What’s Your Orientation?

Introduction

I was kind of disturbed this morning. How many people thought Mike was preaching this morning instead of me? And then those of you who are visitors found out that Tony wasn’t here either, so I guess I’m number three on the list. But looking forward to our moments together this morning. And I appreciate the thoughts and prayers that many have expressed on my behalf. I’ve been traveling quite a bit lately and was just in Peru this week. And seemed to have brought a visitor back with me that kept me in bed a lot yesterday, but I’m okay, I think, today, so that’s a good thing.

Lauren told me this morning that my title was provocative. Let me assure you, I’m an engineer, and engineers don’t engineers don’t talk about provocative things. So there’s a reason why I chose this topic, but I thought perhaps we ought to be clear about what orientation means in the context of my lesson. And it’s actually kind of interesting. I looked this up this morning, it just kind of came to mind. Maybe I ought to do a little bit of context setting for that. So orientation is the relative physical position or direction of something. Has to do with your the direction you’re heading, for example. We some sometimes use it that way. Sometimes we talk about orienting new employees to our business, or maybe when you’re going to school and you’re entering high school, you have an orientation day or something like that.

So it’s getting people ready for something new. Interesting thing is, down at the sort of a also at the end of this of the list of definitions was it’s short for sexual orientation. We’re not talking about that today. Like I said, I’m engineered, I don’t talk about things like that. So the interesting thing is though, they get a little graph about the usage of the word orientation, and it’s just like flat. The word came about in the mid 1800s, it’s just kind of flat, and I don’t know how they measure usage in the 1800s anyway. They didn’t have Google back then. But come to modern age, and the use of the word orientation is like gone up exponentially. And when you go and Google and look at it, you’ll see all these questions about what does it mean, and you can tell their people that aren’t English speakers.

They’re asking what does orientation mean, and you know why they’re asking the question, it’s because everybody talks about sexual orientation. And we could have a whole other lesson about that sort of thing, but that’s not what we’re talking about today. That sort of orientation is a matter of choice, I guess, in people’s view. That wasn’t a matter of choice a few decades ago. Your sexual orientation was what you’re born with, and that’s just the way it was. Now we seem to think that we have the right to determine what our orientation may be. So, like I said, that’s a whole nother topic. Not going there. So I was in the Middle East a couple of times in the past month, traveling there, and not only that, I flew on a Middle East airline, which I hadn’t done in a very long time.

And I’m sure you’ve been on aircraft, especially on longer flights, where they’ll have that chart that shows your flight status and you know where you’re headed, where you’ve come from, what time it is, where you left, what time it is, where you’re going, and it’s got that map of the world or whatever. Well, when you fly on a Middle East airline, they have an extra landmark on that electronic map, and it’s Mecca. I’m sure most of you know about Mecca and the fact that Muslims in their worship periods and in their prayers orient themselves toward Mecca. And I was in Abu Dhabi and actually in the hotel room and went to the window and opened the blind and to look, and I looked up at the ceiling, and there’s an arrow.

I’m looking at it says, Mecca this way. So I thought was kind of interesting. so there’s reminders all the time about where Mecca is if you’re a Muslim, and we won’t talk about why they pray toward Mecca, and that’s isn’t the point, but it made me think. You know, Paul went to Athens in Acts chapter 17, he saw all those idols, and he it stimulated his thoughts about the one God, and they had the idol to the unknown God. Well, this seeing these arrows pointing to Mecca made me think about what our orientation would be. And so I’d like to consider perhaps someone we can learn from who oriented himself in a particular direction for a particular reason. But there are also other orientations we might take, and I see that my well.

Daniel said, Did you do this on Apple? And I said, Well, yeah, he said, Well, sometimes things don’t work out just right. So you kind of get it though, anyway. So we’ll we’ll talk about some other orientations we can have in our spiritual life. But what I want us to do real quick is turn to Daniel and have some practical lessons maybe about orientation from Daniel’s example. And if you’ll go to chapter 6 in the book of Daniel, in verses 1 through 5, just to sort of set the stage, it pleased Darius to set up the king to set up over the kingdom 120 satraps to be throughout the whole kingdom, and over them three officials, of whom Daniel was one, to whom these satraps would give account, so that the king might suffer no loss.

Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him, and the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. Then the high officials in the satrap sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom, but they could not find, or they could find no ground for complaint or any fault, for he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him.

Story we’re all very familiar with, of course. Daniel is distinguishing himself amongst the officials of Darius’s kingdom, and probably is in line to become number two in the kingdom. And these other officials in competition with him were not particularly pleased to that concept. The fact that Daniel was a refugee from the Jewish community didn’t help. But we’ll see that maybe a little bit later.

Well, let’s just go down to verse 10.

So these other high officials convinced King Darius to write a law or a regulation, if you will, that says that for the next thirty days, if anybody bows down to any other God except you, O king, let them be accursed, let them be you know cast into den of lions. So that was the context of verse 10. When Daniel knew that the document had been signed and had become the law of the Medes and the Persians, which can’t be changed. When he knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber, opened toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.

And of course, we know the story.

And so they come back to Darius and say, Did you not write this or sign this law that said nobody can worship anybody except you for the next thirty days? Yes, I signed all that, and it can’t be broken. That’s the law. Well, we found Daniel worshiping his God, so you need to do something about that. And of course, the story, as we know, the account reads that throughout the day the king’s trying to figure out a way to get out of it because he liked Daniel. He trusted Daniel. He was a valuable person to him. I think he even admired him, but he realized that he had been duped by these guys. And so eventually, of course, he can’t find a way out. They come back to him and say, Look, the law’s a law, you’ve got to enforce it.

1. Why Daniel Oriented Himself Toward Jerusalem

So cast Daniel and Lions then, and we know how all that turned out, but that’s not really what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is why might Daniel have oriented himself toward Jerusalem. So apparently from the text, he’s been doing this for quite some time. Now he did it immediately after this law was signed, but it said that he’s been, it was his custom to three times a day get on his knees and bow or prostrate himself, if you will, in the direction of Jerusalem. His windows were open in that direction. So why did Daniel do that? And I’ll have to admit, some of what I conclude here may be a bit speculative because we don’t really know. But I think there’s some foundation to some of the things that I’m going to propose.

First of all, did Daniel point himself toward Jerusalem because the temple was there? Well, think about what time we’re in. Daniel was in the first group of captives to be taken from Jerusalem around 605 BC or so. We’re now past Nebuchadnezzar’s descendants. We’re into the reign of the Medes and Persians.

I’m not quite sure the exact time. What do we know about the temple in Jerusalem? We know it’s been destroyed. I mean, it’s flat. The whole city is flat, in fact. I think it’s quite obvious Daniel would have known the same thing. The captives have been coming back, and he’s he’s aware of what’s happened. I think it’s pretty safe to assume Daniel’s not pointing toward Jerusalem because the temple is there and he’s praying toward the temple. I think was God there. What did God say? What did the vision of Ezekiel have about that time when the temple was being destroyed, and Ezekiel saw the Spirit of God leave Jerusalem, leave the temple and go? Was God there? Well, God was never really there to begin with, frankly.

But was Daniel looking toward Jerusalem because God’s there? I say no. No. His presence is gone from that location. Was it because he was looking forward to his return? So Daniel’s been in captivity for a number of decades. Very prominent position within the government there, but does he think maybe he’s going to go back someday? Well, we’re going to see something kind of interesting about that related to that. But in chapter 10 and verse 1, in the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a word was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar. Who was Cyrus? Cyrus was the king who released the Jews to go back to Jerusalem and rebuild the city and the temple. And this is the third year of Cyrus. Daniel is still in Babylon.

And so if he’s going back, he’s going back at a really late time. So I would say no. He’s not looking forward to his return. Now we will see some things, and maybe he’s looking forward to something else related to that, but not for himself personally. Was it because of his faith and hope in God’s promises? So let’s go back to chapter 9. That’s he could barely read that. Chapter 9 and verse 1.

In the first year of Darius, the son of Ahazarus, by descendant Amede, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely seventy years. Which I find that to be kind of interesting. I’m thinking, when we think of someone who’s inspired, like Daniel, a prophet, had visions from God, all those sorts of things. How did he determine how long the captivity is going to last? He had to study the scriptures. I think we sometimes think that an inspired person back in biblical times just knew everything. I mean, they’re inspired, right?

God’s given them whatever they need, and so they just know these things. Well, Daniel had to dig it out just like the rest of us do. He had to study from the book of Jeremiah, and he found out in the reign of Darius that it was going to be seventy years. So he’s well into his captivity when he finally figures this out. But I thought that was kind of interesting. Verses 16 through 19 are the end of a prayer that Daniel proceeds to make at the beginning of the chapter. And I don’t want to read it all, although it’s a beautiful prayer of confession of sin, of admission of guilt, corporately speaking, for all of Israel, and that what they have suffered was only what God promised through Moses.

But in verse 16, he says, O Lord, according to all your righteousness acts, all your righteous acts, let your anger and your wrath turn away from your city Jerusalem, your holy hill, because of our sins and for the iniquities of our fathers. Jerusalem and your people have become a byword among all who are around us. Now, therefore, O our God, listen to the prayer of your servant and to his pleas for mercy. And for your own sake, O Lord, make your face shine upon your sanctuary, which is desolate. O 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.

O Lord, hear. O Lord, forgive, O Lord, pay attention and act. Delay not for your own sake, O my God, because your city and your people are called by your name. I think Daniel pointed toward Jerusalem to make him to help him remember, recollect, and believe in the promises of God. He knew God was going to restore Jerusalem, the temple, the people, that there was more to come, and there’s more in his book that will relate to the very fact that he’s getting that he gets those visions.

Go back to the sixth chapter. It said that when Daniel, in verse 10, when Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house, where he had windows in his upper chamber, and he got down and prayed. The very day, seemingly immediately that the edict came out not to pray to anyone else except Darius, he went to do it.

2. What Orienting Toward Jerusalem Accomplished for Daniel

And I think a lot about us when we seek God’s help in prayer. And how do we orient ourselves toward him in a time of trouble? Which is my next point. What did Orienting himself toward Jerusalem possibly accomplish for Daniel? And this is a bit speculative on my part. But I’m thinking about him and the environment that he’s in, the situation that he faces, the consequence for what he’s just done. When Daniel went to back to his room to pray, he knew he was violating the king’s command, and it didn’t stop him from doing it. I think perhaps even the fact that the king’s command was written and sign that he went there to do it was a reaction to that. Just think about the fact that for 30 days, if you worshiped someone other than Darius, you were going to be thrown in the lines then.

I’ve always wondered, and Daniel is a bit of an enigma to me, because he’s in charge of so much within the government of the Chaldeans and then of the Medes and the Persians, and who’s living there with him. We don’t read or hear about his interaction with the Jewish refugees, the captives at all. But can we not imagine that Daniel spent so much energy and effort and prayer on behalf of his people that they would be preserved through the captivity? What trials that they faced being captives in a foreign place? And so I think when this decree is issued, Daniel’s maybe not so concerned about himself as he’s concerned about the rest of the Jews who are living in captivity for their safety, for their courage, for their faithfulness.

Conjecture of my part. But I think in orienting himself toward Jerusalem, I think it helped focus his vision on the right priorities.

As I said, this was a danger to all of the Jews who would seek to be faithful to God. They couldn’t worship Darius. Just like before when Nebuchadnezzar erected the golden statue, and he wanted everybody to worship that. We’ve seen this movie before. And it took a few who stood up to that to change things. I think it focused his vision on what was right. And I want us to think about this as we begin to apply these lessons to ourselves. I think focusing toward Jerusalem reduced the distractions to his thinking.

What’s my environment like? Is there anything that reminds me of the God of Israel in this city? You think of Daniel being a high government official and who he deals with, he’s dealing with Darius, who has proclaimed himself basically a god. You’ve got multitudes of idols and idol worship and all kinds of things going on. What’s the environment like? And I’m thinking, okay, I’m going to open my window and I’m going to put my mind back where it used to be, where I used to be, where God’s temple and the people used to be. So I get things oriented and straight in my own mind. And to try to eliminate those distractions of Babylonian culture? I need to be thinking about God. And then finally, I think it also emphasizes dependence on God.

3. Orienting Ourselves to Pray in a Time of Difficulty

He prostrated himself. He got down on his knees before that window and looked out beyond. But think about ourselves. When we’re in a difficult situation, do our prayers change when the threats are bigger than we are? You’re probably like me, and a lot of what you pray for every day is a lot of what you pray for every day. Not to say that it’s habitual, but there are the same things we probably pray for every day. But every now and then life throws us a situation that we just may be desperate to figure out how to get through. We may not know. Does your orientation in your prayer time change when you’ve got a burden or a challenge ahead of you that you don’t know what to do with?

I think we get comfortable praying sometimes to God because we’re praying for the same things, and it’s, I won’t say it’s monotonous, but perhaps life is relatively okay. And so we don’t have that urgency, that feeling of helplessness, that feeling of I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if Daniel felt that way, but he did get down on his knees immediately after this, after this edict was signed. What’s he going to do? What could he do? He could only pray to the to the biggest person around, and that’s to pray to God. I think for ourselves, we learn from Him about orienting ourselves to pray in a time of difficulty. Do our prayers become more focused when we’re under duress? Have you ever been so intense about what you’re praying for?

I mean, that was the only thought in your mind. You were desperate for that chance to talk to God and ask for his help. To help you through something that was just beyond your ability to deal with. Maybe you stayed awake all night in prayer or something that was just a tremendous burden on you.

When I pray daily, you know, sometimes it’s hard for me to keep little things from creeping in to my thought process. And all of a sudden I find out I’m not even praying anymore. I’m thinking about work. Or I’m thinking about something I got to do. And I get so aggravated at myself because I’ve let a worldly thought, it doesn’t, it’s not necessarily a bad one, it just crept into my prayer, and all of a sudden the prayer stopped, and I’m thinking about something I want to do at the office. And that’s frustrating.

When I was so intensely concerned about something, those thoughts didn’t creep in because I was so focused on that problem. There was nothing going to deter my thinking and my prayer about it because I was desperate for help.

I don’t know what you do when you get desperate for prayer. We should be desperate for prayer all the time, but sometimes we’re maybe more desperate than others. But we all have our probably our routines about praying and when we pray and things like that. And I’d like to say that I’m I’m completely I always observe my prayer time same time, same place, and I do it like clockwork, and but I don’t. Sometimes I wind up having to pray in my car on the way to work. Well, that’s a really hard time to not keep things from creeping into your thought process. But I think we need to make sure that the environment we’re in when we pray is one that’s conducive to thoughts and our communication to God.

I’m not saying you have to open your windows to in some particular direction or that you need to fall prostrate on your face, but if that works for you, if that helps, then you do that. But I think we need to get ourselves in the right frame of mind physically too and spiritually. Do we adopt a different posture? Find an isolated place, do we eliminate distractions? If something’s really troubling you, are you gonna pray on the way to work in the car? No, you’re not. You’re gonna get up earlier, you’re gonna go someplace where you got a quiet moment or two, and you’re gonna really pour your heart out to the Lord. I think we just need to do that all the time. we should pray, want to pray like Daniel, but all the time.

4. Oriented Toward Things That Are Above

But I couldn’t kind of couldn’t couldn’t help myself, I guess, going in that direction because again, we’re talking about orientation, and I think there’s some other lessons with respect to that and where are we headed? So, what’s my orientation? What’s your orientation? I need to be oriented toward things above, not toward a place necessarily like Mecca or Jerusalem or this church building or any other geographical location. My orientation needs to be on things that are above. So let’s turn to Colossians chapter 3 and see what Paul tells the Colossians about what they are to do now that they have been raised with Christ. Chapter 3 and verse 1, if then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

Set your mind on things that are above, not on things on the earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, what is earthly in you, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry, on account of these things, the wrath of God is coming. And these you too once walked when you were living in them, but now you must put them all away. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with his practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all. Put on then as God’s chosen ones, holy beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. Bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all, put these, but above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

5. Make Jesus Our Compass

We’re to set, I’m to set, you’re to set our mind on things above, not on things on the earth. I need to orient my direction. I need to chart my course beyond this world for the next. I need to put to death earthly behaviors. He lifts a number of things that immorality, impurity, various sorts of evil speaking. We need to put those things to death. We need to put on love for one another, love for the lost. We need to let the peace of Christ rule in our hearts and in me, and let the word of Christ dwell in me. That’s my orientation. That’s the direction I need to be headed in my life. Similar to that, I think, in the book of Hebrews, we need to make Jesus our compass.

Chapter 12 and verse 1 of the book of Hebrews says, Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and sin which is cling so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despite the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Looking to Jesus. He’s our example. He’s who we should orient ourselves to be like. As it says in the fourth chapter, verse 14, since then we have a great high priest who has passed to the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then draw with confidence draw near to the throne of grace that we may receive mercy and find help in the time of need. Jesus is our example.

Conclusion

Temptation and trial. He suffered what we suffer. And he did it to the glory of God. And he maintained his faithfulness through the suffering on the cross, enduring those things. So I need to orient myself toward God. Which brings us to the conclusion of the matter, which is what’s your situation this morning. There is a actually a competition that’s called orienteering. I’m sure we’ve got some scouts in the audience former or current. You can even get a merit badge for orienteering. Orienteering is a competition using a map and a compass to find your way across rough country. I thought that sounds pretty good, spiritually speaking. The question for us. The answer this morning is how are we orienteering through our lives? What are we pointed toward?

What direction are we heading? Where is our loyalty? Where is our allegiance? Where is our faith? If you’re not a Christian this morning, you may be wandering a bit. Because in order to have the right guidance in life, we need the right map. And the map we all should be trying to follow is the Word of God. And we need the right compass. And the right compass point us in the right direction is the Lord Jesus. An example that he gave us. If you’re not a Christian, you don’t have the right map and you don’t have the right compass.

Where are you pointed? Do you need to adapt the right map and the right compass? We invite you to do that while we stand and sing.