Identity (Part 2): Whose Are You?
I asked at the beginning of this series, “Who are you?”
Here’s a better identity question, “Whose are you?”
Answer: you belong to this good God.
Whose are You? (Psalm 100:3b)
Psalm 100:3 says:
It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
If you have ever created anything: pencil sketches, watercolor paintings, digital art, music pieces, short stories, poems, doodles, speeches, crafts, you are a creator. And as a creator, who has authority over your creation? You do! You can decide whether that line is the curve of an eye or the wing of a raven (or both), whether that corner is a stairway or a stick figure. It’s yours, so you have authority to define your creation.
How much more so God?
Rom 9:21 ...does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?
Yes, the potter does have right over the clay, to make whatever he wants to make. The potter determines the shape, function, and purpose of the clay pot, not the pot. The world says that you are the potter and that your life is the clay. Scripture says otherwise: God is the potter and you are the clay!
That means God determines who you are. He determines your worth, your identity, your purpose—not you. All the things you so desperately cling to are not who you really are. You are not fundamentally (ontologically) a student, a daughter, a soccer player, a cool kid, whatever. You are clay in the hands of Almighty God’s hands. He defines you.
And the first way He defines you is that He says you are His. Notice in v3: His, His people, the sheep of His pasture. In other words, whatever we are, we are understood only in relationship to Him.
We are His
Foundational to understanding ourselves is that we are made in God’s image.
Gen 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
That means we are permanently, irreversibly, unchangeably stamped with the shape of God Himself. A coin is stamped with an image of a face, say the Caesar of the Roman Empire on a denarius (Mk 12:14-17), or George Washington on the quarter.
But we are stamped with the very name of God. Like “Bam!” Imprinted with the very shape of God, God declaring, “You belong to me.” Like Woody has the letters “A N D Y” written on the bottom of his shoe, we have the image of God engraved upon our body and soul. Like your Apple tech has “Designed by Apple in California” etched upon it, your every day has “Designed by God in heaven” painted across the skies.
We are His. We belong to Him. We are His property. Who we are is defined by God because He made us, and we are His.
Scripture uses many illustrations to hammer this home. We are bondservants, i.e. slaves, of God; we are debtors of God; we are workers of God; we are stones in the temple of God, built upon the Chief Cornerstone, Christ. All true. But the simplest metaphor in the OT is this: we are His people.
We are His People
To be the people of God doesn’t just mean you gather together in a church building. It means to be a participant in God’s plan of redemption, of His work of salvation.
The first mention of this concept comes in the book of Exodus, where God promises the enslaved nation of Israel:
Exod 6:7 I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.
He repeats this theme in many places (Leviticus 26:11-13; Jeremiah 7:23, 30:22; 31:1, 31:33, 32:38-40; Zech 13:9, Hosea 2:23; Ezek 11:20b, 14:11; 34:30–31, 36:28; 37:12-13, 23, 27). It is a thread throughout all of the Scripture. But the final culmination at the climax of salvation history, at the end of the Bible, is Rev 21:3:
Rev 21:3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
It’s not just that we are His creation; we are His people. After all, everything is His creation. He is King over every square inch of the earth, over every particle in the universe.
But we, those who have been purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ, are His people. That means He identifies with us, He will dwell with us. He plants a flag over us, claiming the victory. He rejoices to be in covenant relationship with us. We are His people, and He is our God.
We’re not just owned by God but known by God. This is our God! He calls us by name, knows every hair on our head, catches the tears we cry in a bottle, surrounds us with His arms of love. We are His people, and He is our God!
But it gets better. Psalm 100 continues.
We are His Sheep
100:3 It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people,
and the sheep of his pasture.
As the sheep in His pasture, we have God as our shepherd and caretaker.
Psa 23
23:1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not [lack].
23:2 He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
23:3 He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
As His sheep, we are fed by Him, watered by Him, nurtured by Him, restored by Him, led by Him, protected by Him, loved by Him.
Sheep are utterly dependent upon their shepherd. They have no defenses against predators. They are not fast. They have no sense of leadership. They need someone to lead them out and to gather them together, to tend to their hurts and wounds, to seek them when they inevitably wander off.
This is our God! He is the one who leaves the 99 sheep in the fold to rescue the 1, the shepherd king who seeks after every lost sinner to bring them to the fold of God, the good shepherd who sacrifices His own life to protect the sheep.
Is 40 (ESV)
40:10 Behold, the Lord GOD comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him.
40:11 He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young.
Echoing Isa 40, Jesus says
Jn 10 (ESV)
10:14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,
10:15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.
10:16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.
We are His beloved sheep. He tenderly cares for us. He leads us gently. He seeks out His sheep one by one, calling us by name. He will not lose even one of His own.
Do you know any other love like God’s love? Tender, merciful, strong, unfailing, inexhaustible, patient, perfect, good. This is our God!
Identity Found in God
Now then, “Who are we?” Dear reader, we His possession. If you are a Christian, we are His people. We are the sheep of His pasture.
This is where you must find your identity—in this good God. Not in sports, not in school, not in friends, not even in religious deeds, and definitely not in yourself—but in this good God. The world says you can define yourself by yourself, that you can be a self-made man, an independent woman. That’s a straight up lie.
Your feelings are fickle and fleeting; why in the world would you build a house on the shifting sand of your desires? Why in the world would you want to build your life upon the opinions of men? You didn’t birth yourself; you were inherently dependent from the day you are born. In the same way, you didn’t make yourself; you will be needy for God for all eternity. The only question is whether you will joyfully, freely, gladly depend upon Him and reap all the rewards of faith, or reject Him and reap all the consequences of sin.
Instead of wandering in the desert, mists here today and gone tomorrow, a spiritual vagabond and vagrant with no home, no peace, no love, would you not rather be a child of the living God, home with the Heavenly Father, safe in His care? Dear Christian, know who you are. You belong to God!
We are his, we are his people, we are sheep. That’s fundamentally our identity. But remember, identity dictates how and why we live. Through our identity, we interpret the world, understand relationships, choose our actions, have stability, and worship.
Note that last word: worship. After defining our identity—we belong to God—the psalmist defines our purpose: worship.
We are His Worshippers (100:4)
100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving,
and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!
All the earth, come into the holy temple of God, to give thanks, to sing, to bless His name! This means to tell how wonderful He is, to extol His wondrous deeds, to put the love we have for Him into words, whether sung, written, or spoken. Praise Him! For He is good and His lovingkindness is everlasting!
Fundamentally, this is the chief purpose for which God created every human: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. We were created for His glory (c.f. Isa 43:7). Rev 4:11 says, “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”
We are a people God formed so that we would declare His praise (c.f. Isa 43:21). 1 Peter 2:9 says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
Worshipping God for His good character and good deeds is not optional. Praise isn’t an activity to mutter through awkwardly. It’s not exclusive to Sunday mornings and Friday evenings. It isn’t ancillary, extraneous, optional; it is essential.
We praise God because of who He is—His goodness, His steadfast love, His faithfulness. We praise Him because He deserves all praise.
And we praise God because of who we are—worshippers made in His image to give glory to our Creator.
When we praise God as God above all other so-called gods, as King of kings and our Creator and Sustainer, we restore Him to His rightful place. We glorify Him as the center and the purpose of the universe. We reorient our gaze to the one who is truly worthy. We profess He reigns over the throne of our hearts. If God is glorified, that would be enough; there is rightness to worship. But almost as a spillover from this fountain of blessing, we too find joy.
Ontological Fitness
I’m a bit of a made-do fixer. In college I used wooden chopsticks and duct tape to fix a lamp, and the same materials to fix window blinds. I’ve used knives as screwdrivers, spoons as knives, keys as knives, straws as chopsticks, string as a belt, my phone as a hammer, a ladder as a paint booth, the floor as a bed, duct tape for everything. I mean, it works—kind of. But inevitably I hurt myself, or the makeshift tool breaks.
Why? Because the way I am using the item does not match its intended purpose. So is it any wonder when the chopstick snaps, the string fails, the screen cracks?
Is it any wonder when we try to live without God we wander, like sheep without a shepherd in the wilderness? Is it any wonder when we define ourselves by ourselves, we are crippled by our anxiety and suicidal thoughts? Is it any wonder when we separate ourselves from the God of love, we hate everything and descend into darkness and despair? Is it any wonder when we worship ourselves, our relationships are broken?
When I use a bread knife to actually cut bread instead of as a crowbar, a phone for texting instead of hammering nails, my lips to sing His praises, my hands to serve His church, my heart to glorify His name, things finally make sense. I finally find joy because I am doing what I was made to do.
Psa 73 (ESV)
73:25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
73:26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
Identity and Christ
Becoming a Christian is not fundamentally agreeing to a set of facts or charter for life. Becoming a Christian, conversion, is a life-transforming reality, a complete revolution by which the old you dies and the new you is born by the power of God. Conversion is a metamorphosis of your identity.
you once were lost and enslaved to sin, and now you’re found and beloved by the Great Shepherd
you once were blind to God’s reality, but now you see.
you once loved sin and hated God, but now you love God and hate sin
you once found your identity in whatever you desired, but now your identity is in God, for He is your chief and supreme desire.
As Paul says:
Gal 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
A Christian is one who has died to her old sinful self because she has been crucified with Jesus, our good God. On that cross, Christ died, and with Him, her old self died, too. And from that tomb, Christ resurrected from the dead; in Him, her new self came to life too. Now, she lives by Him, through Him, for Him, because He loved her and died for her.
Again, a Christian is one who has forsaken his self-obsession—whether it be the therapeutic, postmodern, secular worldview or some other unbiblical worldview—for the God-worshipping, God-centered, God-saturated, God-entranced, God-obsessed worldview. His feelings don’t dictate reality; God does. His opinions don’t define his life; God does. All his heart, all his soul, all his mind, all his strength, exist to fulfill his one supreme purpose: to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.
That’s the Christian’s identity. I’m dead, but in Jesus, I live. He loved me, He died for me. All I am is His. It is in this gospel that you know who you truly are. Then, and only then will you find your true identity in the One who actually knows you and made you. Then, you will know God, and thus you will know peace. “Jesus died and rose for you.” Jesus! Your life is not about you; your life is about Him. Let all that we are be for His glory and fame.
The next post focuses putting our feelings and affections where they belong: set upon God.
Originally prepared for the high school ministry of Lighthouse Community Church, preached 2023.07.14.
Photo by Taylor Brandon on Unsplash