It’s Not Easy
Be Different • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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We have been talking about how our lives as a Christian should be different. Two weeks ago, we saw how the Apostle Peter wrote this letter of 1 Peter and said this:
Last week
9 But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.
10 “Once you had no identity as a people; now you are God’s people. Once you received no mercy; now you have received God’s mercy.”
The last week we looked at his words from the first chapter:
15 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy.
There is no doubt. We are called to be different. Different from the world, and different from unbelievers. Why? Yes because that is what God desires for you, but also because he wants your difference to be shown to those who don’t believe.
12 Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world.
That’s why we should be different. To glorify God and point others to him so that they can be saved… and become different.
This morning we are going to look at words of Peter and see that being different in not easy. It is not simple. And to make a stand to be different for Christ may cost you something… and maybe even your life.
+++WHAT WE BELIEVE AS A CHURCH ABOUT THE BIBLE
+++WHAT WE BELIEVE AS A CHURCH ABOUT THE BIBLE
Open your Bibles to 1 Peter Chapter 4.
Peter has presented good reason why we who are Christians should be different. As I said, two weeks ago we were in Chapter 2, last week Chapter 1, now this week we are going to hear Peter’s final words to those Christian’s he was writing to about how and why they should be different. Next week, we will move to the words of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel. But for today, let’s finish with Peter.
14 If you are insulted because you bear the name of Christ, you will be blessed, for the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you.
15 If you suffer, however, it must not be for murder, stealing, making trouble, or prying into other people’s affairs.
16 But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by his name!
Peter told us in the first week that we should be different, right? So if he is telling those Christians in those areas to be different than the unbelievers that are around them back two thousand years ago, and we know that the Bible is true and relevant for us today, then you understand that all around you there are unbelievers. You can sit is your school and look around the classroom and there are unbelievers, maybe even sitting beside you. They may say that they are a Christian, but their lives show that they do not have a relationship with God. Even in Christian churches all across Nigeria this morning, there are many people who are singing and sitting and hearing a preacher, yet they do not have a relationship with Jesus. They may be be an unbeliever. And if they were to die today, they would be separated from him.
What is the percentage of Christians in Nigeria? What do you think? Is it 20% of Nigerians are Christian? 40%? 60% of Nigerian hold to the Christian faith?
Stats
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But people who do not believe, could be people you are sitting beside in school, walking down the road with, or even in a Christian church right now. That is why we need to be different.
But one thing is true, when you decide you want to be different for Jesus, then, there will be people who do not like that. Maybe its your friends, or maybe someone else may not like the stand you are making for the God that saved you. Look what Peter said in verse 14
14 If you are insulted because you bear the name of Christ, you will be blessed, for the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you.
Do you like to be insulted? No, I don’t either. But when we are insulted because of who we are in Jesus Christ, Peter says it is a blessing.
That word blessing or bless come from a word in the Greek that means HAPPY. In other words, when people bring you trouble because who beleive in Jesus and want to be different, YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY!
Even Jesus said it in the Sermon on the Mount….
22 What blessings await you when people hate you and exclude you and mock you and curse you as evil because you follow the Son of Man.
Nobody wants to be insulted and loose a friend…but remember why you are recieving this insult. Not because of you, but because of who is in you and who wants you to stand up for the truth and be different.
But how can we have the strengnth to take the insult, and not give in to the pressures of this world? Look at the last part of verse 14…
14 If you are insulted because you bear the name of Christ, you will be blessed, for the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you.
Remember, you are not alone as you make a stand to be different. You have an advocate, a comforter…. God, living inside you. And one of the things that the Holy Spirit does for believers as we live this life on earth until the time we see him face to face, he gives us strength to withstand the attack of Satan, the enemy.
One of my favorite verse is Acts 1:8
8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
If you believed by faith and confessed in your mouth that Jesus is Lord, the Holy Spirit resides in you and he has given you the power to stand up, be bold…. be different…no matter what may come.
Peter along with John in the Book of Acts, showed the boldness because of the holy Spirit that was in them. They would not stop talking about the resurrection fo Jesus, even though the government wanted them to stop.
13 The members of the council were amazed when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, for they could see that they were ordinary men with no special training in the Scriptures. They also recognized them as men who had been with Jesus.
If you have been with Jesus, and you have if you are saved… you are to be different, no matter what happens or whatever comes.
Let’s continue to 1 Peter 4:15
15 If you suffer, however, it must not be for murder, stealing, making trouble, or prying into other people’s affairs.
What is he saying? In everything you suffer for you will be blessed? No. Here he is talking about sins and consequences. In verse 14 he is saying, you are blessed if you have to suffer, but here, he is saying not all suffering points to Jesus. In other words, if you murder, you steal, you make trouble, or you pry into another persons affairs, then your suffering because of that will not be a blessing, it will be a consequence for your sinful actions.
So there is suffering for good (for God) and then there is suffering because of your sinful actions… and Peter says… you will not be blessed because of that.
Now look at verse 16
16 But it is no shame to suffer for being a Christian. Praise God for the privilege of being called by his name!
When you look into the Bible, especially in the Book of Acts, you will see a lot of suffering and persecution. We see most of this in Acts because Acts in an account of the early church and their proclamation that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the 3rd day. People didn’t like that. Different groups wanted to silence these apostles and the early Christian.
In Acts:
4:3-22, 5:17-42: Peter and John are arrested and flogged
6:8-8:1: Stephen is stoned to death
8:3, 9:2: Saul imprisons many Christians.
9:23-24, 20:19, 23:12-14: Jews plot to kill Paul.
12:1-5: King Herod executes James and imprisons Peter.
13:44-51: Paul and Barnabas being driven out of Antioch.
14:5-6: Jews and gentiles try to stone Paul and Barnabas.
14:19-20: Jews stone Paul nearly to death.
16:16-24: Paul and Silas are flogged and imprisoned
17:1-15: Paul and others are chased out of towns by Jews.
18:12-17: Paul is made to appear before the Roman proconsul
19:23-41: Worshippers of Artemis in Ephesus riot against Paul and his companions
21:27-28:30: In his final journey to Rome, Paul is taken by Jews in Jerusalem to be killed but is rescued by Roman soldiers who imprison him.
To be different in that day, standing up for Christ, meant that trouble was to come.
That was 2000 years ago. What is going on here today in Nigeria?
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Now you may think, that is in the North, not where I am. I don’t need to worry that Christians will be killed because of their belief here.
Two things:
One. Yes, we are in the Southeast and the North is a long way away. But, times change, and ten years from now, what you know as Nigeria, the North Muslim and the South more Christian…may be changed. Did you know that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. That means that it is growing faster and bringing more people into their beliefs than Christianity. So in 10 years, you may see many Muslims who are extreme in their beleif walking around the streets of Nsukka or even Opi.
But #2, persecution is not always harming someone physical. Its not always killing someone. But maybe because of your belief, people will turn against you, hate you, maybe not give you a job, or even food. Look what Jesus said in Matthew:
11 “God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers.
12 Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.
13 “You are the salt of the earth. But what good is salt if it has lost its flavor? Can you make it salty again? It will be thrown out and trampled underfoot as worthless.
If you choose to be different, and I hope you do…trouble will come. Persecution will come. But one thing that is sure is that God, who has been with you since you turned to him, will be with you whatever may come.
This is not your home! This is a temporary place! And when we make a stand for the God who saved us, whatever happens, we now that we will be one day closer to our eternal home because of our faith and belief is his Son.
Horatio Spafford was a successful attorney and real estate investor who his business in a great fire. Around the same time, his beloved four-year-old son died of fever.
Thinking a vacation would do his family some good, he sent his wife and four daughters on a ship to England, planning to join them after he finished some business at home. However, while crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the ship was involved in a terrible collision and sunk. More than 200 people lost their lives, including all four of Horatio Spafford’s precious daughters. His wife, Anna, survived the tragedy. Upon arriving in England, she sent a telegram to her husband that began: “Saved alone. What shall I do?”
Horatio immediately set sail for England. At one point during his voyage, the captain of the ship, aware of the tragedy that had struck the Spafford family, summoned Horatio to tell him that they were now passing over the spot where the shipwreck had occurred.1
As Horatio thought about his daughters, words of comfort and hope filled his heart and mind. He wrote them down, and they have since become a well-beloved hymn:
When peace like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll—
Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to know
It is well, it is well with my soul.
How could he say, “it is well with my soul?” Because Horatio Spafford knew that whatever happened to him, his family, or even his business… his hope was in the Lord. Knowing this, Horatio chose to be different.
What about you?
