Sermon “Thy Kingdom Come”
Grace and peace to you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“Thy kingdom come.” We pray these words in the Lord’s prayer. I expect they come out of most of our mouths pretty easily. Maybe we say them even without thinking as much as we should. We pray that our Lord would bring his kingdom and establish it on earth as it is in heaven. And today, this seventh Sunday in Easter, the Sunday before Pentecost, our reading from Acts brings up the question which we ought to ask ourselves. Here in verse 6 we read, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (NIV). What does our Lord show us in answer to that question?
First, Jesus says that the kingdom of God comes at God’s time. It is not by our own power or authority. The coming of God’s kingdom is in the time that the Father has set. It is in the authority of God the Father that the kingdom comes. And it is in his timing. This is something which Jesus is not telling us. We don’t know the details of our Lord’s coming. We don’t know how God will bring his kingdom. We certainly don’t know the timing. People throughout history have tried to proclaim the time of God’s coming. And they’ve been wrong, time after time.
Why do we desire to manipulate God’s kingdom? Why do we want to proclaim a particular time, imposing deadlines on God? This is foolishness. Rather, we look at the time our Lord has given us. We do not know the day or the hour of his coming. Therefore we are vigilant, we try to live in such a way as to be prepared for his coming, whenever that might be. Will our Lord find us waiting? Will he find us busy about the tasks that he has given us? Then he will delight in us and make us sit down at the table with him serving us. May the Lord give us trust in him, that whenever he brings the time of the end he will find us looking to him in faith.
How does God’s kingdom come, then? Do we usher it in by our great plans or our works of obedience? Not at all. God’s kingdom does not come through our power. It comes by the power of the Holy Spirit, as we read in Acts 1.8. This is our Lord’s supernatural provision for his world. It is his way of reconciling the world to himself. It is through the work of the Holy Spirit that he draws people to himself, that he protects them, that he guides them into all truth, that he sustains his people in all their trials. God’s kingdom is not our kingdom. It doesn’t come by military force, economic force, or any sort of human means. It is much greater than that, in that the Holy Spirit – God himself, delivers his kingdom.
How great is the effect of God’s kingdom? Again, unlike our kingdoms, God’s kingdom has no boundaries. See that the disciples will be “witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (v. 8, NIV)? They will not know the cultural and political boundaries that they grew up with. There’s nothing to hold them back. They are not going to stop at their border, at the edge of the village where they grew up. They are not going to worry about where they might go. As citizens of God’s kingdom there is no fear about leaving family and friends, for the Holy Spirit raises up family and friends wherever his people are. God’s kingdom, evidenced by forgiveness of sins and salvation through Jesus Christ, extends to every part of the world. There is no place where God’s mercy and grace will not operate.
What confidence can we have in our Lord’s kingdom coming? As we saw earlier in verse 7, the kingdom of God doesn’t come according to our plans. We make our plans and they fail. We try to do this or that and sometimes we are successful, sometimes we aren’t. Yet the coming of God’s kingdom is according to God’s command and foreknowledge. Just because he hasn’t told us when he will establish his kingdom doesn’t mean that he hasn’t planned it out. He knew all his plans before he created the heavens and the earth. The end has been known from the beginning. And the God of all has ordained his kingdom to come. It is unstoppable. Even the gates of hell will not prevail against the kingdom of God, the Church which Christ has purchased by his own blood. Are we able to control the wind? Are we able to limit what God does? Is he not able to overthrow all our inclinations? Can’t he bring his kingdom as well? What is too difficult for our Lord? There is nothing that he cannot do. Nothing is too difficult for the Lord.
So how has he brought his kingdom? I ask that in the past tense, because in one sense he has restored the kingdom. He has not restored it to national Israel. But he has granted that we who believe on Jesus Christ will be raised up as spiritual children of Israel, heirs of Abraham, some of those who are counted like the stars of the sky or the sand on the seashore. Our Lord has brought his kingdom among his people through the perfect life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He has accomplished salvation for his people. In that sense the kingdom has been restored. Has Jesus’ atoning death atoned for your sins and for my sins? Is he not proclaimed as the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world? Is Jesus the one gave himself as an atoning sacrifice for our sins and for the sins of the whole world? Jesus’ kingdom has come, and it has come in power, because there is no sin which is too great to be washed by the blood of Christ. There is great hope here. When we pray that God’s kingdom will come we are praying that it will be made manifest in us. We are asking that Jesus will apply his atoning sacrifice to our hearts and minds, our whole lives, through repentance and faith in him.
We see then that Jesus came and gave himself for our sins in God’s timing. He lived, died, and was raised from the dead in the power of the Holy Spirit. His death is effective for sins of people all around the world, including us as we believe on his name. This all happened according to God’s command and foreknowledge. And it is finally all about Jesus, the heart and center of the Scriptures, the one revealed in every book of the Bible, the one who breaks the bonds of sin, death, and hell itself.
When will the Lord restore his kingdom? The better question is when we will see that the Lord has restored his kingdom. He has done it. He’s accomplished it already. And he will make it obvious to all at some time yet to come, when every eye will see, every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus is Lord to the glory of God.
Lord, may your kingdom come, now, visible to us by the eyes of faith. May we have your grace to see that you have poured your mercy out upon us, your people. Let us see you and your work in all our lives. Lead us in repentance. Give us your forgiveness. Let us look to you, the author and finisher of our faith, the firstborn among many brothers, the firstfruits of the resurrection. Give us a great hope, an expectancy, as we wait for the power of the Holy Spirit, coming to accomplish your will on earth as it is in heaven, through Jesus Christ, who ever lives with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
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