Thy Kingdom Come (3) (prayers)

[Speaker 1] [Background Choral Music] [Speaker 2] Churchly fellowships cannot be more spiritual than the individuals and families that constitute them. God will even desire of the godly home. These are words of restoration and instruction in righteousness from Family Tent Ministry. May you be blessed as you listen. [Speaker 1] [Singing] I will sing of the mercies of the Lord forever I would sing. Of the mercies of the Lord. With my mouth, with my mouth, Will I make known Thy faithfulness, Thy faithfulness. With my mouth will I make known, I make known Thy faithfulness to all generations. I would sing of the mercies of the Lord forever I would sing of the mercies of the Lord. Our Father, we are grateful. Our God, we worship you. We thank you again for today as we gather to look into scriptures together and particularly being the last Monday of the month, also to set time apart to be able to pray as our usual practice to pray on the last Monday of the month. Our Lord and our God, we thank you for the opportunity to gather again. We say Lord, be thou exalted in the name of Jesus. Lord, we commit into your hands we who are here physically, our brethren who are joining us on Mixlr, our brethren who are joining us on Telegram. Lord God Almighty, we commit ourselves into your hand. Lord, wherever we are listening this evening, whether here or online, we are asking that you will come to each and every one of us. Lord, you will cause your light to shine into our darkness. You will cause our confusions to give way for directions. Lord God Almighty, it will be that we will have a definite encounter with you. Thank you, Holy Spirit. Blessed be your holy name, our God. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. We have been considering something since three weeks ago now. This is the third edition of "Thy Kingdom Come." In our first edition, we tried to look at the matter of the kingdom, the concern and the burden of Jesus about the kingdom. We saw very clearly that when the kingdom of God don't come first in our life, then we are not believers. For anybody to be a believer and not a Gentile, his first or her first priority in life is the kingdom of God and the righteousness of God, concern for God's kingdom. We saw very seriously that for Jesus, if anybody don't treat the kingdom of God first and every other thing second, third, and fourth, then that person is not fit for the kingdom. You are not fit. You are hopelessly confused. And then last week, we were bringing two things together. We noticed that there is a connection between the kingdom of God and the will of God. If the will of God is not done in a particular life or in a particular situation, then the kingdom of God is not there. The Lord said, "Thy kingdom come, your will be done." So when God's kingdom comes into any home, into any life, into any marriage, when God's kingdom actually comes into a place, the way you will know that it came is that in that place you will see people doing God's will. Once you don't find that, whatever they think has come is not God's kingdom; it's something else. And we noted that we must be careful as believers not to worship a God we imagine, but worship the God that the Bible revealed. The God that the Bible revealed is the God of the scripture, and the scripture makes it very clear that you cannot be calling him Lord, Lord, and you don't do what he says. And then we noted very strongly last week that the matter of the will of God, doing God's will, is the dividing line between Satanism and Christianity, or the dividing line between spiritism or demonology and being spiritual. Anybody who believe that Jesus is Lord, who calls him Lord but is not doing what he says, then that person is Satanic. What makes Satan Satan is not because he does not call Jesus Lord. He recognizes the lordship of Jesus. We saw that in James last week. He said, "You believe that there is one God. Satan also believes and then he trembles." I said we are not even trembling. Satan believe and he trembles. So that you believe that Jesus is Lord and you are not doing God's will, you are not keying into what God say in every situations of life, then you are being Satanic. So I said we must be careful not to be Satanic. We want to be very careful. And what I want to quickly tie this evening before we begin to pray about that matter is I want to make you see Jesus's disposition to the matter of God's will in two Bible references where Jesus even spoke very categorically in two references of the Bible. And I want us to just look at that and then what can you say looking at this thing that Jesus said? What do you have to say? We want to see on this occasion, somebody was trying to make Jesus understand, that is in Matthew chapter 12. Matthew chapter 12, please let's go there. We want to take our reading from verse 46. I will read through to verse 50. Please look at what Jesus said here. Let's try to relate it. Matthew 12:46-50 "While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, 'Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?' And stretching out his hand towards his disciples, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.'" Please, what sense can you make out of this? Can we try some other translations for that reading? Can we try some other translations? Please if you are reading, you use the mic so that brethren online can hear you. Tell us the translation that you are reading. [Speaker 3] NIV. "While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, 'Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.' He replied to him, 'Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?' Pointing to his disciples, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.'" [Speaker 1] Thank you. Any other different renditions? Matthew chapter 12, we are reading 46 to 50. [Speaker 4] NLT. "As Jesus was speaking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. Someone told Jesus, 'Your mother and your brothers are outside, and they want to speak to you.' Jesus asked, 'Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?' Then he pointed to his disciples and said, 'Look, these are my mothers and brothers. Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.'" [Speaker 1] So please, are you noticing something? We were trying to look at when Jesus said, "Thy kingdom come, your will be done on earth." That's the focus of our prayer this evening. That's what we really want to pray about. And I will just show you why we need to pray about this, why you must pray. It's so unfortunate for our generation. Our generation don't understand something. I'm going to show by the time we come to the prayer issue, the focus of the prayer burden for today, I will speak to that at then so that we can know why we must pray. Jesus was the one telling them he was making them to see what should be the burden of prayer, not necessarily what you are praying every day. That's not what Jesus was trying to say. Jesus was trying to make them see what is the burden of prayer, what is the weight of prayer, what is the implication of prayer, what is the essence of prayer. What is it that we must focus our life on when we come to the place of prayer? And if we properly understand that, we understand the depth of Jesus's concern when he said, "When you pray, pray that thy will be thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." There must be a meeting point, a meeting point between heaven and earth. And that meeting point between heaven and earth is what? It's what? The doing of God's will. The place where heaven has a correct contact with earth, and that contact is correct because he created all things for his pleasure. Where the contact is not that the will of God is done as it is in heaven, the contact is not correct. What I mean there is that that is not true Christianity. Because Christianity is actually that we were restored back to God. That's Christianity. Christianity is not about church. It's not whether you are Anglican, you are Baptist, you are Deeper Life, you are CAC, you are Redeemed. Those are just the traditions of men. There's just one body. There's one Lord. There's one Savior. There's one God. There are no two bodies. These are just local assemblies according to the traditions of men. The real thing we are talking about is that what we call that Christ came, from which we get Christianity as against Satanism. Satan came and man was turned against God's will. "Do not eat," God said they will die. Satan said they will not die. Satanism, not going along what God has said. And when man did that, there was Satanism on earth. And of course, that is death. Then for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life. Now so Jesus came to restore, to refix the virus infection of sin, of rebellion against God. So that's why the Bible says, "He that continue to sin is of the devil." He's Satanic, not going along what God has said. But he said, "Look, for this reason the Son of God was made manifest that he may destroy the works of the devil." So he came to set another motion in play. What is that motion? Your will be done where? On earth. As it is in heaven. Completely, joyfully, perfectly, holy. That is how the will of God is done. Now, you notice Jesus's attitude in this place. Some people came to him and they were saying, "Jesus, whatever you may be doing may not be very important. Some important people are around and mind you, it's not just anybody. You know it's your mother, your brothers, your sisters." But Jesus gave a response that makes us to see that the idea is not to ridicule anybody. That's what I tell people. God don't ridicule anybody that carries his image. I hope you know that, because every man created in the image of God. That's why God don't want us to be abusive. When you are abusive, you are abusing God's image, whether believer or non-believer. Humans carry God's image. Whether they represent that image is a different thing. You may be a human being but you may not be human. So the point there was not to ridicule Mary, James and John and those people. No, that wasn't the focus. The focus is that Jesus is the truth. And he said, "The words which I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." Jesus was reprogramming something from death to life. There was an understanding that to know those who are Jesus's mother and brother and father is by some biological thing. Jesus don't have a biology. It was not a biology that produced Jesus. Mary is not the mother of Jesus. Mary was a vessel through whom Jesus came because there was no Mary's egg nor Joseph's sperm. But the way you put, you carry a test tube, just like let me give a good example. If you take the spermatozoa of Mr. Idowu and Mrs. Idowu, you fertilize the egg, you now put it inside sister Jezebel. She now give birth to that child. Who owns the child? She just used that thing like a test tube, like a lab. Is that not what you do when you take children and put them inside a test tube in the lab? If you take sperm and egg and you put it together and you put it inside where it can incubate, will it not become human? So there was no biology about Jesus. There wasn't any biology. That was why Joseph wanted to put away Mary. He wanted to put her away when he saw you are pregnant. And you know the elders say, "The Holy Ghost came upon me." "Sister, if you want to lie, there's a better way to put it. Tell us the truth. Who is the brother?" She said, "No, I saw one angel. He said his name is Gabriel." So the elder quickly call Joseph behind. "Brother Joseph, you see this sister? Satan, it is not a material to marry you. We have not seen this type of thing before. It has never happened, the age of our father since I've been born. Nothing like this ever happened." But they forgot that there was a miracle, a shadow in the law that the womb of Sarah was dead and the womb of Abraham was dead. Abraham as a man was dead. He did not consider the deadness of his body or the deadness of Sarah's womb. But because God spoke, Isaac was born. Abraham was trying to bring out just one seed, Isaac, to be a reference when he said, "Through your seed," not talking about Isaac, talking about Jesus. So Isaac was to be an example of Jesus that was to come. So Jesus was resetting a death. "The statement you made, young man, is a statement of death. There's no biology that produced Jesus. There wasn't any biology." That was what he was trying to say. So he was not disgracing anybody. He was not putting anybody down. No. But he's the truth. He's the way and he's life. So he was talking about my lineage. I am not biology. Because don't forget that biology is also ordained by God. That is why God is the God of sex. Sex does not belong to Valentine. It does not belong to the world. No. The world is only perverting sex. Sex, everything about sex, the enjoyment in sex, the hormones that are concerned, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, everything about it, the feeling was God's idea. It was not Adam that said I needed a wife. It was God who said, "It is not good for the man to be alone." It was God who ordained sex for a continuation of creation and that is why sex is spiritual. That which come from sex is eternal. Anything born today by sex can never die. Once you produce human, it can never die. It's either in hell or in heaven eternally. Because it's the image of God. So if sex is simply biological, how does it produce spirit? How it produces spirit? So sex is something God ordained. So there is a line because God is the God of generation. But Jesus was trying to put something in order. That is not, you don't count my line like that. I am not biology. Because as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God. That's another ordination I came for another ordination, another one. Different from that one. That's not my ordination. I came to set another ordination. That is why that I'm born again and I'm going to heaven doesn't guarantee that my son is going there. If he's not born again from being born physically, no, he cannot enter that line, that one that Jesus came to set. Are you understanding it? That's what Jesus was saying. So he wasn't embarrassing or disgracing Mary, Joseph. No, that wasn't it. But there is a need to put it. And that's what I'm trying to make you see. That if you are not a doer of God's will, you are not in a line. There is a line. The Bible says love not the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, the pride of life, they are not of the Father but of God. The world is passing away and its lust thereof. But he who is doing the will of God abides forever. You see it? A line. A line. And that's what I want us to see. That the burden of our life, something that should be a burden in our life, something that should be a concern, is am I sure I'm not a spiritual bastard? That is I hope I'm not Satanic. There is something because he said, "Look, as many as are led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God. He that is born of God does the will of God because the seed of God is in him." Are you seeing that? And that's what Jesus was putting in play. So he turned to his disciples. This is how you define my lineage, not the other way. So he wasn't embarrassing or disgracing. No, that wasn't it. It was not an embarrassment or any disgrace. But he was talking about my line. I am not biology. So are you a brother? Are you a mother? He was talking about lineage. Who gave birth? How do you get birth? Talking about lineage. Not about which vessel you are. It's not what God use you for. It's who are you? What are you doing? That's why some will say, "We prophesied in your name," and that's where I left the matter last week. I said some will say on that day, "We prophesied in your name. We cast out demons in your name. We did that in your name." The matter is not what you are doing. You have done that in my name. But I don't know you, you workers of iniquity. You are not my line. You are not my line. There's a way we know our line. There is a line. There is a lineage belonging to that line. May you not be a spiritual bastard. There is a lineage belonging to that line. And that should be our passion and our burden in everything we do. Our passion, our burden, that is what defines us. That is why he said, "Seek ye first the kingdom and its righteousness." All other things will be added. When you see people where that is not the first, they don't belong to our line. As we take time to pray this evening, because I said our last Monday is a Monday of prayer, we want to start going into prayer. I want to show you something why you must desire that the will of God should come, why you must desire God's will. Look at Isaiah chapter 48. Let's see something in Isaiah chapter 48. Are you there? I want us to read from verse 17. Isaiah 48:17-18 "Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: 'I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. Oh, that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.'" Can we try another translation? Let's have NLT. [Speaker 5] NLT. "This is what the Lord says, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is good for you and leads you along the path you should follow. Oh, that you had listened to my command! Then you would have had peace flowing like a gentle river and righteousness rolling over you like waves in the sea." [Speaker 1] Let's see NIV. Notice that something fell from your Bible. [Speaker 3] NIV. "This is what the Lord says, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go. If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea." [Speaker 1] You see that? That is why we must run. We must seek that the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven, because number one, you cannot profit without God's will. You cannot profit without God's will. Whatever you think you are making will be a loss. The world is passing away. Whatever you are doing can never last. Look at it another way again. Without the will of God, you cannot get what is good. Whatever you think you are getting is bad. Whatever you think you are getting is bad. Why? Because it is in the line that we have life. The other line is death. Please what is good in death? You took a course that will kill you. What is good in it? You took a wife that will kill you. What is good in it? You took a location that will kill you. What is good in it? What is good in it? There's nothing good in it. That is what I like should not kill me. That is what I like should not kill me. Please, God, don't let me like what will kill me. So the point is what is good in what will kill me? So you cannot get what is good because the truth is the way, and the way is the life. It is embodied in one person. Truth, way, life. It is embodied in one person. And the passion of that one person is what? The passion and his purpose is what? The will of God. The other way to look at it, number three, is that whatever you even think you have gotten and you are dancing, whatever you think you are doing can never be the best. No matter how much you even think it is working, it's never the best. Like I remember being in one very, very big meeting, a meeting where you have high caliber of people, and I said, "Remove the end of the story, choose a path for your life, the rich man or Lazarus." People said, of course, the rich man is better. I said, "The end of the story, choose a path." Everybody choose Lazarus because at the end of the day, the rich man was crying. "Please tell Lazarus to put a drop of water in my mouth," and all of that. I said, "Why are you people shifting this way?" said, "Because of the way it ended." So even though it looks as if it was very good for the man, but it was not the best. Abraham thinks to have prospered when he got Ishmael. But as at where we were today, how do we rate Ishmael? I know if Father Abraham will be saying that, "Ah, if I had known." There was a will of God for him. One Lord, one God, one purpose, one Son. That was what the line. So Sarah was to be a woman of the night, not a woman of the morning. The woman that will give birth when every hope is gone. That's a woman of the night. And Abraham too is a man of the night, that is the purpose of God for his life. That's what I tell people when you want to marry, you better marry according to purpose. Let God reveal your purpose and let God show you who fall into that purpose. It's about purpose. They were both compatible because they're running one purpose. She must not give birth until everything dies, he must not until everything dies so that they can mirror the purpose of God for their lives. God told him at the beginning, "Through your seed," not through your seeds, your seed, one. But unfortunately, he took another path. Was it the best for him? So whatever you even think you can do outside the will of God can never be your best. Your best is in God. The day I realized that truth, something that happened to me just after I left the university, before I went for service. That's when I knew that my best is in God. And that was the day I made up my mind. I said, "God, I'm not interested in whatever my contemporaries want to become. All I just want to become is what you will for my life. I'm not interested in anything again. That will for my life is my best. I can't get anything outside my best, and I want to go for my best." And the more we pursue the will, the more we find the best inside that will. Let us go ahead to pray this evening, because I said our last Monday is a Monday of prayer. We want to start going into prayer. I will speak more to this matter next Monday. Maybe we will be able to conclude the matter of "Thy Kingdom Come" next Monday. I want to show you something why you must desire that the will of God should come, why you must desire God's will. [Speaker 1 leads a period of intense prayer with speaking in tongues and musical background.] Almighty God, we thank you again for today. We give you praise, we give you glory, O Lord, for another time in your presence, looking through scripture. No man must reckon Jesus after the flesh. No man should ever reckon Jesus after the flesh. No man should count his lineage after the flesh. He came in the flesh, but his lineage is according to the will of God. O Lord our God, what a great mystery that God was manifested in the flesh, yet justified in the spirit. O Lord, we beg you that we may think beyond our different denominations. Help us to think beyond, to see beyond our denominations. It doesn't matter what whatever path we were given at denominational level; it is beyond that. It is about the kingdom. The centrality of the exam we needed to write is the kingdom matter. The kingdom is about the will of God. Lord, we beg you, beyond our denomination, may we be men of the kingdom. May we be people of your will. May we be doers of God's will. May we have clearer and deeper understanding in working with you, in going where you go, in following where you lead, in going where you send. In the name of Jesus Christ. O Lord, much more the more teach us your ways. Lord, every wrong mentality, wrong mentality, carved images, carved imaginations that we have in our head, everything that is not correct, everything that is not allowing us to go in the path that we ought to go. Lord, I pray today break them down. Lord, break them down. Lord, break them down. Whether the thing is psychological, whether it is emotional, whether it is biological, whether it is spiritual, whatsoever it is, O God, that is giving us a wrong mentality, a wrong manifestation. Lord, we come against them today. We say Lord, through the blood of eternal covenant, Lord, we pray that you make us perfect in every good work to do your will. Lord, you will make us perfect in every good work to do your will. Lord, you will work in us that which is well pleasing in your sight. In the name of Jesus. O Lord, we pray for our nation, Nigeria. Thy kingdom come. Lord, your will be done. In the name of Jesus. Lord God, we beg you, pass through our land. Grant us a national revival. Cause a national awakening. Lord, break forth in this nation, O God, in righteousness. Lord God, we beg you, magnify Jesus over our nation. Magnify Jesus over Nigeria. Thank you our Father. Blessed be your holy name our God. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. Let's share the grace together this evening. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with us now and forever more. Amen. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever and ever. Amen. [Speaker 2] This message is coming to you from Family Tent Ministry, a Christian ministry involved in enriching the lives of singles and married through preaching and teaching of God's word, discipleship, family life enrichment, social and community development, and mission aid. Our regular activities are discipleship class every Monday, 5:00 PM; Adolescents and Singles Club every first Saturday of every month at 10:00 AM; Marriage Forum, second Saturday of every month at 10:00 AM; family life seminars, regular school out-reaches, and everyday counseling. For further counseling, you can reach us at our location, Life Camp by the first bridge, Eleere community opposite Very Joy filling station along Ijagbere Road, Akure, Ondo state, Nigeria. You can also reach us through our social media handles: familytent@yahoo.co.uk, familytentministry01@gmail.com, www.familytentministry.org. Our phone numbers are 08033861136, 07033613848. God bless you all.