Jamie Winship | You're on the Same Team

Are you a Christian? Yeah. Do you have enough time? No. Are you an atheist? Yes. Do you have enough time? No. Oh, we're on the same team. We would never sit together 'cause we don't like each other. Why? 'Cause there's not enough of my people. And then we can march in big, huge groups and show the world there's a lot of us. Which the rest of the world says, "We don't care." So I can know my identity, um, my identity in the Kingdom. But to try and live that identity out in a worldview that's in my worldview that's false, will, will kill that identity. It'll clamp it down. Um, so a worldview is the lens through which you see the world. It's, it, it's not what you see. It's the lens that you're using to see. Like, and most people aren't aware of their worldview. Just like a, a fish in water. A, a fish knows everything about its environment: predators, right? Food, all those things. But it doesn't know what water is because water is just what it breathes all the time. And so it can avoid predators. It can avoid foods that are wrong. But if I drop poison in that water, that fish is going to die because it can't protect itself from the world that it's in, from the, the air that it breathes. And so what you breathe in and out is a worldview. And the worldview guides how you even read the Bible. I think Brian Zan wrote something about this the other day. He said, "If, if you want to find an angry God, you can find him depending on how you go to read those scriptures, right?" What's your worldview?

So, um, in the history of the world, there's only ever been two worldviews. Now, I, I know this because this is what the, the scripture says. There's only two. But then if you go outside of the scripture, remember, the scriptures are not a book for Christians. It's not a Christian book. It's a book about what's true and what's false. That's what this book is about. Just like Donna. So if you say this is a book about Christians, or if you ask Moses, "Do you have a biblical worldview?" he wouldn't even know what you mean. He would say, "What a biblical worldview?" If you ask Jesus, "Do you have a biblical worldview?" what do you think he would say? He would have known what you, what you're asking. Like, what does that mean? I think Pharisees have one, right? They have one. I don't have that because they can sure quote the verses really well, and they use them as weapons. That's why Jesus says to them, "You guys don't know the word and you don't know the power of God." You guys don't know it. So worldview is not that. Worldview is not what I, you know, how I want the world to look. Worldview is how I actually see the world, every situation in my life. And so worldview is the lens through which you see the world. In history, there's only been two worldviews. Not just because of Genesis, which is Moses explaining worldview to the Israelites. That's what Gen, Moses is telling the Book of Genesis as a story to the Israelites in the wilderness. Don't forget that. Don't forget the, the context of what's happening there. It's astounding what he's, Moses is doing there. Do you know how, know the reason I believe that Moses is having some kind of encounter beyond his own mind when he goes up and comes down the mountain? How many times does he do that? How many times does he go up and down the mountain? Do you, do you know? Seven or eight times he goes up and comes down. Every time, V Moses, I go up there, I'd be like, "Oh God, I'm so afraid to go back down." Like, what are these people doing when I'm up here? But when the, the way that if someone says, "How do you know that Moses was inspired? That he was receiving revelatory information?" Revelatory means there's no previous example for it. Most everything that we say and do is all based in memory. It's all just us doing memory work. So Moses is coming down and explaining a worldview, and then he's going to explain, explain a government system that there is no example for. So he's, he's creating something from nothing. Humans can't do that unless they're talking to a Creator, right? So if I wanted to debate, I mean, I, I taught this course at Harvard. But if I wanted to debate whether I thought Moses was having an interaction beyond himself, all you have to do is read the worldview he presents in Genesis, and it's, and then, and then the system of government that should come out of this, right? Worldview. And you would be, there's nowhere he could have learned it. And who's he teaching it to? Slaves, right? He's teaching, and he's telling these slaves, "The worldview that you do know, that's been 30 centuries of Egyptian teaching, empire worldview, separation worldview is what destroys humans, right? That empire worldview." And so Moses is going to introduce a brand new worldview that's never been taught before. And if you don't read the Book of Genesis, you wouldn't know it either. And we have read the Book of Genesis, and we still don't believe it. We still make falsehood our shelter.

So the worldview that, that, uh, we want to start this morning with, we want to start with the negative because we're talking about, you might have two truths, but the lie will kill you. The lie will kill you. So it's called the separation worldview. So there's only two worldviews. They're called different things by different writers, but Moses is really the first. But so there's the separation worldview and the connection worldview. We're going to do connection this afternoon, but we're going to start with separation because we don't want to go through the day in a separation worldview. Here's what happens when we go to church. People come to church. They come in, bathed fully believing in a separation worldview. Are they born again? Yes. Are they Christians? Yes. Do they read the Bible? Yes. Do they believe in the separation worldview? Yes. Two truths and a lie. A lot of truth in there, but the big lie shuts down all that truth. So they walk in, or to, or you're going to share with a person, or something. You can pretty much assume that person is operating in a separation worldview. That means whatever you say to them is going to be filtered through a separation worldview. Even God, and then God becomes a victim of your separation worldview. All right. So what's the pillar of a separation worldview? I mean, Augustine wrote on lots, lots of different writers have written on this. Roman historians wrote on these worldviews. Lots of different writers. Um, so a separation worldview, the number one pillar of a separation worldview. The worldview has to have, um, concepts or beliefs that support it. So the number one concept of a separation worldview is the belief, the absolute total belief, and we all have to agree. And it's not just here, the whole world has to agree with it because there's only two worldviews and the whole world is operating mostly in one. The number one pillar is the belief in scarcity. Scarcity. The two words that define scarcity, Donna kept saying this morning, are the two words: "not enough." "Not enough." So we believe, I mean, no matter where I teach this or go through it, I can be with atheists, I can be with evangelicals, I can be with con, it doesn't matter because none of those matter. What matters is the worldview in which you say those words. So if I'm any of them that I say in the separation worldview, it's all going to be harmful. Capitalism, all the, they're all separation worldview. And so in a separation worldview, there's not enough. So we have to believe together that in the world, there's just not enough. So what's the one thing we all know there's not enough of? Time, right? We all agree it's not enough time. We've all decided together. Are you a Christian? Yeah. Do you have enough time? No. Are you an atheist? Yes. Do you have enough time? No. Oh, we're on the same team. We would never sit together because we don't like each other. Why? Because there's not enough of my people, right? So we got to get more people to be like me so there's enough of us. And then we can march in big huge groups and show the world there's a lot of us. Which the rest of the world says, "We don't care." And remember how scared Satan is of an organized march? He's not. The Christians are marching again, big deal. As long as they stay in the separation worldview, I don't care. And the reason they're marching is because they're in the separation world. Yeah. Jesus doesn't march. He heals, right? He doesn't fix problems. He heals people. That's what he does. So the separation worldview believes there's not enough time. The funny thing about time is, time's not alive. Time has no power. But we've given it all power. And we, and then we teach it to our kids. "You're running out of time." They're in second grade. "You got to get this done. One day this is going to come back on you." What is that? Spelling test. The word was "boat." I know, but you missed it. That's a separate. It's this constant, "There's not enough time." So what do you call it when you take something that's not real, has no power, and you build it up into something that has so much power you bow down to it? What's that called? Idol. And a lie. And we're making time our refuge and our guiding principle of life. And all of us do it. "Oh, Jesus, I love you so much. I wish I had time to see that." "Jesus, I love you, but time is higher than you." And we teach, teach it constantly. There's a verse in Peter. I don't have the reference. I'll get it for you. Maybe you know. Peter says, "Be we need to be circumspect, redeeming the time." He says redeeming means to reclaim or recover something. It's not that we're losing minutes and hours. We've lost the whole concept of what time even is. And he said, "We got to recover that." Why? "Because the days are evil." That phrase, "the days are evil," means your, it means labor. That's laboring in vain. See, like we think we got to get to work and stop sin. That's not what he's saying. He's saying we need to re, get time back in the right place where it belongs, which is a servant to us, because we're wasting our days in things that time has driven us into. That's a different verse than what you think, isn't that so? Scarcity is there's not enough time. What else is there not enough of? Money. Never enough money. Never enough money. You come up with a great idea. That's a great idea. But do you have the money or the time to do it? Do you see, like, where's God? Where, where was God in that question? He's not in it because he's below time and money. "If I just had enough money to serve God the way..." If I had enough money to serve God. God's like, "How much cash do you have if you're going to come serve me?" Like, is that what he asks you? "Do you have the finances to serve me?" Because if you don't, do you have the time even come when you do? Because I can't work with people with no time at no money. I'm sorry. This is exactly how we believe. 100% how we believe. But man will tell every non-Christian where they're going at the end of time when they run out of time. "You're going to run out of time. God's going to look at you and go, 'I'm sorry, your time's up, and even I can't do anything about eternity with you.'" Now that makes God the victim of time. And we just believe this completely. But it's not what the Bible says. Not enough money. Not enough time. All the "not enough." So you realize, so if I'm going to talk to anyone from any background, the very first thing I want to do is help, help them recognize the worldview they're operating in before you start preaching to them. Because you're going to preach to them from a position of scarcity. That's how our, our message is always from a position of scarcity. And we're the, we're the ones that understand God, supposedly. Okay. So if you're in a culture that believes "not enough time, not enough money, not enough love, not enough of my political party," there's just not enough of anything. Which comes down to, "You are not enough." It has to come down to, "And you are not enough. You're not good enough. You're not smart enough." That, that's what this worldview has to go to. When, when we were, when we were invited to move to Iraq, uh, our, our kids were in, one of them was going to college, but the other two were in 8th grade and 11th grade. And when we went to the, you know, to our school, the public school, and to even some of our, uh, wise friends, and said, "We're pulling our 11th grader out and moving to a country where there's probably no school at all because they're at war." They said, "You can't take a kid out of school in 11th grade." We're like, "Why not?" "Because 11th grade is the critical year for what? PSAT. I mean, if they don't, if they don't get that PSAT, SAT thing going, your, their life is ruined. And, and you know, this high school is the best high school in the world. And if you move that kid out of that school to some other state, God doesn't even know what's going to happen." This is how we believe. "Where are you going to move him to? A war zone in the Middle East? Oh, oh my God, no, no. Forget that. He's in a war zone. He's gonna miss the [Music] PSAT." And then you go to pray, and God's like, "Listen, if you pull him out of the PSAT, even I can't, I mean, there's nothing I can even do. And don't move them into a different school system. You're in the best one in the world." You know, that's like, it's when people are moving, you know, and they think it's like, they think there's no other schools in another state, you know? It's always this panic. So he, so our kids had to go be interviewed by a psychologist, but we weren't allowed to go with them, which is horrifying to me. Just because I told them, "Don't you guys embarrass me in there with that psychologist. There will not be enough time for for you." [Laughter] [Music] You. So he goes in there to get the 11th grader gets interviewed, and he comes out, and the psychologist calls me and says, "Your son is so terrified, he jokes about it. That's this coping mechanism." And I said, "Do you mean like joy is this coping mechanism?" And they're like, "Yes." And I'm like, "What should it be?" "Do you know who was afraid in that interview? Psychologist. It's projecting her fear on him, right? But he wouldn't receive it, right?" So it's, so in scarcity, there's not enough time, not enough money, there's just not enough of anything. And it gets down to, "I'm not enough." And I'm just going to ask you this question, uh, because then we're in a measurement system. In a scarcity model, you have to be in a measurement system all the time. So if there's not enough, you got to produce, right? And so we serve a God that apparently is only interested in production because that's what we hear all the time in the ministry. "What did you produce? How many people do you have? How many times did you share your faith today?" Because if you don't do it enough, God's going to be disappointed. Who's the model of how many times we should have done it? See how that just, what must be that person? And then you create the comparisons and the conflict and the fragmentation, and you're not enough. And the whole thing just keeps breaking down. And I'm so burned out. I'm so burned out. I'm trying so hard to produce for God. And Moses is telling this to a people group that only were ever valued on how many bricks they could make. But that's how we do it too. We're doing the same thing in the church. "How many bricks did you make for Jesus today?" And if you can't produce, "We don't want just spectators here, we want workers." Like, wow. That's a scarcity world. Scarcity then goes down like this: "Not enough." If there's not enough, then you have to be certain about what you do. Like, "You better make sure that's the right job. You better make sure that when you pray to God, you say the right words, because if you get him wrong, he doesn't have enough grace to overcome your wrong way to pray or the wrong way you view God. You better be certain. And you better make sure you go to the right school. And you better make sure you make the right amount of money because there is limited opportunity in this world because there's not enough jobs." And we teach this to our kids. Do you know how old a kid is when they realize that they're in a measurement system and they're probably not enough? Do you know how old they are when they figure that out? First grade. They, right away. "Oh, this is a measurement system." Yeah. "And you're not in the bluebird reading group. I'm sorry, you're just a robin." And then the kid's out playing, and he sees a robin, and it reminds him, "You're not enough." Because the robin has been stolen as a symbol to now it's a measurement. And it all starts to turn out that way. Way. Do you, do you see that? And then certainty leads to perfection, a search for perfect. And certainty. Certainty also creates extremism. As a sidebar, certainty creates extremism because when you're certain, you become extreme. And when you become extreme, you sit in public meetings and scream insults at the person talking because they're wrong and you're right, and you're, you're certain. And there's not enough positions for that person that doesn't agree with me to be there. So let's get rid of them as fast as we can and put our people in there so there's enough of us. So there's always war. And the extremism continues to fracture in smaller and smaller groups. So even one group that used to kind of get along together, now they don't. And then that group can't get along together. And it gets smaller and smaller and louder and louder and meaner and meaner. And all we do is jump in one of those groups and start yelling with them. But we're born again, though. So extremism leads to perfection, right? You can't fail. You can't fail. Sure, we can. You can say failure is good. But, um, we're going to move on because we need a better person than you. And so, and then all of that leads ultimately to self-interest. What else can it lead to? Self-protection and self-promotion. So then the goal of life becomes, "Protect myself at all costs." Now you are so far away from the Kingdom of God at this point. When the goal of my life is to protect my life. And Jesus made a promise about that. He gave us a promise. It's never sold in Bible bookstores on a poster. It's never on a coffee cup. No one wears it on a t-shirt. But here's this promise. I'm telling you people, "If you work to protect your own life, I promise you, what you're going to lose it." Do any of us believe that? No. Nope. Because our number one priority is to protect ourselves. "If we don't protect ourselves, how can we help anyone?" Remember Jesus saying that? Nope. But man, that becomes the, how we think about everything. What's God most interested in? Me protecting myself? No, he's not. That's not it. But this is the worldview. This is the worldview. Listen to any news station you want. This is what they're preaching. Any channel, any group, any political group, any church, this is what's being preached. "You are sinful and separated. You're not enough." My friend, let's just get that right away clear. You're not enough. So everybody got that? But we already know that because we've lived. We've already been told a hundred times we're not as good as we. I went to speak at this conference a few weeks ago, and it was a big, I won't say who it was for, it was a big company. And I walked into this hotel, and they had rented the entire resort. That's how wealthy they are. I walked in, and on the floor, on the ground, and at the hotel was the theme of the conference, which was "Elevate." "Elevate." "Elevate your neighbor?" No. "Elevate your enemy?" No. Oh, come on, what's wrong with you? "Elevate your income, your position." And so I looked up the word "elevate" because I was one of the speakers. And "elevate" means to be, be higher than normal, higher than average. That's a goal. Let's all struggle, kill the competition, and get higher than average together. So that, and that's etymology. Word. And then the word later became to mean, mean to be intoxicated. And I looked around and like, they had that one. They were accomplishing that one. They got it. You guys are pretty elevated already, looks like. Um, but that's what it means to get to rise above the average. And then elevate. But it was about elevate yourself and your income and your, you know, all that stuff. And then I looked up, and there was a life-size, um, bigger than life Taylor Swift. And let elevate and Taylor Swift, and there's our whole world right there. It all is. Elevate to what? That, that. And everyone looks around and, "How are you? You almost there?" You look at that and you're like, "I'll never get there." And that's right, because you live in a scarcity worldview. And that should not even be a goal. And that should not be a goal. So when I spoke, they took the guy, took a risk to bring me in there because he was a believer. And it was not a Christian thing. And he said, "I'm, you know, risking my whole life to let you up with that microphone." I say, and so when I still, this massive company, the, the new CEO was right here at the table, and the president was right there. And I stood up and I said, "What does the word elevate mean?" And I went into that. It means drunk. That's one thing you guys are doing. That. I said that in front of him. And the guy that invited me was at the table with the new CEO, and he's just looking at me going, "What? You're going to insult the theme of the whole conference right at the beginning?" But I all I said was, "Why aim at elevate? There's a better word. What you really mean is ascend. That's what you mean. That's what anyone can elevate. I don't need, I don't have to be nice to elevate. But to ascend, you need clean hands and a pure heart." And I said, "What if we were committed to ascend?" Ascending. Elevate would be a word we wouldn't even think about. So the, the scarcity separation world view is how to elevate, but you'll never ascend there, right? So we're going to do this, um, exercise here. Remember, what sets us free is truth-telling. So we want to talk about how much of the scarcity worldview we believe down here, okay? We have to start here, or can't ascend.