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How Christian is Your Worldview? Ephesians 2:1-7 |
July 23, 2006 Pastor Tom Marcum |
Let’s begin with a little fun today. I’ll provide the famous movie quotation and you tell me who said it and in which movie it was said. We’ll start with an easy one.
--“I’ll be back.” Actor and movie? Our very own Governator Ahnold in The Terminator.
--How about this one: “Go ahead. Make my day.” Actor and movie? Clint Eastwood in his role as the sensitive peace officer, Dirty Harry.
--How about this: “He made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.” Actor and movie? Al Pacino explaining his father’s powers of persuasion to his girlfriend, Kay in The Godfather.
Now, lest you think that all I watch are action movies, try this one:
--“They call me, Mr. Tibbs!” Actor and movie? That was Sidney Poitier in his role as Virgil Tibbs in the classic, In the Heat of the Night.
--And finally, how about: “I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.” That, of course, was Dorothy’s conclusion following her sudden arrival in the land of Oz.
Well, at the risk of sounding like an old fuddy-duddy, I have to confess that there are times when I am filled with a Dorothy-esque sense of amazement by some of the things that I see and hear and experience today. Things that lead me to conclude that the world in which I am living is looking less and less like the place that I have always called home.
For instance:
--I sit down with a young couple that has come to talk to me about officiating at their wedding. In the course of our conversation I ask one of my standard, pre-marriage questions for young couples: “How do your parents feel about your marriage?” Immediately, I sense the tension and then the bride-to-be says, “Well, his parents are fine with it but my parents are totally opposed. They don’t think we should get married until we’ve lived together for at least 2 years to make sure that we’re sexually compatible.” So, here are a young woman’s parents encouraging her to shack up with her boyfriend because that’s the foundation upon which strong marriages are built. And I’m thinking, “We are definitely not in Kansas anymore.”
--This past May, in a Nebraska courtroom, 50 year old Richard Thomson was convicted of sexually assaulting a child, but Judge Kristine Cecava refused to sentence Thomson to even a single day in prison and released him back into the community saying that prisons are dangerous places and Thomson was too small to defend himself. And I’m thinking, “We are definitely not in Kansas anymore.”
--A few weeks ago I was listening to a radio talk show on KGO. As he introduced the topic of discussion for the next hour the guest host said, “I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not but President Bush actually reads the Bible and believes it.” Then he said, “Do you know what a ‘House of Horrors’ the Bible is? Why hasn’t someone introduced legislation forbidding people who believe that stuff to hold public office?” And I’m thinking, “We are definitely not in Kansas anymore.”
Like many of you, I am absolutely amazed at the extent of the kind of bedrock level changes that have taken place in our culture in recent years. I’m not talking about the changes we’ve seen in things like technology, communications, medical breakthroughs, and so forth. Those are the kinds of changes that may improve our quality of life but they don’t really speak to the essence of who we are as people. I’m thinking more in terms of the kinds of changes that shape the way we think about things like right and wrong; ethics and morals; good and evil; and so forth. In other words, I’m talking about what we typically call a “worldview.”
Our worldview, in essence, is the lens that we look through to help us understand and function in the world around us. And the distance that stands, today, between a genuinely Christian worldview and a genuinely secular or cultural worldview is enormous and growing. And, consequently, one of the greatest challenges that we face, as Christians today, is the challenge of resisting the pull of the popular worldview and holding firmly to the worldview that is revealed to us in the Bible and the example of Christ.
The second chapter of Ephesians offers us a vivid description of these two competing worldviews, presented here in terms of those key components that distinguish a pre-Christian from a post-Christian worldview. In other words, here’s the way we looked at life before we came to know the Jesus and here’s the way we look at life now that we have a relationship with Jesus. The contrast is stark.
Ephesians 2:1-3 describes our “Pre-Christian Worldview” like this:
“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath.”
The Pre-Christian Worldview
Here’s the picture that’s painted of our Pre-Christian Worldview. Before we had a personal relationship with Jesus we were all just (following) the ways of this world and living to gratify our natural cravings, desires and thoughts. In other words, the decisions we made, the goals we pursued, the values that we held; the judgments we made; all of those things were shaped and molded by one dominant force—ME! Life was all about me. Everything always came back to me.
--What do I think?
--What do I want?
--Does it make me happy?
--What’s in it for me?
--I decide what’s right or wrong.
--I decide what’s moral or immoral.
--The ultimate authority in my life is me.
And because the “me” that we were listening to was taking all of its cues from our sinful nature the result was a life completely contrary to the life that God desired for us.
Can any of you relate to that? Could any of you give a testimony this morning saying that you have personally discovered that when you refuse to listen to God and choose, instead, to listen only to your natural inclinations that you inevitably end up following a course that is completely different from that which God desires for you? Have you found that to be true in your own life and have you seen it to be true in others? Could anybody here give that testimony? Most all of us could give that testimony. Because that’s what natural inclinations do. They ultimately move us in the direction of sinful and self-centered desires.
The Christian Worldview
Now, in contrast to that dismal picture, look at the description in verses 4-7 of what happened to us when we met God through a personal relationship with Jesus. It says,
“But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.”
Folks, there’s the foundation for developing a Christian Worldview. Key phrase? “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ…” We have been made “alive with Christ.”
In other words, when we placed our faith in Christ and invited him to lead us and guide us through life, God lifted us out of that old, self-centered way of life…that life that was ruled and dominated by our natural desires and the influences of our environment…and he began to grow within us a whole new nature molded and shaped by the character and the mind of Christ.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says it like this, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
In other words, our relationship with Christ is slowly but surely changing everything about us.
--The way we look at the world around us is changing. We begin to see the world the way Jesus sees the world.
--The way we relate to the people in our lives is changing. We relate to them as Jesus would relate to them.
--The things we desire and value and live for are changing. Jesus’ values are becoming our values.
The Spirit of God is developing within us a worldview that is shaped by God, rather than “the ways of this world” or “the cravings of our sinful nature.” And, while the differences between these two competing worldviews are numerous, it may be the single greatest distinction between the two is found in that which each worldview loves best.
The Secular Worldview—Love of Self
The secular worldview is focused first and foremost on the love of self. Why? Because that’s what comes naturally.
In his marvelous book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis writes this about our natural inclination to love ourselves best: “The natural life in each of us is something self-centered, something that wants to be petted and admired, to take advantage of other lives, to exploit the whole universe. And especially it wants to be left to itself: to keep well away from anything better or stronger or higher than it, anything that might make it feel small. It is afraid of the light and air of the spiritual world. It knows that if the spiritual life gets hold of it, all its self-centeredness and self-will are going to be killed and it is ready to fight tooth and nail to avoid that.”
Folks, that’s a powerfully eloquent description of the dominant worldview of the culture in which we live. It’s a worldview dominated by the love of self. And self is a jealous God. Self will fight tooth and nail to resist anything that even hints at the existence of an authority higher than itself.
--So, it’s not surprising to see our secular culture go nuts when they discover that our position on a given issue is based on a biblical foundation. There virulent reaction is not so much tied to the fact that our position is different than their position but rather that if the foundation of our decision, namely, biblical truth, is ever acknowledged as valid then it immediately calls into question their entire worldview. A worldview that so loves itself that it refuses to acknowledge the existence of any authority higher than itself.
--And because this secular worldview which loves self is so dominant in our culture today its also not surprising to see it working its way even into our churches and religious communities.
This past May, The Spiritual Activism Conference was held in Washington, D.C. The conference was designed to unite the religious left around a progressive vision that would offer an alternative to what they perceive to be the warped vision of the religious right. The New York Times described the conference as an attempt by religious liberals to “(take) back religion from Christian Conservatives.” The Times went on to say that while the conference was well attended they had a hard time getting anything done because they were so committed to being inclusive of everyone’s ideas that they couldn’t find anything upon which to take a united stand, aside from their loathing of Christian conservatives.
Tony Campolo, a very popular Christian speaker and author widely viewed by Christian Conservatives as being fairly liberal in his thinking, was invited to speak at the conference. But when he tried to explain the necessity of being true to the teachings of the Bible he was countered by another speaker who said, “I thought this was a spiritual progressives' conference. I don't want to play the game of 'the Bible says this or that,' or that we (have to) get validation from something other than ourselves.’”
The Christian Worldview—Love of God
Folks, the Christian worldview completely rejects the love of self as the highest love and, instead, holds unswervingly to the conviction that our first and highest priority is to love God above all else. Why? Because Jesus told us to do so.
When asked to identify the most important of all the commandments, Jesus said, in Mark 12:29-30, “The most important one…is this: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”
Folks, loving God above all else is the preeminent distinctive of the Christian worldview. Our passionate desire is to live in such a way that everything we do becomes an expression of our love for God. Even to the point of submitting our will and our desires to the authority of God’s word. And that means that every time that we are on the verge of saying, “I know what God’s word says, but…” we are also on the verge of wandering away from a Christian Worldview and into a Secular Worldview.
We love God first…and we love God best…and we prove it by acknowledging that His word is the highest authority in our lives.
And all of God’s people said, “Amen!”
© Copyright 2006 Pastor Tom Marcum