The Believing, Belonging, and Behaving of the Christian Life

In our preparation for our time around the Lord's table this evening, I want us to think about three areas. I want us to think, number one, about what we believe. Number two, I want us to think about to whom do we belong. And number three, I'd like for us to think about how we are to behave. So believing, belonging, and behaving. Those are my three points of emphasis tonight.

If we don't get lost, I'm going to start in the middle and then circle back around and cover all three points. When we come to the Lord's table, there is a legitimate emphasis on self-examination. Where we look within and try and ascertain where we stand with the Lord and, aided by the Spirit of God, to identify areas of sin that we need to acknowledge and confess and repent of. And although that's commanded in Scripture, that if our focus stays there, we're going to be discouraged because there's no help for our soul by looking within. We've got to look without and see Christ and see that He is the one that God has provided for the answer of our sin problem. John Calvin said this, there's no knowing that does not begin with knowing God. And what he is saying is our starting place cannot be with ourselves.

Our starting place has got to be with God. No man will know himself aright until he has had a proper encounter with God. You remember in Isaiah chapter 6, Isaiah the prophet said, in the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple. And he went on to explain this phenomena, this experience, this encounter that he had with God and how did it affect him. He said, woe is me for I'm a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of people of unclean lips for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. He would not have understood himself aright, he would not understood himself as a sinful man had he not first had an encounter with the holiness of God.

And that is the proper order. So it's important as we think about our identity in Christ that we keep that focus in mind. You see, you either identify yourself, find your identity vertically or you find your identity horizontally.

Now what do I mean by that? Well, if your identity is tied to those horizontal things, those relationships, your possessions, your job performance, any of those things, you are going to be disillusioned because we live in a broken world and people will fail you and you will not be able to accomplish the things you've set out to accomplish. So our identity cannot be horizontal, our identity must be vertical because we've been made for God and we find our satisfaction in him and in him alone.

So it's only when you have a proper understanding of this that you can make progress. So we're talking about identity. You see, when you think you are the most important, that you are the main factor in your life and how you live your life, if your identity is bound up in being, let's say for sake of illustration this evening, it's Mother's Day, if your identity is bound up in being a mom and you view that as the core of who you are, that is going to have implications in what you do, the choices you make and your priorities and so on. And while being a mother is great, what happens when your kids don't turn out the way you want them to?

What happens when your kids leave home? What happens when your children become more important to you than God? And oftentimes as Christians, we struggle with this issue of identity. We are tempted to anchor our identity in people or places or earthly things or earthly ambitions instead of Jesus Christ. So identity matters. Identity matters. Who you think you are matters.

It will affect your life, your marriage, how you handle temptation, the disappointments in life that come, the challenges of life that come. Identity matters. So the question tonight is, what is your identity?

If you were to encounter somebody on the street and you were to engage them in conversation, what would you say to them about who you are? Let me just take a quick tour through the opening chapters of Ephesians to anchor our identity and remind us of who we are in Jesus Christ. Our life is with God in Jesus Christ.

This is your identity if you are a believer tonight. You were chosen in eternity past by God the Father to be adopted into His family. Ephesians chapter 1 verses 4 and 5. You are a redeemed ex-slave, no longer in bondage to sin.

Satan, guilt and death, Ephesians 1, 7, chapter 2, 1 through 3. You are an ex-spiritual corpse that has been raised to new life in Christ, Ephesians 2 verses 4 and 5. You have a mission and a purpose to do good works that God has prepared beforehand for you to do, Ephesians 2 verse 10.

You are part of a new family where barriers of race and socioeconomic background and culture and gender don't matter, Ephesians 2, 11 through 21. You are part of God's plan to display His wisdom to angels and demons throughout the ages. You're a trophy of His grace that God will and has put on display for His own honor and glory sake. You have new gifts and abilities, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, 1 through 11.

You are a soldier of Christ. Now you have new enemies, but you have brand new resources to conquer them, Ephesians 6, 10 to 18. And all of these things about your new identity have radical and drastic implications for how you live, how you do marriage, how you parent, how you work. All of those aspects of your life are now meant to revolve around who you are in Christ and your responsibility to image God in the world, all those areas. We want to live a fruitful life.

We want to live a life that pleases God and honors God. So in a nutshell, when you become a Christian, you become a brand new person. The Scriptures tell us that you put off the old man and put on the new, Ephesians 4, 20 to 23. The Bible says that if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation, 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17. A Christian whose life is no different after his conversion than before is not a Christian. If you're a Christian and you've been converted by the grace of God, your life will be different. Your life will change.

You won't be the same person you used to be. Now it doesn't mean that Christians are perfect. We know that. We still battle and sometimes succumb to our old sinful tendencies and the devil's schemes. But nevertheless, if you are a Christian, something profound has happened and you are no longer what you once were. And knowing this can make all the difference in the world as you wrestle against sin.

We wrestle against the world, the flesh and the devil. I love the story of Augustine, the fourth century believer, Bishop of Hippo in North Africa. Before his conversion, he lived a sexually immoral life. One day, after his conversion to Christ, he came upon a former mistress on the street. He recognized her. She recognized him. And when he recognized her, he turned around and quickly went the other way. She called out to him, Augustine, it is I, and continued to say that. How did Augustine respond?

Well, he hurried his gate, the story goes, and as he moved away from her, replying, yes, but it is not I. He wasn't the same man. Once was darkness, but now he's the light in the Lord. His life had been changed. And in that moment, Augustine remembered his new identity.

He was not the person he used to be. We are admonished to walk as children of light. So, if we're going to make a difference in this world, if we're going to live a life pleasing to the Lord, we must know three things.

We must know what we believe, where we belong, and how we are to behave. I read from 1 Peter. Let's start there in verse 8 of chapter 1. 1 Peter 1 and verse 8.

Peter's speaking about the trials that come as a result of faith. He says, verse 7, That the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. And then verse 8, Whom having not seen, you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.

The English Standard Version renders that verse 8 this way. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. Though you do not now see Him, you believe in Him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Think with me about the nature of our belief. This fact is foundational to Christian truth.

What is that? We believe in Him. Despite the fact we've never seen Him. And do you see how the logic of that defies human explanation? That's why, in my opinion, it's so problematic to reduce faith to the exercise of simply a man's will. Faith is something that's supernatural. Faith is something that is of divine initiative. God has to grant it. Now, we're the ones who exercise it, but God's the one who grants faith. We believe, despite the fact we have not seen.

Wow. You see, in our culture, everything depends, it seems, upon what we see. Our world says it's important to be attractive, to wear the right clothes, to drive the certain car, to live in the certain house. But God, in His grace, says that He opens our spiritual understanding. He gives us eyes to see what the natural man cannot see. But did you notice, there's a promise of future hope. Whom having not seen you love, though now you do not see Him.

That's implied. There's a time when you will see Him. And oh, for every Christian, that is a longing that never wanes.

It's constantly with us. And the closer we get to the end of our life, the stronger that desire becomes. To see Him, when faith will give way to sight.

In chapter 2, Peter uses a picture that helps us. He says in verse 3, If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. You may have a translation that says the Lord is good. You have tasted that the Lord is good. Well, we understand what it is to taste something. And belief in the New Testament is never simply intellectual assent.

There is all the difference in the world between knowing that a certain shellfish is an oyster and actually tasting the oyster for yourself, correct? Too often we have, I think, overly simplified what saving faith is. Yes, the Bible says believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. But we have to think through what does it mean to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?

It's more than simply mental assent. Listen to what Jesus said in John chapter 11 in the context of the death of Lazarus as he was seeking to minister to Mary and Martha. He said, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he may die, yet shall he live. And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Do you see how you cannot divorce the living from believing?

Whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. And too often the living part is absent in people's understanding. How do you know that you've believed upon Jesus Christ to the saving of your soul?

It's evident in the way you're living your life. And it's an active pursuing. It's an active faith.

It's an active living. Again, too often the focus is have you ever one time in your life ever believed on the Lord Jesus Christ? Well, yes, I remember a time that I did that. Well, then you're saved. You're assured to go to heaven. No, no. There has to be a time, a point in time that you believe, but you continue to believe.

There's no interruption in that. So we must have a living faith, a vibrant faith, an evident faith, a life that manifests itself in spiritual life. So believing in the Lord Jesus is trusting, it's embracing, and yes, it's tasting that the Lord is good. So it's important what we believe. But number two, it's also important where we belong. We must first know what we believe, but what we believe informs us about our belonging. And notice again, 1 Peter chapter 2, I read to you verse 1 through 12, but I want to draw your attention to verse 9. He says, You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

Notice with me, You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people. We belong to something, we belong to someone. And you know, there's a sense in which a desire and a longing to belong is with everybody. I want to make the rounds before the services to make sure that my teachers are in their place and often I will, well I don't know about often, but particularly this morning there was a young child standing outside the classroom door looking in. Looking for her teacher, looking for her friends, and she was a little uncertain whether she wanted to go in.

It wasn't her first Sunday, but she had a need, a sense of wanting to belong. How many of you have had the experience, yet we'll have to go back in your memory, it was an agonizing experience for most of us, maybe not if you were somebody who was athletic, if you happened to play ball and they were picking up teams, they would count up, okay there's 14 people, that's seven on a side and you're a captain and you're a captain and everybody line up. And they start picking players to be on their team.

Well usually the first two or three picks are pretty obvious. It's the ones who can hit the ball and have athletic ability and I wasn't in that category. So the group would go from seven to four and I'd be sitting there, standing there and dreading the thought, hope I'm not last, and then I'd look over and there would be a girl and I'm thinking, well I know I'm not going to be last because at least these boys that I played with, you didn't pick a girl ahead of a guy, that's just kind of the unwritten rule. There was a sense of wanting to belong. So you were chosen to be a part of a team.

How many have seen the commercial of Charles Barkley and kids are picking up teams, a little girl and Charles Barkley standing there and well everybody, Charles Barkley is a Hall of Fame NBA basketball player and the little girl says, I want him and he throws his hands up in the air like he's excited that she picked him. Well why did she pick him? Well because of who he was, because of his ability. Why did God choose you? Why did God choose me? Out of all that he could have chosen is because he looked and said, well he's got ability, he's got talent.

No, I think the fact that I was average, maybe even less than average, helps me in this illustration. Because even when it got down to three or four and the captain looked and said, I want him. And I went, they want me. I have a sense of belonging.

They saw something in me. But you see, the way it works in God's selection, God choosing us, he's not looking for merit. He's not saying I'm going to choose him or I'm going to choose you because of what value you have, what merit you have, what you bring.

No. And too often that's the mindset of modern Christendom. You hear this sentiment. Oh if so and so could be saved, what a spokesman they could be for God. Some singer, some athlete, some, and I suppose there's some merit in that man or woman might have a platform that you or I never could get, but what's behind that is that person has merit.

That person brings something to the table. Folks, you and I are who we are because of what God has done by his grace in us and for no other reason. We are his special people. Think with me about Peter who wrote this epistle. He was a fisherman whose life had been about nets and fish. I want to be careful to speak for Peter, but it would seem prior to his encounter with Jesus, his aspirations in life probably rose no higher than the level of the lake. He was a fisherman.

That's all he was ever going to be. That's all he ever had hopes of being until one day Jesus came and said, Peter, I'm going to make you a fisher of men. And the Bible seems to indicate that Peter abandoned his nets and his business immediately to follow Jesus. Peter knowing something about who Jesus was had to have that same sense that I had like, you want me?

You want me? And you notice how Jesus assumed the responsibility to make Peter what he wanted him to be. I will make you a fisher of men. I didn't choose you because I thought you would be a good fisher of men.

I will make you one chosen. You see, Peter's life story didn't matter. His lack of experience for the job was irrelevant. Peter was chosen. Because he was chosen, his life was never the same. And I trust that there are times in your experience that you have time to reflect on your life and can have an appreciation to say, you know what? Because God the Father in eternity past set his affections on me and chose me in Christ, my life has never been the same.

Is that your experience? Do you sit and wonder and ponder and say, where would my life be? What would life look like for me? Had God not come to me in saving grace? Had God had not set his affections on me and called me out of darkness into his marvelous light? Where would I be?

What would life look like? I think those kinds of times of reflection are helpful to deepen our appreciation for the free grace of God and what God has done for us in Christ. We should never get over the wonder that we were chosen, chosen by God, particularly on purpose to make us one of his own, a sense of belonging. So the question tonight is, do you belong to Christ? Do you belong to Christ? And if you belong to Christ, then you have a sense of belonging, not just to Christ, but you ought to have a sense of belonging to the family of God. There are various and sundry reasons why people seem to just stay on the peripheral and never seem to want to get over whatever the barrier is to become a member and belong to the church, to belong to the body of Christ, to have that sense of, hey, I'm one of this group, I've joined this group, I'm proud to be a member of this local assembly. Sometimes it's just the fear of, well, it makes me responsible if I'm a member. Now I'm responsible in a way that I wasn't before.

Or, wow, there's a measure of accountability here. Or maybe they have an accurate sense that becoming a member of a church is like becoming a member of a family. And you know what? You're only known, you're known in a way within your family that you're not known any other place, right? My wife knows me in a way that none of you know me. My children know me in a way that none of you know me. You know what I'm saying? And sometimes people have a fear if I become a part of the family, you'll know more about me than I'm really willing to reveal about me. See, again, I don't know.

I say there's lots of reasons why people... But it would seem that if God has made me one of His own, I belong to Him, it seems that it ought to be almost automatic that I want to belong to His family. I want to join.

I want to be a part. I want to identify. So a sense of belonging. But notice again, Peter gives us four identifying words here in this sense of belonging. He says, you are a chosen generation.

I've already spoken to that. But secondly, he says, a royal priesthood. A royal priesthood. We've been born into a priesthood.

We have a duty to display and a privilege to enjoy. Verse 5 there of chapter 2 says, you also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. So priests offer sacrifices. We come together and worship and offer the sacrifice of praise.

As a priest, there's sacrifice involved in this. The priesthood is the offering of our lives, the offering of our praise, the offering of our service unto Him who's worthy of it all. Then he says, a holy nation. It's a description of unity.

The word that's used here is in its ideal sense. It's the idea of coming together under one headship, enjoying a sense of kinship. A holy nation. And then he says, his own special people. His own special people, my Bible says. We are a people belonging to God.

And the reality is that people are in one of two categories. People either belong to God or they don't belong to God. We are, Peter says, God's possession. God owns us. We belong to Him.

Our life of autonomy, our life of living our own way is behind us. Becoming a Christian is coming under the lordship of Jesus Christ. We belong to Him.

Paul argues with the Corinthians about living a holy life and he bases his argument on this. You were bought with a price. You belong to God. Therefore glorify God in your bodies. We're His possession. We belong to Him. And it's good to be reminded of that because it's easy to take on the notion that, no, I pretty much belong to myself. I do what I want, what I want, how I want.

No. No, being a Christian changes all of that. So we're thinking this evening about the fact that we must know what we believe. We must know where we belong. And number three, we must know how we are to behave. And these things are all related.

They're all tied together. Becoming a Christian is not behavior modification. It's not turning over a new leaf. It's not something peripheral or superficial. Becoming a Christian is a change of nature.

It's a complete transformation. It's not something that only affects us on Sunday. It affects our life every day of the week. And we certainly should never get over the fact that becoming a Christian, a follower of Christ, speaks into our life about to whom we belong. We belong to Him. And therefore He has authority over our life, to direct our life, to instruct us, to admonish us, to lead us in the paths of holiness. So we must know how we are to behave. And notice what He says there at the end of verse 9.

This is again Peter. You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people that, know that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. You see, we once were darkness, not we once lived in darkness. We once were darkness.

Our whole life was characterized by darkness. Now for in Christ, our life is now characterized by light. And it should show up in the way we live our life.

It should manifest itself in how we behave in this world. So that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. We're now living for God's honor. We're living our life to please Him. We're living our life so that the way we live our life reflects well upon the one we claim to know. And then He goes on to say, Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.

Having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation. How are we to behave? Differently than when we did before. We're a new creature in Christ. We're living our life to reflect the grace of God that has saved us and is working in us. We're living differently in the way we walk. We're living differently in the way we talk. We're living differently in the way we go about our daily lives. We're back to our orientation. How are we to behave?

We are to behave with a vertical orientation. And you see, we didn't have that before. We didn't fear God. We didn't care about God. We didn't live our life to please God.

But once God saves us, He gives us a vertical orientation. And it's a desire to please Him, to honor Him, to live for Him, to pursue Him. That's what life is about for a Christian. So being a Christian is about behaving as Christ would have us behave in all areas of life. So as we think about the Lord's table tonight, I just wanted us to think about the importance of what we believe, reflect upon whom we belong, and then thirdly, how we are to behave in this world. Believing? What?

Help me. Believing, belonging, and behaving. Let's pray. Father, thank You for Your Word. Thank You for instruction in righteousness. Thank You for the Spirit of God that is our teacher. And Lord, we simply don't want to just give mental assent and agreement to what has been said tonight. We want grace to appropriate and live in the light of what has been considered. Lord, we confess that, left to ourselves, we have no ability or power to do that, but we thank You that You are working in us, both to will and to do, according to Your good pleasure. How we thank You tonight for Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross of Calvary, that we might be a purchased possession of Yours. Cause the time around the Lord's table to be precious to all of Your children tonight. We ask in Jesus' name, Amen.