This message was preached at Word Of Grace please click here.Church on April 27th 2025 by Navaz D. For the audio & video please click here. For the worship please click here.
INTRODUCTION
What are some of the things that have
shaped or formed your identity? Think back to your childhood, school days,
neighbourhood, etc. For me I grew up in Bandra West, Mumbai, which was
predominantly a Catholic, Goan, East Indian neighbourhood. What about you?
How many forms of ‘self’ have you gone
through? X the sporty type, or the Nerd or the fighter or the joker or the
bully, etc., etc.
These are all false selves we put on
to cope with our environment and give us a sense of worth. It comes from what
is affirmed by our culture, environment, family, education, and significant
others say about you.
So, we are multidimensional beings; besides
that, have a body, soul, and spirit. Life is not black and white and does not
move in one straight line. Many things shape us, colour our lenses, and create
filters for how we perceive information. For example, there is a
yellow board, but if you look through red lenses, you will see orange; if you
look through blue lenses, you will see green.
(SHOW SLIDES)
However, there is an identity which, when
we find, we can truly begin to thrive, flourish and come into all that God has
ordained for us. Before you dive into how to find our identity in Christ, we
must first see what is wrong with the ones we have formed that are not shaped
by Christ. We can't fix what we don’t know is broken.
Ps 139:13-16
Eph 2:10
Rom 8 :14-16
As followers of Christ, other worldviews
can still shape our Christian thought and beliefs without us even realising it.
We don’t recognise them because they are cloaked in Christian language. For
example: find your calling and pursue your destiny in God. I am a
winner, I am the head, I am blessed. You don’t need anyone to tell you what you
should do; God has put His Spirit in you! How would you evaluate these
statements?
These statements are all true, but they are not the whole truth. We will examine them in detail and unpack them as we go along. When taken out of context, these can become selfish, individual pursuits. At the outset, I want to say that our identity, purpose, calling, and destiny are all part of a grand design of God that is much bigger than just you. So, we need to get out of tunnel vision called Me and come up higher so that you can see the grand picture with WE in mind. We will zoom out before we zoom in.
Your design:
who created you and how you were created determines your purpose and destiny.
LET US QUICKLY LOOK AT SOME EXAMPLES IN
THE BIBLE:
Adam and Eve were created with the identity of image bearers to rule, dominate, and subdue the earth. At its heart was a grand design to crush and defeat the fallen angel Lucifer.
Abraham
Jacob to Israel
David
Simon to Peter
Saul to Paul
So, I want to start by laying a foundation
of true biblical identity—its purpose and destiny.
God’s ways have always been contrary to the world. We cannot wipe down and makeover the world's belief systems and call it Christian.
Jesus says that if you want to find yourself, you must first lose yourself." he who wants to find his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it" is
THE CHRIST FOLLOWER
So let us begin to understand who we are in
Christ, what it is, and what it is not.
Col 3:3-5 (READ) V8 – put off, v12 – put on. What are some of the false selves we need to put off and put on our new self in Christ? Even though it is known to you to ask the Holy Spirit to highlight some things, because we are all a work in progress. Amen!
As New Creations, we have a new DNA (Divine Nature Activated). We are called to put off our old self and put on our new self. There is something we need to do. His Spirit in us changes our propensity – once we could not help but sin, but now, when we sin, we feel horrible because it is not in our nature to do so. The inclinations of the heart have changed.
WHAT IS THE GOAL OF OUR FAITH IN JESUS?
Salvation 1 Peter 1:9
Reconciliation with God 2 Cor 5:18-19 All this is from
God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of
reconciliation."
Transformed new life 2Cor 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:
The old has gone, the new is here!"
Freedom from Sin Rom 6:22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become
slaves of God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is
eternal life."
Participation in God’s Kingdom 1 Pet 2:9-10
IDENTITY and SELF & WORTH
All this is great news. But why do I still
struggle with self-worth, competition, jealousy, comparison, perfectionism,
addictions, etc., etc.
Self is who you are at the core, what you live for, and what matters most to you. That will always come through in whatever you do.
Worth comes from who validates you and
whose validation matters the most! Who affirms what
you live for, your ideals, is good or bad.
We all need validation from outside. If you don’t believe it, look at advertising. It appeals to your need for validation.
A note on self-validation
Self-validate: You must be 100% consistent, correct, and constant. Do you know any humans like this? Do you know anyone who fits this description? Yes, only God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Only He is perfect in all that He says and does, and only He is 100% reliable.
Consciously or not, we all have a plumb
line outside of ourselves. For a Christ follower, it is Jesus Christ in you.
That is why we must learn to walk or live being led by the Holy Spirit and
remaining close to Jesus.
Our identity formation is not about self-actualisation but about conforming into His Son's likeness.
So, when God says something about you, who
you are meant to be, etc., it is the highest form of validation you can ever
receive. This validation is in sync with your design and your purpose or
destiny. It cannot be worked out in isolation but in the community and for the
community, and it is a part of a much bigger and grander design than yourself. God
called a person, but his destiny was fulfilled in community and never in
isolation or independence.
The Christian worldview is this:
The Cross changed our identity and destiny in an instant. It also changed our position as children of God.
You may say all this is very good, but
right here and now, I am struggling with many issues. Today I want to talk
about Identity that comes from Intimacy with the Father. So now we are
zooming in on you as an individual.
Jesus came to give us life in all its abundance. The devil wants
to steal, kill and destroy. Jesus came to reveal the Father, and His main
mission was to reunite us with Him.
There has been a steady shift in our culture worldwide in the past few decades. Never have we seen the issue of fatherlessness in our life experiences as we see it today. Fathers are absent because they have fathered children but not out of covenant. Fathers are lacking because of addictions. Fathers are absent because of their jobs, where they work long hours and sometimes 7 days a week. We are Fathers who are emotionally and mentally absent from the home. This has given rise to a whole generation of young people who do not have a healthy relationship with their fathers.
Nobody has had perfect parents or
fathers. Say I have not had perfect parents, say I
am not a perfect parent, say I will never be a perfect parent. But we aim to
become healthier ones. We have only a good and perfect Father, and that is
Father God. Today, we all carry a father wound that was knowingly or
unknowingly inflicted upon us by our earthly fathers.
Today, I want us to look into the face of the
Father and tell me what you see there. Growing up, several things could have
tainted our view of the father.
|
FATHER |
EFFECT |
|
Distant and uninvolved |
become independent and self-reliant. |
|
Angry man |
relate to him in fear, guilt and shame, and had to manage his
anger. |
|
Negligent in providing, |
insecure and with a poverty mindset that there will never be
enough |
|
Cold and distant |
grew up not knowing how to bond |
|
Never affirmed you |
You struggle to know who you are and what you are capable of. |
|
Always critical |
You grew up with poor self-esteem and learned to defend, justify
and cover up your mistakes |
|
Physically or sexually abusive |
You grew up with fear, shame and a deep distrust for authority
because the one who should have protected you violated you. |
|
Showed approval only when you did things right |
learn that acceptance is based on performance and would work hard
to please and earn his love. |
Any combination of these sets off a whole
pattern of thinking and behaviours that can start very early in life. As
adults, we sometimes don’t know why we are fractured in certain areas or cannot
respond healthily in relationships or to authority. The father is not
necessarily a good word for you.
Today, God wants to heal that wounded
heart and reveal his father's heart to you—that is
for you, who loves you with an everlasting love and gives you more than you can
ask or imagine. His love is unconditional.
The Bible tells us that when we are born again, we become children of God. We are adopted into his family. But we carry some of the ways and effects of the old kingdom into the new kingdom, and those ways must be replaced. We are children of God, but deep down, we struggle to comprehend that God loves us. We need to be healed from those effects. The orphan heart is one of them. It is not cast out; it gets replaced by truth, truth that transforms the way we think, which affects how we behave.
Satan fears our relationship with the
Father and uses orphan thinking to create distrust and distance. He makes us
believe God is holding out on us and not giving us the best. Part of orphan
thinking is when we feel God is not looking after our best interests, we
feel jealous, envious, and bitter toward others. We must recognise, repent,
and replace those thought patterns with Christ-like ones. This is a daily,
ongoing process of renewing the mind.
We must choose to embrace sonship,
i.e., what we have optionally, and now we need to walk out experientially.
Through the cross, we are reconciled to the Father. We can be Christians but
still function like orphans. More about this next week.
