Trinity 26—Second Last Sunday
Dear friends in Christ. We are coming to the end of the present Church Year. The readings of the end of the Church Year focus on the struggles of the Christian against the devil, the world, and our own sinful self. And now today and next Sunday’s readings turn our attention to the Last Day and the Final Judgment. Jesus begins in today’s Gospel: When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Then He goes on to describe the judgment on the Last Day; it is the final public judgment. And since it is public judgment, for all to see, it is judgment based on works—works that are the evidence of and which follow faith. In other words, the works show the faith or the lack of faith in Christ in a person’s heart. In the Final Judgment, the sin and lack of righteousness of the non-Christian will be very much evident; but in the case of the Christian, whose faith receives Christ’s righteousness and the forgiveness of sins, those sins are forgiven/ covered with the righteousness of Christ and so Christ, in the judgment, will only have the good works of the Christian to point to—all the rest has been forgiven.
There, that scene—Christ sitting on His glorious throne surrounded by all the holy angels--is a very royal scene. We are reminded that Christ Jesus is the King! We are reminded of what we pray for daily in the Our Father: Thy Kingdom Come. That then raises the question: What is the kingdom of God? Here, examining Scripture, we discover that there is a three-fold kingdom of God: His kingdom of power, His kingdom of grace and His kingdom of glory. First, there is the Kingdom of Power. Here God rules as king over the whole universe. There is absolutely nothing outside of God’s control. He rules over everything. This is a tremendous comfort and blessing to His dear Christian because we are certain that the Almighty God and King over everything is ruling all things for the blessing and benefit of His dear Church and each Christian. David writes in Psalm 103:19: The Lord has established His throne in heaven, and His kingdom rules over all.
But this kingdom of God isn’t really what we pray for when we pray Thy Kingdom Come because it has already come/ it’s already here. The holy Triune God is indeed already ruling mightily as King; all things are under His control.
But when we pray Thy Kingdom Come, we are praying that His two other kingdoms would come to us: His kingdom of grace and His kingdom of glory.
God’s kingdom of grace is His Church on earth. So when we pray Thy Kingdom Come, we are praying that God’s kingdom of grace, His Church, would come to us, as Luther points out: God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us His Holy Spirit, so that by His grace we believe His holy Word and lead godly lives... We are praying that by God’s grace He would continue to grant us His Holy Spirit and the gift of faith so that we may be part of His kingdom, the Church, enjoying His grace. We are praying that He would bless the spread of His word into all the world so that many more people would, by the work of the Holy Spirit in the Word and Sacrament, be gathered into His kingdom of grace, His Church on earth.
God’s kingdom of glory is the Church and angels in heaven. When we pray Thy Kingdom Come, we are also praying for Christ’s soon return and that we may be with all the saints and angels in heaven.
It is exactly these two kingdoms—of grace, the Church on earth, and glory, the Church in heaven, that St. Paul talks about in our text. As we examine our text, we will see that the Church on earth, Christ’s Kingdom of Grace, is one of struggle and hardship. But His Kingdom of Glory, His Church is heaven, is one of blessed triumph and rest. In the midst of our struggles as part of the Church on earth, Christ’s Kingdom of Grace, we look forward to and fervently pray for the Last Day and Christ’s Kingdom of Glory to come.
1. St. Paul begins our text: We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Here we see what makes us part of Christ’s kingdom of grace, His Church here on earth—faith—and how that faith shows itself: by good works, works of love: the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. No one can will or decide themselves into Christ’s kingdom of grace, the Church. That’s why we pray for others, for the spread of the Gospel—so that God comes to them in grace and gives them the gift of faith and brings them into His Kingdom of Grace. That’s why we are Christians today—God heard the prayers of other Christians before us, Thy Kingdom Come, and He so graciously answered it, coming to us in grace and creating in our hearts/ giving us His gift of faith. We, dear Christian, are living proof of God’s answering the prayer prayed by His Christians: Thy Kingdom Come.
Notice, that we pray Thy Kingdom Come. Christ’s kingdom comes to us—we don’t go to it; we don’t “decide” to make ourselves part of it. When His kingdom comes to us, by His grace He gives us the gift of faith in Christ—faith that recognizes that I am a sinner and left to myself and my own devices I earn nothing but God’s wrath and damnation; but Jesus is my Savior from sin, in Him is the forgiveness of sin and He gives me His perfect holiness and righteousness.
When we pray: Thy Kingdom Come, how does God’s kingdom come, since we can’t go to it and stand at the door and knock? It comes to us by God’s holy word and sacraments. God’s kingdom comes when He has His holy word go out into the world. It then comes to people. By the work of His Holy Spirit in that word He then creates faith in the hearts of people to receive Jesus and all His gifts and blessings. For most of us, God’s kingdom of grace came to us in the waters of Holy Baptism as there with the water and by the word, the Holy Spirit cleansed us from sin and created faith in our hearts and brought us into the Church. This is purely God’s work—He comes with His kingdom to us and by giving us the gift of faith brings us into it. And now that gift of faith shows itself in our lives as we live lives of love and good works: the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.
The prayer of all Christians Thy Kingdom Come, is not just answered as the Lord comes to us and by giving us the gift of faith brings us into His Church here on earth, but He continues to come by His word and sacrament to work on us so that it may be said also of us: your faith is growing abundantly. How terribly vital it is that the Lord continue to come to us in His word and sacrament to strengthen our faith because as part of God’s Kingdom of Grace, the Church here on earth, we are also the Church militant—that is, we are struggling against our spiritual enemies of sin, the devil, the sinful world around us and our own sinful nature within us! That struggle is part and parcel of the people in God’s Kingdom of Grace—like these Thessalonian Christians Paul was writing to and like many Christians throughout the world and like us to a different degree: they were enduring persecutions and trials on account of their faith. Our text: Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring. This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering… Their faith, that by God’s grace, was first given and then was growing abundantly caused them to be thoroughly grounded in the right/ true teaching and so, preserved by the Lord, they remained firm. And not only did they remain firm in the faith, they then became an example and encouragement to other congregations of what God can and does work and how He preserves His Kingdom of Grace: we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.
The Church on earth, God’s Kingdom of Grace, will suffer persecutions and the cross—that is, what we suffer on account of our confession of faith in Christ. Never think that once you are a Christian, part of God’s Kingdom of Grace, that everything will go swimmingly for you. Instead, expect trial, hardship—the cross—because precisely that is the testimony of the Holy Spirit to you that you belong to Christ, that you are not of this world. Remember—not only are we part of God’s Kingdom of Grace, but we are also—as is everything else—part of God’s Kingdom of Power. That means that He is in charge of all things ruling everything for our good and the good of His Church. That means all that we endure, all our sufferings, are a gracious discipline of God as He shapes and conforms us that [we] may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God. And as by His gracious working in the word and sacrament, as His kingdom still comes to us, He does not leave us to our own devices but He gives us through word and sacrament the strength to endure.
2. In the midst of the various trials, sufferings, or even persecutions on account of our faith that is the common lot of those in our Lord’s Kingdom of Grace, the Church on earth, let us not forget our Lord’s other kingdom—the Kingdom of Glory, of the Church in heaven—the saints and the angels. We citizens of God’s Kingdom of Grace are subject to the cross and suffering now; after we enter the Kingdom of Glory is our lowliness changed into glory. Our text: when [Jesus] comes on that day [that is, the Last Day] to be glorified in his saints, and to be marveled at among all who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.
Not only does the Lord give us the strength to fight against the devil and his allies with their temptations and to remain faithful to Him in the midst of our various trials, but we can look forward—no matter what the trial or suffering or even persecution may be—to that glorious day of our Lord’s return, Judgment Day. Then will be the day of our relief. That day, all our spiritual enemies will be done away with: never again will we have to suffer temptation—we will be in heaven with our Lord safe from Satan’s reach; never again will any trial or sorrow afflict us—we will be in heaven, a citizen of God’s Kingdom of Glory; never again will we have to do battle with our old sinful self—for in heaven we will be purely the new self, the Christian; for our bodies will be raised perfect and holy.
God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, All those allies of Satan who served in tormenting our Lord’s dear Christians—be it physically, or emotionally or by their evil example—will be condemned forever in hell receiving the just rewards for their rejection of Christ. It is not a pretty picture the blessed Apostle describes in our text. But it is Judgment Day—the day of the great separation. For those who rejected Jesus and His work, Jesus says in today’s Gospel [Mt. 25.46]: And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. To those who are on earth citizens of His Kingdom of Grace Jesus welcomes into His Kingdom of Glory saying [Mt. 25.34]: Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. We, dear Christian, will eternally partake of the glory Jesus obtained for us. What a glorious prayer we are blessed to pray: Thy Kingdom come. INJ