Your Kingdom Come: Jesus Is King Right Now—and He’s Coming Back

Good morning.

Can I ask everyone to stand with me?

Ah, all right.

As we uh gather this morning to worship our God, I want to just read a brief scripture.

It says, You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power.

For you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.

Church, let us lift up our eyes to the throne of God this morning.

We gather today to look upon the one, Jesus, who spoke the universe into existence, yet knows the intimate details, the intimate beating of our hearts.

He is the Alpha and the Omega.

He is the beginning and the end.

Every breath we have is a gift from Him.

And every moment we live is held by His grace.

He is worthy.

He is worthy of our singing.

He's worthy of our praises.

So as a church, let us sing to our worthy God, the one who is worthy of it all.

Amen.

This morning, we're going to recite a prayer that Jesus gave his disciples.

It comes from his word.

I want you to hold a Bible in your hand to remind yourself it comes from God's word.

It is his authoritative word.

Let us not forget that.

So when we pray this, we are praying God's word.

So together, we start off with our Father in heaven.

Can we get it on the screen, please?

Everyone as a church, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

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

Give us today our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

Amen.

You may be seated.

By the end of this series, I hope for those of you who don't have it memorized, you will have it memorized.

Um, okay, this morning.

Well, let me actually share a little bit about my uh my daughter Elena, who I don't know if she's in here still or she ran off.

If she hears me say her name, she'll probably run up on stage.

So let's let me I'll tone it down a little bit.

Um my daughter, she has uh recently really gotten into Disney princess movies right now.

Uh she's got she's got princess dresses, she's got princess crowns, she you know, prances all around the house, she dances, she twirls the whole thing.

And uh a few weeks ago, she finds out that there's this um kind of a Disney series, it's not a movie, it's more like a TV series.

Uh, but this this Disney TV series has a princess who has her name in it, right?

It's Princess Elena.

It's actually Princess Elena of Avalor.

When we shared this with her, she got so excited.

I mean, you you thought we would have told her that we're moving to Disney World and that's your new home now.

I mean, she was so excited.

So I'm sitting there and I'm watching, you know, I'm on the couch watching it with her, you know, second time, third time with little kids, you watch the same movies over and over and over again.

So I'm watching this with her second time, third time goes by.

And somewhere in there, I actually stopped watching her watch the movie, and and I started watching the movie.

And I realized something.

So often, almost every one of these Disney movies pretty much ends the same way.

Somebody gets a crown almost every single time.

You know, I realize that we've been telling our kids stories about kings and queens since before they could even read.

And look, it's not just kids.

I mean, we don't have a king in this country, we didn't want one.

But then Prince Harry gets married in England at seven in the morning our time, and 29 million people here in the US get up early to watch that wedding.

In fact, there's a TV show called The Crown.

I don't know if you guys have heard of it or know about it.

I'm sure some of you do know about it.

The Crown, it's got nearly 200 million viewing hours.

We say we don't do kings, but then we called Elvis the king of rock and roll, right?

We didn't call him the best singer.

That wasn't good enough.

We called him the king, right?

Uh-huh.

It was Elvis the King.

Now, look, I look at Elena, she's watching these movies, and I know she's not sitting there wondering, you know, who ought to be running that kingdom.

No, what does she do?

She puts on the princess dress.

And it's not so much that she doesn't want the princess, she wants to be the princess.

In fact, small confession, we are commanded, Sarah and I, her parents, we are commanded to walk around calling her Princess Elena.

She rules the little kingdom.

And look, that never that never goes away, even as we get older.

It just gets a little quieter.

Because I know she's gonna grow up.

Yeah, she's gonna stop wearing the princess dress, but she's gonna start wanting a title.

She's gonna want a promotion, she's gonna want her name on something.

You see, we all want to matter.

And most of us spend our whole life not feeling like we do.

So we watch it instead in a movie, a royal wedding at seven in the morning, because we're not satisfied with a good king over us.

If we're honest with ourselves, we want a crown.

Now, Matthew chapter 6, Jesus is teaching his disciples how to pray.

Matthew 6 · chapter mention

Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.

Then verse 10, and we see three words your kingdom come.

Now, when we hear kingdom, what do most of us picture?

We picture a castle.

We picture this massive, beautiful castle, some place you have to go to.

But that's not what this word means here.

The word Jesus uses here means a rain.

And I'm not talking about you know rain that falls from the sky.

I'm talking about a rain, R-E-I-G-N.

Did I spell that right?

R-E-I-G-N.

Yes, I did.

Royalty.

We're talking about sovereignty.

We're talking about somebody ruling, somebody actually running things.

He's teaching us to pray, God, your rule, bring it here.

So when we pray, your kingdom come, we're praying, King Jesus, rule me now.

In fact, extend your saving rule, extend your saving reign around me and come finish what you started.

But to really understand this, to understand why this is such a big prayer, we've got to go all the way back to page one.

Genesis chapter one.

God makes a man and a woman, and he hands them a job.

And what's the job description?

To rule.

That's the exact command.

To rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living thing that moves on the ground.

Look, that wasn't some menial job.

That's kingship.

It's kingly rule.

You jump into Psalm 8 and it's turned into a song.

The psalmist is looking back at creation and writes about human beings.

He says, You made them, listen, you made them, human beings, a little lower than the angels, and crowned them with glory and honor.

You put everything under their feet.

Crown them.

That's the divine verdict on human beings.

You see, before there was any sin, before anything went wrong, God looked at a human being and put a crown on his head.

You were made in God's image.

You were made to carry real responsibility under his rule.

The longing for your life to matter isn't wrong.

The problem is sin takes that good longing and twists it into something else.

Twists it into, you know, I want to matter on my terms with my name on it and nobody over me.

That's what sin does.

If you work in healthcare, you know what a charge nurse is.

I mean, your charge nurse, you are running that floor.

Somebody codes at three in the morning, you don't stand there going, well, well, I'm just a nurse.

No, you move, you take action, you exercise authority.

But your authority is delegated from above.

There are orders and standards above you.

And listen, you're you're not weaker because you work under authority.

Your authority means something because it came from somewhere.

Same with a foreman on a job site or a teacher in a classroom.

This is real responsibility, real authority, but authority under authority.

That's Genesis one.

God made us to rule under his rule.

And church, that's Genesis 1 in your actual life this week.

See, some of you are gonna punch a clock tomorrow, and you've been telling yourself for years that what you do doesn't matter.

It doesn't count for anything.

Maybe you clean rooms, or you drive a truck, or you watch somebody else's children, or maybe you sit in a room with your mother while she forgets your name again.

Look, church, that's a crown.

That's your crown.

God handed all of you something to rule and take care of.

And he gave you room to rule it.

That's what you were made for.

All of you.

That's how it started.

So what happened?

Well, you jump to Genesis chapter 3, the serpent shows up and makes Adam an offer.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

Now, we usually think he offered Adam a crown, but not quite.

Adam already had one.

God had already crowned him.

What did the serpent offer?

The serpent offered him God's job.

You will be like God.

You decide what's good, you decide what's evil.

Nobody tells you anything, nobody over you.

And Adam, he took it.

He wasn't reaching for a crown, he had a crown.

He was reaching to get God off the throne above him.

And as a result, Adam, he didn't get more.

He lost what he had.

And look at what God tells him afterwards.

He tells him that the ground is cursed now.

It's gonna fight you.

Thorns are coming out of the same dirt you were put here to rule.

And one day that ground is gonna take your body back.

Adam was made to rule the ground.

Now the ground rules him.

He wanted to be like God, he ended up in the dirt.

And church, we've been doing the same thing ever since.

I mean, let me give you an analogy.

Think about a house.

You buy a house because, in all honesty, you finally get to rule something, right?

But then that mortgage payment comes at you, and the mortgage payment rules you.

But you're still not satisfied.

You need the bigger house, you need the bigger, better house, so you get a bigger one, and now there's more rooms to clean.

And gosh, the AC goes out in August because, of course, it always goes out in August, one of the hottest months in Florida.

You bought the house to rule it.

Now you get up on a Saturday and you work for it.

See, my point is the fall of humanity, the desire to rule ourselves is what's wrecked our world.

I mean, the fall of humanity is why the world looks the way it does.

I mean, we see the wreckage of Genesis 3 everywhere.

War, exploitation, addiction, homes and marriages just torn apart.

The human race keeps saying, we don't want God over us.

And look, it didn't it didn't stay out there on the world stage.

It came down here into our community.

And then into our families.

And then it came all the way down into me.

And into you.

And because of that, it's it often, not always, but it often shows up in our lives in in at least two ways.

Some of you have given up.

You decided a long time ago that nothing is ever gonna change.

You call it realism.

But the despair in your life has been controlling you and giving you orders ever since.

Maybe you've prayed these words for years, your kingdom come, but somewhere along the way you stopped believing God's reign could reach this part of your life.

And then others, well, you went the other direction.

Same conclusion, no, nobody's coming, so it's up to me.

So you got competent, you took control, you're the one everyone calls when everything falls apart.

In fact, that's how you're even running your own soul.

See, one face lets despair rule them, the other tries to be the ruler.

But neither is resting under the good rule of God.

And look, I'm not immune to this.

You want to see my kingdom?

It's got a very small border and a very short budget and a very unreliable ruler.

This guy.

In fact, some mornings I can't govern my own temper before I hit breakfast.

I mean, I've got a whole kingdom running in my head where everybody, everybody does exactly what I say.

And then I walk into the actual house, and my citizens, my subjects, well, they've got opinions.

Strong opinions.

It's kind of funny.

But it's also not funny.

You know, I was in a conversation a while back about another church and how incredibly well that church is doing.

And I'll be honest with you, you want to know what creeped up inside me?

Envy.

Envy came up.

Pride came up.

I thought, okay, I'm gonna show them.

You know, I pray these words every single week, your kingdom come.

But but that day I really found out what was underneath that prayer.

My kingdom come.

Bigger than that, guys, with my name on it.

And gosh, friends, here's what makes it so stupid.

In Christ, God already gave me a name that I didn't earn.

He made me royalty, he gave me honor in spite of the many ways that I have dishonored him.

He calls me son.

Son.

And yet I'm still out here trying to build a kingdom so that somebody else will know my name.

It's foolishness.

Look, most of us aren't building a church, but all of us are running our own little kingdoms: a house, a family, a business, your own life.

And we try to do it without God.

I mean, look, albeit most of us would never say that out loud.

We'd say, no, no, no, we're ruling with him, but we're not.

And some of us know it.

And we're drowning the stress, the anxiety, the fear, the anger, the quiet depression so often, not always, but so often, it's because we're trying to be our own kings and queens without our true king.

So let me ask you something.

What would it cost you?

What would it cost you to get off that throne today and let Jesus have it?

And look, I know that can be scary.

I know why that's scary.

I mean, if if I come down off the throne, I mean, if if I let go of control, if I let go of my power, my authority, if I surrender that, who's gonna actually hold my life right now?

Because the world's a mess.

My world's a mess, and I don't see hope for that.

Hebrews 2 helps answer that.

See, Hebrews 2, the writer of Hebrews 2, he quotes that same Psalm 8 that we talked about earlier.

It says, crowned with glory and honor, everything under his feet.

And then he says something that I don't think most of us would expect the Bible to say.

It says, at present, we do not see everything under him.

We do not see it.

The Bible just just looked around.

It looked at the exact same world that you you drove through to get into the parking lot this morning.

And the Bible said, Yeah, it's not here.

We don't see anybody's crown out here.

I mean, the kids, the kids are still not talking to you.

The marriage still ended.

There are people still living on the streets.

I don't see the kingdom.

And church, that's not a skeptic talking.

That's not that's not somebody on the outside throwing rocks at the church.

It's Holy Scripture.

God put that sentence in the Bible on purpose.

So if you walked in here this morning think, well, you know, I don't know about this whole thing.

I don't I don't know if I believe any of this.

You know, look around.

Does it look like there's a kingdom over here?

The Bible says you're not crazy.

You're reading the room correctly.

Well, almost.

The crown seems to be missing.

The one from Genesis 1, the one from Psalm 8, Adam's crown.

Nobody's wearing it.

And the Bible says it out loud, we do not see it.

But that's the very next word.

But we do see Jesus crowned with glory and honor.

Crowned.

Church, the crown isn't missing, it is on a head right now, just not on yours.

And let me tell you something, he didn't get it the way you would think.

You jump to Matthew 27, Jesus, he's been arrested.

A company of Roman soldiers takes him into the courtyard.

And you know what they decide to do?

They decide to have some fun with the prisoner.

They strip him, they throw a scarlet robe on him.

Why?

Well, because that's what kings wear.

They take thorn branches and twist them into a jagged circle and they press it down into his scalp.

Because a king needs a crown.

They shove a stick into his right hand because a king needs something that says he's in charge.

And then they get down on their knees and they mock him.

Hail, king of the Jews.

And then they walk walk him up a hill.

They nail him to a piece of wood.

And right over his head, they nail a sign.

You see, Rome always did that.

It was the criminal charge that was on that sign.

It told the public exactly what the man did to get himself executed.

You know what this sign said?

This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.

You see, the whole thing was a joke to them.

The robe, the kneeling, the sign, it was all a punchline.

But every single piece of it was true.

They thought they were making fun of a king, they were actually crowning one.

And and look, pay attention, look at what the crown was made of.

Thorns.

When Adam grabbed for a crown that wasn't uh wasn't his on page one in Genesis, God cursed the ground.

What came out of the dirt?

Thorns.

The thorns, that's the curse growing up out of the dirt.

And and and they took that exact curse.

Twisted it into a ring, pressed it onto Jesus' head until it bled.

See, Adam reached for a crown and got thorns.

Jesus took the thorns so that you and I could get the crown back.

And three days later, that grave is empty.

And Jesus stands in front of his disciples with a status report.

He says, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

All authority, not some, not just authority over church buildings and Sunday mornings, all of it.

He is not campaigning, he's not waiting to be voted in.

He rules and reigns now, this morning, while you are sitting in your seat.

Understand, church, the one sitting on the throne of the universe is the God man Jesus Christ, the one who knows hunger.

He knows exhaustion.

He has cried beside a grave and he still bears the scars.

The hands running the cosmos this morning are the exact same hands.

They put nails through.

Church, Jesus is king right now.

The kingdom of God has already begun.

His kingdom has broken into this world and continues to break into this city right now.

It shows up every time Jesus takes the throne of a life that something else was ruling.

In fact, Jesus said it himself: if I'm driving out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

There's a man in this room who's been clean for a year.

Something used to own his body and his mo and his mornings, but that something doesn't own him anymore because somebody else does.

And you know what?

Somebody else in this room was praying for that man by name before any of it even happened.

That's the kingdom of God showing up.

There are people in this room who would never have shared a sidewalk outside these doors.

But here they come together and they sing to the same king.

That's the future kingdom of God showing up in the already.

So when we pray, your kingdom come, we are not asking God to become sovereign king.

He already is.

We are asking that his saving reign to spread for more rebels to become sons and daughters, for more lives to joyfully come under the rule of our true King.

Until that day comes when every enemy is gone.

Church, Jesus is on the throne right now.

And it changes your morning.

It changes everything.

It means nobody else gets the final word in your life.

Sure, your your boss gets a say.

We need to honor and respect our authority, unless it goes against God.

Your boss gets a say, but he doesn't get the last word.

That scary diagnosis, yeah, it's telling you the truth about your body, but it's not telling you the truth about your future.

And that crown that God handed in Genesis 1 in Christ, if you are in Christ, you've got a piece of it back.

So go use it.

The nurse charting honestly at 3 a.m.

when nobody's looking, that's kingdom work.

The teacher who refuses to give up on the kid that everyone else threw away, that's kingdom work.

The guy who doesn't have much but gives generously to the needy, kingdom work.

The college student proclaiming the gospel at the risk of losing all their friends, kingdom work.

Church, God is not finished with you.

You're not just sitting around waiting for heaven, you are on duty.

And look, some of you, you're not in open rebellion, you're just coasting.

You've built a comfortable Christian life where you where you never do anything explicitly bad.

But let's be honest, you're not really doing much at all for the kingdom of God.

That's a wasted crown.

If you are in Jesus Christ, you have been given good gifts from God for the purposes of his kingdom.

Do not waste it.

Go use what he gave you for his kingdom, for his glory, and for your good.

Because tomorrow morning the king's gonna ask you to step, step into his throne room.

He's gonna ask you to step in.

And church, he's not gonna leave this world half done.

He started the rescue on a cross.

But hear me, he is coming back to finish it on the ultimate throne.

When the text says every knee is going to bow, it means every knee.

The ones who who love him and the ones who never wanted anything to do with him.

Every knee bows.

The only question that matters is whether you bow now while it's still a beautiful invitation, or whether you bow later when it isn't.

So bow now.

If you've never done it, do it right here, right where you're sitting.

Look at the cross.

Men mocked him as king.

They spit on him and crowned him with thorns.

And he still, he still went to a wooden cross for sinners like us.

So repent and trust him.

Come to Christ.

Bow to the king who died for you and rose again.

And look, some of you, you already have.

Which means there's somebody sitting in your life right now who hasn't.

So here's your assignment this week.

Every morning, before you ask God for anything else, stop and pray three words.

Your kingdom come.

And then say one name.

One person you know who is still living under a rival king.

Maybe it's your brother, maybe it's the guy at the shop, maybe it's your daughter who won't take your calls, whoever it is, say that one name.

Three words and a name.

Your kingdom come and a name.

Because, church, you gotta understand something.

When you pray those three words, when you pray, your kingdom come, you are calling down the end of human history as we know it today.

You are asking for the sky to open up.

And Revelation 19 tells us exactly how this ends.

John says, I saw heaven standing open, and there before me was a white horse.

Hear this, whose rider is called faithful and true.

With justice, he judges and wages war.

Understand something.

Jesus, he's not coming back as a baby in a feeding trough.

He's not coming back to be mocked.

John says his eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns, and out of his mouth comes a sharp sword to strike down the nations.

And on his robe and on his thigh, he has the name Rin, King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

That is the God who is coming back.

And when that king comes, he is going to make all things new, a new heaven and a new earth.

Everything Adam broke will finally be restored.

No more funerals, no more cancer, no more overdoses on Dixie Highway, no more kids learning how to live without a parent.

And God himself, this is this is where it gets so unbearably personal.

God himself will wipe away every tear from your eyes.

Total restoration.

The kingdom of God in full.

It says they will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads, and they will reign forever and ever.

They will reign.

The original calling of humanity, fully restored.

Finally, we will be what we were created to be.

Ruling under the rule of the king who deserves all glory.

That's our future.

So, church, can I have you all stand with me for a moment, please?

We are going to pray what the king taught us to pray.

And we are going to declare his victory over our world right now.

I'm going to name the battleground.

And as I do, you cry out the answer, your kingdom come.

Do we have that up there?

Can we have the your kingdom come slide up there, please?

I'm going to call out the battle cry.

And you call out the answer, your kingdom come.

So for every soul in this room who still doesn't know him, church, your kingdom come.

Over our homes and our marriages, church, your kingdom come.

Over every hospital room, every addiction, every place where sin and suffering still rule.

God, your kingdom come.

Death and the grave are not king.

Jesus is king right now, and he is coming back.

Church, your kingdom come.

Church, those are the words we pray.

So I'm gonna ask the worship team to come up for a moment.

They're gonna sing a song.

And I want you to reflect on these three words, your kingdom come.

Reflect on the fact that Jesus is king right now, and guess what?

He is coming back.

And together as a church, we're gonna pray, your kingdom come.

I encourage you, as the song begins, pray with those around you.

There's people to your left, to your right, people behind you, people in front of you.

They need prayer right now.

They need encouragement.

They need to hear that Jesus is King.

They need to hear that Jesus is coming back.

They need to hear that the brokenness, the wreckage of this world is not the end.

It does not have the final word.

They need to hear that Jesus has already begun the restoration process.

And he is coming back one day to finish it.

So pray together.

Church, just reminding you again, when you pray these three words, your kingdom comes.

You are not asking God to start something, you are asking him to finish it.

Again, when you see the wreckage of our world tomorrow morning, do not fall into despair.

And do not exhaust yourself trying to seize control.

Look at the rider on the white horse.

Look at the scars in his hands.

You can let go of your throne today.

Because Jesus is king right now, and he's coming back.

Let's pray.

Father, I thank you so much that we get to call you Father.

You are sovereign God.

You are all powerful.

You are in control of all things.

You are faithful.

Sometimes we doubt that.

Sometimes we struggle with that.

God, would you help us with that all faith?

Help us to also realize that our sovereign God, our all-powerful, the one who created all things.

It's also our Father who cares about every detail of our life.

But we don't understand.

We don't understand all aspects of the suffering in our world.

Or in our lives.

Whatever struggles we may be going through.

Whatever loved ones are going through pain and challenges.

Whatever loved ones we've lost in our life.

Help us to know that you are faithful and you are still with us.

And you are going to make all things new.

You are going to wipe out every tear from our eyes.

So, Father, I thank you.

That through your Son Jesus, we have a King who rules and reigns right now.

And we have faith and trust and hope that our King Jesus, he is going to one day come back.

And he is going to finish what he started.

He is going to restore all things in a new heaven and new earth.

So we declare to you, as our Father, our Father in heaven, your kingdom come this morning.

Amen.