God on the Go: Against the Crowd – Fiery Furnace

Do you struggle with peer pressure? Well, this week we’re talking all about it and I hope it helps you when you’re faced with peer pressure situations. Pro-tip: Lean into the Lord, and your faith, and He will help you in those moments. He will help you take a stand, guided by values, and not giving in to the crowd. Here we go!

This Week!

Monday Story:

• Madi at party/ Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego

Tuesday Key Verse:

• Daniel 3:17-18 – “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.”

Wednesday Prayer:

• God, help me stand up for what is right, even when it is scary. In the name of Jesus, amen.

Thursday Question:

• What is something that everyone seems to be doing right now that you know isn’t God’s best?

Friday Fun Fact:

• Q: How many people say they have experienced peer pressure?
• A: By the time you’re in high school, 85% of people say they have experienced peer pressure.

Show Notes:

To get this week’s episode and daily text prompts, text the word Go to 89419.
If you are in Canada, text GodOnTheGo to 866-729-1065

Transcription:

My oldest daughter was so excited. She was in some of her early years in high school and we had recently moved to a new town. She didn’t know a lot of people. She didn’t have a lot of friends, and so when she got invited to the Cool Girls’ birthday party, she was thrilled. She was so excited to be able to go. So, her dad and I dropped her off and she ran inside and we were just thinking, oh, she’s going to have such a great time. So, you can imagine when just a little while later, she called us and said, I need you to come get me. That we thought, oh no. What is going on? Well, as it turned out at this party when she got there, there was some things going on that she did not feel comfortable about. She didn’t like some of the things that were happening. But it was hard because she wanted to make friends and these were all the cool kids. But it finally came to a point where she thought, this is not good. This is not for me. At that point, she said, that’s it. I’m out. She called her dad and I, and even though it was really hard, really hard for her to decide to leave, we went and picked her up and we brought her home.

You’re listening to God on the Go, part of the Purposely Podcast Network. I’m Julie Lyles Carr, and at God on the Go, we want to help you make the minutes matter. We’re starting a new series called Against the Crowd. Oh, this is going to be a good one, but it’s not always going to be the easiest thing to listen to because here’s the thing, it’s hard to go against what everyone else is doing. We want to fit in. My daughter wanted to fit in with some new friends. We want to be light. We don’t want people to think that we’re not fun. And I’d love to tell you that I always stand up to the crowd now that I’m a grownup, now that I’ve got it all figured out, right? But that’s not the case. I mean, even once you’re out of school, even once you get through some of those years, you’re still always needing to make a decision in every situation. Who am I going to be? Am I just going to go with what the crowd’s doing, even if it seems like it’s something that’s not smart, or if it’s something mean or it goes against what God has taught me to do? Or am I just going to go with the crowd? So we’re going to be talking about those times, those decisions and how we can go against the crowd when it’s most important.

Hey, check this out. By the time you’re in high school, 85% of people say that they’ve experienced peer pressure. Peer pressure is the crowd. Peer pressure is your friends and other people around you who are all choosing to do something and they want you to do what they’re doing. They want you to go along with it. Sometimes doing everyone else is doing can make you feel more popular. Sometimes it can make you feel like you can get what you want if you just go along with what everyone else is doing, but it doesn’t last.

There’s a story I think about in the Bible. There were these three guys. Their names were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Have you ever heard of those guys? Okay, if those names don’t sound familiar, let’s try the names that they were given when they were taken as slaves. These are three guys that we learn about in the Old Testament, and when they were taken as slaves into Babylon, they were given the names of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And after they had been in Babylon as slaves who were a period of time, they were given some really important jobs in the King’s palace. They were liked, they were trusted, but there came a day when they were told that they had to bow down to the idols that the king worshiped, and everyone else around them was doing it. If you didn’t do it, there was going to be a really serious punishment. But Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego said, “I’m not going to do it. I know that the only thing I am to worship is God. I’m never to worship a man or an idol or even the king. I’m never to put those things before God.” And so they said they wouldn’t do it, and do you know what the king did? He threw them into a fire, into a fiery furnace.

Now, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had no idea how this story was going to turn out for them, but they said, we’re going against the crowd. We believe that God can deliver us. And check out this verse from Daniel 3:17. It says, 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. That is really standing up to the crowd, isn’t it? That is going against what everyone else is doing to do what is right. Here’s the amazing thing that happened for Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego God saved them. He saved them. They were willing to go against the crowd. They were willing to go against the thing that was popular. They were willing in a sense, to call and say, Hey, mom and dad, come get me away from this party. They were willing to do the right thing, and God saved them. Think about it for you. Even if this means that I’m not going to be popular, even if this means I’m going to lose some friends, I’m going to do the right thing. That’s what it means to go against the crowd. God is so pleased when you do what is right over what is popular.

I would love for you to text to the number 8 9 4 1 9 the word GO, and we’ll send you some more great stuff that you can have some trivia questions and some discussion questions and some things to think about this week, and I’ll see you next time on God, on the Go.