This Week’s Experience – 3/08/2020

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Our children’s program. We have age-appropriate programming for infants through 5th graders during our Adult Worship Experience.

Completing our Connection Card (click here) to share your interests and prayer requests with us.

Using our message outline to help you follow along with today’s speaker.

That you not feel obligated to participate in the offering. This is for regular attenders who consider Exponential Church their church home.

Visiting the Welcome Center in the lobby to learn more about the exciting things going on at Exponential Church.

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Order of Service

Welcome……………………….Bill Butler
Music……………………..Worship Team
Reason
Offering & Announcements
Music……………………..Worship Team
This Is Amazing Grace
Another in the Fire
Message……………..Gilbert Thurston
Stand Strong
Music……………………..Worship Team
Who You Say I Am
Dismissal…………….Gilbert Thurston

Message notes

In the third year that Jehoiakim was king of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia attacked Jerusalem.

-Daniel 1:1

Nebuchadnezzar ordered Ashpenaz, his chief-of-staff, to choose some young men from the royal family of Judah and from other leading Jewish families. The king said, “They must be healthy, handsome, smart, wise, educated, and fit to serve in the royal palace. “Let them read our literature and begin to teach them how to speak and write our language.”

The king then ordered that they be served from the same menu as the royal table—the best food, the finest wine. “Train them for 3 years and then have them enter into my service.”

Four of the young Jews chosen were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, all from the tribe of Judah. Ashpenaz, the chief-of-staff, gave them Babylonian names. Daniel’s new name was Belteshazzar, Hananiah’s was Shadrach, Mishael’s was Meshach, and Azariah’s was Abednego.

-Daniel 1:3-7

If I take on a that God hasn’t given me then I’ll miss out on the   God has for me.

But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank. So he asked Ashpenaz for permission not to eat the food and wine served in the royal palace.

God made Ashpenaz, the chief-of-staff, want to be kind and merciful to Daniel,  but Ashpenaz said to Daniel, “I am afraid of my master, the king. He ordered me to give you this food and drink. If you begin to look worse than other young men your age, the king will see this. Then he will cut off my head because of you.”

Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.”

-Daniel 1:8-13

Whenever the king consulted them on anything, on books or on life, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his kingdom put together.

-Daniel 1:20

LIFE APPLICATION
To discuss during the week with your family or Life Group

 

1. In what ways have you seen culture shift away from God in your lifetime

2. In what way(s) has culture, the world, Satan or others tried to label you with a name that God never intended for you?  Have you bought into that lie?

3. Would you say when it comes to culture you are more like a thermometer or thermostat?

4. What is your next step as a result of this message?