No Longer King of Your Own Castle

One author writes that the kingdom of God isn't just a destination for where we will live.

One day it is a motivation for the way we live right now. To pray your kingdom come means that you are relinquishing the rule of your life. There is a future reality where the King is coming, but there is a present reality where the King, as that old chorus says, has already come and conquered the kingdom of my heart. When Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, he stressed just how significant a commitment it is to say, your kingdom come. You've probably recited those words dozens of times, but Jesus wasn't just concerned with the words coming out of his followers' mouths.

He got right to the heart of the matter. Praying the Lord's Prayer honestly requires a type of surrender that acknowledges God's divine supremacy and your total dependency. When you pray this prayer, you hand over the keys to the castle of your life.

This message is called, No Longer the King of Your Castle. When the disciples asked the Lord to teach them how to pray, I can imagine they were surprised at how short the lesson would be. The Lord proceeded to answer their request and delivered to them a lesson on prayer that took less than two minutes. He gives them a prayer, not so much to memorize, but to model. While it only took the Lord two minutes to teach them this prayer, it's taking us several hours to unpack it. It's rich, theologically deep. It is life changing. If you're new to our study, we're going through the gospel by Luke.

We're in chapter 11, where this event takes place. So far, the Lord has taught the disciples to begin this prayer with a personal term, referring to God as Father. You have gained access into heaven because you've personally done something on earth. He became your father when you asked his son to become your savior. This prayer is effectively a family conversation.

You can't get any access, except through Christ, as mediator to the throne of God. This prayer begins by acknowledging our family association. The prayer, as we've learned, goes on to refer to the Father's attributes. Hallowed be your name. Hallowed means sacred and holy. We want it to be reverence to the Jewish world.

The name reflected the nature of the individual. So when you pray, hallowed be your name, it's a prayer request where you ask God to reveal his nature, his divine attributes, his character to the world. You're basically asking God to do that through you. This is a loaded prayer with all kinds of implications. You're effectively saying to God that you're going to live in such a way that his reputation be enhanced. So you're willingly saying, Lord, I'm taking on the responsibility for your reputation. If you want to know how to really pray, Jesus is teaching them and us that prayer begins with family association. It accepts the responsibility to demonstrate his holy attributes. In fact, that's the incentive for living a holy life. You're his child. You want to represent him to your world well, just like you hope your children will behave when you go out in public.

Every so often, you're somewhat disappointed. You push your grocery cart with your child in the front seat and everything's gone well for you and your little angel until you pulled up into the checkout lane where all that candy is strategically placed at eye level for your child. I mean, is that brilliant or what? Who told them to do that?

Satan did. And your little angel becomes a fallen angel and begins to tell everybody effectively you're a mean, uncaring, unkind, stingy parent. I thought of that because when you pray this prayer, you're basically saying, Father, I'm your child and I'm about to go out in public. I don't want to embarrass the family name.

I don't want to communicate in some way that my father is unkind or uncaring or stingy. Let me live in such a way that your attributes, grace and holiness and mercy and long suffering and you go down the list is demonstrated through me. Now we're here at these next two requests.

They flow from each other, so we'll unpack them together. We're going to combine Luke and Matthew's model prayer. We're here in Luke 11.

Notice verse 10. Father, Matthew inserts the words, who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. Now notice the next prayer request, your kingdom come, Matthew adds, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So if I could outline it this way, you began with a family association with a desire to demonstrate your father's attributes and now you're surrendering to your father's agenda, your kingdom come. You're not praying, my kingdom come, your kingdom come. You're admitting then early on in this prayer that you are no longer the king of your own castle. There's only one king and you're acknowledging you're not him.

If you're going to be the king of your own castle, you stop praying at this point because here you are now literally surrendering your life to the government of God. Now this phrase, your kingdom come, is freighted with meaning. There are a couple of different ways to look at it and I could spend a sermon or two on this first element but we're going to cover these phrases. One is the fact that this is rooted in prophetic anticipation. The future literal kingdom of Christ is coming and that's how we're taught to pray here simply because the kingdom hasn't arrived yet. When Jesus arrived in Galilee, he would be teaching his disciples to pray, Father, thank you that your kingdom came.

He's not teaching them that. This prayer request is for something yet future. And the imperative verb can be translated, let it happen soon.

How about now? Let it arrive. We want to get on with your agenda basically. And he's teaching us here to pray, as it were, for the agenda of God to be revealed and for the glorious day when Satan is chained in the abyss for a thousand years and Jesus fulfills all those promises as the restored nation of Israel gathers in Jerusalem and he reigns from that throne and we with him scattered around the earth, co-reigning with him. You know the world is longing intuitively for world peace.

They just know that maybe somehow it could happen. There have been a number of events and organizations created to somehow bring that to pass. We're living during the days of the United Nations and their attempts and they can't quite bring peace. It isn't going to happen, but it is interesting to me that the United Nations, now representing 193 nations, essentially rejects the gospel of God the Son, the reign of Christ even now in our hearts. They reject the gospel of the Lord coming to die as the rejected Messiah and wait for him to come as the regal Messiah. They reject all of that.

But let me tell you, they still long for it. They still intuitively hope for a unified, united, peaceful global world and it's interesting to me that the United Nations expresses that longing unofficially by using prophetic scripture. At the United Nations campus, across the street from the building, there's a plaza where peace protests have taken place for the last 65 years off and on. There on that plaza is this wall bearing a verse of scripture from the prophet Isaiah and the prophet Isaiah in this text is referring to the coming millennial kingdom when Christ rules on earth. The text, which you can't read, you can just barely see the wall, but it reads this, they shall beat their swords into plowshares, or into plows, and their spears into pruning hooks, because it's just going to be covered, that promised land with orchards. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore, dash Isaiah.

Although the world doesn't want any part of surrender to Jesus the ruler, they can't resist the biblical promise of a coming age where war is going to be this distant memory and global unity will actually occur among the nations that have come to faith, representing every nation on earth who followed the Savior. This is a rather magnificent monument and I'm glad the words of Isaiah are carved into the monument or they would have been erased a long time ago. Now at the end of the quote is simply the name Isaiah. In fact, this monument has been nicknamed the Isaiah Wall, but the specific reference in Isaiah has been left out. All you have is the name of Isaiah. There's no reference to chapter 2 and verse 4. Perhaps they're afraid somebody might look it up, because if they did, they would discover the full text.

Here it is. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations and shall render decisions for many peoples, and they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore. In other words, this is a prophecy of global peace that is directly tied to the literal reign of Jesus Christ on earth in the kingdom.

You can't have the last part of the verse without the first part of the verse. You can't have peace on earth and reject the prince of peace, which the world will do until he has this great global awakening during the tribulation period and then descends to reign. So the believer then is taught to pray for the day when the divine agenda of God will reach this glorious point of consummation as Christ descends and establishes his thousand-year kingdom on earth to fulfill all of the promises to the nation, to the land, to the kingdom, to the throne, all of it. All 220 prophecies will come true. But let me tell you, this prayer for the future kingdom of Christ has bearing here and now.

The implication has application. When you and I pray, Thy kingdom come, we are essentially handing over the kingdom of our own lives to him, our rightful king. You can't pray for the government of God to be established on earth and want nothing of the governing of God in your life right now.

Well, you know, one day I really want it to come, but I don't want it now. And when you pray, bring it now. Later in that day, I want you to govern me now. One author writes that the kingdom of God isn't just a destination for where we will live.

One day it is a motivation for the way we live right now. To pray, Your kingdom come, means that you are relinquishing the rule of your life. You are dismissing the parliament of your priority. You are exiting the prime minister of your pride. You are abdicating the throne.

There is a future reality where the king is coming, but there is a present reality where the king, as that old chorus says, has already come and conquered the kingdom of my heart. I love the way a church leader put this tradition into practice in his own life. He once served as one of the bishops in the Church of England back in the 1800s.

Taylor Smith was his name. He was an honorary chaplain to Queen Victoria, committed believer. And after his death, one of his personal notes was found in his journal, a commitment he had made, where he wrote this, As soon as I awake each morning, I will arise from bed, wash, shave, comb my hair, get fully dressed, where I, wide awake and properly groomed, will go quietly to my study, where I will present myself as a loyal subject to my sovereign, ready to be of service to Christ my King.

Wow. That's what it means to pray, Your kingdom come. If that isn't life-altering enough, if that isn't perspective-changing enough, if that isn't convicting enough, here's the next phrase that flows out of this one. It's given by our Lord over, if you want to turn to Matthew chapter 6 and verse 10, where Matthew inserts the words in our Lord's teaching to the multitudes. The Lord gave them a little longer prayer.

These are two different events. Your kingdom come, and now Matthew adds the words, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The expression, your will be done, again means to pray. I want it to happen. I want it to come.

I want it to be a reality. Your will be done. Now, that might be a little confusing, because isn't God's will going to happen, regardless of whether you pray it or not? Whatever God wills will happen. There isn't anything that God wills that isn't going to happen. Well, again, there are two ways of looking at this in order to understand this, and especially our part in praying for this. I think it's well described in Al Mohler's little book I read this summer on this passage, entitled The Prayer That Turns the World Upside Down. Let me encourage you to buy his book.

Just don't buy it until I finish this series. Then it will amaze you how much he learned from my sermons in his book he wrote four years ago. Nonetheless, he pointed out that the concept of the will of God has been recognized by the church, by theologians, in two different ways. First, there is the sovereign will of God. We might call it the decreed will of God. The Bible often speaks of God's will in this categorical sense, referring to his absolute sovereign management over everything that exists, for nothing would exist apart from his will. But there's another aspect to God's will, and that is his revealed will.

That's what he expects from us. He isn't going to make us do that, like get out of bed, get dressed, and surrender. This is perhaps illustrated in the commandments of the Lord.

This is where Paul writes to the Thessalonians. This is the will of God that you abstain from sexual immorality. In other words, it is the will of God, but you can choose to defy it, disobey it, disobey him. Now your obedience, or your disobedience, is known to him from eternity past.

He weaves your obedience into his sovereign will, so that his purposes always come to pass. Think of it this way, Joseph's brothers sinned against him, selling him into slavery. God didn't make them do that. They're responsible for that sin, and that sinful action, but he knew they'd do that. So in eternity past, trillion times, trillions of years ago, he wove that into the purposes for this world, so that he would be able to tell and confirm in Joseph's own testimony, you did it, and it was for evil, but God did it, and it was for good.

It's how God works all things together according to his will. So what is Jesus asking us to pray about here? Well, it can't be a prayer request for his sovereign will, because God's will is already being done in heaven as it is being done on earth. Jesus is teaching us to just make one more statement of surrender here, to his revealed will. He's asking us to arrive when we pray to this point, Father, I will be obedient in performing your will revealed to me instead of disobeying your will revealed to me. So when I come to a passage of Scripture and it says do this, I'll do it. If it says don't do that, I won't do it. And if I don't do what I should and I do what I shouldn't, I'll be quick to confess it, because I want to experience the blessing of your revealed will.

Now let me point out something else. Did you notice the comparison here? Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This is a comparison of our obedience to God on earth to the angels who obey God in heaven. And we're praying then that there won't be this vast contrast, but a close comparison.

It ought to be the same. So we have to ask ourselves the question, how is God's will accomplished by the angels in heaven immediately? Without any debate, no angel ever asks, why me?

Why give me that assignment? Imagine Gabriel being told by God as he was to go to the priest Zacharias and tell that elderly man that he and his elderly wife Elizabeth are going to have something supernatural taking place. She's going to get pregnant and have a baby. You're going to call him John the baptizer. He's going to be the forerunner of the Messiah. Gabriel says absolutely, whisks his way downward, delivers the message, comes back and God says, now Gabriel, I want you to go to marry that young teenager and tell her about a miraculous conception and what's going to happen in her life.

Absolutely. And he whisks his way again down there and delivers the message. He comes back and God says to him, now I want you to go back and I want you to tell Joseph the same thing. At that point, Gabriel says, really?

I just got back. I mean, climbing down Jacob's ladder is no picnic. Why don't you send Michael the archangel? He hasn't done anything since Daniel chapter 10. It's been 600 years. He's sat around for 600 years.

Ask him. No. Since the angels have been confirmed in holiness after they refused to join Satan in his rebellion and those angels are confirmed in unholiness, the holy angels obey the will of God without debate, without defensiveness, without disobedience.

They never ask why this assignment. They just obey. So when you pray this prayer, you're praying, Lord, I want to live down here like they're living up there. I want to respond to your will on earth like they are responding to your will in heaven.

Your will be done on earth. That's a personal prayer request through me just like they do that up there. Are we really willing to pray this prayer? Praying your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven, you are giving him the throne room of your heart, control over your mind and body, your direction, your career, your priorities, your plans, your health, your future. This prayer is unrestricted, unreserved, unlimited, unconditional surrender. And how many times do we need to do that? Every time we pray because we slip back on the throne. We are saying to the Lord here, Father, I am no longer the king of my own castle. It's yours.

It's yours. And we surrender all over again. John Wesley in his book on prayer written in 1755 included the prayer of a Puritan pastor written 100 years earlier by Richard Lean. His prayer perfectly illustrates this kind of surrender the Lord is teaching us along with his disciples. And I close with this, I am no longer my own, but thine. Put me to what thou wilt, rank me with whom thou wilt, put me to doing, put me to suffering.

Let me be employed for thee or laid aside for thee, exalted for thee or brought low for thee. Let me be full. Let me be empty. Let me have all things. Let me have nothing. I freely and wholeheartedly yield all things to thy pleasure and disposal.

Thou art mine and I am thine, so be it. Amen. If you want to receive one of these messages, you can go to our website and keep caught up because we post them there. We also post Stephen's other daily program, The Wisdom Journey, which takes you through the entire Bible in about 10 minutes a day. If you want to visit there today, then join us back here next time for more wisdom for the hearts. You