Heroes I, Everyday Heroes Daniel

Thanks. You like that, don't you? That's Hilda's, that's her sweet spot kind of song. I love the words of that song. That's really what we're about. And I want you to particularly thank the band today. They got up when it was really cold and snowing, came out, all of them. Thank you guys very much. Bless you. And we're going to make a couple of adjustments up here while I talk for just a second. So we have to close things and open things. I just want to commend you all. On a day like this, it's so easy to find a reason not to come and say, oh, I'm just going to hang out and watch some rerun on TV or something else. You know what? And I will promise you, if you open up your heart for the next 30 minutes or so, God will have something, one thing in the message. I share with people all the time, if you can take one thing out of a message, not the whole sermon, try to integrate it. One thing that says, you know what? That's what God wanted me to hear. Then your effort, your investment in time was worth it. By the way, I want you to know last, actually yesterday and Friday night, there was a wonderful group of folks, your elders and their wives that went away and sought the Lord together. Just, I mean, it was a quick time, but a great bonding time. And there's real unity in your leadership. You just need to know you're well served by people who are very committed to pursuing God's heart and finding His purpose and His will for us. So as we look at Daniel today, I think we're going to see some surprises. And if you haven't seen this book in a while, I know as I prepared, I was reminded of some amazing things. Now, Mike already sort of let the theme out of the bag and he talked about that. How many of you have seen that NBC show, Hero Show? Holy cow, seven people, Mike, nine. Okay, well, anyhow, I happen to have watched it just a bit because the characters are pretty intriguing. My favorite one is actually the guy whose name is Iroh, okay, and his superpower, I mean, okay, let's say, it's a comic book guy, all right. But he, when he concentrates real hard, he can actually reverse time. And I thought, well, why don't we try this? You know, let's think real hard and see if we can reverse time, go back to like seven o'clock this morning and the snow goes north. And it's sunny and 70, ready? And you got to get into this, ready, one, two, three. If you haven't seen the show, you don't get this at all. But that's what he does and it doesn't work. Why? Because it's a comic book, okay, it's not real, it's like fiction. But I didn't have to look very hard to find a great illustration of a real hero. In fact, if you watch the president's State of the Union address this week, he reminded us of an incident that took place on the 2nd of January. A man by the name of Wesley Autry was taking his two children on the subway in New York City to Times Square to meet their mother. Now, just imagine this Harlem construction worker. He's standing there with his kids on the subway platform. And a 20-year-old student next to him has a seizure. Now, he had the presence of mind to intervene in that sort of crisis and to put something in this young man's mouth so he won't swallow his tongue. And he's looking for help on the platform, looking for some, you know, one of the platform attendants and, you know, one of the folks that should be there to help to intervene. And in the meantime, while he's doing that, this young man gets up and I guess the seizure is just sort of out of control. And he wobbles over on the platform and falls off the platform onto the tracks of the subway train. Now, this is right out of the New York Post. And same story was in the New York Times, a couple of things. I want to read for you what's going on in the minds of Wesley Autry as this train is approaching him. Here's what happens. He said, I had a split-second decision to make. Do I let the train run him over and hear my daughters screaming and see the blood? It's interesting. He was a Vietnam War veteran. So he'd seen blood and death, but he wanted to protect his daughters because the young man had fallen right in... No, I got my cool pointer out again. Right over here, this is where the guy was stuck, but he was on the track. And remember, he's having a seizure, convulsion. He can't really control himself. He'd landed between the track. Do I let the train run over this guy? I saw that the ladies had my two daughters and the ladies on the platform. So I hopped over on the tracks. Remember, he hears the train coming. I saw the two white lights and said, whoa, you ain't got no time. I just grabbed him. I just dove on top of him and held him down because I knew there'd be enough clearance. In other words, I was going to hold him into this area. He knew the train would pass. But then he started to try to pull him up on the platform. But by his way, he was fighting against me. He didn't know who I was. In other words, this guy who was convulsing didn't know what was going on. The only thing that popped into my mind was to go into the gutter. So I dove in. This is right down in here, friends. And pinned him down. I doubt that Mr. Autry had a degree in engineering and knew how many inches there were. But there's two bodies now. He's face down over top of this guy who's having this convulsion. He was fighting and pushing against me. So I laid on top of him. The train was probably two inches off my back. The train operator stopped the train, of course, after he already got over him. The men were trapped under a car, and the student reportedly said to Autry, Am I dead? Am I dead? Autry told him, No, we're under the train. You're touching me. You feel me touching you? We're very much alive, man. Autry's daughters were upset and screaming, as you might well imagine. So he yelled to the crowd on the platform, We're okay down here. I've got two daughters up there. Let them know that their father's okay. And then there's just a long, there's nine pages of responses on the blog here of people, and every single one of them uses the word he wrote. Some say nuts, crazy, who'd ever do that? But he wrote, not so much so that the President of the United States had Mr. Wesley Autry, just put it back up, please, had this gentleman at the State of the Union address to really typify the spirit of sacrifice that would risk his own life for the sake of another. And as we look today at this idea of heroes in the Bible, as we look and see, what is it? One thing that pops right out at me is that this story typifies the first point in your outline, and you need to grab your outline because we're going to be referring to some of the scriptures throughout the whole course of the message. It's only in, first two blanks, hard times. It's only in difficult moments of crisis of life that heroes emerge. Loved ones, listen, let's be honest. Most of us would prefer to have life just sort of be this, you know, eight-lane super highway of smooth concrete, okay? It was just nice and, you know, plenty of room, plenty of space, but that's not the way it is. And by the way, if you desire, if there's something in you that says, I want to grow in the grace and strength and the reality of having the character of someone that God calls a hero, then you can expect difficult things to happen in your life. You can expect there to be these moments when you're going to be compelled to make difficult decisions. Wesley Autry had one of those, and you can be sure that they're going to happen in your life too. They always involve risk. It always takes you out of your comfort zone. It's funny, I've had people, numerous people in the last six or eight weeks at North Way say to me, you know, sometimes I don't feel comfortable. And I don't know how to respond to that. I don't want you to feel like uncomfortable in the sense of real nervous, but on the other hand, sometimes God stretches us, and that doesn't, I mean, if you work out, if you're in physical condition, you know that you don't always feel really good. It sometimes hurts a bit, but that's God making room. That's your body making room if you're working out. Spiritually, it's God making room to do something in your life. Last week, JR mentioned that our mission, our vision was to free people to follow Jesus. Let's say it together, free people to follow Jesus. And we're going to talk about that week after week until we all just have it at the tip of our tongues. If you're committed to that, if you see that as why you're here, as part of your mission in life, I promise you it's going to be part of what you're going to experience. It's moments when to do that, you're going to have to have some measure of heroic faith working in your life. Perhaps the best sort of summary of the heroes of the Bible is in Hebrews 11. It's called the Hall of Faith. I read Hebrews 11 periodically just to go through and be reminded of what men and women have done who've gone before me. And if you read through it, strangely enough, halfway through Hebrews 11.33, it talks about men who shut the mouths of lions without mentioning Daniel. It's obviously a reference to Daniel as we'll see. Now, he's our first hero, not because he's the best or the most unique or the most dramatic. But honestly, because in many respects, the world in which he lived seems to me to be most like the world in which many of us find ourselves. A world that's opposed to our values, a world that seems to have put itself in a position to say, to call into question whether or not what we are all about makes any sense. And what happened in Daniel doesn't stay in Daniel. It spills over into our lives. And whether you're 17 or 77, what we're going to say today relates to you. Speaking of that, Wednesday night, one of our mid-70s seniors was driving some other folks home from a Bible study. And one of the women that she was driving had a massive heart attack in the back seat of his car. What would you do in that circumstance? Would you have the presence of mind to know what to do? Well, this man did. And I'll make a long story short and just say, his quick thinking, he even confessed that he ran some red lights, did what he had to do to get this woman to the emergency room. And by the grace of God and the wisdom he gave the doctors, I'm so delighted to tell you, in case you hadn't heard, Nancy Van Gorder, who had a massive, massive heart attack, has come up, awakened out of her unconsciousness and seems to be doing just fine. It looks like she's going to fully recover. Why? Because someone had the presence of mind in a crisis moment to know how to listen and trust God and move forward. Now, those things happen unexpectedly, but I want to challenge you. Maybe the best way for you to grow spiritually is to insert yourself in a place where you know you're going to have to exercise faith. Look up on the wall up there on my right. You'll see what we call Mike's clock running. Pastor Mike is the pastor of the Oakland campus. And in 48 hours, you can see 23 minutes. I'm sorry, 23 hours and 20 minutes from now. That 48 days, I should say, Mike said, oh my gosh, 48 days, 23 hours, 20 minutes from now, the Oakland campus will be functioning. I don't know if you feel this. I feel it's going to be a unique opportunity for a number of you to be in a culture, really, that's somewhat different than the safety of the North Hills. People are slipping me questions. There are sexual lifestyles and orientations that we're going to be confronting there a whole lot more than we do here. There are political correct issues that we're going to be dealing with. There are a whole lot of things, racially, culturally, that we're going to be facing. And if you want to have your faith grow, and you want to be stressed, and you want to discover something about what you really are with God, you might want to just visit with Mike out in the lobby afterwards and say, well, tell me about this. We've got Oakland launch teams meeting even this week. You can be one of those people. Now, one of the things that, and I thought Mike wanted to preach the whole sermon. He got going. One of the things that Daniel exemplifies is the quality of integrity. And I want to mention what integrity is because it's not just honesty. It's not just trustworthiness. Integrity, you get the word, it comes from the word integer, which means whole or one. A person who has integrity is the same on the inside as they are on the outside, or, say it better, their actions reflect the true condition of their heart. I love the way that Dr. Henry Cloud defines it. He says, he has a book. It's a bestselling book called Integrity. I've given it to a lot of my friends. It's, his definition is the courage to face the demands of reality. If you have integrity, you're able to step up to the plate in tough times and have the courage to make the right call. And that's what we see in the life of Daniel. And this integrity, number two in your outline, was built in the life of Daniel as he faced the small decisions of life. You know, I want to stop and say something I haven't said in the other services. Many times I've had people say, they'll see someone up here in the platform and say, I could do what you're doing and why don't you let me have this? And I always say to them, well, you know, maybe you could, but you need to understand what happened in my life for a number of years before I had the privilege of standing up here and teaching. You see, don't ever think that somebody that has a position that is visible hasn't done something behind the scenes because almost without exception, God requires you to do a lot behind the scenes, little things to validate the integrity of your heart. Before he puts you in a position of responsibility. And if you wonder, why isn't God using me? It could be because you haven't quite yet discovered that you've got to make some very important choices in the unseen, small, minor things of life. Here's what happened in Daniel. Let me just sort of review the story for you rather than read a long text. In summary, God allowed Judah to be overrun, and you can read about it at the top of your outline, by King Nebuchadnezzar. He was given permission by God basically to defeat Judah, and he took all the Israelites of Judah captive and carted them off to Babylon. And so now here they are, they're enslaved. Not a good position to be in, but then Nebuchadnezzar is a pretty smart king. He says, you know, I'm going to pick the brightest, most intelligent, strongest, best looking men, and I'm going to make them a special elite group that's going to serve me in a special way. And Daniel, along with some of his friends, happened to be chosen to be in that sort of elite group. And the king's plan was, I'm going to train them up. I'm going to give them the best of everything in my kingdom, and I'm going to make them stand out as exceptional because I see some qualities in them. Now, here's what Daniel decided to do. Look at verse 8 of chapter 1. This is on the bottom of your outline. But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine. What does that mean? That means he said, you know, I'm not going to eat the king's great food. And by the way, if you're a slave and most people are scraping along, barely subsisting, it doesn't seem real smart to say, no thanks, I'll pass on the king's buffet, okay? I mean, let's be clear. The king ate pretty well, and if you got the king's assigned, I mean, some people say, well, maybe it's because he ate pork and ham. I don't think that was it. That would have been prohibited by Jewish law. I think the king had whatever he wanted to have to eat. Unbelievable. And I know that wine was allowed. Daniel said, I don't want any of that. And we kind of struggled. Why did he do that? What does that have to do with it? I came up with two conclusions. Number one is this. Daniel wanted everyone to know that if he did succeed in the eyes of the king, that it would not be because of the king's diet and the king's protocol. Let me pause right now. This might be the point that you take home with you. Some of us need to make a decision that we're going to succeed in life, not by compromising our way in the world and doing some of it the world's way and some of it God's way and sort of blending the two. Listen, loved ones, put the full weight of your trust in God's ability to make you succeed, to help you to stand out in life, and God will deliver you. That's what Daniel did. And the second thing was this. When Daniel took that stand, since he was a slave, he couldn't say, I refuse to. He had to ask permission. And if you read on here, and he said he asked the chief official for permission, not to defile himself. And the chief official could have said, Daniel, just, you know, forget it. This is what I'm told to do. You're going to do what I tell you. And here's what I love about God. Verse nine, which is not on your outline, says this. Now God caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel. And you'll see that phrase several times as you read through the book of Daniel. God caused the official to show favor. God did this. The story of the book of Daniel is the sovereignty of God. God is in control of the people who you think are in control of you. Amen. You got to get this, friends. Let me revisit it. You think that, you know, U.S. Airways is in control of your life. Or you think that, you know, PPG, or you think that Mellon Bank, it's your employer is not in control of your life, loved one. It's God. He's in sovereign control. And Daniel, by refusing to do this, made it clear that he was going to say, I believe that God's in control. And I love the fact that God validates that by changing the heart of this official and saying, okay, let's do the vegetable and water diet test. I don't know about you. That doesn't appeal to me a whole lot. Veggies and water. Daniel says, let me try that for 10 days. And if I'm not doing better than the rest of the guys, then we can change the diet. And by the way, I haven't said this in other services either. Sometimes, listen, you build your faith by taking just little bite-sized steps. Try God for a while. Try his way and see if it doesn't work. For some of you in giving, try giving God's way for a while. And if it doesn't work, then just forget it. The problem is many of us won't take that first step. Daniel did. And he put God first and God honored him. Begins with your willingness to just not compromise and blend your way and the world's way together. I came across a really cool story about a student athlete that just sort of did the unexpected. And his name is Nate Hastings. Here's his picture. He's a high school football player. By the way, this is the first weekend in 23 weeks without football. How many of you are in withdrawal? Okay. How many wives are saying, oh my God, thank you. Finally, I can see my husband. No football games today. Here's a young man who had been very successful. A four-year starter out in a conference in Illinois. And on the last game of his high school career, he needed, as the game came to an end, he needed about 30 yards of passing to break the conference record and be the number one passing champion in his conference. And unbeknownst to him, his coach and the opposing team's coach, who they were obviously crushing in the game, said, hey, you know, kind of back off. Let the guy complete this one long pass and he'll have the record. And so he completed a 37-yard pass and he owned the record with 5,006 yards. Here's what happened. Listen to this. Three days later, Jesus wrote to the conference director and asked for the pass to be removed from the record books. His request was granted and his gesture made national news. Today, Jesus remains in second place among Central State Conference career passers. He kept, listen, I kept thinking of the guy who had the record before me, he said. I mean, his teammates fought for every yard he got. And I got my record this way. It just seemed wrong. I think we'll have the courage to hand the trophy back. Not too many. No one would ever know. Coaches made a little deal. He found out. He said, you know what? It's not right. It just pictured for me the kind of spirit that it takes, a spirit that says, I'm gonna do this right. I'm gonna do it God's way. Now, as we go forward in Daniel and we see what happens quickly, this is what sort of in summary. And we just go real quickly through the story. So in little things, Daniel's making choices. In chapter two, there's this really cool story and we don't have time to unpack it all. But it's a story where Nebuchadnezzar, who's sort of flexing his muscles, has this crazy dream about this huge statue of bronze and different metals. And he can't interpret it. And he's really freaked out about it. So he calls his astrologers and all of his counselors and people together. He says, whoever can interpret this dream, I'm gonna put in control of my kingdom. Now, how many of you know that's not a bad job? Let's say I'm gonna run the whole country. And so they're all conniving, figuring out how am I gonna do this? Now, Nebuchadnezzar is pretty, pretty slick guy. So he says, you know what? You guys are trying to draw out of me enough clues that you can figure out what this was. So here's the deal. I not only want you to interpret the dream, I want you to tell me what the dream was. And I love the response of his counselors. If you look in Daniel 2, it's not on your outline, but you can read up on it. Here's what he says. Here's what they said. There is not a man on earth who can do what the king asks. I mean, nobody can do such a thing, all of his counselors are saying. And the king gets pretty ticked off at the response. He says, look, if you don't do it, you're all gonna die. And I love the fact that Daniel says, well, I guess here's a challenge that only God can do. And verse 17 says this. Daniel returned to his house and explained the matter to his friends, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, who we later come to know as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And the only reason I inserted this story is this. Friends, listen, if you flip your outline over, Daniel's integrity was shared in community. And this is where we see the community. It actually started all the way back in chapter one. But here in chapter two, he called his close friends together and said, hey, pray for me. That God would reveal this mystery so that we might not be executed. And during the night, verse 19 of chapter two, the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision. And Daniel praised the God of it. I bet he did. He's not gonna die now. And he goes in, he tells Nebuchadnezzar, hey, Nebi, this was your prayer? Or I'm sorry, this was your dream, rather? And this is what it means. And Nebuchadnezzar's blown away. And one of many times in the book, Nebuchadnezzar says, Daniel, your God is the God. And there's no other God like your God. And we're all gonna worship your God. Because it took God to show us what the dream was. But you see it happening in community. You know, friends, as we ended 2006, if you were here, you remember the North way just faced a pretty significant challenge. And I remember going to a group of pastors that I meet with here in the area and saying, you guys see our church and you think we've got everything we need, but we're facing a real challenge. Would you pray with me that God would provide our financial need as we ended the year? And it was so awesome to sit with that group of men on January the third and say, God not only through our church met that need, but exceeded that need through you. And I want you to know, you are an encouragement to churches all throughout the area. That when God's people band together, we can do things that are so much greater than what we might've imagined. That group of men, that's one of my little, that's one of my community faith partners. And I believe for their church and their ministry, just like they believe for ours. You've got to have that. Do you have a group of people that you can go to in a moment of need and say, this is where I'm at. This is my need. This is the crisis that I'm facing. Because the same thing happens in chapter three, as we read on. Because in chapter three, Nebby has another change of heart and says, you know what? I want everyone to bow down to this statue. Now he created this statue and we couldn't quite represent that within the room because it was 90 feet tall, okay? And nine feet wide. So this dude was, he was sort of on the thin side, the statue, okay? That's the dimensions that are described. And his decree was people would bow down and worship this gold statue. Well, Daniel wouldn't do it. And the people that, you know, were on the inside and hated Daniel's authority said, you know what? Let's go to Nebuchadnezzar. Let's tell him the truth. Nebuchadnezzar, didn't you say that everyone had to bow down and worship your statue? Yes, I did. Well, Daniel's not doing it. And neither are his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Now here's what's interesting. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, somehow Daniel gets dropped out of the story. And they're the ones that stand in front of the king. And I think this is very central to the whole point we want to make today. Daniel had so imparted his heroic faith and integrity into the people around him that they were able to take a stand in front of the king. And look in your outline. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. Notice Daniel's name is not even mentioned. They're standing on their own. Friends, one of the things that we are committed to at North Way is discipling people that are coming alongside of us so that they too can take their stand. Tonight, our students will be meeting. God's working through the student leaders to help impart to them faith. Parents, I hope you'll support that process by bringing your kids out and getting them here. Because this is how character gets formed. And I love this response. And again, this may be the one thing you need to take with you. Look at this. If we are thrown into the fire, the blazing furnace, and what he had said was, if you don't bow down, you're going to be thrown into this, I guess, this furnace of destruction. This must have been a wicked thing. I don't, there's no description of it. All we know is that he stoked it up seven times hotter than it had been. So, I mean, it was like this blazing, it's literally called a blazing furnace in the NIV. He said, they said this, the God we serve, now here we go, if you're taking notes, do this, is able, circle the word is able, to save us from it. They were convinced that God was able. And if I were to pause right now and say, how many of you believe that God is able to take care of you or deliver you or provide for you or heal you? How many of you put up your hand and say, I believe he's able? Almost every hand is up. Let's read on. And he will rescue us from your hand, O King. I'm not going to ask you to put your hand up, but here's what I know. A lot of you aren't as convinced when you pray that God will. Because you've heard of people that prayed and they didn't get their prayer answered. They didn't get the person they wanted to marry. They didn't get delivered. They didn't get healed. And you say, well, I don't know that we can really presume on this. Well, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego believe God was able and they believe that he would. But here's what I love about the integrity of these men. This is the most, this answer is so rich with integrity. Listen, verse 18. But even if he does not, so they acknowledge that it may not happen. We want you to know, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up. Loved ones, that is the posture of faith that I implore you to take. Always say God is able and I believe he will. And if he doesn't, continue to trust him. Are you with me on that? That is so central. Right now, there are numerous people facing issues, uncertain questions, tough moments. God is able, believe he will. And if he doesn't, you don't have to explain God. You simply have to remain trusting that he knows what's best and will do what's necessary. And here's what happens. They don't bow down. So Nebuchadnezzar delivers on his promise and he throws them into the furnace on the way up. The soldiers carrying them up get burned alive. I mean, this is a pretty gory scene if you read through it. Nebuchadnezzar peers into the furnace and sees in there. He says to one of his counselors, and by the way, they're all just a bit freaked out now because they know that he means business. He says, how many did we throw in there? They said, three, O King. He said, but I see four. And one appears to be as the son of the gods. Now, some think that's a theophany, which is a pre-incarnate manifestation of who Jesus is. Something was just an angel. In any event, some character of the Spirit of God is in that furnace with these men. And loved ones, listen, there are times that God requires you for whatever reason to go through the fire, but he's always with you. And the amazing thing is, after a while, Nebuchadnezzar pulls them out of the furnace, or they open the door, whatever, and their clothes weren't burned. There was no smell of smoke on them. And guess what? Nebuchadnezzar says, you know what? Forget the statue. Your God is God. This guy's really like, he's, you know. And God had miraculously delivered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego because of their faith in community. Loved ones, that's the nature of what it means to be a church that's believing God together for great things. And if you're going through the testing of fire right now, listen, sometimes God delivers you from it, but most times, in my experiences, he delivers you in it by being with you through it. One last story, and there are others along the way. This is in Daniel chapter six. And Daniel outlasts Nebuchadnezzar, isn't that cool? I mean, he ate too much of his own food and dies. Not Daniel. Daniel now is serving. He's still enslaved under Darius the Mede. Darius is a pretty powerful king, but he immediately sees these same qualities in Daniel, and he elevates him. And Daniel still has his detractors. And the detractors say, well, you know what? We've got to get Daniel out of here. So we're going to, they convinced Darius to sign this decree that says, hey, everyone's got to bow down and worship Darius because he was the king. And they get him to do that. And Daniel, even though he's greatly respected by the king, says, look, I'm not doing it. And the king gets conflicted. It's a fascinating story because now the very enemies, this is number four, the enemies of Daniel honor his integrity, even his enemies. And Darius says, well, I don't want to, I mean, and the penalty for this was to be thrown into the lion's den. And he says, I don't want to throw him into the lion's den. I don't want the lions to, and he works the whole day to try to figure out a way to get Daniel off. And it doesn't happen. And so if you read the story in Daniel six, it's fascinating. The Bible says that the king is agitated. He can't sleep all night long. He's wondering what's going to happen to Daniel. Verse 18, it says the king could not sleep. Verse 19, this is on your outline at the very bottom of the page. At the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lion's den. Can you picture this? He's running down now, figuring, I've lost this man that I respected. When he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice, Daniel's servant of the living God. And notice he knew he wasn't God. He's saying the very things that Daniel had said. Has your God whom you serve continued? Has he been able to rescue you from the lions? And it's not on your outline because you may think, well, maybe Daniel must've gotten eaten. No, we just ran out of space. Okay, here's what happened. Verse 21, Daniel answered, O king, live forever. My God sent his angel and he shut the mouth of lions. Hallelujah. Friends, let me pause. You may not know it, but time and time again in our lives, I personally believe God sends his angels into our lives. And he stops things from happening. He holds back catastrophe. He sends blessing for people who are inclined to serve God with a pure heart. And the king was overjoyed and lifted him out. A