And we'll consider together questions and answers 128 and 9. That's found on pages 257 and 8 of the Forms and Prayers book. 257 and 8 of the Forms and Prayers book. Question and answer 128 and 9. I'll ask the question and I would ask that you please respond with the answer. Lord's Day 52, question and answer 128. How do you conclude this prayer? Answer, for yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. This means we have made all these petitions of you because as our all-powerful King, you are both willing and able to give us all that is good and because your holy name and not we ourselves should receive all the praise forever. And then last question of our catechism. Question and answer 129. What does that little word, Amen, express? Answer, Amen means this shall truly and surely be, for it is much more certain that God has heard my prayer than I feel in my heart that I desire such things from him. And we'll follow that up by reading from 1 Chronicles chapter 29. 1 Chronicles 29, verses 10 through 20. Should be on page 445 of the Pew Bible. 1 Chronicles 29, starting at verse 10. So David blessed the Lord in the sight of all the assembly. And David said, blessed are you, O Lord God of Israel, our father, forever and ever. Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, indeed everything that is in the heavens and the earth. Yours is the dominion, O Lord, and you exalt yourself as head over all. Both riches and honor come from you, and you rule over all. And in your hand is power and might, and it lies in your hand to make great and to strengthen everyone. Now therefore, our God, we thank you and praise your glorious name. But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to offer as generously as this? For all things come from you, and from your hand we have given you. For we are sojourners before you, and tenants, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no hope. O Lord our God, all this abundance that we have provided to build you a house for your holy name, it is from your hand, and all is yours. Since I know, O my God, that you try the heart and delight in uprightness. I, in the integrity of my heart, have willingly offered all these things. So now, with joy, I have seen your people who are present here and make their offerings willingly to you. O Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, preserve this forever in the intentions of the heart of your people and direct their heart to you. and give to my son Solomon a perfect heart to keep your commandments, your testimonies, and your statutes, and to do them all, and to build the temple for which I have made provision. And David said to all the assembly, now bless the Lord your God. and all the assembly blessed the Lord, the God of their fathers, and bowed low and did homage to the Lord and to the King. Let us pray and ask God's help as we consider this text together. Our God and our heavenly Father, we come before you this evening having read your holy and inspired word. May we indeed sincerely and earnestly confess with the Lord's prayer We pray that you would give us sharpened minds ready to learn and to receive what it is that you would instruct us with this evening. That we would willingly receive these things that you would therefore be glorified and honored. and that you would conform us to the image of Jesus Christ. Accomplish all these things by your word and spirit, we pray and we ask in the name of Christ. Amen. I've been told that Bare text, bare words communicates only 10% approximately of what one seeks to convey, of what one seeks to communicate. You could read, for instance, the text of the children's rhyme, Mary Had a Little Lamb. But how you speak those words might communicate something different. If someone is to say, Mary had a little lamb, well, the emphasis is on Mary having the little lamb, not someone else like Susie or Jenna or what have you. Mary had a little lamb. Well, now I'm saying that Mary had it. Now she doesn't, more than likely. Mary had a little lamb. Now I'm focusing on the smallness of the lamb. Mary had a little lamb. The emphasis, therefore, is on the lamb. She has a lamb and not some other creature or animal. And perhaps you looked at the question for the sermon this evening, why pray to God? And your emphasis perhaps in your mind was, why pray to God? Or why pray to God? But the goal this evening is for us to ask the question very simply, why pray to God? Of all people, of all supposed imaginary deities, why pray to God? Why is it that we pray to Him and to Him alone? And the answer, very simply, very plainly, is that His, His is the kingdom, His is the power, His is the glory. Those are the three points that we'll consider this evening in this text. The kingdom is the Lord's. We'll see that in verses 10 through 13. The power is the Lord's. We'll see that in verses 14 through 16. And finally, the glory is the Lord's in verses 17 through 20. First, the kingdom. The kingdom is the Lord's. Beloved of Christ, this evening we conclude the Heidelberg Catechism. These are the last two questions and answers of our catechism, and it has to do with the closing words of the Lord's Prayer. That benediction, well, more of a doxology that's given to the Lord in the Lord's Prayer. And then finally, highlighting that little word, Amen. And as we read the text this evening from 1 Chronicles, I guess it just didn't escape your notice that David's prayer sounds an awful lot like this doxology of sorts. Now, there's good reason for David to pray this way. There's good reason for us to pray this way. Now, we need to ask the question before we really dig into the text, what has happened in David's life to cause him to pray in this way? Because you have to remember, David doesn't have a form prayer of the Lord's Prayer. He hasn't been praying this prayer as long as he has lived, as far as we can tell. So what is it that has happened to David that has caused him to pray this way? Well, by the time we get to 1 Chronicles 29, David is an old man. He's nearing death. This is towards the end of his life. He's lived a life of war, but in the last few years there's been relative peace. Israel is in a prosperous sort of state, and you have to remember that that's significant, that's special. Israel not being in danger of various nations and kings and despots, For the last 300 years, Israel has been invaded by one nation after another, by one king after another, been enslaved by one group after another during the period of the Judges. But now, now with David's reign, the nation enters a sort of golden age, an age of peace and stability. And now on David's heart towards the end of his life, now that there is peace, now that there is stability, now that there is prosperity, what's on David's heart is the construction of the temple. It happened one day that he was in his palace and he looks out and he sees the tabernacle, a tent, and he thinks to himself, how can it be that God has this tent and I'm in this palace? So on his heart is the construction of this temple, but the Lord reveals to him that Solomon, his son, his heir, who is a man of peace, he will be the one to build this temple. But David, David being as enthusiastic as he is, as excited as he is about this, he does all that he is permitted to do, all that he can do. True enough, he can't build the temple, but he can do everything in his power to prepare for it. He can do everything he can to prepare Solomon so that when Solomon begins his reign, everything is right there, ready to go, so that they can begin the construction of this great and beautiful building. And honestly, David's reign, as it is given to us in the book of Chronicles, really focuses on this. You know, the account that we have in Samuel is a bit different. But here in 1 Chronicles, considerable time and focus and energy is spent on David's preparation for the construction of the temple. In fact, we could say that as far back as 1 Chronicles 17, David begins to make preparations for the temple. There's been a lot of gold that's been stockpiled, gold and silver and bronze, iron, et cetera. all from tribute from other nations, from the spoils of war. And then you look at verses 3 through 5, and we find that David puts his money where his mouth is, and he contributes out of his own treasury. He contributes his own silver and gold as well. And he calls on the nation, the nation as a whole, after he himself has contributed, he calls on the nation, the princes and the commanders and the heads of households to also give to this endeavor. And we find that the nation is generous. They give a great deal. In fact, it tells to us, whoever had precious stones gave them. And at this, the people and David rejoice, and that leads to the prayer that we read starting at verse 10. That's the immediate narratival context. But there's a second context you need to keep in mind. There's a second context that we need to remember as we read the book of Chronicles. The immediate context is David in his preparation for the temple. True. But this is not when the chronicler writes. You see, the chronicler, the one who writes this book for us, he's writing around the year 440 BC. This is hundreds of years after David. This is hundreds of years after Solomon. This is hundreds of years after the golden age of Israel. True enough, the days of David and Solomon, those were a golden age, but the days of the Chronicler, it's a dark age. It's a depressing age. The days of the Chronicler are this. They've just come back from exile. Jerusalem is in shambles. The walls are broken down. There's no temple to speak of. They're fairly poor. They have little power. They're under the dominion of the Persian Empire. It's dismal. It's dreary. It's depressing. There's no David. There's no Solomon in sight. They have no gold, no silver to speak of. But the chronicler writes the history of the nation in order to lift up the nation that they would look up and look upon their great God who throughout all of their history had guided them and protected them. And this text really does just that. The first thing that we see here, the first important thing that we see is that David says, without so many words, that David is not king. That's the first sub-point there. David is not king. You notice that, you know, what he says in verses 10 and 11, Yours, O Lord, is the dominion. In the words of the Lord's Prayer, Yours, O Lord, is the kingdom. David, with all his might, is pointing at the Lord, that the Lord alone is the sovereign head over all. And as a consequence, David is then pointing away from himself. There's no focus on his own person. There's no focus on his own authority. Rather, he with great exuberance and energy says, Yours, O Lord, Yours, O Lord, is the dominion. What this means, obviously, and very simply then, is that if David is not king, then the Lord is king. Which is an astounding thing for David to say, here is David, the Old Testament king, the king that has done so much for this nation. He's given peace to this nation. He's given so much for the building of this temple. And yet this David, who's been so devoted to his kingdom, who has sacrificially served his kingdom. He says that the Lord, the Lord is king. His is the dominion. He is the sovereign head over all, and he takes credit for absolutely nothing. All the kingship is the Lord's. Though all is well, though other kings would likely take credit for what they have done, they would emphasize their own kingship, their own authority, David ascribes all authority, all of that to the Lord. Because the people didn't give because David mandated it. People didn't give because David taxed them. But God, the King of Kings, drew the people to give such as they did, and they gave willingly and generously. Imagine the impact this would have had on the first readers of this book, as they sit in a run-down Jerusalem, hundreds of years after what we read has occurred. The temple's destroyed. They sit poor and without any form of freedom or independence. Things seem hopeless. Even so, they can read this text and be reminded very clearly in no uncertain terms, the Lord is King. True, some sort of Persian king is reigning, probably in Susa. But the Lord, the Lord, He is the true King. True, they're under the yoke of the Persians. True, there's no great temple to speak of. But here's one thing that they can remember, that they must remember. Yahweh is King. His is the Kingdom. O Beloved of Christ, consider this. Consider that our Father's is the Kingdom. That all authority, all governments, all governors, all governing authorities, all of it belongs ultimately to our Sovereign Master. Should the day come even where democracy in our own nation disappears and despots rule, dictators run the nation, even then the kingdom will still be the Lord's. That never changes. That never adjusts. That will always be the case. We pray to God very simply because all is His. Everything belongs to Him. He's over all things. And so therefore, as the instructor tells us in the Lord's Day, in Lord's Day 52, question and answer 128, he tells us very plainly that this one, this God, this King, He is able, He is able and willing to give all for our good. But dear friend, dear friend, if you're here this evening and you are not a child of this king, I would tell you, warn you, watch out. If you have no relationship with this king, but rather refuse to hear this king, refuse to believe in this king, then beware. Consider the precarious situation that you're in. Yeah, it would be scary if you were at war with a president, a prime minister, a chancellor, but to be at war with the king of the universe? Oh, that's distressing. And we are, by nature, at war with him. Because of the original sin that is imputed to us, credited to us, the original sin that comes to us from Adam, we are polluted with sin and also counted as guilty. And so we're born at war with this great King. But, friend, friend, the Lord of all decreed a way of salvation through Jesus Christ. He decreed that Christ would take the sin of all who believe in Him and He would take on their sins and give to those who believe on Him His righteousness. He decreed that Christ would take on a human nature so that, as Peter says, all who believe in Him would partake of the divine nature and enjoy eternal life. Entrust your soul, oh dear friend, to Christ, and be saved, reconciled to this great and sovereign King, and don't think that He's unable to forgive you of even your worst sins, because in addition to the kingdom being the Lord's, The same is true with the power. The power is also the Lord's. We see that very plainly in the scriptures as a whole, in the text as a whole, and we could highlight it especially in verses 14 through 16. You notice David's words in verses 14 through 16. The words that he speaks about man. He says to us in no uncertain words that man is not mighty. Man is a sojourner even, he says. David says, man, as a sojourner, that's a traveler of sorts. Imagine how the assembly in front of David would have heard this. Really, David? We're sojourners? Travelers? What? You've brought about this golden age upon the nation that we live in such a way that is so unlike the period of the judges? In those days, perhaps, we could call ourselves sojourners. But in the midst of peace? In the midst of stability? This is a shocking word choice on David's part. Because a sojourner is someone who is a proselyte in the land. Someone who isn't a native Israelite. Someone who is a foreigner who is seeking emigration from their land to settle in the Promised Land. You see, Man is a sojourner in that sense. No permanent home, always on a journey, always on the move, always traveling. This was true in David's day. This was true in the Chronicler's day. This was true in the day of Peter as well. You read 1 Peter chapter 1, and Peter describes Christians as aliens, people that are passing through. Man is not mighty. Man is a sojourner. But David isn't done. David goes further. David says that man is also a tenant. A tenant actually has even fewer rights than a sojourner did. Fewer privileges than a sojourner. A tenant was a temporary landless wage earner. You think of someone who goes to Israel in order to work in the harvest, earns some wages, and then goes back to their own nation. It's a very temporary sort of setup. It's like a summer job. It's a temp job. That's the end of their relationship with the nation. It's very temporary. Man is more than a sojourner. He's a tenant? This is how David describes man. But even still, even after saying that, David isn't dumb. He's a shadow. Man is but a shadow. In the words of James, he's as a vapor. How long-lasting is a shadow? How long-lasting is a vapor? How strong, how powerful are these things? They're neither and we know from experience that that's the case. Think about it this evening as you went out of your car and as you were walking from the car to the narthex, there was a shadow that was there the whole time following you all the way here. You probably didn't even think about it. You didn't notice it. There's a shadow as you walk from your car to the front door, you enter the narthex and that shadow, that shadow is gone. No longer is that shadow. Do you have a shadow generated by the sun, but now it was generated by the lights in the narthex? So temporary, so short. It's there for a minute, or even less than a minute, and that shadow's gone, it disappears. Our own lives, our own power, our own ability is like that. Man is not mighty, man is as a shadow. And then on top of that, David ends with the words that there's no hope. Now, what does that mean? What is David getting at when he says that there's no hope? That kind of seems overly dark and overly dismal. What does he mean by that? Well, the word for hope here, it has the idea of waiting, of enduring and waiting and looking for something. It has the idea of expectantly and ardently hoping for something long term. But with man, with his life, there is no ardent expectation or hope. This is to say that the years of man's life, they don't abide, they don't continue. In fact, some translations have put it that way. That with man, there's no endurance. There's no continuation. And with this, Psalm 90 agrees. For in Psalm 90, it says to us that the years of man's life are 70, 80, due to strength perhaps. Man's life is not infinite. It's not unending. This is a picture. This is the picture that David gives us of man's power, of man's ability. He's a soldier. He's a tenant. He's a shadow. He has no hope. No wonder it is that David wrote in Psalm 8, who is man that you are mindful of him? The point is simply this, the Lord is mighty, not man. His is the power. David asks the question, who am I and who are my people that we might be able to give to you as generously as this? And he really honestly answers his own question. He didn't really truly have the power to do this and neither did his people. It was all done by God's might, all done by God's power. They are but sojourners, and tenants, and shadows, and without hope, without endurance. All of that. As they gazed upon the heaps of wealth that were in front of them for the building of the temple, they could only say that it was God, by His might, that caused all these things to happen. It was all from God. Even that gold, that silver, that bronze, that iron, all those stones, the Lord caused it to happen. The Lord is mighty. There's a significance here for our prayer life for us to consider. It shows us, this verse does, this text does, it shows us our need. It shows to us that we're simply not mighty. But it also shows to us our God's power and ability to give all good. Also to highlight question and answer 129 as our instructor tells us about the word Amen. Amen meaning that it shall surely be. It's more certain that God has heard my prayer than I sincerely feel a desire for what I've asked Him. This is possible, only possible, because the power is the Lord's. The power is God's. In fact, the whole exercise, the whole purpose, the whole enterprise of prayer is only possible because His is the power. And because His is the power, we can ask for things that seem absolutely outlandish, impossible, even, if I may say it reverently, ridiculous. We can pray, and we can sincerely pray that since His is the power, we can ask that God would mightily work healing in the bodies of dear brothers and sisters that are struggling with some form of sickness. We can sincerely ask our God for revival upon our own community, our own state, our own nation, even the whole world, for He has answered those prayers in times past. We can sincerely pray and ask, inexpectantly ask, that God will turn hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, that he will cause people to believe in Christ through the preaching and the proclamation of the gospel, even though that gospel is proclaimed through broken sinners like you and me. We can pray thus and pray with confidence because the power, the power is not mine, not yours. The power is the Lord's. And as such, it is only fitting, therefore, that we get to the third point, that He, our God, our great and almighty God, that He receives the glory. And that's really how David ends his prayer and how this narrative, how this chapter of narrative really ends. That all the glory is the Lord's. That's what we read towards the end in verses 17 through 20. I mean, can you imagine as all the assemblies, they're gathered with David, can you imagine the pile of gold? We're talking about talents upon talents of gold, of silver, of bronze, of iron, of stones, just sitting there in front of the whole assembly, in front of them. in front of the princes, in front of David, in front of the commanders. Can you imagine how the first readers of the book of Chronicles could have pictured that vast pile of wealth as they sat in their rags? It's something that is amazing to see, something that is amazing to think about and to ponder. It is an amazing feat and accomplishment. But who does David highlight in verses 17 through 20? Who is it that gets the praise? Who is it that gets the credit? Who is it that gets the glory? It's the Lord. What that means is that the praise doesn't go to man. The first sub-point there. The praise doesn't go to man. Notice even how David prays about the intentions of the people's hearts. The intentions of the heart were good, but ultimately David, the people, can't take credit for those things. Look, David even asks that the Lord would preserve those intentions in verse 18. He shows that man can't procure nor can he keep such intentions in his heart. Because ultimately the praise must go to not man, but God. All the credit must go not to man, but to God. Praise doesn't go to man. Finally then, therefore, very simply, the praise does go to the Lord. It does go to God. That's the aim of all of life even. You notice what David prays as regards the heart of man and the intention of man, that it is all to be directed to the Lord, all to be directed to God and nowhere else. Now consider that, think on that closely. For the heart to be changed, to be directed, to be curved, towards the Lord. That implies that all glory in that individual's life, all praise, all honor, it truly goes to God. And even this, this requires a radical transformation in the heart. Because how is it? How is it that such a change could ever happen? How is it that this is a possibility that is ever accomplished? That somebody's heart is actually curved towards the Lord? It's by praying and asking that only the Lord does this. Because He alone must receive the credit for it. We can't hope to achieve, to have our hearts curved and changed so that it's pointed towards the Lord, so that it's towards the Lord. Because if we were able to do it by some sort of ascetic or monkish regimen, then we could take credit for it. We could take glory for it. But it's something only God can do. Something only God can accomplish. And therefore, as is right, as is proper, all glory therefore only goes to Him. The heart must be directed towards Him, must be directed towards His glory. That's something He can and will do for His glory. So my question then, therefore, this evening very simply is this, how is your heart this evening? Is it bent? Is it curved? Is it directed towards God? Is it desiring His glory that He alone would receive the praise and the accolades? Or is your heart curved inward upon your own desires, your own plans, your own agendas, your own glory? It cannot be, for the glory is the Lord's. Pray and ask that He would transform you, that He would direct your heart towards Him, that He would receive all glory in your own life. For as we find at the end of this text, at the end in verse 20, we find that it is the Lord alone who is glorified, the Lord alone who is blessed. The king may indeed receive homage, he may receive respect, but the Lord alone receives glory and blessing. And so it is with our own lives. May our focus be upon our God. in worshiping Him and in giving to Him our prayers. For God's alone is the kingdom, God's alone is the power, and God's alone is the glory. Amen, brothers and sisters. Let us pray. Our God and our Heavenly Father, we come before You this evening hour and we thank You so much for Your Word. We thank You so much for teaching us to pray through your Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ. We thank you so much for this catechism that we have worked our way through, being a faithful representation and summary of what your Word teaches us. We pray that we would take these things to heart and that you would help us and transform us so that we would really believe and confess that yours, O Lord, alone is the kingdom and the power and the glory. May our hearts be curved evermore towards you, directed towards you. That our desire and delight would be you and your glory and praise. Father, we pray that you'd be with us on our homeward way, that you would keep us safe. For the winds are still blowing very mightily and the roads, no doubt, are in some places slick. We pray that you would give us traveling mercies and that we would enjoy the remainder of this Lord's day as a day of rest and reflection. We pray also that you'd give us a pleasant rest this evening and that you'd prepare us for the week ahead of us so that we may serve you and proclaim your gospel, your goodness, your love to those that we come into contact with. It's in the name of Christ we pray all these things and please forgive us of all our sins. Amen. Dear brothers and sisters, in response, let us turn in our Psalters to number 23. To Thee, O Lord, I fly. We'll sing the three verses of number 23. Let's rise and sing together. Oh say does that star spangled banner yet wave Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet you. O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord! Brothers and sisters, saints in the Lord, receive God's benediction. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.