Mistaken Identity

- Thank you so much for joining us today. My name is Tim Powell and I have the privilege and the honor of being the campus pastor at our new life church, Greenbriar campus. We are a non-denominational church located in the state of Arkansas with 19, about to be 20 campuses across the state. Our heart behind partnering with Pando through God Behind Bars is to allow your family an opportunity to connect to biblical community so that they can be growing in their walk with Christ at the same time that you were growing. So if you do have family in Arkansas, encourage them to check out newlifechurch.tv to find a campus that fits them. Thank you so much for being here. Now let's listen in to today's message. - Good morning, everyone. Good morning. Welcome to church. It's so great to see everybody. Y'all look happy to see each other this morning too. That was a good meet and greet time there. My name's Adam Sutterfield and my wife, Andre and I, we get to be one of the pastors here and I'm just so thankful to get to be with you today. And we love our church family. And I know it's been a crazy summer for a lot of us, but it's great to just be here and get to worship together.

You know, every single week we have people visiting and many of you have family maybe coming into town that's visiting with us and now we have many people either listening or now even watching online from all over the world, honestly. And we just welcome you here today. And we realize as we pray for another campus every weekend that Greenbrier is just a part of such a bigger thing that God is doing in the state of Arkansas. And as of this weekend, we now have 18 campuses across the state of Sherwood launches this morning. So yeah, we are celebrating with them and the response has been so big this week even that they had to bump it from one to two services on opening soft launch weekend. So God's moving in that community and we're excited for them as well. But look, if you are visiting or you're watching online and you have family that's somewhere around Arkansas, we have, I mean, there's the map here behind me, but you can go to our website at newlifechurch.tv and look up the different locations and find service times. And I mean, just encourage your friends and family if there's one close to them to get connected to the body of Christ at one of these churches. But I know in our household, it's hard to believe that it's already August, it's been a crazy summer. I see a lot of you shaking your head. It's like, yeah, it's here.

Like, I don't know that the first of August used to, that was kind of the part of the way through the summer, but these days it seems like school starting earlier and earlier and it's like August is go time. It's pretty much done. But I'll take this weather that we've had the first couple of days of August. It's been incredible. I've had one of the craziest summers I've had in a long time. I've been out of town for three out of the last four weeks. In fact, I had to introduce myself to our greeters this morning, I think out here as I walked in. But it's been such a fulfilling summer at the same time. We go back a few weeks ago and Andre and I got to spend some time together and just really refresh. And then our team went to Peru and had an incredible time there and then just this last week, man, it was such a blessing to me to get to be a part of some intentional time with God as I got to go backpacking in the mountains of Colorado with 10 other men from our campus. And it was a special time for each of us to get away and really seek the Lord, but also man, just to have some community between the men that went. And I've got to see God do so many amazing things in my own life, but also in many of yours through the busyness of this summer. And I'm just so thankful and filled with gratitude.

And I'm excited to share some of what God's put on my heart with you today. So before we get started, I just want to pray one more time and just invite God to really speak to us today. So Father, we thank you again for today in your presence. We thank you for everyone that's able to be here both physically or whether it's online. God, I know that you brought them here for a purpose and that you have a word for each of us today. I pray that we would lean in to your Holy Spirit and what you want to show us, Lord, that you would continue to speak. Your words through me as you've lit a fire in my spirit this summer, God. And I just, we give this service to you and that's for you to move in a way that only you can. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen. Well, as Andre and I are involved in the day-to-day lives with many of you, whether it's just here at church or through our marriage ministry or for me through the men's ministry, we get to hear a lot of your stories and we get to see both the pain but also the victories at times. And as we talk about all the time, we feel it deeply when you hurt but we like to celebrate big when God's moving. And we have equal times of those. It doesn't matter what it is But the thing about it with all of us is that we all need the same answer and that's Jesus

in our lives. Wherever we find ourselves, even though each situation is different. But even when we have Jesus so many times the enemy can come in and it can continue to lie to us about who we are, about our identity in Christ and it can continue to hold us down. And in the next few weeks we're going to be in a family series titled "Building Stronger Households." But before we can focus on building stronger households, it's imperative that we understand how to align our hearts and our minds with Jesus and with God and who He says that we are. Our foundation before we can go to building things in other people even within our own households. So today, this is for you. It's not for your spouse or your neighbor or someone else that you're thinking of. But I want you to really reflect on yourself individually and what God may be trying to show you in some lives that maybe you believe from the enemy about your mistaken identity and who you are in Christ. Today, we're going to focus on the truth of the Word and who God says that we are in Christ. Amen? Because that's the truth and that's what matters. So today in your notes, if you're a note taker, you've got blank lines. Some of you that makes more nervous than others. You know, you like to have your points lined out and everything. Well, too bad. Today, your points are the scripture. I believe the scripture points us to our identity in Christ and to who we are. And I'm going to, there's a lot of scripture and I invite you to write these down to go back throughout your week and to look these up and to meditate on these and to study these for yourself, to get these in your spirit of who God says that we are as we walk through this.

So we're going to start in Romans chapter three, verse 21. It says, "But now God has shown us a way to be made right with Him without keeping the requirements of the law as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes no matter who we are, for everyone has sinned. We all fall short of God's glorious standard, yet God in His grace freely makes us right in His sight." He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed His life, shedding His blood. This sacrifice shows that God was being fair when He held back and did not punish those who sinned in times past, for He was looking ahead and including them in what He would do in the present time. God did this to demonstrate His righteousness, for He Himself is fair and just, and He makes sinners right in His sight when they believe in Jesus. Can we boast then that we have done anything to be accepted by God no, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law, it is based on faith. So we are made right with God through faith and not through obeying the law. Amen, right here in the Word, it tells us in this short passage, six times, that if we believe in Jesus' sacrifice, that we've been made right with God. Why don't we live that way? Because we continue to believe the lives of the enemy, that He places on our lives. So I want to get this right off the bat, I want you to say this with me. As a believer, my faith has made me right with God. That's the truth of the Word, and that's what we're standing on today, and that's what we're going to build off of today, is we continue to look at Scripture. Because this is just too easy sometimes for our minds to accept, intellectually we want there to be more to it, it's too simple for that to be true.

So what do we do instead of believing that this is right and releasing our past to Him, we hold on to things that have already been redeemed, things that God's already freed us from. We continue to let Him be a part of our identity. We all identify with different things though, right? And depending culturally, you can look at different things, different people. Maybe even different foods that you can identify with. If you've ever, back in my day, there was a comedian and he made millions off of this identifying with a certain group of people. Some of you may, maybe old enough to remember a guy named Jeff Foxworthy. His claim to fame was making fun of rednecks, right? And he had these sayings that they would identify like, "If you've ever made change in the offering plate, you might be a redneck." If you've been on TV more than five times describing how the tornado sounded, you might be a redneck. If you've ever cut your grass and found a car, he said, "You might be a redneck." Or if your mom has ammo on her Christmas list, you might be a redneck. This guy made fun of a group of people and yet it was their identity and they wore it like a badge of honor. I mean, they had the T-shirts, the coffee mugs, the hat. I mean, it was a whole thing. It was a part of their identity and they related to it. And even though it was kind of a poking fun of them, it was a part of who they were and it was funny. Sometimes we believe good things about ourselves that are true, but many other times we believe lies that are no longer true about us because they don't line up with what God does. God says about us. And that's where we have to draw that line. That's where we have to make sure there's a distinction. Each of us has a choice in what defines us every day.

God says that we're free and that we're a new creation in Him when we've accepted Jesus as our Savior. But what do we do? Again, we like to pick up that old baggage. We like to pick up the things that are still in our head. And instead of a new creation, we wear our own identities and badges around. What am I in with shame? Man, I can't get over the things in my past. I'm ashamed of things that I've done. Maybe another one for you is I'm not enough, I've never been enough for anybody. How could I be enough in this new world as Jesus says I am? Maybe it's loneliness. You just feel alone all the time, and it's got you in this dark hole. You've let it identify who you are secluded yourself. Some of us, it's failure. I've tried this road and I just continue to fail, I just continue to mess up. I can't be this new creation. Man, this is a big one that I felt for a while. I'm unworthy of this sacrifice. That's right, we all are, but that can't be the identity that we live in. And lastly, maybe it's fear. Maybe it's fear of the unknown of what God's calling you to do. What you know, He said about you, but you let fear grip you. And kind of just keep you off the playing field at all and doing what God has for your life. Now, I'm not saying that we become sinless and that there's no responsibility or consequences for our sin or our actions. But I am saying that as believers, our identities and our sin, they can no longer define who we are. We've got to get rid of these things that we keep walking around with.

He says, it's no longer defines who I am, this is no longer mine. I'm walking new in Christ. This is not what I want, those things are not what I want to walk around and let the project to the people that I'm supposed to be a witness to. That's no different than the rest of the world. First John 1, 5 through 9 says, this is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you, God is light and there is no darkness in Him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God, but we go on living in spiritual darkness. We are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other and the blood of Jesus. His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. even though we may sin, it no longer defines who we are as we confess our sins to Him. Honestly, this kept me in a cycle of defeat for a long time. I knew the Word and I knew that God had forgiven me, but I continued to wear that badge of shame and unworthiness for too long. I couldn't fully release that to God. I held onto it and it honestly had a cap on what God could do in my life for a season there. We can't be effective in all that God's called us to do when we continue to hold on to these false identities. It becomes a life of just sin management as we try and maintain some control over these areas of our lives. All of our stories, they have some form of tragedy or sin that shaped us into how we view ourselves if we really get honest about it. As Christ followers though, we have to reframe our mindset and not of the things of this

world but of who He says that we are. I fell into the whole trap of self forgiveness, not being able to get past certain things or we like to call it forgiving myself. It wasn't until I heard teaching on this and I really started to dig in and study the Word that I could start to see this differently. I can't find anywhere in the Bible that specifically talks about forgiving ourselves. That's Jesus' job. He's paid that price. Now I do believe it addresses this concept and I believe when we use that term a lot of times for giving myself, I believe we mean kind of the same thing but we have to watch how we word things sometimes. I believe the Bible addresses this concept and says that it emphasizes that self forgiveness is a lot less about our own efforts but it's about solely relying on God's forgiveness. That's how we get rid of this self stuff is we put it on God. It's not up to me. When we understand and embrace God's unconditional love and forgiveness, we find the key to moving forward in victory and in this new identity. Since I was able to understand that this wasn't on me to carry anymore, that there wasn't anything that I had to do, I was able to release it to Him and it transformed my life. I believe the Bible and how it says that God forgives us and I also believe the Bible when it tells us that confessing these areas to others helps bring healing and peace that the Holy Spirit has available. James 5, 16 is a verse to, I've used a lot of times but it tells us confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. Not only in my own life but I've seen this over and over in many of your lives. I've been a witness to this, this last few weeks I've been just overwhelmed with gratitude for all that God is doing and so many people's lives. I've seen true healing and transformation as people lay these misguided identities down and they start to fully walk in who God has called them to be.

When we call out the enemy for his lies that he's convinced us to believe, we're able to reframe our way of thinking and align it with what God's word says about us. It's so important, there's just something about being fully known by God but also by someone else and seeing that they actually respect you more because of your story and what you've been through and what God's done. When the enemy wants to lie and tell you that they're going to think less of your make fun of you or whatever, it's not how redemption works, it's not how the story of God in our lives works. Because of Jesus and his redemptive power in people's stories we see his light that has helped us through the darkness. Instead of shame and judgment, compassion and love are able to come in in those moments. We hear this all the time through our life groups. come in and you start sharing life with other people. with similar things. And many times people walk in with these burdens and thinking, "Hey, this is only me. We're the only ones dealing with this. You know, I can't believe that we're struggling and nobody can see it." And as you start to open up and you're like, "Oh, you too?" I thought it was just me. We start to share in these things and we start to actually walk through discipleship together and learn how to grow in this new identity together and this new freedom instead of the old cycle just repeats itself. In fact, we have an entire group around this concept of freedom and identity. It's called real change. Many of you have went through that. It's going to be starting up again here in a couple of weeks. And if this is an area that you've just been bound by these false identities or by your past and the things that you just can't work through, I'd encourage you to check that group out whole semester to walk you through and teach you way more than I'm able to this morning on a lot of this topic.

We have our life group launch in just a couple of weeks where you'll be able to sign up and maybe for the first time find out what this biblical community is like that helps you shape that new identity in Christ. But the reality is I look across the room, many of you have been a part of life groups. You would even have a testimony and share how they've impacted and changed your life. But you've taken on this identity that I could never do that for someone else. I'm not qualified to lead a life group. And in reality, I believe there's some of you God's stirring that in and you haven't taken that step. And I'll be completely honest with you this morning. I checked with our life group leaders and we need about 15 more life groups. Tomorrow is the deadline to sign up for our leaders. And I believe it's time for some of you that have been reaping the benefits of this to step up and let's multiply that for other people in our church. We did a survey and it was resounding that we needed marriage and parenting groups and we just only got a couple. There's a need. Sometimes people say we didn't realize there's a need. I'm telling you, there's a need. And if God's tugging on your heart, cold is going to bring it up in a little bit and I encourage you to sign up today. We're going to come beside you. We've got coaches. We've got materials. We've got things to help lead you through the process. But we can't do this alone. And life groups are such a key part of this biblical community in shaping our identity and just reiterating who we are in Christ as we grow together. The word tells us to no longer live for ourselves in 2 Corinthians 5, 15 through 17. It says, "He died for everyone so that those who receive His new life will no longer live

for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ who died and was raised for them. So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time, we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know Him now. This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person, the oldest gone and the new has begun. It's time we stop letting our old life continue to control our minds and dictate the freedom that we've been given through Christ. Every day when we get up, every one of us as believers has a choice. When we start our day, and this is a practice that I think we should all take part in, start to make it a habit as we get up, you have a choice, am I going to start my day believing in that new creation and who God says that I am? Or am I going to start that same old cycle of a mistaken identity of who the enemy says that I am? We have a choice at which of those name tags we put on when we start our day. Is it going to be the ones that come from God? Or is it going to be the ones of this world that continue to keep us beat down in a cycle of shame and regret and complacency? Here's what we should choose, the Bible is clear, Galatians 5, 22 through 26, it says but the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things. who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit's leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited or provoke one another or be jealous of one another. When we are able to truly release those old identities, it frees up space to start taking on these new fruits of the Spirit. Can you imagine, instead of me walking around with all those old lies, if we were to walk

around with joy and peace and patience and kindness and gentleness, you want to talk about a revival, you want to talk about a change in our community, a change in our church, we start showing that to those around us, that is something different that is contagious. We have to get this in our spirit. We find encouragement throughout the Bible about who we are. I am going to go through these pretty quickly so you are not going to have time to apologize ahead of time. You will not have time to turn to every one of these, but I encourage you to write them down and go look at these this week. Psalm 103, 10 through 13, says, "He does not punish us for all of our sins. He does not deal harshly with us as we deserve. For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins as far as the east is from the west. The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him." Romans 8, 1 through 2, "So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death." You are freed from that. Ephesians 1, 7 through 9, "He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us along with all wisdom and understanding. God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ, which is to fulfill his own good plan." Romans 8, 37 through 39, "No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us. And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love, nothing, neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today or our worries about tomorrow.

Not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below. Indeed, nothing in all of creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord." Galatians 2, 20, "My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me." This is what the Word tells us who we are. This is our identity in Christ and it's time we take hold of it because I'm tired of seeing people live and defeat when He's given us victory. One last thing that the Word says about who you are and I want you to lean in on this one, this is personal, Ephesians 1, 4 through 6. Even before He made the world, let that sink in for just a second. Even before He made the world, God loved us and He chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in His eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into His own family by bringing us to Himself through Jesus Christ. [MUSIC PLAYING] So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear son. As believers, we are adopted into his family as sons and daughters. That's our new identity. Now, I wasn't adopted, and I personally haven't adopted anyone. I've walked closely beside some people that have been adopted and people who have been a part of the adoption process and adopted other people enough to realize that it's sacred and it's special. And someone who isn't your blood, who has really no responsibility for you when they stand up and they say, "I choose you to be a part of my family." I'll take responsibility for you when no one else will.

I choose you. Now, think about this in respect to our own life and what Christ, what he's saying here. We all come from a broken family to some degree. It's been a part of the sin, nature, and in some ways we're all broken. Past sins and hurts and pain that we've had to work through. And yet God says, "I sent my son to sacrifice for you, to deliver you from anything that's been holding you back." He says, "Come into my family." This isn't a family that's riddled by guilt and shame. You've been made right. I can just imagine in that picture Jesus has invited us in and He brings us into the room with His Father. And we sit before God, truly blameless, and He says, "Welcome to my family." In fact, I got another relative I want to introduce you to and His name's the Holy Spirit. He's going to help you walk in this new identity. He's going to help rid you of all the guilt and the shame and deliver you from your past way of thinking. I've got you now. And as we reflect on that, each of us individually today, I want it to be personal. And I want us to evaluate as we go into prayer, maybe some of those identities you've been holding on to, but you need to let go of today. It's you who need to release to the Father. You need to rip those old things off, and you need to truly accept that you have been made new in Him. So I'm going to ask you about your heads this morning as we go to before the Lord of Christ, and just reflect. I know just in these last few weeks, He's shown me areas that it's something we always have to watch for. They'll try and reattach themselves to us. And we need to always be evaluating, but God, we come to you this morning, and just ask

you to show us what lies have we been believing about ourselves when you've called us to truly walk in freedom and as a new creation. Help us to denounce those things that the enemy continues to lie to us about. Look around the room, I'm just going to ask you if there's something that you know that you've picked up that's not of God, that's an identity or a lie that you've been believing from the enemy and you want to lay it down today, I want to pray with you, I'm just going to ask that you raise your hand if there's anyone here and you want to lay that down and not walk out with that today, yes, yes, yes, all across the room, many of you. I think it's so many of us. Maybe there's others of you, I know there are every weekend and you've, and you don't even have the rights to this new identity because you've never professed Jesus Christ as your Lord and accepted his sacrifice as the word talks about. This could be a whole new start for you today. If you say yes, Jesus, man, I haven't neglected to acknowledge you as my Lord and Savior or I've never heard about this or this is, this is the identity that I want moving forward. We repent of our sins, we acknowledge that he died and rose again and we take on that new identity, he adopts us into his family. So if that's you, I want to ask you to raise your hand so I can pray with you as well this morning, anyone that wants to receive Christ in this new identity today, just as simple as acknowledging him, is there anyone? Father God, we thank you for your word, we thank you for bringing us into your family God. Forgive us for the times when we continue to take on the identity of our old self or the lies God that our culture or the enemy or other people around us even may try and attach to us. We re-renounce those in the name of Jesus because you have given us freedom and we have been made right in your sight. God help us to walk in that every day that we wake up and we accept that, we proclaim that and we live out of that new identity in you each day as we go out and we become a witness for you.

By the way, we live in victory and no longer in defeat. Thank you for your word and for access to your son as our Savior. Thank you that he died for us Lord. We receive him today in Jesus name, amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]