I haven't heard good music in four weeks. All right, let's take a moment and turn to the Lord. Father, thank You this morning that You are our lighthouse. I thank You Father that we can trust You.
And that You have given us life through Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We come this morning and we sing with joy because we are rejoicing in the One who loved us and watched us from our sins. Pray this morning as we look into Your Word that You will speak to our hearts. You will challenge us, that You will, through the Holy Spirit, work in our lives, in our hearts that we may grow and come to know better our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore we will serve Him more with all of our hearts.
Father, I pray for those who are here who don't know the Savior, just given the number of people in the room, I'm quite confident that there's probably somebody here who does not know Christ. And I pray that You would work in their hearts, but they may come to know the One who died for them, to set them free. We pray these things in the name of the Lord Jesus, Amen. I just want to mention this morning that my message is pretty much to those who are believers who know the Lord Jesus Christ.
And I don't know everybody here to the extent that where they are with the Lord, whether you've accepted Him as your Savior or whether you have it, I just want to share two verses, three verses, actually, before I start. It has nothing to do with my message, absolutely nothing to do with the message that I prepared. But the Lord put it on my heart this morning that I want to be careful when I come into the pulpit to make sure that if there's anybody here who does not know Jesus Christ, that they can not leave here saying, I didn't know how to come to the Savior. And in Romans chapter four, verse four, it says, now to Him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but death.
In other words, you get what you earn when you work. I've met a lot of people who are trying to work. They're a way to heaven. And you can't work your way to heaven.
The wages of sin is death. But the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. But there's one of my favorite words in the Bible comes next in this passage in Romans chapter four. It says, but, it means there's the bad news, but here's the good news.
But to Him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, His faith is accounted for righteousness. A verse that was shared this morning at the Lord's Supper, one of my favorite verses in all, the scripture speaks of the Lord Jesus, Jesus our Lord, who was delivered up for our offenses or because of our offenses and was raised because of our justification. Jesus Christ died for your sins. The only reason Jesus Christ went to across was not because he fell in disfavor with the Romans or because the Jews turned on and hated him.
He went to that cross and he died because you're a sinner. And he went to that cross and died because it was the only way the payment could be made for my sins. And it says that he was delivered up because of our offenses or our sins, but he was raised because of our justification. Jesus Christ was raised to check, cleared, it cleared.
The payment for your sin has been done. And if you're here this morning and you have never come to know Jesus Christ as your savior, you can right now because the payment has been put into the account and it's been paid in full. And I just wanna make sure that everybody knows that before we even look into the scriptures. Because maybe you've come in today, you've not been here before, maybe you have been here many times before and you're trying to work your way to heaven.
You will never work your way to heaven. You will always fall short. There is no stairway to heaven. There is a way to heaven though, and it's Jesus Christ and it's only through him.
He was delivered up because of our sins, my sins, your sins, and raised because of our justification. I want you to turn in your Bibles, please, to the book of Daniel, Daniel chapter six. We've been doing a series on Daniel. I apologize with the way summer goes and we have guest preachers in and so on, that sometimes our messages in a series get spaced out quite a bit.
Daniel, I think I started about 18 years ago and so we're now we're in chapter six. So I just, oh yeah, go ahead, I can change this. And I want to look today, I thought I was so tempted to just do this whole chapter. It's what Daniel and Lion's Den.
Everybody knows what Daniel and Lion's Den. I don't care who you are if you said to somebody, do you know what Daniel and the Bible say? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, the guy in the Lion's Den. That's what everybody's gonna say.
We're not gonna put him there yet. So we're just gonna do the first part of it. I want to talk about Daniel with a faithful man. Daniel, the man of great faith.
And in, there's a great verse, faithfulness, it's one of the great attributes, whether it's in marriage or friendship or business. There's a, not just an expectation, but there's an attribute of somebody who's faithful, a faithful husband, a faithful wife, a faithful child, even a faithful dog people love. But faithfulness is an attribute that is a very positive one, and it's a supreme attribute, I would say. If you were to say about somebody, you could say what you want about him, he can't speak well, he doesn't write very well, blah, blah, but he's a faithful man.
There's not a great thing to say about someone. In fact, in Proverbs, we read this verse, and I've never heard of the Tree of Life version, so I have no idea whether it's owned by some strange cult or not, but I thought that they'd, boy, they sure have a great translation of this. It says, many a man proclaims his loyalty, but a faithful man who can find. There's a lot of people who will tell you, oh yes, I'm as faithful as a clock, I'll tell you, I'll stick with you, I'm loyal, I'm your guy.
You know what, I appreciate you, you work hard for me and then they fire you. I mean, it's faithfulness, you know, it's a rare thing to find. Solomon said, a faithful man, who can find? It's a question, and Solomon's a king, Solomon's a guy who dealt with a lot of people, a lot of men, a lot of women, a lot of people, 700 wives.
He didn't learn his lesson on faithfulness, but he said, a faithful man, who can find? Many will proclaim their loyalty, oh yes, I'm faithful, but they're not. Faithfulness, we typically assign this attribute to God, great as thy faithfulness, and he is. God has always proven through all of the centuries to be faithful, but the Lord Jesus said this, and when I first heard this as a new believer, I thought that's a disturbing statement that he makes.
In Luke chapter 18, verse eight, the Lord Jesus says this, he says, however, when the son of man comes or appears, will he find faith on the earth? And I started thinking about that. I know the Lord's coming, and I know he's coming soon, and at some point, but he asks this question, will I find faith on the earth? Will I find a faithful man?
Will I find a faithful woman? Others in the Bible who were counted as faithful in Numbers chapter 12, verse seven, God found Moses to be a faithful man. Nehemiah spoke of Hananiah as a faithful man, described him as a faithful man who feared God more than most. And in the New Testament, Jesus spoke of a faithful and wise servant, and you remember the servant, and after he had been so faithful and served properly, he was told by his master, well done, good and faithful servant.
And I believe it says in that passage as well, that you have served well, and you will be a ruler over 10, 10 cities, if you've served well in the small task. In Yellowstone National Park, and I've never been there. There's a geyser, and I always thought it was the biggest one, but it's not. I didn't realize it, it's not the biggest one.
And it's not the most powerful one, but it's the biggest tourist attraction. Do you know why? Because you can count on it. You know when you're standing there, when the clock counts down to a certain moment, it is going to blow.
It's the only one that is that regular, that they know, and what's it called? Old faithful. Old faithful will always go at the right time. Faithfulness is just that regular, consistent, and being able to be counted on.
All these attributes that people can give people to be very smart, very competent, and so on. I believe that faithfulness will always make it to the top of the list. And that's what Daniel was. Faithfulness seems to sum up the life of Daniel.
In fact, this morning, if our time permits, I'm going to look at Daniel, the faithful man. First of all, he was faithful consistently. He was always faithful through road scriptures. We don't read anything negative about Daniel, actually.
He's one of the only people in the scriptures that we never read a negative thing about Daniel. He was faithful in his professional life, and we'll see that. He was faithful when he was under scrutiny, and he was faithful spiritually. Over time, he was faithful to his boss, his country, and especially to his God.
Now, in this chapter, there's been a change in the kingdoms. And if you remember it when you were with me the last time, it was about the handwriting on the wall. And Belchasar was standing in as the king at the time, and he threw this big wild party with absolutely no regard for God or God's people or the implements that were stolen from the temple in Jerusalem. And this writing came on the wall, this mysterious writing.
And Daniel was brought in to read it and interpret it. And he looked at it and he said, yeah, I can tell you what that means. It means you're going to be dead within a matter of hours. And the means and the Persians are going to take over your kingdom.
Well, your reward for telling me that is you'll make your third ruler of the kingdom. And then within hours, it says that very nice was Belchasar, king of the Calvian slain. He didn't heed the wake up call. But at the end, he died.
And the Medes and the Persians, Cyrus, the king, came and took over. And so that takes us to where we are today. Now, it says in, here's where we are. So if you remember back in the early chapters of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar had this view, this vision, this dream that perplexed him of a big statue.
And the statue had a head of gold, arms and shoulders of silver, bronze, iron, and iron and clay for feet and toes. So I put a little thing on, you are here. Because the Babylonian kingdom is now gone. The Medes and the Persians, the arms and chest of silver is where we are at this point in time, in history.
So that tells you why we are where we are. And it says in verse 1 and 2 of Daniel chapter 6, it please Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps. So there's a new government, a new regime. And this is how they're going to govern.
120 satraps to be over the whole kingdom. And over these, over the satraps, were three governors, of whom Daniel was one, that the satraps might give an account to them so that the king would suffer no loss. So he wanted to kind of right away button down how this kingdom was going to be run. And Daniel was chosen as one of the top three to reign over over the regions.
But I want you to understand something. First of all, these satraps, these are actually worse if you read it in, I forget what it is. So satrapes, I mean, what do you do? I'm one of the satrapes.
Oh, do you fly around and all that stuff. But they're satraps, is the title that they were given. And they answer to Daniel and these two other guys. Don't even know their names.
But Daniel is 85 years old at this point in time. If you could just go to Google and say, Daniel, we'll be lying in the stand. Half the pictures will show this young dude with long brown hair standing there with a bunch of lions around them. Daniel is 85 years old.
Imagine taking an 85-year-old man and tossing him into a pit with lions. That's the Daniel of this time. He's lived in Babylon since he was a teenager. So it's about 70 years.
Six kings have come, six kings have gone. Kingdom is gone and a new one is arisen. And he's still on the job head. He's faithful and he's serving the Lord.
You know, I put this little quote in here that I came across. Faithfulness isn't doing the right thing once. Faithfulness is doing the right thing over and over and over and over and over. Faithfulness is just doing the right thing and doing it over and over and over again.
There was a missionary to India, William Carey. You've probably heard of him. Many people have heard of him. He went to his father and said, Dad, I'm going to India to be a missionary.
And this is the true story from his biography. His father said, are you kidding? You don't know the Indian languages. You don't know their history.
You don't know their culture. You really shouldn't go. And his answer to his father, he said, but I can plodd. I can just put one foot in front of the other and I can just plodd along.
You know, later in his life, this quote comes from him. It says, if he, meaning God, gives me credit for being a plodder, then he will describe me justly. Anything beyond that will be too much. I can plodd.
I can just persevere in any definite pursuit. To this, I owe everything. Faithful, a faithful man. Just plodds along, one foot in front of the other.
God did great and wonderful things with many men and women who just plodd along, faithfully and consistently. That's how he works. Daniel is one of those men, 85 years old. And he's not retired.
You know, I mean, in our culture, we would have said, Daniel, 85, time for the retirement home. Like, come on, out of the way. Got young people to take over and to kind of run this thing. You know, some people like Thomas Edison still inventing it 90 years old.
Michelangelo, 85 years old. Painted the most famous work that's hanging in the Sistine Chapel, the last judgment. John Wesley, 88 years old after 250,000 miles of traveling around on horseback to preach, is still preaching forcefully, articulately, at 88 years old. Faithful and consistent.
Long obedience in the same direction. That's what Daniel was. And that's what God desires. Then we just keep going in the same direction.
We just plodd along faithfully. So Daniel was faithful consistently. Daniel was also faithful professionally. In verses two and three, we read, and over these over these satraps, three governors of whom Daniel was one and the satraps might give an account to them so that the king would suffer no loss.
Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and the satraps because an excellent spirit was in him and the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm. We read of different places in the book of Daniel where Daniel is elevated to a position because he is unwavering in his faithfulness to God. Remember back in chapter one where he wouldn't eat the king's delicacies and he said, no, no, vegetables for me, I'm not gonna touch that stuff. I'm Jewish, I'm kosher, sorry, that stuff doesn't go on my plate.
Faithful to God. How's he rewarded? He becomes chief of the unix. In chapter two, when he could interpret dreams for the king, when he could serve the king, but faithfully interpreting the dreams and not afraid to tell the truth of God.
He will come and tell you the truth of God. He's made ruler over Babylon. In two and three, he's made the chief administrator over all of the wise men, all of the guys who couldn't answer the king. And then in chapter five, as I mentioned, he was made the third ruler of the kingdom, or proclaimed to be third ruler of the kingdom.
So here we are 70 years from when that teenager pushed away that plate of delicacies. And he's still faithful, he's still serving God. Jesus said, you are the light of the world. Let your light so shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father who is in heaven.
He was faithful in all that he did. You know, when Jesus says you're the light of the world, and let your light shine before all men, what does that mean to you tomorrow when you go to work? You know, actually the best place for you to be a light is at your work. Your best place to be a light is at work.
Now, if you live to be 70 years old, you'll have worked 20 solid years. That's why you're tired today. The point is, it's 20 years that you have been given, 20 years out of 70 for people to observe you, to observe what you do, how you act, how you perform. Daniel had a good work ethic.
What's he doing? He's serving the Lord. He's a hard worker. He distinguished himself.
In fact, distinguished himself, it's an aromatic participle. It means regularly distinguishing himself. He was always distinguishing himself. He was always working in a faithful way.
He had a strong work ethic. Whatever he was given to do, he did it well. So how do you witness at work? I have to look at myself in that same light.
How is my testimony at work? It's the greatest opportunity that God has given me to be a testimony to people. It really is. Oh, it's great to be down in the spring garden road on Friday night.
It's great to pass attracts in the public place in a park. It's great to come up and proclaim the gospel from a pulpit. But the bulk of my time is spent with coworkers. The bulk of my time is around people that I work with, and even people in my neighborhood.
So what are some of the ways I can be the best witness at work? First of all, do what I'm paid to do. If I'm paid to come to work for eight hours, show up on time, and leave on time. Don't mess around.
The second thing is witness and pray. But do it on your time, not your boss's time. If somebody comes into my office and says, well, we can't just, not right now. I'm reading.
I'm reading my Bible. Oh, yeah. You rip off your bosses what you're doing. There's a time for that.
But I can live out my life, my faith, before the people I work with, by being consistent, by being faithful. And he will give me the opportunities to talk to people about eternity. You don't believe how many times it comes up. There's opportunities to talk to people about their soul.
But if they're not observing a consistent work ethic in your life, they're not coming to you to ask you. You want to be the best witness? You want to be the best worker, and have a strong work ethic? It says here that Daniel had an excellent spirit or attitude.
Hope my mind slides. Yeah, I think. Yeah. So he wasn't walking around complaining all the time.
You don't read anything about Daniel complaining about his work. He thanked God in his time of trial. When was the last time you thanked God for your job? When was the last time you were thankful for the job you have?
My job is hard. I speak to John. His job is hard. I speak to others among here.
Your job is hard. I know that. Clyde, you have a hard job. Gabriel, we all have hard jobs.
But are you thankful for the job that God has given you? God has given us a means to provide for our family. A means to provide for our needs. Do we walk around all bundled and complaining, or do we thank God for what we have?
From our attitude study that we did, gratitude is the attitude that sets the altitude for your Christian life. If you're a grumbler, you're not being faithful. If you're a thankful person, you're being faithful. Work hard and have a good attitude.
Ephesians 6 verse 5 to 8. Bond servants be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling. In sincerity of heart as to Christ, not with eye service as men pleasers, but as bond servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, with the good will, doing service as to the Lord, not to men. Knowing that whatever good anyone does, he will receive the same from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free.
You know, people would say, so are you in the Lord's work? Yes, I am. Full time. Oh, yeah.
Really? I thought you worked out of food tummy. Oh, yeah, that's what I do. But that is the Lord's work.
That is the work that the Lord has given me. Your job is the Lord's work. You are a believer in Jesus Christ. You are full time in the Lord's work.
It doesn't matter what you're doing. If you're a school teacher, if you're a stay-at-home mom, if you're selling, if you're helping people as a job, if you're a fireman, a policeman, whatever you are doing. If you are a believer, you are in full time Christian work. And there is no distinction between you and a pastor who stands in a pulpit every Sunday.
You are both in full time Christian work. Be humble when you have the opportunity to evangelize. Have an attitude that would change, if you have that attitude, it will change the drudgery of your job into a meaningful ministry. And tell you a story about three men.
Three men are working on a job and they're just covered with dust and they've got sledge hammers and they're just pounding on rocks. And somebody walks up to them and says to the first man, what are you doing? He goes, I'm breaking rocks. Oh, nice.
He goes over to the next guy and says, what are you doing? He said, I'm making a living. I'm making a living. He's a little better than the first guy, but you're still doing the same thing.
And he comes to the third guy and he says, what are you doing? He says, I'm building a cathedral. See the difference? The difference in attitude.
I'm breaking rocks. I'm building a cathedral. It's all on how you view your work. It's all on how you view what God has given you to do.
Next, Daniel was faithful under scrutiny. So let me read this part. I have to come around here because I didn't put in my notes. Actually, I could read it from my Bible.
How about that? That's a novel idea. Versus four to nine. Versus four to nine.
So the governors and the satraps sought to find some charge against Daniel concerning the kingdom. But they could find no charge or fault because he was faithful. Nor was there any error or fault found in him. Then these men said, we shall not find any charge against Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.
So the governors and the satraps thronged before the king and said, the last to him, King Darius lived forever. Man, these guys, they really knew how to get up to the kingdom. This is just all that's all it is. And then verse seven, all the governors of the kingdom and the administrators and the satraps and the counselors and advisors have consulted together, lie, to establish a royal statute to make a firm decree that whoever petitions any God or man for 30 days except you, O King, shall be cast into the den of lions.
Now, O King, established the decree and signed it in writing so it cannot be changed according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which does not alter. Therefore, King Darius signed the written decree. I mean, who isn't going to sign that? If somebody comes to me tomorrow and says, we were all talking down the lunchroom.
And we kind of think that nobody should worship anybody except for you in this office. And all you got to do is sign this piece of paper and it will happen. Where's my pen? So that's kind of the way they trap them.
These guys were conniving liars. First of all, they said that they consulted with everybody. No, they didn't. They didn't have to do guys that decided that they're going to do Daniel in.
And so King Darius signs this off. And now they're saying we're going to examine him and see if we can find a charge against him concerning him and his God. We'll put a law in place. We'll make it up that we know we'll go against his God and he will break it.
His peers were jealous. You know, anytime you're in a position of authority or power, you're going to be envied and you're going to be criticized and there are people who are just going to be jealous. And this is the situation. They're looking and they're saying, like, who is this Daniel guy?
I mean, he's one of those Jews that we took back like 70 years ago from the kingdom. When we took it over and here he is like equal with us and now they're talking about making him or boss. You got to be kidding me. No, how do we act sometimes when we see somebody get promoted around us or above us?
That's our reaction. What do we think? You know, the Bible says in Romans chapter 12, verse 15, it says to mourn with those who mourn and to weep with those who rejoice with those who rejoice. It's not easy to mourn with somebody who mourns.
You go to a funeral home and somebody standing by a casket of a loved one and they're crying and the tear comes to your own eye and you put your arm around them and you say, look, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry with you. But what happens when your brother at work gets the promotion you thought you should have gotten? Goes around you and now he's your boss and he moves on up.
Brother, I'm really rejoicing and you're rejoicing. Yeah. And a hundred thousand dollars raised. Awesome.
That's just so awesome. I'm so happy for you. You know, it is easy to mourn with those who mourn, but it is sometimes difficult because jealousy is part of the sin nature that's in our hearts to rejoice with those who rejoice. But these guys just were just as jealous as they could be.
And so they put Daniel under great scrutiny and guess what? He was blameless. There was no skeletons in his closet. There was nothing in his life that was corrupt or wicked.
He was clean, but not without controversy. I mean, it was controversy followed Daniel all the way through. He wouldn't eat the foods in chapter one, chapter two. He told the king that his kingdom was going to come down at some point in time.
Chapter four, he told the king you're so full of pride you're going to end up eating grass out in the field. Chapter five, he was the ultimate party pooper and said, oh, by the way, King, you've got hours to live and you're going to lose your kingdom. But in all this controversy, he still distinguished himself above the rest. Even under the microscope, they could not find fault in him.
Daniel was faithful. Daniel, even under the deepest of scrutiny was always proven to be above the rest. Before I come to the conclusion, verses 10 to 15, it says, now Daniel, now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home and in his upper room with his window open towards Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day and he prayed and gave thanks before his God as was his custom since the early days. Then these men assembled and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God.
And they went before the king and spoke concerning Daniel's decree, have you not signed a decree that every man who petitions any God or man within 30 days except you, oh, King, shall be cast into a den of lions, the king answered and said things true according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which does not alter. So they answered and said before the king, that Daniel, that Daniel who you took, who was one of the captives from Judah, does not show due regard for you, oh, King, for the decree that you have signed, but he makes his petition three times a day. And the king when he heard these words was greatly displeased with himself and said his heart on Daniel to deliver him and he labored until the going down of the sun to deliver him. Then these men approached the king and said to the king, no, oh, King, that this is the law of the Medes and the Persians that know the decree or statute which the king establishes may be changed.
So in this case, the law is the law of Daniel. You have to go to the lions den from this law that they made up to even, I mean, the king now knows he's tricked. Daniel is faithful spiritually. It says that Daniel, even though there was a law written that he couldn't pray, he opened his window, he got on his knees and he prayed three times a day.
Now you're thinking, okay, he knows his laws out there, that's an in your face move. Go home with the windows open and three times that day I'm going to pray. But I love this verse because you know what it says, as had been his custom from the early days. This was not something new that Daniel did.
Daniel wasn't shoving it up anybody's nose or in their face. He's just doing what he always did. Faithful is a clock serving his God. I pray three times a day.
I open the windows. I face Jerusalem and I pray three times a day. That's what I do to serve my God. And he does it.
As was his custom. He's always done it. He's doing it now. He's faithful.
So were there other options for him? Sure. I could, you know what, maybe I'll just lay low for a month. Let me cancel devotions for a month.
That way, you know, this will blow over and we'll be all good. Or you know what, there is that other corner where there's no windows. I could go over there and kind of quietly pray, you know what, I could do this, pretend something in my eye and give thanks to my food, thank you for this food. His name meant, I didn't get caught.
I mean, I've been in restaurants for somebody to come over and think I have a heart attack because I'm giving thanks for the food. It's amazing. It actually did happen at Mother Web's just by the way. We were all in there and somebody said, but you can thanks for the food.
We all put our heads down. We gave thanks for the food and looked up and the waitress comes running over and says, you okay, sir? I said, oh yeah, hopefully I will be after I eat this, but it's been blessed. So there's other options.
But you know what, if he changed and prayed in private or he stopped praying for a month, it would have discredited his whole testimony. He would no longer be known as faithful Daniel. You know, it's better to die for a conviction than it is to live with a compromise. It really is.
He could have just said, okay, I'm going to just compromise for a while and live with that. He would not be able to live with himself before God. Daniel's view was, okay, better to die for this, but I am serving the living God no matter what. You know, my son was over the last night we were talking.
He's thinking about, I have a grandson. Did you guys, you know what, it's in there? So I have a grandson now. And his name is Camden.
It's perfect, except perfect little sinner. But that's what he is. But anyway, Ben is what we're talking about. He's crazy, crazy loss that have now come in to place in our country.
Crazy loss. And I'll tell you what, there's a truckload of them coming behind it. And there's going to be a law against doing what we're doing here at some point in time. I fully believe that.
There's going to be a law against Warren and John and Kirk and anybody who publicly voices the words and the name of Jesus Christ on our streets. That's coming. But what do we do when that happens? We faithfully serve the living God.
We faithfully, you know, it will be easy to say, okay, okay, I'm not allowed to preach anymore on the streets. I'm not allowed to give a track. So I'm going to email the gospel to everybody. Just a faceless email that I can send out.
Is that what God wants? No. God reaches by the foolishness of what? Preaching.
God wants us to proclaim the gospel. The laws will come against it just like it was against Daniel praying. So what do you do? You faithfully serve the God of heaven.
You faithfully serve him better to live or better to die for conviction than to live with the compromise. Okay. I've said enough just about what's this mean for us? What's it mean for you and I?
This is 2017. Daniel was a long, long, long time ago. First of all, when I read these verses, I think of all the lame excuses that I have for not being consistently faithful in my own prayer life. Daniel as was his custom from the beginning or from the early days, three times a day on his knees publicly praying towards Jerusalem.
I can come up with all kinds of excuses. I need some sleep. I didn't sleep well last night. You know what?
That's my time to get up and exercise. I have to check Facebook one more time. I'm so busy with work. I'll pray later.
You know, those are all just excuses that are going to get us in a bad spot. We need to be faithful. We need to be faithful. This has been his custom from the early days.
Make prayer and the study of the scriptures your custom. If you don't, I will tell you believer, there is no hope for a joyful life for you. You ignore the words of scripture. You do not spend time with God.
The joy of your life will be just sapped from you. It's necessary. Who can find a faithful man or one? Just be obedient.
Plow it along. Walk in the same direction. Put one foot in front of the other. Don't do great things.
Just keep going. But keep going in the right direction. I'm going to tell you a story in closing. His name is George Bolt.
Anybody know who George Bolt is? Okay, good. It's a new story. George Bolt managed a small hotel in Philadelphia.
Well, that's the small hotel underneath his picture. He's the guy over on the left. So it doesn't look like a small hotel. But at the time, hotels were grand wonderful things.
That's his hotel. And it was called the something. I can't remember now. Anyway, he managed a hotel.
So one night, and he was a good manager. So one night this couple show up and it's kind of a blustery stormy night. And they're in Philadelphia. And so was everybody else.
There's this big huge convention. And there's not a single hotel room to be found anywhere. And he came up to George Bolt and said, look, wondering if you would have a room. He said, no, I'm sold out.
And he said, so is everybody. And they said, oh boy, we need a room. We're traveling here from New York. He said, all right, no problem.
I have a room. My family and I stayed there. I'm going to move them up. And you can have that room.
Well, where are you going to sleep? Don't worry, but where I'm going to sleep. Just you've got a room. And he gave up his room.
And they said, well, you don't have to do this. He said, yes, I do. You're never going to find another room in Philadelphia. So you can have my room.
So they took his room. That's the couple right there in the middle. And they stayed in his room. He and his family slept on the sofas.
And they found places to sleep in the hotel. And then the next day, when they were checking out this couple from New York, her leaving, and the guy said, you are such a good hotel manager. He said, I just do my job. I don't know whether I'm a good hotel manager or not.
I don't know. This is what my job is. And this is what I do. And they said, but you are the best hotel manager we've ever run across.
I said, well, I doubt it. But he said, thanks. I'm just doing my job. I'm just plotting along.
The guy said, you know what I'd like to do? I'd like to build a hotel for you to manage. The man's name was William Waldorf Astor. And he went to New York.
Now, you've never heard of George Bull heavy. But has anybody ever heard of the Waldorf Astoria? Yeah. Everybody's heard of the Waldorf Astoria.
So three years later, George Bull gets this letter. There were no emails. He gets this letter and opens it up and in it. It is a ticket to get to New York.
He says, I'd like you to come and have a visit with us. In fact, I've done what I said I was going to do. I said I'd build you a nice big hotel to manage. And I've done that.
Come and see us. And here he comes. And there's the Waldorf Astoria. The largest, most prestigious hotel in the world.
And George Bold was the first manager of that Waldorf Astoria. Now, why do I tell that story? George Bold, I don't know if he was a Christian. I have no idea.
But George Bold was faithful. George Bold, when asked, you must be the best hotel manager in the world, says, I don't know. I just do my job. I just know what I have to do when I do it.
So I just want to encourage you when it says in the scriptures that if you're faithful in the small things, God will give you responsibility for big things. Just be faithful to him. Just be like George Bold. I don't know.
All I'm doing is I'm just doing my job for God. I'm just plotting a head for him. Now, so what's the point? Here's four questions.
And that's all. I'm just going to ask you four questions. Well, actually, it's about six when I add them all up. Are you known for your faithfulness consistently?
Are you known as somebody who's sometimes going to be relied upon? And other times, it's, I don't know. Like sometimes, even with my own kids, and I won't mention any names here at all. But there is one that if I say, I'm going to be away for two weeks because you water my tomatoes.
I know I'm coming home to juicy tomatoes. There are others in my family that I've said, I'm going to be away for two weeks. Could you do me a favor and water my tomatoes? And I come home to dry shrubbery in the art.
The faithful one. Just known to be reliable. Are you known to be reliable? Now, the other ones are reliable and other things.
I can't play guitar and stuff like that, too. But are you known for your faithfulness? Are you consistent? Second thing, and I'm going to wrap it up here.
Well, how's your attitude about work? How is it about work? And how is it at work? Do you enter into the same grumbly, complaining, down and out conversation that everybody else does?
Ah, I don't get paid enough. Ah, what are they going to do? Ah, another change. I've got to work at a work station now.
I used to have an office. Is that your attitude? Or is it, you know what? I'm thankful.
You know what I say to people now? People say to me, how's your day going? I said, I came to the door. I put my key in at work, so I gave thanks.
And I went to my desk. That's my answer. Standard answer to everybody today. I come to work.
I put my key in the door. It worked. I go to my desk and give thanks. Do you look at your job that way?
Does your light shine at work? How do you hold up under scrutiny when somebody is envious or jealous? Or are you envious or jealous of others? How do you hold up when people are examining your life?
Do you just make excuses? Or do you actually have a life that's above reproach? Are you faithful spiritually? How's your devotional life?
Are you reading? Are you praying? And the other one that's very, very important. Are you having fellowship with other believers?
You need to be together. Believe me, after being away for three weeks and being back here today, I was like a starving man sitting down eating a steak at the Lord's soccer. I got to tell you, I could not wait to get here. I could not wait to sit there.
And I could not get enough of hearing people focus my thoughts to the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to be together. We need fellowship. Don't ever think that you can do this on your own.
You can't. Not for one minute. Now, faithfulness is very important. We are saved by grace and only by grace.
Jesus Christ, as I said, died for us, a pure gift from God. Our works would land us in hell. But the gift of God, the grace of God, will land us in heaven if we trust and believe in Him. But our rewards in heaven will be based on our faithfulness to Him.
We will be rewarded in heaven according to our faithfulness. So I'm telling you to be a faithful worker at your job, at your home, at your church. Whatever you do, serve the Lord with all your might. And if I can say one last thing, work hard with an excellent spirit.
Work hard with an excellent spirit. Daniel, it said, had an excellent spirit. Have an excellent spirit. Let's pray.
Father, thank you this morning that we can come before you. We thank you that you are faithful. Even when we're not, we can rely and depend upon you 100% of the time. You don't change.
Your love to us doesn't change. Your desires for us don't change. In fact, you demonstrated all of those things in sending your son to die for us on the cross. Everything in our life was right back to that cross.
When we see the one who gave himself for us. And Father, the scripture says, the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. May we live our lives to serve the one who loved us and gave himself for us. Thank you for Daniel's example.
We thank you for your faithfulness to us in Jesus name. Amen. I wanna sing a song of.