July 13, 2025 Rooted Conference Pastor Pat Peglow- In Christ: Understanding Our True Identity

Music.

Well, we're very excited about today. If you guys haven't met Pat yet,

he and his wife, Kim, we've been friends with them for several years now.

And Pat has been mentoring me for a couple years.

I was looking back at our text thread that we had.

It was actually, it'll be two years or three years ago, two years ago,

this next week, that they were in the process of transitioning away from the

church in Chicago, and we were praying about the possibility of coming up here,

and it's been pretty cool to see how God is working since it seemed like a different

world since just two years ago, so it's pretty cool. So, Pat, please come.

Just so you know, everyone wants to hear you speak, so go as long as you want, right?

All right, so there's no pressure whatsoever.

Am I good? Good. Hey, it's good to be, I told Josh, I'm the sitting pastor.

I'm the guy that sits and preaches, so my body doesn't let me stand that long,

so I just give it in and I say this is what I'm going to do.

It's good to be back with you guys. So many faces and people we met last year

and what a joy it was then and what it is for us to be back.

I am nervous about one thing, though.

Expectations. I understand those.

Actually, last Sunday, I filled the pulpit at a church and spoke on unrealistic

and unfilled expectations.

And I'm nervous that Josh has built me up beyond the reality of what you're going to experience.

So if God will give you the grace to lower your expectations early,

you'll be a happier person by the time this week is done.

And Kim and I have, like you said, Josh said we've known these guys for probably

about 10 years now, huh, Josh?

I can't remember when it was you first came to our church in Chicago.

But we really love this couple. It's been a joy to walk with them.

If you were here last year, I gave a message that really is a burden to my heart.

And it's really, the heart of the message was this.

The same gospel that we're saved by is the same gospel that we walk by.

It's the same gospel that we grow by. It's the same gospel we serve by.

It's the same gospel we do warfare with.

And that gospel is summarized in eight simple words. I can't.

Only Jesus can rely on Jesus.

How does that fit the gospel? Well, you know what? what's God's standard? Holiness.

Anything that falls short of that is considered sin. We're all sinners.

We all fall short of God's holy, righteous standard.

And so I recognize that I can never be what God wants me to be.

And then I recognize that only Jesus, who is God, has that perfect righteousness

that God demands of us. I can't.

Only Jesus is God. So what does the Bible say?

Rely on Jesus. By faith, we're saved through grace.

And so my heart, burden, and passion in the message is that we're saved by recognizing

I can't be what God wants me to be.

I only recognize Jesus is, so my trust and reliance is upon him.

Not only be saved for every moment of my life, for my growth,

for my service, for my warfare, so forth and so on.

And that's important because last year's message is really foundational to this

year's message and what I'm going to share.

In many ways, this year's can be the other side of the coin.

And last time, I really spoke a lot about Christ in you.

This time, I'm going to speak this week and next week about us in Christ.

And I believe when you put those two together, we have all the resources that

God has given us to walk with him through Jesus dwelling in me and living in

me and all that he's given me in Christ when he's identified me with Christ.

So these two weeks, we're going to deal with Ephesians 1.3.

If you have your Bibles, turn to that right now.

And so if you're not here, can't be here next week, I'd encourage you, watch this online.

If you can't at that time, watch it later because today's almost like the introduction

to next week as the two will go together hand in hand.

Ephesians chapter 1.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Verse 3 says this, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,

who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.

What I want to unpack for us this week and next week is how these blessings,

These spiritual blessings work out in our life and what they are.

And this morning, I want to focus on what it means to be in Christ.

Because as you notice in this passage, all these blessings that God has already

blessed us with are in Christ.

So we have to start by understanding what does it mean to be in Christ?

And I love to start with grammar. I don't want to insult anybody's intelligence.

But visuals helped me

and this helped you guys

have that up there good this really helped me get

it is this visual of prepositions and how they work and you got this circle

in the middle and you got you know above and over and upon and to and from and

out of these little whys help us get a feel for what they mean.

I'm thinking of two in particular here, into and in.

For instance, we walked into the building and into the auditorium this morning.

Now we are in the auditorium.

So, you know, little words like that make big differences. So we moved into

something and now we're dwelling in this place, the building.

That preposition is really the focus that we're going to have today.

We are now dwelling in Christ just like he is dwelling in us. We are in him.

Turn to Romans 6 real quick.

Romans 6 talks about us going into Christ.

Ephesians 1 talks about us in Christ.

And he says this, Or do you not know that all of—oh, I'm sorry,

I'm in verse 3, I didn't tell you that.

Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus,

we've come into Christ, have been baptized into his death.

We've come into his death as

well. Therefore, we have been buried with him through baptism into death.

Why? So that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father,

so we too might walk in newness of life.

For if we become united with him in the likeness of his death,

certainly we shall be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection.

You know, this whole word baptized, it's a word that comes from the fuller trade

where they used to dye garments.

And what they would do is they would immerse, plunge into this big liquid thing,

and they put it all the way in and immerse it in there. It might be a white

T-shirt you put in, this red dye, and you pull it back out, and it's red now.

And so baptism is the idea that we've been immersed into Jesus,

and we've been placed in him, and something has changed as we come back out the other side.

I used to be just Pat Peglow in the flesh. Now I'm Pat Peglow in Christ,

a whole new person. And since I was, this Romans tell me, since I've been plunged

into and immersed into Jesus, guess what?

When Jesus died, I died.

When Jesus went to the grave, I went to the grave.

When Jesus rose from the dead, I rose from the dead. That's what Romans is telling us.

And so this whole thing of being in Christ is so crucial to our relationship

because we've been united with Jesus. We're in union with Jesus.

We are joined together with Jesus. We are identified with Jesus.

You know, and that's something that God does for us. It's not something you do.

The moment you trust Jesus, and I think the next passage, if that's up there, great.

By his doings.

You are in Christ. How am I getting into Christ? Well, the moment you trust

Jesus, the Bible says you've been placed into Christ by God.

By his doings, now we are in Christ, who became to us wisdom from God and righteousness,

sanctification, and redemption.

John 3, 6, remember, Jesus said this, that which is born of the flesh is what?

Flesh. That which is born of the Spirit is what?

So guess what those of us that have been born again have been born of the spirit

and now we are spirit john chapter 7 verse 37 jesus if anybody thirst let him

John 7:37

come to me and then he said this,

out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water he spoke of the

spirit whom those who believed in him were to receive.

Innermost being. The dwelling of the Spirit is at the core of our being.

Our deepest part of who we are

is Spirit, and we now are connected because the Spirit of God has come.

And then you put on top of this what 1 Corinthians 6.16 says,

we are one Spirit with Jesus.

So at the core of our being, the reality is that Jesus dwells at the core of

my being, and I am one with him.

My spirit has become one with his spirit.

Stay with me. We might be sounding like we're going deep. I hope to kind of

get us out of the deep end and put some feet to it.

But listen to what John 14 says.

Jesus said this in the day of the resurrection.

He said this,

Ah, sorry. My head doesn't turn that far, so I have to write him here.

After a little while—Jesus talked about this—you'll no longer see me.

Sorry, the world will no longer see me, but you will see me because I live, you will live also.

So he's talking about after he's died, been buried, and rose from the dead.

In that day, in the day of the resurrection, you will know that I am in the Father.

All of a sudden, you're going to understand all these things you read through

John and Jesus talk about his relationship with the Father, how he and the Father

are one and that the Father's in him and he's in the Father.

It says, in this day, then you're going to get it.

You're going to understand that I am in, remember our prepositional chart?

You know, that picture in, I'm inside.

I'm in the Father, Jesus said. And you in me and I in you.

Remember he said Christ in you, you in Christ.

And Jesus said in that day, we will understand that. So this means this.

With this verse alone, we're saying the same way that Jesus is indwelling the

Father and the Father's indwelling Jesus,

Jesus is indwelling us and we're indwelling Jesus.

This is deep stuff but

it's your relationship with god and you

know what it's just as difficult to understand as it is to understand how the

father and the son are one with one another but jesus said the same way the

father i'm with the father and father's in me same way i'm in you and you're in me.

We're one with Jesus.

I want to try to illustrate that this morning with this.

If you had a big, fancy preacher, he probably would have got you some Borden's

milk or something. This is McDonald's milk, man. Can you believe it?

But here's white milk. That's you and me.

Here's the chocolate milk, much more tastier and a bang and a zip to it.

You know, when you drink it, this is Jesus.

When we trusted Jesus, you're like, here's Jesus.

Can you separate those two? No.

The two have become one. It's kind of like drinking coffee and putting your

sugar in there, your cream, you're stirring it up.

We're one new creature with Jesus Christ now where I'm in Christ,

Christ is in me. And you know what that means?

That means that I've been identified with him. And when Jesus died, guess what?

Because I was placed in him, I died.

When Jesus was buried, I was buried.

When Jesus rose from the dead, I rose from the dead.

And according to Ephesians chapter 2, when Jesus was seated at the right hand

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

of the Father in the heavenlies, far above all rule and authority and power

and dominion and every name that is named, not only this age, but the one to come,

that we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places.

We're one with him. We're identified with him. What's true of Jesus is true of me.

We are joint heirs with Christ. You know.

I got this piece of paper here. Put your name on this paper. This is you.

You know, whatever your name is, you're a believer in Jesus.

You will fill your name here. The Bible is Jesus.

And guess what? This piece of paper is now in the Bible.

Where this Bible goes, I go because I am now in Christ.

And if Christ was to go back in the narthex or the atrium or whatever you call

that part and back, every church has a different name for it,

that's where you would be wherever Jesus goes.

And so now Jesus is in the heavenly seat at the right hand of the Father.

I'm now seated with him because what did Jesus say? In the innermost part of

your being will be the spirit. We become one with him.

Jesus is in us. We are with him. And when we speak about being in Christ,

we can't help but speak about our identity.

Our identity is, who am I? Who am I really at my core?

You know, when people try and do this, people identify themselves by much lesser

things than what God does.

We often do it by our position in life, by the kind of work I do.

The achievements that I have. And so I kind of identify, boy,

you know, one of these things, I used to be an athlete, I used to be this or that.

They still see themselves by their achievements, their ethnicity,

their social status, the group that they're a part of, their past.

You know, they look at what they were in the past and they still see themselves

in light of who they were.

They look at their present struggle and they identify themselves in light of

the struggles that they're having.

They look at their political bent and that they consider themselves a Republican,

a Democrat, an Independent, or who knows what will be in the future when Elon Musk gets done.

You look at the color of your skin. You look at your gender and you identify

yourself as male or female.

Now, here's one that might be close to home. You could identify yourself as a Laker or a local.

I've actually heard that around here a few times.

Is that who you really are at the core of your being? Is that the way you see

yourself? Because that's not who you are in Christ.

Now, the world creates their identity.

You see, and I'll explain that a little bit more in a second.

The world creates their identity, but Christians, we receive our identity from

God and we learn about it in the Bible.

We actually find out who we really are through the Scriptures.

And to be honest with you, the world is actually defined by the Scriptures,

and people who don't know Jesus can find out who they really are at that point

in their life through what this says.

And we as believers find out who we are by this book.

Now, to understand this, we need to understand truth.

Stick with me. We really are going to come out making this thing real practical

this week and next week, but these things are foundational.

I did an eight-week series on truth. I know Josh would remember this because

Josh got in the middle of a mess because of my sermon, we had a missionary that attacked me.

He comes from a progressive bent where he sees truth in a whole different way.

And Josh, a couple of our elders met with him for a few months to try to help sort all that out.

But I want to summarize for you in those eight weeks of messages and just a

couple PowerPoints about truth, okay?

And believe this has to do with the way we identify ourselves. So stick with me.

Truth. Truth is actually what is real.

Jesus, I am the truth. He's the ultimate reality.

It's that which corresponds to reality. And so when you speak about truth,

you're talking about what's real.

The truth is that's really what happened.

Somebody tells you something that didn't really happen. That's not the truth.

So truth has to do with what's real, and it corresponds to reality.

Now, absolute truth, we as Christians—what was the name of the brother who did the apologetics here?

Ron? Thank you, Ron. You know what? And again, helping us understand the truthfulness

of God's Word and the historical facts that validate it.

But absolute truth says this.

What's true, and we believe this in the Bible, is true for all people in all places.

At all times independent of any other factors that's what absolute truth means,

it's true for everybody every place all

the time no matter what you feel like no matter what

you think if you think there really isn't a sun out there

and you're convinced in your heart guess what absolute trust

there is a sun out there whether you feel it or

like it or not so absolute truth

has to do with that objective truth which the bible is

as well truth based on how things

really are whether we agree with it or like it

or not whether we feel it or not whether that's

my perspective or not it's the way things really are it's not dependent on anything

with me it's dependent on reality out here now this is where the world comes

in now the world looks at truth in a whole different way. And this is our day and age.

And what you're going to find is many Christians look at themselves like this too.

World says truth is relative. It's not fixed for all people in all places at all times,

but it is individually determined dependent upon a person's unique situation.

That's what relative means.

Again, it can change from person to person and from time to time,

situation to situation.

So it's individual for each of us. And subjective is truth is based off of our

perspectives, our feelings, our opinions, our circumstances, our experiences,

whether they're real or not, whether they correspond to reality or not.

Subjective says, but that's me.

You see, that's why we live in a world now we can hear this.

This is my truth. See, it's individual.

It's dependent on my unique circumstances. It has to do with,

you know, the way I feel about things. So this is my truth.

That's why we live in a world where they can say there's many truths,

and these truths can even counterdict

one another, because that's what we call a pluralistic society.

We live in a time right now when we—guys, when you listen to the news,

you listen to politicians,

this is what's driving their discussions and the way they think of things because

they think the truth constructed by my.

Individualistic circumstances and experiences that's why I'm not saying this

is how you minister to them but in the last month I've dealt with two different

couples that their their children or grandchildren have moved in being transgender,

changing their sexual identity.

So I want to give you the thinking behind it, the ministry behind it.

That's a whole other discussion. But here's the thinking.

See, as we as Christians believe in absolute truth,

we believe that it is verifiable and observable fact that there's only two genders, male and female.

Know that from God's Word. But guess what the world says?

Because truth can be relative, truth can be individualistic,

truth can be subjective, all of a sudden they construct a new definition for

gender to be how a person identifies themself.

So they've changed the definition of gender from male to female to how a person

identifies themself, and then they individually determine who they are sexually

through their own personal perspective, preferences,

experience, feelings, choices, so forth and so on.

As I was researching this.

74 different genders right now that are claimed out there in the world because

it's my truth. It can be contradictory.

It doesn't matter because it's my individual truth. See, this is the way the world thinks.

And this is important because the way we view truth is where the battle for our identity is.

See, either I'm going to believe, as Ron helped us see again this morning,

my identity is built off of this absolute truth right here that is objective,

that comes from God in what he says is true.

And so either I'm going to look at myself, at who I am, at the core of my being,

in light of what God says and what Jesus says, who is the truth,

or I'm going to be like the world, and I'm going to take my individual experience,

my individual thoughts, my individual feelings that change from day to day in

circumstance to circumstance and start to say, this is who I am because this is the way I feel,

and this is the way I think in light of these circumstances.

And so either you're going to choose your own identity moment by moment by Christian,

or you're going to receive it from God's truth. Let me bring it down to the lower shelf.

Here's some examples. How do you see yourself at your core?

When you sin, do you see yourself as a forgiven sinner or a saint who sins?

There's a big difference between the two.

So, you know, I'm just an old sinner saved by grace, they sing.

I think the Bible says I'm a saint who happens to sin and struggle with sin.

So at the core of my being, I'm not a sinner. At the core of my being,

I'm a saint. But I'm still a saint who still sins and still gets tripped up.

So how do you see yourself at your core? This is big.

Because the way you see yourself is going to drive the way you respond to what's going on in your life.

When you look at your past sins or your present struggles, do you see yourself as dirty and no good?

Or do you see yourself as the scripture says, I'm now hidden in Christ and I'm holy and righteous?

How do you see your past? And you can see it in some Christians.

They won't look you in the eye and they put their head down and they feel ashamed

because if you just knew who I was, if you knew what I struggled with,

if you knew my, you know, man,

I love the song we sang at the start, we're hidden in Christ,

we're clothed with his robes.

God knows us fully, but he loves us fully and he sees us in Christ.

When Jesus looks at you, when Jesus looks at me, he sees Jesus, because I'm hidden in.

In Christ. When you have a stronghold in your life, let me ask you this.

Do you see yourself as a victim of that stronghold or a victor?

It's all the difference because what I do now, either I'm doing,

you know, I'm reading, I'm trusting, I'm praying.

I'm doing it either to get set free, or I'm doing it because I am already set free.

You see, when you deal with Satan, he knows the difference between somebody

that keeps on trying to do all the spiritual stuff to get set free,

and he'll keep that carrot out there, and he'll keep you going trying to get set free.

But when you stand against Satan because you've already been set free in Christ,

You've already been transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of his beloved son.

You've been delivered from that old neighborhood with that old culture,

with that old leadership that was there, into this new neighborhood where there's

a new culture and there's a new constitution called the Bible and there's a new king named Jesus.

Which one are you standing in when you're battling against sin?

Here's one. If you struggle with alcohol and you go to an AA meeting,

how do you introduce yourself?

Hi, my name is Pat Peglow. I'm an alcoholic.

Or do I say this? Hi, my name is Pat Peglow.

I'm a brand new creature in Christ who still struggles with alcohol.

The difference in the world brothers and sisters are you identifying yourself

in light of your current struggles and your feelings your past you know it's

just the way the world looks at things,

we take as our deepest truth about who we are by the way we feel by the way

we see things by our circumstances by the so forth so on or we can say you know

what that stuff's real this struggle is real. I'm not denying it. It's not real.

But what's just as real, and probably more so real, the fact that I am in Jesus,

a brand new creature who's already been set free, because when Jesus died, I died.

When Jesus was buried, I was buried. When Jesus was risen, he was risen.

And when Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father, far above all rule

and authority and power and dominion, every name is named, not only in this

age, but the one that comes.

He's talking about all demonic spirits and powers seated far above an authority and power and rule.

I'm seated with him. So when I come against Satan in my life,

do I come from that position, or do I come hoping and begging that somehow I'll be set free?

I want you to know today as a believer. You are a brand new person at the core of your being.

Your deepest identity is who you are in Christ.

Listen to what 2 Corinthians 2, 15 and 16 says, Therefore, from now on we recognize

no one according to the flesh.

I don't just look at you humanly. I don't look at your human experience.

I don't look at all that. I don't look at my own. Well, let's just look at people

by what we see of them in the flesh and their humanness, even though we've known

Christ, they knew Jesus when he walked here on earth according to his humanity, fully God, fully man.

Yet now we know him this way no longer.

Therefore, if anyone, anyone in this room who has put their faith in Jesus,

who are already seen is in Christ.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.

Old things passed away. Behold, new things have come.

You are not who you were when you become a believer.

You're a brand new creature in Christ.

I love the way David Needham says it. This is a wonderful book.

Unfortunately, it's one of those books that's not printed anymore.

You go on Amazon and try to find it.

It might cost you $45, $50 for it, but this is a quote from that book.

I got it back when it was $6 many years ago, which I'm happy for.

A Christian is not simply a person who gets forgiveness, who gets to go to heaven,

who gets the Holy Spirit, who gets a new nature.

Mark this, a Christian is a person who has become someone he was not or she was not before.

A Christian, in terms of his deepest identity, is a saint, a born child of God,

a divine masterpiece, a child of light, a citizen of heaven.

You know, guys, the way you see yourself is going to drive the way you think

about yourself, think about the things you encounter, the things you wrestle

with, and it's going to drive the way you relate to others.

My hope is between this and next week, because next week we're going to even

get more particular, who are we?

We're going to look at more, not just we've died with Christ.

We're going to look at very specific many of these blessings that define who we are in Christ.

As we look to see who you really are. I have a feeling I may know who you are better than you do.

I'm hoping by the end of next week, we'll both be on the same page of that because

I know you are who God says you are.

Not who you think you are, not what your neighbor thinks you are, not what I think you are.

You are who God says you are. And I will tell you this.

Remember a brother, when he first saw this, when I was working with him,

He was struggling, coming from a bad background, and parents didn't love him

well, and, you know, he just felt like he was junk.

And when he saw this, this is what he said to me. He says, Pat,

I realize God doesn't make any junk.

You're a new creature in Christ. See yourself in.

Christ because God has hid you in him. Let me pray.

Father, thank you for the privilege to bring your word to this special group of people.

I want to pray, God, we went pretty deep today.

Hopefully we didn't lose ourselves in the weeds, but Lord, I just pray that

the Spirit of God will speak to hearts and take away, if nothing else,

the image that they're one in Christ and they're brand new creatures,

Father, I just pray that you would write these truths on our hearts by your Holy Spirit.

And God, they're just not notes that we wrote in our Bible.

So Lord, I commit this, your word, and this sermon to you and ask you to use

it to help us see who we really are.

And Lord, to set us free in Christ.

It's in his name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Jesus, we thank you for that truth that it's all about you.

It's all you don't see us, but who we are in you.

Jesus, I pray this week as we meditate on this truth, please use your Holy Spirit to work within us.

God, I pray that you would use your Holy Spirit as we think and meditate on

this message, maybe even go back to it and listen again.

And God, if we can get this into our thick heads, it'll be amazing what you can do for your kingdom.

God, I pray that you would do that work this week. We love you so much.

We thank you for putting us in you. We are hidden in you.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen.

I'm going to ask Zach to come, and he's going to share just his testimony,

what Christ did for him by saving him, and just declaring Christ publicly.

And then in just a few minutes after service, we'll head down,

as Dusty said, right down here to the tavern, turn left, and south forward, all the way to the end.

So a lot of what Pat talked about today has actually been my life.

Hid behind a lot of things that's happened in me a lot of things that happened

when i was very young and that led to drug addiction alcohol pornography and a lot of bad decisions,

and i let that define me for a long time.

And over the last year and a half that I've been coming here,

God apparently called me to this church and it's just been a long journey I've

been tore down I'm being rebuilt.

And I've came to a lot of realizations here recently i came across this thing

and it said what's the biggest lie you've ever been told,

i'm fine fine is the biggest lie that i've ever told because the truth is i'm

not fine and i'll never be fine but in god he will show me the way he will lead

me to where i'm supposed to be.

And when I heard that, I felt a closure come over me.

And that also led me to confess to my wife and apologize to my wife for everything that I put her through,

for all the adultery, the lust the pornography,

and after I did that I felt a weight be lifted off of me,

in this new walk of mind in the Lord.

I'm just grateful that it's bringing me and my wife closer and me closer to

my kids and actually allowing me to love them like God intended.

Peace, Dave. We're going to pray over you, Ben. All right, Ben.

You're going to come up here. We're going to pray over Zach.

Men or ladies, you'd like to come and pray over him.

I'll ask Ben to kick it off. And then, Ron, can you close? Nope. Okay.

Dusty will then, maybe. Well, one of us that aren't crying will do it. All right, Ben.

Father, we come to you in Jesus' name, thanking you for Zach,

for his life, for his commitment to you.

We identify with him, with the reality that we are all totally depraved,

that apart from the grace of God, we're headed for the same hell as he was,

but by grace we're saved through faith.

It is the gift of God, and it is that gift that brings about through Jesus'

blood, death, burial, resurrection, life eternal, change, and the power to live for Jesus.

We thank you for this brother and for his faith in you.

God bless Zach. Amen.

Jesus, I pray for Zach. I thank you just for this opportunity That we as.

Fellow children of yours Joint heirs We get to watch As Ben talked about a few

weeks ago This metamorphosis that's happening in his brother It's absolutely astounding,

Jesus we thank you for that We thank you for his life We thank you not just

what you're doing now But what you're gonna do It's just all about you And God

I thank you for letting us see it,

Heavenly Father Thank you that you called Zach here Lord thank you that we get

to witness the change in his life Thank you that you made yourself real to him In an undeniable way,

Thank you that you love all of us Just as we are Because none of us are any

different than Zach Each of us need you in the exact same way None of us is

fine Thank you for coming and for dying for us Thank you for showing us yourself,

Thank you that we get to witness the change in Zach's life Lord And be with

us as we go from this place In your name, amen And all God's.

Music.