WHERE TO GO
Daniel 9:4-19
S: Perspective in prayer
Th: Live a Prayer Life (Prayer: A Passion for His Presence)
Pr: THE PEOPLE OF GOD PRAY WITH PERSPECTIVE.
?: How? How do we pray?
KW: Direction
TS: Using Daniel’s prayer as an example, we will find three directions to take enabling us to pray with perspective.
The _____ direction we should take is…
I. ADORATION
II. ADMISSION
III. APPLICATION
Version: ESV
RMBC 29 Sep 02 AM
INTRODUCTION:
ILL Notebook: Perspective (sloth)
A sloth is out for a walk when he’s mugged by four snails. After recovering his wits, he goes to make a police report.
"Can you describe the snails?" asks the officer.
"I don’t know," replies the sloth. "It all happened so fast."
Well, that’s a different perspective, isn’t it?
You know…
We all have a viewpoint on things.
Each one of us, because of our individual characteristics or the variety of our backgrounds, thinks about things differently.
Sometimes our perspective can be helpful and encouraging.
And sometimes, it can be just the opposite.
ILL Notebook: Perspective (antique dealer)
Take for example…
…Amy and Jamie, who are old friends. They have both been married to their husbands for a long time.
Amy is upset because she thinks her husband doesn’t find her attractive anymore. "As I get older he doesn’t bother to look at me!" Amy cries.
"I’m so sorry for you, as I get older my husband says I get more beautiful every day." replies Jamie.
"Yes, but your husband’s an antique dealer!"
TRANSITION:
As helpful as perspectives can be at times, we must realize that the challenge for the Christian is to have God’s perspective.
This is the aim of today’s study.
Today is the last Sunday of our discipleship emphasis.
Our theme has been…
1. “Live a Prayer Life.”
It has been our goal, this month, for us to realize as a church family, that prayer is an essential.
It is a spiritual discipline that we must do.
But at the same time, I want us to realize that prayer is much more than a task.
It is a joy.
Throughout this month, we have been using the example of Daniel.
For…
2. Daniel was a man of prayer.
First, let us note that…
2.1 He prayed with people (2:17-18).
In Daniel 2, Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, had decided to kill all his wise men because they could not tell him what his dream was, thus they were not able to tell its meaning.
When Nebuchadnezzar made this decision, it unfortunately included Daniel as well, though he had not been a participant in the proceedings up to that point.
So listen to the text for Daniel’s solution…
Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, and told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.
Daniel knew that it was essential that they pray together.
It was not optional.
It was essential.
And as a result, God gave him the knowledge of what Nebuchadnezzar’s dream was, and its meaning.
But this is not all we learn from Daniel, for…
2.2 He prayed with perseverance (6:10).
Much later in his life, Daniel was a very high official for a king named Darius.
But there were many of Darius’ officials that were jealous of Daniel and deceived Darius into signing a law that people could only pray to him, and no other god.
They did this knowing that Daniel would be unlikely to compromise on such an issue.
Here how the text describes Daniel’s response…
When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.
Their anticipation of Daniel’s reaction was right on.
He would continue praying.
Of course, the officials reported it, and so for Daniel’s insubordination, he was thrown into a hungry lions’ den, as the law was written, much to the dismay of Darius.
But because Daniel was man of integrity and a man of prayer, God saved him.
Last week, we saw the heart of Daniel, for…
2.3 He prayed with passion (9:3).
Daniel had been studying the Word of God, spoken through the prophet Jeremiah, and noted that the people of God were going to shortly return to Jerusalem.
But as he looked around, no one was ready to go.
No one wanted to go.
And this grieved Daniel.
He knew it wasn’t right, because God was not done with His people.
Yet, he was afraid that further disobedience might jeopardize God’s promise.
So, the text tells us…
Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
Daniel prayed with passion!
This was not some ritual.
He came before the Lord because he was in relationship with Him.
This is where we left off last week.
This week, we are going to see the kind of prayer he prayed.
And so we learn…
3. THE PEOPLE OF GOD PRAY WITH PERSPECTIVE.
But how do we do that?
How do we get the right perspective?
Well…
4. Using Daniel’s prayer as an example, we will find three directions to take enabling us to pray with perspective.
Listen now to this powerful prayer…
I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away, in all the lands to which you have driven them, because of the treachery that they have committed against you. To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. All Israel has transgressed your law and turned aside, refusing to obey your voice. And the curse and oath that are written in the Law of Moses the servant of God have been poured out upon us, because we have sinned against him. He has confirmed his words, which he spoke against us and against our rulers who ruled us, by bringing upon us a great calamity. For under the whole heaven there has not been done anything like what has been done against Jerusalem. As it is written in the Law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us; yet we have not entreated the favor of the Lord our God, turning from our iniquities and gaining insight by your truth. Therefore the Lord has kept ready the calamity and has brought it upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in all the works that he has done, and we have not obeyed his voice. And now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day, we have sinned, we have done wickedly. O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because for our sins, and for the iniquities of our fathers, Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. Now therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy, and for your own sake, O Lord, make your face to shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, hear; O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not, for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name.”
OUR STUDY:
I. The first direction we must take is ADORATION.
Daniel begins this prayer in the spirit of worship.
He is aware of the Presence of God, so he rightly does not begin with his problems.
Instead, he focuses on the nature and character of God.
And so we learn that…
1. We must acknowledge the majesty of God.
Daniel is confronted rightly with an awesome God.
Not in the way we use “awesome” (we use a watered down meaning all the time), but in its truest sense.
For when we are faced with the reality of God, we are filled with fear and awe.
We see that He is great and terrible.
He is absolutely holy, unstained by anything that is wrong or wicked.
Not only that, He is sovereign.
Nothing is beyond His reach or knowledge.
But Daniel knows that this is not the end of the story when it comes to God, for…
2. We are to celebrate the compassion of God.
He is not so beyond us that He is not near us.
No, God reaches down to us, understanding our frailty, extending His gracious compassion.
For just as God’s power brings us to our knees, so should His love.
We cannot take it for granted as if it were something we deserved.
For that is the point, we don’t deserve it.
So Daniel sees God rightly as he prays.
God is both a Being of awesome majesty, and a Being of infinite, tender love and compassion.
He is worthy to be adored.
II. The second direction we must take is ADMISSION.
Daniel communicates throughout this prayer his deep awareness of shame.
He admits it belongs to them as God’s people.
And this is a reminder to us that some words really stick in our throat, like “I have sinned.”
But the truth is…
1. We need to confess our wrongdoing.
Daniel vigorously scours the whole vocabulary of sin.
He doesn’t hold anything back.
He says, “We have sinned.”
“We have done wrong.”
“We have been wicked.”
“We have rebelled.”
“We have turned away from your commands and laws.”
“We have not listened to your servants and prophets.”
“We have been unfaithful.”
“We have not prayed.”
“We have not repented.”
Daniel does not want there to be any misunderstanding about where he stands in this, even to the point of including himself.
He is a part of this community.
And as far as he was concerned, they were all in trouble when their sin was compared to the holiness of God.
ILL Notebook: Sin (notorious saint)
There were two brothers that were notoriously immoral. They were synonymous with the vice that had overtaken their city.
When one of them suddenly died, the surviving brother asked the local pastor to perform the funeral service. He offered him an enormous sum of money if, in his eulogy, he would refer to his deceased brother as a saint.
This pastor was a man of integrity. He knew he had to tell the truth, but after much pondering, the pastor agreed.
As the service came to an end, the pastor (in the thick of his description of the departed individual) said, “The man we have come to bury was a thief. In fact, he deserves every vile description the mind can muster. He was depraved, immoral, lewd, hateful, and the scum of the earth. But compared to his brother, he was a saint!”
The truth is, though, no matter what standard we might use, we are in trouble.
It does not matter if we do look better than someone else.
Daniel shows us by example that each one of us needs to admit that, when compared to God, we are mess.
Now, God does not ask us to confess our sins because he is trying to humiliate us.
That’s not it at all.
Instead, it is because we kid ourselves.
We are dishonest about ourselves.
Our perspective is wrong.
We are unrealistic about the righteousness of our own person.
But God is the ultimate realist, for He knows exactly the way things really are.
So…
2. We are to recognize that God is right.
Daniel acknowledges that the people of God deserved what they got.
This dreadful exile in Babylon had been more than fair.
God was perfectly right to deal with them this way.
We need to come to the same conclusion.
When we are tempted to shift blame for the things that are wrong in our lives, or even the church, we must stop ourselves.
We have no one to blame but ourselves.
You see, we need to see sin as it really is.
We need to acknowledge that our behavior is reprehensible.
We must give up our cover-up.
And again, we must see God as He really is…that God cannot be unrighteous.
He cannot lie.
He cannot cheat us.
He cannot be unfair to us.
He cannot be unloving.
He is right.
He is always right!
This now leads us to…
III. The third direction we must take is APPLICATION.
Daniel now makes his appeal to the Lord.
And it is here we learn that…
1. We must concede our dependence on the Lord.
We are dependent.
This is why we pray.
So, Daniel does make his plea before the Lord.
“Lord, hear!”
“Lord, forgive!”
“Lord, listen and act!”
Let us note that there is a difference in tone at this point in the prayer.
It is at this point, Daniel addresses God differently.
It is not “our God.”
It is “my God.”
Daniel says this because he is in relationship with God.
There is a nearness and familiarity that God loves.
There is a faith that Daniel demonstrates and that God loves to honor.
And so it is here we see that…
2. We are to get in line with God’s kingdom priorities.
Daniel appeals to the honor and reputation of God’s name.
You see, because Daniel was close to God, he was able to pray according to God’s purposes.
He knew his God was a God with a reputation, that these people bore His name.
God’s honor was at stake as the ruins in Jerusalem continued.
Because Daniel believes in what God has said, he prays according to God’s promises and purposes.
In the same way, we too are to line ourselves up with God’s promises and purposes.
We do not look to the restoration of Jerusalem as Daniel did, but we do pray…
“Your kingdom come;
Your will be done;
On earth as it is in heaven.”
APPLICATION:
I think it is time for us as a church to change when it comes to prayer.
It is time to stop talking about the importance of prayer and instead live it.
1. We must put into practice what we know about prayer.
We know we are to pray with people.
We know we need to pray with perseverance.
We know we need to pray passionately.
And we know we need God’s perspective when we pray.
This is why you have been challenged throughout this year to use Scripture as a guide to prayer.
This will help you line up to God’s purposes and desires.
This is why we have studied…
1.1 Prayer of Jabez
1.2 The Lord’s Prayer
1.3 Daniel’s prayer
1.4 “Pray without ceasing.”
So…
2. Let us commit to living a prayer life.
In the Current article this week, Pastor Dick Murphy rightly challenges us to commit ourselves to prayer.
“As we make and then live out our commitments, I am confident that we will experience new closeness with God, more meaning in our worship, deeper personal relationships with one another, renewed vigor in serving Him, and greater fulfillment in our spiritual walks. And as a church, I dare say that together we will find a clearer sense of His will and direction for us, and will have an increased impact on our community for the sake of His kingdom.”
I hope you share in those concerns.
For if we are to ever get past the status quo as a church, this place must become a house of prayer.
[Read through commitment card.]
Let us know take a few moments of silence and consider if this is something we can sign…
BENEDICTION: [Counselors are Bill and Jean Hynd]
Live a prayer life…and pray with your brothers and sisters in Christ, for if we are going to get past the status quo that we call church, and see the Holy Spirit at work renewing and reviving our lives, we are going to pray together.
Live a prayer life…and pray with perseverance, for the Christian never gives up when it comes to praying; the Christian keeps praying no matter what; for the Christian believes that God hears and that God will answer.
Live a prayer life…and pray with passion; enjoy prayer for it is more than communicating with God; it is communion with our Creator, our Redeemer, our Friend and the Lover of our Souls.
Live a prayer life…and pray with perspective; love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength; confess your sin before Him; and trust that He always has your best in mind.
Now…
"The LORD bless you and keep you;
The LORD make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you;
The LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace."
Amen
