The First Gospel - With Us in the Fire | Josh Harrison
Let’s recap where we are. After more than a year in the “First Gospel” series, Citizens Church is nearing the end of its journey through the Old Testament—not just as ancient history, but as living testimony that God was just as good then as He is now. The aim has been to show that the gospel—good news—runs through the entire biblical story, not just the pages of the New Testament, and that the same God who walked with Jesus' disciples is the same God revealed in every scene of Israel’s story.
This week, we camped out in one of the great exile stories: Daniel 3, and the fiery trial of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Josh led us through the text—familiar, yes, but no less startling for its familiarity. Beneath the surface, it is a story intensely relevant for anyone who has ever felt out of place or pressed to surrender their identity for the sake of comfort or conformity.
Exile: Designed to Disorient
The sermon opens by framing exile as the essential context for this story. The Babylonian empire did not merely conquer; it assimilated. Powerful and influential Israelites were taken from Jerusalem and given new lives—new names, new jobs, new gods, new comforts. All the better to make them forget the story that defined them, the God who named them—Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah—before they became, to history, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
But exile always carries a tension. Josh drew out Jeremiah 29’s paradoxical instructions: settle in, invest in the peace of Babylon, work for its good—yet never forget who you are, whose you are, and the purpose for which you were sent into exile. The world will try to rename you, reorient you, distract you (comfort is a numbing anesthetic, he warns), and finally invite you to bow.
Worship Defines Us
Daniel 3 pivots on worship. Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image is less about religious devotion than about identity: who you bow to, who you truly trust, who you let define you. At its root, the exile’s final temptation is this: become like us—worship what we worship, and your old story will disappear.
It’s no accident that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego resist only at this point—not in constant opposition, but in resolute faithfulness at the moment when their allegiance to God is directly challenged. The way of God’s people in exile is not to be perpetually combative, but to invest in the world for its good—until that moment comes when the idols of the age demand our worship. Then, respectfully, bravely, almost quietly, we must refuse.
Heroic Faith, Quiet Witness
The most remarkable element of their resistance, as Josh noted, is its tone. They do not rage or protest for protest’s sake. They do not explain or self-justify. They speak simply: “Our God is able to deliver us...but even if he does not, we will not bow.” Their faith is not merely in what God can do—in the outcome—but in God’s character. “Even if he does not”—even if the story goes to the darkest place—God is still better, still trustworthy, still good.
Such clarity, such faith, does not spring up in a moment of crisis. It is cultivated. Likely, Josh speculates, through shared stories, community, disciplines of prayer and remembrance. They hold an identity deeper than their new names, stronger than exile's temptations, rooted in knowing who God is.
God in the Fire
Ultimately, though, the real subject is not the heroic humans, but the God who enters the fire with them. Not freeing them from a distance, but stepping in Himself—seen by Nebuchadnezzar as “one like a son of the gods.” At every crucial moment in Scripture, God is shown to be present—not distant, not an absent chessmaster, but a companion in suffering, the one whose presence brings hope and freedom. In exile, in the fire, in the places where identity is most threatened, God’s nearness is the defining difference.
He burns away only the ropes—not the people. He liberates through suffering and draws the watching world to recognize His unique glory.
Four Key Lessons from This Sermon
Exile is not just punishment—it is mission. God sends us into disorienting places not to be defeated but to be agents of His goodness, His peace, His presence.
Identity is always under pressure. The world will constantly seek to rename us, distract us, and win our worship—but our deepest identity is in belonging to God.
Faithfulness looks like humble resistance. True courage is often quiet, respectful, and rooted in unmoved trust in God’s character, regardless of outcome.
God’s presence transforms suffering. In every “fire,” God does not remain distant; He is with His people, turning what was intended for harm into freedom, and using our story to reveal His glory to the world.
That’s the heartbeat of Daniel 3, and of the First Gospel: our story is not ultimately about our heroism, but about a God who walks with us in the fire, and through His presence, makes every place—even exile—a stage for redemption.
