Verses Used:

Takeaways:

Last week’s highlight is that: All people matter to God. Therefore, all people matter to us. You are not here by accident. No human life is an accident.
If life is random, then purpose is something you have to create for yourself; but if God made and planned you, then your life is not an accident.
To understand purpose, we have to understand identity, because ‘doing’ flows our ‘being’.
We are baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Our baptism reflects something of each member of the trinity. Father being family, Son is the servant, and Holy Spirit is missionary.
We are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Each part of our new identity, rooted in the trinity, has real life implications for us. Let’s look at each one, starting with our family identity.

We Are Family

It is important for us to understand God’s love and acceptance into his family because it shapes us.
God is pleased to welcome lost people into His family.
We get to treat everyone like family, even before they believe and are adopted into God’s family. Adopted people, accept people.

We Are Servants

We are baptized into the name of the Son, Jesus. From Jesus we got our servant identity.
You can’t follow Jesus’ example of servanthood and be a selfish person. Saved people, serve people.

We Are Missionaries

The Holy Spirit is working on drawing people to the family of God all over the world. When people say they found God, the truth is God found them because the Holy Spirit was working on drawing them to Jesus.
The Holy Spirit is at work in the world and in the lives of people. We get to live into our missionary identity. Found people, find people.

Discussion Questions:

Why does God give us a new identity in Christ? What’s wrong with the other things we tend to build our identity on?
Do you agree with the statement that “doing flows from being? If so, how have you seen it play out in your own life?
Why is it important to focus on identity before focusing on behavior?
Which of the three (family, servant, missionary) is easiest for you to live into? Which is the hardest?
Which of these identities do you most need to grow in right now? Family (accepting others), servant (serving others), missionary (living sent)
What is one thing you could do this week to lean into that identity?