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Nothing to say, yet
4-21-24 | CPC Sunday School | The_Lord's_Prayer_#8
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Nothing to say, yet
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The speaker discusses the final line of the Lord's Prayer, "Thine is the kingdom, the glory, and the power forever." They explain that this line is not actually in the Bible, but was added later in church tradition. The speaker believes that it is an appropriate response to the truths in the prayer. They discuss the characteristics of God's kingdom, such as mercy, life, forgiveness, and truth. They also argue against the use of critical race theory in understanding division and emphasize the unity found in Christ. The kingdom is to be sought after and valued above all else. This opportunity, we pray that you would just, that you would help us to understand your word better on a deeper level. We pray that we would let the lion out of its cage and that we would be transformed by your glory. We thank you. We praise you, Lord. In Jesus' name. Amen. Okay. So we have come to the end of the Lord's Prayer, and this is a line that says, Thine is the kingdom, the glory, and the power forever. So a very brief summary of what we've covered so far, courtesy of J. I. Packer. We have praise for our redemption. We have adoration of God's transcendent greatness in heaven, zeal for his glory. We have longing for his triumph. We have self-dedication to him, thy will be done. We have supplication, give us this day our daily bread. We have repentance over our failures. We have renouncing of our idolatry, and we have the acknowledgement of our weakness and our need for a deliverer from our enemy. So my objectives today are really to provide a brief history behind the last line of the Lord's Prayer and conclude the Lord's Prayer with a proper sense of awe and wonder and challenge your assumptions and mine about the kingdom. So you may or may not have known this, but the line is actually not in the Bible. I was raised Catholic, and saying this in Catholic Church, I don't ever remember saying this line. I'm not saying some Catholic churches don't say it. I just do not remember that in my childhood, ever saying this. But it's actually not in Matthew, and the King James Version includes the line, N-I-V-E-S-E do not. And as it says up here, the NASB has it in brackets with an editorial note that it's not in there. And it's certainly not Luke's account of the prayer, which is very condensed and very summarized. So the question is really, why is it not in there? Should we say it? Should we not? The thing is, it's inspired, but it's just not inspired in the same way the rest of the Bible is. It's consistent with the themes that are laid out in the prayer, but the prayer kind of ends abruptly. If you remember, it just says, you know, deliver us from evil, amen. And this is really a doxology, which is just a, you know, it's just a praise of God, and really a closing, you know, closing in praise and kind of summarizing the main themes of the actual prayer. And so doxologies are found all throughout Scripture, and I was not even, you know, familiar with this one. It's probably been a long time since I've read through 1 Chronicles, but there's a very parallel passage, as you can see here. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all. So very parallel passage. So again, not in the Bible, but not inconsistent either. So added later in church tradition, we're not really sure when or, you know, what that, you know, at least that the reading that I did is not really clear when this particular line came about, but it's an appropriate response to the truths that are laid out in the Lord's prayer. So as J.I. Packer put it, prayer and praise are like a bird's two wings. With both working, you soar. With one out of action, you are earthbound. But birds should not be earthbound, nor Christians praiseless. So the beauty of this particular line is it sums up the character of God, and with the doxology, the prayer begins and ends with praise and in awe of the God of the universe. And so one thing about this line, too, note the keyword for, so what is it there for? Any thoughts on that? Anybody want to speculate on that, why, you know, it starts with the word for? No, it's, you know, when you see the word for there, it is referring, it's saying because all of these things are true, because, you know, this is who you are, you know, your kingdom, power, and glory, we can ask you, we can come to you for our daily needs. We can come to you and confess our sins and know that we're forgiven. And, you know, we can just stand in awe of who you are. So I want to lay out some characteristics of God's kingdom. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but just, you know, some, and you guys feel free to add to this or, you know, comment on any of these, but, you know, mercy triumphs over judgment. I mean, there are countless verses I could have used for that, that for God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but through his son, that the world through his son might be saved. So the kingdom of life, John 10, 10, I've come that you may have life and have it abundantly, in contrast to a culture of death and nihilism. So, you know, that's why Christians, you know, support life at every stage, that we believe that life is created in the image of God, we know that it is, in fact. So we are, we talked earlier, too, about, you know, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive others, and, you know, how we're commanded to forgive. It's not optional, but we're actually empowered to forgive and to be reconciled to one another. So I have a patient of mine who became, has become a good friend of mine, and he's in his 90s now, but he was a helicopter pilot during Vietnam, and in Korea as well. But he, he actually flew Eisenhower around, just a really incredible guy. He has, you know, artifacts from, you know, countries all over the world, places I'd never heard of, people groups I'd never heard of. And he told this amazing story about, you know, when he was in Vietnam, there's this group of people called the Hmong, I don't know if you guys are familiar with them, but they are this, are tribal nomadic people, don't really have a country in Southeast Asia, but they're, you know, parts of Vietnam and Cambodia and a couple other places. So anyway, the Hmong people are not, they're considered soulless by the, by the North Vietnamese, and the North Vietnamese had, you know, all kinds of landmines and, you know, there. And so my friend, who was in Vietnam, had a missionary that he supported, and that missionary had kids there who had, you know, lost both parents, they were orphans, but they'd also lost limbs, you know, lost, you know, without arms, without legs, lost eyes in many cases. And so my friend, the missionary invited him to see a performance of these little kids who lost everything, and they were performing, you know, Jesus Loves Me, and, you know, he, you know, you can only imagine the things he saw in Vietnam, and he just, he had to walk out of there, not because he was offended, obviously, but because he was so blown away by it, and understandably so, obviously. So, you know, again, all that to say, we are empowered to forgive and to be reconciled to one another, and, you know, we, obviously, whatever, whatever we've done to one another, or whatever our, you know, whatever sins have been committed against us pale against, you know, what we've done to God in comparison, but, you know, we could go around the room right now if we had the time, and every one of us could tell stories about, you know, the wrongs that have been done to us, but yet we're not defined by that. We are, we are more than conquerors in Christ, because, you know, he gives us the power to forgive and to not be consumed with bitterness, to not swallow that poison pill. We overcome evil with good. It's a kingdom, and it's a kingdom that's grounded in absolute truth, you know, as Jesus said to Pilate, we're going to examine this passage more, more carefully and more closely. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice. You know, you recall, you know, Jesus is described as the Word, and described as the Logos, from which we get logic, we get the word, the term logic. So, again, continuing with the characteristics of the kingdom, so it breaks down the walls of division based on tribe, ethnicity, culture, remember, you know, Paul tells us there's neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, no male nor female, you are all one in Christ Jesus, and obviously, you know, we have, you know, categories of male, female, you know, God created that, and that's a good thing, but, you know, the gospel elevates women to, you know, equal in worth, you know, certainly not interchangeable with men, but, you know, because God, again, created us different, but for women, you know, this was a game changer in terms of, you know, seeing everybody created in the image of God, and, you know, you may, and on another level, you know, you can, maybe you've experienced this if you've gone on a mission trip, or even if here you've met, you know, somebody who's from a completely different part of the world, different country, different skin color, you know, from Africa, Asia, you know, Latin America, it doesn't matter, but if you know that they're in Christ, and they love the Lord, and they're serving the Lord, you have a shared bond with them that is oftentimes deeper than some of your own family members who are unbelievers, and I mean, that's an incredible thing, when you think about it, and so we don't need critical race theory, not only is it not helpful, it's actually harmful, and, you know, it's, you know, Matt Chandler is someone, you know, for example, a very popular, you know, pastor in the DFW area, you know, famously said that, you know, critical race theory helps us understand, you know, how we got here, it's a useful tool for understanding, and, you know, I'm saying it's, that's like sprinkling poison on the gospel message, you know, it's just a little bit of cyanide, and it's contrary to what the gospel does, it breaks down those walls of division, there's no more, you know, animosity, or hatred, or you people did this, you know, we're all one in Christ, all of that is completely washed away in light of who God is, and what he's forgiven us for. So, the kingdom is also to be sought after, and prized above all else, you know, Matthew 6, 33, seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. So, our lives are characterized by joy, or at least they should be, the joy of the Lord is our strength, we give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ for you, as Paul said in Thessalonians. So, the kingdoms, plural, are perpendicular, they're not parallel. So, I want you to think about that, marinate on that a little bit, we're going to come back to that a little bit later. So, consider the story of Polycarp. Anybody know who Polycarp was? He was a deacon in the church of the church in Smyrna, and if you remember in the book of Revelations, Smyrna, you know, means crushed, they were a persecuted church, and it's a city in Asia Minor, which would be modern day Turkey, and Christians in the early church were under constant pressure to either renounce the faith, or to make it compatible with the dominant belief system. Does any of that sound familiar to you today? There was the first emperor who demanded worship was a guy named Domitian, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that, if I'm butchering that, but he had an edict which forced the question, who is Lord, Christ or Caesar? So, they would demand that you acknowledge Caesar as a God, and say, Caesar Curios, you know, Caesar is Lord, where Christians would say, Christos Curios, Christ is Lord. So, if Caesar is Lord, guess who can't be Lord? If Jesus is Lord, guess who can't be Lord? Caesar, right? So, Polycarp at this time was very well respected, 86 years old at least, I'm not sure exactly at the time, but he was probably the last surviving person to have known an apostle. That would have been John. And so, Polycarp, when they wanted him to do this, he said, 86 years have I served him, and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King and my Savior? So, he wasn't martyred for merely having a private, personal relationship with Jesus. They didn't say, hey, Polycarp, we heard Jesus is the Lord of your sweet little heart, and we don't like that. He was persecuted for his unwillingness to say that Caesar is Lord. So, with that being said, Christ is King, and there is no other. Amen? Herod actually understood this better than many evangelicals today. You remember the story of Herod in Matthew's Gospel. Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Now, if you remember that story, the wise men come to Herod, and he says, well, please come back and give me a report so I, too, can go worship this King. Of course, that was never his intention, but you see that Christ is a threat to the earthly powers. He's a threat to the regime because his lordship is overall. I mean, the people in North Korea certainly understand that as well. The people in charge there and whatever Christians are there. So, let's go to Acts now. Let's go to Acts now. Remember, recall there was a slave girl, and she had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. So, she was empowered by a demonic spirit. She followed Paul and his companions around repeatedly, saying, these men are servants of the Most High God who proclaim to you the way of salvation. So, Paul gets annoyed, and I personally think it's because, obviously, with this demonic spirit, she doesn't have good intentions. It's more of a mocking. At least that's my understanding. I could be wrong, but she's annoyed with... I mean, he's annoyed with her because she's just drawing attention, and she's just trying to draw attention in not a good way. So, he casts out the evil spirit. But when her owners saw that their hope of gain was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace before the rulers. And when they had brought them to the magistrates, they said, this is the key part here, these men are Jews, and they are disturbing our city. They advocate customs that are not lawful for us as Romans to accept or practice. So, take it to a little bit more of a modern context, from positive world to where we are now. And so, this is a kind of schematic that a very, very smart guy named Aaron Wren came up with. I highly recommend his work. He's actually a colleague of our own, Ben Dunson, and I think he and Ben run the American Reformer website. But anyway, he's written a lot about positive world, neutral world, and negative world. And so, America is unique in that this is the first time throughout church history that you had a positive world, that a nation, a society was founded on positive world, saying we want this to be a Christian society. We want to be governed by God's laws, by his precepts. And that's in their founding documents. I mean, that's not really up for debate, our founding documents, or their founding charter, in coming here. But positive world, America pre-1994, again, this is as defined by Aaron Wren. The years are not set in stone. There is some fudgebility with the years themselves. But positive world just means society at large remains mostly positive, having a positive view of Christianity. To be known as a good church-going man remains part of being an upstanding citizen. Publicly being Christian is a status enhancer. Christian moral norms are the basic norms of society, and violating them can bring very negative consequences. And then neutral world, 1994 to 2014, again, neutral world is always very temporary. It's not sustainable, as we'll see. But society takes a neutral stance towards Christianity. Christianity no longer has privileged status, but it's not disfavored. It's one of many lifestyle choices. Being publicly known as a Christian has neither a positive or negative impact on one's social status. Christianity is a valid option within a pluralistic public square. Christian moral norms retain some residual effect. And it's kind of like what Van Til said, that we kind of live on borrowed capital of the people that went before us and the things that they put in place. But you could argue, too, I think that in some ways, here in Texas, we're still in neutral world. Maybe some parts of Texas are still a positive world. So now, welcome to negative world. So we have, society has come to have a negative view of Christianity. So being known as a Christian is a social negative, particularly in the elite domains of society. Christian morality is expressly repudiated and seen as a threat to the public good, new public moral order. And subscribing to Christian moral views or violating the secular moral order brings negative consequences. I mean, this is certainly true for pastors as well and Christian leaders. And I mean, I can remember that when my wife and I were dating, we were living in California at the time. We were engaged when we were protesting in 2008 against changing the laws to redefine marriage. And that passed in California at that time. And so now, you see where we're at, that if you don't celebrate same-sex marriage, you are out of line. You are a bigot. You're not okay. You're not okay to hold public office in polite society and even increasingly in a lot of conservative circles. So Christianity has always landed in negative world in every society prior to the founding of America, even post-Reformation Europe. So you can think about history of the Reformation and how much persecution there was, what Luther went through, what so many people went through after that where there were constant pressures to conform to the dominant belief system. And the people who subscribed to the Bible and a strict understanding of the Bible were always a minority and always outside of the halls of power prior to the founding of America. Nothing is new under the sun. But didn't Jesus say, my kingdom is not of this world? Of course he did, but text without context is merely pretext. So what Jesus said is, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting and that I might not be delivered over to the Jews, but my kingdom is not from the world. And so a little bit later in the story, Pilate says to him, will you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you? And Jesus answered, you would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given to you from above. Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin. So again, the only authority he has is what has been granted to him from the Father. From then on, Pilate sought to release them, but the Jews cried out, if you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. And I didn't even include this in the slide, but you remember Pilate says, you want me to crucify your king? And they said, we have no king but Caesar, emphatically. Oh, here it is. I did include it. Nevermind. I thought about not including it, but there it is. We have no king but Caesar. And when they could not, so now we're back in Acts. When they could not find them, they dragged Jason, and remember this is where Paul and his companions were staying. They dragged Jason and some of the brothers from the city before the city authorities shouting, these men who have turned the world upside down have come here also, and Jason has received them. And they are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus. And the people and the city authorities were disturbed when they heard these things. So again, I say the kingdoms are perpendicular and not parallel. So what do I mean by that? Many American churches these days, we have large, very nice campuses. They're almost like a small city. And I may be preaching orthodoxy, some form of it, but they insist that the evil out there has nothing to do with us. The black gates of Mordor have opened, and that has nothing to do with us. We're going to stay in our quiet little safe space here. Yet the kingdom of God, the kingdom of light, God's kingdom stands radically opposed to the kingdom of darkness. They're in radical opposition, these two kingdoms. Jesus is the king of kings and the Lord of lords, and so all idols will be smashed, and he will share his glory with no one. Does anybody here know the story of St. Boniface? So Boniface, he was a missionary to these, I guess they'd be Scandinavian people, the people who worshipped Thor, and they had what is called Odin's tree. And they had this myth, this belief, that if you so much as touch this tree, you will be struck by lightning, and you'll die on the spot. And Boniface comes up and says, oh really, give me an ax. And so word spread, and they all gathered around. They were past the popcorn, we want to see this guy fry. And so he took the first stroke, and then they were just absolutely shocked that nothing happened to him. He chopped the entire tree down, and the really cool thing is the entire village was converted to Christianity, and the story goes too that that tree was used to build a cathedral there, to build a church. So this is where I think I'm going to get a little bit controversial, but I don't think it's that hard to understand. Again, I welcome pushback, I welcome questions and challenges on this, but the kingdom of God and the church are not synonymous. So what do I mean by that? They're not a strict one-to-one ratio. We're citizens of the kingdom, but the kingdom is obviously more than its citizens, right? So the kingdom does not only advance through new converts and through people coming to faith, but also any time godliness, righteousness are advanced on earth. So you can imagine if abortion was completely outlawed in our land, and one day, hopefully, praise God, it will be. I think we're a little bit further away from that. One of the events in the past couple weeks and past couple months, I think a lot of people realize, but let's say abortion is completely outlawed, then the kingdom of God is advancing. There's more freedom, there's more liberty, and there's more of a value for life, which God has created, and understanding the sanctity of that. Does that make sense? Now, with that being said, we're going to move on to the second word in the doxology here. Thine is the power, and so you think about God's power, how it manifests all throughout the Bible. We have the ability to speak the universe into existence simply with the power of his word out of completely nothing. The same power of his voice raised Lazarus from the dead. Lazarus come out, and when I've argued with my non-Calvinist or non-Reform friends, that's a point I always make, that Lazarus had no choice in the matter. Lazarus, that Christ himself calls him, and what's Lazarus going to do? Say, no, I don't want to be brought back. It's ridiculous. It's all God. Behold, we're going to look at Matthew's gospel now. Behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves, but he was asleep. They went and woke him, saying, Save us, Lord, for we are perishing. He said to them, Why are you afraid, O you of little faith? He arose, rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was great calm. The men marveled, saying, What sort of man is this that even the winds and the sea obey him? It's easier for him to do this than it is for me to get up and change the thermostat. We're talking 2,000 years ago. He saved his chosen people, and he continues to save. What does the sea symbolize? Another story. Again, you think about what the technology was for boats back then, but the boat this time was a long way from land and beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them. The fourth watch of the night came to them walking on the sea, but when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified and said, It is a ghost. They cried out in fear, but immediately Jesus spoke to them, Take heart. It is I. Do not be afraid. What did the sea symbolize to first century Jews, people in ancient Israel? You already know the answer. Somebody else. Chaos and death. Christ is trampling death underfoot. There's a meaning behind the miracles. Christ the king pushes back the curse. Remember John the Baptist? He was in prison at this point. When the men had come to him, they said, John the Baptist has sent us to you saying, Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another? In that hour, he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind, he bestowed sight. And he answered, Go tell John what you have seen and heard. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear. The dead are raised up. The poor have the good news preached to them, and blessed is the one who is not offended by me. Continuing with his power, he rose from the dead. But when they went in and they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus, while they were perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling apparel. And as they were frightened, they bowed their faces to the ground. The men said to them, Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. What is the difference between Jesus and Lazarus being raised from the dead? Amen. Yep. Yep. Yep. Exactly. Yep. I mean, Jesus is the only, well, the only one that ascended into heaven, I guess. There are other people that were taken away, right? So Jesus is now seated at the right hand of the Father, and he led them out as far as Bethany, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he blessed them, he parted from them and was carried up into heaven. And they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple, blessing God. So he's currently, and he's currently ruling and reigning. As for me, I have set my king on Zion, my holy hill. Now, therefore, O kings, be wise, be warned over rulers of the earth, serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and you perish in the way, for his wrath is quickly kindled. That's Psalm 2. So there's also great power in the Great Commission. So remember, you know, Jesus said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. So that's language, you know, sounds a lot like, you know, what we say in the Lord's Prayer with the doxology, thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Okay? So we should be comforted by that, by that fact that he is with us always in the work that he's given us to do. He has not left us orphans, you know, he's with us every step of the way. And so, earlier I said we're in a negative world, now a little bit of good news. So how many Christians are there in the world today? Past 100 years, the number of Christians in the world has quadrupled from 600 million in 1910 to well past 2 billion presently. 2.23 billion, I think. Christianity remains the world's largest religious group. Nearly one-third or 31.2% of the world's population is considered to be Christian. This is a couple years old. This is from Pew Research. But, I mean, it's still amazing. You can say, well, how many of those people are Catholic? How many of these people are Pentecostal? There are obviously concerns about being able to discern that, but I think if we understand the parable of the kingdom, in a lot of ways it's like a giant net and it catches an unnumberable amount of fish. And then at the end of time, Christ comes back and sorts the good fish from the bad. Or to use another analogy, he sorts the wheat from the tares. But it's our job to go and gather the fish, but he's the one that cleans them and sorts out besides ultimately who's truly a fish worth keeping. Use that to further that analogy. These are mind-blowing numbers considering Jesus started with a ragtag group of 12. It's very easy to lose perspective on that in terms of we see the chaos around us. Now we come to the last main part of the doxology, Thine is the Glory. You remember the story of Moses. He said, please show us your glory. He said, I will make my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name, the Lord. I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious and I will show mercy on whom I will show mercy. But, he said, you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live. And the Lord said, behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand on the rock and while my glory passes, I will put you in a cleft of the rock and will cover you with my hand until I have passed by. Then I will take away my hand and you shall see my back, but my face shall not be seen. So great is the difference between God and man. East of Eden, he is holy, holy, holy and that is where his glory comes from and we are anything but. We can't even see him and live in the fullness of his glory. You remember in the story too, Moses comes back and he has this glory cloth, the point where people are afraid of him and he has to cover it up with a veil. So we come to the glory of the transfiguration and after six days, he took Peter and James and John, his brother, led them up a high mountain by themselves and he was transfigured before them. Again, this is not his full glory, but they get a glimpse of it. His face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light and behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah talking with him and Peter said to Jesus, Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah. He was still speaking when behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them and a voice from the cloud said, this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased. Listen to him. When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified. So we have glory in the revelation. When I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me and on turning, I saw seven golden lampstands and in the midst of the lampstands, one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white like wool, like snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were burnished bronze, refined in a furnace and his voice was like the roar of many waters. In his right hand, he held seven stars. From his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword and his face was like the sun, shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. And again, this is the apostle that John loved and the vision of him in his glorified body was, you know, he fell as if dead. And this is, I think, stands in stark contrast to the, I'm not really going to get into the, you know, second commandment debate about watching movies about, you know, portraying Christ, but I think a lot of us have in mind this kind of hippie Jesus because, you know, the images that we see in the movies that we've seen and here we see, you know, Christ in his full glory. You know, you see, he still has a body, obviously, but it's a glorified body. He's not a disembodied spirit, but the sight of him is just so awesome and so terrifying. And again, the apostle whom Jesus loved fell at his feet as though dead. So, we come to the last word, forever. So, how can a mere mortal grasp the concept of forever or infinity? And I'm probably going to butcher this, but there's a phrase from the Reformation Latin, finitum non capax infinitum. The finite cannot contain the infinite. So, the proper response is just to stand in awe of God and worship. And obviously, that's not a call to any kind of, you know, mysticism or anything like that. Obviously, you know, again, God is a God of logic and reason. He's exposed and revealed himself through his word. But just to step back sometimes and just to say, you know, and I think that's what the doxology does is to say, you know, that just the concept of, you know, thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever. And we can't even begin to grasp that because we're finite creatures. Everyone we know has a beginning and an end here on earth. Everything here on earth has a beginning and an end. But the God which we worship and stand in awe of has no beginning and no end. Amen. Questions? So, from a historical perspective, this has been added in, and we don't know exactly the date of it, but it seems right and proper for us to add this doxology to the end of that. How do you reconcile that with an idea of us using these each week and then this still being a regulative principle of worship? We should say God's words after him, but then like what are your feeling on our including that in the service each week? Changing the exact literal text over and including the doxology at the end of that. Is that incongruent? Well, I mean, I think, you know, obviously there is a tradition of, you know, our confessions. We understand that, you know, they're not inspired on the same level that the Bible is obviously. But, you know, in this case, it's just ending in praise, and I think with the themes that are consistent with the actual prayer, I think it's the appropriate way to end is just coming back to praise and coming back to... I don't know if that really answers your question, but yeah. I just want to jump on your code deal there. I think you're 100% correct. We recite in reference to what the question was, the ending of the Lord's prayer that's not in Scripture. We also recite the Apostle's Creed. We also recite Nicene Creed as doctrine. This is what we believe. Christian, what do you believe? In the same sense, we're not saying this is Scripture, but we are saying we are giving glory to the Lord in ending in the Lord's prayer. So, I think it's completely acceptable to your point. There's Scripture reference there, and it points to the glory that God deserves. And then I just would add, I wouldn't quibble with somebody if they're like, I just don't want to say that line because it's not in the Bible. It's, I think, a matter of... There's people that, you know, the part of the Apostle's Creed where they say he descended into hell. They don't want to say that. There's some controversy over that and what that means. In light of the Lord's prayer and its full scope and everything that it talks about, do you see where we are, as you stated, I think, well, that we're in a negative world? Is there anything particularly useful about the Lord's prayer for us to keep in mind being that we're at such a time as this? Thank you for that question. I think, you know, I think if anything, we just come back to a sense of, again, awe and wonder about how amazing God is and how, you know, starting out with 12 people, you know, I mean, it's easy to look at, you know, this stock market chart and say, oh, you know, these past couple months have been really, really bad. But you're not looking at the overall trajectory of, you know, where things are going, you know, and where we've been and, you know, just how much Christianity and the gospel has completely transformed the world around us. So, I think it's a cause for being hopeful. I think being in a negative world, in a lot of ways, it gives us more opportunities. It's like that line in Hebrews, which I do not have memorized, but, you know, God, you know, shakes up those things which can be shaken so that the things that are unshakable will remain. Am I close in the ballpark on that one? So, kind of hearing that ending as we know the outcome, right? We know what the kingdom will be like in the outcome. In light of that, you know, whether it's a negative world or not in the time period that we live, which we don't control, how much do I dwell on the circumstances of my time period if I know the outcome? Bringing that a little bit from a, you know, sports perspective, if I know my team's going to win the game, what things do I focus on and do differently if I know the outcome? Yeah, I think that's an awesome question. I mean, I think we have to, you know, step back and look at the broader, you know, evangelical, you know, Christianity has such a, there's such a dispensational mindset that has seeped in that it's all going to burn. You know, we're rearranging, you know, chairs on the Titanic. And, you know, we've all been, I think to one extent or another, steeped in that and just saying, you know, what we do, it kind of becomes like Gnosticism. What we do in this body doesn't really matter. And so, you know, I think that's the right question to ask is saying that, you know, we already know the outcome, so we should be bold. We should be courageous. You know, it's, I heard somebody use the D-Day analogy too. I mean, you might be a soldier landing on the beach and you're, you know, you're taking enemy fire, you're pinned down, you can't move, you're facing certain death. I mean, that just may be reality in, you know, in negative world at some point. But the point is that God is glorified regardless. God is, his word is unstoppable. It's not only undefeated, it's undefeatable. There's no way to stop what God is doing. So we're on the winning team regardless. So it's a cause for being bold and courageous. And, you know, certainly I struggle with that many times as well. Yes, sir. Just a quick one on your opinion. I know that we use the Lord's Prayer each week as a format for prayer and, you know, as a congregation we recite it. But do you think that, you know, Jesus says, when you pray, pray like this. Do you think that we maybe underuse that format, underuse those principles for defining how we should pray as a guide? And, you know, how would you, if you happen to thought about it, how would you work that in more into your daily life, in your prayer life than maybe we currently have it today in our patterns? Yeah, I think that's an excellent question. I mean, I think that the main thing is we understand that, you know, when we come to God, we don't just ask for our petitions and say, I have this need, I have that need. And not that there's anything wrong with that, but the proper perspective is to understand, you know, first and foremost, who he is and, you know, just thank him for who he is and thank him for, you know, our current circumstances, that he's in control of that. And we thank him that he is able to provide. And, you know, he, in light of that, that's because of who he is, that's the reason why we can't ask him for the things that we need. And I'm just reminded of, you know, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They're like, you know, even if God does not save us here, we're going to trust him and we're going to know that he is good and he loves us. And, you know, I mean, how can you stop a man like that? I just have a comment, Brian. I appreciate you bringing up 1 Chronicles 29, 10 through, I guess, 13, which is the doxology that David prayed. I was just reading a little bit of it here. It seems like it was the last public thing that David said in his life at the kind of anointing ceremony of Solomon as king. And as you read through the text, it really has all of the concepts and even the words that are in this doxology. They're in a slightly different order. I just find it interesting. I was having a conversation with my mother, who's Southern Baptist, this week or maybe last week about this. As we've been studying through the Lord's Prayer, we were just talking and I mentioned the fact that this doxology is thought to be not in the original scripture. And she was really troubled by that. She had a hard time getting her head around the idea that if God's Word is inerrant and God's Word tells us that this is in there, but then scholars think it's not in there, then how can we trust anything else in the Bible, which is a challenge, I suppose, for some people. So I think the fact that this actually is in scripture in a different place and it's coming from David is probably encouraging. Yeah. And I wasn't aware of that. So thanks for bringing that up. That's from the book. Do you love me? So I wasn't aware of it either. I mean, honestly, the other thing, again, I see the parallels between the Great Commission and this and just, again, praying back scripture. There's nothing in this doxology that is unscriptural or anti-biblical. It's very much in line with everything that we already prayed for. It's just a good recap summary. Anybody else? Okay. I'm going to close this out in prayer. Father God, thank you again so much for the opportunity to spend time in your Word, and we thank you that you are such a gracious God. Help us to stand in awe of you and to never doubt your goodness. Help us to just continue to be blown away by what you've done in our own lives and in the world around us and to seek to be used for your glory. We pray over our pastor, thank you for his preparation time this week, and we pray that our service would be pleasing to you and edifying to one another, to all of our members. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
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