Your Kingdom Come
Praying with Jesus • Sermon • Submitted
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RECAP AND INTRO
5 “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.
6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.
8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
9 “This, then, is how you should pray: “ ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’
14 For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15 But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
Your Kingdom Come. It’s a phrase we say when we recite the Lord’s prayer, however, have we really spent time thinking about what this means? Brian Hardin says this in his work: Sneezing Jesus: How God Redeems Our Humanity:
Continually, Jesus described the Kingdom in terms that one can’t point to and identify specifically—but in every story, the Kingdom was the essential piece. The Kingdom is mixed in and present already. It’s like leaven in a loaf of bread. A person can’t find the leaven after the loaf is baked. But the loaf would be completely deflated and radically different if the leaven were missing. The Kingdom is like a tiny mustard seed that sprouts into a giant bush. Someone couldn’t find the original mustard seed after the
bush has grown, but birds could not nest in the branches were it not for the seed.
“The Kingdom of God is not coming in ways that you can observe,” Jesus said. “No one will be able to say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘It’s over there.’ The Kingdom of God is already within and among you.”
These words are such a colossal paradigm shift—an upside-down way of looking at an inside-out world. And they are as disruptive now as when they were spoken. Jesus was telling the people then (and us now) that we won’t be able to identify the Kingdom geographically or point it out in any one singular event. Even though the fullness of the Kingdom is not yet realized, the Kingdom has already begun, and we are a vital part of that realization. It’s everywhere—and it’s now. It is within us and among us and worth losing all we have to gain it.
Brian Hardin, Sneezing Jesus: How God Redeems Our Humanity, The Navigators.
I love that last sentence of Hardin’s, “It is within us and among us and worth losing all we have to gain it.” The Kingdom of God is not a specific place or a specific event, it is so much larger than that. We sometimes trivialize God’s Kingdom in how we speak and think about it.
First, we must remember that the Kingdom of which we are speaking is God’s kingdom, not ours. We do not build God’s Kingdom, in fact it is a gift.
32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.
The Kingdom of God is a gift. It is not something we have to power to build. Sure, we have our place and our role in helping to expand the Kingdom, but we are just planting seeds for God to grow.
6 I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow.
7 So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.
8 The one who plants and the one who waters have one purpose, and they will each be rewarded according to their own labor.
9 For we are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.
This concept can be difficult, perhaps especially for American Christians, who often confuse and conflate God’s kingdom with the U.S. government and political system. In the church in 2022 in many places, people are all too quick to seek God’s Kingdom through some sort of earthly Kingdom or earthly cause. In the midst of these, we can quickly not look at all like Jesus Christ.
The contemporary American desire for earthly kingdom power is not unique. Even Israel sought to be a kingdom like other nations, rather than one that operated under God’s rule and we see the results of this over and over again throughout the narrative of Scripture.
Stuart Strachan Jr. says it like this, while referencing Henry Nouwen:
All of us struggle with our own desires for accomplishment and ambition. Christians especially find it difficult to discern their own worldly ambitions vs. following Jesus’ command to seek first the kingdom of God (Matt.6:3). The author and scholar Henri Nouwen documents his own struggle with this tension after leaving the lofty ivory towers of academia to work in a house for mentally disabled adults. He describes this struggle in the book “In the Name of Jesus”:
The first thing that struck me when I came to live in a house with mentally handicapped people was that their liking or disliking me had absolutely nothing to do with any of the many useful things I had done until then. Since nobody could read my books, they could not impress anyone, and since most of them never went to school, my twenty years at Notre Dame, Yale, and Harvard did not provide a significant introduction. My considerable ecumenical experience proved even less valuable. Not being able to use any of the skills that had proved so practical in the past was a real source of anxiety. In a way it seemed as though I was starting my life all over again.
In his early days, Nouwen struggled with his identity and vocation as he made the transition from teaching to working among some of the “least of these”. How have you managed your own sense of call, seeking God’s kingdom, and your own worldly ambitions?
Stuart Strachan Jr. with an excerpt from Henri Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus: Reflections on Christian Leadership, The Crossroad Publishing Company.
What a question to ask ourselves when we are thinking about and seeking God’s Kingdom! Ouch and Amen!
John the Baptist and Jesus both preached the coming of God’s kingdom (Matthew 3:2; 4:17),
2 and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
17 From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”
yet even John apparently misunderstood its nature (Matthew 11:2–3).
2 When John, who was in prison, heard about the deeds of the Messiah, he sent his disciples
3 to ask him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”
7 As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’
8 Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.
9 “Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts—
10 no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep.
We see signs of the kingdom include people being radically healed and lives being restored. This healing power is evidence of God’s Spirit, who breathes us into God’s Kingdom.
28 But if it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.
John seems to have missed the nature of God’s Kingdom
1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, “Who, then, is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”
2 He called a little child to him, and placed the child among them.
3 And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
4 Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.
13 Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them.
14 Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
John missed the gentleness, lowliness and humility - like a child of the God’s Kingdom. This is still to this day a very different kingdom than any earthly kingdom that is now or has ever been in existence.
Friends, God’s Kingdom comes when and where God’s will is done.
Jesus perfectly embodied this in his prayer in Gethsemane.
The epistle to the Hebrews reinforces this portrait of Jesus in powerful terms (Hebrews 5:7).
“God’s will is what God desires to see in our lives and in the world as a whole.” (See Praying with Jesus p. 54.)
In his book, An Unhurried Life, Alan Fadling contrasts our overly busy lives with a vision of the kingdom from Isaiah chapter 61:
Isaiah envisioned a kingdom in which those people in need of grace become, over time, solidly rooted in God’s grace, enough so as to be able to extend his grace to others. He envisioned a kingdom where we would experience favor, comfort, blessing, honor, new perspectives and deepening roots that enable us to do the rebuilding, restoring, renewing work in places, structures and persons who have long been ruined (Is 61:4). These characteristics of oaks of righteousness are the fruit of apprenticeship.
Further, we, as these oaks of righteousness planted by the Lord, put his splendor on display, a display quite different from human excitement, enthusiasm and thrills. Splendor is quieter, stronger, less hurried and more deeply rooted. Oaks take a long time to grow. A newly planted acorn can take between two and three decades to provide significant shade, and these slow-growing oaks can live more than two hundred years. One reason for their longevity is the taproot they send deep into the earth that makes them very drought-resistant.
Oaks are indeed solid, stable, reliable, majestic trees—but it takes them a while to get there. Do we take that same long view of growing in Christ ourselves and helping others do the same? If so, what can we do to help others become attentive and teachable apprentices to him so that one day they will shine with his splendor and flourish in the fruit of his Spirit? Whatever it is that we do, I believe it will require a less hurried, longer perspective approach than we have commonly taken.
Taken from An Unhurried Life: Following Jesus’ Rhythms of Work and Rest by Alan Fadling Copyright (c) 2013 by Alan Fadling. Published by InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove, IL. www.ivpress.com
It is God’s Kingdom, not ours, but are we doing our part to grow into mighty oaks of righteousness so that we are shining Jesus to others and others are seeing evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in our lives? When we are growing and living in this way, we will find ourselves in the center of God’s will and we will be in a place for God to use us to help him build HIS Kingdom.
Prayer - Closing Song
Benediction - Let us go forth into the world in peace and dedicated to Your service, O Lord. Let us hold fast to that which is good, render to no person evil for evil, strengthen the faint-hearted, support the weak, help the needy and the afflicted, and honor all people. Let us love and serve the Lord, rejoicing in the power of His Spirit. And may God’s blessing be upon us and remain with us always. Amen.