March 8, 2026: Your Will be Done - Matthew 6:10

As we continue our series on the Lord's Prayer, and I'll continue

to remind you all of where we are in this project, that is

important in order to be a mature Christian, to not only

know something about your Bible, to have biblical literacy, but

also it is necessary to have theological discernment, to know

what the Bible teaches about certain topics or doctrines.

It's also very important to not only be biblically literate and

doctrinally discerning, but to live a holy life.

And for this, the Bible gives us plenty of biblical practices by

which we can live like Jesus. These are this spiritual

disciplines and holy habits when we consider the basics of

Christianity. I've been showing you this

triangle, which is profoundly biblical, that the church has

been using three very important things to teach the basics of

Christianity for centuries. These are the Apostles Creed,

the 10 Commandments, and the Lord's Prayer.

Or you may have a way of believing, a way of behaving,

and a way of communing. And in this series, as we

consider this most important prayer that our Lord taught his

disciples to pray, we are going slowly through the Lord's Prayer

to learn what it may deliver to us as a way of communing with

God not only as individuals but as a church family.

So far, we've talked about our Father in heaven.

This is the address to whom we are speaking.

And we talked about how important it is in that term,

Father, to understand that the Holy Trinity is implied.

For we pray to the Father in the name of the Son, who is the Lord

Jesus Christ by the means of the Holy Spirit.

So we talked about the Holy Trinity.

We've also talked about how that Father gives us an idea of

closeness. It's a familial term, a term of

intimacy, a term of tenderness. But this father is also not only

a close and tender father, he is also a great and mighty master,

the Lord of the universe who created everything that is seen

and unseen and talked about how CS Lewis's Aslan gives us sort

of a mingling of this both and that You have a lion that you

think you could kind of go up and hug.

He's kind of soft and gentle and approachable, and yet if you

look carefully, there's also teeth and claws, A blasting

roar, and a music that can create worlds.

And so we have this both and this this as we come into our

approach to God. We need both intimacy.

We pray to our Father, but also awe.

He is the holy, holy, holy God who has created everything.

So we talked about our posture of prayer in the address, and

then last week we took on the first of the petitions.

Lord's Prayer carries 6 petitions.

The first three are God centered and the last three are more

toward our own needs. The order matters because as we

think about God and his name, His Kingdom and His will, it

calibrates our priorities so that we're ready now to pray for

our needs and from a place of tranquility, knowing that His

sovereignty has everything in His hands.

Last week we took on this first of the petitions, Hallowed Be

your name God, make your name holy.

And we talked about how His name means His reputation for God's

name has been slandered by the devil and those he's dragged

into his Kingdom of darkness. We have a hard time believing

that God is truly good and wise, that He has our best interests

in mind, and we hear gossip and slander that needs to be

corrected. So we pray that God's honor

would be restored in the world, that his reputation would be

Christine in its highest place, and that we would have a

privileged part in making that happen.

So that's what we talked about last week.

So this week we're going to talk about his Kingdom.

The next petition, as you can say it see, is your Kingdom

come. Now, by way of caveat, you need

to understand that it's probably true that the Kingdom of God is

the main theme of the Bible and you do not have time to cover

the entire Bible in the few moments that we have together.

Probably I'm going to leave your favorite part out.

That's OK, You have your Bible. We're going to fly quickly over

the top of this and highlight some main things and, and really

hopefully cause all of our hearts to worship together as we

consider the regal nature of God and of his Son, the Lord Jesus

Christ, the King of kings. So the first thing that we want

to do is to ask, what does your Kingdom come mean?

What does it mean? Very important to consider that

as our Lord's name has been slandered, his Kingdom has been

attacked. Have you been reading your

Bibles? Have you noticed the story?

Not only did the snake attack the name of God, he actually

hatched a plan. He staged A coup.

He's an insurrectionist. So not only has the snake

slandered the reputation of God, we're going to see that the day

the devil staged this coup against God's rightful authority

against his Kingdom, but the Son, Jesus Christ, the Davidic

King, through his person and work, has ascended his rightful

throne and his ruling now. And when he returns, we'll

ultimately put down this rebellion and rule the nations,

first in the Millennium and then in the new heavens and the new

earth. CS Lewis has helped us again

with his Narnia series as he pictures the Narnian world as a

world where a usurper is reigning an illegitimate queen

who by her power and her magic and her evil has subjugated this

Kingdom and has made it a place where, say it with me, it is

always winter but never Christmas.

A sad place, a sad place indeed. But he also depicts in the Lion

in the Witch in the Wardrobe, This this lion, this returning

king who has a landed who will change everything through his

person and his work. Always winter, never spring.

What does this mean? The Kingdom of God.

And if you consider with me briefly in the Old Testament,

you can see how the Old Testament depicts the Kingdom of

God first in the Garden of Eden as a kind of Kingdom.

God the king has made this beautiful paradise and he has

created his image bearers, man and and woman, to be his vice

Regents, king and queen of the world, to rule for him in his

place, to have dominion over the world.

But that the snake comes in, he whispers lies, he gets them to

participate in his rebellion, and it falls, doesn't it?

And we find out as we read for chapters that it seems that

Satan and his Kingdom is indeed winning as humanity does this

downward spiral until ultimately the Lord decides to start over

with a worldwide flood. And we're wondering how in the

world are the good guys ever going to win to restore the

Kingdom of God to its rightful owner?

So God comes then to Abraham and makes all these blessed, these

amazing promises to Abraham. He's going to create a Kingdom,

He's going to create a nation. He's going to start with

Abraham, and from his descendants he's going to create

a Kingdom of priests that will mediate blessing not only for

themselves but to the whole world, thereby fulfilling God's

Kingdom on earth. We see this history progress,

his family grows, but then is enslaved and is redeemed by God,

and we come into the period of the law and the priesthood and

eventually into a monarchy. There is a Kingdom in Israel

with David now promised that he would always have a descendant

on the throne, that somebody descended from King David would

rule forever. The biblical history progresses

as a very sad story, doesn't it, as king after king fails to

bring redemption and Shalom to the world.

They're just a big string of losers until we're longing for

some, some better king that doesn't fall to idolatry, who

can restore Shalom to the world. And then the Bible says when you

get into the pages of the New Testament at just the right

time, at just the right time, Jesus the Messiah is born.

Now, there's some interesting things about this.

One is it kind of comes in secrecy.

It's kind of kind of quiet. We wonder about that.

And yet the gospel writers talk about him being the king, the

Son of Man, the Son of David. And there's all this sort of

hope that maybe indeed this will be the one.

And as he grows and teaches, his disciples are getting really

excited. They're going to have a front

row seat to kick and Rome out and re establishing the Kingdom

in Jerusalem and Jesus. We're going to reign with you,

aren't we? It's going to be awesome.

But they are mistaken where they haven't quite read the

prophecies correctly, for those of prophecies predict a Kingdom

of Shalom that will have no end with the Davidic king on his

throne. There's also sections in there

about a suffering servant who's going to come not on a White

Horse with a big sword, but with humility, kind of on the quiet,

with teaching miracles. And so the Jewish expectation is

not quite right. And what we get instead of a

conquering hero is this savior who gives his life, who dies on

a cross for our sins, who sheds his blood, has to make an

atonement for the sins of the world.

He is dead, He's buried, He's resurrected on the third day.

And now he's got another thing to teach his disciples because

they're like, OK, now is it now? Now is it we're going to, you

know, kick out the Romans. Now you're going to restore the

Kingdom to Israel. Jesus is like, watch this.

He has all these parables trying to teach them what it's like.

And this Kingdom is already started.

The Davidic king is here and he has now ascended and he is on

his throne in heaven. But this, this new movement,

this Kingdom of God on earth is going to be like a, a mustard

seed planted in the ground that becomes a, a spreading tree.

And it's going to be kind of something that's hidden and

subversive. Not a nation state with an army,

but a group of rebels, insurrectionists, little pockets

of resistance all throughout the world, who don't think in

worldly ways about power but instead preach the good news of

redemption, forgiveness of sins, who take care of bodies and try

to work as agents and of redemption.

But again, not it was a conquering army, but like yeast

and a door of bread, we're like wheat planted in a mixed field

of wheat and tares. And so we come on this dawning

that the that the Kingdom of God isn't quite like what we

thought. And yet it has a lot of

similarities. And this Jesus who has

inaugurated something as the Davidic king sitting on his

throne, he's very patient and waiting and will at some point

return bodily and then and only then establish true Shalom on

earth. And so we live in this in

betweenness from his first coming and his second coming,

trying to be agents of redemption, working in our local

churches as outposts of the Kingdom.

You can kind of think about us as like a bunch of little Boy

Scout troops scattered all throughout the world, Not a

nation with an address or the head of state, but a pocket of

resistance and outpost of the Kingdom of God.

We re identify ourselves as citizens who bow and submit to

this head of state, which is Jesus, the Son of God, the King

of David. So what does this mean for us?

You think about it. Peter finally gets it in this

passage that Phil read for us this morning.

He wants us to consider our place in the story in the story

as he then applies what he expects of us as Kingdom

citizens. If you have your Bibles with

you, we're in first Peter chapter 2, beginning in verse

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

nine. First Peter chapter 2 beginning

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

in verse 9. But you it's plural there in the

South we would say y'all, but y'all, our chosen race, a royal

priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.

What do you and you have a purpose clause that you that you

may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of

darkness into his marvelous light.

And Peter's going to rehearse the gospel for us.

Remind us who we are as sons and daughters of the Father as

members of his church. Verse 10 Once you are not a

people, but now you're a God's people.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Keep on going. Once you are lost, but now you

are found. Once you are blind, but now you

see, we're rehearsing the gospel.

We're knowing who we are. Down in verse 11, he says this

so warmly. Beloved, I urge you, look

carefully as sojourners and exiles, people who belong to God

but are living in a place that is still under the dominion of

darkness. You live here, but you're not of

here. I urge you as sojourners and

exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which war

against your soul. Keep your conduct, conduct among

the Gentiles honorable, the people living around you, or

unbelievers, so that when they speak against you as evil doers,

they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of

visitation. That is the day Jesus comes back

to judge the living and the dead.

Verse 13, he tells them now as this special holy nation, these

people who involved in this secret yet visible Kingdom of

God, how they're supposed to relate to the state around them.

Verse 13 be subject for the Lord's sake to every human

institution. Talk about the government,

whether it be the emperor as supreme or the governors as sent

by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do

good. For this is the will of God,

that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of

foolish people. Live as people who are free, not

using your freedom as a cover up for evil, but living as servants

of God. Honor everyone, love the

brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor.

And so Peter delivers to us this notion of kind of a dual

citizenship. You're in the world, but not of

the world. You are God's people, living

surrounded by nations that do not belong yet to him.

How are we supposed to live in this in between space?

This is tremendously practical for us, my friends, even as we

gather this morning in our little fortress here in Upland,

our secret conclave, our our meeting of the resistance on

Sunday mornings while we listen to the orders from the King and

remind ourselves of who we are so that we can go back out

infiltrating the world as salt and light.

Here we are. What does it all mean?

So once we kind of have ourselves hopefully well

situated, remembering our identity and where we are in

history, redemptive history, now we can begin then asking the

practical question. Pastor Dan, how do we pray this?

Now that we know what it means and where we are in the story,

how do we pray it? Thanks for asking.

I really appreciate it. Well, as I've been saying every

week, the first thing to remember and to not forget is

this is a Trinitarian prayer. So when you pray for the Kingdom

to come, when the for the Kingdom to be realized, you're

not only praying about to God the Father about the Kingdom of

the universe, but you're also praying in the name of God the

Son, who is called the Son of Man, the Davidic King, the King

of kings, and the Lord of Lords. So we haven't lost who we're

talking to and through whom we're talking to.

We're not only talking to God the Father in the name of Jesus,

but also by the Holy Spirit. Because friends, let's be

honest, we have a real problem with authority, don't we?

We want to live our lives our way.

We don't want to submit to anybody.

We don't want to take orders from the man, we want to live

our own way. So we need a miracle of divine

love to come in and turn that heart of stone that hates

authority into a heart of flesh that recognizes the goodness of

the King of Kings. So that we can bow down to him

and say, here I am. Then he may dub us his Knights

and say arise, go and do so we pray in the name of the King

Jesus by the miracle of divine love by the Holy Spirit who is

allowing us to have submissive hearts.

And now we're ready to enter into the prayer and we're going

to begin praying and we're going to remember who we're praying to

our heavenly Father in the name of the Son by the Holy Spirit.

Now we're going to we're going to pray for God's priorities to

be first. First, his reputation will be

will be better in the world and he'll use me to do that.

But now I want to pray for his authority to be realized in the

world and God start with me as an individual.

I. I resist your authority, but I'm

praying for your lordship in my life.

Eric Roop is here and it's a few days ago, less than two weeks

ago, he had the privilege of speaking in Chapel.

Beautiful message. And he said, you know, it's

really, really easy in some ways to accept Jesus as our Savior.

Isn't it all that talk about heaven and hell?

Who wouldn't pick heaven over hell?

Jesus saved me from all that hell and damnation.

But you know what? Now that I'm good to go and I've

got my insurance, I'd like to kind of just live my life my own

way. So if you could just like just

endorse my decisions and let me go on my way, that would be

great. Way harder now in some ways to

submit to His lordship of our life.

But when you pray thy Kingdom come, you're praying for a

miracle. You're praying for the Holy

Spirit to give you a submission to the lordship, the kingship of

Christ in your life, over your will and over your actions.

But maybe you're not even there yet.

Maybe you're not even there yet because before we can pray that

we have to be in the Kingdom in the 1st place.

And the Bible says the only way that you can be in the Kingdom

is for you to be born again. Repent, for the Kingdom of

heaven is near. So friends, if you're here and

you've never given your life to Christ, the Bible says repent,

give yourself to the king, join up in his citizenship in the

Kingdom of heaven. And then we pray not only for

this saving activity, but for his lordship to be realized in

our life. Is he Lord?

Peter in this text says there's a war going on.

There's a war going on that the throne of our heart would have

Jesus on it. Instead of Dan Blosser, he says

in this text that he actually uses that warfare language.

I urge you, as sojourners in exile, to abstain from the

passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.

So when you pray, Lord, your Kingdom come, you're praying

spiritual warfare against your lustful passions.

Lord, I'm in bondage. Emancipate me.

May your kingly rule dominate over my lustful heart.

He goes on in this text to not only talk about the passions of

the flesh, He talks about our conduct.

Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable.

So we're praying that Lord your Kingdom come.

We're praying, Lord, as I go out into the world to do my work in

the arena where there are unbelievers watching me, Allow

me to have my conduct to be honorable, even if they don't

like it. Come, may your Kingdom come in

my conduct in the world. Awesome.

As we pray this prayer, your Kingdom come, we're also asking

the Lord to remind us about the prioritization of our dual

citizenship. Maybe you're proud to be an

American. Maybe you're proud to be a

Nigerian or a Kenyan or whatever nation it is that you're from.

You love your land. That's good.

You're supposed to love your land, but you're not supposed to

love your citizenship in earthly kingdoms more than you love your

citizenship in the Kingdom of heaven.

There is a prioritization that is so strong and so profound

that Peter wants us to consider our earthly citizenship as a

kind of immigration, so journeying, a type of exile.

So though you may be proud of your national identity, that

your your spiritual identity as a citizen of the Kingdom of

heaven is more important, your church identity is even more

important to you than your national identity.

Now, in that contrast or that priority system, I'm not asking

you to pour contempt on your land.

I'm not asking you to do that at all.

Well, when the when the values of your king cause you to speak

to evils in your land, that's where the rub lies.

To whom are we most loyal? The king of heaven, or to the

rulers of our land? Again, it's not to pour contempt

on this. In fact, Peter is remarkably

warm. Be subject for the Lord's sake

to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as

supreme or to the governors as sent by him, to punish those who

do evil and praise those who do good.

Verse 17. Honor everyone, love the

brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor.

The church took this very seriously and changed the world

and is changing the world. Praying my Kingdom come.

Lord, give me the proper prioritization of my church's

values over the states. Help me to have discernment as a

sojourner and exile. We're also praying my Kingdom

comments for my job as I go out into the Kingdom as an agent of

in the as an agent of redemption in Word and deed that you have

been given holy work for God's will to advance his Kingdom

priorities wherever your job takes you.

It's a beautiful prayer, your Kingdom come.

Then we could go on with the last thing I'll mention here is

civil engagement, because this does not call us to isolate

ourselves from society, to huddle in our enclaves and never

talk to them. But with this leavening on us,

with this distinctive that we would go out and be salt and

light that we will be able to proclaim excellencies to a lost

and dying world. So we're asking, when we say

your Kingdom come, we're asking, Lord, make me a good citizen of

the here and now. We've talked a little, hopefully

giving very practical ideas for how to pray it as an individual.

How can we pray it as a church family?

Remember, the prayer is our Father who art in heaven.

We pray as a church family. Now we're praying in a different

way, not just our own individual lives, but now maybe our local

churches, corporate life as a church family.

Lord, let your Kingdom come and use UCC right here in Grant

County, Indiana to be an outpost of your Kingdom here.

We're asking when we say our Kingdom come for our mission as

a church body to advance God's Kingdom in the world through our

missionary endeavors with evangelism and discipleship all

throughout the nations. Because we've read about the end

of the story. It says the nations will bow,

some of them in belief, some of them in unbelief.

But we have the privilege and the honor of going out on his

Kingdom mission to advance the gospel throughout the world and

as much as he allows us to. So when you pray now as a

church, our your Kingdom come, We're praying for the success of

our mission as UCC, as we make disciples here and all over the

world. And the last thing that I want

to mention before we close is this idea as a, we're praying

corporately as a church family that we're in a in betweenness.

On the one hand, we pray with hope, right?

Because King Jesus has come and he has established a foothold on

earth. So we pray with all this hope

and we and we listen with eager ears for how the church is

advancing in the world. The gates of hell will not

prevail, my friends. We pray with hope, and yet this

hope is not a naive optimism. This hope is tempered with the

truth that Shalom does not arrive until the 2nd advent of

our Lord Jesus Christ, when He returns bodily to establish

Shalom on earth. So this hope, this optimism,

this of what's happening already is tempered by the not yet.

He's not here yet. Calm down with all your

enthusiasm. Especially with non gospel means

to establish some sort of utopia on earth.

It won't work, only Jesus. And so a wise, mature Christian

is able to handle this tension so well.

They remain hopeful. They're looking for the way God

is working in the world. They are the kind of people you

want on their team because they're not, that'll never work

kind of people. They're like, let's go kind of

people. God is on our side.

We have the Holy Spirit. And yet you want them on your

team because they are not unrealistically optimistic.

They're able to look at the news and agree that that is awful and

lament and cry out and their cry out boils up and bubbles over

and to come quickly. Lord Jesus, guys, you watch the

news and you're just like, how can this be happening?

Look at those poor people. Look at what is happening, Lord

Jesus. So you pray our Kingdom come.

You're praying not only praise God for how you're working the

world, but you're praying come quickly Lord Jesus and stop the

madness today. Please, please your Kingdom

come. Those people are dying.

Do something Lord, and use our church to do it.

So we have this commingling attitude, praying our Kingdom

come, full of hope for how it's advancing in the world, but also

full of longing, knowing that it's so broken and it's so

messed up. And it will be until Jesus lands

a lot to hold in your mind. I told you, and I haven't even

scratched the surface of it. Dozens of occurrences.

Much more to learn about as we go into praying it.

We can pray our Kingdom come for ourselves as individuals, and we

can also pray as a church family full of hope and longing.

Come quickly, Lord Jesus. To conclude.

To conclude, remember, the devil has not only slandered God, but

he staged A coup against the Kingdom of God.

But the good news in the Gospel is that King Jesus is restoring

God's rightful rule, and he invites us to do the same as we

pray together, thy Kingdom come. In this series, my concluding

prayer has been to ask us as a church family to say aloud the

Lord's Prayer together. If you don't know the words,

that's OK, just listen. And when we get to the part when

we don't know what to say, forgive us our sins, our debts,

or our trespasses. We'll say trespasses because

that's how grandma taught Danny how to, how to pray it.

So will you join me as we conclude in prayer by saying the

Lord's Prayer together? Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done

on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day Our Daily

Bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those

who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but

deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and

the power and the glory forever. Amen.