Stand Firm In The Fire

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Thank you for being here today. We're excited. This is, I know, it's the high feast of Super Bowl, okay? But for us, what's more exciting is Thrive Kids has begun again. Woo-hoo! And it's great. We've had a number of our college students who are volunteering, and I think they're going to be great role models for the children involved, and we're going to keep ramping it up over the next few weeks, so that's kind of exciting. But it's always good to see kind of, I know, well, they are, our college students are young, much younger than me. I'm like, you're one-third my age, you know that? Yeah, it's kind of scary. I wish. Add another decade, you know. Yeah. Anyway, I don't even feel 50. I feel more like 35. As far as maturity goes, I'm probably even younger than that, you know. I'm just a kid with wrinkles. But it's great to have Thrive Kids start. It's good to have you both online and here in person to worship our God, and thanks to the band this morning for preparing us well, and the songs were just so appropriate for our text today. We're in the last of this series on Stand. We're in Chapter 3 of Daniel. We've been taking them a bit out of order, and one of the reasons is that this one would be the last. It's basically how to stand firm in the fire, Daniel Chapter 3, where we have the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and all that that entails. Now, next week, our series is going to start with Fathom, and that is a series from the book of Ephesians. And it comes from the text in Ephesians 3, where we are to grasp or fathom the height and depth and breadth and width of the love of God in Jesus Christ. And so what's great is, after studying that text and looking at the book of Ephesians, it's like the first chapter, it's fathom God's choice that he has made for us. Fathom the second chapter of God's grace. Chapter 3, the love of God. I mean, it's going to be great. And I know next Sunday is... You better know, Dave, right? It's Valentine's, yeah. I hope I'm not reminding you of this. You do work at Publix, though, so basically they've been promoting Valentine's for the last month, probably, right? So you should see it every time you walk into that grocery store. It is Valentine's Day, but I think it's going to be great because God choosing you, in Ephesians chapter 1, in love it says he made that choice. And so it will tie together, you know, ever so slightly, I know. It's not going to be the Cupid kind of love. It's going to be the love of God, which is, I think, even more depth to it than that. So I'm excited about that. But today we're starting or finishing this series with probably a summation text from Daniel chapter 3. We're going to start reading at verse 14. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar... Wait a minute. I should start. I missed a paragraph. Yes. OK. Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up? Now, if you're ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning, fiery furnace. And who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. The Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury, and the expression of his face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the fiery furnace heated seven times more than it was usually heated, and he ordered some of the mighty men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and to cast them into the burning, fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their cloaks, their tunics, their hats, and the other garments, and they were thrown into the burning, fiery furnace because the king's order was urgent, and the furnace overheated. The flames of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell bound into the burning, fiery furnace. Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, Did we not cast three men bound into the fire? They answered and said to the king, True, O king. He answered and said, But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they were not hurt, and their appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods. So...