Week 3: Identity in Everyday Life

Today’s application: Knowing I am made in the image of God changes my attitude toward others.

No matter your race, ethnicity, or culture, conversations about racial tension can make us defensive, defeated, or hurt. Yet, this conversation is radically altered when we know our identity in Christ! So let’s talk about it! Pastor Josh Howerton and Jeremiah Wright from The Bridge Church in Spring Hill, TN join us to share their different perspectives – one black man, one white man, but ultimately, two men who belong to Christ!

Jeremiah: “If I’m making any identity the core of who I am, once it gets attacked, I’m going to fall. But if my identity is in Christ, you can talk about my color, what kind of music I like, the things I affiliate with – and it won’t affect me because that’s not my rock, my foundation. If you talk about Christ, it still doesn’t impact me because he’s the only one of those thing that won’t fail.”

Josh: “White fragility is a concept that people are talking about more than they have. Whenever there’s a racial identity conversation that comes up, it can be the tendency of people in my ethnic group to automatically feel like “I’m being attacked…” Well, again, if the most true thing about me is not that I’m white, the most true thing about me is that I am in Christ, I don’t have to be as defensive in that conversation. It sets me at ease to be able to listen. That person, no matter what comes up, they are not attacking what is central to my identity.”

In the final and 3rd week of the World’s Biggest Small Group: Identity, we’re taking the truths we’ve learned and start applying them to everyday situations we face in life and culture. Here’s where you’ll see – our identity truly changes everything. The verse we’re thinking on this week is:

¹⁰For 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.

(Ephesians 2:10 New Living Translation)

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