When You’re Asked to Do the Impossible — Part 2

Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I'm so glad you're here. Today we're going to continue our series called Unshakable. 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. Today, Rick's going to do part two of the message called when you're asked to do the impossible.

So what do you do when you're asked to do the impossible? Your boss asks you, the government asks you. A competitor asks you. Somebody in the neighborhood, somebody asks you to do something? You go, I don't have the time. I don't have the money. I don't have the wisdom. I don't have the background, the context, talent, or whatever you do. The eight things that Daniel did in this situation when his life, and by the way, everybody else's life is on the line. Now, I want to tell you from personal experience, for the last 36 years, I have used these eight steps over and over and over and over and over and over and over. As a leader, you need what I'm about to teach you. Okay, here's what you do. Write fast. Cause they don't take a lot of time to share. Number one, don't panic. That's number one. Don't panic. Or be afraid. Now, in Daniel's case, he had a legitimate reason to be worried. I mean, if the government sent somebody to assassinate you, you'd probably be panic. But he didn't. And the Bible says in Daniel, chapter two, verse 14. And we're gonna follow just through the whole chapter. When Arioch, the commander of the king's guard, came to kill them, Daniel handled the situation with wisdom and discretion. Now, once again, Daniel's faith is tested and he passes with flying colors. This is an amazing young man. He's only 17 years old. The most powerful man on the planet has ordered his assassination. The guy shows up to kill him and he handles the situation with wisdom and discretion. Not bad for a young teenage kid. He did not panic. He did not be afraid. By the way, what are you panicked about this morning? That job opportunity or that job problem? The financial situation. I'm never gonna get out of debt. I'm feeling bad and I'm wondering if it's really bad. I wonder if my health is going the wrong direction. What are you worried about? Your marriage? Your future, Your dream? Don't panic. Number two, ask why. And what I mean when I say ask why, is you wanna learn all the facts and all the motivation behind the request. When somebody asks you to do the impossible, you. You need to find out why they've asked it. You need to get all the facts involved, and you need to find out the motivation for their asking. And if there's emotion like there was with King Nebuchadnezzar, he's furious. What's fueling the fury? I mean, in this case, the king's clearly afraid. He has this recurring nightmare he's scared to death, and now he's just kind of vomiting his fear out on everybody else. And he's taking it out and saying, you gotta tell me here. When people are panicked and they're in a crisis, they get emotional. Now maybe you're gonna go to work this week and your boss is gonna come in and he or she's gonna really come down on you. And they're gonna say, you gotta get this done by this day. And you feel the pressure, you go, what's going on here? Well, in all likelihood, they're probably being pressured by their boss, the supervisor, the owner or whoever. And when they're feeling the heat, they just turn around and put it on you. And when they're feeling fear, I might lose my job, then they start talking to you about you losing your job. So you need to know why the people are asking you to do this impossible thing. That's verse 15. Daniel asked. Daniel asked Arioch, this is the captain of the guard. Why? Why has the king issued such a harsh decree? So Arioch told him all that happened. You gotta get the facts. You might write this verse down. Proverbs 23, 23. Living Bible says, Get the facts at any price. Don't make a major decision just on emotion. Don't make a major business decision just on the way. You feel feelings, lie. Get the facts at any price. And in this step, what you wanna do is you go, what do I need to know to do what I gotta do? That's what you ask. When you're facing that deal is about to fall apart, that mountain of debt's about to come in on me. What do I need to do to get what I need to do done? And so you ask the question, why and what? And what is the reason? What do I need to do in order to get this done? What do I need to know? Number three? Third thing you need to do is ask for time to create a solution. If your boss comes in, says, I need this done, and he goes, impossible. You need to ask for time to create a solution. Now, the reason why you wanna ask for time instead of just immediately get to work on it is because in a crisis, the greatest temptation you have is to be impulsive. If you're in a car accident, when you get out of that car, you're not thinking logically, you're not thinking rationally, you're in a car accident, you're thinking emotionally, and you wanna make an impulsive decision, you wanna make it fast. It's more important to make the right decision than to make a fast decision. The wrong decision is the wrong decision, no matter how fast or slow you make it. And so when you're facing an impossible situation, take a little time, step back, take a deep breath, calm down, talk to God. Daniel is asking for some time. Cause there's no way I'm gonna know the king's dream. But God knows the king's dream, and so maybe I can find out from God. And so he's asking for time to create a solution. He knew he was gonna need to spend some time with God. And the Bible says this in verse 16 Daniel 2, 16, Daniel went at once to see the king and requested more time so he could tell the king what the dream meant. He's gonna give it its best shot. He's not gonna say that's impossible like the other guys did. Well, let's just see. Maybe God will tell me, I'm gonna give it my best shot. I'm gonna die trying, if that's what it takes. He went to see the king to request more time so the king could know what the dream meant. Now notice, circle the phrase he went at once. While you wanna take time for the solution, you wanna make contact with the person who's done this as quick as you can. You don't procrastinate, you don't dawdle around. Now this is pretty gutsy. Here's a 17 year old kid. The king has orders assassination. What does he do? He immediately goes to see the king, confronts him. That's pretty courageous. I don't know if I would have done that as a teenager. He goes immediately to the source of his pressure. He goes immediately to the source of his pain. He doesn't dawdle, he doesn't procrastinate. He doesn't delay, he doesn't postpone. He doesn't get distracted. He courageously faced the fear head on. Question, what are you procrastinating that you know you need to do, and you've known you need to do it for years and you still haven't done it. Because it could be painful. Let me ask it another way. What are you pretending in your marriage is not a problem? Hmm? You go, well, I know it's there, but, yeah, I don't wanna deal with it. Cause it could be Mount Vesuvius, a big explosion. So we just sweep it under the carpet year after year after year. And the more you sweep under the carpet, it starts making a mound on the carpet. And pretty soon you got a hill and in your carpet, and you're gonna trip over it. What is it you're pretending isn't a problem in your life? You say, well, I know I got this weakness. There's this thing that I do that I really don't like doing. It's not really an addiction, but I do it. And I do it over and over and over, and I can't seem to stop it. But it is an addiction. And you say, well, it's my little faux pas, my little fallacy. It's my little fault. It's my little peccadillo. It's my little, you know, problem over there. No, you're procrastinating. And procrastination only makes problems worse. Procrastination has never solved any problem. Delay doesn't make it worse, doesn't make it better. It makes it worse. People say, well, time heals all wounds. That's nonsense. Time does not heal all wounds. If you got cancer, time's not gonna make you better. You gotta get surgery, and you gotta get it as fast as you can. If time could heal everything, all you could have to do is go sit in the doctor's office, and you'd get healed eventually. Cause you're gonna wait a long time there. I don't even need to see the doc. I've just sat here long enough. I'm. Well, it doesn't work that way. Don't procrastinate. Don't dawdle. Don't panic. Ask why. And then immediately go to wherever the source is and. And ask for time to consider the decision to courageously create a solution. Move against your fear. The only way you get rid of fear is to move against it. You can't argue out of fear. You can't talk yourself out of fear. You move against your fear, you do the very thing you fear the most. Here's the fourth thing you do. Daniel did this. Enlist prayer support from your friends. Enlist prayer support from. From your friends. Now, of course, Daniel knows he's gonna pray about this a lot. In fact, he's gonna stay up all night, pray about it all night. But he knows this thing is too big. I mean, the kingdom here is in the balance. The king is off his rocker. He's about to kill everybody in the court, all of his advisors, including us. And we weren't even involved in that. Cause we're not, you know, astrologers or mediums. And he goes, so I gotta get some more extra prayer support. I gotta get my prayer team going. And he needed other people praying. So here's what he does in verse 17 up here on the screen. Then Daniel went home after he'd seen the king. And he told his three friends, Hananiah and Mishael and Azariah. We talked to you about these in the previous week. Obviously, they all live in the same house. These four young guys are bunking together, sharing a house. And he told his three friends what had happened. And then he said, pray. And I probably admit that he probably said it like that. You guys pray. Our lives are on the line. We're gonna be killed if we don't figure out this dream. Pray that the God who rules from heaven will be merciful and explain this mystery to us so that we and notice and the other advisors won't be put to death. Question. Do you have any prayer partners? If you got in your car going home today from church and you were in a major crisis, big accident or whatever, and some people died, who would be the first five people you'd call and say, I need your prayer. If you don't know who those people are, if you haven't lined them up in advance, I highly recommend that, that you build a prayer team, a personal prayer team. Every man needs one and every woman needs one before the inevitable crisis comes in your life. Cause you're gonna have problems all your life. You're gonna face impossible situations. You're gonna have dark days. You're gonna get the phone call that changes the direction of your life. Count on it. You need to know now who you can call to say who you gonna call? Who you gonna call? He knew immediately. I'm gonna go tell my friends, ask them to start praying. Let me phrase it another way. Who can call you this afternoon? Who is it that you're close enough to that you got five friends who could say, hey, I'm really going through a tough time today. I had a crisis I gotta face. Impossible situation. I need you to be praying for me. This is why everybody needs to be in a small group. The best place to get your prayer partners, your prayer team is the people you meet with in a small group every week. That's the best place. Now it's okay to have prayer partners who are in addition to your small group who are out there, that's fine. But you don't need a lot. You don't need 25 people praying for you, but you do need four or five. And every man needs four or five guys who are praying for them. Every woman needs four or five women who are praying for for her. And you need to be able to ask for prayer the way Daniel did. By the way, did you notice, look at that verse again. He went home, told his three friends, I need you to start praying so that we. And notice. He says, and the other advisors. Circle that phrase. And the other advisors. Daniel is not just concerned for his own skin. He's worried about his co workers. He's not worried just about him getting laid off. He's worried about the whole office getting laid off and killed. Now these other workers, they're not his friends. They're pagans. They're not God fearing people like his three best friends. They're these necromancers and mediums and sorcerers and astrologers and psychics. All of this phony stuff, they, that they're not even involved in. But Daniel goes, I don't care if we disagree with them, we don't want them to die. That is the mark of a godly person that you're praying for the people in your life who have a different lifestyle than you, who have a different belief or religion than you. Daniel's gonna go, nobody deserves to die over this, okay? They're not my friends. We're not buddy buddies with these other people. But I don't wanna see them killed anymore than I want me and my friends killed. That's what a godly person does. They pray not just for themselves. They're not just worried about I might get laid off, they're worried about the whole office or 10 people might get laid off if this rumor is true. So don't panic, ask why. Ask for time to create a solution. Enlist prayer support from your friends. And then number five, this is a big one. Prayer and expect God to give supernatural help. When you're facing an impossible situation in your life. And Daniel's gonna teach you how to do this. Pray and expect God to give you supernatural help in your life. And when I say supernatural help, I'm talking about the kind of help that you don't have on your own power. It's not dependent upon your logic, your wisdom, your talent. You just go, this isn't gonna happen unless God does it? And you need supernatural help when you don't have the money and you're deeply in debt and about to file for bankruptcy. You need God's help when you don't have the connections, when you don't have the education, when you don't have the answers, when you don't have the ideas to take your business to the next level, when you don't have what the competitors have. When. When you don't have. When you're not smart enough, you need supernatural help. You pray and you ask God and you expect God to give you supernatural help. Now here's the interesting thing about this. God wants you to do this. God wants you to ask over and over and over and over again in the Bible, God wants you to ask for supernatural help when you're up against an impossible problem because it shows he loves to help you out.

Hey, thanks so much for joining us today here on Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. You know, as we look at the unprecedented things going on in our world today, it is so clear that we need to be equipped with the biblical wisdom that gives us power to handle whatever life throws at us.

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So that's why Pastor Rick created a life changing Bible study called Unshakeable. And it's based on the book of Daniel. In these eight powerful video lessons, Rick will teach you how to handle life's most difficult trials and situations and how to thrive under extreme pressure, how to pray the kind of prayers that God answers. And this video study includes a workbook. It's perfect for individual or small group Bible study. Please request your copy today when you give a gift to help Daily Hope take the word of God to people around the world. You just go to pastorrick.com to get your copy. That's pastorrick.com or just text the word hope to 70309. Again, the word hope to 70309. And thanks so much for your support. Your gift to Daily Hope means so much to us because it helps us share the hope of Jesus Christ to people all around the world. Be sure to join us next 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.