Be Real Together:
Take a few minutes to catch up, tell stories, and laugh together. Trust and friendship take time to build. If you’re launching a new DNA, one person should tell their story — what do we need to know about you? Next week, have another person in your DNA share their story.
Read Together:
Daniel’s Captivity in Babylon
1 In the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it. 2 The Lord handed King Jehoiakim of Judah over to him, along with some of the vessels from the house of God. Nebuchadnezzar carried them to the land of Babylon, to the house of his god, and put the vessels in the treasury of his god. 3 The king ordered Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the Israelites from the royal family and from the nobility— 4 young men without any physical defect, good-looking, suitable for instruction in all wisdom, knowledgeable, perceptive, and capable of serving in the king’s palace. He was to teach them the Chaldean language and literature. 5 The king assigned them daily provisions from the royal food and from the wine that he drank. They were to be trained for three years, and at the end of that time they were to attend the king. 6 Among them, from the Judahites, were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. 7 The chief eunuch gave them names; he gave the name Belteshazzar to Daniel, Shadrach to Hananiah, Meshach to Mishael, and Abednego to Azariah.Faithfulness in Babylon
8 Daniel determined that he would not defile himself with the king’s food or with the wine he drank. So he asked permission from the chief eunuch not to defile himself. 9 God had granted Daniel kindness and compassion from the chief eunuch, 10 yet he said to Daniel, “I fear my lord the king, who assigned your food and drink. What if he sees your faces looking thinner than the other young men your age? You would endanger my life with the king.”11 So Daniel said to the guard whom the chief eunuch had assigned to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, 12 “Please test your servants for ten days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 Then examine our appearance and the appearance of the young men who are eating the king’s food, and deal with your servants based on what you see.” 14 He agreed with them about this and tested them for ten days. 15 At the end of ten days they looked better and healthier than all the young men who were eating the king’s food. 16 So the guard continued to remove their food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables.
Faithfulness Rewarded
17 God gave these four young men knowledge and understanding in every kind of literature and wisdom. Daniel also understood visions and dreams of every kind. 18 At the end of the time that the king had said to present them, the chief eunuch presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. 19 The king interviewed them, and among all of them, no one was found equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. So they began to attend the king. 20 In every matter of wisdom and understanding that the king consulted them about, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and mediums in his entire kingdom. 21 Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.
Grow Together: Observe and Apply
What would happen if your world was overtaken by people who hated your nationality, hated your faith, or hated your God? Would you find yourself cowering at the opposition and assimilating to their worldview, or would you stay the course and stay committed to God?
This is what David was living through and, though we haven’t seen extremes like this in our country yet, there are literally laws being put into place in recent months that protect some worldviews and shame Christ-like convictions. In the midst of this, what can we do to be bold in our beliefs and strong in our convictions? Ultimately, the message for our day is clear: that we’re called to live a life of conviction in a culture of compromise.
1. THEIR HOME (A SENSE OF PLACE)
Imagine for a moment, that you were ripped from the home you go to daily where you share meals, where you nurture your family, where you rest at the end of the day. What if you were told when you would work, when you would sleep, when you would eat? What if your sense of security was a thing of the past and now you had to decide if the potential of death was worth being bold for Christ?
Read verse 2 and think about how you would feel, knowing God not only allowed this, but actually “handed” you over to this type of life? How does this sit with you? Would you still be bold for Christ with this knowledge? For further reflection, consider Isaiah 55:8.
2. THEIR WORLDVIEW (A SENSE OF CUSTOMS)
We see in verse 5 that the king had a simple yet effective program for assimilation: strip away every freedom, custom, and routine associated with their former way of living and make them “one of us.”
What if you were overtaken by a government that did not allow for the reading of the Word or for prayer? Are you, right now, so full of the Word that you could stand firm in what you believe despite someone trying to change your worldview? As Christians, in order to withstand being blindly swept up by the culture we find ourselves in, it requires us to be mentally present and discerning, to be spiritually rooted and submitted to the Spirit, and steeped heavily in the Word of God.
Take a moment to have someone Google the definition of “steeped.” Do you feel steeped in the Word of God right now? If not, what’s one step you could take this week to commit to a lifestyle of being immersed in His Word?
3. THEIR NAMES (A SENSE OF IDENTITY)
Today, everyone seems to be changing their names, but in the times of Daniel, a name change was a great ordeal. The name you were given was who you were and what you believed. In Daniel 1, we see Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah given new names that directly refuted their original names. This was an outright slap to their culture and to their God with the intent that it would disassociate them from their true identities.
As Christians, there is nothing more important than the fact that Jesus stood in the gap for us and that we were once dead in our sin and now have new life. It’s for this reason that we should set our minds on things above, allowing our identities to be shaped fully by the finished work of Christ.
Are there aspects of your identity that you’ve held in higher regard than what God says is true about you (i.e. job, family name, etc)? How do you see yourself and your identity in light of what Christ has done for you?
Pray Together:
God, we thank you for the blessings and comforts we enjoy today. We thank you for your grace that you lavish on us daily. We seek to honor you with our lives and our actions. Search our hearts and minds. Whatever is not bold for you Lord, would you change it and steep us in the truth of your Word that if you chose to hand us over to our enemies, that we would have such an abundance of overflow that it would carry us through. If there is even the smallest place that needs us to submit to you, would you change our minds. May we seek you everyday. May we start and finish each day you bless us with, focused on you.
In Jesus’ name we pray, AMEN.