If you have been attending Trinity Evangel Church for the past year or so you have probably picked up on various words or phrases we use a lot – affections, joy flag, image bearer, laughter is war, the mess, boom, sovereignty, liturgy, Kuyperian, worship.

That’s a lot of jargon floating around and it creates its own kind of mess in your mind as you try to reflect on what is the essence of what we have been teaching, and what we try to live, at Trinity.

How would you distill into a few sentences or paragraphs 85 weeks of sermons and Life to Life discussions that have taken place at Trinity?

Can you really do that? I’m going to try.

About four months ago Sean preached a message on a Sunday night where he attempted to do something similar. That message came out of a conversation he and I had at the Denver airport while we waited for a plane ride to the Together for the Gospel conference in Louisville, Kentucky.

We were discussing what one thing we hoped that members of TEC would have begun to get by now. I love the answer Sean gave. He said he hoped that we had come closer to understanding just how glad God is with us in Christ and that we, in turn, would be models of that gladness to others.

That sounds pretty good to me. After all, we do have Good News. If it really is good news, and it is, shouldn’t that produce gladness in us?

Wouldn’t true gladness manifest itself outwardly and make people want to ask what is the reason for the hope that is in us (1 Peter 3:15)?

Wouldn’t true gladness be a bright light in a dark world and force other’s to take notice and see the reality of God in our lives (Matthew 5:16)?

Wouldn’t true gladness produce an attractive aroma that appeals to those who are being saved (2 Corinthians 2:15)?

The answer to these rhetorical questions is, yes – true gladness would have all these effects, and more.

You can substitute the word joy for gladness. Jesus’ desire for us is that we would have true gladness, or joy. In John 15:11 he said “These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”

We tend to gloss over that verse. Jesus goal, His purpose, His desire is that His joy be in us. Just imagine – joy immeasurable in quantity and quality. What would it look like to have the fullness of Jesus’ joy in us?

The thought occurred to me that if this kind of joy was as prevalent as Jesus intended we wouldn’t need so many sermons on what the joy-filled life looks like. Perhaps we spend so much time talking about joy because so few experience it in the fullness that Jesus prayed for.

Think about it. From your experience or observation which of the following describes most Christians – those whose lives are typically and obviously full of joy with occasional off days – or, those whose lives seem humdrum, or worse - negative, with only occasional spikes of evident joy?

How much of our “joy” is dependent on our circumstances?

Here is another way to think about what I am getting at. Our salvation can be broken down into three distinct parts – justification, sanctification, and glorification.

Justification occurs at the moment we repent and are made alive in Christ by the work of the Holy Spirit. Sanctification is the phase that we, who are believers, are in now where we are being changed into the image of Christ. Glorification is the phase that occurs when we pass from this life into out eternal state.

Many Christians in our camp have our doctrine wired when it comes to justification and glorification. We are glad we have been saved from the penalty of sin and make it a point to call others to repentance. We also long for the day when we shall be set free from this body of death and are in heaven with Jesus.

But what about the in-between part – the sanctification phase?

Do we realize that God is just as glad with this phase as He is with the others? He doesn’t see the space between our justification and our glorification as wasted or idle time.

Nor, should it be viewed simply as a time to ‘win souls’ for Christ. Perhaps you have heard preachers ask the question “Why has God left us here on earth?” Their conclusion is that the only reason God has left us here is so we can lead more people to Christ.

Evangelism is certainly a high priority for the Church but is that all this in-between time is for? We are called to make disciples but does that mean we should view the world as an evil place to avoid except when we send out raiding parties (evangelism teams) to capture souls for Jesus and drag them back to our stained-glass aquariums churches)?

So many Christians live like the prisoner who is told he has been paroled but his release date won’t be for another 50 years. The net effect is that many believers slog through life thankful at some level for their salvation, but largely living with a joyless prisoner-like mindset.

If you don’t like having to hang around this planet after salvation you have Jesus to thank for it. In His high priestly prayer recorded in John chapter 17 He prays to the Father concerning us. In verse 15 he prays “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one.”

Why would Jesus specifically pray that we not be taken out of this world?

The reason is given a few verses later. Starting in verse 20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

Jesus prays to the Father that the Church may be one even as He and the Father are one. Why? So, that the world may know that the Father has sent the Son and that the Father loves the world.

Everything about how we live our lives is supposed to present compelling evidence to the world that God has sent His Son and that God loves the world. This will result in God getting more glory.

Matthew 5:16 tells us “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

The essential character traits of the Christian life– love, joy, unity – are exactly what the world so desperately wants but so completely lacks. At some level a godly testimony can cause even unbelievers to give glory to God.

If we are going to have Jesus’ intended effect on the world then we need to have a proper perspective on two things in particular:

One, we need to view the messy phase of our salvation called sanctification as something good and from God and be glad in it.

Two, we need to view the world not as an inherently evil place to be criticized and avoided. It is God’s creation, and as such, it is good even though it has now been corrupted by sin. We are called to engage the world with joy and gladness without becoming of the world system.

Abraham Kuyper, was a Dutch theologian and former Prime Minister of the Netherlands. He was an eloquent apologist for the Sovereignty of God. His influence was so great that years after his death Adolph Hitler gave instructions that Kuyper’s disciples be sought out and killed less their view of God’s sovereignty interfere with Hitler’s plans.

In 1898 Kuyper gave a series of lectures at Princeton University. In one of those lectures he said:

The world after the fall is no lost planet, only destined now to afford the Church a place in which to continue her combats; and humanity is no aimless mass of people which only serves the purpose of giving birth to the elect. On the contrary, the world now, as well as in the beginning, is the theatre for the mighty works of God, and humanity remains a creation of His hand, which, apart from salvation, completes under this present dispensation, here on earth, a mighty process, and in its historical development is to glorify the name of Almighty God.

What’s he saying? All of God’s creation, warts and all, plays a crucial role in glorifying God. The wicked may not know it but they too are instruments being used to bring God glory. Wouldn’t that really annoy an atheist if he realized he was a pawn in the hand of God?

All of humanity plays a part in this immense drama written and produced by God Himself and He is the primary audience. He actually delights in this cosmic play because He wrote it.

When we talk about the doctrine of total depravity we do not mean that all unregenerate men act in total wickedness all the time.

All men are created in the image of God and all men enjoy the common grace of God. This means that all men are capable at times of acting consistent with the character of God even though they have not received saving Grace from God.

We who have received saving grace should walk among those who have only received common grace so that all men might behold the glory of God. We are not called to avoid contact with the world. We are supposed to be engaged with the world as salt and light.

With all of what I have said as introduction let me now attempt what I set out to do this morning which is to distill the essence of the past 85 weeks of messages into one little sermon.

Here it is: What you worship determines your worldview. Your worldview determines your walk in life. Stated another way we can say our affections dictate our perceptions and our perceptions dictate our actions.

In the time remaining I’ll show why I believe this view to be an accurate way of looking at the Christian experience. This view will help us in several ways:

• It will reveal the unifying theme of what has been and is being taught at Trinity.

• It will expose the root cause of why so many Christians have their systematic theology correct but have a weak theology proper. In other words, it will show how a Christian can have a full truth-tube and yet not be a joyful believer. It will show why so many Christians look like unbelievers in practice.

• This view will serve as a kind of spiritual diagnostic tool to help you evaluate your life and to become more sensitive to sin and to see how sin strangles belief.

Think of this view as the 3x5 card you pull periodically out of your mind’s shirt pocket to review as you prepare for the next spiritual test. You do not know when the next test is coming because, like pop-quizzes, spiritual tests can occur at any time. This means you have to keep reviewing the 3x5 card so that you are ready when the test comes.

The worship-worldview-walk view shows the cause and effect relationships in our life. Every action and reaction we do says something about our worldview which says something about our worship. You cannot isolate our actions from our worship.

Taking the Worship-Worldview-Walk model apart

Since our church began we have had two series on worship. Some have been a little impatient with all the time spent on the subject of worship. They want to get back to verse by verse exegesis of the Word.

There is no disagreement on the importance of teaching the Word of God verse by verse. But, isn’t the point of rightly dividing the Word of God so that we will be better worshippers of God?

John 4:23 tells us “But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.”

If the Father is seeking true worshippers then it behooves us to understand what that means.

I believe our problem is not that we talk about worship too much but that we understand it too little. The whole point of God’s revelation to man – both written and natural – is so that we might enter into fellowship with Him and worship Him.

You can’t talk about worshipping God without talking about your affections. It is impossible to worship God and, at the same time, have something else be the primary object of your affections.

Now, don’t misunderstand, we can, and do, have affections for things other than God. I have affections for my wife and my children and grandchildren. I have affections for friends.

It is when those affections cause me to find God insufficient in any way that I enter into sin.

For example, I have affection for my wife but let’s say that she begins acting in ways that I find hurtful. What if, after many attempts to resolve the conflict, she is still doing the hurtful things? If my response to her hurtful ways is anger, despair, hopeless-ness, or sullen resignation then my affection for her is improper because I believe in my heart that God is insufficient to meet my deepest needs.

The passage Dave read this morning from Jeremiah chapter two exposes the problem. We have two options when it comes to where we place our greatest affection.

Option one is God, the self-described fountain of living water. Option two is anything but God which is described as a broken cistern that can hold no water.

Broken cisterns can be anything – spouse, child, job, bank account, friends, grades, reputation, popularity, beauty – anything.

If I were to ask you which is more important – God or one of those broken cisterns – you would all give the correct Sunday school answer – God.

But what does your daily walk say about which one is more important? How do you respond when your spouse disappoints you for the hundredth time? How about when the bank calls to tell you a check bounced again? What happens in your heart when you realize that you aren’t very popular and you are feeling isolated?

Don’t our emotional responses to life’s disappointments reveal that we don’t really believe what we say we believe about God?

We sing songs with words like “all I need is you” or “nothing I have compares with you” or “I surrender all”. But then, when those broken cisterns go dry, and they always do, we respond with anger or sadness or sometimes even despair and hopelessness.

What do these responses say about our belief in God? They sure don’t make a very positive statement.

We read stories from the Old Testament about how Israel would experience some great blessing from God and then a few days or weeks later be complaining. We shake our head in amazement at how foolish they could be. Aren’t we guilty of the same thing?

Belief that falters when things are hard is not belief. Affections for God that go sour when we are disappointed with life is not true affections.

Belief demands that we say with Job “though he slay me yet will I trust Him”.

One of the great declarations of faith, in spite of circumstances, found in the Bible is in Habakkuk 3:17-19.

The book of Habakkuk is a dialog between God and Habakkuk. Life in Judah is not good. Wickedness prevails among God’s people and God is about to use the Babylonians to discipline Judah. It is going to get really bad and there is no stopping it.

Listen to Habakkuk’s prayerful response to God once it’s clear that Judah is going to be severely disciplined.

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places.

What a declaration of faith in God! How could Habakkuk have this attitude? Because his affections were first and foremost for God. This is what belief looks like.

My wife is currently reading a biography on the life of John Knox. Knox is a great example to us of one who truly believed. There is a story in the biography of a time when Knox was in prison and his wife went to the king to plead for her husband’s release.

The king listened to her petition and then said if she could get Knox to stop preaching that he would be set free. Knox’s wife responded by holding out the apron she was wearing as if to gather fruit and said she would rather the king place the head of her husband in her apron then to ask him to stop preaching.

Do you think she didn’t deeply love her husband? Of course she did - but she loved God so much more that she was willing to become an instant widow. That is what believing looks like.

I said earlier when our worship (i.e. our affection) for God is what it should be it will of necessity shape our worldview.

By worldview I simply mean the grid through which we interpret the world around us. Our worldview determines our perceptions of life events.

For example, if my worldview says that I have a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness then anything that impinges on that is going to make me unhappy, possibly to the point of despair.

If my worldview says that life should always be fair then any form of injustice is going to rock my world.

All of us have some sort of mental grid we apply when interpreting events in our life. For most of us our grid is a mash-up of lots of ideas that we have picked up along the way. Sometimes those ideas are not very compatible with a Christian world view.

For those of us coming from the reformed faith tradition our worldview has at its core the belief in what we call the sovereignty of God.

A working seminary definition of the sovereignty of God might read like this: The Sovereignty of God represents the purpose of the Triune God as absolute and unconditional, independent of the whole finite creation, and originating solely in the eternal counsel of His will. He appoints the course of nature and directs the course of history down to the minutest details. His decrees therefore are eternal, unchangeable, holy, wise and sovereign. They are represented in the Bible as being the basis of the divine foreknowledge of all future events, and not conditioned by that foreknowledge or by anything originating in the events themselves.

In layman’s terms: God is God and you are not. He does what He wants, how he wants, when he wants without anyone’s counsel but himself.

One aspect of a proper worldview is how we view the world around us. Do we see it as an inherently evil place to avoid as much as possible or do we see it as part of God’s revelation to man and intended by God to be enjoyed. Sure, it has been tainted by sin but that doesn’t take away why God gave it in the first place.

Quoting again Abraham Kuyper he said “There is not one square inch in the universe that the Lord Jesus Christ does not declare ‘it is mine!’”

A mistake that our camp often falls into is seeing the fallen world as the enemy’s domain. In some more extreme cases Christians try to live in isolation from the world. They say “It’s all going to burn” and so any kind of engagement with the world that does not have anything directly to do with the church is viewed as either a waste of time or being worldly.

But is this a proper view of our relationship to the world? If it’s true that Jesus Christ declares that every square inch is His, then isn’t the right view of the world one that sees it as Christ’s domain which has been infiltrated by the enemy?

Could it be that the spiritual decline in America is partly due to the fact that Christian’s have been holed up in our churches for years except to go out on Thursday night evangelism visits?

Do you realize that Christians were once the driving force behind most efforts to improve local communities? Whether it was education, politics, or other civic-minded activities, Christians were major players.

Somewhere along the way we have surrendered our involvement in those sorts of things and even disdain them for being so ‘godless’. If Christians are hanging out in their stained-glass aquariums we shouldn’t be surprised that the rest of our community is ‘godless’.

Even many of our practices have been dictated by the world’s sinful excesses rather than by what God has said. The world perverts something God has said is good and in response we condemn the thing God has given rather than the sinful abuse of it. The issue of drinking is one example of this.

Maybe it is time for Christians to once again engage their communities with winsomeness and sacrifice rather than just throwing pronouncements of judgment from our sanctified compounds.

Let me hasten to say that I am not advocating some type of social gospel that exchanges the proclamation of the gospel for soup kitchens. But, soup kitchens aren’t all bad – especially if you are starving. It seems I recall a verse somewhere about giving a cup of cold water as evidence of one’s salvation.

A second way a proper worldview affects us is how we interpret our circumstances. If we accept the tenet that says everything that happens is part of God’s intended plan then we can laugh inwardly at whatever comes our way.

Now, I realize that I’m probably preaching to the choir on this point but am I really? How many times this past week did you respond in anger, frustration, disappointment, unhappiness, or displeasure at something that happened? Do you really believe in the sovereignty of God? Test yourself – drive through Seattle during rush hour.

Many of our responses to life seriously call into question if we really believe that God is sovereign over all the affairs of man.

If God is sovereign and in control of the minutest details then why would we ever freak out? Doesn’t our freaking out say something about our real worldview which in turn says something about what we truly worship?

Suppose tomorrow morning as you are waking up late for work, God says to you “Hey, I wanted to let you know that I gave you a flat tire during the night. I did it so I can test how you are doing on that prayer for more patience.” Hopefully, if God did that, we’d respond with a cheerful attitude.

Is the reality of who is ultimately in control of the flat tire any less real because God doesn’t give us an audible heads up?

We’ve chosen as our motto for Evangel Classical School “Laughter is War”. It takes a minute to let it sink in what is meant by that. There are three types of laughter one can express in response to difficulties. You can laugh like a mad-man who is oblivious to the situation at hand. You can laugh like a mocker who is just cynical and has become jaded by life. Or, you can laugh like one who realizes that God is in control and His plans for us are good and not evil and they will be accomplished.

That is the kind of laughter we should carry in our heart when the unexpected happen.

Now, some of you may be thinking I am advocating some kind of in-human pasted-smiley-face response to very hard things. That is not what I am saying at all. Life can be hard. But what happens at your deepest spiritual level does indicate what your worldview is which indicates what you worship.

It is possible to shed tears and still have laughter in your soul.

One of my favorite passages that shows an example of this is 2 Corinthians 4: 7-10, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.”

If anyone had a right to complain it was Paul but notice the contrast he describes between a godly response and an ungodly one: afflicted but not crushed, perplexed but not despairing, persecuted but not forsaken, struck but not destroyed. I believe it was Paul’s worldview that kept him from despairing. He saw the infernal things of this world in light of the eternal.

In Romans 8:18 he said, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.”

I suspect most of us could endure the harshest of circumstances for a day if we had the hope of something much greater tomorrow. We would think to ourselves – its just one day and then it will be super-fantastic. We could endure one miserable day. It is our perspective that gives us the wherewithal to endure.

Now, suppose God said to you “I am going to give you a hardship that you will have to carry most of your life.” Maybe it is an incurable disease, or an unhappy marriage, or financial stress. Then God says, “But, I want you to know that I have prepared a wonderful place for you in heaven where you will always be in my presence and there won’t be any more tears or suffering just never ending joy like you’ve never known.”

Would you, or I, be able and willing to endure the hardship in anticipation of the future reward? Would we grumble and gripe all the way to that reward or would we patiently, longingly, sometimes tearfully, endure with the expectation of a kid waiting for Christmas morning?

This is where the rubber meets the road. We’re all for the future reward, but do our responses to life look any different then your average unbeliever?

Paul wrote in Philippians 3:8, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ”

Does that describe us? It should. If we have counted everything as loss why do we respond with such anger, sadness, or despair when this life doesn’t treat us the way we want?” Doesn’t our response say something about our worldview which says something about what we worship?

I fear I may be beating a dead horse at this point. I hope not. If local churches are ever going to have any significant impact in their community then they will need to be filled with people who really believe what they say they believe.

You have heard the saying “our talk talks and our walk talks but our walk talks louder than our talk talks.” That is so true.

If your walk is talking and nobody wants to listen to it then pull out the 3x5 index card I referred to at the start of this message and examine your worldview – do you really believe that Jesus is sovereign over your life? Also examine your affections, do you love Jesus more than anything? If all you have is Jesus and the hope of the glory that is to be revealed - is that enough?

As I close listen to the lyrics of a hymn written 90 years ago. You have probably sung this hymn many times. Ask yourself, do you really believe?

I’d rather have Jesus than silver or gold;
I’d rather be His than have riches untold;
I’d rather have Jesus than houses or lands;
I’d rather be led by His nail-pierced hand

I’d rather have Jesus than men’s applause;
I’d rather be faithful to His dear cause;
I’d rather have Jesus than worldwide fame;
I’d rather be true to His holy name

He’s fairer than lilies of rarest bloom;
He’s sweeter than honey from out the comb;
He’s all that my hungering spirit needs;
I’d rather have Jesus and let Him lead

Than to be the king of a vast domain
And be held in sin’s dread sway;
I’d rather have Jesus than anything
This world affords today.

What you worship drives your worldview which determines your walk.

Lets pray

Lord, we confess that too often our lives don’t look all that different then the average unbeliever. Like Peter we jump out of the boat in faith but then our eyes see the wind and the waves and we begin to sink in unbelief.

Our belief falters because we allow secondary affections to take over as primary. We turn from you the fountain of living water and press our lips into the muddy bottom of our broken cisterns trying to refresh our souls.

Lord, forgive us for this great evil. Give us steadfastness in our affections for you. Give us hearts that laugh in the midst of the storms because we see that you hold the storm in the cup of your hand. Make our walk so steeped in belief that it forces others to take notice and to glorify you in some way.

We love you, adore you, and glorify you.

In Jesus name, Amen.