A Lenten Sermon Series 2/6
Matthew 6: 9-10
by Rev. Carson Overstreet
Van Wyck Presbyterian Church
February 25, 2018
Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven. - Mathew 6: 9-10
Last week we began to dive into the Lord’s Prayer. Jesus begins teaching his disciples how to pray with a sense of child-like wonder for who God is. The gift of Jesus’ prayer nurtures tender relationships with God and one another.
Jesus teaches us that our praise of God’s faithfulness moves us to pray with a growing trust – a bold trust – of God’s kingdom that is present and is still yet to come.
Matthew’s Gospel says that God’s kingdom has already come through the birth of Jesus Christ, which Isaiah prophesied: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means ‘God is with us’” (Matthew 1:23; Isaiah 7:14). Jesus was the promised Son who would come from the house of King David to establish God’s eternal kingdom. God told David, “I will be a father to him and he shall be a son to me” (2 Samuel 7: 12-14).
Our Savior is the ruler of God’s kingdom; a ruler who is like none other – One who is only armed with the strength of God’s love to shepherd God’s people (Matthew 2:6; Micah 5: 2, 4). Christ’s humble obedience to God led him to die on the cross to demonstrate the fullness of God’s unconditional love. At Jesus’ last breath, God’s love was let loose into the world when the temple curtain tore in half (Matthew 27:51). Nothing can or will ever separate us from God’s love in Christ (Romans 8:35).
Risen to new life, Jesus claimed all authority in heaven and on earth. Jesus called for the body of Christ to participate in God’s kingdom of radical love by making disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all that Christ commanded (Matthew 28: 18-20).
We follow Jesus’ instructions with a healthy sense of humility, grounded in God’s gracious gift of relationships. As we follow Jesus, our Lord teaches us what to be in prayer for – to pray for God’s kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven.
When we look at the world today we have a hard time seeing evidence of God’s kingdom with human eyes.
We see suffering that cannot be explained.
Violence casts the shadow of death and steals the promising future of young lives.
Poverty and homelessness persist. Children have big scars and deep wounds from being bullied in school.
Institutions chose to hide scandals of abuse instead of prioritizing justice and healing for victims.
The conversations in our households are never ending about what is wrong with the world.
And yet we are not called to be people of despair (which is the opposite of hope). We are called to pray with bold hope even in the face of great impossibility.
First and foremost, to pray for God’s kingdom reaffirms that God can do all things, no purpose of God can be thwarted; the Lord’s word shall not return empty for it shall accomplish Gods purposes (Job 42:2; Isaiah 14:27; Isaiah 55:11). This is the good news of God’s kingdom!
Secondly, to pray for God’s kingdom to break in humbles us to confess our need for control and our proneness to rebel against God. Jesus leads us to surrender our human will and our need to control life’s outcomes with human reasoning.
You and I know how often we are tempted to say we know how to resolve the world’s problems better than God! And yet Christ reveals our need to trust God alone for Christ says, “Not my will, but your will – not what I want but what you want” (Matthew 26: 39, 42).
Frederick Beuchner says, “We do well not to pray this prayer lightly. It takes guts to pray [The Lord’s Prayer] at all. We are asking God to be God. We are asking God to do not what we want but what God wants. We are asking God to make manifest the holiness that is now mostly hidden…To pray, “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven” is to say that if that were suddenly to happen, what would stand and what would fall? Which of our many precious visions of who God is and of what human beings are would prove to be more or less on the mark and which would turn out to be phony as three-dollar bills?” [1]
We must be very careful about claiming that we know the certainty of God’s will.
God’s ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:8). “God makes foolish the wisdom of the world…God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength (1 Corinthians 1:20c, 25). Discerning God’s will takes a posture of humility and an ongoing commitment for the Spirit to renew our minds to seek what is good, acceptable, and perfect in God’s eyes (Romans 12:2).
As Jesus tells us what to pray for, we must rely upon the whole of Scripture in order to recognize that God’s kingdom looks like.
God’s kingdom is marked by loving God and neighbor;
comforting God’s people;
caring for the widow and the orphan;
welcoming the stranger (refugee);
strengthening the powerless;
empowering the faint;
working for justice that brings right relationships and peace;
seeking the welfare of the city in which we live;
and prayer that puts faith into practice. (Deuteronomy 6:4, Matthew 22: 37-40, Mark 12: 35-37, Luke 20: 41-44; Romans 12:10, Romans 13:8; Exodus 22: 21-24, Leviticus 19:33-34, Deuteronomy 10:19; Isaiah 40:1, 29; Isaiah 32:16-17; Jeremiah 4:1-2; Jeremiah 29:7; Philippians 4:4-9).
David Bosch says, “We are called, therefore, to be "kingdom people", not "church people". Kingdom people seek first the Kingdom of God and its justice; church people often put church work above concerns of justice, mercy and truth. Church people think about how to get people into the church; Kingdom people think about how to work to get the church into the world. Church people worry that the world might change the church; Kingdom people work to see the church change the world.” [2]
And yet it is not the church doing the changing per se, but it is the church’s faithfulness to follow Jesus Christ.
If you read through Matthew’s Gospel, the kingdom of God is a treasure hidden within the ordinary places of life. It is here that Jesus Christ is shaping us to see God’s kingdom already present in his ministry, life, death, and resurrection.
The power of God’s kingdom takes root in our lived experiences to redeem and restore and renew us from the inside out. Just like seeds planted in good soil, yeast that is mixed into the flour, talents which are invested to yield growth - God’s kingdom is grace that is poured out beyond measure and hidden within our hearts to grow exponentially (Matthew 13:23; 13:33; 25: 20-21).
This amazing grace gives us courage and empowers us to follow Jesus’ example to work together in the fields of God’s generous love and to share it with others. Remember God’s treasure is meant to be freely given as Jesus Christ so freely gave it to us. The hope is that we may all behold God’s kingdom breaking in together.
No one knows the day God’s kingdom will come to completion. In the meantime, we are to be about the Lord’s business!
This second week of Lent be in prayer for the intersections of what breaks God’s heart and what is breaking yours. Ask Jesus Christ to help you trust that God’s love is already on the move to break into that brokenness to bring glory to God.
But here’s the tricky part if we are to really pray as Jesus taught…..
…..ask the Spirit to open our hearts to see the difference between God’s will and our will. The difference between seeking to be faithful (to God's will) and striving to be right (in our will) matters.
…..ask the Spirit to lead us to be kingdom builders. Later in the service we will sing these words about building God’s kingdom:
O for a world where everyone respects each other’s ways /
Where love is lived and all is done with justice and with praise.
O for a world where goods are shared and misery relieved /
Where truth is spoken, children spared, equality achieved.
O for a world preparing for God’s glorious reign of peace /
Where time and tears will be no more and all but love will cease. [3]
May it be so for you and for me.
In the name of God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Sources Referenced:
[1] Frederick Beuchner, “Listening to Your Life” (New York: Harper Collins, 1992).
[2] David Bosch, “Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission” (Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1999).
[3] Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), hymn number 372 “O for a World.”
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