#149- Who Am I Really?

Who are you when nobody is looking? We spend our lives trying to figure out who we really are, often defining ourselves by what we do—our jobs, achievements, or roles. But what happens when those things change or fade away? 

In this episode we’ll conclude our “Emotionally Healthy Faith” series with a message titled, “Who Am I Really?” We’re going to look at the baptism of Jesus in Matthew 3 and ask some honest questions about identity: Why do we so quickly define ourselves by what we do, what we own, or how others see us? And what does it mean that before Jesus had done any public ministry, the Father spoke over Him, “This is my Son, the beloved; with whom I am well pleased”? I believe God wants to speak that same truth into our lives-our deepest identity. 

We’ll explore how our relationship with God can become the solid foundation for our identity in a world that is constantly trying to name us and claim us. 

To learn more about the Trinity Church family visit our website at https://trinitychurchsugarland.org; or find us on Facebook and Instagram

Transcript

Transcript: Who are you really

We are in our fourth and final week of our series on Emotionally Healthy Faith.

The title of the sermon today is Who Am I Really?

And our reading comes from Matthew 3, verses 13-17.

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him.

 John would have prevented him, saying, I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?

But Jesus answered him, Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.

Then he consented, and when Jesus had been baptized, just as he came up from the water, suddenly the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him.

 And a voice from heaven said, this is my son, the beloved with whom I am well pleased.

Speaking of identity, one of the biggest questions we ask, a question that is asked in courses like Alpha, is this.

Who is Jesus?

It's a question that the people around Jesus wrestled with a lot.

The Pharisees wrestled with it.

 The hearers, the people Jesus spoke to, wrestled with the same question, who is Jesus?

In fact, even the people in his hometown, when he came to teach there and was moving in power, they said, who is this?

Matthew chapter 13, we read of Jesus as the people of his town say, is not this the carpenter's son?

Is not this his mother called Mary?

And are not his brothers James, Joseph, Simeon, and Judas?

 And then Jesus goes on to say, prophets are not without honor except in their own country and in their own town and house.

And this is what we see.

Who is Jesus?

The question of who is he to you?

Who is he to this New Testament audience?

Such a big question then, such a big question for us now.

Who is Jesus and who is he to you?

Some question, a question we have to answer in our lives.

 Another really big question we are wrestling with and we continue to wrestle with throughout our lives is this question, who am I?

 We spend most of our lives trying to figure out just exactly who we are.

We wrestle with identity and we try to figure out how we fit into this world.

It's something that lives within us and the persona that we have, that we often present to the world, we sometimes might even question, wondering whether there isn't in fact something false about that, presenting a false self to the world when there's so much going on deeper inside us.

 This is consistent with Pete Scazzaro's illustration of an iceberg.

He shows 10% of our lives is above the water and there's about 90% of it under the water.

In many ways, what we show the world above the water, the external, the public-facing image, often makes up about 10% of our lives.

There's all this other stuff that's going on under the surface and

 We might ask the question, is there a difference between the person who is above the water and the person who's below the water?

Is there a difference between the people, who the people see and who the people don't see?

I've heard it said before, and I thought it's a great way to describe it.

Who are you when nobody is looking?

And so we wrestle with these questions.

Who is Jesus?

 The rest of the question is, who am I?

But essential to an emotionally healthy faith is an understanding of who Jesus is, how we relate to him, and how our identity is actually to be found in him.

And so if we want an emotionally healthy faith and grow in spiritual maturity, we need to look at these questions.

In discussing this, the first thing I want to note is this.

 Your relationships determine your identity.

Who are you?

How would you describe or introduce yourself should you find yourself in some kind of a networking environment?

What would you say?

Well, the thing we often say is, hi, my name is, and I am a, and so we define ourselves by the things that we do.

 If you're an athlete, you might say, I am an athlete.

I play football.

I play baseball.

Or maybe you used to say, I used to play baseball for, and you identify the team.

And so your value, your identity is linked to what you did.

 Truthfully, within the business world, we do this all the time.

I am so-and-so, and this is what I do.

We do that in our relationships as well, that people relate to casually.

We say, what do you do?

A big question that people ask every time they meet.

I'm a minister or a doctor, a student, a mechanic, an accountant.

And so our value and identity is often linked to what we do.

 But what happens when we are no longer able to do the things we used to do and something is taking place?

And we see this as people move through the stages of life.

There's a time when we come to retirement and we are no longer doers anymore.

 And so we often find people in this stage of their life wrestling with a sense of identity.

People might move from a place where they have kids in the house and their entire life is wrapped up in what they do for their children.

The children move out the house and they go, who are we if we're not doing all this?

If we're not a father and if we're not a mother, who are we?

 Sometimes injury or illness or even physical limitations step in.

And we can't do the things we used to do.

And then we find ourselves in a place where we question our value.

But if our identity is based on what we do, and here's the thing, then our value will always be limited to our own personal utility.

In Matthew 3.13, and this is where the scripture is so fascinating, it says, Then...

 And take notice, that means then, that means something happened before this.

And we'll touch on that in a second.

Then Jesus came from Galilee to John to be baptized.

And so something happens.

What was the doing that took place between Matthew 3.13 and then the place of baptism, and then the word from God that affirms Jesus as his son,

 His beloved son, we're tempted to ask the question, what did Jesus do to earn that title and to be received in this way?

Well, the truth is, if we go through the book of Matthew, in Matthew chapter 1 and Matthew chapter 2, we read about the birth of Jesus, genealogies, the birth of Jesus, how the family went to Egypt, came back, settled in Nazareth.

 By the time we get to Matthew 3, the first part, verse 12 or so, verses of Matthew speaks of John and the message of John and the preaching of John.

And so when Jesus steps up, then after all these things have happened, then Jesus steps onto the public stage and before he has done anything, and before, and Matthew does not record anything that Jesus has done to this point apart from be born and be a baby,

 Then he's baptized and affirmed the voice from heaven saying, this is my son, the beloved with whom I am well pleased.

Who was Jesus and what had he done to receive the pleasure of the father?

Well, the answer is Jesus was the son of God and it was because of his relationship with the father, not his deeds, not what he had done that he received the pleasure of the father.

 This brings me to a second point.

Our relationship with God should define our identity.

Our relationship with God should define our identity.

Let's go to Galatians 4 for this.

It's a great passage.

We're hearing from Paul.

Paul uses a lot of language about being in Christ.

Once again, that relationship with Christ defines who we are.

 This is a beautiful passage of scripture from verse four.

When the fullness of time had come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law in order to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as children.

 Because you are children, God has sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.

So you're no longer a slave, but a child, and if a child, then also an heir through God.

So how is it that we come into relationship with God?

Paul speaks to us here, and he gives us this kind of

 pathway from being a slave to a place where we become children of god how does this happen what do we do is there something that we're missing is there a step we should be be is there a form we should fill in is there a step we should take in order to move into this place well if we track with the scripture we understand and break down that scripture it says god sends the son

 The Son, Jesus Christ, redeems the world.

God sends the Spirit, and we become children of God through adoption.

And so we understand that our adoption into God's family rests entirely on the work of Jesus and not on our own efforts.

When we're born and we're children, the name and identity that we get is based almost entirely on the actions of our parents.

 And some of us might question those actions and think to ourselves, could you have chosen a better name or a different name or given me a different identity?

We pray by the grace of God that the love and the grace of God is modeled within mothers and fathers.

We know it's not always the case, but we pray that that modeling of the love of God for us will be modeled in parents to children as well.

But you see, there comes a time in our lives

 When we come to an age where we can, in fact, whether we want to or not, choose to change our name and change our identity.

It's a big thing to say, are we prepared to change our identity?

No longer affiliate or associate with a family name or a family or a person.

We can change our, we have agency.

We can choose to make that decision.

 But here, John 3, 14, verse 16, the same thing is true in our spiritual journey.

In John 3, we know verse 16, God so loved the world, but if we move one or two verses before that, it says, and just as Moses lifted up the servant in the wilderness,

 So must the Son of Man be lifted up, speaking of the crucifixion of Jesus, that whoever, and this is a powerful word, whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.

For God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but may have eternal life.

 This word, whoever, is not conditional.

In other words, there comes a point in our life when we get to choose.

You know, everything has been done for us.

Galatians, we've read about it.

God sends his son, Jesus.

Jesus dies on the cross and redeems the world.

God sends the spirit.

We have been adopted, given the opportunity to enter into the family of God, and we then become the whoever's son.

 who get to choose to be a part of his family.

The only thing it takes for us to move into identification as sons and daughters of God is to choose Jesus in our lives.

 Whoever is not conditional on our works, is not conditional on our performance.

Whoever is an open invitation to everyone, regardless of where we've come from or what we've done.

Whoever is a big word that welcomes everyone.

 Through the work of Jesus Christ, we now have the choice to receive God's gift of adoption and find our true identity in our relationship with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

All that's left to ask is this simple question.

Have you made that decision?

Have you, as person, qualified under the whoever statement, made the decision to receive Jesus into your life?

 The third point I'll make with this is your identity will be tested.

Then Jesus, Matthew 4.1, we see this as well in Luke 4.1, directly after the baptism, another then, then Jesus, was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

 We know the story of the temptation of Jesus.

And in the story, the first two temptations start like this.

Matthew records this.

Now remember, he has just been baptized.

He has come out.

He's just been affirmed as the Son of God.

The pleasure of God resides upon him.

And then he goes into the wilderness.

And the very first temptation, the very first words of the devil are, if you are questioning his identity, the Son of God,

 And then he tempts him.

And he does that for the first two temptations.

He directly challenges the revelation that Jesus has just received from the Father.

You claim.

 to be the son of God.

You've heard the voice from heaven.

You are professing, walking in the truth that you're the son of God, but are you really?

And that's the temptation.

The tempter who comes even in the garden, as we see in Genesis, did God really say?

And we ourselves will continually be tempted in our identity as sons and daughters, as children of God.

That temptation lives with us.

 first temptation the second temptation if you are the son of god challenging our identity directly the third temptation is to redirect for the the temptation to find our identity in someone or something else other than god who is our father the surrender of sonship is the third temptation

 If you will fall down and worship me.

If you will attach yourself to something else.

If you will find your identity in someone and something else is the third temptation.

So if you think about that, we're not immune to this.

Jesus goes through it and we go through it every single day.

 The temptation in the world as we continually find ourselves questioning who we are.

Who is Jesus?

Who am I?

We find ourselves coming up and being tempted to find our identity in all sorts of things other than God.

Our occupation.

We spoke about this.

The things that we do.

Our vocation.

 We might even be tempted to find our worth, our value, our identity, not only in what we do, but in what we do for God.

Thinking that we have to do for God before we receive the blessing and the pleasure of God.

 We might want to find our identity in material possessions.

Why do we do that?

Because the will tells us that somehow if we have certain possessions, we are something else.

We can assume or transcend our current identity and take on a different identity if we have the certain clothes, drive certain cars, and we have certain possessions in our lives, our achievements.

 our achievements, we find our identity, our achievements, our social status, the recognition that other people give us.

We find our identity in where we have come from.

We find our identity in where we are going.

 The world is full of shiny objects, tempting us to re-identify as something other than our God-given spiritual birthright.

There can be no greater value identity than being called, as Paul says in Galatians, children of God.

How blessed are we?

And so to sum it up,

 Our relationships, who we relate to, how we relate to the world, how we relate to God, even how we relate to ourselves, determines our identity.

 We also understand that our relationship with God should in fact be the one area, the central area, the priority that defines us.

And it's in God and in Christ and the full work of Christ that we should find our identity because that's what we have been created for and that is what God intends for our lives.

And ultimately we realize our identity will be tested.

 As Jesus was tempted in the desert and in the wilderness, so too we will be tempted.

But 1 John 3 verse 1.

See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God.

That is what we are.

 We are children of God, not because of what we do, not because of what we own.

We are children of God because of whose we are.

God is our father.

And by his love and grace and privilege, we choose to be in his family.

And we are given the privilege of being called children of God.

Amen.