Jesus-Centered Identity (Centered #9)

Back in 1999, two academic psychologists put together a video designed to measure selective attention. The video went viral, they did further research on the subject, and eventually published a book about it in 2010.

I wanted to show you the original, but when I found it on their website there was a large disclaimer stating it could only be used individually — not in any public setting or presentation. I figured someone could argue that a sermon is a presentation, so I’ll stay above reproach and not show it.

Thankfully there are plenty of copycat versions. A public awareness group in England made one for a commercial, and it makes exactly the point I need.

Except the video wouldn’t play. So I’m going to have to describe it — which does ruin it a bit.

The Moonwalking Bear

Imagine four people wearing white and four wearing black. Each team has a ball. The screen says “awareness test,” and then instructs you to count the number of passes made by the white team.

Someone says go, and the teams start moving all around each other, passing back and forth — white to white, black to black. And you’re sitting there counting. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…

Then the screen freezes and asks: how many passes were there?

If you answered thirteen, you’re correct. And you’re feeling pretty good about yourself.

Then it asks a second question: But did you see the moonwalking bear?

And you’re thinking, what? No. There was no bear.

So it rewinds and plays again. And sure enough, right in the middle of everything, someone walks in wearing a bear suit, waves at the camera, and does a truly terrible moonwalk out of frame.

The point of that public service ad was about driving — people miss the cyclists on the road because they’re so focused on the road and the other cars.

The original version wasn’t a bear. It was a gorilla. Same setup: people passing a ball, and in walks a gorilla, stands in front of the camera, beats its chest, and walks out. In a thirty-second clip, the gorilla is in frame for about nine seconds.

And the majority of people miss it entirely.

The Fifth Hand

While hunting for something I could legally use, I found a college student’s homework assignment. Instead of passing a ball, she used the shell game — hiding a small chocolate under cups. But instead of three cups, she used nine, with another person’s hands on the table helping move them around.

Her version of the moonwalking bear was a rubber duck. So as the cups are sliding around, a rubber duck comes into frame — and you catch it, because you’ve seen these videos before. At the end it asks, “Did you see the rubber duck?” And you think, yes, I’ve got this.

Then it asks: Did you see the fifth hand?

Wait. There were four hands. And sure enough, on the replay, a fifth hand comes in.

And then: she’d been swapping the cup colors the whole time. There were three colors, and she gradually replaced all the blue ones with green, slipping them in one at a time.

What makes her video worth mentioning is that she showed it to a bunch of friends and recorded their reactions. And none of them got it. None saw the rubber duck. None saw the fifth hand. I didn’t see the fifth hand. None saw the color change.

So if you’d seen the original, well over half of you would not have caught the moonwalking bear. It slips right past us.

Life Is a Passing Game

Here’s why I’m talking about moonwalking bears and invisible gorillas.

Our lives are like that passing game. We’ve been told to pay attention and count the passes. We’re living in frantic schedules with everything happening all around us — and it causes us to miss what’s actually most important, right there in front of us.

Today in Colossians 3, Paul is going to pull back the curtain and show us the bear. He’s going to let us see the invisible gorilla. And what we’ll discover is that this wasn’t just a clever trick — the passing game has been distracting us from something far more important.

Open your Bible to Colossians 3.

Heavenly Father, we’re about to come to Your holy Scriptures. I believe You wrote these through the Apostle Paul to a church long ago in the small town of Colossae — and that the truths You wanted them to hear extend to us today. So help us not be arrogant enough to think we’re too modern and beyond these things. And help us not force them into our own biases. Let us humbly approach Your Scriptures and let You, through Your Holy Spirit and these timeless words, speak Your truth to us. Because I believe You want to change us. You want to mold us into the image of Jesus, into the image of our Creator, so we would go and love like Jesus loved and live like Jesus lived. So please have Your way this morning. Speak through me — but more importantly, speak to these people, and let them hear what You want and need them to hear. In Jesus’s name we pray, amen.

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. (Colossians 3:1–11)

How to Hold Fast to the Head

Last week we were finishing chapter 2, at verse 19, where Paul tells us to hold fast to the Head. And I pointed out that normally at that spot I’d give practical application — here’s how you actually do that — but I said Paul was going to tell us next week.

Well, next week is now.

Paul tells us right at the start: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.”

So if you want to hold fast to the Head, if you want to stay centered on Christ, it’s this: seek the things that are above.

First, “If You Have Been Raised”

But before we get to that phrase, we need to back up one phrase, because he first says if you have been raised with Christ.

I point that out because Paul is assuming his readers are followers of Jesus. Which means if you’re not a follower of Jesus — if you haven’t put your faith in this gospel story yet — the words you hear today don’t apply to you yet.

Please keep listening, though. Because when the day comes that your mind and heart and eyes are opened, and you realize the gospel is true and put your faith in Christ, everything you learn today immediately becomes true of you. And you’ll be light years ahead of a lot of people who grew up in church and simply assume they understand these things.

That phrase “raised with Christ” ties back to the resurrection. Just as Jesus was physically raised out of the grave, which we celebrate every Easter, if you’ve put your faith in Jesus you were spiritually raised to walk in newness of life, as Paul puts it in Romans 6. You are a new creation. You have a new self. You have been raised with Christ.

He raises this image because he just used it a chapter earlier. If you were here two weeks ago for my courtroom sermon, we saw that when you put your faith in Jesus, your sinful self was buried with Christ and then raised with Him. So this new creation has come forth.

It’s what many theologians call the “now and not yet.” If you’ve put your faith in Jesus, you are now completely forgiven. Your sin is washed away and is not held against you. And yet you still wrestle with it. There’s still an earthly part of you.

Which is exactly why Paul says: if you’ve been raised with Christ, set your mind on things above. This is what you need to treasure. This is what you need to pursue.

He wants this understood so badly that he repeats himself in verse 2: “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

What “Things Above” Doesn’t Mean

Set your mind and your affections on heavenly things.

Now, I’ve never been to heaven, so I can’t write a book called 23 Minutes in Heaven. This isn’t about imagining what it’s like to walk streets of gold, or wondering what the skyscrapers look like, or whether it’s mostly mountains.

He’s saying: make Jesus your affection.

Have you ever been in a long-distance relationship? The summer after my wife and I started dating, I went back home to Shenandoah, Iowa, and she returned to Topeka, Kansas. This was back when long distance calls actually cost money, so we allowed ourselves one call a week, and it had to be about thirty minutes because that’s all our budget could handle. So we wrote letters.

I was living in Shenandoah. But you know where my heart was. Topeka.

That’s what Paul is getting at. Even though you’re on earth, your heart needs to be with Christ.

Windows, Not Curtains

This doesn’t mean the things of earth are evil or wrong. God made this earth. God made you for relationships. He made you to work. He made you for these things.

The problem is that these earthly things become a curtain to God rather than a window to Him.

When you eat wonderful food, you shouldn’t only be celebrating the food. You shouldn’t only be celebrating the chef. You should be celebrating the One who created food and gave you a tongue capable of enjoying it.

It should be a window. Too often we let it be a curtain. And we just get caught up counting the passes.

That’s why Paul warns us: set your heart, set your mind, set your affections on Christ. Because too often we let our jobs, our relationships, our past, our hobbies, our sports teams, our addictions — whatever it is — become our focus.

And he’s saying: you’ve been raised with Christ. You’ve been given a new identity. Don’t let your heart settle on the things of this earth. Set it on what matters far more.

Then a Little Theology

How do you actually do that? Paul gets very practical — but first he gets theological.

Verse 3: “For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

If you’re a follower of Christ, when you put your faith in Jesus, your sinful nature died. It’s gone. It’s finished. It’s no longer tied to the things of this world.

We took a moment recently to talk about marriage — that if a spouse dies, you’re no longer married. Likewise, you were in a sense married to your sin nature. And when you died to sin, you’re no longer bound to it, because you’re now in a relationship with God. You’re tied to Him.

Which is why he says your life is hidden with Christ. It’s the image of being in Him — Christ completely surrounding you. And because Christ surrounds you, this is now your identity. This is meant to be everything about you.

Now the Practical Part

So because your sinful nature has died and you’re hidden with Christ, here’s what you practically do:

Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. (Colossians 3:5)

When he says “put to death,” he doesn’t mean pick up a knife and stab something. None of these are living things. He means get rid of it. Get it out of your life.

Again — you are completely forgiven through Christ. And yet these earthly things are still in you, so you’re to get rid of them.

And to help us, he lists them. Sexual immorality. Impurity. Passion. Evil desire. And covetousness — which is simply longing for what others have and wishing it were yours.

Some of you look at that list and think, yes, those are bad things. Sexual immorality. Evil desires. Envy.

But Paul Isn’t Finished

After noting that you used to live this way but are now in Christ, he continues:

But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another… (Colossians 3:8–9)

Some of you saw the first list and agreed readily. But now we come to a verse where the reaction shifts — okay, but surely Paul doesn’t really mean these.

Because these are easier to hide. Easier to justify. We make excuses for them.

But be honest with yourself. Do any of you struggle with anger? Have any of you given in to slander — saying things about people, especially behind their backs, or maybe just in your mind? Have you ever lied to someone?

Well, it was a small lie. It’s not like I murdered somebody. It wasn’t my fault he was such a jerk — he deserved to hear those things. It’s not that big a deal.

And Paul is saying: those things are of earth. They are not putting you where you want to be, and not where God wants you to be. So put them away. Put them to death.

What That Actually Looks Like

For some of you, that means deleting an app off your phone.

For some of you, it means blocking a contact so that person cannot reach you.

For some of you, it means figuring out how to block access to certain websites.

For some of you, it means changing how you shop — ordering groceries online so you aren’t tempted to walk down certain aisles.

It isn’t easy. It’s hard. It’s uncomfortable. For some of us it’s embarrassing.

Death is painful. But if you’re going to have the life God wants for you, you’re going to have to walk through that discomfort now.

I can’t tell you how long it will last. It depends on what you have to put to death. For some of you it’ll be over in a week or two. For some it may take weeks or months. For some this may be a journey of years.

But it’s worth it.

My Own Small Version of This

As some of you know, about a year ago I had to go gluten-free. Those first two or three months were hard, because I like bread. A lot. And pasta. And donuts. And basically carbs.

I am a carboholic. Hi, I’m a carboholic. I like my starches.

So it was hard, and I complained plenty for the first couple of months.

Now you could roll a plate of donuts in front of me and it’s not a temptation at all. Part of that is because we found alternatives, and I’ve genuinely come to prefer some of them. But part of it is that I don’t miss the stomach ache. And I don’t miss some of the other effects we won’t detail in a sermon.

The benefits have been worth it.

It may be genuinely painful and hard in the beginning to put these things to death. But it will be worth it. Do it. Keep going. Stick it out. Don’t let yourself get so caught up counting the passes that you miss the love of God and His grace, which is right there.

The Tip That Helps

Thankfully, Paul gives us a tip for this battle. Pick back up in verse 9:

…seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (Colossians 3:9–10)

Your old self, your sinful self, has been put off. That’s dead. And you’ve put on the new self — the part of you raised with Christ.

And notice: this new self is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.

God wants you to look like Jesus. As we say at Riverwood: to love like Jesus loved and live like Jesus lived. He wants you reflecting the image of your Creator.

The Labels We Wear

Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. (Colossians 3:11)

Notice what Paul just did. He listed a bunch of labels.

Race — Greek and Jew. Religious practice — circumcised and uncircumcised. Tribe — barbarian, Scythian. Economic status — slave, free.

Too often we label people, and then that becomes how we identify them. And people label us — and many of us have accepted those labels. Some of us have made our own labels and applied them to ourselves.

Now, some labels aren’t bad. Father. Husband. Pastor. None of those are evil.

But here’s what happens. You put a label on yourself, and because you do something with it, you get something back from it.

Say your label is fan of a certain team. So you wear the colors. You hang out with other people who follow that team and wear the same colors. And they accept you because of it. And because you’ve received acceptance, you pour deeper into that identity. This is who I am. And you get everything out of it.

That’s an earthly identity. And what you’re doing is settling.

Sometimes these earthly identities are exactly what lead us into those sinful things — they’re what keep us tied here.

So shed it. Put it to death. Get rid of that earthly label. And let your first and foremost label be child of God.

If you’ve put your faith in Jesus, God does not look at you and identify you by your addiction. He does not look at you and judge you by how you voted last week. He does not value you based on your skin color, your height, or your gender.

There is no longer Greek and Jew, slave and free, circumcised and uncircumcised — because Christ is all. It’s about the gospel. It’s about God’s heart. It’s about His love for you. Christ in all and Christ for all.

So What Are Your Labels?

Really this comes down to identity. How do you identify yourself? What labels are you accepting? What labels are you putting on yourself?

I’m not asking you to renounce those labels — please, if you’re married, don’t go get divorced. Keep the label of married.

But is that your first and foremost identity? Is that the thing of earth that keeps you going? Is that where all your affections are?

Because I’ll tell you: you’re not going to be as good a spouse as you think you are.

Is your identity first as a parent? Is it your major? Your sport? That hobby? That future career?

None of those are wrong. But too often we let them be what we’re all about, rather than letting Jesus be what we’re all about.

The Fastest Knockout

Years ago I had the chance to meet a man named Tony.

When I met him, Tony was about six inches taller than me — which isn’t especially hard to do — and probably a hundred pounds heavier. And it was not fat. The guy was jacked.

I learned Tony was fresh out of prison. He’d gotten involved in the fight club scene, back before MMA was legal and popular. And at one point Tony claimed — and I have no reason to doubt him — to hold the record for fastest knockout. I don’t know whether that was Iowa or nationwide. But he said he knocked a guy out in eight seconds.

And I’m looking at Tony thinking, oh, I believe it. You’d knock me out in two.

And yet Tony was the nicest guy you would ever meet. He had a permanent smile plastered on his face. And he’d say to me, “Whatever you need. If you need me to help set up chairs, I’d love to. If you need me to give someone a ride, I’ll do it. Whatever you need — I’d love to serve.”

Because his whole life had been lived under the label of angry young man who is strong and tough and can beat anyone up. And when that life landed him in prison, he met Jesus.

The anger was gone. He no longer saw himself as an angry man who needed to punch people. He saw himself as a man saved by God’s grace who could go love people and serve them.

The story God wrote in Tony’s life, God can write in yours. God doesn’t want you defined by whatever that thing is. He wants you defined by Jesus.

Because Tony was one of the happiest people I’ve ever met, and everyone around him loved being around him.

Which is the point: the benefit isn’t only for you. It’s for your family. Your kids. Your coworkers. Your classmates. Your roommate. As you find joy and identity in Christ, it has ramifications far beyond you.

So Where Does That Leave You?

If you’re a follower of Jesus, you have been buried with Christ and raised with Him. So will you set your mind on things above rather than on earthly things?

Because you have fundamentally changed. You are no longer identified by that addiction, that past, that mistake, that sin. You are now identified by the love of Jesus, who died for you and gave Himself for you.

Will you let that be your center and your identity?

And if you’re here today and you’re not a follower of Jesus, I invite you in this next moment of prayer to put your whole faith and whole trust in this story.

I realize it sounds ludicrous — that there is a God who sent His one and only Son to this earth to take on human flesh, to live the life you and I couldn’t live, and to die in our place so our sins could be forgiven.

It’s a crazy story. And it’s true. It has changed countless people like Tony all over the world, and it can change you.

Our world needs you to live out this gospel — to be made, as Paul says, into the image of our Creator. Because when you are made in that image, you’ll go and love like Jesus loved and live like Jesus lived.

But it means you’re going to have to stop being about yourself. Stop living out these earthly labels. And instead live out a Christ-centered identity, letting Him do in you what only He can do, so He can do through you what He wants to do.

A Prayer

Heavenly Father, we bend our knees and our hearts before You right now. Many of us realize we’ve been caught up in our schedules, caught up in our worries, caught up in our past, caught up in our projects, caught up in our problems. We’ve been counting the passes — and missing You. You’ve been right there in front of us the whole time, wooing us, telling us You love us. We see it so clearly through Jesus on a cross and coming out of an empty tomb. We hear it in His voice beckoning us to follow Him.

So God, through Your Holy Spirit, help us do that. Help us confess our sin, lay it down, and put it to death.

Father, for some people here this is going to be a genuinely hard week — because right now they’re saying yes to You, and then they have to go home, go to work, and return to those relationships. So give them wisdom. Give them strength. Bring people alongside them to walk this with them. For those in a growth group, may that group be part of their support. May we as a church bear one another’s burdens and help each other walk the life You call us to.

Because Father, You are not calling us to legalism to somehow earn Your favor. You’re calling us to freedom, because we already have Your favor.

So work now, by Your Spirit, as sin is confessed and barriers are broken and we bend our knees to say You are God, You are good, and You have done so much for us. Give us the courage and strength to put these things to death and live out a Christ-centered identity.

Jesus, I want You to be my label. And I want that to be the label of these people, so they can live in the freedom and joy of Your gospel and go be a blessing to everyone they meet. Lord, You have done this time and time again — so do it again today, in this place, for these people. Have Your way with us. Do what You need to do, for Your glory and for our joy. In Jesus’s name we pray, amen.