Today we continue through Daniel with the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and their refusal to worship Nebuchadnezzar’s golden statue. Even when threatened with the fiery furnace, they demonstrate a remarkable faith—not simply a faith that says God will save them, but a faith that says God is able to save us, but even if he doesn’t, we will still trust him. Their story reminds us that genuine faith isn’t dependent upon God always doing what we want or answering our prayers in the way we expect. It is trusting God because God is faithful, regardless of how the story turns out. Like these three men, we are called to remember who we are and whose we are, especially when the world around us pressures us to compromise what we believe.
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Good morning. It’s good to be with you on this Friday morning. I hope you are well and that you’ve had a great week. I hope you’ve got some exciting plans for the weekend.
I don’t think we’ve got anything this weekend. Not that I can think of, anyway, which is kind of exciting. Sometimes it’s nice just to be around the house and not have anywhere you have to be. So we’ll see what the weekend brings.
But today we’re going to continue in Daniel, and we’re going to move into one of the stories that probably most of us know from Daniel—the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace.
We’re going to look at Daniel chapter 3.
Nebuchadnezzar has built this enormous golden statue. He gathers all of the officials and leaders together, and he gives them this command: when the music plays, everybody is supposed to fall down and worship the golden statue.
And everybody does.
Well, almost everybody.
Because there are three guys who don’t.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
And when Nebuchadnezzar finds out, he is furious.
He gives them another opportunity. Basically, he says, “I’m going to give you one more chance. When the music plays, you bow down. And if you don’t, you’re going into the furnace.”
And their response is one of the most powerful statements of faith in the entire Old Testament.
They basically say, “Our God is able to save us from the furnace. But even if he doesn’t, we’re still not going to worship your gods.”
Even if he doesn’t.
I think that’s one of those phrases that we can read over really quickly, but we shouldn’t.
Because it’s easy to have faith when we know exactly how the story is going to end.
It’s easy to say, “God will take care of this,” when we are confident that God is going to take care of it in exactly the way we want.
But what happens when we don’t know?
What happens when we don’t know how the story is going to turn out?
That’s where faith gets real.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego aren’t saying, “God will save us, so we’re not worried.”
They’re saying, “God can save us. But even if he doesn’t, he is still God.”
That’s a different kind of faith.
And I think that’s an important word for us because sometimes we treat faith almost like a transaction.
God, if you’ll do this, then I’ll trust you.
God, if you’ll fix this problem, then I’ll believe you’re there.
God, if you’ll heal this person, if you’ll give me this job, if you’ll make this relationship work, if you’ll answer this prayer the way I want you to answer it, then I’ll know that you’re faithful.
But that’s not really faith.
Faith is trusting God even when we don’t know what God is going to do.
Faith is saying, “I believe God is able.”
But faith is also saying, “Even if God doesn’t do what I want God to do, I’m still going to trust God.”
That’s what these three men are doing.
They aren’t worshiping God because they know they’re going to walk out of the furnace.
They’re worshiping God because God is worthy of worship regardless of what happens.
And I think that’s a really important distinction.
Because sometimes the hardest part of faith isn’t believing that God can do something.
The hardest part is trusting God when God doesn’t do the thing we wanted.
That’s where our faith gets tested.
And I think there’s another thing happening here that’s important.
Remember what we talked about yesterday: Daniel and his friends are living in exile. They’re in Babylon. They’re surrounded by a culture that is telling them who they’re supposed to be.
And now Babylon is literally telling them what they’re supposed to worship.
But they know who they are.
They know whose they are.
And they’re not willing to give that away.
That’s the lesson we’ve been seeing throughout Daniel.
Nebuchadnezzar can take their land.
He can take them into exile.
He can give them new names.
He can give them new food.
He can give them positions in his government.
He can build a giant statue and tell them to bow down.
But he can’t take away their identity.
Because their identity ultimately isn’t found in Babylon.
Their identity is found in God.
And I think that’s a good reminder for us.
Because there are all kinds of things in this world that will try to tell us who we are.
There are things that will tell us what matters.
There are things that will tell us what we’re supposed to value.
There are things that will tell us what we’re supposed to worship.
And sometimes the things we worship don’t look like golden statues.
Sometimes they’re money.
Sometimes they’re success.
Sometimes they’re popularity.
Sometimes they’re power.
Sometimes they’re our own comfort.
Sometimes we’re tempted to make our own lives the center of everything.
And Daniel reminds us that we have to remember who we are and whose we are.
Because when we know who we are, we can stand when everything around us is telling us to bow.
That’s what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego do.
Everybody else bows.
They stand.
And they stand not because they know everything is going to work out the way they want it to.
They stand because they know God is worth standing for.
And that’s a good word for us today.
There are going to be moments in our lives when we have to decide what we’re going to stand for.
There are going to be moments when it’s easier to go along with everybody else.
There are going to be moments when standing for what we believe is going to cost us something.
And in those moments, I hope we remember these three men.
God is able.
God can save.
God can change the situation.
But even if God doesn’t do what we want God to do, God is still God.
And our faith isn’t dependent upon everything going our way.
Our faith is dependent upon the faithfulness of God.
So as we go into this weekend, let’s remember who we are and whose we are.
Let’s be people who are willing to stand when we need to stand.
Let’s be people who don’t allow the world around us to determine what we worship.
And let’s have the kind of faith that can say, “God is able—but even if he doesn’t, I will still trust him.”
Hey, thanks for being with me today. I hope you have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend. We’ll pick up with Daniel again next week.