Daniel 9: Confession and Repentance

Intro

All of a Christian’s life is one of repentance.

Those were the first word’s of Martin Luther’s 95 Theses that kicked off the Protestant Reformation.

Repentance is a wonderful gift of God’s grace.

In repentance we are freed from our slavery to sin to worship God as He created us to.

To find in Him our greatest joy, deepest satisfaction, and highest purpose we could ever live for.

And Daniel 9 is a master class on confession and repentance.

GOD’S TRANSCENDENCE AND OUR FINITENESS

Its already limited.

There’s already the problem that God cannot be seen and that He is so infinite and transcendent, so beyond us our reason or understanding that were it not for His grace to condescend Himself to us to reveal who He is, we would never know Him.

That question is also important because your ability to worship God is going to be limited by how much you know Him.

FOR THE END OF HOW REPENTANCE HAPPENS IN THE GLORY OF CHRIST

But here’s what always happens. Here’s why repentance always falls flat.

We think repentance is just something that we “do.”

And so we try to will ourselves to holiness or just change our behavior. That sin is bad so stop sinning.

But repentance is worship.

In fact its one of the greatest ways we worship God because it above everything else says, from the heart, God you are better than my sin. All my life is yours.

You can’t will yourself to holiness. Repentance is a worship problem.

You worshiped your way into that sin. You swallowed the hook that you could find life in that temptation.

And so you need to worship your way out.

And yet here again, we find that our hope and our faith depend on our works instead of God’s grace.

Because what do we do? We try to will ourselves to worship. We try to force ourselves to love God more.

And so we get back on the treadmill doing everything we can to complete in the flesh what God began in us by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I want to help you get off the treadmill.

Let me tell you a secret. A secret that will absolutely change your life.

Worship is not just something that you do.

Worship is a response that flows out of who God is and what He’s done for us in Jesus Christ.

Its involuntary. You see God and His glory and praise comes out.

Repentance comes out. A life of worship comes out.

Do you want to be free from your slavery to sin? Set your eyes on Christ and see the glory of God made manifest in the life, death, and resurrection of the Son.

POSSIBLE IMMUTABILITY

And when I say provoked, I don’t mean that God was driven involuntarily by His anger to punish Israel.

God is immutable meaning God is perfect and not subject to change. Everything God is, He is perfectly all of the time.

So God’s anger, just like His love, justice, or mercy, is not an involuntary reaction to some feeling or an emotion.

Rather its a perfect expression of His own perfect nature and character.

God judged Israel’s sin because that is who God is.

That’s why Daniel says to you, O Lord, belongs righteousness.

All that God is and all that God does is in perfect conformity

THE GLORY OF HELLNow why does God judge sin so harshly? Why does He judge our sin so severely?

Its all for His glory.

Soli Deo Gloria.

The glory of God alone.

Everything is about the glory of God.

Now this never gets preached, but look at Romans 9:22-23.

Romans 9:22-23 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

Hell ultimately serves the glory of God.

Hell makes known God’s wrath, justice, and power.

It shows God’s patience.

God endures indignation every day from creatures that refuse to worship Him.

But instead of killing them outright, He patiently endures them trampling His goodness and grace and gives them every opportunity to repent.

They were made to worship God, but they worshiped and served the creature instead of the Creator Even those that refuse to glorify God, who rob Him of the glory due to His name to worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator will ultimately glorify God in eternity.

And ultimately Hell shows the Church the riches of the glorious grace and mercy of God because we deserve Hell just like everyone else.

We’re sinners too. We deserve to perish, and God as a righteous judge and would be perfectly good to do so.

That’s the bad news.