Could you talk about how the Gospel changes us? Where does the transformation begin?
In the beginning God created us--of all creation--to reflect him, we bore his image and likeness to the cosmos. He declared it so, “Let us make man in our image.” We trusted him. We embraced this call. Each evening we strolled and rested in this God likeness; we were children of God, and we believed God and found our identity in his goodness and in who he declared us to be.
A tree with beautiful knowledge-enhancing fruit was planted in the middle of the garden—its nectar offered knowledge of Good and Bad. According to the story all we knew was good. God centered the tree in Eden and warned us about the tree—“Don't eat from this tree for the day you eat its fruit you would certainly die.” This tree kept the intimacy authentic and trust honest. We could freely choose to trust God and what he said and rest in the identity he gave us; or, if we didn't want to live under the canopy of God’s Reign, we could simply go over and eat the fruit and make ourselves God and seek out an identity in our will and work. One day the Conspirator came along and suggested, “God knows that the day you eat of this fruit you will be like him. That is why he has told you not to eat from it.” This suggestion filled our eyes and hearts with doubts. This new suggestion said that by doing more and asserting our will we could become like God.
We distrusted God’s word, God’s call, the God-given identity that we had. We decided we would “become” like God through our work instead of “be” like God through his word. As we grabbed the nectar, we put on display our disdain and distrust of God. We seized the gavel of moral judgment and became the sole purveyors of determining what was Just and Evil, Right and Wrong, Good and Bad. We decided that we, by effort and will, would discover within ourselves who we were instead of looking to God. And with one bite we sunk out teeth into the lie that we could forge our own identity outside of God’s calling and purpose.
Ever since then we identify ourselves either by what we do for ourselves (career, accomplishments, who we chose to marry, who we parented, what neighborhood we live in) or by what others have done to us (victims of crime and abuse, children of so-and-so). In the latter category, victims are those who find their identity in how they were abused or victimized. And this identity shapes their view of the world of themselves. Victimization doesn't just happen to those who have been hurt, but it can happen to those who have been helped too much and they come to depend on help for their very sense of identity. Then there are those who are the victors, these people define themselves and who they are by what they accomplish, where they went to school, how much money they have, their ranking in the gang or position in the corporation. The lion’s share of the human quest, post-Fall, is to discover who we are. Most people spend their entire life either in self-discovery mode or in self-justification mode (attempting to prove who they are or who they are not). The Bible says the quest to find our identity in what we do or what someone has done to us is sin.
The Gospel changes and transforms our lives by going to our core and changing our identity. The Gospel changes who we are and whose we are and thereby alters our story, world, self, destiny ... everything. This offer from God is not inspiration to become more functional in our brokenness, its not supplemental to life; rather it's an alternative, a radical corrective. God offers a new identity based on who Jesus is and who Jesus has declared us to be. Jesus says that if distrusting God at the Tree flatlined our spiritual vitals then trusting in Jesus paddles our heart back to life, and renews our identity in God. How can this be possible? How can we trust God again? “Because God loves the world so much that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him would not perish but have everlasting life.”
The church then is a community of “whosoevers” that have come to believe and trust God as the source of their identity, worth, life and hope. And being in the church means you are no longer questing for your identity or languishing through self-discovery, but you have been baptized into the identity of Jesus Christ. The transformation that the Gospel makes in our hearts goes to the core of who we are. God does not demand behavior modification in order for us to be accepted by him; God calls us children, calls us his own and this call, this Word, this declaration like a seed planted in soil, begins to produce a different fruit from the one our selfish and sinful cores produced. God gives us the right to be his children when we come back to trusting and believing in Jesus. This transformation is not merely a Christian task or a Jesus goal or a converted wish; it's an identity shift. It's a reality, a status we have been given. Coming to trust and believe what God is saying over us heals us, restores us, transforms us.
The important question then to ask is not "What are we to do?" but “Who are we in Jesus?” Jesus and the Apostles taught that God changes who we are (identity) and from that we are empowered and grow to change (the works of the flesh, the vices and destructive behaviors of our life). For this reason, our church feels compelled to start with several identity statements of who we are in Jesus Christ.
Stay posted for those statements …
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