Seeking the Face of GodUsing the Ancient Prayer

Jesus Gave Us

“Your Kingdom Come”The Gospel of Matthew 6:5-14

“Simon” played by Danny Glover

in Grand Canyon

“Everything’s

s’pposed

to be

different

than it is.”

Seeking the Face of GodUsing the Ancient Prayer

Jesus Gave Us

“Your Kingdom Come”The Gospel of Matthew 6:5-13

5 And when you pray, you must not be

Matthew 6:5-13

like the hypocrites. For they love to standand pray in the synagogues and at thestreet corner, that they may be seen byothers. Truly, I tell you, they have receivedtheir reward. 6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door

Matthew 6:5-13

“…and pray to your Father who is insecret. And your Father who sees insecret will reward you. 7 “And when you pray, do not heap upempty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think they will be heard for theirmany words. 8 Do not be like them, for

Matthew 6:5-13

“your Father knows what you need beforeyou ask him. 9 Pray then like this:

“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.10 Your kingdom come,your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Matthew 6:5-13

11 “Give us this day our daily bread,12 and forgive us of our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”

Leader: This is the word of the Lord!People: Thanks be to God!

1 What exactly is “the kingdom?”

shalom=

peace / prosperity / blessing ~ human flourishing ~

shalom

“the way things are s’pposed to be”

=

=

peace / prosperity / blessing ~ human flourishing ~

God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and

female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, ‘Be fruitful

and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.’

~ The Prophet Moses in Genesis 1

“The Lord saw that the wickedness of man

was great in the earth, and that every

inclination of the thoughts of his heart

was only evil continually.”

~ The Prophet Moses in Genesis 6:5

The so-called “Problem of Evil”

1. If God exists, there would be no evil.2. Evil exists.

3. Therefore, God does not exist.

“The Bible is preoccupied with the problem of

evil….The whole Bible addresses the problem of evil, for the story turns on

the entrance of sin and evil into the world, and on God’s

plan for dealing with it.”

Genesis 3:15

“On this mountain the Lord will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged

wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well refined. And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all

nations. He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord will wipe away tears from all faces,

and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the Lord has spoken.”

~ Isaiah 25

I must preach the good news of the kingdom…;

for I was sent for this purpose.

”~ Jesus of Nazareth

in Luke 4:43

“

The kingdom of God is the kind rule of God

in and through the lives of people.

“ life as it’s s’pposed to be ”

2 What exactly are we praying for when we say, “Your kingdom come?”

KINGDOMNOW

We pray for God’s future kingdom to come fully & finally

putting an end to all evil.

2 millionchildrenenslaved

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a

woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better

that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell.

“And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your

members than that your whole body go into hell.”

~ Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospel of Matthew, 5:27-30

Suddenly I had a problem.

Jesus wants to get rid of sex-trafficking too, only he takes it a lot more seriously than I do.

I want to get rid of sex-trafficking: Jesus wants to get rid of lust. I want to prune back the wicked

tree; he wants to dig out the root.

And that wicked root is in me.

I may not be a sex-trafficker, a pedophile tourist, or a greedy madman—but I have lust.

I can be one lusty animal.

Jesus says if you even look lustfully at one of God’s daughters,

demeaningly commodifying her as an object for your own self-centred gratification,

then the power of hell has its roots in you, and when God arrives to establish his kingdom,

you are in danger of being cast outside the kingdom with it.

I was no longer simply part of the solution. I was part of the problem.

The enemy is no longer simply ‘out there’ but ‘in here….’

There is a wicked tree that has grown to monstrous proportions in our world, damaging and destroying the lives of

tens of millions of young girls beneath it's dark and disastrous shade…,

…and the roots of that wicked tree live in me.

The Bible says that Jesus came on a rescue mission for creation. He had to pay for our sins so that someday he can end evil and suffering without ending us. And if this is true, though we still have no answer to the question of why he allows evil to continue, we know he can’t be doing it out of indifference or detachment. God takes our misery and suffering so seriously that he was willing to take it on himself.

~ Tim Keller, The Reason for God

“Christianity is the only religion whose God bears the scars of evil.”

~ Os Guinness

“He has delivered us form the

domain of darkness and

transferred us to the

kingdom of his beloved Son,

in whom we have redemption,

the forgiveness of sins.” ~ The Apostle Paul in Colossians 1:13-14

NOW

KINGDOMWe pray for God’s future to spill over

into the present.

Application #1: Pray “Your Kingdom Come”

because you long for Kingdom

“Is everything sad going to come untrue?”

~ Jesus of Nazareth in Gospel of Matthew, 19:28

“Truly I say to you, in the new world, when the Son of

man will sit on his glorious throne…

“Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, that times o refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Christ appointed for you,

Jesus, whom heaven must receive until the time for the restoration of all things….”

~ The Apostle Peter in Acts 3:19-21

Application #2: Pray “Your Kingdom Come” because you long for King

Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

”~ The Apostle John Revelation 22

“

Summary

Jesus teaches us to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom

because it focuses our attention and desire on

the restoration of all things as well as on

the Restorer of all things.

flickr images courtesy of:

other images:http://treybacca.deviantart.com/art/Genesis-3-19-354075577.

https://windbornchurchblog.wordpress.com/2012/06/29/grace-thought-for-matthew-3-for-sunday/