Daniel 3:1-7

“King Nebuchadnezzar made a gold statue ninety feet tall and nine feet wideand set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. ² Then he sent messages to the high officers, officials, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates, and all the provincial officials to come to the dedication of the statue he had set up. ³ So all these officials came and stood before the statue King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.⁴ Then a herald shouted out, “People of all races and nations and languages, listen to the king’s command! ⁵ When you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes, and other musical instruments, bow to the ground to worship King Nebuchadnezzar’s gold statue. ⁶ Anyone who refuses to obey will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.” ⁷ So at the sound of the musical instruments, all the people, whatever their race or nation or language, bowed to the ground and worshiped the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.”

It’s here on the heels of king Nebuchadnezzar command to fall down and worship his idol that we have to consider the:

3. COST – 3:6

There are 2 costs here, that of the statue and that of not bowing to it. What did this 90-foot statue of gold cost the king and the country? Which begs the question, how much are we investing in idols today? What is idol worship costing us as a country? The second cost was that anyone who refused to worship this image would be cast into the fiery furnace. They would be persecuted for their Biblical beliefs. Why are we so shocked by this, look what was true 2500 years ago in their culture is what we see in our country today. It’s what Jesus said in Luke 14:27-29: “And if you do not carry your own cross and follow me, you cannot be my disciple. ²⁸ “But don’t begin until you count the cost. For who would begin construction of a building without first calculating the cost to see if there is enough money to finish it? ²⁹ Otherwise, you might complete only the foundation before running out of money, and then everyone would laugh at you.” There is always a COST to following Christ. What about us are we willing to bear the cost of following Christ or are we chasing after comfort? These men chose Christ over compromise because they were faithful followers, not fair-weather followers. Fair-weather followers make decisions based on their circumstances, but faithful followers make decisions based on Christ. Are your decisions based on your faith or on your feelings? Are you following God or a feel good? If we are not careful, we will follow what’s comfortable instead of following Christ. They didn’t just follow God when things were easy and going their way. They were willing to follow God even if it cost them their life. Notice that nothing they did changed, it was the culture and circumstances which changed and made their beliefs stand out a bit more and brought about opposition. Living a Godly life will bring opposition which to many Christians seems counter intuitive. I mean if we are living a godly life, shouldn’t we have an easy life? Well, here is the problem with that thinking, we confuse a blessed life with an easy life. Yes, Scripture clearly teaches that God wants to bless us, but blessing does not always equate with ease of circumstances. Being blessed by the Lord has more to do with experiencing His presence in the midst of life, than it does a problem free life. Living a godly life does not guarantee an ease life. In fact, it guarantees just the opposite, as 2 Timothy 3:12 says, “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

4. CROWD – 3:7

It’s here that we see the contrast between the crowd and those who didn’t bow. When the band began to play the people fell down and worshipped the image. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow and instead stood for what they believed. Are you going to take a stand for what you believe or bow to what you don’t? Who are you going to follow the crowd or Christ? Are you going to cave to the culture and conform or stand for what is right because of your convictions?  You will either be conformed by the crowd or your convictions. It’s here that we see that we all have a:

5. CHOICE – 3:7

They had a CHOICE live out the beliefs of the culture or live for Christ. Every day we are confronted with CHOICES. We can live out God’s Will or do what WE want. Are you going to choose to look good in the eyes of man or in the eyes of God? Joshua had the same decision to make and he challenged God’s people to make a choice as well, Joshua 24:15: “But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”They had a CHOICE whether or not to take a stand. Am I going to stand up for Christ in an anti-Christian culture or cower to the crowd and bow to their beliefs? Not only does living a godly life bring opposition, but it also brings hard Choices. They had to choose between worshiping a false idol and keeping their physical life or worshipping the living God and losing their physical life. It’s the challenge of the second commandment am I going to bow to idols or to Immanuel? What do I love more my life or my Lord?  It is not too often in this country that we face a choice which is going to risk our life, unless we believe that sin brings forth death. The second commandment reminds us that it is a choice that comes with generational consequence. A choice that doesn’t just affect our lives but can infect or protect the lives of our children and their children.  If you want what’s best for your kids then you will pursue God’s best. Every generation wants it better for their kids, the problem is we have defined better as easier. As a result, we have made it so good for our kids that we have made it bad. Instead of it being better we’ve made brats. Rather than raising soldiers for Christ we are ruining our country with spoiled consumers. If you want to bless your kids make it about the bible not your bank account. You will become what you worship and as Greg Beale says, “what people revere, they resemble, either for ruin or for restoration.”If you want to ruin your kids worship the things of this world, but if you want to restore then lead them in the worship on the One true God, Jesus Christ. I have been greatly blessed in my life, but it’s not just because of the choices I have made but because I had a Dad who sought to honor Christ not the culture. Thank you Bill Armstrong for modeling not only what a godly man looks like but how he should live and love. Is the way you are living going to unleash God’s lavish love on the next generation or plague them with problems?

Exodus 20:4-6

⁴ “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea. ⁵ You must not bow down to them or worship them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will not tolerate your affection for any other gods. I lay the sins of the parents upon their children; the entire family is affected—even children in the third and fourth generations of those who reject me. ⁶ But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.

As we continue in our series “Relationship not Rules” we come to the second commandment, “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind.” Exodus 20:4. Sadly the 2nd commandment is probably one of the most violated commandments today. This may seem strange since it is a prohibition against making idols, but there are many ways to “make an idol”. The second commandment attempts to prevent us from making any kind of image of God, either out of wood or stone, or even out of our own ideas or concepts! It is a prohibition against trying to define God by any kind of image that would seek to restrict Him to that image or symbol and thus make Him less than He is.  While symbols or ideas can help us understand God, they must not become the actual image of God that we worship. Too often the concept of God gets lost in the image used to understand Him. Far too often God ends up looking more like us than like Himself! As Anne Lamott in her book Bird by Bird depicts “you can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” If we are not careful, we can begin to worship an image of God in our own mind that is very different from the real God of the Bible. Like the American God many evangelical Christians have created. A god who wants us to be happy instead of holy, and who wants to bless us with bucks because his prosperity is defined by money more than morality. Remember we were created in His image, so we need to stop trying to create God according to our image.  The Bible teaches us that any attempt at limiting God to an image of our own creation will only give us a small god, and when we have a small god, we will have big problems. But if we worship the true God of the Bible, we will have a big God, and small problems. Do you have a small god and big problems or a big God and small problems?  We see this truth played out in Daniel 3 through the lives of 3 Jewish captives, who having been brought back to Babylon are commanded by king Nebuchadnezzar to bow to a golden image. It’s here that we see how to deal with the idols of this world as we see these men choosing conviction over comfort.

Daniel 3:1-6

King Nebuchadnezzar made a gold statue ninety feet tall and nine feet wideand set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. ² Then he sent messages to the high officers, officials, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates, and all the provincial officials to come to the dedication of the statue he had set up. ³ So all these officials came and stood before the statue King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.⁴ Then a herald shouted out, “People of all races and nations and languages, listen to the king’s command! ⁵ When you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes, and other musical instruments, bow to the ground to worship King Nebuchadnezzar’s gold statue. ⁶ Anyone who refuses to obey will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.”

Isn’t it interesting that even today when we teach about these 3 men of faith that we still refer to them by their Babylonian captivity names, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, instead of their Hebrew birth names, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. This is not the first time they refuse to conform to the culture. In Daniel 1 they refused to defile themselves with the king’s food and successfully negotiated an alternative. God blessed them with great wisdom, and they were given prominent positions in the Babylonian kingdom. It’s here as they were living what our culture would call the American dream, a comfortable life of power, position and prosperity that we see a change in:

1. CIRCUMSTANCES – 3:1-3

The King, Nebuchadnezzarsets up an image of gold 90’ high and 9’ wide. That’s over 9 stories tall. Sometimes the idols are obvious, but sometimes they are not. So how do you discover hidden idols in your life? Look and see where you are investing your time, talents and treasures. Your checkbook and your calendar, where you spend your treasures and your time, will reveal what is important to you. It’s here when everything appears to be going great that we see a shift in their circumstances. But we need to remember that while our circumstances will change Christ does not. What are you worshipping today, Jesus the Savior or your situation?

2. COMMAND – 3:4-5

The king commands that, when the band begins to play, everyone will fall down and worship his idol. To defy the command of the King was a serious thing, it was a death sentence. Every day Satan puts pressure on us to worship the things of this world. It’s what he did as he tempted Jesus in the wilderness, Matthew 4:8-9“Next the devil took him to the peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. ⁹ “I will give it all to you,” he said, “if you will kneel down and worship me.”The Christian life is not one of comfort but one of conflict. There is a spiritual battle going on, a battle for your heart. It’s what I call the war of worship, not over styles, hymns vs praise songs, but over who you will worship the Savior or Satan.  Too many churches have gotten caught up in worship wars over style. But style has to do with preference more than praise and when it becomes about my preference of praise it is no longer about the Lord it’s more about me, and that is not worship its worldliness. Who is winning the war on worship, are you giving your affections to the things of this world or to the one who made it? As you take an inventory of your life, looking at where you spend your time treasure and talents do you see any idols in your life?