Who are you? How do you define yourself? Who do others say you are?
Are you the oldest in the family? The youngest? The middle child? The only child? The only girl in the family? The only guy?
Are you the sporty type? (Which spice girl are you?! ( ; ) Do you need to win every game you play or are you cool with losing? Are you artsy type? Are you good at drawing? Are you the one in the group with the nice handwriting? Or are you the avid reader?
Are you quiet? Are you loud? Big? Small? Fast? Slow? Noticed? Behind-the-scenes?
At chapel or in church or at youth group are you the one giggling? Are you the one actually singing? Are you mouthing the words? Are you solid with God? Not-so in touch? Not as solid as someone else you may know?
Who ARE you?
I recently created a Twitter account for myself and Twitter asked me this question! Twitter! I had however many letters available to tell all of Twitter who I am. And after studying for this sermon what I wrote is SO interesting! Here's what I wrote, the first things that came to my mind:
"Youth group leader, study hall master, in a committed relationship, love the Lord with all my heart, soul, mind."
See! I fall prey to this too! I answered the question first by stating what I do: I youth lead, I master my study hall class, and then I fell prey the second easy status to define yourself by: your relationship status! I am in a committed relationship. And then! Then when I have a sentence-worth of space left I remember what my identity is truly in and even then it's about MY love for God.
My goal has always been that if someone sees my online profile that no matter what they see, whether I say it or not, would point them back to Christ. That's hard work right there.
But back to it: Who are you?
When I was in my middle school/early high school years I was defined by everything but God. I am the youngest in my family. I am defined by my athletic family. I am a A student. I am the jokester in the class. I am the "strong" girl. The girl who will play tackle football. I would define myself on terms like these.
And then some rough patch would come along and I would get rocked! I would turn on God and ask Him why He is making my life so hard, why He isn't making things easier for me, why He's forgotten about me. But looking back, it was like I was building my identity up like a tower of cards and when even the slightest wind blew, my tower came crumbling down and I blamed God for the wind.
Now I long to use stronger materials to form my identity--the kind that God gives.
Here's where the Bible is going to help bring our focus in, and while we do we're going to pay attention to the phrase "in Christ" and "in Him."
Ephesians 1: 3-14
"3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.
"7 In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace 8 which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, 9 having made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His good pleasure which He purposed in Himself, 10 that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in heaven and which are on earth--in Him. 11 In Him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will, 12 that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of His glory.
13 In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, 14 who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory."
Q: How is it that we are given access to all of these blessings? All of these assurances?A: By being in Christ. By having our identity in Him by letting Him tell us who He created us to be IN HIM.
Now what is so big so and so awful and distracting in our lives that prevents us from forming our identity in anything other than God? Is it our tragedies? Is it that people have passed away? Is it that someone important to you is no longer in your life? Is it a divorce? Or is it not in your family but in your friends or just in you--that you are depressed, hurting, lost, broken feeling?
So was I.
My family is broken like any other. My parents are divorcing (still). My life has hit tragedy after tragedy. It's certainly not the worst story, but it's mine. At camp I'm going to be reading from my journal entry from my teenage years. For those of you at home, read yours and remember what those hard times felt like.
So what do you do with those feelings? Those harsh, ugly, unchristian feelings (we think?).
Mark Driscoll said something like this: Know that they may explain you but they don't have to define you.
The truth is that in Christ there is room for our messiness, our problems, our harsh feelings even toward people we love.
Where I ended with the campers is this: in Genesis when God created man He said "Now let us create man and make Him in our likeness..." and THAT is your identity. It is in God's likeness that you have been created to live and dwell and it is through Christ's sacrifice that you are able to walk in that originally intended purpose God have you: to live in Him, for Him, in His likeness, doing good works in response to His love.
Leave with this thought: You may undervalue your self-worth but God paid the highest price for your ransom: the price of His Son dying on the cross for the sins of the world. Your value lies in Him.
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