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Hey, church family. If you've got your Bible and I hope you do, grab them. We're going to go to Daniel
chapter one. And this is week 24 of divos, of which I've done 23 weeks of them. Can you believe it?
That we have been in this season in our life for 24 weeks. And so speaking of seasons, you know that we are in saturated season.
And so we've called our church to with Daniel fast and I want to just kind of walk through the text here.
and talk about where that comes from and why we do it and maybe challenge you if you're not
doing the Daniel fast to be a part of it and if you are to take it beyond just the things that we
eat. So let's just dive in. Daniel chapter one. It says in the third year of the reign of
Jehoalachim and the reason that these kind of, there are Bible verses like this is because
the writers of scripture want to put it in its historical context. These things actually
happened. There was actually a young man named Daniel. And this is not a myth like a long time ago
in a galaxy far, far away. This is in the third year of the king of Jehoagin, king of Judah.
Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoakim,
king of Judah, into his hands with some of the vessels of the house of God, and he brought them to the
land of Shinar to the house of his God, and he placed the vessels in the treasury of his God.
And then the king commanded Aspenaz, the chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel,
both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish of good appearance and skillful
in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding, learning, and competent to stand in the king's
palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. And the king assigned them
a daily portion of the food that the king ate. That part matters. And of the wine that he drank.
Matters too. They were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time, they were to
stand before the king. And among those were Daniel, Hananiah, Michael, and Azariah of the tribe
of Judah. And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names. They changed your name. Daniel, he called
Belchazar, Hananiah, he called Shadrach, Michele, Michelle, he called Meshach, and Azariah, he called
Abednego. So basically, what would happen is, this happened all the time. So King Nabokanezor,
when he takes over the nation of Israel, they would kill a bunch of people, and then they would
also enslave a bunch of folks, but the best of the best of the best, the brightest of the bright,
the smartest, the most skilled in literature and in language, they thought, what a waste to take
the nobility and the royal blood and just put them to work like in the fields. What we should do is
we should indoctrinate them into our own culture and they may be an asset to us in Babylon.
And so the best of the best, the Ivy League, the five-star athletes that we're going to look at are Daniel and as we know by their Babylonian names, Shadrach, Mishik, and Abedigo.
Now, one of the things that I want you to notice here is sometimes when you hear Daniel and Chaturac Mishak and Avindigo, if you grew up in church, our minds go to like veggie tales and flannel graph and that kind of stuff.
I need you to use your Holy Spirit imagination for a second and imagine the terror that it would be to be these guys.
That their country lost a war.
They were plucked out of their homes where they grew up, where they live.
And they are brought in to this brainwashing place, this indoctrination, inculturation of what it means to be Babylonian.
their heads, they gave them different clothes, and they are going to train up these boys to be under
King Nebuchadnezzar. Verse 8. But Daniel resolved. You see, one thing that is true about this culture
of Babylon, and it's also true about our own culture, is that this culture tries to tell you who you are.
and so what we see in Daniel chapter one
is that the Hebrews said your name is Daniel
but Babylon says
no no no no your name is Belta Chazhar
Daniel means worshipper of God
Beltas Chazar is a worshipper of a false God
we live in a world
that tries to label you
our world wants to label you
as oppressed an oppressor
Our world wants to label you by your ethnicity, by your race, by your socioeconomic status.
Our world wants to label you right now.
Are you red or are you blue?
Our world wants to label you by your orientation, by your what level you graduated from, your academic status.
Our world wants to label you by your marital status.
And even worse, oftentimes our world wants to label you by some things.
that you have done, that you are an adulterer, a liar, that you are fill in the blank.
But the good news of the gospel is only Jesus gets to tell you who you are.
That you are not your past, you're not the things you're done, you're not even primarily
one of those categories that this world puts you into.
You are primarily who Jesus says you are.
And Jesus says that you are more than a conqueror.
Jesus says that you are my brother in whom I am not ashamed.
This is, you see, Daniel, he knows first and foremost, he knows who he is,
and that begins to drive what he does.
It says, but Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food
or with the wine that he drank.
Here's what it means to resolve.
To be resolved means I am going to pre-decide.
I am going to make a decision that makes all the other decisions.
Now, what's wrong with the king's food and the king's wine?
Well, there's nothing in and of itself wrong with basically any kind of food or drink.
But what would happen here is the king, Nebuchadnezzar, they would do,
it was almost like a rip-off of the Passover mill to the false God named Marduk.
And they would prepare meat and wine, and they would offer it to this false good
named Marduk. And basically it was saying that my allegiance is to this false God. And then whatever
the food that the false God did not eat would then be dedicated to the king and his people.
The idea being is that as that food nourished you and as that food strengthened you and then you
went out and did anything successful, then the one that you would give credit to would be the
false God. And so Daniel says, no, there's only one true God. And I am resolving to not eat that food
that has been sacrificed to an idol. And so he says, he's not going to eat the king's food and he's not
going to drink the king's one. Therefore, he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to
defile himself. And God gave Daniel favor and
compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs.
And the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel,
I fear my lord the king, who assigned your food and drink,
for why should he see that you were in worse condition than the youths who are of your own age?
So you've been in danger of my head with the king.
So Daniel says, how about this?
How about I'm not eating that food?
And the eunuch, he's like, man, I appreciate your devotion to your God,
but let me tell you how this works.
in charge of your welfare. So if you don't eat this fine food and I give you not good food,
then I'm the one that's going to get in trouble after a while when you look all weak and pitiful
and everybody else is strong because we've invested a lot of money in you to be who we want you to be.
Verse 11. And Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had assigned over Daniel,
Hananiah, Michael, and Azariah, test your servants for 10 days. Let us be given
vegetables to eat and water to drink. And then let our appearance and the appearance of the
youths who eat the king's food be observed by you and deal with your servants according to what you
see. All right. So this is where the Daniel fast comes from. Technically speaking, it's not a
fast because fast is to not eat. I guess you're fasting from all drinks but water and you're
fasting from meat. But it's really more of a diet. But I want you to see here. And if you're not
on the Daniel fast with us, I would love for you to jump on. So the reason that we fast is just to tell
our flesh, no, you were not the boss of me. Just, and also fasting produces some level of suffering.
I mean, it's not as to be compared with like the suffering of Jesus, but it is supposed to remind us
that Jesus suffered in his body for us. And we're supposed to take away some things in our life
so that we would have room to add some Jesus stuff in our life.
And so again, the Daniel fast for us.
You just eat vegetables and drink water.
Now, here's the thing.
I do think we should fast.
Jesus talks about fasting.
I think we should fast.
It is a good spiritual discipline.
But there's nothing magically spiritual about eating vegetables and drinking water.
What Daniel was doing here, he was saying no to something specific in that culture that everybody else had just bought into.
And he's like, I'm not doing that.
because in doing that, I would just go with the flow, and I would defile myself in view of the Lord.
So what I want you to think about is this. What are some areas in your life? Not talking about
vegetables and meat and what you drink. And maybe what you drink. But what are some areas in your
life where you are just going with the current culture? What are some areas in our life where everybody does it?
and instead of doing what God has commanded us to do,
we're just doing what everybody else does.
Let me give you some examples that maybe you're not thinking of.
I'm not talking about like hardcore drugs and stuff.
You shouldn't do that no matter what.
But maybe in the area of time,
like the amount of effort and energy and hours you put in at work
at the expense of your family.
You see, in your mind, you're thinking,
well, if I want to get ahead, then I need to do my best
so that I can be promoted and my family is going to get the leftovers.
What if during this season of fasting,
what if you fasted from some of your work?
Now, I'm not saying to be lazy whatsoever.
I work a bunch of hours,
but what if you, like Daniel said to your boss,
I want you to test me on this?
He did it for 10 days.
Maybe you could pick between now and saturated.
And you could say, all right,
I want to be able to tell you.
my babies in. I want to be able to pick up my kids from school. I want to be able to not be out
every night of the week. And I know what some of you are saying to you. Like, if I do that,
then I'll lose my job. Daniel said, if I do this, he might lose his head. Okay? There's one.
What if it was in the things that you choose to entertain yourself with? Look, I'm not trying to be
a Pharisee here and say you can't watch it rated R movies. That's not what I mean. This is between
you and the Lord. But what if there is a bunch of stuff that you are putting in your eyes and
putting in your ears and putting in your mind, which eventually gets to your heart,
and they're just not God honoring.
And that you would decide for this season I am going to do without this portion of Netflix
entertainment because I don't think it's honoring to God.
Or what if it was the way you spent your money?
But if every time you get money, you think more is mine,
and you're spending all of your money on your own comforts.
What if you said, well, that's what everybody else in the world does.
Everybody at this level of income spends it on this level of house and car, etc.
And what if, like Daniel, you were saying, you know what,
I'm not going to defile myself with the riches of this world,
but I'm going to do things differently.
So here's the thing.
I could come up with a bunch of different ideas around maybe what that thing is.
But would you ask the Spirit of God to reveal to you?
Maybe there's something in your life.
that is in line with current culture, again,
could be time management, could be like,
when's the last time you actually took a Sabbath?
You know we're supposed to do that every week.
It could be in the way you spend money.
It could be in the way you entertain yourself
and what you're looking at online, whatever it is.
Would you, like, Daniel, resolve in your heart
that you're going to take some of those things
that have crept their way into your life
that can be very defiling things.
And then just say, you know what?
I'm going to fast from them.
I'm not going to do those things.
This is what Daniel does.
And then he even says this word.
He says, test your service for 10 days.
Test yourself.
I dare you to test yourself.
To say no to these things, not for 10 days.
We're going 21 in total, but, you know, until saturated stars.
And then see what happens.
see if God shows up in your business
and that somehow when you honor your family,
which by the way, you know a lot of people can do your job,
you're the only one that could be your kid's dad or your kid's mom.
Maybe that God would show up in your finances.
Maybe God would show up instead of entertaining yourself with garbage.
Maybe you would spend more time in his word or with him
and see what happens.
Here's what happened to Daniel.
So he, that's the eunuch, he listened to,
them in the matter, and he tested them for 10 days.
And at the end of 10 days, it was seeing that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh
than all the youths who ate the king's food. Back in the day, it was better to be fatter.
So I'd been awesome. So the steward took away their food and wine.
They were to drink, and he gave them vegetables. And as for these four youths, God gave them
learning and skill in all literature and wisdom, and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams,
and at the end of the time, when the king had commanded that they should be brought in,
the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar, and the king spoke with them,
and among all of them, none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Michel, and Azariah. Therefore,
they stood before the king. And in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of
them. He found them 10 times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in his kingdom.
You see, it is only God that elevates. So imagine. You know what you can do with 100% of you, right?
100% of your time, 100% of your money, 100% of your talents. What if you tested God and said,
God, I would rather have what you can do with me and 90% of my money, 90% of my time, 90% of my talents,
than what I can do with everything that I have.
Daniel was blessed.
My guess is you will be too.
That is really what Daniel Fast is.
So I dare you.
I dare you to ask the Spirit of God to reveal to you some area of your life
that we are not distinct from culture on
and that you would put that thing away and ask God to fill it.
Let's pray.
Father in heaven, Lord, we are,
we are like surfers at the pier that don't realize there's a current.
We're just kind of doing our thing,
and then one day we look up and we realize the current
has drifted us far away from where we wanted to be.
May that not be so in our walk with you.
Lord, I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would bring conviction in our lives,
that there would be areas financially, vocationally,
in regards to entertainment, who we hang out with,
way we spend our time, whatever it may be. But you would point out areas in our life that we should
resolve to not be defiled by and that those areas you would reclaim for your glory. We pray it in
Jesus' name. Amen.