Luke 11:1-13
Please turn in your copies of
the Word of God to Luke chapter 11, verses 1 to 13. This is our,
I believe our fourth part in this series on prayer. Today,
we look at the phrase in chapter 11, verse 2, your kingdom come. We’ve already busted up the Lord’s
Prayer into a little sermon series. And if I had my choice, I’m not
going to do it. Don’t worry. We would break up
Thy Kingdom Come into a little series of its own. It is full
of exploration. We could go for weeks into what
is the kingdom of God? How do we participate in it?
What is the kingdom? When is the kingdom? Is it already? Is it not yet? Is it? is the
kingdom, the church. We could go for days and days,
but today you’ll get what you get about the kingdom. As we
think about prayer, we want to be reminded of our definition
of prayer we’ve been speaking of from the catechism. Prayer
is the offering up unto God the desires of our heart, in the
name of Christ, with the help of the Holy Spirit, for things
agreeable to the will of Almighty God, with thanksgiving, with
confession of sin. And so as we work our way through
prayer, we also think about the progression of the Lord’s Prayer.
Very often we’ll pray very quickly for what we want, what we need,
but the Lord’s Prayer has a progression. It’s first about God’s glory,
and then it’s about our needs. But then we must remember our
needs are only met by God so that we may better glorify him. So, for example, when we come
to give us this day our daily bread, we don’t pray that we
get daily bread just so our stomachs won’t growl. I mean, that is
a byproduct of it. Right. But we pray that we’ll
have daily bread so that we will have the strength to serve God
and serve our neighbor. When we come today to the phrase,
thy kingdom come, we could go a thousand ways about what is
the kingdom. Every one of us may define it
differently. Every theologian may define it differently, but
simply put God’s kingdom is this. It’s wherever Christ reigns and
he rules over everything. He rules over the heavens and
the earth, but he also rules over our hearts. The kingdom
is now, but the kingdom is yet to be fulfilled. The kingdom
is ruled over by the reigning son, the ascended son, who was
inaugurated as king over the church. And one day he will hand
the kingdom over to the father. But dear brothers and sisters,
as we approach God’s word today, let me remind you as Christians,
you are citizens of an eternal city, the city of God. We are
not citizens of this earth. which will one day pass away.
And so we as children of the living God want to give our attention
to the reading of God’s word. Read with me, if you will, from
Luke’s gospel, chapter 11, beginning at verse one. Now Jesus was praying
in a certain place, and when he had finished, one of his disciples
said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples. Jesus said to them, when you
pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread and forgive us our sins for we
ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us and lead us
not into temptation. And then Jesus said to them,
which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and
say to him, friend lend me three loaves. For a friend of mine
has arrived on a journey and I have nothing to set before
him. And he will answer from within, do not bother me, the
door is now shut. My children are in bed with me
and I cannot get up and give you anything. I tell you, though
he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend,
yet because of his impudence, he will rise up and give him
whatever he needs. And I tell you, ask, and it will
be given to you. Seek, and you will find. Knock,
and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives,
and the one who seeks finds, and the one who knocks, it will
be opened. What father among you, if his son asked for a fish,
will instead of a fish give him a serpent? Or if he asked for
an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know
how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will
the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask
him? Pray with me. Lord, your word
says, blessed are you, oh Lord, teach us your statutes. And so
we pray that you would teach us your ways, open our eyes that
we may behold wonderful things from your word this moment. Hear us as we make our prayer
in the name of Jesus, the living word, his name we pray, amen. When I was in seminary, we had
a certain professor that we loved to mess with. He was the jokester
and the joke was always on you. We had a class on leadership,
and this was in the days when cell phones were pretty early.
Maybe only a few of us had a phone, and they did not have the vibrate
option where you could silence them, and they would vibrate
to alert you to a call. They were either on or off, and
if they were on, they rang. And when they rang, they were
loud. Well, he did not like phones
ringing in class, and so one day in preaching class, we decided
we would get him. We knew he would go ballistic
if a phone rang. So we snuck over to his phone
when he was out of the room one day. We figured out what his
cell phone number was and we had it all planned. Joe, who
was to preach that day, was going to get about five minutes into
his sermon. Another of us who had a cell phone was going to
call the professor’s phone and make it ring. And we were going
to see what he did. Well, it was great fun. Well,
five minutes into the sermon, the phone rang and he was ready
to blast whoever’s phone it was. Only did he discover it was his
own, and he realized he had been had, which was not a position
he liked to be in. And so a week later, in fact,
a week before graduation, the faculty would vote whether each
student would graduate or not. It didn’t matter if you made
straight A’s. They decided whether or not they wanted to confer
a degree on you. And so we went to class the next
week. Waiting to see what his response
would be. He called each of us out by last name. Very stern
voice and said I have voted against your graduation. And so he got
us. Well another time we decided
we were going to get him. He had had a leadership class,
and he would always ask this question on the last day of leadership
class. He would go through the room and say, what are your dreams? And he would write on the board
the letters B-H-A-D. Somehow it spelled bad in his
mind. And it stood for big, hairy, audacious dreams. Well, we had
heard the year before that when asked that question, Weak-kneed,
yellow-bellied fellow said, Professor, I just want to make a difference.
And he went ballistic. I’ve not trained you for these
three years to go make a difference. And so we had heard that that
happened the year before. And so we put one of the brothers in
the room up to, when he asked the question, we’ll give him
a few good answers he wants to hear. But one of us is going
to say, Professor, we just want to make a difference. Well, the
moment came, and he went nuts. You want to make a difference?
And what the point he was trying to make is this. When you serve
as a minister of the gospel, when you serve as a Christian
in God’s kingdom, your job, your goal is not to go make a difference.
That’s for foundations and volunteer service. The kingdom of God is
bigger and greater. And it’s God reconciling men
and women and boys and girls who were under the tyranny of
Satan. He’s drawing them to himself through Christ Jesus. And so,
dear brothers and sisters, we are not called as children of
the living God. We are not called as ministers
and elders and deacons of the church to simply make a difference,
but we are called to. to preach and proclaim for conversions. We are called to live faithful
Christian lives, letting our light so shine before men that
they may see our good works and give praise to our heavenly father.
But we’re also called to a holy longing that the kingdom of Satan
would be put away and the kingdom of God would be ushered in fully
and finally. So we want to think about the
kingdom of God. What do you pray for? When you pray thy kingdom
come, it’s a little phrase, a couple words, we say it every week,
it passes right by our lips. And we probably often don’t think
what it means. It can mean so much more than
I’m gonna tell you today. And I hope this will whet your
appetite. It’ll make you maybe stretch
those words out a bit longer as you pray. Or maybe you pray
thy kingdom come through this or through that or this opportunity
or that. First thing we want to think
about when we pray, thy kingdom come, we want to think about
conversions, people coming to faith in Jesus, people no longer
being under the tyranny of Satan and sin. What what breaks your
heart in this world? I remember for I don’t know,
20, 30 years growing up and even being an adult and married with
my grandparents on Saturday night. And when I was young in particular,
they always watched HeHall. Some of y’all watched HeHall.
They always watched HeHall and all these other Saturday night
shows, Lawrence Welk and the like. But there are always these commercials
for the hospital. The hospital that can save kids
from cancer. And don’t hear me wrong. That’s
a legitimate cause. It’s a needful thing. And so
some years later, when my grandparents did their will, we were all astonished.
They’re giving it all to the hospital. We were kind of shocked. But things break our heart like
that. And we tug our heartstrings. And that’s our cause in life.
And does the fact that people don’t know Jesus break your heart?
Or is it the illiteracy rate in America? Or is it the fact
that there are veterans in need? Or is it the fact that there
are people who are hungry? And all of those are legitimate
causes, right? We understand that. But is that
the ceiling of our heartbreak for what people need? Yes, people
need food, but they need the bread of heaven. Yes, people
need to read. But they need to be able to read
the Bible so they can find the way of salvation. You see, on
and on it can go. What breaks your heart? We’ve
reduced our heartbreak now to stray cats. It’s true, isn’t
it? We’ve reduced our heartbreak
to dogs without homes. One of the biggest pieces of
news this week, other than the impeachment, was the little dog
that was orphaned after the military strike in Syria. that orphan
dog has found a home. Now I’m happy for that dog. I
have a dog. I love my dog and I’m glad he has a home. He is
a first world dog. He’s got it made. Um, that’s
the culture we’re living in. But what breaks our heart? You
see what I’m asking you? What breaks your heart? Is it
temporal needs? And yes, they are important.
Don’t, please don’t leave here today and say the preacher doesn’t
care about veterans. The preacher don’t care about
homeless. Don’t leave here saying that today. We do care about
those things, but there’s always a greater need isn’t there? There’s
always a greater need and that is for conversions. For every
man, woman, and child is born in Adam. Every man, woman, and
child is born in sin. Every man, woman, and child is
under God’s wrath, God’s curse, God’s judgment, and can face
an eternity without almighty God. And so we ought to, when
we pray thy kingdom come, be praying fervently for conversions,
that those who are imprisoned by Satan, those who are shackled
by the evil one, those who are lost, who are dead in their sins
and trespasses and are without hope in this world, we pray that
God would give us the courage to tell them about Jesus. that
God would give us the courage to send preachers into foreign
lands, that God would give us all the resources of heaven to
make the name of Jesus known to the ends of the earth. Thy
kingdom come. We want to pray for conversions. We want to pray also in thy kingdom
come for our faithfulness. Now, this may sound a bit simple,
but what’s the greatest witness that we have as Christians. Well,
it’s not how many evangelistic programs we have or how many
we get out to a crusade. Those things can be helpful and
God can bless them. But you hear from time to time
we say this, just be faithful. Just be faithful in your home.
Just be faithful in your workplace. Just be faithful when you go
to the doctor’s office. Be faithful neighbor. Be a faithful
man, woman, and child wherever you are and show the light of
the glory of Jesus by showing how a new creation in Christ
lives. Well, how do we measure that
faithfulness? I want to challenge you today
to evaluate, to analyze your faithfulness by By asking yourself
this question, is my leather worn out? What do I mean by my
leather? Well, in the Christian walk,
there are three pieces of leather that can show what you believe
about the kingdom and about your faithfulness. Your shoe leather.
Do you walk about preaching the gospel? Now we’ll really get
into it. Your date book. Maybe some of
you still keep a leather date book. How do you spend your time?
Now I’ve really done it. The other piece of leather is
your checkbook. As you walk through the register of your spending,
it shows what you value. And you know, from a little age,
we love our own kingdoms, don’t we? I mean, some of you children,
you probably have a keep out sign that you like to put up
on your room door. Why is that? Your room is your kingdom. You
don’t want mom or dad or brother or sister to mess with your stuff. Your little room is your kingdom.
And as we grow older, our kingdom gets a little bit bigger, doesn’t
it? Maybe as we become the man of the house, it extends out
to the recliner, right? The throne. Maybe it extends
to the garage where the tools are kept or the car. But we have
our little kingdoms, don’t we? And our pieces of leather show
what we value. Where do we spend our time? Where
do we spend our money? Where do our shoes go? Do we
preach and proclaim and share and live and faithfully live
the gospel and kingdom life before others? Every thought, every
aspiration, every attitude and every action of our life ought
to beat with the words of the hymns that we’ve sang. Every
tear we cry, every effort that we give, every prayer we make,
everything we must do ought to be for the advancement of the
kingdom of God so that the name of Jesus is made famous. This
week I was reading an article as a reminder of something I’d
read years ago back when we had little kids. We’re out of the
diaper stage. Some of you are still in the
diaper stage as parents and grandparents. Mundane things like changing
diapers. Mundane things like tomorrow,
you know what’s at the top of my calendar for tomorrow? Let’s
take out the recycling and the trash. It comes every Monday.
They come every Tuesday, but it comes every Monday for me.
And just consistent, faithful, godly living is what God expects
of us. And the world looks and sees. And what’s the thing we pray
for very often when we pray for our evangelism? We pray this,
Lord, we pray that we would live such a godly life that people
would look at us and say, who are you and where are you from?
And we can say we are children of the living God. We are making
visible the invisible realities of heaven and the kingdom of
almighty God. We pray thy kingdom come sometimes,
don’t we? But Lord, don’t use me. Don’t
fill up my date book. Don’t wear out my shoes and certainly
don’t drain my checkbook. Think about Nehemiah whom we
read of earlier. He was the cup bearer to the
king. He was the cupbearer to the king
in Susa, the great capital of Babylon. He was in a wonderful
position, well-paid, well-fed, well-dressed, probably had all
the time off he wanted, 401k, the whole works. And what did
he want to do? He wanted to go back to broken
down, destroyed, burnt out Jerusalem and rebuild it because that’s
where the glory of God was made manifest on this earth, not only
to the people, but to the nations who looked around. What could
Nehemiah have said? I’m happy here. Somebody else
can go. Don’t fill up my date book with
Jerusalem and its mess. Don’t fill up my checkbook with
expenses for rebuilding. Don’t wear out my shoes or much
less scuff them. with the work of rebuilding a
city that had fallen because of the sin of God’s people. But
what did Nehemiah do? He went back and he was one of
the many waves of exiles returning to rebuild Jerusalem so that
the kingdom of God would be made manifest on this earth. Dear
friends, that’s what God is asking of us is faithfulness to his
kingdom. So how about your checkbook?
How about your date book? How about your shoe leather?
By kingdom come, we want to pray for conversions. We want to pray
for our own faithfulness. There’s a third thing we want
to pray for, and that’s our longing. We want to long to see the kingdom
of God made fully manifest on earth. The book of Revelation
ends with these words. Jesus says, surely I am coming
soon. And then the writer of Revelation,
John, the apostle says, Amen, come Lord Jesus. He’s longing
for the fullness of the kingdom of God to be made manifest. He’s
longing for all the previous chapters of Revelation to fall
into place, that the persecuted would be avenged, that the evil
on earth would cease, that Satan would be destroyed. And as we
like to say in the children’s stories, that we would lock him
up and throw away the key, right? Satan is gone forever. We want
all the events of Revelation that God has promised to take
place. We long for them to come true. And so we say with John,
amen, come Lord Jesus. We also long with creation. In
Romans chapter eight, it says, for creation waits with eager
longing for the adoption of the sons and daughters of men. We remember that when Adam and
Eve sinned in the garden, when Adam and Eve sinned in the third
chapter of Genesis and they brought curses upon mankind, they brought
on God’s wrath and his judgment, they brought on death. And they
pass that along to all who would come from Adam. We remember that
God made a promise. He made a promise to Satan. You’re
going to nip, nip, nip at the heels of my people. But one will
come from this woman and she will crush or he will crush your
head. And he speaks of the Lord Jesus. And so there has been
a holy longing since the garden and since sin. There’s been a
holy longing that God would come and make all things new. And
the word of God in Romans 8 says even creation feels it. Even
creation knows and understands that God is going to come and
make all things new. And it can’t wait for God to
come make us new so that it gets made new as the new heavens and
the new earth. And to that end, the apostle
Paul says, it’s a strange little verse in chapter 16 of Romans,
verse 20, when Paul is writing to the Roman church of people
he’s never met. And he says to them in of this verse, the God
of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. That’s a strange
little verse there at the end of Romans, but it’s so full of
meaning for those of us who understand what God said to Adam and even
to Satan in Genesis chapter three, there will be this cosmic age
long battle between Satan and between Christ. And yes, Satan
will nip at the heels of God’s people, but one day Jesus will
crush the serpent’s head and he will be no more. And we long
for that day as the apostles have done and many Christians
have done for centuries. We long for the fullness of God’s
kingdom, that he will judge the wicked, that he will fulfill
his promises of the covenant. I will be your God and you will
be my people and I will make all things new. We also pray
thy kingdom come and we long that until Jesus comes, God’s
blessings would be known to his church. That we would have ministers
and elders and that we would have deacons and that we would
have gifted people in the church to help us sing, to help us learn,
to help us love and serve one another. That revival would break
out and that people would love God more than ever. And that
as transformed people live that faithful life we described a
moment ago, that culture won’t seem as rotten. as it could be. Now, you understand nothing will
get better until the new heavens and new earth. But can you imagine
what it’s like if a world full of Christians served God faithfully
and made the light of the gospel known not only in their daily
living, but most especially as they preach the word faithfully.
Dear friends, the worldly church, the worldly view of the kingdom
says, let’s meet earthly needs. We’re living in the midst of
this culture, this woke culture, as they call it, socially aware.
We want to tackle all the moral issues. And the church is very
guilty of this. We think if we do away with abortion,
which is a horrible thing, that things will be hunky dory. Well,
Abortion or homelessness or hunger is a symptom of a larger thing,
an empty hole that only God can fill in our lives. And so dear
brothers and sisters, let us not as kingdom minded people
simply want to make a difference and treat the symptoms, but let
us preach the gospel of rescue from Satan’s tyranny and call
men and women and boys and girls from darkness to light. You know,
the church has wonderful marching orders, and those marching orders
aren’t to make a difference. They aren’t to be good and do
good, but these marching orders are to pray with all our hearts
and to live with all our lives the full meaning of the prayer,
thy kingdom come. Let us pray together. Lord, we pray that in our lives
and in our church and in our ministry, we would lift high
the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, that we would proclaim the love
of Christ till all the world adores his wonderful and sacred
name. Lord, draw men and women and
boys and girls unto yourself through the preaching of your
word, through our evangelism. Lord, may you disperse all despair
that has fallen on this earth because of the curse and the
tyranny of Satan. And we pray that you would make
the shadows flee and make bright daylight come as our day spring
from on high promises to come and make all things new. Hear
our prayer as we make it in Jesus name and all God’s people said
together, amen.