All right, let's get right to it. You guys got an extra hour's sleep, so you're ready to go. I mean, an extra hour of sleep, I think equals like three extra amens this morning. So you can say ouch or amen, but either one, let's hear some participation. Grab your Bibles, open up to the book of Daniel. Daniel, chapter nine is where we're going to be. Let's get right into it. We actually get a little reprieve from the apocalyptic visions that we have been looking for. Just a little bit. We'll be right back into that next week and really throughout the rest of the book. But we get come up for air a little bit in this text. And we're actually looking at a prayer that Daniel prayed. And it's a prayer that like really makes sense because if you understand the context of what's happening in this book, that they're in exile, that they've been taken away from their homes, that there's just pagan values being enforced upon them in their life. Prayer makes sense, right? Would you be praying if you were in Daniel's situation? Yes. Well, what if we fail to recognize that we are in Daniel's situation, that we're sojourners and exiles in our life? Are we praying that way? Are we praying the way that we should? Because we live in a pretty crazy world ourselves and sometimes the craziness is obvious. I mean, you just see things in our culture that it's like what? Like we got boys trying to be girls and girls trying to be boys. We're confused on what gender stuff is, and it's all kinds of stuff. And you're just like, this is crazy. Like, how did we get here? And there's just some craziness in our culture that really shouts. But then there's a lot of craziness in our world that we've just gotten used to. Like it was grandpa and grandma's crazy, and now it's our normal. I was driving even this morning on work. I saw this billboard that said sinless vodka. You guys seen that billboard? Which I was like, all right, you're using religious language, so you're fair game. But sinless vodka? And I'm like, oh, is that like some kind of non alcoholic vodka? But no, the sinless part is it's zero sugar and zero carbs. So it's like you can go ahead and get drunk in our culture. Just don't put on any weight, right? There's just like different values coming up. Recently, somebody sent me an article from Parent magazine. So I was like, this is gonna be good. But it was about how to navigate when your teenage daughter wants to have a sexy Halloween costume. I was like, this pretty short article. No, but it wasn't. It was long. Explaining how you need to be sensitive to somebody exploring their sexuality. And it's just like, we live in a world that expresses different values than what we see in scripture. There's a world that's, like. That's gonna value vanity and materialism and sensuality and greed and coveting. Like, it's gonna promote those things. And sometimes in that, it's hard to even realize our own personal drift. Like, the little compromises we make, the small conformity or the slow conformity, and then just the normalcy of it all. Like, everybody acts this way. Everybody kind of does that. It's just. You just kind of got numb to it. It's just become so common. And eventually you're asking, how did we get here? How did we get. You have this realization, and you kind of pick your head up and you look at the culture and be like, how in the world did we get to this place? Or let's. Like, it's easy to kind of take shots at just culture in general, but let's get more personal. Like, you ever feel that way personally, how did I get here? Like, I'm in a place personally, I never thought I'd be. How did I get here? My kids don't want anything to do with the Lord. How did that happen? I'm in a marriage, and we're talking divorce. How did that happen? Like, how did we get to this place? Can you imagine? For the Israelites in captivity, let's say you're born in captivity, and they're asking, like, we're Israelites, what are we doing in Babylon? Mom and dad, how did we get here? Like, how did we get to Babylon? How did we find ourselves in this kind of twisted, broken situation that we realize that we're in? And when you have that realization, when kind of the lights come on and be like, I never thought I'd be in this. I never thought that this little struggle would turn into an addiction. I never thought this relationship would get this broken. I never thought there would be, like, when you have that realization that you are at a place you didn't think you would ever get to, what do you do with your shame? Cause I'm guessing there's some shame in this room. What do you do with that? Do you hide it? Do you suppress it? Do you ignore it. And one of you're not just looking at yourself, but you realize that it's the church, it's the people that claim to be followers of Jesus, and there's been drift, and we're not at a place where we should be. And you're like, how did we. Not just me, but how did we get here? What do you do with that? In 1520, Martin Luther wrote this little pamphlet, and he called it the Babylonian Captivity of the Church. And he's arguing in this pamphlet that the church this is in 1520, had been too heavily influenced by the secular thinking and worldly values. That was in 1520. How do you think we're doing today? Is the church taking all its cues from the world and from entertainment and latest studies and articles and podcasts and all that thing? And of course, we're Christian, so we'll kind of tag the Bible onto it. But really, what's shaping us most is the culture we find ourselves in. Are we looking too much like the world? And if the culture is broken and the culture's corrupt, what does that say about the church that's in that culture? Have we been complicit? Have we been complacent? I mean, there is a connectivity to it. Like, shouldn't it make us look in the mirror? Daniel and his friends, if you've kind of been with us as we've been working through the Book of Daniel, Daniel and his friends have been an amazing picture of what faithfulness in an unfaithful world should look like. We're going to follow God even in the little things. We're not eating that food. We're not gonna bow down to that idol and statue. We're not gonna stop praying, like, no matter the consequences. Throw us in the lion's den. Throw us in the fiery furnace. Like, we know who we are. Like, there's this amazing picture of faithfulness in a faithful world. But in all that, we can't forget what the context of the whole story of Daniel is. We can't forget why they're in this situation in the first place. Because the Israelites are not in Babylon, because they were living faithfully back in Israel, and the big bad Babylonians just came and took. And they're just kind of victims here. They're victims of their own choices. They're in captivity because they weren't faithful to God. Even when they lived in Israel, they followed after foreign gods. They ignored his rules. They didn't follow him. They didn't express worship to God. Like their own rebellion put Them in captivity and this whole situation was to help them take a hard look at themselves. 70 years. They got a 70 year timeout. You take a timeout. Is this what you want? Is this what you want? You want to live under Babylonian rule? Here you go. You want Babylonian gods? There you go. You want them to rule you and not me? There you go. Like, they've been handed over. And sometimes, sometimes the Lord's discipline is giving us the idols we worship. You love autonomy. You love money. You love sexual freedom. You love materialism, you love pleasure. You think you only live once. Okay, here you go. Here's a culture that treasures all of those things. Like, get a taste of that. Live in it. That's what you want. That's what you get. But then you realize the mess you're in, and it doesn't satisfy and it didn't deliver and it didn't help. And now you just, how do you get out of this mess? Like, when you have that realization? The question we tend to ask is, like, how do we fix it? But church, let me tell you, that's not the best question. That's not the first question that we should be asking. The first question we should be asking is, why are we in this mess? Like, what led to this? And if God is sovereign over everything, including the mess, then what's the mess supposed to teach us? Like, hear me now. Let's not waste our cultural corruption, because maybe it's gonna give us a wonderful lesson. Like, why are we here? What's the point? What's the point of the brokenness all around us? What's the point of the chaos that we find ourselves in? What's God trying to teach us in this? And here's what you need to know. The troubles of this world are meant to turn us to God. The troubles in this world have a purpose under our sovereign God. And they're meant to turn our hearts back. Excuse me. They're meant to turn our hearts back to Him. And if you don't get that, hear me now, if you don't get that, then you will be passionate about trying to fix the problems of this world without even realizing what they're about. And what they're about or what they're meant to teach us is life without God is a mess. What we need are not social reforms or new leadership or different programming. We need God. And the brokenness that we find ourselves in is supposed to shout that towards us. Like, life without God is a mess. And our circumstances should wake us up to this situation. Cause Guys, hear me now. Israel was not sent to Babylon to fix Babylon. Israel was sent to Babylon to fix their own hearts. And you see this like even hundreds and hundreds of years before this, when people predicted this situation, even in the prediction, it had a purpose. You go back to 1 Kings, when Solomon's dedicating the temple and he's looking ahead to this situation, you see the intent behind it. And we've read these passages before, but they speak to the situation we're in. So we're keep coming back to them if they sin against you, for there's no one who does not sin and you are angry with them and give them to an enemy so that they are carried away captive to the land of the enemy, far off or near. So that's their situation. Yet if they turn their heart in the land to which they have been carried captive and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors, saying, we have sinned and have acted perversely and wickedly, and if they repent with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies who carried them captive, and pray to you, pray to you toward their land which you gave to their fathers, the city that you have chosen and the house that I have built for your name, then hear in heaven your dwelling, place their prayer and their plea, and maintain their cause. And forgive your people who have sinned against you and all their transgressions that they have committed against you. And. And grant them compassion in the sight of those who carried them captive that they may have compassion on them. So in the land that you're sent away, there's like a purpose in this captivity. They would seek you. They would pray to you with the promise that I will hear you. Jeremiah says the same thing. Who is a prophet to these people? Jeremiah 29. For thus says the Lord, when 70 years, that's gonna come up in our text here. Cause this is what Daniel was reading. When 70 years are complete for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans for welfare and not for evil. To give you a future and a hope. Because God disciplines those he loves, and they needed discipline and there's something that they needed to learn. Then when's the then in your captivity, in your timeout, you will call upon me and come and pray to me. And I will hear you. I will hear you. You, you will seek me and find me when you seek me. With what? All your heart. That's what they needed to learn. Like, that's the point of this captivity, their purpose of exile, that you would call on me. Cause you're not doing that. You're so trapped in your little everyday life. You are living life forgetful of me. How do I get your attention, captivity? Cause in there, you're gonna call to me. And guess what? When you call to me, what's gonna happen? I'm gonna hear you. I'm gonna answer when you call with me and seek me with all your heart. Cause there's a type of devotion that needed to be relearned. What we need to learn is we need to learn to want God. We need to learn how much we need God. We need to learn to hunger and thirst for God. We need to learn to depend on God. And maybe we've forgotten that. I have a cat. Technically, my kids have a cat. There's a cat in our house. We'll put it that way. And there are times when he wants to follow his own heart, put it that way. And at night, like, if somebody opens the door and it's not paying attention, he'll just dart right out. He'll just chase. He'll just go run to the outside. And it's like, I am not gonna chase after this cat in the dark, nor am I gonna wait up until he's ready to come home. So I shut the door and I go to bed. And you're in exile. That's what it is, Kat. You have been put in exile. Now, that exile is lasting a good eight hours of sleep, hopefully. Now when I get up, guess who's waiting for me right at the door? Whining. Whining to be let in. That's this. That's this posture. Do you know who cares for you? Do you know who feeds you? Do you know who provides for you? You want to chase after something else. Like, okay, go ahead and taste that cold night, right? You're gonna get punked by a lot of raccoons. You go out there, do that. But you're gonna be coming back home. Like, you're gonna be begging. Like, that's what we need to wake up to. Like, do you know who your loving father is? That should be our posture. Like, it's what the purpose of exile is supposed to teach. So turn in your Bibles to Daniel, chapter nine. This is one of the longest, most instructive prayers recorded in scripture. And I hope it stirs up in us the kind of prayers we should be praying. Daniel, let's understand this. Daniel has been an example of faithfulness that Israel should embrace. Like he was an example to them. They weren't living it. So you look at Daniel, it's like, no, you should follow his laws. You should bow down to idols. You should pray consistently. You should do it despite the consequences. Like, he's this wonderful picture of faithfulness that Israel wasn't living out. And now his prayer is an example of the attitude or the posture before God the people of Israel should have, that we should have. So we're going to learn from Daniel's posture what, what our posture should be. And I'm convinced that if we learn to pray as we should, that there's not only real closeness to God to experience, but there's also real power for cultural impact. So let's see what we can learn about prayer here. I got six questions. We got through all of them at the 8 o'. Clock. We'll go as far as we can, and if I miss some, we'll get them at the beyond the Message podcast. But six questions that I want to ask you about prayer. And hopefully this can be an informative time to grow you as people of prayer, to grow us as a people of prayer, that we could not only understand how we should be going about prayer, but also be motivated into being a praying people. So Daniel, chapter nine. Let's get going. You guys ready? All right. Verse one, in the first year of Darius, the son of Assarius, by descent Amid, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans. In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet. So that's Jeremiah 29 that we just read. And how many years was it? 70 years. Right. Jeremiah the prophet must pass before the end of the desolation of Jerusalem, namely 70 years. So Daniel was reading in Jeremiah comes across this kind of time frame. And then verse three, then I turned my face to the Lord God and seeking him by what prayer? Okay, let's stop here. This is a game changer. It was for me in my life. Hopefully it can be helpful to you as well. But what we see here is word driven prayer. Word driven prayer. Daniel is in the word of God and out of what he's reading and learning, it's driving and directing what he prays about. It's directing his prayer life. Now think of it this way, maybe this will help you understand. Have you ever been in a conversation with somebody and you're talking and Then it comes to that point in the conversation where now it's their turn to talk, but they talk about something you weren't talking about. They completely changed the subject. And you realize in that moment you weren't listening. You don't care what I have to say. You were just waiting patiently to say what you want to say. Don't be that guy when it comes to praying. Don't be that guy when it comes to praying. Prayer is a conversation that we were in with God that God started. Prayer is a conversation we are in with God that God started. Our prayers should be a response to His Word. Now we tend to be driven by our circumstances rather than His Word when it comes to our prayer life, we get more driven by our circumstances. We want to start the conversation with God and we want our will to be done. God, you need to help me in this situation. You help me out of this pickle. You need to heal me here. You need to do this. I want to see you show up here. Like, we're kind of wanting God to kind of move in that way. And I'm not saying that we don't have the blessing to cast our cares upon him because he cares for us. That's 1 Peter 5:7, like, yes, amen. That's a wonderful truth. We can pray to God in that way. But if you're always changing the subject, if you're always kind of switching, you know, that's not much of a conversation. That's a one sided conversation. In a one sided conversation, it's not much of a relationship. Daniel is in the word of God and that is driving and directing his prayers to God. This is interesting church. Many of the prayers in Scripture that are recorded in scripture are actually promises that God made that people turn around and pray them back to God. So if you want answered prayers, pray promises so many times in prayer, like the Lord's prayer, right? Your will be done well, that was promised. Your kingdom come. That was promised. Forgive us our debts. That was promised. Lead us not in temptation. That was promised. Like all these things, these are, you know, our daily bread provision that was promised Daniel, he's in the Word of God and he sees the promises of God and that directs his prayer life. I see what you're about to do. Then he prays to God about it. Now you might think or wonder if it's promised, why pray? This is the same year as the events in chapters five and six. So it's like 538 B.C. daniel was taken captive around 606 B.C. so he's like two years away from this. 70 years. It's like, oh, this is coming up. I mean, still two years, but it's coming up. So if he realizes something is about to happen that God said would happen, why pray for it to happen? And I think that we think that way because we misunderstand prayer. We tend to think that prayer is about getting God to do something we want, but really prayer is more about helping us want what God is going to do. Prayer is not about bending God's will to ours. It's about bending our will to His. Your kingdom come, your will be done. Not my will be done. My will be done got me into this mess in the first place. I did what I willed, and that's why I'm in the circumstances. So no longer my will. Your will. And Daniel is in the word of God, and that's directing his prayers. So here's my first question for you guys. Does God's word direct your prayers? Does God's word direct your prayers? Are you reading? And from your reading, you're driven to pray. What you're reading, do you realize it's a conversation and it's when God started and you enter it that way? Let's go on. Let's read. Well, verse three. Then I turned my face to the Lord God seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. So Daniel's not just praying, he's praying right. We've seen the prayer habits of Daniel, and even when those were revealed to us in chapter six, we were like, man, he's praying right? Cause he prayed three times a day. He got on his knees three times a day. Like, Daniel was a man of prayer. But this particular prayer in the first part of chapter nine is talking about a specific intensive pleading to God. He's like, I ain't eating. I'm praying. I'm fasting. Sackcloth, ashes. There's an intensity to. To this kind of request he's making to God. There is passion in his prayer. I love the phrase that he turned his face to the Lord God. It's like, you got all of my attention. Like, this isn't like on my way to work, I throw up a prayer. It's like I'm locked in. I'm intentive and focused in. Am I talking to God? Have we forgotten how to do that? I mean, when you look back, let's say some of you've been following Christ for a long time, and you look at this description of Daniel's prayer has that ever been true for you in your life where there's just this season or time where you're pleading to the Lord like we're not eating, we're praying. Like just an intense pursuit of God or has and this is kind of get into the values of our culture and has practicality and busyness and comfort choked out devotion? I mean, who's got time to pray like that? Who's got time to do that? That's disruptive. Like that needs to be a pressing. Like so many things going on in life and there's so many, like you're running all over the place. Who's got time to do that? I mean this is so unrealistic. But church, the all your heart that Solomon talked about, that Jeremiah talked about, the passage we'll see in a little bit that Moses talks about, that you're going to seek me with all your heart. That kind of all your heart Devotion does not fall into our convenience. It doesn't fit nicely into your already full calendar. And until we realize that we will be defined by half hearted devotion. Of course we'll pursue God as often as we can fit it in. Of course we'll pursue God and we'll really work to find some margin for that. But it doesn't disrupt, it doesn't take precedent. There's not just like, no, we're stopping, we're stopping eating, we're stopping like it's disrupted to our schedule in an intense pursuit and pleading for God. Remember the parable that Jesus talked about where like, do you remember the compares to the kingdom of heaven? Like somebody who finds a treasure in a field and goes and in his joy sells all that he has so he could buy that field. Do you want God like that? Like there's this sacrificing, if I would rather have this, I will lay everything else down to get that. Like, do you hunger and thirst and desire God like that? Do you want him that bad? And maybe exile would help, right? Maybe exile would help. If somebody came and ripped us away from our home and took us to another place and kind of impose and enforce their values on us, then maybe we would cry out to God more passionately. Unless of course that's already the case and it just feels like home. Here's my second question. Do you pray with passion? Do you pray with passion? What do I mean by that? Is there an expression of strong desires? God, you gotta move, you gotta save, you gotta convict, you gotta guide, you gotta lead. Like, is there a pleading with God intensity to your prayers? Let's keep going. Verse 4. 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. Do you think Daniel understood who he's talking to? Would you say. I mean, after all that we've seen in Daniel, would you say, Daniel is somebody who walks closely with God? Then why doesn't he say, what's up, God? O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. That's how he starts his prayer and listen, I'm so thankful that we can boldly become before the throne of God. Hebrews 10 tells, like, because of Jesus Christ, we have access to a holy God. How awesome is that? That we, in a busy schedule, driving to work in the midst of chaos, throw up a prayer to God and he is faithful to hear that he's near, he's a friend of sinners, that we're in a pickle at work and things aren't going bad and you're just kind of walking from one situation to another situation and you can talk to God. That is an amazing privilege that believers have. But is it possible that in all that we've lost a proper reverence for God? Listen, church, we contend. I want you to hear this. We can tend to think that real closeness to God is best expressed in how easy and informal we can approach God. Hey, God. Yeah, God. But flippant prayers don't speak about closeness. Speaks about ignorance. Maybe we don't know who we're talking to. We have a saying, a part of our church culture that comes up in our staff quite a bit, that we take God seriously, not ourselves. And I think we're really good at half of that statement. Here's my question. Do you pray with reverence for God? Like, do you understand who you're talking to? Do you appreciate his holiness? Is it O Lord, the great and awesome God? Let's keep going. Verse 5. 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. You notice he says we, not they. Daniel's doing pretty well. Daniel's been faithful. He's been an example of faithfulness and obedience. But he says we have sinned. And then in verse 6, we have not listened. He could have said they have Sinned, they have not listened. But that's not what he says. In fact, in verse 20, which is in our text next week, he says, while I was speaking and praying, confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, he's doing both. There's a we here. There's some ownership. We can be too individualistic in our confession. That's such an American thing, too. It's like we're just like. Just look at ourselves. There's no, like, connectivity to a community. We've sinned, we've gone astray. We love materialism, we love sensuality. We're greedy, we're prideful, we're insecure. Like, that's part of our culture and we're part of that culture. We don't connect ourselves with that. But as a church in that culture, it's like, are we complicit to it? Are we complacent about it? We're connected to it. And Daniel's saying we. And look how much description of sin is in just one verse or one and just the beginning of the next one. Verse 5. We have sinned, done wrong, acted wickedly, rebelled, turned aside, not listened. You're like, six. It's just a sin. Like, we get it. Daniel. You could have just said, hey, we haven't been doing so hot, right? But he just, like, lays it on. Sinned, done wrong, acted wickedly, rebelled, turned aside, not listened. So much description of sin in just one little verse. And today we work hard to find words that make sin not sound so bad, just a struggle. We just kind of downplay sin because we tend to think that the greatest sin is making anybody feel bad, especially yourself. But look what he says next. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness. But to us, open what Shame? As at this day, 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, to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. Open shame. Shame on us, Shame on our kings, shame on our princes, shame on our fathers because we have sinned against you. We seek so hard to avoid shame. I don't want to shame anybody. But here's what Daniel is saying. Here's the posture of Daniel. Shame belongs right here. I mean, just look at us. We should be ashamed. Shame is a proper response. When you take a good look in the mirror and you See our wickedness. You see our sin, how we've acted wickedly? Have we turned aside? Have we not listened? Shame on us. Further down, we'll get to it. But in verse 16, Daniel says that your people have become a byword among all who are around us. You know what he means by that? So we're a joke. Your people are a joke, but it's not a joke. It's like we're the butt of jokes. Like everybody's making fun of us, and everybody's. He's like, no, we're just a byword. Nobody's thinking of us at all. Your people carry no weight among other people. It means nothing. We're no threat. We're no nothing. To be a Christian, let's put it in our context. To be a Christian carries no weight. There's no radical difference. We're not making a difference in society. There's darkness, not a lot of light, right? It's salt. But loss, it's saltiness. It's just a byword. It means nothing. So he's saying, shame on us. We were called to be holy. We were called to be set apart. We were called to represent you. We were called to be faithful. And. And we've done none of that. We have blended in with this culture. We have taken our cues from this culture. We long to fit in with this culture. Shame on us. This culture knows nothing of you because of how we've acted. It says this verse 9. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him. Against who? Him? God. 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 great calamity. For under the whole heaven, there has not been anything done, anything like what he has done against Jerusalem. And it is written in the law of Moses, all this calamity has come upon us. Here's what he's saying. You know what's happened to us? Exactly what God said would happen to us. Moses talked about this. Hey. You go into this land and you rebel against me. Guess what's going to happen. Exactly what happened. God kept his word. He fulfilled his promise. He is just in this punishment he warned us, we didn't listen. We got exactly what he said that we would get. He says, all this 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. Here's what he's saying. What's happened to us is exactly what God said would happen to us. He. He predicted it. He promised. He shows Himself faithful. And yet we still don't repent. We still haven't repented. We still haven't turned back to his word. We still haven't turned back to his ways. Daniel's like saying, guys, what's it gonna take? What's it gonna take to wake up like, we've been in exile? The purpose of this exile is that we would turn back to God. We would call to God, we would seek him with all our heart. And yet we're still not doing this. And 70 years is about up. Come on, guys, wake up. That's what he's pleading with them. He goes on. Verse 14. Therefore, the Lord has kept ready the calamity and 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 at this day. We have sinned and we have done wickedly. You notice the contrast he makes. Why is he bringing up Egypt? He's pointing back to God's faithfulness to them, his grace to them, his rescue of them. And then he's saying, and yet we've acted wickedly. Do you know what God has done for us? Do you know how he has treated us? Do you know the grace that he's shown us? We were slaves in Egypt. And by his grace, his mighty hand, he took us. And here's what we do. We rebel against him. We act wickedly. And who's our sin ultimately against? It's God. It's Him. We didn't listen to Him. We didn't obey his laws. Church, this is important to understand. Your sin affects other people, but it is ultimately against God. And until we realize that, we will not realize the severity of our sin. We sin against a holy God. So there is confession, and then there's true brokenness. Daniel is genuinely broken over his sin and the sin of his people. How could we treat God this way? How could we be so flippant how could we be so careless? All he's done for us and who he is, he's genuinely broken over his sin. So here's my question. Do you pray with contrition? You pray with contrition, like contrition is a genuine brokenness over your sin. Does your sin bother you? Or let me put it this way. Does your sin bother you for the right reasons? Because it could bother you like you got caught you. It could bother you that you hurt people you care about. It could bother you that you made your life more difficult. But does it bother you because you offended a holy God? Because it bother you for the right reasons? And here's the comfort, guys. David reminds us in Psalm 51 that a broken and contrite heart he will not despise. Because when you realize that you have sinned against a holy God, you're truly broken over that. The only thing that can rescue us from the wrath of God is the mercy of God. Look at verse 16. O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy hill. Because of 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. Oh my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolation in 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 what? Mercy. Mercy. He's crying out for mercy. In fact, you go back to verse three. It says what this is all about. Then I turned my face to the Lord God seeking him by prayer and pleads for mercy. Mercy. Mercy is admitting that I deserve what I'm getting. Cause mercy is don't treat me like I deserve. Right? Cause you're admitting I deserve this. I need mercy. So when you pray for mercy, you're admitting I deserve this. There's no excuse. I'm not justifying it. I'm not trying to dodge it. I totally deserve this. Mercy. And mercy also communicates I need you. I can't rescue myself from this. I can't get my own way out of it. I can't undo what's done. I am desperate in need of you. And if one of the things we get out of Daniel's Prayer is we have to Understand who God is. He is a holy, awesome, covenant keeping God. We need to understand who we are. We, we are sinners who don't listen and act wickedly. And when you understand those two things, you understand what your only hope is. Mercy. Mercy is our only hope. Do you notice that Daniel uses God's righteousness for both the basis of God's judgment and the basis for his request for forgiveness. Do you see that? Look at verse 16. O Lord, according to your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city, Jerusalem. Why is that? Biblically speaking, the word for righteousness just basically means integrity. So Daniel is saying, according to your character. Forgive us because I know who you are. I know your character. I'm appealing on behalf of your character that you've revealed to us. This is back in Deuteronomy, chapter 4. This is what it says, and I'm using this text. There's a lot of places that speak about this, but this speaks to the situation that Daniel finds himself in. When you father children and children's children and have grown old in the land, if you act corruptly by making a carved image in the form of anything, and by doing what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, so as to provoke him to anger, that's the situation they're in. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that you will soon utterly perish from the land that you are going over the Jordan to possess. So this is before they even got into the promised land. They're getting warned about this. You will not live long in it, but you will be utterly destroyed. And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left with few in number amongst the nations where the Lord will drive you. That's what they're living in that reality. And there you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell, living in that reality. But. But from there, from that land that you have been driven to, there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search for him with what all your heart. Heard that before, Right? That's a repeated theme. And with all your soul, when you are in tribulation and all these things come upon you in the later days, you will return to the Lord your God and obey his voice. For the Lord your God is what? A merciful God. He will not leave you or destroy you, or forget the covenant with which your fathers he swore to them. See, the whole point of this exile will wake you up to who God is. And you would come back to him and you would call out to him. And when you call out to him, he will hear you. But here's how you call out to him with all your heart. No more. This half hearted stuff like this is a wake up call to wholeheartedly pursue him. Because God is a God of mercy. And we should pray to. Excuse me. We should pray God's promises appealing to God's character. God is a God that sinners can turn to and find mercy. In fact, look what how. 19 the last verse we'll look at begins. Oh Lord, hear, oh Lord, forgive. Oh Lord, pay attention and act. Do something God. And you know what? Daniel's prayer was answered. We'll see this more next week. But Daniel's prayer was answered. God did act and he sent his son. And in Jesus Christ we find grace and mercy for sinners. So here's my question. Do you pray for mercy and forgiveness? Do you pray for mercy and forgiveness found in Jesus Christ? Do you see Jesus as the solution? Let me just got one more. Let's tap on this. All 19. Oh Lord, hear O Lord, forgive. O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not for your own sake, oh my God. Because your city and your people are called by your name. What's Daniel's motivation in his prayer? The glory of God for your sake, oh God. He says it in verse 17 as well. Now therefore, O God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to please for mercy for your own sake. Right? This is your city and your people called by your name. When you pray, are you most concerned about your own glory and your own situation and your own comfort and your own deliverance and your own kind of prosperity? Or do you care about God's fame and his glory and his name going to the ends of the earth and him being worshiped as he deserves? Here's my last question. Do you pray showing a concern for God's glory? Because church. Listen, how we pray is a litmus test for if we get it. If we get it. You want to know if you get it? Look at your prayer life. It says something. You look at your prayer life. Do you get how holy God is? Do you get how sinful you are? Do you get how in need of mercy you are? Do you get that God is a forgiving God? Do you get what life is all about? The glory of God? Our prayer life is a real revealer if we get it or not. And I want us to be a praying people like the right way the way we're called to. Because that's the point. It's the point of this brokenness that we find ourselves. And it's the point of this crazy, sinful culture, that we would cry out to God, knowing how much we need him. And we would cry out with passion, we would cry out for mercy, we cry out for forgiveness, we would cry out for his glory. Because it's not just the point, it's the solution. When God's people wake up to the glory of God and pursue God with all their heart, would that be true of us? So, church, we're going to go into a time of praising God? Well, we can't do that until we have a time of praying to God. I want to ask you to just bow your head and pray in a way in which we learned from Daniel. Acknowledge the holiness of God, confess your sin, plea for mercy, pray for God's glory, because that will prepare you to praise God because he's worthy of our worship. Amen. Let's pray. Father, I pray that you would wake us up to your glory, that we would understand your holiness, our sinfulness, your grace. And with passion, we would plead for you to move to wake us up. With reverence, we would address you with worship, we would honor you, and we would care for your glory. Holy Spirit, we need you, to want you. I pray that you would move in this room, drawing us to yourself.