WEBVTT 00:00:01.000 --> 00:00:05.120 Well, good morning. I hope you're all looking forward to a day of snow tomorrow. 00:00:10.120 --> 00:00:17.460 I want to begin this morning by asking you a question. What kingdom do you want to be a part of? 00:00:18.699 --> 00:00:24.600 Now, here's the thing. In America, and not all of us in this room are from America or are American 00:00:24.600 --> 00:00:28.820 citizens, so I want to acknowledge you and say I know you're here and we're glad you've joined us, 00:00:28.820 --> 00:00:35.659 but in America we have a touchy relationship with kingdoms, don't we? Our country was founded 00:00:35.659 --> 00:00:42.460 on the process of gaining independence from a kingdom, and the American spirit is celebrated 00:00:42.460 --> 00:00:50.179 as individual self-reliance and independence. We pride ourselves as rejecting the king. 00:00:52.519 --> 00:00:57.900 So we have an unusual and maybe uncomfortable relationship with kingdoms. 00:00:57.899 --> 00:01:04.000 But if we stop and think about it for a minute, we need to recognize that the American experiment 00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:12.439 is relatively unusual in human history. Kingdoms have actually dominated most of human history 00:01:12.439 --> 00:01:18.079 and most of the world. In China, you could go back to the Han Dynasty or move ahead to the 15th century 00:01:18.079 --> 00:01:23.939 and the Qing Dynasty. In Central Asia, think of the Mongol Empire or the Russian Empire or the Soviet 00:01:23.939 --> 00:01:32.400 Union. In South America, go back to the Inca and the Aztec kingdoms. In Africa, the Mali or Songhai or 00:01:32.400 --> 00:01:38.400 others. I did try to do some research. There are so many that I may be missing the most important ones. 00:01:38.539 --> 00:01:45.900 I'm not an expert in all this. In the Middle East, the Persian Empire. Further back, the Ottoman Empire 00:01:45.900 --> 00:01:57.080 that lasted for almost a thousand years. In Europe, the Roman Empire began and ruled over the beginning of this era. 00:01:58.780 --> 00:02:03.700 And later on, the Spanish and British empires spread throughout the whole world. 00:02:03.700 --> 00:02:12.659 So, we need to recognize that empires, kingdoms, we use different words, dynasty, kingdom, empire, 00:02:12.920 --> 00:02:22.199 have almost been woven into the fabric of American political life. And listen, we may debate the relative 00:02:22.199 --> 00:02:30.560 merits of this political system as opposed to, say, dictatorship, democracy, oligarchy, or something else. 00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:34.259 But kingdoms have been an integral part of human life. 00:02:36.039 --> 00:02:44.520 Why is that? I would argue it's because God designed human beings to live in a kingdom. 00:02:45.780 --> 00:02:52.360 We should not be surprised by this. When we go back to the creation account in Genesis 1, 00:02:52.360 --> 00:03:01.880 we see that God created Adam and Eve to live under God's rule, having dominion over the whole earth. 00:03:02.880 --> 00:03:10.580 In fact, the world, the earth was made. We were to be kings under God's kingship of us. 00:03:11.180 --> 00:03:14.760 And it was a good plan that God had. 00:03:14.759 --> 00:03:26.179 Now, we know that not all kingdoms are good today. In fact, we would say that no kingdom has been purely 00:03:26.179 --> 00:03:32.399 good since the fall because Adam and Eve rebelled against their king. They wanted to go and set up 00:03:32.399 --> 00:03:40.259 their own kingdom on their own, with their own human sovereignty and sought to rule apart from him. 00:03:40.259 --> 00:03:48.899 And so, we see that the best of human kingdoms politically are flawed. The worst of them are 00:03:48.899 --> 00:03:56.959 destructive, evil, and oppressive. And friends, we need to stop and realize that kingdoms are not 00:03:56.959 --> 00:04:02.699 merely political structures. But we live in worlds where we have all sorts of little K kingdoms in our 00:04:02.699 --> 00:04:09.479 world. In your workplace, there is a king. We call him a boss. But he's the guy in charge. 00:04:09.479 --> 00:04:18.180 In your home, there is a king or queen. But somebody is in charge of the household. 00:04:18.980 --> 00:04:26.300 And there's authority structure. And there's oversight and structure provided by this. 00:04:26.480 --> 00:04:33.819 In your friend group, in your social group, on your sports teams, there are structures of little 00:04:33.819 --> 00:04:42.519 K kingdoms. And our hearts long to know where do we relate in them. Who do we need to sit under? And 00:04:42.519 --> 00:04:50.379 who do we need to be ruling over? This is a fundamental part of human society. 00:04:50.379 --> 00:04:56.939 And friends, since the fall, we've mucked it up pretty badly, haven't we? 00:04:58.939 --> 00:05:06.420 But God tells us that there is a kingdom that is worth longing for. And there is a kingdom worth 00:05:06.420 --> 00:05:12.980 pursuing. And there is a kingdom worth praying for. God wants to restore 00:05:12.980 --> 00:05:21.340 the world to a kingdom that is good and right with him as the king over all. 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:28.759 And this leads us to our next part of the Lord's Prayer. If you've been here, you know we've been 00:05:28.759 --> 00:05:33.819 preaching through the Lord's Prayer as a large part of a larger series on the Sermon on the Mount. 00:05:34.160 --> 00:05:38.580 And we're going to be looking at the Lord's Prayer this morning. If you want to turn there in your Pew 00:05:38.579 --> 00:05:46.680 Bible, it's page 761. We're going to be looking at Matthew 6. And we're going to be looking at the 00:05:46.680 --> 00:05:54.740 prayer in verse 10 in particular. But let me read the whole prayer, and then I will pray for God's help 00:05:54.740 --> 00:06:05.319 as we consider this together. So, let's… starting in verse 9, Jesus says this, 00:06:05.319 --> 00:06:33.560 Let's pray together. 00:06:33.560 --> 00:06:38.540 Lord Jesus, we do ask you this morning that you would be our help. 00:06:39.420 --> 00:06:46.699 Lord, as we look at your Word, as we consider, Lord, these glorious truths this morning, 00:06:47.740 --> 00:06:55.860 Lord, I pray. I pray for minds that will understand rightly. I pray for hearts that will love 00:06:55.860 --> 00:07:04.580 the truth and the glory of your Word. I pray for wills that will submit and receive your instruction. 00:07:05.660 --> 00:07:12.080 And Lord, we pray that you would use your Word this morning in our lives, 00:07:13.080 --> 00:07:20.819 Lord, transforming us increasingly into your likeness, Lord, so that we might show your glory in this world, 00:07:20.819 --> 00:07:25.819 Lord, that you would be exalted, that you would be lifted up in our midst. 00:07:26.680 --> 00:07:34.719 Lord, I pray for your help this morning. Be with me. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. 00:07:34.720 --> 00:07:37.700 Amen. So, verse 10, 00:07:38.040 --> 00:07:42.500 Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 00:07:44.500 --> 00:07:49.860 I will say something. I wrestled with this sermon, whether it should be two parts, 00:07:50.020 --> 00:07:55.900 one on kingdom and one on will. And we could have preached a whole other sermon on your will be done 00:07:55.899 --> 00:08:01.599 and the two wills of God and what, but we're not going to do that. Because I think that actually 00:08:01.599 --> 00:08:09.659 in the context, Jesus is putting these things together because what is a kingdom? A kingdom is 00:08:09.659 --> 00:08:16.219 the extent of the will of the king being done. That would be one way you could define a kingdom. 00:08:16.219 --> 00:08:24.579 It is the realm over which the king's will is exerted. And so, this is how we're going to approach 00:08:24.579 --> 00:08:27.240 this passage this morning. And Jesus says, 00:08:28.319 --> 00:08:35.460 Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven should be our prayer. So, 00:08:35.519 --> 00:08:40.279 what we're going to do is we're going to look through this just asking a couple of questions 00:08:40.279 --> 00:08:45.419 about what kind of kingdom this is and how does it work. And hopefully as we unpack it, 00:08:45.879 --> 00:08:54.100 we will have a richer view of what it is that Jesus is calling us to pray for as we pray this prayer. 00:08:54.100 --> 00:09:03.379 So, the first thing is we want to see who is the owner of this kingdom that we're to pray for. 00:09:03.879 --> 00:09:10.259 And you see that there's a pronoun there, your, right? Your, and who is that? It's talking about 00:09:10.259 --> 00:09:19.420 God the Father, right? Your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. Now, on earth as it is in heaven, 00:09:19.419 --> 00:09:25.959 we could spend a lot of time unpacking this. This might mean, and different people in the church 00:09:25.959 --> 00:09:31.259 have thought different ways about how exactly God's kingdom might come. Are we going to improve 00:09:31.259 --> 00:09:37.620 society increasingly so that it is finally going to be the glorious kingdom because people get better 00:09:37.620 --> 00:09:42.899 and better and better? As you will see, I don't think that's going to be the path that we're going 00:09:42.899 --> 00:09:48.100 to go. In fact, there's a really good… I'm going to reference this guy a lot today. Jonathan Pennington, 00:09:48.240 --> 00:09:55.340 he's a friend of mine. He's a teacher at Southern Baptist Seminary. He did a whole bunch of writing 00:09:55.340 --> 00:10:01.220 on the kingdom of heaven and earth and Matthew's language on it, and it's great stuff. And one of 00:10:01.220 --> 00:10:07.919 the things that he says is that the heaven and earth language in Matthew is given particularly to set 00:10:07.919 --> 00:10:14.379 up a contrast between the nature of God's kingdom and the way that the kingdoms of this world, the 00:10:14.379 --> 00:10:23.360 kingdoms that human societies in a fallen world tend to work, right? And so what Jesus is… what God is 00:10:23.360 --> 00:10:29.759 saying… or what Jesus is calling us to ask for is, God, you have a kingdom in heaven that is so 00:10:29.759 --> 00:10:37.219 different from ours, and we want it to come, and we want the earth to somehow be swallowed up in that 00:10:37.220 --> 00:10:44.120 so that what is here now is displaced by something new as God's kingdom comes. 00:10:45.800 --> 00:10:53.440 Jesus is basically asking for a spiritual Copernican revolution in our lives, right? We who used to think 00:10:53.440 --> 00:11:00.160 that the world was the center of the universe, right? And Copernicus said, no, no, no, no, we've 00:11:00.160 --> 00:11:05.279 misplaced that completely. It's not us. It's something else. Now, you know, physically, it's the sun. 00:11:05.279 --> 00:11:13.179 But spiritually, it should be God. And that's what God wants us to do. When Jesus is asking us to pray 00:11:13.179 --> 00:11:24.620 this, he's saying, unseat whatever is the king in your life, and it's most likely yourself, and put God 00:11:24.620 --> 00:11:32.539 on the throne of your life. Reorient your whole life. Recognize that all of creation was meant to be in 00:11:32.539 --> 00:11:41.599 orbit around God at the center and in the place of right prominence in the world. 00:11:43.659 --> 00:11:51.439 And so, when we pray, your kingdom come, we're saying, God, we want our lives to be controlled 00:11:51.439 --> 00:11:56.839 by the question, what would God's kingdom look like? What would it look like if everything were 00:11:56.840 --> 00:12:04.259 oriented around God and His nature? So, that's the first question. Whose kingdom is it? It's God's. 00:12:04.639 --> 00:12:11.040 Secondly, when do we think this is going to happen? This is a question that lots of people ask. 00:12:12.800 --> 00:12:20.019 Does God's kingdom…are we asking for God's kingdom to come right now? Do we think it should happen today? 00:12:20.420 --> 00:12:26.240 Do we think it should happen in the future but not right now? Do we think it already happened in the past, 00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:32.360 and so, this is a question that the church has wrestled with quite a lot, and I think the answer 00:12:32.360 --> 00:12:40.279 is yes. How's that for being helpful, right? So, when are we praying for God's kingdom to come? Well, 00:12:40.740 --> 00:12:46.680 here's the thing. Martin Lloyd-Jones, a commentator, says this, the kingdom of God means…really means 00:12:46.680 --> 00:12:53.039 the reign of God, a reign that has already come in the person and work of Jesus, a reign that now 00:12:53.039 --> 00:12:59.019 occurs in the hearts of those who believe in Jesus and whose lives are submitted to God's will present 00:12:59.019 --> 00:13:05.179 in the church, and the day is yet to come when His kingdom shall have…shall have been established 00:13:05.179 --> 00:13:13.139 here on earth in its fullness. So, we have a…in the past, in the present, and in the future nature to 00:13:13.139 --> 00:13:20.240 God's kingdom. When Jesus came, if you remember, we…Jesus came proclaiming the kingdom of heaven is at 00:13:20.240 --> 00:13:28.960 hand. So, when He came, there was an inbreaking of God's rule into the world, right? And so, we see 00:13:28.960 --> 00:13:37.220 this. And then we see that God is continuing to extend that reign through His church. So, Colossians 00:13:37.220 --> 00:13:45.600 1.3 says, He has delivered us from the domain…this is 1.13, I'm sorry…He has delivered us from the 00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:51.120 domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son in whom we have redemption, 00:13:51.120 --> 00:13:56.580 the forgiveness of sins. So, the church today is in God's kingdom in some sense. 00:13:58.720 --> 00:14:05.100 And yet, we look around and we think, has God's kingdom actually come to earth as it is in heaven? 00:14:05.500 --> 00:14:12.100 I hope not, because man, what a mess we have. If this is God's kingdom, that's a pretty terrible 00:14:12.100 --> 00:14:17.899 thing. But in fact, we see, no, there is still yet a future kingdom. Remember when we preached 00:14:17.899 --> 00:14:24.180 through this in Revelation, that one day Jesus will come back, and He will put all things right. 00:14:24.420 --> 00:14:31.700 He will make all things new, right? He will punish the evildoers. Sin and sorrow and sickness and death 00:14:31.700 --> 00:14:40.000 will all be defeated and cast out, and His kingdom will come with life and glory and joy and peace, 00:14:40.000 --> 00:14:47.340 with God in the center of it on His throne. And so, we live in this timing of all of these things. 00:14:48.840 --> 00:14:57.000 The yes, it's already come. Yes, it's coming now, and it will come in the future. Remember the promise 00:14:57.000 --> 00:15:02.980 that we see in Revelation 15, the seventh angel, which is looking into the future, when He said, 00:15:02.980 --> 00:15:09.120 the kingdoms of the world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign 00:15:09.120 --> 00:15:20.899 forever and ever. Friends, this is hope for us, because when we live in a dark world and we wonder, 00:15:20.899 --> 00:15:27.600 how can we keep going? There's a promise here. God has accomplished what is necessary for His kingdom 00:15:27.600 --> 00:15:34.340 to come through Jesus. He is at work even now, and when we have eyes to see, we can look for it, 00:15:34.600 --> 00:15:42.899 and we have a certainty that no matter what King is on the throne of our world, of our own lives, 00:15:43.620 --> 00:15:52.120 one day Jesus will come, and He will make it all right. And the King that we may feel oppressed by 00:15:52.120 --> 00:16:01.960 or done wrong by, we no longer have to, we don't have to fear that He, that that unjust King will 00:16:01.960 --> 00:16:09.820 last forever, but we know that King Jesus will come one day, and that's a great hope for us. 00:16:10.519 --> 00:16:15.179 So, that's the second question. First one, whose kingdom? Second question, when will it come? 00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:20.940 Third question, how does God bring His kingdom? I've already alluded to this, 00:16:20.940 --> 00:16:27.860 but it's fascinating to look through the gospels and think, when Jesus the King came to earth, 00:16:27.860 --> 00:16:38.720 how did He work, right? He came proclaiming a message. He came proclaiming the message that the, 00:16:38.940 --> 00:16:44.420 of the gospel of the kingdom, that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, and He constantly pointed back 00:16:44.420 --> 00:16:50.840 to Himself. The reason why I'm proclaiming this is because I am here. Look at me to see 00:16:50.840 --> 00:16:54.240 the kingdom of heaven and what it's going to look like. And then how did He do that? Well, 00:16:54.320 --> 00:17:00.879 He displayed His kingship over, for instance, creation. As Jesus came in the world, He healed, 00:17:01.399 --> 00:17:11.000 He stilled storms, He fed 5,000 people with scraps. He showed Himself to be the Lord over the physical 00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:19.220 creation, the one who has control even over those things. He showed Himself to be the one who could 00:17:19.220 --> 00:17:25.880 reverse the curse of sin in the world. He showed His healings, thinking about His casting out of demons. 00:17:26.200 --> 00:17:34.000 He showed this is what the kingdom of heaven is like. He embodied this kind of kingdom, 00:17:34.299 --> 00:17:42.819 not only by showing His power over it, but also by showing, as the God-man, His humility. 00:17:42.819 --> 00:17:49.220 Think about Him in the garden of Gethsemane. You probably have heard this, right? But when Jesus 00:17:49.220 --> 00:17:57.139 went, the night before He was crucified on the cross, Jesus went and prayed in the garden. 00:18:00.419 --> 00:18:08.700 And He said, I have come to do Your will, God. Not my will, but Your will be done. 00:18:08.700 --> 00:18:19.380 And then we see, and so this is how Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and it's in me. 00:18:19.460 --> 00:18:28.220 Look at me and what I'm doing, right? And then He says, He'll continue to do this 00:18:28.220 --> 00:18:35.440 then through His church, right? So what happens after Him? He raised up His apostles. He sent them 00:18:35.440 --> 00:18:40.900 out, He said, you will be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. He says, the gospel of the kingdom will 00:18:40.900 --> 00:18:48.160 be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. 00:18:50.140 --> 00:18:59.279 So this was God's plan on how He would establish His kingdom, by the proclamation of His Word. 00:18:59.279 --> 00:19:06.160 God's plan on how He would establish His kingdom. This is remarkable, because some people today seek 00:19:06.160 --> 00:19:14.819 to establish God's kingdom by using the normal tools and powers of earthly kingdoms, right? They want to 00:19:14.819 --> 00:19:22.799 use political power. They want to use social power. They want to use military power to establish kingdoms 00:19:22.799 --> 00:19:28.859 on this earth. We do it in our own little ways in our own lives. We use manipulation. We use 00:19:28.859 --> 00:19:39.939 authority. We set up our own kingdoms. But Jesus says, there's a different way that I'm going to do it. 00:19:40.639 --> 00:19:46.259 There's a different way through the spread of the gospel and through the work of the Holy Spirit. 00:19:46.419 --> 00:19:53.039 This is how the kingdom is established. This is how it's established broadly in the world as people come 00:19:53.039 --> 00:19:58.299 to know Jesus through that proclamation. This is how it happens even in our interpersonal 00:19:58.299 --> 00:20:05.899 relationships as we share and point one another to Christ. God's kingdom comes in our midst. 00:20:08.519 --> 00:20:14.799 So we need to recognize that though, yes, there is good work for us to do, being leaven in our society, 00:20:15.379 --> 00:20:22.500 seeking to influence the world so that it might be less evil and more good, there is still good work 00:20:22.500 --> 00:20:27.859 to be done. But that's not going to establish His kingdom through the proclamation of His word and 00:20:27.859 --> 00:20:35.720 the transformation of hearts. This is central to it. And we recognize that therefore, it is a work that 00:20:35.720 --> 00:20:39.460 only God can do. And so we pray. 00:20:42.460 --> 00:20:43.859 We don't force it. 00:20:45.079 --> 00:20:48.380 Because the nature of God's kingdom, and this is the fourth thing I want to say, 00:20:48.380 --> 00:20:52.060 and it's wrapped up in what I've already said, you guys are probably waiting like, 00:20:52.220 --> 00:20:56.320 why didn't He say these parts? Well, it's coming. Here we go. Because the nature of, 00:20:56.440 --> 00:21:02.480 what is the nature of this kingdom that Jesus brings and that He's coming? Well, again, 00:21:02.560 --> 00:21:11.160 the gospel of Matthew is so instructive in this, the Beatitudes, right? Who gets the kingdom of heaven 00:21:11.160 --> 00:21:18.480 in the Beatitudes? The poor in spirit and those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake. 00:21:19.880 --> 00:21:27.340 Those aren't the winners. Those aren't the people asserting authority. Those are the needy. Those are 00:21:27.340 --> 00:21:35.860 the weak. Those are the ones who know that they're not here to establish the kingdom. Think about all the 00:21:35.859 --> 00:21:43.339 parables in the book of Matthew and what the nature of the kingdom is according to Jesus' teaching in 00:21:43.339 --> 00:21:49.219 these parables. The kingdom of heaven is like a tiny mustard seed that will have a completely outsized 00:21:49.219 --> 00:21:55.019 effect on the world around, not because it is great, but because God will use it to do great things. 00:21:55.779 --> 00:22:04.159 The kingdom of heaven is like a leaven in flour that infiltrates and transforms it so that it's useful 00:22:04.160 --> 00:22:12.860 for making bread. The kingdom of heaven is a pearl of such exceeding value that we would count all 00:22:12.860 --> 00:22:20.440 things as loss of the sake of having that one pearl. The kingdom of heaven is like a bride waiting 00:22:20.440 --> 00:22:28.580 expectantly with their focus and their hope fixed completely on being ready for this bride, 00:22:28.579 --> 00:22:38.000 for this groom to come and to meet them. The kingdom of heaven welcomes the children, 00:22:38.000 --> 00:22:47.699 the outcasts, the needy. It is those who lifts up servants and the humble and brings low the proud 00:22:47.700 --> 00:22:53.660 and the self-important, a kingdom that loves and serves the marginalized. 00:22:57.400 --> 00:23:05.480 It's an incredible kingdom. Jonathan Pennington, as I quoted earlier, says this, 00:23:05.559 --> 00:23:12.340 the Beatitudes give us an image of the blessed ones that is just the opposite of what we would 00:23:12.339 --> 00:23:19.599 naturally value. Jesus' model of life shows open-armed compassion for the downtrodden, 00:23:19.599 --> 00:23:25.339 the touching of a leper, the exalting of a lowly child, the welcoming of the Gentile, 00:23:25.759 --> 00:23:33.959 and a listening ear for blind outcast beggars. As a king of the universe, he enters Jerusalem, 00:23:34.159 --> 00:23:39.259 not on a warhorse or golden chariot, but riding humbly on the foal of a donkey. 00:23:39.259 --> 00:23:49.500 As king of all, he willingly rides into the city where iron nails will soon be used to hang him 00:23:49.500 --> 00:23:59.700 naked on a cross in the scorching sun. At the very heart of Jesus' kingdom, of this kingdom that God 00:23:59.700 --> 00:24:08.059 will establish in the world, is Jesus humbling himself and becoming a servant even to the point 00:24:08.059 --> 00:24:20.359 of death, death on the cross. Bearing shame and scoffing, he, by his wounds we are healed. By his death, 00:24:20.359 --> 00:24:30.720 we are saved. By his resurrection, the powers of sin and death are ultimately triumphed over. 00:24:30.720 --> 00:24:41.200 This is the kingship that Jesus brings. How different is this from the kingships of the world? 00:24:42.799 --> 00:24:50.740 Think about what the Roman Empire did. The Pax Romana was built on the backs of military conquest, 00:24:51.240 --> 00:25:00.259 slavery, and oppression. Now, again, we could argue on the realpolitik of whether that's a better thing 00:25:00.259 --> 00:25:05.160 than the chaos of the chaos of not having Roman rule. But we know at the end of the day, 00:25:05.339 --> 00:25:09.259 it was established by force and it was maintained by force. 00:25:11.640 --> 00:25:12.140 Right? 00:25:12.140 --> 00:25:22.200 The Roman Empire, power was found in wealth, in military resources, and in natural resources. When you had 00:25:22.200 --> 00:25:31.040 these things, you had power in the Roman Empire. And in the face of this, in the first century, 00:25:31.580 --> 00:25:37.060 the Jewish people were longing for a restoration of a different kind of kingdom. They were looking for 00:25:37.059 --> 00:25:43.159 David to come back, leading an army on a white horse to overthrow the oppressors and reestablish 00:25:43.159 --> 00:25:48.519 a national kingdom again, where Israel would be a great kingdom. 00:25:51.099 --> 00:25:58.299 And Jesus comes and confounds all of these expectations. Jesus comes and he says, 00:25:58.299 --> 00:26:09.879 no, I have come to do your will. I have come not to be served, but to serve and to give my life a ransom 00:26:09.879 --> 00:26:11.319 for many. 00:26:17.079 --> 00:26:18.500 Pennington says this again, 00:26:18.500 --> 00:26:24.539 as this king instructs us, we learn that the one who wants to be first should not exercise an 00:26:24.539 --> 00:26:30.519 overbearing leadership style, but should be the slave of all. The one who is blessed by God with 00:26:30.519 --> 00:26:38.139 material wealth should set it aside to follow Christ. The one who desires to save his life must, 00:26:38.139 --> 00:26:46.759 in fact, die. Such is the radical nature of the vision of the kingdom that Jesus brings. 00:26:46.759 --> 00:26:55.779 This is the nature of the kingdom that Jesus instructs us to pray for. Thy kingdom come 00:26:55.779 --> 00:26:58.119 is this kind of kingdom. 00:27:01.319 --> 00:27:07.680 Which leads us then to our final point. What does this do for us? If we pray, your kingdom come, 00:27:08.039 --> 00:27:14.119 your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, we must begin with our hearts. How does this prayer 00:27:14.119 --> 00:27:21.399 shape us as we pray it for the world? Three things that I have for us this morning. First 00:27:21.399 --> 00:27:31.619 is surrender. When we pray this prayer, God calls us to reaffirm, not my will, but thy will be done. 00:27:32.279 --> 00:27:37.319 Remember the gospel that we've proclaimed and that we've believed in here as a church. 00:27:37.319 --> 00:27:47.679 It's that apart from God, I am a sinner. I am a rebel. And my sinful desires to exalt myself as king 00:27:47.679 --> 00:27:55.480 have led only to ruin and destruction in my life and in others. Alienation from God. 00:27:55.480 --> 00:28:08.839 And when I came to Christ in the first place, I said, I surrender my life. I can't save myself. All I can do 00:28:08.839 --> 00:28:17.839 is by faith give up that and take hold of you. You have done, Jesus, what I could not do to save me. 00:28:17.839 --> 00:28:27.379 And so we surrender to God. We let go of our own plans, our own strategies, our own desires, our own 00:28:27.379 --> 00:28:38.459 agendas, and let God reform and reshape how we live our lives. And friends, you know why this is so hard? 00:28:38.959 --> 00:28:45.879 Because we don't trust God to do well. We all think, God, I know you're up there, but really, 00:28:45.880 --> 00:28:50.520 I'm in the weeds here. I know what it should look like. I've got a better plan than you. 00:28:54.420 --> 00:29:00.960 I'll simply refer you back to two weeks ago when we started this prayer with our Father who art in 00:29:00.960 --> 00:29:13.460 heaven. We pray to a loving heavenly Father who is also a sovereign king, and he knows far better than 00:29:13.460 --> 00:29:20.880 us what is good. And so when he calls us to surrender, it's like we, you know, we do this 00:29:20.880 --> 00:29:26.160 every day when we get on an airplane, right? We take our lives and we put them in someone else's 00:29:26.160 --> 00:29:32.420 hands. We say, we trust you to be able to get this plane up off the ground to where we're going and 00:29:32.420 --> 00:29:37.860 back down again and safely, right? Now, we know in a fallen world it doesn't always happen, but 00:29:37.859 --> 00:29:43.740 that's what we do. We have this trust in a very physical way with airline pilots. We give our 00:29:43.740 --> 00:29:52.379 lives over to them and say, please take care of me. This is what God calls us to do as we pray, 00:29:52.500 --> 00:30:00.319 your kingdom come. God says, give me your life. I will take care of you. Let me order it. Let me 00:30:00.319 --> 00:30:08.679 direct it. Let me lead it. This then, of course, leads to the second thing. The first one, heart 00:30:08.679 --> 00:30:16.839 attitude, is that of surrender. The second one is that of obedience. It is said, the quip is, 00:30:16.839 --> 00:30:22.519 if Jesus is not Lord of all, then He is not Lord at all. 00:30:22.519 --> 00:30:35.599 Are you willing to say to God, you are my king, I will obey you no matter what? 00:30:38.119 --> 00:30:44.319 Do we allow Him to be our commanding officer and our sovereign king? 00:30:44.319 --> 00:30:56.339 How often does our American, maybe not American, our human, independent, rebellious spirit rise up in 00:30:56.339 --> 00:31:03.619 our hearts to say, God, I've got a better idea. I think I know how to do this. I don't want to do 00:31:03.619 --> 00:31:10.740 it that way. For those of us who are parents, you all know this is what your two-year-old is doing. 00:31:10.740 --> 00:31:17.680 They're trying to say, I want my kingdom, not yours. And part of what we're doing is helping 00:31:17.680 --> 00:31:22.620 them realize, no, that's not good for you. Your kingdom is not a good thing. 00:31:25.579 --> 00:31:30.539 But you know, all of us can be like those two-year-olds. God, I want my kingdom. 00:31:32.200 --> 00:31:38.460 But the call to pray your kingdom come is a call to obey. 00:31:40.740 --> 00:31:46.480 God, will you tell me how to live? Will you shape my life? 00:31:47.900 --> 00:31:54.859 Again, we do this in some areas of our lives. If you're on a sports team, you show up at practice, 00:31:55.380 --> 00:32:00.720 and the coach says, okay, we're going to run today. And you may groan, and you may moan, 00:32:01.180 --> 00:32:08.380 but you're going to do it. Why? Because you believe that that coach has a better idea than you do about 00:32:08.380 --> 00:32:14.600 what you need to do to get ready to play the game. He knows what fitness you need. He knows what 00:32:14.600 --> 00:32:19.140 training you need. He knows what skills you need to develop and to practice. 00:32:19.140 --> 00:32:31.340 how much more then does God, the infinite ruler of the world, and God, the Savior of the world, 00:32:31.900 --> 00:32:40.680 call us to obey Him and say, okay, Jesus, here I am. Life is following you. Tell me what that looks 00:32:40.680 --> 00:32:49.980 like. I want to let you shape. I will obey you. And that may be spiritual disciplines. It may be 00:32:49.980 --> 00:32:58.000 putting aside sin. It may be changing the way we are stewards of our lives, of our time. 00:32:58.000 --> 00:33:10.180 all this in obedience to our King. So if the first attitude is surrender, the second one is obedience, 00:33:10.759 --> 00:33:19.779 the third one is worship. Because God's kingdom doesn't merely come, and Jesus doesn't merely come 00:33:19.779 --> 00:33:30.200 as a King to be bowed down to in obeisance and in abject humiliation. He is one who comes, 00:33:30.559 --> 00:33:38.779 calls us to surrender, calls us to obey, and calls us to worship. Because He is the one who says, 00:33:39.920 --> 00:33:47.220 who calls us to a faith that has characteristics of loving loyalty, of fealty and allegiance, 00:33:47.220 --> 00:33:54.880 of devotion, of devotion, not just to bow to Him, but to adore Him. Because He is not only in authority, 00:33:54.880 --> 00:34:03.339 but He is also a loving Heavenly Father. He is also a creator God. He is also beyond our imagination 00:34:03.339 --> 00:34:13.039 in beauty and majesty and splendor. And so He calls us to worship Him. When we pray God's kingdom come, 00:34:13.039 --> 00:34:19.599 we are meant to look at God and say, this is the treasure. This is the thing that my heart most 00:34:19.599 --> 00:34:29.420 desires. This is what I was made for. And it is to make, order my life around Him so that He might be 00:34:29.420 --> 00:34:36.199 glorified. This is the greatest desire of my heart, because this is what we were made to do. 00:34:36.199 --> 00:34:44.899 You know I couldn't get through this without a Lord of the Rings quote, right? Do you remember? 00:34:45.639 --> 00:34:50.739 Do you remember what it's like at the end? And if you've watched the movies, I apologize, 00:34:50.980 --> 00:34:56.639 because the seven endings were just really painful and even not sufficient to capture the glory of what… 00:34:57.539 --> 00:35:05.679 But Middle Earth had been subjected for hundreds, yea, thousands of years. There was no king, 00:35:05.679 --> 00:35:13.699 and because there was no king, evil fomented and flourished in the land, and civilizations became 00:35:13.699 --> 00:35:26.039 besieged, and the places of goodness shrank. And then through the great story of the Lord of the Rings, 00:35:26.039 --> 00:35:37.079 Jesus, right? The evil Lord was defeated by a king, ultimately. Well, not really. He was defeated by a 00:35:37.079 --> 00:35:44.420 hobbit who was one picture of Jesus, the humble one who laid down his life, right? But in the meantime, 00:35:44.900 --> 00:35:51.360 Tolkien says there is also a king that is going to be restored, one who lived in obscurity, but now is 00:35:51.360 --> 00:35:56.539 coming into his glory. And there's this picture of him in the fields of Cormelon, 00:35:56.539 --> 00:36:07.440 standing on the pinnacle of the kingdom of Gondor, of Minas Tirith. And Aragorn steps out as the king, 00:36:07.640 --> 00:36:16.680 and everybody bows before him, because they love him, because they're so glad that there is a king 00:36:16.679 --> 00:36:22.859 who is right, and who is just, and who is humble, and who will bring goodness, and who will overcome evil. 00:36:25.879 --> 00:36:29.339 And friends, there will be no human king like that in this world, 00:36:29.679 --> 00:36:39.659 but there is a king who has come, who is exactly like that. And his name is Jesus, 00:36:39.659 --> 00:36:49.679 and this is what we bow to. And this is who we adore and worship and give our lives for. And this 00:36:49.679 --> 00:36:58.980 is the one that we worship. We say the king has returned. You know, this is what the Hallelujah 00:36:58.980 --> 00:37:11.159 Chorus, in the great work by Hondo, Hondo's Messiah, the Hallelujah Chorus, this is what it's about. 00:37:11.760 --> 00:37:20.539 Hallelujah, hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth, and the kingdoms of this world have become 00:37:20.539 --> 00:37:31.659 the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ. And he shall reign forever and ever. King of kings and Lord 00:37:31.659 --> 00:37:40.900 of lords, and he shall reign forever and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, and ever, hallelujah, 00:37:40.900 --> 00:37:51.960 hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth 00:37:51.960 --> 00:37:54.660 as it is in heaven. Let's pray. 00:37:57.700 --> 00:38:07.079 Oh, Lord, we pray this morning. Lord, we simply want to pray in obedience to you. May your kingdom come. 00:38:07.079 --> 00:38:14.500 May your kingdom come. May your kingdom come in our hearts. May your kingdom come in our church. 00:38:16.920 --> 00:38:23.880 Lord, may your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 00:38:26.559 --> 00:38:31.279 Come, Lord Jesus, we pray. Amen.