Authenticity: Who am I?

The idea of authenticity has been weighing heavily on my heart this week. Questions like “what does it mean to be authentic?” “Can we ever be authentic?” and “What is it to be authentic in Christ” have been circling my mind. I have become something completely different today from when I was a young boy. My desires, goals, personality, appearance, attitude, and even my love of nature has been like shifting sand as I’ve aged; good Lord willing I will have more time to change. What has remained constant in me is something that also exists outside of me. That constant is my Lord, Jesus Christ. If Christ remains constant within me, then He will certainly change me as I grow. So the man I am today is not the man I will be in a year. The question is changing from being authentic to even knowing who I am? To begin to be authentic, we must first understand who we are.

So who am I?  

Well I would say I am first and foremost a follower of Jesus Christ. But there are many followers of Jesus and we are all different; so how am I different? Rather does difference even distinguish us from one another? How can I be transparent with people if who I am, is merely other? Part of the answer is that we can never really know someone fully. To know someone takes time, partly because we are sinful people, but partly because to know a person is deep waters, and to swim these waters is no short journey. Yet, we can certainly make ourselves either easier or harder to know; so what makes us easier to know?

I think that diffidence can really detract from people getting to know us. If we are afraid of man, then we will not show man who we are, lest our fears become reality; so one thing is sure, it is deceptive to be diffident. I fall into this category; in that I am often afraid to share myself with people thinking that I will be judged, lest I be vulnerable. Yet one might respond saying, “What about wisdom? We must be wise with whom we share information.” To this I agree whole-heartedly, but we are not talking about people we do not trust, rather people we know we can trust well. People who deserve to know us; people who want access into our lives.

So we can return to our thought of what makes us easier to know. Partly we answered this in saying that we can be less diffident and more courageous with people. We can risk being who we are when no one is around. Terrifying. There is a song that goes like this…

This is the song that nobody knows

I couldn't begin to describe how it goes

It makes me cry or laugh right out loud

It's the song that I sing when there's no one around

This is the man that nobody sees

He wears my old clothes and he looks just like me

Just one of the boys who gets lost in the crowd

He's the man that I am, when there's no one around

It's four in the morning, I'm lying in bed

A tape of my failures playing inside my head

It's heartaches and hard knocks and things I don't know

I listen and I wonder where will it go

This is a glimpse of a child that's within'

He's so immature but he's still my best friend

If he could learn how to fly, he'd never touch down

He's the kid that I am, when there's no one around

This is a dance I do every day

I let my feet go and get carried away

I let my soul lead and follow the sound

It's a dance that I do when there's no one around

It's still four in the morning, I'm lying in bed

A tape of my failures playing inside my head

It's heartaches and hard knocks and things I don't know

I listen and I wonder where will it go

This is the song that nobody knows

I still can't begin to describe how it goes

It makes me cry or laugh right out loud

It's the song that I sing when there's no one around

It's the song that I sing when there's no one around

I love this song, partly because of its musicality, but also clearly because of the lyrics. We all have a song that we sing when no one is around, when only Christ is present, who knows us better than when we know ourselves. The question becomes how we can share our song with the rest of the world? How can we let people see the beautiful song that we sing when no one is watching? I think the answer lies in today’s sermon on Mathew 5:31-37.

Our pastor talked about oaths and made a very important comment when he said, “Sin has so corrupted this world that we even need oaths. We don’t trust people to do what they say. Our Yes is not our Yes, and our No is not our No. Jesus calls us to be authentic.” Our pastor made a valiant point: we are more deceptive than we could ever realize, but Christ is more authentic than we’ll ever know. In a way, Christ becomes our authenticity; He allows us to be secure in him, so that other’s can know us. Practically this means that if someone judges me for me being who I am, that is OK, because my worth is not in that person. My worth is in Christ. Christ is who I worth-ship, or worship. He alone is deserving of my worship. No one else, but Jesus.

So in a nutshell, here it is, how to be authentic: don’t give a damn what the world thinks, and when you look up from what you’re doing, look to Christ. Jesus is the most forgiving, awesome, gracious, caring, loving, wise, benevolent, merciful, compassionate, and glorious man I know. He is more Just that we’ll ever want to believe and more gracious that we could ever imagine. He is worth trusting.

So who am I? Well, I’m changing all the time, but to know who I am I must know Christ, because Jesus knows me better than I know myself. He reveals to me who I am. To learn to know who I am I must have a safe place to land. To understand the deep waters of my soul, I must have a captain to lead me on this journey. The answer of who I am is merely that I am who I am. Interestingly when asked who Jesus is, he answered, “I am” which has books of theology behind it, but it relates to this blog post. Most simply we image Christ, so only Christ is the great “I am” but we are “I am who I am” or rather I am who my Father created me to be. We can only understand our self in Christ. Yet who did he create me to be? The answer to this, like most answers of a good question, it takes time. I challenge myself and you to answer that question, but not in one night. Ask Jesus to reveal to you who you are. You will be terrified and overjoyed, bewildered and astounded. Just remember, that more than anything else in the vastness of space, you are a child of God. You are His and He is yours. He loves you, so much that he has died for you. I know no greater love, than that of my savior. I am, His.      

God's Grace and our sin

I was confounded with my own words. Sometimes I am ashamed at what comes out of my mouth. I am constantly amazed at the Lord’s process of sanctification. When I finally am at the apex of conquering a particular sin, when I begin to experience the effects of sanctification, almost immediately I am confronted with yet another sin, almost immediately does the process continue. These infinitesimal moments in between these periods of sanctification are my glimpses of heaven, of a time and a place, without sin.

I have heard it said, “The sin we most disdain in others is the sin we most hate within ourselves.”

I find this to be an indelible truth in my life. There is nothing like being confronted with someone who blatantly shares my same sin-struggles and realizing my anger is a result of the hatred of my own sin. Yet the truth that I am confronted with is that all I can control is myself. I know that I am called to look inward rather than outward, to really consider removing the plank in my eye than the splinter in my brothers. I love this verse… and hate it, because apparently my eyes are full of planks.

It’s uncomfortable to be confronted with sin, to be told we are wrong, or that the way we see is blurry. We don’t like to be uncomfortable, to sit in a room exploding with moments of awkward tension, or to meet people who are different than us, or to be told yet again that we are broken. Yet for a Christian, the more we sit in the discomfort the more we grow accustomed to it and God most graciously gives us another room a little more uncomfortable than the last. We are constantly in this life of being uncomfortable, constantly sitting in that chair that is poking into our backs or the room too loud or the person spitting as they speak. What I have found is rather than escaping the discomfort or trying to acclimate to the discomfort, we ought to quickly look up.

I feel helpless. Not in the way that is negative, but helpless in the sense that my only possible help could come from up, from above. As I am confronted with my sin the reality of my Savior is made greater and greater. Without Christ I would run to what is comfortable, to what is familiar or to that which brings me sinful pleasure. I’ve often given thought to what I would be like if I did not have Christ. It’s a nightmare in my mind. I literally fear myself without Christ. To what would I turn for comfort? Where would I seek help if I were in trouble? In whom would I place my trust and love and tell the deepest darkest secrets of my heart? How would I find rest in a world that moves so quickly and with such vehement speed as our world? I tremble to think of the places I would turn, to the people I would seek, to the rest in which I would drown, and to the material things of which I would craft my tiny god’s.  I fear my life without Christ, and I am comforted that I have a Savior who promises to never let me go.

I was encouraged today by these words from Deuteronomy 31.

            “Then Moses summoned Joshua and said to him in the sight of all Israel, ‘Be strong and courageous, for you shall go with this people into the land that the LORD has sworn to their fathers to give them, and you shall put them in possession of it. It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.’”

(Deuteronomy 31:7-9 ESV)