We Are Chosen Series

Introduction

Video Ill.: Official Lyric Video — Chosen by Sidewalk Prophets

In our world today, our identities are in crisis. Everyone around us tries to tell us who we are, what we should do, and who we should be.

What do we believe? Who do we support? Where do we fall in the political spectrum? What is our sex? What religion, ethnicity, or race are we? Who are we? In what is our identity found?

This morning, as we continue our search for identity, we are chosen — our identity is found in Christ!

We started our study by discovering that the beginning of our true identity is found in the fact that we were made in God’s image. Mankind is the only part of creation that has been made with the qualities of God Himself! We were given a purpose. We build relationships. We love and are loved.

Last week, we found that must embrace the identity that God has given to us — we are uniquely, wonderfully, and fearfully made. That means that each one of us bears God’s fingerprints on our lives, because God formed us, made us, created us in His image for His good works, for His pleasure, for His plan. There’s meaning to our lives, not because of the measure of the world, but because God knew us, knit us, wove us, made us, even before the world ever knew us.

Masters Winner’s Identity Isn’t Golf but God

Source: Jon Ackerman, “Scottie Scheffler wins Masters, says 'reason I play golf is I'm trying to glorify God',” Sports Spectrum (4-10-22)

https://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2022/september/masters-winners-identity-isnt-golf-but-god.html

Copied from Preaching Today

Back in May, Scottie Scheffler became a very familiar name, even outside of the sport of golf. He was the golfer who was arrested trying to drive around the scene of a fatal crash on his way to the PGA Championship in Louisville, Kentucky.

Fortunately for him, all of the charges were dismissed. It was one big misunderstanding.

Back in February of 2022, though, Scottie Scheffler was a 25-year-old beginning his third full season on the PGA Tour, ranked 15th in the world. He was still seeking his first victory on the game’s top circuit. And on Sunday April 10, 2022, Scheffler became a Masters champion as well.

In a press conference after his victory, sporting his new green jacket, Scheffler was asked how he balances his desire to compete—which is fierce—without letting it define who he is as a person. Scheffler then opened up about his faith. He said this:

The reason why I play golf is I’m trying to glorify God and all that He’s done in my life. So, for me, my identity isn’t a golf score. Like my wife, Meredith, told me this morning, “If you win this golf tournament today, if you lose this golf tournament by 10 shots, if you never win another golf tournament again, I’m still going to love you, you’re still going to be the same person. Jesus loves you and nothing changes.” All I’m trying to do is glorify God and that’s why I’m here and that’s why I’m in [this] position.

You see, no matter how successful we become, our identity is not tangled in our wins and losses, our successes and failures. Our identity comes through Christ and bringing Him glory.

The truth is, our identity is in Christ!

Paul writes in Galatians 2:

18 If I rebuild what I destroyed, I prove that I am a lawbreaker. 19 Through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 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, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2, NIV1984)

It is no longer I that live — it is Christ that lives in me!

My identity is now that of Jesus! Why? Because He paid the price that I could not pay.

Barclay, William. The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians (The New Daily Study Bible) (pp. 26-27). Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Kindle Edition.

PAUL speaks [here] out of the depths of personal experience. For him to put back in place the whole fabric of the law would have been spiritual suicide. He says that through the law he died to the law that he might live to God. What he means is this: he had tried the way of law; he had tried with all the terrible intensity of his burning conviction to put himself right with God by a life that sought to obey every single item of that law. He had found that such an attempt produced nothing but a deeper and deeper sense that all he could do could never put him right with God. All the law had done was to show him his own helplessness. Thereupon, he had quite suddenly abandoned that way and had cast himself, sinner as he was, on the mercy of God. It was the law which had driven him to God. To go back to the law would simply have entangled him all over again in the sense of estrangement from God. So great was the change that the only way he could describe it was to say that he had been crucified with Christ so that the man he used to be was dead and the living power within him now was Christ himself.