How The Biggest Tests Can Shape Your Identity | Crossroads Church

So are you ready? All right, I'm ready. I'm going to talk in a little bit about my journey over the last 10 weeks, what's been happening. But no, I'm only going to do that because I think these are transferable principles to what God is doing in our church and you. And if you're a first day today, hey, for one day anyway, you're part of our church. So welcome to Crossroads. So let's let's pray before I get into stuff I think God has for us today. God, I'm thankful to be with these great people, great friends, great brothers, great sisters, great ministry partners, great all of the above. I'm asking that you would visit us by your spirit in a special and profound way today. You would give me the right words to meet these right people at the right time. And you would bring us to a new place as individuals and as a church. And I pray these things according to the character and identity of Jesus. Amen. Well, arguably the most respected pastor, at least of my lifetime, is a guy who is an author of many, many books and founded a great church in New York City. His name is Tim Keller. Fantastic guy. He died a few years ago. I had the opportunity to spend time with Tim on a couple of different occasions. He and his wife, Kathy, are just really, really brilliant. Tim believed, and he was working on a book that he never got finished. I'm hoping his wife picks it up and finishes it, that he believed that the modern day apologetic was identity. Now, let me explain what that is. Apologetic means a way that you engage people with something you believe. That's what apologetic is. And the way you engage people with the gospel through the ages has been different. The gospel never changes. That God's identity becomes your identity. That Jesus' perfect life becomes your perfect life when God looks at you. That Jesus' empowerment becomes your empowerment because you possess the Holy Spirit. That's the gospel.

That is good news. Any point you can say, yes, I like that. At any point today, you can do that. But the way that certain cultures receive the gospel changes based on cultural conditions. So when I first came to know Christ, way back when, it was about facts and figures. It was the belief that the Christian faith was grounded by something. You could trust the Bible. You could trust that Jesus rose from the dead. There were books like Evidence That Demands a Verdict that was kind of down that pipe. And then it transitioned into somewhere in the 2000s, it transitioned to compassion ministries. That when people see how much we love, they will be able to receive what we say. That's when we as a church started getting really serious about blessing our communities. It wasn't just because the Bible says we should love our neighbors as ourselves. We were just driven towards that. We also recognize at the same time by doing that in all of our communities, which is why all the thousands of people served at your locations this weekend. That's fantastic. Way to go. Just fantastic. It's the people go, oh, wow, you people love. It's the modern day apologetic. Okay. Okay. I have a friend of mine. Name is Chris. He's a, yeah, he agrees. He's a gay activist. And Chris doesn't come to Crossroads, but he loves our church. He loves our church, except we talk about sex and he hates it. But I talked to him about it.

I said, what is it? What do you like? He said, 99% of Crossroads I love. And what he's talking about is your people, that's about loving people. Your people, it's about blessing people. And it makes him open to the gospel because that's something to him. Now, those things are still true for all of us, maybe. I like the facts and figures, the stability of the faith. I like the love and compassion. But Tim believed that the modern language was identity. Who are you in discovering who you are in Christ? Identity is everything today. That's why we talk about my truth. My truth, like my identity. We have identity politics that's all about saying who I am and me being as although at Crossroads, this is, we knew that the run journey was going to be a massive hit because it was a way for you to understand your identity. We didn't use those words, but you're loving that. Ooh, my race. What's my race? What's my race? It's about me. What do I do in my race? We would do things like in the past, a thrive line to map out your life. And people get so fixated about that. You're like, ah, Bible, Bible schmeible. Let me think about me. Let me think about all who I am and all that stuff. And so Tim believed that speaking the language of identity was the modern day, most efficient apologetics.

2 Corinthians 5.17 says this. I don't believe that Jesus believes in identity politics, but I do know He believes in identity spirituality. And what that means is we come to Jesus. Jesus, the gospel, the good news is this. We come to Jesus not to get a little extra power to be more moral. We don't come to Jesus so that we can overcome and make up for our problems on Saturday night. We come to Jesus because we want a new identity. The old self, the old problems, the old hang ups, the old pains, the old things that define us, they're dying. They're dead. And we become a new creation. We become Jesus. God looks at us and He sees Jesus. That's identity spiritually. Isn't that attractive? Isn't that good that you could be a new person? That's amazing. And God sees you that way. I was, I got a new identity at birth. I was born at a very early age and then I was adopted. My birth mother gave me up for adoption and I became a tome at birth. I had that old identity for a moment and then I had the new identity at home. I struggle. I just got to tell you, I really struggle. I'm glad that I was not adopted in 2026. Because the new cool thing to do now with adoption is if you get adopted in a new family, keep tabs on and keep in communication with the birth mother. That would've been horrible for me. Just be horrible for me. Because when my parents disciplined me or I was having a hard time,

if I was able to say, well, yeah, but if Mother Susan was with me, I would get this. Yeah, but my parents are saying that. But if I was over here, if I would be having two identities and split away, it would've been too much for me. I could not have handled it. I am a tome. I got adopted into the tome family. That's my identity, period. Which is why Jesus says that we get adopted into the family of God. Romans 8, 15 says this. Meaning spiritually, you get adopted into the family of God. And there's a new love. There's a new acceptance for you, a higher level of love, a higher level empowerment. You get a new identity. And the problem is, many of us want the old identity. We want the old thing because we understand it. We realize what it is. Our names tell us something about our identity. I'm a tome. It tells us about my identity. I like nicknames. I give nicknames out a lot. Nicknames are very important to me. Partially because I just like to laugh and chuckle. And that's why I give nicknames. And it also helps me remember names, all that stuff. So community pastors, of course, are really important to me. We run down through their nicknames really, really fast. Let's go farther north. We got Vicki Diller.

She is early. I can't give you this. I can't tell you all these, why these nicknames are, but I like them. Early. Come a little further south. We go to Dayton. We have Matt Castleman. If you know him, he's Captain Enthusiasm. He's always enthusiastic. Keep coming down. We got Tim Senefit at Mason. Tiny Tim or Teeny. He loves that one. He just, he just, he eats it up. Keep coming in towards the center of the city. We got Brody at Uptown. Brody Bunch, of course. He's Brody Bunch. You go out west and you got Steve Tilling, who's got the most perfect hair. He's Brill Cream. You go out east, go out east and you've got my daughter, I've known forever. And I just had a nickname I gave her when she was a little girl with a little bum, bumbles. That's who she is. And then you got myself, or we got, right here we have, we have Greg McElfris, who I know is Cheese. You go down to Florence and we got Vicki Diller. She's not Vicki Diller. Caroline Draper, who is Sweet Caroline. If you know her, she's just Sweet Caroline, right?

And then you go down to Lexington. We got my friend John Gillespie, also previously known as Johnny G. And now he got a new nickname a while ago because I went on a motorcycle trip with him. And it was so frustrating because he rode that bike like there was a perpetual school zone. It was so slow. It was horrible. So he is Johnny G Elementary. That's what he is. Now, oh, of course, can't forget Andy Ryder, who's our online community pastor, who's just Candy Schneider. But all of these things, they don't mean anything. It's just fun for me. It's fun for me. But Jesus gave nicknames all the time and His nicknames were tied to identity. James and John are known as the Sons of Thunder. He called them Sons of Thunder. He saw them like, you're blustery people, Sons of Thunder. His closest friend, or at least one of his three closest friends, was Peter. And Peter was known actually initially as Simon. That was his old identity was Simon. And one day, Jesus asked a question, who do people say that I am? And everyone's going, well, no one wants to put their neck out. They're going, well, some people say this. Some people say that. And then he says, well, forget about other people. How about you? Who do you say I am? And Peter's the only one who says something. He says, I say you're the Christ. And Jesus says, bam, that's exactly right. In fact, that's a foundational statement you've made.

And so from now on, your name is going to be Petra, which is rock. You are rock because you just made a foundational statement and you're going to be a foundation stone for the future of what I'm going to do. It's a pretty awesome name, right? Jesus calls you rock. It's phenomenal. Jesus is giving him a new identity. And now he's going to call him by his old identity. And something I'm going to let you know just about right name right now. See, the problem with my identities or my nicknames is they're light, hard and fun. But Jesus' identities go to the core. They do. Luke 22, verse 31. And we're going to get into the meat of what we're looking at today. Luke 22. This is at the last supper, which is the last supper Jesus has with the disciples before he's arrested, tried and crucified. And they're kind of, the disciples are positioning, trying to get close to Jesus. They're saying big things. And Peter's saying stuff like, I'll never, I'll never deny you, saying that kind of stuff. And Peter has, gets some words from Jesus. Here's what Jesus says, verse 31. That you will have faith and not fail. And when you have turned, you will strengthen the brothers. I've met God profoundly in the last 10 days. I want to share with you the story of the most significant and clear thing God has ever told me. It's based on this, it's based on this passage. And it's about the identity, what that is. Jesus calls Peter by his old name, his old identity. Let's look at it right here. Here's the name, Simon, Simon.

This is the old name, the old identity. When Jesus gives him the name Peter, I will call you Peter. And upon this rock, I will build my church. He never calls him Simon again until this moment right here. At least it's never recorded. That's significant. We'll get in a moment. The second name, the second name that's a very significant name, which is actually not a name, but you may think it's a name, is Satan. Satan is not a name. We think it's a, it's become a name, but the evil one goes by a lot of monikers. Evil one, Lucifer, devil, Satan, angel of light, all these things. This is the dominant one, Satan. Like you say Satan, you're like, hmm, it's kind of oogly boogly, right? Satan. But it's really not, this is not a name. It's not like Fred or Jose. In the Hebrew, this is three letters and they construct the word accuser or adversary. Accuser or adversary. This is what the evil one does. He accuses you and I. He comes against us. And what is the most potent thing that he can do to accuse us? Tap into our old identity. That's why Jesus says, I believe, Simon, Simon. He's tapping into his old identity. Now, if I, I mentioned all my nicknames I had for folks. If I went to somebody, one of them, I said, Hey, hey, hey, Vicki. She would go. If I said, Tim, can we talk?

You go. It's like, ooh, it's like, ooh, in terms of our relationship, like that's the old identity. Your parents call you Susie and someday they call you Susan. You go. You know, my parents would say it'd be Brian Douglas Tome. You know, like they're like now they're talking identity, right? It's something different that we have. It's when Jesus says to Peter, Simon, Simon, which is always high intensity, industrial strength. Repeat the name twice. Other times we'll say Martha, Martha, old school, old school Bible translation. We'll say things like verily, verily. I say to you like, this is, this is serious. Simon, Simon. Satan demands to have you and sift you like wheat. But I have prayed that you will be faithful. Last 10 weeks have been the hardest 10 weeks of my life. We've never been a harder 10 weeks than I've been through in the last 10 weeks. I'm going to share this because. I think a piece of my story is what God wants you to know what's happening maybe in your life. It may have been happening for a long time. It's been a hard 10 weeks. Now, it's also, I'm not saying, you know, cry me a river because it hasn't been that bad. A lot of you have way, way bigger problems than I've had the last 10 weeks in your life. In fact, maybe the reason why it's been such a hard 10 weeks is I've had a relatively charmed life relative to the last 10 weeks. I don't know. All I know is it's been horrible, excruciating, painful.

And I did it to myself, OK? And if you put all my problems out on the table and everybody else's problems on the table, I'll take my problems. I'm not saying my life is worth anybody's. But I'm only talking about it as far as it might be able to actually help you. When you're in pain, when you're suffering, what happens is we go inward and we start thinking about ourselves more. We start thinking about our condition. And the more you think about yourself, the more depressed you get. The more you just start spiraling internal. And so I know the Bible says pray without ceasing, but I'm just not going to be on my knees praying for 24 hours a day. It says being in a constant awareness of God's presence and talking with Him. So while I am interacting with God a lot over the last, you know, many weeks, I'm trying to find ways to just distract myself. Like I got to think of things other than my life. I got to think of things other than what's going off the rails. One of the things I would do is I have a project vehicle I've had for a while. I've kind of taken an overdrive. It's a 1952 Dodge Power Wagon. And this thing was really in disrepair, hadn't driven for decades. So I would put it back together. And so I've been spending time with it because I can think about that instead of other things. And I got a friend of mine who's come over and helped me a lot. His name is Jeffy. I know it's a very unimaginative nickname.

I got another one for him, but I really can't talk about it right now. So Jeffy would come over and he knew exactly what he was doing. He's with a good friend of his and he's just trying to be with me, so I'm not alone. So good. So good. He's just, you know, he's just trying to help out. And we're over and one time, one day we're talking about something and I'm laughing about this thing. We're both laughing. As I'm laughing, it occurs to me, I know exactly what I'm doing. I'm trying to distract myself from the pain working on a stupid truck. And now I'm laughing and I'm telling myself, keep laughing longer because laughter feels better than anything. Keep laughing. And as I sink my mind, I go, I start crying. It's ridiculous. So it's not ridiculous, but it's just where I was. That day was a very, very hard day. Later on in that day, I got another piece of hard news. There's just a lot of things that had to be taken away for a season or forever, appropriately. Like there was a, we had a celebration. I don't know if you recognize it or not, but March 24th came and went. On March 24th, Crossroads was 30 years old. Yeah, it's pretty awesome. 30 years old. One of the things that we're going to do, I was looking forward to, is we said, let's find out who was a part of Crossroads in 1996 and who is in 2026. And the easiest way to figure that out is on the giving records. Who gave in 1996 and who gave in 2026?

That was 240 people have been a part of our church for 30 years. Seriously, give them a hand. That's unbelievable. Talk about faithfulness. So I was excited about it. We're going to take those 240 people and they were going to get a bunch of youngsters. 240 people in the first 30 years and a bunch of youngsters who were going to be envisioned in the next 30 years, right? I was looking forward to it because I, during my 60th birthday party, when I was going to have a 60th birthday party, but it got canceled because Liv was in chemo and things just wasn't right to make those decisions. So that got canceled. I was going to be fine. But I was going to have people come, big party, just to encourage me to be faithful my final 10 years. The 30th birthday celebration wasn't going to be about me, but I was going to still sort of get some of that same, like, let's get ready, let's get fired up. And I was surprised that it had been postponed. It got postponed. It was the right decision. I look back at it, but in the moment, it really, really, it really threw me for a loop. I was like, oh man, another, another, another hit here. When I'm restoring a vehicle, I get greasy, grimy, sweaty, all that stuff. So I went up to take a shower. I'm in the shower and I am just, I'm just lower than a footprint. And I say to God in the shower, I go, God, I feel like I'm Job. And as soon as I said it, I immediately retracted it. I said, I'm sorry, God. I'm sorry. I'm not Job.

My wife hasn't died. My. Kids haven't died. I haven't lost all my money. I don't have boils and zits and I'm scraping them off with shards of pottery. No, I'm sorry. I'm not Job." And then I heard it. The clearest thing I've ever heard from God in 45 years. Cut through everything. He said to me, he said, you're being sifted. When he said that, it was an immediate light change moment for me, unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Simultaneously, a screen dropped away from my face and binoculars came up to my face. Crystal clarity, like there was bright colors I hadn't even noticed before. I'm noticing moisture on the ceramic tile I'd never, I hadn't noticed before. It was like I had x-ray vision. It was crazy. I knew God spoke to me, but I didn't really know what was going on because that word, you're being sifted, I knew exactly where it was coming from. It was coming from this passage we're looking at today. But I'd never done a deep dive on it. I had read it in my normal Bible reading plan for many, many, many times, but I'd never done a real deep dive on it. I'd never preached on it. Today's the first time. I wasn't planning on giving a sermon about it. But after I heard God say that in the shower, after Lebanon I ate,

I spent that night going, what, what does this mean? What does this mean, I'm being sifted? And so this passage here, when Jesus says, Simon, Simon, Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat. He's talking about his old identity. When Satan comes at you, his most effective play is your old identity. That's how your buttons get pushed. The person you've always thought yourself to be, the person that you are proud of being, the person you were in the first half of your life, the person that you're comfortable with, the person that is your truth that you defend, the person, the old creation, the old creation. That's his most effective. That's his most effective thing to do is come against that. And so Jesus is saying, Simon, Simon, your old identity, he's coming, he's assaulting you. Here's another one that's really strange to me in this verse. I don't understand this, but it is what it is. He's demanded to have you. Demanded to have. I still don't understand. There's a lot of things in the Bible I don't understand. What do you mean demanded? Like demanded and God said, oh, OK, you demanded, here you go. Demanded just got intensive. Demanded and God agrees, fine, you can go mess with the guy. I don't know. All I know is Satan is adamant here, like, I want this person. You need to know.

Satan wants you. I mean, he doesn't really want you because he wants to be in a relationship with you. He wants you so God can't have you. He wants you so that the love God has gets trampled or at least people think it's gotten trampled. He wants you on his team, not on God's team. And he knows the easiest way to do that is go to your base level team, which is your old identity. My old identity is that I am an orphan. And orphans feel like we're alone and we are abandoned. Orphans feel like we are in an orphanage and we have got to fight for our porridge. Orphans feel like they are forgotten. Orphans feel like they're not worthy. Orphans feeling like they only go forward if they're successful or if they keep doing better. And when I read this, I said, oh, my goodness, Satan is running the perfect play against me. Perfect. I, my base identity, my old identity is I am an orphan. I'm not an orphan because I'm adopted in the family of God, but I've got that old identity. This is perfect for him. That's a perfect, perfect play for him. Satan has demanded to sift you like wheat. Here's how this works. Back when human beings used to grow things, wheat would grow. And that was the core fundamental staple was wheat. I know it really bums some of you out. You're glucose and glucose intolerant? Gluten, gluten, gluten intolerant. Sorry, gluten. Yeah, you would have died in the first century. You're dead.

Sorry, you're dead. You're like, you're weak. You're done. You're dead. Actually, no, not true. We have weird, scientifically enhanced wheat here in our country and it messes many people up. And actually, if you ever go over to Germany, they don't have that. You would love bread and you're missing a lot. It's fantastic. But anyway, back in the old days, back in the old days before we had hormones and everything else jacking up our food supply, they would go out and they'd bring in all the wheat, which is the core fundamental food staple. For all humans, for all of history, it's been this. They bring it in and the wheat, all you're looking at is get a little kernel of wheat, but around it, there's a casing that's known as the chaff. And so they bring it in basically like this. They put it on what's known as a threshing table and they take a fork, pitchfork is one thing they do. They take it and they beat it. They beat it. And they say, Stick it and they throw it in the air. And then the wind comes and blows the lighter chaff away and the heavier wheat comes down and then beats it and sticks it, throws it up over and over again. I realize that, God, that's exactly what's happening to me. I am just getting stuck and beat on and thrown up in the air and stuck. I mean, I feel that way. People aren't intensely doing that to me, but this is the way I feel. It's the perfect, perfect play. When we don't understand that there is an evil entity is doing that to you, you're going to have, you're going to not, you're not going to make sense of your life. Andrew Delbanco, a number of years ago, he's a professor at Columbia University,

definitely not a believer. I don't think he even believes in God. But he wrote a book called The Death of Satan, where he was lamenting that as our culture has become more enlightened, he's lamenting this, we've become more enlightened, ideas like Satan just aren't tasteful to us anymore. They sound ridiculous. We've kind of gotten rid of Satan. It's the death of Satan. And his thing is, therefore, we've lost an understanding of evil. We don't understand how to categorize evil because we've killed evil as a concept. If we just educate everybody, everyone will be nice and happy. So when there's a mass school shooting, when someone has put Satan to death, they think they have, he doesn't exist. Oh, my gosh, what happens? Oh, this is horrible. How could this happen? The rest of us go, I mean, how could this happen? John 10, 10 says the thief, Satan, this is Jesus, comes to steal, kill and destroy. Why do we keep being surprised by this? Why are you surprised by this? That's weird. You fight against it, work against it. But like, I know exactly why evil exists. I know exactly why pain is. His name is Satan. He's the destroyer. It's what he does. And Daniel Delbanco was saying we can't cope with the problems in our culture because we stamped out this foundational bedrock concept that's been really a part of all civilizations

or darn near close to all of them. You have got to know, friends, I'm telling you right now, you have got to know there is a personal force who is trying to push your buttons. And he knows the most effective means is to play into your old identity, whatever that old identity is, to assault that identity. Check this out. Simon said, Behold, Satan has demanded to have you that he might sift you, you. I don't know why my stuff keeps, you, you like wheat. This is in the plural. This is the plural. In other words, all the disciples are getting sifted. All of them. When I hear this word from God, you're being sifted. He ain't talking only about me. All of y'all. I think that's how the Bible puts it. All of y'all. See, all the disciples are getting sifted. All of them are being sifted and all according to their old identity. Simon's being sifted his old identity. Thomas, Thomas, you know, we know is doubting Thomas. He's the guy who said, you know, unless I put my fingers in Jesus' wounds, I don't believe he rose from the dead. That's his old identity. That's his old identity is doubting. And what do you know? What do you know? He eventually recaptures his, his new identity, Thomas does. And he writes a book about saying, I think I can.

I think I can. And Thomas goes up the hill because, because he has faith. He has faith. All of them are being sifted in different ways. Judas, Judas was being sifted. Judas failed. When I grew up in a sort of a liberal mainline church, Judas was, everyone gave Judas pity. They said, well, Judas, Judas was a really good guy. Judas, he just was really disheartened that, that Rome was enslaving the Jews. And he thought Jesus could right that wrong. So he's just kind of pushing his hand that Jesus would call down fire and free his people. And he just was misled. Sorry, no, that's not what the Bible teaches. Jesus calls him a son of perdition. Meaning, and he said, it would be better if he wasn't actually born for his future, his future history. And, and the Bible is very clear as to why he did it. He had an old identity. You know what his old identity was? It was money. It was money and greed. How he, how he gets to run the treasury box is beyond me. I hate to say Judas made a mistake on that one because he doesn't make any mistakes. But there's something else going on there. So why did, why did Judas, why did Judas betray Jesus with kiss? Because his old identity was all about money and he found he could sell them out for pieces of silver. That simple. Your biggest vulnerability with Satan and getting away from God is him knowing what your old identity, and you have one. It is there. And it's always talking all the time. Sometimes there's an identity assault.

When the evil one comes at us, sometimes there's an identity drift where we know, we know, we know, I'm not an orphan. But over time, we just kind of drift away from it, right? In business, there's what we know as vision drift. This is what our core business is. But then over time, well, we make some accommodations. We do some mergers. We forget what the thing is. In churches, there's vision drift. Church starts saying, man, we are here about blessing the world. We're here about, we're here by the Great Commission. We want to change the world. And then there's vision drift and it becomes, well, we just want 5% more than we had last year. And we want to pay our bills and have good music. No one starts a church for that reason, but it's vision drift. And the vision drift of your life, you will always, unless you're aware of this fight, you will always drift to your old identity instead of walking in the newness of the new identity God has given you. This is the gospel. He doesn't define you, Bo, how you were. He doesn't want a improved version of you. He wants a new you. That is the new creation. He gives you a new name. Friends, this is good news. And you don't seem very happy about this. You're like. To illustrate this more, there was an article in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago where they talked about the GLP-1 drugs, the weight loss drugs, the Olympic and what are the other ones called? Wagyu and Jumanji, whatever all those things were. And I have a friend, actually, his wife ran the rollout for one of those weight loss drugs.

And he said the key to theirs was that they found a lizard on a remote island that only ate once a month. And there was an enzyme that they were able to discover. And they incorporated that enzyme into the drug, which actually suppresses desire. So you don't think about eating as much as you do if you have a problem with food. And here's the way that the New York Times put it. Well, for those of us who maybe that's our old identity, it's food and I can't think about it, anything like that. Maybe that's it. They put it this way. They said, it's like a relentless auctioneer. You know, there's cake in the kitchen. Hey, hey, there's cake in the kitchen. Hey, don't you want the cake in the kitchen? It's just constantly just talking about it. It's there. It's there. It's there. It's there. And your old identity is going to do this on multiple different ways. If it's money, it's going to be a financial decision. It's money. Mo' money, mo' money, mo' money. It's going to be, everything is going to be filtered with money. If it's body beautiful and people thinking I'm beautiful, every decision is based on how this is going to make me look. Even when I walk in front of the mirror. If I'm feeling good about myself, I'm going to look in front of the mirror. I go, whoo-hoo. If I'm feeling bad about myself, not looking at the mirror, not looking at the mirror, because my old identity is constantly mine. I got to have more clothes. I got to have the things. I got to do the lotions.

I got to do all this stuff because that's the identity. If the identity is an orphan, I'm always competing with people. If the identity is, well, whatever it is, you know what yours is. Hope, I'm just giving you examples. It goes through that all the time. And that is part of why if you've been around Crossroads for any length of time, you've been here for the last 10 weeks, you're reacting to my situation and our situation at church different based on your old identity. So if you've got an old identity, just go like, man, megachurch pastors, they've got some secret sexual sin. I know they do. I know they do. Man, I played right into that. You're like, aha! And then others of you, you're like, you've always needed a celebrity. You've always needed a role model in your life. And for some of you, I'm that celebrity role model for you. And now, first of all, sorry, I never wanted to be your celebrity role model. His name is Jesus. I'm not taking over his job. But for some of you, this has been like rocking. Like, whoa, whoa, what am I going to do now? What am I going to do? Because the old identity had that and needed that. For some of you, the old identity is anti-authority. Authority is wrong. It's always wrong, it's wrong. And so the board, aha! The board sucks.

They don't know what they're doing. They don't know because that's your old identity. For some of you, your old identity of money is going, how in the world is this place going to survive financially without the founder? How is that? It's all, it's all about money. If your identity is Dudley Do-Right and Paulieanna Pureheart and you've never watched anything beyond a rated G movie. Amazing you're here, Crossroads, amazing. But if that's you, if that's you, you're like, wait, the guy, the guy did what with the riding crop? Like, boom. Like, you know, God, there's not probably much grace there because your identity would have none for that. Now again, Satan here, this is not, this is not a, name, it's a job description. It's what he does. It's what he does. And he says to Peter, Turn when you repent, when you repent. By the way, the first you is plural. The second one, the second one is singular. Ariel, the disciples are getting sifted. But he said, Peter, I'm making it real personal for you. I need you to be faithful. All of Crossroads is being sifted to one degree or another. You got to take this as personal. Everything in your life you got to take as personal. You got to stop being upset about the unfaithfulness of somebody who you might know and start being more upset about your own faithfulness.

You can't control somebody else's faithfulness. You can control your faithfulness. And this is why Jesus says to them, I'm praying for you, you. And he is praying for you right now. He's interceding before the Father for you right now, that you will be faithful. And what's that mean? When we turn, when we turn away from the old identity, we turn away, He'll use us in a new and powerful way. Here's the amazing thing about this thing. Peter, oh gosh, he's never called Simon again once he gets his new identity until now. He's called Simon again the next time he interacts with Jesus, which is on the beach. It's kind of like Jesus is redeeming that and he gives him a charter. Ask him three times, do you love me? Feed my lambs, feed my sheep, feed my sheep. Does this thing. I could make this a whole series, I don't have time for that. Then check this out. This is unbelievable, unbelievable. Next time he shows up is in Acts 2. It's when the Holy Spirit gets dumped on the church, on people who proclaim Jesus as Savior. It's when the Holy Spirit no longer externally empowers some people, but it's when the Holy Spirit comes inside of all people in the family of God. So when God looks at you, if you have the new identity, He doesn't even see the old you. He sees Jesus. He sees that identity. He sees that holiness. He doesn't even see the garbage you did last night. He's aware of it, but He doesn't see it. He sees Jesus. That's the gospel. You're going, that sounds so weird. I know it sounds weird to you because your old identity doesn't want you to understand it.

It's the way it is. You make the turn, make the turn. When I made the turn, you got to hear me. I've heard people say, it was horrible the board made you do that repentance publicly last week. Hear me, hear me here. The other thing God said to me very clearly on week two was I was to publicly repent. He told me that. I said, God, yeah. He said, yes, I want to give you all the details. He told me, yes. That was my idea and those were all my words unedited by anybody else. And a lot of people had a problem with it. You know what people have problem with me repenting? People who don't repent. You, can you, can you identify the last thing you've repented for? Can you identify the last thing you turn from? Old identity people never turn for anything. They just justify where they are. They just explain where they are. They never turn from anything. It's a powerful thing when someone makes a turn. It's a powerful thing when someone does that. So Peter has made a turn from this situation. Jesus has said, check this out. Jesus has said, and He's heard Him say on more than one occasion. He says, if you deny me before men, I will deny you before God. Peter is following Jesus who's being led away to be tried. He's following Him. And on three different occasions, the last occasion is just bone chilling. Someone says to him, said, you, you're one of His followers, you knew Him.

And Jesus goes, no, I don't. I don't even know the guy. And Jesus hears and He turns, He looks at him. All right, just think about that. One of Jesus' closest friends at His worst times, He hears His friend say, no, I don't even know Him. I don't even know the guy. At the same time you've got Peter, when he does that and he knows what's happened, he goes, oh, my goodness, what have I done? The level of shame that he would have falling prey to his old identity. And then 50 days later, and he knows that Jesus said, deny me before men, I'll deny you before my Father. And 50 days later, when the Holy Spirit comes down and dumps on a group of people who become the church and people get empowered supernaturally and people start speaking languages they've never learned before. Not to have a cool experience because God's given them a new language so they can share the good news with other people of that tongue. It says there, Peter was standing with the 11. So all 12 were standing, they're going, and they commissioned Peter to speak and explain what's happening. Because they've heard Jesus talk about the helper coming. Think about this. 50 days earlier, he's marked to hell. At least that's what Jesus would say. Man, shoot, man. If someone committed an adulterous affair. that we wouldn't let him say anything for years. Fifty days later, he's denied Jesus publicly. And now he's the guy who's anointed to talk about the Holy Spirit. Why? Because this is the gospel.

You, you, you, you, you, you or I may need a period of being set down for healing and stuff. But man, you are not done. You are only done if your old identity allows you to say that you are done. God needs all of his children to be in the game. He needs all of his children to be used. He's all of his children to be very secure in their identity. I've had a hard for the hurting. One of my life, because, you know, I've had some hurting. And I've wanted to get outside of myself, like, stop thinking about your stuff, stuff, stuff. So I'm doing like stuff I hadn't done before. Like, find on Facebook, someone who follows me on Facebook's in the hospital. I'm like, I haven't made a hospital call for a while. I have no idea who this person is. Guy goes to man camp, I know. I'm like, I'm going to make a hospital call. So I go do a hospital call. I walk in and they're like. Because, you know, I've said before, you don't want me visiting you in a hospital. Because if I'm coming to visit you in the hospital, you're going to die. Things are really, things are really, things are really, really bad. But that's not this situation, a kind of minor thing. They're like, I've done marital counseling on the phone with people. I generally have not liked doing that. I'm generally not good at that. But I'm just trying to get outside of myself. Because he says to Peter, when you turn, you will minister to the brothers. Once you get secure back in your identity, God uses you to minister to and bless others. That's what he wants. I had a friend who was here at the first service, name is Jim. Met him playing basketball a long time ago.

And his son died this last week. He called me up and calls me preach. That's his nickname for me. And we just cried on the phone, just cried. And we were talking, crying. And I said to him, you know, man, the crazy thing is I've never been able to cry and talk before. Because I've never cried enough to learn that skill. But, you know, the last 10 weeks I've cried enough that I can now figure it. So we're kind of laughing at that. And, you know, just having a heart for him to minister to him. That's what happens when you get secure in your identity and you make the turn. I'll tell you what, we all want an awakening. We want God to do something on our region that's beyond what you can manufacture by your own power. We want an awakening. Prayer alone will not bring an awakening. It won't. Reading your Bible alone is not going to bring an awakening. So it won't. You fulfilling your 10X commitment alone will not bring an awakening. It won't. What will bring an awakening is if all of us make a turn. All of us turn and the people we're around, we go, I want to minister to you. I want to bless you. Not this big 501c3 organization do it only, but me. I want to be engaged with my neighbors, my workers. That's what God wants from you. And that's what God wants for you. We all do that and grow in that identity. Whew, sheesh. All right, that's enough for us to start crying.

God, thank You for today. Thank You for today. Thank You for these just great people. Great people, great friends, great brothers, great sisters, great co-labors, great all that stuff. We want to turn that old way. We want to come to the new creation. Thank You for being patient and empowering for that to happen. We pray these things in the name of Jesus.