Answering Our Culture #10: Just Do It, Already! Series

Answering Our Culture

#10 – Just Do It, Already!

Various Scriptures

October 13, 2002

Introduction

This is our last message in our series on The Top 10 Reasons to NOT be a Christian.

We’ve looked at a bunch of different reasons people give for not becoming a Christians.

Today I want to give you some reasons to become a Christian.

An assumption and a definition: I assume that if you have come to the point where you are listening to this message, you have sensed a desire in your heart to know more about God, about Jesus, the Bible, or what it means to be a Christian.

If that is the case, then I rejoice with you, and I would love to visit with you personally or refer you to someone in the area who can answer your questions more fully than I can.

Now for the definition: what does it mean to become a Christian? “I grew up in a Christian church, so doesn’t that make me a Christian?”

No. One is not born into the Christian faith.

He or she must make a choice to do that.

“I was baptized as a child, and even confirmed. Doesn’t that make me a Christian?”

My definition of a Christian is someone who has trusted Christ for forgiveness of sins and eternal life, and seeks to become someone who becomes a devoted follower of Him.

The life of a Christian is focused on becoming more like Jesus, and living in the promises of God in the Bible, experiencing the full and abundant life promised by Jesus.

Sounds like a good deal to me. I hope you will find it worth pursuing for yourself.

By the way, ignore the Bible passages that are listed at the top of the sermon outline, because I forgot to delete these while I was revising the bulletin.

I will phrase the reasons to become a Christian in the form of four benefits that Christians have. I am confident that by the end of our time together, you will want to give serious consideration to giving your life to Christ.

Let’s move right on in, shall we?

4 benefits of becoming a Christian:

I. We gain forgiveness of sins.

The barrier between God and us is sin. The Bible says that everyone has sinned and that our sins have separated us from God.

But Christ died to take down that barrier, so that those who come to God through Him can know the forgiveness of sins.

The Bible says that Christ died for sins, once for all, to bring you to God.

Initially, we are forgiven of past sins; in other words, all those sins committed up to the point we trust Christ for salvation. Listen to Acts 13:38:

AC 13:38 "Therefore, my brothers, I want you to know that through Jesus the forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. 39 Through him everyone who believes is justified from everything you could not be justified from by the law of Moses.

What Peter is saying here is that no matter how devout you were about following God’s commands, you would never know forgiveness and eternal life.

But through Jesus, you have been forgiven of all your past sins.

And here’s something great you need to know. After forgiving your sins, God chooses to forget them. Forever.

The Bible says in Psalm 103 that God removes our sins as far as the east is from the west. Do you understand how far that is?

Let me just give you a hint. If you were to travel north from anywhere, at what point would you begin going south? At the north pole. But if you were traveling east from anywhere, at what point would you being going west? You could go east forever and never be going west. That’s how far God removes our sins from us when they are forgiven.

In Isaiah, God says this:

ISA 43:25 "I, even I, am he who blots out

your transgressions, for my own sake,

and remembers your sins no more.

You don’t have to worry about God drudging up your old mistakes and sins. He doesn’t do that.

If you are a devoted follower of Jesus and you are being reminded of past sins, then understand that the devil is the one doing it, not God.

Not only are we forgiven of our past sins, we are also forgiven of “current” sins. What do I mean by that?

The hard fact of the matter is that as long as we live in this world, we will be tempted to sin. And there are times when we will probably give in. So what happens then?

The Bible says that:

9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.