Who Am I? // Ty Gibson

good morning everybody well yesterday was a really big day for me because I realized I was perfect amazing on all levels perfectly kind and cuddly and cool and I mean just utterly and completely amazing and then I I woke up and I got out of bed and began to move through the day and the real me took over there's a massive gap for all of us between who we want to be and who we really are so I want to probe with you the very provocative question today Who am I which of course it is a question that I'm asking you to ponder as well who are you it's an introspective question I'm asking you to look inside and to do a kind of identity inventory today and I'm gonna do the same as we move through this time together now the fact is I was having an experience in which I was in a massive struggle and on the one hand there was this sense of what could be who I could be what I could be on the other hand there was a deep sense of disappointment in myself can you identify wanting to be more than you are wanting to be better than you are I came to grips with the fact yesterday that that I am continually coming short of the ideal that I have in my own mind that I have somehow constructed for myself but but was I in fact who I was meant to be yesterday I had this experience when I was a little boy in which my mother bless her heart told me over and over again as as a little kid ty you are the best-looking little boy in all the world of course she was lying to me and I knew that years later when as an adult I looked at photos and realized I was that goofy looking little kid but I had a certain confidence that came from my mother's vision of me and you could say it was a lie you could say that all mothers are continually lying to their children but there's another sense in which there's a deep deep truth of identity that's always operating if we'll take note of it and it's described by Peter like this first Peter 4:8 track with this language above all love each other deeply because love covers a multitude of sins now now does it how was my mother seeing me as a little boy well she was seeing me through a mother's eyes there was a lens that was just there by default and the lens that she had as she looked at me was that she loved me deeply as her as her son as her child now this text is describing not simply wishful thinking but a very important psychological and social dynamic and that is that that love doesn't deny reality but that it does compensate for our failures for our sins I mean think about it none of us would remain in relationship with anybody if all of us suddenly held everybody around us accountable for exactly everything they've ever done and who they are we would all be in complete isolation from one another if we did not allow love to compensate for the shortcomings and the failures and mistakes now this truth Peter is communicating to us on the human plane he's saying hey above all you human beings on the human plane you should relate to one another by allowing your love to take up the slack in the relational downfall there are going to be ways in which you're all going to fail another he seems to be saying but don't abandon one another in those failures when somebody when somebody fails lean in a little closer don't lean out remain remain remain in relationship now of course there are other passages of scripture that tell us that there are failures that are so egregious that you can forgive and disconnect you can forgive and disconnect now we've covered this before but it is possible isn't it to forgive someone for their violation but not trust them anymore isn't that possible it's possible to forgive somebody and call the police on them for crying out loud it's possible to press charges because of an egregious abuse that has taken place and yet to resolve the matter in your own heart and not carry the weight of the violation so it's possible to forgive someone in principle and at the same time say well I don't want to hang out with you because the relationship is toxic there's pain there's hurt there's something that cannot be bridged now that's possible but we shouldn't allow the exception to define the rule the fact is that we are called upon to operate with a default mode of above all allowing our love to take up the slack in the relational downfall people are going to fail us now the only way this can be true within the biblical narrative is if there is a love that is paramount that is dictating this pattern of behavior so there's an ultimate love that has been expressed toward all of us so there's not a person in this room who is not the recipient of a pardoning love a forgiving everybody in this room is forgiven for failures now that forgiveness that God lavishes upon each of us is meant to bleed over to spill over into the way we see and treat others so what I want to explore with you is how it is that love compensates or takes up the slack or how does love navigate and maneuver the human situation and we're gonna talk about identity we're gonna ask the question Who am I in my own eyes in the eyes of others and Who am I who are you in God's eyes so first of all a working definition when we use the word identity we mean the sense of self that we all have no we don't go through the day consciously thinking of ourselves in any particular manner we just operate out of whatever our emotional content is but if you stop and think about it all of us are operating with a kind of sense of who we are a defining sense of who I am you might think of it a little bit more poetically as the inner eyes looking back at me so so there is inside of me a sense of who I am I know myself to be dot dot dot whatever that is and oftentimes I know myself to be dot dot dot just on the emotional level haven't paused to make a list I'm not thinking it through consciously at every given moment in the day but I have what might be called a certain sense that's the word I'm using a sense of self now what is happening mentally and psychologically in this identity ideas defined for us I think very nicely by Patrick Rothfuss he is a fantasy novelist who happens to in his novels weave a lot of identity concepts in and he does something very very important for us here I think he says it's like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own heads always and all the time so think of identity like that every one of us we we're telling ourselves a story about ourselves always all the time well then he goes on he says this that story whatever it is that I'm rehearsing in my mind subconsciously consciously to varying degrees that story makes you what you are we build ourselves out of that story so we've said this repeatedly over and over again here after all this is storyline Church that all of us are stories in process if you want to know what a human being is a human being right now you are the sum total of all the experiences you've ever had your identity is constructed out of those experiences now you're always moving through a process to a greater or lesser degree of self dictating that story so you can write chapters you can write paragraphs you can do edits on your story you can say I don't want to be that anymore and you can move through a process of removing a certain character trait or personality pattern or a social dynamic you can say I don't want to relate that way anymore and you can do a kind of edit of your own story but for the most part we as human beings were always operating by default mode on the premise of some kind of narrative that we have constructed about ourselves within our minds and this is called something in the world of psychology and social sciences this is Eric Erickson he was born like 1902 I think he died in 1994 and he is the the originator of the language and the concept of what is called identity theory now you might not have familiarity with identity theory but everyone in this room certainly you've heard the term identity crisis yes well he's the guy who with identity theory coined the term identity crisis and eric erickson in his observations of human nature and in his psychological analysis and his psychotherapy practice and what he's looking as he said okay it looks to me and he just mapped this out for us he said it looks to me like human beings moved through about eight different stages of identity development in crisis well you began of course as a as a toddler and he says that at every stage of human development there are challenges that have to be have to be penetrated there are barriers that have to be surmounted and he maps all of this out okay and he says that adolescence this isn't a surprise to any of us is the point at which our identity christ crisis reaches its its climax and we're just like who am i your body is going through all kinds of hormonal changes and you are in the process of asserting your independence from your family unit from your parents you're saying okay I'm not them and yet I'm connected with them do I have a choice in any of the matters that have been handed to me by my parents so in the adolescent years a person goes through what he termed an identity crisis at the most consummate level I mean this is where you know this is where Mark Twain said that during the teenage years a kid should be put in a in a in a barrel sealed and food should just be dropped in until he's I think Mark Twain said until he's 21 then let him out you know this is the idea that you know you've heard of the terrible twos that's nothing compared to the teenage years when you are trying to figure out who you are okay this is identity crisis according to eric erickson now according to him identity formation and identity crisis is the result of the evolutionary process where a human being is basically combating the forces of nature and moving through a process of trying to assert liberty in order to survive to be fit enough to survive against natural forces and so it's an evolutionary construct now the Bible comes along and offers to us another possible explanation for identity crisis and identity formation now listen very carefully according to Scripture the identity crisis that human beings find themselves in is rooted in a loss of love at the most fundamental level of our existence and that loss of love is called in Scripture here's the here's the word it's a short word with a lot of meaning okay that loss of love is called in Scripture sin or iniquity or transgression now let's just take the word send the word sin think about this for a minute the word sin it is a word that in the original language just means to miss the mark that's all it means it means there is a mark there there's some kind of there's some kind of standard that we feel ourselves obligated to a standard of goodness love morality beauty whatever you want to call it there's a there's a sense that that there's an ultimate right and wrong and somehow I am in the wrong I'm caught up in the wrong I'm in the throes of some kind of some kind of identity crisis against what I know on some level of my being I could be are you tracking with me so there's this mark it's like a bull's eye okay and according to the biblical narrative something happened in human history and this short version of the story goes something like this God created human beings in his own image which is to say God created human beings psychologically emotionally and relationally to love like God loves we were made to think and to feel and to behave in patterns of other centeredness I exist for you you exist for me so I don't need to worry about me because you've got my back you have an interest in me and I have an interest in you and this is called reciprocation this is the idea that Jesus describes in the Gospel of Luke when he says give and it shall be given to you press down shaken together and running over shall others a give into your bosom this is the idea that giving is the law of life you give and then when you give you don't immediately calculate okay I gave now you better well then you you've already compromised the integrity of the giving action the giving motive right so Jesus seems to be saying give exclamation point but give indiscriminately he says in that context for example he says if somebody asks you to go one mile go - if somebody you know asked for your coat give them your cloak also if somebody needs your forgiveness forgive them indiscriminately just let everybody off the hook Jesus seems to be saying and then you'll be like your Father in Heaven who makes the Sun Shine on the righteous and the wicked indiscriminately who makes the the rain to fall on the righteous and the way indiscriminate God is just God so you be good that's what Jesus is teaching so this idea that identity theory is rooted in an evolutionary process we're gonna set aside and we're going to explore what it might look like from a biblical standpoint and I'm gonna suggest to you that identity in the biblical concept as well as an identity Erikson would agree with this but he'll go a different direction with the interpretation scripture would say that identity is the result of identification and what this means is that I only see myself through the eyes of other the fact is I can't experience a sense of myself without knowing how you see me and relate to me so constantly something's happening in in my life in your life again we're describing here what's taking place all the time on a kind of a kind of reactive and an subconscious level nobody's pausing to map this out except for me apparently and I have a problem with this I suppose but we're never going through the day thinking this through but what's happening is other people's opinions about me other people's treatment of me and even their attitudes I mean we're picking up even facial expressions and body language and tone of voice we're processing all of it and people's opinions of me treatment of me and even their attitudes stormy dictate how I see myself and I can't actually see myself apart from the way the community around me is relating to me whether that community is just a community of two let's just I have one other relationship in all the world just one person the way that one person relates to me on these various levels will form in me a sense of myself if the community is a little larger let's say it's a family of five the way dad speaks to me and relates to me the way mom speaks to me and relates to me the way brother-sister take it larger go to the playground you're in school now and the way the other kids treat you the way they speak of you the tone of voice do do they do they pick you or not pick you are you in or you out are you a part of or not a part all of that is being tabulated all of it's being processed and identity is being formed so that even to the level this is remarkable social science has actually discovered and this is this is pretty concrete that that that I rolling I rolling is an indicator of the possibility the higher likelihood of divorce the Wall Street Journal published an article in 2002 can i Rowling ruin a marriage you know what I rolling is you know your husband your wife says something and they catch you out of the corner of their eye and you're kind of like like everybody do an eye roll what does it look like I want to see it what does it look like you roll your eyes what does it mean it interpret it what does it mean it's a it's a communication technique what do you when you roll your somebody says something you roll your eyes what are you saying you're saying you're ridiculous or whatever or there's a there's a disdain isn't there there's a dismissiveness and so the article actually indicates that there is a much higher likelihood of divorce in couples where I ruling occurs because the fact is the I rolling is just symptomatic of a kind of dismissiveness of the person that is not sustainable over time so divorce will likely ensue if one or the other or both of the individuals basically don't take the other seriously that's what the science is telling us so the Bible I'm going to suggest you is an identity narrative there's identity theory that arises out of the Social Sciences tracking with evolutionary theory and essentially suggesting that human beings are merely evolving animals trying to survive against natural forces and so we move through a process of trying to identify with a group and according to identity theory the reason why I need to identify with a group is because there are other groups there's us and there's them and if some kind of conflict arises I'll need you to band together with me to conquer them so it's a survival mechanism I identify with a group and the larger the group the better so that you are not a threat to me with your little group because I'm a part of a big group and so the idea in evolutionary theory is identity and identity formation is all about self-preservation now the Bible takes a different turn and suggests that identity is something that the god of the universe gives as a gift and we're gonna see how how this God how the Yahweh God if the biblical narrative does this there's a sense in which the Bible is an identity narrative in the sense that the Bible is all about God bestowing an identity that we can aspire to and live up to and lean in to okay so the story goes like this as we come to the New Testament Jesus has now been born he's grown up and he is launching his public ministry Luke chapter 3 picks up the narrative and says that when all the people were baptized it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized and while he prayed the heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended in the bodily form like a dove upon him and check this out and a voice came from heaven which said you are my beloved son in you I am well pleased this is extremely beautiful language now in Matthew's Gospel the text reads the report is that the voice came from heaven and addressed the the people around and said this is my my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased in Luke's Gospel as well as Mark's Gospel Jesus himself is addressed by the father you are not this is but you are my beloved son in whom I am well-pleased I I love you I like you you are amazing I am pleased with you now now scholars tell us that we have a problem here and here's the problem why is Jesus being baptized because baptism throughout scripture consistently is what a sinner does in order to return to God in the light of His goodness the goodness of God leads us to repentance Paul says repentance means to turn around and go the other direction the word is Metanoia in the Greek and it basically means in skateboarding terms to do a 180 it just means to turn around and go the other way so as Jesus living a sinful life and he needs to turn around and go the other way is Jesus in need of repentance so so biblical scholars say okay we have a problem here because if this is the savior of the world this is Jesus okay the rest of the the biblical narrative says he's I mean it uses very very high language about Jesus it says he is that holy thing it says that there is no iniquity in him scripture describes him as sin less so the problem the theological problem that the text presents is why would Jesus be baptized and the answer is fleshed out in the New Testament and the answer is that Jesus is being baptized listen you guys this is amazing Jesus is being baptized as the representative head of the whole human race he's stepping in to Rhian AAG urate the human race he's he's starting the narrative over so we're you and i we're baptized each of us individually we're baptized as an individual as a person Jesus is baptized corporately for the whole human race he's not just giving us an example saying hey you all allowed to be baptized so I'll go ahead and go first he being baptized as the new man the new human he's starting over for us and so think about it this way Jesus we might say is the prototypical human being he's the he's he is humanity as humanity was meant to be all along say it that way Jesus is coming along and he's saying oK you've missed the what did we say you've missed the mark well Jesus hits the mark we've missed the mark this is called sin we've missed the mark of perfectly selfless love Jesus comes along and Jesus is baptized as the corporate representative head of the human race like we would send you know an ambassador as the representative of our country to another country the spokesperson the representative the stand-in the one who is there for the rest of us Jesus is for the rest of us here Jesus is the new human this is the good news and the reason it's good news is because remember what the text said Jesus goes under the water he comes up out of the water and the heavens resound with a voice and says you are my beloved son in you I am well pleased the corporate baptism of Jesus then becomes the corporate favor of the Father for all of us the good news is that God the Father regards all of us the way he regards Jesus and this is where a new identity is being given to us as a gift God is saying hey I love you and I'm pleased with you and now out of the premise of my love for you everything can change a whole new narrative a new story is being written now and you have the privilege of living forward in Christ your new man your new human your new representative head now this becomes explicit in the Gospel of John in chapter 17 Jesus is praying and is fascinating he's praying to the Father same father and he says a lot of things you can read the whole prayer in John 17 but then he comes to this remarkable statement he says father you God the Father have loved them that that's you and me every man woman and child every single one of us you're included in this I'm included in this you have loved them check this out you guys as you have loved me this is my beloved son I'm pleased with you is the benediction of God over all of us the god of the universe looks at you and he says you are my beloved child and I like you a lot you are my son you are my daughter I love you immensely and I'm pleased with you now at that point of course Jesus is talking about the objective reality of God's love for you and me and he's saying that the man just the way I'm Jesus sinless holy Jesus who's never done anything wrong and then there's us fallen sinful humans who have missed the mark and Jesus says but but but there's no gap in God's posture in attitude it's not like he thinks and feels one way toward me and then oh then there's how he thinks and feels about you know God thinks of relates to you the way he relates to Jesus that's the good news that glad tidings the happy message that's what the Bible calls the gospel it is a Universal love her God so loved the world everyone that He gave His only begotten Son it is a universal favor that is bestowed not out of Merit but as a gift I love you and I'm pleased with you because of who I am towards you not because everything's at this moment perfect in your life and then something interesting that was verse 20 what was that verse 23 then verse 25 this is all this is the close of the prayer these are the final words of the prayer that are so that are in order that the love with which you that's God the Father have loved me that's Jesus the son that the love with which you have loved me may be in them and I in them are you tracking with this Jesus is saying the father loves you exactly as he loves me so that you can begin to experience his love real time we might say it like this there is the objective fact of God's love for you and me that supersedes anything that's wrong with us his love covers a multitude of sins God's love takes up the relational downfall he simply says I'm gonna keep on loving you regardless of whatever has ever gone wrong in your life whatever you've done I'm just gonna keep on loving you as an objective fact there is the subjective fact of God's love that then gives rise to the subjective reality of God's love so so so I am first the object of God's love he just loves me and then I am the subject of God's love I feel it I realize it it dawns on me and I begin to live out of the reality of his love for me or less academically we could say that I am the target of God's love first and for me and then I become the agent of God's love he he lavishes his love upon me and then I began to love like he loves this is what Jesus is saying or we might say it like this I am the recipient of God's love in order that I might become the reflector of God's love there's a seamless connection between God's Way of relating to me and the way I begin to see myself and then consequently the way I begin to see and relate to others it's incredible it's a whole new story it's a whole new narrative we're invited into it were invited in to a story that goes something like this on the more theological practical level in first John chapter 3 the same John who just addressed us in the gospel who said oh the father loves you the way he loves me so that you might love again now this same John comes along he says oh here's what needs to happen then behold what manner of love the father has bestowed upon us that we should be called children of God this is remarkable the word behold here is a word that is using you know physical eyesight to look upon physical objects as a metaphor for mental comprehension to behold what manner of love the father has bestowed upon us is to is to see and to believe and to know and to contemplate and to understand and to wrap my mind and my heart around that love to get it to apprehend it to say ah this is amazing and the more I get it the more I apprehend it the more it dawns on me the more I behold what manner of love the quality of love that God has for me that I would be called his child given my history given what I've done given your history given what you've done the fact that that he would love me like this this is the best news imaginable I am a child of God and the object of his love if I begin to believe that it becomes the most important thing for the formation of my identity aw Tozer a author pastor theologian of you know maybe a hundred years ago said what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us what comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us the word God is spoken what's there what's conjured up what kind of thoughts what kind of feelings God does that trigger a sense of acceptance love forgiveness Oh God he loves me he likes me and he's pleased with me or does it trigger a sense of God oh no no don't don't don't bring that up no no God God evokes maybe a sense of condemnation a sense of rejection a sense of I got to get my act together before I can come see him a sense that I'm out until I do X Y & Z a B and C in order to get back in his favor or do I live under the distinct impression that I already have God's favor it's their God oh yeah what God loves me he likes me he's pleased with me Oh does that mean you're perfect oh no no it means he is it means he's perfect Oh does that mean you're you're amazing and astounding and no it means he's amazing and astounding have you seen me have you hung out with me there's some stuff going on this is not a commentary on me it's a commentary on him as a commentary on him God loves me he's pleased with me because that's the kind of God God is regardless of what's going on in my successes and failures in life I am the object of God's unconditional love there's nothing I can do to make him love me more because he already loves me with all his love I can't earn his favor because I already have it his love is not transactional it's gift sheer gift pure gift it's just who God is so when I think of God what triggers in my mind what triggers in my emotions there's a sense in which the whole point we get together here is in order to reconstruct a picture of God that will trigger favor and blessing and love so that we when we think of God think oh God likes me I'm in he's already in Christ done everything necessary for my salvation there's a sense in which that's all we're doing here he's week by week by week just repainting the character of God on the inner canvas of our minds and hearts to remind us over and over again God loves us he favors us God's good not to excuse or justify our failures but to actually cultivate in us a desire to love in that same way and that's the effect that it has well we know that's the effect it has because John goes on developing his thinking he says therefore the world does not know us because it didn't know him we're a mystery those of us who believe that we are the object of God's supreme unconditional love who we are a mystery to the world it looks to people who don't know him as though we're just believing some elaborate fiction you're you're not that great to which we would respond and say exactly but he is so I am I'm not but I am and to the world to the general culture out there awesome mystery that we would regard ourselves so highly because he regards us so highly well he goes on and he says beloved oh there's there's the word that's the word you you remember the baptism this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased right beloved now is the term that we saw previously came when the voice of heaven about Jesus and now the word throughout the New Testament is used to describe you and me we are he is therefore we are with the beloved each one of us beloved now check this out we are children of God now now we are now we are now what we are not yet okay okay tie stop okay I'm not gonna stop because that's too weird of a thing to say without explaining it okay let's let's loop back to the objective versus subjective okay God says you're my child to which my conscience might say but there's all kinds of stuff wrong with me to which God will say you're my child to which my conscience might say but did you see what I did yesterday to which god rose but you're my child you see how this is going he's he's driving into our hearts and minds the identity of son or daughter of God so that I can begin to become like what he regards me as so I don't say oh God loves me now I'm gonna sin with gusto God is so good that I don't care about anybody I'm just gonna violate and transgress on and on and on Oh God loves me like that oh I want to love you like that it has the exact opposite effect of producing a kind of indiscriminant liberalism that says oh if God loves me I'll sin no if God loves me how can I begin to reflect his love and yet in my failures along the way I never lose his favor I never lose his favor because his favor is not dependent on my successes morally his favor is dependent on who he is he's just that kind of God who loves me with that kind of love but I failed you're my son but I failed you're my son but I failed you're my daughter this is the good news beloved he goes on beloved now we are children of God but but take this out and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be that's future tense we are and we shall be we are children of God right now but we shall be something we're in a process of becoming we're like we're like caterpillars in a cocoon liquefying and being reconstructed to eventually emerge beautiful we're in the process of becoming so so so it has not yet been revealed exactly what we're gonna be but we do know this that that when he is revealed when when Jesus comes back we shall be like him we will be like him for we shall see him as he is in other words this is a way of saying when when we see Jesus when he returns there's going to be a kind of resonance like oh oh you're my son I I love you yes you do I'm pleased with you yes you are and I'm pleased with you so we are in process the text is essentially saying to us we are right now children of God and we are in process of taking on the attributes and the characteristics of that sonship that that we are becomes objective bleeding over into subjective his heart toward me becomes my heart toward you so he says and everyone who has this hope in him what hope the hope of becoming like him in the light of his love for me behold what manner of love the father has bestowed upon us that we should be called the sons and daughters of God and were not exactly what we're gonna be but we're going forward in this developmental process so that if we have this hope we will purify ourselves as he is pure now that's intimidating if at that moment in the process you begin to think on now my salvation is at stake on me purifying myself but the context is that your favor God's favor toward you is a stable concrete reality you're not more or less loved based on your successes and failures so we have this hope in us and we because of this hope we begin to say ah I don't want to be like that anymore and that that purification of my soul has no purchasing power with God it's not transactional its revelatory it reveals to me what I might become so so so we who see God's love for us we begin to mobilize our own wills to eliminate everything that runs contrary to our identity in Christ but please notice our identity is an already established fact in Christ I am secure in Christ and that security is the premise upon which I say oh I want to mobilize my own free will and my decision-making process I want to begin loving like God loves not in order to earn his favor but because I already have his favor he loves me so much so deeply so profoundly that I want to become the kind of person who is a kind of channel or conduit for that love to flow out to others Henri Nouwen in his remarkable book you are the beloved if you want to this is a daily meditations for Spiritual Living if you want short pithy little daily meditations about the concepts we're talking about here this would be an excellent resource you are the beloved it's a definitive statement watch this Henri Nouwen says now this is gonna take a minute you need to track with this okay Henri Nouwen says over the years I have come to realize that the greatest trap in life is not success popularity or power but self-rejection attract with him here he says success popularity and power can indeed present great temptation but watch where he goes with us but their seductive quality the seductive quality of power and wealth and pleasure and all that kind of stuff their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation of self rejection that's a little complex but he explains it now when we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable when we have come to believe those voices no matter from where they come they could be self generated voices could be the voices of people around us it could be the voices of the great arch enemy the devil in our head by the way Rick Warren fascinate Rick Warren says that when the devil speaks into your mind that's called temptation when God speaks into your mind that's called inspiration and when you speak to yourself that's called stupidity I'm not gonna dwell on that okay so here's the point when we come to believe the voices that call us worthless and unlovable then when we believe those voices success popularity and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions to my sense of worthlessness in other words he's saying that he same popularity power these things become temptations when there is an absence of a sense of acceptance in love as the ground of my being so so the real problem isn't at the foundational level popularity power and those types of things the problem is those things become attractive in the absence of God's love the real trap however is self rejection well how is this remedy if he goes on as soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me as soon as I am rejected left alone abandoned the moment that happens and that can happen in a family dynamic that can happen through divorce that can happen through the rejection of a community of believers against somebody who has failed but but as soon as someone accuses me criticizes me I'm rejected I'm alone I'm abandoned watch this I find myself thinking well that proves once again that I'm nobody there's something fundamentally wrong and it's with me but check this out self rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the beloved do you hear what he's saying here this is remarkable he's saying all the voices whether they're self generated voices of internal incrimination or they are external voices of people in your family or community or whether they are the voice of the devil himself in your mind whatever the case may be all of the sense of worthlessness and rejection and abandonment and all of the idea that we are less than and therefore not deserving of all of that runs contrary to the gospel the gospel comes along and says okay yeah we are fragile little creatures who break beyond repair without love but then the gospel says listen but we become Giants of immense strength under the influence of love God's love is taking up all the relational slack not in order to justify or excuse our failures but in order for his love to so supersede our failures that we begin to have a new vision of ourselves and what is that new vision Who am I I am the beloved of God hey thanks so much for watching we hope that message was a blessing to you God's Word is powerful it penetrates into our minds into our hearts brings about transformation in every aspect of our lives listen we don't want you to miss any content so again we want to encourage you to click on subscribe and track with the content that's going to be coming out week after week and if you'd like to partner with us in this global Ministry of taking the gospel of Christ to the whole world we want to invite you to become a partner 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Channel: Storyline Church

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Keywords: storyline church, who am i, ty gibson

Id: rAvM8tm0yYU

Length: 54min 38sec (3278 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 13 2020