Can human beings achieve heaven on earth? Utopian ideas and attempts throughout history have generally gone nowhere or ended poorly. Yet the Bible lifts up a vision of a better world, where “they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks—nation shall not lift up sword against nation . . .” (Isaiah 2:4); and Jesus, in the Lord’s Prayer, urged his followers to pray that God’s Kingdom would come “on earth as in heaven.” (Matthew 6:10) Certainly, as Christians, we are called not simply to look forward to a heaven beyond this world, but to aim to bring something of heaven into this world!
This is a key part of our mission as a church! We seek to create a better world, by being a positive influence within our society, and by taking actions to improve the world around us—a good example being our 51-member mission team that is heading out in a few days to Grundy County, Tennessee, to help low-income people in one of the poorest counties in America.
To successfully bring something of “heaven on earth,” three central principles are essential:
- Faith in God—an endeavor will be fruitful only when it is grounded upon God. Efforts to improve society while denying God—e.g. Marxism—have been disasters.
- Fidelity to God’s values—to be on the right track in any endeavor, we need to “walk in God’s ways.” (Isaiah 2:3). God’s values—such as love for all people, care for the poor, justice and peace—can be seen in the Old Testament prophets and supremely in Jesus.
- Freedom—religious movements that have professed belief in “God and God’s values” have generally been disasters when they have left freedom out of the picture (e.g. the Islamic State). Because human understandings of God’s values are always imperfect—and too often distorted by our own interests – we need the free interchange of ideas to come to a greater understanding of God, and we need freedom to come to authentic faith.
Among all the human efforts to create an ideal society, America—even for all our historical imperfections—has perhaps come closest to the ideal. Why is this so? I believe it is because of our historic embrace of these three key principles—faith in God, fidelity to God’s values, and freedom.
To successfully bring something of “heaven on earth,” three central principles are essential... Share on XBecause of human sinfulness, we will never really arrive at heaven on earth. But we can move in the right direction as we join with Jesus and the prophets and let God’s Spirit be at work through us.
Sunday’s Scripture Readings:
Isaiah 2:2–4
Matthew 6:9–13
