Last week we started into a brief study of God’s sovereignty by reading the story of a man who Jesus said was born blind “so the works of God might be displayed in him”. A man whose physical ailment was healed and that led to a spiritual opening of his eyes to see and believe in Jesus as the Messiah.

But as we all know, the Bible doesn’t stop with salvation—believe in Jesus, that’s it, now we’re done. But rather what Jesus invites us all to is a life of following him, of willing submission and obedience, of putting him first even when it’s hard, of growing and maturing in our faith. This morning we are actually going to look at two different stories, involving two different groups of people: one from the old testament and one from the new testament.

Each of these stories involves some pretty intense events happening beyond the control of the people, and in both cases they are faced with a very tough choice with potentially dangerous, even deadly, consequences. As we go into these stories let’s remember that: Sometimes God allows things we don’t understand to accomplish something greater than we can imagine.

SERMON MANUSCRIPT

Last week we started into a brief study of God’s sovereignty by reading the story of a man who Jesus said was born blind “so the works of God might be displayed in him”. A man whose physical ailment was healed and that led to a spiritual opening of his eyes to see and believe in Jesus as the Messiah.

But as we all know, the Bible doesn’t stop with salvation—believe in Jesus, that’s it, now we’re done. But rather what Jesus invites us all to is a life of following him, of willing submission and obedience, of putting him first even when it’s hard, of growing and maturing in our faith. This morning we are actually going to look at two different stories, involving two different groups of people: one from the old testament and one from the new testament.

Each of these stories involves some pretty intense events happening beyond the control of the people, and in both cases they are faced with a very tough choice with potentially dangerous, even deadly, consequences. As we go into these stories let’s remember that: Sometimes God allows things we don’t understand to accomplish something greater than we can imagine.

Let’s start by turning to the book of Daniel chapter 3. Now, the book of Daniel has some incredible stories, many that you’ll know and love from Sunday School if you grew up going to church. And the one we’re reading today isn’t actually about Daniel, but three of his friends: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego

The Choice

It’s a famous story that most will know well, but let’s still establish some context. First, there was a man with one of the wildest names in the Bible, and that’s saying something. His name was Nebuchadnezzar, and he was the king of the nation of Babylon. After years and years of God’s people being disobedient and following horrible kings rather than their true King, God allowed Babylon to come in and defeat his people, and they took them into captivity, or what we call “the exile”, for seventy years. This story takes place during that time.

Nebuchadnezzar made a giant statue of gold. We’re talking massive. About 27 meters tall. For reference, the statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro is about 30 meters tall. So he built this giant golden statue and put out a command: If any person heard the sound of a bunch of instruments being played, they were supposed to immediately stop what they were doing and fall down and start worshiping the statue. Weird power flex, but what he said was law, so people obeyed.

Well eventually some of the people started to notice that some of the Jewish people weren’t bowing down to the statue, in particular, 3 men who had been appointed to work for Nebuchadnezzar himself in the Babylonian government: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. Imagine a CEO making a rule for the whole company and then people start finding out that the people in his own office are blatantly disobeying. It would be bad news. Let’s pick up the story in Daniel 3:13

Read Daniel 3:13–15

This is where the CEO example breaks down a bit, because it’s a little more serious than “do it or you’re fired.” Well, I guess it’s more like “you’re fired, literally”. If you remember from last week, we were talking about a story where the man was told “agree with us or be kicked out of the synagogue” and we acknowledged how brutal and extreme that punishment was. But here it’s “get on board or get BBQ’d”. And while on the surface it might look like a choice between life and death, and it is, on a deeper level it’s a choice of who to obey and who to disobey: God, or the earthly king. Will they follow God or not?

It always blows my mind, at least in the way it’s written, how confident the 3 are as they respond [16], or basically “We answer to someone above your pay grade. We don’t owe you anything. We don’t have to answer you. But we will…” [17]. They use his own words back against him in a wild demonstration of trust and confidence in God, even in the face of incredible opposition. And yet the verse that stands out most to me, and actually the one that drew me to speaking on this text in the first place is the next one.

[18] Did you catch that? It’s not just “we aren’t going to disobey God because he’ll save us from your punishment”, it’s “we aren’t going to disobey God, period. Whether he saves us or not, that’s up to him, we’re choosing to follow him rather than you.” You’d be hard pressed to find a clearer demonstration of trust in the sovereignty of God than right here. Because what these 3 men are acknowledging is that God is worth trusting, worshiping, and obeying even if he doesn’t do what we want him to do. Even if we don’t understand him or what he’s doing.

There are times when we may pray to God and he may give us something we ask for. But other times, he won’t. There are times when he might reward us here on Earth for remaining loyal and faithful to him, and not turning our back when the going gets hard. But even if he doesn’t, that doesn’t change anything about his goodness, his faithfulness, his power, or his love. Because he is God and we are not. He is sovereign and we are not. And clearly these 3 men understood that.

Now, of course if you’re familiar with this story, as soon as the men declare faith in God and that they won’t obey the king, God swoops in and carries them away and they live happily ever after! Right? Well, no, because sometimes God allows things we don’t understand to accomplish something greater than we can imagine.

The Consequences

Read Daniel 3:19–23

This guy is so angry that he sacrifices a group of his own “valiant warriors” just to extra-kill the 3 men. It’s like…wouldn’t regular fire be enough? Is it really worth making a fire so hot it kills your own dudes? But this isn’t just about killing them, it’s about making a point: if you disobey me, there are consequences. He’s not messing around, and they are being used to make an example to anyone else who might have even considered disobeying.

I remember being in a class once where the professor made some comment that openly made fun of some Christian belief, suggesting anyone who might believe it was stupid and unintelligent and couldn’t possibly be right, and the whole class laughed. Right then he set the tone: if you bring up something like this, not only will I not take you seriously, but you’re going to be openly mocked by your classmates too. In an extreme sense, that’s sort of what Nebuchadnezzar is doing here. I’m going to make sure it’s clear to everyone that I am not joking, I am very serious, and if you have any mind to disagree with me, you’re stupid.

I’ll be honest, I always wondered what was going through Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego’s heads at this point. I mean, verbally, they displayed a lot of trust and confidence in God, even a trust in his perfect and sovereign will if he chose not to protect them. But you gotta imagine they were hoping for God to save them, right? As we all would be. But I wonder if there was point they started wondering if it really was the end, if God really was going to let them die. Was it when they got tied up? Was it when the fires were stoked higher? Was it when they were being led up to the furnace? When the flames started burning the people leading them to the opening?

Obviously it’s not an important detail or it would’ve been included, but just from a human point of view I’ve got to wonder if there was ever a point between their confrontation with the king and falling into the furnace that even one of them thought “oh no, what have I done?” Or one of the more classics we talked about last week: “Where are you God? I thought you loved me, God? If you’re good and powerful why are you allowing this, God?” But, for some reason that will become a little more clear to us in the next verses, God allowed them to be tied up and led to slaughter like sacrificial animals.

Read Daniel 3:24–30

Why did God allow the 3 men to be thrown into the fire? Look at the result! The people watching, politicians, governors, leaders, including the king of one of the most powerful nations on the earth, got to witness something miraculous! A clear testament not only to the power and protection of God, but why he ought to be taken even more seriously than the king.

God was making his own point: You mess with my people, command them to disobey me, tie them up and throw them in a fire? They’ll walk through the flames and won’t even smell like smoke. Don’t forget who’s really in charge here. And while I’m sure Nebuchadnezzar doesn’t fully get the point or feel the weight of what’s transpired, that is to say, we don’t see him placing faith in God himself;

What we do see is God using this event, and the trials of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego to convince the king to protect the Jewish people and allow them to worship as they see fit, so that hopefully no one else will have to go through what they went through. They made a bold choice and decided to follow God, no matter how difficult it got, and in the end they were rewarded greatly for it!

But before we move on today, I want to go back to those special verse in the middle. [17–18]. We see in the story of the 3 men that following God can be hard, it can be scary, it can bring opposition and difficulty. Yet we can read this story and say “obviously it’s worth it!” But these verses, this phrase, “But even if he does not…” forces us to ask the question, if God didn’t rescue them, if he allowed them to be burned up and killed, would it still have been worth it? Is it worth it to follow God even if he does not dot dot dot.

Even if he does not protect us, physically? Even if he does not heal us when we ask? Even if he does not remove us from the difficulty? Even if he does not do what we think he should? Even if he allows us to suffer, struggle, hurt, fear, or perhaps even die? Ultimately that’s a question you’ll have to answer for yourself, between you and God.

Obviously for me, our elders and leaders, many of the people around you who you know who are walking with and following the Lord, we have come to the conclusion “Yes! It is absolutely worth it!” And while it’s my and our hope and prayer that some day, maybe even today, you’ll decide it’s worth it too; at the risk of scaring you away, I want us to be real about what the life of a follower of Jesus can look like when he doesn’t step in and intervene the way we want him to.

The Choice

Turn with me to the New Testament, to Acts chapter 6. For context, the book of Acts takes place after the gospels, after Jesus’ death and resurrection. At the beginning of the book, we see Jesus giving his followers their final teaching and instructions before he ascends into heaven until the day he will return. One of those instructions that sort of gives us the “blueprint” or “table of contents” for the remainder of the book is Acts 1:8.

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, and Samaria, and as far as the remotest parts of the earth.”

Acts 1:8

Basically, “you’ll start by sharing the gospel (good news of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus) and making disciples here, then work your way out further, then further, then eventually the whole world will hear the truth.” A few chapters later, where we’re going to start today in chapter 6, we see sort of a “progress report” on this spread of the good news. [7] Okay, so it’s going well! That is where we start into the story of Stephen, a follower of Jesus who was serving the people in Jerusalem.

Read Acts 6:8–7:1

Here we see Stephen’s big choice. He could deny the accusations being made against him, especially since many of them were false. But even if he did that, he couldn’t escape the fact that much of what he was preaching and teaching would still be disagreeable to the religious leaders, because he was preaching about Jesus, the man they recently had murdered, as the Messiah, the coming King for their people. He was basically saying “God’s Son was here, and y’all missed it!”

So like with the 3 men in Daniel, Stephen could’ve changed his tune and complied with those in power over him, those who posed a threat to his health and well-being. But to do so would mean betraying the truth which he knew and believed. It’s once again follow Jesus or follow people?

Well Stephen’s response is not as concise as the 3 men, so we won’t read it today, but he essentially responds with almost a sermon, demonstrating to his accusers his deep understanding and appreciation for the history of their people and the scriptures. He starts back with Abraham through to Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, and eventually to Moses, and even referencing Joshua, David, and Solomon—Big names in Judaism. But as he’s doing so he begins to drop not-so-subtle references to Jesus, and ultimately concludes by pointing out that their people and ancestors have never listened to the prophets or properly obeyed God, and they ultimately killed their own Messiah.

He makes the choice to follow Jesus, even in the face of the people who killed him. There’s so much that’s fascinating to me about this story, not least of which is the fact that Stephen is hardly talked about before here. But also, think back to the story of Jesus’ death for a moment. What did all his closest friends and followers do when he was arrested? They fled, they denied him (in the case of Peter), and they hid, for fear that they might be next. And while God redeemed and forgave them and still used them to accomplish great things, I can’t help be fascinated by this relative “nobody” who demonstrates more faith and confidence and steadfastness for Jesus in the face of adversity than most people in the Bible.

The Consequences

And unfortunately, he doesn’t get the same rescue as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, in an earthly sense at least.

Read Acts 7:54–60

It’s hard to read, because we want the happy ending. We see this man so dedicated to Jesus, we want to see the divine rescue. And from an earthly, human perspective at least, it doesn’t come. Spiritually, we know that Stephen passed into the arms of his Savior when he died, released from the sin and brokenness of this world to spend eternity with God. And yet those classic questions return. “Why God? Where were you, God?” I’m sure many of the Christians at this time were filled with the same questions and concerns.

And yet, from Stephen’s final words we can see that for him, it was worth it to follow Jesus, even to death. And thankfully, from the next verse we can start to see at least a bit of why God might have allowed what he did. We might not get the whole explanation, but we can see and understand at least part of it.

Read Acts 8:1

We know that Saul would eventually be renamed Paul, and he would become arguably the single-most important person in taking the message of Jesus beyond the people of Judaism to all nations. But before that, did you catch that little reference? “They were scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria”. Back in Acts 1, that was part of the instruction, right? “You shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth”.

While I’m not going to go so far as to say it’s a “good thing” that Stephen died, look at how God used it. He allowed the death of Stephen as the catalyst to spreading the message of the gospel all throughout the region. And if you keep following the story it’s fascinating because, I don’t know about you, but if I saw someone murdered for proclaiming their faith in Jesus, and I was scared enough to leave my home and flee to another region, I imagine I might be a bit scared to keep proclaiming that same message. And yet, that isn’t the case with the followers of Jesus. Instead, the killing of Stephen seems to ignite a fire and passion in them to work even harder, because who knows how much time they have left?

So rather than allow the difficulty and opposition scare them into silence, they use it as motivation to make the most with the time they have on earth. To follow Jesus with everything here and now, until it is time to be with him in eternity. Why? Because they understood that by life or death, it’s worth it. They understood that time on earth is not worth wasting. That following Jesus, while it might not bring the prosperity or healing or protection we want on this side of eternity, comes with a greater gift waiting for us when our time here is done.

The Response

For those of us who have believed in Jesus for the forgiveness of our sins and the salvation of our souls, this life is our temporary home—as Paul reminds the Philippians, we are ultimately citizens in God’s perfect kingdom that is to come. And one of the questions becomes, what are we willing to give now to do our best to bring others with us? To grow in Christlikeness? To serve his church? Are we willing to follow Jesus even when it’s hard, even if we don’t see the immediate pay-off, even when we don’t see the growth in our own life, or struggle to see the endgame? When it ostracizes us from friends, coworkers, or even family members? When we don’t see the fruit of our labour like people coming to faith after we share the gospel with them.

In both of these stories, and the one last week, we can see at least a glimpse of what God is accomplishing by allowing something difficult. But the truth is, that won’t always be the case for us in our circumstances. Sometimes God allows things we don’t understand to accomplish something greater than we can imagine; and we might never know what those great things are, this side of eternity!

So once again I ask: is it worth it?

And the truth is, there is no perfect thing I can say to convince you that it is. And even if I could, I don’t know that I would, because it’s ultimately not about me, or your friends, or your parents, or your spouse, or anyone else convincing you it’s the right choice. It’s about you being presented with an invitation from Jesus: follow me. Do I think it’s worth it? Absolutely. Do I think it’s missing the point to receive Jesus’ salvation and then do nothing about it? Definitely. But that’s between you and God.

Let me illustrate it this way:

Has anyone here ever been to Canada’s Wonderland, or a theme park like that? When you go to Wonderland, you have to pay a ticket fee just to get in the gates. It’s not like those local fairs where you can just walk around and then pay if you want to get on a ride. You pay just to get in. But when go to Wonderland, pay your $50 or whatever to get in the door, you now have a choice: you’re allowed in til closing time, what are you going to do with the time you have?

Maybe you’re going to ride as many rides as you can, or maybe you’re willing to wait in line for the biggest/newest and best. Or maybe you actually want to spend a bit more to do some of the extra attractions, the bungie swing or go-karts. Maybe you want to try your hand at playing some of the games or the arcade, spending more money to maybe win a prize that probably would’ve been cheaper just to buy. Maybe you want to go to the water park, or get a funnel cake or one of those old timey photos, or watch the divers or the trampoline show. There are so many different things to do and see and experience!

But I think we can all agree, if you paid for your ticket, walked in the door, then sat on a bench all day, you’d be wasting your money, and missing the point. The point isn’t just about getting in the door, it’s about what comes after. The same is true when it comes to our saving faith in Jesus. By his death on the cross that we talked about last week, and during communion, he has paid the cost for us to “get in to Wonderland” so to speak. He gave his life so that by believing in him we can know that we are saved.

But it’s not just about getting to heaven when we die. If we choose to accept the gift of salvation and then just sit on the bench until closing time we’ve completely missed the point. There is so much for us to witness, so many things to see and to do, experiences to have. Some of them might be fun, and some might feel like we’re stuck in a line up for hours. Some might be scary, and some, like the games, might feel like we’re doomed to fail.

Jesus is paying for our ticket, but it’s up to us to decide what we’re going to do with that gift, whether we waste it, or use it to the full extent of it’s cost by following him, submitting to him, enjoying him, growing in our knowledge of and relationship with him. And to take the analogy one step further, imagine you have received your ticket, paid for by the blood of Jesus, and you know that he’s offering it to anyone who would believe and accept it. Do you leave your friends and family outside in the parking lot, enjoying it only for yourself, or do you let them know the incredible gift that is waiting for them?

Following Jesus can be scary. It can be hard, and painful, and confusing. But it can also be exciting, thrilling, life-giving, and it will ultimately be the most rewarding thing you ever do outside of believing in him for your salvation in the first place.

Conclusion

We all have a choice: follow Jesus or don’t. And while for some people it might be a decision made once that they stick to for their life, for many of us it’s a decision made daily as we face into the unknown, the opposition, the struggle, and the sacrifice that often accompanies it. Many of us might like to think that we are willing to follow Jesus wherever, whenever, even to the point of death like Stephen, and yet we try not to think too hard about those sorts of situations.

Well this week, I’m going to challenge us to all do something really practical and tangible, and be real about it. Sometime this week, maybe even today, take a paper and a pen, or a laptop, or your phone—whatever your preferred writing instrument is. At the top, write “I will follow Jesus even if…” and then start making a list. Start with the things that are easier, or maybe the things you’ve already given up. “…even if it means giving up sleeping in or brunch on Sunday morning”, “…even if it means my unbelieving friends know I go to church”, “…even if it means not consuming certain content that could be harmful to my mind and soul”

These are just suggestions, but make it your own. But eventually, start getting to some of the harder ones. Use your imagination, and it probably won’t be that hard to come up with them. Writing them down, however, might be a bit trickier. “…even if you don’t cure my loved one”, “…even if my family stops talking to me”, “…even if it get’s me fired”.

But any time you write something down that you know is a struggle, one that you’re uncertain about, one that is hard or you don’t like, or if you’re honest, you don’t even know if it’s true, simply put a star beside it. You’ve just made a new section to add to your prayer list: Jesus, help me to trust you and follow you, even if…

Because that’s the wonderful reality: we don’t have to do it alone. In fact, we can’t. That’s why God gave us his indwelt Holy Spirit. That’s why we have his perfect word. That’s why we have his church to love and support us as we all press on together.

We’re going to close with a song that I don’t think we’ve done too often, or too recently, but the words of it are just perfect to respond to this topic. And some of the words might be hard to sing honestly, so while I always encourage you to sing, today I’ll invite you to also reflect, think, and pray as we sing, especially if there are words that you just aren’t sure about. Ask Jesus for the strength to follow him, even if…

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