Week 4 | Stand Firm | In your identity | Feb 22
Good morning and thanks for being here. My name is Scott – and we are in the middle of a series of conversations about what it means to stand firm. In week 1 we said that A stand firm faith is pre-deciding to have an “even-if” kind of faith.”
An even-if faith says, we are trusting in God in a given area to deliver or help us… but even if he doesn’t… My faith is gonna stand firm. “Even if the diagnosis doesn’t change. Even if the job doesn’t come through. Even if the relationship doesn’t reconcile.” That’s how you stand firm. You don’t wait until the storm hits to figure out what you believe. You decide ahead of time who you are and whose you are.
According to the bible, trials and suffering will come, not might or maybe, but will. And here’s what I’m learning: that the real battle in suffering is rarely just the suffering…. it’s what it does to your identity. What do I mean by that?
I’m trying to be healthy – So since the summer time I’ve been hitting the gym. Trying to increase my resilience and capability to serve and be present for my family. I want to be able to do things like “get off the floor” or go on a jog.
Well about 3 weeks ago I was at the gym and I was just moving weights and i felt something in my back pop. The pain got worse and worse- So i went to the chiropractor and after spending hundreds of dollars in adjustments, my Chiropractor says “i think you have a herniated disc”.
(And evidently lunging with ninja like reflexes after a marsh rat in Florida didn’t help my back either. )
In any event, i would wake up every morning barely about to get out of bed without it catching my breath. I couldn’t bend over to put on my pants, everything was hard. Projects at the church basically came to a stop. Teaching studio lessons were hard, helping around the house was hard.
The pain was tough… but honestly I could ice it, I could stretch it, I could take ibuprofen. But what the pain exposed was probably the more difficult thing. Because I’m an enneagram 3- I’m a doer. I like to make a list and get stuff done.
And just the way my heart kinda works- is I feel like i have value by what I’m able to produce. But now my back has me incapacitated and i can’t function and do what I am used to doing.
So there’s the physical suffering layer— but probably the more painful part is “if i can’t do— who am I? I’m not worth anything.”
I mean it sounds stupid to say it out loud— but you know, I’ve seen that kind of things show up over and over again in so many of our lives when it comes to suffering. When you have a misplaced identity— what suffering does is it just magnifies the pain— and it magnifies dysfunction.
Here are three ways that can Happen. when you have misplaced identity
1) Suffering rattles your identity
•If your identity is in being a rock-star mom- And then the government goes on shut down. Now your kids can’t do all the travel teams or whatever. If your kids don’t make the team. If your kids get sick and can’t do the lead in the play…. it’s not JUST the physical or economic suffering. It’s how it strikes your identity. This is who we are…. this is what we do.
•If your identity is in your career — in being the high performer, the reliable one, the one who delivers — what happens when that shifts? You get the promotion you chased, but the culture is toxic, the expectations are crushing, and suddenly you’re not thriving anymore. You were winning, and now you feel like you’re failing.
The physical layer is your job is suffering— but then the deeper layer is the unraveling of who you thought you were. So suffering can really rattle you if your identity is messed up.
Heres another thing that can happen.
2) Suffering can replace my identity. It actually hardens my identity.
• So you tell yourself, “I’m someone who can’t rely on anyone. Because People always leave and let me down.
Then you go through some sort of relational pain. Someone walks out or fails you. The emotion layer is the hurt of loss of relationship. But the spiritual layer is that it confirms the script. “See? I knew it. This is who I’ve always been.”
And sometime suffering creates a conclusion that isn’t just situational— it’s personal. It takes something painful and turns it into a name tag you start wearing.
And here’s the tragedy. When identity is misplaced, suffering doesn’t just hurt you — it defines you. It rattles you. It reinforces the lies you were already whispering to yourself. And eventually, if you’re not careful, it replaces who you are.
And the pain is super real- the challenge isn’t made up. But the misery magnifies when the thing being attacked is what you are standing on as your identity.
And if we are gonna have a stand firm faith, an even-if faith… where peter starts is not internal fortitude, but it’s actually at the center of our identity.
1 Peter 2:9-10 (Page 828)
9 But you
Ok, so who is Peter talking to? These are scattered jewish and gentile Christians — exiles in Asia Minor. They weren’t yet facing full-scale persecution, but they were culturally losing out. They didn’t worship the Roman gods. They rejected the sexual ethics of the day. They were misunderstood and slandered. Because they were different, they were marginalized.
They weren’t necessarily losing their lives — but they were losing status. Losing comfort. Losing cultural approval.
And into that environment Peter says, “But you.” In other words, you are not defined by how Rome sees you. You are not defined by the slander. You are not defined by the exclusion. You are not defined by the suffering.
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
These phrases Peter uses are pregnant with meaning. I want to break these down because I think they make all the difference when it comes to how we are able to stand firm in suffering…
He says you are a CHOSEN PEOPLE
What’s really interesting here is that Peter uses a term that describes ancient Israel in the old testament. And who were these people? These were people that were related by blood to the same racial stock. But these weren’t impressive people – Certainly not at first. They were largely servant slaves. They were wandering homeless people.
Listen to how God speaks to his people and this language:
Deut 7:6-8
6 For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
7 The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. 8 But it was because the LORD loved you
And if you read the passage carefully, you’ll see what God is actually saying is one of the most wonderful circular statements that’s ever been made. He doesn’t say, “I loved you because you were impressive.” He doesn’t say, “I loved you because you were stronger, smarter, more faithful, more disciplined.” He says, in essence, “I loved you because I loved you.” I set my affection on you. Not because you earned it. Not because you outperformed the nations around you. But because I chose to love you.
That means His love is free. It’s not calculated. It’s not transactional. It’s not performance-based. It’s unmerited. And that principle runs straight to the heart of what it means to belong to His people. To be part of His people is not to prove yourself worthy of love — it’s to receive the love that was never based on worthiness in the first place.
To be a part of a ethnic people always happens by blood. And Peter uses the same language to speak of these group of scattered jews and gentiles— But how can they be blood related? They are… but not their blood. They are related by the blood of their Savior. They are justified by his blood.
So what Peter is reminding these persecuted Christians is that what makes you a member of this new race is not your bloodlines, and not your pedigree, and not your family and not your racial stock. But this is God’s choice.
But you are God’s CHOSEN people.
Peter is saying that God’s people are being formed as a new race based on God’s choice: his unmerited favor and his unmerited love.
And what you have in a Christian is somebody who knows that it’s not on the basis of my ethnicity, but on the basis of the unmerited love of God and on the basis o the blood of Christ.
Now the problem we have with that language is it sounds so snooty. So elitist. What do you mean you are chosen? But you need to see what it’s teaching- and it’s not elitist at all. Because it doesn’t say you are a choice people. It says you are a chosen people.
They are totally different. You know what choice means right? Like USDA choice meat or something. It means someone is there and they are looking for defects. This is the best… the pick of the lot. So when you see the word chosen you may think it means choice, but it doesn’t mean that.
It means this: if you are in Christ — if you belong to the people of God — your background is no longer the defining thing about you. Whether you’re Egyptian or Syrian, Jewish or Italian, whether you grew up in church or you wandered in last year, whether your family tree is impressive or incarcerated — you can belong to the people of God. And the reason you belong is not because you share the same ancestry. It’s because you share the same blood — the blood of Jesus.
When you begin to understand that God’s love is unmerited and free, it changes everything.
1 Corinthains 1:27-28
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. (IT GOES ON FURTHER) 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are,
The language there is almost shocking. It’s as if Paul says God chose the zeros.
And every Christian who understands grace knows this. If I am in Christ, it is not because I brought something impressive to the table. I’m not morally or intellectually superior. I’ve not outperformed anyone.
It is because Jesus shed His blood for me and I received what I did not deserve. I am chosen — not choice. I am not selected because I was elite. I am loved because God has chosen to love me. Unmerited favor. And that destroys elitism at the root. You are not choice, you are chosen.
Do you know that you’re saved sheerly by grace? That’s what makes us different than everybody else. We know that we’re chosen, not choice. We know that the love of God is completely free.
Most of the world operates on a different system. Either there is no God and you’re on your own, or there is a God and you’d better impress Him. But we know it’s different.
And that immediately gives you a whole new psychology and we become part, in a sense, of a whole new culture, and a whole new mindset and a whole different way of thinking. We have a radically different sense of identity.
Peter says
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood
So what is a priest? Let’s think about this for a bit.
A priest has access. Priests are the ones who get in. They are set apart as holy and worthy to have access.
If you’ve ever been tremendously dressed down for a formal event, you know what that means. If you show up to the New York Met Gala wearing PJs or oil change clothes… you’re not getting in. That’s too pedestrian for such a culturally elite event. If you want to have access, you’d better look and be good. How you dress is there to impress someone and to prove that your capable and worthy, and attractive and competent you are. You want to be accepted and to have access.
That’s true for a priest. The priests of the OT didn’t go before Yahweh in oil change clothes. They wore the most beautiful and sophisticatedly constructed garments in the country. They were accepted and they had access.
When it says Christians are a royal priesthood, it’s saying something staggering. It’s saying you don’t just get into some formal earthly event — you get into the ultimate one. You get invited to the ultimate dinner party. You get access to the ultimate inner ring. You get into the sanctuary and presence of God himself. But not because you dressed right or impressed him. It’s because Jesus the true High Priest opened the door for you.
This matters because beneath all of our striving, is a quiet, but dominating sense that we are outsiders. We feel like were really NOT in— not a part of the inner rings of life— not a part of being in the know. And i don’t know that we really understand just how much that drives us. It drives us psychologically. It drives us socially. It shapes the decisions we make and the image we project.
I mean advertisers know this— your algorithms and feeds know this. Because they understand human nature. They sell us products by whispering “this will get you in….” This will get you in socially and relationally. This will make you respected and admired. You will move from the outside to the inside.
Some time ago tru classic tees had me figured out. They showed a video of a slob of a man wearing a crappy sloppy t-shirt and they basically said… if you’ll wear our tru classic t-shirts, they will fit you better, your wife will think your swanky and she’ll think your hot. That’s all it takes for me— your wife will think your hot. I’ll do anything for that woman.
You know what I did… i ordered that tru classic t-shirt. Because even at some small level, it tapped into that same ache — the desire to feel confident, attractive, in.
Your algorithm probably sells you something different. Maybe it’s how you look. Maybe it’s how you perform. Maybe it’s how you speak. Maybe it’s a productivity hack or a fitness routine or a financial strategy. “If you just master this… you’ll be on the inside. You won’t be left out.”
And the Bible says that ache runs deeper than we think. Beneath our intellectual beliefs about God — whether you consider yourself religious or not — there is a deep sense that we are not fully at home. That something is off.
Genesis tells us the story of a shut door at the Garden of Eden. Humanity outside the gate. And whether we articulate it or not, at some level we know we’ve been shut out.
We know we’re not as we should be. We know there’s sin in us. We know if there is a holy Creator God, that he actually knows and sees even the things we try to hide. And I would argue that more than we can even realize— this reality is driving more of your life than you know.
And into that ache, the gospel speaks. It says, “You don’t have to fight your way into the room. In Christ, you’re already in.” It’s not your perfection. It’s his. It’s not your ability to weather a storm, it’s his.
So a priest has access. And what does a priest actually do? A priest is someone who stands in the gap. They are accepted, and they intercede on someone else’s behalf. A priest prays and is an advocate.
Hebrews 7 tells us that Jesus is our great High Priest, and it says He “always lives to intercede” for us. So think about that— right now Jesus is standing before the Father and he’s not just representing you before God- he’s advocating for you. He’s speaking on your behalf. Romans tells us that the Spirit does this for us when we don’t even have the words to put together.
Peter who wrote this book, think about him on the worse night of his life. And Jesus looks at him and says “Peter, you’re gonna deny me.” And despite peter pushing back hard— Jesus just says “You are gonna be sifted life wheat… but…. “
and what Jesus says next is not “but don’t’ worry peter, you got this.”
•he doesn’t say ‘you’re a natural leader… you’ll figure it out.”
•he doesn’t even say “you know peter, just believe in yourself.” That’s not the message.
What he’s telling peter is that the you are about to see how weak you actually are. And the pressure is about to come. And when this test hits, you’re gonna discover that there’s more coward in you than courage. And Satan is gonna come to crush you.
Jesus comes to the turning point… he says “But I have prayed for you.”
And then He adds, “So when you turn back, strengthen your brothers.” In other words, you’re going to fall. But you’re not going to stay down. Because I am standing between you and the Accuser. I am interceding for you. I am holding you up when you cannot hold yourself up.
That’s what a priest does. He prays. That’s what we are called to do.
In 1 Samuel 12:23, Samuel says something that ought to stop us cold.
1 Sam 12:23
… far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by failing to pray for you.
So sit with that for a second. He says it would actually be a sin not to pray for them. That’s some strong language. Why? Because samuel understood his identity as an intercessor. As a stand-in-the-gap leader.
He know what prayerlessness towards God’s people wasn’t neutral. It’s not a “I’m busy” or “i’ve got too much going on.” That it was a failure of love.
So Grace Fellowship- Imagine looking at your brothers and sisters in Christ, and saying in your heart… “Far be it for me to sin against the Lord by failing to pray for you.” That’s what people who understand they have access to God actually do — they use that access for someone else.
So let me ask you: has your view of God become so distant, so detached, that you’ve quietly concluded your prayers don’t really change anything? That they’re just spiritual exercises to make you feel devout?
So here’s the uncomfortable question; how are you doing? Do you realize you’re a priest? Do you realize you are called to your family and work place and community to stand in the gap spiritually for the people around you? That because of Jesus you have absolute access Yahweh. Priests pray. That’s what priests do.
Lastly and quickly Peter says that we are a HOLY NATION- God’s own possession.
When Peter says, “You are a holy nation,” that’s a massive statement. It’s so big we can’t unpack all of it, but let me give you the heart of what he means. The word he uses is where we get our word ethnic. He’s telling Christians, “You are a holy people-group. A distinct culture.” That matters, because he’s not talking about a subculture.
You know what a subculture is. My kids are into anime and table gaming, and that’s a whole world. They’ve got a language I don’t understand. There’s inside jokes. and conventions and character lore. There’s whole dice systems and strategy conversations. It’s it’s own subculture.
But if they switched from Anime to archery— that would be a change in subculture— very different vocabulary. Different gear and events. But…. it’s still inside the same broader culture.
When peter says we are an ethnic— he’s not talking about a hobby change— he’s talking about a culture change.
Cultures are comprehensive. A culture controls how you think about family systems, and gender roles, and money and work. It shapes your ideas of honor and morality and what is good and beautiful and worthy.
In other words, culture isn’t surface level— it’s a on the level of your entire life. So when Peter says you’re a holy nation, it means that when you become a Christian, you’re not changing a subculture. No, it’s a whole culture shift. It touches everything.
And what that means is that Christianity is not a self-help. It’s not a new years resolution. It’s not adding some church t your life or reading the bible a little bit. Christianity is not one more hobby layered onto your life.
So If you imagine your life is a filing cabinet, and you’ve got file folders labeled work, family, money, and all that. Christianity is not a new folder you drop in between career and fitness. Peter says it’s not a new file… it’s a whole new cabinet.
You take every folder out- and now they all go into something entirely different. Priorities shift and categories move. Being a holy nation means everything is touched; everything is sacred:
If controls how you do business and your view of what it means to be a godly wife and woman. It changes what it means to be a gentle understanding husband. It affects how you engage in conflict and how you handle your money. It changes your relationship to suffering.
—————
There are really only two ways to build an identity. You either achieve it, or you receive it. Most of the world runs on achieved identity. You build it and prove it. You defend it.
And the problem with an achieved identity is that it is fragile. Because it depends on performance holding up. Your health has to hold up. Your career has to progress. Your kids have to succeed. People have to affirm you. It makes you unbelievably fragile.
And the moment you can’t perform or produce or impress — the whole structure starts to crack. Because if your identity is achieved, suffering threatens to take it away.
But Peter is not describing an achieved identity. He is describing a received one.
•“You are a chosen people.” That’s not something you earned. That’s something given.
•“A royal priesthood.” That’s not something you climbed into. That’s something bestowed.
•“A holy nation.” That’s declared over you. “God’s special possession.” That’s secured by Him, not accomplished by you. None of those are achievements. They are realities handed to you by grace.
A hard season cannot cancel what God has declared. Because this identity does not sit on your performance. It sits on Christ’s finished work.
A received identity means that even your suffering has a purpose.
1 Peter 2:9
9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
That’s our purpose. We display. The suffering church is exhibit A.
And you may have a hundred practical questions. What do I do if my boss is unreasonable? What do I do if my spouse is difficult? What do I do if the government is unjust? Those are real questions, and Peter will address them.
But before we talk about what to do, we have to settle who we are. Our job is to display. No matter what’s happening to you or around you, we proclaim the excellencies of the One who brought us into light.
I was talking with one of our ministry partners who is facing an intense medical challenge. It may not improve. It may permanently limit them. It’s something they’ve feared their entire life.
And yet they said, “I’m not freaking out. I’m not anxious. I know God’s got me.” They told their dad, and he looked at them and said, “Who are you?” And they looked at me and said, “I don’t even know where this peace is coming from.” And I said, “I do. You’re standing firm. Your declaring praises. ”
So suffering isn’t rattling you and it’s not replacing your identity. It’s actually refining it suffering is where your identity is proven. It’s splendor in the furnace where you see a fourth man in the fire standing next to you. That’s how exiles stand firm.
You know what really makes suffering unbearable? It’s not just the pain. It’s the question underneath it. Who am I now? If I can’t produce, fix, win, impress, control, succeed — then who am I? That’s what undoes us. It’s not the circumstance. It’s the identity crisis it exposes.
And Peter looks at a marginalized, misunderstood church and says, “Let me tell you who you are.” You are chosen by grace. You are a royal priesthood- with unfettered access to God because Jesus brought you in. You are a holy nation with a different set of rules.
Man and when that moves from your head to your heart— it makes all the difference. It gives you a stand firm kind of faith because you know that your suffering doesn’t define you. You don’t achieve what you can only receive.