Would you take your Bibles, please, and turn to Psalm 145 so we continue on Looking at the Lord's Prayer We've said that the Lord's Prayer is the heart of Christianity, and that's for three reasons Because prayer is heart-to-heart conversation with God So when we're being honest about things with God and Honest about what we want from God It's also the prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ. It's his heart-to-heart conversation God the Sun speaking to God the Father It's what matters the most to Jesus Christ in his prayer life and in his ministry on earth And it is the prayer of prayers because Like the Ten Commandments which were offered by God So the Lord's Prayer is authored by God God the Sun Thomas Watson the Old Puritan in Writing a book on the Lord's Prayer said The Ten Commandments are the rule of life And the Apostles Creed is the sum of faith But the Lord's Prayer is the pattern of our piety Is God prescribed Moses a pattern for a tabernacle So Christ has prescribed a pattern for prayer Let this be the rule in the model According to which we frame our prayers That is let all our petitions agree And symbolize what the things contain in the Lord's Prayer And well may we make all our prayers consonant and agreeable to this prayer of our Lord For just as the moral law was written by the finger of God So the Lord's Prayer comes from the lips of God It is the voice of God Not man that we hear in that prayer Never was a prayer so admirably and mysteriously composed of this And so may we well call it the prayer of prayers We've been looking at the Apostles Creed The rule of faith we've just finished The fourth part of the three formulae on baptism The waters of regeneration We're now looking at the Lord's Prayer which is the heart of Christianity Our little Westminster short ecanticism Says that the whole word of God Is of use to direct us in how to pray But the special rule of directing prayer Is that form of prayer which Christ taught his disciples that we commonly call The Lord's Prayer We Never live Better than we pray Because in the end We are what we pray That's why Jaip Acre says What it means to be a Christian is nowhere more clear Than in the Lord's Prayer Where our heart and our minds and our lives are energized To seek God's glory And Christ kingdom And the will of the Holy Spirit is expressed in his word That's what a Christian should be And the prayers that ask about our daily bread and forgiveness of sins and deliverance from evil are simply attendant prayers That take away all encumbrances from us so that we can pursue The glory of God and the kingdom of Christ and the will of a Holy Spirit expressed in the Bible So that it is The essence of a Christian To not only pray in the Lord's Prayer but to live it It is in some reform a pattern of the prayer of Jesus Christ because when his disciples said Lord teach us to pray Just as John taught his disciples to pray Jesus pulled from his own resources his own prayer life and said well Pray like this Our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven Jesus Christ tells us Those the concerns of God the Father They are his priority. They're the essence of his mission. He would say Many places in the New Testament I have come not to do my own will But the will of him who sent me His opening words would be this The time was filled and the kingdom of God is at hand His last great prayer that we read about Right before he goes to the cross in John 17 He begins with saying Father I have glorified you while on earth by accomplishing the things you sent me to do now you glorify me with the glory I had with you From the beginning of the world The glory of God the kingdom of God the will of God Those were the priorities of Jesus Christ If we were in Matthew 6 we would notice that this This Lord's Prayer Is sandwiched between some teaching on almsgiving and fasting Because the three pillars of Jewish piety In Jesus' day as today were almsgiving prayer and fasting Now that means that this prayer that we have is rooted in the piety that Jesus Christ grew up with It's a reflection of the piety he learned from his parents and from his rabbi and him all of the people in the Old Testament That's why we're spending our time looking at the Lord's Prayer By explaining it through the Psalms the prayer book of Jesus Christ as a little boy and as a grown man The mind of God the Father Is what Jesus Christ once done How he knows that mind He has learned it in the word He has shared it from before the foundation of the world is the co-creator And the God of Providence alongside his Father And it is his great mission his great commission he shares with us to glorify God And to build the kingdom And see the will of God done on earth as it is in heaven When we pray the Lord's Prayer I want us to see that these three streams of the consciousness of Jesus Christ are flowing into that prayer God's will The historic piety of the church for thousands of years and the great mission of Jesus Christ So when we pray hallowed be thy name We're praying for the glory of God Not to us O Lord But to your name give glory for the sake of your steadfast love And your faithfulness We're praying what we say is Presbyterians is the chief end of man To glorify God and enjoy him forever We are saying that the glory of God is our ultimate good Things go best for us When God is glorified When we come to the second petition Your kingdom come We're praying for the ultimate goal If God's glory is the ultimate good then the way to that good is through the goal the ultimate goal of the kingdom of God Which is the magnificent obsession the pure and holy passion the the essence of Christ ministry You can't deny folks that the main thing on Jesus Christ mine Was the kingdom of God it's his first public words The time is fulfilled in the kingdom of God is at hand It's a subject matter of every parable To what shall we compare the kingdom of God It is like this or the kingdom of God is like that It's how he explains to us what conversion is truly I say to you That unless a man is born again. You will not see the kingdom of God truly. I say to you unless a man is born again Of a spirit in the water you will not enter the kingdom of God To be saved according to Jesus Christ was to enter the kingdom of God For Jesus Christ the gospel had less to do With your personal peace and salvation and that's more to do with the kingdom of God than we moderns want to give credit When he was sending his Apostles out into the world. He said this gospel of the kingdom Shabbar preached to the ends of the world and then the end shall come When he told us about practical things like food and clothing And protecting ourselves He said seek first his kingdom the kingdom of God and his righteousness And all these things will be added to you Before he died He had a moment a split moment in time To avoid the cross when a sympathetic Roman governor said Are you a king and Jesus could have said Not really. I'm a preacher, but he didn't He said You say rightly I am a king But my kingdom Is not of this world the kingdom of God was the obsession Of Jesus Christ and therefore It should be ours King of God is not an easy thing to understand and that's because of the language of the Bible There are three things we need to keep in mind about God as a king First who he is That he is the king of the universe Second of all what he does he has a kingship Over creation and providence It's what he does But his kingship is not the same thing as his kingdom There was a third dimension What his goal is And that is to take the kingdoms of the earth and his kingship and weld them Into the kingdom of his son Jesus Christ so that king And kingship and kingdom All the interrelated are not the same thing And sometimes the Bible speaks as if they are Which makes it confusing for us, but there's one place in the Bible Where they all fit together or are explained separately and that's in Psalm 145 That has four stanzas About the greatness of God the king The graciousness of God's kingship The goodness of God's kingship and the glory of God's kingdom King kingship and kingdom All together in Jesus Christ First look at the first stanzah the first seven verses the talk about the greatness of God the king I will extol you my God and king And bless your name forever and ever Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable One generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts On the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wondrous works. I will meditate They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds And I will declare your greatness They shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness And shall sing aloud of your righteousness This is the major What they call motif or theme That flows through the Old Testament that God is a king in fact or warrior king A king on the war path To recapture from his enemies that which rightfully belongs to him In fact, I would suggest you that that is the theme of the whole Bible For it begins in Genesis where God made everything for himself And ends in revelation where everything that was lost has been regained And it ends with this marvelous statement now The kingdom of this world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ and he will reign forever and ever Bottom line ultimate goal Chief of all important things Exodus 15 which is the first song ever written Says I will sing to the Lord for he has triumphed gloriously The horse and the rider he has cast into the sea The Lord is my strength and my song His become my salvation This is my God and I will praise him my father's God and I will exalt him The Lord is a man of war the Lord is his name Who was like you O Lord among the gods Who was like you majestic and holiness Awesome and splendor doing wonders the Lord will reign forever and ever It's truly amazing how many times in the sultan God is likened to a king Psalm 47 Clap your hands all peoples shout to God with the voice of triumph For the Lord the most high is to be feared a great king over all the earth Sing praises to our king Sing praises for God is the king of all the earth God reigns over the nations God sits on his holy throne Psalm 99 The Lord reigns let the people tremble he sits and thrown above the cheruban Let the whole earth tremble again and again Our father in heaven is presented to us as the king of the universe That's why David begins to song that way I would extoll you my God and king and bless your name forever and ever He blesses God for his works His mighty deeds His awesome acts his wondrous works his abundant goodness He says that God is great and glorious and good and gracious Look at verse three Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised and his greatness is unsearchable Verse six They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds and I will declare your greatness glory Look at verse five on the glorious splendor of your majesty and on your wondrous works. I will meditate goodness Verse seven and nine they shall pour forth the fame of your abundant goodness and just sing aloud of your righteousness Verse nine the Lord is good to all And his mercy is over all that he has made and graciousness Verse eight the Lord is gracious and merciful Slow to anger and abounding instead fast love God you see is what he does He is the creator who creates The God of Providence who sustains The God of Salvation who redeems he is great and glorious good and gracious
Who he is It's God the King What he does is to exert his kingship on the earth what he's after is a kingdom Of our Lord and Christ that can be confusing Until we realize that God first creates a venue in which he can interact with his subjects So that the ones he has brought into existence might Through their own choices and will choose to be part of his kingdom Not because they have to Because they want to But in a great rebellion that took them away and locked those wills Into an inability to choose for good and to do the right thing or to even want to follow God He must invade the world through a son Jesus Christ Going into a hostile domain That Paul calls the domain of darkness To lead us out to the point of light and life Where we might enter the kingdom of God and be saved So when we pray Thy kingdom come The first thing we're acknowledging is that God our father is a king We're praying to the king of the universe Who can do all his holy will as the children's catechism says Our father is also a sovereign king Our God is in the heavens we saw last week in Psalm 115 He does whatever he pleases Some prosperity preachers have said oh if that's the case since God is a king Then I am a prince and all females of princesses and they can have a life of health and wealth and power in prestige I think not Because there is a crown prince named Jesus Christ In his life Becomes the pattern for us on this earth His was not a life of glory and power here A life of service and suffering and that is the lot of a child of God A citizen of the kingdom to serve the king which in this hostile word means a life of suffering And then to receive glory and honor When the kingdom comes And God's will in heaven is done on earth The reality that God is king Should encourage you and me And the divine sovereignty To ask for what we need To pray for what is God's will and to know that even if We don't see those things answered in our lifetime They will be done Because God the king has decreed that it will be so The decree of God Are his eternal purpose According to the counsel of his will whereby for his own glory He has foreordained everything that happens Our little canticus him says Well, how does God carry out those decrees and answers by creation and providence So to the glory of this king We now turn to his kingship The kingship that is gracious in creation and good in providence Because that's where Dave of the psalm is takes us in the next stanza The graciousness of God's kingship in creation The Lord is gracious and merciful Versailles Slow to anger at a bounding instead fast love The Lord is good to all and his mercy is of all that he has made All your work shall give thanks to you, O Lord And all your saints shall bless you They shall speak of the glory of your kingdom and tell of your power To make known to the children of man your mighty deeds And the glorious splendor of your kingdom your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom And your dominion endures throughout all generations Here the psalmist David is speaking about the kingship of God in creation The Lord is good to all And his mercy is over all that he has made all that he has created God's glorious and gracious good works in creation Become David says both the stuff of our stories And the stanzas of our songs we will tell of your marvelous works and of your mighty deeds One generation to another generation shall praise your name and shall speak of your mighty ex
That's the way it should be One generation after another generation Making known to the children of man your mighty deeds And the glorious splendor of your kingship
He's talking about common grace He's talking about The graciousness of God that is spread over all creation The Lord is good to all and his mercy is over all that he has made He can't mean saving mercy because not everyone is saved He's not talking about saving grace but common grace The gift of life The joy of the love of family and of friends Devotion to one's country Gifted in this we have for different kinds of work the pleasure we find in marriage and in careers the delight of food The recreation and enjoyment of our hobbies The joy of learning The fulfillment of growing all these things are common gifts to mankind Every day gifts for every day people and because They're so widespread Because they're so every day because we encounter them one hundred percent of the time as long as we have breath in our life You know what happens We take them for granted Soon we think that we Got these things for ourselves And pretty soon we're not grateful To God the creator now that may not seem like a big deal to you But I'm going to show you How important it is by asking you to turn to Romans chapter one I'm going to tell you how we got to where we are today in America And it is because we were ungrateful For common grace Romans chapter one Beginning in verse 18 Tells us that when we forget God's common grace when we Separate God from his gifts of creation when we forget All the good things God has for us We devolve into beasts Romans chapter one verse 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men Who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth For what can be known about God is playing to them Because God has shown it to them For his invisible attributes namely his eternal power into my nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made So they are without excuse For although they knew God They did not honor him as God listen carefully Or give thanks But they became futile in their thinking and the foolish hearts were dark and claiming to be wise They became fools and they changed the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things Lesson number one when men become ungrateful They turn to idols And debase themselves Proof of that Is that when men debase themselves they can become immoral and turn to perversion verse 24 Therefore God gave them up to the lust of their hearts To impurity to the disiring of their bodies among themselves Because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie And worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever amen For this reason God gave them up to dishonable passions For the women exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to nature And the men likewise gave up natural relations with women who were consumed with passions for one another men committing shameless acts of men and receiving in themselves The do penalty for their error and since they did not see fit to knowledge God God gave them up to a debase mine to do what they ought not to do So from their ungratitude in gratitude They became idolatrous and debase Then they became immoral and perverse And finally They became lawless and ruined
Verse 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness evil coveted as malice They're full of envy and murder strife and deceit and maliciousness They're a gossip slanderers haters of God Insolent, horny, boastful, inventors of evil disobedient to parents foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless Though they know God's righteous decree That those who practice such things deserve to die They not only do them but give approval to those who practice them And their society is ruined
This is the power of common grace He don't have to be a Christian To be grateful for God's gifts He don't have to be a Christian to lead a moral life To honor God as creator To be religious to show piety But when we forget common grace all those things lead Trace our history Trace it out loved ones Evolution entered our schools in the 20s and 30s and 40s And soon became the story line of scientists And then there was no prayer in public schools and no blue laws to protect this habit No laws against adultery or divorce Then immorality ran rampant Through the 50s and 60s No font divorces, common law marriages 50% doors free free love and finally Homosexuality which led To the rainbow Celebrating same sex marriage displayed over Niagara Falls The Empire State Building And the White House Our natural resources, our economic power, our government All caving into this Though they knew God's righteous decree That those who practice such things deserve to die They not only do them but give hearty approval to those who practice them All because
We forgot that God's kingship in creation Is the fountain of his common grace and good gifts
Practical terms when you and I pray Thigh kingdom come We're asking God to restore A powerful force of common grace in our world To turn people's hearts back to the creator Back to a God-fearing frame of mind Back to gratitude And do a God-word direction for their life Because we acknowledge that his kingship begins In what he has made the Lord is good to all And his mercy is over all that he has created It extends Into every day events In the goodness of God's kingship and his providence Verses 14 through 16 The Lord upholds all who are falling And raises up all who are bowed down The eyes of all look to you And you give them their food and do season You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing Here the psalmist celebrates God's kingship in what we call providence God's holy, wise And gracious Sustaining and governing of everything that he has made Some will say preacher How can you say that the Lord upholds all who are falling down That he gives food to everyone and do season That he opens his hands and fills the desire of every living creature How can you say that when you see all the poverty and disease And the warfare and cruelty and the starvation and the inhumanity of mantras How can you say That the Lord is good And his providence and my answer is The Lord has done none of those things Those things were done by you and by In our sinful proclivities and patterns It's our fallen world that we created Through our sins That is indirectly a force for all of this evil But God provides curious for our diseases and chemicals for medications He preserves peoples and nations despite Their violence and and fratricide and genocide He causes wars to cease And evil rulers and empires to fall He gives rain and sun and food and drink And natural remedies for cyclical disasters The Lord sustains what you and I are doing our best to destroy
And he does it in such a gracious way That we hardly notice If God were for a single moment This is not preacher hyperbole friends I mean this sincerely if for a second God turned his head and his attention away from the world It would self-destruct and the blink of an eye
The world goes on and you and I take each breath that we do Because of God's royal Providence he provides Preserves and governs The world that he has made Back in 1787 July 28 almost two hundred and twenty eight years to the day Our constitutional convention was in a deadlock much like our government is now arguing about slavery And states rights and a federal constitution Some people were ready to leave And chuck the whole idea of a united states of America And to Benjamin Franklin rose to speak Here's what he said In this situation of this assembly today Growing as it is in the dark Defined political truth And scares able to distinguish it when presented to us How has it happened sirs that we have not hitherto once Thought of humbly applying to the father of lights To illuminate our understandings In the beginning of this contest with great Britain When we were sensible of danger We had daily prayer in this room for the divine protection Our prayers are rehered And they were graciously answered All of us who were engaged in the struggle Must have observed frequent instances of a superintending providence In our favor To that kind providence We owe this happy opportunity Of consulting in peace on the means of establishing our future national felicity And have we now forgotten that powerful friend Or do we imagine that we no longer need his assistance I live sir long enough And the longer I live The more convinced I am of this truth That God governs in the affairs of men And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice Is it probable that an empire can rise without his aid We have been assured dear sirs In the sacred writings that accept the Lord builds the house They labor and vain who build it I firmly believe this And also believe that without his concurring aid We shall succeed in his political building no better than the builders of battle We shall be divided by our little partial local interests Our projects will be confounded And we ourselves shall become a reproach And a byword down through the ages For all of the peoples of the earth And what is worse mankind may hear after from this unfortunate instance Despair of establishing government by human wisdom And leave it the chance war or conquest Therefore I beg leave to move that henceforth Prayers employing the assistance of heaven And the blessings of our deliberation Be held in assembly every morning before we proceed to business And that one or more of the clergy of this city be requested To officiate in that prayer service That's why we have a chaplain of the senate And a chaplain of the house chaplains in the military Because of that statement That God governs in the affairs of men I wonder how many times you and I run out the door every morning Failing to ask God for his providence Thinking that the affairs of our lives Depend upon us and what we accomplish what we can do
But unless the Lord builds the house They labor and bane who built it So in practical terms Rather than watching the news Railing at the supreme court Voting in a new government and attempting to bring Righteousness and the kingdom of God to bear by means of legislation Rejudicational Military and economic prowess We need to be on our knees praying that in everything The God of providence would take care of us And deliver us From evil Lastly and finally He talks about the glory of God's kingdom For he turns from creation and providence to salvation The Lord is righteous in all his ways In kind and all his works The Lord is near to all who call upon him All who call upon him in truth He fulfills the desire of those who fear him He also hears their cry and saves them The Lord preserves all who love him But all the wicked he will destroy My mouth will speak The praise of the Lord And let all flesh Bless his holy name Forever and ever Here now the psalmist David With an eye looking down a prophetic vision into the future Seize the kingship of God His sovereignty over the earth Merging with the kingdom of God His saving of mankind They come together in this great prayer That God would save the righteous And judge the wicked He talks about the mercy of God Talks about the judgment of God For they are both true John would tell us that someday A seven things that would blow a trumpet and say The kingdom of the world has begun to kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ He shall reign forever and ever And the 24 elders who sit on their throes before God fell on their faces and worshiped God and said We give thanks to you O Lord God Almighty Who is and who was If you have taken your great power and begun to reign To nations rage but your wrath came And the time for the dead to be judged And for rewarding your servants the prophets and saints And those who fill your name both small and great And for the destroying of the destroyers of this earth When will this come When Jesus comes again He's saving people and bringing them into his kingdom He's preserving the godly And promoting the gospel and just because listen just because Christianity is dying In our self-centered American world does not mean that it's dying in a way else it is growing And leaps and bounds I am telling you God is fulfilling the promises Through to his son I will give you the nations of the earth as your inheritance Have every person in the world today One and a half of them confess Jesus Christ Out of every six people One and a half of them confess that Jesus Christ Is their king Savior and Lord And that number is increasing As we die in the west because we want to rule our own little empires We want to believe in evolution and ignore providence Because we're following the road the Roman road of Romans one Into annihilation does not mean the rest the world is They are bowing the need of Jesus Christ The gospel is prevailing God's kingdom Is coming Even if not here anymore So when we pray this prayer We are praying for people to be saved
We should be praying that America be revived the church renewed And that a great spiritual awakening happened A fifth one in our short history That would sweep millions of men, women and children Into the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ And into his church This is the end of the prayer Thy kingdom come Thy will be done Because that is how history ends Then comes the end When Christ delivers the kingdom to God the Father After destroying every rule and every authority and power For he must reign until his but all his enemies under his feet And then he will get in subjection Under him who was on the throne Subjecting all things to his Father so that God Might be all in all That's what this prayer is after That God might be all in all My friends If there's one of you here who's not a Christian Because you've not entered the kingdom of God Today is your opportunity to do so I'm telling you Jesus is coming again and soon And once he comes he will divide the world the sheep and the goats The righteous and the wicked the saved and the lost The citizens of this kingdom And all rebels of other kingdoms And judgment will come Today is the day for you To come to your senses as Jesus said To turn away from sin and rebellion to turn to Christ and surrender to be baptized Daenerys church which our confession of faith says is the kingdom of God Outside of which there is no ordinary means of salvation Time for you to stop living in a rebel kingdom and come And enter the kingdom of Christ For all of those in ministry here I see some of our beloved chaplains and other pastors here elders and deacons It's time for us men to be done with managing the church as if it were our business God is not really interested in my vision for the church or yours Quite frankly. He has a vision It's the vision of the kingdom coming And of Christ ruling that great commission That gospel of the kingdom preached to the ends of the earth that's the vision keep your own visions for yourself Adopt Christ vision for his church And for those of you who are Christians and are discouraged about how things are going in our church In our denomination Christianity in America and in our country and there are plenty of reasons for discouragement It's time for you to turn and confess that Jesus is Lord Jesus is king to the glory of God and begin to pray As if Jesus Christ could with the wave of a scepter change it all in the blink of an eye which you could
The kingdom of God is just a prayer away It's just waiting for the church To catch hold of something larger than life and greater than self and lasting forever And ask for it To plead for it to live for it as one him writer said Wise up O church of God Be done with lesser things Give heart and mind and soul and strength to serve the king of kings be done with lesser things Little dominions and petty kingdoms And serve the king of kings And make the goal of your life your kingdom come Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven Pray with me as we close this prayer using the words of Matthew Henry Who taught us how to pray using the Lord's prayer Our father who art in heaven king of kings and lord of lords You have prepared your throne in the heavens And it is a throne of glory high and lifted up And before you the seraphim's cover their face You make your angels spirits and your ministers a flame of fire thousands upon thousands of them Serve you in 10,000 and 10 times 10,000 stand before you only to do your pleasure They excel in strength and harken to the voice of your word And we are coming by faith and hope and holy love Into a spiritual communion with that innumerable company of angels and spirits of the just men made perfect Even the general assembly of the church and of the firstborn and the heavenly Jerusalem You are worthy O Lord to receive blessing and honor and glory and power for you have created all things And for your pleasure Buy your will they existed and were created We worship You who has made heaven in the earth The sea in the fountains of waters Who spoke and it was done Who commanded and all stood fast Who said let there be light and there was light Let there be a firmament And we live on that firmament even this day You've made all very good And these things continue this day according to your ordinance And your divine providence For you will pull all things by the word of your power And by you all things consist The earth is full of your riches And so in great and wide sea of blessings we live this day The eyes of all way upon you And you give them their meat and do season You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing You preserve man and beast and give food to all flesh A sparrow cannot fall to the ground apart from you You have made man at first out of the dust Out of the ground but then breathe into him the breath of life So that we have become living beings You have made of that one man That one blood all the nations of men to dwell upon the face of the earth As determined for us the times And appointed the portions and boundaries of our habitation You are the most high Who rules in the kingdom of men And who gives to whomever what he wills For from you every man Will receive judgment For your judgments shall proceed Hallelujah The Lord God the omnipotent reigneth And of all things according to the counsel of his good will And to the praise of his own glory This we acknowledge and this we pray May the kingdoms of the earth Become the kingdom of Jesus Christ And through him may you reign forever For we pray this in Jesus name Amen