Thank you, everyone.
I was very, very close to just saying, "Y'all stay up here. I'm going to go sit back down, and we were going to run through that again."
Actually, during prayer time this morning, back in the back, we were praying, and Carolyn MacArthur goes, "We should just worship all day." She was in here this morning listening, and she's like, "It was going to be so great." I was kind of like, "That'd be pretty cool if I just came up after you guys and started singing and just keep it going." That would probably draw a crowd. I don't know if it'd be a crowd for a good reason or not, though. Maybe a crowd for a really bad reason.
So many months ago, when January 2025 began, at least that's how long ago it feels. It feels like January has gone on and on and on. We introduced this key theme that we are going to focus on in 2025, and that key theme is identity. We're going to kind of be in this theme for a while, the whole year, and we'll dive into this theme in a few different ways as we go along throughout the year.
Today, I want to bring us kind of back to this simple definition of identity that I presented a few weeks ago, and it was this: Identity is who we are and who we are becoming. It's kind of currently who we are and also who we're becoming, what we're kind of aiming toward.
And so that's really kind of a simplified definition of identity because we can really expound on what that who we are and who we are becoming fully consists of. You could expound on the definition of identity as referring to the unique characteristics or the qualities or attributes that define who a person or who a group or who an entity actually is.
And our identities kind of encompass various aspects in our lives, and they include the personal aspects, the social aspects, and the cultural aspects. I want to take just a moment. We're going to break those down just a little bit.
So if you know, if you've been here when I've been here preaching, you know that there's going to be some notes sheets on your chairs. So many of you knew who was preaching as soon as you got here. And so you have those notes there if you'd like to keep those notes. I like notes. That's why I always put those there for you.
But here's some key aspects of identity. Now, I put these in an order that I feel most people kind of prioritize these aspects in their own identity when they're kind of looking at themselves. So in general, you may put these in a different order. Not a big deal.
Number one, the first kind of identity is the personal identity. This aspect of identity includes an individual sense of self. It's our personality. It's our values. It's our beliefs. It's part of our experiences. It answers the question, "Who am I?" And it's based on these kind of internal reflections or self-awareness of who we are.
The second aspect of identity that we often use is the social identity. This aspect of identity is defined by kind of the roles and group memberships that we're a part of, that we hold on to. It kind of reflects how people relate to and perceive themselves within different communities within society or a group that they are a part of.
And this aspect of identity can be vast. It can have a variety. You can be a part of a variety of social type groups, whether it's where you work with your work colleagues, or where you go to school, which friends you hang out with, what sports you play, where you go to church, your different friend circles, whether you're rooting for the Eagles or the Chiefs, I mean, or you just want them both to lose. You may fit in that group.
See, I knew someone would want them both to lose.
And then you have this third aspect of identity, the cultural identity. This aspect of identity is shaped by your customs, whether it's your language, your customs, heritage. Cultural identity is the sense of belonging to a particular cultural group. It connects people to kind of a collective history, shaping how they see themselves and how they see themselves within the world around them.
Now, all three of these aspects of identity are, to varying degrees, kind of interwoven into our identities. If you want to hear or read more about identity, you can pretty much find a book, go on a website, listen to a podcast, and you can learn just countless information about identity, right?
You could read philosophy from the likes of Rene Descartes, and he's going to say, "I think, therefore I am," emphasizing this self-awareness as a key to identity. Or you can kind of take the psychological route if you wanted to focus on that and go down the psychological theories. There are things that focus on identity formation through development, through social interactions.
There are a lot of other great resources that one can dive into to talk about this idea of identity and who we are and why we are, and all of those questions. A lot of what you find is it's going to focus on kind of those three, most of those things are going to focus on one or all of those three aspects: the personal, the social, and the cultural aspects of identity.
But there's a key aspect that we often miss. This key aspect of identity that I'm going to call our core identity. This core identity is rooted in one's beliefs about God, about faith, about purpose, about ultimate meaning. It reflects one's relationship with God and an alignment with beliefs and faith principles.
In the Wesleyan and Nazarene traditions, identity is culture. It is grounded in the belief that humans are created in God's image. Genesis chapter 1, starting at verse 26, is where we're going to kind of start. But up until this point, God has just been creating. He created the heavens, the earth, the light, the darkness, the animals, the birds, the trees, the fish.
He's just created everything that we know, everything that we see, and he declares it's good. And then in verse 26, we hear this: "Then God said," the same God who gave life to everything around us.
And although God gave life to all of creation, it's only human beings, it's only humanity that he created in his image. And so humanity's core identity is rooted in being made in the image of God, or the Latin, imago Dei.
If you're keeping up with your notes, your next notes there is our core identity is that we are created in God's image. Being created in the image of God means that we share a likeness or a similarity to God.
Identity is grounded in the belief that humans are created in God's image. Throughout this year, we will continue to kind of bring in other pieces of identity that build upon and even have some positive and negative effects to what our core identity is. But we are created in the image of God, the imago Dei.
Humans are created with these unique abilities, absent in all other creatures on earth, that mirror the divine nature of God. Now, this imago Dei does take on multiple kind of characteristics regarding humanity.
The first one of those characteristics is the structural. This characteristic kind of reflects God's rational abilities, his spiritual and moral attributes, albeit in a limited capacity compared to God. Because we're image bearers, we're not the image itself.
This aspect emphasizes the inherent qualities or attributes that humans possess, which distinguish us from the rest of creation. It suggests that the image of God is something intrinsic at the core of humanity.
Humanity possesses an intellect, the ability to reason, and a moral awareness, reflecting God's wisdom and God's justice. We possess this ability to relate to God and to worship and to pray. We have the capacity for kind of self-determination and a creative expression that the rest of creation doesn't have.
The second characteristic regarding being created in the image of God is the functional. Now, this characteristic kind of reflects on how people live their lives in obedience to God's will. This aspect focuses on what humans do rather than what they are.
It kind of starts to suggest that the image of God is expressed through human roles and responsibilities within creation. We start to see that within our core identity, we also have a task.
Genesis 1, 26 through 28, which we just read, portrays humanity as rulers over creation, as called to stewardship. This characteristic of being image bearers also reflects God's creative nature by engaging in meaningful work that includes exercising things like justice and righteousness and care for others.
This characteristic calls humanity to live righteously and kind of fulfilling God's calling in our lives.
Then there's the third characteristic of being created in the image of God, and it's the relational. This characteristic kind of focuses on how we relate to God, how we relate to ourselves, and how we relate to others.
This characteristic sees the image of God as being inherently relational, meaning that humans reflect God's nature through relationships with God. We reflect God's nature through relationships with others and through relationships with all of creation.
Because humans are created for relationship with God. We're created for this relationship with God that's a covenant. We're created, and humanity is created in design for intimate fellowship with God.
John 17, and if you have your Bibles, I'm going to be through a lot of different scriptures. But if you want to flip there, great, but I'll have it on the screens. I also have those wrote on your note sheets if you wanted to stay ahead of me.
John 17, 1-3 reads, "When Jesus had spoken these words, he lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, 'Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you. Since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.'"
They know you. So humanity is designed for this fellowship, this relationship with God to know who he is. But also humanity is also designed for relationships with one another.
We often use the language of community when we're talking about relationship with one another. It's this capacity to love sacrificially, which kind of mirrors the love of Christ.
John 13, 34-35 reads, "A new commandment I give you, that you love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. By this, all people will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another."
So humanity is also designed for this fellowship, this relationship with one another. This relational characteristic of being an image bearer stresses that holiness is love that is lived out in community.
These three characteristics, the structural, the functional, the relational, are all part of our core identity of being created in God's image. But also being created in his image, we're called by his grace and called to reflect God's holiness in life.
This calling to reflect God's holiness in life gives us a task that involves obedience. It involves transformation. It involves our community.
Kind of circling back to our definition of identity: Identity is who we are and who we are becoming. But our identity also gives us a task. Our identity gives us a task. It gives us something to aim toward.
And this task involves obedience and transformation and community. Community. Community. And so that we can reflect God's holiness in all of our life.
For Grace Church, we have what we call the one page. I've printed out some of those in there in the seats too, in case you have never seen that, or you're seeing it for the thousandth time or whatever. I printed some of those for you to have.
But we call this the one page, and it helps us with this task. It helps us to know what we're called to do. And so for the next several weeks, we're going to focus in on that one page.
For the rest of the day, we're going to focus on one little part of that one page, and that's the mission statement. Grace Church's mission statement is just this: "Encouraging our community toward wholeness in Jesus."
First off, this one page is not a document that we found on the internet. It's not something that we copied and pasted from something else. It is what the pastoral staff and some other people do.
We've spent some time looking at, "Who is Grace Church? Who has Grace Church been? Who is Grace Church right now? Who is Grace Church becoming? And what is our task going forward as Grace Church?"
It's starting to sound a lot like this is what Grace Church's identity is. But it was several months of looking at what is the identity of Grace Church and then creating this one page so that every part of this one page that we look at is unique to Grace Church because it's who God has called us to be. It's who God has called our identity as a church to be.
So let's take a look at our mission statement: "Encouraging our community toward wholeness in Jesus." And what does this mean? So we're going to break it down.
The first word there you're going to find in there is encouraging. This is a word we use quite a bit at Grace Church, but what does it mean? We've defined this before as basically meaning to give someone else courage, to kind of instill courage in someone.
It's the act of giving someone support. It's the act of giving someone hope or confidence. It involves our words. It involves our actions, our attitudes that kind of lift up others. It's kind of helping them to persevere challenges, grow in their faith, or move forward with courage or to move forward with strength.
From a biblical perspective, encouragement is more than just kind of uplifting words. It's a spiritual practice that reflects God's grace and love. It builds others up, reminding them of their core identity and being an image-bearer and the hope we have through Jesus.
So here's some keys to encouraging that I want to look at. The first one is support.
Support. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 says, "Therefore, encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing." We support one another. So encouragement includes this support, this standing alongside others.
When? When there's struggles. But it's not just standing alongside them when there's struggles. It's also standing alongside them when there's success and celebrations. It's supporting one another.
The second key to encouraging is inspiration. Hebrews 10:24-25 says, "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together as in the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near."
So encouragement should be inspiring. It stirs one another up. It includes pointing people towards God's promises, towards his purposes for their lives. It includes accountability. It includes mentoring one another. It means when someone is not here and we've seen that they're gone, if the seat is empty next to us, it means they're missed. And it means that we should check in on them.
The third key to encouraging is restoration. Proverbs 25:11 says, "A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver." Encouragement is restorative. It includes helping others kind of regain the strength they've lost, regain the courage they've lost, or a perspective when they feel weak or discouraged. We encourage them. We restore the courage within them.
It means using our words in a restorative manner, not a manner that tears down.
The fourth key to encouraging is empowerment. Ephesians 4:29 says, "Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear."
And so encouragement becomes empowering to others. It gives power. It calls out their gifts and their potential to others, to serve God, to serve others.
Encouragement kind of emphasizes community, mutual accountability, growth in holiness. It reminds us that we are not alone. And through the Spirit, we can strengthen one another to live lives that reflect being created in the image of God, for created being image bearers of God.
Kind of the second part to the Grace Church mission statement is our community. And so we're encouraging our community. Our community kind of consists of two parts.
First, there's this body, the people of Grace Church, the people who call Grace Church their home. People who call Grace Church their place to come and worship. I call this part the Grace Church family.
The Grace Church family. As part of the family, we all have a part to play too. When we're a part of Grace Church, we have a part to play. And we're a part of this body of believers.
1 Corinthians 12 talks about, Paul gives this imagery of the body, and it kind of relates that to the church. It has a whole body, and every part of the body has a purpose for the whole of the body. Every person in this church has a purpose for the whole church.
You see, just like our bodies are most effective when every part of the body is working together, working correctly, working alongside one another, our church is going to be more effective pointing toward Jesus when we all work together, united, as one body.
That doesn't mean that we're going to live in a world or even in this church where we agree on every little thing. It does not mean that we're going to agree at times on how we will get from point A to point B or how we're going to accomplish a certain task.
But it does mean that we're going to work together unified towards our purpose. We may not all agree on what color the carpet is, and that's okay. But when we work towards our purpose as a church, our one page as a church, our mission statement as a church, unified, that's the goal.
Jumping over to Acts chapter 1, we see it kind of starts in Jesus is kind of arisen from the grave, and he's currently with his disciples, and he's kind of preparing them for his ascension and the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Picking up in verse 6, he says this, and this kind of leads me to the next part, reading into the second part of our community.
So when they had come together, they asked him, "Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth."
So the second part of our community, when we talk about encouraging our community, is our extended family. It's our extended family.
Now this part of our community includes all the people in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria and the ends of the earth. It's the people in our other Nazarene churches. It's the people in other churches. It's other believers. It includes those who don't know Jesus.
It includes our friends in Judea. It includes our enemies that are in Samaria. It includes all the people of the world. So when we talk about our extended family, it includes everyone who shares with us being created in the image of God.
There's a secret to that. That's everybody. Every human on this earth is an image bearer of God. It's everyone. And that's whom we are called to be witnesses to.
That is our community. We're called to be witnesses in Jerusalem. Think Columbia, Judea, Murray County, Samaria, Tennessee, the rest of the world. We're called that they may become part of the body. We're called that they may become part of the community.
The next part to our mission statement is the word toward. Toward. But when we hear the word toward, what generally comes to mind is the direction of. We're approaching or moving toward a destination. To somewhere. Toward something.
Now that destination is not always a physical place. Romans 5:8 says this: "But God demonstrates his own love toward us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."
This shows God's grace. It shows his love. It shows his favor toward humanity. It's illustrating God's action of love directed at, toward us, toward humanity, despite our brokenness, despite our separation from him due to the fall, despite our, you know, I want to run from God.
He's still directing his grace and love toward humanity, toward us.
In Matthew 22, Jesus is asked, "What's the greatest commandment in the law?" And in verse 37, he says this: "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Now, this passage kind of reflects what our attitude should be toward God and toward others. We see God's, how his love is directed toward us, but there's a response.
This command reflects on this, the relational characteristic of being created in the image of God and our orientation toward God and toward others. Scripture goes on and on with plenty of aspects of this life where God is moving toward us and calling us toward him in a variety of ways.
He's calling us toward faithfulness, toward trust, toward commitment, toward relationship, toward obedience, and on and on.
And so when we hear the word toward, I want us to think about what we're chasing. What are we chasing?
In kind of the Wesleyan and Nazarene theology, grace working toward redemption kind of highlights God's prevenient grace that is drawing people toward himself, drawing people toward repentance, toward sanctification, drawing people to relationship with himself.
This emphasis, emphasizing of God's relationship of love towards humanity, this calling for love and obedience, it's a response that we have. It's calling for us to chase after, to point ourselves in the direction of, to chase living a life as we were intended, as in our core identity, as humanity is created in the image of God.
Which kind of leads us to the last part of our mission statement here at Grace Church. It's kind of what we are. It's the encouraging. It's the giving courage to. It's our commitment. It's our community, those that are both inside and outside of our church.
It's the toward. It's what we're chasing. Because whatever we're chasing, whatever we're moving toward, it's what's shaping our identity. Because it's who we are. It's who we're becoming. It's what we're chasing.
And whatever we're moving toward is shaping that. What we're chasing is who we are, who we're becoming. And what we're chasing in our mission statement is wholeness in Jesus.
But what is wholeness in Jesus? It refers to a life that's fully restored, fully healed, and made complete through Christ's redeeming work. It encompasses the spiritual, the emotional, the relational, even the physical aspects of life.
It's aligning with God's original intent for humanity. For us, wholeness is deeply connected to holiness. It's deeply connected to sanctification. It's deeply connected to love.
As believers are called to grow in the likeness of Christ, they will become more whole in Jesus. And when we talk about wholeness, it's inseparable from holiness.
To be made whole is to be set apart for God, to be transformed in love, and empowered by the Holy Spirit to live a Christ-like life. This wholeness, this holiness, it's an essential part of our walk with God.
Holiness isn't just a set of moral values or standards. It's a response to God's grace. It's an outpouring of our love back toward God. It's a life that is devoted wholly to God and to others.
As a community of believers, we can encourage one another toward wholeness in Jesus. And there's both personal holiness and kind of a social holiness, a corporate holiness. There's a lot that we can go into there, and we will throughout the year.
But there are all these aspects that are a part of wholeness in Jesus. Yes, we're seeking out our individual transformation, but also the healing and flourishing that comes from the community around us as well.
Wholeness in Jesus means living out into the abundant life that he offers. It's a life marked by love. It's a life marked by grace. It's a life marked by purpose.
But how do we move toward holiness? How do we move toward wholeness in Jesus? And how do we encourage our community toward wholeness in Jesus?
Number one, wholeness begins with Christ's invitation. Wholeness begins with Christ's invitation. It begins with Jesus' invitation to accept the gracious gift of salvation, to accept him as Lord and Savior.
Matthew 11:28-30 reads, "Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."
We have to start with the source of wholeness. The only one who can fully restore our core identity and being made in the image of God is Jesus.
He invites us to kind of lay down our burdens, to take up his yoke, a life of grace, a life of relationship and partnership with him. And then as a community, as the Grace Church family, we have to reflect this invitation by creating a community that welcomes others, accepting them in and kind of supporting them in their journey toward wholeness in Jesus.
We seek ways to kind of cultivate this atmosphere of where people can kind of encounter Christ, where they can encounter salvation, and rest and renewal and transformation in Christ. Where people can come to hear the call toward wholeness in Jesus. Where people can come to hear the call toward holiness.
Which leads me to the second: How do we encourage our community toward wholeness in Jesus?
Number two, we work to build a Christ-centered community. We work to build a Christ-centered community. And it's going to take work. It takes all of us living out our part, living out our calling, living out what God's purpose for our lives are.
It requires encouraging one another. Encouraging one another in what God has them called to. It means we live out our one page. We live out our one page. Our mission statement. Our core values. Our strategy. The measures. We live that out.
And it then begins to look a lot like Colossians 3:12-17, which says, "Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another. And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns, and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him."
This passage kind of begins to give us what holiness looks like and what a life pointed toward holiness and Jesus will look like. And these virtues we're called to live out: the compassion, the kindness, the forgiveness.
We start to see the lived-out identity in community, where people experience Jesus' love tangibly. Back to verse 14, it said, "And above all these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony."
Then we start to see the importance of coming together in communal worship. Verse 16, Paul calls us to teach and admonish one another with psalms and hymns and songs of the Spirit, anchoring our encouragement in worship and the word.
So we're working to create, to foster a community rooted in Christ-like love, unified in worship. Unified when we come together in worship.
Which leads to the third: How do we encourage our community toward wholeness in Jesus?
We encourage through unity and service. We encourage through unity and service. Philippians 2:1-4 says, "So if there's any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others."
We encourage others through unity, through service. Wholeness, holiness, it's not solitary. We grow in Christ-likeness as we engage in relationships with others.
As we come back to the reality of our createdness in the image of God and reflecting that core identity that reflects God's nature through relationships with God, through relationships with others, and through relationship with all of creation.
And so we encourage one another through unity and service, through humility, through empathy, through selflessness, and with a focus on the needs of one another.
Kind of wrapping that all up, I know that was a lot. Throughout this year, we're going to keep on this key theme of identity. As we continue, we're going to keep building upon that theme.
But what I want you to continue to remember is that our identity is who we are and who we're becoming. And that our identity gives us a task. It gives us a purpose.
Grace Church's identity is one whose task is to encourage our community toward wholeness in Jesus. That's our mission. That's our purpose.
And we've broken it down. It's encouraging. It's giving courage to one another. It's our community, both inside and outside the church. It's the toward. It's what we're chasing. And it's the wholeness in Jesus. It's holiness.
This journey toward wholeness is both individualistic. It's both personal and communal. We do it together.
Jesus calls us to be people who not only experience his rest and transformation but also who extend his love and encouragement to others. Grace Church has been a place that has been encouraging this community toward wholeness in Jesus for over 72 years. And it continues to be. It's continuing to grow. It's continuing to become more.
We encourage spiritual growth through discipleship, through small groups and Sunday school classes, Wednesday night Bible studies. We encourage our community, the Grace Church family, to engage our community, to engage the extended family in acts of love, in acts of unity and service.
This service is both within the church and outside of the church.
And so the question is, how can you this year encourage someone, encourage our community toward wholeness in Jesus?
I'm going to kind of end there, but I'm going to give you a couple of response opportunities, and we won't belabor this.
The first is out front in the foyer. Starting this week, we'd love for you to kind of just stop in at the foyer, and we're going to keep this up all month. So there's a wall out there. It's a whiteboard. It's got a little church drawn on it.
We want you to fill it with the names of people who have inspired you in your walk. So if there's someone, a mentor of yours, that inspired you in directing your life and helping your life toward wholeness, we want you to kind of write that on there.
There's some red, white, and pink hearts for you to kind of write those names on because it's February, so Valentine's, hearts, love, all kind of goes together. We want you to stick those on the wall.
Maybe you've got someone you're thinking about that you want to kind of help toward wholeness in Jesus. Write that name on there. Stick it on the wall.
The second response opportunity is on the back of the notes, note sheets. So there's a space for you to simply just write down what God is calling you to this year in regard to encouraging our community toward wholeness in Jesus.
Maybe it's just a name. Maybe it's just someone. Maybe it's serving somewhere inside the church. Maybe it's serving one of the wonderful organizations that serve this community. Maybe it's going on a mission trip.
You get to decide that. I'm not going to spend a lot of time on you writing that. You don't have to do that right this moment. But I want to encourage you to take it home. Pray over it. Spend some time with God this week, this month in prayer on, "God, how do you want to use me this year to encourage our community toward wholeness?"
It can simply be asking that question. But after you ask that question, listen. Listen to what God has for you.
Would you stand with me? Let's pray.
Lord, we thank you so much for your invitation to wholeness in you. Help us to be a community that encourages, supports, that loves like you do.
Lord, transform us that we might transform the world around us. Let us be your hands. Let us be your feet offering grace and hope to one another. Offering grace and hope and encouragement to our Grace Church family and to our extended family.
Help us remember that our core identity is found in you. That we are created in your image. That we are image bearers, Lord.
And Lord, help us to remember that our friends, our colleagues, even our enemies, Lord, are still created in your image and bear your image to some degree.
Lord, be with us as we go. In Jesus' name, Amen.
One last thing, church. I put it on the bottom of your note sheets, but I just want you to remember this: If we find our identity in God, we find our identity in what we so desperately desire to be who God created us to be.
You are dismissed. You are dismissed.
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on Feb 03, 2025
