Think Like Jesus - Part 3 of 3

This transcript has been adapted from the attached audio. It may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAND: Most of your book, Think Like Jesus, is spent helping the reader learn to adopt and to internalize a biblical worldview. You have created seven questions which, when answered, will, as you put it, provide us with a clear comprehensive, and unified understanding of all reality that will enable us to live like genuine Christians as originally envisioned by God. Now, let’s go into those questions. The first is, does God really exist? Why is that such a critical question?

BARNA: Well, this is one of those fundamental perceptions that we have to have clarified in our minds and hearts because if you don’t believe that God exists, basically you’re a free agent. You can do whatever in the world you want. You have no kinds of parameters, you have no ties. You have no limitations. You can make it up as you go along and millions and millions of Americans do. But the truth of the matter is if God exists, we have to respond to that reality. We have to figure out, so what does His existence have to do with my life? And particularly when we understand the nature and the character of God, which is one of the other questions, that puts all of this into perspective. But understand that if God really exists, then there is going to be some kind of a relationship between us and Him. Now, we still have to determine what the nature of that relationship is going to be. We have to determine what difference His existence makes to our existence but, first of all, we’ve got to come to grips with whether or not He really exists. So by looking at the evidence that is out there, evidence related to things such as general revelation or special revelation, a whole different understanding of the knowledge of the existence of God, all of that then puts in a frame of mind that says, if He exists, then I must respond in a particular way. If He does not exist, then I may respond in a different way.

LAND: Now the second critical question is, what is the character and nature of God?

BARNA: It is, and, you know, once again, that is a very important thing for us to come to grips with as we are trying to understand Him. Why? Because if you believe Scripture, one of the things that it talks about is the idea that we are created in the image of God; but we have to understand the very nature of that image. And so recognizing the greatness of God puts us in our place, understanding that He is all knowing, that He is all powerful, that He can be present at any place at any time that He so chooses, and that He is personal, but also understanding the goodness of God. The fact that He is Holy. He cannot deal with sin, He cannot be around sin, He cannot sin. He is a loving God, a forgiving God, a grace-giving God. He is faithful. He determines and he is what is right. The truth is known only by understanding Him. He is reliable. He is consistent. Understanding all of those things are very, very important for us because in order to acknowledge and understand and respond to Him in an appropriate manner, we have to know, well, what is He like, and, therefore, what have I been made to be like?

LAND: Now, the third question tackles a huge one, and that is, how and why was the world created? And the answer to that question is absolutely critical to a biblical worldview, isn’t it?

BARNA: It really is. This, again, impacts the way that we choose to live and the choices that we are going to make from moment to moment. The world was not created by accident. The world wasn’t created because God had some extra time on His hands or a few stray materials hanging around heaven that He didn’t know what to do with. The world was created very purposefully. How was it created? Well, Scripture tells us very clearly that it is a result of the character and nature of God. He willed it into existence, by His Word it came into being. So, again, that gives us some greater faith and understanding about who He is and how He operates and what He is all about, which then, in turn, impacts us and how we live. But why did He create the world? Once again, the Bible tells us that He created it because He wanted to. And He wanted to because it would give Him pleasure. Now, what kind of pleasure would it give Him? Well, first of all, it gave Him the ability to demonstrate His abilities, His power, His authority. That, in and of itself gives Him pleasure, but secondly, He created the world and us within it so that there would be relationships. He is a relational being. He is a loving being? Therefore, He wanted people to worship Him and to obey Him and to love Him. So, all of these things come into play when the world is created. He did it very purposefully and we are a critical part of that purpose.

LAND: Now another question that I think is a powerful one is, and everybody wants to know this, what happens after we die on earth? Your research shows perhaps as much confusion about this issue as anything in the whole survey.

BARNA: Well, it was interesting. Because we study this on a regular basis and one of the things that we find is that a vast majority of Americans, more than 9 out of 10 people think that when they die they are going to heaven. There are several fascinating things about that. The first of those is that fewer people than that actually believe heaven exists, so you’ve got more people believing they are going to heaven than actually believe heaven even exists. Secondly, we find also that the majority of people who believe that they are going to live forever with God in heaven, whatever they believe that to mean, have not committed their life to God through Christ. They have not, in other words, confessed their sins. They have not asked Jesus to be their Savior or accepted Him as their Savior. They just believe that, you know, they are going to heaven for whatever reasons. We discovered that currently only about 1% of the American population believe that when they die, they are going to go to hell. People don’t even, by and large, believe in hell. They don’t believe in sin, they don’t believe in the devil, they don’t believe any of that stuff is true. They like to think about only the good, the positive things, and, yet, the reality is when you read Scripture, when you have a biblical worldview, it makes it very clear that there is a choice to make here, and there are two competing outcomes. You know, there are certain ways to get to heaven and it is only through Christ—you cannot earn it. Yet, Americans with our can-do attitude with our selfish perspectives, with our “it’s all about me” attitudes, tend to think, you know what, if I want to get to heaven, I’ll get there.

LAND: Well, that brings us to question number six, and that is, what spiritual authorities exist? You know, I’m consistently fascinated by the optimistic, Pollyannaish, naive view of Americans that the world is basically a good place. It is sort of like, the optimists believe that the world is a good place and the pessimists believe that the world is neutral. Yet, the Bible is very clear. The Apostle Paul says, “walk circumspectly not as fools, redeeming the time because the days are evil.” And the word there is for active, aggressive evil and the Bible tells us that the devil walks around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Americans just don’t seem to have any concept of the spiritual conflict reality around them, do they?

BARNA: Absolutely not. I mean, there is a stealth war that you and I and everybody listening and everybody in this world is involved in. We don’t tend to think of ourselves as being involved in a war. We tend to think about the fact that we are living in a giant playground and the whole purpose of life is to be happy or to be satisfied, or to be comfortable, or to be secure, or whatever it may be, but we don’t understand that key element, that it is not about us—that we are actors in a much larger play. We have a role in that play. We don’t determine what that role is, but we do determine which side we are going to be on in this war. Part of the reason why I think we struggle with this so much is our research shows most people don’t believe that Satan is real. Most people don’t really believe that sin has consequences. Most people don’t believe in hell. Most people don’t understand what Scripture teaches about the war between God and Satan. So what happens is, we just become distracted. We don’t make very good choices because we really don’t understand the nature of what is happening around us, through us, and within us.

LAND: That brings us to the final question, and that is, Pontius Pilot pretty much summed it up. What is truth? Give us George Barna’s answer.

BARNA: Well, you know, this really has to do with our understanding of what is absolutely right. There are some things that are absolutely right, other things are not, therefore. And the question is, well, how do you figure that out? What has become clear to me and I think God is certainly trying to communicate this to us through Scripture, there is only one embodiment of truth, and that is God. It is by who He is, His very nature and character that we can understand and define what truth is. So it goes back to some of the earlier questions that we were talking about of who is God? What is his nature and character? What difference does that make to us? Here is one of the great applications of it. If we want to understand truth, we want to live in a truthful or righteous manner, we cannot do that unless we understand God’s principles, God’s ways, God’s nature and character. All of these questions fit together. You know, some people have said, “I struggle with these questions because they are not isolated from each other, they seem to intertwined.” Exactly. That is the way it is meant to be. You are not supposed to do this as an intellectual exercise where, yes, you can give exactly the right answer but it never impacts your life. It doesn’t impact the other aspects of your life and your perspective. All of this is inextricably interrelated and it needs to be in order for you to live the kind of life that honors and glorifies God because you understand His will for your life, you understand His principles, and your commitment is to not having everything focus on you; it is you focusing on God, having a relationship with Him where you worship Him with everything that happens in your life. That’s where all this goes.

LAND: You are saying that we are not to be ruled by our culture, the culture is not to be our Lord. But you are also saying that we cannot withdraw from culture, that we have to engage the culture, and we have to transcend the culture. Talk to us about what you mean by engaging and transcending the culture.

BARNA: Well, you see the difficulty is, if we engage the culture with the things of God and we propose a biblical wordview but we don’t transcend that culture that we’re engaging, all we are doing is engaging in a polite debate. All we are doing is putting more information on the table and people will go away and make a decision based on how they feel, or, you know, what seems right in a given situation, situational ethics and morality. So, we cannot simply be content to interact with people and say, well here’s an idea, but we also have to transcend the culture. That is, to show that that which God has called us to do and to be, the ways in which He designed us, and the ways in which He is calling us to live, are so far different and so much better and so right because they are based on absolute moral and spiritual truth. It’s just an unfair exchange, it is an unfair argument. You cannot get to anything better. You cannot do anything better. You cannot explain anything better than that which God has given to us. So, putting these two things together where we engage the culture in this kind of a conversation with things that transcend the mundane realities that we have lowered ourselves to accept in this culture, those two elements are what makes this come alive for people. When we engage them in the process, we provide them with something that transcends that which is mundane.