In God We Trust - When God Feels Silent | Sunday Message

Welcome to the Do Life Different Podcast by 1128 Community.

Today you're listening to our most recent message.

We are a church community in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, led by co-pastors Mike and Colleen Francisco.

1128 is about helping people do life different by setting rhythms and values with Jesus at the center.

If you want to connect with us, text the word podcast to 414-441-1128.

We hope today's message helps you in your faith journey.

This morning we got a message about hardship.

We got a message about hardship, and uh my friends John and Rita are here for the first time in like six months because Rita had a uh a stroke.

Uh and so welcome back to John and Rita and Derek as well.

Um it just, you know, it it means so much to know that God has put together a word, maybe for you guys, maybe for others here this morning that are going through something hard.

Uh maybe it is a financial thing that's hard, maybe it's a physical thing that's hard, uh, a spiritual thing, a spiritual season of doubt.

Maybe it's a a relationship thing that's hard.

I'm not sure what it is that you have that might be hard here this morning, but I know that that hardship it is kind of like life.

Anybody ever heard the phrase life be life in?

Sometimes life just feels like it's life in, and I think that's maybe what they were saying in 605 BC.

Imagine living 2,600 years ago.

Uh the idea of planes, trains, and automobiles are not even something you can imagine, I'm sure.

Like you're just starting to see chariots and things like that, right?

Like you're thinking like a Mustang is a really nice horse, not a really nice car.

You're not you're not thinking about setting the alarm clock to wake up so that you're here for service on time.

You're just hoping that it's not a cloudy overcast day because you got work to do in the field.

Your life was a rhythm of farming, cooking, house chores, family chores, worship.

You went to worship all the time.

And of course, time with family and those you loved most, your neighbors and the people that surrounded you.

Life had been peaceful, plentiful, predictable.

You knew what to expect, you knew how to how it might show up in your life, you knew when it was coming your way, and generally the thing that you fought about most was who was getting that last bit of food at the dinner table.

Until 605 BC, when the Babylonian army invaded the land, your home of Judah.

It invaded, and everything that you had known was completely upset, turned upside down.

The peaceful, plentiful, predictable life was now a life of chaos and turn turmoil.

Babylon, it wasn't just this powerful army.

This was a new way of life.

This was a culture shift.

And in 605 BC, your home in Judah was caught in the middle.

It was caught in the middle of a fight between King Nebuchadnezzar and the Egyptians.

And here you are, you're caught in the middle as these armies are battling with one another until you no longer understand peace, predictability, or even plentiful resources.

Your life is upside down, everything you'd known and loved and appreciated, thrown into chaos, your political system, it turned upside down, and the God you worship is no longer the God that they worship.

It's no longer the God of the culture.

You find yourself wondering, why has everything changed?

Is that familiar to anybody here this morning?

Maybe it's not 605 BC, but it's 2026, and life feels like it's chaos.

Maybe the peaceful, plentiful, purposeful, predictable life that you had pre-2020 or pre-2016 or pre-2012.

You see, I'm kind of going back on presidential elections here.

Maybe the life that you thought you knew over the last 10, 15, 20 years is no longer the life that you lead.

And you're left asking the question, what is going on?

Where is God?

Does God see me?

Does God see us?

Does God care?

Does God care?

And last week, as we jumped into this series, In God We Trust, we said, yeah, God sees us, God knows us, God values us, and God cares about us.

And it's in God we trust.

This isn't a political series, it's not a series about money.

This is a series about the God who was there from the very beginning and will be with us to the very end.

In God we trust.

But it's hard sometimes when we hit these places of being stuck in the middle like they were in 605 BC when life no longer feels normal.

And some of us here this morning, we feel like we're stuck in the middle.

We're stuck between family dynamics and we got to play peacemaker right down the middle.

We're stuck in work situations where it feels like, man, somebody wants it to go this way and others want it to go that way, and I'm stuck right in the middle.

There's neighbors on either side of you fighting about something, and you're stuck right in the middle.

Our normal feels disrupted, our peace feels stolen, our lives feel turned upside down, it feels chaotic.

And if you're not in that place this morning, you should really celebrate where you are.

Because life has a way of life in.

And what goes good for a time feels like at some points it it stops and it becomes chaos for one reason or another.

But if you are in that space this morning where life feels like nothing's going your way, where you might even say, like, I feel like I just haven't heard from God in days, weeks, months, or years.

Know that you're not alone.

And know that your finances will be okay.

Know that your relationships, they'll survive one way or another.

And they might be different, they might change.

Your kids, they'll be healthy.

No matter how hard you try to screw it up, your kids will be healthy somehow, somehow.

God sees them, and in God we trust our our purpose in life.

It's it's more than the work we do.

And God does see us, God does care about us, and God does want something better for us.

And so this morning, it moves from in God we trust to our God is able.

Our God is able.

Look at your neighbor and just say, like, hey, our God is able.

Do we all say that really, really quietly?

Say it with like you mean it, like a little bit of like, our God is able.

And this is this is where we pick up Daniel chapter three.

Now, maybe you've read this story before.

Maybe it's completely brand new to you here this morning.

But this morning we're in Daniel chapter 3, and King Nebuchadnezzar, the the Babylonian king, the army that was invading and taking over Judah that was at war with the Egyptians, King Nebuchadnezzar, he made this image of gold in Daniel chapter 3, verse 1.

Daniel 3 · chapter mention Daniel 3:1

60 cubits high and 60 cubits wide.

I had to look up how big this was.

That's 90 feet.

This is a giant image of gold, and he set it up on the plains of Dura in the Providence of Babylon.

He then summoned the satraps, prefects, governors, advisors, treasurers, judges, magistrates, and all the other provincial officials to come to the dedication of the image he had set up.

In my mind, I'm imagining like one of those tourist destinations, like world's largest yarnball.

Or there's one down near St.

Louis.

Nathan, maybe you've seen this one, like the world's largest ketchup bottle.

It's I think it's in St.

Charles down near down near St.

Louis.

It's just weird stuff, right?

The world's largest fork.

You get all kinds of largest gold image out in the middle of nowhere, out in the plains, there it is.

And now he's saying, like, hey, come, I want everybody to come to the dedication of this image he had set up.

And now the important thing to understand is uh the Babylonians in this period of like takeover, in this period of war, they had found the best and the brightest Jews.

The youngest, best, brightest, maybe most handsomest, I don't know, handsomest here.

They took them, they collected them up, and they wanted to indoctrinate them and teach them everything that there was to know about the Babylonian culture because they wanted these Jews, the youngest, best, and brightest, to one day be able to rule as Babylonians in the Jewish land of Judah.

They wanted them to live, act, and just be Babylonian.

And so the best and the brightest Jews, they're included with all these officials, all the Babylonian leaders, they're included there, and they are told, hey, come and gather to this 90 by 90 giant tourist destination of a gold image out in the plains.

Come and see it, come and worship it, come and bow down before it.

And it was proclaimed in verse 5, as soon as you hear the sound of the horn, a flute or zither, which a zither is not similar to a vuvuzela, I found out.

It's a stringed instrument.

I would think it's probably more like a banjo.

Stringed, thank you, Gina.

It's more like a banjo, I would imagine, than the Vuvuzela of World Cup lore.

The flute, the zither, the lair, 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.

Verse 6.

Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into the blazing furnace.

You don't bow down, the alternative is death.

And it's pretty straightforward here, right?

Like, come worship this giant 90 by 90 gold image or die.

There's no like gray area here.

Worship this thing or die.

And so this becomes a life or death choice.

And for the Babylonians, it's like, yeah, this is what we do, this is culture, this is how we live, this is this is the kind of worship that we've done for ages.

But for the Jews, the youngest, the brightest, and and the best, this is new to them.

This is part of the indoctrination process that they're going through.

And I'm sure in their minds they're starting to wonder, what in the world?

Some religious mystics.

In the NIV, it actually says astrologers.

They came to the king saying in verse 12, but there are some Jews whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

There's three of the brightest and best young men who pay no attention to you.

Your majesty, they neither serve your gods nor worship the image of gold you have set up.

That was verse 12.

Now here's the thing Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are three characters that you've maybe heard of before.

Anybody heard of these characters before?

Now, the first time I heard of them, I was, I don't know, maybe this tall.

I was maybe this tall, and my parents, because it's October, I thought this was an appropriate story, they said, hey, we're gonna dress up for Halloween.

Now the thing you should know is in my family, we didn't celebrate Halloween.

We were very like, uh, what's the word I'm looking for?

Insulated?

We we didn't go out much, maybe.

I don't know.

We were the type of Christians, though, that we didn't celebrate Halloween.

And so for me to get dressed up and to go to a harvest festival at a church, that was that was a really big deal.

Now, you're thinking, like, okay, this might be a weird costume.

I got a picture of it actually.

Okay, there it is.

This is me and my sisters and our dog's butt.

Uh this is us going to the harvest festival dressed as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Has anyone else ever had a ridiculous Halloween costume like this?

Like, I got I got a kitchen like drying hand towel on my head, like, and a bed sheet or a pillow or a pillow with a little bit of like coal, which is actually biblically inaccurate.

We'll get to that in a minute.

You know, like we are them the clearly the best and the brightest here, right?

Like, I'm like, what the heck are we doing?

This is this is my one and only experience as a kid dressing up as hollow for Halloween.

This is it.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo.

Were there any other like, you know, Christian kids like that?

That just me?

I was the only weird one.

Okay.

You know, like that was it.

That was my childhood, summed up in one picture right there.

We didn't even go and knock on doors or anything.

We we literally went to a church for a harvest festival.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

The king, you know, as as he's hearing like that, these three, not those three, but these three, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that they're not, they're not going to worship, they're not going to serve, they're not going to bow down to this image of gold that set up.

He he becomes unhinged.

That's kind of the word that I use.

And he says, Bring them to me.

And he begins to question them.

Like, what are you doing?

Why, why won't you bow down?

Is it true that you don't serve my gods?

Is it true that you won't worship my image of gold that I have built?

Why?

What's wrong with you?

This is the new way of life.

And we don't get their reply.

We don't hear them explain or say anything there.

It goes on to this next chance that they're given.

And it says here, if you do not worship in verse 15, if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace.

Now remember, this was already a life or death choice, so it seems like somehow they've weasled their way into like this middle ground where like they weren't immediately thrown in, but now they're being given a second chance.

And so they're they're being told, like, hey, this is it, this is your last chance.

Like, if you don't bow down and worship, then you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace.

Then what God will be able to rescue you from my hands?

Now think about this.

Think about this.

King Nebuchadnezzar, he speaks out loud the words that a lot of us hear in our heads.

What God will be able to rescue you?

What God will be able to rescue you?

If I throw you into this hype-in-hot furnace, what can your God do?

If I throw you into this furnace that flames and instant death, tell me about this God of yours.

Tell me how powerful he is.

I don't think he can save you.

What God will be able to rescue you?

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they hear the words of this king in his speaking out, and they hear it, and they're taking it in.

But for a lot of us, no one ever says that.

But we hear it, we think it, we wonder what God, or is God, or does God see me enough?

Does God care about me?

Can God save me?

Can God rescue me?

Will God provide for me?

Is God even there?

Does God understand what I'm going through?

Because it certainly doesn't feel like it.

And if we're honest this morning, and this would be the place to be honest.

It happens more often than we're comfortable admitting.

God, do you know my financial situation?

God, do you see this budget?

It's in shambles.

God, do you see it?

Like can you rescue me from this mess I've put myself in?

Do you care that my marriage is on the rocks or my relationship is in turmoil right now?

Like, God, can you even fix relationships?

Can you fix marriages?

God, you see that my kid is sick?

Can you fix that?

Can you heal them?

God, my dreams are fading.

The dreams that I had for this future, like, they're they're going away.

Like, do you care?

Will you provide for my aging parents?

Because they're not listening to me, God, but I don't know.

Can you rescue them?

God, I've got a lot of pain in my body.

I've got anxiety.

I'm depressed, I'm sad, I'm suffering, I'm fatigued, I'm overwhelmed.

God, like I'm putting it all on you, but can you rescue me?

Do you care?

If we're thrown into the blazing furnace, they said, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it.

And he will deliver us from your majesty's hand.

Our God is able.

Turn to your neighbor again and say, Our God is able.

Our God is able.

And even if he doesn't, even if he chooses not to fix this situation, save us from this pipe and hot furnace, even if he doesn't, we will remain faithful to him alone.

It says in verse 18.

They believe it so much.

They believe our God is able.

But if he doesn't, my worship for him doesn't change.

My love for him doesn't change.

I am faithful to God alone.

I believe it, our God is able.

Say it again to your neighbor.

The king.

He's like, okay, your god is able.

Sure.

Turn that furnace up.

Seven times hotter than normal.

He cranks the furnace up, throw some extra coals in, throw some wood in, get this thing really, really scorching hot and throw these guys into it.

That is what he says.

And so these men wearing their robes, trousers, turbans, and other clothes, they were bound by their hands and bound at their ankles, and they were thrown into the blazing furnace.

A furnace so hot, scripture tells us, that the guys that threw them in actually died.

They didn't, those guys didn't even get in there.

They're not getting in, they're just throwing them in.

They died because they got too close to the heat of this furnace.

And the king, he leaps to his feet and he says, Wait! We threw in three guys.

Who's the fourth?

Are you all seeing this?

Who is the fourth?

I see four men walking around, he says in verse 25.

I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound, unharmed, and the fourth looks like the son of the gods.

Even this pagan king sees this fourth person and recognizes this must be their god.

The fourth looks like the son of the gods.

And so he says, hey, come out of here.

Get out of that furnace.

What are you guys doing in there?

He didn't say that.

He knew why they were in there.

Come out of the furnace.

Get out of here.

And now with everyone present, they saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed, their robes were not scorched.

Remember that picture?

That's why it was not accurate.

I had some charcoal dust on me.

And the robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them.

Have you ever gone to a campfire situation?

Have you ever smoked meat?

Have you ever started a grill?

Have you ever done anything with fire?

Raise a hand if you've done something with fire.

Legal things only, please.

Yes, we've all done stuff with fire.

And you know that you just spend a couple minutes there and you're gonna smell like smoke.

These guys, they were thrown into the furnace.

They were literally in the fire, unharmed, and they didn't even smell like smoke.

I cooked some meat yesterday on my smoker.

I smelled like meat up until this morning when I took a shower.

Like the smoke and the meat.

I smelled awesome, but you know what I mean?

Like these guys didn't, they didn't smell of it.

They walk out completely unharmed.

Their God is able.

Their God is able.

Their God took care of them.

He called them out, he protected them, he saved them.

Don't miss this though, because here's what's interesting.

And I've read this story tons of times, and and it stood out to me this week as I was working through it.

Like the only thing that burned up in the fire were the ropes around their hands and their feet.

The things that were used to bind them, the things that took away their freedom.

Those were the things that burned up.

They were thrown into the fire because their feet were tied together, and now they walk out of it free.

The binding's gone.

Sometimes God uses those really hard moments, those really trying moments.

God uses those to burn away the things that bind us, to remove the things that steal our freedom, our joy, and our peace.

God wants to burn up the ropes that are stealing from us, the bindings that hold us back.

And here's the thing.

Here's what I want you to hear this morning and understand this morning.

We've been saying all morning, our God is able.

We've been saying, their God is able.

I want you to be able to say, my God is able, because your God is able this morning.

Your God is able.

Your God is able to resolve financial struggles.

Your God is able to restore marriages.

Your God is able to heal, to rejuvenate, to speak life, to redeem relationships with family that feel so broken and so messed up.

He's able to remove hurts, habits, and hangups that drag you down.

He is able to remove anxiety, depression, the things that cause us to feel overwhelmed.

He's able to do it all.

Your God is able.

Your God is able.

Look at your neighbor and say, My God is able.

Do you believe that?

Do you believe that this morning?

Do you believe my God is able?

Here's what Jesus tells us.

He says that the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.

The thief comes to bind us up, to take away our freedom, to steal our joy, to steal our peace.

He comes to kill and destroy us.

To throw us into that furnace.

Jesus says, but I have come that you may have life.

That you may have life to the full.

I've come to burn off the things that bind you, to break the chains that hold you back.

I have come so that you can experience life.

Real life.

And that life is it's not the life that maybe we think it is.

The life that He has come to give us, the best life, the full life, is a life with God.

God the Father.

It would be easy for me to stand here and be the pastor that tells you like all the church things here this morning, to say, like, hey, you gotta have more faith, people.

You gotta have more faith.

Just be more faithful.

You gotta trust more.

You gotta pray more.

You gotta read your Bible more.

Those are all great things.

It would be easy to say, like, here's ABC, here's the steps you follow, one, two, three.

Do it this way, and and you will experience the full life.

Uh be here more on a Sunday, worship more, and God will reward you.

Like, it'll be easy to do that.

Maybe that's even the version you've heard of this message before.

But don't get me wrong.

Those are good, those are helpful things.

But they really don't matter if you have not surrendered your life to the God who is able, to the God who burns away the ropes, that breaks the chains, who heals and restores and redeems.

None of this matters if you don't know who He is.

So I'm not here this morning to make you feel like a good Christian.

I'm certainly not here to make you feel like a bad one.

I'm not here to say you're doing all the right things or you're doing all the wrong things.

I'm not here to say make sure you check all the boxes.

I'm not here to say you appear to be really solid with God right now.

So like I think you're good.

That's not what I'm here for.

It's not what this church is for.

This church exists first and foremost to make sure that you, me, our communities know who God is and know that He is able, that He knows my God is able, that our community knows my God is able, your God is able, to know the God that Shadrach, Meshach, and Benego knew.

I believe that when you know God personally, your life is going to change.

I believe that when you surrender to him, your life will be different.

You'll find favor, fullness.

You'll be able to die to yourself, your own desires, and step into the desires that God has for you.

So this morning, this is an invitation for you to reconnect.

It's an invitation for you to say, God, I know that you're able.

I believe it in my head.

But I haven't lived like it.

I haven't trusted in the way that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did.

I've had some hard things in front of me, God.

And I've said, you know what?

I'm going to do this instead.

Like this, this outcome feels safer, better, easier.

This is an invitation for you to say, God, I'm surrendering my life.

I'm surrendering the leadership of my own life to you.

And I'm going to trust you in new ways, in the hard ways, in ways that are uncomfortable.

In the days where trust doesn't come easy, I am going to choose to trust.

I want the life that only you can offer.

Let's take a couple minutes, two minutes.

Bow our heads, pray silently to ourselves.

Just inviting you to open your hands like this.

Would you join me this morning like this?

Where you're at?

Lord God, you are able.

You're able to restore, redeem.

You can resuscitate dead things, bring them back to life.

Some of us are dead here this morning, God.

We're lost, we're bound, our freedom is gone, our joy is gone, our peace is gone.

We need you to breathe new life into us.

We want that, God.

God, we're tired of walking around trying our best.

We're tired of being stuck in the middle.

Today, God, we choose you.

We choose you.

We surrender to you because your way is better.

Your way is the best.

And your way is the only way we'll ever experience eternal life with you.

So, God, we acknowledge right now that we're broken people, sinful people, people that have screwed it up beyond repair.

That we're far from you, we're separated from you.

But your Son Jesus, he came and he lived on this earth.

He walked among us, God with us, Emmanuel.

He was here.

He lived a perfect life, a sinless life, a life that he knew was eventually going to lead him to a cross.

And he carried that wood up onto that mountain where he was nailed to the cross and he died a painful, brutal death.

He was buried in that tomb and he laid there for three days, and then he rose again, defeating death, defeating the shackles that bind us, the rope that holds us, the things that steal our joy, freedom, peace, ultimately defeating sin and the thing that keeps us from you.

God, we acknowledge that what was once beyond repair, our mess, you have repaired somehow, somehow, through the Son Jesus Christ.

And we're grateful for that.

We're thankful for that.

We want to live a life that honors that.

We want to live a life that's different than the world around us.

God, this week help us to live as forgiven, chosen, reclaimed people.

Help us to be your hands and your feet.

Help us to share confidently that you are good and you are able.

Help us to make a difference in the lives of our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends and our family, our classmates, God, and the people we interact with regularly.

God, help us to be invitational, to invite people into our lives, to experience the goodness that you have for us, to share that, to invite people to be here with us on Sundays, to invite people into our homes for meals.

Would we be able to display that our God is able?

And because our God is able, our lives are different as well.

God, would you change us?

Would you motivate us?

Would you give us the courage to do something bold and uncomfortable this week?

We say yes.

Without even knowing what it is, we say yes to that right now.

We surrender to you.

We choose you now.

We pray this in your name.

Amen.

Thank you for listening to today's message.

We hope you had a meaningful moment with Jesus.

You can join us on Sundays at Oak Creek High School at 10 a.m.

for our in person gatherings.

Hope to see you soon.