God in the Waste Land

6 · Exegetical work on verses 1-2 setting up audience expectation of divine rescue, then subverting it—the text announces defeat, not deliverance, as God's act

Who really reigns? In verses one and two, we see that in the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it. Now, this happens a number of times in the Old Testament. God's people are about to be destroyed, and God rescues them. And you think, okay, great. Well, there must be some miraculous victory. Not this time. The Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand. Even some of the most precious holy treasures of the house of God get carried away into the hall of this foreign king.

7 · Hypothetical scenario attempting cultural translation of exile's trauma for American audience—acknowledged as inadequate because exile contains theological weight American experience lacks

Now, I've looked this week for some kind of illustration to kind of get a handle on what this would have been like for those living through this, like Daniel. But there really is no american illustration that's equivalent to this. We are a unique country in that we have not been conquered. We don't know what it's like. I mean, I can tell you, okay, it would be like America losing world War two and seeing the White House draped in nazi flags with people singing Heil Hitler in the front White House lawn. It would be kind of like that. But that doesn't even fully capture the effect of this, because for God's people to lose this land was hundreds of years of history and promises.

8 · Redemptive-historical contextualization tracing the arc from Abrahamic promise through exodus to exile—showing Daniel's generation experiencing the undoing of God's people/place/rule structure

Remember that the entire history of God's people was the story of how God called Abraham and then eventually called his people out of slavery in Egypt. And God brought them out of Egypt powerfully. And what was God's promise? That he would not just rescue them from Egypt, but that he would bring them to a promised land. And in that you see the whole story of the Bible, that humanity was made to dwell in God's place, as God's people under God's rule. But sin kicked them out of the garden. Humanity kicked itself out of a garden, if you could say it that way. And yet through this people, God is promising, in a sense, to recreate a place where God's people would dwell in, in God's place, under God's rule. And you think, this is it, the promised land. This is finally it, the Lord's beginning to restore and promises to Abraham. Through him, all the nations would be blessed. And you think, okay, here we go. Only to see, at about 1000 BC, the nation go into decline as a result of sin. The nation splits in two. The northern kingdom in 722 is, and I'm not exaggerating when I say this, obliterated by the assyrian empire, they leave nothing, essentially, of the nation, leaving only the tribe of Judah hanging on as the last tribe standing of the originals in the world. They hang on through a period of decline until, in 586 BC, Babylon comes and conquers the rest. And these young men, like Daniel, were born, remember, in the promised land, as God's people, in God's place, meant to be under God's rule, only to be snatched away from God's place, only to be, as we'll see in a second, told that they are no longer God's people and that they are no longer under God's rule.

9 · Doctrinal assertion answering the sovereignty question—verse 2's "the Lord gave" reverses apparent meaning of verse 1, establishing divine agency behind exile and introducing Daniel 4:26 as controlling thesis

And so here's the question that beginning of Daniel asks us. Is God no longer on the throne? What happened? Was he out to lunch? Was he on a break? And he comes back and he's like, oh, no, I forgot about Babylon. Right? Was he caught off guard by this? Did he do his best but lose the arm wrestling match against the babylonian gods? We're left to wonder what's going on. Things seem so out of control. In fact, the one who seems to be in the driver's seat is Nebuchadnezzar. Until you read verse two. Look at verse two. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim into his hand. Now that reinterprets the entire beginning of the book of Daniel, because we no longer assume, oh, they're in, these people are in the hands of Nebuchadnezzar because Nebuchadnezzar snatched them. No, that's not what happened. These people and these events happening are happening because God gave this nation into his hands. In fact, the theme of the entire first six chapters of Daniel. So the first six chapters are this narrative arc of various things happening in history with Nebuchadnezzar and other kings. And it's this struggle, in a sense, this power struggle between the king of Babylon or the kings of Persia and God himself. And they go back and forth. But the summary conclusion is Daniel chapter four, verse 26. It is two words. So if you want a two word summary of the book of Daniel, you're like, I can't do the sentence you did earlier. It's too much, too long. I need two words. Okay, here they are. Two word summary of the entire book of Daniel 426. Heaven rules, God reigns. That's the point of the Book of Daniel.

10 · Extended quotation from Duguid applying divine sovereignty to the full spectrum of human experience—from trivial to catastrophic—with scriptural warrant and pastoral reassurance

We are meant to see that even despite appearances to the contrary, God is in control. Ian Dogood, my favorite Old Testament professor that I had privilege to learn from in his commentary in the Book of Daniel, said this. He writes this during its hardest moments, life often seems out of control. Our fate may sometimes seem to lie in the hands of hostile people or in the outworking of impersonal forces of one kind or another. Yet the reality is that our every experience in this world, from the apparently coincidental at one end of the spectrum to the determined acts of wicked men and women on the other, lies under the control of our sovereign God. The sparrow does not fall to the ground without his permission. Matthew 1029, which demonstrates that even the most trivial of events are within his view. Everything that we experience in life, no matter how difficult or apparently meaningless it may seem, is God's purpose for us. For believers in Christ, each circumstance is the Lord's means of furthering his sanctifying goals, meaning his goals of helping us look more like him. He has not abandoned or forgotten us. On the contrary, he will walk through these trials with us and preserve us through them. Bye, his grace. Now that is an encouraging word. When life seems out of control, when it seems circumstances around us are meaningless when it seems our fate is determined by wicked people around us. No. Daniel says, the Lord reigns. Let the earth rejoice.

11 · Canonical move to Joseph narrative addressing theodicy question—establishing dual-intention framework (human evil intent + divine good intent) as hermeneutical key for reading sovereignty in suffering

Now, the difficulty, though, is probably obvious. Well, if the Lord reigns, how can that be true if so many bad things happen? How can that be true if evil exists in the world? Possibly be that God is in control? Because it sure seems like he's not. Well, I want to direct you. I'm going to kind of skip ahead through some of the themes in Daniel. I'm going to redirect you to another person who was taken from his land and his people and found himself under a foreign rule. And that is Joseph. Now, Joseph plucked. Remember his story? He is nothing. He doesn't find himself in Egypt on a sightseeing viking river cruise. He finds himself in Egypt because his brothers, who hate him, sell him into slavery. And then in slavery, he is falsely accused of rape, so sinks from slavery to maximum security prison. Now, you might assume, based on those events, Joseph is just outside of God's control. Maybe the Lord's reign only extends within a certain circle around Abraham. And the Lord's just like, I just. I can't reach that far. That's Egypt. I'm just. I can't. I'm sorry, I'm doing. I can't get over there. You might think that, but in a beautiful reversal of fortune, we see that Lord had a plan all along. And Joseph is brought from slavery and prison up to being elevated as the second in command of Egypt. And his brothers come to him starving, asking him for food. And Joseph makes one of the most extraordinary statements in the Bible that hang over his story, but also hangover stories like the book of Daniel. He tells his brothers this. You meant this for evil, but God meant it for good. Meaning that there is one level of intention in the world and people are responsible for it, that people experience terrible things, people hurt other people. And it's right to say, on one level, things happen because the world is fallen and evil people are out with evil intent, and Satan is raging against humanity. That is true. But behind all that goes on, there is another intention, a divine intention, a, you could say it this way, a superintention over those things. And God reigns over those bad things for his good purposes. You meant it for evil. But goddess, now look, we may not. We face difficulty and we will see this in the book of Daniel. We may not understand what God is doing, but that does not mean he's doing nothing.

12 · Doctrinal assertion establishing epistemological humility—our incomprehension of God's purposes does not equal His inactivity—then introducing Graham quotation addressing Cold War-era sovereignty anxiety

Okay, super important distinction. Our tendency and temptation is if I don't understand what God's doing. He must not be doing anything right. Untrue, according to the book of Daniel and the entire Bible. Listen, our difficulties we face is not that God is not reigning, is that we don't understand how he is or what he is doing. But the reality is this. We know in part, but he knows it all. We understand in part, but he understands it all. We see what's right in front of us the next moment, the next week, but he sees the scope of all eternity and our lives before him. Thank God that he is not like us. Thank God that he sees the whole, where we see the part. That he understands the whole, where we understand the part. Amen. Thank God that he is God and that he reigns. Now, I've been saving this quote from Billy Graham for a while. For the beginning of this. I've been tempted to use it other times, but I was like, I gotta save it for Daniel one. So here it is, the long awaited quote. Saw a, a quote from, I mean, a clip from him preaching in the 1970s. And as you can imagine, a lot of people would come to Billy Graham and say, what is God doing in the world? What's going on over here? What's going on over here? How's the cold war going to end? Right? You gotta remember that we were, like, at the brink of nuclear war. So people are asking Billy Graham, this is out of control, what's going on? And this is his response, and I just love it. He says this. When people want to know what God is doing today, he says this. If God told us today what he's doing in the world, we wouldn't believe it.

13 · Continuation of Graham quotation asserting exclusive trust in God's throne amid political instability—then application to contemporary moment with identical logic

Do you believe that God's given up and God's abdicated and God's left the throne? He hasn't. He's still on the throne. And those of us who know him put our trust in him and him alone. Now, look, he wrote this in the seventies, said this in the seventies, just as true today. He writes, or he says, I don't put my trust in Washington. I don't put my trust in the United Nations. I don't put my trust in myself. I don't put my trust in my money. I put my trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, because when all the rest of it fails and crumbles and shatters, he'll be there. The Lord reigns. Heaven rules. And despite all appearances to the contrary, God is in control.

14 · Structural pivot distinguishing reign (positional authority) from rule (functional authority)—setting up second major question about what actually governs Daniel's life in exile

Who really reigns? The Lord. The Lord reigns. Second question, who really rules? Now, this may feel like a fine distinction, but I think it's an important one because it is possible to reign in name only to occupy a throne. Right? You'd have this a lot in the ancient world where the throne would be technically occupied by a king. It's like, oh, yeah, sure, he's in charge, but you realize their country is actually being run by all the noble people or by their family or by the religious leaders, or they're under the thumb of some other king. They're not really ruling. They might sit on the throne, but they're not actually ruling.

15 · Exegetical work on verses 6-7 exposing the renaming as identity warfare—Babylon seeks total absorption (land, culture, hearts, worship) signaled by imposing names honoring babylonian gods

And the question here is this, when it comes to the lives of the people of God, like Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego, will babylon rule in their life, or will the Lord God of heaven and earth rule in their life? And this is the central conflict. What is going to functionally rule in the hearts of God's people? In the lives of God's people? That's the core conflict of the book of Daniel. Will God rule or will Babylon rule? And you see the conflict begin right from verses six and seven, where you see, you see this double naming thing going on where they have names. It's not like they don't have names. Like they showed up without names. No. The chief of the eunuchs sees that they have names and goes, nope, not those names. I'm gonna give you new names now. You might wonder, okay, what's going on here? Here's what's going on. These new names are all related to the babylonian gods. They're being named for gods like Marduk and Bel and Nebo. Right. This is part of Babylon's strategy to not only conquer people, but to absorb people, not just to conquer their land, but to conquer their culture. Not just to conquer their land, but to conquer their hearts. Not just to conquer their land, but to conquer their worship. They want everything from this people. And they are, in a sense, claimed by God at the beginning of the story with names that reference their God. And then their counterclaims, their identities and lives are counterclaimed by Babylon and Babylon's gods. This is the core conflict. Who will really rule in Daniel's life? Who will rule in Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego's life?

16 · Brief applicatory turn asserting Daniel's conflict is not historical curiosity but present reality—identity warfare is the normal condition of Christian existence

Now, this, though, got to be honest, this is not just a conflict in Daniel, where we're kind of going, oh, that's interesting. I wonder what's going to happen up there. No, this is the conflict of our lives. This is where we live.

17 · Theological exposition of Romans 12 with extended Play-Doh analogy—establishing that formation is inescapable (everyone is being molded), so the only question is which mold

Romans chapter twelve warns us, do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Now, that word conformed, literally is the word for molded. Being molded. Right. I don't know how we thought, I thought we eliminated it, but somehow in our household, we have three kids. We have putty again, like play doh stuff, gak stuff, if you're from the nineties, like this oozy stuff. And I was like, I thought we got rid of all this, and somehow it's back. And our kids love to take it and mold it into different shapes. And if you get one of those little, like, play doh molds, you can, like, make food or whatever. Don't eat it and don't let your kids eat it. It's not great. And it's so, you know, you put the clay there and you, you stamp it and you pull it apart and it's stamped into that mold. Right. What Romans is saying is that every moment that you live in this world, the world is seeking to squeeze you into its mold, regardless of whether you realize it. See, a lot of people will say, okay, well, I don't know if I want to go to church, because at church, like, church is bossy. God is bossy. He's always telling you how to live your life and do this and don't do that. And the church is saying, do this and don't do that. Here's the reality. Everyone is doing that, right? The reality is the world out there is squeezing you into its mold. You just don't realize it. Your only choice is what mold do you want to be squeezed into? Do you want to look like Jesus in the end or like the world? Right? Do you want to look like the Lord and his character in the end, or like the babylonian empire around you? That's the conflict in this book, but it's also the conflict in our hearts.

18 · Cultural reference to Dylan establishing the universality of allegiance—neutrality is impossible, everyone serves something, so the question is what

What is going to functionally rule and reign. The great american philosopher Bob Dylan once said, and I have an argument for that, you can talk to me afterwards if you don't believe it. He wrote a song with the persistent lyric, you gotta serve somebody. It may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody. And the whole, the verses are all about like, you can be a pauper, you can be a king, you can be poor, you can be a businessman, you can have a fancy car, you can have no car, you can have influence or have nothing. Doesn't matter. You gotta serve somebody. Something is exerting its force in your life. Something is being. Something is shaping and rearranging your life. So what is it?

19 · Extended application cataloging the forces shaping allegiance (social media, shows, workplace, family, news) and exposing the gap between confessing God's reign and living under His rule—warns that Daniel will demand examination of actual lordship in practical life

And here's the difficulty. This is where the book of Daniel is gonna press on us. Something is gonna shape our allegiances. It's gonna shape our jobs, it's gonna shape our relationships. It's going to shape what we spend our money on. It's going to shape what we spend our time on. Right? Because everything in the world is seeking to squeeze you into a mold. It is the people you follow on social media. It is the shows you watch. It is the culture of your office and workplace. It is your extended family. Sometimes all of it is the news websites you're reading. All of it is squeezing you into a mold. The question is, what kind? Because it is possible. It is possible to bear the name Daniel. The Lord judges and then live like he doesn't. It's possible to confess with your mouth, the Lord reigns. But if you look in your life, what's ruling over you is something completely different. Something else is squeezing you into its mold. What would that be? This is, I think, what the Lord's going to do for us. Sometimes we come to Daniel for like, an encouraging story about how God never lets anything bad happen to us, even if we get thrown to lions. And what we end up with is the Lord pressing and saying, let's review your bank statement together and your Internet search history together. And you're like, I signed up for an encouraging story about not dying. And he's like, yep. Because here's the reality. If the Lord reigns, he must reign in our lives. He must rein in the details of what we do and how we think and how we live. It's good news, but it lays a claim on us.

20 · Interrogative application listing potential functional lords (relationships, career, wealth, fear) and posing the diagnostic question—is God actually on the throne of your life?

So what would that be? A relationship? Is that what's ruling you? A dream, a career, a hope for wealth and success, worldly values? What's shaping you? It could even be a negative thing, like fear, right? Maybe fear is what's ruling your life. You're afraid of, of losing someone. You're afraid of being single. Whatever it is, is the one on the throne of the universe, the one on the throne of your life. That's the question the book of Daniel asks us.

21 · Structural pivot to third governing question—shifting from reign (God's authority) and rule (functional lordship) to trust (human response)

Third and last question. Third and last question. Who really trusts?

22 · Exegetical exposition of Hebrew names revealing theological tension—each name affirms a divine attribute the exile appears to contradict, forcing the question of whether God's promises are void

Look, one of the ways that this book will push on us and is pushing on us from the opening seven verses is it asks us, what does it look like to really trust the Lord? What does that look like? Because that struggle, that tension is embedded from the opening verses. I want you to understand what the meaning of the names of these men is so you can see how they would grow up. Wondering, is my name really true? So, Daniel, his name meant, God is my judge. Don't you think he would wonder, is God really a judge? I'm in Babylon. Hananiah's name meant God is gracious. Hannah and I would look around, living in Babylon conformed to it, wondering, is God really gracious? Is what his grace looks like. Mishael meant, who is what God is? Meaning God is the strongest and most omnipotent. And he's wondering, well, the vessels of the house of the Lord are in the palace of a foreign pagan king. Is that true? Azariah meant Yahweh is my helper. Do you think he would wonder, growing up, is God really helping us? Doesn't look like it. Do you see the tension embedded in those names? In fact, it also records not just their names, but they were of the tribe of Judah, right? It connects them right back into the history of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And in many ways, it could feel like that designation of the tribe of Judah is just a cruel joke, because what happened to the tribe of Judah, oh, by the way, it got obliterated. Doesn't exist anymore. Well, I'm from this country. Yeah, that doesn't exist anymore. I was from this family. No, not anymore. Right. And you'd wonder, like, do we. How can I trust the Lord living in the middle of Babylon, wondering where all of this is going. Wondering if God will keep his promise to Abraham, to, through this family, preserve it and bless the world. Wondering if he would keep his promise to David, that someone from David's line would always sit on the throne. Because it doesn't look like it. Wondering if the promises for the entirety of the scriptures would ever come true or if they would be void. That would be the struggle for these young men growing up.

23 · Assertion defining genuine trust as belief before resolution—contrasting our knowledge of Daniel's ending with Daniel's lived uncertainty, demanding trust in God's promises without seeing the mechanism

What does it look like to really trust God? It looks like trusting God in verse seven before you know the rest of the story. Because here's the reality. When we come to the book of Daniel, we want to go like, hey, psst. You're going to be okay. Like, it's going to be cool. Like, thumbs up, you know? And they're like, what? You're going to get thrown to the lions. What? But you're going to live, okay? And you guys are going to get thrown into a fire. So how? It's going to kill people, throwing you into the fire. I'm what? But you're not going to die. What? Right? It's just we know the end of the story and here's the reality we often want to redefine. Trust in God to be. Once I see the end of the story, I put my faith in him. Once I'm at the end of the story, it's like, okay, phew. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Like, it doesn't take a ton of trust for me to step down onto this step. Cause I can see it, right? Like, if my trust definition is from here to here, right. That's kind of what we'd prefer in the christian life, right? It's like, lord, I trust you for this step. I believe it's there. Okay, good. It's there. Right. It's way harder to fall off a cliff wondering if anything's gonna be at the bottom, right? Like, that's the reality. So what does it look like to really trust the Lord? It looks like trusting him now to fulfill his promises, in his timing, in his wisdom, and in his way, even when we have no idea how he'll do it, that is what Daniel will push on. Cause we'll see for these first six chapters. These men are commendable and amazing examples of trust in Goddesse. When they cannot see the result. They trust in God before they know the end of the story, and we are called to do the same.

24 · Doxological assertion celebrating God's perfect faithfulness across Scripture—no broken promises, making Him uniquely trustworthy and Daniel a sustained witness to this character

Now, the advantage that we have, though, is that we have the entirety of the scriptures to look back on and see that God is trustworthy, to see that there is not one promise that God makes in this book that he has broken yet, and I don't think he will. There is not one promise. This is true, that he makes, that he breaks ever, right? No person can make that claim. No nation can make that claim. No force can make that claim. The Lord is trustworthy. And this story tells us a chapter after chapter. This book tells us chapter after chapter. You can trust him. He's faithful. He keeps his promises, even when you don't understand, even when it seems like things are out of control. He has the reins of history. He's pulling the threads of life together, and he'll be faithful to you, man, don't we need that reminder?

25 · Christological move establishing the cross as supreme proof of God's better-than-expected faithfulness—what first-century Jews wanted (political deliverance) God exceeded infinitely (cosmic redemption), validating trust in His superior plans

And we have one secret weapon in a sense that Daniel and his friends did not have. And here's the secret weapon we have. We live on the other side of the cross of Jesus Christ, right? Because is not the cross the greatest example of God working in unexpected ways, in unexpected timing, through unexpected means to do what we don't understand, and yet it's all for our good and far better than we could have imagined. Look, if you had asked somebody in ad, you know, 30. What do you want from the Lord? They would have said, okay, I know what I want from the Lord. I want God's people, God's place, God's rule, right? I want to kick all the Romans out. I want to own the promised land again, and I want the Old Testament laws to be reinforced. And I want my kids to grow up in a free promised land. So in their generation, until they die, they're under the Lord's rule. Now. Is that a bad thing? That's not a bad thing. But do you see what the Lord did? He said, okay, you're thinking way too small. You're going to be God's people, but so will people from every tribe and tongue and people and language for all eternity. You're going to be in God's place, but it's not going to be a little piece of this fallen and broken world. It is going to be in a renewed and glorious new creation. And you're going to be under God's rule, not externally, but internally, because the presence of God himself is going to dwell with you in your heart, and you will dwell with him and see his face for all eternity. That is what I'm sending my son to do. You want a warrior king to deliver you from one earthly empire? I am sending a suffering servant to bring you to glory for all eternity. Right? That is what the Lord has done through the cross of Jesus Christ. That is what the Lord has shown us. And so we have the benefit of looking at the book of Daniel through the lens of the cross of Jesus Christ, going, okay, we may not understand the timing or the way or the means, but we understand the Lord and we know his character and we know he keeps his promises. And if he does not keep them in the way that we would want him to, it must be because he will keep them better than we can imagine.

26 · Propositional answer to third question—trust is characterized by belief in God's character prior to observable resolution

Who really trusts God? Those who see his character and put their trust in him before they see the end of the story.

27 · Extended personal anecdote about accidentally sitting in the senior pastor's chair at an influential church—initial embarrassment turns to relief upon witnessing the complexity and weight of decisions the chair represents

All right, now let me close with this. Yeah. I'm gonna give you one final image that I think could be helpful here. A number of years ago, I was invited to sit in on a pastor's meeting at a very influential and kind of famous church in the Washington, DC area. I had never, you know, I wasn't part of the church, and I knew one of their pastors. He invited me as a young pastor to come sit in and just see how they operate. And so I thought, man, this is an amazing opportunity. And so these guys, you know, many people in their staff, they were, you know, they wrote books that lots of christians read, and the one main teacher and senior pastor of the church was really well known. And I thought, man, this is unbelievable. So I made sure to get there early, right? I'm not gonna be late to this. So I got there early, and I saw this, a bunch of chairs arranged in kind of circles. And I was like, okay, cool. So I sat down, and as guys filtered in, some of them looked at me a little uncomfortably. And I was like, I'm looking around, like, am I? I've got, like, okay, is there any, you know? And so finally, I'm getting a little nervous. And finally a pastor comes in and says, son, that seat's taken. And I did not realize, but I had sat right down in the middle of the room because all of the chairs were arranged in governmental functions because they had a large group of elders. And so they were arranged real specifically. And the chair I was sitting in was the moderator's chair, the senior pastor's chair, from which he would lead the meetings. And so I was ushered graciously into a seat in the back and sat there happily. And within minutes, I thought, I'm really glad I moved chairs, because I got to see their elders meeting start, and all of a sudden, everything starts just flying right. There are big budget decisions with a lot of money at stake. There are theological issues with major implications for the life of the church. There are church discipline situations and care situations and difficult divorce and remarriage situations and confronting people about sin situations and counseling and ministries and changes and somebody leaving and somebody getting hired, and all of this is going on, and I'm looking at that chair thinking, I'm really glad I'm not in that chair. That chair is not a chair for me.

28 · Application of chair illustration to spiritual reality—Daniel humbles our pretensions to self-governance (hard truth) but liberates us into trust by affirming God's competence for the throne (happy truth)

That's what the book of Daniel does in our lives. It's a hard but happy truth. The hard truth is for anyone who thinks, yeah, I can sit on the throne of my life. The book of Daniel comes to us and says, son, this is not the seat for you. Son, that seat's taken and not by you. Right? It pushes on us like, oh, okay. But it is a glorious and happy truth, because the only one that can sit there is sitting there, the Lord of heaven and earth. And when he is sitting where he should be in our lives, we rejoice. Cause we say, listen, I don't know what to do over here, over there with this relational situation, that relational situation, this medical situation, that budget situation. I don't know what to do? But he's on the throne. He's got this, and he's in control. And all I'm gonna do is try to be faithful, right? That is what the book of Daniel does with us.

29 · First of three closing applications—directive to read Daniel repeatedly as spiritual discipline, with self-deprecating humor about trust degrading throughout the day, framing repetition as means of progressive sanctification

So I wanna encourage you with three things as we close, three closing applications, we're gonna try to walk out the next few months together. First, this book is in our bible that we might read the stories until we remember that God is in control. We're to read these verses and live in these verses. And I don't know about you, but sometimes I can have an amazing time on my back patio hearing about the promises of God, you know? And I just feel like in that moment when I've got my coffee and the air is just starting to get cool and the sun is shining, I'm like, yeah, I trust the Lord 100%. It is so easy to trust the Lord with a cool morning. It's beautiful, clear, with birds singing and a cup of coffee in your hand, right? But by 03:00 p.m. like that day, I'm like, I don't know. This is out of control. Everything's on fire, right? Do you know what that means? It means we need to read and reread and reread. That's why the Lord's given this to us, that we might remember who the Lord is and what he's done and that he keeps his promises and might grow daily in our trust of him. So that maybe tomorrow we last until 330 before we freak out, right? That's the christian life. It's like, maybe I'll get to 345 next year, right? This is what the Lord is doing with us, growing our trust as we read and reread until we remember he is in control.

30 · Second application—directive to actively seek testimony from other believers, with humorous scaling down from 500 to 50 to 10 stories, grounding need in church's 45th anniversary testimony to continuity of God's character

Second thing we want to do, we want to hear stories from other saints until we remember that God is in control. Look, the book of Daniel would have been a wonderful help to those post exile living under the throne of Caesar and growing up with roman guards parading down their streets. And you think, how do I raise my kids? You raise your kids by pointing them to the book of Daniel. Say, son, let me remind you of a time in our family that seemed like things were out of control, but the Lord was always in control, right? The book of Daniel is a group of family stories for the family of God. And just like we need the book of Daniel, we need the stories of one another. There are stories in every single person sitting here who is a believer in Christ, of God's faithfulness to them. Of times that their life felt out of control. But it was not out of control. The Lord had it places where it was surprising to see how God's providence reversed the situation. You need to hear those stories. So one of my goals for you over the next few months is that you get out and hear all 500 stories. No, that's too much like, just say 50. I just want you to. It's a realistic goal. Just hear 50 stories of God's faithfulness. Okay, maybe 1010 stories of God's faithfulness. Just start with your community group. But you need to hear them. I need to hear them of times where God has been faithful. Listen, over the 45th anniversary last week, I got to hear stories from pastors over the last 45 years of God's faithfulness to this church. You know what? I know. The same God then is the same God now. The same God in the stories of the people in this room is the same God today, right here, right now. And we need to hear it third and last.

31 · Third application—directive to tell one's own testimony, using Ford's twelfth birthday as illustration of accumulated divine faithfulness easily forgotten without active remembrance, concluding with concrete assignment to tell ten people

Tell the stories of God's faithfulness until you remember he is in control. Sometimes I need to tell my own stories because I forget them. My son Ford turned twelve today, which is unreal to me. But as I was looking at him today, I thought, how often do I look at my son and not remember God's faithfulness? He was our late preterm baby. I'd never been a parent before. Emergency C section delivered him. He's struggling to breathe. I didn't know if he was going to make it. He had severe jaundice. He had that seizure incident. He had a kidney, severe kidney thing a few years ago. He's been our kid that has had the most medical issues. And so often I forget the stories of God's faithfulness written on that young boy's face. But I was telling one yesterday and I remembered. Look, some of us, we need to tell our own stories to others that we might remember and that they might rejoice with us. So that's your other goal. I want you to tell 500 people, no, ten people, what the Lord has done for you.

32 · Closing pastoral prayer with dual petition—evangelistic (that unbelievers would encounter God's faithfulness through the church) and sanctifying (that believers would actively cast present anxieties on God during worship, trusting His occupied throne and Joseph's principle)

Ah, heavenly Father, thank you for your graciousness in giving us the book of Daniel. Thank you for the reminder that despite appearances to the contrary, God is in control. And Lord, I pray for us today and for the next number of weeks and months together. Lord, I pray that you would you do two things. First, if there are some who do not know the faithfulness of God among us maybe aren't sure they're christians or maybe think they are, but maybe deep down they wonder. Lord, I pray that if they need to be introduced to a faithful God who's in control, that you would reveal yourself to them and they would see him in the stories of the people around them as they get to know the church. I pray that we would faithfully introduce people among us and in our lives to a faithful goddess who always keeps his promises. Because, Lord, that is what the world longs for and desperately needs. And, Lord, I also pray for us as a church. Lord, I pray that you would use this book in our lives to grow our strength and trust in you. Lord, it is way harder to trust you in verse seven than at the end of the chapter many times. So I pray for all of us in verse seven in our lives that are in the middle of circumstances that we don't know how they will end. Lord, I pray that we would cast our cares on you because we trust in you. Lord, even just feel in this moment that there's some among us, including me, they need to take this song. And as your word says, cast our cares on you because we trusted you. Lord, I pray that as we sing, I really do feel the sense from you, God, that as we sing, we would say, God, this medical situation, I do not understand how it will resolve. I cast it on you because I can't bear it. This job loss, I don't know what's going to happen. So I cast it on you, trusting that you'll provide. Lord, this relational turmoil, I cast this care on you knowing that only you will see a way through and guide me through. And I pray that as we cast our cares on you, we will look up and see the throne is not unoccupied. You have not left it. You have not abandoned it. You've not taken a break. You're sitting, you're ruling, you're reigning. And you say what they mean for evil. I mean for good. You promise that you are working all things together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purposes. Help us to believe it. Amen.