God's Kingdom and Will

There is always, isn’t there, a marvellously smooth change of gear that takes place around this weekend each year. We move from the pre-Christmas urging to feast and spend, through the new year celebrations, and into the post-new-year, post-spending, post-feasting, time to tighten our belts and get ourselves in shape for the year ahead phase. The papers and magazines are full of it – ever so helpfully telling us how we can undo all the damage to our bank balances, our figures and our fitness that have resulted from following all their ever-so-helpful pre-Christmas advice.

Well, we can live with that and make use of it – because it’s a good discipline periodically to examine the way we live our lives. It is helpful to reconsider our priorities and reorder our everyday thinking and living around what we really want to be doing with our lives.

It’s just that as followers of Christ, the way we go about that rethinking is rather different from the advice given in the lifestyle sections of the Sunday papers. Instead of paying attention to the advertisers, we pay attention to what Jesus has to say about his priorities for our lives.

What does Jesus have to say? That brings us to the Lord’s Prayer, and our new year series working through the clauses of the pattern prayer that Jesus taught his disciples, and through them, us. We began this at this time last year and didn’t get beyond the first two phrases: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed by your name’. You can catch up with those sermons on the JPC website either in transcript as an audio download to play on that new MP3 player you were given for Christmas. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, it really shouldn’t worry you.) Today we come, in the record of the prayer in Matthew’s Gospel, to Matthew 6.10. The verse reads:

… your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

That’s why my title is ‘God’s Kingdom and Will’. What I want to say is in two parts. In Part One, let me make five introductory comments on this verse to help us to understand what it is that Jesus is asking for. Then in Part Two we’ll look at a section of Matthew 24 that’ll help us further. So, five introductory comments.

First, the kingdom of God is the supreme concern of Jesus. That ought to alert us to the importance of this theme. If you were asked to sum up what the teaching of Jesus was all about in a few words, what would be your answer? The Gospel writers do just that, and their answer is – the Kingdom of God. So when Jesus begins to preach, Matthew records (this is Matthew 4.17):

From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

The kingdom of heaven is the same thing as the kingdom of God. And just after teaching his prayer, Jesus urges his hearers: “seek first [God’s] kingdom”. The kingdom of God is Jesus’ top priority.

Secondly, the kingdom of God is where God’s will is done. Heaven is where God is. God’s will is done perfectly now in heaven. God’s will is done imperfectly on earth now – and it is resisted by the powers and the people who oppose God’s rule and want to dethrone him and put themselves in God’s place. God’s will will be done perfectly on earth when (and only when) Christ returns and heaven comes to earth.

Thirdly, the kingdom of God on earth is growing. The progress of the kingdom is not smooth. It’s not an uninterrupted story of smooth and progressive expansion. The progress of the kingdom is resisted. It progresses only through spiritual struggle and conflict. But nonetheless, the progress of the kingdom of God is assured. Nothing and noone, in the end, for all the resistance, is powerful enough to stop the advance of God’s kingdom. It is growing, and it will grow.

Fourthly, Jesus is the King of the kingdom. God the Father has appointed his Son to rule his kingdom at this right hand. Jesus is man and God and he is on the throne of heaven ruling his kingdom today. That’s why when we pray about the kingdom of God, we’re praying about Jesus, and when Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, he’s talking about himself. It’s his kingdom. He is the King. The subjects of the kingdom are the subjects of Jesus.

Fifthly, the kingdom of God needs to be our supreme concern. It should be the focus of our praying. That is what Jesus is urging on us. It should be the focus of our repentance and faith. The essence of sin is our failure to accept the rule of the King and to do the will of the King. We need to turn from sin and live as his subjects in thought, word and deed, trusting him for forgiveness depending on the power of his Spirit for living. And the kingdom of God needs to be the focus of our working. Our supreme ambition should be to stretch every sinew to see the kingdom of God grow.

That’s Part One, by way of introduction. The kingdom of God is the supreme concern of Jesus; it is where God’s will is done; it is growing on earth; Jesus is its King; and it needs to be our supreme concern.

Now what I want to do in Part Two is to look at just one passage of Jesus’ teaching on the Kingdom of God that can fill in our understanding, inform our praying for the kingdom, and equip us to live as subjects of the King. That passage is Matthew 24.1-14. We need to read this in the context of Jesus’ teaching in the whole of Matthew 24, though we won’t be able to look at it in detail. And I want to identify five key lessons concerning the coming of the kingdom of God for which Jesus says we are to pray. Hold in your mind all the time as we look at this what it is we’re praying for:

… your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Lesson number one is this.

First, THE COMING OF JESUS HAS BROUGHT IN A NEW ERA

Jesus’s teaching in Matthew 24 comes towards the end of his earthly life, as the crucifixion is looming. Jesus is in the heart of Jerusalem at the temple with his closest followers. He’s just been lacerating the religious leaders with his tongue (you can read that in chapter 23). So look at 24.1-2:

Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. “Do you see all these things?” he asked. “I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.”

Jesus prophecies that the temple building will be destroyed. That happened within a generation, when the Romans brutally suppressed a major Jewish revolt and razed the temple to the ground in AD 70. But the loss of that building was so much more significant than a bit of urban redevelopment. It was a sign that we are in the last days. Jesus has brought in a new era. The era of the temple has been left behind. God is now present in his world not through a temple building but in his people worldwide by the Holy Spirit of Jesus.

The era when the devotion of God’s people was rightly focused through the temple is over. We should now have an intense focus on Jesus our King. It is in him that we know God’s presence. It is through his word that God rules. We are in a new era. We are in the last days. We should have a great sense of urgency.

I’ve been reading a biography of Dwight Eisenhower. It describes the build up to the D-Day landings of which he was the Supreme Commander. There were hundreds of thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen caught up in the preparations. As the day approached when the order would come, they didn’t know exactly when it would come, but there was a palpable sense of anticipation throughout the armed forces. They were keyed up. They had a heightened awareness of the need to faithfully fulfil the duties assigned to them. They were intensely focused on the task and aware of the importance of what they were engaged in. There was an all-embracing sense of urgency.

That needs to be true of us too in these last days, in this new era that Jesus has brought in. Each of us has just a few short years to prepare for the coming of the king by labouring for the growth of his kingdom. That’s the first lesson. The coming of Jesus has brought in a new era.

Secondly, WE CAN’T KNOW THE TIMING OF THE FINAL VICTORY OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD UNTIL IT HAPPENS AND CHRIST RETURNS

The disciples ask this question in verse 3. Let me read that:

As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. “Tell us,” they said, “when will this happen [that is, the destruction of the temple], and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

So there are in fact two questions there. The first relates to the timing of the destruction of the temple. What is Jesus’ answer to that? Without going into detail, suffice it to say that my understanding of Matthew 24 (and the other parallel passages in Mark and Luke) is that the destruction of the temple is at least part of what Jesus is referring to when he says, down in verse 34:

“I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.”

Within a generation the temple was razed and now a mosque stands on its site.

But the second of the disciples’ questions is about the timing of the second coming of Christ to bring in his kingdom and the new heaven and earth. What is Jesus’ answer to that? He is explicit about this, down in verse 36. Turn the page and take a look.

“No-one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.

We are not given a timetable. There are in the JPC staff at the moment two expectant fathers, if I can put it like that. Along with their wives (let’s not forget them) they are awaiting the arrival of their first children. They know they’ll be born. But neither they nor anyone else knows exactly when that will be. They just have to be ready with the nappies and the mopping-up muslin. They just have to wait and watch. So it is with the final coming of the kingdom of God – except that we’re not even given an approximate date. We just know that it’s going to happen. And that’s all we need to know. Now you might think that this lack of knowledge could give rise to somnolent complacency among God’s people. But if it did, that would be a travesty. Because we don’t know a date, we need to ready all the time. Instead of somnolent complacency should be perpetual alertness. That’s what Jesus urges in verse 42

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.”

And again in verse 44:

“So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.”

Thirdly, THE WORLD WILL NOT LOOK OR FEEL AS IF JESUS IS ON THE THRONE

That’s the burden of Jesus’ warnings in verses 4-8, which is Jesus’ immediate response to the disciples questions.

Jesus answered: “Watch out that no-one deceives you. For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many. You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginnings of birth-pains.”

Jesus spells out certain characteristics of the last days – of the times in which we live, in other words. Anti-Christian figures will be powerful and influential, though ultimately they will come and go, like fireworks that flare up and fizzle out – though they will do a lot of damage on their way. There will be warfare, famines and natural disasters – that is, political, economic and ecological chaos and catastrophe. But what we must learn is that none of this means that our prayer for the coming of God’s kingdom is not being answered.

When I was a boy, we used to sing hymns in our assemblies at Primary School. I was just a lad, but one of them made a deep and lasting impression on my young mind and spirit. You may well recognise it. It starts like this (I won’t sing it, for all our sakes, though the tune rings in my mind):

God is working his purpose outas year succeeds to year:God is working his purpose out,and the time is drawing near;nearer and nearer draws the time,the time that shall surely be,when the earth shall be filled with the glory of Godas the waters cover the sea.

That is true, because it is based on God’s promises. We must trust that, whatever it looks like, God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year. He did in 2008. He will in 2009. So we must not be alarmed, or deceived or unbalanced by what goes on in the world or in our lives. We do need to realise, though, that the coming of God’s kingdom is going to be a very painful process, because of the cosmic resistance to it. But these, says Jesus, are the beginnings of birth-pains. Despite appearances, they will have a purposeful and positive outcome. So we mustn’t be thrown by the fact that the world does not look or feel as if Jesus is on the throne. He is.

Fourthly, WHILE GOD IS ANSWERING OUR PRAYER FOR HIS KINGDOM TO COME, HIS PEOPLE WILL BE HATED, PERSECUTED AND KILLED

The warnings from Jesus keep coming thick and fast. Look on to verses 9-13:

“Then you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.”

The pressure on God’s people will be great, and many will buckle under this pressure. Not all the graphs will be up! Things will often seem to be getting worse, and in some respects will get worse. But we must never give in to doubt, discouragement or despair. God is answering our prayer for his kingdom to come, even though his people are hated, persecuted and killed.

It’s too easy for us to forget that we are caught up in the thick of a great cosmic and spiritual conflict between the powers of evil and the Spirit of Christ. The final outcome is obvious, but progress is undoubtedly both metaphorically and literally bloody. In physical warfare, that is no surprise. It was no surprise to the Allies that progress through Normandy following the D-Day landings saw many Allied casualties. Those casualties, however painful, were not evidence of the failure of the landings or of the defeat of the Allies. The suffering was great, but it was expected.

We too must not be under any illusions about the cost of this spiritual conflict that Jesus is in the process of winning. While God is answering our prayers for his kingdom to come, his people will be hated, persecuted and killed. And that leads directly to the final lesson for us.

Fifthly, EVEN WHILE THINGS LOOK AND FEEL SO DIFFICULT, THE KINGDOM OF GOD WILL BE GROWING AND GROWING UP TO THE DAY WHEN THE KING RETURNS

We need to see the full significance of what Jesus says there in verse 14:

And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.

Here is the root of a believer’s utterly realistic optimism in all circumstances. The truth is that even while things are getting worse, things are at the same time getting better.

Before Christmas we went to the Sage Gateshead to hear Handel’s Messiah. When we got there we realised that there was quite a rag bag collection of others from JPC peering down at us from varous points around the hall, but that’s by the way. We heard again Handel’s wonderful chorus to these words:

The Lord gave the Word; great was the company of the preachers.

That’s lifted straight from Psalm 68.11. Why does the gospel go throughout the world? Because great is the company of the preachers, formal and informal. Why is that company so great? Because nothing and nobody can stop the word of God. It will do its saving work by the power of God’s Spirit.

So take heart from Jesus and be filled with confidence that your prayer for God’s kingdom to come and for his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven is being answered progressively and it will be answered totally and finally in God’s good time.