Dare To Be Different

E. Be Different in your Conversation

1. Colossians 4:6 Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one.

2. Some folks are just negative and their negativity spreads like a cancer.

3. Christians ought to be the most pleasant people to be around instead of the most cantankerous.

4. Are you cantankerous or are you contagious.

III. Be Different than You were Last Year

A. Philippians 3:12 – 14 Not that I have already attained, or am already perfected; but I press on, that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

B. Be Different in your Level of Involvement

1. Matthew 16:24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.

2. The Dead Sea is so salty that it contains no fish or plant life. What accounts for this unusual condition? There are absolutely no outlets! A great volume of water pours into this area, but nothing flows out. Many inlets plus no outlets equal a dead sea. This law of nature may also be applied to the child of God, and it explains why many believers are so unfruitful and lacking in spiritual vitality. It’s possible for some people to attend Bible conferences, listen to religious broadcasts, study the Scriptures, and continually take in the Word as it is preached from the pulpit, and yet seem lifeless and unproductive in their Christian lives. Such individuals are like the Dead Sea. They have several “inlets” but no “outlets.” To be vibrant and useful believers, we must not only “take in” all we can, but we must also “give out” in service to others! Our Daily Bread, March-May, 1996, p. for May 22

C. Be Different in your Level of Outreach

1. The Challenge: 100 million adults attend church weekly, most for 10+ years, 49% not even believers. The average Christian in American today will die without ever having shared his faith in Christ with another person.

2. Matthew 28:18 - 20 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

D. Be Different in your Level of Fellowship

1. Hebrews 10:25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.

2. "The poison of non-fellowship kills so slowly you don’t realize it." -Peter Lord