The Christian’s World and Life View
Romans 11:36
Did you know that every person who has ever been born on this planet has a World and Life View? Some people are more active in verbalizing or articulating what that view may actually be, but we all have one. Our world view is the driving force of our lives. We reveal it very clearly to God and to everyone around us every day. It is HOW we live our lives, what we do with our lives, and what we truly believe in our hearts, and how that is evident in our lives: It’s reflected in our priorities, what we do with our time and money, and basically, our world and life view is developed and displayed over the course of our lifetimes.
I have included an interesting survey for you to study personally and consider, “Do you have a biblical worldview?”
“Answer the following questions, based on claims found in the Bible and which George Barna used in his survey:
• Do absolute moral truths exist?
• Is absolute truth defined by the Bible?
• Did Jesus Christ live a sinless life?
• Is God the all-powerful and all-knowing Creator of the universe, and does He still rule it today?
• Is salvation a gift from God that cannot be earned?
• Is Satan real?
• Does a Christian have a responsibility to share his or her faith in Christ with other people?
• Is the Bible accurate in all of its teachings?
Did you answer yes to these? Only 9 percent of "born- again" believers did. But what's more important than your “yes” to these questions is whether your life shows it. Granted, we are all sinners and fall short, but most of our gut reactions will reflect what we deep-down, honest-to-goodness believe to be real and true.”(from “What's a Christian Worldview?” by Del Tackett)
Unfortunately, and sinfully, there are many inconsistencies in our lives: We may SAY and CONFESS that we believe in God and the Bible, but then, it isn’t all that evident in the way we are actually investing our lives. We have been looking at the Apostle Paul’s doxology, beginning at Romans 11:33:
(After an examination of God’s remarkable salvation by grace to those who would receive the gift of righteousness by faith, Paul exclaims): “Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! 34 "Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?" 35 "Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?"
We looked at those three questions last week and the answer to each of them? NOBODY. That being the case, we should NOT HARDLY follow Christ, but WHOLE-heartedly follow Him. NOW HERE IS PAUL’S World and Life View, after all has been said and done: Romans 11:36: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are ALL THINGS. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.”
The last two weeks we began with the statement, “good and sound theology begins and ends with Doxology. Today we hear from Paul that: God-centered theology begins and ends with God. “For from Him and through Him and to Him are ALL THINGS.” God-centered theology makes God EXCLUSIVE in all things.
This verse is not the only time that such a statement is made in God’s Word. 1 Corinthians 8:6 says: “For us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.”
1 Corinthians 4:7: “For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?” Ephesians 4:6 says, there is “one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.” (There are others I put in your outline.)
God’s Sovereignty in Creation
We’re going to look at three areas or realms where God is Sovereign, and the first is “God’s Sovereignty over all Creation”. When we speak of God’s Sovereignty we mean that God is LORD. God is the Prince, THE Ruler, the Lord over all creation. Try this! Try rewinding history all the way back to Genesis 1:1. Now go back a little further, and what would you have? You would have the first four words of the Bible: “In the beginning, God.” There was ONLY God, existing as Father, Son, and Spirit. (Look at John 1, Col. 1, Heb. 1, Eph. 1) That’s ALL you would have: Initially, everything that existed was GOD ALONE. Everything created proceeds FROM HIM. God is the source of all things physical that have ever been made.
“All things are from Him.” Things did not occur because of a “big bang” but because God made them and designed them all from nothing. Dr. James Boice: “God is the uncaused FIRST cause of all things.” As believers in sola scriptura, Scripture alone, God’s Word alone, we believe that God is the source of ALL THINGS. He is the Creator. (Gen. 1)
We also believe that all things were made through Him: God is the means of all things made. We looked last week at the fact that God’s Spirit, His “ruwach” was present at Creation, and Jesus was also present at Creation. Jesus was an agent in God’s Creation. At God’s Word, things were made that had not been made before. In Colossians 1:16, in speaking of Jesus, we read: “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities -all things have been created through Him and for Him.”
God’s creative power is also the means of SUSTAINING and providing for all things. Hebrews 1:3 says: “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.” He didn’t create everything and then walk away. He has never withdrawn His Sovereign Almighty Hands. He continues to INTERVENE and HOLD all things in the palm of His hands. Without His intervention, everything would disintegrate. All the scientific principles are God’s Principles which God has allowed man to DISCOVER.
God made all things to Him: God is the goal or glory of all things made. God has made all things for HIMSELF and He graciously SHARES what He has created WITH us. He created the stars and put them in their places. He put us in our places, and put the earth in rotation, ALL for HIS GLORY. I remember John Calvin saying that the universe is “a theater to display the glory of God.” It is the supreme RIGHT OF God to be the source of all things, to uphold all things, and to receive the goal and glory of all things. (Ps. 19)
God’s Sovereignty Over All of History
Look at Ephesians 1:11 with me: “We have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.” Look at four of the words in that verse to see that God is Sovereign or Lord over all of History, starting with the word Counsel.
Go back again to the beginning before there was anything else, no created matter whatsoever. Go back to BEFORE there were even angels. Before there was a heaven or a throne, and there was ONLY God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. It was a place where the trinitarian council of God met in order to be the ARCHITECT of all History. It was the divine board meeting of the persons of the trinity where they considered every possible plan…and there WAS NOT ONE ELSE IN THE UNIVERSE to give GOD counsel. It was there that every beginning and every end was determined by the COUNSEL of God’s Will. The idea in the Greek (“boulç”) is that of “divine deliberation and purpose”. It was there BEFORE the creation, that the source of all history and all PROVIDENCE was planned…by God and God alone.
It was there that the Will of God was decreed and declared from Him and through Him. God foreordained ALL THINGS that would come to pass. He scripted His eternal decree of everything that would happen. God decreed an inhumanly VAST amount of knowledge and events, all according to the counsel of His Will. It was decreed from God, by God, through God and for God. It would not be according to man, NOT according to God AND man, not according to the devil, or according to the devil and man or the devil and God, BUT ACCORDING TO God ALONE.
His will would not be according to luck, neither good or bad, not accidental or random, but according to the counsel of HIS WILL ALONE. Not one “jot or tittle” would disappear from His decreed OR WRITTEN WORD and NOTHING would be outside of the PLAN of God: It would not be “of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, BUT OF God.” (John 1:13)
If we cannot trust and believe that God foresaw, foreknew, and predestined all to happen, how can we trust Him for the ending!?!? That is the point and also the third word to consider: Predestined. The Greek root word is “Horizo”(we get the word “horizon”) and it means to “mark out beforetime.” The destination of HISTORY was determined before the journey began; the destination and end of all things was marked out ahead and DECREED before time and NOTHING will undermine God’s unalterable plan. IT IS NEVER RESCINDED because it is immutable and perfectly wise and God decreed ALL things before HE DID anything.
Not a hair falls from my head unaccounted for, just as a sparrow doesn’t fall to the ground without God’s foreknowledge. God micromanages the entire galaxy and universe for one supreme PURPOSE (which is the fourth word) and that purpose is for HIS greatest GLORY ALONE. “Purpose” in the Greek carries with it the idea of determination and resolution that will not be thwarted. Isaiah 14:24 says: The LORD Almighty has sworn, "Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand… His yoke will be taken from my people, and his burden removed from their shoulders." 26 This is the plan determined for the whole world; this is the hand stretched out over all nations. 27 For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?”
God is running HIS plan because God is God; it is God who is upon His throne, and always has been: All things are from Him and through Him and to Him. God’s glory is the goal of all things made. Ephesians 2:10: “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” God’s purpose resolves to do His Will.
God’s Sovereignty over Salvation
Lastly we see that God is Lord and Sovereign over Salvation; Vengeance belongs to our God, and so does Grace. The righteousness of God in salvation is the primary theme in Romans 1-11. God is the sole source of salvation: all salvation is from the Lord. 2 Tim. 1:9 says HE “has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity.” Is there salvation from anyone else? Certainly not! The fact is: ALL of our beginnings are “from Him”. His Spirit (“ruwach”) was present at Creation, in giving us life, birth, and CAUSING our new birth. ALL of our beginnings are from Him and we have NO beginnings without Him.
And so, all of Salvation is through Him. All that come to Jesus have been chosen, appointed, and drawn to Him, through His Spirit, through the Lord Jesus, through His Word, by Faith in Him, by Grace in Him, ALONE. He IS our salvation. You can ONLY come to God through Jesus on God’s Terms. Hebrews 2:10 says: “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.
And last of all, but most importantly, The Salvation of our God brings glory “to Him” alone. The Song of Revelation 7:10 is: "Salvation to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." The Song is “salvation to our God,” not salvation to US, to God and me. God will not share His glory with anyone or anything else! Isaiah 42:8 clearly states: "I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give (give up or yield) My glory to another.” And once again, in Isaiah 48:11, God emphatically declares: “For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another.”
The witness and life of a God-centered world and life view will always be: Let me tell you what the LORD God HAS DONE for me. Every section and every segment of our lives should demonstrate a thoroughly and totally God-centered theology because WE KNOW that NOTHING lies outside of the statement of Romans 11:36: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are ALL THINGS. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.”
Outline:
Intro: God-centered theology begins and ends with God. (1 Cor. 8:6, 4:7, 11:12, Eph 4:6, Col. 1:16)
I. God is Lord over all Creation.
A. From Him: God is the source of all things made.
(Col. 1, Heb. 1, Eph. 1, Gen. 1)
B. Through Him: God is the means of all things made. (Col. 1:16, Heb. 1:3
C. To Him: God is the goal of all things made. (Ps 19:1)
II. God is Lord over all History (Eph. 1:11, 2:10, Jn. 1:13, Isa. 43:7, 14:24-27 )
A. Counsel: the source of all history was planned by God and God alone.
B. Will: His will was decreed and declared from Him and through Him.
C. Predestined: “horizo”, the destination of all things is marked beforehand.
D. Purpose: For His greatest Glory.
III. God is Lord over Salvation: (2 Tim. 1:9, Rev 7:10: Isa 42:8, 48:11, Heb. 2:10)
A. ALL of our beginnings are “from Him”.
B. All of Salvation is through Him.
C. Salvation brings glory “to Him” alone.
