Ugly Politics

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Good morning. Welcome. It's good to have you here today. Sorry to say, I'm glad you are here today in person because those who are online right now are not hearing anything. We're having problems, right, with the sound? We haven't figured it out. You know, what's amazing to me is we've been live streaming for forever, it feels like. Doesn't it feel like COVID is forever? And this is the first Sunday I think we've had this issue, which is really amazing. So we're in our third week of the series. I'm back to my original Christmas sweater with the polar bears in masks and the Christmas trees going up in flames like California fires. I don't know if you recall that, but boy, there were a lot in Australia had them too this year. 2020 has been an ugly year, you know, and we're going to have some fun with ugly. So next Sunday, like the band, like me, have an ugly Christmas sweater on. I think that's the ugly Christmas slide. There is a Christmas. That's it, right? The uglier, the better. We're going to have a contest. We'll give a first prize. OK, so Marcia, if you want your sweater back, I'll get it to you. OK, you can wear it. OK, that's fine. She gave me the one from last week. What's the prize? Another ugly sweater. No, no, I don't think so. I think it's actually going to be a gift card or something, you know. But why don't we have some fun? Because 2020 has been a tough year. You know, we have had a lot of ugly going on this year. And today we're going to be discussing as well, again, the ugly period of history that the children of God have gone through and how God is still working it all out. So we are going to be looking at ugly politics today. You think politics are ugly? Yeah. So here's the reality. I don't know if you know this about the Old Testament, but God's people, the children of Israel, hardly ever had a time without ugly politics. They had conflicts, wars, uprisings, times that were difficult. You read the book of Judges sometime and it gets pretty disgusting. But you also find out that even when they asked for a king, even God's own people, not just when they were under Egypt or they were under this or that country, but even when God's own people asked for a king, they were really pushing God out of the way, according to 1st and 2nd Samuel. Samuel was ticked off that they wanted a king instead of him to rule. And God told Samuel, don't worry, they're not rejecting you. They're rejecting me. And that's the way he put it. And so even from the time of Abraham, 1900 BC, to the time of the New Testament, for let's say almost 2,000 years, I would say if you look critically at the history of God's people, there were less than two dozen years of peace, prosperity, and piety altogether. Do you understand that? Just a few years in David's reign, because he had a lot of wars and conflicts, including his own son who tried to overthrow his regime. And then Solomon's reign, there were a few years of peace and prosperity, but then it disintegrated with a lot of polytheistic practices that he brought in with all his wives and concubines, as well as just a moral disintegration. By the time he dies, his son takes over, it splits the kingdom. And from that point on, hardly any kings were good. But we're going to look at ugly politics, according to the book of Daniel today. The first time that King Nebuchadnezzar came into Jerusalem and swept through and kind of overtook them. And by that point in time, from 605 to 586, when he destroys the city, Nebuchadnezzar destroys the city of Jerusalem, melts down everything in the temple, destroys everything, right? And they are totally in captivity. But even during those years, they were a puppet state of Babylon. So Daniel and his friends are in Babylon, and they know by the prophet Jeremiah, that they're going to be there at least 70 years and they need to settle down. But God called them not to just give in to everything that's in Babylon. He wanted them to stay distinct, but not like isolated. And so at the time, Daniel and his friends figure this out in a sense. They take on even Babylonian names. They learn Babylonian culture. They learn all the sciences and the culture that they were in. And like Jeremiah, the prophet told them they were going to seek the prosperity and the peace of the place that they were. This is in Jeremiah 29. But at the same time, Daniel and his friends remain distinct and separate in their beliefs. They would not bow down to the Babylonian gods. They did not give in to the Babylonian customs that were in contradiction to their faith. And this book becomes so important. And Daniel is an example of how to live in a culture that is opposed to your values and belief system. That in January, we're going to do a five part series called Stand, on how Daniel and his friends stood firm in the fire. They stood fir...