Unbound: Freedom in a Digital WorldSýnishorn

What gives you an identity? It’s so easy as a Christian to respond, “Jesus gives me my identity.” It is more difficult to live this out in practice. So often, we allow our identity to be constructed by our success (or failure) or by our social status. We might build an identity around our favorite hobby or family. Yet, we know that we are to find our identity in Christ. For as long as people have sought to follow Christ, they have also sought to find identity in Christ and what this means in their everyday life.

Paul’s rant in these verses about his identity demonstrates this well. Paul lays out all the things that used to give him identity: his heritage, his lineage, his self-righteousness, his knowledge, and his zeal. Notice that all of these elements are ways that he is distinguished from others around him. He wasn’t just a faithful Israelite, he was a Hebrew of Hebrews. He wasn’t just righteous, he was blameless. He wasn’t just zealous, he was zealous to the point of persecution.

If we are honest, so much of our identity is also based on what distinguishes us from others. In light of knowing Christ Jesus, Paul considers all of these distinguishing markers of identity garbage. This word, translated as "garbage," "skubalon,” has a much more vile meaning than garbage. It is a vulgar word referring to the excrement of dogs living in the street. All the old markers of identity are dog crap compared to what he has now found in Christ.

Paul puts it succinctly in 3:7, “But whatever were gains to me, I now consider them loss for the sake of Christ." In this verse, Paul makes a quick play on words by contrasting the words moikerde, "gains,” and zemia, “losses.” These words are commonly used for accounting purposes. Thus, what Paul used to use on his social ledger for identity as a gain (lineage, legalistic righteousness) he now considers as a loss on the social ledger. It is clear that Paul refuses to play the same games of social status in identity construction that his opponents and others in Greco-Roman society continue to play.

This is a very important point for us today as well. The culture around us teaches that our social gains come through constructing an identity based on the relentless marketing we receive through social media or adds on our digital devices. The greatest goal of identity formation is to be uniquely yourself and there is a perfect T-Shirt that will help you do that. Towards the end of this study we will spend a few days specifically talking about identity formation, but this ledger language is useful to begin the discussion today.

We might need a ledger for our identity today as well. Think about all the things in your life that you use to distinguish you and give you identity. Practice considering those dog crap and gaining Christ by releasing each one in prayer to Jesus. Ask him to release you from the bondage and burden of a self-made identity and give you freedom in his resurrection from the dead.