Who am I
Notes
Transcript
Intro:
Who knows what this is? Right a driver’s license, it how we identify ourselves when we drive or you might have a military ID or a state ID. Most of us have a Social Security Card. All ways to Identify ourselves. Isn’t it funny though that none of us carries a Jesus ID? What is it that makes you, you? Do you try to be like a popular person or dress with the latest fashion? You know the world is so busy telling you who you are and what you should do and what you should wear that we have totally missed what the Bible says in
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
Prayer
How many of us have heard the term Imageo Dei? Does anyone know what it means? That’s right, image of God! You were created in the image of God, to be similar to Him, not to be Him or to achieve and God status, but to love like He does, to build like He does, to encourage like He does and to live like He does. We are supposed to become a little less like our sinful selves and more like our Savior Jesus Christ, that is why He talked about the vine and the branches in John 15, lets go ahead and turn over there.
Branches
Branches
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
A. Abide
You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.
1. To remain
a. There is a choice
b. Choose to remain
2. With Expectation
a. God pours out
b. Don’t remain just because
c. Let God work in you
d. Grafted branches take on the characteristics of the vine
Being a kid in school, had to start talking and acting like the others. Took on the characteristics of what i thought was my people. Now, what I realized is the only unchanging character is the character of God and I want to be like Him!
B. Keeping Commands
If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
1. Bears Fruit
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
a. Becoming like the vine
b. This is the outward acceptance of the Spirit within
c. It will change you
2. How I know
a. Do I look like the vine or the world
b. I was dying laying there on the ground
c. Once He took me in I couldn’t helped but be changed
i. It was my confirmation
C. Being like the vine
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.
1. If you
a. This is a covenant
b. There are conditions
c. Must remain in Him/Be like Him
2. Look, act, talk and love like me
a. There is a desire to
People ask is it hard to follow all the rules. I respond by saying it is devastating not to. Every time I fall or sin, there is such a tear in my heart. I have found a better walk with less stress, anxiety and shame. However, I still have the flesh and it is contrary to the Spirit
b. No longer becomes about have to but want to
c. Realize the Joy that’s there
My Dad and working on cars, taking his time and being meticulous. I am impatient at best had a hard time following him. But now I understand why he did the things he did and I now find myself doing the same things. Its the same with God.
Joyful
Joyful
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
A. Love one another
1. So much better than fighting
a. Divisiveness is of Satan
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
b. That’s what he sought in the garden - Be like God
c. What He seeks today, divide that body, get their minds off Christ
2. Peace gives us joy
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.
a. Peace amongst the family
b. Being like minded to the goal of growing the kingdom
Mission: Focusing on Christ as we reach Kaw Valley with authentic worship, genuine service, unconditional love and unarmed truth.
And our vision: Going Out and Elevating within
All focuses on joy of loving each other.
B. Friend of God
a. No longer jockeying for position
b. Highest honor
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.
c. Our achievement now in the Kingdom is to love
d. Mankind has been chosen, nothing more to gain
i. nothing to fight over
ii. Follow the Word, all else is nothing
e. That’s now my identity, who I am
You are my friends if you do what I command.
Other Worldly
Other Worldly
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.
A. World Hates You
1. So much time looking like the world
a. Act like them
b. Entice like them as if the Word didn’t have power
For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.
2. Trying to get people to like me
a. So I try to make them happy
Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
b. Not who God made us to be
If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also.
B. Persecuted
1. Am I seeking to prevent this
a. by looking like the world or acting like them
b. Didn’t Jesus call me to persecution
2. I must seek to be different than the world
a. My identity is eternity not here
b. I seek to comply with that image
c. I will win God esteem and joy
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.
Remember my first real trials at my job. Preaching the Gospel and bringing people to Christ but I started getting into trouble. I was written up twice. However, when my mentor told me to look at Jam 1:2-3 I changed my attitude, it meant I was on the right path.
i. I had to seek better ways
ii. But in the end it was joyful to be persecuted
iii. I couldn’t stop it was my identity
Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’
“When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.
C. The Helper
1. You are not alone in the fight
a. You have the Holy Spirit to mold and shape you
b. He gives us power and authority
c. Grants protection
2. Will help to sculpt our identity
a. Begin to cut out the bad stuff
b. Encourage us in the good stuff
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.
c. We have a Spirit of boldness within
i. Have to let it out
ii. have to allow it to change us
iii. God is the God of freedom not robotics
iv. Won’t force Himself, we have to choose it
v. What the battle of the flesh is all about
3. Have to choose the Spirit over the flesh
For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
a. Find your identity in the Spirit
b. You wont be perfect but you will be changed
c. That’s where love comes from
Conclusion:
That’s where our identity if found. Never in what the world tells us but in the teachings of Christ. The world will tell you, you are enough and a good person, the Bible tells us we are depraved and need a savior. The world tells you, You do You, Jesus says die to yourself and come to me. The world turns its back on you but the Word never changes and says God is in love with the broken you, the you that’s not good enough and you know what, He still calls you worthy, that’s the duality of God’s love! He sees me in an unbeatable broken state and yet, not having been the cause, comes and corrects the wrong by dying for us and lifting us into eternal joy and peace. That’s why my identity is no longer found in the world but in God alone!
Pray