Who's Got Your Back?

WHO’S GOT YOUR BACK?

-do me a favor. Name one person who did something completely on their own.

-you can’t. It’s impossible. There is no one in the history of the world that has done it. God designed us that way, that we cannot be alone.

**Gen. 2:18 -> 18God said, “It’s not good for the Man to be alone; I’ll make him a helper, a companion.” (MSG)

-and of course that’s where Eve comes in. But it is not good for us to be alone. We really can’t be alone.

-that’s why the A in WATER stands for Allying, we need to be allies for each other, we need to have each other’s back.

-many of you are going on a missions trip this summer. Even back with the disciples, they never went on a missions trip alone.

**Luke 10:1 -> 1The Lord now chose seventy-two other disciples and sent them ahead in pairs to all the towns and places He planned to visit. (NLT)

-Jesus sent people He trusted out in pairs, two people so they could help each other. And look at it, they’re going where Jesus goes next, they’re helping Jesus. Even He needs help sometimes. Even Jesus was not totally alone. Jesus speaking

**John 16:32b -> 32You will leave me alone, but I am never really alone, because the Father is with me. (NCV)

-even Jesus had help from His Dad. On the cross, we don’t read of Jesus saying anything when they nailed Him to the cross, the time He says something is when He is separated from His Father.

-no one does anything on their own, no matter how big or small it is. Even on shows like American Idol, people come in with all this talent for the world to hear them, but no one would if they ticked off the sound guy and he turned one little button a little.

-so today we’re going to go through some stories of famous people in the Bible who did great things, but see they didn’t do it alone.

-we’re not going to read all the stories completely either, just to warn you, it may take a while. You’ll have to look it up after, but important verses will go up.

1. DANIEL

-I’m sure you’ve all heard of Daniel and the lion’s den. Bad people convince the king to make it illegal to pray, Dan does anyway, gets thrown in with lions, doesn’t get eaten, king happy, bad people get thrown in, lions happy, etc.

-but the story of Daniel starts way before that. When Daniel was thrown in the lions’ den, he had been living in Babylon over 60 years! Not the young guy used in Sunday School, he was really, really old when the lions things happened. So let’s go back sixty years.

-Jerusalem was captured by Babylon and the king decides to take all the good looking, smart, fit young men to Babylon with him, one being Daniel.

-he was trained to enter the king’s service along with a few other guys, but always hung out with three others.

-one day the king has a dream and says if no one can interpret it, all the wise men of the kingdom will be killed, that includes Daniel.

**Dan. 2:14-19a -> 14When Arioch, chief of the royal guards, was making arrangements for the execution, Daniel wisely took him aside 15and quietly asked what was going on: “Why this all of a sudden?” After Arioch filled in the background, 16Daniel went to the king and asked for a little time so that he could interpret the dream. 17Daniel then went home and told his companions Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah what was going on. 18He asked them to pray to the God of heaven for mercy in solving this mystery so that the four of them wouldn’t be killed along with the whole company of Babylonian wise men. 19That night the answer to the mystery was given to Daniel in a vision. (MSG)

-Daniel asked his friends to pray for him, and they did, and because of them helping, them praying, Daniel found out what the dream meant, saved his life, saved tons of people’s lives and ended up being ruler of the province of Babylon and head over all the wise men.

-Daniel didn’t think he could do it himself, he had to ask his friends to pray. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, or by their Babylonian names, Shadrach, Meshach and Abendigo.

-do you ever pray for your friends? Do you realize what sort of thing prayer does for people? Even Jesus who was God took time to pray. We need to as well.

2. PAUL

-one of the coolest guys in the Bible.

-all you going on missions trips this summer, this is the guy who invented the missions trip. Before it was people moving to a certain area and living there, he was the first one to go in for a while, start a church, then move on. Mind you, he stayed a lot longer than we will…