How do you recognize a true Christian? It would seem that such a question would be unnecessary in the church, yet in our day this is a most valid question. Many people masquerade as Christians when in fact they are not. Multitudes of others consider themselves Christians simply because of their association with the Church or due to their adherence to a certain set of beliefs, yet they give no evidence of true Christianity. Unless we can discern between true Christianity and false Christianity, we are in danger of accepting into the Church as Christian those who are still unregenerate.
A hundred years ago, Bishop J.C. Ryle spoke of this same subject in describing true Christianity.
A true Christian is not a mere baptized man or woman. He is something more. He is not a person who only goes, as a matter of form, to a church or chapel on Sundays, and lives all the rest of the week as if there was no God. Formality is not Christianity. Ignorant lip worship is not true religion....All are not true Christians who are members of the visible church of Christ.
The true Christian is one whose religion is in his heart and life. It is felt by himself in his heart. It is seen by others in his conduct and life. He feels his sinfulness, guilt and badness, and repents. He sees Jesus Christ to be that divine Saviour whom his souls needs, and commits himself to Him. He puts off the old man with his corrupt and carnal habits, and puts on the new man. He lives a new and holy life, fighting habitually against the world, the flesh and the devil. Christ Himself is the corner-stone of his Christianity [Holiness, 234-235].
Contrast this description of true Christians with what is prevalent in our own day. What do you find? You discover multitudes who know nothing of the gospel and the work of Christ on the cross, yet consider themselves to be Christians. You find others who have no concern for walking in holiness or obeying the Lord or submitting to Christ's Lordship, yet who adamantly call themselves Christians. There is a wide gap between profession and practice, between the Christian of the New Testament and the Christian of the 20th century church. To this our Lord gives the simple assessment, "Either make the tree good, and its fruit good; or make the tree bad, and its fruit bad; for the tree is known by its fruit" (Matt. 12:33).
The danger of all this comes in the practice of the Church accepting the false and tossing aside the true. When we lose our ability to discern truth and error, true Christianity and false Christianity, we will begin to slowly disintegrate from within. Our standards will be shattered. Our doctrine will be trashed. Our mission to proclaim Christ to the ends of the earth will be lost. In fact, we will find ourselves no better off than the church of the Dark Ages, in which few believers could be found in the visible church.
The early Church faced such a crisis when the former persecutor, Saul of Tarsus, desired to enter the fellowship of the Jerusalem church. Was he real or an impostor? That was an important question to ask! The problem is that most of the church lacked the discernment to answer such a question. That's when Barnabas came along and saw believable evidence in Saul's life so that he could encourage him in the faith and recommend him to the church.
The same evidence Barnabas perceived in Saul's life should be prevalent in our own lives if we are truly in the faith. What kind of evidence should a true believer have to demonstrate the reality of his faith?
[I. Discernment as a basis of acceptance--refer to Part I of Believable Evidence]
II. Credible evidence of true faith
While the members of the Jerusalem church were afraid to take a close look at Saul to see if he was genuine, that was not the case with Barnabas. He took the time to be involved with Saul, investing his life in this new believer, and discovering the reality of his faith. In a very simple fashion this text demonstrates what should be true of anyone who has a true faith in Christ.
1. Evidence of association with the church
"And when he had come to Jerusalem, he was trying to associate with the disciples...." As I pointed out in "Part I" of this sermon, the idea of "associate" means to associate with someone on intimate terms. It is a word that is closely akin to what we would call 'joining a church'. In other words, Saul desired to be involved with these believers, to have fellowship with them, to love them, to be loved and encouraged by them. The Greek tense shows that he kept trying to associate with them, even after being rebuffed time and again. His natural desire as a believer was to be part of the fellowship of believers--the church. Interestingly, even when the church was not sure it wanted Saul, he definitely wanted them! This is the natural response of one who has been born again.
For years I have heard of those folks who claim to be Christians but say they don't need the church nor even want the church. This kind of spirit is foreign to the New Testament. You never find spiritual lone rangers in the New Testament, i.e., those who want to disassociate themselves from the church and still remain firm in the faith. Quite often you find apostates who have left the fellowship of believers (I John 2:19) and have abandoned the faith. But you never find those who are true believers who have no desire for the church or no need for the church.
We are saved in relationship to the church. Now understand, the church does not save you! But you are saved and immediately added to the Body of Christ which has its only physical manifestation in the local church. It is the church that is known as the "household of God,...the pillar and support of the truth" (I Tim. 3:15). The church alone has that privilege of being called the household of God and the body of Christ. To this Paul explained, "So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God's household" (Eph. 2:19). Once you were "delivered from the domain of darkness, and transferred...to the kingdom of His beloved Son," you began a spiritual journey together with the rest of God's household (Col. 1:13). You found that you no longer have kinship with the world and the things of the world, but now your desire is to be with those who have been born from above and part of God's household. It is the most natural action for new believers to want to be part of the Church of Jesus Christ, because among that body he has his true spiritual family.
I remember when I came to know the Lord that I had this insatiable desire to be with the body of believers. I loved going to church and being with God's people. I was not trying to see how little church I could get away with attending and still be called a Christian! I was attending every time I had the opportunity. The desire for being with God's people was part of my new nature as a Christian. I've found through the years that I was no different than any other believer. The desire to be part of the church is always present in the believer. A good sign of a false faith can be readily seen in those who make a profession of Christ but quickly find no need for attending church or being with the fellowship of believers. When someone claims to be saved but really shows no strong desire to worship with the body or to sit under the preaching of God's Word, that person may very well be living a lie.
When Saul got saved he began to associate with the disciples in Damascus. When he went to Jerusalem he did the same thing. A love of the body of believers, their fellowship, the ministry of God's Word among them, the worship of the Lord are all part of this new nature and new desire given by the Holy Spirit. It is a good identifying mark in true believers. Those who have a 'take it or leave it' attitude toward the church have never known the saving work of Christ!
2. Evidence of experiential relationship to Christ
The Christian life is not a mere academic knowledge of some historical facts. It is a life-changing experience of a living relationship with Jesus Christ. It is an experience grounded in the Word of God and brought about by the work of the Holy Spirit. When Barnabas brought Saul to the Jerusalem church he pointed to the experiential nature of Saul's relationship to Christ. He wanted them to know that Saul had not just learned the right jargon so that he could infiltrate the church. He had encountered the living Christ and was changed forever. "But Barnabas took hold of him and brought him to the apostles and described to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had talked to him...."
Barnabas built a convincing argument of the reality of Saul's faith based on his spiritual sight and spiritual hearing. He saw the Lord and he heard the Lord. Now, none of us could claim the same thing of physically seeing Christ or physically hearing Him speak. But in a sense, from the spiritual point of view, that is exactly what has happened to all who have come to Christ. You have such an encounter with the living Christ that you are radically changed. Martyn Lloyd-Jones expressed it like this.
When you become a Christian, what happens is not so much that you add something to your life as that your life is changed. When men and women become Christians, it is not that they put on new clothes; no they are changed, inside and out, and the inside is particularly changed, a new creation [Exposition of Colossians 1, 113].
You may recall the testimony of Charles Haddon Spurgeon who heard a layman preach, with the essence of his message being, "Young man, look to Christ." Quite often Spurgeon called on his audience to do the same, to look to Christ. When Spurgeon turned his look away from trusting in his own goodness and religious practice to look to Christ alone, he became a new person. Everything changed in that encounter with Jesus Christ. It was not just a nice improvement on his knowledge, it was an experience that was living and real.
It is the look of faith that embraces Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. It is a look that transforms. It is a look that will not leave you the same.
All believers also have Christ speaking to them through His Word. The word of Christ begins to "richly dwell" within you (Col. 3:16), so that His truth permeates you, changing every part of your life. A believer loves to hear Christ in the truths of God's Word. He loves the gospel and finds delight in hearing its rich truth expounded. Saul heard the Lord physically speaking to him. We have the privilege of being able to take in hand the Word of God every day and read it, feast upon it, and nourish ourselves in its riches. We can hear it taught and proclaimed week after week in our church. That Word begins to work in a believer's life so that he experiences more and more of the joy of the Christian life. It is truly a life that he has experienced (I John 5:12), not just a religion he practices.
I want us to be careful that we do not overlook this point. We can take a look at our busy-ness and activities in church and assume this is the experience of the Christian life. But I would point out that Saul did not experience an organization or activities, he experienced the Lord Himself. This is why I call your attention to the evidence of an experiential relationship to Christ. The eyes of your heart are fixed on Him. The ears of your mind are hearing Him. He is real to you. He is your life, your joy, your delight. Your greatest happiness is found in your relationship to Him. You love to learn of Him. You enjoy nothing any more than being in His presence.
Can you honestly say that you know Christ experientially? Or is Jesus Christ and His gospel nothing more than dry academics to you? Does your heart beat as one with that of the hymn writer who expressed?
O that my soul could love and praise Him more,
His beauties trace, His majesty adore,
Live near His heart, upon His bosom lean,
Obey His voice and all His will esteem. [Immortal Honors, William Gadsby]
3. Evidence of understanding and articulating the faith
Barnabas also pointed out that Saul was speaking out boldly in the name of Jesus, that is, in the authority of and on behalf of the Lord Jesus Christ, "...and how at Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus." This took place immediately after he was saved. He was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ (Rom. 1:16), but found great delight in speaking forth the truths of the gospel with boldness.
A true believer may not understand everything about the gospel but he certainly finds delight in discussing it with others. He will find himself wanting to tell someone else what Christ has done for him by the Lord's great saving power. He will point to Christ as the One who saves through His death on the cross. A believer loves the gospel enough to talk about it. He will continually learn more and more of its rich truth, but what he does understand he will find great pleasure and joy in speaking of it.
Shortly after I was saved our county was engaged in what was known as a 'wet/dry election'. We were to vote on whether or not to allow the legal sale of liquor in our county. Our pastor had preached on this topic for weeks and he decided that as a way of bending the congregation toward the "No" vote he would ask the young people to speak in church on a Sunday evening on 'why we believed we should have a dry county'. Much to the shock of this pastor, a number of us who stood in the pulpit never mentioned the wet/dry election. We spoke on something much more dear to us, the fact that we had just recently been born again! It was something spontaneous that occurred among quite a few of us who had just recently come to Christ. We boldly spoke to our parents and other church attendees of the gospel of Christ. To know Christ, my friend, is to speak of Him with greatest reverence and delight!
One of the common characteristics we find in those early believers is that everywhere they went they spoke of Christ. "Therefore, those who had been scattered went about preaching the word," (Acts 8:4) or "evangelizing" [gospelizing] as the Greek could be translated. That is a pretty good clue to the reality of a person's faith, he is unashamed of the gospel and enjoys talking about it. He wants others to come to the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
You will notice that Saul's conversation was not on himself. I've been troubled in my spirit on several occasions when listening to people who were supposed to be speaking in the name of the Lord who instead centered the talk on themselves. To speak "in the name of Jesus" is never to glorify self! It is to speak with His authority, which is found in the Word by the Spirit.
Paul explained this natural conversation concerning Christ in speaking of the Thessalonian believers. "For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith toward God has gone forth, so that we have no need to say anything" (I Thess. 1:8). The word got around about these folks coming to Christ. You cannot keep the 'light under the bushel'! The radiance of Jesus Christ will show up in both your countenance and conversation!
4. Evidence of a spiritual stand
In verses 28-30 we find that Saul continued verifying the reality of his faith by the evidence of taking a spiritual stand. He was not trying to see how close he could get to living like the world so that no one noticed his Christianity. He boldly crossed the line and stood firm in the Lord. He engaged opponents of the gospel in animated conversations, trying to convince them of the truth of the gospel of Christ. In Saul's case it even meant facing the danger of death for the sake of Jesus Christ.
If a man has been redeemed by the blood of Christ he has a willingness in his heart to stand for his Redeemer! There is nothing that is more important to him than pleasing the Lord. He chooses the things of God over the pleasures of the world. The desire of his heart is to count for Christ in all areas of his life. His Christianity is a seven day per week relationship.
A new believer may have to work through some old habits and practices, but due to his new nature he will be clearly heading in a godly direction. A red flag is raised when that professing believer is still trying to live in the world and divide his affections between Christ and the world (I John 2:15-16). How often we have seen this in some of the "superstar conversions." Quite a few years ago I remember the much-publicized conversion of the publisher of a pornographic magazine. His conversion did not last long evidently, because he was shortly back publishing his pornography. A superstar athlete supposedly was converted but everything in his behavior just after this contradicted any evidence of true conversion. A Christian is a new creation (II Cor. 5:17). He is not someone who has turned over a new leaf or reformed some corrupt areas of his life or resolved to do better in his morals. He is a brand new person! He has the same body, the same personality, but a new nature that is now bent on following Christ and conforming to Christ.
My friend, I ask you with all solemnity: is there believable evidence in your life that you are truly born again?
III. Practice to be exercised by the church
Now, let's pull all of this together into a simple and succinct practice that needs to be exercised by each of us in the church. Take a lesson from Barnabas: when you see the Lord bringing someone our way become personally involved with them and take the time to invest in their spiritual life. We must seek to discern true faith and false faith, always with the goal of ministry in either case. When we do not see true faith we are to seek to present the gospel. When we do see true faith we are to seek to encourage and affirm that person to the church.
I would remind you of who we are to be as a church. We are not merely an organization and we certainly are not a religious/social club. As J.C. Ryle expressed it,
The Church...is made up of all true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ. It comprehends all who have repented of sin, and fled to Christ by faith, and been made new creatures in Him. It comprises all God's elect, all who have received God's grace, all who have been washed in Christ's blood, all who have been clothed in Christ's righteousness, all who have been born again and sanctified by Christ's Spirit. All such, of every nation, and people, and tongue, compose the Church....This is the body of Christ. This is the flock of Christ. This is the bride. This is the Lamb's wife. [Warnings to the Churches, 10-11]
We have the responsibility to labor together for the purity and holiness of the church of Jesus Christ and its local expression in this body of believers. What are we to do?
1. Personal involvement
"But Barnabas took hold of him and brought him to the apostles...." If Barnabas had not been involved in Saul's life, the whole complexion of Christianity would have been different. Saul became the most important figure in the early church. What if he had never been accepted by the Jerusalem church? That is inconceivable to us, yet the one who took the time to get involved with Saul when others were suspicious of him was Barnabas.
Take the challenge of getting involved in the lives of others. It may be a new believer or visitors to our church or even members of our church. Take the time to be spiritually involved in their lives. Go beyond exchanging pleasantries. Get close enough to discover the reality of that person's faith in Christ. If you cannot see the reality of true faith, then begin to take the time to explain the gospel to that person and challenge them with the claims of Jesus Christ.
In my early Christian life there were a few adults and young people who got involved with my spiritual life and helped to bring me along in the faith. How thankful I am for their time and energy invested in my spiritual development! Who are you helping spiritually? I am emphasizing the matter of 'helping spiritually'. We can help people socially and physically, which is certainly good; but unbelievers can do that too. We have no right as members of the church of Jesus Christ to keep our Christianity to ourselves! Someone needs your involvement, your time, your encouragement, your words of exhortation, your instruction, your guidance. That is your responsibility as a Christian and a church member. My friend, go and do it!
2. Personal investment
To be involved in someone's life requires personal investment of your time, energy, and resources. Barnabas was willing to face loss for the sake of Jesus Christ and the gospel, if need be, by investing time in Saul of Tarsus. At that point Saul certainly offered nothing to Barnabas. There was no financial profit nor was there any esteem added to Barnabas because of his investment in Saul. In light of eternity it was a wise investment that has reaped untold dividends for the kingdom of God.
I was reflecting on some of the great Christian leaders of the past couple hundred years, men like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield, James P. Boyce, Martyn Lloyd-Jones. In each case there were those who invested in the lives of these men so that they were influenced for Christ and the gospel throughout their lives. Someone took the time to teach, nurture, encourage, and at times, admonish these men in their formative years.
If you practice some discernment in the next few years you will run across some wonderful believers who will need your encouragement. You will also encounter some people who have yet to meet Christ savingly. These people need the investment of your spiritual life. One group needs your encouragement to grow in Christ and deepen their roots in the fellowship of this church. The other group needs your patient and careful instruction in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Will you invest your life in others for the sake of God's kingdom?
Conclusion
By exercising discernment we do not have to live with blinders on in the church. There are some who need our gospel witness though they may be church members, but you will not recognize this without discernment. Seek to develop in this area of the Christian discipline. Ask the Lord to give you discernment that you might wisely involve yourself in the lives of others.
Do these simple evidences of true faith show up in your life? Do you desire to be with the brethren in the fellowship of the church? Do you have an experiential relationship to Christ? Do you understand the gospel so that you enjoy hearing it and talking about it? Do you stand for Christ or for the world?
Will you get spiritually involved in the lives of those God brings your way? Someone needs the investment of your spiritual life in helping them in their pilgrimage.
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