We Want Something Different | Student Ministry

He changes what we want, how we speak, what we do with what we've been given, and what we allow to control us. Jesus shows us how we can live differently than the rest of the world. Following Jesus doesn't pull us out of the world, He sends us back into it, changed. Not to prove that we're better, not to stand out just for the sake of standing out, but because when Jesus changes our hearts, He changes how we participate in the world around us. We are in the world, but we don't have to live like we're in the world. We can live differently. Hey, what's up? I'm Jason. Welcome to our series on how you and I can live differently. Hey, I'm so sorry, I wanted to pause the screen right here. Here's what you need to know. Maybe you didn't notice. Giant gash right here, zoom in Bryce, right here on my nose, and I wanted to tell you what happened. Last night, I was playing softball, and maybe you're looking at me, you're like, Jason, you don't look like a softball player, I'm not a softball player, okay? Never played before is my second game ever. I missed one ball, my friends yelling at me, get your body in front of the ball. Jason's like, okay, here we go. Giant guy gets up there, hits the ball, it's coming in about 330 miles an hour, it's bouncing off the ground. Easy bounce, easy bounce, giant bounce, smashes my palm, bam, right into my nose, literally right into my nose. I did not bleed, my face does hurt currently right now, and then I was crying on the softball field for about 10 minutes. If you noticed it, I just want to make sure that you weren't concerned, I'm okay, my nose is recovering and will be okay. I didn't want it to distract you, now let's get back to the teaching.

I don't know if you know this about following Jesus, I don't know if you know this about church, I don't know if you know this about being a Christian. You are called, I am called, we are supposed to look, act, talk, consume differently than the world. I love this quote, I heard it growing up and it basically said, the single greatest contributor to people not believing in God, atheism, not believing God, isn't all the evidence. It's followers of God not acting like it. So you and I have a choice to make, you and I have a really difficult choice to make actually, and that's are we going to act differently, are we going to live differently in light of having a God and having a Savior and having a relationship with the creator of the world. We get some of these verses from Jesus himself, Jesus in his time teaching his disciples, he told them to live differently, I want to read this for you in John 17. This is what Jesus says, "I have given them," he's praying to God right now, "I have given them your word." So Jesus is saying, "God, I have given them your word, I have told them what you told me to tell them," and then he keeps praying to this, what he pray for. And the world has hated them, a.k.a. followers of Jesus, a.k.a. Christians because they are not of this world, Paul's right now. I don't know if you knew that you were an alien, but you are. If you're a follower of Jesus, this world is not your home. This existence is not your everything. Actually how sad would that be? Can you think about that right now? Can you think if there was no hope, no future, no promise of heaven, no promise of eternity? And your life was just a combination of, you know, 20,000 meals, hundreds of thousands of hours of sleep, a couple of relationships, and then you're dead and everyone forgets your name and there's no future, no, Jesus is saying you and I have eternity. We have the opportunity to enter into heaven to live differently here on earth. And so we're talking about our mindset today, how can you and I live differently? Jesus keeps praying in John 17 and he says this, "The world has hated them because they

are not of this world, just as I am not of this world." So why are we supposed to live differently? We're supposed to live differently because Jesus lived differently. Think about this. Jesus was a real man who lived 2000 years ago. they know that Jesus was real and existed. The argument is about whether or not you and I have faith that Jesus was God. And so one man lived 2,000 years ago and he lived for about 33 years and then he was killed. And because of Jesus' life, the entire world is different. The entire world is different. Organizations like the Red Cross would never have existed without Jesus. Entire countries would never have existed without Jesus. The city of Los Angeles means the angels and it was supposed to be the city of angels. Everything would be different if Jesus didn't exist. Jesus changed the world. But what's crazy about that is I believe that Jesus got and he changed my world too. The promise of this series is not to say you need to be weird for the sake of being weird. The promise of this series is Jesus' invitation for you to be like him and to live differently and change the world because Jesus changed your world. I'm going to give you tons of examples of ways that people around me have changed the world just because they lived differently and started looking like Jesus. I'm reminded of my friend Chelsea. I had met her. I was probably about 20 years old and she was dating a friend of mine. And I don't know if you've ever had this, but like anytime a new girlfriend gets added to the friend group or anytime a new boyfriend gets added to the friend group, I don't know about you, but like I'm like judging them. And not like in a weird way. I'm like, okay, kid, she hang. Is she cool? Is she good for my friend? Like, is she going to steal my friend away from me forever? Like what are the vibes going to be? Maybe I am a monster and not what you are and not what you intended. So there may be no way to make you trust me, but we need to go. Right. And we went to play Ultimate Frisbee at this high school. We were hanging out and after we had like gone to leave, Chelsea walked the other way. We all kind of walked out to our cars and Chelsea walked the other way. And I guess she had seen some trash in the bleachers. And she went and she started picking up trash in the bleachers. She spent about five minutes picking up trash in a high school bleacher for no reason whatsoever. And eventually I asked her, but I was like, hey, why did you, why did you do that? You don't even go to this high school. That wasn't our trash.

Like, why did you, why did you do? He said, well, she said, well, I feel like if Jesus saw that trash, he would have picked it up. And I want to be like Jesus. And I was like, oh my gosh, this girl is perfect for my friend. What an amazing example. Chelsea changed the world because she was changed by Jesus. I think about my friends. Some of these are high school coaches sitting right next to you who've gone and sat with students who were sitting alone. Do you remember the first time you came into Crossroads students? Maybe you loved it. I know for some people it was like scary and maybe even overwhelming. There was so much noise and chaos and really you just wanted to learn one person's name and you wanted somebody to know your name. I have seen countless coaches and high schoolers and influencers sit with strangers and just learn their name. Why? Because that's probably what Jesus would do. Two hundred years after Jesus died, there was a plague outbreak in the Roman Empire. And this plague was highly contagious. And so basically, if you got the plague, you were kicked out of the city so you couldn't spread any plague whatsoever and you were left to die. And no one was taking care of these people and thousands of people were dying outside of the city walls. No food, no water, no medical attention, no care, no one loving them well. Except followers of Jesus. Followers of Jesus chose to live differently. They saw hurting people. They recognized that they were putting themselves at risk by blowing out and interacting with people who had the plague. Many of those Christians ended up dying from the very plague that they went to go heal. Why? Because they saw people hurting and they decided it is our job to look like Jesus in this world. Because my home is not this world. My home is with Jesus. There was a bishop that had a quote. He was kind of processing this with other leaders at the church at the time. And he said, most of our brother Christians showed unbounded love and loyalty, never sparing even themselves. Thinking only of one another, heedless of danger, they took charge of the sick. When the government was letting their people down, when the emperor was letting their people down, when the soldiers were letting their people down, when the doctors were letting their people down, Christian steps. And so I guess my question to you is, are you living a good enough life? Like, are you going to get to settle with a good job and a good marriage and good kids and good grades and a good football career, volleyball career, cheer career? Are you going to settle for a standard college experience, have about 60,000 meals and then die and only change your own world? Or are you a follower of Jesus that says, I want to change the whole world because Jesus

has changed? I mean, why is it that we are so afraid to look weird and different? I just heard about this in Dayton, Ohio. There's a group of students who are part of the dream team and they've decided, I want to bring Jesus not just to myself, but to my schools. And they are praying for their schools every single morning outside of their schools. They are making a huge difference. They are changing the perspective and trajectory of the students lives inside of that school. Why? Not because it's the normal thing to do, not because it's a comfortable thing to do, not because it doesn't make them a little bit weird. They're doing it because Jesus changed them. And so because he has changed them, they live differently in this world. Jesus goes on and talks about this a little bit more. Jesus says, if the world hates you, which by the way will happen if you live differently. People will make fun of you, people will tease you, people will mock you. If the world hates you, mocks you, teases you, know that it hated me before it hated you. What's Jesus saying to you? Hey, I know living differently means that you bring attention to yourself. Ask for attention to yourself that could possibly bring you hate or teasing or mockery, but he keeps going and he says this, because you are not of the world. I chose you out of the world. What does that mean? Jesus loves you. He wants to start a relationship with you now and that relationship will lead into eternity with him. I want to end with a story of a man on an airplane. It's a two hour flight and the man's on the airplane and he's just hanging out kind of getting his seat ready and he saw the cart go by. I don't know if you've ever been on an airplane, but there's a little cart that goes by, that gives you a free Coke and some cookies. And I saw the cart go by and he said, oh my gosh, I want more than just one free Coke. I want to, so he pulls out this giant wad of cash and he starts spending all of his cash and he buys every single soft drink on the cart. Nobody else on the plane had it. He wanted it all to himself and so he started stacking him by his feet and he's got this giant stack of cokes. And then what he realized is he didn't have enough room in his seat. And so we saw some empty seats behind him and so he took out some money and started paying for the people next to him to move to other empty seats. And that wasn't enough for him. And he decided like, I'm not as comfortable as I need to be and people are looking at me and judging me. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to pay for some blankets and I'm going to like tug him into the top of the plane. I'm going to make myself like a little room, a nice cozy room. And he heard that the stewardesses were selling pillows. And so he bought all the pillows and he

created this giant pillow fort with all this comfort and he had all the drinks he could want, he had all the crackers and cookies that he wanted, he had all the room that he wanted, he had the privacy that he wanted, he had the comfort that he wanted. And can you just imagine everyone on the plane judging him? And then the plane landed and he got off the plane and he left everything. At the end of your life, you and I are going to get off the plane. And we're going to look so stupid if we spend all of our time, energy, effort, gifts, talents, opportunities on this tiny little short plane ride that we call life. And what if you and I were bold enough to believe that we have eternity with Jesus and the snapshot of our life that is this life, we have an opportunity to be selfish and make ourselves comfortable and make ourselves safe and make ourselves private and cozy or we can live to make the world a better place, to change the world, to live differently because we were made different by Jesus. I want to make a difference in this one that's what we're talking about in this series. And so your student pastor is going to get up there and kind of just tell you, you can take a small step this week to look differently if Jesus has made you different.