In Christ

Intro

Each generation have had moments that have had huge impacts on the way they saw the world around them and their place in it. For some of you here today your’s was Vietnam.

For others it was 9/11.

Most recently it was the COVID 19 pandemic. I believe for this currently generation, Gen Z, they will forever see their world as pre-COVID and post-COVID.

It is this Gen Z population that more than any other that have come before them who are facing an unprecedented identity crisis.

It is a real struggle for teens and early 20 somethings to wrap their minds around.

All one has to do is type a quick Google search on identity crisis and it isn’t hard to figure out that there is a problem, along with a general consensus on how to fix it.

Our youth are encouraged to look inward and explore, go on a journey of self-discovery, do things that make you happy, ignore judgment.

In other words, to discover who we are, we must turn our focus entirely toward ourselves.

So with this line of thinking, our identity is something only we can define. Our emotions get the ruling vote on who we are.

Any objective standard of identity is ripped away.

It is no wonder with all of this uncertainty that we have a generation of young people who don’t know who they are.

But they want to. So they are looking for answers. But the problem is they are looking in all the wrong places.

School

Athletics

Social groups

social contagion

ROGD

Social media

And when you add a pandemic into the mix where many of these things went away or were significantly diminished, the impact that had this generation’s identity was huge.

Power in the Text

So this morning, I want to spend a little time talking about identity.

Because identity, contrary to popular opinion is not subjective. It is not determined by our emotions, or by looking inward.

It is determined by looking up. It is based not on who we think we are, it is based on who we were made to be.

Ephesians 1:3-14 NLT 3 All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. 4 Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. 6 So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. 7 He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. 8 He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.

9 God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ—which is to fulfill his own good plan. 10 And this is the plan: At the right time he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ—everything in heaven and on earth. 11 Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance, and he makes everything work out according to his plan.

12 God’s purpose was that we Jews who were the first to trust in Christ would bring praise and glory to God. 13 And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. 14 The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him.

Paul had a tendency to write first of doctrinal knowledge and then follow it with how to practically apply that knowledge in real life.

This is true of the book of Ephesians. In this first 3 chapters Paul is laying out a foundational truth of the faith.

First, he tells us who we are, and then tells us what we were meant for.

He tells us we are chosen, “holy and blameless before him” (v. 4).

We are adopted children of God (v. 5).

We are blessed and redeemed (vv. 6–7).

We have a great inheritance and the gift of the Spirit (vv. 11–13).

All of this is made possible because we are “in Christ.” This phrase, “in Christ” (vv. 3, 9) and the similar phrases “in Christ Jesus” (v. 1), “in him” (vv. 4, 7, 10, 11, 13), appear nine times in the first thirteen verses!

Paul wants us to understand that our identity, the core of who we are, is found only in Jesus.

Big Idea/Why it Matters

Why is this important? The centrality of Jesus to our identity begins in Genesis, when the triune God created human beings.

God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26).

We are innately valued and loved by God’s design, but sin distorts our identity.

It isn’t until we are freed from the bondage of our sin that the blessings of being found “in Christ” can take root.

It is only through Jesus that we can experience the beauty and goodness of the blessings Paul writes about in Ephesians. And it is only Jesus who could make it possible

What would our identity be without Jesus?

Instead of being blameless (v. 4), we would be guilty.

Instead of being adopted (v. 5), we would be orphaned.

Instead of being redeemed (v. 7), we would be enslaved.

Instead of being loved (vv. 4– 5), we would be despised.

Instead of being heirs (v. 11), we would be indebted.

Without salvation in Jesus, we are left dead in our sin.

We think we are masters of our own identities, that we get to decide, but without Jesus, our sorrows, insecurities, struggles, and failures begin to define us.

To be an image bearer, to find our identity “in Christ,” we must first submit ourselves to his authority.

Application/Closing

John Calvin said, “Without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God. … without knowledge of God there is no knowledge of self”

When we’re getting to know someone, we learn many things about them:

Where are you from?

Are you married?

Do you have children?

Where do you work?

What sort of things do you do for fun?

These are normal ways we define or categorize ourselves, and they help us grow in relationship with one another.

The trouble comes when we focus our sense of self on one particular component of our identity and then define everything else by it.

This can lead to disillusionment and take a serious toll on our emotional health. What happens if we define ourselves by our jobs but are then fired, laid off?

Perhaps we have centered our lives on our marriages, children, or friendships. What happens if the marriage faces a serious crisis or divorce, the children grow up, or our best friend moves away?

When the things in which we place our identity are challenged or confronted, we take it very personally and can lose our self in the process.

Our deepest sense of self must be found in God, through Jesus. Not in categories, not in roles, not in successes or failure. In him.

The truth is, nothing else will truly satisfy you, or sustain you. If we are honest with ourselves, and we have tried to find our identity in these other things, we know this to be true.

It is so important that our young ones get this. It is so important as parents that we are raising our kids to know who they are, not based on what they feel or what others are doing, but on who they are in Jesus.

Water Baptism

And in scripture we find that one of the clearest and most tangible expressions a person can make as they identify with Jesus is in water baptism.

Paul in his letter to the early Christians in Rome posed a hypothetical question about identity.

He says that since we are forgiven of our sin because of grace. Meaning that nothing we have done or could do could wipe our sin debt clear. Jesus’ death paid for it. It was a free gift.

And he says that our sin debt was high. The greater the level of forgiveness, the greater the grace.

So he asks, should we thing keep living sinful lives since we have been forgiven and so God’s grace can be even greater?

Romans 6:1-4 NLT Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more and more of his wonderful grace? 2 Of course not! Since we have died to sin, how can we continue to live in it? 3 Or have you forgotten that when we were joined with Christ Jesus in baptism, we joined him in his death? 4 For we died and were buried with Christ by baptism. And just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives.

He answers the question with a resounding no, of course not. He says that we cannot continue to just keep on sinning because while our forgiveness was free, and we can’t earn it, we receive that forgiveness so that we can become something greater than we were before.

So that we can have a new identity. Not one marked by sin, but by the righteousness of Jesus.

And it is in baptism that we publicly demonstrate that we have taken on this new identity.

By going into the water as Paul puts it, we join Jesus in his death. We are saying we are dead to sin. That was the old me, that person is gone.

And when we are lifted out of the water, we are raised from the dead like Jesus into an entirely new way of life.

Water baptism is an outward expression of an inward change. It doesn’t save you. What it does is it demonstrates to those who witness it that you have found your identity, and that identity is in Jesus.

Today we have a few young ones. But don’t confuse their age with a lack of understanding. Each of them have made the decision to get baptized and to publicly identify with Jesus.

And we get to celebrate with them today. And it is our hope as a Church that these young ones will be spared the identity crisis that is plaguing our youth today because even at their young age they know who they are, and they know who’s they are.