Time to Detox: Identity
About this series:
It's a common thought at the start of a New Year: "What changes can I make for a healthier life this year?" It's a good question, but one that's so quickly submerged by the return of old habits as January turns to February. But what would it look like to really make some changes in January 2024? To take steps for an all around healthier life? What would it look like to detox our lives?
Detox (or detoxification) is 'a process or period of time in which one abstains from or rids the body of toxic or unhealthy substances.' Everyone develops unhealthy thoughts, habits and patterns of life and much of the time we either put up with them or just don't have the courage to address them. So, at the start of 2024, we're going to take four weeks to refresh, reset and restore some of the key aspects of our lives, helping us prepare for a healthier 2024.
About this talk:
If there is any hot topic in our day, it’s perhaps the matter of identity. How someone understands who they are and what their place in society should be has undergone a revolution in the last few decades, increasingly so in the last decade. One’s sense of identity was once largely determined by family, religion and the prevailing norms of the community. Identity was received externally and validated externally. Any felt deviation was generally quashed under the weight of expectation to conform. Today, in contrast, people are encouraged to discover their own sense of identity, to seek who they are from within, with the expectation that society will validate whatever the individual decides. The goal of those who have promoted this view is greater happiness, fulfilment and meaning for people as they break free from the expectations of family, religion and society and instead determine their own identity. And yet the actual result, fuelled among the young by changing feelings and the dangers of social media, has arguably been greater insecurity, greater self-harm and greater uncertainty.
But the Christian has another way of determining his or her identity - not only from around (family, society, religion), nor from within, but from above. The story of the Bible tells us that we are created in God’s image, loved by him, designed as male and female to serve him as we work out our relationships with others; all for his glory. It’s a purpose, meaning and identity that is declared over us rather than discovered within us.
Ephesians 1:3-14 describes 12 facets of our God-given identity as Paul outlines what God has done for us in / through Christ. We are: blessed (v 3), in Christ / in him (vs 3,4,7,11,13), chosen (vs 4, 5, 11), holy and blameless (v 4), loved (v 4), adopted (v 5), redeemed (v 7), forgiven (v 7), lavished with grace (vs 7-8), heirs with an eternal inheritance (v 11), marked with the Holy Spirit (vs 13-14), for the praise of his glory (vs 6,12,14).
If people are looking for meaning, purpose and identity, there can be no better place to find it than in these truths that God declares over every one of his children. These identity markers do not change as our feelings change, they do not change as culture redefines identity, they are not dependent on our achievements. Rather, they are permanent declarations from God who chose us, who knows us and who never goes back on his word. ‘The most important insight the Bible gives us when it comes to identity is that it is not earned or discovered, but received. We cannot on our own determine or discover our own true identity, whether it is sexual identity or any other kind. We cannot know who we are without first knowing whose we are. The only way to make sense of who we are is to make sense of what we’re for’ (Sam Allberry).
Inevitably, though, even God’s children face threats to a healthy identity. Things happen to us that make us doubt whether we have any value; and we feel things and do things that make us question who we really are. Such threats, left unchecked, can become toxic and lead us into negative thought patterns and even into destructive behaviours. Which relates back to Romans 12:1 where a transformed life is the result of a renewed mind. A regular dose of the truths in Ephesians 1 will help to detox our identity and keep us rejoicing in who we are in Christ.
Audio only
