Thriving Through Pressure

Cleaned from YouTube auto-captions — lightly edited for punctuation, paragraphing, and obvious caption errors; wording is Bro. Leland's own. Scripture is quoted as spoken.

37:30

Amen. Amen. What a blessing. You know that song that they just sang, they wrote that song and produced that song. So you haven't heard it on the radio. You heard it here. It is on Spotify, but you haven't heard that song yet on the radio. They try to do a new song every year. But what a powerful message in that song. I was really proud of them. Great group of young people.

You know, John Ortberg talks about a story that he read in a Tacoma, Washington newspaper about a basset hound named Tattoo. Now, you know basset hounds, of course: big long ears, short legs. And Tattoo, the poor guy, his owner closed the car door and accidentally closed his leash into the car. And then his owner took off to go to the store. Little old Tattoo, if you can imagine this, is running along beside that car with those legs going as fast as he can. And he gets up to like 25 miles an hour, and a police officer sees it and pulls the guy over to stop it. He said he got up to about 25 miles an hour. He stumbled a few times, but those little old legs were going. And the police officer said that basset hound was picking up his feet and putting them down as fast as he could.

And I tell you that to tell you this. If I could know what in the world you think that little basset was thinking whenever that was happening and he's running along there — I don't know what he was thinking for sure, but I'm thinking this is what I would be thinking. And see if maybe this might not be some of the things you've thought in the past. I'm thinking something like this: Maybe something or somebody is holding my leash and I can't break free. You ever felt like that? Life feels out of control. I'm just one small dog in a big world. The car is too big and too strong to stop on my own. I need to run or I'm going to get run over. I feel like I don't have a choice. Maybe this one: Surviving, not thriving, is my only goal right now. Have you ever felt like any of those things? I'm thinking that's probably what Tattoo felt as he's running along beside that car, before his owner was stopped.

39:45

Because we all have pressures in life. We live in a broken world. It's a sin-cursed world, and so we all have these pressures that come our way, and I think God uses those pressures. Pressure is not necessarily a bad thing. You take a piece of coal and put it under pressure and you get a diamond. So pressure can be a good thing. You know, I've got a grandson in the Navy as well, and there's an unwritten Navy law that says if you can keep your head when all about you everybody's losing theirs, then maybe you just don't understand the situation. That's what they say in the Navy.

We all have those times, don't we, in our lives. Some of you right now in this sanctuary, you've got pressures on you that you're facing. I think there are major causes of pressure that we all deal with. School is a job. Those are causes of stress, with workloads and job insecurity and exams and all those kinds of things that come up. Financial things: there's debt, and maybe bills that take us by surprise, or all of a sudden you have a medical bill you didn't have before, and just the general cost of living as it goes up and up all the time. There's relationships and caregiving — a relationship you have with other folks, and sometimes those things can get a little messy as well.

And of course, Rose and I have taken care of her father and my father, as they both passed away in our home, and we took care of them for a number of years. And so we get that, and those kinds of things bring pressure into your life. I remember last Thanksgiving — it was Rose's dad's last Thanksgiving with us. He passed away in early December. And it was so difficult. One of my sons-in-law and me were up with him one night trying to get the bed changed and all of these kinds of things, because he couldn't get up on his own. And as soon as we did, the thing was messed up again. And it was just hours and hours. And I remember telling Rose, "How are we going to do this? How are we going to do this?" The Lord was merciful to us. And it wasn't but a few weeks later that he went on home to be with Jesus. But it was tough. There were tough moments in that. There was pressure, and we all feel that kind of pressure.

42:10

There's always major life events and change. Any kind of change or major life event brings pressure with it, whatever it might be. And there's modern technology. Modern technology brings us a lot of pressure as well, because we go to the restaurant and we see a whole family sitting around a table and every one of them is looking at their phone. I can still remember — many of you can remember this with me — rotary phones. I remember that if you weren't next to the phone, they didn't get in touch with you, because there was no way for them to. Now we carry around our phone, and it blows my mind, because that phone that you have in your hand or your pocket or your purse or wherever it is, that phone is like a computer. And it is more powerful than all the computers they had on Apollo 11 when they landed on the moon. Do you realize that you're carrying that around in your hand every day? And so we've got all kinds of stuff coming at us, information thrown at us. You get more information thrown at you in one day than Charles Spurgeon in the 1800s got in his entire lifetime. In his entire lifetime. And you get that thrown at you every day. So what does that do? That brings pressure. It brings pressure.

Now, here's what I've kind of come to the conclusion of as I've prayed about this and thought about this. When you take pressure and you combine it with fear — because isn't that exactly what Satan wants? He wants us to be afraid of the future, afraid of what could happen. And so we've got pressure about whatever it is. We combine it with fear. And you know what you get? You get stress. And stress will kill you. Pressure won't kill you. It'll just make you stronger. Stress will kill you. When you combine that pressure with fear — because you're not in control, because you're wondering how this is going to end, all of those little things that Tattoo thought when he's running down the road — when you let that turn into fear, then it becomes stress. And stress is not a good thing for any of us.

44:15

I want you to turn to Daniel chapter 3 this morning. This is a story you know so well, but yet there's something in here that I think we can't afford to miss. Daniel chapter 3 is the story of the three Hebrew children, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were thrown into the fiery furnace. You know the story. You know the story. Although we've heard it, we don't always take time to really delve into it. And there's a few verses in Daniel chapter 3 that I don't want you to miss, and I want us to really kind of dissect them a little bit.

Now, let me just kind of set this up. You know that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were three of the teenagers that came over with Daniel when they were taken captive to Babylon. They were probably somewhere around the age of 13 to 15 years old whenever they said to the king, "We're not going to eat your meat off your table." And remember that the eunuchs fed them vegetables and they looked better. They were better educated. And so because of who they were, King Nebuchadnezzar put them in places of leadership. Now these are young teenage boys, but he puts them in places of leadership. Now some time has passed, maybe 8 to 10 years, and these guys are now somewhere between the ages of 22 and 25 years old. They still don't have a lot of experience in life itself, but yet they're in places of leadership in Babylon, because King Nebuchadnezzar trusts them. He likes them. He's seen their talents and gifts. God's blessed them.

So King Nebuchadnezzar, because he's kind of a narcissist, makes a 90-foot golden idol. Ninety feet. Now we're talking, that would be maybe from the ground to the top of our steeple. That is huge. That's taller than the ceiling in this auditorium. It was 9 feet wide and 90 feet high. There's no way you could miss it. I mean, it was the biggest thing around. And so he tells everybody, "Here's what I want you to do." He had three or four instruments, and he tells all of his leadership and all of his people, "When you hear these instruments, you bow down to this idol that I made." Now, they believed in lots of gods in Babylon. He believed in lots of gods, but obviously he's kind of making that idol to be a symbol of him. And so he says, "When you hear that music, you bow down to that idol."

46:30

So all of a sudden the trumpet sounds and all the different instruments sound, and everybody bows down except for three young men between the ages of 22 and 25: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And you couldn't miss them, because they're the only ones standing. Everybody's bowing down except for them, because the penalty if you didn't bow down was you're going to be thrown into the fiery furnace. There's a lot of ways you can die, but I'm thinking being burned to death is maybe one of the worst. And so everybody bows down except for these three boys that are not much older than their teenage years.

And so Nebuchadnezzar calls them in. And he says to them, "Look, guys, I want to give you another chance" — because he likes them and they're helping him in his kingdom. They're good leaders. "Let me give you another chance. When the music sounds, you bow down and nothing else will be said." And I want to read to you their response. That's where I really want us to camp out today, in Daniel chapter 3, starting in verse 16. Listen to what they say: "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, 'O 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, 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.'"

Wow, that's pretty gutsy. Three young men standing before the king — one of the wealthiest and most powerful kings in the world at that time, Nebuchadnezzar — and saying to him, "Look, we're not going to do it. And we know that our God can deliver us, but even if He doesn't choose to, we're still not going to do it. We're not going to bow down to your image." You're talking about pressure right there at that moment. The pressure is on them. But they do such a great job in dealing with that pressure. How is it that they can thrive under that kind of immense pressure in their life? As I began to really reflect on this and study this and pray over this this week, the Lord kind of revealed to me a couple of things that I think are tools in our toolbox. How did they thrive under that pressure? And how can you and I do the same thing under the pressures that we're under every day?

49:00

Well, the first thing is this: You've got to know who you are. They knew who they were. And when I say that, I'm talking about they were men who were surrendered to God. They knew they'd been bought with a price. They knew that their life didn't belong to them anymore; it belonged to God. They knew that they were surrendered. They knew who they were. They were children of the King. They knew they didn't belong to this old world anymore. They belonged to the one to come. They belonged to God. They knew that.

You know, it's an amazing thing when you look at it. Jesus himself, over in Luke chapter 9, tells us a couple of things. He says this in Luke 9:23: "And He was saying to them all" — this is Jesus speaking — "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?" Jesus said, "Take up your cross daily if you're going to follow Me. You've got to be willing to lose what you're trying to hang on to if you want to follow Me." That's what He said. Because you've got to know who you are. You've got to know that you aren't God, that He is God, that you are the creation and not the Creator.

We try to be our own gods all the time in our minds. We make up new religions. We ignore what the Bible says. We say, "Well, the Bible's an old book. It's not for today." The Bible is an eternal book, and it's for every day and it's for every year, and when this world is nothing but smoke and ashes and it's gone, the Bible will still be the truth. The truth. So yes, they knew who they were. They were surrendered. Jesus later on would even say — this is Jesus as well, in Luke chapter 16 — He would look at them and say, "Listen, no servant can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon," or money, at the same time. That's what He says.

51:05

So they knew who they were. They knew who God had made them to be. They were children of the King. They didn't belong to this world, and they didn't belong to this world system, and they weren't going to plug in to the culture, and they weren't going to try to fit into the culture, because they couldn't fit into a culture, because this world was not their home, and they knew that. So the very first thing they say is, "Look, we don't need to give you an answer concerning this matter, Nebuchadnezzar." You know what they're saying? They're saying, "We're not going to fight this. We're guilty. We did it. We're not going to go and get a lawyer and plead not guilty and all that. We did it." They knew who they were. "We're children of the King. We're surrendered to God. We did this. We are guilty of this, absolutely. We don't have to answer you on this, because you already know we are guilty of this, because we belong to another King, and it isn't you."

And Nebuchadnezzar gets upset with them. He says, "If you don't bow down, I'm going to throw you in that fiery furnace. And then what god is going to save you from me?" Because Nebuchadnezzar thought he was bigger than God. He thought he was God. He was like a lot of people in our world today who kind of make up their own religion, and they become their own god because they want to live their lifestyle, even if it goes against what God's Word says.

So first of all, you've got to know who you are. And they did. "We don't need to give you an answer, because we know who we are. We know who we are. We're not going to fight it. We're not going to try to rationalize it away. We're not going to sit there and say, 'Well, you just misunderstood,' or anything like that." And you know, a lot of people would have said this, because he said, "Just bow down to him now." And they're like, "No, we're not going to do that." Some of us probably would try to rationalize it: "Well, here's what we'll do. We'll just bow down now, but we won't mean it in our hearts, and then we'll be around to witness about Jesus later on. We can tell everybody about Jesus later on. We'll just bow down now and kind of get it over with, but we don't really mean it." We would kind of rationalize that and try to get out of that situation. But these guys knew who they were. They said, "No, we don't belong to this world, and we don't belong to you, O king, and we're not going to bow down. We didn't, and we're not going to do it again, no matter what you do. No matter what you do."

53:30

See, I don't think that you wait until that moment to decide that. If you wait till the moment of the pressure to decide who you are, you're going to fail every single time. You'd better know who you are before Satan comes after you, because when he comes after you, he's coming with all of his guns blazing. And if you don't know who you are, it's going to be real easy for you to compromise what you believe. So yeah, these young men had made up their mind a long time ago. They're the very same ones that said, "We won't eat the meat from the king's table." They had convictions. They stayed with their convictions. Why? Because they knew who they were. They knew who they were.

And let me tell you something else about that. Over in James chapter 4 — because this tells us who we ought to be — James chapter 4, verse 7, James writes, "Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you." What is James saying right there? He's saying, listen, you need to find out who you are. You need to submit yourself to God if you really belong to Him. You need to quit going along with the devil and all of his temptations and saying, "Well, it's just a little sin. Jesus died for all of our sins, so we can do this if we want to and we're still going to be okay in heaven."

Look what James says in verse 8: "Draw near to God… purify your hearts, you double-minded." You know, I used to look at that and I missed it. I missed it until several years back, when it really hit me. When you purify something, what are you doing? You're getting rid of everything but the one thing. If you're going to purify gold, you get everything out of it but gold. That's it. There's nothing else in it. And that's what James is saying. Purify your hearts, you double-minded. You're double-minded. You've got the world and you've got Jesus. You've got other things that you want in life and you've got Jesus. James says, "Purify your hearts." Get rid of all that other stuff except what really counts, and that's Jesus. No, you will never know who you are until you meet Jesus. Why? Because He's the Creator. He made you. He bought you. He died for you. He loves you. And if you come to Him as a believer, He saves you. You'll never know who you are until you do that.

56:10

But that's not all they knew. They knew who they were — and you've got to know who you are, and you've got to know that before you come into a situation of pressure. But they also knew who God was. They knew who God was. Look at verse 17 in Daniel chapter 3. Here's what they say. They're not going to answer him because they don't need to; they know who they are. And they go, "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." They knew who their God was. They realized who God was. There was faith and there was trust in that answer: "We know who our God is, and we know what He's capable of, and we know that He's able to deliver us out of your hand." It wasn't that they trusted in a bunch of rules. It wasn't that they trusted in their self-righteousness. They knew God and trusted in Him.

You know, Paul wrote 2 Timothy to young Timothy, the man that was going to take over his ministry when he died. Paul had mentored him. He had poured into Timothy, and the last thing he ever wrote in this world was 2 Timothy. He was about to go and have his head chopped off. He knew that, because at the end of 2 Timothy, that's where he says, "I've finished my course. I've run my race. There's laid up for me a crown of glory." So Paul knew it was coming. And so he writes a letter to this young preacher boy who's going to take over his ministry, to encourage him. Now think that you're Timothy right now, and you're realizing Paul wants me to take over his ministry. Let me see: Paul was beaten. He was stoned. He was shipwrecked twice. He was thrown in prison several times. He's facing having his head cut off right now. He never had a place to lay his head. He was always in danger. His own countrymen were trying to kill him. Other people were trying to kill him. Can you imagine Timothy going, "Uh, yeah, I don't know that I want to take over that ministry"?

And Paul, over in 2 Timothy chapter 1, verse 12, says, "Timothy, do not be ashamed of me, the prisoner of the Lord." And here's what he says: "For I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day." Paul did not say, "I know what I have believed in." Because it's not a religion. It's not a bunch of rules. It's not all that stuff. Paul says, "I know whom I have believed. I know whom I have believed. And because I know Him personally and I've walked with Him, I know He's able. I know He's powerful enough. I know He's able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day." Encouraging this young preacher boy.

59:00

You've got three young men here. Not only did they know who they were — "We're sold out and surrendered to Him; that's who we are" — they knew who God was. They said, "Yeah, our God is supernatural. He's beyond the natural. He can step into this world any time He wants and change the natural order of anything. He can do anything He wants to do, because He's God. We know He's capable. We know He's able. We know who He is." They knew He was eternal. They knew He was God before this world was ever created. He's God from eternity past and He's God to eternity future. They knew that about Him. They understood the bigness of who God is.

And I'll just tell you, in my 73 years, I've studied a lot about who God is in the Bible. And I have come to the conclusion — I've told you this before — that maybe I know this much compared to all there is to know. I think God is so big, so magnificent, so awesome, so incredible, that we will spend an eternity learning new things about Him. New things about Him. I think one of the things about heaven — it says of heaven, we can only imagine. We can't really imagine what heaven's like. And I agree with that. I don't think we can. And I think it's because of all the things God's prepared for us. But also, I think we can't imagine it because we will see God in all His glory, and we can't imagine that, really.

But they knew who God was. They knew what He was capable of. They weren't afraid. They weren't afraid of King Nebuchadnezzar. They weren't afraid of a fiery furnace. They said, "We know who we are. We're surrendered to Him. And we know who He is. He's powerful. He can do anything He wants. He's able to deliver us. We know that. There's not a doubt in our minds." That is total trust, and that is total faith. Faith in Him. I wonder how many of us, given that same situation, could say the same thing. Could say, by faith, "We know that our God can deliver us. We're trusting Him. He's bigger than any god that exists in your little kingdom, Nebuchadnezzar."

1:01:15

And by the way, when it says they know who God is, remember Romans 8:28. We quote that all the time when we say all things work together for good for those who are called according to God's purpose. It doesn't say that all things work together for good for everybody. That's not what it says. It says all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. That's who it works together for good for. Even the bad things and the tragic things in our life, God can turn around and make something good come out of those things. And they knew that. That's why they said, "We know who God is. We know what He's capable of. And we know that even something as tragic and horrible as this, God can make something good come out of it. We know that because we know God."

But then there was one other thing they trusted. They knew themselves. They knew God. And they knew that this God that they knew had a plan and a purpose. And they trusted that. Look at verse 18, Daniel chapter 3. They said, "But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we're not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you've set up." They said, "Even if He does not, we're not going to worship your idol. We know our God's capable of saving us from this fiery furnace. But even if He doesn't — if we burn to death in that — we will still trust His plan."

We always love God's plan until it hurts, don't we? We love God's plan until it doesn't turn out the way we wanted it to turn out. And then all of a sudden, we don't love God's plan anymore. And we hear people say, "Well, it's not fair. God's not fair." Why in the world is it that one baby dies over here and another one is born and healthy and lives? Why does this guy get cancer and this other person doesn't have an illness at all? Why do things like that happen? I can't tell you what God's plan and purpose is, but I can tell you that I know He has a plan and a purpose.

1:03:20

We serve a God who plans. The Bible talks about Jesus being the Lamb that was slain before the world was created. In other words, God had a plan. This wasn't plan B. He didn't create Adam and Eve in the garden, and they messed up, and He said, "Oh man, I've got to come up with another plan." No, this was always the plan, because He's a God who plans. You know how I know that? Did you know the weatherman can tell you right now exactly to the minute when the sun's going to set six months from now? To the minute. He can tell you exactly when it's going to rise, to the very minute, six months from now. Why? Because God has a plan. He's a planning God. He's an orderly God. And this world that He created is orderly as well. It's not chaotic. It's not accidental. It's not chance. It's none of those things. Those things don't even make sense, really, when you think about it.

They knew who they were. They knew who God was. And because they knew who God was, they knew He had a plan and a purpose. And here's what they were saying: "Whatever His plan is for us, even if it's to die, we're okay with that, because we're trusting Him. We're trusting His plan."

I have sat by the bedsides of a lot of folks who have gone to be with Jesus. I've talked to a lot of people that have gotten cancer and knew that their end was coming, and we've visited from time to time. And I remember a man, probably the last several years — I would visit with him, and he said it more than once. He would say, "You know, Brother Leland, I would love it if I could hang around some more years. But if God's plan, what's best for me, is for me to go on to glory, and He can use that for His purpose, then I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that." You know what a lot of people would have said? "Well, it's not fair. It's not fair. Why is this happening to me, God? Why me?" I pray for sick people, because God is capable of healing folks. But when I pray for them, I say, "Lord, I know that You're capable of healing this person. And I don't know if You will or not, but I pray that You'll be glorified and Your plan and purpose will be accomplished, whatever it is."

1:05:45

So I'm telling you, these guys have the same attitude. They're young men. They don't even have a lot of life experience, but they've got enough to know this: "We know who we are. We're Hebrew children. We're God's chosen people. We're surrendered totally to Him. It doesn't matter what happens to us. It's not important, because it's not about us. It's about Him." They knew who God was. He is God Almighty. There is no God beside Him. He's eternal, forever, all-powerful, Creator of everything. They knew that. They said, "If He wants to, He can save us." But then they also knew He had a plan and a purpose. They said, "But it really doesn't matter either way. Either way, we're not going to compromise our convictions. Either way, we're okay with it. If God's plan is for us to burn up in that fire, then we're okay with that, because we trust the God who made that plan."

Can we say that? Because isn't that real surrender? Really, it's not easy when it's your child that's hurting. It's not easy to surrender when it's your loved one that's in a hospital bed, or when something bad has happened in your family or to people you love and know. "Whatever Your plan is, Your purpose, I'm okay with it." That's a hard thing to do, isn't it? But that's what being really surrendered to the Lord means.

Oh, and by the way, God is not being unfair when He does whatever it is He wants to do. Over in Psalm 115, verse 3, the psalmist says, "But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases." And I love Hebrews. I love the faith chapter, Hebrews 11. I want to read just a couple of verses here. Hebrews 11 is talking about the heroes of the faith, and it says over there in verse 33 about some of them, "By faith they conquered kingdoms, performed acts of righteousness, obtained promises, shut the mouth of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, and from weakness were made strong, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight." That's some of these people that served God. But then one verse later, it says this about some of these people that served God: "And others experienced mockings and scourgings, and chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were tempted, they were put to death with the sword; they went about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted and ill-treated — men of whom the world was not worthy — wandering in deserts and mountains and caves and holes in the ground."

1:08:40

Both of them loved Jesus. Both of them loved God. The writer of Hebrews said God did this with this group, and this with this group. So was God unfair? No, He wasn't unfair. He's got a plan. He's got a purpose. They knew that. And they were ready to fit into that, because they knew that whatever God's plan and purpose was, was not only best for them, but for everybody else that they knew, everybody around them. It's God's plan and God's purpose.

I think about Job. There's two things, really, in the book of Job that really catch my attention. Satan comes after him with everything. And Job loses everything. All of his money. He loses 10 children. They're all dead. Ten children. He's lost it all. And here's what he says: "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord." That's what I'm talking about. "Whether the Lord gives to me or whether He takes away, it doesn't matter. Blessed be the name of the Lord, because He's got a plan and He's got a purpose that's bigger than me and that I can't see." And Job was the one who would say, "Though He slay me, yet will I…" Wow. Why can a man say that? "Though He slay me, yet will I serve Him"? Because Job says, "God's got a plan and a purpose. And I don't see the end of it, because it's way too big for me. But I'm a part of that plan. Whatever it is, I'm okay with it. Whatever it is, I'm okay with it." Just like these three Hebrew children.

1:10:30

Well, you know the rest of the story. The king threw them in there. He was so mad when they said that to him that he heated the furnace up seven times hotter than it had ever been heated before. He got some of his best soldiers, bound them up in their clothes — I mean, tied them up — and threw them into that furnace, so hot that the guys that threw them in died throwing them in. And then Nebuchadnezzar looks in there and he sees them walking around, but he sees a fourth person in that fire with them. It's amazing when you read what he says. He looks in there and he says, "And one of them looks like a son of the gods." Because they had lots of gods. And so he's just saying, "Wait a minute. There's a god in there with them. What's the deal?" You see, because Jesus, who would come later on and become one of us — he was in that fire with them.

He's in the fire with you. That problem you've got that is going to turn into stress when you let fear take over — He's in the fire with you. He understands that you don't get the whole picture. He knows that it's real easy for you to become afraid of what you don't know instead of trusting and having faith in Him. So He's in the fire with you. He was in the fire with them.

And oh, Nebuchadnezzar was blown away. And he called to them. He said, "Come on out of there." And they came out. I love what the Bible says. It says the fire had no effect on the bodies of these men, "nor was the hair of their heads singed, nor were their trousers damaged, nor had the smell of fire even come upon them." They didn't even smell like smoke. I grill at my house, I smell like smoke for three days, you know. They didn't even smell like smoke. They'd been in the fire. It didn't burn anything on them. They came out. It was miraculous.

1:12:15

So look what Nebuchadnezzar said. You want to talk about the purpose of God? Look what happens in verse 28. Nebuchadnezzar responded, and look what he says: "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, He delivered His servants who put their trust in Him, violating the king's command, and yielded up their bodies so as not to serve or worship any god except their own God." This is the king saying this. Now, he didn't get saved that day. He didn't become a Jew or a believer or any of that, because he believed in lots of gods. So he just added this one. But what he did say — he called Him the God Most High. He said, "You are a God that's bigger and greater than any of our gods." And he even went further than that. Listen to this: "Make a decree that any people, nation, or tongue that speaks anything offensive against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb and their houses reduced to a rubbish heap, inasmuch as there is no other god who is able to deliver in this way." And then it says, "The king caused Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to prosper in the province of Babylon."

It's amazing when you begin to look at it, when you see what these young men figured out. They knew who they were. They knew who God is. And they knew God had a plan, and they were okay with it. Whatever it was. They didn't know the outcome, but it didn't matter, because God had a plan and they were okay with God's plan. That's having trust and faith in God. And it bothers me that so many Christian people never get to experience what it's like to really have trust and faith in God. In America, we've been so pampered in our faith, and it's so easy. We don't really have to put our life on the line here. I'm thankful for that. But there are lots of places in the world — and I've been to some of those places — where they literally do put their life on the line when they accept Christ. They put their life on the line.

1:14:25

You know, there's the depths of the ocean. We can go down there with these bathyspheres we've built. There's one that got crushed a few years ago — what a tragic thing. But we built these bathyspheres, and they're huge. I mean, they've got steel on them like three inches thick, and they've got glass that's two and three inches thick, because they go down to these depths where the pressure is so great it would just crush anything. And that's the only way we can get down there. We can get in one of those things and go down — I'm talking miles down in the ocean — to some of these depths that are crushing pressure. And guess what we find down there? We find these fish swimming around down there. And the question is this: How in the world is it that I can only come down here surrounded by three inches of steel to keep the pressure from crushing me, and that little fish is swimming around? He doesn't have three inches of steel around him. How in the world is he surviving when I couldn't? And the answer is really pretty simple. You see, the pressure on the inside of him equals the pressure on the outside. He's got an internal pressure that pushes against the pressure on the outside and equals it out. And so he's flexible. He's swimming. He's not rigid. He doesn't have three inches of armor around him. He's swimming around down there, thriving, living his best life, because the pressure is equalized on the inside with the outside.

Listen, a lot of God's people try to survive the pressure by hardening themselves. They build these emotional walls around themselves. They try to block out every external demand in their life. They try to pull away from everything, and they end up being alone. And depression is what takes over when you do that. But you see, God's design isn't some thick shell that keeps life out when pressure comes. It's an internal spiritual pressure. It's the Holy Spirit. And it's the peace that He brings inside of us that matches or even exceeds the pressure from the outside of us. It's a peace that passes the understanding of this world. So yeah, the pressure comes, but God has an equal pressure, even greater, on the inside. That's why our joy is always there. No matter what our circumstances are, it's that equal pressure that pushes back. That internal pressure.

1:16:50

Let me just tell you this one last thing and I'll be done. The Hope women's college basketball team — this was in 1990 — won the national championship. They were a Division III NCAA school. They made it to the title game, and with 10 minutes to play, they were 20 points behind. Looks pretty bad. Pretty bleak. But they managed to catch up, and at the buzzer a woman named Dena Disney, believe it or not, made a shot, tied the game up, and was fouled in the process and was given two free throws. So everybody's like, "Wow, you're talking about pressure." The game's tied. She's got two free throws. They can win the national championship if she just makes one of these free throws. Well, she made both of those free throws, and they did win the national championship that year. That was one of three national championships that that little college would win. And they had gone up against a top-ranked college, St. John Fisher College. They were top-ranked in the polls at that time, in 1990.

She was under all this pressure. Of course, the TV reporters and the sports people interviewed her after the game, and they asked her how she stayed calm under so much pressure. And you know what she said? She said she recited to herself, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." You know, that's found over in Philippians chapter 4. Let me just read to you what Paul is saying right here, because Paul's talking about the fact that the Philippians are going to send him a little offering. They haven't been able to; they haven't had enough money to do it, but now they want to. And so he's thankful for them. And he says this to them: "Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." That was her thing.

One of our men in our early service came and told me, "My son played baseball in college, went on to play professional baseball, and on the inside of his cap he had that verse: 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.'" He said he would look at it every time he took his cap off. He'd look at that verse and put it on, even during the games.

1:19:30

So listen, what I'm telling you today is this. You want to deal with pressure in a positive way. You want pressure to make you better instead of blowing your world up. You don't want pressure to turn into fear and stress that literally will take your health away. You need to know who you are. You need to do that now. Know who you are before the pressure comes. Know who God is before the pressure comes. And renew your trust and your faith in the fact that God has a plan, and whatever that plan is, it's the best plan for me.

They're going to come in a moment and lead us in a verse of invitation. Now, if you're here today and you've never had a relationship with Jesus — I'm not talking about being a member of a church. You can be a member of every church in town. You can get baptized till there's no water left in the oceans, and you can still not know God and not be right with Him. It's a relationship with a God who loves you and wants to walk through life with you. That's what we're talking about. And if you're here today and you would like to know more about that, you'd like to have that kind of a relationship with a God who loves you and cares about you, these pastors are up here to talk with you. Now, they're not up here to pressure you. We're not up here to make you into anything. We're up here to just tell you about Jesus. If you're here and you need a church home, I would invite you to come plant your life with a group of people here, a family of God that loves Jesus. If you need to pray with a pastor, or you need to get at this altar on your knees, you are welcome to do that today. Maybe you're here and there are problems that are weighing heavy on you. Remember that pressure on the inside that God can give can push back against the pressure on the outside.

Father, we are very thankful for Your Word, the tools You give us, Lord, every day — the tools that we use, Lord, when we go into a world that's broken and sin-cursed, and there's hurt, there's pain. Things don't always go the way we want them to. Lord, help us to be like those three Hebrew children: to know who we are, to know who You are, and to trust in Your plan for us. Bless this time of invitation, Lord…