“Can we make earth like heaven?”

Steve Brown:
Can we make earth like heaven? The Answer to that and other questions on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Key Life exists to communicate that the deepest message of Jesus and the Bible is the radical grace of God to sinners and sufferers. Life’s hard for everyone. So grace is for all of us, but there is a lot of confusion about how grace applies to real life. So here’s seminary professor and author, Steve Brown and Pete Alwinson to answer your questions.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew.

Pete Alwinson:
Hey man. You doing alright?

Steve Brown:
I really am. I, you know, we were, just to let you know, in the background of what we’re doing here, when Pete and I sit down, we record more than one program of Q&A, and we’ve been working really hard.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
And this is the last one.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.. For the day.

Steve Brown:
For the day. Then we get to leave.

Pete Alwinson:
So it should be a good one. Right?

Steve Brown:
That’s right. So be very careful what you say. That’s Pete Alwinson, by the way. Go to ForgeTruth.com. And we’re going to let you know when the audio version. You’ve finished all of that recording.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. We’re doing the punch list on it and try to clean it up. And get it out.

Steve Brown:
And as soon as that’s out and available, we’ll let you know. For those of you who like to read, you’ll love the book, Like Father, Like Son. I answered an e-mail today from somebody that said that that changed his life. So, it’s a great book. And, but if you don’t like to read and you like to listen to books in your car, the new one’s going to be coming out soon. Go to ForgeTruth.com. Check it out. And if you have questions, ask them, we love to get your questions. 1-800-KEY-LIFE, you can call, 24 7, record your question and often we put your name, your voice on the air. Or you going to send your question to

Key Life Network

P.O. Box 5000

Maitland, Florida 32794

In Canada, it’s

Key Life Canada
P.O. Box 28060
Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6J8

Or you can send your question to [email protected]. And if you can help us financially, please do. You can do that in a lot of ways. If you haven’t checked out our app, it’s fairly new and you can get it at the istore, you can get it at the Android store. And, you’ll like it a lot. And you can give on your phone by texting, Key Life at 28950 and follow instructions. If you can, do, if you can’t, we understand, but do say a prayer for Key Life. Pete, pray for us, and we’ll get to these questions.

Pete Alwinson:
Alright, let’s do it. Our great Father. Thank you for today. And thank you that we can come into your presence. I thank you for Key Life and how you have been so faithful to work through, people that love the gospel, to get your name recognized nationwide and worldwide. And so we honor you, Jesus, for what you have done, you are our Lord, you are our savior. You are the only savior, the only one who can redeem us and reconnect us to God the Father. So, we glorify your name. Lord, it’s been a big week,a long week, a lot has gone on and we have bills to pay, relationships that need to be restored, problems to solve, questions to be answered. Lord, we need you, in so many ways. So Holy Spirit, we pray that you would lead us and that you would use our leaders this week-end in church, as we worship together, Lord, we pray that you would guide us. Teach us the truth that you have for us. Take us one step closer to you. Thank you that we’re yours forever. We commit this time of Q&A to you now. And we pray this all in the strong name of our risen savior Jesus. Amen.

Steve Brown:
Amen. Pete, let’s go to our phone lines.

Caller 1:
In Matthew 6:10, when Jesus is praying your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. We pray that all the time. It stuck out to me, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So, basically Jesus is saying it’s possible to experience heaven here on earth. And that led to him giving us the 10 Commandments. If we follow them, we will experience a might of heaven here on earth. And that would also explain a lot of the Scriptures in the Bible, especially in Corinthians where second, first Corinthians 6:9 and 10, where it says fornicators adulteries, blah, blah, blah, homosexual, drunkard will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. There is so much diversity over that, but if you put it in the context of what Jesus is saying about inherit heaven on earth, then it kind of makes sense that if we do any of those things, we’re now going to experience peace, joy, love, any kind of fulfillment. Okay. So, I guess that’s my question. Am I making something of this? Or is that a truth? And I love you guys since ’89, you and Pete, God bless, bye.

Steve Brown:
What a great, what a thoughtful, that’s a thoughtful, and there’s truth in what she says. And we’re going to talk about it a little bit, but, you know, God’s will, as expressed in the law, is not his will to cause us to be miserable, but just the opposite. And so, when we do God’s will in our lives, when we obey the commandments and sometimes we do, and sometimes we don’t, then, there is, and the Corinthian passage, you’ve got to go further with that, or you’ll kill yourself with it. If you don’t find yourself in the list, you don’t understand. Paul is not making absoluteness, that if you, he’s talking about lifestyle or where, if you, if this is how you define yourself, you’re probably not safe. But even there, there is the idea that happiness is connected with doing what God wants us to do,

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right.

Steve Brown:
Which is kind of cool. I agree with that. Now, more needs to be said than that. You know, we’ve gotta be careful, you know, one of the problems in our culture, and I want you to comment on it too, but, is utopianism.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Yeah. Why don’t you define that? But you’re absolutely right.

Steve Brown:
You know, Fred Smith taught me that so many years ago, you know, there are people that think that human beings are perfectible and there are others that believe they aren’t, and everything that follows on that depends on which of those you choose. And we have a culture separated from the reality of the fall, that you have the poor with you always, Jesus said, but you have the sinners with you always. And you’re one of them. You have the bad things that happen in terms of natural disaster with you always and people, what’s that old country song, God is. I like that song, but I probably, God is Great, Beer is Good and People are Crazy.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah.

Steve Brown:
That’s actually the name of the song. It really is. And, so you’ve got to remember the implications of the fall. The utopianism that’s expressed by some Christians who are legalists and by a whole bunch of pagans, that’s what wokeism is about. Wokeism is silly, because it’s not accomplish able.

Pete Alwinson:
Through man’s structuring

Steve Brown:
Exactly.

Pete Alwinson:
and restructuring the government, we can bring in perfection.

Steve Brown:
That’s true.

Pete Alwinson:
And it’s just not right. And so, I agree with you a hundred percent. And I think that, that our, our dear sister has a great point. You know, the Lord’s prayer is a model prayer for us to pray, in my conviction. And so, it really is this idea, as Lord, I want your will to be done in me as it is in heaven. I want to be a reflector of your will, of your glory. And so, it really is not so much a utopian prayer as it is a church prayer, that the church would reflect his glory, that we as individual Christians would reflect his glory.

Steve Brown:
And you got to remember, who’s asking and who’s being asked.

Pete Alwinson:
Right.

Steve Brown:
I mean, we’re asking God to do something we can’t do.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. That’s right.

Steve Brown:
And, so you gotta be careful about all this, this wokeism thing is crazy. It really is. I don’t want to be woke. I’m already woke. And, as I get older, I’d rather nap, but it really is, this utopian idea that if we do things right, if we say what is politically correct. If we are not racist about anything. If we are pure, then we’ll have his kingdom, his will done on earth as it’s done in heaven. That’s nonsense.

Pete Alwinson:
Now, we cannot usher that in, though we are called as Christians, to follow Jesus, to apply the Sermon on the Mount. He inevitably, the world’s still, the Bible tells us, is going to get worse and worse. And then he comes back and cleans it up. That’s how it’s going to get all put back together the way it’s supposed to be.

Steve Brown:
So true. That’s good stuff. But you know, my dear, you had, you got us to think some new thoughts. It was a good question.

Pete Alwinson:
That’s right. A thoughtful, thoughtful Bible sister.

Steve Brown:
As a Christian, this is an e-mail writer, will my prayers be answered if I still struggle with sin? I hope so.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. I mean, that struggle is not going to go away, until Jesus comes back. We will. I mean, you and I are better than we used to be, we don’t struggle with some of that, but we have other things.

Steve Brown:
It’s like an onion, man. You find things you didn’t know about before. And you know, this, that question reflects an attitude that I think, that a lot of Christians and I include myself sometimes get into that syndrome, of, I didn’t do my devotions this morning, therefore, I won’t get a parking place this afternoon, or I’m not a good person. Why would God answer my prayers and say, yes. And you get on this, you know, do good when you do bad, balance it out by doing something good and then God will show you favor. That’s from the pit of hell and it smells like smoke.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. I mean, you’re exactly right. It’s works. It’s what I do, then brings what God does. It’s quid pro quo, something for something. No, grace is, you get his favor even when you mess up. Now, he does discipline us. He does teach us. And through those circumstances, that’s, you know, and life is not even, in what happens to us.

Steve Brown:
No, it really isn’t.

Pete Alwinson:
But if you have that, if you have that quid pro quo thing with God, life’s miserable.

Steve Brown:
Oh, you never can get there.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah. Right.

Steve Brown:
It’s just awful. You know, I have a friend in Texas, who, and I’ve prayed this prayer myself. God, I can’t think of one single reason you would answer this prayer. And so, it makes me nervous even to ask, but I know your grace. And would you please, and then he presents a request. That is such a cool prayer.

Pete Alwinson:
I like it.

Steve Brown:
Yeah. I do too. Not one single reason. Alright. You going to come back next week.

Pete Alwinson:
Yeah man, if you’re here.

Steve Brown:
If I’m not, say something spiritual. Okay. We got to go. Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.