hi everyone colleen reinders here
i miss you i miss seeing you all
i miss seeing your smiles and hearing
your joyful singing
but i'm so happy to welcome you this
morning to our service
and if you're watching now live we'd
love for you to sign in on the chat
and just say hi next week
is the annual gems conference for those
of you that don't know gems stands for
girls everywhere meeting the savior
it's a worldwide club that teaches great
truths to girls
young girls from ages 7 to 14 and our
church is privileged to have one of
those clubs
but because of COVID-19 we weren't able
to meet in person
so my band was asked to spend a couple
of days recording
some worship sessions at our church
building with colin and his crew
and i'm so excited that this morning
we'll be joining in
the band with the band in worship the
theme for the conference
is unshakable this was picked well
before COVID
wow god knew you may be going through
some difficult times right now either
because of covid
or for some other reason please know
that god is with you
psalm 16 verse 8 says i know the lord
is always with you i will not be shaken
for he is right beside me
can we make a declaration this morning
let's declare that even though we still
can't meet together
and it might be kind of awkward sitting
in your kitchen with your family
and i know that for some of you these
are really hard times
can we say this together three times
different emphasis i know the lord
is always with me i will not be shaken
for he is right beside me
and again i know the lord is
always with me i will not be shaken for
he is right beside me
and lastly i know the lord
is always with me
i will not be shaken for he is right
beside me
let's sing that together
if you'd stand up and sing along with us
you're going to find the words on the
screen songs are easy to sing
and it'll be really wonderful to know
that together we're worshiping the lord
let's do that together
hello my name is steve and i am a deacon
at ClearView
this week we are partnering with the jfj
hope center
they are an organization that helps
build families
and changes lives you may remember the
campaign from a few years ago
the baby bottle campaign where we put
coins in baby bottles
this is the same organization the jfj
hope center
provides support to women and men from
all ethnic and religious affiliations
they provide emotional support to
parents and families
the hope center is also a ministry
licensed adoption agency
the full range of services they provide
valuable education programs
they have a great website the jfj hope
center dot
ca there are a few ways of giving
online e-transfer by text
by using the planning center app thank
you for your time
and god bless your giving this morning
thank you
hello again and a special uh hello and
welcome to everyone from clearview crc
um it's an honor to be sharing god's
word with you
uh at this time as well and we're gonna
be reading from
and i'm gonna be preaching on uh
continuing in
our apocalypse now series on apocalypse
now
we've been looking through the entire
scripture looking at the different
apocalypses that god
gives to his people to human beings
throughout the bible
and last week pastor leah preached on
the book of revelation
the book that we often associate with
the apocalypse
and today we're reading from the book of
daniel a book that also has this word
apocalypse found throughout it
although it's not literally the word
apocalypse because daniel is written in
hebrew so it's the word
the hebrew word for that gala but we've
learned through this series
pastor lee talked about it and eric and
i have talked about it that
the word apocalypse doesn't necessarily
mean what we think it means
it doesn't mean the end of the world or
some big
cataclysmic event apocalypse translated
into english just means revelation
and apocalypse can also be a verb and
someone can
apocalypse something to you they can
reveal something to you
so today we'll be reading from daniel
chapter 2 oh god's apocalypse
to king nebuchadnezzar the king of
babylon
and we're going to start a halfway
through verse 24 because it's a pretty
long chapter but i'm going to quickly
recap
what happens in the first half of the
chapter
so god gives nebuchadnezzar this
apocalypse in this form of a dream
and a vision it's very disturbing for
the king
he doesn't really know what it means and
what's going on and so he goes to his
advisors
and he asks them to not just interpret
the dream for him
but to also tell him what the dream was
he doesn't tell them what it is
unsurprisingly the advisers say o king
we can't do that only the gods could do
that
but in this rage nebuchadnezzar says if
you don't tell me what the dream was
and interpret it to me i'm going to put
you all to death i'm going to kill every
last one of you
and so uh nebuchadnezzar commands this
other official named ariak to go and to
put to death his advisors which include
daniel
and this ariak guy goes to daniel's
house and daniel manages to figure out
what's going on
buy some time from the king he goes to
his friends
shadrach meshach and abednego
and he tells them we need to pray we
need to pray to our god the one true god
and ask him
to reveal to us what this dream was
miraculously god does show daniel
and his friends of what nebuchadnezzar's
dream was and what the meaning was
and that's where we jump into the story
daniel 2 chapter
daniel chapter 2 verse 24. before i read
before i share god's word with you let's
pray
father send your holy spirit
to to reveal to us right now in this
moment
what you want us to know what you want
us to see
god continue to apocalypse to your
people
to reveal to your people your good news
your comfort
your truth god speak through me
this time so that the the words of my
mouth
and the meditations of our hearts may be
pleasing to you oh god
amen so daniel
chapter 2 starting at verse 24
then daniel wentz to ariak when the king
had appointed to execute the wise men of
babylon
and he said to him do not execute the
wise men of babylon
take me to the king and i will interpret
his dream for him
so aryak took daniel the king at once
and said i found a man among the exiles
from judah who can tell the king
what his dream means the king asked
daniel
also called belle to shazar are you able
to tell me what i saw in my dream and
interpret it
and daniel replied no no
wise man enchanter magician or diviner
can explain to the king the mystery he
has asked about
but there is a god
in heaven who reveals mysteries
he has shown king nebuchadnezzar what
will happen
in days to come your dream and the
visions that passed through your mind as
you were lying in bed were these see as
your majesty was lying there your mind
turned
to things to come the revealer of
mystery
showed you what is going to happen as
for me this mystery has been revealed to
me not because i have greater wisdom
than anyone else alive
but so that your majesty may know the
interpretation
that you may understand what went
through your mind
your majesty looked and there before you
stood
a large statue an enormous
dazzling statue awesome in appearance
the statue the head of the statue was
made of pure gold
and its arms of silver and its belly
and thighs of bronze if the legs have
iron
and its feet partly of iron and partly a
baked clay
while you were watching a rock was cut
out
but not by human hands this rock
it stuck it struck the statue on its
feet of iron and clay and
smashed them then
the iron the clay the bronze
all smashed were broken into pieces
and became like chaff on a threshing
floor
in the summer the wind swept them away
without leaving a trace
but the rock that struck the statue
became a
huge mountain and filled the whole earth
this was the dream and now i
we will interpret it to the king your
majesty you
are the king of kings the god
of heaven has given you dominion and
power and might and glory in your hands
he has placed all mankind and the beasts
of the field
and the birds of the sky wherever they
live he has made you
the ruler over them all you o king
are the head of gold and after you
another kingdom will arise but inferior
to yours
next the third kingdom one of bronze
will rule over the whole earth
and finally there will be a fourth
kingdom strong as
iron for iron breaks and smashes
everything
and as iron breaks things to pieces so
it will crush and break
all the others just as you saw that the
feet and toes were
partly of baked clay and partly of iron
so this will be
divided kingdom yet it will have some
of the strength of iron in it even as
you saw iron with mixed clay
as the toes are partly iron and partly
clay so the kingdom will be
partly strong and partly brittle and
just as you saw iron mixed with bay clay
so the people will be a mixture
not remain united any more than iron
mixes with clay
in the time of those kings the god of
heaven will
set up a kingdom that will never
be destroyed nor will it be left to
another people
it will crush all those kingdoms
and bring them to an end but it will
itself
endure forever this is the meaning of
the vision of the rock
cut out of the mountain but not by human
hands
a rock that broke the iron the bronze
the clay
the silver and the gold pieces
the great god has shown the king what
will take place in the future
the dream is true and its interpretation
is trustworthy then
king nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate
flat on his face bowing down before
daniel and paid him
honor and ordered that an offering of
incense be presented to him the king
said to daniel
surely your god is the god of gods
and the lord of kings and a revealer
of mysteries for you were able to reveal
this mystery
and the king placed daniel in a high
position and lavished many gifts on him
he made a ruler over the entire province
of babylon and placed him in charge of
all its wise men
moreover at daniel's request the king
appointed shadrach
meshach and abednego administrators over
the province of babylon while daniel
himself remained at the royal court
this is the word of the lord thanks be
to god
lately i've been getting these
interesting emails from various
companies
that i subscribe to or that i i
buy from and all these emails have a
similar language or similar tone in them
they they usually say in these uncertain
times
we want you to know that we're here for
you or are in these
unsettling times we want you to know
that we're still here
i've i think i've even got one of these
emails from like subway because i
ordered from them online or something
it's kind of funny to imagine subway
still being there for me
but anyways all these companies whether
it's my bank or
a restaurant have been connecting with
me and emailing me telling me
in these unsettling times we're here for
you
i'm interested in in that terminology
that all these companies seem to be
using in these uncertain
unsettled times what exactly
make these times so unsettled
is it that you know we had plans
that fell through and that's why we're
living in an uncertain time is it this
global pandemic that
has killed so many and made so many sick
that makes
these times unsettled
or is it that we have this increasing
feeling that we don't really have
control
over anything around us anymore is that
unsettling
and really it's all of that all of that
contributes to this feeling of
uncertainty
and and being unsettled
and that word unsettled perfectly
describes
the main character in our story our
bible passage today as well
king nebuchadnezzar he was incredibly
unsettled
when he gets these dreams from god these
visions this apocalypse from god
the vision itself is disturbing to him
but also because he has no idea what it
means
he he has this lack of understanding a
lack of control
over knowing and even though he has all
these advisors that
he probably pays pretty handsomely to be
part of his
his royal court none of them
can tell him what it means can tell him
the dream
he becomes incredibly distrustful of
them that's i think why he forces them
to tell him not only the interpretation
but the dream
and this this unsettledness this fear
turns into rage nebuchadnezzar lashes
out and he threatens to kill all these
people
because even though we read in the
beginning of daniel chapter 2 you can
read that
it's just the second year of
nebuchadnezzar's reign
he feels the kingdom slipping through
his fingers
he feels like the control he thought he
had
is slowly fading away
and then daniel comes into the story
and finally when daniel speaks to the
king we
hear what this dream really was it's a
stream of of a
of a dazzling enormous awesome statue
we have gold and silver and bronze and
iron and even clay
and this statue even though it's so
enormous and made of strong materials
like iron or materials
representing wealth and power like gold
it gets it's broken into pieces by this
strange stone this stone
cut from a mountain not by human hands
meaning that it's it's a divine stone if
it's not cut by humans it's cut by
god the stone comes down and it smashes
the statue at its weakest point
point of the clay and that caused the
whole entire statue to shatter
into dust like it says it's like
chaff like chaff on a threshing floor
chaff is the little pieces of wheat
that that we don't turn into bread that
we don't turn into flour it's the little
thin pieces that come off of the piece
of the wheat plants
and they get blown away by the wind
because they're so thin and
so so small and brittle and just like
chaff
a wind comes by a breeze comes by and it
blows this
dust of the statue away so that there's
nothing
left i don't know if you've ever seen
the
the avengers movies but if you've seen
the movie infinity war it's like when
thanos snaps his fingers
and half of the universe is just turned
into this ashy
dust and fades away that's what happens
to this statue
this mighty statue and daniel
tells king nebuchadnezzar this statue
represents
you and your kingdom and the kingdoms
that will come from your kingdom
your legacy is not as
solid as you thought it was the amount
of control that you think you had
is not as strong as you think it is
this kingdom you have built
is far more fragile than you realized
and king nebuchadnezzar is very
unsettled by this
by this apocalypse that comes from god
and today we have gotten a
similar apocalypse from god
a similar revelation right now in 2020
it might not have been in the form of a
vision or dream
but it's a clear sign a clear message
that the little kingdoms that we have
built the figurative human kingdoms that
we build
are also far more fragile than we
realized
it's unsettling i'll explain further
we don't build literal kingdoms like
babylon like king nebuchadnezzar but we
do build
things that we feel like we have control
over
and we build our businesses and the
companies that we work for in the jobs
that we have
we put all our our blood sweat and tears
time and and
even financial investment into these
companies
and we we feel like we have control over
them
we feel like they are our personal
kingdoms
we literally sometimes refer to them as
economic empires
those are little kingdoms that we build
or with our daily schedule
with the all the sports we play or the
people we
we try and spend time with and see and
know we build this little kingdom of
busyness
of playing hockey or or soccer or
or join the swim team or baseball
whatever it is
for five nights a week sometimes
meeting with people so often as we can
thinking that that gives us control over
our life we build this this little
kingdom
of the sports we play or our busy lives
and schedules that we make
or maybe you are building a little
kingdom
around your academics around the
the things that the the the classes that
you take in the in the grades that you
you try and achieve and we put all this
time into
trying to get the right scholarships get
into the the schools that we want to get
into
and we build this little academic
kingdom that we want to have control
over
or maybe the little kingdom that we
build is
ourselves literally our bodies
we try and not just take care of
ourselves
but have complete control over how we
look
and how we feel go to the gym for five
days a week we
we dye it and and make sure that we
don't eat certain foods and eat
a lot of other certain foods just so we
look a very specific way and have
control
over our bodies all these things are
little kingdoms that we try and build
but in this season of 2020
has been clearly revealed to us
that we have far less control over these
little kingdoms than we ever thought
that these kingdoms are far more fragile
than we ever realized
for our businesses it took about a week
for people to start uh
having coven 19 in in ontario for
for our country than to close the
borders and begin completely shutting
down
the economy and businesses
and completely out of our control
we began to get this image that
and begin to see that our business
our company our job is far more fragile
than we once thought that we have far
less control over it
than we realized
for our busy schedules when the lockdown
came
and when we started practicing social
distancing
suddenly we couldn't play sports anymore
we couldn't keep ourselves as busy and
our lives began to
feel out of control our rhythms were
completely messed up
and this little kingdom we built of our
athletic empire whatever it was
it was revealed to us just how fragile
it really is
for our academics you know we still get
grades and we've still been getting
classes online but this academic empire
we've built
is this academic little human kingdom
we've built
has shown to be very fragile and very
out of our control
doing things online is very hard for me
graduating from seminary this spring a
thought came through my mind
i might never be able to walk across a
stage and i put all this time and effort
into getting all these grades these good
grades but
i still might never be able to walk
across the stage i still receive my
diploma but it's just not the same
and then our bodies i heard someone say
that
covid 19 the in the night the 19 stands
for the 19 pounds we've all gained
through this time of lockdown
we've we were so diligent we had such
good self-control
but then we couldn't go to the gym
anymore
our rhythms were completely messed up
it's so
hard to eat properly when you're stuck
at home
day after day
and all these little kingdoms and this
time of 2020 and this time of the
pandemic have been proven
to be so very fragile
so very out of our control
in many ways and it is
unsettling book i've been reading lately
is called playing with fire
it's by the author her name is
bianca juarez oltof
and she talks about control in her book
she writes this
what is control she is a woman
with fabulous hair and defined biceps
she is a straight a student the high
achieving executive
she is always two steps ahead her
favorite word
is yes and she could deliver results to
anyone
and although control is impossible to
pin down
i chased her i wanted to be her
i thought i could be her i followed
control's lead her hair
biceps straight a's and all i said yes
to everyone yes
made me feel like i was in control and
that the outcome
depended on me and the results depended
on me alone
yes gave me the illusion that i could
deliver joy and happiness to others
as well as myself
if you take this demanding job you will
have the financial freedom you've always
wanted
yes i'll take it i said
if you copy this essay you'll be a
guaranteed a
yes i'll do it i said if you try this
diet pill
it'll make you lose 24 pounds in 24
hours
yes i'll pop that pill but control
is a manipulator she promises
what can't be had she promises
perfection while i chased after control
and envied her apparent freedom
god called after me he tried to remind
me
that control was my own construct
god knew the futility of my attempts
and like a patient father he waited for
me
to understand that i needed to entrust
my life
to him
even though bianca
king nebuchadnezzar and we have received
this apocalypse this unsettling
apocalypse about a lack of control
there's still comfort comfort that god
is communicating to each of us
and even though we are not in complete
control
it's okay because god is
god has always been in control that's
part of what he's trying to reveal to us
that he is the sovereign god who has
control over these little kingdoms that
we think
belong to us he is the god who is
building
a kingdom that will take up the entire
earth like that mountain
in the dream a kingdom that will last
forever
a kingdom that is very different than
the little human kingdoms that we try to
build
interestingly in this story of daniel
chapter 2 when nebuchadnezzar is told by
daniel
that the meaning of this dream that it's
about his kingdom and just how fragile
it is and how it's eventually going to
be destroyed
and god is going to build his own
kingdom
nebuchadnezzar doesn't lash out in
continued anger you think
this would make him even more angry and
said say immediately kill this man
daniel who's told me this but what does
he do he
bows down in worship
to this god that daniel
has spoken of nebuchadnezzar
becoming aware that just how little
control he had
just how out of control things seemed
and so
he clinged to clung to
the most solid thing that he could find
and that is the one true god the god of
daniel
certainly a solid thing to cling to
nebuchadnezzar even if it was just for
this chapter because we read in chapter
3 of daniel that this feeling doesn't
last for long within him but
nebuchadnezzar begins to
give up control to god and to trust in
his sovereignty just in this moment
realizing that he is the god of gods the
god of
kings the revealer of
mysteries
but there's even more good news packed
in this apocalypse to nebuchadnezzar
beyond just realizing that god has been
in control the entire time and it has to
do with
that strange rock that rock that
is not cut by human hands the divine
rock
that rock that breaks the statue and
turns into this mountain
see this divine rock
is a prophecy about jesus
about jesus the living stone our solid
rock
who established god's kingdom began to
establish god's kingdom right here
on earth i want to read for you
passage from first peter it's first
peter chapter 2
verses 4 through 6.
as you come to him the living stone
rejected by humans but chosen by god and
precious to him
you also like living stones are being
built
into a spiritual house to be a holy
priesthood
offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable
to god
through jesus christ for in scripture it
says
see i lay a stone in zion a chosen and
precious cornerstone
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame
as pastor eric said at the beginning of
this series
the the apocalypse that god gives to us
leads to jesus jesus is the apocalypse
jesus is this stone not cut by human
hands
this solid rock that establishes a very
different kind of kingdom among us
a kingdom of peace
of justice of love
of grace a kingdom that is
slowly but surely being established
right here on earth among us
a kingdom that isn't going to end and be
going to be taken over by some other
kingdom
after it no a kingdom that will last
into eternity
jesus is our solid rock
jesus is a solid rock that daniel that
all the people of god
can cling to that they can they looked
forward to and that we can trust in
that his kingdom will never end and that
when it seems like
all our kingdoms are coming crumbling
down when we realize just how fragile
they really are
we can trust that jesus is building a
forever kingdom a kingdom that
we get to be a part of
as living stones being built into a
spiritual house
built upon the cornerstone that is jesus
christ
the rock not cut by human hands
god is apocalypsing to us
the fragility of our own personal
kingdoms right now just as he
revealed apocalypse to nebuchadnezzar
the fragility of that kingdom
and although it's unsettling we can find
some comfort within that apocalypse
that comfort is that we get to be a part
of
forever kingdom and even though we
aren't in complete control
god is god
has got us god has got us in the palm of
his hand
god is reminding of us us of his new
kingdom
that he is building through jesus christ
and establishing here on earth
and this doesn't mean that we we don't
do
the things that i talked about those
examples i gave doesn't mean that we
we no longer participate in sports or
take care of our bodies or
or build our own businesses and work in
this economy but it means that as we do
those things
we do them in service to the one true
god
to the one who is in control knowing
that
if things go south things seem like
they're gonna fall apart
it's okay because god
our god the revealer of mysteries
is sovereign i want to share a story
a story from a family in our church
that really is a good example of that
it's a story from
peter and jackie beerling a family here
at emmanuel crc
peter and jackie pete has owned
a business for a very long time business
called manuflex and before he owned it
he worked for it
and for most of his life his it was
dedicated to
manuflex this i think it was a
steel machinist company and
in very many ways this kind of was
pete's personal kingdom pete and
jockey's personal kingdom
but even before 2020 kind of to the end
of 2019
things began to become clear to them
that
they should consider selling the
business
giving up control
and it was a hard decision and they had
to work through it through some trusted
christian friends here and through
a lot of prayer and discernment on their
own but they decided that this was
what was best and so they decided to
give up control
and they came to they they came to a
place of peace in that decision
but giving up control rose up
arose new worries to them
what next now that he couldn't work for
manufacture anymore
where would he work now how how would
the sale go now they decided to sell it
would it be messy would it be difficult
could they find the right buyer
how would it all work there's a lot of
worry
around them as they realized just how
little control they had
over the situation but in the middle of
that
pete read a devotional a devotional from
a devotional book called
jesus calling which speaks through the
words of jesus directly to
us as readers and i'm gonna read a bit
of it here it said this
you are on the path of my choosing
there is no randomness about your life
as you give yourself more and more to a
life of constant communion with me
you will find that you simply have no
time for worry
thus you are free to let my spirit
direct your steps
enabling you to walk the path of peace
and wonderfully almost miraculously
right
in the midst of all this this
unsettledness
for pete and jackie god spoke this to
him through his devotional
and it spoke directly into their
feelings of worry
even though they were not in control
they knew that that god was in control
that their sovereign god he had them in
the palm
of his hand and pete told me
that even though this whole process of
selling the business
didn't go exactly as he had planned he
never
intended when he bought manuflex became
the owner to to
to sell it off this early
but he has he admitted that
it's so much better that god was in
control
that even though he wasn't in control
god
it's better that god is was the one
directing
and taking care of his life and jockey's
life and the life of his family
so for each of us who are experiencing
this unsettledness
and uncertainty in this time
through this apocalypse that we've
experienced that is 2020 that is coping
19
know that god has got you
know that he is completely
in control he is the one that that puts
kings into power and takes them out of
power he is the one
that is establishing his kingdom here on
earth
and we get to be a part of that we get
to keep working hard
keep taking care of ourselves keep doing
the things
that are for the life of ourselves and
the life of our communities but we do
them in service to god knowing that
we're not
building our own little kingdoms but we
are just simply being a part of his
kingdom
no know that we are not alone that we
are not our own but we belong
body and soul in life and in death to
our faithful lord and savior
jesus christ our solid rock
so in these unsettling and uncertain
times
let's cling to god's kingdom
to that rock the cornerstone not caught
by human hands
jesus christ
to this kingdom that god is establishing
that will
never end amen
oh how beautiful is your name lord god
we worship you we give you praise we
give you
honor for your unshakeable
name your unshakeable power
your unshakeable love
thank you that while we may feel shaky
we are never
shaken for we stand on a firm
foundation and that's because of
you
amen amen
people of god as you go out into your
week
into these continuingly unsettling and
uncertain times
go with god's blessing may the lord
bless you
and keep you may the lord make his face
shine on you
and be gracious to you the lord turns
his face toward you
and gives you his peace now and forever
amen
