Sunday 14 September 2025

Today's scripture reading is from First Chronicles chapter 29, verse 10 to 13. David praised the Lord in the presence of the whole assembly saying, praise be to you Lord. The God of our Father Israel from everlasting to everlasting. Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power, and the glory and the majesty and the splendor for everything in heaven and earth is yours.

Yours Lord is the kingdom. Your al as head over all wealth and honor come from you. You are the ruler of all things in your hands. Our strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. Now our God, we thank, we give you thanks and praise your glorious name.

Well thank you, Sheba. So today we're gonna conclude our look at the Lord's Prayer and our sermon series. Up on the screen is planting seeds. We're planting seeds for the future of the church as we seek the Lord in prayer. Now our focus today is gonna be on the longer ending of Matthew Chapter six, verse 13.

For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. The title of our message is Without Equal. Let's, let's pray.

Father, once again, we thank you for being able to gather as your people. We thank you that we've been able to exalt you in song, that we can remember Christ as we break bread together as one body. We thank you Holy Spirit, that you're now present as the word of God is opened. Spirit of God anoint my words.

Help me to speak with clarity and power and speak to us in the way that only you can be exalted in us we pray. In Jesus' precious name, amen. Now, if you've been looking at the messenger, I've been putting some prayer points in as well as, uh, one or two occasions, a reflection. So a couple of weeks ago, I did put a reflection in the messenger that I wanted to draw upon today as I began.

And it was the one I was talking about. Uh, you know, the major international airports. Now think about how busy they can be at peak times. You've got hundreds of planes along with hundred, you know, thousands of people in transit. Now the biggest airport in the world might surprise you. It's actually Atlanta International Airport.

It's the busiest airport terminal in the world. Now listen to these figures. 105 million people pass through its gates every single year. Okay, break that down. That's 287,000 people a day, and it has an airplane taking off every 17 seconds. So every 17 seconds you've got a plane either landing or taking off.

Now that's pretty, pretty busy, pretty intense. But think about what happens behind the scenes. It's a real hive of activity. You would have goods and services moving in every single direction. Okay? Think about this. You've got planes that need to be refueled. You've got luggage that needs to be moved to a plane and moved off a plane.

You've got planes that need to be cleaned and you can't have flights without food. Could you imagine the coordination of all this stuff? It will be a logistical nightmare. Now, what I want you to do is I want you to, you know, use your imagination. I want you to place yourself on the tarmac of the busiest airport in the world.

You are right there, smack bang in the thick of things. Okay? Imagine being on one of the rain, uh, the runways where you've got planes hurtling past you at over 300 kilometers an hour, okay? The noise from those engines will be deafening, and as I said, Atlanta has three planes landing or taking off every single minute.

Okay. The noise would just be phenomenal. Now, if that's you out there, there's deafening noise from the engines. You just want to, you just wanna look for a place to escape and hijack. But as you do that, you'd have to watch out for the baggage carts, the catering trucks, the fuel tankers, and the cleaning crews.

Every single direction you turn, something is moving, okay? All around you is chaos, and the situation will be completely overwhelming. You'd be like, just get me out of here, Lord Jesus. And then suddenly an airport official just imagine appears from out of nowhere and he escorts you to a huge control tower that overlooks the entire airport.

And so here you are, you're now in a position of safety. And from that tower, you begin to see things from a totally different perspective. Yeah. You see firsthand, you know in that control room you've got skilled air traffic controllers. They oversee the entire airport, everything, absolutely everything that happens is under their tight control.

You can now see which plane will take off and land next, and on which runway, and from that vantage point will look to be random and chaotic. When you're standing on the tarmac, you now see is controlled, ordered, and planned, and it's all due to a change of perspective. Nothing else has changed. The only thing that changes is your change of perspective.

Now, let's enlarge this. Think about the world around us. Do you ever feel that we're surrounded by chaos and that everywhere you turn things are spiraling outta control? Do you ever get that feeling? I mean, look around us. What do we see? I mean, this week alone on the news, I mean, my spirit has been grieved these past few days.

Just looking at the news media, you know, we've got the impact of political division and violence just going back and forth. This mass polarization. It's grieving further afield. You've got wars that are raging unabated. When we look close to the home, we see crime and addiction and what seems to be a mental health crisis.

That's the negative stuff. We also see good, hardworking people who are slipping through the cracks 'cause they're struggling to make ends meet. And our own lives can be chaotic at times as well. There is no one here that's immune from interpersonal conflict. And we can all face situations where we feel, you know, anxiety and stress as believers.

We can begin to think, where is God in all this? Does God actually see what's going on around us? Does God see what's happening both out there and in my own life? The book of Revelation gives us a wonderful insight into all of this. The curtains pulled back and the Apostle John is escorted into the heavenly control tower.

He's, he's given this glimpse of the spiritual reality beyond the chaos that surrounds him. Now, think of his context As we know, he's been exiled for his faith, and you've got other Christians who are about to face persecution for this. You've got these crazy Roman emperors who are demanding worship and allegiance.

John can look at this and John can see things are not the way they should be. This is not God's kingdom come and as a follower of the one who conquered death and ascended to the right hand of the Father, he could well be thinking, where is God in all this? Where is God? Now, what does John see when he first enters the heavenly control tower?

What does he first see? What's the first thing he sees? He sees God seated on a throne. That's what he sees surrounding God are 24 elders and four living creatures, day and night. The four living creatures sing Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come. That phrase is so powerful, that little phrase who was and is and is to come.

It means that he alone is before all things and that he will always be. Amen. It's a wonderful thought. Thank you brother. And John says. Whenever the living creatures give glory honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives forever and ever, the 24 elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him, who lives forever and ever.

There's that repetition just for emphasis. They lay their crowns before the throne and they say, you are worthy, our Lord and God to receive glory and honor and power for you, created all things and by your will they were created and have their being. I mean, that's a pretty definitive statement. It's saying that everything that exists in this world is only because of the will of God.

It's pretty definitive. And so Johnny gets this glimpse behind the scenes, and what he sees is that beyond the chaos and uncertainty of this world, God reigns. He looks around, things are not the way they should be, but the curtain is pulled back and he can now see beyond the chaos, beyond the uncertainty, God reigns.

God is sovereign, he's in control, and what he sees is the ultimate reality over and above all, earthly appearances. The fact is every other throne can be shaken but not God's. His throne, his kingdom, they're permanent and secure. Are you with me? Yeah. This should inspire us. Yeah. Yes, yes. The world around us can look chaotic at times, and yes, things can seem like they're spiraling out of control and the forces of evil have the upper hand.

But beyond all that, our God reigns. Yes, he reigns eternally because he is without equal. He is without equal, and because of that, he alone is worthy to receive glory and honor and power. Now, can you see what this vision does for John? It helps reorient him amidst the madness and disorientation he sees all around him in his world, it can do the same for us.

It can remind us that behind our circumstances and above our troubles, God is seated on the throne. We've all got our circumstances. We've all got our troubles, but above and beyond all that God is on the throne. Amen. These words from Revelation chapter four, they're very similar to the words we heard today in our reading.

I'm gonna read them again. They come from the lips of David. The king says, praise be to you, oh Lord, the God of our father, Israel, from everlasting to everlasting. Yours, oh Lord, is the greatness and the power, and the glory and the majesty and the splendor for everything in heaven and earth is yours.

Yours, oh Lord is the kingdom. You are exalted as head over all wealth and honor come from you. You are the ruler of all things in your hands. A strength and power to exalt and give strength to all. Now our God, we give you thanks and praise your glorious name. Now, when you read First Chronicles, you'll see the context is very interesting.

What's happened is David's just collected resources and wealth for the building of the temple. Solomon's gonna build it, but David's organizing stuff. He says, people, I want you to come, I want you to sow, I want you to give. And so people come and they lay down their wealth and their resources before David to build this temple.

They've given generously and David responds now, a certain modern day politician, he would boast about this being the best collection in the history of collections ever, and that no one does collections quite like he does. I think you know who I'm talking about, but this is not what David does. Instead, what David does is he redirects all the glory back to.

He stands there as king of the nation. He stands before his people as king, and he humbly says to the one who is king of kings, the kingdom and the power and the glory. They're not mine, but yours. Everything that we've given to you was first yours. It's a prayer that reorients David to the reality that everything we have, everything we have, our power, our wealth, our victories, they all come from God.

Amen. All power, glory, and dominion belong to you. Our focus today is on the longer ending of the Lord's Prayer for yours. There's that word we saw in one Chronicles Chapter 29 for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. It's not ours. It's yours. It's just the wind. So you can look at that and you can probably see why most scholars believe that this final line was inspired by this prayer of David.

Now you can probably see I've put an asterisk next to the reference. This line is not in the earliest copies of Matthew's Gospel. Okay? So what you'll find is that in most modern translations, it doesn't appear as part of the main text, but it will appear as a footnote. It's included there. It's what we call a textual variant.

Anyone heard of a textual variant before? Anyone know what it is? It's simply a variation to the original text. Okay? Now. Let me just explain this. This particular line wasn't probably part of the original prayer that Jesus gave to his disciples, but it was likely added later as Christians began to use it in public worship, probably from as early as the first century, maybe 80 80, 80 90.

Sometime around that they, they, they added this line to the end of the prayer. Now think about the prayer itself. It's got this really abrupt ending. Jesus says, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And there it ends. It just stops. And so what the early Christians said, they drew from this prayer of David in First Chronicles, and they added this doxology.

Now, do you know what a doxology is? A doxology, simply an expression of praise For those who dunno, the Greek word doxa means praise or glory. So what we have here is not the words of Jesus to us, but the words of the earliest followers of Jesus responding to the prayer that he gave, he gave to them and their response was, what one of glory and praise.

Now this line also brings the Lord's Prayer full circle. It lands where it begins. It's like it gives us a good bookend. It starts with Jesus asking us to, hello the Father's name, and we close by once more, focusing our attention on God with this declaration of glory. I love this. We begin with God and we end with God.

He is the first and the last, the alpha and the Omega, both in reality and in this prayer. That's why I love it. We begin and end with our focus on God. Now, let's think about history. How many kingdoms thought that they would last forever? Go back in history, read the rhetoric, listen to the propaganda. So many kingdoms thought that they were eternal, okay?

In Bible times alone, you've got the Babylonians, the Persians, and then you've got the Mighty Roman empire. When it comes to empires, no one really did it, as well as the Rymans, okay? Their empire lasted for centuries. The fact is they all believe their kingdoms would be unshakeable. Now, in modern times, you've got the British Empire.

They colonized so much of the earth that it was said that the sun never sets on the British empire. And it was true, okay? They had this tiny little island nation, yet at their peak that controlled almost a quarter of the world's landmass, okay? And what that meant was that there was always a, a, a, a daytime and in at least one of their, you know, territories that they controlled.

Now look at this. This is imperial propaganda. This would not have been out of place in ancient Rome. Okay? The sun never sits on the British Empire. Now, more recently, the Nazi party spoke of a thousand year rii, and this idea was first popularized in 1923. It began in 1933, but by 1945, the Reich had collapsed.

Each of these kingdoms that I've just mentioned has either disappeared or drastically declined. What once seemed invincible now lies either in ruin, in history books or in museums. I like this quote. Yesterday's empires are today's history lessons and tomorrow's archeological dicks. Okay? Think of Alexander the Great.

Now what a way for history to remind, uh, to remember you. You know, history's not gonna remember me as Jamie. The great, I'm no one, I'm insignificant, but this guy was something else. He was Alexander the Great and what he achieved in just 13 years was simply incredible. He's one of the greatest military strategists of all time, and he created an empire that was pivotal for world history, particularly, you know, western civilization.

And yet when you come to the Bible in Daniel chapter eight, he's nothing more than a mere footnote. I find that fascinating history consistently reminds us of one sobering fact. Everything we humans build, everything we establish. No matter how great, no matter how mighty, eventually it will crumble. Even the so-called superpowers of today, they may seem invincible, but they will not hold their place forever.

The fact is empires rise. Empires fall, but we serve a kingdom without end. It's a kingdom without end because God is without equal. Amen. Amen. Amen. And that's what this additional line of the Lord's prayer orients us towards. It's a call to lift up our eyes to a throne that has no rivals, to a kingdom that never falls to a power that never weakens, and to a glory that never fades.

I think that's worth saying again. Yeah. This line of the Lord's Prayer, this response of the earliest Christians to what Jesus gave them, it's a call that we lift up our eyes. Lift up your eyes. Not from around here, but up to there. To a throne that has no rivals. A kingdom that will never fall to a power that will never weaken, and a glory that never fades for yours is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever.

Amen. You can't help but say Amen. We agree. Now, I started this message by drawing our attention to the heavenly Control Tower in the Book of Revelation. For John, it's a form of reorientation. It helps him see the way things truly are. Now, John was a, a follower of Jesus. Jesus came and his ministry was about the kingdom of God.

That's what he spoke about. That's what he demonstrated. And for this, you know, this was, you know, something, the disciples they're familiar with, it's, it's central to their story as God's people. Prophet Daniels given a vision of Messiah's Kingdom. He says he Messiah was given authority, glory and sovereign power.

His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed, and all rulers will worship and obey him. That's, again, fairly definitive. That's what Daniel saw, but that is not John's experience. That's not the reality that confronts John when he, he awakens an exile on Pat Moss.

Okay. Understand. From a late first century vantage point, it doesn't look like Messiah reigns. Yeah. Doesn't look like Messiah reigns. You know, rulers aren't worshiping him. From John's perspective, it looks fairly as squarely that Rome is in control. They're the ones boasting of an everlasting kingdom.

They're the ones demanding worship and allegiance. They're the ones crushing underfoot. Those who oppose them. And so the curtains pull back, and John is given a glimpse of the reality beyond earthly appearances. He sees the eternal throne. Now think of a coronation amidst all the pomp and ceremony, the new monarch is given a crown and robes, and they seeded him down on a throne.

Okay, this is King Charles on the day of his coronation. I dunno if you watched it, it was a glorious spectacle. It's all done be, you know, before, you know, thousands upon thousands of witnesses there. But also, you know how many more millions on TV he got to ride in what's called the gold stake coach. It's pretty impressive.

Yeah, it's pretty impressive. Think of everything you would've witnessed that day if you were there. As glorious as it all was one day that crown will be passed to another. That's the reality. He can be crowned as king in front of thousands of people, but the reality is one day he's gotta give that crown up, not Jesus.

Let's contrast this with him, with Jesus. Jesus was crowned with what? Thorns, thorn. He wasn't placed on a throne, he was placed on a cross. His coronation looked like humiliation and defeat, but it was the establishment of an eternal throne, and that's what John sees in his second heavenly vision in Revelation chapter five, he says, then I saw a lamb looking as if it had been slain standing at the center of the throne.

I'm sorry. If you were there on that day, when Charles is crowned as king, you don't get anywhere near that throne. The lamb gets to share God's throne, not from a distance, not from the outside, but in the center. He's in the center of the throne, and John says, then I looked and heard the voice of many angels numbering thousands upon thousands and 10,000 times 10 thousands.

There's your witnesses. They encircled the throne and the living creatures and the elders in a loud voice they were saying, worthy as the lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and praise. What looked like defeat was in fact his victory. His coronation is king.

That's what the cross was. I like the analogy that's used by French theologian Oscar Coleman. This is his book, Christ in Time, and you can see the pattern. It's quite deliberate. The green line across is meant to represent, you know, the, the, the horizontal aspect of time intersecting with this line, which represents the cross.

It's a definitive moment in human history. It's a definitive moment in time. What Oscar Corman says is this, he compared the victory of Jesus to D-Day and VE Day from World War ii. Now, we all know what those things are. D-Day, the decisive day, the day they say, really, the war was won, but it wasn't actually won until ve Day victory in Europe.

And so what he does is he argues that the death and resurrection of Jesus, that was the deday of salvation history, they marked the definitive, decisive defeat of sin, Satan, and death. However, the full consummation and final victory, VE day is still to come. We sit here today awaiting the second coming of our king Jesus Christ.

Amen. And so what we are doing, we are living in this time between these two historical events, experiencing both the already one victory of Christ, as well as the chaos and pain of a world still afflicted by the ongoing struggle against evil. Is that analogy clear? Yes. You've got D-Day. The war was won, but there's still a lot of battles that you know need to be faced in order to mop things up, and that's the time in which we live.

Satan has been defeated, sin has been overcome, death has been destroyed by Jesus, and yet we await the full consummation. Lemme bring this back to the Lord's Prayer. One of the main reasons we need to pray is because sometimes John's reality can be our reality. Yeah. Think about the things we're called to pray for.

We begin by magnifying God, our Father in heaven. Hello, be Your name. As I said weeks ago, the Heaven part acknowledges that God, he is above all and the Father part acknowledges that God is ultimate love. At the heart of the universe lies a God who is above all he is Father, he is ultimate love. The reason we need to start here, the reason we need to begin here is because quite often we can lose sight of who God is and, and, and we, we lose sight of him in our daily experiences.

Yeah. With all that's pressing in around us, we can lose sight of God and who he is. We're drowning under sea of stuff. It's just pressing in on top of us. And when that happens, what do we do? We end up magnifying all the wrong things. Our circumstances, our trials become big and God become small. This is life.

Yeah, and this is why Jesus starts us here, because he says, I want you to begin by magnifying God, not magnifying all this stuff that's pressing down on top of you. Jesus then teaches us to pray. Your kingdom come, you will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Now, the reason why we need to pray these things is because as we survey this broken world around us, we can see that God's will is not done, and we can see that God's kingdom desperately needs to come. Yeah, we need to pray these things because we are fallen and weak. We're prone to temptation. We sin, and we are constantly in need of forgiveness.

We pray these things because in a world afflicted by evil, people hurt us and we find it hard to give. And when we fail to forgive, we will be destroyed. It destroys us on the inside. Yeah, we pray these things because we have an enemy who brows around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

And above all this, we pray these things because God's name is not hallowed in all the world. He's not loved. He's not honored. He's not trusted. And as followers of Christ the King, we recognize this gap between the way things are and the way God wants them to be. This is what we called holy discontent.

This is why we need to pray, and as we surveil this, we can choose one of two things. We can choose to be overwhelmed by despair, or we can look to the one to whom is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Are you with me? You've gotta choose your focus. All of this stuff is part of our ongoing reality, even as followers of Jesus, and we can be overwhelmed and crushed with despair, or we could look to the one to whom is the kingdom, the glory and power forever.

Can you see how this closing line of the, the Lord's prayers, it's more than just a conclusion, it's a declaration, it's a burst of confidence in who God is that should shape both how we live and how we pray. Amen. Now I love this clo, this quote from CS Lewis. It's from mere Christianity. He says, enemy occupied territory.

That is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say, landed in disguise and is calling us to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. We know the rightful king has landed and he landed in disguise. He was crucified in weakness. And yet his death was his coronation, the event by which he secured the ultimate victory over all the things that pla us now.

Yeah. And rather than be disoriented, as we await the fullness of God's kingdom to come, we're called to be reoriented to this reality that the lamb who was slain is seated on the throne. And here's the thing. We participate in his victory when we pray into being those things that God has for our lives and has for this world.

To steal from Lewis. Ultimately, the Lord's, the Lord's Prayer. It's this great campaign of sabotage. When we pray the Lord's Prayer, we're saying, we're unwilling to accept the status quo, and we're crying out to God. We're crying out to the one to whom the kingdom power and glory belong, that he would stretch forth his hand and move in this world and do what only he can do.

That's what prayer is. Prayer is a powerful weapon. That's why Jesus gave it to them. Listen to this quote from Dr. AC Dixon of Spurgeon's Tabernacle. I think di put me onto this weeks ago, and I've been wanting to use it and right at the end seems the, the fitting time he wrote. When we rely on organization, we get what organization can do.

When we rely on education, we get what education can do. When we rely on eloquence, we get what eloquence can do and so on. I am not disposed to undervalue any of these things in their proper place, but when we rely upon prayer, we get what God can do. Seems the fitting place to close those. Let me instead close with this.

Some of you may be familiar with the goat concept. Okay. Who is the goat? Anyone know? Anyone familiar with this?

It's an acronym for the Greatest of All Time. You can see it down the side there. Now, it's used these days to speak of someone who's considered the best in their field, particularly in sports. And it was popularized by this certain young, uh, boxer who was pretty good. Who would say, I am the greatest Muhammad Ali.

Yes. Now, if you go online and watch a sports show, what you'll see is that everyone has an opinion as to who is the greatest, and people are gonna debate, you know, is it Messian Mess, Ronaldo, is it Michael Jordan, LeBron James, or is it, you know, Novak Kovic? Rafa Nadal, or Roger Federer. You know, they, you know, people go online, you'll see people, you know, going back and forth disputing who is the greatest, who can we crown the best of the best?

Amen. The final line of the Lord's Prayer tells us that there is one and only one to whom the kingdom, the glory and the power belong. There is no dispute, there's no debates. Empires will rise, and empires will fall, but our God has an everlasting kingdom. His kingdom is everlasting because he's without rival and without equal.

God is the goat. Let's pray.

Father, we, we thank you for this prayer that your son gave us and we come before you now in awe and wonder and declare yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Father, you reign with a majesty that knows no end. You are the king above all kings. You have a throne that can't be shaken, and your dominion stretches from everlasting to everlasting.

Lord, we praise you for who you are. You are not like the cruel tyrants of this world. You don't rule in a way that puts us down, but you rule with mercy and compassion in your kingdom. The broken, fine healing, the weary fine rest, and you bring the lost home. God, we celebrate your power. We know that nothing's impossible for you by your word.

You created all things by your spirit. You raised the dead to new life, and by your hand, nations rise and fall. Father, we long for your eternal reign in which righteousness, peace, and joy will abound. But until that day, God, may we look to you, may we exalt you and seek your face in all that we do, and may this all be for the praise of your glorious grace and Jesus name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.