Series: Biblical Counseling
Category: Core Seminars, Biblical Counseling, Adoption by God, Regeneration / New Birth
Detail:
Introduction
The Battle for Our Identity
How Do We Define Ourselves?
1. What Other People Think About Us
2. Our Jobs
3. Self-talk
[Story: I was walking by the desk of another staff member, and he was muttering something to himself, and he looked at me and said, “They say talking to yourself is good for yourself.” I responded, “That all depends on what you say to yourself.”]
As you talk to yourself about yourself, keep in mind that what we say to ourselves matters. Your self-talk shapes your identity and self-perceptions. Example: The dieting craze has captivated America for quite a few years. If someone is overweight, it is fair for them to make a pronouncement, “I’m overweight and need to lose weight.” But I’ve sat with many women who have had fairly distorted views of their body image, and despite being thin, they’ve been so influenced by the culture’s standards for body weight, such that they are not satisfied until they are bone thin. They say to themselves, “I’m overweight” or “The really thin girls get the attention”, when in reality they are already underweight. This just shows how a lot of bad fruit can be born from a heart that believes lies and preaches those lies to myself.
4. Psychological Labels
The real danger of these labels is the power they hold over someone’s identity. When someone is diagnosed, that diagnosis tends to be the be-all-and-end-all of a person’s existence. Other elements of a person’s identity tend to fall into the background. [Story of Powlison with husband and wife. Wife finally asks, “Did you say OCD?”] OR [Example of young man who says, “It’s not my fault. I’ve got OCD.” Removing moral responsibility from himself and giving it away.]
How Does the Bible Define our Identity?
I defined these things as identity competitors, i.e. they compete in shaping and defining who we are. What are they competing with? First and foremost, Scripture, or God’s perspective on things. Where we often get in trouble in life is when we let the things of this world—experiences, abuse, ethnicity, family, education, work, psychological labels—become more important and influential than Scripture. As Christians, we want Scripture to be the most authoritative in shaping and defining our understanding of ourselves and our understanding of reality. We want the authority of the text to define our identity.
Objective truth is a better way to define our identity. We look outside of ourselves to something that is not tainted by human subjectivity or sinful human motives. We find objective truth in the Bible because it is God’s very own Words. God does not lie. He is truth. He is authoritative over all things because he is Creator and Redeemer. Because God himself does not lie, he is always truthful, and fully authoritative—we expect that our identity can be more soundly defined as we look at our ourselves through God’s lenses.
As Christians, identity confusion occurs when we let the things of this world define us more than God’s Word. Much of the dilemma is that our experiences and our own personal interpretations about life become authoritative in how we define ourselves. What I know to be true does not matter. What my parents said, or how I was trained, or how I feel (despite how irrational they might be at times), or what label I’ve been given by a psychiatrist, or what I say to myself, all of those things become more important than God’s Word. They can temporarily rule the day.
[PAUSE FOR QUESTIONS]
Thinking Biblically/Theologically About Our Identity
Creation (i.e., we are created human beings)
Several points flow from this truth: (1) As created human beings and image-bearers, we have a dignity and worth that separates us from all of rest of God’s creation. Application: Abuse in any form is a horrible distortion of what God intends – i.e., parents lovingly and responsibly stewarding the gift of children, creating a secure environment where children grow up knowing they are loved. Children who are physically or sexually abused grow up with a sense of worthless-ness. As adults, these same abused children think things like, “I am trash” or “I’m not worth anything” or “No one could ever possibly love me.” As image-bearers, we have dignity and value because of who God made us to be. One of the means in which God uses to instill that sense of dignity and value is through our families. Abuse obliterates that sense of being a dignified and valued image-bearer.
(2) As created human beings, we are revelation receivers. We often think of the Word as necessary because of our sin, but the plain reality is that humanity needed God’s Words from the beginning. In Genesis 1, the story of creation is built around one simple phrase: “And God said...” (Gen 1: 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, 24, 26). There is an interruption to the cadence of this narrative when, after God created Adam and Eve, he talked to them (Gen 1:28; 2:16-18). / Adam and Eve were created to be revelation receivers. They could not live apart from God’s Word. God gave man and woman specific guidance for their lives in the Garden. “Be fruitful and increase. Subdue the earth. Eat from any tree, but not that one.” We don’t know what would have happened if God had never spoken, but we should shudder to even think of life apart from God’s Word. / Out of his great mercy, God did speak to man. He spoke to man first in the Garden. And then through Moses and the prophets. And finally, through his Son. “Long ago, at many times and in many way, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Heb 1:1-2).
Fall (i.e., we are sinners)
(1)Sinners are self-worshippers. Application: Fundamentally, if we boil our identities down to one thing, we could say we are worshippers. The question is not if we worship, but what we worship. Our sin causes us to be oriented away from God, and it makes us put ourselves as the centerpiece of our world. “I” am more important than anything else in my life. [Story about Eden declaring, “I love myself.”] Sometimes self-worship shapes our identity in more explicit ways – you manipulate our spouse or friends to do what you want. Sometimes it comes out in more subtle ways – at a party, you try to tell the funny stories, not just because you are funny, but in reality you like being the center of attention.
(2) Sinners are self-deceived. Application: Christians have “blind spots”— ways in which we as believers live in ignorance of indwelling sin and its harmful effects on their life. Ignorance is the key term here. Sin can make me blind to my own faults. Sin causes me to be deceived about the depth and breadth of the problems in my life. What are the blind spots in your own life? Nature of blind spots is that we are blind to them. Good way to fight sin is to grow in knowledge of those blind spots.
Redemption (i.e., we are redeemed)
(1)As redeemed men and women, we are transformed into God-worshippers. Application: Regeneration and conversion leads to a new heart. God captures our heart. Transformed hearts lead to transformed desires and abiding fruit. We long for things we didn’t long for before—to be in God’s Word, to love God’s people, to serve rather than being served. Transformed hearts means we are no longer what we once were. Whatever our fundamental associations were before need to change. In reality, the NT says now we are completely new creatures—i.e., our affections are now re-oriented so that we love God more than we love ourselves. For some, the shift in identity is rather drastic. Their life is radically turned around. Old associations are a distant past, and new associations now dominate the ways we think and even feel. For others, there is a slow ramping up. Our heart is changed, but our ignorance of the Christian life causes us to grow in small steps rather than drastic leaps and bounds. Both ways are okay. Both are ways in which God reorients who we are, so that we grow to love him more than anything else.
(2) We are redeemed sinners. Application: Even after conversion, we are a strange mixture of both redeemed and sinful. You’ve heard of the conversion stories, where the alcoholic suddenly stops drinking upon conversion. For most of us though, residues of our sinful past still linger long after we are converted. The same heart that lived as a non-Christian for years established sinful habits, patterns, ways of thinking, and these don’t always go right away when we are saved. Redemption is a process of gradually, consistently, patiently rooting these things out over the course of a lifetime. The promise of Rom 6 is the grace will win in the end. Over the course of our life, sanctification looks like a stock market chart, i.e., it’s not a straight line, but gradual growth, with some days better than others.
Practically What Does This Mean for Me? How Do I Help Others with this?
[PAUSE FOR FINAL QUESTIONS]
