Sunday, January 21, 2007
Matthew 6:10
Senior Pastor
It was the day after
Christmas. The pastor of the church was
straightening up some things in the sanctuary and looking at the manger
scene. He was in and out of the
sanctuary. Then he noticed that the
baby Jesus figure was missing from the cradle.
He had been there earlier, but now he was gone.
He immediately turned and hurried outside to try and spot anyone who might have
stolen the baby. He saw a little boy
with a red wagon walking away from the church and sure enough there was the
figure of the infant Jesus. So he
caught up with the boy and said, "Son, where did you get that little baby
Jesus that's in your wagon?"
The little boy replied, "I got him from the church."
"And why did you take him?" asked the pastor.
The little boy said in a serious tone, "Well, about a week before
Christmas, I prayed real hard to the little Lord Jesus. I told him if he could get me a new red
wagon for Christmas, I would give him a ride around the block in it. So here we go.”
That is closer to the way many of us pray than we would like to admit. We pray that our will might be done, that we might get our way and if Jesus will cooperate with our plans then maybe we will do something nice for him.
But in this model prayer we are studying, Jesus says in this second petition to God, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done.” The more familiar phrase for us is “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.” Maybe it became the practice of Christians to say it every week because we need the reminder of whose will we are to focus on as disciples of Christ. As we practice praying together on Sunday mornings this prayer from our Lord, we recite it out loud and honor the long tradition in which we stand. We stand in a long line with our mothers and fathers in the faith who came before us and worked and prayed that God’s kingdom might come on the earth as it is in heaven.
But it could be discouraging if we think back across some two thousand years of people praying this prayer and yet it has not come to be… at least not in its fullness. God’s kingdom or God’s rule – God’s ideal way for us does not prevail in our world. Lying and cheating, violence and suffering, poverty and oppression still take their immense toll upon God’s people. When we gather we are still praying that it might happen. “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.”
But “How?” How is that going to happen on earth? As I think about this second petition of the Lord’s Prayer I wonder: How on earth is that going to happen? Why hasn’t it happened already? Where or what is the obstacle?
I am sure that there are more reasons than I can comprehend that would help answer these questions. But I was helped by some insights shared by Harry Emerson Fosdick in his book, The Meaning of Prayer. He tells the story of a missionary several decades back that was working with a nomadic people. It was a time of drought. They were praying for rain but no rain was coming. The missionary decided to dig for water.
He began digging a water well. The nomads mocked him because they all knew that water came from
above, not from below. When he struck
water in the earth he helped them discover not only a new source of water, but
a new insight into God. Sometimes
God has already supplied what we need but we have failed to do the necessary
work to tap into the abundant supply. (p.
82)
Fosdick suggests that too often we pray without the resolve to do our part to see it through to fruition. He says, “Our prayers are often unreal because they do not represent what in our inward hearts we sincerely crave. We go through the form of entreating God to save us from the sin, but we do not want the answer enough to burn the bridges across which the sin continually comes. Our petition is a lame and ineffective whim without driving power.” (p. 127ff) I found Fosdick, who wrote these words decades ago, to be speaking to me this week, as I examined my prayer life. Does it strike a chord within you?
He gives ways this might play out within the life of Christians. He suggests, for example,
that when we pray for missions we often offer our prayers for the cause of Christ around the globe, but offer nothing else. “We make supplication a substitute for devotion. We do not give to missions with any deep sense of stewardship, but rather treat the Cause of the Kingdom as a charity, to which an occasional dole from our surplus is sufficient. In our inmost desires we are not devotedly set on the triumph of Christ’s cause…” (p. 133)
He goes even further and suggests that often American Christians do the same when we pray about the poor, or an end to warfare on the planet, or eliminating racism. “This is the meaning of the saying that it is easy to commit the Lord’s Prayer to memory, but difficult to learn it by heart.” (p. 132)
The force of Fosdick’s analysis can be summarized in a question: Is your prayer truly the dominant desire of your life? Do we really want what we pray for? Thy kingdom come, thy will be done has been prayed by Christians for centuries now and has yet come to fruition, but Fosdick makes us ask: For how many has this been the dominant desire? I believe I stand guilty of his accusation.
Recently I saw the new Mel Gibson movie entitled, Apocalypto. It is about a civilization long gone by in the jungles of Central America. It portrays the clash between a jungle people and an agrarian neighboring people. The jungle community is attacked by warriors from the agrarian society. Almost all of the adults are either killed or taken captive during this brutal and bloody surprise attack. Their village is looted and burned before the forced march begins. In the midst of the chaos one young man manages to hide his wife and child in a near-by cistern hallowed out of the rock, before he is taken captive. He promises that he will return, that he will be back.
After a forced two-day march, many of his friends have been killed along the way or sacrificed by the agrarian priests trying to appease their gods. Finally the survivors are used as the prey in a game of human hunting. But this one young man has more to live for than the others because he knows his wife and child are waiting for him. Most of the movie is consumed by his desperate fleeing from these human warrior-hunters that are after him. But it is clear that his dominant desire is to fulfill his promise and return to his family. It is such a deep driving force within him that he suffers through many excruciating trials while he is fleeing for his life.
He makes decisions that normally nobody would make because of the life and death consequences that are pressing in at every turn. He is going to use every ounce of energy, every breath he can gasp, any device he can think of to elude his captors. At this point there are no other competing claims for his efforts. It is a clear and narrow focus; it is his only desire.
Is your prayer life ever that focused – ever that powerful in the scope of your life? Are you ready to add to your prayer after thy kingdom come, thy will be done – “whatever it takes Lord? You have all of me! The coming of your kingdom is my dominant desire!”
It is interesting to note that just verses after this Jesus goes on to contrast the realm of the spiritual kingdom of which he speaks with the material realm of the physical world. Look with me at Matthew 6:24. No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth. Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Then Jesus goes on to contrast the birds with humans and with the lilies of the field and points out that our heavenly Father provides for them and certainly will do even more for us. Then he says, But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (6:24-25; 33)
Can you hear the Good News being proclaimed here? God wants to rule here. God is with us; we are not left alone. God wants to rule in our hearts and in our world. And, in fact, Jesus says God is already providing for us and offering to do even more, if we are willing to offer ourselves to him. We have to turn toward him. We have to be ready to serve him. We have to decide what we really want. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven… Is that your dominant desire?
One evening an
old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people.
He said, "My son, the battle is between two "wolves" inside us
all.
One is Evil. It comes as anger, envy,
jealousy, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, and the like. The other is Good. It comes as joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, generosity,
faith and such things as these."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather:
"Grandfather, which wolf wins?"
The wise old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
Jesus says our choice is between the spiritual kingdom of the Father or the material kingdom we most often pursue. Which one will you feed? The challenge in the new year is to feed the spiritual kingdom.
I prayed real hard to the little Lord Jesus.
I told him ____ he could get me a new red wagon…
“Your kingdom come. ________ will be done.”
God’s kingdom or God’s rule – God’s ideal way for us
does ______ prevail in our world.
…God has already supplied what we ________… failed
to do the necessary work to tap into the abundant supply.
…we do not want the answer enough to ________ the
bridges across which the sin continually comes.
“…it is easy to commit the Lord’s Prayer to memory,
but difficult to learn it by __________.”
Is your prayer truly the dominant desire of ________ life?
…the new Mel Gibson movie entitled, Apocalypto.
He promises that he will return, that ____ ________ be back.
Look with me at Matthew 6:____.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is
in heaven… Is that your dominant ____________?
"Grandfather,
which wolf wins?"
The wise old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you ________."
Kid’s question:
Whose will does Jesus teach us to pray for?
Fosdick suggests that too often we pray without the resolve to do
our part to see it through to fruition. He says, “Our prayers are
often unreal because they do not represent what in our inward hearts
we sincerely crave. We go through the form of entreating God to
save us from the sin, but we do not want the answer
enough to burn
the bridges across which the sin continually comes. Our petition is
a lame and ineffective whim without driving power.” (p. 127ff)
I found Fosdick, who wrote these words decades ago, to be speaking
to me this week, as I examined my prayer life.
Does it strike a chord within you?
He gives ways this might play out within the life of Christians.
He suggests for example that when we pray for missions we often
offer our prayers for the cause of Christ around the globe, but offer
nothing else. “We make supplication a substitute for devotion. We
do not give to missions with any deep sense of stewardship, but rather
treat the Cause of the Kingdom as a charity, to which an occasional
dole from our surplus is sufficient. In our inmost desires we are not
devotedly set on the triumph of Christ’s cause…” (p. 133)
He goes even further and suggests that often American Christians do the
same when we pray about the poor, or an end to warfare on the planet,
or eliminating racism.
“This is the meaning of the saying that it is easy
to commit the Lord’s Prayer to memory, but difficult to
learn it by
heart.”