Identity - Relationships

Premise: The quality of relationships in my life depends on my understanding and living out the identity I have in Christ.

As Galinda says of Elphaba in “Wicked”… “She had a mother. She had a father. As so many do…” Strictly biologically speaking, we are all daughters, born of the union of sperm and egg, entering this world at a time not of our choosing, into a family not of our choosing. You may have grown up with all kinds of issues with your parents – there may have been abuse, neglect, divorce, sickness, or just ordinary personality differences that made life in your house a particular challenge. Some of you may have spent your formative years in familial utopia, with parents who stayed married and didn’t get sick and die when you were young. You may have always known emotional and financial stability and enjoyed good communication with your parents. And every combination of these scenarios probably exists in this room. That’s life. God, in His sovereign wisdom, places us in the family He chooses for us and we grow up with the parents He ordained. That makes us, practically speaking, daughters.

I remember distinctly the day I officially became an adult daughter to my father. It happened in one conversation on the front porch of a house we were moving into. I was in my 30’s – late by many standards, I know. My dad had been frustrated at various parts of the day, including the fact that I was not completely packed and ready to move when he arrived that morning. Doubling his frustration was the fact that when we arrived at the new house, the former owner hadn’t moved out completely yet. Awkward. So, he sighed. A lot. And exhibited other behavior that let me know, without letting me know, that this did not work for him. So, like any mature, married adult with a child and a mortgage, I began to cry. Because my father wasn’t pleased with me. But instead of just crying, I told him that I was frustrated, too, and that I would love his help, but if he was going to act the way he was acting, I’d rather he left and I would figure out a way to do all of it myself. His demeanor changed immediately and that one conversation not only changed the day, it changed our relationship. Like I said, I became an adult to him that day.

The reason I’m telling you this story is because I believe it’s part of the process God wants to take us through to have a clear understanding of the importance of our relationship to Him and the relative importance of every other relationship. Let me show you something in Scripture. Look at these verses from Matthew 10. Here, Jesus is giving some perspective on relationships.

³⁴ “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵ For I have come to turn

“‘a man against his father, 


a daughter against her mother, 


a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— 


³⁶ a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’

³⁷ “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; ³⁸ and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹ Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Why would Jesus make it sound as though we’re NOT to value relationships when so much of Scripture seems to put a high value on them? God is relationship. Why would He say that His purpose in coming was to bring a sword and that we’re not worthy of Him if we love our own parents too much? Is there something we’re not understanding? I have a feeling there is. And I have a suggestion in light of this topic.

What if Jesus wants us to so clearly and unmistakably identify with Him alone that even our parents and siblings - our very family of origin - will be less of an identification for us than He is? What if a relationship with Him – fully comprehending and surrendering to who He says we are – will transform our view of ourselves so radically that no other relationship will ever have such a strong influence in our lives again? And what if that’s meant to be a good thing? A liberating and empowering thing? But it’s not easy. It’s a constant battle between our old values and priorities and what Jesus is calling us to. So it doesn’t feel like peace, but a struggle.

Jesus is referencing verses in the Old Testament book of Micah that His listeners may have been familiar with. It’s referring to a time when God’s prophet is encouraging the people not to trust their neighbors or their families – just turn to and listen to God. And Jesus is saying something similar, I believe. Don’t allow yourselves to be defined by where you were born or who raised you. Let me completely redefine you in a way that only I can do because I created you.

Let’s look at a passage in the book of Ezekiel. It’s one of the most vivid books of the Bible in terms of imagery that God uses to capture the message Ezekiel has been commissioned to deliver. These verses in chapter 16 have to do with God choosing and loving the nation of Israel. And when God talks about His chosen people, we can draw analogies to our own lives since we are His chosen people because of what Jesus did. This is a picture of how God gives value and significance – and identity – to His own.

^“4 On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. ⁵ No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised.

⁶ “‘Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!” ⁷ I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew and developed and entered puberty. Your breasts had formed and your hair had grown, yet you were stark naked.

⁸ “‘Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your naked body. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine.

⁹ “‘I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. ¹⁰ I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put sandals of fine leather on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. ¹¹ I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, ¹² and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. ¹³ So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was honey, olive oil and the finest flour. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. ¹⁴ And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign LORD. (Ezekiel 16:4-14)

God cared for His people. He cleansed them. He gave them love and beauty and value. He gave them life. They were lost and like everyone else, just trying to survive and make a name for themselves. But God made them unique and brought them into relationship with the Creator of the Universe. He does it for us, too. And just like the nation of Israel, we forget who we were created to be and who we were created for. And we take what He’s given us and pour it into other relationships before the one we have with Him. And then we depend on other people to give us value and beauty and significance and identity.

And just like we are daughters to our parents in a biological and practical sense, we are daughters and creations of our heavenly Father, and that identity must trump all others.

Let’s look again at parts of this passage in Ezekiel and see what God did for the Israelites in their wilderness and what God has done for us through Jesus.

1. God gives us life. This passage describes vividly the way God saved and gave life to His people, Israel. “⁶I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, ‘Live!’” God completed the picture by sending a perfect sacrifice for our sin, as we lay dying and kicking in our wilderness. All of us, before our eyes are opened to the real gospel truth that we are sinners and enemies of God, try, in our own inadequate ways, to live our lives for ourselves. And we are just kicking about in our own blood. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) God gives us life.

2. God gives us love. In addition to saving Israel from destruction, God instituted a redeeming covenant of love as her identity. Look how it’s described by Ezekiel: “⁸Later I passed by, and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine”. You became mine. Covenant love. God took the initiative to love His people out of the abundance of His goodness, not because the nation of Israel – or we – deserve it or did anything to earn it. And He made the covenant complete by sacrificing His only Son to redeem us once and for all from sin and death. 1 John 3:1says, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” When we are ready, in His perfect timing, God reveals Himself to us and brings people into our lives to refine us and give us opportunities to learn to love like He does. But we can only do that because of the way He loves. God gives us life and He gives us love.

3. God gives us beauty and value. The next few verses of this chapter in Ezekiel give us a lovely picture of the inestimable worth and incomparable beauty we have as daughters of God. ⁹ “‘I bathed you with water and washed the blood from you and put ointments on you. ¹⁰ I clothed you with an embroidered dress and put sandals of fine leather on you. I dressed you in fine linen and covered you with costly garments. ¹¹ I adorned you with jewelry: I put bracelets on your arms and a necklace around your neck, ¹² and I put a ring on your nose, earrings on your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. ¹³ So you were adorned with gold and silver; your clothes were of fine linen and costly fabric and embroidered cloth. Your food was honey, olive oil and the finest flour. You became very beautiful and rose to be a queen. ¹⁴ And your fame spread among the nations on account of your beauty, because the splendor I had given you made your beauty perfect, declares the Sovereign LORD. God covers our nakedness, giving us warmth and love in relationship, and then He gives us beautiful clothes to wear and jewels of great value. Costly garments and fine linen and embroidered cloth. Gold and silver and a beautiful crown. What lovely symbols of beauty and value for women who belong to a king! Paul told the Corinthian Christians that they had been bought at a price - Jesus. Jesus Himself told His disciples that they were worth more than many sparrows and that God knew them so intimately that even the hairs of their heads were numbered. Peter encouraged the women of his congregation not to depend on their outward beauty of clothing and jewelry to be beautiful. God alone has given us this beauty and inherent value because we belong to Him – not because of any outward adornment. In the context of the life and love God gives us, He gives us beauty and value.

So as daughters of a king who loves us and created us, we have a very solid identity. We have been given new life. We are loved perfectly. And we have profound beauty and value. All because of our relationship with God. And that relationship defines us more than any other. If we look at some of the other words in our identity puzzle – words like sister or friend – there are both practical and spiritual levels to them. If you are in a covenant relationship with Christ and are trusting Him alone for your strength and salvation, you are my sister. If you have siblings, you are also a sister. Several of you in here have relationships with each other that challenge and encourage – you are friends. The Bible also says we are friends with God because of Christ. But even the healthiest and most solid and noble relationships are imperfect because they’re between sinners. Those relationships will bring us great joy and heart-breaking disappointment. So will our relationship with God, if we’re honest with ourselves.

The difference is that our relationship with God, through Jesus, has only one sinner in it.

Me.

Because of Jesus I can come to God’s throne with confidence and approach Him as my Father. And that is the only identity that will never change. It’s who we are and what we live for. He’s the One who determines our priorities, soothes our broken hearts and allows us to soar with the eagles.

So how does that play out, practically speaking, in our lives?

• We examine our hearts. Psalm 139 ends with some dangerous, but liberating verses:

“Search me, O God, and know my heart;

test me and know my anxious thoughts.

See if there is any offensive way in me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Ps. 139:23-24)

As we spend time seeking God’s truth and listening to His voice, He will reveal relationships that have too high a priority in our lives or ways in which we are using the life, love, beauty, and value He’s given us to build the wrong relationships. He will be clear and He will speak loving truth. We just need to be still and listen.

• We repent and surrender. Once God reveals Himself and His directives for our lives, we must respond. I recently had this experience as God revealed to me that I was placing too much emphasis on my relationship with my husband. He had become an idol to me as I was spending more of my time, emotion, and energy trying to win his approval and less of my time trying to pour into my relationship with God and the people He’d put into my life to teach them about Him. He reassured me that His love for me was secure and that His was the only relationship that mattered. Once I returned my primary focus to Him, the rest of my relationships began to fall into place.

• We learn and remind ourselves of truth. Once we’ve asked God to reveal the imbalance in our relationships and we turn from our wrong thinking and behaviors, we must be diligent in learning and remembering what God says is true. This happens by reading Scripture and listening to God on a consistent basis. He tells us and reminds us of who we are and how to cultivate relationships that bring Him glory. The sheet for tonight has several verses for a good start and your folders have many, many more.

Ultimately, as we serve a God of relationship who desires truth in our inmost parts, we can trust Him to reveal to us what we need to love Him better and improve our other relationships as well.

Listen to the words of C. S. Lewis as it relates to this topic:

“When I have learnt to love God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than I do now. In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things are not suppressed but increased.” (Letters of C. S. Lewis, 1966)

If we seek Him first, not forsaking our first love, He will add depth and joy to our other relationships as well because we can build those relationships out of the surplus of the God-confidence we have in our identities. I am free to give and not take when I’m sure of who I am. On the other hand, when we strive primarily after other relationships, allowing them to tell us who we are and what we’re worth, no one wins. There is no substitute for the foundation God has given us in Jesus Christ. We have been given life. We have been given love. And we have been given beauty and value. These can’t come from any other source but God. That’s why as we look for our identities, we need to stay focused on the ones that are true for eternity: We are accepted. Holy. Redeemed. Loved. Valued. Chosen.

In short, we are daughters of a king. That is our identity. So let’s remind ourselves and each other at every opportunity of the truth of who we are. We have been given life, love, beauty and value to live the lives He’s called us to live for Him. He is the King of kings and we are His daughters. You know what that makes you, don’t you? A princess! Yes! So wear that crown of jewels loud and proud! It represents your life in Christ. The love of your Father, the King. And the beauty and value He has given you because you are His. No other identity matters.