Andy Upton is the pastor of Knighton Evangelical Free Church in Leicester. He spoke on Friday morning on Matthew 6:10.

Introduction: No one finds prayer easy. Some have learned to delight in it and enjoy it. But it’s never easy. Why?

One reason is that we don’t believe that it works. Other things seem more immediately productive.

Yet Jesus tells us to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom and the doing of his will.

The question for us is: do you believe God hears and answers that prayer?

Suggestion: Print out the Lord’s Prayer on a sheet of A4 and annotate it as you pray.

What is God’s kingdom?

-This is a major theme (think: John the Baptist in Matthew 3, the sending of the disciples in Matthew 10)

Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel is puffed up with his own glory. He is humbled until he realizes that “heaven rules”.

That’s the kingdom, heaven ruling. The kingdom comes near in the person of Jesus.

Three ways to pray for the kingdom to come:

Look forward – praying with the return of Christ in mind.

• Pray with the future in mind.
• Isaiah 6
• Uzziah looked like a promising leader, but had fallen into pride.
• Isaiah is despairing, but then he sees a vision of God that binds together the next 37 chapters of the book.
• That’s what we need… to look to the Lord Jesus. To pray that he would come back and transform the world.

Look around – praying with the world in mind.

• Matthew 11 – Jesus tells the disciples to tell John what they’ve seen (healing, proclaiming, freeing)
• The kingdom coming near is both proclamation and a lifting of the curse… an inbreaking of heaven.
• How are you seeing the kingdom come in your context?

Look in – pray for yourself.

• Luther called this “fearful prayer”, because it takes the control out of our own hands and hands it over to God.
• Think of Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32. God gave him the gift of seeing his face, but it cost Jacob a lot. When we pray “your kingdom come”, it’s dangerous. We’re saying “All I want is you. I’ll give up everything in order to see your kingdom come.”