God’s People and Prayer - Part 2

What you doing tonight for some people just naturally exuded the spirit of authentic worship, while for others it seems. One the one Turning Point of Jeremiah reveals how our worship life is the direct result of our prayer life and what so important right with the right focus is the message God's people and pray and thank you so much for joining us here on Turning Point today and welcome to a brand-new week as we open our Bibles together today, especially if you have your study guides you know that were beginning the final volume of the three volume set on the book of Daniel. This is lesson number 23. But it's the first lesson in the third volume, God's people and prayer. We began it on Friday will conclude it today and were in the last study guide of this series. In the last teaching of this series will finish up at the end of this month about a way as you know, this is Easter week so were going to continue studying Daniel right up till Thursday and on Friday will take a day away from Daniel to talk about the resurrection get our mindset for the celebration of our Lord's return from the grave victorious over death today is the end of sort of the personal part of the prayer section and then tomorrow and for the next several days actually six broadcasts altogether were going to talk about the 70 weeks of Daniel how Daniel was given a calendar that outlined the future all the way up to beyond where we are today. This is one of the most amazing prophecies in the Bible it is researchable. It is valid datable and many many great scholars have taken this passage and shown how this miraculous truth from God is being lived out in the world in which you and I live today. Don't miss any of the next five or six broadcasts because were going to be talking about Daniel's 70 weeks. Right now we go back to our discussion of God's people and prayer, and that's enough to say about that.

Let's just open our hearts and our ears to receive the word of God. One of the things that I have learned is pastor is that we are never ever write when we get into and I that our relationship with our congregation.

Let me explain what I mean, there's a difference between sharing in the teaching of the word of God and being preached at a preacher who preaches that you said you don't watch out, this is what's going to happen to you and you better get your life straightened out. If you don't, you're going to fall in the biblical style. As I understand it, is that the preacher does not set himself apart from the temptations and the sin and the difficulty that is rampant in the church. There is not anything that you are capable of doing that I'm not capable of doing and if I understand the biblical frame of reference for preaching. I am always to identify myself in the preaching of the word of God to the body to the church. We are in this together and not one of us can sin without affecting the other. If you're involved in sin in your life you may think nobody knows about it and it's not a problem to anybody else but I want to tell you something God says it affects the whole body.

It touches every person in this church. And until we can get, as Daniel had a sense of corporate tilting mass before God. We will never have holiness within the church is God wants us to have. There is no pride in Daniel's prayer. There is only humility. In verse 20. Daniel says, and while I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people. Are you saying pastor that Daniel had no sin, no I have never said that I have said that there is no sin recorded of him but obviously he was a sinner but he was also a very righteous man, a very holy man, a man who walked with God's righteousness would probably in comparison to our holiness today be a cut above the average. Why then would he confess his sin here again is a principal that we need to learn when God is at work in our lives. Repentance and confession becomes the norm.

It's been a long time since you brought any sin before God.

It isn't because you haven't sin, it's because you're so insensitive to sin, that it hasn't touched your life the more devout your soul is the deeper your love for God.

The higher your standard of holiness, the truer your commitment to Christ, the greater will be your sense of sinfulness when Isaiah saw the Lord high and holy and lifted up. He said I am a man of unclean lips whenever you find yourself a stranger in confession, you are far removed from God.

Someone once told me that's the meaning of the church steeple. I don't know if that's true or not but at least it's a good illustration. The church steeple teaches us.

The closer you get to God the smaller you are when you see God in his holiness, you begin to recognize the sin in your own life and that is the reason why Daniel calls out to God in confession of sin, not because he is such a great sinner, but because he is walking with God and fellowship with God and in his close fellowship with God. Even the incidental sense of his own life are magnified in his own mind until he cannot stand the many calls out to God. Principle number five is this life-changing prayer is magnified in our worship of God that when we come to the end of this prayer. We have moved through these stages. Daniel reads the word of God is motivated to pray, he discovers the will of God, and he prays God's will. He prays fervently and frequently he confesses the sin of his people because he doesn't want that sin to get in the way of God doing what he promised to do. And now he comes at last to the pinnacle of the prayer and he brings his praise and worship and adoration to God in the New Testament when Mary received the word that she would give birth to the son of God, divine worship just exploded from her lips and what we call the magnificent and she cried out, my soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior in the New Testament.

When we read the prayer that is supposed to be the model prayer. We are taught that at the beginning of the prayer we are to worship our father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name and at the ending of the prayer we are to worship. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. The ultimate purpose of all of our praying is to worship God. That is the result of all true, praying that we come at last to God to worship and magnify you. Now when we magnify the Lord in our worship and in our praise we take a spiritual magnifying glass and we put it over all that God is, and we magnify the Greek word for magnify in Luke 146 means to make great.

Nothing could provide so meaningful a conclusion to a prayer than what Daniel does is he takes the spiritual magnifying glass and he puts it down over the attributes of God and he magnifies them in his praying.

Let's just notice as we move through the text quickly how Daniel does that.

First of all, in verse four Daniel magnifies the power of God and I prayed into the Lord my God, and made my confession and settle Lord, the great God is a God your powerful God, you're an omnipotent God and Eve adds to that truth. In verse 15 when he says, and now, old Lord our God who has brought guide people forth out of the land of Egypt. Mighty hand. Got your powerful God. What a thrilling thing to see Daniel praising and worshiping is God he saying, Lord, I take the magnifying glass and put it down over your power, I magnify your power, your powerful God. He then goes on in verse four nieces God, you're an awesome God, which has to do with the majesty of God, the great majestic nature of God and he magnifies God's majesty in verse four he deals with the mercy of God, and he says thou art a God who extends mercy to them that love him. He is a merciful God. Notice verse nine Daniel says to the Lord our God belong mercies and forgiveness. God, you're a merciful God. He magnifies God's faithfulness verse four.

And I prayed unto the Lord my God made my confession and settle Lord, the great and awesome God, keeping the covenant God your faithful what you said through Jeremiah the prophet that you would do in the captivity of your people is a covenant and God your faithful and you keep that promise magnify God's faithfulness and that he magnifies God's holiness. Verse seven old Lord righteousness belong to you. You're a holy God does God need for us to tell him these things to know them all surely not, but God needs to hear us say them so that he knows we know them.

The greatest value of praise you see is to decentralize yourself the worship and the praise of God demands a shift in the center from yourself to God. You can't praise God and be self-centered and one cannot praise God with out relinquishing his occupation with himself, God produces forgetfulness himself.

When we praise him and forgetfulness himself is healthy. Someone told me not long ago that if you want to get in good with God just brag on his son. Amen. If you want to get in good with God.

All you gotta do is just brag on his son and magnify and glorify his son the Lord Jesus. Now when Daniel is magnifying and glorifying God.

He comes to the end of the prayer with a tremendous truth that just sort of captures our imagination as we try to live in Daniel's heart through this praying. Why is Daniel praying. What is the motivation behind it all. What is the purpose Daniel is not praying for his own safety. I mean let's face it Daniels past the age of really being released to any good thing Daniels in his late 80s got very few years left to live.

Getting out of captivity.

Going back to Jerusalem where there's a lot of hard work in restoring the city the walls the temple everything else that was taken down in ruins doesn't mean very much personally to Daniel is not going to enjoy that. Yet the fervency of his prayer cannot be missed. Daniel really is praying that God will restore his people to their city and to their sanctuary and to their heritage into their culture and you read in his prayer that Daniel wants that more than anything else in life. It is the thing that drives him.

It is pulsating from his prayer God do this. It's wrapped up in the verbs of the 19th verse notice. Those verbs are action verbs and it's just almost startling that Daniel would say it so clearly he says Lord forgive Lord Parkin Lord do Lord, defer not action verbs Daniel St. God more than anything else in the world. I want you to do this, Lord, do it, but why here is the whole character of this prayer want you to see it in verse 16, old Lord, according to all I righteousness, I beseech thee, let thine anger and by fury be turned away from by city Jerusalem, thy holy mountain, for our sins and for the iniquities of our father Jerusalem, and thy people are become a reproach to all that are about us.

Daniel is so identified with the glory of God that he sees that what is happened to him and to his people has caused his people to be a reproach to everyone and Daniel comes to God and nieces got everybody's talking about us as your people everybody saying that you forgotten us and we are reproached by all of our neighbors in God, for your own glory and for your own honor and for the sake of your word. I beg of you, restore us to the place of honor which we once knew. You see, the purpose behind Daniel's prayer is not for himself but for the glory of God. Notice verse 17 now therefore all our God hear the prayer of my servant and his supplications and cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary that is desolate for the Lord say Lord is not for me. I don't want this for Daniel. I want this for you, Lord, my heart just beats after your reputation and your testimony God do this for your own sake.

Notice verse 18 oh my God inclined nightmare in here open thine eyes, and behold our desolation's and the city which is called by thy name, for we do not present our supplications before the for our righteousness as.

But for thy great mercies Daniel St. God that city is your city.

It has your name on it in the Lord I'm so jealous for your glory and for your honor and for your reputation.

I beg of you, restore us to that place where your name will no longer be in reproach. Notice verse 19 old Lord here, old Lord forgive all Lord Parkin and do differ not for fine own sake. Oh my God board by city and by people are called by thy name. You know, one of the problems in our praying is that we are so self-centered we have no time to be God centered.

We are not jealous for the reputation of our God would happen to us if we would really get caught up in the fact that we are Christians we bear the name of Christ in the very title that is given to us and how we live and what we do in the activity of our lives carries with it God's reputation into the community, wherever we go, our conduct, our lifestyle, our testimony is what many people think of God.

If we were as Daniel was jealous of God's reputation and for his testimony.

What a difference it would make in the way we live in the way we pray.

Daniel said, Lord, the most important thing is this your name, your testimony, your glory, your honor, that's really what it means when we pray and say in Jesus name, amen. We come onto the old Lord in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

In Jesus name we don't understand that as Daniel understood it.

What I have been learning as I have meditated upon this prayer is been exciting to me takes a long, long time to learn what prayer can do in one's life. We stumble around in get involved in a lot of excursions that take us away from the center of it and I like to just if I could summarize the thing that God is been teaching me through this prayer. It's this prayer is finding out what God is doing and getting in on it so often we have thought that prayer was getting God to bless our thing whatever it was gone. I really want to do this this thing is really important in God.

If you just lesson you will go.

But you see that's not what real prayer is prayer is coming to the word of God, discerning what God is doing.

Finding out his will and in praying that God would help us to so focus our attention that were right smack in the middle of it and we just follow right behind it.

Was thinking today of an illustration that probably falls far short of understanding what I'm trying to say in the past I have been very much involved in waterskiing now that has a tendency to be sort of a Kindle riding motorcycle so I don't do that too much when I learn something when I first started waterskiing and that is that if you stay in the wake of the boat is pretty easy once you decide to get outside of the wake out here on the side were all the pros are. You know were there jump in the waves, especially if you waterskiing the ocean can get pretty hairy most of the time you spent a lot of time getting back up on the skis but if you stay in the wake boy, you can just go for hours and not have a problem.

I think prayer something like that first find out where the boats going and stand in the wake finding out what God is doing and asking him to help you know what he wants to do and then just focusing in on that and cooperating with God in the accomplishment of his will. I know that sounds awful simple and yet it is so unlike so much of our praying.

All of us need to pray show us Lord what you want to do, what are you doing here and then help us to cooperate with it and get away from all the other things that were doing and focusing on what God is doing. Then we can have God's blessing on everything we do. What is God doing in your life as you come to the word of God and studied in you since the spirit of God's direction in your life, your prayer life to be focused in on just streamlining your life into the wake behind the boat God were you going and help me to stay behind you and in your will. You see prayers finding out what God is doing in getting in on it. It is wanting to know God's will.

So desperately that we missed no opportunity to be in his word. When Daniel found the will of God, he began to pray fervently for its accomplishment. Prayer is the totality of my being fervently involved with God and his will. Prayer is concerned over the sin in my life because it gets in the way of my knowing God's will for my life.

You see it. The reason Daniel was so concerned about centimeters blockage. It gets in the way of God being able to help you see what he's doing and it get you out of God's will, we can argue all night about the sovereignty of God on whether or not God really intended for the Jews to be in captivity in Babylon.

I think we can make a good case for the fact that God's perfect will for the Jews was that they might walk in harmony with God, but sin came into the picture and they had to take that 70 year excursion because they didn't want to stay in the wake behind the boat so Daniel is very concerned with sin not just as a matter of his daily pragmatic walk with God but because it is a blockage to knowing what God is doing and being able to follow God's will. So prayer is really a matter of coming to God and totally being submissive to him and soul and body, and spirit and just trying to discern what God is doing and saying God just keep me in the wake. Just keep me where you want me to be in the center of your will, something that maybe you've heard before, but it was a real challenge to my life. Back in 1872 Dwight L. Moody attended an early morning meeting in a hay mall in Ireland and he heard Henry Varley say in a quiet voice. These words the world has yet to see what God can do with and for and through and in a man who is fully and wholly consecrated to God's will.

He heard that in 1872.

Years later he was seated high up in Spurgeon's Tabernacle in London and Spurgeon got up and I don't know where he heard what Varley said but he used those same words in his message and his mood. He sat there in that seat and thrilled to the preaching of Charles Haddon Spurgeon. He heard again. Those words the world has yet to see what God can do with M4 and through and in a man who is fully and wholly committed to God's will and Moody bowed his head and he prayed and he said by the power of the Holy Spirit. I will be that man. And you know what happened. God honored him with a ministry that in spite of his human frailties and the lack of a formal education, and all of the things with which so many have been blessed God honored that man and I think I know why because Moody found out what God was doing and he got in on it. He found out where the boat was going and he stayed in the wake right behind it.

Boy do I want that and I have to fight off all of the humanistic things that come my way and all of the seven easy steps to be successful in all of those of the things that keep letting in upon your desk and in your consciousness, God just keep saying over and over again Jeremiah. All I want you to do is find out what I'm doing and get in on it and I think that's what he wants for all of us is for you individually for your family and when we can do that and in the measure that we do that we will know the blessing of God upon each one of us. Thank you Daniel for teaching us by your prayer. Prayer is finding out what God is doing and getting in on you never had this experience, but I surely have or I have prayed earnestly for something and in the very process of praying sensed my heart changing to something other than what I prayed for God was leading me through my prayers to were he wanted me to be. Sometimes will begin praying, thinking we know what we want but when we pray and God intersects with our heart. Sometimes we find out that we don't know what we want, but God does and through our prayers. He draws us into his perfect will. Doesn't happen every time, maybe not even most of the time, but it happens periodically and it is a is a glorious experience when it takes place when I mentioned to you that tomorrow we begin the 70 weeks of Daniel. This calendar that God gave to Daniel outlining what was going to happen all the way through and beyond where we are in the world today. It is amazing.

It is strategic it is in this really worth your valiant study and I hope you stay with us and be with us every day because one part builds upon the other you get, lost appeal stay with her so make sure you don't miss one day of these next five or six broadcasts as we unfold. Daniel 70 weeks. And of course a minimum and you can get all this material in volume 3 of the handwriting on the wall.

That's where all of this is outlined in much of it is reprinted before like you get lost, you need to get this study on you can do that by going to our website which is David Jeremiah.org for you to join us, right here tomorrow as we continue our study of the book of Daniel, David, Jeremiah, thank you for listening to the kind you from Shaddai Mountain community church with them serves as the senior positive does not have tuning point is touching your life. Please once was a Turning Point PO Box 38, San Diego, CA 92163 visit our website Jeremiah thoughtful/writing your copy of test bodies kept fighting.

The last out is writing inside a look in time for his room with Mark was free to purchase the Jeremiah study Bible standard vision and new international version as well as in standalone Sprint and you can join your choice to go to damage or a month total ready and I'm very hopefully join us tomorrow as we continue the handwriting on the turning .01. Thanks for taking time to listen to the families in question