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I’m going to challenge you today, to see if you are a Christian…or do you just say you are a Christian – or do you actually LIVE as a Christian? We all know and understand that Jesus Christ, was crucified and died on a cross for YOU. The Jewish Rabbi Leaders charged him, Jesus’ Disciple Judas gave him to the Roman Solders, the Roman Governor of Judaea Pontius Pilate sentenced him, and the Roman Solders then tortured, scourged and nailed him to a cross to die, for you. Now I ask you… as Christians… do you hate them, and curse them, the Jewish Rabbi Leaders, Jesus’ Disciple Judas, the Roman Governor of Judaea Pontius Pilate and the Roman Solders who crucified him for their service to God? For if not for them and their actions… God’s will and reason for sending his only son to you, to die for YOUR sins, so that Jesus could fulfilled his destiny, so that through him, you can find your path to God could not have been done. Because if they failed to do God’s will… you could not be Christians, and Jesus could not be your Savior. So I challenge you to think about that, I challenge you to accept and acknowledge, that the Jewish Rabbi Leaders, Jesus’ Disciple Judas, the Roman Governor of Judaea Pontius Pilate and the Roman Solders – did as God willed, so that Jesus his only son could fulfill his destiny… and give you forgiveness for your sins and have a path to your Lord God. So I challenge you, here today, to throw out any prejudice or loathing or contempt or hatred you may hold to those tools of God’s will. For without them… you could not be Christians and you would not be here today. I would like to share with you now, a story about a Christian martyr that was challenged about her faith… all she had to do was to denounce Jesus. In her time, the Emperor Marcus Aurelius allowed that Roman citizens who persisted in the Christian faith to be executed by beheading (Eusebius, HE 5.1.47), but those without citizenship were to be tortured. She was a female slave, Blandina, (later known as Saint Blandina) executed in the Gallic City of Lyons in 177 AD. She was bound to a stake and wild beasts were set on her. According to legend, they did not, however, touch her. After enduring this for a number of days she was led into the arena to see the sufferings of her companions. Finally, as the last of the martyrs, she suffered the ritual gauntlet of whipping and clubbing, being burned on glowing red irons, she was tortured in a horrible manner, so that even her executioners became exhausted "as they did not know what more they could do to her", still she remained faithful and repeated to every question "I am a Christian, and we commit no wrongdoing." Finally she was stripped naked, covered with see-through netting, and exposed to the attack of a bull, and at last she was killed with a dagger. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Blandina Now no one here today, I’m sure will be asked to endure such horrible torture. No one here today will have to prove their faith in this manner. All most of you here today will be asked to do, is to LIVE your life as a Christian… so what does that mean? What is a Christian today? You can answer this question in your own heart… by first asking yourself… what would Jesus do? and then do the same as he would. Remember Saint Blandina, through all her torture… she repeated, “I am a Christian, and we commit no wrongdoing." Do you, commit any wrongdoing? If you ask forgiveness for your sin… does that allow you to repeat that sin? To be a Christian, is to live like a Christian… that means you live to commit no wrongdoing. To live as a Christian, is to truly try as is humanly possible, to commit no wrongdoing … and if you fail, you must be truly repentant when asking forgiveness… you can only ask because you will not repeat that for which you have asked forgiveness. To live as a Christian is not an easy task, your temptations are many, but your rewards and happiness are greater than the sacrifices you have to make as a Christian. Think about committing no wrongdoing … how peaceful and stress free your life can be without the guilt and burden of sins. Before you can take action, you must first do two things… One, you must first rationalize that it is the right thing to do. Second, that it will make you happy or satisfied in someway, or you wont do it. Everything we do, we go through this process in our minds. If in our minds we can not some how justify our action, we will not do it. We can not walk past a person that is suffering, or witness a wrong and not intervene, if we first can’t rationalize that it is not our responsibility to stop and help. We have to some how rationalize that someone else will take care of it. If you remember Jesus was challenged by an expert in the Law, when he asked Jesus, “What must we do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus replied, that you must, “'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself”. He was then challenged, “who is our neighbor?” I’m sure we all remember the parable of the “Good Samaritan” found in the Gospel of Luke, chapter 10 verses 25–37, where in that time, the Samaritans and the Jews did not get along with each another. Jesus, whose audience was Jewish, spoke of a Samaritan stopping to help a Jew who was robbed and beaten after first a Priest and then a Levite had passed him by without stopping. Jesus asked his challenger, "Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The expert in the law replied, "The one who had mercy on him." Jesus told him, "Go and do likewise." Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_samaritan I am asking you, here in this church today, which one of these three are you? The Priest, the Levite or the Samaritan? If you are NOT the Samaritan, are you a Christian? The two questions I have relied on my whole life to keep me on track and in line are: One, if what I’m about to do, should get out into the public... would this be an embarrassment to my Mom? and would she be proud of what I did? Two, if I should find myself standing in front of a Judge and/or a Jury… could I defend what I did and would I feel confident and proud of what I did? My challenge to you, who say you are Christian… is to ask yourself before you make a decision: One, if what you are about to do, should get out into the public... would you be embarrassment to Jesus? and would Jesus be proud of what you did? Two, if you should find yourself standing in front of a Judge and/or a Jury… could you defend what you did and would Jesus feel confident and proud of what you did? I will also ask you, when you are making these decisions… do you ever find yourself thinking in your head… as if you were reasoning with yourself? Do you find yourself in a conversation with yourself? Could this voice in your head to whom you are discussing what your action should be… could this voice what most call a “conscience”… could this voice be Jesus? Could he be the one who is talking with you? Think about it. How many people here today, have actually read the bible? If you have not read the bible… how can you know how to live as a Christian? If you have not read the bible, can you call yourself a Christian? Have you at least read and understand the Ten Commandments? Do you have to follow them, to be able to call yourself a Christian? Is simply reading and understanding the bible enough to be able to call yourself a Christian? If you read and understood a book on how to fly a plane – but you never fly a plane, can you call yourself a “Pilot?” or do you have to fly a plane… to be able to call yourself a pilot? And finally, when you stop flying planes… are you still a pilot? Or are you no longer a pilot? You see, to be a Pilot… you must fly a plane… and to be a Christian, you must live as a Christian. If you don’t fly planes, or you stop flying planes… your not a pilot. And if you don’t live like a Christian, or you stop following the Ten Commandments, then you stop being a Christian. I looked at Twenty One (21) translations of the Ten Commandments, twelve (12) of the translations use the word “murder” and nine (9) use the word “kill” in the sixth commandment. In the Young's Literal Translation, and in the Hebrew Transliterated, and the Complete Jewish Bible translations they use the word “murder” and not the word “kill” in the sixth commandment. So when I look at the sixth commandment, I use the world murder – "You shall not murder.” So do you live by the Ten Commandments? Do you know and understand them? In Exodus Chapter 20 Verse 1-17 it says; “And God spoke all these words, saying: "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. "You shall have no other gods before Me. "You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. "You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain. "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it. "Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the LORD your God is giving you. "You shall not murder. "You shall not commit adultery. "You shall not steal. "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's." These are the Ten Commandments… if nothing else, to be a Christian – is to live by these Ten Commandments… to be a Christian, is to live as a Christian, and to live as a Christian… is to commit no wrongdoing. Now for those of you, who find it difficult to remember all Ten of the Commandments, let me direct you to the following.
When Jesus was asked, " What commandment is the foremost of all?" he responded with two: Jesus answered, "The foremost is, “Hear, O Israel! the Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.' "The second is this, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these."
Source: http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark%2012:28-31;%20Luke%2010:25-37&version=49 I am asking you here today, do you at least follow these two commandments? For in those Two, are all of the Ten… If you do, is it enough alone… so that you can call yourself a Christian? All you have to do to be a Christian, is to do as Jesus would do… in every aspect of your life. Many of you may use the excuse that you can not do as Jesus, because he was born the Son of God and who are you in comparison. How can you live as he lived? How can you do as he did? For those of you that use this excuse, that you can not live as Jesus would have live… because it was easier for him, because he was the Son of God… I ask you this; did God stand before Jesus and defend him from his attackers, naysayers or protect him from what happened to him? In Young's Literal Translation, Luke Chapter 1 Verse 26-27 "And in the sixth month was the messenger Gabriel sent by God, to a city of Galilee, the name of which is Nazareth, to a virgin, betrothed to a man, whose name is Joseph, of the house of David, and the name of the virgin is Mary". Source: http://yltbible.com/luke/1.htm Right here it says that Jesus was born to a “Virgin” the Virgin Mary… who was not married to Joseph at the time. Can you imagine what it must have been like to be born “out-of-wedlock” in those times? To be born in the eyes of the community as a “bastard” son? Do you still think Jesus had it easy? For those of you who say, you can not live as Jesus lived, or do as Jesus did, because of his advantage over you. Jesus was born poor, Jesus was not born of the elite or a King… he was born a Jew, and he was born a “bastard” to a virgin who was not married, but engaged. This I’m sure was so that you could have no excuse for not living as he lived. Because, he had no advantage that you don’t have. Are you a Christian… can you live as Jesus lived, do as Jesus did? Do you really have an excuse not to? Will you be tortured and murdered if you do? What sacrifice do you have to make to be a Christian today? How hard is it really – “to commit no wrongdoing”? How hard is it to Love your God? How hard is it to follow the “Golden Rule” - to love your neighbor as you love yourself? Or put in another way, “do onto others, as you would have them do onto you.” How hard can it be, to be a Christian? Only you choose what you do to others, only you choose how you treat your husband or your wife, how you teat your grand parents, how you treat your father and your mother, your brothers and your sisters, your kids, your neighbors and co-workers… only you make those choices. Are your choices, Christian choices? Thank-you.
Copyright © 2007 BEUSA, All rights reserved. Designed by: Victor Lloyd Burgess |
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Victor Lloyd Burgess, Advisor, Lecturer, Author Sept 9, 2008 Are YOU a Christian? You can’t just say it… you have to live it. Hello, I was invited after talking about the church and Christianity with a Pastor to speak at his church, so I wrote this in preparation of that invitation… he expressed wanting to break some of the barriers in today’s churches. I mentioned that I had written a “lecture/sermon” about being a Christian, and he invited me to speak. So I ask you, why are you here today? Do you come here out of fear of God? Do you come here out of habit? Do you come here so as not to be shamed for not being a church going Christian? Do you come here for aspiration? Do you know why you come here? I challenge you here and now, to ask yourself… why are you here, in this church, on this day, right now? Think about that question a minute…look inside of you right now and ask yourself – WHY did you come here today?
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