Word of Encouragement (3/18/2021)

We are talking about what we should pray for. For that, we are going over the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer. Today, we are going to reflect on the second petition: “Your kingdom come.”

Let us notice that this petition is about the coming of “Your kingdom”—that is, God’s kingdom, the kingdom of “our Father in heaven.” Think about this in the context of what the people of Israel at that time longed for and expected. This was shown when Jesus entered Jerusalem on a donkey: “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David! Hosanna in the highest” (Mark 11:9-10)! It was against this expectation that Jesus taught His disciples to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom. Jesus was making a clear distinction between the heavenly kingdom of God and the earthly kingdom of David/Israel.

Jesus also taught us to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom, where God is King. Of course, the kingdom of David/Israel was ultimately God’s kingdom. David and his descendants were the viceregents, or servants of God, Israel’s true King. So, God commanded regarding Israel’s king, “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the LORD his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them...” (Deut. 17:18-19). But setting up human kings in Israel was a complex affair. While God allowed it, He said to Samuel when the people asked for a king, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Sam. 8:7). This tension would be ultimately resolved in Jesus Christ—the Son of God, who came as the Seed of David, as the true King of Israel and of the world.

Let’s not forget that Jesus taught us to pray for the coming of God’s kingdom. Since what we are praying for is God’s kingdom, it is not something we can build with our own hands; it must come from heaven. This was dramatically demonstrated in Nebuchadnezzar’s vision in Dan. 2. In it, Nebuchadnezzar saw a human statue, made up of different materials, representing different kingdoms, and ultimately the kingdom of man. This statue was soon destroyed by a stone. This stone “was cut out by no human hand..., struck the image on its feet of iron and clay, and broke them in pieces” (Dan. 2:34). This stone eventually became a great mountain, which filled the whole earth.

This petition would be initially fulfilled by the (first) coming of Jesus Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, came as the Offspring of David, to usher in the kingdom of heaven. He did so by conquering sin and death through His death and resurrection. The kingdom of God, thus established, is an eternal and incorruptible kingdom. And “[God] has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us [i.e., all who believe in Jesus Christ] to the kingdom of his beloved Son…” (Col. 1:13). But the kingdom of God, which is with us, is a kingdom of grace. When Christ returns, it will be a kingdom of glory forever. In the meantime, we should continue to lift this petition to God for the full revelation of God’s kingdom: “In the second petition (which is, Thy kingdom come) we pray, that Satan's kingdom may be destroyed; and that the kingdom of grace may be advanced, ourselves and others brought into it, and kept in it; and that the kingdom of glory may be hastened” (WSC, 102).  

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