By Rev.
Brian Wilkie
Pastor of St. Andrew's Christian Community
Rockland, Ontario
|
PODCAST LINK to CFRA
broadcast - Sunday, January 26th, 2014:
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Broadcast Notes:
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‘Thy Kingdom Come’
Welcome to Good News In The Morning, a program of
words and music bringing a Christian message of hope and encouragement to those
who are looking for intelligent meaningful and spirited approach to faith and
to life.
This program
is sponsored by Good News Christian Ministries PO Box 184 Rideau Ferry, Ontario
K0G 1W0. I'm your host today, Brian Wilkie of St. Andrew's Christian church in
Rockland. As always I want to start by thanking you our listeners. We are so
grateful for your encouragement and support. Please remember that you can always
visit our website for materials to encourage and support you in your Christian
walk.
If you miss an
episode of the show you can go to our website and download the podcast or the
MP3 of our broadcast.
Now I want to
continue what I started and in my last broadcast and look at the Lord's Prayer.
The disciples asked Jesus how they should pray and in teaching on that subject
he introduced what we today call the Lord's Prayer. I would like to speak about
one aspect of that prayer which is the second petition of that prayer, ‘Thy
kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
I wanted take
a look at something about God's kingdom. In the Old Testament there was a time
when the people of Israel considered that God was their king, but there came a
time when they want to be like the other nations. They wanted to have a real
human king standing before them, who would fight their battles for them, and
take care of everything for them. This is how God and the prophet Samuel
discussed the idea of kingship in Israel.
In first Samuel chapter 8 verse 6-9 it reads,
But when they
said, ‘give us a king to lead us,’ this displeased Samuel so he prayed to the
Lord and the Lord told him, ‘Listen to all that the people are saying to you. It
is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king, as they
have done from the day I brought them out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me
and serving other gods, so they are doing now. Now listen to them and warn them
solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.
The Scripture
raises the question for us, ‘Who do we want to be king of our lives? Who do we
want to reign over us?’ Do we want it to be the Lord or do want it to be some
human person or some philosophy? Do we want to be ruled by God or by our
culture? We will get into a look at what it means for us to pray, ‘Thy kingdom
come, thy will be done,’ in a few moments, but first I'd like you to hear a
musical version of the Lord's prayer. If you have been listening to my broadcasts
over the last couple of years, you will know that I am a big fan of a cappella
music. I come by this quite honestly because a number of my family members are involved
in different a cappella musical choruses.
This version
of the Lord's Prayer is from Toronto's North Metro Chorus, of the Sweet Adelines’
organization. My mom used to sing with this
chorus, so this version of the Lord's Prayer is very special to me. Would you
listen to it with me
God’s Kingdom
is a focus of Jesus ministry. Jesus talks about what the kingdom of God is like
in so many of his parables. He talks about God's role in forgiving and blessing,
and helping. He also talks about our response in being servants of the kingdom,
stewards of God's resources. The idea of the kingdom of God is central to the
teaching of Jesus, and when people ask him what's happening, what his presence
means, he says, ‘The kingdom of God is at hand.’ When he sends the disciples to
go out into the villages of Israel he says, go and heal the sick and preach the
good news, declare the kingdom of God is near.’
God desires to
have his will - his graceful love, his righteousness and his goodness - fill
the entire earth. He wants to rule because only under his rule humanity can
live in love and grace and peace. So often we think to find freedom through
rebellion. But Jesus shows us that by coming to him and being filled with his
love, being empowered by his spirit, there we have true freedom. Being set free
from the domination of our impulses, of the domination of the culture around us;
being freed from fear of the authorities and powers that so often oppress
people. Jesus says that in him is perfect freedom, coming to him is to have the
burdens lifted.
The kingdom of
God is a great thing to look forward to. When we pray in the Lord's Prayer, ‘Thy
kingdom come,’ we are asking God to rule. Remember the pictures of the kingdom
of God as described in Scripture when it speaks about the last days, the days
of God establishing his kingdom on the earth? Whether it's in Isaiah when he
speaks of the peaceable kingdom and the lion laying down with the Lamb, and
there being no harm anywhere on God's mountain. Or when we see in the New
Testament that the new Jerusalem comes upon the earth, with such a light coming
from God himself that we don't even need a sun or moon; where everything is
perfect and beautiful where there is nothing to harm anyone; where there are trees
bearing leaves that are the healing of the nations. It is a rich, abundant life
in everything. We delight in those images of God's kingdom. We ought to pray
that his kingdom come always. We ought to, like the early church. cry out, ‘Come
Lord Jesus, come,” because God has a great purpose and plan for us and for all
humanity. The kingdom of God is about you and me being part of his kingdom. It
is accepting that he is our Lord and living as he would have us live. God teaches
us to pray, ‘thy will be done’ because we recognize that of all the things that
we can ask for on earth the one thing that makes the best difference, that
makes a greatest good happen, is when God does what God needs to do, what God
wants to do. God saves people from oppression. When Jesus came and announced
his mission, he said, ‘the spirit of the Lord has anointed me to heal the sick,
to bring good news to the poor, to set the prisoners free, to liberate the
captives.” Jesus came to do his father's will and his father's will is perfectly
good. Thy will be done God. Let your will be done in this world, where so many
are in need, let your will be done. Where there is so much violence in the
world. Let your will be done when there's so much bitterness and animosity
between different groups of people. Let your will be done, when people are
captive not only to political forces but also to chemistry: captive to drugs
and addictions, captive to psychological compulsions, people who are captive to
their own habits and are wasting away in their need for salvation. Let thy
kingdom come, Lord let your will be done.
As Christians
when we pray your will be done we’re praying for ourselves. We are asking for
help in submitting to God, recognizing that our role is to say about our lives
that our decisions should be that God's will be done.
Have you thought
about how much trivia is prayed for? People pray for riches, for wealth; things
that have so little to do with God's kingdom. We pray for things that we might indulge our own appetites, instead of
praying that God's will be done. Why do we pray for such little and trivial
things, things that don't glorify God and don't really bring us happiness or
peace? God has a better plan for us to bring us to a better life, not just to
indulge the sinful nature in our own life.
Sometimes it
can seem like the work of even having God change ourselves can be like bringing
something from death to life. But that's precisely what God's will is: to bring
dead sinners to new life. In fact this rather humorous song is a song about
that very theme. It is again sung by the King’s Heralds an a cappella quartet,
and this is a song called Dry Bones, around the vision of Ezekiel, in which God brings
dry bones to life.
As we consider
what we already pray for as a matter of course, very often we are praying for
God's kingdom in the little things. Before the song, I spoke about those
requests that are trivial and frivolous but, you know, to pray for healing is
in fact to pray for God's kingdom. When Jesus came he healed the sick. Sometimes
it didn't help his mission to heal the sick - people pay so much attention to
the miracles they weren’t paying attention to his word - but nevertheless he
kept on healing because he had come to help and pour out God's love on people. The
signs of the kingdom and the signs of the Messiah were not just about speaking
wisdom, weren’t just about training people in moral good. It was about setting
prisoners, free delivering people from evil, raising the dead, healing the sick.
When we are praying for blessing in other people's lives we are, at the root,
praying for God's kingdom. We understand that blessing will take the form of a
closer walk with God - that's certainly part of God's kingdom - but then we
understand that God's perfect will is also to lift people up out of oppression.
It’s not his desire to that people be crushed and in misery, but should be set
free. We are praying for the kingdom of God. Praying for comfort for the group
for the those who are grieving, praying even for the physical needs of a person
to be met, for a person who is poor, those are things that pertain to God's
will and God's kingdom. We can kind of put them under the umbrella of God's
kingdom.
Sometimes we
aren't sure what to pray for because we don't know what will do the most good
in a person's life. But when we pray and apply what wisdom God has given us,
when we listen to God and ask how he can intervene and intercede in a person's
life, then we are praying for God's kingdom.
It is good to
continue to pray for the little things. Jesus didn't tell us to ignore the
ordinary needs of life. When the kingdom comes it comes in fullness. It comes
as an end times event. It comes and meets every need. Jesus describes the kingdom of God sometimes as
a feast. Praise God for that! Our physical self is something that God does love.
He made us the way we are. That doesn't mean that every prayer for healing or
every prayer to meet a physical need is going to be met, but it is important
understand that there is a place for the ordinary requests, or meeting need in
praying for God's will to be done.
For you and me
there is a difficult part about ‘thy will be done’ and I'm certain that one of
the great weaknesses in the church in our culture today in this generation is
that we don't understand the fullness of this prayer, ‘thy
will be done on earth as it is in heaven.’
I think we see
the fullness of this prayer in Gethsemane when Jesus is praying to the Father
and he prays the very words that he told us to pray when we go to the Father. For
there he is looking forward to the cross and he knows that he's going to be
suffering and he says, ‘Lord, if it be possible let this cup pass from me. Yet
not my will be done but thine.’ That ‘not my will’ is one place where we are
weak as Christians. Sometimes we want God's will life plus our own pleasures. Sometimes
we want God's will plus our own desires and indulgences. Jesus tells us to
focus on his will, to be sold out for the kingdom of God, to be of one mind,
not divided, but to seek his will alone.
That's a
tremendous discipline for all of us and one that will need every bit of help
from God. It is so important that we continue to pray this petition, ‘Lord let
your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven.’ And ‘here on earth’ means
to have it done in our lives too, now, not just waiting for some day when he'll
change us and make us holy but deeply desiring that we would be holy today.
Would you join
me in prayer to that end?
Our Father, in
heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it
is in heaven. Lord how we desire that your will would be done in our lives that
we would make the right choices day by day, that we would be your blessing to
the world, that we would endure whatever it takes to be your servants
ambassadors in this life. Lord, let your kingdom come and this world be filled
with your goodness. Let every heart turn to you and know how wonderful you are.
Work in us so your kingdom would be in us; that your will would be done in us. We
pray this in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Once again I
want to thank you listeners for your encouragement and support. We do thank you
because you keep us on the air week by week. We want to encourage you to
support our ministry financially. Did you know the Good News Ministries has
only one major cost? The four hosts Brent Russett, George Sinclair, Juliet
Schimpf and myself are volunteers. So are the people who manage our website,
organize our events and operate our board. Your gift can help us to continue to
meet that one vital expense, the cost of broadcasting, which enables us to
reach you and over 7000 listeners in the Ottawa River Valley. If you can please
make a cheque payable to Good News Christian Ministries and send it to P.O. Box
184 Rideau Ferry, Ontario K0G 1W0 we will be happy to send you a receipt at
income tax time. I also want to encourage you to tell others about this program.
Be sure to
worship in a church where the gospel is soundly proclaimed and lived out with
compassion, integrity and resolve.
Now to
conclude our program I would like to have you listen to a song from Delirious.
This modern worship is called the King of Love.
I do pray that
the Lord will hold your heart and you would know Jesus personally and
profoundly. May the Holy Spirit reside deep within your heart, may the heavenly
Father surround you with his constant and abiding and accompanying love.
Good News In
The Morning is produced in the Studios of News Talk Radio 580 CFRA.
- Rev. Brian Wilkie
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To listen to the above broadcast, click on the following link:
