Identity (John 3:1-3)

When you meet someone for the first time, what do you tell them about yourself? We could probably start with our name because that is the simplest way of sharing who we are with people, but what would you say after that? Some might talk about what we do for a living, our family, our hobbies, where we live, or things like that.

What we tell other people about ourselves can say a lot about our identity. We all have a sense of who we are which has developed over our lives. More and more in our society, the question of identity or ‘Who am I?’ is becoming a crucial question to ask. In recent times, questions around identity and how we form our sense of who we are, have become important for people, especially when it comes to a person’s gender identity. As followers of Jesus, we need to be thinking about and discussing questions around identity, where we find our identity and how we express our identity, if we are to faithfully give answers for the hope we have in Christ (1 Peter 3:15) to people around us who don’t yet share our faith.

Our identities are formed by a lot of different influences. We inherit particular traits of our identity from our parents from conception. Our families, friends and childhood experiences go a long way in shaping the people we become. As we get older, our work, hobbies, and close relationships play their part as our identity develops. There is a degree to which our choices can shape our identity, although some people argue that our choices are also shaped by our identity and our genetic makeup or predispositions. Significant events in our lives also play their part in forming our identity. What’s important is understanding that our identity is never really fixed but is constantly growing and evolving as we encounter new and different circumstances, relationships, and experiences.

As Christians, we can also view our identity as a gift from God which is given to us as an act of loving grace. In this morning’s reading from 1 John 3:1-3, we hear how God gave us a foundational element of our identity when John writes, ‘See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!’ (NLT) In the same way that some of the most important building blocks of our identity are given to us by our parents and shaped by our relationships with our biological families, so God gives us key aspects of our identity by calling us his children and revealing his love to us through Jesus.

Jesus radically challenged the perceptions of God that were held by the religious leaders of his day when he talked about God as ‘Father’. In John 5:18 we read that, ‘the Jewish leaders tried all the harder to find a way to kill him. For … he called God his Father, thereby making himself equal with God’ (NLT). There are Old Testament references which identify the Israelites as ‘God’s son’ such as Hosea 11:1, ‘When Israel was a child, I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt’ (NLT), referring to Moses leading them out of slavery in Exodus. However, it was unthinkable for a Jew of Jesus’ time to consider being in a relationship with God like a child with a father! Part of Jesus’ radical message of grace is that God welcomes sinners into his family through faith. The Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 3:26, ‘you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus’ (NLT). Faith in Jesus brings us into a new relationship with almighty God. As Paul continues in Galatians 3:27, God officially adopts us as his children so we can live as his children and heirs through baptism.

This can help us in our question of identity. When we ask ourselves who we are, or when we feel like we might be lost and need to find a more solid sense of who are, believing that we are a child of God is a great starting point. There are a lot of aspects to this identity that we can explore throughout our lives. Being God’s child means that he gives us a new nature which is filled with his goodness, in the same way that we received our genetic code from our parents. God passes on to us his compassion, his strength, his creativity, and the authority which comes with being children of the King of heaven and earth. God gives everything he is and has to his children as an ongoing display of pure grace to us.

Just like other aspects of our identity, this isn’t something that is static, but continues to grow and evolve over time. John writes, ‘we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is’ (v2 NLT). By fixing our eyes on Jesus (Hebrews 12:2) we can see in Christ the people God is shaping us to be. We can see in Jesus what the character of a child of God looks like. The more we get to know Jesus, the more we get to know who we are as God’s children. This morning’s gospel reading from Matthew 5:1-12 is a great example of this. Jesus teaches us a radically different set of standards and values. As we get to know Jesus and the God’s goodness in him, the Holy Spirit shapes our identity to become more like Jesus, until we fully see who we are in him when we see him face to face.

Another aspect of our identity that we can find in 1 John 3:1-3 is that we are loved. There can be times in life where we can wonder if we are loved or even if we are able to be loved. God’s answer to us in Jesus is a resounding and unwavering, ‘Yes!’ God adopts us as his children because he loves us. He loves us because we are his children. We all know how important it is for any child to grow up in a loving home so they can have a positive sense of self and their own identity. We can find this in the love our heavenly Father has for us through Jesus. His is a love that gives everything for us through Jesus’ death on the cross, gives everything to us as acts of loving grace, and promises to give us every good thing we need for life in this world and the next. When the world or people around us rob us of our love, make us question if we can be loved or if there is anything in us that is lovable, our new identity as God’s children through faith in Jesus tells us that we are loved, and nothing can or will ever change that because this love was fulfilled and completed on the cross.

There are many ways we can answer the question: Who are you? How we answer can change over time as various events and circumstances shape us, and as we grow and change as people. In a society where identity questions are vitally important, we have something good to offer others as followers of Jesus. When we identify as God’s children whom he loves, as 1 John 3:1-3 tells us, we can find a solid and dependable sense of who we are in relationship with our loving heavenly Father through Jesus. That faith gives us a good gift to offer, when we see others around us as God’s children whom he loves in the same way.

More to think about or discuss:

• How would you reply if someone asked you who you are? What might your answer say about your own sense of identity and who you are?
• How might faith in being a loved child of God help with our sense of identity? How can it help to sustain a healthy identity during difficult or challenging times?
• How might seeing other people as God’s children whom he loves help them find a healthy sense of their own identity? How might seeing them like this lead you to treat them differently?