Preparing for this message, I had to laugh a little.  Sam and I, last week and this week, are sharing things you probably don’t hear a lot.   We share them because we care deeply about you.  You probably won’t hear this kind of message in a church that is heavy on liturgy or theology.  You probably won’t hear this message in a church that believes that if you are positive and give money, God will give you success, health, wealth, comfort, and happiness.  You probably won’t hear this in a church that is high energy and stays away from the words of Jesus like ‘surrender’ and ‘carry your cross.’  As I prepared this, I thought, this is a kind of message that can make a church smaller in attendance.  Why?  We’ve been talking about modern-day idols.  Today, I talk about struggling to see our need for God.  My prayer for us today is that this message opens our eyes to our need of God.

We are in a bible study on the book of Daniel, and talking about how we can thrive, not just survive, as we walk through the struggle of life.  We are in chapter three and discovering that it is shockingly relevant to today.   Why?  It’s all about idol worship.  Remember, Sam helped us understand that modern-day idols are very hard to notice because they start as good things, and quickly they become the things we ‘overly desire’.  We want them more than we want God.  

Sam finished chapter three last week when Shadrack, Meshack, and Abendigo were thrown in the fire.  Remember the quote from last week?  

Pain never leaves you where it found you. – Unknown

Sam shared, while we are in the middle of our fire, how we respond is so important.  Why?  Because pain can be so loud in our lives, our instincts are to look at our circumstances and not God.  We can conclude that our circumstances stop us from living for God.  You have heard this from people, right?  “If you walked in my shoes for a day, my life is so hard, it’s so bad, you would know it’s impossible for me to live for God.”  But God wants us to focus on Him and trust Him when we are in the middle of the pain in our lives.  That is how we grow up spiritually.

Today, we want to look back at a specific chunk of verses before moving on.  Here they are.

Daniel 3:26 Then Nebuchadnezzar came as close as he could to the door of the flaming furnace and shouted: “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!” So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stepped out of the fire. 27 Then the high officers, officials, governors, and advisers crowded around them and saw that the fire had not touched them. Not a hair on their heads was singed, and their clothing was not scorched. They didn’t even smell of smoke! 28 Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, for he sent his angel to deliver his trusting servants when they defied the king’s commandment and were willing to die rather than serve or worship any god except their own.” NLT

This is a stunning moment.   The fire was seven times hotter than normal, and it didn’t have any impact.  Absolutely no damage.  The people around them couldn’t even smell fire on them.  This is crazy because anytime our family sits around a campfire, the smell of smoke is so bad that you can smell it in our clothes for days.  

Here’s the big question we want you to wrestle with today. When the pressure is behind you and you have made it through the fire, did it change you?   I ask because one of the primary ways God will grab our attention to bring us closer to Him is through pressure, challenges, and crisis.  

Remember the scripture we shared a couple of weeks ago?  

Isaiah 43:2 When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. 3 For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. NLT

I love these promises.   God reminds us, ‘I will be with you’.   Remember Sam’s talk last week?   How many people were in the fire?   Three walked in, but there were four who stood together in the fire.  

Please hear me.  God is with us.  One of the primary ways God will grab our attention to bring us closer to Him is through pressure, challenges, and crisis.  So, it would be a tragedy if, on the other side of the fire, we were unchanged, no closer to God.

Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego walked out of the fiery furnace, and everyone was in awe of God.   

So, think about the question today, when the pressure is behind you and you make it through the fire, did it change you?  Did the pressure leave you feeling bitter and resentful about God?  I ask because that can be a common response.  People walk through pain and struggle, and feel like, if God were a God of love, He would have never allowed them to walk through pain.   Their conclusion is to walk away from God.

After the crisis, when the pressure was lifted, did you go back to your normal routines with no change?   Working with Sam during these past twenty-four years, we would have to say, this is the most common response from people.  We are grateful to be invited into people’s lives when they face extreme pain.  We meet with them.  We pray with them.  We walk with them.  We baptize them.  We interview them.  However, when they make it through the crisis, when the pressure is off, many walk away from God.  They go back to their lives with no change.  No passion for God or the things of God, like discipleship or church.  For us, that has been heartbreaking.  They got what they wanted, so they ignored God and went back to life unchanged.    

After the crisis, did it spark a new passion, a new gratitude, for God?  On the other side of the crisis, were people around you in awe of God?  We have seen this too.  So many of you have stories of how the pain started your relationship with God.  Stories of alcoholism, depression, thoughts of suicide, jail, DUIs, accidents, the affair, etc.  The pain is behind you, and you are growing closer to God and others.

When the pressure is behind you and you have made it through the fire, did it change you?

This is why scripture is so powerful.  When we read scripture, we get a front row seat to see how people respond to God as they walk through life.  Every story in scripture is a story about us.  They were deeply flawed people.  We are deeply flawed people.  They felt insecure.  We feel insecure.  They struggled to believe that God wanted to work through their lives.  We struggle to believe God wants to work through our lives.   They were stubborn and rebelled.   We are stubborn and rebellious.   They were prideful.  We are prideful.  They felt like life had wounded them.  We feel like life has wounded us.  When you read scripture, you are reading about how people interacted with God.  They are stories about how we interact with God.  

The scripture I want to read to you today is from Judges.  It’s the period after God blessed the Children of Israel.  God kept every one of his promises and blessed them.   Let’s read what happened.  

Judges 2:10 After that generation died, another generation grew up who did not acknowledge the Lord or remember the mighty things he had done for Israel. NLT

After they were in the promised land and Joshua died, the next generation forgot God.  How does that happen?  Here's why, and please hear me.  Because they were blessed by God, they didn’t see their need for God.  They aren’t slaves in Egypt anymore.  They aren’t wandering in the desert anymore.   They were comfortable, secure, and rich.   And because they were doing so well, they did not see their need for God.  So, they didn’t acknowledge God or remember God.  They didn’t take God’s commands seriously.  

Does this sound familiar?   As we live in our world, we have great things.  Freedom.   Food.  Security.  We are probably better off than our parents.  So, what do we do when we are blessed by God?  It’s no different from the days of Judges.  We struggle to acknowledge God.  Missing church isn’t a big deal, right?  Serving in church isn’t a big deal, pastors probably say that to market or manipulate people, right?  Giving to church, that seems more like an Old Testament thing, right?  God’s commands, like keeping sex inside a marriage, sound like a 1950s way of living.  What’s the big deal?  Why are you making it ‘a thing’?  Why is any of this God stuff important?  Why is it important to acknowledge God in our lives? Because in one generation, God can be lost.  

Let’s keep reading scripture.

Judges 10:6 The Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight. They served the images of Baal and Ashtoreth, and the gods of Aram, Sidon, Moab, Ammon, and Philistia. They abandoned the Lord and no longer served him at all. 7 So the Lord burned with anger against Israel, and he turned them over to the Philistines and the Ammonites, 8 who began to oppress them that year. For eighteen years they oppressed all the Israelites… The Israelites were in great distress. 10 Finally, they cried out to the Lord for help, saying, “We have sinned against you because we have abandoned you as our God and have served the images of Baal.” NLT

Because they were blessed by God, they didn’t see their need for God.  And because they didn’t see their need for God, they did what they wanted to do.  They worshiped idols.  Now remember, they weren’t against God; they just wanted to worship idols, too.  If you think about it, what’s the big deal?  They are just covering their basis.  They worshiped gods for good luck, better farming, rain, sex, and babies.  They did all this, and at the same time, they would tell you, ‘We aren’t against God, what’s the big deal?’    

Does this sound familiar?   Remember, our modern-day idols are the good things in our lives that we ‘overly desire’ more than God.  We aren’t against God, but we want all the good things, too.   Unfortunately, the good things we want can become things we want more than God.  Good things like rest and vacations.   Money.  Sports.  Image.   Physical beauty.  Material possessions.  Sex.  Success.   Power.  Popularity.  Careers.   Parenting.  Etc.  Who would ever be against those good things?  

Do you know what happens when the good things become things we want more than God?  Following Jesus becomes really difficult.  We don’t have a love for God.  We don’t have a love for people.  We struggle to see God’s body, the church, as important or as a priority.   We struggle to care about people far from God.  Living for God is so hard.  Again, we aren’t against God; we just aren’t in love with Him either.  And we look at the good things of life and think, I need those more than I need God.

Let’s read how God responds.

Judges 10:11 The Lord replied, “Did I not rescue you from the Egyptians, the Amorites, the Ammonites, the Philistines, 12 the Sidonians, the Amalekites, and the Maonites? When they oppressed you, you cried out to me for help, and I rescued you. 13 Yet you have abandoned me and served other gods. So I will not rescue you anymore. 14 Go and cry out to the gods you have chosen! Let them rescue you in your hour of distress!” NLT

God is saying, everything you have is because of me.  Your freedom from slavery.  Your wealth.   Your comfort, everything.  The idols you are in love with are worthless.   If you want them, go ahead and chase them, serve them, see if they will help you, and rescue you.  

Let’s see what happens.

Judges 10:15 But the Israelites pleaded with the Lord and said, “We have sinned. Punish us as you see fit, only rescue us today from our enemies.” 16 Then the Israelites put aside their foreign gods and served the Lord. And he was grieved by their misery. NLT

I find it interesting that it took eighteen years of oppression and misery until they finally had enough.  They finally destroyed their idols.  They finally took God seriously.  

I almost didn’t put this in my talk.  To be very transparent with you, I have seen people live in a spiritual stagnant place for well over eighteen years.  And because their bills are paid and they have fun moments in life, they still don’t see their need for God.  They have never made the choice to fully surrender their lives and passionately go after God and help build God’s kingdom.  In fact, following God has become boring or harder.  However, they are comfortable doing the least possible spiritually in hopes they don’t lose their ticket to get into heaven.  It breaks my heart because being spiritually stagnant is the worst place you can be.

Fast forward to Judges 13 after God gave them relief from their enemies.  This should break your heart reading this.

Judges 13:1 Again the Israelites did evil in the Lord’s sight, so the Lord handed them over to the Philistines, who oppressed them for forty years. NLT

When we read these stories in scripture, we are reading stories about us.  Our natural default setting as humans is to use God to get what we want.   And when we get what we want, the pressure is off.  What happens?   We don’t see our need for God anymore.   We go right back to living the way we want and ignoring God.  And remember, we aren’t against God; we just aren’t passionately in love with Him either.   And this is a tragedy because one of the primary ways God will grab our attention to bring us closer to Him is through pressure, challenges, and crisis.  

Do you remember the verse Sam gave us weeks ago?

2 Corinthians 7:10 For God sometimes uses sorrow in our lives to help us turn away from sin and seek eternal life. We should never regret his sending it. But the sorrow of the man who is not a Christian is not the sorrow of true repentance and does not prevent eternal death. TLB

Same verse, different translation.

Distress that drives us to God does that. It turns us around. It gets us back in the way of salvation. MSG

I want to ask you, when the pressure is behind you and you have made it through the fire, did it change you?  It is a tragedy if, on the other side of the fire, we were unchanged, no closer to God.   Why? Because where you spend eternity is at risk.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 God …has planted eternity in the human heart. NLT

You must see and understand, you were created for eternity.  And your relationship with God on earth will determine your relationship with Him in eternity.  If you surrender and draw closer to God on earth, you will be invited to spend eternity with God.  However, if you reject God, if you are comfortable being stagnant with no love for God, you will spend eternity apart from God.  Your choices matter.  How you live matters.

The problem we have is, we live in a world of constant distractions.  Think about it.  Can our world offer us anything that we can take into eternity?  No.  But what do most people think about, care about, and pursue?  Everything in the world that has no eternal value.  And the more we are caught up in what the world has to offer us, the more we will be blinded to God and our need of God.  

Listen to this verse.

1 John 2:17 This world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever. NLT

If God loved us, what would God do to get our attention to wake us up to eternal things?  He would allow us to face pressure, challenges, and crises.  

One question and one step for you and I close.  

Question: When the pressure is behind you and you have made it through the fire, did it change you?

Your next step: If you want to leave being stagnant and become passionate about God, I want you to do this one thing. Get rid of every modern-day idol.  Remember, modern-day idols are the good things in our lives that we want more than God.   This week, sit down and be honest, what is it that I want more than God?  And what do I need to do to get rid of it?  When you destroy the modern-day idols, it frees you to go after God.