2. Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done

When His disciples asked Him to teach them how to pray, Jesus responded with what is probably the most famous prayer in the world – which we know as the Lord’s Prayer. Here it is:

Here’s a question for you: if Jesus tells us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done”, what does that tell us about God’s Kingdom and His will?

The obvious answer is that God’s Kingdom must not yet have come and His will must not yet be being done.

But He also says that the Kingdom of God HAS already come:

So, it must be that the Kingdom of God HAS come, but not fully.

The Kingdom is here, in the midst of us, but we may not be aware of it because it is not outwardly observed – i.e. there is no throne, no crown, no sceptre, no palace, no army, nor any of the other trappings of an earthly kingdom.

But there is a King, and His authority is manifest in, among other things, the driving out of demons, as we have just seen in Matthew 12 and Luke 11 (above). In fact, in Mark’s gospel, this is the primary indication of Christ’s divine authority, as it is something that did not take place under the old covenant. Jesus was the first to do it (Mark 1:27).

The Lordship of Christ, the King

In Acts chapter 16, Luke tells us of an event that took place in the town of Philippi. The apostles Paul and Silas were beaten and thrown into prison for preaching the Gospel, but at midnight, as they prayed and sang hymns, there was an earthquake and the prison doors flew open.

Sometimes Christians talk about knowing Christ as Saviour but not as Lord. However, it is clear in scripture that Jesus is our Saviour only in so far as He is our Lord.

Paul tells the Philippian jailer, “If you want to be saved you must believe in the LORD Jesus CHRIST”.

The English word ‘Christ’ is from the Greek word ‘Xristos’, which translates the Hebrew word ‘Mashiach’, which we pronounce in English as ‘Messiah’.

Both Christ and Messiah mean “Anointed One”, which means “King”, as these scriptures show:

In the Old Testament, God Himself was King of Israel, but the people rejected Him:

Jesus tells a parable to indicate that the same attitude of heart is current in His day:

We saw in the previous article that we are all born into the kingdom of Satan, the dominion of darkness, and that his kingdom resists the kingdom of God, so it is no surprise that by nature we are all inclined to reject the authority of God and the Lordship of Christ.

In the Kingdom of God, the Lord Jesus Christ is both Lord and King. This means that He has all power and authority in His Kingdom. Anyone who wants to live in the Kingdom of God may do so only if they are prepared to submit to the authority of the King.

This goes beyond merely paying lip-service to His authority, as Jesus tells us:

But neither is “doing the will of the Father” a matter of just going through the motions, as was the case with the religious leaders of Jesus’s day:

The Father wants us to do what’s RIGHT because we understand that it’s right and we believe that it’s right – to live in RIGHTEOUSNESS towards both God and our fellow man:

So, what IS the Kingdom of God?

The Greek word rendered ‘kingdom’ in the New Testament speaks more of the REIGN of God than the REALM of God.

So what’s the difference between a REIGN and a REALM? We could say, for example, that the United Kingdom is the REALM of the British monarch – the group of nations over which he or she REIGNS.

At the present time, the Kingdom of God is manifest in the lives of individual believers rather than in nations or empires. It’s about God being YOUR King, sitting on the throne of YOUR heart, and reigning in YOUR personal life.

Roger Forster has suggested that we might call it “the kinging-it of God”, because God is “kinging-it” in your life – that is, exercising His divine authority and power in and through you.

However, when Christ returns to the earth at the end of the age, He will establish His REALM over the whole earth:

But today He wants to REIGN within your HEART; He wants His kingdom to come IN YOU:

In order to get an understanding of what Paul means about the kingdom of God being righteousness, peace, and joy, let us consider the following passages of scripture:

RIGHTEOUSNESS

a) Being in right relationship with God:

When anyone comes to God on the basis of the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross, confessing their sins and seeking His forgiveness, God declares that the shed blood of Christ has paid the penalty for those sins, those sins are forgiven, the wrath of God is satisfied, the sinner is declared to be righteous, and is welcomed into the presence of God as His rightful son or daughter (John 1:12). That person is translated from the dominion of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God, Christ Jesus (Colossians 1:13 KJV). They are now in a RIGHT RELATIONSHIP or in RIGHT STANDING with God.

b) Doing what is right in the sight of God, in thought, in word, and in deed:

In Romans 5:17 (quoted earlier), Paul says that we have received “the gift of righteousness”, which means not only that we are declared righteous by God, but that we have the righteousness of Christ imparted to us, and this manifests itself in our lives in a righteous life-style.

If someone said to you, “I have the gift of music”, how would you expect that to manifest itself? Or if someone has “the gift of prophecy”, what would you expect to see and hear from them? Similarly, if as Christians we have “the gift of righteousness”, what would it be reasonable to expect to see and hear from us?

Living a righteous life is evidence that the Kingdom of God has come, and that Christ is reigning within.

PEACE

a) Being at peace WITH God

Having been declared righteous, and having our sins forgiven, and having been cleansed from all unrighteousness by the blood of Christ (1 John 1:9), we are able to enter into the very presence of the Almighty without even a hint of fear or shame, and we can settle ourselves at His footstool to worship Him (Psalm 99:5) and wait upon Him with the total peace in our hearts that we are safe, that we are accepted, that we are loved, that we are protected, and that we are where we belong, not only for this moment, but for ever more.

b) Knowing the peace OF God

God always has been, always is, and always will be totally at peace within His own heart. He is never anxious, He is never worried, He is never on edge. Whenever the Kingdom of God comes into a human heart, that human heart is able to experience the very same peace that God Himself experiences.

Often, when someone comes to Christ at first, they will say, “I’m enjoying such a peace – I’ve never felt like this before!” But after a few weeks, or maybe a few days, that peace has been lost again and you wonder if it had just been an emotion. However, the peace was real, and we need to learn to come back to that place where we are living in the good of that which our Heavenly Father has imparted of Himself to us through the Holy Spirit.

JOY

a) The joy that comes from knowing sins forgiven and being loved and accepted by Almighty God

In Romans 5:2 (quoted earlier) and Romans 15:13 (quoted above), Paul links three key words: peace, joy, and hope. We are able to rejoice, even in the midst of the most difficult trials, because we have a hope that is sure and certain, because it is based on the promise of God that He has made to us through the covenant of grace that He entered into with each one of us individually when we accepted for ourselves the crucifixion of Christ and the shed blood of the cross of Calvary. That hope is “our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23) – our eventual resurrection into a glorious new life that we shall enjoy throughout eternity in the presence of our Almighty Father.

b) Knowing the joy of the Lord Himself, by being in intimate communion with Him

A thousand years before Jesus was born, king David saw in the spirit what it would be like, this eternal life that Jesus would bring; and two thousand years after Jesus died and rose again, in our inner hearts we sense something of that “fulness of joy” that David spoke of. Peter refers to it as “joy unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Peter 1:8 KJV). This is the very joy of God Himself, which He gladly shares with His precious children to keep us focused on our ultimate goal – to become like Jesus, and spend eternity in His presence.

How do you see yourself?

If you have any “Not Sures” or “Disagrees”, bring these before God in your private time with Him.