Win The World: Intentional Prayer

Hello, and welcome to the Kalamazoo church of Christ podcast.

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We just planted in September, 2020 and at the Kalamazoo church, we believe that Christianity is done best when it is done together.

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We pray that you are inspired by what you hear today.

Cool.

Um, so we talked about some things, right?

We talked about unity and we talked about how, you know, Jesus did all these miracles, but he needed to pray for unity for us, you know, when you're dealing with sinful people, but we're going to talk about prayer this morning and how prayer plays a role in us winning the world.

And we're calling it power prayer in the face of your lions.

We're going to talk about Daniel and the lion's den story we've all heard story.

I love to overuse, uh, power prayer in the face of our lions.

So we're going to look at Daniel's prayer life and how we should pray when lions or tough situations enter into our lives.

So here's, here's one of the biggest lions.

It's the theme of our week.

Win the world.

God has said, Hey God, I want you to win the world.

That's big.

That's hard.

That's not easy.

I didn't see anybody be like, Oh yeah, I know how to do that, right?

As a campus minister, I would say one of the number one areas that I see that student disciples are afraid everywhere I go is winning the world.

Students can do all sorts of things.

They can win awards and scholarships and work jobs and do all kinds of stuff.

But then when it comes to evangelism, there are excuses and fears and these things come out, right?

But anytime that we fight by our own strength and not God's strength, we should be afraid, right?

We're fighting by our own strength.

We should be afraid.

We need to learn how to fight by God's strength.

Winning the world calls for help from God to empower us.

Otherwise we're going to be overwhelmed.

Have you ever felt overwhelmed in life?

We live in a pretty overwhelming world these days.

Sometimes it's simple things.

In America, we have these places that are make your own pizza places.

So we got one called Mod Pizza.

I don't know.

Maybe you have some other foods.

I saw there's a walk to walk and it's where you make your own walk here in Riga.

But we have this make your own pizza place and you get to go in and you choose whatever toppings you want on your pizza.

That's simple, right?

You know what you like.

But what they don't tell you is there's 500 toppings to choose from.

And usually I think I have a pretty good food taste.

I'm a good food critic.

But all my food knowledge goes out the window and I get overwhelmed by the options and I end up just choosing everything I'm not allergic to to put on top of my pizza.

I got broccoli on my pizza and that is such a bad decision, let me tell you.

I got garlic cloves on my pizza and I'm losing my mind.

I got mushrooms and artichokes and vegan sausage and 10 other toppings and pineapples, which I will say are good on pizza.

And so my pizzas, they never taste good at the end of it.

There's too much.

I'm overwhelmed and it's chaos.

But then there's also serious things in our lives that can overwhelm us, right?

I'm sure all of us have been through a really tough situation.

We had to put our family dog down in May and I think for me it's the hardest thing that I've ever had to do in my life.

We had him for 17 years and I had to ask God for help.

I had to ask God for strength because I didn't have it.

It was like losing a family member.

I didn't know how to deal with it emotionally.

But God has helped me to get through that situation.

If you're going to get through your lion moments in your life, the tough moments in life, you need focused prayer, intentional prayer, and more importantly, you need that habit of focused prayer today so that when the tough day comes, you're already ready for it.

So intentional prayer is specific and consistent.

It encompasses, it contains the truth that you know about God and it also pours out the emotions and feelings that you're going through to God.

Intentional prayer is faithful and it seeks to trust God as best we can.

So I want to look at Daniel and his prayer life and learn from him.

So we'll set up the scene here.

Daniel is in Babylon and he's trying to live as a righteous man.

Talk about overwhelming.

Babylon, they had rules, but most of those rules were sinful, like literally the standard of life there was sin.

Maybe not too different than our world around us, right?

Daniel has this position where he works for the government of Babylon.

God has raised him up, but the other government officials, the other rulers, they hate Daniel because God is always helping them.

So they devise this plan to trap him and they say, everybody needs to bow down and worship King Darius or else they're going to be thrown in the lion's den.

And this becomes a law.

Talk about overwhelming.

What if that happened in Riga?

I don't know who your president or prime minister is, but if you had to bow down and worship them tomorrow, would you do it or would you be willing to be thrown in prison?

All Daniel's trying to do is have a relationship with God and yet all these outside things are trying to prevent that from happening.

And so let's see how Daniel responds when he gets news about this new law and the potential penalty for breaking the law.

Let's go to Daniel chapter 6.

Daniel 6 · chapter mention

Daniel chapter 6?

Daniel 6 · chapter mention

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Good one.

All right, Daniel chapter 6.

Daniel 6 · chapter mention

And so sometimes in the book of Daniel, the verses are a little different in English.

So in English, it's 10 and 11 that we're going to read right now.

I know in Estonian, it would then be, I think it might be 11 and 12 or it's 9 and 10.

So anyways, just look around when you see what we're talking about and hopefully you can connect.

So in English, we're starting in verse 10, but it might be one verse different for you.

It says, And I'm sure he's very specific about the situation.

It's like, God, these ops are trying to kill me.

I need your help.

I need you.

Right?

The scriptures that we just read, they tell me that Daniel remembered who God really is.

He remembered about God's power.

And so the first thing he does is go to God.

He doesn't try to fix it himself.

He doesn't, I don't know, complain to his friends.

He prays.

He goes to God in prayer.

And second, he's reminding God, hey, you put me here.

You've given me visions.

You lifted me up.

Are you going to let me die?

That's what he's got to be thinking in his head.

And finally, he's got to be asking God for big things because he gets on his knees three times a day.

He heard about the penalty.

Man, whoever is praying is going to get thrown to the lions.

He's probably praying about that situation.

He's like, God, if they throw me to the lions, I need a miracle.

I need a miracle.

Daniel gets down on his knees and prays.

Let me ask you this question.

How often do we get down on our knees and pray to God?

How often do we humble ourselves, right?

To get down on your knees and pray to God shows God that you need him, right?

And I think sometimes we even just forget to pray.

We don't even pray, let alone get down on our knees and worship that God who is so much bigger than us and cares so much about us and has the power to do anything.

And yet we try to do it ourselves.

That's wild.

That's not humility.

We need to be humble before God.

So as we continue in our story, the ops, they come out, they get this evidence against Daniel and they snitch to the king and he gets thrown into the lion's den.

So let's see what happens.

We're going to go to verse 19 through 23 in English.

It may be one different in your language.

Starting in verse 19, chapter 6, verse 19.

At the light of first dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lion's den.

When he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice.

Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?

Daniel answered, may the king live forever.

My God sent his angel and he shut the mouths of the lions.

They have not hurt me because I was found innocent in his sight, nor have I ever done any wrong before you, your majesty.

The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den.

And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him because he had trusted in his God.

So Daniel makes it through his lion's den situation, undoubtedly by prayer.

And we learn from the scriptures that he was saved because he trusted in God.

So which one do you do first?

Do you trust you first or do you trust God first?

And which one is the right option?

Do you trust you first or do you trust God first?

Daniel remembered God.

He remembered God had plans and he asked for things beyond reality.

And God shut the mouths of lions.

Daniel had to be talking to God that night and he saw miracles.

So my question to you is, what are your lions?

What are the lions in your life?

The tough situations?

Winning the world is one for sure, but there's more.

We have to respond with focused prayer.

Trusting that we have a God who hears us.

So first, we have to remember who God is.

Start when you pray and you're in your tough situation by praying about the truths that you know about God.

Remember who He is.

Remember His mighty power.

In the book of Job, when Job's life is falling apart, he definitely expressed his feelings to God.

But one of his first steps was he praised the name of the Lord.

Have you ever done that?

Have you ever thanked God in the face of a trial?

Okay, good.

Because Daniel did that too.

Job said, should we accept the good from the Lord but not the bad?

Should we accept the good moments from God but not the tough moments or the lion moments that enter our lives?

Remembering who God is, that sparks our faith.

God created a whole universe.

My situation is definitely smaller than a universe.

God created planets.

My situation is smaller than a planet.

God can do it.

God can help me.

We have a God who can do everything.

So in the face of our lions, we got to get down on our knees and pray, Father God, I know who you are.

I know the good things that you've done.

You raised Jesus from the dead.

Raise me up in this situation.

Help me out, God.

And believe that.

Secondly, we have to remember God's great plan.

He wants to win the world.

That's not your idea.

And that's not my idea.

And that's not Adrian's idea or Jaron's idea.

That's God's idea.

He wants to save people and bring a new heaven and a new earth.

And at times we get caught up with little things in our lives and we forget that we serve a big God who has a big plan.

Right?

He has a big plan.

They're his plans.

He wants them to happen.

We have to remember that.

That's why we have to rely on him and not our own strength.

And remember that God, he brought you into his plan.

It wasn't the other way around.

You didn't choose to become part of his plan.

He let you in.

Right?

He saved your soul and chose you to be on his team.

Right?

If he brought you into it, he'll bring you through it.

He brought you to it, he'll bring you through it.

God, you have big plans.

Help me be a part of those plans.

Give me abilities and strength that I don't have.

Help me to do it.

If you pray like that, he will.

And then third, what we see from Daniel, pray beyond reality.

Ask beyond reality.

Don't pray for the things you understand.

Well, one time God made me feel a little bit better, so that's the maximum God can do.

Pray beyond what you can understand.

Daniel could have easily thought about the situation.

No one's ever even tamed a lion before.

They kill everybody.

And no one's ever shot the mouths of lions, so I guess I'm just going to die.

That could have been his reason.

For how many of us would that be our thought?

Well, man, I guess I'm dying.

He prayed beyond reality.

He said, man, we got a God who can do anything.

He prayed beyond what anyone would have thought to ask, and God answered it.

When you pray, do you just pray safe prayers?

God, help me have a good day.

Or do you pray bold prayers?

Prayers that are not safe.

It's pretty hard to be accidentally bold.

Boldness takes intentionality.

You have to see that lion and you have to choose, you know what, I'm not going to be afraid of that lion.

So when you're facing a lion, go into your room and get down on your knees and remember God and remember his plan and ask beyond reality.

Get creative and watch God tame those lions.

What's a reality here in Latvia that, I don't know, someone's been saying way too much, Latvians aren't open to God.

Someone's been saying that.

I don't know who's been saying it.

Probably the devil.

You know what God can do?

He can make Latvians open to God.

God can change that because he runs this, because he created those people.

He can make that change only if we believe, right?

So when you pray, pray about the little details.

Think about the things going on in your life.

Be honest about your feelings.

Tell God, hey God, it's a little bit scary for me when I go out there and share my faith.

Help me to have more courage.

Ask for specific things.

Get an idea of what the spirit is telling you to ask for.

Sometimes when it's that thing that you feel afraid, I don't know if I should ask for that.

You probably should ask for that.

And as we strive to win the world as we're on a trip here and just as life continues, let's pray like Daniel and pray like someone's life depends on it.

And let's wait with faithful expectation as God moves in our lives and around our lives.

Amen?

Amen.

So right now, take a second.

I just want to hear some thoughts, some feedback from what we're talking about.

Anything that maybe clicked for you or if you have a question, we can talk about that too.

Thank you so much for listening to the Kalamazoo Church of Christ podcast.

If you're in the Kalamazoo area, we'd love to get connected.

Please go to kalamazoo.church and fill in your information to come to a Sunday service or any other event that we have going on.

In any case, you'll be hearing from us next week.