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| Rev. Brent Russett |
Pastor of Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
http://www.sunnysidechurchottawa.com/ _______________________________________________________
PODCAST LINK to CFRA broadcast - Sunday, February 19th, 2017:
http:
Broadcast Notes:
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I am who God says I am
Good morning and Welcome to good news in the morning. My name is Brent Russett. I am the Senior Pastor at Sunnyside Wesleyan Church here in Ottawa. I have been pastoring there for 26 years. One of the things I love to do is show how God’s word that was written a long time ago, connects with our world right now
I am glad you have turned your radio on this morning. Starting your day with God’s word, is a really good place to start. Of course if you are not a morning person, and you want to re-listen, or get the manuscript for this program, you can find us on the internet at Goodnewsinthemorning.ca . There you can keep up to date with what is happening around Good News Christian Ministries.
I want to say a special welcome to our international listeners, who listen via the internet. We are glad that you have found us, and that you are finding this ministry an encouragement.
This morning I want to talk about a foundational truth. The truth is this, “I am who God says I am.”
I spend a lot of time mentoring people. Mentoring is a process. When you are mentoring people, you have to help them get free from the things that are holding them back. You have to help them work through a vision for their life. You have to help them see ways to implement the vision that vision for their life. Then you have to help them sustain that vision. But before you can really do any of that, you have to help them with the identity question – who am I?
If you are in your late teens to mid to late twenties this is the primary question in you life that has to be answered. If you get the question settled it takes less prominence in your 30’s-40’s and you establish yourself in a career and in life. Now if you find yourself in a dead end career or a difficult marriage, the question resurges with a vengeance. That is what is mid-life crisis is all about. When you get to your 50’s and 60’s it re-emerges again, when you ask what kind of legacy do you want to leave? When you retire it emerges in a different way. I have freedom, but who is it I want to be and what do I want to give my time to.
Periodically through life, you are going to ask the question of identity. Who am I? And if you don’t develop a good base from which to answer that question, it can really play havoc with your life.
Now if you were to listen to our culture, the only thing that matters about you is your sexual identity. Are you gay or straight, are you male or female or something not quite so binary. While our sexuality goes deep with in us, it is not the most important thing about us.
The deepest and most important question about your identity is, what kind of human are you? And you know, that is a really hard question to answer.
It is hard question to answer because we don’t know what is true. When your mom tells you that you are the greatest thing since sliced bread – you think, that’s nice but she is bias. If you dad tells you that you are worthless and will never amount to anything – you think that is coming out of his own junk – but secretly you wonder if he is right. When your friends tell you about yourself- you know that they are great people but they are not always right.
Then there is how you feel about you. Your feelings are always valid because they are your feelings, but they are not always truthful. ---So what kind of human are you.
Generally speaking, this is how we figure out who we are. I am not who I think I am. I am not who you think I am. I am who I think you think I am. In other words, what I think, you are thinking about me is how I tend to think about myself. The more important you are to me, the louder your voice will speak into my identity. I use you as a mirror to look at myself. By the way people, that is why words matter.
The problems is that while humans were made in the image of God, that image was shattered when sin came into the world. So we are all warped mirrors. I am going to reflect you back to you through my own brokenness. You are going to reflect me back to me through your own brokenness. This means that we are going have reflected back incorrect images of ourselves. But that is how we are going to think about ourselves.
So where are you going to get the truth to answer the question, what kind of human am I?
The question gets even more complicated when you realize that most of us pretend to be something that we are not. We think, if people really knew who we were, they wouldn’t like us, so we pretend to be something other than we are. We tend to wear masks.
And I guess there is something to be said for civility in a fallen world. I am thankful that every time I am boring, or uninspired, or the sermon completely sucks, that my congregation doesn’t feel the need to tell me that, every time.
But the problem comes when we start to believe our own press. When we start to believe something about ourselves that is not authentically us, it really screws up our identity.
The other complication is that Jesus said, our enemy comes to steal kill and destroy. There are a lot of ways that he does that, but he works overtime in the area of identity. With his combination of lies, if we buy into them, he can make us proud and self loathing all at the same time.
So the question is, what kind of human are you? It is a hard question to answers because we don’t know where to get true data to answer that question.
So what we often do is go to where we can get some objective data from. We go to the area of performance. Some of us are good at art or music or academics, or science, or math or sports. Some of us are good with people or computers, or being the craziest, or being the most spiritual, or the most attractive or being the most knowledgeable about Japanese Anime. We all have our thing –
That is not bad in the sense that the bible says that we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” Before we were born, God knew us. He has wired you to be creative, or mathematical, or to be able brew the best coffee ever – Part of the adventure in life is discovering who God made you to be, and unearthing the talents he buried in you.
But what we do wrong is, this tends to be the place where we look to collect data on what kind of human being we are. This tends to be the place where we look for significance and security. That was never what God intended. If you look for significance and security in your performance, you will always know that something could go sideways and what your are good at, won’t be there. And that feels really insecure.
God intended that we discover who we are and how we are wired from a solid platform. A platform security and significance. He comes along and says to each one of you, I know it is hard to find good data on who you are, but I am a true mirror. Jesus says I am the way, the truth and the life. I will give you true data, on who you are.
I am not who I say I am. I am not who you say I am. I am not even who I think you think I am. I am who God says I am. God will tell you the truth about who you are.
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We are going to listen to some Music and then investigate what God has to say about us.
MUSIC- Casting Crowns – Who I am. 4:10
I am who God says I am. The first thing that God would say to you is, I love you. The bible say
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
Some people have trouble taking God’s word for this. But he says to you. You are loved. God will always tell you truth about you. The first thing he says is that you are loved.
The second thing that he would say to you, and we don’t want to hear this – but he always tells us the truth about us is that you are a sinner. The Bible says that All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And There is none righteous, no not one.
I know that sin is not a popular word in our culture. But God will always tell you the truth about yourself. I am who God says I am. He says, I am loved and I am sinner.
The problem with being a sinner is that unless the sin is dealt with, we cannot have a relationship with God. We are spiritually separated from God. The chasm is wide. God wants a relationship with us, but he cannot or will not enter into a relationship with us unless we have our sin dealt with.
If you let Him, God will deal with your sin. God’s promise to you is this Come let us reason together though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow, though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. God’s promise to you is - If we confess our sin he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If you come to the Lord and pray, Lord I know that you love me, but I know that I am separated from you by sin. I need you to deal with my sin, cleanse me from my sin and come into my life. I want to follow you. – God will do what he says he will do. God will forgive you and cleanse you.
So when you start to ask the question, “What kind of human am I? And you believe what God has to say about you. Then you are a human who is loved by God, and you are a sinner. But if you have asked God to forgive you of your sins, then this is who God says you are. You are forgiven. Completely forgiven. You are a person who is saved by grace.
Listen to what
2 Corinthians 5:16–21 (NLT) - has to say about you.
16 So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! 17 This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!
18 And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. 19 For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them
2 Corinthians 5: 17 (NIV)
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
You are saved by grace. God no longer counts your sins against you. Your are reconciled to God. You have been brought into a relationship with God. You are a new creation.
With this new creation, you are given a new identity. You are in Christ, and you have an identity in Christ.
Let me list just some of the things that the Bible has to say to you who have come to Christ and had your sins forgiven. Here is your identity in Christ
You are:
· Beloved
· A child of God
· Delighted in
· Forgiven
· Washed Clean
· Free
· A temple of the Holy spirit
· Adopted into the family of God
· Co-Heir with Christ
· Righteous
· Made new
· A Saint
· Set apart
· Christ’s Ambassador
· A sweet aroma
· Never Alone
· God’s Masterpiece
· Wonderfully Made
· Whole in Christ
· Raised with Christ
· Blessed.
This is just a partial list of who God says you are. And you are who God says you are.
2 Corinthians 5: 17 (NIV)
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!
You have been made new.
I am who God says I am.
And God says all those things about you. Those are the kind of things that are to act as a bedrock, as a base on which you build your life. You are building your life on Christ and on what he has done for you. Your identity is in Christ.
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Now here is the thing. While all those things are true about me and about each one of you who have received Jesus into your life. I hate to break it to you, but you are not perfect.
In fact very few have any idea how much sin as distorted us. So while I have been forgiven, and I have been reconciled to God, and my spirit has be made alive and made new, my life still doesn’t reflect God the way it was made to.
The process of God restoring his image in us, so that we love like he does, and his goodness and kindness and grace is seen in us, is just that – a process. We are urged not be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing or our minds, and that transformation is a process.
So when you ask the question, what kind of human are you. You can say, I am a new creation, I am in Christ. I am forgiven. I God’s child. I am walking in relationship to God. That is my is who I am.
But you also have to say. I am in process. God is restoring his image in me. I am not anywhere close to perfect, but I am being made new.
But for that process to happen, you need to trust what God says about you. For if you trust in what he has said about you, then you will grow. But until you learn to trust your identity in Christ, Satan will have a field day with you.
What God has said about you has to be place where you hear the loudest message about who you are.
For many of you, you will need to start by consciously talking note of the messages that you tell yourself, about yourself in your mind. It is like you have an MP3 on a loop, that says I worthless, I am stupid, I am dirt – You know the messages that you give yourself. You need to take what God has said about you, and each time you find yourself telling yourself some than what Christ has said about you, you need to stop the through, and replace it with what God has said.
I would recommend that you memorize a verse or two that speak in direct opposition to what you are telling yourself.
Now as you grow a little more in your faith, you are going to encounter spiritual warfare. The place where Satan will attack is your identity. Who do you think you are to ask God for anything. Who do you think you are to try to get rid of me. But if you know who you are in Christ, spiritual warfare becomes possible. It is not about who Satan is, it is about what Jesus has done for you, and your connection with him that allows you the authority to command Satan to leave.
You see, you don’t have any authority over the demonic in an of yourself. But if you know that you are a child of God. If you know that you have been raised and seated with Christ in heavenly places, then you know that you have authority in Christ. That makes all the difference in a spiritual battle. It makes all the difference in prayer.
When you pray, you walk boldly into the throne room of God.
2 Corinthians 5:21 (NIV)
21 God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
You are not there with your own righteousness, but God says that you are righteous, because of what Jesus has done. You come to the throne room of God as a child of God. Knowing who you are, makes all the difference in prayer.
As you grow a little further in your faith, you are going to have a deeper revelation of God’s love for you. When we sin, and when we yield to temptation, we don’t like ourselves, and we wonder how God can like us. But you will find that God’s love for you, is not dependent on how close you feel to God. You will find that he loves you. That love will draw you deeper into a relationship with him. You will want to spend time with him.
Now when you understand who you are in Christ, you are still going to have to figure out your calling. Is God calling you to be Plummer or a politician, an journalist or a janitor, a writer or a waiter.
But determining who you are going to be is not done from a place of trying to find significance in what you do, but comes out of a place of being truly loved and truly wanted. It comes from a place where God calls you his very own.
Figuring out what your talents and skills are, what your likes and dislikes are, what your personality is, then becomes this grand adventure. You see you can try something and fail, because failure does not define who you are, God defines who you are. You can try something and succeed. But your success does not define who you are. God defines who you are.
While you are on the adventure of discovering who you are at each stage of life, God with your cooperation is restoring his image in you.
At each stage in your life you are going to have to deal with the things that are holding you back. You need to develop a vision for moving you ahead. You need to implement that vision, so that you are doing what God is calling you to do. And you need to sustain living out your calling.
But the only way to do that well is to know who you are. What kind of human are you. And if you are in Christ then hear this message clearly
I am who God says I am.
Let’s Pray
Lord, Jesus, Thank you for your word that tells us who we are:
That we’re deeply loved by you;
That we’re sinners;
That you’ve made a way for us to walk into your plans and have our sins forgiven.
Lord, I want to thank you for who you have said that we are; that we are loved and, Lord, I pray that each person who knows you, would claim their identity in you.
In Jesus’ name I pray. AMEN.
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As you pray, may you encounter God for who he is. Loving and gracious. May you encounter the God who is calling you to be all that you were created to be through His son Jesus Christ.
MUSIC- For the beauty of the earth Eclipse 6 – Album Grateful Praise 3:31
By Rev. Brent Russett
Pastor of Sunnyside Wesleyan Church in Ottawa:
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