The headline read… “Fairy Tale Princess Story Turns Sour After Newlyweds Lose Money.” A sad title that morning in the Daily Herald in Chicago. A newlywed couple had left a black-zippered case on the roof of their car as they sped away from their wedding reception to begin their honeymoon. The case had all their wedding gift money; in it $12,000. By the time they reached their destination it was gone. According to the bride, upon realizing what had happened, she said, “I feel numb; that’s a good word for it. Overwhelmed!”
Two days later the same newspaper carried headlines to a related story: “Finders Keepers? Not All Believe It!” David Yi, an unemployed suburban resident, had come upon the black bag with the $12,000 in total. Keep in mind this guy was currently unemployed… and his bills were piling up. And with that in mind, to everyone’s surprise… he didn’t keep any of the money. He tracked the couple down and returned the money in full. When asked why he turned it all in, he said, “I guess it doesn’t matter whether it’s $50 or $1,000 or $1 million. It doesn’t belong to you.”
Upon investigation, the media discovered that David Yi, the Good Samaritan of this story, was consistent with his overall character. David had found $50 the year before and turned it in as well. As a result of this display of integrity, the unemployed man was offered jobs like crazy… and he said he would only consider the ones he was qualified for. Why? Because he felt that accepting a managerial position for which he was unequipped was dishonest.
The word we’re talking about is: integrity. We can work with lots of definitions… but the one I’d like to work with today is “doing the right thing when no one is watching.”
Daniel 6 addresses this very issue of integrity. Our text sets the stage for Daniel in the Lion’s den… probably one of the most familiar Bible narratives. Daniel will face the death penalty in chapter 6… and it was not because he had done something wrong, but because he had done what was right.
And unfortunately, things aren’t always so different for us than they were for Daniel in this regard. I know full well we might not be on the chopping block like he was… but in our context…. In this world we live in, it does seem like at times, people can be rewarded for wickedness, while others might be punished for their righteousness. The reality is that our world is not one that is characterized by fairness… and it probably won’t be until the Lord Jesus returns. Until then, we need to know how we can best represent Jesus in an unjust environment. This chapter gives us one of the best examples in Scripture of how to actually live this way.
The last two verses of chapter 5 give us the setting for chapter 6… King Belshazzar of the Babylonians died on the night that Babylon fell to the Medo-Persian Kingdom, which means that Darius the Mede is now the reigning leader of the region, receiving the Babylonian kingdom “at about the age of sixty-two” (5:31).
In Daniel 6:1, we learn that Darius was “to appoint 120 satraps over the kingdom, that they would be in charge of the whole kingdom.” He made up his mind to assign 120 Persian officials who could then rule over this large group of people. But it didn’t end there… “over them three commissioners (of whom Daniel was one), that these satraps might be accountable to them, and that the king might not suffer loss.” A new reigning power came in… Babylon was out, Medes and Persians were in… and they’re working on getting this organizational hierarchy set up… 120 bosses… then 3 bigger bosses over them.
This is where we see Daniel come back into the narrative… and in verse 3 the king wants to promote him to distinguish him among all the administrators, to the point of putting him over the whole kingdom. Daniel had been doing well and was up for a promotion.
It says, “Daniel began distinguishing himself” and he was starting to rise above the rest “because he had an extraordinary spirit.” He was about to become the head honcho, probably only second to Darius the Mede. A little Jewish boy, estranged from his home, has now climbed the ranks in the Babylonian Empire… and he is well on his way to do the same with the Medes and the Persians.
As you can imagine… this didn’t sit too well with all the other ambitious administrators… and they get a little upset. Envy starts to take root and Envy is a powerful foe.
And one of the things I’ve learned about envy is that it oftentimes develops into something else… envy, if left unchecked, may well evolve into scheming… into plotting… in an effort to find a weakness to destroy the one who has something you want… envy can lead to all kinds of wickedness.
But what’s the problem with that plan here in Daniel 6? They couldn’t find anything to destroy Daniel with… Daniel does not have a flaw in his integrity! There isn’t an ounce of corruption for them to uncover… which means that these administrators hit a roadblock.
Verse 4 says, “Then the commissioners and satraps began trying to find a ground of accusation against Daniel in regard to government affairs; but they could find no ground of accusation or evidence of corruption, inasmuch as he was faithful, and no negligence or corruption was to be found in him.”
It gives the idea that they were militant in this search to find grounds for charges against Daniel… and they couldn’t find a thing against him… nothing in his government affairs, no corruption, no negligence… in his professional life or his public life… he was blameless.
They left no stone unturned… and couldn’t find a lick of evidence that there was any unrighteousness. Daniel had, in a word: integrity.
But envy does not care, and it does not cower in the face of integrity. Envy instead looks for another weakness to exploit. And in this context… in this setting… what was Daniel’s “weakness?” His love for God. And they knew it.
Verse 5, “Then these men said, “We will not find any ground of accusation against this Daniel unless we find it against him with regard to the law of his God.”
May that be true of me. May that be true of you. May that be true of us, that the world may know Him. May our only “weakness” not be the sins that we commit in the dark, in private… but may our only “weakness” in the world’s eyes be our love and our dedication and our identity firmly rooted in God.
These satraps took the “weakness” of Daniel’s love for God and they turned it into a plan… a plot. They decide to go to Darius in order to trick him into stating a decree… a law that he would write onto a tablet, one that cannot be overturned.
They come to the Darius and they say, “King Darius, live forever! 7 All the commissioners of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the high officials and the governors have consulted together that the king should establish a statute and enforce an injunction that anyone who makes a petition to any god or man besides you, O king, for thirty days, shall be cast into the lions’ den. 8 Now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document so that it may not be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which may not be revoked.” 9 Therefore King Darius signed the document, that is, the injunction.” (Dan 6:6b-9).
So for the next 30 days, no one in the kingdom is allowed to pray or worship any other god or any other human… except for Darius. And if they are caught praying to anyone else, they will be thrown into the den of lions.
And I don’t know if Darius had a lapse of judgment… or if they just buttered him up so much that he followed along, or if he reasoned that it wasn’t gonna be that big of a deal… or if he didn’t understand what he was saying or doing… or maybe he just really liked the idea… like “hmmm… I guess it would be kind of cool to be worshipped alone for the next 30 days.” 
But Darius forgot about Daniel’s convictions… he forgot about Daniel’s faithfulness. Daniel was the one Darius was about to place over the whole kingdom! He signs the decree and this puts Daniel in a precarious situation. I don’t know if Daniel was distraught, or overwhelmed… I don’t know if he wrestled with how to navigate this new decree…
This decree put his very identity in conflict with preserving his life… what does Daniel do? He prays. Verse 10b says, “and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God, as he had been doing previously.”
Do you see the irony in this? When they can find no corruption, they turn to corruption. This is the very essence of corruption… these other administrators knew that’s what Daniel would do. They knew that the moment the decree came out, Daniel would turn to his Master… he would turn to God. And he would continue to worship the One who held his primary allegiances.
They waited for Daniel to break this new law, which they knew he would… and they catch him red-handed… and they immediately run to Darius and tattle on Daniel… Verse 13b tells us their accusation, “Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or to the injunction which you signed, but keeps making his petition three times a day.”
They don’t only tattle on Daniel, but they lie about him, too… and it’s no surprise they’re dishonest… it’s not that Daniel doesn’t pay attention to Darius… he does… he just didn’t compromise his convictions to the Lord. They point the finger at him… “he still prays three times a day! And you know what that means…”
Darius… you’re gonna have to throw Daniel into a den of lions… the very person he intended to promote all the way back in verse 3. And now Darius is distraught. Darius is overwhelmed and he’s trying to figure out any way he can overturn the edict to make sure that one of his favorite and most trusted administrators is now thrown into certain death in the lion’s den.
But here’s the problem… for the Persians, these kingly decrees were ironclad. It says, “Then, as soon as the king heard this statement, he was deeply distressed and set his mind on delivering Daniel; and even until sunset he kept exerting himself to rescue him.” (v. 14.)
Even though Darius signed the decree into law, he did not have the authority to just overturn it because he didn’t like it anymore… Darius is bound by law… and these satraps are quick to remind him of that… “it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or statute which the king establishes may be changed.” (v. 15).
So instead… “then the king gave orders, and Daniel was brought in and cast into the lions’ den.” (v. 16a).
And without getting ahead of our text… I’ll just say this… in the things to come, both Daniel’s sentence and the rescue, Darius understands that Daniel worships the Most High God and he reminds everyone of the God whom Daniel serves continually. Daniel will come out this whole mess unscathed… and Darius will be the one to remind everyone of Daniel’s integrity and God’s greatness.
Daniel’s reputation was more than just being a dream reader and an interpreter of the handwriting on the wall… his reputation was rooted in something far deeper than those big moments. His reputation was centered on his identity… it was all rooted in God. And we’re not just talking about his public life… it was true of his private life, too.
Daniel was the same person whether he was in public or private… his identity never changed and it never wavered… and here’s the reality… many of us like the narratives of the fiery furnace and we like the lion’s den because they are amazing examples of God’s protection, provision, and sovereignty. And they ought to be celebrated and enjoyed and they ought to lead us to worship the Most High God.
And at the same time we have to keep in mind that we are not promised that following God will preserve us in the fire… and we are not promised that following God will keep the lion’s mouths shut. And once more… the rescues are not the main point of these texts anyways.
The main point of the furnace was that matters of life and death are less important than who you worship. We worship God because of who He is, not because of what we can get.
The point of the lion’s den… circumstances do not dictate your integrity. Rather, your integrity flows from your identity. This entire narrative finds it’s hinge point in Daniels’ integrity. Its about who you are when no one is looking… and if you’re claiming to be a follower of Jesus, then your actions must remain consistent… they ought to be the same whether you are in public or you are in private.
And our witness is dependent upon this… we’re not doing the gospel message any favors when we fail to take the word “integrity” seriously!
And I wonder if over the last 15 years, or 40 years, or 100 hundred years, or 2,000 years… I wonder if the number one thing Christians have struggled with when it comes to our “PR” is the lack of integrity from some of our key Christian leaders.
Here’s my conviction… our number one evangelistic tool, our greatest tool in seeking and saving the lost, is not an apologetic argument… it’s not really commending and defending the Christian faith… it might not even be compiling Bible verses that you can weave together so that people can find their way through the Biblical text, understand their sin, and then grasp their deepest needs for a Savior to remedy their sin problem…
And please don’t mishear me… evangelistic efforts and having a Bible study program for seekers to find Christ… those are all well and good and serve an amazing purpose in building up Jesus’ church. And they are worth pursuing with everything we’ve got.
However, I would contend… that our number one evangelistic tool is who you are when no one is looking. I would argue that your best chance of being the greatest force you can be for the kingdom of God is your integrity. So that when people dig deep into your life, what they find is the same person in private that they found in public.
And when that happens, it gives others the hope that their life can change, too. That their lives, broken and messy as they may be, can be transformed, too. That although they’ve made a practice of lying, they too can become truth tellers. Though they’ve made a practice of immorality, they too can become faithful. Though they’ve given themselves over to sensual desires and debauchery, they too can become free from the burdens of sin. Though they’ve lived as slaves to sin, they too can become alive to God and dead to sin.
Shane Wood tells the story of Athanasius, one of the early church fathers in around the 4th century… Athanasius was talking about the conversion of people towards God and His purposes for their lives and he shares a pretty amazing line… he says,
“this is what it means to be a Christian. If you are an adulterer, you leave faithful to your spouse. When you come in a liar, you leave a truth teller. This is what it means to follow Jesus.”
And that’s worth celebrating. We pursue Jesus and He helps us in this pursuit of holiness.
He’s the One that transforms our integrity. And to bring it a little closer to home… let’s talk about our Christian witness in America today. I would guess, it’s not all that different from how its always been in other places and other times… I would guess that our witness thrives and suffers based on the integrity of those that call themselves Christians.
I would maybe even go so far as to say that your identity in Christ is minimized if you don’t have the integrity to remain who you are when no one is looking. What’s your identity in Christ actually worth if you’re lacking the integrity to remain who are when no one else is looking? It might not be worth that much because you might actually be doing more harm than good when it comes to the cause of Jesus Christ!
Christians… we often fall into the mistake of doing the right things in public, but then believing we can do whatever we want in private. You know?… we go to church, and we listen to the sermons, and we make sure we tithe, we participate in a small group, and we have a good Bible study group, too… and we make sure we even listen to a couple of our favorite preachers or Christian podcasts along the way each week, too.
And we make sure that on the outside, we’re doing everything that is expected of a Christian whose identity is founded in Jesus. But what about when we’re out of the public eye? We watch what we want to watch… we say whatever we want to say, we do whatever we want to do, we listen to whatever we want to listen to, we think whatever we want to think, we buy whatever we want to buy…
We think that the only thing that matters is what the public sees but let me be very clear… your identity in Christ is minimized if you do not have the integrity to remain who you are when no is looking.
And here’s the reason why I’m getting a little intense over this… the lack of integrity among mainstream Christian culture is damaging our Christian witness and I believe its time to stop. Now is the time to stop. Today is the day to change.
I mean, come on… non-christians have been saying this to us for years… one of the number one things that Christians are known for is hypocrisy. And it’s true. And it shouldn’t be.
And I know the joke… whenever people say, “You know why I’m not a Christian? Because they’re a bunch of hypocrites…” and then the joke follows that line with, “hey, yeah… you’re right… we are a bunch of hypocrites… so why don’t you come on in because there’s always room for one more.”
And I know there’s a lot of truth in that little joke… but at the same time, we ought to be honest with ourselves and with others… sin is not a welcome guest in this party. Once more, please don’t mishear me…. Yes, this is a place for the broken-hearted and heavy-laden… for the oppressed, for the sojourner, for the foreigner, for the drug-addicted, for the porn-addicted, for the divorced, for the lost and the lonely, for the disabled, for homeless, for the down and out. This is a place for a everyone. This place is a hospital for the sick, not a country club for the healthy.
And while all of that is absolutely true. So is this… sin is an unwelcome guest. And a lot of the time we justify the sins we do because they are done when no is looking and we foolishly think to ourselves, “well, I’m not hurting anyone, it can’t be that bad…”
Allow me to remind you… your identity in Christ is minimized if you don’t have the integrity to remain who you are when no is looking.
And my prayer, my challenge for us this week from Daniel 6… is that when people look at you whether in private or in public, all they find is Christ in you.
Let’s close on a practical note this morning because I want you to walk away from this place this morning with the resolve to cultivate godly integrity, and the tools to cultivate godly integrity. When it comes to integrity, where do we start?
- Start with Jesus. Fix your eyes upon Him and in His power, presence, and grace, allow Him to help you grow in holiness. Pursuing integrity without Jesus at the start is just sin management and sin management always leads to burnout. Foster your relationship with Him and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace. Like my professor Mark Scott used to always say, “ever since I accepted Jesus, I can do whatever I want to. It’s just that Jesus changed all my want-to’s.” Seek Him and His Kingdom first and see how your affections and desires change. Let your relationship with Jesus drive your pursuit of integrity.
- Remember/Meditate on the truth of the gospel – think about these things. Remind yourselves of the depths of Jesus’ love for you. Meditate on the lengths that He went to in order to be in relationship with you. Remember that Jesus loves you and He died on the cross for your sins. If integrity is born out of identity, then getting your identity in Christ right has to be something you constantly remind yourself of.
- Read your Bible. Why? Because the blessings of the gospel become real to those who think about them. Maybe this is why Paul makes such a big deal of “setting your minds on things above” and “being made new in the attitude of your minds” and “think on things that are excellent and noble and true” and “being transformed by the renewing of your mind.” From here… from this posture…
- Replace dead actions with living ones. Paul uses phrases like “put on the new self,” “rid yourselves of all such things as these,” “offer yourselves to God . . . offer the parts of your bodies to him as instruments of righteousness,” he essentially means, “live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives.” In other words, do the right thing… with your Feet/Hands/Genitals/Eyes/Mouth/Stomach… instead of offering your parts to sin, offer them to righteousness. Follow through with the type of actions proper for one who is “in Christ.” Obey Jesus. But not as one following some legalistic set of rules, obey with the knowledge that you are listening to your actual Master, as you ignore your former master. In those moments we listen to the voice of Grace, our one and only rightful Sovereign/Master/Lord; As he says in Galatians, “Since you have life by the Spirit, keep in step with the Spirit”
- Be like Jesus. Be honest in examining your motives and behaviors. Avoid lying, even in small matters. Guard your tongue. Keep your promises. Follow through on commitments. Seek wise counsel. Seek God’s will. Admit it when you’re wrong. Humble yourself and don’t be afraid to apologize. Take responsibility and seek forgiveness. Be like Jesus. Live and love like Jesus.
And did I mention, start with Jesus? He’s the ultimate example of integrity, living a life of perfect love and sacrifice. And I just want us all to be just like Him.