Identity - The Result of Your Choice - Delbert Birky

Of Jesus, our Savior. This morning A privileged to be

together in the House of God, to study, enjoyed the service,

and trust that the Lord will bless each one for

being here. And I trust the Lord will supply your need.

I'm not sure what your appetite calls for this morning,

and so sometimes when we try to bring a message

from the Word, we bring what is on my heart.

I'm not sure what's on your heart, but I trust

the Lord will kind of bring that to you and

suit a blessing for your need. I'd like to stand

together and sing one stanza victory in Jesus stand. I

heard an old old story. I heard an old old story,

how the savor Dame from how we gave his life

Von Calvary to save site me his truly us precious blot.

But saying, ah, victoryes a smile, save.

For rever. He sought me and bought me with his reading.

He loved me, and I knew man do a love

is to him.

He plunge me to victory.

Be me the creams maybe seated. Thank you for singing.

So happens my little favorite. So this morning I'd like

to talk about identity. The result of your choice. Brother

Leland preached about culture last Sunday, and I'm not trying

to balance that. I'm not trying to counter it. I'm

not necessarily trying to relate to that. I'd like to

look at identity, the result of your choice. We're unique,

we are created with distinction. We can talk about DNA.

I'm not even going to try to pronounce all the

little words what DNA all stands for and is. We

could talk about characteristics, and we can talk about features.

This morning, I'd like to explore identity that goes deep

into your being. It goes beyond height, color and the

nervous twitches. I'd like you to get down to what

identifies this little thing within you. We call it heart,

you can call it soul. But what is it that

identifies you? What makes that? When I was young, a

minister encouraged us to pray aloud when you're by yourself,

just pray aloud. I hadn't done that. So I was

at home on the farm. We had a berry field.

I walked down to the other end, got me that post,

and I leaned on that post. And you know what

I did next? Yeah, you know, I looked that way

and I looked that way and looked all around to

make sure nobody saw me, and then I prayed aloud.

I had to check who you were before I could

discover who who am I. Deep down inside, we are

created in the image of God. Just noting a story

from Genesis, chapter thirty two, I'll just relate a little

bit of it. And Jacob Israel as we might know him,

children of Israel, children of Jacob. So, Jacob's traveling and

that night he was going to meet Esau in the morning.

That night he laid down, went to sleep, and in

his sleep he had a vision. Man comes and wrestles

with him. He wrestled with him man all night until morning.

It's bad enough without wrestling on men. Just wrestle with

your own conscience for a while. He woke up in reality.

Finally the man asks him. He said, what's your name?

He said, Jacob. He said, yeah, that's right. He said,

I want you to know that your name has been changed.

It's no longer Jacob. You're going to go by Israel

because you're a prince with God. Okay, you know what.

Jacob's next question was, what's your name? He says, no,

what do you asking my name for Sometimes we say

we need to know who God is. Yeah, we need

to have an understanding of God. But don't forget we

need to understand who we are. I don't know how

many of you looked in the mirror this morning. I

looked in the mirror. I combed what hair I could see,

like you did. You brushed a few things like you did.

I'd like to know how many of you looked yourself

square in the eye when you looked in the mirror,

not at the features, looked at yourself square in the

eye and said, today, who am I? You know what

happens You look him in the eye and you say

who are you? You can't stand a look at him.

There's too much. All that stuff comes floating in. Well,

I'm glad that God has brought things into our hearts

that we are able to look ourselves in the eye.

It's important. That's your identity. Jacob in Genesis chapter twenty eight,

he had an experience with the vision of the Latter

going to heaven, and when he woke up, he called

the place Bethel, because surely the Lord is in this place,

and I knew it. Not he found out that God

was finding him. Instead of he finding God, God was

always there. He woke up to the fact that he

needed God. You know the story of Hagar in chapter

sixteen of Genesis. She went out there. She was struggling,

having a hard struggle. She went out there, you know

the story. The angel comes to her, says, Hagar, It'll

be all right, be all right, God will take care

of you. She said this, I call the name of God,

Thou God seest me. That's God's name, Thou God seest me.

That isn't just a sentence. It says that she called

him by that name, Thou God seest me, whom I

have looked after. When you get to the point of

looking for God, you will come to the realization that

God was looking for you, and that's why you looked

after God. Do you have faith? Thank God for the

grain of faith. If God never gave you faith to believe,

you would never believe. We have to have a basis.

We need to have something to start with, and God

gives us that. He gives us that beginning identity, and

we need to build on that. We need to choose

to establish and strengthen that. I'd like to read from

Hebrews chapter eleven. And this is where I would take

the title of the message this morning. If you want

to give it a title and you're writing some things down,

take Hebrews chapter eleven, and let's go to verse twenty

three and begin reading there. By faith, Moses, when he

was born, was hid three months of his parents because

they saw him as a proper child, and they were

not afraid of the king's commandment. Now that was his

parent's move, That was his parent's trust in God, Verse

twenty four. By faith, Moses, when he was come to years,

refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, even

though she raised him for a while verse twenty five,

choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God

than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season,

esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures

in Egypt. For he had respect unto the recompense of

the reward. By faith, he for sirk Egypt, not fearing

the wrath of the king, for he endured as seeing

him who was invisible. Through faith, he kept the passover,

the sprinkling and the sprinkling of blood, lest he that

destroyed the firstborn should touch them by faith, they passed

through the Red Sea is by dry land, which the Egyptians,

assaying to do, were drowned. By faith. The walls of

Jericho fell down after they were compassed about seven days.

Verse thirty one says by faith rayhab choosing rather, and

when Moses chose, he started a journey. My friend, this morning,

when you choose to serve God, you start a journey. Yeah,

I know, you don't know what. You don't know what's

going to happen. When I was young, I chose to

serve God. I went to a meeting one day and

the minister gave an invitation. It was a revival service,

evangelistic service, a missionary service, you can call it what

you want. He got to the end and he said,

this evening, if anyone's here and would just like to

commit themselves to God again, that you want to do

whatever God wants you to do, just raise your hand.

Guess what. I stuck my hand up. After we got

in the car, my friend asked me and said, Debt,

why did you raise your hand. I don't know. I

just want to do what God wants me to do.

I stand here today because I want to do what

God wants me to do, and I don't know what

tomorrow is going to be. If I would have known

everything between then and now, I'm not sure. I went

down some little roads that I never knew about, I

never even dreamed about. It's all right. If you would

ask me today, I would say the same thing. I

want to do what God wants me to do. The

road sometimes gets tougher, no doubt, But when you realize

that God's looking for you instead of you looking for God,

it helps choosing. Rather, I'd like to lift now my

next point, the heart's connection to identity, and we want

to return to this point later. I'd just like to

make that point in passing a little bit and then

come back to it later, the heart connection to identity.

I'd like you to notice a story in first King's

I'm sorry for Samuel. We're gonna be noting some old

Testament stories this morning, and this one you will remember,

probably quite well, the story of Saul. And you know

the story how that's saw was busy taking care of

his father's work, and the little animals they got away.

The asses ran away, and he went out looking for him.

He finds the animals. No Samuel find jimeson. Okay, Saul,

what about it? For Samuel ten verse ten. And when

they came thither to the hill build a company of

prophets met him. In the spirit of God came upon him,

and he prophesied among them. It came to pass, and

all that knew him before time saw that. Behold, he

prophesied among the prophets. Then the people said, one to another,

what is this that has come unto this come unto

the son of kish Is Saul. Also among the prophets,

this man's changed. We know this man, this is Saul. Yeah,

And he prophesied something was different. Exactly what all the

prophecy was, I'm not sure what was happening, but they

noticed a distinct difference. There. Go to verse nineteen. And

you have this day rejected your God, who himself saved

you out of all your adversities and your tribulations. And

you have said unto him, nay, but set a king

over us.

Now.

Therefore present yourselves before the Lord, by the tribes and

by your thousands. This is Samuel speaking. When Samuel had

caused all the tribes of Isral to come near, the

tribe of Benjamin was taken when he caused the tribe

of Benjamin to come near and by their families. The

family of Matri was taken and saw the son of

Kish was taken, And when they sought him, he could

not be found. Anything real different about that. Therefore they

inquired of the Lord further if the man should come yet,

come hither, And the Lord answered, behold, he hath hid

himself among the stuff. Saul isn't here. We can't find him.

We got his name here, but we can't find him.

Where is he? They asked God again, is this the

man that we need to look for? He said yeah,

And God told him he hid himself among the stuff.

He's ducking, he's hiding. And they ran and fetched him. Thence,

and when he stood among the people, he was higher

than any of the people from his shoulders and upward.

So you knew whether he was there or not. Some

people look around and say, we was, so I'm sro

here today, I don't know. Well, there were so many

people you couldn't tell him he was. No. I know

if he was there, I would have seen him, you

know them people, Yeah, by their actions, I could tell,

just by the way to walk. I saw her come in.

I know it was her, Saul, I know he was here,

but he's not here. Now where is he? Physical feature? Identity?

Saul was hiding amongst the stuff. What was happening? Saul said,

I don't want to stand up. It's too hard, Samuel

told me, And all of a sudden, I'm prophesying. I

never experienced this before. Now what do I do? Saul?

You're a notable man. Let's jump over to chapter fifteen

and verse seventeen. I'm going to have to go through

stories a little faster. Saul was asked to go after

the Amalekites, and God told them utterly destroy those people.

And you know the story. Samuel comes to meet him

and says, Saul. No, Saul says, oh, Saul says the

first word. Yeah. You know, those people got a little

bit of guilt. They'll talk first. Don't worry. He says,

oh okay, Yeah, how are things? Samuel says, where did

you come from? What's going on? He said, we did

what the Lord wanted us to do. Uh, what's the

sheep and oxen about? I hear them? What's going on? Well?

The people they wanted to bring them an agag. I

saved him, but you know we want to do sacrifice.

I mean, we're going to take these things that identify

and use them wrong. No, we're going to use them right.

We're going to use them for sacrifice. Hold on, look

at verse seventeen. See what he says to him. And

Samuel said, when thou wast little in thine own sight,

wast thou not made the head of the tribes of Israel.

And the Lord anointed the king over Israel saw you

were as tall as it is, long head and shoulders,

but your heart was humble. Your heart was wanting to

stay hidden that time. Saw what happened. And today you're arrogant,

you're proud, you're as tall as you ever were, But

your heart has changed drastically. Okay, it's not just the

description of the man, it's what's happening inside. And Samuel

called him out on it, and he said, Saul, that

heart is not what it used to be. What's changed.

I'd like to look now, just several issues of trying

to hide identity. Chapter three of Genesis, the serpent comes.

Do you ever wonder what the serpent looked like? I do,

God said to the serpent. After he did what he did.

Satan through the serpent. God said to the you're gonna

crawl on your belly. Now, the pictures in the Bible

story books show the snake coming and talking to Eve, right,

and the snake's crawling on his What on his belly? Well,

what's different? After he was cursed, he said, you're going

to be on your belly. So I think maybe he

had feet. I'm not sure. The other thought is that

he was going to crawl on the dust of the earth.

He's going to be on the crown. He's going to

be real low. Why did we have to use the serpent?

And the serpent was more subtle than any beast of

the field. We go find something to disguise Jacob young man. Rebecca,

his mother, says Jacob. Today, I heard your father say

to Esau, go to the field and get a kid.

Bring the kid in. We're going to have a sacrifice

and we're going to have a meal. I'm gonna bless

you with a blessing that is from your father's Rebecca said,

I heard him say that, Jacob, run get a kid. Now.

Esau was a heavy man. Esau had lots of hair.

How we going to do this because your father he

can't see very good, but he'll probably reach out there

and feel you. So we're going to get this kid

and get some of the hair off of you. Put

her on your arms. Sure enough, they get there, old

man Isaac. Okay, how did you get back so sound?

Jacob says, I'm God help me. What what are you

trying to cover up? What are you trying to sneak?

Let me come here. The smell of the field is

on you. You smell like somebody who was out in

the bushes and getting it out. Yeah, let me feel you,

Harry Josh like he said, sure k not yeah, okay,

bless you. You never did that, did you? What did

you say you wore? What did you say you did?

We cover up so easily. You know the sadness that

came out of that. Jacob took his birthright, and Jacob

fled for his life and suffered much pain throughout. God

could have shifted that whole blessing to Jacob if he

had wanted to some other way. You don't have to

be deceptive. Maintain your identity. Ahab and Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat, the

King of Israel, the King of Judah, went over the

King of Israel Ahab. Ahab said, we're going to fight Syria.

But he said, I'll tell you something. He said, what

I want to do? Said when we go out to fight,

he said, you put on your kingly robes, look like

a king. But he said, I'm going to dress like

the regular military man. I'll just go out with them

and I'll fight with them. Yeah, you know why you

read it. You can read it in First Kings, chapter

twenty two. They go out there to fight, and the

King of Sirius said, whatever you do, man, He said,

you go after the King of Israel Ahab. Don't worry

about other people. You just go directly and get the king.

Get King of Israel AaB, and bring him in. They

looked out there and they saw this man and dressed

like a king. There they come Jeehashafat starts calling out, says,

he called out, hey, wait, wait, where's Ahab