
Over 2,500 years ago, three friends stood up for their beliefs in a culture that was explicitly engineered to encourage conformity and unanimity to a world that they were never born into but were rather placed into because they were prisoners of war. These particular three friends were eventually elevated to powerful positions within this foreign culture because of their God given abilities, which they were able to exercise because they knew their true identities in God.
These three friends were placed into these new roles primarily because God wanted them there so that they could influence the king who wanted to murder them and the new culture that they prisoners in. In this type of environment, these friends needed to exercise a bold faith in God. It is the same type of bold faith that we need today.
These friends were able to have a bold faith in God because they knew their true identity and they knew their role.
Know Your Role
It’s interesting that King Nebuchadnezzar was training all of these prisoners of war so that they could each have a role to play in his city but in Daniel 2:49 we see him appointed these three friends to be his new city managers, meaning that these captured friends were to serve and build up the city that now enslaved them. That’s crazy! Yet, that’s exactly where God wanted them to be. They were in important positions of power so they could have a tremendous impact on the city.
This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: "Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." - Jeremiah 29:4-7
In the midst of tremendous difficulties and in the face of an entire culture pushing these three friends to conform, they chose to continue to stand for their beliefs because they knew their role. Their role in exile was to go on with their lives, put down roots, build homes, gardens, businesses, and families. They were to work for the prosperity of the city because if it did well, they would do well. That is the role these three friends had: to build up the city and not just conform to it.
Apart from serving the city, these three friends saw another role for themselves: serving God.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, "King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." - Daniel 3:16-18
For these three friends they saw their role was to serve God by serving the city.
This is the same role that God wants for you today.
Living in modern-day Babylon means that nobody cares what you have to say until they see how much you care. If you claim to love others, but you continue to allow yourself to go down the Facebook wormhole of political videos that are specifically created to make you mad, then you aren't serving God or loving others. Instead you are allowing yourself to be conformed to this toxic culture and forfeiting your role of influencing the culture for good.
If you claim to love others, but you refuse to keep up your house and keep the streets clean or serve the poor and homeless, then you really don't love your city or the people in it and you aren’t fulfilling the role that God has placed you in!
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were able to influence the king and the entire city because they knew their role and they leveraged that role to the best of their abilities.
We can do the same today. We influence those around us when we genuinely love them, humbly serve them, and gently speak truth to them.
In order to know your role, simply ask God every day this week: God, how can I serve you by serving others today?
God wants you to have a bold faith in Him because He gives you your identity and nothing in this world can take that away from you. God wants you to have a bold faith in Him because He made you for this moment and has given you a role to play in it.
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