The Kind of Prayer God Answers — Part 1

This is Pastor Rick's daily hope. I'm so glad that you found us today. And whether you're at home or in your car, we're so glad that you're here. And we pray that God will give you hope in times of difficulty. Rick is taking us through the Book of Daniel, and that's so we'll be equipped to handle whatever curveball life throws at us, even the most difficult trials. Okay, let's jump right in. I know we all want our prayers answered. So here's Rick with part one of a message called Kind of Prayer, God Answers.

We're now coming to the last message about Daniel. And in chapter nine, we learn how to pray the kind of prayer that God answers. I mean, if you're gonna pray, you may as well get a prayer that God's gonna answer. You've prayed a lot of prayers that God did not answer. So how do you pray the kind of prayer that God answers? In this passage, we're actually gonna look at how to pray in a crisis. Now, I hope you're not in a crisis right now, but you will be someday. So you need to take notes, because someday you're gonna wear those notes that Rick told me how to pray in a crisis. And you're gonna wanna come back to this to do what God tells you to do. Let's get right into it. There's six steps we see modeled in Daniel's life and in the prayer in this chapter on how to pray, a prayer that God answers. Number one, here's the first step. Let God speak to me before I speak to him. Let God speak to me before I speak to him. This is called the listening step. You listen to the voice of God. How do you do that? Well, I'm gonna explain it, but there's a principle you need to understand first, and it's this. God always makes the first move in your life. You don't. God is always the initiator of everything in your life, and you are the responder. God never expects you to make the first move. He always makes the first move. The Bible says that we love him. We love God because he first loved us. God loved you a whole long time before you ever loved him. The Bible says that we serve God because God first served us and he knew we had a problem. And he sent Jesus Christ to die on the cross for us long before we even knew we had a problem. He served us before we served him. The Bible says we give to God because God first gave to us. Everything you have in your life is a gift of God. The air you breathe, your life, your mind, your brain, everything you've got is a gift from God. God will never ask you to do something he hasn't already done for you. God never asked you to do something that he goes, now, personally, I've never done this, but I'm expecting you to do it. God always initiates, we always respond. And that's even true with prayer. The reason we pray, the reason we talk to God, is because God has first talked to us in this book. In this book, the Bible written over 3,500 plus years, 66 different authors that God inspired to write these words down that he wanted written down. There are literally thousands and thousands of promises from God to you, to you. And what we do in prayer is we claim the promises that he has said to us and say, God, you said this, so I'm asking you to do this. And God, you said that, so I'm asking you to do that. So the Bible says that prayer actually starts not with talking, but with listening. You listen to God. Now, how do you listen to God? By reading this book, or if you don't like to read, listening to the Bible on MP3 or whatever, logically you need to let God talk to you, then you're gonna know how to pray, what to pray, where to pray, when to pray, and all those things. Daniel did this. Now, as we start this chapter nine, Daniel's an old guy now. He's 85 years old. We started in the very first session on Daniel. He's 15 years old, the prisoner of war. He's now gone through multiple changes in his life. Test after test after test after test. He keeps getting promoted, higher in authority, higher in power. He's now served three different kings. And we know that the Babylonians defeated the Assyrians and then the Persians defeated the Babylonians. And so now he's got a new boss. He survived every administration and no matter what the government was going on around him, he keeps getting promoted. But he wants to go home before he dies. He's 85 years old and he knows that God had said in the book of Jeremiah that you'll be in Babylon for 70 years, and then I'm gonna bring my people back to Israel. And he knows time's up. But he also knows that the people, Israelites have not turned back to God. Seventy years later, they're still as messed up as they were before. And he goes, we're not any closer to God than we were 70 years ago. And I'm afraid God's just gonna leave us here in Babylon and not bring us back to Israel. So this is his crisis. And here's how it starts. Daniel, chapter nine, verse one. It was the first year of the reign of Darius the Mede, who was made king of Babylon, the Babylonians by Cyrus, who was a Persian. You know, Babylon is Iraq, Persia is Iran today. And he says, during the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, was studying the scriptures, and I learned from the word of the Lord as recorded by Jeremiah the prophet, that Jerusalem must lie desolate for 70 years. It was destroyed, and he said, it won't be rebuilt until after 70 years. You guys will get to go back home. Now, I want you to circle. If you're taking notes, circle the phrase studying the Scripture and circle the phrase learned from the Word. Study the scriptures, learn from the Word. You will never pray effectively until you study the Scriptures and you learn from the Word until you get into this book every single day. Now, the more you know this book, the Bible, the more prayers you're gonna have answered. If you're ignorant of this book, you don't know how to pray. You don't know what to pray. You don't know when to pray. You don't know the promises that God has made to you. And so you gotta read a little bit of this book every single day of your life so you can learn those promises that God has made to you. Let me show you this. Here's what Jesus said up here on the screen. In John chapter 15, Jesus said, if you stay connected to me and my words remain in your heart. What's he talking about? The Bible? He says these words remain in your heart. He says, if you follow those two conditions, you may ask any request you want in prayer and it will be given to you. Jesus Christ. Whoa, that's pretty much a blank check right there. You can ask whatever you want in prayer and it'll be given to you. Now he says, notice this verse, if I'm praying and I'm not getting an answer, the first thing I need to check is, am I meeting these two conditions? Am I staying connected to God? God, is there anything between me and you that's out of whack? Is there any fellowship broken? Is there something in my life that I know is wrong and you know it's wrong. And you said for me to get it right and I haven't got it right yet. That is a break in the connection with God. But he said, if you stay connected to me, you're in harmony with me. And he Says my words. This book is in your mind, it's in your heart. You can ask anything you want in prayer and it will be done. So if I'm not getting the answer, that's one of the two problems. That's one of the two conditions that need to be met. So Daniel is saying, I'm gonna study the Word, I'm gonna have it in me. The more you fill your mind with this book, the more you memorize some like, Bible verses, the more answers you're gonna have in your life. Now this is so important to your life that I wanna help you. I wanna help you develop the habit of you never go to bed any day of your life without spending at least a little bit of time, even if it's a minute or two minutes, reading a little bit of the Bible and then talking to God for a minute or two or whatever. Now, last week we saw that Daniel did this three times a day. He had the habit. And I said, do you think your life would be any different if you had a conversation with God three times a day your entire life? Which he did for over 70 years. Well, no wonder he missed a lot of problems. No wonder he knew how to be wise. No wonder he kept gotten promoted. He's talking to God every day. I do this all the time as I go through my day. I don't to God once a day. I talk to God all the time. And as I'm getting ready to go into meeting, I go, okay, God, I'm gonna need your guidance in here. I don't know what you wanna say to these people. I don't know what they wanna say to me. I don't know what the problem is. Help me to know the right thing. I'm depending on you to give me the wisdom, the guidance and the power to do what it is. And I go out of that meeting, I go to the next thing. And the whole day. One of my prayers is often two words. What's next? What's next, Lord? What do you wanna do? And I'm always seeking God, checking in with him. Now, I wanna teach you this habit of having a little bit of daily reading the Bible and praying, talking to God two or three times a day. At least three times a day. Because it will revolutionize your life. Men, it'll make you a strong man, it'll make you more confident, it'll make you less fearful. Same thing women, it'll make you a stronger woman. It'll make you more confident, it will make you less fearful. If you will develop A habit of multiple times a day, you have a conversation with God. You let him talk to you, and you talk to him. You will handle your stress better. It will improve every single area of your life. I guarantee it. All right, in chapter one, Daniel is worried about the crisis in his life. And so he starts reading this book by Jeremiah. Now, here's the thing. Daniel and Jeremiah are contemporaries. They lived at the same time when Babylon crushed Israel. Daniel's taken captive for his prisoner of war to Babylon. Jeremiah is left behind in. In a defeated, broken city called Jerusalem. And in Jeremiah's book, God tells him, those guys are gonna be there for 70 years. And Daniel reads this, and he starts getting hope. Here's what you wanna know, what Daniel read. It's the next verse, Jeremiah, chapter 29. When he said, I was studying the scripture, here's what he was studying. God says this to you. You will be kept in Babylon for 70 years. But there then I'll keep my gracious promise to bring you back to your home again. For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. I have good plans for you, not plans for your disaster. My plans will give you hope and a future. And in those days when you pray, I will listen. Now, if you've been around church for any length of time, you know that verse. In fact, we even got a song about it. I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans to prosper you, not to harm you. God says, I have a plan for your life. It's a plan for your success. It's not a plan for your defeat. It's a good plan. It'll give you hope. It'll give you a future. God says this to you. We know that verse, but we often leave off the last phrase which says, in those days when you pray, I will listen. Now, I want you to listen very carefully. God says this to you this weekend. I made you for a purpose. I have a plan for your life. But it's not automatic. You can miss it. You can miss my plan and purpose for your life. In fact, most people miss God's plan and purpose for their life. He said there are two factors. I've promised to rescue you. I'm gonna bring you back home. I'm gonna do the things you need done in your life. But he says there are two factors involved in in you fulfilling your purpose in life. Write these down. God's timing and my praying. God's timing and my praying. And both of these have an important role in what God wants to do in Your life. God's timing when he's gonna do it, and your praying when you ask him to do it. Both of these are extremely important. So let me explain what that verse just said. In Jeremiah, God says this. I got a plan for you or life. I didn't make you without a purpose. I created you for a purpose and plan. And my plan for you is good, but it has a timetable. And he says to these guys specifically, he said, I'm not gonna cut short my plan. You're gonna be in Babylon for 70 years, and I'm not gonna cut it short one day. Short, you're not coming home one day. Sooner. You're gonna be there for 70 years. So that's my plan, and that's my intention. But don't worry, it's a good plan. But he says, when the time is right for me to fulfill your plan, you're all gonna go back home. Then you're gonna have to do something. You're gonna have to pray. And he says, and when you pray, I will listen. Now, I want you to notice this. It's a very important verse in the Bible. Here we see God's sovereignty. He's in control. And your responsibility. You got something to do. God determines the timing of his plan and purpose for your life. But when the timing is right, you're still gonna have to pray. Cause he's not gonna do it until you ask. He's not gonna force his plan on you. Ever. You have to ask. Notice this verse on the screen. James, chapter four, verse two. You do not have what you need because you do not ask God for it. So you're telling me that God has some things he wants to do in my life that are cool and good and great, but they aren't gonna happen unless I ask for it? That's exactly what I'm telling you. God has timing. But you have praying. And some things have not happened in your life because you've never asked God for them. You've never asked God to do them in your life. He says, I intend to do it when I'm ready. That's timing. But you gotta pray for it to. You have not. Because you ask. Not now. This leaves a little quandary in your life. You've gone through this before. How do I know when I'm waiting on God? And how do I know when God's waiting on me? It was a good question. Okay. It was like, you know, I really have this big dream for my life. And I really think this is what God wants me to do with my life. But I don't know. It hadn't happened yet. So am I waiting on God, or is God waiting on me? Well, this explains it right here. What it means is this. If I've asked for God to do something really great in my life, and I've prayed about it and I've asked, and there's nothing between me and God, as far as I know I'm doing what he wants me to do, there's no big sin that's over here in this corner that I'm going. Yeah, I know God wants me to do this, but I haven't done it. If I've asked God, and like Jesus said, I. I'm connected to God. We're all copacetic. We're in harmony, me with God, and I'm in the Bible. I'm reading the Bible every day, his words in me. If I pray and I ask, and that's all true, and I haven't had the answer yet, then I'm waiting on God. It has all to do with his timing. I'm just waiting for God. God says I'll do it, but I'm just gonna do it in my timing. And I just need to be patient. On the other hand, if I have something really great that I would like for God to do in my life, and I've always wanted God to do it, but I've never asked. I've never asked God to do it, never asked for God's help, never asked for God's guidance in my dream, then God's waiting on you. If you haven't prayed about it, God is waiting on you. You have not. Because you ask not. So let me just start with this first point by asking a very personal question. What do you really want in life? What do you really, really want in life? But you've never asked God for it. Did you know that the Bible says you can ask God for anything? You can ask God for anything. First step, listen to God. I read a little bit as well. I let God speak to me, then I talk to him. Now here's step two. Step two is focus my attention on God. This is the second step in the kind of prayer that God gets answered. So focus my attention on God. And in Daniel, chapter nine, verse three, it says this. So I turned my face to the Lord, seeking him.

Such a great message by Rick today and every day. I sure hope you were just as encouraged as I was. And now here's Rick with an important message.

If you've been blessed by this message today, here's what I want you to do. Share it. Tell somebody about it. Now, there's a lot of great ways you can share Daily Hope. One of the easiest is by posting it on social media. On Facebook or Twitter or LinkedIn or Instagram. But you'll find a share button today next to the message on my website. Don't keep the good news to yourself. It's too good to keep to ourselves. We've got to pass it on to others.

If you'd like to share this broadcast, and we sure hope you do, please go to pastorrick.com that's pastorrick.com be sure to join us next time. Time as we look into God's Word for our Daily Hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.