New Beginnings (2)

Felt Need

Illustration: New Years always has me thinking about the potential of who I could be. What is the best version of me.

There was Workout Patrick.

Actor Patrick.

Success Patrick

In all of those I was trying to find my identity. Because if I was honest with you…I did not like who I was, I did not like what I was doing…and I did not like the person that I was going to become in 5…10 years…20 years.

Seam: And the same is true for so many of us. Many of us begin new habits, patterns or stop doing things…because deep down we do not like who we are.

But everything around us tells us to love ourselves. Self Care has never been more popular. When you look at what the top youtube searches or instagram searches are… they are about Self help, Self Care…Self Improvement.

Podcasts are huge… and what are the top topic of podcast people listen to they are about Self Help, Self care and Self Improvement.

The need for having the right things reveals how we feel about ourselves. We want the latest phone, smartwatch, outfit or fashion...

Our Social Media we post is a curated attempt to get people to believe that we have an idenitty that we are making up.

It is revealed I think most in how you and I deal with conflict…

See, when we are secure with our identities… when we know that we are loved… we can seek peace and truth in our relationships. We can confront false peace, we can confront lies and unhealth in kind and loving ways…but we can do it because we know that we are loved.

But because we do not know if we are loved, because we are afrtaid of hwo the other peerson is going to react, or what they are going to think of us…how our image will be affected…we most the time do things to create false peace to keep the status quo and protect ourselves.

Seam: You see, This affects everything. What we believe about identities is key. Why? We tend to be the Heroes of our story. We cannot help but experience life with ourselves at the center.

Everything we experience around us is through ourselves. Our bodies. So when we hear, we hear with our ears. When we see, we see with our eyes. We have our personal wants, our personal feelings…our desires, our dreams.

And so as we are experiencing the universe around us, we are doing so through who we are. And when we are insecure about our identities, when we do not like our identiies, it changes the way that we take in information. We actually begin to have the world around us seem like a much darker, scarier or isolating place than it really is.

THESIS: The Identity that we claim is informs how we experience and live in the world.

And so then for as Christians, The identity that God has given us becomes that much more important. The Identity that God gives us informs how we experience and live in the world. So what identity then do we have?

Seam: To Learn about that lets open our bibles to Matthew 3:13-17 But Before we read this, I want us to talk about the practice of Baptism.

Baptism is a key practice of Disciples of Jesus. It marks the end of what was before and the beginning of new life. It is a practice that shows us our new identity that we find in Christ.

In the New Testament it is first shown to us by John the Baptist. Mark 1:4

Mark 1:4 CSB

John came baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

So the Baptism of John was practicing was a Baptism that was about repentance. Which is a biblical way of staying stopping, turning from what we were doing and walking the oppisite way. So for the christian, stopping living the life we lived before that was full of brokenness, darkness and sin and ultimately death..and walking following Jesus.

But there is more to it than just that. You see Baptism is an illustration. An illustration of a key theme in scripture. The theme of a Loving God taking us through the chaotic waters of life, and bringing us into a new life in his presence.

It’s a theme that starts back in Genesis.

Genesis 1: God Seperates the waters and brings the dry land out of it. What happens on dry land? Life!

Genesis 3: Man releases chaos into the world through sin. God then begins his plan of salvation through the chaos.

Genesis 6-8 is the story of God bringing salvation through literal chaos waters flooding the earth through an (Ta-va) Ark.

Exodus 2 God saves Noah through the waters through a (Ta-va) Ark!

Exodus 14 God saves Israel through the chaos waters.

Joshua: God splits the chaos waters to help Israel cross the Jordan.

So when John the Baptist begins to bring people through the waters to the otherside, what is being symbolized. God saving them and bringing them from one place into another. From chaos, death and slavery to sin…into the promised land of his kingdom

So then what is happening with Jesus… lets look at another account from the author Mark.

Mark 1:9–11 CSB

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized in the Jordan by John. As soon as he came up out of the water, he saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well-pleased.”

Jesus is baptized… and as he comes out of the water…something new takes place. The Holy Spirit decends.. and The Father speaks.

Peter then will show us this design pattern all together in his letter 1 Peter 3:20-21

1 Peter 3:20–21 CSB

who in the past were disobedient, when God patiently waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared. In it a few—that is, eight people—were saved through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you (not as the removal of dirt from the body, but the pledge of a good conscience toward God) through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,

Peter is connecting baptism, the act of us being dunked into the water and then coming out into new life as the same as what God did with noah. Paul in 1 Corithinans connects it to Moses.

At its core, scritpure is showing us that Baptism is coming up out of the chaotic waters of death and chaos into new life with Jesus.

The Scholar NT Wright would describe it like this…

Water and spirit’ here must mean the double baptism: baptism in water, which brings people into the kingdom-movement begun by John the Baptist and continued by Jesus’ disciples (3:22; 4:1–2), and baptism in the spirit, the new life, bubbling up from within, that Jesus offers...

N. T. Wright

Seam: Baptism is all about Giving us New Life with Jesus. So then what is that New life…that new identity that Jesus is offering?

Matthew 3:13–17 CSB

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan, to be baptized by him. But John tried to stop him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?” Jesus answered him, “Allow it for now, because this is the way for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John allowed him to be baptized. When Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water. The heavens suddenly opened for him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well-pleased.”

Jesus after Baptism recieves a new identity. And because he identifies himself with people through baptism… we have that new identity. That identity as Son’s and Daughter’s of God.

SEAM: Your Primary Identity, is not Christian. It is not your given name, it is not your gender, it is not your age, your job or what or who you love. It is certainly not your political afflication or level of affluence.

Your Primary identity is that of a son and daughter of God.

Meaning you are Loved. You are not Loved because of the things that you do, you are not loved because of the things you believe or think. You are not earning Love. As a Christian, you are a son or daughter of God because you have been chose for adoption.

So you are loved if you complete your new years resoltuion. You are loved if you fail. You are loved if you serve here, you are loved if you do not serve here. You are loved when you are doubting or deconstructing… God loves you Son… God loves you daughter… and it does not have anything to do with what you do. It has to do with who God has said you are.

Seam: Now there are going to be others that are competing to get to tell you who you are.

Some of us believe that we are good because of our works. We are a success, or righteous or good because we do good things. We have good habits, we get up and think the right thoughts. Of course God loves you because of what you do.

PERSONAL PRIDE STORY

Work as a Social Media Manager.

All that is on the other side of that, is dissapointment. No matter how hard we work, we are never going to measure up. We are always going to be trying fill new holes, new leaks in our identity. Our works, what we can do can never satisfy…And we will let people down because we are not perfect.

SEAM: Some of us are living based upon the identiies that the our parents gave us.

Some of us grew up feeling save, nutured and loved. But for some of you it is real that you feel like you never measured up. You were told you were a failure. You were told you could not do anything right… and you have carried that idenitty with you into the world.

No matter what you do you cant seem to get relationships to work, to do well at work or school…or as a parent. How could you get this christian thing to go right. You know God is just waiting for you to fail again…and boy do you...

You keep getting way to angry, you keep looking at pornography, you keep gossiping, you keep treating people…or yourself like garbage. You can’t say no to ice cream, or that date… And you know that god likes you… he has to, he is God… but love you? You do not even love yourself.

Seam: And then there is the cultural narrative that invades like a toxin within all of us. While the best of culture wants you to believe that you are a snowflake, a piece of art, an individual that defines themselves… what culture really views you as is as a consumer.

The Culture does not want your love. The World around us does not really want you even happy. What it wants at the end of the day is your money.

Seam: But if you listen deeply… you can hear what Jesus is saying to you… the identity that Jesus has given you… Son and Daughter of God.

There is a story in scripture where Jesus stops at a well while traveling… and he encounters a woman at a well.

John 4:7–9 CSB

A woman of Samaria came to draw water. “Give me a drink,” Jesus said to her, because his disciples had gone into town to buy food. “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a Samaritan woman?” she asked him. For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.

(Biblical Background)

John 4:10–13 CSB

Jesus answered, “If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, and he would give you living water.” “Sir,” said the woman, “you don’t even have a bucket, and the well is deep. So where do you get this ‘living water’? You aren’t greater than our father Jacob, are you? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and livestock.” Jesus said, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again.

The woman does not know who Jesus is… she knows the interaction is strange...

John 4:14–18 CSB

But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again. In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up in him for eternal life.” “Sir,” the woman said to him, “give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and come here to draw water.” “Go call your husband,” he told her, “and come back here.” “I don’t have a husband,” she answered. “You have correctly said, ‘I don’t have a husband,’ ” Jesus said. “For you’ve had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.”

You man be the woman in the story today. You may be hearing the inviation of being a child of God today…hearing his invitation to be loved, cared for, adored…to be able to live in God’s presence. But you believe God could not love you because of who you are…

Seam: The Identity you claim is not going to suprise God. God knows who you are, he knows your past… and he is still here offering you life!

So how then do we live into our identies as Children of God? Living into our identieis as children of God begins in 3 places

Believe

KNOW

PRACTICE

First. Believe the right things. BEgin with what you believe about God. Understand that God is your father.

It makes all the difference in the world how we look upon God. Some people fear God, but when they understand that He is their Father, that fear is gone.

Dwight L. Moody

If you have a wrong view of God you are going to live afraid, shamed or other untruths. But when we understand that God is our father…that fear is replaced with love.