Your Identity
Last week, new name, new identity, new character
Illustrate – women take on name of husband (new name-new beginning)
Daddy, who am I?
- you are the my daughter…a member of the Jones family in a long line of Jones’.
- Oh that’s good, because the TV said I was a cereal lover.
Who you are comes from whose you are
What you do comes from who you are.
You are what you believe, if you believe a lie, you will live a lie.
Wouldn’t it be a shame to live your life, climbing the ladder, and find out your ladder was leaning on the wrong wall?
Story about self esteem needed here.
by Sid Galloway
Introduction:
Many of the animals he once cared for, back when he was a zookeeper, had destructively distorted self-perceptions. I remember a huge and powerful male gorilla, Scottie, who would duck down and cover his head, whenever a male zookeeper picked up a broom. Yet, in all the years Scottie was at that particular zoo, no man had ever hit him with a broom. So, why did Scottie believe that men were likely to hurt him? He believed it, and reacted to his belief as if it were truth, because he had been mistreated by male zookeepers way back when he was a young gorilla at another zoo. Decades later, Scottie, still had difficulty trusting male keepers.
One of his leopards, a black panther, named Ali, who hated people with a vicious rage. Whenever a person came near his cage, Ali would charge the bars, crashing into the hard metal, growling and spitting with bitterness. Why? All of the Zookeepers loved him, fed him, cleaned up after him, and had never abused him. Then he found out how he had been raised at a different zoo. He was pushed, poked, shocked, shot with BB guns, and hosed with water to make him move from cage to cage. He learned and deeply believed that all humans were cruel and dangerous creatures.
So, he determined to prove to Ali, that at least one human was his friend. It took him over a year of patient, step by step efforts, but he eventually came to trust me. In fact, he trusted me so much that he would come into the cage and lean his body gently against the bars, so he could rub his stomach! His perception of me, life, and himself had been changed, yet the process took many months of sensitive, loving, often frustrating work.
Visionary message:
Some Pastors have focused on the good news, that repenting from our own "natural", sinful responses to life’s hurts is the primary key to overcoming them and living a victorious life. But, they neglected to also emphasize the other side of reality. It is also truth that deeply hurtful experiences leave lasting memories and distorted beliefs about God, others, and self, which are extremely difficult to unlearn. These twisted beliefs about reality are a part of the roots, which produce much of the dysfunctional fruit in our lives, families, churches, and the world, to the dishonor of God’s image.
Through the actions of a whole church family, must prove to our new brothers and sisters that they are loved, in spite of their sin. We are the face of our Father to the lost and lonely in this painfully dangerous world. We are the arms that our Lord Jesus wants to use to touch and hug the ones who come for help. We must speak the truth in love. This means that truth must be wrapped in obvious, self-sacrificial care, or it can hurt instead of heal.
Here’s Hope Baptist Church mission is to provide a safe harbor where people can be pulled up by a demonstration of real Christianity and help people discover God’s love and to share His love.
We can do that by:
1. loving people through their mistakes – imagine someone going thru a divorce. They wonder if anyone can love them!
2. loving people who have left the church and wonder if they have a safe place to return
3. accepting people who come in who don’t know Christ…with all of their worldliness, and love them so that they can find Christ.
Martin Luther: "God does not love us because we are valuable, we are valuable because God loves us". This means there is something wonderful about God, not us. He is worthy, not us. The appropriate response to the cross is not self-esteem, but worship of God!
And this is the key. When our worth is dependent on what those around us think of us or on what we think of ourselves, it is a bogus worth. The only worth we have is not a worth that comes because we ARE worthy, but because God is love
1. Self esteem – your value…where is it coming from.
a. Poor self esteem arises from our dwelling on our faults and failures, from our separation from God & the belief that we are no good.
i. Some of these beliefs come from our upbringing
ii. Others come from the brokenness of sin
iii. Still others, from us believing lies about ourselves that others or the world has taught us.
iv. Some Psychologists tells us that to cope, we must simply believe “we are okay just the way we are”
1. which leaves us broken.
The World says The Bible Says
Look within Look unto Jesus
Self awareness is key Christ awareness is key
See how great you are See how great God is
v. When you look at the forest behind the church, what do you see? Trees, right? But in a carpenter’s view, he sees houses, furniture, rocking chairs, desks, cabinets…they are all in the forest. He sees the finished product potential!
vi. Max Lucado notes: “Jesus sees us the way we are, and loves us anyway. But He refuses to leave us the way we are.”
vii. He sees us as what we can become….complete and whole. He like the carpenter, sees the finished product
b. All of the sins you commit after being saved are included in the redemption of the Lord Jesus, even though you don’t FEEL forgiven.
c. Believers are exhorted not to sin, they ought not to sin, but if they sin, the blood of Jesus will cleanse them from all sin.
d. You must retrain (1 Tim. 4:7) yourself to see the truth. God says He loves us: "I have loved you with an everlasting love; I have drawn you with loving-kindness." (Jeremiah 31:3; other examples are Ex. 34:6; 1 Chronicles 16:34; 2 Chronicles 5:13; Ps. 6:4; 13:5; John 3:16; 1 John 3:1; 1 John 4:11)
e. After reading such passages, you have to ask yourself: Is God a liar? No! This means that when you FEEL like you are worthless, then your feelings are contradicting what God said and either your feelings are liars or God is. Which do you think is more reliable?
2. It is a tragedy when a Christian has poor self-esteem. They have everything going for them…
a. We have Forgiveness
b. We have a future, a hope
c. We have an identity rooted firmly in one who doesn’t change.
d. We have someone (God) who sees us as much more than our limitations and our faults.
e. We have someone (God) who will listen to us and hear our voice, our very heart-cry.
f. We are loved just they way they are – by God and hopefully by their church
i. Therefore, do not linger in the self depreciating shame of sin as if such suffering will bring on holiness.
ii. To prolong the consciousness of sin is in no way an indication of holiness.
iii. Acting mad or sad after sinning does not increase your speed of restoration to the Father.
iv. Bring your sin in confession to Christ and receive His promise.
1. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” (1 Jn 1:9)
3. With this in mind….Are you a saint or a sinner?
a. Do you say…“Oh poor me – I am just a sinner saved by grace” (is that true?)
b. Do you feel like you have been a sinner for so long you can’t see what you are to become?
c. Have habits and failures kept you from experiencing success and victory?
d. Have your feelings of inadequacy left you in a box that you can find no escape?
i. Ephesians 1:1 “To the saints in Ephesus…”
ii. Philippians 1:1, “To all the saints in Christ Jesus at Philippi”
iii. Colossians 1:2 “To the holy and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse”
iv. 1 Cor 6:2, “…not know that the saints will judge…”
v. Ephesians 1:15 “and your love for all the saints”
vi. Ephesians 1:18 “of his glorious inheritance in the saints”
vii. Ephesians 6:18 “always keep on praying for all the saints”
viii. Phm :7 “have refreshed the hearts of the saints”
ix. Rev. 5:8 “which are prayers of the saints
e. Who do these scripture seem to be talking about? Dead people who have been declared good enough to be in heaven and have miracles attributed to them?
i. NO!
ii. We are speaking about you and I! If you have placed your trust in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, you are DECLARED A SAINT!
iii.
4. The bible says we are saints but so many of us act as if we are sinners.
a. We carry around the shame and dour face of a sinner
b. We lack the joy of someone who has been liberated
c. We don’t live as if we have God as our Father and as if we have a future that is certain.
d. Christians sometimes look as if they are carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders and it turns out they carry their guilt and failures, even though they have been assured of their success and their forgiveness.
5. Why is this?
a. First of all, I believe that many Christians have two beliefs that are not grounded in scripture.
i. EXPERIENCE=TRUTH We are told to build our lives on the word of God and not on our experience=truth. Yet, when we fail, we build our lives on the lie that somehow, we will always fail, therefore, we must still be sinners, BARELY saved by grace.
1. This is not the way of the Christian. Experience is not equal to truth.
2. We are told to build our lives on one thing…the word of God.
3. What do we do when our experience and the bible don’t match?
a. Believe the word by faith.
b. Experience (feelings) FOLLOW faith, they don’t preceed it.
c. Faith wouldn’t be faith if you could preview it like a tv show.
ii. They believe the SUBSTITUTIONARY DEATH BUT NOT THE SUBSITUTIONARY LIFE – for somewhere they have gotten stuck in Romans 7 and never graduated to Romans 8!
1. The SUBSITUTIONARY DEATH is where Christ dies in our place
a. He takes our punishment, and our penalty for sin.
b. He takes sin on himself,
c. He takes the wrath of God upon himself and experiences HELL so we don’t have to.
d. Faith in what He has done begins our new birth.
2. The SUBSTITIONARY LIFE is where Christ lives through us.
a. Some have believed that Jesus came and saved them PENALTY of sin but never realized that he also rescued us from the POWER of sin.
b. We think Sin is something we must overcome through
i. Resistance
ii. Or Struggle against like a tug of war
iii. These do not lead us to victory!
c. The bible says we must be delivered from sin, not overcome sin.
i. We cannot destroy sin.
ii. Jesus came to destroy Sin’s power.
Sin is a LAW
For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am made out of flesh, sold into sin’s power.
7:15 For I do not understand what I am doing, because I do not practice what I want to do, but I do what I hate.
7:16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree with the law that it is good.
7:17 So now I am no longer the one doing it, but it is sin living in me.
7:18 For I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my flesh. For the desire to do what is good is with me, but there is no ability to do it.
7:19 For I do not do the good that I want to do, but I practice the evil that I do not want to do.
7:20 Now if I do what I do not want, I am no longer the one doing it, but it is the sin that lives in me.
7:21 So I discover this principle: when I want to do good, evil is with me.
7:22 For in my inner self I joyfully agree with God’s law.
7:23 But I see a different law in the parts of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and taking me prisoner to the law of sin in the parts of my body.
7:24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?
7:25 I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh, to the law of sin.
WITH MY FLESH, I AM A SLAVE TO THE LAW OF SIN.
3. What is a LAW? – it is something that is always so. It happens everywhere and permits NO exception.
a. The power of your will cannot overcome the power of sin, because sin is a law and your will is not.
i. Call up a youth with 20# weight. Hold it. Will your arm to hold it.
ii. Can you will this to remain up?
iii. How long? For awhile. But a law wins out.
iv. The law of gravity wins!
v. You cannot overcome gravity by the power of your will. (example)
vi. You cannot overcome sin with your desire or will
vii. Sinning isn’t accidental, it is a law.
4. Overcoming the law of sin:
a. Romans 8:1-2 – Overcoming the Law of Sin through the Law of the Spirit of Life.
Romans 8:1-2
1 Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus, 2 because the Spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death
b.
c. Balloon floats…why? It is based on another law. A law that is greater than it. That of buoyancy. Gravity only has its hold based on density of matter. But other laws, those of thermodynamics and aerodynamics defy that law, because they supercede the law of Gravity.
d. Stop battling with your will.
5. The Holy Spirit is able to keep you from sinning
a. We live by the Spirit of LIFE!
b. Galatians 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body I live by faith in the Son of God.”
i. We do not live by faith in the Death of the Son of God
ii. We live by faith in the LIVING Son of God.
iii. Gal 5:25, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
iv. Gal 5:16, “So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature.”
1. Walking by the Spirit IS Subsitutionary LIVING
2. The secret to the Christian life is the exchanged LIFE (not just the exchanged death)
3. You cannot live like a sinner trying to imitate Jesus.
4. Who in the world would want to be a Christian if that is all there is?
5. Your temptation is not to sin, but rather to act on your own.
6. The aim of temptation is not to sin, but to get our OLD MAN (crucified man) to act. If the old man can rise up to resist, he can also rise up to sin…he is not reckoned dead.
7. Trust His promises:
8. “And God is faithful, he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. When you are tempted, he will show ou a way out so that you will not give into to it.” (1 Cor 10:13
9. (Colossians 3:1-10) ince you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God…Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature….(v7) You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves as all such things as these. (v9” Do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self which is being renewed in the knowledge of its creator”
10. This doesn’t mean that you made and are somehow keeping a resolution to “not” do certain types of sins. This means that you died and your old life with, and now you are hidden with Christ,
6. How to practically walk by the Spirit
a. Tonight we will discuss these principles as well as answer questions.
6. Invitation:
a. Is your address still in Romans 7
i. Do you still dwell there
ii. Are you trying to overcome sin with the power of your will?
iii. If so, you will remain imprisoned in Romans 7
b. Learn to look up NOT to do something.
i. We can no more avoid sin by works that we are saved by works. We do both by faith…by LOOKING to JESUS.
1. Our heart must learn to incline to Jesus IN US>
2. If the dead man acts, he destroys the work of GOD.
3. Lord, give me a hatred for what you hate.
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