IDENTITY THEFT
Creating A Positive ID – Part 4
07-07-13 Sermon
“What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules
and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man"
so that I could be God's man. Christ's
life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with
Christ. My ego is no longer
central. It is no longer important
that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer
driven to impress God. Christ
lives in me. The life you see me
living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who
loved me and gave himself for me. I
am not going to go back on that.” Galatians 2:19-20 (MSG)
RESOLVING A CRISIS OF CONFIDENCE…
THE
“What
actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to
please God…” Galatians 2:19 (MSG)
“I
was circumcised when I was eight days old. I am a pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the
tribe of Benjamin—a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who
demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law.” Philippians
3:5 (NLT)
THE ______________________
“I
was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church.” Philippians 3:6 (NLT)
“They
dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. His accusers took off their coats and laid them at the feet
of a young man named Saul. As they
stoned him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He fell to his knees, shouting, “Lord,
don’t charge them with this sin!” And
with that, he died. Saul was one
of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the killing of Stephen.” Acts 7:58 – 8:1 (NLT)
THE
“As
he was approaching Damascus on this mission, a light from heaven suddenly shone
down around him. He fell to the
ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul! Saul! Why are
you persecuting me?” “Who are you, lord?” Saul asked. And the voice replied, “I am Jesus, the one you are
persecuting! Now get up and go
into the city, and you will be told what you must do.” The men with Saul stood speechless, for
they heard the sound of someone’s voice but saw no one! Saul picked himself up off the ground,
but when he opened his eyes he was blind.
So his companions led him by the hand to Damascus. He remained there blind for three days
and did not eat or drink.” Acts 9:3-9 (NLT)
THE
“So I quit being a "law man"
so that I could be God's man. Christ's
life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with
Christ. My ego is no longer
central. It is no longer important
that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no
longer driven to impress God. Christ
lives in me.” Galatians 2:19 (MSG)
THE
“My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you
or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not
"mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and
gave himself for me. I am not going
to go back on that.” Galatians 2:20 (MSG)
“So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful
slaves. Instead, you received
God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.’ For his Spirit joins with
our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.”
Romans 8:15-16 (NLT)
THE feeling
“But whenever someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken
away. For the Lord is the Spirit,
and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.” 2 Cor. 3:16-17 (NLT)
“So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is my helper; I will not be
afraid. What can man do to me?’” Hebrews 13:6 (NIV)
WHERE DOES YOUR CONFIDENCE COME FROM?
External
Confidence OR Internal Confidence
IDENTITY THEFT
Creating A Positive ID – Part 4
07-07-13 Sermon
We’re
in part four of our series called Creating a Positive Identity. We’re going to start with a question: How
do you know when someone’s having a crisis of confidence in who they are?
You
can’t see the issues behind their crisis of confidence. You can’t see how they’re thinking or
what their beliefs are. But most
of us can see behaviors externally that reflect a crisis internally.
However,
there are a couple questions I want to answer right out of the box that goes to
identity theft. Why do we adopt
false identities?
People
post pictures of themselves on Facebook implying that they are doing something
totally out of character for them.
Or they post pictures making them look quite different from the way that
most people know them. Why do
people try to put false identities out there?
As
parents we know this. Right? We tell our kids Don’t imitate the friends throwing their
lives off the cliff. Don’t imitate
those kids. But as adults we do it too. There’s a number of personas that we
can adopt in our culture, whether we’re a man or a woman, that we believe might
restore that confidence that seems to be lacking on the inside.
That’s
the first reason we adopt false identities because there’s a fear down there
that’s brewing.
The
second reason why I see people adopting a false identity, is because with every
identity there are activities. It’s
like, I have this identity. There’s
all these activities connected with it.
I’m going to pursue that identity and those activities. It’s a nice numbing of the very real
pain in my life. We can numb our lives with our work identity activities or (enter
when said) our social identity activities or even (enter when said) church
identity activities to divert us away from the real issues that we need to face
in our lives.
If
you have your message notes, I want you to take those out. We’re going to look at a full-on
identity theft in the Bible. And
thankfully, a full-on identity recovery.
The
person we’re going to look at is the apostle Paul. But before he was the apostle Paul he was a religious guy
named Saul. He describes his
transition from identity theft to identity recovery in Galatians 2. He says “What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and
working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man"
so that I could be God's man. Christ's
life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with
Christ. My ego is no longer
central. It is no longer important
that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no
longer driven to impress God. Christ
lives in me. The life you see me
living is not ‘mine,’ but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me
and gave himself for me. I am not going
to go back on that.”
So
what do you see? You see a person
who is having a crisis internally.
That internal crisis of confidence is being worked out externally. What we see in the apostle Paul, we see
in men and women everywhere. It’s a
common journey. So that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to see ourselves and our need along the journey
of the apostle Paul.
The
first step in that journey, the first thing we need to see, is
(See outline)
1. The searching.
So
what’s Paul searching for? He’s
looking for an identity into which to place his masculinity. In his day, he had options. There’s the military identity. There’s the religious identity. There are various professional
identities he can stick his masculinity into. But Paul selects a religious identity. Galatians 2 is what actually took place
is this: “I tried keeping rules and working my
head off to please God.”
In
saying that, Paul reveals the first key to let you know that you’re suffering
from identity theft. That is, it’s
based on your performance. : Paul feels like his identity is rooted in
performance. Keeping rules, being in the right
places, being in the right clubs. He
never knew when he had done enough. He said he’s working his head off, which suggests
that there’s a fear down there of – I never know if I’m doing enough. That’s the first indicator that you’re
suffering from identity theft.
When
you’re in a performance-based identity, it’s exhausting. Because you just never know if you’ve
done enough to calm that deep fear on the inside. Have I done enough?
Have I arrived? Am I there?
You
see Paul describe in detail in the verse right below how he was working it –
the traditions and associations. He
said, “I was circumcised
when I was eight days old. I am a
pure-blooded citizen of Israel and a member of the tribe of Benjamin–a real Hebrew if there ever was one! I was a member of the Pharisees, who
demand the strictest obedience to the Jewish law.”
Paul
externally was number one in the AP religious poll. He was, and I hate to say this, BAMA the ALABAMA of
college football right now. This
guy was at the top. He was number
one.
So
Paul says I’m a member. I have the
tradition. I have the association. And because I have the traditions
externally and the associations, I have this elevated sense of myself. They demand it, I perform.
That’s
what we see in the searching. We
see this in the unhealthy identity of Paul working so hard.
Maybe
that’s you. Maybe you’re working
your head off through some identity that is really a deep and desperate quest
for significance.
The
searching inevitably leads Paul and it leads a lot of us to the next phase of
the journey which is…
(see outline)
2. The suffering.
This
type of performance-based existence causes us to start valuing our performance
in our identity over people. We stop
seeing people and we start seeing only our need for more of what my unhealthy
identity is seeking. And in the
process people start suffering. Look
at what Paul says in : Philippians 3:6, “I was so zealous that I harshly persecuted the church.”
There’s
your second clue that you’re suffering from a crisis of confidence and identity
theft. When your way to be a man
or a woman, your way to believe about yourself and life as a man or woman, and
your way to behave as a man or woman : begins to fragment the relationships that
you have around you. And you become a little stick of
dynamite causing people to suffer because of your
crisis of confidence. Which goes
back to your sense of self and your identity.
It
goes so far, Paul gets so numb in his quest in his identity as a religious man,
look at what it leads to. : “They dragged him out of the city and
began to stone him. His accusers
took off their coats and laid them at the feet of a young man named Saul. As they stoned him, Stephen prayed,
‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.” He fell to his knees, shouting, ‘Lord, don’t
charge them with this sin!’ With
that he died. Saul was one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the
killing of Stephen. ”
So
you see that Paul is suffering from identity theft. He’s in a performance based way of believing and behaving. It gives him the sense of
accomplishment and validation and worth as a man. And in the process of chasing that end game and that goal, he
loses sight of his conscience, he loses sight of people, and people around him
begin to suffer.
People
around you begin to get hurt. You
begin to hurt yourself. You begin
to create problems, not just for yourself but for people connected to you. You begin to numb yourself to being
compassionate about the people that are around you because you are so focused
on getting that approval and that acceptance, that significance, that validation
as a man or as a woman that you begin to hurt people in the process, agreeing
completely with things that violate your conscience and violate other people.
A
good sign that there might be a need to reflect and consider a new identity is
– Are the people around you suffering because of the way you’ve chosen to be,
believe, and behave? That’s something
that God might be saying to you.
So
we move from this part of the journey, from the searching, down to the
suffering of people, by a man who is suffering from identity theft, to…
(see outline)
3. The meeting.
That’s
the next fill in.: “As he was
approaching Damascus on this mission, [the mission to persecute and make others
suffer] a light from heaven
suddenly shone down around him. He
fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul! Saul! Why are you
persecuting me?’ ‘Who are you,
lord?’ Saul asked. And the voice
replied, ‘I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting! Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what
you must do.’ The men with Saul
stood speechless, for they heard the sound of someone’s voice but saw no one! Saul picked himself up off the ground,
but when he opened his eyes he was blind.
So his companions led him by the hand to Damascus. He remained there blind for three days
and did not eat or drink.”
Have
you ever heard that expression: “A
Come-to-Jesus meeting?” Paul had a
Come-to-Jesus meeting. This is the original come-to-Jesus meeting. So you’re looking at where we get the
phrase from.
So
Paul has his come to Jesus meeting and it’s very humbling. FADES AWAY There’s the blinding light. He’s face down on the ground, doesn’t know what’s happening.
The very person he is killing
people over is talking to him. Then
he gets a little direction and when he goes to get up from this very humbling
experience, he can’t see and he has to be led by the hand.
Some
people have a dramatic Come-to-Jesus moment like this where it’s kind of like
the burning bush and God talks to them and they have an encounter with God
that’s so validating and it’s so personal. Maybe some of you might have had a burning bush experience.
A lot
of us haven’t, but that doesn’t mean what happened at this meeting in Paul’s
life hasn’t happened to us. A lot of
times a light from heaven looks like a knock on the head, doesn’t it? We have a difficulty. We have a delay. We have a problem. We have a trial. We have a trauma that just brings us to
an absolute full stop on the way we are being, the way we are believing, the
way we are behaving. Circumstances paint us into a corner and there’s no where
to look but in the mirror.
That’s
how the light comes on for many of us, and it’s humbling, isn’t it? It’s humbling and figuratively speaking
we get knocked to the ground. And
I would submit to you that that is just as valid an encounter with God as a
burning bush encounter like Paul had, where you’re humbled, you’re at the end of
yourself. For those of you who are
in that situation right now, God is calling your name out very personally. He’s calling you to a new way to be. That’s what’s happening. Jesus wants to have a full-stop meeting
with you this morning.
For
what purpose? To stop your
identity theft and start the recovery of your real identity.
So
what happens next in Paul’s journey?
What happens next after the identity theft comes to the end and Paul has
his moment, we see a few things happening.
(See outline):
4. Next comes the morphing.
You
have the meeting and then you have the morphing. The word morphos in the Greek, that’s where we get the
word morph that means a
transformation, a change, a transition. What happens to Paul?
We see a transition of identity.
We see a transaction of leadership on the inside. And we see a transformation of behavior.
: “So I quit being a
‘law man’ so that I could be God's man.
Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with
Christ. My ego is no longer
central. It is no longer important
that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no
longer driven to impress God. Christ
lives in me.”
LEAVE
UP UNTIL “CIRCLE. . .”
So
we see in the first sentence Paul describing his morphing. We see the power man, becomes God’s Man.
Let
me submit to the gentlemen in the audience. This is still an identity-theft issue for us, guys. Culture is out there. We have options of identities into
which we can place our masculinity, and the power man is still there. We see it when we get the new business
card. We see it when we get the
promotion. We see our ambition and
our drive to get status. That’s
still out there along with a couple others. There’s possession man, too. That’s the guy who chases stuff and hopes by osmosis that
the stuff that he owns will translate to the inside. So if I drive an ultimate driving machine I will become the
ultimate driving machine.
And
then there’s pleasure man who thinks where’s the next thrill? Where’s the next place of enjoyment? What’s the next adventure? What’s the next recreation? What’s the next thrill seeking thing I
can do?
So
there are lots of choices. They’re
the same choices that were there for Paul. But, in Paul’s case, the power man becomes God’s Man.
Can
I suggest to the men in the room: God
wants you to make this transition too.
All that identity chasing and energy and expression that’s going into
who you’re not, hoping that it’s going to come in and change you from the
inside out, do what Paul does. Quit
that one. Start the new journey
and become God’s man.
Then
you see after the transition of identity, a transaction of leadership. ENTER CIRCLE: Circle “my ego is no longer central.” Pride isn’t driving my energy and expression
and fear is not driving my energy and expression. It’s a transaction of
leadership. Christ is in there.
Then
you see a transformation of behavior.
It’s no longer important that I impress you or God. That’s not the way it works. Christ lives in me.
Paul,
in one very short sentence, just tells us about the deception that’s going on
out there. It’s this: that : If I arrange my life
externally based on these identities and these activities and loyalties that somehow
I’m going to transform from the inside out.
And that is a lie. It’s a
deception. Transformation of your
personal character does not come outside in; it comes inside first, then out.
When
you have your meeting you start morphing.
New management. New
thinking. New behaviors. New team. New coach. New
playbook. New direction. Just like Paul.
How
do those things sound to you? New
meaning, new team, new coach, new playbook, new direction. It all starts with new insides. You
don’t need new accessories or new activities. What you need is a new heart.
There
are some of you here today, you’re searching and you’re suffering because of
your searching to heal your crisis of confidence on the inside. You need a meeting with Jesus. And he needs to give you a new heart – just
like he did the apostle Paul and billions of people on the planet right now who
call themselves followers of Christ.
So
the morphing starts happening. How
does that look? The next part of
the journey, the next chapter is
(see outline)
5. The freeing.
We
have the searching, the suffering, the meeting and the morphing. Now we have the freeing.
What
you see is the key to identity recovery.
Paul says :“My ego is no longer
central. It is no longer important
that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no
longer driven to impress God. Christ
lives in me. The life you see me
living is not ‘mine,’ but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me
and gave himself for me. I am not going
to go back on that.”
Wow!
So what is the key to identity
recovery? : Real love.
We see it in this verse. Why
in the Bible is John 3:16 one of the most important verses in the Bible? Because it shows us what real love is :“For God so loved the world that he gave
his only Son.”
So
what’s real love? Real love is given
sacrificially. There’s no such
thing as real love without real sacrifice. Otherwise it’s just words. Otherwise it’s just flattery.
Parents,
we know this from our children. We
can say we love them but if we don’t spend time with them, if we don’t talk
with them, if we don’t touch them then those words are meaningless. It’s the sacrifices of mom, it’s the
sacrifices of dad, to spend time and to talk and to touch. That’s how kids spell love; they know
when it’s just words.
The
same is true with you as an adult.
Real love is given sacrificially.
And that’s what we see Paul recognizing and responding to. The sacrificial love of Jesus Christ. Real love transforms powerfully. When you have love given sacrificially,
it changes everything. It has teeth.
It sinks into the depth of who you
are and how you think about yourself and about your life.
Real
love changes the game. Real love
transforms powerfully. That’s why
Jesus said in John 15:13 “Greater love has no
man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
Then
real love lasts eternally. Real
love is the love that you don’t fear losing. It’s just like a kid. They idealize their dads and they’re
afraid they’re going to lose their love – moms are taken for granted, dads are
idealized. Dads, and granddads we
have a tremendous responsibility to our kids and grandkids who want our love.
That’s
what this whole freeing process is about – the key to making the transition and
ending identity theft and recovering the identity for which God created you has
to do with real love.
Romans
8, Paul is reflecting on this and he says, “So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful
slaves. Instead, you received
God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, ‘Abba, Father.’ For his Spirit joins with
our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.”
To
affirm that you belong to him. To
affirm that he is mine; she is mine.
Power of a father’s love. Paul
traded out his performance-based identity where he never knew if he had done
enough and created a baseline of fear. He said you’ll go from being a fearful person to a child who
securely belongs to a dad.
That’s
what it feels like to be free. That
when you’re under pressure, you don’t have to spin out. You don’t have to make unhealthy choices. You don’t have to chase something, to
grab confidence somewhere else.
You
need the presence and the promise of your heavenly Father. That’s what Paul talks about here in
your last fill-in.
(see outline)
6. The feeling.
It
feels wonderful to know God. 2 Corinthians
3:16-17 “But whenever
someone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away. For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is freedom.”
That
freedom is the most precious thing money cannot buy. It’s an identity you were made for. It’s a security that stabilizes you from
not having to make unhealthy choices to get acceptance by the culture around
you, by the peers around you, by the men around or by the women around you. That freedom liberates. God wants you to experience a real, emotional,
validating, inner freedom.
It
comes from having a dad who’s not only bigger, stronger, wiser than all the other
dads you might have had. But he
knows how to love you and he showed his love sacrificially in his Son. He gave his only Son. And he wants that love that he’s
showing you to transform you from the inside out. That love will never, ever, ever go away no matter what
happens to you, no matter what you do.
So
here’s the question: Where does your
confidence come from? Hebrews 13:6 ENTER “So we say with confidence, ‘The Lord is
my helper; I will not be afraid. What
can man do to me?”
Where
does your confidence come from? Externals? Does it come from identities and activities
and accessories you’re hoping will resolve your inner fears?
Or does it come internally? Knowing whose you are. Settling whose you are. That I want to be and am, and God wants me to be a son of God, a daughter of God, resting secure and free by love given sacrificially and lasting eternally. Able, because of that love, to make new choices because I have the presence and the promise of my maker and my Father, making me free from fear.
Prayer:
For some of you it’s time to go from
searching and suffering to a meeting with Jesus. This is your moment.
This is your encounter. Because
like Paul, like so many others lied to by culture and what you see, you’ve been
chasing and it’s exhausting. Yet
the inner fear is not gone. You
want to be free from that fear of never knowing if what you’re doing will be
enough to solve what’s going on on the inside. You recognize that you can’t solve that by becoming someone you’re
not made to be. Some false persona. It’s your time to ask Christ to come
inside and change you from the inside out. It’s time to meet Jesus. If that’s you, would you pray with me in your mind a simple prayer? Say, Jesus I’m ready for my meeting. I’m ready to meet you with my heart, meet you with my soul,
meet you with my mind, and meet you with my strength. I’m ready to fully accept right now your love given sacrificially
on the cross so that I can be transformed powerfully from the inside out. Jesus, I want real love that lasts
eternally. And that’s your promise
to me. I receive it in your name
today. Make me the person you created
me to be.
There are some of you who are
followers of Christ and you have identity theft going on in reverse. You’ve abandoned God’s love and you’ve
forgotten that you are freed by God’s love. You need a meeting too. You need to switch back. You’ve picked up old identities and old activities and old
habits and old fears that God’s love has resolved. You’ve been made free but you’re not acting free. Now it’s time for your meeting. You might want to say to Jesus in this
moment, Lord Jesus, I’m back. I want another chance. I thank you that your love and
acceptance for me is eternal. I
receive it. I’m back. I want to be freed from those old
identities that for some reason or another I’ve picked up again. I’ve wandered far from you. I want the freedom Frank’s talking
about, resting secure in your presence in my life. Fill me again with your presence and your power. Free me to make new choices. Beginning right now, because of your presence
in my life. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
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