Josh Sembrano - New Member Testimony

I am Joshua Noeh Sembrano and this is not your typical turning point story. There are no big dramatic conversion moments in my testimony. In many ways, this is the story of the older brother who realized that he, too, was a prodigal son. It is simply the story of a sinner saved by the grace of God.

If you are in a rush and only have a minute, there is a short summary at the end. 

If you can bear with me for 10-15 minutes, here's the whole story:

Growing Up “Christian”

I am originally from the Philippines and moved to Canada about 12 years ago. I grew up in a Christian family, and growing up, I have always considered myself a Christian too. Both of my grandfathers were Methodist pastors, so Christianity was a big part of our family. I was even told that I could already recite memory verses by the age of two. I went to church, read many Bible story books, believed in God, and knew about Jesus. I knew Jesus was the Saviour, but honestly, I did not really understand the full picture of the gospel or why I personally needed Him as my Saviour.

Back then, I thought of myself as a Christian largely because of my upbringing, what I knew, how I behaved, and the fact that Christianity had always been around me. But at the time, I did not yet understand how much I personally needed Christ.

Growing up, I mostly understood Bible stories as lessons about how I should live. David was brave, so I should be brave. Other people in the Bible were faithful or obedient, so I should be faithful and obedient too. I knew the stories, but I did not really understand how they all fit together or how they pointed to God's plan of salvation through Christ.

The Older Brother

For a long time, my faith was mostly outward. I knew how a Christian was supposed to behave, and I genuinely tried my best to be good. I was a good student in school, mostly obeyed my parents, and stayed away from many of the obvious sins that people could see. I don't even know what it feels like to be drunk. From the outside, I probably looked like a pretty good person.

Because of things like that, it was easy for me to look at other people and think I was a good person. I compared myself to other people and their sins, and by that standard, I thought I was doing pretty well. But I was using the wrong standard. I was comparing myself to other sinners instead of to a perfectly holy God. When I looked at God's standard, I could not call myself good.

If you had asked me back then whether I would be saved, I probably would have said, “I think so. I’m a pretty good person overall.” I believed in Jesus, but when it came down to why I thought I was okay with God, I was still looking at myself and how I lived. 

The truth is, I still sinned in secret, and in my heart I had broken God's commandments. I could look moral on the outside while hiding sins that other people could not see. I struggled with pride, arrogance, self-righteousness, sinful thoughts, temptations that I entertained instead of turning away from, and judging other people. I was looking at their visible sins while ignoring the sins in my own heart.

In that sense, I was a lot like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son. He stayed home. He obeyed outwardly. He did not live the openly rebellious life of his younger brother. But that did not mean his heart was right. 

That was me.

I may not have had a dramatic story of running away into an obviously sinful life, but I was still a sinner. Doing well outwardly could not make me righteous before God. In fact, my outward morality sometimes made it harder for me to see how sinful my own heart really was. I eventually had to realize that I was a prodigal too. I needed God's grace just as much as anyone else.

Growing up, my church attendance was on and off. I went through different churches, and a lot of the time I went because my family went. For the most part, church was something I got used to doing rather than something I deeply understood for myself. There is even a point in time when I just did not go to church altogether, as it is not something I would do by myself.

Going Back to the Bible

As I grew older, one of the churches I was invited to became an important part of my journey. It was during that time that I started becoming more serious about my faith. I enjoyed the fellowship and being around people who were passionate about their faith. I was encouraged to pray more, share my faith with others, read the Bible, and genuinely seek to know Jesus for myself.

But there were also things that made me go back to the Bible and check for myself. Much of what I was hearing focused on practical Christian living, breakthroughs and blessings, certain spiritual experiences, and declaring particular outcomes in prayer. There was also an emphasis on tithing that sometimes seemed to promise material blessing in return for giving. These things raised questions for me and made me want to understand more clearly what Scripture actually teaches.

Practical teaching is good, but I wanted to go deeper than that. I wanted to know not only how I should live, but why I believed what I believed. I wanted to understand who God is, the person and work of Christ, the gospel, salvation, and how the whole Bible fits together.

That desire made me read the Bible more seriously for myself. As I listened to different teachings and saw different practices, I started checking them against Scripture. I wanted to understand passages in their proper context instead of simply accepting an interpretation because I had heard it taught.

Like the Bereans in Acts 17, I wanted to examine the Scriptures to see whether what I was hearing and seeing was true. Scripture had to be the final authority for what I believed.

There’s Got to Be More Than This

The more I read, the more I kept thinking, "There's got to be more than this."

I began to understand God's sovereignty more clearly, and that prayer is not about determining an outcome through the strength of our declarations. It is bringing our requests before God and trusting His wisdom and His will, even when His answer is different from what we hoped for.

Philippians 3:7–8 also became especially meaningful to me. It is probably my favourite text. Paul talks about counting everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. It helped me understand that breakthroughs, better circumstances, financial success, healing, or receiving the things we pray for are not the main goal of the Christian life.

That does not mean those things are bad. God may graciously provide for us, heal us, change our circumstances, or answer our prayers in remarkable ways, and those are gifts to be thankful for. But they are not promised to every believer, and they are not the treasure of Christianity. Christianity is not about using faith to gain more of the things of this world.

The greatest treasure is Christ Himself.

Whether God gives abundance or allows us to walk through need, knowing Christ is still the greater gain. I began to understand that I did not simply need what God could give me. I needed God Himself.

The more I read, the more certain I became about some of these things. I am very thankful for many of the brothers and sisters in Christ I met there and for how God used that time to make me search His Word more deeply.

By the grace of God, I eventually found a church committed to expository preaching, where the Bible is taught carefully in its context and is at the center of everything. I thank God for bringing me there and for continuing to deepen my understanding of His Word.

I also began listening to more expository preaching and studying things like salvation, grace, repentance, faith, assurance, and God's sovereignty.

One question that especially made me search the Scriptures was whether a Christian could lose his salvation. The more I studied, the more I became convinced that salvation does not ultimately depend on how tightly I can hold on to Christ. It depends on Christ holding on to me.

As I continued studying, I started to understand the gospel and realized how amazing it really is. Christianity is not mainly about getting a breakthrough, having a spiritual experience, following rules, or having a better life.

It is about Christ.

My greatest problem was not that I needed better circumstances. My greatest problem was my sin before a holy God. And my greatest need was not a breakthrough.

I needed a Saviour.

But God

I also began to understand that I was not better than other sinners just because I grew up in a Christian family, had two pastors as grandfathers, knew Bible stories, went to church, or tried to live a moral life. None of those things could save me.

Apart from God's grace, I was just as dead in sin as anyone else. I may have looked different outwardly, but spiritually I was no better.

Ephesians 2 helped me understand this more clearly. It says that we were dead in our sins. 

I WAS DEAD IN MY SINS!

And then come two words that have become very precious to me:

BUT GOD…

I did not make myself spiritually alive. I did not find my way to God because I was wiser or better than anyone else. But God, because of His great mercy and love, made me alive with Christ.

That completely changed how I understood salvation. Salvation is not God looking at a basically good person and helping him become better. I was dead in sin and needed God to give me life. Even the faith by which I trust in Christ is not something I can boast about. Salvation is God's gift of grace from beginning to end.

That is why I need Christ.

Jesus lived the perfect life that I could never live. He died on the cross for sinners like me and bore the judgment that sinners like I deserve. He rose again from the dead. The righteousness I need before God is not my own. It is found in Christ.

I came to understand more clearly that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. My standing before God does not depend on my upbringing, church attendance, morality, spiritual experiences, or good works. It rests entirely on what Jesus Christ has done.

Looking back, I can see the difference now. Before, I could point to my upbringing, what I knew, how I lived, or simply the fact that I believed in God. Now I have nothing in myself to point to. If I were asked why God should accept me, I could not point to anything I have done.

I can only point to Christ.

My Hope Is Christ Alone

Looking back now, I can see God's hand throughout my life. I do not look back at my previous churches or the people I met there with bitterness. God used all of those people, churches, and even my questions to keep bringing me back to His Word.

I also cannot point to one dramatic moment and say, "That was the exact day I became a Christian." For a long time, that bothered me because I thought a testimony needed to have a clear before-and-after moment. But I can look back and see God working in my life over time. He showed me my sin, corrected things I wrongly believed, gave me a hunger for His Word, helped me understand the gospel more clearly, and taught me to stop trusting in myself and trust in Christ.

Today, when I say I am a Christian, I mean something very different from what I meant growing up. I know that I am a sinner who cannot make myself right with God, and I am trusting in Jesus Christ alone to save me.

My hope is not in the fact that I grew up "Christian." It is not in the fact that both of my grandfathers were pastors. It is not in my church background, my morality, my experiences, or anything good I have done.

My hope is Jesus Christ alone.

I still sin. I still have much to learn. I still need to repent, and I still need God's grace every day. Becoming a Christian did not mean that I suddenly became perfect. If anything, understanding the gospel has made me see more clearly how much I need Christ.

The more I understand salvation, the more I realize that I cannot take credit even for being in Christ today. From beginning to end, salvation belongs to the Lord.

I know my salvation doesn't depend on how well I can hold on to Him. My confidence is that He holds on to me.

I do not know the exact moment God saved me, but I know where my hope is today. I may not know the date when I went from knowing about Christ to truly trusting in Him, but I know whom I am trusting now.

It is not myself. It is Jesus Christ and His finished work.

And because my salvation rests in Him and not in me, I trust that He who began a good work in me will bring it to completion.

I also believe God brought me to this church, and over time He brought my family here with me. When my wife first came to Canada, I invited her to attend with me. She came from a Roman Catholic background, and by God's grace, she has also come to understand the gospel more clearly and is now about to be baptized as a believer. God has also blessed us with our daughter, and I am thankful that we can now grow together as a family in Christ.

From the first sermon I heard here, I saw a commitment to faithfully teaching Scripture through expository preaching. We have felt genuinely welcomed, but even more importantly, through the preaching of God's Word and fellowship with the brothers and sisters here, our family has been encouraged to grow in the grace and knowledge of Christ.

Now, as a husband and a new father, one of my greatest desires is to faithfully lead my family toward Christ and for us to grow in Him together. I want to grow alongside other believers, serve and encourage others, and be accountable within the local church. I know I cannot do any of this in my own strength. I need God's grace, His Word, and the fellowship of His church.

My hope remains the same: Jesus Christ alone.

To God be the Glory!

If you only have a minute, read this:

I grew up calling myself a Christian. I believed in God, knew about Jesus, knew Bible stories, went to church, and tried to live a good life. If you had asked me whether I would be saved, I probably would have said, “I think so. I’m a pretty good person overall.” I compared myself to other people and their sins instead of comparing myself to a perfectly holy God. I knew Jesus was the Saviour, but I did not fully understand why I personally needed Him as my Saviour.

As I began reading and understanding the Bible more deeply, God showed me that my biggest problem was not my circumstances but my sin, and that no amount of morality, church attendance, or good works could make me right with Him. I began to understand that Christianity is not mainly about blessings, breakthroughs, spiritual experiences, or simply trying to become a better person. The greatest treasure is Christ Himself. I was dead in my sin and needed God to give me life.

I do not know the exact moment God saved me, but my understanding of what it means to be a Christian is very different today. My confidence is no longer, “I think I’m good enough.” I know I’m not. In one sense, I am saved by works, just not mine. My own works could never make me right with God. My hope is in the perfect work of Jesus Christ: He lived the life I could never live, died the death I deserved, and rose again. I am saved by grace through faith in Him. I am trusting in Christ alone.