When You Pray Talk 2

0:00 Good afternoon. We're slightly tighter for time this morning, so let's just get stuck straight into where we are. A reminder, if you're visitors with us or you weren't here last week, we are slowly but surely, step by step, making our way through the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray and asking that as we encounter his word and encounter his spirit, that he will take us and lead us on that journey of growth in prayer together. as a church. Let's read then from Matthew 6, these couple of verses. This then is how you should pray, Jesus tells his disciples. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.

0:46 Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Let's just take a moment to pray. Father, we do pray that you will work in hearts this morning as we think about these words, that we might encounter you through your word, by your spirit, that you might meet us where we are, and that we might go away different, changed by our encounter with you through your word. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. So we began last week, as you know, with our Father in heaven.

1:32 Hallowed be your name. Those first eight words, those crucial words to introduce the prayer. And we move on this morning then to these next 14. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And as you'd expect from somebody who's teaching this right now, These words have been going around my head all week. The curse of a Bible teacher is that these words just stay constantly in your mind. They're constantly being turned over and turned over and turned over to the detriment of a lot of other things you should be doing. But I've been reflecting on these a lot.

2:07 And as I've been reflecting, I've realized that there are a number of stumbling blocks to actually praying them that I've certainly encountered for myself. And I would imagine I'm not that dissimilar to you, I hope. and so they're probably similar for you. The first of those, then, is one of the ones we talked about last week. And Al's probably alluded to that already in terms of that sheer familiarity of them, that white noise of them that I talked about last week. But there are other difficulties specific to these words, I think, especially. And the first of those, I think, is actually truly understanding what they mean. I was thinking back to my experience of this prayer and the fact that would have started at age four in P1 and at least once a week, you would have had to pray this prayer out loud in school assembly.

3:00 I don't know whether Al said it. He was saying at first service about the fact that in his school, they didn't really know it, but I definitely knew it because of the fear of the principal in primary school. You were gonna say these words out loud. And then moving on as well, in the high school, in the sports hall, in Ballyclare High every week, saying these every time, in assembly. But I sort of did a conservative estimate and worked out, well, I would have at least have said those then 500 times out loud throughout my time in school. But if you'd asked me, what does your kingdom come mean? I honestly don't think I would have been able to give you a decent answer to that. If you'd asked me, what is this about your will be done on earth as it is in heaven?

3:43 What's going on in heaven that God wants to happen on earth? Again, I don't think I would have been able to articulate an answer. And of course, especially with those words, your kingdom come, there are all sorts of different understandings that people take about that. And so I think that's a problem. Do we truly understand out of scripture, out of God's word, what we are praying when we pray them? That's one. Another problem, another stumbling block that I encountered this week for myself was I was out. I mentioned last week how I do a little loop around the block with the dog each morning and I pray this prayer.

4:24 And of course, these were the words that were prominent in my mind. And just for context, I've got to tell you, I was in a shocking mood this morning, a shocking mood. And as I was walking out of nowhere almost, I find myself actually genuinely saying out loud whenever I encountered these words, I don't want to pray these. The dog wondered what she'd done. I actually shocked myself a little just in terms of just the emphaticness of the rebellion of my heart, of the resistance of the antagonism of my heart to actually praying these words. So that's another problem. Then another, of course, is probably an obvious one that many of you will have thought about before. And it's connected with that one I've just mentioned.

5:18 And it's this. What's the point? What's the point in praying your kingdom come, your will be done? If God is sovereign and we think and we believe that that's going to happen anyway, whether we pray these words or not, why bother? Why bother? So a number of difficulties, a number of potential stumbling blocks that might hinder our praying these words. And in the shorter time we've had this morning, I do want to address all three, but I'm going to spend most of our time on the first one of really thinking about what is it we are praying when we pray these words. With the hope that actually exploring God's word and opening it up, that that will this morning, and that you'll carry this on, that will enrichen our understanding of what we're praying.

6:11 And that that enriched understanding will enlighten and will quicken and will exciten our hearts. I think of Paul's prayer in Ephesians 3 about your hearts being enlightened, or in Ephesians 1 of that spirit of wisdom and revelation. That's what we're thinking about this morning. That as we understand them more, that will raise our spiritual heart rate, and And it'll inspire us to pray these words with greater clarity and with greater sincerity and with greater fervency and with greater frequency. And the reality is that I can only scratch the surface of the resource of God's word when it comes to understanding all of the richness within these 14 words. That's why I encourage people so often that I talk to whenever we're talking about difficulties with prayer. And I'm encouraging you to do the same now. Different from my walking the dog in the morning, but I would encourage you as much as possible.

7:13 I encourage us as much as possible where we can get the opportunity to actually pray with our Bibles open in front of us. Where it's not prayer and the Bible, but it's both together. because that gives us so many opportunities to read passages and read verses and meditate on them and connect those with these words. And then as we pray, as your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, through the prism of those verses, we can ask God by his spirit to enable us to see something different of the color, of the radiance, of the luster, of the glory, of what it is we're actually praying. And the privilege it is that we get to pray these words to our Father in the first place. So that's really what I want to do with you over the next few minutes. You might think this is a slightly strange way to go. I apologize if you do.

8:08 But what I want to do is really just show us what God is doing. What he's done so far in terms of making his kingdom come. And where that is going. To help us as we pray this prayer, this part of the prayer. So as Jesus teaches us to pray these words, he's teaching us to pray a future-oriented prayer. You don't hope for a bus that's already arrived. You don't pray for a kingdom that's already come. So in some sense, we are praying this future-oriented prayer.

8:46 Of course there is a static reality that God is sovereign, that God is on his throne. And that whatever state the world looks like, he is in control. But this and what we're praying for here is about how he is bringing his kingdom forward and moving it forward in and through his son. That's what we're looking at. And in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul, as he talks about the resurrection, he gives us almost like a little microcosm of the kingdom story. And especially helps us to see where things are going in Christ. Let me read this to you then. And here's where he begins.

9:27 Talking about resurrection and really responding to some of the Corinthians that are saying or questioning the fact that there is going to be any bodily resurrection. But Christ, he says, has indeed been raised from the dead. the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. But each in turn, Christ, the firstfruits, that's already happened at his resurrection on the third day. Then when he comes, and Paul's talking here about when Jesus returns as promised for a second time, those who belong to him will experience resurrection. then the end will come your kingdom come when he jesus the son hands over the kingdom to god the father after he jesus has destroyed all dominion authority and power and that's the time that we are in that's still going on for he jesus must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet the last enemy to be destroyed is death.

10:43 And we know death is going to be destroyed because of the first fruits. It's already been put into inevitable motion that death is going to be finally overcome. For he has put everything under his feet. Now, when it says that everything has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself who put everything under Christ. So here's part of the story. There was a time when the father gave the authority of his kingdom over to the son to carry out his will. And that's where we are. But then there's a time coming when it's going to be handed back.

11:20 When he, Jesus, has done this, Paul goes on, when the kingdom has come, then the son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him so that God may be all in all. Here we have in this little section of 1 Corinthians 15 a little encapsulation of the story of God's kingdom. A kingdom inaugurated with Jesus' death and resurrection but a kingdom that is still to come in all its fullness. This is the encapsulation of the story of your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. because when we're talking about heaven and we're thinking about heaven, that is the realm where God's will is carried out perfectly and joyfully. And so that's what we're thinking about and that's what we're praying about when we pray that second half of the prayer of these words. The story of God's plan revealed in Scripture is the story of the Father handing authority over to the Son to work out his purposes and his promises in the world to extend his kingdom rule and reign until that time when the son's work is fully complete and the fulfilled kingdom gets handed back to the father so that he may be all in all. That's where we're going.

12:49 That's what we're praying about. And what I want to do just for a few moments and I'm encouraging you to do the same in your own time is do like a little whistle stop tour through what scripture tells us about this trajectory about where things are going about God's kingdom coming let me take you through some of the headlines first of all in the Old Testament we see this handing over of authority to the son we see it prophesied we see it prophesied in the Psalms in Psalm 2 we see the one enthroned in heaven declaring I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain. This idea that the one enthroned is handing over authority to his king. We see a prophesied too in Daniel 7, the one like a son of man who approaches the ancient of days and has given authority, glory and power. We can see this being prophesied. Your kingdom come, your will be done being prophesied. Then we see things happening in where we've been in John recently, in the incarnation.

13:57 In the word becoming flesh. And we see the word Jesus proclaiming that the kingdom is near. Keeps on talking about that. He claims authority for himself in the gospels. He keeps on talking about himself. If you read through the gospels as the son of man, alluding back to Daniel 7. he alludes that he is the king in psalm 2 and he says in john 3 listen to these words the father loves the son and has placed everything in his hands we're seeing what's happening your kingdom come your will be done and then we see things move forward in the defining moment of jesus death on the cross the the sacrificial means of reconciliation that enables people to be forgiven to be reconciled to God, to be justified, adopted, and brought into the kingdom of God.

14:55 Colossians 1, for God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. Your kingdom come, your will be done. and then comes the turning point the watershed kingdom inauguration at Christ's resurrection that's what Paul's talking about in 1 Corinthians 15 with this idea of first fruits it's what he's talking about too in Romans 1 as he declares this new phase in God's kingdom coming you see the underlying bit there this turning point in history that Jesus through the spirit of holiness was appointed the son of God by his resurrection from the dead. Not a new identity for Jesus, but this thing happening in history, this mark of a new epoch, of a new phase in what God is doing. Your kingdom come, your will be done. And then we see things moving forward through the Holy Spirit-empowered church of Christ. As Jesus leaves his disciples, All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me.

16:16 All authority. Therefore, what does he tell them to do? Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Teaching them to obey everything I've commanded you. And surely I, the one with all authority, am with you till the end of the age. And then we see moving forward, Acts 1. Again, Jesus talking to his disciples, answering their questions. It's not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you.

16:52 And you will be. And here's a little inkling into what the kingdom extension, the rule and the reign of God is about. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. and then we move forward and we see Peter preaching at Pentecost and telling the Jews, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus, for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit that is the guarantee of their inclusion in the kingdom, rule and reign of the living God. And so, when we pray, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We are praying for and we are reminding our hearts of the story that God is fulfilling through his son. The promises that he is working out through his son. And so as we look at pieces of scripture like this, we enrich our understanding of what it is we're praying.

18:02 We are praying for the continuation of his story to that point of climax, that point of telos, to that point of kingdom fulfillment when Jesus brings about the destruction of all evil dominions, powers, and authorities, places all enemies under his feet. The last one, as Paul says, being death itself. We are praying in this prayer for Jesus to return. We are joining with those words at the end of Revelation, the final words of Scripture, Amen, come Lord Jesus. We're praying for that sure and certain future when Jesus ultimately hands authority back to the Father because his work is complete so that God may be all in all. and then we can live under that perfect rule and reign of God in the new heaven and the new earth brought together that we read about in Revelation 21 when God will fully dwell with his people where there will be no mourning or crying or pain or death when the glory and the honor of all nations will be brought into the kingdom of God fully. That's what we're praying for.

19:31 But as we do that, as we have, I suppose, one eye looking in that direction as we pray, your kingdom come, your will be done. And as we are doing that to enliven our hearts, to increase the anticipation of our future, we're also praying for ourselves in the present. There is a present dimension to this prayer. That today, that this week, that we might play the part that Jesus, in his grace and in his kindness, do we understand that? the fact that we get to pray this prayer and participate with this prayer is such a part of Christ's grace, that we get to do that and participate with him in terms of what he has conferred on us as his church for his kingdom purposes. And that connects then, of course, with the antagonism in my heart towards praying these words because naturally,

20:42 I want my kingdom to come. I want control and I want autonomy and I want to make my own decisions and my own choices. I want to have that autonomy over my own relationships and decisions and I want to have it even over, as we were talking about this morning, my finances and what I do with my money because I want to point all of that direction in the direction of my dreams, of my vision for my life. And so when your kingdom come gets in the way of my kingdom come, which it does every single day, this is the prayer that we are called to pray. Often through gritted teeth, almost as an act of revolutionary defiance against ourselves, against our own hearts. To pray this prayer as an act of counter formation against all the other ways that we are being formed for a different kingdom. As a means for the Holy Spirit to work in our hearts.

21:55 And turn us away from the pull of my kingdom come. My will be done. And towards the glory and the magnitude. And the privilege of being able to pray. Your kingdom come. Your will be done. You see. God's kingdom coming.

22:18 And this time prior to the return of Jesus. It's not a political thing. That's not a social justice thing. We are not on some sort of trajectory of progress where earth and heaven will meet in time. That's just not going to happen without the return of Christ. What scripture teaches here is God's kingdom rule and reign and the extension of it, it's a heart thing. It's all about hearts. Absolutely generosity and justice and compassion and concern for the widow and the orphan and the poor and all of those things, those will flow out of and be evidence of transformed hearts.

23:08 But what God is on about here is our hearts. Think of Ezekiel. I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them. I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. And so what we're praying for when we pray these words first and foremost for ourselves, is that by his spirit, God's kingdom rule and reign, that's what it's about, might grow in our hearts. That his reign over that contested territory that I talked about when I was walking the dog, because he reigns, but there's still that fleshliness within me, that that reign might grow, might push forward into that territory, that in the words of 1 Peter 3, 15, we might more and more in our hearts revere Christ as Lord.

24:06 Your kingdom come. Your will be done in my heart. That's the first thing. And then from there, as we pray these words, we're praying that out of that rule and reign in our hearts, that God might then use us for his kingdom purposes, for his will to be carried out. And there's loads of places we can go in Scripture to get pictures of this. Paul talks about us living holy lives, living as children of light in Ephesians 5. Children of light in the midst of darkness or that we might shine like stars as we hold firmly to the word of life in this warped and crooked generation. Paul talks about that in Philippians 2 or then a chapter later in Philippians 3, this amazing picture of that we might live as citizens of heaven.

25:05 This little colony of heaven on earth. Remember, Paul was writing to the Philippians. Philippi was a colony of Rome. It was like a little section of Rome in the middle of Asia. And that's the picture that he was giving to them. This little colony of heaven on earth. Citizens of heaven declaring the true king, living for the true king and the true kingdom. Your kingdom come, your will be done as you use us.

25:39 And what we're praying for then is that with hearts compelled by our king, by his kingdom, by his love, that his will might be done in our lives and we might fulfill our role as those children of light, as that colony of heaven, or as another picture gives us as Christ's ambassadors. Again, Paul in 2 Corinthians 5, and he has committed to us the message of reconciliation, this welcome into the kingdom. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf, Be reconciled to God. This is Paul talking. And we're meant to say those same words to others. We implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. Your kingdom come, your will be done.

26:34 And then as we do that, we're praying that through us, as we carry out his will and live as ambassadors, that his kingdom would then come in many new hearts. That's what we're praying for. That as we proclaim Christ as Lord, as we proclaim this message of repentance and reconciliation and welcome and relationship under Christ's authority, that in Paul's words from 2 Corinthians 4, the God who said, and we've been here a few times in the last number of months, let light shine out of darkness, that that God would overcome the spiritual blindness the God of this age has wreaked on the world and would, according to his goodwill, make his light shine in new hearts to give them, as he says here, the light of the knowledge of his glory displayed in the face of Christ. What we're praying for when we pray these words then is that more and more people, like Adam's friend who we talked about last week, would see, would have their eyes opened and would humble themselves and would repent and would be reconciled to God in Christ and would be brought into the kingship and under the kingship of the living God and would become part of that little colony that we have of heavenly citizens on earth living for the true king, living for the true kingdom together. Your kingdom come.

28:14 your will be done. As I close then, let me address that last thorny question that I raised. If God is sovereign, if God is sovereign and all of this is going to happen anyway, if his kingdom is going to come, and of course we believe it is, and if his will is going to be done, and of course we believe it is, what's the point then? What's the motivation for us to pray these words? in the first place? What difference does it make? Well, let me give you a few responses to that very briefly.

28:56 The first is to say this. Very simply, Jesus tells us to. Jesus says, this then is how you should pray. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And to pick up on something Jesus says somewhere else in John 14, if you love me, you will obey my commands. And here's one. Pray like this.

29:24 Pray these words. Praying them is an act of loving response. It's an act of submission to the Lordship of Christ in our lives. That's one answer to that question. But another one is this. And that is the fact that even though we don't know how prayer works, that God in his will has not revealed that mystery to us, we can be clear that God chooses to give his church's prayers a role in the outworking of his will. I like it how one commentator says this, prayer is one of the mysterious wheels in God's providence by which his purposes are executed.

30:06 executed. Just like I don't need to know how a plane works, and I don't really, to get in one and fly in it, or how the intricate workings of my phone work to get all of the functionality out of that, and I don't. I don't need to know how prayer works for God's kingdom and for God's will to just start doing it. And they keep on praying it. And that's another response. But I'm gonna give you even more than that. Because we should pray this prayer and this is the one that strikes me the most. We should pray this prayer because Jesus prayed this prayer.

31:01 If I could compel you to do one other thing in connection with this teaching this week, it would be to go home and at some point, open your Bible and read and meditate on and pray in response to the account of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. Take all three, Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 22. Because in there, what we see is we see Jesus in his anguish saying, my soul is overwhelmed to the point of death. And we see him praying three times, Father, if it is possible, take this cup, take this impending death on a cross away from me, but not my will, but yours be done. And again, not my will, but yours be done. And a third time, not my will, but yours be done. We see here, Again, a little snapshot of the whole of the life of Jesus.

32:06 That every decision, and we can read about in all sorts of other places too, every decision being born out of prayer. And so we respond in praying, your will be done, because he responded to the Father, your will be done. And he did so for us. For our forgiveness, for our reconciliation, for our acceptance and welcome into the kingdom. And then I'm going to give you another one. And that's this, because praying it teaches us something. Praying these words teaches us something else. And Jesus praying it teaches us something else about why we should keep on praying.

33:01 and again this intersects with the resistance that I identified in my heart to pray these words and it brings me back to something I've mentioned already but I think it's worth ending here because what we see here by God's grace I think it is God's grace that he's revealed this encounter with to us we see Jesus needing to pray Jesus needing to pray, your will be done three times before he was ready to step into what that would mean to fulfill the will of the Father for him. And I don't know about you, but I know sometimes I need a lot more than three. Sometimes 33. Sometimes 333. before I'm ready to step forward. But it's through praying this prayer that God, by his spirit, brings my will into alignment with his, brings my heart into alignment with his and gives me the strength to take the next step of obedience into whatever that means in my life. In the garden, not in Matthew, but Luke actually records that Jesus, once he prayed these words, was given an angel to strengthen him.

34:44 And the promise is then for us, as we pray this prayer, often through gritted teeth, sometimes having to pray it over and over and over again in that God promises that he will meet us by his spirit to strengthen us and encourage us and help us to take that next step forward so with one eye on where the kingdom is heading and one eye on today. Let's keep on praying. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

35:30 Let's pray together as the band come back out. Father, we pray these words together now. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Father for different people here this morning these words are going to have different connotations in our lives right now and the truth is that sometimes praying these words and stepping into where they take us is a really joyous thing it feels like we're riding the crest of a wave

36:20 but other times it feels like that wave is crashing against us and submerging us and praying these words and stepping into these words brings us so much fear and so much concern and sometimes pain and sorrow. And so we pray especially, first of all, for people here this morning who are praying these words and they know the difficult places that that means and stepping into. And we pray too for those who have allowed that antagonism towards them to build up in their hearts so that their hearts have become hardened against them and hardened against you and your will.

37:35 And we ask that by your spirit and through your word that you would break through into those hearts afresh. That you would remove the calluses and that you would speak powerfully and that they might begin to pray those words again. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Help us see the privilege it is. to be able to pray these words, to be able to be part of what you're doing in this world.

38:23 And we ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.