Your Kingdom Come

Matthew chapter 6. Matthew 6 and find verse 9. Matthew chapter 6 and verse 9. We'll read it here in just a moment.

You should remember by now, if you've been here the last couple of weeks, that I've been preaching a series of messages through what we commonly call the Lord's Prayer.

And in the parallel passage in Luke 11, we're told there why Jesus gave this very important lesson on prayer.

The disciples had apparently been observing and evaluating. I think we could assume they were evaluating Jesus' prayer life.

I'm sure they heard Him pray a number of times. And we even have at least one of His prayers recorded in Scripture. And so they were observing it, evaluating His prayer life, and quite naturally, they recognized some deficiencies in their own prayer life.

I think it's pretty safe to assume that if we had been there and we had been with Jesus, and if we had witnessed and listened to His prayers, we would come to the same conclusion.

There's something about His prayer life that is different from mine. There's something in His prayer life that is missing from mine. And so this is what the disciples certainly recognized.

And so, again, quite naturally and appropriately, the disciples asked of Jesus, Lord, teach us to pray. I just love that request.

Lord, teach us to pray. And this is how Jesus responded. Matthew chapter 6 and verse 9. In this manner, therefore, pray.

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done. On earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. I realize that some of you, if you don't have a King James or New King James, that last little phrase isn't there in your Bibles.

And when we get to that, I'll explain it. But here it is. The, quote, Lord's Prayer. It's very familiar, isn't it? I mean, it is. It's very familiar.

Even in this particular translation, though, many of us have probably memorized it. And over the years, we have heard it. And it's familiar to us in the old King James. And yet, it is familiar.

And I think it's safe to say that the Lord's Prayer is the most quoted passage in all of the Bible. I really believe that's true.

Even more than Psalm 23. More even, I think, than John 3.16. Though these certainly are quoted often.

Memorized. But the Lord's Prayer, as we call it, is quoted so often. Even in many churches, just as a form of ritual in the worship.

And I think some of you know that. So it's very familiar. I heard a story about a couple of men who were talking about the Bible one day. You know, sometimes men talk about the Bible. We ought to talk about it more than we do.

But these two guys were talking about the Bible. And they were kind of bragging on how much of the Bible each one knew. And one of them made a rather bold bet.

I mean, literally a bet. That he could quote in its entirety the Lord's Prayer. And so the other man said, I'll take you up on that. And so they made a little kind of wager.

And shook hands on it. And then this man began to quote the prayer. And he said, now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. And he went on.

If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen. And that's how he quoted the prayer. And the other guy just shook his head.

And he said, I didn't think you could do it. Here's the money. But, of course, you know, that's not the Lord's Prayer, is it? But I give that illustration to make this point.

Neither is Matthew 6, 9 through 13. This is not the Lord's Prayer. I know we love to call it that.

And if you continue to do so, that's all right. But it's not the Lord's Prayer. In fact, J. Vernon McGee, some of you might listen to him on the radio from time to time. You know, he's been dead for I don't know how many years now.

And yet he still speaks or God speaks through him. And J. Vernon McGee once preached a series of sermons on this passage. And it was entitled, The Prayer Our Lord Did Not Pray.

That was the title of the series. And he made the point, and I think he's right, Jesus never did pray this prayer. He didn't pray it. He's not praying it here. So it's not the Lord's Prayer.

It's not his prayer. The late Dr. Louis Barry Schaeffer, great professor of systematic theology and founder of Dallas Theological Seminary.

He said, and I think he's right, that John 17 really ought to be called the Lord's Prayer. If you know anything about John 17, that's the high priestly prayer of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it's a tremendous prayer. Because Jesus actually did pray that prayer. All right? That's the Lord's Prayer. Okay? Now, I'm sorry. I have really upset some of you.

And so I'm going to say this. There's really not anything wrong with quoting this prayer. Okay? You can do that. There isn't anything wrong with that. I think it's good and valuable, as it is valuable to quote any portion of Scripture.

But to quote this prayer is a good thing. I certainly would agree. And you can even pray this prayer, if you would like, from time to time, as long as we understand that this is a model for prayer.

A model. It is Jesus' teaching, though He teaches on prayer in other places. This is His clear teaching on prayer. And it's a teaching that we all need.

And so that's why it's very important that we look deep into this prayer and to discover, to literally mine out of it all of its great riches.

And that's what I'm trying to do throughout this series. Now, what have we learned thus far? Just by way of review a little bit. First, considering the very first phrase of this famous prayer, or lesson on prayer, Our Father in Heaven.

Considering that, I said that prayer is about resting. Resting. That is, resting in God our Father. And, you see, Jesus said that we are to have an abiding confidence in prayer.

Not just in using the phrase, you know, Our Father in Heaven, but in our prayer life itself, which also, of course, spills out into our lives in total.

That we are to have an abiding confidence in our Lord, and especially in prayer. It's an indestructible assurance in prayer.

A peace. Do you experience that in your prayer life? A peace. A rest. And how are we to have that peace, that rest?

Well, because we know that God is our Father. God is our Father, and as our Father, He is in His Heaven.

That brings great confidence. Great rest. The One who loves us more than any earthly father ever could, is the One who is on His throne.

The throne of the universe. The throne of eternity. The throne that is higher than all other thrones. A supreme and sovereign throne. And that's where our Father sits.

And we can find rest in that. So prayer is about resting. Resting in God our Father. Second, we said, and taking the next phrase, prayer is about reverencing.

Reverencing. Reverencing God. Hallowed be Your name. Prayer is how Jesus said we ought to pray. And we looked at that last week.

And now, third, prayer is about reigning. Now, not reigning as it's been doing this morning, since early this morning.

Not R-A-I-N-I-N-G. But R-E-I-G-N-I-N-G. Reigning in the kingdom of God. That's what prayer is about. Prayer is about, Jesus said, about reigning in the kingdom of God.

He said, pray in this manner. Your kingdom come. Speaking directly to God. Your kingdom come. Now, when a believer comes to know God as his or her heavenly Father, which is what happens when we are born again, when we come to know Him as our heavenly Father, then we discover that He is wonderful.

Don't we? And we discover that more and more throughout our journey as a believer. He's wonderful as our heavenly Father. And this personal discovery begins to create in us an ongoing, a growing desire to see God glorified.

See Him glorified in all things. And so as a believer, then we pray, hallowed be Your name. That is, as I explained last week, that we really ought to be able to put this inscription on every area of our lives.

Hallowed be the name of our Lord. That is, that His character is expressed and proclaimed through our lives.

Hallowed be His name. And so we learn Him as Father. And we have this growing desire to hallow His name, to reverence Him.

And this, in turn, begins to create in us a growing desire to see others come to know Him as we know Him through salvation. What could glorify Him more than that?

Through the salvation of souls, but also, not just that, but also to have a growing desire to see His full and final glory in His coming.

His second coming. And all of that is wrapped up in this prayer. Your kingdom come. And so this is a very logical progress, isn't it?

There's progression here, and it's very logical. To pray, hallowed be Your name, is to express a strong desire to see God glorified in all things.

And He will receive the glory due His name when His kingdom comes in reality. I assure you He will. But that's not just ultimately. First, in the sense that it becomes real in us individually through salvation.

salvation. And then finally, in this world, as a whole, when Jesus returns in all of His glory, in all of His regal majesty.

That's what we're talking about here. And so to pray, Your kingdom come. As Jesus said, we are to pray. That has far-reaching implications. It crosses space and time and in a sense on out into eternity.

And yet, it is, in the immediate sense, evangelistic, this prayer, Your kingdom come. In the immediate sense, it is evangelistic, as we shall see.

But in the ultimate sense, it is messianic. Messianic. And we'll explain this as we go along. Evangelistic and messianic.

All of that is wrapped up in this prayer. Your kingdom come. Now, let's consider it in that order.

First evangelistic, then messianic. Okay? And here's a very simple way to conceptualize all of this in our minds. This kind of praying. This prayer, Your kingdom come, first looks inward, then looks outward, then ultimately looks forward.

That's a good way to conceptualize this and to pull out of this phrase all of its meaning. Some implied, some very explicit. Inward, outward, forward.

Those three. Alright? So this prayer looks inward. It has to look there first. And I challenge you to try to pray this prayer with any kind of sincerity without first applying it to yourselves.

To look inward. Because any serious consideration of the kingdom of God must begin inside first. Inside us. It must begin in the heart.

Now, the word kingdom here in our text is the Greek word basileia. And it means, simply means, dominion. It means rule. And so we're praying what?

Your rule come, Lord Jesus. Your dominion come. Your reign. That's what the word kingdom means here. And so I would suggest to you how absurd is it to pray for God's kingdom to come in any sense of that if you're not personally submissive to His rule and reign in your lives right now, right here.

How absurd it would be to pray this prayer if that were not true in your life. And so this is, really in that sense, a daily praying for Christ's lordship in your life.

His lordship in your heart. And by the way, let me ask you this question and be careful how you answer it. Where does God's kingdom reside today? Now, don't say church because it really doesn't.

It resides in the heart of the believer. That's where His kingdom resides. In the heart. Now, ultimately, one day, it will reside in His glorious church at His coming.

But right now, it resides in each one of us in our individual hearts. That is, each one of us who are born-again believers. That's where His kingdom resides.

And so this personal prayer, Your kingdom come, when you pray that, it assumes a settled decision in your heart that you're going to have an ongoing commitment to dethrone self in your life.

I say ongoing because this is not something you just do one time. This is something we do every single day. A dethroning of self and self-interest and self-reliance and self-possession.

We dethrone self, but not just self, but to dethrone Satan. See, this prayer assumes us looking inward and a commitment to dethrone self, to dethrone Satan and his influence, to dethrone the world in the sense of godless philosophies, the godless philosophies and the godless affections of this world, to dethrone that in our lives.

It's a daily thing. To dethrone the world in the sense of its Christless values. To dethrone that in your life and to do what?

To enthrone the Lord Jesus Christ in your life daily. And this is daily and more than once a day. That's what this prayer assumes.

In those who are praying it. Well, it is what it assumes in those who are praying at all. That we are dethroning self and Satan in this world and enthroning Christ.

Enthroning Christ to be Lord, to be Master, to rule, to reign, to have His dominion in our lives and through our lives.

And so when the kingdom of our Lord really does come to this earth one day, and we'll get to that here in just a moment, listen, folks, it will not be a democracy when He comes.

It will be a theocracy. And believe me, it will be much better. It will be perfect. A democracy is good for now among people, but a theocracy is what we need and one day when He comes, it will be a theocracy.

It's not a democracy. And so if that's true in the ultimate sense, then I want you to understand that that is true in the personal sense. It's not to be a democracy in our lives right now.

It is a theocracy. Because God demands absolute kingship, absolute lordship in and over the lives of His children. So we're talking about reigning in the kingdom of God.

Your kingdom come. He said, pray this way. And that prayer looks inward to the commitment of the saved. Second, this prayer looks outward.

It looks outward. It's very evangelistic in its intent. It looks outward to the conversion of sinners. It looks inward to the commitment of the saved.

It looks outward to the conversion of the sinner. When we pray Your kingdom come, what are we expressing? We're expressing a genuine desire to see God's kingdom grow and flourish in this world.

How, though? Through the salvation of souls. That's what we're praying. This is very evangelistic. Now, folks, listen. We want what we want to do.

And this is how Jesus is instructing us to pray. That is to consistently, constantly pray that God's word would be proclaimed around the world.

and that God's work, His work of redemption, would be accomplished around the world. In our world. But through us.

We, His children, His believers, His followers. And through His church. Our church. That's what we're praying. To pray Your kingdom come is to pray for the triumphant advance of the gospel around the world.

I tell you, there's a lot in this prayer. Is that what we want? The triumphant advance of the gospel around the world today in the Muslim world?

Yes. By the way, makes up about a third of this world's population. Did you know that? How about in the Hindu world?

Yes. The triumphant advance of the gospel in the Hindu world and in the Buddhist world and in the Catholic world and in the Greek Orthodox world and in the Russian Orthodox world in the Jewish world in the pagan world.

Everywhere. To every people group. See. That's what Jesus is saying to us when He says, Pray in this manner.

Your kingdom come. Pray for the kingdom, the glorious reign of Christ over His kingdom as you look inward, the commitment of the saved.

As you look outward, the conversion of the sinner. And then third, as you look forward, forward, to the coming of the sovereign One, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now folks, listen to me very carefully. I believe that when Jesus gave this lesson, first gave this lesson on prayer, and when He said to His disciples, Pray in this manner, Your kingdom come.

I believe He meant just one thing. Not three. I'm not contradicting myself. The first two things that I've shared with you are assumed.

They should be a given. I mean, listen, you must look inward and commit to the reign of Christ in your own heart before you can, in all conscience, in good conscience, pray for His kingdom to come in this world.

And with that, we cannot seriously, with any kind of credibility, pray for His kingdom to come if we're not praying and actively working to see His kingdom come in the hearts of individual people today through salvation.

Nevertheless, I would say to you that Jesus primarily meant one thing here. One thing. In fact, I would counsel you in your study of Scripture that every passage you read and study means one thing.

It doesn't mean many things. It means one thing. And Jesus meant one thing here. And He meant, by the way, what His disciples would have understood that He meant.

and this is key to our understanding of the text. Jesus' disciples would have understood the word kingdom in the Old Testament sense of the word.

They would have understood it that way. Therefore, Jesus meant it that way. That is, they would have understood Jesus to mean or be referring to the messianic kingdom that had been promised through many, many centuries of prophetic teaching.

For example, in one of these passages that is very familiar to us in Isaiah 9, just listen to this. We quote this often at Christmas time. For unto us a child is born.

Unto us a son is given. And the government, that's rule, reign, the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

And then verse 7, it says, of the increase of His government and peace, there will be no end. Now, has that been fulfilled yet?

Not yet. It's a done deal. It's not yet fulfilled. Not yet realized. And yet, the disciples would have been thinking about the kingdom in this sense when Jesus said, pray this way.

Your kingdom come. Let me give you another example from the book of Daniel. In Daniel chapter 2 and verse 44.

In and in the days of these kings, this is an interpretation of the dream. That is the, I think he's referring to the revival of the Roman Empire in the last days.

In the days of these kings, this is what he said, that the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed. And the kingdom shall not be left to other people.

It shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms and it shall stand forever. And there are many, many other passages in the Old Testament that refer to this eschatological kingdom, this coming kingdom that is still future for us today.

That's what the disciples would have understood when Jesus mentioned, pray this way, your kingdom come. They were looking forward, you see, to the time when the Messiah would come and establish His earthly rule, His earthly kingdom.

And it didn't happen when He came the first time, did it? And that's why many of them were disillusioned at Jesus' first coming and many of them did not believe and many rejected Him.

Because Jesus did not establish His earthly kingdom when He came the first time. But He will when He returns. He will at the second coming.

And that's what we're praying for. When we pray Your kingdom come, we pray for the messianic kingdom to come and to be established. And we are asking God the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come the second time and to establish His rule and His reign upon this earth for a thousand years.

We call it, the Bible calls it the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. We're praying for that to come. Do we? Really?

Do we even think of these things in our prayer? About the second coming of Christ? And do we, when we pray this way, do we honestly desire it?

Do we? I've already mentioned the word basileia, the word for kingdom, meaning rule, reign, dominion. But I would have you also notice the word come.

The word come, and it seems to be a very ordinary word, and in a sense it is. I mean, the meaning of it is just very simple. Come means come. And yet, it is a verb, of course, and the form of it in the original text is very important because it dramatically affects our understanding of the meaning.

And so the meaning conveys this. Come suddenly. That's what he means. Come now.

Come instantaneously. That's how Jesus said we're to pray. In fact, we could translate it this way. Let your kingdom come now. Can we just admit with one another that we don't really pray that way?

And part of the reason why we have difficulty praying this is because we're very attached to this world. The things of this world, and that comes very naturally.

There are a lot of good things that God has given us and our family and expectations and future plans and things that we enjoy. We're very attached to this world and so this is why these instructions on prayer are very important that we, by the grace of God, incorporate them in our prayer life to actually pray.

Lord, let your kingdom come right now. Right now. Instantaneously. suddenly. Suddenly.

You see, Jesus is not talking about some kind of social gospel where Christians band together and unite together to make a more godly society on this earth.

That's not what He's talking about. He's not talking about a gradual, progressive, Christianization of the world, which it seems a lot of people are focused on.

He's not talking about that. Jesus is talking about something quite different. Jesus is talking about the coming of His millennial kingdom, His millennial reign.

And it's described for us in Revelation chapter 20. Just listen to it. Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in His hand.

And He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

And He cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and set a seal on him so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished.

But after these things, He must be released for a little while. And I saw thrones. And they sat on them. And judgment was committed to them.

I believe the redeemed of all the ages. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the Word of God, who had not worshipped the beast or His image, and had not received His mark on His foreheads or their foreheads or on their hands.

And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. But the rest of the dead did not live again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.

Blessed and holy is He who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with Him a thousand years.

This is the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ. And this is the reign of Christ that we are to hope for and expect and to pray for. And not just to gradually move into it, but to come suddenly.

And it will come suddenly with the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. I like the way John MacArthur put it. He said, to pray, your kingdom come is to pray for God's kingdom and the kingdom over which He and He alone is Lord and King.

That kingdom is yet to come. Now, it will be a kingdom on earth, but it will not be a kingdom of this earth. We're not talking about a kingdom that's going to evolve out of some great Christian kingdom on this planet.

He's not talking about anything of this earth. Remember what Jesus said to Pilate? He said, my kingdom is not of this world. But it's a kingdom that's coming.

And it may be coming soon. But regardless of when it's coming, we are to incorporate in our prayer life. And therefore, it is assumed in the desires of our heart that His kingdom, the kingdom of our Lord and Savior, would come and that it would come now.

Revelation 22.20, near the end of the Bible, the aged apostle John, closed his revelation, this great revelation, with a testimony from the Lord Jesus Christ.

You know what Jesus said? He said, Surely, I am coming quickly. That's what Jesus said. Surely, you can bank on it, you can count on it, I am coming quickly.

And then John responded. He said, Amen. Amen. Amen. Even so, come Lord Jesus.

That's what John said. That's what it means to pray. Your kingdom come. Your kingdom come.

And let it come right now. Right now. Amen.

Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Thank you.