We're welcome today to all of our life churches, our network churches, and those of you all over the world at church online.

Today we're in week number five of a message series called Stand, as we're looking at five different stories in the book of Daniel.

If you have your Bibles with you today, we're going to be in Daniel chapter three, and the good news is, I'm actually going to team-teach this message with your campus pastor, and in our network churches, I'm going to team-teach with your network pastor.

It's a great honor to conclude this series, team-teaching with the person who leads and shepherds you every single week.

I'm calling this message, Standing Firm in the fire.

The reality is, right now a lot of you, unfortunately you're going through a very difficult time.

My pastor used to say it this way, he said, you're either coming out of a hard time, you're in the middle of a hard time, or you're going into a hard time.

A lot of us, as Christians, we just don't want to believe that we should ever really suffer, but Jesus himself said this in John 1633, he said, in this world, you will have trouble.

Jesus just said it, you will have trouble, but take heart for I have overcome the world.

I don't know what it might be for you, but right now I know a lot of you may be battling one fire or another.

It could be a financial fire, it could be a health-related fire, it could be a relational situation, it could be that your job is unstable or you've been searching for a long time, and you just can't figure out why things won't get better.

You're doing everything that you know you should do, and yet you're still struggling.

What do you do when you're in the middle of the fire?

I want to read you just a verse of scripture that will help establish our direction to day, I pray it speaks to you, then I'll introduce our story in Daniel, and then you'll get to hear from your campus pastor.

1 Peter 1 7 says this, these trials, whatever you're going through, these trials will show that your faith is genuine, as you endure these trials that will show the quality and the depth of your faith.

It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold, though your faith is far more precious than mere gold.

So when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring much praise and glory and honor on the day when Jesus Christ is revealed to the whole world.

Peter said, these trials will reveal your faith, it will show that your faith is genuine. In fact, if you're taking notes today, here's our key thought, write this down.

A faith that's tested is a faith that can be trusted. A faith that is tested is a faith that can be trusted.

In fact, today we're going to look at a faith that is tested in the lives of three teenage boys, probably 14, 15 or so years of age, and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abindigo.

If you were here in the early weeks, we talked about King Nebuchadnezzar, and really how evil he was. At one point he decides to make a giant statue, until everyone in the kingdom, you need to bow down and worship this gold statue, which was 90,000 years old.

90 feet tall, okay, that's 30 yards straight up into the air, and 9 feet wide. I don't know about you, but I think the king is compensating for something. Did I just say that? I think I did. You call it what it is that is a really tall statue.

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