Harvest Pointe Christian Church, Milford Ohio is a non-denominational Christian Church (Church of Christ) on the Eastside of Cincinnati OH

Submitting to God’s Sovereignty | Series: Teach me to Pray | 04-04-10

Submitting to God's Sovereignty
Series: Teach Me to Pray (The Lord's Prayer)
Matthew 6:13b

"For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen." John 20:24-28

  I. "Yours is the kingdom."

            Jesus is King!
King of Heaven      II Timothy 4:18
King of the Jews    Matthew 27:11
King of Israel         John 1:49
King of the ages    Revelation 15:3
King of glory          Psalm 24:7
KING OF KINGS      Revelation 19:16

John 18:36, Ephesians 1:20-21, Matthew 28:18, I Timothy 1:17

 II. "Yours is the …power."
      John 1:3, Revelation 4:11, II Corinthians 13:4, Matthew 27:63-66, Romans 1:4,

Jesus Christ alone has the power to
forgive your sins.  Colossians 2:12-13,
transform your attitude.  Ephesians 1:19-20
raise you from the dead.  I Corinthians 6:14, Philippians 3:10-11, John 11:25, Romans 8:11

III. "Yours is the … glory."
      John 1:14, Ephesians 1:14, Philippians 2:9-11

IV. "Forever."
      Luke 1:32-33, John 20:29

Full Text 

Thomas just couldn't believe it. He'd heard the claims that Jesus had risen from the dead. The women reported a moved stone, an empty tomb, collapsed grave clothes, and an angel who said that Jesus was alive. Thomas listened patiently as Mary Magdalene claimed that Jesus had appeared to her personally as she lingered behind in the garden.
Then his ten closest associates insisted that Jesus had visited them while they huddled in the Upper Room behind locked doors. But Thomas was a pragmatist. He was very logical. He was the scientific type. He'd seen Jesus die a brutal death and he refused to believe the impossible. Crucified victims don't come back from the grave. His friends were guilty of wishful thinking or maybe delusional thinking.
Thomas refused to get caught up in all the emotional hype. He said, "I won't believe it, until I put my finger in the holes where the nails were in His hands and stick my hand into the hole where that spear went into His side. I refuse to believe any of this nonsense."  Thomas was too smart to believe anyone could come back from the grave. That's fairy tale stuff!
But a week later Thomas was with the other disciples. The doors are locked.
Suddenly, Jesus appears! He says, "Peace be with you." Look at what happens next in John 20:27. "Then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.'"
Thomas, the logical guy who didn't believe in myths and things science couldn't prove was now face to face with Jesus Himself. How did he respond? Verse 28.  "Thomas said to him, 'My Lord and my God!'" Thomas, when he was convinced that Jesus had risen from grave, reacted with a humble, submissive spirit. All Thomas could do was acknowledge that Jesus was the Lord and the ruler of his life.
And my hope is that everyone here today will leave with the conviction that Jesus Christ is alive and honestly say with Thomas, "My Lord and my God!"
There are so many people today that believe Jesus came back from the grave. But they don't actually live everyday with a spirit of submission to Jesus as Lord of their lives. Easter should be more than a celebration of a one-time, historical event. By coming out of the grave, Jesus Christ proved himself God and worthy of our complete and total allegiance.
Now, The Lord's Prayer. It is found in Matthew 6:9-13. Here Jesus teaches us to pray. Let's read it one more time. Jesus said,
"9This, then, is how you should pray: 
'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
10your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
11Give us today our daily bread.
12Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'"
And here is our topic for today. The end of Verse 13 closes the prayer,
"for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. "
Actually, about half of the translations of the Bible don't include this closing line because it's not included in the earliest and the most reliable manuscripts. Whether it was added later by a scribe or whether it was really a part of the original prayer, really doesn't matter. It does nothing to change our faith or beliefs. As we will see today, the thought is found frequently in other passages of Scripture. And it also communicates the same Biblical truth that Thomas discovered on that 1st Easter. When he met Jesus, who had died and risen from the grave, he exclaimed, "My Lord and my God!"
So let's look at the four concepts of this final phrase of the Lord's prayer, the kingdom, the power and the glory forever, and then let's leave determined that we're going to make Jesus Christ the One who sits on the throne of our hearts. 
I. "Yours is the kingdom."
When we pray "For yours is the kingdom," we are submitting to God's sovereignty over us. Remember, the kingdom is God's people, which is now the Church. Jesus is the King. As His subjects, we are to submit to the authority of our King.
The Bible has lots of references to Jesus as King. For instance:
In II Timothy 4:18 Jesus is the King of Heaven.
In Matthew 27:11 Jesus told the Roman governor, Pilate,
He is the King of the Jews.
When Jesus told Nathanael He knew what he had done, Nathanael declared in John 1:49 that Jesus is the King of Israel."
In the Revelation 15:3 the song of the lamb says Jesus is the King of the ages."
Looking forward to the coming of Jesus, Psalm 24:7 calls Jesus
the King of glory.
Revelation 19:16 describes Jesus as the
KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS."
Jesus is King of the Kingdom, the Church. Jesus is your King and mine.
Now, when we talk about Jesus being King, we need to keep in mind that Jesus' Kingdom is a spiritual kingdom. In John 18:36, Jesus was on trial before Pilate and we read, "Jesus said, 'My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place.'" Jesus' kingdom is a spiritual kingdom.
Some people are worried that the Church is going to take over the government. Now, I would love to see Christians in places of power in our government. I believe Christians need to vote on moral issues. BUT. Jesus' kingdom is a spiritual one. It is different. It's built on love not military force. Its participation is voluntary not mandatory. Its full realization is going to be in the future not in the present. Jesus' kingdom is an eternal, permanent kingdom. It is not a temporary physical kingdom.
After Napoleon Bonaparte was, for the last time, toppled from his European Empire and forced to spend his last days in exile, he wrote these words, "I die before my time and my body shall be given back to the earth and devoured by worms." Then he added, "What an abysmal gulf between my deep miseries and the eternal kingdom of Christ. I marvel that whereas the ambitious dreams of myself and Alexander and of Caesar should have vanished into thin air, a Judean peasant, Jesus, should be able to stretch his hands across the centuries and control the destinies of men and nations."
There are no church services this morning for Napoleon Bonaparte or Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar or Adolph Hitler or any other conqueror. There is no resurrection celebration for Churchill or Roosevelt, or Lenin or King Tut or Gandhi. Those people are all dead and buried and their influence is mostly gone.
But millions this weekend affirm allegiance to Jesus of Nazareth who 2,000 years ago was crucified and buried in Jerusalem. Why?  Because He didn't stay in the grave. Three days later He came out of that tomb. He is alive again and reigning over the hearts of His people. Ephesians 1:20-21, "20…[God] raised [Christ] from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, 21far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come."
So, when you pray the Lord's Prayer and you begin your day by saying, "Yours is the kingdom," you are saying, "Jesus, rule in my heart today." In Matthew 28:18 Jesus said, "…All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me." Pray, "Lord, you take over the throne of my life. Give me wisdom and strength to be led, not by my emotions or peer pressure, but rather by your commands.
When you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, He is not just your Savior. He is also your Lord. That means He is to reign in your life. His Word is to be your command. If He says, "Worship me," you don't stay home, even if you're tired. If He says, "Be baptized," you don't debate about the theology of it, you just do it. If He says, "Forgive your enemy, then turn the other cheek and don't take revenge." You obey him, even if it's not what you feel like doing. If He says, "Husbands, love your wives," you don't protest saying, "She's not as young as she used to be." You do it anyway. (You're not as young as you used to be, either!) If He says, "Wives, respect your husbands," you don't say, "Well, he's lazy and not earning enough money." You do it any way. Why? Because Jesus is on the throne of your life. Jesus is King and we obey Him. I Timothy 1:17. "Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." Pray, "Yours is the kingdom."
II. "Yours is the …power."
When we pray, "Yours is the power," we are depending on God's awesome, unlimited strength to help us get through each day. We are leaning on Him for wisdom and strength to not yield to temptation and be obedient that day.
We hear a lot about power today. It is a word of today's culture. We have power point, Power Bars, Powerade, power naps and power lunches. Not long ago America had a power shortage when our electric power grid went down. There is a political battle in America today over who's going to control? Who's got the power?
But there has never been a more powerful king than Jesus Christ. He has the power to create. John 1:3 says this about Jesus, "Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made."
John Alexander tells of a friend who said to him after visiting Canada's Banff National Park, "This is the most spectacular scenery in the world." He said he looked at those mountains and those lakes and he said, "You know what? You shouldn't mess with the one who created that."
Jesus Christ has the power to create this awesome world. He doesn't seize power. He is the source of power. Revelation 4:11 says, "You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, [Why?] for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being."
It's no wonder that when Jesus Christ physically walked this earth, He had the power to walk on water. He had the power to calm a storm. He had the power to heal people. He had the power to read people's minds. He had the power to bring dead people back to life. But His ultimate display of power was when He Himself rose from the dead. II Corinthians 13:4 says, "…He was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God's power. …"
Remember when Jesus died, His enemies went to Pilate, the Roman governor. Matthew 27:63-66. "63'Sir,' they said, 'we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, 'After three days I will rise again.' 64So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.'
65'Take a guard,' Pilate answered. 'Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.' 66So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard."
James S. Stewart said, "That is the most pathetic sentence ever spoken by a man." He said, "You might as well stand at dawn and shout at the sun, 'Stop! You can't climb the heavens today.'" What would you say to this man who thought he could barricade the tomb of God?
Well, early in the morning on the first day of the week, an angel came down and rolled that two ton rock from in front of that tomb. The sixteen soldiers guarding that tomb froze in fear. And Jesus was alive again!! Romans 1:4 says Jesus "…was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord."
And when we pray, "Yours is the power," we're asking Christ's power to be in us and to transform us.
Jesus Christ alone has the power to forgive your sins and cleanse you of the past.
Colossians 2:12-13 says, "12having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead. 13When you were dead in your sins…God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins."
Jesus Christ alone has the power to transform your attitude.
If you would have gone to that Upper Room the night Jesus died on the cross, you would have found a group of men who were hopeless and in despair and fearful. But if you would have gone to see them after Jesus had risen from the dead, you would have seen laughter, joy and confidence. You say, "This must be a different group." No! Easter, Jesus' resurrection, had transformed their attitude.
In Ephesians 1:19-20, Paul prays that we might come to know God's "19…incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, 20which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms." The power that raised Jesus from the dead is the same power that can transform you, like it did Jesus' disciples. He can help you forgive, love, be gentle, and patient.
And Jesus Christ alone has the power to
raise you from the dead and give you eternal life.
I Corinthians 6:14 says, "By his power God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us also."
There were three elderly men who were asked, "What would you like people to say about you when they view your body in the casket?" One elderly man said, "I think I'd like for them to say, 'He was a wonderful family man.'" The second man said, "As they look at me in the casket, I would like for them to say, 'He was a very generous person.'" The third man paused for a moment and said, "I'd like for them to say, 'Look! He's moving!'"
You know, we all have this desire to continue to live after we die. The Apostle Paul said in Philippians 3:10-11, "10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection … becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."
Tiger Woods is about to make his come-back to golf. He accomplished something that no golfer has ever accomplished: He won four major tournaments in a row. At the press conference that followed that fourth win, a reporter asked him, "What would you say to Bobby Jones if you met him in the clubhouse tonight?"
Now, Bobby Jones is the one who founded the Augusta National Golf Club, home of the Masters, back in 1932. Bobby Jones was a golf icon who died in 1971.
This reporter asked Tiger Woods, "What would you say to Bobby Jones if you met him in the clubhouse tonight?" Woods paused and then said, "'How did he come back?' is what I'd want to know. If I go out, I want to know how I can come back."
Now, here is a youthful, wealthy, talented, famous athlete who had just accomplished an unprecedented feat, and he responds, "I'd like to know how to come back from the grave." I'm sure he was joking, but that thought was still lurking in the back of his mind.
That's the question in the back of everyone's mind. It doesn't matter if you are young or old, rich or poor, famous or unknown. We want to know if there is any power that can conquer that grave.
Jesus answers that question. In John 11:25 Jesus said, "…I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies." He alone has the power to conquer the grave. Romans 8:11 says, "And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you."
So when we pray, "Yours is the power," we're acknowledging our dependence on Him to forgive and to transform and to resurrect us.
III. "Yours is the … glory."
When we pray, "Yours is the glory," we are praising God for his splendor revealed to us. According to Strongs Exhaustive Concordance, the word, "glory", has a wide range of meanings. It means splendor, brilliance, praise, honor, majesty. "It is from the base meaning of the awesome light that radiates from God's presence and is associated with his acts of power."
The Old Testament speaks of God's glory filling the temple, of God's glory filling the whole earth. "The heavens declare the glory of God."
When Jesus took Peter, James and John up the mountain and was transfigured before them, the Bible says, "His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light." John later wrote in John 1:14, "…We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth." We pray, "Yours be the glory."
We sing:
"God of wonders, beyond out galaxy
You are holy, holy
The universe declares Your majesty
You are holy, holy."
We are singing, "Yours be the glory."
In fact, Ephesians 1:14 tells us we are saved, "to the praise of His glory." We need to be very careful that we always give God the glory and not take it for ourselves.
When Jesus became a man and died for us and then rose again, the Bible says in Philippians 2:9-11, "9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, 10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Yours is the glory.
Now, there is one, final, special word in the Lord's Prayer. "For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory"
IV. "Forever."
When the angel told Mary she was going to have a baby, in Luke 1:32-33, the angel described Jesus by saying, "32He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. … his kingdom will never end." "His kingdom will never end." His power is eternal. His glory is everlasting. Serving him, being transformed by him and praising him is not a burden but a joy because we're going to live with him forever.
R.G. Lee used to preach in Memphis, Tennessee at the Bellevue Baptist Church. He used to tell how when he was a little boy he was staying at his grandparents' house.
He said, "I was lounging around the porch one day and my grandma was in the rocker, and I said, 'Granny, what's the happiest day of your life?'" He said, "I expected her to say, 'When Grandpa proposed,' or 'When we bought this farm,' or 'When you were born,' but she didn't say any of that." She said, "Well, RG, when I was a little girl about your age, we got the word that my daddy had been killed in the Civil War. My momma tried to be strong, but you'd hear her weeping at night in the bedroom and we wept, too." She said, "Then one summer afternoon Mama was sitting in the rocker on the front porch and breaking beans in her lap. I was lying on the porch with my feet propped up on the railing. And, all of a sudden, I heard my momma say, 'Child, I think that that's your daddy walking down the lane.' I said, 'Mama, you know Daddy's gone. He's not coming back. You shouldn't talk like that.' But she stood up and she started running down the steps. She said, 'Child, that is your daddy! He's alive!'" She said, "I looked through the haze down that lane and there was a silhouette that I immediately recognized. It was my father. We'd been given a wrong report." She said, "I started running down that lane with my arms wide open, and when I jumped into my daddy's arms…RG, that's the happiest moment of my life."
I bet I know what Thomas' happiest moment was. Thomas had seen Jesus die. He didn't believe in fairy tales. For Thomas there was absolutely no hope. All was lost. But when Jesus came to him, and said, "Stick your finger in the holes in my hands. Stick your hand in the hole in my side. It's me! I'm alive!!" Thomas simply said, "My Lord and my God!" I believe that was the happiest moment of Thomas' life.
Do you know what Jesus told Thomas next? In John 20:29 we read, "Then Jesus told him, 'Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.'"
What about you? If you have never made Jesus Lord and Savior of your life, your happiest moment could be this Easter morning. Come forward when we sing and we'll help you confess your belief in Jesus and be baptized into Him. Or maybe you've decided you want to make Harvest Pointe your Church home. Then come forward as we stand and sing.

Based on a 09/22/1999 sermon by Bob Russell of South East Christian Church, Louisville, Kentucky.