Sermon Tone Analysis
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Ashurbanipal’s ivory
Ivory has almost always been of value, dating back thousands of years.
The superstitious believed ivory to protect people.
Ivory was the stuff of kings.
In fact, in some cultures, only the king was allowed to have ivory because to own ivory was to lay claim to being the king.
Think about that for a second.
To have ivory was to have power, the power to protect, and to rule.
One of the world’s largest collections of ivory belonged to the ancient emperor named Ashurbanipal, the last of the great Assyrian kings.
In 1949, an archaeologist by the name of Max Mallowan made a startling discovery in what we know as Iraq.
At the bottom of large wells, both inside and outside a palace of ancient Assyria, Mallowan found tons and tons of discarded ivory.
In ransacking the capital city, the Babylonians had stripped off all the gold and trashed the ivory, the wells being used as large trash pits for the ivory.
One of the pieces of ivory that was recovered said this: “I’m Ashurbanipal, the King of the World.”
A lot of irony there.
King of the World.
In a trash dump.
Of ivory.
Ivory that is supposed to protect.
Ivory that lays claim to power.
Not a lot of help at the bottom of a well.
Not exactly King of the World at that point.
That ivory makes up most of what is left of that kingdom.
That kingdom ended up at the bottom of a well.
Ashurbanipal may have been at the top, but eventually his kingdom became somebody else’s trash.
Just like every other kingdom on earth.
All earthly kingdoms are temporary.
They fall.
We spend a lot of time and energy on kingdoms that will not last.
Will never last.
Earthly kingdoms are just that: earthly.
Built with human ingenuity and creativity; as good as that is, it’s still finite and temporary.
And fallen, made by sinners.
The Lord’s Prayer
In the Bible, there’s only One kingdom that will last forever.
And it’s not human.
For a short period of time, that kingdom was visible on earth, but only for a specific purpose.
And that kingdom is the subject of the second petition in the Lord’s Prayer.
We began a series on the Lord’s Prayer last week.
Call Me: The Lord’s Prayer for all of Life.
Prayer is talking to God, asking God for help.
And here in Matthew we have words given to us by Jesus for just that purpose.
What we call “The Lord’s Prayer” is a cry for help.
And it’s a cry for help to the only one who is in a position to save us, our Father who is in heaven.
This Father in heaven wants us to cry out to him when we need help.
He wants to hear from us.
The first ask in this popular prayer is “Your name be honored as holy.”
We start with a cry that comes from faith, calling on the name of the Lord to save us.
Asking the only One whose name is holy and completely perfect to fill the earth with his creatures who are calling out his name.
Your kingdom come
The second big ask in the Lord’s Prayer is “Your kingdom come.”
We pray to the heavenly father who wants to hear from us “Your Kingdom Come.”
Simple enough.
Three words in our English language.
However, the subject of God’s kingdom may be the most understood subject in not just this prayer, but the entire Bible.
It’s not all that difficult if we stick to what the text is saying.
But we will get to that in a moment.
First, though, what is a kingdom?
If we were to begin at the beginning of the Bible, we would find that a kingdom is defined this way: A kingdom has a Ruler, those Ruled, and a Realm.
Or another way of putting it:
There’s always One Person, a people and a place.
Every kingdom has someone who is in charge.
The king.
The kings of the Bible were absolute monarchs.
Their rule was their law.
They had absolute power in their words and in their deeds.
Secondly, kings ruled over those ruled.. a people.
You’re not a king if you aren’t ruling over people, those who were the subjects.
And finally… Kings also had realms.
You’re not a king if you don’t have a territory, a place to rule.
Every king had some kind of territorial boundary marking out the territory where they ruled their people.
In the Bible, beginning from the very beginning of the Bible in the garden, God has a kingdom.
God’s kingdom is summed up this way:
God’s people, in God’s place, under God’s rule (Graeme Goldsworthy).
Everywhere you go in the Bible, you’ll find God’s kingdom being portrayed this way.
Whether it’s the garden of Eden at the very beginning or the nation of Israel under king David, God’s kingdom always involves His people in His place under His rule.
In the garden, God rules by himself, ruling over Adam and Eve in the garden AND giving them rule, tasking them with having dominion over the animal kingdom and subduing the world.
Adam and Eve were to rule in God’s place.
But they messed up.
Another place we see this is with King David.
King David, on behalf of God, exercised God’s rule over God’s people, Israel, in God’s place, God’s land, the Promised Land.
But like Adam and Eve, Israel and her kings mess up.
They sin and they lose it all.
And that’s the story throughout the Old Testament.
Israel’s kingdom ends up no better than Ashubanipal’s.
All the kingdoms of the world are temporary.
What’s different about Israel is that in the Old Testament God promised that David’s kingdom would be forever with one of David’s heirs on his throne.
The Old Testament ends in both destruction and hope.
There is no heir.
There is no throne.
There is no people being ruled.
There is no kingdom.
And yet there is hope.
Hundreds of years after Israel and Ashurbanipal there arrives a baby, a baby who is said to be David’s heir.
Angels announce the birth of one born in the city of David, the Messiah, the Promised One.
This little baby is given gifts meant for a king.
And when he is 30 years of age, he begins preaching about a kingdom.
Our text today comes from Matthew chapter 6, where Jesus is preaching to a crowd on the side of a mountain.
Just prior to beginning this sermon, Matthew tells us this:
Matthew 4:17,23 From then on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, because the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
Jesus began to go all over Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
Matthew 4:24-25 Then the news about him spread throughout Syria.
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