Do You Think Different?

In 1997 a Very Famous Ad Campaign Was Introduced

Some of the Subjects Were:• Albert Einstein• Dr. Martin Luther King• Thomas Edison• Gandhi• Jim Henson• Alfred Hitchcock

We ARE a different person after clothing ourselves with Christ

II Corinthians 5:16-1816 So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

We ARE a different person after clothing ourselves with Christ

Romans 12:1-2 1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship. 2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing and perfect will.

We ARE a different person after clothing ourselves with Christ

I John 2:15-1715 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

In Old Testament Times Israel was Called to Make a Choice to be Different

Deuteronomy 30:19-2019 This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

We ARE a different person after clothing ourselves with Christ

• We are able to have a relationship with the holy, pure, and righteous Creator ONLY because He looks at us thru the lens of Christ’s blood

• I John 1:5-7 5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

So what are the practical outcomes we all need to strive for?

• Micah 6:88 He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

• But how do we understand this from a practical standpoint today?

• The book of James is cram-packed with practical aspects of Christian living…today we will go there

Practical Guidance on Christian Living• James 1:19-20 and 26

19 My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, 20 for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires.26 If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.

• Be a good listener first, before you speak, be slow to anger– I Peter 3:15-16– Ephesians 4:31-32– James 3:17-18

Practical Guidance on Christian Living

• Control your tongue so that you fulfill God’s will for you– People will see your lifestyle and know who your

“master” is!– Be a light on a hill– Don’t be a “smudge pot” on a hill

• We should be different by how we manage our temper and our tongue.

Practical Guidance on Christian Living

• James 1:2121 Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

• The New Testament showed us various responses to the Gospel– Acts 17:32-34 (Paul at the Areopagus)– Acts 10:34-35 (different responses can’t be because of the Gospel…

God’s perfect Truth…rather man makes this decision!)

Practical Guidance on Christian Living

• God desires us to approach the Gospel in purity and humbleness!

• If we do this….how can we be haughty or critical of others who may understand less?

• We should be different by desiring purity and humbleness so that the Gospel can have it’s full effect…on us AND on those around us!

Practical Guidance on Christian Living• James 1:22-25

22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.

• What a penetrating picture of the Scripture as a mirror!

Practical Guidance on Christian Living• One who just glances into the Scripture and walks

away never seeks or attains Christian maturity• When we diligently look into the Word of God, we

see what we are and what we should be!• There is NO ESCAPING it….this requires commitment!• We should be different by studying His Word intently

and seeking to follow through

Practical Guidance on Christian Living• James 1:27

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

• “…look after…” comes from the Greek word “episkeptomai” which means to look upon, care for, supply the needs of, visit with help

• Other uses include:Matthew 25:36Matthew 25:43

Practical Guidance on Christian Living• We discussed purity earlier, but, why would James

emphasize a concern for widows and orphans here?– Galatians 5:1-6– I John 3:16-18

• We should be different by pursuing purity and having concern for the needs of others.

• James 1:17-1817 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

• Our God is the source of all that is good• Our inheritance from God is beyond human measure• His pursuit of us is unfathomable

Practical Conclusions

Practical Conclusions• One of the great sins of Israel was the reducing of their

relationship with God to ritual and ceremony• We MUST not be guilty of the same…we were purified thru

the ultimate sacrifice• Rather we must be committed to looking diligently into the

“perfect mirror” and “think different” by learning to:Manage our tongues and temperDesire purity and humblenessStudy intently and then put it into practiceBe concerned for the needs of others