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Jun 23, 2024

Your Kingdom Come

Your Kingdom Come

Passage: Matthew 6:9-10

Speaker: Andrew Kerhoulas

Series: Practice the Presence - Prayer

Keywords: prayer, kingdom, king, not of this world, listen to my voice, bear witness to the truth

In light of our gospel privilege to commune with our Father in prayer, we turn our attention back to Jesus' prayer to the second God-ward petition, “Your kingdom come”. To a curious Pontius Pilate Jesus reveals that he is the King of a kingdom not of this world. What it means to pray for his kingdom to come and what it could produce in our life together and individually will be our focus.

readings & scripture

PRE SERVICE TEXT: John 18:36
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”

PREPARATION: Psalm 47:1-2, 5-8

LEADER: Clap your hands, all peoples!
Shout to God with loud songs of joy!
For the Lord, the Most High, is to be feared,
a great king over all the earth…

ALL: God has gone up with a shout,
the Lord with the sound of a trumpet.

LEADER: Sing praises to God, sing praises!
Sing praises to our King, sing praises!

ALL: For God is the King of all the earth;
sing praises with a psalm!
God reigns over the nations;
God sits on his holy throne.

PRAYER: The Lord’s Prayer

LEADER: Let’s pray in the way Jesus taught us to pray.

ALL: Our Father, who 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 lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.

CENTRAL TEXT: Matthew 6:9-10a; John 18:33-38

9 Pray then like this:
“Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
10 Your kingdom come…

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” 34 Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” 35 Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?” 36 Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” 37 Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”

CONFESSION OF SIN: Adapted from the Worship Sourcebook

ALL: King Jesus, we confess with our mouths that you are Lord.
But we don’t always believe this truth with the way we live.
Forgive us for the ways we have sought your kingdom and neglected you.
Forgive us when we have sought you and neglected your kingdom.
We too often ask you to bless what we do
rather than seeking to do what you bless.
Forgive us when our worship shapes you
into what we want instead of shaping us into what you want.
Help us to meet you here, that we might bow
before your unspeakable majesty
and so live for you now and ever, in Christ. Amen.

ASSURANCE OF PARDON: Colossians 1:13-14
LEADER: He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of
his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

BENEDICTION: 1 Timothy 6:15-16
LEADER: He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion.

ALL: Amen

POST SERVICE: John 18:36
Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.”

RELATED SCRIPTURES:

  • 1 Samuel 8; 10:17-19
  • Isaiah 44:3
  • Matthew 6:33; 11:12
  • John 3:3
  • Acts 1:11
  • Romans 14:17
  • Colossians 1:13-14
  • Revelation 11:15

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. When you hear the word “kingdom,” specifically in the Lord’s prayer, what images and words come to mind? 
  2. Discuss this simple definition: the kingdom of God is anywhere the rule, reign, and presence of God are realized. How does this definition square with the images and words that came to mind in the previous question?
  3. Knowing what the kingdom is helps us identify and avoid counterfeits. Which counterfeit do you find more alluring, the King without the kingdom or the kingdom without the King?
  4. What has the King done to make his kingdom way more beautiful to his people? How does the Spirit come into play?
  5. The Hebrides revival in the mid-20th century, where some 20,000 people came to Christ before they set foot in church, was the result of one main prayer: for a God consciousness. How would a deeper God-consciousness in your life impact where you live, work, and play? 

ILLUSTRATIONS:  

 

 

QUOTES: 

  •  Kingdom living should make a difference in our communities. But let us not misunderstand the nature of the kingdom. The kingdom does not advance when trees are planted, or unemployment lowered, or beautiful art is created, or elections go one way or another. Those may be all important things. They may reflect certain values of the kingdom. But the kingdom comes where the King is known. When Jesus is loved and worshiped and believed upon, there the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. Kevin DeYoung
  • Jesus’s Kingship is not like human kingships, for it wins influence through suffering service, not coercive power. We enter it not through strength, but through the weakness of repentance and the new birth, John 3, and becoming like a child, Matthew 18:3–4. Tim Keller
  • The Kingdom of God is not going to be advanced by our churches becoming filled with [people], but by [people] in our churches becoming filled with God. Duncan Cambell
  • Be not deceived, Wormwood, our cause is never more in jeopardy than when a human, no longer desiring but still intending to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe in which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys. C.S. Lewis in Screwtape Letters
 

BOOKS / DOCS