How we can see the same patience that God has, bear fruit in our lives, thus helping us become patient people?

What does peace look like in the midst of the crazy world we live in today?

How can we have joy that lasts even in the midst of adverse circumstances?

What are we talking about when we talk about love?

Have you ever considered what it actually looks like to live like Jesus would have? We talk about this all the time but... the life of Jesus is vastly different from our life. We've never seen Jesus have to deal with the pressures of a job on the Hill, or juggling a professional career while also trying to raise children. Or navigating the dating scene in DC. So if the call for Christians is to live like Jesus. What in the world does that look like?

The answer, according to the Scriptures, is being guided and changed by the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit who leads us into a Christlike life. And the result of that work, is what the Apostle Paul called the fruit of the Spirit, 9 virtues that the Children of God display in their life and that we can see present in the life of Jesus.

This sermon kicks off a 10-week series where we are going to look at what it looks like to live by the Spirit, how we can see each fruit of the Spirit present in the life of Jesus, and how different that is from how the world today lives.

If we are a new creation in Christ, what are we to make about the fact that we still sin? The Apostle Paul explains this in terms of what he calls our sinful nature, that a part of us, by nature of being human in a fallen world still has a tendency toward sin. But this should no longer be the defining element of who we are, and it does not mean we are powerless against sin. Being a new creation in Christ means we are now empowered by the Holy Spirit to have victory over sin. This means that the Christian life is a life of living into our identity. We are declared righteous in Christ, but God’s desire is for this to match up with how we live our lives. The journey of following Jesus on Earth is a journey of being transformed into the type of people who live like Jesus.

For Christians, the defining element of our identity is who we are in Christ. Our sin has been forgiven and we have been given a new nature. While we still struggle with sin, we are a new creation, adopted into the family of God. We are who God says we are, His children, and this should be how we see ourselves.

Part of understanding who we are is understanding our sinful nature. We tend to either overvalue sin, making it the defining characteristic of our identity (and not the fact that we are made in God’s image), or undervalue it (seeing sin just as character flaws and not as rebellion against God). The Scriptures show us sin for what it is,  how insidious and serious it is, while at the same time showing us that it is not the defining element of our identity, and giving us hope for redemption in Christ.

What’s the starting point for our identity? Is it our abilities? Our flaws? Our sin? A big part of the problem is that we start conversations about human identity, particularly in the church, in the wrong place. We either start from our sinful state… which makes it seem like we were meant to be broken from the start, or we start from the place of our character and virtues, without actually ever addressing our brokenness. But the vision of humanity that we see in the Scriptures is different: Humans were created in the image and likeness of God, out of love and for love. Before anything else, this is the starting point of human identity. We are who God meant us to be. Understanding this distinction helps us frame our brokenness and sin properly, but it also illuminates the potential of humanity and God’s vision for what He desires us to become.

We all to a certain degree struggle with our identity. Both in how we perceive ourselves and how we present ourselves to the world. We either ignore our brokenness and dysfunction, or we are crushed by the weight of it and don’t realize the beauty and wonder of being humans made in the image of God and loved by Him. This crisis of identity not only affects our inner mental state, but it spills over into our relationships, both with other people and even with God. It is then crucial for us to get a real grasp on our identity because it is only when we are honest about who we are that God can begin the work of redeeming and healing what’s broken in us, but also where we can live out of our identity as children of God and live into the life God has for us, as C.S. Lewis would say: “How can [God] meet us face to face till we have faces?”