Meet The Manager // Under New Management // Read
For many, Christianity is an exercise in behavior modification. God gives us a list of “To Dos” and “To Don’ts”, and it’s our job to do and don’t them as best we can—right? Wrong! Actually, being a follower of Jesus isn’t about a change in behavior…it’s about a change in identity! Christians are people under new management. We’re not who we used to be. So why do so many of us struggle with our new identity? Why is it hard to believe God when He says we’re loved, chosen, and blameless? It’s time to address the gap between who we think we are and who God says we are, and see what it really means to be under new management.
Legendary theologian A.W. Tozer once said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Our view of God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—affects every area of our life, especially our identity. Is God great and good? Or is He distant and apathetic? If we want to have a correct view of our identity, it starts by having a correct view of God. So who is God and how does His identity change and shape my identity?
Well, hey, I want to say welcome. I am so glad you guys are here with us today. If you're watching online, thanks so much for being here for worshiping with us today. Does it feel good to be in the house of God today? Does it feel good to be here? Well, hey, I want us to start right out the gate. So if you got your Bible, follow along, if not, you can get your Bible app and you can go on there, we're going to be in the book of Exodus.
Today, I'm going to give you a real quick crash course on where we're starting. Because I don't have a lot of time to get all into it. But the Book of Exodus where we pick up God's chosen people, the Israelites, they are living under Egypt, slavery right there. They're under this oppression from this pagan land the Egyptians. God hears their cries, he hears that they're crying out to him for a savior and someone to save them from this just terrible, wicked place. And so God rises up and he he finds this man, Moses, and tells Moses that he is going to be his chosen man, his chosen vessel to deliver the Israelites. And that's where we pick up in this conversation between God and Moses in chapter three of Exodus.
So God tells them, hey, look, you're my man, you're my man, you're gonna go deliver my people. And this is what Moses says back to God. In verse 11 of chapter three, Moses said to God, "'But God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt.' And God said, 'I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who has sent you: when you have brought these people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.'" So Moses has another question for God. Moses says in verse 13, "'Okay, so suppose I go to the Israelites, and I say to them, 'The God of your fathers who sent me to you,' and then they asked me, 'Well, what's his name?' What shall I tell them?'" So you see, Moses doesn't even really know or understand or comprehend who he's talking to. He's saying, Okay, look, say I go and do this. Who do I say has sent me to you? God replies with probably the baddest reply that you can have. "God says to Moses, 'I am who I am.'" Talk about a mic drop moment. "'I am who I am, this is what you say to the Israelites, I am has sent me to you.'"
If you were with us, during this last series, Hack the WayBack, you know what we talked about, we were talking about our past our sins, our mistakes, or failures, and how those things don't define us. Now when we're in Christ, all of that stuff, all that junk in our past, it's exactly that - it's in our past, our past doesn't get to define us and name us any more. Jesus gets to name us because Jesus purchased us right? Jesus purchased our naming rights and so all of that stuff doesn't get to say who I am anymore. And I brought a little visual illustration to kind of help us today so here's my now obsolete Indians jacket. Isn't that great? I spent a good amount of money on this bad boy and it's it's obsolete now. You know why right? I'll take the the boos and the hisses back as a yes. The Indians just changed their name right. The Guardians The Cleveland Guardians. How do we feel about the name? Cornerstone like it? Some like it. People online, I want to know what you guys think about too. I like the Municipals. Some people like the Municipals? I like the Municipals. But Guardians isn't bad. Isn't that the one that I was hearing thrown around? People were saying the Commodores the Cleveland Commodores because Commodore Perry on Lake Erie. I'm like, man, like everybody's got a short name like the Cleveland Cavaliers or the Cleveland Cavs? Like we'd be the Commies. Like, sounds like we're a bunch of communists or something. So I'm like that, that's just problematic. Guardians is good. Guardians is good.
Except for the fact that now this is obsolete. But I think I have a way to fix this where I can still rock this bad boy going forward. Boom, there we go. And now I can rock this bad boy at Progressive field next year. All I did was take out the first few letters right. And suddenly, there it is there. There's the new name the Guardians, the Cleveland Guardians. And you know how they came up with this name? You guys know. I know. Let me give you the two stories, because there's two stories. The one story is they had focus groups and surveys, and they talked to people they talked to fans and they investigated the city of Cleveland and our civic pride and all these things about us as a as a city and they did all this different stuff. And they landed on the Guardians because of that... Yeah. That's hogwash.
And the true this is the second story. This is the true story,you want to know why that's their name now? Because the guy who writes the checks for the team, Paul Dolan, liked this name, the most. It's really that simple. The guy who forks out millions upon millions of dollars every single month to run this team decided, out of all the options, I like Guardians best, that's what we're going to name it. So they'll tell you the focus groups, they'll tell you that tested well, they'll tell you all this stuff, I'm telling you, he liked that name the most. And that makes complete sense. You know why? It's his team. He owns naming rights, he gets to name the team, I can have every opinion I want to, and he can say that's wonderful, you're entitled to your opinion. And I'm entitled to ignore it. Because you don't write any checks for this team. I write the checks, I take the risk, right? So I get to name the team.
And in the same way, your past doesn't get to name you, your dysfunctions don't get to name you, the things you've been through don't get the name you: if you follow Jesus, he has purchased you and he's purchased your naming rights. So he says, I get to name you, whatever I want to. So you don't need to listen to that crap anymore. I get to name you, only I have authority to put a name, to put a label on you. And so last series, we were focusing on who we aren't. This series, we're focusing on who we are. Right? So we're going to look at the positive if, if I'm not defined by my past, if I'm not defined my my dysfunctions, then what does define me? Who am I? Because of Jesus, who am I, because of this new management that I'm under, right? We're under new management. If you're a Christian, you're under new management. So who does the new manager say that I am?
With that in mind, let's bow our heads and pray together this real quick. Father God, man, I feel like this is an important word for people to hear today. And I really don't want to screw it up. Please be with me, bless my words today, help me to be on point, to be clear, and to communicate what I felt you communicate to me so that we can all walk away from this place, knowing you a little bit better than we came in here today. We love you, Father, we pray all this in your name. Amen. Amen.
Why don't you turn to the person next to you and ask them who's the boss? Who's the boss? Put it in the chat? Who's the boss? Not Tony Danza. Not Tony Danza. Now I can tell you, I can look around the room and I can see the wives in the room respond to that question you had to ask. You had to ask who the boss was right? Like you know who the boss was. What's the saying? If mama ain't happy? Ain't nobody happy. If mom ain't happy, nobody happy. That is true. That's just true, if mommy ain't happy, ain't nobody happy. And that's a truism that doesn't just exist in the house that exists everywhere in life, how the leader goes, so goes the team. How the boss goes, so goes the rest of the company. The leader sets the pace, the leader sets the tone in a lot of ways the leader sets the identity.
Whenever I worked at Allstate for a period of time, I wasn't on a call team that like handled insurance claims or anything. I was on the communications team but I worked with a lot of the team leaders of the team that would handle phone calls. And man that's a that's a tough job, you're handling like really angry people who are getting claims denied or aren't getting as much back as they wanted. Or you're talking to agents who were upset that you're raising someone's rates or doing stuff, that's a tough job. But man, there was a guy who was a team lead and he's at higher up now he I mean, he's just gonna keep shooting up through the company because he's such a great leader named Chad Sylvie, awesome guy, awesome leader. And man, every team he went on, his good morale, his results, it followed him. Like it just followed him whatever team he would be assigned to, it followed him. And it's so funny in this corporate environment with cubicles, and it just feels very sterile and stuff like that, you'd always hear laughter coming from his team people joke around having a good time, because he was just that good of a leader and his personality, his infectiousness, it went through the whole team and man, people, people on his team would cry whenever he got assigned to a new team like hey, I'm, not leading New York anymore. I'm gonna be leaving northeast and people like no, no, can I come with you? Like, can I transfer teams to be with you because he was such a great leader. And his identity almost became the team's identity, people joking like him talking like him answering the phone in the way that he coached them to. They became like mini Chads right, like just a fantastic team who would get really good results and you'd constantly hear really good feedback from how they handled people on the phone.
Now on the same token, other leaders who wouldn't have great results other leaders who you know their people would come in and say this is nothing more than a nine to five job. Can I check out? I'm not really here. I'm not really excited about everything. This is literally just a paycheck for me. And that's because that's kind of what the leader saw. And that infected the team, and the rest of the team saw it that way. So you have laughter and fun and good times over here. And over here, people just waiting to clock in and clock out so they can get on with their life. Right? Same atmosphere, two completely different teams because of who was leading them, the identity of the leader.
If you're a Browns fan you, you have seen this take place in the Browns, right? Two years ago, the Browns have Freddie Kitchens as their head coach. A lot of us are like, man, this is awesome. They're running it back. Freddie was great as an offensive coordinator with Baker, the Browns are gonna be incredible. This year, we're gonna be so good. And they tanked. just blew it. Freddie was a disaster as a head coach. He had never been one before. And so he comes in and all the players liked him. But he was just like one of them. They didn't really respect him. So no one really listened to him whenever he would talk to players in the post game. Everyone's saying something different, a different message. We need to run more we need to pass more. We're not disciplined enough. We're too disciplined. Everyone's all over the place. Just no one is coherent. No one's on message. And that's because it's how it was with Freddie. A lot of the players after the season said man, we would have like the first 10 to 12 plays of the game scripted all ready to go, and after that, we had no idea what was going on. Like no one knew. We didn't know are we going to run it the next 20 times and we are gonna throw, we we just had no idea.
Flip ahead. One year, last year, the Browns hire Kevin Stefanski this dude who is just no, this is what we do. This is what we'll be known for. I'm going to be the first to show up and the last to leave like just structured discipline, just a good guy full of integrity, awesome coach. And guess what? The Browns succeed with essentially the same roster that Freddy had. The Browns succeed, and they go to the playoffs and they beat the Steelers. Oh they beat the Steelers in the playoffs. It's just it's this incredible season of dreams, right? And it's all from this coach who and this is the crazy thing, you'd hear Kevin Stefanski the coach talk at a press conference. And then a couple days later, you'd hear the team talk. Like talking to reporters, they'd be saying the exact same phrases that the coach was saying. They sound just like him. People even joking about it, man, this team, it sounds like there's many versions of the coach because it infected the team. In the same way that Freddie infects the team in a negative way, Coach Stefanski infected them in a positive way. They assume the identity of the leader.
I don't need to tell you though, I don't need to tell you the Browns, I need to tell you All State, all I need to do is point to Cornerstone, right? Because we've seen, man whenever Pastor Brenda was in leadership here, whoa things were just crazy. People running all over the place, I mean just no accountability. It just was a dump around here. And then I came into leadership and things are just turned around and it's all up. Sorry, Pastor Brenda, I'm just kidding. Just kidding. But for real though, we've seen this take place at Cornerstone because we've see Pastor Brenda under her leadership. Man, people have assumed her identity, in a lot of ways. The way she talks about relationships, the way that she loves on people, we see people in the church mimicking that, mimicking that leadership, mimicking that I that identity. That's why Cornerstone is the church that it is today is because we've had this great leader for so long. And we as a church have like collectively assumed that leadership in a lot of ways. And I say all of this to say teams reflect leaders.
So any series that we're going to be talking about who we are, we have to talk about who our boss , is. Any series, any teaching series, any sermon that's going to focus on who I am, it has to focus on who God is. First, it has to because teams reflect their leaders, coaches, reflect the rest of the team, bosses reflect the rest of the team. That's how it goes. And so we don't just stand in isolation, right? Just get to say, well, this is who I am. Who am I? No, no, no, it is all dependent on who was our manager? It's all dependent on who's our manager on who is our boss. And it's so important for us to remember that in this day and age because my word are we obsessed with ourself. We are the culture that invented the selfie, right? We've got every personality test you can take because who am I? Who am I really? Let me discover more about me, right? Like, we have all these personality tests. We have journals. And don't get me wrong. I know my personality test. I know what enneagram I am, I know what Myers Briggs type I am. I have a journal that I keep. I'm not saying these things are bad, knowing yourself is good. But we can get so hyper focused on self, that we think that that's the defining question of our life is who am I? Who am I? I need to find myself I need to find my purpose. And that's all wrong. That's all wrong.
Look at scripture, this is what it says. So we were reading from Exodus chapter three, we started in verse 11, I'm going to jump just a few verses back. This is what God says before verse 11, in verse seven, God says, to Moses, "'I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt, I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I've come down to rescue them from the land of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey, the home of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, Hivites, the Jebusites,'" the termites, the you know, every every ICT, you can imagine is living in this place. "'And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are pressing them, so I'm going to deliver them.'" So God is saying, hey, look, I'm about to deliver you guys. And not just that, I'm not just going to deliver you, and just set you off on your own, I'm going to deliver you and you're going to become your own nation, you're going to have your own land, you're going to have your own law, you're gonna have your own customs, you're gonna have your own culture, you are going to become you. And we see that play out, we see that play out throughout the rest of the Book of Exodus, throughout the rest of the Old Testament, we see this little baby infant nation, become themselves and find out who they are.
And they go through good periods and bad periods and good leaders and bad leaders. And they're, they're struggling to discover who they are. But I love what God does in the middle of this moment where they're trying to figure out, okay, we're going to become our own people and become our own thing. And who, who are we? We're going to find out who we are. God says, Hey, but before you do any of that, just remember who you are, is secondary. It is secondary, it's a secondary importance to who I am, it should come second. God establishes proper priority. Moses asks, hey, who am I? Who am I that you would send me to the Egyptians? And God says you're asking the wrong question. It's not who are you, it's who am I? Who are you talking to? Who am I? Who is God in your life? I love that God just straight up skipped Moses, his question, he didn't even answer it. He like didn't even acknowledge it. Listen to it again. This is what Moses says, "Moses says to God, 'God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?'" God doesn't say, well, Moses, this is who you are. And this is all the good stuff you got going for you and you're, you're good. You're good at this. God doesn't say that. Moses is like, Who am I? And God says, nono... Who am I? I will be with you. That's God's response. I will be with you. God, just straight up skipped Moses's question. Because he knows that Moses question doesn't matter. Like it just doesn't matter. Who are you? I gotta tell you, it really doesn't matter in the light of who I am.
You see, I'll never know who I'm supposed to be until I know who God is. Right? I'll never know who I'm supposed to be until I know who God is. I just want to ask, does anyone in here ever feel like God has skipped your question before? How he skipped Moses's like, Hey, who am I? And God just skipped over? You ever had God skip a question for you? I have. I have. You've got questions. Why am I not married yet? Why haven't I been able to have a kid yet? Why haven't I got that promotion yet? Why isn't this happening for me? Why is it happening for them? You've got all these questions and God's saying, I am skipping those. I'm not even answering those questions. Because you're asking the wrong question. You're so focused about all these things, and you're missing me. And God's saying to us what he said to Moses. No, no, you are so focused on who you are and what you get in life. Direct your focus back where it matters. Who am I? Who is God in your life?
A.W. Tozer, a famous theologian wrote a lot of fantastic books about God, he's the one that uttered the really famous phrase, this question and it's so good. He says, "What comes to your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you." Gonna say it again, what comes to your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. And how true is that? It's the most important thing, everything in your life flows out of that how you answer that question. Who is God in your life? Who is God to you?
Now, that's technically where we could end the sermon. And everyone would get lunch early, and we'd all be really happy. I could end the sermon there. Because you know that, hey, it's not really us that matters as much as understanding who God is, and we could end it here because as most of us feel like, we know who God is, like, okay, I need to know who God is. And I'm good. But I don't want us to assume. We all know what happens when we assume. I'm not gonna say it from up here. But we all know what happens whenever we assume things. So we can assume that we know who God is like, okay, not focus on myself focus on knowing who God is. We can assume we know who he is, but but do we really know? Do we really know?
Because can I be real with you for a second? I'm 33-years-old. I'm a pastor's kid. I went to a Christian school. All the other kids in my Sunday school hated me because I could answer all the questions like that, like, probably knew more than some of the Sunday school teachers at some point, right? Because I'm just surrounded by it 24-7, at school at home here at church. Like I've got all that knowledge, I went to Ohio Christian University, I got my master's degree in practical theology, I've read the Bible through a few times, from Genesis to maps, like I've read the whole thing through. And with all that in mind, I don't say any of that, to brag, I say all of that, to let you know, I have all of that understanding all that knowledge. And I still feel like I'm learning. I still feel like man, I'm scratching the surface.
Pastor Brenda could attest the same thing. And her schooling and her knowledge so far outpaces where I'm at. And I'm still learning. Whenever someone asked me who is God, I'm like, I'm trying to figure it out. Because he's so rich, he's so depth, he is so multi layered. There's so much to who God is. And I feel like I am just scratching the surface. In fact, one thing I've learned, the farther I've gotten in life, and the more I've learned about God, it's funny, the less certain I am about everything about him. I am so less certain things that I used to be like, I will die on that hill. I know that's wrong. I know this is right. I know this is how you should live. I know this, and this and this, this doctrinal issue, this life issue that all these things, I know exactly where God would fall in line with it. I know exactly what he would say about all those things. I was so dead set on, man, the more I learned about God, the more I learned about Jesus, I'm like, I not as certain as I used to be. But I am more certain and more confident than ever in him. And in who he is. Right? Like, the more I learn about him, the more confident I am in him, and the less confident I am in just about everything else.
So can we all just agree at the onset, when it comes to who God is, we're not going to assume, let's just not assume, assuming does terrible things whenever we assume because I don't, I don't care what society says about God, I don't care what culture says about God, I would go so far as to say I don't care what your church's denominational background says about God. I don't care. I don't care. Because we allow a lot of crap to get into our view of God, just over time and over things that happen in our own views. We put stuff in there that doesn't belong there. And so we say stupid stuff that damages people. And it's dangerous. We had a whole series on this a few months ago, Follow Your Heart and Other Awful Advice, these things that the culture and a lot of Christians, we just assumed to be true. We act like it's in the Bible, but it's not. And it's dangerous.
And it's faulty thinking like, if you've ever heard this before, maybe you've heard this before, or you've said this before. And if you've said it, please understand this. I'm not trying to be offensive to you or anything like that. But I'm just just saying this is this is a fact of life. One thing that you'll hear a lot of funerals, a lot of funerals, someone will die, someone will pass away. And someone will try to comfort the loved ones by saying, well, God just needed another angel. God just need another angel. Let me tell you, that's one of the worst things you could ever tell somebody. We tell people that assuming it's in Scripture, assuming that's what God has said that God takes people whenever he needs another angel. But you know what the people around us here when we say crap like that, they hear about a selfish God who is so concerned with his glory, that he takes a 23-year-old mother to come be another angel. So he can have one more person singing his praises. That's what people hear. It's not comforting to them. They're like man, what kind of selfish God is this? He took away my niece, he took away that little girl's mom so he could have another angel? That's how dangerous assumptions are.
We say things just assuming we know God, just assuming we know how he acts and what he does and what he thinks. And it's dangerous, and it's deadly, and it can hurt not just us, but the people around us. So I don't care what I think about God. I don't care what you think about God, what society or tradition or culture says I care what he says about himself. He's the only one that gets to label himself. He's the only one that gets to name himself. So what does he say about him? So let's put some names on God. All right. And again, none of these are names that Pastor Jacob is coming up with. This is all stuff grounded in what God has revealed about himself through Scripture.
So we're gonna change these out real quick. I don't really have like a God quote. This is the closest I was like, I'm looking at my wardrobe. And I'm like, yeah, that's the closest God looking I could, I could imagine Jesus rocking this right? If he came today, like, I could picture that. So here, here is our God coat. We're gonna put some names on God today. Who does God say, he is? He is the great I am. Well, God tells us in His Word, I am one, I am one, the Lord your God is one. You know what that means? That means there are not multiple gods. There is God. Right there, there's not multiple Gods out there to you. I want to break it to you, the universe isn't a god. Well, I put it out into the universe, and we'll see if it will send it back. You're just putting it out there into the void, because the universe ain't answering. There is one God, one God, then the Lord your God is one. Now, here's where some of the mystery comes in. There's another thing we know about God. And it's what we sang about today, we sang about God and the three different persons of the Godhead, the Trinity today, God is Father God, His Son, and God the Spirit. Good luck with that. Because what that means what the doctrine of the Trinity means, and we see it over and over again in God's word is that God is one. But he is made up of three distinct persons, God, the Father, God, the Son, and God, the Holy Spirit.
Now you'll hear people try to give you analogies all day long of well, the the Trinity is like, the Trinity is like me. I'm not just Jacob a father. I'm Jacob an uncle. And I'm Jacob a son. And I'm not - that doesn't do it. That's, that's a faulty analogy. People try to say, well, God is a lot like, like water. So water can be a liquid, it can be a gas, and it can be a solid. That's not it either. There's no good analogy that we have to explain the Trinity. It is a mystery. We don't understand how God is one, but three, we don't know. We don't know how that works. Anyone who tries to tell you they know exactly how it works, man, some of the greatest theologians have written volumes of books on this idea, and are still scratching their head at the end of it going yeah, I don't know. I don't know. But we know that it's true that God is all of these he is Father, Son, and Spirit.
Here's another one. God is eternal. God is eternal. Anyone else whenever you were younger, freak out, or maybe you freak out now about the idea of eternity. Online? Anybody in the chat? Okay, well, you're about to be freaked out. Let me explain it for you real quick. This is how it got explained to me whenever I was like, seven, I can't remember who told me wasn't my parents or anything. This guy explained to me, someone trying to like calm me down and encourage me. I guess I don't know. But they explained the eternity to me like this, they're like so eternity is endless time. And what it looks like is imagine this. Imagine a dove. With its normal dove speed, like not a super fast dove, just a normal dove picks up one grain of sand off the beach. And then it flies it to the moon. Imagine how long that would take. And then the dove gets to the moon and sets the grain of sand down and flies back. The dove does that for every grain of sand on planet Earth, picks it up flies to the moon, picks it up flies to the moon, for every grain of sand. And guess what? When he finishes, that won't even be one second in eternity. As a kid, I'm like in a corner like, like freaking out like that blew my mind. I'm terrified. I'm freaking out. I'm scared. I'm like ahhh that's so long. And it's such a crazy concept, right? Thinking of eternity endless time, if that's you, and maybe you weren't freaked out. But now you're like, I really want to get out of here and get something else. Let me help you. Okay, the way that I've heard it explained recently, and I agree, I think this is most likely an eternal doesn't mean endless time. It means above time. Like, time is a constraint that we live in. We live in it. God does not live in it. That would be like saying, God is the author of a book. And he is constrained by how the characters act and the time in the book and everything that you know, he's the author. He's writing the book, the timeline in the book does not matter or affect him at all. He lives outside of the story. And in the same way, the time that we live in every day, God is not bound by it and one day we will not be bound by it either so eternal isn't endless time, it's no time.
In fact, we know from and this is one of the great things God has revealed through science like we can see some amazing things that point to his existence through the scientific world, that whenever the universe came into existence, we know that space and time came into existence at that moment in time. Do you know what that means? That means once upon a time, there was no time. Like wrap your head around that one, right? Once upon a time, there was no time. God is eternal, he is eternal.
There's another one that kind of goes close with that. God is self-existing. I don't know about you, but I had to be born to get here. Right. I had to be born. I was dependent on someone else for me to exist. Right? Like I can't just exist on my own. That's not true for God. God is self-existing. He relies on nothing. He doesn't count on anyone to help him be. He just is. He is the Great I Am. Here's a real Christiany word for you. God is omnipotent, omnipotent. What that means is God's all powerful. He's all powerful. Doesn't that make you happy? Doesn't make you pumped to know that you serve a God who's all powerful that there's not a single thing he can't do. Right? There's not a single relationship you can't restore. There's not a dysfunction he can't break. There's not a stronghold he can't tear down. He is all powerful. But at the same time, he is so powerful, there's not anything that's too big or too small for him. He sees everything. He sees everything, and he is all powerful.
Here's another one, God is holy. God is holy. Now, a lot of people who see this word and they think that means like, oh, yeah, he's perfect. He doesn't do anything wrong. That's not what holy means. Holy means set apart. That's why you'll see in God's word, a lot of times he'll tell people, he'll say, Israel is my holy nation. He's not saying, this is my nation that does everything right, because they most certainly do not. He's saying, no, this is the nation that I've chosen, they are set apart, I have pulled them out and I have set them apart to be something special. That's God, God is set apart there is nothing else like him in the world at all. He is holy. God is omniscient. That means he is all knowing he knows everything. We talked about it a few weeks ago, that testimony that you've told people, and it's the TBS edited for TV version, right? The the socially acceptable testimony. God knows the real one. He knows the stuff you never want to say he knows his stuff. You never want to admit he's all knowing. Right? And he still loves you despite it. God is all knowing there's not a single thing that passes by without him being aware of it.
God is omnipresent. He's everywhere. You know what this means, right? This means that whenever we prayed today, God was in this place. We weren't just shouting up praises to the ceiling, hoping that some distant person heard it. No, God is omnipresent. That means he is here. Even in our midst right now, as we were talking. He's here with us. He's with you online, wherever you're watching that today. God is the present. He is everywhere. This is one of my personal favorites. God is king. God is king. It can be so easy sometimes for us to just think of Jesus as meek and mild and humble. And he most certainly was all those things. But he's King. Jesus is king. He's king of the world right now, the world's just a little late on finding out though. That's That's why we exist to help people know, hey, you are already a part of this kingdom of God that he has initiated, you can come and be a part of it. Now he is king and he sits on the throne.
Another one only a few more of these. God is unchanging, who's grateful that we serve an unchanging God, right? That despite all the people in your life, who will promise you the world and then let you down the second it becomes inconvenient for them. You know what I'm talking about? The people who oh, I'm there for you just let me know. You call them up, man. Sorry, I won't be able to do that today or next week or the week after, right? God's unchanging, he makes a promise to you he's gonna see it through. The same God he was yesterday and the same God that he was to people before you, he's gonna be that God to you. You aren't getting this is one thing. We think a lot, we think that we live in a lesser time than the people who lived that we read about in Scripture, that man that they must have lived in a great time when God was that way. No, God's still that way. He still moves. He still brings dead things to life. He's still splits seas, he's still working. God is unchanging, and God is perfect.
God is perfect. There's not a single thing he does that he could improve on. Think about that. God would shoot an 18 if he played Firestone right? He'd shoot an 18, there's not a single thing that he doesn't do perfectly. And then this last one, this is my personal favorite. This is God's defining characteristic. God is say it with me, love. God is love. This is what defines him. If you notice, just about every single one of these things, is dependent on something else outside of it. The only way we know what perfection looks like, is because we live in an imperfect world. The only reason we know what it means to be unchanging is because we're surrounded by so many shifty, two faced people, right? They're just they go with the wind. God is love. That is his core attribute that is his core, character, quality, he is love and get this God has eternally been love. Because what has to exist for love to exist? A relationship, right? God has always been in relationship with himself, Father, Son, and Spirit. The Trinity has always existed, they've always been submitting to each other in love. It's the core defining quality of who God is. God is love.
This right here is the God that you serve. Isn't that good news? That is good news, that that's the God we serve. Think about it. Let me sum all that up real quick. God is great. God is good. Some you just got hungry. Let us thank him for her food, right? All that can be summed up in that God is great, God is good. And this is what's so cool about that, almost every other religion up to this time was expressed by gods who were great, but not good. Or gods who are good, but not great. The God of the Bible, the God that we see expressed in the Bible, through the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is the first God to ever come along who says no, no, no, not only am I great, and I can do all things. You want me to be great, and do all things because I'm good. Because I'm good, I'm perfect, and I'm holy. God is great. God is good. That's what he says about himself.
And we know from scripture what it says in the book of Colossians, we know that God has revealed Himself through Jesus, that when we look at Jesus, we see the fullness of God in flesh, he has revealed himself and that this God right here, this is our manager. That when we put our faith in Jesus, when we trust Him, this is the God who is our manager. This is the God that is running our team and giving us directions. This the God who we are to follow and to emulate.
Now, what I want to let you know, though, is you don't get to experience God in this way unless you accept him to be your manager. Right? You don't get to experience God in this way, God being loved and holy and King and omniscient, omnipresent, you don't get to experience the full effect of this, unless you put yourself under his management. Because there is no neutral territory in the world. You are on one side or the other. When it comes to what side you're on, there isn't gray ground. There's not well, you know, I'm just kind of I kind of love God, but I kind of do my own thing I kind of draw on one side of the other. Who is your manager?
This is what it says in the book of Colossians. This is what the Apostle Paul, one of Jesus's earliest followers wrote, this is how he describes us, when we were apart from God, listen to the words that he uses, "Once you were alienated from God, and were his enemy." Yikes. That's not you know, me and God are just kind of like, we're kind of on whatever terms right now, no, you were alienated from him and your enemy, you were opposed to him. You know, that word alienated whenever we look at the actual word because the Apostle Paul wasn't writing an English. He wrote in Greek. And whenever we look at the Greek word that Paul use there, the literal definition for the word he used to describe alienated that word means belonging to another, transferring ownership. So the Apostle Paul is saying, hey, before, before Jesus, before coming to him, you belong to somebody else.
You were under different management, until Jesus came along. And we know who that other manager is. It's Satan. It's the devil. You know what Satan means. It literally means the accuser. And in that, what he does man, he accuses you. That's what we talked about this entire last series. If you missed it, go back online and watch Hack the WayBack. He's the accuser. He brings up everything you've ever done. Every thought you've ever had, everything, you're bad, and he wants you to identify that way. He wants you to believe that that's who you are, but we have the opportunity through Jesus to live under new management. We can live under new management because of Christ. No longer, and this is what's so beautiful, not only are we no longer alienated from God, no longer are we not just his enemy, God goes a step further. He doesn't just forgive us, God forgives us, and he adopts us. That's like a million steps past what he needs to do. He doesn't just forgive us. He adopts us, He calls us his children. Listen, what Paul, the same writer of Colossians, listen to what he says in the book of Ephesians. Paul says in Ephesians 5:1, "Follow God's example, therefore, as dearly loved children." We're his kids, we are God's kids. And we are to follow his example like his children.
I've been working on organizing, I keep all of my notes in the Apple Notes app. I've got tons of stuff, I journal in there, have our budget in there, all that kind of stuff. And I've been organizing it because it's getting kind of wild. Got a lot of stuff in there. And one of the notes that I went through, I saw it pop back up. And I was like, oh, I gotta read. This is a note that just says things about my dad, and my dad passed away a few years ago. And so I started recording, like, everything I can about him, just everything every thought I have every little inside joke, every little stupid thing he did. Like every little thing he would do. I've recorded all of it. Because that stuff falls through the cracks. It just does. If you don't record things, you can think your memory is good. But man, you'll remember broad strokes, and all those little things, all those little fun things. You'll forget them if you don't record them. So I've I've promised myself, I'm not forgetting those little things. I've recorded all of them. And man, I'm organizing my notes. And I started reading through that one. I was dying, laughing because I'm like, oh my gosh, these things are so funny. Just some of the stuff he did. One thing that he did, he would, he would like bump. Of course, only if you knew the person only if it was family, he would bump the car in front of him on the road.
Like I remember the first time my girlfriend now wife, Jessica, us all going out for family dinner somewhere. And so everyone's like, driving separate to get there. And we're sitting at a stoplight. I think it was actually turning left to get on 77 south. We're just sitting there in the car. And all of a sudden you just feel... like that slight tap. It wasn't like, he like didn't hit you hard. It's not like bumper cars or anything, just enough to give you a nudge like this. And Jessica goes, oh my gosh, I think someone just hit us and like turns around. Turns around it just sees my dad in his van losing it just dying laughing. Cracking up laughing, she's like, did he mean to do? He does that? He does. He does that. He's just crazy, right? Just crazy. He thought it was the funniest thing in the world. And another funny thing in my list we saw happen then, whenever he would laugh, his eyes just disappear. They're just gone. Like he's always laughing and they're just there. He has no more eyes anymore. There just completely gone. So stinking funny.
One of our favorite things about him. And then I mean, there's so many I had like a million I had to take off of here because I was just wanting to read all of them. Another one, he had his own Christian cuss word. He developed this from where he lived in French Lick Indiana. He would call things or it was I don't know he used it for everything. Sal hugger. Sal like a pig, sal hugger he used that for everything. It could be bad like the Calves lose on last second shots: Sal hugger, or it can be good like Ron Roundtree, you old sal hugger, how you doing? Like it could be it could be good or bad. And he would use it all the time. And then I was reading through that list. And I was just cracking up.
And as I got towards like, a third, a third of the way in. I kind of realized I'm like, my word. I do all of these things. I do all these things. Me and Jessica have bumped people in the car before now to because it's funny, right? My eyes, they kind of whenever I'm laughing really hard they disappear. I've called my kids a sal hugger, right? Like I've done all these things. I'm like, oh my goodness, I'm doing the exact same thing.
And the funny thing is, I've got a little guy now I've got a little boy Griffin. And he's imitating me. I'm a neat freak, cuz like I'm a neat freak. I'm real organized. If something's supposed to be put away, I put it away. Like I'm just very much like that. He is picking up on it like crazy. So it's funny. We have a little trash can, it's got the flap open lid, it's got a child lock on it. Jessica, if she'll leave it open because she's throwing multiple things away. So she'll like prop it open, go over, grab something. And whenever she comes back, it will be closed, closed and locked. Because Griffin will be walking by walking by with this little drink and he'll look over and see it and close it and then close the child lock too. He closes both of them and I'm like that's my boy. That's exactly what I would have done. And Jess would have been like, did you just lock that I needed it open. Like what are you doing? And I'm still working on it and I'm like oh yeah, I'm just that's how I am. And Griffin is mimicking me. He's doing it too. I'm mimicking my dad, he's mimicking his dad.
Ephesians 5:1 "Therefore, as God's dearly loved children, imitate him." Imitate him. You see, you don't really know me, the people who know me best in life are the people who knew my dad best. The people who really know me are the people who know, my dad. And I want to let you know, man, you don't truly know yourself until you truly know him. Until you truly know God, until you truly know your heavenly Father, you don't really know yourself. Looking through that list of stuff about my dad, I was like learning things about myself. I'm like, oh, my gosh, I remember I do all this. I'm learning about my dad. But in doing so I'm learning about me.
That's how it's supposed to be as we learn about who God is, and how these things play out in our life, and how his identity is supposed to mold and shape us because we are supposed to imitate him. And that's why God in Exodus 3:14, is telling Moses, I don't care who you think you are, who I say you are, I don't care what you think about yourself, your own idea of your identity doesn't matter. It matters who I say you are because you're supposed to imitate me, your identity is supposed to be molded and shaped by mine. In the same way, Jacob, that you are acting like your dad, your identity is supposed to be you look at scripture, and you're reading and you're going, I'm doing the same things. Man, I read about Jesus life, and I'm, I'm trying to do those same things. I'm acting like my dad, I'm imitating him because I am his kid.
That is why it is so important for us to know God's identity. It doesn't matter who I am. It matters who he is, who he is, that's where we find our identity. And if I can be real in our closing minutes here together, if I can be real, some of us, we are trying to find our identity in all the wrong places. That who am I, you're trying to answer it with relationships, you're trying to answer it with work you're trying to answer with jobs, with school, you're trying to handle it with social media, if I can get this many followers, if I can sleep with this many people or that kind of person, if I can have this kind of job, then I'll know who I am, then things will be set, then I'll know my identity and God's saying you are missing it, you're missing it, you are looking for your identity in all the wrong places. And every single one of those will never fulfill you, it will never satisfy you, you'll always be jumping from one to another, you'll get that relationship that feels good for a while, then you'll need a new one. You'll get that certain amount of followers you wanted, and then you'll see someone else who has a little bit more, you'll be striving for more. It will never satisfy you, you will not be satisfied until you find your identity where it was supposed to be in God.
And here's what I want to tell you as you start to imitate him, as you start to imitate him and you spend time with him. Because that's how you imitate him. Right? I imitated my dad because I just spent time with him. As you imitate God, you will find out I promise you this, you are never more yourself than when you're more like God. I talked to someone just in between first and second service, who explained exactly how true that is. She said, man, I forgave people this week, and I asked for forgiveness this past week. And I as I did it, I just felt relief. I just felt like this is what I'm supposed to be doing. That's exactly it. That is what you're supposed to be doing. You are never more... Owen, you are never more... Summer, you are never more... Josh, you are never more yourself than when you're more like God.
The more you act like him, you're looking at that list of things about my Dad, you're going that's me too. That's me too. That's why I feel so alive when I forgive people. That's why I feel so good whenever I'm giving of myself without asking for anything in return. That's why it feels good. Because I'm acting like my dad. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do. You're never more yourself than when you're more like God. You were designed for him to name you. You were designed for him to name you for him to say hey, here's how it's gonna work best for you. Follow my example, follow my identity, let my identity infect you so that when people see you, they see me because I promise you that's the only way you're gonna have a fulfilling, satisfied life. And he wants that for you. He wants that for you if you want that for you, as well.
Let's pray together. All right, Heavenly Father, Jesus, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit, we are so thankful for you. Thankful for the life that you offer for the life that you give us. We're thankful that you are a God who isn't just great, but you're a God who is good. You're a God who is great and you're a God that we want to be great because the way that you love us the way that you're merciful the way that your kindness draws us to repentance, not your hate, not your wrath, not your judgment, your kindness draws us to repentance. God help us to just keep you in mind. Help us to get our self obsession put on the bench, and to focus on where we need to focus. You and your identity. Help us to stop asking the question who am I, and to instead focus on who you are. Because the more we learn about you and your identity, it changes everything for us. It changes how we act, how we live, how we speak, it changes the kind of relationships we have, it will change the kind of husbands we are the kind of marriage that we have. It will change the way that we interact at work, it will change everything about us. So help us, God, to have an appropriate view of who you are. And then as dearly loved children to imitate you and everything we do. We love you so much. God we love you so so much and we're so thankful for who you are. We pray all this in your name, Amen.
