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Hey guys, we decided this semester of small groups at Northplace to record a video, kind of an addendum, an extra to my messages to kind of serve as a starting conversation point for all of our small groups that meet in offices and coffee shops and in homes and while we were recording that some of the media team thought it might be a great resource to those of you who regularly watch or download the podcast. We have people from all around the world, from naval bases to countries all over Europe and even some closed nations to the Gospel that watch. And so, understand the context, we're going to make this available to you. It was originally for our small group leaders here at Northplace, but maybe some of these conversations actually will benefit you as you think more deeply about the messages that I'm preaching throughout this series.

Hey guys. Welcome to our first conversation about Daniel. I just wanted to visit with you for a few minutes today. As you discuss this material. You know, how important this conversation is to our church. As a matter of fact, I just finished a service and I'll be coming back each week recording these videos right after a service and a gentleman, older gentleman, came up to me and said, I've been following the Lord for 50 years. And he said, can I ask you one question? I said, sure. He said, you know, this isn't just a sermon, you know, that, right? You know, this is a life-altering, church-changing conversation. He said, but how is it that those of us that had been serving God all this time can hear something like this and we don't let it change us? How can that happen?

I didn't know how to answer him and I don't know that I gave him an adequate answer. The question itself, it was an honest question. It wasn't an accusation because he put himself in the category. How can the elders, how can the pastors, how can the seasoned believers, hear a sermon like this and not recognize it for what it is? And I basically said to him, that's why we're doing it the way we are. We have groups that are taking this, going deeper, studying Larry Osborne's book, "Thriving in Babylon," some studying Chris Hodges book the Daniel Dilemma, some studying others, and over the next several weeks I'll be borrowing resources from both Larry and Chris and several others. Tonight I borrowed heavily from some of Larry's stuff, but the question reverberates in me that he asked. And one of the things that gives me some degree of hope is that there are groups like you that are meeting in various places around the Metroplex, taking this conversation deeper, because I do believe one of the reasons we chose this topic as the topic to drive our fall is because of the power, the relevance of the message, but the power of it, if we grasp it, and if it gets seeded into the deep of our hearts, into the depths of our church, it can change not only people, but it can change a whole body.

And so I want to challenge you to make these next few moments, dig into it, make them matter. And let them change you. One of the things that I was thinking about at the end of my time after I got through preaching, I didn't even say this after this last service, and I may add it into the ones tomorrow, but proverbs three, verse five, we quote it so often, verse five and six. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. We use those two phrases together. At the first of that, we quote that verse. We know it by memory. We quote it so often we don't stop to think about how far removed trusting in the Lord has to be from our own understanding. Defaulting to our own understanding is the enemy of trusting the Lord, and in this first week my message is centered on the bedrock, the foundation, the soil that's going to grow, every attribute that we need to be able to live in Babylon, to be able to excel in Babylon, and that is this firm foundation of the sovereignty of God.