Dare to Be Like Daniel in Prayer (Daniel 9:1-23)

We are continuing our series in the book of Daniel, the Old Testament book of Daniel. If you'll look on the screen or on the app, you can find the bulletin on that. We're in Daniel chapter nine verses one through 23. I promise we will get back to reading God's word out loud together but these really long passages, I'm just going to read for us this morning. So, if you want to follow along, Daniel 9:1-23.

In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahashuerus, a Mede by birth, who was made king over the Chaldean Kingdom. In the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood from the books according to the word of the Lord, to the prophet Jeremiah, that the number of years for the desolation of Jerusalem would be seventy. So I turned my attention to the Lord God to seek him by prayer and petitions with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. And I prayed to the Lord my God and confessed, 'Ah, Lord, the great and awesome, awe inspiring God who keeps His gracious covenant with those who love Him and keep His commandments. We have sinned, done wrong, acted wickedly, rebelled, and turned away from your commands and ordinances. We have not listened to your servants, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, leaders, ancestors, and all the people of the land. Lord, righteousness belongs to you, but this day, public shame belongs to us, the men of Judah, the residents of Jerusalem, and all Israel, those who are near and those who are far, and all the countries where you have banished them because of the disloyalty that they have shown toward you. Lord, public shame belongs to us, Our kings, our leaders, and our ancestors because we have sinned against you. Compassion and forgiveness belong to the lord our god. Though we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the lord our god by following his instructions that he sent before us through his servants, the prophets. All Israel has broken your law and turned away, refusing to obey you. The promise curse written in the law of Moses, the servant of god, has been poured out on us because we have sinned against him. He has carried out his words that he spoke against us and against our rulers by bringing on us a disaster that is so great that nothing like what has happened has been done to Jerusalem has ever been done under all of heaven. Just as it is written in the law of Moses, all this disaster has come upon us. Yet, we have not sought the favor of the lord, our god, by turning from our iniquities, paying attention to your truth. So, the lord kept the disaster in mind and brought it on us for the lord our god is righteous in all that he has done but we have not obeyed him. Now, lord our god, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a strong hand and made your name renowned as it is today. We have sinned. We have acted wickedly. Lord, in keeping with all your righteous acts, may your anger and wrath turn away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy mountain, for because of our sins and the iniquities of our ancestors, Jerusalem and your people have all become an object of ridicule to all those around us. Therefore, our god, hear the prayer and the petitions of your servant. Make your face shine on your desolate sanctuary for the lord's sake. Listen closely, my god, and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations and the city that bears your name for we are not presenting our petitions before you on our righteous acts but based on your abundant compassion. Lord, hear. Lord, forgive. Lord, listen and act. My god, for your own sake, do not delay because your city and your people bear your name. While I was speaking, praying, confessing my sin, and the sin of my people, Israel, and presenting my petition before the Lord, my God, concerning the holy mountain of my God, while I was praying, Gabriel, the man I had seen in the first vision, reached me in my extreme weariness about the time of the evening offering. He gave me this explanation. Daniel, I've come now to give you understanding. At the beginning of your petitions, an answer went out, and I have come to give it. For you are treasured by God. So consider the message and understand the vision. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. — Daniel 9:1-23

One of the most successful advertising campaigns of the 1990s was a Gatorade ad that featured Michael Jordan who was at the time kind of at the height of his early basketball pro fame. It was a little song that went along with it. It showed a bunch of kids following Michael Jordan around playing basketball. Do you all know the ad I'm talking about? "Be Like Mike" and there was a little song, "If I Could Only Be Like Mike." This was super popular at boosting Jordan's popularity. It didn't sell much Gatorade, but it's considered one of the best sports ads of all time.

Now, I think a lot of Christian preaching when it comes to preaching of the Old Testament sounds like "Be Like Mike."

It sounds like be like Abraham, be like Esther, be like Joseph, be like Ruth, be like Moses. I mean, just go down the list and that's sort of how, and unfortunately, it misses a lot of the beauty of the Bible. So today is—you can mark this day. You might circle it on a calendar because this is the only time in all the years I've preached at this church that I'm ever going to tell you to be like anybody in the Old Testament. But today, okay, today, be like Daniel. That's the theme of the sermon today.

So here's what you know. For those of you who have been with us on a regular basis, we are skipping over chapter eight and I don't feel bad. Truthfully, I'm running out of Sundays before Christmas and I need to move things along. Chapter eight repeats the same material that was in chapter seven, chapter two, and furthermore in chapter 11. It's the same material. If you want to get a good study Bible out, you can look through it. It's not mysterious—chapter eight—and you can catch up on this. It's all about a ram that represents the Medes and the Persian Empire, and a uni-goat, a goat with one horn, right, that represents the Greeks. Very clear in those passages. It follows the same material that I talked through last week about these empires that Daniel is being told. This is what's about to happen—the near future for Daniel and his contemporaries. So skipping that over, that's why we're looking today on chapter nine.

We're looking at this, which follows actually a lot of Daniel's kind of out of sequence, and it follows actually the writing on the wall situation that happened in chapter five. As promised in chapter five, there was a radical change in administration, and in one night, the Babylonian Empire is conquered by the Medio-Persian Empire—a combo of two, the Medes and the Persians. I keep talking about horns in the Bible. Every time you talk about horns, I want you to think about a crown. You know, a British crown has little spikes on it like horns. That's what shows royalty. So there's this transfer of power that happens in one night as the Babylonian Empire is defeated. We read here about Darius the Mede, and he takes over, and he is the new emperor of the Medio-Persian Empire.

I just want to remind you, at this point Daniel has been in Babylon for seventy years. And now there's this change in administration and he's beginning to look at his Bible. This is where we pick up this passage. Daniel, in the wake of this massive regime change, picks up his Bible. We're told he's picked up the scroll of the prophet Jeremiah and he's reading it and he's trying to understand what is happening and what God is up to. He goes back to God's word and he goes back to prayer.

A Word for Our Times

Just time out on our story because I think that's a helpful word for us right now. There are a lot of things happening in our world that cause us to be panicked and fearful. And if you are a student at all of what's happening with international, geopolitical, tectonic plates that seem like they're shifting, it is a frightening time. It is a scary time. And I want to encourage you: Are you a person who, when the plates shift, do you go back to God's word? And do you go back to prayer? This is what Daniel's doing. He's going back to the basics.

Very simply, I want to encourage you: In your moments of fear, anxiety, panic, worry, if you read the news, we have two options. You can ruminate on it. It can drive up anxiety and fear about lots of things that you can't control, or you can go back to God's word and go to prayer with him. This is what we see Daniel doing.

Daniel and Jeremiah

Daniel picks up the scroll of the prophet Jeremiah. Now, Jeremiah is nicknamed the weeping prophet because he prophesied. He called the people of God to repentance and he knew—he foretold the coming of Babylon as an instrument in God's hand to bring discipline to God's own people. He foresaw this all coming. He said God will use the evil nation of Babylon, and other prophets are like, "I can't believe God's using Babylon. What a wicked people," and yet Jeremiah is like, "This is what is coming. There's going to be this destruction because of their lack of love for Christ, of God, their love for sin, their lack of love for His Sabbath, not keeping His law, lack of worship."

God had sent so many prophets. If you read the end of the Old Testament—Joel, Micah, Isaiah—all of these have come to God's people and warned them, "Turn back to the Lord," and they did not listen. So what is God up to? Daniel opens up the Jeremiah scroll and beginning in chapter 20, he reads of God's disciplining His people using Babylon.

I want you to think: What is the difference between discipline and punishment?

These may be words we use interchangeably, but they don't mean the same thing. The experience of punishment or discipline may feel the same way, but they're so different. Punishment is "I'm going to teach you a lesson you will never forget." Punishment is angry. It's filled with wrath. But discipline, the way the Bible speaks of it, is God correcting us with tears in his eyes. It's a sign of his love. It's like the weeping prophet Jeremiah himself—it's weeping. Discipline holds together these two tensions that are resident deep in the heart of God: God's great compassion and love for his people, and also his love that grieves their disobedience and their idolatry.

The New Testament book of Hebrews tells us this is very deep in the character of God:

My son, do not take the Lord's discipline lightly or lose heart when you are reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves and reproves every son he receives. Endure suffering as discipline; God is dealing with you as sons. For what son is there that a father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, which all receive, then you are actually illegitimate children and not sons. No discipline seems enjoyable at the time but painful. Later on, however, it produces the fruit of righteousness for those who have been trained by it. — Hebrews 12

I want to be really careful as a preacher this morning, because not everything bad that happens in your life is a straight line connection to God's discipline over you. It doesn't all match like that. We live in a fallen world where many of the things that happen are not purposeful by God. You didn't not get that parking space necessarily because of something you did earlier in the day. I want to distinguish the God of the Bible from karma, from the indifferent cruelty of karma. That is not who our God is. Our God does get our attention when we run from him. He pursues with tears in his eyes. He's not saying "I'm going to teach you a lesson you ain't never going to forget." He's not vindictive. He's not angry. But he does correct, discipline, pursue. And when he does so, the question really is: Do we respond? Do you respond when God sends things into your life to get your attention—ways that you're on the run from him, ways that you are rebelling against him?

So Daniel's reading his Bible. He's reading the prophet Jeremiah and reads in Jeremiah 25 that there is an expiration date to God's discipline. Seventy years is what Jeremiah had promised—that the exile would be limited. There's an end to discipline. The first year of Darius the Mede that he's referring to is about seventy years since Daniel himself was carried off as a captive all the way from Jerusalem to Babylon. And Daniel's sitting there doing his math, and he realizes there's a timer that has been set by the prophet Jeremiah, and this timer is now going off. And so he turns. This is what drives Daniel to prayer. And this is his prayer.

Daniel's Confession

In response to one, God's discipline of his people, and two, the fact that seventy years are over, Daniel does something remarkable here. He prays and confesses sin. Now, that's not that remarkable. The remarkable thing is whose sin he prays and confesses.

If you've been tracking with us through the book of Daniel, you read the prayer here of confession. Let me just ask you: Do you think that Daniel's talking about himself when he says, "We've sinned, done wrong, acted wickedly, rebel, turned away from your commandments and ordinances, not listened to your prophets who spoke in your name"? It seems a little bit out of sync with what we know of Daniel's life. In fact, Ezekiel says Daniel is one of the top three most righteous people in the Old Testament.

Daniel is not confessing his sins. He's confessing the sins of his people and his ancestors and people who were before he was born. Now, this is really remarkable. Why would he do this? He confesses the sins of the people with tears in his eyes.

There is, of course, one kind of person who would never do this in the Bible, and that is a Pharisee. A Pharisee isn't one who's looking around confessing the sins of others, but actually pointing them out, talking about how bad those people are. Think of the Pharisees as they caught the woman in adultery and bring her out to be stoned to death—all blindness to their sin, all critique of another person's sin. And this is kind of true, honestly, of the American church today. We never want to be told that we need to take responsibility or pray in confession of the sins of other people, especially our forefathers. We want to be very scrupulous, like, "Oh, this isn't—yeah, in the moral accounting of the world, I didn't do that, so I don't need to be concerned about it." But that's a pharisaical heart.

Who does pray like this? A leader. A leader prays like this. A leader makes the problem of someone else that they're not—they didn't do—their own responsibility, even when it's not their fault. Let me say that again. A leader makes the problem of somebody else their responsibility, even when it's not their fault.

This is what parents do all the time. My child's mistakes may not be my fault, but I, as a leader, take responsibility to help correct them. If you're a husband, do you sit around and blame your wife for all your marital issues? I'm sure that she's not perfect. But a leader takes responsibility, doesn't deflect blame but takes responsibility for another person. Ain't that what Jesus did for us? Isn't this the very heart of the gospel? That Jesus himself, not responsible for any of our sins, makes himself entirely responsible for them. Puts himself on the hook for this. This is what Daniel's doing. This is what leaders do. They take responsibility.

The Priestly Intercession

Now, here's another thing. There's a specific type of leader who does this. A priest. In the Old Testament, there was an office of the priest, and the priest's job was to represent people before God in prayer, in worship. The priest interceded before the Lord on behalf of the people, and that's what Daniel's doing here. He is acting like a priest. Even hundreds of miles from home, even seventy years later, even though he knows he's an old man and there's probably no way he's going to get back to see Jerusalem, he's still crying out with tears in his eyes for the sin of his own people.

If you're a student of the Bible, particularly the Old Testament, there are lots of such priests in the Bible—priests who represent the people before God. Most famously, Aaron, as we went through the book of Numbers this past spring. Aaron comes and represents the people before God. Melchizedek in the book of Genesis represents the people before God, comes and prays with Abraham. There are a number of these. Moses's own father-in-law, Jethro, was a priest in Midian. Adam and Eve were even called with priestly language in the first book of the Bible.

The book of Daniel is showing us more and more—and this is why I love going through the Old Testament. It shows us more and more of our need for the gospel and what shape it comes to us in. It keeps showing us why we need the gospel. Like so much of this book, it shows us there's this prototype, this pattern that's all throughout the Old Testament that Jesus fulfills for us.

So Daniel acts like a priest here, interceding for his people. Jesus is a priest forever. We're told in Hebrews, in the order of Melchizedek. Daniel intercedes before the throne of God for the people in exile. Jesus, our high priest forever, is interceding before the throne of God in heaven for us. Daniel owns the sins of his people as his own, and Jesus does even more so. He became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God.

What Does Intercession Mean?

So what's intercession? It's not a word we use very often. What does it mean to intercede? This happens all the time. We may not use the language for it. For example, when a third party is a go-between between two other parties. A parent might do this. They might go in and intercede on behalf of their child with the teacher. "Hey, you need to understand what's going on at home. You need to understand what's going on with my kid." That's a ministry of intercession. A sports agent does this on behalf of an athlete with a sports franchise. That's intercession.

But what does it mean that Jesus intercedes for us? That's strange language. Jesus intercedes regularly as this ministry of intercession, both before the throne of God for you. What does that mean? After all, when we talk about Jesus, we talk about the cross. We talk about the finished, complete work of Christ on the cross for us. He did everything required to pay for our sins. So why would He need to intercede for us? Why would He be regularly praying for us? Doesn't even saying that, in some way, kind of imply like something sort of unfinished about the cross? He didn't quite do it all? So how do those go together?

I'll say it this way. Intercession applies what Jesus's atonement accomplished. Intercession—the intercession of Jesus—applies to you what His cross accomplished. Christ's present intercession doesn't mean there's something deficient to what He did on the cross. It means its present, right now application of that in your circumstances, in your life. His minute by minute application of that. That's why the New Testament ties together justification—Jesus saving us and dying in our place on the cross—and intercession.

Listen to this from Romans 8:

Who can bring any accusation against God's elect? God is the one who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Jesus is the one who died, but even more has been raised. He is at the right hand of God interceding for us.

His intercession is so very personal to you. It's so personal. Think of how a parent intercedes with the teacher for the child before the teacher. That parent is not pleading on behalf of the entire third grade class. They're speaking on behalf of their beloved child. The sports agent is not speaking on behalf of all baseball players everywhere. They're speaking on behalf of their client in particular.

So Jesus—His intercession is so extremely personal to each one of us. So extremely personal. His involvement personally in the sins of his people. Applying atonement to your particular sins. Moment by moment.

Look, can I just remind you of this? Yours is no generic salvation. It doesn't come to you like, "dear recipient, addressee"—it comes with your name on it. This is emphasized for us over and over in the gospel.

When you see Daniel here in chapter nine, he's praying, interceding on behalf of other sinners. I want you to thank Jesus. I want you to thank Jesus and actually put your name into this story. Take verses 17 through 19. I'm going to retell this but I'm going to use our names.

Therefore, our God, hear the prayer and the petitions of your servant. Make your face to shine on Sandra. For the Lord's sake, listen closely. My God, open the eyes and see the desolations of this people at Christ the King this morning that bears your name. For I'm not presenting our petitions before you based on James' righteousness, but based on your abundant compassion, Father. Lord, hear. Lord, forgive. Lord, listen and act. My God, for your own sake, do not delay because Joyce bears your name.

He prays this today. He prays this today over you and you and you and you. What a Savior! What a Savior for us. Do you have any idea how personal the work of Christ is—not just in the past, but in the right now for you?

Called to Be Priests

This tells us something more then. It tells us not only what Daniel did in his priestly prayer or what Jesus does in his priestly prayer, but it tells us something about you and me—that we are called to the office of priest. This is what First Peter tells us. You're an interceding priest. You're a chosen race. You're a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own possession so that you might proclaim the praises of the one who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Many of you, I think when we think about prayer, we think of prayer as a way that we get close to God. But no, that is not at all how prayer works. Prayer is the result of knowing how close you are to God.

Treasured by God

Daniel is told by the end of this passage how God sees him. Did you hear this? The very last verses here, Gabriel comes. The angel comes to him and says, "Daniel, you're treasured by God." Other translations say, "You are greatly loved by God."

How amazing is that? Think about Daniel's life. Everything in his life, all the circumstances make him possibly doubt that regularly. Taken from his home, name change, castrated, forced to serve in a foreign government. He didn't have any choice over these things. The circumstances of his life say anything but treasured and greatly loved.

And yet he hears this word. I want to say this—somebody needs to hear this this morning here. Greatly loved, treasured by God. Do you understand? That your God's love for you is not measured by the ease of your life.

So, for some of you, this is the one application point of the sermon today. Can I just give it to you right now? Can you learn to read yourself into this phrase in verse 23: "treasured by God, greatly loved by God"?

If I could make our congregation truly believe that, that would be my number one goal for this church. If you lived out of that, if you prayed out of that, if you approached your life out of that—greatly loved, greatly treasured. Henry Nouwen has this little book I just finished called Life of the Beloved, and that's his whole premise: You're the beloved. Live out of that.

You know, maybe you should do this this afternoon. Go home, take out the lipstick, write "treasured by God" on your bathroom mirror. Go take out the Sharpie, get in your car, write it on your rear view mirror. Don't tell the police I told you to do that. But this is how we need to see ourselves. This is who God is toward us.

Prayer Flows from Belief

And this shapes then what I mean about prayer. You know what? Lots of us, when we think about prayer, we think about it like calling my cellphone provider, my internet provider, talking to the person who does my taxes. Really excited about prayer. This is why we procrastinate prayer—because we don't believe this. We actually don't believe this.

But think about the way you feel about someone who really does treasure you, about talking with that person.

You don't procrastinate that unless it's just procrastinating to make sure you have enough time that it's uninterrupted. Think about someone in your life, past or present, who you'd say really loves you. Do you dread that time with that person? Do you dread speaking with them? No. This is how your heavenly Father is toward you. Greatly loved. Remember, His eyes are always filled with tears toward us. Tears of yes, sorrow over our sin, and tears of delight. Always tears though. Go to Him. Beloved of God, what a great privilege that you have. You have the ear of the God of the universe who delights in you. My word. Such wealthy people I get to speak to this morning.

Dare to Be a Daniel in Prayer

The second application of Daniel 9 is this: dare to be a Daniel in prayer. Learn to pray like Daniel. Learn to inhabit your priestly calling. If you're a believer, each one of you is representing other people before God. You have the privilege of acting like a priest, standing before the Lord and interceding for others.

I'm going to give you three principles and one boot camp at the end of the sermon. Ready? Three principles and one boot camp.

Principle One: Anchor Your Prayers in the Promises of God

Daniel's prayer was fueled by discovering a promise of God. Seven years and the exile is done, and he begins to pray. That's what fuels him to pray.

You might think, "I just wish there were some very specific prayers and promises in the Bible that we could pray." Don't you wish there were some promises that were kind of specific? It's too bad we don't have something like that. We don't have any promises that God's made to us that we could pray. I'm not putting enough sarcasm on that. You get what I'm saying, right?

How many promises are there in Scripture for you? That He will never leave you nor forsake you. That you have His Spirit without measure. That nothing can take you out of His hand. That He will forgive our sins and cleanse us. That not a hair can fall off our heads apart from the knowledge and will of God. That we are eternally in Christ. That He will make us holy. That He will bring us home.

Brothers and sisters, can you root your prayers in this? There is so much material in our Bible to fuel our prayers, to have us anchored in the promises of God.

Principle Two: Don't Give Up in Year 69

I'm sure Daniel was weary after seventy years in exile. In fact, this passage says, "I was weary." Would you pray for something for seventy years? I'm not sure I could pray for something for seventy minutes. But here's Daniel, hanging in. Hanging in with prayer. Hanging in with God.

Jesus teaches us to pray this way. He gives a parable of the widow who comes and knocks on the door of the judge at midnight, pleading and pleading and pleading her case. And He says the judge will get up and answer the door and will provide for her, not based on his own righteousness, but just based on her persistence. And He says, pray like that. Pray with that kind of persistence.

We see this worked out in the life of Daniel, and then in Daniel chapter 10, Daniel is praying about something else for twenty-one days with no answer. On the twenty-first day, this is what happens:

A hand touched me and set me shaking on my hands and knees. He said to me, "Daniel, you are a man greatly loved by God. From the first day you set your heart to humble yourself before your God, your words have been heard. And I have come because of your words. The prince of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, but Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me." — Daniel 10:10-13

What incredible words. Daniel, it's because of your prayers that God's at work in this world this way. Keep praying.

Principle Three: Intercede for Others

Plead with the Lord. Plead with the Lord for the wayward and for the prodigal and for the covenant child who's run and for the rebel.

One thing I love about being a pastor is I get to hear the stories and the behind-the-scenes stories in many of your lives of how you're here because someone else was praying. That's been a regular part of the testimonies of people joining our church. "I'm here because somebody was praying for me," and God used that. God was at work in that. There are so many people with stories like this.

Take up the ministry of intercession. And this is how you know you're doing it right: tears in your eyes. That reflects the heart of God for sinners. That's the heart of God toward us. It's the heart He'd have for us toward others.

Finally, boot camp. This is just a freebie.

I know that we don't know how to do this very well—how to inhabit the role of priest, how to call on God. So I have a really great opportunity for you coming up in January.

The Daniel Fast Partnership

Every year in January, we have a three-week partnership in prayer with our sister church in Mount Pleasant, on the south side of downtown. We're doing the Daniel Fast, and it's based on the fast that Daniel does in the first chapter of this book that we read early on this fall.

We spend three weeks praying together. There's a Zoom call every day really early in the morning. There's devotions that go out every day. There's some rails to run on to learn how to fast and pray, and it's a great opportunity for us.

Of course, it's not for everybody. Not everybody should be fasting from food. I mean, there's diets around that. But the purpose of the Daniel Fast is to learn to seek, to pray, and to humble ourselves and seek God together. It's not a diet. It's not like we're coming back from Christmas and we need to lose weight. This is an opportunity for us to grow our hunger and our practice of prayer.

Growing our hunger for God—and one of the reasons we fast and do this is, every time I'm hungry for burgers, for desserts, it reminds me, "Lord, that's what I want to be toward you." That's what a fast is. Growing our hunger for God, leveraging the hunger we have for physical things and saying, "Lord, give me that hunger for you."

It's a time of remembering God's promises. It's a time of encouragement and building each other up, training our hearts to long for more of God.

So I want to invite you to the boot camp. You'll get more information next month about the Daniel Fast and how to participate. You don't even have to fast. You can just pray. That would be great. But I want to invite you into this because we need training camp in order to know how to do this.

Closing Prayer

Let's go to the Word together in prayer.

Father, we thank you for the moment by moment intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ on behalf of us. That every day you apply the redemption of the cross to our lives in prayer over us. We thank you that you know us that completely and you treasure us that fully. Thank you for the tears that are always in the eyes of our Savior toward us—His great delight for us, His sadness for us in our rebellion, and His prayers that apply the gospel to our hearts every day.

Father, I pray that you would help us to live more and more out of what it means to be greatly loved by God, and that you would teach us to be intercessors for others. We pray this all in Christ's name. Amen.

Let's respond to God's Word together in song. Would you stand with me? Let's sing praise to the Lord.