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Are we really to go against the grain of the culture?

As a pastor my heart breaks, first for the world that is increasingly lost and second for a church that has lost its direction. When I look at where the world is I can’t help but feel broken. People have rejected God and have pursued every pleasure that this world has to offer. They rationalize their sins and think that pursuing whatever their hearts desire will eventually lead them to peace and fulfillment. And yet the more people pursue their hearts desires the emptier they feel. We are seeing the results of that as we are seeing a mental health pandemic. More people are depressed and anxious then ever and we are seeing the highest rates of suicide that we have ever seen. My heart breaks for people, especially young people who are trying to figure these things out when the answers are so obscure, and the pressure is so great. The more freedom from God and the law of God we have taken the less we know and the more we struggle to make sense of ourselves and our world around us. Now I’m not shocked when the world does worldly things. They don’t know God and so what do we expect from them? To be like us? That’s an unreasonable assumption. No, I’m not shocked when the world acts worldly, but I am shocked when Christians do, and we have now entered a phase in church history where we are rapidly adopting ungodly ideas and lifestyles and ignoring the pursuit of holiness to which we have been called. When the church becomes like the world the church has become useless both to itself and to the world. Unfortunately, the church is conforming to the world not Christ and if we are not careful, we run the risk of being so deceived that we will believe that we are Christians only to find out that we are not. We will believe that we are saved only to find out that we are in fact condemned. We have not been saved only for us to continue to pursue the same sin, ideologies, lifestyles, etc… from which we were saved. The unfortunate truth is that following Christ is not convenient as far as fitting in with the world around you. When you are saved you are saved and now you swim upstream you go against the grain simply because you no longer are like everyone else.

In this Sermon

We are going to look at five specific ways that the church should be different than the world and how it is not an option but a way of life for the church.

Scripture References

Matthew 5:13, Romans 12:2, 1 John 4:5-6, 1 John 5:19, 1 John 2:15-17, 1 Peter 2:11

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