What's Your World View

What’s Shaping Your World View

9/3/2017 Psalm 1:1-6 Mark 7:20-23

If I told you, because the Browns were undefeated the last three games so they will most likely win the Super bowl, what would your reaction be? Anybody thinking, wow that’s good to hear we have a great team? Anybody thinking that would be nice, but I’m not counting on it. Anybody thinking, you have really lost your mind if you believe that? How you see the Browns is based on the information you know about the Browns.

Somebody told you something about them, or you heard something about them, or you know what other teams are in the league, or you saw them on tv, or you know what their record was last year, you saw them play. You put all that information together in a few seconds and decided whether or not I knew what I was talking about. You had a view of the Browns.

All of us have view about life and about people. It is called a world view. How is it that you see the world? How is it that you see life?

All of us have a world view about people and how they should or should not behave. Our world view is built upon our beliefs about four things. 1) Where did I come from ( My origin)? 2) How do I separate good and bad? (My morality) 3. What’s my life’s meaning (my purpose)? 4. What’s going to happen to me when I die. (my Destiny)? Now don’t think for a moment that we come up with these answers by ourselves. We get our world view from the things we see, hear, feel, taste, and experience. Our world view is going to affect how we treat other people.

For example if you believe you are just a random product of nature and that you evolved from an ape and it all happened by chance, then you see everybody else is just an accident of colliding molecules walking around. There is nothing special about any of us. If you believe that there is no God or at least there is no God that is involved in our lives, then you are free to decide for yourself what is good and what is bad. Not only that but you are free to choose to change those things depending on the circumstances. 3. If the purpose of your life is to be happy as you can without hurting others that sounds good, but you will have to define what you mean by hurting others. 4. If you believe when you die you will either go into nothingness or you go to heaven you think there is are no consequences for your choices in life, therefore whatever you did not get caught doing, you got away with it.

Some of you may be thinking, now I agree with that and that’s my world view. Let’s try this world view on the drug dealer. He has a product to sell. His view is, “if you want it, I’m willing to sell it.” He does not look at you as a person of value. You are a random potential customer. He decides it’s not the selling of the drug that is bad. Selling is good because we sell things all the time. The drug itself is not even bad, it is how you use the drug that makes it bad.

His purpose in life is to be happy while not hurting anyone. He is very happy with the money he receives and when you left him you looked quite happy as well especially when he gave you the $10 discount. He believes when he dies he is either going to disappear into nothing like before he was born or he will go to heaven to be with his other friends who also provided a service. There’s no punishment awaiting his actions.

Is what this drug dealer doing okay? Why or why not. You are trying to force this drug dealer to live up to some standard of morality from somewhere. You know that something does not feel right about this. Here’s your problem. You know there are some bad consequences down the road that are going to come from his actions. Some of the consequences are waiting for him, and some of the consequences are waiting for others.

Now here is the funny thing. That drug dealer believes there is a law outside of himself that should govern his behavior. Because if you say, “what you’re doing is wrong”, do you know what his response will be? It is wrong for you to be judging me? He is saying, “there is a law out there that says, we can’t judge each other’s actions and you are breaking that law.” If you apologize and say, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you feel I was judging you, then you have agreed with him, that there is a law outside of you both, that both of you should be following. Where is that law located?