You’re Different

1 Pet 2:4-12

Being different is hard for most of us. It’s even more so for teenagers. Teens are the quintessential conformity group. They look alike, dress alike, listen to the same music, speak the same talk. They do all this in a effort NOT to stand out as they figure out who they are in our society.

I got a kick out of the last fad this spring. You know the fad of baggy pants and really big bell bottoms. I was in Walmart and there were 3 teenagers looking over some items in the store. No big deal, but what caught my attention was when they needed to move to the next place. They couldn’t simply walk over there. No way, they would trip over several folds of fabric caught around their feet. They had to literally hike up their pants, go to the spot they wanted to go to next and then drop the pants again. They did this in unison! Now, I’m all for fashion, but sometimes people step into stupidity to fit in with those around us.

Beyond fashion though, man still doesn’t like to stick out. We like everyone to look like us for the most part, skin color, dress habits, social class. We flock to our own groups, so we don’t stick out.

God goes and messes up that well laid out plan with this text. READ vs 11-12

PRAYER

I. Living Stones

A. Why we’re different

1. Peter begins this section of his letter of WHY should be different.

2. We are different, because Christ himself was different.

3. By the very nature of who he was, people saw him as an outsider.

4. He was too holy to fit in with the world.

5. If we are living like we should be, we should be too holy to fit in with the world.

B. THE Living Stone

1. Now I’ve had people want to stone me. I’ve had people wonder if I was stoned, but as far as I know, no one has ever called me a living stone.

2. Yet that is what Jesus is referred to and what we are referred to.

3. So what does that mean?

4. To understand this passage you need to remember this letter was written to Jews that had been scattered from Jerusalem during times of persecution.

5. They understood that Peter was talking about more than building a house. They would have made a connection to the temple. The religious and national center of the Jews.

6. Jesus is the cornerstone that was rejected by men

a) Cornerstone is a stone that all the rest of a building is hinged on.

b) The Jews and the temple both revolved around their relationship with God and the coming of the Messiah.

c) When Jesus finally came, they rejected him because they were looking for something different.

d) By rejecting the cornerstone, they had condemned their spiritual building.

C. living stones

1. Just as he was the living corner stone chosen by God, we are living stones chosen by Christ.

2. Our role as Christians is to emulate Jesus and his teachings.

3. We are the stones to finish the spiritual house building on the perfection of the Chief cornerstone.

II. Much More Than Stones

A. Chosen people

1. Peter tells us we are even more than living stones.

2. We are a chosen people.

3. Often parents of adopted children tell the child how special they were to them by saying, of all the children we could have had, we chose you.

4. That statement means so much to a child who isn’t sure he belongs or matters to people.

5. It should matte to a people who realize they don’t belong in the world any more.

B. Royal Priesthood

1. We are the spiritual servants of a King

2. More precisely, we are spiritual servants of THE king!

C. Holy Nation

1. As a people of God we have been redeemed and made holy.

2. We aren’t a nation bound by physical boundaries.

3. Wherever we encounter fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, we encounter fellow countrymen.

4. We need to Remember we are Christians first, and Americans second!

D. A people belonging to God

1. Just in case you weren’t sure who your redeemer is.

2. Just in case you missed the part on who Chose you.

3. Just in case you have any doubt that you matter.

4. Remember you belong to God.

III. That’s Why We’re Different

A. All that good has a downside

1. We usually think of being different in a negative sense.

2. There is good different and there is bad different.

3. Inga talked about how the kids in Kenya wanted to touch her and look at her skin. As a white, American she really was different in a black African country. And, guess what, she’s probably glad she is different. Not because of her skin color, but because as an American her life is so much better than those who lived in the slums of Nairobi. Every night that she lays her head down on a soft clean pillow in a comfortable home, she relishes that she isn’t just like those poor children in Kenya.

4. That’s how we are different.

5. We don’t fit in with the world around us.

6. They are dying, lost with no hope, spiritually poverty stricken, and don’t even know how bad they have it.

7. We are in their world, but are different because spiritually, we have it so much better than they do.

8. We are aliens and strangers in the world.

B. Why give that up?

1. Yet, just as we recognize the fact that we are so much better off spiritually than the world, we need to recognize that too many are willing to give all that up to be like the world.

2. Sin has such a powerful allure to us, that it is a constant battle not to throw everything away and give into our sinful desire.

3. In our hearts, part of us wants to be just like the world.

4. There is a major war going on in our lives for our very souls.

5. No war in the history of man can match the war between God and Satan for our souls.

6. What is so confusing is that we know what the outcome is going to be and still flirt with siding with Satan.

C. Rise above it.

1. We need to rise above the world and its sinful desires.

2. Rick Graham drove around the streets of San Francisco for more than an hour to find the lady who had left her purse with $1792 in cash on the back seat of his cab. I like what he said when some of the other drivers ridiculed him for not pocketing the money. "I am a card-carrying member of the Christian faith, and what good is it to go to church if you don't practice what you preach?"

3. Adams Co. church had an interesting story in their report this month. They talked about how they had 48 community children come to their V.B.S. a couple of weeks ago. By far, the biggest success they have had so far. Why? Well, with the floods last month the church organized and distributed 3 truckload of relief supplies from the disaster relief center run by members of the church. And the week before the VBS, 24 teens from Texas went and cleaned up 3 parks, and several homes that still had flood damage. After a couple of years of trying so many different way of reaching the community, the one thing that paid off the best was helping people in their need. Practicing Christianity as well as preaching it.

4. Will the world around us glorify God because of our good works?

5. Can we raise to the challenge Peter put before these disciples and us?