Born Identity | Kingdom

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Welcome to the Kingdom podcast. Some of you may have been asking, where did the Kingsman podcast go?

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Well, after a few months of doing this podcast, we had several ladies reach out to us and said, we know this podcast is for men, but we've really enjoyed it.

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And the more I thought about it, I thought, you know what? A lot of what we do cover is related to everyone. And so let's talk about how everyone works in the relationship to the kingdom.

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And at times I'm gonna speak directly to men, and at times I might speak directly to the ladies. So in general right now, welcome to a podcast about the kingdom.

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If you have this your first time here, my name is John Moffitt. I am the pastor of Grace Reformed Church in Spring Hill, Tennessee.

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And kingdom is a part of a ministry called Theocast. You can learn more about that online at theocast .org.

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Today's episode, which is really kind of in line with the last couple of weeks about the truth that we are living for.

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I wanna talk about identity and truth. It's interesting how humans quickly learn to find comfort in how they identify themselves.

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We do this with our clothing. If you just look at trends, right? I was thinking about the other day, photos of my dad back in the 60s and 70s, things that he would wear, his hair.

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We were laughing at some of his hairstyle and how long his hair was, and the bell bottoms, which tend to be coming back,

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I guess, I don't know. But just trends. And we like to fit in with trends, and often we can find our identity, by what we wear and by what we don't wear, right?

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And by what we eat or what we don't eat. And there's a great book by David Zoll called

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Seculosity. And in that, he was talking about how the secular culture can make everything a religion.

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And we turn it into our truth, because no one wants to say, I'm living a lie. No one ever, ever says that.

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They say, I'm living my truth, right? I'm being true to myself. And we've, in many ways,

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I understand what people mean. Don't be manipulated, don't be pressured, right? If you don't like that, then don't do it.

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Or if you don't think it's right, I tell my children all the time, don't be pressured to do something you know is wrong. But we all feel that.

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I don't care how old you are. Everyone feels the pressure to belong or to be a part of. Like even now,

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I remember when I first moved to Nashville, the hipster thing was to not go along with the crowd, like to do something.

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And so like everybody started to be unique. And everyone was so unique, it was no longer unique, right?

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This trends go. Specifically though, one thing that never changes we talked about is the truth that comes from God and that truth about us before our relationship to God and the truth about who we are in God.

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I'm preaching a sermon series right now on the armor of God. And we just covered the belt of truth, which relates to the last two episodes on truth.

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And because we're removed from the culture at the time that Paul was writing to, he was writing to the church in Ephesus and they would have understood the belt of truth or they would understand the soldier's belt because they saw

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Roman soldiers every single day. You know, if I were to ask you in general, describe to me what a police officer looks like,

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I think we would all give pretty much the same description of what a police car looks like, right? It's like black and white, lights on top, everybody's gonna say the same thing.

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That's how common it was for the Romans. So they would have understood when Paul says, put on the belt of truth, they would have related to how the

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Romans thought of their belts. I'm not gonna get into the whole sermon, you can go listen to that. But there's one part of it that I thought was fascinating, that the belt of truth often for the soldier was a representation, like they would wear that belt even when not on duty, because they were always prepared to go to action.

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But it also was a means of identity. It told people, I belong to the

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Roman legion, I belong to this army, this powerful army, and I want to identify it.

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And then they would either have a buckle or some kind of fabric that would identify the part of the military they were serving in.

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And it was a proud, they were proud of it. And Paul, I think, wanted us to get that point in that he says, when you wear the belt of truth, there's an essence of pride in that.

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There's a comfort. You're saying, I am in relationship to something that's greater than myself.

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No one is impressed with a soldier, but everyone's impressed with an army. And that's the point of it. I'm a part of something that's bigger than me.

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And my belt is a way for you to identify this. They would even talk about how, because of the knobs on the bottom of their shoes, and they would have these pieces of metal that would dangle from their belts, that you could hear a soldier walking from down the block.

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And that was there, like proudly, I am a soldier and everyone could hear when a soldier was coming down the street because of what it represented.

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Paul uses all of that. He even talks about the feet shod with the gospel. I'll talk about that in a couple of weeks, but this is what I want you to hear.

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Paul is saying, the world's going to tell you what your truth is and what your identity is. And what you need to proudly wear is that, first of all, you were under the wrath of God.

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You were a sinner out of control. You were someone who could not earn remotely one fraction of God's respect as it relates to righteousness.

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That's who you were. And what does Romans 5 tell us? When we were his enemy, that's when he put his love on us.

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That's when Christ laid his life down. And that's when we inherited all the righteousness of Christ.

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So truth sometimes can just be cold and distant. Like when we say, we need to stand for the truth. But if you don't attach that to something, it just feels,

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I don't know, subjective almost. Like what truth do you want to emphasize? And some people will emphasize any kinds of truth.

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Like creation. People are going to die for the modes of creation or whether it's six days or not. Or some people could be about the sufficiency of scripture.

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I mean, there's all kinds of things that are truth. But what causes you to wake up in the morning and actually be excited about God?

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Wake up and say, I can fight today because of who I am, the truth of who

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I am. And I'm going to proudly wear that no matter who attacks me, who laughs at me, who criticizes me, who puts me down, because what they think of me in the end doesn't matter because they're blind.

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Going back to what we had talked about weeks ago, Romans 5 says the whole world lies under the power of the evil one, right?

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Ephesians 2 says that all of humanity is controlled by their desires, which are controlled by Satan.

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So someone who's blind and under the control of Satan, you really care about what they think? I mean, do you really let a two -year -old define who you are?

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When you don't do what the two -year -old likes, what do they say? I hate you, Mommy. I hate you, Daddy.

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What is speaking at that moment? Truth or the passions of a child who didn't get what they want?

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You're listening to the passions of a world under the control of someone who hates God. And yet we use that.

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And it's convincing though, because people identify as being homosexual, that they change their genders, they identify themselves by their political parties, and we get passionate about this.

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But all that is, some of it's okay, some of it's helpful when it comes to politics, but being identified by your gender,

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I don't walk around telling everybody I'm a man. I just don't do that. That's who I am.

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I don't need to identify as that. But I do identify as being married because that is something that does set me apart.

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I'm not available and I am committed to this woman. That's what the belt of truth is.

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When you put it on, you're saying God has committed himself to me. God has put his love on me.

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God has become the foundation of my salvation and the finisher of my salvation. God has become my hope, my hope for beyond eternity.

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I might die in this life, but I will live in the next. Because of what? Well, because of God.

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And he says, you put that truth on. You buckle it down as tight as it will go and you let the world know that this is who you are and you will be punished for it.

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What does Jesus say? If you're gonna follow me, there will be persecution because the truth will set you free and it will make the world angry.

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So I wanted to speak to the person who's weak and overwhelmed and like, it just seems like you're being attacked by every angle.

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Here are the truths that I want you to put on and think about putting on every single day. God did not come towards you because you made the first action of coming towards him.

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That's not true. That's actually a lie. While you were yet dead, blind, and a sinner and his enemy,

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God set his love on you. He made sure you understood this. He says, before the world began, I decided to set my love on you.

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He uses this illustration with Jacob and Esau before Jacob was born or Esau, right? I chose. It's important for you to understand

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God's not reacting. The truth about God is he's a proactive God. He takes the first step.

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He draws you to himself, right? So the relationship that you're in with God, it's not based upon you.

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That is an important truth, right? I am loved and cared for by a sovereign God who did the act first.

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Secondly, it's not that he gets you on the team and says, now you have your part to play and if you don't perform well, you're gonna put on second team and then if you still don't perform well, you're off the team.

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Oh man, we're so thankful. Looking unto Jesus, the author, Ephesians 2 .12, sorry, 12 .2,

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the author and finisher. He instigated it, he started it, he wrote, I love this image that Revelation has, right?

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Our names are written down in the Lamb's book of life. He authored our salvation and when he closes the book and says it is finished, he's the author, right?

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He determines your future and that sounds crazy and we don't like to be told that but listen, for us weak humans who are sinful, for those of us who are like, yeah,

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I don't really want my destiny in my hands, that's great truth to wear and to boldly embrace and then lastly, sometimes our sin beats us down so badly that we're just like, how could

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I ever be effective? How could I ever do anything for God? Why would God ever want me?

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God knows what goes on in my head. God knows what goes on in my heart and my brain and how often I fail him. Those are lies because what does your father say?

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Hey child, when you feel that, boldly run to me and I'm gonna give you mercy.

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I'm gonna wash away that. I'm gonna cleanse your conscience and then I'm gonna give you grace to believe that my forgiveness and my love is sufficient and that's all you need.

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All you need is my love to serve me, that's all. You love because I first loved you.

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Don't be afraid of me. Something I thought about today on my way here is that Satan often uses two things to control us.

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The enticement of power, like if we can be strong in ourselves, he'll use that to take our eyes off of Jesus or fear and we put all of our attention on the thing that we're afraid of.

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What does Jesus say? When you're the weakest, that's when I'm the strongest and there's nothing for you to be afraid of because there's nothing stronger than me.

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There's nothing that can separate you from the love of God. So if you're struggling with your eyes being on your own strength and how you're performing, it's okay to be weak because that's where God's, as Paul says, when

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I am weak, then I am strong. These are the truths that we proudly boast in. We proudly, if you're going to boast, boast in the

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Lord, right? That's what the belt of truth is. It securely ties to us the truth of Christ.

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Just from a soldier standpoint, it gathered all of the loose garments that could snag us by the enemy or could be used against us.

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So what the belt of truth does is it gathers all of us who we are and says, okay, you're wrapped up in Christ.

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Who you are is secured by Christ. You're not securing yourself. The belt holds you in. You're not holding yourself in.

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So you can look down and say, what's holding me? Well, it's God's love for me and God's grace for me and God's mercy for me and the purposes that I have that he has told me to proclaim his truth, he'll empower me to do that.

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These are the truths that we live for. And that seems so much more significant than thinking about identifying who we are as far as what we eat and don't eat, where our kids go to school, what we wear, what is our gender.

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No one is changed for all of eternity by those lies. Those aren't truths. So if you're listening to this and you're struggling,

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John, how do I put this on every single day? How do I wear this? Well, my encouragement to you is it's important to be a part of a good local church because their job is to protect this and their job is to proclaim it to you every single week through the way you sing, the way that preaches and the way that you pray for each other.

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Think about even the Lord's Prayer, right? Lord, forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Isn't that fascinating?

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He's constantly telling you to remind yourself of the forgiveness you have received. So if you're not in a good church,

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I encourage you to find one. It's so important to your soul and the work that you have that maybe you need to move cities to do so. Secondly, trust brothers and sisters in Christ.

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Reach out to them and say, I need to be encouraged today. I need to be strengthened today. Today, I confess to my weakness to a brother that my heart was hurting and I needed strength.

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I needed to be reminded of the truth that I am not the decisions other people make.

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I am not how other people describe who I am. I am who God says I am.

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And the Bible does not change and it does not lie. So how do you wear it every day? When you hear those lies, remind yourself who you are in Christ.

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And if that's weak, then dive into that, learn. There's many resources on Theocast. Be at a good teaching church that's going to teach you about the imputed righteousness of Christ, who you are in the gospel, as far as like the gospel's declarative, what's done.

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There is no do in the gospel. Law, gospel, distinction. All of these things are the truths that draw us into the person of Christ.

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That would be my advice to you. And it probably wouldn't hurt to tune in next week. All right, shameless plug. We'll see you next week.