Your True Identity

Your True Identity

1 Peter 2:9-10

Intro

People who take themselves too seriously can make everyone around them uncomfortable. Few have had a healthier ability to laugh at themselves than Abraham Lincoln. Not the most handsome man on the planet, but he had a charming ability to turn his features to his advantage. Once, in a political debate, his opponent accused him of being two-faced. Lincoln responded, “I couldn’t be two-faced. If I had two faces, I wouldn’t wear this one.” Lincoln had the ability to laugh at himself and he didn’t let people’s opinions affect him and define him.

Identity Issue

You’re not defined by the opinions of others or by your circumstances. You’re not defined by your feelings. You’re not defined by your successes or failures. You’re not defined by the car you drive, the money you make, or the house you say you own when the bank really does.

It’s like this, if you don’t know who you are, then you’re vulnerable to other people telling you who you are. But the concrete, solid, gospel truth is that you are who God says you are, and no one else has a say in the matter.

You are defined by God and God alone. He identifies you as his own. Look at 2 Corinthians 1:22 with me, “He has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts” (NLT).

You are identified with Christ and have the power of the Holy Spirit within you. You are God’s precious child, and he created you in a way that pleases him.

This “identity issue” is an important part of living the abundant life. Jesus was able to face the incredible demands of his mission because he knew exactly who he was. He knew that he mattered to the Father, and that gave him confidence to move purposefully in life.

We can either let the world tell us who we are or let God tell us who we are. People search for the fulfillment of this longing in relationships, jobs, money, achievements, possessions and a million other things, but the cool thing is that Jesus has already answered the question — and done all the work for us. We don’t have to do anything other than soak in His truths about who we are in Him.

But there is an enemy of our souls who tries to damage and destroy our true identity.

How Satan Keeps You from Your True Identity

Satan tries to destroy our lives. Jesus said that Satan, the thief, “comes only to steal, kill and destroy” (John 10:10). Satan has ways to keep us from our true identity. Here are some ways…

1/ Through the Opinions of Others

What you parents said about you
What your peers say about you
What your friends and foes say about you
Some things may be true and some not true.
Often people say things about you and it models you into what they perceive about you.
This is not what God wants you to be.

2/ Satan Uses Hurt and Pain

Deceitful things that in the end disguises your true identity in God.
Resentment, bitterness
Anger and hurt feelings
Guilt and shame
The media and culture puts pressure on you. “Why don’t you be like them, or dress like them and behave like them?”

3/ Satan puts Wrong Thoughts in Your Mind

When God puts a thought in our mind its called inspiration
When Satan puts a thought in our mind its called temptation
When we put a thought in our minds it’s called foolishness! (Just kidding).
The enemy bombards our minds with false ideas about ourselves. He is a liar.

4/ The worse is that Satan gets you to repeat what he’s told you.

He plants a seed in your mind and you repeat it over and over until you believe it.
He doesn’t need to mess with your head because all he does is plant a false idea and you take the bait and repeat it and believe in it.
Then the idea becomes part of your identity.

How do I know the True Me?

Pascal (a Christian physicist and Mathematician) said “Not only do we know God by Jesus Christ alone, but we know ourselves only by Jesus Christ. We know life and death only through Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus Christ, we do not know what is our life, nor our death, nor God, nor ourselves.”

The phrase “In Christ” is found 140 times in the Bible. It is the most used term to describe a disciple of Christ, a believer or the family of God. The term Christian is used only twice in the New Testament.

Out of the 140 times we find “In Christ” 35 times it talks about your true identity; or here’s the real you in Christ. Now I don’t have time to look into the 35 statements but I would like to focus on 5 of those statements of our identity in Christ.

When I had to have a police check a few years ago, they didn’t just do my index finger but all 5 fingers. Five fingerprints identify the real me. And I would like to look at 5 statements that identify who we are in Christ.

1 Peter 2:9-10, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

1. Chosen People

That means that I am completely accepted by God. You and I don’t have to chase after the feeling of acceptance because God gave it to you and me. God chose me before everything. Ephesians 1:4 says, “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight by his love.”

I was made acceptable to God by Jesus Christ, and I have been justified, made right and acceptable to God. I once was alienated and separated from God, but God reconciled me to Himself through Christ…my identity is with Christ!

Stop trying to perform your way to God. It’s a gift from God.

2. Royal Priesthood

First we are royal which means we belong to the King. We are the kids of the King. And because we belong to the King of kings we are also priests. As a priest we are consecrated to serve God through worship, prayer, sacrifice, and to intercede for others in prayer and service.

Also we have direct access to God and we don’t need a priest because we are priests serving the High Priest, Christ. Ephesians 2:18 say, “For through him we both have access to the Father by one Spirit.”

3. Holy Nation

Holy means that we are extremely valuable to God and he has separated us from the filthiness of our sin and made us pure. We are made holy through Christ. Hebrews 10:10 teaches, “…we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

We also have been made righteous which also talks about our being holy. 2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” When God looks at me he sees Christ’s righteousness and holiness in me. Wow!

4. God’s Special Possession

We are valuable. What makes a thing valuable is who owns it. For example if you saw a cap for sale that was owned by me at a used store it probably wouldn’t be that valuable but if the cap was owned and worn by Joe Carter of the Blue Jays then that cap would be very valuable because of its owner. The owner puts extreme value. Then who is your owner? If God is your owner then you are extremely valuable and priceless.

Deuteronomy 7:6, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.”

5. Received Mercy People

Here it says we have received mercy. We are people whom God did not give the judgment and punishment that we deserved. It has often been said that grace is when God gives us what we don’t deserve. Mercy is when God does not give us what we deserve. As believers we were once a people under God’s wrath because of our sin and rejection of Christ. But because of God’s grace, we have now received mercy, forgiveness of sins and have become the people of God.

Ephesians 2:4-5 says, “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercymade us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”

God is angry at sin all the time, and therefore, we were under his wrath and on the path to being separated from him eternally in hell. But because of God’s love and mercy, God removed the wrath we deserved and gave us undeserved mercy and salvation instead. Believers have received mercy.

Conclusion

But the Bible teaches that God loves us perfectly and unconditionally. His perfect love is not based on our perfection or anything we have done (1 John 4:8). He always loves us, but often we don’t receive His love because of guilt about our wrong behavior.

We are supposed to be conscious and aware of God’s love and put our faith in His love. One time I was unconscious and unaware of God’s love; therefore, I was not putting faith in His love for me. What a breakthrough! That was the beginning of my emotional healing. It has been a process, but today I can honestly say I am healed and content. I know in my heart that God loves me—and I also love myself in a healthy way.

Saturate your mind and heart with the truth of God’s Word. It’s filled with reminders of His unconditional love for you. He says you are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14). He says that nothing can separate you from His love (Romans 8:35). Don’t let the enemy steal your identity. We are so loved by God. Believe it!

My identity is in Christ and Him alone. He loves me so much and He has placed on me His righteousness and I am His and He is mine. That is who I AM!