IDENTITY SERIES
Notes
Transcript
Identity Series Recap
IDENTITY SERIES
As I have grown in my relationship with Jesus, I have come to the realization the biggest change is a Change of Identity. See, when I give myself to the Lord what I'm doing is signing away the right to not only do what Jonathan Glover wants to do, but who Jonathan Glover is as a person, because who I am before Christ is not who I am once I am in Christ.
Until you understand that being saved is giving your life, you will never understand your role as a Christian. You will never understand your identity or who you are as a Christian. God is amazing! He didn't just free me from the bondage of sin, He gave me His identity.
He took away my identity to give me His and He took away my story to give me His. My story is only a testimony, and it's only powerful when it becomes about Jesus. When I add Jesus and His power and His majesty and His identity to my story, its then and only then, that it starts bringing hope to others. When His transformation is added it brings hope, and His transformation only comes because someone is sold out to Jesus, laying down their identity to step into Christ’s identity. Our Identity is in Christ.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!
As created human beings we are to worship our creator and to put our identity aside and take on Christ’s identity.
What we're seeing in our world right now is a me centered identity which doesn't work. Continually looking inward for who we
are creates confusion which leads to trying to fix ourselves apart from God, which is impossible, So, we then start placing all
these labels or identities on ourselves because apart from God we don't know who in the world we are! There are different ways to know how important certain things are in our relationship with God, and of course one is the Word of God, but also things we see the enemy fighting against, and we're seeing the enemy fighting our identity big time.
When Satan does something it's always to mimic God in an evil way. God gives us His identity allowing us to have identity in Christ, and what does Satan do? He tries to strip people of their identities and then give them the identity he wants them to have, which is nothing but confusion, sadness. depression, pain - all of those things.
This series is about our identity as Christian people, but I want to make it clear that our country and world is in an identity crisis, and the only fix is Jesus, and the only way for people who don't know Jesus to meet Jesus is for the people who claim to know Jesus to set their identity aside and step into their identity in Christ, and to know the power and the authority that that identity comes with.
The importance of us walking in that identity is to make known what Satan is doing with the identity of people who don't know Jesus. If the people who know Jesus don't understand their identity in Jesus, we can't represent Jesus. Only the church operating under Christ's Kingdom Identity can give the world a picture of what life under God's Kingdom Identity looks like. The church is us, the people, so we have to operate under Christ’s headship and authority in Christ identity. And that's the only way that the world will see what living for the Lord looks like.
It's our identity in Christ that allows us to have the power that Christ gives us to live out what the church is supposed to look like.
So, in order for us to be able to understand who we are in Christ, we have to understand what Christ paid for on the cross. Until we understand what He paid for on the cross, we can't understand the identity that He paid for us to walk in.
The cross doesn't just forgive my sin, it exposes my value - it forgave my sin, but it also exposed my value.
The Father doesn't see us through where we've been, He sees us through His Son and His Son’s blood. Christ didn't die for us to be failures continually; He died to set you free! Jesus didn't die on the cross just to forgive me of my sins…He died on the cross to put His life inside of me...He died on the cross to put His ways inside of me…His spiritinside of me… And, He told me to deny myself, to put off everything that I am and was, so that I could put on everything He is…so that I could literally step into His identity.
The only way to step into His identity is to step out of mine. He said “you gotta die if you're gonna live” and He's not talking about your heart stopping, He's talking about the fact that He wants to give you life and life more abundantly… He wants to give you life and life eternal, but you cannot have life and life abundantly or eternal life in Him unless you die to yourself…unless you die to your old ways…unless you surrender yourself, pick up your cross and step into his identity.
The cross has a three-fold relationship to us. It has a pastrelationship called justification where God declares the sinner righteous.
It has a futurerelationship called glorification where we'll be eternally transformed to live in the presence of God forever. My concern as I am studying for this series, but mostly as I've seen the consistent transformation my life has taken, is the present relationship with the cross which is sanctification, which is the part of our relationship with God that transforms the life of a sinner - who is now a saint - who is now in the family of God.
We've lost sight of the cross. We haven't lost site of the justification, the past relationship with the cross. We never forget that we've been saved and that we're going to heaven. We haven't lost sight of the future part of the cross but what we've lost sight of is the present power of the cross.
1 Peter 2:24-25 24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed. 25 For you were like sheep going astray,, but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree; so that, having died to sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
For you were like sheep going astray, but you have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.
A lot of people want healing but don't want to address the sin! The cross only helps the healing if the sin which brought about the problem is dealt with. You can't appeal to Jesus and the cross for healing, if you don't want to address the sin which brought about the wound that's needing to be healed. Jesus bore the sin and by his wounds, he will bring healing, but only if the sin has been addressed.
He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Until we are willing to deal with our problems as sins the cross won't be effective, because Christ paid the price for our sin. Going to AA can help me stay sober, but coming to the foot of the cross will set me free from the sin of drunkenness; going to a psychiatrist can help me deal with lust that led to cheating on my wife, but until I come to Jesus and the foot of the cross I won't be set free from coveting my neighbors wife and adultery. See, the enemy will try to change the identity of sins to blur the lines of how to address the sins. If the devil can get you to do anything other than address sin as sin then he's won, because Christ paid for the sin and the only way to eradicate that sin is through Christ in the cross. So, what the enemy has done is blurred the lines of what we call sin. And then blurring the lines hid the identity of the sin.
Instead of pedophilia we call it minor-attracted people.
Instead of sexual exploitation we'll call it adult entertainment. Instead of sex cults where we bump and grind, we'll call it night clubs. Instead of adultery we'll call it swinging and open marriage. Instead of mental illness we'll call if gender dysphoria. Instead of gender mutilation let's call it gender transitioning. Instead of fornication we’ll call it intimacy. Instead of lust let's call it love. Instead of baby killers, or murders, let's call it abortionists.
1 Corinthians 1:18 18 For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us who are being saved.
For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us who are being saved.
You see it says the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, meaning people who are not Christians, they see the cross and the power thereof as foolishness, but to you and me, it's everything! The message of the cross is the power of God for us who are continually being saved and delivered and freed and redeemed and this false doctrine has come into the church that tells us that we have to be sinners every day all day in word, thought or deed. It tells us that we have to live this life of weakness and we're no good, and we are just as bad as those who aren't saved. That's false, and it's not false because I'm arrogant, it's false because the Bible teaches that the cross and the One who died on it died for us, died for our sins, meaning that we're covered in the blood that gives us the power to be righteous.
What is righteousness? It is the power to be in right standing with God which automatically frees us from sin, so we've got to stop looking at ourselves as these weak little sinful beings and begin to look at ourselves as someone who has the creator of the universe living inside of them! Glory to God!
Then we talked about Romans 6:1-14
What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply?
Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it?
Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?
Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.
For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection.
For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be rendered powerless so that we may no longer be enslaved to sin,
since a person who has died is freed from sin.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him,
because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again. Death no longer rules over him.
For the death he died, he died to sin once for all time; but the life he lives, he lives to God.
So, you too consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires.
And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness.
For sin will not rule over you, because you are not under the law but under grace.