10 your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
- Matthew 6:10, The New International Version, (Grand Rapids, MI:
Zondervan Publishing House) 1984.
In the name of Christ Jesus, dear friends:
Bigger is not always better. As American consumers, we aren’t trained to think that way. Advertisers try to convince us that bigger IS better. Commercials want us to believe that we deserve the newest, the biggest and the best. But there are still certain times in life when people begin to appreciate the value of something smaller...
Like when a family trades in the SUV for a mini-van because they want to lower their gas and insurance costs. Like when a couple moves from a four bedroom, two bathroom house into a condominium because they don’t want to do all the work that a larger home requires. Like when a person doesn’t super-size a meal because there are probably plenty of calories on the tray already.
The same is true when it comes to prayer. Bigger is not always better. Longer prayers are not necessarily better prayers. We don’t need to pray for hours and hours in order to be heard. There is no word minimum requirement to meet God’s standard for a proper prayer. If you need proof, look no farther than the prayer before us today.
Of the seven petitions in the Lord’s Prayer, the second is the shortest, only three words in our English translation. But those three little words are overflowing with meaning. In fact, the second petition has been called one of the greatest mission prayers ever written.
As we continue our sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer, it is our privilege to study the second petition and review what we are asking for when Jesus teaches us to pray...
YOUR KINGDOM COME
I. We pray for Christ’s rule in our hearts
II. We pray for Christ’s rule in the hearts of others
If we are going to pray the second petition with meaning, we first need to understand what the petition means. This can be somewhat difficult because God rules over three different kingdoms: his kingdom of power, his kingdom of grace and his kingdom of glory.
God’s kingdom of power includes everything in the universe, the flowers, the trees, the fish, the birds, the planets, the solar system, absolutely everything that exists. It is called the kingdom of power because God used his almighty power to create it. And the Lord uses the same power to sustain and maintain all things until the end of time.
Since God established his kingdom of power already at creation, it doesn’t really make sense for us to pray for it to come. We don’t have to because it’s already here. Besides this physical kingdom comprised of all created things, God is also ruling over another kingdom on earth, a spiritual kingdom, his kingdom of grace.
God’s kingdom of grace is different from his kingdom of
power because it is invisible. Jesus
said as much when he told a group of Pharisees: “The
God’s kingdom of grace is his rule in people’s hearts. It is very difficult for an individual to gain access into this kingdom. In fact, it is impossible. Because every person is born into the world spiritually dead, we cannot move one inch to enter through the gates of this kingdom. Because every person is born spiritually blind, we can’t even find the gates.
Does that mean there are no believers? Does that mean God’s kingdom of grace is empty? No. God’s kingdom of grace is alive and growing because God is active through his Word and sacraments, his means of grace. God works through these means/channels to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
Wherever God’s Word is sown, he promises that the seed will take root. Whenever a baby is baptized, we have God’s promise that his kingdom grows. Every time we pray “Your kingdom come,” we are simply asking God to do what he has already promised to do, to send his Holy Spirit to create and strengthen faith in the hearts of his people.
As wonderful as God’s kingdom of grace is, as comforting as it is to know that God himself is ruling our hearts and lives, we anticipate something even better. We look forward to a day when we will be citizens of another kingdom, God’s kingdom of glory. We look forward to a day when the Lord will make good on his final great and glorious promise. We look forward to a day when Jesus will take us to our eternal home in heaven.
In the meantime, we are here. And there are times when things are going very well in our lives. There are times when we are happy to be alive. There might even be times when we are tempted to think that heaven can wait. But we also have to face those days of sickness and sadness, days of disease and death, days when we just wish that all of our earthly struggles were over. Especially during the dark days, especially when life is hard, Christians can appreciate what they are saying when they are praying: “Your kingdom come.”
Up to this point the second petition sounds like a very personal prayer. We pray: “Father, let your kingdom come...to me. Father, let your kingdom come...to give me my place in eternal glory.” But the Christian who prays this petition sincerely does not pray it selfishly. The second petition is also a model mission prayer because when we pray “Your kingdom come,” we are also asking God to extend his rule to the hearts of others.
There are all sorts of Bible passages that can establish the need for this kind of prayer. But no single verse brings out the urgency of this petition more than Mark 16:16. Shortly before he ascended into heaven Jesus told his disciples: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
“Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved...” In other words, everyone who trusts in Jesus for salvation will enjoy eternity in heaven. That’s the good news, and the good news couldn’t get any better. But the second half of the verse contains the bad news, and the bad news couldn’t get any worse: “Whoever does not believe will be condemned.” Every person who dies without faith in Jesus is destined for an eternity in hell.
The people who make a living compiling statistics have said that about one-third of the world’s population calls itself Christian. That means there are billions and billions of people on this earth who do not believe in Jesus. That means there are billions and billions of people in our world who (in the words of Jesus) “will be condemned.”
Does that bother you? Does the fact that so many people are marching slowly but surely down the road to eternal destruction cause you to lose any sleep at night? Maybe it’s difficult for us to deal with such large numbers. Maybe it’s hard to feel for the millions of nameless, faceless people we will never meet.
So what I would like you to do is take ten seconds to close your eyes and think of people you do know, people who do not know Jesus as their Savior. They can be your friends, relatives, co-workers, neighbors, anyone who doesn’t believe. Start now (and allow ten seconds to elapse). How many did you come up with? One, two, maybe as many as five. Now apply Jesus’ words to them: “Whoever does not believe will be condemned.”
There are people all around us who are dying spiritually. And we have the antidote. We have the cure. We have in our possession the one thing that can save them. But do we share it with urgency? Or do we share it at all? Or do we clam up because we are afraid? Or do we come up with all kinds of excuses to soothe our consciences?
When we stand by and allow others to wither away, we show the symptoms of our own spiritual sickness. Sin is not only doing what God forbids. It is just as sinful to not do what God commands. And these sins of omission, just like all the other sins we commit, condemn us before God.
So what can we do? We can only confess our unworthiness to stand before God. We confess that we have sinned against God again and again and deserve his wrath. We confess that we can’t do anything to make things right. And then we can only sit and wait anxiously for God to respond.
But we don’t hear what we expect to hear. And we don’t hear what we deserve to hear. Instead of fire and brimstone, instead of immediate destruction, instead of a scalding condemnation, the Lord says: “I forgive you. I forgive you because my Son has done what you could never do. I forgive you because Jesus died to heal your sin-sick condition. I forgive you because Jesus rose from the grave to give you new life.”
Jesus gives the second petition a whole new meaning. We pray “your kingdom come” with thankful hearts, hearts where sin once reigned, hearts where the Holy Spirit has firmly planted his flag and declares, “This now belongs to me.” And God’s amazing love for us motivates us to extend God’s kingdom to others.
Our work begins already with prayer. We pray for missions and missionaries in our country and around world. We pray for personal opportunities to share God’s love with others. We pray that the Holy Spirit will work wherever and whenever God’s Word is shared to make his kingdom come.
Our work begins with prayer, but it doesn’t end there. It isn’t enough to say: “Your kingdom
come. My job is done.” Jesus said: “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark
We pray “your kingdom come,” and we look for opportunities
to share the gospel in other parts of the world. That’s why our school principal Mr. Uecker
(as a representative of our WELS World Mission Board) spent the last few weeks
visiting our missions in
We pray “your kingdom come,” and we look for new ways to share the gospel closer to home. That is why faithful volunteers teach and tutor and serve on Saturday afternoons at Chinese Fellowship. We pray “your kingdom come,” and then we walk through the doors God opens for us to tell lost souls that Jesus is the Way.
To summarize what we are asking for when we pray the second
petition, allow me to use an illustration.
You are a passenger on a ship sailing across the
At that very moment, what do you pray for? Do you pray for your own personal safety? Do you pray that the other passengers will be rescued? Do you pray that the ship will arrive in time and carry you to safety? I think that most people would answer: All of the above.
In the second petition, we are asking God for the same things. We pray that God will rescue us from death. We pray also that God will save the souls of others. And finally, we pray that the Lord will carry all of us to the safe haven we call heaven. With these thoughts in our minds and in our hearts, we come before our Father in heaven and pray: “Your kingdom come.” Amen.