The Secret to Faithfulness - Daniel 6:1-18 - In Babylon

The trajectory of our life is going to be determined by a handful of watershed moments. You could call these decision points. Just a handful of moments across an entire lifetime, and at the end of your life, you're probably going to be able to count these moments on one hand.

Let that sink in just for a minute. You can call these moments whatever you want. You could call them landmark moments, turning points, watershed moments. Tipping points.

What you call them doesn't really matter. The truth is, what we do in these moments will have a major impact on the trajectory of our life. Just think about the book of Daniel. By the time we get to Daniel chapter 6, one of the most famous stories in the Bible, Daniel and the Lion's Den, we've likely seen a span of 50 years of Daniel's life.

50 years. The moments that the Bible give us. In 50 years, the Bible gives us five moments from Daniel's life. Watershed moments. You see, one day after you're gone, your life will probably be told in just a handful of watershed moments. A handful of moments that will determine the trajectory of your life. I want you to learn one of the secrets to Daniel's faithfulness in these watershed moments, because every time he gets in one of these moments, he walks in faithfulness.

And here's the big idea for today. Daily acts of faithfulness will determine life's defining acts of faithfulness. Daily acts of faithfulness will determine life's defining acts of faithfulness.

Another way to say it, if we are faithful on the small days, we're gonna be faithful on the big days. This is what we're gonna see in Daniel 6. When we get to these watershed moments in our life, what we did in all the seemingly insignificant moments, that will determine what we do in the significant moments. We're gonna walk through the first 18 verses of Daniel chapter 6, and then we're really just gonna land on that point, that what we do in the small moments, the unseen moments, the insignificant moments, that is what is gonna allow us to step into these huge watershed moments when they come in our lives. So let's go ahead and look at Daniel chapter 6, verse 1 through 18. So if you remember from last week, now we have a brand new king in chapter 6, the third king that Daniel has been under.

Look at verse 1, it said, So this is the third king that Daniel has served under. It really makes me think of this reality that the only thing that remains the same in life is change. That's just the reality. That's been the reality of Daniel's life. It's like as soon as he gets settled in, a huge change. I know for a lot of you, it's just that season when people are graduating, people are moving schools.

My oldest is moving from elementary to middle school. He's moving from a baby giraffe. as we call him, to an adolescent giraffe, and I've been surprised of how much it just kind of got into me. You know, just like these changes in life can have a big effect on us. And Daniel, once again, you know, he's at sort of the height of his power, and now all of a sudden, a massive change in life. He's under a totally different regime.

I mean, just totally different everything. That's where he's at. Look at verse 3, Among the administrators and the satraps, by his exceptional qualities, the king, he planned to set him over the whole kingdom. At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel and his conduct of government affairs. But they were unable to do so.

They could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. What does it say? So we see this throughout the book of Daniel. Daniel did a really good job at his job, like every time. You know, we hear sometimes right now in culture about people like quiet quitting their jobs where it's like they keep their job, but they sort of make it like a virtue to do as little as they can.

Like they're certainly not going to give it their best. And I think sometimes Christians can fall into this, right, where it's like, well, my boss or, you know, man, the company I work for, there's just really no direction or the people I work with or whatever. That never happened to Daniel.

He could be under pagan kings, pagan rule, forget about the direction, whatever. Like they were trying to find something where he screwed up, right? Like, man, he didn't respond to an email, he messed something up.

Nope, every time. Daniel worked with excellence. And I think it's one of the themes throughout the whole book of Daniel, that like he rose to the top many times because of the way that he worked.

And he glorified God in the way that he worked. Verse 5, Finally, So these guys are like, hey, we're not going to be able to figure out something with like him screwing up works. We got to figure out a different way. They said we're never going to find any basis for charges against this man, Daniel, unless it has something to do with the law of his God. So they're like, hey, we're not going to find it. And you know, he screwed up an email.

He messed up something. No, we're not going to find it that way. So if we go out as faith, maybe we're going to find fault there. And I think one of the things we see from this is like, Daniel, you know, he did a great job at his job, but also he didn't separate his faith from his work and his job.

Like it's very clear, like everybody knew, hey, if we're going to have to go after Daniel, this is the way that we're going to have to go after him. And it's just crazy because he has served under all these pagan kings and these different worldviews. And yet everybody still knows that Daniel serves and worships the Lord. One of the things that made me it made me sort of think about this is like, you know, we can live for our faith at work and all of that. But I think one of the things that may help with that, that may make it more palatable, you living your faith at work is if you do your job the way Daniel does his job.

I'm not saying you won't be persecuted, but it'll make it a little bit more palatable. You living your faith at your job when you do your job with excellence, the way that Daniel does his job with excellence. So look at verse six, they hatched this plan. So these administrators and say traps, they went as a group to the king and they said, making Darius live forever, the royal administrators, prefects, say traps, advisors, and governors. We've all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any God or human being during the next 30 days, except to you, your majesty, shall be thrown into the lion's den. Now, your majesty, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered in accordance with the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be repealed.

So King Darius put the decree in writing. So these are some slimy guys. I mean, they just are, right? I mean, they're just kind of, they're seeing Daniel kind of rise up and he's going to be over everybody. And so they're just so slimy, so shady. They're like, what can we do to get Daniel thrown into the lion's den? And so of course, you know, just the ego and the hubris of the king, they play into that. He don't realize what's going on at the time.

They play into that. He's like, all right, good, let's do it. Verse 10. Now, when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows were open towards Jerusalem. Three times a day, he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to God, just as he has done before.

Then these men went as a group and found Daniel praying and asking God for help. So don't miss what's happening here. They're basically sitting on death row at this point. Like he knows, like he knows what's coming. Like he knows this is a line that he's not going to cross. And so he goes home and he realized he's sitting on death row now. And verse 10 is really going to be our focus today.

So we're not going to jump too much into it right now. We're going to finish through the rest of the story. But Daniel goes home and he prays just like he always does. Let's look at the rest of the story through verse 18. He spoke to him about his royal decree. King, did you not publish a decree that during the next 30 days, anyone who prays to any God or human being except to you, your majesty, they'd be thrown into the lion's den? The king answered, the decree stands in accordance with the law of Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed. He didn't realize what was going on thus far. He's about to. Then they said to the king, Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, he pays no attention to you.

Your majesty or to the decree you put in writing. He still prays three times a day. When the king heard this, he was greatly distressed, not for himself, but for Daniel, because he didn't want to get rid of Daniel. He was determined to rescue Daniel and made every effort until sundown to save him.

The king issues can be changed. So the king gave the order and they brought Daniel in and threw him into the lion's den. The king said to Daniel, may your God whom you serve continually rescue you. A stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den. The king sealed it with his own signet ring with the rings of his nobles so that Daniel's situation might not be changed.

Then the king returned to his palace, spent the night without eating, without any entertainment being brought to him, and he could not sleep. So that's where we're gonna stop today in terms of the verse. We're gonna pick it up in two more weeks, what happens in the rest of the story. So Daniel refuses. He's like, hey, I'm gonna pray. Like, you're not gonna make me not pray for 30 days. And in two weeks we'll see what actually happens in the lion's den.

Spoiler alert, he does make it out alive, okay, if you've never been through this story. But today we're really looking at what happens before the lion's den. Like, what is going on with Daniel that he chooses to make this huge stand in this huge watershed moment in his life? You see, each one of us, we're gonna have moments like this, where every day is just a small day in our life, and then one day we wake up, we don't realize it, but now all of a sudden we've stepped into one of these top five moments in our whole life. And one of the things that jumped out to me, because this is actually how I became a believer, is thinking about Kids Week coming up this week. How for some of these kids that are gonna come to one of our campuses this week, it's gonna be an absolute watershed moment in their life. Where, you know, maybe they're invited by somebody, and the trajectory of their life is gonna change because someone shares the gospel with them, they believe it, and their life has changed.

And I also encourage you, if you have an opportunity, to serve at Kids Week, because it's sort of a rare opportunity that you get to play a part in a literal watershed moment in somebody's life. So let's go back and look at Daniel's response in verse 10, and this is really today where we're gonna camp out, is Daniel's response in verse 10 to this whole situation. And it says, three times a day, he got down on his knees and he prayed, giving thanks to God, just as he had done before. I don't know if you could feel it from this verse, but can you just feel the courage from Daniel? Can you just feel the defiance, the bravery, like the audacity for him to get the decree of the kingdom of God?

And the first thing he does is go to his house, go upstairs and open the window. Daniel didn't let this moment define him. Like he defined this moment, he stepped in to this moment. And I, you could just imagine, like let's all just imagine how easy would it have been to try to kind of argue with yourself about not actually going and doing what Daniel just did.

Right? He just learns, it's like, okay man, in about a month, I'm about to be in the highest position in the kingdom. Like I could just pray in my heart, you know, like man, don't the Bible say like go in your closet and pray? Like this don't have to be some public thing. Like I can just pray in my heart. No one has to know it.

God will know it. You know, and God's about to put me in this higher position in the kingdom. And this is maybe risking that. Like can't I just sacrifice this small thing? It's not forever.

It's just for 30 days. But for Daniel, this is a line he's not gonna cross. And for him, he chooses faithfulness. He's being bullied. His life is being threatened. His position is being threatened.

He's seemingly about to be eaten by lions. And yet he remains faithful. He goes, opens the window, prays towards Jerusalem like he always does.

In this moment, prayer was more important to Daniel than his very life. So we've got to ask the question, as he's stepping into another one of these watershed moments in his life, we've got to ask the question, like, what is his secret? Like what is the secret for Daniel to remain faithful and to just like step into these moments and to just own these moments in his life?

Here's the thing. There actually is no secret. There is no secret.

We're gonna see this. Daniel has spent years being faithful in prayer on the small days. And now Daniel, he's faithful in prayer on the big day.

Let me repeat that. He has spent years doing this exact same thing, being faithful in prayer on the small days. And now all of a sudden, it's a big day. But for him, he goes and does the same thing that he's been doing for many, many, many years. He's faithful on the small days. Now he is stepping into this big day and being faithful on that day. And that's the truth I want us to really circle today, because that is such a powerful truth when we understand it. There's no big secret to Daniel's life. There's no big secret to Daniel's faithfulness, except what we see all throughout the Bible. When we do these little acts of faithfulness, when no one is looking, to step into these big moments of life and be faithful in those moments too.

So here's the application for today. Be faithful on the small days so you can be faithful on the big days. That is such a simple, non-complex truth. Be faithful on the small days so that we can be faithful on the big days.

It's as simple as that. Be faithful when it seems like it doesn't really matter, so that you can be faithful when nothing else matters. Be faithful when it feels like nothing is on the line, so that you can be faithful when everything is on the line. And one thing I want to note here about Daniel, because I think we can kind of mix this up. And I say that not to belittle Daniel, because he's certainly presented as a hero of the faith, but I say there's nothing special about Daniel, because we can have access to the same means of grace that Daniel had access to. Because I think if we think, well Daniel is this special religious leader, like I couldn't do what Daniel did.

Like Daniel's in another class, he's different than me, he's separate than me, but no that's not how the Bible presents it. And I think we almost can miss the point of these big watershed moments of Daniel's life. And I'm really happy, I don't know if you realize this, this is one of the first times in these different stories that the Bible kind of like opens the hood a little bit of Daniel's life and lets us see kind of what's going on. And it's like yeah, this is rightly a watershed moment, but we can kind of miss how he's actually doing it. He's done it through all these little small faithful moments when nobody was looking. I mean just this phrase just jumps out to me in verse 10, at the end of verse 10. So he goes, he opens the window, he prays three times a day, on his knees, giving thanks to God, and then that phrase, just as he had done it. Just as he had done before. So there's this big, huge watershed moment, and we realize the Bible lets us in on this little secret, Daniel does nothing other than what he had been doing for probably many, many, many years. And that's the secret, which is not really a secret. He's been faithful on the small days in prayer, now all of a sudden he didn't choose it, but now he's up against a huge day in his life, and he walks in faithfulness in the exact same way.

All right, let's do a little math problem together, okay? So verse 10 here kind of outlines Daniel's plan for prayer, right? It makes it kind of clear the way that Daniel prays. So it says that he goes and he prays three times a day. So my assumption there is that that's probably some sort of tradition, but it's probably also a line with like eating three meals a day, right?

So if you want a good habit, make it like super simple. So for Daniel, it's like, okay, three meals a day, I'm gonna pray three times a day, okay? So we do the math on that, it equals 1,095 prayer sessions a year for Daniel, okay? Just assuming this has been a pattern that's been going on for a while. Now let's assume this has been Daniel's pattern since the time that he was in Babylon, okay? So let's say when he was 15, he was taking slavery to Babylon, I don't know if that's the right age or not. Let's say he's 65 now, so let's just assume he's been doing this for 50 years.

I think this is a pretty reasonable assumption, okay? The very first sermon in this series, Daniel was just a teenager, he stood up to power, he walked in faithfulness, so let's just assume he's been doing these spiritual disciplines for a long, long time. So if we do the math on that, 1,095 times a year, he's been doing this for 50 years, this equals 54,750 prayer sessions for Daniel before he gets to this moment. That right there is the secret to Daniel walking in faithfulness in this watershed moment. Just think about it, he prays 54,750 times, now on the 54,750 first time, now all of a sudden the stakes were a lot bigger. Now all of a sudden he was at this watershed moment of life. Faithfulness on the small days leads to faithfulness on the big days. Nothing has changed for Daniel except the stakes are just a lot higher now. His life's on the line, his faith is on the line, his witness is on the line, and Daniel walks in faithfulness. There's no magic here, there's no magic bullet, there's no super spiritual secret.

Daniel has been doing this for a long time when the door has been closed, now when all eyes are on him, Daniel walks in the exact same thing. Let me give you sort of a lighthearted example. So you guys know, can't preach without sharing a running story. I have a very applicable one, okay, because I just ran 100 miles three weekends ago. So ran a race called the Massanutten 100. It's a mountain race about an hour west of Washington, D.C. And the really cool thing about this race was it was one of the first times that my two older kids were able to run different parts of the race with me. They're just getting to the point in their own running that they were able to run some sections with me. You know, like these races many times, the race is going super great until it's not going great at all, okay? And so I'm doing pretty good until about mile 70, and I had a rough patch from mile 70 to 80. The sun went down, I got stormed on, the section was a lot longer than I realized, I hadn't been eating, so I get to mile 80 and I am just in like a rough spot. Like the most rough spot I've ever been in one of these races. I actually felt the feeling of fear.

I've never felt fear in one of these races, but knowing that I was about to go into this next section that was going to take me like three hours all by myself at night, I was just like, I just can't do this. So my wife and my three boys were there. I was like, hey, somebody needs to come with, okay? Like no one was prepared. Like, you know, they knew where they were going to pace, and this wasn't one of the sections, but I was like, I need y'all like right now. And everybody was like, no.

I don't know, you know, walking away. But my son Eli was like, I'll do it. He didn't even hesitate. He's like, I'll do it.

So he didn't have any warm clothes because he wasn't prepared. So he goes in the van, he changes, he comes out, he's like, let's do it. And he's just game, you know? And all the people, the race organization, they were just so shocked because he ended up pacing 16 miles of the race.

And everybody's just like, oh, like, you know, like, oh, so crazy. The thing that made me so proud and the point I'm making, and I'm going to connect back here, is like, I knew that really wasn't anything special for him because he had done a run of that length for the last three years probably. I mean, he had just been on dozens and dozens and dozens of those types of runs. And I was in such bad shape, it wasn't even hard for him. I mean, he's just like walking and talking, and I'm just like struggling the whole time. But the reason it made me so proud is like, hey, this was like a pinnacle of all of these years that I've been kind of taking him on the trail, starting when he was two, or three, he can only go a half a mile, and then a couple miles, and then five miles.

And this was like the fulfillment of all of that. I want you to see with spiritual things and in Daniel's life, it wasn't like all of a sudden, right? All of a sudden, in this situation, Daniel just gets all of this courage, and he does this amazing thing. It's like, nope. It's exactly what Daniel had been doing for the last 50 years.

And here's the thing that's challenging to all of us. Look, you're not going to do anything on the big days that you're not doing on the small days. I know we want to think it's otherwise, like I know we want to think we would, but just think about Daniel. Like if he wasn't willing to pray on the small days when there was no risk, you think he'd be willing to pray when his life was at risk?

No way. Over the course of thousands of small days, Daniel developed this habit of prayer. Nothing had changed except the pressure of the situation. And see, that's the thing. We've got to realize today that the pressure when we're under some sort of duress or suffering or whatever, it's only going to amplify what we've already been doing.

It's only going to amplify. Like we assume when the pressure is up, like, oh, man, that's, that's when I'm going to start doing the right things, right? When the suffering comes, when the pressure's up, that's when I'm going to lean in and start doing the right thing.

That's just not true. When all chaos breaks out in life, I can promise you that's not the time to develop a new habit. Like, you're not going to have any chance at all to develop a new habit when that happens. You're going to go right back to whatever your median habits are when you face any sort of suffering.

I'll illustrate it this way. Who has ever, by show of hands, made some sort of New Year's resolution? I want to get more healthy. I want to lose weight. I want to stop eating tacos.

Taco Bell, whatever it may be, right? You make that resolution. You have some will for the first couple weeks of the year. And then let's say your favorite dog dies or your cat dies or your car breaks down. You're like, man, I'm going right to Taco Bell.

I'm so mad right now. What happens? You just revert, right, to whatever your median sort of habits are. And so, like, we've got to realize, like, okay, when we hit some situation in life, like if prayer is the habit, we're going to revert back to prayer. If it's Bible reading, Bible reading.

But if it's food, then it's going to be food or shopping, shopping or sex or materialism or substance abuse. Like, whatever the thing we're going to on the small days when things are going well, that's what we're going to go to on the big days when we're facing a huge watershed moment of life. So that when we get to some sort of watershed moment, that could be going to a new school, that could be going off to college, that could be having a baby, that could be getting put into a tempting situation in life, death of a family member, first few months of marriage. Like, these all can be watershed moments. But what we need to realize is we've got to develop these spiritual habits like Daniel when things are not going crazy in life. When things are like chill, it's just a normal day.

Start developing these habits. Daniel was able to walk in faithfulness because of the 54,000 times he prayed on the little small days before this particular situation. So here's the question as we're closing today. Here's the question I want us to really ask all of ourselves. What habits of faithfulness are we doing, are you doing on the small days? Who wants to have Daniel like faith?

Show of hands. Who wants to have Daniel like faith? Yep, me too. When I get to a huge watershed moment of life, whether I realize it was going to be one or not, I want to step into this moment with faith the way that Daniel does. But the reality is, and this is what I'm trying so hard to pull out of this text for all of us today, like if we want to have a Daniel like faith, we're going to have to have a Daniel like plan.

Three times a day, every day, 365 days a year, for the last 50 years, this was his plan. That's how we develop the sort of faithfulness to be able to walk in these huge watershed moments of life. And see, the thing is, man, what power there is in just simplicity of these spiritual habits. You know, complexity is really the enemy of great habits.

It's as simple as that. We want to think there's something special, there's something super unique. He had this super complex plan.

That's just not how spiritual disciplines work. They can be so simple and we just need to walk in them. Daniel had a plan to become the person that he ended up in the story. Like this wasn't by accident.

He had been developing this over the course of 50 years. We need to actually not focus on the big days. Like the big days are going to come. Like you don't know when they're going to come. You don't know when tragedy is going to happen. You don't know when you're in this situation that God just put.

You don't know when those days are going to come. So what can we do? We could focus on the small days. We could focus on what are the two things you're going to do tomorrow to develop your relationship with God. Prayer, reading the Bible. I don't want anyone to leave today without identifying some sort of habit of faithfulness that you could start walking in today.

Like something just simple. Something that you could say, hey, I need to do better in this area of my spiritual walk. And so I'm just going to identify this habit. You know, really just some big rocks is the way I think about it in my life. What are the three or four big rocks of spiritual disciplines that I just need to do every day?

Maybe the thing that sort of like displaces everything else. Like for Daniel, I just don't get the sense he missed this prayer three times a day. He was at the height of power, government official, and yet he just had some big rocks in his life to develop his relationship with God. And here's the thing I think we miss a lot of times. A lot of us think, man, I need to be more disciplined. There's power in discipline. I think what we see in Daniel's life, there's power in habit is what there's power in.

I mean discipline is important and we need discipline, but ideally what happens in the Christian life? Ideally we use some of the discipline we have to move these spiritual things in our life from discipline to habit. When you get up in the morning and brush your teeth, I hope you brush your teeth in the morning. When you get up and brush your teeth in the morning, is that discipline or habit for you? For most of us just habit. Is it hard? Is it work?

No. For my kids, it's absolutely discipline. It has not made its way into habit yet, unfortunately.

Three boys. But for most of us, like brushing our teeth in the morning, that's just simply habit because we've developed that through discipline over years. And so we need to identify some spiritual things in our life that we can move from discipline to habit. We can get to a point where it's like it's not hard to pray every day anymore because I've developed that in my life.

Or it's not hard to read my Bible anymore because I've developed that in my life. We need to be turning these spiritual disciplines into spiritual habits. And I'll tell you, we try so hard as a church to try to make this as simple for all of us here at Mercy Hill.

I mean this is why we have the flywheel of gather, groups, giving, going. We try to make these pathways, like we're all responsible for our own growth and our own faith, but we try to make these pathways as simple as we can as a church. And so I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you something in your life where you're like, hey, I need to go out of here because in the next five years, in the next 10 years, I'm gonna face this huge day in my life, this huge watershed moment. And what are some of the things I could begin developing on the small days in my life so that I can be faithful when the big days come?

I like to close like this today. I know hopefully this is gonna resonate with everybody. You know, when I think of a story like this and I think of a sermon like this, it's just true. Like there's just gonna be some watershed moments in our life and all of us have probably already experienced some of those. But unfortunately for so many of us, like some of those watershed moments, like we've just failed. Like we've just failed in those moments. And it can feel like those worst moments in our life can sort of be the thing that sort of identifies us.

You know? That like, man, my very worst moments, those moments when I should have stepped up like Daniel, I did it. And now it can feel like I'm defined by those decisions.

I can just think of so many stories. I remember early into COVID, a really famous pastor committed suicide. And it just made me think, man, it's easy to look at something like that and be like, man, that's the defining thing of his life. He died of a long battle with addiction. You know, just the way he died, basically. And it's easy to think, man, that decision, you know, where he messed up, that's the defining thing about his life.

But here's the reality. Without Christ, our worst moment for every single one of us is the defining moment of our life. But the just amazing news of the gospel is that like the worst moment of our life when we believe in Jesus is not the defining moment of our life. That everything that Jesus has done, dying for us, being perfectly obedient to God, being perfectly righteous, he offers us that as a free gift. And so no matter what guilt or shame that we feel if we are in Christ, if we've placed our faith in Christ, that's what defines us. Not how well we walk in one of these moments, not how well we do in one of these moments. And when we get that, I mean, some of you maybe need to believe that for the very first time today of what Jesus has offered you in his death, burial, and resurrection. And some of us, we have believed that, but we need to start walking in the freedom of that.

You know, that when you get to this big watershed moment at some point in your life, your life is not depending on it. Jesus has done everything necessary for your salvation and hopefully that could really inspire us to be faithful to God. Let me pray for us today. Lord, I just thank you so much, God, for your word, how you challenge us, God. Every time we hear your word, God, we know it can just divide us between joint and marrow and just get into our hearts and get into our souls. And God, we thank you that everything that we have done in terms of our sin, our sin as far as from the East as the West, Jesus, if we believe in you, and we thank you for that. God, as we go out of here today, there will be defining moments for us going into the future watershed moments. I pray, God, that you'll enable us to walk in those moments with us. My faith, and I pray, God, starting tomorrow, we'll do the little things to be developing that faith, Lord. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.