We come to part five of Identity Check: Living a Verified Life. I hope you've been reading through the book of 1 Peter, and I hope it has been reading through you, because again, like I always say, that's exactly how our lives are changed. It's not just reading a Word. It's allowing that Word to read you and then obeying and submitting to that very Word.
My father passed away just after I got out of high school. My father went on to be with the Lord, and it wasn't long after I got out of high school. The short time I had with my father I thoroughly enjoyed. My dad put a lot of things into my life. My dad deposited a lot of incredible nuggets and wisdom and love and work ethic. You go on and on. I had a good father.
He deposited a lot of that in my life. I desperately miss him, but I know I will see him again, so I'm thankful for that. He did; he put a lot of things into my life. I can stand in front of a bathroom mirror to this very day, and there are often times that I hear my father whisper to my heart. He whispers to my spirit, and I hear him say this. "Is that really who you want to be?"
I want you to know there are going to be times in your life, there will be moments in your life that something will happen that is unforgettable. There will be moments in your life that there will be moments of direction change. There will also be moments in your life where a seed has been planted deep in your heart and your spirit that you don't necessarily respond to right there in the moment, but it begins to grow, and before long, it begins to produce this beautiful harvest that it was intended to produce.
I remember one night in particular when I was young, when I was a teenager, that all three of those converged together. It was a night that I will absolutely never forget as long as I live. It was a night that the direction of my life began to change, and it was a night that a seed was planted deep within my heart that began to produce fruit and began to grow. It was an incredible night, because it was a night of beauty in the middle of a bunch of ugliness.
It was a night that God began to work in my life long before I ever knew he was working in my life. I didn't go out that night as a teenager looking for a lot of trouble. I didn't go out the door that night looking to do something wrong. I really didn't. My heart was raised by my father. He put a lot of good stuff in me, put a lot of good morals in me, told me what kind of man I was supposed to be and how I was supposed to live and how I was supposed to act. Has anybody ever been there?
When I walked out that door, there was no motive to go, "Hey, man…" There was no premeditation. But before long, I found myself under a lot of peer pressure, and I had one of those nights that I gave in to that peer pressure. I had one of those nights that I made a very not-so-good decision. It was a bad decision. I partook of some things I wasn't supposed to partake of. I remember, by the grace of God, I finally made my way home. The only intention I had was to get by my parents, make it down to my bedroom, and go to sleep.
I knew my dad wasn't at home. He was working late, really late that night. I saw his truck up at the shop where he used to own a heating and air conditioning business. When I pulled in, I thought, "Man, I scored." I knew I could just slip right on by my mom. I opened the door, and I walk in, and sure enough, as soon as I step into the kitchen, our living room was just in front of me, and there was my mother and my cousin, Angie.
I did the little quick little, "Hey, guys. How are you doing?" and got ready to turn, and my cousin Angie goes (my mom's name is Janet, "Janet, do you see his eyes?" Uh-oh. My mama called me Stevie. "Stevie, come back here a minute." I come walking back, and I stood in the kitchen. I'm still a good 20 feet from her. I said, "Yeah, mom, what's up?" She said, "Where have you been?"
I tried to explain myself. "What have you been doing?" "I've done nothing, mom. I'm just coming home. I had a good time tonight. I'm going to go downstairs." She said, "Are you sure?" I said, "Absolutely." Then my cousin, Angie, goes, "Janet, he's lying to you. Look at his eyes." I wanted to just… It was like, "Come on, now. You're my cousin. Quit ratting me out." She was only a couple of years older than I was. "Aren't we on the same team?"
"Janet, you need to look at his eyes real good." My mom came in there, and she got up close. She looked at my eyes and said, "Son, what have you been doing?" I said, "I haven't been doing anything." Angie came in there, and she basically knew what I had been doing, and she called me out on it. My mom said, "You've got to be kidding me. You go sit down at that table right there, and…" Here it comes."…just wait until your daddy gets home."
Has anybody ever been there? Oh, my gosh. "Just wait until your daddy gets home." I'm sitting there at the table, and I am just like, "Oh, my goodness. What's going to happen?" I'm having all of these flashbacks of all of these other times I've kind of made some bad choices. My mind flashed back to when I learned my first cuss word at school when I was in the third grade. I came home, and I got some spray paint. I went and wrote those two cuss words on the back of his metal shop in black paint, proud of my new cuss words I had learned.
I remember my dad caught me, because I had black paint all over my hands. I remember him walking me around with his hand on my shoulder. As soon as we rounded the corner, he saw those big… I mean, I had gone graffiti, man. It was all over the place. I was thinking, "Man, he is going to tear me a new one." I felt his hand kind of squeeze my shoulder a little bit, and thought, "Man, I've had it."
Then he rattles off, "You spelled damn wrong." I was hoping it was one of those nights, a little bit of grace. My dad came walking in the door, and he saw me. Mom rattled off something. I don't even know what she said, because I was scared to death. She rattled off something to my dad. He looked at me and said, "Son, stand up. Follow me."
We went downstairs. His bathroom was downstairs. That's where his shower was, his little man cave. We walked in there, and he had a mirror that was a closet. When he opened the closet door, there was a mirror there. That's where he got dressed and put his tie on and all of that kind of stuff. He got behind me, and he kind of turned me around, and he took his hand, put one on my shoulder, the other on the back of my neck, and I felt that squeeze that when I was in the third grade… The story I just shared with you.
This time, it was just a little bit more firm. My dad took me, and he slowly pushed me up to that mirror until my nose touched the mirror. Then he pulled it away just enough so I could come in focus. I'm telling you guys. My eyes looked like somebody had sandblasted them and literally rolled the bottom of my eyelids down. I knew right there, "You're not going to lie your way out of this one, Jack."
My dad, for just a moment, just stood there. I remember looking at my eyes. I glanced up where I could see him. He was looking back at me. I glanced down. I looked up, and I saw his eyes through the mirror, and my dad asked me, "Is this really who you want to be?" That was a night I will never forget. That is a night I had a little bit of direction change in my life. That was a night that a seed of my father was planted in me that began to grow.
Though it didn't immediately radically change, it set my life on a course to understand what my daddy was truly telling me. My daddy was basically saying to me, "Son, I have raised you with an identity. I have raised you with a calling. I have placed my name upon you. Son, I adopted you when you were five. I took my last name, and I put it on your life, and I've raised you. This is the way you want to live? Is this really who you want to be?"
I want you to know today that God calls you and me as Christ-followers to live a life that validates our new identity in Christ and the calling we have in him. Yes, we are children who sometimes mess up. We know that road out there is hard to travel. We know every single day there are choices. We know there's an identity on us, and there is a calling on us, and there is a walk that God has called us to.
In the book of 1 Peter, we've already discovered in chapter 1… I don't want to go through it all. I'll just lift up a couple of them. He opened that letter, and he called you and me the elect of God. In other words, he looks at us and says, "You are chosen. You are mine." Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought that your identity is an election? Your identity is chosen in Christ, that he chose you? He looked down, saw you, and he picked you. He put his fingerprints upon your life. He's your Father.
In 1 Peter 1, it moves on and uses word like, "You have been sanctified over to the obedience of Jesus Christ." In other words, he says, "You've been…" What? "…set apart. You've been chosen. You've been lifted up. You've been set apart for the obedience of Jesus Christ to do what God has called you to do."
Then we rolled over into chapter 2. When we rolled over into chapter 2, he began to put the calling upon our lives. He's given us all of these identity marks, all of these things, and Peter turns in chapter 2 and begins to pull the calling. He says things to you and me like we are a holy nation. Oh, man. Come on now. That we are a holy nation, that we are a royal priesthood, that you don't have to come to me as a priest. You're a priest as well.
That God has called us a holy nation, a royal priesthood, that we should live out the praises of his glory, right? An identity, a calling. Now, he begins to roll into taking that identity, taking that calling and beginning to wrap flesh around it. In other words, he says, "It's not just enough to have the identity mark on you. It's not even enough to have that calling on you. You have to have that walk in you." Do you hear me?
It's easy for me to name my name and say, "I am a Wright. My name is Steve Wright." But if I'm not living up to that last name, I'm bringing disgrace to that name. I'm cheating myself. I'm cheating my father. I'm cheating my heritage, and I'm cheating somebody else out of meeting a pretty good guy. That's who you are in Christ. When you have an identity, and God has marked you, and God has called you, and he has challenged you, the greatest thing you can do to demonstrate that is walk that thing out.
I repented to my father. "Dad, I don't want to do this ever again. I won't do it." Hey, I'll stand here and admit I did it a lot more times. It wasn't until I met the Father of all fathers. It wasn't until I met a Father that was greater than my father. I met the Father that created my father, and when I did, he changed my life. He set me afire. He set me apart, gave me a new identity. All of it ties together. I knew, "I have to live this." What about you as a Christ-follower? Does it make any difference?
Go with me to the book of 1 Peter. Go with me to chapter 2, and let me just read a few verses today and share them with you. Go with me to 1 Peter 2. Let's see what God has to say. Go to verse 11. In verse 11 of 1 Peter 2, it reads like this. It says, "Beloved…" I could stop right there today. God would call you beloved? You saw yourself in the mirror this morning, didn't you?
Sometimes, we know what we did last night, yet when we stand in front of the mirror of God's Word, it's almost like we can hear the Father say, "Is this really who you want to be?" I can tell you something. He looks at you, and he looks at me, and he calls us his beloved. It's the same echo he did with his own Son, Jesus, our Lord, our Savior, our God, when he said, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."
We are sons. We are daughters. Peter is going, "You are beloved." He says, "Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul." Verse 11 begins to paint what I call the negative part of your calling, that walking, that part. He says, "I come to you, and I urge you."
In other words, "This is very important. Listen up. I push you. I challenge you as sojourners and as exiles, as people who are temporary, as people who are just passing through, as people who are not fully at home yet in a strange land to abstain from this fleshly lust, this passion, this old life that is calling you."
Do you know what abstain means? It doesn't necessarily mean just to sit there and resist. It doesn't mean to just keep resisting. It means to do more than resist. You resist by turning your back and putting on Christ Jesus and putting on another identity. That's what he's saying. He says, "This is what I want you to do. You are beloved." He says, "Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul."
There is a war going on for you. There is a war. The Bible tells us over in the book of Ephesians. It says, "For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world…" And all of that. That's what it's telling us. This darkness we wrestle, and it's coming against your soul. It wants to get on the inside of you. The enemy of your soul is always looking for a way in, because he hates that identity that has been put on your life.
He hates that identity, he hates that calling, and he sure doesn't like you walking it. He likes to attack the identity. He likes to attack the calling, but he really gets happy when he can keep you from walking it out. You can say all the stuff about Jesus you want. You can claim all the calling you want, but until you get out there and begin to walk inside of that war, that's when he gets upset.
Then he begins to bring that positive side in in verse 12. Look what he says right here. "Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable…" He goes to the very conduct of your life and the conduct of my life. Why? Because here's what he's challenging you and me to do as Christ-followers. To live a life that validates the identity and calling Jesus has on your life. "Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable." In other words, "Let your conduct be honorable in all the world. That's who you are."
Have you ever been around…? I know it has happened to me. You meet people in life. I come up and meet people in life who knew my dad and knew how good of a guy he was. All of a sudden, they find out their name, then they get to putting two and two together, and they kind of go, "Wasn't your dad so-and-so?" "Yeah." "He was a good man. I can see how it rubbed off on you." Right?
You see, because here's the deal, man. I'm always saying this. People don't have any problem with Jesus, most of them. He's a good guy. They get it. They just have a problem with the church. I'm not telling you to go out and walk church. I'm telling you to go out and let Jesus walk in you. Let them meet Jesus. Let them meet your Father. That's why he says, "Let your conduct be honorable before the Gentiles."
Verse 12. "Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation." It glorifies God, right? Living a good life isn't for you. Living a good life is for him. Then after that, it gets even more impressive, because your good deeds plant a seed. It's the truth. It plants that seed in other people's lives.
What seed? It plants that seed in what Billy Graham called the "God hole" in everybody's life. Nothing will fill the void in their life except for God, and you just keep putting seeds into their life, and all of a sudden, on the day of visitation, what Peter is saying is God is good enough. He's coming by visiting everybody all of the time, tapping you on the shoulder going, "I love you. I'm not giving up. I know you're running, but you can't run from me."
All of a sudden, all those good seeds on the inside begin to grow as the living water pours his water into their hearts. You know what we do? We think, "I have to go out and be good, because if I'm not good, God is going to punish me." What a horrible motivation to live Christianity. Seriously. "God is going to punish me." God punished Jesus on a cross for my sins. Do you hear me?
The Bible says he chastens those he loves. Like a good dad, he's going to convict you and challenge you and all of that, but God isn't up there going, "I can't wait until you mess up so I can stomp on your head." Thank God, right? We live to glorify him and to show others we have an identity and a calling they can't get from the world. Do you see that? Look how it begins to translate. This Scripture pushes you outside the four walls.
When I gave my life to Christ August 24, 1988, I did it in a church over in Lincolnton. Many of y'all have heard that testimony. I gave my life to Christ there, and I began to grow pretty rapidly in Christ. When he got ahold of me, he got ahold of me. My life began to change pretty rapidly. The youth group there that was developing didn't have a youth pastor, but there was a strong youth presence, and they were pretty good kids.
I kept noticing, "These are some pretty holy kids. They seem like they love God." All of a sudden, because of, I don't know, maybe my calling I didn't even know I had on my life or personality, it kind of started grafting around me. My pastor was kind of looking toward me as being a youth leader. I was just there. I knew they were my friends. We had new friends. Every time the preacher would preach, he would give an altar call. I kid you not, man. There were 25 or 30 kids who would go every Sunday.
My mother-in-law was sitting there. She used to go there. She'll tell you. Those kids would go down to the altar, and I didn't even know what altar calls really were. I would just go, "I guess we have to go down." And I would kind of step out. I would go down there and get down. I would start listening to them pray. They were repenting over everything. "Lord, I'm sorry I ate a pinto bean last night. I'm sorry I used a fork instead of a spoon."
I was hearing all kinds of stuff. Some of it was true sin they were repenting over. Some of it though, a lot of it, kept being this stuff I was going, "I don't get it." Most of the prayers in that altar were over all of this stuff that really wasn't sin. They just thought it was. There was some stuff that was, and they were repenting rightfully over it. That's not my point. My point was they would get up from there, and then go do nothing. That's my point.
Your walk with Christ is more than a repentance when you do wrong and trying to get closer to God. Yes, you'll get close to him, but you get close to him so you can take it out. That's why I always say the best way to stay a Christian so to speak is to tell somebody and show somebody you are, because they're going to be watching you, man. They're going to be watching how you treat somebody. They're going to be watching how much more patient we're supposed to be and how much more graceful than we are.
You know what most people think about Christians, right? Most people out in the world know what we are against but not what we are for. Thank you for a few claps. It's true. "I know those Christians. They are against…" That's the way they start it. Some of those are good things to be against, but what if we lived a life that showed them what we were for? You'd change your community. You'd change your workplace. You'd change your school.
Think about school. Think about the kids who go to school. We have some high schoolers in here. Think about that. How many times have you been to school, and you look over, and you see somebody who is ostracized? They don't fit into the clique. They don't fit into the group. They go home and cry every night. You don't see it, because you're in the cool group. You may be saying you're a Christian, but they know what you're against, but they don't know what you're for.
What about being for justice? What about going over to the desolate and the lonely and going, "I don't care if you're kind of weird or not. You can be weird with us." Amen? Pull them into the group. If that would happen, maybe we wouldn't have so much school violence. It's just real easy to blame it on knives and guns and bombs and all this stuff instead of where it really belongs.
There is real evil in the world. There is real loneliness that frustrates people, that causes them to make decisions. If something is around, they'll grab a knife. They'll grab a gun. They'll grab a bat. They'll grab a bomb. Why don't we grab them before they grab any of that stuff? Maybe that's what Peter is talking about. No, we won't edit any of that on the video. You better believe I'll get all kinds of emails. Bring them on.
Let me finish up. Watch this. Go to verse 13. " Be subject for the Lord's sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people." Why is it that we go out and live under the authority God has put there? Because God has put it there.
We get torn up over presidents. "I can't believe he got in. I can't believe she almost got it." Nobody got in. They were put in. I can promise you they're going to jack it up just as much as the next guy is going to jack it up. I can promise you that. They're going to do some good stuff just like the next guy is going to do some good stuff.
What we're called to do is submit to authority. If they tell me to go 55, I have to try my best to do 55, right? Because it's a witness. You know who I drive 55 for? God. I break that one quite a lot. I don't mean to. It's the new truck I got. I'm telling you… Listen. Yes. We don't submit to the government. If the government comes into the church one day and finally tells us, "You can't preach in the name of Jesus anymore." Guess what we're going to have to do. We're going to have to echo what they said in Scriptures.
They tried to tell them to quit preaching in Jesus' name. They said, "Look. You decide what you need to decide, but as for us, we must preach the name of Jesus, and we're going to preach the name of Jesus." Right? That's just the deal. If they tell me I can't do this and I can't do that and it doesn't violate anything in this Scripture, I'm called to submit. You know why? I know I'm not submitting to them. I'm submitting to God who put them in in the first place. That's all he's saying.
Why? Because as Christ-followers, we're called to live a live that validates our new identity and our calling in Christ Jesus. He moves on. Let's go down to verse 16. "Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God." Look at 17. "Honor…" Who? "… everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor." Those are some strong commands. Those are not suggestions.
"Live as free, and don't use that as something to cover up evil." In other words, what Peter is saying is, "This isn't really your world, so technically, you don't have to do squat. Since God has ordained in his sovereignty to put something in place, you better live for God, because you're trying to win them. The greatest way to win them is to show them you are obedient to a higher power than they are. In fact, it's the highest power God has put in."
That's why Jesus didn't have much of a problem when he walked in. He would look at the powers that be, and they would say to him, "Don't you know who I am and what power I have?" God said, "You wouldn't have any power unless God gave you the power." That's why Jesus didn't sweat that stuff, but we sweat it. Jesus doesn't.
Today I just challenge us. I come and say listen. Picture God your Father taking your life and turning you around in front of a mirror, this mirror. He kind of pushes you up. When you look into this, you're looking into eternal life. You can see him. You hear something whisper. "Is this really who you want to be?" Then you know it's a moment you'll never forget. It's a moment that is a direction change. It's a moment that a seed is planted that's going to produce fruit.
It's a moment the Bible calls in Psalm 119, "Thy words have I hidden in my heart, that I may not sin against thee." The ESV says, "I have stored up your word in my heart…" I like that, because when you store something up, you put something back for safekeeping, but you have to rotate the stock, and you have to bring it out, right? That's what this word is.
You are called to live a life that validates your new identity and the calling that God has in your life in Christ Jesus. You're called to take that identity, that calling, wrap flesh around it, walk out into the world, submit to the authorities unless they tell you to do something against the Word of God, be kind, good, and holy to reflect your heavenly Father, that you may plant seeds into their lives, because there's coming a day he's going to visit them, and I hope he finds some seeds you planted.
