Lent will be devoted to hearing the first 6 chapters of Daniel. Daniel 1 replaces the Old Testament and Epistle for Ash Wednesday.
Ash Wednesday What You See is What You Get Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen. Daniel said to the steward, Test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king's food be observed by you, and deal with your servants according to what you see. Dear Christian friends: “*The world hates you*” (John 15:19). Jesus wants you to know it, believe it, and order your life accordingly. “*The world hates you*,” says the Lord, but that is not completely a bad thing. When Jesus said, “*the world hates you*,” He also explained why: the world hates you because you belong to Jesus; because you have His light and life and forgiveness and grace; because you have been “*called out of the darkness into His marvelous light*” (1 Peter 2:9). “*The world hates you*,” says Jesus, but do not feel too bad about that. Bear in mind, says the Lord, that: · “*it has hated Me before it hated you*” (John 15:18); · “*I chose you out of the world*” (John 15:19); and · “*you are blessed when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets*” (Luke 6:22-23). In a certain sense, the world’s hatred for you might actually make your everyday life a little easier. Because the world feels such undying spite and enmity and loathing toward you, there is absolutely nothing you can do to impress the world. There is nothing you can do to gain the world’s favor. There is nothing you can do to make the world your friend. To be fair, there is something you can do in order to gain the praise of the world. You can curse God, rejecting the forgiveness and life He has given to you. You can abandon the faith and re-enter the darkness. But it would come at the cost of your eternal life, and you should wonder whether that high price is really worth it. This what the Lord says: Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God (James 4:4). Since it is impossible to impress the world and still remain Christian, God’s Christians ought not to even try. This is no sense—and there is nothing gained—in artificially presenting yourself to anyone. Therefore, · “*when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you*” (Matthew 6:3-4). · “*And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, who to love to pray, that they may be seen by others*” (Matthew 6:5). · “*And when you fast, do not look gloomy… but anoint your head and wash your face*” (Matthew 6:16, 17). Since the world will NOT be our friend so long as we remain Christian, it would be far better for us to hold the Christian faith unapologetically and unrepentantly before the eyes of the world—without even trying to impress anyone. That is what Daniel did. With Daniel, what you see is what you get. Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. Therefore he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. … “Test your servants for ten days; let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youths who eat the king's food be observed by you, and deal with your servants according to what you see.” Essentially, Daniel and his friends said to the Babylonian king, “We are NOT interested in playing your pagan game, O king! We recognize your power and your throne. We regard our position before you as the will of God. We will treat you with respect and we will serve you to the limits of our strength. But that is as far as we wish to go. We have no plan to abandon or deny who we are. We are NOT going to dishonor the good name by which we have been called (James 2:7), simply because it might impress you. We hold the faith of Israel. What you see is what you get. Daniel and his friends allow us to consider the possibility that, even though the world remains committed to its hatred toward us, things will not necessarily turn out badly for us because of it. Daniel and his friends held the faith and trusted God through everything—and as we read through the book of Daniel this Lent, we will see that Daniel and his friends experienced a lot of things. · First, Daniel and his friends will repeatedly illustrate for us these Words of Jesus, “*The world hates you*” (John 15:18). Daniel and his friends repeatedly did well in Babylon and for Babylon. None of it was ever enough to make their enemies happy or gain their friendship. · Through it all, Daniel and his friends might even how it is indeed a blessed thing “*when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets*” (Luke 6:22-23). Perhaps we will see that, in a certain sense, faithfulness is its own reward. · Finally, Daniel and his friends will point us toward the faithfulness of our God in Christ Jesus our Lord. The Scriptures promise—and Daniel shows it true—that our God remains faithful in everything. He has given us His Son Jesus, and in Jesus we have forgiveness and life. Daniel would like us to know that we can boldly live in this world with a “what-you-see-is-what-you-get” Christianity, trusting our God for all things—no matter where we end up going or what we might be called upon to do.
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