Identity

Introduction

Meeting someone for the first time.  What do they ask you?

Where are you from?

What do you do

Questions about family 

They are trying to find out who you are.

So much of our lives is wrapped up in how we portray ourselves to the world.

We might not intend it, we may not even know we do it but fact is certain

“We live our whole lives out of who we perceive oursleves to be.”

True or not, self-aware or not.  We live our lives communicating to the world who we believe we are.

Doesn’t that explain a lot?

Why we chase certain things

Why critique is so hard for us to take

Why success always feels like it isn’t enough

Why shame sticks longer than it should

Because our perception of ourselves and maybe even more, what we think other people think of us, is so important that our lives are wrapped up in what it is.

It defines us - at least we live that way.

Identity is a powerful thing.

Identity is not just something you believe…it is something you live from.

And that becomes a problem, we live from a false identity.  An identity built on lies.

Pete Scazzero puts it like this

"The vast majority of us go to our graves without knowing who we are. We unconsciously live someone else's life, or at least someone else's expectations for us. This does violence to ourselves, our relationship with God, and ultimately to others.”

“Does violence?” That's strong language. We feel it. We might just not have the words for it.

Who we think we are (knowing ourselves) has a dramatic impact on how we relate to God and, in turn, to others.

For many of us, the issue that we have isn’t that we are in outright rebellion against God; the issue is that we believe the lies we learned from the world.

God is the one who defines us, we are made in His image, and when we not only understand that but understand how that is different than the way the world defines…it changes everything.

How we feel about ourselves

How we interact with God

How we treat others

So, for a couple of minutes, let's talk about the lies we have learned and the truths that God wants to speak over us instead.

Now, the world doesn’t usually sell us a lie directly… no, it’s subtle.

It gives us subtle narratives that cause us to shape the lies ourselves and then build our identity on them without even realizing it.

Lie 1: “My Identity is based on my performance.”

This can be devastating because from that lie we build a life that says 

“If I perform well, I matter -, but if I fail, I am less than (or don’t matter)”

We see it in:

Career 

Productivity

Hobbies

Sports

Ministry Impact

Even our faithfulness or obedience is measured by output rather than obedience.

Most of us aren’t asking “Am I walking with God?”

We are asking, “Am I producing enough for God?”

Jesus warns about this in Matthew 7:22–23 “Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

He is talking about who is a part of His kingdom and who isn’t. 

Did you catch that?

They were measuring their relationship with God by “What they did for Him”

Jesus was measuring the relationship by “whether He knew them.”

Jesus doesn’t argue about their output or what incredible things they have done.  He points them to an important truth that can overcome the lie.

Truth #1 Our Identity is based in relatioship

(especially our relationship with God)

Jesus didn’t say “I’m sorry you are out because you didn’t do enough,

He said I don’t know you. 

So how do we know if God knows us? How do we know we have a relationship with Him?

This shows us that our identity is not proven by what you do for God, but by how you live for Him

Jesus actually tells us in verse 21, did you see that,  “the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven”

But isn’t that what you are doing when you cast out demons or perform miracles…according to Jesus that isn’t what He is talking about.  

He actually shows us a ton of times in scripture but one of those times, we should all know

Jesus is asked what is the most important thing that God wants us to do: This is His response.

Matthew 22:37–40 “Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.””

According to Jesus, those who do the will of the Father (Those who He knows)

Love God more than anything else (later He shows that means we obey Him)

Just as important, we are supposed to love others.

These are relational realities. 

One theologian (Reinhart Niebuhr) put it

“The call to righteousness encompasses personal virtue, private devotion, and unselfish social behavior; and to these things seemingly supernatural powers are incidental.”

Healing and prophesying and casting out demons; they are important, but they, at the end of the day, are not what we do; they are what God does through us.  What we do is Love God and Love People.

The second Lie that we have believed is 

Lies #2 I am what I have done (past mistakes)

For some of us, identity isn’t shaped by performance; it’s shaped by pain.

Failure

Regret

A wound

A moment of shame or betrayal that we can’t forget

There are so many people in scripture who could have let their past define them

Peter - cut off someone’s ear and denied Jesus

Matthew - tax collector, cheated his friends

Zacheus - the same

Rahab - Prostitute

Ruth - Gentile, widow, outsider

Paul - Murderer, persecutor

The thief on the cross

All of them have pasts that disqualify them; they have parts of their lives that would lead them to identify themselves as failures, forgotten, or outsiders.  But their past sins and mistakes, their past abuse or station in life did not define who they were.  Each of them had an encounter with God and was reborn into a new destiny.

Truth #2

2 Corinthians tells us in Chapter 5:

2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!”

God doesn’t define you by your worst chapter or your worst day.  He defines you by “His redemptive work.”

That is what Paul is saying; in fact, in the verse right before this, he says,

2 Corinthians 5:16 “So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.”

This is what God does, we don’t see anyone the way the world sees them, 

Paul goes on to say,

2 Corinthians 5:18 “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation:”

The world tells you who you were; they write you off, cancel you, shame you.

Jesus tells you who you are becoming.

Everyone else may have written you off, put you in a box, and labeled it loser, failure, hopeless

Peter became one of the leaders of the early church

Matthew wrote a Gospel that we have used today

Zacheus made it right with his neighbors

Rahab was written down in the hall of fame of faith in Hebrews

Ruth was the great grandmoter of David and in the family of Jesus

Paul became one of the greatest missionaries in Christianity and wrote a good portion of the New Testament

And the thief on the cross received the grace of Jesus and experienced paradise with Him

You are not who you were; you are a new creation in Christ Jesus. Your story is not over; it is just beginning.

Lie #3 You are what you have

( I am what I possess or don’t)

For many of us we say If only I had more

Money

Fame

Influence

Opportunity

Power

“Then I would matter”

“then I would be okay”

“then I would feel better about myself.”

But our worth and identity are not based on what we have accumulated in life.

Worth, technically speaking, is based on what someone is willing to pay.  

The world looks at what you have accomplished, what you own, the house, the car, the girlfriends or boyfriends, the life, the image.  If they like what they see (basically, if you have what they want), then you are worth something.

But the Bible does say a bit about what you are worth.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians

1 Corinthians 6:20 “you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.”

So what was the price?

John tells us in the most famous verse in all of scripture

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

That is the price that He was willing to pay - it cost Jesus everything, it cost Him His life just so that you could have a relationship with God.  That is what God thinks you are worth

The world says your identity, your worth, is wrapped up in what you have, but God invites you to live in the truth

Truth #3: Your worth is based on who has you. 

You see, because of Jesus sacrifice and our submission to Him, He accepts us into His family. You aren’t just a part of the clique or friend group; you are a part of the family

1 John 3:1 “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.”

That’s the value you have.

Your identity is not in what you own or what you accumulate in life, it is rooted in being loved by God and belonging to His family.

It isn’t wrapped up in “what I have”, it is in “who has me.”

God doesn’t just tolerate you - He adopts you, He delights in you

You are not defined by your success. You are not defined by your failure

You are defined by “love,” God’s love for you in the middle of your mess, without ever deserving it. God looks at you with love and compassion and says, "Welcome home. You are mine. You are my child, and that is all you need."

Invitation

Are you here, and you are exhausted because you have been living from an identity God never asked you to carry?

Jesus doesn’t just want to forgive you, he wants to redefine you

He doesn’t want to give you a better life; he wants to give you a new life

The question isn’t , “What have you done or what do you have to give Him.”

It’s “Are you known by God.”

Not just known about

But deeply known

Have you invited Him into every area of your life, the spaces that you are too embarrassed to let anyone else into?  Those lowest moments, the painful moments.

Because that is where God accepts you, at the moment that others reject you, He is there saying you are my child, come home

If you let Him in those spaces, he can give you a new identity and change the trajectory of your life.

Remember what Paul said, If anyone is in Christ (ANYONE - no matter what you’ve done, or where you have been, ANYONE), if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation, the old is gone, and the NEW has come.