Video Transcript: Decluttering Your Soul – Worldview Clutter

Welcome back. So did you think about what your fast would be like to get at the  process of decluttering your soul, I think that's just an excellent way to think  about some of those things. I really enjoy talking about Dana K. White's  decluttering concept that your house is a container in and I get that my soul is a  container. And I need to pay attention to what I allow in what I allow out. Today  we're going to talk about what I believe is primarily a spiritual form of clutter. And then is worldview clutter. And a lot of times people will allow to have worldview  clutter in their life, and they don't even know that it's there, but it clutters their  spirit away from growing with the Lord. First of all, let's talk about II Corinthians  10:3-5. For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.  The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary,  they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and  every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and take  captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ. I see that as spiritual  decluttering that every thought that the thinking in our brain glorifies God, and  that every thought is obedient to Jesus Christ. So let's talk about some of the  decluttering that is needed. Looking at the clutter that's out there, so in II  Thessalonians 2:4, he will oppose and exalt himself over everything that is  called God, and and is worshipped so that he sets himself up in God's temple,  proclaiming himself to be God. So I quote that passage, that's a passage about  what's happening in the end times where there is this not including God's Spirit,  and trying to get God out of the public life, out of the soul, out of the human  consciousness. And, and I believe there's it's delusional, God created us, male  and female, God created to be part of our lives. And but the fall of humanity puts us by nature, wanting to exclude him. And you see that today, everywhere. And  being one who went into whole philosophy, the study of philosophy, I've seen  how humans have tried to do this, trying to get God out of thinking. Here is a an  example where the clutter of the Spirit is running rampant in many of the  academic circles. And I'll give you some examples of that. So here's one  modernist philosophy basically says this, you are not a special creation. You are  a lucky product of evolution in in modernist philosophy. It's science, not God,  who has saved us. And what modern philosophy says, science has saved us  from the biblical narrative of our origins. Instead of seen in Genesis 1:27, God  created man in His own image and the image of God, He created him male and  female, He created them. So the first spiritual clutter that's so common, is the  philosophy that says God is not included. Now. You know, as someone who  loves philosophy, I can talk about how Immanuel Kant basically separated things that can be known spiritually from things that can be known with science and,  and there's a lot of explanations on what happened there. But it's clutter. It's a  form of spiritual clutter, to basically say, you know, talk about science, talk about  everything, but don't talk about God's role in the process. Now, it's interesting  built on this modernist thinking, the post modernists did not critique modernism 

and to say, you know, hey, you missed it modernism and modernism basically is  the 1900's philosopher thinkers So the postmodern is people after that, they did  not critique modernism say, Oh, you missed it, you missed God, no, in fact, they  kept the premise, there is no God and God cannot be part of anything. And they  started to talk about everything is a materialism of sort, in, it's an illusion of sort  

of post modernism says, you are whatever you construct yourself to be gender,  sexual preference, for instance, have been influenced by the religious  narratives. That influence has been shown to be false. Of course, by  modernism, a God opinion should not be factored in the discussion of, for  instance, gender or sexual preference. You know, it's really interesting how in  Romans 1:27, we read because of this God gave them over to shameful lusts,  even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same  way, men also abandoned natural relations with women. And we're inflamed with lust for one another, men committed indecent acts with other men they received  in themselves, the due penalty for their perversion. So here is an example of  how the postmodern thinking starts cluttering human brains, and they don't even see what is self evident any longer. And instead, they construct whatever they  want their reality to be, apart from inviting God and how He set things up to be  the critical factor of what is a living soul. How does that living soul, body and  spirit relate to him relate to others relate to the world? How does that relate to  ourselves? And then pretty soon it becomes No, you're just a video game that  you create. You're just a narrative you create, and that clutter comes into the  spirit. And many people go down trails that bring them the illusion of what they  want, because essentially, that's what postmodern does, creates, you construct  and you become the God of your own reality. Here's another very important  thing we see in the worldview, declutter, you are basically good and sin has  been constructed. Notice that postmodern thinking by religious narratives, sin or  sinful practice is not relative. If you do, if what you do does not hurt anyone, why all the fuss? If something is legal, it's okay. evil things in the world are not  explained by sin. They're explained more by the nature nurture argument by the  nurture argument. And we hear the critique from Scripture. And I John 1:8, if we  claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves. And the truth is not in us. Here's a narrative, a worldview narrative that basically says, there was no fall. And in  there are things that hurt us. And we hear a lot of narratives that are hurting us  right now. But it's not because of sin it's because of factors in creation factors in  society. Factors in there's no talk about the narrative that there's a brokenness,  on why is that way, they just say they find something to blame. And then that's  what's wrong. You know, what's wrong is the polluting of the planet. What's  wrong are the rich, what's wrong is a certain race, what's wrong is a certain color of skin or not color of skin, you know, there's all of these things instead of the  elephant in the room, that humans have fallen into sin and we need the grace of  God. We have a class called critical Grace theory, that I invite you to take where 

we talk about these worldviews in depth from the perspective of God's grace.  Here's another clutter at the I believe the spiritual level. The world is now  ordered by science and we believe in science. The new religion is social  sciences. At least that's what the academia is talking about. The new pastors  are trained therapists and counselors. The Bible does not have much to say  about living well or the soul. God is not Honor worship God's will for you, or  humanity is not relevant. And then we read from Ephesians 5, Let no one  deceive you with empty words, for because of such things, God's wrath comes  on those who are disobedient. I believe that modernism, and post modernism  created the social sciences, in many people in the public spheres of life, at a low level that now is permeating all of society. And now I am one who likes the study of something. I like the analysis, the focus groups, I like the many of the things  that that I've read about in Social Sciences, Dr. Feddes and I did a sociology  class. And I mean, what was frustrating about that is how much of that class  was, we can study, we can study we can study, but God cannot be factored in  here. But what I did like about it is, you know, studying human societies and all  of that stuff, and I'm very welcoming, opening to that. But all of that study should be with the eyes of Scripture, to see how are we created, we talk around here  recently, that we're interested in ministry sciences, that we love to study, we love to study studies, we love. We love what happens at universities, many times  where sincere people are trying to, you know, use the scientific method for more insights. But clearly, all of that is through the discernment of Scripture. So  ministry sciences, are not opposed to God's revelation of Himself in creation,  and what can be learned by the laws of creation. But ministry, that is the word of  God, that love your neighbor, that is God has raised up ministers and leaders  who are sensitive to the word. Sensative of discerning of the Holy Spirit's role in  their lives in God's presence in this world. You know, that is the ministry  sciences, that we're studying how to be more effective in sharing the gospel,  Social Sciences, try to order their entire world around science as defined by the  modernist and postmodernist that shut God out. So it's, you know, social, human relationships and human society and all of that, sciences. Now, it's interesting,  just recently, Facebook has changed the name to meta. So in in the letter of the  change to meta, Zuckerberg, the leader of Facebook, now meta talks about, you know, social technology. So now technologies begins to order our lives around a new, meta changing reality, whereby we can come to a meta workplace or have  meta marriages, you know, they don't talk too much about that yet, but that's  where it's gonna go. It's how to order our lives. But that's clutter, in many ways.  It takes away from our very creation, and our being. Many clutter their minds  right now through, you know, find some Utopia like a Marxist utopia. Here we  read, you know, this concept is, you know, get a perspective that speaks to your  snap observations, get a slogan to make a better world. And again, I invite you  to check out critical grace theory class at CLI that deals with a lot of these that 

utopia, thinking and we read in Acts 17:21, all the Athenians and foreigners who  live there spend their day doing nothing but talking about and listening to the  latest ideas. That's another form of clutter. You know, I actually believe that, that  right now there is such a polarizing, if you watch different news channels, for  instance, if you watch Fox, in CNN, and MSN, this is in the United States by the  ways that we have these news channels. And what I've seen is, is people watch  these news channels, at peril of their own, their own soul clutter. So like they're  more talking about, you know how the democrat or republican worldview agenda is playing itself out. Now, and I believe that all in you and I have opinions about  how we want to see our country developing. And I think that's great. But here's  our danger is that we are we're lost in the clutter of our some of our political  opinions, and forget how to stay in the ministry sciences, how to stay in the  mission. You know, if we spend all our time planting a house church, rather than  watching a news channel, in the end, more souls would be affected, because,  you know, we are called to vote, and I totally advocate that, but let's not become  decluttered, as we process life, in the short days that God has given us on this  earth, but the these are, I believe, spiritual clutterings that come into our life if  we're not careful. And, you know, I also find that, that these are such a  philosophic things that have been spoken before. So we're talking about  whether it's in the Bible or whether it's modernists or postmodern philosophy, or  some of the theories that are being proposed today. You know, so much of this,  you know, there's the thing of the Bible and nothing new under the sun. We  uniquely Ecclesiastes and if you listen to music and and songs, I mean, there's a lot of popular songs that are very decluttering. I started very cluttering to you. I  said declutter and cluttering to you were, they actually are selling worldviews.  Here's an example of one that I find very interesting. And that is, from Bohemian Rhapsody, at Rhapsody from Queen, nothing really matters to me, is really a  restatement of the Stoic philosophers, the Epicureans. II Corinthians 15:32, if I  fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised? Let us eat drink. For tomorrow, we die, nothing makes  sense. Let's eat and drink. Well, that is a philosophy that's out there today as  well. And ultimately, it's clutter of the Spirit. And many people have cluttered their life with, there is no God. And you know what, if Jesus did not raise from the  dead, the apostle Paul says, if there is no hope? Well, of course, you're just  going to live for today and live for whatever your body can enjoy. So what do we  believe? Well, Christians believe that Jesus is the savior and Lord, and that is  the core of our spiritual thinking that keeps us decluttered Colossians 1:16, for  by him, all things were created things in heaven and earth, visible and invisible,  whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by  Him and for Him, in Colossians, 2:15. And having disarmed the powers and  authorities, he made the pub up public spectacle of them, triumphing, triumphing over them by the cross. So, for us, the core of decluttering our spirit is getting 

our heart in mind, to receive the salvation, and to bow in our thinking to the  Lordship of Jesus Christ in every area of our thinking, this will help our soul. So  we're interested in in many classes, like the critical grace theory class, so that  helps us not getting caught up in one of the winds of teaching and doctrine that  pull us away from our relationship with God, that we invite God into all of our  thinking in life. You know, recently I've been really working on ministry sciences,  which I mentioned that term. What I love about that is I want to all of my  thinking, and the ministry at Christian leaders Institute to reflect the Lordship of  Jesus Christ in all of our study to reflect the Lordship of Jesus Christ. so that we  might reach more people in Mission everywhere. So I have a couple of  questions to end this presentation today. And that is, does this story include any  piece of Christian world and life view? So discerning the worldviews that allow  that you allow into your soul? So does the story or any piece of a Christian  worldview? Did this story include any piece of a Christian worldview? Or life?  Does this media feed my soul or deplete my soul? Two questions. Now what I  mean by story here is as as we process what we want in our soul in life, does  the story does the media, does this, ultimately, bless you, or not bless you. So  here's my activity for you. Is, do some house, soul cleaning? About what media  or what stories you read? What books you read? Are they ultimately cluttering  your spirit, or they all ultimately energizing you to be close to the Lord in some  ways? Part of decluttering is to deal with that worldview, spiritual thinking how  you think, you know, classes, I recommend taking the philosophy class, the  Christian philosophy class, and both the introduction and the Christian  philosophy class. Yeah, they're, they can be difficult we, for a mini class, we  have a central philosophy. Those are all things that feeds the soul, to see how is Jesus Christ, the Lord of all of my thoughts. So that's my challenge is, is look at  what you are thinking about. Get your thinker to actually welcome thoughts that  enthrone Jesus Christ as Lord of all. This is a powerful decluttering and care of  the soul technique. Practice, that our thinking invites God into our science, our  study, our thinking, rejects things that just exclude God. So as we care for our  soul, we ultimately care for what our spirit thinks, and what we welcome in and  what we allow into that container. So, that's your challenge is to you know, ask  yourself what is what am I reading? What am I studying? Is what I'm studying or  reading, ultimately, advancing the role of Jesus Christ in my life, or is it taking  the role of Jesus Christ away? The god bless you as you continue the care and  decluttering of your soul.