Establishing Christian A World View

HodgePodge World Views Most Christians today hold world views that are a mixture of Bible and other competing world views. Holding often contradictory world views creates confusion and uneasiness within the believer. Today we will examine some of the more well-known spiritual variations from a Bible world view.

World Views That Compete With Bible Today we will briefly examine the following world views: Deism Naturalism Nihilism Existentialism Postmodernism

Deism: The Absentee God Held by such as Voltaire, Einstein and Thomas Paine. States there is a God, but He created the world and then abandoned it to its own devices. No present activity of God in our world.

What Does The Bible Say? Hebrews 1:3 --And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. When He had made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high…. Resurrected Christ continues to uphold all things.

Joshua 10:12-14 Then Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the sons of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, “O sun, stand still at Gibeon, And O moon in the valley of Aijalon.” So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, until the nation avenged themselves of their enemies. Is it not written in the book of Jashar? And the sun stopped in the middle of the sky and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day. There was no day like that before it or after it, when the Lord listened to the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel.

2 Kings 20:11 “Isaiah the prophet cried to the Lord, and He brought the shadow on the stairway back ten steps by which it had gone down on the stairway of Ahaz.” Job 38 and following God still active in the world. God making the weather, changing the seasons, etc.

Naturalism Two branches: Humanism/Marxism Says there is no God, and never has been. States that values, ethics, morals are not real, but are extensions of our own imaginations. Deals in situational ethics. Believes in natural selection, Darwinism Matter was and the world happened

The Bible Insists There Is A God Genesis 1 Who created the world Who put order in creation Who designed and spoke into being the universe. Who began with nothing and created everything, including all matter.

Genesis 8:22 “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.” Matt. 15:36 – “…and He took the seven loaves and the fish; and giving thanks, He broke them and started giving them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. The Bible insists God created, God maintains and God can superimpose His power even over the natural laws He created.

Nihilism: Nothing Is Real View held by Freidrich Neitzsche, Franz Kafka and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Is essentially the “anti-world world view”. Says essentially that nothing is real. Life is complete emptiness and nothingness. There is no meaning to life at all. There are no spirit beings neither good nor evil.

The Bible Insists On Purpose Life does have a purpose Life does have meaning 1 Timothy 4:8 – “…for bodily discipline is only of little profit, but godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”

Deuteronomy 30:15-16, 19-20 “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity, in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in his ways and to keep His commandments and His statues and His judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the Lord your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it….So choose life…by loving the Lord your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him, for this is your life….”

However: Biblical Nihilism Psalm 90:10 – “As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years, or if due to strength, 80 years, yet their pride is but labor and sorrow; for soon it is gone and we fly away. Psalm 103:14-16 – “For He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust. As for a man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. When the wind has passed over it, it is no more, and its place acknowledges it no longer.”

Existentialism: Life Has No Meaning Held by Sartre and Camus We must seek our own meaning for our own life. We must set our own values and decide what is important to us. Worth is objective in existentialism, but is necessary to avoid nihilism. There is no God.

Ephesians 2:12 “…remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.” There truly is no meaning to a life outside of Christ.

1 John 2:15-17 “Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. The world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God lives forever.”

Colossians 3:2 “Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on the earth.” Philippians 4:8 – “Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.” How does this give our lives meaning?

Postmodernism: Hyper-individualism The modern diseased world view What I want is what’s right for me. My reality is not your reality. Don’t judge me. There are no absolutes. We must all be mega-tolerant because no one is either right, nor wrong. They are just seeking their own path. Common in “Busters” and “Millennials”

What Does The Bible Say? Colossians 2:8 – “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.”

Romans 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. John 8:32 – “…and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

Free of the isms As Christians we must live free of the many “isms” of this world. Only in Christ does our life have meaning. Only through surrender of our life can we truly live. We believe in God, bow before His throne, die to ourselves and live humbly as servants of Christ. That is our reality.