What makes me a Christian?

After returning from a trip to China to visit a missionary family from our church, something was different about my perception of the world. Rather than living life in my own conceited, carefree, lazy, and lost bubble-view, I felt compelled to re-visit how I viewed the world and thought about the Christian faith. After visiting a country where Christians are persecuted for their faith was an eye-opener for me as a young man who had called himself a Christian throughout his life and never really took the time to think about what that meant. It was time for me to figure out what I believed and why I believed it. I had nefariously labeled myself a Christian my entire life, but my lifestyle, my attitude towards life, my love of self and contempt for my neighbor, my worship of sex and my addiction to pornography demonstrated that I was not even a good self-righteous legalist. Coming home after China, no longer did I feel comfortable wearing my self-righteous leafy covering, and I felt completely exposed to a holy God who opened my eyes to my wickedness, the filthiness of my sins, and awakened me to the coming judgment for sinners like myself.

Having attended a Reformed Presbyterian church for about five years at this point, I had heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ faithfully preached every Sunday by my pastor, David Reese. Pastor Dave had just started preaching from the Gospel of Luke when we returned from China. Honestly, I could not tell you what books of scripture Pastor Dave had preached through before July 2006. However, I remember vividly many of the sermons that Dave preached through Luke. My attention was not all of a sudden piqued by the story of Jesus that I had heard hundreds of times before. I knew the story about Jesus. I knew the beginning of his life very well, and I knew how the story ended very well. But that's about it; it had always been a story.

When the story becomes gospel, you cannot help but notice. When you go from loathing the sermon on Sunday mornings to deeply desiring it and being gripped by every word, then you cannot help but notice that something is radically different. When you no longer shelve your Bible quickly every Sunday not to touch it again until the next Sunday but open it up daily, search it, meditate upon it as God's very Word, then you cannot help but wonder, What is happening to me?

The transformation from deaf ears to ears that hear was the first sign that God was at work in my heart. Perhaps it sounds cliché when a Christian cannot explain their feelings and desires to say that the Holy Spirit is at work, but if the truth sounds cliché so be it. I did not return home from China and make a conscious effort to pay more attention to the sermons at church. I did not come back from China and decide that I needed to start reading the Bible and meditating upon it. The decision was not mine, but another quickened me.

There had been several times in my life where I had picked up my Bible and conscientiously tried to read through a book and study it. I had deeply desired once before to study the Bible as a child. I would read, but nothing seemed to make sense. I often read Old Testament passages, and did not understand what connection there was from Old Testament stories to the teachings of Christ and the apostles in the New Testament. I tried several study Bibles, but nothing seemed to help. The Bible's consistent message was always mysterious to me, and it always seemed like a hodgepodge of stories (Jesus' being the most popular).

As Pastor Dave continued to preach through the book of Luke, it quickly became apparent why the Bible had been enigma to me for my whole life: it wasn't about me. How can a person who has rejected any need of a savior find any comfort in the Scriptures? How can a man who seeks to justify himself before a Holy God find any hope in the Holy Word of God? How can a man that believes that his filthy rags are enough to gain himself access to a heaven that revolves around the man's wicked and twisted views of self-gratification find the Bible remotely interesting? He cannot, because the Word of God has nothing to offer him but a history of mankind that exactly resembles him that is repeatedly judged by God for their sins. The deceitfulness of our hearts blinds our eyes and deafens our ears to the message of Jesus Christ which is only illuminated in the hearts of men by the Holy Spirit.

Those who are not dying from an incurable disease have no need for a physician. Those who are not wicked sinners have no need for a savior. Those who are justified by their own good works do not require a sacrifice to take away their sins. Those who desire to enter heaven to be a god of their own have no desire to know Him who sits on the Heavenly throne and rejects all those who do not kiss His Son, their Lord and Savior.

For my whole life, despite the teaching of my parents and the persistent preaching of the gospel, I believed that I always had something to contribute to my salvation. Whether salvation was about asking Jesus into my heart, being a good person who cared about the well-being of others, or knowing the right doctrines, I always had to contribute something. Forgiveness was never unconditional. Forgiveness was never gracious. I had to do something. For once in my life, I finally found out what I really had to contribute to my salvation. You know what makes me a Christian? You know what I finally figured out about what I had to contribute to my salvation? My answer will probably surprise you.

First of all, I am not a Christian because I was raised in the church by parents who fear God and cling to Christ as their Lord and Savior by faith. Yes, my parent's faith influenced me, but it didn't make me a Christian. Yes, my parent's prayers that their sons would rest upon the finished work of Jesus Christ for their salvation played a role in my conversion, but that is not what makes me a Christian. My façade of faith in Christ was certainly a product of my upbringing; seeking to avoid deeply troubling and disappointing my parents with the knowledge that I was not resting in Christ for my salvation. The argument that Christians are merely a product of their parent's religious beliefs is not consistent with the fact that over 70% of professing teens leave the church after their first couple of years in college. Yes, for a time, a façade of their parent's faith is present, but once they leave their parents' home they are often quick to shed their hypocrisy and stop living the lie. Godly parents do not always beget godly children.

Secondly, I am not a Christian based upon reasoning and logical argument. There is nothing logical about faith. In fact, faith is completely illogical. That is what makes it faith. Against reasoning and logic, we hold fast to a truth of which we have no tangible evidence to suggest that the hope that we rest in even exists. No man can reason himself into the Christian faith. Reaching the conclusion that Jesus died on behalf of sinners and reconciles them to God the Father through His substitutionary atonement on the cross is not a result of reasoning. I never studied every religion known to man, weighed the evidence, and decided that I was going to settle on Christianity. Many renowned scholars and philosophers have attested that Christianity is a religion for losers, idiots, and the intellectually destitute. Their argument assumes that faith is reached by reason and that Christians choose to believe that Jesus is the Christ that mankind needs from their sins. I made no choice, but rather, the choice was made for me.

So, then, what makes me a Christian? What, if anything, did I contribute to my decision to rest in Christ Jesus for my salvation?

I contributed a lot to my salvation. It all started the day I was conceived. Before my first breath, I was already contributing to my salvation. As a newborn infant, without saying any words or articulating any thoughts I had started a new life full of contributions that I was going to pile up that would greatly influence my salvation later in life.

My childhood is full of contributions to my salvation. I was not always the most obedient child. Many times, I was only obedient because I did not want to get punished. My parents repeatedly had to spank me and send me to my room and ground me because I contributed to my salvation so much. I remember praying to God several times as a child that God would take my parents away so that I could live an unimpeded life of rebellion. All these rules, lessons, and discipline were impending my ability to continuously contribute to my salvation.

In middle school, I decided that it was better to cheat than to work hard and study. Every morning of school, I would wake up early so that I could contribute to my salvation. I would sit in the study and copy down answer after answer from the teacher's guide onto my test, making sure that my dad did not suspect that I was contributing to my salvation.

In high school, my contributions became more sinister. Cheating for a good grade was small potatoes compared to my new contributions. I no longer cheated. I hunkered down, studied, and worked hard for every grade. However, my flesh began to fester with new desires that I could not seem to muster the strength or desire to combat. Surrounded by young, flirtatious, and beautiful girls, my desire was to know them and to know them intimately. Restricted by my parent's strict Christian principles, my interactions with these girls would have to remain honorable, much to my chagrin. However, I discovered a treasure trove of girls that allowed me to interact with them in the most dishonorable of ways on the internet. Best of all, these girls never knew I was enjoying the crudest and most immodest intimacy with them and nobody else knew that I was either. I found a way to greatly contribute towards my salvation by enjoying and finding myself addicted to pornography.

In college, my contributions from high school continued, but I added laziness and contempt of opportunity to the pile. With an open-ended future before me, I despised opportunity and praised vanity. I found great comfort in wasting time, enjoying shallow relationships that fed my ego when I wanted them to, and I loathed my parents who encouraged me to pursue a college education and a worth-while profession.

Throughout high school and college, I made great contributions to my salvation. I enjoyed pornography. I enjoyed explicit music and violent movies. I enjoyed spending time with friends that would not challenge me to remain faithful to my Christian profession. I enjoyed spending time with friends that lived to get drunk at large parties and bragged about their promiscuity afterwards. I foolishly grabbed ahold of the elements of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper, and devoured them without faith and in an unworthy manner. I contributed to my salvation every second of every day of my life before day one.

I worshiped myself and I hated God. I became my own god. I was obsessed with gratifying my own desires, and when I could not get instant gratification for my wants and desires then I would curse my rival, God. I was working recklessly to make myself happy, but God was always getting in the way and making things difficult. God clearly did not love me, he clearly did not have my best interests at heart, and I was beginning to think that I was tired of being a Christian.

I am a Christian because I was a cheater in middle school. I am a Christian because I spent hours each day seeking after and enjoying pornography. I am a Christian because I desired to rid myself of God's sovereignty in my life. I am a Christian because I joined the ranks of the rebellion against God, seeking to usurp His kingship and placing the crown upon my own head. I am a Christian because I bore Christ's name in vain, because I hypocritically put on a show for those around me, and led the world to believe that Christianity was nothing but a self-righteous façade. I am a Christian because I spit upon Christ's blood and body upon the cross, partook of a holy meal without faith, and mocked and ridiculed my Lord and Savior.

My greatest and only contribution to my salvation was sin. I contributed my sin by the second throughout my life, and I continue to contribute to it this very day. I am a Christian because I am a sinner desperately in need of a savior. Without sin there is no need for a messiah (Christ).

Sadly, the message proudly and erroneously proclaimed louder than the gospel of grace by today's Christians is that if we did it, then you can do it too. The message isn't God's gracious gift of His only begotten Son to a world saturated with sin desperately requiring a divine and human sacrifice to cure the disease. No, the message is you can do it! The message is you're living a life of sin, do something about it! Cure yourself! What are you waiting for? Contribute something, already, would ya. Christians don't preach the gospel, but they proclaim false hope louder than anything else. They say, "All you have to do is ask Jesus into your heart. All you have to do is desire a personal relationship with God. All you have to do is stop fighting against God and join His ranks against Satan." However, this was not Jesus' message.

The modern mantra of the Christian church today is John 3:16, but most Christians could not tell you any of the verses before and after that beautiful proclamation of the grace and love of God. The whole passage begins with Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, telling Jesus that he believes that Jesus is a great teacher who speaks on God's behalf. Jesus answers Nicodemus by saying, "Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God." Modern Christians, interpreting this text from a modern vocabulary, claim that Jesus is here speaking of the activity that many evangelicals call "asking Jesus into your hearts" (aka being born again). Nicodemus' response to Jesus' words, however, demonstrate that he was appalled by what Jesus was claiming he had to do. Nicodemus asks, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?"

Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God. Consider, how much did you contribute to your first birth? How much did you contribute to your conception? Ironically, the weight of Jesus' words here demonstrating that man cannot contribute to his own salvation is not only lost on many Christians today but is used to argue that people need to ask Jesus into their hearts in order to be born-again Christians.

Jesus answers Nicodemus' questions:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

How is a man reborn so that he can see the kingdom of God? Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Jesus does not say that unless one asks me into his heart and believes in me, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Jesus says that salvation is a result of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Salvation is the result of the work of the Holy Spirit in a man's life, replacing a heart of stone with a heart of flesh, replacing deaf ears and blind eyes with ears that hear and eyes that see, removing the sinful snares and chains encircled around the man's wrists and ankles, and re-creating the man through union with Jesus Christ. Man can save himself no more than he can catch the wind. Man has no ability to be born again just like he has no ability to direct the wind as to where it may or may not go. You do not see the wind coming, but you know when it is present and you know when it is not.

Nicodemus is still puzzled, however. He is a great Jewish leader who knows the Old Testament Scriptures throughout, but this teaching of Jesus is perplexing. He asks, "How can these things be?"

Jesus responds:
"Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things? Truly, truly, I say to you, we speak of what we know, and bear witness to what we have seen, but you do not receive our testimony. If I have told you earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things? No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life."

On this passage, Calvin says:
"He again exhorts Nicodemus not to trust to himself and his own sagacity, because no mortal man can, by his own unaided powers, enter into heaven, but only he who goes thither under the guidance of the Son of God. For to ascend to heaven means here, 'to have a pure knowledge of the mysteries of God, and the light of spiritual understanding.' For Christ gives here the same instruction which is given by Paul, when he declares that the sensual man does not comprehend the things which are of God (1 Cor. 2:16), and, therefore, he excludes from divine things all the acuteness of the human understanding, for it is far below God."

The very next verse is John 3:16:
"For God so loved the world, that He gave his only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life."

It is clear in its proper context that belief in Jesus is not an ascension of man's heart or mind to heavenly things, clinging upon Christ as his accepted (or acceptable) Lord and Savior. Rather, it is clear within the context that whoever believes in Jesus has been born again and quickened by the power of the Holy Spirit. Belief is a result of salvation and not a cause.

I know that I had nothing to contribute to my salvation apart from an exacerbating list of heinous and wicked sins against God, requiring my need for salvation from God's just wrath. I did not invite Jesus into my heart. I did not seek or desire a personal relationship with God. I did not weigh the evidence of Christianity against the evidence in favor of other religions and decide that Christianity is the most plausible. Much like my first birth, I had nothing to do with my second birth. The wind blew upon me, and I never saw it coming.  

I was a sinner, and a very good one at that. I sinned as often as I could get away with it. I was a liar. I was a cheat. I was a man of immoral thoughts. I was a man full of lust for women. I objectified women and only desired them to fulfill my own sinful pleasures. I worshiped my own sexual desires and gratified them as often and as soon as I could. I loved myself more than anyone else. I despised God because he didn't want me to be happy with who I was. In rebellion against him, I was happy with my sinfulness and I could care less about what He felt. I thought,"If He is so powerful, mighty, and holy, then why doesn't He come down out of heaven and stop me?!!"

Well, He did, and for that I am eternally grateful and thankful.

I am a Christian because I was living a life of sin, living a life of disobedience to God's Law, and living a life with unabated contempt for God in my heart. While I was still a sinner, God sent His Spirit upon me to release me from sin and unite me to Jesus Christ. I am a Christian because Jesus died for sinners like me, God calls sinners like me to be adopted sons and heirs with His only begotten Son, and gives sinners like me His Holy Spirit, that renews a dead heart with life through union with a resurrected Christ who has bore the wrath of God on my account and places His perfection upon me as if it were my own. I didn't choose to be a Christian any more than I choose when the wind shall blow upon me and where it shall go.

My conversion, however, was no breeze. It was a hurricane of Biblical proportions. Like a newborn infant, you are not cognizant of what is happening to you or your newfound existence. I was a re-born infant, and I noticed a newfound existence in Christ but I did not grow cognizant of the transformation for a time. I was getting used to my new eyes, my new ears, and my new life. The storm was about to hit, but I had no idea.

I did not choose God, but rather God chose me. I would never call myself a Calvinist, because Calvin wasn't a Calvinist. John Calvin was an Augustinian. Augustine was a Paulinian. The Apostle Paul was a Christian. However, despite my protestation against the label of "Calvinist", there are those who cannot stand the thought of making "Calvinist" and "Christian" synonymous. I'm not a Calvinist because I became a Christian in a Reformed Presbyterian church. Primarily, I am a Calvinist because it is biblical. The reformed doctrines of grace that stem from the Reformation and are outlined by John Calvin, Martin Luther, and the Puritans are thoroughly and unequivocally based upon the Word of God. Secondly, I am a Calvinist because of my own experience of conversion and salvation. I must have been saved completely by grace because I know that I was not working my way towards God when I was born again. I was working harder to rebel against God and flee from His influence in my life more than I was ever running towards Him. He was my enemy. He was my judge. He was my sure destruction. God revealed Himself as a gracious and merciful Father before I ran into His loving embrace.

Sadly, the most destructive lie of ancient, medieval, and modern Christianity is that man can work his way to God, and the trend, despite being challenged throughout history, continues to spread. Christians are not saved by works, but by the grace of God. Christians contribute nothing but their stinking, rotten, wicked, disgusting sins to their salvation. God provides the Spirit and the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. It's not of works, but completely of grace.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
(Romans 5:6-8)