Your Kingdom Come, Your Will Be Done
I had a friend ask me the other day, after sitting through our Sermon on the Mount series, why Jesus teaches his disciples to pray to God the Father, “Your kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10). “Why,” he asked, “would Jesus have his disciples pray this. Hasn’t God’s kingdom always been here on earth?”
That’s a great question. Many people have heard in Jesus’ words, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matthew 4:17), an announcement that God’s kingdom had finally come into existence through Jesus’ presence on earth. It’s as if Jesus was saying, “Now that I’m here, God will finally reign!”
Yet, Israel would have declared that God was already reigning. We see this proclaimed throughout the Psalms and in the prophets:
Say among the nations, “The LORD reigns.”
The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved;
he will judge the people with equity. (Psalm 96:10 NIV)
The LORD reigns,
let the nations tremble;
he sits enthroned between the cherubim,
let the earth shake.
Great is the LORD in Zion;
he is exalted over all the nations.
Let them praise your great and awesome name—
he is holy. (Psalm 99:1-3 NIV)
How beautiful on the mountains
are the feet of those who bring good news,
who proclaim peace,
who bring good tidings,
who proclaim salvation,
who say to Zion,
“Your God reigns!” (Isaiah 52:7 NIV)
Indeed, the people of God understood that God reigned even amid their exile and the wickedness they endured, both from within and without.
So what did Jesus mean when he directed his disciples to pray for God’s kingdom to come? He does not mean for us to pray for it to come into existence. Instead, Jesus is teaching his followers to pray that God’s kingdom saturate every area of life – in personal, social, and political arenas – where it is excluded. This is also what Jesus means when he calls his disciples to pray for God’s will to “be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
When we pray for God’s kingdom to come and his will to be done, we ask God to make his kingdom reign a tangible reality in our everyday existence. In the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, we see the kingdom of God alive and accessible to us today.
And if we pray for God’s kingdom to come and his will to be done, then otherworldly “kingdoms” are at play. All we need to do is look around us and see the evil kingdoms in conflict with God’s. A kingdom of darkness manifesting through war in the Ukraine and Israel. A kingdom of darkness manifesting through poverty and homelessness. A kingdom of darkness manifesting through the systems of globalization that seek to dominate and rule through economic oppression. On and on. Other “kingdoms” have come near.
Yet, in the here and now, even though we see and experience otherworldly “kingdoms” in conflict with God’s, we can learn to live more and more in God’s grace, love, forgiveness, mercy, and justice. As we battle against “the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Ephesians 6:1), we strive in Holy Spirit power to live a radically Jesus-centered life with a radically Jesus-centered hope in his return. Only then will we experience the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, when Jesus comes to fully and finally destroy every other false and wicked kingdom.
Until then, we look to Jesus and continue to run the race of discipleship with confidence, knowing that God reigns now and forever.
Praying with you for God’s kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.
–Pastor Wade
