Distinctively Different

So, it's been awhile (many months) since I've blogged but there's good reason why.  It's been a very long and trying season for our family.  You can read more about it HERE in the much more eloquent and captivating words of my amazing wife.

I thought I'd take my first blogging opportunity in months to provide a sneak peak into the sermon series I'm starting in a couple weeks called Distinctively Different: A study of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.

Change is inevitable in our world. Recent technological advances and instant global communication have accelerated those changes, for better or worse, at an ever-increasing rate. As I recently heard someone say, even nostalgia isn’t want it used to be. The question before us is what do these changes mean for us as followers of Jesus?

We, as Christians in America, are about to experience something that is completely foreign to us. As J. Dwight Pentecost points out:

“Because we live in what has been called a Christian nation, after 2,000 years of preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ, we have been deceived into thinking the attitude of the world toward a believer has changed. That is a lie of the devil. It has not been changed at all. The world can only hate a believer. We have somehow been duped into believing we can change the attitude of the world toward Christ and toward Christians. We have tried to live before the world so as to change their thinking. We have tried to make ourselves acceptable. We are trying to do the impossible. We might as well try to take off for the moon with only our own two feet to get us there.”1

As biblical truth collides head-on with our pagan world, we will see a clarifying distinction between true followers of Jesus and those who are just hanging around the church because it is the popular or cultural thing to do. While this may be a new experience for us, it is certainly nothing new to Christianity.

Christians have long wrestled with the tension between our involvement with the world and our separation from it. The apostle Paul himself reveals the tension as he said he became “all things to all people” (1 Corinthians 9:22) yet also said not to “conform to the pattern of this world.” (Romans 12:2) Rather than wrestling with the tension or seeking biblical clarification many Christians have simply opted for inaction. C.S. Lewis challenges us against such a move:

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”2

As we stare in the face of our lost world we cannot stand idly by as ordinary, decent eggs. We must be changed, “hatched” for the glory of God and the proclamation of His Word or we risk going bad. We have been called to represent God and His Kingdom as ambassadors in this world. (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:20) How then shall we live?

Near the beginning of His earthly ministry Jesus gave the greatest sermon ever preached; a sermon we refer to as the Sermon on the Mount. The focus of His message was correcting some misunderstandings of Old Testament teachings and giving clear, practical guidance for how people of the kingdom of God ought to live. As one Bible commentator wrote,

“The sermon showed how a person who is in right relationship with God should conduct his life.“3

About midway through his sermon in Matthew 6:8 Jesus said, “do not be like them;” the “them” was referring to the unbelievers in the world. What we see through the teaching of Jesus is that the life of a Christ follower is to be distinctively different from, not similar to, the world. That’s what being “Christian” is all about: we are distinctively different from the world.

Jesus’ sermon created quite a stir as it confronted some long-standing teachings of the religious leaders. Matthew’s gospel tells us that “when Jesus finished these sayings, the crowds were astonished at his teaching, for he was teaching them as one who had authority, and not as their scribes.” (Matthew 7:28-29) My prayer is that through this series you, too, will be astonished by the life-transforming words of Jesus and challenged to live a distinctively different life – for the glory God.

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1. Pentecost, J. D. (1999). Design for living: lessons in holiness from the Sermon on the mount (p. 75). Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications.

2. Lewis, C.S. (1958). Mere Christianity (New York: The Macmillan Company), (p. 198-199).

3. Barbieri, L. A., Jr. (1985). Matthew. In J. F. Walvoord & R. B. Zuck (Eds.), The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures (Vol. 2, p. 28). Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.

Introducing the King

Everyone has their own view of God.  Some scoff at the idea of God and turn their noses to anyone who dares suggest there is a God.  Others are like the men of Athens in the first century AD who believed in "god(s)" but didn't know about the one true God...at least not until the Apostle Paul told them (Acts 17).  There are others, like myself, who claim belief in the God of the Bible.  Yet, we live our comfortable lives from beginning to end, in our comfortable houses, going to a comfortable church in a comfortable car without ever stopping to think seriously about this God we claim belief in.  We busy ourselves with the things of this world and turn a blind eye to the majesty and splendor of God.  In our own ignorance we fail to know the true God and instead become idolaters, having made a "god" in our own image.  That's my tendency and it's yours.  It's the daily struggle we face as sinful people living in a fallen world.

Thankfully, God knows our natural bent, so He warned us through the prophet Jeremiah and said, "Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth.  For in these things I delight, declares the Lord." (Jeremiah 9:23-24)  May we heed God's call and strive to understand and KNOW Him better...because our eternity hinges on it...

John 17:3 says "And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent."

Whether or not you know the only true God and His Son, Jesus, determines whether or not you have eternal life.  That means, the most important though you will ever think is what you think when you think about God.  In fact, all the problems we face living on this little ball of dirt floating in the universe and the solutions to those problems are theological (relating to the study of God).

In the early days of the Christian church various groups began to develop creedal statements and catechisms.  These short statements were often committed to memory because they clearly and succinctly describe what we believe to be true based on the teaching of the Bible.  One of the more well-known catechisms, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, asks and answers this question: "What is God?" The answer: "God is Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth." That's a great starting point for knowing God better but the people who can recite it from memory today are few and far between.

One of the blessings of living in the age in which we live is that we have almost an endless number of resources at our fingertips.  One of the curses of living in the age in which we live is that we have almost an endless number of resources at our fingertips.  I say that because people rarely stop to internalize or remember some of these vital truths.  YET, we must!

I encourage you to check out our current sermon series at Geist Community Church called Introducing the King.  May we "press on to know the Lord." (Hosea 6:3)