This morning, we’re beginning a new message series entitled, “Identity Crisis.”  Through it, we’re going to understand better not only who we are now, but also who we are in Christ.

Our culture is suffering from a tremendous identity crisis.  We don’t truly know who we are.  There is such disagreement over what it means to be American.  There is even disagreement on who is considered to be a citizen of the USA.  The roles of a husband, wife, mother, father, brother, sister, student, teacher, employer, employee, and so many more are so uncertain. 

There is even disagreement over whether someone is male or female.  We created a new classification called nonbinary where someone can choose to not choose.  There is a movement to actually eliminate the concept of gender altogether.  This identity crisis has become so severe that it is now culturally acceptable to choose to identify as something that we’re not and expect everyone to embrace that identity.

Disappointingly, gender and sexuality seem to be the only arenas in life that this applies to, however. 

I went to the airport and identified as a pilot, but they very forcibly forbade me from doing so. 

I bought $100 of groceries and paid with a $20 that identified as a $100 bill, but the store manager wouldn’t accept it. 

I parked in the fire lane in front of the store, but the police officer wouldn’t accept my car that identified as a fire truck. 

I joined a singles dating site, but my wife wouldn’t accept that I identified as a single man. 

I walked into Heaven, but Jesus wouldn’t accept that I identified as a Christian.

Now I don’t hate anyone because they try to identify as something they are not.  Let’s be honest, that root sin of trying to be something that we are not is something that we all have battled.  Right now, there are likely things about ourselves that we do not like.  We’re too fat, too thin, too tall, too short, brunette instead of blonde, stupid instead of smart, poor instead of rich…

I accept them where they are at in the same way that Jesus accepted me where I was at when I first called on His name. 

Romans 15:7

Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.

We can accept who people are and where they are at in life without agreeing with it.  We can accept people and still call sin sin.  We are still commanded to love them and serve them and pray that the Holy Spirit would lead them to repentance.  Repentance, to see themselves as God sees them.  Repentance, to bring clarity to confusion.  We’re here this morning because someone cared about us enough to do that for us and to tell us about Jesus.

It’s almost like God knew that this day would come.  God reinforces several times in the beginning that He created us in His image male and female.  Man and woman.  Marriage defined as a man and a woman uniting together as one in life.  It used to be so obvious, but He knew that there would come a day when there would be great confusion about these concepts that God, Himself gave us and called good. 

There is a huge movement to erase our history and refrain from teaching our factual past from the future generations.  Sure, it’s full of mistakes and downright wickedness at times, but what happened has happened.  We would be wise to teach it so that future generations might learn from it and not repeat those mistakes.

I love the fact that a perfect and holy God chose to give us the Bible full of imperfect people’s successes and failures.  Even the sin that He forgave, He still recorded in His word so that we might learn from it.  He even honestly records that at one point, He regretted creating mankind!  To erase our mistakes is to forge a clear path to repeat our mistakes.

Even in the church, we see this identity crisis clearly taking place.  What does it mean to be a Christian?  What should our attitude be?  How should we respond to certain issues?  How should we behave?  Why am