This might be an odd question, but when you were growing up, did your dad wear a robe around the house? Mine did. I don’t wear robes and I never plan to, so maybe it was a generational thing. But when we were growing up, after dinner and as the evening waned, Dad would inevitably wind up in a robe.
One particular night, I had an encounter with my dad and his robe. I was eighteen and I had been at our church’s youth night. Afterward a group of us went to Red Robin. When you are eighteen and you go to Red Robin, you get a bacon cheeseburger and French fries and then you wash it down with a Mudd Pie, and your weight and waistline don’t change a bit. Those were the days. I haven’t had that meal since.
Anyway, we stayed out late. My dad knew I was at church, and he expected me to hang out with friends afterward, so things up until this point were fine.
Then one of the girls in our youth ministry who I thought was kind of cool said to everyone, “Guys, I don’t have a ride. Anyone want to drive me home?”
So I volunteered, “Yeah, I’ll take you home.”
This wasn’t Chelsea, by the way. We weren’t dating or anything, but as I said, I thought this girl was cool and I might have been interested in her. I took her to her parents’ house. We pulled up and she was about to get out, but we started talking.
Now, we never did anything more than talk. I wouldn’t have even held her hand, because my mom would have killed me, and then my grandma would have dug me back up and killed me again. Physical anything wasn’t really an option for me.
We sat outside her house talking, and before I knew it, it had been two hours. We finally said goodbye, and by the time I got home, it was probably two in the morning.
I walked in, and I was dropping the keys off in the little bowl where my dad kept his keys, when all of a sudden I heard this loud, bass voice emanating from the darkness, “Good evening, son.”
I think I squealed a little. I definitely jumped. I looked into the blackness and saw my dad, sitting on the couch in—you guessed it—his robe.
I don’t know if your dad was like this, but for me, my dad was always bigger than life. He was an inch taller than me, his hands were larger, he had played quarterback in high school—he was my hero. And anytime there was a situation when he was being, well, Dad, my voice would go up an octave.
So in his low, ominously paternal tone, he said, “Good evening, son.”
And I squeaked back, “Oh, hey, Dad! You scared me!”
I’ll never forget it. I was just a big kid. It was two in the morning, the lights were out, there were eerie shadows all over the place—it was like a movie.
He said, “Son, why don’t you come over here and sit next to me.”
It wasn’t a request. It was a command, which is indicative of my childhood.
So I sat down next to Dad in his robe. And he casually asked, “How was your evening?”
My voice still sounded like puberty had forgotten me. “Uh, it was good, Dad. You know, we were just hanging out at Red Robin and stuff. And this girl wanted a ride home, so I gave her a ride home, you know?”
“Who was it?” he asked.
So I said her name. He was like, “Well, that was nice of you. So you guys talked for a little bit?”
He didn’t have to ask if we kissed or did anything else, because we both knew that wasn’t an option.
Then he said, “Son, you and I both know she isn’t the girl for you.”
I was like, “Uh, well, I don’t know, Dad. She’s kind of cool. We had a good talk.”
He was right, of course. He was always right. It was one of those moments where your dad is talking, and you know he doesn’t want any kind of interaction. He just wants to tell you what’s going to happen for the rest of your life.
He looked at me for a moment, and I looked back. He said, “You know, son, you’re not the type of man who stays out late talking to girls you have no business talking to. That’s not the way I raised you. That’s not who you are. Son, be who you really are. Good night.”
He stood up and walked toward his bedroom. The robe faded into the darkness. And I was left on the couch with nothing much to show for my life.
That was a defining moment for me. I was on the verge of manhood and independence, and I realized I had someone in my life who had enough authority and concern and love to tell me what I needed to hear. To tell me, “Hey, this is not who you are. This is not the way you were raised. You won’t be happy if you go down this road. Stop doing what you’re doing. Hey, son! Be who you really are. Good night.”
Maybe you didn’t have that luxury. Maybe you didn’t have a dad or a father figure who would stop you in those defining moments and remind you to be who you really are. But for all of us, God wants to be that Father, that voice of authority, who reminds us who we are on the inside.
Why does this matter? Because what we think about ourselves is one of the most powerful forces in our lives. Do we see ourselves as failures? As quitters? As mediocre? Do we see ourselves as successful? As creative? As intelligent?
Our actions, decisions, and emotions are the natural result of what we think about ourselves. They flow from the perspectives we have of our identities. But often we don’t stop to evaluate our self-perceptions. We don’t think about who told us who we are or whether they were right or wrong in their assessments.
God wants to give identity to our souls. He wants to change us from the inside out and make us new people. He wants to help us see ourselves for who we are in him and then live accordingly.
Think about your identity and where you got it from. Much of who you are is a result of the family, country, culture, and environment you were born in. Obviously your choices play a huge part in shaping who you become as well, but there is something incredibly significant about birth.
Jesus told Nicodemus, a religious teacher who came to him for spiritual guidance one night, that if he wanted to know God, he had to be “born again.”
That confused Nicodemus, who was probably expecting something more theological and less anatomical.
“How can a man be born when he is old?” he asked. “Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” (John 3:4).
Nicodemus was missing the point. Jesus was saying that he needed to have a spiritual rebirth. He needed to have his identity reset on a soul level by God himself.
At its heart, Jesus’ invitation to be born again is a call to receive a new identity. It’s an invitation to join a new family. It is a spiritual but very real transition from living a life focused on self to living a life focused on God.
We are born again when we put our faith in Jesus and his work on the cross. In that moment, we become new people on the inside. Our souls are reborn.
I don’t mean to sound spooky or hyper-spiritual. I don’t really know how to describe it. But if you’ve experienced it, you know it’s real. God brings new life to the inside you. You know he is real, you know he is there, and you know he loves you. And suddenly that invisible reality matters more than you ever would have understood before.
The soul’s new identity through Jesus is one of the themes of the New Testament book known as Ephesians. Ephesians is a letter written by the apostle Paul to the Jesus followers in the ancient city of Ephesus.
In this letter, Paul, inspired by God, essentially sat down on a couch in his robe and said, “Let me remind you who you are. Let me encourage you to remember your identity, embrace your identity, and live according to your identity.”
Let’s look at four emphases in the book of Ephesians that dramatically shape the identities of our souls.
The first of these is found in the introduction to the letter.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. (Ephesians 1:3–4)
This is only a small part of an enormous sentence, at least in the original Greek. Paul piled phrase upon phrase, using more theological terms and concepts in one sentence than most of us try to swallow in a year.
Apparently he was a bit excited.
Why? Because he knew something about these brand-new believers that was going to rock their sense of identity—in a good way—and redefine them forever.
He was writing to tell them that they are now in Jesus. He spent the next six chapters talking about the new life of the believer, but he wanted to establish right from the outset that the way they get this new life is not through hard work or good luck or self-effort. It is by being in Jesus. He went on to use phrases like in him or in Christ more than thirty times in this short letter—I counted them.
This is the first emphasis I want to highlight in Ephesians because it has such a profound effect on our identities. Our stance and positions as believers is defined by the phrase in Jesus.
To be in Jesus means that our lives are defined by Jesus. It means that when God sees us, he sees Jesus. It means that when he evaluates us, he evaluates us based on who Jesus is and what Jesus has done. In Jesus, we are new creatures. In him, our souls have new identities. In him, we have blessings and benefits beyond what we could ever deserve on our own.
Honestly, that is amazing. Does God really see us and accept us and treat us like Jesus? This is hard enough to believe when you are reading the Bible or sitting in church, but it’s even harder to believe when you just messed up for the fourteenth time. When your addiction has come back and it’s worse than ever. When your selfish actions have hurt those you love the most, and you can’t understand why anyone would love you.
In moments like these, we desperately need to know that our lives are defined not by our successes and failures, but by our position in Jesus.
I talked with a friend a while back who told me that the first time his dad ever told him that he loved him was right before his dad died. My friend was thirty years old. He told me he always kind of assumed his dad loved him, but he had never heard him say it. So one of the last times my friend saw his father alive, he said, “Dad, I love you.”
And his dad said back, “I love you too.”
As my friend recounted the moment, emotion welled up in him. I could see what it meant to him to know that his dad accepted and loved him. Thirty years of wondering, and in an instant he knew he was loved.
I find that many Jesus followers are still unsure. Does God love me? Is he for me? Am I okay? I’ve had a bad week—has God kicked me out of the neighborhood? Are we still on speaking terms? Am I out?
Paul emphasized throughout this letter that our position before God is not defined by our actions, but rather by that simple phrase: in Jesus. We are chosen and accepted and protected in him. Our good behavior didn’t earn God’s acceptance, and our bad behavior can’t unearn it.
When God the Father looks at us, he sees the Son, because when we put our faith in Jesus, his position became our position. We are set and seated in Christ. We are pleasing to God. We are loved by God. We are his forever. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places.
The second emphasis that affects our soul-identity is found in the second half of Paul’s prayer.
[God] raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. (verses 20–21)
The people who made up this community of Jesus followers at Ephesus were primarily brand-new believers. They had little or no understanding of the history of Israel or the Jewish people. They didn’t grow up hearing how God brought Israel out of Egypt and made them into a great nation, or how one day a Messiah would come to save them. They were what the Bible calls Gentiles, or non-Jews.
Prior to following Jesus, they would have most likely been involved in the mystical, magical, superstitious environment of the day. Like humans everywhere, they would have been accustomed to trying to make sense out of life with nothing but materialism, logic, and human ideas to guide them.
What is the logical outcome of that kind of lifestyle? Sooner or later, it usually ends up producing fear and defensiveness. An outlook predicated on human understanding cannot produce confidence or a sense of identity because by definition, that outlook is as fallible and limited as our humanity.
These Ephesians had turned from following their own conclusions and superstitions and were instead following Jesus. Paul wrote with potency and urgency and passion to let them know the way they functioned before was not the way they would function with Jesus. Things were fundamentally different. Paul wrote to tell them, “Jesus is bigger and better than all those other gods and beliefs. You have a superior savior. You are following someone who not only can save you, he wants to save you and he will save you.”
Paul told them that God’s power is immeasurably great, that he is working on our behalf, and that Jesus is seated in heavenly places above any and every power and authority.
We read verses like these and we think, God is amazing and big and powerful. We assume God wants us to be in awe of how wonderful he is.
But I don’t think that’s the only reason these verses are here. God wants us to understand how great he is because his greatness has far-reaching implications for us. When we see him for who he really is, when we start to grasp how far-reaching and overwhelming his strength is, we can’t help but face life with greater confidence.
This great God is on our side. We are not subject to the same chance and fate of every other human being on the earth. We have been transferred from the kingdom of fear, luck, self-effort, and darkness into the kingdom of light. We follow a God who is far above all authority and power, far above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. There will never be a greater name than Jesus.
This is the God we follow. And if we follow this God, we are secure. We are safe. This God is reliable and he is trustworthy. We can find rest, we can find peace, and we can find ease in him. We will live differently once we understand this. It will change the way we see ourselves and our futures. We will begin to expect good things, because the God who rules the universe is with us and for us.
Many people are in favor of optimism, but this goes beyond optimism. I’m talking about trusting a real, personal God. A God who is good even when bad things happen. A God who is trustworthy even when life feels uncertain and random. No circumstance and no obstacle changes the fact that we have a reliable God and a superior Savior.
When I was a kid, my parents were brilliant at hiding the fact that we didn’t have very much money. I had no idea. I thought we had plenty of money. I found out later that my grandma regularly helped us out.
My parents didn’t lie about it, and they weren’t embarrassed about it. They just chose to focus on what we did have. So whenever we asked for something outside of their budget—“Let’s go to Disneyland!” or “Let’s buy a new car!”—they would just say, “We aren’t going to do that right now. We choose not to spend money on that.”
When I got older, I realized it was because we were tight on cash. But yet we were so blessed. Christmas was full of gifts, and I always had some Air Jordans—I just didn’t know they were from Grandma.
I remember one vacation when I was about eight years old. We were in Sacramento, California, at my grandma and grandpa’s house. It was beautiful, and it had a pool, and everything was amazing. My sister, Wendy, and I must have been developing a bit of an attitude about what they had and what we didn’t have, because my dad sat us down for a little “talk.” If there was one thing my dad hated, it was entitlement. No entitlement was allowed in our family. We were going to be grateful.
So he sat us down, and for an hour and a half he told us how good we had it. By the way, the danger in having a dad who is a preacher is that you’re going to get preached to whether you choose it or not. Most people decide if they want to go to church and listen to the pastor, but the pastor’s kids don’t get that luxury. And if they don’t comply and respond to the altar call, they are in danger of bodily harm. That’s just how it works as a pastor’s kid.
Dad told us about his own childhood and about how little money his family had. He said, “Kids, one Christmas we didn’t have any money for presents, so we got pieces of wood and we carved toys for each other.”
I was like, “That sounds awesome.”
I was a slow learner.
He said, “When your mom and I got married, we didn’t have any money. We lived for an entire month on granola and water.”
I raised my hand. “Dad, did you eat the granola in the water? Or did you eat the granola and then drink the water?”
He said, “That’s not the point, son!”
Looking back, I am so grateful for my parents, and I’m grateful for the gift of gratitude. I know we’ve all heard this before, but we need to remember where we’ve come from. We need to realize how good we have it. We need to recognize the progress we’ve made. Maybe we aren’t where we should be or where we want to be, but sometimes we just need to stop and say, “Thank God I am where I am.”
It seems to me that Paul was doing exactly this in Ephesians 2. This is where we find the third emphasis that shapes our soul-identity: our great salvation.
And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked . . . we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. (2:1, 3–5)
He started out sounding a bit negative. He used terms like dead, trespasses and sins, and children of wrath. He wasn’t in a bad mood. He just wanted his readers to fully grasp how far they had come.
Sometimes we like to think that we were doing pretty good before God, and then we found God, and then we got even better. In reality, we were dead and lost and helpless, then God found us, and he completely changed us.
We are new people, born anew from the inside out. We are not remodeled or whitewashed versions of our old selves. Our souls are born again. They have been made brand-new. You are a new you and I am a new me.
Verse 4 couldn’t be clearer. It starts, “But God . . .” In other words, God made all the difference. Our lives were split in two like history itself: before Jesus and after Jesus. We used to be dead; now we are alive. We used to follow the passions and desires of the flesh; now we follow Jesus. We used to be children of wrath; now we are seated next to Jesus, adopted into God’s family for eternity.
But God. That is the foundation of the gospel. It is the greatest revelation we ever need of God’s love and care and concern for us. God found us and he saved us. He took the initiative and he provided the solution.
Paul continued, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (verses 8–9). He reminded these brand-new believers that their souls had been saved and their salvation was not in jeopardy. Back when they served idols and blind luck and materialism, they had good reason to fear. Those things could not promise them salvation. But Jesus is different. Their salvation was sure because it was founded on Jesus’ finished work on the cross. It was by grace through faith.
Our hard work and good deeds and cleverness never could have saved us. Our salvation started with God, continues with God, and will be completed through God. If it’s not our doing that got us saved, then it’s not our doing (or lack of doing) that can make us unsaved. Salvation levels all humanity. It is by grace and grace alone. It is a gift of God.
Again, we have to stop being our own worst enemies. Our sins—past, present, and future—are forgiven. We aren’t Christians because we live like Christians; we are Christians because we have accepted the gift of salvation. We have come to know God on an experiential, authentic level.
Yes, following Jesus produces genuine changes in our lives. That’s inevitable. But our outward behavior and internal emotions might not always measure up to who we are on the inside. We are all in a process and we are all on a journey. At times we won’t live like new people or feel like new people. But that doesn’t change the reality that we are new people. Our souls have been born again.
Why is our salvation so great? Because it is a gift. Because it is God’s doing, not our doing.
We have so great a salvation because we have so great a God.
The first chapter and a half of Ephesians describes in breathless detail the stance of the believer in Jesus, the superiority of our Savior, and the significance of our great salvation. Then the letter shifts gears and focuses on the fourth and final emphasis that shapes our soul identities: the community in which we are set.
As I said earlier, these new believers were Gentiles. They were non-Jews, so they were on the outside looking in. But the instant they put their faith in Jesus, they became part of the family. On a spiritual soul level they went from being outsiders to being insiders. They were now part of a family that included heroes of the faith such as Abraham, Moses, Ruth, and David.
The Message paraphrases Ephesians 2:16–18 like this:
Christ brought us together through his death on the cross. The Cross got us to embrace, and that was the end of the hostility. Christ came and preached peace to you outsiders and peace to us insiders. He treated us as equals, and so made us equals. Through him we both share the same Spirit and have equal access to the Father.
That’s plain enough, isn’t it? Once you put your faith in Jesus, you’re no longer a wandering exile. This kingdom of faith is now your home country. You’re no longer a stranger or an outsider. You belong here, with as much right to the name Christian as anyone.
How powerful is that? We are part of God’s family. We have spiritual ancestors, spiritual parents, spiritual siblings. We aren’t outsiders looking in. We aren’t interlopers or intruders. We have as much right as anyone to be here.
We belong.
The longer I pastor and the more I talk with people, the more convinced I am that belonging is a fundamental need of the human soul. Many people are willing to do anything or sacrifice anything just to feel like they belong somewhere.
God wants you to know that you don’t have to do anything to belong. You belong just as you are. You are already part of his family because of your faith in Jesus. You aren’t on probation. You aren’t conditionally accepted. Your case won’t come up for review. You have already been accepted, and your acceptance is unconditional and irrevocable. That will shape and define your soul more than almost anything else.
Too many times as Christians we imply that people have to first behave and believe the right way before they can belong to our communities. We don’t do it on purpose, but our actions and reactions when we see their flaws leave little doubt that they are outsiders.
We subconsciously create levels of Christianity. We call it spiritual maturity, but in reality it’s a way to categorize—and ultimately either include or exclude—people around us based on arbitrary standards of conduct or Bible knowledge.
“Oh, that’s your girlfriend you are living with? Not your wife?” We try not to look appalled. “Oh—okay. Um, congratulations?” And we wonder if we should tell them now or later that what they are doing is wrong and abominable and shocking. But we don’t usually need to say anything, because people can sense our thoughts in an instant. They can tell that they don’t quite measure up or that they aren’t like the cool kids.
Meanwhile we might be struggling with lust or anger or pride on the inside, but since we’ve figured out how to keep our outside actions more or less in check, we feel like we are doing better than the guy who is still sleeping around or the girl who is addicted to drugs.
That’s not the spirit of Jesus. He came to break down walls and barriers, not build more of them. He came to level the playing field.
With Jesus, we belong. Before we have done anything right, before we have all our doctrine figured out, before we get our lives cleaned up—we are his and he is ours. We are new creatures in Jesus. Our souls are made new. We have new identities.
And as a result of that newness, we start to believe the right things. We learn a bit of doctrine. We get to know the Bible. It might take a while, but the Holy Spirit teaches us and leads us into knowledge of God.
Ultimately we end up behaving or acting according to our beliefs. Our lives demonstrate real, lasting change. Not because we are so self-disciplined, but because our relationships with Jesus organically and supernaturally produce the change.
The biblical progression is first grace, then faith, then works. That is the divine order. God gives us his grace, and we respond in faith, and eventually our faith and relationship with God produce a healthy, holy lifestyle.
If we make behavior the qualification for belonging, we contradict the way God himself works. That’s a scary thought.
Paul wanted these new converts to know—and God wants us to know—that when we began to follow him, we instantly became part of his family. We have brothers and sisters and fathers and mothers in the faith. Hundreds of generations have gone before us. We are surrounded by an immeasurable, uncountable family of Jesus followers who love, support, and believe in us.
The church isn’t a building. It isn’t a religion or an organization. It isn’t a place to find spiritually themed entertainment or free child care on a Sunday morning.
It is a family.
God is building a home for hurting humanity where everyone is welcome. He is creating a community where everyone is loved, where everyone loves, where we serve each other and weep with each other and laugh with each other and do life with each other.
Some of the greatest challenges our world faces today are racism and discrimination. But imagine what a community like this could do to break down the artificial, irrational barriers of prejudice that fear has built. Imagine the reconciliation and unity this spirit of belonging would bring to lonely, rejected, hurting people. Scriptures like these could heal America. They could heal the world.
Jesus tears down the walls that we use to keep each other at a distance. The church is a safe place where we can be ourselves, even in our faulty states. We can come together and find healing, love, reconciliation, and forgiveness.
In Jesus, we are no longer alone. Our souls have been made new, and we belong to this great family.
Through Jesus, our souls are made new. We are redefined and reborn. God has solved the problem of sin and given us all we need to have healthy soul identities:
In light of all that God has given us, we can face the future with a new security and confidence. In Jesus, you are a new you and I am a new me, and our souls are destined to thrive.