Identity & Differentiation - Andrew Mook

One of the healthiest things that you bring to relationship is your redeemed self. If you are here unfaithfully with us, you are causing terrible damage. Not just to you not just to others, but to yourself. Because when you're not showing up as the person that Christ is forming you to be, something will fracture inside. Please hear this. That fracture, that gap between what you know and how you live is where anxiety let me say it again. The fracture or the gap between what you know and how you live is where anxiety and resentment grow and where relationships become really unstable. Differentiation is what allows you to love deeply in the way of Jesus. [00:29:18] (50 seconds)  #LiveYourRedeemedSelf

Differentiation is knowing your identity in Christ and then living from that center. Thomas Merton said that for him to be a saint, to be a person of uncommon goodness meant to be himself. To be a person of uncommon goodness, you you be the person that God actually created you to be and you live from that place. Differentiation is fidelity to your redeemed identity. Differentiation is faithfulness to who God saved you to be, and differentiation is a foundational ingredient for having emotionally healthy relationships. Take marriage for instance. Marriage has a way of revealing how steady you actually are. [00:21:52] (49 seconds)  #IdentityInChrist

let me introduce you then to the word of the day. Anyone remember Sesame Street? The word of the day. The word of the day is differentiation. Can you say differentiation? Differentiation. It's not a word most of us grew up hearing in church. It comes from family systems theory but it belongs in Christian discipleship deeply because it's everywhere. [00:18:53] (25 seconds)  #DifferentiationIsEverywhere

And over time, you start to kind of feel vague inside. Like, you're you're present, but you're not really fully present. It actually breaks down intimacy. This is the Velcro response. This is enmeshment. Everything sticks. Their mood or their anxiety attaches itself to you. You absorb more than belongs to you and eventually you don't know what's yours and what isn't. Or again, instead of absorbing, detach, the Teflon response. You pull back internally and become emotionally less available because it's just quote not worth it. [00:23:35] (43 seconds)  #StopEnmeshment

And then there are Teflon people. Teflon people, would you raise your hand? Nothing sticks. You don't feel much. You don't let people close. You don't attach. That's just detachment. Differentiation, I mentioned these two things and we'll go a little deeper in a second here. Differentiation is neither of these things. Differentiation is knowing your identity in Christ and then living from that center. [00:21:33] (27 seconds)  #NeitherVelcroNorTeflon

And he started doing what? Editing himself. Editing himself. Do you ever do that? You get into a room, you start editing yourself a little bit. You're like hyper aware of all the things that are going on in the room. He started to protect his image. He started to manage his perception little by little. So you don't lose yourself. You don't become less like rooted in your convictions. You don't lose yourself in explosions. You lose yourself in inches. [00:17:30] (30 seconds)  #GuardYourIdentity

Here's why I bring this passage up. Peter, the man who stood up in acts and said, God has shown me that I should not call anyone impure or unclean. The man who saw the spirit fall on the Gentiles. The man who declared again that there is neither Jew or Gentile all or one in Christ. That guy is gradually pulling back because of basically, like, he wants to fit in. He feels weird. He doesn't have time to explain. He's scared of what's gonna happen. [00:16:31] (33 seconds)  #RelationalPressure

How does a man who saw the spirit fall on the Gentiles drift like that? It wasn't his theology. We don't get the sense that, like, woke up one day. He's like, I actually have changed my mind. Gentiles, you're out. No. What was it? It's like not complicated. It's like relational pressure. Certain men arrived. If you're taking notes, certain men arrived. I don't know. Like, the temperature just changed and Peter adjusted. [00:17:04] (26 seconds)  #DontLetPressureChangeYou