INTRODUCTION:
Theorist Erik Erikson coined the term "identity crisis" and believed that it was one of the most important conflicts people face in development. According to Erikson, an identity crisis is a time of intensive analysis and exploration of different ways of looking at oneself. Those with a status of having a scattered identity tend to feel out of place in the world and don't pursue a sense of true identity. (https://www.sermoncentral.com/sermon-illustrations/79842/identity-crisis-by-derrick-tuper)
Erikson placed this conflict in the adolescent years of life. Pastoral theologian Donald Capps takes Erikson’s theories of human development and looks at them through a biblical lens. In his book “The Decades of Life” he breaks human life down into decades corresponding to the seventy or eighty years that the Bible speaks of in the Psalms.
Capps places the struggle for identity in the fifth decade of life, the forties. He says the conflict in the middle of life is the same as in the teenage years, the conflict between “identity” and “identity confusion.” The question being asked is, “Who am I?” To come out of these crises successfully is to have the virtue of fidelity. Fidelity is “the quality or state of being faithful.” It is loyalty to who one truly is. To be true to who God has created one to be.
Capps notes that most autobiographies are written in the fifth decade of life. It is when people are at a crossroads of life where they’ve come too far to go back and must live forward, and so autobiographies are meditations on what has brought one to the place where they are and a look ahead to what is coming and what one will be in the future. The first autobiography in the history of Western literature was written by Augustine, his “Confessions.” He writes the famous line, “[Lord] Thou hast formed us for Thyself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee.” In his struggle to find himself, he found that the Lord has called us into a relationship where we are called “beloved” and outside of that realization we will continue to struggle for a lifetime.
This morning, I want to begin discussing our identity in Christ. “Beloved: Who Am I?”
OPENING:
We live our lives on a short timeline. Life is a vapor (James 4:14). Moses said, “we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away” (Psalm 90:9-10 KJV). Against the backdrop of the timelessness of God and the ancientness of creation, our short journey in the world is a drop in the ocean.
From the moment we can talk we are asking questions. We ask what things are and why things work the way they do. Eventually, often around puberty, we start asking who we are and then humorously repeat this question during mid-life. We want to know who we are, and who we are supposed to be.
Mark Twain quipped that the two most important days in a person's life are the day they are born and the day they find out why.
Our search for meaning drives us to all kinds of things and in our short timeline of life the search for who we are can cause us to have extreme highs and lows along the way.
When the opinions of others define us, we can live in the extremes of life. We must develop a core sense of identity to mature into what God has designed for us to be.
Genesis 1:26 tells us that we are made in the image of God. There has been much that has been written about this idea. David asks in Psalm 8, “What is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you visit him?” There have been three basic answers that have been given through the years about what it means to be the image of God:
• The image as a substantial likeness to God
• The image as a function in relation to creation
• The image as relational to other human beings
Is humanity like God because of the substance of their being? Their moral sense that is different from the animals? Yes. Does humanity have an innate sense that God exists? Yes. Does humanity have an intellectual and creative mind like the Creator? Yes.
Is there a functional aspect to the image of God? Does humanity have a special function in their stewardship of creation? Yes (Genesis 1:26). The image of God is reflected in humanity’s function. ANE kings would place images in the far-reaching realms of their kingdoms. Genesis portrays God as doing the same. Humanity is here to represent God.
Is humanity God’s image because of its relational capacity? Yes. All human relationships are created to reflect the attributes of God.
And each of these is found in the characteristic Human Being, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is THE Image of God. To see Him is to see the Father.
While watching the Chosen the other day and there was scene where Jesus was having a conversation with his mother. In the scene, He expressed his frustration that His disciples did not understand His teachings. His mother said, “They are only human” to which Jesus pointed to Himself and said, “Human too.” Jesus lived faithfully through the seasons of human life and modeled for us how we ought to be the image of God in every way. His sense of self is revealed to us in the short scene in the Gospel of Luke when he was 12 years old and at His baptism.
Luke 2:41-52 (NIV)
41 Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. 42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. 43 After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. 44 Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” 50 But they did not understand what he was saying to them.
51 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.
From a very early age, Jesus recognized His unique relationship to the Father. Close to the end of His earthly life Jesus prayed in John 17 words that reveal His understanding of the love of God.
John 17:24 (NIV)
“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.”
In this prayer, Jesus prayed for his disciples and for us (John 17:20-26).
At the core of Jesus’s identity as the Son of God was the idea that He was beloved. While there were things He did out of function and substance, His core identity was His relationship with the Father. In this God reveals to us where our identity should come from.
Ephesians 1:6 tells us that we are accepted in the Beloved. Jesus is called beloved at the critical moments in the Gospels. First, at His baptism.
Jesus’s Baptism:
Matthew 3:13-17 (NASB)
13 Then Jesus *arrived from Galilee at the Jordan, coming to John to be baptized by him. 14 But John tried to prevent Him, saying, “I have the need to be baptized by You, and yet You are coming to me?” 15 But Jesus, answering, said to him, “Allow it at this time; for in this way it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness.” Then he *allowed Him. 16 After He was baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water; and behold, the heavens were opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and settling on Him, 17 and behold, a voice from the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.”
Beloved. Immediately after this declaration to John and to Jesus (the other Gospels have the Voice from heaven speaking to Jesus Himself), Jesus is led into the wilderness by the Spirit where His identity is challenged in the ways ours is throughout our lives.
Matthew 4:1-11 (NASB)
Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 And after He had fasted for forty days and forty nights, He then became hungry.
Challenge One: To be defined by what we do.
3 And the tempter came and said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread.” 4 But He answered and said, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God.’”
• The enemy attempted to get Jesus to prove His identity by something that he could do. But, Jesus looked back to His baptism and said no. I am living by the Word of God, by heaven’s decrees.
• What does God’s word say about who you are? Psalm 139 says that you are fearfully and wonderfully made! That the LORD knit you together in your mother’s womb, that you are beloved!
Challenge Two: What people say about us—throw yourself down and people will see and say good things about you.
5 Then the devil *took Him along into the holy city and had Him stand on the pinnacle of the temple, 6 and he *said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, throw Yourself down; for it is written:
‘He will give His angels orders concerning You’;
and
‘On their hands they will lift You up,
So that You do not strike Your foot against a stone.’”
7 Jesus said to him, “On the other hand, it is written: ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
• The temptation was to do something that would get others to declare that He was special. When they saw the angels helping Him float down gently to the ground, they would give Him accolades.
• We are made to hear, “Well done!” from our Creator, and there is nothing wrong with enjoying that sense of accomplishment when we have completed something. However, we are beloved apart from those things!
• If our identity is in what others say about us, we will live our spiritual and emotional lives erratically. We will never be able to please everyone.
Challenge Three: What we possess—fall down and worship me and I will give you all these things and you will know you are loved.
8 Again, the devil *took Him along to a very high mountain and *showed Him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; 9 and he said to Him, “All these things I will give You, if You fall down and worship me.” 10 Then Jesus *said to him, “Go away, Satan! For it is written: ‘You shall worship the Lord your God, and serve Him only.’” 11 Then the devil *left Him; and behold, angels came and began to serve Him.
• The stuff we have cannot fill the longing in the human heart for the love of God.
These are all lies!
Because before He went out into the wilderness, at His baptism, the Spirit descended on him and a Voice spoke and said, “This is (You are) My Beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased.”
Jesus was praised and rejected laughed at and adored consoled and spat upon, yet He looked beyond it all to the Voice from His baptism.
We have to hear it so that our whole lives can be turned around. I have loved you with an everlasting love…
Live as the Beloved! Know who you are!
The Voice that calls you Beloved is the Voice of the first love. John, “Love one another because God has loved you first.” You were loved before your father and mother and teachers and spouse loved you!
In this world love and wounds are never separated. There are dark and light sides to every human action of love, but the love of God has no shadow!
Can you go back to Him in the times of rejection and allow these times to return to the first love?
Only God’s love can satisfy our souls.
Let the pain prune us, not destroy us.
Do you want to be as free as Jesus?
