Elevate - The Story Pt 25 - Identity

The transcription is about a sermon by Pastor John DiQuatro from Authentic Life Church in Mobile, Alabama. The sermon focuses on the story of the rich, young ruler who asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life. Jesus emphasizes that no human effort or goodness can earn salvation. He reminds the man of the commandments, but the man claims to have kept them all. Jesus then tells him to sell everything and give to the poor, but the man becomes sad because he is wealthy. Jesus remarks that it is difficult for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. The sermon highlights the idea that no one is good enough to earn salvation and encourages listeners to pray for a clean heart and rely on God's work in their lives. You're not a rich Christian. You're not a poor Christian. You're not a black Christian. You're not a white Christian, because your identity is not in your race, your wealth, your status, your job, or your reputation. You are a Christian, period. A Christ follower. A child of God, first and foremost. Welcome to Elevate, from Authentic Life Church in Mobile, Alabama, with Pastor John DiQuatro. We hope it builds your faith and helps you to live a life for God that you've always wanted to live. We hope it inspires you to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Enjoy the message, and welcome to Elevate. Well, we are continuing in our story series this week. This has been such a great series, and I'm so excited that, I mean, we're kind of coming towards the end, but right now, we are in the heart of Jesus' life, right? We've talked about how the story, it's this narrative from creation all the way through, and it's the story of God's redemption of mankind because of sin. But ultimately, it's the story of Jesus Christ, and so we are in these chapters right now that deal with Jesus' life. And this week, I wanted to preach about this particular story where this rich, young ruler, you're familiar with the story of the rich, young ruler, comes to Jesus asking how he can inherit eternal life. And so, let's look at this together in Luke 18, beginning in verse 18. It says this, a certain ruler asked him, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Why do you call me good? Jesus answered, no one is good except God alone. You know the commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother. All these I've kept since I was a boy, he said. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, you still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me. When he heard this, he became very sad because he was very wealthy. Jesus looked at him and said, how hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God. Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. Those who heard this asked, who then can be saved? And Jesus replied, what is impossible with man is possible with God. An incredible encounter that Jesus has with this young ruler who was very, very wealthy. And when this man approaches Jesus, the very first thing that he says, he starts with this question, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now this idea of eternity, eternal life, and the understanding that our consciousness continues beyond this life, it's hardwired into our hearts and our brains. But I've heard it said that when you're dead, you don't know you're dead. It's just difficult for other people. And it's the same when you're stupid. I'll let that sink in for a little bit. No, but this idea of eternity is hardwired into our brains and in our hearts. Have you ever tried to contemplate nothingness? Like before the universe, before galaxies and stars and planets, before space, not just empty space, but completely nothing. Have you ever tried to contemplate complete nothingness? Try to go back before the universe even existed and contemplate that notion. Make sense of that notion. You can't. It just does not compute in our brains. Try to contemplate death as if there was no eternity, that you would just cease to exist. Not that you would just see black and you'd be laying in a grave, right? But that you would cease to exist. Can that compute in your brain? We can't do it. We can't fathom it. It doesn't make sense to us. And why is that? Well, the Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes 3.11, He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart. No one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. God has given us this gift that we understand and He has set eternity in each one of our hearts so that we instinctively know that it just doesn't end when we breathe our last breath. Isn't that encouraging to know? So, of course, we all find ourselves at some point asking the question, Well, then what must I do to ensure that I will live forever in eternity? You know, it's that God-shaped hole, right? That you've heard people talk about. But the question is, how do I make sense of this life in light of all eternity? And everybody is searching for it, whether they realize it or not. Like, who am I in this vast universe? Who am I with regards to eternity? And we are all desperate to figure out what it is that we need to do in order to get there. Right? This man asked Jesus, What must I do to inherit eternal life? Well, I love Jesus' response to the question, What must I do to inherit eternal life? Now, remember, he called him Good Teacher. The man called Jesus Good Teacher. And Jesus responds in verse 19. He says, Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments. You shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. Honor your father and mother. And all these I've kept since I was a boy, he said. You see, Jesus' knee-jerk response to this question, What must I do to inherit eternal life? Is to immediately reject the notion that there is anything that can be done in order to inherit eternal life. There is nothing or no one that is good enough. There is no human effort that's ever going to be good enough to earn salvation. I'm sorry to put it to you that way, but there is no human effort that is good and strong enough for you to earn salvation. You're not going to buy your way into heaven. You're not going to charm your way into heaven. You're not going to be able to do anything that will be good enough to make you worthy of heaven. But Jesus, you know, he says, there's nobody that is good, right? There's nothing that we're going to be able to do. No one is good enough to earn heaven. But then he baits him anyway, by reminding him of the Ten Commandments. Because he says, you know the commandments, right? You shall not commit adultery. You shall not murder. You shall not steal. You shall not give false testimony. Honor your father and your mother. Now I want you to notice, when Jesus gives him these commandments, he skips over the first four commandments. The first four, you shall have no other gods before me, right? That you shall not make any idols, no graven images. You shall not take the Lord's name in vain. And to remember the Sabbath, to keep it holy, right? Those are the first four commandments. And all of those first four commandments have to do with how we relate to God. So why would Jesus skip over the first four commandments? Now listen, because this man's issue was not how he related to or felt about God. That wasn't the issue. It was more about how he related to the world. Now, we all understand more as we continue. But Jesus reminds him of these commandments, or at least the last six. And of course, Joe Righteous immediately pipes up, Oh yeah, I've been a good boy. I've kept the commandments for my entire life. Well, the first thing I have to say to that is, yeah, right. But here he is trying to convince Jesus that he is good enough to make it to heaven, right? Have you ever had one of those convince God to let you into heaven prayers? You ever pray one of those prayers? Like, God, I know I haven't been doing real good lately. This hasn't been my greatest month or year or decade. I did this, but I'm really trying hard not to. And I'll do better next time, I promise. God, I'll stop doing this or I'll start doing that. And, you know, just accept me, God. I'll go to church more, whatever you want. You ever pray one of those prayers? Lord, I just keep messing up over and over and over and over again. Lord, just accept me. You know where that gets you? Just this constant promising God that you'll do better and then failing and then running from God. Then coming back with more promises and failing. You know where that gets you? Burnout. It just gets you absolutely burned out. And people that live that way constantly, just feeling that every time they mess up that God's mad and they have to convince God to let them back into the family of God, eventually those people just give up and walk away from God. You might even get angry with God or the church because you feel judged and nobody's judging you. You're judging yourself, but you feel that judgment or you feel unworthy or you'll rationalize that. Well, God is mean. Therefore, it can't be true. That's where that gets you. So rather than trying to convince God to let us into heaven like the rich, wrong, young ruler is trying to convince Jesus, you know, Lord, despite all my flaws and all my mistakes and my sins and my foibles, rather than trying to convince God in spite of all of those things, why not pray the prayer that David prayed, which is, Pray to me a clean heart, oh God. Renew a right spirit within me. Just ask God to do the cleansing in your life. Right? I'm just trying to... This isn't even the whole crux of my message this morning. I'm just trying to free you up a little bit because I know how it is. I've watched people in and out of church, in and out of church, and they come back to like, yeah, well, I got caught up in this and I did that. And then, you know, I had to get some things right before I ever came back to church. Like that whole thing. Right? I've just seen it. But let me free you up a little bit. Just pray this prayer. When you find yourself getting messed up or making some mistakes, pray to me a clean heart, oh God. Renew a right spirit within me. Go into Psalm 51. Open that thing up and read it. And let that be your prayer. God, do the work in me so that I can continue to live in a way that honors you and pleases you. Amen? All right. So when this man comes to Jesus looking for what he can do to inherit eternal life, Jesus gives him really the only answer that would address the true need in this man's life. So look at what he says. Verse 22. When Jesus heard this, he said to him, You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then, come follow me. Now I said earlier that this man's issue was not how he felt about or related to God. Rather, the issue was with the way that he related to the world. And I would say that most of us do a pretty good job of keeping the first four commandments that we talked about. Right? The ones that have to do with our relationship with God. At least we don't willfully or knowingly break those commands. We don't worship other gods. Gods like Buddha and Baal and Molech or any other false deity. We don't have little idols in our homes that represent gods. And we don't bow to them and sacrifice to them and call them our God. We're pretty careful not to use God's name as a curse word or as an exclamation. Right? We do a pretty good job of keeping the Sabbath or at least coming to church most weeks. Right? We do a pretty good job with those first four commandments. Most believers have enough reverence for God and a solid understanding that He is the one true God that we really don't have that much trouble with the first four commandments. However, many of us, like the rich young rulers, struggle not in how we relate to God, but how we relate to the rest of the world. You see, we've placed such an importance on status and wealth and success and position. We value our reputation, what people think of us, our good standing. We hold education and career and personal legacy in such high esteem that the majority of our efforts in life go towards taking care of those things. And that's what the rich young rulers' problem was. And Jesus knew it. It wasn't that He didn't love God. He had no problem with the first four commandments and how we felt about God and how we related to God. He understood the basics of how to relate to God. He understood all those things from the time that He was a boy. He knows who God is and He honors Him and He reveres God as holy. But He was tied too closely with the world. Too closely to all these other things in His life. And so Jesus saw it and Jesus had to address it. And in doing so, He gets to the heart of what really is holding this man captive. So He tells him, He's like, listen brother, liquidate all your assets. Sell your beach house and your BMW and your boat. Cash in your stocks and your bonds and your mutual funds. Take all of your jewelry and all of your precious gems. Go down to Eddie's pawn shop and sell them and get some cash. And once you've done that, I want you to give it all away to the poor. Just give it away. Don't squirrel any of it away for the future, for a rainy day. Don't put it down payment on a condo. Don't take it to Wind Creek Casino and try to double it. He basically tells him, completely untether yourself from this world system that has you so captivated and enamored and bound. Let me tell you, this was an extreme thing for Jesus to ask of this man. Because money, it's a touchy subject. In fact, maybe some of you at this moment think that I'm about to preach on giving now. And you clenched, shifted in your seat a little bit. Because money is a touchy thing for us. We don't part with it easily, even when the Lord asks for it. And he has asked for it. Can I tell you that? You know that the tithe was established long before the law of Moses was established. And the tithe just says that the first 10% of all of our increase belongs to him. But rather than take it, he wants us to willingly surrender it to him. A first fruits offering to him. He wants us to surrender it to him. Why? Because ultimately what God wants is your heart. And he wants to untether you from this world. So rather than forcefully taking it, he asks you to give it back to him. You know, in the New Testament, the believers gave everything they had to God. In order to meet the needs of the community and the members of the church. And that was the regular practice. The New Testament church understood that all of it belongs to God. Everything that I have, my house, my car, my phone, my tablet, my computer, right, my whatever. Whatever it is that you money, all of it, it all belongs to God. And they understood it and they decided that they would use those things so far as it honors God and brings him glory. Now I'm not here to slap anybody about giving right now. It's not the point of this message. Although some of you do really need to understand the blessing of giving and really how it honors God. More so than most things that you'll do as a believer. And why is that? Because it's tied to your survival. Do you trust God? Or do you trust money? He wants your faith and your trust completely in Him. Can I tell you that that's what He wants? Not your money. He wants your heart. And He wants you to place all of your trust in Him. Not on your paycheck or your employment contract or your bank account, but entirely in Him. Now this isn't even a message about giving. But I'm here to ask you this. Are you like the rich young ruler who will relate to God in your heart and in your thoughts, but in reality you're still tethered to the world? You love God. You worship Him. You come to church. You raise your hands. You sing the songs. You read your Bible. But your relationship with the world outweighs your relationship to God. Because ultimately Jesus' concern with the rich young ruler was not about how much money he had or how much he gave to the temple or anything else having to do with his finances. That's not what was concerning to Jesus. The issue here and what was concerning to Jesus was an issue of identity. It was an issue of identity. You see, the rich man wanted to be worthy for eternal life, but he derived his identity from his wealth. He wanted to be associated with salvation while identifying with the world. He wanted to enter into an eternal covenant while holding on to temporary things. His issue was identity. And so I want to talk about identity in the last few minutes of this message this morning. Because identity is the spiritual battleground of our day. Everybody wants to find their identity in something. People are finding their identity in their sexuality, in their gender, in their race, in their politics, in their career, in their friends. It's all we hear about anymore is identity. And our culture is pushing it from the highest echelons of government and society. The big thing right now is we call it identity politics. Have you heard of that? Do you understand what that is? Identity politics. What's happening, at least in our government, right, is that they're playing on your economic class. Or they're playing on your race. Or they're playing on your identity as a marginalized group. Whichever one they can cram you into. And we'll make you focus so much on those things that you miss the bigger picture. It's the game that our media and our government is playing with you. They want you to identify with something so that they can lie, cheat, steal, and use you to keep them in power. And I'll tell you this, the enemy of your soul wants you to identify with anything other than God and His kingdom so that he can steal, kill, and destroy you, and drag you into hell with all his hordes of fallen angels. And if you fall for it, if you fall for all the identity politics and let somebody else tell you who you are, then you are going to filter everything you do through that identity. And not your true identity in Christ. So if the devil can keep you focused on your money, or your career, or your race, or your reputation, or your wealth, then he has defeated you on the front of identity. And so the question is, what's driving you? What's motivating you? What consumes your thoughts and your attention? Is it money? Is it a relationship? Is it an addiction? Is it your racial group that you belong to? Is it your sexuality? What is it that is getting all of your attention and motivating you and driving you in this life? Because if it's any of those things that I just mentioned, then you have an identity problem. As a follower of Christ, as a believer, you have an identity problem if anything other than Christ is what motivates you in this world. And this is exactly what Jesus was trying to root out of this rich young ruler in this passage. You love God, you believe in God, you even obey some of God's most important commands. But you identify with your wealth. You identify with your social class. You identify with the person that everybody perceives you to be, and you struggle breaking free from that. Now let me read a few passages of Scripture to you today that shows us where our true identity is. Galatians 2.20 says, And I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. Identifying with Christ. Ephesians 2.10 says, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Identifying in Christ Jesus. These are His handiwork. 1 Corinthians 12.27 says, Come on, you are the body of Christ. You're not just the people in a church. You're the body of Christ. He's the head, and you're the arms, elbows, fingers, and toenails. And everything in between. We are the body of Christ. Colossians 3, beginning in verse 1 says, Since then you have been raised with Christ. Set your heart on things above where Christ is. Seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. He tells us as a believer, your focus, the trajectory and the aim of your life ought to be heavenward. Remember we said eternity is put in the hearts of man. Eternity should drive you. Knowing that you are going to spend eternity with Christ Jesus. We ought to identify with Christ Jesus. Forget all this temporal stuff. Everything is going to burn. Your new car is going to burn one day. It will be on a junk heap pretty soon. Everything is going to go down. Everything is going to burn. Everything is going to burn. Everything is going to fall apart. Everything is going to be reduced to dust. Everything. But our life, hidden in Christ, looks toward eternity. And when we can begin to allow eternity, and we can begin to allow heaven, we can begin to allow Jesus Christ to become our identity and untether from this world, we'll be able to truly realize what God has called us to be. And listen, I am not accusing anybody today. I believe we all love God and that we all want to please Him, just like the rich young ruler. But I also believe that the enemy is crafty. And he's a liar. And he wants you focused on this world so much that you identify with who you are to the world and not who you are to God. Let me tell you this. You're not a rich Christian. You're not a poor Christian. You're not a black Christian. You're not a white Christian, because your identity is not in your race, your wealth, your status, your job, or your reputation. You are a Christian, period. A Christ follower. A child of God first and foremost. And you're a Christ follower and you may be rich. And you're a Christ follower and you may be poor. You're a Christ follower and you may be white. Or you may be black. Or a teacher. Or a businessman. Or a mechanic. Or whatever you do in this world. But you're a Christian first. You are a Christ follower first. And that's where our identity has to lie. And when we can allow the Holy Spirit to define our identity in Christ, we're going to begin to live differently. Because your bank account no longer means a whole lot to you. Because your race no longer defines you. Because your reputation is of little importance, like Jesus' reputation was of little importance to Him. And whatever identity the world places on you, it no longer defines you. Christ defines you. The Word of God defines you, and motivates you, and drives you, and occupies your passions, and thoughts, and attention. Guys, the issue is identity. The issue is identity. It's learning to identify as a believer. It's learning to identify as a follower of Christ before I identify as anything else. That's the secret to living the life that God has called you to live. Look at what Romans 12, 2 tells us. Do not conform to the pattern of this world. Right? This world's not for us. Don't conform to that pattern. But be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is. His good and pleasing and perfect will. I believe that we all need our minds renewed. Our enemy, through our culture, has really done a number on us in recent years. Trying to get us focused on anything but who we are in Christ. Whatever that is. Status, wealth, your business. Whatever it is. Your race, your relationships, your friendships. Just getting you identifying with the things of this world, so that Christianity is just a bolt-on, just an add-on to your life. When it really ought to be your life. And I believe that God has called some of you in this room to some very significant ministry. But you don't even know it. Because your identity is in the wrong place. I believe that some of you love God and want to please Him. But you're still deriving your identity and your sense of self and who you are from your job, or your race, or your education, or your reputation. Many of you are caught in the question of what is my purpose? But your identity is defined by the world. So you're confused and conflicted. And God is asking us today to let Him define us. God is asking us today to place our identity first in Him. Thank you for listening to Elevate. We hope this message encouraged, inspired, and challenged you. Authentic Life Church is located at 3750 Michael Boulevard in Mobile, Alabama. Visit our website authenticlife.tv for more information about Authentic Life Church. To find out what we have going on, or to make a donation, you can also find us on Facebook. We'd love for you to join us on Sundays at 10 a.m. for our weekend service. We have excellent children's, nursery, and youth programs, so bring the family. For Pastor John DeQuatro, I'm Scott Chestnut. Thanks again for listening, and God bless you.