Your Identity in Christ (1 of 4) Mike Connell 04.05.2008 am
Great, I wonder if you could open your Bible up in Judges 6. We've been doing a series for a little while on Unashamed and I want to talk now and begin to just pick up from there and just move forward. I want to do something else now and we looked and we saw how shame was an identity thief. When you're covered in shame you can't be who you're supposed to be. You can't actually be your true self. You put on a self that looks good and gets accepted, but you're not really true to yourself and so we found that when people have got a shame on their life they tend to put on a mask, try to be something they're not, and Jesus hates that kind of thing. He wants you to be yourself. There's only one of you; why should you be someone else? So we saw also shame was an intimacy thief. I want us to go and look in this scripture here and we want to look at our identity in Christ, who I am, because you get a bit confused after a while.
You think I wonder who I really am see? Why don't you just introduce yourself to the person next door to you? Go and introduce yourself to them and tell them who you are in case they didn't know. Tell them who you are. They may not know. [Background talk 00.01.14 to 00.01.25] Okay then, I wonder how many people introduced themself; you gave that person your name. How many gave them their name? Oh quite a few gave the name, right. How many actually said something about who you are? That's good, that's good. That's good, you're onto it. You're really onto it, who you really are. Who are you really? Well here's a man here and we're going to look at how God views us and God speaks to us. I want to show you something interesting about how God sees us, because most of us are shaped and we think of ourselves in all kinds of weird ways.
Notice this here, verse 11; the Angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth tree which was in Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon threshed wheat in the winepress, in order to hide it from the Midianites. And the Angel of the Lord appeared to him, and said to him the Lord is with you, you mighty man of valour! [Unclear 00.02.22] The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valour! And Gideon, like he hadn't even heard it, says O my lord, if the Lord is with us how come all this has happened to us? Where are all the miracles our fathers told us about? Didn't the Lord bring us up out of Egypt? Now the Lord's forsaken us and delivered us into the hands of the Midianites. Then the Lord didn't even listen to anything he said, didn't even bother to answer the question, ignored what he said completely. He says go in this might of yours. You will save Israel from the Midianites. Have not I sent you?
So he argues with Him again. Well Lord, how can I save Israel? How can I do this? My tribe is the weakest in Manasseh. I'm the youngest or the least in my father's family. And the Lord said to him surely I am with you and you will defeat the Midianites as one man. Now you notice that God listens to none of his objections? He doesn't even - it's like God carries on like He didn't hear anything he said - but we know that God did hear what he said. But I want to share with you some things on our identity in Christ. You see God comes to this man in the midst of a national crisis and declares to him his identity. The Lord is with you, you mighty man of valour! Mighty man of valour! And you know what? Immediately he hears God speak his identity, immediately what he believes in his heart surfaces; oh, well I'm the least in my family, ah and our tribe, well we're the smallest tribe and ah, we're quite poor. You notice how he sees himself comes up immediately?
When the truth comes and God speaks to you directly and puts truth into you, what you really believe in your heart will surface - quite interesting. So we see the Bible says as a man thinks in his heart, Proverbs 23:7, as a man or a person thinks in their heart, that's how they'll be, so the way you see yourself will determine how you'll live your life. What you believe about yourself will affect how you conduct your life and the things that go on around you in your life. If you for example believe in your heart I am unwanted, I am rejected or I am unlovable, what will happen is you will put out a spiritual energy and force around you; people will pick it up and two things will happen. One is you'll misinterpret everything. People who believe they're rejected see it everywhere and pull it into their life. The second thing that'll happen is you'll attract into your life the very thing you believe in your heart.