Okay. I want to find out if you ever really listen when I preach. Oh, no.
I'm going to get it wrong. You always say you do, and you come up, Oh, honey, that was great. I wonder if you really ever listen. Okay.
And I'm wondering if anybody in the congregation ever listens. I'm sweating right now. Oh, I think you're going to know the answer to this. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson. And I'm Dave Wilson. And you can find us at familylifetoday.com or on our Family Life app.
This is Family Life Today. I've said many times in 30 years of preaching that there are two beliefs that we hold that, again, this is just my perspective, but I've said there are two beliefs that we hold that determine every decision we make every day. Those two beliefs are? What we think about God, which is theology, and what we think about ourselves, which is identity. A plus. Give me five.
Yes. Now, I'm not saying those are right or wrong. There's just 30, 40 years of walking with Christ and looking at my life and looking at scripture and looking around and seeing how people live. I think I could make a case that how you think about God, and this is the attributes of God, who He is, and how you think about yourself. So that's theology and identity. I really do think when you pull back, why did I say that?
Why did I make this? I think it comes down to theology and identity. And so today we've got Trevon Wax with us, who's written a book, really about both, but it really zeroes in on identity, called Rethink Yourself.
We've already started a discussion on it. It's a wonderful way to look at how we build our theology and how we build our belief about identity. And I want to dive in more today on identity.
But Trevon, welcome back to Family Life Today. It's great to be back with you. It's been fun already having this conversation with you because we're living in a culture which really is looking inward. We have hot topics like identity, be true to yourself. This is where you find your source of joy and happiness. And listeners are thinking, well, yeah, that sounds good. And you're saying, oh, yeah, that's been culturally building for years and years, that we're finding our identity and our happiness as we look inward. That's what we talked about previously. Yeah, give us a real quick summary of, there's three approaches. We hit two really hard previously.
Hit those, and then I really want to camp on number three, which is sort of the best way, but hit the first two real quick. So most people in our culture, according to the surveys and different sociologists and people that look at our culture have said this is the case. Most people look at the purpose of life as you need to look inside yourself to then find and express yourself. So you look in first to discover who you are, to find out what your deepest desires are. Then you look around to the people around you to affirm you, to support you, to cheer you on in that self that you have constructed. And then if you feel like you need to, you look up to God or to some higher power for inspiration in your life, some sort of spiritual dimension. In terms of priority, though, that is the dominant way that most people in our society think of the purpose of life. And by the way, do you agree that's how most people in the church think? You know, that's the sad thing about the surveys is that they show a lot of people go to church because they think the church will help them do that, to look in better, to be the better person they can be, to be nice and moral, decent, but to chase their own dreams.
They already have for their life. So a lot of people in our churches, it's so easy because it's just the cultural air we breathe. You might think that look in first approach to life would empty our churches, but it actually fills our churches with people who think the church will help them better look in. And I remember, you know, being in college and, you know, I'm after my dream. And for me, it was on a football field, but I remember thinking, if I had Jesus to my life, it just didn't get any better.
It was literally the third option, right? You know, I've got to look in, I'm chasing my dreams, everybody around me supporting it and even applauding it. And then I thought, man, how could it be bad to add a little God to it? Never thinking I want to put him at the center of it, just have him bless it. And that was good. And that was sort of the mindset of everybody say, I got enough God. That's good. I don't need to, you know, upset this whole, you know, apple cart.
Just go for it. I use this illustration because I'm kind of a visual teacher of a tandem bicycle. And when I gave my life to Christ, it's exactly what you're talking about.
I'm in the front seat of my bike on the tandem taking me where I want to go. But then I'm like, Oh yeah, I want Jesus in this. And so I say, Jesus, get on the back, you know, because you'll probably just add a little bonus and help me, you know, you'll just help me go in this direction. What I didn't realize was what I needed and a lordship decision was, Jesus, you take me where you want me to go and I'll sit in the back. But most of us don't want that. But let's get to the right way. Because the second way is look around, look up, look in. That's right.
That doesn't work either. Now that's the community-based way of, you know, the community defines you, the family tells you who you're going to be. That's the dominant for most parts of the world. But I mean, just what you said, Anne, though, about just even the very notion of adding Jesus to your life, it sounds like, you know, we're just, you know, He's going to, we're just, we'd love for Him to take part in our lives. But Jesus comes to take over. Right. Just bless my life, Jesus, but don't take over. Right.
I want to still be in control. Exactly. And that leads us to that third way, which is what I believe the Bible teaches, where the purpose of life is for us to look up first to God. That question you brought up before about what do you think about God? Who He is? What He is like? What are His attributes?
You know, what does the Bible teach us about God? He's at the center. We're not the center of the universe with Him revolving around our plans. He's at the center of everything.
And we are part of His big plan. God coming first, then looking around to others, to the people of God, the family of God that we are called to be a part of, and then looking in to see that unique contribution that God has for us to make to His kingdom. You know, the Apostle Paul talks about how in the church, you know, it's one body, but there are many different parts. We all have different roles to play.
And I think, I mean, as a parent, I know my kids are unique, and I want to celebrate the unique aspects of those kids, but I want to celebrate them in a way that's going to have them asking questions. Where does my identity, my gifts, my talents, the things that God has given me, where is that going to fit in in His overall plan? Not how can God fit into my plan for my life, but how can what God has given me fit into His plan for the world? That's the bigger question that I think we have to wrestle with.
Yeah, so what happens, in a sense, I think we all know, because hopefully we've experienced this, but help the listener understand. So if I take that approach, I'm going to start the opposite of what I did in college. You know, I'm going to add a little God to my life.
No, no, no. I'm going to center my life on looking up, as you call it, God is going to be the rock, the foundation. I don't even know what that means at this moment when I do it, but I want to look up and start my approach to life there. What's that look like?
What do we do? What do I see when I look up? You know, what happens to our mindset when we really understand who God is? Well, when we look to God and we put Him first, there is going to be a definite change in priorities in our life. You know, and I remember this as a, when I was a freshman in high school, you know, I was saved as a young child and thankful that the Lord saved me so young, but I remember being a freshman in high school at a Disciple Now weekend that our church did, you know, with the youth group. And I remember that particular weekend, me coming to the realization, if everything that I say I believe about Jesus is true, that He really died for my sins, that He's been raised from the dead, that He really is King, my life's going to be different for the rest of my life.
Like this, this, if that's really true, I'm not in charge. And I remember coming to that, to that feeling as a, as a freshman in high school, realizing I've got to own this for myself. This can't be my parents' faith. This can't just be something I'm going to add onto my life that has led to different life decisions that would look weird to the world, very strange to the world. And I, we could go into several of them just in my own life.
I'm sure you all would have yours as well, that where sometimes the Lord asks you to do things that don't make any sense from a worldly way of thinking, but that's because you have a different way of thinking. Yeah. You have a different way of looking at the world. Yeah. It's interesting when you said that with look weird or strange to the world, we now know what you mean by the world. It's a mindset.
That's right. It's sort of a mindset that's usually look in, look around, look up. The worldly mindset is like, what, what is that? Even a parent might say to his child, like, what do you, my mom said to me, what are you doing?
Why are you giving your life to Jesus and why do you want to go into ministry? That's a waste of, my dad told me it's an absolute waste of your life. He said to you, Dave, it's a waste of your education and all of your gifts.
And my parents like, you're not going to make any money. How will you be happy? Which is interesting, isn't it? Like that connection of money.
I mean, money is important, but money isn't the source of our happiness. That's right. You know, we should all want to live in a way that makes other people, that doesn't make sense without Jesus. Yeah. They're like, you're dumb.
Yeah. I'd rather, but I mean, that's the kind of thing when you're in conversations with people who don't know the Lord, that that's the kind of thing that is going to make them ask questions. You know, Peter says to be ready when someone asks a question about the hope that is within you. At some point, we definitely want to have the right answers to people that ask questions and it's important to do apologetics and, you know, have good answers to questions that people may have. The bigger, more haunting question for me though, is what if no one asking questions about the hope that is within me? Because it looks like my hope is just like everyone else's hope. That's the bigger question that I think we have to wrestle with. Is our life different? Is it different? In a positive, beautiful way that people want to know. They're asking questions.
Yeah. That people notice it like, whoa, why is that? Well, what happened to you when you, I mean, you said you're 15 and you, I mean, by the way, that's a revelation for a 15 year old. Cause you know, it's so look in at that age.
You don't even consider anything else, but at 15, you're like, wait, wait, wait. If the resurrection is true, that means he's God. He rose from the dead. He's alive.
He's in charge. My whole life's different. Play that out. What happened as you went through high school and college? I mean, this is the implications of looking up, right?
That's right. Just one life, but man, it changed everything in what way? Well, it definitely, it gave me a different perspective on what my mission in life was to be about.
So I immediately began to see myself as a, you know, an instrument of God's purposes in all sorts of different areas. So our, our church, we would do mission trips the very next year, and this was all God's timing, but the very next year was the first time I went to Romania, which wound up being a country that I, when I was 19 years old, I bought a one-way ticket and moved there and lived there for five years. Wait, why? What happened?
Why would you do that? So I, you know, looking back now that I have a junior in high school, I think it took more for my parents' faith for me to go to Romania than it did for me as a 19-year-old. The Lord really gripped my heart with a passion for ministry and missions, and I just had this overwhelming sense of calling to steward gifts for a season, to steward my gifts there. And so I had gone every year as a, as a young person, whenever we would have a mission trip, we did medical missions and evangelistic missions and, and things. But then when we, when I got to that, that season where I felt like God was calling me to a Christian university there and to do ministry in the surrounding villages, I needed to learn the language. It was all of those cultural things that I had to learn, but it was, it was very, very strong in, in my life.
And I am thankful that I had parents that were supportive, even though I know it was hard for them. I was the oldest and I'm going to college where, you know, but it was one of those things, you know, and God doesn't call everyone to cross-cultural missions. God doesn't call everyone to do the kinds of things he called me to do.
But God has a particular calling for everyone. And the question is to, to constantly be asking yourself, where can I go? What can I do where the gifts that God has given me will be most exploited for the kingdom of God? What is it that God wants from me? Where can I be light? Where can I be salt? In what field has he planted me? And how do I plow that field?
Whatever field it may be. Those are questions that we have to ask as Christians, because the, the ultimate goal is not that we follow our heart, but that we follow God's heart for us and for the world. And that what he says to be true takes precedent over however we, we may view our lives.
Yeah. And what you just explained basically was if you really look up, and that's your term, in some ways it could be looked down at the word of God, whatever way you want to say it. And in our book, we call it go vertical.
You know, it's like your marriage is never going to find satisfaction in one another. That would be look around or look in. You're only going to find it vertical. So vertical marriage means that you're saying the same thing. Look up. You just explained how it changes everything. Cause if at a 15 year old, you realize he's the king, he rose from the dead. He rose from the dead.
It's real. You now look in differently. Cause you explained just there, like I'm looking in now to say, what are my gifts? Who has he made me to be?
How can I use these to bless others? That only comes right from a look up perspective. Is that, is that what happened in your life? And that's what we're hoping sort of happens with our lives and with our kids. Well, I think this is a, I think it, it has happened, but I think it's always still happening, right?
It's a lifelong process. So sometimes you'll hear songs or statements in Christian circles where we'll say, you know, I want more of Jesus and less of me. And I know people, what they mean by that is what John the Baptist is saying, you know, I must decrease.
He must increase. John 3 30. That's right.
And in that sense, that's absolutely true. But there is a sense in which at the end of time, when God remakes the whole world, and when we are finally not just sanctified, made holy, but glorified, where we are the most perfect versions of ourselves that we can be, I am not going to be less trevin. I will be more trevin and yet more like Jesus than ever before. I will be more Christ-like, but in a trevin kind of way. Because see, Jesus is going to get glory from all of his people, not being clones of him, but of being like him, foundationally, at the heart level, but also gloriously unique, where everyone has their own part to play in the symphony that is going to echo God's praises for all of eternity. And now we're talking identity.
That's right. And so let's talk about this identity that you're talking about right now, because you're getting your identity from Christ alone. And then what's different as we're, as we're, that word is so hot right now. We're all talking about identity in songs and movies and everything. What's the difference? Well, the world is going to tell you to base your identity in yourself, whatever you think, or in your achievements.
Your preferences. There are all sorts of things in your life that could become the dominant thing that you begin to then say, this is who I am inside. Where Jesus challenges us is that when you come to Christ, you're coming to a savior who says, if you want to follow me, you have to deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me. Whoever would find his life must lose it. Whoever loses their life is the one who's gaining their life.
Jesus is turning that way of thinking on its head completely. But he's not doing so in just the sense of, well, I have to deny my identity. He's doing it and saying, no, I'm going to give you a new identity. You're going to have this identity is going to be paramount, going to be prominent. The most important part of you is that you're redeemed, that you are a child of God, that you belong to his family. And that identity is one that no one can take away from you. Yeah. See, all the other identities can be flexible.
They can be fluid. Your achievements could fall away. You could lose possessions if that's where you... Your career that maybe you put your identity in your career, that career could go away.
You could lose your job as an economic downturn, who knows what it might be. But when you have God establishing your identity, then you have something solid, something substantive that's going to be there no matter what the circumstances in life are. Yeah. And I think it's, you know, I think it's so critical for us as believers, married, many of us parents. And that's why I said at the beginning that I, and again, I probably preach this way too much. Belief, what you believe, theology about God, what you believe about yourself, identity determines everything.
Cause I'm thinking this is what I, as a parent, it has to be one of my driving passions to get this into my son or daughter. You know, especially as they're going, you know, 10, 11, 12, now 14, 15 years old, cause they're listening to other messages and voices, which we all are, but I want them to know, and I can't do it, but I can live it and then speak it out in the home who God really is, you know, that he did raise from the dead. He is alive.
He is present right here, right now. And you are uniquely wired, created by God. And he has a purpose for your life. It's everything you're saying, trying to bring it down to like now, like practical theology. It's like, I'm driving and I've got my son with me.
And I've done this a hundred times. Like I never had this vision of, I want my boys to be well-rounded, which by the way is most parents' vision. Like, yeah, I want to be well-rounded.
What for? You know, so they put them in every school activity in every sport and it's like, no, God made them really good at something. Or they have a passion about something.
You want them singularly focused and good at that. Right? And so as a parent, you're coming alongside and go, do you know what God made you? Like our oldest son is a tech guru from day one. We would, we would camp out in the woods behind our house with a tent and CJ would have a VCR.
This is how old it was, wired from the house with 18 extension cords. And we'd pop in a movie in the middle of the woods, you know, like my other son's like, CJ, how'd you do that? I don't even know how he did it, you know? Well, and I was like, isn't this defeating the purpose?
Aren't we getting away from all of that to be in solitude? Which it was in some ways, but the beauty is that is as you raise a son like that or a daughter that's artistic or you name it, doesn't matter. God's made that he's put them in them and that's part of their identity.
So I wasn't trying to say to CJ, you need to be, you know, an author or a, you know, that was not his thing. He reads the encyclopedia for fun. That's what he does. Right? And so as a parent thinking of this, what you're saying, when I'm looking up first, I understand who God is changes the way I view myself now as a parent. It's like, I want to, I want to call that out of my kids.
Right? It's like, man, I want to birth in them their identity created by God. That's where what you're talking about comes home to the family. Now, am I saying that's true or how would you, how would you verse that out? As we're thinking about the 34-year-old mom in her minivan with the two kids in the backseat, you know, she's thinking, how is this relevant to me?
Right. I just gave a mom of one of the, a good friend of our oldest son, a copy of Rethink Yourself because we were having this very conversation about identity. And she was saying, I don't want my boys to make some of the same mistakes that I made growing up where I based my identity in something else.
It's not what brings happiness, you know? And so I think, I think this is a, it's such a critical thing to say, but I love it. I love your illustration of calling out what you see in your son.
See, that's different than, it's so easy for us as parents to want to relive our own childhood. Calling it in. That's what you should do.
That's right. Or saying, oh, because I'm passionate about this, you must be passionate about this. And I, I know this temptation for myself as someone in ministry. I've seen other ministry families where it's sort of just assumed, well, if you're the son of a pastor, you're going to be a pastor.
You shouldn't put that pressure on a kid. You've got to see what has God uniquely wired them to do and then want to fan the flames of that. But to do so in a way that it's connected to God's bigger purpose for the world. It's not just about making money. It's not just about achieving earthly success, but it's- And those things aren't wrong.
Of course not. But if it's the source of your identity, it will only lead to frustration or maybe even unhappiness. And disappointment because none of those things can withstand the weight of our quest for happiness.
They just can't. I want my kids to not to be true to themselves, but to be true to their future selves, the self that God is making them. The ideal version, the Christ-like version that I know is there that God, when He calls them to become Christians, it's just like for all of us.
We want to be true to the future person that God is making us to be. And so when I sin or when I fail or when I struggle, I'm not being authentic in that struggle. I'm actually being inauthentic because my identity is as a child of God. When you come to faith in Christ, God the Father says over you what He says over Jesus in His baptism. You are my beloved son. You are my beloved child.
In you, I am well pleased. And because we have Christ's righteousness over us, because we believe in Jesus Christ, God sees us the way He sees Jesus. That is the foundational identity that we have. And when we sin, we're not being more ourselves. We're actually being less ourselves. We're being less of the person that God has called us out to be. We're sinning against that newfound identity. And it's that identity that's got to be prominent in our thinking in our lives. That is so good.
Thanks for being with us today. Stop and think for just a minute how countercultural what Trevon Wax has been sharing with Dave and Ann Wilson is. To live authentically as a follower of Jesus Christ. That's going to stand out in this culture. That's going to cause a lot of people to pull back and scratch their heads and say, I need to hear from you what it is you're doing. How do you live like this? Trevon has written about this subject in a book called Rethink Yourself.
It's all about identity. It's a book that we're thinking would be good for parents and teens to go through together, or you could engage with your young adults around this subject. We're making the book available this week to anyone who can help support the ongoing ministry of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is every day reaching hundreds of thousands of people with practical, biblical help and hope for marriages and families through this radio program, this podcast, through our website, familylifetoday.com, our resources, the events we host, all of that comes together to help effectively develop godly marriages and families. We believe godly marriages and families can change the world one home at a time. So if you would help us with a donation to increase the impact to help us reach more people more often with practical, biblical help and hope for their marriages and their families, we'd love to send you as a thank you gift, a copy of Trevon Wax book Rethink Yourself. You can donate online at familylifetoday.com or you can call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate. Again, our website is familylifetoday.com or call 1-800-358-6329, 1-800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. And thank you in advance for your financial support. Now, tomorrow, we want to talk about how you find god and his purposes and his glory in the midst of the mundane, the ordinary stuff of life.
How can you have that kind of a god-centered focus on all that's happening in your marriage and your family? Courtney Rice is going to join us to talk about that. We hope you can be with us as well. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Anne Wilson, I'm Bob Lapeen. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life, a crew ministry, helping you pursue the relationships that matter most.
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