Our scripture reading is Matthew 5, the verses 17 to 30. It's in Jesus' well-known Sermon on the Mount, and he says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets. I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not a iota, not a dot, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. And then Jesus gives us all sorts of examples what this righteousness looks like. For instance, it has something to do with anger. You have heard that it was said to those of old, you shall not murder, and whoever murders will be liable to judgment. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment. Whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council and whoever says you fool will be liable to the hell of fire. So if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar And go, first be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are going with him to court. Lest your accuser hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be put in prison. Truly I say to you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny. So that's the righteousness of the kingdom with regard to anger. There's also an example of righteousness of the kingdom with regard to purity of heart. You have heard that it was said you shall not commit adultery. But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better for you to lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. And then we go to the verses 43 to 48. It's a third example of the righteousness of the kingdom of heaven, loving our enemies. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and he sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same. And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same. You, therefore, must be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. I read these scripture passages in connection with the catechism lesson of this evening, which is Lord's Day 48, the second petition of the Lord's Prayer. What does the second petition mean? Your kingdom come means, are you reading it with me? Oh, okay. Rule us by your word and spirit in such a way that more and more we submit to you. Preserve and increase your church. Destroy the works of the devil or the devil's work. Destroy every force which revolts itself against you, and every conspiracy against your holy word. And do all this until your kingdom fully comes, when you will be all in all. And remember, this is a human document, and we're not preaching on a human document. We're preaching on the word of God, summarized in this human document. The thematic summary for this message of this evening is, thankfully and attentively participating in God's mission for His glory involves praying for the coming of God's kingdom. And from my prayer, you will remember that participating in God's mission for His glory is another way of saying we bear witness to the first installment of the resurrection life of God's new creation breaking forth in the present. The Apostle Paul says, if anyone is in Christ, And I believe he's talking in the plural there. He's talking about the church of Corinth. So the church is in Christ. The church is a new creation. And being a new creation, then we need to be who we are. And we bear witness to one another and to a watching world what being a new creation is all about. That's the overriding mission statement of any congregation. I know that congregations have their own mission statements, but my preference goes out to something like this. That's what we're about. And part of that, according to our catechism lesson tonight, is that if we want to do that, we need to pray for the coming of God's kingdom. Well, if that is what we need to do, it's not just the catechism that says that. Actually, the Lord Jesus Christ teaches us to do this because the disciples asked him, teach us to pray, and then he taught them the prayer. And so, Jesus teaches us to pray for the coming of the kingdom. Now, brothers and sisters, when you and I look at our own prayer life, how often do we do that? There's a little test that we can take. And you know that I like to do that, to give a little test. And I don't really make up the test myself out of nothing. I just look at the catechism. And that is the structure for my message. The Catechism's answer is almost like a good three-point sermon. And so if the Catechism explains this, and there's all sorts of footnotes at the bottom, you know, this is all taken from scripture. If praying for the coming of God's kingdom means rule us by your word and spirit so that we more and more submit ourselves to you, Then I need to ask myself, and you need to ask yourself, when Jesus says, pray for the coming of the kingdom, how often do we do that? Like, Lord, rule me by your word and spirit so that I'm a very humble and submissive servant to you. And the Catechism also says, preserve and increase your church. That's kind of like an unpacking of the petition praying for the kingdom. Well, do you do that often? Do I do that often? What place does the preservation and the increase of the church of God have in our personal life of prayer? And again, this has everything to do with the mission statement. participating in God's mission for his glory. And the third point of the Catechism's three-point sermon is destroy the works of the devil and every power that races itself against God and every conspiracy against his holy word. The test, I didn't make it up. The catechism just gives me the ingredients for this test. So how often do you and I do that? We think about the fact that, you know, we're living in this spiritual battle going on, and there's more than meets the eye. There's a host, an invisible realm of demons and principalities and powers in the heavenly realms, and I need to reckon with that, especially if I want to bear witness to the first installment of being a new creation in Christ. The devil's not going to like that. So, how often do you and I pray that God would destroy the devil and all his henchmen? And then there's this so-called eschatological longing. It's almost like a fourth point in the Sermon of the Catechism. Do all this, Lord, until your kingdom comes, and you will be all in all. That's a thematic summary. And we're setting the stage. Does this play an important role in the life of the congregation, the prayer life of the congregation, and your own personal prayer life. Remember, Jesus teaches us how to pray. With regard to the coming of the kingdom, the Lord Jesus Christ, as I said, teaches us to pray for this kingdom. What is this kingdom? Well, all sorts of things have been written about it. Is it a rule? Is it a realm? Is it both? I've been persuaded that when Jesus talks about the kingdom, and he talks a lot about the kingdom, so if you get this wrong, if you get it wrong, you're getting a main thing wrong of the main theme of Jesus' teaching. So it's important to get this right. What's this kingdom he's talking about? No. I've been persuaded that the kingdom that Jesus is talking about is the new heaven and the new earth. That's what he's talking about. You have to remember that when you read in Genesis 2, and God rested on the seventh day, and the author doesn't mention an evening and a morning, It's a little indication that the Sabbath rest of the seventh day was meant to go on forever, even though physically there was an evening and a morning, but in the literary text, it's not mentioned. So Moses is giving a little indication here that this day is different than all the other days. It's meant to go on forever. And implicitly, there's an invitation to Israel, the first readers of Genesis. And implicitly, there's an invitation to you and me every seventh day, which is now the first day. Redemptive historically, you know, it's the first day now, and so every first day, There's an implicit invitation to enter into the eternal Sabbath rest of the kingdom of God or the kingdom of heaven. And then we fast forward and we go to Jesus' ministry. And Jesus says, repent and believe for the kingdom of heaven has come near. So, he didn't say has come, he says has come near. So how has the kingdom of heaven, this new heaven and this new earth, how has that come near? When Jesus says that, it has come near. It has come near in his person. He is the embodiment of the kingdom of heaven in his person. That's how it has come near. And it especially also come near in all of Jesus' healings. when he gives a blind person his sight back, that's like a little sign that in the new heaven and the new earth, there'll be nobody who's blind. And nobody will be wearing contact lenses or glasses. Everybody will have, I'm not sure if they call it that there, 20-20 vision. And when Jesus gives hearing back to a dumb man, that's a little sign saying, you know, The new heaven and the new earth is right around the corner where everybody will have perfect hearing. Nobody will have to have an expensive hearing aid. And when he casts out demons from people, that's also a little indicator that the kingdom of heaven has come near. Because in the new heaven and the new earth, there'll be no devil and there'll be no one who is demon possessed. We will all function perfectly the way God wants us to function. So that's the kingdom. It's a new heaven and a new earth. And Jesus says you need to repent and believe because if you want to enter, you want to be a participant whose body will function properly, whose mind will function properly, like we'll have the mind of Christ. Can you imagine that? will think like the human Jesus thought, perfectly, unimaginable. If you want to join and be a member of that kingdom, you can't keep living the way you're living now. You need to live a life of daily repentance, and you need to believe in me, because the more you believe in me and place your trust in me, the more I will do in you what I have done for you. to repent and believe. And so, thankfully, participating in God's mission for His glory involves praying for the coming of this kingdom. Because that, brothers and sisters, is the goal of history. Everything is moving toward that goal. And that is the goal of the church. We're headed towards that goal, and that should be the goal of your life and my life, the eternal Sabbath rest of the coming kingdom of God. Jesus, in his Sermon on the Mount, said that there was a way that leads to this kingdom. If you want to summarize the Sermon on the Mount, it's like a roadmap. Sermon on the Mount is a roadmap that leads to the coming kingdom of heaven. And the road that leads to this coming kingdom, the new heaven and the new earth that you and I want to enter into is a road of righteousness. And when you hear the word righteousness, you might always think about legal righteousness and you think of your justification. That's included too. But righteousness is a broad word. It simply means rightly related. So it's a road in which we are rightly related to God. You think of your justification there, rightly related to God. But it's also a road that we are rightly related to ourselves. And it's a road in which we are rightly related to one another. And last but not least, it's a road in which we are rightly related to creation. From our scripture reading, I gave you three examples of this righteousness. First of all, it's a road of reconciliation. You can't be angry with people. And you shouldn't call people an idiot or a fool. And if there's something between you and the other person, as much as it depends upon you, you should do your best to kind of get that made right. It's a road of reconciliation. And secondly, it's a road of purity. That can be a tough road to travel because we live in a very impure world. But Jesus does say, you know, if we look lustfully at the other sex, today you might say you look at the same sex too, you know, lustfully to objectify the other person and to, well, just to objectify the other person. You can't do that. That's an impure lifestyle. See, adultery is not just the act like David with Bashi, but it begins in the heart. And in the new covenant, as I mentioned this morning, which is still the old covenant, but the fulfillment of the old covenant, the Christian life becomes more radical. It was like you shall not commit adultery, and it's the act. And you shall not commit murder. It's like the act. And Jesus says, you know what? In the New Testament, in the new covenant church, it's going to be even more radical. You can't even call someone a fool. And you can't even look lustfully at a person. And that all belongs to the road of righteousness that leads to the coming kingdom of heaven. And we need to travel that road by the grace of God. in the strength of the Holy Spirit. And it's also a road of loving your enemies. Lord's Day 48 picks up on what Jesus teaches us here. Answer question, answer 123. It says, the first meaning of your kingdom come is rule us by your word and spirit so that we submit ourselves more and more to you. Why would the catechism in its little three-point sermon pick out the word and the spirit? Well, we know that the word of God is a light for our path and a lamp for our feet. And we know that the Word of God, as the Word of God itself says, is profitable for teaching, for correction, for admonition, and for training in what? Training in righteousness. There you have that word again. Training in being rightly related to God, yourself, other people, including your enemies, and being rightly related to creation. And in the light of this morning's message, we know that just as God sent Jesus into the world to draw people into his new covenant community and have them participate in his divine fellowship of love with the Father, so God sent scripture into the world. He gives us the scriptures for the same reason for which he gave us the Lord Jesus Christ, to increasingly draw us more and more into an ever deeper communion with himself in Christ through the Holy Spirit. So you understand why it is important to pray, rule us by your word. So important, rule us by your word. But you know, the word itself will not do it because we also say, rule us by your spirit. And why is that added? Because the Holy Spirit needs to open the words that we hear. and the words that we read in such a way that they resonate deeply in our souls, and we have a personal encounter. We personally hear God speaking to us, just like we saw in this morning's sermon these apostles They heard with their ears the Word of Life speaking, and they touched the Word of Life with their hands. So, when you and I read the Scriptures, and you and I study and meditate on the Scriptures, and you and I come to church and we listen to the proclamation of the Word, simply hearing is not sufficient. The Spirit needs to work with that Word, open the words so that we actually hear God personally addressing us, personally correcting us, personally training us. in the way of righteousness, so that we may be fully equipped to bear witness to the glory of God as we participate in God's mission for His glory." Now, that's the first thing the Catechism says. And even though it's a human document, I think this is pretty good. This is a pretty good summary of some important biblical lines in the Bible about the coming of the kingdom and what that means for us. Now, the second thing that the catechism says, we have to pray for the preservation and the increase of the church. Well, that means that the road that we travel, to the coming kingdom is not a road that we travel alone. Lone ranger Christianity doesn't really exist. God doesn't want that. It's a communal life. Again, we heard that this morning. You know, when we believe the testimony of the apostles, we have communion with the apostles. And when we believe the testimony of the apostles, then their joy is complete. So the apostles, they want us to believe their testimony. We travel a journey together with them and with each other. Lourdes, day 21, says the same thing. We confess that this evening in the Apostles' Creed. I believe a holy Catholic church. And then the catechism summarizes the teaching of scripture by saying, you know what that means? That the Son of God, from the beginning of the world to its end, out of the whole human race, gathers, defends, and preserves for himself. John over here and Susan over there and all these little individual Christians who live siloed lives beside each other, you know. They don't communicate with each other. You know, it doesn't say that, does it? It says, gathers, defends, and preserves for himself a church, a new covenant community. And I believe, I believe that I am and always will be a living member of that community. Because God chooses a community. Together, you and I bear witness to the first installment of the resurrection life of God's new creation breaking forth into this broken present. And God uses the church for that. My wife and I pray every Sunday morning. I've disciplined myself to that. And every Sunday morning, I have a standard prayer that we pray together. I say, thank you, Lord, for this first day of the week. A day in which, and you heard me pray it tonight, a day in which we intentionally remember the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead, and then I expand on that. Why do I do that? I do that because that's a spiritual discipline. I got 52 Sundays, and there's an extra week in there somewhere. Maybe there's 53, I don't know. You'll have to tell me after the service if it's 52 or 53, but we've got 52 or 53 Sundays to intentionally remind ourselves of, in the Christian life, is the life of the future breaking forth into the present, okay? You need to remember that. That's what the Christian life is. The life of the future breaking forth into the present. And we have 52 days of the year to remind ourselves of that. And why do we need to remind ourselves of that? Because it's so easy to forget it. It's so easy to forget that the Christian life is a life of the future. breaking forth into the present. And so God gives us one day out of seven to just remind ourselves of that fact. And that ties in with the mission statement of the church. We participate with God in bearing witness to his glory. And his glory is already the first installment of the resurrection life, of God's new creation breaking forth. And because of our union with Christ, we got 52 days in the year to remind ourselves of our personal identity. I have died with Christ. I have risen with Christ. Maybe I should start living like that, right? That's what the Christian life is about. And give some hope, hope to a world that is up to here in hopelessness. The world doesn't have to live the way it does. There's another way of living, a new way of living, God's new creation story. And you and I, brothers and sisters, are part of that new creation story. And you've got 52 days in the year to just keep driving that point home. that that's who we are, and that's what we're about in this world as a church. And Lord say 48 picks up on that. When it comes to expositing the meaning of your kingdom come, preserve and increase your church. If God uses the church as the first installment of the resurrection life of his new creation breaking forth into this world to bear witness to who he is and to the hope that the world has together with us if they believe in Jesus. You understand, of course, that this church needs to be preserved. You can't just have it, say, I don't care about the church. You know, and we do live in that kind of an individualistic culture that, you know, it's just me and Jesus and who cares about organized religion. Don't ever go down that route, you know. You got to believe in the body of Christ. But you believe, because that gives hope to the world. This church needs to be preserved. By continually having this church fed, fed every week again by the Word of God. And during the week, in your homes, you feed yourself with the Word of God so that you continue to walk the road of righteousness, rightly related, that leads to the coming kingdom of heaven. And if God uses the church as a first installment, you can say, I can sum it up a bit, as the first installment of the life of heaven. a life of heaven coming from the future, breaking forth into this broken present. If God uses the church for that, then of course the church needs to increase, because God doesn't want anybody to perish, but he wants everyone to come to faith and repentance in the Lord Jesus Christ. God wants a countless multitude of every tribe, people, nation, and language standing before the throne of God and just praising God and the Lamb for who they are and the work of grace that they do in their lives. Father, your kingdom come, preserve and increase your church. You think people like that? No. There's a lot of opposition. A lot of opposition to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in this world. I read from Ephesians 6, we're engaged in a huge cosmic spiritual battle. So easy to forget that. You think if you lived in Ukraine that you would forget that there was a war going on? I don't think you would. I think you'd probably be looking over your shoulder, like, when's the next drone coming, you know? When's the next missile coming from a drone? You're always aware that you're living in a war zone. Same with the people in Gaza, kind of looking over their shoulder. When's the next drone going to come, the next missile? And when it comes to the spiritual life, it's so easy to forget that, that we are in a war zone. a spiritual war zone which is much more dangerous than the war zone in Ukraine and Gaza and other countries in this world. That's what the devil does. The devil doesn't want the church to be preserved. The devil doesn't want the church to increase. And so the devil does what he can to deceive the church to persecute the church, to threaten the church, so that he can frustrate, as if he could frustrate the work of God, but he tries to frustrate the work of God. And Lorsday 48 picks up on that in that little three-point sermon. What does it mean to pray, your kingdom come? Destroy. The devil, he needs to be destroyed. You know what happened on Good Friday, children? Jesus bruised the head of the devil. He didn't crush his skull yet. He bruised it so that the devil is mortally wounded. But when Jesus comes back, you know what he's going to do? He's going to take his foot and he's going to say, Put it on Satan's head, on the serpent's head. He's going to crush it. Goes into the lake of fire. He needs to be destroyed because there is no place and no room for the devil on the new earth. And all his henchmen, they need to be destroyed as well. All his demons who help him, all secular philosophies, all of that stuff needs to be destroyed. And every conspiracy against the word of God, just like the serpent sit in the garden, didn't God really say, right? You cast doubt on the word of God. And what the serpent did in the garden has happened 4,000, 5,000, it has kept happening. The devil is always questioning the word of God. Did God really say what he did in Genesis 1? Did God really say what he did in the book of Jonah? Like, how can someone be swallowed up by a whale and live in a whale's stomach for three days and three nights? Did God really say? That's all a conspiracy against God's Holy Word. It's all fake news, brothers and sisters, and don't ever believe it. And that fake news needs to be destroyed. And it's part of praying for the coming of the kingdom of God. I round off. May I encourage you, brothers and sisters, to give the second petition a large place in your prayer life. Pray it a lot. And if you want, use the Catechism text. It's pretty good. And may I encourage you to encourage each other to pray for the coming of the kingdom a lot in this world and in your own life. And may I encourage you especially to go to the Lord Jesus who prayed for the coming of the kingdom a lot himself. Jesus did that for you and for me. He's the captain of the team. He's our representative. We were included in his obedience, also his prayer for the coming of God's kingdom. And what He has done for us, He wants to do in us. As we live in Him through faith, and He lives in us through His Spirit. Amen. Let's pray and give thanks. Father, rule us by your word and spirit in such a way that more and more we submit to you. Preserve your church and make it grow. Destroy the devil's work. Destroy every force that revolts against you and every conspiracy against your holy word. and do all this until your kingdom fully comes when you will be all in all.