Who are you?

“Who Are you! Who, who? Who? Who? I really want to know.” – The Who

When I was young, a frequent question I asked myself was, “who am I.” Or “what am I going to be?“ And it’s not something that goes away, in fact, sometimes I hear adults say, “I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.”

“Well then grow up already” *Said in my best Jordan Peterson accent*.

Who Am I. The world at large is often obsessed with assigning identities to people. When I was younger, the subcategories got weird and kinda hard to follow so I never quite knew what they always meant. But these were categories like: “punk” or “emo” or “jock” or “goth”… everyone seemed to be trying to put themselves into a category. Believe it or not in college, I had a roommate that identified as some sub category of metalhead and he loved to talk about it. He rocked a metal chain and could shred on his fully distorted electric guitar. My understanding, generally, was that these labels were kind of outward markers about who you were and what kind of things you liked. And frankly, I never really understood it all. Although to be fair, as your mom can attest when I was 19, I had a Hard Rock café t-shirt for just about every day of the week and ripped baggy jeans, with straight up spikey hair. I also had those choker necklaces and an earing. I’m not sure what you call that… but let me assure you, it was cool. I also had a big flannel coat I wore all the time even though I was in Oklahoma and it was probably too hot. But your mom stuck with me, so that’s good. The truth is that I wanted people to think I was “cool.” (I was in all likelihood seriously wrong about that).

Some things haven’t changed in the last 15 (or shoot almost 20) years. Nowadays, identity for young people has gotten more complicated than a musical genre, hairdo or clothing style. It has gone to something far more personal to sexual preferences. What ARE you. Are you cisgendered or are you nonbinary?? …which means you’re part of the LGTB+ community.

But I would suggest to you, my children, none of these sexual preferences actually have to do with who you are. Or what you are as a human person.

“Who are you?” is a fundamental question to our existence in general and it’s no wonder the rubber seems to meet the road on making choices about your identity when you in teenage or young adulthood years. Who. Are. You? I want to suggest that the answer to this question of identity (or the answer to the question, “Who are you?”) determines what you do. In your life, vocationally, with your family, your relationships. Identity is truly foundational. It’s an easy thing to miss entirely. We (the western world) have gotten this wrong for generations. You, your identity, is deeper than these superficial things. The actions or behaviors flow out of who, you, ARE. Not the other way around. You are not a vocation.

I think the problem is we don’t even begin to know how to start answering these questions. We often work backwards like I was saying: I like punk rock so I am a punk rocker. In a way, sexual identity is a bit closer because it touches on an aspect of our humanity that is a divine gift, but ultimately comes up short for an explanation of WHO you are foundationally. But at least sexuality is more meaningful than a hairdo, especially if it comes with a community identity as well.

What I want to talk about is: where do I go to answer to the question, WHO am I?

I have found my identity in my faith. And I want to share that faith with you.

So I would like to direct you back to what the Bible says about who I am.

1st the Bible teaches us that we are created beings.Genesis 1:26-31:

26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

……………

And it was so.

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.

An infinite powerful God made you, and all things.

Psalm 139:13-16 says:

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a] Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.

This implies a purpose to your life and begs the question What is that purpose. But this passage tells us so much more than that we were created it tells us we are made in God’s own image. That we hold a special place among creation. We have value. We are blessed by God. And we are loved. I want to come back to that last point about *how* we know we are loved, but next there is something else fundamental about WHO we are that the Bible teaches that we ought to understand and discuss. We are corrupted by sin. After Adam and Eve sinned we all fall under the curse is now a part of who we are, and we will “Return to dust” because of it. All of Us. Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” This is a serious thing, right? We’re all so sinful that we deserve Hell. Romans 6:23 (The wages of sin is death. Revelation 20:15 says, “if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of Fire.” (this of course speaking of a future event).

We’re all under the sinful state and we’re deserving of death and hell. That is who you are. That is who I am. And many of us might be tempted to say, “well not me.” But the answer is yes, YOU. You have sin as part of your nature. We cannot escape it! You will do bad things, you will hurt those around you through selfishness. All of us. Me, you. And this sin separates us from those good things about us we talked about earlier, it separates us from God. We’re in our sinful state and disconnected from the source of life and goodness. And so is every person you meet, apart from Christ. Everyone you meet is in this sinful state cut off from the source of life deserving hell. Everyone. We should all be sick about this. Its like we’re all standing over an abyss. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is, in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously - no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption.

C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

An understanding of this part of this sinful part of ourselves is sobering and should be humbling and make us cry out just as Paul does in Romans 7:24, “But who will save us from this body of sin and death.” Well I am Glad you asked!

I know something else about who we are or who we can be. Something that changes our core identity. Something that is so exciting. If you follow Jesus and put your trust in him, he died in place of you taking on your punishment, satisfying God’s perfect justice. He died so we didn’t have to. We’re saved.

We’re Saved from the power of sin. We’re saved from death. AND that’s how we know something else that is core to who we are, We are LOVED. And we know we are loved because Jesus died for us. John 3:16 another memory verse for my kids,

“For God so Loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Liz and I were recently talking to someone who was going through some pretty serious stuff with her family. But she asked justifiably, why was God putting her through this situation, and we were able to respond by saying, I don’t know, but I do know that sin (in this case of someone else) has put you where you are. And that we know that God loves you deeply because Jesus died for you. And whatever happens you don’t have to doubt God’s love for you because if he was willing to send his son to die then we can trust that he loves us even through the tough awful circumstances. And we know the reason that he had to die for sins is because sin is a serious thing that causes great pain for ourselves and to others. And this woman was totally responsive to that, she just needed to know God still loved her and that she could trust that, and we intuitively know that there is no greater love than that,

John 10:10-11

“The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep.'”

This love that Jesus showed for us by dying for us affirms the last thing we need to know about our identity. He loves us, and we cannot be separated from that love:

Romans 8:32-37:

2 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.[j] 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,

“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

So, when you ask yourself WHO AM I, the answer could be I AM CREATED BY GOD, I AM A SINNER, I AM SAVED BY GRACE THROUGH JESUS CHRIST AND I AM LOVED BY THE CREATOR OF THE UNIVERSE. That is who you are. There is nothing else that matters more about who you are. That’s where is starts. Build everything else on that foundation.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21 says:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.[b] The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling[c] the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”