Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. Hey, are
Speaker 1: you feeling stuck like maybe you've hit a wall and
Speaker 1: nothing's moving forward. Well, you're not alone and you're not
Speaker 1: without hope.
Speaker 2: You know, the Bible is full of people who faced.
Speaker 1: Impossible situations Mary, Noah, Joe, the Apostle, Paul. They all
Speaker 1: experienced one thing that changed everything, a breakthrough from God. Today,
Speaker 1: Pastor Rick begins his series called Seeking God for a Breakthrough.
Speaker 1: Rick walks us through biblical accounts of faith, prayer, and perseverance,
Speaker 1: reminding us that God still moves in powerful ways whether
Speaker 1: you're in a season of waiting or searching for hope.
Speaker 1: This series offers encouragement and biblical truth to help you
Speaker 1: keep going and get the breakthrough you need. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get started with part one of a message called
Speaker 1: how to Pray in a Crisis.
Speaker 3: In this passage, we're actually going to look at how
Speaker 3: to pray in a crisis.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 3: I hope you're not in a crisis right now, but
Speaker 3: you will be someday. So you need to take notes
Speaker 3: because Sunday you're going to where are those notes of
Speaker 3: Rick told me how to pray in a crisis? And
Speaker 3: you're going to want to come back to this to
Speaker 3: do what God tells you to do. Let's get right
Speaker 3: into it. There's six steps we see modeled in Daniel's
Speaker 3: life and in the prayer in this chapter on how
Speaker 3: to pray a prayer that God answers. Number one, here's
Speaker 3: the first step. Let God speak to me before I
Speaker 3: speak to him. Let God speak to me before I
Speaker 3: speak to him. This is called the listening step. You
Speaker 3: listen to the voice of God. How do you do that? Well,
Speaker 3: I'm going to explain it, but there's a principle you
Speaker 3: need to understand first, and it's this. God always makes
Speaker 3: the first move in your life. You don't.
Speaker 4: God is all.
Speaker 3: He is the initiator of everything in your life, and
Speaker 3: you are the responder. God never expects you to make
Speaker 3: the first move. He always makes the first move. The
Speaker 3: Bible says that we love him. We love God because
Speaker 3: He first loved us. God loved you a whole long
Speaker 3: time before you ever loved him. The Bible says that
Speaker 3: we serve God because God first served us, and he
Speaker 3: knew we had a problem, and he sent Jesus Christ
Speaker 3: to die on the cross for us, long before we
Speaker 3: even knew we had a problem. He served us before
Speaker 3: we served him. The Bible says, we give to God
Speaker 3: because God first gave to us.
Speaker 4: Everything you have in your life is a gift of God.
Speaker 3: The air you breathe, your life, your mind, your brain,
Speaker 3: everything you've got is a gift from God. God will
Speaker 3: never ask you to do something He hasn't already done
Speaker 3: for you. God never asked you to do something that
Speaker 3: he goes. Now, personally, I've never done this, but I'm
Speaker 3: expecting you to do it. God always initiates, we always respond.
Speaker 3: And that's even true with prayer. The reason we pray,
Speaker 3: the reason we talk to God, is because God.
Speaker 4: Has first talked to us in this book.
Speaker 3: In this book the Bible, written over three five hundred
Speaker 3: plus years, sixty six different authors that God inspired to
Speaker 3: write these words down that he wanted written down. There
Speaker 3: are literally thousands and thousands of promises from God to you,
Speaker 3: to you, And what we do in prayer is we
Speaker 3: claim the promises that He has said to us and said, God,
Speaker 3: you said this, so I'm asking you to do this.
Speaker 3: And God, you said that, so I'm asking you to
Speaker 3: do that. So the Bible says that prayer actually starts
Speaker 3: not with talking, but with listening. You listen to God. Now,
Speaker 3: how do you listen to God by reading this book
Speaker 3: or if you don't like to read listening to the Bible. Logically,
Speaker 3: you need to let God talk to you. Then you're
Speaker 3: going to know how to pray, what to pray, where
Speaker 3: to pray, when to pray, and all those things. Daniel
Speaker 3: did this. Now as we start this chapter nine, Daniel's
Speaker 3: an old guy. Now, he's eighty five years old. He
Speaker 3: started in the very first session on Daniel, he's fifteen.
Speaker 4: Years old, the prisoner of war.
Speaker 3: He's now gone through multiple changes in his life. Test
Speaker 3: after test after test after test. He keeps getting promoted,
Speaker 3: higher in authority, higher in power. He's now served three
Speaker 3: different kings. And we know that the Babylonians defeated the Assyrians,
Speaker 3: and then the Persians defeated the Babylonians, and so now
Speaker 3: he's got a new boss. He's survived every administration and
Speaker 3: no matter what the government was going on around him,
Speaker 3: he keeps getting promoted, but he wants to go home
Speaker 3: before he dies. He's eighty five years old, and he
Speaker 3: knows that God had said in the Book of Jeremiah
Speaker 3: that you'll be and drew in Babylon for seventy years,
Speaker 3: and then I'm going to bring my people back back
Speaker 3: to Israel. And he knows times up, but he also
Speaker 3: knows that the people israel lights have not turned back
Speaker 3: to God. Seventy years later, They're still as messed up
Speaker 3: as they were before. And he goes, We're not any
Speaker 3: closer to God than we were seventy years ago. And
Speaker 3: I'm afraid God's just going to leave us here in
Speaker 3: Babylon and not bring us back to Israel. So this
Speaker 3: is his crisis, and here's how it starts. Daniel, Chapter nine,
Speaker 3: verse one. It was the first year the reign of
Speaker 3: Darius the Mead, who was made king of Babylon the
Speaker 3: Babylonians by Cyrus, who was a Persian. You know, Babylon
Speaker 3: is Iraq, Persia is Iran today. And he says, during
Speaker 3: the first year of his reign, I Daniel was studying
Speaker 3: the scriptures, and I learned from the word of the Lord,
Speaker 3: as recorded by Jeremiah the Prophet, that Jerusalem must lie
Speaker 3: for seventy years. It was destroyed, and he said it
Speaker 3: won't be rebuilt until after seventy years. You guys get
Speaker 3: to go back home. Now, I want you to circle,
Speaker 3: if you're taking notes, circle the phrase studying the scripture,
Speaker 3: and circle the phrase learned from the word. Study the scriptures,
Speaker 3: learn from the Word. You will never pray effectively until
Speaker 3: you study the scriptures and you learn from the Word,
Speaker 3: until you get into this book every single day. Now,
Speaker 3: the more you know this book the Bible, the more
Speaker 3: prayers you're going to have answered. If you're ignorant of
Speaker 3: this book, you don't know how to pray, you don't
Speaker 3: know what to pray, you don't know when to pray.
Speaker 3: You don't know the promises that God has made to you.
Speaker 3: And so you got to read a little bit of
Speaker 3: this book every single day of your life so you
Speaker 3: can learn those promises that God has made to you.
Speaker 3: Let me show you this. Here's what Jesus said up
Speaker 3: here on the screen. In John chapter fifteen. Jesus said,
Speaker 3: if you stay connected to me and my word words
Speaker 3: remain in your heart. What's he talking about? The Bible?
Speaker 3: He says, these words remain in your heart. He says,
Speaker 3: if you follow those two conditions, you may ask any
Speaker 3: request you want in prayer and it will be given
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 4: Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3: Whoah, that's pretty much a blank check right there. You
Speaker 3: can ask whatever you want in prayer and it'll be
Speaker 3: given to you. Now, he says, notice this verse. If
Speaker 3: I'm praying and I'm not getting an answer, the first
Speaker 3: thing I need to check is am I meeting these
Speaker 3: two conditions? Am I staying connected to God?
Speaker 4: God?
Speaker 3: Is there anything between me and you that's out a whack?
Speaker 3: Is there any fellowship broken? Is there something in my
Speaker 3: life that I know is wrong and you know it's wrong,
Speaker 3: and you said for me to get right and I
Speaker 3: haven't got it right yet. That is a break in
Speaker 3: the connection with God. But he said, if you stay
Speaker 3: connected to me, you're in harmony with me. And he says,
Speaker 3: my words, this book is in your mind, in your heart.
Speaker 3: You ask anything you want in prayer and it will
Speaker 3: be done. So if I'm not getting the answer, that's
Speaker 3: one of the two problems. That's one of the two
Speaker 3: conditions that need to be met. So Daniel is saying,
Speaker 3: I'm going to study the word.
Speaker 4: I'm going to have it in me.
Speaker 3: The more you fill your mind with this book, the
Speaker 3: more you memorize some like Bible verses, the more answers
Speaker 3: you're going to have in your life. Now, this is
Speaker 3: so important to your life that I want to help you.
Speaker 3: I want to help you develop the habit of you
Speaker 3: never go to bed any day of your life without
Speaker 3: spending at least a little bit of time, even if
Speaker 3: it's a minute or two minutes, reading a little bit
Speaker 3: of the Bible and then talking to God for a
Speaker 3: minute or two or whatever. Now, last week we saw
Speaker 3: that Daniel did this three times a day. He had
Speaker 3: the habit, And I said, you think your life would
Speaker 3: be any different if you had a conversation with God
Speaker 3: three times a day your entire life, which he did
Speaker 3: for over seventy years. Well, no wonder he missed a
Speaker 3: lot of problems. No wonder he knew how to be wise.
Speaker 3: No wonder he get kept, gotten promoted. He's talking to
Speaker 3: God every day. I do this all the time as
Speaker 3: I go through my day. I don't talk to God
Speaker 3: once a day. I talk to God all the time.
Speaker 3: And as I'm getting ready to go in the meeting,
Speaker 3: I go, Okay, God, I'm going to need your guidance
Speaker 3: in here. I don't know what you want to say
Speaker 3: to these people. I don't know what they want to
Speaker 3: say to me. I don't know what the problem is.
Speaker 3: Help me to know the right thing. I'm depending on
Speaker 3: you to give me the wisdom, the guidance and the
Speaker 3: power to do what it is. And I got out
Speaker 3: of that meeting a little the next thing and the
Speaker 3: whole day. One of my prayers is often two words,
Speaker 3: what's next? What's the next?
Speaker 4: Lord? What do you want to do?
Speaker 3: And I'm always seeking God, checking in with him. Now,
Speaker 3: I want to teach you this habit of having a
Speaker 3: little bit of daily reading the Bible and praying, talking
Speaker 3: to God two or three times a day, at least
Speaker 3: three times a day, because it will revolutionize your life. Men,
Speaker 3: it'll make you a strong man. It'll make you more confident.
Speaker 3: It'll make you less fearful.
Speaker 4: Same thing.
Speaker 3: Women, It'll make you a stronger woman. It'll make you
Speaker 3: more confident, it will make.
Speaker 4: You less fearful. If you will develop a habit of multiple.
Speaker 3: Times a day you have a conversation with God, you
Speaker 3: let him talk to you, and you talk to him,
Speaker 3: you will handle your stress better. It will improve every
Speaker 3: single area of your life. I guarantee it all right.
Speaker 3: In chapter one, Daniel is worried about the crisis in
Speaker 3: his life. And so he starts reading this book by Jeremiah.
Speaker 3: Now here's the thing. Daniel and Jeremiah are contemporaries. They
Speaker 3: lived at the same time. When Babylon crushed Israel, Daniel's
Speaker 3: taking a captive for the prisoner award at to Babylon.
Speaker 3: Jeremiah is left behind in a defeated, broken city called Jerusalem.
Speaker 3: And in Jeremiah's book, God tells him those guys are
Speaker 3: going to be there for seventy years. And Daniel reads
Speaker 3: this and he starts getting hope. Here's what you want
Speaker 3: to know what Daniel read. It's the next verse Jeremiah
Speaker 3: chapter twenty nine when.
Speaker 4: He said I was studying the scripture. Here's what he
Speaker 4: was studying.
Speaker 3: God says this to you. You will be kept in
Speaker 3: Babylon for seventy years, but then I'll keep my gracious
Speaker 3: promise to bring you back to your home again. For
Speaker 3: I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.
Speaker 4: I have good.
Speaker 3: Plans for you, not plans for your disaster. My plans
Speaker 3: will give you hope and a future. And in those
Speaker 3: days when you pray, I will listen. Now where if
Speaker 3: you've been around church for an length time, you know
Speaker 3: that verse. In fact, we even got a song about it.
Speaker 3: I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord,
Speaker 3: plans to prosser for you, not to harm you.
Speaker 4: God says, I.
Speaker 3: Have a plan for your life. It's a plan for
Speaker 3: your success. It's not a plan for your defeat. It's
Speaker 3: good plan. It'll give you hope, it'll give you a future.
Speaker 3: God says this to you. We know that verse, but
Speaker 3: we often leave off the last phrase, which says, in
Speaker 3: those days when you pray, I will listen. Now I
Speaker 3: want you to listen very carefully. God says this to
Speaker 3: you this weekend. I made you for a purpose. I
Speaker 3: have a plan for your life. But it's not automatic.
Speaker 3: You can miss it. You can miss my plan and
Speaker 3: purpose for your life. In fact, most people miss God's
Speaker 3: plan and purpose for their life. He said, there are
Speaker 3: two factors. I've promised to rescue you. I'm going to
Speaker 3: bring you back home. I'm going to do the things
Speaker 3: you need done in your life. But he says, there
Speaker 3: are two factors involved in you fulfilling your purpose in life.
Speaker 3: Write these down. God's timing and my praying. God's timing
Speaker 3: and my praying, and both of these have an important
Speaker 3: role in what God wants to do in your life.
Speaker 3: God's timing when he's going to do it, and you
Speaker 3: you are praying when you ask him to do it.
Speaker 3: Both of these are extremely important. So let me explain
Speaker 3: what that verse just said. In Jeremiah, God says this,
Speaker 3: I got a plan for you or life. I didn't
Speaker 3: make you without a purpose. I created you for a
Speaker 3: purpose and plan. And my plan for.
Speaker 4: You is good. But it has a timetable.
Speaker 3: And he says to these guys specifically, he says, I'm
Speaker 3: not gonna cut short my plan. You're gonna be in
Speaker 3: Babylon for seventy years, he said, But and I'm not
Speaker 3: gonna cut it short one day short. You're not coming
Speaker 3: home one day sooner. You're gonna be there for seventy years.
Speaker 3: So that's my plan and that's my attention. But don't worry.
Speaker 3: It's a good plan. But he says, when the time
Speaker 3: is right for me to fulfill your plan, you're all
Speaker 3: going to go back home.
Speaker 4: Then you're gonna have to do something.
Speaker 3: You're gonna have to pray, and he says, and when
Speaker 3: you pray, I will listen. Now I want you to
Speaker 3: notice this. This is a very important verse in the Bible.
Speaker 3: Here we see God's sovereignty. He's in control and your responsibility.
Speaker 3: You got something to do. God determines the timing of
Speaker 3: his plan and purpose for your life. But when the
Speaker 3: timing is right, you're still gonna have to pray because
Speaker 3: he's not going to do it until you ask. He's
Speaker 3: not going to force his plan on you. Ever, you
Speaker 3: have to ask. Notice this verse on the screen, James,
Speaker 3: Chapter four, Verse two. You do not have what you
Speaker 3: need because you do.
Speaker 4: Not ask God for it.
Speaker 3: So you're telling me that God has some things he
Speaker 3: wants to do in my life that are cool and
Speaker 3: good and great, but they're going to happen unless I
Speaker 3: ask for it. That's exactly what I'm telling you. God
Speaker 3: has timing, but you have praying, and some things have
Speaker 3: not happened in your life because you've never asked God
Speaker 3: for them. You've never asked God to do them in
Speaker 3: your life. He says, I intend to do it when
Speaker 3: I'm ready. That's timing, but you've got to pray for
Speaker 3: it to happen. You have not because you ask not.
Speaker 3: Now this leaves a little quandary in your life. You've
Speaker 3: gone through this for how do I know when I'm
Speaker 3: waiting on God? And how do I know when God's
Speaker 3: waiting on me? Here's a good question.
Speaker 4: Okay. He was like, you know, I really have this big.
Speaker 3: Dream for my life, and I really think this is
Speaker 3: what God wants me to.
Speaker 4: Do with my life. But I don't know.
Speaker 3: It hadn't happened yet. So am I waiting on God?
Speaker 3: Or is God waiting on me?
Speaker 4: Well? This explains it right here.
Speaker 3: What it means is this, if I've asked for God
Speaker 3: to do something really great in my life, and I've
Speaker 3: prayed about it and I've asked, and there's nothing between
Speaker 3: me and God. As far as I know, I'm doing
Speaker 3: what he wants me to do. There's no big sin
Speaker 3: that's over here in this corner that I'm going. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I know God wants me to do this, but I
Speaker 3: haven't done it. And if I've asked God, and like
Speaker 3: Jesus said, I'm connected to God, we're all copasetic, we're
Speaker 3: all we're in harmony me with God and I'm in
Speaker 3: the Bible.
Speaker 4: I'm reading the Bible every day. His words in me.
Speaker 3: If I pray and I ask, and that's all true,
Speaker 3: and I haven't had the answer. Yet then I'm waiting
Speaker 3: on God. It has all to do with his timing.
Speaker 3: I'm just waiting for God. God says I'll do it,
Speaker 3: but I'm just going to do it in my timing,
Speaker 3: and I just need to be patient. On the other hand,
Speaker 3: if I have something really great that i would like
Speaker 3: for God to do in my life, and I've always
Speaker 3: wanted God to do it, but I've never asked I've
Speaker 3: never asked God to do it, never ask for God's help,
Speaker 3: never ask for God's guidance in my dream. Then God's
Speaker 3: waiting on you. If you haven't prayed about it, God is.
Speaker 4: Waiting on you. You have not because you ask not.
Speaker 3: So let me just start with this first point by
Speaker 3: asking a very personal question.
Speaker 4: What do you really want in life?
Speaker 3: What do you really want in life? But you've never
Speaker 3: asked God for it? Did you know that the Bible
Speaker 3: says you can ask God for anything? You can ask
Speaker 3: God for anything. First step, listen to God. I read
Speaker 3: a little bit a word, I let God speak to me.
Speaker 3: Then I talk to him. Now here's step two. Step
Speaker 3: two is focus my attention on God. This is the
Speaker 3: second step in the kind of prayer that God gets answered,
Speaker 3: so focus my attention on God. And in Daniel chapter nine,
Speaker 3: verse three, it says this, so I turned my face
Speaker 3: to the Lord seeking him. All right, circle the phrase
Speaker 3: turned my face. I turned my face to the Lord
Speaker 3: seeking him. Husbands, let me talk to you for just
Speaker 3: a minute. I'm going to give you a marriage tip
Speaker 3: that will pay great dividends in your life the rest
Speaker 3: of your life. I have noticed, and I've developed this
Speaker 3: habit that whenever Kay talks to me, I turn my
Speaker 3: face toward her. Physically, whenever she starts talking, I literally
Speaker 3: turn my face toward her. And you know what I've learned.
Speaker 4: He likes it.
Speaker 3: In fact, she loves it that because when you turn
Speaker 3: your face to somebody, it's that you have my undivided attention.
Speaker 3: I'm totally focused on you.
Speaker 4: You like this?
Speaker 3: Yeah, all the wives are clapping right now. Okay, great, great, yeah, okay, Uh.
Speaker 4: Everybody likes this.
Speaker 3: When you talk, you want people to turn their focus
Speaker 3: to you. Pity the poor substitute teacher who stands up
Speaker 3: in class and she's trying to teach and nobody's looking
Speaker 3: at her, and it's like in the old Peanuts cartoons.
Speaker 3: Wow wow wa wow wow whah and she's just blathering on.
Speaker 3: Nobody's tuned in, nobody's listening. Turning your face shows attention.
Speaker 3: When my kids were little, they used to grab me
Speaker 3: by their face and look at me, daddy. You're not
Speaker 3: paying attention. Look at me, daddy. They wanted eye to
Speaker 3: eye contact. That is the highest gift you give anybody
Speaker 3: is your attention. It's more important than chocolate, roses or money,
Speaker 3: giving your kids, your wife. Your attention is the highest
Speaker 3: gift because your attention.
Speaker 2: Is your life. Hey, thanks for listening to Pastor Rick's
Speaker 2: Daily Hope.
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Speaker 3: make disciples of all nations, baptize them in the name
Speaker 3: of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and
Speaker 3: teach them to do everything I've commanded you. And surely
Speaker 3: I'm with you to the very end of the age.
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Speaker 1: We hope you'll join us next time. As we look
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