Word of Salvation – Vol. 31 No. 36 – Sep 1986
Prayer – The Second Request
Sermon by Rev. John Westendorp on Matthew 6:10(a)
Reading: Psalm 2, Matthew 13:24-43
Heidelberg Catechism – L.D.48
Singing: Tell out my soul (BoW.247)
Jesus is Lord (BoW.330)
Christ shall have dominion (BoW.072a)
Theme: The threefold need for the request – Your Kingdom come!
Introd: Asking in prayer always happens for either or both of 2 reasons:
OTOH God has commanded us to ask of Him in prayer.
He teaches us to make our requests known to Him.
He even teaches us in the Lord’s Prayer what our requests should be.
OTOH we also make our requests of God because we are people with needs.
In prayer we spell out to the Lord what our needs are.
And we ask God to meet those needs of ours.
Usually those two reasons for praying are fairly obvious.
Take for example the prayer request: Give us today our daily bread!
We pray that because Jesus taught us to ask that of Him.
But we also ask this out of our need for food. We depend on God for it.
Or take another example from the Lord’s Prayer: Hallowed be Your name!
One reason we pray that is simply because God teaches us to ask this.
But again we pray this because we have a need:
Because we don’t find it easy to treat God’s name as holy.
But what about when it comes to this second request: Your Kingdom Come?
Okay, Jesus taught us to pray this in the model prayer.
But where does our need come into the picture?
What problem in our life does this petition address?
It’s important for us to consider the need behind this prayer.
Because this does not always seem a very relevant prayer for us.
Praying this out of obedience and love for God is one thing.
But what need in our daily life motivates to pray this second request?
A) GOD’S KINGDOM & OUR NEED FOR SUBMISSION.
1. To explain the need out which we pray this I want to take a little detour.
Think for a few moments of the virtue of HUMILITY.
To be humble is not something that comes easily to us human beings.
PRIDE – the very opposite of HUMILITY comes far more easily.
There’s the story of a chap who was given a badge for being humble.
But they had to take it off him again because he actually wore it.
Pride stops us helping someone when we consider that below our dignity.
Pride prevents us from admitting we were wrong.
Pride makes us want to stay just a little bit ahead of others in the church.
Over against that God puts humility.
It’s a willingness to be wronged rather than to wrong others.
It’s being a servant to someone rather than expecting to BE served.
And then the Bible gives us this outlook on the Kingdom of heaven:
That the Kingdom of God is all about humility!
Heaven’s Kingdom is for the HUMBLE.
While those outside the Kingdom are the PROUD.
In the Beatitudes we read:
Blessed are the poor in spirit (the humble) for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven!
When Mary is told that she will give birth to the King…
Then she sings her song of praise because the Kingdom is now coming and she sings:
“He has scattered those who are proud…. and exalted the humble.”
The Kingdom of heaven is a kingdom for the humble.
Humility… and the Kingdom go hand in hand.
The Kingdom of God is a Kingdom in which there is no room for pride.
2 Let’s just come at it from another angle:
Humility is willing to be subject to others… to submit!
Pride, OTOH, refuses to submit… it will not subject itself.
Sometimes we hear of people who were born in England spoken of as ‘British Subjects’.
IOW they were under subjection to the Monarch of Great Britain.
A Dutch Subject is one under subjection to the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Being subject means being willing to submit to one’s king… one’s country.
While a refusal to submit is quite contrary to being a subject.
Today it is of course quite unfashionable to talk about these things.
Today people don’t want to be subject to anybody or anything.
And talk about submission just doesn’t go down well either.
But do you see how these things go together:
Humility… and submission
Pride… and the refusal to submit!
This is what the Kingdom of God is all about…
about humility… about willingness to submit.
When you are a Christian then you are a subject of the Kingdom of heaven.
Those who are members of that Kingdom are subjects of the King of kings.
Thru the Holy Sp. there is the humility to submit to the reign of Christ as Lord.
3. You may say – that’s all very interesting.
But you were talking about prayer arising out of our NEEDS.
We asked: Where is that need of ours when we pray, Your Kingdom come?
Well unfortunately – and here’s the catch:
We are still such imperfect citizens of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
There’s still so much pride in us.
We still find it so difficult to submit.
There are areas of our life where we resist the Spirit of God and go our own way.
There are things in YOUR life which YOU know are contrary to God’s Word.
But you are not willing to let go of them
and unwilling to allow Jesus Christ
to have His way in that area of your life.
In some areas of life I want to build by own little kingdom, my own empire.
There are areas where I find it difficult to humble myself…
to submit to the rule of Jesus Christ as my Lord…
and so be a true subject of His Kingdom.
That is MY need! That is YOUR need… the need for submission!
When you and I pray “Your Kingdom come!” then we are praying first of all…
That the kingdom will be seen more and more in our own lives.
That there will be less pride that rebells against the Lordship of Jesus.
That there will be more humility in submitting to Jesus as King…
less rebellion against His Spirit… more obedience to His Word.
Lord help me to give up trying to build my own selfish little empires…
in the church… in my family… in my business life!
Lord may your Kingdom come more and more… first of all in my own life!
B) GOD’S KINGDOM & THE CHURCH’S NEED FOR PROTECTION.
1. There is a second area of need that motivates us to pray this request.
IOW – we don’t stop praying when we’ve dealt with our own needs.
A second area of need is related to THE CHURCH.
When we talk about the Kingdom we must also talk about the church.
Of course we must not make the mistake of confusing those two.
The church is not the Kingdom and the Kingdom is not the church.
God’s Kingdom is much wider than the church.
But the church is a part of the Kingdom of God… a very important part of it.
The church is the army of the Kingdom.
It is a gathering of Kingdom members seeking to further that Kingdom.
And so to pray for the Kingdom is also to pray for the church.
So we never pray this request just as isolated individual Christians…
It is the church of Jesus that prays, “Your Kingdom come!”
And the church prays that because she too has needs.
To see that let’s come back to those two concepts of HUMILITY and PRIDE!
It is Satan who is the PROUD one.
Satan has always sought equality with God…
rather than submission to God.
In pride he refuses to submit to the reign of God.
We must never forget Satan too has a Kingdom… but it’s a kingdom of pride.
And he constantly seeks to make us rebel against God and His Kingdom.
He wants us to strive for equality with God rather than submit to His reign.
So there are two kingdoms:
– A Kingdom of humility and a kingdom of pride.
– The Kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of Satan.
And the whole Bible is a story of the conflict between those two kingdoms.
2. Right at the centre of that conflict the Lord Jesus has placed His church.
The church is the army of the Kingdom.
She is God’s ‘task force’ in this world.
And as God’s army the church has two tasks.
First the enemy has to be engaged in battle.
Second conquered territory has be consolidated.
That means the church has needs in two directions… two special needs.
FIRST of all there is the church’s vulnerability in her warfare
We are involved in an ongoing battle.
The Kingdom of humility is constantly attacked by that kingdom of pride.
We are called to fight against the influence of the evil one.
Our task is nothing less than opposing the arch-enemy of God.
And the devil never makes that easy for us… on the contrary!
Constantly the church is under attack from Satan’s forces.
Sometimes by open persecution and hostility.
At other times by subtle seduction to give up its love for Jesus.
Today for us it’s usually the strategy of subtle seduction.
Why not just join the crowd? Everyone else is doing it!
Why should we miss out on the fun just because we’re Christians?
In other ways too Satan attacks the church today.
He tempts us to water down the message of the kingship of Jesus Christ.
He tries to get worldliness in to weaken the church.
So we as a church pray this prayer because of our vulnerability.
That is our need: Satan is so powerful… and we are so weak.
So we pray for the protection of the church from the attacks of Satan.
Your Kingdom come! – Lord protect us against the Devil and his evil works.
May he not succeed but may your Kingdom indeed come in all its glory.
3 However that task force of the Kingdom not only fights the enemy.
The Church not only engages in warfare but also in re-construction.
She builds up the Kingdom… the territory that is won for Jesus.
The church has the tremendous task of calling people
out of the kingdom of Satan and into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
She has the great responsibility of discipling the nations
teaching them all the things Jesus entrusted to His church.
IOW the church has a SECOND need…
not only a need for protection but also a need to prosper in her work.
So to pray this prayer is also to pray for a blessing
on that work of calling others into the Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
It is at the same time a prayer for growth in numbers
and for growth in knowledge, and love and faith in the Lord.
May that army of the Kingdom grow thru natural increase
thru the line of faithful children brought up in covenant homes…
as they too confess Jesus as Lord.
May that army of the Kingdom grow thru missions and thru evangelism…
thru outreach and thru witness in word and deed…
so that all God’s chosen Ones may indeed be gathered in.
May your Kingdom come! Lord protect us… Lord increase us!
C) GOD’S KINGDOM AND THE WORLD’S NEED FOR REDEMPTION.
1 However when we think of the needs of the church
we haven’t yet exhausted the needs that drive us to pray this request.
We do well to remember the extent to which Satan has taken over this world.
Let’s turn to 2Corinthians 4 and see how Bible speaks of the evil one.
The Bible has some very strong words to say about his role in the world.
<<< READ 2Cor.4:4 >>>.
Note that it speaks of Satan as the ‘god’ of this age…
And that he blinds unbelievers to the gospel.
<<< READ 1John 5:19 >>>.
Notice how strongly John puts it.
The WHOLE world is in the power of the evil one.
IOW the kingdom of pride is an extensive kingdom with many followers.
And a great deal of this world and its peoples are under its bondage.
That means that the world around us has needs too.
There is a need for this world to be set free from Satan’s power.
A need for his influence to be broken.
A crying need for people to find the freedom
that comes from belonging to that Kingdom of humility.
2 And yet… isn’t it true that Jesus has already won the victory?
Has He not already overcome the evil one?
We believe He already has all authority not only in heaven but also on earth.
How then can the Bible call Satan the Prince of this world the god of this age?
Is that not a contradiction to the victory of Jesus Christ?
I love the explanation of this that compares the situation to World War II.
The day the Allies landed on the beaches of Normandy in France is known as D-Day!
That was the decisive victory for the Allies.
That large force that landed there on D-Day could not be defeated.
That invasion was the turning point that changed the direction of the war.
It guaranteed victory – D-Day!
And yet… ahead of them lay all of occupied Europe.
The enemy was still literally in every town and village.
There were still many more battles to be fought and won.
But then came the day of Germany’s surrender and the end of the war.
V-Day… the day of victory also came.
But it came because the decisive battle had already been fought on D-Day.
In the Kingdom of Christ, Jesus has already won the decisive battle.
Yet the war goes on – the enemy still occupies many areas of life.
D-Day was the day when Jesus arose as Victor over sin, Satan and death.
V-Day will be the day when He comes again in glory.
But in between those two days the battle goes on between those two kingdoms.
A battle that is being fought in churches and schools…
in workshops and in the market places of life…
in entertainment and in politics and in every area of life
because Satan refuses yet to give up territory.
So this groaning world needs this request.
Because the war goes on and many become casualties.
So we pray this prayer for the victory of Jesus also for the world.
Because it has a need for an end to the misery of the conflict with Satan.
3. In closing let me also add that if there is any request
that we Christians can pray with the utmost conviction
then it is surely THIS request of the Lord’s Prayer.
Precisely because D-Day is a reality we can have confidence.
The decisive battle has already been fought.
Jesus came and lived our life and died on Calvary and then rose victoriously.
Nothing is now more certain than that Victory Day too will come.
Jesus Christ will come in power and judgment.
And only then, on that day, will the battle be over.
But interestingly, that will happen in response to our prayers.
That’s why Jesus taught us to pray this request of the Lord’s Prayer.
He wants to bring about Victory Day as His response to our praying.
So He tells us to ask this in the certainty that He will answer.
The Kingdom will come.
Jesus will bring about what He has, in principle, already achieved.
Until then we keep praying with conviction:
Come Lord Jesus…yes, may Your Kingdom come!
Maranatha…! Amen!