Dare to Be Different | Ears to Hear #19

In a world that pressures Christians to blend in, this episode challenges you to embrace a faith that stands out. Discover why true Christianity has always been counter-cultural, the cost of conformity, and how daring to be different can powerfully reflect Jesus to those around you.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of Ears to Hear. And today comes from an experience I had at church today. A woman was talking about being a Sunday Christian only. And that was the question that the class was discussing, and we're all talking about why that's not ideal. And she said a couple things that just really stuck out. And she said, Being a Sunday only Christian is not letting your light shine, it is hiding it under a bushel, and that bushel is this building. Oh, it was so good. It was so good. And she just went on to elaborate on how if you come to church on Sunday and you act like everyone else who's there that day, but then you go out during your week at work, your social events, and you act like the world, and you're just conforming with what whatever way the wind blows, whichever way the ocean's taking you, then I mean that's that defeats the whole purpose. Like that's not hard to do. Um that that's not being called to be like Christ. The difference is we are supposed to be different, we're supposed to stand out from amongst the world. And it's interesting to think that the building, like the actual place where we go to worship, can actually be a hindrance to your ability to show your true Christian colors. You treat it as a safe sanctuary where you can be your true Christian self if that's your heart. But then once you're outside of that building, you leave you leave your Christianity at the door on the way out, you leave your faith there to pick it up again next Sunday instead of taking it with you throughout your week. So that was just amazing. And so hopefully by the end of today, there's something you can do to stand out in your week to be different than the world. And if we go back to the times of Christ, his gospel was very counter-cultural. And I think there's a balance we need to have as Christians. You get like these clickbait sermons of these pastors for these churches, these megachurches, and some of them are very uh persistent on the point that Jesus was an absolute rebel, like he was so rebellious and he was, you know, almost like borderline, like bad, like he broke all the rules, and he and that like might sound appealing to us sometimes because it's a little bit different in the common narrative, but I think we can get too far from the point in realizing, like, well, Christ establishes a lot of guidelines, commandments, covenants for us to enter into with him that bring order amidst chaos in our lives, that bring meaning to the meaningless things. So to sit here and say, like, Christ just wants you to break all the rules is not, is, is, that's just not a good assessment of the point of Christianity and the point of living the gospel. Did Christ break rules? Did he break the mold of a lot of cultural representation at the time that had been passed on, passed on through Jewish tradition? Yes, definitely. Were the Pharisees and the scribes and the Sadducees holding on to older, outdated models of living and laws that just really didn't apply anymore? Yes. And did he just tell people they needed to break those with no reason? No. But when he would heal on the Sabbath, which was a broken law now, which was something that was punishable by Jewish law and tradition, he he is able to explain it in such a way where we read it now and go, well, he's Jesus, like of course, but the cultural meaning at the time of that was very rebellious. But to sit here today and like lean into the idea that we need to rebel always in the cultures we're in is not the point. Because what Christ did is he instituted new laws, new ways to govern our behavior as followers of his that were just higher than what the world was currently doing. Not that we are better than, but higher, more challenging, more unnatural to our nature. So being counter-cultural is important to a degree without becoming an absolute rebel to like basic laws of society and human nature. So in a world that very much pushes a lot of conformity in some ways, it is important to stand up for what you believe in as a Christian. And a emotional story I can share that is something where I felt called, like I felt the spirit pressing upon my heart to act different. I'm sad to admit it took me a long time. But there was an instance within my church, my local church here, where my best friend and this person that he served in a same, they served in the same area within our church service. So they both worked together a lot and they were on paper really close. They worked together a lot, they served people a lot together. Well, what happened was there was a girl that both parties were interested in, my best friend and this guy, and this guy proceeded to lie and go behind my best friend's back, who was courting this girl. They were going on dates and talking, and um there was just a lot of messy things that were done, and so my best friend and myself and our group of friends all felt the need to kind of shun this guy for doing that to our friend. Now, is that a fair emotion? I I do think so. I think that's fair to feel like defensive over our friend's situation, he was done dirty, and who does that? That's you know, where's the where's his integrity? You know, he says you're a friend and yet he's backstabbing you, right? Those are all natural feelings. Well, I mean, to be completely honest, we did like we shun the guy, like we just didn't give him the time of day, we stopped like hanging out with him, we stopped acknowledging him, and often this was like at church, at the very place where nothing like that should exist, but the greater principle of like you did our friend dirty, so we're gonna let you know it, we're gonna make it known, and uh, you know, if people ask us why, well, it should be obvious why we don't talk to you anymore. Well, fast forward like over a year to like a month ago or so, and I still see this guy, and to be honest, like that is water under the bridge. That girl ended up marrying somebody else completely. She's married now. So I've talked to this man multiple times since, and I've felt fine, and I don't treat him that way anymore, I haven't for a long time, but I never like reconciled that, and he definitely noticed that we had treated him poorly, like we made it known, and so about a month ago, he was just on my mind one day, and I just felt like you know, you need to reach out to him. I just didn't, and then a few days later, the same thing, then a few days later the same thing. So finally I did because I I just I kept seeing him around, and like to be honest, like I can't say I really felt those emotions anymore towards him. It was so long ago, but like I never reconciled it, and I still like sinned against him, like I still participated in a behavior that was very unchrist-like, however deserved it may or may not have been. I think that's again that defeats the whole purpose, and nobody deserves that. Like, that's what Christ would teach is like you be above that, like rise above that and just lead with love, like pure love for everybody. Very hard to do. So I reached out to this person, sent him a text, was very open, and it wasn't in like a oh, like I need you to forgive me. It was just like a hey, like, man, I tr I treated you bad, and I just want you to know like you didn't deserve that, and I'm sorry, and like really mean that, and I hope I hope that we can remain cordial and um like I just I I I need you to know how sorry I am, and that was uncalled for. And very graciously he forgave me and literally just brushed it off and said, Don't worry about it, and saw him today, and whatever. So that's just been interesting to me. That's an example of like that's nobody would expect me or my friends to like do anything but what we did. Like it again on paper in the world that we live in, that was a very justified reaction. Um, you know, cut out those people. There's some things that are just bigger than whatever feelings we may have. And how much better would it have been to just from the beginning treat that guy with love and just not even change course of my love towards somebody else that I'm close or not close with? Like that's that's the ultimate Christ-like love, and something Christ would have preferred happen than what did happen. So that was just a quick example. But why are we called to be different? Well, there's a scripture I want to read in Romans chapter 12, if I can pull it up here. And I think the main reason why um this is important is because the world is going a direction. Like very clearly. We we can all see that. In Romans 12, verse 2 it says, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Yeah, that's good. That's good. So don't conform to the world, be transformed by renewing your mind to the will of God is the message. Well, that's cool. Uh that's really good. Well, how do we do that? Well, again, when we study and like draw close to Christ, we realize like Jesus was radically different than everyone around him. Just the way he did, the way he spoke to people, the way he listened. You know, a lot of like what Jesus did wasn't so much in what he did, it's what he didn't do. It's what he wasn't partaking in. It's which circles he chose not to engage in and which ones he did. It's the things he didn't say but could have said. And in that we can learn a lot about how different Jesus was. And he he wanted his followers to be different, to stand out, to be a light, to be a beacon, to be a peculiar people, people that, oh man, that person's like operating in a different realm because of their principles, their beliefs. That's the point. That's the point is to stand out, not by boasting, not by pride, but to stand out because of the rules, the principles that you abide by. You ever meet somebody that's just full of integrity, that just has the incapability to tell a lie, and you can look them in the eye and you know what they're saying is true, boom, that's it. That's true Christianity. You don't have to be a Christian to have integrity, but even the more so, right? And so there's a lot of areas that we can stand out in in our values and morals. So, first and foremost, with chastity, with sex, with immorality these days. We need to be different, we need to act different, we need not to indulge in in lust and pornography, in immorality, in infidelity. Leave that all behind. Don't engage, don't brush off. You know, we have all these like modern dating shows that are just full of like basically softcore pornography. Oh, and it's you know, it's cute to watch as a couple, but we're just feeding into. I mean, this is now I'm getting into like personal beliefs, but like that's very worldly. It's very worldly, and these shows promote infidelity. The whole point of a lot of them is to like cheat and lie and like manipulate horrible, horrible basis for any relationship is to watch other people destroy relationships. Um, I get a lot of people are like, well, we we watch it because it's like fun to make fun of. Like, okay, I get it, I get it. I know that's not like you're not watching it because you're like taking notes. I I understand that, but it's still probably not the best use of time. Personal opinion. We need to stand up with money. How are we stewards over our money? Another personal opinion: the modern like betting, sports betting, gambling, rampant. These multi, multi-billion dollar companies that ads, prize picks come across your screen. It's it's rough. We need to be better stewards of our money, we need to save against hard times, we need to realize there's no quick uh get rich, quick schemes and be really good stewards over our money. Entertainment. I just kind of spoke to entertainment, but if you support modern entertainment, a lot of it promotes ungodly virtues. Which is it a virtue if it's ungodly? Probably not. Um, honesty, I spoke about that already. We need to stand out in how we treat people, and what I wrote down was forgiveness, the story I shared, kindness to enemies, story I shared. I wouldn't call that guy an enemy, but maybe he would have felt like he was an enemy to me based on how I treated him, and then generosity. My roommate said something recently about like looking outside of ourselves and looking for an opportunity every day to to help somebody else. And it's funny, if I remember in the morning to pray to give me an opportunity to just serve somebody else, I get that opportunity every single time. And I can tell you if you, but just trust me, it happens. I the other day I said a prayer to help somebody out, and I had to do this hunter's education field day training, and somebody needed a ride. You know, a 30-minute ride. He had ridden a scooter to the class for a couple hours, I think, and was able to give this man a ride. That was an opportunity that presented itself, and I think because I considered it in the morning, it worked out. And again, not that that was like that didn't take a lot for me. I was already going that way, but just opportunity presented itself. We need to stand out in our priorities, our careers. Having a prioritized career is not wrong until it distracts from more important things family, relationships, God, most importantly. But in your career, how do you act? Do you gossip in your career? Do you feed into all the stuff that happens in corporate America? Do you try to put others down to get ahead? That's not what Christ would do. Don't do that. Success. How do we define success as Christians? I want to make that an episode for another day, but it's important that we don't let temporal blessings that are already given to us from God become the barometer of what our success is. Success is nothing else other than how much of God's presence is in your life. That's our prize, that's our provision as saints. Is do we have his presence? That's being successful in our spiritual journey. And our time. Are we good stewards of our time and do we give God a portion of our day so that he can maximize the rest of it? That's very important. And then most importantly, just our daily speech, our daily behavior. Are we taking the Lord's name in vain? Are we swearing? Do we use vulgar language? Do we use degrading language? Language that is crass and crude and foul? Do we talk poorly of the opposite gender? Do we you know what I mean? Like it can just get very nasty. We meet people who just like what they spew out of their mouth is just like it's gross. It's like I gotta take a shower after you talk to me because you're just nasty, like the things you say and even think. And we've probably been in various ways of that, but the point is better over time. So your behavior, both in person, both online. Who are you online? Do you stand out online as being a Christian, or if somebody were to view your profile, make a judgment? Because that's what we all do. Oh, yeah. Saturday night, you were just absolutely getting lit and wasted, and now you're at church on Sunday. Good. Good that you're at church on Sunday. But is this the pattern where you pretend to be something you're not? And I just think the more we do this and can do it together as a community, the more people we affect. And like, you want to talk about changing the world. It starts with your circle, your three-foot circle, your family, your household, your brothers, your sisters, your children, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your husband, your wife, your friends, and then your coworkers, then your community. But it starts when we kind of all bond together and let people know there's a better way to live, and then invite them to try out this way of living, which is the straight and narrow path that Christ suggests and offers us. And so the invitation this week is where during your week is God asking you to dare to be different, to like be bold and be different and let it be known, not in a prideful way, but in a confident way, because you know that doing that is drawing you nearer to Christ. Because the truth is, like, the world, the world just doesn't need more Christians who conform to its standards. We need people who look and act and behave like Jesus Christ to change the world. Um, you know, that's the whole whole point is dare to be different, dare to stand alone, dare to be alone if you're the only one. You know, if you're there's like those social experiments where they ask people like a question in a room, but they have actors, and all the actors like say the opposite of what the one person would say, and does that one person conform? Or do they do they raise their hand? You know, in a room of 50 people and 49 of them are actors and you don't know that, and they say, Who here is a Christian? And all 49 don't raise their hand, and you raise your hand, well, do you raise your hand? I don't know. Something to think about. Thanks for listening today. Please go out in your week and dare to be different. Dare to find a way to stand out. Do not let the building you attend, do not let the portion of your week that you give to Christ be the bushel you hide in, and then leave that Christianity there and not take it with you as you go. Talk to you next week.