Daniel 9:1-19 - A Pattern for Prayer

I invite you to turn with me to the book of Daniel, chapter nine.

Daniel chapter nine, where we will be continuing our series in the book of Daniel.

A series I've entitled Faithfulness in Exile.

Faithfulness in Exile.

The text of Daniel chapter nine is printed in an insert in the bulletin, and you can follow along there.

I'd like to read the text for us this morning.

We will be looking at verses one through nineteen of Daniel 9, and then next week we will continue on with the second half of the chapter.

Daniel chapter 9, verses 1 through 19.

Daniel 9:1–19

In the first year of Darius, son of Xerxes, Amede by descent, who was made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the scriptures according to the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last seventy years.

So I turned to the Lord and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting and in sackcloth and ashes.

I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed, Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments.

We have sinned and done wrong.

We have been wicked and have rebelled.

We have turned away from your commands and laws.

We have not listened to your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our ancestors, and to all the people of the land.

Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame.

The people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem and all Israel, both near and far, in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you.

We and our kings, our princes and ancestors are covered with shame, Lord, because we have sinned against you.

The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, and even though we have rebelled against him, we have not obeyed the Lord our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants the prophets.

All Israel has transgressed your law and turned away, refusing to obey you.

Therefore, the curses and sworn judgments written in the law of Moses, the servant of God, have been poured out on us because we have sinned against you.

You have fulfilled the words spoken against us and our rulers by bringing on us great disaster.

Under the whole heaven, nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem.

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 sins and giving attention to your truth.

The Lord did not hesitate to bring the disaster on us, for the Lord our God is righteous in everything he does, yet we have not obeyed him.

Now, Lord our God, who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and who made for yourself a name that endures to this day, we have sinned, we have done wrong.

Lord, in keeping with all your righteous acts, turn away your anger and your wrath from Jerusalem, your city, your holy hill.

Our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors have made Jerusalem and your people an object of scorn to all those around us.

Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant.

For your sake, Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary.

Give ear, our God, and hear.

Open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your name.

We do not make these requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy.

Lord, listen.

Lord, forgive.

Lord, hear and act.

For your sake, my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your name.

Would you pray with me?

Lord, we thank you for your word to us.

We ask that you would help us to listen well, to communicate well, and to obey what you have revealed to us.

Help us to draw closer to your heart, to nurture our relationship with you, and to grow closer to our Creator, the one who has recreated us in Christ.

Help us to live for you and help us to do that more and more through encountering this text this morning.

Amen.

You may have had the experience of trying to walk alongside somebody who walks at a different pace than you do.

Have you ever experienced this?

You've tried to walk next to somebody, but they walk at a different pace than you do.

It can be kind of difficult, can't it?

Yeah, yeah, it can.

You know, I'm naturally a pretty fast walker.

I think it's a family trait.

My dad's a fast walker too.

I tend to be pretty fast.

I'm in a hurry usually to get nowhere, but I'm a pretty fast walker.

Uh, you know, my wife Sarah, on the other hand, is a more leisurely walker.

And so there's always this sort of negotiation and compromise that takes place when we walk next to each other.

You know, she maybe speeds up a little.

I try to slow down, then I speed up, then she's got to slow me down.

We gotta try to meet in the middle and keep pace.

I had a friend in college and going to college in Chicago, we walked a lot of places, didn't have a vehicle, and I thought I was a fast walker, but he left me in the dust.

Anytime we would walk anywhere, he'd be a block up ahead of me.

I have to tell him, slow down, I can't walk that fast.

It was difficult for him.

He walked at a much faster pace than I do.

And when you're walking alongside somebody, the challenge is that you have to kind of adjust your pace to theirs, and they adjust their pace to you.

Now, this morning we're gonna talk about the topic of prayer.

We're looking at a prayer that Daniel prayed in chapter 9 of the book that bears his name.

And I want to suggest that prayer is a way in which we align ourselves with God's pace and God's purposes in the world.

Prayer is a way of growing in our walk alongside God.

Prayer is a way in which we grow in walking alongside God and keeping up with his pace and keeping up with his priorities.

When you're walking next to somebody and you have different paces, you know, the two of you can adjust.

One speed up, one slow down, and you meet in the middle.

But when it comes to God, it's not a matter of God adjusting to us, but us adjusting our life to God.

Prayer is a way in which we adjust our pace.

It's a way in which we adjust our priorities so that we walk in sync with God, and so that our desires and our motivations, the way that we view things, are in alignment with the way that God does.

Prayer is a form of adjustment, adjusting and realigning our lives to God.

And Daniel here models prayer for us.

Daniel models what prayer looks like.

And in this passage, we see a couple of principles about how Daniel prays that also help us in our prayer life, in talking to God.

As the passage opens, it says that Daniel was reading the prophet Jeremiah.

He was reading scripture, and he was reading the prophecy that the Babylonian captivity would last 70 years.

Daniel had been taken into captivity in Babylon.

This was something that happened as a judgment on Israel's sin, and they were in captivity in Babylon, and Daniel read the prophecy that had been written down by the prophet Jeremiah that it would last 70 years.

You can read that prophecy in Jeremiah chapter 25 and chapter 29.

Jeremiah 25 · chapter mention

It predicts that after 70 years the captivity would come to an end.

Daniel is reading this, and he's reading the scripture to help him interpret and understand the events going on around him.

And in response to reading Scripture, he prays.

Scripture is the way in which God speaks to us, and prayer is the way in which we respond back and have a conversation.

And so Daniel's prayer was prompted by his reading of Scripture.

Now, I want to encourage you to ask yourself if you feel like your prayer life is maybe waning, if it's weak, it's not what it should be.

I often feel like that in my own life.

I often feel in my life that I'm not as prayerful as I ought to be.

A preacher named Haddon Robinson once said something about prayer.

He said that when it comes to his own prayer life, he said, I feel like I have been able to grab at Jesus' garment, but I've never been able to really sustain the grasp.

I feel like that sometimes.

I can grab at his garment, but just can't sustain the grasp.

Daniel's prayer life arises from his reading of Scripture.

And for each one of us, the strength of our prayer life will grow the more that we immerse ourselves in Scripture.

Allowing God to speak to us through his written word is the most powerful way there is of prompting our own communication with God.

God communicates to us in his word and we communicate back through prayer.

Daniel, his prayer, is prompted by Scripture.

And we have a transcript, a record of what he prays here, which I've just read.

And I want to draw a couple of highlights about what Daniel prays that helps us think about how we can pray as well.

How does Daniel talk to God in this prayer?

There are a couple points worth noting.

First of all, let's note that when he prays, Daniel acknowledges God's character.

Daniel acknowledges the character of God.

And when we pray, we ought, each one of us, to begin by acknowledging the character of God.

He says, Daniel says in verse 7, Lord, you are righteous.

Lord, you are righteous.

Verse 14, he says, the Lord our God is righteous in everything he does.

God's character is morally pure, perfect, and holy.

And because of that, all of his actions are perfect.

Everything that God does is right because God acts in a way that's consistent with his character.

God is holy and just.

God is righteous.

Daniel acknowledges God's moral purity.

He begins his prayer by establishing who he's talking to.

Daniel begins by recognizing who he is speaking to.

This is not just a casual conversation.

Daniel recognizes that he's not just shooting the breeze with a stranger here or having a casual chat on the side of the road.

Daniel is speaking with the righteous and holy God of the universe.

And he begins by acknowledging who it is that he's speaking to.

Kevin Zuber says something that is relevant here.

He says that being intimate with God does not mean being casual with God.

Being intimate with God does not mean being casual with God.

We have access to God.

We can approach him as a child approaches a parent.

We have access to his presence.

But we also must remember when we talk to God that we are dealing with one who is holy, holy, holy, one who is pure and just and righteous, one who is wholly different than we are, so far above us in every way, perfect in every respect.

We have an intimate and personal relationship with God, but it is not a relationship of equals.

When we speak to the one true God of the universe, we are not speaking to our equal.

We are speaking to the God who is holy, holy, holy.

I remember vividly the year before I went to college, I had the privilege to go out to Denver, Colorado, and visit the Rocky Mountains.

And I took a drive, actually, about as high up, I think, as you could go in Rocky Mountain National Park, and it was a long drive.

It was a long, slow, slow winding drive.

The elevation got so high that I could feel my ears popping from the pressure change.

It's like I was in an airplane.

And I got finally to the top.

It was a long drive.

Got to the top, and I looked out, and I could see this vast and amazing and beautiful mountain range, the open sky as far as I could see.

And in that moment, I was not inclined to think that I was very big.

As I looked out over the Rocky Mountains, I was not inclined to think that I was the center of the universe.

Because when we get a grasp of something, in this case, someone, much bigger than ourselves, it humbles us and it puts who we are in perspective.

When we recognize the majesty and the holiness and the beauty of God, it humbles us and it reminds us who we are.

He is God and we are not.

Daniel begins prayer by acknowledging God's character.

Once he does that, he moves on, and Daniel acknowledges sin.

Daniel acknowledges the people's wrongdoing.

And as we pray and we approach God, we also need to be sure that we acknowledge who God is and that we acknowledge who we are.

The holiness of God only put into clearer relief the people's failure to live up to God's commands.

Verse 9.

The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving.

That's God's character.

What's the second part of that?

Even though we have rebelled against him.

The Lord is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him.

Verse 10.

Daniel says, We have not obeyed the Lord our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants, the prophets.

Daniel acknowledges that the people, including himself, had not obeyed God or kept his laws, and that that was at least partially the reason for their current situation.

A mentor of mine once gave me some advice that I've always remembered.

I approached him and I said that I see a lot of people who seem to start off with a passion for God in life.

But then over time it seems to wane, and either they lose the passion and they just begin to live for themselves rather than God, or they fall into some kind of egregious moral wrongdoing.

And I asked for any advice on how do you avoid that, how do you keep a passion for God.

And my mentor said to me, you need to always be ruthlessly honest about yourself before God.

Be ruthlessly honest about yourself before God.

Be honest about who you are before God.

And here Daniel exhibits a striking honesty when he describes the people's condition.

He doesn't just say, all right, God, I mean, I know we made a little boo-boo here, but come on, was it really that big of a deal?

I mean, obviously nobody's perfect, God, alright?

Come on.

No, he names sin, he calls it such.

He says plainly that they have fallen short of God's standards.

Note that his confession of sin flows out of his recognition of God's holiness.

When we minimize God's holiness, when we lose sight of his character, we begin to treat forgiveness as something that God owes us rather than the free gift that it is.

And when we treat God's mercy as something that is owed to us rather than a pure gift, then God's mercy will never motivate us to live for him in the way that it should.

Do you want to live a life that's fueled by a passion for God, a life fueled by an appreciation of God's grace?

Then you need to begin by recapturing a vision of God's holiness.

When we see who God is, we also see who we are.

To be clear, this does not mean that we insult or denigrate ourselves or put ourselves down or say that we are worthless, far from the truth.

Each one of us is precious and made in God's image.

Each one of us is precious and made in God's image.

And each one of us matters to God.

So it's not a matter here of self-flagellation or beating ourselves up or something like that.

It's a matter of simple honesty, recognizing that we are created in God's image.

And yet we are fallen sinners, and Jesus invites us to be recreated in his image through faith.

There will be times in the Christian life when we come to an awareness of our own sin, when we recognize that we have not lived up to the standard that God has set for us.

And when we come to that moment, there are different ways that we could respond.

One way that we respond could be an avoidance of God.

We feel a sense of shame and disappointment, and so we flee.

We stop praying, we stop reading the Bible, we stop showing up at church and being around other Christians.

This approach, fleeing from God.

That was the approach of Adam in the Garden of Eden.

When Adam sinned against God, it says in Genesis chapter 3, the Lord God called to the man, Where are you?

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

And Adam answered, I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.

The nakedness represents shame, embarrassment before God because of sin.

When we feel exposed or embarrassed, sometimes there's a tendency to flee from God.

We do the same thing with God.

We try to avoid God.

Daniel models a better approach for us.

Daniel goes to God and is honest.

And he's honest because, of course, God already knows.

You're not going to tell God anything about you that he doesn't already know.

Daniel goes to God and confesses sin.

He's honest about their Sin.

And this is a great model for us.

Listen to what the New Testament says in 1 John chapter 1, verse 9.

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.

If we confess, he is faithful and just to forgive.

We go to God directly.

We go directly.

Jeffrey Arthur says that we can either cover up our sin or we can go to God and be covered by the blood of Jesus.

We can cover or be covered.

When we pray, when we talk to God, we need to acknowledge who He is.

And then we need to acknowledge who we are.

We need to be honest about ourselves before God.

And we need to go to Him and confess.

And that is the way in which relationship is restored.

Because God does not want to be in some kind of a standoff or at enmity.

He wants peace.

And confession and humility is the way to peace with a holy God.

When Daniel prays, he acknowledges God's character.

He then acknowledges sin.

And then third and finally, when Daniel prays, he prays that God's name would be magnified.

He prays that God's name would be known.

And when we pray, we need to pray that God's name and God's character would be known.

Daniel doesn't pray simply for his own sake.

He prays for the sake of God's name.

Verse 19 says this: Lord, listen.

Lord, forgive, Lord, hear and act.

For your sake, my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your name.

When Daniel prays, he doesn't do it for his own sake.

He prays that God's name would be honored.

You see, God's name represents God's character, who he is.

God's name says something about him.

Daniel is praying here for the Israelites, for his people, but he prays for them ultimately because he's concerned about God's character being revered and being honored.

You see, what we pray for has a way of revealing our priorities.

The things that we instinctively ask a God for say something about what's most important to us.

And so examining our prayers is a way of examining our own motivations and priorities.

Daniel doesn't pray just for himself, but ultimately he prays for God's glory.

There's certainly nothing wrong with praying for ourselves.

Jesus taught us to pray, give us this day our daily bread.

It's certainly appropriate and good to pray for ourselves.

But I would suggest that our prayers, while they certainly include ourselves, should also go beyond ourselves.

That we don't ultimately pray for our own good, but for the good of others and for the sake of God's name, that God's character would be known, that other people would come to know the God that we have come to know?

So let me ask you, when you pray, are you praying primarily or exclusively for yourself, for your own good?

Or are you praying for God's character to be known?

Are you praying that others would encounter him?

Are you praying that God's purposes would be fulfilled?

Do your prayers ever go beyond yourself?

Let me apply this on a more corporate level to us as a church, as First Baptist Church of Centralia.

What are your hopes for this church?

What are your aspirations for what this church would be?

Believe I can say with confidence that God has in so many ways blessed our church out of proportion to our numerical size.

God has given us many blessings over the years, over the decades, recently, and for a long time.

When we pray for our church, when you pray and think about this church, we need to think about what our motives are.

Why do we pray for the church?

Why are we concerned about the church and the church's future?

Do we pray simply for our own existence?

Do we pray simply for institutional preservation?

Do we pray simply that God would keep us in existence?

Or are our aspirations for the church broader than that?

Are our aspirations for the church bound up in our own self-existence as an institution?

Or are our hopes for the church that we would magnify God's name?

Because if we are not committed to making God's name known, magnifying his name, helping others encounter him, then there is no reason to pray for the continued existence of the church.

The church exists for a purpose beyond itself.

If our prayers are simply for our own sake as a church, then Daniel's prayer gives us a better way forward.

He prays and he says, Lord, answer this for your sake, not for mine.

When we pray for the health of our church, the future of our congregation, we ought to do so because we are deeply concerned that God's name would be known and honored in Centralia.

That is the purpose for why we exist.

Sometimes we feel like God doesn't answer our prayers, and that can be a source of frustration.

The book of James gives us some reasons why God might answer those prayers.

One reason you have not because you ask not.

In other words, you're simply not asking for something.

Sometimes simply asking can be the means by which God fulfills a need.

But James also goes on to say that sometimes God doesn't answer prayer because when you do ask, you ask for your own good, to heap it upon yourselves and for your own satisfaction and your own pleasure.

In other words, your prayers have no purpose beyond you.

My prayers have no purpose beyond me.

And when that happens, God doesn't have any interest in answering that because God's purposes are much bigger than any one individual.

God's purposes are that he would be known, that his name would be magnified, and that people would come into relationship with him.

That's ultimately why Daniel prays for Israel.

And that's why we ultimately ought to pray for ourselves, for one another, and for our church.

Author Eugene Peterson says that people who pray know that centering life in the insatiable demands of the ego is the sure path to doom.

When we center our demands upon ourselves, it's a sure path to doom.

But when we center our desires on God's purposes, that is the way to experience vitality and blessing from God.

Daniel gives us here a model of prayer.

When he prays, he acknowledges God's character.

He acknowledges the people's sin.

And then he prays for God's glory.

That's a model for prayer, and that's one that we can take to our prayer closets.

Curtis said that for many people, for many Christians, prayer is a little bit like the safety masks on the airplane.

You know, when you fly, if you've ever been on a plane, they give a little presentation at the beginning about if there's a loss of oxygen in the cabin that safety masks will come down and you put those on.

It's been said that a lot of Christians think about prayer kind of like those safety masks.

We know it's there, we're thankful it's there, but we really hope that we don't ever have to use it.

Is that how we think of prayer?

Prayer isn't just for emergencies, it's a day-to-day practice.

It shapes our view of God, it shapes our view of ourselves, and it shapes our desires.

I invite you to encounter and experience God through prayer.

And I invite you to use Daniel's prayer here as a model for growing deeper in your own prayer life.

Amen.