The Gospel and Your Identity

This weekend, my church hosted a conference featuring Paul Tripp, author of Lost in the Middle. Based on the book, this conference addressed the issues of mid-life through the lens of the gospel. There was much said that was both helpful and thought provoking. Far more than can be touched upon in a single blog post.

But one of the points that Dr.Tripp made is particularly important to many of us engaged in the workplace. It involves the issue of personal identity. Due to remaining indwelling sin in our lives, many of us derive our identity from the position we hold or the kind of work we do. Rather than revel in our position as rescued sinners and children of the Most High, we invest our identities in our roles at work or even at home.

Like all false gods, this misplaced identity ultimately fails to satisfy. God ordained trials can expose the limitations of these idols - through failed projects, stalled career aspirations or even lost jobs. These are occasions for repentance, they are reminders of God's sovereign love. We are meant to anchor our hope in Christ alone and our identity as God's children.

What identity is more glorious than that? What hope is more enduring? If we are found in Christ, we are blessed indeed.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—¹⁰that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death

Phillipians 3:8-10