FINDING MY IDENTITY IN CHRIST

CTRC YOUTH SATURDAY WITH PASTOR MARC

Saturday March 20^th 2021

FINDING MY IDENTITY IN CHRIST

By Pastor Marc Simeon

2Co 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

THE IDENTITY OF THE BELIEVER

• Being a Christian is very involved.
• A Christian is a person who has experienced a spiritual makeover.
• Paul says “if someone is in Christ, he is a new creature, behold old things have passed away and all things have become new.
• Imagine taking the shell of your old computer dated 1995 and install a brand new hardware and software with the all newest technologies, though the outlook appearance would remain the same but the computer would be brand new.
• If you are a true Christians all your actions are girded by the word of God.
• The Holy Spirit of God lives in the inside of you.
• Your wisdom and the way you process life is different from others.
• You gravitate toward the spiritual aspect of life.
• You are very sensitive to sin and all sorts of evil deeds.
• You naturally seek to have intimacy with God.
• You love the company of other believers.
• You are prone to forgive, knowing that God says that vengeance is mine.
• You seek to understand the holy nature of God.
• You live a life of service for the wellbeing of your fellowmen.  
• You believed that you are deeply loved by God.
• You believe in the promises in the Bible.
• You believe that you are an offering to God.
• You believe that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
• You believe in the rapture of the church.
• You believe in the providence of God.

THE FALSE IDENTITY FROM THE WORLD

• If you are not identified as a Christian, you are either identified as you are classified by the world, or you may be in search for your identity.
• If you adhere to the classifications of science to find your identity, then you are a cosmic accident.
• You are a coincidence.
• You are a purposeless being.
• There is no absolute
• There is no God
• There no meaning in life
• There is no moral compass
• Truth is relative to each individual
• There is no sin
• There is no supreme judge
• You are your own god and you make your own rules.
• To kill, to steal, to lie, to hate, are just natural impulses.
• Whatever feels good is justified.
• You’re free to kill a fetus in your belly ignoring that it is a person.
• You’re free to be sexually attracted to the same sex or to animals, or to whatever fantasy.
• Whoever dies with the most toys wins.
• To satisfy the self is the ultimate goal in life.

THE FALSE IDENTITY FROM FEELINGS

• A great many people are girded by their inner feelings to draw their sense of identity.
• Since we were born in sin, our human nature is prone to evil and cannot be trusted.
• A man can feel that he is a woman trapped in a man’s body and vice versa.
• One may draw his sense of identity by the color of his skin.
• Another can look up at his material possession in search for his identity.

FINDING YOUR IDENTITY IS PIVOTAL

• People tend to behave in the same pattern of their self-identity or self-awareness.
• You may waste a lot of efforts improving your environment to match the Johns, only to find that the efforts were futile.
• You may spend all your money in the beauty salons to look like so and so, at the end you remain the same self.
• You may spend all day in the gyms to look like a hulk, but at the end you will be disappointed.
• You may stay in school to acquire all the degrees, but at the end you may still be empty.
• God created all men with a void that can only be filled by Him.
• Mankind can only find completeness in God.
• Mankind is someone else’s creation, until one is in line with His Creator, he will forever be in search for the purpose of his existence, all to no avail.

FINDING YOUR IDENTITY IN CHRIST

• Finding your identity in Christ is finding who God created you to be.
• Finding your purpose in life.
• Finding how your life can glorify God.
• Discovering the gifts that God has placed in you.
• Finding the field that God wants you to work in.
• Finding your identity in Christ is to discover that you already died to your old self and that dwells in your mortal bodies.
• Ga 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

PROTECTING YOUR IDENTITY IN CHRIST

• As Christians, you know that the devil would like for you carry his identity instead.
• As Christians, you need to safeguard your identity in Christ.
• You need to object the identity that the world is projecting on you.
• Your sense of value must not be from the dictates and the philosophies of this world.
• Your identity must not be confused with what you do for living.
• You are first a Christian who happens to minister for God in the fields as: a doctor, a lawyer, a plumber, a pastor, an engineer, etc.

Ga 5:16 I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.

 17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

1Co 3:16 ¶ Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

 17 If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.

• The Christian could say “I am Christ in the flesh” in the sense that all he does in his body is aimed to bring glory to God.             Amen!