Pastors and Personal Identity

Introduction

My wife and I built a house a few years ago. And by building a house, I mean that we hired someone to build us a house. Our house plans called for a large deck in the back, and I was excited when I saw the lumber for it delivered. I could already picture drinking coffee in a rocking chair. So, I was shocked when I came back that afternoon and the lumber was gone. Confused and worried that it had been stolen, I called my contractor. He said, "I sent it back. You don't want anything built out of such warped wood."

A good house must be built out of solid materials. Many of the people I meet have a self-perception built out of warped lumber. Aesthetically, their house is attractive and impressive. But behind the stunning facade, they're crumbling. There’s a gap between who God says we are and who we believe we are. So, we’ve constructed our identity out of warped lumber.

God’s Word

Sturdy churches need healthy pastors. Healthy pastors must have an identity built from good lumber. By understanding who we are from God’s perspective, we can construct a healthier sense of who we are and how we fit. One of the primary purposes of the Bible is to tell us who God is and who we are so we know who made us and why. This is the starting place for understanding who we are. So, we’re going to look at this very question from the Bible over the next three weeks for the purpose of helping you close what I call the identity gap. So, Who Am I? (Headline)

“Someone” has to to “tell” us.

My grandmother always took me down long country roads, and she’d take me down those roads so that she could tell me stories. She’d show me where her mom was raised, went to school, and picked cotton. She’d show me the cabin that her dad built with his own hands and tell me how she was born in that house. She’d tell me about who her mom and dad were so that I could know and pass it down. What was she doing? She was teaching me who I was.

I actually believe this is intrinsic to the way that God has designed us. Only humans have a self-perception. It’s part of what makes us unique. But, our self-perception isn’t instinctive or automatic. It must be learned.

Self-perception is “learned.”

Genesis 1:26-30 “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the heavens and to everything that creeps on the earth, everything that has the breath of life, I have given every green plant for food.” And it was so.”

What happens when God creates humans is important for us to notice. First, there is a declaration of the Godhead of who they would make us to be. So, God decides who He will make us to be. Then, after making Adam and Eve, He tells them who they are. They didn’t know automatically. Self-perception had to be given to them. The very first thing that God does with human beings is tell us who in the world we are.

That is, their knowledge of their identity doesn’t come from within. It’s not something that’s going to evolve and develop with time. Apart from God speaking to them, and again this is one of the primary reasons I believe we have the Bible, they would’ve never been able to fully understand why they were different than all of the other creatures they saw. They would’ve never been able to know exactly what they were made for or what their purpose was. God had to tell them.

So, you see, identity is not something that is self-actualized or self-discovered.

Identity is “given.”

That’s not to say there aren’t layers of who we are that are individual to us. It’s to say that these layers aren’t the most fundamental aspects of who we are. They aren’t the building blocks of our identity, and until you know what your fundamental identity is, you’ll never be able to understand how where the other layers fit. So, we’ll get there, but we have to start here.

So, who does God tell us that we are? There are at least four components to the identity that He has assigned us. We’ll just flyover these so you can see them. You can see them each time God speaks to Adam and Eve.

We’re “special” and “significant.”

Genesis 1:26-28 “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.””

Human beings are given a dignity that no other part of creation can claim. We’re made in the image of God. That's the starting line of who we are. To be made in God's image means, at least, that we are like God in the way that sons and daughters are like their fathers. We share many of the same characteristics, though we're not the same. We're made to reflect his image wherever we go and to make known his dominion to the ends of the earth. We're made for that. We're reflections of his glory. And, connected to that is our purpose. Why are we to be fruitful and multiply and rule with dominion? Because there’s a reason we exist! We exist to make the glory of God spread through us and to make known the rule of God over the whole earth.

Really, each of the other three flow from this one.

We’re “dependent” and “blessed.”

Genesis 1:29 “And God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food.”

We’re like God, but we’re not God. God has always existed, but we have not. God is self-sufficient, but we are not. We have to eat food and drink water and sleep at night. We’re handcrafted by God with limitations. And, we’re handcrafted by God with limitations because we are designed to enjoy God’s care. So, He makes us with limits, and then He meets our needs. He provides the food. He provides the care. And, we trust him for it.

We’re “moral” and “accountable.”

Genesis 2:16-17 “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.””

What God does is show Adam and Eve the exact opposite of what our world believes: We are not just animals with bigger brains. We are set apart. And, one of the great distinctions between us and the animals is that we are born with a conscience, a moral compass, an embedded sense of morality. That’s drawn out in the Garden. This morality is a mark of dignity and God-likeness, not an oppression. And, we’re accountable to God that we represent him well with it.

In both our dependence and our accountability, we note that we’re created with limits. We’re like God, but we’re not God. In fact, it’s through these limits that we’re actually able to relate to God. That is, these limits provide us with the opportunity to know firsthand the love of God.

We’re “social” and “complementary.”

Genesis 2:18-22 “Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” Now out of the ground the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.”

The very first thing that isn’t good in the creation is the loneliness of man. The Godhead exists in perfect community with one another: Father, Son, and Spirit. And, in a similar way, we are designed for community, too. But, we’re not all the same. Men and women are not the same. Though we have the same fundamental identity, we are designed by God to complement one another in our roles, just as there are different roles among the persons of the Trinity. So, we’re designed to love one another, be loved by one another, and to help one another.

But, we have trouble believing these things about ourselves, don’t we? Why? In spite of our clearly assigned identity from God...