Thy Kingdom Come

"Thy Kingdom Come" – Matthew 6:10 "Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven." The study takes this petition of the Lord's Prayer and moves it from the future into the present: the kingdom is not only a place we will go to, but a government that must begin inside us. From that comes the question that runs through the message —the kingdom cannot come while I remain on the throne— and the passage through Matthew 6:33, "seek ye first the kingdom of God," and Luke 17:21, "the kingdom of God is within you": it is not pointed at with a finger, it is discerned; it does not begin by changing the world, it begins by changing the heart.

I. Before one can say it

A. If we learn today, everything is in our hands. One can go on living in one's own style, built on personality and on the striving of this earth.

B. And the things of this world bring no peace and do no good: a person ends up small before God.

C. Among the multitudes of the earth, God's eyes rest on the one who shines; not because we have anything of our own, but when we learn to love Him as He deserves.

D. If in the morning you think of yourself, and go on thinking of yourself, you never come out of that shell; and one must come out of it to take the place God has for each one.

E. The earth fills you today and tomorrow it is claimed back and taken away. When God wants to give, He gives; there is no need for so much striving.

F. One should breathe deep and look to heaven. For looking so much at this earth, you could never say to the Lord, "thy kingdom come."

G. The question is whether God sees us as children or merely as plain believers. And if anything is to be boasted of, let it be service to others.

H. It is hard to find eyes thirsty for the Lord: much boasting is heard. The Gospel belongs to the brave, and you decide.

II. What "thy kingdom come" means

A. The kingdom is not only a place we will go to: it is a government that must begin in us.

B. It is the prayer of our conversion: let thy kingdom be established over my life. Before coming to the Lord it was not there; on coming, we begin to know it.

C. It is part of the Lord's Prayer. And it is a prayer Jesus teaches to the Father: He did not need the kingdom to come, for Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one.

D. But you and I do need the kingdom of God for our lives.

E. We cannot go on speaking as our mother or father spoke, nor like the nonsense of the television and the radio: the believer's life cannot be ordinary.

F. We are holy, godly people, filled with the glory of the LORD, working miracles wherever each of us has to walk. And where are your miracles?

G. It means that God should govern our lives. Because we make much disorder and act on impulse, and we speak out of the condition of the heart.

H. And it is not only something future: it is present. It is saying: Lord, reign in me now.

III. Reign in me now

A. Can you ask God to govern your life at the moment your heart is overturned with greed, because someone owes you and has not been able to pay?

B. Or is it the impulse to open the mouth and create an atmosphere of strife and enmity?

C. Of course the debtor must pay; no licence is being given. What is being said is how our acts should be, because if the kingdom comes, in the kingdom there is justice.

D. Lord, reign in me now: in my decisions, in my character, in my actions. Do you ask God to reign in the actions you take?

E. And it does not worry us that we could lose salvation. That is worse than lukewarmness, because that way we go down and take everyone with us.

F. The kingdom cannot come if I remain on the throne. You have a throne: you rise thinking of yourself, spend the day thinking of yourself, and night comes and you think only of yourself.

G. And the more you work that throne, the further from you the kingdom is. Come down off the throne.

IV. "Thy will be done in earth"

A. The line continues with God's will done on the earth, and that implies surrender. When are we going to surrender?

B. If you had that seeking with God, your character changes, your speech changes, your living changes; and it would show in the church.

C. Where there is no surrender there is no obedience and no trust in God. That is why people talk: because the trust is in oneself, in pretension and in strife.

D. And what falls to us is service: to have a look of tenderness and to do good to others.

E. If someone offends you and you feel mistreated, why not turn the other cheek? Let us stop being children.

F. The kingdom comes when His will replaces mine: when it arrives —if you let it— it replaces the kingdom each of us keeps.

V. That His kingdom advance in the world

A. And what does the advance of His kingdom include? The salvation of a soul.

B. A mother cries out for her children, because one watches them and knows what is coming. And are we able to carry them in prayer?

C. When there is someone you would want to see converted, that is the spreading of the Gospel.

D. Let us stop talking so much; and if we speak, let it be of all that is good. Let the Gospel come out through our pores: that is why people say "you have something."

E. Will God have to send angels to the earth to do what falls to us?

F. When our knees bend before the Father and the prayer ends in the name of Jesus, great miracles are already at work.

G. If we do not fight for the kingdom to come, we are condemning many who could be saved. Every time someone is converted, the kingdom advances.

H. And it points to the future kingdom too: it is a prophetic prayer. We long for the second coming and the visible kingdom of Christ: total justice, true peace, eternal government.

I. When His kingdom comes there is whole government in the one who seeks, prays and fasts; and the Holy Spirit speaks, reveals, fills the mouth with wisdom, and impels.

J. If you have that government and do not know it, wake it up and begin to use it. And the one who brought the kingdom was Jesus: who else was going to bring it?

VI. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God" (Matthew 6:33)

A. "Seek" is a continuous action. Prayer is every day; the Bible is every day.

B. It is not a thing of one moment: it is a life of constant seeking. It is not occasional; it is a daily priority.

C. That the children get good grades is a priority. Why is it not a priority that they love the kingdom? For every benefit of the righteous is in the kingdom.

D. I have never liked struggling against wind and tide, nor contempt, nor mockery; but I have never looked at mortals: I have looked at God.

E. The day I was converted the kingdom came into my life, and from that day I have prayed for the sick and have said what I have had to say.

F. When a person enters the kingdom he becomes a warrior, not a coward; for the devil's attacks are no trifle: they are to destroy you and to bind you slowly.

G. "I have many problems." And what of the problems, if we have His kingdom? Let God deal with them: "let God arise, let his enemies be scattered."

H. "First" is the right order: God does not accept second place. And to say second place means that you put yourself in first.

I. God is not after work, nor after the problems, nor after everything else. When God is first, everything else finds its place.

J. Let us not be a lukewarm people: the lukewarm will be spewed out, and if you are lukewarm, all that is yours will be lost. When God gives a person up, there is no more.

K. It is not only going to heaven: it is living under His authority now and under His justice, which is living rightly. Not only believing, but living according to Him.

L. "And all these things shall be added unto you": God takes care of provision, of needs, of keeping. When you take care of God's things, God takes care of you.

M. When one of hers was a child, on the eve of a hurricane, he was injured; the hospitals were closing and the doctors were leaving, and just as they arrived it was the surgeon who opened the door and took him straight to surgery. One minute earlier.

N. Things happen to us as they do to everyone. But when the kingdom is first, worry loses its place.

VII. "The kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21)

A. Here Jesus teaches that the kingdom is not only future.

B. The kingdom of God begins in our heart, and shows where God governs a life: where there is obedience, justice and love, there it is.

C. It is not outwardly visible. So Jesus answers the Pharisees, who sought visible signs: it is not an immediate physical place, nor something pointed at with a finger.

D. The kingdom is not detected with the eyes: it is discerned spiritually.

E. "It is within you": it was present there because Christ was in their midst. And if Christ is in our hearts, then He is in our midst.

F. We would be braver and of more use if we kept silence, loved God, and sought His wisdom.

G. For believers, the kingdom dwells in the heart. So the heart cannot be soiled with strife, with anger, with our pretensions: if it is soiled, the kingdom cannot be there.

H. God governs from within, from our inner being. But we have sought rather to tend the outside.

VIII. The kingdom transforms from within

A. It is not an external kingdom: it is internal. It transforms from within; it is no façade.

B. It does not begin by changing the world: it begins by changing one's own heart. Then it changes decisions, then conduct, and then it touches another.

C. The kingdom shows outside because it first came inside. It is not sought in places: it is established in the heart.

D. And it is lived there where you keep your silences and your intentions, where only you know what is there. You can deceive everyone; but where there is deceit, the kingdom is not.

E. All that silence about what is ugly is demons, and demons tear down slowly so as not to be discovered.

F. What is hidden is yours; but by that hidden thing you will be destroyed, and you will take your own down with you. And death takes people by surprise.

G. It is not a matter of appearance: it is a matter of inward transformation.

H. Do you have much anger, much rage, many doubts? The one who has not wanted to transform you is you, because you do not let the kingdom in.

I. The kingdom is seen when your character changes, your reactions change, your way of living changes. That is how you know it came: for when it comes there is repentance, and out of repentance faith is set in motion.

IX. Application

A. Ask yourself whether you can truly say "thy kingdom come," or whether you are too taken up with what is on the earth.

B. Come down off the throne: the kingdom cannot come while you are still seated on it.

C. Ask that God reign in the concrete thing: in your decisions, your character, your reactions.

D. Put God truly first: not after work and not after the problems.

E. Pray for someone's salvation: every time one is converted, the kingdom advances.

F. Examine what is hidden, for where there is deceit the kingdom is not.

G. And measure the result by the only thing that shows it: whether your character, your reactions and your way of living have changed.