Am I a Christian?
Pat was happily married and a churchgoer. He’d been on the local church Parochial Church Council and assumed he was alright. One day he came to a public meeting at which an evangelist explained the Christian gospel. The next day he came to our church as we had hosted the event and not recognising either he or his wife I went to sit next to him. After the service I invited him to come and have coffee with us in the church hall. As we talked briefly on the way to coffee I asked him,
‘Are you a convinced Christian yourself or aren’t you sure about these things?
“My wife is a convinced Christian but I would describe myself better as a convinced churchman.’
We talked a little more but then I suggested that he might like to join us at a Christianity Explored group and he really understood what it meant to be a Christian.
Many church goers think they are ‘alright’ as they are content and God had blessed them materially. How wrong they can be. Jesus says about the people in such a church,
“You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.’ But you do not realise that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked.” Revelation 3:20
What God sees in the heart of people can be very different to what we think about ourselves.
Yesterday I was talking with some men working in our garden about the message of Christmas. One replied,
“I thought its message is that God loves everybody and that everyone will be alright eventually.”
What the Bible teaches is very different to this popular view. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, said,
“For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” Matthew 7:13-14
At Christmas Carol services there are several readings that can be misunderstood. The coming of Jesus is only good news for his followers. Joseph was told that his fiancée, Mary, was about to have a baby, the Messiah
“She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew 1:21
It is only Christ’s people who will be saved.
After the shepherds, out in the fields around Bethlehem, were told about the birth of Jesus they were told that they could find him lying in an animal food trough, a manger. Subsequently a great chorus of heavenly beings praised God, saying,
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favour rests.” Luke 2:14
The gift of God’s peace is only given to those who are accepted by God; it is not available outside of him.
A Spiritual Scanner
To make the point I want to show you a children’s conjuring trick. It consists of a small wooden frame with an opaque door at the front and back. (The doors are opened and closed.) Through a slit at the topof the frame a card with a white rabbit painted on it in inserted. The doors are closed. I want you to imagine that this is a ‘spiritual scanner.’ This is turned on (the frame is turned round and round). When the front door is opened it is seen that the white rabbit is now black.
“Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7
God sees that although outwardly we may be very respectable we are all naturally rebels against him. Our hearts are not white at all! The front door is again closed and the scanner is turned off (which is enacted by turning the frame round a few times.) When the front door is again opened the rabbit is again seen to be outwardly clean and white. This performance is repeated and the black rabbit appears. At this time a bright spark in the audience calls out,
“All you have done is turn it round, there is a white face on one side and a black face on the other.”
Such scepticism. The card is pulled out of the frame and the frame doors opened to show it is otherwise empty.
“Show us what is on the other side of the black rabbit!” the bright spark cried out.
“All that will show is what God sees of the other side of us.”
“Show us!”
The card with the face of the black rabbit is turned round to show a black back! No-one can deceive God. He knows what we are like and he has told us the one way we can be forgiven and be given the status of being righteous in his eyes. Only those who have a personal relationship with his only Son, Jesus, are saved from their sins and only his people will experience the peace he wants us to experience. This peace is greater than anything the world can offer.. It gives us a peace when we become frail, when we face death and even when we stand before God in judgment.
When the Lord examines our hearts, what does he see? Does he see a person who loves him and lives to please him? Or does he see someone who is quietly rejecting him, wanting to run their own lives? If anyone is unsure about how they stand with God, will you listen to the following promise of God? It is an offer to you that is far too good to refuse,
“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12
Note this offer is made to all of us, whatever your background. May I ask each one here, have you responded to this offer of a new life with God, when the past is forgiven? What better time could there be than at Christmas when we remember when God entered this world as a baby to save us. How should you respond? The following is the sort of prayer I prayed when I became a Christian
“Lord Jesus, thank you that you love me so much that you were willing to enter this world to die on that cross to pay the price for my sin. Lord, I am deeply sorry that I have taken you for granted. I want to return to you, I want to be forgiven and I want to live a new life with you in control. Please come into my life and change me into the person you want me to be.”
If you have prayed that prayer, perhaps now for the first time or perhaps earlier, remember the promise of God.
“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” John 1:12
May I finish by saying that the story of the man I met in church and who became a Christian is sitting here with us here. You all know Pat? Talk to him afterwards and ask him about his experience. Will you join us, like he did, at the next Christianity Explored Group? If you have prayed that prayer, please will you tell someone that you have committed yourself to Christ?
BVP
