Series > The Lord's Prayer
Your Kingdom Come, Your Will be Done on Earth as in Heaven
Study Scriptures that teach us about both God’s kingdom and God’s will, so that we might better understand what we’re asking of God in this petition.
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Darrell Delaney
When children are little, they have a lot of needs. Naturally enough, little children look to their parents to meet those needs. Before they can speak, they cry until they get fed or get a diaper changed. Once they learn to speak, “please” is one of the first words we teach kids because we know they will need that word a lot, since they have to ask parents for so much; but later, kids become more self-sufficient; and later still, they are independent; but if there is love, then the kids will still want to just simply be with their parents. They don’t need anything; they just want to be with them out of love and respect. Today on Groundwork, we continue to look at the Lord’s Prayer, and see that long before we ask God for anything, we simply want to focus on God and God’s ways. Stay tuned.
Scott Hoezee
Welcome to Groundwork, where we dig into scripture to lay the foundation for our lives. I am Scott Hoezee.
Darrell Delaney
And I am Darrell Delaney; and Scott, we are in episode two of our six-part series on the Lord’s Prayer; and in the first episode, we talked about how Jesus says: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name; and it is very interesting that he would have us acknowledge God before we ask for anything in prayer.
Scott Hoezee
It is; and we talked about how radical it was that we address the God of the galaxies in an intimate way: Abba, Father…Daddy even; and how the first petition: Hallowed be your name, is really reminding us that we have to live in ways that preserve the holiness of God’s name; but now, we are moving on to the second petition, but it is still not a petition about us…
Darrell Delaney
Right.
Scott Hoezee
Right? Hallowed be your name was focusing on God’s name; and now, from Matthew 6:10, the line:
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. One thing to note right up front here, Darrell, sometimes the way we say this prayer, we think that the line, ‘your will be done,” is the only thing that applies to “on earth as it is in heaven”, but actually, both of these are on earth as it is…your kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven…your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. The “on earth as it is in heaven,” goes with both of these petitions. The kingdom of God is above us, already in heaven; and the will of God is done in heaven; and we want both realities to keep breaking into this reality on earth, as it already is in heaven.
Darrell Delaney
And this prayer is actually reminding us that prayer, number one, is a way to communicate with God; and we are taught to pray in the spirit on all occasions; and we are taught to pray continually. So, even though God has sovereignty over his decisions, and we don’t make God do anything, what we see here is that we are acknowledging that we want God’s agenda before we ask for anything. So, hold up on the gimme list; hold up on the requests; and they may be important, but what is more important is who God is and what he wants done first. That is why we acknowledge it first.
Scott Hoezee
So, the first thing we do is remind ourselves that God’s name is holy and we need to act in ways that keep it that way; and the second thing we are reminded of is God’s agenda, not ours, right? We are going to get to some requests: Daily bread, forgiveness…we are going to get to requests, yes, that are more about us and our lives, but first things first. The holiness of God’s name, and now, the kingdom of God and the will of God. We just want to know who God is, and see that God breaking into our reality as much as possible, before we ask for anything for ourselves.
Darrell Delaney
If you think about governance…the word kingdom…your kingdom come…I think sometimes it can be a little confusing because we live in a democratic society in the United States. We vote for our officials and things of that nature…
Scott Hoezee
Yes.
Darrell Delaney
It is not a monarchy like it is in Great Britain; but if you think about kingdoms, it really is an environment or a place that is ruled under the rule of the king; even though the king can do whatever he pleases, or the queen can do whatever she pleases, they are supposed to act in the best interest of the people who are their subjects; and as our heavenly Father is the king, then he, by excellent nature of his character, is always going to be benevolent, always going to be the one providing, and always going to be the one looking out for the best interests of the people who serve him.
Scott Hoezee
I like what the writer Dallas Willard wrote in his book, The Divine Conspiracy years ago. Where is the kingdom of God present? Dallas Willard says that a kingdom is that place…that sphere…where the will of the king calls the shots, and that is what we are praying for. We want God’s kingdom to come in the sense that he is calling the shots in our lives; and we are doing what God our king wants. So, you know, we think of Matthew 6 is where we learn the Lord’s Prayer, but a little bit later in Matthew 6, Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom…” verse 33“But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”
So, seek the kingdom above all, Jesus says.
Darrell Delaney
And so, all the other things that will be added are actually what Jesus lists when he talks about the verses that come after. He says: 25“Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”
Scott Hoezee
And he goes on to say, you know: Don’t run around saying: 31‘What shall we eat? Or “What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ (Your Father in heaven knows you need all these things.) 33But seek first his kingdom and all these things will be given to you as well.”
And of course, the kingdom of God, Darrell, was the first thing Jesus said in Matthew 4. After John the Baptist gets put into prison, Jesus begins his public ministry; and what is the very first thing he says in Matthew 4?
17From that time on Jesus began to preach, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
So, Jesus is saying the kingdom of heaven is right here. It is available right now. So, grab onto it. Again, Dallas Willard, in that book, The Divine Conspiracy, I love the image he used where he said that it was sort of like when they did rural electrification in the United States. For the first time in rural areas, they ran electrical lines down the road, right? Somebody could point to the wires and say: Behold; electricity is at hand. Behold; electricity is near. And then, people had to tap into it, right? But, a lot of people didn’t dare do it. They thought electricity would burn their house down or it was dangerous to bring to their house. So, they kept lighting candles and doing laundry by hand. Eventually, their neighbors convinced them: Look, electricity is at hand. It is right there; it is safe; and then they tapped in. That is what Jesus is saying. It was his first message: The kingdom of God is right here; it is close. Get in on it!
Darrell Delaney
It’s beautiful because the kingdom is the way that things were supposed to be before the fall…
Scott Hoezee
Right.
Darrell Delaney
And this is the kingdom that will be fully established at the end of all things, when Jesus returns; but we can see glimpses of it, and we can actually plug into God’s agenda by praying this prayer and by living the way he has called us to live. So, it is really powerful that we can see that God’s way of doing things is the best way of doing things; and when we want to align ourselves with his will, we do that by starting this prayer this way.
Scott Hoezee
Exactly; in the beginning, there was shalom. In the beginning, there was…the Garden of Eden…. was, in a sense, the kingdom of God. It is the place where God dwelled and where God’s will called the shots; again, Dallas Willard’s definition of what is a kingdom. We fell away from that. So now, we pray, first of all: Lord, help me be a kingdom citizen every day. I am a citizen of the United… Yes, I’ve got two passports…
Darrell Delaney
Right.
Scott Hoezee
The United States and kingdom of God, and I want to show my kingdom of God citizenship in how I live every day. So, that is the second petition. We first ask for God’s name to stay holy, then we ask for God’s kingdom to come; and next up, the will of God. We will look at that in just a moment, so stay tuned.
Segment 2
Darrell Delaney
I am Darrell Delaney with Scott Hoezee, and you are listening to Groundwork, and we have been talking about the section of the Lord’s Prayer that says: Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. So, we want to talk about, in this segment, how do we do that in practical ways, and how do we live as if we believe that the kingdom has come, and what his will needs to be in our lives. This is a reminder that we need to be on the same page as God and his agenda for our lives.
Scott Hoezee
And we want to live—traditional phrase: coram Deo—before the face of God; and we want to reflect that God in our lives by being kingdom citizens. So, your kingdom come on earth, as it is already in heaven. Now your will be done on earth, as it already is in heaven; and we are reminded, I think, through this, Darrell, that we made the example a minute ago to like electrical lines, you know: Electricity is at hand. It is right there. It is right above you. Tie in. We are reminded that we tie into what is going on in heaven all the time. We did a series on Revelation a while back, and we looked at those early songs in Revelation 4 and 5, giving glory to God. We can remember these:
9Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is on the throne and who lives forever and ever, 10the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives forever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say, 11“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.”
We said this isn’t a vision of the future. John was shown what was happening in heaven right now.
Darrell Delaney
Real time.
Scott Hoezee
Real time. We want our lives to tie in with that on this side of the divide. The worship of God is going on right now, and we want to show that in our lives.
Darrell Delaney
It is beautiful because they don’t have disputes about this in heaven, Scott.
Scott Hoezee
Right.
Darrell Delaney
They are already honoring God; they are already giving glory to God; they are laying…they are falling down in worship; and when we are asking for his will to be done, his kingdom to come on earth, we are trying to align ourselves under, and be in agreement with, those who are already declaring his name; and as a pastor, when you are going to seminary to become a pastor, especially in my own story of how I learned this in seminary is that the pastor is one of the worship leaders, if not the worship leader; and the role of the pastor is to align us underneath what already is happening in heaven, as far as worship and honor and praise to God; and allow the sanctuary space to be conducive to that environment so that the people of God here could join into that worship together. So, that is how we actually fulfill your will be done, your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. It starts in our worship services, it starts in our hearts, and in our lives. The prayer is designed to remind us of that.
Scott Hoezee
Exactly; Jesus is prophet, priest, and king; and we are called to share that prophet, priest, and king with Jesus; and the priest part…who is the priest? Well, the priest is at the intersection point between heaven and earth. The priest is the go-between between heaven and earth. We are all that go-between for others. We…in our priestly function as disciples of Jesus…we want to connect people to heaven. On this earth, your will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven. We are priests in our lives when we help people do that.
Darrell Delaney
So, the pastor is not the only priest. We are actually…all of us are called to be priests who can bring our petitions to God; and this acknowledging of his kingdom coming, his will being done, affects our prayer life in practical ways.
I was thinking, too, Scott, about how sometimes in the United States, we have what are called transactional relationships, where if I do this, I will get that. If I put this in, I will get this return on investments back; but when you pray the prayer that says: Your kingdom come, your will be done, it actually dismantles the transactional relationship…
Scott Hoezee
Right.
Darrell Delaney
Because, if we are honest, we don’t always need to get everything we ask God for; and if we are honest with ourselves, then when he says we don’t need that, it actually is a blessing to us sometimes, because our agenda and our motives could be off; but when we ask for God’s kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, it realigns our relationship with him and allows him to have the final decision on what we ask for.
Scott Hoezee
Not tit for tat; it is not quid pro quo; it is all God—all God all the time. We want to live in ways that are transparent to God…to God’s kingdom…to God’s will. If the kingdom comes on earth as it is in heaven; if God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven, it happens through us. This didn’t happen just in a vacuum, right?
Darrell Delaney
Right.
Scott Hoezee
This happens in Darrell’s life and Scott’s life and everybody’s life. That is where that needs to show up; and as you just said, Darrell, it realigns…it decenters…our selfish motives. It disarms, it breaks the transactional way we often look at life.
Paul writes about this in Colossians 3:
Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 2Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 4When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
That is where we put our hearts and our minds, Paul says; above, where Jesus is, at the right hand of God the Father.
Darrell Delaney
And the reason why we need to do that is because if we are honest with ourselves, we know that since the fall of humanity, our pride, our envy, our greed, and all these selfish things are always on a slippery slope toward the wrong way and away from what God wants; and only the Holy Spirit can correct those motives in us; and the prayer can help us to be recentered back to that.
The next thing I was thinking is that when we pray for God’s agenda, we want your kingdom to come, your will to be done. It doesn’t reduce God to this genie, where he is at our beck and call…
Scott Hoezee
Right.
Darrell Delaney
We ask for it and we get it…your wish is my command…that is not how our God works, and that is not how it would be in the sovereignty of who he is. So, it actually helps us to focus.
Scott Hoezee
Yes; before we ask for anything else, we ask God to fill us. Keep our minds and our hearts above, where Christ is seated, not on earthly things; because, right, as you say, this isn’t a magic Aladdin’s lamp, where you rub the lamp and get a genie and make three wishes of things that we want. What the prayer is doing here by this petition…your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven…is it is telling us what we want. We are not telling God what we want, God is telling us what we want; and what we want is God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done. Do not love the world…1 John 2…or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. You cannot do both, John says; you cannot fully love the Father and the world at the same time. It doesn’t work.
Darrell Delaney
So, when we follow that scripture and we pray God’s kingdom come, God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, then we actually find that, in praying that, we resist the world’s agenda, and we resist what the world says is important. The world will tell you to put yourself first. The world will tell you to step on everyone else to get what you want; but when we say: No; we want your agenda, God; we want your will; it is a resistance to the pattern of this world. We are in this world but not of this world…
Scott Hoezee
Exactly.
Darrell Delaney
And so, we need to remember that, and this will uproot these things from our hearts. As we wrap up this episode, we want to look at how practically this applies to our lives. So, stay tuned.
Segment 3
Scott Hoezee
You are listening to Groundwork, where we dig into scripture to lay the foundation for our lives. I am Scott Hoezee.
Darrell Delaney
And I am Darrell Delaney.
Scott Hoezee
And we are talking about the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer: Your kingdom come, your will be done; and both of those things we pray will happen on earth as it is in heaven; but what does this mean for us practically, Darrell? I mean, as we think about our lives of discipleship, what is the “so-what” of all this?
Darrell Delaney
I think one of the things, Scott, is this prayer in and of itself is a model. So, whether you know how to pray or whether you don’t know how to pray; whether you know what you should say or you don’t know what you should say, you can literally take this verse and pray it; and say: Okay, this is the model that Jesus said to pray; I am going to read it; I am going to pray it; and you would actually be in solidarity with churches who have been doing this for centuries; and even in worship services, it is really beautiful and touching when everyone is saying the prayer at the same time in solidarity as the body of Christ.
Scott Hoezee
Yes.
Darrell Delaney
They have done it in many languages and they have done it in many countries, and it is really great to actually remember this prayer as a model.
Scott Hoezee
It reminds us that in all of our praying, what the goal is is kind of to decenter ourself…to center us on God instead, right? Because what we are doing in this first part of the prayer by asking these things to keep God’s name holy, to bring the kingdom, to bring God’s will through us, is we are realigning our sensibilities, we are realigning our goals; and what it adds up to, Darrell, I think, is just a desire to be with God and be like God and be content with God, even before we ask for things.
I love Psalm 131; such a beautiful psalm: My heart is not proud, Lord; my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. 2But I have calmed and quieted my soul, I am like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child, I am content. 3Israel, put your hope in the Lord, both now and forevermore.
I love…my teacher, David Holwerda, talked about this prayer; a weaned child isn’t looking to be with its mother to get milk; a weaned child isn’t with its mother to get something. As we said at the beginning of this episode, you know, if there is love, then long after we are adults and we are independent and we don’t need our parents to provide us with everything like we did when we were little, but we still go to be with them. If there is a good relationship, it is enough just to be with them; and that is what the goal is; and that is what is being built in us through this first part of the Lord’s Prayer. To be that weaned child, who just wants to be with God out of sheer love and affection.
Darrell Delaney
And being with God and being in God, in the fellowship of God, that actually is patterned in this psalm that you read, because you see that it is not the exact model that Jesus said to do, but it is in the format and template of what Jesus said to do…
Scott Hoezee
Right.
Darrell Delaney
Which is what I would encourage people to do, even if they don’t pray the Lord’s Prayer verbatim, that structure is still there, honoring God and being in God’s presence. I pray a prayer like that in my own life. Most of the time when I pray, I say: Father God, in the name of Jesus I thank you for this day; I thank you for who you are and what you are doing in our lives. I thank you for the point you bring us in our walk with you. We just want to acknowledge you are in complete control of every situation, and not in heaven twiddling your thumbs, wondering what is going to happen next, but you know exactly what you are doing. You had a date on the calendar for this very moment. You are the author and the finisher of my faith, and also the sustainer of it; and you are faithful to complete the work you started in us.
Now, I say all of that before I get into my requests…my petitions…because it grounds me, it centers me in the fact that I don’t need to be afraid because he is in control, and it makes me understand that his will and his agenda and his character are the foreground and the foundation for everything I need to ask for.
Scott Hoezee
And you know, we said in the first episode of this series, Darrell, that the Reformed confessional document, the Heidelberg Catechism, defines prayer as the biggest part of the gratitude we owe to God. Why do we pray? To say thank you, which some people might think is a little bit odd, because a lot of people think of prayer as asking…asking…asking. Well, how does asking for stuff become a way of saying thank you? It seems like it is the opposite. No; it isn’t, because we know who God is; we know God’s character; we know he is the one. So, everything you prayed in that prayer that you have written for yourself, is rooting you, first of all, in God; and realigning your desires and your sensibility. It is all about who God is and what God has done.
Darrell Delaney
Speaking of who God is and all he has done, that is another way to pray. You can literally look into the scriptures and see verses that display God’s character, actions, words, and attributes; and pray them back to him. So, like for example: Psalm 24 says: 1The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. Psalm 139 says we are fearfully and wonderfully made. So, I can say: God, because you are our Creator, you created all these things and they belong to you; you also created me, I thank you for how you designed me. If we see that it says: Holy, holy, holy, we could also say: Well, let’s join the angels and say, “You are holy, God.” That is what I like to do in my prayer. So, we can look at scripture and get some information and inspiration on how to pray.
Scott Hoezee
I like that. In seminary, you learn about the attributes of God, and those are things like faithfulness, goodness, love, mercy, grace; and yes, I like that, Darrell; to populate our prayers with praising God for those attributes; praising God for who God is.
You know, we said in the first program…and we maybe will say it throughout this series…that old line: Prayer changes us.
Darrell Delaney
Yes.
Scott Hoezee
It may change God. You know, again, we can have long debates about that, but one thing we do know is that prayer changes us. The regular discipline of praying forms our sensibilities. They are what the philosopher James K. A. Smith calls habits…a habitus…it is a habit…a way of thinking consistently; and praying the attributes to God back to God is a way of reminding ourselves who God is.
Darrell Delaney
I love it; and also, I was looking at an old book by A. W. Tozer called The Knowledge of the Holy, where he talks about all of these attributes of God; and that book actually sent me into worship because it is like: Oh, I could pray about God’s holiness; I could pray about his omnipotence; I could pray about his omnipresence, even in my life and everywhere else. When you look in scripture, you see that God is good; you see that God is holy; you see that God is righteous. And you know what else? That prayer is so important that Jesus didn’t stop praying when he left here. He is literally on the right hand of the Father right now, praying for us, as a model and as a person who knows prayer works, we are invited into that together with this prayer.
Scott Hoezee
When Jesus was getting ready to ascend into heaven, the disciples were sad, he said: Don’t be. You should be glad I am going to be there, because I am going to be praying for you. I am going to be bringing everything to the Father.
So, in the Lord’s Prayer, we align ourselves with the kingdom of God; we align ourselves with the will of God; we align ourselves with the holiness of God; so that those things can be shown in our lives, on earth as it is in heaven. Thanks be to God.
Darrell Delaney
Thank you for listening and digging deeply into scripture with Groundwork. We hope you will join us again next time as we study the third petition in the Lord’s Prayer: Give us today our daily bread.
Connect with us now at groundworkonline.com to share what Groundwork means to you, or tell us what you would like to hear discussed next on Groundwork.
Scott Hoezee
Groundwork is a listener supported program produced by ReFrame Ministries. Visit reframeministries.org for more information and to find more resources for nurturing your faith. We are your hosts, Scott Hoezee and Darrell Delaney.