Your Kingdom Come — Carter Conlon

Praying for God’s Kingdom and Will

I have a word on my heart this morning from Matthew chapter six, the gospel of Matthew. I just called it simply your kingdom come, your kingdom come, Matthew chapter six. Now, father, I thank you with all my heart for your presence here in this sanctuary today.

You are drawing close now, Lord. The days are getting dark and we as your people need oil. We need to be alive. We need to have a right mind, a right heart and a right spirit, a right focus. We need strength, Lord, to live for you in these days.

And God, you're willing to give us all of these things. I pray simply that you open our heart to your ways and to your will. Give me the grace, Lord, to speak this message and give us the grace to hear it.

Lord, if you don't quicken your word, it's really just a little bit more learning without power. But God, you are able to quicken this word and make it live. Make it live, Lord. God, that's my prayer this morning in my heart and in every heart in the sanctuary and those that will be listening and will be listening online.

God, make this word live in our hearts. Give us the grace now that we need and you are willing to give us to be a vibrant, living, powerful, supernatural testimony of who you are to our generation. Take us now, Father.

We bless you for this in Jesus' name. Matthew chapter six, beginning at verse six. But when you pray, but you, when you pray, go into your room and when you have shut your door, pray to your father who is in the secret place.

And your father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Therefore, do not be like them.

For your father knows the things that you have need of before you ask him. In this manner, therefore, pray, our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

I want to focus on one part of that particular prayer that he told us to pray. It's really after acknowledging who God is, where God dwells, acknowledging the character, the power, the majesty of God.

It leads us now to a second thought and a third thought, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Now, Jesus told those of us who pray, this message not only applied to those he was speaking to at that moment in history, but all throughout history, it applies to those who choose as we are to take this moment in time and begin to pray.

Tells us, he said, if you will have an honest seeking heart, if your prayers are not just a public demonstration, but a private passion, if you are willing to go into that secret place, which is only that place where only you and God know, that place of your life, that place of your heart, that secret place can be on the subway.

It can be on a bus. It can be walking down the street. It's that inner groan produced by the Holy Spirit himself within you that causes you to cry out. It causes you to pray for something. It's that passion in your heart that it might not be able to be articulated by any more than the words, Jesus, help me.

God be with me. God, strengthen me. God, change me. God, deliver me. It's that inner secret cry of recognition that there's a need in my heart that God is able to meet because of who he is, his character, his passion for my life.

And he goes on to say, don't use empty, meaningless, unfocused, repetitious speech. A lot of people pray, and when they pray, they pull the list out of their back pocket and just go through the same thing every day, almost without thinking.

It's mechanical. It's rapid. It's repetitive. It's boring. And ultimately, it leads to the place where prayer is so unattractive. Don't pray that way, Jesus said. Don't talk to me that way. Don't be like those who have no living relationship with God.

Talk to me honestly. Talk to me openly. Talk to me from your heart. Talk to me about the real issues of your life, not just the things that you need outwardly like clothing and food and a job. Those things are important, but go deeper than those things.

Let's talk about the issues of the heart. Let's talk about what needs to be done through your life on this earth. He says, now pray in this manner then, our father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

The Future Coming of God’s Kingdom

Now, your kingdom come is a two-fold application because you and I know that there is a day coming when the kingdom of God is going to return to the earth. We read about it with the choir this morning in Revelation 21.

I, John, saw this new Jerusalem coming down from heaven as a bride adorned for her husband. God will be with them and dwell with them and wipe away all tears. No more sorrow, no more death, no more sighing.

All these former things are going to be passed away. There is a longing in all of our hearts, especially as in this hour. It must be in yours as it is in mine. Oh God, let your kingdom come. I'm just so tired of the kingdoms of men.

So tired of the futility of humankind trying to produce its own sense of righteousness and devise its own utopian end that's really just leading humanity into a deeper darkness and an ultimate disaster.

The kingdom of God is coming to this earth. A city called new Jerusalem will be, will come down in the place where Jerusalem presently is. There will be a thousand year reign of the son of God and following that, the heavens and the earth will be folded up as a scroll, the scripture says, and a new heavens and a new earth will be brought back to its rightful order, a place where there is righteousness.

Thank God for those days. I long for it with all my heart. I do, and I hope you do too. And there should be a cry in every one of our hearts. Oh God, hasten the day of your coming. Hasten the day, Lord, when you bring this world back into proper order.

Hasten the day, oh God, when we don't have to listen to lies being propagated as truth. Hasten the day where good is good again and evil is evil. And there's no confusion between the two. So that's what we should pray.

God’s Kingdom Present Within Believers

And some people only pray that way, but there's a secondary aspect to this. And in Luke chapter 17 verses 20 and 21, let me just read it to you. The scripture says, now he, that being Jesus, when he was asked by the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them and said, the kingdom of God does not come with observation and nor will they say, see here or see there for indeed the kingdom of God is within you.

Now, in the case of the Pharisees, of course, he was saying the kingdom of God is already here. Christ himself is the kingdom of God. Christ is the fulfillment of everything promised about God's kingdom.

And he was telling the Pharisees, the kingdom of God is here standing right before you. But for you and I, as believers in Jesus Christ, he is not standing before us anymore. Only he now dwells inside of our physical bodies as his temple.

We are the temple of the holy ghost. You and I don't have a fuzzy concept about God living inside of us. We have the actual third person of the triune God who has taken up residence inside these physical vessels.

So the, the, may I put it this way? The first deposit on earth of the kingdom of God is already here. It's the physical presence of Christ in the lives of all those who have been left here to testify of the ultimate victory of that kingdom both now and yet in the days to come.

So the kingdom of God is here. The kingdom of God is alive inside of me. God's kingdom, God's recreative power, God restoring in my life, just as he will, according to the book of revelation, one day restore all things.

The restoration of God has already begun in my life. And the reason that you and I are still on the earth is for the purpose of that restoration that's happening in us being extended to others who don't yet know it.

And so we begin to cry, your kingdom come. God consume my heart, my life. Let this healing Lord, that you promise not just be in me, but I don't start to flow through me. God help me that I might become a representative of your kingdom in my generation.

And among the people that you send me to live next door to and send me to work with every day, let your kingdom come and let your will be done on earth. That means in me as it is in heaven. Now that's a fanciful thing to pray.

Isaiah’s Vision of Holiness, Cleansing, and Commissioning

Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And I started thinking about it. So how does that play out in heaven? How, if I'm to ask God, would you, would you let your will be done in me as it is in heaven?

I have to have a picture. I don't know about you, but I need a picture. I can't grasp that concept. It's too big for me. And as I began to pray about it, the Lord took me to Isaiah chapter six, the moment where the prophet Isaiah in his younger days is lifted up into the presence of God.

He sees the holiness of God, the majesty of God. He sees the divine order of God, the purity of God. These are things that he has spoken about. He's been a righteous man in a sense as the earth produces and religion of his time produces, but he's been drawn into the presence of God.

Now in the presence of God, he says, Oh God, I'm undone. I am so much less than I thought I was. I've been talking about things that I don't know anything about this. I've mentioned your holiness, but I've seen it now.

And I recognize that not only me, but we are all unclean. Our speech is filthy and my lips are unclean and the lips of the people of God of his time are unclean because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

It's a type of somebody coming into the presence of God. Maybe here today, maybe you walked in here today and you don't know Christ as most of us here do. And you felt pretty good about yourself until the worship started.

Then suddenly there's a realization comes into your heart that you're living on the outside and looking in that there's a depth of God that you don't know. There's a depth of his life that you're a stranger to.

And you suddenly, just as Isaiah did, you become aware that there's something missing in your life. And Isaiah, when he came to this moment, now we're talking about let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

So at this particular moment, we see an angelic being created by God moving in unison with the will of God. It says, then one of the seraphim flew to me having in his hand, a live coal, which he had taken from the tongs from the altar.

And he touched my mouth with it and said, behold, this has touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken away and your sin is purged. You see these created beings in heaven. Now God doesn't need a seraphim to do his work.

Do you understand that? He doesn't need you and me to do it either, but he has chosen to manifest his glory. He's chosen to show his mercy and do his work through those that he has created. And in this case on planet earth, those that he has created in his image.

Now in heaven, when this man, Isaiah suddenly realizes his condition, this angelic being, it doesn't give us any indication that he's given a command. He's just moving in the will of God. He knows the will of God is to cleanse the sinner.

He knows the will of God is to empower those that are being sent as a witness on the earth. And he suddenly moves. Now he doesn't walk. He flies. I love that. It doesn't say then one of the seraphim walked over to me.

It says one of the seraphim flew to me and it speaks to me about those who are living according to the will of God are divinely enabled to do what we are called to do. We are given abilities that people around us don't have.

You can't have it apart from God. And then he said, he took the coal in his hand, a live coal, which he had taken with the tongs from the altar. And it also tells me that, that God gives us everything that we need to do what we're called to do.

He didn't have to. And that doesn't say he, the seraphim stood up and began to search in the closet for a pair of tongs to take the coal off the altar. The tongs were there. God knew what would be needed.

And the giftings come with the calling of God. If you are called of God, everything you need to do what God's called you to do, to obey him, to fulfill his will will be given to you. Everything that you need, everything.

And the task at hand, the task that he was given to fulfill was cleansing and commissioning somebody else for a divine purpose. And so tell me if I feel and know in my heart that this is why we are here as the church of Jesus Christ, we are called to bring that cleansing that God has provided through the cross of Jesus Christ, the message of it, the hope of it, the reality of it.

We're called to bring it to others. And we're called to see that they are cleansed of their sin by the blood of Jesus Christ and commissioned by the power of God for a divine purpose. Touched by the power of God, given an inward ability to bring this gospel of the kingdom to a nation that's about to perish as was the case in Isaiah's day.

Bearing Fruit for the Kingdom and Others

And so the cry has to be, let this will be done in my life on earth as it is in heaven. Let this be the focus of my life. Let this be what my life is about, that I am concerned for the cleansing and the commissioning of others, that my prayers are taken away from being just focused on myself all the time, repeating the same thing day after day after day.

Let there be created in me an inner cry in the secret place, an inner cry that says, Oh God, would you give me a heart to care about people that are perishing? Would you give me the ability to be lifted outside of myself and my obsessive concerns with myself day after day after day?

God, would you help me to see what you see? Would you help me to move where you move? Oh Lord, would you come and would your will be done in me as it is in heaven? Would it be to God that I could simply move in unison with you and not have to wait, that I would know when a heart is ready to be cleansed, that I would know when a soul is ready to be empowered, that I would move in unison with your divine will on the earth and that my life would be given for the purpose of seeing people saved and becoming disciples in the kingdom of God.

Now the kingdom of God, the scripture tells us there's a lot of, if you go with me to Matthew chapter 13, I want to show you a few things. Beginning in verse 23, it tells us, but he who receives seed on the good ground, as he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces some a hundredfold, some 60 and some 30.

Now there's four types given in this parable of hearts on which the word of God falls. Some of these hearts reject it. Others, there's really no depth of ground and they receive it, but they don't really receive it.

And as soon as they're opposed, they drop all of the belief that they felt should be the future of their lives. Others receive it with joy, but other things creeping in, choke it out and their lives become unfruitful.

But the kingdom of God is experienced by the honest and sincere heart. The heart that understands that God's work must have the preeminence in each of our lives. That's where the kingdom of God comes.

That's where the kingdom of God begins to work. It's the first fruits of it start in our lives. When we begin to say, God almighty, I hear that you are calling me to bear fruit for your kingdom. I am being called to do, to be an ambassador of the work that you did on the cross.

I'm called to bring that work to others, that message, that hope. Some people can't hear it. Some people don't want to hear it. Some people don't even, they can't even sit under this kind of an understanding of the kingdom of God.

It's all about me. And if you're not going to talk about me, I'm not staying. I'm not going to sit. I'm not going to listen to this. Once you start talking about others, I'm out of here because I'm only in the kingdom for myself.

And that's what Jesus said. Don't do this. Don't let that be the focus of your life. Don't be as the heathen are. All they do is pray about themselves. They don't have any understanding of the kingdom of God.

Matthew chapter 13 verses 31 and 32 shows us that those in whom the kingdom is, they go first from strength to strength for the sake of others. Another parable he put forth to them. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds.

But when it is grown, it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches. Now it's really simple. The kingdom of heaven, when God's kingdom has come into your heart, you might feel small as a mustard seed.

You might be among those of us who say, God, I don't have any strength. I don't know what I can contribute. I don't know what I can do, but I open my heart to you. And I ask you Lord to bring the increase into my life and give me what I need and do inside of me what needs to be done.

And so the kingdom of God, who is Christ himself comes into your heart. And suddenly out of your smallness, you begin to grow out of weakness. You begin to be made strong out of confusion. You're given clear thinking out of a self-focused heart.

You begin to have compassion before you know it. You've grown into this incredible tree that is offering shade. It's offering rest. It's offering stability to others around you. That's who God is. That's what God does.

But folks, it's all about other people. That's how the kingdom grows because Christ coming to the earth was all about other people. Now you and I are called to be ambassadors of that kingdom. And when the focus of our hearts is about others, this increased starts to come into the heart.

I've known this. I've walked this my whole life. I've known morning by mornings, new mercies. I say, I've known that what I do today, I'm not qualified to do it. That's what makes it so wonderful to be doing something you're not qualified to do.

It's all God. It's his kingdom. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in me, on earth as it is in heaven. May I move with you in unison, God, and you promise to bring that inner strength, that change, that promise that Christ in me will make me into a new creation and the old things in my life will pass away and behold, all things will become new.

There should be this continuous growth in the Christian life when our focus is in the right direction, and it should be exciting. You should get to the point and say, I could hardly wait for what I will be tomorrow because I'm changing.

I'm changing by the power of God. I'm not changing by my own resource, by my own strength, by my own reasoning, by my own effort. I am calling out to God and morning by morning, I'm seeing new mercies in my life.

Oh God, thank you. Thank you, Lord. Every door you open, I'll go through everything you asked me to do. I will do it for your honor and for your glory. All I can say is thy kingdom come and thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Persevering Through Falsehood and Opposition

Matthew chapter 13, again, verses 38 and onward. The field is the world. The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the terrors are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy has sowed them as the devil.

The harvest is the end of the age and the reapers are the angels. Therefore, as the tears are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The son of man will send out his angels and they will gather out of his kingdom, all things that offend and those who practice lawlessness and will cast them into the furnace of fire.

There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as a son in the kingdom of their father. He who has ears to hear, let them hear. If you go back into this parable, you'll see that Jesus spoke about the seeds of the kingdom being sown in some, and then there's the seeds of the tears that are sown.

May I just put it as simply as I can. Not everybody in the church is a Christian and you got to fight through. You don't just have to fight outside. That's bad enough, but you got to fight through inside.

Remember the apostle Paul said, there's fears without and fighting's within, in perils on the sea, in perils of storms, in perils of beatings, in perils among false brethren. Not everybody in the house of God is a Christian.

As Corrie Ten Boom's father once said to her, just because a mouse lives in the cookie jar does not make him a cookie. And you're going to have to fight folks. When your heart is for the kingdom of God, you're going to have to fight those that don't want to go with you.

Those whose hearts are not in tune with the kingdom of God. Those who are not interested in living for the benefit of others. And you're going to have to fight through the hazing, may I call it that, even in the house of God.

You're going to have to fight through the critics who gather in the lobby after every service to tell you everything that was wrong about what the preacher preached today. You got to get through the tears, but there's a promise of God that you will be given the strength to finish the journey.

And one day the angels of God will come and they'll gather everything out of the kingdom that offends. If you're not living for God, that should put a measure of holy fear in your heart. There's no games can be played in the sight of a holy God.

Nobody can get through playing games. It's either real or it's not real. It's either moving in truth or it's not moving in truth, but you will be given the strength. You'll be given the strength to, as we sing in that one worship song, you got to pass by the crowds of people and pass by the people, the priests, even to sing their praise and, and press into the holy of holies, press into that secret place where you say, God, I want your kingdom in my life.

I want everything you've got for me in my life. And I want the power and the desire to do your will. For your word tells me that you work in me both to will and to do of your good pleasure. So God, I'm trusting you to put inside of me a new mind and a new heart.

You have to be honest with God. When you pray, you go into the secret place and say, Lord, I don't care about people who are lost. Sometimes I wish they'd all go to hell tomorrow so that I could live a peaceful life.

And I know it's not right. So I'm trusting you Lord to change my heart. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done in me on earth as it is in heaven. Matthew 13 verse 44, Jesus said, again, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which, and for joy, which a man finds it and hides it.

And for joy over it, he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. And again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant singing, seeking beautiful pearls. When he's found one of great price, he went and sold all that he had and he bought it.

The Kingdom’s Value and the Pastor’s Accountability

Those who long for the kingdom of God, those who long to be part of God's kingdom, may I put it that way and have the kingdom flourishing inside their heart. They're given a long distance vision and joy.

They're given the ability to see what other people don't see. Suddenly what's really a value in the sight of God becomes a value in their sight. Suddenly they see themselves one day at the throne of God with the little kids that they took time to speak into being there with them.

And the poor man on the corner that was always begging being there, the lame man leaping and dancing before everything that's important to God becomes important to them. And for the joy that's set before them, they're willing to endure what they have to endure.

They're willing to go through what they have to go through because they have a long distance vision and a joy. I want the presence of God more than anything because everything else is going to perish, but the presence of God will endure forever.

And the people who come to Christ because of his kingdom operating in my life are the only things that I will take to the throne of God one day. I shake hands with people at the door here, Sunday night, most weeks.

I'll be there again tonight, by the way. I dread the thought sometimes I shake a lot of hands and I just dread the thought of people who are not going to be there. And I ask God for mercy because I am the pastor of this church.

And when I get to the throne of God one day, I will not answer for the worship. I'll not answer for the building, but I will answer for you. Everyone who sat in this house under the sound of my voice, did I press in enough?

Did I have a clean enough, a clear enough word to break through the fog and the resistance and the hardness that can get a hold of the human heart? Was I able to get a hold of you and convince you that the kingdom of God is for you and worth living for?

Was I able to let, to get you to the point of letting go of the pearl of this world, whatever that is, that shiny thing that's got your attention, that girl, that guy, that job, that practice, that place.

Did I convince you that you should let it go for the sake of the kingdom of God and that God had something much bigger for you? I shake a lot of your hands and I live with a trepidation and a dread in one sense of being at the throne of God and you're not there.

When you have every chance, every chance to let Christ come into your heart and to live for him. And lastly, again, in Matthew chapter 13, verses 51 and 52, Jesus said to them, have you understood all these things?

And they said to him, yes, Lord. Now there's all these parables about the kingdom. And then he said to them, therefore, every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure, things new and things old.

Those who understand the kingdom of God are always experiencing new and miraculous life coming out of old and reliable truth. They're bringing new things out of things old. It's amazing when you see it.

The word of God is full. It's there. It's complete. Nothing is hidden. The heart of God is revealed. The power of God is made known. The purpose of God is fully revealed for your life and for my life.

And if I am a person who understands the kingdom of God, then I am one who's bringing every day something new out of something old, something new in my life out of old established revealed. You don't need to add a thing to the word of God.

You don't need to take away from it. It is what it is. It says what it says. And if I am a serious student, a serious reader of the word of God, the Bible tells me that I will be bringing something new.

As a matter of fact, it says I will be fat and flourishing in my old age. That's what it says. I will still bear fruit and I will be fat and flourishing. I got the fat part and starting. I got, I'm working on the flourishing part.

That's what I will be. That's the promise of God. Promise of God says, I will still be planted. No matter how old I am, I'll be planted by a river of living water. And I will still bear fruit in the proper season.

I will still be changing from image to image and glory to glory, even as by the spirit of God. And I will be doing it for the sake of others. Ever since I've been a young man, I've been seeking that truth to be a reality of my life.

I said, God, I want to be everything you want me to be. When I get old, I don't want to be one of those persons that becomes crusty and critical and detached from the work of God. Oh God, help me never to go there.

I just don't want to finish my days like that. When I was a young pastor at one time, I was just full of fire and vinegar. I was going to take the whole world for God, pounding the pulp with my fists and spitting over the front row of the people.

And in my church back in Canada, there was just an old man. His name was Howard Young. He was 84 years old and Howard would raise his hands and he would cry through all of my sermons. I used to think it was because of my sermons.

I think now he was crying for me. God help him. Oh God help him. Oh Jesus. There's potential there, but oh Lord, it's rough. We're so arrogant. We think like I'm just so touching this man. And so I decided like he's an old guy, I should take him out for lunch.

And so after service, I took him out to a restaurant and we're sitting in the restaurant, just him and me. And I'm looking for a way to encourage him. And I brought a track with me and it was in my pocket.

You know, you never know in case you got a chance to witness to somebody and waitress come to our table. And she was really like, looked like she just had a hard life, not just a hard week, a hard life.

And she was probably only in her twenties or so. And I'm thinking of how can I get this tract into her hands? And I'm looking for my opportunity. And while I'm thinking about my tract, Howard Young reaches out, he grabs her hand, he holds it between his two hands and the tears start coming down his cheeks.

And he says, honey, do you know the Savior? Do you know how much Jesus loves you? Do you understand he died for you? And she starts to cry and says, no, I don't. But I would like to know that. Oh God, I would like to.

So the two of them are crying. I'm sitting there with my stupid tract in my pocket and I'm thinking, boy, do I ever have a lot to learn? Oh God. So I'm sitting there in my thirties. I'm the guy's going to win the world of Christ.

And I'm looking at a man who's actually has the power to win the world of Christ. And I'm saying, God, please make me like Howard Young. When I get to be 84, would you make me like that, man? Would you just deliver me?

Becoming a Childlike Ambassador of the Kingdom

Would you let your kingdom come? And through my life, could your will be done? And could I be used of you Lord to take that cleansing coal from your altar? And could you use me to touch the life of somebody else?

And would you give me the ability to do that? I remember in my thirties thinking, I don't have the ability to do that. But you remember the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed. If you go into the secret place, he promises to reward you openly for your secret desire, if it's according to the will of God.

And he promises that that seed that's in you of desire, it will grow into a tree. And one day you will find yourself with people lodging in the branches of your life and finding shade and finding strength and finding comfort.

That's the promise of God. And he says, what you asked for in secret, I will show openly. I will openly do it in your life. It will be visible. Others will see, and they'll be attracted to the power of God, to the will of God, to the purpose of God.

That is the kingdom of God. And that is the cry of my heart. And I hope with everything in me, that it would be the cry of your heart in this last generation, in this last time, when everything around us is going to fail, it's going to falter.

Civility is going to be gone. Evil is going to run rampant over this world. Nation will rise against nation. There'll be wars and famines and outbreaks of pestilence. The scripture tells us that's going to be the case, but in the midst of it all, there will be a people that say, thy kingdom come, oh God, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth and me as it is in heaven.

Humility and Childlike Faith in the Kingdom

God, let your kingdom come into my life and let your will be done. In Matthew chapter 18, and I'll close with this thought. Jesus showed his disciples how his kingdom comes. They asked him, who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?

And Jesus called the little child and set him in the midst of them. And he said, assuredly, I say to you, unless you're converted and become as a little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Therefore, whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom of God is experienced and entered into by humility. When you think of a child, you think of wonderment, trust, and dependence.