STOP CHASING WATERFALLS: PROTECTING OUR SOULS FROM IDENTITY THEFT (1)

SERMON: STOP TRYING TO BE WHO YOU ALREADY ARE AND FIND WHAT YOU ALREADY HAVE

INTRODUCTION

Born to crave to want’

Want love yes, but more than that

We crave significance; we crave the idea of feeling like who and what we are matters to someone and matters really beyond our lives

Things happen in the meantime and in between time that hinder this

· Failures

· Marriages

· Parents not around

· Go to college because that’s what people said you should do to be successful but after college jobs are few and far in between

· You do everything right; you try what everyone tells you that you ought to try: but your purpose tank is still on empty

All of these experiences, while they make us feel bad they end of deepening our need to matter and this excelerates our actions to achieve that place of satisfaction.

THIS IS WHEN LIFE BECOME DANGEROUS: BECAUSE NOW, WE ARE SO DESPERATE TO MATTER AND TO FEEL SIGNIFICANT THAT WE LOSE OURSELVES TO GET IT

· I am not simply talking about being and bad things like drugs and becoming addicted to alcohol

· I am talking about beginning to embrace a mindset that

o who you are is not enough

o that your experiences in life will always define you

o that you are not deserving of the joy and satisfaction that your heart longs for

Even if life is good, we live in a culture where being somebody means

· The number of followers you have

· The number of likes

· The number of views

If we don’t get any we feel worthless

If we get a few we are upset that there are only a few

If we get a lot we feel good, but then insecure because we have to repeat

BUT WHAT IF I TOLD YOU

· THAT THE ANSWER TO ALL OF YOUR DESPERATIONS, INSECURITIES, ETC WAS ONE CHOICE AWAY?

· THAT YOU ALREADY HAVE THE SIGNIFICANCE, WORTH, AND PEACE YOU ARE LOOKING FOR?

· THAT IT WAS ONE CHOICE AWAY?

o THAT THE ANSWER TO ALL OF YOUR DESPERATIONS, INSECURITIES, ETC WAS ONE CHOICE AWAY

WHAT IF I TOLD YOU THAT THE SOLUTION WAS TO STOP CHASING WATERFALLS AND TO RETURN TO THE LORD WHO CREATED YOU?

“STOP TRYING TO BE WHAT I ALREADY AM”

THIS SERIES TITLE: STOP CHASING WATERFALLS IS AN OBVIOUS PLAY ON THE SONG BY THE R&B GROUP TLC’S SONG: DON’T GO CHASING WATERFALLS

· "Don't go chasing waterfalls"

o don't make choices that work against yourself and who you are. and when they say:

o do the things that are consistent with the person you were made to be

GENESIS 3

Genesis 3:1 ESV

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?”

Genesis 3:2 ESV

And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden,

Genesis 3:3 ESV

but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ”

Genesis 3:4 ESV

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die.

Genesis 3:5 ESV

For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Genesis 3:6 ESV

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

Genesis 3:7 ESV

Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

Genesis 3:8 ESV

And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Genesis 3:9 ESV

But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”

Genesis 3:10 ESV

And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.”

Genesis 3:11 ESV

He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

Genesis 3:12 ESV

The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”

Genesis 3:13 ESV

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

WITH THE TEMPTATION WHAT THE DEVIL WAS DOING WAS STEALING THEIR IDENTITY. WHAT THEY DID NOT KNOW WAS THAT THEY WERE PARTICIPATING IN THEIR OWN DEMISE: EXTERIOR (THE LIVES AND FAMILY WOULD BE DESTROYED): INTERIOR (THEIR SOULS WOULD BE DESTROYED BY LESSER THINGS

I. THE DANGEROUS DECEPTION

THE DEVIL OWNED THE FIRST CROSS FIT

· The devil made them cross who they were with what he wanted: they crossed the divine with the evil which only ends of being evil.

o He does not want you to verbally or even mentally deny who you are; he just wants you to act cross the that:

· He knows that if He can get you to do what he wants in the identity you have in the Lord, he can disrupt and even destroy your life and the lives of those around you.

·

· The devil will allow you to believe in God and he will not make you deny God in your mind. What he will do is tempt you to cross yourself

o To make you act against what you think and believe

o To make you achieve what God has for you but in the way the enemy wants you to do it

WHERE ARE YOU? (V9)

ADAM HID

GOD KNEW THE ANSWER TO THIS QUESTIONS BUT HE WANTED ADAM TO SEE HOW BAD HE HAD BEEN ROBBED

HE WAS HIDING FROM THE ONE WHO GAVE HIM SIGNIFICANCE BECAUSE HE COULD NOT STOP RUNNING TO AND LISTENING TO THE ONE WHO ONLY DESIRED TO ROB HIM OF HIS TRUE SIGNIFICANCE AND WORTH

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE CHASE WATERFALLS. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE

Where are you in respect to your position with the Creator

WHO TOLD YOU THAT YOU WERE NAKED? (V11)

BEING ROBBED OF OUR SIGNIFICANCE MEANS THAT WE ALLOW OTHERS/WORLD TO DEFINE WHAT WE ARE AS OPPOSED TO THE LORD

WHEN WE ALLOW PEOPLE TO DEFINE US

THE DIVINE CORRECTION

THE CROSS FIX

WE SEE IT ANNOUNCED IN VERSE 21

Genesis 3:21 ESV

And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

BUT WE SEE IT DEMONSTRATED IN THE LIFE OF JESUS AND HIS RESURRECTION

MATTHEW 4 - JESUS IS REVERSING THE DECEPTION OF WHAT TOOK PLACE IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN WITH ADAM AND EVE

THE DEVIL TRIED TO GET JESUS TO WORK AGAINST HIMSELF - HIS IDENTITY AS THE SON OF GOD

Matthew 4:3 ESV

And the tempter came and said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.”

SINCE YOU ARE THE SON OF GOD FOLLOW YOUR OWN PASSIONS!!!!

HOW DID JESUS OVERCOME THIS ACT OF DECEPTION FROM SATAN?

JESUS WORKED FROM HIS IDENTITY, NOT FOR IT

CHRISTIANITY IS THE ONLY IDENTITY THAT IS RECEIVED, NOT ACHIEVED

Here is why this is important

Every voice in the world is calling you and telling you that you are not enough: you have to continuously try to be something, to do something or to earn something

The Lord calls you and I to rest in the relationship that He initiated in Christ

HERE IS THE TRUTH:

God wants you to have what you are longing for but He wants you to get in the way He has purposed for you to get it.

We do this by knowing two important truths

1. You Belong to Him

As A Child of God by Creation: We were created to seek Him

Acts 17:26 ESV

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place,

Acts 17:27 ESV

that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,

SIN (THE GARDEN SIN) HAS DISTORTED THAT RELATIONSHIP AND WE ARE ESTRANGED FROM GOD BECAUSE OUR IDENTITY HAS BEEN STOLEN

As A Son or Daughter of God By Re-Creation: We are restored to Him

2 Corinthians 5:17 ESV

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.

The identity part is seen here: “the old is passing…the new has come”

The beauty here is that your being a son or daughter of God has nothing to do with what you do: it is not earned it is a gift: (Wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life) it has everything to do with what He DID!

2. You Belong to the World the Way He Purposed You to Belong

CONCLUSION

Aunt Viv illustration