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Core - 1
How To Become a Christian
Introduction
JESUS SAVES!
Is a bumper sticker slogan that all Christians would agree on.
But WHO he saves, HOW he saves them, and WHAT it means to be saved are all argued in the world today.
Professor from Bellerman College stated: “Historically speaking, our churches are divided and are sending many different kinds of signals today into our world, and we need to be concerned about that.”
How to become a Christian is the most important question we can answer in the church today.
-If you are not a Christian, you need clear instruction, not mixed signals.
-If you are a believer, you need to be confident you have met all the requirements God has set forth in the Bible.
-If you are a maturing Christian, you need to be able to tell someone else clearly how to be saved.
We dare not send mixed signals over this most important question: What does a person do, exactly, to become a Christian?
As we seek to answer that question, I ask that we would all agree to do three things:
(1) Listen objectively.
Don’t just sit there and listen to see if what I say matches up to what you have traditionally been taught.
This is not a test of one’s belief system.
Let’s simply open up the Bible and see what it says.
(2) Study Thoroughly.
Let’s not take one verse of Scripture and build an entire theology on it.
The Bible says to “rightly divide the word of Truth.”
Some people get one verse on salvation and then close their minds to the rest of the Bible.
That is why there are many mixed signals.
(3) Begin correctly.
The Bible, in its entirety, is our source of authority.
But the place to study how to become a Christian is after Jesus died and was raised again from the grave.
A Christian is one who follows the resurrected Christ.
So to answer this question, we do not go to encounters Jesus had with people during his life, because Jesus had not completed his mission yet.
Those instances give us insight on Jesus life and what it means to follow him.
But studying encounters with Nicodemus, the woman at the well, and the thief on the cross do not tell us how.
Technically those people still lived under the OT law.
Jesus had not done what he came here to do.
So to correctly discover how to become a Christian, the right place to start is directly after Jesus rose from the grave.
That puts us into the book of Acts.
For the last several months, we have been walking our way through the Gospel of Luke.
We have been studying the life and ministry of Jesus.
The question I want us to deal with today and next Sunday is this: now that we’ve encountered Jesus, how do we rightly respond to him?
So we are doing a quick two-week series called “Core” looking at the Core of what it means to be a Christian.
This week we are going to tackle “How to Become a Christian” while next week we will see what it means to be an ongoing follower of Jesus.
And to start us off with how to respond to Jesus, we go to Acts.
As we have allowed Luke to guide us through the life of Jesus for months, it is now right that we allow him to tell us how to respond to Jesus.
Acts is volume 2 of the 2-volume treatise on Christianity written by Luke.
In , on the Day of Pentecost, the apostles went out into the street and began to tell people about Jesus.
And as the people were gathering around, Peter was the chief spokesman for the day.
As he preaches the very first Gospel sermon in history, here is part of what he said:
- 22 “People of Israel, listen!
God publicly endorsed Jesus the Nazarene by doing powerful miracles, wonders, and signs through him, as you well know.
23 But God knew what would happen, and his prearranged plan was carried out when Jesus was betrayed.
With the help of lawless Gentiles, you nailed him to a cross and killed him.
24 But God released him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life, for death could not keep him in its grip.
- 36 “So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah!”
Verse 37 states that when the people heard this, his words pierced their hearts and they asked Peter what to do to respond.
- 38 Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.
Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
TS - From this beginning account of how Christianity began, I want you to see three steps we must take to become a Christian.
1. BELIEVE THE GOSPEL
On that day, they asked Peter, what should we do?
Because they believed the facts he was telling them.
His words ‘pierced their hearts’ because they believed the truth of his message.
They were convicted.
You cannot be convicted by something you believe to be false.
The word “gospel” means Good News.
The good news is this: The Creator of the Universe has reached down to earth to save us.
Even though we deny His existence sometimes as a society, and rebel against Him, He loves us.
He came to earth in the form of Jesus Christ, died for our sins, and then rose from the grave to defeat death.
And now he offers to cleanse you from sin and guilt, to give you the promise of life after death, and to give you an ultimate purpose in living.
And he offers this salvation completely free of charge.
Jesus paid the full price.
- 8 God saved you by his grace when you believed.
And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.
So the first step to becoming a Christian is to believe the facts of the Gospel.
That it really is true.
To believe is not just simply mental assent.
It is not saying, Well I guess it is true.
To believe is to be personally committed to Jesus and the truth of the Gospel.
The Bible says Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.
ILL - Across the street from my house in St. Elmo was the fire siren.
When it went off, we were the first to know there is a fire.
Now when that siren goes off or the firemen get the news on their pagers, they have the choice of doing one of two things.
They can say, “that siren is not enough evidence for me to believe there is an emergency” and just stay in bed.
Or they can believe it, take action, and rush their way to the firehouse quickly.
We have the same choice today.
We can either believe and take the action or deny and stay in bed.
2. REPENT OF SINS
John MacArthur wrote book entitled “The Gospel According to Jesus.”
In it he states that repentance is the most overlooked teaching in the Church today.
He says we have been teaching easy believism, cheap grace.
Just accept Jesus and live however you want to, he’ll save you anyway.
But we need to start teaching biblical repentance of sins.
On the day of Pentecost, they asked Peter, what should we do.
He said, REPENT.”
To repent simply means to change directions or turn.
-We were going away from God’s will and we turn towards God’s will.
-We were living for selfish ambition, now we turn and live for Jesus.
The word in Greek for repent, metanoii, means to change the mind or attitude.
-Attitude was once cynical, now its teachable.
-Once proud and arrogant, now its submissive to God’s direction.
Repentance is not a declaration of future perfection.
Sign of change in general direction.
ILL - A woman bought a shirt for her husband that had a tag on it that said, “shrink-resistant.”
She asked the clerk what that meant.
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