“The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch” (Acts 1:7).

Call yourself a Christian and our world ignores you. Christians don’t make much difference anyway.

BUT…

• Keep the Lord’s day the Lord’s way gathering with old and young every week
• Worship the One who was despised, rejected, and betrayed
• Pray to an invisible God
• Give yourself to serve people you don’t even know
• Give your money for the sake of people you’ve never met
• Serve and honor all people
• Treasure God’s word by reading, meditating, and memorizing

Do these things and the world thinks you’re a crazy radical fool.

The word radical comes from the Latin rabix, literally meaning “root.” That’s where we get the word radish. It has to do with getting to the root of things.

When the world calls Christ-followers radical, they are actually correct. We are radical. All those things that were listed are the normal practices that get to the root of what it means to be Christian. Christians are radically different than anything this world has ever seen. It’s always been and will continue to be that way.

“The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch” (Acts 11:26).

Christians.

The way we use this word today is as a self-designation. We call ourselves Christian. But that wasn’t the case in the early church. The disciples were called Christians. People of the time knew who the Jews were. They knew pagans. They knew who the Romans were. But these guys…these followers of Jesus…these disciples…what are they? They were unlike any people they knew. These were a new category of people. They behaved differently. They loved differently. They worshiped differently.

So, the people of the day called these disciples Christians.

Is there enough evidence in our lives where people look at the way we live, love, worship, serve, give and cannot help but call us Christians?

If this title is only a self-designation, we have a problem.

People ought to know we are Christians because they see Christ-honoring life in us.

“The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction” (Proverbs 1:7).

Fear.

We don’t like that word. We rarely use this word to refer to someone we love, honor, respect, and adore.

But, that’s exactly what the Hebrew word fear means. It means to love, honor, respect, adore, cherish. Loving, honoring, respecting, adoring, cherishing God is the beginning of knowledge and all wisdom. It is only when we properly “fear” God that we can order all other loves and loyalties in our lives.

Our world epitomizes folly. Our world fears and dreads cancer while laughing at hell and the idea of judgment.

How terribly and tragically foolish.

Love, honor, respect, adore, cherish…yes, even fear the LORD and live.