WEBVTT 00:00:03.766 --> 00:00:04.607 Good morning guys. 00:00:04.607 --> 00:00:06.230 How's everybody doing this morning? 00:00:06.230 --> 00:00:11.226 Good, I'm so glad to be with you today and we're just thankful for this year as we've been going through. 00:00:11.226 --> 00:00:14.813 Derek mentioned this Can we talk? 00:00:14.813 --> 00:00:16.163 So can we talk this morning? 00:00:16.163 --> 00:00:23.204 And we're looking at some things that really have to do with some essential cultural issues. 00:00:23.204 --> 00:00:32.158 Tyler did such a great job leading this, beginning with the idea of truth and love, and then last couple of weeks on sexuality, and this morning is Derek's day. 00:00:32.177 --> 00:00:33.622 I want to talk about identity. 00:00:33.622 --> 00:00:35.268 Would you pray with me? 00:00:35.268 --> 00:00:39.201 And let's ask God to be just helping us as we go through this today. 00:00:39.201 --> 00:00:47.847 So, father, we're thankful for your word, and what a privilege it is, lord, to hear and to know that you are speaking to us. 00:00:47.847 --> 00:01:03.012 Lord, it's not just a common word, lord, this is your word, the word of God, and so we ask you, lord, just as you tell us that the word is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword able to discern the thoughts and attitudes or intentions of the heart. 00:01:03.012 --> 00:01:12.227 And so, lord, just do that today, holy Spirit, speak to our hearts and change our lives, and we give this time to you in Jesus' name, amen. 00:01:12.227 --> 00:01:15.112 Well, I want to kind of begin. 00:01:15.112 --> 00:01:23.218 We've been as talking about this subject and now we're into the idea of this issue called identity in our culture. 00:01:23.308 --> 00:01:56.391 A number of years ago it's been about 30 years or so, maybe more now so when I was back in seminary, had a time when I was in one of the classes there and the person that I had kind of connected with a little bit said a couple of rows over me was his name was Daniel, and there was a time where we were nearing the end of the semester, right before Christmas break, and I had missed a couple of classes, and so when I came back, right before Christmas break started, I asked Daniel, I said I missed these two classes. 00:01:56.391 --> 00:01:59.180 Do you have number or notes that I could borrow? 00:01:59.180 --> 00:02:02.117 And he said, well, sure, he pulled them out and gave them to me. 00:02:02.117 --> 00:02:06.171 He said, if you don't mind, if you'll give them back to me when break is over. 00:02:06.171 --> 00:02:07.256 I said, sure, do that. 00:02:07.697 --> 00:02:18.808 So Christmas break came and went and I got back and walked into the class in January and we kind of saw Daniel walking in and he had someone helping him find his seat. 00:02:18.808 --> 00:02:20.875 He looked like he was kind of disoriented. 00:02:20.875 --> 00:02:25.088 I pulled my notes out and I said hey, daniel, here's your notes. 00:02:25.088 --> 00:02:27.854 And he said Do I know you? 00:02:27.854 --> 00:02:31.127 And I thought he was kidding. 00:02:31.127 --> 00:02:33.298 I kind of joked around with him a little bit till the cell. 00:02:33.298 --> 00:02:35.403 I realized that he wasn't kidding at all. 00:02:36.286 --> 00:02:43.729 He said they tell me that I had a bicycle accident over the holidays and I was hit by a car and hit my head. 00:02:43.729 --> 00:02:46.437 And he said I lost my memory. 00:02:46.437 --> 00:02:47.280 I don't know my name. 00:02:47.280 --> 00:02:55.759 They tell me my name is Daniel and they tell me I attend seminary here and I don't know who I am. 00:02:55.759 --> 00:03:04.125 So I thought maybe, we thought maybe coming back here we kind of jog my memory and so they don't know if I'll ever recover it or not. 00:03:04.125 --> 00:03:09.365 And, as you can imagine, I was just kind of like I've never seen this before. 00:03:09.365 --> 00:03:13.158 This is shocking and I don't know whatever happened to Daniel. 00:03:13.158 --> 00:03:18.373 He didn't come back after that semester and hopefully Lord healed him. 00:03:19.116 --> 00:03:24.806 But I thought what a picture of it is for, of it for us today when we talk about identity. 00:03:24.806 --> 00:03:35.474 Not knowing who we are really determines not knowing what we should do in life, and identity is important. 00:03:35.474 --> 00:03:41.836 I want to talk to you a little bit about it and use one of the examples that I find in Judges 19. 00:03:41.836 --> 00:03:42.859 If you want to turn there. 00:03:42.859 --> 00:03:44.405 We're going to look at a few verses. 00:03:45.168 --> 00:04:14.252 And you know, judges is an interesting book because the way it's laid out is it starts with some things that eventually lead to ultimately, by the end of the book, you can see the nation declining and cyclically, over and over again, god sends judges who were not like judges we think of them as legal representatives, they're military people, they're leaders in the nation to try to call God's people back to where they should be. 00:04:14.252 --> 00:04:20.540 And so you see them sin and fall, and the judge brings it back over about 300 years. 00:04:20.540 --> 00:04:33.574 And so we find that this particular case, in this period of time Israel has, is a nation that forgot who it was, and a tragedy thing to see a nation. 00:04:33.574 --> 00:04:35.439 That can happen to any nation, not just Israel. 00:04:35.439 --> 00:04:43.848 And so this, this series of lessons in the book of Judges is is, I believe, put there by God to show us what can happen. 00:04:43.848 --> 00:04:46.838 It's not exclusive to any particular nation. 00:04:46.838 --> 00:04:52.216 When we forget God, we are in a world of trouble, and so I want us to see this. 00:04:52.216 --> 00:04:52.677 Judges 19. 00:04:52.697 --> 00:04:57.713 And I want to give a little bit of warning as we go through this and kind of summarize some of this. 00:04:57.713 --> 00:05:08.887 You know, judges includes most, probably most of the, some of the most graphic, violent and disturbing images in all the Bible and this is one of them. 00:05:08.887 --> 00:05:19.870 This this describes a sex crime that occurred in national Israel and how the people kind of treated it and where they were. 00:05:19.870 --> 00:05:23.425 It kind of tells us the situation of their spiritual and moral decline. 00:05:23.425 --> 00:05:47.824 So chapter 19, just to kind of get this the background forward, we have this Levite who is has acquired a concubine and they're traveling through the area there and they end up for the end of the day the day is about to go to turn into evening they stop in this town called Gibbia and right there most of the towns, it was a familiar place. 00:05:47.824 --> 00:05:51.201 It was like home, home for this man it wasn't a foreign place. 00:05:51.305 --> 00:06:05.730 The Levite and the concubine and his attendants were there with him and when you went into these cities or these small towns, most of the places there, they had these town squares right as you went into the to the city gate, and that was the case here. 00:06:05.730 --> 00:06:19.723 They sit down right there and what would normally have happened is, if you came out and you were looking to lodge in a place, there would be people come out from the, from the neighbors neighborhood, and invite you to stay in their home because you were traveling. 00:06:19.723 --> 00:06:25.141 Well, in this particular case, the Levite and his little crew there is concubine and other people. 00:06:25.141 --> 00:06:31.882 No one came out to show any hospitality whatsoever and so something was kind of odd about that. 00:06:31.882 --> 00:06:35.509 Nobody showed him hospitality, except this one old man. 00:06:35.509 --> 00:06:40.026 He walks out to the town square and he said you need to stay with me. 00:06:40.026 --> 00:06:49.569 He said you don't stay in the town square at night Kind of a hint that something is dark and dangerous about doing so. 00:06:49.569 --> 00:06:57.531 And so he brings them into his home and and offers them food and feeds his and feeds his horses and so on. 00:06:57.531 --> 00:07:00.382 And they're there in this old man's house. 00:07:00.382 --> 00:07:02.629 And now we come to chapter 19. 00:07:02.629 --> 00:07:06.642 And this section actually goes from chapter 17 through 21. 00:07:06.642 --> 00:07:11.718 But let's look at what it says and read it, from verses 22 through 30. 00:07:11.718 --> 00:07:17.600 And I'm using the message version because I think it just really pictures a little better what was happening here. 00:07:17.600 --> 00:07:18.422 So read with me. 00:07:18.882 --> 00:07:33.653 Since they were relaxed and enjoying themselves when the men of the city, a gang of local hellraisers, all surrounded the house and started pounding on the door, they yelled for the owner of the house, the old man. 00:07:33.653 --> 00:07:35.699 Bring out the man who came to your house. 00:07:35.699 --> 00:07:38.228 We want to have sex with him. 00:07:38.228 --> 00:07:41.059 He went out and told them no, brothers, don't be obscene. 00:07:41.059 --> 00:07:43.064 This man is my guest. 00:07:43.064 --> 00:07:45.932 Don't commit this outrage. 00:07:45.932 --> 00:07:48.098 Look, my virgin daughter and his concubine are here. 00:07:48.098 --> 00:07:54.240 I'll bring them out for you, abuse them if you must, but don't do anything so senselessly vile to this man. 00:07:54.240 --> 00:07:58.233 But the men wouldn't listen to him. 00:07:58.254 --> 00:08:00.060 Finally, the Levite pushed his concubine out the door to them. 00:08:00.060 --> 00:08:05.312 They raped her repeatedly all night long. 00:08:05.312 --> 00:08:07.399 Just before dawn they let her go. 00:08:07.399 --> 00:08:12.694 The woman came back and fell at the door of the house where her master was sleeping. 00:08:12.694 --> 00:08:14.500 When the sun rose, there she was. 00:08:14.500 --> 00:08:17.689 It was morning. 00:08:17.689 --> 00:08:20.379 Her master got up and opened the door to continue his journey. 00:08:20.379 --> 00:08:25.718 There she was, this concubine crumpled in the heap at the door, her hands on the threshold Get up. 00:08:25.718 --> 00:08:28.146 He said, let's get going. 00:08:28.146 --> 00:08:30.271 There was no answer. 00:08:30.271 --> 00:08:32.719 He lifted her onto his donkey and set out for home. 00:08:32.739 --> 00:08:38.998 When he got home, he took a knife and dismembered this concubine, cut her into 12 pieces. 00:08:38.998 --> 00:08:53.166 He sent her, piece by piece, throughout the country of Israel and he ordered the men he sent out say to every man in Israel has such a thing as this ever happened from the time the Israelites came up from the land of Egypt until now. 00:08:53.166 --> 00:08:57.235 Think about it, talk it over, do something. 00:08:57.235 --> 00:09:02.807 And we read a passage like that and you say what in the world is this all about? 00:09:02.807 --> 00:09:06.174 And how does this relate to identity? 00:09:06.174 --> 00:09:16.864 Well, we find that the author is really showing us what happens when individuals forget who God is and they look at us and they lose themselves in the process. 00:09:16.864 --> 00:09:20.913 Identity is important and memory is a gift. 00:09:20.913 --> 00:09:29.869 As the Israelites came into that land, they had remembered God had rescued them at the Red Sea, and they had a history of God doing great things. 00:09:29.869 --> 00:09:41.162 But as time went by and they began to live their own lives and they began to let God kind of slip by the wayside, they forgot who he was and what he required of them. 00:09:42.163 --> 00:10:02.812 And so I'm saying this is a great analogy for us to say we could find ourselves easily in this kind of situation where right and wrong doesn't matter, the morals no longer are cared about too much and the whole nation ends up being compromised because we've compromised. 00:10:02.812 --> 00:10:16.221 You know, we see this a lot in our own nation right now, and it may be a warning sign to us to consider these particular things Compromise and lukewarmness, attitudes that eventually have consequences. 00:10:16.221 --> 00:10:32.096 And, as I say, the story goes all the way through chapter 21 and four times in these verses it has a particular word that I want us to see, and it's these words. 00:10:32.096 --> 00:10:38.688 The book actually ends with these sobering words there was no king in Israel. 00:10:38.688 --> 00:10:41.817 Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. 00:10:41.817 --> 00:10:44.907 They lost their identity. 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:53.207 And see when we're talking about identity, to have a name is to be somebody, but there's no one who has a name in this story. 00:10:53.207 --> 00:10:58.807 All the names are erased, and that's by design. 00:10:58.807 --> 00:11:08.307 The author wants us to see that these people have no significance within their community and since names are used by others, that's how we identify each other, right? 00:11:08.307 --> 00:11:09.424 Don't you like to hear your name? 00:11:09.424 --> 00:11:11.768 When somebody greets you, it identifies us. 00:11:11.768 --> 00:11:14.147 But this Levite in this story has no name. 00:11:15.240 --> 00:11:23.647 To the men of Gibby, he's nothing more than a sex object, and to the concubine it's even really worse because she's kind of the one who's. 00:11:23.647 --> 00:11:29.024 I think this is an indication that she died in the process of this. 00:11:29.024 --> 00:11:41.311 She's reduced to human flesh, she's almost like, and then even the Levite cuts her up like a piece of meat and he acts like he's not really very caring at all. 00:11:41.311 --> 00:11:51.330 But ultimately, when he sends out this message the 12 pieces of this woman he's hoping to get a response, and even the response of the nation is flawed. 00:11:51.330 --> 00:11:53.164 You can go back and read that. 00:11:53.164 --> 00:12:15.008 But since the whole identity thing is based on who we are, individuals, that can spread to a community and little by little, it's like when something is on low and the heat on your stove it doesn't seem like it's cooking, but eventually, by and by, things burn up, and that can happen in any nation. 00:12:15.008 --> 00:12:20.428 Someone said this is the ironic picture of a united Israel self-destructing as one man. 00:12:20.428 --> 00:12:22.706 There was no king in Israel. 00:12:22.706 --> 00:12:25.989 Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. 00:12:27.182 --> 00:12:29.188 Let's talk about, then, identity this morning. 00:12:29.188 --> 00:12:37.947 Define it for us, because you really I think what you might think is a simple question is really pretty complex, as I've discovered in my study this week. 00:12:37.947 --> 00:12:40.849 It has a lot of facets, a lot of fingers to it. 00:12:40.849 --> 00:12:51.746 Identity can mean a lot of things and since a picture is worth a thousand words, I thought I'd give you a picture this morning to kind of give you an idea what sometimes we think about here. 00:12:51.746 --> 00:12:58.245 So you see this identity picture here, and me is in the center and it was around. 00:12:58.245 --> 00:13:00.370 It are different facets of this person. 00:13:00.370 --> 00:13:30.100 They're a B student, they're tall, they're female, they like rock music, they visit grandparents in Florida All these different things that define who we are, and same with you, things like your physical and psychological characteristics, your name, your history, your experiences, your relationships, your commitments, your actions, even the boundaries that you have in place in life, your values, your memories, and so on and so on. 00:13:30.259 --> 00:13:36.726 All these things put together tell you some thing about your identity. 00:13:36.726 --> 00:13:41.682 So we even identify others by when we come up to them. 00:13:41.682 --> 00:13:44.049 It's by the way we ask questions, right? 00:13:44.049 --> 00:13:45.985 So where are you from? 00:13:45.985 --> 00:13:47.984 Where do you work? 00:13:47.984 --> 00:13:52.424 And all these things we think identify us and make us who we are. 00:13:52.424 --> 00:13:54.544 We're gonna find out this morning. 00:13:55.261 --> 00:13:59.349 That's not always the case, because those things can all go away in a moment. 00:13:59.349 --> 00:14:06.086 You can lose your job, you can lose your health, you can lose your friendships, you can lose your relationships. 00:14:06.086 --> 00:14:07.309 And then who are you? 00:14:07.309 --> 00:14:11.129 If we define ourselves by those kinds of things, then guess what? 00:14:11.129 --> 00:14:14.344 We have an identity crisis and we wonder who we are. 00:14:14.344 --> 00:14:16.924 Then so what are we talking about? 00:14:16.924 --> 00:14:22.229 Well, essentially, when we talk about identity, it's what makes me me and what makes you you. 00:14:22.229 --> 00:14:26.207 So we have this idea here. 00:14:26.207 --> 00:14:32.846 The most important question is this question about identity who am I? 00:14:32.846 --> 00:14:38.227 This is the most important question you will ever ask, and we talk about this in our foundations class. 00:14:38.227 --> 00:14:41.889 The most important question you will ever ask is who am I? 00:14:43.220 --> 00:14:53.087 As everything in life flows out of this, I don't think we give enough attention to this subject of identity, but it's very important and it's something that's true. 00:14:53.087 --> 00:14:56.864 Whether you are person of faith or not, this applies to everybody. 00:14:56.864 --> 00:14:59.883 But there's a problem, and we see it. 00:14:59.883 --> 00:15:16.725 Most of our society, most of our people that we kind of watch on TV or just even experience, seems to have lost the ability, haven't they, to discern what is good, and that's because of relativism. 00:15:16.725 --> 00:15:23.009 It's like what is good for me may not be good for you, that's fine with you, but it might not be good for me. 00:15:23.009 --> 00:15:30.265 And so we have this relativistic culture that has lost the ability to discern and to discover what's right. 00:15:30.265 --> 00:15:39.903 How we interpret, who gets to decide is not always easy, and so we see things that get distorted from our perspective. 00:15:41.322 --> 00:15:51.043 And so this truth about identity, if we have it in the wrong way, is we come up with this, that we measure ourselves by ourselves. 00:15:51.043 --> 00:15:53.320 We measure ourselves by ourselves. 00:15:53.320 --> 00:15:59.856 Surely there's a more better and objective standard to measure ourselves than by ourselves. 00:15:59.856 --> 00:16:04.399 Well, there is, and we're gonna talk about it today to get an accurate perception of who we are. 00:16:04.399 --> 00:16:25.139 Well, without going too far on this point, I'll just say that one of the things we have to come to is every person must come to a real, genuine encounter with the living God, because the God, that is the one that's made us, is the one who gets to make the call about who we are. 00:16:25.139 --> 00:16:41.559 He's the one that made us, he tells us who we are, and if you want a Bible study that helps with that, you may put a little reference down Read through Isaiah six and you'll see a person who really found out who they were in the light of seeing who God was, and it literally changed his life. 00:16:41.559 --> 00:16:47.480 So with that in mind, let's move on to three ideas that we wanna talk about in regard to identity. 00:16:48.164 --> 00:16:50.080 We've looked at this framework as we've gone through. 00:16:50.080 --> 00:16:59.940 It's what culture says about identity, what God says about an identity, and then how do we talk about identity in a culture like ours? 00:16:59.940 --> 00:17:05.339 So first, what the culture is saying about identity, this word that's not even in the Bible. 00:17:05.339 --> 00:17:08.827 Did you know that the word identity is not even the Bible? 00:17:08.827 --> 00:17:10.876 Yet the concept is there. 00:17:10.876 --> 00:17:20.651 Theologically, and in discussions that have gone back since the time of Plato, people have been wondering, talking about identity and what it really entails and means. 00:17:20.651 --> 00:17:37.787 But it's only within the last 50 years that our culture has coined new meaning to this phrase identity, a cultural identity that thankfully, we've got a lot of good resource to help us here in this area. 00:17:37.787 --> 00:17:39.105 What is the culture talking about? 00:17:39.105 --> 00:17:40.542 One of the people? 00:17:40.542 --> 00:17:41.788 I think that's been helpful in this. 00:17:41.940 --> 00:17:51.189 I've just read there's a theologian by the name of Carl Truman and he poses a scenario that helps us understand what has happened in our culture. 00:17:51.189 --> 00:17:52.403 And here's what he says. 00:17:52.403 --> 00:18:15.990 He says essentially that 50 or 100 years ago, if a man walked into his doctor's office and said, doctor, I have a problem, I think I'm really a woman, the doctor would have said you do have a problem, you have a problem in your mind and we need to conform your mind to your body. 00:18:15.990 --> 00:18:26.362 Today, if a man walked into a doctor's office and said, doctor, I have a problem, I think I'm a woman, the doctor would most likely say yes, you do have a problem. 00:18:26.362 --> 00:18:28.067 You have a body problem. 00:18:28.067 --> 00:18:31.990 We need to conform your body to match your mind. 00:18:31.990 --> 00:18:33.959 So see how that works. 00:18:33.959 --> 00:18:42.079 It dramatically shows the shift that's happened in our culture and the way we think, what's been fed to us and it's truly a lie. 00:18:42.079 --> 00:18:45.349 Now here's a way we can look at it. 00:18:45.400 --> 00:18:49.007 Just to give you a brief definition what culture says about identity. 00:18:49.007 --> 00:18:50.424 You'll put that up there. 00:18:50.424 --> 00:19:09.929 What I feel or what I desire for myself on the inside must be expressed if I'm really to achieve individuality and identity, and I hope you can see from that it's about I, what I feel, what I desire, what must be expressed If I'm to really achieve individuality. 00:19:09.929 --> 00:19:11.807 So you see, it's all focused about me. 00:19:11.807 --> 00:19:21.845 It's very self-oriented, it's self-focused and so it's very different than what we've traditionally seen or what we traditionally thought about. 00:19:23.180 --> 00:19:31.968 Brian Rosner, in a podcast he called why Is Our Culture so Obsessed with Identity, says it's not just that you look inside to find yourself. 00:19:31.968 --> 00:19:35.407 The highest goal in life becomes your personal happiness. 00:19:35.407 --> 00:19:40.905 All moral judgments are simply expressions of feeling, your personal preference. 00:19:40.905 --> 00:19:48.250 The key to the good life is really to exclude all external authority and pursue your own dreams. 00:19:48.250 --> 00:20:00.691 The quest for self-expression is to be celebrated, certain aspects of a personal identity become paramount, things like your gender, your ethnicity, your sexuality. 00:20:00.691 --> 00:20:03.085 But it's not just those things. 00:20:03.085 --> 00:20:08.970 It's the story that people tap into about finding meaning in life and what drives their lives. 00:20:09.500 --> 00:20:19.191 The great irony in our day, of course, is it's never been more important to know who you are, but, on the other hand, it's actually never been more difficult. 00:20:19.191 --> 00:20:30.208 And so our culture is so confused, our culture is so off the map, and so the problem, the problem with this way of thinking is, as I said, it's so self-centered. 00:20:30.208 --> 00:20:42.679 And listen, if you define your reality by yourself instead of ultimate reality, what's outside of yourselves and of course I'm talking about God you will have an identity crisis. 00:20:42.679 --> 00:20:44.587 You absolutely will. 00:20:44.587 --> 00:20:52.032 So so when we're talking about what's going on in the culture, when people think about identity, listen, they're not thinking logically. 00:20:52.032 --> 00:20:56.386 You see, here people say well, you know, that's just crazy, our culture is crazy, it's gone mad. 00:20:56.386 --> 00:21:05.872 All these little ideas, it's like we can pick up on something is just crazy, something's not right, and but they're not thinking logically. 00:21:05.872 --> 00:21:13.038 And we see that in Even in human, by a lot biology, and even in human nature. 00:21:13.038 --> 00:21:20.366 They're not thinking logically most of the time we see this in reveal to us in what's called general Revelation. 00:21:20.366 --> 00:21:23.777 It's the thing, the truth about God that we can know from God's creation. 00:21:24.425 --> 00:21:30.825 But in this case, what cultures say, and all this stuff about who we are is manufactured from within. 00:21:30.825 --> 00:21:34.573 You are who you decide yourself to be. 00:21:34.573 --> 00:21:52.710 You are your own creation and If your body or if your relationships or your social commitments are all these things that we saw in this little diagram, any of those things we looked at, that they don't fit this inward desire, this inward image or vision you have of yourself, they don't fit. 00:21:52.710 --> 00:21:53.773 Guess what do you do? 00:21:53.773 --> 00:22:01.974 You change everything on the outside to make it fit your perception of who you are. 00:22:01.974 --> 00:22:06.384 Someone said according to this, this lie, I said, is a lie. 00:22:06.384 --> 00:22:16.314 They said gender is not some internal truth, some irrefutable fact of our existence, but rather a performance that we produce through stylized repetition. 00:22:16.314 --> 00:22:24.397 This is the way the culture thinks it's, by by my stylized repetition and and we're gonna see how that potentially happens. 00:22:24.397 --> 00:22:27.751 But gender, as I said, is communicated like this. 00:22:27.751 --> 00:22:32.890 Gender is not something who, who you are but something you do, and so you know. 00:22:32.890 --> 00:22:53.196 It makes me think of this Gal I worked with a few years ago I was in a little group of folks that sat around in a small room at computers and you know we, of course, over a year you get to know people because people will say comments, make comments, and Even if you're not always engaged in them, you still hear them. 00:22:53.759 --> 00:23:15.204 And so this, this, this girl I worked with, she was a gal who had had had a gender change Rainette became Riley and so during our time working together in that same general vicinity, I said I'll just hear, over, overhear things, and it was sort of like everybody knew but they did respect her and which they should have. 00:23:15.204 --> 00:23:20.204 But one day I was walking out of the office behind her and I don't think she knew I was behind her. 00:23:20.204 --> 00:23:44.517 We walked out the suite door and the she was going to the restroom and I was behind her and Riley, he went into the women's bathroom and I thought, hmm, this is who she really thinks she is in her soul. 00:23:44.517 --> 00:24:00.298 But her attempt to discern and decide her own identity had caused her to go through all sorts of things, painful things, to become who she is, just to validate who she was. 00:24:00.298 --> 00:24:10.073 And I thought how sad, you know I and I want to say this just a little thing to anyone who's struggling with these things, and I'm so sorry. 00:24:10.073 --> 00:24:18.094 It's just if you're suffering from gender dysphoria, confusion, heart goes out to you. 00:24:18.094 --> 00:24:26.410 It's just like anything that we would say that Someone who struggles with pornography it's. 00:24:26.410 --> 00:24:26.711 It's. 00:24:26.711 --> 00:24:37.298 It's not something God would choose, but there's compassion there, there's forgiveness there, and you know God loves you, just like he does all of us. 00:24:37.298 --> 00:24:43.617 So I'll just put that in there, just just an encouragement for anyone who might be struggling today with that. 00:24:44.185 --> 00:24:47.733 But here's the thing social media also foments the lies. 00:24:47.733 --> 00:24:55.826 I mean, you look at everything that's out there right now, even the stores that try to communicate this ideology. 00:24:55.826 --> 00:25:01.792 This agenda intended to make sure that Identity is left undefined. 00:25:01.792 --> 00:25:05.150 So it places a premium on what? 00:25:05.150 --> 00:25:17.515 On choice, so you can choose to be a man, a woman, a boy, a girl, son, a daughter, and so what you get is this evil, demonic attack on, honestly, the family, as it at is known, the traditional family. 00:25:17.515 --> 00:25:30.336 You know, when you, when you destroy the family, you destroy a culture, and so it's such an important thing that we that we don't ignore this or let this think think this is just Not a big deal. 00:25:30.336 --> 00:25:31.220 It's a big deal. 00:25:31.220 --> 00:25:32.105 It's a big deal. 00:25:33.347 --> 00:25:34.872 I didn't have this in here, but I you know. 00:25:34.872 --> 00:25:35.814 I just want to say something of. 00:25:35.814 --> 00:25:39.808 This is what we would call the woke Ideology, and I don't. 00:25:39.808 --> 00:25:51.174 When you hear that term, this is what flows out of it, things like this you know, we've had great awakenings in our nation's history. 00:25:51.174 --> 00:25:52.038 This is not that. 00:25:52.038 --> 00:25:54.345 This is just the opposite of that. 00:25:54.885 --> 00:26:03.676 This is a demonic agenda and ideology, yeah, literally a religion that is opposed to everything the Christian culture stands for. 00:26:03.676 --> 00:26:12.357 You understand that we're in a war, and it's probably the greatest war that that our nation has ever fought, in a, in a spiritual sense. 00:26:12.357 --> 00:26:23.238 So I want you to hear this this is a, this is a critical thing, and and then we have to think about how God wants us to respond, and we're gonna talk about that a little bit. 00:26:23.238 --> 00:26:25.374 But what does God say about identity? 00:26:25.374 --> 00:26:31.394 I want to just kind of go back to God's original intent and Let me give you two words that you can kind of keep in your mind. 00:26:31.394 --> 00:26:33.808 Number one is what's the purpose, what's his intent? 00:26:33.808 --> 00:26:37.538 To connect and to reflect, to connect and to reflect. 00:26:37.538 --> 00:26:40.553 So let me give you these five fundamental truths. 00:26:40.553 --> 00:26:48.178 We must fight To hold on to, desperately, this pressure that's coming against us from the culture. 00:26:48.700 --> 00:26:53.074 Number one is God created each of us In his image and likeness. 00:26:53.074 --> 00:26:56.272 God created each of us in his image and likeness. 00:26:56.272 --> 00:26:58.750 Image likeness there's no, there's no. 00:26:58.750 --> 00:27:01.744 And in between those in the Hebrew is just image likeness. 00:27:01.744 --> 00:27:06.057 Then God said let us make man in our image, after our likeness. 00:27:06.057 --> 00:27:15.193 And this is God talking in his creation of man, and he's almost saying that there's man and Is is a unity. 00:27:15.193 --> 00:27:22.276 Man is a is a soul and a Spirit and a body, and in the way that the Bible talks about is. 00:27:22.276 --> 00:27:29.938 You are a person, and sometimes we break those things apart, but basically he's saying I made you, you and you are who I made you. 00:27:29.978 --> 00:27:40.025 Being made in God's image means that we're necessarily Connected to him by design, which means you have a capacity for relationship with the living God. 00:27:40.025 --> 00:27:49.670 That's fascinating, that's amazing that you and I could connect with the person of God and if you're here, that you today, you don't know him. 00:27:49.670 --> 00:27:53.157 You have that opportunity to know God in a personal way. 00:27:53.157 --> 00:27:56.570 It was Augustine who revealed why this is true. 00:27:56.570 --> 00:28:05.444 He said because you, he's talking to God, because you've made us for yourself and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you. 00:28:05.444 --> 00:28:07.809 You heart restless this morning. 00:28:07.809 --> 00:28:10.715 You know, we come, all of us, without knowing God. 00:28:10.715 --> 00:28:11.718 Our hearts are empty. 00:28:11.718 --> 00:28:15.354 They're, they're, they're designed to be filled with something. 00:28:15.354 --> 00:28:19.855 It's not ourself, it's to be filled with a person that made us who's God. 00:28:20.665 --> 00:28:35.551 He goes on in his work called the soliloquies, which are a Are I guess you would call them prayers, or or maybe imaginary Conversations between I don't think they're imaginary, they're probably Purely true prayers, but they're between God and himself. 00:28:35.551 --> 00:28:39.940 And Augustine imagines God asking him what he wants to know. 00:28:39.940 --> 00:28:42.809 What do you want to know, augustine? 00:28:42.809 --> 00:28:49.654 And Augustine replies he wants to know only two things who he, augustine, is and who God is. 00:28:49.654 --> 00:28:52.845 And God responds nothing else. 00:28:52.845 --> 00:28:59.924 Nothing else, augustine, augustine, replies, is because everything else is relative to these two things. 00:28:59.924 --> 00:29:10.299 So there's no more important thing for you to know than who you are and who God is, because those are closely intertwined. 00:29:10.299 --> 00:29:16.478 God and myself are the only two realities that you can never yeah, you can't escape those. 00:29:16.478 --> 00:29:26.780 You can't escape you and you cannot escape God, because God is everywhere, not for a single moment in time or eternity or anywhere else, and and really that's why it's essential to know both of those things. 00:29:26.780 --> 00:29:35.301 So one can't be known without the other second thing that I want to show you this morning. 00:29:35.481 --> 00:29:36.845 Second truth is the image of God in us is reflective. 00:29:36.845 --> 00:29:40.321 It's reflective, you say, what does that mean? 00:29:40.321 --> 00:29:47.189 Well, romans one Tells us why and how we can know what to reflect, and Tyler spent a bit of time In Romans one. 00:29:47.189 --> 00:29:51.143 I want to just look at one verse, romans one, verse 20. 00:29:51.143 --> 00:30:03.740 It says there, for his invisible attributes, namely his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived Ever since the creation of the world in the things that have been made. 00:30:03.740 --> 00:30:08.537 We talked about general revelation, which means that clearly perceived means everybody can see it for themselves. 00:30:08.537 --> 00:30:11.339 It's not hidden from them. 00:30:11.339 --> 00:30:11.845 Look at the creation. 00:30:11.845 --> 00:30:20.163 You can see that there's a God that exists and that that God has certain attributes, like power, and is in certain features. 00:30:20.163 --> 00:30:22.652 About his nature we can all know simply by looking at creation. 00:30:22.652 --> 00:30:33.761 So here's the thing I want you to understand is that image is not identity. 00:30:33.761 --> 00:30:37.167 Image is not identity. 00:30:37.167 --> 00:30:42.537 Rather, our identity is meant to reflect what we see in God. 00:30:42.537 --> 00:30:50.117 You get that Our image is meant to reflect, or identity is meant to reflect what we see in God. 00:30:50.117 --> 00:30:51.347 So we think about these things. 00:30:51.909 --> 00:31:01.097 Likeness in what Character John 4 says God is spirit, and those who want to worship Him must worship in spirit. 00:31:01.097 --> 00:31:04.333 That's His nature, and God reveals His nature. 00:31:04.333 --> 00:31:07.628 He tells us other things about Himself, in His character. 00:31:07.628 --> 00:31:12.808 For example, we know that we can look at the creation and say well, god is a good God, this is beautiful. 00:31:12.808 --> 00:31:21.224 When I look at something beauty out there, god is good, god is faithful, god is kind because of the way my life goes, and so on and so on. 00:31:21.224 --> 00:31:25.733 We can learn these things from God through creation and by. 00:31:26.174 --> 00:31:34.204 I guess maybe a good analogy would be if you looked in the mirror this morning before you got ready or while you're getting ready, to make sure everything was okay. 00:31:34.204 --> 00:31:36.711 A mirror what's the design for the mirror? 00:31:36.711 --> 00:31:37.894 It's to reflect, right. 00:31:37.894 --> 00:31:43.116 So what happens if the mirror is broken or distorted? 00:31:43.116 --> 00:31:46.204 It also reflects, doesn't it? 00:31:46.204 --> 00:31:54.496 But it's reflecting in a distorted, messed up way, and so your identity is rooted in what you reflect. 00:31:56.307 --> 00:31:57.670 So, essentially, what happens? 00:31:57.670 --> 00:32:02.118 You either reflect God or something in the created order. 00:32:02.118 --> 00:32:03.910 You can choose that. 00:32:03.910 --> 00:32:09.224 Look at God and you'll hopefully reflect His nature and His characteristics. 00:32:09.224 --> 00:32:15.204 But if you look at yourself, you're a flawed human being, fallen human being. 00:32:15.204 --> 00:32:18.575 And guess who you might just reflect by looking inwardly. 00:32:20.788 --> 00:32:30.288 So, essentially, what that becomes for us is when we look at ourselves or we look at other things outside of ourselves that are not God, it becomes idolatrous. 00:32:30.288 --> 00:32:33.115 What is an idolatrous? 00:32:33.115 --> 00:32:39.224 It's a substitute for the real thing, substitute for God, who fulfills us and made us. 00:32:39.224 --> 00:32:54.372 So when we create ourselves in our own image, as the culture is trying to do to us and is doing, we're not just making an intellectual decision, we're making a heart decision. 00:32:54.372 --> 00:32:56.419 It comes out of the heart. 00:32:56.419 --> 00:32:58.224 Our affections come out of the heart. 00:32:58.224 --> 00:33:10.916 So if our affections are for all these things we saw in this chart, or things that the culture tries to get us to make us happy, we will have created the biggest identity crisis we could have ever imagined. 00:33:10.916 --> 00:33:16.224 So, but when you choose to reflect God's image, what happens? 00:33:16.224 --> 00:33:22.817 It results in worship, it results in honor, it results in completion, it results in satisfaction. 00:33:22.817 --> 00:33:35.634 But if we choose to reflect our own distorted image, it results in perversion and corruption and consumption and possession, all these things that are the things we don't want to see. 00:33:35.634 --> 00:33:43.846 So, as Richard Lentz says, at what you revere, you resemble or said. 00:33:43.846 --> 00:33:48.134 In other words, you become what you worship. 00:33:50.705 --> 00:33:57.637 Well, let's look at a third truth, and that is, each of us is an image bearer, but with a difference. 00:33:57.637 --> 00:34:01.471 So God created a man in his own image, in the image of God. 00:34:01.471 --> 00:34:03.296 He created him male and female. 00:34:03.296 --> 00:34:06.509 He created him and we have a distinction, a difference. 00:34:06.509 --> 00:34:18.469 All human beings, then, are our image bearers, everybody, but there are two, and only two ways to be an image bearer A man or a woman. 00:34:18.469 --> 00:34:19.873 Just two. 00:34:19.873 --> 00:34:21.416 That's the way God made it. 00:34:21.416 --> 00:34:30.599 In some mysterious way, god intends to make himself known in one of those two ways, through these distinctions. 00:34:30.599 --> 00:34:37.938 So I guess Paul even calls it, when you were talking about this as an analogy for the church, that it is a mystery. 00:34:37.938 --> 00:34:39.568 It is a mystery. 00:34:39.568 --> 00:34:42.634 So God wants to show us something through the genders. 00:34:42.634 --> 00:34:49.215 But the genders are male or female, and you know that all of us think differently on certain things. 00:34:49.215 --> 00:34:53.835 We have different abilities because we're male or a female. 00:34:53.835 --> 00:35:09.701 So Jesus said it like this From the beginning, god made them male and female, and when he talked about it, he was introducing the most extensive discussion about marriage in the whole Gospels. 00:35:09.701 --> 00:35:11.391 So let's go on. 00:35:11.411 --> 00:35:12.114 Number four. 00:35:12.114 --> 00:35:14.224 Number four truth. 00:35:14.224 --> 00:35:18.184 The image of God in us calls us to function according to our design. 00:35:18.184 --> 00:35:32.224 Genesis 1.28 says, and God blessed them, and God said to them be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth. 00:35:32.224 --> 00:35:33.827 And just that little phrase. 00:35:33.827 --> 00:35:54.204 Have dominion, which means that God has given us the power of the capacity to manage creation, and so it is our responsibility to not just sit back and do nothing when we see things that are not in place, the things that are distorted, things that are not right. 00:35:54.204 --> 00:36:07.708 What I'm trying to say is we, as the church, have the capacity and the ability and the power and the blessing by God to go out and make change happen, and we're going to come to that. 00:36:07.708 --> 00:36:11.436 But it calls us to function according to our design. 00:36:11.436 --> 00:36:20.224 Number five, and this is the culmination of the ideas here A person's identity can only be understood in light of ultimate reality. 00:36:21.005 --> 00:36:31.161 See, god is the ultimate reality, and God is most clearly seen in the person of Jesus Christ. 00:36:31.161 --> 00:36:56.224 Christ, then, is the ultimate reality, and we can become reflectors of God through Christ, because, remember, our identity was not lost in creation, but it was distorted, and through Christ we can have a recovery of everything that was lost in terms of our identity, because the Bible talks about through the Holy Spirit. 00:36:56.224 --> 00:37:02.204 He is changing the believer who believes in Christ, and he's conforming him to the image of Christ. 00:37:02.204 --> 00:37:08.072 We will one day look just like him and will be just like him, our ultimate identity. 00:37:08.072 --> 00:37:23.199 The Bible, in Colossians 1.15, says he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, and then, in Acts 17.28, tells us how we're to respond, in that in him we live and move and have our being. 00:37:24.407 --> 00:37:30.224 So let's go back to this little diagram that I put up there, and just I want to kind of give you a little perspective. 00:37:30.224 --> 00:37:42.909 This is like if you widen the circle out here a little bit, this is what we see, but there's a God out there that you may not see, and he is the pressure that we have to go to. 00:37:42.909 --> 00:37:49.391 That's outside this circle, that determines who we really are, and unless you're looking at him, you're going to miss it. 00:37:49.391 --> 00:37:50.775 You're going to miss it. 00:37:50.775 --> 00:37:58.376 So do we understand because he is the ultimate reality that he's the only one that can tell us who we really are? 00:37:58.376 --> 00:38:07.204 Do we understand that the Christian is one who's supposed to crucify self as a means to take on our real identity. 00:38:07.204 --> 00:38:09.052 This is what Paul gets at. 00:38:09.052 --> 00:38:11.224 I've been crucified with Christ. 00:38:11.224 --> 00:38:16.204 It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh. 00:38:16.204 --> 00:38:25.849 I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me, as Klein Snodgrass once said in its comment his notes. 00:38:25.849 --> 00:38:31.918 He said Christ is not an accessory to your identity, as if you were choosing an option for a car. 00:38:31.918 --> 00:38:41.697 He takes over identity so that everything else becomes an accessory, which is precisely what Jesus is Lord means. 00:38:41.697 --> 00:38:53.998 So that's why we're reminded in Colossians 310 that we are to put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. 00:38:53.998 --> 00:38:58.952 So even today, coming into today, we're reminding ourselves. 00:38:58.992 --> 00:39:01.117 You all participated, I participated in worship. 00:39:01.117 --> 00:39:08.190 We're reminding ourselves through our worship who God is, not who we are, and so we sing to him. 00:39:08.190 --> 00:39:11.311 Did anybody sing to themselves this morning? 00:39:11.311 --> 00:39:14.211 If you did, I want to talk to you after. 00:39:14.211 --> 00:39:25.721 It was fun to watch you engaged in worship and I think God was pleased. 00:39:26.563 --> 00:39:28.760 Yeah Well, let's get to the last thing. 00:39:28.760 --> 00:39:29.820 How can we talk about it? 00:39:29.820 --> 00:39:32.443 And I'll try to get through this as quick as possible here. 00:39:32.443 --> 00:39:35.764 How can we communicate with those with whom we disagree? 00:39:35.764 --> 00:39:37.940 That's the problem, isn't it? 00:39:37.940 --> 00:39:44.161 And I just kind of the Lord, I think brought me back to the scripture this week, and it's from 1st Timothy 1, verse five. 00:39:44.161 --> 00:39:51.360 But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience and from a sincere faith. 00:39:51.360 --> 00:40:01.556 So all this is about love and I think it's really significant to me that so many in the LGBTQ plus in that whole community is. 00:40:01.556 --> 00:40:05.076 They seem to think in general that most Christians are. 00:40:05.076 --> 00:40:16.367 They hate them, that we don't love them and sadly, in certain cases, I think that's probably at times been an accurate description to sadly say. 00:40:18.835 --> 00:40:23.202 I ran across this little thing this week and it kind of gives a hint of that. 00:40:23.202 --> 00:40:32.282 It's from the Anti-Defamation League and here's what it said Christian identity is a religious ideology popular in extreme right-wing circles. 00:40:32.282 --> 00:40:38.324 Adherents believe that whites of European descent can be traced back to the lost tribes of Israel. 00:40:38.324 --> 00:40:49.920 Many considered Jews to be the satanic offspring of Eve and the serpent, while non-whites are mud peoples created before Adam and Eve in virulent racist and anti-Semitic beliefs. 00:40:49.920 --> 00:40:58.447 It's virulent, and anti-racist and Semitic beliefs are usually accompanied by extreme anti-government sentiments. 00:40:58.447 --> 00:41:07.342 Despite its small size, christian identity influences virtually all white supremacists and extreme anti-government movements. 00:41:07.342 --> 00:41:12.483 It has also informed criminal behavior, ranging from hate crimes to acts of terrorism. 00:41:13.315 --> 00:41:21.760 Now, I would laugh if that wasn't really what people are saying and the perspective they had. 00:41:21.760 --> 00:41:28.282 And I'm thinking where in the world, who did they look at and who did they talk to to get this and put it on their website? 00:41:28.282 --> 00:41:32.684 And you know, whatever reason is there. 00:41:32.684 --> 00:41:35.619 I really wondered about this, and here's the thing. 00:41:35.619 --> 00:41:37.465 Our message is really simple, folks. 00:41:37.465 --> 00:41:38.197 It really is. 00:41:38.197 --> 00:41:46.342 It's God loves you as you are, but only in Christ can he transform you into who you are made to be. 00:41:46.342 --> 00:41:57.001 God loves you as you are, but only in Christ can he transform you into who he made you to be. 00:41:57.001 --> 00:42:05.724 And so our task is to communicate the need for a new identity, and it's not us, it's our identity in Christ. 00:42:05.724 --> 00:42:12.679 So if you wanna make an impact, you have no better tools than to go back to the very first things we talked about truth and love. 00:42:12.679 --> 00:42:17.385 Truth and love, which 1 Corinthians says love never fails. 00:42:17.385 --> 00:42:18.900 So that's a great promise, isn't it? 00:42:18.900 --> 00:42:26.940 The problem is that we failed to love, and so I was thinking about how we can talk about identity and I know we're over this a little bit. 00:42:26.940 --> 00:42:33.541 If you'll hang on just a moment with me, a little acronym that I came up with that spells out love L-O-V-E. 00:42:34.222 --> 00:42:36.719 Four little points how can we talk to people? 00:42:36.719 --> 00:42:39.543 Number one is listen to their story. 00:42:39.543 --> 00:42:40.974 Listen to their story. 00:42:40.974 --> 00:42:42.027 Well, I'll have a story. 00:42:42.027 --> 00:42:43.835 My story is not your story. 00:42:43.835 --> 00:42:54.804 Your story is not my story, but it significantly covers our perceptions about who we are, and there's a good principle I think that we all need to remember in this is that seek. 00:42:54.804 --> 00:43:00.735