People often view humility as a weakness to avoid rather than a virtue to foster. Yet, humbly recognizing that God wisely rules over all things enables us to receive His grace with great thanksgiving. Be built up in your faith this week as we worship our great King and see from Daniel 4 the blessings of humbly relying on the Lord.
People often view humility as a weakness to avoid rather than a virtue to foster. Yet, humbly recognizing that God wisely rules over all things enables us to receive His grace with great thanksgiving. Be built up in your faith this week as we worship our great King and see from Daniel 4 the blessings of humbly relying on the Lord.
So grateful that you're here to worship with us at Westtown Church. My name is Dwight. I am the intern pastor here and very grateful for the chance to worship with you. Before we get into the sermon this morning, I have one encouraging announcement to share with you, and that is that when Morgan Luss was called as an assistant pastor at Westtown Church, the session of elders were the ones that called him to that role, and the intention was at that time that shortly thereafter that Morgan would be called as an associate pastor, and unfortunately things arose that delayed that happening. But we hope to remedy that on December 3rd at a congregational meeting that will take place between the first and second services. Now you might be wondering well, what's the difference? Assistant pastor, associate pastor, what is the difference between the two? Well, at Westtown we call our spiritual leaders elders, and when they meet together they're called a session of elders. They determine you think of them as an elder leadership team, and the only people who can serve on that elder leadership team are placed there by the congregation. Not only the congregation has the authority to select their representatives that are going to lead them, and so, as an assistant pastor, morgan is a pastor at Westtown Church but he's not a member of the elder leadership team because the congregation has not been given the opportunity to put Morgan on that leadership team. And while the elders rely on Morgan a great deal, they consider him to be a peer. Because the congregation has not had the opportunity to put him on the session of elders, he's not able to make motions, he's not able to vote and those kind of things. So on December 3rd, if the congregation calls Morgan to serve as an associate pastor, you will be placing Morgan on the elder leadership team where he can make motions and vote just like all the other elders that are on there. Now you might be wondering does this have any impact on the church's search for a senior pastor? And no, it does not. The search committee is going to continue their search for the man that God has in store to be the next pastor of Westtown Church. But by doing this, if the congregation votes to call Morgan as an associate pastor, they will be putting Morgan on that leadership team where he can be fully involved in using all of his gifts for the benefit of Westtown Church and the church will be recognizing the contribution that Morgan has made to Westtown and offering him that encouragement, and so you will be receiving more information about this through the week. Look in your emails and, of course, if you have any questions that you would like to ask, you can ask me, you can ask Morgan, you can ask any of the elders and we'll do our best to explain that for you. So that's the end of the announcement.
Speaker 1:We'll shift gears and we're going to be looking at this Thanksgiving, of course, the topic of Thanksgiving and of course there are people who already have their Christmas decorations up. You might be one of them. You can see them all around. People are getting into the swing of things, but are you ready for the arrival of the holiday letters? And they might be showing up this week, probably the beginning of next week.
Speaker 1:I read a very funny story online, of sort of a parody of these holiday letters, where you might get a letter that talks about greetings from the lamp lighters and I did make sure there were no lamp lighters in the church's database before telling this story. But, for instance, the lamp lighters will write oh, it's been a great year for the lamp lighters. Greg had been hoping that he would get a promotion at work, but the CEO actually came into his office and begged Greg to take over the company. And the rest of the employees were so happy to hear that Greg was doing that that they all chipped in and got our family a trip to Paris to celebrate. And Trish you might have seen her on the news because there was a school bus full of schoolchildren that was held by a kidnapper and she overcame them with a plastic comb. And that poem that she wrote last year in her Christmas letter is going to be chiseled into the wall of the Library of Congress. And our daughters, our twins, did so well in their tap dance recital that Spielberg is going to make a movie surrounding their lives. And not to be all done, greg Jr's Science Fair project has been all the buzz in the Journal of New England Medicine.
Speaker 1:So when you get these kind of holiday letters, what's your reaction? My reaction is I want to burn them and stamp on the ashes, because all they do is emphasize what a loser I am in comparison to all of these accomplishments that other people have. But whether we're the ones boasting in our accomplishments or whether we're the ones that are angry for those that have been blessed or accomplished, it really can be revealing the pride that is within our hearts where we think we're all that kind of stuff, or perhaps we're envious of others that have things that we do not. And pride, of course, is a terrible inhibitor for giving thanks If we are proud, we think that we have all that we have because we've achieved it, and we're not going to be inclined to give thanks to God because we think that we have achieved all that we have in life. Thank you and our day and age. I think people see humility the opposite of pride as a weakness, and so this morning what I wanted to do is to take a look from Daniel, chapter four, about how God interacts with the proud and how God interacts with the humble, and how we might learn lessons from each of them that we might be more thankful to the Lord. And so let's read from Daniel, chapter four.
Speaker 1:This is an account of King Nebuchadnezzar. You might remember that we talked about Nebuchadnezzar last week, and this starts off with Nebuchadnezzar after this whole episode has been concluded, and he's writing from a perspective of hindsight of how God delivered him, and he was the king of Babylon at the time. Bring Nebuchadnezzar to all peoples, nations and languages that dwell in all the earth. Peace be multiplied to you. It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the most high God has done for me. How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders. His kingdom is a everlasting kingdom and his dominion endures from generation to generation.
Speaker 1:I, nebuchadnezzar, was at ease in my house and prospering in my palace, I saw a dream that made me afraid. As I lay in bed, the fancies and the visions of my head alarmed me, so I made a decree that all the wise men of Babylon should be brought before me, that they might make known to me the interpretation of the dream. Then the magicians, the enchanters, the Chaldeans and the astrologers came in and I told them the dream, but they could not make known to me it's interpretation. At last, daniel came in before me, he who is named Balthashezar, after the name of my God and in whom the spirit of the holy gods dwells, and I told him the dream, saying oh Balthashezar, chief of the magicians, because I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you and that no mystery is too difficult for you, tell me the visions of my dream that I saw in their interpretation. The visions on my head as I lay in bed were these.
Speaker 1:I saw on, behold a tree in the midst of the earth, and its height was great. The tree grew and became strong and its top reached to the heavens and it was visible to the end of the whole earth. Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit abundant, and it was good food, and it was food for all the beasts of the field found shade under it, the birds of the heavens lived in its branches and all flesh was fed from it. I saw in the visions of my head as I lay in bed, and behold a watcher. A holy one came down from heaven. He proclaimed aloud and said thus chop down the tree, lop off its branches, strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit. Let the beasts flee from under it and the birds from its branches, but leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze, amid the tender grass of the field. Let them be wet with the dew of heaven. Let him His portion be with the beast in the grass of the earth. Let his mind be changed from a man's and let it be a beast's mind. Be given to him and let seven periods of time pass over him.
Speaker 1:The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word, the holy ones, to the end, that the living may know that the most high rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over at the lowliest of men. This dream I never can, as I saw, and you, o Belteshazzar, tell me the interpretation, because all the wise men of my kingdom are not able to make known to me the interpretation, but you are able, for the spirit of the holy gods is in you. Then Daniel, whose name is Belteshazzar, was dismayed for a while and his thoughts alarmed. The king answered and said Belteshazzar, let not the dream or the interpretation alarm you. Belteshazzar answered and said my Lord, may the dream be for those who hate you and its interpretation for its enemies.
Speaker 1:Verse 24,. This is the interpretation, o King. It is a decree of the most high which has come upon my Lord the King, that you shall be driven from among men and your dwelling shall be with the beast of the field and you shall be made to eat grass like an ox and you shall be wet with the dew of heaven, and seven periods of time shall pass over you till you know that the most high rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will, and as it was commanded to leave the stump of the roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be confirmed for you in the time that you know that heaven rules. Therefore, o King, let my counsel be acceptable to you break off your sins by practicing righteousness and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed, that there may perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity. All of this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar At the end of 12 months. He was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon and the King answered and said is not this great Babylon which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty? While the words were still in the King's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken, the kingdom has departed from you and you shall be driven from among men and your dwelling shall be with the beast of the field and you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you until you know that the most high rules in the kingdom of men and it gives to whom he will Immediately. The word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagle feathers and his nails were like bear's claws.
Speaker 1:I have benefited from a writer by the name of Ian Dugud and I'm sharing a lot of what I learned from him with you this morning. But you might remember, last week Nebuchadnezzar had another dream. It was very troubling. It was a dream of a statue had a gold, chest of silver, so on and so forth, and he demanded that the wise people of his day tell him what the dream was and their interpretation, and if they couldn't, he was gonna put them all to death. Only Daniel could tell him the dream and its interpretation.
Speaker 1:And now again, nebuchadnezzar is troubled with another dream. This time he tells all of the wise people of his kingdom what the dream is, but they're still unable to give the interpretation of it. And so he calls upon Daniel, tells Daniel the dream, and Daniel is terrified of what the dream means, and he would much rather not tell the king what was gonna be fall him. In fact, he preferred that the king's enemies would be the ones who would suffer from the truths revealed in this dream. But at the king's urging, he reveals that Nebuchadnezzar is gonna be stricken like a madman, driven out into the wilderness where he's gonna live like a beast. His hair is gonna grow so long it's gonna be like eagle's feathers, and the fingernails are gonna grow so long they're gonna be like talons of a bird. It's a rather startling picture, and he reminds Nebuchadnezzar that he's going to remain in that condition until he recognizes that the Most High rules.
Speaker 1:Like we sang in the song just before the sermon based on Psalm 46, referring to the Lord as the Lord of hosts, and Daniel four, we read of the God Most High, and there are two things that we see predominantly in this passage about the way in which the Lord interacts with the proud and with the humble, and the first is this that in his mercy, god humbles the proud. Now, how do we see God being merciful towards Nebuchadnezzar here? Well, first we see that he's not letting Nebuchadnezzar remain in a sense of self-satisfaction and contentedness. Nebuchadnezzar was a guy who was satisfied with all of his accomplishments. We read in verse three that he was at ease in his house and prospering in his palace, and you know that's one of the dangers that prosperity and an affluence can bring. We can be at content, we can be satisfied with the temporal things of this life and we can think that we have accomplished all of those things. And Nebuchadnezzar was very much in that condition. And then, in verses 29 and 30, we read about how, months later, he's walking on the roof of his palace and he looks out over all of his kingdom and he says is not this great Babylon which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?
Speaker 1:Now we have to admit that, humanly speaking, nebuchadnezzar had a lot that he could boast of, given the fact that he was king of Babylon. In that day he was considered to be a god. That's pretty high up there. In addition to that, nebuchadnezzar was a man who had accomplished a great deal militarily. He had extended the kingdom of Babylon tremendously. He was somebody who was involved in a lot of building projects. He made for his wife the wonder of the ancient world, the hanging gardens of Babylon. He also constructed these massive walls around the city of Babylon. The historian Herodotus says that those walls were so massive that a chariot pulled by four horses was able to make a U-turn on the top of the walls. They were that huge. Nebuchadnezzar was a man who had accomplished a great deal if he compared himself to others.
Speaker 1:Could you imagine getting a holiday letter from King Nebuchadnezzar? I think it would make the lamp lighters slink off in embarrassment. But God was not pleased to let Nebuchadnezzar remain complacent and content in the temporal things of this world, and thereby he showed him his mercy. But in addition to that, the Lord sent Nebuchadnezzar a warning. He even gave him a year to repent, and it's interesting how many people confuse God delaying his judgment with God is not going to judge at all. And so Nebuchadnezzar is probably thinking, hey, it's been a long time since Daniel told me the interpretation of that dream. Nothing bad has happened to me. Things are good, and Nebuchadnezzar learned that they weren't. Many people foolishly think that they can escape the consequences of their actions.
Speaker 1:When I was a young boy I wasn't even a teenager yet I had a once a week paper route for this advertisement newspaper called the Green Tab, and I had a lot of houses to deliver these green tabs to, and I would go with a bag over each of my shoulders and I would start waddling through the neighborhood putting these green tab advertisements in people's doors or on their porch. Nobody read these things. They would pow up on the porch week after week and so I had this big hill I had to go up and at the top of the hill there were some guys that were a few grades older than me in school and they thought it would be fun to pick on the kid waddling around with the paper bags. And they would pick on me. They beat me up and all this other kind of stuff, and I finally got to the point where I'm thinking you know, this isn't acceptable. I'm not going to keep delivering the papers up here and rather than going to my parents to see a remedy, I thought I'm going to take these newspapers to these 30 houses or so and I'm going to dump them in the woods. He's going to be all the wiser and I will earn my hefty $9 a month delivering the green tab newspapers. Well, lo and behold, there was a businessman among those 30 houses that was advertising in the green tab newspaper and he was wondering where the green tab newspapers were, and he asked his neighbors if they were getting them. They weren't getting them, so he calls the green tab. Green tab calls my parents and I learned at a very early age that your sins will always find you out.
Speaker 1:You may think that, because God is delaying punishment or judgment, that we've escaped it all together. But it is God's mercy that is delaying that judgment. Scripture tells us not to be deceived. God will not be mocked. Our sins will always find us out.
Speaker 1:Again, we see God's mercy to Nebuchadnezzar and prolonging the hardship that he endured Seven periods of time. This is described as number seven in Bible is often a representation of completeness. It was a full and complete, prolonged period of hardship. And you might be thinking well, how is that merciful at all? Well, the Lord did not only strip Nebuchadnezzar of his majesty and his glory, the Lord took away his sanity. So great was Nebuchadnezzar's pride that God went to these extraordinary measures to humble him, to see that Nebuchadnezzar is not the center of the universe but the God most high is. And that should really help to give us some perspective. When we have hardships and difficulty and when we are suffering very differently than perhaps others, are that perhaps the Lord in his mercy is trying to show us how much we need him and we should rely upon him Again in his mercy.
Speaker 1:God did not, in his judgment, completely cut Nebuchadnezzar off. He left a stump to indicate that there would be new growth coming. In other words, god just sent the lumberjack who cut down the tree. He didn't send in the stump grinder afterwards to totally chew it up, because there was a hope of life coming forth from the stump. And the Lord fulfilled that in Nebuchadnezzar's case. The Lord humbled the proud Nebuchadnezzar. He compelled him to lift up his eyes to heaven in humility and in repentance and then, as we'll see, as he did so, god greatly exalted Nebuchadnezzar and gave him more majesty than he even formally possessed. We will read them in a few minutes, but the last words that are spoken by Nebuchadnezzar in scripture are an extraordinary testimony that God is the one who rules and his kingdom is forever. This is such a vital message for Israel to hear.
Speaker 1:Remember that Israel is in very much a similar situation to Nebuchadnezzar as a result of their sin and their failure to hear God's repeated warnings of judgment and calls for them to return. God was sending them a great hardship. He was sending them into captivity so that they would learn to turn from their sin and rest upon the Lord. And in that process the Lord compared Israel to a tree that was gonna be cut down but its stump would remain as a promise of hope and deliverance. And the picture for Israel was going to be that if God could take a man like Nebuchadnezzar, who was so proud and so arrogant and yet humble, and restore him, then God could do the same for Israel.
Speaker 1:You might remember, in Isaiah chapter six, that extraordinary vision that Isaiah has among the Seraphim and where the coal is taken from the altar and it's placed on Isaiah's lips. And in that process the Lord issues out a call of who's going to go to tell the people. And Isaiah says here I am, send me. And then the Lord tells Isaiah what his ministry is gonna be like. He tells them you're gonna tell people. They're not gonna listen. They have eyes but they're not going to perceive what an encouraging ministry. Huh. But in through the process, all that God is saying that he's giving people over and judgment so that they could feel the weight of their sin. But he speaks this word of promise in verse 13. That, though, a tenth remain in it. It will be burned again, like a pteramenthe or an oak whose stump remains when it is filled, the holy seed is its stump. So the Lord is telling Israel yes, judgment is coming, but new life will grow from it. And again we see that this is such a vital message for us to hear, not only for Israel, not only for Nebuchadnezzar, but for us as well.
Speaker 1:The gospel of Jesus Christ is a terribly humbling message. It tells all of us that we're broken far more than what we have ever imagined. It tells us how far we have fallen short of God's standard of perfection. It tells us that there is absolutely nothing we can do to remedy this broken relationship with God. The gospel lays us low but, as often said, the good news of Jesus Christ, yes, tells us that we are far more damaged than we ever cared to admit. But it also tells us that we are more loved than we ever dreamed possible because of Jesus Christ. And it's in our sense of brokenness and need, our awareness of our inability, that we are driven to Christ and to rest upon him, where we will receive God's abundant mercy. Secondly, we see God humbles in his mercy the proud, but secondly, we see that in his grace, god exalts the humble.
Speaker 1:We pick up at the conclusion of Daniel, chapter four, verse 34. This is Nebuchadnezzar writing at the end of his period of insanity and living like a beast in the fields. He says at the end of the days, I, nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven and my reason returned to me, and I bless the most high and praised and honored him, who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion and his kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing and he does according to him, according to his will, among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can stay his hand or say to him what have you done? At the same time, my reason returned to me and, for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendor splendor returned to me. My counselors and my Lord sought me and I was established in my kingdom and still more greatness was added to me. Now I, nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the king of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just, and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.
Speaker 1:Now there are some today who will say that suffering is inherently redemptive, and in other words, that by suffering we're able to atone for our sins to make God accept us. That's what modern Jewish day people believe. They believe that they are the suffering servant of the Old Testament and it is through suffering that they will be redeemed or saved. The liberation theology teaches that it is inherently a blessing to be poor, and it's by the poverty that they will inherit the kingdom of the earth. That is not the point here of what Nebuchadnezzar is experiencing. Our suffering is not redemptive. It is not a form of penance that earns us God's favor.
Speaker 1:So why, then, would God exalt the humble? What basis is there if we can't produce anything of ourselves that God would accept? Why would he lift up the humble? Well, the answer is as to why is that? We must consider another king who was brought down from the heights to the depths. This king could legitimately survey all of creation and say I have made this by the power of my word. Rather than exalting himself, however, this king voluntarily humbled himself, even though, as we read in our call to worship, he was God himself.
Speaker 1:He humbled himself and he became man, and that was a step downward even greater than when Nebuchadnezzar became like a beast of the field, he took on the form of a servant. He dwelt among the very people who despised him and rebelled against him, and he served them and he healed them, and he was executed upon a cross for crimes that he did not commit. No greater humbling could ever exist than for God to die for a rebellious people, and that's the thing. Jesus wasn't humbled due to any fault of his or any sin on his part. He voluntarily chose to redeem those and their sin from their pride. Of course, this humble king is named Jesus, who, after accomplishing what we could not for ourselves. As a result of his humbling, he is now exalted in heaven and he is genuinely worthy of all of our praise.
Speaker 1:God exalts the humble not because humility is meritorious, but because Jesus' humility is meritorious, and when we are humble enough to recognize that we can do nothing to make ourselves right before God, but we receive his mercy to us in Jesus, who humbled himself for us, then God will exalt us by his grace and he will establish us as his people. Now many who consider that humility is still a great weakness, but for the Christian, humility is actually our strength and our exaltation. As 1 Peter, chapter five, tells us clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility towards one another, for God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Cull yourselves, therefore, under God's mighty hand so that, at the proper time, he may exalt you. Well, how do we do that? How do we humble ourselves? How do we put away our pride and grow in God's grace of humility?
Speaker 1:Well, I'd like to suggest two things for us. The first is that we put away our pride as we genuinely consider Christ crucified and exalted over all that exists. I say genuinely because, as Christians, I think we become very accustomed to being able to talk, the Christian talk of we worshiping Jesus and Jesus being worthy of our praise, and we can praise God with our lips, but yet really our hearts do not consider the glory of Jesus Christ adequately. That would lead us to humble ourselves. When we think of the infinite glory of Jesus, that all that exists exists for the purpose of serving that glory and majesty, we will see how finite and dependent upon him we are, and it will put away our pride, because we consider that he is the true center of the universe and not us, like we like to often think. What have we to accomplish in comparison to Christ? And we consider Jesus exalted in heaven, still bearing the scars that purchased our redemption in His hands and His feet. They will solemnly remind us what caused those scars our sin and our pride that Jesus willingly endured the cross. For how, then, can we boast in anything but the cross of Christ? Paul tells us Even how much Christ has done for us as unworthy sinners. How can we not consider other people better than ourselves? So the encouragement, then, to put our way pride, so that we might genuinely be thankful, is to take our eyes off of ourselves, take them off of our accomplishments. Take your eyes even off your sins and your failures. Stop comparing yourselves to others, but instead fix your gaze upon Christ and look to Him, and by so doing you will be captivated by His beauty and you will become more and more thankful.
Speaker 1:The other way in which we can cure pride and promote humility and reliance upon Christ is by changing our perspective on hardship. A lot of times we don't like to admit that we're going through difficulties. It can make us feel like we're less of a Christian. It can make us feel like we're winers. It can make us feel like we are needy and dependent people. Oftentimes we can look down on people who are going through difficulty and hardship and we might think that maybe they did something to bring that difficulty or hardship upon themselves and the reason that we're so blessed in doing so well is because we haven't done anything so dramatically wrong.
Speaker 1:Hardships expose our weakness, they show us our dependence upon the Lord for all things and they cause us to be driven to Him for our sense of strength and security and to assess whether you're benefiting fully from the lessons of these trials. Think of times of former suffering in your life when the Lord brought you very low and taught you great lessons of His grace. In those times, and as you do, you will see how the Lord's hand has led and grown you in humility and you have been diminished in pride, and you can rely upon Him. As we think upon Christ, this thanksgiving, he will enable us to think less of ourselves and more of Him. Even as John the Baptist declared, I must become less and he may become greater. May your thanksgiving be filled with the blessings of Christ's grace. As you consider all that he has done for you, just pray.