Journey Through Daniel | Week 2 | Albert Tate

come on we're low it is so good can we just make some noise those of you at home just make some noise i was glad when they said unto me let us come into the house of the lord come on willow let's shout to the lord with the voice of triumph hallelujah [Music] hallelujah those of you that are at home on your treadmill in your car i just need you to get excited because the presence of the lord is here amen somebody somebody say the presence of the lord is here in your living room in your den say the presence of the lord is here and i'm so excited to be back home here with my willow family and so excited for all of you and can i just i'll just take a second listen y'all the the doors might have closed down but if you the church has been wide open for the last few months let me just tell you and the people that are behind the cameras that are editing there have been people making this thing happen for months and months and months can we just give some love to the behind the scenes crew the tech people the communications people making it all happen in your home somebody's hitting these buttons somebody's sending these messages i just want to show them some love and as we open up the word of god let's pray and ask god to be with us father thank you so much for your presence thank you for the hundreds of people that it takes to make these services happen to make ministry happen thank you for every campus pastor thank you for all of the campuses and the work that you're doing in every region god you've been so faithful you've been so faithful so god we pray that as we open up your word that you would tune our ear to your voice so that we might hear you ever so clearly father would you turn our hearts toward you so that we might experience the fullness of all that you have for us is to that end that i ask that you stand in my body think through my mind speak through my vocal cords those things you would have us say know and do father may the words of my mouth the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight o lord you are my strength you are my redeemer get glory in this place in jesus name amen amen amen hallelujah well it is good to be uh to be back home with my willow family i bring you greetings from uh our sister church fellowship church in southern california uh our church sends their love and we're just glad that we get to do this thing together amen now now you know i know brother dave is started uh in the new pastor as a matter of fact uh met uh dave backstage and i was shocked he is taller than i thought he was he is taller i was like man nice to meet you it was great to meet you no i'm just kidding y'all that did not happen i'm just kidding i'm just kidding but i i'm so thankful to the leadership and all that they're navigating in this season i i and i don't you know we've got love for one another i i don't want to be critical of the new leadership but there is one thing i just got to deal with and and i didn't have a chance to deal with it privately so i'm just going to deal with it publicly and we'll just we'll just have to let the chips fall where they may as i was coming in and i was preparing you guys y'all know i love being here i love doing what i do but y'all i i hate to do this but they said i had 22 minutes and i was like somebody needs to tell dave to go watch the old tapes this is not i know we're doing this online thing and i know some of y'all got other stuff to do but if you all think a brother is about to preach for 22 minutes you have lost your mind i am i'm about to go so you know i gotta i sent an email to dave we're going to talk about it he probably doesn't even know what happened but uh he gonna know after this video and he no no grab your bibles uh pastor dave started last week in the book of daniel and we're gonna pick that back up in chapter two daniel chapter two we're gonna look at and focus in on verses 26 and 28 a somewhere around there daniel chapter 2 26 verses 26 and 20 8. hear these words of our father the king asked daniel also known as belshazzar are you able to tell me what i saw in my dream and interpret it daniel replied no wise man enchanter magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about but there is a god who that just my soul just got happy i just love that but there is a god in heaven who reveals mysteries there is a god in heaven who reveals mysteries growing up in mississippi one of my childhood memories i mean honestly uh is a pretty traumatic one it's it's it's waking up uh just waking up because my mother had a four-layer wake-up call that was a four-layer wake-up call you know how you're a kid and you sleep you got to get up for school early in the morning the first the first round was she say get up get up and in my head i would hear oh you know it's just this faint cry that's like i don't know what that is but i'm rolling back over i'm dreaming about playing atari um you know what i mean so so so so then the next one is a little closer she comes like closer to the room and she kind of she kind of comes in she comes a little closer to me and she says she says i i said get up and i and i could hear that then i was like huh i think mom desires that i arise um but you know i kind of i'm kind of wrestling through so i kind of roll over and then the third one now the third one y'all the third one it gets more intense she comes in the room and she hits the light switch now i don't know if y'all remember this film but the light switch coming on was like was like death to your eyes it was like a bunch of little knives sticking in your eyeballs it was like oh that is the words and then she would say i said get up and we could hear her clearly and then she would lace it with the warning and she said she said now if i have to come back in here i'm gonna help you get up now i i don't know if in your house you know what that means but in my house you you don't want her to help you get up um that is not a term of endearment um that is a threat of violence um that is so so you didn't want that so that third wake up you needed to open up your eyes and say okay let me get up let she come next time by fire um it it was devastating it was hard that light in the eyes you would not want to wake up as a matter of fact it would follow me in my adulthood y'all ever had a moment a morning when you woke up and you was late and you woke up so late like you was in that ram deep sleep like you and you woke up and you realized you so late it is it ain't call and say i'm gonna be late it's call and say i ain't gonna make it late it's like it's like i i've just lost that money today just count me out just give me a give me a personal day or something like have you ever been so late waking up overslept so badly that you're that you missed money you missed an opportunity to get up um i when i think about that tension the pain of waking up the threat of waking up too late i think it accurately describes what's happening in chapter two of the book of daniel in nebuchadnezzar he has his bad dream and what happens ultimately in this dream is god is waking him up he he's waking him up and he's not just waking him up to a bad dream but he's waking him up to a new reality of who god desires to be in his life he's waking him up spiritually he's he's waking him up in the way of is waking him up concerning salvation he's waking him up so that he might see something that he was in fact sleeping on he was about to oversleep and miss one of the greatest treasures of life he was being awakened by the hand of the living god and i ain't got a lot of time willow but i just came just to encourage you make sure in this season you wake all the way up lest you miss the power of god right here who's present in your life i want to talk about waking up i want to talk about how even in 2020 a year like this like nebuchadnezzar needed to wake up we too need to wake up and make sure that we don't miss what god has for us in this season there are three areas in our passage where i see god just compelling nebuchadnezzar and daniel and who who we're following in this journey we're looking at the life of daniel but but the three ways that i see him encouraging daniel and nebuchadnezzar wake up number one wake up and see the grace of god somebody shout the grace of god come on i know you at your house wake the kids up shout you can say it loud i don't say it loud say it proud say somebody say wake up to the grace of god say the grace of god can i just take 30 seconds before i even go another further on this point can i just say this just waking up is the grace of god i know we live in a time where there's a lot of stuff going on but you are every time you wake up and your eyes open and your mouth can move you ought to just whisper thank you jesus for another day there's grace just in waking up don't miss the simple graces that are right there in front of your face just waking up is a grace for god and i know many of us are going through hard times we're going through trials and tribulations through manifold levels of loss in in discouragement and some of us depression and some of us are barely hanging on by thread i'm telling you it'll be a shame for you to wake up to the fear wake up to the discouragement wake up to the devastation and not wake up to the grace even in the midst of the fear even in the midst of the discouragement and even in the midst of the frustration the grace is still there wake up to it all wake up to the grace of god wake up to the grace of god i'm gonna get on to my point but can i just stop right here and give a station break to willow willow can i just tell you it's been a long season some of us have been weary we've been discouraged you may even be depressed it's been hard hanging on we've been through a lot as a church but can i just tell you the grace of god is still right here the hand of god is still right here and if he brought us this far i'm convinced he's going to bring us all the way stay in courage don't you give up god is not done with this church can i get a witness in here can i get a witness in the comments god is still doing a great work right here wake up to the grace of god willow his grace is still here so you got to wake up king nebuchadnezzar he had a terrible dream and when he woke up he woke up to fear he woke up to fear he had this terrible dream and he immediately was so afraid of it he in this moment he ran to the fear and he pulled every wise man every magical enchanter everyone that could reveal stuff and he tells them listen to this he says number one first you got to tell me what i dreamed and then you got to interpret the dream they was like say what say huh he said yeah because i i don't want you to manipulate me so to prove that you can really interpret dreams tell me what i dreamed and then tell me what it mean and when they answered slow he said listen listen to this he says each one of you will die if you can't do it i'mma kill every last one of you he was driven by fear and his fear led him to trying to leverage his force sometimes in crisis when you're driven by fear you tend to try to use your own power you try to use your own force to fix it not realizing that your force in your fear that's driving your force will still lead you to failure because here's the thing king you're scared of the dream you're afraid of the dream you're afraid of what's going to happen with the dream that's the big fear right here's the problem you kill everybody they're going to all be dead and you still ain't gonna know the answer to your dream so you still gonna go to bed with fear see the big difference between daniel and king nebuchadnezzar king nebuchadnezzar ran to fear he had all the power all the wealth all the resources and still had all the fear can i just tell you your money can't save you your power can't save you your resources can't save you only god can save you here you got here you got daniel who's a slave who who's who's uh who's who's who's who's a uh uh outcast he's been outcast from his land and he's he's a foreigner got less but got more faith nebuchadnezzar was driven by fear daniel was driven by faith he was the king of babylon daniel came to introduce the king of babylon to the prince of peace see nebuchadnezzar didn't have peace daniel did as you read his response he engages with him and he peacefully engages in bringing about this the the solution to this problem king king nebuchadnezzar it is said a theologian says this he said he says this he says says king nebuchadnezzar took his problems to bed daniel took his problems to god i said that again king nebuchadnezzar took his problems to bed daniel took his problems to god my question is for you where are you taking your problems are you taking the bed what you should be taking to god some of you your life and this season of your life is marked by anxiety is marked by stress you're overwhelmed by the burdens i hope you ain't taking all that to bed i don't know what kind of bed you got you may have one of those mechanical reinforced beds but i don't think your bed can handle the burden that you're carrying did y'all hear what i said i said i don't think your bed can handle the burden that you're carrying instead of taking it to bed why don't you take it to god danny would say take it to god he would he would take it to god and he would give god an opportunity to do the heavy lifting can i tell you you wasn't designed to carry stuff this heavy you weren't designed to walk in fear especially when you got the opportunity to stand in faith standing right in front of you daniel shows us the way he says don't take to bed what you should take to god he takes it to god and he he's able to count on god to do what god does best it's kind of like this um the now that i'm a dad waking up kids is i love it i take advantage of it i my mama was rough but i take it to a whole nother level i bring like buckets of water i bring sirens you know i'm a loving father um but one of the best parts of waking up um folgers in your cup sorry i couldn't resist that i couldn't it was just right there it's like oh i had to take it out but no one of the best parts of waking up my kids is when at their right age y'all remember this like like my son when he was six that was the last age that i could actually lift him and carry him um he's six years old and out of asleep on the couch i wake him up and he crawl into my chest grab my neck real tight legs wrap around my waist and he just cuddle into me he he grab a layer of fat and wrap it around him it was just beautiful it just saw he just get all in there can i just say he's one of the greatest parts of being a father being able to carry my son in a posture where he's so dependent he's so nestled into my care it's just a privilege for me to carry him can i tell you if it's a privilege for me can you imagine what a privilege it is for god to carry you what a privilege it is for him to carry you when you're so dependent when you're in a posture of neediness towards him and towards his presence and to his glory can i tell you what a privilege it is for him to carry you why would you take that privilege away from him by running the fear running to your own force running to your own ability and not running to the ability the ability of your almighty god does oh hymn we used to sing what a friend we have in jesus all our sins and griefs to bear all because we do not carry everything to god in prayer oh what peace we often forfeit oh what needless pains we bear all because we do not carry everything to god in prayer best part of waking up his father picking me up i'm telling you the best part of waking up is knowing that your father is there to pick you up let him carry you oh what a friend we have in jesus god was waking nebuchadnezzar hub to the grace of god a grace that woke you up a grace that gave you a warning and a grace that gave you an invitation to come and trust me the the next thing i i got to hurry up here the next thing he gives him an invitation to the to see the power of god at work an invitation to see the power of god daniel hears about this decree for all the wise men to be killed for all the other interpreters to be killed and daniel says give me a shot give me a shot and he goes to his his homeboys um i'm sorry his homeboys his partners in the ministry those that come alongside him in faith so that he might live out faithfully god's call on his life his homeboy uh shadrach meshach and abednego he says yo y'all pray y'all pray that our god will hear and he goes and god gives daniel not just the interpretation of the dream but he gives him what the dream was about so he's able to go to the king and say now this is what you dreamed and this is what it means it he he reminds us and he wakes nebuchadnezzar up and really reminds daniel of the power of god y'all as we go through this season and as we journey together we need to make sure that we're waking up daily to the power of god sometimes i think we forget how big he is how great he is how good he is how faithful he is we got to wake up to the power of god in in daniel chapter 2 verse 20 he just gives some of god's receipts y'all y'all know what her seed is it keeps record of of what was purchased of what was done he jesus got some receipts he pulled out the resume of god he pulls out the resume listen verse 20 he says praise be to the name of god forever and ever wisdom and power are his receipts he changes times and seasons receipts he deposes kings and raises up others dis receipts he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning receipts he reveals deep and hidden things he knows what lies in darkness and light dwells within him i thank and praise you god of my ancestors you have given me wisdom and power you have made known to me what we asked of you you have made known to us the dream of the king god's faithfulness is in this season is everything in this season i'll say that again god's faithfulness in this season is everything in this season he wants to wake you up to see the power of god god moves on his behalf now i i oddly enough i think it's important for us to note that god's yes in chapter two is a direct result of daniel's no in chapter one i'm gonna say that again y'all missed that god's yes in chapter two is a result of daniel's no in chapter one y'all remember last week pastor dave talked about this daniel and the boys that was like we're not gonna eat the food of the empire we're not gonna eat everything up in here y'all keep some of that stuff because we gotta we gotta preserve our body we got to preserve our witness and we got to stay connected to the father so i'm going to i'm going to say no to the food of the empire and because they said no in chapter 1 god said yes in chapter 2. can i just tell you some of you need to start to say no in chapter one so god can give you a yes in chapter two it's your focus on him it's your refusal to indulge in the things of the empire it's because what you consume you begin to produce what you consume you produce and they were consuming the presence and feasting on the presence of god and the power of god so in chapter two when it was about to get killed they were able to produce the glory and the power and the presence of god because that's what they were consuming i guess there's something about being attuned to the voice of god being able to hear him and being able to turn down the noise of the empire so that i might turn up the sound of the kingdom of god and the values in the kingdom of god and the voice of the kingdom of god in my life some of us need to turn down the empire and turn up the kingdom of god turn this down so you can turn this up you know how we used to ask the question turn down for what turn down so you can hear the power and the presence of god in his voice in your life you got to turn it down you got to turn it down some of us if you what what you eat you become like so they were feasting on the presence of god so that they might become like the presence of god some of us we're feasting and we're eating on donkeys and we're becoming donkeys some of us we're feasting and we eating on elephants and we're becoming elephants yeah i went there i sho did i went there just right right right up in here yep i went right on there some of you are consuming donkeys and you're starting to act and sound like it some of you consuming elephants and you're starting to act and sound like it church we need to consume the lamb so that we might act and sound like him oh i need some more witnesses in the comments on that one come on in here somebody it turns out my grandmother was right you are what you eat notice what daniel consumed he pushed away the table and he said no in chapter one and god said yes in chapter two i think there's a connection there third and finally i'm out of time the clock is starting to blink and go backwards and starting to set up warning signs and all this other kind of stuff they're gonna send the band out and play me off after a little while but of course you all know i ain't gonna go nowhere i'm gonna be right here i ain't going nowhere um i i think i think the last thing we'll go home on this he he had to wake up to the grace of god he had to wake up to the power of god and third and finally he had to wake up to the coming kingdom of god the coming kingdom of god this dream that nebuchadnezzar had is this dream it's reflective of of what he saw in egypt as he was conquering statues and the land and the treasure there what he would have seen when he conquered judah and captured the tribe he had seen these great statues of these monuments lifted up and in his dream he saw a monument and the head was gold and god said the head is you king nebuchadnezzar and then each part of the body the arms the chest the the midsection the legs the thought they were all made of like silver and bronze and iron and stone and the feet oddly enough were made of clay so you've got this big golden head and feet made of clay and in in my translation god is saying to dan to to daniel to give this message to king nebuchadnezzar you can't have a gold head in clay feet it just doesn't work be careful that you don't have a gold head filled with your own legacy your own ideas of your own confidence and you only got clay feet what happens in the dream is this this carved out cliff rock comes and takes the feet from out from up under it and the whole thing falls most theologians say that each stone in each area represented a different nation a different kingdom translation message simple message short so i can hurry up and wrap up all kingdoms will fall except god's the carved out rock in the text becomes a mountain that invades the whole space here's the message friends god's kingdom is greater than yours and every other kingdom will fall kings and kingdoms will all pass away but only the kingdom of god will remain so live in a way that the kingdom of god might come in and be a blessing to you and not bring destruction to you the king when he heard the reality of the dream says he laid prostrate on the floor normally if i was preaching i just laid down on the floor but with covet threats and stuff i don't know if we didn't clean the floor i don't know so i'm just gonna stand up but i'm gonna act like i'm laying down he he says he lays prostrate y'all and he gets low and in my mind i imagine he looks at all the different statues that he's seen all the different kings all the different names of those kings and he realizes all the other names fade away until there's only one and that's god the lower you get king nebuchadnezzar the clearer the kingdom of god becomes he humbled himself he resigned from his office and he said god your god i'm not god your god and he resigned friends anybody need to resign from your office have you been sitting in the seat of god have you walked around with an assumed head of gold have you missed the call of the kingdom have you failed to remember that you got clay feet it's hard to have a gold head when you got clay feet get low get low get low get low because the more you get the clearer his kingdom becomes you can see lord not my will but your will be done thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth in my life as it is in heaven church wake up to the grace of god wake up to the power of god and wake up to the coming kingdom of god [Music] it ain't your kingdom it's his so may we bow down as king nebuchadnezzar did [Music] and from this posture of surrendering humility we can see the kingdom of god more clearly and we'll see it we'll live it for his glory amen god we thank you so much would you help us to wake up in this season in the midst of hard times may we see your grace and not fear may you may we see your power may we see your kingdom in jesus name amen god bless you willow i love you so much love pastor albert tate uh that was that was the most encouraging inspiring 25 minutes i've experienced in a really long time such an encouraging and challenging message to really to wake up wake up to god's power wake up to god's grace wake up to god's kingdom love the power of what god is teaching us through daniel next week we're going to continue our journey through daniel and next week we have megan marshman will be here with us and so hope you will join us next week we love you have a great we'll have a great week we'll we'll see you next week

Channel: Willow Creek Community Church

Views: 6,687

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Willow Creek Community Church, Love Everyone Always, Willow Creek Church, Willow Creek, Willow, Church, Faith, Hope, Love, God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, Bible

Id: GAESVLw0Wvc

Length: 31min 10sec (1870 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 01 2020