Practicing Your Biblical Worldview

Welcome to episode 177, In the Beginning Was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Welcome to episode 177. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I want to do something different. This is our Saturday's episode, and on Saturday I think I just want to just take a step back or to do something just a little bit different. Instead of climbing up this mountain, I kind of want to take this time to, to take a snapshot of things that are going on currently in the world and see maybe how that applies biblically. I know there's a lot of talk about— I, I hear other Christian preachers and other teachers talking about the rapture of the church, and I talk and I'm looking at all the stuff, all the signs going on, and I don't know that I want to talk about the rapture per se, but I do want to talk about some of the biblical prophecies that are going on right now that make you go You know, I don't think you have to be a prophet to see that that right there is biblical. I want to take a current events, kind of what's going on in the world right now, and then just talk about it and just kind of put it up against the Bible. If we're talking about a biblical worldview, how does this line up with what the Bible says and what's going on biblically? And just kind of get a feel for, hey, we gotta— we need to look at this world through eyes, through Christian or Spirit-filled eyes, and not be anxious or nervous. And we're going to go to a couple scriptures right now. And as a backdrop for these talks or these lessons, we got to go to 2 Timothy, and we're going to start in 2:22. Flee also useful lusts, but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. But avoid foolish and ignorant disputes, knowing that that they generate strife. 2 And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they may know the truth, 3 and that they may come to their senses and escape the snares of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will. 4 But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God. Having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away, for of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, also learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. That is a mouthful, and I know I've got superior reading skills, but if you think about the world we're living in right now. Paul talked about that it's going to be perilous times. I honestly can't believe anybody would not agree with this assessment of what's going on today. And I'm not talking about everybody, I'm talking about the majority of people will fall into some of those groups that Paul listed. And it's amazing. And I'm not sitting here pointing fingers and judging people because it's told us not to judge. We We are to be fruit inspectors. If we think someone is of God, we just need to see if there's any love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness, and self-control. Are the people growing the fruit of the Spirit? That's all we need to do. I've told you multiple times, I'm trying my best to grow some of this fruit. If I stay in the vine, if I stay in the word, the fruit comes out. It's, it's kind of effortless. When I walk away from the vine, or I start doing my own thing, then it gets a little bit ugly. It starts getting a little bit more like Greg and a little bit what I want. And so I just want to encourage you that we're still working through all this, and we're never going to be perfect. Again, perfection is not the goal. It is correction and reflection. And you know I just love rhyming, so that's why I had to do that. But it says to flee youthful lusts, and I guess that's when we're talking about the justified by faith, and it's kind of brought my— brought to mind the things that are going on. We're never going to be perfect, but what we do is we need to fight against the flesh. And when I was— the first 29 and a half years, I did whatever Greg wanted to do. Now, I did it within a standard of what I thought was right and wrong, but I did not do anything biblically. I didn't look at the Bible and try to adjust my way of thinking. I just did what I thought I could either get away with or what I wanted to do that day or night. It was just all about Greg Ryan. When you go down to 2 Timothy 2:23, but avoid foolish and ignorant disputes knowing that they generate strife. One of the things the Bible says is where there is envy and strife, there is every evil work. So if Satan can get you pulled into strife, if he can get you anxious, If he can get you envious, that flies open the door. We don't have to see everything spiritually, but we need to see when the enemy comes in and gives us these things, we need to know how to fight them. And so that's why I want to just to give us a picture of what's going on in this world and how the world is just pushing us faster and anxious and strife and envy. All of those things, all these big boats, all these big houses, all these big vacations, all these things. And if you look on social media, you see people posting with their wonderful little filters and the wonderful little life they show you, just a snapshot of what's going on. They don't show you all those— the garbage going on in their life. They show you the perfect picture with the perfect filter, and it's just not real. That is not real life. But But I mean, it's enjoyable to see and think, oh, but if you get caught into, oh, look at how great their life is. Look, everybody's got issues. Everybody's got problems. I hate to be the one to break it to you, but we're all jacked up, we're all messed up, all have sinned. We're still doing our best that we can. Until we get to heaven, we are not gonna be perfect. Put that, lay that aside. Just know that you are a saint of God and that your spirit man is perfect, and we're trying to renew our mind with Jesus, with the word of God. We're trying to wash all that garbage off. We're trying to get our feet cleaned up. When Jesus washed the disciples' feet, we're gonna get muddy walking, our feet are gonna get muddy walking through this world because it's just a muddy, nasty world. We gotta do our best and then we move on. And a servant of the Lord must not quarrel, but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient in humility, correcting those who are in opposition. And I've heard somebody teach, and I thought it was a great idea, is that we've got to come together instead of pointing out all of our differences. In order to have some common ground with people, we need to talk about what, what we have in common. We need to find our similarities. And then, and when we use our similarities, we can open up a conversation and then point out our differences and why we— you know, maybe someone will say What makes you different? And then you have the opportunity. But if you start pointing your finger at somebody and you're in opposition to people, they're gonna fight you. I mean, the dog in me, when people start talking about me being crazy or me being, you know, a fanatic and whacked out or whatever they say, I mean, it makes me— the dog in me wants to fight. But it says to be patient and not quarrel and gentle to all. That all means everybody. So we're not supposed to be fighting, we're not supposed to be engaged in the world, and we're not supposed to cast our pearls before swine. The next verse I want to read is in Philippians. If you want a pick-me-up self-help book, Philippians is a great book to read. But Paul is saying in Philippians 4:4, Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. And I just want to remind you All of these things, if you read Philippians 4:8, finally brethren, if you'll read that for yourself, and when you think about, think about the word of God, when it talks about whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, lovely, good report, virtue, praiseworthy, meditate on these things. Apostle Paul is saying, hey, Jesus would be a great place to start if you're gonna meditate. Meditate on the Word of God. Meditate on what Jesus did. Go back and read the Gospels and meditate. Think about if Jesus was here right now, all of these things would be better. You've gotta believe that all of these things— Jesus would fix everything. I know you've probably had that thought, "Man, I wish Jesus was here." Well, I'm here to tell you that the Holy Spirit is here, and Jesus says it's to our advantage. That's John 16:7. I know you're probably tired of hearing this if you're a frequent flyer, but John 16:7 is such a powerful verse, and it's something that we just need to grab ahold of and say, "Holy Spirit, help me understand what I'm supposed to do." He is your best friend. He will lead you into all truth, and Jesus is the truth. Soakbox moment number 852, but get in the Word of God. This is just a, a brief introduction of what's going to happen on Saturdays. I want you to just get fired up that we are to be different. We are to be anxious for nothing. The world is going to hell in a handcart. Paul said it was going to happen and it's happening. So instead of wringing our hands and worrying about the next step, let's just do what the Bible tells us to do and let's just get after it. Well, that's enough for right now. I just wanted to introduce what I'm gonna start doing on once a week. I just gotta kinda break this up for me mentally, and I just wanna be an encouragement to people that are wondering, how do I apply this Bible to my life? And we're gonna start with Philippians, to be anxious with nothing, and we're gonna remind ourselves daily that this world is not gonna get any better. We are to stay and we are to occupy until the end. We're not to just lay over and be some doormat. We are to be more than conquerors. So let's pray. God, I thank you so much for the person listening to this episode. And God, you know right where they are, and I pray in the mighty name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth that you would just encourage them, that you would inspire them, and you would empower them to walk in your truths. Holy Spirit, I pray that you would be a lamp to their feet and a light to their path, and that you would help them walk out their day. Lord, I thank you for everything you've done in my life. I thank you everything you're doing in this listener's life, and we love you, and we thank you, and we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thanks for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode.

Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.