What Does a Christian Look Like? Pt. 1 - Colossians 1:1-8
Who makes the rules for becoming a Christian: Jesus Christ or us?
Colossians 1:1-8; 1 Corinthians 6:9-11; 3:1-15;
Jan 18, 2009 05:00 AM
WhatDoesaChristianLookLike-Pt1_01-18-2009.mp3
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This week, we will witness a truly historic occasion. Any
presidential inauguration is historic, but this one is unique in many
ways. One of the ways it will be unique is in the way President-elect
Obama is attempting to be all-inclusive. He is intentionally catering
to every voting group imaginable. Therefore he has chosen the most
prominent evangelical pastor in America, and the most controversial
bishop in the history of the Episcopal Church as his representatives on
the religious front. We all know Pastor Rick Warren of The
Purpose-Driven Life fame. And I suspect we all know Gene
Robinson. CBS News describes him as the first openly gay bishop in the
history of Christendom.1
If anyone wants to know what the American brand of Christianity looks
like, there will be no better opportunity to study it than Tuesday’s
presidential inauguration. We will see nearly the entire spectrum on
display. Rick Warren has praised Mr. Obama for his obvious desire to
include every American in his inauguration festivities, particularly the
homosexual community. He said, “President-elect Obama has again
demonstrated his genuine commitment to bringing all Americans of
goodwill together in search of common ground. I applaud his desire to be
the president of every citizen.”2
Mr. Robinson has stated that he does not intend to be overtly Christian
in his prayer. Rather, he will address his prayer to “the God of our
many understandings.” Dr. Albert Mohler commented in regard to Warren
and Robinson, “They are not two very different representatives of one
religion. They are instead two very symbolic representatives of two
very different religions.”3 It is my opinion that Mr.
Robinson does not represent Christianity at all, and Mr. Warren does so,
badly.
It is this event which makes the question we have been seeking to answer
all the more relevant. What does a Christian look like? What is a
Christian supposed to look like? Can a person call himself or herself a
Christian based solely on his own understanding of who God is? Can one
really be a Christian without praying “especially Christian” prayers?
What is a Christian?
Now, you need to understand that just asking that question is rather
presumptuous to many people. For us, it is a logical question that
deserves to be answered. For others, we would seem to be presumptuous
and arrogant to even suggest that a definitive answer to that question
even exists! “How can you say this person is a Christian but that
person is not? How can you be so narrow as to think Christianity can be
defined in specific terms? Another person’s Christianity is not
subject to you, or your rules, or your interpretation of the Bible.
You’re being judgmental and bigoted and intolerant, and … . . etc.,
etc.” And if our definition of Christianity is only based upon personal
opinion, then those accusations are true. We are being judgmental and
bigoted if we require others to measure up to our personal, privatized,
preferences regarding Christianity.
Our original question is, “What is a Christian?” Let me ask you a
couple of other closely related questions that might be helpful:
• Does Jesus Christ have a right to determine the membership
qualifications for Christianity?
• Has Christ established any terms that must be met in order to
become one of His disciples?
• Is it reasonable that Christ Himself might have something to say
regarding what Christianity is, and has He left us to our own
speculations about that?
In other words, who makes the rules for becoming a Christian: Jesus
Christ or us? And where do we find those rules, if there are any? And
if there are rules for becoming a Christian, who gets in, who is
excluded, and does it matter? Does it really make any difference if a
person is a true, genuine, bona fide4 Christian, or not? Is
not God’s mercy broad enough to accept all people as they are, even if
they don’t subscribe strictly to God’s own terms for salvation?
In that last question, I have given away part of the answer. There are
terms which must be met, God Himself has set those terms, and they are
non-negotiable. In Colossians, we see that Paul is writing this letter
to people he has never seen, and he addresses them as saints and
brethren whose God is both his Father and theirs. He is writing this
letter to Christians whom he has never met. Therefore, we ask the
question, how does Paul really know these people in Colossae are truly
Christians if he has never met them? How can he write to these people
as though they are Christians if they have not yet gone through a
membership class or subscribed to a church doctrinal statement? Let’s
read Colossians 1:1-8 together.
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,2 To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae:Grace to you and peace from God our Father.3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven. Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, 6 which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing—as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, 7 just as you learned it from Epaphras our beloved fellow servant. He is a faithful minister of Christ on your behalf 8 and has made known to us your love in the Spirit. (Colossians 1:1-8, ESV).
Q: How does
Paul know these people are Christians if he has never met them?
A: Because he knows what a Christian looks like. He knows they are
“brothers in Christ” because of the testimony of a credible witness to
the evidence which proves their conversion beyond reasonable doubt.
These verses are somewhat awkward to read. But in them we find a
credible witness (Epaphras) who has given testimony to Paul of the
things he has observed first hand in the lives of the Colossian
believers. Those things are the marks of salvation. They are not
irrefutable proof, but they are strong signs, potent indicators, and
compelling circumstantial evidence of a work of grace in their lives.
These things which Epaphras has told Paul are enough to cause Paul to
address them as Christians. It is so convincing that Paul says in the
beginning of verse 3 that he and those who are with him in Rome always
thank God … when we pray for you.
And why is it that they always thank God when they pray for them? In
verse 5, he says they always thank God because of the hope laid up
for you in heaven. Based upon what he has learned from Epaphras,
Paul is completely convinced that there are now Christians in Colossae
where once there were none. He is so convinced that he perpetually
thanks God for the place in heaven which God has prepared and reserved
for them.5 They are, based upon Epaphras’ description of them, saints
and faithful brothers in Christ. They are now Christians. Consequently,
Heaven awaits them.
So what did Epaphras say that caused Paul to think this of them? What
is it about them that makes them Christian?
1. Faith in Christ Jesus
2. Love for ALL the saints
3. The fruit of the gospel in their lives, i.e.:
a. Their understanding of the grace of God in truth
b. Their love in the Spirit (same as “love for all the saints”?)
c. All of the above: faith, love, understanding.
That is what a Christian looks like. These things are intertwined, they
all mingle together in the one package called salvation, but they are
all components in the life of a true believer. These are various
evidences that accompany the “born-again” experience: Faith in Christ,
love for other believers, and spiritual fruit.
Let’s look at each one of these three marks of true Christianity which
Paul mentions:
1. Faith in Christ Jesus
If we were to ask Bishop Gene Robinson if he has faith in Christ Jesus,
no doubt he would say yes. He might even be insulted that we would ask
the question. But let’s be careful about that question. What did Paul
mean when he spoke of the Colossians’ faith in Christ?
Saving faith in Jesus Christ is based upon an understanding of the
gospel message and an acceptance of the truth of it. I do not believe
Bishop Robinson understands or believes the biblical gospel message. If
he did, he would understand that his lifestyle is quite contrary to the
demands of the gospel. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 6:9-11,
9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11, ESV).
The
unrighteous will not inherit Heaven. There is no hope laid up for the
unrighteous in Heaven. It does not matter what particular flavor of
unrighteousness we speak of, whether it is thievery, or drunkenness, or
homosexuality. All unrighteousness must be repented of, and we must be
granted the righteousness of Christ, in order to gain access to the
kingdom of God. It seems obvious that Bishop Robinson either does not
know this, or he simply denies it. But according to this passage, one
cannot be a practicing homosexual, or an adulterer, or a swindler, and
be a Christian. That is why Dr. Mohler says Pastor Rick Warren and
Bishop Gene Robinson represent two different religions. Bishop Robinson
is not representing Christianity because he is not a Christian.
In Christianity, faith in Jesus Christ involves an acknowledgment of
personal sin and guilt, and the forsaking of sinful lifestyles. It
involves a change of life. The Corinthians WERE sexually immoral,
adulterous, homosexual, alcoholic, thieving, greedy, swindlers. But not
any more! Those sins were washed away in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. However, there are many who don’t understand this, who really
are deceived, and who are led into this kind of deception by men posing
as representatives of Christ and Christianity. Men like Gene Robinson.
Does he have saving faith in Jesus Christ? Would the Apostle Paul be
convinced that he was one of the faithful brethren? No.
The Colossians heard the gospel message, probably from Epaphras. That
gospel, which Paul speaks of here as “the word of truth”, is a call to
turn from sin and to believe that Jesus Christ is the God-sent Savior
who delivers all those who trust Him from the condemnation of their
sin. He was the sacrificial Lamb of God who took away the sins of the
world, not just Israel. God’s wrath against sin and sinners was
satisfied by Christ, and upon the basis of His death for His people,
wherever they may be in the world, God forgives and grants eternal life
to whoever believes in Christ as their substitute. That is, in a very
brief statement, the gospel.
When the Colossians heard this word of truth, the gospel, they believed
it. They understood the truth of it. They supernaturally comprehended
the grace of God in sending a Savior. That is the fruit that the
preaching of the gospel produces: an understanding of grace. And they
embraced it. They embraced Jesus Christ as the Savior of Gentiles,
Jews, and whoever believes. Their faith in Christ Jesus was faith in
who He is and what He has done. It is faith in His perfect life, His
substitutionary death, and His resurrection from the dead. It is faith
in His eventual return as the Judge of all the Earth. It is faith in
the sufficiency of His blood to cleanse from unrighteousness all those
who trust in Him. Faith in Christ is an admission of one’s own
deserving of the condemnation of God, and in the condemnation of Christ
for me. That is what Paul is referring to when he speaks of their faith
in Christ Jesus. That is what the Colossians believed.
This is the message that must be preached in order for someone to be
converted. Anything short of this is not the biblical gospel. For a
person to think he can simply declare himself to be a Christian and that
by making such a declaration, God automatically grants them a place in
Heaven, is to think that the life and death of the Son of God was
unnecessary. That kind of faith in faith by-passes the entire
foundation upon which Christianity stands, and therefore bypasses
salvation.
Paul stated in 1 Corinthians, in different terms, what also happened in
Colossae. While Paul never went to Colossae, he did go to Corinth and
plant the first Christian church there. Look with me at 1 Corinthians
3.
1 But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human?5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. 8 He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. 9 For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building.10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one's work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire. (1 Corinthians 3:1-15, ESV).
Paul
established the church in Corinth by preaching about Jesus Christ. It
is Christ who is the foundation of the church. He is the foundation of
Christianity. The gospel message presents Jesus Christ as the beginning
point of salvation. It is only through that word of truth that true
Christians are born.
But today, we have Christians praying in public who can’t bring
themselves to pray in Jesus’ name because that might be offensive to
unbelievers. But the only legitimate basis the Christian has for prayer
is that we pray, not in our own name or in our own merit. The only
reason we can approach God at all is because we approach in the name and
authority of Christ who has paved the way for us to have any access to
God at all! He is the foundation, the rock upon which we stand. What He
has done for those who believe places them, and only them, in a
position of authority. Or to say it another way, through Christ, we
have been granted the status of “children of God”, so that we might
approach God and pray to Him as our Heavenly Father. Without Jesus
Christ, without the work of the cross, without His resurrection from the
dead, we have nothing upon which to stand and no right to speak to God.
So Paul did in Corinth what Epaphras did in Colossae: He preached the
word of truth, the gospel. And some of the people placed their faith in
Jesus Christ and were saved. They became Christians. But faith in
Jesus involves all of this. Faith in Christ is not, “Yeah, I believe in
Jesus” or “Yeah, I’m a Christian” or “Yeah, I go to church” or “Yeah,
I’m not an atheist, agnostic, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Mormon, Wiccan,
Mayan, totem pole carving, ancestor worshipping, pagan. I’m a
Christian.” That is not faith. Christians actually believe IN Christ,
we believe the things ABOUT Christ, we believe the WORKS of Christ, we
believe in the sacrifice of Christ upon the cross on behalf of sinners.
That is what it means to be Christian. And by the grace of God, the
Colossians believed the gospel.
Next week, Lord willing, I hope to show you what a real Christian with
real faith looks like. I want you to see what it looks like when
someone believes the word of truth. What happened to these people who
had never heard the gospel message? How could Epaphras know they
believed the things he was teaching them? I think I can illustrate it
for you in a way you may have never seen before. What does faith in
Jesus as one’s savior from sin look like? Epaphras witnessed it. Come
back next week to see it with your own eyes.
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1.
www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/04/60minutes/main604060.shtml
2.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/15/rick-warren-chooses-silence/
3. http://www.crosswalk.com/news/commentary/11598121/
4. Bo"na fi"de\ [L.] In or with good faith; without fraud or deceit;
real or really; actual or actually; genuine or genuinely; as, you must
proceed bona fide; a bona fide purchaser or transaction. "bona fide."
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary. MICRA, Inc. 17 Jan. 2009.
<Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/bona fide>.
5. John Gill -
http://studylight.org/com/geb/view.cgi?book=col&chapter=001&verse=005
“These words [i.e. because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, in
verse 5] may be considered … with the thanksgiving of the apostle, and
so contains fresh matter of it, that as thanks were given for faith and
love, so for "hope"; by which is meant, not the grace of hope, … nor
Christ the foundation of hope; … but the thing hoped for, everlasting
happiness, is intended; see (Titus 2:13 [“waiting for our blessed hope,
the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ”
ESV] ) (Galatians 5:5 [“For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves
eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.” ESV] ) (2 Timothy 4:8
[“Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which
the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that Day, and not
only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” ESV]) ; which
is so called, because it is the object of hope; is not yet possessed; is
future; is not seen; is difficult, and yet possible to be enjoyed:
this is said to be "laid up"; which denotes the preciousness and
valuableness of it, it is a treasure, an inheritance, a kingdom, and
riches of glory; and the secrecy and hiddenness of it, it consists of
things invisible to the bodily eye, and which are out of the reach of
carnal sense and reason, of which faith only has some small glimpse; and
also the safety of it, it is hid in Christ, it is reserved "in heaven",
and cannot be come at, and spoiled by men or devils; and likewise the
free grace and goodness of God in laying up and providing things of such
a nature for his children and friends:
the place where it is, in heaven, where moth and rust corrupt not, and
thieves cannot break through and steal; and so is safe, and must be of
an heavenly nature, as it is for heavenly persons: "for you"; the saints
and faithful brethren in Christ, for those who were chosen in Christ,
for whom it was prepared from the foundation of the world; for this is
not laid up for any, for everyone, but for the chosen of God, and
precious; whom God has distinguished by his grace, Christ has redeemed
by his blood, and the Spirit regenerates and sanctifies, and who have
faith, hope, and love, given unto them; and this was not only laid up
for them, but they knew of it, they were made acquainted with it.”
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