Living Waters Church | September 14, 2025
“Lead Us: Your Kingdom Come”
Listen to or watch this sermon here
Recently I opened my email to find an odd request. “Do you mind”, read the email, “if we borrow your cross?” The request came from St. Andrew’s Chapel just down the road here in Fort Langley. They’re marking their 140th anniversary this September and are planning a special gathering, which is where the request for our cross comes in. The woman emailing was under the impression that our cross, that is, Living Waters, was made by a former pastor over at St. Andrew’s, back in the early nineties, so they hoped to borrow it for their anniversary gathering as a meaningful piece of history. I had a hunch, however, that the folks over at St. Andrew’s were mistaken, because the cross here in our sanctuary was built just a couple years ago. She must be referring, I thought, to the previous cross, which now has a spot in our upper room.
But I had more questions. I’d never heard that our older cross had been built by another church’s pastor, assuming instead it was built by a member of this church once this building was completed some twenty-five years ago. (What I did know about that older cross was that it sometimes annoyed people, as one half of the cross beam was longer than the other. My friend Rachel, a woodworker, would routinely tell me on Sundays that the cross was uneven and we needed to fix it because it was driving her nuts. In end, it was Rachel’s dad, Ron, who made our new cross, and Rachel now feels more at ease when she visits). So, the question remained: who made that older, uneven cross, the one now hanging in our upper room? Was it made by a former pastor over at St. Andrew’s who then gifted it to Living Waters? That would be a touching connection between our churches. Or did the folks over at St. Andrews have the wrong end of the stick?
I knew one call would clear it up. Ken and Eunice are former pastors here and the folks responsible for ensuring Living Waters didn’t close in the mid-nineties when the congregation numbered less than twenty people. They’re also responsible for the gutsy vision to build the space we’re gathered in today, inspiring that same small congregation to big faith and bold action. I worked with Ken when I first arrived here as an intern and found him to be a man of many talents: engineer, university professor, pastor, amateur magician (his tricks sometimes found their way into sermons), and church builder. Ken knows more about this building than anyone and would know about that cross. I called Ken, and he tells me that his brother-in-law Fred made the cross, and not a former pastor of St. Andrews. We catch up a little, and as much as I enjoy chatting with Ken, I was no closer to solving what was becoming a full-blown mystery into which I was rapidly spiraling. The cross this woman from St. Andrew’s thinks we have on our wall, we don’t have anywhere. Why does this lady think we have their cross, and where is it? The game was afoot, so I delved into my mind palace.
Way back Fort Langley’s Stations of the Cross was pioneered by St. Andew’s United and St. George’s Anglican, the two oldest churches in the Fort. Soon others joined, including groups like Wagner Hills and Living Waters. The Good Friday event remembers Jesus’ journey to his death, by following a literal cross through the Fort, carried from spot to spot while praying and reading Scripture. Kids carry it, old folks carry it, recovery residents at Wagner Hills carry it. Anyone who wants to carry the cross can.
With that background, here’s my theory on what some are calling The Great Fort Langley Cross Mystery of 2025 (and by some I mean me): I figure the pastor at St. Andrew’s must have built a special cross when the Good Friday event first began, and the assumption from long-standing members of St. Andrews must be that that original cross is the same cross used every year since. But they were all of them deceived, for there was another cross. About 15 years ago we began using the Living Waters cross to carry through the village (the un-even, Fred-built cross). I don’t know why. All I know is someone said we needed a cross, so we started bringing ours. So, that cross, the un-even, Living Waters cross is presumed by the folks at St. Andrews to be the original cross built by their former pastor. I’d have to break the news that we don’t have that original cross. But I also want to assure the folks at St. Andrews that we didn’t just take off with their cross one Good Friday, never to return it, like some weird game of Christian capture the flag. We don’t want a reputation as a church which goes around stealing other church’s crosses, do we?
To sum up: Ron made that cross behind me a couple of years ago; Fred made the un-even cross in the upper room about twenty-five years ago which we now use on Good Friday, and there’s still another cross unaccounted for made by a former pastor of St. Andrews some thirty years ago. And I don’t even want to tell you about the other cross in our storage unit which we bring out on special occasions, because at this point you’re probably wondering where we’re going with all this. Here’s the point. When I hear Jesus’ prayer, “Your kingdom come, your will be done.” I start thinking about kingdoms, God’s kingdom in particular, which is represented by the enduring sign of a cross. And this odd little mystery raised a question for me as we meditate on the Lord’s Prayer together this September: Who owns the cross, and are they willing to share it?
Now, the churches of Fort Langley have a good history of working together, so I doubt we’re in danger of starting a turf war over a couple of pressure treated two-by-fours. “Who owns the cross and are they willing to share it?”, may have been a literal question I had to answer over email, but it’s also a figurative question with spiritual implications. Who owns the cross, and are they willing to share it? And here’s the thing: I think we’re asked that question every single time we pray the Lord’s Prayer. In fact, that might be the central question of the Lord’s Prayer.
Your Kingdom Come
As we heard last week, when Jesus was teaching his disciples how to pray, and by extension how to live, he first taught them to pray to the one he called Father. Our Father. We relate to God in connection with one another. This reality permeates the rest of Jesus’ prayer too. We don’t hear words like me or I, but instead, our and us. Nothing in the Lord’s Prayer leads us to think that being Christian is a solo-effort. This is all about relationship, both with God and then with one another. Living Waters has five Core Values, and in our value of Community we like to say that belonging to Jesus means belonging with one another. And so when we pray “Our Father”, we’re remembering the sisterly and brotherly bond we share in Jesus. We’re as branches grafted into to a vine, as adopted children into a new creation family. That’s the start of the Lord’s prayer, next week we’ll look at the end, and today we’re in the middle.
The very next thing Jesus teaches his disciples to pray is for the arrival of a kingdom which is not at first theirs, along with a will which is beyond their own. We pray together: Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. We’re praying that we want God’s life and will to come to fruition in our here and now. And, by confessing there’s a heavenly kingdom and will, we’re reminded of all the many earthly kingdoms and wills to which folks like us can belong. Nationalist kingdoms, ideological wills, cultural kingdoms, commercial wills, political kingdoms, right down to our own egotistical little kingdoms and wills which occupy us constantly. “Your kingdom come, your will be done” is a prayer of submission to God over against any other kingdom or will, including our own. We’re not inviting God into our little kingdoms or wills, but spiritually immigrating to his kingdom, and asking that our wills would be conformed to his good and perfect will. To me it’s the difference between treating God like a glass of water we drink to whet our thirst on occasion, or, treating God like a vast river into which we step, fully emersed. The Lord’s Prayer insists that it’s not so much that God’s just joining in on my life, but that we’re joining in with God’s life. And there’s a difference. It doesn’t mean God’s not interested in my life (we’ll come to that in a moment), but it’s the simple and freeing truth that God is God and we’re not. When we realize that, being human in God’s good world starts making a lot more sense.
Give us today our daily bread
But what is being truly human in God’s good world like? What’s God’s kingdom and will all about? That’s a big question. But one thing Jesus notes is that it’s a kingdom in which we as children can ask for what we need, trusting our heavenly Father daily. “Give us this day our daily bread”. This is often our favourite part of the Lord’s prayer, which is only natural since we’re our Father’s reliant children.
When I spend time with one of my kids, say taking them out for the afternoon, I’ll sometimes ask them later what their favourite part was. It’s not unusual hear, “when you got me ice crème”. From a parental perspective I might have a different answer to my own question. Maybe I liked when we spotted that horse in the field, or chatted about why the sky is blue, or that we held hands in the grocery store. They often remember the ice crème, and that’s because ice crème is fun. But it’s also because they feel seen and loved through my provision, even if they can’t fully articulate that. I can tell them I love them all I like (and I do), but they seem most interested in how I show them my love. And thus, we often end up spoiling our dinner with ice crème.
One of the most beautiful notes in the Lord’s Prayer is that though we’re signing up for a kingdom which isn’t ours, and drawn into a will above our wills, we can also expect to be cared for by our heavenly Father within that kingdom because of his good and perfect will. So this part of the prayer insists we can and should ask for bread, because it’s only natural in a loving relationship to ask for what you need. As Jesus said elsewhere, “if you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him?” (Matthew 7). Even though we are stepping into God’s kingdom and will, submitting our finite kingdoms and crooked wills, we can trust that we’ll be taken care of, not taken advantage of.
Forgive us our debts as we forgive those indebted against us
There remains, however, the question of the deeper nature of this heavenly kingdom and will into which we’re stepping. We’re clear it’s God’s kingdom and not our own. We’re clear that it’s a kingdom in which our needs won’t be neglected, because we’re not just a cog in a machine but daughters and sons of our heavenly Father. But what’s the true nature of this heavenly kingdom? What’s God building? This is where we come to the very heart of the Lord’s prayer: forgiveness. “Forgive us our debts as we forgive those indebted against us.”
Forgiveness is the central reality of God’s kingdom. We are forgiven, and we are gifted the capacity and chance to forgive others. Scripture teaches that God has reconciled all creation to himself from a deep work of forgiveness through Jesus himself, and stepping into that kingdom is to take up some of the implementation work for ourselves. The role of a Christian is to perpetuate the reality of forgiveness and reconciliation in day-to-day life. It is to live as though forgiveness and reconciliation in Jesus is the truest thing about our world, because it is.
So this new kingdom, this new thing God is setting up in amongst all the old things, is one in which mercy and grace run freely, and the power of love presses out the old enemy of fear. And it all comes down to Jesus, his life, his death, and his life again. That’s part of what the cross means: God’s service and sacrifice through Jesus has made forgiveness and reconciliation possible in our beat-up old world. Being Christian is simply accepting that for ourselves, and passing it on to others. You could say that it’s simple as grace to us and grace through us. Of course, this can take some getting used to. In the old kingdoms in which we’ve been living, we’ve learned that nothing comes for free, payback is to be expected, and there’s only so much to go around. This isn’t the case in Jesus’ kingdom. This is a place of abundance and selflessness, and nothing made that clearer than Jesus and his cross. Jesus took the very instrument of payback and fear, and turned it into a symbol of generosity and love. So long as we keep our eyes on it, the power of the cross runs to us and through us.
Crosses and Kingdom
Which brings us back to crosses, and that strange question I asked at the start: who owns the cross, and are they willing to share it? In other words, whose kingdom are we living in? The Lord’s Prayer is crystal clear. It’s not our kingdom, first. It’s not our cross, first. It’s the LORD Jesus’ kingdom and his cross. And Jesus has opened his kingdom and extended the work of his cross to anyone willing to pick it up and follow.
We always reference our Core Values each September: Authenticity, Community, Generosity, Growing, Recognizing and Releasing. These are words which draw out some of how we’re meant to express of Jesus’ kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. If you don’t know about our Core Values, we hope you get to know them, but more importantly, get to experience them this year. That said, Living Waters might have core values, new logos, fresh ideas about how to be a church together, but all of it is set in context of a bigger kingdom. The Lord’s Prayer reminds us over again to live in Jesus’ kingdom, not our own. Which is an immense gift. Imagine if all this was down to us only. Imagine if the power for forgiveness and reconciliation depended on our efforts! But this is not our thing, it’s God’s thing. We’re as little children joining in our father’s work, trusting him to him to be fed and watching him to be led.
With that in mind we can remember also that Living Waters is not first our church. This is LORD’s church, of which we’re a part. And you might think we’re splitting hairs when it comes to language here, but it’s actually pretty important. We don’t own the kingdom or the cross any more than the next person Jesus has welcomed, and that reality should influence our life together. For example, we needn’t be competitive with one another here in this church, or with other churches for that matter, because the only name we’re aiming to get the glory Jesus’. So, it can be a bit collaborative, even messy, sometimes, and that’s okay. We’re trying to express that we’re a body with many parts, a family of sisters and brothers.
And Jesus has set the terms for that family. So he teaches us to freely share with one another from the depths of his capacity for grace. As our value of Generosity says: we’re generous because Jesus is generous. And that’s not just an example to follow, but the reality that we can only be generous with one another because Jesus has first been generous with us. So, through every charitable interaction with one another it’s as if we’re saying: I do have the cross in my possession, but I’m not possessive about it, I’m willing to share. And one question in front of us this fall is that of even further sharing. Are we stirred for more, to pray for our new efforts in the Willoughby neighborhood, or for our own friends and neighbour’s who have not yet heard the good news about Jesus? If we have the cross in our possession, are we willing to share it?
Getting in on what God is doing
The invitation this September is to make this church home because Jesus made room for everyone to know and trust him. This is our church. But it only exists as our church because it’s first Jesus’ church. With that in mind, enjoy it, and get involved! Every one of us is needed, because God’s brought us together for this very moment. We should never minimize our involvement, not just for our own life, but for those around us. You are needed.
Commit to one another in love. Serve together in humility. You might find yourself in a Life Group, or joining in with a Network, or helping as a part of a Host Team, or ensuring our children or teenagers see the gospel act work through your own raw example. One day you might even find yourself building a cross which gets shared so liberally that the question of who made it and when fades from memory, while its message and power goes on.
I’ve often wondered if eternity will involve the revealing of the results of every humble and generous action we take. Maybe one day we’ll get to see the ripple effects, finally knowing what it was all pouring into. But, today, it’s not for us to determine the results of our efforts in the kingdom. All we need do is to join in. “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. Someone else put it this way: “prayer gets us in on what God is doing” (Eugene Peterson). So, what’s God up to this fall right here and now? Let’s get in on it.
Luke Knight 