Greeting Members and Friends
It time once again for our weekly Sunday School preview so thanks for joining me and welcome back. The Winter Quarter entitled “Faith In Action” explores faith as both belief and action. The January unit in the Quarter is entitled “A Living Faith in God” and it explores faith from the book of Daniel that provide models of sincerity, obedience, boldness, and strength. This Sunday’s lesson is entitled “A Sincere Faith”.
When someone is sincere about something there are no hidden or ulterior reasons for what they are doing or for their behavior. Today’s lesson invites us to examine our own motivations and reasons for our actions for the sake of Christ. After their captivity, some of the finer Jewish young men were taken to serve in the king’s court. They Babylonians did things that were different from their Jewish upbringing including eating foods forbidden to them by God. It is tempting to compromise one’s beliefs and standard and go along with something your faith and beliefs tell you not to do or do in order to get along and avoid any trouble or inconvenience.
When asked to partake of food and drink that was forbidden by their faith, Daniel and 3 other Hebrew young men respectfully asked to be given an alternative and see if the alternative would be as good as what they were being asked to eat and drink. God never commands us to do or not do anything just for the sake of doing so, but He always has a reason that is in our best interest. The food they were forbidden to eat was not as good for them as what God had permitted them to eat. After the end of 10 days, the Jewish young men appeared better than those who ate the royal food and drink. They were captives in a foreign land forced to serve others against their will. They could have easily said “what does it matter and who cares what we do?” But their faith was sincere. It didn’t matter to them who was looking or what others thought. Their relationship with God mattered deeply and sincerely to them and it was the only motivation they had for refusing to eat and drink the royal food and drink.
Jesus motivation for doing what He did was to please the Father. That should also be our motivation for saying and doing what we do in the name of Christ. Not to please the pastor or our spouse or parents or children or friends or church members or anything one else. Things turned out well for Daniel and the others for taking a stand for their faith this time. Later, as we will find out, when they took a stand, things got a little rough. However, when one is sincere, there are no guarantees that things are going to turn out the way you like or want. We must believe that regardless of the circumstances and what happens as a result of remaining true to our faith, the God we serve will more that make up for anything we have to endure for His sake. You can get a better understanding of this lesson by reading the daily SS readings found in your SS book which can also be accessed through our website and mobile app. Well, that’s all for this week’s preview. Be sure to join us in Sunday School this week for a fuller discussion of this lesson and the general topic of Faith In Action. So, until then
Grace and peace
Pastor Jordan
