There is a hierarchy when it comes to hotels…
During our short time on the mission field, we had the chance to come back for a few weeks each summer to update supporters, do some fundraising, and visit family and friends. The flight plans took us to a couple of places typically… but the most common was a stop in Miami. One time we had an extra-long layover, so instead of roughing it in the airport for the night, we actually got a motel to stay in not too far from the airport… and it was a roach motel… literally… like one of those hotels where you put your shoes on from the bed, so the roaches on the floor would not get into them during the night.
When Peter Heck came for the first time, I put him up in a “not so great” motel not too far from here… and it was fine… but boy did I scolded for it…
The last couple of times he’s come to join us, we have slowly but surely upgraded his living situation, so that he has less ammunition in his pocket.
Rickie and I travel a lot less now than we did back then… but as the years have passed… Rickie and I have “moved up” in our hotel game, too. We’ve gone from Motel 6 to Best Western… and I suppose the next step will be an Embassy Suites, and obviously followed by the Ritz Carlton. Is there any end to the hotel ladders of excellence?
[Have ladder on stage… climb up a step or two]
It’s not just hotels… There’s always a ladder to climb, and we tend to think that the higher up the ladder we go, the more status we gain. 
You start out in a one-room apartment with a roommate and share the cost. Then years go by, and you eventually save up to buy a cheap condo (those don’t really exist out here)… and then maybe you get married and scrape up enough money to buy a bit of a fixer-upper. Then years later, you trade up for a home with 3 or 4 bedrooms and 2 or 3 bathrooms, and a great big living space made for entertaining, maybe even an attached garage… and yet somewhere in the not-so-distant future lies a 4,500 square-foot house on some property lush with trees and vegetation, or maybe a luxury apartment with the ocean views…
Or maybe you’ve finally made the team… you get in to two games during the season as a sub… then the next season, you might be first-string… then you’re all conference, maybe all-state, then you get a scholarship to college… then you’re an all-american, then a first round draft pick, then all-pro, then eventually land yourself in the hall of fame…
There’s always some ladder to climb. And we tend to think that the higher up we go, the more status we have… and status feels good. Status makes us feel important. Status gets us attention. And if we don’t have enough status, we will even make some up…
Three dogs meet. The first dog says to the other two, “My name is Fifi—that’s F-I-F-I.” The second dog says, “My name is Mimi—that’s M-I-M-I.” The third dog says, “My name is Fido—that’s P-H-A-E-D-E-A-U-X.”
Two men meet. One says to the other, “What do you do for a living?” “I’m a sanitation engineer,” he replies. “Oh, you’re a janitor.” “Yeah, well what do you do for a living?” he asks in return. “I’m a ventilation specialist.” “Oh, you’re a window cleaner.”
We want status. We want to climb the ladder. We want to get to the highest spot – for a feeling of self-importance… to be thought of as somebody with influence, to have others pay attention to us. It feels good to be looked up to, to be catered to, and certainly to be thought of as special.
Our text today tells us the narrative of a king… and it has a lesson that is just as valid today as it was 25 centuries ago… and the lesson is not just for kings, but every one of us. And I don’t mean to be dramatic, but I would contend that this lesson is one we must all learn.
Daniel describes the journey of a king from the pride of life, to the praise of God… and it happens through the valley of humility.
Pride is the essence of the very first sin… Adam and Eve abandoned their childlike dependence on God in favor of God-like dependence on self… and since then, pride has run rampant in the hearts of humanity. 
And this is bad news because the prideful heart is far from the heart of God. In Isaiah 2:11 God said, “The haughty looks of man shall be brought low, and the pride of men shall be humbled; and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.”
God is not a fan of pride. But praise be to God for sending His Son into the world to save us from the power and the penalty of our pride. Jesus has provided a path that takes us from the pride of life to the praise of God… and even to the kingdom of heaven and to eternal life… He puts it this way in Matthew 18:4, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus came into the world to help us move from self-dependence to a child-like dependence on Him. And He died to pay the penalty for our pride and to show us the way of humility and to send all our boasting to Him and not to ourselves!
Jesus has provided us with this path… from pride to eternal life. That’s really what this narrative in Daniel 4 is all about…
The heading in my Bible for this chapter is “Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream of a Tree.” Chapter four picks up well into Nebby’s leadership as the most powerful man on earth at the time. One night he has a dream—yes, another dream. People who are smarter than me think this is 30 years or so after his dream in chapter two.
Daniel 4 is actually Nebuchadnezzar’s recount of this dream that he has… but what’s fascinating is that the whole chapter begins with Nebby having this moment of praise, and thanksgiving, and maybe even worship of the Most High God of Daniel.
Daniel 4:2 says, “It has seemed good to me to declare the signs and wonders which the Most High God has done for me. 3 “How great are His signs And how mighty are His wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom And His dominion is from generation to generation.”
Most High God is the number one title for YAHWEH in the book of Daniel. What an incredible contrast… maybe you could even call it a conversion… this is the king who besieged Jerusalem… the one who destroyed the temple, took the artifacts out and put them into the temple of their pagan god… this is the king who built a statue 90-feet tall in His own image and demanded worship of it… and chapter 4 begins with that same king talking about and praising the Most High God.
Most of chapter 4 consists of this dream that Nebby has… and in this dream he sees an enormous tree in the middle of this great plane… and this tree stretches to the sky and is visible as far as the east is from the west… to the ends of the Earth. The whole world can see this tree and all the animals come and find their shelter in this tree, and the tree is the source of their food…
Then all of a sudden, a messenger of God, the text calls Him an “angelic watcher, a holy one” comes and commands that the tree be chopped down and all its branches cut off, all its fruit scattered, and its foliage stripped. This great tree is reduced to a stump. 
Nebby is feeling a little stress about this tree… and then the rubber meets the road in verses 15 and 16 because the object of this dream shifts from a tree to a person. It says, “Yet leave the stump with its roots in the ground, But with a band of iron and bronze around it In the new grass of the field; And let him be drenched with the dew of heaven, And let him share with the beasts in the grass of the earth. 16 “Let his mind be changed from that of a man And let a beast’s mind be given to him, And let seven periods of time pass over him.”
It’s a little strange that in the middle of this dream, the imagery shifted from a tree to a person and Nebby starts feeling a little overwhelmed by this vision… he starts looking for someone to interpret its meaning and he’s not playing any games here like he did back in chapter 2… he doesn’t bring his wise men in this time and say, “I’m not telling you what the dream is…” no, he tells them “come in… this is the dream… tell me what it means.”
And of course, none of them are able to. Verse 18b says, “Now you, Belteshazzar, tell me its interpretation, inasmuch as none of the wise men of my kingdom is able to make known to me the interpretation; but you are able, for a spirit of the holy gods is in you.’
Here’s a though that I had about this… even if those other guys were able to interpret this dream… I’m not sure they would have really wanted to! Like maybe they could have, but they maybe wouldn’t have… because the entire key to the vision is in verses 15 and 16… when the conversation shifts from a tree to a person! The dream is pretty telling if you can figure out what person is being described! Because if you can figure out who that person is, then you know what the tree is symbolizing.
And why would the others not want to share the interpretation if they had it? Because if that tree is a person… then he’s about to get cut down! Not just a little… but he’s gonna get cut down to the stump… about to be reduced…
And I doubt there would have been a long line among the magicians waiting to tell the powerful, kill-monger Nebuchadnezzar that he was the tree and is about to get reduced to a stump. Like… “hey… that’s you… and not only will you be reduced… but you’re gonna live like an animal…”
Matter of fact… verse 19 says that Daniel was “appalled for a while…” it seems like he was feeling some of that angst… he was feeling overwhelmed by the interpretation of the dream.
But then he says, “My lord, if only the dream applied to those who hate you and its interpretation to your adversaries!”
Like, “I wish this was meant for your enemies.” Daniel summarizes the dream briefly and in verse 22 he says, “it is you, O king.” You are the tree. And I wonder if Daniel really wished that the dream was for Nebby’s enemies… and I wonder if he was thinking in the back of his mind that this guy was maybe gonna fire the furnace back up again… because come on! This is the king behind the exile… the one who destroyed the temple of Daniel’s God… the one who took him from his home, the promised land, and placed him in this foreign place… the one who created a statue and demanded worship of it… the one who threw Daniel’s friends into the fiery furnace.
And Daniel just gave him some really bad news… I don’t exactly know Daniel’s motives behind all of this… but I wonder if Daniel gives us a master class on loving our enemies here… I wonder if how we treat our enemies actually reveals more about us than them. Maybe our treatment of our enemies might say more about our identity than anything else.
Nebby sure functioned like an enemy to those who challenged him… and Daniel gave him some news that he was going to face the biggest challenge of them all.
And how does Daniel do this? He tells the truth to someone he disagreed with and pleaded with Nebby to repent. He calls the king to change allegiances and to follow the Most High God… in verse 27 Daniel says, “Therefore, O king, may my advice be pleasing to you: [break away now from your sins by doing righteousness and from your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, in case there may be a prolonging of your prosperity.”
Break away, do what is right, turn away from sin, show mercy to the poor… he’s calling the king to change his ways… and maybe this vision won’t come true! Change your ways and maybe you won’t be the tree of your dream!
Daniel is trying to convert the king of Babylon into a friend! Into a companion! Into a brother. I might suggest we treat our enemies much the same. Daniel pleads for Nebby’s repentance… but repentance for Nebuchadnezzar was focused on a specific weakness…
A year goes by and Nebby is walking on the roof of the palace and in verse 30 he says, “Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty?”
Before he’s finished talking, God’s voice is heard, giving Nebuchadnezzar the judgment that he was warned about… and every word was fulfilled and he was driven away from humanity and lived like an animal and ate grass like a cow. He is cut down and he loses his mind. He lost it all. The most powerful and influential man in the world ended up a crazy homeless grass-eater.
And at the end of that time (probably 7 years) he comes back to his sanity and begins to praise God. Nebby learned 4 truths and they might just be four of the most comforting things you will ever hear:
- First, God’s kingdom will outlast everything I do. “His dominion is an eternal dominion; his kingdom endures from generation to generation” (Daniel 4:34). If you want to make a lasting impact with your life, focus on the kingdom of God. Make your number one priority something that is going to last—not your career, not your reputation, but God’s kingdom.
- Second, God’s approval matters more than anyone else’s. “All the people of the earth are nothing compared to him” (Daniel 4:35). Everybody else may disapprove of you, but if God approves of you, it doesn’t really matter. When you die, who do you want telling you that you did a good job in life? The people around you? Sure, that would be nice, but what ultimately matters is what God thinks.
- Third, God’s power is absolute, which means He’s big enough for any problem you’re going to face. King Nebby says: “‘He [God] does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:35,37).
- Fourth, God never makes any mistakes. Look at verse 36: “When God restored my sanity, he also gave me back my honor and kingdom. All my leaders returned to me, and my kingdom became greater than ever! So now I praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven [God] because everything he does is always right and true and fair. (Daniel 4:36) We make mistakes, but He does not. We don’t always understand why everything is happening, but God does. And it is good and it is right.
And in verse 37 he tells us the main idea from this entire text… “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt and honor the King of heaven, for all His works are true and His ways just, and He is able to humble those who walk in pride.”
Nebby’s Achille’s heel was his pride. We don’t tend to have a hard time defining pride… but we tend to have a hard time defining “humility.” Arrogance is a puffing up, or an exaggeration of who are, or a pretending that you are someone that you’re not… and so in the church, we tend to swing so far to the other side of the pendulum…
So we look at humility as if it’s a divine depression. We speak down on ourselves, we look down on ourselves, we ridicule ourselves… and then we call it humility. We tend to think that the more we degrade ourselves, the more holy we are… and to be blunt, those are lies from the pit of hell.
I would even say that that self-defamation is just another form of pride! Low self-esteem is still not rightly describing your identity… and it’s still self-centered. I got this golden nugget from Levi Vernon this past week (along with much of the application to come)… “Humility is not thinking too highly or too little of yourself, it’s forgetting yourself.”
Which means you don’t have to ignore the ways God has gifted you! It’s always been a little funny to me when you have to fight to give someone a compliment… like when you tell someone they’ve done a good job, and they’re like, “oh no… it wasn’t that good… or I just got lucky I guess…” and then you have to come back and push them even harder just for them to receive the compliment.
Like we think humility is denying that we have God-given gifts… when it’s really recognizing that whatever giftedness you have comes from the hand of God. Like when people pay us compliments it’s not prideful to say “thank you” and “to God be the glory because without Him I can do nothing.” It’s not prideful to say “thanks and praise the Lord.”
In church we ignore the gifts that God has given us because we don’t want to come off as arrogant… but in recognizing the gifts that God has bestowed, we’re able to give credit where credit is due… which is never to us! It’s always to Him! Because pride disguised as humility is still pride! Humility is not a divine depression. I would contend that Biblical humility is knowing who you are in light of who God is, and giving Him the glory for that.
APPLICATION/CONCLUSION
Now, how do these principles relate us? What does this look on Monday morning? What are some things we can do right now to help us avoid the pride of life and walk in humility?
- Speak of God’s greatness. The more aware you are of God’s sovereignty the more humble you will be in daily life. So instead of waking up and looking at your successes and your accomplishments and looking in the mirror and thinking, “I’ve worked so hard for all this… and I’ve done pretty well for myself.” OR on the other side of the same coin, “I’ve worked so hard and what do I have nothing to show for it…” both of those attitudes are rooted in pride! In either case, the alternative ought to be, “God has been so good to me. Thank you, Lord for your faithful provision.” Let your humility lead you to gratitude. We don’t take the glory that belongs to God and ascribe it to ourselves. We no longer credit ourselves for things we have no business crediting ourselves for. On our own we can do nothing. Speak of His greatness.
- Pray that God would reveal the prideful parts of your heart. You might be able to fool the rest of us and maybe yourself, but you’re not gonna fool God. Ask Him to expose your true motivations and reveal the areas of your heart that still need to be discipled, the parts of your life that need to change. If the Holy Spirit lives you, then maybe you ought to try talking to Him and allow Him the opportunity to convict you in order to become more like Jesus. Don’t run from His conviction, ask Him for it because you will be conformed more into the image of the Son.
- Talk a little less, listen a little more. Let’s become a people who are “quick to listen and slow to speak.” Let’s be honest here… none of us are really the experts on everything… we might think we are, but there is no need for us to share our thoughts on any and every subject under the sun. Fight the urge to speak to every issue even if you feel like you have a firm grasp on the subject matter.
- Stop playing “One Up.” When someone tells you a story or an experience they had that was pretty meaningful, and someone else chimes in and tells their story but makes sure that sounds more amazing than the story that was just shared… I call that getting “one upped.” Peter Heck calls it “Story-Topping.” You don’t have to be the person with the biggest story at every social gathering…
- Be like Jesus. Read about Jesus. Read the Gospels. We just need to spend a lot of time with Jesus. I want us to love Jesus so much that He really is our everything. I want us to fix our eyes upon Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith… He endured the cross, scorning shame. And I want all of us to be just like Him! Jesus is our greatest chance at overcoming these battles with pride!
Let’s close with this…
[climb back up the ladder] What is Jesus’ example? Humble obedience.
Philippians 2:6-9, “…although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. 8 Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name…”
Don’t be concerned about how far up the ladder you can go. Instead think of how far down you can come. Your aim is not to climb up, but to climb down because that’s what Jesus did. Which means we can stop seeking status according to the world’s standards.
My friends, if we will share his humility, we will share his glory. If we go down the ladder, God will raise us up.