Your Kingdom Come

Well, good morning. We are in a series on the Lord's Prayer going through this famous prayer line by line, and I am so excited about the light of the Lord's Prayer. We are going to take a deep dive into this morning. But first, Happy 4th of July weekend. I guess we should say happy 4th and 5th of July. Good morning to you. Thank you so much for making us a part of your weekend. My name is René. I'm another one of the pastors here at Twin Lakes Church.

Now, a lot of people are telling me that they feel kind of strange on this 4th of July. I can't tell you how many people are telling me something like this writer told me, "René, I love my country. I love the holiday, and yet I feel upset and uneasy right now about a lot of things. The covid crisis, the racial tension, the job situation. I want to do something to help our country, to help other people, but I just don't know what to do or even how to pray." Do you feel like that? I do. You know why? I wrote it. This is exactly how I feel as I approach this Independence Day weekend, and if you feel like that, you are not alone. So many others do.

I just saw in this morning's Santa Cruz Sentinel that only 12% of people in America in a poll taken last week think that this country's on the right track. 12%! That means 88% of us believe there's something wrong going on in our country right now. So here's my question this morning. What do we as Christians do with those feelings? Is there a biblical paradigm? Not a partisan political paradigm, but is there a biblical paradigm for us to use, to try to frame those feelings, to grapple with those feelings, to understand what we can do about those feelings?

Well, yes there is, and I think it's in the phrase that we look at today from the Lord's Prayer. We pray, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Now today I'm gonna do something a little bit different. I'm actually going to be preaching this sermon with Ephraim Smith, co-pastor of Bayside Church in Midtown Sacramento. Let's meet Ephraim right now.

Hey, this is Pastor Ephraim Smith, Twin Lakes Church. It's such an honor to be with you. I've been to your church a couple of times, had the honor of being on site, but because of the season we find ourselves in, I'm coming to you in this way, but I'm still just as excited to share this word with you today. And Ephraim's going to be with us today. He's gonna serve as, in baseball terms, remember baseball? That's a sport we used to watch in the summertime, but in baseball terms, Ephraim's going to be the closer today. I'm gonna hand him the ball after I set him up here in the early innings.

Well, I want to start by asking you this question. What would you say is the central message of the whole Bible, kind of the central plot line? I'll get a little bit more specific. What would you say is the gospel or good news—that's what the word gospel means—that Jesus Christ came to preach? How would you summarize it? Now just think about it for just a second. How would you summarize the primary message of Jesus Christ? Now think about your answer, and let me show you a couple of verses, then I'm gonna ask you the question again.

Watch this. Jesus Christ, when he starts his ministry, says, "The time promised by God has come at last," he announced. "The kingdom of God is near; repent of your sins and believe the good news." That's how he announces his ministry, and then look at how he launches his ministry. It says after this Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another proclaiming the good news of, there it is again, the kingdom of God. But he knows he can't do this all alone. He calls some disciples, and after he calls his disciples, it says Jesus called the twelve together and gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases. And then he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God.

There it is again. You know Jesus told a lot of parables also, and almost every single parable is about one topic. For example, here's how he starts one parable. Jesus asked, "What is the kingdom of God like?" Well, it's like a tiny little mustard seed which a man planted in his garden; it grew and became a tree, and the birds perched in its branches. And again he asked, "What shall I compare the kingdom of God to?" Well, it's like a little bit of yeast that a woman took and mixed into about 60 pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.

So he's talking about the kingdom of God all the time in his ministry, and then he is crucified and resurrected. And when he comes back, what is his primary message to the disciples? It says he appeared to them for 40 days and spoke about the kingdom of God. And then the final glimpse that we get of the early church in the book of Acts, it says Paul boldly and without hindrance preached the kingdom of God. We're seeing this phrase come up a lot. In fact, in the Gospels, the word kingdom appears one, two, three, 123 times. Most of the time it's associated with the phrase kingdom of God or kingdom of heaven. In fact, Jesus himself uses the word 98 times, almost a hundred.

So let me ask you that question again. What is the gospel or good news that Jesus came to preach? Well, you could summarize it like this: the kingdom of God is now here, and you can be a part of it. The kingdom of God is here, and you can be a part of it. You can walk right into it right now if you want to. You know, I got a lot of insight and content on the message today from a lecture delivered at Pepperdine University by John Ortberg back in 2014. He said in the kinds of churches he grew up in most of his life—and I so relate to this—this is not the way the gospel was summarized.

Basically, in my childhood, we summarized it as the minimal entrance requirements for getting into heaven when you die, right? You want to get into heaven when you die? Well, here's how you accept Jesus, and that's the entire gospel that I heard in a lot of circles when I was growing up. It's kind of like this, and I'm sure because you're super spiritual today and super godly, you never watched the movie that I'm about to refer to. But when I was in college, it was all the rage. I'm speaking of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and there's a scene in that movie where the Knights of the Round Table have to cross a bridge over a deep chasm, and there's a wisened old guardian of the bridge. And across that bridge, they have to give the correct answers to three questions, and if they get a single question wrong, they are cast down into the abyss.

So there's four of these Knights. The first guy goes up to the bridgekeeper, who asks him, "What is your name?" And he answers. "What is your quest?" And he answers, "To seek the Grail." What is your favorite color? Well, red. Correct, you can cross. So the second Knight comes up, and he's kind of cocky, and he's asked, "What is your name?" He gives it. "What is your quest?" He gives it, and then he's asked a really obscure question, and he says, "Well, I don't know." He's cast down into the abyss.

So the third of the four Knights comes up very nervous. He's asked, "What is your name?" He gives it. "What is your quest?" He gives it, and then he is asked, "What is your favorite color?" And he's so nervous he says, "Red." No, I mean blue. Ah, he's cast down into the abyss. Now there's one left, King Arthur, and he rides up. "What is your name?" He gives it. "What is your quest?" He gives it, and then he is asked, "What is the airspeed velocity of a coconut-laden swallow?" And Arthur answers, "Well, that depends. Is it an African swallow or a European swallow?" And the bridgekeeper says, "Well, I don't know." Ah, the bridgekeeper now is cast into the abyss.

Well, many people have this idea that this is the gospel. When you die, it's like there will be this bridge to the castle where everybody wants to go, heaven, and the gospel is like the right password, and if you give it, you get across, and if you don't, you're cast into the abyss. Well, here's the problem with that idea. Where in the Bible does Jesus say anything like, "Okay, listen up everybody, here are the minimal entrance requirements to get into heaven when you die?" He never says anything like that one time. What he does say about a hundred times is something like, "The kingdom of God is here, and you can be a part of it." Now, of course, this message includes forgiveness of all your sins, not by your own merit but solely by the grace of God because of Jesus Christ's sacrifice for you on the cross. You could never earn it. It's a free gift. That's a part of this gospel, and of course, this gospel also includes the promise of resurrection—that death will not have the last word, praise God—but this message also includes a bigger picture.

In fact, let me get back to my first question. What is the central message of the whole Bible? You could call this the Bible's whole plot line. You could summarize it this way: kingdoms in conflict. You see this all throughout the Bible. There are the kingdoms of this world, which are all junked up by sin, right? The kingdoms of this world can be glorious and beautiful and impressive, and they can do very good things, but they will also always have a certain Achilles heel, and it's this: they're run by broken people who live in a broken world, and so they are going to be at some level broken. Sin is going to mess them up. You see that all throughout the Bible, but the good news is God's got a kingdom too—the kingdom of God—and in that kingdom, all the races are reconciled. In that kingdom, there is peace. In that kingdom, the oppressed get justice. In that kingdom, the hungry get fed. The marginalized get included. The sick get healed, and this kingdom is on its way. This is a promise all throughout the Old Testament, all throughout the Hebrew Scriptures. The kingdom of God is coming. The kingdom of God is coming. It's like the steady drumbeat. Then Jesus shows up and says, "It's now here." The time promised by God has come.

But the kingdom of God is a different kind of kingdom. For one thing, it's a kingdom without any borders. Now watch this. When he says in the prayer, "Your kingdom come" in Luke's Gospel, Luke 11, the prayer, the phrase in the prayer ends there: "Your kingdom come." But in Matthew, Jesus explains what this means when he goes on to say, "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Do you see? This second phrase is an explanation of the first. God's kingdom is wherever on earth his will is done, and that can cross any kind of border, any kind of government.

Okay, so that begs the question: how is God's will done in heaven? If I'm praying for his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, I want to ask myself how is God's will done in heaven? Well, the Bible gives us glimpses of heaven, doesn't it? Like in Revelation 7:9, "After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from..." Watch this. "Every nation, tribe, people, and language standing before the throne and before the Lamb." In heaven, as we said, all the races are reconciled. In heaven, all the languages are reconciled. In heaven, there is oneness, not division.

So anytime I cross ethnic lines or I cross linguistic lines to befriend someone, to treat somebody as my equal, a fellow child of God, a fellow image-bearer of God, then in that moment, a little bit of heaven comes down to earth. Honestly, that's one of the beautiful things that I think is happening right now during our simultaneous language Spanish translation. Jose Santillan is up there in the booth translating the words I'm saying, going out to our Spanish language YouTube channel. What's happening now is a little bit of his kingdom come, his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Or look at this glimpse into heaven: "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." It reminds me I once heard my Swiss mom say about heaven, "You know, René, heaven is like the baby shampoo." What are you talking about, Mom? No more tears. That was a classic mom line, but when I wipe away tears, when I comfort grieving people, that's a little bit of your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. John Ortberg puts it this way: when we pray "your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven," we are praying may up there come down here right now.

Part of this is a prayer of hope. Are you like me? When I read the news headlines lately, sometimes all I can think to pray is, "Lord, may your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." When I pray that, I'm praying, "Lord, clean up the mess we have made in this world. Lord, relieve the pain and relieve the suffering. Come quickly, Lord Jesus," and I know that you will come and set everything wrong to rights. It's a prayer of hope, but it's also, watch this now, a prayer of commitment because I'm praying, "Lord, in my life, my attitudes, my actions, the way I respond to people, may your will be done on earth in me as it is in heaven." Lord, use me to be part of the very healing that I'm praying for.

And by the way, that is why Jose is doing simultaneous language translation right now. That is why TLC volunteers offer free food every week at the people's pantry. That's why we offer grief support, free home repair with our volunteers. This is why we're offering the Navajo—all of those resources and all of those gifts and donations. That's not just out of niceness, and it's certainly not out of guilt. It's because we understand that our mission is to bring a little bit of up there down here and make this look a little bit more like up there.

Now listen, this is very important. We cannot bring God's kingdom perfectly. Of course, that will only happen when Jesus Christ returns, and the Bible says God will bring heaven and earth into perfect alignment. But until then, we are each ambassadors of the kingdom, and that is the good news of Jesus. He cleanses us so that we can be ambassadors to the world of the kingdom. See, watch this: there are two errors when it comes to defining the gospel. First, seeing the gospel as entirely personal and focusing only on personal sin, right? Like lying and cheating and adultery and so on. But the second error is seeing the gospel as entirely social and focusing only on corporate sin, corporate greed, systems out there somewhere, not in me. Typically, the theologically conservative churches tend to emphasize the personal, and the theologically liberal churches in America tend to emphasize the social. But biblically, it is both for sure.

You know, the Bible talks a ton about personal responsibility, personal repentance, personal holiness, and all through the pages of Scripture, the Bible also talks a ton about corporate sin, corporate greed, national oppression. God calls out nations, churches, groups to repent. It's both, and here's the way it happens. First, step one: the kingdom of God on earth begins personally when each one of us personally turns the throne of our kingdom over to God because each of us personally has a kingdom, right? You could call it the kingdom of me, where I do whatever I want to do—my will, my way, my time—the kingdom of me.

You know our 19-month-old grandson Danny—Isn't he adorable? You know he is just—say it—he's adorable. René, say that to your television right now: he's adorable. Thank you very much. But you know Danny's just learning how to talk, and you can probably guess what four of his first words were. The first one was mama, and then in quick succession came no, my, me, and mine. He's not even two years old, and he has learned very well he has a kingdom. It's the kingdom of Danny, and it's apparently a pirate kingdom. And when Danny and his brother Freddie grow out of their car seats, there's Freddie, and they start to actually sit in the back seat, I guarantee you that one of the first things they will do—because all kids do this—is draw an imaginary line down the middle of the back seat, and they will say, "Don't cross this line." Why? Because they will be convinced that their seat is their kingdom.

And I guarantee you that their dad, our oldest Jonathan, will say on some long hot road trip, just as I did to him and his siblings, "Do you want me to come back there, boys?" Why? Because every dad thinks the car is his kingdom. And of course, you know how it goes. Danny and Freddie will be confident he cannot come back there while the car is moving, so dad will send Mr. Hand back, and they will lean away into the safety zone. Camp speaker Ken Davis has great advice on how to get kids out of the unreachable safety zone. He says a quick tap on the brakes brings them right into play.

Now part of that is normal psychological development, but as we grow older, this can become our main source of conflict and of sorrow—insisting that the kingdom of me is ruled by me, and I get everything my way all the time. That's gonna cause a lot of conflict. So praying to God, "Your kingdom come, your will be done," is asking God to rule in my heart, to make the kingdom of me into part of the kingdom of God.

You know, you've probably seen this graphic, which really helped me picture this. When myself is on the throne of my life, I try to control everything. It's all for my own pleasure and gain, and everything in my life feels somehow unbalanced and out of whack and frustrated. But when I put Christ on the center of my life, on my throne, my priorities and needs begin to be balanced. I feel more at peace, and then as a person of peace, I begin to influence the world around me. But it has to start here in my heart because I can't pray for God to fix the world if I'm unwilling for him to fix me, right?

And then "Your kingdom come" is also asking God to rule in this world, not just in my heart. Sin doesn't just take hold in my heart; it also takes hold in the world, and so I'm asking God to work through my life to extend his kingdom in a sense out there, not just in here, by being an ambassador of his kingdom in my own sphere of influence. You see, the kingdoms of this world have caused so much sorrow, and this is exactly why in the Bible the people of God long for a new and better kingdom, and God promises one is on the way. And Jesus says, "Yes, it is here." But unlike what the people expected, Jesus says, "I will not lead an armed revolution." Jesus never ever advocated any kind of violence. Violence is not the way for this revolution.

Jesus said, remember, "Here's how the kingdom of God comes: it's like a tiny mustard seed or a tiny little bit of yeast." It starts very small; people hardly notice it because it starts personally, invisibly in people's hearts, but then it grows, and it permeates, and it changes entire kingdoms. And you know this really happened in the kingdom. The very earliest Christians were in the Roman Kingdom, the Roman Empire. It was all about survival of the fittest and the strongest and the best armed, the most powerful, and the Christians said, "You know what? We're not gonna live like our culture. We are going to live like the culture of heaven and start to give a peek of the kingdom of heaven on earth." And what happened?

You know, a guy named Rodney Stark is a Pulitzer Prize nominee, a professor of sociology, has authored more than 150 scholarly articles, 32 books on history. He is not a pastor; he is a top-level historian, and he says here is why the Christians essentially conquered the Roman Empire without one single violent incident: they brought heaven down to earth. How? Quote, "To cities filled with the homeless and impoverished, Christianity offered charity and hope. To cities filled with newcomers and strangers, Christianity offered an immediate basis for attachments. To cities filled with orphans and widows, Christianity provided a new and expanded family. To cities torn by violent ethnic strife, Christianity offered a new basis for solidarity. And to cities faced with epidemics, fires, earthquakes, Christianity offered effective nursing." He says, "No wonder the early Christians were so warmly received in Rome." What they brought was not simply a movement, but watch this: a new culture—Jesus culture instead of Caesar culture.

And he says this, this is his conclusion: "It was the way its doctrines took on actual flesh, the way they directed both organizational actions and individual behavior that led to the rise of Christianity." In other words, those early Christians really believed it when they prayed, "Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." They were in a world of turmoil, and so are we, but the kingdom paradigm from the Bible gives so much hope and such a sense of purpose. Yes, things in the kingdoms of this world are broken; that doesn't surprise us. We see it all through scripture, but the good news is we are the advance guard of a kingdom that is already leaking into this world, and you and I make a difference not by fighting, not by insulting, not by getting into these horrible online debates, but like those early Jesus followers did—with the weapons of our warfare, with love and with hope and with faith. Jesus has given you that purpose.

Now to wrap up the message along those lines, I want to hand the ball, so to speak, to my closer today, my friend and colleague Pastor Ephraim Smith from Bayside Midtown in Sacramento as he picks up this train of thought. Ephraim, take us home.

Because of sin, because of brokenness, sin is not only housed in the hearts of people. Sin doesn't just find itself in the soul, in our thinking, in our decision-making, in our feelings, in our emotions. Sin doesn't just make its way there; collectively, as we build things, as we produce things, sin works its way into systems and structures and institutions and governments. If you're reading through the Old Testament, you'll continue to see structures, nations, governments, institutions, systems that don't work for the flourishing, for the thriving of all people, that don't work for the justice of all people, that don't work for the equality of all people, the acknowledging of bearing the image of God upon all people.

You see that through the Assyrians in the Old Testament, through the Babylonians in the Old Testament, through the Greco-Roman institutions. You see the people of God throughout the Old Testament, somewhat because of their own behavior, their own sin, their own idolatry, they find themselves suffering, oppressed, exiled, enslaved. You see this throughout the Old Testament. Even people in relationship with God have the possibility of creating systems and institutions and structures that don't work for the flourishing or thriving of all people. That is no surprise to God, and as followers of Jesus, it should be no surprise to us.

We should not be surprised even in living in the United States of America. And I'm glad I live in the United States of America. I am. I'm so glad that I live in a nation where we can worship Jesus without fear of being arrested, being beaten in public by the governmental authorities for worshiping Jesus. I'm so glad. I'm so glad I live in a nation where I get to vote. I'm so glad I live in a nation where you can take an idea and turn it into a product and turn the product into a business and participate in the free market enterprise. That's awesome. I'm glad I live in a nation where I can go one place and eat catfish and collard greens and macaroni and cheese and hot cornbread with butter and honey and peach cobbler and drink sweet tea, and I can go someplace else and have deep dish pizza out of this world, and I can go someplace else and have that like Peruvian food, and I go someplace else and have Indian food. I mean, like, that's so awesome.

And at the same time, as a follower of Christ, you and I, we are the first and foremost give our allegiance to surrender to defend, represent, serve as an ambassador of the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God is forever. All other governments one day will end; all other structures and systems will end, but the kingdom of God is forever. And you and I are called to represent the kingdom of God. And when we give our allegiance, most importantly to the kingdom of God, we're able to see this world we live in, no matter how good it might look, for the sinful, broken, upside-down world that it is.

And that's how we understand race, racism, systemic racism. We must understand it from a biblical standpoint. If we're able to look at Exodus, if we're able to go through the Old Testament, if we're able to see the Gospels and see governments and systems and structures and institutions that have sin in them, that have been corrupted by sin, if we understand biblically that sin is not just in the heart, it's in institutions and systems and structures, and if we understand that we are saved by God through Christ, we are citizens of the kingdom of God, and most importantly, you and I are ambassadors. We are representatives here to be salt and light, to be vehicles of liberation and reconciliation and truth and love and justice.

If you know that you are a doctor or a teacher or a social worker or a student or an executive or a police officer, you are in that role as a representative from the kingdom of God. You are a missionary police officer. You are a missionary teacher. You are a missionary social worker. You are a missionary vice president of a company. You are a missionary attorney, and you are there not to defend that corporation or that firm or that justice system. You are there to defend the kingdom of God, to be salt and light.

So yes, in the United States of America, we have systems that don't work equally for all people, but you and I are called to be liberators and reconcilers. We're not to sit in shame and guilt because of that. You're not to sit in oppression and victimization because of that. We are called to rise like Moses. Give your soul, give your emotions, give your thinking, give your being to God. Let God set your soul free so that you can become the liberating, reconciling, justice-oriented, disciple-making Christian that you were always meant to be. We are in a broken, upside-down world, but guess what? God wants to use you to be a representative of the kingdom of God to make Jesus and the kingdom of God known in this broken world. Let it be done in Jesus' name. Amen.

In fact, here's a challenge for you this week: ask every day, "How are my attitudes and my actions bringing a little bit of up there down here?" Let's pray together. Lord, as Ephraim said, I am also so grateful for this country and for all the manifold blessings that we have in this nation. And I also pray for our nation now. I pray for healing to come to our nation. I pray for unity in our nation, and mostly I pray that your kingdom come, your will be done on earth and our part of the earth and in all the earth as it is in heaven. I pray that we as citizens of the kingdom of God will radiate the culture of heaven to the world around us, and God, I pray that if anybody is watching or listening right now is thinking, "Have I accepted that invitation?" that they simply would—that they would turn from allegiance to themselves or some other earthly kingdom to full allegiance to you as King and that they would take their free offer of citizenship in the kingdom of God. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.