Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] I'd like to invite you this morning to whisper a prayer in your heart while I pray out loud.
[00:00:10] And let's ask God's favor to rest upon our sons and daughters who are facing danger in the world this morning.
[00:00:25] Brave men and women who stand in the face of evil so we get to live the life we live.
[00:00:35] And I feel like.
[00:00:38] I feel like we owe some prayers to those good people.
[00:00:44] Some of those people are the children of people who attend this church.
[00:00:49] So I'm going to pray out loud and you pray in your heart.
[00:00:54] Dear Heavenly Father, you are the God of all grace, and you are able to do exceedingly and abundantly above what we can ask or think.
[00:01:11] And this morning our hearts are soft toward the good men and women who are facing danger so that we can live free.
[00:01:24] I pray today that you would make them wise, aware, sensitive and alert.
[00:01:31] I pray that your hand of protection would rest upon them.
[00:01:36] And I pray that you might do your good work in the world through them.
[00:01:45] I pray for us as a country that we can value what we should value and that we would.
[00:01:54] We would remember that we are the country we are because you have blessed us abundantly.
[00:02:03] And I pray that we would have grateful hearts to you and that we would be willing to walk in your way.
[00:02:10] I also pray this morning that you would teach us to be better friends in Christ's name. Amen.
[00:02:19] Sometimes in the Bible God teaches us the same lesson, but with two different teaching styles.
[00:02:28] Sometimes God gives us precepts. They are ideas that he wants us to think about.
[00:02:36] And then sometimes he teaches that very same thing by an example from somebody's life.
[00:02:44] And so we're going to do. We're going to study friendship this morning through both of these lens. And so we're going to start out with Ecclesiastes 4, 9.
[00:02:56] Two are better than one because they have good reward for their toil.
[00:03:03] For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow.
[00:03:08] But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up again.
[00:03:16] If two lie together, they keep warm.
[00:03:20] But how can one keep warm alone?
[00:03:23] Said this to my wife many times.
[00:03:29] And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. And a threefold cord is not easily broken.
[00:03:42] All right, this is a concept about friendship.
[00:03:47] And basically here are the core ideas.
[00:03:53] When you work together with a friend, work is more rewarding.
[00:04:00] It's just everybody in this room has the experience of having to do something alone or having a friend to help you do it. And their camaraderie while you work together, it just makes the work more rewarding.
[00:04:15] If you'd like to try that and see, we're having the serve week coming up and you could sign up and serve with somebody and maybe make a new life. Friendship.
[00:04:24] The second thing it says is life is dangerous.
[00:04:32] And sharing life with a friend makes it less dangerous.
[00:04:38] Listen to what he says.
[00:04:41] For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow, but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up.
[00:04:54] So when we share life with a friend, it makes life a little less dangerous.
[00:05:01] The third thing is sharing life with a friend makes life more comfortable. I don't know about you, but I'd rather be warm than shiver all night.
[00:05:11] It makes life more comfortable. And finally he adds in this, this interesting idea. Listen what he Sundays.
[00:05:17] He says two friends are great, but if you can find a third friend, it's even better.
[00:05:26] So this is another place in the scriptures where the scriptures are teaching us the value of friendship.
[00:05:34] I hope that as we go through this series, you're, you are looking at your life and you're starting to, you're starting to challenge yourself about the friendship that you offer to other people.
[00:05:51] And now I'm going to tell you a story that teaches this very same principle from the book of Daniel.
[00:05:59] In about 600 five years before Christ, the, the Babylonian, the Neo Babylonian empire was clashing with Egypt.
[00:06:16] Egypt was coming north and the Neo Babylonian empire was coming west and south.
[00:06:23] And they met at a great battle called Char Shimish.
[00:06:27] And at the battle of Char Shimish, ah, the Babylonians defeated the Egyptian army.
[00:06:34] But before the Egyptians had got to the battle of Char Shimish, they had captured Jerusalem.
[00:06:42] So when the Babylonians defeated the Egyptians and the Egyptians retreated, the Babylonians took Jerusalem.
[00:06:52] And in the ancient world, the way war paid off is you just took whatever you wanted from the people you defeated.
[00:07:03] So the Babylonians show up in Jerusalem and families stand in front of their houses.
[00:07:14] And these Babylonian collectors, they just go into your house and they take whatever they want.
[00:07:24] And if that isn't bad enough, they look at your kids and they ask your kids a few questions.
[00:07:32] And if they think your kid will be useful to their empire, they take your kids.
[00:07:38] And in fact, the Babylonians took four young men.
[00:07:45] They were all from privileged families, they all were educated. And the Babylonians saw them as potential administrators in the empire.
[00:07:57] You know, one of them, he's the famous Daniel from the Book of Daniel.
[00:08:03] But there were also Three other friends, Hananiah, Michelle and Azariah.
[00:08:12] I like to call them by their original names. Most of you know them by the names the Babylonians gave them. Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego.
[00:08:24] But today I'm calling them by their Hebrew names.
[00:08:30] So they take these four boys, they tie them together, and they start the long walk back to Babylon. 900 miles.
[00:08:42] It's 900 miles from Babylon to, from Jerusalem to Babylon.
[00:08:49] There are two routes. The trade route is the easiest route and, and that would take about 12 weeks.
[00:08:56] You could cut through the Assyrian desert, but it was the most dangerous route. And I doubt with all the loot they were carrying and with marching people, they can carry enough water to get everybody through the desert. So they probably took the trade route pathway and it probably took about 12 weeks.
[00:09:22] This all happened in the first year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar.
[00:09:30] When they got to Babylon, they had some more testing. And because they were sharp kids and they had a good education, they put them in the Babylonian university.
[00:09:42] It was a three year university where they trained foreign kids to be administrators. In the Babylonian empire.
[00:09:51] It was so huge, it took literally thousands of administrators for the empire to work.
[00:10:00] And Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah along with Daniel, graduated at the top of their class.
[00:10:10] And because they graduated the top of the class, they got the best positions.
[00:10:17] So I can.
[00:10:20] It's easy for me to believe that because of their friendship, they studied together.
[00:10:29] And when they studied together, it made the learning process better for all of them. And it's probably what helped them to graduate higher in their class.
[00:10:39] Young people, it's always good to be in a study group.
[00:10:44] It's always good to be studying what you have to do, what you have to learn with a group of other people because you'll understand things they won't and they'll understand things you don't. And you'll help each other and you'll get better grades.
[00:11:03] That's for free.
[00:11:05] Plus it's more fun to study with a friend and all by yourself, right? All right.
[00:11:12] So then they became administrators in the Babylonian empire and they all had, they all had better jobs than other kids in their class because they graduated so high in the class. All right, everything's going good.
[00:11:27] Nebuchadnezzar's thriving.
[00:11:30] He, he's building the hanging gardens that you can look up.
[00:11:35] He's building the Ishtar Gate, this great blue wall that has a gate through it. You can look that up. Everything is going great until Nebuchadnezzar gets this whacked out idea that he's going to build a giant idol.
[00:12:01] He's going to build a giant image.
[00:12:06] This thing is going to be massive.
[00:12:10] And he's going to set it up on the plain of Dura, right outside of Babylon.
[00:12:16] And then he's going to call together all of the leaders of the Neo Babylonian empire.
[00:12:24] He's going to call together the satraps, the prefects, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, all the officials of the providences.
[00:12:37] And he's going to bring them together on this big, on this, on this huge plain. And he's going to have a giant band out there.
[00:12:48] And the instruction is, when you hear the band start to play, everybody has to kneel down and pay homage to the golden idol.
[00:13:01] And whoever does not fall down and pay image to the golden idol, well, Nebuchadnezzar has a big room, garage size furnace burning out there. And he says, if you don't bow down to my idol, I throwing you in there.
[00:13:22] So this is not voluntary worship. This is coerced worship.
[00:13:30] So the big day comes, everybody shows up, they're all wearing their fancy uniforms.
[00:13:39] Everybody's in rows and it's all organized.
[00:13:44] Everybody's looking at the giant golden idol.
[00:13:48] And then the music begins to play.
[00:13:53] And when the music began to play, you could hear the rustle all over the plain.
[00:14:01] Everybody bowed down except our three friends, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.
[00:14:12] And they stuck out like a sore throat thumb.
[00:14:17] Everybody is kneeling and here stand these three incredible young men and they won't bow.
[00:14:31] There were people in the administration who were jealous of them and it was exactly what they wanted to see.
[00:14:42] They could not wait for the music to stop playing so they could jump up and they could run to Nebuchadnezzar's tent and they could say, we got a problem.
[00:14:54] And in fact, that is exactly what they did.
[00:14:57] They ran to Nebuchadnezzar's tent and they said, O King, live forever. You, O king, made a decree that every man who hears the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp and the, and the bagpipe and every other kind of music shall fall down and worship the golden image. Whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into the fiery furnace.
[00:15:21] There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the providence of Babylon.
[00:15:30] And these men, O king, pay no attention to you.
[00:15:35] They do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.
[00:15:41] Ah, these rivals couldn't wait to rat out our three friends.
[00:15:54] And notice how they framed what they said.
[00:16:00] They said, ah, they're Jews, which implied they have to be automatically be bad. You know how those people are.
[00:16:15] The second thing they said was they pay no attention to your laws. That's not true.
[00:16:22] They paid attention to all his laws except the law to worship the golden idol.
[00:16:30] So now these three friends, they're standing there, their rivals rat them out to the Nebuchadnezzar. And Nebuchadnezzar is not used to being disobeyed.
[00:16:42] That's not the way things work. He's an absolute monarch.
[00:16:47] And Daniel wrote in his. In his book that it made the. It made Nebuchadnezzar furious with rage.
[00:16:57] He. He automatically lost his temper.
[00:17:02] And they had. He had his soldiers bring our three friends into his tent, and this is what he said to them.
[00:17:11] 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?
[00:17:23] Now, if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp and the bagpipe and every other kind of music to fall down and worship the image that I have made.
[00:17:35] Well and good.
[00:17:38] But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into the burning fiery furnace.
[00:17:49] And who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands?
[00:17:54] All right.
[00:17:56] These three men have been torn away from their family.
[00:18:00] They've walked 900 miles to a new city.
[00:18:04] They've been educated in a new language, a new culture, new literature.
[00:18:10] They have thriving careers.
[00:18:12] And it comes to this moment where they have to decide, is my faith in Christ worth risking the rage of Nebuchadnezzar?
[00:18:39] Is my faith in Christ worth risking the comfortable place I have in life?
[00:18:47] Ah.
[00:18:48] Is my faith in Christ worse than becoming the.
[00:18:54] The object of the most powerful man in the world's disapproval?
[00:19:06] He's laid it on the line.
[00:19:08] You have no options. You can bow down and have a good life, or you can refuse to bow down. And. And I'm gonna. I'm gonna. You're going to die. One of the worst ways you can possibly die.
[00:19:24] But these three young men had solidarity with each other and with God.
[00:19:29] And I'd like you to hear what they said.
[00:19:33] O Nebuchadnezzar.
[00:19:35] I want you to pay attention to the we's. I'm going to emphasize them. Oh, Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.
[00:19:47] 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.
[00:20:00] 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.
[00:20:12] Okay, I want to make it. I want to make an important point here that was hard to do when you had two buddies standing next to you.
[00:20:22] How much harder would that have been to do if you were all alone?
[00:20:27] If they had to face this, each one separate and all alone, how much more difficult would that have been?
[00:20:36] In fact, it was an incredible gift of God that they went through this together because they were strengthened by the friend that was standing next to them.
[00:20:55] Well, you can imagine how Nebuchadnezzar responds to this.
[00:20:59] First of all, he's not used to not being obeyed.
[00:21:03] And second of all, he's never been talked to that way.
[00:21:08] No one has ever said to him, we're not going to do what you want and do what you have to do because we're trusting in God and we have more faith in God than we have fear of you.
[00:21:24] Well, here's what Daniel wrote then. Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury, and the expression on his face was changed.
[00:21:36] And he ordered the furnace to be heated seven times more than it was usually heated.
[00:21:44] Now, I want you to imagine a brick kiln, perhaps the size of a garage, and they've already got this thing smoking hot fires blowing up out of the chimney. It's so hot.
[00:22:02] The front is just aglow from the heat.
[00:22:07] And Nebuchadnezzar is so enraged, he said, make it hotter.
[00:22:14] And they started throwing more kindling and more wood in there.
[00:22:19] And then he ordered that our three friends were to be bound in their cloaks, tunics and hats and other garments and thrown into the burning fiery furnace.
[00:22:37] I want us to read the Bible and feel the tension of the story.
[00:22:46] Can you imagine what it was like for these three young men to be tied up and walk toward that furnace and know that in any within minutes, soldiers were going to pick them up and heave them in there?
[00:23:08] It makes me tense in my stomach to think about it.
[00:23:16] Because the king's order was urgent. The furnace was overheated and the flame of the fire killed those who took Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
[00:23:27] The people who threw them in died from the heat of the furnace.
[00:23:35] And these three men, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, they fell bound into the burning fiery furnace.
[00:23:49] It looked to everybody like it was over.
[00:23:53] It looked to everybody like these young men had deceived themselves and had gone to a tragic death.
[00:24:04] But that's not the whole story.
[00:24:07] Ah, the king was watching intently.
[00:24:14] And King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste.
[00:24:19] And he declared to his counselors, did we not cast three men bound into the fire?
[00:24:28] They answered and said to the king, true, yes, we did.
[00:24:35] The king answered and said, but I see four men unbound walking in the midst of the fire. And they are not hurt.
[00:24:45] And the appearance of the fourth is like a son of God.
[00:24:54] Ah, the three friends faced disaster together.
[00:25:02] But there was a fourth friend in this friendship, and it was the Lord God himself. And when they needed him most, he showed up.
[00:25:13] I'd like to speak to some of you are skeptics of stories like this in the Bible where you say, how could it possibly be that people would survive something like that.
[00:25:24] I would like to ask you a question.
[00:25:29] Do you believe it is perfectly consistent with an all powerful God, the creator of fire, to control fire in ways that we can't?
[00:25:45] I believe God created the heavens and the earth.
[00:25:48] I believe. I believe God understands fire better than we understand fire.
[00:25:54] And I believe by the wonder of his wisdom and power, he preserved those three young friends in the flame because he understands nature better than we do.
[00:26:12] It's not hard for me to believe that a God who can create the universe can manipulate physics in ways that I don't understand and in ways that are beyond what we can possibly do ourselves.
[00:26:31] You say that's stretching it, isn't it? Okay, then let me ask you this.
[00:26:37] 2000 years ago, if you saw a plane flying in the air, what would you have imagined?
[00:26:46] 2,000 years ago, if you saw a Boeing 707 fly over your farm, what would you have thought?
[00:26:57] Or if someone told you it is actually possible to build a vehicle that weighs tons and can haul 500 people and that vehicle is going to be a flying vehicle and you'll be able to fly from America just about anywhere in the world on this thing, you would have said, that's nonsense.
[00:27:21] And human beings, by understanding the physics of the world, have been able to do things that 2,000 years ago would have been considered ludicrous.
[00:27:33] If human beings can figure out physics and fly, I have no trouble at all believing that the creator of the heavens and the earth can. Can figure out physics and save three men from the flame.
[00:27:50] It does not seem incredible to me.
[00:27:54] All right, now I Want us to learn the lessons about friendship that the precepts and the story tells.
[00:28:03] The first lesson.
[00:28:05] Friendship produces better study and work results.
[00:28:11] Ah. This is why we have life groups. Because as in a life group, you make friendships with other people.
[00:28:19] And we study the Bible together. We study Christian books together. And because we have a friendship, it makes the study more pleasant.
[00:28:29] I have a life group. We meet every Tuesday morning at 8 o' clock.
[00:28:34] I look forward to hanging out with those guys.
[00:28:37] We study the Bible together.
[00:28:39] I hear them say very intelligent things. I become a better person because I study the Bible with other people.
[00:28:47] Ah.
[00:28:49] Second, friendships strengthen us in times of crisis.
[00:28:58] It was a crisis. These young men were torn away from their home. They were torn away from their family. They were. They were torn away from everything that they understood. And they were coerced to live in a absolutely new culture. They had to learn a new language, Acadian.
[00:29:16] Ah. Ah. Okay.
[00:29:18] And on top of that there was the crisis of their religion and. And Nebuchadnezzar trying to coerce them into worshiping an idol that breaks the first commandment. You shall have not have any other gods before me.
[00:29:32] And then on top of that was the crisis of threat of death. All right.
[00:29:37] They strengthened each other in crisis through their friendships.
[00:29:42] Could I remind you of this? It's too late to create a friendship when you're in the crisis. You have to create the friendship before the crisis.
[00:29:51] Church 3.
[00:29:57] Friendships help us when our rivals turn on us.
[00:30:03] Ah.
[00:30:05] Look, you can't get through life without rivals unless you're hiding in the church basement.
[00:30:14] You're going to run into people who are unreasonable. You're going to run into people who are jealous of you. You're going to run into people who don't have your best interest in mind. It's just life.
[00:30:28] It is reality.
[00:30:32] You have to drive everywhere you go. And God only knows what's going on in that knuckleheads head behind you or in front of you. Life has rivalries. All right?
[00:30:47] Friendship is God's good idea to strengthen us when we are struggling with rivals, when people are being unfair and when they're not treating us right. And friendship is a wonderful gift of God that gives us strength when we have to deal with these rivals in life. Do you have rivals at work?
[00:31:13] Best thing you can do is have friends at work.
[00:31:16] Ah.
[00:31:17] You may not be able to control your rivals, but at least you'll have a friend who has your back and will listen to you complain.
[00:31:28] All right.
[00:31:30] 4.
[00:31:33] Friendships support us when we face the Absurdities of life's injustice. Could I, could. Could we just agree life isn't fair?
[00:31:46] Life is not fair.
[00:31:50] I know people who have much better eating habits than I have. And they don't have the good genes I have. And they have. They have more problems than I have, okay? If it was fair, I would have their problems because I eat terribly and they eat well and they would have my health. But life doesn't work that way. Do you see?
[00:32:16] You get lucky with some good genes, all right?
[00:32:21] In the unfairness of life, God has an idea for us.
[00:32:28] God doesn't say, I'm going to wave my magic wand and make life fair for you all the time. It's not what he says. He says this.
[00:32:36] I'm gonna place friends in your life.
[00:32:39] And when life isn't fair, you have a partner to deal with the absurdity of life with.
[00:32:49] Can you hear this?
[00:32:52] If you're troubled about life being unfair, here's God's answer to you.
[00:32:58] Make some good friends.
[00:33:01] They're just what you need when life isn't fair.
[00:33:04] Church 5.
[00:33:10] Friendships. The right friendships encourage what is best spiritually in us.
[00:33:17] I want friends who help me to be a better Christian.
[00:33:25] This is important.
[00:33:27] I want.
[00:33:29] I.
[00:33:30] When I stand before the Lord God Almighty. I want to be a full grown Christian man.
[00:33:37] I want to be a fully developed spiritual man.
[00:33:41] I don't want to go to heaven and have to take remedial classes. Hey, Doc, you should have learned this when you were walking around down there, but you couldn't be bothered. And now I'm going to have to send you to summer school to. To get you ready for heaven.
[00:33:59] I don't want that.
[00:34:03] I want to be in a relationship with God where he does his full work in me. And when I take my last breath, I am ready for all the adventures that God has for me in eternity. Church and listen.
[00:34:21] Friendship facilitates spiritual development.
[00:34:27] Friendship facilitates growing into your full potential spiritually.
[00:34:34] Look, it's called theology. And you know what theology means talking about God.
[00:34:41] And it presupposes that you're talking to somebody.
[00:34:47] Growing in our understanding of God includes creating friendships where we talk to our friends about who God is, how he works, what he's doing in our life.
[00:35:00] We listen to our friends.
[00:35:03] They help us see our blind spots. And God does his spiritual work in us.
[00:35:14] Does anybody in this church remember how to say amen?
[00:35:18] All right.
[00:35:21] 6.
[00:35:23] Friendship is a comfort when we experience the cruelty of life.
[00:35:32] When we are experiencing the cruelty of life, God says, I've already given you this good Idea. Have some friends in your life. They'll comfort you when life is cruel, Church.
[00:35:50] Have a better friendship with your spouse.
[00:35:53] They'll comfort you when life is cruel.
[00:35:58] Instead of piling on, this is a tough crowd today.
[00:36:08] All right.
[00:36:12] We can't block the cruelty of life. I wish we could.
[00:36:18] But when life is cruel, God has a comfort for us. And that comfort comes through the friends that he's placed in our lives.
[00:36:27] 7.
[00:36:29] Friendship consoles us when we face the mystery of death.
[00:36:34] These men had one consolation as they looked at that fiery furnace, each other.
[00:36:41] I can imagine they're saying, hang in there. God is with us.
[00:36:51] Let's do this arm in arm. We'll lock arms together and we'll go together.
[00:36:55] I can hear them trying to comfort and encourage each other as they head toward the furnace.
[00:37:03] I have witnessed in my years pastoring this church, I've done many funerals. And I can tell you one of the beauties of a funeral is the gift of friendship. In a moment like that, when people show up and express their friendship, and even if they don't have the right thing to say, their presence is comforting.
[00:37:31] This is God's good idea, Church.
[00:37:34] We all going to have to face the mystery of death.
[00:37:38] We're all going to come to the moment where we have to face the reality.
[00:37:43] Ah, but what a beautiful thing it is to have friends with us when that happens.
[00:37:52] Let me just tell you this one story.
[00:37:55] My wife's aunt was dying some years ago, and she had never had children.
[00:38:04] And when she lay dying, Shay and her siblings and some other people, they went to where she lay dying and they circled around her bed and they sang Christian songs to her.
[00:38:27] They sang her into the kingdom of God in when.
[00:38:34] When she was at the end of herself, the comfort of friendship met her and they sang her into the presence of God.
[00:38:45] That's God's good idea of friendship.
[00:38:50] Ah.
[00:38:51] Lastly, the last one.
[00:38:56] We need to invite Christ into our friendships.
[00:39:00] Every friendship ought to be a triangle.
[00:39:04] You, your friend and Christ.
[00:39:07] There is no reason to exclude Christ from any friendship.
[00:39:11] Can you hear this?
[00:39:13] I want you to know that when the three friends needed Christ most, He was there.
[00:39:23] He didn't sit comfortably on his throne in heaven.
[00:39:28] He abandoned the bliss of heaven to meet his friends in their most tragic and needy moment.
[00:39:36] Jesus Christ is the best friend you will ever have.
[00:39:41] Jesus Christ makes every friendship you have better.
[00:39:46] Jesus Christ brings out the best in friendships because he is the best of all friends.
[00:39:53] He is the friend who sticks closer than a brother.
[00:39:57] In our study of friendship, the same qualities that that make a good friendship with a person.
[00:40:05] Make a good friendship with Jesus Christ.
[00:40:08] I have to remind you that in every single sermon, the better you learn to be a friend to someone else, the better you learn to be a friend with Christ.
[00:40:18] The better you learn to be a friend of Christ, the better friend you can be to other people.
[00:40:23] So remember, God commanded us.
[00:40:28] Make friends.
[00:40:30] Our dear Heavenly Father, I ask that this story would stick in our thinking and it would challenge us to have a richer friendship with you and a.
[00:40:48] A stronger friendship with others.
[00:40:52] I pray we would stop judging our friendships by how we are treated and begin to judge our friendships by how we treat others.
[00:41:00] I pray that through our friendships you would comfort, strengthen and encourage us.
[00:41:07] I pray that through our friendships we would grow strong spiritually and we would be ready to stand before you without spot and without blemish. And I pray that through our friendships we might influence other people for Christ. And I ask this in Christ's name. Amen.
