On Earth as in Heaven: The Mindset of the Kingdom of God

Introduction

"Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. Let your Kingdom come. Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Philippe Demoget starts from these few words of the prayer Jesus taught his disciples. When they asked him how to pray, Jesus did not give them something to recite: he gave them "an instruction manual."

The message was delivered at Église Nice Métropole at the end of a week of fasting and prayer. The preacher reminds the congregation that where two or three are gathered, the Lord is there. "But if the whole church gathers in fasting, can you imagine the power? The prayer of the church moves the spiritual world."

His theme is the mindset of the Kingdom of God. Jesus went up to heaven, but he leaves us on this earth with a mandate: to bring heaven to earth. This calls for a transformation that the preacher sums up in three phrases: think as Jesus thinks, love as Jesus loves, and act as Jesus acts.

Outline of the Message

1. A Mindset That Has Soaked Into Us

• Living on earth as in heaven does not come naturally. We grew up with a mindset that is not the Kingdom's: we look at who is the best, "the most bankable," the one who wins the competition. "It's the law of the jungle."
• When someone falls, the world's mindset says: "Serves him right, we warned him." When someone suffers, we keep our distance. "Suffering can make people run."
• These reflexes were instilled in us without our realizing it, "like a kind of poison" that became part of us. The Lord calls us to change them.
• Paul writes: "Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:2). Everything begins on the inside: what I believe determines my reaction, for example when my brother succeeds and I do not.
• To understand the Kingdom, you need to know God's love. Whoever does not love has not known God, for God is love (1 John 4:8). In the Kingdom, love is not a "trailing" quality: it comes first.

2. Loving as Jesus Loves, Full of Grace and Truth

• "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also love one another" (John 13:34-35). That "just as" challenges us: how does Jesus love the one who has fallen, the one we have rejected, the one society has pushed aside?
• The Word became flesh, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). Grace and truth are two words that sometimes clash. We know the saying: "The truth hurts."
• Some defend the truth, fight error and uphold doctrine, but their approach lacks grace. Others love grace so much that they struggle to "call a spade a spade."
• When Jesus is part of our lives, this duality disappears: we can be full of grace and truth at the same time.

3. The Colors of the Kingdom: Righteousness, Peace and Joy

• Paul describes the Kingdom as righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit (Romans 14:17). These colors clash with the values of this world.
• Justice without mercy is terrible. Micah 6:8 shows the balance: to do justice, to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Justice is balanced by mercy and humility.
• In the Kingdom, justice means "being just without being cruel." Jesus called a spade a spade, but his justice did not degrade people or break them.
• In our world, peace sometimes looks like the outcome of weakness: we compromise, we are afraid, we give in. In the Kingdom, peace is not weakness.
• We often get the impression that what is spiritual must be solemn and joyless. The preacher says the opposite: "There is so much more joy in the Kingdom of God than there is in this world."

4. Looking at the King Who Kneels to Serve

• "To know what this kingdom is, we need to know who reigns in it." God could have written a treatise on his kingdom. Instead he gave us Jesus.
• Two disciples want to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus, and they go "through their mother" to ask. Jesus gathers the Twelve: whoever wants to be great will be a servant, whoever wants to be first will be a slave, for the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve (Matthew 20:20-28).
• The world's mindset asks: how many people are at my service? The Kingdom's mindset asks: "With what I have received, how many people can I serve?"
• Knowing that the Father had put everything into his hands, Jesus gets up, takes a towel and washes his disciples' feet (John 13:3-5). He washes Judas's feet too, even though he knew Judas would betray him. The hands of the one who created the universe wash feet, a task given to slaves.
• "For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you" (John 13:15). "In a kingdom where the king created the universe, the king kneels to serve."
• Philippians 2:5-8 goes further: Christ emptied himself, took the form of a servant and became obedient to the point of death on a cross. The preacher humorously imagines the Son suggesting to the Father that they abandon humanity to the devil and make another one. "If Jesus had thrown in the towel, can you imagine whose hands we would be in?"
• Jesus keeps on washing our feet. "God does so much more for me than I do for him." He sometimes protects us from things we were not even aware of. "The one who is on top is the one who serves."

5. Jesus Goes to Those Others Avoid

• Under the law, the leper lived in isolation: he carried both the disease and the loneliness. Jesus could have healed him from a distance, as he did for others. Instead he touches him and says: "I want to. Be made clean" (Matthew 8:2-3). Jesus closes the distance and brings this man back into society.
• Jesus is criticized for the company he keeps: he eats with tax collectors, who collected taxes for the Romans and helped themselves along the way. "Today we would have said: they're collaborators."
• Jesus answers that it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick (Matthew 9:12-13). A doctor does not deny the illness. Jesus looked sin in the face, but he loved the sinner. The religious world, for its part, confused the person suffering in sin with the sin itself.
• Zacchaeus was the chief tax collector, the one who "put the most in his own pockets." Jesus does not wait for him to become respectable: he passes under his tree and invites himself to his house. The grace he receives leads Zacchaeus to give back what he stole and to give to the poor (Luke 19:1-10).
• Hence Jesus' call: "Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28-29). The preacher paraphrases it: "You're doing fine, come. You're not doing fine, come." In Jesus, we find rest.

6. A Different Definition of Strength and Victory

• The values of the Kingdom are not slightly different from the world's; they are "the complete opposite." The Beatitudes paint the portrait: the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the gentle, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart (Matthew 5:3-8). "You can't say these are the portraits of winners." Yet Jesus tells them: you are blessed.
• Our mindset can take something beautiful and twist it, to the point of hijacking the first Beatitude.
• For the world, the strong man looks like the warriors in the movie 300, and the hero is the conqueror. The Word says: "One who is slow to anger is better than the mighty; one who rules his spirit, than he who takes a city" (Proverbs 16:32). The strong one is the one who, when hurt, refuses to repay evil for evil. Human anger does not produce the righteousness of God (James 1:19-20).
• "Blessed are the peacemakers" (Matthew 5:9). The text does not say "those who love peace": even a dictator will say he loves peace. To make peace is to say: "I was hurt, but I refuse to let evil win twice." It is refusing to be shaped in the image of the one who hurt us.
• "If it is possible, as much as it depends on you, be at peace with all men" (Romans 12:18). The Bible is realistic: there are limits to set and things beyond our control. But let us decide to build peace.
• "Love your enemies, bless those who curse you" (Matthew 5:44). Jesus does not deny the offense: "Yes, you are suffering. But the one who made you suffer is not your model. Your model is me."
• On the burning coals heaped on the enemy's head (Romans 12:20), the preacher quotes a thought from a church father, Irenaeus he thinks: what burns consumes what is evil. Doing good to your enemy can transform his life, "so that he is no longer your enemy and becomes your brother."

7. The Joy of Heaven and the King's Representatives

• "There is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner repenting" (Luke 15:10). We do not have a monopoly on celebration: there is more joy in heaven than on earth.
• Jesus performs his first miracle at a wedding, a place of rejoicing. By turning water into wine, he spares a family public humiliation (John 2:1-11). The world's mindset would have said: they have run out of wine, they will stay sober.
• God calls us to overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21) and to transform this world through the mindset of the Kingdom.
• The preacher tells of a television debate in which the pope was presented as the representative of Jesus Christ on earth. "It's a bit sad if there's only one." We are all his representatives, his ambassadors.
• If someone who knows neither God nor the church has contact only with you, what picture will they have of the one seated on the throne?
• The Pharisees had the same law, "the same Bible." The difference lay in how they understood the Word and how they welcomed the sinner. The mindset of the Kingdom, "is what makes the difference between a loaf of bread and a scorpion" (Luke 11:11-12). "It can transform our society, because it is what will make our Christianity desirable."
• In his closing prayer, the preacher asks that this mindset become a fruit of the Spirit, against which there is no law (Galatians 5:22-23), so that the church would be "a beautiful business card" for the Lord.

Key Takeaways

• Jesus leaves us on earth with a mandate: to bring heaven to earth by thinking, loving and acting as he does.
• Transformation begins with the renewing of the mind: what you believe determines your reaction.
• In the Kingdom, we can be full of grace and truth at the same time, and just without being cruel.
• The King of the Kingdom knelt down to wash feet. The one who is on top is the one who serves.
• To make peace is to refuse to let evil win twice. The mindset of the Kingdom is what makes Christianity desirable.

Personal Application

1. Which of the world's reflexes have settled in you: judging the one who falls, keeping your distance from the one who suffers, comparing yourself to your brother who succeeds?
2. In your relationships, do you lean more toward truth without grace, or toward a grace that no longer dares to speak the truth?
3. With what you have received, how many people can you serve this week?
4. Who is the "not respectable" person you have kept your distance from, and toward whom is Jesus sending you?
5. Has a wound shaped you in the image of the one who hurt you? What would it mean for you to refuse to let evil win twice?

Verses Cited

• Matthew 6:9-10
• Matthew 18:20
• Romans 12:2
• 1 John 4:8
• John 13:34-35
• John 1:14
• Romans 14:17
• Micah 6:8
• Matthew 20:20-28
• John 13:3-15
• Philippians 2:5-8
• Matthew 8:2-3
• Matthew 9:12-13
• Luke 19:1-10
• Matthew 11:28-29
• Matthew 5:3-9
• Proverbs 16:32
• James 1:19-20
• Romans 12:18-21
• Matthew 5:44
• Luke 15:10
• John 2:1-11
• Luke 11:11-12
• Galatians 5:22-23

Frequently Asked Questions

What does "on earth as in heaven" mean?

These words come from the Lord's Prayer. For Philippe Demoget, Jesus did not take us out of this earth: he leaves us here with a mandate, to bring heaven to earth. This calls for a transformation of our mindset, summed up like this: think as Jesus thinks, love as Jesus loves, and act as Jesus acts.

How can you be full of grace and truth at the same time?

John 1:14 says that the Word became flesh, full of grace and truth. The preacher observes that some defend the truth while lacking grace, and that others love grace so much they can no longer call a spade a spade. In the mindset of the Kingdom, this duality disappears: Jesus was just without being cruel.

What does it mean to make peace rather than love peace?

Everyone says they love peace. To make peace is to see that it gets established, even after being hurt. Philippe Demoget sums it up with this sentence: "I refuse to let evil win twice." It means refusing to be shaped in the image of the one who hurt us and overcoming evil with good.