Sermonette: Who I Am Series #5

Who am I? The world, culture and politicians will give me plenty of answers. They’ll tell me who gets to identify me, how they can identify me, and which identities are acceptable and which ones are not. While the world has many answers for identity, to get the true answers we must turn to God and His Word.

We are created by God. We are created in God’s image. In every one of us, there is a bit of the divine. This, however, isn’t always obvious because it’s usually buried beneath our sin and the effects of our sin. Part of being human is being born into a lineage of sinners, inheriting the punishment of our ancestors’ sin, and being sinners ourselves. We’ve rebelled against our creator and we bear the marks of that rebellion. Last week, I compared sin to using a tool for the wrong purpose. Humans operating against God’s desires is like using a guitar to pound in nails. Like using grandma’s sewing scissors to cut pizza. We’ve misused ourselves and we are broken as a result.

This isn’t necessarily the end of the story. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys being broken, you’re welcome to do so. Most humans choose this path. They choose the path of denying their rebellion, denying their brokenness, denying the possibility that our creator might not be happy about that. However, there is another path.

9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

1st Corinthians 6:9-11

Paul lays out another path. We can be cleansed. By the blood of Jesus our sinful, broken natures can be cleansed and removed. We can be sanctified. We can move forward, created by God, in God’s image, and washed of our broken nature. The key take-away, though, is not everyone is cleansed. Jesus’ sacrifice had the potential power to clear all of our sins; but we need to pursue it. We need to hear the call and invite that cleansing. We are all created by God. We were all created in God’s image, and we are all sinful; but only some of us have invited the cleansing. Every one of us has the potential to be saved from sin and sin’s fallout. May it be a part of your identity as well as mine.