What Is A Christian?

I want to ask you a question this morning, what is a Christian? What is a Christian? It would be fascinating to be able to take a mic and walk through this room and ask each of you individually that question and get your responses. I'm confident they would not be uniform. I'm sure that we would have a number of different responses to that question. And here's the reason why that word has been so abused and misused in our culture that we really don't understand the biblical meaning of it anymore. For instance, we speak of our country as a Christian country. I'm not going to get into that debate this morning. I understand what is used when that term is used that our founding fathers were for the most part at least committed to some semblance and form of the Christian religion, whether or not they were personally committed to Christ is a different matter, but at least it was founded on Christian principles. We understand that. So I understand what is meant by that term. Does that mean that everybody in the United States is a Christian or that we still operate by Christian principles as a country? I would question that as I'm sure you would too. Maybe that's a misuse of the word. The word Christian is used of the Christian denomination or the Christian religion I should say, which includes Roman Catholicism, every Protestant denomination and even some cults who claim to be Christian. Is that an appropriate use of the term? I don't think so. Quite often, good moral people, and you particularly hear this in funeral homes at visitations, well, he was a good Christian man or she was a good Christian woman. And hopefully they did have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, but quite often that term is simply used as a synonym for a good moral person. Anybody who lives a decent, upstanding, law-abiding, good moral life is considered a good Christian person. Is that an appropriate use of the term? I don't think so. In the Middle East, if you are not a Jew or a Muslim, you are a Christian. It is a designation for a particular demographic group that really has no relationship to the original meaning of the word in the New Testament. So if we really are going to answer that question well, what is a Christian? If we really are going to understand that and embrace it on a personal level, then we need to go back to the Bible and find out how the word is used there. Now you may think, well, that word would appear a lot in the Bible, right? Wrong. It only appears three times in the New Testament. But those three New Testament uses of the word give us three very clear marks of a Christian. They describe in three different ways in three different contexts what a Christian really is. You can tell by the way the word is used. So I take you in your Bible to the first occurrence of the word in Acts chapter 11, Acts chapter 11 and verse 26, where we find that a Christian is marked by a changed life, a changed life. Now a little bit of background will be important here. The first use of the term in the New Testament was not given by Christians to themselves. It was given by outsiders, by pagans, by those who did not know Christ and had no personal relationship with him. What had happened is the gospel was slowly beginning to move in the Gentile territory. Up till this point, the gospel had pretty much been in the city of Jerusalem and in Judea among Jewish people. It had branched out a little bit through Peter to Cornelius in Japa, which was the first incursion of the gospel in the Gentile territory. Now in chapter 11, the gospel is branching out and moving out into Gentile territory. One of the first places it landed was in Antioch, which is in what we would call today southern Turkey. It was in this city of Antioch that the term is first found. The reason I know it refers to a changed life is because the way the name was given shows evidence of a changed life. There is evidence of a changed life in the way the name was given. By the way, we don't have the power point this morning. We are unplugged in that way too. You have to listen really carefully, but we'll feel in your outline. The evidence of a changed life is in the way the name was given. Notice with me, verse 25, then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul. What's happening there is the church in Jerusalem is found out the gospel is going into Gentile territory. Gentiles are getting saved. We're not sure about that. We better check that out. So they did. They sent some people for Jerusalem, one of whom was Barnabas. I've got to get Saul down here. Now we know him better in the New Testament as Paul, the Apostle Paul. But at this point his name had not yet been changed. He was still referred to as Saul. So Paul is the one that Barnabas finds and brings to Antioch in verse 26, 20 found to be brought into Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. First use of the term, and the way the name is given gives evidence, as to why it was given, the evidence was a changed life. Now here's the reason why. The name was given by outsiders. It was given to these followers of Christ, these early believers, by pagans, by people who did not follow Christ, who were not Christians. You know the text does not say the Christians first called themselves Christians in Antioch. They were called by others, Christians first in Antioch. It's interesting, I see evidence in the literal word Christians as to why it was given, it was given because of the evidence of a changed life. The word Christian is literally, it comes literally from the original word, Christianos. Christianos, Christ meaning Christ, the word for Christ or Messiah, the ending, Ianos is a word which means belonging to or of the household of, or of the family of. So these people would be marked by being of the household of Christ or of the family of Christ. They would be seen by others in the community as being identified with Jesus Christ. This was not a name they gave themselves. This was a name that other people looking at them because of the way they taught, the way they lived, the way they conducted their business, the way they created their neighbors, they could see such a difference in their lives. They said, you know these people belong to Christ. We are here talking about Christ all the time. We are here telling us about Christ all the time. So these are Christ people, these are Christianos, these are Christians, ones who belong to Christ. But the second evidence I see for the reason the name was given, that it was evidence of a changed life, is in the word called. You see that word there in verse 26? The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch. The word called is the word that was used in New Testament times of the designation of one's profession or one's business. What you were known for, you were called a Tanner or a shoemaker or a carpenter because that was your life's work, that was your life's business, you were called that. We do the same thing today. Whenever a guy in a brown truck pulls up out front, one of the ladies will look out the windows there is the UPS man. He has a name, he has a name, but he's the UPS man or the FedEx man or the mailman or the guy who comes and looks for little critters around the building, he's the bug man. He has a name too, but he's the bug man. We do the same thing. We call people, we refer to them, we identify them by their profession, by what they spend their life doing. That's the way this word was used. So what we find here is that people outside the church in Antioch were referring to these Christ followers, these believers in Christ as Christians because that had become their preoccupation, that had become their whole life. They were known for this. There was such an obvious and evident change in their lives that they were known as people who talked about, who lived out, who were preoccupied with, even whose job could be said to be Christ living for Christ. There was such a vibrant change in their lives. Now the reason I want to stress that is because I want to stress this morning the necessity of a changed life. Not just the evidence found here in the Scriptures of these people, but the necessity of a changed life. You cannot legitimately, biblically claim the name Christian unless you fit the designation, unless you have a changed life. Unless there's been a radical transformation in your life because you have come to know Jesus as your Savior and He's made everything news, changed your life. Now the reason why that is so important to see why it's so necessary is today, everybody's a Christian. It's popular to be a Christian. It's popular for politicians to claim their Christians, for entertainers to claim their Christians, for athletes to claim their Christians. And I trust and hope that many of them are and it's legitimate. I would not judge them at all. That's up to God. But it's obvious to see that it is popular to claim the name in this day and time. It will get you affirmation, it will get you in with a certain crowd, it will get you votes, or whatever. If you claim the name Christian. So it's very popular for people to take the name and claim the name. Without there having been any real life change, but the Bible calls regeneration, new birth, starting a new life, there's been no real life change. And people just claim the name Christian. I remember hearing Billy Graham tell this story, he told it on himself, said he was on a flight one day between two cities. And it was obvious there was a man toward the front of the flight that was very disruptive, he was very loud, he was obnoxious, and the stewardesses were trying to get him seated and settled down and quiet. It was obvious the man was intoxicated. So finally in a last bitch effort to try to get him to quiet down, one of the stewardesses came up with the idea of telling him, hey, do you know Billy Graham is on this plane? You know, there's something about, oh, the holy man is a board, you know, better straight enough. So she thought she would play that card. When she said that to him, he burst out just as loud and obnoxious as he had been with all of his other statements, Billy Graham, I'm one of his converts. And Billy Graham used that story to say, this man may well have been my convert, but he was not the Holy Spirit's convert evidently. There's a difference. There's a difference in claiming the name Christian and being what the Bible calls a Christian, a Christian by definition, first century definition. The first use of the term is someone who has a changed life. Jesus said it this way, I know my sheep. I called him by name and they follow me. My sheep follow me. Now does everybody follow as closely as they should? No. Sometimes we wander a bit, sheep do that, but the general direction of life for one of Jesus' sheep is to follow him. You're following him. You're not going the opposite direction. You're following him. Paul said it this way, if any man being Christ, he is what? A new creature, a new creation, the old has passed, the newest come, old things are passed away, all things have become new. There is a change in your life when you come to know Jesus as your Savior. There are two reasons why there will be inevitably a changed life if you come to Christ. Two reasons for that change. Number one, you have the Holy Spirit within you. The moment you trust Christ is your Savior, the Holy Spirit takes up residence with you. He is the Holy Spirit. He is God's holy presence with you at all times. And therefore, as a believer, when you sin, when you start down a path, you shouldn't start down. The Holy Spirit checks you on that. And he makes it clear to you, hey, that's not right. You know you shouldn't be thinking that, saying that, doing that, going that direction. It's called conviction. The Holy Spirit within you is an evidence and a reason for the necessity of a changed life. You cannot, profess faith in Christ, continue to live the way you've always lived, never have any twinge of conscience or any regret about it, never have any feeling like, oh, this is not wrong, you cannot do that and be a Bible believing Christian. A Christian is one whose life is changed by coming in contact with Jesus Christ. Second reason for that is you have a new nature. Not only do you have the Holy Spirit, you have a new nature once you come to Christ. Now, in the Bible, a nature is not something that's plucked down inside you and it resides in your left ventricle or your right arm or somewhere inside your body. That's not a new nature and you sometimes get the illustration of two dogs inside fighting and while the illustration may be good in some ways, it really breaks down because a nature is not a chunk of substance inside you. It's not that that you get. In the Bible, the word nature is used to refer to a direction in life, a motivation, new desires or inclinations that you have when you come to Christ. And when you do come to Christ to save your life changes because God puts in you new inclinations, new motivations, new desires, a new direction, you cannot keep living and walking the same way as before you came to Christ because there's something new inside you. It's a new nature. It's just normal and natural that when you come to Christ, there will be a change in your life. And so don't use the term Christian. If you've just hijacked on somebody else, your parents or somebody else or joined the church or somehow gotten into religion, but you've not had a personal encounter with Jesus Christ through faith, which has changed your life, it changed your direction in life. Don't use the word Christian because the first century definition, the way it was first coined was to identify those whose lives were changed. First mark changed life. But I want to make sure you don't misunderstand me on that. You don't become a Christian by changing your life. You don't become a Christian by gradually morphing into a better person. Okay. There is a point at which that changed life begins. And the second use of the word in the New Testament identifies that point. Look at Acts chapter 26. Because not only does the Christian have a changed life, a Christian also has a chosen life. There is a point at which you make a choice to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior. Now there's a man in the story we're going to read today by the name of a grippa. And what we're going to identify first is the choice before a grippa. But a little background will help understand so that we don't just jump in to the middle of the story. Paul had been arrested for his preaching, his testimony for Christ, his stand for Jesus as the resurrected Savior. He had been arrested through a series of events he had been sent to Cessaria, which was the Roman capital of Israel, the place, the seat of Roman authority and power. The governor was a man by the name of Felix. And Paul's case is heard by Felix and Felix is intrigued by it. So much so that he invites Paul to come back and share more with him. And this happens several times. And Acts chapter 24 seems to indicate that Felix was under conviction as Paul spoke to him of the truth of the gospel, of righteousness, and of judgment, and of sin. But evidently he never made a decision to trust Christ. And before he was able to do that, he was moved off the scene. Roman history tells us that he was called back to Rome because of mismanagement of some of the affairs in his office, but he's replaced by a man named Festus. Now Festus was another governor who took Felix's place and Festus hears Paul. He's intrigued by it. He doesn't quite understand all that's going on with Paul. And so when King Agrippa comes to pay a courtesy visit to Festus, Festus is the new governor. So the king who is a little bit above Festus comes to greet him and welcome him as an official dignitary. Welcome to Israel, that kind of thing. Festus one day says, you know, I got this prisoner here. He's intriguing. He's really has a fascinating story. Tells him a little bit about it. And Agrippa says, I'd like to hear him. And so they set up the next day an opportunity and audience for Paul to come in and give his case before both governor Festus and King Agrippa. And as Paul always did, he used that as an opportunity to launch into not only his testimony, but the gospel of Jesus Christ and how Jesus came to die for sinners. And he was buried and he was resurrected. Now the minute he mentions the resurrection, we're in Acts chapter 26. Look at verse 24. At this point, Festus interrupted Paul's defense. You are out of your mind, Paul, he shouted. Your great learning is driving you insane. By the way, the life verse for many students. Verse 25. Paul says, I am not insane, most excellent Festus. What I am saying is true and reasonable. The king is familiar with these things. And I can speak freely to him. I'm convinced that none of this has escaped his notice because it was not done in a corner. King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do. Do you see where Paul's headed with that? Do you see what he's doing? Agrippa has been around longer than Festus. Agrippa has been king for a while. He knows what happened with this man Jesus. The reports that have circulated throughout Israel have been widespread. This was as Paul said, this is not done in a corner. This was not swept under the rug. It was not possible for that to happen. The book of Acts is testimony of the fact of how great the good news of the gospel spread, how quickly it spread. So King Agrippa is aware of this story. He's also a Jew. And so Paul appeals to the fact that he's a Jew and would be familiar with the Old Testament scriptures to say to him, you believe the prophets, don't you? I know you do. Do you know where Paul's headed with that? Where he was in every Jewish synagogue with every Jew that he encountered. He was going to take the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah and show how they were fulfilled in Jesus Christ and seek hopefully to lead Agrippa to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. That's where he was headed, but Agrippa didn't let him get that far. The very next verse, verse 28, then Agrippa said to Paul, do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a Christian? Now there are many who believe that Agrippa was under conviction and was almost persuaded. We have an invitation him that's been written based on that view of the verse almost persuaded, but that's not really what he was saying. I think the NIV has given the right nuance to the verse and that is this, that Agrippa was sarcastically throwing back in Paul's face his own testimony. Oh, you think with an argument like that you can persuade me this quickly to become a Christian? Good try Paul. You got to do better than that. That's the essence of what Agrippa is saying. But he does state a very important truth as regards what it means to become a Christian. And that is that each of us are faced with a choice that we must make. There was a choice before Agrippa and he made clear his choice. I'm not persuaded. I'm not convinced, Paul, not with that argument. But there is also a choice before us. And it's the same choice that was before Agrippa. The choice before us is to be persuaded by the word of God that Jesus is who he said he was. And he did what he said he would do when he died on the cross and he arose from the grave that that is true. And that is what I need to gain entrance into heaven and be in the family of God is Jesus Christ is my Savior. I am persuaded of the truth of the gospel and I make a choice I choose by my will to trust Jesus Christ as my Savior. That is the choice before us. And I want to stress this morning that you become a Christian when you personally make that choice to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior. Jesus said it that way. But to those who received him to them gave you the authority to become the children of God even to those that believe on his name. So you must receive Christ. That's that's an act of reaching out to receive him. That is a choice of your will to trust what Jesus did on the cross for you as your Savior. It is unmistakably regardless of what your theology is. It is unmistakably a choice that we are given to either receive or reject Jesus Christ as our Savior. That is where the change life begins when you choose Christ as your Savior. Please understand me this morning. You do not become a Christian because you live in a Christian nation. Don't think that you will get to heaven because you are not in some dark corner of Africa that is never heard of the gospel. You do not become a Christian because your parents were Christians and they drug you to church in a diaper. You know you ask a lot of people are you a Christian or are you saved or are you going to heaven and their first response. Listen when you ask them. Their first response will be oh I've been in church ever since I was a kid. Well my next question is is that what you're trusting to get you to heaven because that is not what a Christian is. You do not become a Christian because your parents were Christians and they took you to church. You do not become a Christian by joining a church. You do not become a Christian by anything you do other than the choice to receive what Jesus has already done for you on the cross. When you receive him as your Savior you become a Christian. You're not automatically a Christian. You don't kind of morph into grow into being a Christian because you've been in church for so long. There is a point at which you make a decision to trust Jesus as your Savior. That's when you become a Christian. Now I will certainly admit that there are some people who grow in their understanding of that commitment and come to that understanding of what they need to do in stages. Yes certainly. Some of those folks either because of age differences in those different growth times. Some of those folks wonder exactly what point it was they got saved. I understand that kind of unclear thinking or lack of clarity and being able to identify this was the moment. I understand that. But at some point in your life you are faced with a decision to either trust or reject Jesus Christ and it is when you receive Christ as your Savior that you become a Christian. It is a chosen life. In fact it's a lot like getting married. Really is. Some of you have heard the story of how Jeanie and I met. Jeanie actually went to Piedmont a year before I went and she roamed with my older sister Mary Beth. And Mary Beth told her that year before Jeanie had ever met me you're going to marry my brother. So I sometimes joking tell people I had no choice. That was already pre-arranged. But actually I did have a choice because I showed up at Piedmont the next year. And you know there was a great rule that Piedmont when I was there. First six weeks boys and girls couldn't date. You could already be in the same room together. But you weren't supposed to date. But that was good because it gave all of us a chance to kind of scout the field. And after that six weeks I had my eye on Jeanie. I had to wait in line. There were some other guys in front of me. But by the end of that first semester I took her out actually beginning of the second semester. I took her out on our first date. And our relationship began to develop. I chose to take her out. I chose to ask her to marry me. And then on July 21st 1972 we stood before a pastor who was her brother. And that adds a little extra pressure. I'll tell you. And her brother said this to me. John will you have this moment to be your lawfully wedded wife? Will you love her comfort her honor and keep her in sickness and in health? And so forth and so on. And you know what I said? I said I will. And then later I said I do. And then later I said oh me. I didn't say that. That was not in the ceremony. But I did say the first two. I will. I made a personal choice to date her to ask her to marry me and to actually take her as my wife. That was my choice. I didn't get married because my folks were married. I didn't get married because I live in a country that believes in marriage. And it's just as ludicrous to believe that you are a Christian because your parents are Christians. Or your parent, your Christian because you go to a church. You become a Christian when you choose Jesus Christ as your personal savior. There is a choice involved. I will receive him as my savior. It's a chosen wife and that's where the change begins. But there is another use of the word in the New Testament. Interesting. The first two uses are given by unbelievers, right? By the pagans in Antioch and by King Agrippa. But the third use in first Peter chapter four is actually used by an apostle, by Peter. The fellow believer. And what Peter tells us is that we have a challenging life. A Christian has a challenging life. There's some challenge to it. There's some difficulty to it. Now, to set the context of first Peter four sixteen, Peter is writing this epistle, this first epistle, to suffering Jewish Christians. Jews who had come to Christ, but who were suffering for their faith. And so what Peter addresses is the challenge of suffering for Christ. It's clear in the book. And when you get to chapter four, look at what he says in verse 12. Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you. As though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice in as much as you participate in the sufferings of Christ so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed for the spirit of glory and of God rests on you. If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal or even as a medler. However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. A Peter was addressing the challenge of suffering for Christ, and it was a great challenge in Peter's day. The Christian faith, the Christian church, had become fairly well established by now and had grown throughout the Roman Empire. To the extent that it was noticeable to the Roman Empire by now that Christianity was not just an off-shoot of Judaism, not just another sect of Judaism which was protected by the Roman law. This was a new animal. And so it was under investigation. There was a requirement every year that every person who was a Roman citizen must show loyalty to Caesar by bowing and saying Caesar is Lord. In other words, he is our God. Christians wouldn't do that. And so because of their stand for Christ and the name of Christ, because they were Christ followers of the household of Christ, Christians, they were suffering. And the persecution was very severe. And on the horizon it was going to be catastrophic. Peter could see that. He speaks of the fiery ordeal that has come to test you. Peter was writing this epistle when Nero was the Roman Caesar. Nero would instigate the first widespread persecution of Christians, which would result in Peter himself being crucified upside down. And most of the other apostles being killed, Paul would also be martyred under Nero's persecution. So Peter saw that coming. And he's talking about the challenge of suffering for Christ. Social ostracism, official persecution by the government. And he's saying, listen, if you suffer because of your sin, if you suffer because you're a criminal or a murderer of thief, or you're just putting your nose in other people's business where it shouldn't be, you deserve to suffer. If you say, it's not the kind of suffering I'm talking about. I'm talking about the kind of suffering which is participating in the sufferings of Christ. And being insulted because of the name of Christ, suffering as a Christian. You say, if that's the reason you suffer, then take joy. Be proud of that. Be proud that you wear that name. Christian. Well, our situation is a little bit different. I don't know how long it will stay that way, but it's a little bit different now. We typically, at least in the Western world, do not suffer persecution. Maybe on a small scale, people laugh at your work, ridicule your neighborhood because of certain stand you take, or certain things you believe. Laugh at you because you're a church all the time, that kind of thing, little bit of that, but nothing like what Peter's talking about. The challenge we face in our day is not necessarily suffering for Christ, but living for Christ. So the challenge of living for Christ is there for every Christian. If you are truly a Christian, you will every day of your life get up in the morning and face a challenge of living for Christ. And the reason for that is you get three new enemies when you trust Jesus as your Savior. Who are they? Three new enemies, automatically, everybody who comes to Jesus as Savior gets three new enemies. The first one is what the Bible calls your flesh. What is referred to as the sinful nature. Now, you are born with your sinful nature. All of us were. We came into this world with a sinful nature. You don't lose that when you get saved. You still have your sinful nature, but as we said before, the Holy Spirit comes to live within you now, and that sets up a battle. I mean, what was occupying there before without any resistance, without anybody challenging it, was your sinful nature. Not everybody follows their sinful nature to the full extent in an unsaved state, but we're all pulled that direction by our sinful nature. But when the Holy Spirit comes in and occupies territory that's been occupied by the sinful nature, then the fight is on. This is the way Paul describes it in the book of Galatians, chapter 5. He says, so I say, walk in the Spirit, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh, or your nature in you, which leads you towards sin, the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh. So your sinful nature pulls you one direction towards sin, toward things that are not pleasing to God. At the same time, the Holy Spirit is pulling you the other direction to do the things that God wants you to do, to think and say, and have the kind of attitudes that God wants you to have. And notice the way Paul describes it. He says, they are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. In other words, those old just wants and desires that just flowed right along the lines of your sinful nature. Now you've got the Holy Spirit in, there's a battle being put up for your wants and desires, your motivations, your direction in life, and you're not just to give into the sinful nature anymore. But when Paul says there is a, there are contrary to one another, that term was used in the first century of hand-to-hand combat. In the trenches, fighting each other, slugging each other, swinging swords at each other. This is drastic stuff. When you get up every day as a Christian, you have a battle that you did not once have. And that's a battle that is pulling you two different directions. Paul describes that battle, we won't take the time to look at it this morning, but in Romans chapter 7, he describes that battle. He says there are things that I know I want to do, I delight in God's law in the inward man, but I find myself not doing them. Because there is another law in me that's pulling me the other direction. That battle is described very well in Romans 7. So you get an enemy when you get say that you're sinful nature. He's always been there, but he hasn't been an enemy because there's nobody been in their fighting like the Holy Spirit. Enemy number one. Enemy number two is the world. Now I'm not talking about the globe, I'm not talking about the planet, I'm not talking about the world of people. I'm talking about the way the Bible uses the term world, for instance in 1 John chapter 2. Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him, all that is in the world. And here it is, the world operates, it's three principles, this world system operates by, the lust of the flesh, lust of the eyes, pride of life. Lust of the flesh, the desire to do whatever my sinful nature wants me to do. Lust of the eyes, the desire to have whatever I see, materialism, pleasure, possessions, pride of life, the desire to be recognized, be number one, get to the top, be famous, be popular. That's the way the world system operates by those three principles and that is directly the opposite of everything God teaches. And so this world system battles us daily, constantly to be sucked into its orbit so that we are living by the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, pleasure, possessions, and possession. Those are the three driving ambitions and motivating factors of people outside of Christ and they are so tempting to us as well. That's the world system that we battle every day. And to be able to keep our minds and hearts and our ambitions set on the things of God and on Christ Himself is a challenge in the midst of that magnet like pull of this world the other way. Second enemy. Third enemy you know very well is the devil. Peter actually has spoken of him in his first epistle, chapter five and verse eight. Be alert and of so remind your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion seeking for someone to devour. I mean he is on the prowl nonstop 24 seven trying to destroy you as a believer. Now before you were saved he had you in his corner even if you were a religious person a good moral person if you were not saved you were headed his direction ultimately as far as your eternal destiny. So he didn't bother with you much. He's got bigger fist fry. But when you come to know Jesus is your savior he is out after you now. And so he is an enemy that is all the way all the time prowling around trying to sneak up on you and devour you destroy your testimony destroy your life and effectiveness for Jesus gets you so discouraged and defeated and depressed you will never live for Christ again that's exactly what he wants. I think it was Vance Habner that said anytime you get up in the morning and don't meet the devil head on it probably means you're going the same direction he is. His point was as a believer the devil is against you he is your enemy and he will fight you every day. So living the Christian life is not a life of ease it is not a life like some people promise you get saved and come to Christ all your problems will vanish you'll never have any more difficulty life will be smooth for you the rest of the way that is not true. We live in a sin cursed fallen world where we're going to have a lot of the same heartaches and problems that everybody has but in addition to that we got three new enemies and they're going to be fighting us every day. So I don't know about you but every day I get up I'm fighting through those enemies to try to make progress in my walk with Christ my simple nature pulling me this way and the world is attracting me that way and the devil's fighting against me. That's a challenge there's a challenge in living for Christ if you don't know anything about that challenge I'm not sure you should claim the name Christian because a Christian has a challenging life by virtue of the fact that enemy territory has been invaded. We lived in North Carolina for seven or eight years and we lived in a parking lot beside the church there and we had a kind of car port it was a closed in attached car port to the house but it did not have a door and it was open to the outside bees would get in there and build nests. I remember one time Hornets started building a nest and it was kind of off in the far corner outside corner opposite the corner where we would come out of the house and get in the car or go up to the church and so it never bothers we didn't think much about it but it kept getting bigger and so finally I decided okay I got to do something about this. We were out in the country we lived 20 miles from the nearest town and I got to think and I did not have any of that was born at spray you can stand back 20 feet when it shoots a stream out of you know you can get them I didn't have any of that and I didn't want to necessarily drive 20 miles just to get it. So I started thinking what have I got around the house that can probably do the same thing or at least give me a leg up on these Hornets. I thought for a little bit and I thought genius hairspray that will do it. I mean I've gagged on that enough you know in a cloud in the house and everything it probably do the job and so I figured you know it's real sticky stuff and if I get them good their wings will stick and I can win the battle and so I went and got the hairspray. I got over you know you don't shoot hairspray in a steady stream from 20 feet away so I had to get kind of close. I got up close to that Hornets nest and I started spraying immediately the fight was on. I mean I'd walk you in and out of the house for weeks and nothing happened they didn't bother me I didn't bother them we got along great but once I got in their territory in their face the fight was on and I'm telling you I got dive bomb you know and I'm spraying that hairspray and and I got one and there he goes wings like that he falls down a squishy and boy it was quite a battle I wish I had it on tape. It was a fight I ended up winning got a couple of welps out of it but I ended up winning. If you come to know Jesus as your savior the Holy Spirit steps in where everything was nice and rosy before the Holy Spirit comes in and you now have the spirit of God on enemy territory if you will actually it becomes his territory and the enemies are fighting against him but there's a fight now a challenge that wasn't there before. That's what it means to be a Christian. So back to our original question what is a Christian? What is a Christian according to the Bible it is a person whose life has been changed your head in a new direction because you have made a choice to trust Jesus Christ as your savior so that now you wake up every day with the challenge of living for Christ in the face of some very serious enemies. That don't want you to do that. That's what a Christian is. Much more important question. Are you a Christian? Are you a Christian? Do you think you're okay because you live in the United States or because you've grown up in church or because your parents were fine upstanding Christian people or you're a good moral person, a good Christian person? Listen my friend unless you've come to the place where you realize you were a center in need of a savior and you made a personal choice to trust what Jesus did for you on the cross to save you from your sins. Resulting in a new direction in your life that then presents you challenges every day to keep living for him unless that's your experience you can't use the word biblically. You're not a Christian. Let's pray together. Father, thank you for the clarity of your word. Thank you Lord that it is what it is. It is truth. Thank you that it is your sword that convicts us and speaks to us. Lord, I pray that if there are those of us here today who do not know Christ whose lives have not been transformed by that choice of Jesus at our savior that today we would make sure whether or not we are truly saved, whether or not we're truly Christians. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.