Your Identity as A Son of God

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Do you know who you are? It sounds like a strange question at first, but I have conversations with people every day who are still confused about their spiritual identity… that’s why I teach so often on this very subject, because there are a great number of people in the church who still suffer from some sort of spiritual identity crisis. Not seeing who they are in Christ, but still identifying with their old nature. The part of them that is dead, they still see as alive, and they have bought into this lie that their still trying to become the new creation in Christ and they get stuck trying to fight a battle that is already won by Jesus Christ Himself.

God, of-course doesn’t want you to fall into this trap. He wants you to fully embrace the identity which He has given you. He wants you to walk in this identity every single moment of every day… It’s why He continually moves me to teach on this. I have been on a tangent for years now, because God’s heart is so strong for this, because so many of His children have bought into this lie that they are less than what they actually are in Him. So today we will be examining your identity in Christ Jesus – and even if you have been here for our previous studies on this subject, this will still be a good refresher for you, because faith comes by continually hearing, not just having heard one time.

Our first scripture today is going to be 2^nd Peter 1:1-4:

“Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Savior Jesus Christ:

Grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord,

According as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue:

Whereby are given to us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

And I want you to notice right in verse 1, that this is Peter speaking. Peter who identifies himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ. Peter has been entrusted to carry a message, entrusted by Jesus Himself. And Peter here is addressing those who have obtained like precious faith… You see, we do not have a “lesser faith” than that of the original apostles of Jesus, we have the same faith. And it is precious. And if you remember our earlier study on faith, faith is information of God; and this is precious information of God that comes through the righteousness of our Savior Jesus Christ, who also happens to be God.

Now Peter, this apostle, this messenger sent directly by Jesus Christ… who has this amazing message… what is the very first thing that he communicates by the Spirit of God? Grace and Peace. And I can’t convey enough, the importance of this fact… Peter was addressing those who have already obtained like precious faith. These people received already… yet Peter by the Spirit, communicates that Grace and Peace be multiplied upon them, and it is multiplied by a very specific manner. Through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus Christ our Lord. And he’s not referring to two separate people here by the way… he’s just re-enforcing the point that Jesus Christ (The Anointed Savior) is indeed God.

Grace and Peace, can be multiplied in your life, and it happens through the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Catch this point now… it’s not just knowledge. Not just knowledge about God or about the Bible; but this is specifically knowledge of Jesus Christ. That is knowledge that comes from Jesus and pertains to who He is, what He has done, and our identity in Him since He has finished the work of His atoning sacrifice.

Now why is this important? Why does this knowledge matter? Why does this specific knowledge about Jesus Christ multiply Grace and Peace? Because when man disobeyed God, and ate from the wrong tree in the Garden of Eden, he lost something, and he lost something huge. God told Adam in Genesis 2:17 that the day he ate of that tree, he would surely die. Now of-course we know that Adam continued to live for many years after he ate of that tree, but God wasn’t primarily speaking of Adam’s physical presence, but rather his spiritual identity. It was Adam’s spirit that died, his true self, that had communion with God… that is what died instantly in the garden, and the rest of Adam died slowly as a result of that. He lost his true spiritual identity, and took on the identity of someone who was an enemy of God… that’s why Adam and Eve really ran and hid and tried to cover themselves… it wasn’t like God never saw them naked before, that was how God created them to begin with.

Adam and Eve’s perspective of God and of themselves became mangled and marred and twisted… so that they could no longer see their true nature or self any more, and they couldn’t see the true nature of God any longer either… otherwise they would’ve seen that there was never any need or reason to run and hide (as if they could hide from God anyway).

This is one of the reasons why Jesus had to be beaten so very severely, during His suffering. I know many people have seen the Passion of the Christ movie, and some people have made the comment that the movie was too brutal and too violent, but really, it was not violent enough, because the scripture records in Isaiah 52:14 that Jesus was marred more than any man. When they were finished beating Him, Jesus was so disfigured that He was unrecognizable. And the reason for that was because when we lost our spiritual identity because of sin, we were also unrecognizable. We looked nothing like what we were originally created as.

And many people, including those in church who take the name of Christ, are still living in that place as well. They still see themselves as marred, mangled, disfigured and dirty, they aren’t living in their new identity as new creations in Christ Jesus, they are still reckoning the old self as alive, instead of reckoning it dead as Romans 6:11 says.

There are a lot of people still striving to attain something that Christ already attained and gives to us as a free gift. Look at verses 3 and 4 of 2^nd Peter 1:

“According as his divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that has called us to glory and virtue:

Whereby are given to us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”

And a big thing to take notice of here is that His divine power has given. That is not future tense, it is past tense. Already given. And it is not something you strive for, work for, pay for, or earn… it is given as a gift. His divine power has given it. Therefore you can be certain of it. His divine power can never fail to deliver. His divine power can’t get lost on the way. I was tracking a package being sent through the mail once… and the tracking info said: “Delivery Exception, Mis-Sent”, which meant the package was routed to the wrong place and was headed in the wrong direction and would be delayed and maybe lost.

But let me tell you, when God’s divine power has given you something, there is no delivery exception… it can never be mis-sent. And what is this that He has given? All things that pertain both to life and godliness. Wrap your brain around that if you can. Not just some things, not merely half-things, but all things. I didn’t make this up, I didn’t wrote the book of second Peter. I’m just reading the word of God.

Again, this comes through the knowledge of Him… this is very different than the knowledge of good and evil that Adam and Eve took from in the garden of Eden. God never wanted us to eat from that tree. He would’ve much rather us have eaten from the tree of Life. And here’s our chance, look at verse 4:

Whereby, are given to us (again, past-tense and free) exceeding great and precious promises... These are all of the promises of God in Christ, telling you who you are and what you have in Him… These are the things that we study so often here each week. Why do we do that? Why did God give them to us in the first place? …that by these, you might be partakers of the divine nature,having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. That is the purpose. This is what Jesus came to do, and this is what He accomplished for you.

He didn’t come just so that you could pray a prayer to go to heaven one day. He came to restore you back to Himself, so that you could once again have your created value and created nature restored; to be a partaker of His nature, and all of the glory and virtue included in that. We need to own this, because it is what Jesus gave to us. We need to start living from this place. We are not “working towards this”, we start here! And we end here as well. He did the work! Our only job is to believe on Him. To believe what He did. The only process is for us to finally open our eyes to the truth and see that there is no process!

When Jesus hung on that cross and cried that it was finished, the debt was paid, the work was accomplished… do you really believe that He meant what He said? I believe that He totally meant it.

But we still get tripped up, and works driven and we think we need to do extra work on top of what He did, because we’ve been preached at in that way, and we may even read the next few verses where it says “add to your faith” and we think that means we need to add to what Jesus did. But no… if you remember that faith is information, you realize that it is telling you to “add to your information regarding the fullness of what Christ did” realize that He has indeed given you everything that pertains to life and godliness as verse 3 says, and that He has given you all of the things listed; His Spirit produces the fruit in you, not you yourself. And notice, that you have already escaped the corruption of that world, you are not trying to escape it, striving to escape it or waiting to escape it. You have escaped, because of the completed work of Jesus Christ. That’s god news!

That’s why verse 9 says, that whoever is lacking these things is blind, and has forgotten that he was cleansed. Because anyone who is steadfast in the knowledge of Jesus and knows His identity in Christ, will produce good fruit, because Jesus said in Matthew 7:18, that a good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Listen, it’s not really about the fruit, it’s about the tree! Many of us are so focused on the fruit, we’ve completely missed the point of what Jesus is saying! The fruit is not the issue, it’s whether the tree is good or bad! It’s your identity! Either you are in Christ or not! And if you are, the fruit will be good automatically! And news flash, it happens by His Spirit inside of you, not you yourself… that’s why they are called “fruit of the Spirit” and not “fruit of your efforts”.

This is your identity… not to just pray a prayer to go to heaven one day, but to receive Christ back into you, and have His Spirit indwell you, and for you to again take on your created value as a beloved son in the kingdom and family of God. Romans 8:15:

“For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”

That is your identity, that is the Spirit you received. God, is your Father. And you are His beloved son. Please see the intimacy in that. You are not a dirty, rotten sinner anymore in God’s eyes. Jesus took care of that. You are a partaker of His divine nature. That is not a nature of filth. That is a nature of ultimate sanctification.

I encourage you today, live in that truth every moment. Own your true identity of being a new creation in Christ. The old is gone, and you are to reckon your old self dead, and your new self alive. This is your identity as a son of God.