Being Called a Christian

Genesis 28:11-18

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Do you like being called a Christian? Or do you like calling yourself a Christian? Maybe it depends with who you are around. If you are around other Christians, maybe you really like saying I’m a Christian too. Or maybe if you’re feeling bold about your faith, you like declaring that you’re a Christian. There may be other times when you are around people who don’t have a great opinion of Christians. And so then maybe in that situation, you’re not as excited to call yourself a Christian. However you typically feel about it. Let’s take a few moments today and dig into what the term Christian really means, and you may walk away with a different feeling about it.

The word Christian, of course, has the word Christ in it, and the word Christ means anointed. It’s actually the Greek version of the Hebrew word Messiah. They both mean anointed. And so as a Christian, you are an anointed one. The practice of anointing in Scripture is pretty interesting. They would use it for some specific roles in the Old Testament.

So first of all, think of like a king in the Old Testament how David was anointed. (1 Samuel 16:13, 2 Samuel 2:4, 5:1-4) This was common with kings. If you were going to fulfill that role, you would be anointed into that role. There also would be the priests who would serve in the tabernacle or the temple. Those priests would be anointed. There also was a concept of anointing with prophets, although it was sometimes described in different ways.

But where this meaning takes kind of a different dimension is with the account of Jacob in the Old Testament. (Genesis 28:11-18) Where Jacob is on the run, going away from his brother Esau, because his brother Esau wants to kill him. And Jacob lays down and he sleeps, and he’s sleeping with his head on a rock as a pillow, which I always think. I don’t know how comfortable that could be, but apparently that worked for Jacob. But when he was sleeping, he had a dream. And in that dream there was a staircase or this ladder to heaven. And when he woke up, he said, surely the Lord was in this place, and I didn’t know it. And then what he does is he takes the rock and he anoints it.

Now, of course, when he anoints the rock, he’s not saying this rock is a king. He’s not saying it’s a priest. He’s not saying it’s a prophet. What is he saying? Well, what did he say? He said the Lord was in this place. See, in the Old Testament, it wasn’t just that these people now can have special positions. Even more so, what it did, it was it signified that God was doing something special here. God was there on that rock. And God was to work through kings, to work through priests, and to work through prophets. Now think about Jesus Christ, the Anointed One, the ultimate Anointed One who is a prophet, a priest, and a king. Who is not just a person God worked through, but who is God Himself, become human. To live the life we were meant to live, to die on a cross, to take the death we deserve to die, to pay for those sins we’ve committed and to rise again to win for us new life with him. He is the ultimate God at work in a person. He is the ultimate anointed one.

And when you and I are brought to faith in Jesus, we are in Christ, we are in the anointed, and we then become anointed as well. When we are baptized into Christ. That’s like our New Testament anointing, if you will. God works through the word and the water and makes us his children. We are buried with Christ and we rise again with Christ. God works in us when we are brought to faith in Jesus. It’s a result of the Holy Spirit working in us. As we continue in the faith going forward in our lives, it’s because God is working in us. The New Testament says that the spirit is in us. Jesus is with us. We are the temple of God. And so when you say, I am a Christian, you are saying I am an anointed one, which means I am someone who God has redeemed. God is at work in me. Jesus has died for me, risen again. The spirit has brought me to life and given me faith. God’s at work in me. That’s what it means to say I’m a Christian.