Courage Is a Habit

Well, if you have your Bible this morning, and I hope that you have one, if you'll take it out and open it up or turn it on or whatever it takes to get to Daniel chapter six, Daniel chapter six. Today, we are going to look at one of the top three most famous stories in your Bible, the story of Daniel and the lion's den. But get this, in the 20 years or so that I have served here as your pastor at the summit church, I have never one time, not once preached on this passage, not even once.

I couldn't believe it. I actually went back and was trying to find old notes on it. And I didn't have not ever preached on it even once.

Today, I'm going to fix that. And maybe because that is because I'm headed to the SBC, which feels like a lion's den, I'm not sure. But it just, I think it always just felt too familiar. And I was like, everybody knows this story.

And so I've just never done it. This story is the last of the fast paced Daniel doing battle in Babylon narratives in the book of Daniel. Actually, there's one more in chapter nine we're going to get to, but most of the rest of the book is prophecy. Daniel six is the last chapter that is written in Aramaic. If you remember the very first week, I told you that the first chapter of Daniel and the last chapters of Daniel, chapter seven through 12 are written in Hebrew, which was the language of Israel. But the middle chapters, chapters two through six are written in Aramaic, which was the language of Babylon because these events take place in Babylon and they're written so that Babylonians can read these stories also. Well, this is the last story. Daniel in the lion's den is the last story in Aramaic. Um, it's the last account of Daniel and his three friends shining in Babylon. Honestly, I'm a little bit sad because I've really enjoyed studying out these stories.

So hate to see this part come to an end, but this is the last one. We're going to use this story this morning to talk about developing the habit of courage, developing the habit of courage, courage. I want to show you this morning is not something you summon up in a moment. Courage is developed through a lifetime of small, consistent decisions.

Courage is a pattern that you program into your heart. You know how when you type something into Google and it auto completes for you, uh, by the way, that just drives me nuts. Uh, just because I searched that one time for the current net worth of Zach from saved by the bell doesn't mean that every time I type in the word current, that's what I'm looking for.

Leave me alone, Google. But Google knows that you and I follow patterns and so it auto fills our, our search bar according to how we have trained it. The same thing is true with how you respond to adversity.

Your heart auto fills your response based on the patterns that you have established. The Greek philosopher Aristotle, he said, excellence is not an act. It's a habit.

Aristotle, by the way, would have lived not long after Daniel. Um, everybody says excellence is not an act. It's a habit. I would say the same thing is true about courage. Courage is not an act. It is a habit.

It is a habit developed over years and years and years of repeated patterns. Daniel six, let me remind you of the context real quick. Babylon has been overthrown by the Medes and the Persians. Nebuchadnezzar and all the royal family have been killed and King Darius of the Medes now sits on the throne. Daniel by this point is well over 80 years old, still living in captivity in Babylon. We do not know what has happened to his, his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

Presumably by this point they have already died. The new King, King Darius, in order to try to bring some stability and continuity to his government has kept on his court a lot of Nebuchadnezzar's wise men, and that includes Daniel. Daniel chapter six verse three. But Daniel distinguished himself because he had an extraordinary spirit.

So the King planned to set him over the whole realm, second in command only to himself. You know, one thing that is consistent about Daniel is that no matter where he is, no matter what circumstance he's in or how he got there or how unjust the situation felt, Daniel stays positive, upbeat even, believing that God has a plan. And that create, that mentality creates new opportunities wherever he goes at multiple points in his life. When everybody else and maybe you and I would have looked at him and said, your life is over, Daniel. Daniel said, you know, I bet God has something for me yet. And could I just point out that Daniel is more than 80 years old at this point.

So let me just go ahead and say it and I'll just say it as plain as I can. Old people can still do awesome things. By the way, Daniel's not the only old guy in history to do awesome things. At 83 years old, William Gladstone became Prime Minister of Great Britain for the fourth time. At 85 years old, John Wesley, they say, still preached with almost undiminished eloquence up to two or three times a day.

At 89 years old, Michelangelo painted his Last Judgment, which is now one of the most famous paintings in the world. At age 90, Thomas Edison was still filing for new patents at the patent office for new inventions he was coming up with. George Bernard Shaw at age 90 was still writing plays that would become classics. Harlan Sanders was 65 when he opened Kentucky Fried Chicken after getting fired from about a dozen of his previous jobs. His career was a total failure up to that point. Winston Churchill won his first election at age 62. He had lost literally every single election up to that point. His career did not really begin until he was 62.

He was 71 when he led England into World War II. So for all of you seasoned people out there, do not let them tell you that you are done. God might have something for you yet, okay?

All right, got a few. Amen. Verse 4, the administrators and satraps, which is a word for like a governor, therefore kept trying to find a charge against Daniel regarding the kingdom. But they could find no charge or corruption because Daniel was trustworthy.

And no negligence or corruption at all was found in him. We see it every couple of years around election season, don't we? The commercials just start multiplying. So and so is a liar, you know? 32 years ago he said this at a party. He voted with big nursery to take candy from babies. They always seem to find something about everybody.

But here these guys search and search and search and they can't find anything. And by the way, this is after six decades of public service on Daniel's part. That is pretty remarkable. The point is that Daniel has been utterly trustworthy in all that he did for 70 years, 70 years serving in the public square. Verse 5, then these men said, we'll never find any charge against this Daniel unless we find something against him concerning the law of his God. So they went together to the king and said, oh, may King Darius, may you live forever. Verse 7, and all the administrators of the kingdom, the prefects, the satraps, the advisors, and the governors, we have all agreed that the king should establish an ordinance, an ordinance that for 30 days, anybody who petitions any God or man, except for you, old king, that one should be thrown into the lion's den. The weak spot that they have found and I've got to hand it to him.

It is pretty ingenious. The weak spot is built around Daniel's faith and the king's ego. Basically they're like, oh king, oh king, your subjects need to learn that they can depend on you for everything. So let's make a rule that for 30 days, for 30 days, people can only bring their needs to you. We're not banning prayer for all time. We're just saying that for 30 days, people need to see that you can meet all their needs. So there can only pray to you for 30 days.

And in 30 days, they will see how amazing, how all sufficient you are, how able you are to take care of all your subjects. Verse eight, therefore your majesty established the edict and signed the document so that as a law of the Medes and Persians, it is irrevocable and cannot be changed. The Medes and the Persians had this custom that once a law was passed, it couldn't be changed or altered in any way. The purpose for that historian say was to try to keep kings from passing arbitrary laws all willy-nilly just because they were in a bad mood.

They get beat at pickleball by left-handed guys. So they outlaw left-handedness. That kind of stuff happened. The next day the king gets irritated with one of his wives. So he passes a law that no women can ever argue with men. In the ancient world, kings did stuff like this all the time. And that law would only last for a couple of days until the king calmed down. So the Medes and the Persians instituted this custom to try and keep the king from doing that. Plus they thought not allowing a law to be changed helped reinforce the idea that the king was divine because if you changed a law that implied that you'd made a mistake.

So they had this custom that you couldn't change a law once it was passed and this law passed. Daniel's response, verse 10, when Daniel learned that the document had been signed, he went into his house, he opened the upstairs window toward Jerusalem, and three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed and gave thanks to God just as he had done before. If you underline stuff in your Bible, underline that. He did it just like he had done before because there it is, the habit. Daniel has prayed three times daily now for 70 years. He'd done it in Daniel chapter 1 when they tried to force him to eat forbidden foods. He'd done it in chapter 2 when the king threatened to kill all the wise men because nobody could interpret his dream. His friends had done it in Daniel 3 when Nebuchadnezzar tried to force them to bow down to his golden image. Whenever Daniel had been in trouble, whenever Daniel had felt threatened, he had turned to God in prayer.

So this response was as natural to him, as routine, as breathing. So here's my question for you. What is your instinct when trouble comes? When you have been hurt in your marriage, when your spouse is not treating you fairly and it's just not getting any better no matter how much you talk to them or no matter what you do. What's your instinct when you feel threatened? When you feel like you're being pressured at your job to do the wrong thing or you feel like you're being treated unfairly by your boss or one of your colleagues or when you're being pressured to tow the party line even though it goes against your conscience. Or maybe you want a friend or a boyfriend or a girlfriend that's pressuring you to do the wrong thing. You're being pressured to conform. What is your instinct?

I would say that our responses typically fit into one of four categories. Number one, panic. A lot of people, their instinct is to panic. You get scared and you cave. Look, there's no way out.

The pressure's just too strong. All my friends are doing it. I'm going to be a social outcast if I don't.

I don't have that kind of social capital to spend so it's just easier to go along and get along. Everybody in my business is doing it. I'll never survive if I don't do this. This is this law of the Medes and Persians and it can't be changed.

And the king and all the other important people are behind it. I don't really have a choice here if I want to survive. Panic. Y'all, I love this verse. 1 Corinthians 10, 13. No temptation. No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to man. But God, who is faithful, will never allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able. He will always, with that temptation, with that trial, he's going to provide you a way of escape that you might be able to bear it. God always provides a way of escape. Always.

He will always supply you with the strength and the wisdom and the ability to do the right thing. And that means you never need to panic because you are never trapped in a situation with only bad options. So response number one is people panic. A second common instinct response to this kind of pressure is pride. Pride. This one's kind of tricky because it can look on the outside like bold faith. Because essentially you're saying, I will not give to you.

I can overcome this. The difference between this and faith is that when you peel back the layers of this response, what you're going to find is not a humble dependence on God. What you're going to find is a heart of self-sufficiency. This is more of a I'm better than you attitude. You can't beat me kind of attitude than it is a I'm going to do what God wants and trust him with the results attitude. By the way, the sign that you are operating in pride is prayerlessness.

Prayerlessness is the indicator light on the dashboard of the Christian life that warns you that pride has set in. You know how in your car dashboard you got these little indicator lights that tells you if your engine is running too hot? Let's get to know one another a little bit here, okay? How many of you fill up your gas once it's half empty? You're that person. You're like, if it's half empty, I'm stopping to fill it up. How many of you wait until the little countdown says one mile left? How many of you that you're there, okay? And then your prayer life just totally takes off, doesn't it?

That you have never prayed so desperately and fervently and vowed to be a missionary when you're trying to get at the gas station with one mile until empty. Okay, all right, how about the indicator lights? How many of you the second that the light comes on, you take your car to the shop? If that's you, all right? How many of you treat that light like more of a suggestion, right? You're like, I'm just going to wait and see if this thing kind of works itself out, right? What are you laughing at, Veronica?

So probably that has burned you at some point, I would guess, because those little indicator lights alert you to problems that are going on deep in your engine that you can't see. Prayerlessness is the indicator light that your heart is running proud. Many people think that prayerlessness is just the result of a lack of self-discipline. You're like, you know, I mean, I believe in prayer, but I just don't pray. I don't pray enough for the same reason that I don't work out enough or eat enough alfalfa sprouts.

It's just a lack of self-discipline. But prayerlessness is ultimately rooted in pride. You don't pray consistently and fervently because you are convinced that if you reach down deep enough and try hard enough for long enough, you're going to eventually find the resources to overcome. But at some point, listen, at some point that is going to fail you. And I know that if you're a believer, because God is going to put you into a situation that you can't overcome.

In fact, I would suggest that some of you are there right now, aren't you? You come in here this morning overwhelmed by the challenges of parenting, utterly defeated by your marriage, financially underwater, crushed by a relationship that you just can't make work. An issue has come up in your health or the health of a loved one that has you scared to death this morning. Yet the end of Daniel chapter four, King Nebuchadnezzar, after God had humbled him and he turned his heart toward God, he said, we looked at it a couple of weeks ago, all those who walk in pride, God is able to humble. You see, that's true for professing Christians also, for you who know God, his agenda in your life is to humble you out of the pride of self-sufficiency. If that is you this morning, my word to you today is very simple. Turn away from pride and turn toward God. And if that happens, you'll begin to express that by a daily consistent time of prayer, panic, pride, your third response, preemptive strike, preemptive strike.

This is the quid pro quo that Brian talked about last weekend. Something for something, tit for tat. I will protect myself by fighting. You hurt me, I'll hurt you back. You play dirty, you play dirty, I'll play dirtier.

When Daniel found out about this law, he could have tried to engineer some political tricks, some scheme to get back at them. Quid pro quo is how most of us try to survive. We live in peace with others. We maintain peace with others through mutually assured destruction with them.

Right? The way that I'll keep you from hurting me is by making it clear that if you do, I'll hurt you back. Worse. Some of you have marriages that are surviving because mutually assured destruction. You hurt me, I will hurt you back.

And then you'll think twice about messing with me. So we've got panic, we've got pride, we've got preemptive strike, and then there's Daniel's response. Number four, prayer. Let me just lay this at God's feet. Daniel's like, ultimately these are God's problems because I don't even belong to me anymore. I belong to him, which means that these problems don't belong to me either.

They belong to him. All I'm responsible for is what he tells me to do. Friend, I will tell you this is such an incredibly peaceful way to live. It is so peaceful because you let Jesus shoulder the weight of your problems. Jesus described the Christian life as easy, not because it's all sunshine and giggles and roses. In fact, most of us would say that when we became Christians in many ways, our lives got harder. Jesus says it's easy because we are yoked up with him.

Come unto me, Jesus says, Matthew 11, 28. Come unto me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Let me try to help you make sense of that. A yoke typically had places for two oxen and those two oxen would pull the load together. So that meant if one ox was stronger than the other ox got the benefit of that stronger ox's strength.

Imagine you were strapped into that yoke to pull a tractor trailer, but strapped in next to you was the world's strongest man. I think John Muller. All right, Pastor John is 6'5".

He looks like a character out of a French romance novel. Am I right? Right.

Okay. So you're strapped in at your Peter Park over the downtown Durham campus. Peter's not that big, but he does crossfit literally every day. I would say Ricky from the North Durham campus because he's ripped up top, but you've seen those crazy little chicken legs of his. I wouldn't choose him.

All right. But just to say that you're strapped in with one of those guys who's a lot stronger than you. The load might not seem that heavy to you because the stronger guy is pulling so much of the weight.

In fact, it might even seem to you like you're just out taking a walk. And so it is with Jesus and my problems. When I trust in him, he shoulders the weight of my marriage problems. He shoulders the weight of my work problems. He shoulders the weight of my parenting problems. Ultimately, they're not even my kids anymore.

They're his kids. He shoulders the weight of my personal struggles. In each of those things, he carries the weight. I'm just responsible to do what he directs me to do.

Success is the word that belongs to him. Faithfulness is the word that belongs to me. What a friend we have in Jesus.

Oh, what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer. Cast your burdens on the Lord, Peter says. Cast them and he will sustain you. Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Don't lean on your own understanding or your own ability to figure it all out. In all your ways, acknowledge him.

In all your ways, cast your burden on him and he's the one that will make your path straight. So panic, pride, preemptive strike, or prayer. So again, I ask you the question, what's your default?

You got one. What auto fills in the search bar of your heart when hard times come? When you type in P, what fills in the rest? When you feel threatened? When you feel panicky? Right? Is it pride?

Is it panic? Is it preemptive strike or is it prayer? Daniel chose prayer because he trusted in God. And so that evening, he prayed as peacefully as he had every single other one. Friend, I can tell you from experience that there is a peacefulness in that prayer closet that you will not find anywhere else. I don't care how much you meditate, how much Zen music you put on.

I don't care how much money you have, how much you exercise or what you do. There's a peace in the prayer closet you can't find anywhere else. Sweet hour of prayer, sweet hour of prayer that calls me from a world of care and bids me air my Father's throne, make all my wants and wishes known in seasons of distress and grief. My soul has often found relief and oft escaped the temptress snare by thy return, sweet hour of prayer. So Daniel prays, Daniel prays, and of course, the other wise men see this.

So they run to the king scarcely able to contain their excitement. Verse 12, verse 12 like, you know, King, we hate I mean, I mean, King, we just hate to tell you this. But after you sign the irrevocable edict, we all saw Daniel pray and we all just happened to be on the balcony right across from his house, all looking through our binoculars at the same time as his regularly scheduled prayer time, and we all saw him. And sadly, King, you know, you know the law, the Medes and the Persians cannot be changed.

So we've prepared the lines right this way, sir. Darius, of course, he's right through their ruse immediately. And he's pretty upset about it because he liked Daniel so much, but he's also bound by this ridiculous custom. So he feels like he has no choice but to throw Daniel in the lion's den. Verse 16, so the king gave the order.

By the way, I know a lot of y'all think I hate on cats too much. But could we just take a moment and reflect that a pagan king who could have concocted any kind of torture decided that the most cruel and unusual punishment that he could think of was trapping you in a cage with cats. Friend, the scriptures speak for themselves, okay?

And all God's people said, a few of God's people said, amen, okay? The king said to Daniel, the king said to Daniel, may your God whom you continually serve rescue you. A stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den. The king sealed it with his own signet ring and with signet rings of his noble so that nothing in regard to Daniel could be changed. Then the king went back to his palace and spent the night fasting.

No diversions were brought to him. He turned off his Netflix account, put away his Xbox and he couldn't sleep. At the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lion's den. When he reached the den, he cried out in anguish to Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, servant of the living God, as your God whom you continually serve been able to rescue you from the lions. Then Daniel spoke with the king, oh, may the king live forever.

My God has sent his angel and shut the lion's mouth so they have not harmed me for I was found innocent before him. Daniel's down there peacefully taking a cat nap with all those lions like he snuggled up in a cadre of kittens. You know, it strikes me when I read this story that literally everybody else in this story was up the whole night except for Daniel.

The jealous wise men are up all night partying, celebrating. The king was up all night worrying. Daniel's friends were up all night praying.

The angel was up all night protecting. Daniel's the only one who got a good night's sleep. When the king ordered the stone rolled away from the den the next morning, there's Daniel snug it up, snug it up peacefully with a book reading between the lions. Verse 23, the king was overjoyed and gave orders to take Daniel out of the den. When Daniel was brought up from the den, he was found to be unharmed because, make sure you get this, make sure you underline this part, because he trusted in his God. Hey, why does the text say that God saved Daniel like this?

Because he was special or because he was elected or foreordained or predestined? No, the text says it happened for one reason. Not one reason was because Daniel trusted in his God. And the reason I point that out is because that means you can look for this same kind of providential protection in your life if you trust in God and pray to him like Daniel did.

That doesn't mean that bad things will never happen to you. It just means that God will ultimately deliver you through them all just like he did for Daniel. Verse 24, then the king gave the command and those men who had maliciously accused Daniel were brought and thrown into the lion's den. They, their children and their wives, they had not reached the bottom of the den before the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones. Why does the text mention that the lions ate them before their bodies even reached the bottom? Well, that was just in case you thought that maybe the lions had not eaten Daniel because they were full.

Clearly, he's trying to show you they were starving. Let's just acknowledge, if we will, that last part, especially with the wives and the children being included in this punishment, that's really, really hard to read. It feels unfair and cruel, and it was. The Bible is certainly not condoning this. In fact, in the book of Ezekiel, again there's another contemporary of Daniel's, in the book of Ezekiel, God explicitly condemns this kind of cruelty where the children are punished for the sins of their parents. But this was common in ancient times. Kings would not just kill their enemies, but they would kill everybody in their enemy's family, lest the kids grow up to try to avenge their parents. These were vicious times, and women and children were often the victims of this viciousness and brutality. But the Bible is certainly not condoning it.

Read this as descriptive, not prescriptive. Verse 25, then King Darius wrote to those of every people, nation, and language, another key phrase you should underline, on the whole earth. May your prosperity abound. I issue a decree that in all my royal dominion, people must tremble in fear before the God of Daniel, for he is the living God, and he endures forever. His kingdom will never be destroyed.

His dominion has no end. He rescues and delivers. He performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth, for he has saved Daniel from the power of the lions. This chapter started with a prohibition on prayer, and it ends with a pagan king preaching a sermon about God's providential protection. And it's actually a pretty good little mini sermon.

Darius declares, let me walk you back through it real quick. Darius declares that God is global. He's not just the God of Israel or the God of Babylon. He's the God of all people's nations and languages and all the earth, contrary to what Babylonians believe and contrary to what people believe today. He's not a tribal deity where you got your God and I got mine. This is not a God about whom you can say, well, I got my God, you got yours, you can have your truth, I'll have my truth. There is one God and one truth for all people in all times and all places. By the way, one of the dumbest phrases in our culture is this is my truth. There is no such thing as your truth. Truth is not private. There's the truth, and we conform our lives to it, not conform it to us.

So he says, first of all, global, and let's get rid of all that postmodern weird stuff. Secondly, Darius says, God is personal. He is the living God.

He's not like those Babylonian gods that neither speak nor relate to humans, gods that you got to carry about from place to place and leave food in front of because they can't feed themselves. The true God, he said, is the living, active, speaking God. Verse 26, he is eternal. He endures forever, he says. It's God, not the king who lives forever. He's sovereign. His kingdom will never be destroyed. He's faithful. He delivers and rescues his people. He's imminent. King Darius says he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth.

Imminent is a word that means that he is close by and engaged, not far away and uninterested. This is not a God who is sitting above the heavens uninvolved. This is a God actively at work in the world today, actively pursuing you, actively working in your life right now if you're looking for it. Finally, Darius says he's the savior. He rescued, he saved Daniel. This is a God who didn't leave his people in a dark pit to perish.

This is a God ready to help all those who call on him, who is with you in the pit and will bring you out of the pit. That's a pretty good little sermon if you ask me. Daniel is the book in the Bible where we see amazing sermons preached by formerly pagan kings. And how do they learn these things, y'all? How do they learn them?

Not by reading books. They learn them as Daniel and his friends live with consistency and courage in front of them. And y'all, that's the whole point of the book of Daniel. This is what God promises will happen around us if we live like they did, if we shine in Raleigh-Durham like they shown in Babylon. Listen, Babylon is not a place for spiritual weaklings.

It will chew you up and spit you out. In Daniel's case, literally. But for those who live with wisdom, for those who live with consistency and courage, they will, remember our key verse, Daniel 12 three, they will shine like the brightness of the heavens above.

They will shine like the stars forever and ever. So Daniel, verse 28, so Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and then the reign of Cyrus the Persian who reigned after him. There are two things from this story that I want to leave you with, okay? First, the first thing I want to leave you with is the courage in the lion's den comes from consistency in the prayer closet. It's like I said, Daniel did not summon up courage the moment he was thrown in the lion's den. Daniel's courage was the result of years and years of small, faithful, mostly unknown acts of obedience.

It was the fruit of patterns he had laid down for a lifetime. I am not a prophet, but if you will let me make a prophecy that I would say you could take to the bank. If you wait until the hour of trial to decide what you're going to do in the moment of trial, you will fail. Do you want to know, do you want to know that you're going to have the courage to stand when everybody around you is doing the wrong thing? Or that you're going to have the courage to maintain your integrity when the temptation to cheat is overwhelming? Or that you're going to have the courage to live out your convictions when everybody around you tells you that you're crazy? Do you want to know that if you're going to, that you're going to maintain your confession of faith in a hostile environment? I can predict all of that.

I can predict it based on what you're doing now. Because what you do then is determined by what you're doing now. Courage is not conjured up in the heat of the moment. Courage comes from a consistency in the prayer closet.

High school and college students, let me talk to you specifically for a moment. Do you want to know, do you want to know that you're going to have the ability to maintain your confession of faith when everybody else in your class and your professor mocks you? Do you want to know that you're going to have the courage to remain sexually pure in a culture that treats that not just as odd, but as strange beyond comprehension? That's going to be determined not by what you think you'll decide in the moment. That's going to be determined by the first thing you choose to do when you get out of bed tomorrow morning. Your courage in those moments of trial are determined by whether you are now developing small, consistent habits of obedience, like a daily time of prayer.

Daniel had pre decided to follow Jesus, and that was demonstrated by the fact that he regularly met with God to pour out his problems to him. My dad used to say to me, he said, Son, if you wait until the moment of temptation to decide whether or not you're going to remain sexually pure, you will always make the wrong decision. Decide now. Decide now and begin to walk with God now. And when the hour of temptation comes, well, then you'll find that God will give you the resources to overcome. That blank in the Google search of your heart will not auto fill with courage unless you have trained it through small, consistent acts of obedience. Courage is not conjured up in the heat of the moment. Courage comes from consistency in the prayer closet.

Here's the second thing I want to leave you with, okay? Seeing Jesus as the greater Daniel is the strength of courage. Seeing Jesus as the greater Daniel is the strength of courage, let me explain. One of the mistakes, most common mistakes that people make with this story is they turn it into a hero tale. Where we leave this story aspiring to be Daniel, dare to be a Daniel is how I often heard it preached.

And like I've shown you, there's certainly much about Daniel's life that you can and should emulate. But that is not the main point of the story, or any Old Testament story for that matter. As I have told you before, the Old Testament was not primarily written to give us heroes to emulate. The Old Testament was written to point you to a savior to adore. If you try to copy the example of a Daniel, you will likely end up discouraged by your failure.

That's how it is for me at least. Because no matter how much I coach myself or how many pep talks I give to myself in the mirror, I cannot sustain lasting courage. I might succeed for a moment, but it's usually only to fall back on my face again, more discouraged and hopeless feeling than ever. But when you see that Daniel's story, like all stories in the Old Testament, is actually there to point you to Jesus, we'll see then this story takes on a new meaning. You see, there are a lot of parallels between what Daniel went through and what Jesus will go through. Consider this, both Daniel and Jesus are pictures of innocence. Daniel's one of three men in the Old Testament about whom there is not a mention of even a single flaw. The prophet Ezekiel says that Daniel was one of the three most righteous people ever to walk the face of the earth.

Jesus of course lived totally without sin, no impure thought or motive ever even entered into his head. Both Daniel and Jesus had jealous political leaders drum up false charges against them to get them killed. Both Daniel and Jesus had the primary judge in their case, for Daniel that would have been Darius and for Jesus that would have been Pilate, both of them had the primary judge declare them innocent and try to spare them. Both Daniel and Jesus were thrown into a pit whose entrance was covered by a large stone and then sealed with a government seal and left for dead. Both Daniel and Jesus had loving friends run to their tomb early in the morning. Both Daniel and Jesus walked out of that tomb alive the next morning. Both Daniel and Jesus after their ordeal were raised up as second in command over the kingdom, Daniel under Darius and Jesus under God the Father in heaven.

There's one big difference between Daniel and Jesus however, and that is that Daniel eventually died but Jesus defeated death. We do a disservice to this story when we reduce it to just a little kid's story, fun little kid's story about being brave. We got this fun little image of Daniel down there with all the big kittens but make no mistake y'all, this was no kid's adventure tale. Lions are vicious creatures and those who live in their proximity know that you cannot take them for granted for even a single second. I was reading on the account of a park ranger in the Kruger National Park in South Africa who is one of the few people in the world alive today to have been attacked by a lion and survive. He didn't know what he said, he didn't know it but one afternoon as he was riding his horse to the park he was being stalked by a pair of lions. Suddenly he said one lunged at me from the tall grass barely missing me and knocking the horse out from underneath me. That first lion went to work on my horse when I heard a deafening horrifying roar he said from right behind me as the second lion pounced on me. He said I remembered some of my training and I went totally limp trying to make the lion think that I was dead to try and buy me some time to figure out what to do. Luckily he said the lion did not grab me by the neck which is common which would have killed me instantly he said but he grabbed me by his shoulder my shoulder which the lion then crushed between his jaws causing the most excruciating pain making this whole go limp and play dead strategy really difficult to execute he said. The lion dragged him for about 60 yards toward his lair he said let me just quote it he said my face was shoved into his mane the smell was awful and the lion purred the whole way there he assumed he said it was in pleasant anticipation of his meal cats are evil I'm telling you okay the man said the whole time he was trying to figure out what to do next when he remembered when you remember that he had strapped his hunting knife onto his right hip that morning but he was said I was just positive that it had gotten knocked off when I'd been knocked off my horse again let me just read you his words it took me some time to work my left hand around my back as the lion dragged me over the ground but eventually I reached the sheath and to my indescribable joy the knife was still there I secured it in my left hand wondering where best to stab the lion I remembered hearing many years before that if you hit a cat on the nose he will sneeze this particular theory is of course incorrect but at the time I thought it might be true though I dismissed the notion deciding that even if it worked the lion would just sneeze and pick me up again so I decided to aim my knife right for his heart I moved smoothly and silently as a serpent because any fumbling in this maneuver would arouse the lion with instantly fatal results to myself knowing where his heart was located I struck him twice in quick succession the lion instantly dropped me and I and let out a furious roar and I struck him again this time upwards into his throat which severed his jugular and killed him now why do I share all of that disturbing detail I want you to feel just a a smidgen of the horror of a lion attack Daniel in the lion's den is no gentle kid story and I want you to feel that horror because this whole story is supposed to be a picture for you of the cross and if you don't get it out of the realm of kids story and get it into the realm of horror story where it belongs you'll never see that you see Psalm 22 says that that on the cross the messiah Jesus was thrown to the lions of judgment which circled him and taunted him and then tore him apart Jesus was far more innocent than Daniel ever was yet before Jesus's body ever even reached the bottom of the pit he only made it six hours on the cross those lions had torn him to pieces unlike with Daniel no angel came to stand by him no angel came to shut the lion's mouth to quote Sally Lloyd Jones from her book Jesus was left in the blackness utterly alone and abandoned by God suffering the fate that we the guilty ones deserved God did not shut the mouths of Jesus's lions like he did Daniel's he let them tear him apart his body was left entombed in the icy grip of death for three days before the angel finally came to roll away his stone but he was burying our sin he went into that pit for me and that's where Jesus and Daniel are different you see when Daniel came forth from the lion's den he came out all alone and nobody else was saved by God's deliverance of him but when Jesus came forth from the tomb he came out as the head of a mighty company of people who have been redeemed from the pit through his death because of the work of Christ on behalf of his people the divine judge says not guilty you may all go free and see here's the thing if I know that if I know that and I know I know that Jesus has taken into himself any judgment for my sin that there's no condemnation anymore for those of us who are in Christ Jesus well that means that whatever I'm going through now I can know that God is with me I can know he's standing beside me because anything that would have turned God against me Jesus has removed at the cross and see then if God is for me well then who could be against me if the Lord is my strength and my shield if he is my light and my salvation of whom do I have to be afraid I don't got to be afraid of those who kill the body because I have a God who can preserve the soul that God is with me in cancer he's with me when death takes a family member he's with me in the pain of betrayal or the sting of injustice he is with me in every struggle frustration and failure that I go through promising never to leave me or forsake me promising to overcome through me constantly whispering in my ear greater is he that is in you than anybody or anything in the world so yay so I walk in the valley of the shadow of death I don't have to be afraid of evil because you're with me and your rod and your staff they comfort me knowing knowing knowing that the Jesus to whom Daniel's life points is with me gives me the courage to face danger like Daniel did and to be consistent like Daniel was and the ability to get up and keep going when I have not been consistent so yeah thank God for examples like Daniel but worship Jesus who took your punishment in the lion's den and now promises to preserve you in the den of any lions you face today with him with him you have the courage you can have the courage to face anything why don't you bow your heads if you would bow your heads and let me just ask two simple questions right now where's the auto response auto fill of your heart responding to some difficult situation some threat some struggle with the wrong response pride and preemptive strike panic right now where do you need to run to Jesus maybe just right there where you're sitting just want to open your hands just say Lord here it is here it is here it is I want to run to you in prayer while you're doing that could I just challenge you some of you start a daily prayer time could you decide that right now say Lord I'm gonna do that I'm gonna start every day the first thing I do when I get up you don't start big start with five minutes not to be inspired I'm gonna pray for four hours every morning don't do that five minutes start with five minutes do it like Daniel did maybe do it three times a day just do it right in the morning right after lunch right before you go to bed do it for 21 days and 21 days it'll be harder to start stop than it was to start to say five minutes I'm gonna commit to a daily time where I read God's Word and hear from him father we want to have courage like Daniel to make us aware of the Jesus in us who is greater in us than he that is in the world we pray in Jesus name you keep your heads bowed our worship teams will come and they'll lead us to celebrate and worship the God of rescue.