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Over the last few weeks, we've been thinking
about some of the basics of Christianity: the person and
work of Jesus Christ; his death and resurrection; the
concept of salvation by grace; and today we're thinking
about what it means to be a Christian and how a person
becomes one. Now I guess most people here today would
claim to be Christians. Few people come to church these
days who aren't. But its surprising how many people are
unclear on what it is that actually makes us a Christian
and who, if they were asked by a friend to explain what a
Christian was, would struggle to find a good answer. It's
even less likely of course if we were to go out into the
general community and ask people what they think a
Christian is. |
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Imagine we were to do a survey at Box Hill
Central or Chadstone. What sort of answers do you think
we'd get to the question "What is a Christian?"
We might get answers like a good person, someone who goes
to church, someone who loves their neighbour, someone who
comes from a Christian country, etc. So how would we
respond to those sorts of suggestion? What would we say
it is that defines a Christian? Well, that's what we're
going to be thinking about today and the key verse for us
was in our second reading. Look at Mark 1:15. [Perhaps
someone with a loud voice could stand up and read it out
for us.] "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of
God has come near; repent, and believe in the good
news." (Mark 1:15 NRSV) |
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The one thing that defines a person as a
Christian is this: that they belong to the kingdom of
God. When Jesus came this was how he summarised his
message: "the kingdom of God is near." Those
other things are important. It's important that we do
good works, that we love others, that we go to Church,
but they're actually subsidiary to the real issue, being
subjects of the King. Those other things flow out of our
membership of God's kingdom, not the other way around.
Let me illustrate what I mean. Imagine a young man,
Angus, a classic redheaded Scot, who marries Heather,
also a redhead. They have a number of children and
surprise, surprise all their children are redheads as
well. It only takes one look to see they're all from the
same family. Now it would be no good me going down to the
shops and buying some red hair dye to change the colour
of my hair and then claiming to be part of the family as
well, would it? It isn't the colour of the hair that
makes them part of the family. It's the other way round. |
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Well, that's an imperfect illustration of the
fact that it isn't our behaviour that makes us children
of God. The behaviour comes as a result of being brought
into God's family, God's kingdom. So the question is, how
do we join God's kingdom? Well, in fact that verse,
again, holds the key to how we can become members of
God's kingdom. Jesus says "The time is fulfilled,
and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe
in the good news." |
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There are just two things we need to do to enter
God's kingdom. Neither of them is difficult. Neither of
them makes us any better than anyone else. Neither of
them gives us any merit before God. But both are
necessary if we're to receive the benefits of God's grace
and forgiveness. What are they? Repent and believe. Let's
think about each in turn. |
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1 Repentance |
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So what is repentance? The Greek word for
repentance means a change of mind. It has the idea of
changing the orientation of one's life. So what is it
that we might need to repent of? What is it that we need
to change? I won't ask you to call out all those things
in your life you need to repent of. There'll be an
opportunity for you to do that silently to God later in
the service. And in fact listing all those things won't
actually answer the question. You see, when Jesus calls
his listeners to repent it's in the context of his
announcement of the coming of God's kingdom. What he's
calling them to repent of is there attitude to the King.
What we need is a total change of mind so that instead of
me being on the throne of my life, I need to put Jesus
there. |
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So what will true repentance look like? Well it
will look something like this: |
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I will put Jesus first |
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Listen to what Jesus said to those who thought
they'd like to be his followers: "If any want to
become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up
their cross and follow me. 35For those who
want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose
their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel,
will save it." (Mk8:34-35 NRSV) In other words when
I repent I put Jesus first … |
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… Before my will |
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To repent means to deny my own natural
inclination to rule the world and instead to put Jesus
first, even if it means following him into suffering and
even death. To carry my cross means to give up my life,
or at least the right to rule over it. It means that I
hand over the rule of my life to the rightful King,
Jesus. Now that might not sound very good until you
realise that to hand over your life to God is to put
yourself in the care of the only one who actually knows
what's best for you and what's more, is able to achieve
it. Similarly, it means that I put Jesus … |
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… Before my ambitions |
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It's almost expected these days that young
people and probably even older people, will have a
mission statement for their life, some personal set of
ambitions that they're working towards achieving. And
generally those ambitions will entail such things as
wealth, power, prestige, comfort, security, pleasure,
popularity or something along those lines. Now there's
nothing wrong with any of those things in themselves, but
too often they become the whole focus of our lives,
rather than simply another aspect of a broader picture.
Too often their aim is to satisfy us as No. 1 rather than
to please God. It's only when Jesus is No. 1 that we can
get these sorts of ambition into focus. |
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… Before my popularity |
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It probably depends how old you are as to how
important popularity is. But let's face it, following
Jesus isn't all that popular today is it? The media love
to knock Christians, the rich can't understand why we're
not as interested in building wealth as they are, the
sophisticated social crowd think we're old fashioned and
quaint; (I mean who sings hymns these days?) and there's
a general suspicion of anyone with strong beliefs. You
may even have relatives or friends who'll be antagonistic
towards you if they know you're a Christian. But Jesus
warned us that if we're ashamed of him in this life then
we can only expect him to be ashamed of us in the next.
So repenting means that I give up my desire for
popularity and follow Jesus openly. |
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…Before anything that might come before
Jesus. |
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Jesus at one stage warned his followers to get
rid of anything in their life that might hinder them from
following Jesus. He said if your hand causes you to sin,
cut it off, if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out.
It's better to enter God's kingdom maimed than to miss
out altogether. |
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Too Hard? |
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Does that sound too hard? Well, we mustn't
forget that the gospel is good news for those who are
being saved. Jesus doesn't just leave it up to us to fix
ourselves up. He doesn't expect us to lift ourselves up
by the bootstraps. Rather, he gives us the power to
change, and he comes and helps us to do it. Last week, I
believe Michael talked about the way God's grace means
that God's love is poured out on us freely in the way he
removes our sin and makes us right with God again. And
God's grace continues to act in us when we repent and
turn to Christ in submission. |
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You see, when I hand over my life to Jesus he
does a wonderful thing. He comes and takes up residence
within me. He sends his Holy Spirit to live within me.
And when he comes and lives within me he begins to change
me. It's a bit like someone moving into an old ramshackle
house, the famous renovator's opportunity. And what
happens is this: on day 1 the person moves in. Now that's
a once-off event. A person only ever becomes a Christian
once. |
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But having moved in, that isn't the end of the
process by any means. The house still needs to be
renovated and redecorated. So too, when we turn our life
over to Jesus his Holy Spirit begins the process of
changing us. |
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Now he doesn't do it all at once, just as
someone renovating a house rarely does the work all at
once. No, he does it gradually, changing something here,
something there, perhaps working through the house one
room at a time, getting one bit right before moving on to
the next. |
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But he also doesn't just stop in the entrance
hall. God doesn't want us to turn to him and invite him
in, then shut the rest of the house up. He wants to get
in and change all of us. So the process of repentance is
an ongoing process. There'll never be a point in this
life when we can say the work is complete. God's aim is
to change me into his image, his likeness, and that
process will never be completed until I meet him face to
face and he renews me completely. So for those of us who
have been Christians for years, the process of repentance
never actually stops. And in the meantime, I need to
continue to trust him to do his work in me. And that's
the second part of being a Christian. |
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2 Believing |
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Jesus said "Repent and believe." So
what does it mean to believe? What does it mean to have
faith in Jesus? |
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Faith is: |
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… Taking Jesus at his Word |
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In Mark 5 there's an incident when a man named
Jairus comes to Jesus to ask him to heal his sick
daughter. As they're going back to his house, a woman
interrupts them by touching Jesus' robe and receiving
healing for an illness she has. Jesus stops to
talk to the woman and just as they start off again this
is what happens: "While he was still speaking, some
people came from the leader's house to say, "Your
daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any
further?" 36 But overhearing what they
said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, "Do
not fear, only believe." Jesus had promised to heal
the girl, but things weren't looking too good. So what
did the man have to do if he were to show faith in Jesus?
He had to take Jesus at his word. He had to trust that
Jesus would keep his promise. |
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But the woman I just mentioned also had faith in
Jesus. Her faith, though, was independent of any word
from Jesus. In her case faith consisted of |
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… Reaching out to Jesus |
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She trusted in his power to heal, so she reached
out to him to receive that power. |
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Jesus once said that unless you receive the
kingdom of God like a little child you'll never enter it.
What I think he meant by that was that we need to have
the sort of trust in our heavenly father that a little
child has in his or her earthly father. A trust that our
heavenly father will provide what we need, will care for
us and protect us and will have our best interests in
mind. So faith in God involves |
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…having childlike trust |
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Notice by the way that this isn't childish
trust. There's nothing childish about trusting God to
look after you or to keep his promises. What's more, part
of that childlike trust is knowing not just that God will
look after me, but also |
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… Knowing that God accepts me |
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As Michael said last week, when we receive God's
love, we know that he's given it to us freely and fully.
And if he loves us fully and freely, that means he also
accepts us for who we are, with all our spots and
wrinkles. Not that that means there's nothing that needs
to be fixed up in our lives. We've already talked about
how the Holy Spirit comes into our lives and begins the
lifelong task of renovation. But in God's grace he looks
at us and sees Jesus. He sees his Holy Spirit living
within us and filling us with his righteousness. |
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The reason that God accepts me, you see, is
because Jesus has taken my place in his death on the
cross and has transferred his righteousness to me. So
when God looks at me he sees Jesus' righteousness shining
out. And so I can be confident that God accepts me as his
own, even if I am still a work-in-progress. Finally,
faith is |
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… Receiving Jesus Christ as our King |
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This of course brings us back to where we
started. If we believe in Jesus, then we'll believe his
claim to be the Lord, the Christ, the anointed one that
God has sent to establish his kingdom on earth. And if we
believe in Jesus as the King, then we'll make him king in
our own life. |
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Now I imagine that most if not all of you had
heard all of this before, but still, I want to ask you
two questions. The first question is, have you come to
the point in your life of making Jesus your King? If not,
then are you ready now to repent, that is to turn away
from yourself as the controller of your life and to hand
over that control to Jesus? Do you believe that Jesus is
able to remove your sin from you and to make you totally
acceptable to God? If you've come to that point then I'm
going to pray a prayer in a moment that you might like to
make your own. |
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The second question is addressed to those who
have made that decision to follow Jesus some time in the
past. The question for you is, are you continuing to
believe in Jesus? Are you continuing to trust him to
change you and to make you more like God? Do you believe
that when God sees you he loves you and accepts you as
his own? And are you allowing him into all the rooms in
your life? Into the realms of your marriage or your
singleness, your family, your ambition, your leisure,
your money, your sexuality, your time? If you're still
keeping parts of your life closed to him, then repent
today, turn all of your life over to him so he can change
you into his own image. |
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I'm going to pray now, and if you'd like to, you
could join me in the prayer as I say it. I'll read the
prayer out first so you'll know what I'm going to pray
then I'll do it again one line at a time so you can join
in if you wish. The prayer goes like this: |
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Dear God, I know that I'm not worthy to be
called a child of God. I don't deserve your gift of
eternal life. I'm guilty of rebelling against you and
ignoring you. I need your forgiveness. I want to turn
from living my life according to my own will. I believe
that Jesus died for me and rose again to give me new
life. I now acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Lord and
Master of my life. Make me a member of your family. Come
and live within me and change me to be like you. Please
enable me to love and serve you always. Amen. |
