Sermon for 3/8/09—Very Rough

A Dangerous Prayer

I need to warn you. The Lord's Prayer is a dangerous prayer to pray.

 

It is like another prayer I used to pray. What was that prayer? I asked the Lord to give me patience. Have any of you ever prayed for God to give you patience? Have any of you regretted it a few weeks later? Why? Because when I prayed for patience God thought it best in his wisdom to test that patience to build that virtue. So, I prayed for patience, and I got more trying circumstances. I thought I was praying for an easier life. It turned out I was praying for stronger character.

 

The Lord's Prayer can take us by surprise in a similar way. Especially the part we are going to look at this morning. The second couplet of the Lord's Prayer says this. "Thy Kingdom come…thy will be done...on earth as it is in heaven." Now…we can think of this as a kind of tame prayer. As a kind of prayer where we simply remember God is in charge, and tell ourselves that whatever will be will be. After all, God's will is going to be done. His kingdom is going to come. He is God. We are not. He will take care of us. Praise the Lord.

 

On a very surface level, there is some truth to understanding this prayer in this way. It is about trusting God. It is about submitting to God's will, whatever that may be. But praying thy kingdom come is a more dangerous prayer that that. Praying thy will be done is a scarier thing than you might think. I urge you to pray the Lord's Prayer. But, I urge you to pray it with caution, and understand what you are really praying for. Because praying "Thy kingdom come…thy will be done…on earth as it does in heaven" is a prayer that invites, and even requires your participation.

 

I don't know how many of you have read The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, or saw the movie. But I suspect that you know that the story was written by C.S. Lewis, and that his purpose in writing it was to introduce children to some of the concepts of the gospel and the kingdom of God through fantasy. One of the things that happens in Narnia is that with the exile of Aslan, a lion that represents Jesus in the story, it is "always winter but never Christmas. " in Narnia Then as the story goes on spring starts in the far corners of Narnia, and as Aslan is on the move, eventually at the heart of Narnia spring appears.

 

This image of Narnia is a biblical picture of the kingdom of God. Heaven is where God resides. But God's will is for his kingdom to not only to be in heaven, but to slowly grow into a powerful reality here on earth. Moving like the spring sun, melting away fear, sin, isolation and watching it flower into a spring time of hope, forgiveness, community, and new life. When we pray the Lord's Prayer, and we pray "thy kingdom come" we are not praying for the rapture. We are not praying that we will escape earth and be in heaven soon. Quite the opposite. We are praying that God will invade our world, topple the kingdoms of the earth and own our kingdoms, and bring his rule to power in this world, right here and right now. He wants his will to be done right now and right here. Through us. Through his people. Through the church.

 

So why is this so dangerous a prayer you ask? It is a dangerous prayer for several reasons, which I am going to share with you this morning.

 

It is a dangerous prayer because YOUR KINGDOM MUST DIE. It must be crushed and crumpled. It must be trampled underfoot. You must surrender your kingdom in order to allow God to reign.

 

What do I mean by that? I mean this.

 

Each and every one of us has built up our little kingdoms, and we have put ourselves on the throne of our lives. We are master of our domains. We feel we have earned what we have got. We feel proud of our accomplishments. We think that we deserve this, and we have a right to that.

 

And then we pray the Lord's Prayer. And we pray that God's kingdom will come. And part of what that means is that we have to take ourselves off of the throne of our lives, and we need to let God's kingdom come into our lives. God needs to rule our eating and drinking, our driving and walking, our shopping and visiting worlds. YOUR KINGDOM MUST DIE so that God's kingdom can come in power, in your life, right now.

 

That KINGDOM OF CONTROL MUST DIE. You know what I mean by that. This idea that you have to have everything your way. That if you cannot do things your way than they just are not worth doing. The idea that everyone should have to agree with you and do things you like. That idea that Christianity is really about God doing things for you, instead of you giving your life for God. That idea must die. That kingdom must die, so that God's kingdom can live in you. That is what you pray with the Lord's Prayer.

 

There is no half-heartedness in letting God rule in your life. YOUR KINGDOM MUST COMPLETELY DIE. There is none of this—God you can be my Lord as long as you don't ask me to give up this thing, or love this person, or trust you with living this way. Either you trust God completely or you are not really trusting him at all. YOUR KINGDOM MUST DIE, so God can rule in your life. This is what you pray when you say THY KINGDOM COME. You pray THAT.

YOUR KINGDOM OF COMFORT MUST DIE. This idea that your relationship with Jesus is about helping you feel good must go. Nor should you be coming to church because you have always gone to church and that is what feels comfortable. It is not about whether you like the sermons, or whether you like the songs that we sing. No. It is about offering our lives to Jesus. It is about surrendering ourselves to his mission. If you come to church week after week and month after month, and you are never a little uncomfortable or frustrated, than your kingdom of comfort must die. Because if you pray thy kingdom come you are asking God to challenge you to talk to people you are not comfortable with, to serve him in ways that you might not have served him before, give more than you might think is reasonable, and to love more than you might have thought possible. YOUR KINGDOM must die, so that God's kingdom can grow and live and have full reign in you.

 

Jesus said it this way, if you want to find your life you must lose it. Jesus said it another way when he said the greatest of you must be the servant of all. Jesus also said, If anyone wants to follow me he or she needs to take up their cross and follow me. I hate to tell you this, but a cross is a painful instrument of death. When Jesus is saying this, he is saying that if you want to pray for his kingdom to come, that there is a part of you that needs to die. This part of you that puts yourself first. That puts your comfort first. That puts your desires first. That even puts your needs first. God's kingdom comes first, if you pray THY KINGDOM COME.

 

It means if the Bible says something, that you obey what the Bible says, whether you like it or not. Whether it makes sense to you or not. Whether you are comfortable with it or not. When you pray thy kingdom come that is what you are praying. It is a beautiful prayer. It is the prayer that Jesus wants you to pray. But it is a dangerous prayer. Because it will change your world, and turn your world upside down.

 

Let me take you back to grade school. We have not sung this song with the kids here, but when I grew up we sang this little song called "I'm in the Lord's army" Do you remember it?

**I may never fight in the infantry, ride in the calvary, shoot the artillery, I may never fly over the enemy but I'm in the Lord's army** Who is the general ? God is! What does a general do? He tells you where do go, when to be there, what to do? Why do you do it? Ideally because you believe in the kingdom you are serving, you believe in the cause, you believe in your purpose.

 

You should serve God's kingdom with the same kind of selflessness, the same kind of willingness to sacrifice, the same kind of willingness to endure pain and hardship as you would if you were a good soldier. Only you should fight with love, faithfulness, truthtelling, long-suffering, grace, kindness, service and the like.

THIS IDEA that the church is our kingdom must die as well. Pastors can live this idea. They can think of churches as places to build a name, or make a reputation. They can make churches all about what the pastor wants and what the pastor's agenda is. This is a difficult line I walk with you. On one hand trying to lead you and to be a strong leader and to give us a little nudge forward when we need to take a nudge forward, and yet on the other hand not making things all about me and wanting things to build my kingdom In Jesus' name. I pray I am finding that balance. I pray I am living thy kingdom come.

 

But CHURCH, your kingdom must die as well. We must stop thinking of church as a place to come because it is where I get MY needs met. Where I have something that speaks TO ME. Where I feel comfortable. Where we should do it the way we have always done it just because that is what I AM comfortable with. This is God's church, not yours. It is here to serve GOD, not you. Remember we are not the church that prays "OUR KINGDOM COME". No we are the church that prays THY KINGDOM come. YOUR KINGDOM MUST DIE.

 

You see what happens when you build your personal little kingdoms, and when we make the church into our little kingdoms, instead of about being part of God's kingdom, is that we draw lines and we built moats. We erect walls, and we defend boundaries—just like those medieval kingdoms of old. And we spend all of our energy trying to decide who is in, and who is out. We spend our energy trying to defend ourselves from others instead of offering ourselves to serve others. We spend our energy trying to justify ourselves and why we do things, instead of honestly acknowledging and growing through our weakness. We live in fear instead of in faith. We try and recapture past greatness instead of moving into future promise. We live just trying to maintain what we have instead of growing and learning, moving forward and being transformed.

 

Friend, God invites you to say "Thy kingdom come". Some of you may have come here this morning never having accepted Jesus Christ as your savior. You may have tried and tried to build this little kingdom for your self. You built your walls up. You gathered whatever treasure you could. And then you look at your life, that you have made all about you, and you realize that your kingdom is small, petty, and powerless to deal with much of the things that you thought you could handle and get under control. I urge you to let your kingdom die. To open your heart to God and let him rule your heart. Let him have free reign in your life. Try things his way. Give him a chance to touch your heart and change your life. I do not thing you will regret it. When we have our invitation this morning, come forward, ask Christ into your heart. Make him your king. Make him your Lord.

 

Praying God's will to be done is having the courage and the passion to focus our energy on listening to God and then doing what HE SAYS. Even if it is hard. Even if it requires risk. Even if it makes us feel a little out of our realm. And saying YOUR WILL BE DONE. When we say, your will be done, we are saying that we give God control. Yes. But it is also saying that we are willing to say YES to what God asks of us. We are saying YES LORD, I will do what you ask. YES LORD, I will trust you and your word even when I don't understand. YES LORD, I will trust you with my life, my children, my future and my hopes. YES LORD. YOUR WILL BE DONE.

 

And why do we do this? Because we want God's kingdom to come on earth as is in heaven. We want God's will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. We want the love of God to be visible and real to people on earth right here and now, and not just in heaven. We want the grace of God to be real to people as we live with grace and forgiveness here on earth. Not just in heaven. We want to see God's power to heal and to change lives and to make things new in the world we live in, not just as it will be completely up in heaven. We want our children to know God's love not just in heaven, but here on earth. Right here. Right now. We want that hope, that power, that love, that truth, lived in US and through US, as believers and as a congregation. And that is worth whatever it costs. Because that is much bigger and more important that we could ever dream or imagine.

 

And when we pray the Lord's prayer, that is what we are asking. When we pray the Lord's Prayer, that is what we are committing to. When we pray the Lord's Prayer, that is the hope that we are living in. That is why we say THY KINGDOM COME. THAT is why we say THY WILL BE DONE. Amen.