Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] I want to share a message this morning, and I'll try and keep it short. It's been an amazing morning so far. God is doing some great things, and I really believe that this message is just going to kind of bring a close to what has been already happening. This morning. We've been looking at a series called Culture Clash, looking at the story of the exiles in Babylon, looking at the way that the world has a particular way of thinking and wants to push and press that way of thinking onto us as followers of Jesus. It's a different path, right the way Jesus says. He says it's a narrow path that leads to life, and he invites us to go on that path. But there's a broad road which has a lot of different ideas and opinions, and we want to be people that are true to God's Word, and we are faithful to His Word, and we walk and we build our relationships based on His Word.
[00:01:00] The reality is that at times we can feel a little bit like those in the exile, that we feel the pressure of Babylon squeezing in on us to change, to conform, to be a little bit like the world, a world that is trying to conform us to. To its ways. So today I want to talk about the power of a name. The power of a name. Let's read from Daniel, chapter one, verse three. If you got your Bible, give it a wave in the air. Come on. Anyone got a Bible this morning? Brilliant. Amazing.
[00:01:32] There's a dozen kilos worth of Bibles out there. Let's increase that weight for next week. Then the king ordered ashvenez. So Daniel 1:3:7. Daniel 1:3:7.
[00:01:44] Then the king 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.
[00:01:52] 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. He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians. The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king's table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king's service. Among those who were chosen were some from Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The chief official gave them new names. To Daniel, the name Belshazzar, to Hananiah, Shadrach, to Mishael, Meshach, and to Azariah, Abednego.
[00:02:38] Let's pray. Father. We thank you, Lord, for your word that leads and guides Us, we thank you that your word reveals to us truth about who you are, but also truth about the reality of the world that we live in.
[00:02:50] Father, as we unpack these verses today, would you speak to us about our response? That we would recognize that you have given us a name as Christians to be Christlike in this world and in this generation. Lord, bless this time in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:03:10] Last week I talked about the fact that the goal of the Babylonians was to take these young men, educated, well versed, great understanding, handsome like Drew Davies.
[00:03:25] These attributes were so important because they wanted to raise up a group of leaders of that generation who would then be able to inform that generation of how to live.
[00:03:38] So their goal was to indoctrinate with the things of the Babylonian kingdom and culture so that they would then in turn bring that to the Israelite people. What they didn't factor in was the sovereignty of God. As we talked about last week, that God's sovereign plan was to put these four men who were versed and educated and had incredible thinking and ability to cognitively process all of what was happening, but then also be placed in the middle of this place where they thought they were going to be indoctrinated. But they carried the spirit of God.
[00:04:13] So the sovereign plan of God overruled the plan of man.
[00:04:18] And so these men, these young men, the first thing they did is they said, we're going to change their names.
[00:04:25] Now, we don't have the same kind of weight on names as the Hebrew culture did.
[00:04:31] When you spoke somebody's name, you didn't just speak their name. You knew what that name meant.
[00:04:37] There was a value that was attached to that name. There was an identity that was attached to that name.
[00:04:43] I remember when we named our children, we gave it thought. We didn't just spin a dice or give us random children's names. We had prayed about it.
[00:04:54] So Rosie is named after her great grandma, Rosalie Joan, an amazing woman of faith who has prayed for our children and for us and for Amy all of her life.
[00:05:07] There was also a female footballer who played for New Zealand called Rosie White. But.
[00:05:12] Yeah, but apparently the football dream doesn't look like it's flowing through Rosie, but we're very happy with the young lady she's becoming.
[00:05:23] I had Josiah's name from a very young age. Even as a teenager, I said, if I ever had a boy, I'd love to name him Josiah. Because there was something about Josiah in the Bible. A young man who stood for righteousness.
[00:05:37] So his name, it holds something. And I hold that for my boy, that he would be a man who would speak and live in righteousness.
[00:05:45] Zoe, our youngest, is the meaning is life.
[00:05:50] She is life.
[00:05:53] She was a special miracle that we didn't expect. Some of, you know, our journey that we weren't able to conceive for many, many years, and we had to go through medical treatment in order to have the children we have. And then out of the blue, hello, Zoe. Hello, life. It's like it does work after all.
[00:06:13] And she is life. And she is life in our family. And the names really mean something to us. And in Hebrew culture, names carried even more of a significance than probably in the English, the British culture.
[00:06:31] I want to spend a few moments just looking at these names and see what Babylon wanted to do by taking their names and changing them to something else, hoping that identity and purpose would also change.
[00:06:43] The first thing we see is that Babylon will try to change our focus from God to man. And I'm going to look at these four names and the changes that were made and the significance of how Babylon wants to change and the culture wants to change us. I've been leading in church for over 25 years now in various capacities.
[00:07:03] The jury's still probably out as to whether we're doing a good job. Not sure. I hope we're doing okay. But can I tell you that there were many, many years in the early days where as much as I was living with the fear of the Lord and wanting to serve him and please him only, I wasn't wanting to please him only.
[00:07:22] I had this nature within me that said, I just want people to kind of like me a little bit.
[00:07:29] And so I would make decisions sometimes based on how I thought people might perceive me or might respond to me. It's a dangerous place to lead from, and it wasn't a healthy place for me to be leading from.
[00:07:47] Now, my goal is not that I want people not to like me, but my goal and my desire is that I would please the Lord as I lead others, as I serve others.
[00:07:59] That my heart is that I want to do what's right before God. And if I do what's right before God, then ultimately it's going to be right before man as well.
[00:08:10] God doesn't contradict himself. And if he is first in my focus and my priority, love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength. And if I am seeking him with all of that, then the loving, my neighbour is myself, flows very naturally from there. Now, if I am afraid of people and their response and what they think, then I will make decisions that are different based on whether they will like me or not.
[00:08:39] And so in this we see Daniel's name means God is my judge.
[00:08:48] To live like this means that I live according to what God. God says and the laws and the rules and the standard of living. I live according to how he wants me to live.
[00:09:00] The Lord is my judge. God is my judge.
[00:09:05] The challenge I find in relationships is we often get to 90% there in truth, and there's a 10% that we're not quite sure we like about a particular person, the way they behave, the way they act, the way they react.
[00:09:22] But we're a little bit afraid if we go and have that conversation with that person, that maybe they won't like us.
[00:09:28] But it might be, if we are the person that is in their life for a reason, that God is asking us to bring that to somebody else and say, hey, can we talk about it?
[00:09:42] Had a conversation this week. Somebody said, hey, can I just bring up something that. That happened before.
[00:09:47] I just want to check that we're not out of sorts.
[00:09:51] It was so nice to have that conversation to realize that, hey, if there was a misunderstanding, let's make it right, but let's live in such a way that we would have God as our judge.
[00:10:06] So what does Babylon do? Let's change Daniel's name from God is my judge to protect the king.
[00:10:16] Noble right.
[00:10:19] Slight change, significant change.
[00:10:23] All of a sudden, Daniel's name represents not the Lord is my judge, but let's protect the king, King Nebuchadnezzar.
[00:10:33] No longer is Daniel living to please God, but he's now living to please the king.
[00:10:41] Or that's what they hoped the name change would do to his character.
[00:10:46] What the world's culture tries to do is influence our life. So instead of living according to the standard of God, we end up living according to the standard of the world.
[00:10:57] Feelings, experiences.
[00:10:59] And we start to make our decisions based on what we see and we hear and we perceive.
[00:11:06] Here's what I know to be true. Often what God says is right, the world says is wrong.
[00:11:11] And what God says is wrong, the world says is right. Anyone experience that, that clash of culture that says, do it that way, it's okay, if it feels good, do it.
[00:11:27] But God brings a standard that cuts across my comfort, sometimes my initial pleasure or whatever it is.
[00:11:38] And there's an invitation that God is saying, let me be judged.
[00:11:44] I'll tell you what we do well to let God be judged and not be judged ourselves, Right?
[00:11:53] I know I'm so guilty of looking at somebody and casting a judgment on what I think about them to guard my heart.
[00:12:03] Sometimes people come and talk to me about someone else and the issue they have with them or whatever it is. And my response is, normally if I'm not a part of the problem, not a part of the solution, then I'm probably not a part of this conversation.
[00:12:17] Happy to go and talk to you with that person.
[00:12:20] Let's have that conversation, but don't come and gossip to me.
[00:12:25] Come on, be a people that are brave enough to have that conversation with others. And with each of these thoughts, I want to ask a question of ourselves.
[00:12:35] And here's the question with this one around changing our focus from God to man.
[00:12:41] Is there an area of our lives that we've been living to please man rather than God?
[00:12:48] Just take a moment to consider that.
[00:12:51] Is there anything in our life where we've actually, we probably should have said exactly what we needed to say or make a decision.
[00:13:04] God, would you help us to live for you, that we would please you, not please man?
[00:13:11] The second thing we see is Babylon wants to forget what God has done, wants to make us forget what God has done.
[00:13:21] In our role of being in church, we get to hear some incredible stories, testimonies of God's goodness, his faithfulness, of healings, of miracles, of provision.
[00:13:33] It's amazing just hearing the stories of what God has done.
[00:13:37] But can I tell you, we've also been in this journey long enough that sometimes we talk to people who have had God do something so miraculous in their life, it's undeniable.
[00:13:48] And then a year down the track they go, I'm out. I'm done.
[00:13:53] Not going to trust in God. It's not even real. Faith doesn't mean anything to me.
[00:13:59] Maybe that's someone you know. Maybe that's your journey. Maybe that's you right now.
[00:14:04] My friend and previous pastor, Steve Green, he preached here back in May.
[00:14:10] He calls it grace amnesia, where we forget what God has done.
[00:14:16] We forget the things that God has done in our life.
[00:14:20] I've shared this before. One of the saddest verses in the Bible, Judges 2:10.
[00:14:24] And after that whole generation, this is Joshua's generation, had been gathered to their ancestors. Another generation grew up who neither knew the Lord nor what he had done for Israel.
[00:14:37] It is possible that we can see the hand of God on our lives and then just walk a couple of steps down the path and go, today's not good day.
[00:14:50] So therefore, everything that God did There I forget there's a reason. When they came up out of the Jordan River, Joshua goes back and he says, I want you to go bring out a stone. Every tribe to bring out a stone. They built a memorial to say, this is what God has done.
[00:15:11] I think some of us, we need to go back to the memorial stones, the memories of what God has done.
[00:15:19] I don't know why God doesn't answer my prayers immediately, but that's really good that I'm not God.
[00:15:27] We'll all be very thankful for that.
[00:15:29] Because God, in his sovereignty, he picks the timing for the miracles.
[00:15:34] He allows it to happen as and when. And we can trust him. That's what we learned last week. We can trust the sovereignty of God even if we don't see the outcome. And we might not even see it in our lifetime, but we can trust him that he is faithful.
[00:15:53] Hananiah means God has been gracious.
[00:15:57] Has God been gracious to you?
[00:16:00] Imagine walking up to Hananiah and starting a conversation, hey, God has been gracious.
[00:16:06] Tell me how God has been gracious.
[00:16:09] That's why I love the testimonies.
[00:16:11] I love hearing the testimony of what God has done in somebody's life. It's a reminder again, God does a miracle in people's lives.
[00:16:22] But Babylon gives them the name of Shadrach, which means under the command of Akku, or the servant of Akku, which is the moon God.
[00:16:31] The culture was trying to take away the foundation of the grace of God and then get him to trust in the thing that he could see.
[00:16:41] Babylon will try to erase the memory of what God has done and get you to focus on something that you can see. We saw that as the Israelites, they were at the base of the camp, the base of the mountain, Sinai.
[00:16:59] Moses is up getting the law from God. And they go, we need a God that we can see. I'm like, I can hear the mountain. It's like we're right here in the presence of God. But they wanted something. They could see this whole thing. I can't see God. So we can't be real.
[00:17:16] Have you just looked at the universe?
[00:17:18] Have you looked at how strategically placed every planet and star and just. It's all hanging in this perfect balance that if one is out of line, everything's gone, right down to the intricacy of the cell within a human body, the mark of a creator, a designer, an intelligent designer walking down the beach and you pick up a Rolex watch, and you go, wow, what a fluke.
[00:17:50] Look at what the sand Created. It's like, no, there's intelligent design there. If you can't look at the world and think, there's intelligent design, this doesn't come out of atoms coming together and blowing up and exploding. There is something about creation that just has to wow you and ask that question. There must be someone greater than me.
[00:18:16] Babylon wants to try and wipe the memory of the graciousness of God and replace with little G gods.
[00:18:23] Our challenge is to remain in a posture that says, but by the grace of God. I go, if it wasn't for the grace of God, I would not be here.
[00:18:33] Come on. Some of us have got a testimony of God saved me, God healed me, God provided for me, God helped me forgive somebody who had hurt me.
[00:18:43] That's the grace of God in action.
[00:18:47] So my question this morning is, where in my life is God calling me to remember his grace?
[00:18:54] Come on. Even right now. Come on. Remember just one time when God did that, his faithfulness, that miraculous provision.
[00:19:03] You're like, I need money. And wow, there it is.
[00:19:07] That time where you were at the lowest point of your life and somebody calls you up and says, hey, I was thinking about you.
[00:19:15] We should catch up for a coffee.
[00:19:17] Come on. God has been so gracious to us.
[00:19:23] Third thing, almost there, is that Babylon wants to erode God's authority.
[00:19:30] Babylon wants to erode God's authority.
[00:19:34] The Bible is God's truth.
[00:19:36] It's our direction for living, established right from the beginning. Genesis 1:1 and John 1:1 link.
[00:19:46] In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So at that point where he was creating that the Word was established, was already established, and His Word is still good.
[00:20:03] We don't need a Bible 2.0.
[00:20:07] There will be different translations of the Bible and there's probably some stuff in modern vernacular that might help us identify and connect. But we don't need another Bible. We don't need a new Bible because the one we've got has served generation after generation after generation, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob with the stories that have been told.
[00:20:29] And it's a word that's filled with stories of success and failure, humanity that fails. But God comes and rescues and forgives and heals and sets us free.
[00:20:43] And the Word of God is so faithful.
[00:20:47] But the world wants to take away God's authority and erode that authority.
[00:20:53] Mishael means who is what God is.
[00:20:58] We're very similar to Michael, who is like God.
[00:21:03] God is holy God is righteous. God created a name, Mishael, to be like him.
[00:21:11] The world says, mishael, become like the world. Not like God, become like the world.
[00:21:18] But God says, be set apart and be holy as I am holy.
[00:21:22] And so what do they give the name to? To Mishael?
[00:21:26] They give him the name Meshach.
[00:21:28] In other words, we are going to deplatform the authority of God because it means who is what? AKU is aku. Remember the moon God.
[00:21:41] Babylon is deliberately trying to remove God from the authority of these young men and the authority in our lives.
[00:21:51] What's interesting is that aku, the moon God, what does the moon do?
[00:21:56] It adjusts the tides in and out.
[00:22:00] Have we found that culture kind of comes in and out.
[00:22:03] Have you ever been on a beach one day and then you go back the next day, and all of a sudden there's actually a path of stream that's now running through the beach?
[00:22:15] I remember after one big storm back in New Zealand, one of our beach's most beautiful beaches was completely changed.
[00:22:23] The flow of the water and the tide, it all completely changed. And the shape of the beach was massively affected.
[00:22:31] And this is what the world will do.
[00:22:34] The world wants to suck us in and pull us in and push us out, changing the solidity of what we believe in.
[00:22:46] And it will change as often as the day changes and the tide comes and goes.
[00:22:51] Just watch the culture trends that change now with social media. Those cultures, they can shift so quickly.
[00:23:00] Like a thought process can be in the whole of the population that are online, in the space of one viral meme or something like that, or one statement that could be made, and a whole group of people can be captivated by that thought and embedded into that thought.
[00:23:18] But then the title change again and there'll be something else and there'll be another thing.
[00:23:22] But we want to be grounded on the word of God, faithful and true.
[00:23:30] How do we solve this issue? We make certain that our truth is coming from the one we can trust.
[00:23:36] Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life.
[00:23:43] There's not lots of ways to get to the Father. There's one way, and that's in and through Jesus.
[00:23:51] And we don't just accept Jesus as the person most people can say, I really like Jesus.
[00:23:58] He treated people well, he was kind. He did miraculous things. What a story.
[00:24:04] We have to accept Jesus, the word.
[00:24:07] That's all of it. It's like, yeah, but there's bits I don't really agree with.
[00:24:12] We accept Jesus. The fullness of who he is. And his Word and those bits we wrestle with. Let's have those conversations.
[00:24:20] Let's talk about those bits we don't get, we don't understand. Cause I don't get it all.
[00:24:25] I'm still wrestling with pieces, parts of the Word that I don't fully understand. But let's wrestle with that, not dismiss what we don't know about God for the things we do know about God.
[00:24:38] We know so much about who he is, but we can dismiss all of that with one thing that just kind of catches us off guard and we can't quite get it or understand it.
[00:24:48] Can I encourage us? Let's wrestle with that.
[00:24:51] But don't make that our priority. Come back to what we know to be true about God. So my question is the band come this morning. How can I align myself with or realign myself to the Word of God?
[00:25:04] Have we drifted when we pick up our phone in the morning?
[00:25:09] Are we going to the Word before we pick up our phone?
[00:25:12] Or are we going to the Word on our phone? But we get distracted because we forget to open the Bible and we go to whatever else.
[00:25:22] Maybe some of us, we just need to open the Word and start our day and make a decision. This will be how my day begins.
[00:25:31] God first. The Word first.
[00:25:34] Culture and generations may change. Babylon may say one thing this week and this month, but can I tell you the Word of God is faithful and you can build your life and your children's children's children's lives upon the Word of God. And can I say parents and grandparents who have faithfully taught the Word of God in your home.
[00:25:56] Thank you for the fights that you've had with the kids that don't want to listen to another devotion at the dinner table. Keep going.
[00:26:06] Keep bringing the Word of God. I remember my dad, he bought. He would show us videos of Francis Schaeffer. An amazing. How many people have heard of Francis Schaeffer? Yeah, amazing theologian. I was 11 and I. It just.
[00:26:24] And all I noticed was him kind of nodding his head and so just.
[00:26:30] And I remember as an 11 year old going, I don't want to listen to this.
[00:26:35] But my dad persevered.
[00:26:37] We sat there and to this day there's a sermon etched in my mind as an 11 year old that didn't really want to hear that about a plumb line that was true and immovable.
[00:26:53] It just stuck. Something about that stuck in my life.
[00:27:00] And I'm so thankful for a father who persevered even when we didn't want it.
[00:27:07] Come on. Be faithful, be faithful, press through.
[00:27:12] There's ways we can make it more enjoyable as well.
[00:27:16] Little project that I'm working on at the moment. I want to help families with discipleship at home.
[00:27:23] You know, go deep into the truth of God. But it's where fun, faith and family connect.
[00:27:28] It's that we're raising our families in a way that makes sense, but it's also solid to the truth of the Word.
[00:27:36] But keep persevering, keep pressing in.
[00:27:39] And the last one is that the world wants to redefine wisdom.
[00:27:43] Azariah means God has helped me, or God is a help to me.
[00:27:49] Let me remind From Psalm 46:1, God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
[00:27:57] The trouble is Azariah's name was changed to Abednego, which means servant of the God Nabu.
[00:28:04] Now Nabu, the God was the Babylonian God of wisdom and literature.
[00:28:11] So the world was saying we're going to move from the word of God to the culture of the Word of the world, to the world's learning and understanding and wisdom at the heart of it.
[00:28:28] Babylon wants to get us to trust other things for leading in direction in our lives.
[00:28:35] We had a fun time at ya. How many were at YA On Thursday night we had the emoji challenge where we were given emojis and we had to work out what Bible verse was there. And we were pretty blessed. We had a couple of geniuses on the table with us, but one of them was Proverbs 3, 5, 6. Come on. How many young adults know that? 1. Trust in the Lord with all your in all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will make your trust in the Lord with all your heart.
[00:29:12] Lean not on your own understanding. My mind is not good if I trust my mind and my heart.
[00:29:21] But if I can trust the Word of God and trust his leading and his guiding, we're going to be all right.
[00:29:27] We're gonna be okay.
[00:29:29] How do we gain that wisdom?
[00:29:32] Proverbs 9:10. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.
[00:29:40] Friends, God wants to do a work in our lives.
[00:29:43] Would we give him permission?
[00:29:45] Would we choose him above all else, forsaking everyone else and everything else? Would we choose his wisdom above the wisdom of the world? My question as we bring this to a close. Am I trusting God with all of my heart or my own understanding?
