Episode Transcript
[00:00:18] Let's open our bibles together to the book of First Corinthians tonight. We are in chapter three, actually finishing out chapter three, First Corinthians 318 through 23.
[00:00:33] As you're turning over there, I just want to remind you that the reason Paul wrote the book of First Corinthians is to address divisions in the church. They were a church divided, and there seemed to be two main sources of division in this specific church. Paul addresses these throughout the book. The first source of division seems to be leadership.
[00:01:01] The people were arguing over their favorite preachers, and this was actually having a worse effect than you would imagine.
[00:01:09] It was fracturing the church. It was a sinister strategy employed by Satan to distract the church from Christ and the gospel by elevating men in the eyes of their followers. Satan loves to take good things and twist them and use them in a wrong way. He loves to elevate good things out of their proper places, to be an idol in our lives. So the first source of division seems to be leadership. The second source of division seems to be human wisdom. And the majority of this book so far has been devoted to this topic. This church was following their culture rather than the Holy Spirit and the trappings of non christian human wisdom that they dragged into their christian lives, either unintentionally or intentionally.
[00:02:09] We're destroying them and the church.
[00:02:13] So this week, as I studied, I realized something from the last six verses in chapter three.
[00:02:23] It surprised me, and it helped me to understand the book and really the place that we're studying tonight. And as we're moving forward in this, I no longer believe that there are two main sources, division in this church. I believe that there was only one source of division. The more I read and reread the first three chapters, I began to understand that human wisdom is the source of division, and the fight over leadership is just a side effect or a result from that. The root is human wisdom, and the fruit of that, the fight over leadership. Another word for human wisdom is philosophy.
[00:03:07] And tonight I'm going to be preaching on a biblical view of philosophy. I want us to look at a biblical view of philosophy. The term philosophy itself is an ancient Greek word, and the word philos means love. The word sophas means wisdom.
[00:03:32] So when you put those together, it is a love of wisdom. And this is not talking about a godly wisdom. This is not talking about the type of wisdom that the bible urges us to. This is human wisdom, a love of human wisdom. So philosophy is generally defined as the study of the fundamental questions about knowledge, reality and existence.
[00:04:00] It involves critical thinking, reasoning and argumentation. PhilosoPhy became prominent at a point in time when people, especially the GReeK people and the nations, were outgrowing their superstitions. And as ChristIans, we think, man, that's a good thing. They need to outgrow superstitions. The greek gods and all that other stuff, they need to outgrow that. But the greeks, who had a pantheon of gods, realized the emptiness of their superstitions, and they began to seek answers through their senses, and they began to lean into embracing reason and logic. But they did so in a way that dethroned the false gods, but it enthroned themselves as the masters of their own lives. Philosophy was literally a human rebellion against the greek gods.
[00:04:58] Philosophy as it began in the ancient world and as it exists today. Human philosophy was and is an attempt to explain the world apart from supernatural means.
[00:05:13] It was and is an attempt to dismiss God.
[00:05:18] Now, we're gonna have to think very critically tonight, and it's interesting that as I'm preaching about thinking, we're going to have to engage in a whole lot of thinking as we walk through this. But I want to challenge you to stay with me on this. I think it's important. Human reasoning is the foundation of philosophy. Questioning what, how and why in relation to our world led to a rationale, explainable way of understanding the world. And philosophy was born into that reality. Ancient greek philosophy analyzed and theorized several ideas, such as moral and ethical issues, human nature, justice, virtue, knowledge, and truth.
[00:06:06] This is what Greek philosophy and western philosophy dealt with. And these ideas shaped their politics and shaped their culture. Imagine that their beliefs dictated their behavior.
[00:06:21] Our behavior always follows our belief system, and we see that in the ancient Greeks. I want to look at the stages of western philosophy. Western philosophy, which came from the ancient greek philosophers. The first stage was pre Socratic.
[00:06:40] Pre socratic. This is BEfore SocrateS, who ultimately was the founder of western philosophy. But the presocratic age leading up to the actual founding of western philosophy actually shaped how it was founded. So the presocratic era dealt with the first cause. This was the big idea of presocratic philosophy. Where did we come from? What was the first cause? And some of their answers were really funny. Some of their answers were very interesting. And it's not a whole lot different from what people believe nowadays. Some people theorize that water was the first cause. And this springs from naturalism, an explanation of a life apart from goddess. So naturalism is explaining, trying to explain everything without God. And some people went to water. They thought water was the first source. Some people thought air, some people even philosophized that numbers were the ultimate cause of everything.
[00:07:46] This is a time when they discovered the atomic theory and started diving into the fact that everything springs from some basic form of matter, which was the atom. This was the beginning of that. So they were doing some incredibly deep thinking thousands of years ago.
[00:08:07] And in our world today, people love to talk about, rather than God, the universe.
[00:08:16] They love to give creation, which is exactly what romans chapter one talks about. They love to worship creation rather than the creator. And they give credit to the universe as being the first cause. Somehow everything came from the universe, which just makes the universe God, which. How does that solve your problems? Well, the universe didn't write a book, and the universe isn't going to judge you one day, and you're not going to stand before the universe. So that's where that language comes from. But that language is the result of ancient greek philosophy.
[00:08:49] In this time, in the presocratic time, a new character came into existence. And this was the sophists. The sophists were literally professional philosophers who became celebrities and were hired to speak. People followed these people around. They lavished praise on them. They possessed incredible influence over their students, their culture, and unbeknownst to them, they possessed incredible influence over the future of human thought. We're literally still discussing their thoughts and living by their thoughts in our day. So that was the pre Socratic, the next stage was the Socratic stage, and that comes from Socrates, who was the founder of Western philosophy. And this age was not so much interested in the first cause. They had already exhausted that. And as human philosophy always does, they had to move on to the next idea, the next thought. And they were interested in discussing morals, ethics, the study of how we obtain knowledge, or epistemology, if you want a big word, how we obtain knowledge, morals, ethics. And this was what socrates was interested in.
[00:10:07] Plato was a student of socrates. And in plato'S time, which was still in the socratic era, plato focused on the best form of government.
[00:10:21] And this era was defined by war.
[00:10:26] This is the reason why Plato was so hyper focused on finding the perfect human government at this time. The greeks were fighting the persians. Athens was fighting Sparta, Sparta was fighting Thebes, and Thebes was fighting Athens. Literally everybody was fighting at this time in plato's lifetime. And he wanted to discover through philosophy, apart from God, apart from scripture, he wanted to discover through philosophy, how to develop the most peaceful society.
[00:10:58] And now that we're 2000 years or more than 2000 years beyond the life of Plato and Socrates. I want to ask you a question. How close has man come to achieving peace after 2000 plus years of philosophical thought? Maybe the answer is not in philosophy, just maybe.
[00:11:19] The student of Plato was Aristotle. And Aristotle. As philosophy always shifts and has to move on to something new, he was concerned with understanding the physical, physical world. And he began to apply elements of the socratic method to his studies. And he developed what ultimately became the scientific method, which is evident everywhere in our world today. This era established logic and reason as the primary means of understanding our world, which leads us to the third phase, which is the post socratic phase or hellenistic philosophy. This is what, this is the age that people are talking about when they talk about hellenistic philosophy, which is the age that influenced the world, that Jesus Christ and the apostle Paul were born into this era. This is amazing. Transitioned from the first cause for morals, ethics, in the study of how we obtain knowledge, to the search for happiness and personal satisfaction.
[00:12:25] Man, I can look back through my life and see how my life has followed the phases of greek philosophy, like the things I've searched for, the things I've looked for, meaning and purpose in. It all goes back to ancient greek philosophy. The search for happiness and personal satisfaction. This is probably the main era that we are in today.
[00:12:51] So where did they find personal happiness and satisfaction?
[00:12:56] One group of philosophers in this era talked about a return to nature, disconnecting from society, resisting wealth and pleasure. Does that sound familiar to anybody?
[00:13:10] Self denial was another group. They decided. Self denial and asceticism, denying the flesh. That was how they were going to find happiness. Monasticism. Go up to a mountain somewhere and just live. Separated from everybody. Deny your flesh. Never enjoy anything. Then another group came along and said, you know what? They're wrong. The greatest way to finding happiness and personal satisfaction is embracing physical pleasure as the highest form of happiness. And we all know where that leads. It doesn't lead to happiness, it leads to the most miserable people on the planet. But we're still pursuing that.
[00:13:47] Then another group preached peace at any cost. Peace is all that matters. So whatever we have to do to achieve peace, that's what we need to do. And then the final phase of this was skepticism. And by the way, this is always the end of philosophy. Just giving up, doubting everything, rejecting everything, saying there's no meaning or purpose. By the way, there's been 2000 years of philosophy since this that you can study. But I'll give you a little spoiler alert. The end of it is nothing is meaning, nothing is meaningful. Nothing has purpose. Nothing has value. There is no God. You don't matter. You're just going to be here for a few moments and then you're going to be gone. You're going to be forgotten. There is no heaven. There is no hell. There's no meaning and purpose in life. Doesn't that sound like a great way to live your life? Life, that's pretty much the world that we live in.
[00:14:44] And the thing we have to understand is these philosophies lay the foundation for our modern world.
[00:14:51] Philosophy in and of itself places man at the pinnacle of existence. The scientific method places the observer on the throne.
[00:15:04] Love for wisdom apart from God is what philosophy is all about. Human philosophy. And this topic is addressed in an ancient book that was written nearly 3000 years ago. The author was King Solomon, and he said this in ecclesiastes, chapter one, verse 13. And I applied my heart to seek and to search out by wisdom all that is done under heaven. It is an unhappy business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with verse 17. And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly, and perceived that this is also but a striving after the wind. Verse 18. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. And again, in the book of ecclesiastes, he's talking about wisdom apart from God. Human wisdom, philosophy. The phrase hadn't even been coined yet, but that's what he's addressing. Ecclesiastes, chapter seven, verse 23. All this I have tested by wisdom. I said I will be wise, but it was far from me.
[00:16:19] I promise you. We're working our way towards our text. But I have to cover this, and I think we have to understand this before we understand why Paul is devoting so much time to addressing human wisdom or philosophy. So I want to ask a question. Is philosophy wrong?
[00:16:40] Is it wrong to study philosophy? Well, if by philosophy you mean a basic set of beliefs, no, studying philosophy is not wrong. Everybody lives by a basic set of beliefs. Everybody has a philosophy. And that doesn't necessarily mean love of wisdom. It means a way that you live your life, a basic set of beliefs. So it's not wrong to study that. It's not wrong to have that. But philosophy, by the actual definition of the word, living by empty human wisdom. Yes, loving empty human wisdom, that is wrong. But we're going to talk about philosophy because we're all philosophers. Humans can't live without reasoning or thinking. Now, I know, you know, some people that try to live without thinking. And we see them all the time. Amazingly, they're all on the news. Amazingly, they all have jobs and politics.
[00:17:36] But we can't live without thinking or reasoning. We all have a philosophy or a system of thought that drives our life.
[00:17:46] In Colossians chapter two, Paul writes these words. Listen to this. Beware lest anyone who robs you by means of his philosophy and vain deceit. After the tradition of men, after the elementary principles of the world, and not after Christ.
[00:18:07] This may lead some to try to avoid philosophy altogether. This may lead some christians to try to avoid philosophy altogether, because it sounds like Paul is telling us not to think about philosophy.
[00:18:20] But Greg Bonson addresses this text, and he wrote these words.
[00:18:25] Paul does not prohibit the study of philosophy. Rather, he warns us about philosophy. Parents warn their teenagers about the dangers of driving without prohibiting the use of the family car. Philosophy, like cars, can be used in a constructive or a deconstructive manner. Paul warns against the deconstructive potential of philosophy. Paul's warning is not directed against all philosophy, but instead against a particular kind of philosophy. Paul focuses attention on a certain kind of philosophy which is given an extensive description in this passage of scripture. He says, it is a vain deceit.
[00:19:09] It follows human tradition, and it is based on the elementary principles of the world, the beliefs of those in rebellion against God. This is the kind of philosophy against which Paul warns the church. And well he should, because any philosophy which fits this description will rob us of the treasures of knowledge in Christ, as Paul says in verse three.
[00:19:38] So biblical Christianity, if we want to really get down to it, biblical Christianity is not really a philosophy. It's not really a love of wisdom.
[00:19:51] It comes from the words philosophy.
[00:19:56] And I want you to look at these words, these greek words. They're going to be on the screen, because Christianity, as it is defined, is not a love of wisdom. What is Christianity?
[00:20:11] It's a love of God, which are two different greek words, agapao and thais. So if I can invent an english word, I'm going to transliterate just like they did when they invented the word philosophy. Christianity is in Agapotheossi.
[00:20:36] It's not a love of wisdom. It's a love of God. And I know someone in this room is judging me right now because you're saying you can't inventeh english words. We do. We add around 1000 english words to the dictionary every year. So I'm gonna put this one up this year. I seriously doubt it'll make it, but I think it should make it, because when we talk about christian philosophy, it's really a contradiction in terms because Christians don't love empty vein human wisdom. Christians love God. This is an essentially or entirely different way of thinking and living.
[00:21:16] However, the way we use the word philosophy, Christianity is a basic system of beliefs, a way of life, a type of thinking which is after Christ, as Paul says, in Colossians and in Colossians two, Paul warns believers about the destructive potential of any philosophy which is not according to Christ.
[00:21:38] But it doesn't prohibit us from studying philosophy. And that's a good thing, because I know a lot of us in here love studying philosophy, and we study human philosophy, empty philosophy, in order to measure it against scripture. All Christians should do this. We study philosophy in the world and in our own lives to see if our deeply held beliefs and values align with God's word.
[00:22:05] Understanding false doctrine helps us avoid it. Understanding empty philosophy helps us avoid it. To win any war, christians must know their enemy. And the enemy is using empty, vain philosophy to fight against Christ and his church.
[00:22:22] So let's go back to something I said earlier.
[00:22:25] Philosophy is generally defined as the study of the fundamental questions about knowledge, reality, and existence. So worldly philosophy arrives at the answers through critical thinking, reasoning, and argumentation. Biblical philosophy arrives at the answers through divine revelation primarily. But logic and reason are used in understanding scripture. In Christianity, logic and reason aren't evil. Some christians act like it is, but we use logic and reason in service of the scriptures.
[00:22:59] The mind is a gift from God. So with all that in mind, let's look at our text tonight. This is why Paul is writing what he writes to the church, because of these realities in the church and in the culture that we just discussed. First, corinthians 318. Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile. So let no one boast in men, for all these are yours. Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world, or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours. And you are Christ. And Christ is God's.
[00:23:58] Look at verse 21. I want you to focus on that. This is where I realized that we don't have two sources of division in the church. There's just one. And the fight over leaders springs from empty philosophy. It says so because of what he's written. Let no one boast in men.
[00:24:20] Boasting in man is an empty human philosophy. And Paul has to address this because we're so prone to do this.
[00:24:34] I want to look at three simple things that I see in this text. Just a few short verses closing out this chapter. Very simple, yet profound things. Number one, christians can fall prey to worldly philosophy. This is a reality that's pointed out in these verses. We have constant warnings in scripture to avoid vain or empty thinking.
[00:24:57] And the reason is because christians, true believers, can fall into empty, vain philosophy. We can fall into false doctrine, which leads us into false practice.
[00:25:11] We're commanded to love God with all of our minds. Why did God include that?
[00:25:20] Because he wants us to use our minds to serve him. The christian mind is to be submitted to scripture, which is why I don't like calling Christianity a philosophy, but an agapathiasi love of God rather than a love of wisdom.
[00:25:42] Because there is no wisdom apart from God. But love for God is never separated from knowledge and reason.
[00:25:51] Our minds can be submitted to God. We can love God with all of our minds. As Christians, we're not called to check our minds at the door. We're called to serve God and love God with our minds.
[00:26:07] But believers who think like the world are deceived and according to this passage, are truly foolish. Verse 18. If anyone among you thinks he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.
[00:26:26] What Paul is saying there is, based on the rules of philosophy, christians are fools. Do you realize that based on this world's philosophy, according to their rules, their way of life, we are fools. So Paul says, go ahead, be willing to become a fool and realize that the wisdom of this age is really true foolishness and that the wisdom of Christ, true wisdom, we have to be willing to be considered foolish by people in this world because the things that we believe don't make sense. Paul said last week in our study, the natural mind cannot understand the things of God, so we can explain it to them, and they just don't get it. To use a cultural illustration of this, I don't know if you've ever seen filled of dreams. I love that movie. But there's a scene in that movie where there's a bunch of ghosts basically playing baseball, and part of the family can see it. And someone comes over, the brother, I think, and he can't see it, and he thinks they're all crazy and he's laughing at them and making fun of them. Then something happens. The little girl is injured, and one of the guys walks across the line and becomes human form. And the guy sees him, and then all of a sudden, his eyes are open and he sees all the other baseball players on the field.
[00:27:52] That's just a very weak human illustration of what happens when the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to see and realize truth. Literally looking at the exact same verses in the Bible, looking at life, things we didn't see before, they're the most obvious things in the world. The things of God become a bigger reality than physical things, more real to me than this building we're in tonight, more than brick and mortar.
[00:28:29] The things of God that this world considers foolish are true wisdom.
[00:28:36] He says in verse 19. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God, for it is written. He catches the wise in their craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.
[00:28:50] So worldly wisdom is foolishness to God. God's not impressed with it. He's heard it for thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of years. He knows that it is a philosophy born in hell, inspired by Satan. And it's foolish.
[00:29:07] Worldly wisdom, these verses tell us, will be. Be exposed. God will catch them in their craftiness. The worldly wise will be caught in their craftiness. And he's quoting these three passages of scripture from the Old Testament, as Paul always does.
[00:29:28] And he reminds us that just like gravity can be challenged, I can go challenge gravity publicly on national television, on YouTube, live streaming for the world to see. I can go challenge gravity and jump off of Mount Mitchell.
[00:29:45] I can do it. It's possible.
[00:29:48] But am I going to win? No. I will be caught in my craftiness, in my foolishness, in my stupidity.
[00:29:57] God's truth will win. Have no doubt about it. When you watch the news, if you find yourself getting upset, fearful, start feeling anxiety.
[00:30:08] I was reminded by one of my daughters this week that believing in God's sovereignty is the answer to anxiety. Because knowing that God's in control, knowing that God is going to win, knowing that we're on his side, knowing that greater is he that's in us than he that is in the world, is going to keep us in a place of peace, great peace, have those whose hearts and minds are settled on God and on his truth.
[00:30:37] So God knows that every human philosophy is empty. It's futile. It's pointless. It's going nowhere. It will accomplish nothing. All it will do is destroy those who believe in it.
[00:30:52] So this is a strong warning from Paul to us, because he tells us that christians can fall prey to worldly philosophy. Don't ever become arrogant as a Christian and think you've arrived at a certain level of spirituality because we can fall hard and fast to stupid things. I mean, some of the christians that I grew up looking at thinking they were the greatest christians in the world, they fell to some incredibly foolish stupidity, stupid decisions based on human philosophy. And I am capable of the exact same thing.
[00:31:31] Christians can fall prey to worldly philosophy. Number two, exalting leaders is worldly philosophy.
[00:31:39] This is a point that, yes, for seven sermons now, I've been echoing this over and over and over again. Why? Because for three chapters now, Paul has been echoing this over and over and over again. And if we think this isn't a problem in our world, we're fooling ourselves.
[00:31:55] He says in verse 21, based on all this truth, he says, so let no one boast in men, because the fact that God's wisdom is true and worldly philosophy is false.
[00:32:09] Don't boast in men. Why were they boasting in men? Because they loved their style. They loved the way they taught. It wasn't that they loved the truth of God's word. It was that they loved the charisma with which they presented those truths. And they were dragging the empty philosophies of the world into the church and trying to destroy it.
[00:32:33] Exalting leaders is worldly philosophy. It is empty. It's futile. God is the point of the gospel. He always was and he always will be. Jesus is the main focus of the church.
[00:32:48] As simply and clearly as I can say it, man worship is stupid. It is the stupidest pitfall that a Christian can fall into to take our eyes off of God and place them on a man. It's the surest way to be disappointed, to be let down, and to become disillusioned as a Christian.
[00:33:13] Number one, christians can fall prey to worldly philosophy. Number two, exalting leaders is worldly philosophy. Number three, Christ is better than worldly philosophy. Christ is better than anything he goes on to say, for all these things are yours.
[00:33:33] Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world, or life or death or the present or the future, all are yours, and you are in Christ. Or you are Christ, and Christ is God's. When you belong to Christ, we get it all. When we get Christ, we get everything that is his.
[00:33:56] We need nothing more than what he gives us. He gives us himself. What more could we possibly ever have?
[00:34:06] Our leaders are a blessing from God to sanctify us, not to be worshipped.
[00:34:18] Our leaders are not bad. There are bad leaders, but leadership is a good thing. Do you know what everybody says when they tell you I don't go to a church, I just stay at home and worship God on my own. I go out in nature and worship God on my own. Do you know what they're saying? I've given up on leadership which God inspired and which is necessary for the growth of a Christian.
[00:34:43] And I don't say this to exalt myself.
[00:34:46] It brings great fear to my heart, the responsibility that God puts on me and other christian leaders, other pastors, other shepherds, but it's how God develops disciples through leadership.
[00:35:01] And when we think that we can just walk away from that and we just have this great thing going on with God. You don't have a great thing going on with God if you rejected his way and his will and his word.
[00:35:15] The physical world, he addresses this. It is to be enjoyed as a gift from God, not to be worshiped.
[00:35:23] This life is a gift that is precious.
[00:35:27] We assign, God assigns and we acknowledge that God assigns a high value to human life. It is precious in all forms. The unborn, the elderly, the sick, the diseased, the mentally unstable.
[00:35:47] Every form of human life is valuable, belongs to God. And God has the power of life and death.
[00:35:58] We believe this.
[00:36:01] He says it's precious.
[00:36:03] It's not to be worshipped, it's to be offered to God as worship to him.
[00:36:13] Every breath we take.
[00:36:15] No, I'm not going to start quoting an 80 song, I promise you, but it did pop in my head.
[00:36:24] Every breath is to be submitted to the glory of God. Everything our hand finds to do is to be submitted to God's glory and offered to him.
[00:36:36] Our bodies are presented as a living sacrifice wholly acceptable to God. Death, he addresses death in this verse, ushers us into God's presence. We have nothing to fear.
[00:36:49] Now is the only time we have. He talks about the present and the future, but all we have is the present. Right now is all you have. We plan for the future.
[00:37:01] We grieve and we celebrate things that have happened in our past.
[00:37:06] Some of us are trapped in the past, but all we have is the present.
[00:37:12] But our present actions determine our future. So if things bother you now in your present that happened in the past, you can resolve that.
[00:37:22] Not by going back in time. We love to talk about that. You are back in time right now. You're back in time from everywhere you're going to be for the rest of your life. So what are you going to do right now back in time to make sure you don't have regrets and grief and sorrow in the future.
[00:37:43] Right now is all we have. Our present actions determine our future, and our future in Christ is protected and promised by God. If we walk in obedience to him, we have nothing to fear. Our future is secure. In Christ, we have the Holy Spirit. He is the seal, the promise of our inheritance.
[00:38:09] Ultimately, what he's saying is, we belong to Christ. We belong to God. We're loved and accepted in Christ. We have everything. We don't need the garbage of this world.
[00:38:23] You can bring a dog into your house and feed it this crazy, insane dog food that they're advertising on the Internet and on tv and everything. Now that costs more than human food. You can bring a dog inside and feed it all the food, the expensive food. You can buy it t bone steaks, cook it medium rare if you want to and put it in its plate. But when you let that dog outside, if there's roadkill, that dog is going to go eat that roadkill. It's just in a dog. It's its nature.
[00:38:50] When christians run back to the garbage and the filth of this world, we're giving into our flesh, our human nature, living according to human empty vein feudal philosophies, and we're fighting against our divine nature given to us, our spirit, new man, given to us by God through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
[00:39:17] We have everything we need in Christ. Community is provided by the gospel. The gospel heals our separation from God. It heals our separation within ourselves. It heals our separation from one another and our separation from creation.
[00:39:34] The gospel brings us back to what we were created to be.
[00:39:40] So let's look at our application for tonight.
[00:39:43] But before I get to the points of the application, as I was going through this, I wonder if anybody else noticed this or thought this. As I was going through the stages of greek philosophy, as it evolved to what it is today, it made me think of the worldview questions, the basic questions that everybody asks. It was basically developed through greek philosophy because guess what? Even lost people, even unbelievers, even Christ deniers, acknowledge the truth of God's word, whether they want to admit it or not, because they're created in God's image. And if you want to go back and see a course in human pursuit of truth, look at philosophy, ancient greek philosophy, and even into modern times. We are searching. We're looking, but we're looking in all the wrong places. But why are we looking? Because our hearts know that there's something more.
[00:40:46] So what are the basic worldview questions? The first is the question of origin. Where did I come from? That's what they were looking for. The first, origins, identity. Who am I?
[00:40:58] Meaning what is my purpose? Morality, how should I live? That's literally the outline of ancient greek philosophical thought and pursuit.
[00:41:11] So for our application tonight, I want you to think about these two things. Number one, we are heavily influenced by greek philosophy.
[00:41:21] You may have realized that already. You may have been taught that. You may have read a book about it. Maybe there's someone in here that's never realized the world that you live in, the air that you're breathing, and the water that you're swimming in.
[00:41:35] The influences of greek philosophy in our world include, but are not limited to, democracy.
[00:41:45] That's exactly where our entire existence in this country as Americans sprang from, ancient greek philosophy. Thank you very much, greek philosophers. I appreciate freedom, natural rights, the good life, pleasure, discipline, science, the scientific method, humanism, naturalism, ethics and morality, logic and reason, political theory, metaphysics, epistemology, art, aesthetics, all of that springs ultimately from the image of God that we're created in.
[00:42:26] But it was developed through greek philosophy.
[00:42:31] We are swimming in a sea of philosophy, and most christians don't realize it. Most christians are more american than they are christians. I'm just gonna say it, but the air that this world is breathing comes from ancient greek philosophy.
[00:42:53] To choose it over Christ is utter foolishness.
[00:42:58] Christ is everything in him. We have everything. We don't need the vain, empty, futile things of this world. Number two, we must take every thought captive and submit them to Christ.
[00:43:16] We must take every thought captive. Paul says in two corinthians, verse ten, chapter ten, verse five. Talking to this same church, we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive. To obey Christ, we need to be gatekeepers of our minds. I know that has a whole different meaning in our world, but we need to be gatekeepers of what goes into our minds through our eyes, through our ears. We need to guard our hearts, as Solomon said, because from our heart flows every issue of life.
[00:43:57] We must take every thought, every idea, every philosophy captive and decide whether it lines up with scripture. The Bible is our final authority in faith and practice.
[00:44:10] God's word is authoritative. It is true.
[00:44:14] And I want to leave you with these words tonight. Philippians four, verse seven says, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So because of this hope church, Asheville.
[00:44:34] Finally, brothers, whatever is true.
[00:44:37] Whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there's any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
[00:44:54] Let's pray.
[00:44:56] Father, we thank you so much for your word.
[00:45:00] Lord, I thank you for truth. I thank you that we can look at philosophy, we can look at this world through your eyes, through the grid of scripture.
[00:45:11] And God, I thank you so much that your word is truth. And we ask you tonight that you would sanctify us by your truth, that you would make us more into the image of Christ, make us more like yourself. May we reflect you to this world. God, we are a sinful people. We are so prone to fall into error. God, I see this in myself. I've seen it in myself this week. And I ask you for your forgiveness. God, please bring us back to you.
[00:45:41] Please guard our hearts and our minds.
[00:45:47] May we be found in your peace.
[00:45:51] We don't have to experience fear and anxiety because, God, you are in control.
[00:45:57] Your sovereignty grounds us and anchors us in your truth.
[00:46:02] God, allow these words not just be something that we think about for a few moments, but allow these words to be something that transforms, transforms our hearts and our minds and conforms us into the image of Jesus Christ.
[00:46:19] Holy Spirit, please do a work in our hearts tonight. May we respond to whatever you're calling us to do. Be glorified in our lives. Keep us focused.
[00:46:29] Whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable, excellent, praiseworthy.
[00:46:41] Help us to think on these things. Help us to think on you. Jesus name, we pray.
