Apart from the Bible – which book has had the most impact on you – tell person sitting next to you.

• These are often novels – We love the books we read because we love the people we find in them!

New series starts today – book of Daniel – turn to it

• 12 chapters – two halves
• 1-6 are stories about Daniel and his three friends
• 7-12 are visions and dreams and their interpretation – they accurately predict many of the key political events of the 4th and 3rd centuries BC and look forward to the end times when Jesus will return and the universe as we know it will be wound up.

The Quest

I want to use the title ‘the quest’ for this series – because here in Daniel we have a man who set his heart on the quest for spiritual excellence in the face of a pagan, god-less society.

The culture

Allow me to sketch out the background.

• Babylon was a superpower in the middle east in the 6^th century BC – and Nebuchadnezzar, the king, liked to throw his weight around
• This book is the story of 4 friends – Daniel, Hanaiah, Mishael and Azariah who were kidnapped from Jerusalem when Babylon invaded Judea and set a siege against Jerusalem

The four men were expected to imbibe all the culture and education of Babylon.

• With it’s mythical gods, it’s food and its dress.
• Step out of line and you could lose your head!

Does any of that sound familiar? (apart from losing your head!)

pluralism

In our day there are strong currents of pluralism (you can believe anything and all beliefs are equally valid) and secularism (God is dead – actually He’s unnecessary)

political correctness

We also are plagued with stifling political correctness >>>

• Our society tolerates the practice of the Christian faith in private and here in church, but it increasingly deprecates any kind of public witness!

To believe seen as offensive

• to talk about God in public is not the done thing. And to believe anything that is exclusive or absolute is seen as offensive >>>

keep God to yourself

• Society says that believing in God is OK, so long as you keep it private. “By all means believe in a God if that is what floats your boat, but don’t let that belief influence your business decisions or your judgements in court or who you choose to work with! >>>

Daniel was living in a society that had similar ideals to our own

• That’s what makes him so relevant and inspiring for us in the twenty-first century.

So the book of Daniel is a call to us, the people of God, to be courageous! Not to lose our nerve , not to allow the prevailing culture to squeeze us into its mould

• It’s about discovering that God is sovereign – especially in those moments when we have no option but to stand out as being different.

This year is the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation. One of the famous phrases that Martin Luther left to us is this “Here I stand. I can do no other”

“ …my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen.”

So the big message of the book of Daniel is this – When we stand out as being different, God is with us – in fact He is sovereign in whatever happens.

Why was it written

Highly appropriate for people in two categories

a mobile society

These people like Daniel and his friends had been taken, forcibly, from one culture and planed in another

• They had lost their roots and Daniel’s message is “your culture and surroundings may change but God is sovereign!

We too live in a society that ‘hyper-mobile’ – always on the move, rarely, if ever does one person stay in the same locality for life

• jobs aren’t for life, homes aren’t for life, families aren’t for life
• and this constant culture-hopping leaves some of us with feeling rather disorientated.
• Like Daniel and his friends

I know a little of this myself.

When someone says ‘where do you come from?’ I (honestly) have a hard time answering the question!

• born in Hackney, cockney London, but brought up in working class Woodford,,
• lived for a couple of traumatic years in a rural village in Essex
• moved to the Banstead, the prosperous South London Bible belt
• then to Reading, Swansea, Walton-on-Thames, Pinner, Purley, Chichester and now here.

Who knows where I’ll be next?!

• I’m not looking for sympathy because I’m enormously grateful to God for all this
• and many of you could stack your list of homes and cultures up against mine and make it look like a walk in the park!

It’s people like this with undefined roots that Daniel is writing for – He’s writing to people living in a culture that they have adopted not one they’ve grown up in

• and his message is ‘bloom where you’re planted’!

The situation Daniel faced

deep change (v2)

And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim king of Judah into Nebuchadnezzar’s hand,

• political change (Jehoiakim defeated)
• spiritual change (temple routed)

Back in Judah Daniels future was a bright one – he was in the elite. Set for great things – one of the best.

• already identified as one of the high flyers

Nebuchadnezzar’s character

He regarded nothing as sacred (v2)

along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the temple of his god in Babylonia[a] and put in the treasure house of his god.

He tried to remove the future leaders v3

Nebuchadnezzar ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring into the king’s service some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility

Once they were in Babylon, the royal line in Jerusalem would no longer be a threat.

Re-educate the influential (v4)

4 young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace.

There is an early kind of Arianism here – only the good-looking will do

• If you had a limp or a squint – you were out!

He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians.[b]

He wanted to erase their spiritual heritage (vv6-7)

The re-naming is highly significant.

• new names – their Hebrew names each contained the names God’s name
• new names contained names of Babylonian deities

The ladder

Goleman model of excellence

• consider a ladder
• most people in the middle – performing averagely
• some – only a tiny few – no-hopers
• some – only a tiny few – are high flyers

To understand what it means to be excellent, we look for the differences between the middle and the high flyers

So how do we spot them?

• The most obvious answer is to look for skills – what competences does one person have that another doesn’t

• However, Daniel points to something deeper.

A friend who is a teacher told me about a seminar he had attended where a head teacher was doing some training on leadership in Education.

In this talk the speaker highlighted the importance of leadership knowledge, skills and competencies.

• She got the people in the room to call out the skills need for leadership – collected words like “vision” “passion” “ability to command an control” “looking good” “presenting the right image” “a good public communicator”
• Then, as a way of engaging her audience She said ‘can you think of a person who showed these abilities’ and began collecting a few names
• Then someone from the back of the room called out “Adolf Hitler”

For a moment the room fell silent

She brushed it aside as a joke and went on with her talk.

But, my friend said, that was a telling moment!

What was missing from their consideration was any reference to Character – to ethics – to morals – to GOD!

What’s the difference?

If you are a leader, in almost any sphere, you lead not only by what you do, but by who you are. – The traffic of your heart will determine the direction of your followers.

They are differences of character

• Don’t be allured by the impressive, but search for the deep

• so we don’t just look at activity and skill and performance measures, we look for character
• (and I know that’s very hard to measure!)

One of the principles of leadership, especially in church is this:

prize character above skill

What was it that made Daniel and his friends different?

• What factors come out of this passage that identify Daniel as a man of spiritual excellence

resolve

… Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine,

We don’t know why he took this stand over his food

• may have been through a ritual and offered to idols
• there may have been heathen prayers incanted at the beginning of meals
• may have been constant supply of pork! Rashers of bacon!

Whatever the reason – this is a strong verb he uses here. This is not an idle whim.

Daniel chose this area to when he drew a line in the sand – and so far as God allows it, I will go NO FURTHER!

Nebuchadnezzar had a unique management style

• not hands off or hands on but heads off!

Grace

A lesser man would go in with his guns cocked and ready to fire – “These are my terms” – Not Daniel

11 Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, 12 “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink.

It is all too easy to draw a line in the sand and be balshy about it!

Daniel certainly drew his line in the sand, but he did it with grace.

• Look at how he won the heart of his minder >>>

v9 Now God had caused the official to show favour and compassion to Daniel,

Daniel’s excellence of character won the man over – and he agreed to doing the trial diet.

And then a fascinating insight

13 Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat us in accordance with what you see.”

There are occasions when even our lines in the sand have to be left behind

• Daniel is thinking ‘if it doesn’t work, then fair enough – at least I did my very best to honour the Lord”

14 So Ashpenaz agreed to this and tested them for ten days.

Determination v17a

17 To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding in all kinds of literature and learning.

Clearly They devoted themselves to their studies and showed the kind of determination that brings men out on the top.

The a fascinating comment …

17 ..And Daniel could understand visions and dreams of all kinds.

insight v17b

17 To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding

resilience (chaps 1-6)

Psychologists who study this sort of thing tell us that one common distinguishing feature between the good and the truly great is the ability to bounce back after a trauma – they call it resilience.

Resilience is the ability to recover from setbacks, adapt well to change, and keep going in the face of adversity.

In physics there is measure of ‘resilience’.

• It’s the capacity for a material to return to its original shape when it’s distorted or deformed. Like an elastic band

Polypropylene has a high resilience and that’s why it’s used in carpets.

• If you have polypropylene in your carpet you can tread on it, and tread on it and tread on it and it will bounce back many more times than other fibres, like wool!

Daniel and his three friends were made of the spiritual equivalent of polypropylene!

• In Babylon they received knock after knock after knock.
• They faced challenge after challenge after challenge and still recovered to be stronger in God than they were before.
• And all because they rested their trust in the Lord.

Pray >>>

additional illustrration …

A small but intriguing new survey by a pair of British consultants which shows how important resilience is.

• When Sarah Bond and Gillian Shapiro asked 835 employees from public, private, and non-profit firms (like churches) what was happening in their own lives they got some surprising answers
• They asked ‘What things make you have to ‘dig deep’ in your personal resources? What gets you drawing on your inner reserves?’
• It wasn’t tragedies like the London Tube bombings, appalling business mistakes, the need to keep up with the inexorably accelerating pace of change, or the challenges of the still-difficit economy — they pointed to their co-workers.
• A whopping 75% of them said that the biggest drain on their resilience reserves was “managing difficult people in the office” or “negotiate politics at work.” That was followed closely by stress brought on by overwork and by having to withstand personal criticism.

It breaks my heart when I hear of ‘friendly fire’ incidents in the body of Christ!

Daniel was a man who refused to live as a passive victim of circumstance. If it hadn’t been for the hostile takeover of Judah by the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel’s life would have been quite predictable. He would have attended a great school. He would have married a godly woman and would have occupied a prominent place in the temple. But life didn’t turn out the way Daniel planned. Instead, he was forced to spend his life serving the Babylonian king. Yet, He decided to honour God and refused to eat the king’s defiled food. Daniel’s courage and initiative found great favour with Nebuchadnezzar. What do you do when you end up in Babylon? Do you find ways to persist, to endure, and to grow? Or do you betray your deepest commitments? Make a resolution to become spiritually resilient like Daniel

you don’t necessarily go back to the person you were before. >>> new normality