Introducing Ocean Water. Where church planting and the growing need for clean water join forces. We gather in coffee shops, eat tacos together, and worship Jesus. All toward one goal, to pool our resources, to plant churches, and install ocean-based, clean water platforms in other countries. This helps people in those communities get all of their drinking water out of the ocean for free.
As people gather to get their drinking water, the newly formed church also shares the living water of the Good News of Jesus Christ. The beaches await. The world is thirsty. You can help. For more information, visit www.oceanwater.com. Hello everyone, my name is Steve Martinez. And for those of you who are watching this at home, on your phones, tablets, or TVs, it's with extreme pleasure that I get to be here today for our beach talk, as Pastor Ryan has invited me to speak today.
If you know me or recognize me, you know that I've been involved with Ocean Water for about a year now, and have served in the capacity as worship leader. And it's by the grace and strength of God that I'm privileged to be with you all here today to serve in a new way here at Ocean Water. As you can see behind me, I'm at the coast here actually in southern Orange County, where in August we will actually be helping launch our Ocean Water here at Laguna Beach, where I am today.
This will be done with my wife Bella, our twin boys, and our group of friends. When we do launch our Laguna Beach location, we will be adopting Bangladesh as our site to go fund an ocean-based system and start Ocean Water in Bangladesh this upcoming December. It's a really exciting time for Bella and I, and we would love to have you come to our coming Laguna Beach location, and to Bangladesh with us as well.
If this sounds interesting to you, or if at any time you're hearing this and you really feel like the Holy Spirit is pulling the strings of your heart, please feel free to message me on Instagram. You can reach me at TheHandleTheJesusGuy. Again, that's at TheJesusGuy. As you know, Dr. Ryan DelleMaitre has been leading us through a nine-week series through the life of Daniel titled Waves, Learning to Ride What Life Brings.
I think it's such a fitting and necessary subject to go through, especially as we find ourselves in these crazy times, right? Last week we talked about the tidal wave and how to overcome impossible odds. Today we're going to be talking about the heat wave and how to thrive when the heat is on. I love that we're going through these series of messages because really we are being equipped by the Spirit of God for seasons and times of history, identical to what we're seeing today.
And so through our equipment, we can actually help to equip others to learn to ride the waves of life, the waves of hardship, and the waves of uncertainty. See, it's in these times that we're called to be Christians or Little Christ of the World, representatives of hope, love, and of good news, right? Because when people turn on the TV, the first thing that comes up is bad news and people need to hear the good news.
And the world would benefit so much from believers who understand their identity as sons and daughters of the King, people who are mission-focused on loving God and loving people. And it's as Isaiah says in Isaiah 61, 1, where he says, The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me or on us, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and to release from darkness the prisoners.
So let's continue to be equipped. Today we find ourselves in week five of the nine week series, and we will be looking at yet another test. And that is that of overcoming opposition and being submerged in the intensity of the fire, which in our context just means the extreme pressures of life, right? When the world is crushing in on you, when the heat is on, and when we're experiencing the heat wave.
Now, don't forget, as Pastor Ryan has been teaching us, before every blessing comes a test, and God tests you with stress before he blesses you with success. And while we won't be studying Daniel directly in today's passage, I really still feel like we'll learn so much about him. How you might ask? Well, you may have heard the quote, Tell me who you hang around with, and I will tell you who you will become.
That could not be any more true than in today's passage, where we really get to see the fruit of disciples making disciples and Daniel teaching his students or his disciples how to ride the waves of life, how to face extreme pressure, and how to love God through a firsthand experience.
So we open up with those things in mind to Daniel chapter three, starting in verse one, where we read, King Nebuchadnezzar made a giant golden image of himself, 90 feet tall and nine feet wide, and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Now, everyone, you thought that influencers on Instagram had some ego issues? Well, think again, Nebuchadnezzar was a real egomaniac.
And then goes on to say that he, King Nebuchadnezzar, gave order to all of his officials, the princes, the prefects, and the governors, the advisors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates, and all other officials. What you'll find interesting about this group mention is that Shadrach, Meshach, and Amendigo, the three that we'll be reading about today, are all governors, right?
They've been appointed. They've been serving the nation of Babylon for 15 years. They're Jewish, but they're serving as governors in Babylon. Now, talk about God's provision and grace in an enemy nation, right? This also isn't the first time that we've seen this in Bible history. It comes to show whether the odds are for us or heavily against us for that matter, God's grace and provision are still chasing after us.
But here listed are all the powerful people of the day. And he says to them, I want all of you guys to come to the official dedication of the statue that he had set up. Then it says, he had assembled and an announcer shouted out to the people, all races, nations, and languages, this is the king's command. Anytime you hear the royal orchestra start playing music, you are to immediately drop everything, fall to your knees, and bow and worship the king, the image of King Nebuchadnezzar.
I mean, let's just think about that for a moment. A royal command from the king that demands instantaneous worship of a 90-foot tall golden image he made of himself, right? This is a man flesh and blood, just like the rest of us who demands worship and praise. And anybody who fails is condemned to death by fire, as we'll see in just a moment. And what it comes down to is King Nebuchadnezzar demands to be worshiped like God. It's the original temptation.
Remember, Satan tempted Eve and Adam to be like God's and then goes on to say, anyone who does not fall and worship this idol or this image will be immediately thrown into a giant blazing furnace, which he had placed near the statue. And as soon as everyone heard the music, they bowed before the statue and worshiped the image of King Nebuchadnezzar.
Now, with all those things being said, I really believe that there are some points I'd like to come across and some things that are extremely prevalent in our culture and really around the world that I would like us to pause and just think about today because they're as true today as they were 2500 years ago. And so as I go through these points, feel free to write them down. We're going to start with point number one, and that is that the world creates larger than life images for me to worship.
Today, all around the world, the world creates larger than life images for me to worship. We don't make them out of gold anymore, at least not here in Western culture. We don't put up 90 foot statues, but the images today that the world wants us to idolize are larger than life, right? They're on movie screens. You see actors and you idolize these actors. We see them in sports stadiums where athletes are treated like gods, where they're idolized.
Now, whether athlete, actor, influencer, doesn't really matter. Today's idols are not statues, but there are things and images that the world wants us to worship today. Some of the things not even mentioned like physical beauty or sex or our phones or our boyfriend or girlfriend. The point is that the world creates larger than life images for me to worship.
The second thing we have in common is something that we actually battle with internally, and that is, is that I am tempted to create false image to impress others. And we do this too, right? You and I are tempted every day of our life to build our image, to create a false impression of who we are to everybody around us because we want to be loved. Because we want to be honored, because we want to be respected or because we want to be well known. Maybe even secretly we would like to be worshiped.
And anytime we spend building our own image, it's a potential trap because image building quickly becomes idol building. And a popular idea in our culture is it's all about me. Now, let me give you an example of something I saw very recently. There's a popular page on Instagram called Influencers in the Wild. It's a page that's dedicated to secretly capturing influencers filming or taking a photo of their next post.
It's a really humorous page because you find people pull off the dumbest stunts just to take a good photo for the gram. And one recent post in the middle of the protests happening in response to the tragedy of George Floyd, one influencer is caught on video asking a construction or city worker who was boarding up store windows with a hammer.
She asked him for his hammer and piece of plywood so that this individual could pretend that she was the one boarding up these windows and supporting the cause. And for what? Likes on a recent post? People are tempted to create false images to impress others. The third point is that if I reject the world's idols or the world, people will try and burn me. They might not physically try and burn you, right? Not in the furnace, but they'll try and burn you in other ways.
If I reject the world's idols, the world's images and the world, the world says that we should do this or worship this or everyone's doing that. Everyone loves this. When we don't particularly think it's a great idea, there are going to be people who try and burn us. Right. When all of the leaders of Babylon fall flat on their face, the orchestra starts playing and the people begin to worship this big idol.
Three guys stood tall, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. These are three Jewish guys, right? They're the governors in the province of Babylon because they'd been appointed last time, right? They'd gotten promoted from the last test. But these three guys stay standing. Everybody else in the nation is bowing. And this made some people really upset, right? They quite literally wanted to burn them.
And then Daniel 3, 8, it says, but some Babylonian officials use this opportunity to denounce the Jews, the king. And then listen to what they say. They say, oh, great king, we hope you live forever. Come on. They just wanted a promotion themselves, right? They go on to say with the Jewish officials that you put in charge of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
They have defied your decree. They have refused to serve your gods. They have refused to bow down and worship the image that you set up. And some even recommended that they should be burned in the furnace. And this is where the heat wave comes from. But let me just say this. Wherever you go, there are going to be people who want to burn you when you stand up tall and everyone else is flat on their face.
You just need to realize that, right? There are going to be people who want to burn you for whatever reason there have. And here's the point. If I reject the world's idols, people are going to try and burn me. One other thing we want to look at before we go into our second half of the portion of our time together here today is point number four. And that's that doing the right thing always makes some people angry. Doing the right thing always makes some people angry.
If you do the right thing, if you do the honest thing, if you have integrity, if you show character, compassion or any Christlike quality, it's going to make some people angry around you. In this particular test, as I said, it doesn't involve Daniel, but his three best friends. And what upset everybody is that they dare to challenge the king's narcissism. They said the king that we can as our look your king granted you may be the most powerful person in the world, granted, but you're not God.
And we're not bowing to you and we're not treating you like a god. That's the line in the sand that we will not cross. And I want to tell you this. When you stand for Christ or you stand for integrity at work or at any other place, it's going to make some people mad. As I've said before, the king wasn't used to having people say no to him.
One of the reasons we covered the last four points is because when the world is flat on their face, God is calling for stand up people or for people to stand up. Right. And my question is, what kind of person are you? What kind of person are you in the marketplace? What kind of person are you at school? What kind of person are you in business or wherever you are? Are you a stand up kind of person with integrity? When humbly, it doesn't really matter if anyone disagrees, right?
It just means I'm going to do the right thing. Daniel 13 to 15 says, then King Nebuchadnezzar flew into a rage and he ordered that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego be brought to him. The king asked him, is it true that you three refuse to serve my gods or worship the gold statue that I set up? I'll give you one more chance. Then he said this. If you bow down and you worship the statue, all will be well. But he says, if you refuse, you will be thrown immediately into the blazing furnace.
And then what God will be able to rescue you from my power. See what Nebuchadnezzar is doing. He's actually saying when I throw you into the fiery furnace, who's going to protect you? Not your God. We'll see who's really God. I'm God here. That's what Nebuchadnezzar is saying. And I want us to ask ourselves two questions. If we're faced with situations where we really feel like the heat is on and we're feeling the heat wave.
Right. If it's not now, then you know, you don't have that pressure in your life. It's going to come. It might come in the next month or in the next year, maybe even the days ahead. What do you do? Because in this story, there are four things that they did right. And we want to do them. Because if we're experiencing the heat wave in your in our lives right now and we're going through hell right now and the heat is on our life.
There are lessons that we can learn from the three men that we are studying today. Right. Because when they were threatened with the heat in their life and the world was crushing them and there was immense pressure, they remained faithful to remembering God's promises. So what can we take away from these men? Number one, don't worry about defending yourself.
Right. When you go when you go to work and the heat is on and you're being persecuted for being a Christian or you're making a moral stand or doing the right thing, whatever it is, and somebody doesn't agree with you or doesn't like it, don't worry about defending yourself. Just quietly trust that God will take care of your attackers. Right. When you're in the fire, God's a whole lot better of a firefighter than you are.
Daniel 316 says that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied, oh, Nebuchadnezzar, we don't need to defend ourselves in this matter. And by the way, it also implies that we don't need to defend God in this matter either. Either. And he says, we're not going to dignify your last question by answering. He said, who's going to save you? Me or God? We're not going to answer that question. We're not going to try and defend ourselves.
We're not worried about what's going to happen. We're not impressed with your threats. Don't worry when people attack you. Number two, remember that God has the power to save me. Now, it doesn't matter what kind of mess you're in, what kind of crisis, what kind of difficulty, maybe what even what kind of fire you're trying to put out in your life right now. Just remember that God has the power to save me.
God is God, which means he can do anything. And in Daniel 317, it says, they said if they were thrown into the blazing furnace and they still didn't know they were. God that we worship will be able to save us. Now, that's quite a statement, right? We know our God is able. He's got the power to save us. But that's not enough. The third thing, and we follow up at the last point, is that we believe that God will save me.
Right. When you're in a problem, when you're in a crisis, when you're faced with your whole life falling apart, you not only have to believe that God has the ability to save you, the ability to rescue you, the ability to deliver you and save you. You must believe that he will. You must expect that he will save you. Not that he's just able to save you, but that he will save you. In the second part of Daniel 317, they said, and he will save us from your power, O King. Now, think about this.
Everyone's conforming to the King's sayings and the King's commands. You are going to worship me. I am the deity. I am God. These three guys have the courage to say, no, we're not going to. We're not afraid of you because God can save us. He's got the power and he will save us. And if you're going through the fire right now, you really need to get this book called the Bible
because there are hundreds of promises from God directly to you. If you don't know these promises, it's like not knowing what's on your insurance policy. Right. When you don't know what's on your insurance policy, you worry. But when you know what's on your insurance policy, you say, oh, that that's that's covered. I don't I don't have to worry about that. And if you know that what God says he'll do in your life, you won't worry.
Right. When you worry, it means that you don't know what God has promised you. That's what it means. There are seven thousand plus promises in the Bible. Here's just one of the promises about deliverance, you know, and rescue. And it's in Isaiah forty three where he says, when you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up.
The flames will not consume you for I am the Lord your God. I believe God can save me and believe God will save me when I walk through the fire, the flames, and they will not consume you. That's a literal promise of God based on the things based on the things that we just read and why we should not be worried because we are expecting God to do it. And point number four, I announced my loyalty to God no matter what. Now, I love what the three men say in opposition to the king's command.
They say God has the ability to save. He will save us. But in verse 18, they say even if God doesn't save us, we will still not serve the gods you worship or the gold statue you have set up. Now, that's pretty courageous, right? They're reannouncing their loyalty to God no matter what. We know he can save us. We believe that he will save us. But if he does not, we're still not going to change. We're not going to back out.
And over and over and over again, God has shown his loyalty to us and his people. And he has promised his presence no matter what you go through. If you will trust him and remain loyal to his promises, he says, I will be with you and I will be with you. He truly is right. And Daniel 3 24 to 25, they throw him in the fiery furnace. And this is what happens. It says suddenly Nebuchadnezzar jumps in an amazement and he asked the advisors, didn't we tie up three men and throw them into the furnace?
Yes, his advisors replied. Well, look, he shouted. You can now see four men. You'd see them actually unbound, which means that the ropes, the things that were tying them down were burned off and they're walking around freely in the fire unharmed. And the fourth man looks like he is a son of the gods. Now, there are three guys tied up. There's a fourth guy walking with them through the fire. And that guy doesn't look like a normal human being. He looks divine.
And it wasn't a son of the gods. It was the son of God. It was Jesus. Right. Jesus was walking with them through the fire. And he has promised to walk through the fire with you, too. Jesus said, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. Is God a liar? No. Right. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. Almost the last words that Jesus said when he gave the Great Commission before he goes back to heaven were on the word.
The world, the words on the wall in Matthew 28 20, where he says, Jesus said, I will always be with you to the very end of the age. I will always be with you. So with the love and protection of Jesus that are far from from what we covered in today's message, I'd like to add this in our closing today. Would you like to be friends with Jesus? It's really simple. Seriously. You just admit that your life isn't the way that you want it to be.
You ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins or your shortcomings. You ask him to be your friend and to guide you in your life. And if you mean that sincerely, then you can pray with me right now and just say, Jesus, I would love you to be my friend. I would like you to come into my heart because things are not going the way I would like them in my life. Please help me follow your amazing teaching. Please be my friend today and guide me today with your Holy Spirit in Jesus name.
And if you're friends with Jesus, you're in God's family, we would love to have you connect with us at Ocean Water. So please message us at Ocean Water at the handle on Instagram or by visiting Oceanwater.com. I want to thank those who support Ocean Water financially. Just recently in El Salvador, we fed 38 families through San Papo and his family.
We spent all day yesterday preparing meals because the people who live close to the river in their region had been completely displaced and the family there had their house destroyed. Now, giving is part of our worship. God does not watch the amount he watches the sacrifice behind the amount. God knows when it really costs you something and only you and God know what it really costs you when you're making that decision. And so look to God and seek the God for what that might be.
You can visit online by going to Oceanwater.com and click on give. We can set up a monthly payment and make it part of your worship to help others. In the next 12 months, we will be doing work in four different countries with four different languages. Right. And God is always continuing to grow our perspective because his is global. And the more that we have here at Ocean Water, the more that we can help and serve others.
Thanks for being with us today. And I really hope you all have a great week. Thanks again for joining us this weekend. If you'd like more information about Ocean Water Church, how to join us on an upcoming trip, how to be part of one of our clean water projects, how to financially support our movement or even information on how you can start an Ocean Water Church yourself, please look us up at Oceanwater.com.