The Power of Finding our Identity in Scripture

Christian Growth
  • As humans we live our of our identity—our concept of who we are shapes our behaviour, decisions, attitudes and goals.
  • Here is a selection from the New Testament that have the power to change us deeply if we make them ours.

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Goal for today:

To align our identity with Scriptures
like 2 Cor 5:17:

“If anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!”

  • Hand out colored verse card to follow along with sermon

The Power of Finding our Identity in Scripture

  1. I Am Significant
  2. I Am Secure
  3. I Am Accepted

1. I Am Significant

1. I Am Significant

  • I am no longer worthless, inadequate, helpless or hopeless. In Christ I am deeply significant and special. God says:

1 Cor 3:16–17 CSB

  1. Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you?
  2. If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, and that is what you are.

2 Cor 5:17–21 CSB

  1. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation; the old has passed away, and see, the new has come!

2 Cor 5:17–21 cont’d

  1. Everything is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
  2. That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and he has committed the message of reconciliation to us.
  3. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us. We plead on Christ’s behalf, “Be reconciled to God.”
  4. He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Ephesians 2:4–10 CSB

  1. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us,
  2. made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!
  3. He also raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavens in Christ Jesus,
  4. so that in the coming ages he might display the immeasurable riches of his grace through his kindness to us in Christ Jesus.

Ephesians 2:4–10 cont’d

  1. For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift ​— ​
  2. not from works, so that no one can boast.
  3. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.

Phil 4:12–13 CSB

  1. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content ​— ​whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need.
  2. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

2. I Am Secure

2. I Am Secure

  • I am no longer guilty, unprotected, alone or abandoned. In Christ I am totally secure. God says:

Romans 8:1–2 CSB

  1. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,
  2. because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.

Romans 8:28 CSB

  1. We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God, who are called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:31–39 CSB

  1. What, then, are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
  2. He did not even spare his own Son but gave him up for us all. How will he not also with him grant us everything?
  3. Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies.
  4. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, but even more, has been raised; he also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us.

Romans 8:31–39 cont’d

  1. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?…
  2. No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
  3. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers,
  4. nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Phil 3:20–21 CSB

  1. Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ.
  2. He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself.

Colossians 3:2–4 CSB

  1. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
  2. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
  3. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

2 Timothy 1:7 CSB

  1. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but one of power, love, and sound judgment.

Hebrews 4:14–5:1 CSB

  1. Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens ​— ​Jesus the Son of God ​— ​let us hold fast to our confession.
  2. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin.
  3. Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.

3. I Am Accepted

3.I Am Accepted

  • I am no longer rejected, unloved or dirty. In Christ I am completely accepted. God says:

John 1:11–13 CSB

  1. But to all who did receive him, he gave them the right to be children of God, to those who believe in his name,
  2. who were born, not of natural descent, or of the will of the flesh, or of the will of man, but of the will of God.

John 10:14–15 CSB

  1. “I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and my own know me,
  2. just as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep.

Romans 5:1–2 CSB

  1. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
  2. We have also obtained access through him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God.

Ephesians 2:17–19 CSB

  1. He came and proclaimed the good news of peace to you who were far away and peace to those who were near.
  2. For through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father.
  3. So, then, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household,

Colossians 1:12–14 CSB

  1. giving thanks to the Father, who has enabled you to share in the saints’ inheritance in the light.
  2. He has rescued us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.
  3. In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Colossians 2:9–14 CSB

  1. For the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily in Christ,
  2. and you have been filled by him, who is the head over every ruler and authority.…
  3. when you were buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead.
  4. And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.
  5. He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross.

Ephesians 1:3–7 CSB

  1. Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ.
  2. For he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and blameless in love before him.
  3. He predestined us to be adopted as sons and daughters through Jesus Christ for himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
  4. to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One.