What is Your Identity? LV

Order of Service

Song

Opening Prayer

Song

Prayer Service Songs:

Song

Pray

Scripture

Please remain standing for the reading of the scripture which is from 2 Corinthians 5:17-21.

Show ppt slide of scripture.

2 Corinthians 5:17–21

New American Standard Bible (1995) Chapter 5

17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation,

19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

20 Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

21 He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Announcements

See the bulletin.

Pray

Song while children go out.

MESSAGE

What is your Identity?

The Defining Characteristics of a Christian

I’ve been talking about the defining characteristics of a Christian.

New American Standard Bible (1995) Chapter 5

Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

Who remembers the characteristics I’ve shared about so far?

Black Slide

Love, Good works

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. To love your neighbor as yourself. To love one another as Jesus loves us. To love the world by fulfilling the Great Commission. Christ’s agape love for the world working through us is one of the defining characteristics of a Christian.

And how our relationship with Jesus results in good works, good behavior.

So far we have looked at two defining Characteristics of a Christian: Love, Good works

What is Your Identity?

A question I have for you, what is your identity? What do your social media acounts, conversations, bank accounts, friends, possessions, actions, profession, clothes, photos, politics, … reveal about your identity? Think about that for a moment.

Black Slide

Our Identity in Christ

This morning the next defining characteristic of a Christian I’ll share about is our identity in Christ.

Black Slide

How important is our identity to us? It really matters. Our stable mental health depends upon a stable identity. With a stable identity we experience less depression and anxiety.

Chart

If you look at your past and create a chart you would find that those periods when you struggled the most are when you struggled with your identity.

Times like adolescence, job and career changes, empty nest, divorce, … just to name a few. During those times, what was your identity grounded in?

When I was in high school I was basically an atheist.

I was involved in sports and took classes like math, physics, chemistry. My identity was in turmoil. Was I the athlete or the intellectual? It was difficult to be both. I loved nature and the outdoors, and I loved technology and machines. It seemed like my identity was being tugged back and forth during my high school years.

How many of you can identify with me?

The reason I struggled so much is that my identity was in turmoil.

I have to admit that I’ve struggled with my identity a lot over the years. Until about 1992.

Black Slide

From the Outside, From the Inside, and Top Down

There are three ways that we can establish our identity: From the Outside In, From the Inside Out, and from Top Down.

JWW Slide

Why does identity matter?

Because it turns out that people who put their identity in something that is continuous and unchanging, they experience s more stable life.

If we pick identities that are changing all the time, the more w’ere going to experience instability in our life.

We form our identity in one of three ways.

Outside-In Identity

The first is outside in identity formation.

That's where we are looking outside ourself for something that probably pre-existed us, before we were even born.

Sometimes it would be their tribe, or their village, or their group, or their nation, or their occupation, the job that was held by their parents. We're carpenters, we're coal miners. Look, I did the same thing.

In the past, in the middle of the last century, I would create my identity based upon my sports team, my profession, my ancestry, my nationality, citizenship, … all outside of me. This would be manifested in what I wore, how I talked, who I hung around with.

Humans have defined their identity from the outside-in for thousands of years.

Inside-Out Identity

The second way we can form our identity is from the inside-out.

This may be the most common way of identity formation in our culture today.

Most of us now get personalized information and news from our social networking sites.

As users, we choose where and how we get this data, usually reflecting our own personal presuppositions, biases, and beliefs.

Many people today believe knowing what is right or wrong is a matter of personal experience or opinion.

Social media algorithms tend to separate us from people who have different moral and religious beliefs.

The result is that we craft our identity based on what we believe personally, rather than the shared beliefs of others.

We define ourselves through the lens of me, rather than the lens of we.

We shape our identities from the inside out, using the individual desires of our hearts. “Be yourself,” “Live your truth,” “Just be you,” “Follow your heart.”

These are the contemporary mantras of inside-out identity formed around personal characteristics (physical appearance, abilities, disabilities, sex, or sexual attraction) or personal experiences (relationships, interests, hobbies, habits, successes, failures, hurts, or disappointments).

All the content we consume these days is pushing this concept on us.

The inside-out approach is unreliable because it fails to navigate the ever-changing desires of our hearts and our emotions.

When our identity is rooted in our personal attributes and experiences, it simply can not survive when those attributes and experiences inevitably changed.

Plus our inside-out identities still lack an objective moral foundation.

If my personal attributes, (either as a soccer player or a photographer or outdoorsman, or veteran, …) determine my purpose in life (and the way I want to be known by others), how can I be sure my identity is “good,” “noble,” or “virtuous”? How can I be certain I’ve lived a “good life”?

Is a life well experienced the same as a life well lived?

Can a serial killer live a good life if he simply celebrates his evil attributes and enjoys his murderous experiences?

No. An inside-out approach to identity fails to guarantee an objectively virtuous life because it is, like the community-based outside-in approach, subjective by nature.

Topside-Down Identity

What do these verses have to say about our identity?

Psalm 139:13–14 NASB95

For You formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb. I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Wonderful are Your works, And my soul knows it very well.

Genesis 1:26–28 NASB95

Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

1 Peter 2:9 NASB95

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

Black Slide

God created us in His image with a purpose that ultimately points others to Him.

That’s my purpose, to know God, and to make Him known. That’s why I’m serving the Lord at GFA World.

Black Slide

Biblical Names

Biblical names were often given to people in recognition of their relationship to God, the objective standard for identity. Names reflected value, character, authority, or reputation, revealing the God-given role or purpose of the name-bearer.

Simon, for example, was renamed Peter, from the Greek word Petros, meaning “rock” or “stone.” Jesus changed Simon’s identity (and purpose) with a new name and told Peter he would be the “rock” on which the church would grow.

The Godly men and women of the Bible formed their identities “topside-down,” based primarily on their connection and relationship with their Creator.

Our relationship to God should define our identity. I provides us with a firm foundation based uponJesus, and provide us with purpose and direction as we relate to others.

A topside-down approach to our identity recognizes the intentionality of our lives.

Based upon what we know so far, here are a few fun facts about our identity in Him.

We Are Created by God for His Purpose

According to the Bible, we’re not accidental products of evolution. Instead, we were created uniquely in the image of God for a special purpose.

Our identities are to be discovered based on what God has revealed, not created based on public conformity from the Outside, or personal introspection from the Inside.

Our Identity is Received from God

Our identity isn’t achieved through effort or reflection, it’s received from our Creator.

That’s why our topside-down identity doesn’t suffer when our desires or circumstances change.

As followers of Christ we are called to adopt an attitude of humility, to consider others better than ourselves, and to serve others selflessly, expecting nothing in return.

When people adopt this identity and purpose, they are far less likely to be self-focused, on one extreme, or self-loathing, on the other.

God doesn’t ask us to stop being us, but to be known as His.

In fact, God is the source of our unique attributes. He gave us gifts and a distinctive personal history so we could find our place in his story.

When we identify ourselves in Jesus, we become part of a global community, the church, the Body of Christ, in which there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus.

At the same time, God still recognizes our unique gifts, abilities, and attributes that He gave us.

Our identity in Jesus is fundamentally transformed through union with Him.

When you are in Christ, you become “a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.” (2 Cor 5:17)

Through faith (trust in a reliable source) in Jesus, you receive “the right to become children of God,” (John 1:12) establishing a familial relationship with the Father. You are constituted as “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession,” (1 Pet 2:9) defining your corporate and individual status within God’s redemptive plan. God “chose you in Him before the foundation of the world” and “predestined you to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ,” (Eph 1:4–5) anchoring your identity in God’s eternal purpose rather than temporal circumstances.

Our Identity in Christ carries both Relational and Functional significance.

You (we) are “God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that you would walk in them,” (Eph 2:10) meaning our identity is inseparable from your calling. You are “Christ’s body, and individually members of it,” (1 Cor 12:27) connecting your personal identity to the larger corporate reality of the church.

There is “no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” (Rom 8:1) establishing freedom from judgment as foundational to how you understand yourself.

Additionally, you are “being transformed into the same image from glory to glory,” (2 Cor 3:18) indicating that your identity is progressively realized as you increasingly reflect Christ’s character.

Chart of Spiritual Transformation

This is my chart. Yours will look different because we are all on our own spiritual journey.

Our Identity is Grounded in a Person, Jesus Christ

Our identity in Christ stands apart from other worldviews primarily because it’s grounded in a Person rather than a philosophy or ethical system.

Black Slide

Christianity uniquely associates a relationship to God with a specific historical figure: Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

This distinguishes our Christian identity fundamentally from all other religious frameworks or other worldviews.

The basis for this distinction lies in who Jesus claimed to be.

He claimed eternal existence with God the Father, equality with God, divine attributes and prerogatives, and accepted worship as God.

No founder of any world religion made comparable claims of divinity—not Buddha, Muhammad, or Confucius—with the exception of Jesus Christ.

No other world religion believes that Jesus Christ is the unique Son of God manifested in human flesh, or that Jesus is fully God and fully human in one person.

In Judaism he is only a prophet, in Buddhism and Hinduism, he is just a guru (wise teacher); in Islam, merely one prophet among others.

This uniqueness transforms how our identity in Christ functions.

While other religions universally teach salvation through good works, Christianity alone teaches salvation by grace through faith in Jesus alone.

Your identity in Christ is therefore not something you achieve through good works, moral effort, or spiritual discipline—it’s something you receive through relationship with a person who claims to be God incarnate and substantiates that claim through his resurrection.

Unlike the mythological deities of ancient mystery religions and cultures, Jesus Christ was a historical figure who lived and died only years before the New Testament was written, with hundreds of eyewitnesses to his resurrection who still living when Paul wrote his first letter to the Corinthians.

1 Corinthians 15:3–8 NASB95

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. After that He appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom remain until now, but some have fallen asleep; then He appeared to James, then to all the apostles; and last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.

Your identity rests not on timeless spiritual principles but on concrete historical events—the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

Making the Christian identity irreducibly tied to verifiable history and reality, rather than mythology or philosophy.

Black Slide

What Happens When You Change Your Identity?

What Happen When You Change Your Identity from Outside-In or Inside-Out to Topside-Down?

It changes everything!

It changes our purpose, focus, goals, vision, attitude, thinking patterns, actions, words, behavior, … Everything in our life is changed!

Over time we become more Christ like.

Show slide

1 Cor 5:17

New American Standard Bible (1995) Chapter 5

17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come.

Black Slide

Earlier I shared how I struggled with my identity in my younger years.

Chart of Spiritual Transformation

In 1992, before God gave me my assignment to GFA World, He first wanted me to change my identity. He wanted me to go from Terry Dryden, the most awesome photographer in the Northwest to Terry Dryden, a Bond Servant of God and The Lord Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I had to figuratively lay my cameras at His feet, give up my identity as a photographer, and then be willing to go anywhere and do whatever He wanted me to do. That process took me months! And I still remember where I was when I finally did.

Just imagine the incredible transformation that Saul had to go through to become Paul. He went from being a persecutor of Christ to a being a proclaimer of Christ.

Black Slide

Why Is Your Identity in Christ Important?

You see, when we choose to make our identity in Christ, to declare that we are His bond servants, then we are able to love our God , to love others, to love one another, to do His good works, all by His power through the Holy Spirit.

Living out your identity in Christ requires aligning our daily choices with who we’ve become in him. Since you’ve been raised with Christ, you should orient your desires toward heavenly realities rather than earthly preoccupations. (Col 3:1–17)

We are called to treat sinful impulses as dead, actively rejecting immorality, impurity, and destructive speech. (Col 3:1–17)

More positively we are to, cultivate compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness, and above all, love—which binds everything together. (Col 3:1–17)

Walking by the Spirit produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. (Gal 5:16–26)

How Do We Change Our Identity?

I had to choose to be a Bond Servant of God and our Lord Jesus Christ back in 1992.

In fact this is a moment-by-moment process.

My choice to reflect Jesus after I was hit by a Chevy pickup 6 Oct 2016.

Often, suffering provides a great opportunity to choose to reflect our identity in Christ to others around us.

The bottom line is that we must choose to make our identity in Christ. We must become a 150% Bond Servants of God and the Lord Jesus Christ by the Power of the Holy Spirit. If you haven’t done that yet, there is no time like the present.

As we ground our identity in Christ we are able to do the impossible. And we are able to see God do the impossible through our service to Him and our prayers.

I ask you again,

What is Your Identity?

My prayer is that your identity is 150% in Christ.

We know that our lives and service to Lord here at Lakeview Church is making an eternal difference in our community, in the lives of countless people around the world. We know that our prayers are going to have an eternal impact. We know that God is going to do the impossible.

What is your identity?

Photo of Boy

Pray