What It Means to Believe in Jesus – Dr. Charles Stanley
Start your day off right with the free In Touch devotional. Subscribe today. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ male announcer: "In Touch,"
the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, reaching
the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ through
sound biblical teaching. Next on "In Touch," "What it
Means to Believe in Jesus." Dr. Charles Stanley:
What does it mean to believe in Jesus Christ? All through the Bible you
and I find these verses, they're talking
about believing in Him, but what does that mean? It's very evident in the
scripture that in order for a person to have
their sins forgiven, in order to be
saved, as we would say, in order to go to heaven, a
person must place their faith in, must believe, must place
their trust in Jesus Christ. But what does it mean
to believe in Jesus? Well, that's what I want to talk
about in this message because there are so many people
who think they believe in Jesus Christ but who do
not really and truly understand what that means. So, I want you to
turn, if you will, to John chapter three and
that verse of scripture in John that's the most familiar
of all, John three sixteen. You say, "Well, I
know that one by heart." Well, I'm sure that
most of you probably do, but I want you to turn there,
if you will, for a moment. I want us to read this verse. Jesus was talking to a
very knowledgeable man, Nicodemus, about his
relationship with God. And He said to him,
"Except a man be born again, you cannot see the
kingdom of God." And so, in the course
of that discussion, Jesus comes down to
say in verse fifteen, "That whosoever believes may
in Him have eternal life." And then He says
in verse sixteen, "For God so loved the world,
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes
in Him should not perish, but have eternal
life," or everlasting life. But what does it mean to
believe in Jesus Christ? Well, that is the
purpose of this message, and what I want to do is to
explain from a biblical point of view what does it mean to
place your trust in Him? How do you know
that you've done that? And so, it's interesting
in scripture how very clear God has made it. For example, he says
in John chapter one, if you'll turn
there for a moment. In John chapter one
in the twelfth verse, He says, "But as
many as received Him, to them gave He the power or the
right to become children of God, even to those who
believe in His name." Now, to believe in
His name, for example, the name represents
everything a person is. So, when a person believes
in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is the
same as believing in Him. You'll recall, for example,
in Acts chapter sixteen, verse thirty-one, when the
Philippian jailer and Paul were talking, he said, "What
must I do to be saved?" And Paul said, "Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ and you'll be saved." You recall in
Romans chapter one, Paul said, "I'm not ashamed of
the gospel of Christ because it is the power of God unto
salvation to all who believe," that is, the gospel of
Christ who all believe in Him. For example, he said
in Romans chapter five, verse one, "Therefore, being
justified by faith," which means to be declared no longer
guilty, but now righteous, saved in the eyes of God. "Therefore, being justified by
faith we have peace with God." He said in Ephesians
two eight and nine, "For by grace are you
saved through faith, that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God, not of works lest
any man should boast." You and I could go all the
way through the New Testament, verse after verse after verse,
every single time it is placing our trust, believing in
the Lord Jesus Christ. So, the question
is, it's very clear that's what you have to do. But what does it mean? Well, I think there are a lot
of people out there who are very deceived, who really and truly
believe that somewhere along the way, they have believed in Jesus
Christ, and therefore they are safe, they are
comfortable, they are saved. So, what I'd like to do is to
think for just a moment with you about what these people are
thinking and how they think when they say, "Yes, I do believe." Well, I think there are some
people who genuinely would say to you, "Yes, I
believe the Bible. I believe in God.
I believe in Jesus Christ." And therefore, they
think that they're saved. What they're saying
is, I believe the facts. That is, this is the
Bible, this is God's Word. I believe the Bible does
teach about God and the Bible does teach about Jesus. I believe all those things. They're talking
about believing facts. Then someone comes along and
says, "Well, I do believe. Oh sure, I believe in Jesus. My mother believed in Jesus, my
grandmother believed in Jesus, my whole family's
believed in Jesus. Sure, I believe in Jesus." What they're saying is, I do
believe in the fact that there was such a man as Jesus Christ. Now, the truth is, their degree
and the quality of their belief is the same as if you said to
them, "You went to school?" "Yes." "You study history?"
"Yes." "Do you believe there was a
man named George Washington?" "Yes, I do." "You believe there was a
man named Abraham Lincoln?" "Yes, I do." "You believe there's
a person named Jesus?" "Yes, I do." Same category, same
level and quality of belief. They're believing
facts about a person. That is not New
Testament belief. So, you come along
and somebody--you say, "Well, do you believe in God?" "Yes, I do believe in God. I've always believed in God,
grandmother believed in God, I believe in God, I've
always believed in God. Don't think I'm an
atheist, I believe, just 'cause I don't live like
you want me to live doesn't mean I don't believe in God, so
I feel very comfortable when I die I'm going to heaven. I believe in God." You ask somebody else, they say,
"Well--" and what they're saying is I believe in the
God that you're talking about in the Bible. And so, you ask somebody
else, "Do you believe?" "Well, here's what I believe. I believe there's a God. Let there be no doubt about it. I don't believe in this
whole idea of evolution. I believe there's a God, and
therefore I believe that if I believe in God, then I'm okay
and I'm safe and I'm going to heaven because I
believe in God." There is a difference in
intellectually affirming the truthfulness of a fact or
intellectually affirming the truth of what you say
and placing your trust, your faith, in Jesus
Christ as your Savior, all the difference in the world. Now, the question
comes, that is, what's the cause of this kind of
deception that people live in? Well, I think some people
genuinely do not understand, they misunderstand the
scripture when it says believe. They just put that on
the level of daily belief. Yes, I believe that
piano's sitting there. Yes, I believe I'll be able
to get up and go to work tomorrow morning. Yes, I believe my car
will start when I put the key in the ignition. And so, they just put all
that kind of belief in the same category and, my friend, that's
not what we're talking about. And so, they
genuinely misunderstand. A second reason is this: I
believe that people purposely, deliberately limit,
listen, limit what their faith encompasses. And so, here's what they decide. Here's what I believe.
I believe there's a God. I believe He's a good God. I believe one of
these days when I die, I'm going to heaven just
as, like anybody else, because I think I'm just
as good as anybody else is, and therefore I believe in God. And so what do they do? They don't want to get
into the scriptures. They don't want to get into
this thing about Jesus Christ and being born again. They deliberately limit the
quality and the degree and, listen, they limit the
stretch of their faith. They're only gonna
limit it to what? To their lifestyle. If I am expected to believe
something that interrupts my lifestyle, if I'm expected to
believe something that limits the way I want to live, then my
faith is limited to believing in God and in Jesus, the kind of
person I think He was and the kind of person I think God is. And therefore,
they misunderstand. It is a deliberate
misunderstanding. And my friend, listen, you'll
never get to heaven if that's your idea of
belief in Jesus Christ. Then there are those
people, of course, who've been misled. They go to church, and I think
this is so very important that this is why I'm spending
this time today in this message because, for example, oftentimes
children go to Sunday School, to Bible School, to
Vacation Bible School. Oftentimes in revivals and
things get all hopped up and heaped up and the pressure's on. Just as I am without
one plea, but that Thy blood was shed for me. And somebody's calling 'em,
"Now, come on to Jesus, come on to Jesus,
believe in Jesus." And oftentimes the
invitation is so nebulous, the invitation is so far removed
from a scriptural invitation that people walk down
the aisle, they're not sure what they're
supposed to believe. Just believe in Jesus. Well, you know, if I was sitting
out there and somebody said, "If you'll just believe in Jesus
and come on down here and tell us you believe in Jesus, you'll
go to heaven when you die," man, I'd run down here if I was lost. If that's all it
took because, you see, most of the time the idea is
you believe in Him as a fact. That is, believe in
the fact that He was and He is and so forth. That will not do it.
Oftentimes people being misled. Now, I'm not saying that
somebody would deliberately mislead 'em, I'm
simply saying this, we have to be very
careful when a child, for example, says, "I want to be
saved," that we help that child understand what is meant by
being saved and what it means to believe in Jesus Christ. Because any child's gonna
grow up in, and with parents who love the Lord and bring
their children to church. Say, "Well, do you
believe in Jesus?" "Sure, I believe in Jesus, my
mother believes in Jesus, my father believes in Jesus, my
pastor believes in Jesus, I believe in Jesus." What does it mean to believe in
Him according to the scripture? So, oftentimes a
person is misled. And so they don't
really and truly understand what they believe. Now, so we have to ask ourselves
the question: Then what does it mean to place your trust in
Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sin and have the
Holy Spirit come to live inside of you and
live in your life? What does it mean to know in
your heart that you are right related to Him in such a
way that when you die, you can die
singing "Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that
saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I'm
found, was blind but now I see" with absolute,
total, perfect assurance. Somebody says, "Well,
can a person ever really and truly be that assured?" Turn to First John. Revelation, Jude,
Third, Second, First John. Listen to what John says. He says, "This is the reason
that I am writing this epistle to you," to those who
were to be his readers. He says, for example,
verse thirteen of First John chapter five. He says, "These things I have
written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, in
order that you may know that you have eternal life." Very important we understand
what believe means because our eternal life depends upon it. Listen to what he said now,
verse thirteen, these things, all that he's written in
these first five chapters. These things I've written to you
who believe in the name of the Son of God in order
that you may know. He says that you may know
that you have eternal life. God wants us to place our
trust in Him for salvation. God wants us to know, He
wants us to have absolutely unwavering, unquestionable
assurance that we have a relationship with Him that
absolutely cannot be tampered with by the devil
or anyone else. Absolute assurance, that
is the will of God for us. Now, that being the case then,
we go back to what he said in John chapter
three, verse sixteen. He says, "Whosoever,"
listen, "whosoever believes in Him, would," what? "Would not perish but
have everlasting life." Now, I want you to
jot three things down. I want to give you three words. And you can jot them
down on something, but you need to
keep these somewhere. Put 'em in the back of
your Bible somewhere. This is not the ultimate
definition I want to give you, but it's a very important part. What does it mean
to believe in Jesus? Well, first of all, if I'm
gonna believe in something, I've gotta have some knowledge. First word is knowledge. If I'm gonna believe in
something, believe in what? What is this? Why is this?
Where did it come from? What's the origin of it?
What am I to believe? First of all, if I'm gonna place
my faith in Jesus Christ as my personal Savior, I've
got to believe something. What is it that I am to believe? So first of all,
there's gotta be knowledge. There are some very basic things
that are absolutely essential for me to believe if I
am going to be saved, if I'm gonna trust
Christ as my Savior, if I'm going to
heaven when I die. Number one is this: I must
believe that Jesus Christ is deity, that He's God. If you do not believe
that, here's what happens. Now watch this, if
Jesus Christ is not God, He is, listen, He is not
sitting upon the throne with the heavenly Father. You know what He was? He was no more than a man who
is here on the same level with all the rest of us men who have
our naturalness and who have our sinfulness and who walk,
at times, in the flesh. That is, if He is not deity,
then what could He do for me? But if He were just a man. So, I must believe
that Jesus Christ is God. Somebody says, "Well, I don't
think it's necessary to believe that Jesus Christ is God
in order to go to heaven." Well, let me ask you a
question: Then who is He? If He's not God, who is He?
Is He a prophet? Then He was a
sinner, 'cause all, everybody else has sinned. Well, is He just a
great preacher and a teacher and a healer? Was He a false prophet? You see, if Jesus Christ was not
absolutely who He says He is and who He says He was,
then He was a liar. If He was not who--He
said, "If you've seen Me, you've
seen the Father." "I and the Father are one." And one of the things that
caused so much turmoil around Him was the fact that He claimed
to be not only the Son of God, but He claimed to be God, deity. And His resurrection
was absolute, listen, absolutely
the proof of that. Now, so therefore, I must
believe some--first thing I must believe that He's
deity, that He's God. God the Father, God the
Son, God the Holy Spirit. Second thing I must believe is
this: that I am a sinner and my sinfulness has separated me
from God and my only hope of salvation must come through God. That is, I must believe and
recognize that I am a sinner. I must believe that Jesus Christ
is deity, that He's God. I must believe
that my sinfulness has separated me from God. The Bible says our sins
have separated us from God. I must believe that. The third thing I must believe
is this: I must believe that Jesus Christ died on
the cross for my sin, and that when He died, He
paid for my sin in His death. Now, you say, "But
how much of this am I--was I supposed to know
when I was saved?" I'm coming to that.
Just hold that. First of all, I must believe, I
must believe without a shadow of a doubt Jesus Christ is God. Secondly, I must believe that my
sinfulness has separated me from Him and that I need to be saved
by something He's gonna do for me I can't do for myself. Number three, I must believe
that Jesus Christ went to the cross and died for my sin. The fourth thing I must believe
is that Jesus Christ not only died for my sin but He was
resurrected from the grave. Because you see,
if Jesus only died, He can't do
anything for me today. Listen, He died for my sins
and He's resurrected and His resurrection validates every
single thing He claimed to be and everything He did. So, the first word, first thing
that's necessary for true New Testament belief is knowledge. Second word is conviction. That means to
simply be truly, listen, fully convinced of something. So therefore, when we talk about
believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, what I
believe I am, listen, I am fully convinced and
persuaded that what the Bible says about Him is true. I am fully convinced and
persuaded that He is who He says He is. I am convinced and
fully persuaded that He will do what He says. Convicted. That is, if
there's no conviction, for example, fully persuaded
what He says about my sin, that I'm separated from God,
fully convinced and persuaded what He says about the
consequences of my sin, that I'll die without Christ and
be eternally separated from Him. Because you see,
without any conviction, I'm not gonna move,
I'm not gonna budge. It's not enough
to have knowledge, factual knowledge,
about Jesus Christ, who He was and who He is
and what He says He'll do. It's not even enough
to be fully persuaded, fully convinced that
these things are true, though it is very important. Because when you think
in terms of conviction, you recall that Jesus said in
John, he--when he talking about, when he's talking about
the Holy Spirit coming. He says the Holy
Spirit will come and He will come to do what? To convict the world of
sin, of our sinfulness. To convict the world of
the righteousness of Christ, which means that
He was so right, so holy, and so pure that He was
able to die for our sins and to convict the world of
the judgment to come. What does that mean? It means that when the Holy
Spirit comes to your life and to my life and begins to work in
us, what's He gonna do? One of the first things
He's gonna do is convict us, convince us, fully persuade
us that we are sinful and we need God. He's gonna fully persuade us
that the death of Jesus Christ was adequate to pay for our sin,
fully persuade us that there is a judgment to come and the only
thing that'll get me ready for that judgment is to have a
right relationship with God. Therefore, first of all,
there must be knowledge. What's the second word? Conviction.
So, give me the first two words. First word is what?
Knowledge. Second word is what?
Conviction. What's the third word? Third word is trust.
Third word is trust. Now, when I trust,
here's what I do. I move from the
facts and conviction. I move from being an interested
observer to becoming involved in a personal
relationship with Jesus Christ. And so, what have I done? I've moved from just
knowing the facts, knowing that I
ought to do something, knowing that God is trying
to do something in my life. Now I have moved into a
personal relationship. I have moved into a
personal involvement with a person, Jesus Christ. You see, it's
always believe in Him, believe in His name. Not, listen, not just
believe the gospel only, but believe in the
person of the gospel. You see, in all these verses,
verse after verse after verse, what do we find? We find Him talking about
placing our trust in Him. "For God so loved the world that
He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believes in Him,"
not just believed in what He said, "believes in
Him as a person." And so therefore, it's not
enough for me just to believe in what He said as being true, but
I must place my trust in Him. Now, so you must
have three things. What's the first word?
Knowledge. The second word?
Conviction. And the third word is what?
Trust. Now, I want to give
you a simple definition. I want you to write it down. Now, whether you write it
or your husband writes it, your wife writes it, your
children write it, get it down. And I'm gonna say it and then
I'm gonna come back and say it very short, in short phrases
so that you will understand. I asked the Lord help me, enable
me to say it in a brief way, so that you can say to
someone, "Here's what it means to believe in Jesus Christ." I want to encourage
you to say, "Well now, should you write in the Bible?" Absolutely! Mark words, color 'em
up, whatever you want to. Listen, that's what
makes it precious. I lost my favorite Bible. I didn't lose it, somebody stole
my favorite Bible. Had it in a briefcase and only
thing I had in it was my Bible and a Greek New
Testament and a pen. Somebody stole it. I offered five hundred dollars,
that's a lot of money back then, five hundred dollars for any
college kid who'd go through all the dumpsters or
somewhere and find my Bible. Nobody did. Well, what
difference did it make? I'll tell you. Because it was so written up and
all kinds of dates and things in there that I'd put in there
because it was especially precious to me because it said
something about what God was doing and had been
doing in my life. Write in your Bible.
Don't worry about that. All right, you ready? We're talking about now
what it means to believe in Jesus Christ. To believe in Jesus Christ is to
have a confident conviction that He is who the Bible says He
is, He will do what He promises, and upon placing
my trust in Him, I enter into a personal,
eternal relationship with the Son of God. To believe in Jesus is to
have a confident conviction, that is, a compelling
conviction within me, I must believe this, that He
is who the Bible says He is, He will keep His
promises, that He will, He will do exactly
what He says He'll do. And upon placing
my trust in Him, committing myself to Him,
I'm entering into a personal, eternal relationship
with the Son of God. Now, I could say a lot
about forgiveness of sin, going to heaven, that's--all of
that is the result of placing my trust in Him, all that is the
result of believing in Him. To say I placed my trust in Him,
that means I'm betting on Him. I am affirming that what He says
is true and I'm willing to risk my whole eternal future on that. How many of you can
look back in your life and say, "I know that when I
joined the church, I had enough knowledge that I
do believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God and that I
understood what it meant to place my trust in
Him and to accept Him, receive Him as my Savior." "But as many as
received Him," not facts, "as many as received Him, to
them gave He the right to become the Sons of God." Are you certain that you've
ever placed your trust in Him? Now, as I said, I'm
not being critical. I'm just simply saying this, you may believe a
lot of things as facts, but have you ever
moved from being an observer, a distant kind of believer,
to entering into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ
by placing your trust in Him as your personal Savior? Have you ever said,
"Lord Jesus," or, "Jesus, I do believe
that You're the Son of God. I know that my sins have
separated me from You. I am asking You to
save me and I am placing, I'm asking You to save me based
on the fact that You did die at Calvary and I do believe that
You died for my sins and I do believe that when
You died for my sins, it makes it possible for
me to be fully forgiven, and when I die to go to heaven." However, you may have
put it in your words, have you ever told Him that? Have you ever done that? Or have you been one of those
persons who's said I believe. As long as you
believe something, that's all that matters;
no, that's not all that matters. Here's what matters. It matters this--that when you
die, you will stand in the presence of a holy God and
give an account for your life. No excuse will be
acceptable because, you see, God so loved you that He
gave His only begotten Son, sent Him into this world to live
among men in the flesh without sin, to go to a cross and be
crucified, and upon Him placed all the sin-debt of
yourself and the entire world. He loves you that much. Then to reject His Son, to say
no to His son, to ignore His Son when according to
the Bible, the whole, listen, God's whole redemptive plan
is wrapped up in the cross. It's all there. That's why the Apostle Paul said
it's the only thing in life I'd boast of is the cross, why? That's where Jesus made it
possible for you and me to be forgiven of our sin and to have
absolute assurance that when we die, we're going to spend
eternity in heaven with all the glorious things that
God has provided for us. Have you ever said to
Him, "Yes, I do believe the testimony of scripture. I do believe that
You're the Son of God, I do believe my sins
have separate me from You. I do believe you
died on the cross. I do believe that You
rose from the dead. Do believe that You're
seated at the Father's right hand even now. I'm asking You to forgive me of
my sins and I'm placing my trust in You that You'll
do what You said. You'll forgive me and
You'll make me one of Your own." The moment you do it, that
quickly, you become a living child of God, saved
forever and ever and ever. Remember the definition. Entering into a personal,
eternal relationship with Jesus Christ. Father, how grateful we are that
You can take a verse like John 3:16 and cram and
jam so much truth, that in a lifetime we will never
be able to exhaust the meaning of that verse, if we
took it word by word, never be able to exhaust it. There is so much of Yourself,
Your love for the world, Your provision of salvation,
Your gift of eternal life. And thank You that You said that
You so loved the world which was Your way of saying,
I do, I do, I do. Which was Your way of describing
the incomparable love, inestimable love, immeasurable
love that You have for each one of us, so that all of us
are the objects of Your love. And You said that You would pay
the full price in the death of Your Son so that there is
no price for us to pay, no work for us to
do, to be saved, but simply to place
our trust in You, to believe that You're
the God You say You are, You will do exactly
what You say You will do, and that that faith alone will
bring about our acceptance, our salvation, our eternal life. We bless You in
Jesus's name, amen. ♪♪♪