"Who Do You Believe You Are?" - Pastor Greg Addison - Feb. 4, 2024

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

Turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians chapter 1.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

And today we're going to start a new series we're going to do for a couple of weeks where we're going to go back and talk through the triangle that we uh talk about here as a way to grow, a way to explain how we grow in the Lord.

And I'm excited about that.

But let's um let's start uh today with a question.

And this really relates to the foundation of what we deal with in our modern Christianity here in America, how we're trying to grow in the Lord, how we understand who we are, struggles that are in our culture, conversations are out there.

Let's go back to that first question.

And the first question I want to ask you is this Who are you?

According to you, in your mind, who are you?

How do you view yourself?

That's a really fundamental question that really determines so much in life.

Because when you decide who do you believe you are, that really defines actions that you take.

It defines the perspective that you think, I'm going to start to invest in this, or I'm going to think that, or I'm going to believe this.

The choices that you make, the direction that you set in life.

It has a lot to do with who you believe you are.

In our modern culture, we talk about identity, and people talk about identity, and we have all this, you know, ways that people talk about your identity.

And it's not just in gender or those kind of issues, but it's in all kinds of things.

People talk about this.

Hey, I need to go inside myself and find out who I am and all that kind of a deal.

How who is it that you believe you are?

If you really take a minute, let the Holy Spirit unpack that for you, it begins to trace into it, well, that's why I do what I do, and that's why I want that, and that's why I think that, and that's why I don't feel good about myself because I believe I'm not this or I'm not that or I can't do that, or whatever.

Here's the question that we really need to ask.

It's not who you believe you are that should matter, but it's who does Jesus say you are.

Who does Jesus say you are, especially when you know Him as your Savior?

Because you see, that should be what defines our identity.

Not who we think we are, not who we're afraid we are or are not, not who we're proud of who we think we are, or not even who we want to be, but who does Jesus say you are?

And here's what we're going to talk about the message for today.

When you understand your identity in Jesus Christ, it changes everything in your life.

This may be one of the most fundamental spiritual issues for every person.

Because every person is working through the process of defining their identity, searching for an answer to these existential questions in our lives, when really Jesus has the answer.

And he wants to come in and teach us and heal us and grow us and use us, attaches to the purpose that he has for us.

Now, here's, let's look at this passage of scripture, and then we'll kind of unpack this idea of our identity in Christ.

Here's what Paul says in Colossians chapter 1.

Colossians 1 · chapter mention

Now keep in mind, Paul is writing this from prison, even.

So when you get that in your mind, he's a prisoner writing this letter.

It becomes even more dramatic to understand that it doesn't matter where you are, the situation that you're in, or the condition that you might face, Jesus is greater than all of that.

So keep in mind, he's writing this from prison.

It says, We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints because of the hope reserved for you in heaven.

Now that's going to be the key verse right there that's going to unlock these thoughts for us.

But let's just continue to read to get the whole context.

You've already heard about this hope and the message of truth, the gospel that has come to you.

So he says, listen, the reason that you have that hope, the reason that you're in Jesus, the reason that you understand that is because when the gospel was preached to you, you trusted in Jesus as your Savior.

He describes a little bit about how that happened.

This gospel message, verse 6, is bearing fruit and growing all over the world, just as it has among you since the day you heard it and recognized God's grace in the truth.

So let me just point out for just a second.

Here's what he says the gospel is exploding around the world.

And we're so self-centered often in our question about who am I or who do I want to be or what I don't have or what I have to be or whatever kind of deal that we get this egocentric world and we're looking at things with this just idea of me and how I'm affected.

And that's where in our culture today people talk about, well, it's okay to live out your truth.

You hear that?

Your truth.

Live out your truth.

Well, that's not my truth.

Well, here's what Paul's saying.

Listen, if everybody on the planet has this question in their heart and mind, and every time the gospel shows up in a new area, it explodes and grows through the lives of people, there ought to be something worth considering here, don't you think?

And in fact, the gospel is still exploding around the world.

There are nations and continents on our planet that are in wide open revival.

Thousands of people a day coming to faith in Jesus Christ.

So this is every bit as true for us as we're asking these questions as it was in the day when Paul wrote this to Christians in a city called Colossae.

Here's what he says: You learn from Epaphras, our dearly loved fellow slave.

He is a faithful servant of the Messiah on your behalf, and he has told us about your love in the Spirit.

In other words, he came there, he preached the gospel, helped them plant a church, people are getting saved.

He goes back and reports to Paul what's happening.

So now he begins to teach.

For this reason also, since the day we heard this, that you've gotten saved, that you're following the Lord, that you've become believers, we have not stopped praying for you.

Again, the church prays.

That's why we have prayer force, that's why we've restarted our prayer ministry, that's why we are engaged.

We are asking, and here's his prayer for the church, that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and growing in the knowledge of God.

May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints' inheritance in the light.

In other words, all this stuff that God is doing in our lives, and this knowledge and wisdom of who he is and the joy brings and the hope that's for us, all of that is how we grow to experience what happened to us when we got saved.

It's how we appropriate our birthright as children of God when we have trusted him as our Savior.

All those things that happen to us and are there for us as believers, how do we appropriate those?

That's what Paul is saying.

He's praying that you will continue to grow in that so you can put your hands and arms around the inheritance that is yours because of what Jesus did for us when he died for us on the cross and rose again.

Verse 13, He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son, He loves.

We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins in Him.

It's an incredible picture here of what happened to us when we got saved and the journey that we have in growing to be like Jesus.

Now, we use this illustration around here, and I appreciate how so many folks have come to grasp and understand this idea of the triangle.

Now, listen, every illustration breaks down, okay?

So this is not designed to be something that's superimposed over Scripture or something like that.

This is just a shorthand way to grab our attention and focus and focus us on exactly what Paul said.

We have been rescued from the domain of darkness.

We have, through Jesus, been transferred into the kingdom of God.

We are his children.

All of this inheritance that is ours.

How do we grow to know what that is?

How do we grow to experience that?

Jesus said it this way in John 10, I've come that you might have life and you might have it more abundantly.

How do we experience that abundant life in Christ?

Well, it's by growing in our understanding of who we are in Jesus.

So here's what we've done: this simple little illustration.

These are three spiritual principles that create sort of the spiritual chemistry of how we grow in the Lord.

This is an equilateral triangle.

It's got three legs.

You see it right there.

The foundation of that is our identity in Christ, what we're talking about here.

Everything flows from understanding that when you have trusted Christ as your Savior, he has saved you.

As Paul said, he's brought you out of darkness, he's brought you into the light, he's brought you out of sin into righteousness, he's brought you out of frustration and all of that into the joy that is his.

He's brought you out of a lack of hope, to being resting in hope.

He's brought you out of the judgment of sin, into the forgiveness of God.

He's brought you from aloneness into a relationship with him.

All of that is our identity.

How do we experience that?

How do we grow?

Well, it's represented by an equilateral triangle.

And what happens is as each of those three parts of our spiritual life grow, our triangle gets larger.

It represents that growing in the Lord.

Our identity in Christ, as we'll see here, is I am saved, I am his child through the adoption, through the process of salvation, and I am a member of the body of Christ.

Because your identity as a member of the body of Christ is the same thing as your identity as saved by Christ.

They are inextricably linked.

That's who I am.

I am a Christian and I am a member of the family of God.

That's my identity.

And then you grow by growing your relationship.

That grows through prayer, Bible study, and choices of faith.

So it is the process of spending time with the Lord, doing what we're doing this morning.

Here's your word.

Lord, tell me what you want to teach me.

I learn from Scripture.

Ooh, Holy Spirit goes, Greg, you got to work on that.

I need you to do this.

And then I face a choice of faith.

Am I going to be obedient what God showed me through his word?

And as I am engaged in prayer, Bible study choices of faith, my relationship with Jesus grows.

And the more I understand who he is, then the greater it impacts my identity because if I'm in Jesus and that's who Jesus is, there's a whole lot to more life than I knew.

And then there is the ministry component of our lives.

You have to serve.

You have to be a servant.

If you are a member of the body of Christ, then you must serve your body.

There is no Christian life that is self-centered, and I'm growing for myself to make life better.

For me.

If you are growing to be like Jesus, and Jesus loved us so much as it says in Philippians 2, that he emptied himself and he humbled himself before us, stepped out of heaven, went to the cross, and died for us, and rose again so that we could have salvation, you cannot live for yourself.

It is impossible.

If your identity is growing in Jesus, and that's who Jesus is, then Jesus is going to come out of your life, and so you have to be a servant.

You have to bear fruit.

You have to serve people.

If any one of those three components of your spiritual life, if it gets stuck, you stop and you don't grow.

So in church life, what do we do?

We're encouraging each other in our walk.

Basically, God is using us to exert pressure on some leg of the triangle of each person in the body.

When you're growing, we're just pushing that leg.

God is working to push on that.

Maybe it's your identity that you don't know, or maybe you're not serving, and so your spiritual life is not growing because you're not bearing fruit.

And so we're exerting pressure on those three legs to keep that growing.

And as you grow to know Jesus, you grow to understand who you are in Jesus, those three things grow together.

And you attach them in that triangle because they work together, right?

Identity.

And so the foundation of that is our identity in Christ.

Now look real quickly at just the three components of the triangle that are in here.

First of all, our identity in Christ.

Over and over, he repeats this.

In chapter 2, he says, to the saints in Christ at Colossae.

He says in verse 4, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus.

As you continue to read through that, he says, in Jesus, in Jesus, in Jesus, in Jesus.

When we have trusted him as our Savior, we are in him.

And the Bible says, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.

So what happens is you give your life to Christ, you trust in him through the gospel, and you have become in relationship with him and one with him, and now he lives in us and through us.

Your identity as a believer is you are saved by Christ and you are a member of the body of Christ.

Look at what he says in verse 4.

For you have heard of your faith in Christ and of the love you have for all the saints.

You cannot be a believer and say you love Jesus and not love the body of Christ through serving the body of Christ.

You cannot have an identity in Jesus separated from being a part of the body.

Here's what he says.

Verse 3, we thank God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ when we pray for you, for we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints.

Look what he says in verse 9.

For this reason, since we day we heard you were saved, we haven't stopped praying for you.

We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of all of his will and all wisdom and spiritual understanding for this purpose, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work.

You're going to do ministry in the body of Christ.

That's how you love the body of Christ.

How you express your identity in the body of Christ is by serving the body of Christ.

And then that relationship, that knowledge, look what he says.

He says, We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and growing in the knowledge of God.

And so we are to grow in our knowledge of him.

As we are affirming our identity in Christ, as we are spending time, prayer, Bible study, choices of faith, learning to walk with him, learning to understand him, learning to recognize his voice, learning to respond to his voice, and we are serving the body of Christ, bearing fruit.

All of that is working together, and we are growing in the knowledge.

And so he says, growing.

We pray that you keep growing.

And so our spiritual life is a dynamic exercise.

It continues to grow and move.

And the more you grow spiritually, the more your triangle expands, the more your understanding and knowledge and sense of who God is in your life expands, the greater your sense of identity is going to be in who Jesus is.

Because the more you know who Jesus is, and Jesus is in you, the more that shapes your sense of identity and who I am in Christ.

Now, let me just kind of walk through this with you for a minute.

Here's the first truth I want you to see.

A relationship with Jesus establishes your identity.

There are like four types of places that people today go and ask this question to define their identity.

The first thing is you'll hear people talk about going inside.

So I need to go inside and find out who I am.

I need to spend time with myself.

I need to discover myself and all this kind of stuff.

We're asking this question, and I want to define who I am.

Well, let me tell you who you are outside of Jesus.

The Bible says that you are broken by sin.

All have sinned and fallen short of God's glory.

Because of that, you're separated from God.

You're facing a judgment in hell.

You don't function the way God designed you to function because you are, your engine is broken and misfiring because of sin.

So if that's who you are, and the Bible explains who you are, if you start going inward to find out who you are, here's what you're gonna find.

You're gonna find things like, I am broken and I'm not this.

I did this wrong and I feel guilty.

And if you drive inward and you find that and you focus on that, then that's going to set your identity and drive the choices that you make.

I must do this because I'm not so-and-so.

I've got to do this because I've got this wound in my life, and I'm a victim, and I've got to either make that pain go away or do something to change that.

Or maybe you go in and you're going to find selfishness and sin, and so you're gonna be ego-driven.

I'm awesome, I'm the man, I can do this, and you're prideful, and you run over people, and you judge people around you, and you do all that, and you're all prideful.

Or you go out and you try to climb the corporate ladder or become wealthy or whatever you're trying to do because you deserve that because of your self-centeredness.

How is any of that ever going to help you?

How is that ever gonna bring joy?

How is that ever gonna create a sense of hope?

If you are looking inward for who you are, there is no answer that helps you.

We can look at the people around us to define us, and that happens all the time.

So we're looking at people, and when they validate us, that feeds something in me, and I have this desire for community, so I like it when that happens.

So I'll do for you or with you whatever I want to do that you'll make me feel a part of that and make me feel better about myself.

Now, what's that gonna do?

Well, it's gonna make us captive to whatever group we land in that started feeding that need in our lives.

And we don't even pay attention to whether they're leading us off a cliff or not.

We're just following whatever because everybody did, and it seemed to salve some wound.

A friend of mine and I, when we were, when our sons were 16, we took our kids on a, we took our two sons on a roller coaster tour of Florida.

It was their 16th birthday, and we went out and did it, it was really fun.

So we're we they live in Nashville, so Grant and I went and we picked up John and Andrew.

We got in the car, we're headed down uh to Florida, and we're gonna do all the roller coasters, which is an awesome thing to do, by the way.

So we're driving down there, we're in his suburban, and we get on a highway in Alabama, and it's a big four-lane interstate kind of a thing with a big divided median in the middle.

It's probably as wide as the sanctuary, and it has a big dip V in the middle, like that, right?

And somewhere a couple of miles ahead of us is a car wreck, and there is a major wreck up there, and we are backed up for miles.

We're sitting there like 10, 15 minutes, and my friend is driving his suburban, and he's kind of impatient.

And we begin, we're in Alabama, right?

So they have a pretty high ratio of rednecks to normal people in Alabama.

And so all these dudes with these four-wheel tri four-wheel drive trucks all start skipping the median.

So they'll go down the hill, through the bottom of the medium, up the other side, go out and find another exit, and go.

And so we watch this for about another 10 minutes.

And so my friend decides, hey, if they can do that, I can do that too.

Let's follow that, guys, and without thinking about it or a plan, jams it in drive, immediately turns hard left, goes straight down into that hole.

Now, because he's not a redneck, he does not understand that you have to go at an angle.

Because if you go straight down into and it's got that kind of a deal, you know what's gonna happen?

He buried his suburban.

In the mud up to the fender wells.

It was kind of awesome.

And so now we're sitting there because we followed everybody else.

As we're sitting there looking at this truck, an Alabama state trooper comes driving up on the median on the side that we were trying to get to.

And I promise you, it was just like a scene from a movie.

This guy gets out, he is as round as he is tall.

He's got on his big flat brim hat.

He's got a big old chaw in one cheek.

He comes walking down there in his flat brim trooper hat, trooper uniform, cowboy boots, walking down the thing, walks up to the truck, taps on the window.

We had gotten back in, we were trying to call whatever.

So my friend rolls down the window, the trooper looks at him and says, You boys have some trouble.

And my friend says, You're right, officer.

I watched all those other people go down through the median, and I thought I could do just like they could.

And I promise you, here's what happens.

If them folks have driven off a bridge, you boys have probably followed them there too.

What's unfortunate is how many times we're following other people because we're just trying to find an identity for ourselves.

And you try to let other people validate you and define your identity, they can't even define their own identity.

Why are we letting them define ours or speak into ours?

It makes no sense whatsoever.

We look in culture for an answer.

We look in culture and we think, if I can just do this or I can just accomplish this, or the world philosophy says this, I think I can be this, right?

I think I can handle this.

I want you to look in Colossians chapter 2 with me and see what the Bible says about that.

Colossians 2 · chapter mention

You remember, Paul said we were saved from the domain of darkness, right?

Look what he says in Colossians chapter 2, verse 3.

Colossians 2:3

All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are actually hidden in Jesus.

Not in ourselves, not in somebody else, not in culture.

I'm saying this so that no one will deceive you with persuasive arguments.

I may be absent in body, I'm not with you physically, but I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see how well ordered you are and the strength of your faith in Christ Jesus.

Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, just as you were taught.

Verse 8.

Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world, and not based in Christ.

For the entire fullness of God's nature dwells bodily in Christ, and you have been filled by Him.

The place we're supposed to find our identity is in Jesus.

When you come to Jesus and He saves you, He changes you.

He removes that sin and forgives you so you don't have to live under guilt and all of that.

He brings healing and grace.

You don't have to have wounds to drive your life.

He gives you purpose so you don't have to search somewhere else for what your life means.

You get to follow Jesus, who gives you exactly why you were created and exactly what he's prepared for you, and exactly how he designed you, and you can flourish in the plan that God has prepared for you.

You're never alone anymore because Jesus is in you and walks with you.

Look at what he says: walked and rooted and built up when we're in Jesus.

When you're in Christ, you are saved, you are forgiven, you are loved, you are filled with faith, you are filled with joy, you are filled with hope, you have purpose, you can influence the world around you, you can impact people through Jesus in you, using you to impact them.

All of this happens in Jesus.

The answer to the question is in Jesus.

If our identity, if he establishes an identity in us, then here's what we need to begin to understand.

If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, the first point is for you.

Quit looking in the places that you cannot find truth and look where Jesus is truth and heals your life.

But once you've been saved, now you begin the journey of understanding your identity in Christ.

That's why Paul said, we are praying for you to grow in understanding and knowledge in this.

So your Christian life is a journey of trying to find out what happened to us when you got saved.

And here's what we need to understand with our identity in Christ: the quality or the nature of what creates your identity determines the quality and nature of the fruit in your life.

Remember, the triangle, look at it again.

It tells you that our identity in Christ means that we are saved and we're a part of the body of Christ.

Remember what Paul said in verse 3.

Your faith in Christ and your love for the saints.

And so your ministry is going to bear fruit.

What kind of fruit are you bearing in your life?

If the fruit in your life is not the character of Jesus, then you are trying to pursue an understanding of your identity in one of those other sources and not through who Jesus is in your life.

Because if Jesus is in us and we are in him, and that is our identity, and in our relationship, we are doing prayer, Bible study, choices of faith, learning who Jesus is, and that is the source of our life, and we are rooted and built up in him, and just as Paul said in chapter 2, Jesus is in us.

If Jesus is in us, then Jesus must come out so that what should be coming out of our life is Jesus fruit.

And so we are asking these questions.

Am I going to do this?

Am I going to try this?

Am I going to walk with that person?

Am I going to say no to that person?

Am I going to do this in life?

Am I going to serve that?

How am I going to face this temptation?

The question has to be: who am I in Jesus and what has he saved me for?

And what is he doing in my life?

And that is where I understand that Jesus in me is Jesus coming out.

And the type of fruit that should be coming out of my life should be reflecting my identity in Jesus.

We talked about this in men's business luncheon on Tuesday.

Been in church so long, I hear this kind of thing.

I'll see guys and I'll say, How are you doing?

Oh, Pastor, I'm all, I'm just an old sinner saved by grace.

How many of y'all have heard that?

I'm not going to ask you if you've said that, right?

Because I'm about to embarrass you if you had.

Oh, I'm just an old sinner saved by grace.

Well, where does it say that in the Bible?

Where does it say that in the Bible?

You know what that is?

That's something in our head we think sounds all spiritually and churchy, and it is completely unbiblical.

In fact, it is a lie from Satan that he is trying to draw you away from the presence of Jesus and understanding who you are in Christ.

What does the Bible say you are?

The Bible says you are loved with an eternal, everlasting love.

The Bible says that you in Romans chapter 8, you are adopted as a child of God through the blood of Jesus, and you are a joint heir with Christ, and you can never be disinherited.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

As you continue to read in the book of Colossians, here's what the Bible says: that because you are saved and have been redeemed with the incorruptible, imperishable, because you have an inheritance that can never be destroyed because of the eternal life that is created in you, you do not have the right to drag your body through sin.

Because of your identity in Christ and who you are.

Listen to what the Bible says.

If he keeps saying who we are in Christ, just take a minute here in chapter one and let's see who Jesus is.

We've seen multiple services now, multiple verses where we see Jesus is in you, right?

Jesus is in you.

And if the Jesus is in you, then Jesus has to come out.

The nature of what saves you, the nature of Christ in you should determine the nature that we have and help us understand our identity.

This is who's in you.

Verse 15 Jesus is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Everything was created by him in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible, where the thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities.

All things have been created through him and for him.

You were created through Jesus and for Jesus.

Salvation was created to save and redeem his creation and to come into you and save you for himself and what he's prepared for you.

He is before all things, and by him all things hold together.

As we walk through this day, literally, the physical planet that we live on is held together through the action of Jesus as creator God.

Don't come tell me you climbed out a slime or ooze.

Because that's not what my Bible says.

Why does Satan want to give you that kind of a lie?

Because he's destroying the image of Jesus.

Because if you saw who Jesus is and you gave your life to Jesus, and you begin to realize who you are in Jesus, he loses.

God gets glory and everything changes.

He is the head of the body, the church.

If he's the head of the body and we're his body, your identity in Christ cannot exist outside of the body of Christ.

It's just impossible.

He's the head of the body, the church, he's the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might come to have first place in everything.

Because he is everything and he is the priority.

He has first place in everything, including an understanding of who I am.

It is not my life, it is Jesus' life.

Jesus died for my life.

I surrendered my life to him when I gave my life to him, and it is not my life anymore.

My identity in Christ means I do not have the right to seek my identity or make choices outside of who he is.

Because it doesn't belong to me anymore.

It is all his and who he is.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him.

In chapter one, and we just read in chapter two where it says the fullness of God rests in the person of Jesus.

Jesus is fully preeminent creator God.

Jesus is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

He is so much more than just a friend or a teacher or a philosopher or somebody was here or a part of literature or whatever.

Jesus is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

The fullness of who God is exists in the person of Jesus, and that is who went to the cross and died for us.

And that is who rose again for us.

Once you were alienated and you were hostile in your minds because of your evil actions, but now he has reconciled you.

Who he, that he, the head of all things, the creator of the universe, the fullness of the person of God, all of that, he has reconciled you by his physical body through his death to present you holy, faultless, and blameless before him, if indeed you may remain grounded and steadfast in the faith and are not shifted away from the hope of the gospel that you heard.

You see, when we are not involved in that prayer Bible study choices of faith, I'm not pursuing him.

I am not seeking to understand my identity in him.

It makes me open to all of that stuff Paul has continually warned about in these two chapters.

The world speaking into your ear.

Your Instagram, TikTok feed lying to you on a constant 24-7 basis.

Telling you're not as pretty as those pictures.

Or you need to buy that to be as cool as everybody else.

Or you're not as strong as them, or you're not impacting, or you're not an influencer, you don't have enough followers or anything else.

You show up in a Twitter feed, or you show up in some X feed or whatever, and they're this and that, and you're whatever, and we got all this nonsense going on.

And what is it doing?

It is distracting us from the hope that is in Jesus.

And when we are in him, he, this Jesus, is in you.

And that brings us to the next point.

This is an ever increasing work in our lives.

Understanding your identity is an ever-increasing understanding of who Jesus is and who he is in your life.

When your identity is in him, your drive should be to find out more about who he is.

Because he saves us, he redeems us, he heals us, he grows us, he gives us purpose, he forgives us all of those answers.

As Paul said right here, verse 3 all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in him.

And that's why when we talk about how you grow in the Lord, it is vital that we have that image.

So just the image of the triangle itself that challenges you.

I must know more about Jesus.

My spiritual life should always be growing in Jesus.

Again, look at what Scripture says.

His prayer for them as a pastor in chapter 1, verse 9.

We are asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding.

How long do you think it takes you to unpack the spiritual understanding of who Jesus is when he is all those things we've just read?

It's a never-ending journey.

It's a never-ending, joyful journey to learn who he is.

Paul continues to say, so that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, bearing every fruit and every good work, and growing in the knowledge of God.

You never stop learning your identity.

Listen, this is such a fundamental life issue, this sense of identity in who we are.

It is such a conversation.

We are being inundated with it in our culture, and everybody's trying to speak into all that.

There's no way in a 35-minute sermon, and somebody just said, Well, I wish they were only 35 minutes, Pastor.

There's no way I can get all that, but what I can do is two things.

I can tell you and show you that there are answers in this identity and encourage you through the Holy Spirit in your life to begin to pursue.

I can encourage you to do that and show you.

Spend some time brewing these in your life and heart, understanding who Jesus is.

I am trying to exert pressure on your triangle in that identity leg and in that relationship leg, that prayer Bible study, choices of faith.

Man, if I can do that, you will grow.

Listen, this identity issue, parents, this is your job as a parent.

It is fundamental in you helping your children process this and who they are and who Jesus is and what he has for them.

Your job is not for your children to grow up and have straight A's or get drafted or get a scholarship to college or become a doctor, lawyer, nurse, teacher, coach, or whatever.

Your job is to raise your children to walk in the nurture and admonition of Jesus.

And you've got to help them understand that this is who Jesus is.

This is how much he loves you.

He made you.

The Bible says he formed you and knew you before you were even formed in your mother's womb.

God had a plan for you.

And so however you got here and whatever your family looks like, God has a plan for you.

Ephesians chapter 2, verse 8, 9, and 10 says, This, for by grace are we saved through faith, and that not of ourselves.

Ephesians 2:8

It is the gift of God.

He is the one who reconciled us through his body.

He is the one that drew all things to himself.

He is the one that created all things, the Bible says.

By grace are we saved through faith, and that not of ourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works, as any man should boast.

You're trying to find your identity and what you do and what you create and who you are, you will never find it.

Because it is a gift from God in the salvation that comes through Jesus.

And then he says, Because you are his workmanship.

Again, Jesus has created all things for himself.

You are his workmanship created, again, the Bible says, in Christ Jesus for good works that he's prepared beforehand for you to walk in.

I don't like how God made me.

Well, it's because you don't know the path he's prepared for you to be in.

You may not know or understand yet how incredibly wonderfully you are crafted and how much you will flourish in who God has made you to be.

Quit letting someone else try to tell you who you are.

When Jesus made you, and he made you in love, and he stepped out of heaven and he went to the cross and he died for you to redeem you and to pull you into that life that he's created for you, that path he's created for you, that ministry he's created for you.

Listen, all of that is in Jesus.

Parents, it's a never-ending journey.

I mean, when baby's born, they can't see farther than this.

And then they can only see black and white, and then they begin to see colors, and then they figure out their fingers and their toes, and life just continues to go out like that from concentric circles.

They don't even discover that they're supposed to like their siblings until they're like a first grader.

I mean, you all of this life, and then you have these changes in life, man.

We go through puberty and then we become teenagers, and then you go through the transition of adulthood.

I'm going from, I gotta go from, well, Grant's a man now.

No, he's not, he's that big.

And Grant's got to go through, well, I don't have to obey my parents anymore.

I'm not a kid.

Yeah, but you have to honor your father and mother.

And we're wrestling through this transition in life, and all of a sudden he steps in and he goes, Who am I gonna marry and what am I gonna do with my life?

And all of a sudden he's got identity questions again, and he's working through that, and you go through midlife crisis, and you go buy an orange Mustang convertible because you want to look younger again.

Let me tell you, it does help.

And then you go through retirement, and all of a sudden, who am I and what am I gonna do with this retirement?

I remember my dad, when he retired, he retired at 58.

I was working on staff in my own church, and I was on staff.

I was working.

My dad was hard, man.

He taught us how to work, and I'm working.

And I knew this transition was gonna be hard because he was a hard charger.

He was a high-level, you know, C-suite executive, nationally renowned in his field, all this kind of stuff.

My mom's like, you gotta help.

So I'm like, okay, I'll help.

So dad would call me at 9 o'clock.

Hey, son, let's go to lunch.

Thinking, well, I got stuff to do, but okay, Dad, let's go to lunch.

Well, he'd show up my office at 9.45.

I'm like, 9.45?

It's not lunchtime.

What are you doing?

Well, I don't have any of this.

I'll just sit here in your office.

So he'd sit in my office for two hours for his time to go to lunch.

I'm like, Dad, what are we doing?

I'm like, Mom, can you do no, he's yours.

And so, you know, then it shifted to he'd call me at 9, hey, let's go to lunch today.

Okay, Dad.

Well, 9 45, he'd poke his head in my in my office door and he'd say, Hey, I'm here when you're ready.

And then he would go to everybody's office on the entire church staff talking to all of them, probably drank through two coffee pots full of.

Like a whole morning waiting.

Because it's a transition.

And so many times in life we're working through things.

You face a crisis, your career changes, the doctor gives you a report that's not good, whatever it is, in all of those times, it is another opportunity for you to come back to who you were in Christ.

Who are you in Jesus?

Who is he in this moment in your life?

What does he want to do with you?

What does he want to do through you?

What is your testimony in this life?

If you've given your life to Christ in this moment and the nature of your life in him is Jesus, then the nature of your fruit in that moment must be Jesus.

When my father passed away, it was a shock.

He just dropped dead.

Praise the Lord.

It was awesome.

He taught Sunday school on Sunday.

He worked and did some consulting that morning, had lunch with his buddies.

He played, um, he was a big bridge player, and he, where they lived, they had all these bridge games.

He played bridge, and then he went back to the apartment and died and went to heaven.

Okay, like that's how you ought to write it up, right?

But it was a shock to us, man.

He had one breath here and one breath with Jesus, and we get the call, and I got my brothers and sisters around.

I said, here's the deal.

This is horrible.

But we're going to do this like we believe heaven is real.

Our dad taught us heaven.

He taught us we're having influence.

If we say that Jesus has saved him and he is in heaven because he's there and we say we're saved, then the nature of what gave us that life has to be the nature of the fruit that comes out and that we bear.

And every time you hit that moment, the foundation begins with who is Jesus?

And who is he in my life?

I want to go back to that first question.

Who do you believe you are?

If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior and let him define your identity, I want to invite you right now to trust Jesus as your Savior.

You can have an identity that you are in Him, His joint heir with God.

That's what the Bible says.

In this verse, he says, in this first chapter, he says, We heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints because of the hope reserved for you in heaven.

Everybody that studies culture says people are hopeless.

Listen, you're never hopeless when you know Jesus.

And I want to invite you to discover your true identity in Jesus and who he made you to be, who he wants to save you to be if you will let him.

If you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, you're at home, you're watching on the internet, you're here, we're going to have a moment for you to do that.

If you are a brother and sister in Christ, I want to challenge you as much as I can, lovingly, but as much as I can.

How are you viewing yourself?

Which question is most important to you?

Do you think it's more important who you believe you are, or do you think it's more important who does Jesus say you are?

And I want to encourage you to find your identity in Christ.

I want you to bow your heads as we close.

And if you've never trusted Christ as your Savior, if you're at home, you're watching online, I want to invite you to give your life to Jesus.

If you're here, I want to invite you to come and give your life to Jesus.

We'll have pastors here, deacons are here.

Man, we got people to pray with you and walk with you.

We want to help you in every way that we can.

Your conversation, you may think, Pastor, my conversation is deeper than that.

That's awesome.

Then just come forward and make an appointment with us.

Let us pray with you.

Respond, make a commitment to the Lord to dive into that, and let's set up some time where we can sit down with you and walk with you in that journey.

Show you the truth of Scripture.

If you're a follower of Christ, you're already saved, you need a church home, you come.

If you're struggling with questions of identity, I want to encourage you, make a commitment to get into your relationship time with the Lord.

Use Colossians 1 and 2.

Find a friend, find one of us, let us walk through that journey with you and encourage you.

Because to be saved is to be a part of the body of Christ.

So, brother, sister, we're here to walk with you.

Lord, we love you and we thank you.

And I, Lord, I pray, I'm sorry that I can't get all that's in this unbelievably powerful and eternal passage of Scripture.

And Lord, we just trust that you as the Holy Spirit will speak to lives in the way that you do.

Draw people to you, build their faith, ask the questions that challenge, give them hope, a sense of your love, and give us a freedom to respond to you, to obey you so we can grow in that knowledge.

We pray this in Jesus' name, and all God's people said.

Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.

Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.

Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.