Discovering God’s Will in Surrender

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Transcript:

We’re going to be in Daniel chapter 3 this morning. Daniel chapter 3. We’re looking at how we find God’s will.

And I’ve said to you, God’s will may not always be easy to find. There may be some work, there may be some digging involved in finding what God’s will is, but I also don’t believe it’s impossible to find. Hey, what does God want me to do today?

What does God want me to do about my job situation? What does God want me to do in where I go to college? What does God want me to do as far as who I marry?

What does God want me to do in the raising of my kids? What does God want? You know, these are not just questions that we think about these big life decisions taking place in our teens and early 20s.

Folks, there are questions that go on throughout our whole lives that we need God’s guidance in. And this question, what does God want me to do today? What does God want me to do next week, next month, the next year, the next 10 years?

What does God want me to do? It may require some digging and some study on our part, but it’s not impossible to find. And I’ve said to you many times that I believe that God makes his will possible to be found because if it’s his will, it’s what he wants us to do.

And again, God describes himself as a father. That’s how I understand God. I, as a father, if I want my children to do something, if it’s my will for them to do X, Y, or Z, I tell them, go do that.

You know, I don’t sit back and say, I’m going to whoop you if you don’t do what I want you to do, but I’m not going to tell you it’s cleaning your toys up out of the living room floor. I want you to figure it out on your own. That’s not how I operate, and that’s not how I see God operating in Scripture.

God makes His will available. Now, I don’t know if anybody remembers the Golden Corral commercials from years ago, because when I talk about it, it’s one of those commercials that stuck in my mind. When I talk about it, people just look at me like, well, I’ve never seen this before.

Maybe I dreamed it up. There used to be a series of golden corral commercials where people were talking about, what do I want for dinner? And this, I don’t know if it was supposed to be an angel or what, it was a little chef guy that flew around on wings.

He would fly up behind somebody and whack them in the back of the head with a skillet and they’d say, I’m going to golden corral. Now, those commercials made an impression on me and not because I got hit with a skillet. But I’ve often said, you know, sometimes God operates that where he just, to get your attention, at least my attention, he has to whack me in the head with a skillet practically. Now, God’s will is not always revealed to us that easily.

I’ll tell you that. God’s will is not always revealed to us that easily where God says, here, you don’t do anything. You just stand there and I’m going to knock it into you what my will is.

Now, he may do that. But sometimes there’s some work and some study involved. And that’s sort of what we’re talking about these few weeks.

How do we find what God’s will is? Now, I spent the first three lessons in this series talking to you about the different aspects of God’s will. because there are different ways that God’s will is talked about in Scripture.

One of those is His sovereign will we see in Genesis chapter 1, where God created, God said, let there be, and there was. There was no discussion, there was no debate. God just said it, and that’s the way it was going to be.

And sometimes, even now, God says it, and He doesn’t give us a choice. God says it, and that’s how it’s going to be. And our best response there is to just get in agreement with God, get out of the way, and not get run over.

There’s also God’s permissive will. God’s permissive will and God’s perfect will are when he does give us a choice. And we have it.

God says, you do this, you should do this. And we then have a choice whether to obey or to disobey. Even when we disobey, we can only go so far as God allows us because he’s still sovereign.

And so God’s permissive will is to say, okay, if you disobey, you can still only go this far. Now, we don’t want to look for God’s permissive will. I’ve given you the example a couple times now.

That’s like trying to get as close to the edge of the cliff as we can without falling off. No, no, we want to stay on the uphill side of the mountain road and stay away from the drop-off. So we don’t want to look for God’s permissive will like we saw in Genesis chapter 3.

They disobeyed. Adam and Eve disobeyed. But God even still said, you can only go this far.

He brought in punishments. He said, you’re out of the garden. they were not going to just get to frolic and go eat of the fruit of the tree of life as they had the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

God said, here’s a line, and you can only go this far. It doesn’t mean God made them sin. It meant God allowed them to sin, but God even then put some limits on it.

And then we talked last week about Genesis chapter 2, where God said, here’s my perfect will. Now, this is the other side from the permissive will. God says, you have a choice here.

You can disobey, and here’s my permissive will. it’ll only allow you to go this far, here’s my perfect will. This is what you should do.

If you obey, if you look to try to see what is God’s best for you in any given situation, what does God want you to do that’s going to benefit you and bring him the most glory? And I mean benefit you in the long run, not what feels good immediately. But what’s going to benefit us in the long run that God sees that we don’t?

And what’s going to bring God the most glory? That’s we talk about what is God’s will for my life, what is God’s will for a given situation, it’s really God’s perfect will that we’re talking about. Not how bad will God let me be before he reigns me in.

Not what is God going to do that I don’t have a say in or a choice in anyway. It’s what are those things that God is telling me I have a choice whether to obey or disobey and what is the obedient choice? What is going to be God’s best for me?

What’s going to be God’s best for this situation? That’s what we’re looking for in a given situation. What’s God’s will about my job?

You’re looking for God’s perfect will. What’s God’s will about my family? You’re looking for God’s perfect will.

What’s God’s will about any number of things? You’re looking for his perfect will. And so starting last Sunday night, I began introducing you to some things that the scriptures teach about how to find this perfect will.

And some of you are probably sitting there thinking, I’ve heard all of this before. I’m glad you remember. I have to go back and look sometimes and say, What did I preach last Sunday?

So if you’re thinking, I’ve heard this before, I’m glad that you remember that. Hang on to that. I’m repeating myself and reviewing just a little bit because I know everybody’s not here every time.

And these lessons really do sort of build on one another. But last Sunday night, we talked about finding God’s will in obedience. We talked about Jonah.

God told Jonah to go to Nineveh. And Jonah said, I’m going to go as far the opposite direction as I possibly can. I’m going to go to Tarshish.

And then God’s permissive will reined Jonah back in and said, no, you’re not going any further than this, buddy. And they ended up, the storm came, you know the story, they threw Jonah over the side of the boat, and he was swallowed by a whale. And it was pointed out to me last Sunday night, I said, you know, the Bible doesn’t say it was a whale, it says it was a great fish.

That’s correct in the book of Jonah. But in the New Testament, it does say it was a whale. So, you know, either way.

It was a whale. He was swallowed up by a whale and God sent him back to the shore and the whale vomited him up. And God said, okay, go to Nineveh.

And the point of that was God’s will for Jonah did not change just because Jonah was disobedient. And too many times we say, God, what’s your will? What’s your will?

What’s your will? Oh, no, I don’t want to do that. I’m going to go over here and do something else.

Now, what’s your will? What’s your will? What’s your will?

Our problem is not, too many times, that we don’t know God’s will or can’t find God’s will. It’s that we have refused to do what God has already told us to do. And so the whole point of that message being, before we get to this morning’s message, the whole point of that message being, if you’re having trouble finding God’s will, whether we’re talking about a job situation, a relationship, finances, I don’t care.

Anything in your life where you’re looking for God’s will. God, what is it you want me to do in serving you? what is God’s will, and you’re struggling and you’re searching and you’re praying, but it seems like God just is not answering your question, what is your will for me?

Stop. Just stop and think back and say, what is the last thing that God told me to do, and have I done it? Because I may be looking for a different answer over here when God has already told me what I’m supposed to do, and I’ve just ignored it, and I need to go back and do that.

So the first step, I think, in finding God’s will is making sure you’re where you’re supposed to be. What’s the last thing that God told you to do and have you done that? For Jonah, it was to go to Nineveh.

And so when he’s praying about seeking God and doing what God said, God reminded him, hey, the Nineveh thing, I meant that. I was serious about that. So Jonah went back and did the thing that God had already told him to do.

This morning, the point this morning, the message this morning is on a similar note. We talked about obedience last Sunday night. We’re going to talk about surrender this morning.

There’s a man named George Mueller, at least that was the English pronunciation. He was a German-born Christian who opened up orphanages in England back in the 1800s. I don’t know much about George Mueller, but every time I learn more about him, I’m amazed at how incredible this man was.

I had a poster of him in my classroom with a quote of his about serving God for my students to look at. But just on faith, he opened orphanages for children in England because that’s what God told him to do. He didn’t know how he was going to fund the work.

He didn’t know how he was going to feed all these kids, where the money was going to come from. But he sought God’s will, and God always blessed. And he led hundreds of people to Christ and just had an incredible ministry a couple hundred years ago.

And he wrote many things, but one thing that he wrote that has stuck with me is his steps for how he always tried to discern God’s will. And I don’t remember all the steps in order. I go back and reread it frequently, and I’ve taught on it before.

But what always gets me is the first step. This is the one I always remember, where he says his first step was to get to a point, as he’s praying for God’s will, to get to a point where he has no will of his own. To get to a point where he has no will of his own.

Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t have desires, that we don’t have preferences, but it means to get to a point where I don’t care. I trust God enough that as I’m praying for this, God really, whatever you want is okay with me. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation, I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a situation where you’re fixing dinner or you’re trying to make a decision on where to go for dinner and you ask the rest of the people in your family, what do you want?

They say, I don’t care. but then you suggest something, oh, I don’t want that. So you do care.

We can say, I don’t care. We can tell God, I don’t care, your will be done. But actually getting to a point where we are fine with whatever outcome is a very hard thing to do.

It’s a very different situation. But sometimes we need to get out of the way and say, God, I trust you more than I trust my own judgment. And really, God, whatever your will is for me, that’s what I’m going to do.

I’m telling you now, God, before you’ve even told me what your will is, that I’m going to obey it. I’m going to do what you tell me to do. God, not that you need it, you’re in charge, but I’m giving you a blank check.

Whatever you write in there is up to you. But God, I’m going to do whatever you say. That was George Mueller’s attitude.

I’m getting to the point where I have no will of my own. If I say I don’t care what you fix for dinner, I really don’t care. So if you say I’m making burgers, I’m not going to complain, I want tacos.

God, if you say I’m supposed to go do missions in Cambodia, then that’s where I’ll go. God, if you say I’m supposed to go live in Oklahoma City and do ministry to the homeless, God, that’s what I’m going to do. I really don’t care.

And that’s a hard place to get to. The men that we’re going to look at this morning in the scriptures were at that point. We see people who were willing to be obedient to God even unto death.

And so having already talked about what’s the last thing that God said to do, and have we done it, from that point we need to decide before we even know what God’s will is, that we trust him. We’re going to try to have no will of our own. We’re going to try not to impose on God our own plans, but we’re simply going to say, God, whatever your will is, I will obey.

I surrender. Let’s wave the white flag to God and say, whatever your will is, that’s what we’re going to do. And so we look at Daniel chapter 3, starting in verse 1, it says, Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold whose height was three score cubits and the breadth thereof six cubits.

He set it up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Now, it’s been a while since I’ve done these calculations, but I want to say that was about a nine-story statue, about 90 feet tall. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the princes, the governors, the captains, the judges, the treasurers, the councillors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.

Then the princes, the governors, and the captains, the judges, the treasurers, the councillors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces. That’s a lot of words in there. That’s a lot of people.

And all the rulers of the provinces were gathered together unto the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up, and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then an herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages, that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up. And whoso falleth not down and worshipeth shall at the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.

Therefore at that time, when all the people heard the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and all kinds of music, all the people, the nations, and the languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. So Nebuchadnezzar ruled one of the largest empires of his time, kind of a maniac, bent on world domination, if you want to say it that way. And not only that, I’ve got to control my people and they’ve got to worship the way I see fit.

Now there’s, there’s a lot of, there’s been a lot of speculation over the years what this was a statue of. And in one sense, it really doesn’t matter because it was a statue of something. And God had said, don’t bow down, do not make graven images, don’t bow down to them.

Now I’ve wondered how, how can we, how, how are there statues in Christian art and all this? Now I don’t like them in church. I don’t know that it’s a sin to build statues, but certainly we shouldn’t be building statues of saints and deities to bow down to.

So he’s built this statue, and he says everybody has to bow down to it, this 90 foot or so golden image. And some people have said it’s a statue of a pagan deity. Some people have said it’s a statue of King Nebuchadnezzar himself.

We don’t know. What makes the most sense to me, given how outraged he is in just a moment, is that he built a statue of a pagan deity for all the people to worship, and maybe kind of modeled it after himself, because he thought of himself as the God King. And that would explain to me why he seems to take it so personally when three men refuse to bow down.

This golden image, he calls in the people of all the countries, this not just the Persians, I’m sorry, not just the Babylonians. He calls in all the people from his empire, various countries, it says, various nations, languages, and says, just bow down. Now, he wasn’t completely unreasonable here.

I’m being sarcastic, by the way. He’s not completely unreasonable here. He doesn’t make them abandon all their other gods as long as they worship this one alongside whoever else.

He doesn’t care who they worship, but they need to come and worship his statue. They need to come worship the statue that Nebuchadnezzar set up. They need to bow the knee before his creation.

And so they all do that. But we come to verse 8 and it says, Wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near and accused the Jews. You know what?

That sounds familiar. The Jews are still getting blamed for lots of stuff. Wherefore at that time certain Chaldeans came near and accused the Jews.

They spake and said to the king Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live forever. Thou, O king, has made a decree that every man that shall hear the sound of the cornet, I don’t know why they couldn’t just say instruments, but here the third time, when stuff plays, but here again we have the third time listing the instruments, the cornet, flute, harp, sack, but psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image. And whoso falleth not down and worshipeth, that he should be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.

So they come to King Nebuchadnezzar and say, Hey, you remember when you made that rule that everybody has to bow down when they hear the music play? You remember that? And if they don’t bow down, then they have to be thrown in the fiery furnace?

Yeah, I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember it like it was three verses ago. They come to King Nebuchadnezzar and they remind him of this.

And then they say, by the way, there are certain people, I don’t want to single them out, but it’s those Jews over there. Not to sound racist, but it’s those Jews. They’re refusing to bow down, those troublemakers.

There are certain Jews, he says in verse 12, they say in verse 12 to King Nebuchadnezzar, whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, have not regarded thee. They serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.

So there are these three Jewish men that you put in charge, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Now I prefer to use their given names, their Hebrew names that we see earlier in the book of Daniel. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, that’s what their mamas called them.

So the Babylonians came in and gave them names based on their pagan gods. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, they’re refusing to, you’ve set them in control of these provinces, but you know what, they don’t worship the same gods as you, and you know what? You know what?

They’re not worshiping your statue either. Now, for me, I don’t like tattling. I printed off a picture called the tattle monster, and stuck it on the fridge and told the kids to go tell the tattle monster.

Benjamin didn’t like it and tore it down. So I told him, do this with your fingers. This is the only thing I know in sign language.

Thanks to watching the sign language teacher at the school. This is a llama. And now I tell him, do this with your fingers.

Now go tell the drama to your llama. Which irritates him too. Go tattle somewhere else.

But they came to the king. The Jews aren’t doing what you told them to do. They’re not bowing down.

Really, you’re running a whole empire here and you’re concerned about three Jews and whether they bowed the statue or not. But they come and bring their drama to the king and tattle to him. And the king, if he was a wise statesman-like ruler, would have said, go do your job.

But instead, then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage, in his rage. I can count on less than one hand the number of times I’ve felt actual rage in my life. It takes a lot to even get me too upset.

But he’s outraged because they wouldn’t bow down to his statue. That’s what makes me think it’s a personal thing. It was a slap in the face because this was somehow tied into his image of himself.

In his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, then they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar spake and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, do not ye serve my gods nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Is it true what they’re saying about you?

Now if you be ready at the time, as far as what we see here, he doesn’t even give them a chance to respond. Sort of reminds me of the videos of what they called the People’s Court in Nazi Germany, where they would bring in people who were accused of being against Hitler, and this judge named Roland Freisler would just scream at them, and even without seeing the translations, even without seeing subtitles at the bottom of the screen, you know this is not going well, as he just harangues them and screams at them, and he’s almost just hysterical. And you know the verdict is already a foregone conclusion. They’re going to find these people guilty, all of them.

He’s enraged, and he’s yelling at them, and he’s asking them, is it true what they say? And then without even giving them a chance to defend themselves, he said, we’re going to see. You’re either going to bow down or you’re going to die.

You’re going to bow down in front of me where I can see it or you’re going to die. He says, if you’re ready, that at that time when you hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sack, but psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the image which I have made, He says, well, if you’ll hear the music and fall down and bow, great. But if you worship not, you shall be cast the same hour into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.

And who is that God? Oh, he kind of twists the knife while it’s in here because he knows their issue is that their God has said, do not worship anybody besides me. And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?

What God is big enough to challenge me? Bubba, you might want to think about who you’re challenging here. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.

They said, we don’t even have to think about how we’re going to answer you. We don’t have to think about our response here. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.

But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. Don’t miss this. Don’t miss what they’ve said here.

We are confident that our God will deliver us. We’re confident that our God can and will deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace. But, even if he doesn’t, we’re still not going to defy him.

We’re still not going to disobey him. This is the attitude that I’m talking about in finding God’s will. They are at a point right now where they don’t yet know.

I mean, we look at this, yeah, we know how the story ends. They don’t know how the story ends. They’re living it.

This is not a story for them. This is real life happening right in front of them. They don’t know whether or not they’re going to be spared from the fiery furnace.

They know God can do it. They know it’s consistent with God’s character. There’s a good shot that He’s going to save them.

But their answer here is even if he doesn’t, we’re still going to do what he wants us to do. God, whatever your will is here, we’re going to obey it. If your will is for us to not bow and then be spared in the furnace, we’re good with that.

God, if your will is for us to not bow and be killed in this fiery furnace, then we’re good with that too. But we will obey God. That’s a place that we need to come to as we’re seeking God’s will.

We don’t wait and say, well, God, what is your will? And then I’ll decide whether I’m going to do it. You think God’s going to honor that kind of attitude?

No, we need to say, God, whatever your will is. God, I surrender. I throw my hands up.

Whatever your will is, that’s what I’m going to do. You’re in charge here. Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury.

He was first, he was filled with rage. Now he’s filled with fury on top of the rage. Full of fury, and the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

He was so angry, the entire look of his face changed. You might have seen this on a person. It’s not a pretty picture.

That word visage means face. Therefore he spake and commanded that they should heat the furnace one seven times more than it was wont to be heated. Why don’t you go kick up the fire seven times hotter than it’s ever been?

And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and cast them into the burning, fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen, and their hats, and other garments and were cast into the midst of the burning, fiery furnace. Okay, we want to cook them at seven times the normal temperature and we want to throw them in there with all that flammable clothing still on them.

Therefore, because the king’s commandment was urgent and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I was trying to explain this story to Benjamin on Wednesday. As we’d finished dinner and he wanted to hear a Bible story.

He always brings me his Bible when we’re getting ready to go to Awanas and says, tell me a story, but he always turns to something like Lamentations. I was like, there’s not a story there. Let me find one.

He said, I want to hear this one. No, you don’t. Not at this age, you don’t.

I was trying to explain this to him, and it was just unbelievable to see it again through his eyes for the first time. Because I’ve heard this story a bunch of times, but to see it for the first time in his eyes, how amazing it is that this fire was so hot that it killed the soldiers that even got near it. And I know in that moment he was in his little mind, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, they were dead too.

They had to be because these big tough guys died even getting near the fire. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished and rose up in haste and spake and said unto his counselors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?

They answered and said unto the king, True, O king. He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God. They threw them in there, and he says, Wait a minute.

We threw them in there, and they’re not dead. They’re up walking around, and who’s that fourth guy? Didn’t we just throw three of them in there, but now there are four of them?

I asked Benjamin, I said, Who do you think that was? He said, Jesus. I said, You got it.

He said, you got it. Now, some have questioned Nebuchadnezzar and whether he would say this, like the Son of God. Evidently, some of the ancient texts say a son of the gods.

So clearly, that couldn’t be Jesus if it was a son of the gods, I think would be the answer of liberal theologians. Okay, because Nebuchadnezzar would have been familiar with the Trinity and monotheism. Don’t you think if he had seen Jesus?

Don’t you think if Jesus had shown up and said, I’m Jesus, he would have thought, oh, he’s one of the gods. Nebuchadnezzar was just, if it does indeed say a son of the gods, Nebuchadnezzar is just describing in terms that he knows and understands. What other gods were there to send a son to be with these three Jewish men?

So the very presence of God is with them in the furnace. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace and spake and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth and come hither. Now that’s quite an admission.

He’s, they’re servants of the most high God. Now Nebuchadnezzar does tend to repent at times. Unfortunately, it seems to be short-lived because we keep seeing these stories through the book of Daniel.

They came forth out of the midst of the fire. And the princes, the governors, the captains, the king’s counselors being gathered together, saw these men upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was a hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them. All these people said, and this is what I was explaining to Benjamin, we get near fire, we smell like it later.

We sometimes burn things. I’ve got shoes that I’ve melted the soles of trying to stamp out embers that had gotten separated. You know, it has an effect.

even just having the smoker outside where there’s no actual fire smoking a turkey or something we smell like it I said but can you imagine they were in the midst of this fire that was so hot it killed these men it didn’t burn or mess up their clothes it didn’t singe any of their hair they didn’t even smell like smoke see I want my kids to understand that even in these little seemingly mundane details that we forget about god’s power is incredible god’s power to preserve his people is incredible Then Nebuchadnezzar spake and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent his angel and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king’s word and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god except their o

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