A Worldview or A View of the World?

 

But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Galatians 6:14

            What do we do with a statement like this? The Cross of Christ not only deals with our sin, it not only deals with who we are (our sin nature), it not only deals with the Law; it also deals with our relationship with the world-system. We are dead to the world and the world is dead to us – not exactly a clarion call to transform something that has been judged. Now is the judgment of this world – John 12:31.

            And yet a significant element of the professing church is obsessed with the world’s politics, economy, and military events to the functional exclusion of the Gospel. In fact, in some quarters it is as if propagating a so-called Christian worldview has displaced the Gospel of the Christ of the Cross and the Cross of Christ. We appear to be more concerned with bringing people around to our geopolitical and economic views than we are with bringing people to know Jesus Christ. The Kingdom of God and the Sovereignty of God have become small and Right-Center-Left has become big. It is as if Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream of the kingdoms of the world being smashed by the Stone cut without hands had never happened; it is as if Christ is but king of a fiefdom in competition with other fiefdoms, it is as if Christ is no longer King of kings and Lord of lords, it is as if there has been a heavenly abdication and we are left with a planet of anarchy.

            James writes that whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God, James 4:4.

            Now of course we’re not talking about the people of the world – we are here, in Christ, to be broken bread and poured out wine for our generation. We are talking about the world-system with its headwaters – including its economic headwaters, all of its economic headwaters – in Satan. Its values, its images, its vanity, its lust after possessions, its accolades – the things this world-system deems important are opposed to what God values. Not the political Right, nor the political Center, nor the political Left represent the Kingdom of God; not Conservatives, nor Moderates, nor Liberals mirror the Kingdom of God – Christ is King of the Kingdom of God and His Kingdom transcends all worldviews and political persuasions – and He is the focal point of His Kingdom – not morality, not ethics, not economics, not nationalism…not even a focus on the family.

            If no man can serve two masters, then we cannot serve the Kingdom of God and another system – even a moral and ethical system, even a patriotic system. We can work and serve within another system – even an overtly pagan system as Joseph and Daniel did – but we can only have one master.

            It isn’t that no one should serve two masters; it is no one can serve two masters.

            We don’t really need a worldview; we need a Biblical view of the world; and most certainly we need a view of the Kingdom of God.