"Avoid Self-Diminishing Compromises"

Sermon Transcript for July 14, 2002

Scripture Reading: Daniel 1:1-21

By Rev. Mike Beck 

 

There were two verses from the first message in this year’s 50-Day Spiritual Adventure that are foundational to all we’ve talked about. In I Peter 2:11 we’re told, "Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul." I want you to notice the words "aliens and strangers". Now, we’re to enjoy this world in which we live, but we are to remember as God’s people the words of the old song, "This world is not my home". Then Paul told us in the Letter to Philippians, he said, "But our citizenship is in Heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ." "Our citizenship is in heaven", you’ve heard me use this phrase several times. We are to be "in" the world, but not "of" the world.

This year’s 50-Day Adventure has been so extremely practical. And friends, we gather on Sunday to worship and give praise to God. But it’s more than just that. We gather together so that in hearing His word our lives the rest of the week will be different, will be transformed. And I know the principles that we have been learning have been speaking to me and I hope they are speaking to you. I want to take a moment to review them. The first week we learned to make soul-conscious choices. Note the adjective. Remembering the words of Jesus that said, "What does it profit you if you gain the whole world but you lose your soul?"

And then in week two we learned that to thrive spiritually you’ve got to flee from temptation. You need to have this verse memorized but I’ll share it with you again. "No temptation has seized you but what is common to man." In other words, whatever is your Achilles heel temptation wise be assured somebody else has that same Achilles heel. "And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, God will provide…" Hear this part, "God will provide a way out so that you may endure it." And that way out more often than not is flee, flee.

And then in week three Dan preached on the need to rally support. And it was time this week for my next voice injection and there have been some projects that I have been needing to work on that needed some undivided attention. So I went down to Nashville on Wednesday and spent Wednesday and Thursday basically looking over the people in this church thinking about the dreams that we have for the future, the new ministries we think are important to our church, because I’ve been wondering, "Do we have the resources to do that?" And as I took several hours just to go through our church roster, number one I was blessed to realize the lives of people that God has touched in a special way. I also was encouraged that there are plenty of resources to do whatever God wants to do. There are plenty of people on the sidelines waiting to be asked to be involved. And this third principle tells us, rally support – don’t try to do it alone.

And then we talked about rebuilding the sacred walls of Sabbath in our lives. A woman who is very dear to me, very dear to this church, Beulah Schrader, had a comment after this message that just caused me to chuckle. She said, "Reverend Mike, I give my car one day of Sabbath each week." I’d never heard of that! She said, "There’s one day each week in which my car sits idle in the garage." Which is probably a pretty good thing for the car, as busy as Beulah is, probably a pretty good thing for Beulah.

And then last week we talked that we need to reference the culture in order to share God’s love with others. If you are a sports fan, let me give you an example of that. All you would have had to have done later this week in a conversation with another sports fan is to ask them the question, "What did you think about the outcome of the all-star game?" And I am confident it could have led you in many ways into a spiritually oriented conversation.

And today we look at the Old Testament character of Daniel to discover the principle that we need to "avoid self-diminishing compromises". Let me give you a definition, "Self-diminishing compromises are the attractive options that we give in to that can end up threatening our spiritual health." Now as you look at that definition, this morning we are talking about a number of things that are not necessarily wrong or bad in and of themselves. But I want you to notice the adjective here—self-diminishing. These are the things that, when we take them to excess, when we give in in unproductive ways, we end up chipping away at our soul. And, friends, one thing the Bible teaches us no matter how well you care for your physical health, as I look out at you, 120 years from now (I think that makes it safe) none of us are going to be here. The thing that’s going to matter is, "How did we nourish the soul within us?"

I can’t remember the last time I preached from the Book of Daniel. And Leland, I did a pretty dirty trick there. You know I rationalized I’m saving my voice to preach, but I really didn’t want to try to pronounce all those big names. But the book that bears the name of the character we are looking at today is filled with examples of thriving and surviving spiritually. You may remember from Bible stories the accounts of Daniel in the Lions Den and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace. But the account Leland read this morning precedes all of that. Judah’s been overrun by the Babylonians and King Nebuchadnezzar decides he’s going to select a few young men from Judah. He’s going to enroll them in an education program of his own making in Babylon to expand the leadership phase for his growing empire. Let’s see, is Sarai in here for this service? She may have slipped out—no, she’s down here. This lady eats healthier than anyone I know. And her demeanor represents that. Sarai when I got the text for today and read it and the example is Daniel on his diet of vegetables and water I said to myself, "How in the world am I going to preach on this?" As some of you who are laughing know me well and you know that Reverend Mike’s diet is anything but healthy. The only vegetables I like are green beans and corn; and one of those doesn’t even qualify as a vegetable. So I’m struggling with this message today, Sarai.

Now you need to realize there was nothing essentially wrong with the food on the king’s table. It was no doubt good, rich Middle Eastern fare. But on the menu were some things that Jewish persons weren’t supposed to eat. Also on the menu were some foods that had been ceremonially offered to a pagan god. And to a devout Jew that made the whole smorgasbord non-kosher. They weren’t supposed to partake of it.

Now I would like you to put yourselves in Daniel’s shoes for a moment. If we’re sitting there in Daniel’s shoes we can rationalize pretty easy eating this food. Think about it, we are captive in a foreign land; we’re being held hostage against our will. We say to ourselves, "We don’t want to make waves, I’m not here because I want to be here. So given those circumstances, surely God would understand if we had a pork chop sandwich for dinner." That’s one of the things I learned the first time I went to Israel. If you like pork chops you’re not likely to have them for dinner when you go to Israel. But as a result of their convictions, Daniel and his friends asked for an alternate menu. Now their overseer’s a little nervous about his. He said, "If you turn out scrawny the king will ask for my head." And Daniel said, "Try us ten days, give us just vegetables and water to eat instead of the King’s steak and wine." And they thrived spiritually; they thrived physically. Why? Because a warning buzzer had gone off in Daniel’s mind from the very beginning saying to him, "Don’t compromise, don’t compromise."

Now before going any further I want to say this, there is a definite place for compromise in life. Mickey and I would not still be married after 32 years if we didn’t know how to compromise. Nothing gets done in government unless the two political parties learn to compromise. But what I’m trying to say this morning is this, what God wants us to do is empowered and informed by His word and by the guidance of the Holy Spirit. He wants us to know where to draw the boundary lines in the sands of our lives. Because we realize that without those boundary lines our relationship with God, our soul will get diminished if we constantly give in to all the attractive options of the world. I don’t have time to develop them but you can do that on your own this week. But I do want to list in closing three areas where we need to be on alert for self-diminishing compromises in our lives. And again these are all good things.

1. Focus too much on possessions: Be alert that we don’t focus too much on possessions. I came across this quote that’s all to true. It goes like this, "Those who thrive spiritually are not held hostage by the gun of materialism that a godless culture points at their heads." And friends, that’s true. There is a godless culture out there pointing the gun of materialism at your head telling you that’s how you find happiness. The person who thrives spiritually doesn’t give in to that. Let me give you a couple of exercises for you to try out. I’m going to try to do both of these.
   1. Give away something valuable that you no longer need. Don’t sell it. Look around your home or garage and find something valuable and give it away to someone that you think needs it more than you do.
   2. Think about something you plan to buy and decide not to buy it, but take the money and invest it in some kingdom enterprise.

   If you’ll seriously do those two activities, you’ll learn something about not giving in to our possessions.

2. Focus too much on entertainment: We often tend to focus too much on entertainment. I wonder how many of us this afternoon if Christ knocked on our door and He said, "Can I come in for a few minutes, I want to do an inventory with you? And we invite Him in and we serve Him a cup of coffee and we say, "What’s the inventory you want to do?" And He said, "Get out a piece of paper and pencil. I want you to list all of the hours this week you spent watching TV and in your favorite entertainment. Total them up. Then on the other side of the page total up the time spent in Scripture, worship, prayer, and Christian service." Would any of you be comfortable taking that inventory? I don’t know whether I would.

   Again nothing wrong with entertainment. God doesn’t mind us enjoying those things. At 1:45 p.m. this afternoon you’ll find me on the golf course with my son and Dave Hamilton. But God does mind when our compromises and excesses in those areas damage our soul and damage our relationship with God. Now having laid a guilt trip on all of you let me give you a suggestion. Learn how to link up times of recreation and entertainment with Christian fellowship and witness to non-Christian friends. Friends, if you enjoy going to the Indianapolis Indians baseball game, when you go take a non-Christian friend with you and find an opportunity during the time together to share something about your faith. Dovetail those things together.

3. Focusing too much on activity: We have a tendency if we’re not careful to focus too much on activity. We’re more concerned about "doing" than "being". Can I repeat that? And realize that as I say that there is a mirror right here. There’s nothing wrong with "doing", but sometimes we’re so wrapped up in "doing" we forget about "being". I came across this poem by Marcia Hornok that hit me right between the eyes. It’s entitled, "Psalm 23 Antithesis". Hear it carefully.

The clock is my dictator; I shall not rest.

It makes me lie down only when I am exhausted.

It leads me to deep depression.

It hounds my soul.

It leads me in circles of frenzy for activity’s sake.

Even though I run frantically from task to task,

I will never get it all done, for my "ideal" (not my idle, note the spelling) is with me.

Deadlines and my need for approval, they drive me.

They demand performance from me, beyond the limits of my schedule.

They anoint my head with migraines; my in-basket overflows.

Surely fatigue and time pressure shall follow me all the days of my life,

And I will dwell in the bonds of frustration forever!

There is nothing wrong with activity until we take it too far. Until we think that our being is determined by our doing.

If we want to thrive spiritually, we need to "axe the excesses" in our lives and learn to travel light! I want you to read that with me; that’s your homework for this week. Learn to "axe the excesses" and travel light! It’s not an easy thing to do. We’ll never do it perfectly. But with God’s help, we can learn to do it better.

Let us pray, "Oh God, what we’re talking about this morning is not really the evils of life. It’s what, if we’re not careful, we do to the good things in life and we make those self-diminishing compromises that slowly but surely chip away at our souls. So help us to be like Daniel. Help us this week to think about our possessions, think about our recreation, think about our activity and ask the question guided by the Holy Spirit, "How can we travel lighter, where do we need to axe the excesses so that we might thrive spiritually?" We’ll fail miserably if we try to do it on our own, Lord, but if we draw on the resources from the Holy Spirit within us, we can do it. In Christ’s name, Amen."

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