What identifies you

Identifying features

Last weekend I had a really rough time with my allergies. Which is always fun in the middle of a virus pandemic that shares a lot of the same symptoms as allergies. But I fought through it and never complained about not feeling good once, because…well, that’s what men are known for.

Monday morning I was finally able to breath though my nose again and I was feeling good! I was ready to tackle the day and get started on my message for this week. Went in to get some coffee and my wife’s grandmother walked in the kitchen and asked, “How are you doing”? I told her I’m doing great and her response wasn’t oh, that’s good and you can tell, you look a lot better. Instead she thought necessary to say, “Really? You don’t look very good. You look like you have a cold.”

Thanks grandma! Then my wife decided it necessary to jump in. Not to my aide, but to point out all the ways I in fact didn’t look good. So I did what any self respecting man would do in that situation. I went and laid down so they had to take care of me the rest of the day.

I know you and I do the same thing because it didn’t bother me that she thought I was sick, it bothered me because she thought I looked sick! We all know what someone who is sick looks like and it’s usually not very pleasant. I’ve never complimented my wife by saying, “girl, you look like those allergies are whooping your butt today.”

We’ve been sick before, we’ve seen people when they’re sick, so there are these visual indicators that cue us into when someone is actually sick.

Florida Fan: It’s not just with stuff like that either. In the middle of football season if a person comes walking in wearing blue and orange and they don’t say amen when the preacher says something good, they say “chomp chomp”, it cues you into something about that person. They’re a Florida fan, not used to winning, and probably a little obnoxious.

MJ Fan: If someone comes in wearing a GOAT shirt with the number 23 on the back, who are they a fan of?

That’s why emoji’s, gifs, and memes changed the text messaging game. You can say something then put the little laughing face after and it completely changed the vibe of the message. It’s not just words anymore, we see something that cues us in on what the person is feeling or meaning.

Which brings me to my question for us.

What is it that Identifies you as a Christian?

What are the identifying features that makes a person who just walked away from you say, they must be a Christian?

What is it about the way you live your life and the way you interact with people that makes them, specifically non Christians, say, “that person is definitely a Christian.” Or maybe they don’t know exactly what word to use so they say something like, “I don’t know what it is, but something is different about them”.

What identifies you as a Christian? Here’s the thing we cannot escape regardless if you’re a Christian or not

Every time someone walks away from you

They leave thinking something about you

What is it you’re leaving them thinking?

This is a question that we need to spend some time considering regardless if you’re a Christian or not. Because people think something about you based off their interactions with you.

Is the image you’re leaving with people the image you’re intending to leave.

Those two don’t always match up. Even though I felt great, what they saw in me said differently.

You are saying something about yourself whether you mean to or not, so shouldn’t we be intentional about what we’re saying?

As a Christian, as a Jesus follower, you may think this isn’t fair but it’s just true. You’re not only saying something about you, but your interaction with someone, especially your interactions with non-Christians, has the potential to leave an impression about an entire group of people.

What’s interesting about the term “Christian” is it wasn’t created by Christians. The word Christian, in the original Greek, only appears in the New Testament three times. It was created by Roman non-Christians in Antioch to identify or categorize Christians. The crazy thing about that is first century Jesus followers lived such drastically different lives that people who were not a part of the church had to come up with a term that separated Jesus followers from all the other religions of the day. People outside the Jewish faith recognized that this wasn’t just another version of the Jewish faith, it was something completely different, so they came up with a term for it.

Christianos [Krihss tee Ah Nahss] which literally translates to “little Christs”.

I love the fact that the Apostles (James, Peter, John, Paul, etc.) not only lived their life in a way, but taught all the new disciples to not simply believe in Jesus as Messiah but to live their life in a way that resembled the life of Jesus.

If we can be honest for a second, that’s not the impression of Christians today. People outside the church have very different opinions of Jesus and Jesus followers. So what are we missing?

Today I want to give you a direction to move in.

I want you to leave here knowing exactly where to put your focus and effort. If we don’t have a direction/destination we’ll end up in all kinds of different places.

We get our direction from a conversation where Jesus gave His disciples a direction. This was at the end of Jesus’ ministry. Shortly before He was arrested and killed. Jesus was letting His disciples in on what was about to happen to Him, so He gathered them around and this is a part of His farewell speech.

The Holman Christian Standard Bible Chapter 13

33 “Children, I am with you a little while longer. You will look for Me, and just as I told the Jews, ‘Where I am going you cannot come,’ so now I tell you.

Hey says, ok guys listen, things are about to change. You’re not going to be able to follow me the same way you’ve been following me for the last three year. You won’t be able to see me the same way you’ve been able to see me. You have literally been following along in the dust of my footsteps seeing exactly where to go and hearing exactly what to do, and that’s about to change. So I’m going to give you the direction you need to move in if you’re following me.

The Holman Christian Standard Bible Chapter 13

34 “I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

“Love one another” - they would have thought the same thing you’re thinking right now. That’s not a new command, Jesus. That’s been here since the beginning and we’ve heard you say that before. But that’s not the new part.

“as I have loved you” - Here’s the thing with this verse, if you’ve been around church very long, you’ve heard that before. You’ve actually heard it so much that this statement has lost its’ impact and shock. But when these guys heard this immediately the last three years of following Jesus would have flooded through their minds.

The way He loved people beyond what social norms allowed with the Samaritan woman. The way He loved the outcasts and rejected. The way He accepted the despised. The way He brought in and invested in the people the rest of society had given up on. Jesus didn’t just love people. Jesus loved people in a way that people who were nothing like Jesus actually wanted to be around Jesus. Jesus loved people in a way that people who had nothing to offer Jesus felt comfortable being themselves around Jesus.

The Holman Christian Standard Bible Chapter 13

35 By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

This was a new command. Not another command. This was brand new. We don’t have a lot of time to get into this but there were 613 laws in the Old Covenant. In part, God gave them these laws to separate them from the world around them. To draw a distinction between the people of the Yahweh the Living God and all the other Gods worshiped in the surrounding areas. What Jesus did here was give a singular focus. One new law that would be the identifying mark of a Jesus follower.

What was different about these guys that people outside the church saw a difference in them and just another variation of religion. The way they loved people. He made it incredibly simple and difficult at the same time.

This was such a radically different approach. All religions across the world create a manageable system to help you navigate growth. It’s usually all about behavior modification. This is why it was so shocking when Jesus invited the people He did to follow Him. He didn’t invite them to change first then follow. He invited them to follow which then led to change.

Jesus moved His followers away from this checkbox approach to navigate growth because that type of system creates a hypocritical and avoidable system.

Hypocritical

Any time there is a system that measures growth by accomplishments you run the risk of hypocrisy. If checking the next box is a reflection of how advanced I am there’s a risk of hypocritical behavior. Because once you get to a box you can’t seem to check the only way to justify to yourself and to others that you’re still growing is to point out all the unchecked boxes of other people.

Avoidable

If I don’t see a problem I don’t need your solution. Jesus’ message to His followers wasn’t follow me and I’ll make you a better person. It’s true, but that’s not the primary message of Jesus wasn’t a self-help message. It was actually the opposite. He said often I came to help those who can’t help themselves. The healthy do not need a doctor the sick do. I came for the sick.

Jesus took all these ideas of what it meant to follow Him and gave us and His disciples in the room a singular focus. Love like me.

Do you want to know how to follow me when you can’t see me?

Do you want to know what to do when you don’t know what to do?

Do you want to know how I want you to be identified as my follower?

Then go out into a world that is going to reject you and love the people in it.

This is the conversation I believe the disciples came back to time and time again to recenter themselves on how to follow Jesus when they couldn’t see Him.

Here’s the problem with messages like this. Often times when it’s done and over you leave church knowing you need to love better but still don’t have a clue what that means or what it looks like.

So let me ask, what have you relied on to identify you as a Jesus follower?

Politics? Disciplines? Memes?

I don’t want to do that. Paul tells us exactly what this love looks like, which if you’re anything like me, you appreciate. Because like us, Paul didn’t follow Jesus around for 3 years to see exactly what this means. Paul only met Jesus once and that was after Jesus was buried and resurrected. When we meet Paul he’s going by the name Saul and he hunts Christians for a living. He hunts them down, arrests them, has them thrown in jail to await a trial to determine their fate.

What’s incredible about Paul is he did all this believing he was serving God. After he gave his life to Jesus, he learned what it meant to be a follower of Jesus by the apostles. I have to think the conversation we just read about was a recurring theme because of how drastically Paul changed. He went from serving God with a violent hand to one that served and taught how we are to love.

He said this is what our love should look like.

12 Therefore, God’s chosen ones, holy and loved, put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, 13 accepting one another and forgiving one another if anyone has a complaint against another. Just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive. 14 Above all, put on love—the perfect bond of unity