Whose ARE You?

I’ve told you all before about how badly my college years went when I went to Virginia Tech out of high school.

I did everything I could to sabotage the opportunity I’d been given for a college education, and I paid the price for it for many years. Only by the grace of God am I standing here today as a pastor with a master’s degree from one of the best seminaries in the nation.

But there WERE a couple of academic high points for me during my time at Virginia Tech. I loved my philosophy classes — even the one that started at 8 a.m. that I had to walk 15 minutes to get to three days a week.

I even loved that class after walking through the biggest snowfall in Blacksburg’s history, only to get there and learn that the exam I was expecting had been canceled, along with all classes for the day.

If it sounds like I still hold a grudge about that morning, it’s because I probably still do. I’m not a morning person, and trudging through nearly two feet of snow from one corner of that huge campus to the opposite one for no reason at all left me frustrated and a little bitter.

But for some reason, it didn’t sour me to philosophy. Even as I lobbed a figurative hand grenade into my academic career, I continued to explore the big questions. I’ve always been interested in how people answer those questions.

And chief among the big questions — at least, for most people — is this: Why are we here? What’s our purpose in life?

Now, as a follower of Jesus, I believe I’ve found the answer to that question: We’re here to glorify God. We’re here to worship Him and trust Him in all that we do and say.

But most folks either haven’t discovered that answer, or they’ve rejected it completely. And it’s still interesting to me to understand what sorts of answers they have for it.

But I believe there’s a bigger question for all of us, and it’s one that we’ve touched on during the past couple of weeks in our study of Romans, chapter 6.

That question is this: Who ARE you? In fact, I think THIS question has consumed people’s attention in recent decades far more than the question of why we’re here.

It’s the question at the heart of some of the biggest cultural and political divides in our nation and in the world today.

It’s the question at the heart of the debates over gender and sexuality. It’s the question at the heart of the debates over nationalism and immigration. It’s the question at the heart of the divide between right and left, between red states and blue states, between liberals and conservatives.

It may surprise you to hear that I think there’s a sense in which this marks an improvement — an advance — in our philosophical thinking over the question of why we’re here.

And that’s because I think we can’t really understand why we’re here until we understand who we are.

But there IS a problem with this question of identity, this question of who we are. And the problem is that humans don’t seem to be very good at defining themselves.

We tend to appeal to our own hearts for the answer to this question, and even those who don’t believe what the Bible tells us about the deceitfulness and wickedness of the human heart must admit that it’s fickle.

Our hearts change in their devotions from one season to the next. The things we might think of as our defining characteristics — the things from which we might derive our identity — change from 8 to 16 to 30 to 60.

So, asking who we are might help us THINK we understand why we’re here, but never with any degree of consistency. And that’s because our hearts are changing — because we’re continually redefining ourselves based on whatever feelings and emotions are controlling us in the moment.

So, I concluded a long time ago that philosophy has a significant problem when it comes to answering life’s big questions. And the problem is that it doesn’t even know what big questions to ask.

Let me offer some advice. The question to ask isn’t why we’re here or even who we are. The question to ask is WHOSE you are? To whom do you belong?

Now, most folks would answer that by saying they belong to themselves. But that just takes us back to who you are. What version of you do you belong to? The 8-year-old version? The 16-year-old version. The 30-year-old version? The 60-year-old version?

They’re all different people with different sensibilities, different devotions, different emotional anchors. So, saying I belong to myself simply means that I’m committing to living in the moment and toward my own ends, with no real regard for what my life means in the grand scheme of things.

And that’s, quite frankly, how most of the world lives. But even those philosophers who reject God have a hard time accepting this as an admirable philosophy of life.

Pressed on the subject, they have trouble reconciling this kind of self-absorbed life with a functional, humane society. And so, once again, they’re left without answers, because they’re afraid to even ask the right questions.

But the Bible asks this question without fear. In fact, though it’s never posed in so many words, this question — To whom do you belong? Whose ARE you — is the very foundation of Romans, chapter 6.

And Paul dedicates this chapter to an examination of the two possible answers to this question.

Without apology, he suggests that every one of us belongs either to sin or to God in Christ Jesus. And whichever of those two answers is true for you will determine the answers to the OTHER questions — the questions of who you are and why you’re here.

When we began this mini-series a few weeks ago, I asked you to go back home and read this chapter a few times and notice all the contrasts Paul draws in it. Contrasts between death and life, between sin and righteousness, between slavery and freedom, between law and grace.

Whose you are determines which of those contrasting characteristics are at work in your life. And they determine who you really are. And who you really are determines your purpose here on earth.

And in the three verses we’ll look at today — the central verses to this part of Paul’s discourse on our relationship to sin — we’ll see that a solid understanding of WHOSE you are should give every follower of Jesus a new sense of their purpose here on earth.

We’re going to be looking at verses 12-14 of Romans, chapter 6. Please read along with me.

Romans 6:12–14 NASB95

12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, 13 and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. 14 For sin shall not be master over you, for you are not under law but under grace.

When Paul uses the word “therefore” at the beginning of verse 12, he’s reaching back to everything he’s said so far in this chapter. He’s bringing it all together now as the collective REASON for what follows.

As followers of Jesus, we’ve identified with Him — we’ve been united with Him — in His death, in His burial, and in His resurrection.

We’ve died to sin and been made alive to God in Christ Jesus. And in our death to sin, we’ve been freed from its authority over us.

Of course, sin is still all around us. It’s still a force in the lives of believers. It still entices us and calls us back to itself. But it’s no longer MASTER over us. So, it shouldn’t reign. It shouldn’t call the shots.

And there’s an interesting contrast here that we shouldn’t miss between the mortal body and the immortal soul.

Sin manifests itself in the actions of our bodies and the thoughts of our minds, bringing about spiritual death for our souls. So, there’s a real sense in which our mortal bodies as slaves to sin control our immortal souls, condemning us to eternal death.

But when we turn to Jesus in faith, our spirit comes alive in Him. Now, enlivened and enabled by the Holy Spirit, our SPIRITS should control our BODIES.

When sin reigned over us, it compelled us to obey the cravings that only propelled us toward death. But, having died to sin with Christ, we’re now no longer compelled to pursue and satisfy the lusts of the flesh.

So, in verse 13, Paul says we followers of Jesus must stop putting ourselves at sin’s disposal. We must stop making ourselves AVAILABLE to sin.

When I took my first job as a weekly newspaper editor, I spent my first week working alongside the former editor, learning the flow of things in that newspaper office.

At the end of that week, she gave me her phone number and said to feel free to call her if I had any questions or needed help with anything.

Well, the following week, I found myself completely overwhelmed. I’d been a journalist for only three years by then, and I suddenly realized just how unprepared I was to run a newsroom.

So, on deadline day, a Tuesday, I called her, and she graciously came to the office and helped me get everything in order. I was so relieved that I actually sent her flowers the day after the newspaper published.

And then, the following week, we had some kind of glitch, and once again, I found myself overwhelmed. So, I picked up the phone and called her again.

This time, though, things were different. She said, “No. I don’t work there anymore. You’ll have to figure it out for yourself.”

Having resigned from her position as that newspaper’s editor, she’d been freed from the responsibilities of publishing it. She was no longer bound to it. I was on my own.

Similarly, Paul says here we’re no longer bound by our relationship to sin if we’ve turned to Christ in faith. We don’t work for sin anymore, so why would we continue to pick up the phone when it calls?

A slave can’t act like a free person, and a free person shouldn’t act like a slave.

In fact, the language of this verse suggests something deeper than even the slave/master relationship Paul has been using as a metaphor to this point.

The word that’s translated as “presenting” here was a technical term used to describe bringing a sacrifice. And the word translated as “instruments” was also used to describe weapons.

So, we could read this as Paul telling us not to sacrifice ourselves to be used as weapons of unrighteousness.

And that’s a pretty good description of how Satan uses sin to attack and destroy God’s good creation, the shalom — the perfect peace and contentment and fellowship with God — that existed in the Garden of Eden.

The sin of unbelievers is like a suicide bomb in which they’re destroyed along with the carnage they leave behind. And even though it’s not deadly on an eternal scale for believers, sin in our own lives is still a potent weapon Satan uses to bring suffering and chaos to the world.

But we who’ve turned to Jesus in faith have died to the army of Satan. We’re no longer bound to his orders!

Instead, being now alive to God, we should find ourselves compelled to pursue and satisfy the righteousness of God. We’re free now to sacrifice ourselves to God to be used by Him as weapons of righteousness!

And as weapons of righteousness, our calling is to push back against the suffering and chaos of this sin-cursed world. Our calling is to reflect the kingdom of God, to BE shalom in a world where it’s desperately needed, to pursue peace and love in the midst of conflict and hatred.

But we can’t do those things if we’re still taking orders from the devil. We can’t do those things if we’re still answering the phone when he calls. We can’t do those things if we’re still pretending to be slaves of sin. We can’t do those things if we’re still sacrificing ourselves as weapons of unrighteousness.

What we have to remember is whose we AREN’T and whose we ARE! Look at verse 14.

“For sin shall not be master over you.”

This is a promise, not a command. What Paul’s saying here is that we who are IN Christ Jesus CAN present ourselves to God as instruments of righteousness precisely BECAUSE we are no longer under sin’s authority.

BECAUSE we’ve been freed from sin, we can become weapons of righteousness in the hands of God. We no longer belong to sin. Instead we belong to God in Christ Jesus.

We are HIS, and we are His because of His grace. Look at the last part of that verse.

Paul says we followers of Jesus are not under law but under grace. In other words, we’re not subjects of law but subjects of grace.

Now, this is a unique contrast in Scripture. Nowhere else do we see Law and grace placed so clearly in opposition to one another.

And I think that Paul doing so here reveals the depth of understanding he’d been given about salvation by the Holy Spirit.

Paul, a devout Jew from birth, a Pharisee of Pharisees, one who’d been so devoted to the Law of Moses that he’d persecuted the early church, had truly come to understand that law and grace are incompatible.

He’d come to understand that the Law had been given not to justify man — not to give sinful man legal standing before a righteous and holy God. Instead, it was given to make all mankind realize that we HAVE no legal standing before a righteous and holy God.

Paul understood that the Law was given by a gracious God to make us see we can only be saved BY His grace. To reveal to us the true extent of our enslavement to sin.

And to make us understand the only way we could be saved — the only way we can be declared righteous, the only way we can have a right relationship with God — is by God’s grace, through faith in Jesus and His righteous sacrifice for us and in our place at the cross.

And through faith in Him, we are delivered into HIS hands and out of the hands of sin and death.

In Christ, we’re no longer dead, but alive! So, why would we WANT to pursue those things associated with death? Why would we want to pretend that we’re still dead?

When you know WHOSE you are, you know WHO you are. And when you know WHO you are, you can finally know your true purpose on this earth.

If you’ve trusted in Jesus for your salvation, then you belong to HIM. God has declared you righteous in Christ.

So, BE what you ARE. FREE from sin’s mastery over you.

I want to encourage you this week to remember whose you are. If you’re a follower of Jesus, I want to encourage you to BE who you are in Him.

I want to encourage you to dedicate yourself — to sacrifice yourself — as a weapon of righteousness in God’s hands. To make yourself, instead of an agent of suffering and chaos, an agent of goodness and light in this dark and often terrible world.

Knowing and remembering whose you are can give you great power over sin in your life. Knowing whose you are unlocks the answers to the greatest philosophical questions that man has tried to answer for thousands of years. Knowing whose you are finally makes your purpose clear.

So, this week, I want to encourage you, if you know whose you are, to BE what you ARE, and not what you WERE.

But if you’ve never trusted in Jesus for your salvation, then I need to tell you now that who you are is not who you were meant to be. You were made for a relationship with God — to be in fellowship with Him — but your sins have cut you off from that fellowship.

Jesus gave His life at Calvary’s cross — taking upon Himself your sins and their guilt and their punishment — so you could be forgiven and redeemed — bought back — from sin, so you could HAVE fellowship with God in Him.

And He rose from the dead on the third day to prove that God can and will keep His promise of eternal life for all who turn to Jesus in faith.

That means faith in HIM for salvation, not faith in yourself and your own goodness. That means admitting that you’re a sinner and that you CAN’T save yourself. That you deserve God’s wrath for your sins and that you ACCEPT the gracious gift of His Son, who bore God’s wrath for you.

That means setting aside the idea that you belong to yourself — which is really just another way of saying you belong to sin — and embracing a new identity in Christ.

It means giving yourself to Him in faith that He is good and that He will keep His promises of salvation and eternal life. That He will make you what you were always meant to be. And that in HIM you will finally find your purpose.

Are you ready to give yourself to Him today?

Now, today is Lord’s Supper Sunday. This is an important observance for individual followers of Jesus.

But it’s is also important to the fellowship of the church. It brings us together in a unique way and reminds us that we belong to one another in Christ Jesus.

It reminds us of the loyal love He has for us and the loyal love we’re called to have for one another.

Jesus commanded us to observe the Lord’s Supper as an act of obedience to Him. It’s a way of proclaiming that we who follow Him in faith belong to Him. In it, we are reminded of what He did for us.

The Lord’s Supper reminds us that our hope for salvation rests only and completely on the sacrifice He made for us and in our place at the cross. It reminds us that our life is in Him.

And sharing the bread from one loaf reminds us that we are, together, the one body of Christ. It reminds us that we’re called to unity of faith, unity of purpose, and unity of love.

It reminds us that, just as He gave up the glory He had in heaven, we who’ve followed Jesus in faith are called to give up any claims we might think we have to our own lives as we follow Him.

Finally, it reminds us that, as we’ve been given the testimony of the Holy Spirit within us, we’re to share OUR testimony of salvation by grace through faith.

We’re not to be lukewarm Christians, but people who are on fire for the Lord. People desperate to SEE His righteousness upon the earth and committed to LIVING His righteousness while we wait.

If you’re a baptized believer walking in obedience to Christ, I’d like to invite you to join us today as we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

Now, this sacred meal dates all the way back to when Jesus shared it with His disciples at the Last Supper on the night before He was crucified.

The conditions during the Last Supper were different than the conditions we have here today. But the significance was the same as it is today.

Jesus told His disciples that the bread represented His body, which would be broken for our transgressions.

Let us pray.

Matthew 26:26 NASB95

26 While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is My body.”

As Jesus suffered and died on that cross, his blood poured out with His life. This was always God’s plan to reconcile mankind to Himself.

“In [Jesus] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace which He lavished on us.”

Let us pray.

Matthew 26:27–28 NASB95

27 And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you; 28 for this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.

Take and drink.

“Now, as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes.”

Maranatha! Lord, come!

Here at Liberty Spring, we have a tradition following our commemoration of the Lord’s Supper.

Please gather around in a circle, and let us sing together “Blest Be the Tie that Binds.”