If you’re in a community group, you can grab the October studies here.
With the word “Monday” used as a mild curse word and phrases like “TGIF” a celebration – it can be hard to know how we as Christians should approach our work. In this talk, Matt Heaton takes us through the Bible’s approach to work: how God called us to work before sin even entered the picture; how God created work to be paired with rest; and how work can bring us great joy as we use our skills for the betterment of society. A helpful talk for thinking through our modern pitfalls to how we approach work, and an encouragement that there’s one area in our life where we only ever need to rest, and that’s in Christ’s finished work on the cross on our behalf to bring us back into relationship with God.
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As a postscript prequel to Daniel, John Phillpotts takes us to the final chapter of Jeremiah. The prophet had warned God’s special people about the coming judgment all of his life, and now the entire landscape looks hopeless. But in the closing credits of the book, we see a glimmer of hope emerge.
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For his entire adult life, Daniel has had to trudge through the mud and darkness of Exile. Sometimes, he experienced immediate – even miraculous – rescue when he was in trouble. Other times, like near the end of this book, we find Daniel mourning over what’s happening to God’s people. And in this troubled time, God sends a messenger to Daniel to pull back the curtain of reality and give Daniel a glimpse into what God is doing both in our world and in the heavenly realm. In this talk, Philip unpacks for us the great hope that Daniel would have glimpsed in all of God’s plans: how all the sorrow, darkness, futility and evil of the Exile will ultimately be swallowed up in victory when God raises to life all those who now sleep in the dust of the earth.
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God gives Daniel a vision of a goat and shaggy ram and a lot of horns. The point being: things aren’t going to get easier for God’s people any time soon. But Daniel remembers God’s promise in Jeremiah, that the exile would last for seventy years, and that a new covenant was coming. Even though God’s people were promise breakers, God would make a new covenant in Christ that would make their hearts new and give them true righteousness.
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Daniel has a terrifying dream of four wild beasts. After they appear, the Ancient of Days takes his seat, and one like a Son of Man comes on the clouds of heaven to receive an everlasting dominion. Jesus Christ would later speak these words of himself, that he would come on the clouds of heaven to defeat the kingdoms of the world and reign forever. By trusting and living in him, people could become truly human again.
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If you’re in a community group, grab the August and September studies here.
Now an old man, Daniel is still standing faithfully against the accusations of the Babylonian rulers. Meanwhile, King Darius has to stand faithfully by his own law, and throw Daniel into the lions’ den. In this scene we see a glimmer of the true Daniel who was to come–one who would be falsely accused, sent to his death, but brought back from the tomb by the power of God–Jesus Christ, the one who was raised to life for all who trust in his name.
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Daniel 5 – The one where a hand appears out of nowhere and writes words on a wall
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We’ve heard God speaking into Nebuchadnezzar’s life time and time again, but the penny still hasn’t dropped for him. After all that God has done to humble him, Nebuchadnezzar still stands over Babylon and says: “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” So God gives him the ultimate humbling: to make him like a beast. After this, Nebuchadnezzar is finally humbled before God, and acknowledges his everlasting kingdom. We each struggle with pride in some way, and just like Nebuchadnezzar, we need God to humble us before we can cry out to the eternal king.
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