Identity Crisis | Week 3 | Daniel Goulding

Pastor Daniel Goulding · May 10, 2022

Big Idea

You have to be careful not to let what describes you define you — only God has the right to name your identity.

Every one of us is on a search to answer the question "who am I?" but we settle for low-hanging fruit — nicknames, mistakes, personality tests — that only describe us instead of the identity God gives. Like Jacob, we can spend years deceiving and striving to become who we already were made to be, until God meets us in our brokenness, wrestles our false identity to the ground, and gives us the true name He always intended.

Key points

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1We instinctively answer 'who am I?' with things that only describe us, not define us.
Pastor Daniel walks through his own childhood nicknames — the crybaby mama's boy, 'Jackson' after Michael Jackson, and 'Sid' after the Toy Story character — to show how a moment or trait can wrongly become someone's whole identity for a season of life.
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2Personality tools like the Enneagram can describe our wiring, but they were never meant to define us.
He names the church's two extreme reactions to the Enneagram — rejecting it as demonic or over-adopting it as an identity label — and argues it's a helpful tool for communication in marriage, family, and staff relationships, but dangerous when used to justify sin or replace God's definition of who we are.
3
3Jacob's birth story shows him grasping for a promise that was already his, through deception rather than trust.
He reads Genesis 25, where God tells Rebekah the younger son will be served by the older — a reversal of custom — yet Jacob is born grabbing Esau's heel, already trying to get ahead by his own effort rather than waiting on God's timing.
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4Every person carries the Imago Dei, but sin marred that image, so identity must be recovered, not discovered.
Pastor Daniel teaches that we're each born with purpose stamped into us by God, tracing back to Genesis and the fall, where Satan tempted Adam and Eve to grasp for something (being like God) they already had. He notes identity is a theme running from Genesis to Revelation, precisely because Satan knows disrupting it derails everything else.
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5A blessing pursued outside God's timing and order becomes a burden instead.
Pastor Daniel traces Jacob conning Esau out of his birthright for stew and deceiving Isaac for the blessing, then being deceived himself by Laban on his wedding night, and finally fleeing again after conning Laban — showing that what we grab for ourselves outside God's order leaves us alone and running, connecting it to John 10:10.
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6God meets Jacob in his aloneness and wrestles his false identity to the ground until he speaks the truth.
In Genesis 32, alone at the Jabbok River, Jacob wrestles a man all night, refuses to let go without a blessing, and is finally asked his name — forcing him to admit out loud for the first time in decades that he is Jacob, the deceiver, before God renames him Israel.
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7Even good things — a career, a title, a role — can quietly become an identity that has to be surrendered.
Pastor Daniel tells his own story of leaving Rock Point for San Diego during COVID, taking a construction sales job, holding signs for a church plant, and sinking into depression when ministry and recognition were stripped away, realizing his identity had been wrapped up in being a pastor more than he admitted.

Application

Pastor Daniel's charge is to have an honest moment before God and admit what name you've really been living by.

Stop letting descriptions define you
Whether it's an old nickname, a mistake, or a personality test result, recognize that these only describe you and refuse to let them stand in for your God-given identity.
Submit your natural wiring to God
Even good personality traits and strengths must be surrendered to God's timing and order rather than used to justify sin or force outcomes on your own.
Admit your true name before God
Like Jacob at the Jabbok, have an honest moment where you name what you've believed your identity is tied up in — a job, a title, a paycheck, your kids — and say it out loud to God.
Let God rename you
Trust Him to work out the broken identity and give you the new name and purpose He always intended, resting in who you are in Christ rather than what you do or have.

Take it into your week

Scripture in this message

From the transcript
“So if you have a Bible, go to Genesis chapter 25. We're gonna look at a story in the Old Testament today. But before we get there, as you turn to Genesis 25, let me pray for us”
From the transcript
“Verse 22 says, but the two children struggled with each of each other in her womb. Notice this, this is the most honest Mother's Day prayer I've ever seen in the Bible”
From the transcript
“It says in verse 23, And the Lord told her, the sons in your womb are actually going to become two nations. From the very beginning, the two nations will be rivals”
From the transcript
“Verse 25, it says, The first one, I love this, was very red at birth and covered with thick hair like a fur coat”
From the transcript
“This friends is the John ten ten verse played out practically. It says that Jesus has come so that you and I can have life and life abundantly, but there's an enemy that wants to kill, steal and destroy every single part of who we are”
From the transcript
“On Genesis 32, here's where Jacob ends up. It says, During the night Jacob got up and he took his now, his two wives and he got two more servant wives”
From the transcript
“Verse 23 says this, it says, After taking them to the other side, he sent over All of his possessions. This left Jacob all alone in the camp”
From the transcript
“Verse 25, it says, When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob's hip and he wrenched it out of its socket, okay”
From the transcript
“Verse 27, what is your name? The man asked. Again, I think it's funny that they wrestled all night and they didn't even have like the pleasantries of exchanging names, right”
From the transcript
“Verse 29. It says, please tell me your name, Jacob says. And he says, why do you want to know my name? The man replied. Then he blessed Jacob there”

7-day devotional

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

Day 1

Related passage

Before you ever introduced yourself to anyone, God had already spoken over you. That is where Pastor Daniel began — not with Jacob, not with a personality test, not with a career path — but with the simple, staggering claim that every human being is made in the image of God. The Hebrew phrase is Imago Dei, and it means that your existence is not an accident and your worth is not a performance review. You were born on purpose, for a purpose, with a purpose already spoken over your life before you drew your first breath. That is not a motivational slogan. It is the opening chapter of the Bible's longest argument. The reason identity is such a battleground — the reason it threads through nearly every book of Scripture — is that it started here, in a garden, with God looking at what He had made and calling it very good. That declaration was not conditional on what you would accomplish. It was spoken before you had done anything at all. Take a moment today to sit with that. Not to analyze it or debate it, but just to let it land. The most important question you will ever answer is 'Who are you?' — and the answer begins not with you, but with the One who made you.

For reflection

When you think about who you are, where does your mind go first — and how different is that from where God starts when He thinks about you?

Pray

Pray for a fresh sense of wonder at being made in the image of God — not as a theological idea, but as something personally and deeply true about you.

Small-group discussion guide

For leading a group conversation about this message.

Open

Pastor Daniel opened this message with a provocative claim: the most important question any of us will ever answer isn't about career, relationships, or purpose — it's simply 'Who are you?' Take a moment to sit with that before we dig in.

Discussion questions

1
In Genesis 1:26-27, human beings are described as made in the image of God — the Imago Dei. What do you think it means practically for a person to be made in God's image, and why might that be the starting point for any conversation about identity?
Related passage
2
Pastor Daniel drew a distinction between things that describe us and things that define us — pointing out that personality tests, titles, and roles can be helpful descriptions without being true definitions. Where do you think that line gets blurry for people, and what makes it hard to hold onto the difference?
3
In Genesis 32:27, God asks Jacob a simple question: 'What is your name?' — even though God obviously already knew it. What do you think God was actually inviting Jacob to do in that moment, and why might that kind of honesty be necessary before something new can begin?
4
Jacob spent years running — from Esau, from Laban, from his own past — and it was only when he had nowhere left to go that he wrestled with God and received a new name. What does his story suggest about the relationship between reaching the end of ourselves and encountering God in a new way?
5
Pastor Daniel challenged us to consider what we actually believe our name is — asking what would happen to us if a particular thing were taken away. How might a community like this one help each other hold onto a God-given identity when circumstances are pulling hard in another direction?
6
Pastor Daniel described the destination of this whole journey as living as a son or daughter of the Most High King — and said everything else is, as he put it, 'just gravy.' What would it look like, day to day, for a person to actually live from that identity rather than just agree with it in theory?

Pray together

Asking God to speak clearly over each person in the group — that He would have the final word on who they are and whose they are

Topics

Finding Your Purpose Identity in Christ Image of God Jacob's Story Overcoming Sin

Identity Crisis | Week 3 | Daniel Goulding

Big Idea

Key points

Application

Take it into your week

Scripture in this message

7-day devotional

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Small-group discussion guide

Open

Discussion questions

Pray together