Living Water Church

Worship In Exile

Everyone worships. The question is not if we will worship but what we will worship. In Daniel chapter 3, King Nebuchadnezzar tries to get Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to worship his idol, but they resist temptation - even to the point of death. However, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego aren’t the hero of this story. The hero is the God who delivers them from the fire, and it’s through seeing this God that we are filled with the faith that sees through the empty promises the idols of our day and are transformed to life-giving worship of God alone.

Therefore...

Transcendence In Exile

The gods of Babylon were said to be powerful, but uninvolved in the lives of mortals. As we see in Nebuchadnezzar’s unreasonable demands, this belief leads to a small life that can’t handle crisis. Through Daniel’s very different response to this crisis, we see that the God of the Bible is both all-powerful and intimately involved in the lives of His people. Knowing this God changes how we experience stress by inviting us into a bigger life in His Kingdom, under His grace, where nothing can shake us.

Faithfulness In Exile

Before they would walk into a fiery furnace or stare down the jaws of a lion, God is first at work to help Daniel and his friends avoid two great temptations that come our way in exile: compromise and withdraw. In what might just be the most underrated miracle in the entire book, we see how God empowers faithfulness in the small things that leads to a faithful presence that impacts the culture around us.

Into Exile

God’s people are carried away into exile in a foreign land that seeks to shape them away from the God of the Bible. And yet what Daniel tells us is that God didn’t just allow this to happen, He sovereignly ordained it in order to refine the faith of His people and restore their purpose.

Benediction: A Blessing From God

Roll Call

Focused & Fruitful

We all want to live fruitful lives that make an impact on the world around us, but often it can be difficult to get any traction in this. As Paul closes his letter to Titus, he shows that fruitful lives are the result of focusing on, soaking in, and daily enjoying the gospel.

Growing In Grace

Growing Through Relationship

We worship a God who exists in perfect community, and in this sermon, we see that growth as a healthy disciple also takes place in community, through relationship with other believers.