What is a Christian?

There are generally two concepts of what a Christian is that often get mixed together.

The MISCONCEPTION: People often see Christians doing good things and often think that works are necessary to be a Christian because that is all they see.

The REALITY: People come to know Jesus as their personal savior. As their relationship with God develops, they gain the desire and ability to serve him. This desire and gained ability leads to the works that people see.

So, the two concepts that are often combined and confused are:

What is a Christian?
What does it mean to be a Christian?

A Christian is one who professes that Jesus is Lord and savior. More specifically, a Christian is one who believes that Jesus is the son of God and that Jesus has died and rose again for their sins so that they may receive eternal life. We see this promise in the verse John 3:16.

God so Loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The HISTORY: The book of Genesis as most of you know is a book of the Bible that tells us about creation. God created the world in six days and thought the world was good. He loved his creation very much. God created Adam and Eve to live in the Garden of Eden and had given them some instructions.

1) Look after the garden
2) Do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil

Adam and Eve however, disobeyed upon coercion from the serpent. This lead to the fall of man or man's first sin. Humankind, as God had created it, was no longer perfect and God could not allow an imperfect being to be with him in heaven. He therefore threw them out of the garden and would not allow them to eat from the tree of life. But God still loved his creation and therefore provided a way for humankind to receive eternal life. All those before Christ simply had to believe that God would provide this sacrifice for their salvation. A parallel to this is like a child who is told they are not allowed to come to the dinner table with muddy hands. But the child comes in any way with their hands covered in mud. No matter how much the parent loves the child, the child would still not be allowed to come to the table without washing them first.

TODAY: Sin is a disobedience to God and the wages of sin is death. As I mentioned, sin began with Adam and Eve. Their sin was passed down through the generations and we are therefore born with a sinful nature. In order to have a sacrifice suitable enough to save the world, God would need a perfect sacrifice. Since no man or animal was suitable to sacrifice, God sent his own son Jesus. Jesus lived a sinless life. He was born of a virgin so that he would not inherit the sin that was passed through the generations. Since the wages of sin is death, Jesus had to die in order to save the world from sin. We are promised that if we believe that Jesus was the son of God, we are not condemned and may have eternal life. (Read John 3:16-21)

John 3:14-15 makes the parallel to another story. John 3:14-15 says:

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.

This reference comes from Numbers 21:4-9. The Israelites were travelling through the desert when they complained to Moses about how God has lead them there to die. They said bad things against Moses and God, so God sent venomous snakes among them to bite them. Many of them died. Upon realizing their sin, they pleaded with Moses and God to save them. So God told Moses to put up a bronze snake on a pole that whoever is bitten by a snake can look to it and live. Those who chose to look were saved. As the Israelites chose to look up to the snake to save their lives, a Christian chooses to look to Jesus to save their life.

A Christian is a person who chooses to believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that Jesus paid for their sins and as a result, receives the promise of eternal life made by God.