Yesterday in Rogers, Arkansas, a teenager was taken into custody and questioned after allegedly impersonating an officer. He tried to pull a young girl over and even flashed his fake badge to her. She didn’t buy it and called the police. Good for her! He later claimed he thought she was driving erratically. We’re beginning a new study tonight on what authentic Christianity looks like, and authentic faith in Christ always begins with a new birth.
(By the way, this series is loosely based on Warren Wiersbe’s book The 20 Essential Qualities Of An Authentic Christian
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“For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.” -Romans 8:29
I have always found it best, when I leave something out of a message that I had planned to share, to leave it alone rather than to sneak it in later in the message. Sunday, I left out just such a detail, but when I explained it to my wife later, she confirmed the wisdom of leaving it alone by letting me know just how confusing the thought was. Nonetheless, I’d like to share it here.
In verse 29 of Romans 8, the Bible used the word “predestined” to refer to the second of five links in God’s chain of salvation. The Greek word for predestined is prohorizo, from which we get our English word “horizon.” Essentially, Paul was communicating that when God foreknew people in His family, long before they were even born, He established the horizon of their lives beforehand. That is, He determined the limits and boundaries within which they would live. In short, He determined their destinies.
Does this mean that they now have no power over their destinies? On the contrary, the Bible is clear that our choices always have an impact on the future and often work like a string of dominoes, each one affecting the next. Nevertheless, if God foreknew you as one of His very own children, then He has made certain that you’ll be saved and reach your final destination.
This thought is especially vital when considering what comes next in Romans, chapter eight. Paul concludes the chapter with some great rhetorical questions related to the security of the born again believer. We will win in the end. Why? Becuase of God’s knowledge, God’s plan, and God’s power. I am His child, so my destiny is set. I’m headed home!
“Now a certain woman named Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from the city of Thyatira, who worshipped God. The Lord opened her heart to heed the things spoken by Paul.”—Acts 16:14 (NKJV)
Sometimes we fall into the trap of accidentally humanizing the miraculous. When a person is born again, for example, we deduce that they simply turned to the Lord strictly out of their own volition. The Scriptures clearly indicate, however, that salvation is a work of God in the heart. It is a miracle! No one could be saved if God had not decided to give His Son and open the doors of heaven. In the same way, no one could be saved if God had not sent His Holy Spirit to convict, convince, and convert the heart.
Let this truth bring great joy to your heart. If you’re saved today it is because of the miraculous working of God in your life and in your spirit. As Paul put it, “you were dead in trespasses and sins… but God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us… made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
When you witness to others, invite the Holy Spirit to work actively in their hearts. Knowing that salvation is a miraculous work of God should move us to depend on Him more through prayer than ever before. And when you see someone coming to faith in Him, rejoice over watching the miraculous take place before your very eyes!
”For he that is dead is freed from sin.” –Romans 6:7
The comedian Ray Stevens didn’t like to sit up with the dead because sometimes “the dead start sittin’ up too.” In reality, a dead body cannot respond to any kind of stimuli whatsoever. You can speak to it, command it, coax it, or con it but it will never respond because a dead body is merely a lump of clay getting ready to turn back into dust.
Paul says that if we’ve been born again, then we are dead to sin. Therefore sin may tempt us, try us, or lure us but we have the privilege of saying, “Sorry, I’m dead to you.” There is a sense in which we were crucified with Christ when we were saved because we declared the old nature dead. But as long as we are breathing the old nature will keep hainging around and pestering us. So we must die daily. We must be crucified to sin afresh each day.
When you wake up in the morning, wake up in your new life, with your new nature on, and declare yourself dead indeed to sin but alive to righteousness and to Christ.
”And Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures, Opening and alleging, that Christ must needs have suffered, and risen again from the dead; and that this Jesus, whom I preach unto you, is Christ.” –Acts 17:2-3
In the 1970’s, America saw a wave of cultural confusion known as “the counterculture.” Spawned in part by the New Age movement and fueled by social discord, this movement sought to reshape America’s basic moral values. It attacked the very foundation of what America stood for by questioning the role of God in our nation and gave to us a new morality in which people were free to make destructive choices and feel good about doing so. Today, the counterculture of the 70’s is simply the culture.
I believe that it’s time for a new counterculture, on that will accomplish the reverse of what occurred in the 1970’s and restore God’s image and role as the necessary Father of a good and moral society. Paul never feared to confront the pagan culture of his day. The Scriptures say he “reasoned” with them, which means he argued a case for Jesus and disputed their false claims. He also “opened” which means that he expounded the meaning of Scripture fully. He further “alleged” the truth of Christ meaning that he placed the historical Christ alongside of the Scriptures he was reading. Finally he “preached” or proclaimed the gospel loud and clear.
The Church in America must learn never to fear the culture around us nor be bullied into the corner. We cannot remain silent. We have a case to be made. Never believe that Christianity is not reasonable or rational. When you were saved, you did not subscribe to a myth or join a cult, you did the one thing in the world that actually made sense – you humbled yourself in submission to the God of the universe, accepted His Son as your means of redemption, and you were born again by His miraculous power.
The world in general will hate us as we make our case for Christ, but oh how many will see the light of the gospel and be saved! We must have a new counterculture. Instead of giving in and going with the flow and simply shaping our churches into the image of the common night club, we must be different an distinct, upholding a perfect Bible, a saving Christ, and a new holy expectation for God’s people.
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