Living Hope

Pastor Philip Miller: See the problem, friends, is that heaven and earth are out of sync. In heaven, all is well. On earth, not so much. In heaven, God's will is done perfectly, but on earth, not so. So our prayer is, "Father, would You sync it up?"

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Welcome to Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I'm Pastor Larry McCarthy. We're glad you've joined us for this series through the Sermon on the Mount as we learn from Jesus how to pray. Jesus says we're to pray God's kingdom come. We use that word kingdom all the time in church, but what are we really actually talking about? Your kingdom come.

Pastor Philip Miller: Yeah, so Jesus' phrase here in the prayer is so beautiful. It's famous: "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." So we're talking about the kingdom, and the kingdom is wherever God reigns as King.

We're going to talk about today what that means, how the kingdom of God actually relates to all of our little earthly kingdoms. We all have a sense of domain over which we have say, and it's out of sync with God's rule and reign in the universe. So how does that all come together? How do we understand the kingdom of God from beginning in Genesis all the way to Revelation? How do we understand what Jesus is praying and teaching us to pray here in light of all the kingdom theology the Bible has to offer? That's what we're going to talk about today.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Stay tuned after the message, beloved, because we're going to discuss what it looks like when our own personal areas of authority, our own little kingdoms, actually reflect God's ultimate rule. Let's go now to the pulpit of the Moody Church as we discover what the kingdom of God is. This is part one of the sermon, "Your Kingdom Come."

Pastor Philip Miller: When I was little, I loved fairy tales: knights, princesses, dragons, and most of all, "happily ever afters." I was full of wonder and innocence and merriment and endless possibilities. Life was the happiest dream on earth.

And then one day, I woke up. It was the day my pet gerbil gave birth to five squirming, hairless pink babies. I discovered the miracle of life one morning, nestled in their little bed of wood shavings, their eyes tightly shut against the dawn of the first waking day. And I thought to myself, "What a wonderful world."

But when I returned later that afternoon, they were gone. Their mother had eaten them all alive. Oh, sorry. And for the first time in my life, I realized the world was a broken place. That this is not the way it's supposed to be.

Since then, the world's brokenness has become a settled fact in my heart and soul: cancer, tsunamis, pandemics, injustice, war. There is so much tragedy and loss and trauma and pain and sorrow down here. Something has gone terribly wrong with the world. And sometimes I'm not even sure how to begin to pray about it.

But Jesus, the Man of All Sorrows, who is acquainted with grief, He knows what it's like to live in this broken-down world, and He knows how to pray His way through it. And today He's going to teach us, His followers, how to pray our way through the brokenness of this life.

Would you grab your Bibles? We're going to be in Matthew chapter 6, verses 9 to 13. We're looking at the Lord's Prayer. I want to read it in its entirety. And since, again, it's so familiar to you and me, would you just say this out loud with me? Can we recite the Lord's Prayer this morning as we read? Jesus introduces it in Matthew 6:9 and says, "Pray then like this." Now let's do it together.

"Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Amen."

Let's pray together. Father, as we open Your word and look at this famous prayer, would You teach us what it means to follow You in all the brokenness of this difficult world? We pray this in Christ's name. Amen. Amen.

Today we are going to focus on just one sentence: verse 10. "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." I'd like to organize our thoughts around four key questions this morning. The first one: What is the kingdom? The second question: Where has it gone? Third question: When will it come? And the fourth question: Why pray for it? What is the kingdom? Where has it gone? When will it come? And why pray for it?

Let's jump in this morning. What is the kingdom? Jesus is teaching us to pray "Your kingdom come." But what exactly does that mean? Well, in the most simple, straightforward sense, the kingdom of God is the reign of God. The kingdom of God is where God reigns as King.

Psalm 103, verse 19 says the Lord has established His throne in the heavens, and His kingdom rules over all. And so you see in that verse, you see the language of reigning. The King is on His throne, and He is reigning. That is the kingdom of God. Wherever God reigns as King, there His kingdom is.

Or another way to think about it is that God's kingdom is the realm over which He has say—the sphere in which His will is carried out. Wherever the will of God is done, there His kingdom is.

Now, we can all relate to this because, in a sense, we all have a bit of a kingdom, don't we? Each of us has a sphere. We have a domain over which we exercise our will in life. We have our own space, our own belongings, our own areas over which we exercise our will. And we're very territorial about the borders of our kingdom if you think about it. "That's mine. Keep out. Stay off my bed. That's my purse. Stay in your lane," right? That's kingdom language.

In 1984, my dad owned a 1984 Buick LeSabre. Does anyone remember what those things looked like? This is like ancient history. It had velvet bench seats. Can I have an amen? Yeah. The velvet bench seats. And we would sit—my sister and I would sit in the back seat and we would use our fingers and we would draw a line in the nap of the velvet: her side and my side, right? We're delineating kingdoms: my domain, your domain.

And what did my sister do? With a finger, she invaded my kingdom, right? And we got to bickering. We had a border dispute about the back seat of our Buick LeSabre. And then Dad reached back and started swatting at us to make us stop fighting. Why? Because whose kingdom does he think the whole car is? It's his, okay? That's kingdom language.

We all have a kingdom. It's what we have say over in life. It's part of what it means to be created in the image of God, the *imago Dei*. We are created for dominion—to keep and cultivate our little space in the world. To wield, as C.S. Lewis said, our little tridents. It is the image of God, this kingdom impulse, that is reflective of our Father who is King, who rules over all.

So when we pray, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven," we are asking God to extend the reign of His rule, of His kingship—to establish it in the here and now. We are asking that the range of God's effective will, where He is followed and obeyed as King, would extend to and envelop this world. In heaven, everything is just as God wants it, and we're asking God to make it so down here as well: on earth as it is in heaven.

Now, the logic of these phrases is basically cause and effect. May Your kingdom come with the result that Your will is done on earth as it is in heaven. See, the problem, friends, is that heaven and earth are out of sync. In heaven, all is well. On earth, not so much. In heaven, God's will is done perfectly, but on earth, not so.

So our prayer is, "Father, would You sync it up? Would You bring the rule and perfection of heaven down to earth? Would You make everything right and whole? Would You match everything up again? Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

Now, it's interesting. The fact that Jesus tells us to pray "Your kingdom come" implies something, doesn't it? It implies that, in some sense, God's kingdom is not here, that it is far off, that it is absent. It's not here; that's why it has to come. The fact that Jesus tells us to pray "Your will be done" implies that it is not being done on earth as it is in heaven.

So while the Bible asserts that God is King over all—remember Psalm 103:19: "The Lord established His throne in the heavens, and His kingdom rules over all"; Psalm 115, verse 3 says, "Our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases"; Ephesians 1:11 says that God works all things in accordance with the counsel of His will—while all of those things are true, this prayer of Jesus assumes that this world is in some sense operating outside the rule of God, that it is functioning contrary to His will. And we are being taught to pray "Your kingdom come," which means its absence; it must be missing.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: This is Living Hope with Pastor Philip Miller. I'm Pastor Larry McCarthy. Before we start our discussion today, I wanted to let you know that this program is made possible because of generous supporters just like you. As a thank you for your gift today, we have a resource we'd love to share with you. To get yours, just go to livinghopeoffer.com or call us at 1-800-215-5001.

We're glad you're with us today as we explore the conflict, really, between kingdoms. Now Pastor Philip, you're showing us that God is the King over everything, but the world is currently functioning contrary to His will. You've got to walk us back to the beginning, I think. What was God's original design for humanity's relationship to His kingdom?

Pastor Philip Miller: Yeah, so in Genesis chapters 1 and 2, you have human beings made in the image of God. And we are given dominion. We're given a domain in which to exercise authority, to keep and care for the garden and all of this. And the word for image is *tselem*, and it's the idea of—they would make these little statues in the ancient Near East, the deified kings, they would make these little statuettes of themselves and they'd put them all over, marking out their territory with these little images of the king.

And so the idea is that God is making His own images, His image-bearers who are now alive. They're living, breathing images, but they're going to go and spread out, multiply, and be fruitful. And they're going to spread out over the entire world marking it out as the domain of the Great King who is God Himself, the true God and true King.

And so what we have—we use the language of vice-regents. This idea that humanity has been given, male and female, we've both been given dominion. And we've been given this regency over the world that we are meant to go out and cultivate the garden, if you will, and increase the boundaries of the garden to the point where it envelops the entire world and all things are under the rule and reign of God and are representing His kingdom and His good will and all the flourishing of creation that comes out of that. That's our job.

But of course, that doesn't last very long. And we get to chapter 3 and Adam and Eve basically join this treasonous rebellion against God as Creator and King. So Satan starts it, right, with his rebellion. He wants to be God. He hijacks everything and runs off; a bunch of the angels join him. And then Satan's great success was he got us to join the rebellion and to say, "We're going to be our own gods. We don't have to follow the rule of the King. We're going to hijack our lives and say, 'Thank you very much; we're off on our own, and we're going to go run our lives the way we want to.'"

So really the story of the Bible is of God who made the world to be His domain, and we've hijacked it. Satan's hijacked it as well, and now it's a problem. It doesn't in any way mean that God is no longer the Sovereign over all, but it means operationally, day-to-day, there's a whole bunch of dysfunction that's now been brought into the world. This is a broken place, and we're running amok. And what we've done is we've hijacked our kingdoms for ourselves, and that's what's destroying humanity. It's what's destroying this world and it's what needs to get set right.

So this prayer—"Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven"—is the reversal of everything that went wrong in Genesis chapter 3 that's been plaguing us ever since. This is a prayer that what went wrong could be reversed and that things could be rescued from their death spiral and that everything could be brought back under the rule of God in a way that would lead to flourishing for every human being and all of creation. That's what we're praying for: Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Oh, what a great image, and thank you for the reminder. Not only salt and light, but images of the living God. To all you people in Ohio and Wisconsin and Georgia and Alabama, you're the image of God planted there. In your sermon, you give this wonderful illustration from your youth where you had this border dispute with your sister in the back seat of your dad's car. You use it to illustrate how we protect our own little mini kingdoms. Have you noticed how our domains in life conflict with God?

Pastor Philip Miller: Well, because we've all hijacked our own little kingdoms, what we now do is we fight a lot over where those borders of the kingdoms meet. And that's what my sister and I were doing in the back seat with the little line in the nap of the velvet there. "This is my side, that's your side; don't you dare come into my territory."

And you think about it: we all have these little kingdoms. We have our bedrooms, and we have our property, and we have our job and our responsibilities. And anytime someone encroaches on what we think is our domain, we don't take that very well. This is why leadership is hard, because it's hard to lead people without stepping on their kingdom. You create all these little moments where wills get contested. So part of the feature of a hijacked universe where everyone has their own kingdom is there's tons of infighting. We can't get along, and we're not actually bringing ourselves in submission under the kingship of God in the universe, and it leads to massive dysfunction everywhere.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: So what's that going to look like if we're going to abandon our own throne—you use that term—and seek to bring God's kingdom? What's it look like?

Pastor Philip Miller: It's a big choice that all of us have to face, which is: Am I going to keep building my kingdom for myself, or am I actually going to get off the throne of my life, allow Jesus to be my Lord and Savior, to be the boss of me, to have say over not just my salvation but say over my whole life? And am I willing to actually submit myself to the true King of the universe, knowing that He is ultimately a better King than I could ever be over my domain?

Do I keep living for myself, trying to be the king of my little kingdom, or am I going to willingly surrender and submit to the King of kings and Lord of lords? There's a huge moment, I think, in all of our lives where we come to the point where we realize, "I actually am not the best person to run my life. My choices, my instincts, my wisdom are insufficient. I would be a way better off if I became a vice-regent instead of a king, but I actually became a steward and vice-regent and brought myself under the authority of the King of kings and allowed Him to actually have say over my world." There's a huge moment, and the gospel calls us right there. We've got to come to the point where we're willing to kneel down before our King.

And here's the thing: He's not a tyrant. He's a good King. He loves us. He sent His Son to die for us. So we know He's for us, and that makes it where we're willing to actually begin to consider taking the risk of actually trusting Him with everything else, because we know His goodness. He's earned our loyalty, and so His love is teaching us to kneel.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: And in His sovereignty, He does give us stewardship. We have these spheres of influence, but the whole point that you're making is that we've got to surrender those to Him as well.

Pastor Philip Miller: Well, see, that's the beauty of it. Because when I actually kneel before the King, when I actually submit and surrender and say, "Have Your way in me," or like Jesus prayed in the garden, "Not my will but Yours be done"—that's what we're praying when we say, "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

We're actually saying, "God, have Your way in me—in my dominion, in my kingdom, in all this little footprint I have in this world." I've got a family, and I've got a business, and I've got a working career, and I've got a neighborhood and a lawn I mow, and I've got pets. I want to steward everything in my world as a son of God underneath the rule of the King, as a steward, as a vice-regent, and I want Your will to now echo through my life into everything I touch. So that my little domain might start to look like on earth as it is in heaven. That the will of God might be done not just in my life but through my life in every area I touch and all my areas of influence.

That's the kind of thing that starts to change the world. And don't you see? We're back to Genesis chapter 1, where we've been given dominion and we're cultivating the garden just like we were created to do. And so this prayer request brings us full circle right back to the beginning where we begin to actually bring our lives and all the sphere of our influence under the lordship of Jesus and the kingship of God. His kingdom come, His will be done, on earth, in our world, as it is in heaven. That's a beautiful prayer.

Pastor Larry McCarthy: Yes and amen. All right, beloved, you have your marching orders now. We are called to bring our lives and our spheres of influence under the lordship of Jesus Christ. But let's be honest: sometimes our prayers feel repetitive and our minds start to wander because we say the same old things about the same old things. We can be talking to the most fascinating Person in the universe about the most important things in our lives and still be bored.

If that describes your experience, there's hope for you found in God's Word. And to help you realign your heart with heaven for the first time ever, we're offering Donald Whitney's book, *Praying the Bible*. Whitney outlines a simple, profound method to invigorate your intimacy with God by praying through the words of Scripture. Instead of relying on a mental script you've repeated a thousand times, we'll learn to use the Word of God to prompt fresh conversations with our Father.

Isn't it time to move past boredom and experience the joy of talking with your Father? Request your copy of *Praying the Bible* for a donation of any amount. Simply go to livinghopeoffer.com or call us at 1-800-215-5001. That's livinghopeoffer.com, 1-800-215-5001. You can also write to us: Moody Church Media, 1635 North LaSalle Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60614. When we pray the Word, we begin to see the world from God's perspective. Next time, we'll talk about where God's kingdom has gone and when it's coming back. Thanks for joining us for Living Hope, where you'll always find gospel truth for the journey of a lifetime. Living Hope is a production of Moody Church Media and is sponsored by the Moody Church.