MORE SUNDAY SCHOOL STORIES FOR GROWN UPS | Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego | Terri Anderson

Well, good morning.

If we haven't met, I'm Terry Anderson, one of the pastors here at Redeemer, and I want to just say welcome and thank you for being here today, spending part of your Sunday together as always wonderful, not just here in the building, but also to those of you online.

It's great to have you here.

If you're ready for us to get to know you better through your story, and for you to get to know us, I encourage you to stop at the welcome desk in the Commons, and there'll be somebody there that would love to hear your story and find out what brought you to Redeemer here this morning.

And when you stop there, they've got a gift for you.

And it's a pair of socks.

And socks are important when we're walking, and that fits so well with our vision for walking in the way of the Redeemer.

So currently we are walking in the third week of our sermon message series, uh, Sunday School Stories for Grown Ups.

The very first week we heard about Samuel.

Last week we looked at Esther.

And this week we are going to be looking at Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo.

And if you missed the first two, you can always go online.

It's there, and you can get the full stories from there.

You know, maybe as a child you had the opportunity to hear that story about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Maybe you had a family where you grew up and you went to church on Sundays.

Maybe someone took you to vacation Bible school, or maybe there was somebody in your life who just absolutely loved the true stories that are in the Bible and read those to you and you heard that story.

And it just ignited your imagination.

And I don't know, I remember as being a kid, it was just really fun to say those names, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo.

When we hear the story for the very first time as children, our story is so focused on people being thrown in the fire and what happens afterwards.

But then as we become adults, we visit the story a little bit differently and it gets deeper.

And these are some things that we find out.

God gives courage before the fire.

God sustains within the fire.

God draws near through the fire, and God gets praise and glory after the fire.

You know, fire is something that we recognize differently as we grow.

A campfire, and there's a lot of those going on this time of year, can really be warm and inviting.

There's all kinds of stories that are shared around those campfires, laughing, just reminiscing that takes place.

And it's a comfortable place, isn't it, when you're around that campfire?

Well, my auntie used to have campfires at the 4th of July celebration every year at her home.

And one year my uncle could not get that fire going.

So he decided to throw gasoline on it.

And it worked.

It really did work.

Let's just say it wasn't the way that he intended.

That fire flew back and singed his eyebrows.

But you know what?

There's some grace in this.

He was bald, so that was really the only thing that he had trouble with was singed uh eyebrows.

It's funny as we look back on that.

In the moment it was not, it was very fearful, but it was it's funny now.

Fire's not something you control as easily as you think.

In a scripture, we often see fire representing the presence of God.

There's Moses in the burning bush.

There's Israel walking through the wilderness with a pillar of fire.

There's also Elijah and fire coming down from heaven.

And at Pentecost, we see the Holy Spirit appearing in tongues of fire.

But in Daniel 3, the fire becomes something else.

It becomes a place where God's people discover that they're not alone.

Daniel 3 takes us from the image of a fire we might enjoy from a distance to a furnace fire that no one would ever choose in their life.

But before we dive completely into Daniel 3, I think context is helpful for all of us.

The setting of Daniel's story would be in parts of the modern-day country of Iraq, in the city of Babylon, which the ruins are about 50 miles south of modern-day Baghdad.

And the people of Judah had repeatedly turned away from God.

And so part of God's judgment was the Babylonian conquest.

And when that took place, all these people were taken captive.

And it was around 605 BC that Daniel and his friends, they were just young Jewish teenagers, bros hanging out together, but they were part of that same group that was taken captive for royal service.

They were educated together in the Babylonian court, and their names were changed to Babylonian names so that they would assimilate better into Babylonian culture.

They were taken up for royal service, and as Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to defile themselves with the king's food and remained faithful to their God and his religious practices, they were in trouble.

Daniel was also known to how to interpret dreams, and after Daniel interpreted King Nebuchadnezzar's dream, he was promoted.

And guess what we find out in Daniel too?

That after his promotion, he went to the king and he asked that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be placed and appointed into the province of Babylon as the, yeah, they were appointed into the providence, but it was actually Daniel that ended up remaining in the king's court.

And so that's where we're at today.

King Nebuchadnezzar has built this huge golden statue, and he wants everybody to bow down to it when they hear the music.

And so anyone that refuses, he tells them straight up, you're gonna get thrown in the fire, in the furnace, if you don't.

So when the music sounds, most people obey.

But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego do not obey and worship the statue.

They remain loyal to God.

But there's people watching them.

And so there are some people that go and tell the king that this is what they've done.

And after he hears that, he is furious, furious with them.

And so he goes to them and he gives them one more chance.

He tells them, Do you realize what's gonna happen if you don't bow down?

And this is how they respond.

If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God that we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver, will deliver us from your majesty's hand.

You know, I think sometimes when we hear stories about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, or people like Diedrich Bonhoeffer, a great German pastor who stood against a corrupt regime, we think these are incredible people.

I could never ever have courage like that.

But I am here to tell you today that biblical courage is not a personality.

It's not.

It's a gift that comes from God.

And we see that in 2 Timothy, where God said where Paul says, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Yes, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego weren't standing in front of the furnace because they were fearless.

They were standing in front of the furnace because they were faithful.

God gives courage before the fire.

He prepares our hearts.

He strengthens our faith, and he gives us the courage we need before we ever face the moment of the fire.

You know, maybe for some of you elementary kiddos out there, that means you're doing the right thing when you're out on the playground and your friends want to tease somebody.

Maybe for you youth, it's refusing to compromise biblical principles just to fit in.

Maybe for you young adults out there, it's choosing conviction over acceptance.

And maybe for adults, it's making a costly decision.

Maybe in your workplace, or maybe it's in your home.

And for those of us who are further down on the road of life, maybe it's trusting God when you're facing a new season that you didn't expect.

Where you are, I think the question still remains the same.

Where is God calling you to trust him before the fire ever arrives?

Jesus Himself in Luke 21 speaks to this reality.

He tells his disciples that difficult days are coming, days of opposition, days of suffering, and days of persecution.

Yet he also promises that he'll give them the words and the wisdom, and that by standing firm they will gain life.

Jesus does not promise his people a life without fire.

He promises to be faithful when those fires come.

But courage is not something God gives before the fire.

There are three men, and this is how they continue with their words.

But even if, even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of the gold that you have set up.

God sustains faith within the fire.

This faith does not depend on the outcome of the circumstances.

It holds when nothing, absolutely nothing, changes.

And the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk says it this way: though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord.

I will be joyful in God, my Savior.

You know, there are times in our life when we pray, we believe, we obey, and the situation doesn't move.

The fire stays the same.

The pressure doesn't lift.

There's no cooling of the flames.

But faith learns something deeper in those situations.

Faith is not just surviving the fire, it's being held in it.

Held in the fire of school pressure, held in the fire of career pressure, family pressure, health struggles, and yes, even held in those moments of extreme loneliness.

The question is, what keeps your faith steady when the situation doesn't change right away?

And sometimes in hindsight, we realize something even deeper.

God was not only before the fire and within the fire, he was there in ways that we never ever recognized in the fire.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego have just declared one of the greatest statements I believe in all of Scripture, but even if he does not, even if he does not, they believe that God can deliver them, but they have already settled their obedience will not depend on the outcome.

And then that moment comes.

What if God doesn't stop the king?

What if the furnace is heated?

What if obedience does cost everything?

They've already said, even if he does not, and now it appears that even if it's happening.

Nebuchadnezzar is enraged.

He orders the furnace to be fired up seven times hotter than normal.

The three men are bound.

The fire is so overwhelming that the soldiers that go near the fire approach it and they die.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego fall into that fire bound.

And at this point in the story, it appears that the fire has won.

They obeyed God.

They took their stand.

And now they find themselves in a very thing they had hoped that they would avoid.

And maybe, just maybe that's how some of you feel today.

Maybe for you you've prayed and been praying.

You've trusted, you've done the very best that you knew how.

And then the diagnosis came.

And then the relationship ended.

Then the baby miscarried.

The job disappeared.

The finances got larger.

The struggle continued.

The very thing that you hoped that God would prevent has happened.

But scripture reminds us God has not abandoned his people in the fire.

And sometimes in hindsight we realize something even deeper.

God was not only before the fire and within the fire.

He was always there and we didn't recognize it.

We go back to Daniel 3, King Nebuchadnezzar.

He jumps to his feet and he says to his advisors, weren't there three men that we were tied up and through in that fire?

And they replied, Certainly, your majesty.

And then he says, Look, I see four men walking, four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed.

And the fourth looks like a son of the gods.

The king expected to see those three men consumed by the fire.

That was his expectation.

But instead, he saw four men, four men walking in the fire.

Evidence of God's presence.

They were never alone.

God draws near through fire.

Looking back, looking back in your own life, where can you see that God has been with you all along?

When I look back over my life and the life I share with my husband Keith, we realized something that we could not see at the time.

We both grew up in homes that were shaped by what we now understand to be alcoholic personality family systems.

We didn't have the language when we were children.

We didn't analyze it.

We just simply lived it.

That was just the way life was.

The patterns that shaped everything, the relationships, the learning to survive environments that didn't stay steady, the unspoken rules of the family.

Those things that felt normal because they were all that we had ever known.

You know, when you're a child, you don't analyze.

You don't.

You just adapt to what's there.

After my mother's death, Keith and I went in and we did counseling with Pastor Jean and we found out some new things.

We learned about family systems, about addiction patterns, about the extreme importance in life of having healthy boundaries, and what it means to move from survival to healing.

Pastor Gene spoke a prophetic word over both Keith and I at that time.

He said he had no idea, absolutely no idea, why God had chosen to break that generational fire in our lives, but that he had.

And that it was going to be painful, it was going to be lonely, but oh, it was going to be so worth it.

And by the grace of God in that process, something both painful and freeing happened for both of us.

We began to recognize the intensity of the fire that we had been standing in all along.

Not because we chose it, not because we understood it, but because God gave us the grace, the grace to finally, finally understand it and see things clearly.

Looking back now, we can, in all honesty, say with a God confidence that God was there through all of it, and we are better for it.

Not always removing the fire, but being present.

We see it in the people that He placed in our lives, the voices of truth, the pastors, the friends, the mentors.

We see it in the scripture that sustained us when we didn't even know that that's what we needed.

And sometimes, sometimes the clearest evidence of God's presence is not what we saw then, but what we see in hindsight.

And that's what Daniel 3 reveals.

What looked like destruction was divine presence.

They were never alone.

Scripture says that not even a hair on their heads was singed, their clothes were unharmed, and there was not even a smell, not even a smell of fire on them.

And Keith and I can say that same thing about our story.

There were moments that felt like survival, but now sustaining grace.

And even more than that, we see his faithfulness continuing forward.

When Keith and I look at our children and our grandchildren, we see the fruit, the fruit of God's grace, healing where there was once brokenness, stability and healthy relationships where there was once instability and freedom, where there was once bondage.

And we can say with gratitude, the fire did not have the final word.

The fire did not define the coming generations.

Because what marked the past does not have to define the future.

The prophet Isaiah expresses it this way: When you pass through the waters, I'll be with you.

And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.

When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned.

The flames will not set you ablaze.

Not because there's no fire, because you're not alone in the fire.

When looked like destruction became a testimony.

What looked like loss became revelation, and what looked like the end became the place where God was seen more clearly.

And as we go back to Daniel 3, Nebuchadnezzar himself says, praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants.

They trusted in him and defined the king's command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve and worship any God except their own God.

What was meant for destruction becomes a declaration.

God receives glory, glory after the fire.

And that's why the Apostle Paul in Romans 8 penned these words, and when he penned them, they're just as good for today.

For I am convinced that neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither hype nor death, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Not fire, not pressure, not failure, not the past, not even the things that you don't even fully understand yet.

Because in Christ, the fire is real, but it's not final.

So when we talk about the fire, when we look at our lives and what we've walked through, we can say this with a God confidence.

The fire never, never has the final word.

Christ does.

In hindsight.

Please join me in prayer.

Father God, thank you that you are so faithful in every season of our lives.

And as we look back, we ask you to help us to see what we could not see before.

That you give courage before the fire.

You sustain faith in the fire.

And oh, how you draw near through the fire, and we rejoice that the fire gives you glory afterwards.

Father, I just lift up those in the building and those watching online that may still have places that feel extremely confusing and painful.

We place those things in your hands today, Lord.

And my heart cry is that every heart here today would experience your peace, your healing, and your assurance that nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate them from your love in Christ Jesus.

And Lord, thank you that the fire doesn't have the final word that Jesus does.

And I pray that moment by moment that we will rest, completely rest, in that truth.

In the very powerful and the very precious name of Jesus the Christ, we pray.

Amen.