Prayer Course, "Kingdom Centered Prayer"

Prayer Course, Session IX 5 Dec 10 Kingdom-Centered Prayer

I. Becoming a Four-eyed Fish
The anableps is an unusual fish that lives in the coastal rivers and swamps of southern Mexico, Central America, and along the Caribbean to Brazil. It swims along the surface of the water and catches and eats insects that fly low over the water. It has the common name of “the four-eyed fish” because of the unique structure of its eyes. It does not have four eyes, of course, but its eyes are remarkable. Each eye has two pupils. When the anableps swims, one pupil is below the water line and the other is above it. The entire structure of the eye is altered so that the differences in the refraction of light in air and water are taken into account and the fish is able to see its prey above water and its enemies in the water. It has vision in two realms at once.
As Christians, we live in two realms at once. In Philippians, Paul speaks of longing to depart this earth and go to be with Christ. However, Paul notes, in Eph 2:4-7, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ — by grace you have been saved — and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” Because we are in Christ through our faith in him, and because Christ is now seated at the right hand of the Father, Paul notes that, while our bodies may be on earth, we are spiritually in heaven right now.
We live in two kingdoms at the same time. We live in history on earth. We live in heaven because we are in Christ. Because we live in two kingdoms we need to develop “four eyes,” like the anableps fish, so that we can see the world around us not only from the perspective of earthly matters, but also from the perspective of heavenly matters. And as we have and further develop that dual perspective, we will be able to pray not simply about earthly matters, but also from a Kingdom-centered perspective.
II. Need-Driven Prayer
The other day I listened to Jesus Take the Wheel, by singer Carrie Underwood, on You Tube. It tells the story of a young mother traveling with her infant child on a snowy Christmas Eve in Ohio. She hit a patch of black ice and the car started spinning out of control. Faced with serious injury or death, the young mother cried out, “Jesus, take the wheel.” The car straightened out and slowed down safely.
It is often that it is need that drives to prayer. God created us to glorify him and to enjoy him forever, and for that reason, fellowship with God is the primary purpose of prayer. Ideally, every believer would echo David daily, “O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.” (Ps 63:1) But while we are forgiven sinners who are being sanctified, we are still sinners, and it is easy to neglect time with God. It is often need that drives us to prayer.
Mary and I have asked friends and fellow believers for prayer for healing for my Aunt Shirley and for Elizabeth and her relationship to her boyfriend, now her husband. We had great needs in these areas. There was nothing we could do about my aunt, and we did not know what to do about Elizabeth and Allen, whose relationship had, to our best insights, some troubling aspects. Our sense of helplessness drove us to prayer.
God is our heavenly Father. He is glad to receive us when we are in trouble, as we who have children welcome them when they come to us for help. There is an ideal reason to come to God, that of simply desiring his company – but there is no really bad reason to come. God’s grace is so open that he will take you for whatever reason you come – although his desire is that you, in time, will enter his presence not only for emergencies but simply because you delight in him and depend upon him in all things.
Need may drive us to prayer, but while prayers for our daily bread are fitting and right, we have also been told to pray “Thy kingdom come.” I believe that means two things for our prayers. First of all, we need to examine our perceived needs within the framework of God’s Kingdom: will an outcome that we are praying for advance the Kingdom? Might it have a negative effect? Can you see no effect whatever? Of course, we human beings do not have certainty in predicting the effects of any given out come. We certainly do not have enough knowledge or enough wisdom to be able to tell. But if we want to pray with God’s kingdom in mind, we need to think about possible outcomes and how they relate to God’s larger plan.
As we pray, we need to ask, “How might God be at work in me to make me more like Christ?” “How might this situation bring about better relationships among Christians?” “How will this bring people to faith?” “How might this situation help others to grow in the gifts God has given them to serve him?” After all, God’s purpose is not to make our lives more pleasant, but, as Eph 1:4 says, “he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.” We also read in Eph 5:27, “that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.”
Part of Kingdom-centered prayer is praying about our needs with God’s purposes in mind, so that we see our needs not simply in terms of what we like or enjoy, but in terms of God has told us he wants us to do. Keeping God’s larger purposes in mind helps us to shape our prayers, not only in requests but in praise and thanksgiving, for the more we consider God’s kingdom and his eternal plan, the more astonished and delighted we become.
But there is larger perspective to Kingdom-centered prayer. I said that the first thing is to look at your natural requests from the point of view of the Kingdom, but Kingdom-centered prayer is more than taking a look at the requests we would have anyway. Kingdom-centered prayer also means looking at the needs of the Kingdom as we look at the world around us. In 1 Tim 2:1-2, Paul says, “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” Paul does not urge prayers for those in political authority as an act of patriotism, but for the sake of spiritual growth and service.
There is nothing wrong with patriotism, of course, but one’s love of country needs to be in perspective. Many of the horrors of history have come about because an ostensibly Christian nation came to value the nation itself more than Christ. Hitler created a “German Christianity” that backed his dreadful policies. That is an extreme example, but there is always a danger that we will love something else more than God. When we do that, God moves from being God to being, in our minds, a means to an end or a power that we can seek to enlist on our behalf. Jesus told Pilate that his kingdom was not of this world, and when we think in Kingdom-centered ways, we look at our nation, our state, and our community as places where we can manifest God’s Kingdom and its values, not as God’s Kingdom itself.
I mentioned the song, “Jesus Take the Wheel,” a few minutes ago. That song is not simply about a dramatic rescue for someone who recognized how much she needed divine help. In the song, the mother does not simply say, “Thank you, Jesus,” and then go on her way with no further thought. She reflects on her life and sees that she has been ignoring God and his values and ways, and says to the Lord again, “Jesus, take the wheel,” giving to him the “driver’s seat” of her life. She places her life and her choices under the dominion of its rightful King. She is beginning a Kingdom-centered life.
When we think in Kingdom-centered ways, we look at our nation, our state, and our community as places where we can manifest God’s Kingdom and its values. This means that when we look at the people and institutions around us, we are asking, “Where and how can God’s Kingdom be seen and grow in this setting?” Mary is a second-grade teacher in the Northbridge public schools. Because of current interpretations of the Constitution, she is not allowed to advocate for the Christian faith among her students. But there is nothing that says she cannot pray for them, that she cannot love them with a Christ-like love, or that she cannot seek to help them develop good character. There is also nothing that says she cannot teach them what Christians believe, as long as she does not try to have them profess Christianity. Mary’s goal is to love them with a Christ-like love, so that they will have, to some degree, an experience of grace in their lives.
For five of the last six years, Mary has also led a SuperKids outreach ministry in late June. That is an evangelistic ministry, seeking to extend and to build the Kingdom of God. For the most part, we have had kids with some degree of church background attend, and only a few kids who hardly knew about Jesus. But SuperKids did give kids connections to kids from a variety of churches and it reinforced the Gospel in their minds, so the Kingdom was strengthened. If a young person who believes in Christ only knows Christians in their own church, it can get a little lonely – but knowing that there are other believers out there can be very encouraging.
SuperKids is an example of the larger view of Kingdom-centered prayer, that of looking for ways in which the Kingdom of God can be extended and strengthened in the world around us. I would like to ask you all, what are some ways in which you or a group of interested Christians could extend or strengthen the Kingdom of God in this part of the world?
III. Thinking of Kingdom Goals
One reason it is important to think and pray in Kingdom-centered terms is that God has chosen to work through means rather than directly. There will come a day when he will manifest his Kingdom directly and completely, when the Lord Jesus returns. But until that day, he is using us to give something of a “preview” of his Kingdom, as we reveal Kingdom values and Kingdom character in our relationships and activities.
One of the views of the Millennium spoken of in the book of Revelation is the “Post-millennial” view. This view, which was held by Jonathan Edwards and a number of other Reformed theologians, states that through the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Church will spread the Gospel throughout the world and as the world becomes more and more Christian, there will be a “golden age” in which God’s values will be predominant in human life. After this, Christ will return, judge the earth, and then establish his Kingdom fully. This view is in many ways an optimistic one, but it does have the advantage of encouraging people to think, pray, and act in Kingdom-centered ways. It gives us hope that what we do will really have an effect. We can help bring in God’s Kingdom. While I am not entirely sure about this in terms of the history of ideas, I suspect that postmillennial thinking gave impetus to the “progressive” movement, which holds that liberal political values will bring in a golden age.
Personally, I am an amillennialist. I do not believe that the 1,000 years is a literal period in history, but rather a statement of Christ’s complete victory over Satan by his death and resurrection. In spite of that victory, however, human sinfulness and the struggle between good and evil continue. This means that I am not an optimist about human history. The 20th Century, which saw “the war to end all wars” in its second decade, the war against fascism in its fourth decade, and phenomenal technological advances throughout, also saw millions of people dying at the hands of their governments and the deaths of more people for their faith in Christ than in all the centuries beforehand. I do not think that either technological advances or political progressivism will bring in a “golden age” of human freedom and happiness. Satan may be defeated, but he is like a snake with its head cut off – the fangs still contain venom, and the body can still thrash dangerously. Satan’s defeat has only increased his anger and his desire to take as many with him as he can.
Does this mean that I think that Christians should simply prepare to endure as best they can? Should we hunker down and forego seeking to show Kingdom vision and Kingdom values? Not at all. We should be doing the right thing because it is the right thing, not because we have a reasonable hope for wide-spread success. The Lord Jesus told us to go into all the world and make disciples. He told us that remarkable things would happen, but he did not promise that our efforts to spread the Gospel would meet with universal reception or that living according to his teachings would always bring acclaim from others. He did not promise unchallenged success – but he did promise that he would be with us.
At the same time, I am convinced that when we seek to reveal Kingdom values in our daily lives and seek to extend the Kingdom by sharing the Gospel and making disciples, things happen. People come to faith and find mercy and freedom. Our lives gain a stability that enables us to have peace in the midst of struggles. Most of all, God is honored – and enjoyed. The Kingdom of God is present – not in its fullness and not in its glory, but in reality, for where God has the allegiance of our hearts, minds, and strength, the Kingdom is present. What we do now will matter for all eternity, for we are God’s subjects right now, and God wastes nothing that we do for him.
IV. Kingdom-centered Prayer
A few weeks ago, I shared with you the basic structure of my daily prayers as an example of one way to set about having an organized discipline of prayer. You may have noticed that on Saturdays I pray for government leaders. The Apostle Paul enjoined us to pray for those in civil authority, and he did so at a time when few, if any, officials even pretended to be Christians. Our culture is becoming less and less aware of its Judeo-Christian background, so in some ways we need to pray more for our officials than before. The world is more complex and their resources are less stable than ever. Our leaders need all the help they can get!
I also pray for Christian businesspeople. As Christians, they really need to be spiritual “four-eyed fish,” seeing both their business environment and the Kingdom of God with clarity. They have the challenge of living their lives and running their businesses according to Kingdom principles in a setting where those values are often overlooked or even despised. So I pray for their discernment and wisdom, so that their businesses will be not only well-run, but outposts of the Kingdom of God.
It is not only Christian businesspeople who need to be spiritual “four-eyed fish,” however, for we are all called to live for God in a world that prefers to pretend that God does not exist, or does not matter. We need to see the world as it is, and we need to see the world from God’s perspective. If we do, we can pray not simply for our own perceived needs, but with a vision for the Kingdom of God. And, having prayed, we can live and act for the Kingdom of God, to God’s glory and our joy.