Sermon
A Prayer For Every Day - Your Kingdom Come On Earth as it is In Heaven - Matthew 6:10 - Origin Sermon - 30 July 2023
Publisher transcript
Transcript
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Our text this morning is the. Lord's Prayer.
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You've heard it a few times already today, and our focus is
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the. Very simple, but incredibly
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powerful. Word our Father, your Kingdom.
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Come on earth as it is in heaven.
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Do you know when we pray that many times we're not really
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clued in to what it is we're really?
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Asking God. In that moment, I love this
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quote from Annie Dillard, who says, you know.
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Basically, we're playing with fire when we pray.
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This prayer. She says does.
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Anyone have the foggiest idea what?
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Sort of power were so. Blithely invoke or as I suspect.
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Does no one believe a word of it?
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The churches are children playing on the.
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Floor with their chemistry sets. Mixing A batch of TN T to kill a
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Sunday. Morning, She has.
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A way with words, doesn't she? It is madness to wear, ladies.
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Straw hats and velvet hats to church.
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We should all be wearing. Crash helmets usher.
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Should issue life preservers and signal flares.
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They should lash us to our pews. Our father, your Kingdom come on
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earth as it is. In heaven.
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That is truly an explosive prayer that Jesus.
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Has taught his people. To say every day and to invoke
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in their lives and in the lives of others for Jesus.
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The Kingdom of heaven had a lot of aspects.
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It was his. Most favorite topic, but for
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him, there were three things that were true.
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Of it. It was at hand.
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It's within us. And it will.
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Come it is at hand, It's. In us.
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And it will come. Sometimes many of us live
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unaware. Of perhaps the impact or we have
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a very small. Vision of what it means to ask.
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Kingdom of God. Come, God, send your Kingdom.
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And so I want us to to hear the testimony of an 82 year old who
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understood something. Of the Kingdom of heaven.
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Should I just go ahead and offer an invitation?
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Your Kingdom come. It's really moving right to see
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the depth at which that. Had saturated her life and her
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thinking. And so when Jesus says to us to
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pray heavenly. Our Father, your Kingdom come.
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On earth as it is in heaven, he's actually.
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Inviting a son into a new reality.
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Jesus said repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.
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Matthew says this was the primary message of Jesus as he
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went. Forward at the beginning of His
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ministry. Repent, for the Kingdom of
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heaven is at hand. It's right here.
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So with the birth of Jesus, something had changed with the
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incarnation. Of Jesus the.
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Something had changed. Something changed when Jesus was
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born in a Manger in Bethlehem. Something was inaugurated in a
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new movement of God. And so for us as followers of
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Jesus, who? Pray our Father.
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Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven when we read.
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The Old Testament When we read the scripture of Israel, we.
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See the hand of God pointing forward to Jesus?
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And pointing us forward to Jesus.
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And so we see. In that history of Israel,
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glimpses of the endbreaking of the Kingdom of God.
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And the. Promise of a king the.
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Promise of a king, one who would come.
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So when? When?
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We. Pray our Father.
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Your Kingdom come on earth. It is in heaven.
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I know that I'm praying to the one who is creator of the world,
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but who is also very much involved.
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He is. Not platonic at all.
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God our Father is very. Involved in the history and
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life. Of humanity now in some ways if
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we put. God on trial.
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This would be quite convicting, it seems, for in the history of
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humanity there is. Great tragedy, great violence,
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great destruction and so. When we.
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Pray our Father. Your Kingdom come and those
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moments we express. A longing we express a.
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Longing for a king and his Kingdom to actually be.
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And so we have to wrestle with the realities.
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Of our lives in some ways, then. We're we're like.
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Rabinadeth Tagore. His statue is at the.
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Asian Center, if you've made your way through those trees and
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past those great big. Bell the great big bell that's
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there. You've passed his head on a
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monument. How many of you have seen?
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It and noticed he was a contemporary of Gandhi.
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He was a contemporary of Stanley Jones, who was also.
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A missionary. To India and in India and in
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talking with Doctor Jones, Tagore says Jesus is ideal and.
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But you Christians, you are not like him.
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Oh Father, you are Kingdom. Come on, Earth as it is.
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In heaven we know that. You are involved in the history
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of humanity, but so are your people.
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And perhaps it is your people. Who have failed?
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And so we. Wrestle with this in our reading
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for the. For the summer, how many of you
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have our recommended book for the summer?
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See your hands up there? There's a few of you lucky
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people. With a copy, it's getting harder
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to get. You know, so you should.
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You should go get your copy. Tyler Staton says this.
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About prayer and our life together.
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He says a life of faith without mercy is a Kingdom the king
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doesn't recognize. It's impossible to know God.
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Through private prayer without equally participating with.
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God in public. Mercy prayer.
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And mission fit together hand in glove.
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To pray is to be invited to uncomfortable mission.
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To pray is to be led by the hand.
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To broken places, broken people. And broken.
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Parts within yourself. Jesus feels at home in the
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company of the Misfits. Marginalized, Oppressed, and
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Outcast. So if you.
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Spend time in conversation with Jesus.
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You better. Believe he'll invite you to come
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with him where he's going, NT rights NT.
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Right rights the Christian vocation is to be.
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In prayer, in the Spirit, at the place the world is in pain.
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Proximity to pain leads leads credibility.
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And power to our prayers. Do you have an embassy of
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heaven? You are the staff of the Embassy
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of Heaven when you. Pray her Father.
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Your Kingdom. Come on, Earth.
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As it is. In heaven.
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And so Jesus says something. Has been inaugurated.
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In his hand at hand, but we. May not completely see it yet.
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In fact. He says in Luke 1721, when.
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Asked about this Kingdom, they're like, well, where is it?
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He says. The Kingdom of God is something
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is not something that can be observed, nor will people say
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here it is or. There it is.
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Because the Kingdom of God is in your midst.
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It is within you. Is it within you the?
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Rule and reign. Of God within you, the.
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Rule and reign of the King within you to pray this is to.
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Open and yield my. Life and my spaces to the.
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Possible realities of God. It also is to yield.
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My life to the very. Character of God, as we saw last
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week in praying. Your name be Hallowed.
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Your name be. Hallowed among us and in us, and
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now he makes it so. With his rule and his reign,
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Jesus then is on the. Throne of My Heart Confession
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Repentance becomes a Way of. Life where I agree with God.
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That I climbed up on the throne again.
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This is your. Throne Jesus, we seem to.
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All long for Wakanda, don't we, We?
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Long for Wakanda. Why is that?
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We long for a place where. Something seems to have been
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made right where the people who are there are righteous, where
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there is joy and peace. In the Holy Spirit we have this
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longing. Our society, our culture, and
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our people. Have this longing.
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Our generation has this longing. So won't you pray?
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Our father, your. Kingdom come, it is his.
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Kingdom that must come. And so Jesus says look.
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The Kingdom is at hand. It has been inaugurated.
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It is within. You if you are mine, and it will
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indeed. Come this idea of a Kingdom that
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is already but not yet. Has been expressed.
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Throughout the scripture when Jesus was meeting with his.
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To break bread. And to share the cup of the
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Passover, which he reassigned. As the bread and the cup of his
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people, of his Kingdom, he says. This in Luke 21.
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I'll tell you, I will not drink again of the vine until the
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Kingdom. Of God comes.
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Oh, wait a minute, Jesus, I thought.
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The Kingdom of God was at hand. I thought the Kingdom of God was
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in us, and here he says The Kingdom of.
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God will come, so there is a full reality of the.
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Expression and person of Jesus Christ as King.
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That we do not yet see, but will when our faith shall be made.
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As sight Where what's? Described in Zachariah eight
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that we read. Earlier in the service.
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But also is described in MICA chapter 4 will be true that he
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will. Judge between many peacefuls and
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will settle disputes for strong nations.
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Far and wide. So when in the Hebrew mindset,
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there was a day that one would look forward to, there was a
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movement to history. There is a purpose to history
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that's moving towards the day of the Lord.
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We often speak of that day as a day of.
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Judgment, Jesus said of his coming as a child in the flesh,
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he says. I did not come to judge.
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Or to offer condemnation. For the world already stands
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judged. But Micah and other prophets
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says there will be a day. In which God will judge with his
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judge, with his king, with his ruler.
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He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes
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for strong nations. Far and wide they will beat.
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Their swords into ploughshares and their Spears into pruning
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hooks. Nation will not take up sword
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against. Nation, nor.
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Will they train for? War anymore?
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That's good news, everyone, he goes.
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On will sit under their own. Vine and.
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Under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid for
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the Lord. Almighty has spoken in my
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backyard. I have a Grapevine.
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I have two. Some of you have son back there
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and. Been like there's.
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Grapes there they. Are, but there's also a fig
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tree. And so when I sit in my
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backyard. There's also a fig.
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I have a glimpse of what God says he wants for people that
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they could. Know that they have.
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Some sustenance on the way. That they know that they have
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some shade and some shelter. Remember how proud Jonah was of
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that? Vine that provided him shade.
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Oh, the fig tree. Provides great shade.
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In fact, the fig tree was a a center and place of prayer for
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you. Or might remember that Nathaniel
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heard Jesus say oh. Nathaniel, I saw you.
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You were under the fig tree, you were praying and he.
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Goes on there to say. And people will not be afraid.
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There will be no. One there to.
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Make them afraid. Can you imagine the moment in
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your life? Where you have.
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Moved from a day with no. Can you imagine a day?
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With No Fear. I can hardly imagine such a day
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With No Fear. I mean, when there's nothing
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there, I dream up things that have fears about.
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Oh, Father, send your. Kingdom on earth as it is in
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heaven already, but not yet. This is the space.
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We live in today in the Kingdom of God in.
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Just a moment. We're going to celebrate the
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Lord's Supper together. It's an invitation to remember.
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Jesus the Incarnate. One who inaugurates the Kingdom
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as. King and Philippians too, it
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says. Of him that he came to.
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Us as a servant, he came to us. Holding the very nature of God,
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but did not consider a quality with God something to be used to
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his. Own advantage.
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Rather, he made himself nothing. By taking the very nature of a
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servant and being made in human likeness, and being found in
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appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to
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death, even death. On a cross, therefore.
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God exalted him to the highest place, and gave.
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Him the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus
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every knee should. In heaven and on earth and under
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the earth and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus.
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Christ is Lord to the glory. Of God the Father, oh Father,
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your Kingdom come. Let's pray together.
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Heavenly Father, we set our lives.
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Before you, and we pray that each of us would.
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Know like Lumida. And our one unique life, how you
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would have us operate as ambassadors?
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As emissaries. Of the embassy of Kingdom of
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Heaven. That in every space at which we
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occupy together. And scattered through this city,
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we would become. Your people praying.
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But also reflecting the life and character of the king.
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Some of us are working in places where.
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It seems like the Kingdom of heaven is so far away, and so we
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pray and we wait for change. We.
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Pray and we wait for change. We try to be the.
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Change that we envision with you.
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Lord Jesus. But we pray that there would be
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a day. A little day of the Lord among
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us Where? Something would change.
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Suddenly, quickly, it would. Become evident.
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But the rule and reign of. God is there in that place.
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That there is righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy
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Spirit. In that place and in that people
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let's stand together, gave thanks for it, and then broke it
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and said, this is my body broken for you.
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Do this in remembrance of me. Again at the end of the.
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Supper Jesus took the cup, and he said this cup is the new.
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Covenant in my blood. Do this whenever you drink it in
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remembrance of Me. The Scripture says that whenever
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you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the
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Lord's death. Until he comes, Come, Lord
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Jesus, come.