A Counter-Cultural Life

Well, good morning church. Hope you’re all doing well today. I’m doing really well. I get to preach. That’s exciting.

Well, we’re continuing our series called Built Different. And this is a term in our culture used to describe someone who’s a little abnormal. They have a different commitment level, a different attitude, a different level of devotion to something. And we’re like that person’s built different. And so for Christians, for us, we want to be built different in Christ.

Not through self effort, but, but we want to have a different attitude in Christ, a different commitment level in Christ, a different kind of devotion in Christ. So that’s what the series is about. How can we live different, be built different in Christ? And so today we’re going to be looking at a countercultural life. Our series text is Romans 12:1 2 and it reads like this.

I appeal to you therefore brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. And today we’re focusing in on this concept. Do not be conformed to this world and church. Have you realized how easy it is to drift, drift back into that old self, into the old way of the world?

No one has to teach us how to do this. And no one accidentally becomes more Christ. Like, it’s not like you got up this morning, were like, you know what? Today I’m holy, done. Here we go.

Today I’m just going to pray without ceasing. And now it’s like I’m praying even now. I’m not distracted at all at church, I’m praying even now. No one, no one just wakes up more Christ. Like we actually get this through a level of intentionality, not through self effort, but through Holy Spirit reliance.

But we naturally fit into this mold. Being selfish, craving comfort, seeking others, approval, chasing success, whatever it is. This mold that we used to live in, the mold that the world would love us to fit back into. You know, parents tell me pretty often children are born with a very self determined point of view. I do it my way, I do it myself.

Some of the first words they speak, they all want to do it themselves. And this is the mentality of the world. We’ll do it our way, not God’s way. But here’s the problem. That mold, that conformity always over promises and under delivers it promises you Freedom, but it keeps you enslaved.

It promises you significance, but it will leave you feeling empty. It promises satisfaction, but it will never satisfy. This is the problem. God has a solution. God has something significantly better for you and for I.

He created you for Himself, and through Christ he redeemed you and he bought you for Himself. And so today we’re going to be looking in this. And as we turn in our text this morning, we’ll be in First Peter, chapter one. If you want to go ahead and turn there, I’ll be reading from the esv. We’ll see this.

As Christians, we don’t live differently to become God’s people. We live differently because we are God’s people. We belong to a different king. We have a different kind of hope. In First Peter, chapter 1, the apostle Peter wrote to Christians living as exiles throughout Asia Minor, exhorting them to live differently in this world because they belong to God through Jesus Christ.

And we too can live differently in this world because we belong to God through salvation in Jesus. What does a countercultural life look like for those who belong to Christ? Today’s text will give us three marks of a countercultural life for those who belong to Christ. So let’s read his word. First Peter 1, starting at verse 13, says this.

Therefore, preparing your minds for action and being sober minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all of your conduct. Since it is written, you shall be holy. For I am holy.

And if you call on him who is Father, as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. This is God’s word. Amen. Three marks of a countercultural life in Christ Jesus. The first is a life that sets its hope on Christ.

Peter concludes his introduction to the Christians in Asia Minor with instructions to live for Christ and not this world. He’s commanding them. A mindset shift. He doesn’t just say, hey guys, I know things are rough right now. Do better.

No, he commands them. Hope better. Have a better hope when we see the Word. Therefore, I know you are good Bible students here at East Gate, church. You have to ask, what’s it there for?

Before I could even get the words out, someone first so was like, what’s there for it? I was like, all right, nice, yeah. We have to ask what it’s there for. The apostle Peter, he’s talking with Christians dispersed in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, and that they have a living hope in Jesus Christ, who’s resurrected from the grave. An eternal inheritance that the world can’t touch.

The world wants us to have no hope. The world wants us to despair, to not go the way God wants us, but to go the way it goes, into nothing. But we have a hope that can’t be touched, it can’t be taken from us. We can’t be robbed of this hope. It’s sure, because because of this, he calls into action.

He says in verse 13, preparing your minds for action. And this word preparing is kind of funny to me. It means to gird up your loins. It’s like, that’s kind of a funny thing to say. Back then you’d be wearing some long garb in the desert and let’s say something of action needed to take place.

You’re about to be attacked, you need to do some work. Something has to happen. You would hike it up a little. You tie it around your waist with maybe a rope or just tie it. And now you’re prepared for action, right?

You gotta attack. Now you can attack. You’re not hindered by long robes. You have to do some work. You have to run from a bear or something, I don’t know.

Now you can, you can gird up them loins. And so Peter applies this to the Christian life. Spiritually, he says, preparing your minds for action, the facility of your understanding, your feelings, your desires. Prepare your desires for action. And in what manner?

He says, be sober minded, be calm, be in control, be focused, not sporadic, not. Oh, this is my knee jerk reaction. They made me angry, now I’m angry. I doom scrolled and now I’m ticked off at the world. Meh.

No, no, no, no. Prepare your minds for action. Be sober minded, be intentional, calm, focused, and set your hope fully on the grace set. Your hope is to wait for the fullness of salvation with joy and confidence. It’s coming, it’s sure it’s coming.

To hope in receiving something. Have you ever met someone? Or maybe you’ve been in a moment in your life, maybe you’re there now, no hope, no hope. It’s a lack of motivation. There just seems to be a wall.

What do I do? Where do I go? It seems hopeless. Or maybe you’ve been a little half hope in it. A little half hope in Jesus.

A little half hope in something else. A little half and half hope. But Peter writes, set your hope fully on the grace that will come through Jesus Christ fully. He’s not looking for half hopers. He’s looking for your full hope at the grace that will come.

So grace is unmerited favor. And you might be thinking, josh, I already received this grace. I already received the promises saved by grace through faith. But there is so much more to come at the second coming of Jesus Christ. And when he comes, he brings with him the fullness of our salvation.

New bodies. Some of us can’t wait for that. You’re like, yeah, new heavens, new earth. But most importantly, his eternal presence forever and ever. And all the former ways will be gone.

The worst day of your life will not even be worth comparing to this great day when he returns. The best day of your life will be outmoded. It’ll be outdone and outshone by this day when Jesus returns at the revelation of Jesus Christ, the physical appearing of Jesus again in this world. He’s not simply commanding us to think positively. Peter’s not saying, hey, there’s a lot of rough things going on.

Think half class full. No, what he’s commanding us is to have a future oriented faith. Where’s your hope? Where’s your faith? Is it in Christ?

He’s coming again. Let’s explore that a little. The more we set our hope on the reward in Christ’s return, the more ready we will be for it. Hebrews 9:28 says so Christ having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time. Not to deal with sin, but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.

Are you eagerly waiting for Jesus? Are you pumped up about this man, this world? You know, if you walk with Christ for any amount of time, like man, I can’t wait for this day. Eagerly waiting for his return. This is the source of your great hope.

1 Thessalonians 4 says this. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be called up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord.

Therefore, check this out. Encourage one another with these words.

Christian. You ever feel discouraged? Maybe the thing we need to remind each other more often of is Jesus is coming again. And this is significant.

In the early church, the church was going through some things, maybe some people, they even led to faith. They now see imprisoned for their faith, beaten, mocked, outcast, or maybe even martyred for their faith. And Paul in First Thessalonians, he’s saying, hey, those who have died in Christ, they’re going to raise up again. We’re going to see them again. And we who are still alive, we’re going to meet them.

But the best part of all is who we’re all gathering around the Lord and in that text, and so we will always be with the Lord. Like I said, that worst day and best day of your life won’t even be in our minds when this day comes. This is our hope and it cannot be taken.

Imagine this. Jesus could have ended canonical scripture with any words he chose. Hey, y’, all, stop being foolish. You’d be like, yeah, that’s a good way to end. Said, stop.

Stop being angry all the time. Like, yeah, stop putting your hope in false things. Yeah, yeah. How does Jesus. What final words does Jesus, our Lord and Savior, choose to give us?

At the end of Scripture, Revelation 22 through 20 through 21 says this. He who testifies to these things says, surely I am coming soon. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all.

Amen. That’s what a good friend does, isn’t it? How do you say farewell to your friends? It’s like, never see you again. It’s like, oh, okay, misread this relationship.

No. When I hang out with my friends, we watch a movie. We hang out. I say, see you. See you soon, God willing.

This hopeful expectation that we’re going to be reunited, we’re going to see each other again. I haven’t abandoned you. We’re not friends no longer. This is what Jesus chooses to do with us. It’s like one last little final encouragement.

Surely I’m coming again. See you soon. We’ll be reunited with him. He hasn’t abandoned us. Why?

You know, back in the day, there used to be this thing called company. You had company. People would just show up at your house. It’s a foreign concept.

And I’m assuming houses had to be held up a little tidier back in the day because you didn’t know who was going to show up at that door. They knocked. Who is it? Oh, in the neighborhood. It’s like, all right, come in.

We have company. And suddenly the whole family’s interacting with this person. And so why are you cleaning? Why are you preparing? Oh, we’re having guests later.

This hopeful expectation. Hey, people are coming over. Let’s get the house ready.

Hey, why you live like that? Didn’t you know? Jesus is coming back. A hopeful expectation. Your hope determines your habits.

If you don’t think anyone’s coming over, you might not pick up that dirty laundry. But if you’re like man, people might show up here, might have company later, maybe keep the house a little tidier. You see this? What future do you think will make you happy? Here’s another way to think about it.

What are you waiting on before you can finally say, then I’ll have joy, then I’ll be satisfied. A hope. What are you putting your hope in? Maybe it’s a promotion. Maybe you want to provide more for your family.

And a promotion would do a whole lot of good right now. That’s not a bad thing. Maybe it’s marriage. You want to have a God glorifying marriage. It’s not a bad thing.

Maybe it’s children, retirement, better health, financial freedom, the next vacation, buying a home. What are you putting hope in? These aren’t necessarily bad things. But here’s the problem. They make terrible saviors.

They make terrible lords. Parents with children, you know, your children, they make terrible lords, little tyrants. And they know it. They’ll take you. They’ll take over.

No, not half hope. Not a diminished hope of Christ. No, put your hope fully on Christ. Your hope determines your habits. Are you hoping in him?

Are you preparing for his return? The second way we live, a countercultural life in Christ is a life that reflects the holiness of God. A life that reflects the holiness of God. Peter exhorted these early Christians to live holy lives not through self driven moral effort, but by reflecting the character of their Father as his obedient children. So here in verse 14, it says, as obedient children do not be conformed.

So as obedient children, obedient means submissive. Hey, God, your way, not my way, not rebellious children. Who we read, we read in His Word and we’re like, well, I think I’ll skip these pages. And that doesn’t really apply. And you know, I’ll pick and choose.

I’ll pick and choose. No obedient children, submissive children.

And how as obedient children do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. Here’s that word conformed again. This is like a blueprint. So what was your life built on previously? The former blueprint, the former way of your life, what did it lead you to?

It led you to nothing. And he says, don’t be conformed back to that way. The way you used to talk, the way you used to think, the way you used to live, of your passions, your desires, your cravings, often lusts, things leading away from the will of God. Don’t be conformed to that. And of your former ignorance.

This is where we get the word agnostic. It’s agnoia in the Greek. Your former ignorance, you didn’t know any better. You lacked knowledge. But Christians, we do know better.

We do know better. We have a God. He’s holy. We know better. And this isn’t just some kind of intellectual agreement of doctrine, like, of course we should believe the right things.

We should have good doctrine. Very important. But this isn’t merely that. No. This is a new birth.

This is a transformed life through a new birth and a new identity as obedient children. You’re God’s children, So be holy. And in verse 14 or 15, rather, he says, he who called you, he’s inviting you believers, he’s calling you first. Peter 2. 9 says this in the chapter next.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. And so we’re not to be conformed back to the darkness, back to the former ways of living. We are to be transformed by his grace, through his spirit. Live in the life and be holy. Verse 15.

To be holy here is to be pure, sinless, upright, a saint, something sacred. Be holy. Now, if you were to close your eyes right now and imagine a holy man, I get quite an image in my head. I think of them monks, long, those brown robes, some weird rope, crazy haircut, you know, swinging some incense, chanting something cool. It’s a monk.

Is that what we’re supposed to be? Is that holiness? Living up in some mountain church? Let’s just gather, let’s go buy some thing, some land, and we’ll just all be holy together. Holy, holy, holy.

No, no. He says, be holy in all your conduct. Where you’re at right now, the things you say, the work you put your hands to in all your conduct, in these things, be holy. The KJV translates this to say in your manner of conversation, from the words you speak to the work you do in it all, be holy. Holy.

Be different as God is. Verse 16 says this. You shall be holy, for I am holy.

Peter quotes Leviticus 19:2, you shall be holy. For I, the Lord, Yahweh, your God, am holy. And this call is to be holy in response to God because he himself is holy. And I just want to pause and think about how crazy this is. How crazy is this, Leviticus?

God is going through listing, hey, this be holy and this be set apart. And this, you have to do it this way. And by the way, people, Israelites, you be holy as I am holy. I am holy. They had seen God do some pretty miraculous things.

They saw him defeat the superpower of their time. Egypt humiliate pagan gods, decimate cities. They saw his wrath poured out. And he’s telling them, be holy as I am holy, for I am holy.

This is crazy. This is impossible. Unless you know God.

Holiness then is not some random moral effort. It’s a covenant relationship. It’s a covenant reflection. Because I know God, therefore I can be holy, for he is holy. God says, I’m not like those pagan gods.

I’m holy. So you believer, you’re not like those pagan people. You be holy.

The more we know God, the more we begin to reflect God. The more time we spend with God, the more we reflect his holiness. Acts 4:13 says this. Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus.

Man, who you been around? Did you know that the people you hang around, you kind of pick up traits that they have, too. Gotta be careful who you spend time around. When I was being trained by Pastor Gary and Pastor Jonathan and preaching and sitting with them in study, Pastor Gary looked at me and was like, josh, you have a good tone about you. You don’t sound Southern.

My parents are from New York. You don’t sound like that. You got a good tone about you. I was like, yeah, sweet. That’s cool.

Well, when I got my license back in high school, I was like, I’m gonna go to the convenience store, buy a little Coke. I like Coca Cola. Beep. I was like, thanks. Have a good day.

And the guy was like, gargling marbles. He was like, where you from? I was like, he’s like, you from here? No. Or, yes, I am, actually.

I was born here. I was raised here. He was like, you’re not from Patchogue, New York. I was like, my dad is. I’ve never lived in New York.

But it was simply because I had spent time around my parents, around my father, that apparently I have a very specific Location, accent left in me.

Isn’t that crazy? That’s wild. And this dude who’s mega Southern, he. He called me out. He knew you’re not from here.

It’s like, I am from here. I’m one of you.

But it wasn’t on purpose. It’s not like I tried. It was simply because I spent time with my father. With my parents. I had their accent.

When you spend time with the Father, can people tell? Do you have a heavenly accent? Have you spent enough time with the Father in the Word? And people are like, man, you talk a little different, you hope a little different. Have you prayed with the Father?

Have you spent time with Him? Do you have the Father’s accent in your life? Spend time with him if you want to be holy. It’s not the self effort, gotta pop a vein thing. It’s who you spend time with.

Spend time with the Father. Before Peter tells us to be holy, he reminds us that we have already been called by a holy God. Holiness isn’t our attempt to become God’s children. No, it’s actually a product, because we already are God’s children.

Have you heard his call? Have you received his salvation? You know this is me. This is not an exhaustive list, but I believe there are two things you need to be holy. Just two.

The first thing you need is to know God. Here’s the problem. To know God relationally, He accepts nothing less than perfection. And you and I are not perfect. We sin.

We miss the mark. And what’s the mark? Perfection. We lie, we steal, we cheat, we’re sinners. And so can dirty things.

Can sinners make something clean and holy? No. So are we hopeless? No, we talked about that a second ago. We have hope.

What is our hope if we can’t fix ourselves? God intervenes. And he says. He says this. He tells us the truth.

The wages of sin is death. Everything you’ve worked for in life, in your own effort, has been to earn the wage of death. But the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus. And so he sent his only son, Jesus, who lived in perfect obedience to the Father. He was holy.

He lived the life you and I couldn’t live. And then he saw our wage, our death penalty. And he said, I’ll bear it for you. And so he died the death you and I deserved, that if we paid, we’d be separated from God forever. But he paid the debt that we owed.

And then God raised him on the third day, conquering sin, death and the works of the enemy.

So that any who believe in him, any who call on the name of Jesus, will be saved. Confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead and you will be saved. And then God calls you his child and Ephesians tells us he looks at you as holy and blameless. You are holy believer now. We live holy.

The second thing you need to be holy is obedience. You are holy now. Live it out. Be holy. Reflect the holiness of God.

If you belong to God, holiness is not an option. It’s actually inevitable. Over time, through the working of the sanctification of the Spirit, which is how Peter begins this letter, we become more and more like Christ.

The truth is what you become. Or the truth is you become most like what you are most exposed to. So here’s the question. Are you spending time with the Father? You picking up his accent?

Or are you spending time in the worldly things? You spend your time around the miserable, they’ll welcome you. You just have to be miserable with them. You spend your time around gossips, they’ll welcome you. But you have to gossip as well.

You spend your time doom scrolling getting angry at the world. That’s exactly what you’ll be.

What are you most exposed to? What are you allowing to speak into your life? But if you spend time with the Father, you’ll be like Him. Spend time with His Word, you’ll talk like him, you’ll be holy, you’ll reflect his holiness. We don’t become holy by trying harder.

We become holy by drawing nearer to the Holy One. And then our lives begin to reflect His. You might be a common person, an uneducated person, but people can tell if you’ve spent time with Jesus. The third way we live a countercultural life in Christ is we have a life that conducts itself in reverence to God. A life that conducts itself in reverence to God.

Peter concludes this section by showing that a countercultural life is shaped by four gospel realities. Here they are our relationship with God, God’s impartial judgment, the brevity of our earthly life, and the immeasurable cost of our redemption. So let’s get into it. Verse 17. If you call on him as Father, other translations say, since you call on him as Father.

And here’s what we need to recognize. This is covenant language. He is our Father. We’ve been united with Him. He is also our judge.

But this reverence in the Christian life is never a detached fear like quaking, like God. Don’t smite me. I got out of line. Sorry. No, actually, this reverence brings us to faithful obedience to him.

Before him lived for him. The NLT clarifies this well, this reverent awe. 1 Peter 1:17 from the NLT. And remember that the Heavenly Father, to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do.

So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time here as temporary residence. So what does it mean then? That he judges impartially? God doesn’t have favorites. He doesn’t judge impartially.

This means that he doesn’t judge you on the surface level things. Your race, your social class, how much money you have or don’t have, what you look like, what you’re wearing. God doesn’t judge on the surface level things. He actually sees your heart. And he knows why you do what you do.

He knows why I do what I do. He judges us. And his judgment is true and final. He knows us. And so, in light of this, yes, he is our Father, who has redeemed us, who’s bought us.

We’ll talk about that in a moment. He’s also our judge, and we are to revere him and conduct ourselves with fear before Him. So conduct yourselves with fear. In verse 17. This is the word phobos, where we get the word phobia.

And so it could be this quaking, awaiting judgment. Oh, no, I messed up. But now it draws us towards obedience. And it says, conduct yourselves with fear, with reverence. God is holy, he is our judge, and he is our good Father.

Be reverent towards Him. Don’t use his name loosely. His name is greater than all other names. Conduct yourselves with fear in the time of your exile. Now he’s talking to believers.

Peter is talking to believers who are who have been dispersed due to persecution. So they’re going through a time. But believers, didn’t you know? This is not our home. We have a residency awaiting us in an eternal kingdom that’s our true home.

In the presence of God, forever and ever. As we read a little while ago. And so, in our time of exile, we’re living among foreigners in a strange land who believe strange things. They worship idols, they justify wrongdoing, they flip good and evil around, and they call what’s evil good and good evil. This is not our home.

If this is our home, yikes. God promises us you have an eternal residence waiting for you. Your home is with me, and it’s yet to come. We’re waiting on it. We’re eagerly waiting.

But while you’re here. Don’t waste your time. In the time of your exile, conduct yourselves with fear. And I love that Peter bookends this between two. Conducting yourselves with fear.

Why? Because of who God is. He’s your father and he is a judge. And he’s true, he’s not a liar. And because you’ve been ransomed, because you were bought.

Who God is and what he’s done, these are the reasons we are to live and conduct ourselves with reverence before him. You were ransomed? Meaning it’s a receipt for a ransom to redeem that we were purchased, that God saw us and said, I’m going to purchase you back to me. I’m going to bring you back home. And it’s going to cost.

And is this cost, little change? No, it’s a significant cost. You were ransomed. First Corinthians 6:20 reminds us of this. You were bought with a price.

So glorify God in your body. A few weeks ago, we looked at present your body and we focused in on that part of the verse. This time you were bought with a price. You’re not your own. You belong to someone.

You either belong to the world or belong to God. You belong to someone. If I belong to God, I want to honor him. He bought me. He saved me from wickedness, death and destruction.

I want to honor him with my life. Will I do it perfectly? No, I won’t. But he’s a good father. Let me revere him in my conduct.

And you were ransomed from what? The feudal ways? Inherited from your forefathers? The futile ways, meaning void, nothing. Dead, empty.

You’ve been bought out of a meaningless life.

God saw your life. He desired to save it. He counted it worth saving. But the purposes of our life lead us one way before Christ, to death, to our annihilation.

And he says, I’ve bought you from the futile ways. Your life matters. The things you do here matter. They could have eternal consequences in a good way, good consequences.

You’ve been rescued from that. You’ve been bought from that and from the ways inherited from your forefathers, from the traditions of your ancestors passed down. And don’t you love this comparison? Peter seems to be comparing. You have a.

You have heavenly Father and then you have your earthly fathers. And you’ve been rescued, you’ve been ransomed. You’ve been bought from the ways, those dead ways of your ancestors. You’ve been rescued from them. There is a real temptation even among Christians to think that certain familial sins are impossible.

To overcome. It’s a real temptation. Well, the reason I have bad language is. Well, that’s how my family talks. And I’ll always talk this way.

The reason I have anger issues is because, well, my father was an angry man and I don’t know how to control myself, so I’m angry. And the addictions we suffer, we’ve suffered them for all my generations.

Look, there’s a sanctifying process of God bringing us out of these things. But the true reality, the reality we get to accept is that we have been bought. We have been ransomed from these feudal ways, from the inherited feudal ways of our forefathers. You are ransomed. You are free from it.

Maybe sanctification needs to happen, become more like Christ. But you need to know this believer. You are free now. Someone might make a case. Well, Josh, I know, I know I’ve been set free, but I’m just not going to believe you.

I’m not going to believe the word that I’ve been set free from these things. I’m going to carry that burden. You might have an argument if it weren’t for this. Peter covers all his bases. What were you ransomed with?

Not with perishable things such as silver and gold. In verse 18, your life didn’t come so cheap. All the silver and gold and all the possessions the universe has to offer. God didn’t choose something so cheap to save your soul. What did he choose?

You were ransomed with the precious blood of Jesus Christ, verse 19. This is a great price, a costly price, an honoring thing, something esteemed friends, we’re not bought from the futility of worldly things that one day become dust with things such as silver and gold and perishable things. No, he bought you with the imperishable blood of Christ.

You’re free. If God paid this price, then our lives can’t be lived out casually. We can’t make casual what God has deemed costly. Can we be set free from the chains of sin and death? Set free and then go and be like, thanks God, I’m just going to keep living that way.

I’m not in the prison any longer, but I’m going to take up residence there. What sense does this make? Can we live our lives and maybe share our faith with others, but at the same time, in front of the same non believers? Live just like them? What does that say about our witness?

What does that say about our God?

Maybe we have a good show going on. We live with reverence and dignity and honor. Our Father. We don’t use his name in vain. We.

We revere him in the presence of people. But then when we’re alone, when you’re by yourself, you’re dishonoring to him.

Here’s the scary truth to that question, is yes, yes, you can live that way. The reason I’m bringing it up is just to say this one thing, that to God, it matters. It matters that you live the life you live. It matters. Live a life of reverence, because what you do matters to God.

He’s your Father. He’ll forgive you. He’s redeemed. You honor him. Second Corinthians 5:10 tells us this.

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each one may receive what is due. For what he has done in the body, whether good or evil, He’s a true judge. He knows what we do and why we do it.

And we’re here for a short time. God’s given us an opportunity here in our time of exile, to do something. When you plan a vacation for some kind of event, let’s say it’s Disneyland. Yippee. Do you tackle Goofy?

You find him, you’re like, there he is, that dog. You rush him. It’s like, no, you’re gonna get kicked out. You don’t squander the short time you have at Disney. You do it on the last day.

Don’t do that. Don’t do that. No, you’re like, we’re going here, we’re going here. We’re going here. We’re eating this place.

We’re doing reservations. You’re looking at your wallet, you’re regretting life, and you’re like, ah, okay. You make the most of the time because it’s costly.

We were bought at a cost, a high cost. We could squander it, or we could live in a reverence of God. He’s holy, he’s good. And we can take this opportunity, this gift of a time amongst the non believers, and we could show them the holiness and the awesomeness of our God. I serve a God who reconciles people.

I serve a God who changes the way I talk. I serve a God who’s given me a hope to look forward to that. Hey, you can’t touch. I can’t touch it. It’s guaranteed.

This is my God.

What do you treat casually that God treats as costly? Have you begun to live as if this is your home? Are you setting your mind on the heavenly things where he is?

Have you lost the weight of eternity in your decision making? Oh, I’ll Just do this and this. It doesn’t matter in the end. No, it matters. It does matter.

Carry yourself out. Reverence before God. It matters. A countercultural life is not a careless life, is a life lived in reverence, awe. Because we know who God our Father is, where we are living, and what it costs to bring us home.

So conduct yourselves in reverence to God today. God’s word has reminded us what a life looks like for those who belong to Jesus Christ. A countercultural life is marked by three realities. We set our hope fully on Christ, we reflect the holiness of our Heavenly Father, and we conduct ourselves with reverent awe because we have been redeemed at an infinite cost. This calling becomes even sweeter when you recognize Jesus is not asking you to do anything he himself did not do.

He laid the way. And he says, follow me. Spend time with Jesus and people will know. Pick up that heavenly accent. Now.

By his precious blood, we have been redeemed from our feudal way of life. Church, you were made for more. And the world offers you things that diminish. But God has bought us and has given something imperishable. You belong to another kingdom.

You belong to another king. Let’s live a countercultural life in Christ now. Let’s pray.

Father, I want to thank you for this time. Thank you for Wilson Eastgate, for Rocky Mount Eastgate, the work that you’re doing through your people. We pray that we would conduct ourselves in reverence, that we would serve with reverence, whether it be for Kids Fest coming up in a few weeks, or guest services, or preaching or singing in a band. Whatever we do, Lord, we just want to honor you. You’re a holy God.

And I pray that we would be holy. And maybe someone in here has heard this holy God, this God who’s so deserving of all reverence and wonders, can I have a relationship with this God? Is he too holy for me? And friend, if that’s you, he’s made a way for you through the blood of Jesus Christ. And if that’s you, feel free to repeat after me, Father.

God, I am a sinner and I’ve missed the mark of perfection. And I’ve been going my way my entire life. And I confess to you the sin. And I’m trusting in the one who you sent in, Jesus. Jesus, he lived the life I couldn’t live.

He died the death that I deserve. And I confess with my mouth that he is Lord. And I believe in my heart that God, you raised him from the dead, defeating sin, death and the works of Satan. And because I believe, because I trust. In the name of Jesus, you promise to make me your child.

And I am. I confess this. And I believe this. And if that is you, you are a child of God. And we children of God, believers in the room, we pray that we would sit in this reality that we are holy and blameless before our Father.

And I pray that we would pursue his holiness. That we would reflect his holiness. We would spend time with Him. That we would set our hope fully on Christ and His return. He will not let us down.

And that we would conduct ourselves with reverence to God, honoring him in our time here on earth. It’s a precious gift. I pray that we use it well. We pray all these things in the name of Jesus. Amen.