What is a Christian?

 

LIMAVADY INDEPENDENT METHODIST CHURCH

NOTES FROM DRIVE IN MISSION ON TUESDAY 23 AUGUST 2022 – REV JIM LYONS

ACTS 11 VERSES 19 – 26

What is a Christian?  That is the question I want to address tonight with you.  If you are not a Christian tonight I hope this will be of help to you.  You might be someone who if pressed by someone else in an individual context would say “yes I am a Christian” rather than admit you are not.  From Matthew to Revelation various titles are given to the followers of Jesus Christ.  The word “saint” is used 60 times, “disciple” 30 times, “believer” 80 times, “brethren” 200 times but for the word “Christian” only 3 times.  Rarely used in the bible but widely used and embraced by many people today.  It is also very broad in its scope.  Many claim to be a Christian.  Tonight I want to look at it under 3 headings – what does it mean to be a Christian, what does it look like and what about us.

What does it mean to be a Christian?  There are various opinions on what it means to be a Christian.  The bible brings clarity.  The word Christian is recorded 3 times in the New Testament, twice in the book of Acts and once in Peter’s epistle.  A Christian is someone who belongs to Christ – verse 26.  The little letters I A N at the end of the word mean belonging to the party of.  If a person professes to be a Christian what they are really saying is they belong to Christ. Being a Christian means belonging to Christ.  Think of the days of slavery.  The perception was that they were the property of someone.  You paid the price for them, you purchased them.  They were yours.  That picture is relevant to the word of God.  The Lord made all things in heaven and earth, made through him and for him.  He has bought us.  We were slaves to sin.  Jesus went to the cross to release us from spiritual slavery.  Whosoever commits sin is a servant or slave to sin.  The apostle Peter reminds us of the price that was paid – “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” (1 Peter 1 verses 18 and 19)  Jesus gave his life to free us from the slavery of sin that we might become devoted servants to him.  I am the property of Jesus.  O what joy that knowledge brings.  Christ is the king of kings.  There are 2 words abused today – the word church and the word Christian.  The church is not a building but a group of people.  The Christian does not include everybody, only those who belong to Christ.  The Pharisees in the Bible had no time for Christ in their lives.  His teaching would have turned their spiritual world upside down.  Today people equate Christians with a certain standard of living – they don’t drink, they don’t do drugs, they don’t engage in activity that is shady.  There are many people like that today.  It is all about what I do and what I don’t do.  A Christian is more than that.  It is a personal relationship with Christ.  When I commit my life unto him I belong to him.  A person belongs to Jesus and Jesus belongs to them.  This is a relationship.  What does it mean to be a Christian – it means to belong to Christ.

What does it look like?  What is an American, an African, an Englishman?  What is a Christian?  A person who belongs to Christ.  How then does a person become a Christian?  Jesus made it clear to Nicodemus that it was not by religious practices.  He had to be born again in the spiritual sense.  He had to enter God’s kingdom.  There is that experience that Christ has entered their life by his Holy Spirit.  People leave that independent lifestyle and are united to the person of Christ.  They belong to him and he belongs to them.  In the bible the picture is given of the church as the bride of Christ.  The bride is committed to her bridegroom.  She bears his name and is united with him.  When we become a Christian we become a new creature, the old things have passed away.  Jesus has drawn the line of demarcation from the person we were and how we lived our lives.  Everything has become new.  Christ has us and we have him.  There is a radical change that occurs in our lives. 

What about us?  Verse 20 “when they were come to Antioch, spake unto the Grecians, preaching the Lord Jesus.  And the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed and turned unto the Lord.”  A true Christian is someone who has heard the good news of the Lord.  They have heard him proclaimed, of his death on the cross, how he was buried and rose again.  When we turn in repentance to the Lord for salvation and security in him - that is how you can become a Christian.  You can receive Christ into your life, belong to him.  Are you a Christian?  Do you realise that it is more than attending services in a local church, getting involved in its activities?  Can you say that there was a time in your life when you turned from your sin, when you stopped relying on anything else?  Can you say “I am is and he is mine”?  You have to respond to it.  You have to acknowledge you have sinned, that you will never be acceptable before God.  No matter how clean your life is, how you dress yourself up, how you speak.  There is only one person acceptable and that is Jesus.  We are acceptable before God through him because he is sufficient.  Jesus died but God raised him from the dead.  Jesus is acceptable before God.  If you do accept him he will come into your life by his Holy Spirit, he will change you from the inside out and we will truly belong to him.  If you truly understand what a Christian is and that you are not one then accept Jesus as Saviour today.