When the Heat Is On — Part 2

Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I'm so glad you're here. Today we're going to continue our series called Unshakeable. Rick is taking us through the Book of Daniel, and that's so we'll be equipped to handle whatever curveball life throws at us, even the most difficult trials. All right, let's get right to it. Here's part two of a message called when the Heat Is On. And now here's Rick.

Now, I wanna tell you this. When you stand for Christ or you stand for integrity at work or in any other place, it's gonna make some people mad. You just need to get over that. Don't worry about it. It's not about you. The king isn't used to having people say no to him. One of the reasons why I told you all this background is because there are three kinds of people in the world and you work with them all the time. There are people who are stuck up, there are people who kiss up and there are people who stand up. Nebuchadnezzar, stuck up. He thinks he's God. He thinks the world revolves around and he's stuck up. These other bureaucrats are kiss ups. They're going, oh, you're so great, you're so wonderful. They're telling him what he wants to hear. But Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego, they're stand up guys. When everybody else has fallen flat on their face and bowing, they're gonna stand up. My question is, what kind of person are you in the marketplace? What kind of person are you at school? What kind of person are you in business? Are you stuck up? Are you a kiss up? You're flattering everybody around you. Or are you a stand up kind of person with rock ribbed integrity? It doesn't really matter if anybody disagrees, I'm just gonna do the right thing. Sorry. I'll do it humbly, I'll do it politely. I'll do it without bragging about it. But I'm gonna do what is right. Now, why did these guys not bow down? I mean, everybody was doing it. I'm sure, hey, everybody's kneeling. They didn't do it. The reason why they wouldn't do it, it was breaking the first two of the Ten Commandments. And they knew that. Let's just review that. This is the first two commandments of the Big Ten, God's top ten, the Ten Commandments. Number one, you shall have no other gods before me. Anything that's first place in your life, that isn't God breaks that commandment. Whatever's first place in your life is your God. Your business can be your God. Your spouse could be your God. Your boyfriend can be your God. Making money could be your God. Having fun can be your God. Nothing wrong with these things. They just don't deserve first place in your life. They should be down the list. Anything that's first place in your life that isn't God is an idol. It's a false God. And God says, you will have no other gods. For me. Whatever you think about most in life, that's your God. You might say, oh, God's my God. No, whatever you think about most in life is what you love the most. And what you love the most is your God. So the first commandment says, you shall have no other gods before me. Then the second commandment is this. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven or above the earth or beneath the waters below. And you shall not bow down to them or worship them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of the fathers. To the third and fourth generation, he said, you know what? We can be impacted by the sins of our parents. And one of the reasons these guys wouldn't do it is because it's at the Ten Commandments. But the second reason is it's why they're in Babylon in the first place. God had been warning Israel for years, you guys are worshiping idols. They've been doing this for generations. You've stopped worshiping the true God. You're worshiping idols. If you don't stop, I'm gonna let you be taken off to Babylon. And sure enough, that's what happened. The nation is destroyed. Jerusalem is sacked, and 25% of the nation is taken hostage to Babylon, which is modern day Iraq. So the whole reason these guys are in Babylon originally as prisoners of war is because their parents had broken this very command. They had loved something more than God. And so God has said, I don't want you to do this. I don't want you to do this. Now in verse 13, here's the story. When Nebuchadnezzar hears about three of his governors refusing to bow down, he has a fit. Verse 13 Daniel 3. Then Nebuchadnezzar flew into a rage. He had an anger management problem, too. And he ordered that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought to him. Now, the king asked them, is this true? Okay, is it true that the three of you I mean, I appointed you as governors. You're high position guys. Three of you refuse to serve my God or worship the gold statue I set up. He says, I'll give you one more chance. And he says this. If you bow down and you worship the statue, it's all forgiven, it's all forgotten, all will be well. But he says, if you refuse, you will be thrown immediately into the blazing furnace. The heat is on. And then what God? And then he says, and then this is a powerful statement. And then what God will be able to rescue you from my power? See what Nebuchadnezzar is doing? He's actually saying, we're gonna have a little God contest. Who's really God, Me or your supposed God? And when I throw you in the fiery furnace, who's gonna protect you? Not your God. And we'll see who's really God. I'm God here. Okay? Now what I wanna do this weekend is two things. I wanna ask two questions. What should I do when the heat's on? Cause you got pressure in your life, and if you don't, you're gonna have it in the next month or the next year or in the days ahead. What do you do? And in this story, there are four things they did right, and you wanna do them too when the heat's on in your life. And then I wanna come back and look at what happens when I trust God in the fire when the heat's on. And in this story, God does six things. And you need to know these things if you're going through hell right now. You feel like the heat is on in your life right now. You picked a good week to come to church because we're gonna look at the four things you need to do you and the six things God promises to do if you trust him. These guys did four things right when they were threatened with the heat in their life. Number one, don't worry about defending myself. When you go to work and the heat is on you there for being a Christian or for making a moral stand or for doing the right thing or whatever it is and somebody doesn't agree with you, doesn't like it, don't worry about defending yourself. Just quietly trust God to take care of your attackers. When you're in the fire, God's a whole lot better firefighter than you are. And he's got a whole lot more water than you do. You know, I live back in the canyon and one of the lakes back there. All week they've been having helicopters coming in and dropping down and picking up the water and going out to out all the different fires. And that seems to be quite an inefficient way to get water to a fire. But sometimes you just do what you have to do. God, on the other hand, has an unlimited fire hose. He created all the water in the universe, and he's a better firefighter than you. In Daniel 3:16, the first thing they did was this. Then Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied, o Nebuchadnezzar. He had said, I'll give you one last chance. They said, we don't need to defend ourselves in this matter. And by the way, implied here is God doesn't need us to defend him either. He says, we're not gonna dignify your last question by answering it. He said, you know, who's gonna save you, me or God? So we're not gonna answer that question. We're not gonna try to defend ourselves. We're not worried about what's gonna happen. And so we're not impressed by your threats. Don't worry when people attack you. Number two, remember that God has the power to save me. Doesn't matter what kind of mess you're in, what kind of crisis, what kind of difficulty, what kind of fire you're trying to put out in your life right now. Just remember that God has the power to save me. God is God, which means he can do anything. And in Daniel 3:17, they said, if we are thrown into the blazing furnace. See, they still didn't know if they were gonna get laid off or let off for this. If we're thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we worship is able to save us. That's quite a statement. We know our God is able to. He's got the power to save us, but that's not enough. The third thing is believe God will save me. When you're in the problem, when you're in a crisis, when you're faced with your whole life falling apart, you not only have to believe that God has the ability to help you, the ability to rescue you, the ability to deliver you and save you. You must believe he will. You must expect that he will save you. Not that he's just able, but that he will save you. In the second part of Daniel 3:17, they said, and he will save us from your power, O King. Now think about this. These guys, they're in their 30s. In the entire nation, three guys stood up to the king. Everybody else in the nation is bowing down. Every time the royal band plays, everybody's lock, stock in step and everybody's conforming to, to the king, saying, you're gonna worship me and I'm the deity now. I'm God. But three guys have the courage. No, we're not going to. We're not kiss ups. We're not stuck up, we're standups. And we're not afraid because God could save us. He's got the power and he will save us. Now if you're going through the fire right now, you really need to get in this book because there are hundreds of promises in the Bible from God to you. If you don't know those promises, it's a lot like not knowing what's on your insurance policy, you know, when you don't know what's on your insurance policy, you worry if you know your insurance policy covers that procedure. And this thing over here, you go. I'm not gonna worry about the insurance pay for it. If you know what God says he'll do in your life, you won't worry. When you worry, it means you don't know what God has promised you. That's what it means. You don't know what God has promised you. There are 7,000 plus promises in the Bible. Here's just one of the hundreds of promises about deliverance and rescue. Isaiah 40:3. Some of you need to write this one on a card and put it on your refrigerator. When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. This is God's promise to you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you go, you will not drown. And when you walk through the fires of oppression, you will not be burned up. The flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord your God. I believe God can save me, but I believe God will save me. When you walk through the fire, the flames will not consume you. That's a literal promise of, of God. Now, based on those three things, I'm not worried. I know what God can do and I'm expecting him to do it. Number four, I announce my loyalty to God no matter what. If you're having to get ready to go in and have a one on one with your boss or do a confrontation somewhere, you say, I'm announcing my loyalty to God. No matter what the outcome of this conversation is or this confrontation is, and they said this God has the ability to save us, we believe he will save us. But verse 18, even if God doesn't save us, we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up. That's pretty courageous. They're announcing their loyalty to God, no matter what, he can save us. We. We believe he will save us. But if he doesn't, we're still not gonna change. We're not gonna back out. Now, I wanna pause here for a minute and say that when God works in your life, you got a problem in your life, he always works one of three ways. When God delivers you, there's three ways he can deliver you from a problem. When God saves you, there are three ways he can save you from a crisis. When you need rescuing, there's three different ways he can rescue. You might just write these down. It's not on your own notes. You gotta probably make some room on the sidelines. This is one of those outlines that I didn't give you any room. But here are the three different ways on the screen. Number one, when you're in a problem, sometimes God saves us from the crisis. Sometimes God saves us from the crisis. He helps us avoid the fire. And this is what I call a divine detour. And God could have done it with these guys. They could have been marked for execution. And the king is convinced, nah, let's don't do that. And sometimes when you're in a problem, God will just take you out of it. That's nice. That's always fun. He saves us from the crisis, and he helps us avoid the fiery furnace. Number two, sometimes God saves us through the crisis. Sometimes God saves us through the crisis and we walk through the fiery furnace. You know, he doesn't take you away from the problem, but he takes you through the problem and he gives you the strength to handle the problem. And he doesn't remove the problem, but he gives you the strength to handle it. He takes us through the crisis. And then the third way is that sometimes God saves us by the crisis. By the crisis. And what I mean by that is sometimes the problem in your life is not the problem. The problem is what saves you from the real problem. Problem. And you have a crisis. Have you ever heard these stories? You've all heard these where somebody goes into the hospital for, you know, a problem in their neck. And when they get there, the pain in their neck wasn't a real problem. The problem was that they discovered they had cancer in their stomach or something even far worse. And sometimes a smaller problem is the warning sign that gets your attention for a bigger problem. And sometimes God even allows a problem because. Because he wants to save you. Let me give you an example of this. The Bible says in First Peter, chapter one, verse six and seven, up here on the screen. It may be necessary. And sometimes pain's gonna be necessary in your life. It may be necessary for you to be sad for a while because of the many trials you suffer. God doesn't pull you out of every problem you go through. He. He doesn't. Sometimes it's necessary for you to go through the problem, and sometimes it's necessary for God to save you in the problem because of the many trials you suffer. Their purpose, the purpose of these trials you're going through is to prove that your faith is genuine. Even gold, which can be destroyed, is tested by fire. It's purified by fire. And so your faith, which is much more precious than gold, must also be tested so that it may endure. Then you will receive praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed. That's at the end of time. When Christ comes back, he said, you're gonna be rewarded for the fact that your faith proved to be trustworthy. Now why is that? Why does God allow me to go through pain on this planet? Because God is more interested in your character than he is in your comfort. This is not heaven. The no sorrow, no tears, no sadness, no sickness that's coming in eternity. Right now you're in preschool. Your life here on earth, this is a school. You're learning. You're learning some things, and God wants you to learn. And if life were incredibly easy to do and you didn't have any problems, you wouldn't learn anything. You'd just be a selfish little brat if you always got your way about everything. So God's more interested in your character than your comfort. He's more interested in your salvation and your sanctification, becoming like Christ than he is in your security. And he says sometimes God saves us by the crisis. You know, people who were headed the exact opposite way of God, and then they went through bankruptcy or divorce or the loss of a loved one or something, and it got their attention and they came to Christ and the problem actually saved them for eternity. Was that problem worth it? Yes, the problem was worth it. Cause it saved them for eternity.

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today here on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. You know, as we look at the unprecedented things going on in our world today, it is so clear that we need to be equipped. The biblical wisdom that gives us power to handle whatever life throws at us. So that's why Pastor Rick created a life changing Bible study called Unshakable. And it's based on the book of Daniel. In these eight powerful video lessons, Rick will teach you how to handle life's most difficult trials and situations, and how to thrive under extreme pressure. How to pray the kind of prayers that God answers and this video study includes a workbook. It's perfect for individual or small group Bible study. Please request your copy today. When you give a gift to help Daily Hope take the Word of God to people around the world. You just go to pastorrick.com to get your copy. That's pastorrick.com or just text the word hope to 70309 again, the word hope to 70309 and thanks so much for your support. Your gift to Daily Hope means so much to us because it helps us share the hope of Jesus Christ to people all around the world. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God's Word for our Daily Hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.