Thrive: Living Well in an Unwell World

Transcription

1 Thrive: Living Well in an Unwell World Sermon #3: Can t Lose--- Daniel 3 Dr. Matt Cassidy --- June 19, 2016 I had a pretty good --- I d say I had a great sermon this week. Did all my homework, did the research, and then on Wednesday I heard a great sermon on this passage. We re in Daniel 3. And I remembered back when I was in graduate school someone asked our preaching instructor, Hey, is it okay to use other people s stuff? And he said, Listen, son, there s a war out there and we re all short on ammo, and if somebody else s bullet fits your gun, you shoot it. So here s a.50 caliber round coming at you from John Ortberg. This is good stuff. Act I: Nebuchadnezzar s Celebration Let me give you the context. Daniel 3, we re in a book about thriving in a crazy world, and this story is crazy. It starts off with this celebration and dedication to our allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar and his god of the week. That s the context here. Everybody s going to be there, especially the VIP s on the VIP deck. Daniel 3:1-3 King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue whose height was ninety feet high and whose width was nine feet; he set it up on the plain of Duran in the province of Babylon. 2 Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent for the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to assemble and come to the dedication of the statues that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. 3 So the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces, assembled for the dedication of the statues that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. When they were standing before the statues that Nebuchadnezzar had set up, Daniel.3.cassidy 1

2 So here s the story in chapter 3, verse 1: King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue whose height was about ninety feet tall and whose width was nine feet and he set it upon a plain in Dura in the province of Babylon. And these are all the VIP people: And then King Nebuchadnezzar sent for all the satraps, the prefects, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to assemble and to come to the dedication of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. That s the VIP tent. Everybody else is there, by the way. They re all there. Verse 3, we ll repeat it again: So --- people do what they re told --- the satraps and the prefects and the governors and the counselors and the justices and the magistrates and all the officials of the provinces assembled for the dedication of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. When they were all standing before the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had set up, they had this herald that shouted, Everyone, now listen, because this is the new command. All of the people in all of the nations in all of the languages, everyone will bow down and worship at the idol that King Nebuchadnezzar has made. If anyone does not fall down and worship this idol that King Nebuchadnezzar has made, you will immediately be thrown in a furnace of blazing fire. Start the music. And they did. Everybody bowed down and worshiped the idol that Nebuchadnezzar had made out in this field. And it was a great day. Let me just reiterate, this is a great day, this is a huge celebration, it s a dedication day, and it s pledge allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar and his god of the week. And you ll see if you read this chapter again and again, you ll see there s a lot of repetition and the point of the repetition is --- it s an artful way of storytelling --- is to make sure that you understand that the theme is about compliance. Everybody s there and everybody s doing all the right things. And they re going to keep beating this kind of rhythmical drumbeat so that you say everybody s just going along. It was a fantastic afternoon. They played the song, everybody bowed down, now they re just sitting around on the deck waiting for the fireworks to start. It was great! Nebuchadnezzar is thrilled. It was planned for maybe years, and it worked, it worked great. There were three guys that missed it --- Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They weren t even there. These are the three buddies of Daniel that came over from Jerusalem. Their town was destroyed, they lost their family, they went through a programming educational system to become good Babylonians and to comply --- it s all about compliance. They even had their names changed so they could be completely disassociated from the God that they served and be attached to the gods that they re named after, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And now God s blessed them and because of that Nebuchadnezzar puts them in a high rank in Babylon. And if you re high-ranking, people are jealous and they hate you. And so the plot continues, verse 8. Daniel.3.cassidy 2

3 Daniel 3:8-12 Accordingly, at this time certain Chaldeans came forward and denounced the Jews. 9 They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live forever! 10 You, O king, have made a decree, that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp and all kinds of music, shall fall down and worship the golden statue, 11 and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire. 12 There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These pay no heed to you, O King. They do not serve your gods and they do not worship the golden statue that you have set up. Now accordingly, at this time certain Chaldeans came forward and denounced the Jews. That was a racial slur. And they said to King Nebuchadnezzar, O great king, live forever! O great king, you, O king, have made a decree that everyone who ever hears the sound of the entire musical ensemble shall fall down and worship the golden statue. And whoever does not fall down and worship shall be thrown into the furnace of blazing fire. Now there are these certain Jews who have been appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: namely Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These pay no heed to you, O king. He s attacking his ego. They do not serve your gods; they do not worship the golden statue that you custom made and set up here. And so Nebuchadnezzar was furious and demanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought to the podium, like Let s get them out here, and so they brought them to the king and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you will not serve my gods? And you do not worship this golden statue that I set up? Daniel 3:15 But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire, and who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands? Daniel.3.cassidy 3

4 And so he gives them a second chance. Now listen, when the music starts, you worship the statue that Nebuchadnezzar, your king, made. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be thrown in the furnace of blazing fire, and who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands? Act II: Response Daniel 3:16-18 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. 17 If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. 18 But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up. Boom. Here s their response: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, you don t need to fire up the band. We can answer this right now. We have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, then let him deliver us. This is good. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up. This is one of the noblest expressions of surrender to God that you ll find in print. This is unconditional surrender. We love to sing about unconditional love that we receive from God --- this is unconditional love towards God. This is when Job says, Though he slay me, I will still trust in him. Sometimes in people s lives, when they get to the end of their lives and death is inevitable, sometimes they can say profound things, sometimes they can have regrets in life, those sorts of things, because life has led them to death and all of a sudden they re saying something of merit. That s not what s happening here. This death is escapable. This is optional for them. This is the striking part of this. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they don t have to go along with this. They just bend their knee and this nightmare s over. They say the word, and they maintain their power and their stature and their respect. That s all they have to do. If they don t, they face unimaginable pain that ends up in death. This is what Nebuchadnezzar is saying out there --- choose --- choose life or death. Daniel.3.cassidy 4

5 Now when we ve been talking about this series in Daniel, we ve named it Thrive because here s the thing. We don t want to survive in a difficult, hostile culture; we don t want to live in a difficult, hostile culture --- we want to thrive in a difficult and hostile culture. And here s how. Remember the theme: you don t need a greater faith, you need a greater God. And this, what s happening here is an expression of ordinary people with little bitty faith in a great big God. Oh, he is able, and if he doesn t --- oh, he s able, our God is able, our God is not a mythical thing, it s not wishful thinking, it s not a goldplated, wooden icon sitting out on the desert, O king. Our God is real. He made everything. He is above time and space and history. He rules the nations. It s all his. Oh, our God is able. He is able to save. But if he doesn t, ---they don t serve God because of what they can get out of it. They worship God because of who he is. They trust God because he s worth it. That s it. They trust God because he s worth it. And because of that faith in the bigness of how great God is, that s what we need to have to thrive. Now right there in that sentence, in that phrase, that s the key to courage that leads to freedom. Watch this. Listen. What they re doing right now is the key to courage and to freedom. This is what I was so excited last week to talk to you about. Here s why they re able to say what they said: because somewhere along the journey from Jerusalem up and around the Fertile Crescent to Babylon, they resolved somewhere in their hearts that they would not defile their souls. They would go this far, but no further. And when they decided that, those boys became men. And so in chapter 1, they would not eat the food because that would defile not their body, but their soul, and here we are in chapter 3, they re doing it again. The point is, in a phrase, we won t go past this point, or what? Or what? Well, they ll kill us. Well, let s talk through that. And they did and they said, fine. When that day comes, fine. They re already dead. That s the key. That s where you get courage and the courage leads to freedom. They re already dead. They made that choice, they resolved in their hearts to die already. There s a phrase for that in the New Testament. It s called born again or born from above. Now the hard part is you have to die to be born again. That s where people get hung up. But the idea of a true salvation experience is that you are dead and then you were raised. If you haven t died, you re clinging to stuff. Now I m going to show you a couple of verses that are fairly common to people, and many people have memorized these. These are not self-sacrificing, dramatic verses; these are statements of fact that you re already dead. And now you can move on and be free. Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Daniel.3.cassidy 5

6 Here s one, Galatians 2:20: I have been crucified with Christ --- that sounds like a dead guy --- I have been crucified with Christ, I no longer live. And so now Christ lives in me and the life I live in the body I can live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. That s our journey from Jerusalem to Babylon. I ve been crucified with Christ. Now I can enjoy the freedom of life without fear. Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God --- this is your true and proper worship. Here s another famous passage, Romans 12:1: Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God s mercy, offer your bodies as living and holy sacrifices. Sacrifices are known for being dead. We re going to be a living sacrifice, but we re going to have to stay kind of dead. holy and pleasing to God --- this is your true and proper worship. Actually, the word for true and proper there is it s your reasonable act of worship. This is the key. This is the key to courage. This is how they are able to stand up to this threat. This is how they re so free. If you re dead, you can t be killed. If you don t have anything, nothing can be taken away. So if what motivates you is you re afraid to be alone, well, what if you crucified that? What if it died? Then you ll never be lonely. What if you were consumed with your reputation? But what if you killed it? And put it where it belongs, on some altar somewhere? Then you would be free to live, wouldn t you? Some of you are afraid to ever be embarrassed and so you live safe and you re compliant. What if you killed that? You could be free and you could have fun. Sometimes a lot of life is nothing more than junior high in a repeating cycle, right? We just want to be liked and we want to be with the inner circle, the cool kids. But if you crucify that, if it s a living sacrifice over here, then you can walk into any party and you can say, I can leave. I don t have to stay here. Five minutes, I m in and I m out. I don t have to be part of this club, I don t need to be part of this team, I don t have to have this kind of career path, I won t sell my soul, because my soul belongs to someone. Dead men can t lose. That s why these men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they are in the winners circle because they can t lose. So let me just go back to the story. That s what s motivating them, that s how they have stuff that we think we don t have, but we do. It s the size of their God, and they ve killed their ego, they ve Daniel.3.cassidy 6

7 resolved in their heart. Now in the story, it s funny --- watch, it s almost like the bulletin, the flyer, the outline of the service, is a commencement celebration to the new idol we will worship, it is a dedication service to our pledging allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar and his newest god. Well, at this point, everybody s still there, and Nebuchadnezzar has been humiliated in front of everyone and on the VIP stage. So now we re going to tear up our old bulletin and outline and it s going to become a ceremony to learn that you never mess with Nebuchadnezzar. That s what we re going to see now. Act III: The Furnace Daniel 3:19 Then Nebuchadnezzar was so filled with rage against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that his face was distorted. Verse 19: Then Nebuchadnezzar was so filled with rage against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that his face became distorted. He s twisting, he s absolutely going insane. He gave those guys another chance. He liked them --- remember in the other verses, he says, Okay, look, we re just going to play this song and you re going to --- I know you were just late, that s okay --- but now And they said, Oh, we re not going to do this. We re absolutely not going to do this. And so their unshakable faith snaps this guy and he s gone and crazy and then he says, Turn up the furnace of blazing fire seven times. That s a figure of speech to say, Let s make the walls white hot. I want this thing to cook. And it says that he took his strongest soldiers and had them bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and they carried those men into the furnace of blazing fire. But then it says that the king s command was so urgent and he s screaming at them, Hurry! Hurry up! that the fire gets out of control in the furnace and torches the soldiers. They die and drop Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego on the floor of the furnace, still with their hands and feet bound together. They re just lying there on the floor. Can you stop --- let s not get too far ahead here --- can you stop and think about what they must have felt in that experience. They re lying on the floor, they ve seen this whole thing happen; they ve seen it coming. When they started the construction of this idol, when they started the wood structure, they had the conversation. They started the gold on the outside of it, they said, This is the day that we re going to die. And so they had every expectation and anticipation that they were going to be burned to death. Daniel.3.cassidy 7

8 And they re real people. They have real faith, but they have real fears. And so they re just lying there on the ground. And I m sure Meshach was panting and coughing. And it s like, Why are you coughing? Wait a minute, I m not hot. Are you? No. Why are you coughing, Meshach? I don t know, because I m in a fiery furnace and my lungs should be on fire right now, they should be burning, but they re not. They re not even warm. They re lying on the ground and they re not even warm. And they re no longer tied up. So they re looking at each other like, What is happening? Now listen. This is the best part, because at that moment, when they re lying on the floor and they re realizing their hands are free, down comes a hand that is lit up more brilliant than any of the fires that they re in. And we ve gone from a miracle to a divine encounter. That s what changes everything. It changes from a miracle to a divine encounter --- a fourth man in the furnace. Daniel 3:24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up quickly. He said to his counselors, Was it not three men that we threw bound into the fire? They answered the king, True, O King. 25 He replied, But I see four men unbound, walking in the middle of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the fourth has the appearance of a god. Verse 24: Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished --- trepidation is the word, it means he s afraid. There s an element of fear in this. And so he rose up quickly and he said to the counselors, There were three guys, right, that we threw bound into the fire? Yes, true, O king. But I see four men, unbound, walking in the middle of this fire and they re not hurt and the fourth man appears to be a god. He is not a god he is the God. This is Jesus before Bethlehem. He s in the furnace with them and he s walking around with them. That s just like Jesus, isn t it? Let s spend some time in here. Let s talk. If there ever was a person that was in every moment, he was it. I wonder what he said to them? What do you say in the context of a burning, fiery furnace? What s up? Do you think he was telling them how proud the Father was of their courage and their trust? Of their unconditional surrender to God who s worth it? Do you suppose he told them that this single act of faithfulness will be told about for millennia? Did he tell them about us, that 2600 years from now on the other side of the planet in an entirely different culture in a different language in a children s building called Live Oak, little children will be singing their names and be inspired by them? That the story of this resolve would be motivating people all over the world for centuries to lean into persecution, suffering, and even death? Daniel.3.cassidy 8

9 What did they say to him? They re just walking around. What did they say to him? Oh, they worshiped him --- adoration, gratitude --- they worshiped like they had never worshiped before. And what s funny when you think about it, they resolved in their hearts not to worship that day. They were pulled out of bed, I m not worshiping today, we re all in this; the last thing I m going to do is worship. They get thrown into the fire, they look into his face --- Oh, we re worshiping today! That furnace looked like the end of their time; it was time in eternity. It was nothing that they had ever thought of. It was the greatest moment in their lives and they thought it was the end of their lives. The point is, the furnace is the place where you meet God. It s the place where they met God. It s the place where you and I still meet God. Why the Fourth Man? That s the strangest part of this story. Why the fourth man? And that is the difference between what it says and what it means. Why the fourth man? Three guys get thrown into the fire, handcuffed together, fiery furnace turned to seven, all that, they get up, they walk around --- it s still a great story, a wonderful miracle. Nebuchadnezzar is still going to freak out and change everything in his view of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the God that they serve. So it s not necessary unless there s some other lesson in it. And this is the lesson. This is what we re supposed to learn from Jesus showing up in this blazing furnace of fire --- that sometimes the Lord will save you from a furnace, and sometimes He will save you in the furnace. These men were hoping that God would save them from the furnace. That was not the plan this day. It was that He would save them and meet them in the furnace. And you know what? God is still sending out invitations. Jesus is saying, Come and meet me in the furnace. And we ll pray, saying that we want Him to save us from it, but he ll say, No, I want to meet you in the furnace. He s a furnace kind of guy. And if you follow Him wholeheartedly and are devoted to Him for who He is and that He s worth it, He s going to take you to scary, dangerous, foreboding places and they will seem like the worst place on earth to be, and they will be the safest place to be, they will be the most glorious place to be, and you will thank Him for the adventure of a lifetime. He is still sending invitations to people to meet Him in the furnace. I bet He has an invitation for you. But you have to keep following into the darkness, into the fear, into the place that only a big God can conquer --- you ll meet Him there. Let s go back to the story. This is funny because it goes from This is a great dedication service to the allegiance to the king, Nebuchadnezzar, and to his god of the week. No, no, this service --- Daniel.3.cassidy 9

10 stay up here on the stage, all you VIP s, because this is a lesson about the wrath of King Nebuchadnezzar. Okay, tear up that order of service. It s a worship service to the only God of the universe, the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Daniel 3: 26, 27 Nebuchadnezzar then approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here! So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire. 27 And the satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king s counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men; the hair of their heads was not singed, their tunics were not harmed, and not even the smell of fire came from them. It s crazy what happens --- look at verse 26. Keep in mind that this is Nebuchadnezzar, it s the same person. Nebuchadnezzar then approached the door of the furnace of the blazing fire and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here! So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire. And listen, everybody s there in all the stadium seats, right? And the satraps, and the prefects, the governors, and all the king s counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men; not a hair on their heads was even singed, their tunics were not even harmed, there was not even a smell of fire that came from them. You guys have sat around a campfire --- in ten minutes you want to throw your clothes away because they smell of smoke --- not even a smell. There s a list of all these things that the guys were wearing, and the point was in Aramaic the word tunic is probably a chest covering, it probably had something written on it, it would be like a t-shirt that said, Some crazy king threw me into a fiery furnace and all I had was this lousy t-shirt. And so that s the point of that. Daniel 3:28 Nebuchadnezzar said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him. They disobeyed the king s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God. Daniel.3.cassidy 10

11 But verse 28, the best part: Nebuchadnezzar said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, because he sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him. They disobeyed the king s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God. He is bragging about them disobeying him in front of all the VIP s and the people. There s a guy who didn t even care that his strongest soldiers died because he was in the middle of a tantrum, and now he can t contain himself. Now he s going to write a new law. Daniel 3:29, 30 Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that utters blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins; for there is no other god who is able to deliver in this way. 30 Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon. Therefore I make a new decree: --- Okay, trying to keep up here. Any people, nation, or language that utters blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses shall be laid in ruins; There you go. And there s no other god who is able to deliver this way. Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon. They didn t get restored; they got promoted. Rest of Their Lives Remember how this story started? And here we go again. Remember how it ends? What was life like for these three men the rest of their lives? This is the last time you ll hear from them, they won t be heard about again. I mean, can you imagine, what would that be like? I wonder this, because we probably have these thoughts. How easy would it have been to miss this? How easy? All you had to do was say the word and we can move on. Just bend the knee just halfway down, it s okay, we get it, and you ll keep your place and position, you ll keep your structure and your authority. And they d miss the moment of their lives. I wonder if they thought, Wow, I was almost going to miss a date with the fourth man. What is life like growing old when this happens to you? Can you imagine these guys getting together when they re in their eighties on the anniversary. They probably actually go out to an old rusted icon and they tell the story, don t they? They wear their t-shirts that their wives had been trying to throw away for all these years, they sit around, We were young, we defied the king! Remember the time when Meshach was hacking and coughing like his lungs had smoke in it? Yeah, shut up. We bring it up every Daniel.3.cassidy 11

12 year. Do you remember when you saw his hand? Do you remember when you looked into his face? Oh, yeah. Do you know why they would tell the story again and again? Because friends, if you spend any time in the presence of the furnace, if you ve gone through this place that s dark and scary and foreboding and there s no guarantee you ll be safe, and you ve trusted that God would be God whether He saved you or not, and you would not bend the knee, you would not utter the word. If you ve been to that furnace, friends, you re marked. It marks you. And then it redefines you. Application Let s talk about that. Let s talk about going to the furnace. It s the last thing anybody wants, it s the best place on earth. Sometimes God delivers us from the furnace, sometimes God delivers us in the furnace. This is the problem with the American church. This is the problem. The greatest danger is that we have a furnace avoidance default program. We do whatever we can to stay away from it. Listen to our prayers: Dear God, keep us safe and comfortable and financially secure and free from pain. Could you make my life downhill and smooth and then I could drift off into death while I m sleeping during a good dream? I know you have a wonderful plan for my life --- there s mine! And God s calling us to a dangerous life, the life of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, where we learn to like the taste of our own blood. Try and picture this --- it s kind of a weird thing. God has a calendar --- I know He wouldn t need a calendar, He wouldn t forget anything, and He s everywhere already --- but what if God had a calendar and on that day, on the commencement day, the big celebration day, God writes: Meet Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the furnace. And what if they miss the appointment? Because they just kind of genuflected and went back to work. What if on His invitation to you, it says your name on His calendar and it says, Meet her in the furnace. You don t want to miss that appointment. Don t miss that appointment. So here s the challenge of this passage. It s dangerous. But you stop asking for pampering in your prayers; you stop asking for comfort and certainty and security and an admirable reputation, and you say instead, I want to do what God wants. And I want to go anywhere that He wants. Friends, we are made in the image of God, we were meant for so much greater things, and we are ships that sail built for speed, but we keep on picking up barnacles along the way. It s slowing us down. We re studying this book to say, Man, there s got to be more to life. There s got to be more to God. He has to be bigger than this. And we have to pray that. Pray this, pray the negative thing: God, heal me from my addictions to fear Daniel.3.cassidy 12

13 and comfort and security and significance and put me in a place where I can show myself and other people the greatness of who You are and what You can do. And if You don t, You re still worth it. I will obey because You re worth it. You could show up at work. People come to me all the time and say, Can you pray that I can get a better place to work? I work with fallen, difficult, cranky, miserable people. And I say, Yeah, me too. And they say that about me. So what if maybe that s where He s going to meet you and maybe you re supposed to learn discretion and love and tolerance and how to know when to speak and when not to. Maybe God s calling you to a furnace of service. He will take you to a place where He will use your gifts in ways that scare you. The furnace could be in that context of serving the poor in some way. Personally, for me, my experience was in generosity --- just giving, okay? My idol was financial security and that s a great idol because it s the idol that keeps you giving. You can always have more in the bank, right? You re never safe enough. And truth be told, I married someone that took me to the furnace and I was holding her hand, but let me tell you how it ended --- that s a better story. That owned me. I feared that. It motivated my choices and then I killed it. And I went from being a non-giving person to a person that gave out of duty because I was told to and He s worth it, to being a generous giver and the goal is that the only way our finances make sense is if there s a God in heaven, if He chooses, and now I m free. That was crucified with Christ. Honestly, if we bag everybody up, we go out on 360 and 183, right there at the peak of that hill, and somebody builds a giant gold statue and we re all going to meet there and we re supposed to bow down and worship that, when the music starts get on your knees --- there s no one that s going to do that. You guys are great, you re not going to. But here s the thing. In this culture, in this time, in this country, the golden statue is comfort. The golden statue is safety. The golden statue is ease and security and reputation and we ll bow to that. We ll pay homage to that. Can you think of anybody who made the hall of fame in Hebrews 11 that didn t suffer? How do you become a hero? You take a punch. When did Jesus say, I am God and I have a wonderful plan for your life and you re going to love it. A steady job, a mate that always says you re right, living happily ever after --- He never said that. He said, You follow me and you will be on an adventure and you will be introduced to a God that is spellbinding and is unimaginable. And you ll have outrageous joy and you ll get into trouble. You will get into trouble. And since that invitation he sent meant 2000 years ago I ll meet you in the furnace, people have been following Him into that furnace and his disciples, they followed Him into sacrificial giving, into His definition of what real community was, and in His love for the church. They followed Him into suffering, they followed Him even into death. Daniel.3.cassidy 13

14 We are here today in this room, in this pampered, air conditioned, climate controlled worship center that is beautiful --- no apologies. But we re here because people over the years have made a decision on their day to go into that furnace. Today s your day. Today s my day. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they had their day. Daniel had his day. Paul, Peter --- they had their day. This is our day. This is our day to show that we will not bend our knee to comfort and control or safety and security. We will worship only the one true God. And if He doesn t, He still is. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, You are watching? no, You are there. Why? That s where He hangs out. Let s pray negatively that we d quit being spoiled kids and let s pray positively that we would be warriors looking for a furnace. Lord Jesus, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, You are there, You are with me, Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. Lord, would You please help me quit being such a pampered little boy that wants comfort and control and safety and security and for all of life to add up outside of this furnace. And Lord, I pray that You would make us, because of how we perceive who You are and what You ve done as the great God that exists --- that we would kill these things that should have been crucified with You long ago, that should have been left on the sacrificial slab --- so that we might be free to demonstrate to other people the greatness of the God that we serve. Lord, I ask that you would give us the opportunity soon to walk through a furnace if it means holding Your hand. You are making an appointment. Don t let us miss it. Let us be a church of Shadrachs, Meshachs, and Abednegos, of Ruths and Esthers, a church that s courageous, a church that thrives in a crazy world. And all God s people said, Amen. Daniel.3.cassidy 14