Well, if you missed last week, it was church at home from our future home on Hamilton Road,

and we introduced where we're going to be headed in the Word of God at the beginning of this year.

And that is the Book of Daniel. But don't turn to the Book of Daniel because we've got to have this message before we step forward in the narrative that is the Book of Daniel.

Here's why. We're talking about

spiritual formation this year. What does it mean to over time become more and more like Jesus?

And what we said last week, we'll put this on the screen, is that all of us are going to be formed

this year. We will either be conformed to the world around us or be transformed by the word

within us. You know, Romans chapter 12 says,

do not be conformed any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing

of your mind. All of us by the end of this year will look different than the people who are

sitting here right now. And that formation will either be confirmation to what culture says

and what the world says and everything that's pushing against you in our day, or it will be

transformation to look more like Jesus over time by the power of the Holy Spirit. And that depends on

whether or not the deciding factor of your formation is the world around you or the word within you.

So why when we're doing a series on spiritual formation and we're doing a series about becoming

fully committed followers of Jesus, why in the world will we do a series on Daniel?

And the reason is because when Daniel and his friends were taken into Babylon in exile

and the story that we're going to read so heartbreaking,

so tragic, so difficult, there was a formation that happened. And almost every person who got

taken up from Jerusalem and taken captive in Babylon, they conformed. They became Babylonian.

They served Babylonian gods. They ate the diet of the Babylonians.

They walked in the ways of the Babylonians.

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