Deuteronomy, where God's explaining to them what it means to be a peculiar people, and
we can apply that to ourselves, because in the New Testament, he says, you're that
chosen generation now.
You're that royal priesthood.
You're that peculiar people.
And so we want to apply it in that way.
Now look at Deuteronomy chapter 14, verse 1, ye are the children of the Lord your
God.
Does that apply to us as Christians in the New Testament?
All day long.
We are the children of the Lord our God.
And so because we are the children of the Lord our God, then we should not cut ourselves,
right?
What does it say?
You should not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead,
for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God.
And the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself above all the nations
that are upon the earth.
Why do you want to downgrade?
Don't you want to be above all the nations that are on the earth?
Don't you want to be the peculiar people?
The royal prince?
No, no, no.
Let's pattern ourselves after the other, no.
Why would we pattern ourselves after the other nations?
We ought to be different.
Peculiar means different, unique, special.
And he says because of this, don't do these pagan things, cutting yourself, carving weird
shapes in your eyebrows, or whatever.
And by the way, don't be tattooing your body.
The Bible says, thou shalt not print any marks upon thy body, nor make any cuttings
in thy flesh for the dead.
I am the Lord.
We're supposed to be clean.
We're supposed to be different.
We're supposed to be righteous.
Look at Deuteronomy 26, while you're getting there, I'll start reading in verse 16.
This day the Lord thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments.
Thou shalt therefore keep and do them with all thine heart and with all thy soul.
Thou hast avouched the Lord this day to be thy God, and to walk in his ways, and
to keep his statutes, and his commandments, and his judgments, and to hearken unto his
voice.
And the Lord hath avouched thee this day to be his peculiar people, as he hath promised
thee, and that thou shouldest keep all his commandments, and to make thee high above
all nations which he hath made, in praise, and in name, and in honor, and that thou
mayest be in holy people unto the Lord thy God as he hath spoken.
You know, I've noticed an interesting paradox among teenagers.
Here's the paradox.
On one hand, teenagers desire to make a name for themselves or find out who they
are or be different, stand out from the crowd.
Isn't that the truth?
But then on the other hand, teenagers also just have this desire to fit in and be liked
and appreciated and accepted by everyone.
Isn't that a bit of a paradox?
On the one hand, they want to stand out and be their own man, their own woman.
But then at the same time, they also want to just be accepted in the crowd.
And so they constantly give in to peer pressure, follow the crowd, just do whatever it takes
to fit in, be liked, be accepted.
And the irony of this is that, you know, in order to be different, they'll do things
like dye their hair all kinds of crazy colors, get all kinds of strange piercings,
dress in strange clothing, and they're doing this to be different.
But the irony is that everybody's doing stuff like that.
So by doing stuff like that, you're really not being different at all because everybody's
out to get a tattoo.
Everybody's putting their hair a funny color.
Everybody's getting a strange piercing or whatever.
Then at that point, you know, you're not really standing out anymore.
And I'm here to tell you, you know, that's not what it means to be a peculiar people
on the side of God.
Cutting markings into yourself, printing marks on your body, getting strange haircuts,
you know, carving the corners of your head and marring the corners of your beard and
making cuttings in your eyebrows or whatever.
You know, this is not what God wants us to do, to stand out.
Let me tell you how to stand out in 2020.
Be a godly Christian and you're going to stand out because that's not what the crowd
is doing.
You know, you want to be a rebel, you want to be counter-cultural, you want to get out
of the mainstream, you want to be alternative, progressive, you know, be a Bible-believing
Christian and that's the biggest act of rebellion that you could do in 2020 against
this world that we live in.