♪♪♪ Adam Bender: Hi everyone,
welcome to "ITOWN TV." My name's Adam, and I'm one of
the pastors at ITOWN Church. Today, we have a great message
from our pastor, Dave Sumrall. We're studying the book of
Daniel in a series called "World Changer," and I want to
remind you of the question we've been asking all
throughout this series. Will you change the world,
or will the world change you? Today, we're talking
about culture's greatest sin, and that's the sin of pride. We'll take the look at the true
story of a famous king who let pride nearly destroy him. We hope that today's
message will encourage you, challenge you, and help you
to live the life that God has called you to. Check it out. ♪♪♪ Dave Sumrall: To
be honest with you, pride is the gateway
sin for every other sin. In other words, every other
sin in life is downstream from pride. It always begins with this
idea, "I know better than God." And Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon
struggled with that desperately. We're going to watch all of
these attitudes that lead to pride, and you're going to find
them not just in culture today, but also it creeps its
way into the church. And I promise that
you and I are both, we're all going to be challenged
today by God's Word of how we need to address
these issues of pride. And then, of course at the
end, I'm going to give you some practical things that we
can do to overcome it. We're going to
pick up the story, Daniel chapter 4,
starting in verse 1. This is actually the end of
the story as Nebuchadnezzar is writing to people. He sends this message to
the entire world and he says, "Peace and prosperity to you. I want you to know about the
miraculous signs and wonders the Most High God
has performed for me, how great are his signs, and
how powerful are his wonders. His kingdom will last forever, his rule through
all generations." So, Nebuchadnezzar, actually
this wicked king who burned people alive and
conquered nations, one of the most
powerful people to ever live, has had this personal
conversion moment with the Lord. And so, he starts off with
this very gracious greeting to people, "And I pray
that you're blessed, and I want you to prosper,
and I want you to know why, because of how good God is." And then he takes us verse 4,
back through this journey that he takes and how God
confronted him in his life. And we're going to see some
things that pop up in our own lives as well. Verse 4, he says,
"I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at home in my palace,
contented and prosperous." The first thing, jot it down,
that gets us on the pathway of pride is that we're
just too comfortable. He says, "I was
contented and prosperous." Too many times I think
in our American culture, our American Christianity,
to be honest with you, we're just too comfortable. We may pray prayers like, "Give
us this day our daily bread," but we're not really worried
about what we're going to eat. We're more concerned about
how many calories it has or where it comes from. Was it ethically sourced? You know, like we're not
actually food insecure. We're not worried about where
our meal's going to come from, so too many times we're
really not all that dependent. In fact, I would go as far to
say that most of us probably don't even really need God. At least not to live
our daily life we don't. We kind of got it together. To be honest, we're not really
under any kind of persecution. We don't have any real problems. And so, we're in this place,
Daniel chapter 4, like Nebuchadnezzar,
we're contented. That means that he was at
peace, his soul was at rest. Everything in his life is
good and he's prosperous. He's got plenty of
money, he's got hobbies, he's got a good life. I don't really need
God in that situation. What happens to us,
oftentimes we get there is it's so easy to drift. And I think the
reality is a lot of us, even in the church, just get to
a place where we're comfortable. In fact, we see this in
Nebuchadnezzar's life. He had an encounter with God. If we go back to chapter 2
that we didn't study, he has this vision, this
dream about this statue. And Daniel
interprets it for him. It says that it represents these
kingdoms of the world and the power that Nebuchadnezzar has,
and how he's going to be one of the greatest
kings to ever live. And so he--and then
chapter 3, builds that statue, solid gold, 90 feet
tall and 9 feet wide. We talked about it a few
weeks ago in week two. And so, he brings everybody
out to the plain of Dura. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego,
everybody's got to bow down and worship the statue. Well, these three
guys didn't bow. And so, they get
pulled, of course, before Nebuchadnezzar,
and he's like, "Maybe you didn't
hear the music. You need--you need to bow. We'll give you another try." And they said, "We're
not bowing to your idol. We're not going to do it. You can--you can do
whatever you want." So, he throws them
into the fiery furnace. Most of you have
probably heard this story. But the problem is
they didn't die. And so he's like,
"Hey, come out." So, they come out, and the Bible
says that they are unharmed, their clothes don't
smell like smoke, their hair's not burned, all the
chains that were binding them before the fire are all gone. There's a whole message there
we don't have time to preach, an amazing story. God does a miracle. And Nebuchadnezzar witnesses
this and says this in chapter 3, "Praise be to the
God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego,
who has sent his angel and rescued his servants. They trusted in him. They defied my command. They were willing to give
up their lives because they wouldn't worship any
God except their own. So, I'm giving this decree
to all the people of every nation and language. If you say anything
against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we're
going to cut you into pieces and we're going to burn
your house to the ground." So, let me just show you
what's happening here. Nebuchadnezzar has a
little bit of an anger problem. The same anger problem that
threw the guys into the fire exists after the fire. So, what I want you to
see is obviously he has not been converted. Nebuchadnezzar has
not had a heart change, he's just witnessed
God's power in someone else. Catch this 'cause this is a
lot of the American church. So, now he sees something that
God has done in someone else's life and believes
in his existence, but he hasn't changed, so now he
still just wants to cut people up that talk against that God. Jot this down if
you're taking notes, there is a difference
between believing in God and believing on God. So, Nebuchadnezzar at this
point in his life in chapter 3 believes in God, but he
doesn't believe on God. He has witnessed his power, but
that power has not changed him. He's still the same guy. "I believe in God's existence,
but if you talk against him, I'm just going to do the
same thing I've always done. I'm going to cut you into
pieces and burn your house to the ground." That's a very unredeemed version
of how to handle the situation. You know, when I was
growing up in church, which I grew up in church,
I don't know if you know that, but my grandfather
was the pastor. And so, every Sunday, he wanted
to go out to Sunday lunch, it was just part of the
tradition of our family to go to Sunday lunch,
especially if grandpa, we called him Papa,
if he was in town. Most the time, we
hit the cafeteria. Can I get a good amen for
the cafeteria in God's house? Like MCL was our cafeteria
straight across the street from the church, baby. And I would be so happy 'cause I
got to eat what I wanted to eat. I got to pick and
choose what I wanted. Well, see, in the
American church, when we believe in God
but don't believe on God, we practice
cafeteria Christianity. "Well, I don't
want to go to hell, so I take a little
bit of that salvation. But I'm not real cool
with the repentance part, so I'm going to--I'm
going to pass on that. Don't address my drinking,
don't address my smoking. I'm going to watch
whatever I want on television, I'm going to listen
to whatever I want. I don't care what the values are
that are being programmed into my brain. I'm going to click on what
I want to on my computer. I'm going to sleep
with who I want to. I want to just pick and choose
what I like because God wants me to be happy. So, I'm going to find the things
that work for me and the things that don't. And I'm going to have this
moral scale for a while, but then if somebody in my
family decides that they're going to violate God's will, I
still want them to go to heaven, so I'll change my perspective
and theology to fit my world instead of changing
my world to fit God's perspective and theology." [congregation applauding] And so, we create this
cafeteria Christianity. We take what we want and we
cut out what we don't like, and we think that
we're following God, but we're not. Our lives are not
built on his Word, we're just believing in God
instead of believing on God. 2 Timothy talks about it,
2 Timothy chapter 3. It says, "But mark this,
there will be terrible times in the last days." I think we're a generation
that this would apply to. "People will be
lovers of themselves, lovers of money,
boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient
to their parents." Have you been to
Wal-Mart lately? Hello. "Ungrateful,
unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous,
without self-control, brutal, not lovers of
the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers
of pleasure rather than lovers of God." You would say, "Yeah, the
world looks exactly like that." But here's the tragedy: this
verse was written to the church. Verse 5 says they
come on Sunday, but they don't change. A form of godliness but no
power to change their life. We don't really want God's power
to transform our addictions and our behaviors, the
things that we like, the stuff that we hide. We believe in God, but
we're just comfortable, so why should I believe on God? So, what happens to
Nebuchadnezzar is Nebuchadnezzar then has this dream in verse 2,
and it's about 20 verses long. I'm going to skip that part,
I'll tell it to you. This dream, he sees
this massive tree, and it's
beautiful, full of fruit, and there's all these
animals that are eating from it. It touches the sky,
it's gorgeous. But then this voice
from heaven says, "Cut the tree down." And an angel comes and
literally cuts the tree down, and all the branches are cut off
and all the fruit is scattered, all the animals are scattered,
and there's just a stump left. And the king is hoping that
the vision is about his enemies. Of course, nobody can interpret
the dream until they bring in Daniel. And Daniel says in
verse 24 of chapter 4, "This is the interpretation,
this is what God's trying to tell you, king. You're the tree. You'll be driven from people,
and you'll live with the wild animals, and you'll eat grass
like the ox and be drenched with the dew of heaven. And then seven times will pass
until you acknowledge or seven years until you acknowledge that
the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of the earth, and
he's the one who gives them to anyone he wishes. The command to leave the stump
of the tree in its roots mean that your kingdom will be
restored if you'll just acknowledge that heaven rules." Verse 27:
"Therefore, your majesty, be pleased to accept my advice,
renounce your sins by doing what's right, and your
wickedness by being kind to the oppressed, and it may
just be that your prosperity will continue." Maybe if you turn at this moment
and heed God's warning that you won't have to walk through this. But the Bible says
that all of it happened, we'll get to that in a moment. The second thing that leads
us to pride is we just get too confident. We get too confident. Not only are we
comfortable, we get confident. And I know some of
you are like, "Man, I finally got a guest to come,
and it's hellfire and brimstone weekend, really? You're preaching judgement? Come on." But I want you to hear that this
is not about God's judgement, it's about God's grace because
you'll see God is so incredibly gracious, even to
Nebuchadnezzar, one of the most wicked kings. Destroying the nation
of Israel, even he had all of these
warnings to turn. And his problem is at
the end of the day, the thing that
Daniel is addressing, the thing that God is
confronting is Nebuchadnezzar thinks, "I built this
thing all by myself. I've done a really good
job building my kingdom and conquering the world, and
look at how great I am. So, not only is he
comfortable, but he's confident in his own ability. And I think that kind of
relates to a lot of us. You might be
saying, "You know what, Dave, I have worked hard, and
I made a lot of sacrifices, and I built this company. I've dug myself out of poverty. I have really worked hard to
achieve the things that I have and the successes
I have in life. And God really didn't have
anything to do with it because I wasn't praying to him
or worshipping him, and I have sacrificed, and I
have done all that I have done with my own hands. I am a self-made man or woman." I would just say, but who gave
you the breath in your lungs? Who gave you the
capacity to do what you can do? Who gave you the
intellect that you have? Who determined the times set for
you to live that you would be a part of this generation and
the places that you'd be allowed to live? The fact that we
live in this economy, at this time, in this
unbelievable nation where you actually could do the things
that God created you to do that you're taking credit for?" Too many times, we get too
confident in our own ability. And the message to
Nebuchadnezzar is you need to figure out that heaven rules. I want you to know today
that we can choose humility or humiliation. He said to him,
"Listen, if you don't turn, you're going to be
driven from people, you're going to eat
grass like an animal, and you're going to go crazy
for seven years of your life until you figure this out." I just want you to know
today that God says to us, "You can choose
humility on the front end, or suffer the
consequences of humiliation." And I just want you to know
I don't also believe that God judges people. I think God has set up the
order that rules this world, and you bring judgement upon
yourself when you don't head God's warning. 'Cause I know that
God is a gracious God. Even in the midst
of all of this, he left a stump 'cause God's
always leaving a way back. He is more gracious to
forgive than we are to sin. His mercies are
new every morning. Great is his faithfulness. There is no one in this planet
that's as gracious as our God. But I want you to see something
here because at the end of our text, it says that 12 months had
passed before anything happened. And I think there's a trick here
of the enemy that we have to expose 'cause I almost fell
for it as a young person. And young people especially,
I want you to hear me today because the prophecy comes that
you need to humble yourself and you need to turn, or this whole
thing's going to fall apart and you're going to grow crazy. And Nebuchadnezzar didn't
change, he didn't turn. Day after day, week after
week, the prophecy fades. And the feeling of
tension, that anxiety over, "I probably ought to get
some things right in my life," probably fades. He sears the voice of God in
his heart and eventually just doesn't think about it anymore
and continues on his way. And all of a sudden,
nothing happens, and nothing happens,
and nothing happens. Why? Because I think God is
incredibly gracious. Well, listen to me today, it's
easy for us to step away from God, and some of you
are in that season, and you're thinking, "Nobody
ever is going to find out and nothing is ever
going to happen. There will never be
any consequences." Don't mistake God's grace
for the fact that judgement won't come. It's just that
God's being gracious. So, for me, I grew up,
like I said, in a Christian home
with Christian friends. And I had some friends in
high school that wandered far from God. They started partying,
they starting drinking, they started smoking weed
and doing different things. We think, "Well, maybe
there's no consequences." No, it's coming,
it's coming. But the devil tricks us into
thinking it's never coming. You watch your friends, you
think that they're having fun, and I'm missing out, and
God's trying to keep me from having fun. God's trying to keep
me from enjoying life. God's trying to
keep me in this box. God's all about the rules. But the reality is he's
trying to preserve your life. Listen to me, half those friends
are either dead or in drug rehab with seven children
from eight women, and their life is a mess, a
mess 'cause sin doesn't work. It just doesn't work. The consequences will
come, I promise you. But for Nebuchadnezzar, it
seemed like they weren't coming. So it says, "All this happened. Twelve months later, as the
king was walking on the roof, he's chilling at
the house at Babylon, he looks over the seven--one of
the seven wonders of the world in the hanging
gardens, and he says, 'Look at this place I've built
by my mighty power and for the glory
of my majesty.'" And the Bible says, "As the words were on his lips,
the voice from heaven came and said to Nebuchadnezzar, 'Your royal authority
has been taken.'" The last thing that pride does
is it gets us too conceited. So, we start with,
"I'm comfortable, I don't really need God. I'm not depending
on--I believe on God, but I'm not really dependent
upon him 'cause my life is pretty comfortable. I'm good." And then we think, "You
know, I'm pretty talented. I appreciate God, but
I built this on my own, thank you very much." And then we take
it another step, we go, "You know what? People ought to probably worship
me 'cause I'm pretty awesome. Look at this thing that I
have built for my majesty, for my pleasure,
and for my glory." And this is where the
devil wants to get us, and this is where
culture finds itself, exalting itself as God. And if you're not careful, I
promise you the world will suck you into being a
god unto yourself. Make up your own rules,
make up your own morality, live how you want,
do what you want. And you know what feeds it all? I don't think it's the most
evil thing in the planet, but it's close--
it's social media. 'Cause if you're not careful,
it's not a medium to connect with your friends and
share the goodness of God, it's the place that we
build a temple to ourselves. So, immediately what happens? "What was said about
Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. And he was driven
away from people, and he ate grass like an ox. His body was drenched with the
dew of heaven till his hair grew like feathers of an eagle
and his nails like the claws of a bird." The guy goes insane. So, the most powerful
person to ever live, who's ruling the entire world,
the prophecy came that you, Nebuchadnezzar, will be the
strongest king of all the kingdoms after you,
eating grass, living outside,
acting like an animal. And that's where we are
headed to if we allow pride, culture's greatest sin,
to have its hold on us. So, I have one simple question
for you today that every Christian has to settle. Does God have
the right to be God? What you do with that question
will determine to me what your relationship
with God looks like. Does God have the
right to be God? 'Cause what scares me is the
cafeteria Christianity that we've got going on, where we
have people who profess to be Christians and yet live
lives that are blatantly sinful, unrepentantly sinful. "God made me this way,
I will do as I choose." And let me just tell you
that all of us are broken. If you do what feels good, if
you do what you were born to do, you will end up far from God. 'Cause none of us are
naturally holy or sinless, but that's the trick of the
devil to convince you God made you that way, it's
okay for you to do that. No, we all have stuff that would
send us to hell if we just did whatever we wanted
to do all the time. Doesn't make it right. So, does God have
the right to be God? If he does, then there's some
things in our lives we need to correct 'cause
God's not changing. His Word's the same,
always has been true, always will be true, and you
can't explain away any part of the Scripture,
it's all there. We have to surrender to it. Nebuchadnezzar figured that out,
Daniel chapter 4 as we close. "After the seven
years had passed, the prophecy was fulfilled. I looked up to heaven,
my sanity returned, and I praised and
worshipped the Most High. I honored the one
who lives forever. His rule is everlasting
and his kingdom is eternal. All the peoples of the earth
are nothing compared to him." You see the humility? "He does not--he does as he
pleases among the angels of heaven and the
people on earth. When my sanity returned,
so did my honor, the glory and my kingdom." It says, "My advisers
and nobles sought me out, and I was restored as
the head of my kingdom, even greater honor than before." How gracious is our God that
this guy is restored to even greater influence and impact? "And now I, Nebuchadnezzar,
praise and glorify and honor the king of heaven. All his acts are just
and true, and he is able to humble the proud." Three things as we go. If we are going to restore
sanity to our own lives and into the culture around us,
number one, we have to have an
attitude of humility. Humility very simply put is
recognizing that there is a God and I am not him. I'm not God. Once I recognize that,
number two, I have to have an
attitude of surrender. Surrender means I didn't agree. I wanted to do
something different. Surrender doesn't mean
that we all are on the same page all the time. God didn't come to make all
of your dreams come true. Jesus said, "Take up
your cross and follow me." This fairytale American
Christianity of I'm going to keep living however I want,
and I'm going to add God to it, and he's going to make
all my dreams come true, he's going to make me
wealthy and make me blessed, well, God does
want to bless you, but it comes
through a lot of pain, sacrifice, surrender,
humbling, crushing, dying. There's a lot of stuff,
it's called surrender. It's uncomfortable and it's
painful, but it's worth it. It's a life God's
called us to surrender. He's either Lord of all
or he is not Lord at all. God does not take second
place to anything in this life. Surrender. Number three is worship. I love that he lifts up his
eyes and his only appropriate response is
Nebuchadnezzar is saying, "Now I worship
the God of heaven. I respond in worship to him." That's why it's so
vitally important, we talked about it in week two,
there's always a battle over worship 'cause the devil wants
to stop your worship or to get your worship. There's a battle raging in
our culture over worship. And we need to make sure that we
understand how that battle works 'cause there's a lot of grown
men that will celebrate and honor God in the way that he
desires at the football field, and then stand at church
right over left and go, "It really ain't my style." I'm just telling you it
don't matter what your style is, it's not about you, it's
about the King of all kings, who gave his life on the cross. He died to set you free, and
that kind of sacrifice demands that you lift up holy hands,
and that you lift your voice, and that you bring the sacrifice
of praise because worthy is the Lamb of all the praise and all
the honor and all the glory. He's the one who gave his
life for you and for me. We should worship. We should lift him up. We can't let the world
outworship the church. Last verse I'll leave you with
is 2 Chronicles chapter 7 says it this way, and here's the
hope we have for our country. It says, "If my people,"
notice, it's an if, we get the choice. "But if my people,"
not the world, but the church, "the
people called by my name, will humble themselves and pray
and seek my face and turn," if we repent, if we'll recognize
the pride in our own lives and the ways that we have
stepped away from God, and if we seek him and worship
him and humble ourselves, then God says, "I will hear,
I will forgive, and I'll heal their land." Hope for America isn't
in a different politician, it's not in a different law,
it's in the body of Christ. It's in you and me. It's in us getting on
our knees and saying, "God, we have stepped away
from you in parts of our lives, and we humbly repent, and we
ask that you would help us to surrender wholly to you,
uncompromised in our values, that we would worship you. And in worshipping you and
telling the world about how gracious and
loving and forgiving, not about
hellfire and brimstone, but about God's grace, that he's
more faithful to forgive than we are to sin," God says, "I'll
bring healing to your land." America needs healing,
and it starts with us. Adam: God does want to bring
healing to our country and to your life. No matter what
you're walking through, God wants to bring you victory
and give you the strength to face your battles. The Bible says that when you
have a relationship with God that he'll never
leave you or forsake you. And he sent his only Son Jesus
to this earth to die on a cross to pay the price
for our mistakes, so that we could have our
balance set back to zero, so that we could have
a relationship with him. All of you have to do is
ask him into your life, to give up control to him. If you've never done that, I
want to give you an opportunity to do that right now. We're going to pray a simple
prayer and you can simply repeat after me. Just say, "Dear Jesus,
I give you my life. Come and make me new. I turn from my old ways
and I turn to you today in Jesus's name." And God, I pray that you
would be with each and every one of us today. God, we repent of
putting ourselves above you. We choose humility today, God. We choose to submit
our lives to you. God, we pray that you would
bring healing to our land and to our lives. Thank you for calling
us to be world changers. Help us to make an impact
in the world around us. We love you. In Jesus's name we pray, amen. Well, if you just made the
decision to give your life to Jesus, we are so proud of
you, and it's honestly the best thing that you could ever
do with your life. You know, our church is built to
support people just like you on this journey of faith, and
we'd love to come alongside you and support you on that journey. The easiest way we can help is
if you grab your cell phone and text the word "hope"
to the number 63566. We'll send you a link to a quick
video from Pastor Dave with some next steps you
can take to help you grow in your relationship with God. I'd also love for you to join us
live in person or online for a Sunday service soon. You can find more details,
including times and locations, at itownchurch.com. We hope to see you soon,
but until then, we love you and
we're praying for you. God bless. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ CC by Aberdeen Captioning
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