The Courage To Do It

Bishop Joseph W. Walker, III

September 13, 2026

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.

If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king.

But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”

Daniel 3:16–18 (NKJV)

I. INTRODUCTION

Standing up for God is never really easy, particularly in a culture that makes it difficult and punishes people for their commitment and their convictions. But I believe all of us will testify that never was there a time more important than right now for us to stand for what God has called us to stand for.

It is important, people of God, because in the culture we live in, everybody wants to tell you how to live, tell you what to do and how you should do it. Everybody has a platform and everybody has some instruction to give you. But you have to learn today that you can be surrounded by something without allowing that something to become you. You can be in Babylon without becoming a Babylonian. You can be in Babylon without subscribing to Babylonian worship.

Many of you already know you are different. You are cut from a different cloth, the way you think, the way you move. You have to embrace your difference and not run away from it, because it is your difference that God has anointed. It is your difference that allows you to walk into spaces other people will never be able to walk into.

To understand chapter 3, we have to understand how we arrive there. Chapter 1 tells us they were no longer living in Jerusalem, they were in captivity in Babylon. The Babylonians had removed everything familiar to them and isolated them. They attempted to change their diet, change their education, change everything about them. And most importantly, they changed their names.

Among the Hebrew people, your name always had value because it pointed to a message about your destiny. Hananiah means “the Lord is gracious.” Mishael means “who is like our God.” Azariah means “the Lord has helped.” And Daniel, interestingly enough, means “God is my judge,” God is our vindicator. So when the Babylonians took them captive, they went into the business of changing their names: Hananiah becomes Shadrach, Mishael becomes Meshach, Azariah becomes Abed-Nego, and Daniel becomes Belteshazzar.

Do not miss what Babylon is doing. Babylon is not just after their bodies. Changing their names was only part of it. Babylon wanted to change their language, change how they viewed the world, even change their diet, all before Babylon ever asked them to bow. Babylon was trying to normalize their being in Babylon. Understand this: anytime someone is trying to incarcerate you and limit what God is doing in your life, they want to make you feel normal in a place of dysfunction.

If I can change your name, I can change the way you see yourself. If I can reshape your identity, I can influence your behavior. If I can make you forget who you are, I can get you to bow down to something you were never created to bow to. That is still the strategy of the enemy today. The enemy is constantly trying to rename you and reshape you: you are a failure, you are not enough, you are behind, you do not belong, you have to compromise to get there, you have to cheat to get ahead. But I have come to remind somebody: God knew who you were when He named you. It is not what people call you that determines who you are, it is what you answer to.

So watch the collision. Babylon was polytheistic, many gods, little “g,” idols set up everywhere. But these young men were monotheistic, they served the one true living God. Now you have monotheistic worshipers in a polytheistic culture, under a king full of himself named Nebuchadnezzar. And because these young men were different, they began to experience a certain level of influence in Babylon, because your gift will always make room for you.

The people who had been around the king a long time felt some kind of way. They started hating, and when they started hating, they conspired: we cannot stop the favor that is on them, but we can turn the king against them. They knew Nebuchadnezzar was a narcissistic leader, so they knew exactly what to feed him, “King, you ought to have a day for yourself. Let us build a golden image in your honor, and make a decree that when the music plays, everybody must bow.” You can always tell a leader who is full of himself: he needs statues and his name on everything.

Understand: whenever you show up with what God has placed in your life, you will always exacerbate the insecurities of people who were already there. It has nothing to do with you. It is just you showing up, and your presence exposes their insecurity. But you have to keep on being who God called you to be.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego made up their minds ahead of time: we will not bow to anybody but the one true living God. The day came, the music played, and they would not bow. The king had the furnace heated seven times hotter than normal, so hot that the men who set the fire died trying to set it. And they told him: our God is able to deliver us from your furnace, and even if He does not, we still will not bow.

That takes courage. And that is why God sent me with this word, because in a bowing-down world, God is looking for somebody who is willing to stand up.

Watch the full Sunday service: https://www.youtube.com/live/94uj7taIljg?si=fwdsaKAoDxgHwGPN

II. COURAGE IS PROVEN UNDER PRESSURE

Courage is proven under pressure, because you do not really know who you are until you have been under some pressure. It is easy to love Jesus when there is no pressure. It is easy to run around this church when you are under no pressure. It is easy to lift your hands and tell me how much you love God when nothing is pressing on you. But when pressure comes, it will show you what you are really made of. Pressure reveals your real faith.

Some of you know exactly what I am talking about, because you have pressure at school, pressure in your relationships, pressure to fit in, pressure to compromise, pressure to keep everybody happy, pressure to keep doing what God called you to do even when you do not see the breakthrough at the end of the tunnel. Keep on trusting God, because pressure will show you where your real faith lies.

A. Do not expect your convictions to go unchallenged.

When you are convicted and you have strong faith, it is always going to be challenged. Somebody will question your integrity when you try to walk in purity. Somebody will misunderstand you when you try to walk in honesty. Somebody will call you foolish when you choose faithfulness. Somebody will call you old-fashioned.

Some of you have learned how to survive by going along to get along. You do not challenge it anymore, you do not question it anymore, you do not say anything. Everybody knows it is wrong, but nobody wants to be the one to speak up. Everybody sees the problem, but silence is more comfortable than confrontation, because you do not want any smoke.

The problem with being a person of conviction is that people who have chosen to go along get uncomfortable around people who are willing to take a stand. Your stand disrupts their comfort. Your courage raises the questions their silence is trying to avoid. So they try to make you feel bad because you do not drink what they drink, you do not smoke what they smoke, you do not creep like they creep, and now they want to call you self-righteous. I am not self-righteous. I am just trying to be righteous. Excuse me if I do not have time to get raggedy with you. I am trying to live for God.

B. Decide your position before the pressure arrives.

There is a difference between a thermometer and a thermostat. A thermometer only measures, it goes up when it is hot and down when it is cold. But a thermostat regulates the atmosphere. When you have a certain level of conviction, you regulate the atmosphere. When you walk into a room, you set the temperature of that room.

And a thermostat has this wonderful function: it presets the environment. So even when the environment changes, it does not bother the thermostat, because the thermostat has already decided what it is going to be. You may be at seventy-five, but I am already set for sixty-five, so I will just wait until the room comes to where I am.

You have to know what you are going to do before you walk into the situation. You have to know what you are going to do before they slide into your messages, before they invite you into that crazy situation. When you stand on God’s word, you do not decide in real time, your convictions are already set. You do not build convictions in the middle of temptation; you establish them before the temptation ever comes. You need prayer before the crisis. You need the word before the battle. You need worship before the warfare. You need church before the emergency, not just church while you are in the emergency.

III. COURAGE REFUSES CONDITIONAL FAITH

Look at what they teach us about faith at another level. “King, our God is able to deliver us.” I love that, because they know God can. Anybody here know God can? But then comes mature faith: “But if not, we still will not bow down.” That is faith that does not require God to perform a miracle in order for you to believe that God is God.

Sometimes we have faith in God’s ability without having faith in God Himself. We say, “God, I know You can.” But what happens when God does not? What happens when the prayer is not answered the way you thought it ought to be? What happens when the healing does not come the way you expected? What happens when the relationship ends? What happens when the promotion goes to somebody else? What happens when the dream takes longer than you thought? Can you still say, “But if not, I still trust You”? That is courageous faith, not conditional faith. Conditional faith says, “I will serve You if You deliver me.” Courageous faith says, “God, even if You do not deliver me the way I thought.”

A. Serve God for who He is, not just for what He does.

It is easy to trust God when the check comes, but can you trust God while the check is still on the way? It is easy to praise God when you get into the program, but can you praise Him when you get the rejection letter? It is easy to worship when the doctor gives you a good report, but when the doctor calls back and says they found something, can you still give God glory?

This is why you have to understand the acts of God over against the attributes of God. The acts of God: God heals, God provides, God opens doors, God made a way for you to get into school. Those are the things He does. The attributes of God: God is holy, God is good, God is righteous, God is just, God is awesome. That is who He is.

The difference between responding to the acts of God and worshiping the attributes of God is your level of spiritual maturity. The theology of these three young men was not built on the acts alone. We know God can deliver, but if God does not, He still has enough attributes for me to keep on blessing His name. It is a theology of sober confidence: if God does not do it, there is a reason why He did not, and we will give Him glory in His sovereign will.

They believed in the miracle. They prayed for the miracle. They knew God was capable of the miracle. But they did not require a miracle from God in order for God to remain worthy. Their confidence in God’s ability never became an attempt to manipulate God’s activity.

B. Trust God even when outcomes are uncertain.

You have to get to the place where you are not a spoiled child in the things of God. Some of us pout when God does not do what we wanted, we fold our arms, we stay home, we are done with church, done with the pastor, done with the deacon, because God must be mad at us.

Imagine being God for sixty seconds. Somebody calls in January and you help them. They call again in February and you help them. They call in March and you help them a third time. April comes and you say, “I am sorry, not this time”, and suddenly the relationship gets weird. Now they are talking about you, posting about you, telling everybody what you would not do. But nobody is posting about January, February, and March. All they are posting about is April.

Why are you upset with Me over the one thing I did not do, when you can look back over your life at all the years I blessed you, all the times I put food on your table, all the times I woke you up in the morning, all the times I opened doors that no man could shut? Just because I did not give you the one thing you asked for, now you act like I never did anything for you. The devil is a liar. Some of you need to go back and praise God for what He has already done, He has already done enough.

I am at the point in my life where, though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. If He opens the door, I will give Him the glory. If He closes the door, then He must have something bigger, and I will give Him the glory for that too. I know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

They did not know how this story was going to end. All they saw was fire. All they saw was flame. They were bound and thrown in, and they still trusted God. Some of you right now have learned how to trust God without knowing how it turns out: I do not know how it is going to show up, but I believe it will show up. I do not know how it is going to turn around, but I believe it will turn around.

You need the kind of faith a baby has in a car seat. You strap the baby in, and the baby is unbothered. You are up front driving through traffic, and the baby is completely relaxed, because the baby instinctively knows that the one driving has a reputation for getting them safely to their destination. When you are walking with God, you can sit back and rest: strap me in, Lord. Wherever You are taking me, You have a reputation for getting me where I need to be. You do not have to be up all night worrying about it. Trust God even when you cannot trace Him.

IV. COURAGE ATTRACTS DIVINE PRESENCE

A bruised reed He will not break,

And smoking flax He will not quench;

He will bring forth justice for truth.

Isaiah 42:3 (NKJV)

A. Your obedience invites God into your furnace.

Here is what makes this story so good: they did everything right and still ended up in the furnace. You can do right and still end up in the fire. Get out of the mindset that doing everything right exempts you from the fire. Sometimes you end up in the fire because of what you did right.

Joseph obeyed God and ended up in prison. Daniel prayed and ended up in the lions’ den. Paul preached the gospel and ended up beaten. Jesus obeyed His Father and ended up at Calvary. Sometimes you are not in the fire because of what you did wrong, you are in the fire because of what you did right.

But watch what happens in the fire. The king looked down and said, “Did we not throw in three? Why do I see four? And the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” There is a fourth man in your fire. God is not going to let you walk through anything without getting in it with you.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you.

When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned,

Nor shall the flame scorch you.

Isaiah 43:2 (NKJV)

God is not standing on the outside of your furnace shouting instructions. God is in there with you. And God can use the fire for you. You thought the fire was going to destroy you, but the fire is developing you. Notice what the fire had power to do: it burned the bonds without burning the bodies. Whatever you are tied up in, the fire will destroy that without destroying you.

Some of you were in a relationship that was not good for you, and the only reason it held was the bondage you were in. But when you came through the fire, some people disconnected from you, and you wondered why you could not hang anymore. God used the fire to set you free from some things that were not good for you. Sometimes you have to thank God for what He delivered you from.

B. What was meant to destroy you can become your testimony.

The people who turned that furnace up seven times hotter died trying to set these young men up. Be careful how you handle a child of God. I come against every conspiracy formed against you. I come against every plot designed to stop you. Leave God’s people alone.

And notice: they were thrown in bound, but when the king looked down, they were not on their backs, they were on their feet. Some of you got knocked down, and it hurt that night, but you are about to get back up on your feet. The text says they were walking loose in the fire, not running for the exit, but at peace in the middle of it. When you have that kind of peace, what used to bother you does not bother you anymore. You may walk onto that campus tomorrow, or into that job tomorrow, and it will feel like a fiery furnace, but you are going to walk through it with a peace you have never had before.

Then the king called them out. And God will use the very people who tried to bury you to help bring you into your blessing. When they came out, the king examined them: their clothes were not burned, their hair was not singed, their skin was not affected. But the final piece of evidence was that somebody got close enough to smell them, and they did not even smell like smoke.

Somebody sitting next to you has no idea what you have been through. They have no idea what you looked like five or ten years ago. You do not even look like what you have been through, because God removed the residue. If people knew the fire you came out of, they would look at you differently, but you do not carry the smell of it.

Then remember, Babylon was polytheistic, and the king who had just built an image of himself made a new decree: in all the provinces of Babylon, they shall now serve the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. God will make the people who opposed you respect the God you serve.

Here is a revelation for somebody: they were thrown into that furnace because people were jealous of their trajectory. Some people cannot even explain why they do not like you, except that your trajectory exposes what is missing in theirs. So they tried to stop it, but the trajectory did not come from the king, it came from the God of the Hebrew people. And the chapter ends around verse 30 with the king promoting Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, because after you survive the furnace, there is nothing left but promotion.

I speak promotion over your future. After all you have been through, after all you have suffered, God says: because you trusted Me, I will raise you up.

• Thank God for the residue removed.
• Thank God for the reputation redeemed.
• Thank God for the reward received.

V. CLOSING INVITATION

I know I am different, and I am not trying to assimilate into a culture that is bowing down to everything else. The reason we do what we do is because God has placed us in a position where being different is not only acceptable, it is anointed.

If you are here today and you need a relationship with Jesus Christ; if you need to dedicate your life to Him; if you are saying, “Pastor, I need a church home where I can grow in the things of God”; if you have moved to Nashville for school or for work and you do not have a covering, today is your day. Get on your feet and walk out of that furnace with destiny on your life.

Have a great new week with the Lord! ❤️