Northside Church - Sydney
EXPATS Week 4: Faith for the Furnace
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well, we've been walking through the Book of Daniel for the past couple of weeks, asking ourselves this question, "How do we live lives as believers in an unbelieving world?" How can we grab guidance from a book that seems so old and yet it shows us that God's plan for his people is often to take his people and scatter them and send them into the very places of unbelief? And we have seen some great stories, some great characters in all of that. Last week we saw that we really are part of the giant Mentos and Diet Coke experiment. We are my catalysts for the explosion of the Kingdom of God throughout this world, but here's a question tonight. What if you don't feel like you've really got the resources or the energy or you're in the place to be running around being an expert for the Kingdom of God? What do you do in situations when life is pretty tough at the moment? I mean, how do you live up to these examples of great experts of the Bible, Jeremiah, Joseph, Esther, Daniel? What do we do when the resources are down? What do we still live as experts? Under that scenario, I've done a lot of research this week, I've gone through some of these characters. There's one character that's really given me a lot of inspiration this week, and his name is Adriano Zumbo, and I know a few of the girls going, "Yeah, we'll preach it." Because this guy is a genius, if you don't know who he is, you should. He's not a biblical character, he's a chef, a patissiere, as you call them, and he makes the most exquisite macaroons, like they are unbelievable. Macaroons are these funny little marshmallowy things that crisp on the outside, soft in the middle. They're phenomenal. He's got a red skin macaroon, and it tastes just like a red skin. It's unbelievable. You've got to go and check your stuff out, and what gets me about this guy, I might even get the DVD next time I'm at the shop, but how can he take the most fluffy and the most fragile of ingredients and go and take them and put them through an oven, a furnace if you will, and not destroy them, but make them more amazing, more sweeter, more beautiful than they were before they went in. That's genius right there. Believe me, I've tried. I bought one of the Donner hay packets from Woolworths. I saw him. I thought I'd tried out, and I burnt him to a crisp, mine were hopeless. It was crazy, but, guys, tonight it's a MasterChef principle, and it's this. Life is like an oven. Life's like an oven, right? Two different cooks, me and Adriano, same ingredients, same oven. One chef can put something in and pull it out and he's burnt it to a crisp. The other can put something in, pulls it out, and it's more wonderful, and it's more beautiful, and it's stronger, and it's sweeter than it was before the thing went in. And, guys, life can be like a furnace. Life can be like an oven, and for two people to go into that furnace, some go in and they come out burnt, they come out darker, and they come out bitter, and they come out twisted, and they come out broken, and for another person, they go into the furnace and the oven, they come out softer and tender and stronger and sweeter, and then before they went in, how's that possible? And what I want to say to this passage says to us tonight, the same furnace, one burns someone to a crisp, the other, it comes out gold, what it says to us tonight is the idea of the passage is this, life is full of ordeals. We all go through a furnace at some point in our life. So the real question is, how will you fare? It's why we look at the example of Shadrach and Meshach and Abednega, I'm going to get sick of saying that by the end of the message tonight, and they went into a fiery furnace of life, and they came out the other side stronger and higher and sweeter. Not through their own efforts, but because God, and that's what I want to get to tonight, is the ultimate Adriana Zumbo. He is the ultimate master chef, and if you're life, if you feel that it's in the middle of a furnace at the moment, I want to tell you that his promise and his declaration to you tonight is that he can and he will bring you out stronger and sweeter and more beautiful than before you went into it. Let's have a read from this passage tonight, Daniel chapter 3, it's a long one, so stay with me and I'm going to read fast. It's from verse 14 onwards, basically we follow these guys, Shadrach and Meshach, Abednega, they're part of Daniel's mates, they're in the Kingdom of Babylon, they're Jewish exiles, they're a bunch of young Jewish boys, they're pulled before the king, everyone's had a bit of a golden because they refused to bow down and worship the golden statue that Nebuchadnezzar ended up building after he got that amazing dream last week that we read about. And here's where we're at, verse 14 and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, "Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednega, that you don't serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up?" Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zythe, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, if you're ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you don't worship it, you'll be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what God will be able to rescue you from my hand. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednega, replied to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we don't need to defend ourselves before you in this manner. If we're thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it and he'll rescue us from your hand, O King. But even if he doesn't, we want you to know, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you've set up. Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednega. And he's attitude towards him changed and he ordered that the furnace heated up seven times hotter than usual and commanded that some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednega and throw them into the blazing furnace. And so these men wearing their robes, trousers, turbans and other clothes were bound and thrown into the blazing furnace. And the king's command was so urgent that the furnace was so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednega and these three men firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace. And then King Nebuchadnezzar leapt to his feet in amazement and asked his advisors, "Weren't there three men that tied up and thrown into the fire?" And they replied certainly, O King. And 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." Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, "Shadrach, and Abednega servants of the Most High God come out, come here." And so Shadrach, Meshach and Abednega came out of the fire and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisors crowded around them. They saw the fire hadn't harmed their bodies nor a hair of their heads singed. Their robes were not scorched, there was no smell of fire on them. And then Nebuchadnezzar said, "Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednega, who sent his angel and rescued his servants. They trusted in him and defied the king's command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship the God except their own God. Therefore, I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednega be cut to the pieces and their houses turned into pile of rubble." Common theme with this guy, "For now the God can save this way." And then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednega in the province of Babylon. Well, still with me, nice. Look, what this is saying to us at one point in your life as a believer in an unbelieving world, you are going to face a furnace. I mean, the Bible doesn't mince words about that. I wish, look, it sort of proves that the Bible is not a self-help book because if you look at some of the words of the people in the Bible, like Paul, for example, his final words to Timothy was, in fact, everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. Jesus' final words to his disciples was, you know, in this world you'll have trouble but cheer up over come the world. The furnaces of life guys are inevitable, right, either through the passage of time and the way that this world works and operates, or through persecution and the way that this world seems to be against those who are of the faith. And so the question for us tonight is, what resources can we take into it? And I see that there's not much other than faith, faith for the furnace. And so tonight, I was looking at it, I was thinking there's sort of three different prisons, three different perspectives, three different types of faith that we see tonight. There is faith for the furnace. There's faith from the furnace, and then there's faith in the furnace. We're going to see that through the teaching God's Word. First of all, let me ask you though, what was your best subject in school? I know we've got a couple of, you know, year 12 students here getting ready for HSC takes me back. I remember business studies was my best subject at school. I loved bizzos and I was great at business studies, not because I was business minded, but I was I was calm under pressure, I studied well for it, I got great marks in it. And it was for this one reason, my teacher gave me the syllabus and I'm thinking, why didn't all the other teachers do that? Give me the syllabus. What we had to study, wasn't it? Well, you always ask yourself at school, you know, just tell me what I've got to know. And you see, the thing is, the reason why it works so well for me is that outcome dictates behavior. You see, the reason I was so calm and calm and I knew exactly what to study was because I knew and I had a knowledge of the syllabus, I didn't bother studying that part of the business studies book that I didn't need to know. Now, how do you, um, Shadrach, Meshach and Abedigo respond, I'm not talking about business studies, but King Nebuchadnezzar's lost it again and again, that seems to be a pattern in his life. He's frothing at the mouth, he's quite, these guys have quietly defied the king's command to worship the God that he set up and whilst Nebuchadnezz is frothing at the mouth, these guys are staring at a hot oven in the face and yet they're called as a cucumber. How? Have a look at verse 17 to 18 here, it says, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abedigo replied, "O King Nebuchadnezzar, we don't need to defend ourselves in this matter. If we're thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve will be able to save us from us and he'll rescue us from your hand, O King. But even if he doesn't, we want you to know, O King, that he, that we will not serve your God or worship the image of God that you have set up." Now, talk about hedging your bets, right? They think, on one hand they're convinced God's going to rescue them, but then they say in the same breath, "Well, if he doesn't, then that's cool." These guys are just hedging their bets here, right? Which way is it? They give much assurance that they will be delivered out, "Oh, it's going to save us." But you know what? If he doesn't turn up, we're not going to serve you anyway. Which way is it? It seems like they're hedging their bets, but you see, their response flies in the face of the way that you can see many people of faith in the Christian world talking. A lot of people in the Christian world sort of just, you know, you've just got to have faith, you've just got to keep believing it, you've got to claim it, you've just got to claim that God is going to turn up, you've just got to claim that God has to answer your prayer, God has to deliver on these promises, God has to come through, God has to, but here's the thing. If you go into your situations and saying, "God, you can't not answer my prayer," God, you have to show up. And here's the question. Who is your faith really in? Is it your syllabus or God's syllabus? Is it your agenda or God's agenda? You see, what are life's furnaces? What is the furnace of life that I'm talking about, speaking a bit metaphorical, the furnaces of life are the combustion, the burning up of your agenda. That's, they're the things that destroy us in that sense, the vaporization of what's important to you, the vaporization of your projected outcomes, the vaporization of your hopes. And so these guys weren't hedging their bets. See what they were saying? They were saying, "We defy you, not because we believe that God is guaranteed to affirm our agenda here. We defy you because God is God." And I hope it's not in our circumstances, it's in God. And so God might change our circumstances, okay, and if He does, that's great. But if not, we'll serve in any way, thanks because they're saying, "Here, these circumstances and not where our hope is." See the difference? So therefore, the real miracle didn't happen in the furnace, the real miracle happened before the furnace. Now, spiritually fireproof these guys before they were physically fireproofed. And so they were, "I want to move into that furnace regardless of what was going to happen because they'd had a hope beyond their situation." Here's a question. Are you spiritually fireproof tonight? Are you spiritually fireproof tonight? You like these three guys? Is there a certainty? Is there an outcome? Is there something beyond your circumstances? What do I mean? Where's your hope? Where's your outcome? Which syllabus are you living life by? Who's a gender are you living life by? And unless we have a fixed spiritual reference point beyond ourselves, we won't be spiritually fireproof. Now I'll start to put it, "Look, unless we are a short of an outcome beyond the furnace, we will be fearful before the furnaces of life, guys." That's faith for the furnace. And then you see another type of faith happening here. There's faith from the furnace. Look at verse 29, Nebuchadnezzar says, "Therefore, I decree that the people of any nation or language are saying anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, be cut into pieces in their houses, be turned into piles of rubble for no other God can save this way." Which way? Look, let's go back to the passage, "How did God save these guys?" I mean, was there, the furnaces there, the flames are coming out the mouth of the thing, they got their hands tied, they're ready to go in and did God sort of send some massive earthquake? I mean, he could have done that. He did that for Paul all these years later when he was in Philippi, I don't know, did he strike them all blind, did he, you know, blind all the people there and so they could just sort of run away from the furnace? I mean, it could have struck everyone down. Why did he make them go through this? Let's hit the pause button here for a second because, I don't know, have you ever found yourself asking yourself that question in life? Lord, if you're so powerful, if you're so sovereign, then why am I going through this? Why do you allow me to suffer like this? Why don't you pull me out of my situation like this? Why don't you send me an earthquake? Why don't you just do something? Why Lord, don't you step in? You see, I think through this passage, and it's right throughout the Bible, you can look at it. God was giving us a hint of how he really works in this world. You see, take a look at verse 25, Nebuchadnezzar appears into the furnace, until his amazement there's someone in there. It says, "There's a fourth figure." The verse 25, he says, "Look, I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed and the fourth looks like a son of the gods." Who was it? It's a real mystery. The author doesn't know, or they would have told us, Nebuchadnezzar knows the son of the gods. They talk about it being an angel of the Lord, and there have been all sorts of examples throughout the Old Testament in which God shows up in an amazing way through his angels and does incredible things. Every time that someone would see an angel, they would bow down at their feet and the angel would say, "Get up. Don't worship me. I'm not God." And yet these guys weren't in there worshiping this guy. It's a real mystery to who this fourth figure was, but most of the commentators agree that it was Jesus, the pre-incarnate, the pre-human, the pre-New Testament Jesus. Look, Nebuchadnezzar was so close. This wasn't a son of the gods. This was the son of God, the pre-incarnate one in there in the fire. Let's see how this God works. See how this God saves like no other. This is what I love about our God. The God of the Bible doesn't pluck you from the furnaces of life. The God of the Bible goes into the furnace with you. He goes into the furnace with you. That's why he's so different from everyone else and guys. You know what it means, it means sometimes the best way that you can be a kingdom expat. The best way you can be an expat is not to find a crate on a street corner somewhere. Not to rehearse an apologetic argument and back someone into an intellectual corner, but for someone to allow someone to see the presence of God with you in your furnace. Guys, I can tell you story after story after story of people in this place, people in this place who lost children, people in this place who want children or people in this place have lost a relationship or people in this place who want a relationship or people in this place who have lost jobs or people in this place who want jobs and yet they stand absolutely firm in this turmoil and this furnace of their situations and when you see the witness of their lives, you almost can't help like Nebuchadnezzar go, well, there's something supernatural about them, there's something supernatural with them. People get faith from the furnace. You know what, one of the greatest challenges in this church, you know, and in our section of society in which suits and statements and stilettos cover up the very windows into the furnaces of our lives, part of the problem is if people get faith from the furnace, how transparent is your window? Are you allowing people to look into the hardship in your life and to see that God is with you? How vulnerable are you and the relationships around you? How many relationships are you allowing a glimpse into the way that God's working in your life, right? People get faith from looking in on the furnaces of your life and seeing God with you or on the other side, maybe that's why you're here tonight. Maybe you have seen someone here or a friend or a family member going through the most terrible hardship in their life, going through the fire and coming out refined and you say like Nebuchadnezzar, praise to be to their God, praise to be together. He does amazing things, but don't follow Nebuchadnezzar's example because he's a bad example. You see what he says, he says, "Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego." He's impressed. He honors the God of the Bible, but he's a bad example. He says, "Notice," he says, "Praise be to their God," but he doesn't say, "Praise be to my God." You see, guys, you can get real impressed at the way that the God of the Bible works and he will work and he won't hide himself in this world. He will work amongst believers and unbelievers, whether you like it or not, and you can be impressed by him and you can see in people's lives that the flames of the furnace might be infiltrating their lives, but here's the thing they haven't melted your own heart. What does it take? Well, was it taken to not only be spiritually fireproof, not only to be an observer of God, but to have a faith that will survive the flames of the furnace, you've got to come to realize that this wasn't the only furnace that God stepped into. I'm going to see that in a second. You see, people get faith for the furnace, faith from the furnace, but finally we see that people get faith inside the furnace. You see, what is the greatest objection to Christianity? It's when people and unbelievers look around in this world and the argument goes like this, you've been through it before, in the Roblox series. If the God of the Bible is so good and so loving, how can he allow so much evil and suffering to be happening in the world? How can he allow it to be happening? If there is so much evil and suffering, then there can't be a God, because if he was God he wouldn't let this happen, right? But it forgets his game plan. Listen to what Isaiah 43 says, "Fear not for I've redeemed you, I've summoned you by name your mind and when you pass through the waters I'll be with you and when you pass through the rivers they will not sweep over you and when you walk through the fire you will not be burned." This was written before Daniel, "God says through Isaiah when you go through the deep waters and when you walk through the fires I'll be with you." It's important to remember here that you can't be surprised when the furnaces of life hit you. Don't be surprised by it. The Bible says that. Don't be surprised. Isaiah says, "When?" But guys, how many times do you see Christians? How many Christians think that somehow when you place your faith in Jesus Christ you don't have to walk through the fire? I mean, they sort of think you're not going to have to walk through the furnace. The air conditioning might break a little bit, a little bit heated, but what if you believe in Jesus and everything is going to be chippah? I think what makes you any different, what makes us any different as Christians? You see, there is no difference, except yet there is one difference. When someone goes through the furnace, some will come out burnt and some will come out beautiful. So here's the thing on the basis of Daniel, chapter 3, on the basis of Isaiah, can I ask you guys a question, can you? Do you know of a certainty that when you go into the furnace that there is going to be someone like the Son of God with you? Can you be sure of that tonight? Can you know that? Can you feel that? If you're asking, well, how can I? I'm glad you asked, because that's when you believe in the gospel. Well, what's the gospel? I'm glad you asked. That's the whole point of the gospel. The gospel is, yes, the gospel is, I don't know, it's like, it's like the only movie that I've seen that is made an entire theatre of 14 year old to 40 year old men cry. Only movie I've ever seen do this, actually apart from the notebook, but that's a whole nother sermon, but it's the gospel according to Terminator 2. You see, if you haven't seen Terminator 2, the story of Terminator 2 is that a young John Connor doesn't know that he's going to be part of the rescue mission for humanity at some point in the future. And at some point in the future, there is going to be a terrible, terrible day, Terminator 2, Judgment Day, a judgment day in which humanity is going to be totally wiped out by the cyborgs. The cyborgs were these terrible, ferocious robots that were just wiping them out, totally overpowered humanity. And so as a result, John Connor leads up this resistance against the cyborgs. And so what happens is this Terminator comes back from the future into the present day to kill the young John Connor as a means to win the eventual war on Judgment Day. And so John Connor has been chased after by a particular liquid Terminator who is absolutely terrifying. And then this one Terminator comes back, another character, main character, Arnold Schwarzenegger, no better character you've seen him, comes back in order to protect John Connor and to rid the world of this ferocious and evil liquid Terminator. Now the final scene, I'm already starting to get a bit emotional here so bear with me. After a terrible fight with this liquid Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger batted, broken, torn almost limb from limb, has finally thrown this liquid Terminator into this fiery molten furnace. You can see where I'm going here. And as they're there, they think that the day has been won, the battle is over. The last Terminator has been killed and so therefore Judgment Day has been averted. And yet, Arnie says, "No, I must go." And he jumps onto a hook above this fiery furnace and he says, "Still, there is one piece of this terrible technology still left and it's within me." And at that point, he has himself lowered and deeper and deeper and deeper into the fiery molten furnace that lay before him. And we were sobbing. I know, there was not a dry eye in the place. This was one of the biggest movies to hit in 1991, 1992, a changed culture for crying out loud. As we saw, as we saw a cyborg sacrifice himself for humanity. Now, guys, if blokes can get teary over the death of a cyborg, look, in all seriousness, I don't know, does it give us a hint that maybe there's a deeper story? Maybe there's a greater story for which you and I are created, a greater story that stirs the heartstrings, a greater story that's far beyond science fiction. See, there is a greater story and that story is the gospel. And the gospel is this, someone did get lowered into a fiery furnace to save humanity, and yet it wasn't a cyborg, it was your creator. And Nebuchadnezzar heated up that furnace seven times, so much that the guys thrown the boys in their vaporized, but that Old Testament doozy was nothing compared to what Jesus Christ was going to experience. Matthew 13 talks about the way that this judgment day, not Terminator 2's judgment bay, that the real judgment day, the ultimate judgment day, was going to be like this at the end of the age where the angels will come and they'll separate the wicked from the righteous and they will throw them into the fiery furnace. Guys, what was happening on the cross? Jesus was getting lowered, lowered further and further and further into the fiery furnace for us, so we don't have to experience the wrath. The Bible says that Jesus drank the fiery cup of God's wrath. Jesus was the one who took on the only thing, the only real thing that could eventually destroy humanity. It wasn't a bit of technology and a chip and a Terminator it was seen, and he took that upon himself and he took that deep into the depths of the fiery furnace and he destroyed it. He lowered himself into the fiery furnace. He was sacrificed so humanity's future could be saved. Oh God, look guys, what I'm trying to get at, here's the thing, until you see that God went into the fiery furnace for you, you won't feel His presence inside the furnace with you. That's the gospel, and so guys tonight to the person who's here and are asking, where is God in all the world suffering? Where is God in my suffering? Friend, I don't have a simple answer other than this, other than this, if you feel like you are in the middle of the furnace tonight. The God of the Bible, the God of Christianity shows us that in Jesus Christ, He is the only God of the only religion in all the religions and all the gods in all the world of all of history. He is the only God that was willing to suffer. Which means tonight, He gets what you're going through. He understands what you're going through. If He was thrown into the furnace for you, you can feel Him in the furnace with you just as grace and glory emerged from His life, eventually grace and glory can emerge from your life, eventually. You go into the furnace and you'll come out not burnt but beautiful, it's a master chef principle, right? They can't be. You know what? There won't be transformation in your life without a furnace, without an oven. Chicken's still just chicken. Macaron is just a big mush of funny sugar in a bowl. But when we suffer in the cooler, smaller furnaces, God's not destroying you, He's refining you, because He's the master chef. Every heat that you think that will destroy you tonight will become the very thing that will make you rise even higher. And you know what? He's the God because He's the master chef that He knows exactly how much you can stand. And He will pull you out right at the right time. Guys, that's the faith that is inside the furnace. And so you might have been thinking tonight with all this expat stuff. I don't have the resources to be a kingdom expat. You don't know what I'm going through, Sam. You don't know what I'm struggling with when I'm here to say it's not so much the resources that you've got at your disposal, it's how you react. One of the greatest witnesses to an unbelieving world is not the things that we say to people but how we react, how we react in the midst of the furnace. And so tonight, would you like some spiritual fireproofing? I mean, if everything went up in flames for you this week, have you got to certainly and I hope beyond your circumstances this week, you can if you place your faith in Jesus Christ? I don't know. You're looking through the window of a friend's life and you're here tonight and you can see that they're not alone, that there's been a power and there's been a resilience and there's been a strength and there's been a presence in their life that has gotten them through that furnace. And then you're left saying, "How do I get that sort of presence? How do I get that walking with me?" You can if you ask Jesus Christ in your life. But maybe, friend, you feel like you're inside the furnace tonight. And I just want to say that we're here for you. You know, God in Daniel sent down someone who looked like the son of God's, look, we still don't know exactly who it is, but He makes a pretty clear post-Old Testament and post-New Testament. In the furnaces, He doesn't send Himself, He sends His people, He sends the church. And tonight, I just want to say, we're here for you as a church if you're going through the furnace. We want to pray with you. We want to walk with you. We want to be with you in the midst of the furnace that you're going through. But I also want to remind you tonight that if you feel like you're in the middle of a furnace tonight, that He's already been there. He was just training back there in Daniel. And when you realize that at the cross, He went into the ultimate furnace for you, then your cooler, smaller furnace, as intense as it may feel tonight for you, might be all that more in durable as you realize that He's in the furnace with you. Let's pray. Father, I pray for those tonight that are in the furnace. Father, those of our church and our family, our brothers and sisters that are experiencing pain and hardship, and where the spiritual things and the church things and the discipleship things and the expat things are probably the furthest things from their mind tonight. Father, we pray that you might be with them. Father, we pray that you help us be with them in that sense. But Father tonight, we revel and re-rejoice, those of us that have been through the furnaces and come out the other side. We stand upon the confidence and the knowledge, most of all the experience, Father, in those toughest times in our lives that you've been there with us, and you'll always be with us in that sense. So Father, help us tonight and have a hope beyond our circumstances. Father, help us tonight and have a hope beyond the horrors of this world. Father, help us tonight and have a hope that will not fade or spoil or perish, Father, but is kept for you in an inheritance safe for all eternity's time. Melt our hearts, Father. Melt our hearts into greater knowledge and revelation of who you are and what it costs you to move into relationship with us through your Son Jesus Christ and the extraordinary links of the God above all gods you'll go to to not only rescue us, but most importantly when we need it most, identify with us and say, "I know I've been there," and we thank you for that and we pray these things now in Jesus' name. Bye-bye.