Introduction:
1. This morning, I would like to speak with you about your favorite topic. Anyone know what that is?
2. We are a thoroughly self-preoccupied culture.
a. Never worry about what people think about you because they seldom do. 98% of the time, they are thinking about themselves!
b. The majority of people you are worried about their time thinking about their own problems, not the mistakes you made - unless it affects them!
3. So, today I want to talk with you about you.
4. Here is my one and only question: Who are you?
Context: II Corinthians 5:17: Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
A. Asking Who You Are Is Not An Easy Question. There Are Several You’s To Choose From.
1. There is the you people think you are.
a. One of the greatest shocks our culture experienced a few years back was the infamous Hannah Montana scandal.
b. Miley Cyrus was the girl every mother wanted her daughter to imitate. She was Disney’s dream. Heralded as a virgin and tight with her dad.
c. Then Miley shed her image, her clothes, her morals and the you everyone thought she was. Today, her public persona is one of the most revolting and vile expressions of hedonism on the planet. And still, we really don’t know who she is.
d. Hopefully none of us here this morning are so completely opposite in public to what we are in private, but most people have a public persona that is different than their private you.
1) Interesting fact: 85-90% of public speakers are introverts. Because they speak publicly, everyone thinks they are extroverts; that they are energized by having lots of people around.
2) The most public part of pastoring is preaching. If you think about though, where is the majority of a minister’s work done? In private; study; prayer. Introverted life.
3) I confess that I am a mix of both. Most of my friends prefer a cave over a party!
2. There is also the you that you think you are.
a. If you are a positive, confident person, you might view yourself as being smarter than most people.
b. If you are a negative, depressed person, you might view yourself as having more problems than other people.
c. Neither of these assessments is accurate.
d. We assess our value using arbitrary standards that are external and wrong. In essence, our self-assessments, positive or negative cause us to live in an unreal world.
3. Third there is the you that you are expected to be.
a. This shows up in work environments more than most places.
b. You may be an emotional mess or having a thousand struggles, but when you punch in, you push your emotions out of the way and become your professional self until it is time to go home.
c. We do this all the time. Example: telephone rings. You can be having a fight with your spouse, but suddenly you answer the phone: Hello, Sally? Hey, how are you?
1) We change our actions, emotions, temperament and outlook to meet the expectations of others.
4. Finally, there is the you that is just you with your insecurities, desires, talents, personality...etc. That is the you that you live with every waking moment that few people ever see.
5. There is one more person however that completes this picture. A you designed by God that is meant to outshine all the others.
B. God’s Design
1. Each of us has a body, a soul and a spirit. We are triune beings.
2. Someone said, “We are a spirit, we have a soul and we live in a body.”
3. You soul is your personality, drives, motivation, emotions...etc.
4. Your spirit is deadened before you enter a relationship with God. Ephesians 2:2 tells us that before you invite Christ into your life and heart, that this spirit is inactive.
5. When you invite Jesus Christ into your heart to become Lord and Savior, this spirit part of you is awakened.
Context: This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun! (II Corinthians 5:17)
A. What Happens At Salvation
1. You are still you. Your memories don’t disappear. Your past does not disappear. Your personality does not disappear, but your life changes.
2. In essence, there is a new sheriff in town.
a. You are a new person. What does that mean?
b. God is also a Spirit. God and your spirit become allies; friends. Paul identifies this reality as “Christ in us, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:27) He lives inside our spirit.
1) Difficult to put into words, but this new compartment in you is where you and God hang out.
2) This new part of you is hungry. When you become born again, this spirit is like a new baby. Always hungry, but not for physical food.
3) Your spirit is hungry for the words of God. Your spirit is hungry to worship. It is hungry to pray and spend time alone with God. Your spirit is hungry to have regular fellowship with other Christians.
3. If you feed and care for this inner man - this spirit - then you get strong in God. If you ignore the hunger, your spirit becomes weaker and weaker, much like a baby.
a. I know Christians who were born again 30 years ago, but are not strong in God at all. They focus on pleasing themselves, following their own dreams and desires and have little regard for the things of God. Paul describes this as living to satisfy the flesh.
b. What happened to these Christians? They put aside the feeding of this spiritual man and fed their physical or emotional appetites instead.
c. I have known Christ over four decades. Still read my Bible every day. Still spend time in prayer. Still fellowship with other believers. Still need these practices.
d. If you are going to be strong in Christ, these daily disciplines never go away. I don’t want a malnourished spirit when I get to Heaven.
B. Who Are You?
1. You find out who you really are by hearing the word of God and then applying it to your life. What might that look like? A few examples:
a. ...being justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, (Romans 3:24) You are totally free from the weight of sin, guilt and fear of death that once governed every waking thought. Christ set you free. We need to use our own mouths to proclaim, not what we feel, but what the scriptures affirm.
b. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:1,2) No matter what we have done, God made us a new creature. To the best of our ability, we need to make things right with people, but beyond that, God loves you, forgives you and has great things planned for your life.
c. We, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another. (Romans 12:5) We discover our identity by connecting with other believers regularly. God gifts his church with resources designed to help us grow in faith. We need each other which is why Paul tells us to commit ourselves to meeting together regularly. (Hebrews 10:24,25)
d. For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ. (I Corinthians 2:16) Romans 12 tells us to renew our minds. Philippians 4 teaches us to order our thinking after the things of God. We must begin to take responsibility for what we allow into our minds and hearts by the things we watch, read, and engage in.
e. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. (Galatians 3:27) Water baptism means we “die” to engaging in sinful behaviors and replace those behaviors with positive new habits.
f. 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, (Ephesians 1:3) In whom we have also obtained an inheritance, being marked out beforehand according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will, (Ephesians 1:11) All the promises of the scriptures belong to us. We need to claim these promises as our own.
g. In whom we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him. (Ephesians 3:12) No matter how we’ve missed it, we have a God who wants us running to him whenever we can.
h. As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. (Colossians 2:6, 7). Thanksgiving is the fastest way back into the conscious presence of God. If you feel like you God is far away, begin to thank him.
i. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power. ( Colossians 2:10,11) Anything and everything you need is in Him. He is our identity, our victory, our right-standing. He is the I AM, as in I AM your supply. I AM your doctor. I AM your Comforter…and so forth.
2. This is the you God made you to be. You are not destined to live in defeat, discouragement, debt or defiance.
a. Our part is to find out whom God made us to be. Start to read in this word: In him, in Christ, in Jesus.
b. NT is full of precious promises. God has promised things will change in your life if you will begin to apply what He says about you to your life instead of speaking and believing the lies you’ve told yourself for years.
c. Romans 8:37: In him, we are more than conquerors. This verse does not apply to you in your life until or unless you claim it as your own. Speak it from your own lips and start to apply it to your daily life.
