Episode 12: On Earth as It Is in Heaven

Introduction

Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus as central to our faith. And that’s true. But our understanding of it is warped—like the distorted image in a carnival mirror, where parts of reality are magnified way out of proportion, while other parts are diminished into almost nothingness.

We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus as a guarantee of our own resurrection, when, after our death, we’ll join him in heaven. And that’s true. But we think death is about caskets and headstones and six feet of dirt, and heaven is that sweet by-and-by waiting for us above the sky.

We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus as proof that he is who he said he was. And that’s true. But it’s proof only to those who witnessed it with their own eyes. If someone doesn’t believe in Jesus, talk of his resurrection is just nonsense—no matter how many billboards we buy telling them it’s true. They, like Thomas, will only believe when they can see resurrection for themselves.

When Good Church People talk about the resurrection, they leave out some of the most important parts. They sit down to the magnificent feast Jesus has prepared, but turn their noses up at the Michelin Star delicacies on their plate, because they’re only here for the dessert.

In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul says, “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” His audience thought the hope tied to resurrection was only in how it impacted their lives in the here and now. He had to remind them that resurrection was about the afterlife, too

We swing the pendulum to the opposite extreme: our hope in resurrection is only for the afterlife.

If Paul were writing to us today, he might say, “If for the afterlife only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

Our impoverished view of resurrection makes us think that the only motivation for someone to follow Jesus is so that they end up in heaven instead of burning in hell. We joke about how going to church is fire insurance for the soul. We treat following Jesus as an investment strategy for our eternal retirement plan. 

But that’s an almost unrecognizably warped picture of what scripture teaches. The books of the New Testament talk about New Life, Abundant Life, and Rebirth. The power of resurrection is not about fire insurance. And it isn’t something we have to wait on until the afterlife. Resurrection is the transformational life-after-death that we start to experience right here, right now. 

On Earth, as it is in Heaven.

Simeon: Matthew, can I ask you a hard question?

Matthew: You’ve been doing that all night, my friend. Why do you need my permission now?

Simeon: I’m serious, Matthew! Your People of the Way claim that after Jesus was crucified, that he came back to life, and that people saw him. Do you believe that?

Matthew: This is your hard question? Simeon, I thought every good Pharisee believed in the resurrection….

Simeon: Of course I believe in resurrection! But… if Jesus has already risen… 

Matthew: Ahh. I think I see your point, my friend. Listen, I was too cowardly to be there when he died, but I myself was one of those who saw him after he was raised. Not just once, but many times. So yes, the resurrection of Jesus really happened. I saw it with my own eyes.

Simeon: But, I thought… I mean, it’s clear from the teaching of the rabbis and from scripture that the resurrection comes at the End of Days, when Olam HaZeh, This Present Age, has passed, and Olam HaBa, the Age to Come, has arrived.

Matthew: This teaching is true, my friend.

Simeon: But… If the resurrection of Jesus has already happened…

Matthew: That’s right… Olam HaBa, the Age to Come, has begun.

Opening Titles:

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Jesus for Sex Workers, Church People, and Me

A podcast hosted by Todd Austin

Episode Twelve: On Earth as It Is in Heaven

The Teaching

When we look at the end of Matthew’s gospel, there are several details worth spending time on. 

There is the seemingly innocuous detail of how it was “many women” who stayed through to the bitter end of the crucifixion. And how it was women who were the first witnesses of the resurrection. This ties back to the women at the start of Matthew’s gospel. The teachings of Jesus were a sea change for the position and place of women in society, even though many churches today completely dismiss this thread.

There is the detail of more parallels between Jesus and Moses, again tying back to points he was making at the beginning of the book. The most striking example can be seen in the similarities between the commission Moses gave to Joshua as he was about to enter the land, and the commission Jesus gave the disciples.

But, for this, our last episode on the gospel of Matthew, I want us to follow the path of the disciples in chapter 28. Because their path is our path.

After the women leave the angel at the tomb, Matthew tells us in verse 9 that….

“Suddenly Jesus met them and said, “Greetings!” And they came to him, took hold of his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

Now, Galilee is kind of a non-specific address. It’s like saying meet me in Delaware, which is roughly the same size. “Where in Delaware?” But the disciples understood where he was talking about, because in verse 16 it tells us…

“…the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.”

Apparently this mountain was a familiar place for them. A mountain where they had spent a lot of time with Jesus. Maybe this is the mountain where they first heard him speak about a new constitution, and a new kingdom that had “come near.” Words that they barely understood at the time.

But now, after crucifixion. After the resurrection. Jesus takes them back to the mountain to explain it all again. Luke tells us this is when their minds were opened, and they could finally begin to understand his teaching and receive it.

And so, at the very end of his book, Matthew brings us back to the mountain— back to the famous sermon that started it all. So that our minds can be opened.

Back to the Mountain

In this first season of the podcast, we’ve talked about the Sermon on the Mount a lot. It’s been the focus of five of the twelve episodes. That may seem out of balance. There are 28 chapters in this book, and the Sermon only takes up three of them. But as my friend Frank Gill says, the Sermon on the Mount is the center of the gospel of Matthew, the heart of its message. 

In these three short chapters, Jesus gives those of us who call ourselves disciples our marching orders. In the rest of Matthew, he demonstrates what he means—by walking out the teaching himself. All the way through to his death, and his resurrection. All of the gospel of Matthew is meant to be understood through the lens of the Sermon on the Mount.

So, even though we’ve already spent five episodes on this sermon, we’re going to come back to it here, in this final episode of season one. Because, after his resurrection Jesus takes his disciples back to the mount for further instruction, and we need to go there, too. 

And besides, we left something out.

My friend Frank says that if the Sermon is the heart of the gospel of Matthew, then The Lord’s Prayer is the heart of the Sermon on the Mount.

Luke tells us in his gospel that this famous prayer was given at the request of the disciples. They said, “Lord, teach us to pray.” These are men and women who had been praying all their lives. Why did they need Jesus to teach them this basic discipline of faith?

Like so many other things, I bet you’ve experienced some bad teaching on prayer—probably both in what you were explicitly taught in Sunday School, as well as how prayer was modeled. 

Prayer for most christians is like reciting our wish list to Santa Claus. We have a few words of greeting at the beginning, a formulaic close at the end, and a steady stream of requests sandwiched in between. Sometimes we’ll sprinkle in a few phrases telling God how good he is.

But the purpose of prayer is not to tell God something he already knows. It’s not a ritual he demands before he’ll consider our requests. It’s not a way to butter him up so he’ll be more favorable to our cause. And it’s certainly not another good work we perform in order to be “good christians” or to earn his love.

Just like the disciples, we need Jesus to teach us to pray.

“Our Father in heaven…”

—Father of all of us, ruling from the center of the kingdom that has come near…

The chief aim of American christianity for the past 75 years has been about having “a personal relationship with Christ.” And this is certainly an important element of faith. When Jesus went off to pray alone, he was demonstrating a need for personal connection that all of us should emulate.

However, like so many other things, we’ve carried this personal relationship focus to the extreme, to the point of making it the only goal of discipleship. This has far reaching consequences, including on how we read and interpret the books of scripture. But we’ll have to save that for another day.

For today, just note that when Jesus instructs us in how to pray, he doesn’t start with “My Father,” but “OUR Father.” The scope of our approach to God is plural, shared—not singular, individual. In prayer, our perspective moves from the small little world where we’re the center, to his perspective of us as one of his many children. And, as we’ve seen in Matthew, his children include everyone from Bathsheba to the rabble rousers calling for his blood. 

When we pray, we pray from the perspective of a shared relationship with God. From what is good for all under the umbrella of his concern. This will make more sense as we continue into the prayer.

Although we’ve said this many times, it’s worth repeating. When Jesus says, “Our Father in heaven,” heaven does not mean some far off, inaccessible, magical place where God lives apart from us. Heaven is the kingdom that Jesus has brought near. It’s a kingdom in the here and now, a kingdom he has invited us to enter. 

Addressing our Father in heaven is to recognize that God is ruling from the center of a kingdom that is right here among us. 

“Hallowed be your name.”

—May your name be held in honor, and may nothing we do cause people to think poorly of you…

This phrase is tied directly to the third of the Ten Commandments: “You Shall Not Take the Name of the Lord Your God in Vain.”

The essence of the third commandment has nothing to do with saying God’s name in an inappropriate way. It’s not about swearing. It’s about doing things that give God a bad name in the eyes of others. About invoking his name and authority for our own priorities, instead of for his priorities.

The hard truth is, even though we are very careful never to say the name of God in an inappropriate way, it is because of us that millions have decided that God is not someone who really loves them, or who is worthy of any particular honor. 

We’ve preached the gospel of law-keeping and purity. We’ve told them that God expects them to follow his rules, that he will only love them if they do, and if they mess up he’s got the torture chamber ready to receive them.

Then, after telling them that’s who God is, we beat them up for not honoring his name. For daring to want to take “In God We Trust” off of our American currency.

But we’re the ones who’ve brought dishonor to his name, not them. Instead of being salt and light, our 50 Years War has driven people away from God. 

Jesus, Emmanuel, God With Us, shows us what God is truly like. Who He truly is. May our words and actions be true to that reality. And may we never invoke His name for something He would never support.

“Your kingdom come…”

May your kingdom increase, and every other nation, including our own, fade in importance…

This kingdom that has come near, that once was accessible only through the Holy of Holies, is expanding. God With Us has ripped the curtain in two, and He’s bringing the kingdom down the steps of the temple to us—all of us.

This kingdom is a real nation. It’s not the United States, or any other human kingdom. It does not have its own currency, or internationally recognized borders. It’s not a part of any military or economic alliance. But it is more real and more powerful than all of the other nations combined. It transcends all nations. It will remain when all others have turned to dust. 

It is the nation where Jesus is in charge. Its citizens have no ambition or anxiety tied to the power structures of human governance; of presidents, supreme courts, or petty political games.

It is the nation where our true citizenship, not a metaphorical citizenship, is supposed to lie. 

“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

May the reality of God’s great goodness become real for his children here on earth…

The kingdom of heaven that is coming on earth is the place where the reality of heaven becomes the reality on earth. It’s where the good intended by Our Father—His Will—comes true.

Where the poor have plenty. Where the outcasts are fully and completely loved. Where sinners are invited to the great banquet.

This kingdom is the nation where the defining characteristic of its citizens is that they follow the narrow way of Christ. The way that demonstrates heaven on earth. The way of love, and mercy, and carrying the waywardness of others. The way of 70 times 7. The way of the least, instead of the greatest.

“Give us this day our daily bread.”

Give us what we need for today, and free us from worry for tomorrow…

This nation—the kingdom of heaven—is where people rest in knowing that they don’t have to worry about tomorrow. They don’t build bigger barns to secure their future in this life. Nor do they accumulate pious works hoping to secure their future in the afterlife. They don’t need to store up these treasures on earth, because their treasure is in the kingdom that has “come near.”

It’s a kingdom and nation with a fundamentally different economic system. It’s not socialism. It’s not capitalism. It’s not built on scarcity, collectivism, or competition. Instead, it’s a system built on abundance, on the expectation that there is enough bread for all.

The citizens of this nation live what Jesus calls the Abundant Life. He’s not talking about a life of abundance, but an abundance of life—the often forgotten aim of every economic system. The aim no human economic system can ever achieve.

“And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

May we forgive with the same extravagant forgiveness you have extended to us…

The people of this nation are learning to be mature, just like their Father is mature. Because they know they can count on Him for an abundance of life, they’re not concerned with getting their fair share, or demanding their rights. 

Because they know he treats them with extravagant mercy and forgiveness—that he carries the waywardness of their transgressions, and attends to that waywardness into subsequent generations—they do the same for their neighbors. 

This is a nation where the golden rule rules. In no other kingdom will you find people trying to outdo each other in forgiveness. A people focused on mercy, not retribution, recompense, or vengeance. A people who know this narrow way is the only path for arresting and reversing the caustic spread of sin.

“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.”

When the evil one tempts us with the same short cuts he offered to you, lead us back to your narrow way of love, and mercy, and sacrifice…

We were taught that temptation is a lure to compromise our purity. So we hear this phrase as a plea for help in shoring up our cleanliness and compliance. But that’s not what Jesus is talking about. He’s talking about temptation at the kingdom and national level.

The evil one will tempt us with the same path that he put before Jesus when he was led into temptation. The path to political power, legal coercion, celebrity, and victory over our enemies.

These are the temptations of the wide way. The way that makes sense to us. The way human kingdoms work. The way we would fix what is broken in the world. But that way always leads to war, and to destruction.

For this is your kingdom (not ours), and it’s by your power (not ours), and it’s for your glory (not ours). 

Always and forever. 

Amen.

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The context and meaning for each phrase of this prayer comes from the teaching surrounding it in the Sermon on the Mount. Its purpose is modeled for us in the way Jesus walked out his teaching throughout Matthew’s gospel.

The Lord’s Prayer is about the routine exercise of bringing ourselves into alignment with the way of Christ. The purpose of prayer is not to demonstrate our piety. It’s not about giving our wish list to Santa. 

Prayer is where we get our daily marching orders. It’s the time where we bring our concerns to him, and then fall into alignment with what he is already doing about those concerns. It is in this “falling into alignment” that we participate in His kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven. It is how we become the hands and feet of Jesus—the aroma of Christ to our neighbors. His will, not our will.

This is also how we ourselves are transformed, and how we learn to experience the abundance of life.

Resurrection Life

In the book of Galatians Paul says something that is shockingly absurd. We’ve become so familiar with his words that we no longer notice the absurdity, and so, we miss the implication of what he’s saying.

Let me take the liberty of rephrasing it for you. Paul says, “Just like Jesus, I too was executed. I died, yet I live. But I’m not the same person I was before I was killed. Instead of the old me, Christ animates the new me. It is his faithfulness, and love, and sacrifice that define my life now.”

Paul is talking about his own resurrection. But he’s not telling us that he’s waiting on it for the afterlife. Rather, he seems to be saying that his resurrection has been pulled into the present. That he is experiencing the reality of his life after death, right now.

Talk about “new life” permeates the epistles. We’ve dumbed it down as just another euphemism for being a good church person. But, just like Jesus telling us that the kingdom of heaven has come near, and that we are to pray for this kingdom to come on earth, as it is in heaven, Paul is telling us that resurrection life has “come near” as well.

With that context, listen with new ears to this familiar passage from Romans: 

“…all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were… buried with him through baptism into death, [and], just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too… live a new life.”

Yes, the resurrection of Christ is a promise for our future. But it’s much more. It’s also a promise for today. The books of the New Testament talk about it over and over. Resurrection life is the Abundant Life. It’s New Life. It’s Nicodemus’s Rebirth. It’s New Creation. Resurrection is the life we start living in the kingdom of heaven. Right here. Right now.

When we repent, turn from, the way we were taught—

When we set aside the black box we were given that defines us as well as those around us—

When we follow Jesus along his narrow way of love, mercy, and forgiveness—

When we share his concern and action for the Least of These—

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, taking our marching orders for the day from the heart of the Sermon on Mount—

When we come back to the mountain, and do these things that Jesus patiently teaches us, we are transformed. We become someone different. The old has gone, the new has come. It’s like we died, and came back as a new person. A person who looks a lot like Jesus.

It’s Resurrection. 

And it’s a resurrection our neighbors can see and experience and believe in, unlike all those billboards we’ve been wasting money on for years.

Commissioning

In Episode Two we asked the question, “how do you fix what is broken?” How do you change the world? Our approach has been the common sense approach– the way that everyone else takes in every human kingdom. It has been the way of power. Power over those who disagree with us. Satan laid this temptation before us, and we fell for it. We’ve been on his mission ever since. Anyone with the wisdom to look ahead can see where his way is taking us.

At the very end of the book of Matthew, Jesus commissions us with his mission. This mission is our main assignment in life. He doesn’t tell us to take over the halls of government, to rewrite the laws of the land. He doesn’t tell us to stand up for what’s right, to protect our way of life, to proclaim purity. He doesn’t tell us to go fight those who disagree with us, to defeat our enemies. 

He tells us all authority in heaven and on earth has already been given to him. Why do we think we need more? He tells us those we’re fighting against aren’t enemies, they’re neighbors. Our commission is to teach them his ways, not to defeat them. And we’re supposed to do it the same way he did: submission, mercy, forgiveness and love.

This is how we’re supposed to help fix what is broken. And, in the very last verse of Matthew’s book, Jesus tells us that he will be with us while we do this, all the way to the end.

Matthew & Simeon

Matthew: Look, Simeon, the sun is coming up. I think this is going to be a good day.

Simeon: I can’t believe how much has changed since the sun set yesterday afternoon. I feel like I see things more clearly now than I ever have, but at the same time there’s less I understand than I thought I did this time yesterday. Does that make sense?.

Matthew: Paul’s world turned upside down in a conversation that lasted less than 5 minutes. But it was years before he started trying to explain it to others. Be patient, my friend. The good that has been started in you will be seen through to completion.

Simeon: But, what am I supposed to do now?

Matthew: The “age to come” is here, my friend. Your name is in the Book of Life. It’s always been there. Enter and find rest for your soul.

Test This Teaching

Well, friends, we’ve come to the end of Season 1. 

We’ve covered a lot of ground in twelve episodes. I hope you see Matthew’s gospel more clearly now—that it’s not a collection of little vignettes, but rather that it’s one big continuous argument for a new, narrow way of life. 

I know from speaking with some of you that this has been a challenging journey. You may be struggling to put all this together, and are not yet sure what it all means. 

You’re in good company. The last chapter of Matthew has three of what I think are the sweetest words in all of scripture. When the disciples meet up with Jesus back at the mountain it says they worshipped him—”but some doubted.”

Doubt is a concept that has no place in the purity-centered orthodoxy of Good Church People. Doubt is risky, dangerous. But Jesus is very gentle with doubt. The 22nd verse of the epistle of Jude encourages us to be merciful with those who doubt.

The way of Christ is so unorthodox that we should all expect to experience doubt as we understand his teachings. In John 3, Jesus talks to Nicodemus about those who are “born again.” He says these people are like trees, whose movement makes no sense— until you understand the wind that animates them.

The best way to resolve your doubt is to test this teaching. Go look for yourself. FInd the passages that talk about new life, new creation, new birth, abundant life, and resurrection. Read the context around them. Are they talking about something that only comes in the afterlife? Or do we experience this resurrection life now? 

Go look for yourself at the Lord’s Prayer. Is it really a condensed version of the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, as I have presented it? If it is, then what does it mean to pray this prayer?

And, since we’re in the last episode on Matthew, has what I’ve taught in this season been a fair representation of this book? Was Matthew really making a unified argument from beginning to end about the kingdom that has come near, or was this book intended to be what we were taught in Sunday School– that it’s a collection of unrelated short stories where we’re supposed to find the moral of each, and it’s always about purity, cleanliness, and compliance?

And I continue to encourage you to apply what I think is the most important test: If you applied what I’ve been teaching, would it make you more like Jesus, or less? Would it lead to greater love, mercy, and humility? Test these teachings, and let the fruit speak for itself.

I hope you walk away from season one seeing that the kingdom of heaven is a real place. That it’s in the process of coming on earth, as it is in heaven. That it’s accessible and real; right here, right now.

Like me, you may be wondering, where is it? Where can I find this kingdom?

When I look around from my seat in the buckle of the Bible Belt, I see very little overlap between the kingdom of heaven described in Matthew and the American church as it exists today. We are way off track. Deep into idolatry.

But, just when I think it’s time for me to walk away and go search out this new thing God must be doing with some other group, I get surprised by the unexpected work of the Spirit in churches I had all but written off. This gives me hope. 

Maybe God still has a use for the American church. Maybe our candle hasn’t quite been snuffed out. I think we need to look to see where the wind of the Spirit is blowing—where people are moving to the rhythms of love, mercy, forgiveness, and sacrifice. And I see little puffs of a breeze of this Spirit in the church.

Or, to be clear, in a handful of churches. I think most American churches are so deep into idolatry that there is little hope for them to turn, and avoid the destruction that is ahead of them. Jesus longs to gather these chicks under his wings, but their story is not going to end well.

My encouragement to you, as you seek the kingdom from where you are, and wonder if the wind of the Spirit is blowing in a particular church, is to apply the millstone test. In Matthew 18 Jesus talks about the little ones, the lost sheep, the least of these. He says that if anyone gets in the way of these little ones coming into the kingdom, it would be better for them if a millstone were tied around their neck and they were thrown into the sea.

Don’t be part of any church that excludes the least of these, saying, “not you, not here, not until you clean up your act.” It may be painful to part ways with friends and family, people who seem like extensions of your own body; but Jesus says it’s better to enter the kingdom minus a hand or a foot than to follow them to destruction.

We have been commissioned to be bringers of the kingdom of heaven. To usher in the rule of Christ. The place where God’s will —the good he intends for all his children—becomes just as real on earth as it is in heaven. 

We should expect resistance. And, just like in Mathew’s day, we should expect most of that resistance to come from Good Church People. 

But, on the flip side, Jesus says he himself will equip and support us in this mission. All the way to the end.

And with that, we conclude season one. Thank you for being a faithful listener and participant on our journey through Matthew. I have been surprised by the consistently positive responses I’ve received. I think that points to a hunger for a deeper experience of the teachings of Jesus.

Frankly, I expected more criticism. Maybe it’s still coming. As I’ve said, I welcome it. Fair criticism, questions, comments, and feedback are healthy. I may not be able to answer every question or challenge, but the process of hashing through it together is good for all of us.

A few of you have posted thoughtful comments on the website. If you haven’t seen those, I encourage you to take a look. I had hoped more would participate, but the free-for-all of a public forum is not for everyone. 

As we prepare for Season 2, I want to try something new. We’ll keep the discussion forum open for now, but we’ve added an option where you can send us your comments or questions, without posting them for all the world to see.

I would love to hear from you. Let me know what’s on your mind. And, as we prepare for Season 2, let me know what worked in season 1, and what hasn’t worked. Now is the time to make this podcast better.

In Season 2, we’re going to talk about The Way of Christ as it’s taught in the Gospel of Mark. I hope you’ll join us. 

Thanks for listening.

Closing Credits

This has been Jesus for Sex Workers, Church People, and Me

Share your questions, comments, or feedback at JesusForSexWorkers.com.

The content of this podcast is copyright 2025, by Todd Austin. All rights reserved.

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