Greg Laurie - The Almost Christian

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Almost, that's an interesting word. It's a word that basically means not quite, nearly, approaching. It's sometimes a word that we use when we don't know what to do. Like when you go into a restaurant and you sit down and they say, "Can I take your order"? You say, "Well, I'm almost ready to order". The problem is then the server disappears for 1 month, right? Where do they go? Like, "I'm almost ready," and maybe it's because you're at the Cheesecake Factory. And did you know the Cheesecake Factory has 21 pages of options? That's too many. Cheesecake Factory, stop already. And there's 250 options. That's why I like In-N-Out Burger. It's like burger, burger with cheese, fries, malt. That's pretty much it. Or even Chick-fil-A. Chicken sandwich, chicken nuggets, malt, chicken flavored malt. I don't know if they have that, but, you know, it's simple. So you say almost, right?

Or maybe you're getting ready to go out to dinner because you're taking your wife to Chick-fil-A for dinner. Maybe you'll up your game someday, I don't know. And you say to her, "Are you ready to go"? And she says, "Almost". Now, you know what that means. One hour minimum. One hour. "Almost ready". Or maybe you get a call from your boss. He says, "The meeting is starting. Where are you"? You say, "I'm almost there," which really means, "I was asleep and you woke me up, and I'm now going to try to get there as quickly as I can". But almost is a word that is usually coupled with procrastination. You know, "I'm almost ready to decide, but not quite".

So you might say, "I'm almost a Christian". Well, you may be further down the road than you were before toward coming to Jesus, but either you are a Christian or you are not a Christian. It's one or the other. Almost, Christian doesn't go together. That's what you call an oxymoron, an oxymoron. Like jumbo shrimp is an oxymoron. How can it be shrimp if it's jumbo? Freezer burn. How do you get burned from a freezer? Oxymoron. Airline food, that's an oxymoron. Right? Here's another one. Government efficiency, that's oxymoron. Right?

So anyway, almost Christian, that doesn't really work. As they said, you either are or are not a Christian. So we're going to look at a character in the Bible today known as Herod, Herod Agrippa. And the apostle Paul was speaking to him, and Herod said to Paul, you know, "You almost caused me to be a Christian". Another translation puts it this way. "Are you trying to talk me into becoming a Christian? Do you actually think you could do that in such a short period of time"? And the answer was yes. Paul totally was going for that, and unfortunately that's not the way it turned out. You see, Herod Agrippa was close, but he was not close enough. I suggest to you there are a lot of almost Christians in America today, far more than atheists. You know, most Americans do believe in God.

A recent survey revealed that 87% of Americans say they believe in God, 3/4 of us believe in miracles, 73% of Americans believe in heaven, 71% say that Jesus is the son of God, 71% of Americans believe in angels, and 7 out of 10 say Jesus Christ rose from the dead and the Bible is a Word of God. So I'm thinking, "Where are these people"? They're not out on the roads driving. I don't know who those people are. But where are all these people? And this is where it gets interesting. Because a recent Barna poll revealed the following. Half of Americans who call themselves Christians don't believe Satan exists and one-third are confident Jesus sinned while on earth. Houston, we have a problem. So this means that there are people that think they are Christians that are not.

Certainly Satan exists and Christ never sinned when he was on this earth because he was fully God and fully man. Twenty-five percent of the so-called Christians out there dismiss the idea that the Bible is accurate in all of the principles it teaches. What? Listen, you can't pick and choose which parts of the Christian faith you agree or don't agree with. This is not faith a la carte, this is a package deal. You don't vote on it. Majority does not rule unless you're speaking of God. God sets the rules; we follow them. Period. It's your choice. You don't have to believe it or you can believe it, but if you choose to believe it you believe it the way the Lord presents it to all of us. So Paul poses this challenge to those who claim to believe.

2 Corinthians 13:5, mark this reference down. It's a really good verse. Check up on yourselves. Are you really Christians, or are you just pretending to be Christians when you actually aren't at all? It reminds me of a story of a guy who needed some work, and he heard that they were hiring down at the local zoo. So he goes down, says, "I'd like to get a job here". They said, "Sorry, sir. Every position is filled". Then the guy he was talking to you said, "Now, I don't want you to be offended by this, but I see you're a big burly kind of dude and our gorilla died last week and we've ordered a new gorilla. He's on his way. But would you be willin', this is kind of crazy, would you be willing to wear a gorilla suit? We would have it custom-made for you, and pretend to be the gorilla until the real gorilla arrives". Guy said, "Well, how much will you pay"? They told him. He said, "I'm in".

So he puts the gorilla suit on. He feels very self-conscious when he goes into the gorilla enclosure he thinks, "No one's going to believe I'm a gorilla". But a crowd forms and the kids are all excited. He beat his chest a couple of times. By day two he's swinging back and forth having a great time, and he got a little too excited and then swung a little too far and landed right in the middle of the lions' cage or den and immediately the lion starts approaching him. The guy in the gorilla suit is terrified. If he cries out for help he knows he'll reveal he was a fraud, but if he stays silent he's lunch for Simba. Right? Finally he just cries out, "Help," and the lion says, "Shut up or you'll get us both fired". So wasn't the only one. How many of you have heard that joke? Raise your hand. Not many.

How many of you have never heard of it before? Yes. That's a joke from my distant past. Check up on yourselves. Are you really Christians or are you just pretending to be Christians when you really aren't at all? How can someone tell if I'm a true follower of Jesus? Jesus said, "By their fruit you shall know them". Let me say something that may surprise you. You can pray, keep the Ten Commandments to the best of your ability, attend church on a regular basis, be baptized and not necessarily be a Christian. Having said that, if you are a Christian you should do all those things, but those things don't make you a Christian. But if you are a Christian, you should do those things. The outward can be without the inward, but the inward is never without the outward. Does that make sense?

So the outward, doing these things, can be without the inward. I'm not a true believer, but I've done these things. But the inward, if I am a true believer, will never be without the outward. That will be the evidence I'm a believer. So as an example, you can pray and not necessarily be a Christian. Polls show that 9 out of every 10 Americans pray, 76% of us believe there's a heavenly Father who can be reached by our prayers. But believing God answers prayer doesn't necessarily mean you're a Christian. Before I was a Christian, when I was in trouble I called out to God. Did you? And I called out to Jesus even. I had no relationship with Jesus, but I believed there was some God out there and I cried to him; and most people will do that, and that's not a bad thing 'cause the Lord hears our prayers even if we don't know him yet. You can say prayers and not pray, and you can say you're a Christian and not really know him.

Listen, if your sin has not been confessed to God, your prayers are not going any higher than the ceiling if that. Psalm 66:18 says, "If I regard," or hold on to, "iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me". Let me say something that might seem a little heavy but it's true. If you're living in overt sin with no desire to repent, don't tell me you're a Christian. I said overt sin. I didn't say you struggle with sin. Everybody does. Overt means "I've made a commitment to live in this sinful lifestyle, I'm not going to stop living in this sinful lifestyle, I have no desire to change whatsoever, but I'm a Christian". Are you? Check up on yourself. Are you really a Christian or are you just pretending to be when you actually aren't at all?

I have a question for you. If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Now, when I say evidence, I don't mean by how many Bibles you own. I have a pretty large collection of Bibles. They're sitting on my desk, and they're all beat up from different decades 'cause I never throw a Bible away. I do give some away. But that's not evidence that I'm a Christian. Nor is it in how many sermons I preached. The evidence is in my life. The evidence is in the way that I live. The evidence is in what I say. The Bible calls this fruit in keeping with repentance. Jesus said, "By their fruits you shall know them". You know, you might meet somebody in there saying they're a Christian but they're doing things that contradict that maybe in the way that they live or life choices they make, and you push back a little and you say, "Hey, I thought you were a Christian. Why are you doing thus and so"? And they say, "Hey, man, judge not lest you be judged". Right? Well, you could just say, "Well, think of me as a fruit inspector". By evidence I mean people should be able to tell you're a Christian by the way that you live, not just by what you say. So my word of encouragement to you is let's live the life, and that earns us the right to share the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

So at the beginning of this message I brought up the idea of almost Christians or pretend Christians. How do you know if you're a real Christian? How can you go from being an almost Christian to a genuine Christian? Paul gives the answer in what he says now to Herod Agrippa. He's telling this leader what the gospel is, and he says in verse 18, "To open their eyes so they may turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God and they'll receive the forgiveness for their sins and be given a place among God's people where it's set apart by faith in me". Two big steps must be taken to become a real Christian.

Here's step number one, if you're taking notes. You need to have your eyes opened. You need to have your eyes opened. Now, I don't mean literally. Some of you may have had your eyes closed up to this point. You just woke up, welcome back. But I'm talking about having your spiritual eyes opened. Paul prayed in Ephesians 1:18 for non-believers, that their eyes would be open. So when you're sharing your faith, the first thing you should do is pray, "Lord, open their eyes". There's nothing you can say or I can say that will make a person believe. Only God can open a person's eyes. I can't. You can't. But here's my part. God opened your eyes. Now here's what I need to do. You turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. Only you can do that. "No. Well, God can do anything". No. But he doesn't violate your freewill. This is your part. The next move is yours. He opened your eyes. You know it's true. Are you willing now to turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God?

Romans 13 says, "The night is almost gone; the day of salvation will soon be here". So don't live in darkness. Get rid of your evil deeds. Shed them like dirty clothes. Clothe yourselves with the armor of right living as those who live in the light. This is what it means to repent. See, sometimes people say they believe in Jesus but they've never repented of their sin. What does it mean to repent? It means you change your direction. It's a military term that means in about face. You turn from your sin. Remember the woman who was caught in the act of adultery? Jesus forgave her, and he said, "Go and sin no more". Peter said on the day of Pentecost, "Repent and times of refreshing will come from the presence of the Lord". Sometimes we're remorseful, but we're not repentant.

If you robbed a bank and got away with it for a while and then you were arrested, you're remorseful. Why? Because you got caught. If you're driving down the freeway and you break the speed limit and you're pulled over by the CHP, you're sorry, you're remorseful. And he writes you the ticket or she writes you the ticket, and as soon as they take the next off ramp you go back to speeding again. See, that's not repentance, that's remorse. Repentance means you're sorry enough to stop and change your behavior. 2 Corinthians 7:10 says, "Godly sorrow produces repentance, leading to salvation". So okay, God opened your eyes. That's God's part. You turned from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God. That's what you do.

Now, here's what the Lord does for you in return. He gives you the forgiveness of sins and an inheritance, verse 18. The forgiveness of sins. I mean, think about how amazing this is. God forgives you of all of your sins. 1 John 1:9 says that if we will confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. But God does not just forgive us of our sin, he forgets our sin. He reminds us their sins and iniquities will I remember no more, Hebrews 8:12. If that wasn't enough, and that would be enough. "Hey, I forgive you your sins". He gives us an inheritance, which means he brings us into the family, says, "Now you're my son, now you're my daughter and you have access to me all the time. No matter when you want to come, you can come".

You know, if I'm busy or doing whatever I do on any given day, if I get a text or a phone call from one of my grandchildren, I stop what I'm doing and we enter into the conversation. By the way, sometimes that's weird emojis going back and forth. We don't even use words just, but, you know, they want to talk, I'm going to talk to them. They have access to me anytime they want. And in the same way, we have access to God because the Bible says you've not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but one of adoption whereby you cry, "Abba Father," which is sort of the Hebrew version of daddy. Years ago we were doing a crusade somewhere, I don't remember, and I left my Bible in my hotel room. Bad preacher.

And so I said to my oldest son Christopher, "Would you get my Bible? I need it for tonight". And so he went to the hotel room, he retrieved my Bible. Came up to the place where I was staying, and there was some usher kind of watching the door and Christopher said, "I need to give this Bible to my dad". The guy says, "Where's your credentials"? Christopher says, "I don't have any, but I'm his son". "Whoa, prove it". So Christopher pulls out his driver's license. Christopher David Laurie, L-A-U-R-I-E. "Okay, and look at the Bible. Greg Laurie, his name is on the Bible". Guy says, "I can't let you in". And then I heard about it, and then he came in immediately.

So here's the takeaway truth from it. The usher said no, but the father said come. Right? By the way, I had that usher killed. Now, let me explain... no, it's not true. I did slap him, though. I did. No, I didn't. Slapping is bad. We all know slapping is bad. Let's just say the usher was a little overzealous in doing his job. So we come to God, Satan says, "You're not cleared. You don't have the credentials". "Excuse me. That's my Father. Get out of the way". Because of what Jesus Christ did for you, you always have access to him. That's the inheritance that God has for you. It's going to take all eternity for us to grasp all that God has done for us.

Ephesians 2:7 says God points us to the future ages where he'll reveal the incredible wealth of his grace and kingdom he has shown for us and done for us. So it's going to take all eternity to discover all the Lord has done for each of us. Well, Festus is getting irritated but Agrippa in contrast seems convinced. Verse 24, "Suddenly Festus shouted, 'Paul, you're crazy. Much study has made you mad.'" And then Paul replies, "I'm not insane, most excellent Festus. I'm speaking the sober truth and King Agrippa knows all these things. I speak frankly. I'm sure these events are familiar to him, for they were not done in a corner". Then Paul sets his sights on Agrippa and with holy boldness says in verse 27, "King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know you do". I think a hush fell over the room. "No one talks to Herod Agrippa that way". Paul does. And then he continues on. "You believe these things. I know you do".

See, it was sort of a little trap Paul was setting for Agrippa in a way. If Agrippa said, "No, I don't believe these things," then that would cause the very people he was to interface with on the part of Rome to turn against him. However, if he said he did believe the prophets, he's sort of falling into Paul's trap. So Agrippa tries to put Paul in his place, verse 28. "Oh, you almost persuade me to become a Christian"? Or as I said earlier, another way to translate it, "Do you think you can make me become a Christian so quickly"? Yeah. You know how long conversion takes? How about this long? It could even happen quicker than that. Just a flash, in a moment you could be converted. It doesn't take years, though it can take years. It took years for my mother to put her faith in Christ, over 30 years of praying for her. It took hours for my father who adopted me to become a Christian.

Just a little bit of time talking with him, he put his faith in Christ. So I'm talking to somebody right now that maybe has been praying for someone for years to come to Jesus. It might be your husband, your wife, your parents, your kids, someone else that you know. Don't give up on them. Paul responds in verse 29, "Whether quickly or not, I pray to God that both you and everyone here in this audience might become the same as I am, except for these chains". Agrippa, the governor, Bernice, all the others get up and leave. Agrippa so close, but so far, the almost Christian.

In closing, here are some takeaway truths. Number one, it is not enough to be exposed to the truth, I need to act on it. Otherwise you can get a hardened heart. The problem is when you hear the gospel and you don't respond in the affirmative, your heart can get harder. So it's not enough to just believe it and have your eyes open, you need to act on it. Number two, God wants us as Christians to share the gospel because he's called us to. Wherever you are, God may have you there for a reason.

So instead of trying to get out of the place you're in, why don't you bloom where you're planted, why don't you take hold of opportunities that are around you? Paul didn't want to be in a stinking Roman prison for 2 years, but when he saw Herod Agrippa walked in he probably thought, "All right, Lord, I see what's going on now. I see you had a purpose in all of this". And he seized the moment. He didn't back away. Seize the moment where you are. And as we share the message we should try to build bridges, not burn them. Build bridges, not burn them. Engage your listener. Use your personal story, but ultimately take them to what Jesus did for them on the cross. And four and lastly, we must realize that only God can open the spiritual eyes of a listener. I can't do it, you can't do it, but we can pray and share the truth with them.