GracePointe Church of Christ in Elizabethtown, PA

I look back over the 10 years at GracePointe Church of Christ.  

Text: Daniel 12

Synopsis: Daniel 12 wraps up the book, and so doing it provides a glimpse of the end in which God’s people, because of God’s power will experience new life in the fullest sense. In this great divine reversal, those who have had their time of glory will be defeated, and those who have been oppressed and downtrodden will be rewarded.  While the Bible is certain about this result, we as Jesus followers have to make sure we are not joining the beastly attitudes and actions of the powerful, and becoming oppressor ourselves.  I am reminded of the Beatitudes in which Jesus teaches a way of life that is counter to that of those around us.  When we talk about God’s “house rules” that we all should live by, surely these statements by Jesus are at the forefront of what it means to Love God and Love others.  This is the call to go DEEPER into the mission of God.  The message of Daniel is very similar to the message of Revelation.  Don’t just wait for the future, but live your faith in the middle of your culture.  In some ways the culture will applaud our faith and thank us for the good we provide, but in a drastic turn, our faith will also be bullied by those who want us to be more tolerant of cultures “beastly” attitudes and actions.  God promises us an inheritance that is beyond anything we can achieve or be rewarded with in this life, LOVING GOD means trusting that God is who He says He is and will do what He says He will do.   

Text: Daniel 11

Synopsis: Daniel 11 is a description of unending human conflict, as a king rises to power and fights another until defeated, each king living in a self-honoring fashion.  The text of Daniel 11 is somewhat easy to understand but also very descriptive…Rise, Fight, win, defeat, rise of another, destruction, glory, defeat, rise of another…all coming from the North, South, East, and West.  Seems like no matter where we live, one human is trying to overcome another.  Yet, the constant in all of this is the END of those who resist God and oppress God’s people.  For a time, a group or a king looks unstoppable, but it is only for a time.  Throughout this chapter is the word “appointed” which shows that God gives each king a chance to acknowledge the giver of all good things, but often human leaders refuse to give God honor.  It is a sad overview of human history, but accurate?  We, as Christians, have to think so.  Jesus provides another way, the way of love that ends the way of war. 

Text: Daniel 7

Synopsis: Daniel 7 is a two part vision, in the first part we see 4 beasts emerge from the chaos of this world to destroy, kill, and show their power over the people of the earth. In the second scene, the Son of Man comes as a cosmic hero to save the people from these beasts. With a parallel verse in Revelation 13, we see that human sin has consequences and there is a cosmic struggle between our God and the rebels and authorities in the spiritual world.  As Paul says in Ephesians 6, our battle is not against flesh and blood…but the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms.  Collective human sin, given power and opportunity, can be the most destructive force on the planet. These “Beasts” can be viewed as the result of sinners coming together under a common cause, and we must look to and seek our “rider of the clouds,” Jesus Christ, as the one who frees us from our sin and delivers us from the great beasts that corporate sin creates.  

Text: Daniel 5

Synopsis: This story should provide the readers of Daniel with a little “deja vu” with some very important variations.  The new king, Belshazzar, seems to belittle Daniel and his God, not bearing in mind the ways that God had blessed and helped the kings of Babylon in the past. The story is marred when the king brings out the very vessels of God’s temple and drinks from them at a party with all of his possessions and relationships…He defiles God’s Temple goblets. It seems both God and Daniel lose patience for the King, and he is destroyed that very night.  This story does make us ponder God’s judgment, and makes us think about that line between 

Text: Daniel 4

Synopsis: The King of Babylon was the most powerful human being in the world, and he mistakenly thought that the greatness and security he lived in was due to his own achievement.  Boasting of his success and walking around with an inflated sense of pride, the King has another dream.  Daniel provides an interpretation of that dream - The King was going to lose everything.  Thus, that is what happened!  The King of Babylon is reduced to wandering the countryside like an animal, his sanity gone, and his personal hygiene even suffers for a time.  After that time, God restores the King, and the King now realizes that God is the one who protects, provides, and has given the King everything he has. In the end, it is hard to distinguish the pagan King from the psalter as he praises God, the one who humbles the proud, acts justly and produces righteousness.  

Text: Daniel 3

Synopsis: This story isn’t about three people who have so much faith that God saves them from a fire.  This story is about the power of God that surrounds us and is present with us through deadly experiences.  Whether these three men walk out of that fire or not, God was present in their lives and would be there through their deliverance or their martyrdom. They surely know people who have died in the siege and exile of the Jews. But the King claimed that he was more powerful than any god because no god could rescue them from the King’s hand, but God did just that and in extraordinary form for the very clothes they were wearing didn’t even smell like smoke. Are we willing to enter any situation trusting the result to God’s power and capabilities?  Do we trust God to do what is best for us - even as we face the fire? 

 

Text: Daniel 2

Synopsis: Only God’s wisdom can reveal the mysteries of life. In other words, it is not the content of the revelation of there future that is primary; what is most important here is the fact that it is only Daniel’s God that knows the future. And God’s knowledge of the future is particularly important to a people in exile and under one measure of oppression, because it implies that he controls history.  In our pursuits of wisdom to handle what life throws at us, are we relying on what our knowledge says we should do in a common sense way, or are we petitioning God, through our relationship with God, to reveal to us His way?  There is a difference, and it is seen in this chapter. 

Text: Daniel 1:8-17

Synopsis: In Daniel 1, spiritual defilement doesn’t come from the education offered or the new names given. Defilement would be forgetting who is ultimately in control of the situation facing Daniel and his friends. Quietly and privately, Daniel participates in a spiritual practice that reminds him that God is in control even when it does’t seem like it.  

Text: John 20:1-29

Synopsis: John 20:1 tells us that when Mary Magdalene came to the tomb “it was still dark.” There is little doubt that the darkness is the darkness of a night of mourning, the darkness of Mary’s un-illuminated understanding, and other things; but in the context of John’s gospel as a whole it is also the dark results of the Old Covenant in a dark world, which is just about to end in the glorious light of the gospel of resurrection. The Light of God’s Love is seen and hoped for in the resurrection of Jesus and the future resurrection of the saints.