Kingdom Come

Good morning, Church of the Grove.

My name is Luke Camera.

My wife, Shayna, and I are your missionaries to Portugal.

It's through your generosity that we are able to go and minister to the Portuguese people.

So thank you from the bottom of our hearts for being a generous, life-giving church.

Today, your sermon series centers on kingdom come in the Lord's Prayer.

And so I just want to encourage you to keep your eyes open to where God is moving in your home, in your work, in your church, in your neighborhood, and even around the world.

So let's pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, we come to you knowing that your kingdom is the best kingdom.

We come to you asking, Lord, that our reign would cease and that you would sit on that throne.

Father, today, as we hear this word, would you just be gracious to us, speak to our hearts, and let us see your kingdom come and your will be done.

Amen.

Hey, it is great to have you with us as we celebrate and gather together online.

My name is Russ.

If I hadn't had a chance to meet you, if you're new with us, excited to have you with us, I want to encourage you.

Make sure you pull out your computer or your phone and download our Church at the Grove app.

We would love for you to connect with us.

You can fill out what we call an encounter card electronically, and it allows us to begin to have a conversation.

It's one thing for me to kind of speak to you here on Sunday morning, and I love to do that, but I also want to hear from you and to have you and enter into a conversation with us.

We want to build a relationship with you and help you grow in your spiritual journey and your walk with Jesus.

And so I want to ask you a question as we begin this morning.

Have you ever experienced culture shock?

Have you ever experienced culture shock?

And we think sometimes culture shock is when we, you know, go on the other side of the world somewhere, but a lot of times we can experience culture shock right here in American, in American culture.

You can travel in just one day from the south to the north or from the north to the south, and you can experience some culture shock.

We have some neighbors in our neighborhood here in Walton County.

One family is from North Dakota, one family is from Pennsylvania, and they like to cut up with us about how they love to hear us in the South say y'all.

You know, what are y'all doing?

And uh they they love to kind of laugh about that, and and so because the ones in South Dakota, they don't say y'all.

In South Dakota, they say you guys, or they even say you's guys.

Um and so our friends in um uh from Pittsburgh, they they don't say uh y'all or they don't say use guys, they say yens.

Uh what are yens doing today?

And um, and so uh in those particular places they don't drink coke.

They drink pop or soda pop.

And so everything down here in the south is is coke, or or we don't uh what do we drink here in the south?

We drink, let's say it together, sweet tea, right?

That's what we drink in the south.

And so um uh the folks up north they'll say, are yin's going to the barbecue?

Uh well, first of all, when they say barbecue up north, that is a device on which you cook hamburgers or hot dogs.

But a barbecue here in the south requires the death of a large pig that is then cooked and served as barbecue.

And so when you go to a different place, you travel to a different place, it's possible for you to experience culture shock.

In the north, if they say bless your heart, they actually say that out of a genuine concern for somebody else.

But here in the South, if we say bless your heart, uh you know what that means.

I'm not gonna say it here while I'm being recorded, but you know what that means in the South.

Uh and so people experience culture shock.

Uh down here, people um think that when they get to the south that we're all country, we're all uh carrying guns and driving pickup trucks, and well, actually most of that is actually true and accurate.

Um but I've been to other places in the world.

I've been to Europe, a few countries in Europe, I've been to Africa, um, I've been to Haiti and the Dominican Republic and places that are very different from here, and sometimes you experience culture shock.

And so uh those are those many of those countries are third world places.

Uh they don't have paved roads and well-developed infrastructure, and so well, it it's it's kind of like Alabama, um, but uh that's a whole nother story.

I hope you're not from Alabama and you would be offended, but I I really don't care.

Um but sometimes culture shock is wrong, and sometimes uh culture culture is just different.

It's just being different.

I've heard business leaders say this: that culture eats strategy for breakfast.

Culture is more influential than just vision and strategy in the long run.

See, there can be a great vision, but if the culture within that organization or within that community is toxic, eventually the culture will trump the vision.

Here's what we're talking about today.

Jesus shared stories and parables and and taught about the kingdom of God.

It was his way of teaching about the culture of this new kingdom.

And so we talked about kingdom ethic or kingdom conduct as we've been going through the Sermon on the Mount, and Jesus is really teaching about kingdom culture.

He would say the kingdom of God is like, and then he would tell a story or a parable.

The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed, or the kingdom of God is like a hidden treasure, the kingdom of God is um is like leaven or yeast.

And so he even says that if we're going to experience the kingdom, we need to come like little children.

We need to experience kingdom culture as a child.

He says in Luke chapter 18, verse 16, but Jesus called them to him, saying, Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for such belongs the kingdom of God.

Luke 18:16

And so this is a way of Jesus communicating about the kingdom culture.

It's very different from American culture or the world's culture.

And so it's so different, it might produce or or um it might produce culture shock to those around us.

Jesus is saying we need to live so different, we need to live so set apart that we are bringing kingdom culture into our present reality where people can see the obvious difference that Jesus makes in our life.

And so Jesus says we're to pray.

We're to pray.

We're talking about the Lord's Prayer.

We're in the Lord's Prayer here in the Sermon on the Mount.

He says, we're to pray that kingdom culture will come a present reality in the world that we live in.

Kingdom culture is to come on earth as it is in heaven, and we're to be recognizably different in how we live.

Kingdom culture has come.

And so he says in Matthew 6, and we we've been studying this the last couple of weeks, he says, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name.

He says, Our Father, God is a Father.

We could approach him as a Father.

We talked about this last week.

Nathan led us in this.

Um, and then he says, hallowed be your name, which means basically, holy is your name.

I'm adoring, I'm praising, I'm I'm lifting up the name of Jesus.

And then he says this in verse 10.

He says, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And so the big idea for today is really simple.

It's that we're gonna pray that God's kingdom comes to be present here and that our hearts will be surrendered, that God's kingdom would become present in our lives, and that our hearts would be surrendered to his will.

And so we want to see God's kingdom culture come to this earth according to his will.

And I want to give you three assumptions that are kingdom assumptions before we move forward.

And the first assumption is this that apparently it is possible for God's will not to be done here on earth.

And you say, well, Russ, God is sovereign, God's always perfect, he's always gonna accomplish his will.

And that is true, but we live in a broken world.

We live in a world where we suffer from the consequences of sin.

And there are times when God's will is not present here in our reality.

And let me give you a couple examples.

You've heard of human trafficking or sex trafficking, and that is a present reality on this earth.

And we live in the greater Atlanta area, and it's one of the major hubs of human trafficking in our nation, maybe even in the world, according to what people say.

And so that's not God's will, is it?

It's not God's will that humans would be taken and they would be sold and they would be trafficked.

That's not God's will.

Um think about all the other abuses that take place, um child abuse or or domestic abuse or other types of abuses.

That's not God's will.

And but but that's the reality that sometimes it's possible that God's will is not being done.

Um think about just how people pursue their own personal ambition and their own personal interests rather than the interest of the kingdom of God.

And God's will is that we would take the gospel, this good news that has changed our lives, that we would spread it, that we would share it, and that's not always happening.

So it's possible that God's will is not being done.

In my little humble abode of my home, um, you know, we we have the will of the parents is that the kids would not leave any cups or plates around the house.

It's possible that the will of the parents is not being done.

And so we're trying to change that culture in the butcher household.

We're trying to make sure our kids understand our will.

And sometimes we will even reward our kids if they do what we say.

We'll say, we'll give you ice cream.

Well, they're actually probably too old for that.

Now it's cash, they want cash.

And so we'll say, hey, we'll reward you.

And here's the here's the truth.

That's a microcosm picture of the kingdom of God.

God says, if you will bring my will into my kingdom culture into the present reality, you will be blessed.

You will have my hand upon you.

And so that's God's, that's the first assumption that God's will is not always being done on earth.

The second assumption is that it is God's will that we experience at least a little bit of heaven on this earth.

And so we know we can approach God as a father.

That's God's uh little bit of heaven.

We can experience him as a heavenly father.

We're to adore him, we're to hallow him, we're to invite his presence.

Um, we we want to see heaven come to this earth, and the fact that we want to share God's love, the gospel with people around us.

We want to see people saved, we want to see people redeemed.

That is a little bit of heaven on this earth.

And so we believe that God can heal.

We believe that God can cast out demons.

We believe that God can remove demonic uh oppression, and that's a little bit of heaven on this earth.

We believe that God can bring reconciliation.

Um, we're gonna talk about that in just a second, where God can can remove division and bring people together.

We believe that when we see baptisms, that's a little bit of heaven.

When we see people take steps in obedience, when you take steps in obedience, when you um know God and you find freedom through community, you're you're seeing a little bit of heaven come into your life and on this earth.

And so that is the second assumption.

It is God's will that we would experience a little bit of heaven on this earth now.

The third assumption is that God's kingdom culture is so radically different than American or worldly culture that we can expect some culture shock when we are living out God's will on this earth.

And that's what Jesus is talking about here in the Sermon on the Mount.

It's all about kingdom culture.

We talked about the attitudes of the kingdom, what we call the be attitudes, um, where Jesus talked about this inward uh culture of your heart.

We've talked about the character of the kingdom.

He says you're the salt of the earth, you're the light of the world, you're a city set on a hill, and that's when God's kingdom culture begins to move outward in our lives, and we've talked about the king, the corrections of kingdom culture, where Jesus is correcting the false teaching of the religious leaders of the day.

And he says, you've heard it said, but I say to you these antithetical statements that we've talked through.

Um and then he gets into the what we call the uh the disciplines of the kingdom.

We talked about giving a few weeks ago, and then now we're talking about prayer, and eventually we'll talk about fasting.

And so having understood that, here's three or four, there's four applications that I want to um uh bring out out of this one verse where he says, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

That's our prayer.

That's our prayer, God, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Here's the first application.

In our culture, and when I say our culture, I mean the culture of this world, the American culture, it's expected to burn bridges with people that you don't like or you don't agree with.

But in the kingdom culture, we're expected to build bridges with people we don't like or we don't agree with.

And see, this is huge culture shock for us.

But we've already discussed some of this in the Sermon on the Mount, where in Matthew 5, Jesus says, you've heard it said, you shall love your neighbor neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven.

See, that's counterculture, that's kingdom culture.

For he makes his son rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Um, Leviticus 19, 33 and 34 says, When a stranger sojourns with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.

Now that's that's this is kingdom culture.

You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.

I am the Lord your God.

See, we we live in a world or in a culture that is that has extreme division and what I call tribalism.

See, see, uh, we um kingdom citizens are not supposed to see through blue lens or red lens, through Democrat lens or Republican lens.

We're not to see people through the lens of whether they wear a mask or whether they don't wear a mask.

Um, we're not to see people through the lens of being a liberal or through uh the lens of being a conservative.

See, we're we're simply to see people as God sees them.

You know how God sees people?

They're either kingdom citizens or they're kingdom observers.

They're people outside looking in.

And that's how we're supposed to see people.

They're either in the kingdom as citizens of God's kingdom or they're not.

And if they're not, they're observing and they're watching our kingdom culture, deciding on whether they want to believe and trust in the God of the universe that's made himself available through Jesus Christ.

And so we we as kingdom citizens need to invite kingdom culture into our hearts and see people the way that God sees them.

We're not to live polarized, we're not to we're to resist this unhealthy cancel culture where we're we're always looking through the lens of politics and and and um tribalism.

Uh and see, the church of Jesus is not to be polarized against people.

We're meant to build bridges toward people.

I love what Rick Warren says.

Rick Warren is a he's one of my heroes in the ministry.

Uh he's a pastor of a church in California.

He actually just this past week announced that he's about to retire after 40 years.

He planted a church in Southern California.

And here's what he says.

He said, our culture has accepted two huge lies.

The first is if you just disagree with someone's lifestyle, you must fear or hate them.

The second is that is that to love someone means that you agree with everything they believe or do.

He says both of these are nonsense.

You don't have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.

I love that.

I love what Martin Luther King Jr.

said.

He says we must discover the power of love, the redemptive power of love.

That's why Jesus says to love your enemies.

Because if you hate your enemies, you have no way to redeem or transform your enemies.

We've got to adopt human culture.

Um I love the portrayal of this.

And on Sunday evening of June 17th, um uh several years ago, a young man named Dylan Roof walked into Emmanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, and he murdered nine people with a gun.

At his trial, the members of that church and the family members of those who had passed away, they stood in the courtroom and they publicly forgave the man who took the lives of their loved ones.

Um in October 2006, a young man uh named Charles Roberts entered into an Amish school building in Pennsylvania and he killed ten young girls.

And following that, his arrest and his trial, uh, the Amish community publicly forgave the young man and his family.

They even went to visit the family and they attended the funeral as a support to his surviving family members.

And so this type of response it produces culture shock.

People in our society that see that, they're blown away by the ability to forgive, the ability to step across the line and to join arms of people who maybe have either harmed them or harmed their family members.

And so God wants to leverage these types of actions to portray his kingdom culture to a broken world.

Thy kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

That's our prayer.

Uh, we're we're to pray that God would bring his kingdom into our present world and that we would surrender our hearts to his perfect uh will.

See, we're not be caught in this downward spiral of our culture, the divisive climate wants to suck us in to hating people that don't believe like us, and that's not the way of Jesus.

Let's live out the kingdom and bring culture shock to the people around us.

The second application is this in our current culture, only outward actions matter.

But in kingdom culture, even the intentions of the heart matter.

Jesus said in Matthew chapter 5, he says, You've heard it said, you shall not commit murder, and whoever murders is liable to judgment.

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

But I say to you that everyone who's angry with their brother will be liable to judgment.

Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the counsel.

Whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire.

What Jesus is saying, he said, it's not all about outward actions.

He's saying it it matters, the intent of your heart matters.

Kingdom culture is a heart issue.

Our heart and intentions matter.

See, people everywhere are angry.

People are angry.

And here it makes me want to ask this question: why are you angry?

And we've got to consider whether our anger is righteous or unrighteous.

So how am I responding and acting as a result of my anger?

1 Peter 2, 22 and 23, uh Peter says, He committed no sin.

And he's talking about Jesus.

Jesus committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.

When he was reviled, he did not revile in return.

When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued to entrust himself to him who judges justly.

And so the intent of the heart matters in kingdom culture.

Number three, this third application is this in our current culture, your personal agenda motivates your actions.

In kingdom culture, you surrender your will to the will of your heavenly father.

Jesus in Matthew 26, when I think about uh what Jesus prayed, your kingdom come, your Will be done.

He says, Your will be done.

And when I think about that, I'm automatically taken to the Garden of Gethsemane, where Jesus says, My soul is very sorrowful, even to death, in Matthew 26.

Remain here and watch with me.

And going a little farther, he fell on his face and prayed, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.

Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.

So Jesus is praying in the garden.

He's saying, Not my will, but your will be done.

And it's very like that prayer.

Not my will, but your will be done.

And so in our culture, it's all about our personal ambition, our personal agenda.

But in kingdom culture, it's surrendering our will to the will of God.

And that's hard.

That's a daily battle.

That's a daily surrender.

And then the fourth application is this in our culture, everybody is trying to get to a better place.

In kingdom culture, we're trying to bring a little bit of heaven to our current place.

See, some of us are always looking.

We're always looking for a better place.

We're looking for a better house.

We're looking for a better location.

You know, our community changes, so we move and we look for a better place rather than asking God to bring heaven to our current place and to embrace our current place.

And so in our current culture, see, we hate Mondays.

Wednesdays are hump days, and we're working for the weekend so we can get to Friday and experience Margaritaville.

And for us, that's a better place.

That's a weekly cycle for many of us.

And even in the Christian faith, we sing songs about the sweet by and by.

And listen, I listen, nobody longs for heaven more than me, but but Jesus said that we're to pray, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And so we're praying, God, bring your kingdom to our present place, our present reality, and surrender, help us surrender our will to your will.

And so Jesus prayed, Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

And so, so, you know, I know that some of you might be watching this on a Sunday.

You might be actually watching this at a different time.

Um, and regardless of when that is, this is what I would tell people on a Sunday morning.

When you go and leave this building or you leave our church gathering, when you go to eat lunch somewhere, why don't you make sure that that you leave a little bit of heaven with the server or with the people that are that are that are helping serve you?

When you go into your community or you go to school or you go to the workplace or you you go out to the ball field or to the dance studio or whatever your hobby or or your uh third place is besides work and home and and you're hanging out at a coffee shop or whatever it is, why don't you make sure that you bring a little bit of heaven to the people around you?

Let's be intentional about living out a kingdom culture where people get a picture of the love of Jesus in and through us.

Maybe summer camp.

Maybe it's um it's it's it's summer jam or kids' camp or whatever it is that your children are involved in over the summer.

Um, that we're focused and abiding in the presence of Jesus and that we're walking in the way of Jesus, that our heart is tuned in to Jesus and his mission and his way of life, and this idea that we can bring a little bit of heaven here and that the kingdom culture would be seen clearly in our community and in our family and in our own personal lives.

You know, Jesus talked about how important our attitude is toward the world, toward the culture.

And I love what he says in Matthew chapter 9.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

It says Jesus, verse 35, and Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages teaching in the synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of what?

The kingdom.

The gospel of the kingdom.

And he healed every disease and he healed every affliction and which we have that power working in us.

We have access to that healing power and that that that um uh the ability to cast out demons, the ability to bring wholeness to people.

But it says in verse 36, when he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless as sheep without a shepherd.

And he said to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.

Therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the harvest.

Here's what Jesus was not critical to the people that were living in a culture that was of the world.

He was compassionate.

He knew that they needed the gospel, they needed the good news, they needed the kingdom of God to come into their present reality.

And we're to be like Jesus.

We're not to look and fuss and ridicule and just demean a world without Jesus.

We're not to see things through the lens of politics and through the lens of the world.

We're to see through the lens of Jesus, and Jesus, his lens is compassion over criticism.

I love what the psalmist says in Psalm 67, and this is a prayer.

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine upon us.

So that.

Kingdom come on earth.

Your saving power among all nations.

That's kingdom culture.

God's saving power.

Let the peoples praise you, oh God, let all the peoples praise you.

So that's the result of bringing kingdom culture into a present reality on this earth.

Um, our our church staff, we all have t-shirts that say this statement that language creates culture.

Language creates culture.

So we've got, we've we have this idea that we we have to define how we're going to put into terms a healthy kingdom culture, a multiplying culture, a gospel sharing culture, a compassion over criticism culture.

And can you imagine the culture shock to the people around us if we were able to resist the temptation to engage in American culture or worldly culture and to see the kingdom of God culture come in our present reality?

And I don't mean we have to compromise our convictions, but we're to live out the compassion of Jesus to a world that needs to see a kingdom culture.

And it will be so much of a culture shock to them that they would be blown away because it's so different, it's so loving, it's so unifying.

And so if we could get this idea and bring it to reality, God bring your kingdom to our present reality and help us surrender our will to your will.

So can I just ask you to pray with me for a second?

And just to consider two things.

The first one is this have you have you been introduced to the Jesus that we're talking about here today?

Have you entered into a relationship with Jesus?

Have you stepped out of the darkness and into the light?

And have you professed Jesus as your Lord and Savior?

If you have never done that, I want to invite you to do that.

We say it's as simple as ABC.

You admit and acknowledge that you are enslaved to sin, that you're that you're a sinner, and then you be, you you believe and trust in Jesus and what he provided to bring salvation to your soul and to free you and to redeem you into his kingdom.

And then you confess Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

And if that's you, I just want to invite you to simply to call out to the name of Jesus and to put your faith in him.

Something like this, say, dear Jesus, I come to you, I acknowledge that I'm in sin, but I believe and I trust in you, what you provided in your life and your death and your resurrection to save me, to redeem me.

And I confess you as my Lord and Savior.

The Bible says that you are no longer citizens of this world, but you're now citizens of the kingdom of God, and you can begin to bring kingdom culture into this present reality that we live in.

Now I want to speak to the second group of people.

And those are people that are citizens of the kingdom.

You've put your faith in Jesus, you've professed Jesus as your Lord and Savior, and but you you've done like I've done before.

You wake up one day and you look back and you think, you know what?

I have been sucked in to the kingdoms of this world, the kingdoms of American culture, and I even think maybe even some of the things that take place in my attitude and my mind and my actions that I do it, you know, thinking that I'm responding to Christianity, but in reality, is I'm trying to connect Christianity to an unhealthy American culture.

And it's not meant to be connected in that way.

Um, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Jesus, is radically different and such is so different, it will produce culture shock.

So I want to invite you, as believers, to simply bow your will to the will of Jesus and join Jesus in his prayer that we would see the kingdom of God come into this present world and we surrender our wills, and that we would even have the attitude of Jesus and that we would choose compassion over criticism, and that we would be willing to be the answer to Jesus' prayer, where he says, God, would you send out laborers?

The harvest is plentiful, but the labors are few.

We need to pray that with Jesus, and then we need to be willing to be the answer to our own prayer that we would be sent, that we would live sent on mission with Jesus to see a great harvest and to see revival come in our nation.

His kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, and that we would surrender our will to the will of Jesus.

I can't wait to see you next week.