Can you live in Rome and not do as the Romans do? Can you walk among sinners and not walk in sin? Can you live in the world and not be part of it?
You can, just as faithful followers of Christ have done for centuries before you, when your thinking and behavior flow out of your intimate relationship with God. That relationship provides you, as God’s child, solid beliefs about him, about yourself, and about the world around us. Those beliefs create certain values that you then embrace. Those values reflect themselves in all your attitudes and actions. This is the process of forming and living out a biblical worldview that brings you that deep abiding peace and joy in life.
With that said, let’s look at how this process plays out in regard to the nine truths we have covered in this book so far. What follows is but a sampling of the many ways our biblical worldview is reflected in our lives. We will address each truth we have presented thus far and walk it through the process we have highlighted above. This exercise will demonstrate how the foundational truths of Christianity give meaning to our relationships, our beliefs, our values, and our actions.
1. The Creator God Exists
The truth: A relational God exists and he created humans in his likeness and image.
Our relationship: God is a relational God who honors us enough to give us the right to choose him and his ways. He is a God who values our creativity and sense of responsibility. He has given us relationships with others and a world to nurture and care for. He is a God who loves us for who we are and gives us the capacity to love him and our fellow humans.
Our belief: We believe the truth that our Creator God is worthy of our devoted worship, and in honor of him we are to love him with all our mind, soul, and strength. Out of our love for him we are to love ourselves, one another, and the world he has given us.
Our values: We value God as the giver of life and loving relationships. We value ourselves as his temple, and we maintain ourselves physically, spiritually, and relationally. We value every person and relationship God has given us, and we value their God-given rights to life and loving relationships. We value the planet God has given us and endeavor to nurture and protect it.
Our actions: We strive to worship God and put him first in our lives continually by making his priorities our priorities.
We strive to provide for and protect our bodies, emotions, and relationships by avoiding sexual immorality and preserving our marital relationship, and by avoiding the taking of illegal drugs, putting things in our bodies that would damage the temple of God, and all other actions that would not bring honor to him.
We strive to love our neighbors by promoting social justice, taking care of the sick, meeting the needs of the needy, defending the God-given rights of others, protecting and reverencing life, and promoting peace and unity among all people.
We strive to the best of our ability to become good stewards of the talents and gifts God gave us, including the planet he gave us as our home.
2. God Gave Us His Word
The truth: God has revealed himself to us through his reliable Word, the Bible.
Our relationship: Our relational God knows us intimately, but he wants us to know him intimately in all his loving ways.
Our belief: We believe the truth that the Bible is God’s revelation of himself, given to enable us to follow his ways so that we can be like him and enjoy all the blessings of an intimate relationship with him.
Our values: We value God’s Word as a means to know him. We value obedience to God’s Word because it informs us of the benefits we derive from a relationship with him and gives us protection from the negative consequences that result from living outside of his loving boundaries.
Our actions: We strive to study God’s Word often to know him and his ways. We seek to follow his ways by obeying his commands. We do this by loving him with all our mind, soul, and strength and loving our neighbors as ourselves.
3. Sin Brought Death
The truth: The God-human love relationship came to an end through Adam and Eve’s disobedience to God.
Our relationship: When the God-human relationship was broken due to Adam and Eve’s disobedience, it brought death and separation from God to all the human race.
Our belief: We believe the truth that choosing our own way and deciding from within ourselves what is right or wrong, rather than believing that God is the sole arbiter of right and wrong, has resulted in death—a separation from God for all humans. This separation results in all the pain, heartache, and suffering the human race endures.
Our values: We value God and his reliable Word as the absolute standard of rightness. The essence of God’s character and nature defines all that is right, perfect, holy, and good.
Our actions: We strive to humble ourselves before God, turn our backs on our self-centered ways, and submit to God’s ways. As we compare our attitudes and actions to God and commit to his ways, we choose what is right and reject what is wrong. It is then we enjoy God’s provision and protection.
4. God Entered Our World
The truth: God took on human form in the person of Jesus Christ to redeem us.
Our relationship: Because God is “passionate about his relationship with [us]” (Exodus 34:14), he sent his Son to die for us.
Our belief: We believe the truth that God became human in the person of Jesus Christ. He was born of the virgin Mary to redeem us and restore us to a relationship with God.
Our values: We value unconditional love and acceptance because God demonstrated his unconditional love and acceptance by entering our world to redeem us. We value compassionate understanding because Jesus demonstrated he understood us by experiencing all the joys and sufferings we as humans have experienced.
Our actions: We strive to accept others without condition by making ourselves fully available to them, entering their world of involvement, and loving them regardless of their faults. Our actions then reflect the unconditional love and acceptance of our God, who loves us with that kind of love.
5. Jesus Atones for Our Sin
The truth: Jesus laid down his life as a sacrifice for our sin.
Our relationship: God’s relationship with us is a sacrificial and giving love relationship in which he forgives us when we are undeserving of forgiveness.
Our belief: We believe the truth that Jesus as the sinless Son of God atoned for our sins in his death on the cross. The offering of his blood as a loving sacrifice for sin enables a just and holy God to forgive us.
Our values: We value justice and the reality that someone is always hurt when wrong is done. We value forgiveness and realize that a sacrifice must always be made in order to forgive.
Our actions: Our love of God for sacrificing his Son for us is reflected in the sacrificing of our own comforts, our time, and our personal possessions for others. We strive to give of ourselves unselfishly until it hurts and forgive those who do wrong against us.
6. We Are Justified by Grace
The truth: None of us deserved to be forgiven of our sins. God justifies us by his grace.
Our relationship: There was nothing we could do and nothing we could offer to deserve a love relationship with God. When we were his enemy he still loved us. Our initial relationship was one-sided—he loved us when we didn’t love him.
Our belief: We believe the truth that being justified before God, completely forgiven of our sins and made his child, is a result of his grace through our faith alone in Jesus as our sacrifice for sin.
Our values: We value grace—a love given when it is not deserved or when no love is given in return. We value faith—placing our trust in Jesus—the one who sacrificed his life for us. We value a love that reached out to restore a relationship when we were utterly hopeless and lost without God.
Our actions: God’s amazing love and grace empower us to place our faith in Jesus to redeem us and restore us to relationship with God. We humble ourselves, turn our back on our self-centered ways of sin, and trust in Christ’s sacrifice for our forgiveness of sin. We accept God’s forgiveness with a heart of gratitude and devote our lives to loving him with all our mind, soul, and strength. We rejoice in our identity as his loving child.
The truth: Our lives are continually being changed into the likeness of Christ.
Our relationship: God imparts his divine nature (godly DNA) to us, which enables us to have an intimate relationship with him and reflect his likeness and image before the world around us.
Our belief: We believe the truth that as a follower of Christ we are destined to be conformed to the likeness of Christ.
Our values: We value all the characteristics of Christlikeness—love for God, submission to him, self-sacrifice, and love for others.
Our actions: As people being conformed to Christlikeness we not only love God, but we strive to think like, be motivated like, and live like Jesus—to love others as ourselves by making the security, happiness, and welfare of others as important as our own. We strive to fulfill the “one anothers” of Scripture.
8. Jesus Rose from the Dead
The truth: Jesus had to rise from the dead for our faith to mean anything.
Our relationship: Our relationship is not with a philosophy or a way of life. Our relationship is with the living Christ, who rose from the dead and promised to give us eternal life with him.
Our belief: We believe the truth that Jesus died and rose again to redeem us and give us eternal life with him in a new heaven and a new earth.
Our values: We value our hope of eternal life. We value the assurance our faith gives us that we will live forever with God and our loved ones who have trusted in Christ.
Our actions: We live with an expectant hope and with an anticipation of what awaits us in the next life. We don’t fear death, for we do not face it alone; God is with us. We do not despair when a loved one dies who has trusted in Christ. We don’t live our life for this temporal world and build up treasures here. Instead we strive to store up treasures in heaven by living this life to honor and please God.
9. God Is Three in One
The truth: God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in perfect oneness.
Our relationship: God has manifested himself in his handiwork of creation, he has revealed himself in bodily form in Jesus, and he has now entered our very lives in the person of his Holy Spirit. The indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit makes our relationship more intimate than any other relationship can be.
Our belief: We believe the truth that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons with infinite love for each other in perfect relationship. We believe we are made part of this circle of relationship through the power of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
Our values: We value intimacy—an unbroken cycle of relationship between God, ourselves, and others. We value the oneness and the bond of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in Scripture and desire to be part of it and emulate it in all our relationships. We value the Holy Spirit of God as the one who lives in and through our lives, enabling us to think like, be motivated like, and act like Jesus.
Our actions: We strive to turn our backs on our self-centered and self-reliant ways and yield to the Holy Spirit who lives within us. We give up trying to live like Christ through our own efforts and allow the Holy Spirit to empower us so he can make us intimate with God, make us like Christ, lead us into all truth, equip us for service, and bring true meaning to our lives. We strive daily to breathe spiritually by exhaling: confessing sin in our lives; and inhaling: drawing in the life of God’s Holy Spirit and yielding control of our lives completely to him.
When we embrace these truths and strive to live them out, we are adopting and following a biblical worldview. While we may not be able to live out all these truths perfectly, God is still at work in us perfecting his will in our lives. We experience his pleasure and joy because living out a biblical worldview ultimately provides the only satisfying answers to the three deepest questions of life.
Who Are You?
You are a human being created in the image and likeness of a relational God. But you have lost your sense of identity because of your sin, which brought death to your Father-child relationship with your Creator. God took the initiative to bring you back into relationship with him, and because you have trusted in his solution (his Son dying in your stead) you have regained your identity as a transformed, born-again child of God. You have regained your family connection to your Father God.
Why Are You Here?
Made alive to God because of Christ, you enjoy a Father-child relationship that is continually conforming you to the image of God’s Son. Your purpose is to bring glory and honor to your God by living to please him. You bring him pleasure, he brings you joy.
Sin and death, pain and suffering, still exist. Yet God is on a mission to restore all things to his original design. You have joined his mission to proclaim the good news of God’s kingdom to come. One day sin and death will be brought to an end. Your destiny is to live eternally with God and your loved ones in a new heaven and a new earth.
Your biblical worldview gives you a clear sense of your identity, purpose, and destiny in life. As God empowers you to live out your worldview, he completes you, gives you a sense of meaning, and provides you an expectant hope of an eternal future. No other worldview provides so much joy. No other worldview provides such overwhelming evidence that it is true. No other worldview provides for such a glorious future.