Who Are We?
Sid Koop · Tidal Church Moncton · November 19, 2023
Sid Koop preaches from 1 Peter 2:9-12 to believers who feel pushed to the margins. God has chosen us, made us His own people, and called us to live humbly and boldly, serving others and showing how good Jesus is.
Topics: Identity, Mission & Outreach, Discipleship
Transcript
[0:00] Hey, good morning everybody. It's a real privilege to be here. I don't know that I, that was quite the biography I gave to Jeremy when I asked him to, you know, kind of introduce me this morning. So look at that. There you go. It's really good to be here. We had, by the way, this past weekend, Jeremy, we get to work together with an organization called the Youth Worker Community. And we're, you know, our mission is to encourage and equip youth workers to better disciple the kids God has placed in their care. And so we love doing that. We did that this weekend. We had a couple hundred people who are invested in the next generation here with us, and it was so great to be able to be a part of that here. Thank you so much, by the way, for allowing this incredible building to be used for so many good things. And we got to take advantage of that, really, really thankful. I do appreciate that Jeremy reminded me that I'm getting a little older.
[0:47] Apparently it's been decades that I've been doing this work. There it is. Thanks so much. And it is funny, you know, at all sorts of different seasons in life, you know, you kind of have these transitions and changes as things shift. It's like you kind of take on new identities and new habits. And I'm finding myself in that space. My wife and I, Jen, she's the executive director of Green Bay Bible Camp in Kelowna, where we live. And both of our boys have now kind of moved on, sort of, have you ever wondered if they actually ever move on? Do you know what I mean? Like, I thought last fall they'd moved on and I was like, oh man, this is something. And then they happened to move like back in, and we're kind of going back and forth here a little bit, but our youngest boy, Cole, is 19. My oldest son, Peyton, is 22.
[1:34] And at this kind of moment, I found myself with like a little extra time on my hands compared to what I had when the boys were like teenagers. And so I thought, I'm gonna try some, like, new practices. I'd like to kind of develop a few new habits, you know, so here was a situation, I was always getting a little bit frustrated. Well, my wife more so was getting frustrated at how messy our house was. And for many years I was blaming our boys for how they just left stuff everywhere. Do you know what I mean? And then I was really shocked at how they, how it was that they didn't live with us and still happened to leave things everywhere. And then I realized, oh, it's not them leaving things. It's, woo-hoo, it's actually me. So this became my issue. And so I thought, oh, I wonder what it would be like to kind of fix this and kind of change these habits and become a different person.
[2:22] I thought it would help my relationship with my wife a little bit. And this is, of course, the stage of life when you start thinking about your relationship with your spouse again in new ways and how you can kinda lean in and grow on that. So, I read the book Atomic Habits. I don't know if any of you have read it, it's a pretty popular book. So I thought I'd dive into that thing and try to figure it out. And he said something really interesting. The author of Atomic Habits said something really interesting. He said, Hey, if you wanna like change habits or ways of being, you know, one of the things you could do is you could create some goals for yourself. And he said, goals can be really helpful. They can keep you focused, you know what I mean? And it's really good to kind of shift some of the goals. So I said, oh, great. One of my goals is I am going to become like a neat person. I'm like, this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna clean things up. I'm gonna be the person that when my wife walks in, she's like, whoa, look at this place. This is awesome. My husband must've been here, you know what I mean?
[3:08] Like, that's kind of what I'm shooting for. And so I thought, Hey, I could make some goals, that'd be great. And then he said this, he said, Goals are good, but it's pretty easy to kind of forget the goals, maybe move on to new ones and break them. That's fine. So he said, the second thing you should do if you really want to like, make change happen is, build a system. Something that you can do like, that kind of orders you on a consistent basis that allows you to like consistently be in that same kind of space that you would want to be in. And so I thought to myself, oh, that's a great idea. What if I started developing this system and my system became, every time I leave a room, I'm going to clean something up, like at least one or two things every single time. I thought, that's a good system. I can repeat that consistently wherever I am, over and over again, and that could help me.
[3:53] And then he went on and he said this, he goes, Hey, goals are good. Systems are better, but if you really wanna trans, if you really wanna be transformed, then you need to start taking on a new identity. He said, when it can become your identity, now this changes everything. I was like, whoa, this is so amazing. You know, all my life I've been telling everybody like I'm a big idea guy. Like I'm the guy that like has lots of charisma and I think of things and fun and Jen is more task oriented and get the stuff done. And you know, that kind of person, I thought maybe, I'm gonna change who I am. I am from now on going to be the clean guy. That's who I'm gonna be. And of course, you've just caught the connection, right? Like I've been inspired, people have been reminded me. I thought of what, I'm gonna become the person that everyone has told me I look like.
[4:40] So I said, I'm gonna be Mr. Clean, this is me. Do you know what I mean? Like, this is my identity now and I'm walking around. I'm clean and stuff because this is who I am. And I remember like one time I was about to leave a room, I was tired and there was stuff on the tip like, wait, Sid, you don't leave rooms that are messy. This isn't who you are. You are the clean guy. Let's get this thing done. And so all of a sudden I'm like, whoa, this moment is no longer an inconvenience. When my boys leave stuff, it's an opportunity for me to express my identity. How great is that? And so we're in kind of this new phase, and I need you to know that things aren't going quite as well as I thought they would with my wife. Like, I thought she'd be a little more impressed, but I think she's so far just suspicious. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think she's still wondering, Hey, what are you trying to get?
[5:25] Do you know what I mean? It hasn't quite been long enough. You know, the journey of trying to understand who we are is maybe one of the most like common journeys. It's always been, you know, What's our identity as human beings? Who are we? What do we do? Why are we here? It's probably more pronounced now than it's ever been before, because the language of identity is so popular within our cultural narrative. Correct? And so we're asking these questions over and over again. Who am I? Who am I? Who am I? And identity runs very deep and it's very personal, but can also be very fragile. It can be really, really fragile depending on where we root our identity. You know, one of my responsibilities, I think, with my youngest son, Cole, is I'm playing the role of trying to remind him who he actually is, trying to help him establish his identity in something that's actually stable, firm, strong, consistent.
[6:23] My boy loves basketball. In fact, a year ago, you know, when if Jared was up here talking about the fact that I'm not from the east coast, I probably would've said, well, there's a chance I might be closer than you think. Because my boy was looking at playing basketball at University of Prince Edward Island. That would've been like, really? Like, that's the east of all coast, you know what I mean? And so he'd been in contact with the coach and stuff like that, but he chose to stay home. He's playing ball at the university in Kelowna there. And basketball has been really ingrained in who he is, invested a lot into it. And so he was so excited about playing ball at the university and he'd gotten his scholarship and that was great. And then in July he went up for a layup and he broke his kneecap, just torn kneecap right in half. And that changed things for him.
[7:09] You know what I mean? Like, it changed things for him, but it didn't just change his basketball, it began to change who he was. Why? Because basketball had kind of become who he was. And he was at a space where that basketball had become really fragile. And it was interesting how he started to shift in his emotional disposition, and not just in his emotional disposition, but the way he began to view the world, the way he began to view others. And all of a sudden he started to take on a bit of a victim mentality. Do you know what I mean? Woe is me, poor me. I almost slid off to the margins in some unique ways. And as a family, you know, our responsibility, we just felt, to keep bringing him back and bringing him back. But part of what we really wanted to do was remind him of who he was. Hey, son, you're more than basketball.
[7:57] You're more than just, like, wow, you can perform. You're more than just the freedom that you could experience in this space. God has called you to be something so much more. And this morning we wanna take just a couple of minutes in 1 Peter chapter 2. And we're gonna look at the verses from like 9 through 10 and verse 11, and on there a little bit. And the book of Peter is written to a group of people who have forgotten their identity. They're a group of people who find themselves on the margin of society. They're, their values. This group of people, as followers of Jesus, don't align very well with the common values or the accepted values of the culture that they're in. Culture is starting to look at them funny. They're starting to lose power. They're not placed in positions of authority anymore.
[8:44] Culture doesn't know what to do with them. And in fact, in some situations, they feel as if their very essence is being attacked, that they're being pushed to the margins, that they're experiencing difficulties in trials because of, like, the space of who they are. And it's almost as if they're starting to take on a victim mentality. And then Peter comes to them to remind them of who they are, who they actually are, where their identity is truly rooted in, and who they are called to be and how they are called to be. Now, listen to what Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 2, verses 9 to 10. He says, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous life.
[9:31] Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." Man, I think this is a passage for us today. I think 1 Peter is a book for us today as followers of Jesus, as we find ourselves in a culture that seems to no longer see us as just maybe irrelevant, but we're finding ourselves in a culture that's almost seeing us as dangerous, really peculiar, where our values as a people aren't in the same kind of an alignment as the popular values of culture. And I think for some of us, you know, starting to experience that in some unique ways, we might find ourselves starting to kind of shrink back, starting to kind of move into a space of victimhood, starting to find ourselves as feeling like we're people where we don't know where we belong or why we're here, and we start to turn inward.
[10:23] But God is coming to us and saying, "No, this is not who you are. I've called you to something so much more. And no, you don't belong in this cultural context in the way that maybe you think you should or ought. But understand, you actually don't belong in this cultural context. You are actually someone different that's been brought into this space to live forward a new way of being, to live forward a new way of culture, a new way of experience." In fact, what He says at the very beginning of the scripture is He says, "Hey, you need to understand something. You're strangers and aliens here. This is actually who you are." Remember when Cole was first heading off to university and even through high school?
[11:09] And I just said to him, I said, "Son, I know you so want to belong. You so want to fit in." He goes, "Yeah, Dad." And I said, "That's good. You should wanna enjoy friendships and community and serve. But I said, you need to know at the very core, you're always gonna feel like you don't quite fit, because, kiddo, you are an alien and a stranger here. It's who you are. And while you might not fit in that space, son, I need you to know you always fit here. You fit with us. And even more than that, you are a part of a greater kingdom because you fit with God, because He has called you to a time such as this. And you are not a victim. You don't shrink. No, no, you're called into mission." And so you move forward with courage, with humility, absolutely with humility. We don't seek the power the way that the world seeks power. That's not how we lean.
[11:56] We come in with humility and we come in with a desire to serve and a desire to love. And we move in. But we are not victims. We're on mission because we belong to the King. And He has called us into this space of dignity because He is the King of dignity. He has called us to be people of dignity in this space, radically, sacrificially, loving and serving others. We don't shrink, we come forward to engage for the sake of His kingdom and the good of all people. So listen to what he says. The first thing he says, this, he says, "But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession." In fact, if you understand the Greek, when he says a people, he says, "A prized people, a peculiar, prized people for His own possession."
[12:45] God owns us. We belong to Him, called into this moment. Listen to the words he uses. He says, "You are a chosen race." We've been chosen by God to be His people. Notice he doesn't say we are a choice race. It's not because we're so awesome and amazing and fantastic that He's called us. That's not why He's called us. In fact, if you look in Deuteronomy 7, he says that the reason God loves His people is because He's chosen to love His people. He is love. And so He loves His people. It's more because about how amazing He is that He's chosen us than how amazing we are. We are His chosen people and we are this chosen race. It's not about a peculiar ethnicity. We are a diverse group of people from all around the world.
[13:33] This is who we are together, equally diverse, unique, beautiful, chosen by God. We belong together. He's called us into this space. We are His chosen race. Not only are we a chosen race, but we are a royal priesthood. You hear this, a royal priesthood. We don't just serve the king, we belong to the king. We are a royal priesthood. And what does a priest do? What a priest does is he serves the people. He radically, sacrificially serves the people. The priest brings the people before God and brings God to the people. The priest intercedes and advocates before the king on behalf of the people. The priest serves the people, the priest leads the people to see how beautiful the king is, so we can praise the king. This is us, this is our mission.
[14:27] We are the people who advocate on behalf of others, all others. We are the people who serve others, all others. Why? So that people can ultimately praise the king because He's so good and we need the king. This is us, right? And then he says, not only are we a royal priest, but he says we are a holy nation. We are a people group. We are not just individuals on our personal journey with Jesus, doing our personal devotions and personally sharing the gospel. We are a nation. We belong to a different way of being. We have a different culture. We have a completely different value set and a very different virtue set. We are called to be this holy nation, set apart, unique and different, but fully immersed and engaged in the places where God has put us. We don't isolate, we don't disengage, even when it's difficult.
[15:24] We continue to lean in, but we lean in with very different values, with a very different way of being. Instead of doing whatever feels good, we are a people who are committed to doing what is good, even when it's hard. Instead of simply, like, pursuing greater and greater positions so people can see how great we are, we steward the positions that God has given us so that we can radically serve others and help them see how great God is. This is what we do. Instead of getting more and more stuff and collecting more and more things, what we do is use our resources to radically sacrifice for the sake of others. This is who we are. This is a different way of being. And when we begin to understand that we are this holy nation, this different way of being, we shouldn't be so shocked when every once in a while the values of the culture, or sorry, the values of the kingdom, begin to, like, offend the cultural sensibilities that we wrestle with from the space around us.
[16:27] We shouldn't be shocked by that. We shouldn't be shocked every once in a while if, like, the way that Scripture and Jesus in Scripture calls us to live feels very much at odds with the things that the culture around us is saying, where those cultural sensibilities become offended, because God is not of this culture. This culture didn't create God. The West didn't create God. Nowhere in the world created God. God created the world and He's calling us to a different way of being in this world. We are a peculiar people, my friends. And the king has called us in to serve Him in this space where we are. You know, as funny, I was, when my wife and I first moved to Kelowna, we had friends of ours who helped support our ministry, and they asked us if we would stay in their house.
[17:17] And so we were so thrilled to be able to do that. And they had a young boy named Brad. Brad grew up with some unique challenges. He can't really speak very well. His body doesn't work as well as he'd like. He has some rods in his back and different things like that. But one of the things that Brad loves is he loves hockey. And so his dad would often take him to watch the Kelowna Rockets. And there's a lot of different NHLers that live in Kelowna. So there'd be awards banquets and things like that that happened in Kelowna. And Brad's dad would take him there. And one time at one of the awards banquets, Brad got introduced to Jarome Iginla. Now, if you're under the age of 20, you have no idea what I'm speaking about. But I gotta tell you, like, as Canadians, we love Jarome Iginla, correct? Like, we do. Dude's won us. Yeah, thank you. We should clap for that guy. I love that guy. Won us some gold medals at the Olympics. I appreciate that very much. It's a good prairie boy.
[18:03] So you can appreciate a good prairie boy. Boy, we're thankful for that. So he met Jarome Iginla and Jarome's wife at this banquet. And then about a year later, Brad's walking down the sidewalk with his dad. And as he is walking down the sidewalk, all of a sudden they hear this voice of this lady as she's running across the street going, "Hey Brad, hey Brad, hey Brad." And they turn around and this lady runs up to him and to Brad and his dad. And she goes, "Brad, do you remember me?" And Brad's kind of, and she goes, "I'm Jarome Iginla's wife. I met you at an awards banquet about a year ago." And then she turns to Brad and she says, "Hey Brad, Jarome's gonna be home later this afternoon, and he's bringing a few of his friends over. Would you like to come? We'd love to have you in our house." And I'm like, are you kidding me right now?
[18:49] You know, after I heard that story for, like, weeks, I'd walk up and down that sidewalk just waiting, you know, "Hey Jarome." You know, that afternoon Brad and his dad went to the Iginla home and they invited him in and he had a great time. It was amazing. You know, you don't get into that home unless you get invited in. Isn't that true? Hey, listen, we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood and a holy nation, but we don't become that unless the king invites us in and He's invited us in. We belong to Him. This is who we are. People, we're not victims. We are people of like dignity, because our God is a God of dignity. But we're not proud. We're not violent. We're humble and courageous because we understand that what we've been given is not because we're so great, it's because He's so great and we don't deserve it.
[19:44] And we become a group of people who are radical about reaching out to the marginalized and the people who are on the edges of society and the people who struggle because we know that apart from Jesus, we are the marginalized ones. And so we go, this is who we are. This is what we do. And we go and proclaim the excellencies of our king to the people around us. Listen to what He says here. He says, "You're a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." You know, one of the things that I think we have to wrestle with as a people of the king is that, I think so often in society, we seem to be no more known by what we are against than what we're for.
[20:33] Isn't that true? I think we ought wrestle with it. And let me be clear, there's a lot of things that we should be against. We should be against injustice. We should be against, like, you know, immorality we should be against. Like when people are treated, there's so many things that we should be against. I don't wanna minimize that. But when I'm reading Peter, what he's telling us as people who are on the margins within our culture, that while there are things we should be against, what we should be known for is actually what we are for. And we are for the beauty of Jesus, right? What we should be talking about more is how amazing Jesus is. What we should be sharing with our friends more is how incredible Jesus is, how good Jesus is. This is actually what we should be known for. And let me just say this. This is what the next generation is looking for.
[21:20] You know, like we were talking about this weekend. We live in this unique time where we have like generations that think about truth so differently. My generation and older, if someone came to us and said, "There's a God," we'd say, "Hey, prove it, man." You know, and we'd say, "Give us your logic. Give us your rationale. Like, prove it." And if you can get me, I'm in this generation. When we come to them and we say there's a God, they go, "Hey, well, what difference does He make? Like, my home's a mess. Can He fix that? Hey, I'm just like overwhelmed with anxiety. Like, can He help get that straight? Like, I don't even know how to function." Like, they're asking the question, like, how good is your God? And do you know where they're looking for the answers? They're looking at you and me. They're looking at us to see if we are proclaiming the excellencies of Jesus. And we have this incredible opportunity to proclaim His excellencies, right? Because we are in this space where, you know, maybe more than before, in some ways we have people who are asking the questions, who are pushing against us.
[22:12] Where we as a people group are seen with suspicion and like there's like the, there's this countercultural space, but it's in this space where our love can be seen as even more excellent than it could maybe in some other times. I mean, listen to what Peter goes on here and he says, "Keep your conduct in verse 12 among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evil doers," so listen to this. You're in a space, the common culture is beginning to speak against you. They're wondering about you, they're suspicious about you. They're seeing you as evildoers. So there's some attacks happening. There might even be some losses of freedom that could be happening. Those things might take place. He says that they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
[22:57] Did you hear that? That while people are attacking you, that while you're losing certain freedoms, well, while you're feeling that, they'll see your good deeds, that you will still act in goodness towards them. I mean, this is so mind blowing for our culture. In our culture, we say you should help those who help you. That's good karma. Do that. In our culture, we say, "Hey, you should help. Those are in need. Like, that's amazing, people who do that, like you're blowing my mind." But in God's culture as a holy nation, He says, "Yes, help those who help you. Yes, help those in need. But yes, even help your enemies." That's different when we enter into difficult spaces as a non-anxious presence because we are no longer insecure by what our enemies say about us because our enemies don't own us. God owns us.
[23:45] He owns us. So we serve even in unjust environments because we know we belong to the king. When we do that, people stop and they go, "Okay, I need to understand you. I don't get that the things that we think are most important, you seem to maybe be losing here, and yet still you respond with love and still you serve. That, I don't get. Help me understand that." And that's when we're proclaiming the goodness of Jesus, right? That's when what we do matters. This is who He is calling us to, my friends. Now, the question we should ask ourselves is, why is it so hard to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus if He's so excellent? Correct? Because sometimes it is. I mean, He's not just talking about actions, He is actually talking about words too, right?
[24:33] He's speaking about proclaiming, which seems to me a little bit more than just sharing too, right? Like, sharing is like, well, if you ask and demand, maybe I'll tell you. Do you know what I mean? Like, maybe I'll let you know. It seems to me He's asking us to be a little bit more intentional with what we're being called to do, a little bit more forward. Perhaps He's asking us to proclaim His excellencies. But this is hard, isn't it? It's hard. It's funny to me. One of the things that Jeremy said this Friday when he was introducing me at our conference, he said, "Hey, you know, those people who are into, like, cold therapy, cold exposure therapy, the cold plunging people, you know those people, that's a thing right now where people are jumping in cold water and morning kind of wake you up and they say it's kind of healthy for you." He said, "You always know who's a cold plunger because they're gonna tell you about it, like whether you want to hear about it or not.
[25:22] Like, they're telling you about it." And I'm like, "Yeah, jar, 'cause it's so stinking good." You know what I mean? Like, it's changing. It's, you know, and then of course we know, right? I'm going like, yeah, but like, Jesus is clearly infinitely better than cold plunging. Let's be serious. You know what I mean? Like, as whatever. That's stupid, but clearly, and yet it's hard to proclaim, and there's lots of reasons why. But here's one of the reasons why I think it is, because it's actually a fight to see His excellency. We quickly forget, at least I do. And we shouldn't be shocked because Peter says there's actually a war going on to keep us from seeing the excellencies of Jesus. Because if we don't see Him, we don't proclaim Him. I mean, listen to what he says.
[26:08] He says, "Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul." Hey, listen, if we're gonna proclaim the excellency of Jesus, we have to see the excellency of Jesus. But it is a fight to see, it is a fight to see. There is a war going on to distract us from the beauty of Jesus, to keep us from experiencing His grace, to keep us from remembering what He has done for us, how He has transformed us. I mean, Peter says here, he says, "Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy."
[26:54] We've been given grace, we've moved from darkness to light. We've been transformed. But it's so easy to forget that because it's so hard to see when we're so quickly distracted. And I think one of our great fights as people who are chosen as a royal priesthood, as a holy nation, is we have to fight to see, we have to create space to remember the beauty of Jesus. We have to share the reality of who He is and what He's done. We have to have these moments when we remember the true story of Christmas, right? Yes, we have to go and share the gospel, but maybe the first people we need to share the gospel to is actually ourselves, to remind us of how excellent He is. And when we begin to see that beauty, oh people, the proclamation, it just comes, it just comes, it comes in our words and it comes in our actions.
[27:47] And we become a people just serve so sacrificially because whatever we're like giving up in our service is nothing compared to what we have through Jesus. And we see it. So we're in, Hey my friends, this is who we are. This is who we are. So this weekend we're talking with youth workers and we're just, you know, talking about, hey, how do we really love the next generation? How do we care for them? How do we help them see the goodness of the gospel, the good news of Jesus? Do you know what I mean? And so we've been talking about identity and we're trying to do this comparison in trying to understand the difference between how culture calls us to embrace the identity and how the gospel does. You know? And in culture, we're told that we can be whoever we want to be.
[28:33] We can do whatever feels good, that whatever your truth is, you should embrace that truth. This is who you are. And essentially what culture is doing is coming to this next generation and saying, "Hey, you can be whoever you want to be. You can create your own identity." And you know, we're living in a time where I think this next generation is facing a mental health crisis like we have never seen before. And I think one of the reasons why, one, it's really complex, but one of the reasons is because culture has placed a weight on our students to create their own identity. And they were never created to bear a weight like that. And I think it's overwhelming, man. I mean, I think our students, yeah, it's overwhelming.
[29:21] It is. I mean, imagine for a minute, if you lived in a culture, which we do, that says, "Hey, you can be whatever you want to be and do whatever you want to do." But there is a narrative that you have to agree on. And if you step outside of that narrative by just a little bit, you will be canceled and you will be crushed. So be careful what you post online about what you believe and who you think you are. Be careful how you express it because if you express outside of that very narrow box, it's over. That's a weight. And then we live in a time when our next generation has this weight of like, what if I feel like I wanna be something now, but what if like two or three or five years later I don't feel that anymore? Then what happens to my identity? Who am I then, or what happens if who I feel I want to be? I actually can't be that. I can't actually achieve that, because it's true.
[30:08] There's things we can't achieve. What happens to me then? And we become fragile, easily manipulated because identity is so focused in how we feel about ourselves. And so people can manipulate our feelings so quickly. That's what happens when you live in a culture that's trying to sell you something over and over again. We just become fragile. We become so insecure because anytime someone speaks against, like, our preferred identity and who we think we are, not only are they like speaking against us, not only are they saying we're wrong, they're actually attacking us at the very core of who we are. So we have to become incredibly suspicious of the true other. But when we can help our students embrace a gospel identity, something radically different happens when we embrace a gospel identity, where we begin to understand that you have been given an identity by the One who has created you.
[31:05] That there is a God who knows you better than you know yourself. And there is a God who loves you infinitely more than you could ever dream or imagine, because He came and He died on the cross for you because He loves you so much. He gave His life for you, and He rose again. And now He is working in you and He is for you. And He is recreating you. That this is your identity. This is where it's rooted. When our students can understand and embrace that, then they become a resilient people. They become a resilient and strong people. They are stable. That their emotions are real. Our emotions are real. And they come and they go, but our emotions don't own us anymore. God owns us. God owns us, man.
[31:53] So even in the midst of the challenges and the struggles, there is a stability and a strength because we're rooted in something so secure and so beautiful, and it transforms and changes us. And not only do we become resilient, and not only we become strong, but we become radically accepting of the other. People who embrace a gospel identity are the most accepting of the other, are the most loving of the other, including the other who is our enemy. We're the most loving of them. Why? Because those voices don't own us. God's voice owns us, and He has called us to be a people who radically embrace and serve others. Oh, that's a different vision.
[32:39] That's a people who understand who they are. That's a dignified way of being. That is a people who live differently. That's who God's calling us to be. "You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." Father, may this be our reality. May this be our experienced reality. Jesus, remind us over and over again of who we are. And Father, may Your Holy Spirit enable us to embrace the identity that You have given to us. And I think of the next generation, and I pray, Spirit, that You would work through us to help the next generation see the beauty of Your Son, Jesus Christ, that we would proclaim His excellencies, yes, in our words and also in our deeds, in such a way that the next generation would say, "Tell me about this.
[33:38] Jesus, He seems so good. Tell me about this Jesus." And that, Lord, there would be a transformation that would continue to happen as we embrace the identity that You have given to us. I love You so much, Lord, and I pray this for Your glory. The people would see how incredibly good You are. I pray this for our joy. This is what we're made for, as aliens, as in strangers in this space. This is who we are. And I pray this for the good of all people that You have called us to serve. In Your name, amen.