Welcome to Ocean Water. We hope you feel refreshed by the living water of Jesus Christ as we help people receive drinking water from the ocean for free. Thanks for joining us for
this week's message. And if you enjoy it, please share it with a friend. Hi, I'm Dr. Ryan Delamater, the pastor of Ocean Water Church. I'm here today at the beach where I live. I'm glad that you could be with us today for this week's message. Today we continue our nine-week journey looking at one of the most fascinating people in the Bible, a guy named Daniel. We're calling this series Waves, Learning to Ride What Life Brings. Life is about
harnessing momentum in the moments and seasons you find yourself in, and that has so many parallels to wave riding that we're using that over the next few months as a metaphor. So this series is about a man named Daniel who started out as a 15-year-old prisoner of war and went to the top of the pinnacle of success. Today I want to talk with you about the wave of conformity when you're pressured to conform. Now there's a lot of pressure on us right now to conform, and God has a lot of things to
say about this, so we want to be attentive to what he's trying to communicate. So Daniel was 15 years old when he was separated from his parents. He never saw them again, never got to go back to his home country, but the rest of his life was an amazing, rags-to-riches story where he starts off as a prisoner of war and ends up 85 years old, the most powerful man in the empire, except the emperor. He actually saves the entire empire and outlasts three different
administrations. Nebuchadnezzar and Balthazar who were in the Babylonian Empire had taken over the Assyrian Empire and the Persians and Cyrus the Great took over their empire and said, we're killing all you guys, but actually we're keeping Daniel. He actually leads two of these three emperors to their faith in God, and at 85 years old they pull him out of retirement to save him one more time. It's an amazing, amazing story. So we're going to be looking at that in the weeks ahead. The Bible says in Proverbs 17.3,
that fire tests the purity of silver and gold, but the Lord tests the heart. Before every blessing, there's always a testing. You see the Lord tests the heart. He tests your heart. Before every blessing, there's always a testing. If you're going to be blessed by God, you're going to be tested by God. Now, if you're going to be used by God, he's going to want to test you first. He's going to want to make sure that you're ready to handle the power and the blessing and the influence or whatever he wants to give you. He wants
to make sure that you can handle it. So why does God say that he tests our heart? Well, it says that he tests our character, our integrity, our humility, our loyalty, our faithfulness, our truthfulness. All of this is about our character. The more you get promoted, the more power you get, the more influence, it's actually God trying to test you in these things. This is why Paul was taught so much and actually wrote so much of the Bible because God spoke to him more than he speaks to
both of us. Now, why is that? Well, Paul said we speak God's message because God tested us and trusted us to do it. When we speak, we're not trying to please people. We're trying to please God who tests our heart. Daniel's character was tested in so many ways like ours is each and every day.
And each time God wants to give you more influence and more power and more insight. And he wants to tell you things that he doesn't tell anybody else. So God tests us before he promotes us. And today we're going to look at a different kind of test, not major change, but the test of social pressure.
This was the test that Nebuchadnezzar and the king of Babylon, he takes all of Israel captive. And he says, I'm going to find the smartest, the brightest, the best looking, gifted young people. I'm going to bring them to my palace. And I'm going to try to get a bunch of these Hebrew boys and Jewish boys. And Daniel happens to be the one that's picked. And he's 15 years old when this happens.
And he goes through a three year indoctrination program where they try to basically wipe out his memory. They say, you don't need the Bible anymore. You don't need God anymore. We're going to basically secularize. We're going to brainwash you. And you're going to be trained for three years. And then you're going to serve in my court. And you're going to serve in the royal palace.
And some of you are going to get promoted even to higher positions. And they're going to teach you a new language. They're going to teach you a new culture. They're going to teach you new habits. They're going to give them a new religion and new names. So they're basically trying to completely reprogram them.
Now Daniel also had three friends. Daniel 1.7 says that the boys were all given new Babylonian names. Daniel was renamed Belshazzar. Hananiah was renamed Shadrach. And Meshach was renamed Meshach. What does all this mean? What's going on here? Well, because all of their Hebrew names were references to God. So their new names took out those references to God and had references to pagans, pagan gods.
So Daniel actually in Hebrew means God is my judge. So Bel was a pagan or a phony god of Babylon. And Hananiah, his Hebrew name means God is gracious. And he was renamed Shadrach. That means the moon god. And the moon god of Babylon, Mishael, whose name in Hebrew means who is like God. In other words, there's no one as great as he is. Who is like God is renamed Meshach, who's a fertility god in Babylon.
And Azariah, whose name in Hebrew means God has helped me is renamed Abednego, which means servant of Nebo, who was another pagan god. So Daniel 1.5 says that the king ordered that the young men in this program should eat the same food and wine served at the king's table while they're being trained during this three year period.
After that, they were to become servants of the king of Babylon. But Daniel resolved not to defile himself by eating the royal food and wine and asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself in this way. So you see Daniel refused to go along with the program. He said, I'm not going to defile myself. Now what does that word defile mean? It's an old word and it means to corrupt. It means to pollute. It means to contaminate. It means a loss of purity.
Now there were two reasons Daniel refuses to conform here in this situation. First is literally a health reason. The king's food wasn't really good food. It was kind of junk food. It was heavy on sauces and a lot of sugar and it wasn't really healthy food in the first place. So there was a physical reason. And then the second thing was, well, there was a cultural reason. God in the Bible gave the Jews, the nation of Israel, very strict dietary loss.
Today we call them kosher. And God did this because he said, I don't want you to ever forget that you're a unique people from everybody else. You don't get to eat like everybody else eats. It wasn't because God thought that his people were better. It's just that God said, I've chosen you and given you these commandments and I've given you my word and I'm promising you a Messiah, the son of God.
And it's not because you're better. It's just I chose you to be the conduit for what I want to do in the world. And you're not to forget that you're unique. So I don't want you to eat like everybody else and act like everybody else. So Daniel goes, wait, I'm supposed to eat this way? I'm a Jew. There was a cultural and a national and a religious reason. So what's going on here and why is Daniel rejecting this? Well, there's a third reason and it's a big one.
And it's because it was an attack in his identity. You see, number one, this is the first test. The first test reveals Daniel's integrity. Integrity. He never forgot who he was. Romans 12, 2 says the Bible says, do not conform yourself any longer to the values of this world. Instead, let God transform you by a complete change of how you think. Then you'll be able to know the will of God. You have two choices in life. You'll be conformed or you'll be transformed. You'll be conformed to the world.
You'll be like everybody else. You'll look the same and talk the same and in many ways act the same. You'll be conformed or you'll be transformed by God's word and his life and culture. And if you're transformed by God's word, then you're going to know God's will and what he wants to do in your life. You see, Daniel reveals integrity. He doesn't forget who he is, who God made him to be. The second test is revealed in discipline, personal discipline. He controlled his ego and his appetite.
Now in this situation, the Bible says that Daniel made up his mind not to eat the food and wine given to them by the king. And it was gourmet stuff. But Daniel shows tremendous discipline in spite of this great temptation. Daniel is incredibly disciplined as a 15 year old without his parents. And he says to the most powerful man in the world, I'm not going to do that. In fact, I'm going to serve God because he put me here. And I'm not going to serve you because you're a pagan king.
And I know I'm going to end up indebted to you and being co-opted by you. And so I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to be conformed. I'm not going to be seduced into the domino effect of what you want to do and want me to be. Well, that's an amazing amount of maturity and discipline for someone who's a teenager. Romans 6 13 says, don't let any part of your body become a tool of wickedness used for sinning.
Instead, give yourself completely to God because he wants you to be a tool in his hands used for good and for his purposes. This is the decision that Daniel made as a teenager. I want to be used by God, not used by the world. I want to be used by God, not by culture. I want to be transformed by God, not conformed to the world. You see, Daniel had integrity and he had discipline.
Now, the third thing we see in his life and we really need to get a hold of this if we want God's blessing on us is courage. Daniel had courage, which means that he was willing to stand alone. Think about that. It took a great amount of courage for him to look at the most powerful man in the world and ask him to exempt him from eating his food. This was an insult both nationally and culturally. He's basically a conscientious objector.
What made this even more difficult was that he wasn't the only Jewish boy in the program. He was actually not just speaking for himself, but also for his three friends. He's really feeling the weight of this decision, the decision not to conform. I'm sure people said, you know, but everybody's doing it. How many times have we pulled our parents out when we were younger? Daniel goes, I don't care if the whole world does it. It's not right. I'm not going to do it. This is the conformity test.
He stands with courage, willing to stand alone. He's willing to say the majority is often wrong. History has proven that the majority is wrong a lot of the time. And just because the majority likes a particular value or passes a particular law doesn't mean the value of that law is right. What's right is right. And what's God's will will always be God's will. Only God gets to decide what truth is, not us. Only God decides what's right and wrong. It's not up for a majority vote.
So Daniel says, I don't care what everybody's doing. I'm not doing that. And this is the kind of courage that God blesses. Exodus 23 says, never follow the crowd in doing wrong. And don't be swayed in your testimony by the mood of the majority. Daniel kept getting promoted because God looks at people who have courage and says, that's my person. I'm going to promote them. They don't follow the crowd. They're not swayed by the testimony or the mood of the majority.
Now there's a fourth test revealing in Daniel's life, and that's the test of humility. You see, God loves humility. Look at Daniel here. He says, what he couldn't do for the authority, he said, I can't do this. It's against my values. It's morally wrong. It violates my conscience. He still is very tactful with how he communicates this, which shows a lot of humility. And the way that Daniel made his appeal to King Nebuchadnezzar and the authorities was that he showed respect.
He knew that God had allowed this pagan leader who wasn't a Christian, who wasn't a godly man, but he knew he had allowed this leader in his life to be his boss. Daniel 1, 8 says, then Daniel asked the chief official, this is the chief of the palace, for permission to eat other things instead. Now God had given the chief official great respect for him. But he said, I'm afraid of my lord, the king, who offered that you eat his food and wine.
And if you aren't as healthy as the others, I fear the king will have me beheaded. So next, Daniel talked it over with the guard and appointed him to look after Daniel and his three friends. Daniel offered a suggestion. Just test this for 10 days and a diet of vegetables and water, and then see how healthy we look compared to the other people. Then you can decide whether or not to let us continue eating our diet. So the guy agrees to it at Daniel's suggestion.
At the end of the 10 days, Daniel and his friends looked healthier and more vigorous and stronger than everybody else in the training program. So after that, the guard let them eat their own food. You see, you get promoted when you have a reputation for responsibility. Proverbs 22 says, if you do your job well, leaders will notice you and will help you serve before kings. Now the fact is, people with great responsibility notice other people who are responsible.
People with great responsibility notice other leaders who are responsible because they understand how important responsibility is. The second way to get promoted is to be humble. To be humble because our attitude determines our acceptance. Proverbs says, when you stand before the king, don't try to impress him and pretend to be important. If you threaten them, threats never work. Be humble or we stumble. Now develop a reputation for being responsible and humble.
Now the third way is by not being manipulative, by not being deceptive. Now if you lie, God says you're on your own. You don't have God's defense. God says, I'm not going to help you in this situation because you're lying about it. So you don't try to strengthen your case for promotion with deception. Second Corinthians 4 says, we reject all shameful and underhanded methods. Why do we try to trick anyone and distort the word of God?
We tell the truth before God and all our honest know that God will honor your honesty. Now the fourth way you get promoted is to appeal to your boss's goals and interests. You're there to help them. You start with what they want, not with what you want. This is exactly what Daniel does. He's very wise in doing this. Daniel says, look, we have the same goal here. Let's just try to get at it in a different way. You want me to eat this food because the king thinks it will make me more healthy.
I don't have a problem with that. I want to be healthy. If it works, great. We've got a win-win. You win and I win. Everybody wins. Everybody gets what they want. If it doesn't work, then you decide. You're still in charge. You're still the authority. But we're going to start with your goals. The fifth way you get promoted is to choose the right place at the right time with the right words. Choosing the right place at the right time and the right words to appeal to an authority.
If, by the way, you're a young person and you want to go out on your Friday night and your parents say no, you need to use these laws. I'm teaching you how to make a case to people, not just your parents, but people and bosses that you're going to have throughout your life. Now, what's the right place? Well, always privately. People mess this up all the time. You don't confront people publicly. All you'll do is solidify their opposition. You'll make them mad.
You can't expect them to lose face and be into your requests. Proverbs says, a wise, mature person is known for his understanding. The more pleasant his words, the more persuasive he is. The more pleasant his words, the more persuasive he is. You see, because if you want to be persuasive, you can't be abrasive. I'm never persuasive when I'm abrasive. Now, the sixth way to get promoted is to trust God if they reject your appeal. What does that mean? Well, in this case, Daniel's appeal worked.
But if your appeal doesn't work and you've appealed to your boss, Romans 8.28 says, and we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love God according to his purposes. Now, that's not a promise for everybody. It's a promise for those who love God and trust his purposes. God works for good. You can find comfort in this for four reasons. Well, first, I have Jesus with me. Jesus said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.
So you're never really completely alone. You may feel alone in that moment, but you're not. Jesus is with you. He says, I am with you. Secondly, I have the Holy Spirit in me. I not only have Jesus with me, I've got God's Spirit in me. And the Bible says, greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world, which means that you have an unfair advantage because you have God's Spirit in you and your carnal boss does not. So you have the Holy Spirit, Jesus with me, the Holy Spirit in me.
Now, third, I have the promises of God to me. There are over 6000 promises from God to you in the Bible, which is why we want to read it every day. We want to know those promises that get us through difficult times. Now, lastly, you have God's family around you. Think about that. I have brothers and sisters and people who are praying for me, which, by the way, is why I want you to find a time each week
to have a meal where you live and watch this message and pray for each other. That will help build God's family. It's easy. Pick a meal on a day, watch this message, and pray for each other and watch God work. I want to ask you a question. Now, are you friends with Jesus? Did you know that Jesus would like to be your friend? That's why I do what I do, because I like to see people become friends with Jesus and serve other people. Would you like to be friends with Jesus today? It's really simple.
You just admit that your life is not the way you want it to be, and you ask Jesus to forgive you of your shortcomings, and then you ask Him to be your friend and guide you in your life. If you mean that sincerely, you can pray right now with me. Just say, Jesus, I'd like to be friends with you. Things aren't going the way that I'd like them to go in my life. Please help me to follow your amazing teachings. Please be my friend today. Guide me today. Amen.
If you're friends with Jesus, you're in God's family. If you prayed that, I'd like you to text me at 562-553-2024. That's my cell phone number. I'd like to text you back and give you some things that will help you in your friendship with Jesus. Now, I want to thank those of you who support ocean water.
Throughout this pandemic, I mentioned last week we've been helping provide food and water to 38 families in El Salvador, and we practice that here in San Clemente with the guy that we've adopted in our guys group that we take groceries to and clean his apartment and care for him. He has early onset Parkinson's and no local family, and so we're his family. Four guys, Adam and Bobby and Ivan and myself,
we have adopted him and care for him. And I'm asking that you add your voice to the chorus of people who are starting to understand that we have an obligation to help get water and food to people and to be generous, part of our responsibility and our worship. Now, God doesn't watch the amount you give. He watches the sacrifice behind it. God knows its worship when it costs us something.
Only we know what it really costs. That's why our worship is between us and God. But I want you to go online today at OceanWater.com and click on give and what God puts on your heart, set that up a monthly plan as part of your worship to help others. Now, thanks for being with us today. I hope you enjoyed this message and I hope you have a great week. Thanks so much.