Sermon Tone Analysis
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Love Come Down
WELCOME
Good morning family.
Hear the Word of the Lord from...
Psalm 145:9-12—“The Lord is good to all, and His mercy is over all that He has made.
All Your works shall give thanks to You, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless You!
They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom and tell of Your power, to make known to the children of man Your mighty deeds, and the glorious splendor of Your kingdom.”
Everyone (even those who reject God) receives countless mercies from the hand of a kind and compassionate King
But God invites you to submit to His Kingly rule now
In just a moment we’ll hear a reading from the text for today’s sermon in Matthew 6.
You can find it on PAGE 964 in the black Bibles.
Turn there now.
While you’re turning, 4 quick announcements:
1) A word about PBC.
We are Missionaries.
We want to reach our neighbors and the nations with the Gospel of Jesus Christ
One way to do that is to create opportunities where we can meet our neighbors and tell them the Good News of Jesus
The holiday we call Easter is one of the few remaining events in the calendar when many people are a bit more open to listen
2) Easter at PBC
Easter Egg Hunt Outreach, April 9 from 10-12
Good Friday service, April 15 at 6:30 PM
Joint Sunday School & Breakfast, Easter Sunday at 9 AM
Easter Sunday, 10:30 (No TableTalk)
Flyers at the blue flag
3) TableTalk at 5:30—Prayer Meeting!
We’ve been talking a lot about prayer over the past few weeks.
Join us to put into practice what God is teaching you.
4) Women’s Event, April 13 at 6PM
A devotional on the importance of spiritual refreshment and several craft workshops
Visit the blue flag for more information or to sign up.
Now look in your Bibles at Matthew 6:9 as Bethany Harris comes to read for us.
Scripture Reading (Matthew 6:9-13)
Prayer of Praise (God is incomprehensible), Bethany Harris
Your Mercy
My Jesus, I Love Thee
Prayer of Confession (Complaining), Al Koth
His Mercy Is More
PBC Catechism #14
Apart from Christ, what is our standing before God?
We believe all people are sinful and in need of salvation
Pastoral Prayer (John Rogers)
SERMON
Last Sunday afternoon Holly and I had the opportunity to provide childcare for our PBC Kids volunteers while they attended training.
I don’t usually get a lot of opportunities to work in children’s ministry, so I was excited to spend some time with the kids.
We sat down at a table together, made it through an icebreaker question about our favorite candy, and then I started to read them a children’s book from the bookstall about how God makes each of us unique.
And then one of our moms dropped off one of our really little ones, and the baby began to cry.
Now I’m in the middle of a story and up to this point the eleven children have done surprisingly well paying attention, and I didn’t want to lose momentum.
So I stopped the story and suggested we pray that the baby would stop crying.
One of the things I’m trying to work on in my own prayer life is talking to God more regularly.
Often I treat prayer as a last resort, so I’m striving to grow in asking God regularly.
So we stopped and we prayed for the baby to stop crying.
In less than thirty seconds after we said “amen,” the baby stopped crying and the children around the table were all smiles.
I pointed out that God had answered our prayer, and one of the kids reminded me “God answers all our prayers, but sometimes the answer is ‘no’ or ‘wait.’”
Thanks church kids!
Then, another child said with a smile on his face, “I’m going to ask God to make it rain candy!!!”
As I thought about that exchange, I was reminded of the two main pitfalls when it comes to prayer.
On the one hand, like me, we are prone to not ask.
We’re used to doing things by ourselves.
We tell ourselves things will eventually work out if we just let them be.
We tell ourselves that God doesn’t care about all these little things that we could ask about.
On the other hand, like a child wanting it to rain candy, we are prone to ask selfishly.
We want things for our own selfish purposes.
These two pitfalls are clearly explained by Jesus’ half-brother James...
James 4:2-3—“...You do not have, because you do not ask.
You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”
Some of us are prone to not asking
Others are prone to asking selfishly
Last week I shared my prayer that God would use His Word to grow in us a desire to pray.
As God answers that prayer, what can happen in our hearts is the pendulum can swing from not asking to asking selfishly.
Perhaps you’ve gone from not asking God for much of anything to asking Him to make it rain candy, metaphorically speaking.
Or maybe, you don’t want to ask selfishly, so you just figure it’s better not to ask at all.
What we need are some guardrails that will protect us from swinging from one extreme to the other.
And that’s exactly what we have in our text for today.
Turn to Matthew 6:10
Jesus is teaching His disciples how to pray
Remember, this is a prayer for Christians, for those who have been adopted into the family of God by repenting of their sins and trusting in the finished work of Jesus on the cross
After telling us how to approach God (as Father)...
...and what request should be foundational for everything we ask (that God’s name would be recognized as holy)...
...Jesus says this...
Matthew 6:10—“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
In these two prayer requests, we see TWO GUARDRAILS that protect us from the pitfalls of not asking and asking selfishly.
Ask for His KINGDOM to Come
The reason we’re sometimes tempted to ask selfishly is because we’re focused on the wrong kingdom.
We pray for my comfort, my happiness, my pleasure, my possessions, my schedule, my relationships, my health, etc.
Now don’t mishear me.
I’m not saying it’s necessarily wrong to pray for any of those things.
The question is not so much, “what are my prayer requests,” but “whose kingdom am I most concerned about?
My little kingdom, or the kingdom of Christ?”
Jesus says to pray to our Father, “Your kingdom come”
What is the kingdom of God?
In his book, Gospel and Kingdom, Graeme Goldsworthy points out that a kingdom always has “a king who rules, a people who are ruled, and a sphere where this rule is recognized as taking place.”
[1]
The Kingdom of God = “God’s people in God’s place under God’s rule.”
(Graeme Goldsworthy) [2]
We first see a picture of this kingdom in Genesis.
God’s people (Adam and Eve) are in God’s place (the Garden of Eden) living under God’s rule.
But an angel rebels against God’s rule, then appears to Adam and Eve in the form of a serpent and tempts them to rebel too.
As a result, a rival kingdom is established.
The kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of man, the kingdom of self.
This is the kingdom that every single one of us is born into.
It’s also the kingdom we choose every time we sin against God.
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