Sermon Tone Analysis

Seeking Identity

We All Seek Identity

This weekend really solidified the point that I wanted to make to start our message this morning.

It is this: people seek to be identified with groups of other people.

Now I realize there are those that are the exception to that rule, there are those who you could describe as a lone wolf.

But they are truly the exception rather than the rule which is exactly why they have a special title.

This weekend I was on a camp out with scouting that is known for being the largest and oldest Camporee in the country.

There were close to 5000 people registered, who knows how many people ended up coming by the time all the counting is through.

But, there is a way that all of these people identified.

They were all scouts.

Most of them dressed the same, meaning that they were all wearing the uniform issued by scouting.

And I'm not uniform is insignia that identifies the scout as part of the world brotherhood of scouting, scouting in the United States, scouting in the local district and numbers that represent the specific troop that scout identifies with.

Being an Eagle Scout myself and the scoutmaster of my sons troop I certainly identify along with all of those other people.

But that isn't the only identification that I have.

I am a member of my family we are identified by having the same last name, and as far as the kids are concerned they are identify even further because they share physical and personality characteristics with their parents and even extended family.

I identify with my employer.

Sometimes I even wear shirts with my employers logo on the shirt.

Now for some people the identification with their employer isn't something that they value, but in the case of where it is that I am employed during my Bible occasional job I can honestly say that I am very happy twin dental fight with that organization.

And I could go on and on discussing different ways where people find identity, and community through that identity.

Some of those things are perfectly fine like groups of clan mates in a video game but others are quite destructive like identity with a local gang.

But good bad or indifferent make no mistake people seek identity.Hall of Faith

Faith Hall of Fame

Before I read to you this morning's verse, I want to first start by giving you the context of this chapter as we have had given in every message before this.

The first verse of this chapter Hebrews 11:1 says:

Or as the commentator Lee Garreth Cockerill paraphrased it:

Faith is living as if the things hoped for are real.

It is not just that any of the people listed in this chapter, this faith Hall of Fame have some super ability that is beyond our grasp.

They are being recognized for examples to us of people whose faith in God was able to accomplish much.

Why?

It was because they heard the promises of God and believe them and put all of their faith in them as being true

An so follow along with me as we get to Joseph in this Faith Hall of Fame, in verse 22 of Hebrews 11

Let’s Pray

Identifying with God’s People

An Identity in Bones

Joseph made arrangements to identify with the people of God.

And he did it with his bones.

Look with me if you will add a Genesis chapter 50 starting in verse 24.

This is the end of Joseph's life and he says this:

He wanted his final resting place, the place where his life would be honored for what small physical remains were left behind.

And he wanted that to be done in the land promised by God.

To identify with the people of God.

What God’s People Did to Him

This is most staggering when you consider what the people of God did to him.

It wasn't the Egyptian's, it was his brothers, those born of the promise, who in their jealously captured him in a pit, and sold him into slavery.

This all happened while he was a relatively young man, a man still forming his understanding of the world, and most commentators believe he was around 17 years old when all of this happened.

So we are talking about the entirety of Joseph's adulthood spent in bondage up until the age of around 30 where he became the vice regent of Egypt.

What the World Did for Him

I am not going to just ignore this fact, his time as a slave certainly started up rough.

This is someone who being falsely accused ended up in prison, and left there to rot, if it hadn't been for the grace of God acting upon his circumstances.

But I think that we can easily argue that Egypt had been much better for him in the long run then had his limited experience living among the people of God.It’s Not About People

Joseph’s Motivation

But then, with Joseph it was never about the people.

Sure, I said that Joseph's reason for wanting his bone moves to the promised land was so that people associated him with God's people.

But it wasn't because of gods people, it was because of God.

He wanted to be associated as being a person of God so therefore he wanted his bones to reside among the people of God.

What they had done to him in the past had no bearing on his decision he was primarily concerned about obedience and identification from a heavenly perspective and not an earthly one.

This is a motivation that drove Joseph, look at how he responded to Potiphars wife in Genesis 39:9 when she tried to seduce him.

He said:

His first thought was to holiness before God.

Our Motivation

That should be our motivation as well.

What are the saddest things that you hear, and you hear quite often is the story of people who spent time in church but were hurt in someway by those who identified with Christ.

Often times those people will reject the idea of church, I rejecting really identification with the people of God because of what people have done to them.

Hurt caused by other brothers and sisters in Christ is absolutely a real thing, it is something that mini mini people are dealing with on a regular basis.

You may harbor some of these things yourself.

Resentment and apprehension towards church because you've been burned before.

But let me tell you that it is not a matter of identifying with the people of God when you identify with a church it is that you are identifying with God by identifying that you are gods person.

How?

By being faithful.

Faithful to the assembly of believers he established.

While there are certainly benefits to being faithful to church, we need to remember that it is a matter of obedience to God, not what we have gotten or not gotten from the relationships within that church.

Delayed Gratification

Years After Death

The promise of Joseph ending up in the promised land, by the earliest estimates, was probably around 105 years after Joseph's death.

We don't typically think of promises that way.

If somebody tells me that they are going to promise to do something for me and their intention is to do that thing after I have died I typically do not value that promise very much.

I won't be around to enjoy the benefits of that promise being kept.

That is only because I often fail to have a heavenly perspective.

Whether Joseph was in the flash or whether Joseph was in heaven when that promise was made true did not matter to him.

It is tough for us to have that perspective it is exactly the perspective that we ought to have.

A very long term perspective and by long-term I mean well after we are dead.

Demonstration of Faith

What a demonstration of faith!

In that somebody would be content in knowing that their desires would be filled after they were no longer alive on this earth.

It speaks to a perspective, a heavenly perspective knowing that life is eternal and the time that we are spending here is but a vapor.

Compared to eternity this is nothing.

It is barely even our infancy.

Long Term Plans

I used to joke with my old friend Jack before he passed, at a very old age.

We would make plans to see each other 1000 years from now.

It was just a joke, and we don't really know enough about what our heavenly state will be earnestly make plans like that: we can't set some sort of appointment book that we're gonna have a picnic alongside the streets of gold 1000 years into the future.

It is a fun thought but really just that.

What does points do I have a little perspective that we are to have.

We tend to think of death in this life as the conclusion, although there is, even if we are people of faith.

It is hard for us to think of death is a transition.

That's something that we say the family in order to comfort them but to really think of death that way is to understand a heavenly perspective.How Do you Identify?

But you can make long-term plans, very long-term plans.

You and I have a promise that Christ will return and that he will set everything right and that he will fight against the nations who oppose him and we along with him will be victors.

That is a promise you can depend on.

But it is more than likely something that will happen after your death.