“Who Are You Really?

TEXT: I Peter 2:9; Eph. 2:8-9

 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light  (I Pet. 2:9)

You have a story, and you’re writing that story. God desires for his story to intersect with your story, and for your story to be changed.

YOUR LIFE IS LIKE A F _________________ C___________________

✤ We go through life and we put stuff in here

✤ There are some good things that go in here.

✤ But sometimes some junk gets put in there too, doesn’t it?

✤ The truth is, whatever goes in there is bound to come out of there in some           shape or fashion in your life and in my life.

YOUR LIFE IS A _______________ ON _________________

What you do with this life, and how you live this life, matters a great deal to God.

You have a story. God desires for his story to intersect your story, and for you to see your life as a “life on loan” from him.

Here’s what God says about you :

✒ You’re a child of His. John 1:12 – Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. (NIV)

✒ You’re a friend of His. John 15:15 - I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. (NIV)

✒ You’re forgiven. Psalm 103:2-3 – “Let all that I am praise the Lord; may I never forget the good things he does for me. (NIV)

✒ You are loved. John 3:16 –For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

✒ You are needed. 1 Corinthians 1:27 – “All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a separate and necessary part of it.” (NIV)

✒ God desires for you to have a _________________ life. Isaiah 32:8: “But the noble man makes noble plans, and by noble deeds he stands.” (NIV)

We look at our lives and we say, “Well, this is my life.”

And we land generally in one of two camps.

CAMP # 1 - “My life is good. I like my life. - I’m going to be the one who steers my own boat.”

CAMP # 2 “I don’t like my life. - I don’t like who I am or what has happened to me.”

What if you missed out on a greater purpose that God had intended for your life?

Ephesians 2:8-9 says: “God saved you by his grace when you believed.  - And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.  Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.”(NLT)

So if you tend to say, “I can’t fix all this on my own or ‘I can’t resolve all that stuff. I can’t change.”

That’s not the way it has to be because of God’s grace, his story intersecting with my story, my life on loan from him.

Paul says next in Ephesians 2:10 – “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in JC, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”

Won’t you be a part of His plan by living a life on loan?