“Thy Kingdom Come”
Luke 10:18

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Pastor Kevin Vogts
Trinity Lutheran Church
Paola, Kansas
Third Sunday after Pentecost—June 30, 2019

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

We continue our summer sermon series on the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father who art in heaven; Hallowed by Thy name; Thy kingdom come.”

In Reader’s Digest recently they had a list of animals that don’t live up to their names: the French poodle originated in Germany; the mole-rat is neither a mole nor a rat; the blind worm isn’t blind; and the deaf adder isn’t deaf.

Some people think that the KINGDOM of God is like that, it just doesn’t live up to its name.  Shouldn’t a REAL kingdom have all the trappings we’ve come to expect: earthly territory, borders, a palace, etc.?  That’s actually what the first disciples thought while Jesus was here on earth.  They thought Jesus would be an earthly king with all the trappings, they thought God had sent his Son to earth to achieve military victory over the Romans occupying the Holy Land, and then establish God’s kingdom here on earth in the form of a political state.

But, at very moment Jesus could have made all that happen, he instead said to Pontius Pilate: “My kingdom is not of this world.”  Jesus did not come to set up a political kingdom.  He was on a much more important mission, a rescue mission for the whole world.  For, without Jesus all of humankind—including us—are hopelessly locked in the clutches of three great enemies: sin, death and the devil.

God sent his Son on a rescue mission, not to overthrow the ancient Romans, but to overthrow these three ancient SPIRITUAL enemies of humankind: sin, death and the devil.  As Paul says in Colossians, “He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”

Mark reports that Jesus began his preaching by proclaiming, “The time has come, the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the Gospel!”  The paradox is that Jesus did indeed come to bring God’s kingdom upon earth, yet it is not an earthly kingdom.  It is instead a kingdom of faith, a spiritual kingdom composed of all those who “Repent and believe the Gospel.”  Jesus Christ is YOUR rescuer from the dominion of darkness.  By the merits of his life, death and resurrection YOUR sins are forgiven.  “The time has come, the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the Gospel!”

Jesus stated the purely spiritual nature of God’s kingdom this way: “The kingdom of God does NOT come visibly, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ for the kingdom of God is within you.”  So when you pray in the Lord’s Prayer “Thy kingdom come,” you are first of all saying, “O King Jesus, enthroned upon the cross and crowned with thorns, may thy kingdom come within ME, in the territory of my heart.”  That’s what the kingdom of God is, not a political entity with all the outward trappings we would expect, but the kingdom of God is the Holy Christian Church, an inner, spiritual kingdom made up of all believers.  “For the kingdom of God is within you.”

When you pray “Thy kingdom come,” you are also praying for the spread of the Gospel.  You are praying for the growth of God’s kingdom, by conquering with the Gospel the territory of more and more human hearts. And for your own life, “Thy kingdom come” means: “Help ME to live as befits a citizen of your kingdom; help ME to be a witness for you; use ME to spread your kingdom.”

Although the Bible symbolically describes this ongoing spiritual struggle to win the world for Christ as a “war,” it also makes clear that is only symbolic language.  As Jesus declared in the Garden of Gethsemane, when his disciples drew swords to prevent his arrest: “Put your sword away—back in its scabbard!  For all who live by the sword will die by the sword.”  With those words, Jesus forever forbids his church to use worldly weapons in the spiritual battle for men’s souls.  Paul puts it this way in 2nd Corinthians: “For we do not wage war as the world does, and the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.” 

In Ephesians, Paul beautifully describes the purely SPIRITUAL weapons Christ and his followers employ, in our purely spiritual crusade to win more and more human hearts for King Jesus: “Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against . . . the spiritual forces of evil. . .  Therefore put on the full armor of God . . . the belt of truth . . . the breastplate of righteousness . . . your feet shod with . . . the Gospel of peace. . .  the shield of faith . . . the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

That’s the meaning of the mysterious incident in today’s Gospel Reading.  When Jesus sends out the first messengers of the Gospel and when they return and tell him of their success, he replies, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”  All of Satan’s fury is powerless before the Gospel, the Good News of forgiveness through faith in Christ, preached by those first disciples and still believed and proclaimed by us today.   As Martin Luther says in the hymn “A Mighty Fortress:” “The old evil foe now means deadly woe; he can harm us none, he’s judged, the deed is done, one little word can fell him.” 

Literal breastplates, and shields, and helmet, and swords are powerless against the old satanic foe.  But, what will bring defeat him and bring him down every time is “the Gospel of peace.”  What will protect and defend you from his onslaughts is “the breastplate of righteousness . . . the shield of faith . . . the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.”

So, what exactly does it mean when you pray, “Thy kingdom come”?  Are you praying that Christ will set up a worldly kingdom here on earth?  No; “For the kingdom of God is within you.”