EPHESIANS 1 – PTR. ALVIN GUTIERREZ – 4PM AFTERNOON SERVICE

EPHESIANSOur Unshakable Identity In Christ

I AM ___

WHO DO YOU THINK

YOU ARE?

What is your IDENTITY?

When you know who you are, then you know what to do.

If you don’t know who you are, then you don’t

know what to do.

How do you see YOURSELF?

How does your IDENTITY alter

and affect your DESTINY?

WHO DOES GOD SAY

YOU ARE?

GENESIS 1:26-28

26 Then God said, “Let us makemankind in our image, in ourlikeness, so that they mayrule over the fish in the sea and thebirds in the sky, over the livestockand all the wild animals, and overall the creatures that move alongthe ground.”

GENESIS 1:26-28

27 So Godcreated mankind in Hisown image, in the imageof God He created them;male and female Hecreated them.

GENESIS 1:26-2828 God blessed them and said tothem, “Be fruitful and increasein number; fill the earth andsubdue it. Rule over the fish inthe sea and the birds in the skyand over every living creaturethat moves on the ground.”

GENESIS 5:1

1 This is the writtenaccount of Adam’s familyline. When God createdmankind, He made themin the likeness of God.

Who are you? God says, “I’ve made you in

my image and likeness.”

That’s your identity. There’s the identity

statement.

FOUR THINGS THAT

GOD SAYS WHO YOU ARE:

1YOU ARE A

REVELATION RECEIVER.

They speak to us - the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit do. God speaks

to us.

You don’t have to determine or decide what your identity is

because God has already chosen to

reveal it.

You must be in the Word of God and have the Word of God in you,

because you were created as a revelation

receiver.

God wants to speak to you through His Word. He wants to hear from you through prayer.

We need the revelation of God. We need God

to tell us who he is, and we need God to tell us

who we are.

Need to know both: who God is, who you

are, and the Bible provides both.

2YOU ARE HUMBLY

HONORED.

Humility, the root of which literally means to know

your place, is to know that your place is under God,

but above lower creation.

3YOU ARE

MADE TO MIRROR.

WE WERE MADE TO MIRROR.

aGod is loving, and when we love, we reflect His love to

others.

bGod is truthful. When we tell the truth, we

reflect His truthfulness to others.

cGod is forgiving. When

we forgive others, we’re reflecting His grace and

His mercy to others.

dGod is generous, and

when we’re generous, we’re reflecting His generosity to others.

IDENTITY DECISIONS:“How will this make me

look?” That’s the wrong question.

“How could they see God?”That’s the right question.

JESUS is called the image of the

INVISIBLE GOD.

4YOU ARE BLESSED TO

BE A BLESSING.

Adam and Eve had not done anything.

He just blessed them.They didn’t earn their

blessing.

aOur God is a God who begins with

blessing.

bOur God is a God who

likes to bless His people.

cOur God is a God who is a Father who adores His

kids and would do anything for them.

IN FCC, WE ARE BLESSED

TO BLESS.

aWhatever God

teaches you is so you might teach others.

bWhatever God gives you is that you might

give to others.

cWhatever God does for you is so that you could

learn to do that for others.

TWO THINGS THAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT OUR IDENTITY:

1YOUR IDENTITY IS

RECEIVED,

IT IS NOT ACHIEVED.

It’s not something you do, it’s something God does. It’s not what you

earn, it’s what Hegives.

2YOU ARE NOT MORE

VALUABLE THAN ANYONE ELSE AND YOU ARE NOT LESS VALUABLE THAN

ANYONE ELSE, AS WELL.

Your net worth has nothing to do

with your self-worth.

WHO DOES SATAN SAY YOU

ARE?

The Bible says repeatedly that he’s a liar, he’s a deceiver,

and he’s a killer.

GENESIS 3:11 Now the serpent was morecrafty than any of the wildanimals the LORD God hadmade. He said to thewoman, “Did God reallysay, ‘You must not eat fromany tree in the garden’?”

Satan is always going to question the clarity and

the authority of the Word of God.

GENESIS 3:55 For God knows that whenyou eat from it your eyeswill be opened, and you willbe like God, knowing goodand evil."

Satan erodes their confidence in the Word of God and

lies to them.

IDENTITY IDOLATRY

EZEKIEL 14:44 Therefore speak to them and tellthem, ‘This is what theSovereign LORD says: When any ofthe Israelites set up idols in theirhearts and put a wicked stumblingblock before their faces and then goto a prophet, I the LORD will answerthem myself in keeping with theirgreat idolatry.

1Idolatry is when we take

a good thing and we make it a God thing, which is a bad thing.

2Idolatry is when we take a created thing and we put it in the Creator’s

place.

3Idolatry is when we live for something or someone other than

Jesus.

4Idolatry is when our identity, our

hope, our joy, who we want to be, and who we want others to

perceive us to be is something achieved, by us or others, and not

received from Him.

The Bible says it has two categories:

worshippers and idolaters.

ROMANS 1:25

25 They exchanged the truthabout God for a lie, andworshiped and servedcreated things rather thanthe Creator—who is foreverpraised. Amen.

DIFFERENT CATEGORIES OF

IDOLS

Idols make promises they never keep. Lies never bring life, they

only bring death.

ITEMS

All you care about is what you think about yourself.

DUTIES

Again, idols can be good things in a God place, which is a bad

thing.

WHO YOU ARE DETERMINES WHAT

YOU DO.

OTHERS

What you idolize, you demonize.

PROVERBS 29:25

25 Fear of man will prove tobe a snare, but whoevertrusts in the LORD is keptsafe.

LONGINGSYour identity needs to

work today and not just be something that you’re

hoping will work tomorrow.

SUFFERINGSYou’re not your waorst

day. You’re not the worst thing you’ve done. You

are what Jesus has done for you.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR IDENTITY

CRISIS

1You live in fear that your identity idolatry will fail

you or be taken from you.

2Your identity idolatry

crumbles under the weight of being in God’s place in

your life.

3When your identity

idolatry begins to crumble, you become panicked.

JESUS AND HIS PEOPLE

That’s all that ultimately matters in the end, and the only

thing that will be together forever is

Jesus and His people.