Identity in Christ | 2 Corinthians 5:17

Introduction

What is your identity?

The irony of identity is that by looking away from ourselves we are more likely to discover our identity.

Richard Lints

What I want today is for us to just look away for ourselves for just a bit and in that process aim to find out more about ourselves than we know right now.

Corinth was overall a healthy church, but culture was kicking at the door and trying to make its way into the church, Paul steps in with a tremendous reminder of identity in the life of a Christian.

We live in a very similar situation today, culture is constantly kicking at the door of our lives, so let this reminder from Paul today spur you on to know how to find our what your identity is.

Young and Old people alike battle with this question of

What is your identity?

so read with me today:

Body

2 Corinthians 5:17 CSB

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!

This verse tells us 3 things that we need to know about our identity.

#1 The Old has Passed Away

When we become a Christian and start to follow after Jesus and his heavenly ways instead of our earthly ways, this passage tells us that the Old in our lives has passed away!

We don’t act the same way we did before we were a Christian.

Our love for God pushes us to pursue God.

Every person born into the world today has baggage, some of us in this very room have baggage.

We seek to find our identity in things of this world.

Friendships, money, status, relationships, sports and other clubs, even sometimes a holier than thou “church” mindset.

We carry so much baggage in our own lives because we care so much about how others view us.

If we put our own desires and status to the side and instead chose to live our lives for the eternal Glory of God and loved people like Jesus then we would start to find more Joy and have a clearer understanding of our own identity.

#2 Jesus changes you

I’m not the same guy that I was before I became a Christian! I was so caught up in my own identity and things of this world that I missed the goodness of God for 15 years.

I didn’t fully know my identity or my purpose. I didn’t really know the point of life. Was it simply to gain so much and then die? Was it deeper?

Jesus radically changed my life when I put myself around other believers and saw how they lived for Christ. When I finally decided to open up my bible I realized that I was missing it all along.

Jesus transformed me.

Jesus can transform you to.

The bible explains in 1 Corinthians that knowing Christ gives you the clarity of mind to understand God in ways that we aren’t able to understand him before salvation.

I tell you all of this to say, Jesus changes you. Jesus changes the way you think, Jesus changes your identity. We may feel lost and without identity before we come to know Christ, but in the process of transforming and becoming a Christian we start to see that our identity is in Jesus and not worldly things.

What is your identity?

#3 What’s next for New Creation

We’ve talked about our identity before Christ, we’ve talked about the drastic transformation that Jesus causes in our lives, but what’s next?

In one of Jesus last statements to his disciples he says “Matthew 28:19-20

Matthew 28:19–20 CSB

19 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

This is what’s next for you and for your life.

Our identity in Christ is Christ and that’s what sustains us.

Life is not simply about your salvation. If it was life would end as soon as you became saved.

We are called to share the same of Jesus that saved us with others around us.

People all over the world are broken and don’t know their identity.

Some of us in this very room don’t know our identity

God has called all Christians to share Jesus with others, that’s a vital part of our identity, so how are you using your life for the Glory of God?

What is your identity?

Conclusion

If you’re in this room and there is any doubt about who you are and who’s you are, I want to give you just a moment of silence to do some business with God, I want you to all bow your heads and pray and ask God, who alone can bring salvation if you truly know his salvation. If your identity is truly in him.

If we finish up and the answer to either of those questions for you is anything other than I’m saved and my identity is truly in Jesus, then we need to talk. There is nothing important in this life than knowing the status of your eternity and truly knowing your identity.