- Welcome to the audio podcast of The Father's House. We hope and pray you are both challenged and encouraged by this time in the word. - Hey, welcome with me. All of our campuses, Napa, East Bay, Roseville, everyone watching online prison church network. We're so glad that you're here with us this morning. You guys can have a seat. Good to be with you guys this Sunday morning. I'm excited to bring the next installment of the series that we're in in Daniel, a different kingdom, Christ followers, and a Babylonian culture. And I'm praying this morning that God would speak to you from his word. He loves his church so much. And praying that the Holy Spirit would be able to speak to you wherever you're at in every situation. I don't know what's going on in your life, but he knows what's going on in your life. So I pray that what you need today and for this week, you would receive that from the word of God and you'd be able to take it with you. But I'm excited to jump into this next week. And we're going to be looking at Daniel chapter three, but Christ followers and a Babylonian culture. Pastor Dave talked about this last week, but Babylon represents our current world. It's systems and structures. It's what Paul referred to in the New Testament as the chronos. And one of our key verses for this series is Philippians three. It says, "But we are citizens of heaven, "where the Lord Jesus Christ lives, "and we are eagerly waiting for him to return "as our Savior." Say that with me, but we are citizens. But we are citizens of heaven. This morning, I want to talk to you about the kind of faith required to be a citizen of heaven in a Babylonian culture. It is a great faith that is needed in this hour so that we would not conform to the culture around us. It's a bold faith, it's a tenacious faith, it's an overcoming faith, and it's a faith that does not have fear of the future. I will never forget when I was first infused with that kind of bold faith. It was the summer between sixth and seventh grade, and I went to summer camp with the youth. If you have a youth, always send them to summer camp, okay? Repeat after me, always send them to summer camp. If you're not saying them to camp, you're doing it wrong. They God meets with kids every summer at camp or winter, whenever there's a camp, you just say, yeah, you're going to camp. Yeah, you're going to camp. The Holy Spirit infused me at summer camp just like he did many of our leaders and pastors, but before that summer, I went from a small school to a bigger school in fifth grade. And in this bigger school in fifth grade, I was introduced to Britney Spears and R&B music, 1025, anybody? Oh, that's right. I was 12 years old, singing Destiny's Child. All you ladies leave him in at home. The club is full of ballers in the pockets full of the chrome. And I'm like 12, like that's right. Baller, like I don't know what I'm saying. Ladies leave your men at home, I had to sleep over. I was introduced to WWF wrestling. If there ever was a Babylon, that is Babylon. Babylon looks different for everyone, but fifth grade was my Babylon. And then the summer between sixth and seventh, I went to camp, I was radically filled with the Holy Spirit. I spoke in tongues for the first time and I came home and I was like, this place is full of sinners. I am above this. And I was like, I told my mom, I'm not going to school dances anymore 'cause all the boys do is lust after the girls. I told her that. I said they lust after the girls. I was kind of a raging bigot who needed refining, but I still listen to Destiny's Child. There was one time I had to sleep over. I was so uncomfortable that I spoke in tongues in the middle of a sleepover. You know what, it worked, but I'm not like, you just take that with whatever you need to do in your life. I'm not instructing you to do that. But I was on fire. I was infused with bold faith. And it's a silly story, but the sentiment is true for the rest of us. You will find yourself in places and spaces where you have to choose. Am I going to succumb to the temperature of this culture? Or am I going to rise up to a level of greater faith as a citizen of heaven in God's kingdom? (audience applauding) We're gonna take a look at that kind of great faith illustrated in Daniel chapter three. And if you've been around for a while, this story might be familiar to you. It's the story of Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego. And we'll call him Shadrach and Abedne this morning just to keep it simple. And in this story, these are Daniel's friends. So this story isn't actually about Daniel. These are three of Daniel's friends. They are young Jewish men who are exiled in Babylon with Daniel. And they are working in the government under King Nebuchadnezzar. So one day, King Neb, we're gonna call him Neb, he constructs a monument to himself. It is eight stories high and it's nine feet wide. And it is at best made of wood but overlaid with gold, but it could have been made out of solid gold. So he constructs this monument to himself as a flex of political and religious power and to prove whose allegiance is true to him. And he gathers all the important people in the kingdom, the legislators, the who'sy what sees all the people. And he says, okay, everyone come together and then he brings the finest musicians. He brings the finest musicians. He's got an over six piece orchestra. And he says, at the sound of the music, I want all of you to bow to the monument I have made for myself. So it says, if you don't bow, you will be burned alive in a blazing furnace and you will die a fiery death. So at the sound of the instruments, what do you think happened? Everybody bowed, there ain't no one trying to get burned alive that day. Everyone bows at the sound of the instruments to Nebuchadnezzar statue. Except for Shadd, Mesh, and Ben. Now there's some haters in the crowd and they go to King Neb and they say, Neb, the men, the Jewish guys, they're not bowing to this image that you've constructed. And Nebuchadnezzar is like, boys, I am heartbroken. Bring them to me. Can this be true? Like I've made this image for you to bow to. And it's so beautiful. And it says in the text, can this be true? Like really? Don't say it ain't. So he says, listen guys, I'm a gracious man. I'm gonna give you one more try. The music's gonna play and you're gonna bow. And listen, I'm kind, but if you don't, I'm gonna burn you alive. And I think that's a fair, I think I'm asking a reasonable thing here, right? So I'm gonna burn you alive. And then he says this key question that teed up Shadd, Rack, Meshach, and Abed to go so well. He says, at the sound of the music, bow, or else you're gonna be thrown into the blazing furnace. And what God is able to rescue you? (audience laughing) You don't ask three Jewish boys who grew up under Yahweh what God is able to rescue them. Oh, it was like the tee up of the century. And we're gonna go to verse 16 together and we're gonna see their response. So Shadd, Rack, Meshach, and Abed to go replied to the king. Oh, sweet, sweet Nebuchadnezzar. We do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire. And he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if he does not, say that with me, but even if he does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. (audience applauding) Standing firm in Babylon requires an even if faith in the middle of an only if culture. So culture would say, serve God only if it serves you. Worship God as long as you're comfortable. Give God your best. Give him the first of your tithe. Give him what is costly to you. Only if you know that he's gonna give it back to you. But even if faith says, my God does not owe me anything. My Jesus died on the cross for me. My God is able. He is faithful. My experience does not dictate who God is. My God is who he says he is. He is the I am. He is the Alpha and the Omega. He was there before time and he will be there at the end of time. He is eternal. He is faithful. He is able to deliver me. But even if he does not, I will not bow. I will not conform to the current of the state around me. I will serve a higher way. I will worship only my God. That is even if faith. I believe by looking at Daniel chapter three, we can apply this even if faith to our lives as we look at the lives of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Living with even if faith, I think the first thing we need to do is this. The voice of the Lord must be louder than the sounds of culture. Verse five says, when you hear the sound of the horn, flu, zither. Anyone play the zither. Can you do? Okay, who lies? Liar, liar on the camera. Zither, lir, harp, pipes and other musical instruments bow to the ground to worship King Neb's gold statue. Anyone who refuses to obey will be immediately thrown into a blazing furnace. So at the sound of the musical instruments, all the people, whatever their race or nation or language, bow to the ground and worship to the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Culture has a sound and you're like, totally. I know, it's like my uncle arguing on Facebook. That's the sound of culture. It's annoying, it's loud, it's, no. That not necessarily. There were many instruments used that day and the enemy has many instruments to lure you into apathy and settling into the current of Babylon. In the word, we see him use the instrument of intimidation with Goliath in 1 Samuel 17. When Goliath came to the shepherd David, he said, "I defy the armies of Israel today." We see persuasion and seduction, as it says in Proverbs 7, we see apathy and we see deception and a twisting of the truth in Genesis. When the serpent came to Eve and said, "Did God really say?" Did God really say, is he really asking you to give your money? Is he really asking you to attend? Is he really asking you? Here's maybe some sounds that we hear. You don't need community. They do, but you're introverted, you're different. You don't need it. Live your own truth. We all know that one. One of my favorites, God knows your heart. You don't have to do anything sweetheart. God knows your heart. The heart is deceitful above all else. It also says that faith without works is dead. So if you're sitting around doing nothing because God knows your heart, I encourage you to look at the word. There's not more than this. Why give more of myself? 'Cause there's not more than this. Tolerate everything and stand for nothing. These are some of the voices of culture that would like to lull us asleep, but the voice of the Lord has a sound and the voice of the Lord calls you higher and it calls you out of hiding. The voice of the Lord called to Zacchaeus and said, get out of that tree, we're having dinner today. The voice of the Lord called to Gideon and said, get out of hiding, you are a mighty warrior. If you're feeling encouraged, if you're feeling uncomfortable, if you're feeling called out, it just might be the voice of the Lord. Psalm 29 says this of God's voice. The voice of the Lord is over the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord thunders over the mighty waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is majestic. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. The Lord breaks in pieces, the cedars of Lebanon. The voice of the Lord strikes with flashes of lightning. The voice of the Lord shakes the desert. The voice of the Lord twists the oaks and strips the forest bare. And in his temple, all cry, glory. John 10 says, my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me. When Nebuchadnezzar addresses Shadmesh and Ben, they're not panicked. There's no tension in their response. They say, oh, king, as if they were just prepared to answer this all along. But the thing is they were prepared 'cause they were good Jewish boys who had memorized the commands of the Lord since they were little children. And the first two commands of the Lord were this. You shall have no other gods before me and you shall not create an image in the likeness of God. So when Nebuchadnezzar said, I created an image in the likeness of God, you should bow to it like it's God. They were like, is this a joke? It's literally the first two things we were told not to do when we were babies. So, oh, king, Nebuchadnezzar, we are not gonna bow. Why? Because we know what God said. You have to know what God said. You have to know the voice of the Lord. I encourage you to not seek the voice of TikTok or Reels or Apple News. We have to know what God said. We have to make space for the voice of the Lord. And the voice of God is not always gonna shout you out of bed at 2 a.m. Wake up, holy, okay, voice of God. It's not always confrontational and boisterous. It says that the voice of God came to Elijah, not in the wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire. It came to Elijah in a whisper. So what does that mean for us? We have to tune out the other sounds so that we can hear with whispers of what God is saying. This is why we are a church who fasts and prays and has weekly prayer meetings because we are quieting our world so that we might hear the voice of God. The voice of God that breaks the cedars and strikes with lightning and created the world wants to speak to you. It wants to cut through the deceit of the culture that you're living in, but we have to make a space for it. We have to hunger, let us press on to know the Lord. I encourage you if you're like, I'm not hungry for the voice of God. Ask him, Lord, give me a hunger to hear your voice and he will take you up on that. He will take you up on that. The second way, I think we can live with an even if faith. Even if faith knows, even in the fire, Jesus is with me. Verse 23 says, "So Shadrach, Neshach, and Abednego, securely tied, fell into the roaring flames. Then King Nebuchadnezzar leapt to his feet in amazement and asked his advisors, weren't there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire? They replied, "Certainly, Your Majesty." 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." Neb is shook because scholars and all the smart people across the board will agree, this was not just a son of the gods, this was the son of God, this was Jesus in the fire physically with them, which is actually amazing because 100 to 200 years before Daniel was written, Isaiah prophesied of the Lord in Isaiah 43, "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you, and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you, and when you walk through fire, you shall not be burned, and the flames shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior." And it says of Jesus in Isaiah seven, "Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign." Listen carefully, the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and she will call his name a manual, meaning God with us. God is with us. Tell yourself this week, God is with me. When culture says, "Look what you're facing, your God's not with you." God is with me, his name shall be called a manual. God with us. He does not guarantee that you won't face a trial-free life. In fact, he guarantees the opposite. He says, "When you face trials of many kind, don't be shocked as if some strange things were happening to you." He says, "Expect it, but he promises this. I will be with you. I will be with you." In Matthew 28, before Jesus leaves the planet, he tells his disciples, "This is the amplified version of this. I am with you always, remaining with you perpetually, regardless of circumstance, and on every occasion, even to the end of the age." A few weeks ago, Rich and I introduced our daughter to a respite home. She's 10, but she has a lot of severe disabilities. And this beautiful home came to our attention. And it's a really blessing from God, but quite an emotional week for us as we had to have a trial stay with her there. And I slept with her there the first night of her stay, and then she slept there on her own the second night. But the first night, I'm away from my other two children. I'm away from Rich, and we're about an hour away from home. And I'm in this room with my daughter who has epilepsy, and she's blind, and she's nonverbal. She can't communicate to me what she's feeling. And it's 2.30 in the morning. God's hour. God's forsaken hour is what I like to call that. 2.30 in the morning, she's having seizure after seizure. And that's normal for her, but I'm not usually sleeping next to her to experience it. I'm in this dark room in a little parent bed that is definitely not mine. And a blanket, that's not my blanket, and she's seizing. And I'm-- I mean, it's-- I know it sounds terrible, and it kind of was. It kind of was terrible. And I just realized, I have a choice to make here. I can conform to the current of what I'm feeling right now. Or I can choose to search for Jesus in this fire. So in that moment, I said, no, no, no, no. Self-pity, you have to go. Bitterness, you have to go. Confusion, you have to go. Fear, you have to go. Fear of the future, you're gone. Jesus, show me where you are in the fire. 2.30 in the morning, in that room, Jesus was with me. I kid you not. That week, I felt the nearness of God closer than I had felt. And I think years. He was so near to me because he's just waiting for us to ask. Jesus, show me where you are. Make no mistake, he's never left. He is a manual, God with you. But if you're in the middle of it and you can't feel him and you can't see him, I encourage you to ask him. Lord, show me where you are in this because he is with you. The last thing today, even in the fire, no matter the outcome, he gets the glory. He gets the glory. Verse 26, the Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the furnace of blazing fire. He responded and said, "Shad rack, me shack, and bend to go. Come out, you servants of the Most High God, and come here." He went from constructing an image of himself in the likeness of God to saying what God can save you to saying, "Servants of the Most High God." The king's high officials gathered around and saw that the fire had no effect on the bodies of these men, nor was the hair of their head singed, nor were their trousers damaged, always a good day when the trousers are not damaged. Nor had the smell of fire even come upon them. Nebuchadnezzar responded and said, "Blessed be the God of Shad rack, me shack, and a bend to go, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who put their trust in him, violating the king's command, and yielded up their body so as to not serve or worship any God except their own God." There is no other God who is able to deliver in this way. [ Applause ] It says, "Then the king caused Shad, me, and bend to prosper in the province of Babylon." This is a good day for the believers. This is a good day for Shad, me, and Ben. Neb sees Jesus in the fire. He testifies of God's goodness. The heart of a king is turned, and the heart of a nation is adjusted because of what God did that day. Sign me up for that team. That's all I need in life. Let's go to lunch and celebrate being Christians because it's awesome. But if you've been around for a while, you know that that's not always the way the story ends. You might not get your deliverance. You might not get your healing. You might have already experienced death and disappointment and destruction, but I promise you this. If you walk as a surrendered follower of Jesus, he will have his glory in your life. Says in Romans 8, "Since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God's glory. But if we are to share his glory, you must also share his suffering. Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later." Here's the confession of an even if church. His glory is worth more than my temporary suffering. The enemy would want you to believe that there is no coming glory. There's nothing to look forward to. This is it. But we, as a church, catch glimpses of the glory to come. We know it because we worship together and we feel, what do we feel? We feel his peace. We feel his presence. We feel his patience, his mercy, his goodness. What is that? It's a taste of the glory. It's like a dropper from the ocean of the glory that we will experience in the days and eternity to come. It says in Revelation 5, that around the throne, 24/7, they are lifting up the name of Jesus, saying, "Holy, holy, holy, worthy is the lamb who was slain, and he who sits on the throne awesome is he, glory, power, forever and ever." This is what they're saying. And we as believers, when we gather and worship, and when we offer our lives as a living sacrifice of worship and lay down our comfort and our self-preservation, we are entering into a taste of that glory and ushering him in to our spaces here in Babylon. We're ushering in his goodness. The glory of God is his goodness. Moses said, "Show me your glory." And God told Moses, "I will cause my goodness to pass before you." The goodness that we experience here is a taste of the goodness to come and eternity. But the Lord would say, "If you offer your lives, and if you bow to no one and you exalt my name, I will let my goodness pass before you." Church, we have seen nothing yet. And the next time the enemy lies to you and says, "Sit back, lie down, just forget about it." You tell him, "There is a coming glory, and I am going to be a part of it, and I am going to do my part to usher it in here and now. I am going to bring hope to my workplace. I am going to bring faith to my family. I will not settle to the current of the culture around me by ushering God's glory with my praise, with my sacrifice, with laying my comfort down at the altar. We get to be partakers of that glory here on earth that's happening in heaven. I'm going to invite the band up now, a few years ago, a dear friend who was a true prophet had a prophetic word for me that really shaped me, and I was going through a hard time as a caregiver of a special needs daughter and two other girls, and just really coming up against it when it came to like serving and preaching, and I have a call of God on my life to preach, and it was experiencing a lot of opposition when I get up to preach. And I had experienced anxiety and PTSD in the past, and he came to me and he was so bold. There's no one like him. He sends past, but he said, "Hillary, when you feel the opposition, step on the gas." Church, when you feel the opposition, step on the gas. When you feel the tension, when you feel the current of the culture, I encourage you to step on the gas. Lead harder, speak louder, give greater, step on the gas. Wake earlier, stay up later, seek his face harder, read longer, worship louder, step on the gas. These are not times to bow down, everyone older than me, smarter than me, I keep hearing them say these are interesting times, and I haven't been around long enough to know what kind of times we're in, but I hear them and I go, okay, these must be interesting times. These are interesting times, it's not time to fall asleep and get lulled into the sounds of culture. It's time to step on the gas. It's time to live bolder. It's time to live with an even if faith that says, I will serve one God, I will attune my ear to the voice of the Lord, and I will not bow even if he doesn't. I will worship him. You know, it's so funny, none of us are getting out of here alive. And we're like, if I do my 12-step skincare routine and eat organic and buy the bow and have the pension, I'll live forever. That, no, all of those things are great and I would love all to do all of those things. We don't get out of here alive. When we see Jesus, we don't need to be polished and perfect and self-preserved with all our baggage of comfort on our back, like thanks for an easy life, Lord. Have you read the words of Paul in the New Testament? He's like, I die daily. I pour myself out as a drink offering. I consider all else as loss for the sake of knowing Jesus. To live is Christ and to die is gain. I am wasting away on the outside, but inside I am being renewed day by day by day. Church, let us be a tenacious people that say we might be singed. We might smell like smoke. We might be bruised and we might be battered, but we are going to see a glory like we have never seen before. It is going to be worth it on the other side. We will press in. We will dig. We will pray. We will serve. We will give. We will worship. I will not bow. I will not bow to the culture around me. We say, Jesus come as citizens of heaven. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, in Jesus' name, campusism and a hand it over to you. And this morning in this room, I want to give those of you who don't know Jesus an opportunity to know him. He is everything to us, Christians. He's the reason why I'm here. He's the reason why I'm able to even get up on this stage. And he cared so much about you that he left heaven and he came to earth to experience the sorrow and the grief that you might have experienced in your life. This morning, if we could all close our eyes. If you're hearing about Jesus this morning or if you've ever felt there's more, there's a higher way, there's something else out there. I'm here to tell you that that something else is a man and his name is Jesus. And he died to rescue you from a life of sin and shame and hopelessness. He died to give you a taste of his goodness and he wants to walk through life with you. Maybe you've been searching and you've been wondering, what is it? It is him. His name is Jesus. And he's here in this room today. His spirit is here in this room and he might just be speaking to you and saying, "Come, walk with me." And if you are saying, "Yeah, I think I'm ready to walk with Jesus, I want to be a citizen of heaven." If you feel like you're ready to begin that journey of faith, walking with Jesus and saying yes to him, if you could lift your hand to me right now and just say, "I'm saying yes to Jesus." Thank you, sir, up there I see you over here. Thank you. Saying yes to Jesus, just keep your hand raised. It's not just for me. It's a symbol to him that you say, "God, I hear you and this is me responding. This is my yes. I give you my yes." If all of us could just repeat this prayer with those who are saying yes to Jesus for the first time, "Jesus, I believe you died for me and I want to follow you. Make my life and make it what you want it to be. I no longer live for myself, but I live for you for the rest of my days until I see you face to face." Amen. If you raised your hand for the first time, I want to make sure you grab one of these connect cards on your way out. This is going to give you your next steps on how to be a follower of Jesus here at our church. The rest of you, I want to pray over you, but if you could stand to your feet first. And if you're comfortable, if you would just lift your hands to the Lord, I want to pray that we would have a fresh infusion of bold faith in this house this morning. So Jesus, we hunger for your glory. I ask you to strengthen your church. I ask for you to empower the believers to be people of tenacious faith. Let boldness mark your church. Let us not be tired. Let us not be quiet, but let us be steadfast and sure of the voice of the Lord. Let us know the voice of our God and let us run hard after it. And those who are discouraged and needing rejuvenation, Holy Spirit, I ask for you to breathe fresh life this morning in Jesus' name. We are people of bold, even if faith. And we will not bow to what is happening around us in Jesus' name. Amen, amen. Love you all. We're going to have our prayer team come up to the front and if you need to agree in prayer with anything we'd love to pray with you, if not, you are dismissed. Have a great Sunday. We'll see you next week. For more information on our church, log on to our website at TFH.org or check out the TFH app. [MUSIC]
