Transcription
So, Lord, we do just come right now and thank You for this moment in time. Lord, I thank You that Your Holy Spirit is present, and we call on You to come and be in us and among us. Come through us, Lord, as we study Your Word, as we learn from Your heart about who You say that we are. Father, we thank You for Your goodness to us. We thank You for the way that You made a way for us to be restored to You, to be restored back to our truest identity in You through Christ. And Jesus, we honor You for that. We thank You that we are not left to our old man, but that truly You have renewed us, made us whole and new, and You give us Your power and Your authority on the earth. And I pray right now that You would give each one of us in this circle, uh, just a new capacity, Father, to understand who we are and all that is rightfully ours in Christ. In Jesus' name, amen.
So, I want to welcome all of you to the Freedom in Christ Identity Class and say thank you for coming. And I'm excited about this class because this is where we begin to learn. We've been talking about the two kingdoms. We've been talking about Father's heart and how much He loves us and what a good God we serve. And what I love about this class on identity is, I feel like this is the one God loves because this is when Jesus came and died on the cross, this is what He restored. He restored, first and foremost, right relationship, love relationship to God. But He also fully restored us to our rightful identity, the one that God gave us in the beginning. And this particular class is such a joy because this is where, once we understand who we rightfully are in Christ, there really is, because of Jesus and what He's done and the authority God has given us through Him on the earth, there really is nothing that can hinder the kingdom going forth through us once we really understand our identity in Christ.
So, let's get started. I want to start by reading a scripture from Ephesians 1, starting in verse 3, and we'll go through verse 8. And it says, "All praise to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ. Even before He made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy without fault in His eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. This is what He wanted to do, and it gave Him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace He has poured out on us who belonged to His dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that He purchased our freedom with the blood of His Son and forgave our sins. He has showered His kindness on us along with all wisdom and understanding."
What a great verse. And here we begin to see that exactly what I just told you, that our identity was rightfully brought back from the kingdom of darkness, purchased, uh, back. We were purchased back to Christ, able to fully stand in our identity before the Lord. And I love this because this is where all the enemy's plans, all the enemy's schemes were known before the foundation of the world. And what the scripture tells us is, it pleased God. It pleased God to give us His Son to bring us back, to wash us clean, to rightfully restore us. So we should be excited. We should be very excited that this is what it pleased God, uh, to bring us back to Him.
So, our identity, it's an interesting thing because God knows our identity, your identity, your personal identity. And Satan knows who you are. And it's interesting that these two know us well. And sometimes we're the ones having to play catch-up on who we really are. And this is a very important journey because until we really know who we are in Christ, we will live out all kinds of things and go down all kinds of tangents and find ourselves doing things that really aren't us, that maybe they're not what we're made to do, they're not how God designed us to be. And we'll be grappling in the dark trying to find our way until we really understand who God says in His Word that we are. And until we have a right picture of how God sees us and how all the giftings that He sees in us, then we tend to wonder because that's how we are as humans. So it's important to God that we know, uh, who we are. He spends a lot of time in His Word making sure that we, as His children, know first of all how much He loves us, how good He is, how important we are to Him. But He spends a lot of time in His Word telling us who we are. We're going to look at some of that today.
So, in this kingdom of God, in the kingdom of light, He speaks so many positive things about who we are. And incessantly and constantly, the enemy is coming against that rightful identity. And the only way he can do that is by lying. That's why it is his native tongue. It's how he speaks. It's what he does. And so he continually and perpetually comes against our identity in Christ by lying. He can't come against it anymore because Jesus died and bought us back. And so all he can do is lie and tell us false things or try to get us to look at others and compare ourselves and try to be someone that we're not. And so it's important that we begin to hear from God exactly who we are.
In this scripture, we see that Jesus bought the birthright for us on the cross. He adopted us and established us in the kingdom of God as heirs and as part of His family. We are children of God, sons and daughters. I want you to think about that. If you think about a kingdom, we used to live in Thailand for a time, and the king, what the king said went, and what the king ordered happened. And the people loved the king. He was a good king. But it didn't take much for the king to get something done. And the king loved his people, and the people loved their king. And in this kingdom of light, we have a good king. And He knows who we are, and He's declared who we are. He's declared that you are a son or you are a daughter of the Most High God. And in that, He made us rightful heirs, part of His family.
So, I want you to think about a slave. Think about a real true kingdom and think about a slave versus an heir or a son or a daughter. And the best word I can come up with on our identity and the difference between a slave and a son or daughter is access. And in the kingdom of God, because of Jesus and the blood and because of that adoption and that sonship, that heirship that we have, we have access directly to the throne of God. And in this, it's, it's, it's fun to think about. I want you to think about how fun it is to think about that we don't come timidly, and we don't come, oh, scared, worried that we might have done something wrong, or that we might, that He might say no, or He might not like us. No, a son is a son. A son or a daughter comes in joyful, happy, confident, excited, can ask for anything, knows, knows their rightful identity, absolutely confident of the Father's love. And that's how He wants us. That's who He has declared us to be.
So, if you'll look with me at Galatians 3:26-29, it says this: "For you are all children of God through faith in Christ. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, for you are all one in Christ. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are His heirs, and God's promise to Abraham belongs to you."
I want you to look with me also at Romans 8:14-17. It says this: "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God's Spirit when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call Him Abba Father. This is a very intimate name for His Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God's children. And since we are His children, we are His heirs. In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God's glory. But if we are to share in His glory, we must also share in His suffering."
So, I want us to look at this. As an heir, as a child, you are an heir. You have the inheritance of all that belongs to Christ. He says that in many scriptures. And so I want us to really get in touch with that. As a daughter or a son of the Most High God, everything that belongs to God, everything of the kingdom, every, all the authority that's hard to get our mind wrapped around. But Jesus says, "Everything I have, all authority has been given, author, all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go. You're going in my name, you're going in my authority." And all the access I have in the kingdom of God is now rightfully yours. This should make us really excited. And I'm hoping that it's starting to change how we think and believe about ourselves because the enemy likes to come, and this is what he's afraid of. The enemy knows these truths. He knows that if believers, children of God, get in touch with the access that we have to the Father and the authority that we carry on earth as His ambassadors, no wonder he comes so hard against our identity.
I want us to look at Galatians 4:4. I'm going to read this: "But when the right time came, God sent His Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent Him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that He could adopt us as His very own. And because we are His children, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, prompting us to call out, 'Abba, Father.' Now you are no longer a slave, but God's own child. And since you are His child, God has made you His heir."
You think this is important for Him? For us to get over and over again? He says it. I want you to stop for just a minute and think about what it means that you are an heir, a daughter or a son in the kingdom of God, that you are an heir to all that this kingdom holds: to peace, to joy, to hope, to truth, to miracles, to signs, to wonders, to power and authority, to victory over the devil. These are all, and that's just a few. That's just a few. To the power to be encouragement, to power, the power, the word says, to forgive what you forgive on earth will be forgiven in heaven. Will you bless on earth will be blessed in heaven? We have, we have an incredible identity in Christ. And won't it be fun? Won't it be fun when the church of Jesus Christ knows our identity and begins to live it out? I'm, I'm so excited. I think we're coming into it more and more and more. I know I personally am. It's taken me a lot, vulnerably, it's taken a lot of time for me to get my mind wrapped around it. It took me, it's taken me so long to get over all the lies of the enemy and all the things that circumstances and experiences and hurts have brought. But don't we want to slough it off? Don't we want to see it for what it is, see it for the lie that it is, let God heal us and run in our rightful identity in God?
I would like for you to look with me at Matthew 3:13-17. And here I want us to see that God comes in the beginning of Jesus' ministry, and He does something that actually marks the beginning of Jesus' ministry. And this is what happens. Let's read together: "Then Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. But John tried to talk Him out of it. 'I am the one who needs to be baptized by you,' he said. 'So why are you coming to me?' But Jesus said, 'It should be done, for we must, for we must carry out all that God requires.' So John agreed to baptize Him. After His baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on Him. And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my dearly loved Son, who brings me great joy.'"
I love this. I love this verse because here, of all the things God could do, Jesus has grown up, uh, in His home, uh, with His mother and father and siblings. And He's coming. And the first thing Jesus does that we see is He acts in obedience to the Word of God. He acts in obedience. The Word of God. And I just want to say this: as rightful sons and daughters, it will be our joy, it will be our absolute joy to obey the Lord. And if you're struggling, I would say this: if you're struggling to obey God, if you're struggling to obey the truths in God's Word, the guidance of the scripture, then we probably need to go back and revisit this character and heart of God and the invitation that He gives us to Christ. Because when we come to Christ, and when we understand the love that's been given to us through Christ, and we begin to understand our identity, one of the first things that happens is we will begin to have a heart to obey God. And we see this with Jesus.
But I love this because here Jesus comes and He takes this rightful step of obedience. Even though He had no sin, He says, "No, this is something God wants, and I want to do what God wants." That is the mark of a true son or daughter, as we want to bless our Father. We want to do what He wants because we trust and know that it's good. And here we see what God does in response to this. The heavens open, and He sends His Holy Spirit to rest upon Jesus. And then He declares something that's so good because He similarly, He similarly does this in 2 Corinthians for us. But He says this: He just declares it. "This is my dearly loved Son, in whom I am well pleased." In another version, it says, "Who brings me great joy." And I really just want us to stop and sit in that for a minute because that is the declaration of God over us. And He doesn't just kind of say it. It's not kind of no big deal. If you think about a child being born, it's a big deal. Like, you take time and you're looking and you're watching and you're paying attention to every detail, and you are literally enthralled with this child. And there's a reason God says, "You are my child. You are my son or my daughter." There's really nothing more precious to the heart of a good Father than his child. And He says this about us.
And I want us to see that in 2 Corinthians 6:18, God declares over us: "And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, declares the Lord Almighty." I love that word there. It says, "declares." He's not just kind of, oh, says, or no, He declares that this is your rightful identity.
So, I want us to look. Something happens in this adoption process that we heard about. When you, when a child is adopted, think about it. He's taken from one set of circumstances, maybe even one family line, and literally brought into, legally brought into a different family line. And in that process, you, as an adoptive parent, become legally responsible for this child. And God knew this when He bought us and He adopted us and He placed us back into His family line, into His lineage, into all the rightful inheritance that comes in the kingdom of God. He did so with great joy. That's what we read earlier. And in that, He changed us. He literally changed us. We are a new creation. And in that new creation, there's so much restoration, there's so much redemption. Um, but there's a culture change that we all go through. And I think about adoptive children who've lived in one, one culture and they're brought into this new culture and they literally have to learn a new way. I don't know about you, but growing up, I was not adopted. And growing up, I just kind of knew. I just kind of came into knowing, "This is the way you function in our family." As a, I grew up as a Braddock in the Braddock home. We told the truth. In the Braddock home, we honored God. In the Braddock home, we honored our mama. Now, we did. And, um, we obeyed our daddy. These are things we did. I'm just thinking of ones that we did. Um, we forgave. We were expected to be kind to one another. And that wasn't always, you know, 100% accurate that we did that. But there were expectations and there was a culture. And what I want us to understand is, in our flesh nature, we have a tendency in our flesh nature towards one culture. But in Christ, what we're going to see is literally that old man is dead. And in this new culture, we've been adopted, we've been established, and there is a rightful inheritance and a culture that we begin to learn and become comfortable with. And actually, it becomes an absolute, I will align to this, this culture of the kingdom of light because I am a child of God. And we're going to look a little bit at that right now.
So, we've talked about that when we become a Christian, we don't have to live the way we did before. Why? Because we are not the person that we were before. Look with me in 2 Corinthians. We're going to 2 Corinthians 5:17. "This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone and a new life has begun." What a great declaration. When we died with Christ, we became a new creation, and He raised us up into a new life.
So, let's talk about who we are not. Who we are not is people that are defined by our past. This is very important for us to consider because the enemy loves to bring our past mistakes and throw them in our face. And it's very important that we trust the Word of God and we believe our Father God when He says, "I have cast your sins as far as the east is from the west." We have to begin to trust and believe these things and live out of these truths. We are not defined by our mistakes. There is grace to be taught. As a daughter or son of God, I do not expect my young children to know what to do. I expect that they are going to need training, reminding, reminding again, and sometimes reminding again. Sometimes those reminders have to come with consequences. But never, ever, ever in all of that discipleship and leading and training, as my heart moved away from them, even in my consequences that I give them, I give them not always. I, I am fallen and human, but our God is not. And His heart never changes towards us in the middle of Him having to train us and teach us. So there's room for mistakes, and His heart never moves away from us in training and teaching us the way of His kingdom. We are not defined by our wounds. This is a big one because sometimes the enemy loves to keep us so focused on what's happened to us, the sin that's happened to us, that's been done to us, or even wounds that we've caused others in our old man. He likes to bring those up again and again and have them define us, who we are in our identity. And what Jesus wants to do is He, in His power over the devil, became the one that heals. And so He doesn't just want to bind him up or fix him a little. He wants to heal them completely where we are living fully out of our identity in Him. We're not defined by the strength of our will, our dedication, or our success. And we live in cultures all over the world that define us by this: How successful are we? How well do we do things? Defined by something way other than the standard of God. God looks on the heart. And there's plenty of room for failure, even though we don't like it. He uses, He uses it as one of our best teachers. And He uses it in a way that we become dependent. We learn to be dependent on His strength. This pleases God. We are not defined by what you think. You're not defined by what you think of yourself. Some of us live out of a self-made identity, and it's not a good one, and it is not in alignment with the kingdom of God. And this is very important for you to understand that even if you think you are something other than what the Word of God declares that you are, you're not. We're not. We're not the authority on ourselves. He is. Our identity is Christ. Our identity is Christ is not just to make us nice or better people. The end result of our identity is to become like Christ.
Let's go to Romans 8:38. I love this scripture. This is the security piece of our identity in Christ. Paul says this in Romans 8:38: "And I am convinced that nothing can separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below. Indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord."
I want us to see this. If you think about being a son or daughter, can you ever not be a son or a daughter? If you are alive and breathing, then you are a son or a daughter. That's just true. You didn't come any other way. He didn't just, Jesus was, she, Jesus Himself was birthed. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but birthed on purpose. And He was a Son first. And in our identity, I want us to be so secure. He bought us. We were birthed into a new life, and we are forever His son or daughter. And He loves us that way. Knowing who we are unlocks extreme power in our lives to walk in victory, to walk in our authority, to stand in trials, to overcome temptation, to defeat sin, and to have peace. Identity is the beginning point for renewing your mind. This is the process of transformation. If we begin to really, really pay attention to what the Word of God says, if we begin to dwell on it, if we begin to act rightly upon the Word of God and who He says we are, we will see our whole life, and not just ours, but others, transformed. That's the power of knowing our identity in Christ.
As we consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to Christ, we need to change our mindset from past, present to present, future. If you'll go with me to Romans 8:6, "So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death, but letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace." I want you to hear that again: "So letting your sinful, sinful nature control your mind leads to death, but letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace." For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God's laws and it never will. That's why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature never please God. But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit, if you have the Spirit of God living in you. And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to Him at all. And Christ lives within you. So even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. The Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. And just as God raised Christ from the dead, He will give you life. He will give life to your mortal bodies by the same Spirit living within you."
I love this passage because here we begin to see that it is not we who live, but it is the oneness with Christ that God brought us into that we be, that we begin to see, um, we begin to see our identity linked completely and totally as one with Christ. And in this, we are no longer orphans, but we are sons. And I want us to look at some markers of orphans. So, as orphans, we see God as a master. We're independent and self-reliant. We're insecure. We fight and grab for what we want. We don't trust authorities. Relationships are marked by competition, jealousy, and comparison. We don't handle criticism well. We're very talented but plagued with character issues, living with little purpose or direction. We have stunted growth, difficulty maturing. A mark of a son or a daughter: we're heirs of God, blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ. We're the workmanship of God, the fullness in Christ, citizens in God's kingdom, chosen of God, holy, beloved. We're children of light who live in the light and free of sin. We are an enemy of the devil, and we are chosen and appointed to bear fruit.
I want you to think on these and pay attention to which ones of these resonate. I know for me, when I first started my journey with God, I had lots of markers of an orphan. I thought like that. I thought from my old man, from that dead man. And it was a process, a joyful, loving, nurturing process of Holy Spirit to begin to reveal those markers, those ways of thinking, those ways of operating. And then He began to convince me of all these markers of being a son or a daughter, that I'm beloved, that I'm chosen, that I have a purpose, that I have, that I'm an heir, that I have access, that He's doing a beautiful work through me, that I'm His workmanship, that He's delighted in. He's not in a hurry. And I want us to just take a few minutes right now in prayer, and I want us to just go to the Father together, and I want you to just, where you are, pray with me through a couple of these things.
So, Lord, right now, we just, we bring our hearts, our hearts that You love so much, our child hearts, to You, Father. And we come to You as a good Daddy. And Lord, we don't, we don't do this very often. It's not always comfortable for us to come as a little child. But right now, we do. We come as Your son or Your daughter. And we look up to our Daddy and we say, "By the power of Your Holy Spirit, would You begin to convince us, first and foremost, that by the power and authority of Christ, we have the power in us to be free of our sinful nature? To yield it over. The areas where we, by Your grace, are convicted of sin, that we just yield it over and say, 'No, we are those first and foremost as children of God. We live the righteous standard. We submit our will to Your righteous standard of holy living.' And we thank You that our sinful nature has been rendered dead. And right now, any place in us as Your son or daughter that we have held on or cultivated a sinful mindset, sinful behavior, sinful attitude or perspective of ourselves or others or You, we yield it over right now as Your sons and daughters. We thank You that we have the power. We are not left to our old man, but we are resurrected new with the mind and the heart of Jesus Christ."
And Lord, as sons and daughters, right now, we come and we give You our brokenness. And we just say, "Holy Spirit, would You come right now and just, just pick one place, Father, where we still need to be convinced of our rightful identity in You." And I pray right now that You would expose any lie in this one particular place that You've shown us, Holy Spirit. Any lie that is perpetually being driven into our minds or our hearts, would You expose that lie? And we just declare today that it is a lie. And I ask You, Holy Spirit, to speak to that lie and declare again in that place who we are as Your son or Your daughter. Make the declaration again that as Your son and daughter, we are this in place of that lie.
And Lord, I pray right now that as we come to You, that You would show us fresh the authority we have in You as Your child. I pray that we would be confident and bold in this righteousness that we stand in in Christ because of His blood. And I pray, Lord, that You would give a fresh perspective, a fresh vision to every one of us that You have given us authority to go to advance the kingdom, to advance the gospel in all of its truth and all of its power. God, I pray that You would come afresh on each one of us and show us again our destiny in You. Father, any gifting in the spirit realm, any deposit that You've made into us that we've seen and known that may be pushed down, we, we call it forth. We resurrect it right now in Jesus' name. And anyone that we don't know, any gift, any deposit of the kingdom that's inside of us as Your daughter or your son, we, we ask for eyes to see it right now. And Lord, we make the declaration with our mouth that we receive it today. And Jesus, we say that by Your power, Holy Spirit, and by Your authority, Jesus, we rightfully take hold of our inheritance. And we rightfully submit our will to the power of Jesus Christ inside of us in the Holy Spirit to live that destiny out, to live that promise out, to live that identity out with joy. And that many, many, many may come to know You, Jesus, because You have convinced us again today of who we are in You. In Jesus' name, amen.