Prayer & The Kingdom

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On Encouraging Prayer, Dr. James Banks, author of the bestselling Prayers for Prodigals and many other books on prayer, provides weekly biblical insight to help you learn to love to pray. And now, here's James. Oh, we have a bit of a head scratcher for you today, and it's something really good to ponder at this time of year. I mean, we're going to start out by asking two questions this morning.

Why and what if? So, James, go ahead and take it from here. Thanks, Robbie. So it's the Christmas season where we think about the greatest gift of all, God's Son, and it's also the Advent season where we recognize that Jesus not only entered human history once, he's coming again, and we need to be ready. And our prayers have something to do with that, something important. Today I'd like to talk about a very specific request Jesus taught us to pray in the Lord's Prayer.

That request is, Your Kingdom Come. Which, of course, means I want Your Kingdom to be fully realized, Lord, so come soon, Lord Jesus. So what that really means is that there will be a new heaven and a new earth. All of creation will be fully restored by God.

That's right. And when God's Word talks about it in 2 Peter 3-12, it says we should look forward to the day of God and, quote, speed its coming. Some other good translations use the word hasten, but think about that. God's Word seems to indicate that we can speed up the day when his kingdom comes. When all of this happens, we can hasten its coming.

I think I see where you're headed with this. Our prayer, right, Your Kingdom Come, is really a part of that, isn't it? I really believe it is, Robbie, and I think Scripture backs that up, and there's a very important lesson in this for all of us, and I'd like to go there in a moment. Well, let's do that, but before we do, James, what do you say to the person who responds, Well, God is sovereign and he will do what he will do, so how could our prayers have any effect, you know, on when the Lord returns?

That's such a good question. I absolutely agree with the truth, the fact that God is sovereign. But what's clear from Scripture is that Jesus has clearly taught us to pray for his kingdom to come, so I believe there's no inconsistency there.

This is where that question, why, comes in. Where in Scripture does God ever tell us to pray for something and then say he won't give it to us? He wants us to come to him and ask, so why would he have us ask for something where our prayers wouldn't make any difference? God never tells us to ask for things just as a way of going through the motions. He has a reason for teaching us to pray that way, and that doesn't conflict with his sovereignty at all.

Right, I see your point, but do you think he's teaching us to ask that way because he just wants us to focus our hearts on that or to seek his kingdom first? Well, I think that's an important part of it, but it's definitely not all of it, and this is where it really gets interesting, because you have to take a look at the end of the book in Revelation 5 and Revelation 8. First, Revelation 5, 8 describes these golden bowls full of incense that are presented before God, and it says these are the prayers of God's people. And I love that passage because it shows us how precious our prayers are to God.

They're like incense to him, and we've talked about that before. But then move forward to Revelation 8, and you see something else. An angel comes and stands before God in heaven.

Now listen to this. I'm going to read it, Revelation 8, starting verse 3, so we don't miss a word. Another angel who had a golden censer came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all God's people on the golden altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God's people, went up before God from the angel's hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth, and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake. Then the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared to sound them. Wow, so the seventh trumpet, right? Those signal the beginning of the end, right? Right. When the seventh angel sounds his trumpet, the last trumpet, this announcement comes with it. The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever. That's Revelation 11, 15, by the way.

So here's the point. What's in the censer mixed with the fire from the altar? We've already seen that, right? Prayer. It's prayer that is hurled to the earth with the incense and the fire from the altar, and you can see in chapter 5 where the incense is prayer. So the point is our prayers have something to do with the end of days, something vital, something important. It's right there, clearly laid out in Scripture, the connection between our prayers and that request that Jesus taught us, your kingdom come. Wow, that's amazing, James. No wonder the devil wants to keep us from praying.

Really? Yeah, I mean, that's exactly right. And it also shows us the priority God has placed on our prayers. And that brings us to the second question. What if, what if we prayed more for his kingdom to come? The message of Scripture is clear that our prayers are an important part of that kingdom coming. They are a vital part of, how did Peter put it? How we speed its coming, right?

Yeah. I mean, what an awesome reason to want to pray more. I mean, to pray for those who don't know Jesus, to pray that we can be ready to pray for sin and death to be done with, and God's kingdom to come forever.

I mean, that's a pretty exciting what if. It really is. And there's more power in our prayers than we know. God in his mercy has placed it there. He wants us to avail ourselves of it.

The opportunities are absolutely stunning, and the consequences of not doing so are heartbreaking. We've got to pray. Our prayers matter deeply and accomplish great things. As Ian Bounds put it, God shapes the world by prayer. Oh, yes he does, James. Would you wrap us up this time with a prayer that we really take this to heart?

Absolutely. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, come soon. Your kingdom, come. Help us, Lord, to pray this, to want you to return. Help us to be ready.

Help our loved ones to be ready. Lord, fill us with your spirit so that we may prepare well and look forward to being with you forever. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen. You can hear more from Pastor James by visiting his website, jamesbanks.org, or by visiting Peace Church in Durham, North Carolina. May God bless you and encourage you as you pray.