Living on the Edge - Seeing our Real Selves

After my graduation from college, my first real job was as an assistant manager of a 3 screen movie theater in South Bend, IN. I enjoyed the job and honestly, I did pretty well, well enough that my district manager offered me jobs at larger theaters in the greater Chicago area, but at the time I knew I didn’t want to live in a large metropolitan area and I knew I didn’t want to move away from my family in South Bend, so I stayed put in that little theater, and eventually moved to a 6 screen theater across the street. I was content, but I knew that I wasn’t going to be a movie theater manager all my life. It was a good job and in so many ways that experience helped prepare me for what was to come later in my life because I learned a lot about business and management and working with the public, but during those years I just knew I wasn’t really a movie theater manager. God had created me for something else, but I didn’t know what. I was struggling to figure out who I was and I think that is one of the most fundamental questions we all ask ourselves in life, maybe many times in life. Who am I? We need to come to terms with our real identity if we are going to experience God’s best for us and live a life on the edge.


Now we answer this question in many different ways. We define ourselves by what we do: I’m a pastor, a manger, a teacher, a mechanic, student or a nurse, and at times we define ourselves by what we don’t do: I’m retired, I used to be a teacher, manager or nurse. We also define ourselves by the relationships in our lives: I’m a mother or father; I’m a sister or brother, an aunt or uncle, and we define ourselves by our gifts, interests and abilities; I’m a runner, a musician, an artist, or a gardener. We define ourselves in so many different ways and yet I don’t believe we will ever discover who we really are until we begin to define ourselves and see ourselves the way that God does.

Now you might think this question should have been addressed the first week of our series, but there is a reason we are talking about it today. We will never discover our real identity until we are first willing to surrender to God and then be willing to separate ourselves from the world so that we can hear the voice of God. Paul lays out a journey for us in Romans 12 and surrendering to God and ordering our life in such a way that we are able to hear God’s voice of are the steps that will help us discover our real selves because who God created us to be is not be defined by the world and the people around us, it is not determined by our family and friends, it is not even defined by ourselves. For us to experience God’s best and discover who we really are, we need to be defined by God which is why Paul says to us in Romans 12:3 that we need to think of ourselves with sober judgment. Now sober judgment doesn’t mean we are critical and harsh with ourselves, it means we need a clear heart and mind; we need a mind separated from the messages of the world and a heart fully surrendered to God.

One of the reasons it is so important to have a clear heart and mind is because the world wants us see ourselves in one of two ways – either better than we really are or much, much worse. If we go back to the creation story, we see that the temptation that the serpent used to cloud Adam and Eve’s mind was to get them to think of themselves more highly than they ought. The serpent, who remember is Satan, told Adam and Eve that they could be like God. He appealed to their pride and ego and got them thinking more highly of themselves and that voice is still alive and well today.

There are all kinds of voices telling us that we are OK on our own and that we don’t need anyone or anything in order to have a great life, but the truth is that we all have weaknesses and we all need help and support from others. If we want an accurate view of ourselves we need a dose of humility. We can’t think more highly of ourselves than we ought to, but we also can’t put ourselves down. Humility does not mean thinking less of ourselves; it means thinking honestly about ourselves. We can’t allow our humility to turn into humiliation which means we can’t allow all the negative messages of the world to define who we are and this might actually be a bigger problem for us than pride.

Studies have shown that we are actually wired to receive bad messages more than good ones and my guess is that if we reflect on our own lives we would agree that this is true. We remember and pay attention to all the bad stuff that happens in our lives more than we do the good. We listen to the bad comments more closely, remember them longer and weigh them more heavily in assessing situations including what we think about ourselves and this all works to shape how we define who we are.

I don’t know about you, but I can still hear the name calling of the kids on the bus and the playground who called me fat and still remember what it feels like to be picked me last in gym class every time. Those negative words and actions shape us and define how we see ourselves. We may have been told 1000 times that we are valuable and wonderful and uniquely made, but it is the one critical remark that we remember, hold on to and use to determine our value and self identity. So seeing ourselves with a clear mind doesn’t just mean looking at ourselves with humility, it also means looking at ourselves to see the intrinsic value and worth that God has placed in us all.

Paul gives us a hint of this in Romans 12:3 when he talks about the grace and the faith that has been given to us. Why does God give us grace and faith in the first place? Isn’t it because we are valuable to him and he wants us to see ourselves for who we really? Isn’t it God’s grace and faith which help us see ourselves as deeply loved children born from his heart and mind? God gives us grace and faith so we can begin to identify ourselves as his children. Do you know that there are only 2 times when God speaks clearly in the gospels, and do you know what he says? In each instance God is talking to Jesus and he says to him, “you are my beloved son and with you I am well pleased.” Think about it – even Jesus needed to hear from God who he really was. Even Jesus needed that sense of love, affirmation and assurance that he was a child, the child, of God.

Now what’s really interesting about those two moments of God speaking to Jesus are when they occurred. The first was at Jesus baptism as he is coming up from the waters of the Jordan River, and the second was on the Mt. of Transfiguration when Jesus’ physical presence is transfigured into all the glory and power of God. So the first time God gives definition to who Jesus really is comes after Jesus has surrendered himself fully to God in baptism. Surrender is a necessary first step in order for us to hear God define our lives. The second time is on the top of a mountain when Jesus, Peter, James and John have gone off by themselves – they have separated themselves from all the noise of the world and the chaos of crowds in order to hear the voice of God. So surrender and separating ourselves from the world are the essential steps we need to take if we are going to hear God’s voice revealing to us our real identity. I just love how God’s word only fits together and gives witness to these deep truths of God.

So seeing our real identity requires clear thinking so we can honestly confront our pride, sin and failures but also see who we are as deeply valued and unconditionally loved children of God and if we are children then part of our identity is that we belong to a family. What’s important about this is that we need to understand that experiencing God’s best for us doesn’t take place in isolation because we were created to belong. We were all created with a strong need to belong and that is because we were created to be in relationship – both with God and others – and belonging is really all about relationship.

From the time we are little we want to know that we belong to someone and something. We need to be part of a family, we want to have friends and be part of team. We want to know that our lives matter to someone and that we are noticed. We see the evidence of this strong need to belong so clearly in children and youth in a negative way as they give in to peer pressure and do things they might never do on their own just to fit in. But the need to belong is just as strong in adults as well.

We join clubs and seek out small groups and want to be part of teams because we have this need to belong and around here we see this desire to belong lived out on a very large scale every Saturday there is a home PSU game. 100,000+ people will all get together and wear the same 2 colors because they want to belong to something big and exciting called Penn State Football. We have a need to belong and what God is saying is that we have a place to belong that is not only big and exciting but it is life giving and transforming and when we see that we belong to the body of Christ - the church – we begin to experience real life. Romans 12:4-5.

So we are members of one another which not only means that we are connected to one another, but it means we have a responsibility to one another. We need to start thinking about church not as a place where we come to get our needs met – that is the consumer mind set of the world that we need to separate ourselves from –but as a place where we are willing to give and receive. While there is a lot that we can receive from one another in the church - acceptance, grace, support, help and encouragement, we also have a lot to give and when we start to connect with one another by giving and receiving we begin to see how we belong and that helps us understand who we are as God’s children. We will look at this more next week as we talk about serving in love in the context of an authentic community, but for now it is important for us to see that part of discovering our real identity and experiencing a life on the edge is seeing ourselves as a vital part of God’s family.

So we are children of God who belong to God’s family, but God also has a purpose for us and God gives us the gifts we need to live out that purpose, that what we see in the rest of Romans 12:6-9. The first thing to notice here is that we all have a gift. Paul doesn’t say you might have a gift or God might have a plan for you – it says, we have gifts - period. We each have a gift and living on the edge will come when we identify that gift and begin using it for God’s purpose. The other thing to notice is that there are different gifts. We are not all gifted the same way so we can’t look at others to define what gift God has given to us – we have to look to God, which again is why surrender and separating ourselves from the world in order to hear God’s voice is so important.

So let’s look at these 7 gifts for a moment. There is:

Prophecy – which is speaking God’s truth to a situation.

Serving – which literally means waiting on tables, so it is a practical service that meets people’s needs.

Teaching – which is helping people understand who God is and how God works in our lives and in this world.

Exhorting which is encouraging others and lifting them up. It is inspiring people to be more than they thought they could be and all God created them to be.

Giving – which means giving our time and talents and resources in ways that will better people’s lives and our world.

Leadership - which is moving people from one place to a better place

Compassion – which is reaching out to care for people in times of need.

Now do you notice something about all these gifts? They all focus on others - not us. When we use these gifts we are helping those around us experience more in life and that’s the work which will bring a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in life because that is the work of God. Look at the cross for a moment, the work of Jesus on the cross was never about himself. Jesus himself gained nothing by carrying the cross - in fact he died on the cross, Jesus gained nothing and yet we gained everything. When Jesus says that we will find life when we lay down our lives and take up a cross he is saying that we will experience real meaning and purpose in life and God’s best in our lives when we seek to gain nothing for ourselves but give others everything as we use the gifts God has given us. In many ways experiencing life on the edge comes when we take all that God has given us and use it for the care and well being of others, and what Paul is saying here is that when we live this way, we find our real selves.

I want to invite you to use the next steps in the bulletin this week to help you identify the real you. These steps can help us see ourselves the way God does, they can help us discover and use the gifts God has given us and therefore continue to help us experience living life on the edge.