Sermon Transcript
Well, if you’re brand new today to our service here or to the church in any capacity, we just want to welcome you. We’re right now on day 22, I think it is, in a Daring Faith 40-day faith focus, and we’re pretty excited about this series. It’s something that we’re talking about on Sunday mornings, and then we have some workbooks. And if you’re brand new and you’re interested, we’d love to have you pick up a workbook before you leave this morning. It’s out in the lobby on the table out there.
It says— there’s a Daring Faith sign out there. It’s a way for you to kind of be involved in taking what we’re working on and personalize it. And you can do that every day. There’s a study there every day for you for the 40 days. So this week, as we launch into session 4, week 4, we’re focused on obedience.
And as you look through the notebook, you’re going to see that it’s— the application this week has to do with the whole area of generosity, and if you’ve already seen the DVD, you’ve probably, you know, been encouraged by it, but there wasn’t any central focus of a character in this DVD. And so we’ve had kind of the option around here to just do whatever character we wanted. So I thought we would this morning focus on a character who obviously, since we’re doing faith, manifests tremendous faith, but not just in a professing faith way, but in a practicing faith way. And of course, if you’re a person of faith, that’s the point, is that we wanna translate our belief or our profession into our practices, into the way that we live. But that’s easier said than done, isn’t it?
If you think about the Apostle Paul, Paul was a person who was strong, obviously, in faith, but he, on one occasion, said, you know, the things I want to do, I don’t do, and the things I don’t want to do, I do. In other words, what he professed he did not always practice. We might say it this way: he preached a better sermon than he lived. And we can all kind of identify with that. But nonetheless, we want to take what it is that we profess and we want to translate it into our practices.
Sometimes when I ask people if they’re people of faith, often they’ll say, yeah, I’m a person of faith. I’ll ask them to tell me a little bit about their faith, and sometimes a person will say, well, you know, I’m a Baptist, or I’m a Catholic, or I’m a Jew, or whatever it is, and they might talk about their heritage or something like that. And oftentimes I will ask them, so do you practice your faith? Are you a person of faith who practices your faith? And oftentimes they will say no.
You know, it was just something that they profess, but it’s not something that they really practice. Well, when you look at the Scriptures, the Bible talks about the importance of taking what it is that we know and then turning it into how we live or our practices. In fact, there’s an entire book in the New Testament that focuses on doing that. Do you know what this book is? It’s the book of— yeah, it’s that book, you’re right.
So it’s the book of James, all right? James is a book of faith practices. In fact, it asks the question or gets at the whole problem of, you know, you could say that you have faith, but faith without works is what? Dead. Yeah, it says it’s dead faith.
So faith is not something just to profess, but faith is something that we’ve got to practice. And they even give the story or the illustration in the book of— so you come across somebody who has food and clothing and you say to them as a part of your faith profession, be warm and be filled, but you don’t do anything about that. That’s not really genuine faith. I mean, there’s something wrong there. There’s a disconnect in your faith.
Well, when we look at the Scripture then, there’s a big focus on connecting profession to practice, and those who we look at that have strong faith that are talked about, especially in Hebrews chapter 11, are people who not only have a profession of faith, but they translate it into practice. And so, the figure or the person we’re going to come to today is found in Hebrews chapter 11 and verses 32 and 33. If you have your Bible, you might want to turn there with me. On the message note sheets, a few of the passages we’re gonna be looking at this morning will be there for you, and we’ll try to get some of the other ones up here on the screen today. But this is what the writer of Hebrews, and we don’t know who that person was, but this is what the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 11:32-33.
And what more shall I say? And he’s been talking about faith all the way through this Hall of Faith, this faith chapter. And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised, who shut the mouths of lions. Now it’s interesting because this writer doesn’t name the person that shut the mouths of lions, but who comes to mind?
Yeah, it’s Daniel, all right? There’s some other ones that had some lion experiences you read about in the Bible, but Daniel especially, when you take this language that’s used here, is the one that shut the mouth of lions because he had the kind of faith that neutralized lions, which is fascinating to think about because although literally we, I don’t think, will be faced with a lion’s den or something like that, nonetheless we have experiences in our lives that cause us stress and, you know, fear, and we want to worry and run maybe the other direction. I mean, it could just be something like Your landlord called you up and said they’re gonna raise your rent and you have no idea how you’re gonna be able to afford a higher rent on this apartment that you’re in because it’s already too high right now. Let’s face it, just about every place we live around here is just too high right now. And, and you come into that kind of situation, it’s just enough to produce in you stress unless you have Daniel kind of faith.
In a situation where, you know, it looks bleak, And yet Daniel faith is the kind of faith where you trust in God. God’s in control. I’m not gonna panic. I’m not gonna be, you know, freaking out over the danger that I’m in right now. I’m just gonna trust him.
But for a person to have Daniel faith, it really kind of depends on what’s happening in the days before they end up in a lion’s den. In other words, what’s happening in our faith in those days where we have opportunity to build faith or to grow faith, that’s going to impact the lion’s den situations that we come into in life. Now, one of the things you may have already seen if you’re following along in the workbook, on day 21, Rick Warren talks about the importance of how faith is like a muscle. I love this picture. Faith is like a muscle.
That when you exercise it, it increases with time. Do you agree with that? That faith is like a muscle that when exercised it can increase with time. And the way it increases oftentimes is connected to the faith practices, to the exercises or the faith practices that are a part of our life. So this morning what we’re going to do is we’re going to focus on Daniel who saw God close the mouth of lions because of his faith, through faith, it says in Hebrews 11 there, verse 32, through faith this happened.
We’re gonna focus on his faith and specifically 2 practices that gave him that kind of faith. And I really think these 2 practices we’re gonna focus on this morning can increase our faith. It could be a big benefit in our lives. Now, if you know the story of Daniel, we’re gonna jump over to the book of Daniel now. Because you don’t have all the information given in Hebrews chapter 11.
But if you go over to Daniel chapter 1, and we’re going to look there, and then we’re going to jump over to chapter 6. Chapter 1 talks about the early days of his life and his faith at that time, and then chapter 6 talks about the later days of his life and his faith at that time. And if you know the context of Daniel, you know that Daniel’s living in Babylon. Okay, he’s like 900 miles away from his home in Jerusalem. Now 900 miles obviously is a long ways, especially in that day.
What happened was Jerusalem or Judah or Judea had been conquered by Babylonia and they took into exile Judea or the Israelites. And so here they are living in Babylon and we get this passage in Daniel chapter 1, this information. Chapter 1, verse 3, where it says, then the king, and this was Nebuchadnezzar, he ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring in some of the Israelites from the royal family and from nobility. And if you go back again to that, that map there, you could say that, you know, these guys that were living in Babylon, evidently there were some that they wanted to, you know, pick out and And they wanted to train them in their Babylonian core curriculum, we’ll call it, all right? And so they want to pick out these young men, verse 4, without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well-informed, quick to understand, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace.
So specifically, there were 4 qualifications of those that they were going to pick. First of all, the age. They wanted them to be young men, and the terminology here in the Hebrew language talks about somebody between the ages of 13 to 17, 13 to 17. If you’re 13 to 17, somewhere in that range, would you just do me a favor and just stand up for a minute? Okay, just stand up, please, with faith, courage.
All right, these are our 13 to 17-year-olds up here. You guys would have been among the group that was picked by King Nebuchadnezzar to be brought in and to be trained in the Babylonian core curriculum. Okay, so just get the image in your mind. You may be seated. Thank you so much for standing up because this would have been really funny if you had not stood up.
But anyway, so they were chosen by age, they were chosen by their appearance, they were to be good-looking, handsome. Do you see it there in the text? No defects. They were to be chosen by their aptitude, so well-rounded, smart, quick learners, understanding, and they’re to be chosen by their abilities, capable of serving in the king’s court, not a klutz, you know, poise, confidence, skill, all of that. So Daniel is one of the ones that’s selected, and we know in verse 6, if you look at verse 6, that Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were also selected.
And we know also that these 4, having been selected, then were given new names, verse 7. To Daniel was given the name Belteshazzar, and to Hananiah, Shadrach, and to Mishael, Meshach, and to Azariah, Abednego. Now, some of you have heard these names: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Well, that is where it all comes into play in this story. This name change, by the way, was a part of the 3-year King’s Academy Babylonian preparation indoctrination program.
Call it whatever you want. Fascinating, though, but verse 5 says it was a 3-year program. And it says that he— this is the chief official— was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians, verse 4. Verse 5, and the king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. So, put it all together, the Babylonian Common Core was simply, one, new names so that they would have a new identity; secondly, new teachings to change their thinking.
So the philosophy of Babylonia, the religion, the astrology, the literature, the sciences, the language, all of that was a part of the new teachings. And thirdly, they were to be given a new diet to change their appearance. The king’s diet, nothing but the best, nothing but what the king would eat. So steaks and, you know, sourdough bread and bottles of the best wine. And, and so all of that was a part of the king’s diet.
Now just take the diet part of this. How does that sound to you? Yeah, I mean, at least one person here shook his head and said, yeah, I think that kind of sounds good. I mean, like, yeah, we died, went to heaven, I get to eat the king’s food. Are you kidding?
This is gonna be fantastic. Except Daniel didn’t see it that way. Look at verse 8. But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. This is fascinating because, you see, Daniel was kind of okay with the names and the teachings.
Like, you know, I could deal with that. A new name, fine, all right, no big deal. Call me what you want. I could deal with the teachings. I could process that.
I could sift that. I could discern that. But he wasn’t okay with the diet. He says, no, I can’t do this. We might say he couldn’t swallow the king’s food.
But we won’t say that because you won’t laugh. But anyway, so he said no to the diet. He said no to the diet. Why would he say no to the diet? Because it was on God’s prohibited list.
The foods that he was going to be served were evidently a part of the restricted foods for a Jewish diet. And so Daniel says, no, I can’t do that. They also could have been, by the way, foods that were sacrificed to idols, and he didn’t want to in any way worship another god. So he makes up his mind. Notice the word resolved here.
It’s the— in the New American Standard, it’s the words made up his mind. He resolved, or he made up his mind, that he was not going to defile himself. He was not going to go there. Now fortunately today we don’t have to worry about, you know, being on this kind of restricted diet. Now if you’re at the Gudgel home, you might be a little bit, you know, curtailed in what you eat because at the Gudgel home we have a sign on the counter right now that says no sugar, no grains, no dairy, no beans.
Bernice put this on the counter and she said that I don’t have to live by it, so I’m not, but she is as much as she can. But you get the idea, you know, imagine this. He’s got this, this list of things that he knows that God does not want him to eat. He’s 15. Let’s just say he’s 15.
He’s 15 years old. He’s living 900 miles away from home where, you know, like, who’s gonna know 900 miles away from home? Who’s gonna know what I eat? I mean, come on. And so what does Daniel decide?
He decides to give them kind of a different diet plan. And his different diet plan that he offers to the chief official is, hey, why don’t you just feed me vegetables and water instead? Now, why would he want just vegetables and water instead? Well, because he was a person of faith, of practicing faith, because he wanted to say— listen to this— no, to what God said no to. When God said no, he wanted to say no.
And really, people of faith, or people of daring faith, say no to that which God says no to— listen— if they have convictions. And that’s the key here: if they have convictions. See, a preference I prefer to not eat grains and sugar and stuff like that. If you have a preference, then you’re gonna end up like me in the Gudgel house. You’re gonna, like last night, have some ice cream and other things like that.
That’s a— I prefer not to do it, but I just couldn’t help myself yesterday, okay? Bernice didn’t have the ice cream. I did. But if you have a conviction, a conviction is something that you’re gonna say no to and you’re just gonna keep on saying no to it. Over and over and over.
It’s something that you won’t compromise even if you’re 15 years old and you live 900 miles away from home.
Even if you’re on a business trip, you say, well, if God says no to that, I’m gonna say no to that. What happens here? It’s fascinating. Daniel chapter 1, verses 14 and 15. Daniel has asked the chief official to let him, you know, have vegetables and water instead of the king’s diet.
And so he, the chief official, agreed to this and tested them for 10 days. And at the end of the 10 days, they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food. And then it says in verse 18, and at the end of the time— and this is after 3 years— at the end of the time set by the king to bring them in, the chief official presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. The king talked with them, and he found none equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. So they entered the king’s service, and in every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them 10 times better than all the magicians and the enchanters in his whole kingdom.
I mean, what’s going on here? God puts his favor on these 4. He puts his favor on these 4, and he gives them understanding and wisdom and knowledge, and he gives them You know, these bodies evidently that compared to the others, these guys stand out. They’re 10 times better. Why?
Because they said no to what God said no to.
They said, I’m not going to defile myself with that diet. And there’s the application for us, by the way. The problem is, is that oftentimes people of faith say yes to what we need to say no to. And we end up defiled by the world’s diet. Wouldn’t you agree?
We’re defiled by what the world wants to watch, by immorality. We’re defiled by what the world wants to read.
We can be defiled by so many things in this world because let’s face it, there aren’t a lot of people in this world that are operating on God’s system, that are operating according to God’s diet. And it is no wonder then that this professing faith isn’t translating into our practice of faith. Daring faith says no when God says no. But go over to chapter 6. There is a second practice, a second practice to see.
Daniel chapter 6, you see another thing that Daniel was doing that gave him the faith that he had to face these diets— these, these lions. The diet too, but the lions. The events of chapter 6— this is something that often we don’t see— the events of chapter 6 happen 65 years, about 65 years after Daniel chapter 1, and it is in Daniel chapter 6 that we learn of the Daniel and the lion den story. That’s where that story is told. So this story is told 65 years after the story back in Daniel 1 where Daniel was 15.
Now, when we think about this story, oftentimes what we think of is Daniel as a very young man in a lion’s den. You seen these kind of pictures?
Of Daniel in the lion’s den. You know, this little boy, and pass out these little cards to the kids in Sunday school and wherever else, and we talk about Daniel as a very young boy in the lion’s den. That’s the picture that we get in our minds. The reality is, is that at this point Daniel, Daniel’s an old man. He looks completely different, okay?
He’s about 80 years old. If you’re about 80 years old, would you just stand up this morning, please? Would you? Thank you for standing up. Appreciate that.
There he goes. The 80-year-old’s leaving. Anybody else? Anybody else 80? Okay, nobody in here is about 80.
A whole bunch of people stood up in the first hour when I asked them, is there anybody here that’s 80? You know, and they were not ashamed. I said, you better not be ashamed you’re alive. Stand up. You know, but anyway, so we had a little fun time there.
But you, you get kind of get the picture. You know, somebody much older than me. Okay, but you get the kind of the picture. More gray hair or no hair than I have. So somebody who’s older.
That’s what you gotta— that’s what you gotta see. That’s what we gotta see when we come to Daniel chapter 6. We’re not talking about a little boy now. We’re talking about a man who has practiced his faith for some 65 years. So before he’s stuck into this lion’s den, he’s a person who’s been practicing his faith.
Now in Daniel 6, then let’s just get the context. In Daniel 6:3, it tells us that Daniel distinguished— he so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. So immediately we’re introduced to the fact that Daniel is in an amazing position of authority. He’s like, you know, right up there with the 3 administrators and the 120 satraps who are under the administrators. If you are thinking of an org chart here, and he is proving that he is a tremendous, tremendous person and a tremendous leader.
In fact, the king is thinking, this is going to be good. I am going to move him up one. All right, he will be 3rd in the kingdom, 3rd on the org chart over the entire kingdom. Well, that didn’t sit well, however, with the other administrators, the other 2 administrators and the 120 satraps who are responsible for different provinces of the Persian kingdom. So you get this in Daniel 6:4.
At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel and his conduct of government affairs, or government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. Finally, these men said, We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God. Basically what this is, is people who are looking at this guy, they’re envious of him. They don’t want him to be promoted.
They want to be promoted instead. So they’re thinking of a way to take him down. So they’re looking for some dirt. They can’t find any dirt on him. So they decide the only way we’re going to get you know, demote him or whatever, undo him, is it’s gonna have to be something connected to this guy’s faith.
Because this is a person, and I love this, this is a person who’s honest and loyal. He’s a person of integrity. He’s a person who’s practicing. He’s practicing his faith. Kind of like a Neil Gorsuch, if you’ve followed this whole Supreme Court nomination.
You know, people are beginning now to look for some kind of dirt on him so that That appointment doesn’t go through to the Supreme Court, so they decide they’re going to go after his faith practices. So verse 6 says this: So the administrators and the satraps went as a group to the king and said, O King Darius, live forever! The royal administrators, prefects, satraps, advisors, and governors have all agreed— stop there just for a minute. All the administrators? All?
Well, I don’t think so. Daniel was an administrator, so not all of them had agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or man during the next 30 days except to you, O king, shall be thrown into the lion’s den. Now, O king, issue the decree and put it in writing so it cannot be altered, in accordance with the law of the Medes and the Persians. Which cannot be repealed. So King Darius, you know, he’s like, yeah, hey, that sounds like a really good idea.
Everybody can worship me for 30— I like that. So King Darius put the decree in writing. Now, why did they take this course of action? I mean, why did the 120 satraps and the 2 administrators— why did they take this course of action? Because they knew that Daniel was a person of uncompromising conviction, and they also knew that he was a person of unceasing faith practices.
And one of those practices was prayer. So verse 10 says, so when Daniel learned that the decree had been published— and now, you know, it’s like the tension is building. What is Daniel going to do now that, you know, they’re saying you can’t do what it is that you’ve been doing? So when Daniel heard that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. 3 times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to God Just as he had done before.
What does he do? He just keeps on doing what he was doing because prayer was a vital part of his life and he saw it vital in his relationship with God. And so verse 11 says, so he just got down on his knees 3 times a day and kept asking God for help. This wasn’t a crisis moment for Daniel. This wasn’t a crisis prayer for Daniel.
This was just the continuation of his faith. He was a person like other Jewish people that we read about and hear about where he got down on his knees 3 times a day at the 3rd and the 6th and the 9th hours, meaning 9 AM, 12 noon, and 3 o’clock in the afternoon. He got down on his knees and he prayed like Abraham prayed in the morning and Isaac prayed in the afternoon and Jacob prayed at night. Daniel knew that it was going to take that continuing relationship with God to get through whatever was to come, and he trusted God to take care of whatever was to come. Well, knowing that he would probably do that, the prayer police came over to his place.
You can read about it, verses 11 to 15. They are not called prayer police, but the guys that want to take him down. They come, they find out that he was continuing to do what it was he was always doing, And so they then came to the king and they said to the king, hey, remember, King, how you put the edict out there, the unchangeable Medes and Persians edict? You’re going to have to throw Daniel into the lion’s den. And if you read the account, he did everything— Darius did everything he could to get out of this thing, but there was nothing he could do.
He had to go through with it. So he had Daniel thrown into the lion’s den. But he made the statement, verse 16, to Daniel when this was happening. He said, may your God whom you serve continually rescue you. I love that.
Who you serve continually. We know what kind of person you are. You’re a person of faith that practices your faith. May that God— and he doesn’t know this God. He’s just hopeful that his God would rescue him.
What happens next is that Darius doesn’t get much sleep that night. So if you read the whole account, he’s restless the whole night long. He doesn’t even ask for entertainment to come, you know, don’t bring in the TV or any of that stuff. He just doesn’t sleep through the night because he’s concerned about Daniel in the lion’s den. And verse 19 then says, and at the first light of the dawn the king got up and hurried to the lion’s den.
And when he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice, Daniel! Servant of the living God, has your God whom you serve continually been able to rescue you from the lions? And Daniel answered, O king, live forever! My God sent his angel and he shut the mouths of the lions. That’s the exact same phraseology that’s found in Hebrews 11:33.
They have not hurt me because I was found innocent in his sight, nor have I ever done any wrong before you, O king. The king was overjoyed, gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den, and when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him. Why? Because he— do you see it there? Because he trusted in his God.
Because he was a man of faith.
Because he trusted in his God. And God sent an angel to shut the mouths of the lions, and Daniel made it through the night unhurt. No bite, no scratch, none of that.
Because he trusted him, because he practiced his faith. You see, a person of faith not only says no when God says no, but a person of faith says yes when God says yes. And if this is what God wants for me, then I’m going down this road. I’m not gonna, I’m not gonna stop my practices. I’m not gonna give up my practices.
I’m going to continue to do that which develops my relationship with God. I’m going to just put it into his hands. And I got to believe that out of these faith practices, out of these prayer practices, Daniel was infused with courage and with strength and with hope and with peace and with joy and with love and you name it.
You know, one of the things that I like about what’s happening right now for us as we’re in this faith series is that we are hopefully growing in our faith practices by just doing the Daring Faith workbook, by spending the time in the workbook. And by the way, you know, as a church, I just want to say thank you. I mean, you talk about things that make pastors and leaders happy, this would be a time where that’s happening because almost 350 of you have picked up a workbook and are working with the workbook. Now I don’t know, you know, I mean it’s a tough one to keep up every day, but nonetheless almost 350 people have picked up the workbook and are spending some time building faith practices, spending time in God’s word, spending time memorizing scripture, spending time reflecting on these matters that we’re reflecting on right now. That can only help us grow in our faith because faith is something that is strengthened through faith practices, through the kind of faith practices that were true in Daniel.
If you looked at the— saw the DVD from today, then you probably saw that there was a focus on this whole matter of fear, and in the notebook Rick Warren says, you know, when God is near, you lose your fear.
Well, how is God near? Well, you draw near to God and he draws near to you. It’s all about, again, it’s all about these faith practices. It’s all about a person that’s seeking to grow in their relationship with God, and as we seek to grow in our relationship with God, our faith grows. I recently saw a movie, had this line in it that said, courage is fear that says its prayers.
Courage is fear that says its prayers. Don’t you love that? So, so what happened with Daniel? Well, Daniel, it says in verse 28, he prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian. He, he prospered.
What happened to those people that wanted to take him down? Not so good. Verse 24, they got thrown into the lion’s den. Not only did they get thrown into the lion’s den, but their families got thrown into the lion’s den as well. You say, that sounds terrible.
It was a terrible time to live because that was just a part of the Persian Empire, that if you were guilty, your whole family was guilty and you were all gonna suffer for it. And if there was any thought that maybe the lions, you know, were like docile lions and they, you know, they got the other group of lions in the cage that day or whatever, no, I think that would probably take care of the fact that no, these are real lions. Lions because before they hit the ground the text says that they were eaten. Daniel’s story is one of the many stories in the scripture that profiles faith, the kind of faith that we hope to profess. Wouldn’t you agree?
And for us to profess this kind of faith and practice it, there has to be a willingness to make a commitment to say no and when God says no and a commitment to say yes when God says yes. Meaning there are going to be times where everybody else is saying yes, but if we’re a person of faith or a person of conviction, we’re going to say no.
And there are times where everybody else is going to be saying no, but if we’re people of faith, We’re going to say yes.
And as we say yes to that which God wants us to say yes to, and as we say no to that which God wants us to say no to, faith is strengthened, faith is increased, so that 65 years from now, or whatever it is, when this initial faith grows, we’re put into a Daniel-like den we find ourselves with strong, daring faith.
Oftentimes that, however, is the result of practices over a period of time. The AT&T Golf Tournament, the Pro-Am, is being held right now at Pebble Beach. I was watching a little bit of it yesterday, and one of the celebrities— they have all these celebrities playing— but I was watching an interview with one of the celebrities, and he was talking about how this was his second time to be able to play and what a privilege it was it is and how it’s different for him this time because the first time he came he was thinking, you know, I could do this. I’m not that bad of a golfer. But then he realized how bad of a golfer he was, you know, playing in front of crowds but also playing with the pros.
And boy, when you play with the pros you see how you really are never gonna get there. That’s just the bottom line. It’s just not gonna happen. And so he talked about that and he said, so I came back this year with a whole different attitude. I came back that, you know, when I hit a good shot, fine, and when I don’t, I’m not gonna go crazy anymore.
I’m just gonna enjoy being out here at Pebble Beach and, you know, this whole beautiful area. And so that’s his perspective. Well, it made me think of a guy that down in Agoura Hills when I was in Southern California that I met who was a part of our church that played on the PGA Tour for 5 years. And I had opportunities to go out and play golf with him several times, but I still remember feeling the same thing. I remember thinking, you know, maybe someday I can actually play on the senior tour or something like that.
And then I played golf with him and I said, I will never play on the senior tour because he only made it 5 years on the PGA Tour. If he couldn’t make it, you know, more than 5 years on the PGA Tour, there’s no chance that Dave Gudgel’s gonna ever, ever, ever play on the PGA Tour. But I still remember this. I asked him, I said, John, hey, tell me, How did you get this good? You know what he said?
He said, Dave, practice. You gotta go out early in the morning, you gotta practice, and you gotta good— it’s gotta be good practice, and you gotta stay at it all day long till it gets dark, and then you come back the next day and you practice all day again, and you do this over and over and over and over, and then maybe, maybe, maybe you make it on the PGA Tour. And essentially what we’re looking at this morning, what we’re gonna look at this week, what we’re gonna be thinking about right now is this whole matter of faith practices. And for some of us, we aren’t too good about that. We’re about as good practicing our faith as I am about practicing my golf game.
I’m not that much better now than I was 30 years ago. I got a practice problem. But we can’t have a practice problem when it comes to our faith. Faith practiced builds strong, daring faith so that when we’re faced with the giants or the lions, God’s will and his work in and through us prevails.
Let’s pray. Thanks, Lord, for speaking to us this morning, and we just hope that as we take this passage and this thought And we focus on this whole matter this week, that we might see it from your perspective and where we need to perhaps become people of faith practices, that you would help us see that and that would happen in very specific ways.
We would wish to just even pray once a day. But God, may whatever it is that you want for us become something that’s more a part of our life than it is right now. And if we’re right where we need to be, then Lord, would you just confirm that and, and strengthen that in us? And I want to pray too, Lord, for anybody who’s here today that hasn’t yet started the journey of faith with you through Jesus Christ, that today would be the day of saying yes to you, Lord. Just I ask that they would just say yes to you and ask you to give them new faith, new faith, faith in Jesus, faith to receive the gift of life that’s found in him, or talk to somebody about that.
May they take a step in the direction of being one of your children through the adoption that’s found in Jesus. And so we thank you for this morning and for what’s ahead this week. We pray all this in Jesus’ name. Everybody said amen.
