America is in an identity crisis. People are searching for their identity and going to all kinds of drastic measures to change their identity in the desperate hope that with a new identity they will finally overcome their feelings of depression, anger, frustration, and lack of self-worth.
You can simply look at some of the best selling books to find evidence for this. Last year the book “Untamed” was published by Glennon Doyle and has remained in the top 5 on the New York Times best seller list for 68 weeks straight. The book is a memoir that describes how she, a discontent wife and mother of 3, in her late 30’s suddenly falls for a women, realizes she’s lesbian, divorces her husband and starts a new life with a new identity. The tagline of the book says “This is how you find yourself.”
Unfortunately, her story represents millions of Americans.
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Sermon notes:
But what do we see when we go back to the founding fathers of the United States? Where did they find an identity for a new nation. We discover that there was no question in their minds about the identity of the United States because they based that identity upon a strong and unwavering faith in God.
John Adams the 2nd president of the US speaks about this foundation of faith in a letter to Thomas Jefferson
“The general Principles, on which the Fathers Achieved Independence, were the only Principles in which, that beautiful Assembly of young Gentlemen could Unite, and these Principles only could be intended by them in their Address, or by me in my Answer. And what were these general Principles? I answer, the general Principles of Christianity, in which all those Sects were United: And the general Principles of English and American Liberty, in which all those young Men United, and which had United all Parties in America, in Majorities Sufficient to assert and maintain her Independence.
Now I will avow, that I then believed, and now believe, that those general Principles of Christianity, are as eternal and immutable, as the Existence and Attributes of God: and that those Principles of Liberty, are as unalterable as human Nature and our terrestrial, mundane System.”
Sadly, those “immutable” principles of Christianity and the existence and attributes of God are quickly fading today in the USA. What many don’t realize is that when belief in the truth of God’s identity is lost, we also lose our own identity. Personal identity crises will always follow a public faith catastrophe. That is to say when the common population rejects God, the individual is left with no means to understand his existence and will resort to all new, strange, and extreme ways to obtain a meaningful identity apart from God.
Another way we could look at it is like this, all identity crises are really about losing the identity of God, not of self! Find God and you will find yourself! Loose God and you will lose yourself! This is why God begins his very first written words to his chosen people with:
Exodus 20:2-3 (NIV) 2 “I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before me.
God was creating a new people and their identity would be the foundation for their nation. God knew that if their identity was not grounded in the nature of God himself then it would sooner or later veer off track. God’s very first words were words that clearly, uniquely, and undisputedly identified himself as God and God alone!
If you don’t get anything else out of this sermon I want you to understand and to do one thing. Stop searching for your identity, stop looking for that elusive change you think you need to make in order to fulfill your desires and longings. Stop going to extremes to change your body, your lifestyle, you dress, or your home, or something else in search of identity. None of these things will ever bring you fulfillment and lasting identity. Stop searching for your identity and start searching for God because when you find him you will find your true identity.
What happens when a nation or group of people lose the truth of who God is?
[2Ki 17:15 NIV] 15 They rejected his decrees and the covenant he had made with their ancestors and the statutes he had warned them to keep. They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless. They imitated the nations around them although the LORD had ordered them, “Do not do as they do.”
It is no surprise that those who are seeking an identity in themselves and for themselves struggle with self worth. Millions in the US struggle with feelings of worthlessness. Without the infinite value of God they are forced to dig within themselves to find value. They will find all kinds of things within themselves if they go looking for it but they will never find the infinite value of an everlasting, everloving, and everable God.
Paul describes what it looks like when people turn from the truth of God’s identity and instead pursue their own passions.
Romans 1:21-28 (NIV) 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator–who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.
Always at the forefront of the loss of identity is sexual deviance and confusion. Why? Because your sex/gender is a core aspect of your unchangeable God given identity. Furthermore procreation, marriage and family are also divinely ordered elements of our society and a Biblical part of our God given identity. To live according to my god given gender, the nature that God gave me is to acknowledge that someone or something else has sovereignty in my life, because I didn’t choose the gender I was born with and I can’t change the gender I was born with.
The existence of family itself is a testimony to God’s order, God’s plan, and God’s control of our lives. Thus, it is no surprise that when a society rejects the identity of God, rejects the authority of God, and rejects the sovereignty of God they will simultaneously reject the natural gender God has given them and the order he has put within creation.
Man will go to all means and all methods to become his own creator and then worship himself!
So how did American culture in particular get to this point of identity crisis? It is vital for the Church to understand where the thinking of the country is today. This identity crisis has in a big way crept into the church. We must identify it’s mistaken claims of truth and counteract them with what the Bible says. This is vital for each of us lest we also are caught up in the futile search for identity. It is vital for parents, in order to give their children a foundation upon which they can build their lives. And finally, it is vital for the gospel. We must understand that any presentation of the gospel must confront these new realities of American popular thinking. Let’s look at three popular American lies that are at the root of this rejection of the truth of God’s identity and his sovereignty in our lives, and that have led to America’s identity crisis.
Lie #1 You are good! You are good –
Truth: only God is good. Luke 18:18-19
We moved to Tacoma in 1999 where we found a little apartment across the street from Wright Park. The following summer a group of young people spent the summer months attacking unsuspecting victims after dark and beating them until they were unconscious. On August 19, 2000 they attacked Erik Toews as he walked through Wright Park after dark on his way home from work. They did it just for the fun of it, they beat him beyond recognition with their fists, knees and a croquette club. 8 youths were arrested, including an 11 year old, two 12 year olds and a 13 year old. After the youths were apprehended the news media interviewed one of the mothers and I remember her in tears saying, “My son really has a good heart.” I thought to myself, has she gone crazy? How does she define evil, bad? Do you have to murder two, three, four or more people before you become evil?
That’s an extreme example but the sentiment in our nation is prevailing. We are not bad people doing evil things, but rather we are good people who sometimes make mistakes. Let’s make no mistake, these are not mistakes, they are crimes, sins, and they are evil. They are evil because man is evil!
[Luk 18:18-19 NIV] 18 A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 19 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good–except God alone.
When we tell someone he is good no matter how he thinks or behaves then one of two things will happen when he does something that is obviously wrong.
- He will see himself as an exception to any rule or law that he has broken. What might not be acceptable for others is acceptable for him because he knows that he is a good person, so he would never willingly do something bad. Thus, if he did it, it is justified for him alone.
- If the individual cannot deny the sinfulness or the badness of what he has done is so obvious that there is no way of justifying it, then he will simply point the finger at someone else. So stealing, rioting, looting, and disregard for law and order are not the individual’s fault, rather those who are engaging in such sinful and illegal activities are simply victims of society. Thus, a “good” person does bad things only because he or his group is victimized by others. This method of justification is as old as sin itself.
[Gen 3:11-12 NIV] 11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me–she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
Personal responsibility and admission of personal guilt when it comes to sin is rare these days but we need to return to this vital understanding. Without it we become an unmanageable society of “good” people who do bad things and blame other groups, other races, and other individuals for their personal sin.
The way out isn’t a comfortable one, it’s one of personal repentance before the cross of Christ. Yes, there is good news here and the good news is that God is good. You can stop relying on your own “goodness” God’s goodness is deeper, wider, higher, and greater than yours. And, yes, you are sinner, but God’s goodness can overcome that sin when you turn to the greatest good which is Jesus’ sacrificial death upon the cross for you and me.
[Rom 5:8 NIV] 8 But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
We need to return in our thinking, and in our practice to the idea of the sinfulness of man.
Lie #2 You can do anything
Motivational speaker Tony Robbins tells his eager success oriented listeners that they can get anything they want if they follow his simple 5 step formula. 4 out of his 5 steps are about asking others for what you want and the final step is “ASK UNTIL YOU GET WHAT YOU WANT!” Wow, that sounds like all my kids when they were 4-5 years old! He then exhorts them, “Belief in failure is a way of poisoning the mind.” says Robbins who divorced his wife of nearly 15 years so that he could pursue his own fulfillment.
The no limits mindset that many young people have today is like heroin for the soul. It convinces people that not only can they do anything but that they have a right to do anything. This destructive mindset leads people down a path of moral compromise justified by the belief that “I can do anything.” Ultimately, the conviction that I can do anything is the natural and logical conclusion when we put ourselves in the place of God.
Ultimately, you can’t do anything, and that’s a good thing!
Remember the young man who thought he was so good? He came to Jesus and ask what other good thing he might do to get into the Kingdom of Heaven?
Truth: only God can do anything Luke 18:26-27
[Luk 18:26-27 NIV] 26 Those who heard this asked, “Who then can be saved?” 27 Jesus replied, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.”
You are limited and in need of God’s power
You have limited time to live
You have limited strength
You have limited knowledge
God knows your limitations and has compassion
[Psa 103:13-17 NIV] 13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; 14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. 15 The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; 16 the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. 17 But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children–
How much better it is to humbly acknowledge the boundaries God has created for us and put our trust in a limitless God. You are finite but God is infinite!
Lie #3 Follow your heart / be true to yourself
I don’t believe there is a popular philosophy out there today that has caused more pain and destruction in relationships than this one. Nearly every divorce has this theme in it.
It sounds like this:
“I have to do what’s right for me”
“I’m not going to put aside my happiness for the sake of another’s happiness”
“Listen to that little voice from within”
“Do what makes you happy”
These all have the same root, they find the driving, guiding life force from within. This is akin to getting in a car, sitting behind the wheel, stepping on the gas and then taking your hands off the wheel.
“Let the car guide us, it knows best where it should go.”
This is ludicrous. We all know that a car must have guidance or it will simply end up in a ditch. Yet, this is how many parents approach child raising, and this is how many adults approach their own lives. They have no guidance system beyond their personal whims and emotional swings. Today they want one thing but tomorrow the same thing no longer satisfies them so they discard it for the next thing. They are following a fluid point and thus they become fluid. They are fluid in their jobs, fluid in their relationship, and fluid in their gender. Isn’t fluid just another way to describe instability, unfaithfulness, and lack of direction?
Our lives demand a point of reference to follow that is unchanging. A point that can’t be moved by emotions, politics, finances, relationships, or sickness. We need a point to follow that is worth following because it offers us something that is of far more valuable than our very lives. We need a point to follow that is outside of ourselves and that will bring ourselves inline with it’s goodness, and grace. We need a point to follow that will give us hope so great that we can confidently follow that point to the grave and beyond.
Truth: you are lost and need to follow Christ Mark 8:34
[Mar 8:34-37 NIV] 34 Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. 35 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36 What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? 37 Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul?
God offers us true direction in life in Christ and his cross!
Conclusion:
We need to return to the foundation that our nation was built upon.
- Find our identity in Christ and not in self
- Seek goodness in God and not in self
- Trust in God’s ability to do all things and not in self
- Follow the cross of Christ and not our selfish desires
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