Thy Kingdom Come

Introduction

What is the Kingdom of God? Our modern context and our history can shape how we would answer that question. Our modern understanding is something similar to a nation-state. From a historical perspective, the word Christendom comes to our minds. What does Jesus teach us to pray for in this petition. For there seems to be a great deal of confusion in the world—and even in the church—when we speak about the kingdom. Every time we pray ‘Thy kingdom come,’ we ask a profound question: what are we truly asking God to do? Scripture speaks of this kingdom in several ways. It is called the Kingdom of God, reminding us that this kingdom belongs to Him. It is not ours. It is not the kingdom of any man or nation. God Himself is King. If should not be our goal to build our own little kingdoms and expand our own power and influence. It is also called the Kingdom of heaven, pointing to its origin. This kingdom is not from the earth, nor does it grow according to earthly power or political strength. It comes from heaven and advances according to God’s purposes and in God’s ways. And it is the Kingdom of the Son. When our Lord stood before Pilate, He declared that He had come into the world as a king. Before being enthroned at the Father’s right hand, all authority in heaven and on earth had been given to Him. As the apostle Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 15:24–28, He must reign until all His enemies are put under His feet. This is why the kingdom both confuses the world and troubles it. When the wise men came seeking the King of the Jews, Matthew 2:3 tells us that Herod—and all Jerusalem with him—was troubled. And yet, this same confusion can exist in the church when we begin to think of the kingdom in merely earthly terms. So tonight, as we consider this petition—“Thy kingdom come”—we want to think about it not only doctrinally, but prayerfully. What are we asking God to do? According to the catechism, we are asking three things:

That Christ would establish His kingdom in the hearts of His people

That He would preserve and expand His kingdom through His church

And that He would defeat all His enemies and perfect His kingdom

Christ Establishes His Kingdom in His People (Matthew 6:33)

When we pray this petition, the first thing that we ask of our Lord is that He would rule us by His Word and Spirit, that we may submit ourselves more and more to Him. The central thought of this we find in our Lord’s Sermon on the Mount when he directs our personal attention away from the things of this world that can so easily consume our attention and emotions.

“Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Seeking the Kingdom begins internally in our hearts and our minds. We do not look for this event or that event to happen. The kingdom begins with what we seek. And what we are to seek is His righteousness.

Our Lord makes this even clearer earlier in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:20 when he tells His disciples that their righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees. What were the Pharisees good at? What did their righteousness consist of? It was the externals. They tithed of everything, prayed publicly on the streets, and let everyone know when they were fasting. Where and how do we pray – remember the story of the tax collector and the Pharisee praying?

Luke 18:10–13 ““Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’”

Seeking the Kingdom of God and his righteousness is to go to Christ, the Son whom the Father has seated on the throne, and asking Him to establish His righteousness in our hearts. True righteousness begins in the heart. That righteousness is not something that begins with us, but something Christ works in us by His Spirit, and then brings forth from us.

The righteousness of Christ is that obedience that He performed before the face of His Father. It is the love of the only begotten Son, full of grace and truth. It is the sacrificial love of our High Priest who died for you and for me. While we were undeserving sinners, He died for us. Though we are weak in our faith, inconsistent in our love, and wavering in our hope, He lives to intercede for us.

You see, to seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness in this prayer is to petition our gracious and loving Lord that He would make us more like Him! That he would strengthen us by His Word and Spirit to die to sin and live unto righteousness. That he would enable us to love one another as he has loved us. That we would forgive one another as we have been forgiven. We are to petition our Lord to enable us through His Spirit to hate the sin that so easily ensnares us and to live as those who have been raised from death to eternal life.

This is our prayer: Bring us, O Lord, into closer union with Christ and sweeter communion with Him that we would become poor in spirit and inherit the kingdom of heaven. Abide in us, O Father, that our hearts may be purified, and so rejoice when we see our God and Father when this life is over.

The beginning of the petition “Thy kingdom come” is for Christ to rule my heart, form His righteousness within me, and that this righteousness would flow out of my life. When that happens our light as God’s people shines before men, and they will glorify our Father in heaven.

In this way, the kingdom of heaven begins in our hearts and flows outward through our lives, that we may glorify the Father.

Christ Preserves and Expands His Church (Ephesians 4:11-16)

As the catechism teaches us, while this petition must begin with the rule of Christ in our own hearts, it does not end there. It broadens outward: “Preserve and increase thy church.” When we pray this, what are we asking? Are we simply asking that the church would survive in a fallen world? That we would continue on as we are? No. Preservation is not mere survival. It is not the maintaining of the status quo. When we pray that God would preserve His church, we are asking that He would preserve her in truth, in unity, and in spiritual growth. This is the picture given to us in Ephesians 4:11–16 “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”

Christ, our risen King, has given gifts to His church—pastors and teachers—to equip the saints. And as we are equipped, the whole body is built up in love. We are to grow in the knowledge of the Son of God, pressing on toward maturity, even to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. This is what we are praying for. We are asking that the church would not remain immature, not be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, but that she would be grounded in the truth and grow together in Christ. We are asking that we, as members of His body, would be faithful—serving one another, speaking the truth in love, and building one another up. How often do we truly pray this way? How often do we ask that God would preserve His church so that she might grow and mature? When we pray, “Thy kingdom come,” we are asking that God would give each of us a place within His body—that we might serve one another, and so contribute to the growth of the whole. This is our prayer: O Lord, find me a place where I may serve my brothers and sisters. Strengthen me to speak the truth in love. Knit us together in unity of the faith, that we may grow up in every way into Christ, our head, and enjoy a deeper union and communion with Him as His body. And as we pray for the preservation of the church, we also pray for her increase. “Thy kingdom come” is a prayer that God would gather more into His kingdom. And this reminds us: the growth of the church does not begin with our plans, our programs, or our strategies. It begins with God. We do not build the church. Christ builds His church. Our prayers are included in His work, and our labor is empowered by His Spirit. It is by His Word and Spirit that sinners are brought from darkness into light. The good news of Jesus Christ—the Righteous One who died for the unrighteous—is the power of God unto salvation. The eternal Son of God took on flesh, entered into this fallen world, and gave Himself for sinners. Herein is love. And yet the world remains in darkness and does not see this light. Therefore we pray: “Lord, increase Your church” is to pray that the truth of Jesus Christ goes forth in power. - Opening blind eyes. Soften hard hearts. Bring many sons and daughters to glory. Preserve Your church, O Sovereign One, that we may grow in love for You and for one another. Increase Your church, God of all hope, that the light of the gospel may grow brighter in this dark world, and that You may be glorified.

Christ Defeats All His Enemies and Perfects His Kingdom (1 Corinthians 15:24-28)

Finally, when we pray “Thy kingdom come,” our petition extends beyond our own hearts and the growth of the church. We are asking God to bring His kingdom to its full perfection and to defeat every enemy that resists Him.

Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:24–28 “Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For he “has put everything under his feet.” Now when it says that “everything” has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.” We find here the ultimate hope of the gospel, the culmination of this petition: “Thy kingdom come.”

When we pray this, we are acknowledging that the kingdom of God is not yet fully realized. We still live in a fallen world. We see sin in our hearts and in the church. We see the work of Satan in the corruption of society and culture. We have very real and deep grief in the death of those we love. The powers of this world still resist the Son of God’s rule.

And yet we plead: Lord, bring Your victory. Destroy all that exalts itself against You. Break every plan of evil. Bring justice, peace, and truth to completion.

We do not pray for this out of fear, but out of trust in Christ. The kingdom has already come in part. We see it’s beginning through His death , resurrection, and ascension. We see it again through the transformation in us by His grace. We see it also in the growth of His church to the ends of the earth. But we pray for its final consummation, when Christ’s triumph will be complete, and God will be all in all.

This petition touches both our personal sanctification and the redemption of all creation. Personally, it reminds us that Christ’s victory will one day make our sanctification complete. Universally, it reminds us that all creation will be set right for even the creation groans awaiting the freedom of the glory of the children of God. When we pray “Thy kingdom come,” we are asking God to finish the work He has begun: to restore all things, to redeem the fallen, and to vanquish every enemy, seen and unseen.

Therefore we pray: O Lord, perfect Your kingdom. Defeat every power that seeks to harm Your people or oppose Your will. Let Your truth prevail, Your righteousness reign, and Your justice be established. Bring every heart, every nation, every corner of creation under the rule of Your Son. Come, Lord Jesus. Come in power. Come in victory. Fulfill what You have promised. Bring victory over death and bring Your beloved church to the fullness of joy in Your presence.

The kingdom which has begun in our hearts, grows among His people, and which faces opposition in the world, will one day be perfect and complete and the Father will be all in all.

Conclusion

Brothers and sisters, many would imagine the Kingdom of Jesus Christ as a future earthly, political kingdom. Yet Christ made clear that the Kingdom over which He reigns is from above. He came from heaven to bring light into darkness, to raise dead sinners to eternal life, to bring many sons to glory, and to restore that which fell into corruption through the rebellion of Adam. The Kingdom of the Father concerns far greater matters than what we read about in the newspapers. Where human kingdoms seek power, resources, and reputation, the Kingdom of the Father confronts the enemies of sin, death, and the devil. It seeks the subjection of our sinful hearts, the building up and increase of a loving community grounded in truth, and the restoration of a fallen creation. This is the work of our King. When we pray, “Thy kingdom come,” we are asking: Rule in us that we may reflect the Light of the World, Jesus Christ. Preserve Your Church in holiness until we all come into the fullness of Christ. Increase Your Church so that all the earth may be filled with the knowledge of the Lord. O Lord, reign in the midst of Your enemies, and may they be conquered by the gospel. Destroy the last enemy, death, in the resurrection, that God may be all in all. AMEN.