How Different Should a Christian Be?

The text for that particular song and for our message tonight is 1 Peter 2 verses 1-10. You have just sung what these verses state. Wherefore, laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes desire the unadulterated milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby, if so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious.

To whom coming as unto a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious, ye also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, and holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious, and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore who believe he is precious, but unto them who are disobedient, the stone which the builders rejected, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense, even to them who stumble at the word, being disobedient, whereunto also they were appointed.

But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, and holy nation, a people of his own possession, that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy. In the New Testament there is no such thing as an isolated Christian, because in the New Testament each believer is related not only to God but to each other. In the first chapter of 1 Peter, Peter has been talking about individual Christians, what happened to the individual believer.

But now he tells us how we relate to each other. If there is one weakness of our evangelical movement in the last 50 years, it has been to so individualize the spiritual life that people have not only neglected the church, they have opposed the church. And this is not biblical.

In fact, in these verses that we read, Peter is very careful to present to us some pictures of the church. He talks about the church being a family. We are newborn babes in a family.

If a baby is not in a family, who is going to take care of the baby? And then he talks about a temple, and we are stones in that temple. He talks about a priesthood. He talks also about a nation.

And so he says to me, you are a babe in the family, a child in the family, you are a living stone in the temple, you are a priest at the altar, you are a citizen of a holy nation. And in each of these pictures, you have things coming together. Babies cannot be raised in isolation.

Temples cannot be built out of one stone. A priest must have other priests assisting him. A nation is made up of many citizens.

And so the emphasis in 1 Peter chapter 2, verses 1 through 10, is the relationship of believers to one another. And we don't hear much about that today. We meet people, are you saved? Oh, yes, I'm saved.

Good. What church are you a part of? Well, I don't believe in... Oh, you don't? You believe in the New Testament? Oh, yeah. You don't believe in being a part of a fellowship where you worship God and serve God and encourage one another? Well, all the churches are fully hypocrites.

Well, there's room for one more, come on in. Where would you be, where would I be without a local church? Now there are organizations today that think they can get along without the local church until they have a fun drive. Then all of a sudden they discover the local church and write letters to all the members begging for money.

The New Testament emphasis is on the fact that we belong to one another. Now, if we belong to one another, if we're a part of this thing called the church, it means also that we do not belong to the world. We cannot both be in the church living for the Lord and in the world living for ourselves.

And in these verses, the Apostle Peter is putting a great gulf spiritually between the unsaved masses in the world and the saved people in the church. That's what I want to talk about tonight. In these pictures that he gives to us, the Apostle Peter is pointing out the differences that exist between believers and unbelievers.

Now in many places today you don't see much difference. Someone says, oh yes, I'm born again, I've experienced the new birth, but his life is no different from that of his unsaved neighbor. In fact, there is a philosophy abroad today among Christians that says, don't be too different.

After all, if you're going to win your neighbors, you have to do what your neighbors do. Now, there are some things my neighbors do that I do. We mow our lawn and we try to keep our house looking decent and we don't play loud music at night and we appreciate the fact that our neighbors do the same thing.

But whether you like it or not, whether I like it or not, there is a great difference between the unbeliever out in the world and the believer in Jesus Christ who's in the church. In fact, he points out four fundamental differences. Now would you notice them please? And perhaps the thing for me to do and the thing for you to do is to take inventory tonight and find out whether or not we really are a different people.

Verses 1, 2, and 3, we have a different appetite. As newborn babes desire the unadulterated milk of the word. Every person, saved or unsaved, has inner appetites.

The psychologists tell us that we have basic desires down inside and these basic desires pretty well govern our lives. We have a desire for security, a desire for acceptance, a desire for achievement, things like this. There are basic appetites down inside.

For every sense of the outer man, there's a sense of the inner man. There is an inner man, there is an outer man. Now the unsaved man has an inner man who's dead, spiritually dead.

He has no life of God. But as far as sin is concerned, he's very much alive. The inner man has a desire for food.

The inner man has a desire for power. The inner man has a desire for achievement, acceptance. Now when you and I were lost, our inner appetite was for sin.

We may not have been as immoral as the person up the road. We may have been moral enough to stay out of jail. But deep in our innermost being, we had an appetite for that which was wrong.

In fact, Peter talks about this over in the fourth chapter of his letter. Verses, well, actually one through four, but I'll read three and four. For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought the will of the Gentiles, that means the unsaved, when we walked in lasciviousness, that means dirty appetites, lusts, excess of wine, revelings, carousings, abominable idolatries, in which they, the unsaved, think it strange that ye run not with them to the same overflowing of evil.

And they speak evil of you. They say, you know, those neighbors of ours went to a church service, they got saved or something. They're crazy.

They're strange. There's some things they just don't do anymore. Of course, because we've been given a brand new nature.

You see, wherefore, in chapter two, verse one, takes us back to chapter one, verses 23 to 25, being born again, having received a new nature, not the old nature of flesh, but the new nature of spirit. And since we have the new nature, we're like newborn babes. Newborn babes have an insatiable appetite for milk.

Now, when Peter talks about milk, he's not contrasting milk and meat like Paul does over in first Corinthians three, or the way the writer does in Hebrews five. He's only talking about food. If the newborn babe did not have an appetite for food, it would die.

And Peter is exhorting us. He's saying, all right, you're born again. You have a brand new nature.

Now, nature determines appetite. If you have the nature of a frog, you have an appetite for spiders and flies and all sorts of vermin. If you have an appetite, if you have the nature of a cat, you have an appetite for mice, and birds and things that cats go after.

Never saw a cow chasing down a mouse. Nature determines appetite. I have been able to control my desires for mosquitoes.

If you saw me sitting on this platform with my tongue darting out, you'd say that pastor needs help. Nature determines appetite. Now, if you have an old nature, you have an appetite for the garbage and sewage and filth of the world.

If you have a new nature, you have an appetite for the word of God. And this new birth determines this appetite. As newborn babes desire, and the word desire means an earnest desire, a real appetite for the pure milk, the unadulterated milk of the word.

I think I've already told you in a previous message that my father worked for Borden Dairy for over 30 years, and I hated to drink milk. I was the black sheep of the family. My brothers would come home from work or from playing baseball or something, and I've seen them take out a quart of milk and just down the quart of milk.

I got sick watching them. And so my mother tried everything she could find to mix with the milk to make it palatable. Ovaltine, and Horlicks malted milk, and chocolate syrup, and Bosco.

And when she brought Bosco home, I thought it was a dog food when she came in with it. And you know, I never learned to like milk in spite of all those additives. I know churches where they don't want the pure milk of the word of God.

They got to have the milk of the word of God plus. You got to mix it with something. Like the Jews in the Old Testament.

God sent manna down from heaven, and after a while they got sick of the manna. And so they ground it up and tried to make biscuits out of it, and they baked it and tried to make something else out of it, trying to improve it. You can't improve God's nourishment.

When I'm out in pastor's conferences, I keep warning the pastors, brethren, when you create an appetite, you've got to feed it. If in your church you create an appetite for entertainment, you got to feed it. Whatever appetite you create in your children, you've got to feed it.

If you raise your children on candy, you've got to feed them candy. They won't want decent food. And unfortunately, all across this country, we have a regular rage of religious entertainment.

And the saints of God pick up the Saturday newspaper, just like the unsaved people do. The unsaved turn to the entertainment section and say, what's playing tonight? The saved people turn to the church section and say, what's going on in this church? Oh, they're having this, they're having that. And we have a whole rash of evangelical entertainers.

And a Bible teacher comes along simply to teach the word of God and the saints stay home. A sword swallower comes and they come packing the place out. I can just imagine Paul in his itinerant ministry in the Roman world, writing to Timothy and giving him a long list of religious entertainers.

Have you had Demetrius with his talking horse? Now it's sad. In fact, we have a whole generation of people coming along who don't even know what it is to be fed the word of God. Now, we are different from the world because we have a different appetite.

The world thinks we're crazy because we sit down with the word of God. We don't have to have foolish, inane, asinine, sometimes plain, ordinary, vile entertainment. If some future archaeologist digs up the remains of Chicago, he's going to find people sitting, skeletons sitting, staring at a box.

And he's going to say, it must be some religious ritual. Here are all these people sitting, staring at this box. We have a different appetite.

Now, Peter tells us you can ruin your appetite. When our kids were little and had the run of a neighborhood, we could always tell when they had been freeloading at somebody's house. We'd go out and call the kids home.

They'd come home, and my wife would have a lovely dinner sitting there, and we'd have prayer, and the kids would sit and look. Why aren't you eating? I don't feel good. What do you mean you don't feel good? Well, I was over here.

What did you have? Ice cream. Would you have cookies? Would you have candy? Peter is saying in verse 1 that if you and I don't get rid of the sinful substitutes in our lives, we won't enjoy the Bible. Look at them.

Malice, that means carrying grudges down inside. Christians, sure. In moody church, sure.

There's some saint here tonight who's not really enjoying the Word of God because you've got something in your heart against somebody else, and that's robbing you of your spiritual appetite. Malice, guile, that means hypocrisy, and he talks about hypocrisies. Envies.

Why should he be the leader and I'm not the leader? Why should she get the recognition and I don't get the recognition? You say those are such minor sins. He doesn't say adultery, bank robbery, murder. No.

These are sins in good standing. These are sins of the Spirit, evil speaking. You find saints who get together and backbite and criticize and tell lies about other people.

They haven't got any appetite for the Word of God, and they come to church and sit and criticize that. And the problem is not with the preacher, and the problem is not with the choir. The problem is with their own heart.

Their appetite has been ruined by sin. I don't know about you, but I've discovered in my life there's some things I can't watch on television. It robs me of my appetite for the Word of God.

Some music I can't listen to. It ruins my appetite for the Word of God. Some places I can't go.

It just wrecks my appetite. Some books I just can't read. Maybe someday I'll be able to, but it just wrecks my appetite for the Word of God.

And I would rather have my appetite for the Word of God than anything else. We are different because we have a different appetite. Now he moves on in verse 4 and in verses 6 through 8, and he says we have a different affection.

We have an affection for Jesus Christ who is precious to us. Did you notice that word precious? Strange word coming from a fisherman. To whom coming as unto a living stone, rejected indeed of men, but chosen of God and precious.

Verse 6, I lay in Zion a chief cornerstone, elect precious. Verse 7, unto you therefore who believe he is precious. We have a different affection.

The world loves itself. John said love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. What does the world love? The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life.

What does the believer love? The believer loves Jesus Christ. He says here when Jesus was here on earth, he came as God's stone. And the stone was rejected by the spiritual leaders of Israel, but not rejected by God.

And most of the people in the world today don't think twice about Jesus Christ. He's not precious to them. Actually, what he says here in verse 7, unto you therefore who believe he is the preciousness.

That's what he's saying. You know, if you say to your wife, oh you are sweet, she'll love you. But if you look at her and say, you know, you aren't just sweet, you're sweetness.

Oh, she'll hit the ceiling, bounce down, float around for a while. You see, sweetness makes things sweet. Goodness makes things good.

Preciousness makes things precious. And everything that is important and valuable to us is so because we love Jesus Christ. We have a new affection.

For example, just trace this word precious right through 1 and 2 Peter. Chapter 1 verse 7, that the trial of your faith being much more precious. Now, how can trials be precious? If you know Jesus Christ, the preciousness trials become precious.

And the trying of our faith is something that refines us, not ruins us. Chapter 1 verse 19, you have been redeemed with the precious blood. Now, nobody talks about precious blood.

We don't talk about the blood of our loved ones who died. We try to forget those things. We don't try to remember death.

We try to remember life. But with Jesus, the blood is precious. Why? He's the preciousness of it.

And if you love Jesus Christ, you have no problem singing about the blood of Jesus Christ. If you love Jesus Christ, you have no problem coming to the Lord's table where we commemorate the broken body, the shed blood of Jesus Christ. If we love Jesus Christ, we have no problem with baptism, which speaks of his death, burial, and resurrection, the shedding of his blood.

And so trials are precious because he's the preciousness. And the blood is precious because he's the preciousness. Over in 2 Peter, chapter 1, to them, verse 1, that have obtained like precious faith.

The faith is precious. Now, I doubt that I would ever walk into a library, pull down Marx's Das Kapital, and say, oh, this is precious. Because it isn't.

But the faith that we have, this wonderful faith, it's precious. Why? Jesus is the preciousness of it. Why is this faith precious? He makes it precious to us.

We're believing in him. Over in 2 Peter, chapter 1, verse 4, by which are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises. Why is the word of God precious? Because he's the preciousness of it.

Now, the world looks at the blood and says, you Christians are crazy. The unsaved person looks at trials, and here we are rejoicing in tribulation. They say, you're crazy.

Sure, we're crazy to them. But actually, we're just different. We're different because we have a different affection.

Jesus Christ is precious to us. Now, because he is precious to us, he's made us precious to him. We are living stones.

There was a time when I was a dead stone in the quarry of sin, dead, buried. And one day, Jesus Christ, the great builder, came, and he quarried me out of that pit of sin. He brought me up also out of a horrible pit, out of the miry clay.

And he set my feet upon the rock. He made me a living stone and put me into his temple. You see, the beautiful thing about Christians is simply this.

As living stones in the temple, we are involved in building, not tearing down. The world is busy tearing down. What's the world building? Tombs? Trash heaps? Oh, the world's building such lovely things.

They aren't going to last. You and I, as living stones, are involved in a growing, living temple, Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone, and he makes us precious because he is the preciousness. I'd rather go through life building, building, building, than doing what the crowd is doing, tearing down.

The unsaved crowd today is tearing down our homes, tearing down society. You hate to look at the front page of the morning paper. You wonder which of your neighbors has been stabbed or shot.

And yet, we as Christians, we have a different affection. We don't love ourselves. We don't love sin.

We love Jesus Christ. He's the preciousness, and we're a part of this growing temple. Therefore, we're not ashamed.

He quotes here from Isaiah chapter 28 and verse 16. He that believeth on him shall not be confounded or ashamed. Oh, you say, sometimes I'm ashamed to be a Christian.

Don't be ashamed. You're a living stone. They're dead.

You're being built into a temple. They're rejected. You're in his marvelous light.

They're in the darkness. What's there to be ashamed of? He is precious. And so, we have a different appetite, and we have a different affection, but it goes deeper now.

Not only are we children in the family with a different appetite and stones in the temple with a different affection, but in verse 5, I read that we are priests at the altar with a different ambition. Now, what is our ambition? To be acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. What's the ambition of the world? Get, get, get.

What's the ambition of the Christian? Give, give sacrifices. Ye also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house. And in this house, you have to have a priesthood, a holy priesthood.

What's this priesthood do? Offer up spiritual sacrifices. For what purpose? Acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. We could spend a lot of time talking about what it means to be a priest.

In the Old Testament, Moses took his brother Aaron, his brother's sons, and he made them priests. You know how he did it? First, he chose them. That's grace.

God said, I want the people of Levi to be the priests. That's grace. Chosen.

Then he cleansed them. They were washed from head to foot. Then he clothed them.

He put the garments upon them. Then he consecrated them with the oil. He put the oil on them to anoint them.

Now, you and I, as God's priests, have been chosen. He talked about that back in chapter 1, verse 2. Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Chosen by God's grace.

Cleansed. We have been washed, not just in water, we have been washed by the blood of Jesus Christ unto him who loves us and washed us from our sins in his own blood. Then he clothed us in his own righteousness.

And then he anointed us with his Holy Spirit. But he went one step further. In the Old Testament, they put a turban upon the head of the priest.

And at the front of the high priest's turban was kind of a golden crown that said, holiness unto the Lord. But that priest never had a throne. When God saved you and made you a priest, he not only chose you and cleansed you and clothed you and anointed you, he crowned you.

He made you a royal priest. Not just a holy priest, a royal priest. We reign as Melchizedek, king and priest.

Now, we are priests at the altar. What is the purpose of a priest? A priest offers sacrifices. Do you know why God saved us? To offer sacrifices.

The unsaved world is different from us. They're out to get all they can get. The priest is out to give all he can give.

Peter is saying a remarkable thing here. He's saying all of our life is a priesthood. All of life is worship.

All of the world is God's temple. Any place you are can be an altar. And we should give spiritual sacrifices to the Lord.

Now, it sure changes your view of the Christian life. Wake up tomorrow morning and say, well, here I am, a king and a priest. How marvelous.

I'm reigning through Jesus Christ. And I want to today be acceptable to God. My ambition today is to please Him.

I'm not going to go through this day grasping and getting and stepping on this one. I'm going to go through life this day serving. I'm a priest at the altar.

And everything I do is worship and service to God. That's a beautiful way to live. It helps you control your tongue.

Helps to control hands and feet. The way we spend money. Did you ever go through your Bible and mark the spiritual sacrifices we're supposed to present? You ought to do it sometime.

Begin with Romans 12, 1. Present your body a living sacrifice. Every morning the priest came down to the altar, cleared off the dead old ashes, put a fresh fire on the altar, and laid a burnt offering there and offered it up to God. Wholly dedicated to God.

Did you do that this morning? Did you get up and say, Lord, I want to give you my first spiritual sacrifice of the day. Here's my body. Take it.

Take my body. Romans chapter 15 verse 16 has an interesting statement. I want you to turn there.

Romans chapter 15 and verse 16. That I should be the minister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, says Paul, ministering the gospel of God that the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit. Talking about soul winning.

Oh, this puts soul winning into a whole different light. Paul wasn't out with a hatchet trying to chop as many as he could. Paul looked upon winning souls as offering a sacrifice to God.

That certainly dignifies evangelism. And so we offer our bodies to God. We offer to him those that we've won to Jesus Christ.

How about Philippians chapter 4 and verse 18? Here's another spiritual sacrifice. The offerings that we bring to God, the way we use our money. But I have all, I abound, I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odor of a sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well-pleasing to God.

This governs the way we spend our money, the way we use our automobile, our time, the material things of life. Someone says, no, I can't do that. Why not? I'm a priest.

No priest would ever put that on the altar. And so there's some things we just don't do with our money because we can't lay it on the altar and give it to God. Everything that we do is a sacrifice to him.

Hebrews chapter 13, he talks about another spiritual sacrifice. Verse 15, by him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise. That is the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to God.

Did you ever stop to think that when we're singing as a congregation, we're offering a sacrifice to God? I wonder if we're offering our best sacrifice. Now you may not be able to sing as well as other people. That doesn't make any difference.

The Lord just wants the sacrifice from our lips. Just saying thanks to him. God does some good thing.

God blesses you. You just stop and say, thank you, Lord. You're wonderful and gracious and precious.

That's a priest offering a sacrifice to God. How about verse 16 of Hebrews 13, but to do good and to share, forget not. For with such sacrifice as God is well pleased.

Just doing good. Helping your neighbor with his shopping. Helping some sick person with some problem.

Just doing good. It says of the Lord Jesus, he went about doing good. Some people go about doing nothing.

Some people go about doing evil. Christians go about doing good. That's a sacrifice to God.

Now nobody knows about it. Nobody saw you take that person to the doctor and wait for an hour. God saw it and God accepted that as a spiritual sacrifice.

Psalm 51 verse 17, David said, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart thou wilt not despise, O Lord. Just a broken heart. Repentance presented to God.

You see, we have as Christians, a different ambition. We don't go through life ambitious to promote ourselves. We don't go through life ambitious to protect and get all we can get.

We go through life trying to be acceptable to God. How are we acceptable to God? Presenting to him spiritual sacrifices. And the joyful thing is this, the more we worship the Lord in sacrifice, spontaneously, not computerized, spontaneously, the more joy comes to our hearts.

We are priests at the altar. We're different from the world because we have a different ambition. Then he closes this section in verses 9 and 10, telling us that we not only have a different appetite, we want the word of God, and we have a different affection.

Jesus is precious to us and anything that touches Jesus is precious to us. And we have a different ambition. We want to please God, be acceptable to him, but we have a different allegiance.

Our allegiance is to God. Now, we Christians have a dual citizenship. Our citizenship is here on earth and we should not neglect that citizenship.

In fact, Peter writes about that over in chapter 2, verse 13, Submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme or unto governors as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers. He goes on to say, Honor all men, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the king. As citizens of the United States or wherever you're from, we should be good citizens.

But our primary citizenship is in heaven. Our names are written down in heaven. Our citizenship is in heaven.

Our Lord is in heaven. We bow to heaven's king. We submit to heaven's laws.

We are citizens of God's holy nation, a chosen generation, a holy nation, a peculiar people. Now, as you know, that word peculiar does not mean weird. Some saints are peculiar, especially here in the city.

Every once in a while we'll meet some peculiar saint, odd. When a person is odd, he repels people. When he's different, he attracts people.

Christians are not supposed to be odd. There are some saints who have the idea that by being odd, they can witness. That's their privilege.

I think they're doing more harm than good. The word peculiar here simply means a people of his own possession. Now, you folks read your Old Testament.

You say, you know what? These same characteristics were said of Israel. That's right. Back in Exodus chapter 19, back in Deuteronomy chapter 7, God said to Israel, you're a holy nation.

You're a purchased people. You are a chosen generation. You are my people.

And Israel did not live up to it. Israel sinned against God. Now today, God's people, the church, we are the holy nation.

We are the chosen generation. We are the people of his own possession. God's not through with Israel.

There's a great future ahead of Israel, but right now we have a different allegiance. Our responsibility is primarily to heaven. That's why the apostle said, we must obey God rather than man.

And if the law of man contradicts the word of God, we obey the word of God. Now the world doesn't like this. The world wants us to conform.

That's why Paul wrote and said, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed. We have a different allegiance. Now, why have we been given this different allegiance? Verse 9 tells us that ye should show forth the praises, the excellencies, the virtues, the attributes of him who has called you, that's grace, out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Now you cannot glorify anybody's attributes in the dark. You have a family reunion now. Family reunions can be fun.

They can be horrible. But you have a family reunion and your Aunt Sadie says to you, oh, you ought to see your cousin. He looks just like your father.

Interesting. Where is he? He's in the closet. Yeah, he acts like my father too.

How can I see what he looks like if he's in the dark? Now Peter says, God in his mercy saved you. He called you. He changed you.

He gave you his nature. You're his child. Children are like the parents.

Now get out into the light and live like a Christian. May your allegiance be to heaven so that people can see in you the attributes of God. What is God like? Well, God's holy.

God is light. That's why he says you're a holy nation. God is love.

That's why he said back here, strive earnestly to love one another. God is gracious. Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake has forgiven you.

If the average unsaved person walked into the average church and watched what was going on, he'd never know much about what God was really like. Now, why are we in this holy nation? Why are we this peculiar purchased people? Why have we received the mercy of God that we might be exhibit A in this world, letting people know what God is like? We are to exhibit in our lives the virtues, the excellencies of God. Do we? Do we? The tragedy is that so many times we Christians are so like the world, nobody can tell the difference.

Now, I'm not talking about fashion. One of the tragedies today is that we're majoring on accidentals and we're neglecting essentials. Here at the Moody Church, we don't go around with a ruler measuring.

I'm not saying it shouldn't be done in some place. I'm just saying we don't do it. If a person's heart is right with God, his fashion will be right.

Her fashion will be right. If we're going to show forth the excellencies of the virtues of God, and that's our real ambition in life, we're going to talk right and walk right and write our checks correctly and pay our bills correctly. Everything we do is going to have stamped on it, I represent God.

Oh, this is the way God works. And so do you see what Peter is saying? He's simply saying that by nature, we Christians are different. We have a different appetite, the Word of God.

It doesn't have to be prepared with anything else, not the Word of God plus philosophy, the Word of God plus entertainment, just the Word of God unadulterated. A different appetite. Do we have that appetite? We have a different affection.

He's precious, and therefore everything about him is precious. Do we have that? We have a different ambition to be acceptable before him. We're priests.

We have a different allegiance. Be obedient to him as citizens, and the whole purpose of all of this is that he might be glorified. Christians are different.

Now, if we are not different, if we are deliberately in the world, loving the things of the world, feeding on the filth of the world, living to please ourselves and the world, disobedient to our heavenly citizenship, you know what happens? All of life goes against our nature, and when life starts going against your nature, it tears you down. You know, we go out here to Lincoln Park Lagoon, and here's the people sitting fishing. They have a lot of faith.

Sitting fishing. So you catch a fish. Now, fish belong in the water, and you say, oh, it's such a beautiful fish.

I think we ought to put it up in the tree. So you take the fish, put it up in the branch of the tree, and you've had that fish doing something contrary to its nature, and it tears it down and kills it. Here's a bird up in the tree.

That bird would probably enjoy swimming for a while, and so you take the bird, put it under the water, and give it a push, submarine style. That's it. When you live contrary to your nature, you destroy yourself, and there's no fulfillment.

There's no enjoyment. There's no growth. There's no achievement.

When we live in agreement with our nature, there's growth and fulfillment and achievement. It's just as simple as that. This explains why many Christians are unfulfilled, dissatisfied.

They're troublemakers instead of problem solvers. Just close enough to the world to get what they want from the world. They don't want to get too far away from the Lord, and they're trying to have two masters.

Can't do it. We're different from the world, and you know what, folks? The world expects us to be different. The world wants us to be different.

They aren't asking us to be like they are except to tempt us. They expect us to be different because we're Christians. That's why they crucified Jesus.

He was different, and he expects us to be different too. Gracious Father, I pray that you will help us not to be afraid to be different. For as we are different, we attract people to yourself.

Forgive us when we have been spotted by the world, conformed to the world, loving the world, friendship with the world. Oh, gracious God, forgive us when we have made provision for the flesh to feed that old nature, and we've not been living on that pure, unadulterated, nourishing word of God. I pray that you'll help us, oh Lord, to live true to this new nature you've given to us, that we might be fulfilled, that we might grow and show forth your virtues.

I pray for anyone here tonight who's never been saved, who is still a part of the world, a citizen of this earth and not a citizen of heaven. Oh God, may that one tonight trust the Savior and receive this new nature that makes everything wonderfully different, marvelously different. As we step out of darkness into your marvelous light, I pray in Jesus' name, amen.