To Be A Christian #1
John 3:15-18, Romans 10:9, Matthew 27:46-50, 28:5-8
By: Joseph Ball
- 1.0: 05/31/2015
In the church, one of the most important questions anyone can ask is this: What does it take to be a Christian?
Many try to ponder on different theology, discuss different standards, argue about when a person really has it or doesn’t. No matter how much theology you ponder, or how many strict standards you hold, or what someone else believes about you, none of that makes you a Christian.
Some people will say that everybody just gets to go to heaven, and that’s wrong. Others will say that they were baptized and that’s enough, and they’re wrong. Some will even say that they do a lot of good deeds, and that will be enough, and while good deeds are good, I am sorry, that is not enough to get you to heaven, that is not enough to make you a Christian.
Whether your mom and dad, husband or wife, brother or sister are Christians or not, doesn’t make you a saint or a sinner. Whether you got dunked or sprinkled doesn’t make you a Christian. Whether you know all the theology and follow all the rules and standards in the Bible and your denomination, you guessed it by now, doesn’t make you a Christian.
So, what does? The Bible is pretty clear on what does make a Christian, and what a person should be like after they become a Christian. Tonight, we are starting with basics. Tonight, we are going to lay the foundation and hopefully with this bit of head knowledge we will be able to see everyone here living as a Christian.
John 3:
15 That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.
Romans 10:
9 That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
So there we have it, Paul makes it plain and simple. To become a Christian we are to confess Christ as our saviour from sin, and believe that He not only died but rose again to save us for eternity.
So let’s look at what we have to do, and what Christ has done tonight to make us Christians.
I. Confess
What are we to confess?
A. That Jesus is the Lord of all.
He is the Only Saviour
Mohammed, Krishna, Buddha… Not Saviours. No other deity out there is a true God, nor can they do anything to save you from your sins, nor do they want to.
He is Sovereign
His will is supreme.
He is Just
He is fair and makes no mistakes.
He is Holy
And as a result of His holiness He cannot tolerate sin.
That brings us to the next thing we confess.
B. Our Sins
To Christ
All of them
With Godly sorrow.
We have to confess our sins, He already knows what we have done, but He still needs you to confess that what you did is wrong. With my children, I make sure they accurately tell me why they are getting in trouble when they do something wrong, and they almost always do without much if any coaxing. Our children know what they do wrong, and having them confess reinforces to them that what they did is wrong, and helps them to have a better understanding of how they ought to act instead.
II. Forsake.
With the Confession of sins, we must have remission of sins. Remission is a fancy little term that means it goes away.
God says He will scatter the memory of your sin as far as the east from the west, and that is how far we are to be from our sin.
A. Repent
Turn away from it
180 degree turn
No more turning back
B. Forsake
Leave it--Forsaken in the deep
Walk away from it
Run Away From It!
III. Believe.
And this is what glues it together. You confess your faith in Christ, Confess your sins to Him, Forsake them, and believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of them that do good. Believe that He has saved you. Believe that He can, and does, and did save! Believe in honest faith that what He says He will do. I can attest to that, when He says He will do something believe it He will do what He said.
A. That He Died For Your Offences
Death for sin, and death to sin. He died for them when you belonged on that Cross! He died for what you did this afternoon if you are a sinner. He died for what you use to do if you are a Christian. He died because of sin, because sin in our lives has to die.
B. That He has been raised for your justification.
He was raised again so that we could see that when we die to self, He will lift us up and make us into something all new. When sin leaves, you have to be filled back up with something. When sin exits the building on stage left, holiness begins growing in from stage right.
We will begin to grow new fruit in our lives that shows the world we are Christians as a result of His resurrection becoming effective for us.
I. Died In Place of Us For Our Sins
Matthew 27:
46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
47 Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias.
48 And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.
49 The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.
50 Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
II. Conquered Death, and Hell.
Matthew 28:
5 And the angel answered and said unto the women, Fear not ye: for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
6 He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where the Lord lay.
7 And go quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and, behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told you.
8 And they departed quickly from the sepulchre with fear and great joy; and did run to bring his disciples word.
C:
This is just the start. This is the beginning. If you have done these steps, you are a Christian and you are on your way to heaven. But in the coming weeks I will endeavor to go into more detail about what it means to live as a Christian. Because being saved won’t last long without some more things happening in your life.
I want to look at several things:
Devotions
Prayer
Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Goodness, Gentleness, Kindness, Self-Control
Mercy
Witnessing
And many other aspects of the Christian life. Being a Christian doesn’t just mean getting saved and going back into the life of sin. Paul says this:
1 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
2 God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?
A Christian is not a sinner, and a sinner is not a Christian. There is no way to reconcile those two and make them one. We have a desperate need in our time to learn what it means to be a Christian, not just learn how to cry at the altar over and over to make ourselves feel better, then leave and get the same results.
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