Model for Praying - Part 3 — J. Glyn Owen

The Lord’s Prayer and the Difficulty of Praying “Thy Kingdom Come”

Would you kindly turn with me in your Bibles to the gospel recorded by St. Matthew to chapter 6. And we are going to look at the first part of verse 10. Those who regularly worship here with us will remember that a few Sundays ago we began the series on the Lord's Prayer which we have referred to as a model for praying and we come tonight to the first part of this very significant and very pregnant truth declared by our Lord in teaching his disciples.

He tells us as he told his ancient followers that when we pray we should be able to say thy kingdom come three very simple words and all of us here tonight could enunciate them quite well in one language or another we would find no difficult whatsoever.

And yet I want to suggest to you that this is a very difficult statement or request to be transformed into a prayer. It is one thing to read these words it is another thing to mouth these words. But it is quite a different thing altogether to be able to pray.

Really to pray these words thy kingdom come however we pray that the Lord will help us tonight to get some understanding of this passage in order that we may be able the better to exercise our glorious privilege of prayer and intercession and enter into the large place of our inheritance in our Lord Jesus Christ.

Becoming Children of God Through Faith, Adoption, and Regeneration

Now we have already seen that the savingly and nobling experience of prayer fellowship with God is only possible to those who can legitimately call him father. I must mention this we shall have to mention it again because it is basic to everything else.

Any man any woman any boy any girl anyone anywhere who really wants to pray must be able to speak to God and call him consciously out of a sense of propriety and of the rightness of it and of the reality of it.

Our father albeit not a father that I can handle with these hands or see with these eyes or even here with these ears when he speaks but father. Nevertheless all men and all women are God's creatures by creation and by preservation.

God is ruler over all men everywhere over all races and over all the course of history. But not all his creatures are his children. We become the children of God by faith in Jesus Christ as John puts it very beautifully albeit very succinctly in the first chapter of his gospel to as many as received him that is the Lord Jesus Christ.

To as many as received him. To them gave he the right or the word is authority to them gave he the authority to become the sons of God. Now this is absolutely essential right at the beginning of the prayer experience.

Then it is that I I should be rightly related to God in this basic very basic sense of being his child. Now this is why of course in the New Testament the teaching about adoption and regeneration doctrines as we sometimes speak of them are so crucial.

Men must be brought into the family of God in order to enjoy the experiences of grace. God sends men and women into every part of the world in all ages during this period of grace in order to invite men to become his children that they may share in his grace.

He wants to adopt people into his family and the adopted he would regenerate at all times so that they have an inner nature that corresponds to their objective status. Adoption gives us the legal status of children.

Regeneration gives us the heart and disposition of children so that the Christian is not simply a person who has the right to call God father. He is a person who has the spirit that cries as Paul says Abba father.

The Assurance and Marks of a True Child of God

Now before we go further this evening therefore will you permit me gently but very deliberately to ask have we all come over this hurdle. Are you quite sure that you're a child of God. Have you received the Lord Jesus as your very own intimately personal Savior and Lord.

Well if so be it known unto you from the Word of God and not just from the men in the pulpit here tonight be it known unto you with all certainty you have the right to call God your father. And you may learn all that Jesus is teaching us here and learn it in your own experience.

That's not the only step that we must pass and we must take. That is important. But when our Lord taught his disciples to pray and answer to their request he said you must be able to say our Father who art in heaven hallowed be your name.

Now without my going back over the details of what we thought was the precise exposition of that let me put it to you like this ultimately unless I am a child of God I have no real concern for the good of his name.

There are thousands upon thousands of God's creatures made by his hand and sustained from his hand. Some of whom have been brought back to life again from a what seemed at one time to be a deathbed and he's raised them up again and given them a new lease of life.

But they're no more concerned about the glory of God's name than the creature of the field. But when once you become a child of God by adoption and regeneration when once the Spirit of God makes you into a new creature and Jesus Christ is your own Savior now you become concerned about the glory of your heavenly Father.

And this is one of the basic characteristics of a genuinely regenerate man or woman. You can be trusted with the name of your father. And when you go out from a place like this and back into a workaday world there is something that concerns you.

Now you may not put it into these words but it will be there underlying overwhelming overarching everything you say and everything you will do. Every plan that you consider namely this how does this reflect upon the good name of my father.

And if you become convinced that it does not reflect well upon the name of your father the name of your father will mean so much to you. You'll say no I can't do that. Well sometimes you may compromise and sin.

But if you do and if you really are a child of God it will bring tears from your eyes and sorrow from your soul and repentance from your lips. But you see learning to pray is not an easy way. First of all I must become a child of God so that I can call God my father.

This is the basis of it. Prayer is nothing other than the development of the relationship of father and child. In one sense we can over complicate prayer simply without any complication. It is this it is the child learning to get on with his father.

And the father in this case of course is the perfect father. But now we come to another step. The next statement by our Lord is the one before us tonight. And the person who really learns to pray has to be able to say this thy kingdom.

God as Father and King

Important and formative as the believers consciousness of being God's child is it needs to be balanced by the realization that the Christians father is also King. Believer. Your father is not only your father.

He's your father. And he is also King. Let me go further. He is the only King insofar as there are other little Kings so-called he has put the crown on their brow and he has given them the territory to reign over.

And one day he will take off the crown and he will break up the Empire and he will scatter it to the four corners of the earth and he will say your day is done I reign on you have gone. He's the only King.

And you see the psychological meaning of this apart from anything else as a child of God in order to pray my image of him must never deteriorate into one of a spineless very lovable kindly old grandfatherly sort of person who will always give me anything spoonfuls of trickle whenever I want them all.

You don't have things like that in Canada. But you know what I mean I ask for. But my father is King as well as father he is he is master. And it's not the one or the other it's the one and the other.

Now some people represent God as if he were nothing but a pale insignificant spineless father. Some people represent him as if he were but a tyrant King without a fatherly heart anywhere near to him. Neither is true our God is father the only father the perfect father in whom is no flaw.

And he's the sovereign Lord. And as sure as he can be trusted as father he needs to be respected as King. And if I am to learn to pray if I'm to get near to him and if I am to get on with him and if he's going to hear my prayers and answer them and honor me according to his promises then I must be rightly related with him on both of these levels.

I must never intrude into areas that don't belong to me. On the other hand if he has made himself my father I must always look upon him as one who is interested in every detail of my life and to whom I can come any hour of the day or of the night in the name of his son.

He's my father and he loves to see me make use of that. So there are two things here you see I must always remember that God is my father and recognize my kinship with him. But I must also at all times remember the kingship of God the sovereignty of God.

Even though he is my father he may sometimes refuse what I ask and chastise me for my wrong because he is King and he is Lord. Now let's come and look into the eye of this passage this text before us tonight though you've uttered these words many many many many times and so have I but listen to the ring of them coming from the lips as it were of the Savior tonight he taught his disciples and he said when you pray say thy will be done thy kingdom come thy kingdom come.

The Holy Discontent Behind “Thy Kingdom Come”

There is first of all here a kind of silent censure. I don't know how else to speak of it lurking deep in the heart of the worthy petitioner of this prayer. There lies a sorely felt disappointment. You can put it better.

Perhaps I can't a disappointment that things are not as they ought to be. There is a grief that arises because things are not as in the petition petitioners mind they ought to be in relation to the kingly rule of God.

God's kingdom and kingship are being challenged on all sides and whatever measures of temporary success may attend those responsible the child of God the subject of the kingdom and of the king is concerned that anybody anywhere should be arrogant and foolish enough to challenge the right of his father King.

And at the heart of this utterance in in the Lord's Prayer there is a silent censure of people in high places and low who do anything or say anything or show an attitude which reflects the kind of dishonoring of the kingship of God which is in mind.

Here we sang those words tonight because I think they bring it out very beautifully. Lewis Hensley's lovely and very simple hymn. But how precious it's the prayer thy kingdom come O God thy rule O Christ.

Begin break with an iron rod the tyrannies of sin. Now here we come to it. You see here's the ache. Here's the silent the silent censure of the heart. Men scorn thy sacred name and wolves devour thy fold.

By many deeds of shame we learn that love grows cold or heathen lands afar thick darkness broodeth yet arise. O morning star arise and never set. Do you know anything of this in your heart. When people take the name of God in vain when people trample his laws asunder when people trample his creatures asunder and act unrighteously and unjustly and irreverently towards their fellow creatures.

Tell me is there something in your soul that grieves because it reflects upon God and his kingdom his rule is rejected. Is there a silent censure in your soul of things that are happening in our city in educational circles in other circles in political circles.

God’s Kingship in the Old Testament and Jewish Hope

Now the kingdom of God loomed large in the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and also in the teaching of his apostles too though not quite as large. Speaking in terms of percentages one of the convictions which our Lord found to be diffused fairly universally among his people the Jews was this that God was king.

You read it everywhere. I challenge you to go through the Old Testament and write down every reference to the kingship of the sovereignty of God. You know many people have tried it and they just can't can't agree as to how many times the references found because it's diffused throughout the whole of the book.

Maybe not in so many words but the concept is there. It's everywhere this is understood in the Bible. God is king. Now the people of the Jews believe that it was a kind of ingrained confidence that they had by the time of Christ.

There were times of course when they didn't act according to that belief. Now we must notice that there were times when they didn't live according to that faith but when pressed they came back to it and they recognized it again and they repented of their sins.

This has been characteristic of them all through the years. Times without number they would rebel against the truth they knew. And then some of the prophets would come and declare the word of the Lord and they would repent.

And they would acknowledge that God is the Lord. And isn't this your history and mine too. Even so ever rule of God will take final shape or would take final shape according to the understanding of the Jews.

They looked forward to another day. It was then early in the future they looked forward to two things. One to the restoration of the Davidic line of kingship as foretold by some of the prophets. The fulfillment of their dreams seemed to hinge upon this that the kingship the Davidic line would be renewed again would be taken up again whilst in turn that that would coincide with a coming of the Messiah the promised deliverer of God.

Daniel’s Vision of the Everlasting Kingdom

And that's why we read tonight from Daniel chapter 7. Because you see this was part of the image that really really gave them their faith. They always went back to this and to other such passages. Let me just read to you these words in in my vision at night I looked and there before me was one like a son of man coming with the clouds of heaven.

He approached the ancient of days which is a term for God. He approached the ancient of days and was led into his presence. He was given authority glory and sovereign power. All peoples nations and men of every language worshiped him.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will never pass away. And his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed. The people of the Jews then could see this though they sometimes forgot about it.

This was basically one of the principles that animated their faith whenever they came to themselves that God was king and his kingdom ruled and his kingdom would outlive all other kingdoms. They couldn't say everything about it.

But there it was somehow loosely in their minds. Now coming to the New Testament when John the Baptist came on the scene this was his first great declaration. The kingdom of God is right at hand. It's a beautiful declaration that I don't know whether it would shock you but you see if I were to put it in John's language it would mean something like this.

The kingdom of God is sitting next to you or standing next to you. Look around. Man is there. How can I see the kingdom in the person of the. We need to get something of a shock of that something of a marvel of that.

The kingdom of God is right by your side. He's come it's come in him who is right it is to reign. Who embodies all the glory and all the power and all the wisdom and all the authority of the divine kingship in himself.

Now John the Baptist said that Jesus took up exactly the same strain when John was put in prison and beheaded. Jesus went out and he began to preach. And he preached exactly the same text as John the Baptist.

The kingdom of heaven is right among you. What did he mean. He meant nothing less than this. The rule of God is revealed to you in my life. And in what I do and in what I say I've come to disclose to you the mighty power and rule and reign of God.

Jesus’ Authority Over Demons and the Present Kingdom

I'm very fascinated. One illustration of this. You remember how Jesus on one occasion was criticized. He had cast out demons and people said oh yes it's all very well for him to do this kind of thing.

But he does it because he's in league with Beelzebul. I think that's the right translation. The prince of demons. Now this is what his enemies said. Yes. We can't deny the fact he's casting out demons all right.

People who are demon possessed are being are being healed. And we see them and we hear them. They're in the right minds. They've been healed all right. They've been liberated all right. But he must be doing it because he's in league with a prince of devils.

And Jesus said this if I drive out demons by the finger of God. Well before he says that I suppose I should start here by saying no. No he says I'm not casting out demons because I'm in league with a prince of darkness.

If that were true he said then the house would be divided against itself. And that kind of thing would never do. But he says. And here I bring it up. If I drive out demons notice the words by the finger of God.

You ever paused over that. Then he says the kingdom of God is come among you. And then he goes on. When a strong man fully armed guards his own house his possessions are safe. But when someone stronger attacks and overpowers him he takes away the armor in which the man trusted and he divides the spoil.

Now the implications of these words are clear. Jesus thinks of himself as the spoiler of Satan. And when he healed demons and liberated men from demonic powers he was doing it in the name of God. More than that he says I do it by the finger of God.

You say what a remarkable image that is. What does it mean. Well at least it means this that God's finger is involved in the business. Now it may well be purely metaphorical an image just as we would use a metaphor God's finger is in it.

But it's very significant. You see that in Matthew's gospel. Or is it Luke never mind one of the two. Jesus the evangelist says by the Holy Spirit instead of referring to the finger of God the references to the Holy Spirit.

Why did Jesus use this picture by the finger of God. I'll tell you he wanted to show that whatever he was doing he was now doing in fellowship with God. God was in it. God may not be exerting the power of his right arm just yet but he's exerting the power of his finger.

The day of his right arm is in the future. The day of battle is yet to come but they will. His enemies will be finally scattered is yet and he will arise as a man of war as we read in the scriptures. But his finger is enough to exorcise demons.

And Satan's territory can be robbed of the master even here and now by the finger of God. So the kingdom of God says Jesus was a very present reality in him but it was also future. Jesus insisted that however present it was there was always this future element to it.

The Kingdom of Grace, Power, and Glory

In a sense of course since it is the kingdom of God it must come to a consummation. God never stops what he doesn't finish. I often do. Don't you. You know it's part of our creatureliness. We take on things and we let them down.

We turn back. We change our minds or we go out of puff. How many many people I don't say this nastily. Do you know how many many people in a congregation like this come at one stage and offer their services to do something in six months of gum.

They're very tired too tired can't go on. This belongs to all of us. It's part of our creatureliness. And when Satan works upon that we pack up and we change and we get weary but not our God. He's the great I am.

He's the self subsistent deity. He's eternally the same. And he doesn't change his mind. And when he's determining something it's as good as if it were done. God never changes the ultimate goal. Now this rule of God in men's hearts has sometimes been referred to as the kingdom of his grace whilst his rule over creation more generally has been called the kingdom of his power.

When his reign reaches its climax and it's appointed gold then it'll become the kingdom of glory. That's how our father spoke. So you have the kingdom of grace if Christ is in your heart today you have the kingdom of power as he exercises his authority in the outside world and over circumstances and over Providence.

He's got everything in his hands. He holds the whole wide world in his hands. That's the sovereignty. That's the kingship of power the rule of power the kingdom of power. But one day we shall see a kingdom of glory when what he has begun in our hearts and in history will become consummated and evident.

And the eternal phenomenon of the eternal future. Now the heart of the plea here is this thy kingdom come where it hasn't been started. That it should be begun where it is already in existence in principle that it should continue and progress where it is progressing.

That the day will soon come when it shall be consummated and Jesus shall reign wherever son does his successive journeys run. His kingdom stretch from shore to shore till moon shall wax. And when no more.

True Prayer Requires Surrender of the Self

Do you know anything of that. Frankly my dear Christian people let me ask you. Do you know anything of a of a yearning that Jesus should reign in every situation. If you don't you can't pray. I'm sorry to shock you.

But you can't pray. You can talk prayers. You can sing prayers you can read about prayers. But you can't pray because the man or the woman who prays according to the teaching of our Lord is somebody who is hurt.

That Jesus kingdom is not yet coming as it ought and is determined by prayer and by life that insofar as he or she has anything to do with it come it will. You see this prayer is a matter of the heart basically not a matter of the lips.

You know. That's why may I explain. We don't say the Lord's Prayer too often. Oh we do so from time to time. Not that there's anything wrong or inferior with the Lord's Prayer. The inferiority is with us.

And we mouth words all too easily. I do anyway. And I don't think we're any different. Are we. We tend to mouth words when really we don't mean them. I have been ministering in churches when the Lord's Prayer has been sung twice every Lord's Day.

And I hear people sing very beautifully thy kingdom come. And I've heard them quarreling in committee meetings the next night. Each wants my will my will my will. And they'll tear the house of God on top of everybody.

Everyone wants his own will. You can't do it like that if you want your little kingdom to come my friend you can't say thy kingdom. I have to come to the end of my concern about my little kingdom. If I'm really going to pray thy kingdom come.

And I can only be concerned about my little kingdom whatever it is insofar as it facilitates the great kingdom of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. That's why you see it's difficult to pray this prayer.

I told you didn't I. It's very difficult. Oh I can say it. I can say it in Welsh. I can say it in a few languages. I'm very proud to say that. But that doesn't mean that I can pray it. No. Let me come to a conclusion like this.

Heart-Pain and Heart-Pleasure in Yielding to God’s Rule

In order to be able to pray this utterance in the prayer this petition in the prayer there needs be first of all in my soul a heart pleasure and a heart pain. Shall I take them in the reverse order. A pain because of everything that is happening in the world which is contrary to the rule and the reign and the glory of my father my king pleasure.

It is my pleasure to give him the kingship to make my very body his throne. And to ask him to rule in relation to my hands. What I do. To ask him to be king in relation to my feet where I go. To ask him to reign in relation to my mind.

What I think to ask him to be sovereign in relation to my years what I listen to to ask him to rule in relation to my mouth what I say yes or sing or repeat. You can go through the whole of it. And if I don't find pleasure in conceding my whole life to him as his throne my friend I just cannot pray this.

Henry Martyn’s Zeal for God’s Glory

You know there are some things in in reading Christian literature that humble you more than others. One of the things that always humbles me. And I suppose I may mention it more than once. I don't remember mentioning it here before.

But there is one thing that humbles me more than most other things. And here it is. It's it comes from the life of the 19th century missionary Henry Martin. Now if you haven't read the biography of Henry Martin I think you ought to.

It's very challenging but it's tremendously soul-stirring. He was a senior wrangler at Cambridge. Oh you must find what wrangler means by the way it's not what it means in some parts of the world. And then he was a fellow of st. John's College when he turned his back upon a what would seem to be in process of becoming a brilliant academic career and he entered the ministry of the Word of God.

Then two years later on July the 16th 1805 he sailed for India. Arriving in Calcutta were a group of friends that met him and he looked them straight in the face as a man who had come over through a difficult voyage and now had set foot on the place where he believed God had brought him.

And he said men he said let me burn out for God in India. Do you ever speak like that. What do you burn for. What are you burning for. What are you burning for men. What are you burning for ladies. What are you burning for.

We are burning out you know every one of us. But what are we burning for. Let me burn out for God in India. He said all right. He was put to stay in an old dilapidated Hindu temple but the only place available.

Worship Belongs to God Alone

And as he watched the people prostrating themselves before their images he wrote. And I'm summarizing this not to keep you. He wrote that the spectacle incited more horror in his soul than he could ever put into words.

Why. Because the worship of the human soul is the property of the Creator and the Redeemer only he could not look. He could not have any pleasure out of seeing men however religious however honest however sincere coming to worship deities that were nonentities when the only one according to this understanding of the Word of God and of the incarnation of Jesus Christ the only one who deserved worship was God revealed in Christ and it tore his soul to shreds he says.

He later moved from there to another place. And this time there were many many Muslims who used to gather around him to engage him in conversation theological and philosophical. Theological biblical if he had his way.

But sometimes they came in from another tack and it became a sort of philosophical discussion. Now I ought to say this Henry Martin was one of the most serene bright hopeful joyous glad men that you can possibly imagine from the picture I have of him because he knew the peace of God and the hope of God.

But we're told that from this particular period in his life there were times when he became one of the most miserable of men. On one occasion the sentiment was expressed in his hearing. Now you listen to this and I quote Prince Abbas Mirza killed so many Christians that Christ from the fourth heaven took hold of Mohammed's skirt in order to entreat him to desist.

Now this is purely fictional. Of course it's pure dramatic fantasy quite fictional. There's no reality to this. But what the Muslims said to him was this that a certain person had killed so many Christians that Jesus Christ went to Mohammed to beg him to hold his forces back here was Christ.

Then according to this fancy kneeling before Mohammed how would Martin react to that said he. I was cut to the soul by the blasphemy. His friends saw his grave discomfiture and they asked what this what had caused him such offense.

Martin replied I could not endure existence. If Jesus was not glorified it would be hell to me if he were to be always thus dishonored. His Muslim visitors were astonished and again they asked him why.

He replied if anyone pluck out your eyes there is no saying why you feel pain. It is just plain feeling. It is because I am one with Christ that I am thus dreadfully wounded when he is dishonored. Such a person such a concern for the Lordship and the glory of God has revealed in Jesus Christ is an inevitable and integral part of the spirit that goes to the making of this prayer.

A Prayerful Longing for Christ’s Kingship

My friend do you know anything of that pain. There can be no petitioning no praying of this petition without that pain. A concern that he is dishonored and his kingship and his rule frustrated. Do you know anything of the pleasure of conceding him his dues of making yourself a doormat if that is what he wants that he should have glory of placing your life at his possession and your home at his possession and anything else at his disposal if only he be glorified.

That's the pleasure and that's the pleasure and the pain that is necessary to make these words a prayer. Thy kingdom. Thy kingdom. Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father we meditate upon these sacred truths and cannot other than come under the shaft of conviction that emerges from them.

We live in a superficial age especially as far as the reading and understanding of your word is concerned so that oftentimes we read we know not what and the word we read has no power over us and no influence upon us.

And at other times we simply memorize things parrot wise. But the power of your word over us is negligible. Forgive us we pray. Forgive us forgive me. But oh Lord we ask that you will teach us to pray.

And in order that we may so learn to pray this petition may we by your great grace be taught how to delight in conceding to you what is your due. And how to sorrow for a world which sins against you and dishonors you from sunset to sundown.

Yes and all day through and night through our God. Take us anew into your care this evening writing your word deeply into our hearts and consciences and into our minds and make our lives transformed that we may pray and live in a manner that is consistent with your kingship who art also the father of all redeemed these things we ask through Jesus Christ your son.

Amen.