Let me ask you a question today. How many people in the United States would say they are Christians? Studies show that about seven out of 10 American adults — people 18 and older — self-identify as Christian. That means out of roughly 259 million adults, about 179 million people call themselves Christian. 179 million people. That is a lot of people. But here is the question that keeps me up at night: How many of those 179 million are actually living a committed, transformed, genuinely born-again life with Jesus Christ? I want to introduce you to a word today. Ready? Write this down. CHRINO. C-H-R-I-N-O. It stands for Christian in Name Only. And before anybody gets uncomfortable and starts looking around the room, let me tell you — CHRINOs are not just out there somewhere in the culture. They are in our churches.
A 2022 study done by the Cultural Research Center at Arizona Christian University asked a simple question of active churchgoers — people who are in a church at least twice a month. The question was this: Can you strongly affirm that Christ is the only way of salvation? Twenty percent said no. They could not agree with that statement. These are regular churchgoers. But here is the one that really got my attention.
Among self-identified evangelicals — only 55% affirmed salvation by Christ alone. That means 45% of people sitting in evangelical churches on Sunday morning are not sure that Jesus is the only way to God. When you crunch those numbers all the way through, it works out to about six out of 10 church members who may not actually be born again. They may have walked an aisle, been baptized, sung in the choir, taught a Sunday School class, even served as a deacon or elder — but they have never been truly, personally, powerfully born again. Jesus said it plainly in John 3:3: “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.” Complacency is simply not an option.
I Was One of Them
Now I could stand up here and point the finger at everybody else. But I need to be honest with you this morning, because this message is deeply personal to me. I was born into a Methodist family. My parents took me to church faithfully. I was baptized as a baby. I attended Sunday School, Methodist Youth Fellowship, Vacation Bible School — all of it. And around the age of 12, I stood before the congregation and was confirmed as a Christian. I called myself a Christian. I believed myself to be a Christian. My family believed it. My church believed it. But I was not a true Christian. I was a cultural Christian. I was a CHRINO.
Why? Because I had never once considered myself a sinner. I had never repented of anything. I had never trusted Jesus as my personal Savior. I had never made Him the Lord of my life. I had simply never made that personal decision to follow Christ. That all changed at age 14 — at a Baptist Vacation Bible School, of all places — where somebody finally explained to me what salvation actually was. And for the first time in my life, I understood that I needed to make a decision for Jesus. Not just believe facts about Him. Not just recite a creed. But actually come to Him — broken, repentant, and desperate for grace. And that changed everything.
Now I want to be careful here. There are genuine, born-again Christians in Methodist churches, Catholic churches, Christian churches, Pentecostal churches, Lutheran churches, and Episcopal churches. God is not confined to a Baptist building — (although He does seem to enjoy good sweet tea and a potluck dinner from time to time). But I am speaking about a pattern that exists in many liturgical traditions — traditions that follow a set order of worship — where the personal decision to come to Christ can get lost in the ceremony and the ritual. Where people go through the motions of religion without ever encountering the risen Christ in a personal, life-changing way. And if I am being completely honest, there are CHRINOs sitting in Baptist pews too. This is not about pointing fingers at other denominations. This is about asking the most important question you will ever answer: Have you ever truly, personally, been born again?
“I Never Knew You”
Let me take you to the passage that started this whole conversation. Matthew 7:21-23 reads: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, didn’t we prophesy in your name, drive out demons in your name, and do many miracles in your name?’ Then I will announce to them, ‘I never knew you. Depart from me, you lawbreakers!'”
Did you catch that? These are not strangers to religion. They are not people who never set foot in a church. They prophesied. They cast out demons. They performed miracles. These look like deeply committed, heavily active, spiritually visible people. And Jesus looks them in the eye and says: I never knew you.
Not — I used to know you. Not — I knew you once but you wandered away. He says I NEVER knew you.
This passage is pointing at two very specific groups of people, and we need to understand who they are.
Group One: Those who were never truly born again. These are the CHRINOs — people who were never genuinely saved.
They had religion. They had church membership. They had activity and even spiritual gifts on display. But they never had a personal, saving, life-surrendering relationship with Jesus Christ.
Group Two: Those who were truly born again but have misplaced their relationship with Christ. You know the old-timey word for this group — backsliders. People who truly repented and came to Jesus, were baptized, walked with the Lord for a season — but somewhere along the way, the lure of sin, the pull of the flesh, the love of money, or just the slow creep of life — pulled them away from active discipleship.
Two different groups. Two different conditions. But both groups need to hear what comes next.
Lost vs. Misplaced
I need to make an important distinction here, because it matters enormously. There is a big difference between something that is lost and something that is misplaced. When something is truly lost — it is gone. You do not have it anymore.
But when something is misplaced — you still have it, you are still its owner, but you cannot access its benefits until you find it again. Let me give you an example. I have a pocketknife that I absolutely treasure. One day I could not find it anywhere. I searched high and low. I checked every drawer, every coat, every corner of the house. I was absolutely, genuinely, miserable about that pocketknife. And then my wife found it — tucked away in a jacket pocket I had forgotten about. I still owned it the whole time. I just could not access it.
That is what it means to misplace your relationship with Christ. If you are truly saved, you are still His child. But when you drift away from Him, you begin living life without the benefits — without His protection, without His daily guidance, without His power working in and through you.
Jonah knew exactly what that felt like. When God called Jonah to go to Nineveh, Jonah ran the other direction and boarded a boat going to Tarshish — which was basically the exact opposite direction on the map. A massive storm rose up. The sailors threw him overboard. And a great fish swallowed him whole. And from inside that fish, Jonah cried: “The water engulfed me up to the neck; the watery depths overcame me; seaweed was wrapped around my head.” (Jonah 2:5, CSB) Have you ever been in that place? Has life ever swallowed you up like that? Are you in that place right now? It usually happens slowly. Life starts stealing your time with God. You begin to think you are in charge of your own life and your own destiny. The cares of the world creep in one at a time.
And before you know it, you are being slowly misplaced — drifting away from the very One who saved you. And here is the dangerous part: when you are living in that condition, you may begin to wonder whether you have lost your salvation altogether.
Which brings us to the question every person in this room deserves a clear, biblical answer to.
So, Can You Lose It?
Can a person lose their salvation? I want to walk you through seven biblical anchors that will give you a solid answer.
First — salvation is a gift received by faith, not earned by works. Ephesians 2:8-9 says, “For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift — not from works, so that no one can boast.” You did not earn your salvation. That means you cannot un-earn it either. It was a gift, freely given.
Second — but genuine saving faith will always produce works. James 2:26 says, “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” Think of it this way. If I put a chair right in front of you and say “I believe that chair will hold me” — but then I refuse to sit in it — do I really believe it? Real faith sits down in the chair. Real saving faith produces a changed life. Works do not create salvation, but they confirm it.
Third — grace is not a license to sin. Some people hear “once saved, always saved” and quietly convince themselves they can live however they want and still punch their ticket into heaven. Paul anticipated that thinking directly in Romans 6:1-2: “What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not!” You remember the old comedian, Flip Wilson? He used to say — “The devil made me do it!” That line is funny on a comedy stage. It is not a theology to build your life on. If you truly grasp what Jesus endured on the cross for you — the beatings, the lashings, the nails, the darkness, the agony — you do not use that sacrifice as a permission slip to sin freely. A person who does that almost certainly does not have saving faith.
Fourth — a true Christian can know they are saved. First John 5:13 says, “I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.” It should not be a guessing game. Real salvation brings a peace that can look death in the eyes and smile, because you know where you are going when you breathe your last breath.
Fifth — nothing can separate God’s children from His love. Romans 8:38-39 says, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Not your worst failure. Not your worst season. Not your deepest shame. Nothing.
Sixth — some people look like they have faith, but never did. First John 2:19 says, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have remained with us.” Think about Judas Iscariot. He was one of the Twelve disciples. He served alongside Jesus.
He worked miracles. Nobody suspected him until the very end. When you see someone walk away from the faith, there are really only two possibilities.
Either they are like the prodigal son — truly saved, wandering in a far country, and the Father is patiently waiting for them to come home — or they were never truly saved to begin with, and like Judas, they played the part without ever making the surrender.
Seventh — and this one holds it all together — our lives should be regularly examined for true, living, fruitful faith. Second Corinthians 13:5 says, “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith. Examine yourselves.” So — can you lose your salvation? If you are truly a child of God, saved by genuine faith — the answer is no. Nothing can separate you from His love. But let me leave you with a word from theologian R.C. Sproul that stopped me cold the first time I heard it: “In the final analysis, it is not whether you know Jesus that matters — it is whether Jesus knows you.”
Examine Yourself
Before we finish today, I need to ask you to do something that might feel a little uncomfortable. Not to frighten you — but to free you. Because clarity about where you stand with God is one of the greatest gifts the Holy Spirit can give you. Paul commanded the Corinthian church to examine themselves. And I want to ask you to do the same right now.
Just let the Holy Spirit speak to your heart for a moment. Have you ever truly repented of your sin — not just been sorry you got caught, but genuinely broken before God over who you are without Him?
Have you ever made a personal decision to trust Jesus as your Savior and surrender your life to Him as Lord? Does your life show real, visible fruit of a transformed heart — a hunger for God’s Word, a love for His people, a desire to be in His house?
When you think about eternity, do you have peace — or do you have a quiet unease that you have been trying to push down?
And the most important question of all: Does Jesus know you? If not, turn from your sin and invite Him into your heart today!
Our FOOD PANTRY is available to everyone – there is no financial pre-qualification. Come by the church office on Monday, Wednesday or Friday from 9 a.m. to noon for a free bag of food!
Craig Valley Baptist Church, next to Bibo’s at 171 Salem Ave. in New Castle, welcomes you to visit and share in the love of God we have experienced. We meet Sundays at 11 a.m., with an upbeat service of music, sharing and preaching. You don’t need to dress up, and you won’t be asked to speak, so just come and hang out and meet new and old friends! Questions? Call 540-864-5667 or email [email protected].
Pastor Scott Gabrielson
