What does it mean to become a Christian?

This is one of the best questions I get asked as a pastor because, that’s why we exist - to make disciples… that is followers of Jesus.

We want to help people reorient their lives around living to glorify God. Our world tells us that we should live for ourselves, but most Christians have found that to be a very hollow pursuit. It’s when their lives became focused on following Jesus that they found the purpose and significance they had been looking for.

So, what does it mean to be a follower of Christ...

It means we choose to and are empower by God to live our lives in response to what God has done on our behalf.

Christians you see aren’t any different than any one else really, it’s just that we have a relationship with someone we didn’t know before and that relationship changed us.

Scripture teaches us that we are made right by faith. We aren’t special, but we have been changed by Jesus.

Who is jesus… He is the son of God… He was born about 2000 years ago.... a real man but also completely God… he lived his whole life without sin yet he was crucified for offending the religious leaders of his day. He died on the cross to pay the penalty for sin, my sin, your sin, in order for our relationship with God to be restored. He was buried, yet he rose from the dead. appearing to thousands as the risen Christ to show that he had in fact conquered the power of death and he promised to return one day for us.

When we become a Christian, you may have experienced this, we get feelings. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church said his heart was strangely warmed… but our faith doesn’t hinge on our feelings. Our faith is about a risen Jesus… an empty tomb.

We follow him, because of what he has done. This means we let God’s spirit guide our life, our day to day life. We depend on God to lead us and we depend on God’s spirit to help us follow him.

As a Christ follower, your sins are forgiven… the old is gone, you are a new creation… a new person. Sins are GONE… God will not hold your past against you, no matter what you did… that’s not who you are… you are a disciple of Jesus.

Now as a follower of Jesus, this affects our whole life. Not just our prayer life, but our whole life… public and private. So your next step will most likely be to go public… in baptism.

What is baptism? You may think of it as being dunked under water in a church service. But spiritually think of it as being washed… immersed in the water… is like being buried in the water… like Jesus was buried… then you are lifted out raised to new life just like Jesus’s resurrection.

Baptism is like your own resurrection. it’s real and it initiates you into the family of God.

You are raised to a new life in baptism by the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.

And because we have this new life in Jesus, we follow him… we live for him… we seek to develop his character in our lives.

Listen to the way the apostle Paul described it in Romans 6

Romans 6:1–8 (NLT)

1 Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace?

2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?

3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death?

4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.

5 Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised to life as he was.

6 We know that our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin.

7 For when we died with Christ we were set free from the power of sin.

8 And since we died with Christ, we know we will also live with him.

What does it mean to become a Christian? It means that you live your life for Jesus. It means sin no longer has power over you. It means your life, your future are secure in God’s plan.

So, go public… get baptised… live out your faith!

Amen