Introduction
Jesus Christ calls every one of us who believe in him for our salvation to be a Gospel influence in the world. This call goes beyond telling people about Jesus. Fulfilling the call to be salt to the world requires that we have a preserving influence on it. So we live in a world that is corrupted by sin, a world that is broken. This fact makes our lives much more difficult to live. Not only do we live in a broken-down world, but also we are called to be agents of restoration in it.
As we are used by God in bringing restoration to this broken world, we must never forget where we are. There is no room for location amnesia. We do not live in a friendly place. We live in a dying place that wants to take us with it into the grave. This is where we are.
In the same way we need to know where we are, we must know who we are. The Christian has to be careful not to have identity amnesia.
Every Christian has two identities: sinner and child of God by grace. It is important to keep these two identities in the forefront of our minds because we are always living out of some sense of identity. We constantly telling ourselves who we are and the identity we assign to ourselves will influence powerfully the way we respond to the difficulties of life.
I. Our Identity as Sinners: Not as Good as We Thought
A. We all tend to be quite adept at ignoring our own sin while being highly sensitized to the sin of others.
1. It is hard for us to receive the loving criticism, confrontation, and rebuke of others because we tend to think of ourselves as more sanctified than we actually are.
2. The biblical doctrine of sin confronts each of us with the reality that we are not as good as we imagine we are.
3. It helps us see that we are more needy and vulnerable than we typically consider ourselves to be.
B. What does this have to do with living redemptively in a fallen world?
1. If we minimize in any way the significance of the war that goes on inside every sinner, we will tend to minimize our own vulnerability to the daily temptations that greet us all midst the brokenness of this world.
2. When we minimize the presence and power of remaining sin in us, we do not reach out for the help of God and others.
3. Redemptive living is rooted in a humble sense of personal need of Christ.
II. The Sad News about Sin
A. There usually is a war in our hearts between what the Bible has to say about us and what we would like to think is true about us.
1. We tend to think that we are wiser and more sanctified than we actually are.
2. That is why we get defensive when someone points out our sin and weakness.
3. Therefore, we need to remember constantly what the Bible says about us.
Rom. 7:13-25 – Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin. For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do. If, then, I do what I will not to do, I agree with the law that it is good. But now, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) nothing good dwells; for to will is present with me, but how to perform what is good I do not find. For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
4. Only when we are willing to embrace the sadness of seeing ourselves accurately, can we experience the joyful grace that God gives to sinners.
B. The truth about our condition as sinners.
1. Our greatest need is not environmental.
a. It does not derive from the fact that the brokenness of the Fall messes up every situation and every relationship, though this is true.
b. No matter what we face in this fallen world, our greatest problem in life exists inside of us and not outside of us.
c. So, let me give you an abridged list of what is NOT our greatest problem.
1) Spouse
2) Children
3) Neighbors
4) Extended family
5) History
6) Church
7) Job
8) Friends
9) Boss
10) Community
11) Finances
12) Government
13) Traffic
14) Internet
2. Our problem is not environmental; it is moral.
Ps. 51:1-2 – Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.
C. So we are sinners, but that is not all that we are.
III. Our Identity as Children of God by His Grace.
A. We constantly live with the reality that we are sinners squarely in front of us, but we also constantly live with the reality that we have been adopted by God as his children through Jesus Christ.
WLC 74. What is adoption? Adoption is an act of the free grace of God, in and for his only Son Jesus Christ, whereby all those that are justified are received into the number of his children, have his name put upon them, the Spirit of his Son given to them, are under his fatherly care and dispensations, admitted to all the liberties and privileges of the sons of God, made heirs of all the promises, and fellow-heirs with Christ in glory.
B. This adoption finds its foundation in God's regenerating work in us by his grace.
IV. The Good News about Grace – Three Aspects
A. The grace of forgiveness.
1. It might take an eternity for us to understand the extent of the grace we have been given, and the significance of the forgiveness that flows from that grace.
2. No other force in this life compares to forgiveness in its power to change the way we live.
Lk. 7:36-47 – Then one of the Pharisees asked Him to eat with him. And He went to the Pharisee's house, and sat down to eat. And behold, a woman in the city who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat at the table in the Pharisee's house, brought an alabaster flask of fragrant oil, and stood at His feet behind Himweeping; and she began to wash His feet with her tears, and wiped them with the hair of her head; and she kissed His feet and anointed themwith the fragrant oil. Now when the Pharisee who had invited Him saw this,he spoke to himself, saying, "This Man, if He were a prophet, would know who and what manner of woman this is who is touching Him, for she is a sinner." And Jesus answered and said to him, "Simon, I have something to say to you." So he said, "Teacher, say it." "There was a certain creditor who had two debtors. One owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. And when they had nothing with which to repay, he freely forgave them both. Tell Me, therefore, which of them will love him more?" Simon answered and said, "I suppose the one whom he forgave more." And He said to him, "You have rightly judged." Then He turned to the woman and said to Simon, "Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has washed My feet with her tears and wiped them with the hair of her head. You gave Me no kiss, but this woman has not ceased to kiss My feet since the time I came in. You did not anoint My head with oil, but this woman has anointed My feet with fragrant oil. Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little."
a. Why did this woman do this expensive and humbling thing? Forgiveness!
b. When we grasp how much we need it, and when, by God's grace, we reach out and receive it, it changes us forever.
3. Forgiveness, Christ's gift to us, means that we can stand before God in all of our neediness, weakness, and moral failure and yet be utterly unafraid.
4. Forgiveness also mobilizes us toward others – we want others to experience it as well.
5. Forgiveness draws our heart in love and thankfulness to God, and in our love for him we desire to think, do, and say things that pleasing to him.
B. The grace of enablement
1. Sin not only leaves us guilty, but it leaves us unable as well.
2. But God's grace in the hands of his Spirit enables us to follow him.
3. He animates and strengthens us with his presence, so that we can say no to sin and yes to the call of his kingdom.
C. The grace of deliverance
1. God will not rest from his work of grace until every last speckle of sin had been completely eradicated everywhere.
2. He does not grow discouraged, tired, or weary.
3. He will complete the work that he has begun in us.
{TRANSITION: It is only when we humbly admit our identity as sinners that we live as consumers of the grace of God, and it is only when we are comforted by our identity as children of God by his grace that we will be able to look honestly at the magnitude of my sin.}
V. The Next Thing We Do Is Rest in God's Sovereignty.
A. The fantasy that we can autonomous has been around since the Fall.
1. Satan doesn't change his tactics because he knows that they are effective.
2. He continues to question God's sovereignty and explore our desire to be sovereign.
Gen. 3:4-5 – Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
B. Autonomy is a delusion that seduces all of us.
1. Every time I treat my wife, children, or friends in a way I should not treat them, in order to advance my own purpose, I am operating out of the delusion of autonomy.
2. Every time I take for myself glory that belongs to God, I am claiming autonomy.
3. Every time I willingly step over one of God's boundaries with a word, a thought, a choice, or an action, I am acting as if my life belonged to me.
C. Another way to think about this basic delusion is in terms of self-sufficiency.
1. DEFITION: having everything you need within yourself to be what you were designed to be, and to do what you were designed to do.
2. A basic test of self-sufficiency – in the last 24 hours did you do anything that required assistance or contribution of others?
a. Did you sleep indoors?
b. Travel in a vehicle?
c. Use electricity?
d. Wear clothing you didn't make?
e. Read?
f. Eat food you didn't kill or grow?
g. Would any of that have been possible without the involvement of countless other people?
3. We are designed to live in worshipful dependence upon God and in humble, interdependent community with other people.
a. Every time we are too proud to ask for help, we buy into the fantasy of our self-sufficiency.
b. Every time we reject someone who is trying to confront us with a wrong, we are believing the lie of our self-sufficiency.
D. The doctrine of creation just by itself powerfully confronts this notion of self-sufficiency – if there is a Creator and we are his creatures, the work of his hands, then there is no such thing as autonomy.
E. We struggle mightily with this notion that we are not sovereign and that God is.
1. We all hit those moments when we think we know better.
2. We all act at one time or another as if we were the fourth member of the Trinity, seeking to control things beyond our grasp.
3. Here are some things that each of us will contend with as we live in this broken world.
a. You will be confronted with your lack of control – good or bad.
b. You will wish you had more power – think of when your kids are sick.
c. You will be tempted to think your world is out of control – when we encounter an area that we can't control, we tend to think of it as out of control.
d. You will fear the power of another.
e. You will be tempted to question God's wisdom and love – because it may not be after your own image.
f. You will think that rest requires understanding.
Ps. 33:20-21 – Our soul waits for the Lord; He is our help and our shield. For our heart shall rejoice in Him, because we have trusted in His holy name.
g. Someone else's life will look better than yours – Ps. 73
h. You will reach a place of greater rest in God's rule.
F. What does God's sovereign care actually look like?
Eph. 1:15-23 – Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers: that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places,far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.
1. There are three truths to be seen here about the sovereign rule of King Jesus, the rule that is meant to be our most reliable source of rest as we live in that space between the difficulties of life in this broken world and the mysteries of God's plan.
2. Paul tells us that Christ's rule is comprehensive, personal, and redemptive.
a. God placed all things under Jesus's feet and appointed him head over everything (comprehensive) – we will never find ourselves in a location, situation, or relationship that is not ruled by King Jesus.
b. Christ rules over everything for the church, which is his body (personal).
c. God in Christ is sovereignly transforming us (redemptive) – "that you may know what is the hope of His calling.
Conclusion
It is wonderful to know that no matter how difficult and confusing life may be, no matter how unexpected and alarming our circumstances may be there is rest to be found. Rest is found in knowing that the one who rules it all is your Father.
http://olympiabp.blogspot.com/2016/02/know-who-you-are-and-rest-in-gods.html
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