Who am i?
Notes
Transcript
Who am i?
Who am i?
So this morning we carry on with I have a question series, the question this morning is a big one, people ask the same question in a number of ways. Sometimes it comes out in why am i here? other times in What is my purpose but it all boils down to the same question.
Who am i? because when we find out who we are we know why we are here & what our purpose is.
It all becomes about our identity & where do you seek to find your identity & it can be difficult & confusing because we do a lot of things like our jobs, our family roles, at times we wear different hats.
We have to make sure we don’t find our identity in what we do or how we have lived.
So here we go:
Im going to speak from my own journey of finding out who i am.
I’m stuart vickers, thats my name when i was younger & some people still call me by that name, i had a nickname & my nickname was louie.
Some of us have names that are family names that have been passed down the family, something to live up to, that becomes your identity.
I am a husband, a son, a brother, a Dad, Pastor, friend. Some have other names they call me, some are good, uplifting, some bring responsibility, some people have names for me that are not good.
For some that is a problem, it’s a problem if you don’t know who you are & what you are not. Some have had words spoken over thier lives from a young age that have not been good, Ugly, rubbish, amount to nothing. But it comes down to who do we allow to speak into our lives, who do we allow to determine who we are.
Maybe things have happened in your life that have lead you down a route & you are identified now because of what happened, maybe you were mistreated, maybe you took upon yourself the blame for your family breakup, Mum or Dad left the family home & you have always thought, maybe i wasn’t enough & so it has become part of your identity.
You are enough, you are enough that God would come as a baby to this world & sacrifice himself for you, even if it was for only you.
What we need to know is that first & foremost you are a child of God & if we see ourselves as that first then so many live would be changed.
Tammy spoke last week of hearing God’s voice, we have so many voices clambering for our attention, telling us who we are TV, bosses, teachers, books, no wonder we lose track of who we really are, which creates confusion & leads us into things we never need be part of, listening to the lie, recieving the lie & living the lie & so adopting a false identity, when the truth is closer than you think, Clear the fog & see clearly. But we go through life as if we are moving forward but we move forward rolling along in neutral just takes a little knock & we are rolling backwards again. we need to see clearly, have you ever been in a car in heavy rain with no windscreen wipers. ( me & Grant in the mini metro going to windsor on the flyover, in the rain with no wipers, me having to lean out of the window to wipe the windscreen)
That’s life not knowing who you are or your purpose, that’s what you are doing every day. I feel like i talk about this kind of thing a lot but i’m not going to apologise for it, it’s that important, my heart is to see people restored to God through a relationship with Jesus, set free form thier past so they can be all they have been destined & designed to be by God.
People maybe you have it all sorted out then great, maybe you can help me get to that place, but i do believe you are either on a journey & we are all at various stages on that journey or not. Either you know Jesus & are on that journey or maybe have not pursued Him & so still live in your old identity or you don’t know Him at all.
You will only have a clear picture of who you are by alligning yourself to Him, seek Him first
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Paul is clearly echoing Jesus words in
But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
To seek Him first, whatever you seek in this life can only be found through seeking Him first.
I grew up in Bethnal Green, east end of London, my nan had a pub in brick lane where the bike lane used to be, when i was 8 & my broter 10 we used to do the bottling up (explain) Monday to Friday after school & before dinner & saturday & Sunday afternoons.
When i did it on my own & could reach the beer taps i got curious 7 started to drink from them, i also knew where cigarettes were kept & would occassionally take a box, at 15 i was arrested for having a knife & so my Dad put me to work behind the bar 5 nights a week & then i would meet up with my mates & we would go out drinking in other pubs. I smoked dope, dropped pills, snorted amphetemines, i tried anything i could get my hands on except heroine. id take drugs & drink together, id try different concoctions of drugs trying to get a buzz & always done with alcohol.
My life at school was wake up, eat, go to school, come home, bottle up at the pub open the pub, meet mates, have drink, drugs or both, go home, sleep or not sleep, the same when i started work except i’d get stoned at work as well. The weekends were full of Rugby, alcohol & drugs.
For some that’s life, that’s what they know & they love it, i loved it.
But i didn’t know whose i am.
It’s a problem, it creates a problem throughout society, people not knowing who they are, weve been fed a lie that we look into ourselves to find out who we are & that sounds great, do what you want & that will be the real you but sometimes iv’e wanted to smack people in the head if i did it, it would just make me an idiot with a fist. you can only be an idiot with a fist & get away with it for a limited time.
What we find when we look to ourself is something that is corruptable, we find we have become, if God isn’t in our hearts then we just see what the world has made us we see the lie, when we can only find a true picture of who we are when we take our eyes of ourselves or anyone else & put them firmly on God.
In retrospect when you have what you need, you can see what you didn’t have.
I was searching for fulfillment in all the wrong places because i didn’t know who i am. I had a picture that i could see, who i was expected to be but it was a distorted picture, it was like looking at one of those mirrors at the fairground.
Jesus is who we need to look to, He is where we find out who we are, our identity comes from Him, our creator & we find it in because He is the one who loves us beyond compare. matthew 27:27-44
He let Himself be put on a cross, He was nailed there for you & for me to take away our sin to make a way to be reconciled to God.
He gives hope where there is no hope, when all seems pointless he is the point, trust in Him & that confusion in your life will be gone.
Maybe your a Christian who is struggling with your identity, listen your’e looking in the wrong place, i know youv’e said yes to Jesus, you have spent time in prayer but you don’t have the answers you have been looking for, maybe you are not looking high enough.
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.
Youve taken what you know & plonked what Jesus teaches on top of that, what you have is your own religion, you v’e put it all together to make a cake only you can find edible, your’e trying to live 2 lives trying to please God & people. That’s why you don’t know who you are, why there is confusion & your even angry that i have said it when you know that’s what God has been saying to you.
You need to know that God has chosen you, you are loved, cherished to find who you are choose Him, He’s waiting right now.
Communion