Thy Kingdom Come 1982

I'd like to begin by reading from Matthew chapter 6, verse 7 and following. And in praying, do not keep 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.

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.

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.

Our Lord taught us to live one day at a time. Not to be anxious about tomorrow. Not to waste our strength trying to make tomorrow safe.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Worry about today, and leave tomorrow with God. But, our Lord never taught us to fix our eyes on this day's segment of the journey alone.

Rather, He taught us to lift our eyes above what's happening today. And look far beyond. He taught us to fix our eyes on a point off in the future, which is the goal of our journey.

Every day we live has meaning only as it brings us closer to that goal. Our life has meaning. Our death has meaning.

Only as it brings us closer to that goal. Now, if our vision of the goal becomes clouded. Or if we fail to press continuously closer to the goal.

Then, our life in this world becomes absurd. Without meaning. And so, give us this day our daily bread.

It becomes a secondary prayer. A valid prayer. A good prayer.

A prayer our Father answers. But, the primary prayer of our life, of our inmost heart, has to be, Thy kingdom come. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name.

Thy kingdom come. What a pitiful thing, if the only prayer we ever really pray is, Give us this day our daily bread. Give us, give us, give us.

Always asking for the things that have to do with what we want, what we need. The problems and the pleasures of everyday life. And never get our eyes to see beyond.

To the goal. Now, the goal is not just our goal. Not just the goal of all the believers in Jesus.

It's the goal of the entire universe. It's the goal of every man, woman, and child who has ever or will ever walk this earth. The good.

The bad. The believers. The unbelievers.

Kings and peasants. Rich and poor. A day when this earth will be invaded by blinding light.

And every hidden thing will be uncovered. And every wrong ever committed by a human being against another human being will be dragged up out of the past and exposed to plain view. A day when there will be no peaceful graves.

When the dead, all the dead, will be called back from their wanderings by the sound of a voice they will all recognize. And they will enter either into life or into judgment. A day when the roles will be precisely reversed from what they were before.

When the people who were oppressed will suddenly find themselves wonderfully comforted. Like Lazarus the beggar resting in Abraham's bosom. Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be conquered. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. That's what he's talking about.

And while that is fulfilled now, it's fulfilled perfectly then. And it's going to be a day when the oppressors of all time and of all nations will suddenly find themselves on the other end of things. And as Jesus tells us, they will be weeping and gnashing their teeth, filled with regrets which can never ripen into repentance.

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, is at once the most wonderful and the most terrifying prayer that can be prayed by the human tongue. It is to say, Lord God, bring this absurd, deceitful, sinful, blasphemous, unjust system of Satan to an end. And cause your righteous reign to be exercised over every human being, every animal, every plant, every insect, and every rock.

There is coming a day known only to the Father when that prayer will be absolutely fulfilled. And the purpose of our life is to hasten the coming of that day by fitting into what God is doing on the earth now. Every day of our life is to be lived as a prayer to the Father, thy kingdom come.

And every day of our life is also to be lived as an announcement to the world, the kingdom of God is at hand. We're to be living for the kingdom with everything we've got. If we have in fact found that treasure hidden in a field, then no other life makes any sense but to sell all we have, joyfully sell all we have, and buy the field.

Listen to Paul counseling the Corinthian believers to stop getting bogged down in the things of this dying age. 1 Corinthians 7, 29. I mean, brethren, the appointed time has grown very short.

From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the form of this world is passing away. Listen to Jesus counseling his followers to burn their bridges behind them.

Another said, I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my house. Jesus said to him, no one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. And yet, we know all too well that most of the time when we pray the Lord's Prayer, give us this day our daily bread is prayed with far more urgency than thy kingdom come.

We talk about the return of Jesus and the end of the age, but how often our words about these things have a hollow ring, an emptiness about them, because the whole world can see how tightly we still clutch the things of this dying age. We dismiss the Marxist revolutionaries as being naive about human nature, as being self-righteous about the way they're going to bring justice and peace. Where have they brought it? As being the tools of power-hungry men in some foreign capital who keep supplying the money and calling the shots for these revolutions.

But even if all these things we say about the Marxist revolutionaries are true, that doesn't get us off the hook. The fact still remains, and we have to face it, that even if all that is true, these people largely are more consistent about putting their lives where their mouths are than we are. They're at least living for a goal beyond their own daily security, and many of them are dying for it.

So the Spirit of the Lord broods over the body of Christ, stirs in our hearts, desiring to teach us to pray that prayer with power. Thy kingdom come. Now the only way we can pray, Thy kingdom come, with any power, is to live that.

We will be able to make Thy kingdom come the driving prayer of our lives if we'll get serious about four things. First, we need to discipline ourselves to fix our eyes on the goal. From Luke 12, Jesus is speaking, Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning, and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the marriage feast, so that they may open to him at once when he comes and knocks.

One of the major thrusts of our Lord's teaching all the way through, often neglected in much of Christianity, is, I'm going away, and I'm coming back, and until I come back, you stay awake. Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly I say to you, he will gird himself, and will have them sit down at table, and he will come and serve them.

If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those servants. But know this, that if the householder had known at what hour the thief was coming, he would have been awake, and would not have left his house to be broken into. You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour when you do not expect.

And we stay awake, keep our eyes on that goal, by practicing the presence of the Lord all the time, fitting into what we see to be his will, walking the light we already have, do we honestly think of ourselves as children of an invisible, soon-to-be-revealed king? In the midst of a tottering, visible kingdom of evil, which kingdom has our heart? Which kingdom are we really, in fact, by our dealings and our actions and our decisions, investing in? The second thing we need to do is to exhort each other to stay awake. And that's really not very acceptable in a group of our kind. We are really very careful not to crowd each other too much.

Give everybody lots of room. But, let me read from Hebrews chapter 3, verse 12. Take care, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called today, that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we share in Christ, if only we hold our first confidence firm to the end. What an encouragement! What a comfort to look into the face of a brother or a sister who is committed to following Jesus all the way, no matter what the cost.

It's a blessing even to be rebuked by that person. Because when they rebuke me, they do this because they love me. Because they want to see the life of the Lord flowing in me.

And the Lord is calling each of us to be such a blessing to others. You know, to encourage, to exhort, where necessary to rebuke. Every day, he says.

Every day. Not just every once in a while, but constantly encouraging each other. Every day, while it is called today, until all our days are swallowed up in the day of the Lord.

Third, we need to start to open our mouths and proclaim the kingdom. Isn't this ridiculous? We pray, thy kingdom come. But we're very, very hesitant to tell anybody that the kingdom is coming.

Now, how can we pray, thy kingdom come with any urgency and with any integrity if we don't have the guts to speak up and say the kingdom of God is near. It's at hand. It's near.

It's coming. Oh yeah, but every time I've tried that, people laugh at me. They give me a hard time.

You know, they might even kill us eventually. Hasn't happened yet, maybe for us. But Jesus never said it was going to be a bowl of cherries.

This is what he says in Matthew 24. Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death. And you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake.

Then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because wickedness is multiplied, most men's love will grow cold.

But he who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations. Then the end will come.

Nothing stimulates us or strengthens us more than to renounce our fear of men and to begin to proclaim the gospel we stake our lives on. To in one way or another keep saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand, the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news.

And to say that in a thousand ways as just the normal routine of our lives. To be saying that. And finally, we also need to manifest the kingdom of God now by practicing love toward each other.

From John 17, 20, I do not pray for these only, Jesus is praying, but also for those who are to believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And from John 13, 34, a new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.

Now there are two clear-cut marks of the kingdom of God, marks that the kingdom of God has actually made its presence, taken its abode in an assembly of believers. You know, the first mark of the kingdom, that the kingdom is here, is that the assembly brings a touch of healing, in the name of the Lord, to the lives it touches, so that the river of healing water is human beings who go flowing out the door every time the door opens, and they go out there with healing for the world, which is a sign of God's grace. Come back when we see strength, go out and bring more.

The second sign of the kingdom is that the people in that assembly love each other. Now the healing is something which is given to us by the Father as we submit to the Spirit. We don't make it happen by, you know, forcing the issue in some way.

God will give healing. He's given it, He will give much more as we submit to His Spirit. But the practicing of love is something that we do.

The love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, but if it just lies there, it begins to rot. Now we take the love of God that's been put in our hearts, just like we work out the salvation with fear and trembling that God worked in, so now we work out with fear and trembling the love that God worked in, and we begin then to forgive each other, and to accept each other, and to honor each other, and to serve each other in practical ways, in consistent fashion, all the time. And as we do this, the presence of the kingdom of God becomes manifest clearly.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Even as I have loved you, that you love one another. By this, the world will know, all men will know, that you are my disciples, that you have love.

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy kingdom come.

The Spirit of the Lord is calling us to pray that prayer with everything we've got. And, let's wait upon Him now. We're asking Lord God that by your grace, in the midst of the things that we may have brought with us that are distracting for us, perhaps confusing for us, in the midst of the problems we face, the anxieties about things even in this day, that you'd cause us to be able, Lord God, to lift our eyes above it all and see beyond.

Oh God, help us to learn how to live a day at a time, to have our eyes on that kingdom, and deliver us from the things that have caused us to be blind to the real purpose for our presence in this world.