The ABC’s of the Christian Life (13): Following Jesus Christ Rightly (7) – A Life of Prayer

Prayer as a Necessary Mark of Following Jesus Rightly

Working through this series, the ABCs of the Christian life, addressing how we might follow Jesus Christ rightly. I'm beginning to run out of themes or ideas. I certainly welcome any suggestions. This matter today has to be, of course, addressed, because how can anyone follow Jesus Christ rightly if they're not praying on a regular basis, faithful basis?

And so in order for us to follow Jesus Christ rightly, we must be ones given to prayer. If we're not praying frequently and faithfully, then we may conclude we're not following Jesus Christ in a right manner.

We're not de-Christianizing anybody here, not saying you're not a Christian, but you can't be a Christian experiencing the blessing of God on your life if this matter of prayer is not characteristic of your life.

And so prayer is a wonderful privilege, but it's also an important responsibility for the believer in Christ. God has invited us to come to him with our concerns and our requests. What a glorious privilege that is, isn't it?

And we may, of course, confidently come before him knowing that he hears us when we pray. We read that in 1 John 5 just a few minutes ago. There's a confidence there. And so we're to be diligent and faithful in prayer.

As the Holy Scripture is constantly affirmed to us, our Lord once told his disciples, men always ought to pray and not lose heart. And one can lose heart in this matter of prayer. That can happen. Consider these verses.

I just cited a few that emphasize this matter of prayer. Romans 12 .12, that we are to be always rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfastly in prayer. Does this characterize your life?

It's a good question to answer. Ephesians 6 .18, Paul described Christians, these Christians, that they should be praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Scripture, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints.

That's going to take some time, isn't it? An effort to be faithful to that injunction. He commanded the Church of Colossae, continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving, and to the Church of Philippi, be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.

Let your request be made known to God, everything. James urged the brethren, confess your trespasses to one another, pray for one another. This praying for yourself is a full-time job, let alone praying for one another faithfully, too.

Peter wrote to his disciples, or to the disciples, but the end of all things is at hand, therefore be serious and watchful in your prayers. And so the mandate is clear, we're to be a praying people. Everybody acknowledges that.

We're to be serious, we're to be deliberate and specific in our prayers, we're to be expectant, confident, and grateful that our Lord hears us and that he will answer us when we lay our petitions before him.

This is a given. Now prayer is just something that's true to true Christians. I think it's one of the things that assured Ananias that Saul was converted on the road to Damascus. You know, he had gone, started it out on that road, breathing out threatenings against the disciples, seeking to bind, imprison, take back to Jerusalem Christians, and then he gets converted.

Ananias was a little reluctant to go to him, and the Lord told Ananias, behold, he's praying. He was praying to the Lord Jesus by the time he got to Damascus when he was breathing out threatenings against the disciples of Jesus when he started out to Damascus.

A great change took place and it affected his prayer life. Jonathan Edwards believed that prayer was so conducive to the Christian life that if one did not pray, it revealed him to be a hypocrite, not a true Christian.

And if you want to read one of the most convicting sermons, if you like that kind of thing, this is one. It was entitled, Hypocrites Deficient in the Duty of Prayer. And he talks about how hypocrites may pray for some time, but they're deficient in the duty.

They leave off praying. And he said this, and this is rather confrontive, convicting, I would exhort those who have entertained in hope of their being true converts, and yet since their supposed conversion have left off the duty of secret prayer, and do ordinarily allow themselves in the omission of it to throw away their hope.

In other words, don't think yourself a Christian. If you have left off calling upon God, it's time for you to leave off hoping and flattering yourselves with an imagination that you're the children of God.

Probably it will be a very difficult thing for you to do this. It is hard for a man to let go in hope of heaven, on which he has once allowed himself to lay hold, in which he has retained for a considerable time.

True conversion is a rare thing, but that men are brought off from a false hope of conversion after they are once settled and established in it, and have continued in it for some time, is much more rare.

In other words, it's hard to to show and convince a hypocrite he doesn't have salvation. That's what he's arguing. Those things in men which, if were known to others, would be sufficient to convince others that they are hypocrites.

In other words, if we looked in somebody else's life and we saw what's really in ours, we might conclude readily he's not a true Christian. Those things which would be sufficient to convince them concerning others, and cause them to cast others entirely out of their charity or love, will not be sufficient to convince them concerning themselves.

They can make larger allowances for themselves than they can for others. Boy, isn't that true. You cut yourself some slack, but not somebody else. They can find out ways to solve objections against their own hope when they can find none in like case for their neighbor.

But if your case be such as is spoken of in the doctrine, and as basically the teaching is, that hypocrites are deficient in the duty of prayer, it is surely time for you to seek a better hope. In other words, you better get concerned about your soul's salvation, and seek Christ, is what he's arguing.

And another work of God's Spirit, and ever you have yet experienced something more more thorough and effectual. When you see and find by experience that the seed which was sown in your hearts, though at first it sprang up and seemed flourishing, yet is withering away as by the heat of the sun, or is choked as with thorns, in reference to the parable of the sower, this shows in what sort of ground the seed was sown, that it is either stony or thorny ground, and that therefore it is necessary you should pass through another change, in other words, truly be converted, whereby your heart may become good ground, which shall bring forth fruit with patience.

And so he emphasized in that message about professing Christians who may discover in reality they're not true Christians, if they are truly deficient in this duty of prayer. And yet thankfully he goes on to acknowledge, I didn't quote that, quote him there, that true Christians fail to pray faithfully and consistently all the time.

And that was a little bit of encouragement that Edwards provided when he said that. And or they leave off importunate prayer, that is prayer that persists until the answer is granted by the Lord. We tend so often because we're less than confident that God hears us or is willing to grant our requests of him.

That's why we often leave off or quit praying. We lose confidence, perhaps. We begin to doubt that God is going to hear us, and so we don't pray as faithfully, consistently, and in an importunate manner as we should.

And so first let's recognize it's a common spiritual problem for the Lord's people to doubt that God hears them and that he will answer their prayers. Pastor, pray for me. God will hear your prayer, but he won't hear mine.

I wonder if that's sometimes the thought of some people. They doubt God hears them. I think doubting God answers prayer on the part of an individual may be discovered in one of four reasons, and there may be more, but I thought of four.

Let's briefly go through these because we've got a long way to go here. First, doubt that God hears us often exists because of our personal failure before God. And every one of us are subject to failure before God, but oftentimes that will be an impediment to our confidence that God will answer our prayer.

Yes, through our own refusal and failure to meet a certain condition or conditions that God has placed in his Word, God may justly refuse to answer our prayer, but all too often this will lead us to doubt that God will hear us.

Consider the psalmist. Come and hear all you who fear God, and I will declare what he's done for my soul. I cried to him with my mouth, and he was extolled with my tongue. If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.

The idea of regarding iniquity is to cherish it with a refusal to repent of it, and God basically, the psalmist says, the Lord will not hear my prayer if I cherish, if I, you know, dwell upon and refuse to deal with a sin.

God declared to Israel that he would not hear their prayers due to their unrelenting and unrepentant sin. Isaiah 1 where the prophet is setting forth the judgment of God upon Jerusalem and Judah for their failures, and all this time they thought they were the righteous, holy people of God, blessed of God, as they were going to the temple daily and offering their sacrifices and praying, and if you drop down to the emboldened italicized font, you see what Isaiah declared or God said through Isaiah.

When you spread out your hands, that's the posture of prayer, I will hide my eyes from you even though you make many prayers, I will not hear. Your hands are full of blood. They were living in an unjust manner, and God would not hear their prayers.

Although they were praying in the temple, they seemed to be fervent, they thought that they were in the favor of God, but in reality they were not. In another place, Isaiah spoke a word to Israel telling them that God would not hear them due to their sin.

Isaiah 59 to your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear. And so oftentimes, you know, Christians will doubt that God will hear and answer their prayer because they haven't been living rightly before the Lord, and it may cause them to fall off in their prayer life because of this failure on their part.

A second reason that we may doubt that God hears us is when we pray for things or for persons that God has determined he will not bless. And the Bible speaks a great deal about this. We shouldn't assume that God is trying to bless everybody, everywhere, at all times.

He's not. Jeremiah was faced with this issue. Jeremiah was concerned about his people in the days of the Babylonian Empire, and Jeremiah knew that God's judgment was coming upon Israel, upon Jerusalem, upon the temple, and he was praying.

He wanted God to spare his people, and God basically told Jeremiah, don't pray for this people. He stopped calling them my people. Covenant language started referring to them to Jeremiah. Stop praying for this people because I have no regard for them.

It was not due to Jeremiah's failure that God wouldn't answer him, but it was due to the fact that God had determined he would not bless Israel, that generation, due to their sin. So in Jeremiah 7 .16, therefore do not pray for this people.

See, they'd broken their covenant with God. Nor lift up a cry or prayer for them, nor make intercession to me, for I will not hear you. God would not hear Jeremiah. And later God said to the prophet again, so do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or pray for them, prayer for them, for I will not hear them in the time that they cry out to me because of their trouble.

You know, when God is determined to bring his judgment upon a people, he may not answer the prayer. You know, and I don't know about you, but sometimes I wonder about praying for some things, whether or not God is determined in his judgment that he's not going to, he's not going to bless, he's not going to answer.

Yet again, God said to Jeremiah, do not for this people for their good. When they fast, I will not hear their cry. When they offer burnt offering and grain offering, I will not accept them, but I will consume them by the sword, by the famine, and by pestilence.

And sometimes that's the case. You just, you just can't, the Lord doesn't give you the faith, as it were, to pray for a person or a situation because you just feel like, you know, the Lord has written judgment across that.

Thankfully, God is a God of mercy, however, and so that should stimulate us to continuing prayer. A third reason we may doubt that God hears us is when we fail to pray in faith. James wrote of God's refusal to answer prayer that comes forth from one who doubts God's ability.

And that's important. You doubt God's ability, not his willingness, but his ability. We should never doubt God's ability regarding anything. He called this world, you know, into existence by his mere word.

Imagine that. Took no effort, because God is infinite in power. In other words, he wasn't strained in any way whatsoever. He spoke, and it was. And we should never doubt God's ability. But James wrote, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally without reproach, and it will be given to him.

But let him ask in faith with no doubting. For he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord. He is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Don't ever doubt God's ability. The problem doesn't lie there. Now again, we need to make a distinction between having faith in God's ability and having faith in what God's will is in, say, any given specific request.

We are never to doubt God's ability, but there are times when we might doubt God's willingness, as we've already mentioned, alluded to. I believe the double-minded man that James writes about was one who errs in this matter.

He doubts God's ability. Think about the record of two blind men being healed by Jesus in Matthew's Gospel. Jesus departed from there. Two blind men followed him, crying out, saying, Son of David, have mercy on us.

When he came into the house, the blind men came to him. Jesus said to them, Do you believe that I am able to do this? Do you believe in His ability? They said to him, Yes, Lord. Then he touched their eyes, saying, According to your faith, let it be to you.

And their eyes were opened. The Lord's ability was questioned there, and he brought that to their attention. We are never to doubt God's ability to answer our prayers. If we do doubt, let us not think that we will receive anything from His hand if we doubt His ability.

But though we may have no doubt in God's ability, we may have legitimate doubts in God's willingness to grant our requests. This is implicit in our prayer requests. That's why we always append our prayers with the expression, If the Lord wills, because we don't know many times, if it's the Lord's will, that He would heal a person, enable a person to recover strength or health.

We just don't know. So we are to ask in confidence of God's ability to grant our requests, but we ask humbly, submitting to His wisdom and purposes, if we don't know for sure that it's His will to grant our petition.

I like the story of the leper who came to Jesus. Behold, a leper came and worshiped him, saying, Lord, if you're willing, you can make me clean. I love that. Notice there's no doubt whatsoever about Jesus' ability.

None whatsoever. You're able to. Are you willing to? And Jesus put forth His hand, touched him, saying, I am willing. He cleansed, and immediately his leprosy was cleansed. This leper did not doubt our Lord's ability to heal him.

However, he did have some question as to whether or not the Lord was willing to do so. Now, you and I should have encouragement and assurances that the Lord is a gracious, merciful God, and He delights in showing mercy, and so we shouldn't necessarily out and out doubt His willingness.

He's a good and gracious God, and oftentimes is willing, maybe even when we doubt it somewhat. But His problem was not a lack of faith. Basically, when we yield to the Lord's will, we're acknowledging God's prerogative of governing His world and His way in our lives in the manner that He sees fit.

But many times we don't know if it's the will of God. Some say, hey, it's always the will of God that He heals sick people. If you don't get healed, it's because you don't have the right, you don't have faith.

That's not biblical. Paul had the power to heal as an apostle, one of the signs of the apostle, but he left Trophimus sick in Miletus. He didn't heal Trophimus, and apparently it was the will of God that Trophimus be left in Miletus sick, and not to continue with Paul at that point, even though Paul had a great ability given to him.

There's a fourth reason, however. Some doubt the willingness of God to hear and answer their prayers. They do not doubt, perhaps because of a possible failure of their own. They do not doubt because they suspect, or pardon me, they do not doubt because of a failure of their own.

They do not doubt because they suspect God has determined He will not hear a prayer respecting a rebellious person or people, nor do they doubt His ability, but they doubt the goodness of God and His general approachableness and willingness to hear them and answer them when they pray.

My grandfather was born in Minnesota in 1887, grew up in a Lutheran Church, and I have a little bit of hope for his soul. He became an oil driller out in Southern California in the desert when he walked out there when he was 16.

Can you imagine that with his friend? But my grandmother told me the story that when he was just a teenager, there was a hellfire and brimstone sermon going on in the Lutheran Church. It was really hot and heavy, and it so distressed my grandfather, he ran out of the church affirming, no, no, God loves me, God loves me.

And he had a sense of the compassion and mercy of the Lord that seemed to govern his thinking. We ought to have a sense that God is a compassionate and merciful God. And so some doubt the goodness of God and His approachableness.

He's a hard taskmaster, and he may not hear my prayer. Well, I believe it's this kind of thought or regard toward God, a hesitancy to believe God's willingness to help His people, that we have the Lord's instruction to us in Luke chapter 11, verses 1 through 13.

And so let's look at this passage. Everything we've said thus far is introductory. We've now arrived to the passage I want to give attention to, Luke 11, 1 through 13. And we're going to have to pick up our speed here, we're not going to get done.

Here we read, Now it came to pass as he, Jesus, was praying in a certain place, when he sees that one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples. So he said to them, When you pray, say, Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us day by day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins. For we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And he said to them, Which of you shall have a friend, and go to him at midnight, and say to him, Friend, lend me three loaves.

For a friend of mine has come to me on his journey, and I have nothing to say before him. And he will answer from within, and say, Do not trouble me. The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed.

I cannot rise and give to you. I say to you, though he will not rise and give to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence he will rise and give him as many as he needs. So I say to you, ask, and it will be given you.

Seek, you will find. Knock, it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks, it will be opened. If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone?

Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

These words of our Lord are set forth in the context of our Lord's final journey from Galilee to Jerusalem, and it's recorded in Luke's Gospel beginning with Luke 9 .51, the travel narrative from Luke 9 .51 to Luke 19, when he finally arrived to Jerusalem.

As the Lord departed from Galilee, a shift of emphasis takes place in Luke's Gospel, whereas before he left, he was preaching largely to the crowds. During this travel narrative, he still preaches to crowds, but really the emphasis is on instruction to his disciples.

It becomes more personal, personable, the Lord's instruction to his disciples, and here he's teaching them regarding prayer. It's initiated by this entreaty for instruction. Verse 1, one of Jesus' disciples, teach us to pray.

This reveals he knew the importance of prayer, but it also revealed somewhat of his ignorance regarding prayer. That is in contrast to what John the Baptist and his disciples knew. He felt they really knew how to pray, and he wanted to be instructed similarly.

So we see the importance of prayer. Why is prayer important? Several reasons can be cited, and we're going to go through this quickly. Well, first, good things do not happen unless prayer is offered. Prayer is the appointed means that God uses.

We as Reformed persons can fall back on God's sovereignty all day long, but if you pray not, you're not going to receive. God has appointed the means by which we receive things from him, the means of prayer.

Good things do not happen unless proper prayer is offered, and what we mean by proper prayer, two things. Prayer must be offered with right motives. You know, if you're asking God simply to please yourself, obtain things for selfish reasons, God will not answer you.

And prayer is answered by God when proper things are requested, proper motives and proper requests, proper things are requested. And so James wrote, you do not have because you ask not, when you ask you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives that you may spend it on your own pleasures.

Thankfully, God does not give us everything that we ask. We'd be in a world of hurt, wouldn't we, if God gave us everything we asked. He only obligates himself to give us good things, and that's what Jesus said in the parable, didn't he?

He says, a father who gives things for our temporal and eternal good, and so proper prayer must be offered. And then good things do not happen unless persistent proper prayer is offered. There's an emphasis the Lord Jesus gives about this matter of importunate prayer, persistent prayer that doesn't give up, and we'll probably get to it, but he really sets forth a contrast.

If this friend refuses to come out and grant you what you need, how much different than that friend is God? So it's a point of contrast where the lesson is. The Lord Jesus is expressing just how readily and willing and desirous it is for God to answer the prayers of his people.

But again, not only is this question of this disciple revealing his understanding of the importance of prayer, but also it reveals his ignorance with respect to prayer. And many people would acknowledge their weakness in praying often, but not many acknowledge their ignorance about praying.

But we should ask ourselves, are the things which are set forth here by the Lord Jesus as essential for proper prayer characteristic of our praying? Do our prayers follow the pattern of Scripture, or do we just have a wish list?

You know, you'd be sitting down and writing a letter to Santa Claus. You know, is that the kind of prayer list that we have? I hope not. But what does the Scripture say? You know, we should ask ourselves, do our prayers reflect the patterns laid out for us in Scripture?

Do we pray for one another, requesting for one another the kinds of things the New Testament says are proper things to request from our God? And here are some examples. All right, praying for spiritual knowledge.

Do we pray for that? Prayer for discernment. Give me wisdom, our Lord, that I can see the world as you see it. Make wise assessments and decisions. Pray for spiritual growth. Do you assume that's just going to happen?

It takes place through praying for spiritual growth. Paul says, since I heard of your faith in Christ and your love for all the saints, I cease not to pray for you. And you read in Colossians 1, he was praying for their spiritual growth.

Do you pray for your spiritual growth, for others' spiritual growth? Pray for spiritual power and boldness in your witness. Prayer that we might know the unique and discriminating love that God has for those in Christ.

Paul was praying that the church at Ephesus would see it. God has a love for you. He says it's in Christ. He says it passes all ability to conceive. It passes understanding. And you need the Holy Spirit to inform you, to make this relevant to you, to understand the height, the depth, the breadth of the love of God that God has for you in Christ.

Do we pray to that end? These are the kinds of things that Scripture sets forth. It should be the topics of our prayer. And so I fear that we too are generally quite ignorant of what we pray for, that is, what's most needful for one another and ourselves.

But we should be informed about this. And so we should be, as this disciple, Lord teach us to pray. In the same way that John the Baptist taught his disciples how to pray. One more thing, notice carefully the disciple says, requested of Jesus, Lord teach us to pray as John also taught his disciples.

I might be pressing it a little with more detail than I should, I don't know. John the Baptist was a good man, he was a good prayer, and he was a good teacher. Really he didn't request, Lord teach us to be disciples like John the Baptist taught his disciples, but teach us to be like John the Baptist who taught others how to pray.

You see that? It's very subtle. And so may the Lord help us to be as John the Baptist, teaching others to pray. That should be our desire. Let us go beyond merely asking the Lord to teach us to pray, but let us ask God that he would make us as John, teachers of prayer to others.

We would greatly further the kingdom if we could do that, right? And then we have the example of the model prayer from which probably most of us are familiar. It's a pattern prayer that the Lord set before us.

Categories are set before us, and there's an order of priority as well as importance. And so our Lord Jesus first said to his disciples, when you pray, say, our Father in heaven. Normally we pray to the Father through the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's how we gain access to the Father, and through the power and illumination of the Holy Spirit.

But it's not wrong to pray to the Lord Jesus on occasion. Lord Jesus received my spirit, wasn't that Stephen's words when he was being stoned? And even praying for the Holy Spirit, but most frequently and commonly, the normal pattern, we pray to the Father through the Son and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Pray our Father who art in heaven. And so the Lord Jesus taught and encouraged disciples to view God as their Father, who is approachable, willing, even eager to hear from his children and grant their requests.

Now note that when we are to pray, we are to pray our Father. He did not say, when you pray, say, my Father. Although an individual believer praying that way would be perfectly appropriate, but that's not the focus of our Lord.

When you're praying as disciples, pray our Father. There's a collective sense here, our Father. Perhaps a stress here is not on individual prayer, but rather prayer offered in the assembly of the people of God.

The privilege to regard and pray to God as Father, however, belongs to true believers in Jesus Christ. Everybody knows the Lord's Prayer. I imagine, you know, in this New England, here in this setting, you know, if I were to, you know, say at a funeral service that is filled with people who are not devout Christians, I said, let's say the Lord's Prayer.

Most would be able to say it out loud, and they would pray our Father who art in heaven. But actually that's a petition that only the true Christian can legitimately make, because God is only Father to people who know Jesus Christ.

God becomes our Father through faith in Jesus Christ. We're adopted as children. Before we believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, God is not our Father. God's our Creator. God is our Judge. God is our King, our Governor, but he's not our Father.

But when you become a Christian, that relationship with God changes, and God becomes a Father to you, and you his child. That's very important. And Jesus was teaching them to pray, his disciples to pray to their Heavenly Father as one who is approachable, who cares for them, who's only going to give them that which they need, and that which is helpful and beneficial for them.

And so if you're a devout believer in Jesus Christ, you may join with all your brothers and sisters in Christ in the wonderful privilege of addressing God, our Father in heaven, and you may be assured that God cares for you as a father cares for his children.

Secondarily, hallowed be thy name. This is the first request, actually, and of course it's a request that God be glorified, that he be honored. That should be our primary concern in life, in the life of our church, that God would be glorified in all things.

And what do we mean by that? By bringing people to understand more clearly who he is, and to bring them to appreciate more fully who he is, to glorify him, to praise him, and to be awed by him, grateful to him, thankful to him, overwhelmed as to who he is.

And that should be the desire for our own souls, but that should be our desire for one another as well. We pray that God would be glorified, that we would see him more fully. He's an infinite God. We're going to spend eternity growing in our understanding of him, I believe, but may the Lord help us to desire and to see his name hallowed, glorified.

And then your kingdom come is the next petition. And one has to understand, of course, that the kingdom of God is presented in different ways in the Scripture. There's a sense in which God has always been king, always will be king, because he's a creator in his sovereignty.

But after the fall of man, no one was willingly subject to God as king, and so God through history basically is interjecting a mediatorial kingdom, a kingdom intermediating between him and fallen man and bringing his creation back into willing submission to him.

And when Jesus returns, he will have accomplished that. All of his people who are saved are willingly calling upon him, Lord, and even his enemies will bow the knee and confess with the tongue, Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of the Father.

Even they will be willingly submissive to God as they're sent off into eternal damnation. And so there's a sense in which the kingdom always has been. There's a sense in which the kingdom has been coming.

There's a sense in which the kingdom came when Jesus was here ministering on earth. There's a sense in which the kingdom of God was inaugurated with the enthronement of Jesus upon his ascension. And certainly there is a sense in which the kingdom is yet to come when Jesus returns and his mediatorial kingdom will be fully manifested and all the world will see it.

You and I as Christians see the kingdom of God with our eyes of faith. Jesus is Lord. When he comes again the second time, every eye will see him physically and everyone will acknowledge it. But we see him now as king and as our Lord.

And so we're to desire his kingdom to come become realized in our lives as we yield more to him. And we also pray that his kingdom come, that the Lord Jesus would return and bring an end to this fallen world and bring in everlasting righteousness.

And so we are to pray that the will of God be done. Your kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. When we talk about the will of God being done, we have to distinguish between the kinds of will of God that are set forth in Scripture.

There is a will of God's decree. He decreed everything that takes place in history even before creation. Every minutiae of history. As Charles Spurgeon said it so wonderfully, you know, I believe that the unsettling of the dust on the leaf of a rose by the feet of an aphid is as much ordained of heaven than the marching of armies to vanquish the earth.

From the smallest to the greatest is decreed by God. And so God's will of decree, every last detail is realized. It cannot be frustrated. But apart from God's will of decree, there is God's will of command.

Sometimes it's called God's preceptive will. And this is his will of command. And that's very rarely followed, isn't it? Except by his people. And when we pray for God's will to be done on earth, we're talking about, we pray that the man here on earth, fallen man and Christians, conform their thinking and their lives to the commands of God, the will of God, the decree of God.