“The righteous flourish like the palm tree and grow like a cedar in Lebanon. They are planted in the house of the ” (Psalm 92:12–15, ESV)
· Notice that the righteous are compared to trees that find the right soil
· Every tree starts as a seed, which contains all of the genetic material and mapping for its entire lifespan
“Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.” (Colossians 2:6-7, ESV)
· We develop strong roots when we intentionally put our lives in a place where the Spirit of God is at work
· Life in the Body helps us connect more completely to the Lord Jesus Christ
“Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
(Ephesians 4:15–16, ESV)
Flourish in Your Identity
It's common in our culture to say, “What you don't know can't hurt you.”
· This is a false statement
· Very often, the things we are ignorant of have the most lethal effect upon our lives
· Greatly affecting our destiny
“My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”
(Hosea 4:6, ESV)
This is why understanding our true identity in Christ is such an essential revelation for each one of us to have
· Without it, we are living our lives under an assumed identity
· Kept far away from the life we were created to live
Just because we have been saved by grace and born again by the Spirit of God, does not guarantee an automatic mature understanding of our identity in Christ
Countless believers are living out of lack, isolation, and loneliness because they have believed a lie about who they are or aren’t
Jesus came not only to save us from our sins but also to bring us the truth that will radically reshape our understanding of who we are
“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, 'If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'” (John 8:31–32, ESV)
· One of the strategies of the enemy is to bring confusion into our understanding of identity
· As a society, we are suffering from an identity crisis
· Manifesting in sexual identity dysphoria, political tribalism, and so many other manifestations
We become immune to them because we have slowly taken root in the beliefs and culture of the world
Many people in our society are searching for answers to life’s questions, and some are turning to the church
· If the message inside the church isn’t counterculture, we have no peace or sense of satisfaction to offer
God has only created two institutions – the Family and the church
· So many young people are growing up without a sense of family
Divorce has ravaged our families and taken what is meant to be a generational blessing and turned it into a thousand curses of insecurity
“God places the lonely in families; he sets the prisoners free and gives them joy. But he makes the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.” (Psalm 68:6, NLT)
The Church is described as the household of God, of which we are all members after salvation
“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,” (Ephesians 2:19–20, ESV)
· We are now family
· God is our Father
· Jesus is our elder Brother
· Each of us has been adopted into the House
· We have a place at the Table of the Lord
“For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.” (Romans 8:15–17, ESV)
· Planting ourselves in a church, the family of God, is essential for us to discover our true identity
It’s the environment where we can hear the Father speak His affirmation over us through spiritual fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters
If we are going to flourish, we are going to do it together in the Father’s House
· Identity is the battlefield that the devil loves to use against us
· Even Jesus was tempted with His identity

After thirty-plus years of living in preparation and obscurity, Jesus stepped into His earthly ministry when He was baptized in the Jordan by His cousin John
“And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him;” (Matthew 3:16, ESV)
I'm sure that God was at work throughout Jesus’ life, but what a defining moment and public declaration to the world
· Immediately, Jesus went into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil
· The tempter waited until Jesus was at His weakest before making his appearance
· When he does, he attacks Jesus’ identity
“And the tempter came and said to him, 'If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread.'” (Matthew 4:3, ESV)
The devil knew that a false identity was a human vulnerability, and he aimed this attack at Jesus
· His goal was to cause Jesus to be insecure in who He was
· Insecurity causes us to make decisions based on the wrong source of information
· Jesus had nothing to prove
· If the devil attacks Jesus in this area, be assured, he will attack us in the same way
· This is why it's vital to gain a solid revelation of our identity in Christ
Jesus was able to endure the attacks of the enemy privately because of what the Father declared over Him publicly
When we come to Jesus and enter a relationship with Him, a metamorphosis takes place
· Not only are our sins forgiven, but our souls are awakened by the Holy Spirit, and we receive a new identity
· We are no longer in Adam
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;” (2 Corinthians 5:17–18, ESV)
A new heart, a new nature, and a new identity are granted, complete with new privileges that come with the citizenship of heaven
· Because we are born in Adam, we are naturally enemies of God, bound by the curse of sin
“I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me.” (Romans 7:9–11, ESV)
· Because the wages of sin are death, we need to be born again when sin enters our hearts
· This makes it possible for the children of Adam to become the children of God
We are now part of God’s family, and there are no second-class citizens
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called “the uncircumcision” by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands— remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.” (Ephesians 2:1–13, ESV)
The Bible is explicit about how God sees our new identity in Christ as opposed to who we were before believing the Gospel
· An amazing transformation takes place when Christ comes into our lives
· We are delivered from the kingdom of darkness and death to the kingdom of light and life
“He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
(Colossians 1:13–14, ESV)
The devil has convinced some of us that we are the same way we were, nothing has changed, and living far below our birthright
· He pulls a blinder over their eyes and keeps them from realizing how different their lives can be
· So many still believe we are all still “old sinners saved by grace”
· The truth is, we were sinners, and now, because we are born again, we are no longer sinners
· It doesn't mean we no longer sin, but sin is no longer our identity
“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.” (1 Corinthians 6:11, ESV)
· The way we see ourselves will greatly affect the way we live
· If we see ourselves as sinners, then a life of sin will be the norm
· If we see ourselves as washed, cleansed, and full of power to resist and overcome sin, we will
If we see ourselves as slaves of sin, we take orders, but if we see ourselves as royalty and more than conquerors, we see temptation and sin below our new nature
“Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.” (Romans 6:16–18, ESV)
· We need to see ourselves as righteous even when we sin
· The devil wants to put us back under the law
· Why would God save us by grace just to put us back under the law of sin and death?
· He wouldn’t!
The problem is that we compare ourselves with others, which will cause us to compete with others or become complacent and live a life of compromise
· We can't allow the devil to get us off track concerning our identity
· Past, present, or future
We need to see that we are victorious, unique, and part of the Body of Christ
Living in isolation will cause us to see ourselves in an unhealthy way in two major ways
· In ourselves, we can live with a confidence almost to a fault
· In the same way, we can see ourselves as less than significant and unworthy
Living in community shows us our need for one another
The apostle Paul addresses both:
Overconfidence:
“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.” (Romans 12:3–5, ESV)
Soberly – Being intoxicated (even with yourself) causes you to look foolish
· It impairs your speech and ability to walk straight
· We need to understand that we are just a part of what God is doing
· Though we are significant, we are not the whole
We have an assignment and a destiny interwoven with those of others
Underconfident:
The devil is a master manipulator and discourager
· He works hard to get us to believe that our lives don't matter
He tries to keep us believing that our lives are insignificant and that any thoughts of making an impact on the world are way beyond us
We look in the mirror and see all the reasons why we are overlooked, underestimated, and left behind
· We easily forget that everything that we have in the Kingdom of God is unmerited
· That’s why it's called “grace”
“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (1 Corinthians 12:27, ESV)
· We are individuals and unique, and important
· If we could see through the lens of the Kingdom of God, we would see ourselves the way God sees us
“that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints,”
(Ephesians 1:17–18, ESV)