You can turn with me to Luke's Gospel. We are in Luke chapter 11. I'll confess at the start, the other night I was at a bit of a low point. We were— I was coming off a week where I'd had some strange stomach ailment. We don't really know what it was. We couldn't figure it out. I just wasn't feeling good. For a while I was worried it was an appendicitis. It wasn't. My wife is probably thinking it's just because you're a guy and you're a wimp when you get sick. But I wasn't feeling good physically, and then it was compounded by a spiritual malaise, or at least that's what it felt like.
You see, I actually watched the most recent GOP debate, and I was watching this and just a sad, troubling reality was sitting over me as I realized the state of affairs and just even public discourse in our country. I listened to the candidates bicker and incessantly interrupt each other, call each other children, mock each other, poke fun of each other. It just seemed to denigrate into 7th graders on the playground. And if you watched this, you understand. If you didn't watch it, please don't go back and watch it now. It was a sad, hard thing to watch. And I think part of what made it hard was hearing the crowd. The crowd wasn't groaning as they listened to this bickering, and they weren't moaning as they heard some of the things the candidates were saying. They seemed to be responding and cheering and getting excited and riled up. Each new low blow seemed to bring another round of excitement from the crowd. And then Hannah told me about a conversation she had yesterday as she was standing in line to caucus. If you were like us and you ended up at your caucusing place, you ended up standing in line for a long time. The couple behind me had evidently had a big fight in the car. He dropped her off and she's standing behind me and then he comes up and, 'I'm so sorry, I don't know why I said that.' You know, it's just this awkward, like you're hearing it in public and she's like, 'I don't even want to talk about it.' So he just keeps talking about it for 10 minutes and I'm just trying to look ahead like, 'I don't know, I can't hear, you know, I don't know what's going on.' Hannah was a little while after me and she said she had a couple guys, you know, those typical people who just, they might be in public but it doesn't seem like it and they'll talk about anything and everything. And so this fascinating conversation is ensuing and she's texting me like, 'You'll never believe what these guys are talking about.' And then it just started to devolve. And all of a sudden they're telling insensitive jokes and racist jokes and she's just thinking, 'This is in public.' These people are standing here in line and others can hear them and they don't care. There's no sense of shame that they're saying these things, but in earshot of perfect strangers. A heartbreaking reality just kind of seemed to be sinking in. The state of affairs on that debate stage just seemed to be a reflection of the fraying fabric of our society. It was hard to watch that debate. It was hard to hear about the conversation behind Hannah and Lyle. It reminded me of Benjamin Franklin and his wise and haunting words as he exited Independence Hall in 1787 at the conclusion of the Constitutional Convention. He exited Independence Hall in Philadelphia. They had come to their conclusions. They had decided what kind of government we were going to have, and a woman approached Benjamin Franklin and she asked him, 'Well, Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?' To which Franklin famously replied, 'A republic, if you can keep it.'
Now, I'm not claiming to be prophetic in this, and the reason I'm telling you this isn't because I'm actually trying to give you my opinion on where we are as a country. I'm not an expert in political science. I have yet to receive my invitation to speak on Meet the Press. If I did, there'd be a little bit of a conflict of scheduling anyway, right? That's not why I'm sharing this. It's not because I have an idea of what's going on in the grander scheme of things in our country, but I'm giving you a glimpse at my heart. I was having a hard time watching that debate, and it was exacerbated by hearing Hannah's story as she stood in line. It's good and right, I think, to be concerned about the state of your country that you belong to. You should be concerned. Jeremiah tells us to pray for the good of the city in which you live, right? Especially when you live in a democratic republic where being a citizen carries responsibilities. You actually vote for the people who are going to rule for you. So it does matter. But I realized my despair that I was feeling, the more I kind of thought about it, the unspoken fears that were kind of looming behind those despairs, they weren't coming exclusively from the position of a concerned citizen. And that's why I'm sharing this story. They were growing from a heart that had once again lost sight of the bigger picture. I was fretting over my American citizenship in part because I'd forgotten about my greater citizenship. That was part of where those fears were coming from. And again, that's not to say you shouldn't be concerned about the direction of your country. You should. It's not to say as citizens you shouldn't do everything you can to see your country thrive and do well. You should. But as Christians, we should process those things. We must process those things differently through the lens of a different perspective and different worldview. And that loss of perspective was driven home for me as I returned my attention to the sermon I was going to preach, a sermon looking at the second petition of the Lord's Prayer.
Look with me now at Luke chapter 11 as we hear Jesus teaching the disciples to pray. Starting in verse 1, hear God's holy and authoritative word. Now Jesus was praying in a certain place, and when he finished, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray as John taught his disciples. And he said to them, when you pray, say, Father, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Give us each day our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation. The word of the Lord. May he write his heart— may he write his truth upon our hearts.
Would you bow your heads with me? Well, Father, as we continue to look at the prayer that Jesus has given to us in your word, Lord, we ask that you would stir our hearts. Lord, we don't want to just mutter words. We don't want to just skim over a familiar passage. We want to be impacted by the truth of these words. We want to see the vision that Jesus gave to his disciples, that Jesus is giving to us now. Lord, we ask that your Spirit would guide us, that you would illuminate your Scriptures to us, that you would do what you have promised to do, which is to bless the preaching of your Word. So now we ask, Father, send your Spirit, fill this place, help us to see your truth and to be changed by your truth, to the glory of your Son Jesus. Amen.
As I said last week, it's a very simple and concise prayer, and what I was going to try and do in one Sunday hopelessly failed, and so now we're in our second Sunday and only at the second petition, right? We will speed things up a little bit next week, but this week we're going to look at just three words. Thy kingdom come, Your kingdom come. Three little words, but they're words that are pregnant with meaning.
6 · The pastor acknowledges the complexity of defining 'kingdom of God,' noting that Jesus describes it through parables rather than giving a single definition, and that Scripture presents the kingdom as both already present and still future
Now, the idea of the kingdom of God, that's an idea that's notoriously hard to pin down. Part of the difficulty is Jesus never directly defines the Kingdom of God. In the Gospels, we have all sorts of examples of Jesus describing the Kingdom. In fact, one of the primary reasons He uses parables is to teach us, to describe to us the way the Kingdom is. And so different parables teach us different facets of the Kingdom. Jesus also talks about the Kingdom in ways that make it seem like the Kingdom is already here. The Kingdom's already arrived with His arrival. And then there's other times where He talks about the Kingdom and it seems like it's something that's far off and it's in the future. So you try and read those things and you navigate them and there seems like there's this tension. We get varied descriptions of the Kingdom. So before we go any further, it's important to ask, what exactly does Jesus mean by Kingdom? What does the Bible mean when it talks about Kingdom.
7 · The pastor contrasts modern spatial conceptions of kingdom (territory on a map) with the biblical conception (the reign and rule of God)
When we think of kingdom as modern people, if we were to look it up in our dictionaries, the first way it's going to be thought of or defined is going to be like the United Kingdom. It's going to be thought of in terms of spatial ideas. So we think of a realm, right? We think of land that has towns and cities. This is a kingdom. You look on a map and you see the boundaries and that's what a kingdom is. And so when we think of the United Kingdom, right, we think of England and Wales and Scotland and Northern Ireland. That's the United Kingdom. You can look at it, you can see it, you can picture it. The Bible doesn't imagine kingdom in quite that way though. Scripture imagines kingdom being more about the rule and the reign and the authority of God. It's not something you draw on a map. It's a reality that God reigns, that God rules. That's why the early church, what's their most basic confession? Jesus is Lord. Not Caesar. Jesus.
8 · The pastor supports his definition of kingdom as 'reign' by exegeting the parable in Luke 19, showing that the nobleman receives the kingdom (authority) in one place and then returns to exercise that rule elsewhere, proving kingdom is about authority, not location
A good example of that is Luke 19. Jesus tells another parable describing the kingdom, and He tells the story of a nobleman, right? And He says, 'This nobleman went off into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and then return.' You see, the kingdom isn't this place he went to and then set up rule. The nobleman goes off to a far country, receives the kingdom, receives the authority to rule, and then returns to the place he's going to rule and establish that rule.
9 · The pastor synthesizes the definition of kingdom as God's sovereign rule, showing that Scripture's narrative arc is the progressive realization of God's reign
The Kingdom of God is about God's sovereign reign being expressed, about God's sovereign rule being realized. And so as Scripture unfolds, as the drama of redemption that Scripture is telling us from Genesis all the way to Revelation, as that story arc plays out, the reality of God's kingdom, His reign over creation becomes more and more fully expressed. That's what Scripture is showing us. That's what Jesus is referring to when He prays, 'Your kingdom come.' As we say it in the Lord's Prayer when we recite it, 'Thy kingdom come,' right? It isn't that God hasn't been King, but we're praying and hoping that someday His kingship, His reign, the reality of God's kingdom would increase, that it would be fully known, that when Christ returns, there would be a day when he just isn't talked about as King, but that it's a visible reality. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. Your kingdom come. That's what the scriptures are talking about.
10 · The pastor identifies a common error—treating the kingdom as an abstract, distant reality disconnected from daily life—and begins to correct it by reminding the congregation they are part of God's creation and the high point of it as image bearers
Now, people make all kinds of mistakes when it comes to thinking about the kingdom of God, and one of the mistakes that's most common is to think very seldomly of it. And part of that is I think it's kind of an abstract thing. People imagine thinking about the Kingdom, they think about it infrequently because it's something that has to do with God and it's God's business. And so it's something that God is taking care of. And so it seems disconnected from our everyday lives, right? We think of God as reigning over creation and we kind of fail to remember we're a part of that creation. And actually, as image bearers, Scripture says we are the high point of that creation, right?
11 · The pastor claims that the fall was fundamentally a personal rejection of God's reign by Adam and Eve, and therefore believers must personally embrace God's kingdom rather than treating it as an abstract theological concept
One of the great tragedies of Scripture is how people fail to personally embrace the sovereign reign of God. So one of the things we have to do when we recognize this call that Jesus gives us to pray, 'Your kingdom come,' is that as people, as believers, we're called to personally embrace this. Not to allow it to become this abstract idea that's out there that God is doing as some far-off dignitary or far-off sovereign, but that it has to do with us. We live in this fallen world, which is another way of saying we live in a world that's in rebellion against God's reign. That's what the fall means, right? Creation isn't doing the things that its sovereign says it should be doing. But that rebellion started in the most personable way imaginable. Adam and Eve personally rejected God's right to reign and rule over them. The rejection of the kingdom was very personal.
12 · The pastor traces the pattern of rejecting God's reign through Israel's history, showing that Israel's request for a human king was a rejection of God's kingship, and even with earthly kings they continued to rebel through idolatry
And that initial failure just continues throughout the Bible. When you look at Israel's history and you see the monarchy, right? So Saul and David and Solomon, they start gathering kings to themselves. There's just this tragic story of this great struggle for the people of Israel, God's people, to figure out how do we live under God's reign? How do we live under God's rule? Why do they even have a monarchy to begin with? Remember? Their whole reason they ask for a king is because they're not satisfied with God being their king. Give us a king like our neighbors. A king we can see. A king that's right there in front of us. There's this failure to live and submit to God's rightful rule. And then even once they get the king, they keep slipping back into idolatry and rebellion, and God in His mercy keeps rescuing them and reestablishing His rule.
13 · The pastor applies the theology of God's reign to the personal act of salvation, critiquing the reductionist view of 'asking Jesus into your heart' as merely gaining a companion or guide, and insisting that Jesus comes to establish Lordship and rule
When we pray, 'Your kingdom come,' We have to start by recognizing this is meant to be an intensely personal request. We're praying that God would establish his reign, not just over all creation, but that he would establish his reign in our hearts. We often hear evangelicals talk about asking Jesus into your heart. If you've been in the church for very long, I'm sure you've heard that phrase, right? The call to ask Jesus into your heart. It's quaint, familiar language speaking to the reality that to be saved means you enter into relational intimacy with God. That's what happens in salvation. We just looked at it last week, right? Father, hallowed be your name. Not judge, not king. Father. There's this personal relationship that happens in salvation. That's part of what that language is trying to evoke. You ask Jesus into your heart because you're going to have a personal knowledge and communion with God. But if we aren't careful, sometimes it can almost seem like we're asking Jesus to come into our hearts to be our buddy, to be our companion, or a guide that we use every once in a while. He's sort of like the GPS. You don't use the GPS all the time. It's just for when you don't know where you're going. So you ask Jesus into your heart, and He's kind of there. You can pull Him out of your pocket. Sorry, Garmin folks. I don't think most people have it on the dash anymore. And when you need Him, Jesus is in your heart. He's right there. You can just pop up the GPS, and He can tell you where to go. But Jesus isn't content to save us. And then take on companion status or GPS status. He saves us so that He can take up Lordship in our hearts, so that He can set up the reign of God in our lives.
14 · The pastor expounds Mark 1:15, arguing that Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom's arrival is a personal summons to repentance and faith, which means dethroning Satan, sin, and flesh and enthroning Jesus as Lord in the heart
Jesus says in Mark 1:15, 'The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand.' In other words, the kingdom of God has started because I'm here. The kingdom of God is at hand, Jesus says, repent and believe in the gospel. That's a personal summons that we would come through faith and repentance and invite God to sit on the throne of your heart. It's a different way to think about asking Jesus into your heart, isn't it? Not as a buddy, not as a friend, but as a lord. That's exactly why God has sent Christ. He sent Him to redeem us from the tyranny of the one who currently sits on that throne in our hearts. You see, before Christ, it's not like the throne is empty, right? That's not the picture at all. Scripture pictures the throne of our hearts being occupied by Satan and the power of sin and even the passions of our own flesh. That's what's ruling us before Christ. But God, through the saving work of Jesus, intends to reestablish His gracious, merciful, sovereign rule in our hearts. So you see, this notion of the Kingdom of God, it's intensely personal. It's something we're called to personally embrace. Thy Kingdom come isn't the cry for a Savior and companion, it's the cry for a Savior and Lord.
15 · The pastor pivots from personal embrace to participation, linking the petition 'Your kingdom come' to 'Your will be done' and arguing that God's reign in the heart produces visible evidence through obedience
So we're called to personally embrace this coming kingdom. That's part of why Jesus is teaching us to pray this way. Recognizing the kingdom is something to personally embrace also underscores the fact it's something we participate in. In Matthew's Gospel, there's another phrase immediately after 'Your kingdom come,' right? The version most of us have memorized goes, 'Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.' Again, this isn't just asking that God would hasten the day when His will would be done in all the earth, although it is talking about that. It's also a prayer that God's kingdom would take up residence in our hearts and that the evidence of this would be seen. Thy kingdom come, Your will be done. Sit on the throne of my heart and then let my heart and life bear evidence. Bear joyful witness to who the King is.
16 · The pastor cites The Gospel Coalition's confession to support the claim that entering the kingdom means both receiving covenant blessings (forgiveness, adoption, eternal life) and participating in kingdom life through Spirit-empowered obedience, having been freed from slavery to sin
The Gospel Coalition is this coalition of Reformed evangelical pastors and people who have come together for the common purpose of expanding the gospel and spreading the gospel and helping to defeat theological famine in all the world. And they've got a helpful confessional document, they've put down some of their basic beliefs, and in that there's a very helpful way of describing this link. The Gospel Coalition's confession says, Those who have been saved by the grace of God through union with Christ by faith and through regeneration by the Spirit enter the Kingdom of God. You see the personal thing that happens? You've been united to Christ by faith through the regeneration of the Spirit, and so you've personally entered the Kingdom. And they delight in the blessings of the New Covenant. They don't just personally embrace the kingdom, they now participate in it. They delight in it. When we think of delighting in the blessings of the new covenant, what comes to mind? Delighting in the blessings that Jesus brings to us when He comes. That's what delighting in the new covenant means. Forgiveness of sins, if we're thinking of last Sunday's message, right? We get to be adopted as sons and daughters. We have eternal life. There's going to be a resurrection to come. We're going to get to partake in that. But part of this is recognizing that the law has now been internalized. That in Christ, we're no longer slaves to sin. Paul teaches us in Romans, in Christ we're slaves to righteousness. There's a new Lord sitting on the throne. And through the empowerment of the Spirit, we now have the ability to obey. We can enjoy the life-giving wisdom of God's law because the Spirit empowers us to obey and to do what God has called us to do.
17 · The pastor applies the kingdom theology to active discipleship, insisting that Jesus' call to 'seek first the kingdom' is a dangerous summons to full-hearted participation in God's reign, not passive Christianity
'Your kingdom come' is a rallying cry to the citizens of that kingdom to participate in God's reign, to pursue its expression, to proclaim its reality with all of our lives. Jesus calls us to seek first the kingdom and his righteousness. That vision is a very dangerous thing. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added unto done to you. It's a dangerous thing that he's describing. It spells out the death of any sort of half-hearted Christianity that's sort of content to ask Jesus into your heart and then sit in the armchair. Ask Jesus into your heart and then sit on the sidelines. No, this is a rallying cry to be an active citizen in the reign of Jesus. A new day has dawned, and as citizens of a new kingdom, we eagerly respond to every summons and command of our King.
18 · The pastor cites Calvin to argue that citizens of the kingdom receive Scripture as God Himself speaking with authority, making claims, and transforming hearts—this is how those who have embraced and participate in God's reign relate to the Word
Calvin, one of the Reformers, had a really helpful saying. I came across it again this week. All Scripture, he says, must be received as if God appearing in person, visibly and full of majesty, or himself speaking. When we have the call to worship this morning and Dave reads that litany of scriptures, is that our conviction? That as those scriptures are being read, God himself is appearing visibly and full of majesty, and that he's speaking to us? When we read the Scriptures at the beginning of the sermon, is there this sense that the Lord of your heart is addressing you as His citizen and that He's calling you and He's making claims upon you? He's trying to change the way you think. He's trying to change the things you love. He's trying to change the way you live. He's trying to speak promises and hope to you to beat back fears and anxieties. To establish your assurance in God's word because God is addressing you. That's how citizens who've personally embraced the kingdom and who are participating in the kingdom respond to the word.
19 · The pastor introduces the 'already-not-yet' tension of the kingdom, emphasizing that believers possess and participate in the 'already' reality of Christ's reign, as evidenced by global gospel work like ministry updates from Pakistan
There's this already-not-yet tension that theologians talk about with the kingdom. The kingdom has already come. With the arrival of Jesus, the kingdom in one sense is here. In light of those benefits, which is to say, we possess and participate in the already of the scripture. We are in Christ. We're united to Christ. Aspects of the kingdom are happening all around us. When we see an update from Pakistan, that's part of us recognizing we live in the already of the kingdom. We're going to participate in the already of the kingdom. We're going to live our lives in such a way that we bear witness and we proclaim and we testify and we participate in the fact that Jesus is now risen and reigning.
20 · The pastor illustrates kingdom participation through the congregation's support of believers in Pakistan, showing how obedience to the King's command to care for widows produces joy even through sacrifice
And so we've got these brethren in a place called Pakistan that some of you probably couldn't even find on a map. I'd probably have trouble finding it on a map. Most of us are never going to go there. We have brothers and sisters. In Christ. Because we participate in the kingdom, what a joy it is to hear the King command us to take care of widows and orphans and then to joyfully respond, 'Oh, I'll sacrifice a month at Starbucks to help send a bag of rice to a woman that's going to feed her for a month.' And we sense the joy of it. That's the already aspect of the kingdom.
21 · The pastor cites Spurgeon to describe the posture of kingdom citizens: they serve not to earn salvation but out of gratitude and love for the God who chose and redeemed them
I love how Spurgeon puts it: The heir of heaven, the citizens of the kingdom, the heir of heaven serves his Lord simply out of gratitude. He has no salvation to gain, no heaven to lose. Now, out of love to the God who chose him and who gave so great a prize for his redemption, He desires to lay out himself entirely to his master's service.
22 · The pastor applies the theology of kingdom participation to the act of prayer itself, urging the congregation to pray 'Your kingdom come' as a genuine submission to Christ's Lordship and a request for Spirit-empowered obedience
When we pray, 'Your kingdom come,' there's a claim Jesus is making on our hearts. Pray this and mean it. Your kingdom come. Sit on the throne of my heart, Jesus. And by the power of your Spirit, help me to obey. Help me to joyfully live out all the things you've called us to love God and love neighbor. We're called to participate in it.
23 · The pastor signals the third major move of the sermon with self-aware humor about the obvious nature of praying for the kingdom in a sermon about prayer, but insists the distinction between participating in and building the kingdom is crucial
Final point this morning: we personally embrace the kingdom, we participate in it, and then we pray for it. We pray for it. You want to talk about a well-duh point in the sermon, right? Oh, a sermon about teaching us to pray and he's gonna say pray for it. I really thought hard about this point. It was really a struggle to kind of figure out the phrasing. I will admit part of it is I wanted the alliteration. It's personal, you participate, you pray for it. So I will confess that's a part of it. But I think this is helpful. It actually needs to be stated. You see, saying that we participate in the kingdom, that's very different from saying we build the kingdom. Right? Do you see the difference? The difference between participating and building? And so by recognizing at the end that we pray for the kingdom, it's recognizing that participants aren't the driving force behind it.
24 · The pastor uses the movie 'Kingdom of Heaven' to illustrate the erroneous belief that human effort—in this case military conquest—can establish God's kingdom, contrasting this with the biblical truth that the kingdom is received, not built
I don't know if you remember the movie Kingdom of Heaven. It probably came out a decade ago. I feel like I was in college or seminary when it came out. Kingdom of Heaven was this movie about the Crusades, right? And about a bunch of Christians from Europe, Knights Templar, right? With their shining armor and their shields with crosses on them going into Jerusalem. And it was an okay movie. It was pretty good. If, you know, just looking for like a kind of trying to hit that Gladiator theme of just lots of action and dramatic, you know, scenes and that sort of thing. That's what they were trying to do. But the name really says it all. It was called the Kingdom of Heaven. And the underlying premise of the movie and all those scenes of action, right, as these crusaders are trying to rescue— can I talk here?— rescue Jerusalem from the barbarian hordes, essentially. Is this idea that what they're trying to do, these knights are fighting in the Holy Land to establish the kingdom of heaven. We're going to fight for the kingdom of heaven. We're going to plant our sword in Jerusalem and bring about the kingdom of heaven. That's the thought process in the movie. But the kingdom of heaven isn't won through our battles. The Kingdom of Heaven isn't built by our hands. The Kingdom of Heaven is received.
25 · The pastor cites Hoekema to establish that the kingdom is God's breaking into history, not humanity's construction project, and that our duty is to enter the kingdom by faith and submit to God's reign through prayer
Anthony Hoekema explains, the Kingdom of God is to be understood as the reign of God, dynamically active in human history through Jesus Christ, the purpose of which is the redemption of his people from sin and from demonic powers and the final establishment of the new heavens and the new earth. It means the great drama of the history of salvation has been inaugurated already, and that the new age has been ushered in. Man's duty is not to bring the kingdom into existence, but to enter into it by faith, and to pray that he may be enabled more and more to submit himself to the the beneficent rule of God in every area of his life. The kingdom is not man's upward climb to perfection, but God's breaking into human history to establish his reign and to advance his purposes.
26 · The pastor warns against the social gospel error of believing we build the kingdom through good works, and insists that praying 'Your kingdom come' is a confession that the kingdom belongs to God and comes through His power, uniting believers across the globe as fellow citizens
Now that's really important, because if we don't remember and recognize and establish that while we personally embrace the kingdom and we participate in the kingdom, We also don't build it. If we don't do that, we're going to fall prey to a social gospel of thinking that we do these things, we love neighbor and we do good deeds because we are somehow building the kingdom. We are somehow making heaven on earth to such a degree that all Jesus has to do is come back and just take a seat. When we pray, 'Your kingdom come,' We're confessing it's not our kingdom. It's not coming through our efforts and our ingenuity and our power. We're also confessing that what we're participating in, it's God's kingdom. And then that's a helpful protection. I'm not trying to build Matthew's kingdom. We're not trying to build Providence's kingdom or Sovereign Grace's kingdom. No. We are participating in God's kingdom. In God's kingdom. And so we get to join hands with believers in Pakistan and Africa and China, all over Kansas City, as fellow citizens in God's kingdom.
27 · The pastor affirms that God alone establishes, extends, and controls the kingdom, and that our participation is owing entirely to His grace, not His need—we are invited to take part in what God is accomplishing for His own glory
The true and living God establishes this kingdom. Almighty God extends it. And the Sovereign Lord controls it. He invites all of us to participate in it, to use your gifts and your talents, to deploy them, but not of need. No, it's owing to nothing more than His gracious willingness to invite us to take part as He builds the kingdom and as He brings Himself glory.
28 · The pastor expounds the misunderstanding of Jesus' contemporaries, who expected a political-military kingdom that would overthrow Rome, as evidenced by the crowds at Palm Sunday, the accusations before Pilate, and the disciples'争论 over positions of power
Now that's something that's totally lost on Jesus' contemporaries. The people around Jesus have this built-in assumption that this kingdom isn't just about the rule of God, it's an actual thing on a map. And so this tension that starts developing in Luke's Gospel with the Jewish people in Jesus' day is in part because some of them are starting to think, hey, I think this guy might be the Messiah. And that has implications. If he's the Messiah, then he's about to kick some Roman tail. He's going to take out the Romans. He's going to establish a kingdom. We're going to take up arms. Palm Sunday is them inviting the King into Jerusalem with the assumption it's all about to start. You see it with the accusations they make in front of Pilate, right? What do they say Jesus said? He's called Himself the King of the Jews, Pilate. You know what that means. He's going to lead an insurrection. The disciples are assuming it. They start having the disagreements, right? Who's going to sit at His right hand in power? Who's going to be greater in the Kingdom? They're not thinking of new heavens and new earth. They're thinking there's going to be a kingdom right here, and I'm fighting over Who gets to be the running mate? Like, who's going to be the VP candidate? Who's going to be the Secretary of State, right? And who's going to get stuck being the Secretary of the Interior? Oh man, sorry Thomas, you doubted. That's what happens. But you see how they're thinking, and they're competing. They're shoving each other over. We've got to get the good spots in this thing. How much land is he going to give me? Is he going to give me a sweet spot with a view of the Mediterranean to rule? That'd be nice.
29 · The pastor returns to his opening illustration and applies the disciples' error to himself, confessing that his despair over the presidential debate revealed the same assumption—that God's kingdom depends on American political success
It's the assumption of my heart when I'm despairing watching a presidential debate. The assumption that the kingdom of God will be achieved through the right candidate in this most right country. That's part of what's going on in my heart. As I struggle with that. But implicit in the notion that America is God's gift to Earth is the idea that somehow America properly functioning is crucial to God establishing his kingdom. Doesn't God know if the wrong person gets elected, it's all going to fall apart and he's going to have to wait like another 150 years for Jesus to come back? Doesn't he know? It just keeps happening. Franklin Pierce gets elected, it's like, 'Well, I guess we'll have to wait a little longer.' Lincoln gets assassinated, it's like, 'Well, he was going to be the guy. It was going to happen just in— we're going to have to wait a little longer.' No. And yet, as I process the reality around me, that's how my heart takes it in.
30 · The pastor clarifies that critiquing political idolatry does not mean despising one's country or denying its blessings, but it does mean refusing to make politics an idol or place ultimate hope in any earthly government
Now, that doesn't mean don't love your country. That's not what I'm saying at all. It doesn't mean that you can't recognize the great benefits and wisdom of living in a democratic republic governed by a Constitution that recognizes God-given rights that no majority of people or king or Senate can ever infringe upon. Those are really wise, beautiful things, and I'm happy to participate. I'm happy to be that anomaly, Pat. I know you are too. I'm happy that there's freedom of religion and those protections in our country. But it does mean, as citizens of a different country, that we refuse to let politics be an idol. We refuse to let any earthly kingdom or republic be our ultimate hope.
31 · The pastor illustrates the futility of placing ultimate hope in earthly kingdoms by recounting the British Empire's claim to being eternal ('the sun never sets') and its eventual decline
You see, before America, there was the British Empire upon which the sun never set. There isn't a more auspicious claim to being God's gift to earth. I don't know if it's ever been phrased, right? The sun never sets on our kingdom. We're like God. And yet they diminished like every kingdom before them.
32 · The pastor narrates the fall of Rome to the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, showing that even a Christianized empire supposedly establishing God's kingdom on earth could fall, throwing Christians into despair
In Augustine's day, the thought was that Rome was this sort of kingdom. When the emperor converts and Christianity is suddenly no longer on the persecuted list, and then eventually Christianity is the religion of the realm, the thought is this Rome, its rule is going to establish kingdom of heaven on earth. And then all of a sudden, these dudes in Germany, these barbarians, the Visigoths and the Ostrogoths, they didn't even brush their teeth, they didn't even shower. They sack Rome. They attack the imperial city, and they set it on fire. This isn't possible. The Canadian Mounties can't defeat the Marine Corps. That's the vision Rome has here. And yet it's happened. And all the Christians in the realm are running around, 'Ahhh! The sky is falling!'
33 · The pastor expounds Augustine's response to the fall of Rome, arguing that Christians should not despair when earthly kingdoms fall because our hope has always been in the crucified and risen Christ, which produces fearlessness in the face of political upheaval
And Augustine writes The City of God, this classic book comparing the city of earth to the city of God. He reminds Christians, Rome has fallen to the stinky Germans. But heaven has not. And our hope has never been in the conversion of Caesar. Our hope has never been in Pax Romana. Our hope has never been in legionnaires. Our hope has always been in God. Our hope has always been in a crucified Messiah who was crushed to death to crush the rebellion in our hearts, and who was raised from the grave so that death would have no sting. And part of death having no sting means we can be fearless regardless of political outcome, regardless of what happens with your job, regardless of what happens with religious liberty. Jesus is still enthroned. Augustine says, 'The earthly city glories in itself, the heavenly city glories in the Lord.'
34 · The pastor expounds Isaiah's prophecy of the Messiah whose government will have no end, showing that even as earthly Jerusalem fell, God promised a coming King whose reign would be established by God's own zeal—this is what we pray for when we say 'Your kingdom come
Praying 'Your kingdom come' is about hoping and trusting that God's kingdom will come. It's rejoicing that Jesus sits enthroned in our hearts and that one day He will sit enthroned in the new heaven and the new earth. And there will be no more tears and no more sickness and no more death. He will be our God and we will be His people. Listen to the prophet Isaiah write to the people of Israel as they are about to be carried off into exile, as the earthly Jerusalem is about to fall. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, The government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of Yahweh, the Lord of hosts, will do this. The passion of God Almighty for the glory and the holiness of His name will do this. Father, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come.
35 · The pastor closes in prayer, gathering the congregation into corporate testimony with the saints throughout history and across the globe, asking God to establish His reign in their hearts, enable their participation in the kingdom, and sustain their hope in the coming kingdom
Father, we pray those things corporately together. We testify with your Spirit, with the angels, with the cloud of witnesses, with all the saints who have gone before us. Hallowed be your name. May your name be holy and majestic and esteemed. And Father, may your kingdom come. Lord, may you rule upon our hearts. Will you reign in our lives? Lord God, through your Spirit, would you help us, this little local expression of your people, would you help us to participate in your kingdom? Lord, help us to have so many mission briefs that we can't possibly give them all. Lord, help us to see the joy that comes from taking our place as citizens in all that you are doing. And Father, help us to hope, just like Isaiah hoped, just like the remnant of Israel hoped, just like the elect exiles of the dispersion that Peter wrote to hoped, just like the saints in Pakistan hope. Let us hope in your kingdom, which will come. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.