Pulling Heaven to Earth

Jesus gift to his Disciples - the Lord's Prayer

Suppose one day, Jesus came to you and asked you to sit down to write him a list of everything your thankful that he provided in your life. What would be included on your thankful list?

Since it’s Father’s day, we’re going to start with that answer, folks! We would include close family, commited friends, the grace we have recieved from Christ, and a few other things.

Yet, what might be missing from our list would be one greatest gifts Jesus ever gave the church which was how to pray. What is commonly known as the Lord’s Prayer/Our Father is the pinnacle prayer.

The Lord’s Prayer/Our Father, sums up everything a disciple is to request from God and brings life to the follower and glory to God.

This prayer was not for the twelve who followed Jesus, its for you too. If you follow Christ, his prayer is for you. Yet, before you dismiss Jesus prayer, let me say this, I know for many of us. We have gone to churches that would recite the prayer, the words are spoken from the lips, yet the prayer feels lifeless. I would say the issue is not the words in itself, but what is being projected from the heart. Prayer only works, if you believe what you’re telling God. Also, we can be confident this prayer works, because it comes from Jesus Christ, the incarnate God himself and because God has spoken his prayer to us, it our privilege to take the prayer and repeat it from the heart.

So if you were with us last week, we shared how Jesus some simple facts about the Lord’s prayer.

1. The Our Father is pure petition.

2. The Our Father is a very short prayer.

3. The Our Father gets right to the point.

4. God’s interest come first.

5. God acts through his people.

Beginning how we address God as Father, to making his name holy by living for him. This is the first petition found in Christ prayer.

Now we look to the next second and third petition of the Lord’s Prayer.

Matthew 6:10 (ESV)

10 Your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Luke 11:2 (ESV)

Your kingdom come.

Petitioning for God's reign

What does it mean to pray your kingdom come? To understand what Jesus is asking us to do we have reconnect to the Old Testament passages that spoke about the future kingdom that was coming. Returning to the prophets, Daniel envisioned a day when God’s kingdom would finally be established among the earth again.

Daniel 7:1–14 ESV

In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head as he lay in his bed. Then he wrote down the dream and told the sum of the matter. Daniel declared, “I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of heaven were stirring up the great sea. And four great beasts came up out of the sea, different from one another. The first was like a lion and had eagles’ wings. Then as I looked its wings were plucked off, and it was lifted up from the ground and made to stand on two feet like a man, and the mind of a man was given to it. And behold, another beast, a second one, like a bear. It was raised up on one side. It had three ribs in its mouth between its teeth; and it was told, ‘Arise, devour much flesh.’ After this I looked, and behold, another, like a leopard, with four wings of a bird on its back. And the beast had four heads, and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong. It had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces and stamped what was left with its feet. It was different from all the beasts that were before it, and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots. And behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things. “As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. A stream of fire issued and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. “I looked then because of the sound of the great words that the horn was speaking. And as I looked, the beast was killed, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire. As for the rest of the beasts, their dominion was taken away, but their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

Thus as far as exegesis is concerned there is no way around it: the “human being” is here identified with the “people of the holy ones of the Most High,” that is, with the longed-for, eschatological Israel. This people who are to come stand out from all the powers that have gone before them and in no way correspond to what the Hellenizing circles in Jerusalem so dearly desire. Hence the “human being/Son of Man” is a figure, an image of the true basileia, the royal reign of God. At the same time it is a figure of the true Israel that serves only God the Father. The two are inseparable.

Daniel 7 is an incredible interpretation of history. There had never been anything like it in the world before. This interpretation of history is intended to say that one world empire replaces another. The potentialities of the successive empires are more and more dreadful. The potential for violence in the world is constantly growing. But all these empires will be judged, dominion will be taken from them, and in part they will perish in blood and fire. Something new “is coming” to replace them: a realm, a rule, a reign that originates entirely with God.

First of all, there is the timeline! In Daniel the five different societies succeed one another: first Babylon, then the Medes, then the Persians, then the Syrians, and only when the domination of all the world empires has been exhausted does the true kingdom come. Only then comes the rule of the Human Being, that is, God’s new society that is altogether different from all societies before it. But for Jesus the reign of God is coming already now, in the midst of history, simultaneous with the still ongoing dominance of the world empires. Jesus said, in fact: “If it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you” (Luke 11:20).

And there is yet more difference between Jesus’ idea and that of Daniel 7: the new society of the reign of God not only begins in the midst of the still existing world empires; it begins in indissoluble connection with a single one. Jesus speaks of himself as the “human being/Son of Man,” so that now the phrase is no longer only a symbol for God’s new society; it is at the same time a secret name for Jesus himself. He is the “Human One,” the “Son of Man.” He himself is the basileia.

Thus when the Our Father prays for the coming of God’s reign, the background lies in Daniel 7 and its powerful historical vision of the coming of a new community that is stronger than all world empires, all the power and violence of the world. When we beg that God’s reign may come we are calling for a silent revolution that will change the world—not sometime or other, but now.

“If we pray in the Our Father for the coming of the reign of God, we are praying for the end of the world—that is, the end of our old world, with all the powers we have thus far served, and the beginning of the new world that God is offering us already today. “Your kingdom come” therefore implies a radical exchange of rulers. In that way also, the Our Father is a dangerous prayer.”

Lohfink, Gerhard. The Our Father (p. 57). Liturgical Press. Kindle Edition.

Implications to praying “Your will be done.” Asking God for him to be the only king, to have his land, people and laws forever.

Christ’s return will not be a time of joy for those who do not want His reign. There are those who declare, “We will not have this man reign over us” (Lk 19:12-14). If we do not want or allow Jesus to reign over us now, we make ourselves His enemies. However, for those who love the kingdom of God and who want Jesus to rule over them now, the future coming of the kingdom will be a time of tremendous joy. His followers will actually reign with Him in the future. He will say to them on that day. “Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Mt 25:34).

Petitioning God's salvation history to be revealed

That resistance to God will bring about Jesus’ death. But God makes the death of Jesus the saving consummation of everything he had proclaimed. Thus the will of God is God’s will for salvation, which creates redemption in the face of all human sin. Therefore here “may God’s will be done” means more than fulfillment of the commandments; it means surrendering oneself to God’s saving decree. We encounter this deeper, broader, and history-shaping sense of the “will of God” elsewhere in the New Testament as well. As one further example, consider Ephesians 1:

Ephesians 1:1–14 ESV

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful in Christ Jesus: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

What is important for our consideration in this case is that the divine will, as a plan for the salvation of the world, has existed from all eternity in heaven. It is this plan of salvation, in heaven and therefore preexistent, that God is now putting into effect on earth through Christ. This gives “on earth as it is in heaven” a surprising, new, and much more revealing significance. “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven” thus means: “Make your plan of salvation, which you conceived in heaven from all eternity, become reality now on earth!” Certainly the third petition of the Our Father does not say “Implement your plan of salvation!” but “Your saving plan, your will, be done!”

The idea that God is making a reality of the divine plan, will, decree for salvation in the world now is the deepest center of the second part of the book of Isaiah. Among all the prophets, only Isaiah speaks of the realization of God’s will or the accomplishment of God’s plan. There we read:

Isaiah 46:10–11 ESV

declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it.

Isaiah 55:10–11 ESV

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

The word of God, behind which stand the divine will and plan, is here compared to rain and snow that come down from heaven to earth. The plan of God will achieve its end. No one can destroy it.

“But in the Bible the “will of God” is above all God’s “good pleasure,” what God has desired from all eternity, what God constantly wishes and longs for. The will of God is what gives God joy and pleasure.”

Lohfink, Gerhard. The Our Father (p. 73). Liturgical Press. Kindle Edition.

Bring forth his kingdom and will through you

1. Pray the Lord's Prayer from the heart.

2. Join and live in the community in which God reigns - Being God's new society (Break away from the old order, and reconstitute your life with God).

3. Participating in the Lord's will through unveiling salvation history to the masses. (Submitting yourself to God’s perfect will).