THE STORY is told that one day the daughter of the Queen of England was sitting in a chair and slouching, sitting very awkwardly. They were out in public and the Queen\u2019s daughter had become an embarrassment because she was not behaving in concert with her identity. The Queen looked at her daughter and said, \u201cSit up, don\u2019t you know who you are?\u201d100<\/p>\n
MY WIFE and I got married in 1970. On that day a major change took place in her life. Her name changed. Although she had been Lois I. Cannings, her name became Lois Evans. She had a new identification.<\/p>\n
We spent the first summer of our marriage in Harlem at 133rd and Lennox. I was involved in a ministry up there. We stayed, during that ministry time, in an apartment over a church. We\u2019d just been there a day or so when someone called on the telephone and said, \u201cMay I speak to Mrs. Evans?\u201d<\/p>\n
My wife said, \u201cHold the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
She went looking for Mrs. Evans until it dawned on her after she had left the phone that SHE was HER!<\/p>\n
She came back to the phone, changed her voice, and said, \u201cHello, Mrs. Evans here.\u201d<\/p>\n
She had forgotten who she was. She had forgotten her identity. When you forget who you are, you don\u2019t act like you should.101<\/p>\n
1 Cor. 7:22\u201323; 2 Cor. 3:2\u20134<\/p>\n
CHRISTIAN, don\u2019t you know who you are? Stop letting the world tell you who you are. You are a child of God. You are a saint. You are sanctified. You are secure. You are holy. You have royal blood flowing through your veins! That\u2019s who you are! A lot of us are not acting like we should act because we don\u2019t remember who we are.102<\/p>\n
1 Peter 2:9<\/p>\n
WHEN your favorite sports team wins, you will say, \u201cWe won!\u201d<\/p>\n
WE who? You weren\u2019t on the field. You didn\u2019t get tackled. You didn\u2019t get hit. You didn\u2019t throw the ball. You didn\u2019t make an interception. You didn\u2019t block anyone. What do you mean WE won? WE won by identification. Because you identify with the team, when they win, you win.<\/p>\n
We identify so much that we even call our buddies who live in another city and tell them, \u201cWe beat you!\u201d We vicariously identify! We feel good when our team wins and we feel bad when our team loses. Why? Because we understand that we are related to the team by identity.<\/p>\n
When Jesus died, you died. When Jesus arose, you arose. When Jesus comes back, you will rise to go with Him because that\u2019s who you are. We must identify with who we are in Christ. We have a new identity now.103<\/p>\n
[Spiritual Identity, in Christ]<\/p>\n
Rom. 8:9\u201317<\/p>\n
DURING the Civil War, it was legal for a man who wanted to stay out of the army of the North to pay someone to fulfill his draft obligations. A man could actually buy someone to go to war for him. There was a man named Mr. Pratt who paid Mr. White to go fight a battle in the Civil War for him. Mr. White was killed. Mr. Pratt was redrafted. Mr. Pratt then took the agreement between himself and Mr. White to the draft board and told them that the second draft was invalid and ineffective because he \u201cdied\u201d in Mr. White who had gone to war in his place.<\/p>\n
When Satan comes up to you to redraft you into your old life, when Satan gives you a recall to your old way of thinking, your old way of talking, or your old way of acting, you\u2019ve got to show him the agreement.<\/p>\n
You can say, \u201cJesus Christ has already died in my place. You can\u2019t redraft me to that old life anymore. You can\u2019t take me back to that old way of thinking anymore. The payment has already been paid.\u201d104<\/p>\n
[New Life in Christ; Satan]<\/p>\n
ONE of the responsibilities of ministerial work is performing weddings, and in every wedding there is something I do all the time. I get to the place in the ceremony where I say, \u201cWho gives this lady away to be married?\u201d Generally, it\u2019s the father or some surrogate for the father who has positioned himself by the daughter and an exchange takes place. The father or surrogate then says, \u201cI do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now I have bad news for the dad. Once he says, \u201cI do,\u201d he can go sit down. I\u2019m through with him. I will have no other conversation with him in the whole ceremony. Why? Because he\u2019s irrelevant now. Because in that ceremony, the man, the bridegroom, will then come and replace the father. The two of them will come up before me and I will go through the wedding vows. They will exchange the rings and then I will close the ceremony by saying, \u201cI now pronounce you husband and wife.\u201d The audience will then stand and receive the new couple.<\/p>\n
That young lady has been transformed. She has been transformed not because she\u2019s a different lady but because she has a new identity now. When she came into the building, she was Jane Somebody. But once she has been presented by her father, she comes under a new authority and enters into a new relationship. The first man is now overruled by a younger, newer man, strictly for one reason and one reason alone: the young lady has transferred identities. The Bible says that you have transferred identities and when that old man called the flesh starts telling you what to do, you are supposed to tell it, \u201cI have a new hubby now. I am married to a new lover now. I\u2019m wearing a new ring now. I have a new name now.\u201d105<\/p>\n
[New Life in Christ; Spiritual Identity, in Christ; Natural Man; Freedom]<\/p>\n
Rom. 6:4; 2 Cor. 5:17<\/p>\n
ON ONE of my shirts, I have my initials sewn onto the cuff. There will never be a question about whose shirt it is because my initials prove that it\u2019s my shirt. It\u2019s a shirt customized for me. Now I have some shirts that come off the rack and a lot of folks can possibly claim that they have one just like those, but not this one because this one is custom-made.<\/p>\n
When something is custom-made it means it\u2019s fitted to your uniqueness. It has been crafted with you in mind. That means that it\u2019s not for everyone else to wear. We are all unique. We are all custom-made. There is no reason to try to be someone else or to live someone else\u2019s life. Why settle for off-the-rack living when there is an identity and life in Christ custom-made for each one of us?106<\/p>\n
[Calling]<\/p>\n
A MAN went to go visit a psychiatrist one day. When the doctor came in, he asked, \u201cWhat can I do for you today? What seems to be the problem?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI have a problem. Every single time I go to the grocery store, when I pass by the dog food section, something in me tells me that I need to open a can of Alpo and eat it. Something inside tells me to pick up a can of Alpo, open it up, and start chowing away.\u201d<\/p>\n
The doctor said, \u201cWell, this is a little different from anything I\u2019ve ever dealt with before. How long have you been dealing with this problem?\u201d<\/p>\n
The man said, \u201cEver since I was a puppy!\u201d<\/p>\n
This man was very confused about who he really was. If he were a dog by identity, then Alpo is what he would be looking for. Just as that gentleman was confused, many Christians are confused about their identity in Christ.107<\/p>\n
I REMEMBER A few years ago we were driving down from Boston in the fall of the year. You know, the scene was beautiful. As leaves changed to brown, it was a wonderful fall sight along the Eastern coast. It was magnificent. People come from all over the country and even around the world to watch the changing of the colors.<\/p>\n
But a lot of people don\u2019t understand the colors. They get the colors mixed up. They think the color is changing from green to brown. No, the real color of the leaves is brown, not green. The reason why brown leaves become green is that chlorophyll begins to reproduce on brown leaves during the spring and the summer, turning their natural brown color and camouflaging it so that what you see is green. But the green looks so impressive you think the green is the real deal, when actually the green is hiding the real deal. The real deal is brown. So in the fall, when the green chlorophyll begins to die, it unveils what\u2019s really there.<\/p>\n
A lot of us have covered up the Spirit, so that we don\u2019t see our true colors or our true identity. We walk around projecting a fake identity. Many of us are fake Christians, trying to look like real Christians, when God wants to cut away the fake, so that the real deal shows up.108<\/p>\n
[New Life in Christ; Spiritual Identity, in Christ]<\/p>\n
Heb. 10:21\u201323<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
THE STORY is told that one day the daughter of the Queen of England was sitting in a chair and slouching, sitting very awkwardly. They were out in public and the Queen\u2019s daughter had become an embarrassment because she was not behaving in concert with her identity. The Queen looked at her daughter and said, … Continue reading “CHRISTIAN
\nLIVING, IDENTITY IN CHRIST”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14176\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}