Good evening, brothers and sisters. Well, we’ve had a wonderful day together. The weather was beautiful, but we were all inside enjoying fellowship, and it was a precious time.
I would like for us to read some verses as we begin tonight, beginning with 2 Corinthians 5:17.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature;
the old things passed away;
behold, new things have come.
Then, back in 1 Corinthians, let us read a few verses before we get to our theme verse, beginning in 1 Corinthians 1:26.
For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble.
But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise;
and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong;
and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are.
So that no man may boast before God.
But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
I want us to consider two passages in the Old Testament. Now, we never plan these things, and I want to speak tonight and use Jacob as an example. For those of you who were here this afternoon, you realize that David has severely undercut my message.
However, it must be the Lord who wants to remind us again and again of this wonderful illustration of how Jacob becomes Israel. Who am I?
So, we will look at some verses in Genesis 28. This is when he first heads out on his own and discovers the Lord in a living way. Beginning in Genesis 28:10:
Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran.
He came to a certain place and spent the night there, because the sun had set; and he took one of the stones of the place and put it under his head, and lay down in that place.
He had a dream, and behold, a ladder was set on the earth with its top reaching to heaven; and behold, the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.
And behold, the Lord stood above it and said, “I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants.
Your descendants will also be like the dust of the earth, and you will spread out to the west and to the east, and to the north and to the south; and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
Behold, I am with you, and I will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”
He was afraid and said, being a good millennial, “How awesome is this place!”
This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
Now we go down to the moment at the river Jabbok, referred to this afternoon, in Genesis 32. Look at Genesis 32:24-28.
Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.
When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob’s thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him.
Then he said, “Let me go, for the dawn is breaking.” But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me.”
So He said to him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Jacob.”
He said, “Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.”
Father, we come to You tonight, realizing that the Holy Spirit has been given to us to magnify the Lord Jesus. We pray that, as we fellowship on these tremendous matters together, You will meet us, speak to our hearts, and teach us how to live in such a way that is pleasing to You.
We thank You for all gathered here. Do quicken us in body and spirit. We pray in Jesus’ precious name. Amen.
Well, our brother began where I began: “Who am I?” It is a big question today. It is a millennial obsession, according to psychologists. Psychology Today says that “Who am I?” is the most universally asked question.
So I Googled it: “Who am I?” In 1.7 seconds, it received 150 million entries. It is amazing. Then I looked up “Who am I?” in Bookfinder: book after book after book after book after book. Then I looked up “Who am I?” seminars, and there are pages of them, mostly on college campuses today. Everybody is asking, “Who am I?”
Now, I read this article in Psychology Today—not my favorite magazine, but it was interesting—where a modern pop psychologist said, actually, we cannot know who we are because we are dynamically changing persons according to those things surrounding and affecting us. So, you cannot know who you are.
They talked about what a problem this is for insecure people who need the stability of knowing who they are, but who can never know because who they are is always changing. They said it is also a problem for the proud and stuck, because they are stagnant in who they think they are, but they are not really that. So nobody can know.
The psychologist’s solution was this: “You will never know who you are, so let it be what you do. Be brave. Try new things. Quit your job. Move to a new place. Divorce your wife.” You see, you do not want to get stagnant if who you are is what you do.
Of course, we know that as soon as we meet somebody on the road, we say, “Hi, what’s your name?” He says, “Mel.” Then you say, “What do you do?” Who am I?
Well, psychology is right about one thing: if a soul looks at a soul, they can never find out what a soul is. The more a soul looks at a soul, the more a person says, “Who am I?” The more they look at their belly button, the more deception, questions, and insecurities take them in a downward spiral.
Man’s sin brings him on a downward spiral. Now here we are, Christians. This is a theme for us.
Let us put ourselves in biblical perspective. Our dear brother this afternoon shared a question that remained on Jacob’s mind for the rest of his life. That is the question we should be asking: Who is He?
“Who am I?” in Christ Jesus is a big question. The “Who am I?” by itself is not worth a nickel. “In Christ Jesus” is such a grand, tremendous, and profound thing that we really need to find ourselves in pursuit of who He is.
Now, I will tell you the secret that will be the underpinning of what I have to share for the rest of the night: if we pursue the Lord Jesus with all our heart, mind, and strength, wanting to know only who He is, reflexively we discover who we are.
It is not as we look at ourselves and say, “Who am I?” that we find anything, except something that would trouble us. But if your aim is to pursue the Lord Jesus Christ, then you have found the wellspring of clues along the way of who you are.
The very fact that Jesus said, “I know where I come from, and I know where I am going,” comes as a result of the fact that He spent no time thinking about Himself. “Boy, what am I doing here? What’s going on?” He spent His time in fellowship with a magnificent Father.
In that fellowship, secrets were divulged that gave Him the confidence of knowing who He was. There are secrets in Christ Jesus. But the magnitude of our Christ is the question here. If it is a small Christ, then the “Who am I?” is big.
But the larger our Christ becomes, the more the “Who am I?” becomes a foolish question. Because as we wonder who He is, how large He is, how tremendous He is, reflexively we begin to see who we are. You do not find it by direct search; you find it by searching Him.
That is why I think, when somebody has become a new believer and has just discovered Christ, what I always recommend is this: you need to scour the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Discover who your Savior is. Let Him grow in your sight. Watch Him in the Gospels.
This is the first entrance into a discovery of who we are in Christ: by looking at Him. Your life is now hidden with Christ in God, right? If you try to look all the time for the hidden life, you do not find it. But if you look at the things above, where Christ is, all kinds of hidden things come to you, and you begin to understand wonderfully who you are.
So, the Gospel is the first entrance into who I am, as we see ourselves in Him. Miracle of miracles, salvation is that we begin to see ourselves in Him.
Now, what does that mean? Paul gives us, in Romans 5, a mega-picture of man. He says that man is basically made up, when you sum it up, in Adam and in Christ. There are two corporate men. Are you in Adam, or are you in Christ?
This is the first discovery that we need to make. Of course, by default, we are in Adam. Adam cannot possibly know who he is. Adam looks at Adam. Adam looks at Adam. I look at you; you look at me. I say, “I don’t like that guy.” That guy says, “I don’t like you.” Or maybe we say, “Hey, I like you.” Or maybe I say, “I idolize you. I want to be like you.”
You know that is always going to be dissatisfying. Since I do not know who I am, I look around and say, “I think I’m that guy,” and then I try to be like that guy. Adam has no idea who he is.
Why is that? Because at the very foundation of our created being, we were made in the image of God. But with our bodies and souls very alive and our spirits dead to God, there is no way we can ever know who we really are.
A man without spirit is not man. You, just body and soul, living in your flesh—that is not really you. Adam has this problem. He seeks and seeks to discover, but he can never find because his spirit is dead.
But the key to mankind understanding who we are came in the incarnation of Jesus Christ. This was the miracle of creation: God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself.
As Isaiah puts it, in the regions of Galilee of the Gentiles, they who sat in darkness suddenly saw a great light. What was that great light? Jesus walking upon this earth. They saw God.
People in Israel talked about God all the time, but now they saw God: God’s love, God’s truth, God’s power, God’s wisdom, God’s redemption. They saw it in Christ. It was wonderful. It was wonderful.
As the last Adam, here was a man in the image of God. Here was a man—spirit, soul, and body—all functioning. Paul describes the last Adam in 1 Corinthians 15:45:
So also it is written,
“The first man, Adam, became a living soul.”
The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit.
Until we are born again, until our spirits are made alive unto God, we have no clue who we are. You may be the best of psychiatrists. Listen, all I can tell you is that my father was a psychiatrist for fifty years when he got saved, and he had no idea who he was until he got saved.
But when he got saved, he looked at Jesus. As he looked at this last Adam, he saw what man in the image of God looks like.
When people in Galilee and Judea looked at Jesus, they saw God, but they also saw man. They looked at Jesus and said, “That is what a man is supposed to be. Look how much He loves children. Look how humble, how transparent He is. Look how full of emotion, how wonderful His love is. He images God.”
They saw not only God; they saw man. In Luke’s Gospel, if you will tread through Luke’s Gospel, look and look and look, you will discover the first man you have ever seen. He is the Man of men. He is the Son of Man. He is man in the purpose of God. He is a Son.
This is what we are all destined to become. But first you have to see it in Him.
Why did all those lame, sick, and cast-off people come to Jesus? They knew that they were, as it were, inhuman. But when they saw Jesus, they connected with that. They said, “Now that is right. Now I am wrong.”
That is right, because when you see the last Adam, you see Adam in yourself. If you see the perfection of Jesus and you are standing there, you fall down as a sinner: “I am nothing.” Then He picks you up and says, “Oh yes, you are.”
So, Jesus in His incarnation—the more we study, the more we look at Him, the more we begin to understand who we are. This is the beginning of how we see ourselves in Christ. When He says, “Come unto Me,” and we come unto Him, we discover God and we discover humanity.
That is what the theologians say: without the incarnation, there can be no humanity of mankind. It is the way of our understanding and life. So, when we meet Jesus, we meet God and we meet our Brother.
Now, you may not understand who you are yet by looking at Him, but who you are in Christ is becoming apparent as you see Him as a human being. The more you acknowledge it, the more you see Him.
What happens to somebody when they see Christ and get saved? Well, here is what happens:
Oh, to be like Him,
Oh, to be like Him,
Stamp Your impression
Deep in my heart.
Listen, when we see Jesus—if you have seen Jesus—you want to be like Jesus. It is not saying you could ever be like Jesus, but you want to be like Jesus. Even though it is impossible, you realize, “I could never be like Jesus,” yet there is something in you that says, “I can be like Jesus.”
Because He is a human; I am a human. He saved me. And so the first response of many Christians is the imitation of Christ.
Now, I want to say this: there are many, many Christians who lead wonderful, godly lives trying to imitate Christ. They read the Sermon on the Mount. They try to do it. They turn the other cheek and, you know, all kinds of stuff. They try to be holy. They try to be loving. They try to preach the Gospel.
They are imitating Christ, and I think that is a noble venture. I know we all kind of say, “Ah, fooey, fooey,” because we know the outcome of it, but let us not go there yet. It is okay for a new Christian to wear, “What would Jesus do?” because really they are imitating the One they love. They want to be like Jesus.
I want to underscore what Mac said last night: how important it is for us to stand in the truth of the Word of God and take it by faith. Listen to that wonderful thing: “By God’s doing, you are in Christ Jesus.” Have you laid hold of that?
It does not really matter how you feel. It does not matter how spiritual you feel tonight. There is a fact: by God’s doing, you are in Christ Jesus. Look at all these things He has been made to you. Take it.
Do you need wisdom? Wonderful. The Christian can go to God and say, “God, I lack wisdom. I need wisdom.” And He gives us wisdom. Is that not wonderful?
And righteousness: I take His righteousness as my righteousness. I wear a robe of righteousness. Jesus bought it with His precious blood, and now I am righteous in Christ Jesus. Wear it. It is the truth.
I am a saint. You notice that when Paul introduces 1 Corinthians, he calls them saints. We would call them anything but saints, but they are saints. Claim that you are a saint by the precious blood of Jesus.
And you are redeemed. “I have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.” Sing it. Say it. It is true.
I think we have discouraged people from running after Christ. I think we discourage people from loving Christ and wanting to imitate Christ. Let me tell you, there is no more noble man to imitate. Paul says, “Imitate Christ.”
This is the first stage where we discover so much wonderful truth about Jesus—how wonderful He is. The more you see Him in the Gospels, the more you want to be like Him. Is that not your heart?
Now, I know some of you have become discouraged trying to imitate Him, but we will get to that in just a minute. Paul is writing these passages, where we are dealing with “Who am I?” to the Corinthians because he has known by experience that if you try to imitate Christ, you will hit a wall.
He wants the Corinthians to understand that their next step forward into knowing Christ is also their next step forward into knowing who they are. It is by stepping into Christ crucified.
After saying, “By His doing, you are in Christ Jesus, who has been made to us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption,” Paul says, “So that nobody will boast.” What is the problem? These Corinthians had forgotten that they were in Adam.
“Not many of you called were noble, mighty, or wise. You were nothing, and yet Jesus called you.” So do not look at yourself and say, “Hey, I am Mr. Big Shot now. I am a Corinthian, and I speak prophecy now. I know the doctrines. I am a really good teacher.”
The Corinthians were fighting about who was best. They would get to a meeting, and the next thing you know somebody was speaking in tongues, somebody jumped up and prophesied, and it all got out of order because everybody was competing.
Paul says, “You have fallen behind in no gifts. You really love the Lord.” That is how he starts his letter to the Corinthians. But he says, “Now it is time, brothers and sisters. When I come to you, I come not in strength or wisdom, but only to speak to you Christ crucified.”
Do you really want to know more about Jesus? It will not come by imitating Him as somebody apart from Him, as somebody who has received some things. There is going to have to be a union, and you are going to have to break through this thing called Christ crucified.
You need to know Christ crucified. You do not know Him yet. You know Jesus my Savior, Jesus my power, Jesus my Baptizer, Jesus my Healer, Jesus my Preacher—but you do not know Christ crucified yet. Unless you know that, you will lose sight of the mystery of finding yourself hidden in Christ.
Why does Paul share that? It is because Paul had that experience himself. Paul was absolutely done in when he saw Jesus on the road to Damascus. What a Jesus he saw! What an incarnation. What a glory, what a holiness, what a love he saw there on the road to Damascus.
Immediately, he was mastered by Jesus. Immediately, Paul’s goal was Jesus. He became preoccupied with knowing who this Jesus is. “I am going to lay everything behind, and I am pressing onward. I am going to know more about Jesus.”
“I want to know Him. If it is in the power of His resurrection, if it is in the fellowship of His sufferings, I want to know Him.” That was his preoccupation.
So, brothers and sisters, what I am saying is this: this first stage is very important. May Jesus be your preoccupation, your desire, your goal. You want to know Him. You will study to know about Him.
Paul did that. Paul had as much ambition as Jacob. He was ambitious to serve the Lord. He yielded as a bondservant. He was ambitious to preach, to travel from place to place, to be like his Master in power, love, and service.
He pursued the Lord. He studied the Word of God night and day. He went out into the wilderness, into the desert, to know more about Him. The love of the Lord became deeper and deeper in his heart and in his mind. He was a true Jew: “Love the Lord your God with all your mind, all your heart, and all your strength.”
That was Paul—until he hit the wall. Now, what is the wall? When you try to be like the Lord by your own strength, it is not going to work out so well in the end.
Paul got tripped up and realized, “There is nothing good in me. I want to be like the last Adam, and all I see is the first Adam. I intend to do good. I want to do good. But sin dwells in my members.”
“I am trying and trying, but the more I try, rather than seeing Jesus more clearly, Jesus gets more obscured.” Why is that? Because as we struggle in our own natural strength—even in our consecrated natural strength—the more ourselves grow, the more the Lord decreases.
Paul was growing, but in the wrong way. He had to come to a collapse. He was stymied until he saw Christ crucified and a life expressed in Galatians 2:20—a whole new discovery of who he was in Christ.
No longer in disunion, but in union with Him. This had to be discovered because all of us, as fallen sinners, when we first are saved and know the Lord, see the Lord there and ourselves here. We are chasing to be with Him. We are pursuing and going after Him, but there is a separation.
Paul had good news for the Corinthians, though it did not sound like it. He said, “Christ crucified is what you need.” That sounds like bad news, right? “How am I going to know more of Christ?” “You need the cross.” Well, that sounds pretty bad.
In other words, you might think, “The only way I am going to know myself is just about when I die.” It sounds pretty negative, but no, that is not exactly what is going on. This is the discovery we have to come to, even as Paul came to it.
That is why I wanted to use Jacob as an example before David ripped it up in front of my eyes. Jacob was much like us when we have been touched by the Lord.
There he saw a ladder. Now he knows God is talking to him, and he is talking to God. Many of you grew up in Christian homes. You knew about Jesus. You knew about Him being our High Priest, dying for our sins, being our Lord, being our King. You learned all those things.
Jacob grew up on Isaac’s knee. Jacob grew up hearing the stories of Abraham meeting the God of glory, leaving Ur of the Chaldees, receiving a great promise of a nation and a whole bunch of kids.
There were all those stories of Abraham walking through the land, meeting Pharaoh in Egypt, being protected by God, winning great victories, and becoming a great, noble patriarch. Jacob was just licking those stories up. “Man, that is my background.”
Christians can grow up that same way: “Man, that is my background. I am a royal priest. I am a person of God’s possession. I am a son. I am destined for all these kinds of things.” Jacob was different from Esau because Jacob loved those stories.
Being an ambitious person, of course, he probably liked the perks regarding the story—thousands of cattle and sheep, maybe several wives, a whole bunch of tents, and a couple of different houses here and there. I am sure he liked all those outward perks.
But he saw something in the calling. He saw something in the birthright. He saw something in Abraham’s heritage. Then he met God.
There he was, lying out there, and the ladder came down. The Lord stood at the top of the ladder. He was afraid to death. He was not ready to unite with God, but he met God.
Many of us, growing up in Christian homes, met Jesus. You see yourself in Jesus: “I am in Jesus. He is my Savior.” But, like Jacob, you are not quite ready to pursue.
Jacob had a lot of agendas. There are some people in this world—not me—who always have agendas. They write a list. They get up in the morning, whistling and singing a song, just waiting to write a list: “I have got to do this. I have got to do that. I have got to do that.”
Jacob had a lot of stuff he wanted to do. He loved God. He met God at Bethel. He saw God. He was afraid of God. He even made a deal with God: “I will tithe if You make me a millionaire and save my life from all danger.”
God said, “Okay.” Jacob became that millionaire, but he was not quite ready to pursue. We grow up, and somewhere along the line, the reality of the wonderful verses we learn has to become real to us.
“If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.” Boy, there is an awful lot in those few words. I wonder if you have made them yours. Do you understand those things?
We all know verses like, “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” “God works all things together for good to those who love the Lord, to those called according to His purpose.” “Complete in Him.” We love all these things. These are true things.
But they are all things we have to enter into the reality of. Thus, we come to know Him. To know Him—that is the desire of our heart—and it enables us to understand things.
Poor old Jacob did not know who he was. He knew his name meant “grabber,” but he did not really know who he was. As you heard this afternoon, he was actually an Esau wannabe.
If your father loved your brother more than yourself, would you not rather be him? Isaac made no bones about it: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like Esau. Get out of here, Jacob. Go make some stew.”
There was flagrant bias there, and I think it hurt. It hurt Jacob enough that he pretended he was Esau for a day, with the skins and the whole thing. “Who are you, Jacob?” “Well, I want to be Esau, because I want the blessing that only comes to the oldest son. I feel like I have been gypped somehow. I have got to overturn the thing.”
Actually, can I be honest with you? The blessing he received from his father was actually his mother’s idea. I know Jacob gets a lot of bad press, but he was pretty innocent in that thing. His mom gave him the whole idea.
Of course, Mom had a reason too. It is not to say she was not somewhat carnal in her plans. She wanted Jacob to get the blessing because of the prophecy when the children were born. She knew the Lord said, “The older will serve the younger.” So she, as any good mom, went about making that happen.
Can you imagine being Jacob at the river Jabbok, and finally the Lord wrestles with you and says, “What is your name?” You finally admit, “Okay, I am Jacob. I am not Esau. I am Jacob.” The Lord says, “Okay, good. Now, from now on, you are not Jacob. You are Israel.”
Prince of God. Son of God. Do you think Jacob had any idea what God was talking about?
The Lord worked in him so that he began to understand these things. The Lord reinstated this matter in Genesis 35:10. Once Jacob had returned to Bethel, God spoke and said:
God said to him, “Your name is Jacob;
you shall no longer be called Jacob,
but Israel shall be your name.”
Thus He called him Israel.
God also said to him, “I am God Almighty.
Be fruitful and multiply;
a nation and a company of nations shall come from you,
and kings shall come forth from you.
The land which I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give it to you,
and I will give the land to your descendants after you.”
Here is the point: back in those days, of course, a name always meant something prophetically. For him to be called, “Now you are a prince of God”—what did it mean?
Here is a first clue for us. As we follow the Lord, when He calls us, He calls us to be what He wants us to be. He said, “Your name shall be Israel.” That is not merely your name; that is your calling.
“I want you to be a prince of God. I am going to give you the land that I gave Abraham and Isaac. It is now your land. I am going to bless you and keep you. I want you to be fruitful, multiply, and become a nation.” That is your calling.
In that calling, Jacob would discover who he was. It was not just a naming, but a calling.
Of course, it took Jacob twenty years to be wrestled down through the circumstances of his life. Earlier in his life, as happens with many Christians, we are too busy with our own agendas.
Jacob was just trying to survive. Laban gave him a tough time. His job was tough. His four wives were tough. His children were tough. “You can call me Prince of God if You want, God, but it means nothing to me right now. I am just trying to survive.”
God has a high and holy calling for us. Even if it takes us twenty years to come into that calling, He will call us. He told Jacob, “Now your name is Israel, and you are going to be a prince of God,” but Jacob was twenty years away from it.
Paul got saved, and God said, “I am calling you to be an apostle to the Gentiles.” Eleven years later, he got to be an apostle.
So my question to you is: have you discovered, as you are pursuing the Lord, His calling to you? This is a significant moment.
Jacob went through all of this stuff. As we will mention a little later, even though he felt weaker and weaker, it became more and more apparent that he was a prince.
Unknown to him, what was the number-one testimony about who he was? Was it that he was a prince? Was it that he did a great job with his kids? What was his overarching testimony?
He was a testimony of God’s chosen love. His testimony really was not about who he was. His testimony was about who God was in him.
Everywhere through the Scriptures, you find that Jacob is beloved, chosen, and kept by God. He is such a testimony of grace. Every time you look at Jacob, you say, “Well, if Jacob is like that, I have got a chance,” and you start pursuing God.
All right, beloved of God. This is a good picture for us, because in that 2 Corinthians 5 passage, I want to go back and look at that for just a moment. “If any man is in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.”
In the passage surrounding that verse, we see two environmental preparations for a deeper revelation. Do you want to know what it means to be a new creation? Then there are a few environmental elements necessary in your life to come into such a revelation.
Here is the first one. As you read 2 Corinthians 5, you realize that Paul has some understanding of his calling, of being a new creation, and of being involved in a new creation. How do we know that?
Because here is a man who has an ambition. Do you have a chief ambition? Does the love of Christ constrain you? Does the judgment seat of Christ motivate you? Is the fear of the Lord pressing you forward?
Now listen to Paul. We say we want to know our calling. We want to know who Christ is. I say the first element is this: are you a real pursuer, a consecrated pursuer?
If you say, “I want to know who I am in Christ,” but you are not pursuing, I do not see the atmosphere. Listen to 2 Corinthians 5:9:
Therefore, we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.
What an ambition. Is that your ambition? “Oh, I do not know who I am. I am not quite sure at this present moment in my life, but I want as my ambition to be pleasing to the Lord in everything.”
Now you are on your way to a discovery of more of who Christ is and, reflexively, of who you are. Verse 10:
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ,
so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body,
according to what he has done, whether good or bad.
I do not know if you take seriously this judgment seat of Christ. When it comes to being a bondservant of the Lord, this should be a blessed hope for you and a motivation for you to be faithful to what He has called you to do.
There is a judgment seat. The idea that the judgment seat is only rewards—well, it is not really. But are you going to receive reward? The Lord has so much He wants to give out of His kingdom to those servants who are faithful even in little things. Does that make any difference to you?
The “Who am I?” generation is so caught up in themselves that they do not even think about such things. Paul does. Verse 11:
Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men.
Wonderful—knowing the fear of the Lord. That does not mean he is afraid of the Lord. It means he fears the Lord. He knows the Lord is not fooling around. He knows the Lord means business. Therefore, he is about His business as an ambassador, persuading men.
Finally, in verse 14: “For the love of Christ constrains us.” Wow. Is it possible, really, for any Christian to come to know who they are in Christ if they do not have such an ambition, such a pursuing faith?
Grace has a continuum. On the one hand, there is receiving; on the other hand, there is responding. Today’s unbalanced teaching has brought people over to this side of grace that just receives and receives and receives, and there is no response and response and response.
The idea almost today is that as long as you become a Christian, then you will grow by osmosis. Somehow, you just sit back and grow. “I am at this Harvest Gathering this weekend. I am just sitting back and taking in the ooze. I am just growing.”
If our response to having seen how beautiful Jesus is—if we see what a man is like in the image of God, if we see our God—if we do not respond by pursuing Him, we have an unbalanced view of grace. Grace pursues after the Lord.
It is true: all the promises are yea and amen in Christ. Amen. But let me ask you a question: to whom are all the promises yea and amen?
To the people who are laying hold of the promises, believing the promises, living on the promises, and moving on the promises. To those people, the promises of God are yea and amen in Christ.
I say that an environment for discovering who Christ is and who you are in Christ involves us moving forward. Jacob was not quite ready for it at the beginning, but after twenty years he was ready, right?
Jacob realized he was Adam there at the river Jabbok. That brings us to the second environmental reality. For the person who wants to know who they are in Christ, the environment we see surrounding 2 Corinthians 5 is this: the cross.
The cross is the environment. Is it working death in you? Is there a grave in your life? Listen to 2 Corinthians 5:14-15:
For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that One died for all, therefore all died;
and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves,
but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf.
“Who am I, Lord? I have got to know.” No, no, no, no. You are living for Him who died and rose again on your behalf.
The other day, I read a T. Austin-Sparks devotion. You know, his devotions are as thick as stew. You cannot just read it and say, “Okay, I got it.” Anyway, he was speaking on 1 Corinthians 1:18:
The word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing,
but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Here is what he said: “Have you got a cross in your history? Have you got a grave in your history? If you have not, then you are dwelling in the shadows. You may get flashes and touches, but they will be fleeting, transient, coming and going.”
Is there a cross in your life? This is the environment. Paul says, “The whole basis of my ambassadorship—telling people everywhere, ‘Be reconciled to God’—is because I discovered He died for all; therefore, I died.”
Now I am alive, not to live for myself, but for Him who loved me and gave Himself for me. That is the attitude of the cross: no longer living for myself.
Here is the irony, and this is what throws off Christians. It is the Jacob syndrome. Jacob went through twenty really tough years at Laban’s house—over the wives, over the sheep, over the kids, over the competition of the women, and all that.
But at the end, Jacob said, “I am weary.” Yet here is the irony: Jacob became a millionaire during that time. He ended up with two wives—one he loved, the other one—and then two others on the side. He had twelve sons and one daughter.
He always came out on top in everything that happened because God was with him. So the strange thing is, you say, “I have been through such a tough time,” and when you look at your life, you see that God has blessed you completely.
But all the time, you have sensed there is a grave being dug for your life. Jacob spent twenty years eluding the grave. “My father-in-law is going to get me. Esau is going to get me.” He was fighting for his life, and yet all the time he was so blessed.
But his striving, his flesh, his self-life, kept stealing the blessing from him. The turning point of Jacob’s story, of course, is what happened at the river Jabbok.
David put it in such nice terms. David is so kind. I am a mean guy, so I am going to put it like this: the river Jabbok was Jacob’s burial. That was the burial. That is where he met Christ crucified.
He had a God who was up in heaven. There was a ladder, angels going up and down, and God spoke to him once every ten years. God kept him and blessed him. God was up there; he was down here.
Christ crucified comes and stays with you and wrestles with you. Christ crucified is the divine veto on our self-life.
Our life is like the United Nations. We are in the Security Council, and God has veto power. You can come up with any idea you want: “I have got this plan. I am going to make a million dollars and have some kids and this and that.” God says, “Yeah, okay. No, I veto that.”
Here is the wonderful discovery: when you discover who Christ is, when you hit Christ crucified—or He hits you—you come into resurrection life and discover who you were called to be.
It was after wrestling at the river that Jacob understood what it meant to be Israel. “What does it mean to be Israel? Now I am going to be a prince of God. I am going to put on a shield and practice my bow and arrow.”
Here is a prince of God: “I am limping, but I am always holding on to that cross. That is the staff. When I make a step, people get out of the way.”
He was crucified at the river Jabbok. Here is the crossover of the whole thing: vision. He saw God.
Dear brothers and sisters, we talk so much about Him. We study a lot of doctrine about Him. But there is nothing that will make a person more aware of who He is—and reflexively who you are in Him—than seeing Him: a revelation face to face.
“I saw the face of God, and I lived.” At that moment, I also realized something: I have a calling. God wants me to limp right into His purpose.
This is to the glory of God, that I have to limp this way, because the waters part when Jacob moves.
Now, David Finn sort of said there was the river Jabbok, Jacob got up, the Lord blessed him and took off, and everything went happily ever after. Well, of course, that is not what happened.
As soon as the river Jabbok happened, what did Jacob do? He started scheming again, right? It was time for Esau to come. You could hear the horses coming, and he starts praying to God. “Oh God, I will give You twenty percent.” He splits up the kids and the children and the whole thing.
But here is the difference: it is not like he felt he had changed, because he knew there was nothing good in him. He was still Adam. “That is still me.” But now God was always a step ahead of him, getting the victory.
God changed Esau’s heart. Surprise, surprise. Jacob did not know. He is standing there, and Esau is hugging him and crying, saying, “Oh, it is so good to see you, Jacob.” Jacob says, “Yeah, yeah.”
Who would have believed it? But listen: when you are crucified with Christ, He starts planning your life. He starts overruling in your life. He starts being Prince of your life, and you still feel yourself.
Some of the most godly people are not aware of who they are, but they are aware of who He is—which is my whole point.
If you want to be caught up in who you are, look at Him. You will see your calling, and in seeing your calling, you will realize what God is after: sons. Sons. Prince of God. Sons of God.
Those who live by His command, by His life, by His kingdom, and by His power and appointment. We have to be narrowed down to the ford of Jabbok and dealt with in such a way that, when Jacob saw Esau coming over the horizon, basically God said, “Who is Esau? Oh, before the Lord’s prince.”
And God made Esau yield to Jacob, prince of God. That is a moment of discovery.
Paul gives us, in his own biographical passages, his own testimony of how the Lord had to deal with him in so many ways: to deal with his flesh, his ambition, and his desire to be godly.
His whole Pharisaical default mode was to strive with willpower—to be the holiest, to know the most about the Bible, and to do more than anybody else. That was his whole Pharisaical self-life.
I am crucified with Christ.
I glory in the cross, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
All that stuff that seemed so important to me, I throw it aside because what I want to know is Him and His righteousness—to know Him.
Paul discovered himself as he pursued the Lord Jesus. At times, when he was called upon to stand in the authority of his calling, he would not back down. He said, “I am called to be an apostle and a bondservant of Jesus Christ.” He knew his calling.
But it was because he had been faithful in pursuing the Lord Jesus until he knew more about who he was. This was the turning point in Jacob’s life. We have a turning point in our lives as well. Paul had a turning point in his life.
When we think of the road to Damascus, we think of how the Lord shone upon him, how he fell off his horse and fell to the ground, and all these details. Those are the details that interest us.
But when Paul shares his testimony, here is what he says:
But when God, who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me.
The difference is this: when we are saved, we see ourselves in Christ. But we also see Christ revealed in us, in a union that enables us to be sons.
We can be sons by the life of Christ working within us—working in our character, working in our ministry. It is Christ’s life that brings us to sonship.
Paul saw that when it pleased God to reveal His Son in him. It did not seem very pleasing to Paul when he was knocked down on the ground. But when it pleased God to reveal His Son in me—do you know who you are in Christ?
Has Christ crucified been revealed in you? It is a life-changing event. A lot of things are cast aside at such a point, although there are still many lessons to live.
From that moment on, Paul looked away from himself. What does it mean, “I am crucified with Christ”? One simple thing is that I stop looking at myself.
Paul tried and tried and failed and failed. The thing he went to bed with and had a hard time going to sleep over was that he had failed and failed and failed. God had to say to him, “Paul, it is because you are dead, dead, dead, dead. Quit worrying about yourself.”
“Of course you are dead. Of course you failed. Now look away unto Me.”
Nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me:
and the life which I now live in the flesh
I live by the faith of the Son of God.
There is something that happens where you realize there is nothing good in you, that you are Adam through and through. Yet Christ has been revealed in you, and you forget about Adam.
You quit ranking on yourself. Sometimes, when you need to cut yourself off, you say, “I am going to stop, soul. Stop getting involved in your failure. Stop, soul. By my spirit, I am going to look at Christ, see who He is, and find His life in this situation.”
Then, in every kind of situation we get into, His life is our life. We throw that stuff away. We find His life. We begin to live on another level.
So we find Christ Jesus, and we find ourselves as we look away from ourselves.
That wonderful passage in Hebrews 12, where it talks about us running the race, says, “Looking away unto Jesus.” Once again, it means: stop looking at your sneakers. Stop looking at your knobby knees while you are running.
Look away unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of your faith. When we do that, there is a reflexive understanding of our calling, our race, and what we are in Christ.
Paul puts it this way: “But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror…” Myself? Some Christians look in the mirror and say, “Who am I? Let’s see. Am I a teacher, an apostle? I do not know.”
If you look at yourself and try to find who you are in the mirror, all you start to notice are the lumps, the little zits, the warts, and the problems. It is best to smash the mirror.
But as we all behold with unveiled face the glory of the Lord, we get to know ourselves—not because we become self-conscious, but because we know who we are in Christ while looking at Him.
Every step in this progress from glory to glory comes as we focus upon His glory. Just as the sun shines on the moon and the moon reflects the glory, you can see something of who you are because of the glory of Christ.
As long as you are close to the Sun, we can see who you are. Sometimes you cannot even see it. Many of God’s blessed servants did not really know who they were.
Even Jacob, after Jabbok, did not quite know who he was. But as he walked, everybody else knew. Everybody knew he had patriarchal status.
When he came to the end of his life and went to Egypt, he walked into Pharaoh. Now, Pharaoh sits on a higher platform than Trump. When you go up to Pharaoh, you bow down and do all this.
Jacob goes up with his staff, puts his hand on Pharaoh, and says, “May God Almighty bless you.” Pharaoh says, “Who are you?”
Obviously, Jacob was just a shepherd. He was not wearing fancy clothes, but there was something princely about him.
He said, “I am Jacob.” He still knew who he was. He did not say, “Yes, I am completely Israel.” He said, “I am Jacob. I have lived 130 years on this earth, and it has been a struggle. I have not attained to the faith and stature of my parents and grandparents. I am just Jacob.”
Then he went one more time before he went out, and he blessed Pharaoh again. He had met God along that way, and he knew who he was.
He had no idea that he was going to father Jesus out of his family. He had no idea that he was one of the three great patriarchs out of which a nation would be formed. He thought his thirteen kids were not any big deal. They were a big deal.
There were many things he did not realize were important about what went on in his life. But all these things became a testimony of how much God chose him and how much God loved him.
For us, when God reveals your name, He reveals your calling. We have a calling. Do you know your calling? Have you pursued to find your calling? It will be in Christ Jesus.
The Lord wants you to possess that calling so that you can be like Jacob. The Bible speaks of our calling in pretty big terms, right?
You are a chosen race, a holy nation, a royal priesthood, a people of God’s possession.
You are the glorified sons that the Lord is bringing to glory. There are a lot of wonderful definitions of our calling. But how does it work out in your life?
Like Jacob, you are not going to feel particularly fancy about it. Maybe you think, “It must have been cool to be an apostle like Paul.” Young people might think it would be cool to be the Apostle Paul.
Well, all he was was a servant all his days who got beaten up, thrown in jail, and endured all kinds of things. Yeah, it was really cool. That is how Paul felt about it: “That is really cool, man. I am an apostle.”
We have these high titles—royal priesthood and all these things—but it is like an army recruiter. You go into the recruiting office, and they say, “You are going to see the world. We are going to give you a wonderful uniform. You are going to be the admiration of everybody.”
Then you get in the army, and you forget all that other stuff. You just feel like, “I am a slave, basically serving these people.”
What is your calling? It is not just in terms of ministry. Maybe you are called to be a mother. Maybe you are a teacher, an apostle, or an evangelist. These things sound pretty good.
But if you ever come into those things, you will see that it is just a life laid down. There are no perks, except that you get to discover Christ in some unique ways as you follow your calling.
Our lives are hidden with Christ in God. I do not know what else to say about who you are except this: the Lord came to earth to show us what a man really is.
When you see who Christ really is as a man, you see something of that image which He wants to save and redeem. As He saves your soul, transforms your life by His life within you, and as you begin to follow Him, you discover more.
Do you follow Him with all your heart? Are you one of whom people would say, “That person is zealous for God. That person wants God”?
If you pursue, it is unimaginable, the things you will learn about Him and about yourself. But if you are a half-hearted, part-time pursuer, I think you will just go around and around in a wilderness. I do not see much progress there.
Are you wrestling with Christ crucified? Has He met you at Jabbok? Is He wrestling and fighting with you right now, pulling on that strong hip so that you will have to depend on Him for your forward movement?
Have you met Christ crucified? That is what Paul says to the Corinthians: “Oh, you are such great teachers. Oh, you like this apostle, like that apostle. Oh, you are very liberal regarding the sins of your people in the church. You need Christ crucified.”
He vetoes all of that, plus your human wisdom. But Christ is godly wisdom.
The Corinthians were going to have to grow up from being babes, who were pursuing Christ and ministry and all such things, trying to be like Him, to encountering Christ crucified and seeing Christ revealed in them.
They would see the Lord dealing from their spirit through their soul and through their body—from an outward sense of being a Christian to an inward sense of an indwelling Presence leading them in the Christ-life.
That is where the Corinthians were. That is why Paul shared all these marvelous things with them: “If you are in Christ Jesus, you are a new creation. Now I am going to have to explain what that is all about.”
Is this the case with you and me? Are you limping on that staff in the power of God? It is wonderful.
It all begins when we are caught by a vision of Christ. We did not realize, when we first met Christ and first got saved, that He had a destiny in view for us. We had no idea.
Did you have any idea when you got saved that He had a calling and a destiny for you, and that He was arranging things toward that destiny? No idea. We were just glad we got saved.
Then start pursuing Jesus, seeing Him in His Word, beginning to sense His call, coming to Christ crucified, and beginning to see who He is in you. May this be our way forward.
Lord, we are so thankful. We are so thankful that Jesus is so large. We are thankful that He not only is the macrocosmic Christ over all things, but He is the microcosmic Christ who dwells within.
We want to know more about Him. We want to search after Him. We say with Jacob, “Who is He?” And we pursue after Him.
We thank You, Lord, for giving us this as our motive and this as our life: to know Him and to pursue Him. We are so thankful, Lord, that in the midst of that, a mystery, a secret hidden in God, comes out as to who we are in Him.
Lead us in a proper way as we discover, “Who am I in Christ Jesus?” It is all about Christ. It is all about His glory. As we find ourselves in that, we find understanding of who we are.
Thank You, Lord, that You give us this way. Teach us to walk in it. In Jesus’ name we pray.