Practical and powerful devotional breakout series #3

GYC West 2017 - REFLECT: The Daily Experience

<p>Practical and powerful devotional breakout series #3</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

GYC West

Breakouts

Zachary Page

1. Desiring God

2. Thick With the Almighty

3. The Statesman

4. Loving Jesus

We're longing to have you speak to us through the power of your Holy Spirit.

And Lord, that's not something that we can conjure up or that we can make happen, but as we dive into your word, as we talk about men of faith, Lord, we ask that you would transform our hearts and our minds by the power of your Holy Spirit.

Fill us with a passion to know you we pray in Jesus name, Amen.

Does anybody know who prayed that prayer?

It's a bold man, Scottish man, who was passionate that Scotland was headed down the wrong road.

Scotland was a country that had embraced Catholicism.

You might have heard of bloody Queen Mary.

She was basically persecuting any Protestants.

And John Knox was a man who was fighting against that established religion, fighting for what he believed was right.

He actually eventually was under the tutelage of like John Calvin and some of the great reformers like that.

But in Scotland he was praying the prayer, Lord give me Scotland or I die.

Well he ended up rebuking Queen Mary for some of the stuff he didn't hold back like maybe he should have and he ended up being a galley slave.

It's like have you ever prayed a prayer and you're like, where is the answer?

Why aren't things happening like I thought that they should have?

Here he is praying this bold prayer like, God, you could just put me to death if that's what it takes.

I don't know if you know what a galley slave is, but in this ship they made people row the ships.

They had their galley slaves and here he is rowing away.

This is a man who later would say that a man with God is always in the majority.

He's thrown in, he's a slave in a galley ship, he's rowing away, and it doesn't look like Scotland's being saved.

Have any of you been praying a prayer for a long time and you're wondering, Lord I know this is, I think this is according to your will and I'm praying this prayer, what is going on?

We're gonna look at a story in the Bible that I think really unveils what is taking place.

We're going to go back a few thousand years to Babylon.

Now, you know the story of Daniel, Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego.

They were taken captives because King Zedekiah in Jerusalem refused to surrender to the Babylonians who were coming, and they were sieging Jerusalem, and he refused to surrender to them and so they are taking captives and to be taken captive back then was not a fun thing.

I mean you were put in chains, you're dragged across the desert some 900 miles.

To be dragged across the desert for 900 miles, and you think, I'm the 1 that has the true God, what's happening?

A lot of people asked for Jerusalem to be delivered.

But I think that Daniel was clinging on to something, something that Jeremiah had said to him.

If you go to Jeremiah chapter 29, Jeremiah chapter 29 and verse 11, actually we'll start in verse 10.

So Jeremiah prophesied, and these are things that Daniel would have had access to.

He would have been able to receive these prophecies.

Jeremiah 29 and verse 10, For thus says the Lord, After 70 years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, And cause you to turn to this place.

For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, Thoughts of peace and not of evil to give you a future and a hope." That's a hard thing to cling to when you're being drug across the desert maybe even being made a eunuch whatever difficult things were happening to him And yet here's this prophecy of Jeremiah saying, God actually even though you're gonna be a captive for 70 years, He has good plans for you, He has a plan for a hope and a future for your life.

To cling to promises like that when we're going through really difficult times, it takes a lot of faith.

It takes a lot of faith to cling to God in those times.

Verse 12 says, "...then you will call upon me and go and pray to me and I will listen to you.

You will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart." I think that this may have been what drove Daniel in the amazing life that we see that he lives in the book of Daniel.

I think seeing what Jeremiah had prophesied, he knew the 70-year prophecy, We're told that later on in Daniel.

He was even praying for it to be fulfilled.

So he must have also read these verses and known that God did have a purpose, that God did have a hope for him.

It's interesting in the book, I think it's actually in Manuscript Releases Volume 4, page 124, talking about Daniel as he's taking captives.

It says, Daniel in Babylon chose the wisdom that would vindicate the honor of God.

He and his 3 companions decided that it was in the wise purpose of God that they had been taken as captives.

Wait a second, they're taking as captives, drug across the desert, and they believe it's in the wise purpose of God.

To be able to really believe that you can surrender to God to that place of saying, hey, even if I get drug off as a captive across the desert, it's in the wise purposes of God.

And just like the first session, we talked about Enoch and how God cares for every single detail of our lives.

He and his friends, they said, this isn't the good purposes of God.

We're taking his captives to the wicked and corrupt city of Babylon.

So they did not leave their religion behind, it goes on, them in their own nation.

They determined that they would not devote their time to complaint, but that they would be cheerful and faithful in all their business transactions.

They determined, we're gonna be cheerful about this, we're gonna be happy about this, because God is bringing something good out of this.

Jeremiah has said he has a plans for a hope and a future, so we're gonna trust that, even though we don't see any of that happening in our life.

Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

And without faith it's impossible to please Him.

For he who comes to God, Hebrews 11 6 says, must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him." We've got to believe who God is.

You know, for a long time I kind of pictured faith as being like, if I just believe enough, then I'll get the stuff in my life that I want.

Faith is really grasping who God is and trusting Him even in difficult times.

I mean you read through Hebrews 11 and you have the people who subdue nations and then you have the people that are captured and tortured and all terrible things happen to them.

Maybe Daniel's 1 of the people that Paul is referring to.

You have Isaiah listed there who is sawn in 2, it's actually in Hebrews 11.

Difficult things happen but yet they clung to God.

And when you have that kind of faith, it opens up incredible doors.

And we see that in the life of Daniel, right?

We see the incredible things that God does in Daniel's life.

In Daniel chapter 1, they're taken off as captives, and as they get into Babylon, the tests begin, like right from the beginning.

So in the third year, this is verse 1 of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, came to Jerusalem and besieged it.

And the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into his hand with some of the articles of the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar, to the house of his God.

And he brought the articles into the treasure house of his God." But then verse 8, so he's hauled off and 1 of those who was taken was Daniel, right?

And verse 8 says, "...but Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies." You see that purpose of heart, that wholehearted seeking after God, he's following what Jeremiah 29 13 says, if you seek me, you'll find me.

When you search for me with all your heart, he's wholehearted about it because he believes that God is good.

That's what should motivate our seeking after God is believing that he's got a reward for us, that he is good and He is the reward, really.

Well, let's look at some of the experiences in Daniel's life.

He stands up and a powerful thing in our walk with God is fasting.

And here you see Daniel fasting and you see an incredible result from it after they fast for 10 days.

And there's different kinds of fasts you find in the Bible.

Series

Breakouts

3. The Statesman

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

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