IDENTITY CRISIS
INTRODUCTION: How do we identify ourselves? By our name? By our job? By our income level? We can be accomplished and have many people admire us and gain a positive reputation. However, that doesn’t mean we won’t still wonder who we really are.
Take Nicole Kidman. She is an accomplished, well respected actress who can earn over 15 million dollars per film and yet here is a woman who has been quoted as saying, “I don’t know who I am, or what I am, or where I’m headed.” So we see that worldly success does not gain for us a meaningful identity. We may still be left wondering who we really are. Having an identity crisis is especially problematic if you’re a Christian.
1) Identity theft. Identity theft is a big problem in society today. It’s an even bigger problem when we’re dealing with spiritual identity theft.
• Satan tries to steal our identity. Jesus said in John 10:10 that Satan’s purpose is to steal, kill and destroy. One of the things Satan wants to steal is our identity in Christ. Satan wants those who made a genuine commitment to Christ to feel that they are not accepted by God. That their conversion was a farce. How does he do that? By getting us to base our salvation on works, just like he tries to do for the non-Christian. So, when I mess-up I am either no longer a Christian or I never was to begin with. Therefore, my identity as a Christian is determined by my performance. One of the big problems with Satan’s identity theft is that if Satan can get you to forget who you are, then you will be powerless and defeated. Satan wants to steal our likeness to Christ. Part of his purpose in stealing our identity is to erase any identifying characteristics of Jesus in our lives. He wants to render us unidentifiable as a Christian so we can be ineffective and unproductive.
• Satan even went after Jesus’ identity. Matt 3:16-4:7. Jesus had just heard his Father say, “This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Now, we hear Satan saying to Jesus, “IF you are the Son of God”. Satan was tempting Jesus to doubt his identity. He wanted to get Jesus to do certain things to confirm his identity. Jesus didn’t fall for it. God can confirm to us, “You are my child”. But Satan will be right there disputing that. Satan wants us to doubt. If we do, we are tempted to test God to see if he really loves us, to see if we are really protected by him, to see if we are really his. This is wrong. This lie by Satan feeds into our insecurities. Also, Satan will challenge our identity by saying, ‘If you were really a Christian you wouldn’t think that way; you wouldn’t act that way’. Although it’s true that when we sin we aren’t acting according to our identity that doesn’t mean we aren’t a Christian. Satan went after Jesus’ identity and he goes after ours as well.
2) Who do I think I am?
• Some have a confused sense of identity. German philosopher Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher did much to shape the progress of modern thought in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. One day as an old man he was sitting alone on a city park bench. A policeman, thinking that he was a homeless person, came over and shook him and asked, “Who are you?” The old philosopher sadly replied, “I wish I knew.” Theorist Erik Erikson coined the term “identity crisis” and believed that it was one of the most important conflicts people face in development. According to Erikson, an identity crisis is a time of intensive analysis and exploration of different ways of looking at oneself. Those with a status of having a scattered identity tend to feel out of place in the world and don’t pursue a sense of true identity. So when we’re confused about who we are we can become convinced that we’re insignificant and unimportant. We don’t fit in anywhere; we don’t have a sense of belonging. Therefore, we are nothing. And then we become depressed and suicidal. We convince ourselves that there’s nothing to live for. We are convinced that there’s no real purpose to our life. We don’t know where to go, we don’t know what to do; we don’t know who we are. Life becomes a burden as we are weighed down with stress and anxiety. Because of this we render ourselves defective and useless. Since we can’t figure out who we are and where we belong we decide there’s no point to our existence. We’re convinced that no one cares, not even God. Therefore, it’s time to make our exit.
• Some of us have a warped sense of identity. Perhaps we heard growing up how we were no good or would never amount to anything and that became our identity. Perhaps we were teased in school and we became identified by whatever we were called. We become adults but those abusive voices haven’t left. We become Christians yet we still struggle with those nagging, negative chants. We still identify ourselves as an unloved loser; a waste of space. Because of this negative grooming, we come to identify ourselves by our character flaws; our issues, our sins. And we behave according to what we’re convinced of. Norman Vincent Peale wrote, ‘You are not what you think you are, but what you think, you are.’ If I believe I am a loser then I will live accordingly. It doesn’t matter what the truth is, it matters what I think the truth is. It doesn’t matter what is real, it only matters what I think is real. It doesn’t matter what my true identity is, it only matters what my perceived identity is.
3) Who am I really? How can I discover who I really am and solve my identity crisis?
• Who do we believe? We need to ask ourselves: who are we allowing to be the authoritative voice? Satan’s (who only lies to us)? Other people’s (who could be confused or ignorant of the truth or just plain messed-up themselves)? Or God’s (who is the truth)? We are so held back when we have an identity crisis. We come to believe, through listening to the wrong voice, there is no power greater than ourselves so if I feel defeated then there’s no hope. I need to believe God. I need to line my thinking up with God’s truth. I need to line my beliefs up with what God has said about me. When I feel like a failure, a loser, a nobody, I need to remember the reality of Psalm 139:14 where God tells me I am ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’. When I feel unloved, I need to believe God’s truth in Romans 5:8, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Zig Ziglar observes that “the greatest single cause of a poor self-image is the absence of unconditional love.” If we believe God when he says that he loves us unconditionally, since Romans 8:39 says that nothing can separate us from his love, then we can gain a healthy self-image, realizing who I am and how special I am to God.
• Who is Jesus? Matt. 16:13-17. Did Jesus have an identity crisis? No, he wanted to make sure his disciples knew what his identity was. That’s important for us too. We can’t attack our own identity crisis if we haven’t answered the most important identity question-who is Jesus? If we can’t answer the way Peter did then we will never resolve our own identity crisis. Regarding the people’s answers about who Jesus was, one commentator said that when the common people gave these answers they were like “a moth hovering around the light. They were fascinated by what they could not understand.” We might be fascinated and drawn to Jesus but until we understand that he is God in the flesh, the Savior, the Creator, the Sustainer, we will never truly embrace all that he is and all that that means to us as his followers. Until we believe the 7 ‘I am’ statements of Jesus: 1. I am the way. 2. I am the light. 3. I am the Bread. 4. I am the Good shepherd. 5. I am the vine. 6. I am the gate 7. I am the resurrection and the life, until we say, ‘he is’ we will be confused about his identity and therefore, confused about our own. When we discover who Jesus is, then we are beginning to discover who we are.
• I am a child of God. Gal. 3:26-27, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.” God created us to be something other that what we became. Sin stole our identity. Adam and Eve became something God had not intended them to be. Through sin that’s what we are identified as, “sinners”. Through Christ we ‘lose’ our old identity and gain a new one. We now are known by what God had originally intended us to be, “child of God”. When a child gets adopted, he often takes the name of his adoptive parents. He is identified as such. It doesn’t matter what he used to be; he is now known by a different name. We, who are adoptive sons of God through Christ, have taken on a different name. We have a new identity. It doesn’t matter who we were before. We have a new birth certificate. We are now a child of God.
• I am in Christ. Rom. 8:1, Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Paul expresses the personal appropriation of the work of Christ by the term “IN CHRIST.” It appears to be the Apostles Favorite Term to describe the Personal and Dynamic relation of the believer to Christ, and it appears in a variety of Contexts. This particular phrase is found: 8 times in Galatians, 34 times in Ephesians and18 times in Colossians. This is what theologians call “Identification with Christ.” It means God has acted in such a way that we have become identified with Christ. What does it mean that I am “in Christ”? As far as God is concerned, what is true of Christ’s standing has become true of me. Did Jesus die? Then so did I. Did Jesus rise from the dead? Then I, too, rose from the dead. Did Jesus have power? So do I. I can accomplish anything of God’s will because I am in Christ. Accepting this label, ‘in Christ’, will help us to secure our identity and allow us to confirm who we really are.
• I am a new creation. 2nd Cor. 5:17, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has gone the new has come!” Because I am in Christ I am a new creation. I am not identified by my old self, but God has given me a new identity because of Jesus. It says in verse 19 that God is not counting my sins against me. Therefore, I am not identified as a sinner any longer. Gal. 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.” In, “My Utmost for His Highest”, Oswald Chambers says of this verse, “I have been identified with him in his death. ‘It is no longer I who live…’ Paul is saying, “My individuality remains, but my primary motivation for living and the nature that rules me are radically changed.” Through our baptism we have become new creations. We are now associated with Jesus. As a Christian our identity is wrapped in Christ. I am identified by my association with Jesus. My connection, my identity is in taking his sacrifice and claiming it for myself.
4) How can I be secure in my identity?
• Claim the power. Eph. 3:16-21. This Holy Spirit power is available to us. We need to understand the power of his love that knows no boundaries and surpasses all knowledge. We need this power in order to be filled with all of God’s fullness. We need to claim this power in order to be able to do immeasurable more than all we could ask or imagine. This is the power that is available to those who believe in God’s love for them and will embrace their identity in Him.
• Claim the promises. 2nd Cor. 1:18-22. Being secure in our identity will allow us to believe that the promises of God are valid for me. I need to be assured of my identity in Christ so that I can stand firm in the promise of the Holy Spirit placing his seal of ownership on me. I can be secure in my identity when I claim the promises of God and believe them to be “Yes” in Christ for me.
• Claim the victory. 1 Cor. 15:57-58. Here we see words like victory, steadfast, immovable. These are words of surety. If I’m having an identity crisis I won’t be victorious. I won’t be steadfast in my walk; I won’t be immovable in my faith. Claiming the victory through Christ allows me to have that solid hope, that solid faith, that solid trust in God and his promises. It allows me to have that awesome resurrection power that will render me victorious. I will overcome, I will endure, I will prevail because I have claimed the victory. Through the power, the promises and the victory I have identity security and I have overcome my identity crisis.
