The Lord's Prayer: Submission

Your kingdom come,  your will be done,   on earth as it is in heaven. - Matthew 6:10 ESV

Rev. Dwight Yoo

The point of the petitions

We are not praying for God's kingdom to come into existence. God rules. But since the fall, earth and sinners resist His reign. We are praying for the full coming of His kingdom here on earth. In order for this to happen, the opposition must be crushed.

Christ has come and dealt the deathblow. Victory is already here. But the opposition continues to fight. The kingdom doesn't come like a light switch, it comes like a mustard seed. Slowly and imperceptibly coming. Like a dawn, starting in darkness and shadows slowly receding until everything is light.

We pray for bringing glory and reverence of God. Immediately afterwards, we pray for missions. The growth of the kingdom. For people to come into saving knowledge of God. That is a priority over asking for daily bread. The daily provision is to support the seeking of God's kingdom. If we think it strange, then this is simply the Word pointing out our twisted priorities.

The posture of the petitions

We are not to mindlessly ask these things. It should not be going thorough the motions. We should be consumed about doing all things for God. Our primary concern should be for pleasing God.

Our hearts should be thankful and desiring to obey God. But often we do it begrudgingly. Not willingly or fully engaged to doing anything for God. If we hold anything back from God, we are not submitted. We want to say this is partial submission, but really we are saying our priorities matter more than God's. We are desiring our kingdom rather than God's. When we hold something back, we are saying... I'm the boss; I'm in control. We are not submitted.

Our unwillingness to fully submit is our lack of trust in God. We can only release control to those we trust. So we think it will be better to live for ourselves. We believe that obedience to God will not being joy, contentment, or happiness. We think that disobeying God will give us joy. We chase our dreams, party it up, or reach our goals and find ourselves feeling Meh.

Then perhaps we are beginning to understand the lie. It is not obeying God on one side and happiness on the other. God really desires the best for us.

The power to pray these petitions

Full submission means that God will take us up on it. He will bring us to suffering. There is no glory without a cross. That is the pattern set by our Lord, Jesus Christ. No matter what suffering God bring you to, Jesus understands our suffering. He bore the sins of the world.

God gave up his son for us. We can underwhelmed by things on this earth. But when we come into heaven, we will all be awed and overwhelmed. We will think that we did not spend enough time, money, resources on God's kingdom.