Identity Issues

Who are you?It sounds like a simple question, doesn’t it? But what if I asked you to answer it without giving me your name. How would you define yourself then? What is it that gives you your identity?If you spend any time studying Paul’s letters, you will discover that having the right view of your identity is essential to him.That’s why he talks about it so much.Read very much of Paul and you’ll find that if he’s not talking about who Christ is, he’s probably talking about who you are.Take the book of Colossians.I once went through Colossians in order to note all the different times Paul talks about who the believer is, and in one quick, barely doing any kind of work way, I noticed at least 20 different descriptions Paul uses to explain what it means to be a Christian.Identity is important to Paul.There are at least two reasons it is important to Paul that you think carefully about how you define yourself. The first reason is pretty simple:Who you think you are impacts how you live your life.We barely even need the Bible to know that.If I think of myself as someone’s husband I am going to speak and act differently towards that person than I would if I didn’t. If I think of myself as inadequate in a certain setting I am going to speak and act differently than if I think I have everything I need. If I think of myself as superior to someone I am going to speak and act differently than if I think of myself as inferior.That is why when Paul gives specific practical counsel to believers he often links it or bases that counsel on truths he has taught them about their new identity in Christ.For example, in the book of Colossians, Paul begins really exhorting believers how they ought to live starting in verse 16 of chapter 2.Practical stuff.And if you follow his instructions down through chapter 3, you will find seven markers of explanation. I am talking about words like therefore. Paul is exhorting believers how they need to live their lives and throughout this passage we find a number of words like,v.16 thereforeandv. 20 if … basically the thought is…if this is true, then this ought to be true in your lifeand again inch.3 v.1 if... thenv.3 for…v. 5 therefore…v. 6 forv. 10 sincePaul is giving commands and he is giving reasons for those commands and if you look carefully at the reasons Paul gives; six of the seven have to do with the believer’s identity.In Paul’s mind having the right idea about who you are is not simply an abstract concept, it is practical and in fact, if you look closely at Colossians you will notice that a big part of the problems these believers were experiencing was because they were living in a way that was not consistent with who they really were, with their identity.Who you think you are matters.Maybe I could put it to you like this:We all know if we are talking to an unbeliever they are never going to be able to understand salvation or embrace salvation if they don’t understand who they are. We know, you can’t just tell them what to do, they have to know, the unbeliever has to appreciate exactly who the Bible says they are if they are going to move forward spiritually. It is impossible for the unbeliever to know God without knowing themselves. And what I am saying is that we can take that a step further and say something similar is true even after we are saved; just as the unbeliever can’t understand salvation without understanding what the Bible says about who he is, we as believers will not really understand sanctification, without understanding and embracing who the Bible says we are.This is important.To Paul.First because it makes a real life difference.And you know, it is important to Paul that we slow down and think about our identity for another reason as well. There’s a second reason it is so important you know who you are.And that’s because:You are not who you used to be.A change has taken place in your life. We need to slow down and think about how we look at ourselves, how we think about ourselves, how we define ourselves, because a change has taken place in our very identity. We are talking about a change at the core level, not on the surface, we’re talking the real self level, an identity change has taken place in our lives as believers. A change that is so big we can refer to it in terms of laying aside the old self and putting on the new self.That is how Paul speaks of it in Colossians 3, verse 9.He writes,“seeing that you have put off the old self with its evil practices and have put on the new self”We know that he is talking about salvation, because it is past tense. Old self being our former manner of life, our former mode of existence, our way of thinking. Paul’s already described becoming a Christian as dying with Christ to the elemental principles of the world and here he just modifies the illustration a bit and describes at as a kind of stripping off that worldly way of looking at life.There is a break that has taken place.In conversion. In salvation.That is why he refers to it as old self versus self. Death versus life. Being transferred from one kingdom to another.We exist as believers in a whole new mode, in a different place spiritually, we have an entirely different way of seeing things, we are different people, we have a different identity.We have changed at a fundamental level.And so our thinking about ourselves should change. And that is why we need to slow down and think about how we see ourselves because if we don’t, we’ll probably act as if we were who we used to be, when we are not.We as humans are people of habit, and those habits usually die hard.That’s true even when it comes to something like this, where we are finding our identity.Before we were saved we had a way of thinking about ourselves that became sort of habitual for us and those habits are very hard to break. It is kind of like if someone is single and he’s always thinking about girls and he’s always flirting with girls and then he gets married, that event changes his identity but it doesn’t necessarily, right away change the way he thinks at least not without some work. He’s a new man. He’s married. But he’s got to work on lining up the way he thinks with who he is.That’s definitely true when it comes to being a Christian. Only thing with being a Christian for some people the exact change that is supposed to take place in the way they think about themselves and others and the world can seem a little more fuzzy at first. When you go from single to married, the change is fairly obvious. But what is the exact change that takes place in a man’s life when he becomes a Christian? What is the new way I am supposed to think about myself and my identity?To help you understand Paul’s answer to that question, I want to give you a simple test to determine whether you are really looking at yourself the way you should in light of the great transformation that has taken place in your life. In other words, a simple test to determine whether you really know who you are.We find this test in Colossians 3 verse 11.It is not too hard to see as you look at this verse that Paul is making a contrast between the old self and the new.I quote,“Here”Here as opposed to there. Here in the new self as opposed to the there in the old.“there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free, but Christ is all and in all.”One of the things the characterizes the new self as opposed to the old self is that there is not Greek and Jew and all these other things but instead Christ is all and is in all. In our old life we found our identity in things like race or education or culture or class, in this new life, we find our fundamental identity somewhere completely different, and that is Christ and of course, in the context of Colossians, Paul is saying because that is true, it should fundamentally change the way we relate to others in the church.And the question is, does it?I have often been told by people who are Christians and leaders that they have a very hard time relating to believers from different cultures; and I have been with them in group settings and I can personally testify that they are right, they do.I am convinced the reason it is so difficult s because we have developed habitual patterns of relating to people that are based on a fundamentally non-Christian way of answering the question who we are, the old way we used to think and look at the world around us. This is the reason the way we relate to believers of different social classes and different educational backgrounds and different races is important, it is because the way we relate is a test of where we are finding our identity and if we are thinking about ourselves the way God does now that He's connected us to Christ.Are we thinking about ourselves like we are believers?Do our relationships and friendships reflect the fact that Christ is all or that race, education, and social class is most important instead?