Journey to Vision ... Christians have to be Christians (Pt. 4/5)

Christ-ians

VS

“christians”

Every year God brings us deeper into His Kingdom, into His Word, into His will for us as a church. For guys like me, Paul, and Cedric who’ve been here from the beginning pretty much, we’ve had the blessing, and frankly a calling, to have our minds transformed, perspectives redefined in just about everything of God. The things that were drilled into us for decades in Sunday school are beginning to give way to their true meaning revealed by the Holy Spirit.

First year, God compelled us to be freed from bondages that were holding us back from Him (some of us were in some awful relationships). 2nd year, even though we didn’t exactly dedicate ourselves to the right things, he compelled us to give our lives to His Kingdom. 3rd year, His Kingdom began to invade our very reality. Last year He redefined for us what it means to be church.

This year, something that has gripped our hearts more and more, myself definitely, is to teach, to challenge, those gathering with us about what it’s really like to be saved.

I had a summer job one year where I ran a clinical trial for a new chronic muscle pain treatment. 2 hour sessions where this person had to talk to me. So I talked to people about Jesus. And I came to realize one thing: people love God, people want a saviour, they just hate church, what they’ve seen of the church people. And I had to explain to them that there are lots of people in the church who aren’t Christians, how some “christians” who say they’re christian, but aren’t; explain to them the parable of the weeds, and that passage where Jesus says “I don’t know you” to some people who were sure they were getting into heaven. Hypocrisy is like the top thing on their hated list; people who say they’re Christians, but act nothing like the saved believers in scripture.

So what did saved believers look like?

Ephesians 1:13-14

13In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, 14who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Holy spirit is the seal, the proof of our salvation. That having the Holy Spirit in you, in your life, is your sign of being saved. So the next question is, what does that look like?

Acts 2:37-38

37Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?"

38And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2, they repented, they were baptized, they received the Holy Spirit, and they lived this way. That's the progression of being saved. Jesus already said that’s what people who believe in Him would do too:

Matthew 13:44-46

The Parable of the Hidden Treasure

 44"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

The Parable of the Pearl of Great Value

 45"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, 46who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.

Jesus said that people who’ve found heaven would want to live Acts 2.

You see, God’s Word paints a picture of salvation as our receiving the Holy Spirit, which is supposed to radically change us. Apostle Paul used a word in his letter to Titus that really sums it up. Titus 3:3-6 says that the Holy Spirit regenerates us; that salvation is this metamorphosis of who we are.

In contrast, nowadays when I ask people are you Christian, they reply is usually “Yeah I go to church”. Most people today think they are saved because they prayed a prayer, and someone told them they are saved, and yeah, they go to a service. Living radically for God by the power of the Holy Spirit has become, well, a radical thing. A rarity. And for many “christians” today, living like that has become optional; they don’t really even want to.

And I struggled with this. I read that Acts passage and thought, “well, I say I’m saved, I say I’ve repented, I’ve been baptised, I say I have the Holy Spirit, why doesn’t my life look like that?” Half the time I don’t even want that. And worst of all, why hasn’t it bothered me? What I desire of my life looked almost nothing like the lives of saved believers in the bible. Shouldn’t that have bothered me?

I’m not saying salvation is by works or our own efforts, but the question is if the Holy Spirit was really in me, if the Holy Spirit is really in my life regenerating me as Apostle Paul says, would I be as content with living the way I do? Would I be as content with the priorities that I have?

Ultimately my point isn’t to get into debating the criteria of being saved, I just want to raise some questions. Questions that we’ve been taught never to ask:

“Am I really saved?”

“Where am I with God really?”

Those are some of the most important questions you could ask God in your entire lifetime. Yet I know lots of people who say they’re christian who’ve never asked that question to God; mostly because they don’t know, and that’s really scary. Some just plain don’t want to know, afraid they’ll actually have to surrender if they really faced it.

I hope and pray everyday that those of us who claim to be saved, who claim to be Christians will have heard so, have known so, from God, from the spirit of God that’s supposed to have entered into our lives. That we would face those questions, and pursue hearing from God on our salvation, and not just rely on our pastors, friends, or you telling yourself that you’ve made it. On the last day only God’s affirmation matters. At the gates of heaven what your pastor said, what your friends said, what you say about you isn’t going to mean didly squat.

Right now I want to invite up a dear brother of mine, the first person I ever had the guts to ask “how do you know you’re saved?”. I want him to share with us a bit about his journey in wrestling with salvation:

Chat with Sam

Transcript coming soon.

Some of you have already gone through what Sam went through, and God has shown you and told you how His Spirit has transformed you and made you His child. I’m so happy for you guys; that’s a great moment. Don't keep that to yourself! Share it with someone, everyone.

For some of you what I said rang some alarm bells, perhaps alarms that have been ringing for a while just like Sam, or maybe you’ve just heard these words for the first time and you wonder where you stand with God. I ask you to sit down with God in prayer and simply ask Him, “Where am I with you?”, and continue to pursue God and ask His Spirit into your life if you want to see that the “old has gone the new has come”.

And some of you have already rejected what I said, and are committed to doing nothing about it. For you guys I beg you, I plead with you, if you want to throw out everything that I just said, that’s fine, I don’t mind at all. But please sit down with the Word of God, and read it. Don’t just go back to what you’ve been taught about the bible. Actually sit down, and read what Jesus said. Encounter the words of your God.

This is one of the first topics we want to address here when we meet people, so we ask that you not be offended when we ask how you know you’re saved. We are not trying to condemn or judge people, we just want everyone to be affirmed and convicted about salvation, not by men, but by God.

To me one of 2 things can happen, either you ask and are affirmed by God (great moment), or God says nothing (or worse) and wouldn’t you be glad you asked? Either way it’s a win win situation. That moment of affirmation is the best moment of our lives, when Holy Spirit enters into us and we are convicted of God’s grace and HS begin to transform us to live like we are his children, live like we really believe He is our God.