A Big, Bold Prayer
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10 May your Kingdom come soon.
May your will be done on earth,
as it is in heaven.
Intro:
Elon Musk - short bio (net worth $22 billion)
Paypal - $1.5B
SpaceX - (Mars, reusable space technology)
Tesla - affordable electric cars.
Solar City - 2nd largest provider of solar energy
OpenAI
Hyperloop - high speed mass transit
Over the years Elon Musk founded PayPal, Tesla Motors,
So what drives him? According to Musk himself, it’s this:
So what drives him? According to Musk himself, it’s this:
“I didn’t go into the rocket business, the car business, or the solar business thinking this is a great opportunity. I just thought, in order to make a difference, something needed to be done. I wanted to have an impact. I wanted to create something substantially better than what came before.”
Elon Musk is driven by making a difference, having an impact and doing something substantially better. Elon Musk is all about being BOLD in business.
It helps to have the power of $22 billion to make your ambitions come to reality.
Nearly everybody wants to make a difference. But it is when we are willing to act boldly that change occurs.
Our power is derived from billions of dollars.
Ours is vastly greater. We can simply ask. We pray to the Creator-Father in faith and boldness.
As we talk about prayer, I’m convinced that the 2nd line of Jesus’ prayer he taught to his followers is a huge, bold, request.
Short review:
9 Pray like this: Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy.
10 May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
When we pray “Our Father” in v. 9, we’re able to experience the comfort of having a perfect Father and the confidence that He can handle anything.
We need to know this in order to be able to pray the next line:
10 May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
This is a big, bold prayer.
It covers time from now to all eternity.
Let’s start with the really “big picture.”
In the Future
In the Future
When we pray “your kingdom come,” we’re asking for God to restore everything to its perfection.
A perfect King will have a perfect kingdom. We clearly are NOT living in a perfect kingdom right now.
God’s perfect kingdom will exist when Jesus returns and restores that kingdom.
20 He who is the faithful witness to all these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon!” Amen! Come, Lord Jesus!
5 And the one sitting on the throne said, “Look, I am making everything new!” And then he said to me, “Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true.”
rev 21:5
Implications of the future coming kingdom:
Peace, purity, trust, all evil banished, no more wars, hunger, violence.
No more horrible tragedies like Christchurch.
No more cancer diagnoses.
No more hungry children.
41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will remove from his Kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil.
To pray for Jesus to come again and restore the kingdom isn’t to “lose” anything this world has to offer but to gain everything God has always intended us to be and to experience.
Right Now
Right Now
The “other end” of the timeline is right now.
When we offer the prayer, “your kingdom come”, we’re asking God for something to happen right now.
We’re not content to just let the world go to hell while we wait for Jesus to return.
This is the part about His will being done on earth, as it is in heaven.
This is our bold prayer of acceptance that we have a part to play in how the kingdom becomes a greater reality in the world.
10 May your Kingdom come soon. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.
Jesus inaugurated the kingdom by his presence on Earth.
43 But he replied, “I must preach the Good News of the Kingdom of God in other towns, too, because that is why I was sent.”
Implications of praying for God’s rule and will be true in the world right now:
to boldly pray for God’s reign and rule in our lives (and others) is to pray with confidence that we will repent of all the times and all the things we do to have it our way:
Prayer of Repentance.
Prayer of Repentance.
17 From then on Jesus began to preach, “Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”
For the kingdom of God to come into the larger world, it first has to be a reality in my world.
I’m asking God to deal with my hard-headed nature.
Prayer of Commitment
Prayer of Commitment
62 But Jesus told him, “Anyone who puts a hand to the plow and then looks back is not fit for the Kingdom of God.”
We’re asking God to help us stay focused on remaining committed to His goals.
Prayer of Priorities
Prayer of Priorities
Similarly, this is a bold prayer of priority.
What/How do you set your priorities every day?
matt 6:
33 Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.
Prayer of Dependence
Prayer of Dependence
3 “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.
We are being reminded that God’s kingdom truly has everything we need. Too often, we fool ourselves into thinking that we control our destiny, we are in charge of our lives.
The truth is, we’re under the influence of God, others’ choices, even to some extent the dark forces.
It’s a bold prayer to acknowledge that we need God’s kingdom - his rule, his direction - in our lives for guidance, security, blessing.
Boldly Pray for the Kingdom to Come
Boldly Pray for the Kingdom to Come
We’re praying for:
the final and ultimate establishment of God’s kingdom over all creation. (Come, Lord Jesus)
His will and his rule in our lives right now. (Change my life, right now!)
That His rule will come to others through us. (Change our world through us)
This is a big prayer that depends on a big God. Prayed with boldness and faith, it makes for a big life.
Conclusion:
I once heard about a Christian couple who came to the end of the month with more month left than money. They were in need of groceries, so they decided to go to the Lord about their need. In doing so, they compiled a grocery list that they used as their prayer list for God’s provision. Having made the list, they looked it over and decided that instead of asking for steak, they would ask for hamburger.
The next evening, when they came home, they found boxes of groceries on their front porch. That night, they attend midweek services at their church. A man in their church who owned a grocery store approached and asked if they had found the groceries. They answered, “Yes.”
He then told them how God had spoken to him specifically the night before about providing some groceries for the young couple. He said that he had walked down the aisles of his store and how God had instructed him item by item. “It was funny,” he said, “at first, I had put a package of steak in the basket, but if felt as though the Lord told me later to return the steak and get hamburger instead!”
Too many of us are content to ask for hamburger when God wants to give us steak!