Sermon
Thy Kingdom Come (Part 2)
May 8-9, 1999
Pastor Donald Sheley

I'd like to give a tribute to my mother. My mother is nearly 88 years of age. She lives up in Chico. She still drives her own car and goes shopping, and if you walk into her house you'd think you'd walked into a nursery because she has hanging plants everyplace. I mean, the house is just filled with plants, and so, I drove up on Thursday and I stopped at Willows at the Wal-Mart there and got a big basket and filled it full of a lot of plants and visited mother. It was a delightful time. I'm very, very grateful for godly parents. My father, some years ago, died of cancer, but at the age of 66, I think it was, or 64 the doctors told him that he had cancer so he invited all of us, his boys, he has five boys, and our families, there were about 30 or 40 people in the home that day, and he shared with us the news what the doctor had said. And then very, very gracefully and very strongly he said, boys, I have taught you how to live; now I'm going to teach you how to die. I watched my father struggle with bone cancer for six years. Painful. And I remember that the last time he left home knowing that going to the hospital would be his, he would never return home. 

Before he left for the hospital my father went out in his garage and he found the lawnmower and he found a family down the street who needed a lawnmower so he gave them his lawnmower. He had a little puppy and so he found a boy around the corner and he gave his little puppy to a boy. And a couple blocks away he found a poor family who didn't have a car, so he gave away his pickup. And then he called the Goodwill and emptied out his closet and only left one suit. He had given away everything. My father was a very poor man, but rich in so many ways. Wednesday afternoon at 3:30 I was beside his bed that day and he passed on to glory, and I turned to mother and said, mother I'll go home and get a suit for him, select a suit so that we can give it to the mortician. She said, you won't have to select a suit son, there's only one hanging in the closet. I watched a man handle death with dignity, peace, with courage, and I know how to die because he taught me. But I have a mother equally strong in her faith so when I was there on Thursday she sat me down and she said, now Son, I won't be long and I'll be going home to glory. So she said to save any confusion in the family I've gone throughout this little mobile house that she has, and she said, everything behind it has a nametag so you boys won't argue over anything. Sure enough, behind the little pictures and everything mother's got them tagged, and she said that belongs to Bob, this is David's. Yes mother. 

Now she said I've been to the mortician and she said I've paid for everything. I've gone out to the cemetery. Everything's paid for. You don't have to worry about a dime. And she said and I've also written out my service. So she gets down her little Bible and she said now this is what you do. I don't want any congregational singing in my service. She said, because there will be people there who don't know the hymns and I don't want to be embarrassed. She said. Yes mother. She went over the service. Told me just exactly how she's handled it. She sat back and took a deep breath. She raised five boys. All of them love Christ today and their families are in the church. And out of those families 7 pastors. So her task is finished. The little shelf on which she had all of her pictures of the children, she's given all the pictures back. In fact, when I left she said here's your wedding picture Son, I won't need them any more. That's strength. I mean to face, when you have a faith so deep so strong and so courageous, and I say that for you younger parents. So instill that kind of faith in your children, that when they get older they can handle the issues and difficulties of life because their faith is solid, their faith is strong. I learned it from my mother and my dad. May that be true of all the children in the families that are represented here today. And mothers, may God richly bless you and give you great wisdom in the tremendous task that you have of being a mother.

We're studying together and we'll take just a few moments for our Bible lesson today. We're studying the Sermon on the Mount, and in your Bibles it's found in Matthew chapter 6. It's the Sermon on the Mount and Jesus has covered a lot of the subjects. We've gone through them in chapter 5, and now He's come to the subject of prayer. And He's teaching us how to pray. We've called it the Lord's Prayer, but in reality it would be better to call it the disciple's prayer, because it's the prayer you and I pray. And most of us have prayed this prayer since we were little children. Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. 

We've said it hundreds of times, but we've decided that we would take this prayer and just pick it apart in the sense of taking it phrase by phrase, because it's a prayer with a massive amount of theology in it. It's filled with tremendous truths. So our first Sunday we took two words "Our Father" and we personalized them and said, my Father, and we talked about the blessed privilege it is though faith in Jesus Christ knowing Him as our Lord and our Savior, to be able to address almighty God, Creator of the universe, as our heavenly Father. And you cannot pray that prayer if you do not know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, because it's in knowing Christ that the relationship is complete with God almighty. The next Sunday, "in heaven", and you'll remember we talked about the greatness and the majesty and the glory and the splendor and the awesomeness of God and may we never be a part of reducing that image ever. It's not right to call Him the man upstairs. He's almighty God, Creator of the universe, whose kingdom is from everlasting to everlasting. He's God almighty and may we never think less of Him; our Father which art in heaven. 

Then we went to the next phrase, "Hallowed be Thy name", and we've learned that hallowed means to magnify, to glorify, to lift up. So we learned that when we pray, hallowed be Thy name, we're praying God, may it so be in the life that I live in my world people knowing that I have faith in You, may the life that I live bring honor to You and lift You up. May people think higher of You because of the way I live my life for You. So when I say hallowed be Thy name, I'm saying God, may I live my life so that the world who knows that I call you my Father may they think higher of You because of the way I live. And now last Sunday we came to this phrase with three words, "Your kingdom come", and I suggested to you that this phrase is an expression of the total theme of the Scriptures. 

If you go back to the beginning pages of the Old Testament, and you journey all the way through to the book of Revelation, you will find that there is one theme that's prominent; and that's the theme of the kingdom. Last Sunday we went back and found a number of verses in the Old Testament, but the idea of the kingdom was this, way back in Genesis 12 God selected a man through whom He wanted to form a nation. That nation was Israel. But His reason for that was that He wanted to so demonstrate His glory and His power and His majesty through them, that all the world would believe in Jehovah God. They were the missionaries to this pagan world, and God was going to reveal Himself, which He did in glorious dimensions of power. They're down in the land of Egypt, He brings them out, splits the Red Sea, rains down food from heaven cooked by angels. He wanted the world to see a people though which His glory was revealed. Now it was a spiritual matter, but along in history came a time when Israel decided we're going to make this into a physical kingdom. We're going to pray and we're going to believe that from Kind David there will be a kingdom forever and this will be that God will come and He'll reign supreme, and He'll use us as a nation to bless the world and there will be peace and there will be harmony, and this was their idea of a physical kingdom here on earth. That's what they dreamed about, and even when Jesus was getting ready to go back to heaven, that's one of the last questions they asked Him. Jesus, what about this kingdom we've been looking for? 

But you see, the kingdom in God's idea was the kingdom that was spiritual. God wanted to use people through which He could reveal His glory and win the world to Him. That didn't happen in the nation of Israel and we learned something last Sunday that Jesus said in His parable of the vineyard in Matthew 21. He took the kingdom away from Israel and He gave it to the church. So now the divine assignment of the Scriptures is that through the church, through we as Christians, God reveals His greatness and His glory and His beauty and His love through us to our world. You see, the kingdom in the scriptural sense of meaning in not a place that can be defined in measure. You can't see it because it's spiritual. Jesus said, as they came to Him and talked about the kingdom, He said, the kingdom is without observation. That is you cannot see it. 

Then He went on to say, My kingdom is within you, and thus when Christ reigns within our hearts this is where His kingdom is. But there are great differences of opinion about this kingdom, and when you get into the books of theology you find that if you ask some people as to what is the kingdom of God? They will say well the kingdom of God simply is a spiritual matter where God by His grace through Christ's love reigns through us and we touch our world for God. So this makes it simply a spiritual matter. And then there are others who say, no, lets go a little further. The kingdom of God has to be all the church. The church is the kingdom. 

And then back in the 30's the theologian says, no, what it is the kingdom is a pattern for all society to follow. So if we all work at being good and being just and being right, and we really put our efforts into being everything this kingdom describes, we'll bring the kingdom right here on this earth. And that was the heartbeat of the social gospel 50 years ago. Let's bring the kingdom, let's all be just, let's all be loving, let's bring the kingdom here with our efforts. And that's something you can't do. Because remember, it's a spiritual kingdom. It's God ruling in hearts, and sinners can't bring in the kingdom. And then, some other theologians said, well, the kingdom is a description of all that it will be like when Jesus sets up His millennial kingdom here on earth and He reigns 1000 years. And so what they do is they transfer all of the blessings, all of the joys that Jesus talked about in His kingdom and they move them all out here to some future period in history which is known as the millennium. And that's where all of these, in fact, they'll go so far as to say listen, ignore Matthew 5, 6, and 7 because you can't work out any of that until you get out here in the millennial kingdom, so don't even pay any attention to the Sermon on the Mount. 

Now if you got a Bible that has those kinds of notes in it, just write heresy right across them. Because Jesus said something, Jesus said when He started His ministry, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand. It's here. It's come. The spiritual reign of God has come in power, and of course, what Jesus said as He preached in this we learned last Sunday, as He performed miracles, he said, every time there's a miracle just say, the kingdom of God is here. The kingdom of God has come. Now you see, if I transfer all of the kingdom's blessings to some future event, I have robed the church of its power and its glory and its wonder. And you now know why much of evangelicalism is weak and not fulfilling its divine assignment of being the kingdom in this world, because we've said take all the blessings of the kingdom and make them future. Jesus said, no, all the blessings of the kingdom are available here and now. You see that was the great message.

When you go through the gospels Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus refers to the kingdom 91 times, and if He's going to refer to something 91 times, it must have been exceedingly important to Him. And it was, because here's what He was saying, My kingdom has come. It came very quietly on a night in Bethlehem the King is born in a manger. It came silently, but He grows, commences His ministry, begins to share it with His disciples and the kingdom is now beginning to invade the hearts of the disciples. Finally the disciples go out and they begin to tell the story of the kingdom, Christ's rule within their hearts and the kingdom began to grow, but it grew silently.

You see, when we talk about the kingdom it's hard to understand because it has two phases to it. Jesus talked about this present age and then He talked about the age to come. And in the Bible the separating moment of those two ages is the return of Jesus Christ. In this present evil age people can listen to the words of Jesus, can believe in Him as Lord and Savior, can turn aside, they can to anything they want to. They can mock Him, but the kingdom moves on silently, toughing hearts, changing lives around the world. But the Bible says that one of these days the skies are going to split asunder and Christ is coming back in all of His glory, in all of His majesty, and all of His power, and the kingdom will cover the earth. So the reason we have the mixed feelings and the mixed understandings is because there are really two phases. There's the phase of the kingdom here and now as it silently works in the hearts and lives of men and women throughout the world. But the day will come when Paul says every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So the kingdom has two phases. The phase of which we are now involved in, the here and the now, living the life of Christ in our world where some laugh at us and some mock us and some believe, but we want Christ to rule in our hearts. And then one of these days in a twinkling of an eye He will come in all of His glory and with all the angels with Him and He's going to set up His kingdom which will be eternal. That's what the Bible says about the kingdom. Now Paul finishes the concept with words I don't have time to explain, and probably I couldn't if I tried, but if you'd like to join with me I'm going to show you how it's all going to wrap up. 

There are just four verses that show how this thing is all going to wrap up this kingdom. It's found in 1 Corinthians 15:24. Let's go to verse 24, and this is what Paul says about the wrap-up of the kingdom of God. Look at what he says, Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. For "He has put all things under His feet." But when He says "all things are put under Him," it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted. Now when all things are made subject to Him. That's the closure of the age. Everything is subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all. That's the wrap-up. You say, but Pastor, put that down where I can grab a hold of it today. What is that phrase? When I say Thy kingdom come, what am I praying? And we've said that word. What are we praying? Well let me show you.

When we read all of the verses in the Bible that have to do with the kingdom, there are four things. It has to do with righteousness. It has to do with spiritual life. It has to do with power being demonstrated in the church, because He connected the kingdom with all the miracles. And fourthly, it has to do with my hope. Now let's take them one at a time. When I say Thy will be done, I mean when I say Thy kingdom come. In my prayer I'm saying God, I have a disobedient and a rebellious heart. There are times that I call you Lord, but there are many times where I am disobedient and I do my own thing, and I take charge of my life. And God, I want to surrender my will to You. When I pray 'Thy kingdom come' it is a prayer of personal surrender. It is saying, God, I want You to take control of my life. I want You to rule. I want You to be the Lord. Forgive me for my stubbornness, for my disobedience, for my rebellion. And You, You reign supreme as the Lord of my life. That's what you're praying. Righteousness. 

When you say 'Thy kingdom come' we've been talking about going around in our communities praying from house to house. I can go down the streets of my city, and so can you, and say Lord Jesus, may Your kingdom come on this family that lives right here. May the moment come when they bow before You and honor you as the Lord of their life and the Lord of their family. May Your kingdom come to that home. You are praying for God to do a spiritual miracle in the lives of others so that His rule and His reign becomes a part of that family's life. Thirdly, I've been praying all week that God's kingdom would come this morning to our church. You say, well what's that? Well remember, in God's kingdom there is power, there is the miraculous, there is the sense of His presence, there is the wonder and the glory that surrounded Christ in His ministry. And Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And so when I pray, God, may Your kingdom come this Sunday. I'm saying dear Lord, may it be that Your presence, Your majesty, Your glory, Your awesomeness, Your wonder may it be so evident that everyone who comes will have a personal confrontation with You. They'll know they've walked into the presence of God. That has been my prayer, and I stand here with you and I sing these songs. I stand in awe of You dear God, and we sing these great hymns and it's my prayer that God's presence and His glory, the glory of His presence, so fills this church that everyone of us know we've been in the presence of Christ today. And I am just biblical enough to believe that He who healed then, heals now. He who touched lives then, touches lives now. 

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and a church that's alive, a church that's the kingdom, is a church wherein Christ manifests His glory, and His power, and His wonder, and His miracles. Amen? Amen. And anything less is not a kingdom church, it's just religion. And I'm not interested one ounce in religion, but I am interested in Jesus. Amen. And so are all of us here. Lastly, sometimes this old life gets filled with pain and the burden is heavy, and it doesn't seem like we're going to make it. This becomes a prayer of hope, because you see as Christians this is not our home. We're just visitors here. We're just pilgrims. We're just strangers here, and after the three score and 10, or whatever God gives to us is over, we're citizens of heaven. And we're going to be with Him forever. We going to rule and reign with Him in His kingdom, and so when the burden gets heavy and the night gets dark and the tears are hot on my cheeks, I can lift my voice and say Jesus, may Your kingdom come! 

What I'm saying is Jesus, I know that one of these moments the skies will burst asunder and You will come and gather us to Yourself where forever we will be with You and reign for You. May Your kingdom come. There are some Monday mornings as I drive my little car, I go down the street and say God, Your kingdom can come right now. I don't care what happens to the car, just rapture me into Your presence and the task will be over. No more clocks to punch and no more work to be done here on earth because we'll all be in His eternal kingdom. Amen? Amen. And I mean, that's a prayer of hope. Isn't it? Now you know that when you say 'Thy kingdom come' you were praying the prayer of surrender for His kingdom to rule. You are praying the prayer for those who know not Christ that His kingdom will come to their lives. You are praying that the church will be vibrantly alive with the power of almighty God and His presence, and you're saying Jesus, whenever You want to come, I'm ready. Amen? Amen. That's our hope; Thy kingdom come.

Stand with me please. Lord Jesus, thank you for a beautiful day and thank you for that prayer that you taught us to pray, and may we pray it with understanding, with joy, with confidence. Our Father which art in heaven. May my life hallow, lift You up, magnify You in my world around me, and may Your kingdom rule my heart. In Jesus' name, and everybody said, amen. God bless you.