Daniel 3 - Risky Worship

Daniel chapter 3, risky worship.

Daniel 3 · chapter mention

Those two words might not seem to go together.

Risk and worship.

If they do, then for me, worship doesn't seem like a very appealing thing.

Because personally, just speaking for myself, I don't like risk too much.

I'm not a big risk taker.

I've never been a big risk taker.

When I was growing up, there were some friends that I would ride bikes with, and I was the cautious one of the group.

Some of the other kids, they wanted to, you know, launch their bikes off of hills and go down mountains and all kinds of stuff.

And, you know, I was all about the helmet and the knee pads, to be honest.

I wasn't really so much the risk-taking kind of type.

And part of that was because uh naturally I lived with a lot of anxiety, a lot of fear about what might happen.

I had a lot of people tell me that uh I tended to think worst-case scenario about things.

I'd say, well, yeah, I just want to be prepared.

But it was a little bit of doomsday thinking sometimes.

Risk was not my favorite.

Risky worship doesn't sound like something that would appeal to me.

When I came to faith in Christ, I found Christ and the peace that he provides to be a great source of stability and comfort and strength.

I also found, however, that as I continued to walk with the Lord, that he challenged me sometimes in the area of risk.

And I came to the conviction through Scripture, through Christian experience, that sometimes faithfulness to God does involve an element of risk.

Sometimes doing what God calls us to do requires to set a foot into the territory of the unknown just a little bit.

It doesn't mean being reckless, but sometimes taking calculated risk for the glory of God can be exactly what God calls us to.

And sometimes taking risk can be a form of worship.

Putting ourselves in a position of uncertainty or vulnerability for a greater purpose can be a form of worship.

And that's what the story in Daniel talks about this morning.

We're going to see some individuals in this story who took a risk, but they didn't do so simply because they were reckless or they were adrenaline junkies.

They did it because they were pursuing true worship and the glory of God.

And in this case, true worship involved an element of risk.

God sometimes calls us to that as a form of honoring him and living for him.

We've been in this series in the book of Daniel, and we're in Daniel chapter 3 this week, and we've seen that Daniel and his friends who are featured in this story have been taken into captivity in Babylon.

Daniel 3 · chapter mention

They were Israelites, and Babylon came and took over the nation and took them into Babylonian captivity.

And so Daniel and his friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they were in a situation of great unfamiliarity, great uncertainty, a lot of unknowns.

They were in a foreign culture, they had been taken captive, they were essentially prisoners.

Everything around them was uncertain.

Now, how do you respond when life gets uncertain?

How do you react when life feels unstable?

For me, sometimes what I do when life gets unstable is I just stay still and don't want to make any moves.

You know?

It's kind of like uh kind of like the stack of dishes after they're washed and they're drawing and they're in a stack together on the counter drawing, and you know, you don't want to touch them whilst the whole thing might fall.

Sometimes life feels a little bit like that.

Well, just don't make any moves.

Just don't touch them, don't do it, just stay still, and it'll be all right.

That's how I have a tendency to respond to uncertainty.

Daniel's friends and Daniel himself were in a situation that involved great uncertainty, but they didn't take that approach.

They stepped out in bold faith in order to honor God.

This narrative doesn't feature Daniel himself.

The text doesn't say exactly why, but it focuses on his three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

And these three friends, as we will see, were faithful to God, just as we've seen that Daniel is.

The story begins in verse 1 with a king who is hungry for worship.

It says in verse 1 of Daniel chapter 3 that King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, 60 cubits high and 60 cubits wide, and set it up on the plain of Durah in the province of Babylon.

Daniel 3 · chapter mention

The story begins with this king Nebuchadnezzar setting up a statue, an image of gold.

And this statue would have been around 90 feet tall, about the height of an eight or nine-story building.

King Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon, and at the time one of the most powerful military leaders in the world.

He commanded great power, great authority.

He had armies at his disposal to do his bidding.

You would think that somebody in that kind of a situation would feel very confident, very secure.

Apparently not Nebuchadnezzar, because he seems a little insecure that people don't like him.

He wants to make sure that people are really committed to him.

And so he sets up this statue, and then he requires all the government officials under his watch to worship it.

Says in verse 5, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

He demands that they worship that image.

But not only that, he attaches consequences to refusal.

Verse 6, whoever does not fall down and worship will be immediately thrown into a blazing furnace.

The text doesn't say exactly what this was a statue of.

It may have been a statue of Nebuchadnezzar himself.

This is something that dictators around the world have been known to do.

They set up grand statues to themselves to project their image and command authority.

It could also have been a statue of one of the Babylonian gods, one of the idols that people worship.

But either way, whatever the statue is, Nebuchadnezzar is forcing people to worship it.

And he's saying that you will experience the consequences if you don't.

One commentator says this quote, whether the statue is the king or a god, it symbolizes the deification of the state.

Kings demand absolute loyalty.

Worshiping this statue was, in effect, a loyalty oath.

End of quote.

It symbolizes the deification of the state, the state becoming a deity, the state becoming God.

The statue was Nebuchadnezzar's way of demanding supreme loyalty.

And it was his way of weeding out any individuals who were not willing to give him unqualified loyalty.

He demanded a lot.

He demanded not only to be a government leader, but essentially to be a god, to demand their total and uncompromising allegiance.

And by and large, the loyalty test works.

It identifies who has unqualified loyalty to the king and who doesn't.

On command, the music plays, and just about everybody bows down and worships this statue.

Verse 7: all the nations and peoples of every language fell down and worshipped the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

Everyone worshiped the king.

At least almost everyone did.

Not quite everyone.

There were a few dissenters, a few conscientious objectors who could not give their supreme allegiance to Nebuchadnezzar.

It says that some of the astrologers came forward.

These were pagan priests, probably.

They came forward and told Nebuchadnezzar that Daniel's friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were not worshipping the statue.

Verse 12 There are some Jews whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who pay no attention to you, your majesty.

They neither serve your gods nor worship the image of gold you have set up.

These tattletales come before Nebuchadnezzar and say there are few people who are not willing to bow down and pledge allegiance to your statue.

It's interesting that it says that they pay no attention to you because Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had been taken into Babylonian court captivity and had been taught the language and literature of the Babylonians.

They were serving in the king's court.

They actually had a fairly high position.

And so to say that they pay no attention to you is a rather absurd claim.

But what it means is that they are not giving you unqualified loyalty and allegiance.

In many ways, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and Daniel, they had adopted in some ways to the custom and the culture around them.

They were living in exile, but they adapted themselves to the place they were living.

And yet, there was one area in which they were not willing to adapt or compromise.

And that was in worship of the one true God.

And so what the astrologers are really saying here is that for Nebuchadnezzar, it's all or nothing.

Either you worship me and give me supreme loyalty, or you are completely and totally disloyal.

There is no in-between.

The king did not receive the news well, to put it mildly.

He did not receive well the fact that somebody refused to bow down, and it says in verse 13 that he was furious with rage.

He summoned the three Israelites and essentially gave them a second chance.

He told them to bow down and worship the statue, or they would be thrown into the blazing furnace.

They're in a life or death situation now.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

It's easy to decide not to do something if there's no consequence.

But the consequences are ultimate here because their very lives are at stake.

What do they do now?

Do they just go ahead and bow down?

I mean, how big of a deal is it really to bow down to a statue?

How big of a deal is it to not worship God but instead worship an idol?

Is it really that big of a deal?

Is it worth risking your life over?

You know, there are certain things in life that I don't like to do.

No, there are certain things that you don't like to do either that you would rather avoid doing if you can help it.

You and I might differ on what those things are, but we all have things that we don't like doing.

Uh I don't like eating mushrooms.

Maybe some people like mushrooms.

I don't get the appeal.

But, you know, if my life depended on it, I think I could stomach the fungus.

I I think I could I think I could take a big gulp of water and swallow a mushroom if my life was at stake.

Uh I I like I like games and I like some board games.

I don't like those board games that have a list of rules longer than the dictionary.

You know, some of those.

Some people have tried to teach me how to play these board games, and I feel like I have to go earn a PhD in board games to know how to play this.

And, you know, they also last an entire week.

It's like you gotta clear your calendar for the week before you start playing.

Not the biggest fan of those those kinds of games, honestly.

You know, give me give me Candyland.

Something simple.

I can play that.

But if my life were at stake, I could play any board game.

I don't dislike it that much.

It's not worth losing my life over.

There are some things that you may not like, but it's not it's not worth putting up too much of fight about.

Especially not worth losing your life over.

But for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, uh, refusing to worship the statue was not merely a matter of preference or convenience.

It was a matter of deep-seated conviction that only God is worthy of worship.

And the response of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shows that for them, their refusal to worship was not a matter of mere preference or convenience.

It was a deep-seated, heartfelt conviction about who God is and about their responsibility to give their unqualified loyalty to him alone.

Verse 16, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, King 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 deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from your majesty's hand.

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

They remain defiant and resolute even in the face of death.

Their conviction about true worship is so sincere and so resolute that they are willing to risk their lives rather than worship someone other than the one true God.

Verses 16 through 18 are really at the heart of this passage, and they're wonderful verses.

And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego affirm several very important truths.

They affirm that they don't need to defend themselves because God will fight for them.

Says we don't need to get up in arms about defending ourselves.

We have a God who fights for us.

I know a gentleman, he's an itinerant preacher, does missions work, and that sort of thing.

And he was going through a period in his life where he was facing a lot of criticism, a lot of complaints, people attacking him on the internet, in print, uh, people gossiping about him at several different churches.

A lot of it pretty unfounded and unfair.

And uh, you know, that that sort of thing would really get to me.

And I asked him, I said, Well, I mean, how do you deal with this kind of criticism?

You know?

How do you handle this?

And he said, Well, I know what my heavenly father thinks of me, so if those people want to argue with him, they're free to do so all day long.

He was concerned about what God thought of him rather than what people thought of him.

And more so, he didn't actually feel the need to waste time defending himself.

Because he was concerned about being vindicated in the eyes of God rather than the eyes of people.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego take that same approach here.

They say, we don't need to defend ourselves because God fights for us.

And they affirm that in spite of the danger that faces them, despite the uncertainty that lies ahead, God remains sovereign.

They say that God is able to protect them even if they're thrown in the furnace.

The danger that lies ahead is no match for the God on the throne above.

They affirm that God is able to save them, but they also don't presume upon that.

They also don't presume that God's going to save them because they say that God is able to deliver us, but even if he does not, we will not worship you.

Even if he does not, we will not worship you.

And I love this because they walk a really important line here.

It's a very fine line.

On the one hand, they say God is able to do this, God is able to save us, but they also don't presume that he's obligated to do so.

They say God is sovereign, God can do what he wants.

And whether or not the situation works out in my favor is not the ultimate measure of whether God is on the throne.

So often in our lives, if things are going well, we think, yep, okay, God's in control.

But the minute things start to not go our way, we think, well, God must have fallen asleep at the wheel.

God is on the throne and God remains in control whether you are pleased with the circumstances of your life or not.

And these three friends here say that God is able to save us, but we're also not going to presume upon that.

We are willing to die even if He doesn't.

There's a very fine line between faith and presumption.

Very fine line between faith and presumption.

Sometimes we need to take a bold step of faith, and yet Jesus also says, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

In other words, trust in God, but buckle your seatbelt.

Trust in God, but take necessary precautions when appropriate.

Faith is not an excuse for recklessness or for presumption.

But faith does mean that we have a God above who is in control, and when we step out in obedience to him, he remains in control no matter the consequences.

The three friends restate their refusal to worship the king.

And at this, the king becomes even more furious than he already was.

They've refused to worship him.

He gave them a second chance.

Not only did they refuse, but they reasserted it.

So now he demands that they be thrown in the furnace and that the furnace be heated seven times beyond the normal temperature.

The king's temper was raging hot, and he orders that the fires be turned up to match the intensity of his rage.

His ego was wounded, that they did not bow down to him, and he was going to take it out on them.

And so the three friends are tied up and thrown into a fiery furnace.

And it is so hot that it immediately consumes the Babylonian guards who go to put them in.

And yet, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, when they go in to the furnace, are unharmed.

Not only are they unharmed, but they are accompanied by another.

Verse 25, one of the Babylonian guards says, Look, I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.

They identify some sort of divine messenger, divine protector in the fire with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, keeping them safe.

There's been some different views on the exact identity of this fourth man.

Some would say it is an angel that God sent to protect them.

Some would say that it is actually Jesus Christ Himself, a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ, an appearance of Jesus Christ on earth before the New Testament.

I think that view is possible.

I'm not quite sure the text gives us enough to say that with absolute certainty, but I think it's quite possible.

But either way, the point here is that the one true God whom they worship was present with them even in the midst of a blazing furnace.

The raging, hot, fiery flames were not enough to cast them out of the presence of God.

It is a sign that the one true God is with them and they escape unharmed.

Just as they affirmed that God is able to protect them, so he does.

In verse 27, it says that the Babylonians saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their head singed, nor were their robes scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them.

They escaped totally unharmed.

They took a risk, and God was with them in that risk.

And ironically, the lesson here comes from Nebuchadnezzar himself.

He says in verse 28, Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants.

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

The petty little king who demands worship realizes that there is a God above him, that he is not, in fact, the one true God, and that some people have loyalties that go beyond him.

In this story, the three Israelites took a big risk.

They were confident God could save them.

They knew that death was possible, but they were willing to act anyway.

So what is it that prompts someone to take a risk like that?

What prompted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to take a risk?

When they were already in an unstable situation, in an unfamiliar land, why would they make things more difficult for themselves?

Why couldn't they just bow down and worship the statue?

What was the big deal?

Why did they have to take such a risk?

Well, I saw an interview some time ago with the race car driver Mario Andretti, and he is the only person to have won the Daytona 500, Indianapolis 500, and the Formula One World Championship.

Now, being a race car driver at the speeds they go, you know, that can be kind of risky.

Probably an understatement.

It can be risky.

And he was asked in an interview Mario Andretti was about what makes somebody a successful race car driver.

And this is what he said.

He said, to be successful, you have to have burning desire and confidence.

I say burning desire because of the risk involved.

If you want something so badly, you have a burning desire to do it, then you aren't distracted by fear or risk or anything else.

If you have a burning desire, then you aren't distracted by fear or risk or anything else, he said.

In other words, if you want something bad enough, the risk is worth it.

If you value something enough, risk is worth it.

What we are willing to make risks for is a reflection of what's important to us.

Our values determine our risk calculus.

The three Israelites took a big risk, but they felt that honoring God was worth the risk.

Worshiping God was worth any risk that might be involved.

And for us as followers of Christ today, the same is true.

We should be willing to endure risk, even our very lives, for the sake of obeying and worshiping Jesus Christ.

Coming to faith in Jesus Christ changes how we calculate risk, because it changes our priorities.

Coming to faith in Christ changes what is important to us.

And when our values shift and what is important to us changes, then the risks that we are willing to take in life also shift.

Now, what does that look like for us today?

Because it's probably true that we won't face the exact situation that the Israelites did, right?

In fact, as we think about celebrating our country this weekend, we can be thankful for a legacy of religious freedom in this country, where the state does not have ultimate say in worship.

It's not likely that we will be forced to bow down to a statue or face death.

So, what does this mean for us?

Well, I want you to listen to what the Apostle Paul says about worship in Romans chapter 12, because worship applies to us today, even if there's not a 90-foot statue in front of us that we're supposed to worship.

Romans 12 · chapter mention

Romans chapter 12, verse 2.

Romans 12:2

The Apostle Paul says this I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

This is your true and proper worship.

Let me read part of that again.

I urge you to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God.

This is your true and proper worship.

True worship isn't simply about bowing down to something.

True worship isn't simply about coming to a church building on Sunday morning.

True worship isn't ultimately about going through some kind of religious ritual.

Ultimately, true worship is about offering our entire selves into the service of God and saying, Lord, you call the shots, not me.

That is the ultimate expression of worship.

Our bodies, our entire lives, all that we have and all that we are is to be offered up to God and we're to hold it before Him with an open palm and say, Lord, my life is yours to do what you please.

Listen to how the Apostle Paul describes this again in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, verse 15.

2 Corinthians 5:15

He says that Christ died for all, so that those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and was raised again.

2 Corinthians 5, 15.

Christ died so that we may live for him.

Christ died for us in order that we would have a new purpose in living, living for him and for his glory.

It's possible that we might face a situation where worship threatens our very lives.

But there are lesser and yet still vitally important ways that we might be asked to sacrifice to the cause of true worship.

We might be asked by Christ to sacrifice our convenience.

You know, loving the people that Jesus calls us to love can be very inconvenient at times.

Extending mercy and forgiveness to people can be very inconvenient.

Reaching out to somebody that you don't want to reach out to can be very unsettling.

It can push us out of our comfort zone.

Loving people the way Jesus loves requires us to be willing to endure a little bit of inconvenience.

We might be called in some measure to sacrifice material wealth, our goods, our finances.

All that we have, whether that be money, personal possessions, resources, all that we have are on loan to us from the one true God.

It doesn't matter whose name is on the bank statement, doesn't matter whose name the car is in, it doesn't matter whose name is on the house.

You don't own that.

None of us own any of that.

It belongs to God.

And in a couple of seconds we're gonna pass from this earth, and none of it's gonna matter anyway.

And all that we have is given to us by God in order to serve and to bless others.

God may call us to sacrifice our resources for the sake of others.

He might call us to sacrifice our reputation.

Sometimes doing the right thing makes us a little bit unpopular.

Taking a stand for what is right can cause people to look at us a little funny, call us Jesus freaks, maybe not even want to associate with us.

Certainly doing the right thing for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego made them unpopular.

It's never comfortable to stand out in a crowd.

We all like to blend in.

But sometimes worship means refusing to blend in for the sake of Christ.

Sometimes true worship means standing out and apart from the crowd so that we can stand with Christ and what he calls us to do.

Risk.

Risk is right when God calls us to it.

Risk is sometimes a part of true worship.

We often think that worship means coming to a church building, participating in a church service.

What if that is the prelude to true worship?

What if the true worship is when we leave these walls and we don't consider our lives to be of any value apart from serving the purposes of God?

Worship can happen here, but true worship happens out there when we live before others, surrendered to God and obedient to his will.

Sometimes true worship is risky, but it's always worth it.

In his book, The Jesus Revolution, there's an author, Leith Anderson, and he shares a story where he was in a position that involved risk.

A number of years ago, he and three others were traveling to a country where Christians were being persecuted, and the gospel was not allowed to be preached freely.

They didn't have a direct flight into that country, and so they flew into another country, and they were gonna go by bus or by train the next day.

And that night they were having dinner with some fellow Christians in that other country, that neighbors, this country where the gospel is banned.

And Leith Anderson and his friends were approached about smuggling in some Bibles for the underground church.

It was a difficult situation that they were in.

At first, he immediately refused to do so.

He said, No, that's illegal.

But the people who approached him wouldn't take no for an answer, and they said, Here's what we're gonna do.

In the morning, we're gonna bring you some Bibles, and you ask God what to do.

Don't need to answer to us.

And Leith Anderson and his friends thought about it, and he said that they made a decision that if it were one or two Bibles, they could maybe stick them in their bag.

But they weren't prepared for the size of the delivery that they got.

It was not one or two Bibles.

It was a library of Bibles, books about Christianity, Bible study tools, some videos about Jesus.

And they didn't know what to do because they felt a responsibility to share these resources with the persecuted church, and yet they also knew that saying yes to that meant saying no to the laws of the state.

And they prayed about it, they thought about it, they didn't know what to do, but they did end up loading all of these resources in their bags and taking them into this country where the gospel was prohibited.

And when they were nearing their destination, they received some customs forms.

They had to fill out their information and they were asked questions.

Are you bringing in any guns?

Are you bringing any narcotics?

Are you bringing any literature?

They didn't know what to do.

They sat there paralyzed.

Well, if we say that, yeah, we're bringing in some literature, then they're gonna flag us, take it all, maybe arrest us, who knows?

But if we say no, then, well, that's lying.

So what do we do?

And they didn't know what to do.

And so they simply left that question blank.

They didn't even answer it.

And as they passed through immigration, they were surrounded by armed guards, immigration officers, and their forms were scrutinized and looked over, and they were waved through without issue.

And that evening they went to a secret meeting where they handed out Bibles and Christian literature to the Christians there, and he said, their faces remain with me all my life.

The excitement that they felt in receiving those Bibles.

We take for granted that we can come here on Sunday mornings.

We take for granted that if we want a Bible, we can go to a store and get one, we can order one.

That's not something that the church around the world can always take for granted.

And Leith Anderson and his friends had a tough decision to make.

But they made the decision that in that case, risk was right, and in doing so, they truly worshiped God.

They declared that God, the God of the gospel, was greater than any human authority and greater than any danger that they may have faced.