxious he's anxious and that's really a good description i think that some of the newer translations say he's agitated he's troubled he's agitated but the the key operative thing here is he's got an anxiety that's linked to his sleeplessness and the dreams that he can't even remember he had have you ever woken up from a dream and you're troubled but you don't even really remember what the dream was about well that's his situation but this dream somehow felt like it was more than just a dream now here's what you gotta do with this this is tricky because as it turns out we have to ask the question does god use dreams well if you're a bible reader you have to admit god uses dreams but you also have to be careful with that one are all dreams you know meant to be something important or some some of the dreams are they just meant you know it's just the pizza that you had the night before uh it kind of caused a little trouble for your sleep uh the question is um which one is it well you have to sort of weigh it out if you have a dream and you feel troubled by it and it's kind of deep seated in your soul that's where you have to start asking lord is this something that you want to do in my life or are you trying to get my attention and you do have to ask the lord that and as it turns out this is something we who i believe we're living in the last days i really do the bible talks about in the last days this idea of the young men dreaming dreams and old men seeing visions that's going to ramp up the closer we get to the coming of the lord so it's something we should at least be aware of now there's some rules about dreams if you have a dream and you're supposed to do something kooky that doesn't line up with the bible that was the pizza the dreams that you have should always match what the bible teaches and it should never go against that um i've you know heard of things where you know cults have started because a person had a dream or a vision watch out dreams and visions can be from satan too uh so you got to kind of watch out for that so you measure it against the word you also get good godly counsel there's safety and a multitude of counselors well nebuchadnezzar has a dream and he's troubled by this dream and so he finds himself with his sleeplessness and and he's in trouble i think that's interesting because you know a dream or sleeplessness i should say you know physically can be a lack of melatonin it could be sleep apnea or some kind of illness emotionally maybe his mind is restless maybe it's that but we know from the biblical account here that there's something spiritual going on that god wants to get the king of the world at this time really uh you know get his attention um and that's what's going on here so so there's some lessons we can learn from this king and his uh his sleeplessness and here's the first thing that i want to observe number one if you're jotting down notes number one that god can get your attention where attention can be gotten um what what's that all about well listen this is an important thing for you to know there are times in your life where god wants to get your attention and sometimes he'll use whatever means he wants to get your attention but where can it be gotten well if you're the king and you've got everything dialed in you know you've got all the you know answers to life's needs because you're the king of of babylon well how does god get this guy's attention well something that humanity can't help him with this as it turns out this problem that he's got the lord stirred up this dream and troubled this guy because the lord said i want to get your attention um you know it's an interesting thing that um that i i think happens and some one of the things god uses is uh those things that that god will use in our lives that are frustrations or problems or difficulties sometimes i wonder if it's just the lord saying hey i want to have your your focus here for a second um you know by the way um i think it was um leonardo da vinci who was painting and um and there was a there was a um there was a thing going on where he was up on a scaffolding painting something somewhere and he was carefully painting but he was about to step backward off and he was walking backwards as he was looking and one of his buddies were there saying he yelled at him but he wasn't listening he just kept walking backwards and so this is true sorry the guy took a brush quickly and splashed paint on his painting and and he freaked out so much he jolted forward to try to stop him from doing it and it actually saved his life because he was walking backwards and about to fall off the scaffolding as the story goes sometimes i wonder if the lord splashes a little stuff on your life and says hey i'm trying to get your attention hello um this is the lord doing that god will get your attention where attention can be gotten and for nebuchadnezzar it happened to be it had to be sleeplessness and anxiety and he was frustrated and trying to figure out what in the world's going on so that's the first observation we make here you know feedback from an insomniac god is trying to get his attention what is it the lord's using to get your attention is it the covid19 the lockdowns and the masks is it is it the controversies around you is it your job is your boss that's being mean to you or what is the thing that's troubling you the lord saying hey i want you to tune in to me i'm the answer to your problems and so that's the deal we know that god's gonna try to get nebuchadnezzar's attention now let me tell you kind of the end of the story did you know that nebuchadnezzar i think we're going to see him in heaven this godless pagan king of babylon is going to end up in heaven how's that possible well when god wants to get your attention he can do it and he's going to get the attention of this king and we're going to see in a few chapters where nebby sort of comes around and believes in god and it's kind of cool um i wonder if some of you came to christ with one of those kind of things where god got your attention through something that was kind of brutal and you realized your need that's going to be the truth with old nebuchadnezzar the king of babylon so that's the first lesson well let's read on and see what happens here so in verse 4 then spake the chaldeans to the king in syriac now the word syriac there in the king james well it's the same word and it means the same thing as the language of aramaic so they speak in aramaic because the idea your newer translations put it aromatic syriac's just another word that means the same thing um so you say what does that have to do thing well if you were here on wednesday night we realized that some of the book of daniel is written in hebrew but there's large chunks of the book of daniel that were written in aramaic that was the lingua franca at the time they spoke aramaic and so daniel now from you know chapter 2 verse 4 halfway through the verse suddenly we start with the language of aramaic and it goes through several chapters and i'll tell you when we get back to hebrew but we looked at that on wednesday of why daniel does that and we kind of dug into that a little bit but this is where that language shift happened so then spake the chaldeans verse 4 to the king in aramaic o king live forever trying to butter them up because they know they're in big trouble uh tell thy servants the dream and we will show the interpretation and the king answered to the chaldeans now possibly saying we've talked about the chaldeans the soothsayers the magicians the astrologers well the other ones are they were magicians astrologers and all these guys tooth sayers but who were the chaldeans they were the most educated bunch of the group they were the intellectuals of the day included with these chaldeans would have been would have been the equivalent of those ancient times of a physician a doctor and academics and what have you so the the brainiac of the bunch they all come up and say oh king tell the servants the dream and we'll tell you what the interpretation is well then the king verse 5 answered and said to the chaldeans the thing is gone from me if you will not make known unto me the dream with the interpretation thereof you shall be cut in pieces and your houses shall be made a dunghill now here's the thing that you and i don't have the appreciation for when nebuchadnezzar who's an absolute monarch by the way that was their political system of the day what's an absolute monarch well that's the person who can say off with your head and they pretty much have to do it whatever the king says it it's a done deal so here nebuchadnezzar he's good for this threat i hope you understand that chopping people up into pieces and making their houses piles of manure that would have been just a normal day in nebuchadnezzar's reign we have other accounts if you remember we read in the book of jeremiah where nebuchadnezzar barbecued a bunch of people on a grill and we know that nebuchadnezzar uh would throw people into a fiery furnace um these are the kinds of things nebuchadnezzar like to do punish people kill them in a painful torturous kind of way so these guys are in big trouble because he's saying i need you to give me the dream itself and the interpretation well verse 6 but if you show in the dream the interpretation of you will receive of me gifts rewards of great honor therefore show me the dream and the interpretation thereof so now nebuchadnezzar sets his expectations to all of his people these chaldeans and soothsayers and magicians and what have you but here's the problem you and i already know they're just humans they're just dudes and they might claim to be magicians they might claim to be sorcerers and all this stuff but as it turns out they're just people and now they're in trouble it's almost like the king is calling them out saying time to show a little magic and tell me what my dream was and uh and you better get it right or so i'm gonna chop you in pieces and make your house a pile of manure and this brings us to the second observation that we need to remember number two on the list and you should jot this down um people are only human like brad i don't have to write that down no you do need to write that down please write it down this is important because guess what you and i we make the same mistake nebuchadnezzar's making here he's in trouble he needs help and he's turning to the best people he knows the smartest people in the in the country the chaldeans and the magicians and the swooshers and all these people and he calls all the best of the best says you guys better do this or else i'm going to kill you all and i've noticed that's a tendency within humanity as much as we we know people are only human we really hope somehow that they are not we want people to do stuff that's greater than than what their real abilities are i think this happens in law enforcement by the way one of the problems i think with this whole you know defund the police thing is we've put this thing on police in a lot of ways it's just too hard for for a human to actually do you know like some of these shootings where people say oh the police officer shouldn't have shot that person but have you ever been in a situation where things happen really fast and your life is on the line and whether you do the right thing or the wrong thing it means whether you die or live and that's just your daily job and i think there's not a real appreciation i was telling last service about i went down to this place in sherwood where you can you know they got this little practice thing where you can you have these fake uh guns and you get to go in as police officers 300 degree screens and there's these scenarios where you don't know what's going to happen some things are end peaceably others end in shooting situation and you have to kind of go and and do it and you so debbie and i did it debbie and i went in there as you know police officers um by the way this is our 34th anniversary today which is really cool debbie speaking of debbie i i um i knew you'd do that so i i did it for that so uh no no but deb and i were in there you know we get our little fake glocks and we're there and we're going to be police officers and but debbie was chicken she didn't wear the shocker i wore the shocker there's a thing that sort of tases you if you get shot and i thought i want this to feel realistic you know like i want to put my put this on the line and so that i strapped on it didn't fit very well so i had to kind of put it up you know in this real tender area right here um it's true story but uh but we went in there and we went through a bunch of scenarios well as it turned out i got shot twice that day and i'm telling you man it was like that shock they don't they don't do it anymore i think they made it illegal or something you can't get the shocker anymore um but it was really good because it showed there were several scenarios where you realized man things happened fast uh we we did this drunk driver pull over debianized police officers and and um and this this lady was digging in her purse on the trunk and she was stumbling around drunk and but we didn't know there was somebody hiding in the back seat with a shotgun and you're there kind of focusing on this woman who's and she's digging in her purse and putting stuff out and she pulls a gun out and puts it on like and like all kinds of crazy you're like wait a minute and you're watching and then also you see movement in the corner of your eye and this guy jumps out with a shotgun and by the time you realize it's a threat you're dead or in my case shocked and uh and you're like wow things happen fast and um and you don't even see what they're holding and like it what it made me do it kind of made me think all these people that go around complaining about how the police handle things um before you get the right to complain you have to do that over there with a shocker to appreciate what what they do daily now and what we've done is we've tried to put these police officers in a superhuman kind of category that they can do all this stuff it's not as easy as people make it to be people are only humans and when they make a mistake we're all shocked that for pardon the pun i was shocked you know we're shocked that they've failed or that they don't have the answer that they're not perfect every single time we we do that to people all the time you know as a pastor i feel that you know uh it's funny you know as the church over the years has grown and people's expectations of what athe creek is or what we can do um you know our church we try very hard to care for this congregation and we got a great team of pastors and leaders and and uh you know just great great crew and and largely they do a really good job but but there's always those people that haven't done the math in their head you know they're like i need to meet with pastor brett right now well we have a wonderful group of pastors that would love to be brett just doesn't care he doesn't care that's why he won't meet with me well as it turns out i meet with people all the time i spend all my week meeting with people and um and for things like funerals and memorials we've had we had you know someone just died this weekend in the hospital we've had a memorial yesterday that i did like we're busy with a church of over 7000 people i got a pretty full schedule um you know and in fact five services just for the weekend if you if you do the math of what it takes to be ready to do that and to do the five services in our worship team it's i'm not complaining i love what i do but there's always those people that come in i need to talk to pastor brett right now and we say well guess what there's some great pastors that would love to pray with you they're the guys i go to when i need prayer but see the people that don't know they think well brett should be able to do that seven thousand people and meet them all you know like it it just isn't humanly impossible so i i get that a little bit now there was a day that was really sweet when athy creek was 150 people and i really could meet everybody's needs i could meet with people and hang out and if somebody died in the uh or was in the hospital we'd be right there and it was easy um and it was it was awesome but you know there's a lot of people that just kind of um will breath and that's the problem with big churches uh there's a kind of a thing on that right now i just say this um there's great things with big churches and there's problems with big churches that's just the truth and same with little churches there's great things with little churches and and and bad things with little churches but we you know but no matter what if you're a little church or a big church people are human people are only human and it's funny how we superimpose like things that sometimes i think god wants to do in your life where he wants you to trust in him and suddenly the humans aren't able to measure up to your standards that might just be a good sign that god wants to do something people are only human you know we put our hope and our expectation unrealistically on people pastors parents when you were a little kid i think you had an unreal expectation of what your parents were able to do and then there was a point in your life when you realized wow mom and dad are limited they can't do what i thought they could do then you enter into the middle school phase you think mom and dad are lame and i alone have all wisdom and knowledge and then you grow up a little more and then you're like oh maybe mom and dad were amazing like you go through these phases in life but but we superimpose superhuman skills on people um and and what have you not just pastors parents but children sometimes i think we put too much on our children expectations but they're they're people are only human employees employers i think we're hard on people you know it's interesting how most people not all people but most people that i work with in this life i'm noticing as time goes by and as i get older most people are just trying to do the best they can with what they have um we're this hostile you know culture of people who put all kinds of expectations on everybody else we don't put those same expectations on ourselves but oh we're so quick to put them on on everybody else this is what nebuchadnezzar is doing he's putting all the weight of his problem on the the people and the people don't have the answers as it turns out none of these magicians astrologers soothe theirs or chaldeans are going to be able to solve the problem now some of you might say brett i know the story and there is one guy who's going to solve the problem incorrect because even daniel's going to say i don't have the answer for you but he knows where the answer is to be found that's the difference okay so all that to say be careful you know why does god do this by the way sometimes stir things up and make you realize well people are only human maybe you go to your doctor i think people think their doctors are somehow like little gods you have some kind of sickness or problem and the doctor say man we just don't know what to do you're a doctor you should come you're supposed to fix everything well as it turns out medical professions how thankful i am for for our doctors and nurses but sometimes even they don't have the answers and i've seen people get all upset and call them quacks and things like that there are some quacks out there but most of them are probably just trying to do their best um but what does that leave you with it's the same thing nebuchadnezzar's left with instead of putting too much on human people that's when you have to turn to the ultimate resource the lord himself i sometimes think the lord allows us to go think through things that people around you cannot help you with just so that you you start turning to and trusting in the lord so people are only human don't forget that one uh we're hard on each other we should stop that well um as it turns out it goes on verse seven you know after nebuchadnezzar says um if you show me the interpretation and the dream i'll i'll reward you with wealth but if you don't i'm going to chop you into pieces and make you into a pile of manure so verse 7 they answered again and said let the king tell his servants the dream and we will show the interpretation of it and the king answered and said i know of a certainty that you would gain the time because you see the thing is gone for me in other words you're just trying to buy time you're just trying to stall just because you know that i don't know what the dream is but verse 9 if you will not make known unto me the dream there is but one decree for you for you have prepared lying and corrupt words to speak before me till the time be changed therefore tell me the dream and i shall know that you can show me the interpretation thereof well the chaldeans verse 10 answered before the king and said there is not a man on the earth that can show you the king of this matter therefore there is no king lord nor ruler that has asked such a thing about any magician or astrologer or chaldean and it is a rare thing that the king requires and there is none other that can show it before the king except the gods whose dwelling is not is not with flesh for this cause the king was angry and very furious and commanded to destroy all the men the wise men of babylon and the decree went forth that the wise men should be slain and they sought daniel and his fellows to be slain man now you say well how did daniel suddenly get into the mix here well as it turns out daniel because he was blessed and because he was wise as we read in chapter one he was lumped in with these chaldeans he was part of that team from the babylonian perspective but it's funny to me that daniel's not even in the know that this is even going on yet daniel doesn't even know this is happening how is that so i believe daniel he hasn't he hasn't been hanging with the chaldeans daniel's not buddying up with the magicians and those guys he's off kind of doing his own thing i bet daniel's off praying somewhere if i if i could guess what daniel's doing but he doesn't even know this is going on but the decree has come where nebuchadnezzar's had it he senses all these guys are just a bunch of liars and they've been feeding them a bunch of lies about their skills their talents and and their ability abilities and what have you and as it turns out everything that he had all his resources came up empty and and that gives us point number uh three on our list of of observations from this insomniac uh nebby who's troubled he realizes this that wealth and power are not true means to peace and wisdom nobody had more resources than nebuchadnezzar in the world at that time but he had no way to solve his problem his wealth his power they didn't do it for him he had all these guys that were posers as they were the answer to all the questions of science and and wisdom and astrology and and and the the medical people all of those people he had at his disposal but all that came up empty and it didn't bring for him peace and wisdom you know you and i live in the exact kind of day of nebuchadnezzar we live in a day that elevates celebrities as the all-wise authority on any given topic musicians and actors politicians give us the ultimate wisdom but one of the things that's been shaken i'm going to say in the last couple years primarily have you noticed we don't know who to believe anymore like who really speaks truth anymore well brett i just happen to believe the cdc the cdc is that bastion of truth can you see what happened this week uh we saw a little bit of their their workings did you see when you know when florida was suddenly spiking in coronavirus and and and by the way that's very politically expedient for the one side of the argument that suddenly florida and texas are starting to spike again well the floridians pushed back and said wait a minute and they they looked at the calculations and the cdc are bad we made a mistake they were making like three days into one and and multiplying exponentially the numbers to make it look like it was ramping up did you see this this was big news like the last couple days and uh the cd oh our mistake and it happened in a couple situations there that made florida look really bad suddenly same with texas and so now you're kind of like some of you are like i don't know man i um almost a year and a half ago i mentioned that the cdc had a thing on their website that said masks don't help us with the flu virus so masks are a waste of time and i mentioned that and then like the next week they took that website off and they took that part off and then at the beginning of this we were told mass don't wear them don't do that and then we were supposed to wear a mask and then and then we hear that cloth master and this and all the stuff what that's done is it made us realize do we really know what in the world we're talking about on anything anywhere you know it's interesting because the people that are supposed to be guardians of truth have let us down in a lot of ways and you know whether to be vaccinated or not there's a debate well brett anybody with half a brain knows that you should get the vaccine and i understand that sentiment makes sense the only problem that i have did you see the article and drudge report which is not exactly a bastion of you know conservative thinking or anything they're actually very uh provacs and everything but they were noting in their news site yesterday that there's a major group of people that are resisting vaccination and it just so happens to be doctors did you guys see that check it out i just make this up this is on the news doctors and medical professionals now i know there's some medical visitors that are like of course vaccinated but now now let me just make a statement here because i get asked this a lot um people say brett what should we do on the vaccine and some of you are freaking out even right now because they're like it's not a vaccine you're all upset i i know all that i've read all the stuff i like i get your problem i totally do i get it but as it turns out i'm not a doctor i'm not i'm a pastor not a medical professional but i am a i am a guy that likes to do stuff like for example i've been vaccinated and shot up with stuff i have no idea what's in my body i've i've been to 27 different countries and a lot of them were third world countries and i and i had to get shot there's one time i went to africa i had to have six shots just to go to africa uh yellow fever grammar globular you know whatever all these shots and i don't know what that stuff is but i i was trusting the medical profession call me naive call me stupid it doesn't matter i wanted to go to africa i'm just telling you the truth so don't ask me that question here's who you should ask the lord seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness and then all this other stuff will be added unto you so if you're an anti-vaxxer seek the lord if you're mad and you know of all these people that aren't getting vaccines are a bunch of murderers seek the lord seek the lord first and his kingdom then all this other stuff will be added into you so i'd say seek first the lord secondly ask your doctor one thing that i'm kind of shocked at is the clumsiness of the demands that of everybody cram in this get a jab down your throat but you know there's some people if they get the job it could kill them um i was one of those people i'll tell you why uh when i got the coronavirus i also was down in arizona when it happened to me and there i was stuck in the lockdown but i was also doing this thing where i was getting this physical thing at the mayo clinic and it was it's a thing i do every couple years uh because i'm a pastor of a church and they want to know if i'm healthy or not uh so so i do this every couple years well because i was down there the mayo clinic said hey uh brett you got the corona and you're the prime candidate for the regeneron treatment and i'm like whatever that is and they said well you know ben carson got it like oh ben carson's a brainiac doctor who created amazing surgeries oh good to it so i went down there got the regeneron thing and i felt great like the next day like truly it was like overnight it was great but here's the thing with regeneron which they gave to the president they gave to ben carson like it's still not an fda approved thing which neither is the vaccination but as it turns out regeneron is also not approved but i got that felt great i'm like man everybody should get this that's awesome but they also said brett this is only cool but if you get the vaccination within 90 days for this that could easily kill you so don't do that so i've been walking around all this time and be like have you been vaccinated and people like you you give accent like you don't know what you're talking about but i know that if i followed your advice i would die like like it's just funny what people think they know my point is this we've got all these experts and all these people that are demanding that you know this or that on both sides of the argument and and and i think the only thing you and i as christians can really do is say let's seek the lord first seek ye first the kingdom of god and his righteousness then all this other stuff will be added to you and the power and the wealth and the wisdom of this world and and the medicine and the so-called science that we're so trusting in all this stuff it's a little tricky to sort through and even if you're pro one way or the other you got to give it to the other side if there's enough question and enough concern that maybe we don't know what we're talking about now that that's been proven in the last year and a half we're still trying to figure out stuff so i think we should all be kind of careful when we start demanding everybody what we should or shouldn't do but um but wealth and power and the united states we have that celebrities and people cramming it down our throat saying this is what you have to do that's not necessarily what's going to bring you to peace and wisdom buzzfeed article just yesterday by the way speaking of fact checkers and truth buzzfeeds are the co-founder of snopes wrote dozen of plagiarized articles for the fact-checking site um david mickelson the co-founder of fact-checking website snopes has long presented himself as the arbiter of truth online and a bulwark in the fight against rumors and fake news but he's been lying to the sites tens of millions of readers a buzzfeed news investigation found that between 2015 and 2019 nicholson wrote and published dozens of article con articles containing material plagiarized from news outlets such as the guardian and l.a times this guy was you know passing it off as his own work and the guy's kind of a liar he's been proven to be that um it's just kind of funny the guy that's supposed to be the mr truthful it's the way humanity is it's like everything we've got here we have to be careful so all that to say the lord is the one that we should be turning to be careful so back to this issue you know wealth and power are not a means to peace and wisdom you know we see that here in our text in daniels 6-13 we see exactly that in fact let's let's finish up reading this little section um so it says in verse 14 then daniel answered with counsel and wisdom to aryak the captain of the king's guard which was gone forth to slay the wise men of babylon like the mission already is underway to start killing hacking and whacking these these uh wise men they're gonna chop them up and it's already happening daniel finds himself now in front of aryak the very guy that's supposed to slice him up into pieces and i love daniel's calm-headedness here it says here he answered and said to aryak verse 15 the king's captain why is the decree so hasty from the king then ariak made the thing known to daniel then daniel went in and desired of the king that he would give him time and that he would show the king the interpretation so daniel goes to nebuchadnezzar and says listen give me some time i'll tell you what your dream is and what the interpreter i love his confidence here kind of tucked that away he's confident but notice he he then verse 17 then daniel went to his house and made the thing known to hananiah michel that's that's the of course the hebrew names of shadrach meshach and abednego and verse 18 that they would desire mercies of the god of heaven concerning this secret that daniel and his fellows should not perish with the rest of the wise men of babylon then verse 19 was the secret revealed unto daniel in a night vision then daniel blessed the god of heaven you know if you seek the lord you'll know what to do some of you are thinking brett you've got to go with all this stuff we're hearing on the news and media and you've got to go with the experts you've got to go i don't know about that and and could we be selling short just wisdom from god i love how daniel he goes to the source he goes and seeks the lord and the lord shows him and i love this and and daniel uh gets the interpretation and the dream itself given to him from the god of heaven that's that's what happens here so that brings us to the next thing how do you answer this and how do you deal with this if i were daniel i'd be tempted to go okay everybody chill i alone have the mysterious thing solved i'm the problem solver but that's not what daniel does and that brings us to number four on our list notice with me the potency of humility i love how powerful daniel's humility is you might think those are oxymorons potency humility but this this humility that daniel wields is is so powerful check it out uh let's let's go to verse 26 real quick jump ahead it says the king answered and said to daniel whose name was belty schauser that was his babylonian name art thou able to make known unto me the dream which i have seen and the interpretation thereof and this is where i would say i am island kill those guys keep me safe because i'm the guy that's got your dream um you know this is money i'm your man i need a promotion i'd maybe even work out a deal hey can i get a raise uh like like what does daniel do well his answer is great check it out daniel verse 27 answered in the presence of the king and said this secret which the king hath demanded cannot the wise men and the astrologers the magicians the soothsayers show unto the king but there is a god in heaven that revealeth secrets and maketh known to the king nebuchadnezzar what shall be in the latter days look at verse 30 but as for me that's daniel this secret is not revealed to me for any wisdom that i have more than any living but for their sakes that shall be make known in the interpretation of the king daniel makes it clear he doesn't take any credit at all but daniel says it's not me and for my sake that god revealed this to me god's the revealer of secrets i'm just the messenger i love this humility and the power of humility why did the lord use daniel to do this i believe because daniel was the most humble guy to do this it's been said the fastest way to see the work of god stopped in your life is for you to start taking the credit for what he's done as soon as you take credit for any good thing god will say okay if you're getting the credit if you're getting the glory man that's such a key for any of us in ministry to start saying hey you know look what i'm doing man as soon as we do that we're a toast we're going to see that also lesson coming up in a week or two with nebby who is filled with pride horrible situation it's amazing how powerful humility is and it's powerful to point people back to the lord where the ultimate source of power is and that's what we're called to do i love what first peter chapter 5 reminds us there in the new testament it says likewise you younger submit yourselves unto the elder yea all of you be subject one to another and then it says be clothed with humility ah for god resists the proud what does god do he resist if you're a prideful person you know the problem with being a prideful person you're the last one to see it have you ever tried to lovingly go to a person who's walking in pride and say you know man you could tone that down a little bit and maybe walk with some humility and they're like what do you know you're just a hater like it's amazing how people will dismiss really good sound counsel but it's their pride that has blinded them but man i don't want any part of this what does god do to the proud he resists them do you want god in a position of resisting you so we're supposed to be clothed with humility for god resists the proud and gives grace to the humble humble yourselves therefore unto the mighty hand of god that he may exalt you in due time what a key um the potency of humility and daniel is demonstrating that beautifully he's got the answer that god gave him he points all the glory to god and he gives the answer in great humility i love that great lesson uh as we see this story but there's just i think one more uh important part of this that i want to point out and that is there's confidence that's contagious confidence is contagious well which one is it brett is it to be humble or confident well those things aren't mutually exclusive i know they almost sound in opposition but pride is not con confidence daniel was a confident dude and we can see his humility woven through this story but we also see where his confidence lies um in verse 16 we saw him say that i will show you the interpretation of the dream he says that confidently look at verse 28. he says in verse 28 but there is a god in heaven that reveals secrets he says this confidently look at verse 45 the second half of that little verse uh check out how daniel finishes after daniel tells the king the whole dream the whole meaning of the dream then he says this in daniel 42 45 it says the great god hath made known to the king what shall come to pass you're after the dream is certain and the interpretation thereof is sure don't you love his confidence see if i were daniel and i would have been praying lord show me the dream the lord shows me some kind of dream and a vision i'm like man i hope that's the right one so then when i went to nebbia it's okay i think i have i think i got your dream so you saw this and you saw this and i'd watch his facial expressions to see if he's like yeah or that's not what like i'd be nervous i'd be like and kind of feeling my way through it a little nervous daniel doesn't do that but after daniel explains he says the dream is certain the interpretation thereof is sure it's a slam dunk how was daniel so confident it's because his confidence was not in himself his confidence was in the lord how the christian church today in a very babylonian type time that we live where there's people cramming things down your throat and expecting so much of everybody how should we be living we should have confidence in the things of the lord daniel received a word from the lord to realize what the dream was about just like you and i have received the word of the lord right here in our hands and we as christians need to be confident not arrogant not prideful but confident in god's word i i worry that we've become very um very afraid in these modern times that we're living i worry that we're afraid to speak the truth to stand up for what is right i'm not arguing for all political action and all that stuff if the lord calls you to that great but but it is funny how it's starting to kind of mesh together a little bit our faith with our careers some of you right now are being challenged we have school teachers that are being told to talk teach their kids in their classrooms things that are very very opposed to what the bible teaches it flies in the face of the bible did you see that one teacher in virginia last week kind of went viral because this young teacher she's only like five years into her career of teaching teaching i think it was a fifth grade or fourth grade but she gets in front of the school board and she reminds them of what their their narrative was the school board said we need to kind of get away from this you know white female christian conservative teacher that's what the school district was saying and as a white female christian she said you know i i obviously are i'm not really what you guys want so i'm going to resign and she resigned in front of the school board but she did it with confidence saying i resign and i quit because i quit teaching you know critical race theory i quit teaching this transgender stuff that you're pushing on our little kids way you know just things that are just anti-truth and she went on and listed but you know she thought that she was going to quit and was going to hate her and that was the end but her video went viral and now she's getting job offers all over the world uh for executive positions of corporations it's not like like it's kind of cool in the sense that yeah isn't that great like but [Applause] but what i love about that story is her confidence is contagious i think we're seeing more teachers starting to say wait a minute we do need to stand up and say you know what there's certain things we're not going to do because of what the bible says that's what that girl did and i hope that her confidence is contagious what you're going to see in this story is daniel's confidence is also going to be contagious with shadrach meshach and abednego we'll see that soon but all that to say i hope that we as christians aren't mousing in the corner saying i hope i don't offend anybody even though we're just letting things that are totally false and them making us do things that are contrary to what we believe i think we have to be very careful with that i'm not prideful definitely humble but confidence that comes from the lord i love that well all that to say you might say okay brett that's great and everything okay but what about the dream and the interpretation well as it turns out this dream that nebuchadnezzar sees is one of the more profound dreams and prophecies in the bible and it's the one that drives the secularists and the people that hate the bible it drives them nuts because this dream that nebuchadnezzar has that daniel writes down it's it's it's something that makes it shows the fingerprint of god on this book that it's way different than any other book in the world this dream that he sees is so powerful and prophetic and exact that that there's there's no way that this could have been just a coincidence this is an amazing prophecy and we'll look at that on wednesday night join us you don't want to miss that one seriously um you say okay brett so we gotta wait till wednesday to hear the actual dream and its interpretation yes but but i'd like you to think with me as we close what are some of these things as we kind of set the stage for seeing what the dream was man what can we learn from this king who is putting way too much on people to give him the answer when really the lord has the answer are we like that are we putting too much on people forgetting that people are just that people are we prideful and arrogant or are we humble are we confident in the lord are we confident in man the astrologers and the soothsayers and the chaldeans and the scientists the people that we think are all amazing but they're falling short well i think we're living in a culture that is very much matching daniel chapter two and we can learn from these things would you bow your heads please as we just kind of close this service off before we close i'd like to just have a attitude of worship and and uh go to the table of the lord in communion and if you would just uh maybe you can get that little packet out that coronavirus free communion packet and you can peel back that top layer and get to that matzo bread there but um let's just prepare our hearts to go to the table lord we're so thankful for just the truth of your word and lord people are flawed and as it turns out lord we are flawed very flawed we've all sinned we've all fallen short but how how thankful we are lord that you have prepared a table before us in the presence of our enemies um lord how thankful we are that we can go to the table of communion even as you told us do this often in remembrance of you so lord we take this time at the end of this service just to celebrate the truth of the cross the truth that we're all sinners we deserve death and hell and that you came and died on the cross for our sins that you rose from the grave and that that penalty of sin and the wrath that was meant for us was put upon your son jesus as he hung on the cross lord if there's any unbelievers listening or watching may they just simply confess faith right now that they believe and that they would become saved because of that confession with the mouth and the belief in the heart that you died on the cross for their sins and you forgive them and as we accept that lord we're saved by grace through faith that's what your word says but as believers we hold this cup and we hold this bread knowing lord that you you did that work and so we're thankful we're we're humbled lord that you die for sinners like us and you love us and that we can have everlasting life through your son jesus so we bless you lord [Music] my god is my rock in i take refuge he is my shield and my salvation i call to the lord who is worthy of phrase and i am saved [Music] i am safe [Music] for that salvation lord we're thankful we take this bread and remember your body that was bruised and beaten beyond recognition you were wounded for our transgressions lord it says and though our sins were ugly and deserved that wrath we're thankful that you took that penalty the nails in your hand the nail in your feet the crown of thorns the whipping on your back the spear in your side all taking that that hit for us you who knew no sin literally as your word says became sin all the sins of the world piled upon one person at one time [Music] suffered on the cross on our behalf and lord thereby saving the world anyone who would confess and repent lord how thankful we are for that so we take this bread now we eat of it remembering your body that was in our place substitutionarily we thank you in jesus name let's eat of the lord the bread together [Music] oh lord my great and awesome god [Music] i [Music] my great and awesome god i come to you and honor you my lord with a heart of love i worship with my lips i sing you'll pray [Music] i give my life to you i come to you and honor you my lord [Music] lord the cup that we hold is a reminder of the the blood of jesus the innocent blood shed on our behalf we know it's the symbol that reminds us that you wash away our sins though our sins be a scarlet they'll become white as snow all the failures the mistakes we made lord that you're able to forgive us cleanse us from all unrighteousness so lord we take this cup we drink deeply knowing you forgive us that we get to walk out of this sanctuary on this sunday afternoon forgiven and saved by your grace the hope of heaven and lord i pray as we drink of this you'd also put within us a hunger and a thirst after righteousness to not get all tangled up in sinful stuff but to do the right things make the right choices and walk with you so help us lord bless this now as we drink of the cup in jesus name let's all drink of the lord together [Music] and all who were thirsty and all who are weak just come to the fountains dip your heart in the streams of life let the pain and the sorrow be washed away in the waves of your mercy as deep cries out to let's all stand together and sing come lord jesus come lord jesus [Music] [Applause] as deep cries too deep as deep cries out too deep we sing come lord jesus come [Music] come lord jesus [Music] lord would you just come and fill our lives bless these your people as we've taken time in your word may bring forth good fruit bless lord all the folks that have been just calling out your name on this sunday bless the rest of our afternoon lord we're so blessed to be people children called by your name lord we're thankful to be part of that kingdom and help us to live that way lord go before us and all the things we do we commit our lives to you in jesus name amen amen blessing and have a great sunday we'll see you next time you're dismissed you

Channel: Athey Creek

Views: 12,020

Rating: 4.8653846 out of 5

Keywords: Brett Meador, Bible, Church, Teaching, Study, Christian, Jesus, Oregon, Through the Bible, Athey Creek, Athey Creek Church, Athey Creek Christian Fellowship

Id: 65AINJF4cUk

Length: 76min 40sec (4600 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 15 2021