Love bugs. Tell you what. That's great. Appreciate that, John and drama team. You know, you think about what is the most important thing in your life. And it shows up in lots of different ways before we talk about that. It's my duty as a male to remind every man that this Wednesday is Valentine's Day. And just don't say you weren't worn, you know now. But think of Valentine's Day. That should be at least one of the most important things in your life coming up if you're married. Valentine's Day makes you think of romance. One of the things that philosophers and poets have debated for centuries is why does love wane? You know, you love typically comes on with this powerful rush. And then it seems to fade. Why is that? And so they talked about that. Well, a number of years ago there was an article in the Orlando Sentinel, a man named John Bowers who was a, I believe a chemical engineer, he studies why ground water and things get polluted. He came up with a solution to this mystery of the ages. And he said, essentially it's a chemical problem hormones. So when you meet someone you're attracted to them, your brain produces the abundance of hormones, serotonin and dopamine and these different things. And they flood your brain. And so they make you feel good. And after about 15 months to three years, it all begins to fade. And that feeling is gone and you're no longer in love. So essentially that's the way nature designed us. So would move on from spouse to spouse and propagate the species. And his thing was just go with the flow. And you know, you think about that. You're saying essentially that love is nothing more than a chemical reaction. It's that you're really no different from the tree. Every spine to photosynthesis that you don't really fall in love. You just get high on hormones. And it seems to reduce humanity quite a bit. But we still have to wonder why is it though? It still seems to be a reality that oftentimes people will fall in love and then after a while it begins to fade. And it doesn't only happen in romantic relationships, it happens in our relationship with God. We all know about this. At times it seems like someone will come to know Christ, they'll see his beauty, they fall in love with them. But after a period of time their love for Christ begins to wane. And it shows in many different ways, just a lack of desire to get to know Him. And it'll show up in a number of ways, but I think the way it shows up mostly is in our prayer life. If you want to make any Christian feel guilty, all you have to do is say, how's your prayer life? And everyone immediately gets feeling guilty. Oh, I know I shouldn't pray as much as I should. I know I should pray. And we begin to feel that way. And the question is, why is it that we don't pray? Is it that we simply we like discipline? If our more discipline, I would pray more. There's a truth to that. But I think there's something even greater. Most of us have the ability to do those things which we enjoy and which we really want to do. We find time for those things. So the really the question is, why don't we want to pray? Is the real issue? Why is it that at one time we were so in love with God that prayer was a delight and where now it becomes a discipline like exercise and dieting? And to answer that question, I think it leads us to two other conclusions. One is, either we don't think we need to pray. We don't see the need for the power of God in our lives. Or because we're getting fulfillment for so many different other things, such as the people who prayed it across this stage. Or number two, we don't pray because we don't believe God would want to answer our prayers. And so if you don't think you need to pray, why bother? And if you don't think he's going to answer your prayer, why bother? Well, as we turn to Daniel chapter 9, we see a prayer of Daniel, which is one of the richest prayers in scripture. It's a model for us in many ways of how we ought to pray. And it begins to address these two issues of why we need to pray and why God delights to answer our prayers. And so, turn with me to Daniel chapter 9, as we learn more about prayer through looking at the prayer of Daniel. This is God's Word. In the first year of Darius, son of Zurich, he's a meat by descent, who has made ruler over the Babylonian kingdom. In the first year of his reign, I Daniel understood from the scriptures according to the word of the Lord, giving to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last 70 years. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition and fasting and in sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and confess. O Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of love with all who love him and obey his commands, we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and we have rebelled. We have turned away from your commandments and laws. We have not listened to your servant, the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers into all the people of the land. Lord, you are righteous, but this day we are covered with shame, the men of Judah and the people in Jerusalem and all of Israel both near and far and in all the countries where you have scattered us because of our unfaithfulness to you. O Lord, we and our kings, our princes and our fathers are covered with shame because we have sinned against you. The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him, we have not obeyed the Lord our God or kept the laws he gave us through his servants, the prophets. All Israel has transgressed your law and turned away refusing to obey you. The curses and sworn judgments written in the law of Moses, the servants of God, have import out on us because we are sinned against you. You have fulfilled the words spoken against us and brought against our rulers by bringing upon us great disaster. Under the whole heavens, nothing has ever been done like what has been done to Jerusalem. 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 sins and giving attention to your truth. The Lord did not hesitate to bring the disaster upon us, for the Lord our God is righteous in everything he does, yet we have not obeyed him. Now, O Lord our God, who brought your people out of Egypt with a mighty hand and who made for yourself a name that endures to this day, we have sinned, we have done wrong, O Lord, and keeping with all your righteous acts, turn away your anger and your wrath from Jerusalem, your city, your holy hill. Our sins and ouriquities of our fathers have made Jerusalem and your people an object of scorn to all those around us. Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, O Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. Give ear, O God, and hear, open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, listen, O Lord, forgive, O Lord, hear and act for your sake, O my God, do not delay because your city and your people bear your name. This is God's word. We'll be looking at this prayer again next week, but this morning as we look at it we're going to look at two things related to why we pray and where do we find motivation to pray. The first motivation we find is number one, we are motivated to pray when we see our need. We are motivated to pray when we see our need. One of the reasons that we do not pray is that we don't really believe we need the power of God in our lives. Of course, we wouldn't say it that way because that wouldn't sound too Christian. But it really is the net effect that we don't really believe that. We look at our lives when we think it's under control or I can get it under control if I just do a few certain things. And so we don't see the need for the power of God to come crashing into our lives. That's the same reason we don't pray the same reason a man doesn't ask for directions. A man never asks for directions because to ask for directions means you're lost and no real man ever admits he's lost. And so we don't ask for help because we want to do it on our own. Same thing about prayer. I don't need help. I don't need someone to come in and intervene here. I can make this on my own. I know I'm lost but if I keep just going right around here I'm sure I'll find my way and that's the way we approach life. Daniel had no trouble praying. The reason Daniel had no trouble praying is because Daniel knew he was desperate. He saw in his situation, he saw the condition he was in and he realized that he needed help and let's review again where Daniel is. Daniel when he was a young man was taken from his home in Jerusalem and taken as a captive to the kingdom of Babylon. His homeland was devastated. It was wiped completely clean. The temple was lays in ruins and his now doesn't even have one stone upon another. And so Daniel is in this foreign land subdued by foreign power. His nation is desolate. His people are living in captivity. He is now an older man. It's been over 60 years since Jerusalem fell and since he was taken into captivity. Over 60 years since he was taken into captivity he's there. An older man, he looks around and he sees nothing changing. The Babylonian empire is gone but the needs of the Persians has replaced it and there's no hope that Israel is going to be restored that he can see. It looks like the people of God are destined to be a footnote in history and nothing more. And then he turns and he begins to read the Bible and he's reading that the prophet, the scroll, the prophet Jeremiah. If you're not familiar with Jeremiah, he's called the weeping prophet. The reason Jeremiah wept so much is because he was living in the days of Judah and Jerusalem and he told them that they were going to be destroyed and he told them why they were going to be destroyed. So Jeremiah is just a words of judgment and judgment and judgment. Daniel is reading these. And as he's reading this he gets to what is now chapter 25 and he begins to read there how the captivity will only last 70 years. He's looking around and it doesn't look like the captivity is going to end anytime soon and he realizes if God's going to bless his people, if his condition is going to change then God is going to have to work. There's nothing he can do to fix it. He's desperate. He's in trouble and he prays. And so at this point you may be saying, well Mark that's interesting. I can understand why Daniel would pray. If I were a captain in a foreign country my people were devastated, I'd pray. I mean I'd be really motivated at that point but I'm not desperate. I've got a nice house, a nice car, nice kids, nice wife, a nice 401k. And I've got my problems but I think I can handle it. I mean life's pretty much under control. Daniel realized something through the captivity that we don't realize. What Daniel realized through the captivity is we are not in control even though we might think that we are. Daniel for 60 years has been living in Babylon and what he learned during this time was the reason the people of Israel were in Babylon is because they thought they can make it on their own. They thought that they could live independently of God. The reason they were taken as captives into Babylon was for God to show them that they couldn't make it on their own. As Daniel, as you read throughout this prayer, the prayer begins in verse 4. It continues on to verse 19. Three-fourths of the prayer. He goes three-fourths of the way through the prayer before he even begins to make his request. For three-fourths of the prayer, he's confessing. He's repenting. He's acknowledging his sin before God. And so it's a prayer confession. And in these verses Daniel is confessing the sins of this nation. They sinned against God because they disobeyed God. They had followed idols instead. In Jeremiah chapter 2, God outlines why the judgment Daniel was enduring came about. Jeremiah chapter 2 verse 13. God says this. He says, my people have committed two sins. Here are the two sins for which they are being judged. They have forsaken me the springs of living water and have dug their own sisters, broken sisters, that cannot hold water. Two sins. They forsaken God and they dug their own sisters. What does that mean? A few weeks ago Ted Sin preached on this verse in an excellent job. And if you were here, you heard Ted explain that a sister and more like sisters were like these holes in the grounds. Almost like caves that were to catch rainwater and they were to could store water during a drought. The Middle East would have many times great droughts. And so to survive, you had these sisters that would provide water for you. And what God was saying is they forsaken God the spring of living water who is to give them life and instead of turning to God for life, they turned to other things, to idols, to other things to give them life. And these are sister and broken sisters that cannot hold water. Instead of trusting in God, they trusted in other things. Just like all the characters we saw creating across the stage, rather than looking to God to give life, we looked to so many other things, different things to give us life. So we look at sin and we think that sin is breaking a rule. We think the reason that God judged these people is because they were in sin, true. But we limit sin simply to breaking a rule. For example, a sin is no don't drink smoke or chew or go with girls or do. And if I can keep that rule, then I'm okay. And so the way we look at life, and even the way we confess sin, you get to the end of the day and you say, you know, I need to confess up. I get clean with God and so I'm going to confess my sin. And so we begin to think about the rules we've broken. Have I lied? I'm not having lied. Have I taken Lord's name in vain? Don't think so. Been deceitful. Well, that time didn't count. And we begin to go through and we sign inside what sins to confess. And what we're doing is we're looking at simply the rules that we've broken. But if you look at what Jeremiah says sin, his sin is more than just breaking a rule, the breaking the rules is sin, but there's a sin beneath the sin which is turning to something other than God for satisfaction. For example, Jesus in the New Testament condemns a particular group of people as being the worst sinners of all. Who were these terrible sinners? The prostitutes? The drunks? The cheats? No. The worst sinners that Jesus condemns were the Pharisees. Who were the Pharisees? They were the best rulekeepers the world has ever known. They kept the laws of God lawlessly. They gave to the poor. If they had been here, they would give generously to the building program and work in the nursery. They would do everything. They kept all the rules. They did everything they had to do. They were good people. Good people. That God says the worst of sinners. Why? Because they were seeking to live independently of God by saying, look God, here I've earned it. Here's what I've done. I've earned your favor. And they're looking at their good works as a means to earn God's favor. There are two ways which you can live independently of God. You can live independently of God through immorality by breaking His laws. You're saying, God, you have no right to tell me what to do. Or you can live independently of God even through morality by saying, God, I'm going to do certain things or find my satisfaction in things other than you. And they can even be good things. And so if we are not praying because we don't see our need for God, we're doing the very thing that led them to the Babylonian captivity. We're digging sisters. We're saying, I'm depending on my job. I'm depending on people's approval. I'm depending on fashion. I'm depending on whatever the things that came across the stage, rather than God to be my source of life. And Daniel said that because of that, God took them into captivity and He judged them. And by taking them into captivity, God was sending one simple message, you are not in control. I am in control. You need me. And without me, you're hopeless. That's what the captivity taught them. And we need to learn the same lesson. You're not in control of your life. I'm not in control of my life. Only God is in control. You're saying, I'm secure. I've got everything under control. It's manageable. I've got a good plan for the future. A great wake-up call happened a few weeks ago. You're all familiar with AT&T, company has been around for about 100 years. No AT&T has never missed a dividend. If you have AT&T stock, that means something. And a whole lot of people have AT&T stock. That's how they were living their retirement. If you had AT&T stock 100 years without missing a dividend, you're thinking, I'm pretty secure. You know what they did this year? But they did this year. First time ever. They were paying dividends close to $1 a year. They cut it down to a few pennies a year. Now multiply this out. Let's say you retired from AT&T. Your whole retirement is in this. What does that mean? It means this week you have money next week you don't. And that's happening to a whole lot of people. And they were secure. They thought they had a good plan. I talked to people this church one Sunday. They're saying how healthy they are. The next Sunday, they have a debilitating illness. I talked to people this church one Sunday. They're talking about what a great marriage they have. The next Sunday, they say I can't believe it. My marriage is falling apart. One Sunday, my kids are doing great. The next Sunday, I don't know what's wrong with my children. And it happens just like that because we are not in control. And so for us to think that we can make it through life on our own without prayerlessness is falling. With prayerlessness and saying Lord, I don't need you. So the reason we need to pray is from the lessons that Daniel teaches us that we cannot make it on our own, that we desperately need God. So how do we pray? We pray like Daniel did. We begin by confessing. Lord, I'm living independently. I'm living independently through my rebellious acts. I'm living independently through finding pleasure and other things. But we begin by confessing and repenting before God and acknowledging that we desperately need Him. So we see our need for prayer. That deals with one reason why we fail to pray. But there's another reason why we often fail to pray. And that comes from the second one oftentimes is oftentimes we don't think that God delights to answer our prayer. In fact, right now you're saying, well, Mark, great. You just convinced me I'm the center. Thanks. Feel good. And I now realize that I've fallen way short of God, not only by breaking the rules but by living independently. Now, why would God want to answer a prayer as a person like me? I mean, okay, I see my need for God. But if I'm God, I don't want to answer a prayer as a person like me. I want to answer the prayers that people are faithful. In fact, dangling begins his prayer as something on that note. He said, again, verse four, oh, Lord, the great and awesome God who keeps his covenant of love with whom, with all who love him and obey his commands. Well, what about those who don't love him and don't obey his commands? What about me? You know, what is God doing in that case? Well, that leads to our second point. What we are motivated to pray when we see God's grace. We are motivated to pray when we see God's grace. What started off the prayer of Daniel? What got him going? He was reading his Bible. He came to Jeremiah 25 and he reads where God promises that the captivity will last 70 years and he's been there for over 60. He also realizes that even though the people of God had been unfaithful, even though they had done all sorts of detestable acts, even though they had not turned to God, God promised that he would graciously restore them. And so, suddenly he realizes that it isn't because of what they do, but it's because of what God does that he answers prayer. That the whole prayer comes to climax in verse 18. Here's what he says, give ear, oh God, and hear. Open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your name. And here, this is the key verse right here. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous but because of your great mercy. If you have trouble praying because you don't think God wants to hear your prayer, memorize this verse. In fact, you only have to memorize the last half. He says we do not make requests of you because we are righteous but because of your great mercy. The reason we go before God and ask for an answer to our prayers is not because we've done anything to earn it or deserve it, but only because he's merciful. So Mark, that's good, but I've done that and at some point, God's got to get fed up. What point does grace run out here? Don't I need to at least prove to God I'm serious this time? I mean, I really am serious but before I can go to God in prayer, I have to show him I mean it. I have to show him I'm really serious so I need to clean up my act before I can go and ask him for anything. I can't just live this way and then go to him and expect him to fix everything. Well, that seems logical, but what we realized is you can't clean up your act. You can't reform your heart. Even the best deeds that you do, the scripture says, are filthy rags before God. We cannot earn it. We cannot deserve it. We only come to him by his grace. You know, one of the things that bothered the people in Daniel's day the most was it was a huge problem for the people living in exile was that the temple had been destroyed. And the temple was not only the seat of God's presence among them, but it was also the place where they would go and offer sacrifices. If you sin, how did you deal with your sin? You offered a sacrifice and then God would forgive you of your sins based on the sacrifice and then you're restoring your right relationship with God. Well, now they had all this sin, this tons and tons of sin and yet they couldn't make any sacrifices for their sins. So how the world could God forgive them if they couldn't even sacrifice for their sins? And Daniel begins to realize it's not based on the sacrifice that God forgives. It's based on God's mercy. The blood of bulls and goats, the scripture, tell us, never saved anyone. God never forgave anyone because of a sacrifice of an animal. The pay for the sins of a human being, a human being had to die. And so God provided the sacrifice 2,000 years ago when he laid his son on the cross to pay for us. All those sacrifices in the Old Testament simply were pointing to God's sacrifice. We don't even make the sacrifice. God's the one who makes the sacrifice for our sins. And so we begin to see that it's all by grace, none of it's by work. Occasionally, I like to go for a bike ride and I go by myself so I can have time to pray and I haven't been biking lately. But this week, the last few weeks, it's been real busy. It's been early mornings late nights and Thursday morning came around and I just slept late and just refused to get up and didn't have anything early. And so all of a sudden it's getting close to 9 o'clock and I get up and I decide to go for a bike ride. And I see Trisha there and she said it off to the women's Bible study here and I'm going, you know, this is really irresponsible of me. I've got this to-do list that's growing like Kudzu. And I'm going to go for a bike ride. And she said, well, you'll pray, won't you? I don't think so. I'll pray. And her whole point was, well, then it's probably not a waste of time if you go and pray. And it's probably pretty good for pastors to pray and that's not a bad thing and you're not wasting your day if you go and pray. So some off on my bike and I'm praying and I start off and I'm praying but just about billions of things that go through my head. And as I pray, this probably happens to you too. I start praying and I'm thinking about praying about this thing and my mind goes to solving whatever it is I'm praying. I go to all the scenarios to how to deal with it, you know, I mean, just everything and also I realize I've stopped praying and now I'm just talking to myself. And I said, oh, Lord, forgive me. I'm so sorry. And I'll start back and I'll pray. I'll go on a little bit and the same thing happens. And then again, it's kept happening repeatedly, repeatedly. And so finally, I'm getting the point. I'm extremely frustrated and I said, God, I can't even pray. I mean, I can't, I've been praying. Now, I'm thinking, now if I have a medicine, my employee, he can't even pray. I'm getting a new one. I mean, this is going to work. You know, let me get a minister here, at least knows how to pray. I've called this problem. And I think, you know, what do I do? And so I just pray. So Lord, you know, I don't, you know, I don't blame you. You know, if you love me, you're going to have to help me pray. You're just going to have to break through all this noise in my head and shut me up so that I can focus on you. And God did. I mean, I began to pray. I began to feel like my prayers were being heard. I'd like to say it was the best prayer time I've ever had in my life. It would make the sermon so much better. But that's not it. It was still a struggle. It was still a struggle that I was able to pray some, and I look at that as God graciously enabling me. But you know what part of my problem was? I was saying, you know, how's God going to ever bless this church if I can't even focus and pray? And I know what I was doing was, there's some truth to that, that God only works through prayer. But what I was doing is I was reducing prayer to a work that I do to earn God's favor. That's not it. I was reducing prayer. Instead of a means by which I received God's mercy, I was saying, okay, if I'm going to get God to bless, then I got to do this. It was a formula. It was a means to get to it. It was a work. And I was losing the very sight of prayer. In other words, I was doing the very opposite of what prayer should be. Because what I was thinking is, in order for God to bless, I have to earn it. And even I was making prayer into a work. And when you do that, prayer ceases to be prayer. And say all this to make a point. And the point is, stop trying to earn God's grace. If you earn it, it's not grace. I definition. You can't earn mercy. You can't earn grace. And you can't even earn it through a better prayer life. Instead, confess your prayerlessness. Confess the fact that at times you don't really believe you need God, that you think you're sufficient on your own. Confess to Him that you don't even believe He wants to hear your prayers. And confess to Him that even you're afraid to come to Him, even because of your prayerlessness. And confess it all to Him. But don't sin the other way by thinking that somehow your prayer is going to merit God's favor. You're defeating your own purpose at that point. Because if you're going to depend on your discipline to earn God's mercy, you're going to fail miserably every single time. Instead, we turn to prayer as a call for mercy. And your prayers will only grow in vitality and meaning as you come to depend more and more upon Him for His grace. And so, if we are going to learn to pray, we first have to learn to trust. And we need to begin to fill our minds with how faithful and true God is and to realize that He is a God who is gracious, who delights to meet the needs of His people. And so, we come to Him as a God of mercy. That's why we pray. And so, this week, we encourage you to be people of prayer. Not because you're going to earn God's favor through it, but because God is a merciful God. Let's pray. Our Father, we are at times so twisted that we and our little finiteness doing the little things that we do somehow become so arrogant to think that we control our world. And every now and then, you send something smaller, large, to remind us that that is not the truth, that we are not in control and that we desperately need you. That we are being tossed about on the sea of life and that unless you become the captain of our soul, we will drown. Or remind us of that. Remind us that we, on our own, are lost and helpless and hopeless and broken. But at the same time, don't leave us in that sense of despair. Remind us that you are the great God who delights to give mercy, that answers our prayers not because we are righteous but because you are merciful. And remind us of that truth and may we see that. And Lord, may we stop trying to earn your favor through our discipline or our effort. And instead, may we become boldly and frequently and fervently to you knowing that you delight the bless your children, that you delight to hear our prayers, to forgive our sins, and to renew us. And so will we pray, renew us, break through our noise, break through all of our self-sufficiency, and cause us to be dependent on you and to find a light in doing so. We pray that you are Christening, you know.