Living as Distinct Christians in a Changing World

We are living in a time of collapse of cultural collapse of moral deterioration we are speaking here of living in an Unholy world and it does not take great spiritual perception to see that the world around us is Unholy and yet this is a unique moment moment I think when anyone with even the slightest historical perspective with even the slightest perception will realize that this is one of those turning times in history when it is not merely a set of moral issues that confronts us but an entirely new moral regime that is all around us. [00:02:41]

We are living in a time of Total Transformation Peter Ducker a keen Observer of the economic and management scene he knows the sociology of business and also the patterns of world economies he wrote several years ago that we are living in the age of social transformation and that transformation is now so comprehensive and so fastpaced that by his estimation the last half century of the 20th century involved more societal change than all the previous ages of Human Experience added together. [00:03:47]

We are aliens and strangers just as were these Gentile Christians in the first century and the word of God infallible and inherent speaks to us just as it spoke to those Christians with the same exhortation and the world that surrounded those early Christians is hauntingly like the world that surrounds us now we see a direct opposition between the world and its creator we are reminded by James in chapter 4 verse 4 do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity toward God therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy to God. [00:07:53]

The challenge before us is not just the worldliness of the world but the worldliness that has crept into the church. We must be vigilant in maintaining a distinct Christian identity, one that is not conformed to the patterns of this world but transformed by the renewing of our minds. This transformation requires a commitment to holiness, a holiness that is rooted in the character of God and not in human standards. [00:22:36]

We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession. This identity is not just a title but a call to live lives that reflect the holiness of God in a world that often rejects His truth. As a community of believers, we are called to be a holy people, living under the authority of God's Word and committed to living out the Gospel in every area of our lives. [00:32:48]

Holiness requires a Transcendent point of reference to speak biblically and authentically about Holiness we simply cannot talk about ourselves and we cannot measure what Holiness would be against a human standard there is no anthropological point of reference that we'll do the only way we can speak of Holiness is to understand the revelation of the one true and living God who who is Holy Holy Holy and thus we understand Holiness in terms of his Holiness. [00:29:37]

The world says morality is something to be negotiated it is something relative it is something that is the process of social evolution it is something that can be conformed to the image and the spirit of the age and in our huous modern human beings think the morality is something that needs to grow with us as we are growing the Christian church has to say the morality really isn't about us it's about God first of all and Morality In so far as God has set down his law and his commands and his expectations and his requirements and his standards it is not up for negotiation and we do not grow out of them we grow into them by grace. [00:40:49]

The world says to us that sin guilt and shame are to be dispensed with as oppressive and negative and unhealthy Concepts that are inhibiting the full development of the human personality we have to answer that without those words we have no diagnosis of ourselves we have no knowledge of ourselves except by sin and guilt which is a gift that we may be reminded of our need for a Sav saor and guilt which is objective and shame which is that which helps us to see and understand our guilt we're living in an age in which there is no shame and the modern world says we need to overcome shame and we authenticate the self by our shamelessness and yet we know when we sin that shame is deserved and it is to point us to forgiveness in Christ and the need for that forgiveness. [00:41:31]

We are to live holy lives unto the holy God who has chosen us Peter makes this clear in the first chapter of First Peter when he makes very clear that our status as aliens as alien Christians scattered throughout the world is according to the forn knowledge of God the Father it is by his Sovereign Grace we are first of all a chosen race but secondly we are a royal priesthood under Jesus Christ Our great high priest. [00:36:51]

We are a new ethnos a new people a nation not constituted by geography or genealogy but by the gospel and as a holy nation we are called to stand out from all other nations as holy why because we Are Holy no but because God is Holy he has chosen us redeemed us he has cleansed us of our sins and he is even now by his holy spirit sanctifying us to be his people to be a stone of stumbling for the world to be a great Enigma a question mark placed in the midst of all the nations of the world the church is to be that great question mark that causes the world to scratch its head in wonder why is it that those people would live in such a way why is it they do what they do and will not do what we want them to do a holy nation and then a people for God's own possession this is the sum of the Gospel that God has chosen a people to his own Glory bought them by the blood of his own son. [00:38:48]

The world says that good and evil are relative terms and we live in an age in which the world calls evil good and good evil and yet we must call Things by their proper names this comes down to how we live in the minutia of life this means that we must understand our marriages and our families to be the arena of God's glory displayed and in so far as we sin against God's command and in so far as we violate that Covenant and in so far as we fail to raise our children in the nurture and AD of the lord we become a scandal and the world looks to us and sees itself reflected Christians in this day are living economically by the same rules as the world we are just as susceptible to consumerism We are following the tyranny of choice we want everything we want to actualize ourselves by that which we own and that which we buy and that which we possess when the word of God warns us that it simply cannot be so we want status we want career we want ambition and all these things are to us the Temptations that the world celebrates. [00:42:30]

Living in an Unholy World means we have to keep our wits about ourselves but most importantly it means we have to come into submission to the Lord Jesus Christ into his word as a peculiar people a holy nation a royal priesthood a people for God's Own possession the why is so important here and Peter answers that in verses 11 and 12 beloved I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers they may because of your good deeds as they observe them glorify God in the day of visitation when they accuse you of being a Christian and they claim that that's subversive to the state what's going to be your answer Peter says your answer better be a holy life so that even when they condemn you as Christians they have to respect you for the way you live and they have even to admit they are forced even to admit the inherent Holiness of the way you live and thus it becomes an enigma it becomes a question mark the world is to be a sort of consternation for the world and it is to God's glory. [00:46:01]