4:14-21 Breaking Chains of Warped Identity

Breaking Chains of Warped Identity

1 Corinthians 4:14-21

14 I do not write these things to make you ashamed, but to admonish you as my beloved children.

15 For though you have countless guides in Christ, you do not have many fathers. For I became your father in Christ Jesus through the gospel.

16 I urge you, then, be imitators of me.

17 That is why I sent you Timothy, my beloved and faithful child in the Lord, to remind you of my ways in Christ, as I teach them everywhere in every church.

18 Some are arrogant, as though I were not coming to you.

19 But I will come to you soon, if the Lord wills, and I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people but their power.

20 For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power.

21 What do you wish? Shall I come to you with a rod, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?

Introduction:

There is an atmosphere in which this final conversation about warped identity takes place and we can think of it as an atmosphere of arrogance and affection. I think we can see that and set the stage in the parable of the Prodigal Son.

One of the saddest moments in the parables of Jesus is at the end of the parable of the Prodigal Son as the Father deals with the older brother. The older brother represents the Pharisees standing around Jesus who are His primary audience at this point. The older brother has found his identity in his own self -righteousness. He has found his identity in earning the favor of the father through personal sacrifice and hard work. The older brother has found his identity in being better than his reprobate younger brother. The benefit of his younger brother’s sin has been to showcase the older brother’s sense of his own worth, his own value, and his own rightness. Now, his kid brother has come home, broken, stinking, bruised and ragged and starving and his father has welcomed him with love and affection and sacrifice. His warped identity of being the good one, the better one, the right one is now revealed in all its warpedness. Luke 15:27-30 “27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28 But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 29 but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’

Is his father loving? Is his father kind? Is his father generous and right and lovesick for his boys? Yes, yes, and yes. But in the midst of his warped identity the son thinks his father selfish and a fool. Our warped identity will always accuse, always react, always lash out in the shame of being revealed or confronted and frequently it will take the form of rejecting the very truth and the source of the truth we need. There are two powerful truths at that point in the parable; arrogance and affection. There is the atmosphere for this text in front of us this morning, arrogance and affection.

If we are to be free from Warped Identity we must teach our hearts to receive the truths it needs.

What we will do this morning is simply walk through the text seeing three truths that are critical for us in this area of warped identity. We are in desperate need of help and hope here and we are walking in the most tender of areas for us. It is the last direct piece of conversation from Paul about this vital area. It is the conclusion of the teaching he has been doing since 1:10 addressing the root of their divisions with one another and defiance of spiritual authority.

Paternal Confrontation

Shame and Pain

Paul knows he has just said some very difficult things in a very difficult way leading up to this moment. He has said it to people already judging his motives and so he reminds them here of some vital truth. It is going to hurt but the pain isn’t the goal.

It is going to hurt and be hard and leave us tender because it will go to the very core of areas where we find security and safety and it will be tearing those things away from us. So, Paul starts by saying this isn’t to shame and he loves them like a Dad. Because it is hard to get called out from the bushes, to take off the fig leaves, to know the carefully stitched together identity in our relationships, careers, and wealth aren’t enough.

Arrogance says when we hurt we have always been wronged. Hebrews 12:7-8 “7 It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? 8 If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.” Proverbs 13:24 “Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.” This is the truth physically and spiritually.

Paul says he is admonishing them. It is not instructive, it is corrective. It is seeing someone in error and bringing the truth to bear in their lives in a way that calls them to change. It is rebuke. It is confrontational. It is painful. It is risky. It is all of those and every good parent does it, including here for Paul, a spiritual parent. Spiritual authority will lovingly expose, rebuke, and admonish our warped identity and it will hurt.

The power of the cross brought to bear on our warped identity is going to hurt like a parent disciplining a child. Proverbs 12:1 “Whoever loves discipline loves knowledge, but he who hates reproof is stupid.”

Responsibility and Relationship

The Greek there actually says 10,000 paidagogos, or schoolmasters. These are slaves hired to teach and discipline children. They did it with rods. They didn’t love the child, they had a job to do. Galatians says the Law was that to drive us to Christ and the Gospel with its grace. Paul says you have countless of these masters but they haven’t loved you like he has. They are willing to listen to these ‘guides’ but not the one who has charge over them who is like a spiritual parent.

Here is the contrast. It is between those that are lovingly responsible for you spiritually and those that aren’t. I want to encourage you to listen to podcasts, read books, be discipled, and seek to study and know and use quality resources. However, what if your child had the opportunity anytime they didn’t like a rule you gave them, a rebuke you offered them, or a standard you set for them, to shop for a new authority? Well you say no smart phone with unfettered internet access but Billy’s parents got no problem with that, see ya! This is particularly important with our warped identity. By its nature it pushes against Spiritual Authority because it represents to us who God says we are, submitted people to a higher authority. Represents now, it is derived authority but, our authority issues in our warped identity is a God issue not a them issue.

There is no way around the reality that a primary means of God to deal with our warped identity is to use spiritual authority in our lives to bring truth to bear.

Resistance and Rebuke

There is a tone shift in this section that happens at verse 18. Paul is aware he is writing to a whole group of people and while they all struggle with warped identity, he believes some are more resistant than others. If we come down to verse 21 we see some seriousness here. Paul is unambiguously threatening. It isn’t that there isn’t love here but, he is dealing with a much more resistant part of Corinth. These folks are seeking to influence and get others to agree with them. They are arrogant and as such are unteachable. Now, all warped identity is arrogant. It is after all a mask to find respectability but, Paul highlights their arrogance. There is still a fatherly affection because his longing is they will repent before he gets there so it doesn’t have to be so stern. It calls to mind that command that Paul gives Titus as an Elder where he tells him to Titus 2:15 “Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.” Or, to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4:1-3 “1 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.”

Luke 15:16-17 “16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. 17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!”

If we are to be free from Warped Identity we must teach our hearts to receive the truths it needs.

You don’t hate the pain of starvation and stinky pigs when they are what God uses to wake you to find sonship.

You won’t resent the pain of rebuke when it is what God uses to rescue you to rest in Jesus identity.

Pattern for Conformity

Footsteps to Follow

They look at Paul and are ashamed for him being weak, being homeless, being hungry, and being alone. The arrogance of warped identity will convince us that we can have Jesus, serve Jesus, and remain in our warped identity. We can have our idol and Jesus, or worse yet, that Jesus can use our warped identity to advance His cause. They did this in Corinth by convincing themselves that you can do ministry and maintain wisdom of the world, power in the world, and respectability in the world. You can’t. Every time the Disciples started down a road of this kind of thinking, Jesus rebuked it immediately. “Jesus you don’t need to go die,” “Get behind me Satan.” “Jesus, put one of us on the right and left of you,” “Can you drink the cup of wrath and suffering I am going to drink?” “Jesus, I want to follow you,” “Okay, but I don’t have a place to even sleep, ready for homeless for Jesus movement?”

Paul understands that they need a pattern to follow. They need to know how to do home life, how to do marriage, how to do parenting and career, and most importantly for the Corinthians, how to do ministry. They need to see sowing, watering and reaping. They need to see how to do all those things Paul just listed; “11 To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, 12 and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; 13 when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.”

Five times in his writings beyond this one, Paul tells churches to follow his pattern because he followed the pattern of Christ. Paul saw Timothy as an extension of this as well. He is sending Timothy to do what? To remind them of the ways of Paul which is to say, the ways of Christ through Paul.

Now, it is going to be tough for these folks that Timothy is coming and Paul well knows it. In chapter 16 he warns them that they better not despise Timothy and they better treat him right. First, it stings because here is another child in the faith like them, who lives with Paul and does ministry with Paul and no one sees Paul closer and Timothy doesn’t judge Paul like them. Second, it introduces Timothy to them as coming and they know him as a bit of a ‘troubleshooter’ for Paul to deal with issues in churches since Paul sent him while at Corinth on mission. They now need this visit. Third, it would have probably stung also that he sends Timothy instead of coming himself. This is some ‘life touching life’ instruction. Paul anticipates Timothy giving them some ‘inside’ information of how the truths he has been rehearsing here find their fulfillment in every day ministry beyond Corinth. This is the norm of Paul’s life, this is the norm of ministry anywhere and everywhere, and this is the case because it is ministry Jesus’ way.

We don’t know how to live out the cross in our areas of warped identity. We are immature in those areas and we need instruction and a pattern to follow.

If we are to be free from Warped Identity we must teach our hearts to receive the truths it needs.

If you want to succeed at something you find a coach to show you how, keep you motivated, and help you identify areas of weakness and need. You get someone to set a pattern. If we will be free from finding our identity in parenting we need to see what it looks like to parent with the cross of Christ. If we will be free from doing career to be accepted, from doing ministry to find affirmation, or from doing relationships to fill our love bucket need of affection we need to see Jesus do those things. What following patterns that follow Jesus does is apply the truths of the cross of Christ to more than just a 1st century Rabbi that was never married, had no kids, and was dead by 33 to our lives.

We don’t have to reinvent the wheel of walking in identity in Jesus but, we do need to be shown how to change the tire.

We don’t have to imagine the Father’s reception when we have seen a pattern of care for servants.

Power of Christ to Deliver

We have noted the tone shift that happens in verse 18 to the end of chapter 4 already. It is strikingly harder and with good reason. Nothing gets in the way of receiving truth about identity like our arrogance. If we reject the God given rebukes of spiritual authority. If we resent the patterns set for us to show us a better way, which is to say the way of the cross. We have chosen in those moments to find our sense of joy, rest, and security in our warped identity. We are resistant at that moment. The problem is not what we will claim it to be. We will claim it is the spiritual authority’s fault, they don’t see our good. They don’t give us enough credit. They are weak, foolish, and not respectable. We are prepared to trot out all the ways we and what I mean there is our identity is really very good.

In Corinth, their warped identity in the midst of ministry was their logos, their word. They were wise, they were strong, and they deserved Paul and others respect. The arrogance of our warped identity convinces us that we have found a better way, a new way, a unique way and we know better. So, to have our area of warped identity suddenly included under the concept of taking up our cross and following Jesus is offensive and seems crazy to us. Admitting we don’t know what we are doing or if it is really of eternal value or that we need help is too much for us because it is to be discipled instead of discipling. We hide weakness, we hide failure, and we hide powerlessness behind masks of accomplishment, giftedness, and success on our terms. They needed to either get humble or suffer humiliation.

The older brother stood there defiant. Focused on himself, defending his history of success, accusing his authority and despising the weakness on display. But, note what his little foot stamping display does. It seeks to rob the father of the glory in that moment and put it on himself. At its core, that is what warped identity does. It despises weakness because it wants to be seen as strong, it despises foolishness because it wants to be seen as wise, it despises ignobility because it wants to be seen as respectable.

The fact is our warped identities will be revealed. It is immaturity and it will come out. What reveals it is when actual power shows up. The Disciples stood once and in a moment of warped identity can’t cast out a demon because it is all about them. So, then Jesus shows up with His power. The Pharisees taught all the time and had followers and listeners. But, then Jesus showed up and taught and at the end of the Sermon on the Mount they are amazed because He taught with authority, with power.

What is so instructive about the two brothers in the parable is that one comes in the obvious power of the Spirit in repentance while the other comes in his own power which is no power at all. I make one final plea to you about warped identity this morning. Will you let go of your fig leaves, your bramble bush insistence on yourself, your reputation clinging powerless insistence that you have it together? It’s easy once you see they are stinky clothes. The chains of our warped identity are wrapped in the velvet robes of our self-righteousness and arrogance. It’s parental and it’s painful.

I think we have a hard time in this moment of letting go of our warped identity because few of us have seen or known the power of God at work through weakness, foolishness, and ignobility in our lives. Maybe we have seen children conformed by the power of manipulation or authoritarianism but not the power of Christ. Maybe we have seen the success of career advancement and not the power of Christ. Maybe we have seen the power of our strength on display but not the power of Christ. Maybe we have experienced the respect we so desperately crave and thorns and crosses don’t sound or look very powerful to us. But, that is greatest lie of all in our warped identity, that we can be safe, secure, and stable without resting in Christ alone.

We love the cross and identity in Jesus at salvation. We love that in the Garden when God images Jesus in the killing of sacrificial animals to cover Adam and Eve. We love that in the Prodigal Son with the younger brother. But, in this moment, after our salvation, being called out like the Corinthians, it is easy to stand there like the Older Brother and have this attitude that his love and grace ask too much of us.

If we are to be free from Warped Identity we must teach our hearts to receive the truths it needs.