Daniel: Persistant In Prayer Series

Powerful People - Daniel

Our series this year is powerful people and we are going to examine how God works in and through ordinary people in a powerful way.

Tonight we are going to consider someone from the Old Testament, Daniel.

Daniel is a wonderful example of someone who was sustained and protected by God’s power.

Daniel also provides us with a wonderful example of what it is like to live in a society that wants nothing to do with either God or God’s Word. As we look at Daniel’s life, he can teach us how we can learn to live in this world and still separate ourselves from the grip of the world.

Daniel shows us how to make an impact on the people and communities around us for the cause of God’s kingdom.

Daniel was a person of prayer, in every circumstance, in every situation, Daniel sought God in prayer.

Proverbs 24:10 reminds us, If you fail under pressure, your strength is too small.

Daniel relied on God’s strength and not his own. That is what you and I are meant to do as we live in a dark and perverse world.

Even in the face of adversity, even when a decree was made that everyone should only pray to King Darius, Daniel continued to pray to His powerful God.

Daniel 6:3-5, Daniel soon proved himself more capable than all the other administrators and high officers. Because of Daniel’s great ability, the king made plans to place him over the entire empire. Then the other administrators and high officers began searching for some fault in the way Daniel was handling government affairs, but they couldn’t find anything to criticize or condemn. He was faithful, always responsible, and completely trustworthy. So they concluded, “Our only chance of finding grounds for accusing Daniel will be in connection with the rules of his religion.”

Daniel distinguished himself above the other administrators and high officers, the governors and satraps as another translation puts it.

Daniel was faithful, always responsible, and completely trustworthy.

In your workplace, would your employer see that in you?

I have worked for some of the largest companies in the world.

Over the years I have managed a number of different teams and worked with and for many different people.

Let me be completely honest, there were some people I knew I could rely on, some people who I could always trust, and then there were some people who I am surprised even managed to find their way to the office.

I guess you might have had the pleasure of working with people like that.

There is one person I worked for in one company who had a very important job. Nobody knew why this person had that job. He was not responsible and nobody trusted Him.

The king trusted Daniel so much that he was thinking about putting Daniel in charge of the whole realm.

Would your boss think that about you?

The governors and satraps wanted to find some way to get Daniel out of the kings good books... they wanted to find something, dig the dirt up, but they could not find anything wrong, no charge, no-fault, no error, because Daniel was faithful; he did not abuse the power he had been given.

Daniel distinguished himself from everyone else, he was distinctive in his difference, it was almost like he glittered and shined compared to everyone else.

Daniel was willing to go the extra mile, yet he always put God first and was always faithful to God.

I suppose we could say Daniel was a man with a distinctive character, distinctive in how he worked, distinctive in how he lived and distinctive in how he worshipped and served his God.

Sadly, there are some people in this world who resent the achievements of other people.

Maybe that resentment is fuelled by jealousy, or greed or hate. Or maybe their resentment is rooted in their own lack of achievement or determination.

Daniel was a man of faith and he had worked hard at both following his God and climbing the ladder of advancement, the governors and officials thought it was the king who controlled Daniels destiny.

The truth is it was God and God alone who had the power to control Daniels destiny.

And of course, the same is true of you and me, we might like to think we are in control, but we are not, God commands our destiny, not us.

In this world, we encounter people who will not like the fact that we are “Christians”.

They will not like the fact that we do not live as they live.

They will not like the fact that we seek to follow God’s will, God’s purposes and God’s precepts.

We will encounter people who will hate that we say the Bible is true and that we seek to obey and live by the Word of God.