Pastor Mark discusses the theological perspectives of early church fathers on human identity and sin. It explores how Adam and Eve’s fall led to human shame and a quest for worthiness through ‘functional saviors’, as explained by contemporary writers like J.D. Greer and Mike Cosper. Mark emphasizes the Christian identity as being deeply loved by God despite inherent self-centeredness and corruptness. The process of spiritual transformation involves renewing the mind, understanding one’s identity in Christ, and substituting negative behaviors with positive ones. It concludes by affirming that true change starts with a renewed mindset, recognizing God’s unconditional love and allowing Jesus to transform one’s life.
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Pastor Mark Willey
Excerpt from “The Addition and Subtraction of the Christian Life”
Video Transcript:
The early church fathers, guys like Gregory of Nazianzus and Athanasius, Athanasius, couple of names if you’re pregnant to consider,
were two church fathers, among others, that talked a great deal about the challenge for people with their identity. They explained that prior to their sin, Adam and Eve had been clothed in the love and acceptance of God, so their nakedness didn’t bother them. They, they, they, it was totally irrelevant to them.
They felt free. There was no shame. Then stripping themselves of God’s love and acceptance when they rejected God, they were left with a sense of exposure, fear, guilt, and shame. Many, many, many, many theologians would argue similarly throughout the history of the church. Uh, basically, they began to seek other things to replace what was lost.
We have all been on that same quest since then. We try to cover the shame of our, of our nakedness because of the fall by establishing our worthiness in some other way. A recent writer, J. D. Greer, in his book, Gospel, says it this way. For most of us, life is one big survivor episode where we are trying to convince God and everyone else that why we’re not the ones who should be thrown off the island.
The things we use to establish our worthiness can be called functional saviors. Satan’s primary temptation strategy is to try to make us forget what God has said about us and to evaluate our standing before God by some other criteria. And one other quote, this is my favorite one of the three I’m going to mention.
This is, looking back to the fall of humans, Mike Cosper in his great book, Recapturing the Wonder, says this, This is the origin story for all our anxieties and all our restless lives. Made for life with God, we’re lured into life apart from God. It exposed our flaws and weaknesses. We know now we’re naked and one religious effort eating the fruit leads to another making fig leaf clothing.
And so it goes throughout history from the Tower of Babel to Trump Tower, from Asherah poles to selfie sticks, from the golden calf to the golden globes. Human history is one clawing effort after another toward self improvement, self advancement and self redemption. But Augustine said it this way, O God, you have formed us for yourself, and our hearts are restless till they find rest.
In you. We long for God. We long for home. For a life lived, breathed, and moved within him. The reality is, your view of yourself. Your operational, functional identity. How you see yourself is driving every part of your life. It’s why Paul takes all this effort in his letters to say, see who you are. I mean, Josiah, Pastor Josiah was leading us.
and talking about having us repeat the words, you’re loved by God, you’re loved by God. Why does that matter? Because the compelling reality in our lives is to be accepted, to be valued. The greatest summary of the Christian life, greatest summary of our identity, and you may not like the first part, but it all goes together, is this.
I am more evil, self centered, and corrupt than I ever dared believe. But I am more loved, valued, and accepted than I ever dared hope. This is your identity. That we can face when the Spirit comes into our life and God again peels another layer of the onion and you say, I didn’t even know I was selfish like that.
I didn’t even see how, how so much of my response is, is driven by self, self, self, self, self. But God doesn’t show you your heart. except to show you his. The more we understand our evil self centered corruptness, and then understand that he said, I wanted you. I knew that. I knew all of that. Your identity is that you are beloved.
You’ve always been beloved. There’s nothing about you that you don’t have to hide. There’s things you may be ashamed to tell your wife or your husband or your parents or your kids, your best friend. God says, I know it all. I know everything. I know stuff you haven’t even started to see inside of you. But I’m crazy about you.
I’m for you. There’s no one in your life, he says, that could possibly be more for you than I am. And Paul is saying, Let your mind be made new. Have this reality of God, that your identity is, no matter how much I feel I’m a lesten, I’m a flop, I’m free then to face my lacks, my flaws, my lestens, my self absorption, my self centeredness, because the one who knows me best is crazy about me.
And I may not understand why, but the degree to which we know God loves us is the degree to which we live with a renewed, liberated joy in Him. So Paul says, guys, keep having your mind renewed, keep filling your mind with truth, keep spending time there, because what your identity is, is going to dictate every part of your life.
He says there’s a new way of not only thinking, There’s a new way of acting. In verse 24, he, he says this. He makes the statement, and put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. That’s actually the transitional statement for what’s going to come over the next 50 verses.
In the next 50 verses, he’s going to say, okay, here’s what this looks like. Subtracting and adding. Here are a couple examples. He’s gonna say about don’t steal. So when is a thief not a thief? Well, we would say when he stops stealing. Paul says, a thief who stops stealing tends to be a thief between jobs.
Verse 28 of this chapter says, a thief is no longer a thief when he replaces his stealing with generosity. When is a liar not a liar? When he stops lying. Nope. Verse 26 says when he starts speaking the truth. Not just that he doesn’t talk, he subtracts by adding. Must put stuff in its place. That is true with every addictive pattern that we give our lives to be described in church in chapter 4 and 5.
We’re subtracting. But we’re also adding a couple of others. He’s going to talk about overcoming in the latter part of chapter four, the inner anger of bitterness. He says you replace it with forgiveness and the intentional seeking of someone’s good. You overcome words that tear down, not just by being quiet.
You replace them with words that encourage and build up. We subtract and we add. I want to wrap it up here. We see the pattern of change is not just to put off, but to put other things in its place. And maybe you’re here and listening online or watching Collingswood and you’d say, well, okay, I like this.
This makes sense. It’s not just about stopping behavior, but replacing behavior. That makes sense to me. Mark, I’ve tried. I tried to stop my compulsive behavior. I tried to replace it with the right behavior. Let me just wrap this message with this statement. Change begins in your thinking, not in your acting.
It changes in a renewed mind. It is seeing who you are in Christ and immersing yourself with it over and over again. It’s acting out the Lion King thing. Where the Lion King Mufasa says to his son Simba, You are more than you’ve become. You are more. If you belong to God, you’re his child. You didn’t get in this family by being good.
You’re not gonna stay in this family by being good. You’re in this family because God wanted you, and he went out and got you, and pursued you, and drew you to himself. You are the beloved of God. God loves you. God likes you. God considers you worthy and worth the price of his own son’s life.
Change also involves letting Jesus do the work of addition in your life. He’s the contractor of your life renovations. It’s depending on him being cast on him because Jesus is in the renovation business. He will subtract stuff, patterns of thinking, patterns of living. He will add new thinking and ways of living, but he must do it.
The beauty is. That he’s willing to, if we allow him to.