The Kind of Prayer God Answers — Part 3

This is Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. We're so glad you're here. Whether you're in your car or at home or sitting on a park bench. We're glad you're listening to Daily Hope. Pastor Rick has been taking us through the Book of Daniel, and today he brings our series called Unshakeable to a close. Pastor Rick has chosen the Book of Daniel to help equip us to handle whatever life throws at us, even the most difficult trials. Let's see what Rick has to say with the final part of a message, the kind of prayer God answers.

Let me ask you a question. You see everything that I see. You read the newspapers, you watch tv, you see what's going on in our nation. You see what's going on in our world. Does anything break your heart? The stuff that's going on around? Does it break your heart, what you see happening in our society, in our system, in our politics? Does anything break your heart when you see all the stuff going on all around the world? Does anything ever bring tears to your eyes? If not, it means you've really pulled away from the heart of God. It's not something we just gossip about and tweet about. It's something that breaks our heart. And in tears we say, God, we need help in this area. All right, here's the fourth key. There's six keys. Number four. I need to demonstrate my seriousness. When you're praying about something, you need to signal to God that you mean business about this, that it's not just a little whim, it's not just a casual thought, but you're really serious about this. You wanna let God see how important whatever you're praying about is to you. Now, Daniel, in the next part of this verse, mentions three ways he shows he signals his seriousness to God. Two of them were cultural customs, which. Which we don't do in America or anywhere, I think, today. But one of them is a spiritual discipline that had been going on for centuries and thousands of years, and people still do it today. Here's what he says in verse three, the third part of the verse. He said, I started fasting, which means he's going without food. That's a spiritual discipline. He said, I started fasting and went without food. And to show my sadness, to demonstrate my seriousness, I put on rough clothes and sat in ashes. Now, nobody does this today. This is called sackcloth and ashes. And it was done for hundreds and hundreds of years in the Middle east and in the Orient. I don't know that anybody does this. Today, Jesus said, there are some miracles that happen only by prayer and fasting, not by prayer alone. Why? Cause it says God, I'm super serious about this. I'm super serious enough to go without food. That's how disciplined and serious I am about this prayer request. I don't have time to go into this, but all through scripture, Moses fasted before he received the Ten Commandments. The Israelite fasted before they went into many, many major battles. Daniel fasted in order to receive guidance from God. Nehemiah fasted before he began a major building project. You should, too, business guy. Jesus fasted in victory over temptation. The very first Christians fasted during decision making in their life. I'll teach a whole lot more about this, but this is a point of simply saying, I demonstrate my seriousness. Okay, number five, the fifth thing. Thank God for his love and promises. Thank God for his love and promises. The Bible says when you ask, ask with Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is not a holiday if you're a believer. It's the attitude of your entire life. You are to live with the attitude of gratitude. And the fifth thing Daniel does in his prayer is he reminds himself of how good God is, how gracious God is, and how grateful he is to God. Daniel 9, 4. Then I prayed to the Lord and I said, lord, you are great. You are an awesome God. You always fulfill your promises. You keep your word. You say it. You keep your word. You always fulfill your promises of constant love. I'm flaky. You're not. I'm unfaithful to you, but you're not unfaithful to me. You keep your promises of constant love to those who love you and keep your commands. Down in verse nine, he says, and even though we have rebelled against you, you, Lord, are merciful and forgiving. You just tell God, God, I'm grateful that you're God and I'm not God. I'm grateful that you're loving, you're forgiving, you're good, you're merciful. And so you thank God for his love and his promises. And then number six, the sixth thing you do. Yeah. This is the last step. I humbly confess my sin. God doesn't listen to prideful complaining, but he does listen to humble confessing. God responds to humility. He says, God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. Now, some of you think, you know, if I admit my sins to God, I'm gonna get punished. Oh, hang on a minute. First place, God already knows them all. You're not gonna say God I did this. You go, oh, really? How did I miss that one? Didn't see that one coming. God already knows every stupid thing you've done in your entire life. He just wants you to admit it. It's for your own humility. How does God respond when I humbly admit I blew it? With punishment? Never. When God hears you be humble, he responds not with punishment, but with blessing, with forgiving, with mercy, with grace. It's not like I come and I admit it, then God's gonna take me down. No, no, you're gonna get taken down by your own pride. God says, you come to me humbly. You just admit, hey, I blew it. You know that stuff I said yesterday, it wasn't right. That stuff I did. The way I talked to my kids, that was not right. The way I did this. And I just admitted to God. You keep short accounts. This is the sixth thing you do. I humbly confess. Now, the word confess in the Bible, the Greek word is the word homologeo. Homo means same. Homo sapien. Homogenized milk means it's all the same. Homo same logeo means to speak. And so to confess simply means to speak the same thing about God. You're right. That was the sin. I don't excuse it. I don't make excuses for it. I don't say, God, that was a little faux pas. It was a little weakness. No, it was wrong. It was sin. It was rebellion against you. I did it. You told me not to do it, but I did it anyway. And that kind of thing God responds to with grace. Now, In Daniel, chapter 5, 9 verse, verse 5, he says this. We've sinned and we've done wrong. Okay, this is the sixth part of the prayer. I humbly confess what I've done wrong. We've sinned and done wrong. But he doesn't stop there. He gets very, very specific. And you need to too. You don't need to go, oh, God, forgive all the sins I did yesterday, but I'm too busy to name em. God wants you to be specific. Cause then he wants you to be able to know what not to do again. And so I want you to circle. I'm just gonna read these verses real quick. I'm not even gonna comment on them. And I want you to circle the verbs which are the sins. Okay? He says we've sinned and done wrong. Then he says we've rebelled against you. That's one rebelled. Circle that we've rebelled against you. He says we've ignored your commands. Circle ignored. He says We've rejected your laws. We made up our own morality. We rejected your laws. He says, we have refused to listen to your servants, the prophets, refused who spoke the message to our kings and our leaders and our parents and everybody else in our nation. He says, this is very specific. We're all at fault here. Every generation. It's not like one generation in America. Every generation's got part of the blame. And then in verse 7 and 8, he says this. We've brought disgrace and shame on ourselves as a nation because we've been unfaithful to you. He said, you know what, God? We've committed spiritual adultery. We gave our love to somebody else when we're supposed to give our love to you. We've been unfaithful to you. And he said, this is true of all of us, including our kings, our leaders and our parents. He said, next verse, verse 10. We paid no attention to you when you told us how to live. You told us what's right and wrong, what's morally good, what's not. He said, this clear teaching came through your promise. Verse 13. But we kept on sinning. We never gave you a second thought. We were oblivious to the clear warnings. So God, he says, you had no choice but to let disaster loose in our nation on us, since we persistently and defiantly ignored you. And then he sums it all up in verse 16, and he says, and now all the other nations are mock us. Hmm. Does any of this sound vaguely familiar to you? I just read you a laundry list of America. I just read you the last 50 years of America right there. Now, Daniel knows we don't deserve God's blessing, but he casts himself on the grace of God. He goes, God, we could never earn this. We could never deserve this. We don't deserve to get back to home. Get back to you. We don't deserve your blessing. But I'm gonna cast myself on your mercy. And in the next verse, he says this. Oh God. Oh God, listen to me. Hear my request. We don't ask because we deserve help. We don't. We don't ask cause we deserve. But because you are. You are so merciful. You're a good, good father and you're merciful. Now, how does God respond to this kind of prayer? The six things that we just taught you. Well, in verse 20, here's how God responds. Daniel says, while I kept on praying, Let me stop right there. Circle the phrase kept on. Daniel didn't pray this prayer one time. He's praying it over and over and over. And over God, I need your help. He's praying this over and over. He said, I kept on praying. If you pray about something one time, you don't care about it. He says, while I kept on praying and confessing my sins and confessing the sins of my people and pleading with the Lord. He's emotional in this. Suddenly, the angel Gabriel appeared in my vision. Now, you guys know who Gabriel is. There are three archangels. There was Lucifer. He fell. He became Satan. There's Michael and there's Gabriel. Gabriel's the guy who shows up at Christmas. Hello. Okay, so we actually know the names of these guys. And this is so important that God sends the angel Gabriel in a vision to Daniel. And he says, suddenly, while I'm doing all this praying, the angel Gabriel appeared in my vision and said this. Daniel, I've been sent, obviously, by God. I've been sent to help you understand God's plan. Now, the moment you began praying, the answer was given, and I'm here to tell it to you, for God loves you very much. Now, God doesn't have to send Gabriel to me, and he doesn't have to send Gabriel to you, because we have the second half of the Bible that was written that tells us all about Jesus. And so I can tell you right now what God will say to you. I love you very, very, very, very, very, very much. I feel very, very deeply, have deep feelings for you. God says, I saw you born, I saw you grow. I saw all the hurts. I saw the. The happy times, sad times. I've seen everything in your life. And I have a plan for your life, and I have a timetable for your life. And when you start praying, I heard that prayer, and I wanna help you understand my plan for your life because I love you very, very much. Now you say, well, wait a minute, Rick. This is God talking to Daniel. I'm not Daniel. No, you're not. Neither am I. But I know this prayer will work for you. And the reason I know it will work for you is because the exact same formula is given in another part of the Bible to anybody. It's to all of God's people. It's called 2nd Chronicles 7:14, one of the most famous promises in the entire Bible. Now, before I read this promise, I want you to understand it's one of the most misused, misquoted verses in the Bible. I've actually heard politicians who quote this verse as a promise to America. It is not a promise to America. It is not a promise to any nation. It is a promise to God's people and God's people are in every nation. So this is not a promise for America. This is a promise for you and me and believers anywhere else in any other nation of the world. And it is for us. It's not for everybody. Second Chronicles 7:14. God says, I got four conditions. If you'll do these four things, I'll do three things. If my people. If my people who are called by my name. Are you called by my name? Are you called a Christian? That's being called by the name of Christ. So if you're a Christian, you call yourself a Christian. If my people who are called by my name. And here are the four things. Will humble themselves. That's confession and pray. That's pleading. And seek my face and turn from their wicked ways. Then I will hear from heaven. I will forgive their sins and I will heal their land. God says that I don't know what you need healing in. Healing in your mind. Healing in your heart. Healing in your body. Healing in your business. Healing in your finances. Healing in your relationships. Healing of your fears. Your business needs healing. Your family needs healing. Your marriage needs healing. Your nation needs healing. If my people who are called by my name, God says, will humble themselves. I blew it, Lord. I just blew it. And pray. I am pleading God. I did not seek you and I made a bunch of dumb decisions and now I'm paying for it. Will humble themselves and pray and seek my face. You got my attention, God. I'm looking at you. And turn from their ways, their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven. I will forgive their sins and I will will heal their land. Period. Done. That's it. So let's pray. Dear God, I thank you that you're a good and gracious God. You've promised that if we stay connected to you and that if we have your word in our hearts that we can ask what we will and it will be done. I thank you for these people who are here. They love you. They're good people. They wanna do what's right. If they weren't interested in doing what's right, they could have stayed home and watched TV today. But they're here. And it says that their heart is in the right direction. So I ask you on their behalf to hear their prayers for Jesus sake. Now you pray. Say, God, I wanna learn to seek you. I want to build a habit that I don't ever go to bed at night. Even if I've only read the Bible for one minute and prayed for one minute. I don't Put my head on the pillow without at least one conversation with you. Help me to see that your plan for my life involves your timing and my praying and that many times I have not, because I ask not. Teach me how to focus my attention on you. God, it's so easy to get distracted in this world. I want to turn my face to you. And Lord, teach me how to talk to you with emotion, to be authentic and real, not phony and fake. Help me to realize that my tone and my heart are more important than the words. Thank you. That my prayer doesn't have to be beautiful and sound great. It just has to be honest and real. Lord, break my heart over the things that break your heart. Teach me to pour out my heart to you. And yes, even if tears come, so be it. God, I've wandered away and I'm not as close to you as I've been in the past. I want to start back home again today. Help me to demonstrate my seriousness by even willing to be willing to go without food, to show as a symbol, as a sign that I'm serious about what I'm praying about. Thank you for loving me, God. Thank you for your promises. Thank you that you are faithful when I'm unfaithful. You're consistent when I'm inconsistent. Thank you that when I come and I humble myself to you and I admit what I've done wrong and I admit my rebellion, you don't punish me, but you forgive me and you wrap me in your embrace. God, we ask you to work in our hearts and lives. If you've never invited Christ in your life, say Jesus Christ, I ask you to come into my heart and life right now. Make yourself real to me. I want to learn to trust you. And I want you to be the manager, dear Jesus Christ, the manager of my life. And I pray this humbly in your name. Amen.

Hey, if you've just prayed along with Rick to accept Jesus in your life, Rick would love to hear from you. Just email rickastorick.com we'll send you free tools to help start your relationship with Jesus. And now let's hear how lives are changing through Daily Hope. Here's Rick with a letter from one of our listeners.

Today I wanna tell you about Diana. Diana's a nurse, and she helps people every single day when they're facing their most difficult times. Diana wrote me this. Listening to Daily Hope has not only helped me face challenges in my journey as a new nurse, but it's also provided me words of hope to impact the lives of all my patients and even their families. The toughest thing most of us deal with is the loss of a loved one. And learning more about God's love through Daily Hope has allowed me to share with many, many people about the hope and the trust and the love that we can find in our Savior Jesus Christ. I'm thankful to God for using you as an instrument for bringing me and many others to a Daily Hope in Jesus. Well, Diana, I just can't thank you enough for writing me. I love receiving these testimonial letters and so I'm glad that your patients and their families that you take care of have somebody like you to walk with them through the tough times they go through when they are ill. Thank you so much for sharing God's promises with the people as they face their difficulties and even death. I want you to know that the promises of God are the best news that we could receive ever during our times of illness. And Daily Hope is here to support you in your ministry to others. God bless you.

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