Defined: Understanding Who You Are

Psalm 139:14–16 MEV

I will praise you, for You made me with fear and wonder; marvelous are Your works, and You know me completely. My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, and intricately put together in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw me unformed, yet in Your book all my days were written, before any of them came into being.

What Defines You?

We define ourselves in many different ways.

Where we live.

Who we are connected to.

Family

Social groups

Where we went to school.

Where we work or what we do for a living.

When we talk about defining ourselves we are talking about identity. Identity is literally who you are. The funny thing is that, when we think about who we are, our first instinct is to go to the things I mentioned earlier. But those things are just externals, and when you think about it, they really DON’T define you.

Think about it. Are you really you because of the house you live in or who your family is? They are all characteristics that influence your identity, but they are not your identity.

The fact is, it’s not really the WHAT that defines you. Your identity is who you see yourself to be.

How Do You Define Yourself?

Who are you, really? That’s the real question. When it comes your identity, it’s not the externals. It’s about our character. What words do you use to describe yourself? Are they words like, strong, confident, capable, compassionate, joyful? Or are they words like stupid, worthless, unlovable? Do you feel like you have a purpose for existing?

Those are the types of things that really define who you see yourself to be. They are definitions we adopt at an early age, and they affect everything about us.

If I’m worthless, if I have no real purpose, then what does it matter what I do? Maybe I’ll choose to live life dangerously. Live hard, die young, leave a good looking corpse. Maybe I won’t try anything. Just play it safe. Keep expectations low. What’s the point? I’ll probably fail anyway.

If I am confident and capable, I will move forward believing I will succeed.

We see ourselves in certain ways. Deep down, we believe certain things about ourselves. But how did we come to define ourselves the way we do? More importantly, is the way we see ourselves the truth? It is very possible that each of us is living a false identity, because how we came to define ourselves was based on falsehoods.

Because our sense of identity doesn’t start with us. It starts with others who have influence over us—parents, siblings, people we admire or who have authority over us.

And these people give us conflicting messages about who we are. You got a good grade on a school assignment, and mom gushes about how smart you are; later on, your brother calls you an idiot. One person tells you how great you are, and then someone else calls you the world’s biggest loser.

Along the way, those messages get reinforced through circumstances, and you begin to believe what they said about you.

Somewhere along the way, you might decide to disregard their messages, to prove them wrong. You are going to create your own identity. In reality, though, you usually end up latching on to people who say things that make you feel good, and you base your identity on what they say.

Today, there is a lot of discussion about identity. And it’s all based on our feelings. My David, I identify as a house plant, and my pronouns are it and it’s.

But an identity based on our feelings is also a false identity.

Jeremiah 17:9 MEV

The heart is more deceitful than all things and desperately wicked; who can understand it?

The Bible is NOT saying that feelings are evil; in fact, emotions are useful for helping us navigate life. But when we let our emotions control our lives and the decisions we make, we fall into a trap. Hebrews 11:25 tells us that sin is pleasurable for a time. But we also know that the wages of sin is death.

The Bible tells us to resist temptation, not adopt it and call it our identity.

So we cannot trust the definitions others place on our identity. We can’t even trust ourselves to define who we are. Where do we go to find out who we truly are?

If you want the truth, you have to go to the Author of Truth.

God Is the One Who Defines You.

God is the only one qualified to tell you who you are. He is qualified for several reasons.

He created us.

I have yet to see a piece of wood that decided what kind of furniture it would be made into. It is the creator who decides what will be created. He determines the purpose for that creation. YOU were created for a purpose. Your Creator made you with fear and wonder. He thinks you are amazing.

He owns us.

Psalm 24:1 MEV

The earth belongs to the Lord, and its fullness, the world, and those who dwell in it.

How many of you remember that one place on the way to Prairie Home where somebody took an old toilet and made it a flower pot? My aunt once bought a violin and hung it on the wall because she thought it was pretty. Being a music buff, I looked at it and told her she should have it appraised because inside the body was the name Stradivarius. She said, “It doesn’t matter. I can’t play the violin. I like it on my wall.” When you own something, you get to decide what it is.

God, who made EVERYTHING owns everything. That includes you. He gave you your life. Your breath belongs to him. If anyone has the right to define who you are, it’s God.

He has all authority.

Another reason God has the right to define who we are is because he literally has the authority to do so. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Matthew 7:28–29 MEV

When Jesus finished these sayings, the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.

The people who met Jesus recognized that he had an authority no other religious leader had. Authority over sickness, over demons, over nature, even over death itself. Where did that authority come from ?

Matthew 28:18 MEV

Then Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.

Jesus verified that he had authority, and that that authority had been given to him by God. Only someone with authority can give authority.

God is the final and ultimate authority of all things, including over us. He gets to decide who we are.

He knows all things.

Anyone who has ever tried to define you has done it based on limited information. They can see what you did, but they cannot truly see your heart or your mind. But God, who know all things, knows what you are thinking and feeling. He knows your purpose and your future. He knows you better than anyone else.

Furthermore, God’s knowledge is perfect. He doesn’t make mistakes. God not only created you, he decided when and where to place you in the world. He chose your race and ethnicity. He decided your temperament. He chose your family and cultural background. Even with the hardships we had to face along the way, God chose exactly where in time and space to place each of us so that we could fulfill his amazing purpose.

So, yeah, God knows exactly who you are.

Who You TRULY Are

Now that we know that we have lived in a false sense of identity, what do we do?

To me, it seems obvious that we need to learn how to define ourselves properly. We need to learn who we truly are.

In order to do that, we need to go to the only one who has the right to define us—the one who designed and created us, who owns us, who has the authority, and who knows us best.

And it’s important that we find out our true identity, because everything we do flows out of our sense of identity.

If you believe you are a slave to your sinful impulses, then you will continue to live in sin, never experiencing the freedom Jesus died to give you.

As long as you see yourself as a shameful outcast, you will miss out on the joy of experiencing life as God’s child.

But when you learn to see yourself as God sees you, everything changes. You will still struggle, but gone is the fear rejection when you mess up. You can live in confidence, because your identity is not based on the opinions of others. Your identity is not based on your emotions or what tempts you.

Your history, your environment, your genetics, your circumstances—all these things have shaped you, but they don’t define you.

There is only one who defines who you really, truly are. That’s your heavenly father. And you know what? He has good things to say about you.

Next week is our Labor Day service at the ball park. But in the next few weeks, we are going to look more into the one who defines us, and what he has to say about us.

In the meantime, I want everyone to bow their head and call out to God.

Lord, I have lived my life seeing myself a certain way. But now, I want to know who I really am. I want to know how YOU define me. Father, help me see myself the way you see me. Set me free from the lies I have believed about myself for so long.