The Lord's Prayer Part 1

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Debate: Christianity or Atheism? Part 2

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Be Thou my vision, O Lord, of my heart.

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Naught be all else to me, save that Thou...

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If you guys would open your Bibles to Matthew, please. Matthew chapter 6, and Brad, go ahead and have that up, please.

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If you guys would join me in prayer. Father, I want to come before you as your people. God, we come to you in confession,

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Lord, all the ways that we belittle your glory. And we proclaim our absolute dependence upon you,

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Lord Jesus, your righteousness as a garment around us, that all of our sin and condemnation was met in you, and that we have the gift of life and forgiveness and peace with you because of your work,

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God. And I humble ourselves before you, God, as your people, praising you for your holiness, your love, your goodness, your mercy that endures forever, your love that endures forever.

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And we're thankful for all things, God. And I come to you, Lord, as a shepherd over these people, God, confessing my absolute dependence upon you and your spirit to teach here,

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God. I pray, Lord, that you would do something significant and massive, Lord, that's earth -shattering in these people, that you,

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God, would shape the world through this little huddle of people and our proclamation of the good news and our proclamation of Christ as Lord over all, that you,

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Lord, would bring a transformation of the entire earth for your glory, for the increase of your fame, that all peoples, tribes, tongues, and nations would come and serve the

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King of Kings. In Jesus' name, amen. So look up here. If you look on the screens up here, that's familiar, right?

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People call this what? The Lord's Prayer. The Lord's Prayer, famous prayer.

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And it's interesting to me. It was an eye -opening moment for me about four years ago.

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It was the first time I was in sort of a secular context where I heard this prayer recited.

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And it was interesting to me because I was in a room full of people that weren't committed to Christ necessarily.

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I'm sure they were in there scattered throughout this group, this huddle. But I was in a context of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

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And in this meeting, I saw probably about 30 people in a circle holding hands, many of them atheists, agnostics, some believers.

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But the context was mixed. It was a mixed context. And it was interesting to me because of what

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I know from the Scriptures and this particular text, to hear somebody who doesn't know

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God, who hasn't come to Christ to experience life and peace with God, hasn't experienced reconciliation with God, that doesn't understand the nature of the details of this prayer, to hear somebody that doesn't know

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Him reciting this prayer. Not so much because it's Jesus' prayer, but it's because of the content of the prayer.

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And I think oftentimes when we have heard messages as Christians on the Lord's Prayer...

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Tell me if you guys understand this or if you've experienced this. We've heard messages before on the Lord's Prayer.

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I think pastors have rightly attacked at times the nature of the case that Jesus was talking to.

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What is He talking about in Matthew 6? Well, it's interesting, in Matthew 6 verse 5, He talks about not praying like the hypocrites.

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And the word there, hypocrite, in the Greek is hypokrite. And the word hypokrite in the

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Greek is a word that was in reference to the world of the

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Greek actors, the plays. And so if you were to go into a context where you were in this auditorium or the stadium and you were sitting there, the world of the plays, where you would watch the actor up there in front.

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But the interesting thing then, that's different than now, is the actors then on stage would actually put on masks.

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And they wore a mask to display their character. But it was really obvious, wasn't it?

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I mean, if you're watching a play like that, it's obvious that the person who is being portrayed on the stage is not the real person that is there on the stage.

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In other words, you can tell so easily that this is just pretend. And so there probably had to be a lot going into really buying into the play and getting into the catharsis of the moment because of the fact that it was so obvious this is a pretender, it's an actor.

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So the word hypokrite is essentially an actor. In Jesus in Matthew 6, pastors have rightly attacked the idea that Jesus is repudiating the type of prayer that seeks the praise of men.

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He says, don't be like the hypocrites, the Pharisees, right? Because why? They love to stand and pray in the synagogues and the street corners that they may be seen by others.

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Truly I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your

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Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And pastors,

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I believe with all my heart, and I've even preached on this, rightly attack the idea that prayer should be something you're seeking praise for.

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In other words, and I'll give you an example of this. We think of the Pharisee who's in the street corner in the first century who was praying and all the garb and everything else.

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He's got his little scrolls rolled up into his robe, all the books that he's memorized. He looked religious. He was perceived as very religious.

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As a matter of fact, as Christians today in our culture, in our little ghetto, in our little bubble, when you hear the word Pharisee as a

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Christian, what do you think of? Bad guys, right? Right? The Pharisees are the bad guys.

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But in the first century, being a Pharisee was considered a compliment because they were the most rigorous -looking dudes that you can imagine.

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They prayed on street corners. They gave and everyone knew they were giving because people made noise and cheered when the Pharisees were giving.

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You knew when they were fasting, they looked religious. They were memorizing whole books of the Bible. Let me ask you this question.

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How many of you guys have five verses of the Bible memorized? Raise your hands. Five verses. Five verses. Don't be ashamed.

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Don't be ashamed. Okay. Don't be ashamed. Five verses. Ten verses memorized. Ten. Good. Congratulations.

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All right. Good. Good. A whole chapter. One full chapter. Word for word. All right. Good. Yeah.

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What's up? Look at over there. Isaac. Ben. Yeah, Ben. Look at that. How about this? Ready? Two chapters. Full chapters.

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Yeah. Right on. How about an entire book of the Bible memorized? One entire book memorized word for word.

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What's up, Andreas? Look at you. So, listen.

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The Pharisees did. They would memorize books of the Bible, and they would tie those scrolls into their robes so that people knew they had memorized that book.

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They received the praise of men. And so Jesus is dissing the religiosity of the person who prays to get praise for men.

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Prays to get praise. Good. That worked well. Okay. Prays to get praise for men. Jesus says, they got their reward.

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And I think that pastors have rightly attacked the idea that prayer cannot be for the reward of others, for the person from others' praise.

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So think about this just for a second. When I first preached on this message, I got slam dunked by a commentator that I was reading.

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I'm preaching through the Sermon on the Mount at LifeQuest Church, verse by verse, and you always try to apply things to yourself.

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But the thing is, is you always see the Pharisee as the bad guy. He's always the bad guy. So you're like, I don't know what the bad guy does.

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I'm not in that lot over there. Pharisees are bad guys. Boo! Hiss! Like, you know, you always make the face.

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When you read the Pharisees in the New Testament, that's not me, right? Interestingly, though, as I'm reading that,

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I read a commentator who said, people will often read this as, you know, the Pharisees are praying on street corners so they get praise for men.

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And I'm like, right. So I'm going to attack that. Don't pray like that. But then he asks a question that nailed me between the eyes.

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He says, are your prayers better, more erudite, more beautiful, longer, when you pray in a prayer huddle with other

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Christians? How come your prayer life is so much better when you're praying with other

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Christians? Do you sound the same to God when you're praying with other

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Christians as you do when you pray by yourself in your closets? Did that hit you like it hit me?

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As if God doesn't notice that. My prayer is so great and so grand and so long and so beautiful and so worshipful when

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I'm praying with another believer. But when I'm praying at home in my closet or at bed before I go to sleep, when

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I'm with other believers, it's, Lord, you're mighty of all the earth. Holy, holy are you, Lord. And then you're at home, and it's, thank you,

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Jesus, for the day. Amen. Right? I mean, I was at a

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Starbucks once, Christian crack house, and I was getting a cup of coffee, and there was this little prayer huddle going on outside, and there's this dude there.

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And at first, I was like, that's pretty cool. These Christians out there praying, and they were praying together. And this guy, he stands up, and he puts his hand on the guy at the table.

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It was like a bunch of guys sitting there, and he's like loud. He's like, Father, I want to thank you, Jesus, for this day and these men right here, and give us,

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Lord, raise us up as mighty men of God. And it was loud. At first, it's like, that's kind of cool. And after like five minutes, it's like, oh, that's really annoying.

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Right? And he asked the question, like, I don't know, is that what Jesus is getting at, so that you get the praise of men?

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And I want to say that as I introduce the Lord's Prayer, and this may take us one or two sermons, I'm not going to do in full detail, but at least a blitz on, yeah, that's definitely something we have to attack.

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And as Christians and pastors, we have to unpack those things. We have to say, this is what Jesus is getting at.

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Don't be a pretender. Don't be focused on religiosity. You should hate religion.

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Man -made religion. There's a proper context to religion. Yes, Christianity is a religion. And yes, you are a religious person.

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But there's a context. It's not the kind of religion that you see expressed in the world. Jesus hated man -made religion.

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Jesus hated pretending. He hated prayers that were so that someone else would praise you. He hated the idea that you would give so others would clap their hands for you.

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Listen, if you hate hypocrisy in the church, you have a friend in Jesus, amen? Jesus always went for the heart.

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God's not interested in your pretend life of religiosity. And listen, you may say as a Christian, oh,

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I've learned that lesson, and so I'm good. Now, that's something you need to fall down and die to every single day. The idea of religiosity, the idea of just putting on a mask, being a pretender.

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And when you catch yourself doing it, you put that to death. So it's a constant reminder as a believer, Jesus is teaching us, let this relationship be real with God.

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Don't accept the praise of others. Seek His praise, His applause. Jesus says, don't do it on the street corner.

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You go in a closet and you pray in private. That doesn't mean you're always praying in your closet. Be kind of a weirdo if you did, but the idea is that you're doing it in private because it's between you and God.

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All good stuff. And then, how often have you also heard pastors when they're teaching on the Lord's Prayer, they'll also go right for the heart of this.

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They'll say, and when you pray, verse 7, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do.

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For they think that they'll be heard for their many words. Do not be like them. For your

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Father knows what you need before you ask Him. And so, right, have you ever heard a pastor preach on this? Or somebody talk about this and they'll say, hey, those unbelievers, they have those repetition prayers and they think they're going to be heard because they repeat the same prayer over and over and over.

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And pastors will often make the, they'll bring into the picture that as Christians, we want to repudiate the idea of these magic prayers repeating over and over and over and over and over just so we think

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God hears us because we're saying a lot of words. And then pastors will often draw out the rightful conclusion that Christians have neglected to discover that we will use the

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Lord's prayer in that way. People will pray the Lord's prayer in exactly the ways Jesus says don't do it, right?

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He says, don't be like the Gentiles. First century context, what do you got? Jews and Gentiles, right?

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Jews, Gentiles. So Jesus is saying, don't be like the unbelievers, the ones who are outside of God's chosen people.

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Don't be like the ones who don't know Him. They don't know God as their father. He says, don't pray like them. They think they're going to be heard because they prayed the same words over and over and over.

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And they did believe. If you were pagan in the first century, and pagans today, will believe that if you keep repeating the same prayer that you get more of a hearing with your

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God because you're talking a lot. Jesus says, don't pray like them. Your father knows what you need before you even ask him.

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And what kind of a prayer life is that anyways? Honestly, think about it for a moment. What a weird situation that would be.

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Imagine a marriage relationship, right? A marriage relationship. Under the same roof, you're married, and you get up every day, and say, 90 % of your conversation with your spouse is scripted, right?

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You get up in the morning, you look over, and you just recite a page of a book, right? And it's lunchtime, and you get together, and you're eating dinner together, and all of a sudden, you just start reciting a script, right?

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At the nighttime, that marriage is going nowhere fast, right? No intimacy. You're not really engaging in a relationship.

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There's no intimacy there. So that repeated prayer thing is Jesus is repudiating. Don't do that.

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You've got to come to God as Father. Now, I don't believe that this means Christians can't have prayers of the saints that they look at, and they say, that was an awesome prayer, and that resonates with me.

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So very good. But we should definitely repudiate the idea of praying the rosary. That's a repeated prayer.

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That's just for the hearing of some God, definitely not God, to marry. So yes, as a Christian, I want to say, you should definitely repudiate that kind of prayer.

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But pastors will attack that rightly. But I think we're missing so much of the

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Lord's Prayer if we're only seeing those lessons. Those are good lessons. Those are necessary lessons.

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And I want to say amen, amen, amen to all of them. But I think we missed it.

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And when I bring up the issue, when I was in this Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, and I'm watching these 30 -some -odd people huddled together, mostly unbelievers, praying the

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Lord's Prayer, my jaw dropped. I thought to myself, they don't have any idea what they're asking for.

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And so what I'd like you to do to emphasize this prayer, because I want you to think through it, is if you would stand up with me as we pray this prayer.

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This is the ESV, so if you memorize it in the King James Version, don't stutter, okay?

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I put it up here so we can read it together. So we're going to go through this prayer together. And by the way, hold on.

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I got to say something. It's interesting to me that you're supposed to be full of joy and praise, right, to God.

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And has it ever been in a church context where you go to a church that has a lot of liturgy, and you do your prayers, the prayers, and it's like everyone's praising

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God, and all of a sudden they get to the reading of God's Word, and they go, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy...

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You know what I'm saying? And all of a sudden it goes from joy to like straight, stiff -lippedness, right? I'm going to say this is the

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Word of God, and it's prayer. So we're going to say it together, and we're going to say it as we're speaking to our Father together.

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So if you would join me now in the Lord's Prayer. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

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Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.

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And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. If you guys would have a seat now.

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We're going to try to focus in on just the first few verses, and it's amazing to me that often we've memorized this, and you can say it, but did you think about what you said?

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What do you mean, Jeff? Yeah, you know, He's my Father in heaven, His name should be holy, His kingdom come, will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Want my bread?

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Forgive others, He forgives me. I don't want temptation. Deliver... Yeah, I got that, Jeff, right?

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There's a context always. Who said this? Jesus, the

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Messiah, Yeshua, Mashiach. There's a whole context in Matthew before He even says this.

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He says this in the context of the Sermon on the Mount. And there's all these little words in here like Father.

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Scandalous, first century, calling God Father. They were afraid to say His name if they were recording something as the scribe was copying scripture, they would get to the

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Lord's name, they would stop, wash their hands all the way to their elbows, change the pen, restart.

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Every time they got to God's name in the scriptures, stop, wash from hand to elbow, change a pen, do it again.

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You better have some lotion on hand because you're going to get chapped quick. But that's what they would do.

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And so here all of a sudden, Mashiach comes in, the Messiah comes in, and He's all about calling God Father and not just His Father, our

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Father. And that's scandalous for Jesus to be talking like that. It's countercultural.

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But we think about Hallowed be your name. Do we know what that means? All these words, hallowed.

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What's that mean? Holy, right? But more specifically, it means holied. Kind of a weird way to say that.

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Have you ever heard that before? God is what? Holy. But have you ever thought about using that word of God being holy and separate and other?

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God as holy? All of a sudden now, Jesus is using it in a different way. He says,

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God's name be holied throughout the earth. And then

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He says, your kingdom come. What's that? Again, 21st century Gentile American Christian church hasn't a clue a lot of times as to what that kingdom was all about, what it meant.

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It was so meaningful to the 1st century. A Jew in the 1st century, that was what their hope was wrapped up in, the kingdom.

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And Jesus was talking about it a lot. What's that mean? And this whole idea of God's will being done, do you think about what you asked for?

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Let's look at the last part of that. Watch this. Jesus wants us to pray to the Father, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Take a pause for a second. Do you have that vision? Have I had that vision as a

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Christian? Have you had that vision that what we're asking God for is that His kingdom would come,

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His name be holied throughout the earth and that to what extent is God's will gonna be done on earth in history?

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Jesus says, you pray for this. This is the extent of the Father's will done on earth as it is in heaven.

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So my question to you is this. How rigorous do you think those in heaven ahead of us right now and the angels that are there before the throne of God in His very presence, how rigorous do you think they are in keeping

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God's will in heaven? Pretty intense? When God says something do you think about it and he goes, eh, maybe.

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Do you think there's any question in heaven about God's will being done at all? So what does Jesus ask us to pray for in the

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Lord's Prayer? Have you ever considered what you're asking for? Jesus wants us to pray to the Father that His name would be holied throughout the earth, holied throughout the earth, that His kingdom would come, that His will would be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Have you ever considered that that's what you're asking for when you pray that prayer? So I wanna do a quick thing on background because what we're doing this year is we're gonna do some more in Romans but limited because we're gonna do a series.

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First time we're stepping off series in Romans verse by verse to do an actual course, a series at Apologia Church called

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Eschaton. Cool name, right? Yeah. It's a Greek word. It has to do with the study of last things.

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And it's not so much that we wanna be popular. As a matter of fact, what we'd say might be kind of unpopular in a culture that has a fetish about the end of the world.

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But we have an optimistic view of the future. And we believe that's scripturally based. And so we wanna take a course to set ourselves as a church in motion for what we believe

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God's call is for us to proclaim the gospel to the nations and that the fulfillment of that prayer is something we're gonna see in our lives before we go to home to be with the king.

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That that's what God calls us to be, salt and light, and that His will will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

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And that's why I thought it was strange. I thought it was so strange to watch a group of people who don't know

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God haven't necessarily turned to Christ asking that God's will will be done on earth as it is in heaven and that His kingdom would come.

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That's awesome. So I wanna give you the background, okay? I need you to go back in time with me for a second.

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Because when you read the Bible, we can't do things like nitpick certain verses out as proof text for a position.

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Obviously, we're gonna pull verses out at times to really give an example of, well, this is what the Bible says. So you're gonna have to do some of that.

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But you have to always have a context behind it. When you read the Bible, you cannot just open it and pull a verse out.

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That's dangerous. It's dangerous because there's a context to stuff. For example,

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I can open the Bible and I can pull out a verse that says, Judas wouldn't hang himself. And then I can close it, open it again.

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I find another verse that says, go now and do likewise. Not a very good hermeneutical principle, right?

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Don't do that. Not good. Or people will say, and forgive me if you've done this.

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This is not to hurt your feelings. People say, I wanna know what God has to say to me today. And whoop, you open it up. Careful.

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Careful. Because you might read in Ezekiel a passage about God calling Israel a harlot. Careful. And so when you read the

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Bible, particularly passages like this in Matthew, Matthew has a scope. He has a theme.

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He has a course he's trying to take you on. And there's no question about the fact that Matthew is very, very

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Hebrew, very Jewish in nature. Matthew wants to show us that Yeshua is the

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Mashiach, that Jesus is, in fact, the promised Messiah. And all these themes of kingdom, they keep coming up, and timing, and Jesus is, in fact, the

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Messiah. They keep coming up. They keep coming up, but we don't understand the significance of it if we don't understand our

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Bibles, and specifically understand a few things that are necessary. Let me give you a phrase. And I wanna ask you, don't say it out loud,

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I just wanna ask you if you have any idea what it means. Like I said, you don't have to say it out loud, just think through this with me.

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We hear the term gospel, and everyone in this church hopefully knows what that means. God's good news of reconciliation with him through what he provides in the

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Messiah. His perfect life, his death, his resurrection, so that I can know

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God and have peace with God. We know what that means, the gospel. We talk about it all the time, the gospel.

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The word gospel comes from the Greek word that talks about the good news. That's what we call it, good news, gospel.

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And you say, Christians will always have this gospel, gospel, gospel, and people go, what does that mean?

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They get jaded to it. And so we know what that means, gospel, God's gospel. But let me just ask you if you understand this.

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What does it mean? The gospel of the kingdom. You don't hear it put like that often, do you?

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We hear about the gospel, the gospel of what? Peace with God. The gospel of what? Reconciliation with God.

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The gospel as in Romans 1, Paul says God's gospel, God's good news. But let me say it to you again.

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The gospel of the kingdom, that's an odd phrase, isn't it?

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It's an odd phrase for us in our culture. The gospel of the kingdom, that's what they understood it as.

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That's what they understood that was coming. That's what they understood they expected the Messiah to bring, not just peace with God, not just reconciliation with Him, but a transformation of the whole world and that this

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Messiah would rule and He would reign. Let me just say this to you. If Yeshua, if Jesus did not come into the world talking about the kingdom of God and His ruling and reigning, then

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He's not the Messiah because the Messiah had to be king of the world, had to rule and reign and bring a kingdom that would fill the earth.

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As a matter of fact, I want to say this to you. We talked about this on Thursday at Redeemed Rebels and Renew.

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One of the strongest arguments for modern day Jews against Jesus as Messiah will not be found in the

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Torah and the Tanakh in the way of specific references to Messiah. What I mean by that is this.

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All the details, guys, every single detail necessary to know Jesus as Messiah is laid out clearly and vividly in the

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Old Testament. I'm talking about who He is, where He's coming to, when He is coming, why

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He is coming, what He's going to accomplish in His life and death and resurrection. Every single detail is necessary to know

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Jesus is in your Old Testament hundreds of years before Jesus comes. It is absolutely mind -blowing.

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Every detail long before He comes. You don't even need your New Testament to show you every detail to know

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Christ as Lord and Savior down to the detail of His death. His hands and feet would be pierced.

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That He'd be crushed for our iniquities. That He was going to come in the time of the fourth kingdom which was Rome. That all the details are there in the

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Old Testament. But let me just tell you the strongest argument that Jews have against Yeshua as Mashiach, Jesus as the

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Messiah, is they say this. No, He can't be the Messiah. And you say, because what verses?

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Because of these verses they don't count? No, no, He can't be the Messiah because the Messiah had to bring a kingdom that was going to have victory over the world and was going to transform the whole world.

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Where is that kingdom? That's the question they ask. They say, in the

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Torah, in the Tanakh, in the Law, the Prophets, and everything that's there you know the Messiah when

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He comes He was going to reign as King and His victory would fill the entire world.

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And Christians often don't have a response to that. They'll say something that's a terrible argument. Something like this.

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Well, He's going to do that when He comes again. And a Jew who knows their

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Bible knows something very significant and that's that no, the Old Testament refers to the

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Messiah and His coming for redemption as bringing that kingdom. They're right.

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The problem is is the modern evangelical Christian church in America over the last 200 years has lost sight of the

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Gospel of the Kingdom. It's a modern problem for us in particular.

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It wasn't a problem for Christians 300 years ago. They had that vision. And our cultural demise

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I believe is because Christians have failed in our task and call to bring the

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Gospel of the Kingdom and to be salt and light to the world. We've missed that.

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Let me say it to you again. The Gospel of the Kingdom. You might be saying Jeff, where are you getting that from? Where is that at? Well, just turn your page over to the left a little bit.

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You're in Matthew 6, right? Just move it over to Matthew 5. I want you to read something. I'm going to show you where I got the phrase.

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Okay? And it leads into this Lord's Prayer. So I need you to keep this in mind as we go through all these texts.

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I need you to remember specifically the first few verses here up to on earth as it is in heaven as we move into this.

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Okay? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to sort of build up the background. I need you to follow with me into the background of the mindset of the believers that were there.

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What is Jesus about? What were they anticipating? What was he talking about? I need you to go to Matthew chapter,

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I'm sorry, 4. My fault, guys. Matthew 4. And I want you to see verse 23 so you see where I'm getting the phrase from?

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Matthew 4, 23. That's where the phrase comes from.

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At least in that instance. Think about this for a second. Jesus comes into his ministry after the temptation in the wilderness.

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Think about for a second what's happening there. Israel in the Old Testament failed in the wilderness testing.

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40 years they wandered in the desert, in the wilderness because of their own sin and complacency against God. Israel, which is supposed to be

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God's light to the nations, couldn't get it right. And they failed. They don't trust in God. They don't learn the lessons that God wanted them to learn.

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And so that generation didn't even go into the promised land. So Israel as, in a sense, God's people,

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God's son failed that test. And now you have Mashiach, the Messiah, the perfect man.

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What Israel was intended to be now goes into the wilderness now for 40 days. Right? And he does battle with Satan.

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And he succeeds in the temptation. Where Satan says something, Jesus quotes scripture.

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Where Satan says, you're hungry, turn these stones into bread. Jesus says, man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.

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That is what God says he was trying to teach Israel. They're moaning and complaining like, oh, I want leeks and fish and garlic like we had in Egypt.

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And God says, I wanted you to depend upon me and my word, not live by bread alone. And Jesus, the perfect Israelite, does that.

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And Satan brings them up, says, I'll give you all the kingdoms of the world. Ding, ding, ding. What did

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Messiah come to do to bring all people's tribes, tongues, and nations to himself?

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And what's Satan saying? I'll give them all to you right now. You bow down and you worship me. And Jesus says, you shall worship the

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Lord your God and him only shall you serve. You see the theme coming out now? What is

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Satan offering to the Messiah? All the kingdoms, which is what he came to get. And Jesus says, you shall worship the

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Lord your God and him only shall you serve. And as soon as Jesus comes out of the temptation, as soon as he comes out,

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I want you to see what happens. This is in Matthew chapter 4, verse 12.

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This is right after Jesus comes out of the temptation. And I want you to see something very significant. It says this, now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee.

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This is Jesus. John the Baptist is arrested now. We talked about the Christmas messages, right? Elizabeth and Mary, those babies are brewing in their bellies and then they come out for their mission that God sent them on.

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John the Baptist is the forerunner and Mashiach the Messiah coming afterwards and now they're big, now they're grown up.

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Now they're men. John the Baptist, man, man, man, man.

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If you saw him you'd be like, man, right? Eating locusts and the guy, just put it this way, if there were men preaching like John the

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Baptist today, we'd be in a very good place. When I think about John the

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Baptist, like a modern day John the Baptist, I think about Pastor Luke. I do. Big man, big beard.

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Pastor Luke, we need to put some leather sandals on you. We need a jar of locusts under your arm and camel stuff.

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Never mind, we're not gonna do that. I think about, I don't know, a big man. John the Baptist seems like a big ferocious man.

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So he comes in now but he's arrested and Jesus withdraws into Galilee. Now watch this. And leaving

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Nazareth he went and lived in Capernaum by the sea in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali so that what was spoken by the prophet

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Isaiah might be fulfilled. Listen to the quotation. The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea beyond the

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Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles, the people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light and for those dwelling in the region in shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.

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Watch, verse 17. From that time Jesus, Yeshua, began to preach saying, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

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And we go today, what's all this talk of the kingdom of heaven at hand? What's this talk about the gospel of the kingdom?

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And you read this as Christians, let's be honest. Let's be honest with each other. We read a passage like this where Matthew, who's not wasting space, actually feels the need to pull a verse from Isaiah and bring those texts into his message to get across the point as to what you're seeing here with Jesus, the perfect Israelite, conquering

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Satan in the wilderness, now coming in, saying the gospel of the kingdom, repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, that Matthew feels the need to quote from Isaiah.

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And now let's just confess something as Christians. I want us to be honest. We'll sometimes be doing our Bible study and you're reading Matthew and you're like, awesome, he quoted the

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Old Testament. I want to finish Matthew. And we don't find ourselves overly interested in figuring out what in the world was

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Matthew trying to get across when he quotes from Isaiah. And what's amazing here is that if you don't read what

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Matthew is referencing here, you haven't a clue how this all comes together and why we would see things like the

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Lord's Prayer as at all significant other than teaching us some moral lesson about how we should pray to God.

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This is significant. It's a whole worldview. Do you understand this? That everyone has a worldview and the

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Jews had a total life and worldview, a view of God, a view of themselves, a view of the world, a view of history, a view of Mashiach, of the one who is to come.

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Now check it out. How many of you guys have read Matthew before? Now don't raise your hand on this next one because I'm not trying to embarrass you, but I just want to point something out so that you and I can stop doing this sort of thing.

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How many of you guys when you read Matthew and you saw Matthew quote this actually went back to see what in the world he was talking about?

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So let's do it now. Isaiah 9. Isaiah chapter 9.

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Ah. How many of you guys were here for our Christmas messages? Praise God. Were we in Isaiah 9?

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Yep. Was it on your Christmas cards? Yep. For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder.

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You know that one? Now check it out. I'll read you Isaiah 9 so you get the context. This is 700 years or so before the

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Messiah comes. But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali.

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But in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the

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Jordan, Galilee of the nations. And what is Matthew doing? Jesus the perfect Israelite now conquers

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Satan and now John the Baptist is arrested. The forerunner now is out of the way. Isaiah promised a forerunner.

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So did the Old Testament. Malachi, last book, promises forerunner. And now Matthew makes an emphasis of this.

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The forerunner now is out of the way. No more forerunner. He's already announced the

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Messiah is coming. He's already baptized Jesus. Jesus is already presented and now

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John the forerunner is out of the way. Enter Mashiach. And the quotation that Matthew pulls from is

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Isaiah. The promise was this. Verse 2. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light.

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Those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shined. You have multiplied the nation.

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You have increased its joy. They rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil, for the yoke of his burden and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian, for every boot of the trampling warrior in the battle of Tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire.

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Are you ready? Isaiah 9 .6. You know this. For to us a child is born.

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To us a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulder. And his name shall be called

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Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, El Gibor. God is coming as a son and a child.

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The Father of Eternity, Prince of Peace. Now are you ready for this?

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We always forget to quote the next verse. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end.

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On the throne of David and over his kingdom to establish it and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore the zeal of the

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Lord of Hosts will do this. What were they anticipating? Think of the mindset.

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Think of the worldview. Think of what they were waiting for. I told you in the Christmas messages that there's this anticipation.

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Anticipation of the Messiah who's coming, the forerunner, the Messiah. But there's more. It wasn't just forerunner,

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Messiah and then oh, heaven one day. No, no, no. God's vision of the world is so much bigger.

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It was that this Messiah, the son born, child given to us was gonna be God himself and the government will be upon his shoulders and of the increase of his government there would be no end.

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Do you know what that means? His government is you. He rules over his people.

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You are his government, his kingdom and of the increase of his government there will be no end.

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That God himself was gonna come and bring what? The kingdom. And Matthew, interestingly, feels the need to pull this verse over under divine inspiration to show you what was promised in Isaiah of this son coming,

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God himself coming to bring his kingdom has happened now. Here he is walking among us. It's the gospel of the kingdom.

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And so when you read in the Lord's Prayer, Jesus, this Messiah, the one who was to bring the kingdom, when you read in his prayer that he says, you pray like this, our

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Father in heaven, first call God Father. That's awesome. Holy be your name.

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Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.

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All those verses, listen, that comes with the whole background and life and worldview from the scriptures. Now I wanna unpack it a little bit more, a little bit more for you to get the full force of this.

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Did you know that the timing of this kingdom was foretold in the Old Testament, the timing?

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Daniel chapter 2, you can read this later, it talks about four kingdoms in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. And you can go through history, starting with the

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Babylonian kingdom, which is where Daniel begins the counting, and you go through history, and you can count four kingdoms up to Rome.

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And in Daniel 2, it tells us that at the time of the fourth kingdom, the

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Messiah's kingdom will come in. And that it will have no end. And it will basically squash all the other kingdoms.

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It will have no end, it will be like a small stone cut out of a mountain that will roll and fill the entire earth.

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So during the time of the fourth kingdom, the Messiah was to enter the world, and this kingdom would be like a little rock.

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A little rock. Compared to all these other massive mountains all around, what's this little rock?

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This little pebble. This little stone. And Daniel says, of all these mountains, this

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Messiah's kingdom is going to come in. It's going to be a little stone, and then it will roll, and it will fill the entire earth, and it will become this kingdom that will have no end.

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And you think about Jesus and his humble origins when he comes in. He's preaching this little, this little first century carpenter's son from Nazareth, in this illiterate part of the world, mostly illiterate part of the world, in Palestine.

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Little Jewish guy comes in, preaching, repent, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. People are like, can any good thing come from Nazareth?

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Here comes Mashiach, little stone. And Jesus, when he comes in, he says the same kind of thing.

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If you read Matthew 12, Jesus talks about the kingdom. And it's interesting, you read Matthew 12, that the

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Jewish leadership of the day, they're coming to Jesus, and they're like, oh, you're Mashiach, huh?

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You're Mashiach, where's your kingdom? Where's your kingdom? Isn't it interesting that when he came in saying that he was the anointed one, and everyone was saying, this is

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Messiah, that what are the Jewish leadership asking for? They're saying what to him? Where's your kingdom? Where is it?

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Where's your kingdom? And so the Jews actually at one point challenged him on his kingdom, because that's what they anticipated.

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If you're Mashiach, show us, where's it at? Where's the kingdom at? Huh? Where's your weapons? Where's your army?

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Where's the stuff? Where's the buildings? And so Jesus says to them, he says, don't think you're going to be able to say, see here or see there, for the kingdom of God is within you.

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And when he's standing before Pilate at his trial, Pilate's like, Jesus, I'm trying to let you go.

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Pilate's like, give me something to shoot at. Give me something, Jesus, something. Don't you know I have the power to let you go?

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And Jesus says, you don't have any power except that which is given to you by God. And Pilate's in this discussion with Jesus, and he says, are you a king?

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And Jesus tells him what? Yes. And what does he say to Pilate after saying that he is a king?

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He says, my kingdom is not of this world. And Jesus gives the

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Jews of his day something very significant. You need to listen closely to this, and listen, you will have gotten the point of what

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I'm getting at right now via timing if you can answer this one question. Here it is. If you've lost track for a moment, here's where you come bring it back, right now.

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You will understand what I'm getting at by way of the nature of the timing of the kingdom if you can answer this question from Matthew 12.

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Jesus is casting out demons. There's a lot of demonic fervor and activity in the first century.

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I believe that's very clearly because God said that this was all going to occur in that time.

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So there's a lot of activity going on. A big war going on between Satan's kingdom and Christ's kingdom.

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So Jesus is casting out demons. And the Jewish leadership, their response to Jesus is, well yeah, yeah he's casting out demons.

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How's that? Because he and Satan are buddies. He's working for Satan.

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That's how this Jesus guy is casting out demons. You know why he's doing it? Because he's with Satan. He's doing it with the power of Satan.

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That's how it's happening. And so Jesus gives them a challenge. Here's what he says to them. This is all you need to answer.

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He says, how can a kingdom divided against itself stand, first and foremost?

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Okay, that doesn't make sense, but Jesus says this. He says, if I cast out demons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

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That's an if then question. Let's think about the implications of it. Ready? If I cast out demons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you?"

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Can we answer that question? Did Jesus cast out demons by the Spirit of God? Yes. Then what?

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The Kingdom of God had come upon them. Did Jesus bring His Kingdom? Yes. And what did

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He say about its nature? He said the Kingdom of Heaven, by the way, Kingdom of Heaven, Kingdom of God, synonymous terms in the

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Bible. Kingdom of God, Kingdom of Heaven, synonymous. Jesus says the Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed in your hand.

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A mustard seed is so small, I'm planting a garden at my house, by the way.

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I'm really understanding this mustard seed stuff. I didn't plant any mustard seed, but I did plant carrots,

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I planted some leafy vegetables, and some peas. Peas are fun to put in the ground, because you go bink, bink, bink, and you drop the pea in the hole.

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So that's fun. Anyway, seeds, seeds are very small.

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Now when Jesus talks about this mustard seed being the smallest of all seeds, He's using hyperbole.

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He's trying to get across the point that this seed you can barely see in your hand. He says, but when it goes into the ground and it grows, it grows into a big tree, and the birds of the air nest in its branches.

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That's a picture of a glorious, conquering, successful, prosperous

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Kingdom. And I want you to think about the nature of this. Old Testament, Daniel chapter 2. The Messiah's Kingdom is going to come in during the time of the fourth

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Kingdom. That's Rome. Jesus came on time. Amen? It says it'd be like a small stone cut out of a mountain that would eventually roll and fill the entire earth.

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Jesus comes in as Messiah, and He says, the Kingdom of God is at hand. If I cast out demons by the

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Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you. Don't think you're going to be able to say, see here, or see there, for it's within you.

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And Pilate, yes, I'm a king, but my Kingdom is not of this world. The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed in your hands.

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You can barely see it, but when it grows into full fruition, it is a large tree, and the birds of the air nest in its branches.

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And I want you to consider for a moment that it was 2 ,000 years ago, after Jesus was crucified as a common criminal,

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He conquered death as a matter of historical record. And then 40 days after the resurrection,

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He is in front of His disciples, and He ascends. He goes up, and we go, that's pretty cool.

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But that's fulfillment of more prophecy, and I need you to see it. I need you to get into the worldview. I need you all to come with us as we enter the text of Scripture, interpreting the

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Bible with the Bible. So go to Daniel 7 to see what this means. In the context of the

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Kingdom, what were they anticipating? Daniel has talked about the Kingdom already. He tells you the when, after the fourth

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Kingdom. Now, are you ready for this? In Daniel chapter 7, this is what Daniel says in verse 13.

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7, 13, Daniel, I'll give you a moment to get there, because I need you to see it with your own eyes.

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7, 13, Daniel, over five centuries before Jesus came, this is written, what were they expecting?

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I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven, there came one like a son of man.

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He came up to the ancient of days, and was presented before Him. Question, which direction?

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Let's make sure we're all here. I need you to all grab this. He came which direction? Up to the ancient of days.

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Jesus, resurrection, ascension, where did He go? Up. And it says in Daniel 7, and to Him, Mashiach, was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve

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Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom, one that shall not be destroyed.

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I have a question for you. Did Jesus ascend? Is Jesus seated at the right hand of the

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Father? Is Jesus King of Kings and Lord of Lords? Then He is ruling and reigning now.

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He is the Messianic King, who brought the kingdom, and Jesus said it would be mustard seed to large tree.

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Jesus said it'd be like leaven and a lump of dough. You're like, leaven? What is that, a light chicken gravy?

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What is that? I don't know what leaven is. Yeast. Yeast. Yeast and dough.

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Listen, when you put yeast in dough, it's like, what's the big deal? A little bit of yeast. But what happens? It ends up permeating the entirety of the loaf.

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But the question I have to ask you is this, is it instantaneous? It's progressive.

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And if you put your ear up to the dough, can you hear like clank, clank, clank, hee -haw?

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What kind of voices? I don't know, when people do construction, I don't know. I don't know what kind of voices.

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I'm just joking. I help Pastor Luke actually build stuff, right? What? Okay, alright.

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I didn't ask you the quality, I asked you if I helped to do it. But the point is, you don't put your ear up to dough with leaven working through it and actually hear what's going on.

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It's working silently. It's working progressively, but it's permeating the entirety of the loaf.

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And when Jesus the Messiah comes in, he says, this is the good news of the kingdom. And I want to say this as Christians, we have lost sight of that.

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We have lost sight of the vision of the Messiah, that he would not just be bringing reconciliation with God and peace with him through faith and taking away our sin, but Jesus' picture of the future was one where he had victory over it.

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I know Christians will often say something, they'll say, well, Jesus wins at the end of history, right?

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At the end of history, he's going to come, he's going to wrap everything up, he's going to win then. No, no, no. The Old and New Testaments say that Jesus has victory in history.

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His kingdom comes in and he said he brought it and that it would be mustard seed to large tree.

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And I want you to consider that 2 ,000 years ago, you got 11 confused dudes on a beach. He's crucified, surprised the heck out of them that he's alive.

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They thought he was dead, even though he continually told them, I'm going to rise from the dead and now he's alive. And they're like, this is great, this, wow.

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And then they're on this beachhead and Jesus ascends. They're going, Daniel 7, Daniel 7.

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He ascends and then it says in Daniel 7 that he'd be given a kingdom where all people's nations, tribes and tongues, they're all going to come to him and serve him and his kingdom will never pass away.

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It is one that will never be destroyed. And Jesus is seated, seated at the right hand of the father.

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And now take all that now in context and in background, I want you to absorb that for a second.

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And I want you to consider we're over time, it's okay, but I need you to hear this.

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I need you to consider some important passages. There's so many here, but I need you to see it. I need you to see it. Go to Psalm 2.

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It's a Psalm that you know. I'm sure you've read it. If you've done any Bible studies where you do the, by the way, if you know this, if you read five

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Psalms a day and one proverb a day, you go through the book of Psalms and the book of Proverbs every month.

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So five Psalms a day, one proverb a day, and you go through the book of Psalms and Proverbs every single month. So many of you guys have done that sort of a thing.

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You've read Psalms a bunch of times. I want you to think about the implications here. In Psalm chapter 2, again, this was the hymnal of the early

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Jews. Jesus would have sang this in synagogue. Can you imagine Jesus, cute little boy singing?

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That's awesome, seriously. Yesterday, Candy and I were reading a little book about Jesus as a little boy to Turtle, my son

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Turtle, and he was confused because I'm like, this is Jesus, and pictures of Jesus, you know, in the temple, a little boy.

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It just hit me for a moment how cool would that be to see Jesus as a little boy in synagogue with a little yarmulke on maybe, right?

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And like singing like the Psalm 2, which is about Him. How cool is that?

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But look here, Psalm 2, look what it says. Psalm 2, again, this is what they were saying in the synagogue. This is their hymnal.

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Why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves against the rulers and the rulers take counsel together against the

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Lord and against His anointed saying, let us burst their bonds apart and cast away their cords from us.

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He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord holds them in derision.

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Then He will speak to them in His wrath and terrify them in His fury saying, as for me, I have set my

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King on Zion, my holy hill. I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son.

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Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations, your inheritance and the ends of the earth, your possession.

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Pause, pause. I have a question to ask you.

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This is clearly in the New Testament referenced to Christ as fulfilled.

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And I want you to listen to the scope of this in light of what Jesus asks us to pray for.

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Are you ready? I need you to bring it together now. I told you to get your mind into the worldview of the

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Jews. And I want you to think about how the Messiah, the King who brings the kingdom is asking us to pray and what we're to pray for and the full scope of what it looks like in the light of what

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Psalms, Psalm 2 says. I'm going to read it to you again. This last portion.

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Verse 7, I will tell of the decree. The Lord said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations, your heritage and the ends of the earth, your possession.

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This is the father speaking to the son and he's telling the son, ask of me and I will make the nations, your inheritance.

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And I have one question to ask you. Do you think that Jesus forgot to ask? What does the

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Messiah tell us to pray for? But there's more.

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Verse 9, you shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.

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Now therefore, oh kings, this is God calling out the rulers of nations.

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Are you ready? This is God calling out the leaders of the world. Here's what

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God says to the kings of the world. Now therefore, oh kings, be wise, be warned, oh rulers of the earth, serve the

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Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling, kiss the son, lest he be angry and you perish in the way for his wrath is quickly kindled.

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Blessed are all those are all who take refuge in him. God is saying his

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Messiah brings a kingdom where all the nations are his inheritance. The father says, you ask of me and I'll give you the nations for your inheritance.

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And my question to you is, did Jesus forget to ask? No. And what is God's warning to the kings of the earth in history?

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He says, kiss the son, do homage to the son, serve the

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Lord with fear, lest he be angry and you perish in the way. Blessed are all who take refuge in him.

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And if you're in this room right now, what? You are blessed because you have taken refuge in the son and God is calling out the kingdoms of this world.

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And he says, you belong to my son now. And the son comes in as the ruler. And he says for his people, you pray this way, that the father's name would be holied, separate, set apart in all the earth.

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That's how you pray every day. That's the scope of it. Are you saying that God's name is to be holied in Africa and in Europe and in Sweden?

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God's name is to be holied there. In America, in our government system, does God actually intend for Christians to pray for and work towards even the leading kings of the earth to do homage to the son?

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That's what Psalm 2 says. Are you saying that we should pray that God's kingdom would expand throughout the entire earth?

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That's what Jesus asks us for. And I want to say this to you, just how much does

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God intend for the world to come to him for refuge and peace?

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And just how rigorous does God want his will to be done on earth?

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Answer, as it is in heaven. And so my question to you is this, because we're only scratching the surface.

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We're only scratching the surface. And we're doing a whole series and study on this that I think is going to rock your socks off.

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And I may have no doubt about that. It blows my mind to think about this stuff. And I've only barely nicked the surface, just barely nicked it.

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But I want to say this to you. If you look at history, Christians in history that held a view of this, this view, they were the ones that were used by God to move entire cultures, to change cultures, to bring about justice and righteousness in a society, to help those who are downtrodden and wounded and broken.

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Because Christians that believe that Jesus will have victory over history and that he's brought his kingdom.

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And we're to pray for this scope of his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. Those Christians view their lives now as a moment of legacy building.

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I need us as believers and a part of this church, we have to be thinking not only about our own lives as leaving legacies for the gospel, not wasting our lives for the gospel.

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But we have to be thinking about our children and our children's children and our great grandchildren. We need to be laying up treasures for even those generations.

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Not treasures just simply cash and gold and stuff, but I'm talking about the treasure of knowing

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God and a godly legacy. We should be looking at when we turn the radio on and watch the news, we should be thinking about this.

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If, listen, if you pray this and I pray this every morning, not repetitious like the Gentiles do, but really praying and think of what it says.

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Let me ask you a question. Does that affect how you filter the news now? Does it affect how you look at the world around you and you see an injustice or unrighteousness?

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Do you see orphans that have no homes? Does it affect now your view of the future and what you're supposed to be doing and what

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I'm supposed to be doing as Christians? It has to. If this is your belief about what God has done, it'll change your whole life and your whole perspective.

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And so my call to us as a church is this year we're going to focus in on what does the Bible say about what our call is in history, bringing

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His kingdom to the world. See, we're not just saying that as a pithy slogan. We talk about oftentimes we want to grow

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His kingdom and we go, oh yeah, grow His kingdom. What does that mean? What kind of scope is that?

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To what degree? I want to pull up something for you.

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It's an old hymn and some of the more mature believers in here.

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Yeah. What? What? Some of them older, more mature believers in here know this because you know your hymnals and you've read this.

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It's an old hymn that we've lost in a lot of the modern churches that we shouldn't.

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Here's the hymn. I want to read it to you. Rise up, oh men of God. Have done with lesser things.

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Give heart and mind and soul and strength to serve the

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King of Kings. Rise up, oh men of God. The kingdom tarries long.

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Bring in the day of brotherhood and end the night of wrong. Rise up, oh men of God.

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The church for you doth wait. Her strength unequal to her task.

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Rise up and make her great. Lift high the cross of Christ. Tread where His feet have trod.

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As brothers of the Son of Man, rise up, oh men of God. And that's what

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I'm calling us to as a body, as a family, this year is to rise up, church.

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Let's pray. Lord, we love You, Jesus. I know,

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Lord, there are so many ways I fall short as a pastor, God, and I just pray, Lord, in all my limitations, in every way that I do fall short in preaching or teaching,

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I pray, Lord, that You'd bless what I've given tonight, God. That You would use it, God, not to be a motivational speech, but tonight, that our hearts and minds are transformed by Your Word, and that You would use us for Your glory.

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God, I don't know what You intend to do with this, but I beg of You to use it in Jesus' name. Amen. Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, still be my vision, oh ruler of all.