Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be Done

Friends, grace and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. "Thy kingdom come. What does this mean? The kingdom of God certainly comes by itself without our prayer. But we pray in this petition that it may come to us also. How does God's kingdom come? God's kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us his Holy Spirit, so that by his grace we believe his holy word and lead godly lives here in time and there in eternity." And the third petition, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." What does this mean? The good and gracious will of God is done even without our prayer. But we pray in this petition that it may be done among us also. How is God's will done? God's will is done when he breaks and hinders every evil plan and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful nature, which do not want us to hallow God's name or let his kingdom come. And when he strengthens and keeps us firm in his word and faith until we die, this is his good and gracious will.

So, focusing on those two petitions this evening, talking about thy kingdom come and then thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Last week we talked about how when Jesus teaches you to pray the Lord's Prayer, you never pray the Lord's Prayer alone. Because who is praying with you? Jesus. Because he gives you this prayer to pray. And that's why even when you pray it alone, you always start with that first word. What's the first word of the Lord's Prayer? Our Father. Jesus invites you to pray to God the Father with him. He calls God his Father and he invites you to call God your Father as well. And so you pray it with Jesus, our Father who art in heaven. But here's the beautiful thing, because last week we talked about how Jesus also tells you to call him the Father who is in heaven. He's teaching you to invoke heaven's power, to ask God to use his power, his heavenly power on earth and in your life. And so Jesus first teaches us to pray that we would keep God's name holy. But seeing as how God makes other things holy by his name and in his name, then he teaches us to pray that God's kingdom would come. Now, I think we talked about this in Bible study a little bit on Sunday. But when we think of God's kingdom, at least in my brain, I always kind of picture like a castle, and maybe a little bit of a little kingdom around the castle. You got the peasants and all that kind of stuff. And maybe you got a wall that sits around the castle and the kingdom there, and it just kind of sits there. When Jesus teaches us to pray for the kingdom to come, it's not just a static thing that just kind of sits up in heaven. He teaches us to pray for God's reign and rule. So that the kingdom of God is not just a place that we pray for. It's the active reign and rule of God in and through Jesus to redeem, deliver, and govern us in this world against sin and death and even ourselves. That's what we're praying for. Maybe a shorthand of saying it: Jesus is just praying for us. He's teaching us to pray that God the Father would simply work through him, Jesus, to reign over all things for our good. That's what he's teaching us to pray for. And the kingdom of God is not our doing. I think sometimes Christians are taught this way, and they're very well-meaning. I understand what they're saying, but I think sometimes we start to think that the kingdom of God only comes if we make it come, that people are only going to hear about Jesus if we do something about it. And maybe even sometimes people think politically, like, you know, God's kingdom is only going to come if we vote for the right people or pass the right policies or transform our world to look a little bit more like heaven. And we start to think in these ways where the kingdom of God is up to us. And yet it's not. And you know this because Jesus teaches us to pray that God would send his kingdom. He teaches us to pray that God would let his kingdom come to us, which means that it doesn't come through us. It comes from God. We ask that God's kingdom would come. And so I think that there's generally four ways that God brings his kingdom. The first way is just generally, because who's in charge of the world? God. And so just by virtue of him being God, he reigns over all things. So God's kingdom comes just by virtue of the fact that God provides all things and is in charge of all things, and nothing happens outside of God's reign and outside of God's plan. So just generally, but second and more importantly, God's kingdom comes through his word. God reigns through his truth. God's kingdom comes when he forgives people of their sins. And he reigns over them instead of Satan or instead of their own sins. And God's kingdom comes through the things that Jesus decided to reign with. Through baptism and through the Lord's Supper. Jesus commanded that the church keep on doing these things, and those things only have power because of Jesus's word. So we believe that in baptism, you actually become a child of God. You actually become a citizen of heaven, and whose word do you take as truth if that's actually what happens in baptism? Jesus's. He's king. His word goes. If he says that that's how disciples are made, well then how are disciples made? By baptism. That's the word of the king. And we would say that also the kingdom comes through communion. If Jesus says, "This is my body and this is my blood that is given and shed for you for forgiveness," well then whose word goes? Jesus's. So Jesus reigns through his word. He reigns through baptism. He reigns through his Supper. King Jesus reigns in his church through those things. And I would say that maybe a third way that God's kingdom comes is through the Holy Spirit who works that faith into our hearts, and by his work of sanctifying us, making us more like Jesus, making us more like who we should be. So God's kingdom comes as he changes and transforms our lives. And then I would say that the final way, and maybe the best way that God's kingdom comes is on that wonderful, beautiful last day when Jesus comes back in his full glory, that every eye can see and it will be revealed for all to see. When Jesus will come back and he will create a new heavens and a new earth, and he will transform this world, this earth, into a new worldwide garden of Eden where Jesus will make his dwelling and his home here to be with us, and he will reign as king here forever. When we pray for God's kingdom to come, that's what we're praying for, all of those things. And that's why I would push back against the idea or the teaching that Christians sometimes have, that they think, "All right, well we've got to make God's kingdom come somehow. We've got to maybe get the right people in office or have the right kind of politics and transform our world." And the problem with that is that if that's how you're thinking, you're thinking too small. Jesus isn't just here to transform America or any single country. He's not here just to influence our politics. Jesus is coming to reign over all things, to reign not only through policies, but in our hearts, to reign not only in this life, but even in death. Jesus is coming to reign for all eternity. So when we pray this prayer, we should never think too small. We should always think big. You know, if you read Martin Luther's Large Catechism, he compares it to a poor beggar who comes up to an emperor. The rich emperor comes to him and tells the beggar, "Ask for anything you want and I will give it to you." Now, if some sort of rich person or rich emperor came to you and said, "You can ask for anything you want," boy, what would you ask for? Like a brand new car, lots of money, big house, maybe your own island so you don't ever have to talk to anybody else. Would you ask for something big or something small? Big. If this is the rich emperor coming and giving you anything you want, you're going to think big. I'd probably want to sleep on that for a night. Just make sure I was asking for something big enough. Martin Luther says that if the beggar, the poor beggar, asked for something small from the rich emperor, it'd be like spitting in the emperor's face. It'd be making a joke of the emperor. He's got all these things and he promises something glorious. And it's the same thing for you and God your Father. If God is inviting you to ask for his kingdom to come, should you pray big or should you pray small? Big. You get to ask for the kingdom. And so we pray big because what this prayer is really telling us is that Jesus is praying for heaven to invade earth. And that's really what all of scripture is about. Heaven's invasion of earth where heaven is colonizing earth, and the Holy Spirit is gathering us as the church as his colony of heaven on earth. That's what we are. We are an embassy of God's kingdom still and the Holy Spirit is gathering us as the church, his colony of heaven on earth. That's what we are. We are an embassy of God's kingdom still in this world, a holy colony. You walk on heavenly ground when you step foot in church with God's people. And so, "thy kingdom come" is a prayer for the gospel's reign and rule over you, others, and the world.

And that flows pretty easily into the next prayer then too, when Jesus prays for us, for God's will, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." That's exactly what we're praying for now. Now, I don't know if they use this too much anymore. Actually, they kind of do. Burger King commercials. Are you familiar with those? It goes, "BK, have it your way. Who rules? You rule." That's how the commercial goes. That's a bad commercial. Don't listen to it. Because it's the exact opposite thinking of what Christians should think. That's actually what we might call original sin, isn't it? Not wanting somebody else to rule. We want ourselves to rule. Now, Burger King, they got people figured out, and that's why it works. But boy, if you and I could have it our way, we would love to rule. That's why we maybe like to go to Burger King or places where we can really have it our way, because we want our will to be done, not God's will to be done. And so Jesus teaches us this prayer because this is what we need to focus on. This is what we need to change our wills towards God's will. And actually, only God can change our wills to be like his will. In fact, this is maybe a really hard prayer to pray. Because when you pray, "Thy will be done," you're asking God to break your will so that it would not be your will that's done, but God's will. We read the Ten Commandments earlier, and the Ten Commandments are maybe a good summary of God's will. And whenever I teach about the Ten Commandments, I kind of present them as maybe a fence that protects something good. You think about this for each of them. So, you shall keep the name of the Lord your God holy. What is that protecting? God's name. Or perhaps do not commit adultery. What's that protecting? Marriage. Or you shall not steal. What's that offense protecting? Our stuff. And I really appreciate that one because I really like my stuff. The Ten Commandments are not just a list of rules that are arbitrary. They're showing us what God's will for our world is. How God designed our world to work. I mean, think about it this way. If everybody in the world followed the Ten Commandments perfectly, what would that be like? Could you imagine that? What would that feel like? Heaven. Oh, isn't that interesting? "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." God's law is his design for the world. God's will is good. He's the one that made the world. And when the world and our lives go on according to his will, it just works better. And when our lives in our world don't align to his will, it's not usually very pretty, is it? And that's why God also wills justice. And this is kind of like the scary side of God, isn't it? We call this maybe the strange or alien work of God, where God doesn't just will goodness for his creation. But when he sees evil and sin and corruption and oppression and abuse and destruction in his creation, he also wills justice. He wills wrath against sin. This is why there is hell to pay when people mess up and destroy God's world. That's why sin is so bad. And that's what leads us to the garden of Gethsemane. We heard this a little bit earlier, but in that garden, Jesus prayed this fascinating prayer, didn't he? "My father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will." And then even again and for a third time, Jesus prayed, "Thy will be done." You see, in that garden of Gethsemane and on the cross, Jesus was where God's will for justice and God's will for mercy collided. It all came together in Jesus. And friends, that's what we call the gospel. The gospel is that it's not just that Jesus died on the cross. I remember when I was in seminary, I had a professor say, "You know what? If you believe that the gospel is just that Jesus died on the cross and rose again, you don't know the full gospel." And I was like, three months away from being a pastor. And I was like, "Uhoh, what are you talking about?" He said, "It's not just that Jesus died on the cross. It's that Jesus suffered your eternal hell on the cross. Because what was it that Jesus said on the cross? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" To be forsaken by God, to be abandoned by God, is nothing less than suffering hell. And Jesus, as the eternal God himself, suffers the eternity of hell on the cross. Jesus takes on God's full justice, his will for wrath against sin, for you and for me on the cross for your eternity. Your hell, your eternal hell, has already been paid by Jesus on the cross. The cross is where God's will for wrath against sin and mercy collide. He takes it out on Jesus so that you would have nothing left to pay. Even though you violate God's will and you go against his will, Jesus takes that for you. And that's why Jesus, in teaching us to pray, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," teaches us to pray for God's mercy, that God would forgive us and give us eternal life on account of Jesus. And he also teaches us to pray for God's way, to pray that hard prayer, to pray that God would break our will and that our lives would align to his will and that his will would be done in our lives. And he also teaches us to pray that the Holy Spirit would make this world like heaven, that the Holy Spirit would ultimately lead God's will to be done in every way on earth just as it is in heaven. And then also the Holy Spirit would make us and sanctify us to be like Jesus. And friends, I think the beautiful thing about these two petitions, "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," is that Jesus is not teaching us to pray a prayer that he doesn't plan to answer. Jesus teaches us to pray this because he plans to answer it. And that means that one day God's will will be done on earth just as it is in heaven. God's kingdom will come fully and visibly. And you will see everything align to the way that God wants it to be. And it will be good. And Jesus will bring all the ways of heaven to earth. And you will live in God's will, heaven on earth, forever. "Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." It's in Jesus' name. Amen.