Are We Seperate Enough?

"Parents, what are your children learning from your worship? Do they see the same excitement as when you go to a basketball game? Do they see you prepare for worship as you do for a vacation? Do they see you hungry to arrive, seeking the face of the Father? Or do they see you content to leave the way you came?.....They are watching. Believe me. They are watching." - Max Lucado


We studied Acts 2: 37-41 in our Sunday evening service last night. This is the account of the result of Peter's Sermon at Pentecost.

After hearing Peter, the scripture tells us they were cut to the heart and asked, "What shall we do?"

Peter said to them“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” 40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.”

That last sentence, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." sparked a discussion about what 'crooked generation' means AND are we, the followers of Christ seperate enough from the world.

I think that we are not set apart enough for the world to notice much of a difference.

So what if we go to church on Sunday morning.  How we behave and what we choose to do AFTER church is what matters.

Years ago when I was working at a restaurant I dreaded the Sunday night crowd.  They came in after the Sunday evening service and were the most difficult to please, the worst tippers and generally just a bad witness. I used to do anything I could to help the waitress assigned to wait on them.  It was always a big group, they sat in the big dining room and the kids sat apart from the parents which made writing up orders more difficult.  I happened to have a couple of waitresses on my staff that were members of this church, those waitresses got good tips, but beware if you weren't part of their group...

So, where does that leave me?  Well for one thing, David and I have chosen to tip well when the service warrants it.

But mainly we have tried to be different...different from the world, different in our expectations, different in how we spend out time and money....different

does it matter?   I think it does.

So we will continue to be, do , think, speak differently. Are we good at it?  It depends.  Could we improve?  Yes

I want our children to become used to being different.

I want my life to count for something.

For a good resource read John Piper's 'Don't waste your life'  It was written after Piper's battle with cancer.

Let us choose to be different because we serve a holy GOD.  Holy means set apart.  We need to be set apart.