Sermon Series: Pray Like Jesus - The Lord’s Prayer
#2 “Thy Kingdom Come…”
Revelation 11:15-17 (NIV); and Matthew 6:10 (KJV)
By John Gill ~ March 5, 2023
A father was upset because his son was so Biblically illiterate. To make his point, he said, “You probably don’t even know the Lord’s Prayer!” “Oh, yes I do,” the boy said proudly, “Oh yeh? Then prove it!” “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” Surprised, the father stammered, “I’m sorry, son, I had no idea that you actually knew it!”
Well, most of us aren’t quite THAT Biblically illiterate, but if we’re honest, we have to admit that we aren’t much better than that boy and his dad. We may know the words to the Lord’s Prayer, but how many of us really know what the prayer means? That’s what we are focusing on during this Lenten Sermon Series. What does the prayer we repeat week-in and week-out really mean?
Last Sunday we looked at what it means to say that God is “Our Father.” Today we will look at the second phrase of the prayer, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”
Perhaps no other phrase in the Lord’s Prayer is more central to the heart of Jesus’ ministry than this one because Jesus LOVED to talk about the Kingdom!
The Gospel of Matthew tells us that Jesus BEGAN his ministry by preaching about the Kingdom: In Matthew 4:17, we read, “From that time Jesus began to preach His message: ‘Repent of your sins, because the Kingdom of heaven is near.’”
All throughout his ministry, Jesus preached about the Kingdom of God, especially when he told parables. Very often they begin with the words – “The Kingdom of God is like…”
And Acts, Chapter 1, tells us that even AFTER the Resurrection Jesus continued to talk about the Kingdom of God. Acts 1:3 reads that, after his resurrection, Jesus “appeared to (the Disciples) over a period of forty days and spoke about the Kingdom of God.”
Certainly, one cannot read the New Testament without coming to the conclusion that MOST of Jesus’ ministry revolved around the theme of God’s Kingdom. In fact, in the first three Gospels, Jesus makes reference to the Kingdom no less than 119 times!
If the Kingdom of God (or the Kingdom of Heaven, as Matthew liked to call it) was SO important to Jesus, it behooves us, as His disciples, to try to understand what He was talking about. When Jesus taught us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come…” what did He mean?
To learn the meaning of the Kingdom of God is NOT as easy as it might sound. If you were to study the teachings of Jesus on the subject of the Kingdom of God, you would find that Jesus referred to the reign of God in at least THREE different contexts:
First of all, He spoke of the Kingdom of God as having existed in the PAST.
This seems strange to us because we are more familiar with thinking of the Kingdom of God as something which is yet to come in the future. After all, don’t we pray “Thy kingdom COME?”
Yet, Jesus tells us that the Kingdom has always existed, ….although veiled from human eyes…. that the Kingdom can be glimpsed briefly in the lives of the great figures of ancient Israel when the reign of God broke into our world and gave us a hint of God’s intention for his creation. It’s as if the Kingdom of God exists as a parallel universes – an alternative reality that intersects with our dimension from time to time throughout history and at various occasions in our own lives. There have always been these sightings of the Kingdom by people who are attuned to the things of God, even long before Jesus came into the world.
How do we know this to be so? Jesus says as much in Matthew 8:10-11. When speaking about the faith of a Roman officer, he says “I tell you, I have never found anyone in Israel with a faith like this. I assure you that many will come from the east and the west and sit down WITH Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom of Heaven….” Jesus tells us that those Old Testament heroes of the faith were already present in the Kingdom of God!
Yes, Jesus believed that the reign of God has existed throughout history, but it goes back even farther… God has been on the throne from the very beginning.
The scriptures make this clear, as well. In Psalm 93:3 - ”Your throne was established long ago; you are from all eternity.”
In the Garden of Eden, God reigned both in heaven AND on earth, and Adam and Eve lived in God’s Paradise – heaven on earth. But then, they rejected God’s sovereignty, and Creation “fell” into the mire of sin and evil. Satan became the ruler of the earth, so that God’s undisputed reign was limited ONLY to heaven. And God’s Kingdom has NEVER been fully restored on earth since.
But in his statement about the Roman soldier’s faith, Jesus was saying that there were a few shining moments in Israel’s history when the Kingdom of God broke through…. like a candle shining in the darkness: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…. Moses, Joshua, David, Josiah, Ezra, and the Prophets… times when it SEEMED that God’s Kingdom would break upon the scene once more in all it’s glory, and that God’s Paradise would be restored on earth.
But every time God’s Kingdom seemed on the verge of coming again on earth, the people of Israel rejected God’s sovereignty (just as Adam and Eve had done before them) and the world was plunged back into darkness once again. That’s the sad story of the Old Testament. Before the coming of Christ, most people lived their lives as if the Kingdom of God didn’t even exist. When you stop to think about it, that also describes most of the people in our world today. They are oblivious to the Kingdom of God.
So, as we have seen, Jesus sometimes spoke of the Kingdom in the past-tense…a Kingdom which has always existed in heaven, but which human sin had kept from coming on earth. But He also speaks of the Kingdom in FUTURE tense.
Throughout history people may have seen glimpses of the Kingdom, and even looked forward to the day when God’s reign will come in its fullness. It’s true that God’s reign has NOT YET come in all its glory… but over and over, Jesus promises that it WILL! On that glorious Day, when it comes, God will be completely victorious over Satan, and will re-establish his sovereignty over the earth. Then, …as the Prophets tell us… “justice will roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream, swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks – and we will study war no more…”
The Apostle John tells us in Revelation - It will be a time when, there will be a “new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…” and the Holy City, the new Jerusalem will come down out
heaven from God, and God will dwell with His people; a time when God will wipe away every tear from our eyes, for there will be no more reason to weep, for the old sinful order of things will have passed away; a time when God will make all things new.
The paradise of the Kingdom of God that was lost in the Garden of Eden will be restored, and God’s intention for Creation will finally be fulfilled! It will be a day when those of us who hold our citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven will be forced to live as aliens on earth - NO LONGER!
That, my friends, is the Day for which all followers of Jesus long and pray. It is the most urgent prayer of God’s people – so much so, that we find it recorded in the final verses of the Bible. In Revelation 22:20, God’s people earnestly pray: “Come, Lord Jesus!”
Or, as Paul writes in First Corinthians 15 (GNT): “Then the end will come: Christ will overcome all spiritual rulers, authorities, & powers, and will hand over the Kingdom to God the Father. For Christ must rule until God defeats all enemies and puts them under His feet. The last enemy to be defeated is death… But when all things have been placed under Christ’s rule, then He Himself, the Son, will place Himself under God, who placed all things under Him; and God will rule completely over all.” (that is – over both heaven and earth)
That is what we pray for each and every Sunday as we say, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”
So, we’ve seen that the Kingdom of God can be thought of in both the past and the future tense – The Kingdom always HAS Been, and at the same time, WILL one day Be. It exists ALREADY but, NOT YET. For believers, it is our reality, as well as our hope.
Does that sound like an enigma to you? How can both be true, at the same time?
Because Jesus ALSO referred to God’s Kingdom in the PRESENT tense. Yes, the Kingdom of God has always been, and will one day be revealed in its fullness, Jesus tells us. But I think the most significant teaching of Jesus is that the Kingdom IS right here and now - always present in our midst, if we will only open our eyes and our hearts to perceive it. As we already heard, the cornerstone of Jesus’ ministry was His message that the Kingdom of God is AT HAND… and it was “at hand” - WHY? Because Jesus had come.
From Luke 17 we read this: “One day the Pharisees asked Jesus, ‘When will the Kingdom of God come?’ Jesus replied, ‘The Kingdom of God isn't ushered in with visible signs. You won't be able to say, 'Here it is!' or 'It's over there!' For the Kingdom of God is among you.’ (Lk 17:20-21) (Your translation may say, “within you,” but I think “among you” is more accurate.)
In His teaching, Jesus was announcing that one of those rare moments in history when God’s Kingdom would break into the world once more, was upon them. But THIS time, something was different! THIS time, God had sent His very own Son to accomplish two things: 1) to offer humanity the opportunity to become citizens of God’s Kingdom, and 2) to finally overcome the evil that has held the world in its grip.
And, not only did Jesus TEACH that the Kingdom was upon them, He also ACTED OUT this reality. Whenever he healed the sick or cast out demons, He was demonstrating that God’s reign on earth was beginning…. the light of God’s power was banishing the dark forces of evil! The King had come, and He was beginning to reclaim his rightful place as the Lord of Heaven AND Earth.
But this didn’t mean that the earth would suddenly become God’s domain again…Satan still is loose in the world. There is still a struggle to be waged against the forces of evil - and that’s where the Church comes in. You see, it is God’s plan that you and I should play a part in bringing God’s Kingdom “on earth, as it is in heaven.”
In Jesus, God challenges us to switch our loyalty, inviting us to change our citizenship: - to renounce the Kingdom of Satan, and declare our allegiance to the Kingdom of God – Or as the Gospel according to Star Wars movies put it, we are urged “to come over from the Dark Side” and join the Force for Good.
In the early days of the Church, those who converted to Christianity would often be baptized on Easter morning as part of an Easter Vigil that lasted from sundown on Saturday until sunrise on Sunday. Near dawn they would stand waist deep in the baptismal pool facing west, the direction of the gloomy darkness of evening, and renounce Satan’s claim on their lives. Then they would go under the water and come up out of the water facing east and the rising sun of new life, and proclaim their faith in Jesus Christ.
You see, as citizens of the Kingdom of God, we hold our true citizenship in heaven even while we live as foreigners on earth.
If you have ever traveled abroad you know what I’m talking about. You may cross the borders into a foreign country but your citizenship does not change…your passport still says you are a citizen of the USA (or wherever you are from). And even if you live and work in a foreign country your citizenship remains the same.
When we renounce the Kingdom of Satan and become citizens of the Kingdom of God, it doesn’t matter where we live, even if we must live in this fallen world: our “Passport” declares that “We Belong to God!”
That means that the Kingdom of God, while not YET coming in its fullness on earth, CAN be a reality for US here and now - if we allow God to reign as the King in our lives. In Jesus, the Kingdom of God is a PRESENT reality for you and me, provided we declare our loyalty to Him.
As we have seen, the Kingdom of God has existed all along, and will one day finally come in its fullness. But the coming of the Kingdom that matters for you and me is its present reality in your life and in mine. The Kingdom of God has come – is present – is realized whenever and wherever we allow God to rule supreme in our lives. We live in the Kingdom of God when we make ourselves subjects of the King of Kings.
In a few moments, we will experience one of those rare moments-in-time when you and I get a glimpse of the reality of the Kingdom of God as we encounter the presence of Christ in sharing the brad and cup of Holy Communion.
As you come to the Lord’s table this morning you will have an opportunity to turn your back on the “Dark Side;” to declare your allegiance to the King; and to claim your citizenship in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Then, you can join the angels in heaven, and all God’s people on earth in singing that hymn of praise we find recorded in the Book of Revelation, words which were set to music in Handel’s Messiah: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever – King of kings, and Lord of lords!"
Or as Jesus taught us to pray: “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.”
© 2023 by John B. Gill, III