Minority Report #3 - God’s Preserving Hand

Message Description

Dr. Kurt Bjorklund continues the message series "Minority Report" teaching from the Old Testament book of Daniel to discuss where the real power is in our lives, our communities, and our world.

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Message Transcript

Good morning. It's great to be together here. Strip District, Butler County, online, TV, a week later on a snowy socially distanced day, here together. I'm glad that you are here. Hey, before we jump into the teaching today, I want to just take a moment and highlight something. You heard earlier us talk about the Eleos offering. This is something we've historically done here at Orchard Hill on the fifth weekend of every month. And what we simply do is, when we used to pass offering, now we don't do that. We would put boxes in the back and say, "Hey, if God's given you some extra, throw it in the boxes. And then we'll use that to help people in our church who are in a hard time. Some people in our community who are maybe going through a rough time."

Now in the last year, obviously we don't pass offering anymore. There are boxes. There's a new box. More of our congregation's online than in person and so fifth Sunday doesn't mean as much as maybe it used to, but here's what I want you to know is that that offering is still really important. It meets needs of people in our church and allows us to really be the church for people. But I'm going to let you know something else, this fund that we have for this, is as big as it's ever been. Now, the reason I tell you that is because that means you've been incredible at giving to it over this last year, because we've actually made more gifts out of the fund this last year than we have, but the fund is bigger than it's ever been, so you've been incredibly generous. And I just want to say, thank you. And the reason I tell you this is not so that you'll stop giving, we still would love for you to keep giving to this fund.

And if you're on the app online, by the way, the easiest way to give is on the app, the church app, but make sure you get Orchard Hill Pittsburgh, Wexford, Butler County. There's one in Iowa, they're an imposter, I just want you to know. So, get the one here and you can scroll down to your campus and hit 'Eleos' and still give. But the reason I really wanted to bring this up today is if you have been negatively impacted through this last year, if you've lost a job, if you're just up against it, if you need some extra assistance, you need maybe to see somebody, talk to somebody and you just can't afford those opportunities, I just want you to know that because of the generosity of the church, we're able to help. And we've taken some of the normal boundaries off of it because of the time that we're in.

There are boundaries about how often people can come and having to take some steps and things like that. But we've removed some of those just for a season so that we can help as much as possible. So, if you're struggling, don't go through it alone, reach out to the staff here, the campus that you are part of and allow people to walk with you in it. This is what the church is intended to do, and this is a time for us to do that.

So, let's pray and we'll jump into our teaching. Father, thank you for a chance just to be together today. God, I pray that you would to each of us, if we're coming from a week of high highs or low lows, I pray that your word would nurture us today. God, I pray that my words would reflect your word in content, and in tone, and in emphasis. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.

Several years ago, a man named David Foster Wallace gave a commencement speech at Kenyon College, and it's one of those speeches that has been often quoted and recited. And it's really striking because Kenyon College is not the most prestigious or known college. Sorry, if you went to Kenyon College. And every year, there are hundreds of commencement speeches given all over the world. And yet it's one that seems to have caught the attention of many people. Now, often commencement speeches have a similar theme, just go for it. You do you, live your dreams. And even when they're given at Christian colleges, it's go for it. Live your dreams and a verse is attached. And it's like, you can be you and change the world and all of that. And that's good. But David Foster Wallace took a different tact, and he is not somebody who is known to be as a person of faith.

In fact, he would have been a self-identified agnostic atheist kind of a person. And not long after he gave the speech, he took his own life, which might also have given some gravity to his words. But here's what he said. He said, "In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there's actually no such thing as atheism. There's no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of God or spiritual type of thing to worship, be it Jesus Christ or Allah or Yahweh, or the wicked mother goddess, or the four noble truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.

If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap your real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel that you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body, and beauty, and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, cliches, epigrams, parables. It's the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth upfront and in our daily conscience."

As I said, I think one of the reasons that perhaps that became such a quoted well-known speech is whether you're a spiritual person or a non-spiritual person, whether you believe in a spiritual being or not, there's a sense in which you go, that's right, I know that sometimes I put way too much of my hope, way too much of the weight of my soul into something that can't ultimately hold it. And he spoke it in a way that was hard to argue with because you know, and I know that sometimes we long for something to give us something that it was never intended to give us.

Now, we started a series a couple of weeks ago that we've called the Minority Report and we're working our way through the Old Testament, Book of Daniel and Daniel is the account of exile of the people of Israel. And so, what happened, Babylon, the kind of strongest nation in the world at the time would invade other countries and take some of their people, especially the brightest and the youngest, and say, we're going to take you back to our country to help make our nation even greater. And so, the exile, as it's called, was when Babylon invaded Jerusalem, took Jewish people back to Babylon and tried to assimilate them into the culture.

And when we get to the story in chapter three, we get to Nebuchadnezzar constructing an image, a 90-foot-tall image of gold and saying, everybody must bow down to the image, and if you don't bow down to the image, you're going to be thrown into the fiery furnace. And if you remember this story from Sunday school, or if it's the first time you're hearing it, you know that this is a bit of a dilemma because anybody would go, well, it doesn't seem like such a big deal. Just bend your knee for a few moments and you don't get thrown into a fiery furnace. And yet these three young men, we don't know where Daniel was at the time, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego say we won't bow down. And so, the Babylonians go, and they tell the King, they said, "King, these Jewish people, they don't bow down."

And the King is furious and says, "Well, I'm going to give you another chance, bow down." Of course, you're going to bow down. They don't bow down. They say, "We don't have to defend ourselves. Our God can deliver us. But even if he doesn't, we're not bowing down to your image." And so, the King says, "I'm going to make the fire even hotter." He makes it hotter, so hot that even the guards who are throwing the men into the fire, get burned, and they are thrown into the fire. And not only do they survive, but there's four of them in the fire. And then the King at the end is like, "Whoa, what is this?" And he says something positive about the God of heaven.

Well, that's the very quick summary of the story and the temptation that I think you and I have when we read this story is a fair temptation. And that is to say, well, the image stands for idolatry and whether we define it like David Foster Wallace defined it, or we define it in a more Christian way, that we all have something that we want to bow down to, and it's in conflict with serving God and we have to choose to serve God over our idols. And that's fair.

In fact, I think one of the things we need to do is to say, what are the idols, because sometimes they are intentioned with serving God. But there's also a cultural piece of this, and what I mean by that is there's a sense in which the bowing down was a corporate act of saying, we are bending our knee to a corporate narrative and their personal survival was at stake by not bending a knee to this. And sometimes you and I will find ourselves in a place where we have to say, "What will I choose, will I be part of, kind of the whole culture and the swimming of that downstream? Or will I swim upstream against the culture in which I live?"

And so, what I'd like to do is look at this under three headings. The first is the challenge of faith that we see in verses one through 15, then the response of faith, verse 16 through 18, and then the impact of faith, verse 19 until the end of the chapter. So, let's start with the challenge of faith. Now, the challenge of faith here is fairly obvious. There's an idol and the young Jewish youths are told you must bow down to the idol and if you don't bow down, you're going to be thrown into a fire. That's fairly straightforward. And being good young Jewish boys, they would have learned the Pentateuch, which is the first five books of the Old Testament.

They probably would have had to memorize a good chunk of it. And they certainly would have known the 10 commandments. And one of the 10 commandments in our Bibles, it's Exodus chapter 20, verse four is a commandment that says, "You shall not bow down to any graven images." And so, they would have said, "Oh, bow down to a 90-foot statue of gold, graven image, 10 commandments. Shouldn't do it." Okay. That is the moment that they found themselves in. And yet I can imagine that at the same time, they had a moment of saying, but wouldn't it be easier just to bend our knee to this idol than to get thrown into a furnace? Can't we do more good for God here in Babylon, not being burned to a crisp, not becoming bacon, than we would being in the fire and standing up? In other words, they would have had a lot of reasons here to say, we don't need to bow down.

Now, as I said, this is about in many ways, personal idolatry, and the easiest way to read this story. And you may say, well, I'm not tempted to bow down to any 90-foot images of gold. I want to remind you if you heard me talk about this last week, and I know we had some different speakers, but if you've heard me talk about it last week, that this word, image, that shows up here again in chapter three was the same word in chapter two. It's the Aramaic word, tzelem, very similar to the Hebrew word, tselem. And it's probably an account or a pointing backward to Genesis one where God created people in the image of God, the tzelem of God. This is a perversion of the image of God, to say, I want you to bow down to my tzelem. I want you basically to make much of something else.

Let me give you just a few definitions of idolatry, because it would be easy here just to say, well, I won't be in that place. Here's what Martin Lloyd Jones says idolatry is. "An idol is anything that holds a controlling position in your life." In other words, whatever defines and drives you can become an idol. Paul David Tripp put it this way. He said, "An idol is something that you value so much that you're willing to sacrifice other good things to get it." In other words, you're willing to say, "I'll give up any other good things in my life. As long as I have this." There's another book. I didn't read this book. It's by a lady named Meg Apperson, a friend recommended it. It's called, Sky Full of Stars. She pointed me to this exact spot. She says this, "Happiness does not result from a lack of suffering. Sometimes happiness results from suffering and the joy that can be found in the midst of it. And from the reminder that God sustained us when we should have perished." And then she says this, and this is the idolatry part. She says, "I've found the holding tightly to Jesus and loosely to everything else keeps dreams from becoming idols and keeps Jesus on the throne of our lives, where he belongs."

In other words, sometimes it's okay to suffer and not get what we want because otherwise the thing I want can become an idol and my dreams can become an idol. And so, the easy, quick reading of this is to say, be careful with idols. Be careful with putting too much into something that can't hold the ultimate weight of your life and of your soul. But there's something more that's going on here. See, if we just reduce it to our idols, our idols change over time. When I was in my teens, I had one set of idols. When I was in my twenties, I had another set of idols. Then in my thirties, a set of idols. Today, I have another set of idols. And you can be tempted to think, well, I just deal with my idol, but it's a little bit like playing whack-a-mole with an idol. Whatever idol you deal with, another one will pop up within a few years or a decade. And all of a sudden, you'll say no, that's what has the controlling position in my life and so it's a constant thing to deal with. But I think there's something more going on here.

And the reason I say this is, I think there's not just personal idols, but there's also a cultural narrative or a cultural idolatry that's at play here. And the reason I say this is because as Babylon received people from all over the world, literally into their nation, and they basically tried to assimilate them into a culture, part of this bowing down was not saying, don't worship your God. It was saying, go ahead and worship your God, but acknowledge that Babylon is supreme. Imagine that our way is the right way. And if you don't, if you don't, then you will be thrown into the furnace. You have no place here.

Here's where we see this, verse four. Then the herald loudly proclaimed, "Nations and people of every language, this is what you are commanded to do..." and he goes on and says, you must bow down. Notice every language, every people. So, in other words, we want you, wherever you're from, keep your God, but bow down here to acknowledge our right. Verse seven, "Therefore, as soon as they heard the sound of the horn, the flute, the zither, the lyre, the harp, and all kinds of music, all the nations and the people of every language fell down in worshiped the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up." And what you see here is this idea of a cultural narrative.

Now, again, lest you think that's just that, can you imagine living in a culture that says, keep your faith, keep it private, keep it personal and affirm the cultural narrative, and if you fail to affirm the cultural narrative, you will be canceled. You will be ostracized. You will be seen as less than, you will be minimized. You might lose your chance at a promotion at a job because you don't affirm the cultural narrative. Well, that's happening. That's happening all around us.

Another friend recommended a book to me recently, it's called, Live Not by Lies. And it's a book by a man named Rob Dare who's a Catholic thinker, Christian thinker. And he argues that in our culture that we are succumbing to what he calls soft totalitarianism. And he says, there's hard totalitarianism. That's what you think of when you think of China, communist China, the former Eastern Bloc, where it's toed the party line or you're out, you're hurt. And he says, soft totalitarianism is what we're facing today, which is, here's the narrative that you must affirm, or you will be canceled. We'll take away your chance to do business. We'll boycott you. Whatever it is, if you believe this, if you say this, if you stand for this, then you will be minimized.

And he says it in several different ways. Well, let me just give you, at least one of these is he talks about the issue of justice. And here's what he says. "Justice is not a matter of working out what is rightly due to an individual per se, but what is due to an individual as a bearer of a group identity." Now, he's talking about our current culture. And what he's saying is that justice used to be about what an individual did, but now it's how you relate to a group identity. Here's how he describes it. He says, "In the cult of social justice", now that's a strong term, and I'm not saying I agree with all that he's putting forward, but what he's saying is that there's a way of thinking that says this is what everyone must subscribe to. Now, social justice, and he argues this. He says, it's actually a Christian term, a Catholic term that talks about caring for every individual, but that it's been co-opted in our current day and age to mean something completely different.

In other words, social justice is something that God calls people to be a part of, to say, I care about individual rights. But in today's world, the cult of social justice, the oppressors are generally, and then he says this, "White male, heterosexual, and Christian." Now you could add to that. Cis-gendered, native born. In other words, if you are white, if you're a man, if you're heterosexual, if you're a Christian, if you're cis-gendered, if you're native born, then by definition, you are an oppressor.

Okay. Then he goes on. He says, "The oppressed are racial minorities. Women, sexual minorities, religious minorities." Now, before I go on and read any more, let me just be clear that there has been oppression and there is oppression from some of the classes he's talking about here. And our current social justice kind of thinking talks to and biblically, racism, sexism, classism is wrong. It's sinful, it's an evil to be opposed. Let me be very clear, but what's happening in our culture is, it isn't about just opposing that thing. It's about putting people in classes and saying, if you are X, then you're an oppressor. And if you're Y, you're the oppressed. And here's what he says next. He says, "Curiously, the poor are relatively low on the hierarchy of oppression. For example, a white Pentecostal man living on disability in a trailer is seen to be the oppressor while a black lesbian Ivy League professor is the oppressed."

And here's what he's driving at, he's saying, when he says live not by lies. In essence, if, as a culture we buy into this, we aren't supporting what he would say is ultimately a Christian worldview. And what a Christian worldview is when it comes to individuals and classes of people is that we aren't virtuous because we're part of an oppressed class and lacking virtue because we're in a group of people that have historically, maybe oppressed people, but we're all sinners in need of a savior. In other words, all of us have been people who have oppressed people and all of us need a savior, regardless of where we fit in class. That's a different story than the story of our culture. And if you hold to that story and tell that story today, there's a chance that people will, what, minimize you, cancel you, tell you, you're no good. They won't put you into a fiery furnace, but all of a sudden, the very life that you think you have will change. In fact, once this recording goes out, I can't run for president anymore. I'm done.

And my point is that it seems like an ancient story, but it's a very current story. And I could tell you 15, 20 more things just like that, but you don't want me to talk that long, that exists. We could talk about Christian nationalism. We could talk about the sexual ethics of the left, the Christian nationalism of the right. Some of the stories that we tell in order to say, this is the cultural narrative. And for Nebuchadnezzar, it wasn't just get on board with my cultural narrative, but it was also the God that gives success.

In chapter two, when he has this dream about this statue that's smashed by the rock at the end, he says, your God can reveal mysteries. And then what happens is in chapter three, verse 13, when people won't bow down to this image that he constructs, he gets mad. Again, why? Why can't he have a little moment of seeing God and then another moment of saying, no, no, no. You're going to bow down to my God. It's because at the end of the day, his view of God was God is whoever makes me successful. So, because your God gave me a little vision into my dream, a little understanding, I can say that God's good for today, but my God helped me beat your God. Babylon, beat Jerusalem, therefore, that's the God I worship. That's the God that's worthy of it.

And sometimes the challenge to faith is by always saying, we want a God who gives us what it is that we need. Sometimes, even in Christian circles, there's buzzwords that show this kind of theology. It's when people start talking about getting a breakthrough or always having victory or the anointing that God wants to give you so that you can make much of yourself, so that you have victory all the time. And that's exactly what Nebuchadnezzar was doing. So, the challenge to faith here is a challenge, one, just of personal idolatry. It's a challenge of a cultural narrative, and it's a challenge of a God who only gives us victory.

So now let's see the response of faith. The response of faith is in chapter three of Daniel, verse 16 through 18. And with this is, is it's the moment where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the King. "King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God that we serve is able to deliver us from it. And he will deliver us from your Majesty's hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, your majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of God, gold, that you have set up." And this is their moment of basically saying, we are not going to serve your God.

Now, there's two general approaches to faith and you could have many more, but contrasting Nebuchadnezzar and these three young men, the three young men say, but even if you don't, we'll still worship you. We believe you. We believe you can do this, God, but even if you don't, we'll still worship you. The other version is an if only version of faith that says, I'll worship you, God, if. If you give me the right opportunity, if you bring marriage into my life by a certain age, if you give me kids, if my kids are healthy. God, if I have enough money to retire. God, if you let me, fill in your blank. It says at every turn, God, I'll worship you if, whereas these individuals say, "No, God, we'll worship you even if you don't."

Unless you think I'm making too much just of an Old Testament story. This is the same kind of faith that Jesus had in the garden of Gethsemane. When Jesus was in the garden, do you know what he prayed? He said, "God, father, would you take this cup from me?" In other words, I don't want to be crucified. I don't want to have people beat me and have to be tortured for hours. Would you take this from me? And then what does he say? Not my will, but yours.

Jesus didn't use the words, but what he was doing was he was saying, "God, you can deliver me. I trust you. But even if you don't, I'll still worship you. I'll still serve you." And you see the truth is when you and I worship an idol, whether it be our own personal idol or a corporate narrative, then we can't pray, "God, even if you don't, I'll still worship you. What we do instead is, is we say, "God, if you take care of me, then I'll worship you."

Now we've called this series the Minority Report because the majority usually has a different take. The majority says there is no God, or if there is a God, he doesn't care. Or if there is a God who cares, then this God is a God for me to utilize. He's a means to an end. And if I follow him, it means that things will work out for me. And so, my role with God is to appease God. And if things ever go poorly in my life, it means that God has become capricious towards me.

But the minority view, is to say, I know that God can do this, but even if he doesn't, even if he doesn't, I'll still worship him. And what this means is that when you come to the things that matter most in your life, you're willing to say, God, I believe that you can bring the resources that I need together for this. But even if you don't, I'll still worship you. God, I believe that you have good things for me in the area of somebody to love and to be loved. But even if you don't bring it when I want it, how I want it, I'll still worship you. God, I hope and long that you would do something in terms of my family or my kids or something in that arena. But even if you don't, God, here's my reputation and what's happening because I've refused the cultural narrative. But even if it doesn't turn around, I'll still worship you.

Now, I know this, and that is, it's a lot easier to say standing up here than it is to live with the things that really matter to us. In other words, when you get to a point where you're anxious about something, or you're frustrated by something, chances are you're getting really close to what you might struggle with as an idol. In other words, as soon as you say God, this is what needs to happen and without this happening, my life won't be worth living or this isn't good. We're getting really close to the idol.

And here's what I've learned just in terms of my own prayer life around this, that when I'm anxious, when I'm frustrated, that one of the things that really helps me to pray is if I literally open up my hands and just say, God, as I come to you today, I know that you care more about, and then I'll pray about what I'm anxious about. So, for example, "God, I know that you care more about my marriage than I do. God, I know that you care more about my kids than I do. God, I know that you care more about Orchard Hill Church than I do." And I pray this to remind myself that God actually does care more about those things than I do. I care a lot about those things.

To say, God cares more about them is not to say I don't care, but it's to say, "God, you care more about it than I do." And then what I'll do is I'll ask God to do something specific, miraculous, that says something that would bring him glory in my estimation. And then I'll say, "But God, the open hands, I know that even if you don't, I'm still going to worship and serve you. Even if this doesn't work out the way I think is best, I'm still going to trust that you are at work doing what you want to do." And do you see how this can change the way that you pray? Because instead of going to God and saying, "God, only if you do this will I worship you." Instead, I'm saying, "God, I want to pray with a sense that says, even if you don't, even if you don't, I'm trusting you." And for me, just sitting with open hands, sometimes kneeling, and having hands open is a posture of saying, "God, I trust you with what I want to hold on to so tightly."

So, we've seen the challenge to faith. We've seen the response of faith. Now I want you to just to see for a moment, the impact of faith. And we see this in verse 19 to the end of the chapter, and this is where now the three men are thrown into the fiery furnace. And the fourth appears and the King now is blown away by this. And the King has had a couple of different responses. I mentioned this earlier, but in chapter two, we see this in verse 46 and 47, King Nebuchadnezzar, this is after the dream about the statue being smashed by the rock. It says, "Then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel and paid him honor and ordered him an offering and incense be presented to him. And then the King said to Daniel, "Surely your God is the God of gods. The Lord of Kings, the revealer of mysteries for you were able to reveal this mystery."

So, here's what happens. He has this encounter with Daniel and the mystery is revealed. And he says, "Your God is the God of gods, the King of Kings." And you know what he does in the years that follow, he constructs this big statue. And he says, now everyone, bow down to this. This is the real thing. And then when he encounters these three men who go into the furnace and come out alive and he sees a fourth in there, here's his response. Verse 28, "Then Nebuchadnezzar said, "Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who sent his angel and rescued his servants. They trusted in him and defied the King's command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any God except their own God. Therefore, I decree", listen to this. I love this. "Therefore, I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be cut into pieces and their houses shall be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way."

Now the reason you say, why do you love that? The reason I love that is what you're seeing here is he's like, hey, everyone, bow down to this cultural moment that I'm creating, or you're thrown into the fiery furnace. And then he says, oh wow, look at this. This God is real. Okay. Don't say anything against that God or I'm going to have you cut into pieces and your house smashed. Do you think he learned anything yet? I mean, my guess is no. And here's what's possible. It's possible to have moments of spiritual awakening and not be genuinely converted to Jesus Christ.

It's possible to have things that make you feel spiritually alive. Maybe there's a moment of guilt in response to sin or a moment of worship or something where you go, yes, I believe this. This is right. And then you still end up being all about you on the backside. And it's possible that we still miss God. Now, Nebuchadnezzar appears to take a significant step in chapter four, we don't know entirely. But what I'm pointing out here is this and that is, even when you are faithful, it doesn't guarantee that everyone around you will say, Oh, I get it and I'm with you. And even if you have a moment of responding to the greatness of God, it doesn't mean that you have come to serve that God.

You see, only in serving God is when we give up our attempts at religion. Our sense of saying, "God, I'll worship you if." You see, Nebuchadnezzar was still playing this if game to, "God, I worship you no matter what, even if you don't." You see, religion is our attempt to get God to do something for us. And what religion does is it's motivated often by fear that says, I'll obey you, "God, because I want to succeed, and I don't want you to do anything that'll keep me from succeeding." It means that I'll say, "God, I'll worship you." and we do it out of pride because we want to feel superior to the people around us or, "God, I'll worship you out of greed because if I worship you, it means that you're going to give me a blessing. Something tangible that I can look at and say, isn't this awesome."

But what happens is all of his religion is shattered with this fourth person in the fire because he says, "This makes no sense. My guards were being burned that I put up there. And these men are not just walking around, but that there's four of them." And most commentators believe that this is either the pre-incarnate Christ or an angel of the Lord. But it's God's way of saying, "I will preserve you even when it doesn't feel like things are going your way." You see, sometimes what will happen is you will be in minority and you'll simply point other people to where true security is. You'll point them away from the idols of our culture, from their own personal idols. Sometimes you'll challenge the cultural idols. But what you'll also do is you will find yourself in the safest place. And that's where God's hand, his preserving hand, is. It just doesn't always work exactly like we want it to.

You see, we read this story and we go, that's awesome. They were delivered. But sometimes, sometimes, our deliverance is different than we think. Let me share a little bit of a eulogy that a man named Jonathan Evans gave for his mom, Lois, a few years ago. I think I read this maybe last year. Jonathan Evans is the son of Tony Evans. You might know that name. He's a well-known pastor in Dallas, author, national kind of acclaim. His daughter is Priscilla Shirer. You might know that name, so kind of a church power family, if you want to look at it that way. And Lois Evans, Tony Evans' wife got cancer and she died. And this is what Jonathan Evans said at his mom's eulogy.

He said, "I was wrestling with God because I said, if we have victory in your name, didn't you hear us when we were praying? Didn't you see the cancer? Didn't you hear us? Why didn't you do what we were asking of you? Because your word says, if we abide in you and your word abides in us, we can ask whatever we will, and it will be given us. Your word tells us that if we ask anything, according to your will, you hear us. Your word is telling us in Mark 11, that if we pray believing, we will receive and to be anxious for nothing, but through prayer and supplication to make our requests made known unto you. Where are you?"

He said, "I was wrestling with God these last few days, because this was a great opportunity that we could tangibly see his glory. Everyone was praying, not only in Dallas, but around the country and around the world, people were watching." And he said, "I was thinking, God, where are you? This is an opportunity to show your glory." And then he has this imaginary conversation with God. And when she says, it felt like God was saying this kind of thing to me, he said, this is God. "Now, number one, you don't understand the nature of my victory, just because I didn't answer the prayer the way that you wanted me to, doesn't mean I haven't already answered your prayer anyway, because victory was already given to your mom."

"You don't understand because of the victory that I've given you, there was always only two answers to your prayers, either she was going to be healed or she was going to be healed. Either she was going to live, or she was going to live. Either she was going to be with family, or she was going to be with family. Either she was going to be well taken care of, or she was going to be well taken care of. Victory belongs to me because of what I've already done for you. The two answers to your prayer are yes and yes, because victory belongs to Jesus."

And he goes on to talk in just short terms about how, in a sense, as he was praying and thinking about it, how God basically said, sometimes we feel entitled to the answer we want instead of the answer that he gives. But what he was really doing was coming to a point of worship of saying, "God, I know you're able and willing, but you are preserving even if it isn't the way I want you to." So, even if you don't work the way I want you to, I'll still worship you. Do you see how that is genuine faith and gives us confidence and courage wherever we are?

So, here's what I'd like to ask you to do. I'd like to just ask you to bow your heads, close your eyes, wherever you are. Here in the room, if you're watching online, you're watching later, you're on TV, different campus and I want to ask you just to take your hands and open them up in front of you, if you're willing to do that. Now I want to just ask you right now to bring what has been most frustrating, what's been the biggest cause of anxiety in your life to God. And I want you to say, "God, I know that you care more about this than I do." Now take a moment and ask God to work in this situation, say, "God, would you", and then feel free to ask him to do the miraculous, the astonishing. And then with your hands open, say, "But God, I know that you're preserving hand will work and so whether you do what I think would bring you the most glory, what would be best or not, I will still worship you. I will live with open hands with what makes me anxious and frustrated today."

And for those of you who maybe are here, maybe you're watching online and you're saying, I don't know this whole open hand thing. That's not where I'm at. Can I just say to you, if you're saying I don't want to open my hands because I don't want a God who doesn't help me get what I need or want. Can I just say to you, whatever it is that you're prioritizing will one day crumble, it will not hold the weight that you are putting into it, only Jesus Christ, only the God of heaven can hold that weight. That is what we're seeing with Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar has everything and nothing.

Open hands are a way of saying, God, whatever you give or whatever I don't have, I'll worship you. And that's where I know I have everything. Father, we thank you that your word tells accounts of people from thousands of years ago and yet it teaches us about you and about how we can relate to you even in our day. And God, I pray for me, for each person listening that you would help us to not just address our personal idols, but our corporate narratives, and be able to say with open hand, God, I'll worship you whatever, because we know that's where our freedom is, to live as a minority, to point people past cultural idols and to you and to go there ourselves. And we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.