And so he says here that being a peculiar people involves
keeping his commandments, involves keeping his statutes.
You know, that's what it means to be the peculiar people
because most people out there are not living their lives
by the word of God.
You live your life by the word of God,
you're gonna be different.
I don't wanna be like all the nations,
you shouldn't wanna be like all the nations,
let's be different.
And as a teenager or whatever,
maybe you have these two kind of conflicting desires.
The one to stand out and be different,
the one to be accepted and loved and part of a group.
Well, here's how you solve this, my friend.
Here's how you stand out and be different.
You be a zealous, Bible-believing, Bible-toting Christian.
And here's how you be accepted.
You're accepted right here in the local church
and in every other Bible-believing church.
You're accepted in Christianity.
You know, you think we're the only Christians out there.
You think that our, first of all,
there's hundreds of people here,
but let alone our church.
What about all the other millions of Christians out there?
You know, the world wants to brainwash you
to think that everybody's off the deep end,
everybody's crazy, everybody's an atheist,
everybody is for all the perversion that's out there.
Folks, no, there are always 7,000 men
that haven't bowed to need of bail.
And in the U.S.'s case,
it's probably more like seven million men,
you know, the size of our country.
It's probably seven million men
that haven't bowed to need of bail.
And so there's your group, there's your team,
there's the club.
You know, why would I want to be a part of some other club?
The best club to be a part of is called Christianity.
It's called the local church.
It's called being a Baptist.
Now if you would flip over in your Bible to Titus chapter 2.
Titus chapter 2, you know, the Bible says that God wants us to walk in His ways,
keep His statutes, keep His commandments.
That's what's going to make us a peculiar people unto Him.
Look at Titus chapter 2, verse number 13, "Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious
appearing of the great God and our Savior Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us, that
He might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of
good works, these things speak and exhort and rebuke with all authority, let no man
despise thee."
Let no man despise thee.
Why would we be on the defense as Christians?
Why would we be on the defense worried about people despising us and, you know, I'm just
worried that people are going to look down on me?
Let me tell you something, ladies, when you're out there, and I'm especially talking to young
people tonight, when you're out there wearing skirts and dresses while they're wearing pants
and short shorts, let me tell you something, they don't despise you.
They're not looking down on you for dressing modestly and dressing like a lady because,
you know what, you look classier.
You are doing something that is godlier.
There's nothing to be embarrassed or, "Oh, I'm so ashamed to be out wearing a skirt."
No.
You ought to be ashamed to be out there half naked.
Why would we be on the defensive, like, "Oh, man, my parents make me dress this way."
Well, you know what, thank god your parents respect you even if you don't respect yourself.
Even if you don't respect yourself and you're willing to just put your body on display and
get half naked, thank god your parents respect you enough to cover your body with clothing.
You know, thank god your parents respect your femininity enough to want you to dress feminine
even if you don't.
Even if you're trying to be a man, you know, trapped in a woman's body or whatever you're
trying to do.
You know, thank god for parents who are glad that they had a girl.
They're not like in communist China wishing it's a boy, okay, because of some kind of
one child policy.
Hey, when we have a girl, we're happy to have a girl.
We don't say, "Oh, I wish it was a boy."
Hey, we have a boy, we praise god.
We have a girl, we praise god.
There's no preference.
We don't wish that we had more boys or more girls.
Hey, whatever god gives is a blessing, but you know we do want our boys to be boys, we
want our girls to be girls.
That's all we want.
I don't care if I have 10 girls in a row, but they better all be girls.
They better all act like girls, and I'll have 10 boys in a row if they'll all act like boys.
So quit trying to be something that you're not, and let me tell you something, you're
not a heathen.
You're not a Gentile.
You're not unsaved.
You're a Christian.
Act like one.
Own it.
Be what you are.
Trying to be something that you're not?
Hey, you try to fit in with the worldly people, it's a fool's errand because you're never
going to fit in with the worldly people, so why don't you just be who you are.
You are a Christian, own it, be it, do it, don't try to be half in and half out, just
own it.
That's how you are, that's how you act, these are your rules that you live by, this is how
you dress.
It's nothing to be ashamed of, it's something to be proud of.
Let him the glory of the glory and the Lord.
Everybody's got their pride, don't they?
Queer pride, white power, black pride, Hispanic pride, Asian pride.
Right, isn't that what kind of things that people in this world are proud of?
Proud to be an American!
But the Bible says him the glory, let him glory in the Lord.
There's really only one thing to be proud of, it's that I'm in Christ.
That's really the only thing that I'm going to glory in is I am a Christian!
Christian power!
You know, that's all that matters, because being white is meaningless.
Being black is meaningless.
Being Latino is meaningless.
Being an Asian is meaningless, none of that has any value.
In the eyes of God, spiritually speaking.
And you know what?
Being an American, sorry, is meaningless, okay?
You didn't get to choose, you weren't some soul floating around up in heaven like I get
to be born in America because I really excelled up here, you know, in the pre-life.
Listen to me, you know what?
Before that egg from my mother and seed from my father came together, I didn't exist.
My soul didn't exist.
My spirit didn't exist.
I did not exist.
There's no pre-life.
There's an afterlife.
There's no before-life.
Sorry Mormons.
That's what they think.
They think we're all a bunch of spirit babies coming down from heaven or something.
No.
Folks, I came into existence in my mother's womb.
That's where I began to exist, okay?
And here's the how.
Why?
Did I win some lottery to get to be born in America?
No.
You know what it is?
It really is a lottery because it wasn't based on any achievements or merits that I did like
I'm an American because I earned it.
Who was born in America?
Put up your hand.
Okay, you earned nothing.
We started at the top.
We started in the best country.
We started with the Navy blue passport.
We're there.
Okay, why would you be proud of that?
You didn't achieve that.
I didn't achieve that.
Hey, the only thing I'm proud of was what Christ achieved for me on the cross.
I'm proud of his work, his effort, his kingdom.
I'll fly his flag.
He's the one that I represent.
And so I'm not ashamed of that.
Why would I be ashamed of Christ in this evil and adulterous generation?
I'm not going to.
And so I don't apologize for who I am.
You know, and I personally am probably more infamous than you are, and yet I'm not ashamed
of who I am.
I don't go around apologizing to people for who I am.
Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm Pastor Anderson, I know, you've probably seen my videos.
Oh man, did you Google me?
I'm not ashamed of who I am.
You know, that's who I am.
If you don't like it, fine.
Because guess what?
There are plenty of people who do like it.
And the Lord likes it.
And that's all that matters.
You know, and who's my tribe?
Who's my posse?
You know, who are my friends?
Who's my community?
Who do I fit in with?
God's people.
Not just here, but all over the world.
And so I got plenty of friends.
And so do you.
If you're a Bible-believing Christian, you got all kinds of friends.
You got a bunch of friends here, everywhere.
You know, you ever go visit another church in another city or even another country and
just have instant camaraderie with people that you met five minutes ago?
That's a pretty cool club to be a part of.
I mean, think about how hard it is typically to build a rapport with people that you don't
know.
You know, you get together with people you don't know, and it takes a while to kind of
melt the ice with new friends, new people, right?
But here's the thing.
When you travel to distant lands and run into fellow Christians, it's like you just have
instant brotherhood, instant camaraderie, and you can literally be talking to those people
sometimes after 10, 15 minutes like you've known them your whole life.
It's like you're just buddies.
And I'm sure many of you have experienced that.
I've experienced that many times.
So you're longing to be a part of a community, folks.
Seek out Christian friends and Christian brotherhood, and don't try to be accepted of this world.
And look, I'm all for being friendly with the people of this world.
I'm all for being acquaintances with the people of this world.
And look, that's many times how we reach the people of this world and get them saved.
We reach out to them in friendship and love and so forth.
But here's the thing, that's not us changing and pretending to be something that we're
not so that they'll accept us.
You know, look, we reach out to them as a Christian.
We make no apology for being a Christian.
And look, I have unsaved friends, but I reach out to them as a Christian.
I don't try to pretend I'm not or show, "Hey, let me show you how worldly I can be."
You know, just so you can see that I'm not that different.
No, sorry, I am that different.
You know, we're Christians.
It is what it is.
I'm not talking about being prideful or arrogant, but I'm just talking about being who you are,
being real and not trying to pretend to be worldly, pretending to be more sinful than
you are so that the world will like you.
The world's not, here's the thing, the kind of people who you have to do that for them
to like you, they're not gonna like you anyway once they find out what you're really like.
And the people that are gonna accept you for who you are are gonna accept you for who you
are and you don't have to pretend to be something that you're not.
And so we need to be a peculiar people and not be like those people in 1 Samuel 8 who
say, "Well, let us be like all the nations.
We just want to be like the Philistines.
We just want to be like all the public school kids and just fit in with all the kids of
public school."
And look, I went to public school, but you know what though?
I was different.
I carried my Bible every single day and people knew that I was a Christian.
It was no secret.
This guy's a Bible-believing Christian.
This guy's carrying his Bible.
This guy doesn't drink.
This guy's not going to do drugs.
This guy is not going to cheat in school and do these things because he's a Christian.
And did some people laugh at me for that?
Yeah, but a lot of people respected that, you know?
And let the people who laugh at it, just let them laugh it up.
But there are plenty of people that'll respect you for being a Christian.
And even if nobody respected me, I'd rather have God's respect than everybody in the world's
respect combined.
And not only that, when you're a Bible-believing Christian, you don't just have God's respect,
you have God's people's respect.
I'd rather have my parents' respect.
I'd rather have my pastor's respect.
I'd rather have my fellow church members' respect.
I'd rather have my brothers' and sisters' respect than the respect of some stranger
that's not going to matter.
And by the way, I got news for you young people, by the way, teenagers, the people that you're
friends with right now, there's like a 99% chance you're not going to be friends with
them 20 years from now.
Your BFF right now, who could testify to that?
I mean, think about those of you that are my age and older, those even younger than
me, those that are 30, 40, 50, 60, how many of you are friends with anyone from
high school?
Who would raise their hand and say, "I have no friends from high school, that's me, I
don't have."
Look around kids, I don't have a single friend that's from high school.
My oldest friend is Pastor Roger Jimenez and I started being friends with him when I was
20.
I have zero friends from elementary school, junior high, high school, so you want to just
spend all your time trying to impress these people.
The chances are, look around, it's not just me, you saw all the hands, chances are those
people aren't even going to be in your life.
You know who's going to be in your life though?
Your parents.
You know who's going to be in your life?
Your brother and sister.
You know who's going to be in your life?
Hopefully your pastor, or some pastor, if it's not me it'll be some other pastor if
you end up geographically in another place, at another church, or whatever.
You know, Christ is always going to be with you.
So don't get so caught up and just, "Oh man, I've got to make sure that the kids at school
like me.
I've got to make sure the kids in the neighborhood like me."
Hey look, you know, some people are going to like you and some people aren't, but just
be who you are and focus more on pleasing Christ than pleasing man.
Now go through what is John chapter 17.
John chapter 17.