Peer pressure to conform to the world. When morality is out of style.

<p>Peer pressure to conform to the world. When morality is out of style.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Hendersonville Seventh-day Adventist Church, NC

David Wright

Lowest Common Denominator

This morning I thought we would play a little game and see how many of you are in fact smarter, or as smart, as a fifth grader.

The Second Continental Congress chose who to lead the Continental Army?

Number 2, the British troops hired nearly 30, 000 troops from Germany to help them fight the colonists.

Number 3, the following phrase, we trampled through the mall like a gaggle of geese.

We trampled through the mall like a gaggle of geese is an example of a simile, a metaphor, personification, or figurative language.

What would we do without this information?

Which layer of the Earth's crust do humans live on?

Okay, which instrument measures air pressure?

1, 285 round to the nearest hundred is what?

You're scared to answer aren't you, for fear.

85 is closer to the next hundred, so you round up.

Number 7, this 1 you really have to pay attention for.

The charge is $5 for the first hour and 50 cents per quarter hour after that.

And lastly, what is the mathematical term for the least common multiple of the denominators of a set of vulgar fractions?

What is the mathematical term for the least common multiple of the denominators of a set of vulgar fractions.

You're trying to add or subtract fractions, you have to make that bottom number be the same.

I won't get into all of that this morning.

But that is getting close to what I'd like to talk to you about today, this idea of the least common denominator.

Not so much in a mathematical way, but in the sense that as Christians, we like to take and add up fractions of truth rather than go for whole truth sometimes.

Well, I believe there's a growing trend within Adventism and the Christian world to find the least common denominator.

By that I mean we often look for ways and excuses to not give God our best, but rather our least.

What is the least I can give and still be saved?

Will I really be lost over something so small and so trivial and trite.

This idea is fostered as we look at other people instead of Christ.

Well, on Facebook I saw this church member and they were drinking.

Well, I know of an elder that goes out to eat on Sabbath.

Well the Sabbath school teacher, she wears jewelry.

To which I reply, I'm sorry but They are not the standard.

Yet the least common denominator simply says, if other people, church people that is, are doing it, then it must be okay.

And this idea only exacerbates in an Adventist ghetto, if you will.

Now when you're the minority, when there's not Adventists everywhere around you, and you're the only Adventist in your place of work or where you live, you feel more of a sense of duty, right?

A responsibility to rightly uphold the standard, to be a positive example, if you will, of what it means to be a Seventh-day Adventist.

But, when everybody around you is Adventist, when we work with Adventists, attend Adventist schools, shop in Adventist stores, go to Adventist hospitals, and even have our own Adventist yogurt.

Now, don't get me wrong, there's benefits, but when we find ourselves in that situation, for some reason, to stand for moral values can slip a little bit.

No longer do we get questions about what weird thing we brought to lunch today.

And your focus can more easily shift to what everybody else is doing.

And the mission is for somebody else to do.

And the thought can prevail that says, if they can do it, why can't I?

You know, if we take a quick walk through the Old Testament over and over and over again we see God's people dealing with the same struggle, the same temptation to be like the world, to return to Egypt if you will.

And 1 of the first things that goes, often times, is a desire to conform to the fashion, the styles, customs, and practices of those around them.

And so sadly many churches today, I believe, are sliding on that slippery slope of the least common denominator, looking to others instead of Christ, being more concerned with what is politically correct versus what is biblically correct.

Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.

I was listening to a sermon this week that 2 friends of mine sitting back there near the back, Shane and Jesse Tate, forwarded on to me.

If you haven't discovered AudioVerse, there's just hundreds, if not thousands, of Adventist sermons.

He's an Adventist evangelist and revivalist from Ann Arbor, Michigan.

And the title of this particular sermon intrigued me.

Back to Menu

Lowest Common Denominator

Transcript

Description

Sponsor

Recorded

Related

Vital Traits for Soulwinning

1h 32m

Speak it in Love

49m

Bible Weekend

02 Answering False Doctrines

43m

Restoration 2006: Prepare Me

Secrets of Centenarians: Living Long in Luxury

48m

Plenary

Humbler, Harder (and Better)?

58m

The Power of Perspective

Two Covenants

57m

The True Medical Missionary

56m

Plenary

Are We First or Last?

57m

The Parables

The Wheat and the Tares

41m

Revival Now!

10. Adopt Christ’s Lifestyle

1h

Restoration 2006: Prepare Me

The Quarantine Guarantee: The Rest of the Story

42m

Leadership in an Immoral World: Inescapable Culpability

42m

Sound Doctrine