Matt 6:7–15 — The Lord’s Prayer, Part 3: Thy Kingdom Come

The second petition of the Lord’s Prayer is “Your kingdom come.” The Heidelberg Catechism explains it as a prayer that God would rule us by his Word and Spirit, preserve and increase his church, destroy the devil’s work and every force opposed to his Word, and bring his kingdom to its final fullness.

This petition is therefore a prayer of anticipation. It directs our hope toward the consummation of Christ’s kingdom while also asking God to advance that kingdom now. We will consider what the kingdom and its coming are, and why Jesus teaches us to pray for its coming.

The Kingdom and Its Coming

This is a huge topic, and I was thinking about this on the way in tonight. I can’t think of too many other topics that are as big as this. I mean you could think of maybe the doctrine of the trinity, the doctrine of the gospel itself, the person and work of Christ, and atonement is another big one, but here we have another topic that is so important in scripture, and that is the kingdom of God. Now, of course, those three are all related. The Trinity is related to the gospel, and the gospel is related to the kingdom. But the kingdom in and of itself is a major issue.

It’s something that Jesus talked about quite often. It’s well known among scholars that when you look at the gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, not so much the gospel of John. John does mention the kingdom a few times, but not as often. But the three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, present Jesus as teaching a lot about the kingdom.

The kingdom is on his lips all the time. He is continually speaking about it. There’s, for example, the parables of the kingdom where he says the kingdom of God is like one who went out to sow the seed and so on. And so the kingdom is clearly central to the message of Jesus and the teaching of Jesus. But what is the kingdom? And in particular, what is Jesus instructing the disciples to pray here when he says, this is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come. So what is the kingdom? Scholars have debated this ad nauseum. There’s all kinds of books on this topic.

Reign, Realm, and King

One of the debates that you find among the commentators and scholars is, is the kingdom of God a reign or is it a realm? If it’s the reign of God, then it’s a more abstract concept of God ruling in our hearts. If it’s the realm, then it has more to do with some physical reality, some area that is set apart as wholly unto God, like we see in the Old Testament, with God reigning over the nation Israel. And so there’s this debate. Is the kingdom of God in the teaching of Jesus? Is it a reign or a realm? And actually, I think that’s not quite the best way to think about it, because it’s both.

There is a third element to the kingdom of God that is very important, which is that God is reigning through his Messiah. So I would define the kingdom of God, and this is based upon a lot of research, not only of the Gospels, but also the Old Testament, and I can’t give all the exegetical reasons for all these conclusions, but here’s my basic conclusion. The kingdom of God is God reigning over his holy people, so that’s the reign aspect, in God’s holy realm, that’s the realm aspect, through his obedient king, that is through the Messiah. That’s that third element. It’s a reign and a realm, but it’s also God reigning through his obedient king, through his servant whom he has appointed, who is the king under God, the great king. A lot of times we think of this metaphor of God being a king and the kingdom of God in a simplistic way, like we just have in our brains this idea of we think of Great Britain, right, and they had kings. And so we just have a king, and then you have the people, But in biblical theology, there’s another element there, which is that God is the great king, but he reigns through his king who is appointed under him.

For example, Psalm 2 speaks of both God and his anointed: “Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against his Anointed.” This gives us a more complex understanding of God’s kingdom and kingship. It is not simply the king and then the people.

It is God reigning through his anointed king. We see this in the Old Testament. We think of King David or King Solomon. God is reigning over his people, but he’s reigning over them through his anointed king who is the Messiah or a messianic figure. So what is the kingdom? It is God reigning over his holy people in God’s holy realm through his obedient king. The only way the people are allowed to be in that holy realm is because there’s this obedient king who is leading them in righteousness.

The Kingdom Through Redemptive History

The entire Bible is the story of the kingdom of God. From Genesis to Revelation, that’s the great theme of Scripture. This is called biblical theology where we’re looking at the tracing the story of God’s plan from creation to after the fall through what God is doing with Israel all the way into the New Testament and the consummation of the kingdom in Christ. The story of the Kingdom of God is the story of the Bible. It is biblical theology.

We could call it redemptive history, although redemptive history has somewhat of a problem with it, which is redemptive history means that there’s sin already in the world, and so now we’re talking about God’s plan of dealing with sin through a Redeemer.

We want to cover a bigger picture. We want to go all the way back to the garden before the fall. Even before there was sin in the world, the kingdom of God was a reality, or at least it was anticipated. And so you have to broaden it from redemptive history to something even bigger, kingdom history.

It is God’s entire plan for the world. That’s why I was saying I couldn’t think of anything bigger than this. The Trinity maybe is bigger. The gospel is super important, but the kingdom of God is everything. The kingdom of God is the whole story of God’s purpose for this world and for creation. Let me just quickly give you a brief overview of the entire history of the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God was first initiated in the garden with Adam. Now there it was simply offered. It wasn’t completely consummated yet. But you see the elements. You see God’s holy realm. The Garden of Eden was this special place where God was dwelling with his people. You see God’s king.

The king wasn’t perfectly obedient. He ended up sinning. But you see Adam there as God’s anointed king who is ruling over that realm and his task was to pass the test and if he had passed the test then he would have eaten of the tree of life and then he would have procreated and the whole human race would have been brought into this holy realm. There would have been a consummation of God reigning over his holy people in God’s holy realm through his obedient king if Adam had passed the test. The kingdom that was offered to Adam, however, was withdrawn because of Adam’s sin and failure.

And yet God did not let sin have the last word. God overcomes sin through his plan of redemption. And so immediately in the garden, as soon as Adam and Eve sinned, God makes the first promise of the gospel in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, spoken in the context of God’s words of judgment against the serpent.

Listen to these amazing words from Genesis 3:15. God says, “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” Already the sufferings of the Messiah are anticipated there in the bruising of his heel. Yet through that suffering he will conquer and crush the serpent’s head. As a result, there will also be the offspring of the woman in the collective sense: God’s people, the elect.

And they will, by implication, be allowed to come back to the garden and eat of the tree of life and achieve that promised kingdom that was held out and offered to Adam in the garden. Right there in that promise, you see two of the three elements of the kingdom of God. You see God’s people, the seed of the woman. You see God’s obedient king, the individual seed, who is the Messiah to come. The third element of God’s holy realm is implied because of the context in which the promise is made.

Adam and Eve are being expelled and exiled from the garden, but this promise is saying, you will be able to come back. You’ll be able to receive that holy realm that God has promised to you. And the kingdom will be completed. This initial promise that God made in the garden is then expanded with Abraham. The Abrahamic covenant, to your offspring I will give this land.

There you see two of the elements of the kingdom of God. To your offspring, the seed of the woman, to God’s people, I will give this land, the holy realm that God is going to give to his people. The individual aspect of the individual obedient king is also hinted at because Isaac was the seed that was promised in the individual sense. And he was even in a type and a shadow. He was offered up as a sacrifice, pointing ahead to the sacrifice of Christ.

The story of the kingdom of God is that first, before the fall, the kingdom was offered. Then after the fall, the kingdom was promised. In spite of Adam’s sin, God is promising to undo Adam’s sin to bring about an obedient king who will create this fulfillment of the kingdom of God. The kingdom promised covers the rest of the book of Genesis.

That is what the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were living by. They were living by faith in the promises of God. The author of Hebrews tells us that they were not looking for merely some real estate in the land of Canaan, but their faith and their hope was in the ultimate kingdom of God. Hebrews chapter 11 verse 8, By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And when he went out, not knowing where he was going, by faith he went in to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

For people who speak this way make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country that is a heavenly one.

Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. The kingdom that was being offered, that was being promised to the patriarchs, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was not simply a piece of real estate somewhere in the ancient Near East. It was heaven itself. It was the eternal kingdom of God in the new creation that they were looking forward to. The land was simply a pointer. The land was simply a type and a shadow. Giving them this sense of hope as they look forward to the fulfillment of the kingdom.

During that time, during the time of the promise, which continues even into the first chapter of the book of Exodus, before they come out of Egypt, God was working on fulfilling aspects of the promise, but he was focusing on the creation of the people. When Jacob went down to Egypt, he went down with a household of 70 people, it says. But then when they were there in Egypt, God multiplied them into a great nation. So this idea of God’s holy people was being fulfilled, at least at the first level of fulfillment, in the actual creation of this numerous offspring that God had promised to Abraham.

The kingdom was offered to Adam, it was then promised to the patriarchs, and then the kingdom was prefigured with the coming of the kingdom at the first level after they were brought up out of Egypt through the exodus and brought into the promised land. The entire rest of the Old Testament from the book of Exodus to the end of the Old Testament is this. It is the prefiguration of the kingdom of God in type and shadow. And we see all three elements of God’s people dwelling in God’s holy realm under God’s obedient king.

Although that word obedient has to have an asterisk there because the kings of Israel were not perfectly obedient. And even the best ones like King David and King Solomon, they also fell short. And as they had to, because they’re only types of the Messiah to come. They are not the Messiah. They’re only a picture. The kingdom was prefigured in God’s fulfillment of the promise to Abraham at the first level of fulfillment with God’s people dwelling in God’s land under God’s anointed king. But because it was only a picture, it ended in failure.

And of course, God’s obedient kings were disobedient, and as a result, they were sent into exile. When they were in exile, however, God sent the prophets. And the prophets came and they had a two-fold message. On the one hand, they spoke words of judgment, telling God’s people that the reason they’re going into exile is because of their failure to keep God’s law, because they’ve been worshiping other gods and they have not followed the law.

But at the same time, they had a second message, which was in spite of Israel’s sin and failure, God is not going to let the promise that he made back in Genesis 3.15 and expanded with Abraham and the Abrahamic promise. He’s not going to let those promises fail.

The prophets looked ahead to the coming of the kingdom of God at the second level of fulfillment. They looked ahead to the Messiah’s coming and to the coming of the kingdom of God in a new way, in a greater way. And so then when we turn over into the New Testament, we turn over into Matthew chapter 1, we see that God’s promises are going to be fulfilled at the second level of fulfillment.

And here we have the fourth stage of the kingdom of God, which is the kingdom inaugurated in the first coming of Jesus the Messiah. The kingdom is inaugurated when Christ comes. In fact, that is the main thing that Jesus has in view when he says that the kingdom is at hand. He’s saying that the kingdom has been inaugurated because the king is here.

Just think about the opening chapters of the Gospel of Matthew. Matthew chapter one is the genealogy of Jesus, tracing it back to Abraham and to David. The genealogy of Jesus even mentions the exile of Israel into Babylon. By implication saying that this Messiah who is coming is going to undo Israel’s exile. He will save his people from their sins and he is going to restore the kingdom. What was prefigured with Israel is now going to be fulfilled in Christ.

Jesus can say that the kingdom is at hand, Matthew 4, 17, because he is the king. Remember at the baptism of Jesus, the voice from heaven, which is the voice of God the Father, said, this is my beloved son. So there’s a spotlight coming down from heaven right on Jesus saying, here he is, here’s the obedient king, that third element of the kingdom of God. The king is here. We don’t yet quite see the land, the realm. We don’t quite yet see the fulfillment of the people, but we do see the King. The Messiah has arrived, and so the kingdom has been inaugurated.

But that is only the inauguration of the kingdom, because there is still a fifth and final stage, which is the consummation of the kingdom. The kingdom must still be consummated, and that will happen when Christ returns at the last day. The second coming of Christ will be the consummation of the kingdom of God. And all during this period of time, from the first to the second coming of Christ, what is Christ doing?

He is exalted from heaven, and by his spirit and through the preaching of the gospel, he is gathering his people. He is creating the people who will populate the eschatological eternal kingdom of God in the new creation when he returns. And then we will see all three elements perfectly fulfilled when Christ returns in the kingdom consummated. We will see God reigning over his obedient people, all of the elect who have been called out of the nations and brought into his kingdom. We will see them reigning and dwelling in God’s holy realm, which is the new creation. And we will see Christ the King reigning over his people. All of this is what is in view when we say, what is the kingdom of God?

We can’t just pick on one aspect of it, whether it’s the realm or the reign or the people or the king. It’s this broad concept that includes so much. It’s a reign and a realm. Now it’s brought in in different phases in different ways. Like we see in the Old Testament, it’s prefigured there in type and shadow.

Is that a coming of the kingdom of God? Indeed it is. The kingdom of God came when God reigned over his people through the Exodus and judging Pharaoh and his armies and bringing them into the land. God was instituting and inaugurating his kingdom, but it wasn’t really the full manifestation of the kingdom of God. The kingdom was also coming when Christ came the first time. His first coming is the coming of the kingdom of God.

Jesus himself says this explicitly in Matthew 12:28–29. After Jesus healed a demon-oppressed man, the Pharisees accused him of casting out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons.

And then Jesus says, knowing their thoughts, he said to them, every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? But if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges.

But if it is by the Spirit of God, not by Beelzebul, but if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” So Jesus uses his power to cast out demons as one of the great indicators and signs that the kingdom has arrived in his own person and work. The powerful kingdom of God is coming to bear into this world.

But is this the fullness of the kingdom? Do we yet see all evil cast out? Do we yet see all righteousness dwelling in God’s holy realm? Not yet. There is still a future consummation. And so this idea of the kingdom of God is a dynamic thing. It’s not just one thing. It comes in many different ways and times and it comes in stages and phases.

And sometimes it seems to abate, but then it comes in power with the first coming of Christ. But then even now it seems as though we don’t really see Christ reigning on this earth, and we see evil getting the upper hand, and so there’s a sense of waiting and longing.

Already and Not Yet

We’re similar to the patriarchs like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They had the promises of the coming of this great kingdom, and yet they were living in tents without the fullness of what God had promised. We too are still looking forward to the coming of the kingdom. So when does the kingdom come? The answer is that it is already present in the first coming of Christ, and yet it is also future. It is both present and future. We see this throughout the Gospels.

I mentioned already Matthew 12, 28, where Jesus says, the kingdom of God has come upon you. But then there are also plenty of passages in the Gospels where Jesus speaks of the kingdom as something totally future. As something not yet. For example, Matthew chapter eight, when he heals, there was a centurion who had a servant who was paralyzed, and Jesus heals the centurion’s servant. And it was an interesting situation there where the centurion said, you don’t even need to come to my house. All you need to do is say the word. Because I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me, and I say to this one, go, and to that one, go, and he goes, and so on. And so Jesus was amazed at his faith. What did he say? Truly I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.

And then here’s the statement that clearly says that the kingdom is future. I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. While the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness.” Referring to the Jews that rejected Jesus as the Messiah. So he’s clearly saying there’s a future kingdom. I tell you one day all God’s people will gather together and they will recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

That’s an interesting point, by the way. A little footnote there that supports my whole understanding of the whole big picture of scripture because here you see Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob being referred to. So he’s clearly connecting this future coming of the kingdom of God back to the Abrahamic promises. It’s all one story. It’s all one plan that God is doing.

When does the kingdom come? Well, it has already come with the first coming of Christ. Christ has already cast out, he has already bound the strong man, Satan. He’s already cast out demons. He’s already inaugurated the kingdom through his death and resurrection. But yet, it is also still future. We’re still waiting for that day. When we are seated with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. It is still to come.

That then explains what Jesus is getting at here in this second petition of the Lord’s Prayer. When we pray, thy kingdom come, that can be understood in a number of different ways. From the point of view of the disciples, right at the position that they are, they’re still looking forward to the fulfillment of what Christ is doing through his person and work. So perhaps for them, thy kingdom come meant just they’re thinking about what Jesus is doing right here in his ministry on earth. But from our point of view, as those who are on the other side of the resurrection, we’re praying that same prayer, but we pray it now from the perspective of waiting for the final consummation of that kingdom when Christ returns in glory.

The Kingdom and Spiritual Warfare

And there is another very important element here that needs to be brought out, which the Heidelberg Catechism mentions, and that is this whole issue of spiritual warfare. Remember how the Heidelberg mentions that. It says, Destroy the devil’s work. That’s part of what we’re praying for when we pray, Thy kingdom come. Destroy the devil’s work. Destroy every force which revolts against you and every conspiracy against your holy word.

We saw that with Jesus himself. He said that the main indicator of that the kingdom was present was that he was casting out demons, that he was binding the strong man, Satan himself. Of course, he did that through his work on the cross. He destroyed the devil’s work once for all upon the cross.

And yet, here we are living in the time between the first and second coming of Christ, and we do see the devil still at work in this world around us. He has been restrained and bound, and his judgment is sure, and yet he’s still active in this world. And so we can pray that God would continue to advance his kingdom against the work of the devil.

We see that right here in the Lord’s Prayer itself. It says, 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. That word evil there can be translated with a capital E, deliver us from the evil one. There’s a footnote at least in my Bible in the ESV that says that is a possible translation, but I think that is the correct translation. Deliver us from the evil one.

This whole issue of spiritual warfare is a part of the progression and advancement of the kingdom of God. When we pray, thy kingdom come, we’re not just praying, Lord Jesus, we’re waiting for you to come back and to destroy all the wicked and to bring in your everlasting kingdom in this world. We are praying that, but we’re also praying for God’s kingdom to come even now in different ways as we can engage in this spiritual warfare here in this life, as the gospel goes forth, as individual sinners are transferred from the kingdom of Satan into the kingdom of Christ.

Why Pray for the Kingdom to Come?

That is the first point. What is the kingdom? And it’s coming. But that brings us then to the second point. Why does Jesus want us to pray that the kingdom would come? Why is this so important in prayer? It’s near the very beginning. The first petition is the most important one. Hallowed be thy name, which is focusing, as I suggested this morning, on adoration.

That when we begin our prayers, we should lift our thoughts to heaven itself and think about God and how great he is and his divine majesty. But right after that, right on the heels of thinking about the greatness of God, just in this eternal, timeless sense that God is God, we then go to the next petition, petition number two.

Thy kingdom come. Now we’re thinking about what God is doing in history. We’re thinking about what God is doing in this whole plan, all the way from creation to consummation. We’re lifting up our thoughts from our petty concerns in this world I really like this job, or I’m worried about my kids, or what about this health issue that I have? We suddenly think about those things are important, and Jesus does say it’s legitimate to pray, give us this day our daily bread, and to pray for a provision of our daily needs. But before we get to that, he wants us to lift up our thoughts to what God is doing in the entire history of the cosmos. And this spiritual warfare that is going on all the way back in the garden with the devil tempting Adam, all the way to Christ defeating the serpent, all the way to the second coming of Christ.

It Orients Our Prayers

Why does Jesus want us to pray that the kingdom would come? Because it orients our prayers to the kingdom of God. It aligns our petitions with God’s eternal purposes in this world. Yes, it’s legitimate to pray for our temporal needs. Give us this day our daily bread. Provide me with the things that I need, with a job, with a place to live, with education for my kids, with all the things I’m going through in this life. That’s legitimate to pray, but let’s think about those things in the context of the kingdom of God.

Starting off with, thy kingdom come, sets our temporal needs in proper context. As Jesus himself will say later on in the same chapter here, Matthew chapter six, verse 32 and 33, he says, the Gentiles seek after all these things. What shall we drink? What shall we eat? What shall we wear?

And your Heavenly Father knows that you need them all, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you. All these temporal things, all these legitimate things about the needs that I have in this life, they will be added to you if you focus on God’s kingdom and what God is doing in this world.

Jesus wants us to pray for the kingdom not only in the ultimate sense of Christ’s second coming and the consummation of the kingdom, but also as it advances now through the preaching of the gospel and sinners are transferred from Satan’s kingdom into Christ’s. This orients our prayers to God’s eternal purposes. But there is a second reason as well: it keeps us from being earthly-minded.

It Makes Us Heavenly-Minded

And it makes us long even more for the coming of the kingdom. Notice how immediately in the context here, he gives the Lord’s Prayer, and then in verses 16 through 18, he talks about fasting. But then in verses 19 through 20, he says, do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in and steal. Jesus wants the disciples to be heavenly-minded, not earthly-minded, to set their hope, to set their affections on things which are above and not on things which are on the earth, to lay up for themselves treasures in heaven and not treasures upon earth.

Many Christians today are setting their hope on earthly things, and I’m just as guilty of this as anyone. I’m pretty up on all the political things that are going on in this world, and I lament that Christian influence is seemingly receding in our society, and all those things are valuable to be concerned about and to be engaged in, but Are you setting your hope in that? Are you setting your hope in these earthly things, in regaining Christian influence in society, in overthrowing the secular agenda? Is that what you’re setting your hope in? It can’t be, brothers and sisters, because our hope is in Christ and his second coming.

Even were the glories of Christendom to be restored, now, of course, that in itself begs the question, was there ever such a thing as the glories of Christendom? Even in what we think is the great heyday of Christendom, it wasn’t perfect, and there were lots of problems, and genuine believers were sometimes persecuted. So, let’s set that debate aside. But even were the glories of Christendom to be restored, we would still have to say what King David said. At the peak of his glory.

This is an amazing thing. If you go to 1 Chronicles 29, 1 Chronicles 29 is describing how King David was gathering all the gold and the silver for his son Solomon to build the temple. And it talks about the thousands of talents of gold and silver and how he’s preparing for the temple. And he’s handing over the reins to his son Solomon. And it seems like everything is great.

We’re almost at the pinnacle of the earthly prefiguration of the kingdom of God. Not quite, because the temple hasn’t been built yet. So the real pinnacle of the prefiguration stage of the kingdom of God would be somewhere around that point when Solomon built the temple. So we’re not quite there.

We’re just like right at the beginning of that, leading up to it. But even there, King David said this in his prayer to the Lord. First Chronicles 29 verse 15. We are strangers before you and sojourners as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow and there is no abiding. The earthly kingdom had come in such great fullness and glory, it seemed like there’s no need to talk about being a sojourner. There it is, the glorious kingdom of God.

And yet, even King David knew. That Christ had not yet come in fullness, that the consummation of the kingdom was not yet real. And so he still had to be a pilgrim in this world. He still had to set his mind and his thoughts on things which are above and not on things which are on the earth. He had to ask the Lord to give him strength, to serve him in the midst of suffering and sin and the shadows and the passing things of this present life.

Shouldn’t that be our attitude as well? Were the glories of Christendom to be restored, we would still have to pray that prayer. Even if things were reversed politically and all of the evils that are going on in the world around us were completely changed and Christian principles were in effect in the law of our land, even then we would still be strangers and pilgrims. Even then we would still say we’re longing for Christ to come. And there would, of course, be all kinds of other problems. There would be people who would, like in the days after Constantine was converted, many, many people who professed faith in Christ outwardly just so that they could get ahead, and Christendom created a lot of false professions of faith. And so even if we were to get what we wanted, we would still have other problems to deal with. We would still have spiritual warfare going on. We would still have to pray this prayer, thy kingdom come. We would still have to pray, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. And so our hope is in heaven, not on earth.

And that’s why Jesus gives the disciples this prayer. He puts this prayer into their mouths and says, this is how you should pray. Because he wants to whet their appetite so that they’re longing for the coming of Christ. This is their longing for heaven itself.

For the meditation, I chose Philippians chapter 3, verse 20, because it so perfectly captures this thought. But what’s interesting is if you read the verse just before it, Because before you have this wonderful statement that our citizenship is in heaven, you have a contrast. In Philippians 3, Paul is talking about those who are enemies of the cross of Christ. And he says that their end is destruction, and their God is their belly, and their glory is in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.

It’s not 100% clear who he’s talking about. Are these Judaizers? Some other false Christians in the church, but the point is is that they are setting their mind on earthly things, and then in contrast to that he says, but our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

That word citizenship is probably not the best translation. It’s hard to translate that word. I think a better translation would be the word homeland. These people are setting their mind on earthly things, but our homeland is in heaven. Not just our citizenship, like the citizenship that we possess. We think of the word citizenship now as just being like, I’m a citizen of the United States, and so it’s like a legal concept. I think that the word there is more than just citizenship. It’s more like the place where we dwell. It’s the homeland that we’re a part of. It’s like our country, our nation.

And that’s the thing about politics, right, is that we’re longing for a country, we’re longing for a nation that is right and good and where God is honored and not wickedness and so on. But that’s not our home. The thing is that even if we were to get all that stuff, even if we were to elect a president that we thought was in line with our values that would only last a few years and then someone else would come into office. So our citizenship, our homeland is not in this world.

It’s not in anything in this earth. It is in heaven. Our homeland is in heaven where Christ is. And that’s why he says there that our homeland is in heaven and from it, that is from heaven, that heavenly place, we’re waiting for a savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And when he comes, he’s going to bring heaven to earth and then heaven and earth will be one.

And then that glorious consummation that all the saints have been looking forward to all the way from Genesis 3.15, all the way through Abraham and even David.

And even like the saints that were, remember the pious godly Israelites that saw Jesus when he was an infant in the temple. It says that they were looking for the consolation of Israel, like Simeon and Anna and so on. All the saints have been looking for the consolation of Israel. All the saints have been looking for this heavenly homeland. They’ve been pining for it. Even David was waiting for this glorious fulfillment to happen, even though he had an earthly version of it, but he knew that wasn’t the real thing. They’re all looking forward to this heavenly hope. They’re setting their hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

This is what Jesus teaches us to pray. He gives us this petition so that our hearts will burn with anticipation for something greater than the passing concerns of this age. It lifts our eyes from the immediate pressures that preoccupy us and reminds us that God is accomplishing a cosmic purpose.

His kingdom has already come in Christ’s death and resurrection, and it advances as the gospel gathers sinners from Satan’s dominion. Yet its fullness is still coming. As we pray, “Your kingdom come,” our desire for Christ’s return grows, our hope becomes more heavenly, and we gain freedom to serve faithfully in this world without placing our ultimate confidence in it. Our earthly service then becomes a witness to the kingdom that Christ will consummate when he comes.