Thy Kingsom Come

[0:00] in Matthew chapter 6 as it was last week and there at the first verse. Matthew 6 beginning at verse 1.

[0:30] Thus, my version says, when you give alms, that would be better rendered in today's jargon as charity.

[0:50] Therefore, when you practice charity, sound no trumpet before you as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by men. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.

[1:08] When you practice charity, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your charity may be seen in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

[1:23] And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, they have received their reward.

[1:39] But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door. And pray to your Father who is in secret. Your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

[1:52] In praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

[2:09] Pray then like this. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

[2:23] Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you.

[2:41] But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Amen. May the Lord bless to us that reading may it be to his praise and to his glory.

[2:56] Our Father who are in heaven, let your name be made holy. This week we move on to the next phrase, which is, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

[3:10] From a dramatic point of view, my attention was drawing to the idea of a coming kingdom.

[3:22] When one of Lewis Grasset Gibbon's novels, The Sunset Song, was portrayed on television. It's 20 years ago. So if you can remember it, you're doing well.

[3:33] But in this particular narrative, it surrounded a farm in northeast Aberdeenshire, which rejoiced in the name of Mains of Blair Weary.

[3:49] And there was a local parish church. And unfortunately, the minister had contracted a disease, and so this was his last sermon. The minister was played by an actor called Charles Fraser, who's the sidekick in Hercule Poirot.

[4:08] And he preached on Luke 22, the words of the dying thief. Lord, remember me when thou comest in thy kingdom.

[4:25] And usually in dramatic senses, what you get for a sermon is quite poor. But this one was actually quite good. So we come to this idea of the coming kingdom.

[4:42] Last week, I made the point that there are no prayers like this in the Old Testament. And there is one prayer that's like it in Judaism called the Kaddish.

[4:58] And it now will come up there. And you see, if you read it, it's very similar. Exalted and hallowed be his great name in the world, which he created according to his will.

[5:12] And it's all to do with the coming kingdom, as far as Israel is concerned. May he let his kingdom rule in your lifetime, in your days, and in the lifetime of the whole house of Israel, speedily and soon.

[5:27] Praise be his great name from eternity to eternity. And to this, everyone says, Amen. So that's the idea in this particular prayer that's still used in Judaism today, more or less always at funerals.

[5:43] Because the thought is that one day the kingdom will come. And so that's where we are this evening.

[5:56] The coming of the kingdom. Pray then like this. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

[6:10] Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts and we have forgiven our debtors. And we are not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

[6:23] Thy kingdom come. Better perhaps translated as let your kingdom come.

[6:34] When we go to the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels, we find that there are three tenses to this kingdom. The kingdom is viewed by Jesus as being in the past.

[6:49] So Jesus says in Luke 13, 28, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God.

[7:00] So that is talking not about the kingdom to come, but the kingdom that was. And then, secondly, it's seen as being present now.

[7:16] We see this in the rejoinder that Jesus made to the Pharisees, Luke 17, 20 to 21. Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God was coming, he answered them, the kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, for behold, the kingdom of God is within you or, alternatively, in the midst of you.

[7:43] So the kingdom of God is here right now. But in Luke, in Matthew and in Luke, the kingdom is yet future.

[7:56] Thy kingdom come. What is this prayer all about? If you want it in a nutshell, this prayer is about evangelism.

[8:11] In the gospel of Mark, the very beginning of Jesus' ministry, Mark 1, 14, after John the Baptist was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God and saying, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent, and believe in the gospel.

[8:36] Matthew has it, the kingdom of God, king of heaven, has drawn near. And there's a very unusual Greek verb that's used to introduce this idea, which is engizo, which means to approach, come, or draw near.

[8:55] And the idea that's being portrayed in that verb is simply this, that the kingdom of God has come about in and through the person of Jesus Christ.

[9:10] So when questioned about where he was going to go, in Luke 4, 43, he said, I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to other cities, for I was sent for this purpose.

[9:28] And right at the end of the chapter, we read that he was preaching in the synagogues of Judea. So the kingdom of God is realized, made plain, seen for all to see, in the person of Jesus.

[9:48] And tonight, it's made clear to you and me in the preaching of the gospel of God. God. Now, Jesus Christ has given a challenge which Alan touched on this morning.

[10:06] And we read of it in Mark 16. Jesus said to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation.

[10:17] He who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not believe will be condemned. that is the clear challenge that the Lord Jesus Christ gave to his disciples then and now.

[10:34] Do something with the message I have given you. But in Luke, as Alan mentioned this morning, there's an extra note.

[10:45] And that extra note is this. Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.

[10:59] A number of years ago, Alec Hardy, the former pastor here, we had a conversation about preaching. And he told me that what preaching needs today is summed up in the old-fashioned word unction.

[11:19] Undointing. Power. When Dr. Alan Redpath, you may remember he was pastor of the Chapel up until 1966, I was converted in February of that year, so I got the tail end of his ministry.

[11:38] Years later, he came back to Edinburgh to do a series of lectures to ministers. And he said this, if I was to go around and question each one of you as to your beliefs, I've no doubt that you would be orthodox.

[11:58] You would believe in the virgin birth, in the atoning death of Jesus, in his triumphant resurrection, and one day that he'll come again.

[12:09] But the real question is not what you believe, but how you present it. Because what we need is unction.

[12:23] That challenge is still with us. Turning now to the foundation or the establishment of the kingdom, pray then like this, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

[12:39] Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

[12:54] Now right at the beginning, I made mention of the fact that Jesus viewed the kingdom of God as being in the past. And the scripture which makes that clear is the address of the archangel Gabriel to the virgin Mary.

[13:16] Speaking of the person of Jesus, he said, He will be great and be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David.

[13:31] and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom there will be no end.

[13:42] And when we take these words and we understand them in the person of Jesus, it's clear that a lot of it is messianic language that comes from the Old Testament.

[13:52] And in the Old Testament, as he makes clear in that statement to the Virgin Mary, the kingdom was initially set up under David, who was king not only of the tribe of Judah, but also of the entire nation of Israel.

[14:13] And we read in 2 Samuel chapter 8, the Lord gave victory to David wherever he went. So David reigned over all Israel and David administered justice and equity to all his people.

[14:32] So he set up the kingdom of God on earth. But the central fact which set up the kingdom of God on earth was the creation of Jerusalem as the capital of all Israel.

[14:53] And that happened earlier in 2 Samuel 5. Nevertheless, David took the stronghold of Zion, that is, the city of David, and David dwelt in the stronghold and called it the city of David.

[15:08] David built the city round about from the millow inward. So here is something momentous that's happening. Jerusalem, the center of this great kingdom.

[15:27] And it's important because it is from here that the word of the Lord will go forth to all nations. Isaiah 2.

[15:39] I quoted it last week. Many people shall come up and say, come, let us go to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways, that we may walk in his paths.

[15:55] For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And while it is the case that there were many prophets who prophesied in Israel during the days of the Old Testament, of whom Jeremiah was one, this prophecy came into being literally and effectively through the person of Jesus.

[16:27] He shall be great and the Lord will give to him the kingdom of his father David. And so our Lord directed his apostles and disciples, he said this, thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.

[17:01] Jerusalem, the capital of Israel, the place of the temple, the place where the law of God was read, the place where God's word was going to be preached, the city of the great king.

[17:22] Sadly, it failed to live up to its calling. it not only was the place of the great king, but it was the place of spiritual declension.

[17:40] And one of the reasons that our Lord had so much to say against the Pharisees was that they did not take the problem of sin very seriously.

[17:54] In fact, they would have said under certain circumstances it was all right to lie. So, they began this downward descent.

[18:09] And Jesus indicated in his ministry, while the disciples pointed out to him the great stones of the temple, he said, I tell you the truth, there shall not remain one stone upon another.

[18:24] and 35 years later, that was exactly the case. We read that in the day when Jesus died on the cross in Matthew's Gospel, there was a great earthquake.

[18:42] And the Roman historian Tacitus, and they're not like historians today, they were more interested in the gossip that was going on in the world. But he recorded on that day, this great earthquake, that the lintel that stood above the great door of the temple, by which you entered into the Holy of Holies, cracked, and fell to the ground.

[19:11] And the doors of the Holy of Holies flung wide open. And those with a bit of insight in Judaism realized, this thing's finished.

[19:24] And so Jesus said to the daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and your children.

[19:38] For behold, the days are coming when they will say to us to the mountains, fall on us, and to the hills, cover us. So there's a limitation on Jerusalem being the city of the great king, the city where the word of God is to be proclaimed, because it's not there anymore, it's with us.

[20:05] So let's think subtly about the extent of the kingdom. Pray then like this, our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

[20:19] Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

[20:32] Let your kingdom come. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So the prayer, speaking of the coming kingdom, concentrates on the establishment of the will of God on earth as it is now in heaven.

[20:55] Now what did Jesus mean by that? Well, he referred to the fact that in God there are hidden decrees which he has planned for this planet.

[21:12] And one such decree is recorded by the apostle Paul in Romans 8. Those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the first born among many brothers and sisters.

[21:32] believers. And that decree is now being fulfilled in every person who accepts the gospel.

[21:44] Because back in the book of Genesis we read that God created man and woman in his own image. In the image of God he created them. Male and female he created them.

[21:57] And it is the case that through the fall according in Genesis 3 mankind lost that image of God but it's now restored in Christ.

[22:18] Let your will be done as it is in heaven. How did you get this about? This establishment of the will of God on earth.

[22:35] And in the first place it's made possible through the preaching of the word of God and through the gospel message.

[22:48] After John was arrested John the Baptist Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel of God and saying the time is fulfilled the kingdom of God is at hand repent and believe the gospel.

[23:03] So what are we doing when we preach the gospel and people respond to it as they all over all the world tonight that is happening.

[23:15] What we are doing we are ushering the kingdom of God into the hearts of those who respond to that ministry. That action also takes place by the ministry of the Holy Spirit in conversion.

[23:34] Jesus you will remember said to Nicodemus truly truly I say to you unless one is born of water and the spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

[23:49] And that scripture teaches us on the spiritual nature of the new birth because the new birth makes you a member of the kingdom of God.

[24:04] So every time we pray let your will be done on earth it is in heaven what we are doing is aiding the work of evangelism so that what is happening here through this prayer we're aiding the work of evangelism which God has decreed to use to bring people into the kingdom of God and that's going on it's gone on every century since Jesus ascended but it goes on ultimately to a final great act and we looked at Isaiah the last time and I'll read it again the prophets they paint this picture of the coming kingdom in glorious terms they say this it shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the

[25:12] Lord shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be raised above the hills and all nations shall flow to it and many people shall come and say come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob that he may teach us his ways and we may walk in his paths for out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem he shall judge between the nations and shall decide for many peoples and they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hoops nation shall not lift up sword against nation neither shall they learn war anymore this is the glorious character of the kingdom of God which we are preparing people to join in Hebrews chapter 8 the writer quotes

[26:12] Jeremiah and Jeremiah says this the days will come says the Lord when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah not like the covenant I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt for they did not continue in my covenant so I paid no heed to them says the Lord this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days says the Lord I will put my laws into their minds and write them on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people and they shall not teach every one his fellow or every one his brother saying know from the least of them to the greatest for I will be merciful towards their iniquities and

[27:14] I will remember their sins no more a coming kingdom and the thrust of what is in this prayer is not only to pray for it but to act and we have to act in our personal testimony in our preaching of the gospel in our evangelistic efforts we're all taking part on bringing the kingdom of God in reality here but of course there will be a final act in 1 Corinthians 15 Paul refers to it like this he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet the last enemy to destroy his death when all things are subject to him then the son will also be subjected to him who put all things under him that

[28:25] God may be everything to everyone the final establishment of this prayer let your kingdom come let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven and so the thrust comes to you and to me what exactly are we doing with this prayer let your kingdom come amen and 狩nes we God prows a Hearer

[29:52] On earth that kingdom be. On good to watch his own tonight.

[30:06] From next to the heart below. And for the everlasting light.

[30:19] ? ? Already on the moon, the light of the light of the day.

[30:38] Dear God, dear Lord, keep hope and hope. The day is deep.

[30:53] When faith in truth is shining light, O Lord, shall I reveal?

[31:08] When justice shall be bold in light, And every word be here.

[31:20] When all is found behind me, Shall walk the earth alone.

[31:35] And we are worthy, right and rest, When all is found behind me, And so we pray.

[31:56] Let your kingdom come. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And we would seek to be carrying that out Under the ministry and guidance of the Holy Spirit, That the name of Jesus Christ, the Lord and Savior of all, Might be glorified this night.

[32:20] And so we pray that the blessing of the eternal God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Might be your experience and mine this night and always. Amen.