Who am I?

Draw the picture. We complain about our reality, but much of it comes from the consequences of our inclinations and actions born out of our identity.

Example: I joined the orchestra and marching band in high school. This was not an identity I had before (change identity into band member). I noticed that people who were in the marching band and orchestra had specific actions and habits. They practiced a lot. They took good care of themselves like sleeping and eating. They had to be organized to do their homework, keep up with practice at school, and practice at home. We had band camps where you would get to work with the band teachers one on one to improve your skills. I started to spend more and more time practicing what I learned and soon could perform more complex music, play longer, and so on. Soon I made first chair and contributed more to the band. Soon I figured out the inclinations of a good band member and then I lived out who I believed I was. This is positive or negative. Give C Student example, but these negative realities are not from an identity but a lie that we believe about ourselves and live. But this is not what the bible says our identity is. I’m sure we can all think of things said to us by friends or family that we believed for better or worse. If our earthly friends and family’s words are important then even more important are the words of our heavenly father about who we are. All these truths about ourselves presuppose one thing that is we have put our faith in Jesus Christ. If we have then all the following are true for you.

Transition: God’s Truth

John 1:12

– I am God’s child

John 15:15

– I am Christ’s friend

Romans 5:1

– I have been justified

1 Corinthians 6:17

– I am united with Christ

1 Corinthians 6:20

– I have been bought with a price

1 Corinthians 12:27

– I am a member of Christ’s body

Ephesians 1:1

– I am a saint

Ephesians 1:5

– I have been adopted as God’s child

Ephesians 2:18

– I have direct access to God

Colossians 1:14

– I have been redeemed and forgiven of all my sins

Colossians 2:10

– I am complete in Christ

Romans 8:1

– I am free from condemnation

Romans 8:35

– I cannot be separated from the love of God

Philippians 3:2

– I am a citizen of heaven

2 Corinthians 9:8

- I am blessed

Ephesians 2:10

– I am God’s masterpiece

Transition: One truth is about our body.

1 Corinthians 3:16-17

(God dwells within us as a body of believers)

1 Corinthians 6:19-20

(God dwells in each of us).

Now the believers in Corinth were a mess in their behavior, but even so, Paul called them saints. Paul knew that our identity is not the result of our behavior. Our identity is the result of the work of Christ on our behalf. So we can have the identity of Christ as he has assigned to us and still mess up in our behavior, and it does not change our identity at all 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. Paul’s statement to each of us as individuals is that we each are a temple of the Holy Spirit.

Transition: How does the Holy Spirit come to dwell within us?

*picture C of 3 parts body, mind, spirit*

Think about the physical world. Plants have a body, but they do not have a spirit or a soul. Animals have a body and a soul. Humans have a body, a spirit, and a soul. That’s how we were made by God. When sin entered into the world at the garden, the spirit in each of us died. That’s why we can be spiritually dead but alive in body and soul. The only way to remedy that is Christ and his finished work. When we come to the cross and ask Him to forgive us, he not only washes away our sin but then comes to indwell and gives us a new spirit. We become a new creation and he lives inside us. That’s when all these identities then become true for us. In that moment, all these things that God says we are become true. That’s why it is so important to know what our identity in Christ is because once you know that, it changes our inclinations, actions, consequences, and reality. So, at the moment of conversion, we not only get a new spirit but the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit then influences our mind, emotions, and will (choices). By doing so, the Holy Spirit then starts to impact every part of our life. That is the Christian life. The Holy Spirit also changes our body. Our bodies become a temple for the Holy Spirit. Since the Holy Spirit lives in you, it is necessary to start viewing your body differently. Many of us have bought into some false identities, and we see it in our culture today. Some lies we buy into about our identity:

My body is a trash can (I can do whatever I want with it)

My body is a canvas (tattoos, why paint the outside of your body the opposite of the inside of the temple)

My body is a trophy (workout and image)

My body is a tool (to attract or oppress)

But if our bodies are just tools or trophies, they are just a means to an end. It is only to experience pleasure, lure people, and the habits that come from these thoughts and actions will lead to sexual immorality or various other sinful activities. The consequences of which lead to sexual diseases, children being aborted, getting pleasure but never being satisfied, feeling lonely because they are giving themselves away, and even hedonism. The reality is that nothing good comes from this.

1 Corinthians 6:17

Paul says you are one with Christ. Every time you step into sin, you take Jesus with you into that. When you are looking at something with your eyes, Jesus is looking at that too. When you enter into inappropriate behavior, Jesus is entering into that also. That feeling and conviction of eww you have afterward comes from Jesus in you. When you realize you are a temple, it changes your actions and habits.

Paul is saying that you are not your own because you are now a temple of the Holy Spirit. See, before becoming a believer, you were on your own and could do things on your own. You do not have that option anymore since you were bought at a price. Because your body is indeed a temple and the Holy Spirit dwells in you, therefore honor God with your bodies. Your identity leads to a completely different way of living.

Transition: Living and honoring God with our bodies.

1. Believing you are a temple for the Holy Spirit. This changes our actions. We avoid doing things that Jesus would not want to do. Self-control is given by the power of the spirit.

2. You can start having a proper perspective about our body. You are older today than you were yesterday. You will grow old, and your body will change. Skin will sag, and wrinkles will form, but you will be free from the bondage of always having to look good all the time. How do you view your body; is it a tool, a trophy, a canvas, a trash can, or something else? Are you living a lie? This week spend some time in prayer for the Holy Spirit to reveal the lies you may believe and to accept the truth that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.

3. The Holy Spirit lives in you and can impact the way we think (the mind of Christ, 1 Corinthians 2:14-16). We change the way we think by the power of the Holy Spirit. His influence helps us disregard lies and replaces them with the truth that we can live by.

4. This is not an exercise in wishful thinking. That if you are a C student but believe you are an A student, you will become an A student. No, instead, this is saying that this is who you are. You are not living out of this because you do not know or remember it yet. Believe it. Live out of it. Commit to the truths that the Holy Spirit brings and allow it to change you. That is when life will really start to change.

Earlier I shared some identities I believed and tried to live out…But I want to strongly suggest that if what God says is our true identity then what I described earlier was not my identity. Rather, they were just roles I played at the time. You guys have roles that you play too.

Identity is really about what happens in here (Spirit circle) and not the roles we play in everyday life. When we grasp true core identity according to the Scriptures and the Spirit revealing it to us, it makes all the other roles we have somewhat irrelevant. Not because those roles are unimportant but because they do not make up our core identity in Christ.

Example: For most of my life, I focused on roles until God showed me that I was a child of God first and foremost. I could never fulfill another action of my roles, and God would still love me. That I could fail or accomplish many things, and God would always love me.

You can and will struggle in your relationships more and more with family, friends, significant others, and God would still love you. You are God’s beloved children, first and foremost.

You are your parents’ kids, and nothing you do will change that. Whether you perform well or perform poorly, nothing will change that. Similarly, as believers, we are God’s children, and nothing we do will change that. Once you grasp that you are a child of God first and know it, then we are freed from the overwhelming pressure of every other role we take. Roles that you take on for a time can no longer hold us in bondage anymore because we know that those things are not our identity in Christ. They are what we do but not who we are.

Is there something you struggle with about who God says you are?

Why?

What are some way we can remember the truth of who God says we are?

Why do we need to remember so badly?

1 Corinthians 2:10-16

The Spirit knows the thoughts of men and the thoughts of God. The Spirit searches all things and knows all the thoughts of a man because He dwells in the man.

We received the Spirit of God so that we may freely know things given to us by God.

We choose not to access to the mind of Christ within us if we do not seek out the things of God.