Your Kingdom Come

Order of Service

• Call to Worship — Psalm 100
• Hymn — All People That on Earth Do Dwell
• Prayer of Invocation
• Prayer of Confession
• Assurance of Pardon — Matthew 11:28-30
• Heidelberg Catechism Confession of Faith — Question 123
• Pastoral Prayer
• Offering
• Hymn — I Love Thy Kingdom, Lord
• Scripture Reading — Colossians 1:11-14
• Scripture Reading — Matthew 6:7-10
• Prayer for Illumination
• Sermon
• Prayer
• Lord's Supper
• Hymn — When I Survey the Wondrous Cross (stanzas 1–2)
• Lord's Supper — Bread
• Lord's Supper — Cup
• Prayer
• Hymn — When I Survey the Wondrous Cross (stanzas 3–4)
• Benediction — Numbers 6:24-26

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Sermon Title: Your Kingdom Come

Scripture: Colossians 1:11-14 and Matthew 6:7-10

I. Sovereignty and the Kingdom of God

A. God's sovereignty is rooted in his role as Creator

1. Psalm 95:3-5 — the Lord is sovereign king because he made all things
2. Isaiah 43:15 — he is likewise sovereign over his covenant people because he created them

B. God's sovereignty is expressed through naming that which he creates

1. In Genesis 1, God names what he creates — sun, moon, stars, day, night — as a stamp of sovereign ownership
2. God renames the foundation stones of the old covenant: Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, Jacob to Israel
3. Jesus, the last Adam, renames the foundation stones of the new covenant — Cephas (Peter), Boanerges (James and John) — displaying co-rule with the Father
4. Just as the Father names the Son, the Son names the apostles; just as the Father sends the Son, the Son sends the Spirit at Pentecost (John 20:21)
5. In 1 Corinthians 15, Christ ultimately hands the kingdom back to the Father — his sovereign rule over the church is in service of the Father's glory

C. The contrast: Babel (Genesis 11) — the kingdoms of this world seek to make a name for themselves

1. To pray "your kingdom come" is to renounce self-sovereignty and receive the name the Father gives us in Christ
2. It is to long for new creation — life out of death by the Spirit — to come in its fullness

II. Righteousness and the Kingdom of God

A. Righteousness defined: law-abiding, law-conforming; the kingdom of God is a kingdom of righteous citizens

1. In all earthly kingdoms, the buck stops at mortal man; no law stands above the human sovereign
2. In Israel, the king was required to know and rule by God's law (Deuteronomy 17) — the buck stops at Yahweh

B. Scripture as the "norming norm" — the non-normed standard that guides all other authority

1. Creeds and confessions are important but are normed by Scripture
2. Absolute sovereignty gives way to absolute righteousness: "you shall" and "you shall not"

C. Christ fulfills all righteousness and ushers in the kingdom by the Spirit

1. Born under the law, he fulfills the absolute standard — not the traditions of men but the norming norm
2. Isaiah 32:1 — "A king shall reign in righteousness" — now fulfilled at the Father's right hand
3. Christ's righteousness is imputed to believers by faith; we stand justified before the holy God

D. The righteousness of God answers the problem of evil

1. Evil does not make sense because it is chaos — the absence of God's righteous word ruling and reigning
2. Rather than only asking "why?", we are called to cry out "your kingdom come, your righteousness fill the land"
3. Righteousness is not merely a word to drive us to Christ for personal salvation; it is the answer to injustice and suffering throughout all creation
4. Maranatha — "your kingdom come" — is the proper response to a world not yet fully normed by the righteousness of God

III. Glory and the Kingdom of God

A. The meaning of glory

1. The Hebrew kavod means "heavy" — God is worthy of worship, honor, and praise
2. Glory is most often depicted in Scripture as light — God's glory is a "heavy light"

B. The light of Day One (Genesis 1:3) is the glory of the Son

1. John 1:1-4 — the Word is the life and light of men; the prologue of John intentionally echoes Genesis 1
2. Hebrews 1 — the Son is the radiance of God's glory; the Sun (s-u-n) that gave light before the sun (s-u-n) was created is the Son (s-o-n)
3. Revelation 22 — in the new creation there is no need of sun or moon; the Father is its light and Christ its lamp — the circle is complete

C. The Shekinah glory progressively revealed and now indwelling believers

1. The pillar of cloud and fire over the tabernacle; Moses's face reflecting God's glory on Mount Sinai
2. John 1:18 — the Son, eternally face to face with the Father, comes as the greater Moses; grace and truth come through the fullness of glory in the Son
3. At Pentecost, tongues of fire — the pillar of fire — descend into the hearts of believers; the Shekinah glory now dwells within the church as the temple of the living God
4. Romans 8 — creation groans for the revealing of the sons of God, the sons of glory

D. The kingdom consummated: the New Jerusalem as the glorious bride

1. Revelation 21:2 — the holy city, New Jerusalem, descending as a bride adorned for her husband
2. As Adam beheld Eve and said "bone of my bone," Christ will behold his resurrected, glorified bride — "bone of my resurrected bone"
3. Three closing questions: Whose name are you seeking? Whose righteousness are you living by? Whose glory are you pursuing?
4. Father, your kingdom come — sovereignty, righteousness, and glory all fulfilled in Christ