Northside Church - Sydney
EXPATS Week 2: A New Model
We're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. What is the nerdiest thing you've ever done to look cool? We can do this in private if you want, that's cool. But for me, and I will be honest because we're friends here, for me it was in high school, my dad specifically told me not to get an earring. And he constantly said to me, "You're not getting an earring, you're not getting an earring." And I was up on my cousin's place and I went into the salon there and the temptation was just too great. And as a teenager, I know, amongst ourselves, I got an earring. Still got a hole, still got it there, still could wear it because there's nothing wrong with earrings if you're a guy and you've got an earring here tonight, power to you. But it was one of those moments in my life that then two and a bit years later, I end up at a private school in Sydney's Upper North Shore and you do not have earrings at those sorts of schools and you do not have the purple hair that I had at the time. And you do not have the army boots that were done up with pins in them and the black golf shirt, instead you trade that for things called boaters and blazers. And I was a transformed young man, now what's the point of it here? Is this me or is there something really powerful about the culture that is around us? At any point in time, some of us have looked back and thought, "Well, I can't believe I was wearing that." And more often than not, we think, "Well, we did it because it was cool." Yeah, what is cool? It's so hard to define cool because I'm not one of those artistic sort of persons. But I mean, a cool is generally what a whole people in a culture can form to. And one of the different phrases that I see thrown around is that Christians aren't cool people. And Christians can't be cool. And I think that's because in some respects there is an element of truth to that. The Christians don't often conform to the culture that is around them. That's attention you guys face. Do you want to conform to the culture that's around you? Do you want to be a part of that? Do you want to assimilate to that? And two things that we learned last week when we started this new series called Expats. Living as exiles and foreigners in foreign faith lands is that through the prophet Jeremiah, God was saying in Jeremiah 29 verse 7 that the Israelites who were taken away from their holy city were to seek the prosperity of the city. Not to separate from the city, but to blend in with the culture, be deeply involved in the life of the city, but living distinctively as these people get involved but be distinctive. He was saying, "I don't want you to love me and hate the city or love the city and hate me but I want you to love both." That's a real tough tension. So how do we live as expats, faith expats in foreign lands and the key you should are going to see throughout the Bible and through this passage tonight is that God often, it's just the funny way that he works, scatters his people often into unbelieving and hostile places. And it happened right throughout the Old Testament. It happened right throughout the New Testament. When you look at the book of Acts, Acts chapter 8 in specific, the God scatters his church out into these places of unbelief all the time. Why? Because God planned for his people to be expats in foreign lands so they can prosper the city that's around him. Big call. What does that look like? Let's have a look at that tonight. We're going to read from Daniel chapter 1. It's the Old Testament, so you're going to have to go way back. And your Bible's here to Daniel chapter 1. We're going to read through, finally, we're going to read from Daniel when we're doing a series on Daniel. That's a good thing to do. Daniel chapter 1 verses 1 through to 8. "In the third year of the reign of Jehoakim, the king of Judah, never Knessa the king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord delivered Jehoakim king of Judah into his hand along with some of the articles from the temple of God. These he carried off to the temple of his God in Babylonia and put in the treasure house of his God. And then the king ordered Ash Phanaz, chief of his called officials, to bring in some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility. Young man 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. He was to teach them the language and the literature of the Babylonians. The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king's table. And they were to be trained for three years. And after that they were to enter the king's service. Among these were some from Judah, Daniel, our main guy, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. The chief official gave them new names. To Daniel the name Belchazar, to Hananiah, Shadrach, to Mishael, Mishak and to Azariah, Abednego, 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. See, it's a tough balance. Tough balance. What we see from Daniel's example here, if we're going to go in and prosper the city and be a part of the city first and foremost, we see in verses four to five. He says, "Then the king ordered Ashvana's chief of his court officials to bring in some of the Israelites from the royal family and the nobility. Young men without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning, well informed, quick to understand. Finally, an Old Testament passage that I can relate to. But really, who was this guy? Who was Daniel? You see, first and foremost, we see that the guy was saying to Jeremiah and Daniel lives this out. He's God saying, "Don't separate from the culture around you, assimilate." That is what's happening here. Who was Daniel? He's a biblical example of how God uses people to adopt the culture around them for the practices and the purposes of God. You see, look at this guy. Daniel was almost like a prophet himself. Stood out there was courageous under pressure. He was completely monotheistic, and many believed in one God only. He was completely a man of the God of the Bible. And yet, as it says here, these guys were to be trained for three years. And after that, they were to enter the king's service. And so, as we see here, that they found him to be ten times better than all the magicians and the enchanters of the Babylonian region. And see, the question is, what did Daniel do to get into that job? How did he get here? He went sort of the civil service of Babylonia. He's sort of working for the New South Wales government of Babylon. And of course, we know in those sorts of government institutions, it's the wise people that run these things. It's the wise people that are doing all this sort of stuff. And Daniel once shows us how he got there. It says that he trained for three years. You know what he was doing? He was doing a bachelor of arts in Babylonian culture, studying at Babylonia University. He was studying the culture. And what it's saying is whilst these wise men were the best in the land at all the Babylonian culture, that's what Daniel was. So all these are the guys that run the country. And for Daniel to be there, it meant that he would have had to have studied the magic. He would have had to have studied the enchanting. Are you guys hearing what this is saying? Daniel fully immersed himself and became an expert in the Babylonian culture, the magic the enchanting. He was an expert. But you come to some modern day churches and they would freak out about that sort of stuff. Stay away from that sort of stuff. Don't touch that sort of stuff. Don't touch the culture around you. But what is clear here, you know, and the question you got to ask of people like that is what are you going to say about this particular passage of Scripture? How is this part of God's plan that Daniel would go in there and learn the culture around him? What is clear is that Dan and his friends didn't refuse to call to get involved in a bachelor of arts from Babylonia. So why? Why would they do that? See, a lot of people live the Christian life, think it's a one to one thing, right? It's part of the Christian life is that you just go and you hang out and if you can get one or two of your friends across the line and share Jesus with them. And that's it. And look, that is it to some extent. We want to share the great news of Jesus with our mates, live a good life, be good witnesses. But here's the thing, God not only calls us to change individuals but to change entire cities, entire cultures, the entire society around us for the better. Remember, Jeremiah 29, God says it's part of my plan that I sent you into this foreign culture so you can love the city and pray for the city and prosper the city. And so God is constantly sending his people into potentially hostile cultures in order that they might affect the entire culture. And how else do you do that until you've got people that at the upper ends of the structures of that society at the time, right? Daniel was part of the New South Wales government. He was in there. Now, what I like about this is it helps answer the question that I get a lot all the time. I don't know if you guys have asked yourself this question that is like, well, how am I supposed to relate to my work as a Christian? You know, am I supposed to, I don't know, am I supposed to be doing the spreadsheets? Am I supposed to just be worrying about on my study in the books? Like how am I supposed to relate to the culture around me? Shouldn't I, you know, Sam, should not be doing spiritual stuff like you? Is that the objective? And what this passage says to us wonderfully tonight is no. We see that it's God's plan to scatter his people. And so the question that you've got to ask yourself tonight is in what way is God giving me the unique skills and unique talents and unique position to seek the prosperity of the culture around me? Where has he placed me? What is he doing with me right now? See, here's the vision. God is saying to us the same thing he said to the Jews, if you love the city, if you pour yourself out for the city, if you seek the good of the city, how much of a better witness could there be to show your city that your God is good? If you want your community and your faith to grow, then you need to care about the city. That's what God's saying to us. And so unless we are woven through the world, then this world gets spiritually gangrenous. The horrible thought inside, if you know what gangrene is, it's disgusting. We're parts of the body rot and die off because the circulation doesn't get to that part of the flesh. I want to use that deliberately so it hits us tonight because I want to say tonight unless we're waving through the world, the world is lacking spiritual oxygen. You are the spiritual oxygen. You are the godly oxygen of your friends and of your families and of your schools and every relationship around you, all the ones there to reverse the rot. Not the professional ministers up here, it's you guys. So what does it look like? It looks like Christians that live in the city in a posture of services or new businesses that are started up or startups or not for prophets that want to do all sorts of amazing stuff in the city. There's believers who integrate all of their faith in all of their work life. So work doesn't just become something where you're earning money but a whole kingdom activity. God wants these people to assimilate so that we just don't change its lives but we change the entire city. That sounds like a big call, right? You're going, "How do we do that?" God's got me thinking, "I don't want to embarrass people here tonight but I know that there are certain institutions in this city where we've got three or four north siders that are employees of that institution. I know that we've got a hospital out in the west where we've got three, four, five different north siders that are either doctors or nurses that are part of that institution. What happens if we win a whole hospital for the city? What happens if we win a whole newspaper for the city? What happens if we win a whole legal firm for the city? And you see the incredible vision that God gives us through this passage and the incredible privilege for us as an urban church that we don't have to go out going to try and do amazing things. God is doing amazing things amongst us. It's not just about winning people to Christ, it's winning the city to Christ. How could it happen? It's happening already, guys. So what is the church? What are we doing here tonight? You know what the church is? We're a culture of culture changes. We're here to be refreshed and here to be reminded about our purposes and what we should be praying for and how we should be seeking the city, the good and the prosperity for the cities. And so, therefore, guys, first of all, don't separate and assimilate. But then on the other hand, he says, but don't assimilate with the culture around you, then separate. Right? Interesting story in the Guardian newspaper in the UK in March of this year, a little bit of a situation with a guy who was an undercover policeman. Part of the issue was he went undercover that he went so deep. That when his commanders radioed in to get some more information back, there was blank. There was nothing. And they went in and checked even more and basically this guy had gone so deep undercover that he eventually decided to go and join the people that he was spying on. That was back in the 1970s. They still haven't found him. Now, here's the question. How do we effectively assimilate without the culture winning us over? Well, we're not undercover to policemen, such as not the world's best metaphor and analogy to use, but how do we assimilate and go into a culture? How do we go deep without the culture winning us over? And the first thing we see from Daniel is he need to draw a line. Verse eight, it says in here, "But Daniel resolved not to defile himself for the royal food and wine, Daniel resolved, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way." You see, Daniel on one hand and the rest of the boys had assimilated in the culture around them. They were experts in the culture around them, but at the same time, they drew a line. They resolved not to eat the vegetables in the water instead of a—and they resolved sorry to eat vegetables in water instead of the wine that the king was providing them. Now, why wouldn't they eat the king's food? I mean, did it taste bad because it was a pork roast and they couldn't eat it because they were Jewish? You know, it sounds funny, but the most striking thing about this whole situation was it was nothing intrinsically wrong with the king's food itself. There's nothing wrong with it. So this wasn't simply because eating this food broke a rule. It was because there was something different. In some way, only Daniel and his friends knew that in accepting the king's food, they would cross a line from learning about the culture to adopting the culture. Notice how it says the food would defile them, verse 8. It's a religious word. It means literally like spiritual pollution. I'm going to ask, have you guys ever felt that way? Have you ever felt that way where just something deep inside you, a situation in a life where you knew that you were just sort of—you were crossing a line? It's not easy to put your finger on, and as a result, most people want to come to church or to the god of the Bible and say, show me the line. Just show me the place where the Bible says, I can't do this, or show me the place where the Bible says, I can do this. Just show me the line, and it would be that much easier, and here's the tough thing. Most of the time, there isn't one. And here's why. It's because the gospel gives you trajectories. It doesn't give you answers. It gives you guidance. It gives you pathways. It gives you general directions. It's sort of like the TV show, The Amazing Race. You guys see The Amazing Race? It's about all these contestants that get together, and they're given this funny little card, and pretty much they're just given this two-line card that says, go to this country on the other side of the world and go and find this particular checkpoint. And the people there have to engage in the culture and eat salami if they're in Italy or eat some crazy food if they're in Morocco and enjoy all the things that go with eating that sort of food. But either way, they have to go and pass through all these various cultures in order to get to the end objective. But it's just two lines. I mean, it doesn't say, go to Sydney, catch this particular taxi, catch the 252 from there, get onto the plane, go to this country, it doesn't get that specific, right? They run this incredible race based on just some basic guidelines, and so guys, the Christian life is the ultimate amazing race. Anyone who's a Christian knows that there's someone who's just living life according to a few principles that someone who's been given a new trajectory in their life. It's someone who has been given principles on a card that affect every part of their life, how they socialize, how they exercise, how they work, how they play. It's what I love about our God. He doesn't tell us to go and do this, and do this, and do this, he says, work it out. You don't get exact. You don't get little rules and regulations, you get trajectories, and you get guidance. But you don't get exactly what to do in every situation, the Christian life's like the amazing race. Work it out. That's far the fun. So guys, for example, if you're a Christian in the financial world, it'll look like this, you know, are there certain financial instruments that are being used regularly by my company in an exploitive way? Sure, there are out there. And so if you're part of that sort of financial institution in which that is happening, how does that sit with you? If it's sitting tough, how can you use your role to prosper the culture around you? Or if you're working in a promotion or a marketing or advertising agency, when is the promotion that you're working on encouraging idolatry? What is the promotion that you're working on, I don't know, catering to the beauty idols of this world? The tell all the women of this world that it's not about their worth or significance of what God says about them, but the beauty in the externals and how well they're being touched up in Photoshop that really matters? How does that sit? How does it work? How are you promoting it? You see, there's no answers, but the Bible gives us guidance, and these are many things guys are going to have to wrestle with, and that's a problem. You don't get the rules. You don't get the trajectories, and some people hate that because it means you have to think about it. It means you've got to work it out. And you know what I love? God's provided a solution for that. It's called the church. It's called connection groups. It's called his community. Why else do you think we get together and thrash this sort of stuff out and talk with one another? Because you need to process these things. Because the gospel is not a prescription, we've got to try and find out how it applies to all of their life. So Christian is someone who in every situation is just working with the guidelines of God's amazing race. So can you see the subtlety guys? Here's how Daniel balances the act here. We see in chapter one, on one hand he assimilates. He's got a Bachelor of Babylonian culture. On the other hand, he's distinct. He draws the line because at that point Daniel sensed that eating the food was to cross a line to something different in which he was part of that culture. So here's the takeaway from his example, he drew a line and here's the thing, if you don't think about ever drawing a line, then that's a bit of a hint to say that you've actually assimilated into the culture. You never even start thinking about is there a line to this, then you're just part of the culture. But if you're only ever thinking about the line, then you've separated from the culture. You just worried about the rules. You just want to give it to me, black and white, look how I still put it. Master the culture, but don't be mastered by the culture around you. That's what Daniel did. He mastered the culture, but he wasn't mastered by the culture, by keeping their commitment to God rather than falling into idle commitments. These young guys saw through the wisdom of Babylonian culture, took what was best out of it, but still remained true to God in the rest of it. What a model for us. So here, look quickly, as we're starting to finish up tonight, here's a question, you're probably asking how do I know if I'm being mastered by the culture. First question, I just want to ask you three real quick. What's your motivation for engaging the culture around you? Are you likely to undercover cop? You see, the most dangerous thing that can happen is that you forget your mission this week. The most dangerous thing that can happen is that you forget the Jeremiah 29 verse 7. The most dangerous thing is that you forget that God has carried you into your workplace and into your relationships in order to bless and prosper the city. What's your motivation? Is it for God or is it for yourself that you're wanting to get involved in the culture around you? Another one, what proportion of your time are you spending in the culture around you? I know this is a big tension for our guys, particularly in the city where work is such a massive factor. Is the distinction? What's the difference between you working out of necessity for your boss versus out of your own need for the sense of affirmation and success? How much time you spend in your workplace can be an indication of whether you're being mastered by the culture. Most of all, are you like Daniel? Are you distinct enough? Are you courageous enough? Are you sensitive enough to draw a line every now and then? I was so humbled this week in talking to one of our young guys. I'm going to mention him because I'm going to embarrass him, but we were sitting down having a coffee this week, and he was coming off the back of some really tough work situation and he went in for an interview recently, and he was telling me how he went in for this interview. He didn't have any other jobs lined up, and he was there chatting with the interviewer, and I was starting to get to the end of the interview. He was looking pretty positive, and the guy interviewing him said, "Look, what's your flexibility like?" And this was a phrase that blew me away, and I'm just going to carry with me for a little bit. He turned around and he said, "Well, you know what, I run a youth group on a Friday night, and I go to church on Sundays, so I can't work during any of those sorts of times." And I thought, "There is someone who gets in. There's someone who drew a line, courageously drew a line." Said to someone, "Loot stared a potential job in the face and said, 'My God comes first.'" Well, if you want to meet him, I'll introduce you to him. I think we should all have a one-to-one with him this week, but it just -- it gave me such encouragement in our community, guys, that there are some of us like this that are living that out and taking that courageous Daniel step and saying, "This comes first in my life, and if it's going to cost me my job, it's going to cost me my job." But this comes first, and you know what he got hired? I'm not saying that there's any sort of -- I'm not one of those churches that just say, "Yeah, because you don't." But it seems to work, right, those biblical principles. He mastered the culture around him, but he wasn't mastered by him. So what's your motivation? What proportion of time are you being distinct enough? Don't assimilate, but be separate to some extent. So we've seen that. Don't separate, assimilate, and then assimilate, but sort of separate. It's all sound a bit confusing. Let's look at a new model. There's got to be a third way in all of this, "How be it Daniel?" Be it Daniel is what we're thinking, but yeah, the story of Daniel just points to the true Daniel. It points to a true Israelite who left the safety and the comfort of his holy place. It talks of a true Israelite who left his real home in order to assimilate and adapt into a foreign culture. You know, there was one who really did master the culture around him. There was one who faced temptation to become one with the world around him, and yet the Bible says he lived totally without sin. The people of God knew that God was holy and loving and wise and interested in him and the world, but only in Jesus Christ did that become a concrete demonstration to the world. Only, look, Jesus didn't under engage the world. He came. He came. He didn't separate himself. He came, but he didn't over engage the world because he died. They killed him for it. He was so distinct, he got killed for it. He didn't separate, but he didn't fully assimilate. He became incarnate. That is, he was a representation of God in our world. He lived as life as God as a human. He was distinct from the world for the world, and it's a perfect model for us. He calls his followers to be the same, and so, look, guys, here's what you face tomorrow. You're choice to draw a line, a choice that's going to happen around watercolors, the choice that's going to happen with an employee who sort of sits over the open plan desk. It's going to be the choice over at a coffee table. It's going to be a choice during recess in the school ground. It's going to be a choice at the uni bar at the end of uni tomorrow night. Someone here tonight will be asked the question, "What did you get up to on a weekend?" You know, when that happens, if it's ever happened to, your mind sort of goes in slow motion for a little bit, and you sort of rattle through all the different permutations, and I don't know what happens in my life, but my brain always seems to gravitate to a certain phrase that just says, "Stuff." We get really vague, don't we? We get really vague, and we just said, "I'm getting up to stuff," but the opportunity is going to be there to be a Daniel, to be part of the culture, but to say, "I ain't eaten the food," spiritually speaking. Guys, we'll never fully get this right. We'll always have a tendency to over-engage into the culture, be one of them, get nearing, right? Or we'll under-engage our culture and separate, and the way to summarize it is don't separate, but assimilate. Don't assimilate, but separate, guys, if it's too confusing, incarnate. Represent God in your world this week. Live the life of the model of Jesus Christ. We mustn't privatize our faith. That is, to learn the world's education and its values whilst keeping our faith to ourselves. We mustn't separate our faith by keeping ourselves and little Christian ghettos and be disengaged from culture. Rather, we must incarnate, and like Daniel, and ultimately Jesus Christ be emerged and engaged in the culture that is around us, and mastering its wisdom and constantly remembering that we're God's people, being distinct from the culture, for the culture. So, guys, what do we learn? Dare to be a Daniel. That's what I used to sing in Sunday school. Don't know about you? Dare to be a Daniel. Singed by a purpose true, Heating God's command, honor them the faithful few, or hail to Daniel's band. Dare to be a Daniel. Dare to stand alone. Dare to have a purpose firm. Dare to make it known. Hold the gospel banner high onto victory grand, Satan and his hostify and shout for Daniel's band. But dare to be a Daniel. Dare to stand alone. Dare to have a purpose firm. Dare to make it. 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