We continue in our series on Dynamic Disciples and this month we are focussing on being called into the family of God.
Our focus for this evening is God’s Alternative Society.
The question as always to begin is: Are you following an Alternative Lifestyle?
The term Alternative lifestyle covers a pretty diverse range of living.
Wikipedia defines An alternative lifestyle like this:
An alternative lifestyle is a lifestyle diverse in respect to mainstream ones, or generally perceived to be outside the cultural norm.
It then lists some of them in no particular order:
Nudism and clothing optional lifestyles, living in unusual communities, communes, intentional communities or eco-villages, lifestyle travellers, home births, home schooling, home gardening, New Age travellers, vegetarians, vegans, meditation, hypnosis, spiritualists, feng shui, non-typical sexual lifestyles, BDSM, Swinging, fetishes, same-sex relationships. Alternative spiritual practices, Alternative medicine, herbal remedies as medication. Eastern religions like Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism etc.or “Non-mainstream” religious minorities, such as the Amish who pursue an anti-technology lifestyle.
Where am I going with this?
We live in a Post-Modern world - and most of those alternative lifestyles are now accepted as normal mainstream lifestyles.
About.com defines Alternative Lifestyle in 3 ways:
1. A method of living one’s life that is contrary to social norms.
2. Unconventional participation within society.
3. A philosophy or way of thinking that differs from mainstream culture or society e.g. Monotheism or Abrahamic belief systems.
Abrahamic belief systems - that would include Jews, Muslims and Christians. Now you might be thinking, somehow things have been turned around and upside down. Wrong has become right, a lie has become the truth. How can being a Christian be considered an Alternative Lifestyle - outside the cultural norm?
Friends, God has always expected His people to live outside of what the world says is the cultural norm.
We have been called to live according to God’s plan and purpose, we have been chosen, set apart, forgiven and saved to live for Christ.
God calls us to live an alternative lifestyle that challenges the moral, political, economic and social structures of the world around us.
We have been called to proclaim the truth of the Gospel to a broken and sin-sick world. We are to be salt and light.
We have been called to be dynamic disciples of Christ, who live, speak and act in a way that brings honour and glory to God.
We have been called to follow an alternative lifestyle, an alternative path, the narrow way:
In Matthew 7:13-14 Jesus spoke these words:
“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.”
Sobering words, ignore God, reject Jesus as Saviour, follow the broad ways of the world to hell or obey God, accept Jesus as Saviour and be assured of salvation and a place in Heaven.
Jesus didn’t sugar coat the truth, in love He spoke to those who would listen, He explained the truth, He said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.”
In John 14 verses 23-24 Jesus said “All who love me will do what I say. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. Anyone who doesn’t love me will not obey me. And remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me.”
Jesus is the only way of salvation and we are called to follow Him and to obey His commands out of love.
We are meant to live an alternative life, a life of faith, a life of service, a life of trust, a life of faithfulness, we are called to live holy lives.
We are called to live an alternative lifestyle.
Listen to the words of 1 Peter 1:13-23
So prepare your minds for action and exercise self-control. Put all your hope in the gracious salvation that will come to you when Jesus Christ is revealed to the world. 14So you must live as God’s obedient children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of living to satisfy your own desires. You didn’t know any better then. 15 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. 16For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.”
17And 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 residents.”
18For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And it was not paid with mere gold or silver, which lose their value. 19It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. 20God chose Him as your ransom long before the world began, but now in these last days He has been revealed for your sake.
21Through Christ you have come to trust in God. And you have placed your faith and hope in God because He raised Christ from the dead and gave Him great glory.
22You were cleansed from your sins when you obeyed the truth, so now you must show sincere love to each other as brothers and sisters. Love each other deeply with all your heart.
23For you have been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal, living word of God.
Praise God, His word is truth, we are saved, set-free, ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven, because of what Christ has done.
We are called to live an alternative lifestyle.
We are called as a people who are set apart,
we are called to be Holy because God is Holy.
We are called to act differently in thought and action.
“Act differently” - for some people being a Christian is an act - just going through the motions.
Being religious rather than being in a real relationship with God.
Some people are really good at being religious - it’s Sunday so on goes the church clothes, the church face and for everyone else to see they act differently than they do for the other six days of the week.
Acting like a Christian is worlds away from what it really means to be a Christian - worlds away from what it means to be a disciple of Christ.
There is a big difference between acting like a Christian sometimes and being a disciple of Christ at all times.
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So, how do we make the change from acting like a Christian to being a real disciple?
Simply put our focus needs to be more on God and less on ourselves.
God at the centre, not God at the edges.
How do we do that? Jesus tells us in Matthew 22:37-38: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.”
When we focusing our attention on the Lord and build an intimate relationship with Him we spend less time going through the motions of what we think we should be, and we concentrate on His goals, His plans and His purpose for our lives.
I’m going to read you a quote from Joyce Meyer - not someone I would usually quote but this is very relevant:
“This generation is desperately searching for something authentic. People are always watching us. They are watching us to see if we are the real deal. Without a transformed heart we can never be the light that the world around us so desperately needs.
Stop acting and start being!” Joyce Meyer
Don’t just act like a Christian, be a dynamic disciple.
It can be a struggle, living every day as an authentic disciple of Christ.
Sometimes we fall back into old patterns of behaviour. Sometimes we fail to control our actions.
That’s what happens when we try to live our lives from the outside in instead of from the inside out.
Sometimes we compartmentalise our life and divide it into segments.
We become actors, taking on the role of who we think we are supposed to be depending on our audience or circumstances.
At church we are supposed to be a Christian, so we act like one.
Around our Christian friends we are supposed to be a Christian so we act like one.
At work, we try to act like a Christian because we are supposed to be one, but at work we don’t have to play the role as well as we do at church because our colleagues are not quite as familiar with the Christian script.
At home, we act like our real selves, because we believe that our secret is safe with our family.
Then the doorbell rings.
It’s amazing how quickly people can shift roles and play the part of the perfect life even if moments before our house was more like the perfect storm.
We move the couch to cover the stain on the carpet, we wipe the dust off the tv stand, we threaten the kids with lifelong grounding if they so much as look the wrong way.
As soon as guests arrive, we can become an instant model family.
Many of us do the same thing with God.
We can be on our way to church having a row with our spouse, or the kids, and the moment we arrive at church, the “spirit of the visiting God” comes upon us.
We smile at the people on the door, sing with the same voice that we were just using in anger and worship with holy hands raised.
We play the role of perfect Christian for an hour or two, have a nice visit with God, then get back in the car and go back to being our real selves again.
Some Christians behave like actors in a drama not disciples on a journey.
We act like who we are supposed to be instead of living a real heart-transformed life, too many Christians are living a life of outward behaviour modification.
This is not how god wants us to live. Jesus does not want us to simply act like Christians. He wants us to be authentic dynamic disciples. The only way for us to be dynamic disciples is by allowing God to change us from the inside out.
God wants to have a personal relationship with us. He wants to be involved in every part of our lives.
God is not satisfied with visitation rights for a couple of hours on a Sunday and maybe on a Tuesday or Thursday evening.
God wants to be at the centre of our lives, at the centre of who we are, at the centre of who we are becoming.
God wants us to live an alternative life - a Holy Life. Just looking the part is not enough.
We are supposed to be transformed into the image of Jesus.
If we do not respond and accept the transforming grace of God then we are just like the Pharisees Jesus described in Matthew 23:27-28 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs—beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people’s bones and all sorts of impurity. Outwardly you look like righteous people, but inwardly your hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
Jesus despises hypocrisy. He wants authentic disciples.
Our transformation does not happen overnight, it is something that we have to work at, struggle with, pray about and be willing to accept.
Don’t focus on just doing Christian things – focus on being a disciple.
If we have accepted Jesus as Lord and Saviour then we should have a real desire to be like Christ and truly behave like His disciple.
True Discipleship comes from a heart devoted to a God who loves us and we should be willingness to serve our Lord.
At the heart of real discipleship is a desire to do what God has called us to do, not out of duty but out of our love for our Saviour.
Our external actions should flow from an internal life lived for Jesus.
The key to becoming who we are in supposed to be in Christ is to spend time in His presence and allow ourselves to be conformed to His image. We need to peel back the layers, real change needs to start from the inside out.
Friends will you grab hold of the purposes of God for your life and become who you need to be on the inside.
Let me ask you this: What does being a disciple of Christ really mean to you? Based on the way you are currently living your life, is it obvious to others that you are a disciple of Christ?
If you truly believe God is with you 24 hours a day, seven days a week, it should change the way that you think or act. Is the “you” that people see at church the same “you” that people know at home or at work?
True discipleship should be evident in our lives every day. God has called us to love Him and to love others. We can focus so much on our own healing and renewing that we ignore others in the world around us.
God calls us to be part of an inclusive community where we are to love our neighbour as we love ourselves.
When you walk into a shop, do you see the person at the till as someone who is there to serve you, or do you see them as a real person, someone who needs to know the love of Jesus for themselves?
Is there someone in your life who needs to know Jesus as Lord and Saviour but you have avoided talking to them?
Think about this for a moment, God has given each of us many gifts and talents, yet often our human nature causes us to spend much of our time focusing on what we do not have or on what someone else has. As Christians we need to learn to be content in the plan and purpose that God has for us, that doesn’t mean we don’t have ambition, but we do need to be realistic. God will probably not call you to be a worship leader if you can not sing or play an instrument.
When we learn to embrace God’s plan for our lives we can experience a deep contentment.
We must keep our life focussed on Jesus and learn to be content. We need to be willing to commit to His plan and purpose.
Everyone of us is unique and special to God and He has given each of us gifts and talents.
But a persons spiritual gifting does not define who that person is. The true determination is the fruit of a person’s life. Resolve to focus on developing the fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
These are measures of our discipleship.
Choose one of the fruits and think of an area in your life where this fruit may be lacking.
Will you allow God to develop that particular fruit in your life?
I will close with this: Romans 12:1-2 “dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him. Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”
If we want to change the way we live our daily lives, if we want to be dynamic disciples, then we need to allow God to transform us and transform our thinking.
As disciples of Jesus Christ we are called to be Salt and Light - Salt to bring out the “God flavours” in our part of the world - we are responsible for the “taste” of God that we leave with others.
When it comes to being a light in the world, we have a choice how brightly we shine. Are you a candle, a light bulb, or a lighthouse?
Are there people in your world who are in darkness because you are not shining bright enough?
We know exactly what we are not supposed to be doing, but we often forget about what we should be doing.Being a true disciple requires us to make a daily choice and determination. It is something we can forever be improving on, learning from, sharing with others.
Discipleship is a journey, it’s an adventure, it’s an alternative lifestyle - a Holy lifestyle.
Don’t just act like a Christian, be a dynamic disciple!
