Identity (Part 1)

Well, thank you to the choir for the beautiful special music, and thank you so much for the offeratory. It sure adds a lot to the service when we have opportunity to have music to praise God and His offerings given to Him. So we just thank you very much for that. You know, it's funny, sometimes God inspires the connection of messages. Sometimes God inspires a number of things today. God inspired a connection of footwear—not footwear entirely, but of socks. You may or may not know this, but both of your speakers today are wearing socks that say, Matzo Matzo Man. I'm not sure how else that could have happened outside of, in some ways, God's sense of humor. So I hope you're all having a wonderful first day of Unleavened Bread. Again, as I mentioned before, I hoped you all have—or had, rather—a wonderful night to be much remembered. Last night, the symbolism that is involved in that night is immense. We're going to talk about that a little bit today as we discuss these things on this first day of Unleavened Bread as well. Brethren, we don't have to look very far into the world around us to see that the world around us today is experiencing a crisis of identity. They're experiencing a crisis of identity. Here in the state of Oregon, this is maybe more apparent than it is than some of the other states in the Union. In our state, some of these things are encouraged and, in some ways, even pushed is a result of state law and other philosophies. But as you look at it nationally, here in the United States, as well as internationally, humanity is in the midst of an identity epidemic.

One of Mr. McNeely's favorite pastimes since the pandemic is to randomly send me links to wacky news articles from the state of Oregon—links in which the state of Oregon is being the state of Oregon. And you live here, you understand entirely what I mean. Keep Portland weird is not just a catchphrase. It turns out that is their mantra of life. We have some unique situations—and we'll just say the word unique in quotes—situations that we have in this state. And so he'll send me a link to this article, and then he'll send, you know, a series of question marks and maybe a couple of emojis and say, hey, what are you—what's going on out there? You guys okay? I'm just checking in on you. You doing all right? And I'll respond back that, boy, I sure wish this was the onion or the Babylon B, but unfortunately it is very, very real. One that he sent me recently—and you probably saw this—was about a woman who is serving on the state of Oregon's Mental Health Advisory Board who identifies as they them. Now, that's become a fairly normalized gender identity in today's day and age, but where her situation differs significantly from the norm is she also believes herself to be turtle gendered. That's right, I said turtle gendered. I'm not making this up.

This is a gender identity that is listed online. It's known as a xenogender identity, and people who are xenogender believe that humans cannot be contained by human understandings of gender, and instead they express their perceived identity through other things relating to animals or plants or other objects that are not traditionally gendered. In this case, this woman believes herself to be turtle gendered or someone who has a gendered connection to a terrapin species.

And, as a part of that Mental Health Consumer Advisory Board, she makes recommendations to the Oregon Health Authority on issues of mental health in Oregon. The reality is, brethren, this person is dealing with a deeply seated mental illness. She believes at her core that she is not a he or she, but a they, and that that gender connection is best expressed through terrapins, who, spoilers for the non-calyneologists in the room, are male and female.

Turtles are not hermaphroditic. They are male and female. Somewhere, just a little bit before the pandemic, roughly 2014-2015-ish, we stopped treating these kinds of situations as mental illness.

We began to give them a certain degree of validity based upon a patient's perception, based upon what they think about these things. It was the last couple of years that I was in the classroom that some of these things started to become a little more regular, started to hear a little bit more about them. During the pandemic, however, in particular, these things exploded.

I mean, these things absolutely exploded. And if you look online, there are research articles, there are news articles, and all sorts of other things that are talking about this epidemic of identity, that the world isn't sure who or what it is. Eric Erickson, great name, by the way, Eric Erickson, is a person who defined the concept of an identity crisis.

So it's actually his work that defined the crisis of identity that we kind of experience, or at least the term that we use. And what he described was eight developmental stages in a person's life. And each of those stages in that person's life are marked by a specific conflict of opposing values. Okay, so what does that mean? That means that at the infant stage, an infant is looking at differences between two things, trust and mistrust.

And that's a conflict. Can I trust or do I mistrust this individual? Toddlers begin to look at autonomy versus shame versus doubt. And from the beginning to the end of our lives, these eight developmental stages help us to learn, help us to grow, into who and what we will become. According to his research, it's during the fifth stage, during adolescence, ages 12 to 18 years of age, that a crisis of identity can take place.

He describes how each person has an inborn sense of self, a way, for example, that we see ourselves. Certain expectations, perceptions of who and what we are, and in our teen and adult, adolescent, rather, years, we begin to question that.

Sometimes we begin to try on different identities to see whether that identity fits us more. Those of you who are my age, maybe remember this a little better than our youth today, when we were in high school, you had various groups of people. You had the Goths. You had the Skaters. You had the Preps. You had the Greasers. You had the Socias. Wait, that's the outsiders. Never mind. Hang on. We didn't have the Greasers and the Socias.

That was something else. But adolescents were trying on different identities, different ways of being, to determine, is this who I am or not? Now, Ericsson's research, interestingly, shows that people will come out of this particular stage with an even stronger sense of self, a stronger sense of identity, who and what they truly are, or they will come out in a full-blown identity crisis.

That is the other alternative. They will either have their identity reinforced by that process, or they will come out the other side not sure who or what they are. Now, he goes on to talk about, in his research, how there's other events that can facilitate something similar. Major life changes, like graduation, getting married, beginning a career, losing a spouse, retirement, an abrupt change in someone's career path. All of those things can lead to a crisis of identity. It can lead to a crisis of identity, and a major trauma in someone's life can do the same.

One article actually described, going back into the pandemic, one article actually described the trauma of the pandemic had a way of serving as a mirror to show people their identity. For some, looking into that mirror caused them to begin to question these things, to start to ask, who and what am I? One article, I actually got a kick out of this response. I thought this was kind of humorous. One article said they looked into the mirror and they determined, and I quote, I was this person who worked and who sometimes made food, and that was about it.

It said it really started messing with my confidence. Like, who am I? I'm a person who works and makes food. Is that it? Is that really who I am? One person described it similar to a play in which we were all characters. And similar to a play, what happens when the seats are empty and the doors to the theater are closed? Well, the characters cease to exist. The actors go into the dressing room and they wipe off the makeup.

And that's that. Harvard Business Review article described the feeling of discomfort that people felt as grief, as a mourning, so to speak, of the life that they'd known before. For those of you who have had careers and have retired from that career, you've experienced this in a slightly different way. For 30-some years, you were this. Insert job here. Insert role here. Maybe you were a nurse. Maybe you were a teacher. Maybe you worked as a carpenter. Whatever it was, you had a certain job, a certain role, and on the morning after your retirement, you wake up and you look in the mirror and you go, huh, what am I now? What am I now that I'm not this?

And some that have gone through that process have described a time in their life of feeling a little lost. Not really sure of what that is. After you strip off all the stuff related to the job, who are you at your core? Was your identity the role that you served in for the past 30 years?

Or are you more than that? Who? Who are you? Who are you? We consider this concept of identity. It's important for us to explore the definition and what determines it so we know what we're talking about and we know that we're talking about the same thing. Identity is determined, or defined rather, by the Oxford Language Dictionary in three ways. It is the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.

Two, it is the characteristics that determine who or what a thing is. Or three, if you're referring to an object, it's an object that serves to establish who the holder, owner, or wearer is by bearing their name and often other details such as a signature or a photograph. In all of these definitions, identity of a person can be determined by objective markers. It's not subjective. It's objective. We use facial recognition software here in the United States for a lot of stuff, actually.

Airports all over the place now. If you've flown recently, you know they have you look in the nice little camera and then they go, okay, you can go. Oh, all right, cool. Facial recognition software uses biological facial markers to determine who a person is. That's a fact.

That is who you are. The factor being who or what a person is. We use observable characteristics to determine who or what a person or thing is. A plant is not a rock. A man is not a woman. A chair is not a gorilla. We use observable characteristics to determine these things. We have things such as inanimate objects that help to provide identification.

In a murder case, for example, detectives frequently will check the victim for identification. It's the first thing they do. Look in the pocket. See if they're carrying their ID. That helps ID who this person is. If there's no identification, what do they do next? Well, they take fingerprints. They take dental records. They start to look at other characteristics, other things to determine who that person is. And if none of that is present, what they will do is they'll utilize basic characteristics, height, weight, sex, ethnicity, etc., to determine who this person is, to begin to build who that person is.

So despite the redefinitions of this concept in recent years, identity comes as a result of verifiable things. And so in that sense, identity, when properly understood, is an objective concept. It is not a subjective one. It's not up to perception. It's up to facts. Today in this sermon on the first day of Unleavened Bread, we're going to explore this concept and why this concept of identity is so crucial to these days.

Why this concept of identity is at the core of these days of Unleavened Bread. The title of the message is Identity, a Crisis of Epidemic Proportions, and this will serve as a part one. The second part of this we will conclude on the last day of Unleavened Bread. If you would turn with me, please, to Exodus 3. Exodus 3, we're going to begin with a concept of identity that is significant. Exodus 3 will begin with a concept of identity that is significant here. As you turn there, we're familiar with the story. We just read through it as we, as a church coming into the Passover. The Israelites, who formerly experienced a decent life in Egypt as a result of Joseph and as of his status in the land during the famine, eventually became enslaved through a new pharaoh who did not know Joseph.

Subsequent loss of liberties came as time went on, and over a number of years the people of Israel became enslaved. They experienced atrocities. It wasn't just enslavement. They experienced atrocities. They experienced the forced death of their first-born males who would be exposed to the elements and killed because they were concerned, the Egyptians, that the Israelites were overpopulating in the land, that they would eventually be a threat to them and their power.

Moses, we see, was spared by his mother who placed him in a basket in the Nile. He was discovered by Pharaoh's daughter. Acts 7 tells us that he was raised in the house of Pharaoh for 40 years, 40 years of his life in the house of Pharaoh. And after this 40-year period, Moses visited his brethren. You know, we don't know a lot about Moses's life during this time. We really don't. You know, it's like a couple of sentences and it jumps to this other piece. We really don't know much about this time in Moses's life, so we have to speculate a little bit to what someone in Pharaoh's house would have experienced.

Stephen, in his address in Acts 7, references and states that Moses was trained in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. So it's likely he would have been trained in the ways of the Egyptian court. It's very likely that he spoke Egyptian. Probably could write it, draw it, however you want to call that, I suppose. It was likely that he was trained in warfare. It was likely that he was trained in a variety of other skills that a ruler would need. At some point near the end of that 40-year period, Moses observed the plight of his people.

After observing the Egyptian guard beating one of his countrymen, he struck and he killed the Egyptian, hid him in the sand, and ultimately fearing that someone would find out he fled into the desert to the land of Midian. It was in Midian that he met his wife Zipporah, had his children Gersham and Eliezer, and for 40 years Moses tended the flocks of his father-in-law Jethro in the land of Midian, just across the Red Sea from Sinai.

At the end of those 40 years, Moses was tending that flock. He led them to the west end of the wilderness near Orib, or what we now understand to be the area roughly of Mount Sinai, and we'll pick up the account in verse 1 of Exodus 3. Verse 1 of Exodus 3. So if you're already there, get there. If you're not, you got a little time because I didn't turn there when I was talking.

Exodus 3 and verse 1 says, Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the back of the desert and came to Orib, the mountain of God. The angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of a bush, and so he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. You know, Moses had been through these wildernesses before. You know, this area of desert is a part that his flock would have likely tracked throughout. Kind of ironically, this land where he spent, you know, the previous 40 years of his life tending the flocks was the same general area that he would ultimately spend the next 40 as he and the Israelites wandered around in the wilderness in this area. Throughout all of his travels, he had never once seen a bush that could catch fire without being consumed. So naturally, he was inquisitive. He went over to go and see what was happening. Verse 4 says, So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses, and he said, Here I am. Then he said, Do not draw near this place. Take your sandals off your feet for the place where you stand is holy ground. Moreover, he said, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And Moses hit his face, for he was afraid to look upon God. The Lord said, I've surely seen the oppression of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. So I've come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land to a good and a large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Parazites, Hivites, and the Jebusites. Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. He says, come now, therefore, and I will send you to Pharaoh, that you may bring my people, my people, God says, the children of Israel out of Egypt.

So God, hear the word, the God being that would become Jesus Christ, speaks to Moses from within the bush, telling him of the plan that he would bring about, one in which Moses was to be a critical component. Moses protests. Moses protests. We see that in verse 11. But Moses said to God, who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, that I should bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?

And so he said, I will certainly be with you, and this shall be a sign to you that I have sent you. When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain. Then Moses said to God, indeed, when I come to the children of Israel and I say to them, the God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they say to me, what's his name? What shall I say to them? He says.

Moses asks God, who are you? Who are you? Who should I tell your people it is that sent me? Verse 14. God said to Moses, I am who I am. He said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. Moreover, God said to Moses, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel, the Lord, God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, has sent me to you. This is my name forever. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial to all generations. So God identifies himself. God identifies himself. And this identification that God provides is a definition of his characteristics. He says he is self-existent.

He is eternal. His nature is unchanging. His existence is not contingent on any other being. He was not created. He will be what he will be. He is immediately present. He is. John describes he was in the beginning. He was with God. He was God. He is the God of Abraham and of Isaac and of Jacob. And even though in Exodus 6 and verse 3 it says they knew him by a different name, knew him by God Almighty. When God identifies himself as I am, he is stating all of these things.

He's stating all of these things. In doing so, God is establishing objective truth.

These are the facts of his identity. These are who and what he is. He is eternal. He is unchanging. He had a relationship with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob. These are characteristics by which he can be described and by which he can be identified. Moses continues to protest. Moses continues to protest. We might also, as we think about being confronted with a similar situation. But ultimately he obeys God. He goes to Egypt to bring the people out of Israel and Pharaoh, ultimately God's message. He goes to take this message to Pharaoh. In Exodus 5 and verse 1, we're just going to reference it. You don't need to turn there. Exodus 5 and verse 1, Moses and Aaron give Pharaoh that message that came from God. Simply put, God said, let my people go, that they might hold a feast to me in the wilderness. So God, in this message to Pharaoh, identifies the people of Israel specifically as his. They are his people. In Exodus 6 and verse 7, again, a message to the Israelites this time. God says, I will take you as my people. I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am all that comes in with that, all the self-existence, all those things, that I am the Lord, your God, who brings you out from under the burden of the Egyptians. The story continues. We see a series of plagues against Egypt. This is the part the kids love, is the plagues. You know, you go through all the different plagues. We're not going to spend a lot of time going through these today, but he brings a series of plagues against Egypt and against all of the gods of the land, lowercase g. With each successive plague, God defeats the gods of Egypt. Over and over and over, he knocks another one down and another one down and another one down, over and over. After each victory, God demands Pharaoh releases people, and Pharaoh's heart, hardened, refuses to let Israel go. So we get to the tenth plague. We get to the very end that God declared from the beginning that this is where this is going to end up going.

Exodus 12. We'll pick it up in verse 1. Exodus 12 and verse 1. It says, The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be your beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year to you. He says, Speak to the congregation of Israel, saying, On the tenth of this month, just a few days ago, a tenth of this month, every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. If the household is too small for a lamb, then let him and his neighbor next to his house. Take it according to the number of persons. According to each man's need, you shall make your account for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats. Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. And then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two door posts and the lintel of the houses where they eat it. So Israel is instructed to keep the Passover by killing the Passover lamb at twilight on the fourteenth day of the first month. They selected that lamb from the flock on the tenth of the month, and it was kept with them apart from the flock until it was killed. The blood from that lamb was to be struck onto the posts of the door. It was to be struck on the lintel of the door to the home with a bunch of hyssop. Just a bunch of hyssop, all tied together, dipped in the blood, struck on the posts, struck on the lintel. You know, provide the blood there on that door. Let's go to verse 12. It says, For I will pass through the land of Egypt on that night, and I will strike all of the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast, and against all of the gods of Egypt, I will execute judgment. You know, he went through all of these prior plagues, and he went after all these different gods, the Nile. He went after the animal gods. He went after all these things. The last god that he needed to go at was the Pharaoh himself, who Egypt believed to be a god-king. And if his son could be killed, then he wasn't much of a god at all.

It's such a sad eventuality of what it had to come to.

But he says, I will execute judgment. I am the Lord. Now the blood shall be assigned for you on the houses where you are, and when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and the plague shall not be on you to destroy you when I strike the land of Egypt. Brethren, that blood was to be an identifier. It was to be an identifier. Their obedience, the painting of that blood on the posts and on the lintel of their door, and then, as commanded, remaining inside until morning, would spare the people of God. And it would be a sign between him, his people, and to differentiate between his people and the Egyptians. God said that when he saw his own sign, that the people inside that home were his people, that he would pass over them. And in doing that, he made that differentiation between the Egyptians and the Israelites. God identified his chosen people.

He identified them. The people of God had a specific identifying mark in this circumstance. It was a sign between them and God, which spared their life on this night.

In this case, it was the blood of the Lamb painted on their door posts and on their lintel.

Hypothetically, if any of the Israelites would have gone out that night, ignoring God's command, stepping out of the protective identification of God, and they were first born, they would have died right alongside the Egyptians. They would no longer have been under that protective sign. They stepped out from under that protective sign. Now, it's possible that any of them who disobeyed would have been killed. It's very possible because they disobeyed. It's possible. But it was that blood that signified them as the people of God, and it held God's hand that night when he passed through the land, killing the firstborn. His people, as a result, were spared. Israel began the journey out of Israel, or out of Egypt, rather, the following night. You know, we commemorated that last evening with the night to be much observed. And as God brought them out of the land through a series of miracles, he led them by a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud. He parted the Red Sea. He brought them out of the other side into the wilderness of Midian. He sustained them. He gave them food. He gave them drink. He instructed them in his way. It didn't take long for Israel to experience a crisis of identity. It didn't take long at all. Prior to what we read in Exodus 32— we'll turn there shortly if you want to actually go ahead and turn there now—but as you're turning there, what we'll read here in just a second, things in the congregation of Israel, even leading up to this event in Exodus 32, hadn't been perfect. For the past four months, Israel was exposed to the elements of the desert. They were thirsty. They were hungry. They were tired. They'd been undergoing difficult circumstances. They began to outwardly question whether Moses had brought him into the desert to die. They wondered aloud if it wouldn't just be better to return to Egypt in the slavery which in their minds defined them as who they were. To return to what they knew, what was familiar. What they didn't realize was that before they were slaves, they were the people of God, the children of Abraham. Who they were now was who they really were. Who they were now was their identity. The slaves in Egypt was the lie. Slavery in Egypt was the lie, but it was what they knew. It was what they understood. It was what was comfortable. And so in their physical distress, in their hunger, and in their thirst, in their exhaustion, it didn't matter that God had brought water from the rock. It didn't matter that he brought bread from heaven, that he parted the seas and delivered them from slavery. They wanted to go back to what was familiar.

What was comfortable. Maybe not comfortable, but what was familiar to them. But in Exodus 32, we see the first of a long series of national rejections of their true identity. This is no longer conversations that are happening out loud. This is an absolute rejection of who and what they are. Exodus 32, we'll pick it up in verse 1. It says, now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron and said to him, come, make us God's lowercase G, that shall go before us. For as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we don't know what has become of him. Moses has been up on the mountain for a while. Aaron said to them, break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me. And so all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears and brought them to Aaron. He received the gold from their hand, he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf. Then they said, this is your God, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt. And so when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it, and Aaron made a proclamation and said, tomorrow is a feast to the Lord. They rose early on the next day, they offered burnt offerings, they brought peace offerings, and the people sat down to eat and drink, to revel, and they rose up to play. Moses was on that mountain for 40 days. So this period of time, 40 days, they became uncertain. They weren't sure what happened to Moses. They weren't sure if he was coming back. They were afraid. Moses had been gone for quite a while. They come to Aaron. They ask Aaron to make them gods that will go before them, a god who will take the place of that pillar of fire and that pillar of cloud that had led them previously. And Aaron acquiesced to their demands. He gave in. Now, it's possible, it's possible there was a hint of violence in their words. You know, it's very possible, in fact. Aaron was one man against several hundred thousand. You know, it may be that they threatened his life. I don't know. It seems a little uncharacteristic of Aaron, to be honest, when you read through this. But who knows? Who knows? Either way, Aaron acquiesces. He gives in to their demands. He takes their gold, or the artisans, rather, take their gold, form an idol. You know, a false god that the people could worship that would go before them. And that idol was a facsimile of a bull, a calf, a young bull in that case, which was a god that they would all be very familiar with. Egypt had a bull god. A bull god's name was Apis, and Apis was a god of fertility in Egypt. It was a god of fertility in Egypt.

Aaron proclaimed, here is the false god that has brought you out from the land of Egypt. He said, this is the god who brought you out. Built an altar. They gave offerings. They made a proclamation of a feast to the Lord, in this case to Yahweh. It's Y-H-W-H, it says. To the one who had identified himself as I Am, to Moses in Israel when Moses was sent. So the Israelites are going to pretend that this bull is I Am, that this calf is I Am. All the while, the true I Am is up on the mountain, talking to Moses and giving him the instructions for their people to follow. Just because Aaron states that this idol is the Lord, the one that brought them out of the land of Israel, is it? Just because he says it is, is it? Does it have the characteristics of the I Am that delivered his people in Exodus 3? Is this bull self-existent? No, they made it.

Is it the god of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? No. Did it work? The miracles of God? Of course not. Of course not. Just like every other issue relating to this identity epidemic today, it is a lie.

It's a lie. And the people rose up early the next day. They offered burnt offerings to this hunk of gold. They brought their peace offerings. They ate and drank, and they committed wickedness before what they would have likely known and understood to be an Egyptian fertility god, which makes certain parts of this story make a little more sense as to why they rose up to play with this fertility god. Regardless, they rejected the true identity of their god. They rejected their own identity as his people. In their minds, nothing had changed. They'd been taken out of Egypt, but they still identified as slaves in Egypt, and they wanted to go home. They wanted to go back to what was comfortable, what was familiar. This pattern played out throughout the remainder of the wilderness wanderings. As we see things go through, they rejected the strength and the providence of God, even as they went into the land of Canaan. They rebelled against God's leadership. They spoke out against God in displeasure. It happened again at Peor when they rejected God, and they worshiped the ball of Peor, committing similar wickedness with the women of Moab. Unfortunately, brethren, this pattern continued through the crossing over into the Promised Land. Things improved for a time under Joshua's leadership, but before long, we see the period of the Judges. The national chaos that took place as Israel rejected God went into decline. God raises up a judge. Obedience to the law is restored. The nation begins to be blessed. They prosper, only to turn around and do it all over again. And that cycle just continued and continued for hundreds of years. Samuel records in Judges 21 and verse 25 that in those days there was no king in Israel, and everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes. Who were they at this point in history? Were they God's people? No. They were individuals. They were individuals. They weren't God's people. They were a group of individuals deciding for themselves what was right and what was wrong. There was no objective standard. I mean, it existed. They refused to listen to it. There was no truth. It was subjective. They chose what was right. They determined what was right in specific circumstances. There was no obedience of God. They did what was right in their own eyes. And God describes this whole situation so succinctly in 1 Samuel 8. Let's turn over there real quick. 1 Samuel 8. We reach the point of Samuel and his sons. 1 Samuel 8. We'll pick it up with the people of Israel demanding a king. We get to the end of the period of the judges. We get to the last judge, Samuel, essentially. The first of the prophets. 1 Samuel 8. We see that Samuel made his sons, Joel and Abijah, judges over Israel. They were both wicked. They took bribes. They looked for dishonest gain. They perverted justice. They disqualified themselves. The people rebelled against Samuel. They rebelled against his leadership as judge. His leadership is a prophet. And the elders all gathered together from Israel, and they came to Samuel at Ramah. Verse 5 of 1 Samuel 8. We see their words to Samuel. It says, look, you're old.

It's not very nice. It says, look, Samuel, you're old. You don't get it. No, that's not what they said. You're old. You don't get it, man. No, that's not what they said. They said, look, said Samuel, you're old. And your sons do not walk in your ways. Now, that was definitely true. And Samuel was old. It says, now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But this thing displeased Samuel when they said, give us a king to judge us. And, you know, to Samuel's credit, he was mad. He was upset. He was displeased. He didn't respond in kind. He took it to God. What a great example. Samuel prayed to the Lord and the Lord said to Samuel, heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you.

They have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. Israel was a collection of individuals at this point in time, and they didn't want anybody who would tell them what to do. Anybody? God included. Now they put a king over them, and they didn't realize what that meant. They didn't fully understood what that means. In fact, he says here, verse 8, according to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt, even to this day, with which they have forsaken me and served other gods, he says, so they are doing to you also. And God says, verse 9, now therefore, heed their voice. Do what they are asking for, Samuel. However, you shall solemnly forewarn them, and show them the behavior of a king who will reign over them.

Samuel explains, or God rather explains to Samuel, the pattern is just simply repeating itself. He says, this has been the pattern since the very beginning, Samuel. They have rejected me from the get-go. Have you ever seen it again in a different way? It says they have rejected their identity as the people of God. They have rejected their identity as His nation. They didn't wish to have Him ruling over them, and so they demand a king. They don't want to be distinct. They don't want to be different. They want to be like all the other nations around them. They want to look just like them. They said, give us a king. God tells Samuel, heed their voice, but not before, Samuel. You warn them of what this really means for them. Verse 10, Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who asked Him for a king, and he said, this will be the behavior of the king, who will rule or reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots, and to be his horsemen, some will run before his chariots. He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties. He'll set some to plow the ground and reap his harvest, some to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and he'll give them to his servants. He'll take a tenth of your grain and your vintage. He'll give it to his officers and servants. He'll take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men and your donkeys, and put them to his work. He will take a tenth of your sheep, and you will be his servants. And you will cry out in that day because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day.

Well, God tells Samuel to tell Israel is, you're going to go right back into captivity, this time of a king of your own making. You're going to go right back into what you had before, what I brought you out of. Brought you out to prosper, to be in this land, to come out of these things. So Samuel does exactly what God tells him to do. He's clear with the people of Israel.

He also tells them the decision that you will make this day is going to change your relationship with your God. It is going to change it significantly. You're going to put a man over you instead of God. That man will conscript your children. He'll take your sons to work in his fields. Your daughters will serve him in the palace. He'll take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves. He'll take a tenth of the produce of your fields and your vineyards, your servants and your livestock, and put them to work. And because of this man, you will cry out to God for reprieve.

And Samuel says, he will not hear you.

He says, this is the bed you will make, and you will sleep in it. What Israel didn't realize is the prosperity or the wickedness of their nation would be determined by the man in charge. If the king was godly, the nation would be blessed. If he wasn't, the nation would experience the consequences of those decisions. Verse 19 says, nevertheless, the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, no, no, but we'll have a king over us. Notice why, verse 20, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles. And Samuel heard all the words of the people. He repeated them in the hearing of the Lord, and the Lord said to Samuel, heed their voice and make them a king. God tells Samuel to do it. He says, give them what they want. Israel rejected their identity as the people of God. They rejected their god as a ruler over him.

They rejected them as their god. They wanted to be like all the nations around them. They wanted to experience the same practices. They wanted to experience the same governance. And in doing so, they rejected who and what they were. The characteristics of their nation would no longer be distinct. It would no longer mark them as the people of God. They would become, in their own eyes, just another nation among all the other nations with a king at their head.

As time went on, their idolatry, disobedience, and continued rejection of God continued.

Nation of Israel was split in two. The northern kingdom was persecuted, conquered, and dispersed. A little over 100 years later, the same fate befell the people of the southern kingdom of Judah, and the identity of the northern tribes was lost to the majority.

They didn't even know who they were anymore.

There are people of Israel today scattered throughout the world that have no idea that they are the people of God. They have no clue because it's been forgotten. Their rejection has brought them to this point. The people of Israel today, by and large, don't know who they are. You know, the one tribe that's largely remained with that identity, Judah, and a few other tribes kind of intermingled with them in their midst, possess the homeland of Israel today. But by and large, the remainder of the tribes of Israel have completely lost their identity as the people of God. That's the end result of a loss of identity, is not knowing who and what you are.

But you know, God hasn't forgotten. God has not forgotten. During the time of Israel's captivity in Egypt, the cries of the people of Israel reached God's ears. He hurt his people. He intervened in a miraculous way. He looked down on his people, toiling away, making bricks for Pharaoh, and said, you are mine. You are my people.

I am your God. I made covenant with your fathers, with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and I will bring you out of the mess that you found yourself in. He placed his mark on them, identifying them as his people. The blood of the lamb marked the doorposts of their house, identifying them as who they were so they would be protected. God has not forgotten.

Now, we've talked before about this kind of concept of time that Peter brings out in 2 Peter 3. He talks about how a day with the Lord is a thousand years. God sees time so differently than you and I do. He sees time so differently than you and I do. Now, whether that's a literal one thousand years, or whether it just means a day to God is a really long time in his eyes.

If we take it in the literal sense, as it's written in 2 Peter, in that sense, in God's view of time, the events of the Exodus, which most historians agree generally took place in the 1440s BC, took place a little under 3,500 years ago, which means in God's eyes about three and a half days ago, three and a half days, it's been 3,500 years. God sees time differently than we do.

He understands time differently than we do. And in that time, throughout that time, as a part of his plan, he has begun an incredible work with a spiritual nation, his ecclesia, people made up of every tribe, every tongue, his very children. Turn over to John 1. John 1. The apostle John makes a distinction of who and what Jesus Christ is by connecting him to the word.

John 1. In John 1, he establishes his existence. He establishes his relationship with the Father. He establishes his identity as God. He establishes three specific things. And he goes on to describe to those who are reading his gospel, some of these characteristics. Talks about his physical manifestation, that he came, that he lived among us. Describes how he came to his own people, how he came to his own people. And they did not receive him. The people that he spared on that night, so many years ago, ignored the Messiah that was right in front of their faces.

They didn't receive him. He was rejected by them. Verse 12 of John 1, verse 12 of John 1, says, But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born, or the Greek word, ganau, can mean begotten, not of blood, not of the will of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of God, who were born of God.

Didn't matter if you were an Israelite after Christ's coming. Salvation was opened to the Gentiles. Jew, Greek, male, female, slave, free. There were no such distinctions in the spiritual sense in Christ when it came to salvation. Pedigree didn't matter. Gender didn't matter. Status didn't matter.

God began this incredible work with spiritual Israel. What mattered was, did you receive Christ? Did you receive God? Did you accept his blood on your behalf, in covenant with him? Did you receive his Spirit? Brethren, you and I, when we accepted the blood of Jesus Christ, we took in identifying Mark, too. We absolutely took in identifying Mark, as well. Just like the Israelites so many thousands of years ago painted the posts and the lintels of their home, you and I have been marked. Post and lintel, so to speak, with the blood of Jesus Christ. That identifying Mark marks us as one of his people.

And because of that incredible gift of God's grace, we've been redeemed from the bondage of death. Christ paid the penalty for us, he took on our transgressions, and he died in our place. But brethren, there's a price that has been paid for us. There's a price. It's a terrible price that has been paid for that grace that we've been given. Let's turn over to 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians 6. Paul speaks to this concept in 1 Corinthians 6 as he explains to Corinth the importance of that which is done physically, the importance of that which is done physically, its implications spiritually.

But he brings this concept to bear beginning in verse 12. Verse 12 of 1 Corinthians 6.

And we're going to get a little bit of extra context here just for the passage itself.

1 Corinthians 6 and verse 12.

1 Corinthians 6, 12 says, All things are lawful for me, Paul writes, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. It says, Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality, but for the Lord. And the Lord says for the body. And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. So Paul, addressing specific issues in Corinth, ultimately his words kind of following those of chapter 5 and what took place in chapter 5, he kind of is bringing this concept to bear, hence the reason why he's using sexual immorality here as the example. Verse 15, he continues, says, Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make the members of a harlot? Certainly not. Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For the two, he says, shall become one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him. Verse 18, he says, flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. And then verse 19, the point here where he's getting to, he says, Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? Paul writes to those in Corinth, you are not your own. You're not your own. For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's. Brethren, we're not our own. We've been marked with the blood of God. We've been marked with the blood of Christ. We have become his people. That is our true identity. That is our true identity. And one of the reasons why this time of year, these days of Unleavened Bread, are so incredibly important to us is that to recognize that the story of Israel in some ways, brethren, is the story of us. It is the story of us. And that if we're not careful, if we're not vigilant, that we can follow in their footsteps spiritually. We can follow in their footsteps.

Nation of Israel experienced an identity crisis. They experienced an identity crisis. God revealed to them who and what he was. He gave them his law. He provided them with instructions on how to live, on how to be his own special people. He delivered them. He sustained them. He protected them. He provided for them throughout their nation's history. And despite all of that, despite all of those things, they rejected that identity. And they identified as something entirely different.

They decided, I don't want to be this. I identify as this. I would rather be this. The concept of that, that identifying as, has become a pretty big concept in the past several years.

When used as a phrase, it's used to express a person's self-perception, their own understanding of their identity. And frequently, in the world around us in society, it relates to gender, it relates to sexuality, it relates to other social categories. Because it is a self-perception, societally it's become a subjective measure in which a person can identify as whatever they determine, regardless of the objective truth of their actual underlying identity.

A man can identify as a woman. A person can identify as a turtle. A person can identify as a this or that and the other. But in those circumstances, that identity is not objectively true. In those circumstances, that identity is not objectively true. Brethren, intellectually, we know who we are. Intellectually, we know who we are. We know we're the people of God. We know that we've been called. We know that we've been chosen. We know that we've been sanctified. Intellectually, we understand these things. But when it comes to applying it, brethren, we struggle mightily, even as the people of God, even as the people of God.

Sometimes, despite our true identity, we put on a different identity. Our words, our actions, our choices, they tell a very different story as to who we really are. They tell a very different story. And just like Israel, unfortunately, we have a propensity to look to the world around us instead of God. We look to the world around us. We want what they have. We take on their mannerisms. We take on their characteristics. We treat one another like they treat one another.

We insist upon, at times, the legality of our nation's laws over the standards of Christ. We equate legality with godliness. We define for ourselves what is right instead of yielding to God in submission and obedience. These days that we're here to commemorate today and as we go into the remainder of this week to the last day of Unleavened Bread, they're all about a recognition of the insidiousness of sin. Coming into these days, we've removed 11 from our homes, which are symbolic of the sin and ungodliness in our lives. And as this coming week goes on, we'll work to keep that leaven out of our lives. We'll focus on taking in that which is Unleavened.

It's about identity. At its core, it's about identity. Who are we? Who are we, brethren?

This week, with the help of God and His Spirit, we will work to erase that which is not part of our true identity. Part of the things that the world has added to us, the nations around us have added to us if we use that analogy of ancient Israel. And piece by piece, we will think about, we will meditate on, we'll take action in our lives to replace the parts that don't represent God.

With parts that do. We'll replace the parts that don't with parts that do, and in doing so, we will become something wholly different. Completely different. Something familiar, yet truly new. In the second part of this message, which we'll have on the last day of Unleavened Bread, we're going to explore this concept more fully, and we're going to look at and consider the mechanisms by which this miracle of conversion takes place. But, brethren, in the meantime, as you physically take in Unleavened Bread this week, as you go through the physical reminders of this week, don't forget the spiritual lessons implicit in these days. That with each and every bite, provided we're correspondingly taking in the Unleavened Attitudes, words, actions, and choices of Christ, that that bread is analogous to. With each bite, we are reinforcing the truth of our identity. We are claiming to be God's people. Brethren, I wish you all a deeply meaningful and very spiritually enriching days of Unleavened Bread.