- Hey, congratulations on your decision
to become a follower of Christ.
This is the best decision that you're going to make ever.
Your life is not your own.
Jesus is your Lord, and he will lead you into all life.
(soft music) If you're new with our church,
our church is called Life.Church, and we have a mission.
Our mission is to lead people to become
fully devoted followers of Christ.
To lead people to follow Christ,
not a denomination, not a way of doing church,
not a specific religious philosophy,
but to follow the teachings of Jesus
and to live just like him.
And what I wanna do is offer you a few different videos
that will help you take your next steps
as you learn to become like Christ
and to live your life for him.
So let's start with a question.
What does it mean to be a follower of Christ?
Here's what we have to understand, first of all,
is that the way we're made right with God
is what the Bible says, by grace through faith.
In other words, we're not made right with God
by our own good works, but instead,
we're made right with God
by the perfect work of God's son Jesus on the Cross.
Now, who is Jesus?
Jesus is the Son of God.
He was born of a virgin, and so therefore,
he didn't inherit the sin nature of an earthly father,
but instead, had the heavenly nature of his heavenly Father,
therefore, Jesus was without sin, never ever sinned,
so he could be the perfect sacrifice
for the forgiveness of our sins on the Cross.
Jesus on the Cross actually became sin in our place,
he died, paying the price for our sins,
and on the third day, he rose from the dead
so that anyone who calls on Jesus would be saved,
all of their sins are completely forgiven.
Now, as you've invited Jesus to be first
and decided to follow him, you may feel something.
You may feel a sense of spiritual anticipation.
You may feel a goosebump.
You may not feel anything.
Ultimately, if you do feel something, enjoy it,
but faith in Jesus is not about our feelings.
It's about faith in who he is.
All we do is we say, I believe Jesus is the Son of God,
and we decide to follow him.
We're going to get into his Word,
we're going to learn about him,
and we're going to let his Spirit empower us
to live a life that would please God
and make a difference eternally.
So what do we do at this point?
Recognize this: no matter what you've done in the past,
your sins are forgiven,
not because you've done something good,
but because of the goodness of Jesus.
The old is gone and you are completely new.
In fact, the Bible says if anyone is in Christ,
he's a new creation or a new person.
The old is gone.
Your sins are completely forgiven.
God will not hold them against you.
In fact, one of the next steps that you're gonna wanna do,
is you're gonna wanna go public with your faith
and declare to everyone, "I am a follower of Jesus,"
and one of the best ways to do this is through baptism.
Baptism is a Christian sacrament
where we put people under water, kind of in a pool,
and it symbolizes that your sins are being washed away.
Then we explode them out of the water,
and this is a picture of being raised by the power of Jesus
to walk in your new life.
In fact, I wanna read you a big portion of Scripture
from the book of Romans in the New Testament, chapter six,
and the Apostle Paul was writing this,
and he was really a powerful teacher.
He says, "Well then, should we keep on sinning
"so that God can show us more and more
"of his wonderful grace?"
In other words, if my sins are forgiven,
can't I do whatever I want?
He says, "Of course not!
"Since we have died to sin,
"how can we continue to live in it?"
In other words, your life is different now.
You're not going to want to live the way you used to.
Instead, you want to live to please God.
He goes on to say, "Or have you forgotten
"that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism,
"we joined him in his death?"
It's a picture of what he did.
"For we died and we were buried with Christ by baptism,
"and just as Christ was raised from the dead
"by his glorious power of the Father,
"now we also may live new lives."
Baptism is that symbol that your old life is dead,
and it's gone.
Now you're filled with the same Spirit
that raised Christ from the dead,
to live a life glorifying Jesus.
Paul goes on to say in verse five,
"Since we've been united with him,"
since we've been united with Christ, "in his death,
"we will also be raised to life as he was.
"We know that our old sinful selves were crucified
"with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives."
Recognize, sin is no longer your master.
Now, Jesus is.
Paul goes on to say, "We are no longer slaves to sin.
"For when we died with Christ
"we were set free from the power of sin.
"And since we died with Christ,
"we know that we will also live with him."
Here is the good news.
Sin has no power over you.
It's no longer your master.
Christ is.
The old is gone, the new is come.
You're a new creation in Christ Jesus.
It's time to get baptized, it's time to go public,
it's time to let the Spirit of Christ lead you
into a life that would please God.