Grabbing Hold of God's Promises - The Book of Daniel - Daniel 9:1-19
Outline:
1. Daniel's prayer life was driven by a singular focus on God's kingdom.
2. Daniel understood the significance of our actions (especially PRAYER) in response to God's promises.
3. Daniel's mindset in prayer is driven and defined by God's Word.
4. Daniel understands the centrality of confession of sin in prayer.
Scripture references:
• Daniel 9: 1-19
• Jeremiah 25:11
• Revelation 8:2-5
• John 1:7-10
Application
• What is the focus of you life? What is the mountain that you are climbing? Is there a genuine pursuit of God in your life?
• What is the perspective that drives your prayer life and relationship with God? Are you learning to see your life through the lens of God and his story?
• Do you confess your sins or do you hide them? Are you trying to clean yourself up or are you living in the light of God's goodness and love?
One of the biggest tensions we feel as believers is summed up in the words of the Psalmist - "How long or Lord?"
Its the tension we feel between our current situation, and the promises of God that we know to be true.
Its the tension we feel when we see the world around us spinning out of control and promises of God saying all will work together for good.
Its the tension we feel between feeling that we are weak, struggling and broken - and the Word of God telling us that all who trust in the Lord will be like an ever green tree that cannot be shaken.
Its the tension Daniel likely felt as he spent his entire life, and poured out the vast majority of his strength and intelligence working in a government system that destroyed his own homeland.
We have walked with Daniel through the past few weeks from the days of him being a young man taken from his homeland amidst war and destruction - to now the image of Daniel at the end of his life - still looking and still waiting for God's promises.
As we look at this chapter today, the lesson we want to derive for ourselves is that in God and his Word we have an unshakable anchor of hope, and an invitation to call upon him, to participate in his plans, even though his answers to us are often so much bigger than we expect.
Read Text
1. Daniel's prayer life was driven by a singular focus on God's kingdom.
Daniel is a wise and significant figure, a man of God who has witnessed and lived through a lot.
He is spiritually mature and he is esteemed by even the unbelievers around him.
He has lived a long and fruitful life.
So the question is, what is it that he spends his time and energy doing these days?
Answer - studying Scripture.
"In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, a Mede by birth, who was made king over the Chaldean kingdom— 2 in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the books according to the word of the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah that the number of years for the desolation of Jerusalem would be seventy."
This is the posture of the mature and powerful man of God - the higher he goes in his growth and wisdom - the more focused and tied his heart becomes to God's Word and God's promises.
From the start of his life to his end - his heart is committed to living for God and his kingdom. The life he lived in babylon no doubt made many of his fellow exiles comfortable and caused them to forget the tragedy of the fact that the city of God and the promises of God have been forgotten.
His life is one focused climb, one steady pursuit of God and his glory.
I can't resist the side note to men especially - what is your life pursuing? Are you being manipulated by the enemy to turn your nose in every way, being directed and influenced by the chaos the distractions the blessings and the pleasures of life??
WHAT are you focused on? What is your life set on? Your life can fly by in an instant you find you just spent it all chasing vapor.
Daniel is locked in to God and his promises.
And What is it that he discovers?
"I, Daniel, understood from the books according to the word of the Lord to the prophet Jeremiah that the number of years for the desolation of Jerusalem would be seventy."
What is he referring to?
Jeremiah 25:11
11 This whole land will become a desolate ruin, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon for seventy years.
He realized that the time for God to bring about the return and restoration of his people was about to come to pass! What an exciting realization!!
He must have been like WUUUUUUTTT?????
What was his response? To celebrate, to rejoice? To kick back and wait for God to do his promises?
3 So I turned my attention to the Lord God to seek him by prayer and petitions, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes.
He commits himself to prayer, to fasting and to ASK GOD WITH ALL HIS STRENGTH TO DO WHAT HE PROMISED!
So many people struggle feeling like their spiritual life is flat, like they don't have a clear sense of purpose or direction or closeness to God...
But are we SEEKING him?
We often want the results of God's work in our lives and through our lives without actually wanted GOD HIMSELF.
2. Daniel understood the significance of our actions (especially PRAYER) in response to God's promises.
Daniel did not kick back and chill and wait - he realized God is about to bring about the renewal of his poeple and our return.
How does that happen?
Through our own prayer and through our repentance and acknowledgement of all that we did wrong - through our asking for him to DO WHAT HE SAID HE WOULD DO!!
This is one of the biggest misunderstandings people have about God's sovereignty and total control and his promises - it just means then that we don't need to worry or do anything - we just wait for him to do it.
NO!
Yes God plans and controls and promises - and yet, God works out all his promises through the powerful, confident faithful prayer and obedience of his people!
Theres a powerful image of this in the book of Revelation -
Revelation 8:2-5
2 Then I saw the seven angels who stand in the presence of God; seven trumpets were given to them. 3 Another angel, with a golden incense burner, came and stood at the altar. He was given a large amount of incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar in front of the throne. 4 The smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up in the presence of God from the angel’s hand. 5 The angel took the incense burner, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it to the earth; there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake.
The angel takes the prayers the the saints which come to God as an offering of worship - and he throws those prayers back onto the earth as the TOOL that brings about apocalyptic judgement - through the prayers of the saints God is accomplishing the end of the world.
WE are the tool God uses to accomplish his eternal purposes in history.
Daniel is not simply leaning back and waiting for God's promises, he is reaching out and grabbing hold of them!
James 5 tells us that the prayer of the righteous person has great power.
Is that your perspective today? Do you believe in the power of your prayer and your life of following Christ to do great things?
Sinclair Ferguson -
"God’s sovereign purposes are never revealed in Scripture as excuses for our personal indolence but as incentives for action"
3. Daniel's mindset in prayer is driven and defined by God's Word.
The way that people pray about their situations tells you a lot about what they think about God and what they think about themselves.
"God please give me more money and more success"
"God why did you let all these things happen to me??"
James says one of the problems with the prayers of many is that they come to God like a genie in a lamp, they come to him with their own dreams and ambitions, completely detached from his own word and his story.
What is the drive of Daniel's prayer? what is the motivation?
If you notice, over and over in the prayer, Daniel is referring to God's own word to them and he is praying God's own promises back to him. This is another product of a man who is soaked deeply by the Word of God - he is not just demanding for big money and nice cars - he whole imagination is structured by God's story and God's plans for the world - and when he sees things about to happen he is calling on God to fulfill his own promises.
He is not making up his own explanations for WHY all this happened to them.
Did God abandon them? Is God a fake?
No. Daniel interprets his situation through Scripture, he allows God's Word to dictate his own view of his life - and from that position he prays.
From the very start, God spoke through Moses in Deuteronomy 30 and said, IF you disobey my word and break my covenant - you will be exiled from the promised land. You will face judgement for your sin.
Daniel's own prayer is based on the prayer of Solomon in 1 Kings 8 where Solomon is praying at the dedication of the temple - and in that prayer, Solomon is linking back to what Moses said and asks God to please have mercy on them and, even if they are disobedient and are exiled from the land - that when they pray to him to restore them back - that he will hear them.
Daniel does not see himself as a solo player on the stage of life. His whole heart is shaped by the story of salvation that God is working through his people and he comes to God to appeal for him to do what he said in his own word.
11 All Israel has broken your law and turned away, refusing to obey you. The promised curse[a] written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, has been poured out on us because we have sinned against him. 12 He has carried out his words that he spoke against us and against our rulers by bringing on us a disaster that is so great that nothing like what has been done to Jerusalem has ever been done under all of heaven. 13 Just as it is written in the law of Moses, all this disaster has come on us, yet we have not sought the favor of the Lord our God by turning from our iniquities and paying attention to your truth.
17 Therefore, our God, hear the prayer and the petitions of your servant. Make your face shine on your desolate sanctuary for the Lord’s sake. 18 Listen closely,[c] my God, and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations and the city that bears your name. For we are not presenting our petitions before you based on our righteous acts, but based on your abundant compassion. 19 Lord, hear! Lord, forgive! Lord, listen and act! My God, for your own sake, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your name.
So often people will allow their difficulties to reshape their theology.
Why did this happen to me? you allow your own sinful heart and imagination, you allow pop culture, you allow the world around you - to shape how you see your life and how you interpret your life and how you approach God.
You end up in a dead end, blaming God, asking for things that will bring even more pain in your life.
Daniel knows he must see himself in light of God's story, he must OWN his part in the story, confess the reality of the sin of his people, and call on God to DO WHAT HE PROMISED!
God loves it when we come to him like a child and say, "You promised God!!"
But for us to be able to do that we must also carefully sift our prayers and our desires through the story of God's own word!
Are your prayers to God driven and empowered by God's very own promises? Or are they just a collection of your own personal and selfish ambitions?
4. Daniel understands the centrality of confession of sin in prayer.
Daniels prayer is a serious one, not a prayer of party and celebration.
Why?
Because he starts with admitting the sin of his people. He starts with the foundational acknowledgement that they are guilty and unworthy of God's grace and goodness - and yet they only depend on GOD's own goodness and righteousness.
Ah, Lord—the great and awe-inspiring God who keeps his gracious covenant with those who love him and keep his commands— 5 we have sinned, done wrong, acted wickedly, rebelled, and turned away from your commands and ordinances. 6 We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, leaders, ancestors, and all the people of the land.
7 Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but this day public shame belongs to us: the men of Judah, the residents of Jerusalem, and all Israel—those who are near and those who are far, in all the countries where you have banished them because of the disloyalty they have shown toward you. 8 Lord, public shame belongs to us, our kings, our leaders, and our ancestors, because we have sinned against you. 9 Compassion and forgiveness belong to the Lord our God, though we have rebelled against him 10 and have not obeyed the Lord our God by following his instructions that he set before us through his servants the prophets.
If we do not start on the foundation of brokenness before God, we are blind.
So often people come to God with so many requests and demands - and yet in their whole approach there is missing the central significance of acknowledging their own sin and brokenness before God.
Starting in a place of humility before God allows you to have a realistic view of yourself.
The truth is that we are broken and weak sinners before God - and the basis of our hope is never how good we can be - its always a deep awareness of our total dependence on his mercy and his grace.
John 1:7-10
7 If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 8 If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say, “We have not sinned,” we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
The practice of confessing our sin to God has long been a core practice for the daily christian life.
The christian life begins on the foundation of confessing our sin and repentance - and it continues as a routine through which God continually sanctifies us.
this is not because we somehow earn God's forgiveness over and over - as if we need to be re forgiven over and over.
The good news of the gospel is that total forgiveness for our sins comes into our lives when we turn from our sin, repent, and believe and trust in Jesus as our King, our Savior.
Its such a basic truth but its one that is always to amaze us.
When John and James both talk about continually confessing our sins as a part of our daily christian life, they are not talking about the fact that we need brand new forgiveness and acceptance every day from God.
Even though we are accepted by God and forgiven, we still struggle with the residual effects of sin - and our daily practice of confessing, of bringing that in God in prayer - it is an avenue, a pathway - through which we welcome God's grace and strength to bring change and transformation to those parts of our lives.
When we confess our sin - we are reminded of our deep need in God, of our total dependence on him and on his great goodness love and faithfulness.
this is central to Daniels prayer. He understood God's promises.
but he also wanted to experience them, he would not simply sit back and wait, he wanted to run to God and open his heart,
Application
• What is the focus of you life? What is the mountain that you are climbing? Is there a genuine pursuit of God in your life?
• What is the perspective that drives your prayer life and relationship with God? Are you learning to see your life through the lens of God and his story?
• Do you confess your sins or do you hide them? Are you trying to clean yourself up or are you living in the light of God's goodness and love?