Foundations of Truth
This is the podcast of Firm Foundations ministries. Our mission is to help you build your life on the unshakable foundation of God's Word, rooted in Scripture and anchored in the grace of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Each episode is designed to strengthen your faith, deepen your understanding, and encourage you to stand firm in a shifting world.
Foundations of Truth
Am I A Christian: Belief, Behavior, Belonging
What makes someone a genuine Christian? It's a question that strikes at the heart of faith itself, and one that Pastor Timothy Mann addresses with remarkable clarity in this enlightening message from Providence Church.
Nicholas Kristof once had a public conversation with Pastor Tim Keller that was published in the New York Times. In this exchange, Kristof asked if he could be considered a Christian while rejecting core Christian doctrines—a question that reflects the spiritual confusion of our age. Pastor Mann uses this as a springboard to develop a comprehensive framework for understanding authentic Christian identity.
At the core of this message are three essential pillars: what a Christian believes, how a Christian behaves, and where a Christian belongs. Pastor Mann skillfully demonstrates why this order matters profoundly. Christianity begins with belief—not just any belief, but specific convictions about God's existence, our sinfulness, and Christ's saving work through his death and resurrection. Drawing from Romans 10:9 and other key passages, Mann establishes that certain doctrines like the virgin birth and bodily resurrection are non-negotiable for genuine Christian faith.
With pastoral wisdom, Pastor Mann warns against the dangerous heresy of moralism—the false gospel that suggests we become Christians through good behavior rather than through faith. Instead, he clarifies that our behavior changes as a result of our belief, not as a prerequisite for it. When we truly believe, God declares us righteous (justification), and through the indwelling Holy Spirit begins making us righteous (sanctification), producing virtues like those described in 2 Peter 1:5-9.
Whether you're questioning your own faith, seeking to understand Christianity better, or wanting to grow in your ability to explain the gospel to others, this message provides the biblical clarity you need to address life's most important question with confidence and hope.
Welcome to Foundations of Truth, the Bible teaching ministry of Pastor Timothy Mann and Providence Church, ormond Beach, florida. Providence Church is a local assembly of followers of Jesus Christ dedicated to helping people become committed and mature followers of Jesus Christ. Now here's Pastor Tim teaching the Word.
Speaker 2:I would like you to turn in your Bibles this morning, if you have them with you in the New Testament, 2 Peter, chapter 1. 2 Peter, chapter 1, verses 1 through 11. Everyone needs to ask that question Am I a Christian? 2 Peter, chapter 1. The Bible says Simon Peter, a bondservant and apostle of Jesus Christ. To those who have obtained like precious faith with us by the righteousness of our God and Savior, jesus Christ, grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus. Our Lord, as his divine power, has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust, but also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue to virtue, knowledge to knowledge, self-control to self-control, perseverance and to perseverance, godliness to godliness, brotherly kindness and to brotherly kindness, love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things is short-sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. Therefore, brethren, be even more diligent to make your call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble, for so an entrance will be supplied to you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ. Let's stop there. So Peter here is writing to Christians, he is writing to the church and, interestingly, he says down in verse 10, make your calling and election sure. Make your call an election sure. What is he talking about? He's saying make sure that you are a Christian, make sure you are a Christian.
Speaker 2:Every Christian should recurrently ask the question am I a Christian? I can't think of a more important question and, honestly, when it comes to Resurrection Sunday, I can't think of a more relevant and urgent question. The urgency of the question comes down to the fact that, evidently, nicholas Kristof arranged for a conversation with Pastor Tim Keller in order to ask him if he, kristof, was a Christian. I want to tell you how to answer that question. In order to answer the question, am I a Christian? I'm going to give you three points in advance, right now, in order to answer the question am I a Christian? We need to understand, first of all, what a Christian believes, how a Christian behaves and where a Christian belongs. What a Christian believes, how a Christian behaves and where a Christian belongs. Those are the three ways we answer the question am I a Christian? First of all, what a Christian believes.
Speaker 2:Now, the Bible is very clear that Christianity is a discipleship. It is a way. As a matter of fact, in the early church, the book of Acts you can read about it Christians were referred to as those of the way, following the way. And so it is a way. It is a discipleship, but it begins with belief. It begins with belief. Over and over in the New Testament we hear believe in the Lord, jesus Christ, and be saved. The centrality of belief for the Christian life is never more clear than in Romans, chapter 10, verse 9. That says that if you will confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. In John chapter 14 and in John chapter 20, jesus himself points to what it means to follow him, and and he begins with believe in me. When he starts having conversations with his disciples, he begins with believe. He ends his time with his disciples with believe. So what beliefs are mandatory? Is there a theological or doctrinal minimum that is necessary for one to be a Christian? Well, the answer to that has to be yes, yes, and if so, then it's really important to figure out what that is, don't you think it's pretty important?
Speaker 2:Very interestingly, this very thing is what drove Nicholas Kristof to seek out Tim Keller, and he asked a series of questions and, of course, he prints the entire conversation for the whole world to read in the New York Times. He asked a series of questions. In question one he starts off and says Tim, I deeply admire Jesus and his message, but am also skeptical of the themes that have been integral to Christianity the virgin birth, the resurrection, the miracles and so on. Let's start with the virgin birth. Is that an essential belief or can I mix and match? I tell you I respect Nicholas Christoph for asking the question so honestly. I mean, I believe I think there are a lot of people who feel the same way, but just don't have the nerve to go seek out a pastor and ask the questions, much less print the conversation in the New York Times. I'm also very thankful for Tim Keller's conviction. If you read it, you'll see that it comes through very clearly. But the answer is yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, you do have to believe in the virgin birth. It is necessary for the identity of Jesus. It is necessary to understand how Jesus could die in our place, sinless, and bear the penalty of our sins. You have to understand. This morning, to deny the virgin birth begins something of a domino effect where truths fall and if they fall, we are not saved. Christoph presses his point, he continues on. He asks another question which basically says is it really necessary that I really believe that Jesus was literally bodily raised from the dead? Well, that's a good question. I mean, it is a good question. And, by the way, we should never be offended by someone asking that kind of question. Never, we should never be offended by someone asking that kind of question. Never, we should never react. Oh, I can't believe you would ask something like that. We should never be offended by that kind of serious inquiry. This is not a gotcha kind of thing. You should read the article. I think Christoph is searching. But the answer is yes. Yes, the resurrection is central to Christianity. If there is no resurrected Christ, then there is no victory over sin, there is no hope for a future day If there is no resurrection of Christ. This is as good as it gets. That's a bummer.
Speaker 2:Christoph goes on to ask other questions, questions you might expect if you were on a college campus or maybe surrounded by secular co-workers. In that very first question he asks can I mix and match these beliefs? In other words, do I have to believe it all in order to be a Christian? Do I have to believe it all? I mean, it's even in the title Pastor, am I a Christian? And by the end of the article, tim Keller had to tell Nicholas Kristoff you're not a Christian, but he wanted him to be one.
Speaker 2:Now, we are probably not living around a lot of people right now who will come right out and ask those kinds of questions. But if there was someone in your life who asked that question Ray, am I a Christian? David, am I a Christian? Linda, am I a Christian? Dj, am I a Christian? Friend, am I a Christian? What would you tell them? How would you answer that?
Speaker 2:I believe that our answer has to be true, it has to be biblical and it ought to be hopeful. It ought to be hopeful. I mean hopeful in the sense that when I tell them the truth about the gospel of Jesus, that they will seize upon it and believe it and repent of their sins, and that they will join with us, hopeful in that sense. So if the first way we answer the question is by looking at what Christians believe, and if we're honest, that means that there has to be an irreducible minimum, there has to be a lowest common denominator that you can't go below. What would those things be? What does every Christian have in common in belief? What do all of us have to believe?
Speaker 2:Let me offer you a few biblical points here. First of all, we have to believe that there is a God. I know that sounds so simple, but that's where the book of Hebrews begins, hebrews 11, 6, that if we're going to please God, we first of all have to believe that he is. We have to believe that there is a God and that he created the world and that he created me and you, not just me. We have to believe that and we have to believe that we have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. See, before we ever get to what we believe about what God did for us, we have to start out with why God did what he did to save us. The why is important. So we must believe that every single one of us is a sinner who desperately needs a savior. And then we also have to believe that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever would believe in him would not perish but would have everlasting life. There's that belief factor in there again. What does it mean to believe on Christ, to believe in him? What does that mean?
Speaker 2:Here's where that very long conversation in the last half of the book of John that Jesus had with his disciples comes in. He said here is what you believe about me. You believe that I died for your sins. You believe that the Father raises me from the dead for your salvation. He said in John 14, verse 6,. He said I am the way, the truth, the life, and no one comes to the Father except by me, except through me. And he didn't just arbitrarily say that out of the blue. He said that in the context of talking about his life, death and resurrection. He's saying my life, my death and my resurrection is the way, the life, the truth, and it's the only way anybody ever comes to the Father.
Speaker 2:Again, romans 10, 9, that, if you will confess with your mouth Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Now, christians, as we grow in grace and knowledge, we believe a great many other things I mean. The truth is we want to receive all that is taught in Scripture and the Christian life, and you know this if you've been saved a long time and you're attempting to grow. The Christian life is one long walk of learning about God and about his ways and his will and his work with every step. It's one long walk of that. But there has to be an entry level into the Christian family and faith. There has to be knowledge of what it is required to believe in order to be saved. So what is necessary to be saved? I must know and believe and admit that I am a sinner. I must believe that Christ died for my sins and, being raised from the dead for my salvation, has accomplished everything that is necessary In order to make peace with God and he paid the penalty for my sin and by his life and by his death and by his resurrection I can be saved.
Speaker 2:Am I a Christian? Well, the first way we answer that is by looking at what a Christian believes. The second way we answer that is by looking at how a Christian behaves. Now, this is really dangerous. I admit this on the front end. That's a really dangerous concept because there are a lot of people in asking the question am I a Christian? Would put that answer first. They would put that answer first. They would say well, certainly I must. I a Christian? Would put that answer first. They would put that answer first. They would say well, certainly I must be a Christian because I'm well behaved. Some would say, when they're asked, some would say who don't know the Bible. When they're asked what must I do to be a Christian, they would say something like well, you need to stop living with your boyfriend, or you need to stop living with your girlfriend, or stop getting drunk, or stop this or stop that. Stop these things. You behave and then you are a Christian.
Speaker 2:Ladies and gentlemen, that is not at all what the Scripture teaches, nowhere. That is not at all what the Scripture teaches. That is the closest heresy to the gospel. That's a false gospel of moralism, and the false gospel of moralism says that, basically, what God requires of us for our salvation is that we behave. The primary problem. In other words, according to that false gospel, the primary problem is that we have bad behavior and that we need to fix it. It's like God is a cosmic parent who is primarily concerned with the fact that his creatures aren't behaving, and what he first demands of us is behavior. But here's the sad news this morning there's no one who can behave well enough to go to heaven. There's not one of us who can behave well enough to eliminate the problem of sin.
Speaker 2:The apostle Paul went so far as to say in Romans 7 that the more I try to behave, the more I don't want to. The more I try to behave, the dirtier I get. And you know how that works. Because we are rationalizing creatures, aren't we? We rationalize all the time. We will hold ourselves to a strict standard. Until we don't, we will screw down and tighten down certain issues in our life and claim victory while the door is open somewhere else. Is there anybody in here this morning? Are you all listening to me? And furthermore, even our own efforts to deal with our misbehavior end up being all mixed up with pride and self-sufficiency and ego. Listen, we are robbing God of his glory when we try to behave our way to salvation, we're robbing God of his glory. That's why the scripture never begins salvation with behave. It begins with believe, but it does get to behave, and the order is so important. It is not that we behave in order to become a Christian or to be a Christian. It is that, once we are a Christian, our faithfulness to Christ and our obedience to God, to the Lord Jesus, means that we are increasingly seeing a change in our behavior, precisely because we don't love ourselves anymore. We belong to Christ and we love him. That's exactly the main point of the text we read together at the beginning In 2 Peter 1, when he says basically, make sure that you are a Christian, he's referencing the sanctification process in our lives.
Speaker 2:That's a five dollar word sanctification. It means the process of the change that goes on in your life. See, when you believe, truly, savingly believe, god declares you righteous and the Holy Spirit of God takes up residence within you, indwells you, lives with inside of you and through that process he makes you righteous. When you believe, he declares you righteous. You're not, he just gives you the righteousness of Jesus and you're declared righteousness Through the process of sanctification. He makes you righteous. That's how you know you're a Christian. Verse 5 and forward.
Speaker 2:In the text we read chapter 1, 2, peter. But also, for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith. There's that believe aspect. Again, add to your faith. Virtue to virtue, knowledge to knowledge, self-control to self-control, perseverance to perseverance, godliness to godliness, brotherly kindness to brotherly kindness, love, for if these things are yours and abound, you will neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For he who lacks these things, is short-sighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins, is this you Are those things. See, that's the behavior. That's the behavior.
Speaker 2:The scripture does give us very clear guidelines about how we are to believe that we do belong to Christ and that we are his. And we know that we are his because we find ourselves thinking differently, find ourselves acting differently. We even notice changes in our attitudes. We notice changes in our wants. We notice changes in our desires. The more we love Jesus, the more your desires change. The behavior follows the believing, and the behavior is very important and it's made very clear.
Speaker 2:And it starts with repentance. See, the gospel also includes repentance. It's necessary for the gospel. We do not become a Christian until we have repented of our sin. If we do not come to the place that we recognize the reality of our sin and that god has made provision in the sun and his death and his burial and his resurrection for the payment of the penalty of our sins and we want to turn from that sin, we cannot be saved unless that's reality in our lives. To repent means to turn away from, and unless there is a turning away, peter here would warn us don't think that you're a Christian.
Speaker 2:To be a Christian does not mean that all those sinful desires go away permanently or that a Christian does not sin, but it means that Christians, when we sin, know we sin. We know we sin. And when we sin and we know we sin, we know what to do about it. We know what to do about that sin. We confess it to the Lord and turn from it. 1 John 1, 9,. If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to cleanse us from our sins, to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That promises to a Christian.
Speaker 2:In the context of that verse, the behavior follows belief, but the behavior does follow, it does follow, it does follow. So to answer the question am I a Christian? We look at what does a Christian believe and how does a Christian behave, and if you get those out of order, it can be disastrous. The third way we answer that question is by where a Christian belongs, and that has everything to do with why we are here today, on Sunday morning, april 16, 2017. We are here because this is where we belong. We are here because this is where we belong Now. When I say here, I am talking about this nice worship center on this beautiful property here in Ormond Beach. But what I really mean is here in a bigger sense. First and foremost, jesus.
Speaker 2:In Matthew 16, he's asking his disciples who's everybody saying that I am? And he says to them, or they say to him some are saying you're Elijah, some are saying John the Baptist come back from the dead. Or Jeremiah or one of the other prophets. And he asked them who do you say that I am? Peter pops up and says you're the Christ, the son of the living God. And Jesus says Peter, you're right, and upon this rock I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
Speaker 2:Do you recognize this morning that where a Christian belongs is in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the church, and do you recognize that the church is made up of people who have been dead a very long time as well? In other words, we are part of the blood-bought church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Where a Christian belongs in the old lingo, the old folks used to say is in the communion of the saints, in the fellowship of the saints. That's where a Christian belongs. We now belong to Christ, and we belong now to all Christ's people.
Speaker 1:We belong to each other. You've been listening to Foundations of Truth, the Bible teaching ministry of Pastor Timothy Mann and Providence Church, Ormond Beach, Florida. Providence is located at 1151 West Granada Boulevard, Ormond Beach, Florida. If you'd like to contact or learn more about Providence Church, go online to theprovidencechurchorg. If this program has ministered to you, please feel welcome to call the church at 386-310-4997 or write us at 1151 West Granada Boulevard, Ormond Beach, Florida, 32174. If you feel led by God to financially support Foundations of Truth on this station, visit the giving link at theprovidencechurchorg. Until next time, continue to build your life on the Foundations of Truth through Jesus Christ and God's written word.
