The Kind of Prayer God Always Answers

6 · A concrete family story illustrates the abstract theological distinction between mercy and grace, making the concepts accessible through a relatable parenting scenario involving chores and gifts

So, example, Thanksgiving. At the beginning of Thanksgiving, we told our kids, okay, good news on Thanksgiving, you don't have to do your chores. You don't have to clean up the floor in your room, you don't have to clean up the playroom. And the kids were like, yes, right, that is mercy. Because who made the mess? They did. Right? It's, it's an act of mercy to say, okay, you have a reprieve on Thanksgiving. But then Jen and I surprised them with a small kind of pre Christmas little gift thing that they opened up. That is grace. So mercy is you don't have to clean your room. Grace is, here's a ninja turtle, right? That is the two halves of mercy and grace and salvation.

7 · The preacher introduces the first movement of Daniel's prayer — confession

Now we're focusing today on mercy, and we're going to look at three aspects of the prayer for mercy that God always answers. The first aspect of it is a prayer of confession. Now this is where we start the plea for mercy with an honest assessment of ourselves. Because if we do an honest assessment of ourselves, we recognize that we need mercy. Look at verse three. As Daniel turns to pray. This is how he begins. He has just realize that the 70 years of captivity that God kind of for foreshadowed for his people are almost at an end. And Daniel then turns earnestly to prayer, asking that God would take this people that have rightly been taken to Babylon because of their own sin, that they deserved judgment. Daniel then asks them for mercy. Verse 3. I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy. With fasting and sackcloth and ashes, I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments. We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from your commandments and rules. We have not listened to your servants, the prophets who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our fathers, and to all the people of the land. To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open Shame, as at this day, to the men of Judah, to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to all Israel, those who are near and those who are far away in all the lands to which you have driven them because of the treachery that they committed against you. To us, O Lord, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, to our fathers, because we have sinned against you. To the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, for we have rebelled against him and have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God by walking in his laws which he set before us by his servants, the prophets.

8 · The preacher traces the pattern of Israel's repeated rebellion and God's repeated mercy throughout Old Testament history, demonstrating why Daniel's confession is necessary — Israel's exile is deserved judgment, not divine cruelty

Daniel begins his prayer not with even the request, but the need for his request. He begins his prayer with the need for mercy. And Daniel very briefly looks back across the entire Old Testament and judges rightly that God's people, well, they deserve what they are experiencing. They do not deserve mercy, right? You see this exodus of God's people being called out of Egypt. And then God not only saves them, he brings them to a promised land, he gives them the land, he establishes them with good and righteous and just laws. And then what happens? They fail, right? They. They turn inward, they turn to sin, they turn away from God and God, they turn eventually to God and God answers them with mercy. And then they turn away again. And then experience justice. And God gives them mercy and they turn away again. And over and over it goes that God sends the prophets, saying, turn back to me, do justice, act rightly, show mercy to people. And God's people are like, yeah, we'll do it. No, nevermind. We're going to do what we want to do. And as a result, rightly, God's people find themselves in exile.

9 · The preacher applies the principle of confession to contemporary American culture, diagnosing a widespread resistance to taking responsibility for wrongdoing

Now this is something perhaps that we should emulate more than we often do. The prayer for mercy begins with a prayer of confession. And this is a challenge because if the book on the bookshelf at the bookstore said, Chapter 1, Prayer of Confession, we'd be like, nope, and put it right back on the shelf, right? Americans tend to be allergic to open and honest confession. Just listen to any politician or athlete squirming through a forced apology when they do something stupid, right? You'll hear language like, I'm sorry if you were offended. Now notice what they're doing there. They're not saying, I'm actually sorry because I hurt you. They're saying, I'm sorry that you find what I did offensive. Sorry about that, right? And you're like, but wait a minute, somehow you didn't even take any responsibility. And I'm the one that's wrong. For being offended. Or my favorite is, this is my favorite corporate responsibility. So somebody loses huge amounts of money in the company and they have a big, you know, stockholders press conference and they say, listen, we're going to be honest here. Mistakes were made and you're. And you're like, by who? By when, like what will you listen? We don't need to blame shift here, guys, but it's pretty clear mistakes were made and we're going to be doing much better. But who did the mistakes? Usually the guy saying it, right? That's like, it's just we don't want to acknowledge our responsibility.

10 · Benjamin Franklin's autobiography serves as a historical example of confession-avoidance, showing that the American resistance to responsibility is not a recent phenomenon but deeply rooted in cultural habit

Even so called confessional songs and memoirs in America usually are. Much more often, I would say, as I've glanced through them. Much more often the people in the confessional book blaming everyone else in their life for their problems than them going, yep, I really messed up at these five times in my life. I think of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography where he refused to accept responsibility and instead referred to very clear failures in his life, like stealing his best friend's girl as erratum meaning printers errors. Like when you mean to put an R and you put an N instead, like, oh, sorry, that was just a little mistake there, right? And he even in his autobiography doesn't except responsibility. Like, I probably shouldn't have stolen my best friend's girl while he was away. No, he's just like, well, misprint there. Who can say who's at fault? Mistakes were made. And if you were offended, I am sorry for you. Right? This is what we do.

11 · The preacher extracts four practical characteristics of genuine confession from Daniel's prayer: (1) going to God first, recognizing all sin is ultimately against Him; (2) taking full responsibility without excuse; (3) generously owning one's part even when comparatively righteous; (4) sorrow over sin itself, not just consequences

Therefore, it is startling to take our American culture and read this. Perhaps even as we read this, you were like, ooh, man, he's like pretty down on himself. Come on, Daniel, you're not that bad. No, he's being honest. And he models four characteristics, I would say, of a true prayer of confession that we would do well to learn from. First thing we should learn from his prayer of confession is that he goes to God first. All sin in Scripture is against God. Even when we sin against a spouse or a child or a friend or a co worker, we first sin not just against them, but against the one who made them. Right? If we sin against the spouse, we sin not just against the spouse, but against the Lord who gave us that spouse. Psalm 51. When David sins grievously against other people, he says, lord, to you, I, against you I have sinned. So we go to the one that we have offended. We go to the Lord. Second, notice what Daniel does, taking full responsibility. There's no corporate speak here. There's no mistakes were made. This is. This is no blame shifting, no excusing, no qualifying, no. Well, you know, the nations around us, their gods were too cool. And you just put us right next to them. What were we supposed to do? We're going to worship some of them. I mean, they're just pretty cool, right? He doesn't do any of that stuff. He takes responsibility. Third, he generously owns his part in this. Now, this is extraordinary because Daniel, from all examples that we've seen, he is a good man in comparison to everyone else around him. A good man. So much so that perhaps we would be surprised to find him, including himself, in this prayer of confession. But Daniel, I think more than we can tell from the outside, this is Daniel's inner dialogue. This is when we peek behind the curtain and we overhear him in his prayer closet. And he is aware that even in his own life, there's a little bit too much of his forefathers in him, that there are probably things that he should have done that he did not do or things he should not have done that he did do. He includes himself among God's people. And fourth, there's a genuine sorrow over more than just consequences. Now, this is extremely important because we see that in Daniel's prayer of confession, there is mourning not just over the consequences of their sin, but over the sin itself. Now, that's the difference between godly sorrow and worldly sorrow. As scripture would say it, Anyone can be sorry that they got caught and are experiencing a bunch of bad things. But it's a different thing to say, I'm sorry that I committed the sin in the first place. Right? That, I think is a key for us.

12 · The preacher applies the need for confession directly to the congregation and broader American church, warning that regular confession is being lost as a practice

And so the prayer for mercy, the prayer that God answers, must begin with an honest acknowledgement that we need mercy. Think about this. If you're asking for mercy and you don't believe that you need mercy, Lord's never going to answer that prayer. You must acknowledge, okay, I don't deserve mercy, Lord, but I'm going to ask for it. That's how the prayer begins. And I think one of the things that I'm concerned that we're losing in the American church is an appropriate. And please hear what I'm saying here. I don't mean an inappropriate, but an appropriate pattern of confession in the Christian life. The Lord's prayer itself includes forgive us of our sins in the way that Jesus told us to pray. Now, should we claim Christ's forgiveness? Should we claim his salvation? Amen. But there should be moments in our church like we had today, where we, where we pause and we say, lord, is there anything I need to confess to you? And that pattern should not be a once a week or a month occurrence at church. It should be a regular pattern in our prayer life. Often, if I'm honest, there's. There's a lot of asking for things I need and very little asking for forgiveness. And that's where we must start. A prayer of honest confession.

13 · The preacher signals the shift from the first movement (confession) to the second movement (presenting God's promises), indicating that genuine prayer does not end with confession but moves forward into faith

Second, a prayer of past promises. Now, thankfully, Daniel shows us that we do not leave our kind of stop right there at, Yep, I'm the worst. I'm a sinner. No. He brings God's past promises to bear and asks God to fulfill these promises.

14 · The preacher demonstrates that Daniel is not inventing his request but presenting God's own promise back to Him — specifically the Deuteronomy 30 promise that God would restore Israel from exile when they return to Him

Look down at verse 15 for one example of this. It occurs throughout his prayer, but I'll just highlight 15, 16. And now. O Lord, our God, who brought your people out of the land of Egypt with a mighty hand, and have made a name for yourself, as at this day we have sinned, we have done wickedly. O Lord, according to all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city, Jerusalem, your holy hill. Now do you see what Daniel is doing here? He is asking God for a second exodus. He's saying, just as God brought his people out of Egypt, he is asking God to bring his people out of Babylon. And he is pleading very specifically. You may not realize this, but he's pleading a very specific promise that God gave to his people at the end of Deuteronomy. In Deuteronomy, chapter 30, God warns His people in 28 and 29 that if they obey the law, if they do what is right, in a sense, if they pursue righteousness and justice, God's blessings will follow them. But if they turn away and pursue injustice and unrighteousness, the curse of the law will fall on them. And then you might think, okay, well, that's it. So if you do good, you'll be blessed. If you don't do good, you'll be punished. And that's it. But that's not how Deuteronomy ends. In fact, Deuteronomy 30, verses 1 through 3 is what Daniel has in mind. Deuteronomy 30, verse 1 says this. And when all these things come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind among all the nations where the Lord your God has driven you, and return to the Lord your God, you and your children, and obey his voice and all that I command you today. With all your heart and with all your soul, then the Lord your God will restore your fortunes and have mercy on you, and he will gather you again from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. Do you see this in the background of what Daniel is praying? He's essentially taking Deuteronomy 30 and presenting it to the Lord and saying, please, Lord, please fulfill Deuteronomy chapter 30.

15 · Spurgeon's extended check metaphor illustrates the mechanics of praying God's promises — we must personally endorse them by faith and present them to God in prayer, trusting Him to fulfill them in His timing

And this is the pattern that we should pursue in prayer as well. Charles Spurgeon has this beautiful image of what Daniel is doing in presenting this promise to the Lord as. And he. He pictures it this way. I'm going to read a lengthy quote from Spurgeon. I'm not Spurgeon. I don't have a cool British accent or a big booming voice. But just imagine it's read by someone better. Charles Spurgeon says this. A promise from God may very instructively be compared to a check payable to order. It is given to the believer with the view of bestowing upon him some good thing. It is not meant that he should read it over comfortably and then have done with it like, oh, that was a good promise, and we just move on. No, he is to treat the promise as a reality, as a man treats a check. He is to take the promise and endorse it with his own name. By personally receiving it is true, he is by faith to accept it as his own. He sets to his seal that God is true and true to this particular word of promise. He goes further and believes that he has the blessing in having the sure promise of it. And therefore he puts his name to it to testify to the receipt of the blessing. Do you understand what he's doing? He's. He's talking about. You're. You're endorsing the check. You're presenting it to the bank. He must present the promise to the Lord. As a man presents a check at the counter of the bank, he must plead it by prayer, expecting to have it fulfilled. If he has come to heaven's bank on the right date, he will receive the promised amount at once. If the date should happen to be further on, he must wait patiently until its arrival. But meanwhile, he may count the promise as money, for the bank is sure to pay when the due time arrives. Some, he says, fail to place the endorsement of faith upon the check, and so they get nothing, meaning that there's a promise from God and we don't really believe it. We don't say, yep, I believe in the Lord, I believe this is true. Others are Slack in presenting it. Meaning we never bring the promise before the Lord. This is not the fault of the promise, but of those who do not act with it in common sense. Thank you, Spurgeon. And then he ends with this. God has given no pledge which he will not redeem and encouraged no hope which he will not fulfill. I'm going to read it again. God is given no pledge which he will not redeem and encourage no hope which he will not fulfill. He is the one that has written the check and therefore delights to give us what he has promised.

16 · The first grandmother story illustrates the wrong way to think about presenting God's promises — as if we're catching Him off-guard with an IOU He didn't authorize and now must reluctantly honor

Look, I think of it in two contrasting moments with my grandmother. Okay? So one of my family Easter traditions was that my grandmother would have all the grandkids make eggs. And on the eggs they would write things like, uncle Joe owes you a dollar. The fun of it was that they never told Uncle Joe this. They would just write IOUs on the egg that the kids would find. And they would present it to, like, my dad, Uncle Joe, and be like, uncle Joe, you owe me a dollar. And of course, my dad's going, oh, oh, I. Oh, it does say that right there. Okay, I've got 53, 54 cents. I promise I will give you the rest next time I see you. My kids just looking at him like, come on, man, it's a dollar, Mike. That's just. And so you find these folks, you'd go up to them and go, hey, you owe me two dollars. And then sometimes in generous years, you'd come up with like, okay, you owe me. I think we got up to $5 one Easter. And they were like, man, this is getting expensive, this Easter tradition. And sometimes, here's what I want you to see. Sometimes we almost feel that about God, that we can take a promise from his word and catch him unaware, as if he's like, oh, oh, I did promise that. Oh, no. Oh, no. Okay, listen, give me some time. I will work on this, right? That is the picture that sometimes we have of the Lord.

17 · The second grandmother story illustrates the correct way to think about presenting God's promises — God has given them intentionally, anticipating the moment we would bring them back to Him, and He delights to fulfill them

But there's a better picture, I think. A picture that lines up with Daniel 9 in Deuteronomy 30. And it's a second memory I have of my grandmother where over the years she would always. I don't know why they started doing this, but my. My granddad and Nana would give us a savings bond of like 50 bucks every Christmas. And it was the least exciting gift for a five year old child to ever receive, right? And it's like, payable in a decade. And it's like, now, Little Jimmy, in 10 years, this is gonna be worth $50. And Jimmy's like, what's 10 years? What's a check? What's anything, right? Is there a toy I can play with now? And yet over the years, this built up, built up, built up. And finally, as I was beginning to start my new life with Jen, I was like buying furniture and putting a deposit down on an apartment and doing all the pre wedding new life together stuff. I remembered, oh my gosh, what happened to those savings bonds? And I found them, I found a bunch of them and I was nervous. I thought, well, maybe I probably should go to my grandparents. And so I remember being nervous and saying, hey, nuna granted, listen, I found the bonds that you gave me. And listen, it's okay if not, but would it be okay if I used them to get some furniture and put the deposit down for trying to start my life with Jen? And of course, I don't know what I was expecting. I was expecting them to go like, well, no. Instead, as I presented the bonds back to them and said, can I use these to start my new life with Jen? What did they respond? Yes, that's why we gave them to you. This is exactly why we gave them to you. We knew as kids you wouldn't appreciate it, but there would come a moment in your adult life that you would take these to the bank and do something wonderful. So I can't wait. Let me know how it goes, right? And that is the attitude of God toward his people as they present his promises back to him. He is waiting. And I think my, my grandmother even said something like, I'm surprised you waited this long. And that's what the Lord's doing, like, bring me the promise, I cannot wait to fulfill it.

18 · The preacher provides three concrete biblical promises the congregation can present to God today — unfailing love in difficulty (Isaiah 54:10), strength in crisis (Isaiah 41:10), and peace in turmoil (John 14:27)

And listen, listen, here are just a handful of promises that the Lord is perhaps waiting on you today to present to him. Isaiah 54, verse 10. Though the mountains be shaken and the hills be removed, yet my unfailing love for you will not be shaken, nor my covenant of peace be removed. You may be going through something difficult in your life, and the Lord delights for you to present this promise and say, lord, do not let your love fail. Don't let me be destroyed. Continue to keep your covenant of peace with me. And he says, yes, I delight to do it. Or verse Isaiah 41, verse 10. So do not fear, for I am with you. Do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you. I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. Maybe today you are in a moment where you're like Man, I am falling. I am crashing. I feel like I am shattering. It doesn't feel like the Lord is near me. Bring this promise. He has promised that he will strengthen you. He has promised that he will help you. He has promised that he will up uphold you and that he will be with you no matter what. In a. In a doctor's office with a terrible diagnosis or a family loss or tragedy or grief, he will not fail to keep this promise. Or similarly, Jesus himself in John 14:27. Peace, I leave you. My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled and be not afraid. Maybe everything in your emotions and in your life is this raging sea. Present to the Lord this promise of peace and say, please, Lord, will you not fulfill it? And as Spurgeon said, it may be that this is the due date, and the Lord grants the peace. It may be that it is tomorrow or next week, but surely we consider it as good as paid if only the one who promised it is trustworthy. And here is the good news. The one who has promised it is more than trustworthy.

19 · The preacher grounds the trustworthiness of God's promises in His covenant name Yahweh, which appears seven times in Daniel 9 but nowhere else in Daniel

I want you to imagine on a check, right? Checks are interesting things because they are only as valuable as the people who are writing the checks, right? Has anybody. I don't want to even ask for a show of hands, but maybe some of you have experienced this of receiving a check that you're like, cool. And you give to the bank. And they're like, nope, right? Maybe from a business, you know, associate. Maybe from a family member. I got you. Don't worry. Here's a check. Like, bro, what are you doing, man? I didn't. You know, it's not cashing. Like, oh, bro. Like, he's one of those conversations. I'm. If the money's gonna be there right now, bro, just give me. Give me a couple days, bro, give me. Oh, my gosh. I remember at one point I wrote a check to somebody for a car. And I was like, is a check okay? And he was like, sure. I was like, okay, great. Well, just write your check. Here's a car. Is it, you know, a handful of thousand dollars or something? And he goes, cool, I'm gonna take the check. We're gonna go to the bank right now and make sure I can cash this. And I was like, right now? He's like, yep, let's go. And so we went to the bank, and I waited, and he stood in line, and he cashed it. And then he brought me the keys, right? Because he's like, I don't trust this guy. Look at him. Right? That's just. And I was like, I look trustworthy, right? That's what I was thinking. Your check is only as good as the one who wrote the check, right? One of the beautiful things about this prayer in Daniel chapter nine is that the name of the one issuing the check is all over the prayer. In fact, there is a particular name for God that occurs seven times in Daniel chapter nine in the context of this prayer and surrounding it, but does not occur anywhere else in the book of Daniel. It's emphasized seven times in this text. And you know what the special name of God is? It's. If you can see in your English Bibles, it's where the word Lord is presented in all capital letters, all capital, capital L, O, R, Lord. That is it the English way of indicating that is God's covenant name, Yahweh. It is the name that God gave to his people when he called them into being as a people, when he covenanted with them, when he tied his glory to their good together in a covenant under the name Yahweh. And so what God is doing is he is reminding us in this prayer, and Daniel is calling to his own mind that Yahweh is the one issuing this prayer, issuing this check. Rather, Yahweh is the one that brought us out of Egypt. Yahweh is the one that sustained us in the wilderness. Yahweh is the one that gave us the promised land. Yahweh is the one that. That made the promise to David. Yahweh is the one that made these promises in the prophets. It is him. He is the one. And he will surely fulfill what he has written.

20 · The preacher presses the transformative implication of this doctrine for prayer life — if God answers every prayer that presents His promises back to Him, how can we not pray this way? This rhetorical question creates urgency for changed practice

Now this, friends, this. Wouldn't this change the way we pray? You want to know the prayer God answers? God answers every prayer. When the believer presents his promises to him, he has said he will do it. How can we not bring them to him?

21 · The preacher signals the third and final movement of the sermon — the basis of prayer is mercy, not merit

And last. Last aspect of this prayer is a prayer pleading mercy and not merit. So we've seen that the way to pray that God answers is an honest prayer of confession and then presenting his own promises. But then notice the basis upon which Daniel prays. He prays for God to restore his people. He presents the promise to him. But he prays on a particular basis.

22 · The preacher reads Daniel 9:18 to demonstrate the explicit basis of Daniel's prayer — not Israel's righteousness but God's mercy

Notice verse 18. Oh my God, incline your ear and hear, Open your eyes and see our desolations and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy, Daniel is praying not on the basis of, lord, we deserve this, but rather, lord, we don't deserve this. We throw ourselves on your mercy. We make this prayer on the basis of mercy.

23 · The preacher diagnoses two common errors in popular Christian prayer teaching — merit-based prayer (ritualism and legalism) and faith-work prayer (prosperity gospel)

And look, I think this is where so much of Christian prayer goes utterly wrong. Because if you were to pick up that book in the bookstore, the kind of prayer God answers, perhaps you've picked up a similar book. And I will almost guarantee you that in many cases, sadly, what you will find in such a book is one of two streams of Christian teaching. Okay? The first is this. Be a good person, do the work, and God will answer you, right? There are religious traditions that it's like, okay, you got to be in church a certain number of times and then God will listen to you. Or you have to say this many Hail Marys or Our Fathers and then God will listen to you. Or you got to pray in this way. You got to do this ritual and perhaps it's somebody going, oh, oh, I found this secret prayer. And you got to pray exactly like this. And you got to pray according to this, you know, this Old Testament thing, and you got to use this word and that word, and it's the basis of crafting the perfect prayer or living the perfect life that makes your prayer accepted. That's not exactly. That's not at all what Daniel says to do. Second, the other stream of teaching you may find in such a book, the kind of prayer God answers is somebody saying, listen, listen, you just got to have enough faith and demonstrate it in the right ways, and then God will answer you. Now this is the prosperity gospel prayer, right? You just got to work up enough belief and God's not answering your prayer. You just got to work up more. You just got to. Right, you just got to somehow dig deep. And in fact, maybe you need to demonstrate it. You need to give a big offering, you need to do a big thing to demonstrate to God that you really believe in him, and then he'll answer your prayer. And let me just say this very clearly, both of those streams of teaching are utterly anti biblical and utterly anti gospel.

24 · The preacher synthesizes the three movements of Daniel's prayer into a single pattern — confession of unworthiness, presentation of God's promises, and appeal to God's merciful character rather than human performance

The basis of Daniel's prayer is not I'm a good person or I have enough kind of. Of the particular kind of charismatic faith it is, Lord, we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness. It's not the perfect prayer. It's not the perfect life. It's not the perfect level of faith, but rather because of your great mercy, that's how he prays. He knows the truth. That he's already acknowledged we don't deserve to be sent back to our homeland. We had hundreds of years of chances. And we deserve the Lord to say, you know what? You're going to be in Babylon forever. But instead we're coming to Yahweh himself, the one who covenanted with us, the one who gave us his promises. We are acknowledging our need for mercy. We are presenting your promises of mercy, and we're asking you to grant it on the basis not of our righteousness, but of the basis of your righteous and generous character.

25 · The preacher resolves the theological tension — how can a just God show mercy to sinners? — by pointing to Jesus Christ as the greater Daniel who prayed for His people and then bore the curse Himself so God could show mercy justly

Now look, this. This does feel too good to be true, doesn't it? Like this shouldn't be the kind of prayer that works. So at the end of the prayer, your big here's why you should answer me, Lord is nothing, but please have mercy on me. Yes, yes. That is what Daniel 9 demonstrates for us. This is the pattern in scripture. Now, perhaps you're wondering, well, how in the world can God honestly seeing us answer a petition for mercy when we deserve justice? Well, in this way you see a glimpse and a glimmer of the coming Jesus Christ. Because Daniel, notice what he's doing. He is pleading on behalf of God's people for God to fulfill his promises and have mercy. And there would come a far greater Daniel in the hundreds of years after him, named Jesus Christ. And in the garden, Daniel would pray on behalf of his people, that God would show mercy to his people. And then that greater Daniel, the man Jesus Christ got up and went to the cross, where he on the cross bore all of the curses of the law, that his people could bear all of the blessings of the law and that he might show mercy.

26 · The thief on the cross illustrates the radical simplicity and sufficiency of mercy-based prayer — a villain with no righteousness and no time to perform good works receives paradise through Christ's substitutionary death simply by believing

And you think it can't be that easy. And it's almost like the Lord's. Like, I know you don't think it could be that easy. So I'm going to give you an example. And there on the cross next to him was a thief and a villain in any story. And this thief believes in Christ. And what does Jesus say to the thief, today you will be with me in paradise. That because of what Jesus is doing on the cross, he bears the curse of this man, sin. So this man could bear the blessing of all that Jesus has won for him in paradise.

27 · The preacher universalizes the pattern — from the thief on the cross to every believer since, God always answers the earnest plea for mercy with yes in Christ

Look, this is the kind of prayer that God always answers. From the thief on the cross to the 2,000 years since the earnest plea of the sinner for mercy is always answered with a yes by God in Christ Jesus.

28 · The preacher addresses nominal Christians and seekers directly, diagnosing the misunderstanding that keeps people away from God when they feel sinful

Now look, maybe you're here today. And maybe, maybe you are here and you're not sure where you are with the Lord, and maybe you're wondering, is God actually going to listen to me? Maybe. Look, I. I've grown up in El Paso, and I know that this is. This is one of those communities where somehow around Christmas season and Easter season, people begin to kind of make their way back into the church for a bit and then kind of come back out. And I think that's in there because we. We desire a relationship with God. There's something there. But I've often found that people think, okay, and somebody even told me this once. I don't come to church that often because I'm not very good that often. Almost like when my life is going well, that's when I go to church. And when I feel like a sinner, that's when I stay away. Friend, Nothing could be further from the example of Daniel, chapter 9. This is God's invitation to any sinner in need of mercy to come and present the promise of salvation before him. And he is eagerly waiting to fulfill it. This friend, this could be the day that you endorse the check and present it to the Lord. Would you be so bold as to believe in Christ as a Savior, as a Lord, and bring the check to him and saying, lord, I got nothing. I'm a sinner. All I have is your promise for salvation. Would you fulfill it? And he will.

29 · The preacher applies the sermon to mature Christians, diagnosing a common error — switching from mercy-dependence at conversion to merit-dependence in ongoing Christian life

And let me just say this in closing to the Christians as well, for those of us who are in Christ. I think too many of us begin the Christian life with an honest prayer of confession and a plea for mercy. But then at some point along the way in the Christian life, we switch fuel to merit. We're like, you know, somebody that I always love watching online when somebody accidentally puts the wrong fuel in their diesel car or something like that, right? And she's like, you know, the engines like, like gets destroyed. But that's so often what Christians do. We're like, lord, I need your mercy on me, a sinner. And then we become Christians, and we're like, cool, here's all the good things I've done. Please answer my prayer. Here's all the faith I've worked up. Please answer my prayer. And the Lord is saying, no, that's not the way it works. The way you enter the Christian life is the way you continue the Christian life that you honestly confess. You plead his promises and you trust his mercy. That is the path of the Christian life, not just the doorway into the Christian life.

30 · The preacher closes by tying the entire sermon to the Advent season — Advent celebrates God's ultimate answer to humanity's plea for mercy in the incarnation and crucifixion of Jesus Christ

And so, friends, as we enter the Advent season, let us remember that the Advent season is God's ultimate answer to every sinner's plea for mercy. Because in Advent, we acknowledge. Listen, we deserve justice no more and no less. We deserve that. If God was to come to the world, he would come with a sword. But instead he came with mercy. Instead, he came in a manger. He came to seek and save the lost. He came to die on the cross in the place of sinners that he might answer every earnest plea for mercy. And so, as we celebrate Advent, let us remember, sometimes the check is answered today. But every check, every promise from God will be answered in eternity. And for the proof of it, we need look no further than Jesus Christ.

31 · The preacher leads the congregation in closing prayer, asking that hearts would be filled with thanksgiving for God's mercy as seen in Christ, who satisfies both justice and mercy

Would you stand and let's pray. Lord, we are so grateful. Lord, I pray that our hearts in this season would be full of thanksgiving as we behold your mercy. Lord, you are a God who is just and merciful. And we see your justice and your mercy meet in an unexpected, beautiful way in the person of Jesus Christ.