To be a Christian is more than believing in God or attending church; it is to belong wholly to the Lord Jesus Christ and to live in His service. Paul’s words in Acts, “Whose I am and whom I serve,” reveal the two inseparable halves of genuine faith-relationship and obedience. We belong to Christ through the new birth, when we personally trust Him for forgiveness and life, and we serve Him by offering ourselves to His purposes through the gifts He gives. Real Christianity begins when we can say with assurance that we are His, and our lives become worship as we serve the One we love.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] This morning we were addressing in the sermon the question, what is a Christian? What exactly is a Christian? What makes a person a Christian? And so the content of the message was really getting a call from God to come to Christ. And the thing about a Christian is that they were first called disciples. And so you’re not a Christian if you’re just a church attender or if intellectually you say, yeah, that’s what I mostly subscribe to. But there’s something more that is a qualification to become a Christian is that you’re a disciple. And at Antioch they were first called Christians at that city of Antioch. And we were going on about this morning that becoming a Christian or what is a Christian. and that was in chapter 26 of the book of Acts and now we’ve had read to us, thank you,

[00:01:02] read very well chapter 27 of all those names and I left my glasses at home so I was glad someone else had to read them of all those names and it’s the storyline of how the ship that was to take Paul down to Rome and was to take him there and he was given over to a centurion named Julius and actually King Agrippa and Festus was also in the court and they said to each other at the end if Paul had not appealed to Caesar he would not have needed to go to Rome but because he had appealed then he had to go and this is about the journey and in the journey on the ship the ship gets shipwrecked and so that’s the storyline that the chapter gives you and it’s really interesting down in verse 23 the Apostle Paul is speaking up to the rather desperate sailors and people on the ship

[00:02:04] because the weather is getting worse and worse and they do eventually get shipwrecked but they’re fearful of all dying as often happened back in those days And for various reasons, you know, some of those ancient ships were formed and created by there being good expertise at how you got planks of wood to fit in together. They’d cut out the right little cronies for the other pieces of wood to stick into. The only trouble was that they didn’t really have the knowledge as to how those pieces of wood could be more strongly glued or screwed or whatever together. and if you got into a big storm, this was true of sailing ships right up into the days of John Wesley and the ships, if they got in a big storm, the pressures and the forces that the storm put from different angles onto the ship often caused those

[00:03:00] pieces of wood to come apart and the whole ship went straight down because all the water came in through all the various ways where the ship fell apart that was the case of John Wesley when he had been in the Americas as a missionary. This is before he actually himself had found the Lord, before he had become a true Christian. He certainly believed he was one and he went as a missionary. But it was a big failure as a missionary that he discovered himself in. And then he went back to Britain. And while he was on the ship there were some Moravian brethren. You probably heard this story before. It’s one of my favourite stories. but they were singing hymns on the deck. They didn’t have any bunks to be in, but they were on the deck and they were singing hymns, and John Wesley went across to them and said,

[00:03:49] how come you could be singing at a time like this? They said, when the ship goes down, our souls go up. And he got impressed by just the sheer assurance that they had. So when he got to England, he looked up their meeting place, went along and someone spoke about the need to put faith in Christ. And the gospel he understood properly and became a real Christian then. So we’re right in these chapters of Acts where this business of becoming a real Christian is what the text is on. And what we discover is that when they’re facing the dilemma of the storm, the very bad storm having caught grip of the ship and is carrying it along and they’re all afraid of what they all think is most likely to happen and that is a shipwreck in the middle of a storm and they’d all be drowned.

[00:04:45] But Paul has an angel come and speak to him. And in verse 23, it’s the verse that really has something very interesting. It says, For there stood by me, says Paul, this night an angel of God, Whose I am and whom I serve. And what we’re actually getting there is not a definition of a Christian. It’s not telling you exactly how to be one, although it is a description such that you could use it that way. Whose I am and whom I serve. And so the question I asked this morning is the people, have you become a Christian or are you being, what is the definition of a Christian in the scriptures? And now tonight I’m continuing that by not so much looking at how you become a Christian exactly, but rather what is a description of a real Christian that tests you, helps you know,

[00:05:53] and then gives a hint as to how you become one. And Paul says, Whose I am and whom I serve. And so I got this sermon an idea of another preacher I heard who preached on the two halves of being a Christian. And the two halves are belonging to God and serving God. And if you are a real Christian because you’ve answered a call from Christ and you’ve put your faith in Jesus, then eventually this description will be accurate of you. Whose I am, who owns you, and whom you serve. And that can help us understand ourselves whether we really are a real Christian. Now, it’s very interesting about this one, Whose I am and whom I serve. Because if you want to place in the Bible another text to look at, in the Gospel of John in chapter 1, we have these classic verses that John’s Gospel is famous for.

[00:06:54] If you turn there, thank you, you’re doing really well. Because with my eyes at the moment I’m not so quick at finding it. In verse 10, it’s talking about Jesus and how he came into the world. He was in the world and the world was made through him. So the underlining that is there, so to speak, of the world belonging to Jesus is because he created it. And being a creation of Christ is how you belong to him. Now, there’s a sense in which every human being is that. It doesn’t matter whether they’re Christians or not. They still are a part of the world that Jesus created. And in that sense, he already owns them. They already belong to him because they’re a part of his creation. But then it goes on, Now, the actual language here in which it’s written is using this idea of being the own, Jesus’ ones.

[00:07:58] He came to his own and his own people didn’t receive him. Well, the world was made through him, yet the world didn’t know him. So the world being made by him was his own by his creation. But when it says he came to his own, there’s actually in the language, which you wouldn’t notice when you’re just reading it in English, a change in the wording because the first set of coming to the world and the world that he belonged to is using a word that is in the nuta. And that is how we know as translators that it’s talking about something a bit more non-personal. It’s the whole of creation. When he came to the world and the world was made through him and the world didn’t know him, what’s being referred to there as the whole of creation has somehow been put out of kilter with or offside from

[00:08:55] the one who created him. He came into the world and the world was made through him yet the world did not know him. And then when it goes to the next verse it actually shifts from using the neuter to the masculine. Now this is nothing about masculine and feminines and please don’t get angry at me for using a reference to a masculine because in their language back then if you’re just talking about everybody say like if I were to use the Greek language to talk about who came to church I would say they and I’d use it all in the masculine simply because you’re males and females all in together. So this is not about you don’t need to be angry at me for failing to recognise the differences of the genders. alright, that’s just how they wrote the language when it says in verse 11 He came to His own and His own

[00:09:49] did not receive Him is how it’s actually in the Greek. But it’s in the masculine that’s why in our English translations they put a people there His own people but it means all people not just the created people but a special people who do you suppose the special people were? all right who do you suppose i should pick on someone in the front row no i won’t do that for you uh well if the man next to you if i asked him i know he’d know who are who are the people who are jesus own people the jewish people is exactly correct and you’re already at the top of the class down the front um and we can we know that because the earlier things were in the mass in the map in the neuter and that was the creation and now this is now putting the searchlight on the fact that

[00:10:50] when jesus came it wasn’t just humanity that rejected him but most terribly it was the jewish nation who turned him down as their messiah and it’s put there in the masculine to mean it’s the people, which is why our ESV version rightly puts that word people in there, his own people did not receive him. But then he goes on to say, he goes on to say, but to all who did receive him, but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, and like a good description, it’s putting in the extra little clause that you know who he’s talking about, who did receive him, the ones who believed in his name. The name Jesus means Saviour, among other things. His name Jesus means Yahweh saved, in fact. And who believed in his name that through this person, Jesus, they could have salvation,

[00:11:48] he gave the right to become the children of God. And by saying become, it’s clearly stating that they were not now in the status of children of God just by being Jews. You’re not in the status… Well, there is a sense in which you’re in the status of children of God just by being a human. We’re all sons of God in the sense that we’re created by him. But we’re not sons of God in the sense of belongingness in the way that the Gospel makes possible until you’ve come to know Jesus, until you’ve believed in his name. and so someone to be a real Christian is not just someone who has been learning and following as a disciple just in the learning sense but one who has become someone who has believed in his name as saviour and it is that act of putting your trust in Jesus as the saviour

[00:12:44] that makes you someone who belongs to Jesus so when Paul spoke he says an angel of the person whose I am because there was a moment when Paul even though he was a Jew, he wasn’t in the door straight away but when he believed in Jesus on the road to Damascus you know the story of how the Lord spoke to him and at first the stupid fellow I shouldn’t say it like that but he said who are you Lord? and he says I am Jesus whom you are persecuting so it’s very clear from the scriptures that Paul got to be able to say that this person whose I am is because he had that moment of discovering it’s Jesus he needs to belong to you’re not a Christian just by adopting a Christian lifestyle you’re not a Christian as this morning was one of my big points just because you believe in God

[00:13:48] because the Bible tells us that demons believe and they tremble. Believing in God doesn’t make you a Christian. What it actually more accurately says in the book of Hebrews, and I quoted this this morning, if any person would come to God, he must first believe in him. You first believe about God and that he’s there. You’ve got to believe in his existence. And because it’s worded, you’ve got to first do this and then you can become a Christian. It shows that just being a God-believer doesn’t make you one. You have to do business with Jesus, only really possible after he’s come into the world. People who were living prior to that, under the old covenant, were able to be made acceptable to God, but with the promise in their scriptures that there would come a day of a new covenant

[00:14:43] where it would be what would have to be observed. And that covenant idea is a part of what in Paul’s talking about, that he says not only is the person who owns me, but also the person I serve, whose I am and whose I serve. And that’s what our verse in 23 in this book of Acts says, For this very night there stood before me the angel of God to whom I belong and whom I… Now the word is actually, although the ESV’s got worship, it’s the word that means to serve. And our worship is the service that God requires. Worship is not as long as you go to a church and sing the hymns that you worship God, then you’re in the door. No, but you’re the person who’s come to be committed to God so that your entire life is a service of him. And in the book of Romans, it talks at the end of the book of Romans

[00:15:50] about the fact that the way that we have our spiritual service is that we fully surrender to God, we belong to him, and then we live our lives for him. And that’s what is a description of a Christian. So whom I belong to and whom I serve is probably a more accurate rendering, but if you understand that worship is how we can serve him, that’s one way, then that’s also a true statement on the screen now. So I bring to you the question that I’d started this morning. Are you a Christian, really? Have you come to the place where you did business with Jesus so that in the special sense you belong to him, not just because you’re a part of the human race, not just because you believe the doctrines, but because you’ve done business when you came and said to him, I want you to be my savior.

[00:16:47] I want to trust you to forgive me for my sins. I want you to bring to me the forgiveness that on the cross you earned and are able to say it is finished about my sins and about the Father’s wrath and our humanity for our sins. It’s finished because of what Jesus has done. And when you understand that the Gospel is a proclamation of Jesus coming into the world in order that he might pay the cost for our sins, lay down his life, that we might be forgiven. When you put your faith in him to give you the forgiveness that he died to purchase, that’s the moment you actually become someone who can say with Paul, the Lord to whom I belong and whom I serve. And the service contains the idea of not just sitting happy because you’ve been forgiven and you’re a Christian,

[00:17:43] you don’t need to be worried about heaven and hell, you’re going to go to the good place. That’s all true. But the idea of service is that you give your life over to do his purposes. and the way to do that is to… There’s a number of ways – I could get into a big long talk just now, a second one – and how we serve him. One way is we serve him through the church. But by through the church, I’m not just meaning the institution of the church, I’m not just meaning only the assembly of the church so that you all should volunteer for jobs like the girls at the back are doing. It’s good that they are but the serving isn’t only the administration of the church or the happening of the church. But God gives gifts to individual persons who are a part of the body of Christ.

[00:18:35] You’re a part of the body of the church and he gives different gifts and it’s in those areas that the spirit wants you to be serving. And a part of what you do when you’ve become a Christian is that you ask the Lord, Lord what do you want me to do with this new thing that we’ve got going Lord? I now belong to you and I’m serving you but how do you want me to do it? And when you go on seeking to know that he will lead you to see that there’s a certain way that the Holy Spirit keeps on using you and you can call it your gift. And it isn’t just being a musician I’m not picking on the musicians I’m glad for them to be here but thank goodness all of us don’t have to be musicians. Thank goodness you should be saying that I’m not over there. I can do a few little things but it wouldn’t be a very nice sound.

[00:19:31] So being not just a musician, but God has got a gift whereby there’s where you can serve. And you don’t always know it at first. In fact, sometimes people only discover their gifts several years in being a Christian. And they suddenly realise that there’s something that keeps on happening with them. I remember visiting my sister down in Canberra after she’d had her first baby and she was working along, her husband had worked and I was left in the house and so I didn’t have much to do. The lady next door over the fence was happy to talk to me, especially about the new baby my sister had had. And she was a Christian and she went to a Brethren chapel and she told me how for quite a number of years she didn’t know how to make a contribution. But then she discovered, quite by accident I think,

[00:20:27] that she used to write letters to people who were known Christians but living elsewhere. And they’d write back and she’d write back. She ended up having this correspondence with other people at distance. Some of them were missionaries. But she got to be an encourager. She got to be someone who counseled people. And she said, I found my spot. And what she’s talking about is that she found where she had a gift. And a gift doesn’t have to be something in the service. It can be just something that God repeatedly seems to lead you to do. There are particular people that God leads in making money and then giving it to places he tells them where to give it. And that’s quite fascinating when you meet some people who are like that and they tell you how the Lord helps them and gives them some insight.

[00:21:20] There’s a need for money in a certain person or a certain work or whatever. And they give voluntarily and then the Lord supplies the money. And somehow they’ve become channels of money for God’s things. It’s their gift. But it’s not that everybody will be doing that. It’s just that some people find that they have a gift in that area. Others have gifts of encouragement. Our church has actually got quite a few people. I know personally that they have gifts of encouragement because one of the things that happens to you in ministry things is you get discouraged or you get wounded or you make a failure or you do something, there’s a flop. And it’s interesting how when you’re a flop, the politics of the place might say, oh, well, that was a bit of a joke, wasn’t it? And you find that you could turn against you

[00:22:18] but then there are certain people who turn up and how did they know you were feeling depressed about this and they come and they have something to say. Sometimes they don’t know what they’re doing but their words come as beautiful things that help you know. I’ve had that in our church here happen to me from a whole lot of different people. We’ve got people with a gift of encouragement in this church and that’s how you serve but you don’t serve because you pick the things you have to be in because you picked what you think is rather what you wanted but you let the Lord lead you to what is your gift so being someone who knows you belong and let me repeat again in John’s Gospel when it talks about the fact the one we’ve got the masculine and then you’ve got the neuter, which is the creation,

[00:23:17] then you’ve got the masculine, which is the people of Jesus who belong to him. In that chapter where it talks about people becoming Christians, it talks about them being born into it. It doesn’t mean born as in your birth at the hospital, but it’s the moment that you come to Christ, you’re born again, which is why we could talk about born again Christians because the first birth they have is in the hospital or wherever it happened. But then when they come to Christ and they’re born to belong to Jesus so they become belonging to him by virtue of being the child of God in a very special sense. I know we’re all children of God by being humans but in the special sense you become a child of God because you’ve been born. I don’t know whether you’ve watched when you see parents.

[00:24:10] I like to watch the little kiddies come to our church and see them with their families. It’s really special when you see someone who’s just had a baby and I’ve got to see that in my family and to see how all the love of the mother and the father for this little child. There is a belongingness that is really, really deep when you’re the offspring of people whose love for you then is of a different level. Now Paul is talking that way about who’s I am and you get to belong to Jesus when you’re born again and that’s why it’s so wonderful to grow into a certainty that it’s actually happened to you whether it is that you remember the occasion or whether it is just you didn’t notice it happening but somehow or other you began to get some assurance that wasn’t there before

[00:25:11] and you became rather aware of God’s smile on you and sometimes it is when something happens and you get pulled up by the fact that God must think you’re very special. And that’s exactly what the Bible tells us about us as children of God that we are so special to him. special in the eyes of the Lord and there’s a whole host of different verses that tell us when and why we’re special but if you belong to Jesus special in the eyes of the Lord is also when you die when you die he’s not going to send some angel just to sort of see that you get a good seat in heaven somewhere but Jesus is going to personally want to collect you you belong to him and I reckon it’s one of the greatest things of the Christian life when you can say with Paul the Lord whose I am and whom I serve and I’ll leave that with you tonight

[00:26:15] let me have a word of prayer Heavenly Father I do thank you for this beautiful text in Acts that reflects the truth of John 1 about being born of God and being so special to him that we are his children with all that it is when you’re the actual offspring of the person whose children you then are what a fantastic thing to know that we have become the children of God that we’ve become someone who can say I’m one that belongs to him that’s how come I can say the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want that’s how I can say I know he keeps me I’m kept by the power of God because I belong to him and Lord I pray that we’ll all be people who will learn to take on heart how we belong to Jesus and I pray really Father also that you’ll help us to translate that into how we then serve and how we can serve the one that we love

[00:27:38] it sort of changes the colour of that service when you’re serving the one that you love that’s a marvellous thought and Father to know that you’ve given us something where we’re especially given a portfolio to serve. And I pray for everybody here tonight, everyone listening to your word, that you’ll lead them to know where it is that they’re to serve. I pray that in Jesus’ name. Amen.