Identity
Notes
Transcript
In the next few weeks we are going to be looking into our identity. Who we are in Christ. I believe after a year like 2020 it’s important to take a look into who we believe ourselves to be in light of who God is. Because here’s the issue:
If we find our identity in God when things only goes the way we prayed for than we will have a Crisis of Identity every time something goes wrong in our life. It’s a unique term Identity Crisis.
Believe it or not the term Identity Crisis came was thought up by Erik Erikson—and his definition and frame of study was around mid-life crisis in adults. But an Identity Crisis occurs every time you question who your are and your role in the world around you.
Many Christians center their identity on God being good, but the big question stands: What happens to our identity when we perceive God not to be good? When we question his ways, his calling for us, or our purpose on Earth?
If you don’t find your identity in Christ than often times you search for your identity in the world around you, but what happens when that world Changes---like Covid 19?
This morning we are going to look at the ultimate challenge of Identity.
Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites.
The Israelites were in Crisis. They were being oppressed by the Mideanites who were not only ruling over them, but taking everything they worked for year after year. Gideon, who was in the smallest town, in the smallest corner, from the smallest family was hiding in an attempt to make himself small so that the Mideanites wouldn’t take the wine he working on.
Just when you believe you have found the perfect hiding spot—God begins to talk to you.
A you read the story of Gideon you will discover that fear is Gideon’s ultimate antagonist. Fear is what Gideon wrestles with and what he uses to protect himself when things don’t go away.
But here’s the truth:
When we hide behind something for so long our defense becomes our identity.
Everything we do gets measured by our insecurities. If you have anxiety—it will determine if you go to the store or stay home.If you fear flying it will determine where and when you can travel. If you fear intimacy it will determine the ultimate path of every relationship you enter in.
And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.”
Now I want you to notice How God sees Gideon compared to Gideon’s response.
And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?”
And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father’s house.”
Here’s the issue: When God shows you who you re all too often our first reaction is to show God that he is wrong. Because often times what we see and what God sees is drastically different and we cannot fathom anyone who doesn’t see our faults before our good attributes. Husbands---the best time to tell your wife she is beautiful is when she has stood in front of the mirror for any length of time. Why? because most women have a crisis of identity every time they look in the mirror. The whole point of make up is to cover what they perceive their flaws are. Why do you think the first thing most women apply is concealer.
But the fact is: Most people spend the majority of their time trying to hide their faults. And it isn’t until we begin to embrace who God made us to be that we will be able to se ourselves any different.
If 2020 has taught me anything it’s that my definition of things and the worlds definition of things are often wrong. Through all the pain and chaos God brought many of us through this last year with blessing and victory.
There was a study done where a forensic artist was brought in and hidden from the person they were to draw. The person sat in front of a mirror and told the artist what to draw. Then they brought in other people who looked at this person and told them what to draw.
In just about every case the person’s rendition of themselves contain significantly more flaws than the renditions the other people gave the artist—The take away: Our view of ourself and our potential isn’t always accurate.
We need to understand: Your self image can become a strong hold that stops your from engaging in the calling God has planned for your life. If Gideon couldn’t get out of his own way-God would have moved onto someone else.
Think about the importance of your identity.
In Genesis the first sin committed attacked-who they were: Before they where who God told them—after sin entered the world they were naked and ashamed—their identity changed. And that change in identity brought division in their relaitonship with God. It brought seperation-
God’s first question: Who told you that you were naked- In other words-besides me: Who have you allowed to define you.
The source of our identity Crisis isn’t the world around us
The source of our identity Crisis: Stems from how far separated we are from the God who created us.
The farther we are from God the more skewed our identity becomes. And when our creator doesn’t define who we are we begin to look for other people to define us.
Many people I have counseled struggle with identity because their parents only gave them negative words to identify with.
Healing begins when we seperate from what other’s define us as and we allow God to define who we are.
Step 1 Growing Closer to God.
Gideon starts out stating that God couldn’t use him:
And Gideon came to the Jordan and crossed over, he and the 300 men who were with him, exhausted yet pursuing.
So he said to the men of Succoth, “Please give loaves of bread to the people who follow me, for they are exhausted, and I am pursuing after Zebah and Zalmunna, the kings of Midian.”
And the officials of Succoth said, “Are the hands of Zebah and Zalmunna already in your hand, that we should give bread to your army?”
So Gideon said, “Well then, when the Lord has given Zebah and Zalmunna into my hand, I will flail your flesh with the thorns of the wilderness and with briers.”
When we allow God to identify the very things we say we can’t do becomes the very thing we stand in confidence in. Look how at first he couldn’t then he states: When the Lord has given them into my hand.
The first step to healing is realizing it’s God not you who does the work.
There are thousands of self help books in the shelves of book stores, but millions on sale in yard sales. Why? Because we cannot fix ourselves. Just as we cannot define ourselves.
God defined Gideon as a man of Valor-Which means someone of great courage. Gideon stepped out of his fear and into his God given courage and when he did he journeyed to fulfill God’s call on his life.
Healing your identity begins with your source
When we receive Jesus as Lord and Savior
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
We become something new. What we don’t teach in church is that after salvation: comes a new definition. We don’t teach people how strip off all the labels the world puts on us and to put on the labels that God gives us.
You aren’t the sum of your past mistakes. You are created in the image of God.
Step 2: Identify the lies you believe about yourself.
We learn that Joash is Gideon’s father: Now Joash was a priest of Baal, which was sex worship for the Cannonites. So what does God do?
That night the Lord said to him, “Take your father’s bull, and the second bull seven years old, and pull down the altar of Baal that your father has, and cut down the Asherah that is beside it
and build an altar to the Lord your God on the top of the stronghold here, with stones laid in due order. Then take the second bull and offer it as a burnt offering with the wood of the Asherah that you shall cut down.”
So Gideon took ten men of his servants and did as the Lord had told him. But because he was too afraid of his family and the men of the town to do it by day, he did it by night.
Now this is a seemigly odd thing God asks Baal to do- and we aren’t really even sure why God asked him to do it because there isn’t anything defined. But there are two words here that we find in this set of verses that may give us insight as to why God had him topple this statue.
Notice 1 that Gideon is again found in fear. Fear has become the core of how Gideon opperates. IF you read the whole story Gideon works in fear and he often asks God for a sign before acting because he is so afraid to get it wrong. Fear drove Gideon So God stepped in.
The second word is this: Stronghold: Whose strong hold is Gideon building on alter on? I believe it’s Gideon’s stronghold of fear. Here’s why I believe it and what I believe God showed Gideon.
Gideon had a view that God wouldn’t protect him. That the gods of the men coming against them were stronger than the god he served and God requested this odd request to help Gideon realize that God would protect him.
If you read the people got mad and came to Joash’s house demanding Gideon’s life. God put Gideon in a place where he had to rely on God’s protection. Men came against him and God used Joash to protect him.
Now look at the new name he recieved.
Therefore on that day Gideon was called Jerubbaal, that is to say, “Let Baal contend against him,” because he broke down his altar.
Gideon became known as the man the god’s couldn’t defeat. Why? the answer is found in V34
But the Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon, and he sounded the trumpet, and the Abiezrites were called out to follow him.
In that moment Gideon recieved a new definition of who he was. Each step—each test was breaking down who Gideon believed himself to be so that God could build him into who God made him to be.