Your Kingdom Come

to be with you again tonight. Thank you for coming and sharing or allowing Muriel and myself to share with you in your worship and in the study of your word. And we come then to the subject of our Lord's second petition, which is your kingdom come. And for a reading, I'd like to read from Matthew's gospel, chapter 13, where Jesus gives that wonderful assortment of the parables of the kingdom. And I think we can stand for the reading of this precious word. Matthew chapter 13, verse 24. Another parable he put forth to them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat and went his way. But when the grain had sprouted and produced a crop, then the tares also appeared. So the servants of the owner came and said to him, Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares? He said to them, An enemy has done this. The servant said to him, Do you want us then to go and gather them up? But he said, No, lest while you gather up the tares you also uproot the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. And at the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, First gather together the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them, but gather the wheat into my barn. Another parable he put forth to them, saying, The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his field, which indeed is the least of all the seeds, but when it is sown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches. Another parable he spoke to them, The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened. All these things Jesus spoke to the multitude in parables, and without a parable he did not speak to them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things kept secret from the foundation of the world. Then Jesus sent the multitude away and went into the house. And his disciples came to him, saying, Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field. He answered and said to them, He who sows the good seed is the son of man. The field is the world. The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked one. The enemy who sowed them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the reapers are the angels. Therefore, as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of this age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and those who practice lawlessness, and will cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid, and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind, which, when it was full, they drew to the shore, and they cast down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth to separate the wicked from among the just and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth. So reads God's word. May you be pleased by the Holy Spirit to bless it to our understanding. Please be seated. May I just say by way of explanation that Matthew uses the phrase the kingdom of heaven predominantly, whereas Mark and Luke and John speak predominantly of the kingdom of God. The reason for the difference is that Matthew is a Jew and he is writing predominantly to a Jewish audience. and Jews used the name of God sparingly. So although Matthew on about three or four occasions speaks of the kingdom of God, like, seek first the kingdom of God, and unless you become like little children you cannot enter the kingdom of God, 90% of the time he speaks of the kingdom of heaven. But the kingdom of heaven and the kingdom of God are one and the same kingdom. So we take up again the pattern prayer that Jesus gave us and we come this evening to the second petition expressed in the words, your kingdom come. But before we can really understand what this petition is specifically asking for, we need to explain the difference in the Bible between the kingship of God and the kingdom of God. God's kingship is a fact of His creation. By His creation, He is the ruler of everything that He has created and has dominion over everything that He has created. But God's kingdom, as distinct from God's kingship or rulership, is his rule of grace in which he redeems his people from out of the world so that his rule may be established in their lives and in their hearts. It's a distinction which, unfortunately, the Bible does not make as clearly as we would like. For the word kingdom is used in Scripture both of God's sovereign rule over all of creation and also of His rule over His Church and His people. Indeed, we have an example of the double use of this word kingdom here in the pattern prayer. For the petition, Our Father, Your Kingdom Come, refers to God's saving rule in grace over His Church and His elect. But the words of praise at the end of the pattern prayer in the doxology, Yours is the Kingdom, refer to God's sovereign rule over all of creation. Now, in spite of that brief explanation, there may be some who still have difficulty in grasping the distinction between these different but complementary concepts. So let me try to spell it out a little more for you. The Bible constantly declares God's kingship, constantly speaks of God's throne, and of God ruling over the entire universe. There are many verses that I could quote, but there are a few. Psalm 47, verse 2, For the Lord Most High is awesome. He is a great King over all the earth. Psalm 103, verse 19, The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all. Speaking of His rule over all of creation, Psalm 115 verse 3, the same concept. Our God is in heaven. He does whatever He pleases. So whatever happens in the world, God is on His heavenly throne and He is in complete control. His sovereignty is absolute. Men and women may seek to defy Him, but they cannot. But God can and does overrule their evil deeds to accomplish His will and His purpose for the world. The life of Joseph, of course, is proof enough of this tremendous truth. In a sinful outburst of sibling rivalry, Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery and told his father Jacob that he was killed by wild animals. But God overruled their evil deed, so that when Joseph became the Prime Minister of Egypt, he was in a position to save grain and save his brothers from starving, as well as the surrounding nations. And Joseph could then say to them, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good. Peter in Acts 2 says exactly the same thing, that Jesus was crucified by the hands of lawless men, and yet at the same time God was in control of that event, and he says God delivered Jesus up by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God. Although men and women in their sinful folly may feel that they can rebel against God's kingship, it is an absolutely futile endeavor. Psalm 2 says, He who sits in the heavens on his throne laughs. The Lord shall hold them in derision. Because He is the Great First Cause who is in control of all second causes. in this world. Listen to Psalm 33, 10 to 11. The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He makes the plans of the people of no effect. The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the plans of His heart to all generations. Of course, this doctrine of the total supremacy of God and His kingship in creation is not popular. It undermines our human pride because we love to think we are in control of our lives, of our country, and even of the world, and of the climate. But for God's people, Belief in his kingship gives confidence that he is in control. He is leading all events forward to the ultimate accomplishment of his good purpose for which he created the world. Well, so much for God's kingship. What then is the kingdom that we are praying for when we pray this petition? Our Lord taught us to pray, Your kingdom come. And the answer by way of my first point is that the kingdom we are praying for is the realm of the working of God's grace. You see, if God already rules over the entire universe, the entire creation, in praying, your kingdom come, we must be asking God for something different than his kingship. because we are praying for something, your kingdom come, that has not yet come in complete form. And as I said at the beginning, it refers to God's rule over a specific group of people whom he chose in eternity past to give to his son and to gather them out of the world so that he may give them to his son. And the use of the term the Kingdom of God in this sense is synonymous with salvation or redemption or the Church. It's God's reign of grace in the lives of those who come to Him through the saving, redeeming work of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the need for such a work of salvation stems from the fact that Satan rebelled against God in heaven and was cast down to earth where he set up his kingdom. And his dominion over the human race has extended over the earth since the fall of Adam and Eve. Our Lord referred to the devil as the ruler of this world. Paul calls him the God of this world. And that means that men by nature are in bondage to the devil and under his control. Every last one of us who are born into the world. Thus in John 8 Jesus says, whoever commits sin is a servant of sin. And again, you are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. And in Luke 13 verse 16, Jesus describes a sick woman as someone whom Satan has bound. Not that sickness comes to us because we have sinned, but that Satan, in setting up his rule on earth has brought the curse of sickness into the world. And so Jesus describes her as someone whom Satan has bound, who needs to be loosed from this bond. That was the existing situation when Jesus took our flesh and came down to the earth to be our Saviour. He saw His incarnation and His coming into this world as a divine invasion. Indeed, after casting a demon out of a mute, Jesus said, If I cast out demons with the finger of God, Surely the kingdom of God has come among you." Meaning, if I do these things that only God can do with the least amount of effort, then God is among you, the kingdom of God has come to you, and God is working to bring about a kingdom of people who will be his people, who will submit to his rule. And then he went on to say that he was stronger than Satan and that he had come to bind the devil in order that he may plunder the devil's goods, that is, take away from him his captive prisoners. It's no wonder then that when Jesus began his public ministry, his first words were, the time is fulfilled, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe in the gospel. On another occasion he said, the kingdom of God is in your midst. In other words, the long-promised blessing of God's saving rule in a person's life is now here, and men can experience it. They can enter this kingdom of God. And the way to enter it, you remember, Jesus said to Nicodemus, is to be born again of the Spirit. Unless you are born of the Spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God, he said. because by physical birth we all enter into the kingdom of this world, the kingdom of the devil, the kingdom of darkness, but by spiritual rebirth we enter into the kingdom of God, the kingdom of light, the kingdom of eternal life and salvation. In Hebrews 18, verse 3, Jesus puts it like this. He says, Unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. To be converted, of course, is to turn away from your sinful life in repentance and to submit to the saving rule of God in your life. When we do that, says Paul in Colossians 1 verse 13, God delivered us from the dominion of darkness and he brought us into the kingdom of his dear Son of Love. So the kingdom of God is also the kingdom of Jesus, because Jesus as the Son of God is anointed and appointed to be the King in this new kingdom that has come to the earth. And in the book of Revelation he is called the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. His rule over his followers is regal in the truest sense of the word. It is personal, it is direct, and it is absolute. His claims are the claims of God. overriding that of any other human king or queen, and even that of Satan himself. And yet his rule is not a tyranny. In an amazing paradox, King Jesus is also his people's servant. He is their shepherd. He is their champion, their friend. ordering all things for their protection and their enrichment. And so he says to his disciples, come to me for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And again, I am come that you may have life and that you may have it more abundantly. It's a kingdom totally unlike any other. To enter this kingdom, to be a member of it, said Jesus, is to possess the greatest treasure on earth. In Matthew 13 he says, it's like finding treasure hidden in a field, or like finding the biggest and the most valuable pearl that has ever been discovered. It's a joy to sell all that you have to possess this treasure or this pearl. None can measure the value of this discovery, because finding it is finding Jesus. And to have Jesus is to have everything. As we were singing about tonight, they were well-chosen hymns. Paul, you know, testifies to that in Philippians 3. He says, For the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish that I may gain Christ. But, you know, it's more than a one-time gain. It is a growing, deepening experience of the riches, the exceeding riches, of Christ's grace until at last the remaining vestiges of sin are removed and no longer torment our life. When God's kingdom comes in our lives, when His King Jesus Christ reigns supreme in our hearts, a revolution begins and it does not stop until sin is completely defeated, overthrown, and removed from our lives. It's like a seed, says Jesus in Mark 4, which a man plants in the ground and it begins to sprout and grow. And the man himself doesn't know how, he doesn't understand. But first comes the blade, then the head, after that the full grain and the head, But when the grain ripens, immediately he puts in the sickle because the harvest has come. The fruit, finally, has arrived. What it was created for, what it was saved for, has materialized. The planting of the seed, which springs mysteriously to life, is only the beginning of the process of salvation. and it is meant to come to maturity when finally sin is removed from our lives and we are fully restored to the image of Christ who is the express image of God. In the same way, When God's kingdom comes to our lives, his rule is not immediately and perfectly established there. Like a seed, it is only in the process of coming into being. In no single human heart that God has redeemed by grace is is His rule, always and altogether welcomed. But it is a kingdom which is slowly but surely extending its influence and its control over our lives. As I said at the beginning, the kingdom of God is a kingdom of grace where the damage done to us by sin is repaired and God's reign over us becomes A kingdom of glory, where all the citizens are filled with the glory of God. Listen to how beautifully the old Puritan Thomas Watson puts it. He says, the kingdom of grace is nothing but the beginning of the kingdom of glory. The kingdom of grace is glory in the seed, and the kingdom of glory is grace in the flower. The kingdom of grace is glory at daybreak and the kingdom of glory is grace at noon. So to pray your kingdom come is to personally pray for something that is very searching and very challenging to our hearts. For one must be ready to add after that prayer and begin the work in me. Set up your rule completely in my life. Free me from all my sin and glorify me. But of course, it must go further than that when we pray, Your Kingdom come, because we are also praying that God's Kingdom may come into the lives of other people. That all men and women and boys and girls will turn from their rebellion against God and submit trustingly to Jesus Christ as their Saviour and experience this transformation into final glory. It is, in other words, a missionary prayer for the spread of the gospel to all the peoples of the world, especially to those whom we know and for whom we have a special accountability, our family, our friends, our community. Moreover, God is well able to answer this prayer, because when the The first disciples prayed in the upper room for God to bless the church. There came Pentecost and the gift of the Holy Spirit. And in one day, three thousand people were saved. Because our sovereign God does not just save in ones and twos here and there, but He saves in thousands. So when we pray, your kingdom come, we are not just praying for a few conversions, but we are also praying that God will accelerate all those means of grace that are going to bring about thousands and thousands of people into his kingdom under his saving, redeeming rule. And so it is when we pray, your kingdom come, let me put it simply, you are praying, God, send a revival to this world. In times of revival, God's kingdom becomes very apparent. His command to repent is obeyed as Christians become spiritually energized, enthusiastic and zealous, and many unbelievers are thereby brought to faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. But you know, and I want to end on this note, if you'll give me just a a few more minutes. The Kingdom of God is not only a present reality, a reality we can experience now, a growing reality, a developing reality, like a leaven that is put into a lump of dough and ever increases and influences and raises that dough. But it is also not only a present reality, it is a future hope. And that brings me to the second and last thing, that when we pray for your kingdom to come, we are praying that the kingdom of God is going to be completed soon. The kingdom of God, you see, cannot be completed or consummated until all of the elect have been gathered in and all its enemies have been overthrown and defeated. Our Lord therefore spoke of the kingdom of God as an inheritance as an inheritance which his disciples will experience and enter into and enjoy in the future. And it is identical with the age to come or heaven. In Luke 22 verse 29 Jesus says, I bestow upon you a kingdom, just as my Father bestowed one upon me, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom. at the marriage supper of the Lamb, of course. And it is something to look forward to at the very end of this final age in which we are all living, at the resurrection of the just. And so one day Jesus was preaching about the resurrection, and one man shouted out, Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. In Matthew 25 we read that at his return Jesus will say to his followers, come you blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom of God prepared for you from the foundation of the world. So friends, we may be under attack from Satan's wolves, but Jesus says to his sheep, do not fear little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure. to give you the kingdom. The world may despise us, but we are not to worry. We are not to lose sleep over it. James says, Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? So, at the end of the world, God says in Haggai chapter 2, I will shake heaven and earth, the sea and the dry land, and I will shake all nations in the final days, at the final judgment. But Christ's sheep, the Lord's people, are not to be afraid, because Hebrews 12 verse 28 says, We are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken. Everything else in this present world finally is going to be so shaken that it crumbles to pieces. Only the kingdom of Jesus Christ is going to stand. Our Lord brings this out very clearly in some of His parables of the kingdom. In Matthew 13 He says that both the wheat and the tares must grow together until the harvest. Both the good fish and the bad fish must remain in the net until the dragnet is pulled to the shore and the fish can be separated. The tares will be gathered and burned in the fire, the wheat will be gathered and stored in God's barn or in heaven. Likewise, at the end of the age, the net of the gospel is going to be drawn to the shore and the good fish will be put into barrels, says Jesus, but the bad fish will be thrown away. God's kingdom is not to be thought of in the same way as we think of human kingdoms, whose boundaries are continually changing, whose rulers are deposed or die, and whose powers grow or they decline. God's kingdom is always growing. And it is invincible, unshakable, enduring, so enduring that Daniel says in chapter 7 verse 18, the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever, even forever and ever. But please remember, the kingdom cannot finally come until all its members are gathered in and all the king's enemies are placed under his feet. When that happens, our Lord himself will return and sit down with us at his table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. So, this is something that every Christian, you and I, should eagerly desire. So, the early Christians' watchword was Meranatha, meaning, O Lord, come. The New Testament closes with Jesus saying, Yes, I am coming quickly. And His people reply, Amen, even so, come. Lord Jesus. The New Testament is a picture of Christians who eagerly anticipate the consummation of the kingdom and the return of the King. Well, as I conclude, let me say by way of application that although the coming of God's Kingdom in people's lives is God's prerogative, as we saw this morning, He chooses to bring it about by His people's obedience. The book of Acts begins with the coming of the Kingdom of God coming into the kingdom of God of three thousand souls. And it came about through the faithful preaching of the Apostle Peter and the faithful praying of the hundred and twenty disciples in the upper room. And the book of Acts, which is the history of the early church, ends with Paul preaching the kingdom of God under house arrest in Rome. and teaching the people about the kingdom, about the Lord Jesus Christ. Luke says, Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence. We completely misunderstand this second petition of our Lord, if we think that we can plead for something with our lips without doing anything about it through our lives. That kind of asking is asking in vain. Made Sincerely, Your Kingdom Come is a prayer that the Saviour will use our talents, use us as a means of bringing his kingdom to a consummation. All Christians, says Paul, are representatives of the kingdom. They are ambassadors of the kingdom who implore men and women on Christ's behalf to be reconciled to God. So when we share the gospel, says Jesus in Acts 26, we open men's eyes to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God that they may receive an inheritance among the saints. For some of us, representing the king will mean being sent to preach the kingdom of God in another church or in another country. But the responsibility of being the king's ambassadors does not rest with the few who are sent to another church or sent to another country. We are all called, in the words of Colossians 4, verse 11, to be fellow workers for the kingdom of God. And our watchword should be, evangelize the world. to bring back the King. Let's pray. Our gracious God and Heavenly Father, we ask that you will help us in the words of the Lord Jesus. Give us grace, His grace, His exceeding grace, to seek first the Kingdom of God above all other things in our lives. and be confident that all the other things that we need and that we worry over will be given to us. Help us, our Father, to get our priorities right, to see that that kingdom of Christ is growing increasingly in our lives, that sin's dominion and Satan's dominion over us is diminishing by the day and by the hour. And give us grace, we pray, to use the means that you have given us, the abilities that you have given to us as gifts of the Spirit and as natural gifts with which we were born, to proclaim, like Jesus, the gospel of the kingdom of heaven or of God, until finally, Lord, All the saints are gathered in, and Jesus shall reign from east to west, where'er the sun shall set. We ask it in his name. Amen. Bye.