Jump Start # 297

 Luke 11:2 “And He said to them, ‘When you pray, say: ‘Father, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come.”

  We continue our look at prayer through the eyes of Jesus. It is impressive to note in the first sentence of this prayer, of the eight words Jesus uses, three of them are God’s name. Prayer is talking to God.

  Having expressed the holiness or hallowedness of God, Jesus then says, “Thy kingdom come.” This was important to Jesus. Many of Jesus’ parables were about the kingdom. The kingdom of Heaven, He would say, is like a mustard seed, or like a treasure found in a field. Jesus came preaching the kingdom.

  The kingdom was prophesied in the OT. Daniel said in the days of the fourth kingdom there would be a kingdom not made of hands that would destroy all other kingdoms. God had promised to sit one on the throne of David. Kingdom talk fills the prophets.

  Many are still looking for this kingdom today. When we look carefully in the N.T. we find that Jesus established the kingdom. The kingdom came! It arrived. How do we know that?

• Jn 18:36 Jesus told Pilate that My kingdom is not of this world. It is different in nature than the kingdoms of Rome, Babylon or even Israel—it is a spiritual kingdom.
• Mk 9:1 Jesus told the audience that some who were listening to him that day who would not die before they saw the kingdom. Either the kingdom came, or else there are 2,000 year old people on this earth. Which do you think it is?
• Rev 1:9 the apostle John stated that he was a partaker in the kingdom. This can only be if the kingdom was in existence
• Col 1:13 Paul told the brethren that they were part of the kingdom
• 1 Tim 6:15 Paul declared that Jesus Christ is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. How can He be a king without a kingdom? Are we to say that Jesus is in exile? I don’t think so.
• Heb 1:13 Jesus ascended to Heaven to sit at the right hand of God– an expression of rule.
• 1 Cor 15:25 Jesus will reign until death is no more

  Passage after passage, principle after principle, teach that the kingdom has come and that Jesus Christ is now reigning. Now this thought may be radical for some of you. A major thought today is that Jesus is still to come and establish His kingdom and reign on earth. That’s the wrong kind of kingdom. That’s a physical kingdom. The kingdom came. What was it? What is it? It is the church, the saved. That is what Jesus came for—He came to seek and to save the lost (Lk 19:10). Did He do that? Yes. Upon the cross Jesus said, “It is finished, “ not “I am finished,” but “it.” He accomplished what He came to do. God doesn’t fail. What was the result? The kingdom, the church, the saved, the flock of God.

  In Matthew 16:18 Jesus said, ‘Upon this rock I will build my church…’ In the next verse He gives the keys of the kingdom to the apostles. Kingdom and church—two different things, or the same? Same thing! Why then two different words? Because they describe different aspects.

• Kingdom refers to rule and authority. Jesus is the king and we are citizens
• Church refers to being called out of darkness, out of sin. We are saved people.
• Body refers to function. Jesus is the head and we are members.

  Different words for the same concept. We may say a person is a man, a husband, a father, a citizen. All these words fit the same person but they describe different aspects of that person.

 Jesus prayed for the kingdom to come. It came. He brought it forth. He reigns now.

  Why then did Jesus put this in the model prayer? At that time He taught the disciples the kingdom hadn’t come. Jesus hadn’t died yet. He was not seated at the right hand of God yet. It was coming, but not at that moment. It has now. For us to pray for the kingdom to come is to pray for something that is here. Imagine praying for 2010 to come. It came. Don’t need to pray that prayer. So we don’t pray for the kingdom to come today? Right. Why? It came. We can thank God for the kingdom. We need to be in that kingdom.

  We will continue with our look at this model prayer. I realize that these thoughts are a bit more than what we often have in our Jump Starts, but it is necessary to understand.

Roger