Identity Crisis

Who are we? Who are we in Christ? Who do we say we are?

Are we living as who we are? Or are we living for what we think that we are?

We still deal with who we are, even now that High School is over, people are still equally judgmental and harsh. Maybe our issues aren’t so much with outward appearances but with outward appearances. Yeah that’s the same thing, but starkly different. It’s not about looking good physically (wearing the right clothes, having the right accessories, knowing the right group of people) but now we are more about “having it all together” emotionally, mentally and even spiritually. This means we have no bad days, we have to be on the ball all the time or someone might notice that we really feel like a broken down mess inside that is fighting to make it though.

So who are we really?
Colossians 1:16
“For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.”

All things were created by him and for Him. We are included in the “all things. ” We are created by God, by the firstborn over all creation and are made to be under the lordship of the creator. Don’t miss the second crucial point of this scripture. When we live outside this lordship, then we feel as if life isn’t going so well. It’s not that we necessarily are doing un-Godly things, but we are not living to our fullest potential because we were created to live for Christ’s purposes.

Colossians 1:20
“and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. “21Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of[f] your evil behavior. 22But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—“

Christ reconciled himself to all things. What does reconciliation really mean? Two friends reconcile their differences by working out a mutual agreement. Maybe they apologize. Here reconcile means to bring into agreement or harmony. This implies that we were at some point out of harmony with God. Verse 22 says that we were alienated from God and even calls us enemies. An enemy is something that one naturally works against because the enemy has an opposite objective or goal than the person. God, therefore directly opposes his enemies on Earth. The Greek word for enemy literally means to transfer to another owner. Therefore as enemies, we are literally transferred into the hands of Satan. Our humanity naturally takes us away from the lordship of Christ, causing disharmony and alienation. This includes harmony in the Universe, not only saving people but restoring something that had been messed up since Adam and Eve ate from the tree. Christ is reconciling “things in heaven” as well as what we can see on earth. The idea that our stuff is too much for this reconciliation is almost a slap in the face to God. If Christ can reconcile the entire universe (which expands daily, therefore God is continuously infinitely pulling things back into back into Harmony) is there really anything about us that is unforgivable? Then the really great part…Not only does Christ bring us back into harmony with God, but he makes us Holy and without blemish through his blood on the cross. The only way that we can be in harmony with God’s purpose on the earth is to be Holy because anything that is less than holy is wrapped in sin, and God opposes sin as the enemy. So our identity is not only in Harmony with God, but we are Holy. The only thing in the universe prior to this passage described as Holy is God. The only two things ever described as Holy are people reconciled through Christ and God.

After Reconciliation, our response must be to surrender the Lordship of our lives to Christ. After the Cross, we are not only forgiven but our acceptance of this puts us under the ownership of Christ.
ii. A desire to be saved means a desire to be made holy, blameless and irreproachable, not merely a desire to escape the fires of hell on our own terms.

1 Peter 2:9-10
9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Peter sums it up brilliantly here, explaining that our Identity is solely found in God’s redemption. God literally purchased us at a price and redeemed our soles. Here Peter is pleading with the Gentile people to become spiritually the “people” that Israel had become literally. They had no spiritually identity before Christ and now they are fully adopted as a people by God. We to are lacking of an identity as a people before Christ and our identity is found in Christ.


The text from Colossians is written at the time of the Colossian heresy, as a corrective measure to fix the deceptive philosophy. Today we have our own heresy, and that is the idea that we have to be good, clean, successful, athletic, look nice, ect. Upper-class-man…looking for Jobs, you know what it means to have to live up to something worldly. We are taken captive in this instead of living out the idea that we are holy and without blemish before God.


Quote from John Piper
“There is a lot of discussion in our day of self-concept or self- identity. How do we view ourselves? It is an important question. And what I hope you hear this morning is that the specifically Biblical angle on this question is that Christian selfhood is not defined in terms of who we are in and of ourselves. It's defined in terms of what God does to us and the relationship he creates with us and the destiny he appoints for us. In other words as a Christian you cannot talk about your identity without talking about the action of God on you, the relationship of God with you and the purpose of God for you. The Biblical understanding of human self-identity is radically God-centered.”


Living out Our Identity.

Colossians 2:9-12
9For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, 10and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. 11In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature,[a] not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ, 12having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.

We have the fullness in Christ that empowers us to live a life that is full, exciting, maxed out to the nth degree but we sit around and think so often about how we stack up. I think we often live as if we are just ok. We are just getting by. But in reality, we have the FULLNESS of God. All of God dwelling in us…desiring to make us a success for his purposes on this earth…

Genesis 2:7
7 the LORD God formed the man [e] from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Imagine God taking us, literally forming us out of dust, molding us like clay and then breathing life into us. Pause…really imagine that.

God created man in his own image…We ARE created as blessed people by God. We are the last of the “Good” things in creation. Often we take for granted the fact that God molded who we were to be after Himself. This goes further in defining our purpose on earth, our identity on earth because we are fashioned as an image of God so that we can live out His purpose on earth. If God wanted to fashion us as self-absorbed people, he would have picked a different image at the onset.

Philippians3: 2-11
No confidence in the flesh
2Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. 3For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— 4though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If anyone else thinks he has reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: 5circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; 6as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for legalistic righteousness, faultless. 7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.

I like the message translation of the rest of the section best…

7-9The very credentials these people are waving around as something special, I'm tearing up and throwing out with the trash—along with everything else I used to take credit for. And why? Because of Christ. Yes, all the things I once thought were so important are gone from my life. Compared to the high privilege of knowing Christ Jesus as my Master, firsthand, everything I once thought I had going for me is insignificant—dog dung. I've dumped it all in the trash so that I could embrace Christ and be embraced by him. I didn't want some petty, inferior brand of righteousness that comes from keeping a list of rules when I could get the robust kind that comes from trusting Christ—God's righteousness. 10-11I gave up all that inferior stuff so I could know Christ personally, experience his resurrection power, be a partner in his suffering, and go all the way with him to death itself. If there was any way to get in on the resurrection from the dead, I wanted to do it.
Our identity is centered on Christ living in us. Not on our flesh. Not on our accomplishments. When we compare ourselves to the world, we have identity issues because we aren’t supposed to be like the rest of the world. If all is lost for the sake of Christ then we shouldn’t “stack up” in terms of the world. We should measure up in faith.
Paul has the most reason to brag because of his earthly position in society. Paul came from the right background, he had a high position, he had done everything right in his life by the worlds standards….

And God knocked him off his horse. And all of the worldly identity that Paul had built up became “rubbish” for the sake of Christ.


Luke 20 (it’s too long to post here)

So the judgment is rendered against Jesus. "Why do we need any more testimony? We have heard it from his own lips." The judgment's irony is that Jesus will be crucified for being who he is. The trial pictures the world's rejection of him and his claims. His own people have not received him. Sin's blindness leads to Jesus' dying for being who he is. Confirmation of this understanding of the trial as picturing humanity's rejection will come when the people add their voices to call for Jesus' death, opting to free a murderer in the place of this innocent one (23:13-25; Acts 4:24-31). Jesus utters his own death sentence by speaking what Luke would regard as the truth. The power of identity is found in Christ’s resurrection…Christ would have been a mere man without God. Without God, without God forming, making, being faithful to and raising from the dead, Christ would be a dude who said some nice things with cool sandals. Because Jesus found his identity in God (maybe easier because he was God…) he was the Savior to all mankind.


Like Christ was rejected by men, so might I also be rejected by men and Cherished by God. . But wow, we are chosen and a holy nation. Before Christ we are not even people. We are not the human that we are created to be because we are not in Christ now we are a people. Because Christ was the Son of God, because he was God, because his identity was God, then I am saved and free. I am free to build my identity in Christ, already chosen to be holy.