This week was the Church Picnic, held at St. John's, therefore there is no video recording.
23 Now before faith came, we were
held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be
revealed. 24 So then, the law was
our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified
by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no
longer under a guardian, 26 for in Christ
Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.27 For
as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.28 There
is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is
no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 And if
you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to
promise.
4 I mean that the heir, as long as he is a
child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of
everything, 2 but he is under guardians and
managers until the date set by his father. 3 In the
same way we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary
principles of the world. 4 But when the
fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman,
born under the law, 5 to redeem those who were
under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. 6 And
because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,
crying, “Abba! Father!” 7 So you are no longer a
slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.
Grace, mercy and
peace to you from God our Father through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Our text today is form the epistle lesson, especially these words, “So
you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through
God.” Thus far our text.
Dear friends in
Christ. You’ve seen it in the news
lately, the whole talk about Self-Identification. People deciding who they are based upon who
they feel they are. The cases dealing
with this have been increasing at a steady pace. For example, a few years ago, there was
Rachel Dolezal, who according to her own words “Was biologically born white to white
parents, but identifies as black.”
Then, a few months later, there was the 52 year
old Canadian father of 7, who suddenly self-identified as a 6 year old girl,
even going so far as to find an adoptive family to care for him. In his picture in the news story, he is in a onsie sucking on a pacifier.
And now, we here in the US are told by presidential mandate not to
have bathrooms based upon "biological plumbing" but instead based upon how
someone self-identifies their gender.
Marriage is no longer between a man and his wife, but rather by a group
of people who self-identify as “in love.”
And all of these ideas of self-identification cause a big mess for us as
Christians.
You see Christians are not called to
self-identify. They are not called to
determine for themselves if they are “Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or
female.” Instead, we are called to be
“Christ-identified.” Hence we call
ourselves “Christians.” We are to be
identified not by what we think about ourselves, but instead by who we belong
to and what He has said about us. Anything
else is idolatry, putting our own words above the words of Christ – and that’s
a first commandment issue.
It isn’t easy to avoid
self-identification. And I’m not talking
about the ridiculous stuff on the news.
I’m talking about you. And me. We self-identify all the time, don’t we? Are you a republican or a democrat? And what would you think if someone
misidentified you in that regard? I’m
not saying its bad to be in a party, but if your entire identity swirls around
whether you vote one way or another instead of around Christ, you have a
problem.
Or is your self-identity found in being
primarily a citizen of this country. It
is good to live here, but if we worship George Washington or Abraham Lincoln
more than we worship the God who created those leaders of our nation, we have a
problem.
Or do you self-identify by your wealth. Are you rich – and proud of it to the point
where you look down on others? Are you
poor, and use that as the catalyst to worry more about being angry at the
rich? Do you self-identify as an
important person, so you treat others poorly.
Do you self identify as worthless, and so are depressed.
In the end, it doesn’t matter what it is that
you self-identify as, because it’s the word “Self” that is the problem in
self-identity.
As I said earlier, we as Christians are defined
not by how we self-identify, but rather by how Christ identifies us.
Our identity in Christ begins with
baptism. In water and the word, God
calls us to be his own children. He
marks us both upon our foreheads and upon our hearts as belonging to Christ the
crucified. The cross of Christ is put
upon us. And as it is, we are baptized
into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. We become God’s possession for eternity, safe
in his hands no matter what. Our
identity is thus found in him.
And in case you worry that your sin could
corrupt that identity, it cannot, for in baptism we also are covered with
blood, the blood of Jesus, that covers all our sin and marks us as pleasing and
acceptable in God’s eyes. Jesus suffered
on the cross and died so that your identity in Him might never be taken away or
destroyed.
And God also identifies you in more ways. He gives you vocations – jobs – that you do
according to his definitions. For example,
this morning is Father’s Day – did you know that is a vocation that God has
given to many of you? And he explains
what it means to be a Father, he shows us by his own actions. It doesn’t mean making your child happy, or
giving them lots of gifts. No being
identified as a Christian father means teaching your family the faith. Christian fathers are to teach the faith to
their family, to make sure their family is in church, to sit themselves next to
their family in church. Why? Because Christ has identified them as a
Christian Father.
Same with Mothers. And God also gives you the vocation as child,
as brother or sister, as a Christian citizen of this world, as a member of this
church and more. And in these vocations
he teaches you not to look at your self, but to the service of those around
you, much in the same way that he serves you through Jesus.
And so, dear friends, you are not
self-identified, but Christ identified.
That means you cannot be rich apart from the riches that Christ has and shares
with you. You cannot be worthless
because Christ has purchased you with something more valuable that gold or
silver. You cannot be sinful, because
your sin is taken away forever in the cross of Jesus. You cannot find your identity in your self, in
your feelings, in your thoughts, but only in our Lord, for he has died for you,
claimed you in baptism, and made you his holy and righteous possession
forever.
In the name of Jesus.
Amen.
