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HOW GOD GIVES NEW IDENTITY | Sermon · Rewind

Rock Point Church

40 min

Pastor Chris Hilken · Aug 19, 2024 · 5 min read · 40 min listen

The big idea

Following Jesus means letting Him change not just your behavior but your whole way of thinking, so that your identity in Christ — not your desires — drives every decision.

In this message

The big idea
Point 1 of 7Salvation is a free gift, but discipleship costs everything
Point 2 of 7Following Jesus doesn't mean an easier life, but a different way of living

Point 3 of 7God is after more than external behavior — He wants to change the whole house
Point 4 of 7Left unchecked, the heart is a deceitful and unreliable guide
Point 5 of 7In Christ we become new creations and ambassadors sent to represent Him
Point 6 of 7Identity built on anything but Christ is fickle and exhausting to maintain
Point 7 of 7Christianity flips the decision-making order: identity first, then thinking, then feeling
Take it into your week
Transcript

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Scripture in this message

Mark 10
Ephesians 2:8-9
Romans 10:9-10
John 14
Galatians 2:20
Jeremiah 17:9

Rewind AI drafted the Big Idea and some point headings shown here from the sermon transcript. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Pastor Chris Hilken · Aug 19, 2024 · 40 min watch · 2 min read

HOW GOD GIVES NEW IDENTITY | Sermon

In this message

Big Idea
Key points
Application

Scripture in this message

Mark 10
Ephesians 2:8-9
Romans 10:9-10
John 14
Galatians 2:20
Jeremiah 17:9

Big Idea Key points Application

Big Idea

Following Jesus means letting Him change not just your behavior but your whole way of thinking, so that your identity in Christ — not your desires — drives every decision.

Following Jesus is not a free pass to keep doing what you want with God's blessing added on — it costs everything, starting with how you think. Instead of starting decisions with "what do I want" and building an identity on fickle things like beauty, relationships, or money, Christians are invited to start with who they are in Christ and let that new, secure identity reshape their thinking, choices, and eventually even their desires.

Key points

1
1Salvation is a free gift, but discipleship costs everything
Pastor Chris distinguishes between the question of how to be saved (by grace through faith, not works) and the question of what it costs to follow Jesus as a disciple. Jesus' call to deny self and take up your cross meant something brutal and humiliating to His original hearers, not a decorative necklace.
2
2Following Jesus doesn't mean an easier life, but a different way of living
Pastor Chris pushes back on the idea that a walk with Jesus is a pain-free stroll, noting Jesus promised trouble in this world and Paul's life became full of suffering after following Christ. Christianity, rightly understood, is a heart transplant, not moral self-improvement or moralistic therapeutic deism.
3
3God is after more than external behavior — He wants to change the whole house
Using C. S. Lewis's illustration of Jesus as a carpenter who shows up not with small tools to patch a few rooms but a wrecking ball to build an entirely new house He intends to live in, Pastor Chris shows that Jesus' goal isn't cosmetic fixes but total transformation, because Jesus called the externally-religious Pharisees whitewashed tombs.
4
4Left unchecked, the heart is a deceitful and unreliable guide
Pastor Chris tells the story of his son refusing a command with 'I don't want to' to illustrate how humans default to processing life through desire. He argues a mind governed by 'do I want to' rather than trust in the Father produces immaturity and unhealthy relationships, and that repentance (metanoia) means a complete change of thinking, not just behavior.
5
5In Christ we become new creations and ambassadors sent to represent Him
Working through 2 Corinthians 5, Pastor Chris shows that being in Christ means the old self is gone, we're reconciled to God, and we're now ambassadors representing our true King wherever we go — including as parents showing our kids what God is like.
6
6Identity built on anything but Christ is fickle and exhausting to maintain
Through the illustration of a daughter claiming her value from being the prettiest girl in class, and his own story of losing his wife to suicide in July 2021, Pastor Chris shows that any identity rooted in achievements, beauty, wealth, or feelings collapses under pressure, while identity received from Christ holds firm even through devastating loss.
7
7Christianity flips the decision-making order: identity first, then thinking, then feeling
Pastor Chris contrasts the old 'BC' pattern (heart first, then behavior, then identity) with the 'AD' pattern Paul describes — starting with who I am in Christ, letting that shape how I think about situations, and trusting God to eventually change even what we want. He frames the heart as a good check-engine light but a terrible GPS.

Application

Pastor Chris frames the charge as flipping our decision-making order: stop asking "what do I want" first and start asking "who am I in Christ" first.

Let Jesus renovate the whole house
Stop inviting Jesus to fix only a few rooms of your life and give Him permission to demolish and rebuild everything, because He intends to live there Himself.
Trust the Father instead of negotiating with your desires
When God gives a command, don't filter it through whether you feel like obeying — recognize that processing life primarily through desire is immature and trust Him because He's your Father.
Live as Christ's ambassador, especially to your kids
Recognize that the people around you, especially your children, learn what God is like by watching you, so represent Him faithfully in your words and actions this week.
Stop building identity on fickle things
Refuse to root your worth in beauty, relationships, wealth, or achievements, since those are here today and gone tomorrow, and instead receive your identity as one who belongs to Christ.
Start decisions with who you are in Christ
Before deciding how to act or what to think about a situation, begin with your identity in Him and let that shape your thinking, trusting Him to change your affections over time.

Take it into your week

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“maybe you're new to the Jesus conversation, you're here because someone invited you or you're kinda checking it out to see what this weird group of people is all about. But as you enter into the scriptures and you ask the question like a rich young ruler does in Mark chapter 10, What must I do to be saved”
From the transcript
“The answer is unequivocally clear. Ephesians two eight nine, it is by grace you have been saved. That's God's free unmerited favor. It is by grace you have been saved through faith”
From the transcript
“Romans ten nine through 10. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead, you will be saved”
From the transcript
“And yet when you open the text, he says, when you follow me in this world, John 14, you will have trouble. It's a promise that he makes”
From the transcript
“It's no longer Galatians two twenty, For I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Therefore, the life I live, I've died to the flesh that I might be alive in Christ”
From the transcript
“What what does the bible say about the heart? Jeremiah 17 verse nine. The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond repair. Who can tame it”
From the transcript
“In fact, when Jesus says, if you want to follow me, Ezekiel 36 chapter 36 verse 26. He says, when I come and I call people to myself, I don't do a little bit of heart surgery. I do heart transplant”
From the transcript
“I didn't come just to fix part of your heart. I came to take your old heart of stone, Ezekiel 36, and give you a heart of flesh. This is repeated also in Ezekiel eleven thirteen”
From the transcript
“I came to take your old heart of stone, Ezekiel 36, and give you a heart of flesh. This is repeated also in Ezekiel eleven thirteen”
From the transcript
“Ephesians five, submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. It doesn't say submit to one another because you feel like it. Submit to one another because God has saved you from death. So submit to one another. That's what it says”
From the transcript
“Second Corinthians chapter five, for those who are saved. From now on, we regard this is beginning at verse 16 of chapter five. So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view”
From the transcript
“This is the same point that Paul makes in Romans chapter 12. He says, therefore brothers and sisters. Okay. So I'm a I teach systematic theology”
From the transcript
“Therefore brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice. Living sacrifice is an interesting word because it's an oxymoron”
From the transcript
“Romans 12 says, do not be conformed to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the metanoia, the renewing of the mind, the changing of the mind”
From the transcript
“Therefore, verse 17, very famous verse. If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has gone, the new has come”
From the transcript
“God made him who had no sin to become sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. God made Jesus pay the price for a sinner so that me, a sinner, could be treated like the perfect Christ. He experienced hell for me that I could experience heaven through him. He paid the price of my sin. That's two Corinthians five twenty one”
From the transcript
“John six sixty six has become one of my most powerful life verses since the day that I found that out. Almost three years ago. Where else would I go? This is what Peter says. To whom would we go? You alone hold the keys to eternal life”
From the transcript
“It's like when Jesus speaks to the woman at the well in John chapter four and he says, aren't you tired of coming back every day to draw from the same well”
From the transcript
“I have come that they may have life, John ten, and have it abundantly. And this is an invitation that Christ is inviting us into today”

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

7-day devotional

A personal reading plan from this message — scripture, reflection, and prayer for each day.

Sign in to track your progress through this devotional.

Day 1

There is something quietly revolutionary about the way grace works. You did not earn your way into God's family, and you cannot maintain your standing in it by performing well enough. Salvation is a free gift — full stop. Pastor Chris opened with this truth not to let us off the hook, but to set the right foundation before everything else gets built on top of it. Because here is the thing: once the gift is received, something happens. A relationship begins. And relationships change people. Jesus does not hand you a new life and then leave you to figure out what to do with it on your own. He says, 'Follow Me.' That call to follow is not a threat dangled over the gift — it is the natural next movement of a heart that has genuinely received it. The grace that saves you is the same grace that begins reshaping you from the inside. So as you start this week, it helps to settle this first: your standing before God is secure. You are not earning anything by reading these pages. You are simply making space to hear from the One who already loves you completely. From that secure place — not from fear, not from obligation — real change becomes possible.

For reflection

When you think about following Jesus this week, what is the emotion underneath that thought — obligation, fear, gratitude, something else? What does that tell you about where you are starting from?

Pray

Pray for a fresh, felt sense of the grace that is already yours in Christ — that it would be the ground you stand on, not a distant fact.

Day 2

The rich young man in Mark 10 is one of the more honest figures in the Gospels — honest enough to run up to Jesus and ask the right question, and honest enough to walk away when the answer cost too much. He had kept the commandments. His behavior was largely in order. But Jesus looked at him and loved him, and then put His finger on the very thing the man's life was actually organized around. Discipleship, Pastor Chris reminded us, costs everything. Not because Jesus is harsh, but because partial surrender produces a divided life. You cannot have Jesus as a helpful addition to a life already built around something else. The invitation He extended to that young man — 'Come, follow Me' — was not a punishment for his wealth. It was an invitation into something far more durable than anything he was holding onto. What makes this passage so searching is that the man went away sad, not angry. Some part of him knew what he was walking away from. That sadness is worth sitting with today. If there is an area of your life where Jesus has put His finger and you have gone quiet, that is not a reason for shame — it is a sign that He is still speaking, still inviting.

For reflection

Is there an area of your life where you sense Jesus pointing and you have been reluctant to open your hands? What are you afraid you would lose?

Pray

Pray for the courage to honestly name what you are holding tightly, and for the trust that what Jesus offers is better.

Day 3

Pastor Chris offered a memorable distinction: your heart is a reliable check-engine light, but a terrible GPS. Jeremiah 17:9 is blunt — the heart is deceitful above all things. That is not a verdict against feeling things deeply. It is a warning against letting your feelings navigate. We live in a culture that has turned 'follow your heart' into a kind of secular gospel. And on the surface it sounds liberating — who knows you better than you know yourself? But if the heart's deepest desires have been shaped by wounds, by fear, by years of wanting things that do not satisfy, then following it faithfully will simply take you deeper into the same territory. This does not mean your emotions are worthless. They surface important information. When something feels wrong, that is worth paying attention to. When grief shows up, it tells you that something mattered. But noticing a feeling and obeying it as a directive are two very different things. The invitation today is not to suppress what you feel, but to refuse to let your feelings have the final word. There is a better guide available — and tomorrow we will look more closely at who that guide is and what it means to have a new heart altogether.

For reflection

Think of a recent decision you made primarily because it felt right. Looking back, was your heart a reliable navigator in that moment, or did it miss something important?

Pray

Pray for honesty about the places where your feelings have been steering more than you realized, and for humility to let God's Word speak into those places.

Day 4

Jeremiah told us the heart is deceitful. Ezekiel tells us what God intends to do about it. The promise in Ezekiel 36:26 is stunning in its directness: 'I will give you a new heart.' Not a patched-up version of the old one. Not a slightly improved model. A new one. God is not asking you to muscle through life on willpower alone, white-knuckling your way toward obedience while your desires pull in the opposite direction. That is not the picture He paints. His plan has always been transformation that goes all the way down — past behavior, past habits, into the very things you want. Pastor Chris pointed to this when he said that when we trust God enough to obey even when our feelings protest, He is faithful to change not just what we do but what we want to do. That is the trajectory of the new heart. Today is a good day to let this promise land somewhere specific. Where have you been assuming that you will always struggle with a particular desire or pattern — that the best you can hope for is management? What would it mean to actually believe that the God who promises a new heart is working in that exact place, even now?

For reflection

Is there a desire or pattern in your life you have privately given up on changing? What would it look like to bring that specific thing before God and take His promise in Ezekiel 36:26 seriously?

Pray

Pray over a specific area where you need not just better behavior but a genuinely changed want — and ask God to do what only He can do there.

Day 5

When Paul writes that anyone in Christ is a new creation, he is not talking about a personality makeover or a fresh start in the motivational-poster sense. He is describing an actual change of status, nature, and calling. The old has gone — the old way of being defined by what you have done, what has been done to you, or what the world says you are worth. The new has come — and the new includes a vocation. You are an ambassador. An ambassador does not represent themselves. They represent the one who sent them, speak the words they have been given, and act in the interests of a kingdom not their own. Pastor Chris named this calling clearly: in Christ, we are called to represent Him in every area of life. That is a bigger identity than most of us are actually living out of on a Tuesday afternoon. But it is the truest thing about you if you are in Christ. The work this passage invites is not to try harder to act like an ambassador — it is to genuinely reckon with the fact that you already are one. What changes when you walk into your workplace, your home, or a difficult conversation with that identity actually in view?

For reflection

Pick one specific context in your daily life — work, home, a friendship. What would it look like to walk into that space today as an ambassador of Christ, not just as yourself?

Pray

Pray for a vivid, working awareness of your identity as a new creation and ambassador — not just as a concept, but as something that shapes how you show up today.

Day 6

Here is the process Pastor Chris laid out, drawn straight from Romans 12: the world runs desires first — you figure out what you want, build behavior around it, and your identity becomes whatever that adds up to. It is a fragile way to live because desires shift, circumstances change, and the identity built on top of all that has no anchor. The Christian process runs the other direction. You start with the identity God has already given you in Christ — settled, not earned, not revoked by a bad week. From that secure place, you open His Word and find out what He thinks about the situation in front of you. Then you step out in obedience, even if your feelings are not on board yet. And as you do, He transforms — not just your actions but your mind, your wants, your reflexes. Paul calls this a living sacrifice. It is not a one-time transaction. It is a daily orientation, a daily choice to let the Word do its work rather than letting the world's pattern keep setting the terms. Where you spend your time, how you use your abilities, the way you hold your resources and tell your story — all of it is the material of that offering.

For reflection

When you trace a significant decision from this past month, which direction did the process actually run — desires first, or identity in Christ first? What would have been different the other way?

Pray

Pray for a willingness to genuinely offer your daily decisions — your time, your attention, your plans — as an act of worship rather than self-management.

Day 7

You have spent a week sitting with a single sermon's worth of truth, and the honest question to end on is the one Pastor Chris put to every listener: which process is actually driving your decisions right now? Not in theory. In the actual texture of your week. It is worth naming plainly that this is not a pass/fail question. The direction of your heart matters more than a perfect score. If you have noticed places this week where desire, not Christ, has been on the throne — that noticing is itself a gift. It means something is awake in you. The invitation is not to feel guilty about the distance but to close it, one honest step at a time. Pastor Chris pointed to John 4 — Jesus offering living water to someone who had been drawing from broken cisterns for years, and doing it without a single word of condemnation. That is still the offer. The broken cisterns you have been returning to are real, but they are not the end of the story. Anchor yourself in who God says you are. Open His Word. Step out even when your feelings are not fully there yet. And trust the One who gave you a new heart to keep working in you — further, deeper, more thoroughly than you have dared to hope.

For reflection

Looking back at this week, where did you see God's Word beginning to reshape how you thought about something — even slightly? What is one step you want to take this coming week to keep that process moving?

Pray

Pray with honest gratitude for what God has begun, and ask Him for the courage and trust to keep the process running in the right direction — identity first, the rest following.

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

This message draws a sharp line between changing what we do on the outside and something much deeper — a renewal of the mind that actually changes what we want. Before we dig in, what's one word or phrase that stuck with you from the message?

Discussion questions

1
In Mark 10, Jesus tells a would-be follower that discipleship means denying self and taking up a cross. Pastor Chris noted that salvation is a free gift, but discipleship costs everything. What do you think Jesus is describing when He talks about 'denying self' — what does that actually look like in practice?
2
Pastor Chris spent time on the word metanoia — genuine repentance as a complete change of mind and direction, not just a change of behavior. Why do you think people, even sincere followers of Jesus, might settle for changed behavior without that deeper change of mind?
3
Jeremiah 17:9 describes the heart as deceitful. Pastor Chris put it this way: the heart is a reliable check-engine light but a terrible GPS. What's the difference between those two roles, and how might that distinction change the way we approach decision-making?
4
In Romans 12:1-2, Paul describes a process of transformation by the renewing of the mind. Pastor Chris contrasted the world's pattern — desires driving behavior, with identity coming last — against a reversed, Christ-centered process that starts with identity. Where do you think most people, inside and outside the church, actually begin when they're facing a big decision?
5
In 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, Paul calls believers new creations and ambassadors of Christ's kingdom. What does it mean for someone's day-to-day life to be shaped by that identity rather than by roles, relationships, or achievements that can be lost?
6
Pastor Chris closed with the idea that when people trust God enough to obey even when their feelings protest, God is faithful to change not just what they do but what they want — trading broken cisterns for living water. How might a community like ours help each other take that kind of step, especially when obedience feels costly?

Pray together

A renewed mind — that our identity would be anchored in who God says we are, and that He would be faithful to change not only what we do but what we love

Rewind AI contributed study material from the sermon transcript; church-authored wording and verified sermon quotes keep their own source. Always trust the sermon itself over anything here. How Rewind uses AI

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Go deeper

Where these passages are preached

Mark 10 Ephesians 2 Romans 10 John 14

Explore related topics

Identity in Christ New Creation Obedience Over Feelings Repentance Transformation of Mind

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