Many of us grew up hearing stories of different Bible characters, learning good moral lessons from them. But the problem with learning these stories in piecemeal is that we often miss out on the greater context of their lives as taught in the Bible, and the simplified versions of their lives that we were taught in Sunday School as children defines how we view those stories now, making it difficult to move past the simple and diving deeper into the complex reality of these lives. The life of Daniel is one of these types of situations, where many of us were taught of the amazing stories of Daniel and his friends, but never connected the lessons from their lives to our own adult lives. In today’s sermon, we will be looking at the life of Daniel and how he navigated growing up in a culture completely opposed to the biblical worldview, seeking to draw him and his friends away from worshiping God. We’ll see how they were able to stand against this influence of the world, and that the power and motivation to do so came both from God and by focusing on God.