I Am With You In the Fire | I AM... The God Who Gets Close | Menlo Church Live Stream

Mar 09, 2026

Devotional

Day 1: Recognizing the Value of What We Might Dismiss

Sometimes we discard things not because they lack value, but because we fail to recognize their worth. This is true in the physical world and profoundly true in the spiritual realm. Our tendency to rush to judgment or dismiss something unfamiliar can cause us to miss a divine encounter or a valuable truth. Moving slowly and deliberately allows us to perceive what God might be placing before us. It is an invitation to cultivate a heart that is open and attentive, rather than cynical and quick to discard. [27:22]

Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”
Exodus 3:7-8a (ESV)

Reflection: What is one idea or spiritual practice you have been quick to dismiss in the past because it seemed strange or unfamiliar? What would it look like to approach it with a more open and curious heart this week?

Day 2: Living with Conviction in a Conflicting Culture

The challenge of maintaining one's identity and allegiance to God within a dominant culture is an ancient and current reality. It is the tension of contributing to the world around you without surrendering your soul to its values. This requires a deep-rooted sense of who you are and who you worship, which remains steady even when external pressures mount. Faithfulness is found not in combative retreat but in quiet, consistent conviction. It is learning to serve your city without confusing the empire with God. [32:51]

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
Jeremiah 29:7 (ESV)

Reflection: Where in your daily life—your workplace, community, or social circles—do you feel the subtle pressure to assimilate to values that conflict with your faith? What is one practical way you can seek the welfare of that place while still holding firmly to your identity in Christ?

Day 3: Facing the Furnace of Peril with Faith

Peril has a way of clarifying what is actually inside of us, revealing what we truly trust when our plans fall apart. These moments do not just threaten our comfort; they threaten our very sense of meaning and shake our souls. The promise of God's closeness is not a promise that we will avoid the fire, but that we will not face it alone. His presence is a promise of accompaniment, transforming the nature of the danger we face. [45:00]

And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.”
Mark 8:34-35 (ESV)

Reflection: When you consider a current or recent season of difficulty, what has it revealed about where you ultimately place your trust? How might accepting God's accompaniment, rather than demanding a rescue, change your perspective in the midst of the fire?

Day 4: The Choice Between Control and Surrender

We often want God's presence on our terms, desiring his cooperation with our plans and his intervention on our timeline. This is a life centered on control, where every threat feels catastrophic because our ability to manage it is limited. The path of Jesus invites us into surrender, which is not self-hatred but a refusal to make ourselves the center of the universe. This surrender leads to a freedom that comes from no longer trying to save ourselves. [49:40]

He said to them, “Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?” And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
Mark 4:40-41 (ESV)

Reflection: What is one specific area of your life where you are clinging to control because you are afraid of what surrender might cost? What would it look like to take a small, practical step of releasing that area to God this week?

Day 5: Finding a Peace That Exists Within the Fire

The peace that God offers is not a fragile absence of conflict that depends on ideal circumstances. It is a deeper, truer peace that can exist even when the furnace is still burning. This peace is not the absence of peril but the presence of God. It is the quiet, rooted confidence that comes from remembering who you are and to whom you belong, even when the world tries to rename and redefine you. [52:41]

I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.
John 16:33 (ESV)

Reflection: How would you describe the difference between the kind of peace the world offers and the peace that Christ offers? In what current situation are you being invited to receive His peace that exists within, not apart from, your circumstances?

Sermon Summary

Week three of a series titled "I Am the God Who Gets Close" turns to Daniel 3 and the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to illustrate how God's nearness reshapes human peril. The narrative recounts young exiles who refuse to bow to a king's golden image, stand convicted when empire demands assimilation, and face a blazing furnace rather than compromise loyalty to God. The text insists that divine presence does not always prevent danger; instead, God often enters the danger, walking in the fire with those who suffer. That presence shifts what suffering can do: it does not eliminate pain, but it limits what pain can ultimately claim.

The account contrasts cultural pressure to conform with the quiet courage of those who remember their true identity. The refusal to bow arises from a conviction anchored in hope—"our God is able, but even if he does not, we will not bow"—a posture that refuses cheap bargains for safety. The furnace becomes a testing ground that either consumes hope or refines it; the story reframes suffering as a place where character and faith are forged, not merely punished. Scripture and Jesus’ call to take up the cross invite a life defined by surrender rather than control, arguing that formation matters more than insulation.

Theologically, the passage functions as a theophany pointing to a God who will enter human suffering—an early preview of Christ’s solidarity with humanity. The promise of God’s nearness produces a different kind of peace: steady, pre-possession peace that persists while the furnace still burns. The challenge issued is practical and immediate: take inventory of what governs life—control or trust—and allow the presence of God to shape responses to pressure. The narrative closes with an invitation to nurture trust through prayer and community, to let peril produce refinement under the God who gets close.

Key Takeaways

1. God's presence transforms our peril God's nearness does not mean the furnace disappears; it means the furnace cannot have the final say. When presence accompanies suffering, pain can still occur, but its power to define identity and destiny weakens. This reframes hope as a lived reality in the middle of trial rather than merely a future promise. [30:44]
2. Presence is accompaniment, not avoidance God often joins people inside the flames instead of preventing those flames from starting. That accompaniment honors human freedom and the reality of a broken world while refusing to leave sufferers alone. Theological comfort lies less in guaranteed escape and more in a divine solidarity that bears suffering with the sufferer. [45:00]
3. Surrender forms faith, not insulation Choosing surrender over control does not mean passive resignation; it means refusing to make safety the ultimate god. Formation through surrender reorients desires away from self-preservation toward faithful allegiance, even when outcomes remain uncertain. Such a posture produces rooted courage that outlasts expedient compromises. [49:15]
4. The furnace refines, not destroys The furnace in the story functions like a smith's hearth: heat that separates dross from metal and produces strength. When suffering serves as a refining process, it can expose false securities and reveal deeper hopes that survive loss. Faith shaped by refinement learns to trust a presence that produces endurance and clarity, not merely comfort. [54:25]

Youtube Chapters

[00:00] - Welcome
[24:38] - Series Theme: God Who Gets Close
[26:34] - A Garden Lesson on Value
[28:17] - Inventory: Fear, Loss, and Hope
[31:32] - Babylonian Exile and Assimilation
[35:21] - The King's Golden Image Decree
[37:43] - Refusal, Arrest, and Ultimatum
[44:08] - The Furnace and the Fourth Figure
[49:15] - Surrender vs. Insulation
[54:25] - Furnace as Refining Hearth
[56:07] - Invitation, Prayer, and Sending

Bible Study Guide

Based on the sermon summary and transcript provided, here is a Bible study discussion guide.

Bible Reading
Daniel 3:13-18 (ESV)
Then Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought. So they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, “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? Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 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. 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.”

Mark 8:34-36 (ESV)
And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it. For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?”

Observation questions

According to Daniel 3:16-18, what two distinct things do Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego declare about God and their own resolve?
What was the king’s immediate reaction to their refusal, and what specific consequence did he order? [44:08]
What did the king and his advisers see when they looked into the furnace, and how did the condition of the men differ from when they were thrown in? [44:41]
In Mark 8:34, what does Jesus say is required of anyone who wants to come after him?

Interpretation questions

The young men’s statement, “But if not,” shows they trusted God regardless of the outcome. How does this kind of faith differ from a faith that only trusts God for a favorable result?
The fourth figure appeared in the fire, not outside of it [45:00]. What does this tell us about God’s primary method of dealing with our suffering?
The furnace was described as a refining hearth, not just a tool of punishment [54:25]. How can a painful circumstance actually serve to purify or strengthen a person's faith and character?
Jesus calls his followers to deny themselves and take up a cross. In the context of this story, how is "denying yourself" similar to the refusal of the three men to bow to the king's image?

Application questions

The pressure to bow started not with intimidation but with affirmation, by making them believe it wasn't a big deal [36:50]. Where in your life are you currently feeling a quiet pressure to compromise a conviction for the sake of comfort, approval, or safety? What does that "bowing" look like in practice?
We can spend years building a life where the goal isn't formation, it's insulation [42:52]. In what areas have you tried to insulate yourself from hardship or suffering? How might that insulation actually be preventing you from experiencing God's formative presence in the midst of difficulty?
The prayer, "I can be calm. I can be brave. Jesus is with me, and I am okay" [47:51], was a way to find peace in the middle of anxiety. What is a specific fear or "furnace" you are facing right now where you could practice praying this prayer or a similar declaration of trust?
The story reframes suffering as a place where character and faith are forged, not merely punished. Looking back at a past trial, how did that experience, as difficult as it was, refine you or expose what you were truly trusting in?
The challenge was to take inventory of what governs life—control or trust [55:25]. This week, what is one practical situation you can approach with an attitude of surrender rather than trying to control the outcome? What would it look like to actively trust God's presence in that scenario?
Their refusal to bow was anchored in their true identity, which the empire had tried to erase [53:25]. When under pressure, what truths about who God is and who you are in Him do you need to remember most to stand firm?

Sermon Clips

49s

#HopeForgedInFire

“I'll share one last thought with you. Have you stopped to wonder why there was a furnace there in the first place? That furnace was actually not designed for punishment. It was a hearth used for metalworking. The furnace can be a metaphor for our suffering, but it can be the place where hope is forged, where the impurities of our illusions burn away and something stronger begins to take shape. Fire is a way of deciding what will be consumed and what will be strengthened. And so the question I pose to you today is this, is your theology just theoretical? Or do you actually believe that there's hope on the other side of surrender? Because trust in God transcends the furnace. It doesn't remove the heat, but it changes what it will produce.”

37s

#GodWithUsInFire

“I think it's worth noting here that the fourth figure in the fire only shows up after the fall. God does not stop the furnace from being lit. God does not prevent the accusation. He doesn't calm the king's rage. He does not intervene to help them go around the danger. Instead, he joins them in it. He gets close. And the peril that was meant to destroy them becomes a very place where God's nearness is revealed. Here's what stands out to me. The promise of God's closeness is not a promise of avoidance. It's a promise of accompaniment.”

38s

#PeaceThroughSurrender

“And so here's God's invitation to us today. If we're willing to surrender our control and be defined by our faith, we too can embody a steady confidence, not a false assurance that bad things won't happen, not a defensive posture that demands answers for every unanswered prayer, just a quiet rooted confirmation that says, can be calm, I can be brave, Jesus is with me, and I am okay. Despite the brokenness and peril of this world, I believe that humans are wired for the presence of God and that to be near him, especially in our pain, gives us life.”

27s

#FaithNotFear

“This kind of peace is not the absence of peril. It's the presence of God. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were caught between the peril and the promise. The king had condemned them. The fire was lit. They were bound, and everything about that moment screamed danger. And yet somehow, they were not frantic. They did not bargain. They simply said, our God is able, but even if he does not, we will not bow. That's not reckless. That's peace.”

25s

#SurrenderOverControl

“When Jesus calls us to take up our cross, he's not asking us to pay for our sins. He's inviting us into the freedom that comes from no longer trying to save ourselves. Because when your life is centered on control, then every threat feels catastrophic. But when your life is centered on surrender, then even suffering becomes sacred. And that's what happened in Babylon. The furnace that was meant to destroy them became an example of how God is with us.”

46s

#PerilInModernLife

“And here's what makes peril so disorienting. Peril doesn't just threaten your comfort. It threatens your sense of meaning. It doesn't just shake your schedule, it shakes your soul. That's why I I just wanna slow down here for a moment because we live in a world where peril is not rare. It's not hypothetical. It's not some Bronze Age problem. The world is a dangerous place right now. Maybe not necessarily in the same way. There's no furnace in the town square, but dangerous in the sense that so much can change so quickly. A nation can shift in a week. A market can turn in a day. A relationship can collapse with a sentence. Your body or your mind can betray you overnight, and you can do everything right and still find yourself facing something you never wanted.”

28s

#FaithUnderPressure

“And there are moments in our lives where that pressure feels dangerous, moments where the cost of saying no might feel too high, moments where the easier path would be to just nod along, moments where keeping your conviction might cost you comfort or reputation or opportunity or approval. And here's a deeper layer. Those moments don't just test what we do, they test what we believe. Scripture defines faith as the substance of things hoped for, but what happens when your hope is threatened?”

31s

#AllegianceRevealsYou

“And when it comes to faith, all pluralistic societies have the same rules from Babylon to the Bay Area. You can believe whatever you want as long as you also believe everything else. So giving in under pressure when it challenges your convictions isn't just survival, it's surrendering to your surroundings because you can't your hope can't compete with your circumstances. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego didn't believe that. And it was only a matter of time before their refusal became visible because allegiance is always obvious when everybody else bows.”

33s

#ModernIdols

“And we may not bow to gold statues in Silicon Valley, but we bow. We bow to performance. We bow to platforms. We bow to productivity or portfolios. We bow to whatever promises us security. Whatever tells us, if you give me your time and your attention, I'll keep you safe and I'll make you successful. And that's exactly the sort of pressure we live under. We want safety. We want assurance. We want hope that it's all gonna be okay, and anything that can give us a glimpse of that might be worth it. So giving in sometimes just feels rational.”

31s

#PresenceTransformsPeril

“The diagnosis does not instantly reverse. The market does not automatically rebound. The relationship is not magically repaired overnight, but there's a presence in the middle of it that changes what the fire is allowed to do to us. God's presence transforms our peril because it reminds us that we're not alone. They were not alone that day, and neither are we. We are what we are witnessing in Daniel chapter three is not just divine intervention. It is divine proximity. The fourth figure does not appear outside the flames but in them.”

35s

#CourageousYoungFaith

“Now I know scripture refers to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as men, but just keep in mind, in a culture that named you an adult by 13, they were likely teenagers. And with all the self assertion that only cocky, defiant teenagers can truly deliver, they tell the king, we don't need to defend ourselves to you. Our God is able to deliver us. And notice what they don't say. They don't say that God will definitely deliver them. They say, but even if he does not, we will not serve your gods. They might be young, but this is one of the most mature statements of faith in all of scripture. It's not bravado. It's not spiritual hype. It's just clarity.”

36s

#RememberWhoYouAre

“They understood something that we often forget, that the greatest danger to the human soul is not suffering, but losing yourself in the suffering by forgetting who you are. They had been taken captive into another kingdom, one that was trying to assimilate them and rename them and redefine them. And in the moment that mattered most, they remembered who they were. And this tension exists for us today. We live in a world that pushes us to bow to whatever will give us safety or certainty, but underneath all of that is a quiet pressure to forget where our hope comes from.”

36s

#TrueTrustRevealed

“When we face peril in our own lives, it has a way of clarifying what's actually inside us. You don't always know what you trust until what you're trusting in gets threatened. You don't always know what you believe until belief actually costs you something. You don't always know what's holding you up until the bottom falls out. A great poet of our time once said, everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face. And that's funny until it's not because most of us live with a plan for our life, for our family, for our career, for how things are supposed to go, and then a phone call comes in.”

43s

#ControlVsPresence

“And the challenge is that we want God to cooperate with our desires. We want his presence, but we also want our control. We want him close, but only if he moves in our direction. We want miracles, but on our timeline. We want blessings without surrender. Really, every religion has the same path to salvation that sounds something like this. Do the work, climb the ladder, follow the rules, and you'll earn your outcome. And if you do all of that work and suffering still comes to your doorstep, you will feel enraged. You will feel cheated. You will feel like God owes you, or you'll turn all of those feelings inward and assume that you failed somewhere along the line. The furnace, that furnace, will destroy your soul.”

28s

#TendYourSoul

“Because sometimes we discard or dismiss things not because they lack value, but because we don't recognize the value of it. And so today, I would just humbly ask if you are tending to the garden of your soul, move slowly and deliberately. Don't rush to discard things because of how they look or sound. I believe that God is a lot closer than we think, and there might be something very close and very valuable for each of us today, and I wouldn't want us to miss that.”

37s

#FearOnTheThrone

“King Nebuchadnezzar often has these dreams where and visions. He wakes up, and then he demands that those around him explain what they meant. And if he doesn't like the answer, those people never get to say another word again. He suffers from both an inferiority and superiority complex at the same time. He is a dangerous leader, and he makes the world a dangerous place around him. The issue with king Nebuchadnezzar isn't just that he's powerful, it's that he's afraid. Afraid of losing control, afraid of losing influence, afraid of being forgotten. And when fear sits on the throne of our lives, it rarely stays quiet.”

30s

#DenyToFollow

“Jesus does not offer us a path for protection in this life. In fact, he warns us that pursuing that could actually cost us our soul. We aren't promised a life where we get to avoid the furnace, but we're invited to a life where we aren't ruled by the fear of it. But in order to do that, we have to deny parts of ourselves. And denying ourselves is not self hatred or pretending like we don't have desires or dreams. It is the daily intentional formational refusal to make ourselves the center of the universe.”

43s

#DivineNearness

“Throughout this series, we've been looking into, different things and seeing a pattern unfold, how God meets us in the desert, God meets us in the fight, and now we see how God meets us in the furnace. But the stories in scripture are not primarily about human strength or heroic faith, but about divine nearness, about a God who refuses to remain distant from our reality and meets us where we are and as we are. And when that presence settles into our lives, something unexpected begins to grow. Not control, not certitude, but peace. The kind of peace that comes from everything, not the kind of peace that works out from everything as we plan, but a true pre peace.”

29s

#PresenceChangesDanger

“I wanna invite you to consider the this idea that the existence and presence of God does not eliminate danger, but it changes what the danger can do to you. Another way to say that is God's presence transforms our peril. Today's story comes to us from the book of Daniel in the Bible. It takes place around June BC. Israel has been conquered by the Babylonian Empire. The city of Jerusalem has fallen, and the temple, the physical place where they worship God, has been destroyed.”

31s

#TheophanyInTheFire

“I believe that this is a pre incarnational glimpse of Jesus himself, or as Phil said to us last week, a theophany. What does that mean? It's an appearance of Jesus before we knew who Jesus was. The one who would one day step into our world has already stepped into the fire. And if that's true, then this is not just an isolated miracle story. It's a preview of the gospel. It's the story of a God who does not remain insulated from our suffering but enters into it with us.”

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