Being a Christian

What does it mean to be a Christian? The true Christian is a different person with a different identity.

He or she is given a new instinct by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, and so one of the marks of that is that we cry out, Abba, Father. The definition of a Christian is in debate in today's relativistic culture. There are many who want to wrest the term away from the historical biblical definition and make it fit into today's modern progressive mindset. Today on Renewing Your Mind, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson provides clarity to this central question as we continue his series, The Basics of the Christian Life.

What does it actually mean to be a Christian? You will have noticed that one of the great crises that there is in the Western world is the crisis of identity. They say that over the last fifty years the most common title for poetry written by high school students is the title, Who Am I? And in a way, that shouldn't really surprise us. The Bible tells us who we are right at the very beginning, Genesis chapter 1, verses 26 through 28, that God our Creator has made us male and female as His image. And one of the things that has happened in secular humanism, although secular humanism has not normally understood it, is that when we get rid of that concept that we are made as and to live as the image of God, then we actually lose our fundamental identity. And we will, therefore, inevitably engage in projects to try to establish identity. And that project has so failed in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century that nowadays governments, national and local, pour in millions if not billions of dollars to try to help young people establish their identity.

And the whole program has become so bankrupt that now in certain parts of the Western world, as a seven-year-old, you can simply declare your identity, who you are. And one has this tremendous sense that having sown the wind of denying that we are made as the image of God, it is inevitable that we reap the whirlwind. And as Christians, I'm sure we pray that that whirlwind may come quickly and disappear quickly, and a kind of renewed sanity may return to the world in which we live.

Now, we could we could become very disheartened by this phenomenon, and we could become mourning and groaning Christians. The thing you notice about New Testament Christians who lived in a pre-Christian world is that they do not spend their lives mourning and groaning about how difficult it is to be a Christian. They seize the day, they redeem the time, and they understand against that dark backcloth of first-century pagan religion that the gospel shines with a glorious clarity. And it's been to me one of the great blessings I think in my life since I became a teenaged Christian that right from the very beginning, I found in Scripture that God tells us as His people who we really are. Now, this is a wonderful thing for us as we get older, isn't it, to know who we really are. But what a wonderful thing it is also to pass on in the gospel to those who are younger, that this is something that makes a young Christian stand out in the world in which they are being reared in the society that is so discouraging to them. They actually may be in their class in high school or in college, one of the few young men or young women who actually know what their identity is.

They know who they are. It makes for, I would imagine, a serious length, if not a multi-serious length to underscore and explore all the different ways in which the New Testament helps us to understand our identity as those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ. And so, for this study, I simply want to pick out two of the major pictures that the New Testament gives to us that when they are in place, we are no longer asking the question, who am I?

We know these things to be true of us. In a way, they came to me in an unexpected context, or an unexpected context actually drew them out of me. I was having a job interview when I think I was in my twenties, and out of the blue, one of the panel of interviewers said to me, ìHow would you describe yourself as a Christian in one sentence? How would you describe yourself as a Christian in one sentence?î And without even thinking about it, I simply said, ìAs a child of God and as a servant of Jesus Christ.î And it was only in later reflection I thought to myself, incidentally, I didn't take the job.

It was only later on I thought to myself, ìI think my knowledge of the Bible led me to the very heart of the matter. Who are you as a Christian? You're a child of the heavenly Father. Who are you as a Christian? You are the servant of the greatest Master of all, the Lord Jesus Christ.î So, I want to look at these two pictures we're given.

They're not just pictures, they are realities of what does it actually mean to be a Christian? First of all, I've become a child of God. When you read the opening chapter of the Bible, yes, the opening chapter of the Bible, this is not something hidden away in Deuteronomy or in Nehemiah. This is before your eyes in the first chapter of the Bible. It becomes very clear that God created us to be His children.

That's the kind of relationship that He established for us. Actually, that's one of the things the phrase ìimage of Godî means. Remember how later on when Adam has a son, he has a son in his image. And we still use that kind of language. In Scotland, we still say about a son, he is, I don't know why we use this expression, he's the spitting image of his father.

Or we say, you know, the apple didn't fall far from the tree. And this is where Genesis chapter 1 is actually going. This is the climax of Genesis chapter 1.

When God had made everything good, then at the apex of His creation He said, ìLet us make man, male and female, as our image, as our children.î And as the narrative goes on, it's quite clear that God treats Adam and Eve as His children. He surrounds them with bounty. He wants to grow them. He wants them to mature in their trust and love for Him.

And so He says, ìNow all of these things are yours, but just do this one thing for Me because I'm your father. Don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.î And like a father, He wants them to grow in working for Him. And so He plants a garden. I wonder if you've ever noticed this, that everything God created was good, but not everything God created on the earth was garden.

Isn't that the case? There was the garden in Eden and there was outside the garden. And it was as though God was saying, ìNow, Adam and Eve, I'm giving you a little start, like a father might do if he wanted to teach his son or daughter to be a gardener. Now, I'm putting you in this little garden, but you see all that other stuff? I want you to extend this garden so that just as I'm the Lord of the whole cosmos, I want us to be able to talk about these things.

And so I want you to work hard at developing this garden until this garden reaches the ends of the earth, which incidentally is why the closing chapters of Revelation end with a garden city that reaches the ends of the earth. Because God wanted Adam and Eve to be knowledgeable of His fatherly care and to be able to say, ìHeavenly Father, you have been so good to us. We are your children. We are your son, your daughter.

Our boys, we want to be your children. Those who follow on, we want to be your children.î But of course, disaster struck. And when disaster struck, in a way they became spiritual orphans.

They were outside of the garden that God had created for them. They were in an alien environment, and they were no longer able to think about God as their loving, heavenly Father. And of course, this is where the gospel comes in. This is the story of the Old Testament. As God Himself says, you remember in the Exodus, ìI carried you out of your bondage like a father carrying his son.î It was a big picture of what His heart was set upon. And so through the ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ, we who are spiritual orphans are brought into God's family and made His children and are able to call God Abba Father.

And the New Testament tells us that this happens in two dimensions. First of all, a new relationship needs to be established between ourselves and God. And the New Testament speaks about this in terms of God the Father adopting us into His family. Paul characteristically uses this picture. God adopts us into His family because it was a fairly common idea in the Roman world, in Roman law, in which Paul negotiated his Christian witness.

The Romans were accustomed to someone being taken out of their natural family and adopted into a new family so that all the old family ties were broken, and they knew that they would be provided for and resourced within this new family, that their new father would take on responsibilities of care and devotion for them. And Paul says this is a picture of what it means to become a Christian. We have spiritually been orphans. Our relationship with God has been broken. We were made for His glory. But you remember what Paul says? He says, ìWe have sinned and we have fallen short of the glory of God.î And we no longer have this basic relationship, but in Jesus Christ, God has re-established that relationship. And when we become Christians, He not only declares us to be righteous in God's sight, but He declares us to be adopted into His family, to be part of the family of Jesus Christ. You remember how Jesus announces this on the day of His resurrection in John chapter 20 when He says to Mary, ìNow go and tell my brothers that I am ascending to my God and their God, to my Father and their Father.î So, the gospel of Jesus Christ gives us a new status. But we need more than a new status.

We need more than a legal transaction taking place. Think about children you may know or may even have had children who have been adopted, especially if they're of a certain age. It takes them some time before they have the instinct of being your children.

Isn't that the case? I remember a very dear friend who was a missionary who had adopted a little girl, and this is a wonderful couple who poured themselves into this little girl, but they never seemed to be able to bring her instinctively to call him ìDaddy.î And then I remember he told me one day she appeared at his desk with her shoe, little shoe in her hand, and she spoke the magic words, ìDaddy, my lace is broken.î I wanted to say to him, ìYou would have bought an entire shoe shop for that girl at that point, wouldn't you?î Because now the instinct was there. The reality was true, but the instinct was not there. And this is the wonderful thing that the gospel tells us, that the Father not only brings us into His family and gives us a new status, but He sends His Holy Spirit into our hearts to give us a new sense of who He is and therefore who we are. And so you remember in Romans chapter 8, and again in Galatians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul says that we've not only been given a new status, but we have received the Spirit of adoptive sonship, and through Him we cry, ìAbba, Father.î We noticed in passing in our first study that religious people, formerly Christian people, do not instinctively call God ìFather.î In times of crisis and trial, they may cry out, ìOh God, help me!î Or, ìOh God, why are you doing this in my life?î But the true Christian is a different person with a different identity. He or she is given a new instinct by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. And so one of the marks of that is that we cry out, ìAbba, Father.î And we know ourselves to be the children of God. We know ourselves to be cared for.

We know ourselves to be loved. I've never forgotten at a conference, I was having a coffee with one of the other speakers, and this lady came over to speak to us and she told us how she had become a Christian believer, and then she said this, ìFor the first time in my life, I knew that I was really loved.î Now, that's what it means to be a child of God. Just before we move on, it's perhaps worth pausing because it's just at this point that sometimes people say, ìBut if you knew the kind of Father I had, you would know that I could never call God ìFather.î What does the gospel say to such a person? What the gospel says is you are thinking about the gospel the wrong way around.

You're actually committing an error that technical people call projectionism. You're beginning to think about your Father and then, as it were, you're going upwards and saying, ìAnd God is even more like that.î But that's not where you begin. Where you begin with the gospel is not your past experience, but with the Lord Jesus. If you want to know what kind of Father has become your Father, you don't think about the Father you had. You think about the Father you now have, and the Father you now have is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, for example, why don't you read through John's gospel and discover the beauty of that relationship, the grace of that heavenly Father?

And, you know, that will be the solvent of all these distorted views of fatherhood that have been built into your emotions and your intuitions. And yes, it may take time, but in God's grace you will find yourself more and more appreciating what it means to have a true Father and to be able to say, ìAbba, Father.î So, what does it mean for us to be Christians? It means, first of all, that we are children of God. But then secondly, it means that we are also the servants of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Actually, the New Testament uses the word that normally would have applied to a slave. And immediately we think there's something at least paradoxical about this, a child and a servant. And that will remain paradoxical until we realize, actually, that's how the Lord Jesus thought about Himself. That's how His Bible, the Old Testament, taught Him to think about Himself. He was the new Adam.

He was the second man. He was the last Adam. But do you remember how He applied to Himself the words of Isaiah 42 and 49 and 50 and 52 to 53 that we often speak of as the servant songs? And they picture Jesus as the servant of the Lord. They picture Him, for example, of wakening up every day and listening to the voice of His Master and putting it into practice. They think of Him as the servant of the Lord, yielding to the Father's purpose to bring us salvation. That would mean He would be wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities, and the chastisement that would bring us peace would be upon Him, and with His stripes we would be healed. And He willingly yielded to the purposes, to the commands of His heavenly Father. He said, I always do what my heavenly Father says. And when you look at Jesus, there's no conflict between these two things.

There's no tension between these two things. And the reason is because He is a Son who loves His Father so much that He always wants His Father to be smiling on Him in everything He does, as though whenever the Father told Him to do something, He would say, it's okay, Father, I was just going to do it. And this is something the world can never understand, can it? It can't understand how you can simultaneously think about yourself as a child of the heavenly Father and yet also as a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. But then when you think about it, that's what we were created to be, isn't it? Back there in Genesis chapter 1, what would have been the evidence that Adam and Eve really knew that they were the children of the heavenly Father? It would be that they would listen to His voice and they would obey Him. And you know, when you understand both of these things, you understand the privilege of being a Christian. The New Testament puts it like this. It says, because of our sin, because of the way we've fallen short of the glory of God, we are enslaved to sin and to self. And what the gospel does is to set us free from the dominion of sin and marvelously to set us free from our bondage to ourselves. We are not yet perfect, but we know that through Jesus Christ we are no longer under the dominion of sin. Paul says so very explicitly in Romans 5 and in Romans 6, and we are now free, free to enjoy Him as our heavenly Father but also free to serve Him because we want to honor Him not only as our Father but also as our Master. And then there's another dimension to this because we're not only set free from the dominion of sin, we're set free from our obsession with ourself.

You notice that's a great characteristic of the twenty-first century, an obsession with the self and the project of the self. But now through Jesus Christ, because we know who we really are, we are set free from that obsession to live for Him who has loved us and to serve others that they may love Him too. That's why Jesus said, come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I'll give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me because my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

You know, there's an old story that over Joseph's carpenter shop there was a sign that said, our yokes fit well. It's just a story, but it's true of the yoke that Jesus places on us as the children of our heavenly Father and the servants of our wonderful Savior. So I wonder, do you really know who you are as a Christian, a child of God and a servant of Jesus Christ? What a great reminder of who we are as believers, forgiven sinners, free to serve Christ and obey His commands. We're glad you've joined us today for Renewing Your Mind.

I'm Lee Webb. Dr. Sinclair Ferguson's series The Basics of the Christian Life has been our focus over the past couple of days. We have featured only two of the 12 messages, but we encourage you to contact us and request the complete series for your gift of any amount to Ligonier Ministries.

You can call us with your gift at 800-435-4343, or you can go online to renewingyourmind.org. This is a two-DVD set, and again, the title is The Basics of the Christian Life by Ligonier teaching fellow Dr. Sinclair Ferguson. If you enjoy studying topics like this, you'll want to explore Ligonier Connect. That's our online learning community with interactive video courses for growing Christians. You can choose from 800 lessons across 70 courses covering the Bible, theology, Christian living, worldview, and church history. Learn more by going to connect.ligonier.org.

Well, tomorrow another of our Ligonier teaching fellows joins us, Dr. Stephen Lawson, and here's a portion of what you'll hear. Jesus said, all that the Father gives Me will come to Me. Question, how is it that they are made to come to Christ? Because we all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each one of us has gone His own way. There is none who seeks for God, no not one. So how will anyone come to Christ? That's the question Dr. Lawson will answer tomorrow on Renewing Your Mind.