What Is A Christian?
Acts 11:25-26
25 So Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, 26 and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians.
ESV
What Does Christianity Look Like?
(Acts 11:19-26)
Intro:
A. Think about it. There are only three times in the New Testament where the word Christian is used. They are:
Acts 11:26 “and the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch”
Acts 26:28. King Agrippa says to Paul, “in a short time would you persuade me to be a Christian?”
1 Pet. 4:16. Peter talks about suffering and persecution and tells his readers, “If you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name.”
B. Those are the only three times the word is used in the NT, yet is the most common word used to describe us today. Early on in the first century people were referred to as “believers” and then term “disciple” seemed to become the descriptive word. The very movement was called “The Way” by people who were not followers of Jesus.
C. What I want us to begin today is to hear God reveal to us what a Christian looks like. But it often is best described by non-Christians who share their views, warped or accurate, about those who see Jesus as Christ.
I. Who Are “They?”
A. I mentioned to you three verses in the NT where the word “Christian” is used. I want to back and start with passage in Acts 11. Listen to how this church is introduced in scripture (READ Acts 11:19-21). I highlighted two phrases. The first is that when Christians from Judea were scattered because of their faith at the time of the murder of Stephen, they traveled west and north “telling the message only to Jews.” That’s simply a fact, not an accusation.
B. Jesus was a Jew. This group of people who believed Jesus to be the Messiah (Christ in Greek) wanted to share Jesus with those they wanted to be saved. In this case, it was fellow Jews who lives in those areas.
C. Step back for just a moment from this text. Who is the writer of the book of Acts? Luke. Was Luke a Jew or a Gentile? Gentile. Do you think this is personal at all to him? I believe his writing centers on Peter’s connection to Gentiles and the Apostle Paul’s connection to Gentiles because he, a Gentile, needed and loved being saved by the blood of Jesus.
D. The second phrase I highlighted centered upon the church specifically in Antioch where we read they “began to speak to Greeks also.” That might be Greek speaking Jews or it might be people who were not Jews, Gentiles, who spoke Greek as their primary language. In either case, vs 21 states “the Lord’s hand was with them.” God was blessing the idea that the message was to be shared to the masses.
E. When the church in Jerusalem hears that he church in Antioch is having this rapid growth, the send Barnabas to see what is going on, and when he arrives he gets excited! He knows God is bring the lost to Jesus and he knows that Saul over in Tarsus needs to be a part of this great outreach. Saul was a Jew, who started out hating Christians, then becomes a Christian only to be ostracized by Christians. Barnabas believes Antioch could be the place Paul can do great work. Listen to Acts 11:25-26.
F. They look at each other as “disciples,” that is disciples of Jesus, and what the non-believers of Antioch saw was not a group of Jews, but a group of people who talked about and followed this Jesus that they called in Greek, Christ. They were so identified as followers of Christ that the non-believers simply described them as “Christians.” Not Jews, not a sect of Judaism, but a people who honored, lived, talked and taught Jesus as Lord of your life. Jesus was the Christ, the anointed of God and it was only through him, not the Mosaic Law would save you. And you needed to be saved.
II. What Does It Mean To Be A Christian?
A. I started with the question, “Who are they?” The “they” is us from the viewpoint of someone who is not a follower of Jesus. Now I want to change that and ask “What does it mean to be a Christian?”
B. I want to share with you some answers I got from a few of you and also from people on Facebook.
C. The one area everyone seems to agree upon is that a Christians is someone whose life emulates the teachings and qualities found in Jesus when he walked upon this earth.
D. READ Rom. 8:28-29. God’s desire for us is to be “conformed to the image/likeness of His Son.” Part of God’s definition of what it means to be a Christian is seen how willing we are to be changed from our own self-centered thinking to a Jesus-centered thinking. For the month of February I want to look at a few of the characteristics of Jesus that we find in the Gospels and see how we can emulate them in our lives today.
E. 2 Cor. 5:17 says “If anyone is in Christ, he is new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Paul would write the church in Corinth about his role, and ours, as a ministry of reconciliation. Paul’s desire, our ministry also, is to seek to reconcile the world back to God. Listen to how Paul describes this work (2 Cor. 5:20).
F. For us to be the image of Jesus to a world that doesn’t really know Jesus; for us to ambassadors, as if Christ was making his appeal through us, means that you and I have to stop looking like people who go to church and start realizing that we the living image of Jesus and the church of which He is head. It’s a weight, a burden, a responsibility that we need to take seriously.
G. I am drawn back to that famous passage put to music, Gal. 2:20. Being a Christian is more than a list of do’s and don’ts. It is more than a doctrinal statement or rituals done on Sunday. Those things stem from what it means to be a Christian. I have been crucified with Christ. That is first a statement about Christ – he was crucified (and he was crucified because of and for my sin). Now, as his follower, I am crucified with him even though I still live in this body. I no longer view myself as my personality that you have either live with or run from. I become moldable like clay on a potter’s wheel, into what He wants me to be. I willingly submit to him changing me. I die to self and live for him.
Conclusion:
A. The disciples were first called Christians in Antioch. Some say that it was a derogatory idea while others say it was a compliment about their life. What I know is that the idea of a Christ was so much a part of how they lived that people couldn’t separate them from this one they called their Christ.
B. I want to be that person. I want to live so closely to the attributes of Jesus that I put on, clothe myself in Christ and let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me. I look forward to being called a Christian – either by you or someone who only knows me by how I act. Either way, the beauty of Jesus is seen.
Because of Jesus,
Jeffrey Dillinger, minister