Lost Identity in our world today
When we believe and are adopted into the Lord’s family, our relationship to Adam and the law ends immediately. But then we are under a new rule, and a new covenant. Believer, you are God’s child; it is your first duty to obey your heavenly Father. Have nothing to do with a servile spirit: you are not a slave, but a child. And now, seeing that you are a much-loved child, you are bound to obey your Father’s faintest wish, the slightest hint of His will. Does He want you to be baptized or take communion? You neglect this at your peril, for you will be disobeying your Father. Does He command you to pursue the likeness of Jesus? Isn’t it your joy to do so? Does Jesus tell you, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48)? Then you will labor to be perfect in holiness, not because the law commands it but because your Savior calls for it. Does He want His saints to love each other? Do that—not because the law says, “Love your neighbor” (Leviticus 19:18), but because Jesus says, “If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15)—and this is the commandment He has given you: “Love each other” (John 15:17). Are you told to give to the poor? Do that—not because charity is a task you dare not shirk, but because Jesus teaches, “Give to everyone who asks you” (Luke 6:30). Does the Word say, “Love the LORD your God with all your heart” (Deuteronomy 6:5)? Look at the commandment and reply, “Ah, commandment—Christ has fulfilled you already! I have no need, therefore, to fulfill you for my salvation, but I am happy to obey you—because God is now my Father, and He has a claim on me which I would not dispute.” May the Holy Spirit make your heart obedient to the constraining power of Christ’s love. May your prayer may be, “Make me to go in the path of your commandments, for I delight in them.” Grace is the mother and nurse of holiness, never the apologist of sin.
“Your heavenly Father . . .” Matthew 6:26
God’s people are doubly His children—they are His offspring by creation and they are His sons and daughters by adoption in Christ. And so they are privileged to call Him, “Our Father in heaven” (Matthew 6:9). Father! Oh, what a precious word that is. Here is authority: “If I am a father, where is the honor due me?” (Malachi 1:6). If you are sons and daughters, where is your obedience? Here is affection mingled with authority, an authority which does not provoke rebellion. God demands an obedience that we can most cheerfully give—and should not withhold even though we could. The obedience which God’s children yield to Him must be a loving obedience. Do not perform God’s service as slaves to a taskmaster; but run to obey His command, simply because it is your Father’s desire. Yield your bodies as “instruments of righteousness” (Romans 6:13) because righteousness is your Father’s will—and His will should be the will of His child. Father! Here is a kingly attribute so sweetly softened by love that the King’s crown is forgotten in the King’s face. His scepter becomes not a rod of iron but a silver staff of mercy—the scepter indeed seems to be forgotten in the tender hand of the one who wields it. Father! Here is honor and love. How great is a father’s love to his children! What friendship cannot do, and mere kindness will not attempt, a father’s heart and hand must do for his sons and daughters. They are his offspring—he must bless them. They are his children—he must show himself strong in their defense. If an earthly father watches over his children with unceasing love and care, how much more does our heavenly Father? Abba, Father! The one who can say this has sung a better song than the angels of heaven. There is heaven in the depth of that word: Father! In that term is all I can ask, all the necessities can demand, all the wishes can desire. I have all in all, and to all eternity, when I can say, “Father.”
Oh this morning...we live in a world today where identity is threatened. Where identity is being redefined by people who claim to be wiser than the Creator who made them. Even within the Church identity is getting lost. People not remembering who they are in Christ Jesus. They look at the world's claims and what the Bible says and are confused? They doubt?
Our identity in Christ as Christians is as much written in blood as that of the signature of God on the soul of a man who belongs to Him. There's the blood of Jesus Christ who makes the identification.
Why my friend would you listen to a perverted world? Why would you seek to redefine you before Jesus Christ?
This world is heading for the moments in the Bible where their anger and rage and hatred are boiling over at God because they refuse to believe and repent of their sexual immoralities. That blind rage is twisting our political system in America.
That blind rage is saying it isn't enough to be silent, you must join them in their rage and anger to support what they say is right and wrong.
In Christ is peace that passes all understanding. Not rage.
In Christ is found truth, not truth redefined.
In Christ is found Salvation, not a man made poisonous future.
In Christ is found the love of God. Not the pointless love of self.
In Christ is found the identity of a believer.
As Scripture has aptly described wolves have infiltrated the Church. They have twisted God's way and God's Word. They have taught as precepts the doctrines of demons within the Church. When it mentions evil men will proceed from bad to worse...that includes within the Church.
Who you are defines where you are going.
Look at your life today. Look at how you have defined yourself. Is it going to be Jesus that people see in you or are they only seeing you?
Life is more than posessions or obsessions with things in this world. Nobody's got a U-haul on their casket. Every single person in Hell doesn't want to be there.
Look at your choices, are they helping you to keep your eyes on Jesus? Are they only about your own good, your own welfare?
When not occupied with the necessity of work, do your thoughts ever rest in Jesus?
Are you at all trying to learn more about Him? Or do you only spend your time on you? The bank called, your reality check bounced. You may not have taken your walk with Jesus seriously before, but you can start again right here, right now.
If you haven't come to Christ for Salvation, let today be the day you find that which you have been looking for all your life. Let today bring peace to your heart that you have never been able to find in this world.
Come...come and see Jesus and see who you were meant to be...not who you are today.
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