Key points
- 1
1The question of identity — who you are and whose you are — is the most important question you will ever answer, because it determines the entire trajectory of your life.
A story from life
Daniel Goulding recalls preschool routine with his mother and the distressing morning he missed his goodbye kiss
A story from life
Daniel Goulding describes being nicknamed 'Jackson' in elementary school for his Michael Jackson fandom
A story from life
Daniel Goulding recounts his awkward teenage growth spurt and being nicknamed 'Sid' after the Toy Story character
- 2
2Personality tests and nicknames can helpfully describe how you are wired, but they must never be allowed to define you; what describes you is not the definition of you.
“You and I have to be really careful not to let what describes you define you”
“the problem friends is if we get our definition of who we are from anything other than the word of God and who God says that we are, it will lead us down some paths that we don't want to end up in”
- 3
3Every human being bears the Imago Dei — the image of God — meaning every person is born on purpose, for a purpose, and with a purpose spoken over their life before birth.
Related passage - 4
4Sin in the Garden shattered the image of God in humanity, which is why identity is a theme running through nearly every book of the Bible and why Satan targets it so relentlessly.
Related passage - 5
5Jacob's lifelong pattern of deception — leaning entirely on his natural wiring rather than trusting God's timing — left him alone, running, and broken, illustrating what happens when we receive even God-promised blessings outside of God's order and timing.
“Jacob needed somebody to tell him, Jacob, your name is not deceiver, it's receiver. Like just wait and be patient and trust that God has a plan for your life that the Bible says is bigger and better than any plan that you could try to connive or conceive on your own”
- 6
6When Jacob finally reached the end of himself, wrestled with God, and honestly admitted his name — owning who he had been — God gave him a new name and a new identity, which is what God wants to do for every person.
“this is the disposition of the heart that ultimately will receive the things that we really want out of this life is when we finally become desperate enough to hold on to God with everything that we have”
“your name was never supposed to be deceiver. You're always, you've always been my chosen one”
A story from life
Daniel Goulding shares his season of leaving Rock Point during COVID, working construction sales in San Diego, holding signs at a church plant, and recognizing his identity had been wrapped up in ministry
- 7
7If your identity is wrapped up in anything other than who God says you are — a career, a title, possessions, or even your children — losing that thing can be catastrophic; security is found only in being a son or daughter of the Most High King.
“the only person that gets to speak an identity over our lives is the one that created us”
Application
Pastor Daniel calls every person to an honest moment of reflection before God — to ask yourself what you actually believe your name is and what you have quietly allowed to define you. It might be your career, your title, your income, your home, or even your children. Though you might not say those things are your identity, the real test is: what would happen if they were taken away? Like Jacob at the Jabbok River, the invitation is to stop running, come to the end of yourself, own where you have been, and hold on to God with everything you have. In that honest surrender, God will do what He has always done — speak a new name over you, restore the identity that was always yours, and set you on a path of living as a son or daughter of the Most High King. Everything else, as Pastor Daniel puts it, is just gravy. The meat and potatoes is who you are in Christ.
