The Art and Necessity of Finding My Identity in Christ Part 2

Last week we thought about the first of two implications of finding our identity in Christ:

Because God sees in me not my own sin and rebellion but the perfect righteousness of His Son, I know and understand that...

1. ...my deepest and most significant identity lies not in my accomplishments or self-discipline or virtue (or failures) but in my secure standing as a beloved child of the King.

This week, we look at the second implication of finding my identity in Christ:

2. ...my standing before God is secure: although I may grieve Him by my sin, I can never separate myself from His love.

Several years ago, when we were preaching a topical series on prayer, we devoted four Sundays to the Lord’s Prayer. I was assigned the petition “Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors” (Matt 6:12).

That was the only part of Jesus’ model prayer that he explained. And his explanation used to fill me with dread:

For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins (v. 14-15).

Why dread? I didn’t grow up in a tradition that taught the security of the believer, so I those verses always had a terrifying effect: I read them to say that my eternal salvation can be jeopardized by my unwillingness to forgive someone who has offended me!

It’s not that I was holding onto a particular grievance, it’s just the very idea that I could – by the altogether human vice of holding a grudge – cut myself off from God altogether. That seemed like a monstrous threat!

But as I read the commentaries, I realized that I was conflating two kinds of forgiveness. In my salvation, God extended His judicial forgiveness: I am made right with God through Christ, and that position is settled and final.

But in his warning about the danger of withholding forgiveness, Jesus was talking about a different kind of break with our Father, not the kind of break that separates me from God forever but the kind that disrupts the sweet fellowship that is mine in Christ.

Like any good pastor, I used my own children as an example in my sermon. Yes, if they wanted to, they could offend me, they could break my heart, they could even consider themselves estranged from me. But one thing they cannot do is change my love for them; they cannot “write themselves out of my will.”

So it is with our Father. My fellowship with Him might ebb and flow as I rebel, come under conviction, and then repent. But my standing before Him doesn’t fluctuate with my behavior; my security rests in what Christ has done for me.

This means that God loves me as much on my worst days as He does on my best days.

There is nothing I can do to make God love me more. He’s already given me His Son. There is nothing I could possibly do to earn more affection from God than He’s already shown me in Christ.

But there is also nothing I can do to make God love me less; His love is steadfast even when I stumble, even when I rebel.

So if my behavior cannot jeopardize my standing with God, how do I actually want to behave?

Thanks to the gracious sanctifying work of God’s Spirit, my answer to that question isn’t what it once was. I know I don’t want to waste my life in rebellion and disobedience.

Slavery to that life is gone.

And good riddance.

What I do want is to see my new life in Christ growing and flourishing in every sphere of my life: in my thought life, my ambitions, my priorities, my relationships, my habits.

Of course, I must confess that I don’t want this kind of holy life with an undivided passion. I don’t want anything – neither sin nor holiness – with a perfectly undivided heart.

But by God’s grace, the Spirit is patiently bending the trajectory of my life toward holiness, so that over time my new life in Christ – holistic love for God, unselfish love for others – becomes more and more a part of my nature.

In the meantime, in the herky-jerky progress of my spiritual life, I can rest assured, knowing that the final outcome is not in question.

He’s got me.

I’m His.

Persevere,
Paul Pyle
Discipleship Pastor