Oct. 23, 2016 Afternoon Service Beatitudes Part 15 by Pastor Josh Sheldon

The Disciples Prayer as the Center of the Sermon on the Mount

Journey through the Sermon on the Mount. And a few weeks ago we came to Matthew chapter 6, verses 9 -15 called the Lord's Prayer or the Model Prayer. Often called, either of those often called the Disciples Prayer, which is the name I prefer, but the other names are fine.

I call it the Disciples Prayer. If you call it the Lord's or the Model Prayer, that is fine. This is the one we mean. This great prayer that the Lord Jesus Christ, sort of in the center of His teaching, gave us.

A model for how to pray. Not the exact words, though the words are fine and if we want to pray them they're good to memorize and pray at any point. Wonderful as a model simply to go through those aspects of God and our relationship to Him that the prayer puts forth for us.

Remember that this is in this teaching really on ethics that the Lord Jesus Christ has given after He spoke about not doing your piety, if you will, to sum up a whole bunch of teaching that we had before men, but do it for God's sake.

Do it because of your relationship with God the Father through Christ His Son. And He spoke first about almsgiving and not letting your right hand know what the left hand is doing, which we handled a few weeks ago.

And after praying we're going to have fasting. And don't do your fasting to be seen by men, but anoint your face and don't make it obvious that you are in this mode of relationship with God for this special time.

And in the middle of those two is praying. And you'll recall that in Jesus' time in the first century in that land the Jews thought of there being three pillars of religion. And that would be almsgiving or mercy to the poor, that sort of thing.

Almsgiving, prayer, which is what we've been on for a few weeks ourselves, prayer, and after that fasting. These are the three pillars. And so Jesus speaks of them and He doesn't put them aside. He doesn't say these are no good.

He doesn't say don't do them because that's the old way of coming to God. But He does show us a better way, does He not? He shows us more than just the deeper, the true meaning of what was always behind these.

Hallowed Be Your Name and the Kingdom That Comes

So let's read this model prayer and then this morning we will focus ourselves on verse 10. Jesus says. And then Jesus adds these words which we read every time Let's pray. Father, again we come to Your Word.

Our Bible's open. Our spirit's laid bare before You. And Lord, our heart's wishing to hear from You as we look to Your Word for instruction. So we pray. We thank You that we can again come together and reconvene again around Your Word and be in worship and prayer and song.

And now, Father, we just pray for the preaching of Your Word, the preaching and the hearing of it, that You would be blessed by it and we would be improved by it. In Jesus' name, amen. So Your kingdom come.

Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We make these petitions before God that God would bring His kingdom and that we would here on earth see as they do in heaven now, God's will. And if it is done here as it is in heaven, if that is the paradigm, if that is the comparative model, then what do we have that we're asking for?

Well, how is God's will obeyed in heaven? How is God's will seen and followed in heaven? Can we say perfectly? With the angels singing holy, holy, holy? With the elders bowing down? We'll come to that.

But this is the petition. This is what we're saying when we speak these words. That we wish this place to be like that one. Which, praise God, one day it shall be. Because God's going to remake all this.

And my personal eschatology is that this is where heaven will be. The earth will be remade. And it will be inhabited only by the saints, the redeemed. And all of us will together from pole to pole, with one voice, with one accord, with one spirit, constantly call out praises to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

And what we're asking for is for His will to be done now as it will be then. And how will it be then? As it is now in heaven. This is what we're saying here. It sounds like two requests. Your will be done.

Or your kingdom come, your will be done. It sounds like two requests. One for God to bring about His kingdom and the other for His will to reign here. But in essence the two requests are really just one.

It's really the same thing. The kingdom of God is what? The kingdom of God is where His will is done. That's the kingdom. That's why Jesus can say in Matthew chapter 11 verse 28 that the casting out of demons was proof that the kingdom of God had come.

That they were seeing it. There it was. Jesus Christ, His first words, repent. Why? What cause of repentance did He give? For the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And it lent an immediacy to its manifestation of course because Jesus brings the kingdom.

Jesus is the kingdom in a sense. The language He used was repent now for the kingdom has now drawn near and the consequences of that are current and effective. The kingdom is here and now and it means something.

It meant something then when Jesus first announced it. It means something to us today. I need to take a short excursus for you. Most of you know I've been having a manifestation of my MS that is very spastic and painful in my left arm.

Right now it's in my left arm. Sometimes it moves to the right. So if I stop and sort of seem to be catching my breath, I'm not trying to be melodramatic up here. There's nothing you can do. Please ignore it.

Just give me a second to catch my breath and I'll carry on with God's help. My point of just taking this brief moment is don't worry about it. Got the note out to my doctor. He's pretty good about getting back to me and probably Lord willing we'll be able to see him tomorrow.

We'll start getting this squared away. That's just so you're not self-conscious about it. So what do we pray when we say your kingdom come? We're praying for the continued expansion of God's reign in the hearts of men.

This is what the kingdom is now. It's God reigning in the hearts of his redeemed. We could say the church. Lord willing we could say each one and all of us together. The kingdom is where God's will reigns.

For now as long as Jesus tarries, it's in our hearts. More than in our hearts, it's in the practical application of the gospel. In us, in our actions. Let your light so shine that men will see your works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

That's part of the kingdom as well. There is a final kingdom that's going to be realized only when Christ returns and as long as he tarries we are the kingdom and this is what we're praying for. This is the kingdom.

It is his people living in obedience to his will and this is what John meant when he wrote to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom. This is in the opening words in the book of Revelation.

By his blood we've been freed from sin. We've been freed from the law of sin and death. We've been freed from fear of death and the works of the devil and so being freed. Freed to what? To serve Christ.

To serve the gospel of Jesus Christ. To serve and show that his kingdom is real and it means something. It means that first we know we've been saved by a great God and an effective Savior who did all that needs to be done to bring us to him.

That's a matter of faith and it's a matter of works because that faith as Jesus made so clear already and will continue to make clear as we go through the Sermon on the Mount that faith does something not to get saved but grace you've been saved through faith.

Not to gain God's good will towards us because God's good will is because we are accepted in the beloved in Jesus Christ. Not for any of that but because the gospel, the kingdom of God within us is so overwhelming to us.

It is so good that it just forces us to do something about it. We began by praying for a widow. It is the gospel that causes us to fall down before God and plead with him to watch over a widow. Why do we pray that?

Because that's God's will that we should have that heart for a widow. Why do we have that heart for a widow? Because if God does we should. And in this place as a member of this church, as a pastor who's seen you work, I know that we do God's will in outward acts that flow from the inward faith.

It all works together and this is the kingdom we're praying for. God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven. What does Peter say? It's time for judgment to begin. It is right that it begins here in the church with the redeemed.

We who know Jesus Christ, we who believe God's word, we who by faith apprehend that when we do God's will according to his word, he will reward us as he sees fit. That's the kingdom. Remember where Jesus started this sermon with the Beatitudes and you remember how they began and ended?

The first and the eighth Beatitude? Both of them ended with, for theirs is what? The kingdom of heaven. And this is what we're praying for. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.

Your will be done. Remember folks, those are one and the same. The kingdom is where his will is done. And this is where the Beatitudes started. Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And then he goes on describing the blessings conferred by God on the members of the kingdom.

And then he went on to tell us how the law relates to the kingdom. Do you remember that? Whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments, pardon me, and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. And later Jesus will tell us where to build up our stores of treasure, which is of course in heaven, which we'll know when the kingdom is final.

That treasure trove being guarded now, says Peter in 1 Peter, by the strength and the power of God the Father will be ours when this kingdom is finally brought about. John prepared men for this by preaching repentance, by offering a baptism that symbolized the same.

Symbolizing repentance. Jesus, of course, as we might expect, Jesus took it further. He also preached judgment and he preached repentance. But the Lord Jesus Christ, he had an answer he could give to all this.

An end game, if you will, that John couldn't. The Baptist had to stop. Repent. And he gave a baptism of repentance and there it ended. Jesus brought so much more. When Jesus announced the kingdom, what did he bring with it?

Forgiveness. If the Baptist could preach repentance, Jesus Christ, he began with repentance. So it's sort of like, yeah, what he said, because he was sent by God, he's the messenger promised in Isaiah and Malachi.

That's him. And he's announcing me and he can only go so far preaching repentance. Yes, all men should repent. God commands all men everywhere to repent. But Jesus, repent. Have faith and be forgiven.

Be forgiven of the sins of which you repent. Something the Baptist could not proclaim. He could proclaim him who did proclaim it. But John the Baptist himself, no, he could not make that statement. And here's the great difference between the Jewish expectations of the day and reality.

They were hoping for their Messiah to come and destroy their oppressors, who of course were at that time the Romans. And even the Baptist, even he confused himself by the flavor of God's rule that was brought by the Lord.

He didn't understand it. In Matthew 11, he sends his disciples to Jesus and they say in his name, in the Baptist's name, are you the one who is to come or should we look for another? Now we could take this many ways.

What was John expecting? What was John disappointed with? Was he asking if he was wrong? We could understand certainly he was a bit confused. There was something in what Jesus Christ proclaimed and what he did, more importantly what he did, that wasn't in line with general Jewish expectations of the time as the messianic fervor of the time was great.

And even John the Baptist is sort of like saying enough of miracles, enough of healings, enough of demons being cast out, let's get down to business. There's something we're expecting of you, Jesus. And we're just not seeing it yet.

Now casting off Rome was nearly impossible. In fact, if you're a bit of a student of history, you'll know that no nation ever really did. I mean, Rome collapsed of its own weight as it cast off its own founding principles, but that history is for another time and that history is for those who have time to read perhaps Gibbon's Decline and Fall, which is enormous.

But the point being, no one cast Rome off. Rome, as it were, cast itself off, but you're not going to cast Rome away. You're not going to defeat them. Even trying to be rid of the Roman yoke was a costly enterprise.

I mean, row upon row of crucified Jewish zealots testified to Rome's brutal efficiency when they dealt with insurrection. And so there was a lot of confusion about this Messiah, this Jesus. See, Jesus came for something else.

The nation's bondage to Rome paled in comparison to the bondage that Jesus came to break. What did Jesus come to break? Bondage to sin, bondage to self-will. As Luther's great book, The Bondage of the Will.

Bound up by what? What did it say in Hebrews? By fear of death. The works of the devil and the fear of death. Death looms out ahead of us all. I love quoting Alistair Begg there. Startling statistic. Death affects one out of one.

No one gets by without it. And the only ones who ever will are the few mentioned in the Bible. We're not going to go through them now. And those who are alive when the Lord returns. No one else. Jesus came to break bondage to that, to this law of sin and death and the fear we have of death.

The life sacrifice to the cause of political autonomy ultimately did no good. Like I said a moment ago, you look at the zealots. You read about them in Josephus. And the zealots who tried to cast off Rome.

And the ways, the roads were lined with their crosses. As a warning to everyone else. Their death did no good. Ultimately Rome was still in charge. Israel never became independent. Not until 1947. Their lives in the end became nothing more than a warning of the awful fate and the wasted suffering that awaited other rebels.

Jesus came to inaugurate the kingdom of heaven. Not the kingdom of Israel the way they thought. He came for the kingdom of heaven. The one that we pray for in the disciples prayer. If the zealots of his day were willing to die for their cause, they have something in common with Jesus, don't they?

Jesus died for his cause. Of course, the great divide between them, other than the wonder of his full humanity and his equally full deity is that they served only a human cause. As high as we hold up the ideals of freedom or liberty and the like, they are poor substitutes compared to the cause that Jesus served.

The people of his day tried to bring about a kingdom and they failed. Their deaths were wasted. Jesus, on the other hand, who proclaimed the coming of the kingdom in repentance and by faith forgiveness, he actually accomplished what he came for.

He actually accomplished what he came for. The establishment on earth of a kingdom populated by redeemed people committed to obeying the precepts of their king. Who is that? Do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?

Is your faith in him? Have you repented of your sins and by obedience been baptized in the faith proclaiming what he has done for you and your soul? You are one of the redeemed. You are one of the kingdom.

You are one who has publicly proclaimed that you are committed to following the will of your king, Jesus. His laws, his commands, his statutes, his precepts, his word. You see, when we pray for God's kingdom to come, let's be sure of something.

Let's be sure we're praying for the kingdom that God has in mind. That God has in mind. Not the radicals of Jesus' day who if they had preached this, they meant your kingdom come, put our king back on the throne in Jerusalem and send Rome back to Rome.

No. In these troubling and I believe very troubled political times. Let us pray this prayer the way Jesus meant it. Your kingdom come. Which has nothing to do with which candidate you want. If you're a Democrat, you're as much a Christian as the Republican.

That's not the dividing line. The dividing line is do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ or not? When we pray for his kingdom to come, let's be sure we know we're praying for the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, the kingdom that Jesus Christ ushered in.

The kingdom which I was speaking of at the beginning. That we live out. The kingdom that we have by faith in our spirits and we live out in our persons. That kingdom. How does it look? It looks like people who are poor in spirit.

You'll recognize where I'm coming from. What does that kingdom look like? People who are poor in spirit, people who mourn over their sin, people who are meek, who are able to set aside their own needs and prefer to satisfy the needs of others.

That's what the kingdom looks like. It looks like people who hunger and thirst after the righteousness of God the way a deer pants for the water. The kingdom looks like people who are merciful because they have received mercy.

Like people who are pure in heart, which is to be fully devoted to God. That's what that means. An undivided heart. That's what the kingdom of God looks like in the here and now. In this place. In you.

If you are indeed in Christ. It looks like people who are peacemakers. People so relieved at peace with God that they cannot but live in peace with others who, having been justified by faith, also have peace with God.

Blessed are the peacemakers. They shall be called sons of God. Remember what we talked about with sons of God? If you're a son of God, that means you reflect Him. You do the works of your father. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.

Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are those who are so grateful and so humbled by having peace with God that they cannot help but live at peace with others. That's what the kingdom looks like. When you say, Our Father in Heaven, hallowed be Your name.

Your kingdom come. This is what you're praying for. This is what you're attesting to. One day the kingdom will be here in all its glory. One day we won't need to pray like this because we shall be like Him because we shall see Him as He is.

We won't need to turn the other cheek because no one in the kingdom would ever slap us. We won't need to go an extra mile and we won't prefer to lose eyes or hands rather than sin because there will be no sin.

We have a final glory coming in the kingdom. Which we need to see in the here and now. Pray and beg God that we're not be hypocrites because we all pray this prayer, don't we? At one point or another we all say Your kingdom come.

And we cannot mean Your kingdom come in that saint over there that needs to be more kingdom oriented. Your kingdom come and help that sister over there to act more like a subject of Christ. No. May it never be.

Your kingdom come is me. Let me be the first manifestation of that kingdom. Let me Lord be the one who others could look to and see it as an example, a humble example not a man glorifying example. Of course we can't read the first part of the Sermon on the Mount and never say that.

Lord let Your kingdom be seen in me. Let me do works that shed glory on You so that men will see that and give glory to my Father who is in heaven. This is what the kingdom is about. And this is what we're pledging when we say our Father in heaven hallowed glorious, holy sanctified above all other names may be Your name Your kingdom come.

Your will be done. Let me paraphrase for just a moment. I'm not even paraphrasing. I'm going to interpret for you. Your kingdom come. Your will be done in me as the first who needs to show forth Your goodness.

The Will of God, the Scriptures, and the Warning Against Hypocrisy

That's the kingdom of heaven and it is stated in us. It is started in us. If we really mean this prayer, Your will be done. If we really mean it, then it follows that we will want to know God's will. We will study the repository of His will which is the scriptures.

We will obey what it says. We will do all we can to avoid Jesus asking us something like this which we're going to come to towards the end of the Sermon on the Mount. We will do whatever we can so that this will not get asked of me.

Why do you call me Lord and not do what I tell you? Can we hear behind that something like why did you pray for the kingdom to come and then act as though the kingdom was the furthest thing from your mind?

Why do you call me Lord and not do what I tell you? Imagine the scene in heaven. Seraphim and living creatures calling out God's wonders. Elders bowing down, singing Christ's praises and setting their crowns before Him because He is the source of all power and authority.

Vast armies of angels stand in battle array. They're waiting for their commander to say go and they immediately depart and do what He said. He says to another come and that one presents himself and waits for His orders.

And to another He says do this and in an instant it is done. Myriads and myriads and thousands and thousands all doing His will. Right now. We don't see it. But you know everything I just said I take from scripture so we know it is occurring this moment.

And then from out of the rank and file imagine a solitary angel steps out of the rank, steps away from the file approaches the throne of grace and says something like well pardon me Lord but I was just wondering if you ever noticed just how beautifully made I am.

Seems to me I ought to have a bit more prominence around here. I mean it's pretty obvious I'm no run of the mill angel. Do you think you might have an assignment more conducive to my gifting? Something like that.

You know a good number of scholars think this is a thrust of Isaiah 14, 12 to 14. How you are fallen from heaven O Lucifer son of the morning. How you are cut down to the ground you who weakened the nations.

For you have said in your heart I will ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.

I will be like the most high. You know when we pray for God's will to be done. When we say your kingdom come and all that following hallowed be your name. That preceded by our father my father in heaven.

When we pray like that and then set our own desires above his well that little example I just cited that one angel stepping out. That's just what we've done. That's just what we've done. He was cast out of heaven for his effrontery.

In chapter 7 of Matthew as a sermon of the mount comes to a close Jesus will speak of false prophets who are known by the fruits that they produce. He'll speak of false professors whose works were done in their own name.

Whose self aggrandizement was the glory they sought and whose prophesying was in their own name. Like Lucifer they're cast from his presence. Sheep and goats are separated. Depart from me you who practice lawlessness as Jesus says here in the sermon on the mount in chapter 7.

Now your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. What a wonderful pledge we make. What a profession we are giving not just to we who hear you. But this is the Lord's prayer. This is the disciples prayer.

This is the model prayer. It means something. It has to mean something. More than just the words of it. We pray like this we're pledging ourselves to the kingdom. We're affirming our commitment to propagate God's will.

We're saying that his will is our paramount concern and we're promising what? To study it. To know it. To do it. We can't say God your will be done and then close our ears when he tells us what his will is.

We need to know what it is. That's in the scripture. And that's what we are pledging ourselves to. The table set before us which we will partake in a few moments. This is here because of God's will. Jesus instituted this as an ordinance to be practiced in his inaugurated kingdom.

That is in his church here and now. Now one day we'll stop doing this. One day this will be no more. Because how do we take the supper at the end? We proclaim the Lord's death till he comes. His return will make his kingdom final.

It will bring an end to this aspect of his will. This one ordinance. Well, not just only this one. But this ordinance will then pass away. We'll have no more hope. We won't have to because the object of our hope which is Jesus Christ, he will actually be here.

Until that day we partake and we do it as often as you do this. And one thing we testify when we participate in this meal is that we are those who desire his kingdom to come and we are those who do all we can to demonstrate here and now the beauty of that kingdom.

And we're all messy people. Not one of us does God's will perfectly. Most of us aren't even excellent at it. But praise God it's not our perfection. It's not even our excellence that qualifies us for this table.

It's Jesus'. We remember his excellencies. We think of his perfection and most especially we think of those as they relate to the cross. To the cross that he bore. The cross was the harbinger of the kingdom.

Because of the cross we have cause to repent of our sins. To repent of having not expanded or even wished for God's kingdom to come. We can repent for the times that we ignored God's will even when a child could have understood what the scripture so clearly said.

But despite all that because of the cross of Jesus Christ we can come to this table fully qualified to eat and drink. We speak to those who put their faith and their trust and their hope in him. Speak to those who have been convinced by the spirit of God.

I know not how the spirit moves. Convincing men of sin says that great hymn. Those who have confessed themselves to be sinful and sinners. Sinful in nature and sinners in action. To those who acknowledging that by the testimony of the spirit and scripture have repented of their sins.

And known that God because of his mercy forgives sins because of the work of his son Jesus Christ on the cross and in his name have repented of their sins. Repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is how the scripture puts it.

These are the ones qualified to this table because of the excellencies of Jesus Christ. The tables for Christ's subjects for those who have repented of their sins, placed all their hope of salvation in him.

It is those who have obeyed his will by having submitted to the waters of baptism and further obey him by seeking to join themselves to his body in a local church. The table. This table will partake in a few moments.

This is a foretaste of the kingdom for which we pray. Setting before us reminders of how and why it is that we're able to enter into it. Which is by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. The bread, his body broken for you, the wine, his blood poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.

As we pray, your kingdom come, you will be done. Let's take note of the weight of those words. Let's take note of who it is we are proclaiming. And the gravity with which we set ourselves to mean these words.

And let us remember as we partake of the table for all who will this afternoon partake with us that this is in that sense, it's a reminder of the kingdom Jesus brought and also a foretaste of it as we remind ourselves of the forgiveness of sins that we have because of our savior Jesus.

Amen.