Sermon Notes 1-5-2014

Who Am I??

The start of Ephesians

Who are you?

Who do you think you are? That question is identity-shaping, life-altering, eternity-affecting.

·      How would you describe yourself?

·      How do you introduce yourself?

·      How do you perceive yourself?

In mainstream psychology, they’ll talk a lot about

·      Self-esteem,

·      Self-image,

·      Self-awareness.

At PTCC, we like to use the word identity. What’s your identity? Who do you think you are? How would you answer this question, and it’s an important question. It’s the one thing that changes everything, because when you know who you are, then you know what to do. If you don’t know who you are, then you don’t know what to do.

How would you answer this question: I am “blank”?

·      I am rich.

·      I am poor.

·      I am young.

·      I am old.

·      I am smart.

·      I’m stupid.

·      I’m loved.

·      I’m hated.

·      I’m single.

·      I’m married.

·      I’m divorced.

·      I’m desirable.

·      I’m undesirable.

·      I’m successful.

·      I’m a failure.

·      I have hope.

·      I’m hopeless.

Who do you think you are? How do you see yourself? How does your identity alter and affect your destiny?

We’re going to spend sixteen weeks answering this question, and it’s a question that we all ask ourselves, sometimes consciously, sometimes less consciously. Sometimes others answer it for us. It starts when you’re little.

Think about it, we start to form our identity when we are little.

Were you the

·      First born (you’re the experiment)

·      The middle child (you get no attention)

·      The baby (you get everything)

Theses all come with there own identity, right. So our identity starts here! Some of you had nicknames that defined you; some were good some not so good.

Then come junior high and the teen years

·      Cloths and hygiene all of a sudden became important

·      Did you have acne, were you pretty, were you popular, were you the geek or the jock

·      Did you get picked on or did you pick on others

·      Were your grades good or not so good

A lot of identity is found here right?  The forming years

High school comes

·      Your driving

·      Your working

·      Your becoming tied to a social group

·      You date and some big baggage comes along here

We form so much of who we are here, and some of us never grow out

College comes along and??

·      You can form a new identity

·      You can move away

·      You can change you appearance

·      Your life and identity change again

Then come a career

·      All of a sudden you find your identity in your work

·      What you do and what you make becomes who we are

·      What we drive and where we live becomes important

A lot happens here we start to form an adult identity

Then we get married!

·      All two become one and you are two selfish people trying to maintain your separate identity

·      You have kids and they become who your are

·      Some of us start to find our identity in our kids

·      Then they leave and we are lost! We don’t know who we are anymore!

Your identity is in total crisis, and conflict, and chaos all the time. Do you feel that? I do, do you? Who do you think you are? How would you answer the question: I am “blank”?

WHO DOES GOD SAY YOU ARE?

Let’s ask a different question: Who does God say that you are?

·      Here’s what we see, in Genesis; Genesis means “beginnings.” It’s the first book of the Bible because it’s the book of beginnings.

·      And there, we find the beginning of everything, except for God, of course, because he is the Creator of all things. And there we find the beginning of our identity.

Genesis 1:26–28 (ESV)

²⁶ Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

²⁷ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

²⁸ And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

And here’s what the Bible says:

·      “Then God said, ‘Let us.’” There’s an allusion there to the Trinity: one God, three persons, us. “Make man.”

·      That’s mankind, That includes men and women. “In our image, after our likeness.” I want you to see, that’s identity language. Who are you? God says, “I’ve made you in my image and likeness.” That’s your identity. There’s the identity statement.

“‘And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.’ So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” And I love this line: “And God,” what? “Blessed them.”

There are 4 things that come out of this scripture that tells us who God says we are.

1.   Revelation Receiver

·      God made us in his Image

·      The trinity communicates between each other and God wants to communicate with us

·      You don’t have to determine or decide what your identity is because God has already chosen to reveal it.

·      God has, in his kindness, chosen to speak to us. What this means is we don’t need the speculation of philosophy or religion. We need the revelation of God.

·      We need God to tell us who he is, and we need God to tell us who we are, and the Bible provides both.

Here it tells us who God is and it tells us who we are.

·      And the first is that we’re revelation receivers, that God speaks to us primarily, and firstly, and most authoritatively through the Scriptures.

·       And so I would ask you, this year, to be in the Word of God and to have the Word of God in you, because you were created as a revelation receiver, and God wants to speak to you through his Word, and he wants to hear from you through prayer.

2. HUMBLY HONORED

So, who are you? Well, number one, you’re a revelation receiver and Number two, you are humbly honored.

·      I want you to see here that there is God, and then lower creation.

·       It talks about beasts of the field, and birds of the air, and fish of the sea. And between lower creation and God is mankind, men and women. We are below God, but above the animals.

And anytime we try to establish our identity and we do not understand it biblically, it results in tragedy. One of two things happen.

·      One, We become people who think too much of ourselves and we believe we’re God-like; that we’re almost divine, or a spark of the divine is within us, or that we’re part of some divine, cosmic consciousness; that we’re somehow equal to God, or alongside of God, or part of God, or God.

·      Two, we say we’re nothing more than highly evolved animals.

·      We’re just lucky animals with thumbs, that’s all we are

·      that we’re really not above lower creation

·      that we’re just the luckiest among lower creation; that really all we are is just highly evolved animals. Well, that is to think too little of us.

Humility, the root of which literally means to know your place, is to know that your place is under God, but above lower creation. You’re not an animal, you have dominion over them as God’s image-bearer. You’re also not God, you’re a created being, and you’re here because of his divine design.

3. MADE TO MIRROR

So, number one, you’re a revelation receiver. Number two, you’re humbly honored. Number three, you’re made to mirror.

·      Every morning, most of us get up and look in a mirror, and that mirror is reflecting back to us our image, our likeness, who we are, showing us, revealing to us who we are.

·      And what God says is that, though he is spirit, he wants his attributes to be visible on the earth. He wants creation to know something about him, and so he’s made us as his mirrors.

·      We were made to mirror

·      And so God is loving, and when we love, we reflect his love to others.

·      God is truthful. When we tell the truth, we reflect his truthfulness to others.

·      God is forgiving. When we forgive others, we’re reflecting his grace and his mercy to others.

·      God is generous, and when we’re generous, we’re reflecting his generosity to others.

And so our life is to be one of mirroring, that it doesn’t begin with us, it begins with God. And the goal is not for the world to know us, but the goal is for the world to know him. And we are not the objects, he is. We are to reflect, to mirror, to show, to echo something of God’s attributes to the world.

So many of our identity decisions are about, “How will this make me look?” That’s the wrong question. “How could they see God?” That’s the right question. “How could I reflect, image, mirror, who God is in this moment?” And we call that worship. That’s what the Bible means by worship. It means reflecting, imaging, mirroring, showing to some limited, fallen, imperfect degree because we’re not God, but we’re a mirror that is to reflect God.

That’s why Jesus is called the image of the invisible God. That’s why Jesus says, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” What is he saying? He’s the perfect mirror. He’s the sinless mirror. Everything that could be seen about God’s character is made visible on the earth through the life, death, burial, resurrection of Jesus. He is the image of the invisible God. If we’ve seen him, we’ve seen the Father. That’s what he says, and in fact, that’s why he dies, because he keeps making that claim. And he rises from death to show us the love of God, and the justice of God, and the forgiveness of God, and he continues to mirror, to reflect, to image, to show what the Father is like to the world that he’s made.

4. BLESSED TO BLESS

You are a revelation receiver, you are humbly honored, you’re made to mirror, and you’re blessed to be a blessing. What it says here is, “God blessed them.” What it doesn’t say is that they had yet done anything. At this point, Adam and Eve hadn’t done anything. He just blessed them. They didn’t earn their blessing. In fact, it wouldn’t be grace if it was earned. God blessed them.

·      What this means is that God actively loved them with a Father’s affection.

·      So many of us have this very corrupted view of God that we need to make him bless us, manipulate him to bless us.

·      Ours is a God who begins with blessing.

·      Ours is a God who likes to bless his people.

·      Ours is a God who is filled with grace, and filled with love, and filled with mercy, and he’s a Father who adores his kids and would do anything for them.

·       

PTCC we are blessed to bless.

·      Whatever God teaches you is so you might teach others.

·      Whatever God gives you is that you might give to others.

·      Whatever God does for you is so that you could learn to do that for others.

We are not the objects of worship, we’re the mirror of the character and attributes of God so that others would worship him.

Two things I want to say.

·      Number one, your identity is received, it’s not achieved. Adam and Eve didn’t do anything to obtain this identity. God made them, God spoke to them, God defined them, and God blessed them. It’s all God.

·      Your identity is not achieved, it’s received. It’s not something you do, it’s something God does. It’s not what you earn, it’s what he gives. I want you to see that.

It frees you up from the performance trap. It frees you up from the bitterness, and the jealousy, and the coveting that marks our world. It lets you be who God made you to be, and rejoice in who God made others to be.

And together, seeking to mirror and image him, because it’s not about us, it’s all about him.

·      Number two, you are not more valuable than anyone else and you are not less valuable than anyone else.

·      All people equally bear the image and likeness of God.

·      Male and female, young and old, black and white, rich and poor, born and unborn, healthy and sick. It’s why, as Christians, we are the only ones who have a consistent worldview that believes in the dignity and equality of all people.

One of the great lies is that some people are more valuable than others. Let me say this: your net worth has nothing to do with your self-worth.

An unborn child, someone who is poor, someone who is sickly, someone who cannot defend themselves is in every way equal in value to anyone else on the earth, because they, too, bear the image and likeness of God. That’s why we don’t kill the unborn. It’s why we don’t kill the elderly. It’s why we don’t believe in the survival of the fittest and the Darwinian evolution that those who are strong survive and those who are weak are worth less. It’s why we don’t believe in racism, and classism, and sexism, because all equally bear the image and likeness of God. Profound implications for not only how we see God, but ourselves and others.

WHO DOES SATAN SAY YOU ARE?

Next question: who does Satan say that you are? What we see in Genesis 1 is that God tells us who he is and who we are, and then in Genesis 3, Satan tells us who he thinks God is and who he thinks we are. And I need you to know this: at PTCC, we believe in Satan, we believe in demons. If you don’t, you will have a hard, let’s say impossible, time explaining the world. You will have an impossible time explaining all of the evil, all of the injustice, all of the tyranny, all of the lies, all of the abuse, and all of the darkness if there is not personal evil behind it harming persons.

The Bible says repeatedly that he’s a liar, he’s a deceiver, and he’s a killer. He will talk to you, he will never tell you the truth, and everything he says will ruin you.

The way a lie works is its power is ultimately contingent upon whether or not you believe it. That’s why Jesus says elsewhere, “They’ll know the truth, and the truth will,” what? “Set them free.” Satan is responsible for his lie, you and I are responsible for our belief in his lies.

Here’s what Satan says to our first parents. Genesis 3:1, “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the other beasts of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God actually say . . . ?’”

·      The first thing he does is he questions the authority of the Word of God.

·      But know this: Satan is always going to question the clarity, the authority of the Word of God.

·      I can teach, but you need to believe.

·      I can study, but I need you to study as well.

·      Just as Satan came to our first parents, he’s going to come to you.

·      And whatever destruction he has intended for your life, it will begin with him trying to erode your confidence in the truthfulness and the helpfulness of the Word of God.

·       

Satan wil win unless we know who we are!

When Jesus says things like, “I am the vine. I am the good shepherd,” those are identity statements. “I am,” and Jesus knows who he is. One of the ways that Jesus was able to resist temptation, to overcome frustration, to endure suffering was he kept coming back to an understanding of his identity, who he was. See, to become a Christian is not to live a life that is pain- or suffering-free, but if your identity is in Christ, it’s pain- and suffering-proof.

“Tell about the dirty girl”

God made you and Jesus loves you, and there is no condemnation in Christ, but there is a new identity that leads to a new destiny.

I tell you these things because I really love you. And I know in my own life, in my family, in our church family, the people who do the most damage to themselves, it’s oftentimes rooted in a false understanding of their identity, and it’s because somewhere, the enemy has come to them, and he has whispered to them and told them that they are someone that they’re not. And the result is, then, they accept that lie of their identity, and then they live in light of it to their own destruction.