Pray First:
(I have some information in front of me that I feel is extremely important!)
Today is May 11th: Seniors:
1. 1,987,200 seconds till summer
2. 33,120 minutes till summer
3. 552 Hours till summer
4. 23 days (June 3rd)
Everybody else:
1. 1,036,800 seconds
2. 17,280 minutes
3. 720 hours
4. 30 days (June 10th)
(LET ME GIVE YOU SOME MORE NUMBERS)
School Reopens:
1. 10,195,200 seconds
2. 169,920 minutes
3. 2832 hours till school reopens
4. 118 days (September 6th)
What is this 118-day period of time called? Summer!
This is almost 17 weeks. I need two volunteers. (THE MEASURING-TAPE ILL.)
“Making My Summer Count For Christ”
-In this 118 day time period, you can either make your summer count for Christ or for yourself. Some of us might produce a summer of sadness and others joy, it is not to late to change your path.
-Seniors, even though you do not have to come back to Fresta next year, (unless you want to), this summer can be a turning point that can have a direct impact on the rest of your life, from choosing to college or not, or maybe to get married or not.
-The chose is up to you.
-When I thought about 10,195,200 seconds till summer was over, it just showed me that God gives us ample time to make the right decisions and the wrong decisions. Plus, He gives us enough time to take advantage of the many opportunities He places in our paths to count this time for Him.
-You have 118 days to make a difference for Christ.
-Are you up for the challenge?
-God knows what you are going to do this summer, from all the days you are going to sleep in late, I remember, when I was in 6 or 7th grade, I would stay up all night playing video games and then sleep real late the next day, I did this so much that it became a habit and my sleeping pattern was all messed up. So I would be up when it was dark and asleep when it was daytime. I felt like an Eskimo in Alaska during the wintertime. Don’t do that!
-When you are a student, summer is a time period that we tend to break all the habits that we have built during the school year.
- Schedules are totally opposite, no teachers to bother you, no more homework!
-(I thought I would at least get one amen, for no homework!)
-It is like we are taken out of our normal environment and thrown into an environment that is foreign to our way of life while we are in school.
“Background INFO-Daniel”
-This is a lot like the story of Daniel’s life. I want to set the scene for you so you can understand where Daniel is in his life when we see him in chapter 1.
-The book of Daniel opens up with King Nebuchadnezzar, who is the king of Babylon, going into the land of Jerusalem and capturing Israel’s king, the king of Judah. The reason why this occurred was that Israel became worse than the surrounding nations, and the king of Judah led the inhabitants of Jerusalem astray. The Lord, after many warnings and much long-suffering (2 Chr. 36: 14-20), executed His judgment, which He had threatened, by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar, who "burnt the house of God, and broke down the wall of Jerusalem, and burnt all the palaces with fire, and destroyed all the goodly vessels. And then those that had escaped from the sword, were carried away to Babylon" as exiles (2 Chr. 36: 19-20). The dominion of the earth was committed to the king of Babylon (see Daniel 2: 37, 38), and it is in the midst of this new order of things, that God preserved a true remnant and seed, and this is where Daniel and his companions are found in the first chapter of the book of Daniel. Daniel was an exile in a foreign land. Daniel was taken out of the culture he grew up in and thrown into another culture that he was not familiar with. He was brought into a strange land, where he was unfamiliar with his surroundings, just like the summer time can be for some of us.
-What was Daniel’s age when he started school? -The Education Custom at that time for youths in Persian began at 14 years old and ended at 17. “Children" in Hebrew means youths of twelve or fourteen years old. Daniel could have been in 8th or 9th grade.
-The king’s selected young men for his service for political purposes to take over other countries that the king was invading. The king would choose individuals of the elite classes of the land that he would invade who would become immersed in the Babylonian ways and customs and either return to positions of influence at their homeland or stay in Babylon in important positions.
-The Babylonian method was to reprogram and adapt them to the Babylonian culture. Daniel was selected as part of a group that was going to be reeducated and reprogrammed and them put into a position of leadership.
-Daniel is at a turning point in his life, he has the choice to either let these circumstances make him bitter or better.
-Daniel could seize the moment and take advantage this opportunity or he could miss opportunities that have the possibility to bring glory to God.
-Let’s look at how Daniel counted this time in his life for God.
1) Be A Person That LIVES by Godly Standard’s:
-Daniel set Godly Standards, Not To Defile Himself. He was a man of purity.
-Lets look at Verse 8: “Daniel did not want to defile himself with the royal food.”
-Since these Jewish youths took the Old Testament dietary commands seriously they would not eat the following foods: Pork, camel, you could not cook young animals in their mother’s milk, and meat cooked in blood is prohibited, delicious stuff like that.
-Daniel set standards based on God’s word to keep himself pure.
-Counting your summer for Christ means to have Godly standards in place and to abide by them so that you do not defile yourself when you are in that foreign land called “SUMMER.”
-Daniel purposed in his heart to stay pure even though his original family, friends, and teachers were not around.
-Daniel chose not to eat from the king’s table, which contains the best food in the land. But chose to keep to God’s standards and eat vegetables and drink water.
-I give Daniel a lot of credit, because I know for me it would be hard if I had to choose between a dry salad with just lettuce or a nice juicy steak with mushrooms and mashed potatoes.
-Setting a Standard that says, “I am going to be a Christian no matter where I go” is key to making this summer count for Christ.
-If you want what’s best for your future, invest time into this summer for the Kingdom of God.
-Example: I find, being a Christian in front of Christians is easy, but when Christians are not around, do you act different? Acting the same way as you do in school and in the summer is important to the character that you are building as a Christian.
-Just because Daniel was not able to eat his momma’s home cooking, he still honored God and was blessed for it.
-The Bible says that Daniel and his friends looked healthier and more nourished than his other friends. He was also given knowledge and wisdom that was far beyond the other young men that were candidates to be in the king’s service.
-Like Daniel, I discovered that when you make decisions based on God’s commandments, the outcome will always be in your favor.
-This past year, I have been pretty faithful to God with my tithes and offerings and God has blessed me with enough scholarship money to pay for a third of my tuition.
-One standard that my school, VFCC, wants students to abide by while they are enrolled in the school is that we are not allowed to watch rated R movies on and off campus. At first I thought that this rule is unfair. I said to myself, basically that means we cannot watch any movies. But you will be surprised how many PG-13 movies there are, take my word for it; my roommate rented every one of them.
-This is a standard that I have placed in my life since, and except for the time when I was tricked into watching part of a rated R movie by accident. (I am not going to say any names, Elizabeth Stocks) I have been faithful to this standard.
-If Jesus teaches us, “what comes out of our bodies defiles us,” then I am going to watch what I place into my body. I understand not all rated R movies are bad, but the majority of them all have an underling principle of impurity.
-When Daniel was asked to eat from the king’s table he thought of a compromise to present to the king’s official so that he would not defile himself. With me, if somebody asks me to go to a rated-R movie or rent a rated R movie, I simply say how about a PG movie. It is funny because as I was writing the sermon, somebody, I will not mention any names Ben stocks, came home and asked me to go to a rated R movie and I told him to get behind me Satan.
-The standards that you place in your life today and for this summer will predict the fruit that you produce out of your life tomorrow.
Today is the day to set Godly standards of purity, not tomorrow, because having the mentality that says, I will do it tomorrow, 1) tomorrow will be a lot longer than 24 hours later, it took me 4 years to get my life back on track, 2) it will only bring unnecessary pain and suffering into your life. I hurt countless people, not to mention myself over and over. Gandhi said, “We must become the change we want to see.” Today is the day to change.
-Let me set the stage for the second point: In Chapter 2, the king has a dream that troubled him and caused him not to sleep. He summons the enchanters, the magicians, sorcerers, and the astrologers to come and interpret the dream, but they could not do it unless the king told them the dream first and he would not tell them it. So the king decreed that all wise men of the land were to be killed. Once Daniel found out about this he went home and his friends and him prayed for God’s intervention and when Daniel went to sleep God revealed what the King’s dream was in a vision. Daniel then went to the king’s house and asked if he can interpret the dream. In the course of Daniel interpreting the dream, he mentions God’s name four times to the king. (Verses 28, 37, 44, 45)
2) Be A Person of Godly Influence:
-Daniel was a person of Godly influence to the people around him at all times.
-As soon as Daniel found out that the king was going to kill all the wise men, he went to his friends and asked them to pray for this situation. Daniel pointed people to God.
-Daniel’s life was a reflection of God to people around him. God was able to use Daniel over and over again because Daniel was a Godly influencer.
The question is, Are you Godly influencers? Is God’s name in your conversation?
-Just because school is over and you are not required to read your Bible for the next 118 days, that doesn’t mean you should use it to keep your window open at night.
-Learn to love to read the Word. It is God’s word that lasts forever, not man’s word.
-A person of Godly influence knows God, he or she does not know about God, but knows God intimately.
-Your teachers are teaching you about God, they are not able to force you to know Him, even though they probably wished they could. To know God is a personal decision. To know God we must spend time with God this summer, and especially seniors who are looking for direction in your life.
-We know Daniel Knew God because he Kept God’s commandments.
-Deu 6:4 “These commandments that I give to you today are to be upon your hearts.”
-We are to hide God’s commandments in our hearts.
-An awesome goal this summer could be to remember one scripture verse a week.
-Are you known for your Godly influence?
-In Daniel 5, Daniel was called by the king to interpret a writing that no one else in the kingdom could read. “The king said that I have heard that the spirit of God is in you and that you have insight, intelligence, and outstanding wisdom” (Daniel 5:13-14).
-Daniel was known as a person that the Spirit of God lived in.
-What do people think when they think of you? Are you a person that when they have a problem, they know they can come to you to pray?
-Living by Godly standards will make you a person of Godly influence and more important a person that God can use to reach to the hurting people of this world.
-You can never take back the ungodly influence that you have had on people.
That is why it is so critical to keep God’s commandments at all times, especially when others are around. (Story of the pastor that smoked, which caused the girl to go back to doing drugs)
-In life, you can either influence or be influenced. Everybody has the ability to influence others in some way.
-My teacher said, Influence the influencers and you’ll make an influence!
-If we can influence the right people in life, we can be a big influence.
-I believe the essence of a Godly influencer is the position of his or her heart.
-READ COL 3:1-2.
-Setting your hearts on things above will be the driving force that steers your influence to be Christ-like.
-If your heart is focused on God’s heart, you will direct people towards Christ.
-Through God’s intervention in revealing the dream to Daniel, he was able to influence the king, who proclaimed that Daniel’s god was the god of gods and the lord of kings.
This summer: Are we going to be people that influence others in Godly ways or worldly ways?
-The influence you have in life will directly reflect the standards that you live by on a daily basis.
-Like Daniel, we have to set and live by Godly standards, be a Godly influence on people around us, and the last way to make your summer count for Christ is by building Godly relationships.
3) Be A Person That Builds Godly Relationships:
-Daniels famous friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were the products of people that were around a man of Daniel’s caliper.
-Daniel 3 is the chapter of the image of gold and the fiery furnace.
-The three Hebrew boys were ordered to bow to the gold image or they would be thrown into the fiery furnace.
-In this chapter, we see Daniels friend’s faith in God being tested.
-Do you think their faith would have been so strong if Daniel was a double-minded man and did not practice what he preached? I do not think so!
- The 3 boys would not compromise their relationship with God to worship an idol.
-The three Hebrew boys were confident that God would deliver them.
-Why were they so confident that God would save them?
-I believe that being side by side with Daniel as he faced obstacle after obstacle with God as his source was the foundation that all these men built their relationships upon and was the factor that gave the 3 Hebrew boys confidence to trust in God.
-If we are not building Godly relationships, then we are not living the abundant life Christ came for us to experience.
-READ Matthew 28:18-20-There are four verbs in this passage; the first is to go, then to make disciples, to baptize, and to teach. Out of these four commands Christ stated right before he ascended into heaven. In my studies of the Greek language, I learned that the phrase, to make disciples, was an imperative verb, which is a verb of command, and out of the other three verbs, two were participles and one was a present active verb.
-Jesus commanded us to do one thing, which is to make disciples. One of my teachers told us a story, he said say you are a parent and were about to go out and you told your three kids to take out the garbage before you come home. And when you come home, you see that they did not take out the garbage. You commanded them to do one thing and they did not do it. How do you think Jesus is going to feel when He comes back, and that one thing He told us to do, which is to make disciples, we have not done to the best of our abilities?
-Making disciple is only possible if you are able to build wholesome, Godly relationships.
- I heard that if every professing evangelical Christian led one person to the Lord per year for 15 years, the whole world would know Christ.
- This summer can be a time of victory or defeat; the ball is in your court.
-My challenge to you is to make it a priority to reach one person for Christ and follow up with this individual so that the time they spend in your Godly influence will build a Godly relationship that will add numbers to the lambs book of life.
-You guys are so blessed to be in Fresta, when I graduated high school, I left school with a drug addiction and no motivation to succeed in life, you guys are leaving school with the Spirit of the Lord on your side and the Bible says, “If God is for us, who can be against us.”
