Children and Grandchildren

Life Swings and (Merry) Go Round

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ABU - Meeting - Prof. Polinder Speaking on How to Build Your Identity

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To be included

Summary of the Study

Mat 3:13-17, 4:1-11

How to build our identity

The main theme of this study is identity. 

- Who are you? What is your identity? 

- What is the most fundamental thing that can be said about you?

- What is it that gives your life value?

- Is there something in your life of which you say: If I would miss that, then my life would not have value anymore?

I think this is a question that keeps us busy throughout our life. Of course, these questions are very important when we grow up from children to adults. 

And when there are important changes in our life, then these questions are probably more explicit:

- When we get a new job.

- When we get married.

- When we get children. 

- When our children become independent.

- I can imagine they also come when we retire, when our wife or husband dies.

On other moments, these questions may be less explicit, but in the background, this still is what is driving us.

We read Mat 3:13-17.

What does this part say about who Jesus is? What is the most fundamental thing this part says about his identity? Vs 17.

What does this part say about our identity? 

If we are united with Christ, if we are in Christ, then this is also true for us. Vs 17

- 1 Joh 4:9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 

This is how he showed, revealed, proved his love for us. How can God show us more clearly how much he loves us?

- Rom 8: 15,16: For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.

Does this make sufficiently clear that we may be Gods beloved sons and daughters?

I hope it is sufficiently clear that according to the Bible, the most fundamental answer to the question who you are, who I am, is that you, that I am a child of God and that God loves us.

As Lord’s day 1, question 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism says:

What is your only comfort in life and in death?

That I am not my own, but I belong – with body and soul, in life and death – to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ. 

He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood and set me free from the tyranny of the devil.

He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven: in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.

Because I belong to Him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

As we sung before the sermon: “my name is written in his hands, my name is hidden in his heart”.

Now our reaction to this gospel, this good news, may be different. My own reaction is different, depending on my situation.

- Our hearts may be full of joy and peace, and we may be glorifying God. I hope that is the case now.

- However, our hearts may be full of doubt. Is this really true? If God loves me, why does it feel so different, why is my situation so bad? Why is my wife Clarisa ill?

- Or, our hearts may be full of questions. I have heard this message so often, but how does it affect my life, how does it change my life? It is such a different reality than the reality of our daily life.

This confrontation with daily life is also what happens to Jesus after his baptism as Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert and tempted by the tempter.

I think the way Jesus is tempted is typical for many of our temptations. Therefore, it is important to have a closer look at what is happening. 

I think everyone has a void in his heart, everyone has some form of emptiness in his heart, and everyone tries to fill that emptiness with something valuable. At least I have these voids, and I long to fill them.

I think our natural tendency is to try to fill these voids with what we do, what we have and what other people say about us. In other words, we have a tendency to build our identity on what we do, what we have and what other people say about us. 

The tempter knows that and tempt us to do that. In a way, he did the same with Jesus. He came to Jesus to tempt him.

The first temptation is to fill the emptiness in our heart with what we do, to build our identity on what we do.

- In Mat 4:3, the tempter says to Jesus: If you are the son of God, tell these stones to become bread.

- He is trying to make Jesus doubt who he is: If you are the son of God, then…  

- And then he is tempting him to show who he is based on what he does: If you can change stones into bread, then you are somebody, then you show you are the son of God.

- How can we fill the voids in our hearts with what we do?

o If I get that diploma,  that degree, finish that study, then I am somebody.

o If I make beautiful music, if I can play football like Arjen Robben, if I help people in need, if I am a good teacher, nurse, … then I am somebody.

o For myself: engineer, PhD, associate professor. Not bad, isn’t it? However, I am still not a full professor and if I am honest I have to admit there are moments that that frustrates me terribly.

o Also in a religious way: if I am a pastor, if I preach, if I am an elder, then my life is valuable.

The second temptation is to fill the void in our heart with what people say about us.

- In vs 6,7, the tempter says to Jesus: If you are the son of God, throw yourself down. For it is written: He will command his angels concerning you and they will lift you up in their hands so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

- Again he is trying to make Jesus doubt who he is: If you are the son of God, then…  

- If Jesus jumps down from the highest place of the temple, and angels come to lift him up in their hands, many people in the temple will see it and worship Him, and he will get  the recognition he needs.

- How can we fill the voids in our hearts with what others say about us?

o Maybe our whole life is completely devoted to fulfilling what others expect of us (our parents, our friends, our bosses, my students).

o If they say you are doing well, you feel great; if they say you are doing bad, you feel terrible.

o This is really an important force in the life of some people. It may be an enormously boost for us if people speak well about us. But it can also be a curse: there are also people who commit suicide because of what others say about them. 

o Again, this can also be done in a religious way: I may build my identity on the fact that others say I am a good Christian, I have a great faith, I am faithful, my bible study is great.

The third temptation is to fill the voids in our heart with what we have.

- vs 8,9: The devil took Him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendour and said: All this, I will give you if you bow down and worship me.

- If Jesus bows down and worships the tempter, he would get all the kingdoms of the earth. However, without suffering, without dying on the cross.

- How we can try to fill the voids in our hearts with what we have?

o If I have a healthy and beautiful body, then I am valuable.

o If I have such a house, such a car, such an I-phone, these gadgets, then I am satisfied.

o If I have power as a professor, as a director, as a minister, as an elder in church, then I feel important.

o If I have a good romantic relation, if this or that man becomes my partner, then I am happy.

o Some people long so much for love that they even try to fill the emptiness in their heart with sex without love, or with virtual sex, with pornography. 

Some people bring enormous sacrifices for their idols, for example their carrier:

- They make long hours,

- They sacrifice their family,

- They lose their friends.

And that is logical: if there is something that must give your life value, then you go for it.

So, the devil tempts us to build the value of our life on what we do, what we have, and what others say about us. And if we do so, we have a very instable life. One day we feel good because what we do, what we have, what others say about us, develops in a positive way. 

The next day we feel depressed because these things develop in a negative way. Do you recognise this? Or am I the only one?

Just to be clear: most of the things I mentioned above are perfectly fine. You may go for a relation, a study, a carrier, a family.

However, if these things become more important for us than God, if these things become more important for us than what God says about us, if the value of our life depends on these things, then these things become idols. 

How do we deal with this?

Let us first look at Jesus. How did Jesus stand the test?

- First, he cited the Word of God, and that is very important.

- However, where did He find the force to do so? 

- He knew who he was. He built His identity on what his Father said about him. 

o He did not need to change stones into bread to be the son of God, because He already was the son of God. That is what God had just said: This is my Son whom I love, with Him I am well pleased.

o He did not need to bow down before Satan to be give all power in heaven and on earth. After his suffering, death and resurrection, all power in heaven and on earth would be given to him.

o He did not need to jump down from the highest place of the temple to be caught by angels and seen by the people so that they would worship him. The time will come that He will come on the clouds, that every eye will see Him, that every knee will bow down before him, that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. 

- For Him, the temptation was to achieve all this without going the way of suffering and death.

And what about us? How do we stand our tests?

- First, by using the word of God, just like Jesus did. This shows how important it is to know the scriptures.

- However, knowing the Word of God is not enough. Satan likes it very much if we know the word of God, but believe something else in our heart. He likes it if we say we are children of God by grace, but in our hearts, we believe this is only true if we are good enough, if we keep his commandments in a sufficient way, if we testify enough of our faith, if we help others good enough. If in fact, we build our identity on what we do, what we have, what others say about us. And that is never enough.

- Therefore, it is so necessary to really know who we are not only with our mind, but with all our heart, deep inside: Gods beloved sons and daughters.

o Our value, our identity does not depend on what we do. We do not need to do anything to become children of God, we get it. For free. Out of sheer grace. Out of love. Our value has been given by what God says: that we are His children.

o Our value, our identity does not depend on what we have. If we have God as our Father, if we have Jesus as our Saviour and our King, if we have the Holy Spirit as the divine inhabitant of our hearts, what do we need more? We have the comfort that is not only valid in life, but also in death.

o Our value, our identity does not depend on what others say about us. What God says is determining. You remember what God says about you if you are in Christ? This is my son, my daughter whom I love, with him/her I am well pleased.

I am convinced this is the one and only thing that can really fill the void in our heart, that we hear God saying: You are my son, my daughter whom I love, with you I am well pleased.

Do you also find it so difficult to build your life, your identity, your value on what God says alone? To claim this reality, to live a life based on this reality?

Why would it be so difficult not only to hear this message with our ears and mind, but also to let it sink into the bottom of our hearts? 

How could we learn to do this better?

Mat 26:26 is from the part where Jesus held the Lord’s Supper for the first time. That verse says: “While they were eating, Jesus took the bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to his disciples.”

What Jesus said about the bread, was also true for Him: He was taken, He was blessed, He was broken, and He was given.

- He was taken to be the Messiah, the Saviour. Maybe it would be better to say He was chosen to be the Messiah.

- He was blessed. We just read one of His special blessings, where the Father said: “This is my Son whom I love, with Him I am well pleased.”

- He was broken when He suffered and especially when He died on the cross.

- He is given. He gave Himself into be broken, and now He is given to us, and we receive that we are born again, that our sins are forgiven, that we are adopted as children of God, we receive eternal life.

That is what Jesus made visible for us in the Lord’s supper.

However, if we are in Christ, if we are united with Him, if we belong to Him, we also share in some way that we are taken, blessed, broken and given.

- We have been taken, we have been chosen, at least to hear the gospel today, to hear this good news, to know His love. Maybe you have been chosen to hear that message from when you were very young, when you were born in a Christian family. Maybe you have been chosen to hear this message for the first time today. 

- We are blessed, because we hear this message: You are my son, my daughter whom I love, with you I am well pleased. Jesus regularly took time to pray on a lonely place, to be with His Father. We should follow that example. 

o If our life is completely full with business and stress, 

o if our life is completely full with social media and virtual reality, 

o if our life is completely full with building our identity on what we do, what we have and what others say about us, 

o how can we then hear the soft voice of the Holy Spirit testifying that we are children of God?

- However, we are also broken. Following Jesus implies we have to take up our cross and follow Him. Many people think that when they are blessed by God, everything goes well with them. And in a way that is true. Paul says (Rom 8:28): We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him. All things. However, that does not mean that everything goes as we wish. On the long run, it will be for our good, but it may be different from what we wish, it may be difficult to see that. Jesus was tempted, we will be tempted in some way. Jesus was persecuted, we will be persecuted in some way. Jesus carried his cross, we will carry ours.

- And we are given to be a blessing for the people around us. We are called not to live for ourselves, but to give our life as a daily offering of worship to the Servant King. So let us learn how to serve, let us learn how to prefer each other’s needs.

Maybe it would be a good idea to ask ourselves every day how we have been chosen, blessed, broken and given.

You can find a very nice illustration of this sermon in the film Chariots of Fire, a film partly based on a real story of two athletes in the Olympic games of 1924. One of them is Harold Abrahams from England. Just before he has to run the 100 m, he says something like: “In a few minutes, I will have 10 seconds to show my life is worth living.” He won the 100 m. He clearly built his identity on what he did.

The other is Eric Liddell from Scotland. In spite of a lot of pressure, he refused to run the 100 m because that race was on Sunday, and he set Sundays apart for the Lord. A few days later, he won the 400 m. In one of the scenes in the film, his sister asks him if he does not train too much, if running is not too important for him. His answer is: “God made me fast. When I run, I can feel his pleasure.” One year after the games, he went to China as a missionary. He clearly built his identity on Gods pleasure. He was chosen to know Gods love. He was blessed with a fast body. He was broken and given. He sacrificed his athletic career to become a missionary in China. In the second world war, he ended up in a Japanese camp. He was offered to leave the camp in a prisoner exchange between England and Japan, but he gave his place to a pregnant woman. In 1945, he died in that Japanese camp at the age of just 43. He was broken and given.

I very much like that sentence: “God made me fast. When I run, I can feel his pleasure.” I would like to rephrase that as: “God made me an engineering professor. When I teach engineering, I can feel his pleasure.”

You know, in February this year, I visited a conference for Christian man. At the end of the conference, every man got a small wooden cross as a reminder. I decided to take that cross to university and I fixed it to the top left corner of my computer screen, to remind myself that my life does not depend on what happens on that computer screen, but that my life has been determined by what has happened on the cross some 2000 years ago. I believe this is reality. However, I do not know how much it really helps. After a few days, I got used to the cross. Nevertheless, it reminds me.

During the last months, a number of things happened that stimulated my frustration about not still not being a full professor. I won’t tell you the details. Therefore, I have to tell this story again and again to myself. I am not telling you what I practice, I am telling you what I need most myself.

Maybe, you feel tired of building their identity on what you do, what you have, and what others say about you, just like myself. Therefore I want to close with a word of Jesus from Mat 11: 28-30:

Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 

For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

 

Now our reaction to this gospel, this good news, may be different. My own reaction is different, depending on my situation.

- Our hearts may be full of joy and peace, and we may be glorifying God. I hope that is the case now.

- However, our hearts may be full of doubt. Is this really true? If God loves me, why does it feel so different, why is my situation so bad? Why is my wife Clarisa ill?

- Or, our hearts may be full of questions. I have heard this message so often, but how does it affect my life, how does it change my life? It is such a different reality than the reality of our daily life.

Do you recognize the different reactions to the gospel?

So, the devil tempts us to build the value of our life on what we do, what we have, and what others say about us. And if we do so, we have a very instable life. One day we feel good because what we do, what we have, what others say about us, develops in a positive way. 

The next day we feel depressed because these things develop in a negative way. Do you recognise this? Or am I the only one?

Do you also find it so difficult to build your life, your identity, your value on what God says alone? To claim this reality, to live a life based on this reality?