SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, Grace Church, and good morning to all of you who are joining us online.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible or a Bible app, I encourage you to open it up to Daniel chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: The next two weeks, this week and next week, will be in the book of Daniel, so you can just mark that off in your Bible if you'd like to.
SPEAKER_00: We are continuing our series this morning called Obedient Faith, where we are diving deep into the idea that because God is faithful, we can confidently obey him.
SPEAKER_00: It's not because of our ability to be right, it's not because of our ability to be faithful to God, but because he is faithful to us, we can confidently obey him in every aspect of life.
SPEAKER_00: Now I'm sure that I'm the only one this has ever happened to.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think this is a common experience, we'll find out.
SPEAKER_00: But there are some mornings when you wake up and you just know that the algorithm of life is against you.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It's an internal mindset.
SPEAKER_00: It's like the essence of the world has spoken.
SPEAKER_00: Things are not going well for you today.
SPEAKER_00: And it's like no matter what you try to do, whether it's at work or with your neighbors or with friends, it's like the wheels are falling off of every single circumstance you touch.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing can absolutely go right no matter how hard you try.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's a reason that that happens, and there's a reason that that's a common experience.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's actually a promise of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this promise, John 16, 33.
SPEAKER_00: It's my least favorite promise in the Bible that Jesus makes people.
SPEAKER_00: In this world, you will have trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Like in this world, you will have trouble.
SPEAKER_00: There are going to be days when things happen in your life that you did not have any hand in, but all of a sudden, as a result, everything is a total dumpster fire.
SPEAKER_00: And you have a dumpster fire day, and there's nothing you can do about it.
SPEAKER_00: Everything, no matter what you try, it just keeps burning to the ground.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody ever had that experience?
SPEAKER_00: Or am I the only one?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Dumpster fire days are a real thing.
SPEAKER_00: Dumpster fire years are a real thing.
SPEAKER_00: In this life, you will have trouble.
SPEAKER_00: It is a promise of Jesus, and it's my least favorite promise that he gives us.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you what trials are.
SPEAKER_00: Trials are circumstances allowed by God, often caused by the sin or actions of others that call us to a deeper dependence on him.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Trials are things that God allows in your life.
SPEAKER_00: They're often caused by the sin or actions of others, and they're specific to deepen your dependence on him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this week and next week, I'm looking at two specific kinds of trials.
SPEAKER_00: The first are external trials.
SPEAKER_00: These are trials brought on really truly by a fully outside force, like the government or an HOA or something like that.
SPEAKER_00: Let that sink in for those of you who live in one of those.
SPEAKER_00: The second kind of a trial are trials that are birthed from our own internal sin or flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And so we have external trials today, internal trials next week.
SPEAKER_00: And I really want you to come back and listen to both these messages.
SPEAKER_00: But here's the other half of that promise.
SPEAKER_00: And if Jesus just said, in this world you will have troubles, and he left it there, I'd feel rather hopeless.
SPEAKER_00: But he never leaves you without hope.
SPEAKER_00: He tells you the rest of the promise in John 16, 33, but take heart, I have overcome the world.
SPEAKER_00: Our hope, our peace is not in our ability to solve the trials of life, but to deeply depend on Jesus, who's already overcome the trial, and to walk with him through the hardships of this world, whether they are brought on by others or brought on by ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And so this morning we're in Daniel chapter 3, where we're going to read the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
SPEAKER_00: These are three guys who found themselves in the middle of a literal furnace fire.
SPEAKER_00: And God had to walk with them through it.
SPEAKER_00: And this trial was not brought on by their own actions.
SPEAKER_00: It was brought on by the actions of other people around them.
SPEAKER_00: In this particular instance, the pride of King Nebuchadnezzar is the situation that brought upon their trial.
SPEAKER_00: And they have to choose.
SPEAKER_00: They have to make a real important decision.
SPEAKER_00: Am I going to follow the law of the land, or am I going to participate in civil disobedience because God's moral law would be violated by following the law set by Nebuchadnezzar?
SPEAKER_00: Now, 600 years before Jesus would be born, Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful man alive.
SPEAKER_00: His Nebuchadnezzar II, you can read about him throughout various historical annals, but this man was an incredible leader and conqueror and architect.
SPEAKER_00: He formed pretty much all of the Western Middle East in that time, specifically in modern day Iraq, around Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: He was a true entrepreneur and a true general and a true arrogant king.
SPEAKER_00: He just had all of the right blend of what makes a powerful political leader.
SPEAKER_00: And he used it to erect a 90-foot golden image of himself.
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to read that in Daniel chapter 3, verses 4 through 6.
SPEAKER_00: When you see this golden image, he had told everybody.
SPEAKER_00: As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, the flute, the zither, the lyre, the harp, the pipe, and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I would encourage you this week to read Daniel's chapter 1 through 7, because when you get to Daniel chapter 3, you might be tempted to ask the question Why would Nebuchadnezzar, just seemingly out of nowhere, erect a 90-foot golden statue of himself?
SPEAKER_00: And it's because in Daniel chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream.
SPEAKER_00: And Daniel interprets that dream to say there is a giant statue, the head of the statue is gold, and oh King Nebuchadnezzar, that's your empire.
SPEAKER_00: So Nebuchadnezzar has this concept in his mind that his empire is a golden empire in the eyes of God.
SPEAKER_00: So he erects this giant statue because he's a man who's conquered many different people.
SPEAKER_00: Now in the ancient Near East, they lived in a polytheistic culture, which means there were many different gods, many different tribes, many different communities, many different politics and cultures.
SPEAKER_00: When a vast empire conquers that many people with that many different political and theological ideas, it is an environment ripe for conflict.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in order for an empire to maintain control over their society, they have to create things larger than the rest of their individual identities so that there's a common identity or a common act that we all follow to create unity.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a common thing throughout history.
SPEAKER_00: Dictators have been doing this for a very long time.
SPEAKER_00: They use outside means, oftentimes they'll use religious means or other cultural means to force loyalty among their constituents.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we read Daniel chapter 3, you don't look at the statue as being really an idol or a god.
SPEAKER_00: He blends these two things together, and he says, You'll bow down and worship this one unifying deity so that all of us have unity despite our differences.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't worship the unifying golden image of myself, what happens?
SPEAKER_00: You die.
SPEAKER_00: That's coercion at the highest of levels.
SPEAKER_00: Worship the deity or worship the empire, which is this is the image of the empire, or you will die.
SPEAKER_00: Now we have modern days examples of this.
SPEAKER_00: If you look and study the Soviet Union under Stalin, they would oftentimes put up pictures of Stalin and force people to create acts of loyalty to the image of Stalin.
SPEAKER_00: If you look at North Korea under Kim, the Kim dynasty, they still do this.
SPEAKER_00: They force loyalty to this man.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, his body, uh Kim Jong il, is actually still on display in public so that people can come venerate the body of Kim as an act of loyalty to the nation state.
SPEAKER_00: It's this weird pseudo-blend of religious practice and coercion for the sake of unity.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what happens: the government has created a law, and this law now violates the revealed will of God for Shadrach, Bishiach, and Abednego.
SPEAKER_00: They have the Torah, they have the Old Testament scriptures, and if you know your Bible and you look at Exodus chapter 20, you'll see the very first two of the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: Here they are, you ready?
SPEAKER_00: You shall have no other gods before me.
SPEAKER_00: You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on earth below or in the waters below, and you shall not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.
SPEAKER_00: The first two of the Ten Commandments, the highest law in Jewish moral theology and culture, is now being asked to be violated by the king of Babylon, by Nebuchadnezzar himself.
SPEAKER_00: And so, friends, I want to introduce you to a really important historical and biblical truth.
SPEAKER_00: Every human-centric system, political, cultural, or institutional, will eventually ask you to disobey God in order to belong.
SPEAKER_00: Every single human-centric system at some point in time in its development is going to violate God's morally revealed will in order for you to change and behave differently if you will belong.
SPEAKER_00: Governments in political systems, they may threaten death or persecution if you choose to deny doing what God tells you to do.
SPEAKER_00: This right now is happening up in Canada.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been following the news at all, the Canadian government has made it illegal for Christian churches to preach out of very specific text in the book of Romans and other books that talk about human sexuality.
SPEAKER_00: They've labeled it hate speech.
SPEAKER_00: And so pastors right now in Canada have to decide: am I going to preach the whole council of God's word, or will I have to limit some of the things that I have to preach and be sent to prison because of it?
SPEAKER_00: This is happening just a couple hundred miles north of us.
SPEAKER_00: So government systems can create laws that say either you will comply or you'll face persecution.
SPEAKER_00: What are you going to do?
SPEAKER_00: You're going to follow God, you're going to follow the government?
SPEAKER_00: How about cultural systems?
SPEAKER_00: They have their own threats.
SPEAKER_00: The world in which we live, pop culture has this lovely little thing called cancel culture, where if you want to be public with your Christian faith in a primarily secular world that does not value Christian morality, you can be canceled for speaking the truth of God's word in a public format, whether it's online or in person.
SPEAKER_00: If those of you are in the corporate world, you understand that there is such a thing as corporate stalemating, there is real job loss that can happen, where they don't necessarily make you sign a statement of political compliance, but there's a culture of compliance.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you fail to comply with the cultural standard of the workplace, even though that cultural standard violates God's will and God's law, and if you were to vocalize your own opinions on morality, you could be stalemated in your job.
SPEAKER_00: They can hold you right where you're at.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get invited to the inner circle, they don't let you elevate anymore inside the company, and they might find ways to just push you out.
SPEAKER_00: You ever heard of a PIP?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they use it for things like that.
SPEAKER_00: How about social media pylons?
SPEAKER_00: Boy, this is a little more recent and close to home.
SPEAKER_00: Where a mass mob of ugly internet trolls, people with no authority or real knowledge, they collectively choose to identify one person and to destroy the reputation of someone who violated their moral code.
SPEAKER_00: And as a result, if you are somebody in the internet sphere or you're watching this happen, if you don't affirm what they are doing in terms of morally destroying the reputation of another person in a context where they have no information about it, you're now the bad guy because you didn't join the cause.
SPEAKER_00: Even though the way they're behaving is 100% unlike what Christ tells his followers to behave like.
SPEAKER_00: Look, when governments, corporations, communities, or social movement require that you violate God's revealed will in order to succeed or belong, you have entered a trial.
SPEAKER_00: And it doesn't take long to find yourself in one of these circumstances.
SPEAKER_00: You might wake up tomorrow morning and go to work, and all of a sudden your workplace is gonna have a new policy.
SPEAKER_00: And that policy, or whatever it is your your boss says that we're all now going to comply to, feels actively against your conscience because you understand God's revealed will in a form of integrity.
SPEAKER_00: And now you have a trial upon you.
SPEAKER_00: What am I going to do in light of how the outside circumstances have changed and how am I going to live to honor God?
SPEAKER_00: Now, this isn't new for God's people.
SPEAKER_00: It's been happening for millennia, as you can see in this story.
SPEAKER_00: It happened to the early church in Acts chapter 5, when the church was just started in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: A couple of months after the church was growing and the gospel of Jesus was being taught, all the religious leaders arrested all of the apostles.
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of the apostles was arrested.
SPEAKER_00: And they were brought into a room and they were told specifically, you can't preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You have to stop this teaching.
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't, there will be consequences.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what the apostles tell the religious leaders who've arrested them.
SPEAKER_00: Look, you can do what you want, but we must obey God rather than men.
SPEAKER_00: There is a point in time when every follower of Jesus is going to have to choose.
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to obey God's revealed will?
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to obey God's moral character and code?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you going to compromise for the sake of belonging?
SPEAKER_00: And I want to take you to these men in Acts 5.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to notice if you ever read Acts 5, they did not form a large protest against the leaders.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't block the streets and form an angry mob.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't fight the institution.
SPEAKER_00: They simply didn't conform.
SPEAKER_00: There was non-compliance on their behalf.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
SPEAKER_00: They did not conform.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't organize a protest.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't petition the king.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't try to get all the Jewish people in all of Babylon to come before the king and say, oh, king, you must change the law.
SPEAKER_00: This is against what we believe.
SPEAKER_00: They simply didn't conform.
SPEAKER_00: They did not bow.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's what I want all of us in this church to understand if the United States continues to go in the direction it's going and things change and there is real enemies against us, political, cultural, and social noncompliance, if compliance breaks God's revealed will, it is not rebellion, it is faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: We have a moral responsibility and an edict from God on high that when God's moral law is violated and you're being legally forced or organizationally forced or even societally forced to comply, you do not have to.
SPEAKER_00: Because an act of noncompliance is an act of real faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: But if you are non-compliant, you will enter a trial.
SPEAKER_00: Be aware of that.
SPEAKER_00: This doesn't come without consequence.
SPEAKER_00: There's consequence for being non-compliant when the world wants you to do something and you're refusing to bend to their will.
SPEAKER_00: You will face moments at work, at school, in your relationships, and in society where they're going to say, you must be this or do this or say this, and if you say no, you are now going to face a fiery furnace.
SPEAKER_00: Now here's what's unique about people who choose to stand up to this kind of opposition through obedience to God, but civil disobedience to government or to organizations.
SPEAKER_00: Obedience to God will oftentimes bring both influence and enemies.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens.
SPEAKER_00: God does raise up people who are obedient to him and faithful to him as examples for other believers around them to be inspired to the same kind of obedience.
SPEAKER_00: But when that happens, it brings both influence and enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the group of enemies that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had, their name was the Chaldeans.
SPEAKER_00: You're introduced to the Chaldeans in Daniel chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: It's a group of wise men.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes this word, the Chaldeans, is translated as astrologists, but they were wise men, they were divinors, they were people who were actively involved in occult-like practices.
SPEAKER_00: And the Chaldeans were summoned in Daniel chapter 2 to help Nebuchadnezzar interpret this dream that he had.
SPEAKER_00: It was a dream that disturbed Nebuchadnezzar, and he wanted an answer.
SPEAKER_00: But he gave the Chaldeans an impossible task.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I will not tell you my dream.
SPEAKER_00: What I want you to do to prove to me that you have real power is I want you to tell me the dream that I had, and I want you to give me the interpretation.
SPEAKER_00: Now, these astrologists, these Chaldeans, they went before the king.
SPEAKER_00: They said, Oh king, no one can do this.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody can tell you the dream you had.
SPEAKER_00: We can't be inside your mind.
SPEAKER_00: But if you tell us the dream, we can't interpret it.
SPEAKER_00: And he refused.
SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar therefore said, I'm gonna kill off all of the wise men, all the astronomers, all the astrologists, because they can't tell me my dream and its interpretation.
SPEAKER_00: But Daniel, being a young Jewish man who knew the scriptures, knew certain things about God.
SPEAKER_00: He knew that God did give people the ability to interpret dreams.
SPEAKER_00: He knew that God did deliver people from very difficult trials.
SPEAKER_00: He knew that God did speak to people and give them prophetic words to display in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel knew this.
SPEAKER_00: So he gathers his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Benny, if you remember the old cartoon.
SPEAKER_00: He gets them together and they begin to say, Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray that God would reveal to us the mystery of Nebuchadnezzar's dream and the interpretation of the dream so that God will spare our life.
SPEAKER_00: Because Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they were a part of the Judean council.
SPEAKER_00: The ruling class was brought from Judea into Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: They were a part of this wise man group.
SPEAKER_00: They would have been killed.
SPEAKER_00: And so, in an act of faith, because they know who God is, they began to pray and seek answers.
SPEAKER_00: And God delivers.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to listen to Psalm 51:15.
SPEAKER_00: This is a command of God through the psalmist David.
SPEAKER_00: Call upon me in your day of trouble, I will deliver you, and you will glorify me.
SPEAKER_00: This is a command.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Daniel and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego, if they failed to call on God for deliverance, they would have been in disobedience.
SPEAKER_00: It's a unique reality of God.
SPEAKER_00: God, for those who are followers of God, he says, Listen, in your times of trial, in your times of trouble, if you call on me, I will deliver you for the sake of my own glory.
SPEAKER_00: So Daniel and his three friends, they pray out to God, they ask God for deliverance.
SPEAKER_00: And I love how Daniel, once he receives the answer from God, approaches the king.
SPEAKER_00: See, King Nebuchadnezzar couldn't possibly understand how Daniel came into this information.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what Daniel says in Daniel 27, or 227.
SPEAKER_00: O king, there's no wise man, enchanter, magician, or divener who can explain to the king the mystery that he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries.
SPEAKER_00: This was Daniel's time to shine.
SPEAKER_00: He could have taken full credit for himself that he just had this mysterious power, this incredible ability to interpret and understand dreams, and yet he doesn't seize it.
SPEAKER_00: What does he do?
SPEAKER_00: God delivered him from his trial by giving him the answer to King Nebuchadnezzar's question, and as a result, he points King Nebuchadnezzar to God Almighty.
SPEAKER_00: And when Nebuchadnezzar receives the interpretation and the dream, he was so overwhelmed in Daniel 2 that he falls face down before Daniel and he declares to Daniel, truly, there is no other God but your God.
SPEAKER_00: When God does amazing and miraculous forms of deliverance, he doesn't do that just because he loves you.
SPEAKER_00: He does that because he will receive glory from it.
SPEAKER_00: God is always looking to display his power, his authority, his majesty, and his faithfulness to the world around him.
SPEAKER_00: That if people were just to follow him, all of that blessing, all of that security could be theirs.
SPEAKER_00: It's a part of what God has available for them.
SPEAKER_00: So he looks for opportunities to display his majesty and power.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you are in the middle of a trial, and that trial was not brought on by you, but is brought on by outside circumstances, when you are obedient to Psalm 15, if you cry out to God for deliverance, he is faithful to deliver if and when you are willing to give him the glory.
SPEAKER_00: If God delivers you from a trial, it is intentional and it gives you the means to glorify God and display his majesty before a watching and unbelieving world.
SPEAKER_00: Your story is that God showed up.
SPEAKER_00: God's story is that he was faithful.
SPEAKER_00: People need to hear about the faithfulness of our God.
SPEAKER_00: Why do you follow God?
SPEAKER_00: Why do you follow Jesus?
SPEAKER_00: What is it?
SPEAKER_00: Just so you get out of hell free card?
SPEAKER_00: Is that why?
SPEAKER_00: I've been saved from God's judgment.
SPEAKER_00: I said yes to Jesus just for that.
SPEAKER_00: God's redeeming mercy and compassion and forgiveness is wonderful that he saves us from the wrath of God Almighty for our own sin.
SPEAKER_00: That's that is wonderful.
SPEAKER_00: But God is far, uh God expresses his faithfulness in so many other ways inside of our life.
SPEAKER_00: One of the joys of being a follower of Jesus is that when trials come upon your life, you get to deepen your dependence on God and see more of his faithfulness to you.
SPEAKER_00: It is the joy of every believer.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego for Daniel's faithfulness, they were elevated to a position of influence.
SPEAKER_00: Inside the nation of Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: They were the third largest command inside the city of Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: So they were promoted by God in Babylon for their obedience.
SPEAKER_00: But as a result, they have real enemies.
SPEAKER_00: That's where you get Daniel chapter 3, verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: These Chaldeans, by the way, they should be so grateful to God Almighty because when God gave Daniel the answer to the dream, it also saved their lives.
SPEAKER_00: But instead of being grateful that God spared their lives through Daniel, they're mad about it.
SPEAKER_00: They're mad that Daniel gets promoted, that his friends get promoted, and as a result, they're going to come on the attack against Daniel and these three guys.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what they say to the king O king, there are some Jews whom you've set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Abeshach, and Abednego, who pay no attention to you, your majesty.
SPEAKER_00: They neither serve your gods nor worship the image of gold that you have set up.
SPEAKER_00: The Chaldeans now are using the law of the land as a weapon.
SPEAKER_00: These three guys broke no moral law.
SPEAKER_00: They were not guilty of any legal or civil sins except for breaking one law of noncompliance around this false deity.
SPEAKER_00: But their enemies took a political decree and they turned it into a legal trap because they wanted them gone.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, there's going to be times in your life, and I hope that you get to experience this, and I'll tell you why in a minute, when your obedience to God will bring you more influence.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that to be true.
SPEAKER_00: I see it all throughout scripture.
SPEAKER_00: It brings you influence in your family, or bringing you influence in your community, maybe influence even regionally.
SPEAKER_00: But God's when you're obedient to God, he will raise people up so that they can be objects of examples of faithfulness to other believers around them.
SPEAKER_00: But that same obedience where God then elevates you as a result will cause actual enemies to come against you.
SPEAKER_00: And when those enemies come against you, you will know it.
SPEAKER_00: Because it feels very specific and intentional, and you're asking yourself the question, like, what did I ever do to deserve this?
SPEAKER_00: Why are they coming after me?
SPEAKER_00: They're coming after you because the enemy of God sees you as an example of God's of being faithful to God and his blessing in your life, and he's going to try to take you down to discredit the name of God inside of whatever context you find yourself in.
SPEAKER_00: So if you are living faithfully and you have enemies, you're really in good company.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel had enemies, Shadrach, Beshach, and Abednego had enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Elijah had enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Paul had enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, and Jesus had enemies.
SPEAKER_00: When you are faithfully obedient to God, yeah, it might increase your influence in a really positive way for his glory, but will absolutely bring enemies into your life who are looking for ways to take you down.
SPEAKER_00: So if you are looking to become a universally popular person, very loved and accepted by all people, following Jesus is not the path.
SPEAKER_00: If you choose to follow after Jesus, you will find yourself opposed again and again by the world in which you live, because you have a real enemy who hates God Almighty, whose strongest desire in the world is to discredit and defame the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So do not be surprised if obedience to God and being faithful to his will find yourself in some socially, professionally, or politically difficult positions.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why would I be willing to obey God?
SPEAKER_00: This is the real question.
SPEAKER_00: Why am I gonna obey God?
SPEAKER_00: It's so easy, by the way, to simply tip your head to the golden statue.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it doesn't cost you much, right?
SPEAKER_00: The music plays, you're walking through the city streets, and all you gotta do is look in the direction of the statue and say, That's all you gotta do.
SPEAKER_00: Give a little nod and then keep going about your business.
SPEAKER_00: And you can function in the world around you, and nobody will think differently about you.
SPEAKER_00: What in the world gives you the confidence to obey God when trials come?
SPEAKER_00: Here's where it comes from.
SPEAKER_00: Our confidence to obey God through trials is rooted in a healthy fear of Him.
SPEAKER_00: Who do you fear, God or man?
SPEAKER_00: Who has more power, God or man?
SPEAKER_00: Who is the one who has the very uh control over the breath in your lungs, God or man?
SPEAKER_00: It certainly isn't man, although they like to flex that power.
SPEAKER_00: The only one with authority over the very breath in your lungs is God Almighty.
SPEAKER_00: And so Nebuchadnezzar summons these guys before him.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Guys, if you just tip your hat to the idol, I'll forgive you and you can go.
SPEAKER_00: And I love this statement of arrogance from King Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel 3.15.
SPEAKER_00: He looks at these three guys and he says to them, And who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands?
SPEAKER_00: That's a statement of pride.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Nobody's more powerful than me.
SPEAKER_00: You can't there you can't be delivered from this except by my own word.
SPEAKER_00: And man, governments and societies and cultural institutions, they love to try to tell you that you have no way forward unless they give it to you.
SPEAKER_00: That's not at all what the Bible teaches.
SPEAKER_00: Your way forward is through God and God alone.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to how they respond.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel 3, 16 through 18.
SPEAKER_00: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego reply to the king, O King Nebuchadnezzar, we don't need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.
SPEAKER_00: If we're thrown into the blazing furnace, the God who is uh the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from your majesty's hand.
SPEAKER_00: But even if he does not, we want you to know your majesty, we will not serve your gods or worship the image that you have set up.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to hear this phrase, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But even if he does not.
SPEAKER_00: Are we obedient to God?
SPEAKER_00: Because God promises that he will deliver you from every aspect of trial you ever face?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you obedient to God because he's God?
SPEAKER_00: His position of authority, sovereignty, his grace that he's bestowed upon you in your life, the fact that you're breathing today, created in this world.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, you obey God when the world tells you not to, if you have a healthy view of who God is.
SPEAKER_00: This statement right here, even if he does not, that is not a statement of transaction.
SPEAKER_00: That's a statement of conviction.
SPEAKER_00: These men believed that God was worthy of obeying, regardless of if God rescues them.
SPEAKER_00: They feared God more than they feared man.
SPEAKER_00: They understood his majesty, they understood his holiness, his power, his mercy.
SPEAKER_00: They understood that God has revealed himself as the King of kings and Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_00: And they've experienced God's salvation miraculously once before.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Daniel chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: They were already on the hook for dying for something they could no control over, but God miraculously delivered them.
SPEAKER_00: That experience with God's deliverance and their faithfulness gave them the courage to stand before the king the next time and say, We're still gonna follow the lot, follow the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Even if he doesn't show up and deliver us because he's worthy of being followed.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let me tell you about transactional obedience.
SPEAKER_00: Transactional obedience to an authority in your life, in our life, is an immature response to authority.
SPEAKER_00: It's what I see in my children.
SPEAKER_00: When I go home and the house is a mess, like it was yesterday, and I tell my kids to clean the house as their father, as the person that they should respect and have a healthy fear of, I tell them to clean the house.
SPEAKER_00: And their response to me, at least one of their responses to me, was I will clean my room if.
SPEAKER_00: What makes you think there's an if in this conversation?
SPEAKER_00: I will clean my room if.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, that's that's transactional obedience.
SPEAKER_00: It's an immature response to authority.
SPEAKER_00: The only thing I ever want to hear from my children when I say, hey, go clean your room is yes, Dad.
SPEAKER_00: That's all I want to hear.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to argue with them.
SPEAKER_00: They know it needs to happen.
SPEAKER_00: It's a responsibility of our household.
SPEAKER_00: This is the thing that I should be hearing from my children.
SPEAKER_00: And I do more often than not, they're great kids.
SPEAKER_00: But occasionally, I'll get an if.
SPEAKER_00: I'll do that if.
SPEAKER_00: Transactional obedience.
SPEAKER_00: It's an immature response to authority.
SPEAKER_00: And it reveals something about our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of us live in a world of what we consider to be tractional obedience with God.
SPEAKER_00: If you have a mindset of transactional obedience with God, it's an immature mindset.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you really knew who God was, if you really understood the power of his words, if you understand the depth of his love and the salvation you've received in Christ, when you know the totality of what God has gone through to redeem you and rescue you, we move out of transactional obedience and into faithful obedience.
SPEAKER_00: I've been in these situations.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen it in my own heart.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen it in the hearts of other believers.
SPEAKER_00: When a trial comes on our life, we start to argue with God if we're followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We start to argue with him and say, Lord, I why is this happening right now?
SPEAKER_00: I do all the things.
SPEAKER_00: I faithfully go to church, I serve in my church, I even give financially, I'm faithful to my wife, I treat my kids with respect and dignity, I give them boundaries and guidelines.
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing all the things the way that your word says.
SPEAKER_00: Why am I going through this trial?
SPEAKER_00: It's not fair.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, it's more than fair.
SPEAKER_00: And it's an act of love.
SPEAKER_00: God uses trials to deepen your dependence on Him.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to depend more fully on Him, to be more in love with Him, to experience the greatness of His faithfulness.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to what James 1, 2 through 4 says.
SPEAKER_00: Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters.
SPEAKER_00: Whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, and let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
SPEAKER_00: God's desire is to mature your heart in the kind of love that you have for Him.
SPEAKER_00: Because the more mature your love, the more faithful your obedience.
SPEAKER_00: God loves you more than you could possibly know.
SPEAKER_00: Trials in your life are not an indicator that you've necessarily done something wrong or that God's mad at you and He's putting you in this context as a form of discipline.
SPEAKER_00: Trials are oftentimes given to you to help you just deepen your dependence on who God is.
SPEAKER_00: And here's what'll happen: as God delivers you and God walks with you through the fires of your life, when your fear of the Lord finally outweighs the fear of man, you will stand when everyone else bows.
SPEAKER_00: How this works.
SPEAKER_00: And as a result, I'll do what God tells me to do.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel 3, 24 through 25.
SPEAKER_00: Then the king Nebuchadnezzar leapt to his feet as he threw these men into the fire, and he leapt to his feet in amazement.
SPEAKER_00: He asked his advisors, his advisors, weren't there three men tied up and thrown into the fire?
SPEAKER_00: And they replied, Certainly, your majesty, there was three men.
SPEAKER_00: He said, Look, I see a fourth man walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like the son of the gods.
SPEAKER_00: Because these men were faithful to be obedient, God was faithful to deliver.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, you never, ever, ever walk through a trial alone when you're walking through that trial in obedience to God.
SPEAKER_00: He's walking with you, and he's oftentimes much more closer to you than you could ever know.
SPEAKER_00: If you ask many mature believers who've walked with Jesus for a long time, they'll tell you that it's in the fire they feel the greater presence of God than in seasons of comfort.
SPEAKER_00: Because in the trial, in the fire, that's where dependence is birthed.
SPEAKER_00: And that's when you get on your knees, and that's when you pursue the Lord through his scriptures, and that's when you start crying out to God in prayer, and the very real presence of God begins to show up and surround.
SPEAKER_00: So when there is a difficult thing happening in your life, when there's a fire happening in your life, take heart in this promise.
SPEAKER_00: Isaiah 43, 2 through 3.
SPEAKER_00: When you walk through fire, you will not be burned.
SPEAKER_00: The flames will not set you ablaze, for I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
SPEAKER_00: Now, these three men, they knew that promise.
SPEAKER_00: They believed it, they acted on it, and they were literally delivered from a burning furnace.
SPEAKER_00: You too, if you're a follower of Jesus, have been delivered from a great and mighty burning furnace.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said that if you place your faith on me, you will be delivered, you will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: And the day that you placed your faith in Jesus Christ, you believed the promise that Jesus could spare you from an eternity in a place called hell.
SPEAKER_00: That's a real fiery furnace, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
SPEAKER_00: I know a lot of people talk about hell like it's not a real thing.
SPEAKER_00: Hell's a very real, literal place.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus talks about it being a place of difficulty, extreme difficulty.
SPEAKER_00: And your faith in Christ, one day when Christ returns, you will experience the fullness of that promise as you are delivered from one fiery furnace that lasts for an eternity.
SPEAKER_00: And here's my last and final question for you.
SPEAKER_00: If God is faithful and able through his son Jesus to deliver you from the eternal fiery furnace of hell, isn't he faithful enough to walk with you through the small trials of life?
SPEAKER_00: Surely he is.
SPEAKER_00: Because he's a good God who loves you deeply.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, we come now before you clinging to the hope of John 16, 33, where you promise us that in this world we will have trouble.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus, you say the most powerful words.
SPEAKER_00: Take heart, for I have overcome the world.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, would you be our overcomer?
SPEAKER_00: Would you give us the ability to see you at work in our life in the middle of these trials?
SPEAKER_00: Would you give us the faith to be obedient, even if that obedience is going to cost us something intentional at work with our neighbors, with our family, even if it happens in this society?
SPEAKER_00: Father, raise up the people of this church to be a people of obedient faith.
SPEAKER_00: We ask that in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.