Attributes of a Christian #1

What would make someone a Christian in your eyes? What would a person have to do to make you think that they were on their way to heaven? What actions would they have to be doing if they were going to prove to you that they were Christians?

 

There’s lot’s of answers you could give but I think that most of the answers would fit into one of two categories. We can see these two categories in Ephesians. The book breaks down in a very organized manner; chapters 1-3 deal with who God is and what He’s done to set a sinner free and to make him alive. I counted 22 times that Paul makes reference to something like this in these chapters.

 

In chapters 4-6, Paul deals with the Christian’s response to God’s goodness and gives us all these things we can do for the Lord because He has saved us. Chapter 4 opens up with “therefore I urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling that the God we just talked about called you to.” And from there goes on to give 70 instructions for holy living.

 

These are your two categories.

The Ephesians 1-3 kid is a guy who knows a lot about God. He’s got all the answers, he knows how to stump the evolution teacher, he understands the Bible, but his Christianity stops there. He’s not a very nice person. He’s promiscuous, he’s selfish, he reeks with arrogance. No one cares one bit how much he knows because no one likes him enough to talk to him for very long.

 

The Ephesians 4-6 kid is a guy who’s a nice guy. Everybody likes him, no one has anything bad to say about him and he’s earned it. He’s a guy who has kept his head on straight and he’s done others right. He’s outwardly humble and unselfish. On the outside, he’s a nicer person than most Christians.

 

But the reason he’s so nice has nothing to do with the Lord. He’s nice because the ladies like him. He follows the rules because he’s scared to get in trouble. He acts humbly because he’s built up this reputation and he can’t let that go, he likes who he is and he likes the kind of person he’s known as.

 

Neither one of these kids are Christians. The proud smart one is producing no evidence that he’s been changed by an all-powerful God. The nice humble one is simply mature enough to know that there are many benefits to being nice to people and even though he goes to church, God is no more real to him than Santa Clause.

 

A true Christian has right actions with right motivations. He has godly behavior and the reason he acts that way is because God has magnificently done great things for him. It’s not simply a knowledge of God that he uses to make fun of others. It’s not simply friendly behavior and a nice attitude. A Christian is a person who has been drastically changed in an unexplainable way by God.

 

What I’m going to do the next few posts is very dangerous. I’m going to give you 10 characteristics of a Christian. The reason that this is so dangerous is that some people will try to take this list and say, “all right, as long as I do what this list says, I will be a Christian.” That’s false. You could convince yourself that you are keeping this list with no fault and still remain unconverted.

 

So without any more delay, here’s the list that I’ve made.

1. A Christian is careful in his approach to God.

In our Sunday school class we just got through going over the Ten Commandments and reading how God used Moses. Moses was a man greatly used by God. He had led the nation of Israel out of the land of Egypt and ultimately to the Promised Land. In Deuteronomy 32 you can read a song that Moses sang worshiping God. After the song is over God wants to speak to him and we read this in

Deuteronomy 32:48-52  The LORD spoke to Moses that very same day, saying,  ⁴⁹ “Go up to this mountain of the Abarim, Mount Nebo, which is in the land of Moab opposite Jericho, and look at the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the sons of Israel for a possession.  ⁵⁰ “Then die on the mountain where you ascend, and be gathered to your people, as Aaron your brother died on Mount Hor and was gathered to his people,  ⁵¹ because you broke faith with Me in the midst of the sons of Israel at the waters of Meribah-kadesh, in the wilderness of Zin, because you did not treat Me as holy in the midst of the sons of Israel.  ⁵² “For you shall see the land at a distance, but you shall not go there, into the land which I am giving the sons of Israel.”

So after 40 years of leading these people for God, Moses is punished for not treating God holy in the midst of His people. Reader take warning from that. God is not your homeboy. You can’t just approach him anyway you want to. He must be approached in reverence and Christians understand that.

 

To illustrate this point better, imagine a bunch of pastors at a pastor’s conference. The speaker is very good and very bold and he says this: “There are many of you here today that have no business being the shepherd of souls. You don’t have a clue how to run a biblical church.” Now a young wordling will get very upset at that and start defending himself. “Who are you to tell me I don’t know what I’m doing?”

 

But a Christian pastor will hang his head and say, “I know, I need to do better.”

The difference is that this man knows Who he is dealing with. God is not a god you can figure out and this man understands that. Because the other man has not seen God, he has a very high view of himself and is not careful about how he approaches God. He thinks: I’m approaching God, isn’t that good enough? So a Christian is careful in his approach to God.

 

2. A Christian loves Christ.

 

There can be doubt about this one.

Song of Solomon 3:4…When I found him whom my soul loves; I held on to him and would not let him go…

When a man sees the love of Christ specifically for him, his love for Christ will overwhelm him. How could he do anything else with his time but serve the One who gave up so much to come and love him? He is willing to be a slave to Christ for the rest of his life. He loves Christ and will live in gratitude to him for the rest of his days.

 

A Christian loves Christ and will stop at nothing to get Him. It’s like a merchant that’s looking for pearls and finds an extraordinary one. He will sell all that he has in order to buy that pearl. A Christian cannot be content without Christ. Thomas Watson said this

“What scorn and contempt they put on the Lord Jesus who prefer a damning pleasure before a saving Christ.”

What is your joy in this life? If Christ is not at the top of the list you need to be careful about claiming you’re a Christian. You might be a Christian who’s either young or struggling, but I wouldn’t boast too loudly that you know the Lord.  A Christian loves Christ.

 

3. A Christian pursues holiness as an act of worship.

Because a Christian loves Christ he strives to please him in every deed.

John 14:15 If you love Me, you will keep my commandments.

A Christian not only loves Christ with his lips, but he loves Christ also with his actions. A Christian longs to be more and more godly and less and less worldly.

It seems that most churches always present worship as if it is done only through singing songs. Most churches call the man who leads the hymns a worship leader. He’s not a worship leader, he’s the song director. Churches mess up when they do this because it portrays a picture to the congregation that the only time they can worship God is when they are singing songs.

 

If worship is showing love to God and love is manifested by obedience, I can worship the Lord in whatever I do and that is a more biblical time to worship.

1Cor 10:31 Whether then you eat or drink or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

I’m going to do my homework for the glory of God, I’m going to wash dishes for the glory of God. I’m going to honor my Mother as a way of showing honor to God so that He may get glory. A Christian strives to be holy so that their actions might bring honor to God and He may be continually worshiped in their lives.

 

4. A Christian hates sin.

Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Romans 7:24

Do you know who said these words? You would think that it would be someone like Hitler who finally saw all the pain he had caused. You might think it was Bin Laden who finally feels remorse for killing people. No it was Paul the apostle late in his ministry. He’d been walking with the Lord for probably close to 15 years and he says something like this.

 

There are two extremes we can believe about this and both are dangerously wrong. The first extreme is to think that Christians don’t sin. That will lead to legalism and hypocrisy. Legalism is when you think you do everything right and set up these rules that you think others have to keep in order to be right with God like you are. If they keep the rules, they’re a Christian in your book, but if they mess up on these man-made rules they’re not.

 

To think that Christians don’t sin would also lead to hypocrisy. If you’re claiming Christians don’t sin what are you going to say whenever you fall into sin? You would never say that you’re not a Christian so what you will do is make a new definition for sin and water it down so that it doesn’t touch you. You go blind to your sin and walk around calling others sinful while you can’t see any sin in yourself.

 

The other extreme would be to think that a Christian has no chance not to sin and because of this it gives you basically a license to do what you want because in your book, you can’t help it. You’ve gotten used to your sin and actually you’ve also grown quite fond of it.

A Christian has sin in his life and quite a bit of it. But he hates it. It makes him sick. He mourns that he sins, something a non-Christian knows nothing of. A non-Christian celebrates their sin, they don’t repent of it.

There is as much difference between sin in the wicked and the godly as between poison being in a serpent and in a man. Poison in a serpent is in its natural place and is delightful, but poison in a man’s body is offensive and he uses antidotes to expel it. –Thomas Watson

A Christian hates sin.

 

5. A Christian loves discipline.

Proverbs 3:12 For whom the Lord loves He reproves even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.

Usually that discipline we get is hated at first and the Bible even tells us that.

Hebrews 12:11   All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness.

It’s like the discipline of training for sports. Running and training is hardly ever enjoyable. However, once the training is over and you get to play in games you find that it was well worth it to be in shape.

 

When God disciplines us it shows us that he loves us. Picture it like this: Suppose a father is in the kitchen and sees his toddler son reach for a knife. If he loves his son he will discipline him and teach him not to play with knives. If he doesn’t love him he will let the boy play with the knife and probably end up hurting himself. When the Lord disciplines us, it proves that we are His children and that He loves us.

 

A Christian wants to please Christ so when he finds out that he is doing something that offends his Master he wants to know and he wants to change. Listen to Thomas Watson

A godly man loves the menaces of the Word. He knows there is love in every threat. God would not have us perish; he therefore mercifully threatens us, so that He may scare us from sin. God’s threats are like the buoy, which shows the rocks in the sea and threatens death to such as come near.

A Christian loves discipline.

These are half of the 10 attributes of a Christian that I’ve come up with and we’ll try to cover the others in the days to come.

~ by n8nalley on July 6, 2008.