Christian World View Part 1

What are we supposed to do with our worldviews?

Listen to Adrian Rogers. We cannot choose to remain silent on these issues under the guise that all God has called us to do is to preach the Gospel. We must take a firm and a loving stand and we must come together as believers in Christ and we've got to learn how to articulate our worldview.

Welcome to Love Worth Finding featuring profound truth simply stated by acclaimed teacher and beloved pastor Adrian Rogers. As Bible believing Christians, our worldview affects everything in life. Yet we're living in a post-Christian society, many times hostile toward those who view the world as we do.

We may be tempted to retreat, but in reality there's no place to hide. Instead, we have to come together. We have to unite in our Christian worldview and learn how to articulate it. If you have your Bible, turn now to 1 Peter chapter 3 as Adrian Rogers explains the Christian worldview. Now you have a worldview, whether you realize it or not. As you think about mankind, mankind's origin, mankind's purpose, and mankind's destiny. Now whether you've thought it out, whether you've formulated it, whether you have carefully studied it, or whether you've never thought about it at all, yet everybody here tonight has some kind of a worldview.

You have some idea about your origin, you have some idea about your purpose, you have some idea about your destiny. Now if you're a Bible believing evangelical Christian, I think your worldview is fairly settled on all three of those purposes. But you're going to find out that we live in a world that does not hold the same worldview. And I'm going to show you tonight that it is not enough for you to have a worldview and be aware of it, but you also must know what others are believing.

And you have to know something of the currents that are moving us in the tide of history and how we are to react to that. Now primarily, there are four basic worldviews that the Western world reacts to. Number one is the one that we hold, biblical Christianity. Another worldview that's very real and don't think that it is dead by any means, it's very well and alive in the United States, is Marxism.

Marxism, Leninism, formally called communism. Another worldview that is very, very real in America, that we'll face it in more ways than we realize, is humanism, secular humanism. And then an emerging worldview is new ageism. Now you say, pastor, what does all of this have to do with me? Well, very much because you live in America that is anti-Christian.

We sing God bless America, we say in God we trust. But our young people who are going off to college and even in the grade schools, the elementary schools, junior high schools, the middle schools, the high schools, are facing a worldview that most of us in this auditorium do not hold. And the problem is this, that many of our young people are not intellectually grounded to face that worldview. The truth of the matter is that many of the parents are not intellectually grounded and prepared either, but they have their worldview, their biblical Christianity pretty well settled. But many of these young people with their plastic mentalities and their lack of experience are facing almost overwhelming odds. Now that's compounded by the fact that many times the parents themselves do not know what the young people are being taught in school.

They just assume that all is well. And many times through our tax money and through other methods, we are paying secular humanists and others to systematically seduce our children to a worldview that we do not hold. Almost all public education is taught from a humanist point of view.

And the reason that the humanists have been able to do this is that they have said that education is to be value neutral when it comes to religion and the philosophies that we hold, that we are to be neutral. Well, there's some things you can't really be neutral about. It's like saying we want to be neutral about food. We're neither going to be for food or against food, so therefore no one will eat.

You see what that does? It's like saying, well, we want to be neutral about religion. We're neither for religion or against religion, which ends up being anti-religion.

And so we're caught in a trap. Now I want to say that your worldview touches all of life. Don't get the idea that we can just niche out Christianity. We can come here and huddle together in our stained glass prisons called churches and that the rest of the world can have its worldview, but that does not affect us, nor should we affect it. The truth of the matter is that if you are a Bible-believing Christian, your worldview will affect all of the rest of life as you know it, and the worldview of others is militantly coming against you in theology and philosophy, in the matter of ethics, sex education, marriage, divorce, abortion. All of these are subjects that we're grappling with today, and there are worldviews on ethics that you and I may or may not hold. In the area of biology, the origin of life, what is our worldview?

What is the worldview of these people out there who cannot find life in the womb but find life on Mars, they think? And in psychology, what is the worldview, what is the biblical worldview about the study of the soul in psychology? What is being taught in secular psychology, in New Age psychology, in Marxism, and in sociology? The way we live together, the way we interact, the way society comes together, what is the biblical worldview?

What are these other worldviews that impinge upon it? In the area of law, what is law? Where does law come from? Is law something that is fluid, or is there natural law, God-given law, fixed laws that come from Almighty God? In the area of politics and government, what is the biblical worldview, and what are the worldviews that we face here in the Western world? And in economics, what is the biblical worldview of the right to property, the whole property, who owns property, and all of this? Now, we probably are just kind of fuzzy about all of those things, and we just say, well, we know what we believe as Christians, and we think that we can afford to let all the rest of this just simply go by or pay no attention to it.

But believe me, your children, your grandchildren are fighting a battle that you may not be fighting, and many of us are unaware of things that we ought to be aware of. Now, this is more or less of an introductory message to set the stage, but turn to 1 Peter chapter 3 and begin reading with me in verse 10. Now, Peter is talking to those of us who are Christians, and he says, For he that will love life and see good days... Now, we all want to do that, don't we? We love life.

I hope you love life. And he says, For he that will love life and see good days... And God wants us to see good days. Let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile. Let him eschew evil, that means shun evil, and do good.

Let him seek peace and ensue it. For the eyes of the Lord are over the righteous, and his ears are open unto their prayers. But the face of the Lord is against them that do evil.

And who is he that will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good? But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye. And let me just pause there to say there's a difference between suffering and being harmed according to this verse. The Bible never says we'll not suffer. The Bible says we can't be harmed. You need to understand this.

There's a big difference there. And who is he that will harm you if ye be followers of that which is good? But and if ye suffer for righteousness' sake, happy are ye, and be not afraid of their terror, neither be ye troubled. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear, having a good conscience, that whereas they speak evil of you as evildoers, they may be ashamed that falsely accuse your good conversation, that literally means your good behavior, your good lifestyle, in Christ.

For it is better if the will of God be so that ye suffer for well-doing than for evil-doing. We are living in a post-Christian society, and therefore as Christians, as twice-born people, we are living in hostile territory. And whether you recognize it or not, there are signs all around us to say that Christians are under attack today. We're talked about as the religious right or the radical right. We're called zealots. We're called other things. We're called nuts. We are, but we're fastened to a good bolt.

The Lord Jesus. The problem is that so many of these things have happened to us while we have been asleep. And while we have slept, the enemy has done his work. Now, there are two dangers that face us when we face this kind of a situation and when living in hostile territory. Number one is that we can just kind of retreat. We can hunker down with a live and let live attitude and wait for the rapture. But the truth of the matter is that retreat is not even possible.

Why? Because there is no place to run and hide in today's society. You can't just retreat. I want to quote Dr. James Dobson. He talks about what is going to happen if we do not stand up and speak out and learn and articulate what we believe. Quote, we will not be permitted to exercise our beliefs in private. The church will not be allowed to protect its precepts. Our Christian enclaves will be invalid.

That is, we can't come in here and hide behind these walls. We will either speak up or submit in silence. Why not use our voices now while the memory of the Judeo-Christian ethic still lingers like rare perfume within the popular culture? And then James Dobson challenges us by asking several questions.

He says this. At what point will we be willing to defend what we believe? Will parents object if their children are routinely indoctrinated in homosexual ideology or occultism in the public schools? Will we object if the state tells pastors what they can or can't say from the pulpit? Did you know that in Sweden an evangelical pastor who preached a sermon on Sodom and Gomorrah was convicted of quote verbal violence against homosexuals and sentenced to a four-week prison term for preaching against homosexuality in Sweden? Will we object if the state assumes quote ownership of our children and tells us how to rear them or else lose custody? Will we turn them over to a village in order that the village might raise the child?

Will we object if every church has to hire a homosexual or satisfy a quota obligation? And then he goes on to speak about a pastor in Germany in the days of Hitler and the rise of Nazism. He says, Neimüller was a pastor when Hitler was coming into power. Under orders by Hitler, Neimüller was imprisoned and later placed in solitary confinement.

He was freed after the war and whenever he concluded a speech he ended with these words that have now become famous. First they came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for anyone.

When are we going to speak out? There comes a time when God's people say we dare not be silent. Remember what Mordecai said to Queen Esther in Esther chapter 4 and verse 14? For if thou all together holdest thy peace at this time then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place. But thou and thy father's house shall be destroyed and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this? I want to say to the people of this church and every mother's child who names the name of Jesus who knows but what you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this? We cannot be silent. We cannot choose to remain silent on these issues under the guise that all God has called us to do is to preach the gospel.

There's a great danger of course. The other danger is that we will substitute something for the gospel and that is also a great danger. We cannot substitute sacramentalism, rationalism, education, psychology, or some political strategy for the gospel of Jesus Christ. And as long as God gives me breath I will be a preacher of the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Having said that however, that we as Christians must become active.

We must become activists. We must take a firm and a loving stand and we must come to the aid of all of our brothers and sisters regardless of their denomination, their vocation, their economic or racial barriers that divide us. We've got to come together as believers in Christ. We've got to have a Christian worldview and we've got to learn how to articulate our worldview.

Now I want to say this, that Christians have faced bad times and difficult times before and the scripture that I just read to you speaks of one of those times. It was a time when if you think we have it bad today you should have been a Christian when the Roman Empire held sway. Christians to the Roman Empire were perceived as enemies. The Christian said, Jesus is Lord. It was the doctrine of the Roman Empire that Caesar was also a god, not only emperor but God. And for a Christian to say we have a king, he's gone away and he's coming back was high treason against the Roman Empire. That's one of the reasons that Jesus was crucified because they said He claimed to be the King of the Jews.

Now, what happened to these early Christians and the scripture that Peter is talking about? What were they accused of? Well, they were accused of subversion, insurrection, because they would not proclaim Caesar as Lord. They were also looked upon as an economic threat because they came out against idolatry and other things that were a source of great income to those around them. Just as you and I might stand against prostitution and gambling and the liquor business and those things. We are perceived as an economic threat.

There are people in this city who think that we are keeping the city from prospering because they would like to bring, for example, casino gambling into this city. And the early Christians were perceived as an economic threat. And also the lifestyles of the early Christians were so radically different that it made the others look bad in comparison as their lifestyles rebuked the immorality of that day. Now, the scripture in 1 Peter is more or less of a handbook for survival. Peter is talking to these people in duress and this is what Peter says to them. He says to them in verse 15, but sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.

Now, the very first thing we are to deal with is the principle of lordship. He says, sanctify Christ as Lord. That is literally what it says. The King James says, sanctify the Lord God in your hearts. But it literally is sanctify Christ as Lord. Now, you have to make up your mind that nothing, nothing will stand in the way of obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you enthroned Him as Lord?

Or have you come down the aisle of some church and gotten baptized because you want fire insurance and you don't want to go to hell? If Christ is Lord, we dare not be intimidated. He must be Lord. Everything else must get in line behind the lordship of Jesus Christ.

Let me say that again. Everything in your life must line up behind, never ahead of, the lordship of Jesus Christ. Now, here's the second principle.

Not only the principle of lordship, there's the principle of learning. Look in verse 15 again. Be always ready to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you. Now, the people of this world, unbelievers, and people who have other world views have some very good questions. The problem is many of us are not ready to answer those questions. Now, there are some excellent questions, but there are also some wonderful, wonderful answers. Now, when the Bible says be ready to give an answer, this is the word we get the word apologetics from. An apologist is not somebody who says, oh, I'm so sorry that I'm a Christian, please forgive me. This is a person who gives a reasonable response when people ask him legitimate questions. This is a person who is ready to give an answer.

An apologetic response to those questions that come. And so there's the principle of lordship. We sanctify Christ as Lord. There's the principle of learning. We have got to be aware. We've got to understand and have a Christian world view.

Now, the third principle is the principle of lowliness. Look, if you will, in verse 15 again. But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts and be always ready to give an answer to every man that asketh you of the hope that is in you.

Now, watch this. With meekness and fear. The only thing that seems to match our ignorance is our arrogance.

And you put ignorance and arrogance together and you've got a problem. But may I tell you that the modern church is saturated with both ignorance and arrogance. The Bible teaches that you and I are to have a lifestyle of meekness. Meekness is not weakness. Jesus said, I'm meek and lowly. He was not weak. He's the one who spent 40 days and nights fasting in the wilderness.

Jesus was the one who took a whip and drove the money changers out of the temple. But Jesus said, I'm meek and lowly of heart. Meekness is not weakness. It means strength channeled.

Strength under control. And the word fear does not mean that we quake at the enemy. It's not talking about being afraid of the devil. The Bible says in nothing be terrified by your adversaries. The word fear here means reverence. The fear of God. And what is the fear of God but love on its knees? Those who love God the best fear Him the most.

What a convicting truth to take with us today. Those who love God the best fear Him the most. Is that evident in your life today, the fear, the reverence of God? Well, maybe as you listen today, there is something pressing down on you, a prayer request that you'd like to share with someone. At our homepage, lwf.org, you can scroll down and find our prayer wall right there. We're so excited about this because you can submit a prayer request right there.

You can also pray for others who have submitted those requests. This is one of our favorite ways to keep the ministry and the community praying continually for one another's needs. So if you have something like that to share, go to the website, lwf.org, and scroll down to find our prayer wall today. Now, if you'd like to order a copy of today's message, call us at 1-877-LOVEGOD and request the message Christian World View. This lesson is also part of the powerful series Christian World View for the complete collection, all six insightful messages, or just today's lesson.

Call that number 1-877-LOVEGOD or go online to lwf.org or write us at Love Worth Finding, Box 38600, Memphis, Tennessee 38183. Well, thanks for studying with us in God's Word today. Does your faith affect your everyday life, your worldview? Remember, we live in a hurting society with people who have wounds that are desperate to be mended, people with questions desperate for answers. Be bold today. And be sure to join us next time for part two of this message, Christian World View, right here on Love Worth Finding. A listener in Georgia shared how the recent world events have affected his life. I want to share it with you now. He writes, of course, we are all experiencing never before changes in our lives during this pandemic. When our church closed for Sunday services and weekly gatherings, Dr. Rogers became my go-to pastor for my weekly messages, listening to your televised program on the internet every Sunday. Thank you for this.

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