Identity, Freedom & People Pleasing | A Message From Dr. Bryan Loritts

father would you bless your word we pray would you speak lord god in the name of jesus god i pray that the seed of your word would fall on good ground that it would take root that it would produce fruit i pray that it would be a practical and portable word something we can take with us as my grandmama used to say would you put shoe leather on your word today don't just inform our heads but inspire our hearts that we might walk this truth out god would you set the captive free today it's in that in lord god that i ask that you stand in my body think with my mind and speak with my tongue those things you'd have us no say and do it is in jesus name i pray amen first corinthians chapter four beginning in verse one the apostle paul says this then is how one should regard us as servants of christ and stewards of the mysteries of god but to me moreover it is required of stewards that one be found faithful but to me it is a very small thing that i should be judged by you or by any human court in fact i i do not even judge myself for i am not aware of anything against myself he says but i am not thereby acquitted it is the lord who judges me therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time before the lord comes who will both bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the hearts then each one's one translation says praise esv says commendation shall come to him from god we all understand what identity theft is some of us have been victims of identity theft identity theft is when a person gets access to some of your most intimate personal details your social security number and they begin to pose as you and when they get access to that they oftentimes open up lines of credit and they they make purchases sometimes they purchase cars there's even documented evidence that some have even purchased homes by assuming another individual's identity in a crowd this large some of you all know the pain of having your identity stolen now this has never happened to my wife and i but we wanted to get out ahead of the game so several years ago we got in relationship with an organization called lifelock lifelock's stated purpose is to keep our identity secure but lifelock we discovered can be a little bit annoying because every time they see a purchase that seems a bit suspicious they send you an email notification i am constantly being hit up by life by lifelock email notification after email notification after email notification and the essence of those notifications are reduced to three words is this you they are asking the question of identity is this you i don't care where you are on the spiritual spectrum you might have grown up in church or you may be in the church for the first time you may not even call yourself a christian but no matter where you may be on the spiritual spectrum all of us wrestle with the question of identity it is the soundtrack of our souls the background elevator music of our minds we are constantly asking ourselves the question who am i dietrich bonhoeffer that great german theologian asked himself the question of identity here he is in a nazi concentration camp having stood up for the marginalized jews against his nazi oppressors he is about to be executed and just a few days before his execution he writes this poem a poem he entitles who am i look at it with me on the screen who am i this or the other am i one person today and tomorrow another am i both at once a hypocrite before others and before myself a contemptibly woe begone weakling or is something within me still like a beaten army fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved who am i they mock me these lonely questions of mine i love this he ends by saying whoever i am thou knowest o god i am thine he's wrestling with the question of identity about a year ago just a month before covet hit february of 2020 i'm standing in front of a group of several hundred athletes they're playing in the nfl and i'm looking at it heisman trophy winners and i it just dawned on me i said to them i said you know what part of your problem is your identity is wrapped up in your performance from the time you were a little guy you you were taught that your your your sense of self-worth and identity is in your stat sheet how many yards did you run how many tackles did you get how many catches did you make how many touchdowns did you score perform perform perform if you performed good enough you could get recruited by a d1 college but you get recruited and you get there and the performance doesn't stop you had to perform even more because you wanted to get drafted and so you get drafted in the nfl and so the performance doesn't stop because everyone knows that you got to get that coveted second contract and so you perform perform perform and then one day an injury is going to happen or retirement is going to come the lights are going to be turned out the fans are going to be gone and you will wrestle with the question who am i some of us know what it's like to get laid off or fired that dream job of ours we went to school we got the degrees we got the qualifications we end up getting hired by that coveted company and then all of a sudden we go to work one day and there's the pink slip and and so much of our identity was wrapped up into the amount of zeros we were getting in our bank account and into the titles and just like that it's all gone and you're wrestling with the question who am i i've got three sons a 20 year old a 18 year old a 16 year old our 20 year old is living in arizona or 18 year old we're about to drop him off at college two down one to go praise the lord hallelujah thank you jesus i am about to be an empty nester when we first got married my wife was working for abc news broadcast journalism degree from columbia career woman we get pregnant and she says to me i think i want to come home full time and quit my job i'm thinking we need that paper but i don't say nothing to her come on honey gotta work it out and god has worked it out the last several decades she's been pouring full time into our kids and yet she is about to get fired from her job as a full-time stay-at-home mom by the empty nest thing and she is wrestling with her sense of identity she is asking who am i now i know where i am i'm in that good part of dallas legacy west is going to be in heaven and until then my wife ain't never gonna see that they got all these satanic stores gucci and louis vuitton she ain't never gonna see that how was your trip to dallas oh it was okay i stayed at you know a residence inn on the poor side of town and i'm talking to very successful accomplished people many of you you started the company i remember pastoring in the bay there was 30-something-year-old retirees in my church they started the company they took it public they sold it they checked off off off all the items on the list they've got tens of millions of dollars they're 36 years old and playing 36 holes of golf every day and yet they're at my church because something in them goes is that it the most discontented person is not the person who hasn't accomplished but it's the person who's accomplished it all and something in them goes is this it who am i who am i paul now deals with this issue of identity he dives head long into it the reason why paul is dealing with the issue of identity is first corinthians chapter 1 verse 10 paul has gotten a bad report about the church and he says this report has come from chloe's house now if i'm chloe parenthetically i'm a little ticked off at paul because paul i said that this is between me and you they don't need to know my name i'm just kind of giving you the scoop you know i'm just kind of giving you the tea leaves and all that other important put the lady's name out out on scripture for all of eternity to see he says the report has come from chloe's house and here's what i'm hearing you all are divided there's some of you who are saying i'm of paul the guy who started the church the conway edwards of our church man leadership guru man i'm of paul paul is my guy others others of y'all are saying no i'm not of paul paul can't really preach i'm of apollos the silver throat orator who can preach the paint off the walls who came in after paul that's my guy others would say no i'm not of paul i'm not of apollos i'm of peter peter got the whole church thing kicked off on the day of pentecost that's my god and still others are saying no i'm not of paul i'm not of apollos i'm not of peter i am of christ he's the one who really got this thing kicked off and paul is saying all of y'all are wrong because all of y'all are divided it's a celebrity culture where there's factions in the church and you don't come to church to see jesus you come to church to see your favorite person and what he is teaching us is when our identity is not in christ and we put our identity into the lesser identities of this life division is sure to follow oh you all need an example huh aren't we divided now as a church we're divided politically i'm abiding i'm of the democrats no i'm of the republicans we've allowed rachel maddow and don lemon and fox news and sean hannity and cnn and msnbc to disciples more than jesus so i need to let you know we are not the people of the donkey we're not the people of the elephant we are the people of the lamb christ ain't coming back on air force one christ ain't popping may locks over what's happening at 1600 pennsylvania avenue he was on his throne before your president got voted in he'll be on his throne after your president got voted in we are the people of the lamb we're divided ethnically listen celebrate how god made you and god didn't just make your spirit he made your skin color as well color blindness is an assault on the imago day i'm a black man because of that i don't hike you want me to walk through the woods for what that that don't sound fun to me like you certain stories you know ain't got nothing to do with us tyrone gets mauled by bear you ain't never in your life heard of tyrone getting mauled by a bear heidi has different so celebrate the fullness of it but never allow your blackness to override your jesus you are more jesus than you are black so what am i seeing i'm seeing people who are putting their identity in their ethnicity and because of that it is causing them division from other people of other hues and ethnicities in the body of christ we are one people in other words if you've got the blood of jesus in you you share more in common with an ethnically other person who is saved by jesus than your own ethnic kin who don't know jesus [Applause] so here's paul he's saying i got a problem with y'all there's division because you have settled for lesser identities and yet here's paul he now pulls us into his tension there are certain people at corinth who want him to build his identity off of his successes and i gotta tell you paul ain't no chump he is a successful person if we if we're just going to give a ranking of the top leaders in world history by influence paul is easily in the top five right now millions of people all over the world are in churches being formed by the letters that he wrote here's paul he walks into places and ex nihilo out of nothing he he plants these churches and people get saved and he hands it off to another leader he goes to the next town and does the same thing over and over again paul is courageous he walks into lystra gets stoned acts 14. two chapters later he's back i don't know about you you got one time to try to stone me i ain't coming back to one community here's a guy who's successful and so the temptation is build a brand build your image build your identity off of your successes and that some of you you have bought the lie that your identity is in how many followers you have how many likes you get you think that's you on the other extreme let's not forget there are the bulk of the church at corinth who are like we ain't feeling paul paul they actually told paul you can't preach you are unimpressive we ain't feeling you paul and so what's the temptation the temptation now is to swing to the other extreme and to build his identity off of his weaknesses and flaws and failures we see that today a lot of you have built your identity off of victimhood you have built your identity off of my daddy didn't get give me this and i should have got this and this traumatic experience happened to me and that that that that event took place and it's marked me it's defined me and you sit in front of counselors and counselors now give you these cute uh languages and categories and that's fine go to counseling get therapy my wife and i are going get all the help but be careful with the labels that they give you be careful because you need to remember that your past may explain you but it does not excuse you [Applause] you are not your past you are not that traumatic experience you are not a victim you are a victor you are an overcomer greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world so here's paul here's the tension do i build my identity off of my successes or do i build my identity off my failures paul says neither one you want to know what my identity is here it is verse one this is how i want you to see me as a servant of christ this is the new york times bestselling author a servant of christ and a steward of the mysteries of god paul is writing in greek and the greek word for servant literally means an under rower an under rower it is an image of the big roman ships that are floating along the mediterranean sea and they are powered not by coal not by steam not my uh any kind of machinery they are powered by scores of underrowers watch it now who are not rowing when they feel like it they are rowing under the authority of the pilot he says also i need you to regard me not just as a servant but as a steward greek word or economist from which we get the english word economics the steward mint one who manages the house not one who owns the house one who manages the house the the the clearest biblical example of that is joseph to potiphar potiphar owned the house his name was on the deed joseph managed it he was under potiphar's authority the commonality to both of these words are individuals who are under authority and they are so inextricably tied to the pilot and to the owner of the house that to see them is to see them that paul says is me i don't own my church this is not my church it's god's church this is not my house it's god's house this is not my job it's god's job my identity is not in the temporary things of this life naked i came into this world and naked i will return husbands you're going to die one day and your wife is going to get a large check and insurance check that she might spend on the next dude i told my wife don't you do that i will come up out this bad boy i will come out this bad boy so some of y'all are freaking out what am i gonna do i'm about to lose my job don't you understand that your real employer owns the cattle on a thousand hills how did you get that job in the first place do you think it was just you or did he not step in and by his providence and grace supply you with it and if he got you that job he could get you another job so don't sell out and prostitute your identity for that which does not last forever [Applause] what am i going to do he's going to leave me but you've got a better man his name is jesus now there's a problem the problem is our text is filled with what's called legal language i gotta rush our text is filled with legal language you don't need to spend the day in seminary to figure this out over and over and over again there's a word that keeps popping up judge or judgment judge or judgment judge or judgment here's what i want you understand hang in there with me if you miss this you're gonna miss the lessons little that you're going to miss the rest of this little sunday school sermon the word judge or judgment here right now doesn't so much speak of the verdict it doesn't so much speak of the outcome as it does the process the word judge or judgment watch it now it means to examine it means to evaluate it means to scrutinize paul says to me is a very small thing that i should be judged by you the corinthians were judging paul they were scrutinizing him they were examining him in fact paul adds to this language by saying or by any human court if you've ever been a defendant in court you understand for those weeks or months you're on trial you're being scrutinized you're under the microscope they're looking at everything you've ever done in forming opinions about you paul says that's what it means to be a christian in fact that's what it means to be human we are constantly being scrutinized they're looking at what we drive they're looking at where we live there they're forming value statements based on where we went to school they're looking at where we work they're looking at whether or not we're married if we're not married what's the problem if we are married what does he look like what does she look like what kind of purse is she carrying they are constantly forming opinions and judgments about us and we can say amen to that because we do it to others constantly being judged so paul is saying one source of judgment is from others and then he says but i do not even judge myself the implication is that we all wrestle with judging ourselves we all have what's called an inner lawyer who is working overtime who is constantly critiquing us now we know what it's like to sit down at a meeting and leave that meeting and and that inner lawyer is is working overtime you should have said this and why'd you say it this way in and i can't believe you didn't even say that or you came across too hard and what did they think about me we have an inner lawyer that is constantly critiquing judging evaluating and we need to know the freedom of firing our inner lawyer we need to give our inner lawyer the pink slip so paul says we're getting judgment from others we're getting judgment from ourselves but he says here's freedom freedom is at the end of the day we only have one true judge and that judge ain't you that judge ain't me that judges god he ends our text by saying therefore do not pronounce judgment before the time before the lord comes who will both bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart and then each person's praise will come to him from god here's what he's saying i am free from your judgment and my judgment because your judgment and my judgment is partial you only see a part of the story god sees the whole story you only see my actions god sees my attitude you only see my motion god sees my motive you only see the outside god sees my heart and when i rest my identity in christ in the fact that his judgment matters that totally changes the way of how i do life now i'm free i love the game of golf absolutely love it absolutely love the game of golf i hope my friend fred is from this church is hearing this love love love the game of golf on the pga tour it's all the tournaments are typically four days thursday friday saturday and sunday and each day they move what's called the pin placements pin placements a little flag that's on the green they move those each day of the tournament sunday's pin placements are always the most difficult pin placements because sunday is awards day championship sunday now i wish i would have had this in mind when i followed the great tiger woods around at augusta national as he was playing a practice round on wednesday getting ready for the year's first major here i am on a wednesday the day before the tournament starts and i'm following tiger woods around and what i see baffles me and blows my mind because not once does the great tiger woods hit it close to the pin if the pins front left he's hitting it back right if if the pins back left he's hitting it front right and he seems to be okay with it he's smiling he's not upset well then things finally reach a crescendo on a par three and i watch same thing front left pin placement he hits a shot way back right and this joker has the nerve to slap high five with his caddy and the caddy says to tiger great shot well i couldn't take it you know golf you're supposed to be quiet right i said that wasn't a great shot it's like 50 feet away and one of the men in the gallery said oh dear sir you have it confused tiger ain't playing with wednesday's pin placements in mind he's playing with sundays pin placements in mind here it was a wednesday and tiger was thinking about sunday the awards day and he was allowing that day to impact his behavior in the present oh friends there's coming a war and awards day for us there's coming a sunday before us where we will stand in the presence of god the writer of hebrews says it is appointed unto man wants to die and then the judgment we will all die i don't care how much kale salad you eat we will all die and stand in the presence of god and paul is saying play in light of sunday now i've got to wrap up because this clock is telling me we got 10 minutes and 46 seconds for the spirit to move what happens when my identity is in christ i'm free i'm free from your judgment i'm free from my judgment because the only judgment that matters is god's and then what happens this is a masterfully argued piece of literature what then happens when i am living for god's judgment here's what happens god becomes big and people become small he says look at it with me but to me it is a very small thing that i should be judged by you again he's writing in greek and the typical greek word for small is micros from which we get the english word microscope or microscopic but this word is the superlative of my cross which means not just tiny but tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny teeny teeny teeny teeny teeny whereas my grandma used to say t9c it is beyond tiny paul isn't ignoring what other people are saying yes we see it but in the scope of eternity what you say about me is beyond microscopic paul dealt with this he planted some churches in the region of galatia and he taught them the gospel the gospel essentially says that christ plus nothing equals everything but christ plus anything equals nothing he taught him salvation by grace through faith that you are not saved based on your church attendance or your quiet time or your giving record you are saved by the blood of jesus christ this is what he taught him but then he leaves and there's a group of false teachers called the judaizers they come behind him and they seek to distort his message they start saying things to these new gentile converts like well you know in order to be really really saved i mean show enough saved on the varsity side of the kingdom you need to be circumcised and do the works of the law but they were astute enough to figure out we just can't start distorting paul's paul's message we have to distort the man so they start to attack his identity they say to them you need to know paul in a real apostle he wasn't handpicked by jesus during jesus's earthly ministry you also need to know have you not googled paul paul is the guy who who who was persecuting christians like stephen he is not real you can't trust him paul gets wind of this and he writes the galatians to correct the false teaching but before he corrects the false teaching he begins by dealing with his identity look at it with me right out the gate paul says this for am i now seeking the approval of man or of god or am i trying to please man if i were still trying to please man i would not be a servant of christ paul is teaching us a valuable lesson and i need you to get this he is saying that man pleasing and god-pleasing make horrible co-pilots you cannot please both at the same time so choose you this day whose voice is going to matter more god's voice or your voice god's voice or your boyfriend's voice god's voice or your boss's voice who are you going to please more my youngest son thinks he's god's gift to basketball he just got recruited by rasheed wallace's team uh he's on that great eybl team adidas team nike circa in fact they were just out here uh the other week playing against lebron james's son bronnie we are praying in jesus name for a full ride to college hallelujah praise the lord thank you jesus we are believing that naming it and claiming it and framing it confessing and possessing we are doing all of that stuff right now and i'm not just stopping there i i pray he gets drafted in the nba because i'm keeping all these receipts my son loves basketball and i picked up on this when he was a little boy at seven he starts playing rec league ball and you know i've been thinking a lot about this on the precipice of empty nest i've gotten real nostalgic my boy would have games seven years old and i'd i'd come and i'd sit way up in the stands and i'd watch him the love of the game jayden had a habit though little boy seven years old he'd he'd steal the ball and he'd look up at me and he'd go and i would go he'd make a shot he'd look up at me and he'd go and i'd go it disturbed the coaches i've had coaches come to me and say we know you're his daddy but please tell him to stop looking at you we're trying to give him the play on the court all he could think about was his dad and then after the game he would make a beeline to me and would ask me a question he wouldn't ask anybody else he he wouldn't ask the coach this he wouldn't ask his teammates this he wouldn't ask other fans he'd make a beeline to me after all of his games and he would say dad did i do good that's what paul's saying i i'm under scrutiny y'all are talking bad about me but i'm doing my best i i plan to church tonight look up at dad i preach a sermon and i look up at dad i'm doing the best that i can at the end of the day i have a singular focus dad is in the stands looking down at me and all i want to know is dad did i do good is that your passion why are you obsessed trying to impress people who didn't send their son to die for you why are you prostituting yourself for people who talk bad about you behind your back why are you selling your soul for a paycheck i'd rather work at whataburger which is inferior in and out and please god then have a corner office and a c-suite and sell my soul so let's land the plane let's go the other way what happens when i'm a slave to people's opinions what happens when i'm laboring under the tyranny of trying to impress you people become big god becomes small and what happens when people become big and god becomes paul a small i now have to get on the treadmill called performance i have to kill myself and work overtime to project an image to you that ain't even me madonna in a vogue article spoke to this at the heights of her powers madonna said this will you look at it with me my drive in life she says comes from a fear of being mediocre this is always pushing me i push past one spell of it and discover myself as a special human being but then i feel i'm still mediocre and uninteresting unless i do something else because even though watch it now i have become somebody i still have to prove that i am somebody my struggle has never ended and i guess it never will listen that ain't a pauper talking us that's a millionaire that's a celebrity packing out arenas worldwide and what is she saying it'll never be enough you can never make enough money to answer the identity question you can never work out enough and lose enough weight to answer the identity question you can never have that perfect relationship you can never buy enough shoes enough purses enough houses to answer the identity question nothing in this life answers it but christ in christ alone [Applause] so because paul answered it look at what paul said in first corinthians 2 just just hear this and when i came to you brothers i didn't come proclaiming to you the testimony of god with lofty speech or wisdom for i decided to know nothing among you except jesus christ and him crucified and i was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling and my speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom but in demonstration of the spirit and power so that your faith might not rest on the wisdom of men but the power of god you're already saying here i know you don't like my preaching but i am so free in christ i intentionally came boring because if i gotta shout you in the kingdom christ ain't your savior if i gotta tell enough catchy stories to get you to listen you ain't saved if jesus ain't enough i'm i'm okay with that he's enough for me if he ain't enough for you that's fine that's between the two between you and god but he's enough for me i ain't shucking and driving jiving i ain't stepping and fetching for you i know some of y'all was disappointed when i walked out because you came here to see conway or jada you ain't come here to see jesus is jesus enough for you if he took everything away right now is he enough i'm done this screen is yelling at me i'm done i'm done i want to pray sometimes we hear the word of god and we have to put it on layaway that that that's a good word that's just not where i'm at right now sometimes we hear the word of god and we don't have to put it on layaway because it is what the bible calls a word in season it's right where i'm at now if you're here today and you would say that was a word in season for me pastor i'm wrestling with identity i'm in bondage to people pleasing would you stand to your feet i want to pray for you this is right where you're at right now yes yes yes this is a word in season it's it's right it's right where i'm at now i'm going to pray at the end of service there will be some of our leaders here at the church i want to encourage you to come down front and maybe process some more with them and get some more prayer i'm going to pray but prayer is not an isolated deal it's a team sport so i want to encourage you if you're sitting next to someone who's standing maybe stretch a hand towards them maybe stand with them and let's pray for them father in the name of jesus i think i can talk so passionately about this because i know the temptation the struggle is real always feeling like you have to prove yourself i know the temptation of want to put my identity in my latest good sermon and not my identity in you i don't know why my brothers and sisters are standing right now i don't know the x's and o's the details the ins and outs but i speak freedom into their life today in the name of jesus that when it's all said and done when the dust is settled they would say here's who i am i'm not my phd i'm not my master's degree i'm not the company i work for i'm not what i drive i'm not where i vacation i'm not where i live i'm not what university i went to i am a servant of christ and a steward of the mysteries of god and i'm going to play with sundays in mind oh god would you give that to them god would you be big in our lives and people be small and god way we get off the treadmill of performance no that doesn't mean we don't work hard of course we work hard but we put gospel distance between what we do and who i am god would you do that in the name of jesus would you surround them with people other servants of christ and stewards of the mysteries of god who will walk with them who will encourage them in this journey and may they know that freedom for it is in jesus name we pray amen and amen

Channel: One Community Church

Views: 8,764

Rating: 4.9030304 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: oeGko-sFFk4

Length: 41min 53sec (2513 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 11 2021