Northside Church - Sydney
From The Heart – Week 1 AM: Kristyn Haddon
You're listening to another great message from Northside Community Church. So there's an epidemic that is becoming more and more prevalent in our society and it's something that can have either a major impact on someone's life or a minor impact. It can have an impact that destroys families and it can have an impact that causes someone to question who they are. What I'm talking about is I'm talking about identity theft and with the digital age growing and growing identity theft is on the rise. So I'm sure we have all heard of horror stories about how people have had their identity stolen. I know whenever I lose my wallet my first initial thought is I hope no one else gets it. Cancel all my bank cards, I've got to get a new license because we don't want the wrong people to get our identity. So it might be something as small as someone hacking someone's Facebook account. It might be something as someone stealing your credit card details and racking up lots of money in your name or it might be someone actually just completely being erased, like the movie The Net is any of you have seen that where her whole life gets erased. So why is identity theft dangerous? Identity theft is dangerous because our identity is precious to us and our identity tells people who we are. So working out and discovering our identity is a big issue and it's something that consumes a lot of our time. As Northside's youth pastor and someone who's worked in youth ministry for six years, working out of identity is a big issue for young people, finding out who they are is something that takes up a lot of their time and they'll try different things to work out who they are. As being Sam's wife and moving from my church with my childhood to coming to be a Northside and then becoming on staff as a Northside, I know that when your circumstance change, so does your identity. And as someone who works with youth that are homeless, I know that when as a young person you're told that you're a particular label, it's really hard to take it off because we believe that what people say about us is our true identity. So creating and knowing our identity is a really big issue, but so is identity theft. And identity theft is becoming a growing problem and it is something that is really dangerous and it can happen to anyone. So you might be wondering why I'm talking about identity theft at church and now I believe that it's because identity theft is happening at church all the time and it's happening to us. I would think that we as Christians, that we are stealing our identity from another source than the one who gave us our true identity. So where do we steal our identity from? Where are we stealing it from? So when we meet people for the first time, you might have done this before in mingle time, you might have been like, oh hi, my name's so and so and I do blah blah. And so when we first meet people for the first time, they explain who they are by telling us where they work, what they do, what their name is, where they live. I remember this one time when I was at a training situation for work and this man randomly just came up to me and before I could even ask him what his name was, he blurted out everything about himself. His name, his address, his dog's name, his hobbies, what he did new years, two years ago, he basically told me everything except the brand of his watch. So I knew everything about this man and so when we introduce ourselves, we tell people those things. So the world tells us that what our identity comes from, it comes from where we work, who our family is, where we grew up, where we currently live, how old we are. If we go or we went to a private or public school, what car we drive, what music we listen to, what hobbies we have, what our favourite shop is, all these things is where we get our identity from if the world tells us. When we as Christians, as we start to take our identity from those things, we are becoming identity thieves. All of these things that the world tells us that we can have our identity from, that actually can change. I know for me, my job has changed multiple times in my life. I know that where I live has changed multiple times and also my hobbies have changed and surprise, surprise, my eight has also changed along the way. No longer a baby. So for me and my story, why I'm passionate about identity is, two years ago, I married Sam Haddon, who is the associate pastor at Northside, and for me, my whole identity had to shift and that is when I realised that I was being an identity theft. I believed that my identity was from my family, I believed that my identity came from what church I went to, where I lived, who I was basically was wrapped up into all of those things. If you ask me who I was, I'd be like, "I'm a gain a girl." Gainer is my maiden name, just in case you're wondering, "I'm a gain a girl. I live in West Pinnett Hills and I go to Epping Church of Christ." And so when I married Sam, all of those things changed. And so for me, I had a bit of an identity crisis and this is why I'm really passionate about this because this is when God really revealed to me that I was being an identity thief and stealing my identity from what the world tells me I need to steal it from rather than what he says. So when we start stealing our identity from the world and the world tells us that our identity comes from our circumstances and our behaviour, those things consume us and we actually lose sight of who we really are and who we're called to be. So then the next question is, where do we get our identity from? So where do we get it from? It's not something that you can buy, it's not something that you can earn. It's actually written in the Bible our real identity. So in two Corinthians it says this, let me just quickly find it for you. In two Corinthians 5, 17 it says this, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come." So for us that have a relationship with Christ, our identity has been transformed. The old has gone and the new has come. We have a new identity and our reading this morning tells us that identity, our reading told us that we are his people, that we are precious, that we were once rejected but now we are accepted. I'm not sure about you, but maybe next time when you're introducing yourself you're going to go, "I'm a chosen people, I'm precious, I'm accepted." Don't think that's how we're going to introduce ourselves now, are we? But let's unpack what it really means for us to have our identity in Christ. And so our identity in Christ means that our identity is not based on our circumstances or our behavior, but our identity is based on who we are in Christ. And the Bible is full of our identity. So the first identity is that we are a kid of the king. And in two Corinthians 6, 18 it says this, "I will be a father to you and you will be my sons and daughters." So we are his kids, we belong to God. And him as our father, we are his children. And what a privilege to have a father like God who loves us, who is gracious, who is kind and accepting, and for that not only to be our father, but for us to be part of that family, what a privilege. The next identity is that we are loved unconditionally. In Romans 8, 38 to 39 it says, "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord." So God has lavished his love upon us and it has no conditions. God's love will never fail, it will never run out and it will never give up on us. What an incredible love that we have as from our father. And so unlike every other love that we experience in life, it's not conditional. His love is unconditional. We are also His masterpiece. So for you men, you might be thinking, "Oh yes, once again, it's all about being God's masterpiece and all pretty." But that's not what God is saying. God is saying that we are His masterpiece. We're not just one of His creations, but we are His masterpiece. And a masterpiece is one is an artist's creation, but like their ultimate creation. And so for us, it's His masterpiece. We have His ultimate creation. And so it's not just in the way that we look, it's not just in how our hair is, but it's also in the gifts and the abilities that He has given us. He has given us different abilities and gifts to suit us and for His purpose. The other identity is that we are forgiven, in 2 Corinthians 5-21, it says, "God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." And so for those that identify with Jesus, for those of us that have a relationship with Christ, we are forgiven, Jesus took our sins so that we were forgiven. And the last identity that I want to talk about is that we are acceptance, accepted or acceptance. And I know for me, I've really struggled with acceptance during my life. I know I've done some stupid things at school, dressed different ways, bagged out certain people because that's what the cool people were doing, just to be accepted. And I know that actually as a child of God, my true identity says that I'm accepted just as I am. When Christ calls us into relationship, He doesn't say, "You need to fit this criteria." He says, "Come just as you are, I accept you just as you are." So that is our true identity. But what does it look like if we're living that out? So if we're a kid of the King, what does that look like? Have you ever been to a place and thought to yourself, "Who do those kids belong to?" I have many times on a train. I think people used to say that about me and my family when we'd go to McDonald's. When we were little, we could never go to McDonald's without spilling a drink, always. We'd get one and we'd spill it on the floor, get another one, spill it on the floor, spill it on the ass, always spilling a drink. And I'm pretty sure people used to be like, "Who's are those children?" And that's what happens when we're kids of the King. Not that people go, "Who's are those children?" But as kids of the King, we are actually, the way that we live and the way we live that our identity actually shows people who our father is and shows them this identity that they can also be a part of. And so if we're living out our true identity, they can get an accurate glimpse of who God is. And if we're living out our identity of being unconditionally loved, then we wouldn't be searching for love from other people. We wouldn't be searching to find love from here and find love from there, but we wouldn't know that God loves us unconditionally and we wouldn't be striving to get other people's loves. And we wouldn't feel like we had to strive even to get God's love. We wouldn't feel like we had to do a list of things for God to love us. We wouldn't know that God loves us just as we are. And as living out God's masterpiece, we wouldn't try to be a fake masterpiece. Have you guys ever seen like a fake masterpiece before, like a fake Mona Lisa, maybe a postcard? For me, one of my friends for her 21st, she got given a Tiffany's ring and she was really excited about this ring, part of me, it came in a Tiffany's box. She thought it was the real deal. She was so excited. She was showing everyone, look at my Tiffany's ring, it's so cool, showing everyone, I'm really excited. And as the weeks went on and on, this ring not only turned to her finger green, but also became a little bronze, so I'm not really sure that it was real. And so for her, the value that she placed in that decreased. She no longer wore it, I think she also checked it out because it wasn't the real thing. And as for us, God calls us to be a real masterpiece, it's not calling us to be a fake masterpiece of someone else, it's not calling us to look at someone and go, "Oh, they're amazing. I'm going to try and be like them." And that's great that they're amazing, but God calls us to be our own masterpiece and to live out our own identity so that we can bring the value that He's called us to bring to the world. And if we were living out our identity of being forgiven, we know that we wouldn't have to walk around with a backpack of everything that we think that we've done wrong, everything that people might have said to us or everything that we might have felt like we've let God down and we wouldn't have to carry this big backpack around, be able to let go because we know that God has forgiven us. And if we know that we are forgiven, then we as people who are children of God, we would also be easily able to forgive others that have hurt us and have done wrong by us. And if we were living out our true identity and our identity of acceptance, we would not only know that we are accepted by Christ, but we would accept other people for just as they are, just like Christ has accepted us. So this real identity isn't about us living up to standards, but it's about us being who we are in Christ. So why do we still have our identity? If this identity of being a Christian, of being in Christ, it sounds like a really good identity, it sounds really freeing, doesn't sound like it's something that you have to attain to, it's actually a really good identity. So why are we around stealing our identity? Once we start not looking at the gospel to get our identity, when we compare ourselves to the world and we look at what the world says our identity should be, we start stealing our identity. When we take our eyes off, who God has called us to be, then we start stealing our identity. I think another reason why we steal our identity is because that we just think, okay, so it's said in the Bible, okay, so then that's what I am, without actually realizing we are that because Jesus died on the cross for us. When Jesus went to the cross, he took all those labels that others give us and all the labels that we pin onto other people, he took them to the cross and gave us a clean identity, he gave us his identity as a child of God, as forgiven, as accepted, as his masterpiece and as unconditionally loved. And so when we start thinking that it's just things that are setting the Bible rather than an action that came from God, we start stealing our identity because we don't take it on for ourselves. So the question and the challenge for you this morning is where have you been getting your identity from? Are you an identity thief? Are you stealing your identity from what the world says? Are you stealing your identity from your behaviours and your circumstances, from what you do have and what you don't have? And for those of you that are like, no, Christian, I am actually getting my identity in Christ. They know you're really living out your identity in Christ. Are you someone who is freely acceptable, accepted to others, and you're accepting to others? Are you someone who forgives easily and quickly, and is someone who knows that they are loved unconditionally by Christ? And for others, we might never have understood what it means to have a relationship with the Christ. And so this might be a new experience for you. This might be something that you've never heard of before. And so if that is you, then I really recommend that this morning you don't leave here without understanding what it means to be a child of God and having Christ as your number one and having Christ in your life. And so this morning the challenge is, are you an identity theft? Where are you getting your identity from? Are you living out your identity in your everyday world? Would people identify you as a chosen people, as someone who is loved and accepted by God? Let's pray. Father God, I just want to thank you for who you are Lord. Lord, I thank you that you have loved each and every one of us so much, Lord, that you would send your son to the cross and take our old identity and give us a new identity, Father God. Lord, I thank you that we don't have to work for this identity, Lord, but you freely give it. All you ask of our Lord is to come and to receive it. And so God, this morning, I just pray that we really reflect on where we're getting our identity from. Lord, I pray that we will really seek you and see where we are putting our value, Father God. Lord, for those of you that, for those of us that do not know you, Lord, I pray that this morning, you'll be tapping on those hearts or that don't know you and saying, let me in. Let me give you an identity that is freeing. Let me give you an identity that you don't have to live up to. You just are because you are my child. And so Lord, this morning, I pray that we'll reflect on who you are in our lives. And Lord, I pray that we'll reflect on what identity we are living up to. So God, thank you for giving your son that we might have this identity. And thank you for loving each and every one of us so much that we may be in a relationship with you. In your son's precious name, amen.