Pray then like this: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6:9-13)
The spiritual and unspiritual alike are familiar with this prayer. Jesus teaches his hearers and disciples how to pray during the most important sermon ever.[1] This prayer is powerful; it begins with the Father’s name being glorified above all and ends with deliverance from the toils and snares of sin in our fallen world. There is much to study within these few lines.
Jesus teaches us to pray for the Lord’s kingdom to come, and His will being done on earth as it is in heaven. Essentially, Jesus is teaching us to pray for heaven to come down–a beautiful thought yet a tremendous task.
We live in a world that looks nothing like heaven
The Bible describes heaven as a place without darkness and void of tears. It will be safe, full of the presence of God, and nothing will stand in the way of our devotion to Him.[2] While this is a pleasant reality, we seem to miss a huge component of what heaven will be like–its diverseness.
According to Scripture, Heaven will include members of every ethnic group on this planet.[3] The Lord calls us to the ends of the earth for the sake of discipleship. We build relationships that we commit to Jesus for the spreading of the gospel.[4] He also tells us that the end, heaven, will not actually come until the gospel is proclaimed to every nation or people group (Matt 24:14). God has a multi-ethnic picture in mind when he describes heaven and it has implications for His church on this side of eternity.
This should not only impact the way we do overseas missions, but it should also inform the way we live out the gospel right in our own backyards.
Fighting apathy towards a heaven-less world
His words, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, should not be taken lightly. This same Jesus once drove out men in righteous anger when his house wasn’t treated as a house for all nations.[5] He exhorts us to pray with a god-like view of heaven in mind, in hope that it would come down to our sin-stained earth. In our apathy, we tend to focus on the comforting thoughts of the streets of gold instead of praying for our circles and churches to join us there.
For years, Sunday mornings have been called the most segregated time of the week. According to Scripture, this breaks the Lord’s heart! We don’t fight for diverse relationships because it’s uncomfortable, tiring, and challenging. We tend to worship with people like us because we don’t have a holistic picture of who God is. We don’t consider or pray for the afflictions of others because it doesn’t directly involve us. Who cares if the Lord identifies us as family?[6] You don’t look like me, talk like me, or think like me. These actively passive thoughts are also active negligence of the power of the cross of Christ.
By unifying us to God, Christ unified us to each other–making us the church.
When Heaven Comes Down
In Acts 2:44, Luke says that “…all who believed were together and had all things in common.” Surely this wasn’t a physical, cultural, socioeconomic, and linguistic makeover by the Holy Spirit, but they did share one trait that triumphed over the rest–all of the believers were covered. Even in this verse and its beauty, we see still an imperfect glimpse of what heaven could look like.
What’s glorious about God’s Spirit working in diverse people is that he is powerful enough to bring together the most stubborn, selfish, and prideful human beings. His love rids us of our earthly possessions and gains, and changes our hearts of stone into flesh.[7] The gospel leads people to set their differences aside and gaze at the beauty of the Lord and his work in people vastly different from us.
In Biblical honesty, there will be a day where we worship next to Native and African Americans alike. Those who speak Spanish and those who speak slang will be singing praises to the Lamb. Those who are rich and those who are poor will cry out to the King. Angels with shining faces will play trumpets and exalt the Lord. All this while we stand in awe of a middle eastern man with holes in his wrists where his blood shed for all people, many years ago. He has ordained heaven to be full of diverse people and desires for that reality to shape the heart of The Body.
This is beautiful in the Lord’s sight! May our hearts become his, so much that we can earnestly pray “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” and consider the many implications that entails, including diversity.
[1] Sermon On The Mount (Matthew 5-7)
[2] Revelation 21:4, 21:25
[3] Revelation 7:9
[4] Matthew 28:19
[5] Mark 11:17
[6] Galatians 6:10
[7] Acts 4:34-35
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