Breaking Generational Patterns.

So we are still in our series, This Is My Story, where we have been looking at stories of people's lives in the Old Testament, the first part of the Bible, the Hebrew scriptures. We have been looking at the life of Abraham and Sarah, Hagar and Isaac, Jacob, and now we are getting to the fourth generation, which is Joseph.

We have been talking about how we are formed by the family that we were born into, how each and every one of us are born into a story and then we get to choose the story that we live out. Within that, recognizing that each and every one of us today, when we come into this room, we are entering into each other's stories. We are entering into what God has been doing in the story that he is writing. We're going to be spending time in Genesis 37. If you want to catch up with all the stories that we've been talking about, you can find those in scripture.

Let me go ahead and start reading today. In Genesis 37, it says this:

Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. This is the account of Jacob's family line. Joseph, a young man of 17, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of the other sons because he had been born to him in his old age, and he made an ornate robe for him.

When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him. Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers, they hated him all the more. He said to them, listen to this dream I had. We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright while you were gathered around mine and bowed down to it. His brothers said to him, do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us? And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he said.

Then he had another dream and he said, listen, I had another dream and this time the sun and the moon and 11 stars were bowing down to me. When he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him and said, what is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow down to the ground before you?

Genesis 37:2-11

I always think it's funny to think of this where I'm like, oh, Joseph, maybe you should have waited to tell them a little bit. Maybe we should have thought this through. I kind of don't blame the responses here. But it says in verse 12:

Now his brothers had gone to graze their father's flocks near Shechem and Israel said to Joseph. And by the way, Israel is Jacob. His name was changed to Israel. So Israel, Jacob, same person. It says, as you know, your brothers are grazing the flocks near Shechem. Come, I'm going to send you to them. Very well, he replied. So he said to him, go and see if all is well with your brothers and with the flocks and bring word back to me.

Then he sent him off from the Valley of Hebron. When Joseph arrived at Shechem, a man found him wandering around in the field and asked him, what are you looking for? I'm looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks? They have moved on from here, the man answered. I heard them say, let's go to Dothan. So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan.

But they saw him in the distance and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him. Here comes the dreamer, they said to each other. Come now, let's kill him. Let's throw him into one of these cisterns, which was this deep, deep pit, and say there is a ferocious animal that devoured him. Then we'll see what comes of those dreams that he had.

When Reuben, who is one of his brothers, heard this, he tried to rescue him from their hands. Let's not take his life, he said. Don't shed any blood. Just throw him in the cistern here in the wilderness, but don't lay a hand on him. That still does not sound like a very good idea to me. So when Joseph came to his brothers, they stripped him of his robe, the ornate robe that he was wearing, and they took him and threw him into the cistern. The cistern was empty and there was no water in it.

Genesis 37:12-24

Let's pray today. Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your word. We thank you that we can look at these stories of people that lived and walked with you and that you can speak to us through them today. So we just ask, Holy Spirit, would you come? Would you reveal to us things today that maybe we've seen before, maybe we've heard before, but you want to speak something specifically to us that's going to lead us closer to you, closer to transformation, so we leave this place walking and living more like you, Jesus. We ask that you would just speak for these next few moments. In your name we pray. Amen.

The story of Joseph

To summarize this, we have Joseph, who was one of the 12 sons of Jacob, later changed his name to Israel. He's favored by his father, which made his brothers jealous of him. So they plot against him and they throw him in this pit, this cistern. And then what happens next is that they sell him into slavery into Egypt.

He ends up serving the household of Potiphar, which was a ruler there, an Egyptian official. And during this time, he's wrongly accused of doing something, and then he's thrown into prison. But it's in prison that Joseph interpreted the dreams of two different prisoners. God was speaking to him through dreams before he was in the pit and in prison. Now in prison, in the darkest times of his life, God is still speaking to him through dreams.

Pharaoh, another ruler at the time, had a dream that troubles him. He hears about Joseph that there's this guy in prison interpreting dreams. Joseph interpreted Pharaoh's dream as a prediction of seven years of plenty and harvest and abundance in Egypt that would then be followed by seven years of famine. Pharaoh is impressed by his wisdom and appoints Joseph second in command over all of Egypt.

So we go from being favored by his father, brothers being jealous, thrown in a pit, thrown into prison, to all of a sudden he's favored again and is second in command, ruling over all of Egypt. The story of Joseph illustrates these different themes and patterns in his life. There's moments of favor and there's forgiveness and there's just divine providence and you see God's hand continuing to flow through Joseph time and time again.

We cannot change what has happened to us, but we can choose our response.

The first thing that I want to talk about is this. We cannot change what has happened to us but we can choose our response. We cannot change what has happened to us but we can choose our response. Each and every one of us, we were born into situations, into circumstances that were out of our control. We enter into things sometimes and we find ourselves in places that we may not expect to be in.

What we see happening here with Joseph, it starts with this. He's favored by his father, not his fault. He's favored by his father. And now this jealousy and this rivalry starts to come up. Does anyone have a favorite child in their family? If you have siblings, there's a favorite child.

If you guys aren't raising your hands, that means it's you. You're the favorite child. We have a church full of favorite children. That's amazing. That's not me. I am not the favorite child and I know it because when I was like days old, my parents left me at a mattress store. They both were concerned about where my older brother was. And I was like, are you kidding me? Like I'm days old and I've already been forgotten and not the favored one. My brothers would probably say otherwise. They're like, she's the favorite. I'm not the favorite. They left me. I still remember it.

But they favored Joseph. And all of a sudden this sibling rivalry starts to come up. That's a real thing. Jealousy. They made Joseph the main character. That's what we see happening here. It's all of a sudden they got so caught up in what was happening in Joseph's life that they completely neglected anything that God was doing in their own lives. How often do we make someone else the main character and we start to look at their success and think that there's only room for them to succeed. There's only room for them to be used by God. That's when we make the wrong people the main character.

Because when we continue to live and to walk as children of God, recognizing our identity is made in the image of God and everything we do is for his name and his glory, then we know that we are not the main character. Nobody in this room is the main character. I hate to break it to you today, right? It's not about us or our glory, but it's all about the Lord. It's all about Jesus.

The brothers here, they're getting jealous of Joseph and his success because God is speaking to him and they're forgetting that they were in this together, that they're a family, that if God is speaking through Joseph, then rather than being jealous that he's not speaking to them, they should be leaning in and listening and saying, God, what are you saying? What are you doing? How can we be a part of the story that you are writing?

God has unique invitations for each and every one of us and the ways that he wants to use us to continue to make his name known, to continue to see his kingdom come here right in this city in Madison. I believe that there are going to be times where some of you are going to get these crazy prophetic dreams from God. And rather than us all going, why did they get a dream and I didn't? What does it look like for us to lean in and to listen and say, God, what are you doing? What is our role? What is our response? When we make other people the main character, we can completely miss what God is doing right in our midst.

Who have you made the main character in your life? Is there someone that you just think if only this would be gone, this problem, or if only we would not have this or we could forgive each other if only this, then I could be fully obedient to what God is asking me to do? How can we surrender and put God back at the rightful place as the main character, the one who's in charge, the one who gets the glory?

The next thing that we see here is that there's a whole lot of groupthink going on in this situation. There's like a band of brothers. And I'm like, how did no one just say to the other one, what are we doing right now? Like, this is not a good idea. And maybe like me, you're thinking of moments in your childhood or maybe more recently where you're like, yeah, I cannot believe we found ourselves there. I cannot believe we ended up in that situation.

When we're in the midst of following the crowd, we have to ask ourselves, why am I following right now? Is it because this is where the Spirit of God is moving? Does this line up with scripture? Does this look like something Jesus would do if he were in my situation? I want to say those things again.

When you find yourself following the crowd, ask: Why am I following? One, is it because this is where the Spirit of God is moving? Number two, does this line up with scripture in the story that we see that God has written from Old Testament to new? And number three, does this look like something Jesus would do if he were in my situation? Would Jesus be responding this way?

Now, unfortunately, they didn't have the life of Jesus in the Old Testament here to be looking to, right? But the character of God, you could have thought, man, this doesn't line up with the character of God to throw someone in a pit here. Like, this isn't it. Why am I following? Am I following because, yes, it lines up with the Spirit of God. Yes, it lines up with Scripture. Yes, it looks like something Jesus would do. Or am I following because this is just what the people around me are doing? Is this just what people are doing? And so now I find myself here.

Sometimes even the people nearest and dearest to us might say things that might be a little off. Right? That's why even now I'm like, hey, make sure you guys are reading your Bibles. Like you should be fact-checking me too, okay. We have to know, like, why are we listening to things? Why are we doing these things? We have to stay rooted in scripture, surrender to the Spirit of God and follow the good, kind, loving way of Jesus in everything that we do.

I want to highlight a few verses here. I love that in Genesis 37:21, it says:

When Reuben heard of their scheme, he came to Joseph's rescue and said, let's not kill him.

Genesis 37:21

So one of the brothers was like, almost there. He's like, let's not kill him. Like, that's bad. Let's just like throw him in the pit where he can have no water and be dehydrated and then slowly die. Like what? So close, Reuben. So close, yet still not there.

You see, sometimes we get this temptation where we're like, well, it's not like that bad because that would be really bad. And I know that's a sin. Like, I know that's not the way of Jesus, but like this, it's not like that bad. So it's okay. Like, let's just like throw him in the pit. We won't actually kill him. Right? But we'll just let him die on his own. And then we can kind of wipe our hands clean. How often do we find ourselves doing the same things where we're trying to kind of play this middle game here?

If it's not that bad, it's not the worst thing, but we're either walking towards the way of Jesus or we're walking the other way. Because when we're walking in the ways of Jesus, we are leaving everything else behind. The sin, the hurt, the pain, the brokenness. But if we're not walking this way, then we're walking towards all of those things. There's not really a middle ground like we would like to think.

Them throwing him in the pit in general was not a righteous decision. And then Judah, it says in verses 26 to 27, he's saying, what are we going to gain by killing our brother? We'd have to cover up our crime. Instead of hurting him, let's sell him to the traders. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh and blood.

Are you kidding me? Like, listen to what's happening in this story. They're like, yeah, let's not kill him. Like, we'll just sell him instead. Now, it sounds crazy when we're reading it, but again, how often do we do things like that in our own lives? Where we're like, okay, I know this person, like, they're a part of my family, they're my friends and all this kind of stuff. So of course I wouldn't harm them myself, but maybe I'll talk bad about them behind their backs, right? Like maybe I won't be kind to them. Maybe I won't go above and beyond to love them and to serve them. So it's not like that bad, but we find ourselves again, trying to make reason for the things that we're doing.

It's this almost, but there's really no almost. It's either we're following the ways of Jesus or we're not. At the end of the day, they still took part in harming their brother, even though you can hear in their conversation that there was like something inside of them that was trying really hard to come out and be like, this feels wrong. This isn't it.

So what is that? My next question to you today is why are we afraid to do what is right? Why are we afraid to do what is right? What stops you when you find yourselves in those situations from going against the grain, from standing up to groups of people? When people are gossiping around you, what stops you from chiming in or not stopping it? When people are making racist remarks, what stops you from saying something? When people are doing fill in the blank, what stops you from stepping up and saying, hey, something doesn't feel right here?

What stops us? When people are around us and they're doing things that we know this isn't really lining up with the Spirit of God, this isn't really lining up with scripture, that Jesus wouldn't be doing this if he were in my situation right now, what stops you?

For each of us, I think it's a little bit different. I think it's important for us to name those things in our lives so that when we find ourselves in positions where we can make change, then we're ready because we're no longer letting the fear of letting people down win. We're no longer letting the fear of what people are going to think about us win.

Some common reasons that I think we don't are the fear of man. We're afraid of each other. We're like, oh no, what are they going to think? Will I lose friends? Will I look bad? Or we're afraid of people doing the same to us, right? Like I can imagine if I was one of the brothers, honestly, I'd probably be like, if I say something they're gonna put me in the pit with them and I don't want to be there so I'm not going to say anything because I'm scared that they're going to take me there too.

What are we afraid of? What is stopping us? And what if you ended up in the pit too? Would we trust that by following the way of Jesus, by following the ways of Jesus, that he will make way for us no matter what situation we end up in because of our obedience to him?

You see, Jesus stood in the gap for those who could not speak up for themselves. Jesus did not follow the crowds, but he just kept moving forward in obedience and integrity. And eventually the crowds followed him and we're still following him today. The changes that we make have the power to change generations.

Following Jesus and living a righteous life might mean living different and talking different than the people around you. This may mean that, yes, some people might not want to be around you because of it. It might mean, yes, that it could be isolating at times, but if you are the only one feeling it, could it be it's because the Lord is asking you to lead in that direction?

Could it have been that God wanted Reuben to come in and not let that happen and there was another way that he was going to get Joseph to Egypt, but instead he didn't listen to what was happening and he just followed the crowd? What would have happened if Reuben or Judah would have taken charge in that moment? But they didn't.

Later in Genesis 39, we're going to see that Joseph is in Egypt. So now this is a point where it says in scripture that he succeeded at everything he did. How annoying is that? I can't imagine like if his siblings knew at that time that it's like, there's Joseph, even after he gets thrown in a pit, of course, now he's ruling and reigning and all the glory and succeeding and everything he does.

And then he has this interaction with Potiphar's wife, where she accuses him of essentially trying to come on to her. He ends up going to prison. Joseph is now in prison. But then, even then, he finds a way out. But before that, I want you to think about this for a moment. His obedience and integrity and righteousness led him to unjustly being thrown into prison. Does that sound like success now? Is that something that his brothers are going to be jealous of now? Probably not.

You see, I think sometimes we have to name the reality of what following Jesus can be like in the sense that not everything, the second that you start following him, the second that you start obeying him, the second that you start living righteously, it's not like all of a sudden you're going to experience all these riches and glories and blessings. We're not really promised that in scripture. Sometimes it happens and sometimes you're going to see instant success and instant fruit, but more times than not, it's going to be this kind of up and down, back and forth.

One moment you're going to be like, this is it. This is the blessings of God. And the next moment you might find yourself in a place like Joseph where all of a sudden you're in the darkness. Things are out of your control and you don't know when you're going to get out. And I think we're really quick to go, God, why are you punishing me? What did I do to get here?

When a lot of times that's just the reality of the world that we live in, that sometimes there's going to be things that are done to us that are unjust, even when we are living justly. There's going to be things that are done to us that are unkind, even when we are being kind. Things that are done to us that are unloving, even when we are loving in the ways of Jesus. And that's because we are living in this tension of the now and the not yet.

Jesus came, he died on the cross, paid the price for our sins, was raised back to life. But he says, I'm coming back again to fully restore things. The kingdom of heaven is here and it's coming and there's more to come. And so on this side of eternity, as we're still in the midst of this now and this not yet of the kingdom of heaven, there's going to be moments where we're going to taste and see the goodness and the glory of God as we follow the ways of Jesus. And then there's going to be moments where we're going to find ourselves in pits and we're going to find ourselves in places that are dark and unknown. And we're going, God, where are you?

But Joseph remained faithful, whether he could see it or not, whether he could feel it or not, he remained faithful.

Generational blessing

I want to go back to the blessing that was given to Abraham. Multiple times in Genesis, we see that God speaks to Abraham. And he says something along these lines. In Genesis 22:18, God speaks and he says:

And through your descendants, all nations of the earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me.

Genesis 22:18

God says all nations will be blessed through you. Will be blessed because you obeyed me. I want you to know here, saying not just you will be blessed for your obedience, but generations will be blessed. Your descendants will be blessed. All nations will be blessed through you.

What does this mean? This is saying that God, he wants to continue to bless nations and generations through us. So this means that you may or may not see the fruit of your labor. You may or may not reap the harvest on this side of eternity. It's saying that the promise that we are letting run through us, flow through our hands, it goes beyond us. It is for all nations and all generations. And the way that we follow Jesus, we have the power to change generations as we let the promise flow through us.

Let's look at Jesus though. He died young, a painful death, spent most of his life eating the fish that he caught, not a whole lot of earthly riches and glories. If you were looking at the life that he lived, you might not be saying that's success. But was he obedient? Yes. Was he faithful? Yes. Did he make way for all nations to be blessed for all of eternity? Yes.

You see, we're playing the long game here. We're living for eternity. Not just the come in and we're going to do it when it's convenient and we're going to let go of it when it's not, but we're going to endure. We're going to remain faithful and obedient so that all nations and all people can be found and freed in Jesus' name.

You see, when we see that Joseph is unjustly accused of this crime, he's thrown into prison, but it was his ability to then interpret the dreams that led him back to a place of position and power. So it says that impressed by Joseph's wisdom Pharaoh appointed him second in command of Egypt, tasked him with managing the food reserve. So when the famine came, like the dream that was given to him, when the famine came they were ready and they were prepared.

So what happens next is Joseph's family, the same brothers that threw him into the pit and sold him into slavery, they're now coming to Egypt and they're in need of food. And they don't recognize Joseph. They don't recognize the brother that they betrayed, the brother that they threw to the side. Let me read this to you:

Joseph, because he saw them and he knew it was his family, says he could no longer control himself before all the attendants. And he cried out, have everyone leave my presence. So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers. And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him and Pharaoh's household heard about it. Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph. Is my father still living?

But his brothers were not able to answer him because they were terrified at his presence. Can you even imagine if you're coming and they're desperate and they're hungry and they're like, we need food to live. And it's like, oh no, what did we do?

So it goes on. And later you are also directed to tell them, do this, take some carts from Egypt for your children and your wives and get your father and come. Never mind about your belongings because the best of all of Egypt will be yours.

So Joseph is telling his brothers like, go get our father. If he's alive, get your wives, get your children, bring them here to Egypt. So the sons of Israel, Jacob, did this. Joseph gave them carts as Pharaoh had commanded, and he also gave them provisions for their journey. To each of them he gave new clothing, but to Benjamin he gave 300 shekels of silver and five sets of clothes.

And this is what he sent to his father, 10 donkeys loaded with the best things of Egypt, and 10 female donkeys loaded with grain and bread and other provisions for his journey. Then he sent his brothers away. And as they were leaving, he said to them, don't quarrel on the way. So they went up to Egypt and came to their father, Jacob, and the land of Canaan. They told him, Joseph is still alive. In fact, he is ruler of all of Egypt.

Jacob was stunned. He did not believe them. But when they told him everything Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the carts Joseph had sent to carry him back, the spirit of their father, Jacob, was revived. And Israel said, I'm convinced, my son Joseph is still alive and I will go and see him before I die.

Genesis 45:14-28

I love what's happening here in this moment. Joseph had a choice to make here when meeting his brothers. Can you imagine what that had been like? The people that at one point had power over you and abused it are now standing right in front of you in a life and death situation again for them.

And Joseph flips the script. For generations, selfish decisions were made. For generations, decisions out of desperation, just grasping for power and control were made. And Joseph in one moment lays it all down. And instead of offering revenge, he offers forgiveness. He offers a second chance to his family.

Something tells me that even in the dark seasons of Joseph's life, whether it's in the pit or it was in prison where it looked like nothing was happening, that he was allowing God to bring freedom and healing into his life so that he himself could offer freedom and healing to the people around him. Something tells me that Joseph remained faithful and kept his eyes on what matters and who matters most, and that's God.

I don't think that you just can get to this place of being able to forgive and offer this healing and this freedom to people by chance, but it tells me that Joseph continued to stay close enough to God and he understood what really mattered in this moment, and he flips the script on generations, offering forgiveness instead of revenge.

Taking off the old and putting on the new

In order for us to change, change requires us to take off the old before putting on the new. One of my favorite passages is in Colossians 3. I love this whole chapter. Let me read it to you:

You used to walk in these ways in the life you once lived, but now you must also rid yourself of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator. Here there is no gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian or Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all and is in all. Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another. Just as the Lord forgave you, so you also forgive. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together. Let the peace of Christ rule in your heart, since as members of one body, you were called to peace. And be thankful.

Colossians 3:7-15

Joseph was able to change, but he had to take a lot from his past off. He had to leave a lot of his past behind in order to put on this new identity as someone that was able to represent the love and the forgiveness and the grace and the mercy of God. What could Joseph have held on to? Bitterness, entitlement, jealousy. He could have kept the rivalry going. I mean, he could have been looking at them and being like, look at me now. I've made it, right? I'm on top. And Joseph let it all go and forgave. He set them free and gave them a second chance to be faithful to God.

Who else did this? Jesus. Change is possible through Jesus. And it has to be Jesus. Jesus came so that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life. Jesus left heaven to come down to earth and invites us to follow him into a better way of life. He came for those who treated him well and those who treated him poorly. No matter what happened in the past, he came and he is coming again.

The so what and the now what

So the so what of today is this. The thing that I want you to get out of all of this and all the messages we've been talking about week after week is this: You can change. You can change. Your family, your past, may have formed you. There may be patterns and things that you still hold onto, but you can change.

And now what do we do? We put on our new identity as a child of God. And we start living like Jesus and practicing walking in his ways.

But changing patterns can be hard. I think one of the things that we try to do so often is when we start to recognize the negative patterns in our lives and the things that have formed us, we simply try to just remove things. Then what ends up happening is we remove it and we stop doing things or we're like, okay, I'm just not going to be jealous anymore. So I'm just going to stop it. Stop being jealous. And then we just find ourselves empty and we fill it with the wrong things once again.

I want to talk about this idea of how do we replace patterns in our life rather than simply removing them. Because when we remove, we just try to remove something, we leave ourselves empty. When we just try to remove something, we often can even idolize the thing that we've removed even more. But when we replace the things that we remove with a better pattern, a pattern that follows the way of Jesus, we are way more likely to actually remove the previous pattern for good.

So some examples of this. If you struggle with gossip, practice gratitude. Tame your tongue. Find another pattern to use your mouth and your words. If you struggle with fear, it might sound crazy but you can even start with the smallest things of like starting to give of your tithes and trusting God with your money and trusting God with small things in your life. There are all these different ways that we can replace the old patterns in our life with the way of Jesus. But it takes us actively doing that sometimes.

The last thing I want to talk about today is taking on our new identity. You see, Abram's name was changed to Abraham. And then we see his son Isaac's name was the same, Isaac. Jacob, God changed his name to Israel. It's not talked about a whole lot, but in Genesis 41, Joseph was given another name. Joseph was given the name Zaphenath-Paneah by Pharaoh in Genesis 41. But Joseph never referred to himself as this. Joseph didn't take this name for himself. This is not the name that Joseph chose to be known by.

You see, I think for some of us today, that we're in a place where we need God to give us a new name, a new identity. Maybe you recognize like there's patterns in your history and in your past that you don't want to be known by anymore. And you're here and it's like, man, I need freedom. I need healing. I need to break the patterns of my past. I need a moment in the presence of God to come and do just that.

But then there's some of us today that I think we need a moment to repent and to turn to God again and repent from taking on names that God never gave us. You see, many names were changed in scripture because God did it. But I think sometimes we take on names that God never gave us. Just like Joseph, here somebody gave him a name, but he said, I don't have to take on that name. And maybe you're here today and there's been names and things that have been spoken over you. There's ways that you've started to identify with different patterns from your past or even labels that people have put on you.

I want you to ask yourself today, who told you those things? Who said that that was your name? Why are we identifying with those things? And what names do you need to take off and say no more?

Joseph changes the course of history through forgiveness and offering freedom to those who do not deserve it. And I love this so much because we're never closer to Jesus than when we are forgiving and offering freedom to those who do not deserve it. Jesus did this on the cross when he gave his life and people were there mocking him. The same people he was giving everything for did not understand the significance of the moment, but he did it anyway.

I want to invite you to stand tonight and we're just going to let the worship team play for a few moments. I just really felt like we needed to take some time today to just let the Holy Spirit come and heal some things in our lives. The Holy Spirit to set us free from some things in our lives, to recognize that we can change and to put on our new identity.

As I was thinking of this, I was reminded of the story of one of my brothers growing up. Each and every one of us, we were created in the image of God. You were created in the image of God. And Jesus made way for you to continue to live as a child of God. And so when we say yes to following Jesus, we're accepting and we're going back to who we were created to be, a child of God, made in the image of God.

And there's something that happens when all of a sudden it's like, this is what I was created for. This is how I was created to live. My dad, he was a professional musician, and music just flows through our blood in my family. We're all musicians. And my second brother, he just had this idea one day where he was probably eight or nine and he's like, I don't want to be a musician. I'm not doing it. Everybody has to play guitar and piano in our house and I'm not doing it.

And so he decided that he was going to be an athlete. We're not athletes, not our thing. And so he tries to play baseball and it didn't go so well. The only time he ever made it on base is because he got hit with the ball. And so he got on base and that was it. And then one day, we had rock band in our family room and he starts hitting the drums on rock band. And it was like something just went off in him where it was like, this is it. I love this.

And we're all like, I thought you weren't going to be a musician. And that brother is a full-time musician now and he tours the country with a band playing drums. And it was like, he fought it so hard, right? Where he's like, I'm not going to do that. Like I don't want to do that. I'm not into the music thing like I'm going to be a baseball player. But he could not run from what was in his blood.

You see, when we say yes to following Jesus, we are a new creation. We take on that new identity, made in the image of God, as a son, as a daughter, as a child of God. And when we start living like that, all of a sudden it's like, whoa, oh, this is it. I don't have to strive anymore. It just starts to flow, right? Like, I don't have to keep working so hard and trying to be something I'm not when I just take on the identity of a child of God and I take on the identity that's made in the image of God and I receive it fully and I let Jesus and his identity cover me.

Something happens where all of a sudden it's like, this is what I was made for. And we change the script. Not just for our lives, but for the lives to follow.

So I want to invite you right now to just close your eyes across this place. And we're just going to say, Holy Spirit, would you come? And for these next few moments, would you begin to show us, are there any identities that we've just been taking on that we need to just walk away from? Are there names that people have put onto us that we need to say no more? Are there even patterns and names and things that within our own blood family, our physical family of origin that we were born into that are not of you that we need to say no more. I rebuke that. I reject that in the name of Jesus.

And Holy Spirit, would you come and would you show us any ways that we've been running from our identity as a child of God? Any ways that we've been striving? Any ways that we have been working towards things that are just not of you? And Lord, would you help us in these moments to just receive our identity as your child, as a new creation?

I just want to invite you in your own ways. If any of that resonates with you, if you feel God's speaking, would you just tell him if there's anything that you're like, God, I'm letting go of this today? It might not feel like much in this moment, but his presence is with us. So we just say, God, this is what I'm letting go of. This is what I'm not taking with me. This is what I'm refusing to pass down. This is what I'm refusing to let flow through me, whether it's addictions, whether it's just hurt, ways that you've been hurt and harmed by others, that you're just saying, God, heal me. Let the healing start now in this moment, in this place. I'm not passing down this hurt. I'm not passing down this pain. Holy Spirit, come.

And if you're here today and you just need to receive that identity and you're like, yeah, God, I have not been living as your child. And it's felt off and it's felt a little wobbly and I've been trying to play the wrong sports and the wrong things. And God, would you show me what it looks like for me in my situation to live like Jesus, to follow the patterns of Jesus so that through that I can be formed into his likeness?

If you just need to receive that identity again today, would you just ask the Lord? Say, come. God, would you come? Would you show me? Would you clothe me in your righteousness again? So God, I just thank you today that no matter where we've come from, no matter how much pain or hurt is in our past, that when we say yes to following you, that we are a new creation and that we put on our rightful identity again as a child of God, made in your image to bear your image, to follow the ways of your son, Jesus.

And so I just ask that your Holy Spirit would empower us from this place. Would you continue throughout this week to show us what it looks like for us to walk in that change, that new creation, what it looks like for us to take off the old and to put on the new so that we can pass on for generations your promises that we can let your blessing flow through us knowing that we may or may not taste and see all that there is on this side of eternity, but someday we will and we look to that day, Jesus, and we thank you that that day is coming.

It's in your name we pray. Amen.