But Even If He Doesn't

Daniel 3:16-18

16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.

17 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.

18 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.”

But Even if He Doesn’t

Heavenly Father, I pray that you decrease me in this moment… And You increase in Your people’s sight… Hide me behind your veil, so that the hearers of this word do not see me… but only hear from you… May this word fall on tilled soiled and take root on fertile ground…

Let the words of my mouth… And the meditation of my heart… Be acceptable in your sight… Oh Lord, my Strength, and my Redeemer. Amen

INTRO

Many times I’m asked… What is one of my favorite things about being married… While I enjoy my kids… They are an absolute joy about 90% of the time… That’s not my favorite thing… If I’ma be real with y’all that 10% is rough rough… And I said it twice so you know I’m for real… Traveling together is often mentioned when thinking of the favorite thing about being married… But if I can be honest… My favorite thing about being married is our weekly date nights… Just taking the time away from work… from parenting… from social media… just the two of us… Last Saturday, we got all dressed up… put on some smell good… and jumped in a taxi… Sitting there talking… we realized the taxi driver was listening to worship music… I couldn’t miss the opportunity to engage with the gentleman… Of course I asked if he had a church home… because that’s what we do… We minister to people where they are and seek to bring them into the Kingdom… We talked… we’ll he talked for almost the entire trip… And we listened… Sometimes the best discipleship is a listening ear… He started telling us about the structure of his family… His desire to attend church but couldn’t because he must work… His financial struggles because of COVID… Then the little amount of money he makes… he must send home to help his family… He’s in this cycle of having a little money… Then sending all of his money… It got to the point where I didn’t want to hear any more bad news… Like I said… The wife was dressed good… smelling good… and we had a babysitter… Come on somebody… As we got closer to our destination… He said something that shifted the entire mood… “God is able to change the situation, but even if he doesn’t I will continue to thank Him for what He has done…” And when I tell you that thing blessed me in that moment… “God is able to change the situation, but even if he doesn’t I will continue to thank Him for what He has already done…” Let me tell you… that changed my entire outlook that evening… We get so caught up in thanking God for what he has done… we sometimes forget to thank God even when he doesn’t do it the way we want it to be done… or the way we think it should be done… We ask God to deliver us from aggravating coworkers… but get mad when God doesn’t… Maybe He wants to work on your attitude and how you react to a situation… And contrary to the Name it and Claim it theology… God doesn’t have to respond to you just because you say it… or when you say it…

That brings us to the scriptural text of the morning… In the beginning of chapter 3… King Nebuchadnezzar makes a golden image to be worshiped. This golden image was actually to serve as a representation him… Daniel interprets the king’s dream in chapter 2 and tells him the head of gold represented Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom… But it would eventually fall to a kingdom represented by iron… So Nebuchadnezzar makes an entire statue of Gold to show his kingdom was indisputably the greatest… In a flash of confidence… he summons all of the leaders in his kingdom and tell them they are to worship the statue at the sound of the marching band… Talk about a homecoming… At the sound of the instruments… the text says everybody bowed in worship to the king’s statue… Then some astrologers who were suppose to be bowing down in worship themselves… come to report to Nebuchadnezzar… that these three Jewish boys was defying the king’s order… these three Hebrew boys… these three colored boys dared to silently protest for what they believed… verse 12 says “But there are some Jews whom you have set over the affairs of the providence 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 reports were not just telling on any Jewish boys… They were reporting on three Jewish boys that dared to rise in rank and be over them… Look at it real good… Chapter 1 says Daniel, and the three stood out among all of those in training to be servants to the king… So much so that the king places them in positions of authority… Not because of what they did… but because of the favor God had placed on their lives… These jealous folks didn’t like having to answer to these foreigners… They probably were waiting for something to come up to report back to the king… The pitfalls of jealousy… but that’s another sermon for another day…

The King becomes enraged… He gotta save face… He can’t have those he put into position outright defy him… Everybody that’s somebody in the kingdom is here to worship the statue… This was the festival to top all festivals for Nebuchadnezzar…

Transition #1

The King asks Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego… v14 “If it true, that you don not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up.” 15b And if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?”

This is where we find ourselves in the text…

16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.

This brings us to our first point of they day… Write this down… Let your actions defend your faith.

Listen… Don’t you like when someone asks you a question and you’re like *Hand claps* I am glad you asked. You must not know who I am… You must not know who we serve… But that’s not what we see from the lead characters in the text… They answer in a smooth way that says “Yes, we are guilty of the accusation, but we don’t owe you an explanation why!” oh come on somebody… When you start hearing the negativity… When the rumor mill gets to going… Sometimes your BEST response is NO response… Proverbs 10:9 says Sin is not ended by multiplying words, but the prudent hold their tongues. Sometimes you just gotta shut up and let got be God...

I love how it says they respond together… As if they were singing a song of worship… “Shadrach, Meshach and Adednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, WE do not need to defend ourselves before you in this manner.” Let me say this… you need to get some people on your side that’s going to be in unison with you… Everybody aint gonna ride with you through the fire… much less into the fire… Everybody that you worship with isn’t going to understand how you’re able to have Faith on Fire. And this is why it is so important to spend this time in your fast asking God to reveal the people around you.

Oh you need some more scripture about letting your actions defend your faith. And that’s okay… I respect a congregation that don’t mind reading their Bible for themselves. Jesus says in Matthew 5:16, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.” It does not say… go and brag about your faith… Let your good deeds… let your actions glorify our Father in heaven…

FINISH

Transition #2

The next part of the passage is my favorite.

17 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. 18 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.”

Listen… that’s the whole sermon right there… we should get excited reading scripture…

Our Faith is not based on What We Think God Should Do, but Who God Is.

I like this… See we get caught up… in a works-based God… And this preacher is guilty sometimes… I look for God… to do the miracle to show me that he is God. I have that Gideon spirt… Let the blanket be wet, and the ground dry… Okay… Let the blanket be dry, and the ground be wet… Oh You did it? Okay cool… This is God-ordained… We expect God to show up how we want… before we accept that it is God…

These Jewish men say in this moment, “17 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. 18 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.”

Can you imagine the amount of faith it took… to say this to the person that has your life in his hands at that moment… See… They could make this declaration because they knew God to be the I AM… They are three Hebrews that worshiped a living God… I can imagine the already knew God to be…

JEHOVAH JIREH… MY GOD, MY PROVIDER… JEHOVAH NISSI… MY GOD, MY PROTECTOR… JEHOVAH RAPHA… MY GOD, MY HEALER… JEHOVAH SHALOM… MY GOD, MY PEACE… EL SHADDAI… MY GOD, THE ALMIGHTY…

Their God will make a way out of no way… BUT EVEN IF HE DOESN’T they will not serve… the lower case god Nebuchadnezzar has constructed…

When you serve the Great I AM… You can walk around and quote Psalm 27:1 “The Lord is my light and my salvation – whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life – of whom shall I be afraid?”

That’s some grown up faith… Listen… This faith is built on a solid rock! Will you still serve God if he doesn’t deliver you into financial freedom? Will you still serve God if he doesn’t provide the new house? Will you still serve God if he never gives you the spouse you want? Will you still serve God when you want Cheesecake Factory, but all you can afford is the cheese in the deli section?

BUT EVEN IF HE DOES NOT… I’m going to keep on serving… BUT EVEN IF HE DOES NOT… I’m going to keep on tithing… BUT EVEN IF HE DOES NOT… I’m going to keep on worshipping… BUT EVEN IF HE DOES NOT… I’m going to keep on believing… Why? Because Jesus says in John 20:29 “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have no seen and yet have believed.”

2020 was a rough year for so many… The pandemic came through and shifted life like never before… For my family… The year started to get rough in February… On February 21st… I stood behind the sacred desk and preached a sermon titled “Faith it Til You Make It”… One of the hardest sermons I preached… Because I shared at the end that my baby girl Charleigh had been having seizures… And at that time she had been seizure free for 4 days… So we were shouting and praising for what God did… But then we learned bad news… The seizures caused her some developmental delays… Mainly in her speech… Faith it Till You Make it alright… Seeing her next to children her age and her not being able to communicate was always the toughest… Not being able to say DaDa are MaMa… Not being able to do anything but make sounds… Lord… Even if you don’t ever allow her to speak… this family will continue to praise your name because you gave her to us… Night after night… day after day… waiting… hoping… praying… Then last month… Last month I received the best Christmas gift I could ask for… Charleigh started trying to count… And just last week… My baby started saying Hi and Bye! You can’t tell me my God isn’t good… BUT EVEN IF HE DIDN’T do it! We were going to continue to give God all of the praise… “But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.” Joshua 25:15.

Listen Hananiah… Mishael… and Azariah… was going to continue to serve the God of their ancestors regardless of their current situation… Their God was faithful to the Israelites at the Red Sea… Their God was faithful to give Goliath into the hands of David… Their God was faithful… And if He did it before, He can do it again… BUT EVEN IF HE DIDN’T! They were resolute to still serve the Lord…

Transition #3

This enraged ole Nebuchadnezzar… He got so mad the Bible says he orders the strongest soldiers to tie them up… He orders for the furnace to be made 7 times hotter than normal… and for them to be thrown in… The Bible says the fire is so hot… that it killed the soldiers as they tried to throw them in… But then they fell into the blazing furnace still tied up…

Sometimes… following God’s commands will put you in uncomfortable situations… But that’s not the end of the story… When God puts you there, God provides a way out…

The text says, 24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”

They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”

25 He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

Okay… Three men were thrown in… Tied up… But now we see Four Men walking around… in the fire… unbound… unharmed… and the fourth looks like a son of the gods…

They weren’t just haplessly walking around… They were worshipping… Singing praises to Yahweh... The king had one thing wrong here… He said the fourth looks like A son of the gods… But I believe this was THE SON OF GOD!

The text then says they walked out of the fire… and their bodies were unharmed… the hairs on their head were unharmed… their clothes were not scorched… And there was no smell of fire on them…

Closing

Let me tell you… You may be going through a fiery furnace season right now… You may be dealing with some disappointments in your life right now… It may seem like God is no where in the midst of your situation… But I come here to tell you that the Rock of Ages… the Great I AM is always there… Even when we don’t feel Him… He’s there… Even if we don’t see him… He’s there…

Today, I come asking you to put your faith in Jesus… Let Jesus be your comforter… Let Jesus be your provider… The text says… Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had But Even If He Didn’t Faith… Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” And then you may ask, why do I even need faith… Hebrews 11:6 answers that question, “6 And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

It is our faith that pleases God… Right now… I come before you… Asking if you if you didn’t wake up tomorrow… Do you have confidence in where you will spend eternity? Romans 10:9 tells us how we can find eternal rest with our Father… Right now… wherever you if you “declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

This isn’t about adding members to Loving Grace… This is about adding souls to the Kingdom… Say this prayer with me…

(Short prayer… Alter call… Then membership…)

Sinner’s Prayer

Dear Lord Jesus, I know that I am a sinner, and I ask for Your forgiveness. I believe You died for my sins and rose from the dead. I turn from my sins and invite You to come into my heart and life. I want to trust and follow You as my Lord and Savior. In Your Name. Amen