Your Kingdom Come
Heidelberg Catechism • Sermon • Submitted
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Hear my prayer, O Lord;
give ear to my pleas for mercy!
In your faithfulness answer me, in your righteousness!
Enter not into judgment with your servant,
for no one living is righteous before you.
For the enemy has pursued my soul;
he has crushed my life to the ground;
he has made me sit in darkness like those long dead.
Therefore my spirit faints within me;
my heart within me is appalled.
I remember the days of old;
I meditate on all that you have done;
I ponder the work of your hands.
I stretch out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah
Answer me quickly, O Lord!
My spirit fails!
Hide not your face from me,
lest I be like those who go down to the pit.
Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love,
for in you I trust.
Make me know the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.
Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord!
I have fled to you for refuge.
Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God!
Let your good Spirit lead me
on level ground!
For your name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life!
In your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble!
And in your steadfast love you will cut off my enemies,
and you will destroy all the adversaries of my soul,
for I am your servant.
Scripture: Psalm 143:1-12
Heidelberg Catechism: Lord’s Day 48 (Psalter 920)
Sermon Title: Your Kingdom Come
I invite you to keep your Psalter Hymnals close by, and maybe you want to turn to page 920. We are going to be looking at Lord’s Day 48 in a little while. Tonight we are jumping a bit in the Heidelberg Catechism from where we were last time. It has been awhile, but we were looking at the new life we have in Christ. Most of what we are jumping over is a section dealing with the 10 Commandments. I have been teaching through those in our Dorcas Bible Study, and plan to do some other teaching so I don’t want to overlap too much. But that leads us then to the final section of the Catechism, which is a walkthrough of the Lord’s Prayer. During my first weeks of ministry in Corsica, I preached on the opening lines, and so we are going to pick up tonight on the second request, “Your kingdom come.” But before we read question and answer 123, we are going to turn to God’s Word, and I am changing our passage, so I invite you to turn to Psalm 143.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, I wonder what it was like to be one of Jesus’ disciples when he provided them with the prayer that we now refer to as the Lord’s Prayer. Them hearing the words that we have come to know so well for the very first time. I wonder how they would have received the first lines, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come.” They likely had an understanding as we do that Jesus was God in the flesh, but in a way that we likely do not fully understand, God the Father was still residing in heaven. The Catechism Lord’s Day that deals with that reminds us that he is the perfect father, better than any earthly father, who we can look to and trust him to provide for every need that we have. He is also a holy God, and so to pray that he would be hallowed by us is that we would set him apart in our minds and lives.
And then Jesus taught them to pray “your kingdom come.” Kingdom is one of those words that resonates with almost everybody regardless of their place or time. Think of how the brothers James and John wanted to sit close to Jesus in his kingdom. Of Jesus teaching how a child is the greatest in the kingdom, and becoming like one is involved in entering the kingdom. In those days, this word entailed a very powerful political and military strengthened rule. The rulers had their way over their constituents and servants. Today maybe crowns and robes and thrones are what come to mind when we think of a kingdom—the king and queen who have a bit more centralized power than the type of government we expect to live under.
But we also find that Jesus taught his disciples that his kingdom was to be very different from what was around them. Kingdom in terms of this prayer allows us to think of an organized system that indeed God governs in, but it is different than ours.
But how do we typically think about this request? You can correct me if I am wrong, but I think when we pray “your kingdom come,” most people are likely looking to the future. This is something that has not come into existence, at least in its entirety. The disciples were looking for this coming kingdom to be a reality in their not too distant future. When we gathered here on the evening of Ascension Day, Pastor Dan Ebbens read from Acts 1, we heard that just as Jesus went into heaven, so we can be assured that he will come back. The disciples and the early church expected that to happen rather quickly. We know that did not and has not yet happened, so we continue to pray for it. We do that in saying the Lord’s Prayer, but also in many of our communion celebrations we pray the words of 1 Corinthians 16 verse 22 and Revelation 22 verse 20, “Come, Lord Jesus.”
To pray this request or petition for most people is to be expressing our desire for Jesus to return. We yearn for him to usher in his kingdom at any minute, bringing an end to the sin and suffering of this world. That is an appropriate thought to have as we considered here in Corsica this morning. We want God to restore and reconcile this world to himself in the wholeness that he has planned. That’s what we confess when we said, “Do this until your kingdom is so complete and perfect that in it you are all in all.” We want him to fix it all, to bring about eternity, and we expect that to happen when Jesus returns to fully usher in his reign.
Yet in reading this answer, we find that the majority of its content is not focused so much on what is to come. We confessed, “Your kingdom come means, Rule us by your Word and Spirit in such a way that more and more we submit to you. Keep your church strong, and add to it. Destroy the devil’s work; destroy every force which revolts against you and every conspiracy against your Word.” These words contain something different than maybe what we are used to thinking—they are much more about the present than the future.
This solidifies the way that our traditions think about God’s kingdom. I am guessing that most of us have heard of that described as now and not yet. If you want to sound really intelligent and studious, you can refer to this as inaugural eschatology. We believe that yes, the kingdom will come in full when Christ returns, but we also believe that when Jesus was here on earth he already began to bring in, or to inaugurate the kingdom.
To accept the Catechism authors meaning gives us visible marks that should already be in place among the church. It may seem that we are reaching into the future to an unknown date and time when we ask, “Your kingdom come.” But, if the Catechism authors are right, then we also need to understand that we are asking God to work in and among us at this very moment. The kingdom has a place here and now. I think that changes our mindset from thinking of the kingdom of God as primarily some fortress that will settle down one day. It reorients us to be thinking of the kingdom as the people living under the will and ordering of their Redeemer.
Let’s go back now to this psalm of David that we read. Listen to verses eight through twelve one more time: “Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul. Rescue me from my enemies, O Lord, for I hide myself in you. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground. For your name’s sake, O Lord, preserve my life; in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble. In your unfailing love, silence my enemies; destroy all my foes, for I am your servant.”
This is the prayer of someone who has realized that his life on this earth has a divine instructor, a divine protector, and ultimately a divine master. We probably do not need much of a reminder that David was a king, and really the most revered king of all the Israelite kings. He was in charge, he likely had the most freedom and power, and yet he knew that there was one over him. There was a God who enabled him to be in this position. A God who was infinitely greater than he a mere human could be. David knew his own shortcomings and limitations, and so he was willing to turn to the King of Kings.
A vital part of our walk as Christians is to follow in these footsteps of David. It is so easy isn’t it though to live life, to make decisions, to use our own power. We get to a place of ruling over our own domain we might say—our homes, farms, the things we possess, our thoughts, you can think of what you would add to that list. To a degree, we have the ability to rule the kingdom we are in. Think back to Genesis 1:28, God gave the mandate to Adam, “Subdue the earth and have dominion or rule over all the creatures.” We as humans are given power and position over the rest of what God has created around us. Yet all things, including ourselves, are still to serve him, to submit to his authority. We are to seek his will and his way. We are to seek his kingdom.
This mindset comes to us through a prayer. Through the communication that we each can have with God. Help us right now to submit to you, keep growing your church, destroy the work of the enemy that threatens those who will come to know you. Recognizing that we need to be in a position of humility is what we do through prayer. We can’t genuinely come to God with those words or David’s words unless we do in fact see ourselves as servants of the Lord and his kingdom.
So far we have looked at what is probably the dominant mindset when we say this prayer of looking forward to Christ’s return as the ringing in of God’s kingdom. We have been considering what really is a lifestyle of humility to submit ourselves to the reign of Jesus Christ even in this present age. I think we also need to consider the line of the answer about destruction. If we are praying for God’s kingdom to come, then we are desiring for all of its foes, all of its enemies who are under the leadership of the devil to fall as well.
We hear David pray again and again as we read the psalms for his enemies to be destroyed, for the Lord to bring destruction against them. In 1 John 3 verse 8, which we going to read, John writes, “He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” As Pastor Gary leads us through Revelation, we will encounter that same message. All who try to come against the kingdom of our King will fall. Jesus came to overthrow not only death but the devil and his forces as well.
Maybe those of you gathered here are not the ones who need to be reminded of this, but I know for myself I need to be reminded that there are forces, strong forces competing against the Lord and against us as believers. These forces of evil cannot overcome him, but they do endanger us in this world. If the mission of Christ involved, or if the very reason the Son came was to destroy the devil’s work, then that is something we ought to be praying for. As the second coming comes closer every day, the devil in whatever power he has left will mount more and more aggressive attacks against the church. The only way to protect ourselves is to ask for the Lord’s help. But as we pray for protection, we also need to be asking for his kingdom to be on the offensive against those attacks.
We as members of the body and of this coming kingdom need to be involved in asking for the protection of all God’s saints. Our prayers are not to be simply nice things that we tell God or politely ask for, but things that we need him to do. We bring our requests to God because we know he is able and capable of providing for us. He will not forget us; he will not allow us to be attacked and beaten down in such a way that causes us to lose faith. But we ought to be praying against those forces that are at work in the world, seeking to lead people away from God, away from the church, and away from trusting the truth of his holy Word.
It seems a lot easier doesn’t it to just pray “your kingdom come.” We can do just that, but if this is what we mean, then we ought to have these things in our mind even if they do not come out of our mouths regularly. May we remember that God is our King, and his reign his eternal but also supreme. He will uphold his church through the day when Jesus completes his work and returns to draw us to him. Amen.