Who Am I?
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Who are you?
Ask yourself that question: “Who am I?”.
I don’t mean your name or your family or your heritage.
I’m not talking about your ethnicity or what you do for a job or what kind of hobbies you enjoy.
I’m talking about your IDENTITY…Who are YOU?…the REAL you?
If you are a Christian - a believer in Jesus Christ for your salvation and eternal life…you know where you will spend eternity based on your faith in Jesus…YOU have an IDENTITY that no one can take away from you.
People enjoy taking “selfies” - photos of themselves that they can post on social media and send to friends and family.
It’s a fun way to communicate with others
And the camera doesn’t lie, right?…actually in many camera apps, there are many filters that can change how a person looks, the lighting, the skin tone, the eyes, lips, nose, even make people look like an animal or some other silly face.
Many times people see themselves with a “filter” - they see a distorted image of themselves that is not accurate.
We often tie our identity to things that don’t matter eternally:
PERFORMANCE
PRESENTATION
POSSESSIONS
PEOPLE
So we tell ourselves I am what I DO, how I LOOK, what I OWN, who I KNOW MAKE ME WHO I AM...BUT NONE OF THOSE THINGS ARE YOUR IDENTITY!
We are ETERNAL beings!
The problem with attaching our identity to something we do, look, own, or know is that none of these things are eternal.
The moment we attach our identity to our performance, person, possessions, or people we are crushed beneath the weight of that thing or person.
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In order to know who we are…to have a true grasp on our identity…we have to stop looking within ourselves and start looking to something OUTSIDE ourselves…Something BIGGER than ourselves...Someone who is eternally self-existent, and Someone who loves us with an infinite love.
We must look to our Creator in order to know who we are.
And the Bible gives us a true picture of ourselves - a no filter selfie that is always true. It shows us who we really are - it gives us our identity!
Let’s look at the first chapter of Ephesians and see just WHO you are!
Tonight, we will learn three truths about our identity in Jesus:
Blessed By God
Chosen By God
Adopted By God
1. Blessed By God
1. Blessed By God
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ,
We have “every spiritual blessing” already in our name, in heaven, waiting for us because of Jesus.
We don’t get a partial blessing - we get them ALL!
This is the heading of all that is to follow in the passage.
And what follows in Ephesians 1 and even into chapters 2 and 3 describes for us what those blessings are
Do you ever feel like God is holding out on you?…like you are missing out?
Satan wants you to feel that way, but it is a lie!
This verse reminds us that we have all the blessings!
And your performance doesn’t matter, your presentation, your possessions, your people…none of that matters! God doesn’t even take it into account!
2. Chosen By God
2. Chosen By God
Ephesians 1:4 (NKJV)
4 just as He chose us in Him (Jesus) before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love,
Sometimes there is a little confusion on this verse.
Some might teach that only certain people were chosen (selected) by God before the foundation of the world to be SAVED…but that’s not what this verse is saying.
Notice that it says that God chose US…who is the “US”?…They are believers!…Anyone that has believed in Jesus for salvation!
Also, notice that it doesn’t say we were chosen for salvation (salvation isn’t even mentioned in this verse)…it says that we are chosen to be “holy and without blame before Him in love.”
God chose you to be:
Holy
Blameless
Loved
In other words, God decided before He ever created the world that everyone that believes in Him will be holy and blameless.
And even when we aren’t holy and blameless all the time, we are still loved!
And remember, God sees you as POSITIONALLY holy and blameless no matter what you are doing in your daily life.
6 and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
Yes, our CONDITION is that we are still here on earth, we will choose to sin and disobey God and live out an unholy life...but our POSITION is that we are already sitting in heaven in the presence of God - Holy and Blameless - that’s how God sees us!
3. Adopted By God
3. Adopted By God
5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will,
Once again, there can be confusion over this verse as well.
Notice the word “US” again - we already know that the US is believers - all believers.
So God once again PRE-destined (chose before-hand, just like verse 4) all believers to experience ADOPTION.
This verse is NOT saying that God chose some to believe and others to not believe…It is saying that God chose ADOPTION as part of the package deal when a person chooses to believe in Jesus by faith.
Adoption is a benefit of salvation! (some say that adoption IS salvation)
God could have given us eternal life as a gift for believing in Jesus without adopting us, but He is such a loving God that He didn’t want to just bring us to heaven.
God wanted to give us the incredible privilege of being members of His family, of calling Him our FATHER!
In the Greco-Roman world of the Ephesians, adoption was a permanent, binding contract in which the parent would bestow on the adopted child all the benefits of any natural-born child. There was no difference!
The adopted child would be a family member, with a promised inheritance, but they would not immediately receive the inheritance.
The inheritance would not be recieved until adulthood or until the benefactor passed away.
Our adoption is all about the inheritance! The Ephesians that Paul was writing to would have known this and we also need to know it:
This gift of adoption means that we receive all the same blessings as the Son of God, Jesus Christ!
17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.
6 that the Gentiles should be fellow heirs, of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ through the gospel,
29 And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
7 that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
CONCLUSION:
Jesus Christ gave us the perfect example of how to receive one’s identity from God:
Luke 3:21–22 (NKJV)
21 When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened. 22 And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.”
And when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, what did Satan attack first?…His identity!
Luke 4:3 (NKJV)
3 And the devil said to Him, “If You are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.”
Do you see what’s going on here?...Satan was saying to Jesus, “Your identity is based on your performance!”
4 But Jesus answered him, saying, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.’ ”
God’s word gives you your identity!
Jesus received His identity from the word of the Father…and if that’s where Jesus, who is God, got His identity from, then that’s exactly Who we should get our identity from.
So who are you?
What is your identity?
Who am I?
Who am I?
Blessed By God
Blessed By God
And we have only just scratched the surface!
I’m going to close with a short film that dives a little deeper into the theme of our identity:
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