Speaker 1: I want you guys to try something for me before we dive in this evening. I want you to put yourself as best as you are able into a classroom of your choosing from your past. Okay? And I want you to imagine you sitting there, the teacher in front of you, and then the teacher says the 2 words that you most dread. K?
You imagining it? Pop quiz? That's real bad. No recess, way worse. But I submit to you that the worst two words that any teacher could say was group project.
Right? Group projects were just terrible. I always assumed that if I got a group project, then that means something had happened in my teacher's life, and they just couldn't bear prepping for class for the next couple of weeks. So if you are in a group project, you have the same cast of characters I'm sorry to the teachers there. I know I just offended a bunch of you guys right off the bat.
You have the same cast of characters every single time. Right? One of your 4, they're the ghost. Right? Your teacher swears that they are in your group, but you have never laid eyes on this person.
None of your friends know who this person is and they're not responding to your text messages. The second person, let's call them the shyster or the liar. K? They say, don't you worry about a thing, I'm gonna take care of my section. But then you never hear from them again and they just show up to get their grade at the end.
The third person, this is this is the hinge person. This is your wild card. Because the entire fate of your existence depends on who this third person is. If you flip over the card and you draw a teacher's pet, sleep easy, my friend. This means that if you've got 2 weeks to work on a project, you've got 13 days, 23 hours, and 55 minutes to do whatever it is that you want.
5 minutes to track down the teacher's pet and sign your name at the bottom of the page. Right? But if you flip over that card and you draw the kid who only plays video games, then that means your roads have reached a divergent point. Either, right, you start researching life insurance policies because your mom is going to kill you, or you summon something from inside yourself that you did not know was possible. You find gifts that you didn't know existed.
You sneak off and buy a case of Red Bulls and you work like your life depends upon it because maybe it does. In Daniel chapter 9, the people of God are in exile. God has led them out of the promised land and assigned them a group project. All of you, repent of your sins, turn away from your false gods, and turn back to the Lord. But as Daniel reads god's word, he understands the situation.
The people of god haven't taken god's because his fellow Israelites won't do it for themselves. Now let's read Daniel chapter chapter 9 and listen closely for these are God's own words. In the 1st year of Darius, the son of Ahasuerus by descent, Amide, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans. In the 1st year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years. Then I turned my face to the lord god, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy, with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
I prayed to the lord my god and made confession saying, oh Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, 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. To you, oh, Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame. As at this day, to 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, oh lord, belongs open shame to our kings, to our princes, and our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the lord our god belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him 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 the 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. Skip down to verse 17.
Now therefore, oh our god, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy. And for your own sake, oh 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 desolations and lord, hear. Because of your great mercy.
Oh, lord, hear. Oh, lord, forgive. Oh, 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. This is the word of the Lord.
Yes, amen. Let's pray. Our father, we are here this evening to hear from you. Because your name and your renown are the desire of our hearts. And so we say like Simon Peter, lord, where else would we go because you have the words of eternal life?
The grass withers and the flower fades, but your word, lord, abides forever. So, spirit, give us ears to hear and write the words of your word upon our hearts to the glory of Jesus, your son, and to the praise of God the father. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Now Daniel and his friends, they were just teenagers back in 605 BC when the first wave of Israelites were taken into exile into Babylon.
Daniel and his friends, they were conscribed into the king's service, which meant that they were government officials. It also meant that they had to learn Babylonian literature, Babylonian religion and magic. These guys even had to learn how to predict the future using a sheep's liver. You can't make this sort of stuff up. And yet through it all, Daniel and his friends, they remain incredibly faithful to the Lord.
They won't defile themselves with the king's food in chapter 1. And chapter 3, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, under penalty of being thrown into a fiery furnace, they won't bow down before a carved image. In chapter 6, some men conspire against Daniel laying the only trap that they can imagine a man like Daniel falling into, an absolute unwillingness to compromise his faith. So this threat goes out. If you don't pray only to the emperor, you are going to be thrown into a pit of hungry lions.
And this is what happens in Daniel 610. When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees 3 times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his god as he had done previously. So this threat goes out. You're gonna die if you keep praying to your god.
And dude doesn't even close his blinds. Daniel is not afraid about what any man can do to him. Because he knows that his god, Yahweh, the god who in verse 4 he says, is the great and awesome God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him. That he wasn't just the God of his people while they were in the promised land. That he's the king of kings and the lord of lords.
He is king even over the king of Babylon. Now by the time that we get to Daniel chapter 9, Daniel has been living faithfully in exile for 60 plus years. Now let's pick back up in verse 1. In the 1st year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, by descent, Ahmed, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, in the 1st year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the lord, to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely 70 years. And before we move any further, I just wanna point something out to you guys.
Where does Daniel's prayer begin? It starts in his time in God's word. George Mueller, one of the greatest men of prayer who ever lived, he kept a prayer journal that had over 50,000 recorded answers to prayer. He said one day, he made a small but significant change in his prayer life that absolutely transformed everything. Let me tell you what he said.
He said, formally, when I rose, I began to pray as soon as possible. But what was the result? Often after having suffered much from wandering of mind for the first 10 minutes or quarter of an hour, I only then really began to pray. I scarcely ever now suffer in this way. For my heart being nourished by the truth, being brought into fellowship with God, I speak to my father and to my friend about the things that He has brought before me in His precious word.
Did you catch what Mueller is saying? He's saying that once he changed the order of his devotions, once he let what he read in God's word propel him to prayer, his mind scarcely ever wandered like it did before because he knew what God was calling him to pray for. And Daniel's prayer is birthed in the very same way. He seems to be reading Jeremiah 25 through 29. Let me give you just a little taste of what Daniel's reading.
So this is Jeremiah 2512. Then after 70 years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, declares the lord, making the land an everlasting waste. 2910. For thus says the lord, when the 70 years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you and I will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place. You see, Jeremiah prophesied that after the 70 years are completed, Babylon, the greatest empire that the world has ever known, would be overthrown and the exile would be over.
And Daniel is reading Jeremiah in the first year of Darius by descent amid. Meaning, that Babylon, the unconquerable has been overthrown by the Persians. And so he's searching the scripture, realizing that Jeremiah's prophecy might soon be fulfilled. But Daniel doesn't throw a party. Instead, it says that he pleads for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes.
Why? Because he knows god's word. Way back in Genesis, god had promised a pagan man named Abram that he was going to take him, that he was gonna make him into a great nation, that he was going to bless all of the peoples of the earth through him. And that he was going to give his descendants a forever home. This promised land.
Now Abraham's descendants, they went into slavery in Egypt for 100 of years until God raised up a man named Moses to deliver them up out of Egypt, to help them pass through the waters. And on their way to that promised land, god laid out the terms of his covenant to his people. First, he reminded them of his great love for them. He said, I've always taken care of you and I'm going to take care of you. He promises to be with them and to work on their behalf.
He tells them if they are loyal, if they obey him, things are gonna go well for them in that land. But he also tells them if they turn from him, if they turn and worship other gods, then like a father does to his son, he is going to discipline them to bring them back to Himself, to call them to repentance. And as Leviticus 26 makes abundantly clear, God says, if my people don't repent, I'm going to bring increasing waves of severe discipline so that you will wake up and realize what's happening and turn back to me. And the grand finale, the climax of God's discipline would be exile from that promised land. So when God's people are carried to Babylon, they have no excuse.
For 100 of years, god had even given them prophets to show them how their hearts were divided. You guys are called by my name, but you love sex and power just like your neighbors do. You guys trust in your moral record and in your family name more than you trust in me. And the Israelites, they knew that they hadn't been perfectly obedient. Right?
That's what the whole sacrificial system is about. But they stayed just good enough in their own eyes that they assumed that God was okay with them as well. After all, they continued showing up to worship services. They continued to give. They continued to make sacrifices.
And when they looked at their pagan neighbor neighbors, they could say to themselves, at least we look better than them. Maybe because god had been so patient with them, they assumed that god didn't really mind the other things that they were doing. And slowly but surely, it seems that they began to doubt whether or not god would actually follow through on any of his threats. In the summer of 2014, Erin, my wife, and I, we took a group of college students to Chiang Mai, Thailand. One of those students is actually right up here.
Call out. And on our last week before we left, we visited a place called the Tiger Kingdom, where I kid you not, you could walk into a cage full of tigers. I've got a picture just because I I think that most of you guys won't believe me. That's me, laying on a tiger. You go to the next slide.
This is me when I realize I'm about to die. My wife, who is sane, did not go into the cages. If you can see, there's another tiger's leg hanging out right there. And what happened immediately after this scene is there was a man who was standing beside me who was not a part of our team. He starts walking over to another tiger And this tiger that I thought was sleeping, gets up and starts prowling behind this guy.
I freak out thinking, oh no. Wait a minute. I've gotta be wrong. Surely, we're not in any danger. And we hear all of these time and start yelling and running with bamboo sticks, and they start hitting the tiger on back until it lays back down.
We get out of those cages and Aaron says, hey, you know that lots of people have been hurt here. Right? I say, no. I did not know that. Thankfully, our entire team made it out alive.
Right? But it's not surprising that a tiger would hurt a lot of people. Right? That's what God created it to be to do. It's a ferocious beast.
The shock is not when the tiger bites, but when it doesn't. So many of us, we toy around with sin. We let a little bit of lust slide. We allow bitterness to develop in our hearts. We're okay with loving comfort more than we love our neighbor.
And we assume that because sin hasn't killed us yet, that it's not going to. Sin will always kill you in the end if you don't kill it first. When God says in Romans 623 that the wages of sin is death, that is exactly what he means. Let us not, like these Israelites, presume upon the riches of his kindness and his forbearance and his patience, not understanding that God's kindness is only meant to lead us to repentance. If there is something that God has put upon your heart, if there's something that you know that you need to confess, if you know that you need to leave it behind, don't let another day go by.
Find a brother. Find a sister and confess it to them and confess it before the lord before it kills you. What Paul David Tripp said is that the grand delusion of every act of sin is that we can be disloyal to god and everything will work out in the end. That is not how it works out. And here, Daniel, he's pouring over the scriptures.
He's sensing that the prophesied time of the exile should be drawing to a close, but he knows that the end of the exile doesn't come automatically Because god's people still haven't repented. Verse 3. And then I turned my face to the lord god, seeking Him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession saying, oh, Lord, the great and awesome god who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. Verse 11.
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. Now, even if Tupac is right, and yes, I mentioned Tupac in church, And yes, Tupac is always right. And only God can judge us. That is not on the face of it good news.
Right? The Israelites, they look at one another and they think that they're probably okay. Daniel doesn't judge his sin based on how other people look. He judges his sin in the mirror of God's word. And he understands that God's standard is perfection.
That God has called his people to be holy as he is holy. Which leads him to grieve over his sin. We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly. Because true grieving over sin comes when god's word puts its finger on something in our lives, and we grieve not over sin's consequences, but over its offensiveness to God. Thomas Watson said that the difference between true and false repentance is that true repentance is sorrow for the offense rather than for the punishment.
A man may be sorry yet not repent as a thief is sorry when he is taken, not because he stole, but because he has to pay a penalty. True grieving over sin is a holy agony. A woman may as well expect to have a child without pangs as one can have repentance without sorrow. And so we see Daniel mourning here with a holy agony. Because Israel knew God's covenant and laws, but they decided to do what they wanted to do instead of doing what they knew God had commanded them to do.
They obeyed God when they thought it was convenient. When it lined up with what they already wanted to do. This is why Daniel says, we have rebelled. And this is the essence of all sin. It is rebellion against God.
It's a rejection of God as king. Because all sin is looking at God and saying, I don't want you to be king. I don't think you're good. I don't think you have my best interest in mind. I think I would do a better job running my life and giving myself the pleasures that I want and the path that I want than you would.
Daniel understands the seriousness of their sin, which is why he says in verses 7 and 8, to us belongs open shame. But notice what he doesn't do with his shame. He doesn't wallow in self pity. He doesn't try to prove to god that he's felt bad enough or long enough to deserve to be forgiven. No.
He keeps praying. Verses 17 and 18. Now therefore, oh our god, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his please for mercy. And for your own sake, oh, 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 desolations 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 mercy. So Daniel enters the courtroom, but he knows he doesn't have a case. And so he throws himself upon the mercy of god. And I've gotta tell you something, there is no one who comes to genuine faith in god who does not come exactly the same way.
Looking up to heaven, recognizing who is there, beating their chest and saying, God have mercy upon me, a sinner. Knowing that they aren't just a little bit deficient. Knowing that the gap between God's standard and their performance isn't just a little bit to make up, but that they are dead in the water of their transgressions and sins. That they all justly deserve God's punishment, and that their only hope is that this great and awesome God would somehow show mercy. And though Daniel knows that he doesn't deserve mercy, he still has great hope that god will show mercy.
Because god has always shown himself. God has always covenanted to be a god who is merciful and gracious. It's in his character. And while our circumstances may change, god's character never does. It's really interesting that in the book of Daniel, this prayer is the only place where the covenant name of god, Yahweh, is used.
It's usually lord in all caps in your bible. Daniel knows that his people have blown it. And so he's pleading with God, not based on what Israel has done, not promising about what Israel would do, but begging God on behalf of His character and His promises. We do not present our pleas before you because of all righteousness, but because of your great mercy. Let me just stop us for a second here because I think this is totally wild.
Daniel says, our please, And yet, he's the only one praying. Right? If anyone had the right to just say, god, forget them, remember me. It was this guy. God, I didn't defile myself for the food.
God, even under the threat of being thrown into the lion's den, I obeyed you. But maybe the most remarkable part of this whole prayer is that it's almost entirely in the plural. We have sinned and done wrong. And I don't know about you guys, but this is so hard for me to grasp. Because it can be easy for us to wanna disengage from people in the church.
Maybe when we see other people's sins and we think that they are beneath us. Or maybe we don't think that we have anything in common with the people in our home group. Or maybe we're afraid that if we confess something really dark to them that they're gonna judge us and will never be able to show our face again. Or maybe we write them off because they voted a certain way, or because they come off like hypocrites, not remembering that these people, just like us, are part of Jesus' bride. That these are people that Jesus loved enough to die for.
And I struggle I struggle to believe that he doesn't love me anymore than he loves them. My wife and I have been married about 9 years. And if you, come up to me after this service, and you tell me all of her flaws, all of the things that you don't like about her, the things that keep you from wanting to spend time with her and invest in her, not only are you going to deeply offend her, you and I are gonna have a problem. Because you can't love me without loving her. That's the way marriage works.
And yet we talk about Jesus' bride all the time like we're shopping for TVs, like we're consumers. And I'm talking about this church, but I'm also talking about the churches I find it so easy to judge and to condemn. I think that that breaks the heart of God. And our family's brokenness, it ought to lead us away from a seat of judgment and onto our knees in humility and repentance and engagement just like it does for Daniel. Because those people need Jesus just like I need Jesus.
And Daniel so identifies with his people that he includes himself in Israel's guilt. They may be unwilling to confess their sins, but Daniel so loves them, so cares for them, that he's willing to stand before God on their behalf, as their representative, confessing other people's sins as if they were his own. And he's confessing the sins of his forefathers as well. And I wish we had, like, a whole another week to unpack this. But he's confessing the sins of his ancestors here, which means that there's some place for us where we can repent of the culture of self worship that gave birth to Roe versus Wade and 60,000,000 babies being killed.
I remember sitting in a room with a bunch of, seniors at Sanford University talking about the differences of 2 high schools in our city, Where one had less than a 50% graduation rate, while the other had almost a 100. While the average ACT score at 1 was 27, and the average ACT score at the other was 13. Where at one school, almost no one was on government assistance, while at the other school, 95% of the students were on government assistance. And I laid it before them and I said, what do you think the difference is? And they came up with all sorts of different reasons, their politics, everything was different.
But you know what no one said? It's the kids' fault because they know that it wasn't, that something happened to bring these kids into this situation. This means that it's just as important for us to confess of the sins of our fathers that led to some sim systemic injustice. And we're just gonna have to leave that right there. So not only is Daniel saying, God have mercy.
He's saying, please accept me coming before you, oh my god, as a as a substitute for these people. And how does god respond? Daniel prays, and in verse 21, an angel shows up from heaven and comes down to talk to him. Isn't that amazing? This is what happens, verse 22.
He made me understand, speaking with me and saying, oh, Daniel, I have now come out to give you insight and understanding. At the beginning of your pleas for mercy, a word went out and I come to tell it to you for you are greatly loved. God wants Daniel to hear 3 things. Daniel, I know you. Daniel, I hear you.
And, Daniel, I love you. Daniel, I know you. I know you by name. I created you in your mother's womb. I seen how you've lived your entire life, and I know you intimately.
I care about you. I'm I've taken care of you and I'm going to continue to take care of you. Daniel, I hear you. As soon as you started praying, a word went out from heaven. Before our prayers are even on our lips, God knows what we need.
And like a good father, he loves to give good gifts to his children. As John Newton used to say, there is nothing needful that he withholds. God gives us exactly what we need. And lastly, and maybe most incredibly, Daniel, I love you. You are dearly loved.
And maybe that's the main thing that many of you guys need to hear tonight. That if you know God, that God's word says that you're the apple of his eye, that he would move heaven and earth to have you, that he rejoices over you with singing. That as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so does your God rejoice over you. That you are his delight, his treasure and his joy. And Daniel hears all of these things before Gabriel starts to unpack the incredibly disappointing answer to his prayer request.
Showing us that the main end of repentance and prayer is that we would know that God is in control. That God knows us, that God hears us, that God's got a better plan, and that God loves us. And we can rest assured that if Daniel heard these things, we'll hear them too. Because while Daniel fell short of keeping his end of the covenant, there was gonna be one who would come. 1 who would be all that god had called Israel to be.
One who would also come up out of Egypt. One who would pass through the waters, and one who would perfectly fulfill the covenant. In this one, he would more than repent on behalf of his people's sins, but he would go before God as a substitute and die for their sins. And he would be sent into exile, but not exile in a foreign land, but exile in the grave so that you and I would know that we would never have to. So that you and I could know that just like Daniel, we could hear from the very throne room of God, I know you.
I hear you and I love you. Therefore, let each and every one of us come boldly to the throne of grace. Because how can our sins still bury us in guilt and shame when we know that Christ sits on the mercy seat of god only for sinners. That this is a god who shed tears for those who shed his blood. That he has never turned back anyone who truly in faith came to him and said, this is all my hope and peace.
This is all my righteousness. Nothing but your blood, oh Jesus. My friends, the wounds in Christ's hands are the absolutely unshakable promises of God the father that you have full guaranteed access to the throne room of god. So come, because Jesus doesn't love you based on what you've done or what you've promised to do. Jesus loves us in spite of what we've done.
Jesus loves us because of what he already did. Let's pray. Father, I pray that each and every person here tonight would truly believe that your arms are open wide. That their sin may be great, but Jesus is a great savior. That you have said in your word, come now let us reason together.
Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be washed whiter than snow. So god, may we confess, may we lay our sin and our guilt and our shame down before you. May we fix our eyes on the cross and hear from that cross. No matter your sins, unlimited mercy is available to those who turn from their sins and turn to God through Jesus Christ. So, lord, let each and every one of us heed your call and come.
Pray these things in the powerful name of Jesus. Amen. Now as the band makes their way back up, we're gonna take just a couple minutes, and I would ask that you would pray in your heart the words of Psalm 139. Oh, Lord, search me and see if there is any offensive way in me, that you may be able to lay your sins down and walk in forgiveness. Because repentance is painful on the front end, but it only leads to freedom and joy on the back end.
So I want you to hear these words from Joel chapter 2 and then spend some time in silent prayer. Yet even now declares the lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning, and rend your hearts and not your garments. Return to the lord your god for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and he relents over disaster.