Like it or not, we are defined by the choices we make and not by how we think about ourselves. So, how do we develop an identity like Jesus? What if we’ve already done a lot of terrible things? What does it say about us when people hurt us? Is Jesus really in our heart or does the Bible say something even better?
(Parents, this is the eighth in a series designed to help kids deal with identity and gender confusion by showing them that no matter what they like or what they look like or what they are good at, they are still boys and girls. When we try to push kids into filling stereotypical roles, we’re often the ones creating the confusion that they are forced to find a way to live with. I do this without making any mention of sexuality whatsoever.)
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Hi! I’m Miss Tyler and welcome to another episode of Context for Kids where I teach you guys stuff most adults don’t even know. If this is your first time hearing or if you have missed anything, you can find all the episodes archived at contextforkids.podbean.com, which has them downloadable, or at contextforkids.com, where I have transcripts for readers or on my Context for Kids YouTube channel.
As you grow up and read and hear your Bibles, you are going to hear a certain word a lot. That word is works. And “works” can mean a lot of different things, right? Adults might go to work or work at home or from home. Chores are a form of work. And there’s schoolwork, too. Work can also be used in different ways like, “Boy, that sure didn’t work” or “Maybe it will work if we put new batteries in it!” In fact, if I asked you what the word “work” means, you would also have to ask me to use it in a sentence because if you look in the dictionary, it can mean so many different things that it would be impossible to just give me one definition. Work can be a noun, a transitive verb, an intransitive verb, or even an adjective. In fact, I counted at least 32 definitions in the dictionary. English is just like that and that’s why it is just a really hard language to learn. So, if you know anyone who had to learn English as a foreign language, you should be super impressed. It ain’t an easy thing to do.
And in the Bible, the word “work” is also used in a lot of ways. Jesus and Moses and Elijah and Elisha worked miracles. God works signs and wonders. God completed His work and then rested on the seventh day from all His works. Cain worked the ground as a farmer. Jacob worked as a shepherd for Laban, and he was working so that he could marry Rachel. Pharaoh told the Israelite slaves to “get to work!” The craftsmen who made the Tabernacle worked the designs of cherubim into the curtains and their workmanship was good. Bosses were commanded not to oppress their workers. Jesus told His followers to do good works, and when Herod heard about the miracles of Jesus, he was scared because of the powers at work in Him. Paul talked about the work of the law, which is good, and the works of the law, which are not good. James, Jesus’s brother said that faith without works is dead. In most English Bibles, the word work shows up over six hundred times and has a lot of different meanings and you may think I told you that just to make you confused and irritated but this is just a really good example of why we have to be careful about assuming what a word means in the Bible. And the word “work” is very important to who you are and what you do and don’t believe and shows people the different between what you say and what you really believe.
When people look at you for the first time, they don’t really know much of anything about you. If they are smart, they won’t jump to conclusions based on how you dress or how much money you have or what you look like in general. Wise people wait to see what people say and then they compare it to what people actually do. And that can take a while. Oftentimes, people will be one thing while claiming to be the opposite. People who dress nicely and speak respectfully might be criminals. People who want to be able to trust you with their secrets might blab yours all over the place. You can’t tell by someone’s looks, or abilities, or even their family if they are good or bad. But Jesus said that there is a way you can tell, by the things they do—especially when they think no one is watching. Just because people are saying they are all that and a bag of chips, doesn’t mean we should believe them. In Matthew chapter 7, Jesus told a story about good and bad fruit from good and bad trees and how it is like people. Some folks, Jesus told them, come up and they’re all like, “look at what a harmless, innocent, gentle sheep I am..baaa…” but what they really want is to hurt people because they have a lot more in common with wolves! And if they came up saying, “GRRR…I am a wolf and you look tasty” then someone would probably just go get a gun, or yell and warn everyone or maybe both.
Jesus was telling them to look out for people who are religious and even say that they are speaking on behalf of God, like prophets, because there are a lot of phonies out there who just want to be famous or respected, or to trick people and get money out of them. Just because someone says they love God and says amazing things doesn’t mean that we don’t have to pay attention to what they do and how they treat people and if they are always honest. It means that it is even more important to watch and to make sure they are the real deal. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus talks about the kind of people who are the real deal—but we’ll talk about that later. Jesus said that people who are really doing what God wants are like trees that produce really great fruit but that people who aren’t doing what God wants are like bad trees whose fruit may look tasty on the outside but inside is all rotten, but sometimes the fruit even looks rotten on the outside and they aren’t even trying to hide it because they think they are allowed to do awful things. Jesus said that we would know them by paying close attention to their fruit, what they are doing, and not just by what they are saying. Anyone can talk but a real follower of Jesus is going to act in certain ways because Jesus changes the people who follow Him into the kinds of people who love others and want to do what is good. It doesn’t mean that we are perfect and never do anything bad, but it means that we are always growing and doing better and people can see the changes because His commandments aren’t just written in the Bible to look at and agree to do but on our hearts so that we want to do them.
Anyone can follow rules if they want to, but fruit and good works are about loving our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus is always our example of what that looks like. No one can fake it forever or in all situations. And even if we don’t see it, Jesus warns us that God sees it and those trees will be cut down so that people won’t make the mistake of eating their stinky, grody, moldy, wormy fruit anymore. And I have seen that happen a lot—sometimes after they die and people find out the truth about them because the people they hurt aren’t scared anymore but also when they are still alive and they lose their control over the people who have been hiding the truth about them. What I wish God would do is put a big red X on their forehead so it would be easier to know. It isn’t always easy to know when someone we enjoy listening to or hanging around with isn’t actually a good person. Sometimes we don’t know until they do something to hurt us or someone we love. And then, we know their identity, who they really are.
About two months ago, someone on social media began a countdown and they said that God told him that a terrible war was going to start like two weeks ago. And every day he was talking about the dreams he had of nuclear bombs and he would tell everyone how many days they had left to get things taken care of. And some people were listening to his warnings but what I did was listen to what he was saying to the people who were asking him questions and challenging what he was saying (which the Bible tells us we need to do when someone says that they are speaking for God). He was really mean to them. He was insulting them and telling them that they were in big trouble with God because God wasn’t going to allow anyone to question him. They just had to listen to him and obey him as though he was God. Which was weird because someone with good fruit would answer questions and would be gentle, loving, kind, peaceful, and would definitely not blow a gasket and call down hellfire and brimstone on people who were just doing what they were supposed to do. And on the Friday before all these nuclear weapons and disasters were going to strike, he said that God told him to go to the Appalachian trail and that he would be safe and that everyone obedient would be coming along too as part of the Greater Exodus.
Well, we all know that nothing happened and so people started asking him more questions and trying to hold him responsible for what he was saying. But he made a lot of excuses and said it really has happened and they were too disobedient to realize it and that God would punish them all for what they were doing. He talked about how his bloodline goes all the way back to Biblical times—but that is true about every human being. It isn’t like we sprouted up out of the ground. And he was bragging and a lot of people were shocked but not the people who had been paying attention to how he had been already been treating people for months. He showed everyone that his tree is rotten because all he was giving out was rotten fruit that would make people sick if they ate it. And the people who do eat it and believe him, it does hurt them. That’s why it is so important to listen to Jesus and Paul and Peter and James because they spend a lot of time telling us what good and bad fruit looks like, the kind of behavior that is loving or hateful, and helps or hurts. In fact, there are whole lists of things that we are supposed to be and lists of things we are not supposed to be. Because our deeds, our works, our actions show who we really are on the inside and sometimes we aren’t as good on the inside as we like to tell ourselves we are.
Now, how does the way you act line up with the things you think about yourself? Are you always right in the way you treat people? Are you always kind and patient and gentle? When someone smacks you do you smack back twice as hard? When someone says something mean to you, do you say something even worse? Do you take things that belong to other people and make up reasons why it is okay when you do it but not okay when someone does it to you? Do you stand around and do nothing when someone else is doing something to hurt someone else? Are you a bully or a protector? Do you brag and boast and tell everyone about how awesome you think you are or do you just do what is good even when no one is looking? Do you tell the truth when it will get you into trouble or do you lie instead? Will you lie even if someone else gets into trouble because of it? And if you do, how will you live with yourself without coming up with lies to convince yourself that it’s actually okay? Let’s talk about what good works look like, because if you want to have a real identity as a person who follows Jesus and does what is right, then the best start is to find out what He says about good trees and their yummy, nutritious fruit.
But before we do that, I want to talk about something that is very important for you to understand. Sometimes, people will tell us that when we know Jesus, He lives in our hearts but the Bible tells us that it is a lot better than that. A Jesus that fits in our hearts is pretty small, right? And we would want Him everywhere and not just there. The Bible says that when we believe Jesus and follow Him, that we are actually in Him. Isn’t that awesome? Instead of us surrounding Jesus, we are surrounded by Jesus. And there is no better place to be in this world than surrounded by Jesus. I am surrounded by Jesus and so is everyone else who knows that He is the boss of us, our Master, King, and Lord whom God put over all of us. When we are doing good and cooperating with Him, it’s like we are completely snuggled up inside Him. When we want to go our own way, it’s like we want to be halfway in and halfway out. And so whatever part is sticking out can get into some big trouble, right? We can be completely in Jesus and make mistakes, but we can’t be completely in Jesus and doing things that are evil. So, how to we stay in Jesus? By following His example and taking everything He says seriously enough to learn to do it.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says that the people who are honorable in the Kingdom are not the people that the world sees as being big shots or clever or sneaky or rich. In the Kingdom of God, the people who are the best of all are the people who do what is good even when it isn’t very pleasant. And you know what? Even though it is hard to live as people who do good, people appreciate having others in their life who can be trusted. Above all, a follower of Jesus is someone who can be trusted and who people recognize as having an identity of loving what is true and hating lies and doing the right thing no matter what.
Jesus says that His followers are meek when they are following Him correctly, which means they aren’t bullies. They are also merciful, which means that just because they can hurt someone or get revenge, they don’t, and that they help people who need it. People who are in Jesus are also supposed to not be hard to get angry and riled up, they won’t just fight with everyone who wants to argue, but they will be polite and try to be loving. Jesus also says that if we love Him we will become very different from other people and you have to admit that even the stuff I have already mentioned would make you very different from a whole lot of people because He says that we were created to do good things so that people would want to love God too. When we teach people to keep the commandments and keep them ourselves, Jesus says that makes us great. When we break the commandments and teach other people to break them too, that puts us at the bottom of the pile. Yikes! He is really serious about us following Him in a way that makes the world a better place to live in.
And now we’re coming to the commandments that all us adults want to ignore and say are too hard to do. Jesus said that if we get angry and call someone names, it’s really bad. And if we think God is okay with us when we have hurt someone else and haven’t done anything to make it up to them, we’re wrong. When Jesus people do something wrong to someone else, we need to fix it if we can. And we also need to be careful about how we think about other people because some thoughts are so bad that it’s like we’re actually doing what we are thinking about. When we get the really bad thoughts about hurting other people or making them suffer, we really need to stop as soon as we realize we are doing it. That took me a long time to learn how to do because I had a lot of practice thinking about doing bad things before I met Jesus, lemme tell you.
We need to be honest and trustworthy when we tell someone that we will do something, or that we will be there for them, or when we get married or get a job. And when we make a promise, we need to mean it and keep it and no saying, “Oh just kidding!” When we represent Jesus, who never lied and who always keeps His promises, we need to make sure we are doing that too. If people can’t trust us, when they can see us, how will they trust Jesus when they can’t even see Him? And we need to be generous and kind, and we are even supposed to be loving to the people who hate us. Now that one is hard, and Jesus has to change us a lot before we can do that but when we stay in Him He will change us and it is such a miracle. He can even help us to forgive people—even people who we have to stay away from because they are so evil and dangerous. Forgiving people isn’t the same thing as forgetting—we can remember but when we forgive someone, it means that we aren’t going to try to get revenge. It doesn’t mean that we don’t call the police and tell them what happened, but it does mean that we allow other people to punish that person if what they did was bad enough. We can forgive and still make sure that people can’t hurt anyone else in the future like they hurt us. That’s being a good citizen by protecting others and has nothing to do with forgiveness.
It comes down to the two greatest commandments—loving God by representing Him in a way that doesn’t make Him look bad, and loving people too, and giving them the mercy and grace we would want to receive when we make a mistake. Let’s face it, most of the things that people do to make us angry or upset aren’t even that bad and when we learn to forgive the small stuff and be kind about it, we are stopping small things from becoming big things. When we refuse to hit back or tease back or call names or get even, we are called peacemakers and Jesus says that is when we are called the actual sons of God. Because it is then that we are really acting like His children. That doesn’t mean that when there are things wrong in the world that we don’t help to make things right and fair and good, but it does mean that we learn to have the wisdom to understand the difference between God’s way of dealing with enemies and how Satan has gotten the rest of the world to do it. It does require a lot of trust, and wisdom, and maturity and we don’t start out like that. God changes us and we cooperate and live differently and then He changes us some more and we cooperate with the new changes and on and on until the end of our lives. I was scared to let him change me, let me tell you. I am a tiny little person and I was bullied for my entire childhood and until the day I left high school. But I am much happier learning to be a peacemaker and having an identity that I can be honest about—one where I am truthful about what I have done and what I am doing, and why I do it and what my real intentions and motives and reasons are. I don’t have to lie to myself that I am doing right when I decided to act like a jerk. When I am honest and aware, I feel very close to God and it’s easier for Him to make the big changes so that I can be called one of the sons of God. It’s nice not having to feel ashamed all the time like I did when I was lying to myself about what I was doing, and trying to hide who I really was from myself. I am what I do, and not what I like to think about myself.
If I sit around watching TV or playing video games all day, then that’s who I am, a person who would rather sit and play and watch TV all day than get something done. If I hit someone who has hit me then I am a person who wants the person who hurt me to hurt worse than I do, instead of following Jesus and standing my ground and refusing to be violent—showing them that I am loving them no matter what they do to me. And maybe hoping that someone else who has a good identity will stop them. If we watch someone our size hurting someone smaller and we don’t do anything to stop them, then we are the kinds of people who can’t be trusted to do the right thing. If we steal, then it is because we made the choice to be thieves. If we lie to get out of trouble or to get someone else into trouble then we are liars who can’t be trusted. Because we are the choices that we make. We are not the choices that are made for us by others—like if we get beat up by a bully that doesn’t make us people who deserve to get beat up. It means that someone else has the hateful identity of a bully because of the choices they made. If you grow up poor or in a dangerous place or if you don’t think you are beautiful or whatever, that isn’t your identity either because it isn’t anything you have done. When people call you ugly or make fun of where you live or what you can afford, that’s not your bad identity choice, it’s their bad identity choice. Your identity is everything you choose to do and especially when you know it is wrong, and that’s how people should be judged and not for anything they have no control over. People want you to have an identity based on what you can’t control because if who we are is about our choices then they generally don’t look so good.
But I want to tell you something wonderful, your identity, the things you do right now—they aren’t your future. Anyone can decide to have an identity that makes Jesus look good. Anyone can. It’s about choices. It isn’t about waking up tomorrow and doing everything right because that just never happens. Making good identity choices is something that we learn and grow into and a lot of learning comes from doing the wrong thing and realizing it and feeling bad about it and making changes. It’s the same for everyone and life is much more wonderful when we aren’t having to make excuses for how awful we are acting. When we love other people the way Jesus loves us, we have a lot fewer regrets and we don’t have to apologize nearly as much. Come to think of it, the first way God decided to make big changes for me was to push me to apologize when I knew I was wrong. It was hard and embarrassing but it made me think twice before doing something that I knew God would push me to apologize for later.
I love you. I am praying for you. And I want you to talk to God this week about the things you can do to be more honest with Him, yourself and others about who you really are. And they will help you to do better and develop a beautiful identity.