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Entering into a new year, we will all face new challenges. For some, it might be the loss of a loved one or the change in health for you or a member of your family. It could be the loss of a job or an unexpected move for you and your family. The challenge could be the social and political climate we are in, the changing culture around us, or the financial highs and lows that bring anxiety and fear about the future. In some fashion, we will all face a challenge or two in the new year, and as followers of Jesus, we need to move into the future with a faith and trust that is Unshakeable.
At the end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, He said,
Everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. Matthew 7:24-25
This month we are going to learn how to have that solid foundation and unshakeable faith during uncertain and difficult times and we are going to learn these lessons from the Old Testament book of Daniel. The book of Daniel begins with Jerusalem falling to the nation of Babylon.
In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord delivered Jehoiakim 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. Daniel 1:1-2
While this doesn’t sound bad, Nebuchadnezzar completely destroyed Jerusalem. He tore down the city walls, burned people’s homes, and desecrated then demolished the Temple. To completely undermine the faith of the people, Nebuchadnezzar took some of the holy items used in the worship of God to his palace and used them in the pagan worship of his god.
The people were devastated and completely humiliated. It seemed as if God had abandoned them, but did you notice in those opening verses that God was still in control? It says the Lord delivered the king of Judah into the hands of the king of Babylon. God was at work, and in Daniel 2:28 it says that there is a God in heaven.
Even though it looks like all is lost - there is a God in heaven. Maybe that is the most important lesson we need to remember in order to have an unshakeable faith - no matter what we are going through - there is a God in heaven. No matter what challenges we face, what storm we are going through, what loss we are experiencing - there is a God in heaven. Even when it appears that God has left us - there is a God in heaven.
When Jesus was dying on the cross He cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me. In a moment of intense anguish and pain when many think that our sin being laid on Jesus caused God to turn away from Him - there was still a God in heaven and God was going to work through the pain and suffering of the cross to bring about the salvation of the world. An unshakeable faith means holding fast to the truth that no matter what we are facing or going through, there is a God in heaven and He is with us.
And God was with His people Israel. While it appeared that all was lost, we are going to see that God was still at work caring for His people. So we continue on with the story in Daniel 1:3-7
Then the king ordered Ashpenaz, chief of his court officials, to bring into the king’s service 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, and qualified to serve in the king’s palace. He was to teach them the language and literature of the Babylonians. The king assigned them a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s table. They were to be trained for three years, and after that they were to enter the king’s service.
Among those who were chosen were some from Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The chief official gave them new names: to Daniel, the name Belteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abednego.
The plan of Nebuchadnezzar was to take the best of the Hebrew people and make them into outstanding leaders in Babylon. If he could do that, then all the people of Israel would follow. If Nebuchadnezzar could undermine and destroy these young men’s faith and get them to compromise their trust in God, eventually they would abandon it altogether.
That is often Satan’s plan. Satan will use different circumstances to undermine our faith and work to get us to slowly compromise our trust in God so that over time we will find ourselves far from God. What we have to do is find ways to be unshakeable and stand firm, and we learn one way from the three friends of Daniel. Their names were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, and each of those names, along with the name Daniel, reflected the nature and character of God.
Hananiah - God is gracious
Mishael - God is strong
Azariah - God is my help
Daniel - God is my judge
The first step in undermining the faith of these young men was to change their name so that every time they were spoken to they would no longer think of God Almighty but one of the foreign and pagan gods of Babylon. The goal was to literally change their identity so that they no longer saw themselves as children of God but children of pagan gods and citizens of Babylon.
Hananiah became Shadrach - command of Aku (moon god)
Mishael became Meshach - Who is as Aku is
Azariah became Abednego - slave of the God Nebo
Daniel became Belteshazzar - Bel will protect me
By giving them a name that would tell them that the gods Aku, Nebo, and Bel were strong and powerful and would protect them was one way Nebuchadnezzar tried to undermine the faith and trust these young men placed in God. Nebuchadnezzar was trying to change their identity by telling them - you aren’t God’s children, you are now Bell or Aku’s child. You belong to the world not to God. Your strength will come from the powers of other gods and the forces of the moon and fire - not from God. All of this was to get them to compromise their faith and erode their trust in God. They were trying to change their identity which they thought would change their lives.
One of the most powerful ways our faith can be shaken and destroyed is by having our identity challenged or changed. When people say you are worthless or that you won’t amount to anything or that your faith is foolish and based on fairy tales, we need to stand strong and remember who we are. We are God's children. We have been fearfully and wonderfully made. We have been created in the image of God so we have infinite value and worth and our faith and trust is not in a fairy tale but the divine truth of a loving and powerful God who has chosen us and loves us.
When the world says, you're not strong enough to go through this, we need to say, no, I can do all things through Christ. When the world says there is no God and you are all alone in this world, we need to say, no, God is with me and I know His love will never leave me. No matter what the world says about us, no matter what others say about us or our faith, we need to hear God tell us exactly who we are - we are His, we are His children.
For years there was a woman who had been told that she was an outcast. Her sickness meant that she couldn’t be around other people and no one wanted to touch her and have her part of their family. Not only that, but she spent all her money trying to get better but all she got was poor. No one ever healed her or helped her. The world told her she was nothing, less than nothing, an outcast, unworthy and unloved.
In a desperate attempt to find healing, she reached out to touch the hem of Jesus' robe and when she did, she was healed.
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” Mark 5:30-34
Jesus made sure to tell her that she was not worthless or an outcast but that she was and is and always will be a daughter of God. Jesus reminds her of her true identity. What I love about this story is that I think the woman always knew she was a daughter of God, which is why she reached out to Jesus in the first place. She knew she had value and that her life was worthwhile which is why she stopped at nothing to find help. So Jesus didn’t tell her who she was, He reminded her that, yes you are a daughter of God.
Like this woman, and Daniel and his friends, we need to let our identity in Christ Jesus define us and help us to stand firm in our faith. If we can always see ourselves as loved children of God, children who have been given power and strength by God to endure and overcome all things, then we will have an unshakeable faith in the midst of all the chaos, storms and struggles we face.
Not only do we need to remember who we are and who we belong to, we need to live that way and sometimes that means living with grace. If we go back to Daniel and his friends, they not only were given new names but they were given a new diet. They were told to eat the best foods from the King’s table. While that sounds good, the problem was that the food had been sacrificed to pagan gods or broke the dietary laws of the Jewish people. To eat that food would be to compromise their faith and Nebuchadnezzar knew it
Instead of ranting and raving about how they would never compromise and eat the food of the king, instead of telling them how wrong they were to eat that food and how right they were to honor God, they were gracious and asked politely if they could simply follow the diet they had known.
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. Now God had caused the official to show favor and compassion to Daniel, but the official told Daniel, “I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you.”
Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days. Daniel 1:8-14
Daniel asked for permission and he even said please. Daniel didn’t demand anything, he didn’t throw a tantrum, he didn’t say, “look I’m right and you are wrong” and he didn’t try to argue his point, in humility, he politely asked for the opportunity to simply stand strong in his faith.
In a world where the standard operating procedure is to demand your own way, throw a fit when you don’t get what you want, trash people and companies online when you don’t like things and shout as you argue your point, politely asking permission can be a powerful way we stand strong in our faith. We don’t have to give in, we can stand firm like Daniel, but we can do it with grace and humility, allowing God to work things out according to His purpose and plan.
We have all probably met followers of Jesus who come across as holier than everyone else and if you don’t do things their way or believe the way they do - they will denounce you. They might be 100% right in what they are saying, but the way they are saying it, or the attitude they have toward others, turns people away from them and from God. When it comes to standing strong in our faith and sharing it with others, we might want to ask ourselves: do I want to make a point or do I want to make a difference?
Jesus could have come to the world and made a point by pointing out all the sin of the world, condemning all the practices of the people and telling everyone to turn away from it all or they would burn in hell, but he didn’t. Jesus came in humility to love. He didn’t want to prove a point, Jesus wanted to make a difference.
We have all heard John 3:16. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
But what about John 3:17, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.
God didn’t send Jesus to make a point but to make a difference and with humility and grace and love - Jesus made all the difference because He alone brought salvation and redemption. God doesn’t ask us to condemn the world but to help save the world by living with faith and humility. We need to speak the truth but we need to speak the truth in love.
Daniel was not going to let the world compromise his faith, he had determined ahead of time that he wasn’t going to eat from the table of the king, but as he went about it, as he lived and shared his faith, he did it with humility and grace. We need to resolve to stand strong in our faith, we might need to determine ahead of time what we need to do, but we need to do it with grace. We might need to push back a time or two - Daniel had to ask more than once, but he did it with grace.
Maybe the most powerful witness we can make in the world today is to stand strong in our faith with gentleness and compassion. The Apostle Paul teaches us that in a harsh and loud world, the best way to live out our faith might be with kindness.
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Colossians 3:12-14
This is not a call to compromise our faith, but to live out our faith with grace. For an unshakeable faith, we first need to stand firm in who we are and hold fast to our identity in Christ - we are children of God Then we need to share our faith and speak the truth in love. These actions can lead us to an unshakeable faith.
Next Steps
Unshakeable - Week 1
What challenges do you see on the horizon in 2025?
How have you weathered the storms of 2024?
When has your faith been compromised and when has it been unshakeable?
What are some ways our current culture tries to get us to compromise our faith?
Read the story of Daniel and his three friends.
Daniel 1
● Why did they change Daniel and his friends' names?
● What did their Hebrew names mean?
● What did their Babylonian names mean?
What names have you been called that have shaped your identity?
● What good names do you need to hold on to?
● What negative names do you need to let go?
● How can you find your true identity in Christ Jesus and what God says about you?
In a loud world where everyone demands their own way and insists they know what is right, how can you resolve to follow Jesus with humility and grace?
How can your kindness and humility this week be a witness to others?
Prayer
God, thank You for being our refuge and strength in times of need. We want to honor You in every area of our lives. Please help us to stand firm in who You have called us to be, and help us to love others well. In Jesus’ name, amen.
