God, along with everything else, we call you Daddy, Abba Father. We just praise you for that. Thank you for adopting us as your own kids. Holy Spirit, thank you for being our teacher and our counselor. Please teach us today. And please let each one of us come away with something that we know came directly from you. And Jesus, our Savior, our friend, our King. We love you and we thank you. And we ask you this morning to teach us to pray. Amen. It's nice all being together again. If it's your first time here, visiting a church for the first time to me is always kind of nerve-wracking. And it might not be for you, but I hope you can tell. You can just uh relax and uh be yourself, and we're glad that you're here. So we're taking a few weeks to talk about a prayer that literally changed the world. It changed people's perception of God. It explained a whole new relationship with God. It changed how we talk with God forever. Jesus simply says, pray like this, and then he teaches us, and we call it the Lord's Prayer. The whole prayer is about a minute long, maybe even less than a minute. The overriding message there is that it is so simple to talk to God. And Jesus starts a prayer with the word Abba. We translated our Father, but the closest English translation is really daddy. God is our daddy. A dad like Jesus describes in the story of the prodigal son, uh a dad with great love, with uh great compassion. That no matter where we've gone, no matter what we've done, he's running toward us. So when we pray, we don't need to impress God. We don't certainly don't need to impress other people. Um we don't need to be fluent in Christian ease. We are simply kids talking to our dad. And so Jesus says, pray like this, our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy, may your kingdom come soon, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today the food we need and forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who sin against us. And don't let us yield to temptation, but rescue us from the evil one. That's the whole prayer. Pray like this. Now, if you have memorized the Lord's prayer, you might finish with, For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. Amen. That is in the King James Version of the New Testament. I got to thinking, I haven't really made anybody angry in a while, at least I haven't gotten any angry emails. It might be because I have stopped talking about circumcision every Sunday. But if there's one thing that might do that, it's talking about the King James uh version of the Bible. It was uh it was translated almost exactly 400 years ago. In the last 400 years, um when a translation is done, a committee of great scholars get together and they look at the oldest manuscripts they can find, um, because they're less likely to have something that a person would have added to. And so since 1611, there's been a lot of older manuscripts found. And in those older scrolls and ancient manuscripts, that last part's not part of the Lord's Prayer, the Lord's Prayer, that it's it's clearly been added on by someone, which isn't a big deal. If you uh whatever translation of the Bible you use, uh if you have footnotes, at the bottom of almost every page, there's gonna be a note on something in the manuscript. So my uh New Living Translation has a note that says some uh other translations add, and then it has that uh that phrase. Um that's you know, there's some people have a really hardcore belief that the King James Version is the only most accurate version of the Bible because it's the oldest. And in reality, it's not the most accurate because it's the oldest, if that makes sense. Because since in the last 400 years, uh we've found a lot of uh newer translations. Um for thine is the kingdom, the power, the glory forever. Amen. Certainly, if that's how you memorize the Lord's Prayer and that's how you pray the Lord's Prayer, what a wonderful phrase of worship at the end of the prayer. Um but the reason I bring that up, I want to explain why we're not studying the one you know. And um and also there's something important there. That some point some people got together and said that the way Jesus prayed wasn't divine enough. It wasn't churchy enough, it was so simple. And so, of course, you'd have to add on a power phrase like, for thine is the kingdom, the power, the glory forever, amen. Jesus didn't pray with platitudes, Jesus simply talked to his dad. He was simply talking to Abba. So we looked at the start. Is everybody cool with that? I didn't see anybody rushing out with their King James Bible in their hands. Um the uh he says, pray like this. Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. And so we have a daddy who's different than our earthly dads. Um says, may everyone know what you're really like. And you can sum up all those great aspects of God, just like the song we just sang. You know, so many wonderful things about God. You can sum all those up with the word holy. This morning we're gonna look at verse 10. It says, May your kingdom come soon, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Your kingdom come. The kingdom of God is kind of a big topic in one way, and it's a simple topic uh in another way. In Matthew, the kingdom of heaven uh is interchanged with the phrase the kingdom of God. And it's for, if you're here last week, we talked about how the Jewish people, part of their cultures, that they wouldn't write or even say God, that they would use some, you know, instead of Yahweh, they would say Adonai or El Shaddai. And this is the perfect example. Matthew is the gospel that was written most directly for the Jewish people. And so in Matthew, some of the times where it says kingdom of God, it says kingdom of heaven. Um and it uses an Aramaic word that's not for the sky, but it's just another word for God. And so in Matthew, it would be a more culturally uh correct way to express kingdom of God. In Mark, Luke, and John, it is always kingdom of God. And so, how could you describe this mysterious uh part physical, part spiritual kingdom of God, like kingdom come. Jesus says the kingdom of God is like a field. He says it is like a commercial fisherman's net. He says it is like a mustard seed. Jesus says it's like the yeast used to make bread. It is like a landowner that goes out early to hire workers for the vineyard. It is like a great wedding feast. It is like a man going on a long trip. It is like ten bridesmaids getting ready for a wedding. It was like a pearl merchant searching for the perfect pearl. It is like a treasure hidden in a field. It's like a storeroom with old and new treasures altogether. Jesus is a Jewish man, he's speaking to a predominantly Jewish audience who, since the days of Moses, have always been part of a physical kingdom. A kingdom led by great women like Deborah, who was a judge over Israel, and great men like King David when he led Israel. They would fight and they would win wars. And when they got away from God, which was often, they would fight and they would lose wars. Now, so as Jesus is talking to this group, they're on the side of a hill, sloping down to the Sea of Galilee, he's talking to a defeated group of people. The kingdom is in disarray. Ninety years before this, Pompey, who was a friend of Julius Caesar, overran Jerusalem. And now the kingdom of Israel is an occupied country. The Romans are running Israel. And so they dreamed of the day and talked about the day that the Messiah would come and return that country to a world power again. Jesus was talking about something completely different: a kingdom ruled by love, not by force. A kingdom of God. And so at this point, when Jesus is teaching them and us to pray, hardly anyone understood this. His closest friends, they did not understand it. His closest disciples, they did not understand it. This was going to be a physical kingdom, they thought. They were actually hoping for cabinet positions and to get to run the show a little bit. John the Baptist didn't understand it. Not long after this, in Matthew 11, John the Baptist, who was in prison, heard about all the things the Messiah was doing. So he sent his disciples to ask Jesus, Are you the Messiah we've been expecting? Or should we keep looking for someone else? In Jesus' answer, we see that it's going to be a different kind of kingdom. Jesus told him, Go back to John and tell him what you have heard and seen. The blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the good news is being preached to the poor. And tell him, God blesses those who do not turn away because of me. See, John, like every other Jewish person, would have been expecting Jesus to say, go back and tell John, we're stockpiling weapons, we're training the troops, we got a terrific attack plan. But this was going to be different. The signs are different. He tells John that God will bless him if he doesn't turn away because Jesus is not what he expected. That the kingdom wasn't what anyone expected. This mysterious kingdom of God, it's part physical and it's part uh spiritual. You know, it's uh it's the good news that that uh that we can have a relationship with our Father, that we can come alive inside. That God loves us no matter what. I guess maybe that's the spiritual part. The physical part is that when we get that love inside, it pours through into other people in physical, in physical ways. So the kingdom is both spiritual and physical, built on two foundations, loving God and loving people. In Mark 12 it says, one of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the debate. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, Of all the commandments, which is the most important? Jesus replied, The most important commandment is this listen, O Israel, the Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. The second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these. The teacher of religious law replied, Well said, teacher, you've spoken the truth by saying that there is only one God and no other, and I know it is important to love him with all my heart and all my understanding and all my strength, and to love my neighbor as myself. That is more important than to offer all the burnt offerings and sacrifices required in the law. Realizing how much the man understood, Jesus said to him, You are not far from the kingdom of God. He got it. He was close. Loving God and loving people was more important than all the rules and all the requirements. It was the two foundations to the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God is not Jesus' second coming. Certainly when Jesus comes again, we'll finally see the total kingdom, just how God's uh always desired. But God's kingdom is now. In Luke 17, it says, When did the Pharisees ask Jesus, When will the kingdom of God come? Jesus replied, The kingdom of God can't be detected by visible signs. You won't be able to say, Here it is, or it's over there. For the kingdom of God is already among you. So God's kingdom doesn't have physical borders where we can, you know, it's in a geography. We can say it's over here or it's over there. It wasn't announced with a show of force. It was announced with a show of love, because God's kingdom and love go hand in hand. It says in Matthew 4, Jesus traveled throughout the region of Galilee, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the good news about the kingdom, and he healed every kind of disease and illness. Matthew nine, Jesus traveled through all the towns and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the good news about the kingdom, and he healed every kind of disease and illness. Matthew twelve, I am casting out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has arrived among you. You see, every time Jesus is out talking about the kingdom of God, he accompanies it by healing and helping and restoring and loving. They go hand in hand with the kingdom of God and helping people. Sometimes we think that God is like a big puppet master in the sky. Uh you know, where he's got everything preset, and everything that happens is like, well, I guess that's what God uh had in mind, and I guess that's what God wanted um to happen. And it's not true. Um God is over everything in the sense that he is a sovereign God and he created the world, and it's his to take back, and he is going to take it back. But in a sense, God doesn't rule the world, people do. Yeah, we have free will. And that's why we pray for God's will, God's will to be done. Because as people we have our own will. Jesus talks about this a little bit in Matthew 20. He says, But Jesus called them together and said, You know, the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be the first among you must become your slave. For even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve others, and to give his life as a ransom for many. See he says that in this world there are rulers, and a lot of them are arrogant and self-serving. His kingdom's going to be different. But God gets blamed for a lot. You know, questions why did why do good things happen to bad people, and those kind of deep questions. As if he asserted complete control over everything. But you can't do that and have free will. And then you know, a few thousand years of free will, the world's got pretty jacked up. And so God's promise is not that everything's going to go perfectly for us. It's that no matter what happens, even if there are our own mistakes, that he can turn it into good. That he will take it and somehow turn it into good. That's his promise. One day it'll be just like he wants. One day. But for now, he takes bad things and he turns it into good. But he doesn't like the bad things. You're his kids. He wants you to be happy, he wants you to be healthy. He wants you not to live with stress and anxiety. Isaiah gives us a clear picture of the kingdom of God. It's Isaiah 65. No longer will babies die when only a few days old. No longer will adults die before they have lived a full life. No longer will people be considered old at one hundred. Only the curse will die that young. In those days people will live in the houses they built and eat the fruit of their own vineyards. Unlike the past, invaders will not take their houses and confiscate their vineyards. For my people will live as long as trees, my chosen ones will have time to enjoy their hard won gains. They'll not work in vain, and their children will not be doomed to misfortune. For they are people blessed by the Lord, and their children too will be blessed. I will answer them before they even call to me. While they are still talking about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers. That's God's will for each of us. The best for you. Healthy, happy, plenty to eat, not worrying about our kids. But he hasn't yet taken back complete control. And so if that is what the kingdom of God should look like, how do we get to there from here? And the answer is little by little. Matthew 13. Here's another illustration Jesus used. The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field. It's the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants. It grows into a tree, and birds come and make nests in its branches. Jesus also used this illustration. The kingdom of heaven is like the yeast a woman used in making bread. Even though she put only a little yeast in three measures of flour, it permeated every part of the dough. See, God's kingdom comes as it is infused into the world. As it starts to permeate the world like yeast does dough. So may your kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Those aren't separate requests. That all goes together. And so what would that look like for us to pray? Thy kingdom come, thy will be done. May your kingdom come soon. God, would you create a little heaven on earth? Would you make something here the way we know that you really want it to be? It could be a general prayer. You know, the our men's group on Wednesday night, we broke into smaller groups and were doing uh prayer requests. And uh Ken, who's on the prayer prayer team, had just read a bunch of the requests that are put in the boxes each week, and all those get prayed for uh every week. And his request was just, you know, for all the people here that are having big struggles and are hurting and need help. Abba Father, Daddy Father, will you make it right? Will your will be done? And then Daniel, who works a lot with the kids, was talking about uh all the prayer requests we get from kids and the hard things that are going on in some kids' lives. It's the same thing. God, would you take a touch of heaven and bring it into this child's life? Bless him. Make it the way you want it to be. May your kingdom come, may your will be done. And part of that will is us. You know what would you have me do today? Because when you encourage someone, the kingdoms come. When you pray with someone, the kingdoms come. When you let someone know God loves them, the kingdoms come. When we get it into our hearts that God really is a loving father and he really wants us to call him daddy, the kingdoms come. When you serve someone, the kingdoms come. When a family comes back together, the kingdoms come. When you befriend someone at school, the kingdoms come. When you love your wife or husband and you treat them with care, the kingdoms come. When you pick up your one-year chip, the kingdoms come. The kingdom comes when you and Jesus together bring a little heaven down to earth. And so his will in heaven is done on earth. We sometimes ask, you know, what's my purpose in life? I spent a lot of time thinking about that years back, you know. Susan had a great message on that topic. Uh it's been, I don't know, maybe two and a half or three years ago. Uh and it's, I'm sure, on podcasts, and it probably have CDs back in the source. What is my purpose in life? It's this simple. It's wherever you're at, whatever role you're in, your purpose is to love God and to love people. It's to love God and to love people. So each day we can ask God, how can I love someone? Put someone in my path, show me what to do. And every day that we do that, his kingdom's come, his will's been done on earth like it is in heaven. And so if the worship team will come up, we'll stop right there. And each week as we're going through the Lord's Prayer, I want to do the same thing. Talking about prayer is one thing. Praying is uh itself is so much better. And so just again, think about the one thing you need most from God today, or that you'd like to do. What type of heaven do you need in your life? The whole Lord's Prayer lasts less than a minute. And the great thing Jesus teaches is in simple words, in a simple way, we're just talking to our dad that loves us. And so let's take a minute now and just whatever is on your heart, express it to Abba. You know, as Americans, we don't really like to have kings. I was thinking about that you know this uh week a little bit. But to have a king like Jesus, someone who takes that responsibility. Um blessed we are that we can call him king. One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him. When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, Let the children come to me, don't stop them. For the kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. And that's how we connect with God through Jesus in our own words, in our own way. God, I need you. God help me. I love you. I want to trust you. Whatever it is, it's in our own words, in our own way. And then the spirit he created with comes alive and connects with God's spirit. And then he takes over and starts changing us from the inside out and bringing people into our lives and situations and growing us and changing us. And the kingdom of God has come. So you can do that today if you haven't already. Um, let's stand now and we'll get ready to sing one last song together. Abba, Father, Daddy, Father, we praise you. We thank you. I thank you for hearing every person's prayer this morning and answering those prayers. I know it pleases you that we would trust you and ask for your help. And we thank you for that. Jesus, we love you. We thank you for saving us. We thank you for showing us what our father's really like. We thank you for being our friend each day. We thank you for teaching us to pray. Amen.