Do you REALLY know who you are?

A sermon, the third in a series on Discipleship, preached October 26, 2008 at First Presbyterian Church in Lake Crystal

Romans 6:1-11; Colossians 2:6-12; Matthew 3:13-17

Do you REALLY know who you are?

When you look into the mirror, who do you see? When you look into your heart—

(And I don’t know about you, but I find myself doing that before I go to sleep. That’s a good, child-like thing to do, sometimes, as long as you don’t lose sleep over it. Self-examination is really a spiritual discipline. Sometimes in bed might not be the best place to do it. Sometimes a walk, or just sitting alone, or writing in a journal… different things work better for different people. We’re created in God’s image… so we all have something of God’s DNA… but we’re all unique and special… each of us wired a little bit different… different gifts and different ways of praying…)

But when you look into your heart, do you REALLY know who you are?

Does that thought scare you to death? In the movie “The Neverending Story,” the hero comes to a certain test along his journey and remembers the warning: This is the place, the mirror, when people look into and see themselves as they REALLY are. And, boy oh boy oh boy, if we’re honest with ourselves, that can be a frightening thought. It explains why Adam and Eve hid from God. They were no longer able to look at themselves without blushing.

We can feel that way, too. Feeling guilty makes us feel uncomfortable… Guilt makes us feel defensive… makes us feel like running and hiding like Adam and Eve.
Someone has said, “Guilt is a thief of grace.” Guilt clouds the mirror and clouds our hearts and minds—guilt makes us forget who we are.

Different people react differently to looking into the mirror, and probably all us carry guilt about something we regret… but God has NOT created us to be consumed by guilt. The apostle Paul says we should be looking into the mirror through the lens of our baptism into Jesus Christ. Because we share not only in Christ's baptism into death but in Christ's resurrection into New Creation, guilt is supplanted with grace and the paralysis of guilt supplanted by personal accountability rooted in a transformation of self-image and watered by the gift of gratitude. As Paul writes to the church in Rome,

Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Most of you have heard that passage many times before. But chances are there are times when you think of it in a purely “spiritual” sense.

It’s actually somewhat easy to think, “Oh yes, I’ve been spiritually baptized into Christ’s death, so I will someday… somewhere over the rainbow… be united with Christ in a resurrection like his.” It’s almost like the popular country song—it goes something like this: "Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to go right now” (Kenny Chesney).

But let’s think of this in a merely “spiritual sense” but in a holistic, all-encompassing sense. Too often we equate “spiritual” with “unreal.” But we have really died with Christ. So we are dead to sin—not in a sort-of unreal spiritual sense, but our whole selves—our spirits, yes, but our minds and bodies, too. We are—our whole selves are—dead to sin.

And if my whole self has died with Christ, then my whole being has been made new in Christ’s resurrection!

So do you REALLY know who you are?

You are the one for whom Christ fulfilled all righteousness. John the Baptizer was shocked when Jesus asked to be baptized. He said, “No, no, I am the one who needs to be baptized by you.” But, you see, in his baptism Jesus took on even the deep and true repentance we were unable to enter into without first entering into Christ. Christ’s baptism has become our baptism.

Do you REALLY know who you are?

You are God’s Beloved. You are a child of God—your whole self is a New Creation in Christ. When you look into the mirror, God wants you to see yourself as the one on whom the dove alights and renews and grants transcendent peace beyond our understanding.

You are the one in whom God takes immense delight; you are God’s Beloved.

As we prepare to celebrate the Lord’s Supper next week, think about who you are in Christ. Communion is the feast of victory of God. It is God’s feast of love, and it was in love that Christ gave himself for us.

As you prepare for communion, recommit yourself to following Jesus because…. Because this is who you were created to be in your baptism!

Spend time this week—each and every day if you possibly can—and simply thank God each day for this immense miracle of grace and unfailing love.

And even when the mirror of your conscience declares you unworthy of God’s gifts, of God’s mercy, of God’s love… even when you—as I so often do—discover that you have neither loved the Lord with all your heart, soul, and mind, nor have we loved our neighbor as yourself, know this to be true:

The mirror of our conscience and even we ourselves have been washed in Christ’s baptism.

When we were unworthy, Christ made us worthy. Christ has become our complete righteousness.

Friends, trust in the work of God on our behalf and receive the gift of forgiveness offered us in Christ Jesus. Our reconciliation to God is found in trusting this good news—that before we chose God, God chose us. God has made us a New Creation in Christ.

So come to the Table next week,
renewed by the Spirit,
a child in whom God takes delight,
a child of God dearly loved by God…
loved by God with love as high and wide
and deep and broad as the love God shares
with our Lord Jesus Christ.

Come to the Table as God’s Beloved,
because that, dear sister, dear brother…
that is who you really are!