He was a senior government minister. He was foreign-born but lived unobtrusively within his culture and society. He was the son of a noble family. He was highly intelligent. He was often confronting jealous opponents. He was a devoted follower of God in a godless society. He was a faithful servant of the living God in a faithless government.

As a young man, he was seized and taken into captivity. He was groomed by his captors for high office. He served a foreign government for some 70 years. He was known for his faith and he was usually reviled for his faith. But he knew a God who honoured his faith, and who enabled him to serve the purposes of that God in a most unlikely place.

Daniel. Yes, you’ve probably guess his name. Perhaps I should have referred to the Babylonian and Persian kings he served: Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar and Darius. Perhaps I should have referred to his equally faithful companions, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Perhaps, I should have referred to the lions’ den.

But what I want to refer to is his service. He served, he served for 70 years, he served foreign kings, he served when times were tough, he served when times were good, he served when in favour, he served when out of favour, he served faithfully, he served honourably.

But above all, he served and he served God. He never lost sight that as a believer he was called to serve God, wherever God had placed him. Serving God was not a Sunday matter, serving God was not an optional extra, serving God was not a ‘when I feel in the mood’ affair. He served the purposes of God all his life.

Imagine how it would have felt at the beginning for Daniel: the despair, the hopelessness, captivity for life. How on earth would he find happiness? Well, as the famous early 20th century theologian and medical missionary, Albert Schweitzer, said, “The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.”

It’s an interesting thought that throughout the Bible God is calling his people, those who love him, to serve his purposes. Even at the very beginning, Adam and Eve were called to join God’s purposes by serving in the garden – The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. (Gen 2:15)

Moses was called to serve God’s purposes in leading the people of Israel out of Egypt and into the Promised Land. The Judges were called by God to serve God’s purposes in leading Israel against the opposing tribes around them. King David was called to serve the People of Israel. And in and around these people are numerous examples of others called by God to quietly and patiently serve him, and in so doing, they found deep satisfaction for themselves and for their faith. Daniel is in that line of service.

It’s a line of service that goes right through to today. Each of us is called by God to offer ourselves, as best we are able, commensurate with our time, our commitments and abilities, to serve God’s purposes. Over the next few weeks, we shall be looking at Daniel, not just as one who remained faithful to God in a difficult place, but one who offered himself in service to God and God’s purposes.

We will see the qualities that Daniel had and reflect on our own. We will see the gifts that Daniel had and reflect on our own. We will see the aim of Daniel’s service and reflect on our own aim in life. We will see Daniel’s readiness to serve and reflect on our own readiness to serve our wonderful God.

It is that wonderful God, whom Daniel served. It is that wonderful God whom Daniel never forgot and who inspired his service wherever he was, even in the hard places of the Babylonian and Persian royal courts. But it had an inauspicious beginning.

Disastrous Foundations for God’s service

Our reading is from the book of Lamentations, so called because apart from the few verses we read it is one long lament, one long expression of grief, one long weeping.

We are not certain who wrote Lamentations, but the prophet Jeremiah has been mooted, or his scribe, Baruch. What we do know is that it was written after the then greatest national tragedy in Israel’s history. God had promised to give the Israelites, Abraham’s descendants, the Promised Land and to bless them there and to protect them there. Centuries had passed since the Israelites under Joshua, Moses’ successor, had led them into this Promised Land of Israel.

There had been ups and downs in their national life, but as we read the OT, we realise that the downs became greater than the ups – in other words Israel’s faithfulness to God was less up and more down – until eventually God seems to be so exasperated with his people that he desires to give them a good shaking, to bring them to their senses.

God removes them from the Promised Land, the land he gave them, the land he nurtured them in, the land he protected century after century, and he allows the Babylonians to destroy the Kingdom of Judah, he allows the Babylonians to besiege Jerusalem, he allows the Babylonians to conquer God’s city, he allows the Babylonians to take the people of Israel, the survivors of this national disaster into exile, far away from the Promised Land, far away from the presence of God it seems: Psalm 137 talks of their feelings:-

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. …. How can we sing the songs of the LORD while in a foreign land?

(PLAY MP3 FILE OF BONEY M TUNE – By the Rivers of Babylon)

And Lamentations is a weeping for all they lost – the land, the holy city of Jerusalem, the Temple of the Lord, the presence of God, the promises of blessing, the hope for the future.

The List of failure

Lam. 1:5-6 – Her foes have become her masters; her enemies are at ease. The LORD has brought her grief because of her many sins. Her children have gone into exile, captive before the foe. All the splendour has departed from the Daughter of Zion.

Lam 2:7 – The Lord has rejected his altar and abandoned his sanctuary.

Lam 2:14 – The visions of your prophets were false and worthless; they did not expose your sin to ward off your captivity. The oracles they gave you were false and misleading.

In all this disaster, what is the response of the writer? Yes, he lists the sins of the people, yes he mourns the righteous judgement of God over the people, yes he bemoans the victory of the enemy.

But he holds onto his faith in God – Lam. 3:21 – Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope.

Foundations for Daniel’s service

We cannot deny that Daniel went through this awful period. He was taken captive: 2 Kings 24:12b-15:-

In the eighth year of the reign of the king of Babylon, he took Jehoiachin prisoner. As the LORD had declared, Nebuchadnezzar …. carried into exile all Jerusalem: all the officers and fighting men, and all the craftsmen and artisans – a total of ten thousand. Only the poorest people of the land were left. …. He also took from Jerusalem to Babylon the king's mother, his wives, his officials and the leading men of the land.

Daniel was in Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar finally destroyed Jerusalem some 11 years later, but he would have heard of the national disaster.

It must have been as shocking to Daniel as the destruction of the World Trade Centre in New York on 11th September, 2001. No Israelite would have believed that Jerusalem could be destroyed, and no American would have believed New York could be so devastatingly attacked.

Yet, the words of our reading must have informed Daniel’s faith and life in exile. Judging form the chapters which tell his story, he knew only of a God of faithfulness and he knew only that despite what happened around him, this God was faithful, ever faithful.

That trust in God, despite the circumstances he found himself in, underpinned his life of service – yes, outwardly a life of service devoted to the royal court of a pagan, mostly ungodly king, but inwardly a life of service devoted to the Lord God Almighty.

Daniel knew that, it didn’t matter where he was, the foundation of his life was one to serve God and the purposes of God. It was in such service that he found meaning and fulfilment.

I’m reminded of Emily and I who wanted to get out the speakers to her Walkman to listen to a CD. Emily found them, plugged them and they didn’t work. She showed me and we opened up the battery compartment to change the batteries, only to find that the batteries had leaked. We had put new batteries in a while ago before Emily had last put it away, and we hadn’t used it since.

The trouble was the batteries and the speakers were not designed for storing away but for using. Likewise Daniel’s gift of service was not to be stored away for some later day, but to be used to serve God where he was.

Foundations for our service

Now we may not be in the same situation as Daniel: we are not captives under a foreign power, we are not aliens in a foreign country, we are not experiencing the huge trauma of a catastrophic event.

What we do see in Daniel is the outworking of Daniel’s life of faith within the most extreme circumstances. And it’s from that outworking of Daniel’s life of faith that we can draw parallels for ourselves.

1) Everything in Daniel’s life suggests that he should take a back seat, that he should close down and concentrate on himself and that he should make sure his private faith in God survives.

2) But everything in Daniel’s life, as we read through the book of Daniel and the events recorded there, and read them through the lens of Lamentations, the lens of great sorrow and grief, the lens of huge trauma and stress, we learn that we never cease to have a great God – Lam. 3:22ff:-

· God remains compassionate (v.22)

· God’s faithfulness is never stopped or dimmed (v.23)

· God remembers those who remain faithful to him (v.25)

It was in that context that Daniel did what God’s people are called to do – he served the purposes of God where he was. He offered himself to God – we see that in Daniel 1 in his insistence on keeping the Lord’s ways in Babylon – and God uses him for his service.

It doesn’t matter what circumstances we find ourselves in, we too are called to serve God. It was how Daniel had a meaningful walk with God, even in the difficult places of the Babylonian royal court.

We too can have a more meaningful walk with God if we desire. We too can serve the purposes of God in our lives by offering ourselves to serve him.

Daniel took an awful situation and transformed it under God’s grace into a good situation for God and his purposes.

God is calling each of us to prayerfully offer ourselves, not from the awful position of Daniel, but from the comfortable position most of us find ourselves in, but nevertheless to offer ourselves to serve his purposes, both here in the church and wherever he places us – work, school, office, neighbourhood, home.

And we do it, we offer ourselves, because of God’s compassion towards us, revealed in sending his Son to die for us, because of God’s faithfulness towards us, revealed in Jesus’ dying for us, and because of God’s desire to bless us, revealed in the gift of his Spirit, who inspires us and equips us for service.