- Last episode we talked about the things we are not. We can often find examples of this when we introduce ourselves.
- When we meet someone, we’re often asked to “describe ourselves.”
- These things are usually not bad or sinful! But how much power we give them over our identity can steer us away from the one identity that can never be taken away from us: being saved by Jesus and becoming a child of God.
- When I started working on this, I often thought “why is this even such a big deal anyway?”
- In American culture, finding our identity is huge.
- Starting with kids shows and movies, many major or at least minor themes are “be true to yourself” or “finding me.”
- We are often addicted to personality tests (Meyers-Briggs I am an ENFJ, I haven’t quite figured out enneagram but that doesn’t mean I haven’t tried)
- But if you look at these things over time, they often change with our experiences and circumstances, our feelings are not constant.
- One thing for sure is true and always: the one who truly knows us and created us is the one who is directing us into what He made us to be.
- In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, C.S. Lewis sets a scene where Lucy finds a spellbook and makes herself beautiful. She quickly finds that this is not who she was meant to be, despite her desire to identify that way. Her dream quickly turns into a nightmare until Aslan comes to rescue her. He warns Lucy that she “wished herself away” and ends with: “You doubt your value. Don’t run from who you are”
- Our identity is the outward presentation of what we put our value in.
- This is why we need to define it and to ensure that we are putting it into something safe and everlasting.
- We need to anchor our identity in something immovable: God.
- It all began with creation.
- Genesis 1:27- So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
- It’s so important He put it in there twice: In His image.
- The Hebrew word Tselem is used three other times in Genesis:
- Genesis 1:26-Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
- Genesis 5:3- When Adam had lived one hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth.
- Genesis 9:6- Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man.
- God has placed so much value in us, given us authority, despises our destruction, and made us like him in a way that a child is like a parent. He loves us, He put part of Himself in us, and He made us the way we are very much on purpose.
- Because our identity in Christ is so important and vital, no wonder it is so constantly attacked!
- What do people do when they sense danger is near and need protection? They often hide.
- The recurrent image that came during all of the studying for this episode was a veil.
- Veils are often used to hide something: In C.S. Lewis’ book Till We Have Faces, the main character Orual wears a veil to cover the fact that she is incredibly ugly.
- The veil eventually gets used to manipulate how people see her (powerful, mysterious, unfeminine).
- The veil helps her to kill off the Orual that she was created to be.
- Veils are also used to deceive.
- Wedding veils were originally meant to hide the bride from evil spirits.
- Genesis 29 gives a story of how Laban tricked Jacob into marrying his daughter Leah instead of Rachel (who Jacob truly loved).
- How many times have we done this? Covered our true identity with a lie, hoping we would eventually become the person we wished to be if we tried hard enough or gave enough of ourselves away to become it?
- Leah tried to live up to her lie by giving Jacob sons.
- Her heart can be seen by the names of her first four sons:
- Reuben- The LORD has noticed my misery and now my husband will love me (vs. 31)
- Simeon- The LORD heard I was unloved and gave me a son (vs. 33)
- Levi- Surely this time my husband will feel affection for me since I have given him three sons (vs. 34)
- Judah- Now I will praise the LORD. I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that Judah became the one God chose as the son in which He would make the line of Christ. When Leah stopped looking at outward influences to decide her worth is when God decided to bless the most.
- Her heart can be seen by the names of her first four sons:
- Veils are often used to hide something: In C.S. Lewis’ book Till We Have Faces, the main character Orual wears a veil to cover the fact that she is incredibly ugly.
- Where do we start? With a new name.
- Leviticus 13:45 states that a person who had leprosy must wear a veil over the lower part of their face and shout “Unclean! Unclean!”
- Luke 15:12-13 gives a story of how a leper comes to Jesus, asks if he is willing to heal him. Jesus says yes! And touches him, instantly changing him from a veiled leper proclaiming “unclean!” to unveiled and proclaiming “healed!”
- Jesus is willing and wants to do the same for us. Chances are without Jesus changing us, we are identifying in something we wish to be healed from.
- In Hinds Feet on High Places, the character Much Afraid says yes to the good shepherd, which leads her on a journey to change her name to “Grace and Glory.”
- Our name transforming starting with changing our name from “sinner” to “rescued.”
- Ephesians 2:8-10- God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this, it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
- 2 Corinthians 5:17 – Therefore if anyone is in Christ he is a new created. The old has passed away, behold the new has come!
- The Bible is rich with promises of what we can base our identity on.
- 1. We are fervidly, passionately loved.
- John 3:16- For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son. That whoever believed in him will not perish but have everlasting life.
- Ephesians 5:2- Live a life with love, following the example fo Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.
- 2. We are chosen.
- Ephesians 1:4-9- Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. he is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.
- 3. We are free.
- Psalm 118:5- In my distress I prayed to the LORD, and the LORD answered me and set me free.
- John 8:36- So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free.
- 4. We are secure.
- John 6:39- And this it will of God, that I should not lose even one of all those he has given me, but that I should raise them up on the last day.
- Isaiah 54:17- But in the coming day no weapon turned against you will succeed. You will silence every voice raised up to rescue you. These benefits are enjoyed by the servants of the LORD; their vindication will come from me. I, the LORD, have spoken.
- 5. We are set apart.
- Ephesians 2:19- So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God’s family.
- Deuteronomy 14:2- You have been set apart as holy to the LORD your God, and he has chosen you from all the nations of the earth to be his own special treasure.
- 6. We are strong.
- Isaiah 40:31- But those who trust in the LORD will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.
- 7. We are known.
- Jeremiah 1:5- I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my prophet to the nations.
- John 10:14-15- I am the good shepherd; I know my own sheep, and they know me, just as my Father knows me and I know the Father. So I sacrifice my life for the sheep.
- 1. We are fervidly, passionately loved.
- I Am Who You Say I Am
- Why do we believe all of these points? In order to answer that, we need to get to know a little more about the person who made these promises.
- Toward the end of Till We Have Faces, Orual writes a book confronting the gods with a petition against how they treated her. After she writes it, she states “I ended my first book with the words ‘no answer.’ I know now, LORD, why you utter no answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?
- God showed us His face through the Bible, especially through Jesus. He unveiled Himself so that we could know Him. Jesus died to unveil that barrier between us and God. Through his death, we get to secure who we are by having full access to knowing whose we are.
- Matthew 27:50-51- And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
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