J. Douglas Dortch, Jr., Ph.D.
First Baptist Church, Tallahassee, FL
“Who Am I?”

Scripture: Genesis 1:26-27

July 29, 2007

If you ever stop and think about it, virtually every experience we have in this life somehow begins with the question of identity.  Meetings often begin with the formality of introductions.  The first day of class always gets kicked off with seating charts and roll calling, and the teacher making an effort to put names together with faces.  Friendships are formed when people open themselves up to others, and contracts are entered into by people signing their names on dotted lines.  Everything in life somehow comes backs to the question of “who am I?”, which is why one of the most important days in a person’s life is not so much when he learns to walk, or when she learns to talk, or even when one finally secures a driver’s license or a Social Security number.  If you ever really stop and think about it, one of the most important days in a person’s life is when that person learns his own name.  It’s when a person finally understands who he or she really is.

It’s why the Bible gives so much attention to the question of identity in its very first chapter.  You may not know everything that you want to know about the Bible, but chances are that most everyone understands that the Bible begins with the book of Genesis, and the book of Genesis begins with the story of creation.

The story that is told in the first chapter of Genesis is like an overture in a grand musical.  From what my musically-untrained mind can gather, an overture is a composition that introduces everything that is to follow.  It gives melodious direction to the rhythm and flow of what is to follow.  The overture swells and it slows.  It builds and it declines.  It gives the listener the impression that this performance is actually going somewhere, and when it is over, the audience is better prepared to proceed.

That is a part of the function of the first chapter of Genesis.  In the beginning there was nothing but chaos and emptiness the Bible tells us.  In the beginning was sheer blackness…until God spoke, and upon the mere Word of God, the chaos gave way to order and the emptiness began to be filled with divine purpose.  That’s how this overture begins, and it continues in the rest of chapter 1 of Genesis with a movement that builds momentum– first light, then separation of the waters; next dry ground and vegetation, then heavenly lights and the formation of seasons; next creatures in the seas and skies, then other creatures that crawl all over the earth.  Finally and climactically comes Man, male and female, who are created, as the Bible explains, “in the image of God.”  And with the fashioning of what we might call “the crown jewel of creation,” God saw that everything He had brought about was “very good,” and the stage is now set for the rest of God’s story to be told.

But are we really ready for the story to proceed?  I don’t know that we can be until we come to terms with the part God has called each of us to portray and the expectations God has for how each of us to fulfill.  After all, we’re not just observers of God’s story; we’re participants!

I went to a school that, like Florida State, is famous for its theater department.  I had several friends who were theater majors, and looking back, I can never recall any uncertainty on their part as to the roles they had been selected to play.  In fact, as I look back, I don’t know that I’ve ever known of any actor, male or female, in any type of production, stage, school, or church, who didn’t know the character he or she was to play and the expectations the director had for the part.  “I’m Willy Loman and I play a salesman who’s beginning to lose his grip on reality.”  “I’m Juliet and I play a star-crossed lover whose family can’t accept the object of my devotion.”  “I’m an angel in the Christmas pageant, and I just stand there and shine.”

Have you ever known an actor at any level who didn’t know who and what was expected of him or her?  If so, then that person was no doubt acting in his first and last performance.  Actors fail to serve their purpose when they go about their business not knowing who they are or what they are expected to do.

I find it highly ironic that while actors, who only “play” at roles, are crystal clear on the question of identity, there are so many of us, who are called to live genuinely and authentically in the “real world,” who are totally clueless when it comes to who we are and what we are put here on earth to do.  Why do you think that is the case?

We might answer that question from several perspectives, but when we look at how the Bible speaks to the issue, we see that something has happened that keeps us from being able to live out the possibilities of being people created “in the image of God.”  That something is “sin.”  In fact, the next movement in Genesis after that of creation is the “fall of man.”  As the story of Adam and Eve teaches us, it wasn’t enough for man to be created “in the image of God.”  Man wanted to be God.  Man wanted to write his own story and control his own destiny.  Simply put, man, both male and female, wanted to take over God’s place and therefore rebelled from God’s authority, and all that has resulted from that disobedience, our chaos and confusion, our emptiness and our lack of purpose, has come about because we are fallen people who live in a fallen world.  That’s what the Bible says.

But we refuse to listen.  Though the Bible tells us who we are and gives us the “lines” by which we are to live, we simply refuse to listen.  Could it be that our ignorance is simply due to our reluctance to sit still long enough to hear all of God’s story?  Could it be that we don’t like hearing the Bible’s message that we are less than perfect and so we turn our attention to other voices who will tell us what we want to hear?

We may be like the wicked queen in Grimm’s fairy tale, Snow White.  You remember the story.  The queen would go to the magic mirror on the wall, asking the question, “Who’s the fairest of them all?”  And the mirror for the longest time would answer, “You, O Queen, are the fairest of them all.”  But one day the mirror told the truth.  “You’re not the fairest.  You’re not the most beautiful, not any more.  ‘O Lady Queen, though fair you be, Snow White is fairer far to be.’  O Lady Queen, Snow White lives.”

The Bible is that mirror that tells us the truth, and we must hear it.  For our own joy and fulfillment in life, we must hear clearly the Bible’s message that we are no longer the fairest in creation.  We have turned from God.  We have trashed His image.  And as painful as that truth is to hear it, if we stay with the story, we will learn that in spite of the fact that we have trashed the image of God, God has done something to renew and restore it.  He has given us His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who lived a sinless life and died for fallen sinners in a fallen world, and on the third day was raised to life that by his grace and in his power we might become, as the Apostle Paul puts it in his second letter to the church at Corinth, “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17).  The Bible is a mirror that shows us to be fallen people, but then says to us, “Jesus lives and Jesus loves” so that when we trust in him and accept his love, our sins are forgiven and our hope is restored.

Author Brennan Manning came up with a slogan that speaks to this truth.  His slogan is, “I am the one who Jesus loves.”  At first, that slogan sounds terribly arrogant, until you come to realize that he is quoting from Scripture.  As Manning explains, Jesus’ closest friend on earth was no doubt the disciple whose name was John.  In the gospel of John, he is described as “the Beloved Disciple,” or interpreted literally, “the one whom Jesus loved.”  Manning says, “If John were to be asked, ‘What is your primary identity in life?’ John wouldn’t answer, ‘I’m a disciple, an evangelist, an author of one of the four Gospels.’”  Instead, he would surely answer, “I am the one whom Jesus loves.”

I don’t know of another truth that would revolutionize your life like the truth that you are one whom Jesus loves.  You may be here this morning and your life has been scarred by some rejection.  You may have trusted yourself to someone, only to see your trust trashed and turned away.  You may be here this morning and your life has lost its bearings.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason; you’re just occupying space.  You may be here and you think that your best days are behind you.  There’s nothing more for you to do.  To every last one of you God has drawn near in Jesus Christ to say, “I accept you.  I have plans for you.  I am not through with you.”  To every last one of you God has drawn near to say, “I created you in my image.  You are special and I love you.”  Believe God and be amazed at how your life will be turned upside down and inside out simply because of how by His grace in Jesus Christ, you begin moving back in the direction of becoming the person that He created you to be.

We live in a world that seems bent on telling us that we are a bunch of nobodies who will never be good enough or never be happy enough, unless we look a certain way or buy a certain product.  We live in a world where human beings are learning at ever younger ages that meaning and happiness in life come in a box, or a bottle, or a toy, or a designer label (Andrea Sachs, “Junk Culture,” Time, 9/26/04).

What this world desperately needs is a witness from people who refuse to buy in to that philosophy, but who say that while we aren’t good enough or happy enough, God loves us anyway, and that meaning and happiness come only in a cross and an empty tomb, proof positive that God hasn’t given up on us yet, and never will.

So, don’t you give up on God.  You are not an accident or a coincidence.  You are not even an embarrassment, in spite of how much of a wreck your life has turned out to be.  You are “the crown jewel of God’s creation” and “the one whom Jesus loves.”

Claim that high privilege.  Be confident in that high calling.  Find purpose in that high appointment and your life will be all that God has from the beginning intended it to be.

For if life’s “big questions” start with, “Who am I?” now you know the answer.  You are one created in the image of God.  You are one whom Jesus loves.