Northside Church - Sydney
Impact…Making Your Life Count // Week 2: What Do I Believe About Myself?
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. Well, good morning everyone. Great to have you in church. How are we enjoying this Judo long weekend, that's Anzac Day long weekend? You know, we're going to have a time of ministry after the service for anyone who took an illegitimate sick day on Friday and wishes to ask for forgiveness. The team would be more than happy to support you in that. But of course, you didn't take a sick day because you're here and you're not up on the Gold Coast or some other lovely destination. Nonetheless, we're continuing a new series this morning called Impact. What makes your life count and Graham kicked it off just so well last week as he pondered the question, "What do I believe about God?" And this morning, we now look at the question, "What do I believe about myself?" And when I came to this, I felt quite difficult to come up with a Bible passage that relates to the notion of self-esteem or self-worth or what we would call identity in the Bible. There's not many passages that speak directly into the concept of identity and here's why. I think it's because identity is a very modern problem, wouldn't you agree? I mean, I can't imagine going back 500 years and you can see the picture, lovely rolling grassy hills on a cold winter's morning in Scotland and two burly men sit on one of those old stone walls in the middle of the farm field there. And one turns the other and says, "You know what, I just think I've got to find myself." You know, I just don't think I'm very self-actualized. I just don't know who I am anymore and I can't imagine that scene. And I think it's because when you agree that nothing is more characteristic of our modern society than the search for identity. We see it in TV shows, you see it in books, you hear it over lunches, at work lunches with people saying, "I have to find myself, I have to find out who I am, I have to learn how to love myself, how to like myself." Yet many people have lived amazing lives and never once asked a question, "Who am I?" I think part of the reason is that there's been no other time in history where we've been more self-obsessed, more worried about our self-image than we are as a culture and it's hard to come out from underneath of that. It's hard to come out from underneath of that. So if you ever caught yourself believing ladies or guys for that matter, those ads that tell you that the latest breakthrough from L'Oreal are the new secret agent that they have in this face cream is going to make you 10 years younger. And you really believe it, don't you, because of just the gorgeous looking model whose skin was just born with perfection from day one and will never officially age. It's like their skin's just sucked onto their face, it's never going to wrinkle. And it's somehow the attachment of this gorgeous young woman elicits a sense that if I just use this product I'll be like her, have you ever done that? Or maybe you're one of these guys who sees the man in the sports coat who's slightly graying but he's got a nice rinse through the hair and so he looks funky and hip. And these lovely sports coat and beautiful jacket has an air of success and a posture about him that one just wants and knows that they can have if they drive a Mercedes. It's so hard to come out from underneath all of that. And really here's why in instead of vocation we now have series of jobs. Instead of family we now have a set of different living arrangements. Instead of religion or of faith we have sets of books, little booklets that tell teachers how to love ourselves and stress seminars and tips for how we're supposed to deal with our guilt today. Instead of those things that were once constant, now we live in a life and a season of disposable items and disposable situations. And as a result of this the formation of identity, creating your identity in the modern world it doesn't just happen, we have to be conscious, we have to find an approach, we have to work at it, we have to figure out who we are. And so my question is how are you doing that this morning? How are you forming our identity this morning? I guess my approach this morning is we could go and pluck every great passage out of the Bible and there are many of them on wonderful statements about identity that you're a kid of a king, that you're a child of God, that you're an heir to the kingdom relations too, that you are God's workmanship, his artwork, Ephesians too. We could pick all of these wonderful statements but they're the what of identity. Instead I want to look at the why of identity. I want to show you this morning that really how we form our identity can stem from one or two questions and hopefully I'll show you that as sensible as it sounds the first question is actually inadequate. And the second question has the power to calm the inner murmur of restlessness that so many of us have experienced when it comes to forming our identity. The first question is simply who am I? Who am I? That's a question, that question it's effectively asking what is my identity, it's hard to put your finger on but identity literally means that which is identical. That which is identical. Think of all the various roles that you have, some of you here might be mothers or you could be a father or you could be a boyfriend or you could be a girlfriend or you could be a manager or you could be an employee or a son or a daughter, we all have a variety of different roles, right, different roles, different situations that we act differently. I don't know about you but maybe you had parents that would like this as a kid. You're mucking around and your parents says to you you know what, if you look Jonathan if you don't get your act together I'm going to come there and I'm going to come down on you so hard and then the phone rings, hey sweetie how you doing? Yeah, yeah it's fine, the other day is fantastic, yeah it's really Jonathan. You know, look my parents weren't like that of course, my dad's on sound this morning so I had, yeah that's right, turn the sound down, but you know what it's like, right, we have different ways that we speak and that we act in a variety of different situations and that's natural but identity is that common thread that links its way through every part of your life, every role, every situation, the common thread that you have, that's your identity, in other words your identity is what is always identical about you regardless of whether you have succeeded or you've filed, regardless of whether you're a non-Christian or a Christian, regardless of whether you're at work or you're at home, your identity is that which is always the same about you and you look you've seen it, people that have an identity crisis right, they're someone who is not consistent that doesn't have that thread running through all of their lives. Now the next question then is well how do I form that identity in this question, who am I, there's one of two ways, first of all there's the traditional way of doing things, the traditional model says your identity is what we deem you to be, your identity, the traditional model says your identity is what you're born into, your identity is what either your family or your socioeconomic status or the culture around you or the duties that we've assigned to you, the traditional way says that is your identity, it's placed upon you from birth and of course we've seen that in cultures, I mean some of you grew up in areas, areas like that right, that grew up in an era where where a wife tended the house, that the wife was there to look after the children, to prepare the children, for man's arrival home from work because that's his role and he is there to work and to support the family and wife is there to look after the house, some of you grew up in that era, some of you, another way to describe the traditional approach would be you're an ex, you're an ex and the ex family doesn't behave like that, ex family holds himself like this, that's the traditional approach to identity and then of course we had in modern times a reaction to that, we have the modern approach, I'm from the modern approach, I'm from that era, that's why there's almost this generational gap this morning with those that I know that I'm talking to because the modern approach says look this traditional stuff back there is oppressive, this stuff back there is I'm going to react to that and so therefore the modern approach to identity is that I need to be free in order to be the me I want to be, the modern approach says I am not someone unless I'm free, unless I'm free to do whatever I want and therefore people on the basis of this modern approach they define their identity of one of three different ways, it's not conclusive but they say I am who I am on the basis of what I can get or acquire, the things that I can pick up in life, I am who I am based on what I feel, oh don't judge me, don't tell me don't tell me that I should act that way this is how I feel, okay, or those that say I am who I am because I'm on a path of self-definition, I am defining who I am and that's how I get my identity, that's our culture right I am only me if I am free, free to find out who I am, free to decide what I want to live for, free to decide what is true and what is untrue and they're the ways that you can come to have that modern identity, I'm only me unless I'm free and of course we're all much happier, we're all less anxious, we're all more fulfilled, we're all more satisfied, I'm being sarcastic. Here we come to the genius of Jesus' statement that whoever seeks to save their life will lose it but whoever loses their life for my sake will find it and this is because there's no such thing as a point that makes any sense apart from its context. Aaron, throw me that pen there because she's taken notes on her hand of my message, isn't that wonderful? I'll give you the notes after service but look if I took this pen and I said how big is this pen? We'll compare to what? If I drop it, the sounds of a thousand bacteria are screaming right now as I've crushed them to death but in relation to the rest of this building, in relation to closeness, in relation to the universe, this pen is tiny. You see this, thanks Aaron, there's no such thing as a point that can be made apart from its context and you know what, in the same way people ask who am I? Who am I? Who am I compared to what? Within what context? And I don't know about you but people think that they can answer this question outside of a context. Maybe you've been the sort of person who has ripped yourself out of every context you can, ripped yourself out of jobs, ripped yourself out of family situations, ripped yourself out of responsibilities, ripped yourself out of friendships in order to discover who you are and yet identity without a context is meaningless. Well that's encouraging. Very incredible. Where do we go from here? Look, we've been asking the first question was who am I? That's the question you could ask. That's the question that the world asks. That's a question that the modern person asks. The question that the Bible asks is not who am I but who's am I? Those who are theologically astute have noticed that I've gone about 10 minutes without even quoting the Bible thus far. So let's get back to it. Verse 18, it says once when Jesus was praying in private his disciples were with him and he asked them, "Who do the crowds say that I am?" And they replied, "Some say that you're John the Baptist, others say you're Elijah and others say that you're one of the prophets and that you're someone who's come back to life." Then he turns to Peter and he says, "What about you? Who do you say that I am?" And Peter answered, "You're the Christ of God." This is the famous passage at Caesarea Philippi. It's parallel. This is Luke, chapter 9, verse 24. It's paralleled in Matthew 16, 16. Jesus is up on the hill with the boys. He's having a big chat and I guess we've got to ask, "What is Jesus doing here?" When he turns to the disciples and says, "Who do you say that I am?" I mean, is Jesus having an identity crisis of his own? Is Jesus having a low self-esteem moment? Some of us sometimes have friends like that. Who do you say that I am? What do you think about me? Is Jesus having... has he had a really poignant point and then he starts praying and is this his version of saying, "Look, guys, enough talking about me. Now you guys talk about me." Is that what Jesus is saying here when he says, "Who do you say no?" You know what he's doing? He's giving them a context. He's giving them a context. Look, verse 20, he says, "What about you, Peter?" He says, "Who do you say I am?" And Peter says, "The Christ of God." In Matthew's version, Peter says, "You are the son of the living God." And Jesus is a little bit dependent on that we don't get in Luke's Gospel, where Jesus says, "Hoblessed are you, Peter, for this is revealed to you. Not by me, but from my father in heaven." You see, Peter's blessed not because he won a trivia contest amongst all the other disciples, but through God's help, he saw a much bigger context with what was going on in his life. There was something heaps bigger than what was happening in and around him. And so here's the point, here's the point. If you want to answer your deeper question of who am I, then you must want to know something more than just who am I. You must see a bigger picture than just who am I. You must see a bigger context than just who am I. I remember having afternoon tea with my grandma. She'd make some great tea and scones. There's something about grandma's cooking that you just can't beat. And she would always tell me wonderful stories about the war. She was in the Women's Air Force. And she told me this time about how she was down in Melbourne during one of her seasons of service. And it was terribly cold and it was terribly dark and it was rainy and it was windy. And it was part of her job to peel potatoes day after day after day so all the soldiers could be fed. And she would talk about the way in which her fingers would literally go in blue and numb with the potato peeler in the cold. All she had was a blanket over herself. And I said, "Grandma, how did you do that? Why did you do all that?" And she said, "Well, I did it for the empire." There's a statement, eh? There's a statement that my generation doesn't get. I did it for the empire, for the British Empire. I didn't do it for Australia. I didn't do it for me. I did it for something bigger. And see, as a result, there was a bigger context in her life that allowed her to have meaning and to have purpose and to have perseverance through all that she was experiencing then at Luke 924. "But whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it." You know what Jesus is saying? He's saying there's an even bigger empire. There's an even bigger empire than you can submit your life to. There is an even bigger battle going on in this world. And if you want a life that's got a sense of meaning and a value and a purpose then submit yourself to that empire, the empire that is God's. Because there is a much bigger picture, a much bigger context in which we must ask that question, "Who am I?" You see, another way to put it is that you need to be asking, "Who am I in the context of the great I am?" You need to ask, "Who am I in the context of the great I am?" You remember the story, if you've been doing church for a while, back way back in Exodus, that great story where stuttering Moses is being told to front up in front of the leader of the biggest military power history had ever seen up until this point. And he was simply to go up there, "What's up to me?" and say, "Faro, let my people go." Moses understanding the gravity of the task says, "Well, who should I say sent me? On what authority? On what identity should I reveal that I have the authority to release these people?" What's God's answer? He says, "Tell them that I am sent you. I am that I am." God's identity at the absolute core was simply, "Tell them I exist." You need to work out who am I within that context because anyone seeking to deal with their identity must deal with the statement that God says that I exist. They must deal with the statement of whether or not there is a God. Because if there is no God, if we want to be the modern person, then I'm free to be me. And within that comes the subtext of, "I'm free to decide for myself whether there is or there isn't a God." And the challenge with that is that if there is no God, then that person there has no right. They have no ability to even begin to ponder or contemplate or argue for a sense of personal identity. And here's why, because if there is no God, let me be brutal here for time's sake, that if there is no God, then realistically you're just an accident. If there is no God, then you're just an atomic accident. You are the result of gravitational coincidence that somehow brought a little bit of matter that's rotating around the sun into some form of semblance and the emotion and the value that you so deeply want deep inside what you call your heart is nothing more than a bunch of atoms bouncing around your head and off each other and eliciting a little thing that we call emotion. If there is no God, then there is no such thing as identity in the first place. We're all just an accident. And what's really funny is this modern approach actually in order to give themselves that sense of self-worth and that identity has to come over here and still cookies from the Christian cupboard. There is an assumption underlying the modern approach friends that say, "Even though I want to be free to choose whether or not I believe there's a God, I still operate on the assumption that there is a higher being and an existence which says this place ain't an accident. Are you with me?" Friends, you must deal with who am I in the context of the great I am that he exists. And here's part of the reason why it's like a composer who goes out, launches, wonderful piece of music, well at least in their own head. All the critics come back and say, "Everyone hates it." Their friends walk in and say, "Everyone hates your music. It's horrible. It's disgusting. It's like whining cats. That's not violent music. It's disgusting. No one likes it. You're not going to succeed." And the composer says, "Well, I don't care. That's their opinion. I can self-actualize as long as I feel that my music is beautiful. My music is beautiful. Look, how long is that going to last?" And here's why. The biblical principle behind this, the biblical principle between asking the question, "Who's am I? Is this?" You cannot self-generate your identity. Your affirmation, who you are, must come from outside of yourself. It was even true for Jesus, wasn't it? Then in this whole account with the boys on the hill, he says, "Blessed are you because my identity has been revealed to you, not because I've talked you up, not because I've duped you into this thing called discipleship, but because my father has bestowed on me an identity as the son of the living God. It hasn't come from me, Peter. I can't generate this identity by myself otherwise, just like the composer. You'll think I'm a lunatic. How else can I put it? I call it the voice principle, the voice principle. Has anyone been watching that show on Channel 9 recently? We're in the second season. Who's a voice fan? We've got a few here. Look at it. I love how into Jenna. Even Peg Cameron in her latter stages of life is watching the voice. I love to see it, Peg. What a wonderful multi-generational show this is. I don't know if you saw this week, but there was a girl there called Abby Dobson. She was a lead singer of a band called Leonardo's Bride, and I had a really successful song back in the 90s called Even When I'm Sleeping. And Abby and her band had won all sorts of Aryan nominations and awards. They played packed out concert. They played down at where they do all the carols in the Melbourne, down there in the bowl there in Melbourne. They played all sorts of amazing gigs. She had an incredible voice in and of herself. And here she was auditioning for the voice again. And for those of you who don't know what the voice is, the voice basically is this show where singers come in, whether you are an accomplished musician or you've got no idea what you're doing. You come in and you sing to the backs of four experts in the field, four singers in the field, Seal and Delta Goodroom. As they sit in these giant chairs and they listen to you regardless of who you are, your gender, what you dress like, where you've come from, and they listen to the very essence of who you are, your voice. And on that basis, if they like what they hear, they hit a big button on their chair and it spins around in a wonderful display of modern TV technicalities. And this seat comes around and lights all light up and there's these big phrase lights up that says, "I want you." Now for poor Abby, successful singer in her own right, she sings a heart out and none of the chairs turn around. And so it's been in the papers all this week. First of all, why would an accomplished singer get on a show like that when she's already had success? Why would she do it? It's because we all need an affirmation or an identity from the outside. You can't self-generate your identity. No matter how strong or how wonderful her success was, she needed an identity that was beyond herself. Funnily enough, as a result, quoted here, she says that she admitted her ego was quite bruised after none of the coaches picked her saying that she felt winded for a week after the audition. I'll put it to you, she'll be winded for the rest of her life. That desperate restlessness, that restlessness that says this job, if I could just have it, will give me purpose. That says this family, if I can somehow just get them to get along, it will give me meaning. That restlessness that says that bank balance, if it's just a little bit bigger, I can finally have that sense of security. That restlessness that says that reputation, if I'm a little bit more noticed, that I will finally be someone, that restlessness that says that person, if they could just love me, then finally I will be accepted and I will be valued. That restlessness, and all of us have felt some sort of restlessness like that. You know what that is? You know what we're doing? It's blind auditions. We're always blind auditioning. And the reason the Bible says that we're so unsatisfied is because Avi Dobson's predicament is our predicament, that regardless of the amount of success that we did or didn't have in life, that we still yearn for and cry out for an affirmation that's beyond our self. We yearn for an ultimate voice to tell us that we're loved and accepted. The reason that the Bible says that we're so unsatisfied in finding an identity in our careers or our families or our bank balances or our love life is because we're always auditioning. We're always auditioning. No matter how successful we are, we need that authority to come in from outside of us. Now, if only there was a voice outside of us, a judge, an ultimate judge outside of us who could tell us who we are and most importantly, tell us that we're actually good enough. That could see into the very essence of who we are, regardless of our background, regardless of what we've done, who just listens and sees the very heart of our hearts, the very part of us that we wish that we could express. If only there was a judge in this world that could see that and regardless of that, tell us that we're acceptable, if only. That's the gospel, isn't it? That he who had no sin, he who was perfect, that became sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God, that he who is the perfect judge, God himself, comes down in a human form, into the very likeness of us in order to reconcile us back with God. You know what the cross is? You know what the cross is? The cross is God's giant voice chair, turning around. The cross is God hitting that button, that buzzer, and the light's lighting up saying, "I want you. I want you. I want you regardless of where you've come from. I want you regardless of how much you think you've stuffed up. I want you regardless of how much you think you've stuffed up the auditions in life here." The cross is the ultimate judge turning his chair around and saying, "I want you." Friends, we're faced with a decision this morning, like every good contestant on the voice, because you know what happens from there? The contestants now have a choice if it's one or two or four of the judges turn around for them. They now have a choice to say, "Which team will I be on? Which judge will I submit my gifts and my talents and my training to?" And that's where all of us stand this morning when we seek to develop and enhance our sense of identity. That there will be lots of different things in this life that are going to turn around and say that I want you. Your career wants you. Love wants you. Approval wants you. Finance wants you. All of these things are vying for your attention and you need to make the decision to say, "Which ultimate judge will you serve and come under?" That's the incredible picture that we see the God of the universe. He is serving you and dying for you. That's the voice from outside of us for which we all yearn. Another way to put it, Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7, 23, that you were bought at a price. If you get the cross for what it is, then the question of your identity is not, "Who am I but who's am I?" So you can take the modern approach. You might still be in the traditional approach, some of you. But look at this modern approach. That's where many of us sit today. Are we really that free to be me? Are we really that free? The Bible says that we are all serving someone or something. For you, the matter this morning is where you place functionally that trust in your life. It's where you're choosing to serve. Will you serve something that if you fail it, it will crush you. Or will you serve someone that if you fail him will forgive you. If you serve someone that if you serve him will liberate you. The Bible says if you don't make Jesus Christ your Savior this morning, if you don't constantly put him back into that rightful place as the ultimate judge, as the ultimate voice in your life, then if you don't serve him you'll serve something else. So how are you forming your identity? Which question are you asking yourself this week? Who am I? Or who's am I?