WHO AM I?

Romans 12:3
November 12, 1995
Bob Bonner

Just to prove a point, I would like to begin this morning by asking three of you two questions: “Who are you? And, from what do you derive your sense of worth?”

For most of us, because we have unwittingly taken up the philosophy of our world, when we are asked to identify ourselves, we give as our answer our name or something we do or something we have accomplished rather than explaining who we are. For instance: I am not Bob Bonner. That’s merely my name. I am not an elder, that’s what I do. Being a graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary is not who I am, but rather an accomplishment I have earned. None of those things are who I am. So, who am I? I am a child of God. That’s my identity. Everything else is a name I call myself, something I do or an accomplishment I have made.

In addition to mistakenly not understanding who we are, many of us derive not only our identity but our sense of value from what we have accomplished or what we do. If we have accomplished much or done well at what we have chosen to do, we feel good about ourselves. We think we have worth. But if we don’t feel like we have accomplished much or worse, we see nothing but failure in our wake, then we think even less of ourselves.

Consider the beautiful actress, Kelly McGillis, the actress who starred in such movies as Top Gun, Witness, and Made In Heaven. Despite all of her current success as an actress, Kelly is still haunted by the pain of being rejected for a part back in 1984.

In an interview with Tom Green of USA TODAY, Kelly said, “[Here] is the head of 20^th Century-Fox telling me I wasn’t beautiful, that I’d never work in this business as an actress. I was depressed and suicidal. For about five months I couldn’t go on an audition.”

Kelly was later spotted by another director named Peter Wier, who saw her perform a small role in a movie entitled, Reuben, Reuben and then cast her opposite of Harrison Ford in the movie Witness. And since that time, her career has taken off.

Yet, still today, she is plagued with thoughts that who she is and her worth is less than it should be, simply because someone else told her that she isn’t pretty enough to be an actress. Just think how much more she could accomplish as an actress if she believed that she had worth as an actress that had nothing to do with her beauty. Her confidence in her worth as an actress could lead to many more successful productions. [MEASUERING UP, Leman, p. 226-227]

Living in this fallen world, there is not one person in this room who has not struggled with or bought into this thing someone else calls, “The Big Lie.” The origin of this lie is none other than the Deceiver himself, Satan. To put this Big Lie in the form of a formulae, it would look like this. It says that a person’s self worth = one’s performance or ability to live up to a standard + other’s opinions of you.

Many years ago, a young couple had their first child, a boy. As the boy began to grow up, they noticed that he had musical talent. He could play the violin. So they looked for the best instructor they could find for him. They were told about and old Swiss Maestro who used to teach, bur who had now retired. They decided to try anyway and took their boy to him. When the maestro heard the boy play, he recognized that indeed, this boy did have a lot of talent and decided to work with him. When the boy began working with him, he was eight years old. Ten years later, after working with the boy almost every day, there came the time for his debut, his parents booked Carnegie Hall and all of the press and important people were invited.

The lights dimmed and the boy came out on stage. From the very first note he held the crowd mesmerized until the end of his performance. When he finished, the people stood to their feet and filled the hall with cheers and applause. Yet the boy ran off the stage crying. The stage manager yelled, “Get back out there. They love you. They are all cheering and clapping.” The boy replied, “There is one who is not.” The manager ran out on stage and came back quickly and said, “O.K., so there’s one old man out there who is not applauding. You can’t worry about what one old man thinks when the world loves you.” “But,” the boy replied, “you don’t understand; that’s my teacher, my leader.”

This young man’s whole sense of worth and identity as a violinist mistakenly rested in the opinion of that one person. Not even when the thousands of fans could counter balance his mentor’s opinion. Accepting his worth as a violinist was based upon the response of his teacher. And his teacher’s response would prove to limit his future aspirations to perform for other audiences.

Each of us have significant people in our lives such as our parents, teachers, coaches, people who have had a spiritual influence on our lives from who we tend to look to for affirmation concerning our identity and sense of worth. If or when they affirm us, we produce. If they don’t, we may try harder to produce until they do affirm us. If they never affirm us, we may give up and never try again. And from that point on, view ourselves as nothing but a failure. And that is not the way God wants His children to see themselves. Not is not the way He sees one Christian.

In a moment, we will look at upon what God wants us to base our identity and sense of worth. But to simply further illustrate the common struggle we have with knowing who we are and feeling good about ourselves, I want you to look at some symptoms.

Here are 10 symptoms or behaviors that reveal that a person is hooked into deriving their sense of worth from the opinions of others and/or suffers from a sense of worthlessness.[CHART]

Depression sets in when someone loses his temper or is insulting you.

1. You are afraid to speak up when a family member forgets to do that favor he promised to do.
2. Being a parent is a chore because it is so difficult for you.
3. When you do not get your way, you pout and sulk.
4. You are sensitive to criticism and feel hurt even when someone has legitimate complaint against you.
5. You are afraid to say no.
6. You are reluctant to ask for something you want or deserve for fear of being turned down.
7. You don’t want anyone to know your strengths, because to them your strengths may still be weak.
8. You would rather spend an evening alone than to risk being with a group of friends who may reject you.
9. You have a quitters attitude toward life. That is, you have given us hope for improving your circumstances. [GOOD ‘N’ ANGRY, Les Carter, p. 62]

The following are symptoms that someone is deriving their sense of worth from the other side of this formula or “The Big Lie” that is that their worth is based on their performance:

1. Constant activity
2. Endless meetings, appointments, emergencies and counseling
3. Being over scheduled, usually afraid to say “No.”
4. Key relationships around this person suffer due to there being no time to nurture them.
5. Strong feeling that he/she must be in charge, because if they are not, failure will be the end result.

But as anyone who has ever bought into this lie will tell you, self achievement, or performing well before others or accomplishing one’s life goals is no guarantee of self acceptance or possessing self worth. Living one’s life on the basis of this lie will not bring one a sense of worth. It will not bring lasting satisfaction to one’s life. And in many cases, accepting the Big Lie as the basis for one’s operating in life will in the end prove to be less productive than if ones gains the correct understanding of one’s identity and worth.

If a Christian is so filled with self doubt, based upon the lies of the enemy that person is not going to get much accomplished for the Lord. What you know about yourself, how you see yourself to be definitely will always affect the way you behave. 

That’s why the Spirit of God lead the apostle Paul to write the book of Romans in the fashion that he did. As we saw last week, the first 11 chapters of the book of Romans was written to explain the truth about God, what God has done for the believer and to explain what the believers new identity is all about, now that we are in Christ.

Then, beginning with Chapter 12, Paul tells us that now, based upon what we know about our new lives in Christ, this is how we are to respond or behave as children of God.

Last time, we learned that since we believers have been made children of God, adopted into His eternal family, then as His children, He has called us to serve Him. We are to offer our bodies back to God as a living sacrifice, set apart for God to use for His moral spiritual purposes.

However, we also saw last time, that if we are going to use our bodies correctly, in such a fashion as to serve God and honor Him, then we much have our minds renewed as to what is the correct way to serve God.

This morning, we are going to take a look at the very first subject in which our minds need to be renewed or re-educated if we are going to be effective servants of God, as God’s children in reaching this world for Christ. Paul mentions this subject directly after his charge to have our minds renewed. Because his is the very first subject that paul mentions after telling us that we have need to have our minds renewed, I take it that this subject is of foundation importance or of a vital priority as far as God is concerned for us to understand. It is this very subject of who you are or what is your identity and correctly ascertaining your worth.

Look with me, at Romans 12:3. Paul writes, “For through the grace given to me I say to every man [or person] among you not to think more highly of himself [or herself] than he [or she] ought to think; but to think so as to have sound judgment, as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”

In essence, Paul is telling us here, that if we are going to be effective servants of Jesus Christ, after all that He has done for us, it is imperative that we have a clear understanding of our new identity in Christ, who we are in Christ, and that our sense of worth comes from the identity and nothing else. He wants us to understand “The Big Truth” that counters “The Big Lie.” He wants us to think correctly and properly as to what is our identity and worth.

Now let’s look more closely at this verse. In the first half of the verse Paul tells us the basis of his the authority for saying what he does in the rest of this verse. And the basis from which he speaks so authoritatively, comes from his own personal experience with failure. He says, “For through the grace given to me…” Literally, “the gift given to him”. What gift? I don’t believe the gift that Paul refers to here is the gift of his calling as an apostle. But rather, the gift that Paul refers to here is the gift of personal understanding of where his own self worth came from. And he only learned where the basis of his identity and proper self-worth stemmed later, after being a Christian and having made several mistakes.

As a Pharisee, and before becoming a Christian, Paul had assumed that the only way to gain God’s approval and the approval of others was through being a Pharisee and living up to the law and obeying all the traditions of men. He was caught in the performance trap.

If you study Paul’s life in Acts, before and after his conversion, you will see a man who is trying to do the work of the ministry in his own strength because he thought more highly of himself than he should have thought. As a result, Paul had no success and made several mistakes in his early attempts at ministry. He was trying to do a lot of good things for God, but he tried to do them in his own abilities and failed miserably. The basis of his reasoning was all wrong, and it lead to more stress for the church overall than good. Two such occasions where Paul tried to get the job done for God required that Paul be sneaked out of two cities in the middle of the night so that he would not be killed by his enemies. And immediately after Paul left, the text states, in Acts. 9:31, “So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and, going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.”

Notice, they could not find peace until Paul and all of his human plans to advance the church had left, because Paul was operating his new life in Christ as he had lived his old life as a Pharisee. Paul was in a performance mode, trying to do good works for God without every checking in with God and getting His clear okay that these were things he was suppose to do. Paul thought more highly of himself and what he could accomplish than he should have.

Furthermore, Paul confesses in 2 Corinthians 5:16 that he used to regard people according to the flesh, or strictly from a limited human system of evaluation (ie. Skills, heritage, looks, money, etc.) and if they didn’t measure up, he rejected them. That was the very mistake that lead him to be party to the death of the savior and the stoning of one of the disciples Stephen. Neither Jesus nor Stephen measured up to Paul’s previous standards of performance, because he had been measuring a person’s worth by the world’s system.

Through living a life based on what I am calling the “Big Lie”, based upon his personal experience with failure, Paul says us, “I say to every person among you, not to think more highly of yourself then you ought to think.”

In other words, Paul is literally admitting here, “Look, folks. I was a type “A” religious zealot, a Pharisee. I went down this road of trying to earn degrees, and positions of prominence to earn a sense of acceptance from God and to find a sense of value and worth for my life amongst people and it didn’t work. And I am glad it didn’t work. I count this painful experience a gift, because I learned from it. Furthermore, I want you to learn the easy way, and that’s from my mistakes. Gaining a sense of self worth doesn’t come from your performance whether it is religious or secular. Neither does your identity come from what you do. Your sense of self worth begins first with you knowing who you are. And who you are, your identity is who God says you are. So, listen up.”

The spirit of God, through Paul, wants us to learn the truth that God finally taught Paul, truth that brought him permanent peace and freedom from living under the dominance of the opinions of others and freedom from the hamster wheel of trying to gain approval through one’s performance. The spirit of God showed Paul who Paul was and upon what was his worth based. In the same way, God has shown you who you are and upon what yourself worth is to be based, and only that.

So, Paul begins with two very important points that make up how we need to renew our minds as it regards our identity and sense of self worth. First, He says, “Don’t think [notice, Paul is continuing the thought from verse 2 of having your mind renewed] more highly of yourself than you ought to think…”

One of the biggest problems concerning one’s sense of self worth is that it is built upon a false perception of how great, talented or smart we think we are. We are basically arrogant and prideful people who think the world revolves around us. We may think we deserve more respect than someone else simply because we are older or have attended a particular club or church longer than someone else or we have more money than someone else, therefore we are more important…

In Paul’s day, many male Jews like himself, based their sense of worth on cultural values or on race which isn’t to different than what happens today, even in the church. Specifically, the Jews reveled in the fact that they were not Gentiles, or God’s unchosen people. In Philippians 3:5, Paul shows us upon what basis a Jew would determine his self importance. Paul wasn’t saying here that this is hi basis of self importance, but that if he wanted to play the comparative game with someone else of “Can you top these credentials”, his credentials would be tough to beat. Paul says of his heritage, that as a good male Jew should have been, he was “circumcised the eighth day, of nation of Israel, [born Israeli, not a convert] of the tribe of Benjamin, [the favored tribe of the 12 tribes] a Hebrew of Hebrews; [not a Jew of any mixed origin].” In other words, you could not have come from more of a top drawer Jewish heritage than that.

But then he points to his religious accomplishments and his moral reputation, “…as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless.” Wow! You want to talk about a performance oriented. Paul held all the certificates and degrees and awards.

Like many Christians today, there were people in Paul’s day who only felt good about themselves because of these accomplishments. To take it one step further, they were so high on themselves that they thought, as many Christians think today, that they were the only ones who count in the church. We will see later, that in the next two verses it it Paul’s point that nobody is God’s gift to the body of Christ. E are all important, indispensable and we need each other. Nobody is expendable. So, warning: don’t think too highly of yourself.

Just in case you do think that you are God’s gift to the world, follow the instructions to this poem the author is anonymous:

Sometime when you’re feeling important,

Sometime when your ego’s way up,

Sometime when you take it for granted

 That you are the prize-winning ‘pup’

Sometime when you feel that your absence

 Would leave an unfillable hole,

Just follow these simple instructions,

 And see how it humbles your soul.

Take a bucket and fill it with water,

Put your hand in it up to your wrist.

Now pull it out fast

 And the hole that remains

 Is the measure of how you’ll be missed.

 

You may splash all you please as you enter,

 And stir up the water galore,

But STOP and you’ll find in a minute,

 It’s back where it was before.”

But let’s not forget the other side of this prideful deception of thinking too highly of ourselves. And that is to wrongly devalue ourselves. People who devalue themselves often times become other people’s doormats. They are easily manipulated by others because individuals with a sense of low self worth so much feel the need to be needed. They also can become others slaves as they constantly maneuver themselves into positions whereby they can receive other’s praise. Fishing for “AHA Boys”

Sometimes individuals have so wrongly devalued themselves because they are not as smart as someone else, that they wrongly believe that if they condemn themselves enough for being dumb, then perhaps nobody will recognize or point out their lack of understanding and therefore won’t put them down. It is a defense mechanism. Similarly, these same people have such a low sense of self worth, that when they do make a mistake, they think that if they beat up on themselves enough by calling themselves stupid, then perhaps they won’t fail the next time.

Paul is not saying that we can’t think highly of ourselves, but that we should think correctly about ourselves. There is to be a proper balance or understanding of who we are and what is the basis for our worth. We do have value and importance, not based on our opinion or upon our opinion of others, but based upon the ultimate opinion, the opinion of God. God loved you so much that He died for you. As a Christian, no mater what Satan, the accuser of the brethren says about your past mistakes or failures, God says, “I still love you and am fully pleased with you, and nothing will ever change that.”

When we base our self concept on anyone else opinion, we risk believing what another fallen creature just like ourselves thinks. Why should we believe them? Furthermore, if we believe what they think, it could lead to further brokenness.

I’m reminded of just such a case. This women, who had been seeing a psychiatrist for 5 years of therapy was ready to be released from her doctor. The doctor said to her, “We rarely use the word CURE. But after five years of therapy it is my pleasure to pronounce you completely cured.” To his surprise, and unhappy look came over this woman’s face. So he asked, “What’s wrong? I thought you would be thrilled.” “Oh, it’s fine for you,” she said, “but try to look at it from my point of view. Three years ago I was Joan of Arc. Now, I’m nobody!” we have to to be careful not to base our opinions of ourselves upon other people’s words, because their words could be deceiving and destructive.

This formula, The Big Lie, is nothing but a trap. You never win by basing your identity and self worth on your ability to perform or live up to a standard or base your worth upon the opinions of others. You either become arrogant with swelled head; or you becoming depressed. That’s not God’s plan for you.

So then, how are we to think of ourselves? Where can we go to get and accurate reading on who we are and what our worth it? Paul gives us this instruction in the rest of the verse. He says that we are to think about ourselves so as to have sound judgment” as contrasted to the foolish and fanciful philosophies of the worlds. Such as much of the New Age teaching that you are a god, or the evolutionist conclusions that you are the result of an accident. Paul wants us to think soundly, correctly about who we are. It is a sober thinking he wants us to base our lives on, not some fuzzy abstract concept. So what is the basis of this correct thinking? And where did it come from? Paul tells us. He says, “as God has allotted to each a measure of faith.”

First, I want you to notice that the origin, the source of our information of who we are and the basis of our worth comes from God. He has given to each believer the information needed to know who they are and the basis of their self worth.

Next, the basis of our thinking correctly about who we are and the foundation of our sense of worth comes from what Paul calls “the measure of faith.” The term “faith” here is not a verb, but a noun. Therefore, it doesn’t refer to how deeply you believe something, but rather it refers to what you believe. In other words, it refers to the doctrine of our faith. More specifically and in this context, it refers to everything that Paul has been telling us about who we are in Christ, in Romans 3-8.

Another way to look at it, is simply to say once again, that the word of God is to be the final authority as to our correct thinking as to who we are and how we are to live lives. The results of correct thinking about who we are leads to proper respect for our own self worth. Romans has taught us that when we put out trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior, the old Bob Bonner died and then came to life spiritually speaking a new Bob Bonner living in his old earth suit. Before, my identity was simply a creation of God. Nice, but not worth too much. But now, the answer to the question of “Who am I?” is, “I am a child of God, precious in the sight of God, deeply loved and cared.” That gives me great worth!

When you were born, and the doctor spank your bottom and you cried, he didn’t look at you and say to your mother, “well, I sure hope your baby turns in to a human being!” why didn’t he say that? Because your birth already determine you were a human being. Likewise, being born again determines that you are a child of God. Some days you may not act like it or feel like it, but none the less you are a Child of God. That’s who you are. And based on who you are, you can determine your worth. The fact that God has accepted you, approved of you and will never reject you because of what Jesus Christ has done for you guarantees your worth. You are in God’s precious hall of fame.

So note: your self worth is never dependent upon your performance or ability to live up to a standard. It is not dependent upon the Big Lie, but rather, the BIG TRUTH [chart] for most of our lives, we have only listened to what others have said about us. We have believed the “Big lie” rather than the “Big Truth”. Others have said that who I am and my worth is based upon my standards and ability to perform, plus the opinions of others. But the truth says, no. my worth is based upon Jesus’ performance of living up to the perfect standard on my behalf, and the opinion of God about me. And he says in Romans, that because of what Jesus has done on my behalf, God has already declared and made me righteous. I am perfectly acceptable to him as I am. I am a saint. Now, I am to believe that and start living as who I ma not who I want to be.

Leo Durocher, the former Dodger great baseball player and manager, at 81, was asked why he wasn’t in the baseball Hall of Fame, he said, “I don’t know. But that doesn’t really bother me because I have no control over that. I have nothing to do with who is in the Hall of Fame. That’s entirely up to the committee. If they don’t think I belong there, so be it. If they think I belong, that’s a horse of another color. But I’ve always said, there is a door upstairs, and I’d like to have that door open just a little crack so that I can get my foot in. now THAT’S a Hall of Fame.: I don’t know if Leo knew Christ but he couldn’t be more correct about where the weight of approval rest. If God approves of you and says you have worth, then in the end, nothing anybody else says counts or matters.

But how come so many Christians understand that they are children of God, but don’t understand or sense their extreme value and worth? How come so many Christians are still trying to maintain God’s approval or prove themselves to be pleasing to Him and worthy of His acceptance. The answer to that is simple. Let me illustrate it by a true story. A man very much interested in old books ran into an unbookish friend who’d just thrown away an old Bible which had been stored in his attic. The non-reading friend happened to mention that “somebody name Guten-something-or-other” had printed it.” His book collector friend gasped, “Not Gutenburg! You idiot! You’ve just thrown away one of the first books ever printed. A copy of Gutenberg Bible sold at an auction recently for more than $400,000.” The other man was unmoved. He said, “Well, my copy wouldn’t have brought a dime. Some fella named Martin Luther had scribbled all over it.”

The point is this: people don’t know their personal value or worth to God for the same reason this man didn’t know the value of his book. He didn’t know the background upon which the value of his book was based. People don’t understand their personal worth before God, because they don’t know their scriptures very well! Which brings me to summarizing Paul’s final point of this verse. If you are going to think correctly about yourself, you must base your correct thinking of yourself upon the word. 

If we are going to live for the Lord and serve Him as living sacrifices, it must begin with our minds being reeducated as to who we are as new creations in Christ.

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