PRAYING LIKE JESUS: Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven
Read Matthew 6:9-13.
Have you ever observed a tired toddler, crying and carrying on, for no apparent reason? His mother asks, “What do you want?” He doesn’t know what he wants; he needs her help! He needs a nap, he needs a hug, he needs someone to help him control his emotions, and he needs life to be better. But he doesn’t know what he wants!
Some adults don’t know what they want either!
“I just want to be happy.” But what would make you happy—really?
“I want to be healthy…successful…appreciated.” “I want enough money to enjoy life.” “I want the people I love and care about to thrive.”
God wants those things for us as well! He invites us to ask him for what we need most. Jesus said to his disciples, in Luke 11:9, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”
I don’t think Jesus was talking asking for a boat, a luxury vehicle, or the latest electronics. Maybe we should ask Santa for those instead. I think he was talking about asking for good things: healing for a friend, wisdom for a child, resolution in a situation at work, justice in our world. Our most passionate prayers are for good things like that, and Jesus invites us to ask and believe that God hears and responds to our requests.
When we know what we want and think we know what God should do, we might rush into our urgent requests, without thinking much about God and what he wants for us and the world. Jesus teaches us a better way to pray.
The Lord’s Prayer begins, not with asking for things, but with defining our relationship with God. We pray to “Our Father…,” who loves us and wants the best for us.
Then we recognize how awesome God is, and we pray that everyone will give God the respect due him: “Hallowed be your name.” Revering God is the foundation for making the world right.
Then Jesus tells us to pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Maybe by now we are getting anxious. When do we get to ask for what we want? But Jesus tells us to want God’s kingdom first of all. He explained in Matthew 6:33, [Your Father knows that you need the necessities of life.] “…But seek first HIS KINGDOM and his righteousness, and ALL THESE THINGS [all you need] will be given to you as well.”
WHAT IS GOD’S KINGDOM?
The kingdom of God is not a country—a place on the face of the earth. It is the reign of God, when he is recognized as King and everything submits to his rule. The Lord’s Prayer explains it.
Jesus taught the Lord’s Prayer on at least two occasions. In Luke 11, the disciples asked Jesus to teach them to pray, and he gave them the condensed version:
“Father,
Hallowed be your name,
Your kingdom come…”
In Matthew 6, Jesus was teaching a larger group of disciples in the Sermon on the Mount, and he gave a longer version of the prayer:
“Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed be your name,
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven…”
The expanded version of the prayer explains that THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS WHEN GOD’S WILL IS DONE.
God’s will is always done in heaven. On earth, however, not everything is in accordance with God’s will.
This gets a little tricky, because we believe in the sovereignty of God over all creation. God reigns over the entire universe, and he has the power to control everything that happens on face of the earth. God could enforce his will, but he chose to create a universe open to evil and misfortune. Hurricanes happen. Sickness strikes. People are cruel. Evil powers gain control. Death comes.
God’s will is for us to live in a world like that now, but his ultimate will is for us is to live in a kingdom where he reigns over a perfect realm—a realm like heaven.
Since we don’t live in heaven, Jesus tells us to pray that God will bring his heavenly reign to the earth. Some people talk about “all hell breaking loose,” but we pray that “all heaven will break in.” We want the kingdom of heaven to break into the realm of the earth.
Before we go on, we should clarify what we mean by “the kingdom of heaven.” In Matthew’s gospel, Jesus speaks often of “the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew’s Jewish readers understood heaven as God’s throne, so the kingdom of heaven refers to the reign of God, whether in heaven or earth. Mark and Luke wrote for gentiles, who might think the kingdom of heaven referred only to God’s reign in heaven. To make clear that God’s kingdom is not restricted to heaven, they translated the Jewish idiom as “the kingdom of God.”
The three gospels agree that Jesus brought God’s kingdom to earth.
Matthew 4:17, 23 says, “Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN has come near…Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the KINGDOM, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.’”
Luke 8:1 tells us, “Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the KINGDOM OF GOD.”
In Matthew 12:28, Jesus said, “If it is by the Spirit of God that I drive out demons, then the KINGDOM OF GOD has come upon you.”
In Luke 17:20-21, when the Pharisees asked Jesus when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied, “The coming of the KINGDOM OF GOD is not something that can be observed, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the KINGDOM OF GOD is in your midst.”
Yet the fullness of the kingdom of God is still to come:
In Luke 22:15-18 [At the last supper, Jesus said to his disciples], “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the KINGDOM OF GOD.”
Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is ALREADY in the world, but NOT YET fully come. We live in an in-between time, when God’s kingdom HAS COME to earth in Jesus, his kingdom COMES as his will is done in our time, and the fullness of his kingdom WILL COME when Jesus returns to reign over a new heaven and earth. In this in-between time, we pray for God’s kingdom to come, and for his will to be done on the earth.
WHEN WE PRAY FOR GOD’S KINGDOM TO COME…
-WE PRAY FOR THE WORLD TO BE MADE RIGHT.
Life on this earth is not always as it should be. Children die. People get old and sick. Some people work hard and never have enough. Others can’t work to support their families. The world is plagued by injustice and strife, immorality and corruption, cruelty and greed.
Is that God’s will? God allows it, as a wakeup call to humanity, to remind us that life in rebellion against the Creator is not as it should be. But God’s ultimate will is for us to live, forever, a different kind of life, as described in Revelation 21:3-4, “God will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
We pray for the kingdom reign of God to come into our world, so that all heaven will break loose. But what does the kingdom reign of God look like?
Psalm 146 is a song about what life when the LORD—Yahweh—reigns: “I will praise the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. Do not put your trust in princes, in human beings, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. Blessed are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD their God. He is the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea, and everything in them—he remains faithful forever. He upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets prisoners free, the LORD gives sight to the blind, the LORD lifts up those who are bowed down, the LORD loves the righteous. The LORD watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow, but he frustrates the ways of the wicked. THE LORD REIGNS FOREVER, your God, O Zion, for all generations. Praise the LORD.”
When God reigns—when his will is done—the oppressed are protected, the hungry are fed, and those imprisoned by sin or injustice are set free. The reign of God is especially good news for the poor, foreigners, and those who are neglected by society. The kingdom of God is revolutionary.
This sounds a whole lot like what Jesus came to do! One of his first teachings in Luke 4:18 was a text from Isaiah 61:1, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free…” After reading the text, he said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled.”
When we pray, “Your kingdom come,” we are praying that the world will be made right. We should probably be more specific, as we pray about poverty, injustice, homeless children, sexual abuse, corruption, and sickness.
We pray about the state of the world, asking God to make things right. We ask that his will be done, so that sin and evil are overcome, healing takes place, and hurting people find relief.
Of course, when we pray like that, we must also think about how we can bring the kingdom into our communities, our work, our families, and the people we meet every day.
-WE PRAY FOR THE CHURCH TO BE A TASTE OF HEAVEN.
A pastor and author, who grew up in a Bible-believing church, said that he does not remember ever hearing about the kingdom of God when he was growing up!
The kingdom of God is not limited to the church, but the church of Jesus Christ should display the fruit of life in the kingdom. Life in the church should be a taste of heaven.
Jesus sent his disciples to bring the message of the kingdom into the world. Matthew 10:5-8 says that after Jesus chose his closest disciples, “These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: … As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The KINGDOM OF HEAVEN has come near.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons.”
Later, he sent a larger group of disciples to spread the good news of the kingdom. Luke 10:1-9 says, “After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go…[He told them} ‘When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. Heal the sick who are there and tell them, “The kingdom of God has come near to you.”’”
Jesus brought the kingdom of God to earth, so the disciples must have wondered what would happen when Jesus left them. Acts 1:3-8 tells us, “After his suffering, Jesus presented himself to his disciples, and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about THE KINGDOM OF GOD…” The disciples thought the kingdom might be an earthly kingdom, like the kingdom of Israel in the Old Testament, but Jesus meant something else. He told them that the power of the Holy Spirit would come upon them. When the Holy Spirit came on them, the church would witness to the kingdom of God.
Ten days after Jesus ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples at Pentecost, and the kingdom of God broke out in power. Signs of the kingdom were everywhere, as 3000 new believers repented and were baptized. The church had a taste of heaven, as Acts 4:32-34 says, “All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all that there were no needy persons among them.” The evidence of the kingdom of God was unity, power, grace, and concern for the needy.
Signs of the kingdom continued as the church grew. Acts 5:14-16 tells us, “More and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. As a result, people brought the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and mats so that at least Peter’s shadow might fall on some of them as he passed by. Crowds gathered also from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those tormented by impure spirits, and all of them were healed.” The Kingdom-life of Jesus spread into the world through the church!
When we pray, “Your kingdom come,” we are praying for our church to demonstrate kingdom life. We are praying for grace and forgiveness, for unity and love. We are praying for healing, compassion, and sharing our gifts. We are praying for people to be delivered from emotional and spiritual oppression. We are praying for righteousness and growth in the church.
Of course, when we pray like that, we must also commit ourselves to doing God’s will in the church. Paul says in Romans 14:17, “The kingdom of God is…righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.” We will seek unity, purity and deep fellowship. We will support good leaders, help those who struggle, share our gifts, and enjoy worship together. We will try to do what is right, no matter what the cost. We will have a passion for people to know and submit to the King, and we will welcome some into the kingdom.
“Your kingdom come…” in our church.
-WE PRAY FOR GOD’S WILL TO BE DONE IN US.
This was Jesus’ desire all through his life. In John 6:38, he said, “I have come down from heaven not to do my will but TO DO THE WILL OF HIM WHO SENT ME.” In the Garden of Gethsemane, he prayed, (Matthew 26:39) “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but AS YOU WILL.”
“Not as I will, but as you will.”
Our wills are guided by our emotions, our biases, and our natural inclinations. Our instincts are for self-preservation, power, and pleasure.
Our wills are conformed to the collective will of other people, social groups, nationalistic ideals, and a stream of influencers.
Our wills are corrupted by sin: pride, fear, scars of the past, greed, and evil desires.
When we pray, “Your kingdom come, your will be done,” it purifies our desires and intentions. God’s kingdom is right and good, and his will for us clear in many places in the Bible. We know it is his will to…
…treat people with love and care, bearing with their faults and encouraging their growth.
…repair broken relationships, as much as we can.
…live holy and righteous lives, obeying God’s laws and doing the right thing, even when it costs us.
…use our time and resources wisely, to build God’s kingdom.
…“grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 3:18)
May your kingdom come and your will be done IN US!
