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okay [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] um [Music] baby [Applause] so [Music] foreign so [Music] me good morning and welcome to redeemer west side my name is ellen boker and it is a joy to be worshipping with you this morning whether you're tuning in here in new york or somewhere else we're glad you're here so welcome our call to worship today reminds us of why christians gather together for worship whether that's virtual or in person we as humans need a regular resetting of our hearts and loves to what is true and our god is progressively making us new and corporate worship what we're doing right now is one of the places that transformation happens so with that in mind let's read the call to worship together sing to the lord a new song seeing to the lord all the earth sing to the lord praise his name proclaim proclaim his salvation day after day declare his glory among the nations his marvelous deeds among all peoples for great is the lord and most worthy of praise he is to be feared above all gods for all the gods of the nations are but idols but the lord made the heavens splendor and majesty are before him strength and glory are in his sanctuary let the heavens rejoice let the earth be glad let the sea resound and all that is in it [Music] the day of march has come hands forth in fields of conquest shall be our home through [Music] we [Music] shall cease [Music] is [Music] me [Music] okay [Music] is [Music] [Music] oh [Music] so [Music] is [Music] though i walk through the wilderness when the darkness closes lord still i will say the name of the lord [Music] when is sun shining down [Music] blessed be your day [Music] is [Music] of the [Music] of the lord [Music] you give and take away you give and take away my heart will choose to say lord bless you give and take away you give and take away my heart will choose to say lord bless [Music] lord's name [Music] let's pray father god what a mighty god you are you are both personal and mighty at the same time your might invokes awe and reverence how marvelous it is that we are called to be friends of god and you know us and love us deeply as we just saying blessed be your name both when the sun is shining down on us and when we are walking through the wilderness your goodness and glory are not dependent on our circumstances and so our hearts respond to you to your glory and your faithfulness with praise realign our hearts with yours now as we pray what your son jesus taught us to pray together our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever amen let's take a few moments now to continue praising god silently amen we have now come to a time of confession in our service and author tish warren describes the act of confession in this way my cracks show and i remember that i am profoundly in need of grace confession evens the playing field it reminds us that christians don't gather together for worship because we're good people but we gather together and confess together because we are in need of god's grace and he makes us new through the work of christ so with that in mind let's read this prayer of confession together almighty and most merciful father we have aired and strayed from your ways like lost sheep we have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts we have left undone those things which we ought to have done and we have done those things which we ought not to have done and there is no health in us but you o lord have mercy upon us and grant o most merciful father for jesus sake that we may hereafter live a godly righteous and joyful life to the glory of your holy name amen let's take a few additional moments now to continue confessing privately to god amen brothers and sisters let us take heart as we hear these words of encouragement from the book of first john my dear children i write this to you so that you will not sin but if anybody does sin we have one who speaks to the father in our defense jesus christ the righteous one he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not only for ours but the sins of the whole world amen [Music] to receive [Music] um [Music] might be seen today [Music] for your me [Music] is cause our way to [Music] words [Music] them [Music] [Music] time [Music] [Applause] [Music] with us is built and the earth we have now come to the time of our service called the prayers of the people and this is the opportunity for our church to present before god the needs of our church our city and our world and it's my pleasure to introduce angela banks to you this morning who will be leading us in prayer angela is a one of the leaders of our west side women group so thank you angela let us pray father everything in the heavens and on earth is yours and this is your kingdom we thank you for the gift of your son jesus and for all your love and mercy toward us power and might are in your hand and at your discretion people are made great and given strength so we lift up to you our elected leaders government officials and decision makers in every field and endeavor we pray that they would fear you we pray that they would lead us with humility integrity and self-control we pray that you would help them to make wise decisions and uphold justice for all father you will never forget the needy the hope of the afflicted will never perish you are close to the brokenhearted we pray for those who are suffering due to poverty neglect sickness violence or oppression we pray for the lonely and the hurting we pray for the elderly those in care facilities those who are bedridden and their caregivers we pray for those who are incarcerated father bring them comfort peace justice restoration and healing father we lift up to you promised land covenant church and their pastor michael carrion lord we know that they have suffered the loss of loved ones due to covet 19 and now their building has burned down lord have mercy you are the god of all comfort we ask that you would comfort and strengthen them we pray that you would give them beauty for ashes and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness and we pray that you will give us practical ways that we can help and support them as the body of christ we also pray for our young people babies children teens college students and their parents mentors teachers friends and supporters many of our youth are struggling with physical developmental educational and emotional needs lord meet their need so that they may flourish and live healthy lives and strengthen those around them to love them well lord we pray that your gospel the good news would reach hearts around the world in this city and in our communities help us as your people to share your good news with those you place in our paths lord our hearts are broken with the brokenness we see in our lives and in our world yet we know that you are the god who turns darkness to light jesus we long for your return when everything will be made right and whole as we await that day fill us with hope by your holy spirit and give us grace to live joyfully for you and your kingdom in jesus name we pray amen amen thank you angela i have a couple of updates for us the first is in regards to redeemer counseling services this is one of the greatest resources we have as a church and they are launching their spring renewal groups these groups are about six to eight individuals led by a professional counselor and registration is now open so if you're interested sign up the topics for this spring include grief and loss sexual integrity and anxiety the second announcement i have is next sunday we will be resuming in-person services here at w83 so that's next sunday february the 7th our safety protocols will still remain intact which includes registration so if you're interested in attending in person registration opens tomorrow so please do that of course there will always be a virtual option but if you're interested in attending in person sign up soon that is all i have for announcements it's now time for our scripture reading this morning and if you may remember this month we are having the privilege of our youth lead us as they read scripture for us this morning so today we have amos cho he is one of the faithful members of our youth group who will be leading us as he reads scripture today so come on up today's scripture reading is from daniel chapter 4 verses 24 to 37. this is the interpretation your majesty and this is the decree the most high has issued against my lord the king you will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals you will eat grass like the ox and be drenched with the dew of heaven seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the most high is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes the command to leave the stump of the tree with its roots means that your kingdom will be restored to you when you're when you acknowledge that heaven rules therefore your majesty be pleased to accept my advice renounce your sins by doing what is right and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed it may be that then your prosperity will continue all this happened to king nebuchadnezzar 12 months later as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of babylon he said is not this the great babylon i have built as the royal residence by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty even as the words were on his lips her voice came from heaven this is what is decreed for you king nebuchadnezzar your royal authority has been taken from you you will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals you will eat grass like the ox seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the most high is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes immediately what had been said about nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled he was driven away from people and ate grass like the ox his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird at the end of that time i nebuchadnezzar raised my eyes toward heaven and my sanity was restored then i praised the most high i honored and glorified him who lives forever his dominion is an eternal dominion his kingdom endures from generation to generation all the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing he does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the pe and the peoples of the earth no one can hold back his hand or say to him what have you done at the same time that my sanity was restored my my honor and splendor returned to me for the glory of my kingdom my advisors and noble sought me out and i was restored to my throne and became even greater than before now i nebuchadnezzar praise and exalt and glorify the king of heaven because everything he does is right and all his ways are just and those who walk in pride he is able to humble this is the word of the lord well good morning thank you amos before i get into today's passage i just want to give a brief update at the end of january so uh last year's giving uh was remarkable actually i'm incredibly grateful but redeemer ended the year with giving the total just over 6.9 million dollars which is amazing because that was actually our goal before the pandemic and we made many cuts throughout the year in light of all the uncertainties and then on the last few days of 2020 because of the generosity of our congregation we were able to hit that target that means coupled with our savings that actually we're heading into 2021 with a decent cash reserve we're going to use that as we go to banks to try to refinance the mortgage on this building which will end up saving our congregation potentially you know hundreds of thousands of dollars and so we're really encouraged to be in that kind of place uh given 2021 is obviously still a year with many uncertainties so a big thank you and as they close out the year's expenses we'll be able to give a more detailed report to our congregation in the next coming weeks and months but let's take a look at this passage here in daniel so over the month of january we've looked at the book of daniel which is a story of god's faithful people of israel who had been taken into a foreign land and then loved and served the people there such that no matter where they were and certainly daniel and shadrach and meshach and abednego were at the very highest levels they had an influence for good on a nation of people that themselves were enemies of god and the story then centers on the response to those people's faithful witnesses they were able to do something that then the people around them could see and respond to and what we're seeing here is an unusual story because it's about king nebuchadnezzar and it's unusual by all of ancient literature in that it's one of the very rare places that describe from an kind of an interior perspective a mental illness and of course they're using language that's very different this is not you know modern dsm categories but this is describing a temporary psychosis that happens to the king and so to kind of summarize what's bringing us to this point uh daniel and shadrach and meshach and abednego had all these interactions with nebuchadnezzar decades had gone by in their work with him and at different times because of these miraculous events nebuchadnezzar certainly admired and was impressed by their faithfulness and what seems to be the power of the god of of israel and he's even issued a declaration throughout his whole empire stating that the god of israel is someone you know worthy to consider but none of these really quite bring him to the place of placing his faith in this god of israel he admires him like some would admire you know a celebrity but he doesn't really trust in this god yet so he has yet another dream that daniel in his prophetic wisdom is able to come and interpret for him and dania warns him about his pride because of nebuchadnezzar's pride and remember he is the most powerful human being on earth at this moment but because of his pride he is in danger and so daniel warns him and then yet despite that warning time goes by and we read here in verse 30 here's nebuchadnezzar standing on top of his palace overlooking what would have been the greatest city in the world and he says is not this the great babylon that i have built as the royal residence by my my mighty power and this get this and for the glory of my majesty it's a godlike statement and certainly for most of the babylonians and the people around him they worship nebuchadnezzar as like a god on earth and he's he's believing this for a moment and so immediately this dream that he has and this warning strikes him and he is driven insane and as predicted he goes off into the wilderness he spends a long time there long enough this hair grows long and shaggy and his nails go sharp it's it's called sort of seven seasons seven cycles we don't know if that's seven months or if it's seven years probably seven months and then his sanity is restored because he actually has this moment where something different happens he doesn't just admire god but the way that he is described in the old testament it seems as if this is actually and many many biblical historians would say that this is a description of a conversion of a king who is opposed to israel who now becomes a god-fearer look at verse 37 it's the end of this long season he says now i nebuchadnezzar i praise and exalt and i glorify the king of heaven because everything that he does is right and all his ways are just and those who walk in pride he is able to humble those who walk in pride he is able to humble here is a king who could have existed right as historically incredibly powerful but then just faded into nothingness i think of percy shelley's famous poem ozymandias right where the explorers out into the desert and sees this giant statue ancient ancient statue of some king of the past that says on the pedestal these words appear this is from his poem my name is ozymandias the king of kings look on my ways ye mighty and despair and nothing besides remains that could have been nebuchadnezzar's story someone who is great but fades into history but instead his story is someone who is great but now lives forever with god's people the one who actually was their captor and oppressor the one who as we see in this passage was pretty wicked at times but also shrewd he now is known throughout history as one of the most famous one of the most powerful people who ever converted to the god of israel and so what this passage really drives us to ask and i've always been very fascinated by this section of scripture and it drives us to two questions one is i think very intrinsic to the uniqueness of this particular story which is where where exactly does our faith reside is it is it in our mind right do we comprehend truth and then decide to believe or is our faith somewhere else right so that's the first question and the second question is this is a very powerful one as well is god willing to hurt us in order to save us is he willing to hurt us in order to save us so let's take a look at these two questions the first is is our faith based in our mind or is it somewhere else let's go back into the story again back to verse 33 where he describes what's going on with nebuchadnezzar in verse 33 it says immediately what had been said about nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled he was driven away from people and he ate grass like the ox and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven meaning he just lived outside right slept with under no tent or anything with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird so he just crawls around on the ground living like a brute beast now dr matthew stanford who is a highly regarded uh psychiatrist says this the book of daniel specifically chapter four in a babylonian cuneiform tablet frank fragment this is very interesting the babylonians themselves have recorded this period of uh nebuchadnezzar's insanity and so a piece of temp tablet has been found and discovered it actually describes this event from a completely non-biblical different perspective they describe his psychosis and when viewed within a modern diagnostic diagnostic context nebuchadnezzar appears to meet the criteria for schizoaffective disorder although a depressive psychosis cannot be completely ruled out right so you know i know it's so hard to take modern criteria and apply it to something ancient something that's just a little fragment but clearly something severe unusual dramatic is going on here with nebuchadnezzar and what's even more unusual about it not just his lycanthropy which is incredibly rare when a human being just starts to act like an animal that's rare but what's rare is that he's utterly sane and then suddenly as the bible describes it by god's doing he goes completely insane and then suddenly returns to sanity and lives as far as we can see here the rest of his life with all of his faculties so we have to be careful right describing modern categories to things and other modern people might disagree about the exact diagnosis but what's going on here asked the question well how then how then right did nebuchadnezzar come to faith exactly where does it reside and i think the best way to answer that kind of question to really wrestle with where our our faith resides is to take a look at someone who is currently a christian someone who is rich in their theology and deep in their faith but then someone who is also deeply suffering from some kind of severe mental illness and we have that catherine green mcrate describes her extraordinarily severe bipolar illness in her book darkness is my only companion darkness is my only companion and she is a theologian at yale she's an episcopal priest she has incredibly rich faith she has amazing habits and practices of daily scripture and prayer and yet without any control of her own of course she spirals in these into these horrifically deep depressions or boomerangs back into these uncontrollable periods of mania which is so extreme she actually has a psychosis in that mania and as a wife and a mother right and a priest and as a professor she she is so isolated by these extremes of her life and in those moments her only companion is either darkness and she's quoting from the psalms here and yet in that darkness there is still god himself right the last very thread maybe just the drop of sanity that she might have in her life is held together by the gracious hand of god and in these times of terrible depression particular but she can't even comprehend anything and she has no desires for even life itself except there's a hint a whisper of the desire of god talking to her and so she describes it this way in the clashing depth of her despair depression increases our longing for the one who heals and yet the disease right veils our view of him and yet even while this longing is intensified the object of our desire is painfully removed from view and the soul thirsts for god and yet is pushed farther away from the source of its slaking she knows deep down in the darkness right that she has a relationship with god and at that moment she says when she wants her god but she can't come to him because of the depression that's blocking it right because of the the disorder and the illness it's only god himself that can reach in and as she muses this she realizes that in a sense not even just in her extremes right of depression and mania but all of us all of us are disordered some way in our thinking even when we're at our most rational moments we simultaneously want and long for god and yet run away from him and so her extreme at the far edge of human existence is but a but a great magnifier on what is going on inside all of our hearts and yet see this is evidence therefore that salvation what christians understand is salvation is by god's grace alone right that's the historic christian understanding it's not that we cognitively will ourselves to believe or that we can achieve something but that he graciously supplies the faith that we need to love him even when our hearts are fully darkened even when we're maybe at a place where we can't read or study where we can't think jesus goes to seek and save the lost and he comes out to us whenever we're lost and so even when we are our thinking goes awry because of mental illness or some kind of developmental disability god finds us and gives us the faith we need now two people in my life come to mind first is a man i knew back in the 1990s here at redeemer in the early days and i was young and i was put in charge of kind of helping him through his situation and uh he was absolutely brilliant absolutely brilliant but for decades he had suffered from pretty severe schizophrenia and because by the 1970s right that the mental hospitals in the state had closed down he like so many people in his condition were just out on the streets and he spent his life bouncing from maybe a shelter to a shelter or on the streets sometimes in jail because he tried to rob a bank with a toy gun and yet wow he knew his lord well he is the single best expert on the book of job i have ever met because he just resonated with job's constant loss and wrestling with what does it mean to follow a god who seems to take everything away from you right and in his case it was a sanity another example is a young woman who i know who has grown up with a developmental disability and so even though she's in her 30s her capacity is like a very young child and yet her faith is so amazingly joyful right it's simple and childlike and therefore it's guileless and deep and so all these things that the world might look at with with stigma right i mean i'm sure in nebuchadnezzar's case right as he went off into the wilderness all the people were thinking you know that's the end of this king god loves his children he loves his children all of them and it really just proves that he uses in and through and often in spite of our mind to plow his heart into our heart to come into a relationship with us and i think that's a really important thing to look at not only in the extremes like this story but in all the cases of everybody we might encounter and even ourselves our understanding as christians of what it means to believe and follow him is that it is itself our faith itself is a gift from god now that's the first point that's the most important point here but let's ask this other really hard question which obviously comes right from this passage as well which is this the second question is is god willing to hurt us is he willing to actually hurt us in order to save us you see this at verse 34 this is at the end of this season where nebuchadnezzar is out in the wilderness and he says at the end of that time i nebuchadnezzar this is an interesting section here because nebuchadnezzar is actually writing this this must have come from some decree that then daniel is putting into his book i nebuchadnezzar raised my eyes towards heaven and my sanity was restored and then i praised the most high and i honored and i glorified him who lives forever see nebuchadnezzar is directly equating his affliction with the the prediction of that affliction that he had been given by daniel and he was recognizing that it was god who smote him right god is the one who actually drove him out into the wilderness and so the question is why would god do that that seems harsh i mean that seems very terrible that you would be a powerful and mighty god and yet you would take someone like nebuchadnezzar and make him literally insane but it raises the question what is the barrier to our faith is it pain or is it actually in nebuchadnezzar's case and in many of our cases is it actually something different which is pride what was preventing nebuchadnezzar from coming into a relationship with him it wasn't his his success i mean he had all the success you could ever possibly have and so therefore you know he was very impressed with god because of the success but he didn't believe it was because of course of his pride and god is willing to put nebuchadnezzar into a hard place in order to break that pride so that nebuchadnezzar could be with him and what's amazing about this is that it's not a punishment it is not a punishment it is what could be called a a chastening or a discipline but it's used to actually bring life to nebuchadnezzar not to get back in him proverbs 3 says this and applies so well to him and to so many of us my child do not despise the lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof for the lord reproves the one he loves as a father the son in whom he delights god's coming after nebuchadnezzar like a child that he wants to mature and change his character and grow in relationship with and therefore he's willing to do something really hard now let's take a look i mean why a mental disorder in this case right i mean he could have done all kinds of things to nebuchadnezzar right like job he could have taken all of his his palaces away and his kingdom away and he could have taken all kinds of things but he was going after um he was going after his his mental capacity because that was the thing by which nebuchadnezzar had built his kingdom it was clearly hinted at as nebuchadnezzar marches around the roof of his palace the very thing that he was so incredibly prideful of he's saying to himself in verse 30 look it's me nebuchadnezzar it is because of my capacity that i have built this great empire and so god took in a pinpointed way that capacity away and in his wilderness wanderings in his darkness nebuchadnezzar was able to finally come to the end of himself in the end of his pride and the beginning of his new life let's go back to catherine green mcrate again in her book and she says as she reflects on the power of the gospel in the darkest depth of her depression she says this from john 9 there's the healing of a man born blind and it's the disciples themselves who ask jesus rabbi who sinned this man or his parents that he was born blind and jesus answered that neither the man born blind nor his parents had sin but rather he was born blind so that god's works might be revealed in him she ponders can this illness then in me show god's works that would make it all worth it to me as g.k chesterton once said one sees great things from the valley and only small things from the peaks perhaps god has thrust me into this valley so that i might see his great mountain from its foot and so the answer to that question is the simplest answer is yes god god can and often does hurt you in small ways in order to save you because those little hurts those things that he takes away from you whatever it is are ways to break down the actual barrier that you have between yourself and him and that is far worse actually than any of the sufferings that you go through to get to that point now let's conclude so let's take these two things together here right the the nature of what faith is actually about and god's willingness to go into anywhere that it takes to bring you to him because of his because of his love not because of his anger or his punishment so how does he how does he humble each of us i mean look at verse 37 it says nebuchadnezzar's great kind of declaration about the power of god and we should all heed this those who walk in pride he is able to humble to those who walk in pride he's able to humble he's willing to afflict people who are comfortable in order to actually bring you to the place where he can then comfort you while you're afflicted he's able to take everything out of your hands so that you have nothing left except for him to hold on to to strip you of all the things you might have right you can walk around on earth just like he did the most powerful person and he still wanted more and we walk around we get all kinds of good things and we still want more right we want more people to like us we want more approval we want more success we want more stuff and those things get in our way we're too ambitious for our own glory we're not ambitious for him and so god is willing to humble us in all kinds of different ways in order to reset that ambition and to rest uh the activity and the energy and the capacity that god has given us to work and to do in the world for his glory and not for ours anymore jamie smith in his book on augustine says this resting then and the love of god in other words redirecting our desires towards him doesn't actually squelch our ambition but it just fuels us now with a different fire i don't have to strive i don't have to strive to get god to love me the salvation is by grace but rather because god loves me unconditionally now i'm actually free to take risks and i'm able to launch out into the deep and so what happened at the end of this story here for nebuchadnezzar he was gone out in the wilderness and he comes back to his kingdom again now just amazingly able to take up the throne but but now he's a man after god's own heart now he's a man who redirects all of his ambition and strength towards the glory of the god of israel i mean in in one sense that's the miracle imagine an ancient country where the king goes insane for seven months and while he's out in the wilderness with all his guards i'm sure we're standing around him thinking like well i hope there's no wild animals right back at the court there's the swirling of the sharks around you know blood in the water as they're all trying to everybody's trying to take over the kingdom but god had put daniel there as the chief advisor to keep things safe because daniel knew that that tree had been cut but it was just down to a stump and it was going to grow back again so the king comes back to his kingdom as powerful as ever and all of his pride now is gone and his ambition is directed in the rightful way we need to be broken we really do we need to be broken and it's going to be some ways that we don't like and nobody wants this but if there are barriers between us and the god who loves us he is willing to go the distance but here's the hope at the end let me just end with this passage from first peter according to his great mercy he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of jesus christ from the dead into an inheritance that is imperishable and undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for you who by god's power are being guarded through faith for our salvation ready to be revealed in the last time and in this you rejoice because now though for a little while if necessary you have been grieved by various trials our sufferings as hard as they are as terrible as they may be as life long as they might be are a temporary trial to the everlasting glory and peace and beauty that those who are in christ jesus can have forever that it's hard to say but that is worth it let's let's pray lord god we pray as we're sung that you would renew our minds that you would heal us through and through not only in our thinking but more deeply in our souls and our misdirected passions in our self-centered pride father that you would heal us of all those things and you would give us whatever medicine it takes to do that and we pray this lord not just in some sort of pattern or in some sort of process but we pray this trusting in nothing but the grace and mercy of jesus our savior the one who went out into the wilderness himself on our behalf who gave up everything so that we might live who sacrificed his life that we might be born fresh and new and everlasting and so god it's in jesus name we pray amen let's continue worshiping now maybe stand even at home and sing [Music] jesus [Music] thee [Music] right [Music] [Music] my [Music] oh [Music] is [Music] oh love how gracious is thy way all fear before thy presence [Music] dreams arise oh jesus [Music] [Music] let's receive god's benediction lift up your hands may the love of god our father the peace and mercy and tenderness of jesus our savior who enters into our hearts with the power of the holy spirit to change us and conform us into the image of our savior and king may bless us and keep us forever and ever amen and now let us go forth to serve the world as those who love our lord and savior jesus christ thanks be to god have a wonderful rest of your lord's day or week we'll see you next sunday [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] ah [Music] so [Music] so [Music] foreign [Music] uh [Music] [Applause] uh [Music] yep [Music] so [Music] so [Music] you [Music] [Applause] so [Music] you