I wonder, pals, how long has it been since we heard those stories? I bet it's been a while. And if we could tell them again, I wonder if we would find out that those stories aren't really kids' stories at all, but they were meant for grown-ups all along, and that there's still lessons we can learn from them today. Let's find out together. Speedy delivery. For me? Thanks mailman Kyle. This week, it's getting hot in here, the story of the fiery furnace. All right, nice. Good morning everyone. My name is Kyle. I'm the student pastor here. You can see me in films such as that video you just watched, most notably. But I am so excited this morning to be continuing in our series, Kid Stories for Grownups. In the next two weeks, we're going to be in Daniel, and we are going to tell two of the great kid stories of our faith. You know, I see a lot of people who grew up in church. These are stories you probably know back and forward, not only because you grew up listening to them, but you probably grew up telling them to your own kids as well. These are fun ones. As I was reading through here and as I'm prepping, I feel like I'm prepping myself to give a message that's basically just like a series download or like an episode download of VeggieTales. These are two of the great VeggieTales films, episodes of all time. But this morning, we find ourselves talking about the fiery furnace. But before we actually dive into the fiery furnace, well, before we actually dive into the story of the fiery furnace, I feel like it's important to have a little context, a little background of what is going on and how these men have found themselves being thrown into a fiery furnace. And so we open up in Daniel. We're going to be reading a decent amount in Daniel. So if you would be interested in opening that up, I actually am using this Bible, so I can tell you that you can find that on 873. And it's going to be on the screen as well, but like we're going to be reading a decent amount, and I would love for us to be able to open up our scripture together. But we find some background and some context that we need at the very beginning of Daniel chapter 1, verses 1 through 2. It says, That gives us some background because we see this nation, Judah, which is a part of Israel, and they are being taken away from Israel and brought to Babylon. They are becoming exiles to Babylon. Now, the reason for this, we find had a covenant with his people. The people of Israel, if you will serve me and love me and worship me as the one and only true God, and if you will live up to the Ten Commandments that I've given you, the laws that I've given you,. And they turned against him. They began worshiping themselves or worshiping other gods or other idols. They began to seek after self-satisfaction instead of the satisfaction of the Lord. The kings became power hungry and wanted them to be the most powerful as opposed to seeking the guidance of God, who they would have to argue is somebody more powerful than them, and they didn't want to deal with that. And so now we find ourselves at this moment where the Lord has allowed these people, Babylon, an enemy of Judah, to come and to take over this nation. Now, when we jump in here, we see that there's kind of, when we look at Daniel, there's kind of a decent summary that I can give you of Daniel, and it's this. One, God is in control. And two, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego have complete faith and trust in that truth. We see it from the very beginning. God's people are being taken over, but they're only being taken over because the Lord is allowing it to happen. And so they begin to bring people. So what happens is, because King Nebuchadnezzar is a smart king, as they take these people over, what he doesn't want to happen is, hey, we have now taken you over. And so now you are like our servants, or now you guys living in exile are now enemies of us. He doesn't want to take over nations and have an entire nation of people hating him, and so he starts to try to work on his cultural appropriation. And so what does he do? He reaches out and he says, hey, will you bring to me from the nation of Judah, people in the royal family, people of nobility, of high birth, will you bring to me some of these men so that I can start bringing them in to my council? Maybe putting them in my armies or putting them as wise men in my council in different places and in different areas in different ways like that, which is a smart move, right? And you guys will never guess what four men were part of the group that they invited to come up. Yeah, right? Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I know it's crazy, but just bear with me. And so they get brought in, but the problem is that even though they were welcomed in as friends, they were welcomed in upon conditions because ultimately the goal is, let me build these people up. If they're going to be in my armies, they need to be well-fed and they need to be of right stature to be able to be in an army. And along with that, I'm going to teach them our ways. I'm going to teach them our culture so that they can dive into it and they can be a part of our culture. It sounds great, except for there are different cultural things that are against what Daniel and his friends think are true and accurate and right with the God. One of those is the food that they were being asked to eat and the wine that they were being asked to drink. They found that if they were to partake in those things, that it would defile both them and their God. And so they go to a guard, a servant who's bringing them the stuff and says, hey, here's the deal. We feel like we're defiling ourselves and we're kind of like making a mockery of God or whatever it is. By doing this, do you mind if you just gave us water and vegetables? That's all we want, and then we'll be good to go. And so it says, once again, the Lord is in control. We've talked about this. The Lord softened the heart of the man that they asked and allowed him to hear them out. And so he's like, yeah, but like, here's the problem with that. If you do that and then you don't build up and if you don't grow up to the stature that all of the rest of these men grow up to, then not only are you in trouble and probably going to get killed for doing the wrong thing, but so will I, because I gave you the wrong nutrients that didn't allow you to grow. But Daniel and his friends, they stand together and they say, if you give us 10 days, I promise you, our God is good and he's going to deliver. He's going to allow us to be in the same stature. And he was right. At the end of those 10 days, when they took stock of, hey, what do all of these men look like? Here are these four men that looked most ready and most nourished by what they had eaten. The Lord had provided for them. they were given the name Shadrach, Meshael, and Azariah. Background, those are the three names of the men that they were given. But when they moved to Babylon, they were given the names Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So we'll go back to that. So they entered the king's service. In every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king questioned them, he found them 10 times better than all the magicians and enchanters in his whole kingdom. Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus. They chose to serve God because they knew that, and they had faith that the Lord would pull through. And so here they are. Now they're brought in, and they are a part of the council of the king. Now they are within the king's inner circle, which should mean that they're set now. They're good to go. They are separated now from harm's way. But there's two problems with that thinking. The first is that King Nebuchadnezzar is like pretty unhinged. He's a pretty unhinged guy. He flies off the handle pretty quickly, gets pretty angry. And two, once again, they still find themselves within a culture that is polytheistic, that though they're totally fine with, hey, you guys are welcome to pray and serve and love your God, as long as you pray and serve and love these other gods. It's too narrow-minded of you to think that the God that you serve is the one true and only God. Well, that presents some issues. So we then go into chapter two. And in chapter two, what we see is Nebuchadnezzar has this dream. This dream is very troubling for him. He's very, he's upset. He's figuring it out. And so he goes to his wise men, the wise men closest to him. And he says, here's the deal. I need you to tell me what my dream means. But, but here's the kicker. I need you also, because how do I know you're not just making up, how do I know you're not just making up your own interpretation as opposed to the correct interpretation? The only way I'm going to actually trust that you're telling me the right thing is if beforehand you also tell me what my dream was. So not only do I want to know what my dream meant, but you have to tell me what I dreamed. And if not, I'm going to get angry. Well, the men naturally say, King Nebuchadnezzar, that is literally impossible. There is no way for us to tell you what you want. Sure, if you want to tell me your dream, I've got wisdom for you. I've got wisdom for days, but we don't have this. Well, the king, as we previously discussed, becomes unhinged. He becomes so angry at the fact that these people are acting like they can't tell him. He's like, okay, fine. It's time to clean house, find some new people. So he says, okay, all of the wise men that are here, all of my wise men in my council, I'm making a decree. I'm going to kill you all. You're all meant to be put to death. Well, Daniel hears this. It upsets him. But he goes and he says, can I have some time with the king for tomorrow? Whatever. And after he does so, he goes back. He goes back to his home. He finds Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And he urges them, he says, guys, right here, right now, we have to come together and we need to pray and just beg God for God's grace and God's mercy that he will show and reveal to them this dream so that they might be saved. Faced with a problem and his solution is, let go, find my friends, sit together, pray and praise God, and hopefully the Lord will reveal. And the Lord does. The Lord reveals the dream. They respond by praising God for his goodness, and then he goes and he talks to King Nebuchadnezzar, and he makes it very clear to the king. He says, no man, no man could ever do this, but the Lord, our God, has revealed the dream. Back story of the dream, basically the point of the dream is God has put Nebuchadnezzar in charge for now. God's in control, but right now he's allowed Nebuchadnezzar to be in control of this place. At some point that will end, and at some point the Lord will take back over. But the Lord will take over Nebuchadnezzar's reign and for the Lord's people. But nonetheless, Nebuchadnezzar is through the moon. He instantly falls to the ground. He falls at the feet of Daniel and basically just starts praising Daniel's God. Your God must be the God of gods. It must be the king of kings. And he just begins to worship and finally begins to understand how great Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego's God is. And that is where we come to chapter three. And that is where we finally get to turn to and talk about the story of the fiery furnace. This isn't the first time that these three men, the story that a lot of us know so well, this isn't the first time they are standing up for their lives or standing up for their faith, even if it means their life. This is now going to be the third time that they get to do so. So it's been a few years, and certainly the king now understands that their god is one of the gods, but he doesn't quite understand yet that he's not, he doesn't quite understand that he's the one true god, and the only god. And so a few years pass, and as these men have been elevated, Daniel is now separated from Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And so this story just includes the three. And what happens in this story is the king goes, and he basically has this giant golden statue idol made, and he puts it down. It's, let me make sure that I've got the name of the area correct. Oh yes, the plain of Dura in Babylon. The reason why I wanted to make sure of that is that's the same place that years before they had tried to build the Tower of Babel, trying to put themselves on a level playing field with God. And so here they are back in the same exact area, creating this giant idol to serve and to bow down to. And the decree is, hey, when all of the music, you can worship whatever God you want to, but when all of this music starts playing, you must fall down and you must praise and you must worship this idol that I have placed in the center of this town. Well, I think you can probably imagine what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did with that, and that was absolutely nothing. The kicker was, a part of that decree was not simply, hey, you have to do this, but if you don't do it, we're going to throw you into the fiery furnace. He said the title. They didn't care though. They went about their business. They served and they loved and they praised their one God. Well, some of the other people in the council of Nebuchadnezzar were not too thrilled about that. So they go to Nebuchadnezzar. they say, hey, the three Jewish men that you have in your wise council, not only are they not falling down and praising this golden idol that you've given us, so whatever, they don't pray to any of your gods. None of your gods they pray or praise to. And Nebuchadnezzar gives way to his being unhinged and gets furious. But as he calls them in, he reels it back in a little bit, and he offers them this. If you'll just pray to this idol the next time that the instruments play, if you'll now begin to praise and pray to these other gods, I'll let you walk. And almost in a way of cutting them off, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego respond this way in Daniel 3, 16 through 18. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up. We have full faith and assurance that God is strong enough to deliver us from this. But we also have full faith and assurance that even if he doesn't, we're still going to only serve him because our God is not the God of right now. Our God is the God of eternity, and that's all that matters. So you can give us whatever deal you want to. We're not going to abide by it because our God is the only God. And so Nebuchadnezzar, as you can imagine, was very cool and understanding. He was furious. It says that he ordered the flames to be elevated to seven times as hot, like I guess the flames to elevate to his level of anger, which I think is funny because if you're burning people alive, then like, it seems like fire would be fire, but whatever, he decides to do that. So here we are. What's a few extra degrees, but you know, he wanted it, so they did it. And that's where we come to the rest of the story. That's where we get to close out. And I would love for us to be able to read the rest of the story together. And shouted, 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 the satraps, prefects, governors, and royal advisors crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair on their heads singed. Their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them. Then Nebuchadnezzar said, Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses to be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way. Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to the province of Babylon. That's good stuff. That is an incredible story. So far, we're three chapters in. You feel like it holds up to the bill that I delivered of a summation of Daniel is the Lord is in control. And that Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego have complete and utter faith in the fact that the Lord is in control. Every step, every moment, every discussion, all orchestrated by God to reveal his glory, not only to his own people, but to these other people, to show himself to these people who don't know him. And that's worthy of praise, man. It's worthy of praise, and it's worthy of excitement to say this God who's completely in control throughout these stories is the same God who is completely in control right now over every one of our stories. It's why we come and we stand and we sing and we raise our hands talking about the goodness of God, that all of my life you've been faithful, all of my life you have been so, so good to me, and I know that you will continue to be so, and I know that forever I have you because I've given my heart to you. That is worthy of an amen. That is worthy of praise. That is worthy of excitement. But that second part of the summary sometimes becomes hard for me. I look and I go, you know, I have an easier time putting my feet in the shoes of some of our other people in this series. I see myself more, and I can take more, I feel like, from the stories of Thomas and Peter when they doubted, but then in their doubt, the Lord pursues after them and shows them great love and grace in their doubt and still continues to use them in spite of it. I feel much more connected to the story of Jonah that Aaron Winston talked to us two weeks ago about, or last week about. Someone who loves God, certainly, and has a complete faith in God, but sometimes his selfishness got in the way, and sometimes his fear got in the way of what he knew the Lord wanted him to do. But in spite of those things, the Lord still works through him, works through his heart and he allows his glory to be revealed through a man who has a faith that isn't perfect, I feel more comfortable there. I see myself in the fear and in the doubt, in the selfishness. And I feel uplifted that in those things, the Lord still uses me. But man, to continue to look in the face of danger and evil and death and to unwaveringly say yes to Christ and to stand in faith and to stand in the glory of God and no other, it feels too big and too much. It feels like this story is one where I go, that was so nice. I love that so much. How good is God? Amen. Now let me go back to my broken faith. Good for them for being heroes. That's not me. And so as I'm thinking through this, then the question, the impossible question that I'm asking myself and presenting to myself is, okay, so then how do you attain an unattainable faith? This feels completely unattainable for me and for most humans. And as I continued reading and as I continued to dive in and dig in, what I realized is, ultimately, the product of these men's great faith was huge and feels unattainable. But when we leave here and we come back to here, when we come and look at the root of these men's faith, and we look at the characteristics of what drives these men to have such great faith, I think we begin to see roots that are far more attainable than what we see on the surface. The first one that I see is that these are men that compare their circumstances not to their own power, but to God's. If that sounds familiar to you, it means you've been keeping up. That was Nate's point when he talked about David and Goliath. This tiny, young, teenage kid looks at this nine-foot giant or however big and says, who does this guy think he is? He's disrespecting our God, and God will not stand for this. And so while an entire army looks and says, there's no way we can fight this man because there's no way I'm strong enough to do this, this kid doesn't look at the circumstance that he's in and say, I can't fight this. He looks and says, God can fight this. This is what these men do. They say, God is in control of all this. God wants his glory to be revealed. If it was left up to them and if it was left up to their power, there's nothing. But left up to God's, never any doubt. We can be people who are reminded that it's not about our power, it's about God's power. The second one I see is they have their ark. This is a little insider language, but Aaron Gibson, when he preached on Joshua fighting the battle of Jericho, he talked about that these people were asked to do something that seemed pretty insane. Instead of trying to take hammers and all this stuff to these walls that they're trying to take down so that they can fight Jericho, God says, I'm going to take care of the wall. I need you seven days to walk around this wall. They're going seven days, and it doesn't talk about on day three, wow, look at all the bricks who have fallen already. Wall is standing up tight. Doesn't feel like anything's moving. Why would they continue to go? Well, because when they look back, they see that they have the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant holds the Ten Commandments and it holds these different treasures of their faith that are reminders to them that God provided for us then, and God was good then, and so therefore now, even though I don't quite see him, and even though I don't quite understand why he's asked me to do what he's asked me to do, I know that he'll provide for me again, and I know that he is still good because he was good then. And ultimately, like they say, they say, but even if he doesn't, even if he doesn't save me, what they ultimately know is the Lord is good for eternity. And they can get on board with that. But the problem becomes, once again, we're still left at a place where if you're telling me these things, then I'm saying, yes, I agree with both of those. But I think a lot of us have this. We know. We know the Lord is in control. We know that he is stronger than we are, and we know he's been good in the past. So why is it, Kyle, why is it that I still can't stand? Why do I still choose myself over my faith? Why do I still not do this? Well, that is where I come to a third characteristic that I see that I think kind of drives the point home a little bit better, not only for these people, but for us. And that's that they grow and that they stand in their faith together. I think a lot of times we find ourselves feeling the same way that Paul does. When he writes in Romans 7.15, bear with me here because this is a lot of, there's a lot of do's in here, so just bear with me. I do not understand what I do. Amen, right? For what I do, or excuse me know full well what is good and what is right to do, but then when it comes to actually doing it, we do something else? I mean, I know that is for me. The last time I was consistent in working out and lifting weights and stuff was ninth grade. I know full well how important that is and how valuable it is to be healthy, to eat healthy, to work out, all that stuff. But ninth grade was the last season I played a football. And when the weightlifting coaches are football coaches and the other people in the weightlifting class are football players, everyone is pushing each other because ultimately you are going to that same goal because we are best if you are at your best. And so I'm going to make sure you do what you need to do. You're going to make sure I do what I need to do. And the coaches are going to make sure that it all gets done. But then when I was away from that team, when I wasn't on football team anymore, then it kind of was up to me. Do I want to continue doing this? Do I want to continue this hard work and this hard grind? I know I should. It'll be best for me. It'll be best for all of the things. But when it's left up to me and I feel like it's up to my own devices, a lot of times it just doesn't happen. I mean, gosh, even in my relationship with Ashlyn, man, like, I see the way that she, like, the way that she values health. I see the way that she values loving and caring for people. I see the way that she values building up and encouraging people, random encouragements to friends, friends that are close, friends that are far away, valuing getting on the phone with friends that I have fallen far from connected to, even though I love them so much. All of these things I know to be true and good and right. I should love people. I should serve people. I should be more connected to the people around me and the people that I love that are not currently around me. But man, until I had somebody that I could see doing it with me, it was a lot harder to do it. And until I had somebody who encouraged me in those things and in those ways, I had a hard time figuring it out. And look at how these guys handle all of this. They come together, and together they stand and say, we're not eating these things. We're only going to eat these things. Daniel finds out about this, and instantly he goes to his friends, and he says, guys, we need to sit together in a circle right now, and together we have to pray to God. These three guys say, we're not going to serve this God, even if it means we're getting thrown into the furnace. And if we are going to be thrown into the furnace, we're going to be thrown in together. They stand on top of what they believe in, and they stand together, which gives them the power to do so. It is very hard, I would say nearly impossible so you don't need to find it, but will you just read it with me as you see it on the screen? Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess for he who promises faithful. What is he saying there? Let us hold without, like unswervingly. Let us never veer away from loving God and holding to our faith. How? How are we going to be able to do that unswervingly? That's why we have 24 through 25. And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day approaching. We spur one another on towards our love, towards the good deeds that we do in our faith. We don't give up meeting together, but we encourage one another. We uplift one another. In here on Sunday mornings, we stand and we praise together. In small groups, we're vulnerable. We talk, we discuss, we sit down in prayer with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We encourage, we love, we hold accountable. That is how we grow, and that is how we build up this type of faith. Because ultimately, our goal is this, to have a faith like Martin Luther discussed when he says, Because of it, you freely, willingly, and joyfully do good to everyone, serve everyone, suffer all kinds of things, love, and praise God. It's not just about looking death in the face. It's about looking every single person you see in the face and showing them love and serving them however you possibly can. That's our goal. And how we accomplish it is together. Let's pray. Lord, I'm so thankful that you have your hand on us and you are completely in control. Lord, I pray that I consistently remember that and that we consistently remember that. But God, I pray that as we try to build and maintain our faith, Lord, and as it gets hard, allow us to realize and remember that we have each other. God, I thank you for giving us such a beautiful and wonderful community as you've given us in grace. God, I pray that we are a people who love and meet together and serve each other, uplift and encourage one another so that we can do your will to the fullest effect. Lord, we love you so much. Amen.