Rebels in a Spoiled World

Worldview Questions

We have looked at how everybody has a born-in desire to live in a better/perfect world.

We have looked at how in the bible God has promised that very world.

And last week we saw how Jesus gave us glimpses and foretastes of that world.

But we still live in a world that is broken, what is wrong with this world.

To answer that we need to first talk about WORLDVIEW

Have you seen the videos of people who are color blind putting on glasses that allow them to see color?

It is moving as they look around and are struck by how vibrant the colors are and often start crying from being so overwhelmed.

The lenses we where change the way we see the world.

That isn’t just true of physical/optical lenses though...

Much like the lenses we wear on our faces, every one of us have lenses we view the world through, our worldview.

Worldview= the lens through which we view the world around us; how we make decisions, communicate with people, understand culture and language, and decide what is right and wrong.

There are 4 basic questions every world must answer:

1) Where did we come from?

Question of origin.

Are we the results of random scientific evolution that all started with an unexplainable bang in the middle of the universe?

Or were we created by an intelligent being that set everything into motion, and then sent it out to fend for itself?

Or was that intelligent being a personal, all-powerful God, who stays deeply connected to His creation and has a purpose and plan for everything He created?

2) Where are we going?

Questions of destiny. Where is all this going.

Is this world all there is, so we better take all we can get, fight for the top, and enjoy the moments we have?

Is there something after this life that is determined based on how well we live this life, so we better do good not rack up a bunch of bad karma?

Or were we made to live forever, either to enjoy a perfect world connected eternally to our creator, or live eternally separated from God because of our rebellion against Him.

3) What should we do?

Question of purpose

Is the goal of life to learn, study, and understand our world more? Meaning our biggest problem is ignorance and the best solution is scientific reasoning?

Or is the goal of life to find our own truth, what makes us most happy, and to pursue that at all costs?

Or is the goal of life found in God, to live for Him, according to His ways, finding joy and fulfillment in His plans and purposes for our lives?

4) How shall we live?

Question of morality. What is right and wrong?

Is right and wrong decided by the survival of the fittest? What ever prolongs and promotes life is what determine the rightness of something?

Or are right and wrong determined by what makes me feel good, so I am my own judge of morality and truth?

Or is God, who created everything, the author of truth and the mastermind of morality?

You likely don’t wake up every day and walk through each one of these questions.

I can guarantee you don’t run through them every time you make a decision.

But they are imbedded in every decision we make and direction we go.

How we answer these questions determines how we view our world.

I want to spend a few minutes framing the biblical worldview that answers these questions and helps us understand why the world we live in is broken, and then allows us in the next few weeks to understand how God intends to bring about TWWAW.

Building a Biblical Worldview

1) God CREATED. (Gen 1-2)

Genesis 1:1–5 ESV

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. 4 And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

Genesis 1 is our origin story.

There are debates on whether to take this as a literal 7 days or how to view it, but the point of Genesis 1 is for us to understand that we were created by God in a careful, thoughtful and intentional way.

In 1:4 we see the first of 7 declarations about creation “God saw that it was good.”

When God was finished with creation He stood back satisfied at what He had made.

It was good, without flaw, lacking nothing, complete...

Genesis 2:15–17 ESV

15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Genesis 2 is a zoomed in view of the 6th day, the creation of man, the crown of His creation.

After he had created man, we read about the place where God placed man and the responsibilities he was given.

There was abundant food from the trees He caused to grow, and the tree of life like we read about in Revelation 21 as well as the river that provided water for them.

God made a world that was beautiful, secure, and bountiful.

Adam and Eve were told to work and keep the garden, even to expand it in chapter 1 “be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth...”

Man’s purpose was to work, but not labor like we do today, struggling to get by.

Work was purposeful, meaningful, and productive.

This was TWWAW, but we all know it is not the world we now live in.

What happened?

2) Man REBELLED. (Gen 3)

Genesis 3:1–7 ESV

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

The serpent represents Satan, a spirit who rejected God and became and enemy of God.

He comes to Eve in the garden and begins to question the goodness of God and the world He has created for man.

“Did God actually say you can’t eat from ANY tree in the garden?” twisting of God’s words.

But Eve corrects him “no just the one in the middle.”

“Surely that is an exaggeration. God is really just keeping from you what would really make you happy, satisfy the desires you really have. He is keeping you from real life.”

so when eve looked again at the fruit she had seen likely many times she saw it now in a different light.

it became the source of something she believed god was holding back from her, selling her short, keeping something good from her.

but the package looked a lot better than what was actually being sold...

We decided to not trust God and chart our own path.

We rebelled against God our creator, believing the lie that there was something better for us than our Creator.

Ephesians 2:1–3 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

3) Creation CURSED. (Gen 3)

genesis 3

(9 things)

Guilt and shame became a reality to humanity

Humanity is in a constant struggle with evil (Satan and his demons)

Women experience pain in childbirth (pain in general becomes a reality)

The relationship between men and women and all of humanity is broken

The ground is cursed with thrones and thistles making food production difficult and demanding

Work in general is hard and often not rewarding

The garden is overgrown (creation is out of our control and against us)

Death, both spiritual and physical, becomes a reality.

Humanity is broken, lost, prone in evil and sin.

Romans 5:12–14 ESV

12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

Romans 8:20–23 ESV

20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

4) God PROMISES RESTORATION (Gen 3:15)

Genesis 3:15 CSB

15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

Even though man has rebelled against God, brought a curse on all of creation, and broken our relationship with God, we are not left without hope.

God has a plan for redemption and restoration, to fix what has been broken and make right was has been wronged.

Romans 5:8 ESV

8 but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Jesus is our only hope

Jesus steps into our otherwise hopeless situation and opens a way of escape for those who trust in Him.

Response

We can put on all kinds of different lenses to try to find the one that let us see the world how we want to see it.

But there is a true reality, a REAL REAL.

What lenses are you viewing the world through?

Maybe you read these stories and think “I just struggle to believe that is true.”

I get it, but what if it is?

Is it any more of a stretch to believe we were a random, unexplained merging together of matter and particles over the course of billions of years and the ultimately life really has no meaning beyond the few years we show up here on earth?

There is an answer for the brokenness of our world.

There is an answer for the brokenness in US.

And the answer is found in Jesus.

Let’s take a moment to listen to God as He speaks you our heart through His Word and His Spirit.