Finding Your True Identity

Sermon 3-

A newly promoted computer video game designer moved into his new and impressive office. As he sat behind his new big desk, an intern knocked at his door. “Just a minute,” the game designer said, “I’m on the phone.” He picked up the phone and said loudly, “Yes, sir, I’ll call the Xbox President this afternoon. No, sir, I won’t forget.” Then he hung up the phone and told the intern to come in. “What can I help you with?” the designer asked. “Well, sir,” the intern replied, “I’ve come to hook up your phone.

Just like the newly promoted video game designer, we all sometimes like to look good. We like to self-promote. We like to think of ourselves as important, and we are important, especially in Gods eyes. But where is our identity mainly rooted? Where do we find value for ourselves? Is it mostly in what other people think about us? Is it our grades? Our looks? Our Friends? Our smarts? Jesus reminds us in this passage that there is a better way.

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life. 22 Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

23 Jesus turned and said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” 24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

25 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 27 For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.”

In verses 25 and 26, over and over again, we see the Greek word psyche, from which we get our word psychology. The translators translate it differently so, in a sense, it masks the fact that the word is being used so prominently.

In verse 25, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?” Every time it’s the same Greek word. Sometimes they translate it life. Sometimes they translate it soul. It’s the word psyche. What does that word mean?

Well whenever you see this kind of switching back and forth, it shows it’s a very rich concept, and it’s hard to translate with one word. Eugene Peterson, who has a very respected translation of the Bible called The Message, translates this, “Your true self.” That’s reasonable, because when you use this term, when the Greek word psyche is used in distinction from the body, then it can mean a soul.

Jesus is giving us something that is a major modern issue. He says, “Here is how you can find …” What? Your true self. Your truest self. Here’s how you can get into connection with who you really are.

The majority of the things we do, most of what drives us, most of what upsets us, most of what moves us, is a disorientation. We don’t know who we are. Identity has to do with what are we here for? What is the work we were meant to work upon the world? That’s a spiritual issue.

So, Jesus comes and says, “I have the answer. I have the answer! I want to show you how you can find your truest identity. I want to show you the way to strong and deep-rooted, true identity, spiritual reality.” But how?

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a famous German theologian and martyr, who died as a martyr under Nazism, wrote a book in 1937 called The Cost of Discipleship. He was coming to grips with this passage and the passages like it. What does it mean to follow after? What does it mean to find your truest identity?

When Bonhoeffer summed up this passage, when Bonhoeffer summed up how Jesus Christ said you could find your truest self and spiritual reality, he put it this way.

Bonhoeffer says when Jesus Christ calls us, he bids you come and die, because when Jesus says, “If you want to find spiritual reality, if you want to find your truest identity, take up your cross.” You know, unfortunately for us here the word cross means spiritual stuff, but all the original hearers heard “cross,” which was the worst possible kind of execution.

Jesus Christ says, “You want to find yourself? Walk out before the firing squad. You want to find yourself? Become a dead man walking.” That’s how you do it. When Jesus Christ calls us, he bids us come and die. Now what does that mean?

We’re going to first look at the story of Peter’s mistake. In verses 21–23 we see the story of Peter’s mistake. In verses 24–27 we see the teaching that came from that mistake.

So let’s look first at what the mistake was, and then what the teaching is that came out of that. Then we’ll close with some application to our particular situations. First of all, let’s look at the story of Peter’s mistake. Why would Jesus say what he says to Peter?

This is a forceful rebuke. He calls Peter Satan. That’s never been said. Then secondly, it’s not only significant for the forcefulness of it. This rebuke is significant for the timing of it. Look at verse 21. It says, “From that time on Jesus began …” Now what’s this time? Well what had just happened is the famous moment of Peter’s confession. What Peter has just done is this. This is just a few verses earlier. Jesus says to all the disciples, “Who do they say that I am?”

The disciples say, “Basically they say you’re one of the prophets.” Jesus says, “Well, who do you say I am?” Peter steps up and says, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That was a tremendous moment. Here’s what Peter is saying. Peter says, “Wait a minute. You’re not just a prophet. Lord, all the prophets are always pointing forward to salvation, but you’re always pointing to yourself. There has never been a prophet like that.

All the other prophets have always said, ‘The Lord says …’ You’re always saying, ‘I say to you …’ There’s never been a prophet like that.” He suddenly realizes, You’re not just a prophet. All the other prophets point to the way of salvation, but you have said, ‘I am the way.’ All other prophets say, ‘Here’s how to get saved,’ and you’re the only one who says, ‘I’ve come to save you.’ ”

At that moment, Jesus Christ looks at him and says, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church …” Jesus is saying, “If you don’t understand what Peter just said, you’re not in the church. You’re not a Christian.”

In other words, he says, “Every other religion has a founder who is a prophet and who says, ‘Salvation is through striving. Go do it.’ I am the only founder of any religion who has come and said not, ‘Salvation is through striving,’ but, ‘Salvation is through receiving.’ Not, ‘There. Go and strive for your salvation,’ but, ‘No, I have come to strive, and I’ve come to accomplish your salvation.’ ” Until you understand that, you’re not in the church. You’re not a Christian.

Jesus has never said anything higher to anybody. Now two seconds later, Jesus says something that’s worse than he has said to anyone ever in history. Not only that, if you look carefully at verse 24, we see after he says this to Peter, he turns to the disciples. He was doing this in front of everybody. If you have any compassion in your heart, if you have any sensitivity of spirit, if you have to rebuke someone, you take them in private.

The only time anyone who was really compassionate would ever do this kind of public thing would be only if the error was incredibly serious for that man and incredibly serious for everybody else. The rebuke is there because the mistake is so serious. Well, what’s the reason for the mistake?

Well, here’s what the mistake is. When Jesus said, “Who do you think I am?” and Peter says, “You’re the Son,” Jesus says, “Yes!” Wow. Because Peter, from the time he was young, and every Jew in the Mediterranean world, knew who that was.

The Old Testament is filled with the prophecies of someone who will come who is called the Son. In , Daniel has a vision of someone who is coming in great glory in the clouds of heaven with millions of angels. “… one like a son of man …” which means it’s a divine figure but clearly in the human form. This figure is going to come to earth and is going to save us by putting down all evil and destroying all sickness and death and evil and suffering.

Of course, the Son is this great figure of power. When Jesus says, “Yes, Simon Bar-Jonah, that’s exactly who I am,” Peter is very excited.

I mean, Peter knew all the texts. If you go to , it talks about the divine Son, this divine figure who will come and break the evil and break injustice with a rod of iron and so on. As soon as Jesus Christ says, “Yes, I’m that one,” verse 21 says the minute he agreed he was this great figure, he turns and says to Peter, “Now I want you all to know I’m going to have to suffer. I’m going to have to be rejected. I’m going to have to die. I’m going to be killed.”

In other words, he says, “Here’s how I’m going to overcome evil. Here is how I’m going to save everybody. Here is how I’m going to put an end to the evil of the world. I’m going to be defeated. I’m going to be weak. I’m going to be humbled. I’m going to be tortured. I’m going to be killed. That will be my triumph.”

What Jesus Christ has done is he has put together another strain of the Old Testament that nobody had ever thought of putting together. In the book of Isaiah, you have what are called the “servant songs,” the suffering servant. Isaiah predicts the coming of another figure, but this figure is a figure of weakness, a figure of suffering.

That’s why we read in , “He was oppressed and afflicted … He was led like a lamb to the slaughter … For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken.” Now nobody had ever put those two together. Nobody could imagine how they could both be the same person.

How could the Divine Son, this figure of incredible power and majesty, be the suffering servant, this figure of complete poverty and weakness? How could the Divine Son who was unbelievably beautiful be the figure in that says he had no beauty with which we would desire him? How could that be?

Jesus put the two together, but nobody else could. Jesus is saying here, “This is how the kingdom of God will come in me and through me, through weakness and through suffering and difficulty and death.” Now we understand why the rebuke, because when he turns to Peter and says, “Get behind me, Satan!” He says, “You are …” What? A stumbling block.

You are a temptation. Here’s what he is saying. “You are saying exactly what Satan said to me in the desert when he tempted me.” Satan said, “Would you like the kingdom of this earth? Bow down and worship me.” What was he saying? Satan says, “The Father’s way is, the kingdom of God comes through suffering and tribulation and weakness and defeat, but I’ll give you the kingdom through achievement, through accomplishment, through victory, through strength.”

That was a temptation. Jesus turns to Peter and says, “Do you know what you’ve done? What you have done is exactly what Satan has done. You’ve bought into it. You cannot incorporate the cross, you cannot incorporate humility, you can’t incorporate trouble, you can’t incorporate suffering into your ideas of greatness and happiness. You’re just like Satan.”

He says, “You’re not thinking about God. You’re just thinking like men.” You see? Jesus is saying there is a way that cannot understand the gospel … that the way up is down, that the way to triumph is through defeat, that the way to power is through sacrifice and emptying.

He says, “Let me tell you the way to get a strong identity.”

Now here’s what’s so weird about this. He is saying, “The way you get this strong identity (find yourself) is by denying yourself, taking up your cross, and following me.” Now before I break down what he actually says is the way to the strong identity (through weakness), he says the strength comes through weakness. The strength doesn’t come through strength. The strength doesn’t come through accomplishment. The strength comes through weakness. The strength comes through defeats. The strength comes through brokenness.

That’s how you get a strong identity.

So, now here’s the point. Jesus does not say lose yourself, because when he says find yourself, he means, “I want you to have a you. I want you to have a self.” On the other hand, he refuses to say, “You can do it directly.” He refuses to say, “Oh, go ahead and do it.” What he says you have to do is, “You have to lose yourself for me.” Do you see those two little words? For me. To lose yourself not for me, just to lose yourself, some of you have been doing that.

Jesus doesn’t just say, “Lose yourself.” He says, “Lose yourself for me.” What that means is he says, “Look at my cross and let that shape everything else.” See, he doesn’t say, “Die,” because that would be, “Lose yourself.” He doesn’t say, “I died so you wouldn’t have to have a cross.” Here’s what he said. He said, “I didn’t suffer so you would not suffer. I suffered so when you suffer, you could become like me. I suffered so when you suffer, the kingdom of God will advance in you and in others. Lose yourself for Him and find yourself.

Only when you experience your crosses and your troubles and your difficulties in life in light of my cross, only when you realize I’ve dealt with the real thing, the real guilt, the real condemnation, unless you do that, unless you see my cross and then you go to your crosses in light of my cross, you will either lose yourself , or you’ll try to find yourself and both don’t work. If you lose yourself for me, you will find yourself.” Lose yourself for Him and find yourself.

Now let me just show you three quick ways how that happens. Three ways in which you get strong identity by following Jesus in a way that you don’t get by losing yourself or finding yourself, but losing yourself for him you find yourself.

First, you get the emotional ability to admit who you are. Most people agree you don’t have good identity unless you know who you are, right? Self-knowledge. You don’t have strong identity if you’re kind of in denial about who you are. Notice he says here one of the things you have to stop doing (and you can if you are in him) is you have to stop saving yourself.

What he is really trying to say is the first thing you have to understand is you have to stop thinking of your strength and seeing yourself as being able to save yourself. Peter thought, “Well, to be a Christian means I’m going to go on from strength to strength.”

Jesus says, “No, you have to go on from weakness to weakness, and here’s the first way.” The first thing is if you want to have a strong identity, you have to know who you are. It’s not until you understand he died for you and he loves you and you’re accepted in him that you will have the strength to see just how screwed up you are. Your heart will not be capable of seeing how screwed up you are unless it knows in the big picture that his arms are around you.

Until you really believe he died for you and he loves you and he saved you (you’re not saved yourself), until you’ve gotten rid of that idea that you’re saving yourself, you will never be able to look at yourself honestly. Every time there’s a problem between you and somebody at school, the fact is (and everybody else can see) it’s at least 50% you. You can’t admit it’s your problem. You can’t admit the depth of your sin. You can’t admit the depth of your weakness. You can’t admit the depth of your selfishness. Why?

Because then you’d be lost, because you’re saving yourself by being a good person. Until you know you can’t save yourself, you will never have the strength that comes from seeing your real brokenness, the real extent of your flaws. Everybody, anybody, knows unless you have deep self-knowledge you don’t have a strong identity. If you’re living in denial, you don’t have a strong identity.

When you’re seeing more of your flaws, more of your sin you’ll be feeling quite weak. You see, that’s how you get a strong identity. That’s how you get to the place where you don’t have the strength of never having to justify yourself anymore, never have to hide, never have to blame shift. There is great strength in that, but it only comes through the weakness of seeing more and more that you can’t save yourself.

So, the first thing you get by following Christ and seeing his death on the cross is you get the emotional ability to admit who you are.

Secondly, you get freedom from outside influence. Now everybody agrees if you’re controlled by what other people think, if you’re controlled by what men think of you (if you’re a woman), if you’re controlled by what women think of you (if you’re a man), if you’re controlled by what your parents think of you if you’re controlled by what the society thinks, you don’t have a strong identity.

When Jesus says, “Deny yourself and take up your cross,” and then he says, “For what does it gain to gain the whole world and lose your identity?” what he is trying to say is very simple. The way most of us apart from Jesus Christ get an identity is by gaining the world. In other words, we look at the world. “My grades.” We look at love. “This person loves me. These people think I’m cool. I’m doing well in sports.

You see, now what’s going on is, “I’m gaining the world,” but you’re losing your soul. You’re losing your identity. You don’t have any freedom. You are under control.

You can’t look at your F in school or your boyfriend or girlfriend who just dumped you and be ok. You’ve lost yourself. You’ve lost your identity. You’ve tried to gain the world, but you lost yourself. You don’t have a self. Well, how in the world can you be free from the world? The answer is only when what Jesus Christ thinks of you is more important. Apart from that, you’re just going to go from one part of the world that controls you to another.

But the only way to become that strong … Wouldn’t it be great to be that strong? Wouldn’t it be great to be so strong that you could look at other people, you could look at your peers, you could look at your group, you could look at your grades, you could look at your money and say, “You’re not my life. You’re a good thing, but you’re not my life. You’re not my identity. You’re not my soul”?

Wouldn’t it be great to have that kind of strength? You would be unbelievably strong. Do you know the only way to get there? Only when God pulls them out from under you. Every time somebody says they’re going to marry you and then they don’t, some great opportunity falls through, you know what’s going on. A cross. We call those crosses.

Terrible things have happened in my life, but until you see their emptiness, until you see their meaninglessness, until you see how much they’ve controlled you, until they’re pulled out from under you through suffering and trouble, you will never get the strength of being able to look at everything in the world and say, “You’re not my life! I’ve lost the world to gain my soul, because before I had gained the world and I lost my soul.”

The only way that happens is through suffering. The only way you move on from strength to strength is through the weakness of losing things in the troubles of life.

Sometimes we see God as out assistant to get the things we want in life, but when he takes the things we’re after away, it frees us to see God as our God, not just an assistant. See, the kingdom of God will move forward in your life and give you this enormous identity when you see who you really are, which means through the weakness of seeing your sin gives you the strength of no longer self-justification because, “I know who I am.”

The kingdom of God moves forward through your life and gives you the strength of no longer caring about the world. That only happens through the weakness of having pieces of the world pulled out from under you.

Lastly, you get purpose, a mission. “Follow me.” I’ll tell you something. There is nothing that gives you more strength than to know you are changing people’s lives because you are laying yourself out the way Jesus did, but I’ll tell you something; that always brings weakness.

If you decide to live where people need you instead of live in comfortable places, that’s following Jesus, but it’s going to lead to suffering. If you get involved in the lives of very needy people who then are going to impose on you and who are going to ask you to do things you don’t even have the wisdom to do and sometimes you’re going to step on them, that’s going to lead to suffering. You see?

If you take a job that doesn’t pay as much but it makes you more productive for the people around you, that leads to suffering. If you start to give your money away in radical ways, that leads to suffering. But it leads to strength. Do you know why? It all comes down to this. When Jesus asks, “What would you give in exchange for your soul? What could you do?”

Think of the value of the soul. Think of the value of the self. What would you give in exchange? Do you know what? He is actually asking a pretty cagey question, because if he turns to the Father and says, “What would you pay for their souls?” the Father says, “I know what I’d pay. I’d give anything. I’d give my own Son.”

Let me talk to Christians first for a second. Some of you right now are going through some terrible times. Bad things are happening in your life. Troubles. Crosses. What are you doing about it? You are to look at your cross in light of His cross. I’ll suggest two ways. First of all, his cross challenges your wisdom. Do you know why? Because your heart right now is saying, “God has let me down.”

The cross says to your heart, “You’re being stupid. God would not let you down.” Besides that, Jesus Christ went through all these same things. Jesus Christ lost his job. Jesus Christ lost all his money. Jesus Christ lost all his friends. Jesus Christ was abandoned. Jesus Christ suffered and died, and the kingdom of God went forward. So, when you look and say, “God couldn’t be doing anything good in my life right now,” the cross of Jesus Christ challenges your wisdom and comes at you and says, “Why not?”

But the cross of Jesus Christ also challenges your fears, because the other thing your heart is saying besides God let you down when things go wrong is, “Ah! You’re a fool. You’re a jerk. You’re a failure.” The cross of Jesus Christ comes and says, “No. God the Father emptied heaven of its most prized possession.”

God the Father spent the family fortune. God the Father gave his Son. Now you think he is going to abandon you? Of course not! He gave his Son in exchange for your soul. He is not going to give up on you now. Christian friends, look at what your cross is now in the light of the big cross. That’s how the kingdom of God goes forward.

Those of you who may be seeking, here’s what I suggest to you. Don’t you dare say, “I guess I’m going to decide whether I should get involved in Christian faith. I want to see whether it will give me protection, if it will help me find my fondest dreams.” Jesus Christ looks at you and says, “Your fondest dreams? I’ll give you something far better than that. Far better! I’m going to give you myself. I’m going to take you way beyond.”

Don’t try to assess Christianity on the basis of whether or not it’s going to give you a comfortable life. It just won’t. It will give you something far better than that, way beyond that. “Lose your life to find it. Lose your life for me. You will find it.”