A Call to...?

Who calls you a Christian?

I pondered this question for quite awhile as I was driving around Omaha.  I took quite a bit of time to analyze the different areas of my life and the various people I spend my time around.  The thought that kept coming up was whether these individuals would recognize me as a Christian if they only observed my actions? 

Interestingly, later on that evening I had a lady come back into Verizon with whom I had worked with previously.  She found out I was leaving the company in a little over a month to attend seminary and mentioned she was not surprised.  She “knew something was different about me”. 

The question begs, is this common in my interactions, or a rarity?  In other words, would I have to tell most people I’m a Christian for them to know, or would my actions speak for themselves.

The early followers of Jesus were identified as Christians because their actions mirrored those of Christ.  They were not self-proclaimed Christians.  They had learned the way of their Rabbi, were living it out, and were identified as such by outsiders.  In fact, the term “Christian” did not come into play until AFTER Jesus had ascended into Heaven (Acts 11 was the first mention of the term). 

Over the last few centuries we have made the mistake of trying to separate believers from disciples.  We have developed the theology that a person can be a Christian believer, but only the dedicated Christians become disciples.  In fact, many of our personal testimonies involve a phrase that goes “I trusted in Christ when I was (insert age here), but I did not start following Christ till I was (insert later age here). 

In calling this thinking a mistake, I am not trying to add works to salvation.  It is true that a woman on her deathbed who trusts in Christ moments before she passes away ends up in Heaven with no righteous acts, just as the criminal did who hung next to Jesus on the cross.  Jesus promises that those individuals will truly see him in Paradise.

The point I am trying to make is that to Jesus and his early followers there was no distinction between believers and disciples.  If you believed in Christ, you desired to live like Him.  If you desired to live like Him, it is because you believed in Him.  Sheep believe the shepherd will guide them to green pastures and protect them, so they follow him.  If they do not follow the shepherd, then it is because they do not trust the one they have.  Jesus put it this way, “If you love me, you will obey my commands.”  He did not say “Some who love me will obey my commands” or “I would like those who love me to obey my commands”.  He said those that believe in me WILL follow me.

Therefore, the invitation from our Father to live in the next life is also a command to die in this one.  Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.”  Just as Jesus does not command us to place our trust in Him, He does not invite us to die.  Jesus tells us in Mark if we accept the invitation to live, we must obey the command to follow.  To think we can believe but not follow is adding a stipulation that our Father never intended to exist.

To borrow an analogy from sports, I read an article by a Red Sox fan saying during the MLB season Red Sox fans root for the Red Sox and root against the Yankees.  They would tell you that any Red Sox fan who does not hate the Yankees is not a Red Sox fan.  Note he did not say they are not as passionate of fans, he said they ARE NOT Red Sox fans.  Love for the Red Sox is inseparable from their hate for the Yankees.  There is no middle ground.

A Christian author once told a story of sharing the gospel with his seven year old daughter.  Upon hearing this, she told her dad she believed Jesus died on the cross for her sins.  However, as he was tucking her in that night, she told him she did not want to be a Christian anymore.  When he asked why, she replied by saying that living like a Christian killed Jesus and caused his friends to hate him.  The thought of dying and having others hate her was too scary.

I pray that someday that girl will realize the promise of eternal life and the joy of knowing Christ intimately far outweighs the struggle in this life to die to Christ.  However, unlike most of us, she gets it.  She realized at age seven that Jesus invites into eternal life by calling us into the same struggles, persecution, and death he suffered from. 

The invitation and the call are one in the same.  When we understand this, we will not ask ourselves the same question I pondered a few days ago.  Just as many outsiders saw the early church have fellowship with another, share the gospel in temple courts, sell what they had to give to the poor, and pray together and identified them a Christ followers, those outside the body of Christ will witness and recognize the same in us if we embrace this call to die. 

Therefore, the question I leave you with is not “Who calls you a Christan?”, but rather,

“Are you willing to die so that you might live?”

Note: I want to re-emphasize that this is not an article about the theology of salvation.  The temptation is to read this and judge by one’s actions whether they have inherited salvation or not.  My pastor preached one Sunday about this flaw in justification.  To paraphrase:

In recognizing we are sinful creatures who have fallen short of a holy God, we realize there is no possible way we could stand justified before our Father in heaven without His help.  We need someone to step in and save us, someone who is not us, Jesus.

However, when we are struggling with assurance of our salvation, we often look back to our own sinful selves and our actions to try to justify whether we are saved are not.  In essence, we are making the same mistake as an unbeliever who tries to justify himself by good works. 

Just as we are made right before God only through the saving work of Jesus on the cross, so we are also daily being redeemed through Christ ALONE.  Our assurance does not come from our good works.  Rather, just like our salvation, our assurance comes through His good work: Christ’s death on the cross.

Jesus calls us to show our acceptance of the gospel by living it out.  In doing so, He is point out how we should live, not how we should justify ourselves.