23 & Me: Identity Crisis with Pastor Clayton Tyner

Welcome to the Medicurch Podcast.

My name's Clayton.

I'm the pastor here at Medicurch.

And my hope is that today's podcast finds you at the perfect time in your life, that God uses it to inspire and enlighten you.

I hope that you enjoy today's message.

Happy New Year.

I'm so glad that you joined us.

It's a great day.

We're starting a new series.

It's our first Sunday services of 2023.

And you may not know this, but today is also the four-year anniversary of MetaCurch.

So that's definitely something to celebrate.

Just looking out, I see so many of you who were there four years ago where we followed God's call to start a brand new movement in the city of San Antonio.

And he has blessed us in such incredible, incredible ways.

I also just want to acknowledge I've been out of preaching for about six weeks.

I want to thank the team so much for giving me some rest, some time to really cast some vision and get ready for this new year.

All of the incredible preachers who stepped up and served us so well.

We're starting a new series called 23 and Me.

This is about identity, which is a topic that our culture talks about almost non-stop.

Identity marketing, identity politics, identity tensions, all of these ideas, and yet very few people can define it accurately in a broad sense, and it's even tougher to define it for your own life, to say exactly who you are.

I've been so pumped up about this series.

You probably know 23andMe is also a company that analyzes your DNA.

And so I, you know, sent in for my little kid, and I put like more saliva than I knew I had in my body in a little vial, and I shipped it off, and I don't really know what I was hoping for.

Maybe something like a little bit exotic in there, you know?

Tells you your ancestry, it tells you your traits.

I brought a snapshot of my ancestry.

I know you guys don't know exactly how to read this.

It basically says, I am the whitest human being alive.

There's nothing but white.

In my traits, it says sunburns easily, struggles to clap on beat, probably can't jump very high, just the whitest guy.

It was a little obvious to everyone who knows me.

Um, but it was exciting.

It actually was really wild.

All that they can tell just looking at your lipids and your chromosomes, I was looking at the traits, and like usually you're like 70%, you know, like I have like an 80% chance of not going bald.

You see, you say your prayers, you read your Bible, good things happen, right?

There was one, I was almost 100% on.

It's so random, but there's like this one little part of one chromosome that if it shows a certain way that you are like predisposed to hate Brussels sprouts.

I was like, it works, bro.

It works.

I can't understand why anybody eats Brussels sprouts.

I despise them.

It really digs in, like it really knows you, you know?

And we're trying to talk about identity.

And so the question is like, is this it?

Is this who I am?

Is it skin deep or even at the molecular level?

Who are we really?

Are we defined by our actions, our decisions, both the good and the bad decisions?

So let me be up front, as I've been studying for this series, it became apparent really quickly that we could talk about identity every Sunday for the next 10 years and probably barely scratch the surface.

And we're gonna pack a lot into six weeks, and so I'm gonna ask a couple things of you.

Number one, this series works as a whole.

We're building and we're going somewhere.

So it's important to get here.

Or if you don't live in town, to stream with us, and if you do have to miss, to get caught up with us online.

And I've really been praying about this.

My prayer is that 2023 is the year that MetaCurch becomes a note-taking congregation.

And I know some of you have like, you know, 10th grade chemistry, PTSD about taking notes, okay?

But let me tell you the science behind taking notes is your retention goes through the roof.

And our services are about 70 to 75 minutes long here.

It's enough time to really struggle to remember every single thing that was said.

And here's why taking notes matters because meta church matters in this community.

It's a place for all people where anyone can come, where you can belong here and be loved here, even before you believe all of the things that we believe.

This is a place where we're very clear we're not here just checking some religious box.

This isn't some exercise to make us feel better about ourselves.

We're the movement of Jesus on the earth.

And if our goal is to apply the truths of God into the power of God in our lives and out into the real world, then we need all the help we can get.

And I know what you're thinking.

Uh maybe next week I didn't bring anything.

You got a smartphone, it's got notes.

I'm not gonna be judging you whether you do or you don't, but I am praying that this will be the year that we start taking the content that is coming out of scripture seriously and seriously getting it into our life.

So, this is what I want you to do.

Look at the person who you came with and say, write it down.

Go ahead and let them know.

Write it down.

Yeah, so now you're responsible for them, they're responsible for you.

I don't have to judge you anymore.

I'm very, very excited.

We're gonna build out what identity is, but first we got to get clear on what it is not.

My sermon today is identity crisis.

Identity crisis.

On your way in, a lot of you stopped by the table out in the driveway, and you were tasked with describing yourself in one word.

And I know some of you used a few words, and some of you just did the exercise completely wrong, but my guess is if everyone was given four, five, seven words or phrases to describe your identity, like who you are at the core, that we would get a lot of different aspects of what makes you you.

Here's the kind of things that we would see.

And I actually went out and I took a little peek right before I came up to priest at everything that was written across, and and almost everything fell into several categories of what makes us unique.

Things like your personality or your temperament.

So a lot of people, when they think about who I am, they think of aspects of their personality, maybe that they like or that they dislike.

Like, you know what, man, I'm just really loyal.

I man, I'm a fighter.

Maybe your temperament, I am extroverted, I'm introverted, I'm funny, you know, I'm the life of the party.

People put things like physical appearance, and I'm talking about if we listed what we see as our identity and we were really honest.

Today, more than ever, people think of their physical appearance and they think of that as a part of their identity.

This is why we filter ourselves and we live our realist life online, and maybe you put a lot of work in at the gym, and so you're really proud, and that's something you see in yourself.

Maybe you've had a lot of work done, you want that money to go somewhere.

That's a part of your identity.

Maybe on the other side of it, maybe you haven't taken good care of your health, and you have a very negative self-perception, and you see your lack of physical health as a core part of your identity.

For some of us, what we would describe as identity are just honestly our attractions.

And of course, this is sexual attraction, which is largely what we talk about culturally when we talk about identity.

But it's just general attractions as well.

Things that you like, the hobbies that you invest in, the things that really catch your attention.

Some of us describe our worst ways or our worst mistakes.

And maybe when you're really honest and you're in a quiet moment and you're thinking about how you see yourself, you actually see the core of your identity as a collection of some of the worst mistakes you've ever made.

Maybe the way you really see yourself is as a failure.

Maybe the way you see yourself is as a divorcee.

Maybe the way that you see yourself is as a cheater.

That's now become the core of who you think you are.

A very common one is our social roles.

We see ourselves as a mom or a dad, a businessman, a manager.

It was interesting as I was putting together a series on identity.

I also took six weeks off of what my main social, public-facing social role is.

And it was like a test.

Is preaching something that I do to use a gift, or is preaching who I am?

Do I get into an identity crisis if I have to step off stage?

Sometimes we see our identity as our social roles.

Sometimes it's our skill sets, our accomplishments, or our career.

Especially for men, a lot of the way that we see ourselves is by what we contribute to the world, or what we contribute to ourselves, or to our family financially, or maybe we have a great skill set, and the core of who you are is you're a bow hunter, man.

I mean, you can knock down an elk from 200 yards standing on one foot, blindfolded, you know.

That's your skill set, and so you hold on to that and you see it as really who you are, and maybe most generally is just our interests.

You know, the things that you like to do.

You like to party, you're the life of the party, you like to hang out, you like to be social.

It's your interests, you know, like the Dallas Cowboys, you know.

You have an identity crisis depending on whether Dak Prescott throws a football well or not that day.

And so we hang on to these things, and it's how we view ourselves.

And listen, this entire list, all of these are aspects of identity.

They're all a part of what makes you you and what makes you unique.

The problem is that these have become the core of our identity.

And when these things are the core of your identity, you will no doubt fall into an identity crisis because all of these things change.

And you will not have the same physical appearance at 67 that you do right now at 27.

It's not gonna happen.

And your interests change and your skill sets change, and some of you have put all of your identity into a career that fell apart in the last couple of years, and all of your identity into the business that you started in, all of your identity into the relationships that you're in, and when those changed, you no longer know who you are.

Think about yourself 10 years ago.

Hopefully, you've grown and you've matured and you have different interests.

Maybe you're in a different career path, maybe your relational life looks completely different.

Who you are seems different, but does that mean the core of your identity has now changed?

Think about yourself in the 90s, wearing gene codes, tribal armband tattoo.

That was your identity.

But things change.

And sometimes they change overnight.

And when we put the core of our identity, when we root who we are in these things that are material, that are right in front of us or inside of us or around us, when those things change, it's like our identity changes.

And it's no wonder that we see in our culture today people's identity shifting by the year, by the month, sometimes by the day.

And so let me give you the game plan because what we're trying to figure out is our identity, and it's very simple.

Identity is what makes you who you are.

Identity is what makes you who you are.

And so, what is it rooted in?

What is it grounded in?

What is at the core of what makes you who you are?

Here's how we're gonna navigate the next five weeks.

To know who you are, we're suggesting you have to know at least these five things.

To know who you are, you have to know why you are here.

This is the question we're gonna answer by the end of today.

To know who you are, you have to know where you are going, who you belong to, how you fit, and what shapes you.

And if you don't know these things, and most of us don't, then you don't fully know who you are.

And if you don't fully know who you are, then you are stuck in a repeating identity crisis.

Father, we come to you and we are looking to cement our lives, our identity, who we are at the deepest level, and something that is real and solid and unchanging.

And most of us in this room and streaming online, most of us have lived long enough to have tried putting our identities in the things of this world, only for those things to change and leave us feeling hopeless and despondent.

And so we are asking you to speak to us.

And I recognize that at MetaCurch there are people from all different parts of their faith journey.

And so, God, I just ask that all of us together would be humble enough to lay down our preconceived ideas to really seek you.

And you've promised if we seek you, we will find you.

So we trust you in that today, and we pray it all in Jesus' name.

And if you're ready to make your way out of an identity crisis, say amen.

Amen.

We're starting today by asking, why are we here?

This is the first question to live a really significant life.

Why are you on planet Earth?

Why does it matter that you exist?

What is your purpose?

What is your mission?

What does a significant life look like?

And this is a question that people have been asking for like all of human history.

And most people have not found any kind of consequential answer to that.

Why are we here?

We experience this in dreams sometimes.

Do any of y'all like pretty consistently have pretty vivid dreams?

Some of you are hitting that rim cycle at night, yeah?

Some of you need to stop drinking caffeine late in the day, it looks like.

The weird thing about a dream is you just kind of snap into it and you're somewhere, and it could be anywhere.

You're on a ship in the middle of the ocean, you're in your third grade classroom, you're on a roller coaster in Fiesta, Texas, you're in Starbucks, but for some reason you're butt naked.

Like, you don't know where you're gonna show up in a dream.

And so the first thing you have to figure out is like, why am I here?

It's very confusing.

It's why dreams can can really throw us off.

And what we realize in our dreams, the majority of people are living out in their everyday life.

And we don't recognize it because we fill ourselves with so much content and so much information, and we keep ourselves so busy that we don't ever really stop to ask the question: why am I here?

Not why am I in a pirate ship in the Indian Ocean in my dream, why am I on planet Earth in real life?

And so if we like get off of TikTok long enough and stop scrolling long enough and sit down long enough and be quiet long enough, that same existential dread that we can fill in the in the middle of a confusing dream, we can start to feel about our entire existence.

People have asked this question for all time, and you almost have to come up with an answer for it so that you can like live life and navigate and not go crazy.

And when you look back across civilizations, no one has ever really had an answer to this that changed their life and changed their world in a significant way until until the God of Scripture revealed that answer to us.

If you look back into the ancient world, these primitive civilizations, they all function kind of similarly.

Everyone has this religious impulse inside of them, so they would come in their one little nation or their one little village or their one little ethnic population, and they would come up with some sort of religion.

And it's interesting when you study human history because all of these religions functioned very similar to each other, and they would have a God, and that was their God, and that's important to realize because in the ancient world, when these civilizations would have a God, it wasn't the God who created all people, it was the God who just created them.

And so they would organize a religion around it and they would create idols and altars so that they could worship that God.

And over time, usually they'd put someone in charge of the people, like a king or an emperor, and that king, that emperor would serve as a symbol of their God or of their gods, almost like an avatar, not a giant blue-necked person, but an avatar of the person they were worshiping.

And what you find is they needed some kind of religion to organize themselves, and yet these were brutal societies.

And the reason that they were so brutal is because they had figured out how to function, but they still didn't really know who they were.

The best they could come up with is they're just kind of a part of the creation.

There's mountains and there's rivers and there's stars and there's people.

And because there was nothing unique and certainly nothing divine about the people, the people were brutal to each other.

And you didn't interact with foreigners, you subjugated or killed them.

This is why slavery was just a fact of life everywhere, all the time, through basically all of human history.

This is why women and children were lower class, brutalized.

This is why in many of the ancient societies you see them offering children as sacrifices, killing their children to appease the gods.

All kinds of practices that we would find abhorrent today.

We can't even get our minds around them, and yet this is the result of not knowing who you are.

Who are we?

Why are we here?

And why does it matter?

People have been asking this question for thousands of years.

Thousands of years ago, King David echoed a very similar question in Psalm chapter 8.

Psalms 8 · chapter mention

King David wrote, When I observe your heavens, he's talking to God, the work of your fingers, the moon, and the stars which you sat in place.

What is a human being?

That you remember him.

A son of man.

That you look after him.

David is like, yo, look like there's mountains, the magnitude of the mountains, the depths of the ocean, the expanse of the sky, and for some reason, it seems like humanity sits at the pinnacle of all of that creation.

For some reason, it seems like God has a special and certain interest in us.

What is a human being?

He asks.

And yet, David has an answer because David is connected to the God of Scripture.

He says, What is a human being that you remember him?

A son of man that you look after him.

You made him little less than God and crowned him with glory and honor.

You made him ruler over the works of your hands, you put everything under his feet, all the sheep and oxen as well as the animals in the wild, all the birds of the sky and the fish of the sea that pass through the currents of the seas, Lord, our Lord, how magnificent is your name throughout the earth.

David has an answer.

And yet, even though David is the king of a mighty, mighty nation, he does not accept worship from his people like all of the other nations, because he knows that he is just a man, that he is a servant to the most high God, and yet he believes, like he just said, that God made humanity just a little lower than God.

How can he both assume that humanity has a spark of divinity inside of them and yet reject the worship of his fellow men?

It's because David knew who he was, he knew his origin story, he knew where all of it started.

And if we don't understand where we came from, we won't be able to understand why we are here, who we actually are, how to ground and cement and root our identity in something that will give us the life that we were created by God to live.

David understood the true source of his identity.

It happened all the way back in the beginning.

In the creation narrative, God is putting all the pieces into place.

He's speaking the world into existence, and he creates the land and the seas, the night and the day, the sun, moon, and stars, the animals, the birds, the fish of the sea.

He puts all of it together.

And then in the garden, he creates the pinnacle of his creation.

He creates humanity.

In Genesis 1:26, then God said, Let us make man in our image and according to our likeness.

Genesis 1:26

In the image of God, in the very likeness of God, and they will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock.

They will rule the whole earth and the creatures that crawl on the earth.

And throughout the entire creation, God put the pieces in place, but he did not imbue anything in creation with his unique image, with his unique likeness until he created us.

Now, if you grew up in church, you know this.

You might even know some of the fancy words, like the Imago Day, the image of God inside of all of us.

You might have heard yourself called a divine image bearer, a reflection in the likeness of God Himself.

And yet, because we are so saturated in a culture that is so lost in an identity crisis, you might know that and have no idea the bearing that it actually has on your life.

This changed everything.

If this is not true, then we are just another animal.

Humanity is equal to the rest of creation, if not lower than some of the creation, based on might and strength alone.

But because God decides the value, he is the creator.

And he's not the creator of one nation.

He is understood even in Israel, his specialty.

People for a special time.

He has always been understood as the creator of all people in all places, the God of all gods, the king of all of the kings, which means every single person was created in the image of God.

And some people brush this off because you know a little bit more of the story.

And you know in Genesis chapter one that the world was perfect.

And they were placed in the garden, and the garden was perfect.

And it's not till Genesis chapter three that Adam and Eve kind of screw everything up.

And at that point we know we're fallen, we live in a broken world, we have a sinful nature.

And yet, if you read scripture chronologically, if you read it throughout the time it was written, over and over and over again, after the fall of man, God reiterates and promises that we still have the image of God on our life and that we still have an incredible purpose to live out.

The reason that this changes everything is because this truth ultimately means your identity is rooted at its core in something that is transcendent.

And transcendent, it's defined as being outside of humanity's full experience, perception, or grasp.

The way that I like to say it, something that is transcendent is bigger than big.

It is immovable, unchanging, you cannot shake it.

It is eternal in its essence.

This changed our world in ways that we really cannot even imagine.

After Jesus left earth, his message spread around the world, not to one nation, but to all nations.

And this idea that all people are created in the image and likeness of God, that there is a spark of divinity inside the lives of human beings, that we are not just another animal, that we were created and blessed specially.

This changed things.

It created the modern world that we now live in, and now so take for granted.

Some questions that people never knew how to answer until they had a transcendent grounding of their identity.

Things like why study the world?

Why study science?

And finally, there was an answer.

You study science because there is a God putting things in order, and that God made us in his image, which means we have the reason and the faculties to understand the order of the world around us.

Why care for the sick?

There weren't hospitals, there were not clinics.

When you got sick, you died.

All of a sudden, with a transcendent grounding, why care for the sick?

Because every human life bears the image of God, which means every human life is now valuable.

Why interact with foreigners?

Because the same God who created them created me.

Why not have slaves?

You know, for us in 2023, that is like the most obvious answer in the world.

But for all of human history except the last 100 years, slavery was a fact of life everywhere and at all times.

And it was only the message that Jesus' movement, his church brought that every single human being bears the image of our Creator.

It was only that that caused the eradication of slavery in the developed world at great cost to those who were getting rid of it.

Why not have slaves?

You can't hold slaves because those are your brothers and sisters made according to the same likeness of God that you are.

It changed everything.

The flourishing of science and medicine, the creation of hospitals and orphanages, the gradual uplifting of women and minorities, the flourishing of families, the eradication of slavery in the developed world, every single one of those outcomes goes back to the Garden of Eden and the promise that every person's identity is rooted in something that is truly transcendent.

You have all of human history where there is basically no progress, and all of a sudden, an idea enters the world through a movement called the church, and that idea progresses us further and faster than anything else.

In fact, through the study of our world, science, reason, philosophy, we hit these milestone moments across human history, like the age of reason, like the enlightenment brought about only because people believed that they were rooted in something transcendent.

And yet, when we felt like we knew something, and when we felt like we had progressed far enough, we fell into a belief that we could explain the rest of science and the rest of reason and the rest of philosophy without the need for God to fill in those gaps.

And isn't it interesting that the God who gave us science and reason, who led to the studies of math and philosophy, was now being discredited by those exact same disciplines.

And here's the real issue.

When we look at our culture today, we're not just post-Christian, we are pre-pagan.

We're back to the same foundation that the nations had when they had no other choice but to identify themselves and divide themselves along race, class, gender, home of origin, ethnicity.

Now we're back.

And once again we're in an identity crisis because mankind will never stop in the still small moments of reprieve.

We will never stop asking, why am I here?

Who am I?

Why am I here?

And now, when you remove a transcendent foundation, you are forced to answer that question without a transcendent backing.

We're a world who no longer believes in God.

And yet we still have the biggest questions in life that only God can truly answer.

And so if there's nothing deeper than what's in front of us, in us, around us, then what choice do we have?

We have to find our identity and things like our personality and temperament, our physical appearance, our attractions, our worst ways and mistakes, our social roles, our skill sets, accomplishments, and career, our interests.

Without belief in our status as divine image bearers of a transcendent God, what else do we have?

And so we have to cobble together some version of our identity, who we are at the deepest level, out of the material things of this world.

And not only will that create an identity crisis because those things will inevitably change throughout your life.

But there might even be a bigger problem.

And the bigger problem might be that none of the things on this list can tell you why you are here.

Not only are they a shaky foundation for who you are, but they can't speak to your ultimate purpose.

They can't tell you why your existence matters.

And whatever opinion you come up with on why you are here, it's just that.

It's your word versus someone else's.

And if your combination of personality and skill sets and worst ways and interests and attractions, if it informs you that your life should be about taking power and lording it over other people and just getting what you can take and living it out that way, and someone else's idea that you should serve other people and you should be kind and you should share what you have, then all you have is your word versus theirs.

There's nothing transcendent, there's nothing outside of you, there's nothing beyond you that can tell you what is and what is not.

When we remove God from the equation, when we make ourselves just another part of creation, just another one of the animals.

And if you're paying attention, you are hearing this.

You are hearing people who are looking at some of the issues in our world, and their prescription for that is we should just have less people.

We should prioritize planet over people.

And I'm not saying not to take care of what God has given us, but what I'm saying is the planet and mankind are not equal in the eyes of God.

We are made in his image, we are made in his likeness, and we are made with an incredible purpose.

And if you want to know why you're here, you can only learn that in reality from the person who put you here.

Let me remind you: to know who you are, you have to know why you are here.

You have to know why you are here.

And if your identity is built on these shaky foundations, you cannot answer that question.

And it's a question we have to have answered.

We have to live for something, we have to have meaning, we have to have significance.

Humanity requires a purpose.

Is the purpose that you are living for actually rooted in something that will last beyond you?

Is it rooted in something real?

Is it rooted in something that can actually bring hope to your life?

That can actually provide peace, that can actually give you direction.

The question of this series is who will I be in 2023?

Where will I root my identity?

And if you're ready to step into your true identity, something solid and unchanging, bigger than big, grander than grand, if you are ready to embrace who God actually created you to be.

It starts with a steadfast belief that you are an image bearer of God.

The big idea that will carry us through this entire series is that your identity is rooted in the garden.

You want to know who you are?

Look back to your origin story.

Look back to what God says about you.

Your identity is rooted in the garden.

And so, why?

Why are you here?

What is our purpose?

In Genesis 1:26, God said, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness, and they will rule.

Genesis 1:26

They'll rule the fish of the sea, they will rule the birds of the sky, the livestock, they will rule the whole earth and the creatures that crawl on the earth.

God created us in his image and in his likeness, and then he gave us what we call the creation mandate.

This is the unique calling for all humans.

In other words, if you believe and you cling to the fact that you were made in the image of God and you want to live your life in a way that the world around you experiences a reflection of God in you, this is how you do it.

You live out the creation mandate.

In verse 28, two verses later, it says, God blessed them.

And God said to them, Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.

Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.

God blesses humanity in a unique way above all the rest of creation.

And he says, They will rule.

A divine calling.

You were created to rule and reign on the earth.

You were created to take dominion.

God sees you as royalty.

In the New Testament, we are called a royal priesthood.

We are called ambassadors of God upon the earth.

Is that how you see you?

As royalty.

Do you live like royalty?

Do you love like royalty?

Do you have confidence and security like royalty?

Do you know who you are?

Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it.

To the first people, this was a call to literally be fruitful, multiply, make them babies, and fill the earth up, spread out, conquer, fill the entire earth.

That was the call.

It was literal, and this is a tangent.

I dare not go on, but let me tell you the best disciple-making strategy in the world is for Christian parents to have children.

Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it on a broader level.

That is a call to explore, to expand, to try things.

See, the call to following God is not a call to safety and security.

It is not a call to lock ourselves in to our little church buildings and shield ourselves from the big, bad world outside of us.

It is a call to the adventure of a lifetime, to go boldly into the unknown, to try things and fail at them, because you cannot fail when you are living out your God-given purpose.

This is the creation mandate.

And I know we're all taking notes.

We're all gonna write this down.

The creation mandate is to imitate, to assimilate, and to cultivate.

We imitate as image bearers of God.

You see, what you need to know about reaching your family and reaching your friends and reaching the city for the gospel is people don't believe in your God because of what you say.

They believe in your God because of what they see.

Are you imitating God in your work life?

Are you imitating God in your social life?

Are you imitating God in the quiet moments where no one sees you?

Are you imitating God in how you love your spouse and how you raise your children?

Are you actually living out the core of your identity as a divine reflection of God Himself?

We imitate and we assimilate.

We do not close ourselves off, we go boldly.

We enter the arena of life.

We do not become of the world, we do not live like the world, we do not fall into the identity crisis of our culture.

We walk in as imitators of God, and yet we walk in, and for far too long, Christians have closed themselves off in their narrow little groups.

It's gonna be very difficult for you to reach somebody for Jesus if you don't know anyone who doesn't know Jesus.

And so we're called to reach our city and we're called to reach our circle, and so we must assimilate and assimilate boldly.

We imitate and assimilate and we cultivate.

Fill the earth, multiply, and subdue it.

That's not an authoritarian word, that's a word like a gardener.

It's gentle, it's cultivating.

Sometimes Christians think that they're protecting the glory of God by going out and shouting down anyone who's not living in the exact same way that they want to live.

And of course, those people have their own sins, but they've rationalized those away, and so they can yell at you for the things that they don't like in your life.

And we think that we are gonna reach the world with a hammer, and really we're gonna reach the world by getting low, by humbling ourselves, by loving people without condition, without strings attached.

We imitate and assimilate and cultivate, and that is why you are here.

And yes, you will use your personality and your skill sets and your temperament and your attractions and your interest and your accomplishments.

You'll use all of that, but it's secondary.

This is why you're here.

This is your mission.

This is your purpose.

And so, what does it look like practically?

What does it look like today?

It's so amazing when you read scripture and you read it, how it happened throughout time chronologically, and what you see is you know, God will show up over and over again, and he'll give new revelation, and it's like deeper insight in who we are and why we're here, and deeper insight in who we are and why we're here, and then he gives the ultimate insight when God steps out of heaven and comes to our earth.

And Jesus, God in human flesh, is what it looks like to have a life fully rooted in their God-given identity.

And Jesus, the last thing he says after he dies in resurrection, right before he goes back to heaven, is he gives what we call the Great Commission.

And another way to think about the Great Commission is it is the creation mandate to the church that Jesus started.

Jesus came near and said to them, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded and remember, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

These are the new marching orders.

You see, when Jesus said, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth, what he's saying is to imitate God is to imitate Jesus.

And Jesus came to reveal the Father to us.

You want to live as a divine image bearer, live how Jesus lived.

Then he says, go into the adventure of your life, enter the arena, go boldly into the unknown.

You want to know how to find your purpose?

You don't want to know how to sharpen your gifts?

Go try some stuff.

Go fail at some stuff, but fail boldly for the sake of the gospel.

Go out and do it.

Quit living in fear.

Your identity will sharpen as you march alongside the Holy Spirit inside of you.

We imitate Jesus and we assimilate into our world.

Everywhere you go is your mission field.

At your gym, as you assimilate in, are you imitating Jesus to those around you?

In your home, are you imitating Jesus as you assimilate into your neighborhood?

And we cultivate the gospel.

We imitate Jesus, we assimilate into our world, and we cultivate the gospel, and the gospel is the good news.

That even though our sin and all the ways we miss the marks in life have separated us from God, that God came down to us, that even though our sin had a heavy price, Jesus paid it with his own life.

The gospel is the good news that not even the grave could hold Jesus back, that he rose again, ascended to heaven, and promised to return for all of those who believe in him.

This is why we are here.

This is the core of your identity, a divine image-bearer of God.

And everything else becomes secondary.

It's not bad to have interests and hobbies and attractions and skill sets, a good workout regimen, but when your identity is in Jesus, when it's rooted in the garden, everything gets filtered through that first.

I love sports.

I'm passionate.

I love the spurs.

You know this.

Your team losing is not an excuse for you to stop imitating Jesus in that moment.

Losing your job isn't the excuse to shut off from a world that you've been called to assimilate into.

Your personality and your temperament, they're not a cop-out for why you cannot gently and lovingly cultivate the gospel in the circles of society that God has placed you.

Everything filtered through our identity.

And maybe for you, if all you got out of today is a realization that all the things you've been calling your identity really are just your personality.

It's actually just your social role.

It's really just a skill set or a worse way.

Maybe all you got out of today is that there's something deeper that your life could be rooted into that would make all of the difference in your experience of your time on earth.

Maybe you could actually answer the question, who am I?

And why am I here?

I hope that you will stay with us.

I hope you'll keep tracking through this series.

Who are you?

Why are you here?

What is your identity rooted in?

I hope you will see God.

That you will remember your identity is rooted not in what the world says, but in what God says about you.

Your identity is rooted in the garden.

Would you pray with me?

Father, sometimes I feel like we see your first real expression of love for us on the cross of Jesus.

And maybe today for the first time we will recognize that the first evidence of love for us is right at the moment you created us.

That you blessed us.

That you put your image and your likeness inside of us.

And I pray that we would not take that for granted.

That we would begin this year in 2023, that we would begin to take hold of the life that we've been given.

That we'd be willing to do the work to dig deeper and to root our life in you.

We love you and we pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thanks so much for listening to the message today.

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And I love you guys, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.