When The Situation Is Hot Series

Title: “When the Situation is Hot”

Text: Daniel 3: 17

Focus: “… able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace…”

When the situation is hot it fosters an assurance in God, it fosters reliance in God, and it fosters a trust in God.

Sermon: The vicissitudal nature of life causes one to experience situations that elevate the blood pressure, that cause the palms of your hands to sweat, that test your will power, and that frays your nervous system. Frank Sinatra would say that life, your are riding high in April and you are shot down in May.

I must state early that every situation is not a hot situation. I know the barometer in your life may say the temperature is over one hundred degrees. I’m not talking about a change in the atmosphere around you. I know some situations make you feel hot. That’s because of the unknown. That’s because there are consequences to your actions. That’s because there is an equation to life. That’s because the balance of power is always on the other side.

Let me pause and remind you from last week that the definition of hot is when you feel the presence of God, it’s when you walk in the purpose of God, and when you manifest the power of God.

Given that definition I would argue that every situation is not hot. Because every situation we find ourselves in, is not a Thou situation, it is a me situation. Most situations really is about you, and not about God. Be honest with yourself.

In life you will face five basic situations: tight situation, tough situation, terrible situation, tragic situation, and a truth situation.

Many of us face the first four and never get to the fifth. That’s because a truth situation is the only situation that is hot. It’s the only situation that is not about you, but is about God. We usually spend more time dealing with matters about ourselves, and little time dealing with matters about God. In other words we get in trouble for our wayward actions, but never get in trouble for God’s upward actions.

The operative definition for hot is the presence of God with your life, the purpose of God for your life, and the power of God in your life. As a result, a hot situation is one that manifests God’s presence, which demonstrates God’s purpose, and magnifies God’s power. I will argue that the only hot situation in life is a truth situation.

Five basic situations:

First) A tight situation is when the boundaries of life constrict you. When you find yourself with limited options, the preverbal issue of being between a rock and a hard place.

[II Kings 7:3-4 4 men with leprosy at the entrance to the City of Samaria, there is famine in the City, no food where they are, and the enemy ahead of them. If they do into the city they will die, if they stay where they are they will die, so let’s go to the camp of the Arameans and surrender, if they spare us, we live, if they kill us, then we die.]

Second) A tough situation is when circumstances overcome you. That’s when justice is truly blind and the scales do not tilt in your favor.

[Matthew 14 Herod had placed John the Baptist in prison, the daughter of Herodias dances for Herod and pleases him. Herod promises to give her anything she asks. Give me the head of John the Baptist. And John was beheaded.]

Third) A terrible situation is when forces seek to destroy you. That’s when demonic forces draw you into their demonic schemes.

[Luke 11:24-26 When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, I will return to the house I left. When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first.]

Fourth) A tragic situation is when life overwhelms you. That’s when the interim nature of life becomes a reality.

[Job loses all that he has and he worships God and says naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return; the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.]

But a truth situation is when life presents a moral decision. That’s when you have to make the Joshua decision and say “as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.”

Dr. Martin Luther King immortalized the words of James Russell Lowell.

Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide,