Therefore be imitators of God, as dearly loved children. And walk in love, as the Messiah also loved us and gave Himself for us, a sacrificial and fragrant offering to God. But sexual immorality and any impurity or greed should not even be heard of among you, as is proper for saints. Coarse and foolish talking or crude joking are not suitable, but rather giving thanks. For know and recognize this: Every sexually immoral or greedy person who is an idolater, does not have an inheritance in the kingdom of the Messiah and God.  Ephesians 5:1-5 HCSB

Our society encourages us to go along with the flow. We are encouraged by tv ads and social media to do what everybody else is doing. Sadly the rest of the world doesn’t seem to be doing so well these days. So, I ask are you doing what everybody else is doing or what God calls you to do?

Fitting in is very important whether you are in high school or consider yourself to be an adult. We don’t want to be the oddball that doesn’t go along with everyone else. We want to get along and be liked by our peers. We succumb to peer pressure in things like drinking, use of tobacco products, and inappropriate language, and sexual immorality. As adults, do we show our children that we are honoring God and not doing what “everybody else” is doing? Do we surround ourselves with Christian friends that set a good example or do we go out drinking with our friends but tell our kids that they shouldn’t do that?

I ask you today, who is your everybody else? Is it your church family that you spend time with on the weekends or is it your barroom crowd? Are you doing what everybody else is doing, or are you doing what God’s word commands you to do?

Growing up, my parents taught me that I didn’t need to do what everybody else was doing. Yes, they bought me the name brand clothes and a car, but they taught me to be independent. They taught me to use my brain and not follow along with the crowd. My mom put the fear of God in me through bringing me to church every time the doors were open and my dad instilled enough fear of him that I knew better. I didn’t want to disappoint my heavenly Father or my earthly father.

We live in a messed up world right now. Society is a scary place when you think about it. I have come to realize that quarantine is not so bad after all. But, I am grateful for the everybody else in my life. You see, I have surrounded myself with good, Christian friends and family that are all striving to imitate Christ. It helps me to do the same. So I guess you could say that I try to do what everybody else is doing, but I have some good examples. I have a pastor and church deacons and leaders that do their best to imitate Christ and encourage me to do the same. They speak the truth that is in God’s word and encourage us to do our best to imitate Him.

My friend if the everybody else in your life is doing things like idolizing their possessions and avoiding spending time with God, find a new everybody else. We are in the middle of a six week study in our Sunday School class entitled, Why Do I Need Church? Well, the one thing we are learning through this study is that finding a good bible teaching church will bring you together with a good “everybody else” group. It will bring you together with people that want to spend their time serving the Lord through helping others in their community.  It will connect you with people striving to imitate Christ.

Look around at your everybody else. Are they serving the Lord or are they self serving and busy trying to impress those around them? In Galatians 1:10 Paul tells us that once we are saved, we should be striving to please the Lord because if we are trying to please people, we can’t be a servant of Christ.

If your everybody else is doing things that you know you have no business doing, find another everybody else. Align yourself with Christian friends that do their best to be imitators of Christ. And who knows maybe you can even bring some of your old everybody else over to your new everybody else.

Have a great day!