Jesus our Lord is the great lover of our soul who gave his own life so that we might be forever in His kingdom. What a deep breath that reality is for our lives. I don’t have to have it all, or live my best life now. My best life is yet to come.I am one loved by the Lord. That is enough.

Earlier this week I opened my email to find a message from Wells Fargo thanking me for my online application for a new checking and savings account. Another message soon followed saying my application had been accepted. Flattered as I was, the problem is I, nor my wife, had applied for an account with Wells Fargo, nor do we bank there (nothing personal). I called their online service department and after several automated prompts, I was finally able to speak to a real person and explain the situation. I was more annoyed than surprised or upset by the whole ordeal, but something about the way the person on the other line said the words, “Sir, you are a victim of identity theft” that took me aback (P.S. I think they should have some type of dramatic music rift to follow anytime they tell people that).
Issues surrounding identity are a hot commodity in the world of 2021. Whether its financial or online fraud (Ive since learned that roughly 9 million people in the United States alone have their identity stolen each year), legal designations of gender and sexuality, or even the long term pandemic of self-esteem and anxiety in people of all ages, our identity determines a great deal in our lives.
As believers, the Bible tells us our identity is in Christ. We are as the Apostle Paul mentions, “a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Corinth. 5:17 However, thanks to the ongoing presence and pressures of sin, we often have spiritual amnesia. We forget who we really are, and neglect all the benefits of being united to the Lord Jesus Christ. And so I’d like to share 3 benefits (of course there are endless more!) of our identity in Christ that Ive been meditating on.

Our identity in Christ gives us new focus: Regardless of what is happening around us or even to us, as Christians we know that this present world is not our final home. This truth is a new pair of spiritual lenses for the eyes of our faith.  Paul writes in Colossians 3:2-3, “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” Knowing my life is in Christ gives me a fresh perspective that anchors my heart and attitude in every day life. I often have to ask myself when I am discouraged or worried, “will this still matter next week, month, or year?”

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As we keep in mind the necessity of resisting compromise with the culture around us, we can be encouraged that this challenge is not unique to our day. Christians have always faced the problem of being influenced by the culture, and the solution remains the same—to stay close to the Lord and to His Word.

Throughout history, non-Christians have pressured the church to conform to the practices of the culture. In our day, the church in the Western world faces a particular kind of pressure as Western culture moves from centuries of pro-Christian expressions to hostility to biblical viewpoints. While it may seem that the most significant hostility to the church is in areas of morality, we must understand that cultural compromise has come to the core purpose of the church in the world—worship and discipleship. Christians can miss this danger because of the nature of the compromise in this area that the world demands.

Underlying the cultural challenges of our day is a change in technology and how we live. People in the modern world have a mobility that has never been seen before. People can travel great (or short) distances much more quickly and easily than they could in the past. The internet has made information available at the touch of a key. Audio, video, and live connections with people far away from us have changed the way we buy things, learn, and even communicate. All this has exacerbated an already dangerous trend from the twentieth century—consumerism. For the church, this means that people don’t even have to attend corporate worship anymore. It used to be that churches competed with each other within thirty minutes’ driving distance. Today, a church can lose attendees to a live stream from a thousand miles away. Consumerism is a greater pressure than ever for the church.
In the West, the church has responded to cultural consumerism not by challenging it but by pandering to consumers’ preferences. Churches no longer shape worship liturgies in accordance with God’s commands as they are found in the Bible. Even tradition has been jettisoned in favor of a focus on the preferences of potential attendees. Churches do not ask whether worship practices please the Lord or are found in the Bible; the overriding concern is whether they will draw in and retain new attendees. Far too many churches have decided that success is primarily determined by the number of attendees at their services.

Historically, churches have established the elements of worship in accordance with God’s express commands. The center of the worship service was the preached Word, surrounded by readings from Scripture, the singing of praise that was rich in theological content (while allowing for variance in instruments and tunes), and a variety of prayers (adoration, confession, petition, and thanksgiving). Such an approach has been termed the “regulative principle of worship,” and the overarching idea is that God is the One who gets to determine how He is worshiped.

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We were not made for loneliness we were made for love, not romantic love but love from God, love by neighbours, love by a redeemed community that meets us again and again with the welcome of grace and the rest of the gospel. 

Perhaps the biggest barrier to our building friendships comes from our idolatry of marriage in the church. If you’re single you experience it as people in church trying to matchmake you with any eligible Christian of the opposite sex, and that makes you weary of friendships especially those with the opposite sex. All of us imbibe it in the relationship talks we’re given at youth groups and camps which are often well meaning but focus on marriage as the thing that will save you from your struggle with sexual sin and provide you with the intimacy and friendship you so long for. And that often means when people get married they so with unhealthy expectations. They also tend to pull away from previous friendships, almost as if a close relationship with anyone else will endanger their marriage. Pastorally I’ve dealt with many who have been badly wounded by just that unloving act and now feel fearful of building new friendships because what if they meet someone….
The churches idolatry of marriage is partly the result of our overreaction to the world’s idolatry of sex. Sexual love is viewed as the highest form of love in the world, it’s the ultimate hence the mantra that love is love and nothing should get in the way of that. It is the highest good, the ultimate expression of love, the goal to aim for. And so the church doubles down on the teaching that marriage between a man and a woman is the only right context for sexual love and intimacy, without challenging societies mantra on sexual love being the ultimate, the place you will find fulfilment. But in so doing I worry that we write cheques marriage can’t cash. The bible’s picture of love is so much broader and more beautiful and bountiful than that. It’s much more multifaceted and we lose something when we shrink love down to sexual love, we lose friendship and end up overburdening and overexpecting of marriage and naturally as a result we will find our churches full of people struggling with loneliness whether married or single and marriages creaking under the strain.
The Bible is full of stories of the joy of love that is not sexual. Sexual love is only one type of love we were made to enjoy. Marriage is the only context in which God says we’re to fulfil that love, yet marriage itself has limits, it points beyond itself to the eventual eternal joy of the union between Christ and the Church. And that means we must see marriage for what it is. A signpost, a precious covenant signpost that can bring much joy, yes. A good gift of God, yes. But also one that is given not to be an idol but to be part of a process of growing Christlikeness spurred on by those entering it. It is not the only form of love we were made to enjoy, that we need. Even in the garden the image of Adam and Eve isn’t it, it’s not complete. They aren’t sat snuggled up and loved up on a sofa with a Rom Com or Action flick blissfully content to find all they need in each others eyes, they have a job to do to create a community of worshippers, with a web of other relationships, other types of love, that is what they were made for.
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