Identity

Years ago, Nichole Nordeman released her debut self-titled recording. In advertising the release on our on hold message we mistakenly referred to a song title on the recording as, "Who Are You?" rather than the correct title."Who You Are."

The question: Who are you?

What is your identity?

We are all sinners who can only be redeemed by the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. He paid the price for our sin.

The simple message of the Gospel is that Christ died for our sins, was buried and was raised again the third day according to the Scriptures. Believing the message leads to relationship with God, repentance and baptism, followed by growth.

Once an individual has gone through this conversion process, scripture tells us that the person is now a “new creation” in Christ.

What does this mean? You were put to “death” in Christ and to the laws of sin.

Romans 6 – The Message

When Death Becomes Life

1-3So what do we do? Keep on sinning so God can keep on forgiving? I should hope not! If we've left the country where sin is sovereign, how can we still live in our old house there? Or didn't you realize we packed up and left there for good? That is what happened in baptism. When we went under the water, we left the old country of sin behind; when we came up out of the water, we entered into the new country of grace—a new life in a new land!

3-5That's what baptism into the life of Jesus means. When we are lowered into the water, it is like the burial of Jesus; when we are raised up out of the water, it is like the resurrection of Jesus. Each of us is raised into a light-filled world by our Father so that we can see where we're going in our new grace-sovereign country.

6-11Could it be any clearer? Our old way of life was nailed to the cross with Christ, a decisive end to that sin-miserable life—no longer at sin's every beck and call! What we believe is this: If we get included in Christ's sin-conquering death, we also get included in his life-saving resurrection. We know that when Jesus was raised from the dead it was a signal of the end of death-as-the-end. Never again will death have the last word. When Jesus died, he took sin down with him, but alive he brings God down to us. From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That's what Jesus did.


12-14That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don't give it the time of day. Don't even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you've been raised from the dead!—into God's way of doing things. Sin can't tell you how to live. After all, you're not living under that old tyranny any longer. You're living in the freedom of God.


The past is who you were.

The struggle of the Spirit vs. the flesh

Romans 8:9-13

9You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. 10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.

12Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,

When you surrender your life to Christ you discover who you are.

This is your true identity.

If we are in Christ, we are new creations, we all need to:

Embrace who Jesus has created us to be and live that way!

The problem is that we tend to approach God from a prespective of “works”. The truth is we cannot earn God’s favor. We must learn to identify with our new identity in Christ. Once we learn to embrace that identity, our actions will flow from the perspective of a redeemed person re-created in the image of God. Our thoughts, words and attitudes will flow from that place.


Sometimes it seems that we focus more on our struggle with our tendancy to sin than we do on the grace, forgiveness and transformation we receive through our Savior. Why?

Again, remember that you are not who you were.

A transformation process in which the believer becomes more like Christ is called sanctification.


Sanctification –

“That ongoing work of God’s grace in us to make us holy, to deliver us from the acts of sinning.”

Romans 12:2

2Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Do not conform – this version of the greek word for conform also appears in 1 Peter 1:14

Be Holy

13Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. 14As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."[a]

1 Peter 2:24 (NASB)

24and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.

We do not need to continue to re-earn our salvation. We need to live as the redeemed souls that we are. The sacrifice has been completed for us in Christ. We need to live in it.

We are in relationship with Jesus.

From Brennan Manning’s, “The Furious Longing Of God”:

“The gospel is absurd and the life of Jesus meaningless unless we believe that He lived, died, and rose again with but one purpose in mind: to make brand-new creations. Not to make people with better morals, but to create a community of prophets and professional lovers, men and women who would surrender to the mystery of the fire of the Spirit that burns within, who would live in ever greater fidelity to the omnipresent Word of God, who would enter into the center of it all, the very heart and mystery of Christ, into the center of the flame that consumes, purifies, and sets everything aglow with peace, joy boldness, and extravagant, furious love. This, my friends is what it really means to be a Christian. *** Our religion never begins with what we do for God. It always starts with what God has done for us, the great and wondrous things that God dreamed of and achieved for us in Christ Jesus.”

John 8:1-11

Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives,2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them.3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.

4 "Teacher," they said to Jesus, "this woman was caught in the act of adultery.5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?"

6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger.7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, "All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!"8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.

9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman.10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, "Where are your accusers? Didn't even one of them condemn you?"

11 "No, Lord," she said.

And Jesus said, "Neither do I. Go and sin no more."

Isn’t this what He is telling us? We are no longer slaves to sin. Let’s begin to live like it.

So, it is no longer the question, Who are you? Or the struggle of Who you were? But it is now living in the assurance of Who You Are.