Welcome to the Mariners Church Life Group Leader podcast. This week the conversation is designed to equip and resource youth to build a healthy life group community that studies God's word, practices spiritual rhythms and changes the world together. Welcome, black group leaders to the Life Group Leader podcast. We are jumping into Daniel chapter six, and you believe it.
We are the six week into this series, How to Thrive in a Chaotic World. We've got one more after this and then boom, Christmas is right around the corner as we are recording this right now. It's not yet Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving week is next week. And I have got our marriage pastor, Linda Vaido here with us.
Nine year. Yeah, Linda Thanksgiving. Thanks, Jimmy. Yeah.
What do you guys got planned in that football? Football. That's it. Yeah.
That there's nothing. Food and football. You happen to know who's playing on? I do.
Ole Miss. Well, no. Yeah, college. I know.
That's where I'd go on Thursday. Yes. Well, the Niners are playing as well. I don't care about the Niners.
I'm happy for you. Yeah. I'm here for the family and everything else. Just a quick story.
Our youngest daughter, she's eight years old and they have a Thanksgiving feast tomorrow that I'm going to. They have to wear pajamas. They don't have to, but they're like, hey, they get to share with it. Yeah.
I'm not careful. I can listen to a story about Daniel's in the land and it goes back into that kind of space. Yeah. And if I'm not careful, could lose the impact in the challenge for what it means for us today.
What about for you? Do you wrestle with that at all with a passage like this? I think as you get to be adults, you realize the deeper impact of the story as opposed to, oh, that's cool. God protected Daniel with some lions.
So maybe I could go wrestle a lion. Yeah. Even that. So there is a deeper meeting here which is talking about the message about Jesus, right?
We also went into a den that was sealed and covered and overcame our greatest enemy. Our greatest enemy of all time, the lion of Judah is trying to over sin and death forever, forever, forever more. And we can lose that significant impact within the story. But also the reality, this is a real story.
This is a fairytale. This is a myth. This is Daniel, who, you know, when we begin Daniel chapter one is somewhere between, I don't know, 12 or 15, probably years old now. We're now five chapters on Daniel chapter six.
He's well into his eighties now. He's lived through several different administrations of kings. He lived a full life of seeing God's faithfulness and his provision as he stood his ground in his convictions with compassion without, yeah, lowering that totally. And this is a real person and a real moment in a real present danger.
And so how does he live through that and showcase the beauty of the gospel which is an encouragement and challenge for us all. So great, great chapter. Can't wait to study this in our groups this weekend and to hear the title of our congregations this weekend. So let's work through some of the questions here.
Looking at our series magazines, we're on page one, oh two of your life, your discussion guys. Let's start the lean in because the lean in is a very good place to start. Have you ever had a close encounter with a wild animal that startled or scared you? What do you think?
Yeah, coyote. I mean, yeah, or it's kind of coyote. It's a thing at the time. Or a deer too.
Like I was startled because I didn't know what it was. What is this? It's a wild animal, a deer. This is large looking skinny dog with a deer.
Exactly. Deer are terrible. They are. They're going to come after you, but they're dull.
No, I think coyotes are a little scary. They're a little nasty. And like many of you, all models of neighborhood alert things, right? It seems like every other week there's a conversation about a coyote passing to the park, walk up your dogs and cats kind of a thing.
Right. So yeah, you just don't want to come too close. Yeah. I've seen a few bears.
I've not seen a bear. I don't fancy myself much of an aquarium expert, but in the ocean, anytime I see something, I think it's going to give me anything, anything, like swimming in the waves, like in Little Corona, and Newport, and there's a lot of those leopard sharks. Yeah, the tiger sharks. I think they're going to.
Yeah, the little one. I don't know. Somebody knows more to correct us, but I don't know if they're too fles, but they're supposedly harmless. Yes, but that's still the shark.
Yes. So I see that. Right. It looks like a shark.
It is going to kill you. I had a privilege of visiting one of our partners in Kid and I Robie about 10 years ago. I was on one of those trips and at the end of it, we happened to go on a safari and it was amazing. It was beautiful.
And then we were right in front of a whole herd of elephants. Like as close as I'm sitting to you right now, which is no more than maybe six feet away, it was like a whole herd of, I mean dozens and dozens right in front of us. And they're gigantic. And it felt like this would go wrong very, very quickly.
Yeah. Yeah. So, but it didn't. You're still here.
I'm still here. Yeah. So you've had quite the amount, large amount of encounters with wild beasts. I suppose so.
Wow. A bit of a ex-wildies. That's right. But coyotes and skunks.
Yeah, a little isn't an amount of my trail. Yeah. Oh, nakes. I don't think I have much.
I think I have a lot of questions here, but it is the entirety of Daniel chapter chapter six. One, encourage you in your groups to read it all the way, all the way through. Take turns. How people, different people read different sections.
That's right. This is a good way to encourage those who don't talk a lot too. Just to have them read. Read it and turn.
Yeah. And before you read like a large passage of scripture, it's always helpful to like prime the questions ahead of time. You don't want to like read it and say, okay, now here's the questions. It's like, ask the question first.
That's good. Yeah. Then we're going to read it. Right.
I want to hear your observations. And so you've got, there's a good one, two, three, four, five, maybe six questions here. I would just say, I was going to leave this, and I think I had this weekend in our life period. The questions that I think I would focus on would be how our faith and culture and conflict in this passage, where you see that, how our faith and culture and conflict in this passage, and then what does God's deliverance of Daniel teach us about God?
I think those would be the two that I would really focus on. So you see the conflict of faith and culture here. And then how does God's deliverance of Daniel? What does that teach us about who God is?
So what you're saying is bring those up before they read so they can be thinking. Totally. What their answer may be. I'm going to do that work ahead of time.
If I find the questions that you want to highlight, maybe you want to rephrase it, then take some time. It doesn't take you much more than five, ten minutes, write down your own observations of responses of that question so that you can model, so that you can leave, leave people in that way. But there's also plenty of information here. If that goes too quickly, then pull out some other ones.
Yeah, that's right. So we're not going to read the whole passage, but just all those two questions, what we know about the passage, what are things that you may be drawn out from how faith and culture and conflict and what do we learn about God's deliverance? What's that teach us about God? What would you vote for?
Well, I just, the first thing that comes to my mind is corporate prayer, things that have really gotten by the wayside with that, with schools and all the different places where we used to pray or had the opportunity to pray. And then that's been in such conflict now that we feel almost set apart if we want to pray or have that desire. Yeah. So that's just an instance.
I feel like culture in general right now is that conflict with our faith. Yeah. Actually, that should be an encouragement to us. Like, we should stand out in such a way that those around us say, hey, actually, there's something different about you.
They may assign that value as a negative or maybe even a positive, but there should be some kind of variance about us and about our life that those that are maybe not Jesus followers would say, hang on a second. There's something different about you and how you respond and how you act in certain situations. Now, of course, like in the context of this passage, there's really a piece of legislation that's right out to say, hey, there's only one God that we're not a worship and we're to pray to. And if anyone else prays to any other God, then there's a consequence on the back end of that.
And you're accustomed to this because this has been the water that he's swam in for the better part of like seven decades now. He's not surprised by that. He's not taken back by that. This is actually pretty pretty normative living as exile in Babel in a land that's not his own.
But everybody knows that already about him. Totally. And the people were out to get him to cause him harm or to move him, remove him from a position of authority. Right.
So it's that too is the conflict against that when he hasn't straightened in a way, right? Yes. From his faith. Totally.
He's he's served the Kings there while holding on to conviction while pointing to the truth of Yahweh all the way through and he continues to have favor rising and rising up with one of the satraps there and then position where he's going to actually have even more authority and rule. And actually what you see is there's a jealousy. That's there because of the favor that's been that's been on Daniel and there's this entrapment that sit that's there. And even the key is in this position of, oh man, am I going to trust the God of Daniel who we've heard the stories and sing the faithfulness or am I going to trust in our own gods now because for them to put it, eat it out and then to remove it, remove it would be a violation on their end with their God.
So it's like a bit of a like a square off a dance of who's God is true again, who's God is my dear and I get to trust Daniel as he trusts in his one true God or we get to trust in our gods by whose names we put this, eat it out because if we're going to remove it, then we're not trusting in our false in our false quotation gods, right? Right. And so faith and culture, while they can compliment each other and faith should speak into culture, there are going to be moments when it's when it's at odds. And we have a decision as Jesus followers.
What do we do? What are the state of course? Yeah. Do we say the course return to the truth of God's word and totally right.
We make accommodations. Do we drift? Right. Well, a lot of people do.
Yeah. Do we act apologetically? What do we do? What do we see Daniel do?
We see Daniel hold on to his convictions, trusting in God's deliverance without knowing the outcome. And so what does God's deliverance of Daniel teach us about God? What would you say to that? Well, I believe that that Daniel knew God and I think anytime that we spend time getting to know someone, we become more passionate about that person, right?
And who they are and we are feeling changed towards them because we get to know them, right? And so I think that because of how well Daniel knew God and he didn't matter to him. He trusted a God and who he was and what he would do. Really good.
I love that you're making that point. I can't find the exact verse, but it's in here where it says something to the effect of Daniel continue to do what he always did. Right. It was like, okay, right.
I don't care what you guys say. Totally. Like I'm going to continue. I'm going to continue in my in my my discipline of prayer, of seeking God's face, a priority in advising him that he didn't shrink back and he didn't kind of like rail rail against at the same time.
He's like, well, I'm going to have this faithful life of discipline and prayer and connection with who God is because that's just what I've always done. I'm going to put that out. He's got this inventory of trust because he knows God. Well, even it's so interesting because even the king knew that.
Yeah. But yet he had to stay his grounds with with what those people were recommending because it would make him look bad. But but even the king said, may your God whom you continually serve rescue you. Totally.
So good. Even if he didn't want to admit it, he's in a sense admitting that he knows the power. He knows the consistency in Daniel's faith. Right.
And he has a feeling that his God is going to rescue him. That's really good. Yeah. And he was up all night, like sick to get out of it, rushed out first thing in the morning and took off the stone over the den to see if Daniel was still there.
And so there's something to that. There's something to that. There's something to that's so beautiful that somebody that didn't have the same beliefs of Daniel still had such great care and concern for Daniel. Well, why is that?
Well, of course, God is used to him to be an influence in Babylon. There was something to Daniel's life and his conviction that was so compelling that didn't cause people to repel against him. But even the highest part of authority was like for Daniel yet at the same time was stuck in this place of, well, this is what culture does. I got to lead this thing out.
Right. We live in a broken world. What do we learn about God? Like he supersedes even the broken decisions of those in the highest places of authority, right?
And he delivers a protects those that seek him. There's so much to pull out pull out from that. I think too is the fact that our hearts are no matter where we are in our faith walk, are yearning for something more. And that is proof that the king was genuinely yearning for his God to save him.
Right. And I think we live in a world where people are continuing to try to fill that gap with things that will never satisfy. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Then I think another one to pull out there is just verse 24 when you see kind of the end of this part of the story that the king gave the command to pull down Daniel out now as he was alive and those men who had maliciously accused Daniel were brought down and thrown into the lion's den and they didn't reach the bottom of the den until the lions overpowered them or overpowered them and crushed all of their bones. What do we learn about? And their children and wives. Right.
And I think the whole thing about that though, what we learn is we don't have to enact revenge that we can have a radical trust in God and how he executes his righteous and holy judgment that we don't have to have that role that our position could be to I'm going to be faithful to follow him and I'm not going to act out in spite or revenge. I'm going to trust him. Trust him in his judgment. His lead.
Right. And that is not he do not want to be in God's judgment. Vengeance is mine. Sayeth the Lord.
He will take care of it. Sayeth. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. So, I think we live in a complaint culture and I believe that the complaint is accepted. People are constantly complaining about things and you don't see a lot of people acting out in gratitude, sure appreciation. They're more annoyed than they are appreciative.
Right. And the culture that we live in today is very much angry and frustrated and we have lost culturally our sense of gratitude and appreciation for the very minor things that we have. Yeah. Yeah.
And what's the connection into this passage? I mean, Daniel again had a life of seeking God's face, of seeing his faithfulness. He had untold stories to tell even though he was in a situation that was perplexing and overwhelming at times that he saw God's grace and his provision. And so in that faithfulness, there's such a picture that builds up his trust, his trust, right?
Gratitude and trust are so closely related, which in able to take this other step and to see God's faithfulness again and again, which is amazing. But we know that we don't always see that, right? Like thinking about people in my group, people in your group that they're in tough situations where they feel that real intersection of faith and culture and they wonder, man, if I step out, like, is God going to come through for me? Like he came through for Daniel?
Is he going to come through for me in the time and in the way in the matter which I wanted to come through? Yeah. And we don't always see that. Yeah.
Because the looking question talks about when's the time your ostracized for your faith? We see that. We see sometimes when we are ostracized, we see when things don't work out when we're ridiculed when we're pushed off into the margins, maybe when we're overlooked for that thing or that position because we've taken a certain ground. And so what can we learn and how can we develop like a resiliency in our discipleship to trust and to act regardless of the, regardless of the outcome?
Yeah. It's, it's, it's that I sometimes you just don't know. Yeah. Sometimes you have no answers, but you continually see God.
In fact, in the gospel everyday podcast coming up, we talk about that, that we don't remain as infants that we, we grow spiritually in more mature. And that those trials, unfortunately for us, those acts of faith, those letting go and surrendering are the exact things that make us more dependent on God and that grow our faith. Right. That we don't stay as infants.
Everything's not going to be rosy and beautiful. But that those trials, those experiences, those faith testers are the exact things that not only draw us to the Lord, draw us to our knees, draw us toward God's word and prayer, but build and strengthen our faith. That's good. Really awful.
That's awesome. That's really good. So, so much to talk about through this passage. So take your time.
Don't just go through the assumptions. I mean, take time to read the passage, draw the observations and then the, the encouragement of the challenges for us when you leave through the lookout and the look in the section. Great. Well, Daniel chapter six, next week you got Daniel chapter seven and then we are right around the corner from launching our new series in the holidays, Christmas season, which is going to be called God with us.
Look out for a series overview coming soon with myself and your tiger. Yeah. And you don't want to miss it, and also you don't want to miss inviting people into your life, right? To join us on our weekend services.
There really are two times throughout the year where people that don't normally go into church are a lot more open to an invitation. That's eastern Christmas. And so we want to be prayerful and intentional with inviting people in to experience Jesus Christmas season. Yeah.
And just being holding up the church and prayer as we launch into multiple services for those times. And also praying for those who are coming for the first time that God would do a work in their heart and bring them back. That's awesome. All right, guys.
Well, thanks for your time. We'll see you on here next week.