Lord, and for us, as we now come to your Word, again, Lord, we know that without your blessing on the preaching of your Word, that it would all be for naught. But you have guaranteed that your Word does not return void to you. And so our request today, Lord, is that as we come to your Word, that you would use it not to harden our hearts, but to soften our hearts. to strengthen us, to grow us in Christlikeness, to teach us to more fully yield our lives to Your authority, to more fully submit our lives to living for Your glory. Use Your Word, O Lord, to accomplish Your purposes in us, and use Your Word to glorify Christ. It's in His name we pray. Amen. Well if you have your Bibles please turn to Matthew chapter 6 as we will be continuing in our study of the Sermon on the Mount looking at two verses today Matthew chapter 6 verses 9 and 10. And as we continue in our study of the Sermon on the Mount today, we come to really what is one of the most well-known passages in all the Bible. It's probably, if not certainly, the most memorized passage in all of Scripture, at least for the size of it. Even before I was a believer, even before I was a Christian, I memorized the passage that we'll begin looking at today. We call it the Lord's Prayer. That's what this next passage is called that we're coming to. But from the outset, I just wanna say that after a little bit of study, a little bit of deliberation, after preaching through John 17 a few years ago, I don't like to really call it the Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer is really from John 17. But you'll notice that I've titled this message the Disciples' Prayer, and there's a good reason for that. And that reason is because this isn't Jesus's prayer. This isn't what Jesus prayed, nor could he have even prayed this prayer. And the reason that we can know that is because part of the prayer involves asking for forgiveness of our sins. And we know for a fact that Jesus did not sin. If he did, he wouldn't have been resurrected on the third day. So we can be certain that Jesus never ever prayed this prayer, at least not verbatim. Rather, he gave this prayer to us as an example of how we should pray. So Jesus never sinned. So Jesus never prayed this prayer. But you know who has sinned? His disciples, all of them, you, me, every disciple. We have all sinned and therefore all of us as disciples of Christ need to pray accordingly. So again I want to point out that this prayer is given to us kind of as a template, if you will, or it's an example of how we should pray. But notice that I said how we should pray, not what we should pray. As we'll see, if you look at your Bibles, verse 9, Jesus prefaces this prayer by saying, pray then in this way. The CSB translation similarly says, therefore you should pray like this. So it's a prayer that models for us what prayer is supposed to look like and what it should consist of. But I don't, at least I don't necessarily believe that Jesus intended for us to repeat this prayer verbatim, and it certainly wasn't intended to be the only prayer that we offer unto God. Paul instructs us in 1 Thessalonians 5, verse 17, pray without ceasing. But I can assure you that he wasn't instructing us to pray over this prayer, to pray this prayer over and over again. How can I be sure of that? Well, if you look, while you've got your Bibles open, look back at verse 7. He said, and when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition, as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. Maybe you've heard someone who prays a prayer repetitively. It's kind of strange. When I was a young boy, my parents brought my sister and me to Hawaii once, and I remember passing by a group of very strange-looking men who had shaved their heads and they dressed in these white tunics as they stood there and chanted this prayer over and over again while they handed out cookies. They were a Hindu cult called the Hare Krishnas. You might have heard of them. They used to be a bigger cult than they are today, but they're still around. But what they're known for is chanting the same thing over and over and over again. Well, you might be asking, well, what's so wrong with chanting things over and over again? Well, for one thing, Jesus said don't. Jesus said don't think that by repeating your prayers you're going to earn anything with God. But for another thing, it has a way of essentially turning our brains off by putting us into a trance-like state, which simultaneously renders us very impressionable. If you go to some of these very charismatic revival events, they're reported to play songs for over an hour, one song for over an hour, just saying the same thing over and over and kind of getting you into a trance-like state, at which point, again, we tend to become very impressionable. That's the way that our brains are wired. So you might say that it just has a way of removing intellectual barriers because at some point your brain will simply go on autopilot and you stop thinking about what you're saying. Now we've all done that. You hear a song a hundred times and you like to sing along with it, well eventually you start singing along with it without thinking about what you're actually saying. Well, similarly, prayer is not a mindless thing that we can do or should do at least on autopilot. As we saw in our previous study from this chapter, prayer is essentially having fellowship with God. The fellowship that was lost in the fall is recovered in Christ and it's experienced in prayer. It's fellowship with God. It's a conversation with God. I mean, how many of you When you're talking to somebody that you love, you want that person to essentially turn their brains off and go on autopilot. That's not the way we interact with people. Of course we don't want that. If you love someone, you want to actually engage with them. You want to actually communicate with them and know what's on their heart, know what's on their mind. So now that you understand that the model prayer that Jesus gave us isn't supposed to be repeated or chanted repeatedly, I hope it's clear that this was meant to establish a pattern for our prayers to follow, that's all. But the point of the two verses before us today is that prayer to God should involve trusting and yielding ourselves to God as we eagerly anticipate the fulfillment of His purposes and plans through history. And so with that said, we should see that the disciples' prayer can actually be broken into two parts. There are two parts of this prayer if you take away the preface, which we've already looked at. In the first section, which we'll be covering today, it involves focusing on God exclusively. And if you notice, the first two verses are centered on God, and that's indicated by the way that the word your, the pronoun your, is used three times. Let's look at verses nine and 10. He continues by saying, our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Your, your, your. It's focused on God. And after this section, what we'll see next month is that the pronouns change and the direction of the prayer changes. This first section is focused on God, but the second section, the pronouns change. It's focused on our requests that we bring to God. Give us this day our daily bread. and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us. See how the pronouns have completely changed. So there are really two main parts of this prayer. So let's start with this. Why did Jesus give us this prayer? He gave it to us as a way to show us the right way to pray, so that we might compare and contrast it with all the wrong ways to pray, which Jesus has already addressed in the verses that led up to this point. Now we're in the part of the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus has instructed his disciples back in verse 1 of chapter 6 by saying, Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them, otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. Now Jesus is going to illustrate this in three ways. We've already seen, number one, he illustrated this by telling us how we are to give, if you recall. He taught that we're not supposed to give in such a way that draws attention to ourselves or whereby we gain some form of merit or privilege or anything like that before men. rather were to give without any thought or any real consideration of possible benefits or advantages or rewards or merit of any sort that we might gain by giving. The second illustration for this point of not practicing your righteousness before men was prayer. And Jesus pointed out that the way that, you know, hypocrites pray, they love to pray in front of and they love to pray in the presence of other people because they love the attention that it gains them. They love what they gain from praying. loudly, or from praying the same thing over and over, or from praying right in front of people. Not the ear or the approval of God, but of men. And Jesus said that by doing that they've practically ensured that God will not hear or answer their prayers. That's essentially what it meant when he said, truly I say to you they have their reward in full. Our prayers are not to be a performance. They're not a performance before man. They're certainly not a performance before God. He's looking at the heart. He can see right through a performance. They're not to draw attention to ourselves at all. And that's just a reminder of how easily sin can corrupt even something that can and should be a very good thing, which prayer certainly is. But when it's abused, when it's done in a way that draws attention to you, it's not a good thing. So then the question might be asked, well Jesus, you know, you've told us not to do this, you've told us not to do that. When we pray, how exactly are we supposed to pray? And thus Jesus gives the Lord's prayer, or as I like to call it, the disciples' prayer. But we should understand that this was exactly the question that was given to Jesus on another occasion, which was recorded in Luke 11, verse one. We read this in Luke 11, verse one. It happened while Jesus was praying in a certain place. After he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples. And so Jesus obliged that request, and he taught them the disciples' prayer, which is very similar. There are a few very slight differences in Luke's account, but it's basically identical to what Matthew records here. And we shouldn't be surprised that Jesus taught the same thing in different places and in different contexts and circumstances. Every teacher does. So we find it in a couple places here in Matthew and also in Luke chapter 1, but he gives it to us because his disciples want to know how to pray. But this is how, and not necessarily exactly what, we are to pray. Jesus begins by saying, our Father who is in heaven. Now I don't believe that it's incidental. I don't believe that it's accidental. I don't believe that it's coincidental that Jesus begins the disciples prayer this way. If you've been paying close attention to what Jesus has said in the Sermon on the Mount, it's all very well put together. It's all very organized. It's all very intentionally composed. One point flows very logically to the next, to the next, to the next. So it's therefore by Jesus' specific design that He puts God first. He puts God first, and that's in contrast to the way that we would naturally be inclined to pray, which is to put ourselves first. I mean, if you've prayed much, you know how easy it is to just begin with us, to rush, to plead, and to offer supplications to God regarding all of our needs and all the things that we're unhappy, unsettled, or even discontent with in life. Who knows, maybe that's the reason that so many prayers sometimes seem to go unanswered, because they're so focused on us, and they start with us. I mean, after all, if you've ever walked into your home after a busy day of work, and the first thing you hear are kids crying and complaining about all the things they need, and all the ways that they need you to be in service to them, I mean, how inclined would you be to listen? Speaking for myself, that just sounds a little bit overwhelming, but praise the Lord, He's a lot more patient than I am or than we are. Unlike God, we are not infinitely patient. So it becomes difficult for us to listen. We tend to feel overwhelmed when somebody just comes at us with all their wants and needs. But Jesus teaches us to begin with God. And so as we begin with God, we must keep in mind what Jesus told us back in verse 8, where he said, so do not be like them, them being the hypocrites, them being those who chant their prayers or repeat their prayers, thinking that that's the way to ensure that their prayers are going to be heard and or answered. He says, so do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him. Now if you know that much about God, as you should, then you know that you don't have to start off a prayer by rattling off a list of wants and needs. He already knows what you need. Now there's a place for that in prayer, of course, and we're going to get to that in the Lord's Prayer. But the primary purpose of prayer is to experience fellowship with God, and for that reason it has to start with God. So step one in prayer is relax, slow down, take a long good gaze at the God who not only created and sustains the universe and everything therein, but who is also eager to pour out his blessings on you and to give you whatever it is you need, which he already knows about. And this I think is why Jesus instructs us to come to God addressing Him as our Father in heaven or our Heavenly Father. Now some of you I know I've talked with you and you don't have the most loving earthly fathers. Some of you I know have been absolutely disappointed, to put it lightly. You've been failed by your earthly fathers. Some of your fathers I know didn't love you the way that a father should love their children. They didn't bless you the way that fathers should desire to bless their children. They didn't listen to you the way that a loving father should be eager to listen to you. I know that for some of you it is, or maybe it used to be, maybe you've healed a little bit from it, but it's difficult for you to think of God in terms of being your Father in heaven. Because you know that God loves you, and yet, you know that your earthly father didn't, and those feelings still get in the way of how you perceive God. Fathers, dads, Let this be a very stern warning to you, a very serious reminder to you of the importance of fathering well, of loving your children and making sure they know it, of disciplining your children in a loving and gracious way, of blessing your children, of providing for their needs, and of being eager to spend time with them and listening to them. Because how you act, fathers, how you act toward your children, how you love your children, will affect how they feel about calling God our Father who is in heaven. Being a father is a super high calling. Dads, don't take it lightly. Don't take it lightly. Don't curse your children by making the word father painful or emotionally charged. If your earthly Father has failed you, know that your Father in heaven, however, would never fail you. He has not failed you. He never will fail you. He loves you, and He desires to bless you. He desires to provide for you. He desires to have fellowship with you. He loves you so much that He sent His only Son to bear your sins and to take them away from you as far as east is from the west, all in order that you would know Him. all in order that you could have fellowship with Him. Not as an unknown and cruel God, but as a father and child. To be instructed by God himself in the flesh, which is exactly what Jesus is, to pray to God as our Father who is in heaven. That's actually something to us that we probably are very inclined to take for granted, but it is a privilege that is absolutely mind-blowing. The Jews of the Old Testament and of Jesus' time would never, ever have thought to address God in this manner. And so therefore, when Jesus instructs us that this is how God is to be addressed as our Father who is in heaven, it would have seemed to the modern ear in Jesus' time as something that was just absolutely scandalous. Throughout the Old Testament, God is likened to a father in terms of his relationship to Israel as a nation, as a whole, but on an individual level, nobody called God my father." And not only that, but when God is likened to a father in the Old Testament over Israel, it was almost always because Israel as a people were acting in a wayward manner. For example, Jeremiah chapter 3 verses 19 and 20. God says to Israel, and I said, you shall call me my father and not turn away from following me. Surely as a woman treacherously departs from her lover, so you have dealt treacherously with me, O house of Israel, declares the Lord. So usually in the Old Testament when God is likened to a father it's because Israel has become an apostate. Jesus changed that. He commonly referred to God as my father. And we might easily brush that aside and miss the significance of that. You might say, well, he's God incarnate. He's the second person of the Trinity. Of course, he can call God my father. But what we have to see is that Jesus is inviting us to have the same relationship with God as children. who are adopted into God's family by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And Jesus would go on to die so that we could draw near to God without carrying the burden and the guilt of sin with us. So we should understand that Jesus is not teaching that God is the father of everyone, by the way. He's only the father of those who have believed in Jesus. Only those who have believed in Jesus can address Him as Father. John writes in his first epistle, 1 John 2, verse 23, he says, whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. Let me say that again. Whoever denies the Son does not have the Father. The one who confesses the Son has the Father also. So you see the distinction being made there. That the Father and the Son are essentially a package deal. In the sense that if you have one, you have both. And if you don't have one, you don't have either. If you don't have the Son, you don't have the Father. If you reject Jesus, you cannot call God your Father. Now it's been pointed out that when Jesus taught this, he used an Aramaic term that expresses just this intimate childlike affection. The word he uses for father here is Abba, which I love, maybe because my granddaughter calls me Appa or Appa. She can't say grandpa, so Appa is what I get called. It's close enough, but the word that Jesus uses here is Abba. which is, again, it's a term that was affectionately used by small children toward their father. Nobody, no man, no adult had the right to call another man Abba. It was a term that was reserved for a man's children. But this reveals so much about God's heart that Jesus tells us to address him this way. It reveals God's eagerness to have us draw near to Him in prayer and in fellowship. It reveals His desire for us to see Him not as a distant being who has nothing at all to do with our lives, not to see Him as a judge who can't wait to sentence us to a lengthy prison term, but to see Him as a Father who loves His children. What a joyful privilege it is to think of this every time we address Him as Father. Every time we address Him as Father, it should remind us that the relationship that we have been brought into with Him is different from the one that we were born into. Once upon a time, the only relationship we had with God, by default, by our nature, was the relationship that you find between a guilty criminal and a judge. But by His grace, He brought us into a new relationship with Himself wherein we relate to Him as a child affectionately relates to their father. A father, seeing Him this way, is so different from seeing him as this cold, impersonal, distant God who doesn't really participate in our day-to-day lives. Because a father hears, a father cares, a father loves, and it's all because a father is a person rather than just some machine that's wound everything up and lets everything go, but it's secretly hidden behind a curtain somewhere. Seeing and knowing God this way, the way that a child affectionately sees their father, it's actually the cure to every single one of the fears and anxieties that you face in life. Jesus is going to show us later on in this chapter, He's going to say this, do not be worried about your life. as to what you will eat or what you will drink, nor for your body as to what you will put on? Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?" That's in the same chapter, verses 25 and 26, which we'll get to eventually. But what he's saying is, if you see God this way, It assuages, it should comfort all of your anxieties and every fear that you have in life. But we aren't only to address Him as Father, we're to address Him as our Father who is in heaven. The term Father reminds us of His deep love for us, His desire to bless us and provide for us. And when we remember that He is in heaven, we remember that He's the one who's actually in charge here. He's the sovereign one. He's the one who can drain the oceans. He's the one who can shake the mountains if that's what needs to be done to care and provide for His children. Nothing's impossible for Him. And so when we call Him our Heavenly Father, we remember that nothing is impossible for Him, that He knows about our needs, and He alone has the ability of the unique ability to meet every one of our needs. And so, I guess that forces me to ask you at this point, do you know God as your Father in heaven? Have you believed in Jesus, His only Son? Because if so, then you can live your life with confident knowledge that He is with you, that He is for you, that He loves you, that He desires to bless you and indeed will bless you abundantly, that He will provide for your every need, and that the future is in His hands. You can know that He's directing all things to work together for His glory and for your greatest good as nobody else and as nothing else can. And you can know that He will never abandon you. He will never forsake you. He will never allow anything to get in the way or to nullify His purposes and His promises for you. See, when you view God this way, when you start to view God as a Father in heaven, it changes you, or it should. And that brings us to the next clause in this wonderful prayer, which is, hallowed be your name. Now we should recognize that in Scripture, whenever we hear about God's name being used that way, it includes not only His name, literal name, but it includes His identity, it includes His will, it includes His intention and His purposes as well. For example, when Jesus instructs us in John 14, v. 13-14, He says, "...whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it." He's not saying that if you ask for a Lamborghini, it's going to show up on your porch the next day. He's not saying that if you ask for money, all the money in the world, or for restored health, that He will necessarily do it. No, this is all about glorifying the Father. so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. And he goes on to say, I will do it. So he's saying that if we ask for something according to his will, his revealed will, and according to his revealed purposes, he will do it. Well, where is His will revealed? Where are His purposes revealed? In Scripture. Scripture alone. So make sure you know Scripture. Make sure you are spending time in Scripture. But ultimately, this statement, Hallowed be Your Name, boils down to being a statement of submission in our lives to His ways and His purposes, to His will. We realize that His plans and purposes are good and righteous, and just and sure. Indeed they are even holy. His purposes are holy. They're hallowed. But it's important for us to understand that this word that gets translated hallowed can also be translated as sanctified or set apart. Peter actually uses this word in 1st Peter chapter 3 verse 15. when he instructs us by saying this, he says, but sanctify, there's the word, but make holy, but set apart, but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you. What Peter's essentially instructing us to do there is to give God the place in our hearts that He alone is worthy of. What place in your heart is He worthy of? Nothing but the highest priority. Nothing short of that. Now it's interesting to see that these first two clauses They actually correspond with the first and second commandments from the Ten Commandments. James Montgomery Boyce writes this. He says, quote, in Exodus chapter 20, verses 2 and 3, we read, I am the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me. In the same way, we are to pray, our Father in heaven, that corresponds to the words, I am the Lord your God, Hallowed be your name, that corresponds to the command that there might be no other God before him. And then he adds, if I were to rephrase this first part of the Lord's Prayer, I believe I would say, my Father in heaven, my first desire is that in everything you might have preeminence, end quote. So when we pray, our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. What we're saying is that our desire is that God would be preeminent in our lives. That He would be glorified in our lives as we submit ourselves and yield ourselves to His ways. You're praying to God, essentially, may my life glorify You, and may it be a joyful delight to You, a testimony of the power of Your grace working in me, and of Your sovereign right to be the greatest desire and the highest authority in my life. And again, this is ultimately a statement of submission in our lives to His ways and to His purposes. So if we pray this, we should also at the same time recognize that we, to a degree, pray it hypocritically. Because truth be told, we aren't fully submitted. None of us, not a single one of us, is fully submitted to God and His ways and purposes. We all still have a battle with remaining sin within. We still choose to do things our way instead of His ways. There will still be wives, Christian wives, who say, you know, I don't care what God's Word says, I'm not going to submit to my husband. And we have husbands who will likewise say, I don't care what God's Word says, I don't care what He instructs, I can't love my wife like Christ loved the church. There are still Christians who participate in coarse jesting, in using foul language. I mean, you get the point. Even as Christians, remaining sin prevents us from living lives that are fully submitted to God. We still need to be repenting every single day of sin. It never ends until the flesh nature is finally put away once and for all when we see Jesus face to face. But for now, there is remaining sin within which prevents us from fully submitting our lives to God. So perhaps we can say that in light of this fact, in our awareness of it, perhaps we can say that to pray, hallowed be your name, is really to pray that God would open up our hearts, examine our lives, and that he would so shine his light into the depths of our heart that He would drive away remaining sin and darkness, and that He would grant us the grace to go to war with the desires of the flesh, to go to battle with any resistance to His will that remains within us. So we aren't just saying, you know, oh God, help me behave. Help me be on my best behavior. Because even being on your best behavior isn't good enough for God. It doesn't please God. It's about the desires that remain within us. And so this part of the prayer is really a recognition of our helpless condition, and of our utter dependence on grace, of our utter need for God to work in us and to sanctify us by His grace. Because the truth is that we won't be sinless in this life, and therefore we must be willing to open our hearts up before God, and to be honest before God with our condition, eager to change, and trusting in His grace to not only turn us from sin outwardly, but to go to war with the sinful desires that remain within every single one of us. When we yield ourselves to Him, and when we're confronted with the impossibility of yielding ourselves as fully to Him as we desire to, and that's really what God's looking for, is that desire to fully yield to Him, that's when we're ready to pray the next clause in the prayer. John MacArthur is quoted as having once said this, he said, quote, when people ask me what appeals to me about heaven, it isn't the streets of transparent gold or gates made of pearls, it's the absence of sin. I'm tired of sin, end quote. How many of you guys can relate to that? I hope you can relate to this from the deepest depths of your heart, because the next clause is, your kingdom come. And so, in one sense, when we say, your kingdom come, when we pray that, it's sort of a frustrated sigh that expresses a longing to be in a place where sin is done away with. Indeed, where it's completely absent. It's a longing for things to be the way that God designed them to be in the beginning. And it's a longing for the way things will be when God's plans and purposes are ultimately fulfilled at the end of history. And so it encompasses past, present, and future. If there's one thing that we should know about the kingdom of God for certain, it's that it's God's kingdom. It is God's kingdom. He's the one who is sovereign over it. He's the one who reigns over it. In His infinite goodness and wisdom, He has ordered that His kingdom would coexist as an invisible kingdom that exists among earthly kingdoms that are often terribly, terribly wicked. And not only that, but it is far better and infinitely preferable to man's kingdoms. God's kingdom is way better. It's much preferable, isn't even the word. It is a million times better than man's earthly kingdoms. Listen, the kingdoms of this world come and go. And history attests to the fact that every kingdom comes and goes. Every one of man's kingdoms comes and goes. I love America, I love our country, but at the same time I know that there is only one kingdom that will last forever, one kingdom that will never be shaken, one kingdom that will never be overthrown, and that is God's kingdom. America, I hate to say it, America will come and go. In many senses I think it's possible that we're actually seeing that unfold right before our eyes right now. And while I don't want that to happen for the sake of my children, whom I love, and my grandchildren, and my grandchildren's children, and so on and so forth, it's just what happens to man's earthly kingdoms. Historians will tell you that if you look back throughout history, there have been 21 major or major civilizations throughout the course of world history. I actually think there are probably at least a couple more than that, but that our historical records of those civilizations were probably destroyed in the Genesis flood. But that only strengthens the point that I'm trying to make, and that is that all earthly kingdoms will eventually crumble. There was an ancient Mesopotamian civilization. Where is it today? There was Egypt that was once this great kingdom on earth, but today they're really just another civilization with kind of an impoverished economy. Babylon, Assyria, these were once great civilizations, once great empires, but their time came and went. The Greco-Roman Empire, even that Roman Empire, even the Roman Empire fell as great and as widespread as it was. This is the way, this is the destiny of every single one of man's kingdoms. And so they're not worth living for. God allows a civilization to grow, to flourish, to even prosper. And as that happens, man's kingdoms tend to become very prideful, which eventually leads to their demise. But God's kingdom will never know and will never see even the slightest bit of demise. And while this clause, your kingdom come, while this can reflect a yearning for heaven or a longing for the day when we won't have to contend with sin, won't have to coexist with sin, won't even have to look at sin's effects, it also reflects a desire to see God's invisible and borderless kingdom spread throughout the earth. As a Christian who has been called into the Great Commission, I hope that this is something that you desire greatly. To see God's kingdom, his borderless, invisible kingdom, spread throughout the earth. This is the desire that we sing about when we sing the old hymn, Jesus shall reign. Jesus shall reign wherever the sun does his successive journeys run, his kingdom stretch from shore to shore till moons shall wax and wane no more. Man, I want that. Don't you? So we should see that in one sense his kingdom has come and is coming. It came down when Christ took on flesh. Luke chapter 17 verses 20 and 21 tells us about an encounter that Jesus had with a Pharisee who asked when the kingdom of God was coming, and he answered by saying, the kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, Nor will they say, look, here it is, or there it is, for behold, the kingdom of God is in your midst. So in one sense, this kingdom has already come. This kingdom comes even now in our day as well. That's what happens. Every time the gospel is preached and God, by His grace, opens a sinner's heart to hear and believe the gospel. This is to say that God continues to this day to build His kingdom. And the means that He has ordained to build His kingdom, there's only one way. It's through the preaching of the gospel. It does not come any other way. It can't be legislated. It can't be ordered. It can't be mandated. It can only come as the gospel goes forward, as the gospel is preached, and as God, by His grace, opens sinners ears and quickens their dead spirits. That's the means that He has ordained. We know that His kingdom will continue to spread despite the opposition of worldly and demonic forces until the end of the age. That is to say that we will coexist. God's kingdom will always coexist in this age. alongside man's evil earthly kingdoms. In Matthew 13, Jesus taught a series of parables that are commonly known as the kingdom parables. There are a couple parables in there that are very specific about that. It gives us a succinct overview of the history of the church to come, you might say. But what we learn from these parables is that God's kingdom will always coexist with man's kingdoms until the end of the age when Christ returns. The parable of the seed sower reminds us that most people, when they hear the gospel, they will end up rejecting it throughout this age. The parable of the wheat and tares reminds us that the wheat and tares, which represent the sons of God's kingdom and the sons of the evil one, they will coexist and they'll even often be difficult to distinguish between until the end of the age when Christ returns. Nevertheless, we do pray, your kingdom come. And by praying that, we ask first that God may, by His grace, rule and reign over our hearts. And secondly, that God will continue to use His people, to use the preaching of the gospel, to call sinners who are lost in darkness into His marvelous light until the fullness of the elect are brought into the kingdom and Christ returns. The final clause that relates to God in this disciples prayer and begins with the pronoun your is your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is a clause that summarizes much of what has already been encompassed in the previous clauses. But since this is a prayer, this is a very important clause, because praying for something that isn't God's will is really kind of silly, isn't it? Praying for something that's opposed to God's will is not only futile, but it is a waste of your time, effort, and energy. I mean, imagine a Christian who prays something along the lines of, God, whether it's your will or not, I need you to give me this, or I need you to give me that. Make me a better liar, God. Make me better at coveting. Help me covet more. You can't pray stuff like that, because it's opposed to God's will. You and I need to conform our prayers and our desires to God's will. What we need to realize as pilgrims making a journey through this world is that every problem that we face in life, every spiritual pitfall that we encounter, happens only because somebody has desired that their will be done rather than submitting to God's will. God is perfect, God is righteous, and thus He can't be blamed for any difficult situations that we face. And we know that when God separates us one day from sin and from the effects of sin, there will be no more problems. There will be no more spiritual pitfalls. Every tear will be wiped away from our eyes, and we'll never have to walk in the presence of sin ever again. And thus, if problems exist, if pitfalls exist, it's because we haven't been separated from the sin or the effects of sin just yet. And this is all illustrated very well in the story of how Lucifer was cast out of heaven, which we read about in Isaiah chapter 14. Verses 12 to 14 record his fall for us. And as I read through this, what I want you to do is count the number of times he says, I will. The passage says this. How you have fallen from heaven, O star of the morning, sun of the dawn! You have been cut down to the earth, you who have weakened the nations. But you said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven, I will raise my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the mount of the assembly in the recesses of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will make myself like the Most High. How many times do we find the phrase, the words, I will, used together here? There you go, five times, five times Satan declares his will and each one of them communicates a defiance of and a rejection of God's will. You might even say that this was the event that marked the first time in all of eternity, in all of history, that two wills existed. In the end, the very next verse, verse 15, says this, nevertheless, you will be thrust down to Sheol, to the recesses of the pit. And as you read further in the passage, you read that God will make all things right. But notice that Satan's judgment is given in the future tense here. That forces us to ask, why did God allow this second will to exist? Why is there more than one I will that's in rejection of God? Why are there five when, after the first one, God could have just done away with them? Now we have to be careful when we ask, why does God allow opposing wills to exist? Because the same could often be said about us. And the answer is because God knew that any will that was contrary to or opposed to His will would end badly. would end very badly. And when history as we know it comes to an end one day, we will see how true it is, how foolish it is for anyone to ever even want to act in a way that is opposed or contrary to God's will once and for all. God's will leads to blessing, God's will leads to joy, to happiness, but everything, and I do mean everything, that is contrary to or opposed to God's will, ultimately, in the end, only brings misery. And that's why God allowed a second will into the universe, so that that could be clearly demonstrated. And so when we pray this, when we pray, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, ultimately what we're praying is that God would continue to bring blessing, to bring joy, and to bring happiness to the world through the preaching of the gospel. In John 6, verse 40, Jesus says, for this is the will of my Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life. If you have never believed in Jesus, I want you to know that that is where God's will for you begins, if you want to know what God's will is. This is the only part of God's will. If you have never believed in Jesus, this is the only part of God's will that you need to concern yourself with for now, because God will not bring you joy, God will not bring you God will not bring you happiness. He will not even hear your prayers until you have submitted yourself to this aspect of His Word, believing in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. But if you have believed in Jesus, Know this, you and I are to trust so thoroughly in God's goodness and the goodness of God's plans and purposes, indeed in the goodness and the righteousness of His will, that even if it's difficult or costly or painful, we are willing to confidently pray. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, in my life as it is in heaven, and to know as you pray that, that His will is always better than ours. His will is always just. His will is always good. His will is always right. Let's pray. Our most gracious Heavenly Father, again we thank You for Your Word, for the way that it instructs us, from the way that it corrects us, from the way that it sanctifies us. Lord, we pray that You would teach us to have a healthy and deep prayer life. By Your grace, O Father, we ask that You would teach us to come to You as a Father, to see You as a Father who loves us, who desires to bless us, who has promised to bless us, who knows all of our needs and has promised to provide for them. Teach us to come to You with that kind of confidence, Lord. And teach us to trust every circumstance of our lives in your hands, knowing that you hold the course of history in your hands. We pray, Lord, that as we consider all these lessons of the depths of the disciples' prayer, that our own prayer lives would deepen, our own prayer lives would become richer and sweeter. Lord, our desire is that your kingdom come and that your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And Lord, we long for the day when we will gather around your throne in the new heavens and the new earth and sing praises to you for eternity. But for now, you have given us this means of fellowship with you. And we pray, Lord, that you would bless our prayers, grow our prayer life, deepen our prayer life, that we may grow in our love for and our obedience toward you as our God and Father. For the glory of Jesus. In His name we pray, Amen.