Who Am I? Pt 1 - A Theology of the Body
A sermon on Psalm 139 and discovering your identity in God's design
This sermon was preached at Immanuel Fellowship Church as part of a series on Biblical Identity. For more resources on faith, identity, and Christian living, visit our website or connect with our community. email us at hello@ifcstl.com or call/text us at 636-431-4708
Good morning, church. What a joy to be together today. We're doing a little tradition we have here—every year after Easter, we take a break from whatever series we're doing and launch into something short coming out of the Easter season. I'm excited for this one. We're calling it Who Am I? and over the next three weeks, we'll be exploring the biblical teaching on identity—how you can know yourself and know your place in this world.
Before we dive into today's text in Psalm 139, I want to give you some context for why we're doing this series. I believe this whole question of identity is of outsized importance in our world right now.
The Crisis of Our Cultural Moment
We live in a time when people have unparalleled access to information and to other people. And yet, even in this instant age of digital connection, it doesn't seem like that has led to increased human flourishing.
Don't get me wrong—things like computer science, the Internet, and increased access to information have done wonders for medical science, human lifespans, cross-cultural education, and so many beautiful things. But if you look at the sociological research, you'll find that this digital information age has also had devastating effects on Western society. The mental health of young people is in absolute crisis. Anxiety, depression, isolation, loneliness—all at record levels in the last 20 years.
Here's a sobering reality: suicide rates in the United States over the last 10 years are functionally identical to suicide rates during the Great Depression, which was the highest recorded rate in our nation's entire history. But here's the difference—during the Great Depression, those suicide rates were over 90% among people over the age of 25. Now that has completely flipped. The leading cause of death for 10-to-24-year-olds in our country right now is suicide.
We're living in a cultural moment where people are desperate to figure out who they are and where they fit in this world.
There's growing consensus in the research—including accessible books like The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt—that this can be directly connected to the rise of smartphones and social media for young people. Again, I'm not saying we should all throw away our smartphones and become Amish. These technologies bring many beautiful and important things to our society. But the reality is that people today are continually, digitally connected, and they carry the weight of comparison, the expectation of constant availability, and the crushing necessity of figuring out how to stand out in a crowd of everyone on the entire planet—all the time.
Children and adolescents are completely unable to engage this, and their collective mental health shows it. But here's the thing: adults are unable to engage this either, and our relationship with social media, our coping mechanisms, and our vices show it.
You Don't Have to Define Yourself
I believe in my heart of hearts that every human being wants to have a life that is significant and fulfilling. I think it's part of how God designed us—it's hardwired into our DNA. But that is increasingly difficult to do in the world we live in.
How do you figure out who you are and where you fit when just 30 or 40 years ago you had access to a small percentage of your zip code, and now you have access to pretty much everyone, everywhere, all the time? How do you find where you fit in all of this?
It's too much to bear—the weight of defining yourself in a unique and fulfilling way in a world as open and high-pressure as ours. It doesn't work.
But here's the beautiful thing: it's also completely unnecessary.
You don't have to carry that weight. You don't have to figure out who you are. You don't have to stand up to all the pressures and narratives of this world on your own.
Because, beloved, hear this: You have already been defined by Christ.
It is one of the most beautiful and culturally appropriate facets of the gospel—that Christ has already defined you, and His design for your life is fulfilling, life-giving, and significant. You are already, in this very moment, precious. You are already set apart. You are already unique. You are already valuable. You are already important.
And you don't have to explore and define that for yourself. You simply need to come to Christ and see who He has already said you are and what He has already made you to be. You need to see how you can actually live into His wonderful design for you.
God's Design Isn't Restrictive—It's Life-Giving
Now, I know that as soon as I say phrases like "God's design for you," that can be triggering for some of us. It feels restricting to have God seemingly box you in. We live in a culture that celebrates individuality, defining our own purpose and direction, complete freedom. To have God come in and remove some of that freedom feels restricting—maybe even oppressive. What if God's design for you requires you to live in a way you don't necessarily want to?
But what we'll find as we dig into Scripture is that as much as that may be a cultural narrative, it doesn't actually work out in reality. I think what we'll discover is that God's design for you actually is your real best. It's actually the best and most fulfilling life you can possibly live.
The Structure of This Series
For the next three weeks, we're going to talk about God's design for you in three distinct areas of your person, and how these different areas can tell you about your identity in the world:
Today: A theology of the body—how God designed your physical self
Next week: Your mind
Week three: Your spirit
Now, I'll be honest—there's a little theological debate here. In Christian anthropology (the study of the theology of humanity), there's been a discussion for a couple thousand years about whether humans are made up of three parts or two parts. Are you body, soul, and spirit (trichotomous view), or simply body and soul (dichotomous view)?
I'm mentioning this because we're doing this series in three parts, but not because I'm taking a side in that debate. I actually think the simpler biblical reading is a dichotomous view—that you are a body and a soul, and those two things together make you who you are. The reason we're doing it in three parts is because I think the idea of your mind is incredibly appropriate to our cultural moment and important for our discussion.
But here's the really important piece that's consistent across all Christian anthropology: God designed you as a unity. God made you as a unity. Even though you might have these pieces, even though we can talk about body, mind, and spirit separately, you are one person. You are a unity of body and spirit. And there's something uniquely beautiful and important about that.
Today's Focus: Your Body Bears God's Image
Today we're talking about your body. God made you with a physical self. It is a significant and important part of who you are. It is part of your identity.
And hear this: You can safely learn about yourself from the body that God gave you.
That's a really important truth. The body that God gave you—with all its strengths and weaknesses, with all its beauty and flaws—you can learn about yourself through it safely, because it is a gift that God gave you.
So here's my main point today, and it's about as simple as it can be:
Your body bears God's image.
I think this truth is beautiful. I think it's important. I think it's obvious. And yet somehow, right now, this is a controversial truth. Some of you might already be thinking I'm making a political statement by talking about your body and how God made it. While that may be unavoidable to some extent, I can assure you that's not my intention.
The most important part of talking about our pieces is not how we separate them out, but the fact that you are one person. You're one person. You are a unity. Your body and your spirit—they are one. You are one person made in God's image, and every part of you can help you understand that identity.
You Don't Have a Body—You ARE a Body
Our cultural moment abstracts us away from physicality. You've probably seen the meme: "You are a mind piloting a bone mech covered in meat armor."
That kind of meme can be funny, but it misses a key part of how God made you.
Hear this: You don't have a body. You ARE a body. God made that for you. God embodied you.
You don't have a soul. You ARE a soul. God made that. God embodied that spirit. That is you.
You have a mind—a mind is a tool you have to engage your person, your body and your soul.
Our culture flips that. It reverses it. But when we look at Scripture, we see it putting the cultural discussion on its head. Your body is important. Even withall its failures, even with all its struggles, even with all the ways the curse has broken it—your body is important. God made it, and it is sacred, and it points to God's good design for you.
So if you're already trying really hard not to check out of this sermon because it either sounds boring or way too triggering, please stick with me today. I believe in my heart of hearts that God has refreshment for us in this message.
Psalm 139: Fully Known and Fully Loved
Psalm 139 is one of the most famous texts in Scripture, one of the most famous psalms. To be totally honest, it's most often quoted in pro-life discussions. And that's fine—there are reasons for that. But today I want us to engage this text for what it really says about our identity as God's creatures, as God's creations.
This text grabs hold of some of the deepest parts of what it means to be human. It speaks to this truth: To be human is to be known and beloved by our Creator.
Can we just stop there for a second? Beloved, in Christ you are fully known and fully loved. Fully known and fully loved. That is an intense statement, and that's really what this psalm is getting at—just how intense that is if you actually begin to think about it.
A few things to know before we step into it:
This is a longer psalm, but it has a really structured flow that makes it easy to follow
It's directly attributed to David (we don't know when or why he wrote it)
Structurally, it's one of the most uniform Psalms—four movements made of six verses each
It has a progressive element as David moves from his opening statement, building stanza upon stanza
There's also a comparative and contrasting element as the first two movements line up with the second two movements
The larger theme is that David is reflecting on the vastness and greatness of God compared to human limitations. The text gives David's various reactions to this idea of how grand God is, and then wraps up by going back to how our physical selves speak accurately to our identity.
Instead of reading the whole text at once, let's go through this chunk by chunk so we can better wrap our heads around it.
First Movement: God Knows Everything (Verses 1-6)
Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I stand up; you understand my thoughts from far away. You observe my travels and my rest; you are aware of all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you know all about it, Lord. You have encircled me; you have placed your hand on me. This wondrous knowledge is beyond me. It is lofty; I am unable to reach it.
David opens by telling us one of the fundamental theological truths of Scripture about God: God knows everything.
This is what theologians call the omniscience of God. He knows everything about everything, which means He knows everything about you and about me.
In our text, David is laid bare before God—what he does, when he rests, where he goes, what he thinks, what he says. And it's so absolute, so complete, this knowledge, that David says God encircles him and has His hand upon him. This is a poetic way of saying all of David—every facet, every ounce of David—exists within the scope of God's knowledge and will.
That's intense. Can we sit in that for a moment? That's a huge thing to say. All of you, every ounce of you, exists within the scope of God's knowledge and God's truth. You cannot escape this because He's simply bigger than you.
This is the sort of truth that can easily fit into our theological box—"Oh yeah, God knows everything. That makes sense." But when you consider it in real life, when that theology enters into your world, it's suddenly astounding. And if we're honest, disconcerting.
There is nothing about you—nothing about you—that is mysterious to God. Your entire person is laid out before Him.
I get this weird thing in life where when I meet new people, they eventually figure out I'm a pastor. When I'm at a coffee shop or the game store, and people find out I'm a pastor, 95 out of 100 times, the first thing they do is apologize for their language. I watch them mentally rewind the last ten minutes: Did I say any blasphemies? Did I utter any curses? And almost every time: "Wow, yeah, hey, I'm sorry for a minute ago."
You know me—I don't really care that much. The number of people who get embarrassed because they just cussed in front of a pastor is, in my opinion, actually funny.
But consider this: The holy God of the universe knows every word that passes your tongue before you even say it. From the moment you were born until the moment you die, every thought that transitions to words coming out of your mouth is known and understood and seen and heard by God.
That's a different level, right? I'm doing it right now—going back through my week like, "Okay, yep, God heard that. Yep, God heard that too."
If we actually thought about that every day, I'm going to go out on a limb and guess it might change the way we speak.
It's no wonder David's response is what it is: You are lofty. You are above me. This is too much for me.
Who here has not been scared of real intimacy before? It's scary to think of people actually knowing you, letting your guard down and letting people see the real you. And that's when we're talking about people who can only know us so much.
David's response is really relatable when you consider he's contemplating the mind of God who knows everything.
Second Movement: God Is Everywhere (Verses 7-12)
Where can I go to escape your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I live at the eastern horizon or settle at the western limits, even there your hand will lead me; your right hand will hold on to me. If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me, and the light around me will be night"—even the darkness is not dark to you. The night shines like day; darkness and light are alike to you.
David now reflects on what theologians call the omnipresence of God. He doesn't just know everything—He is everywhere and everywhen.
But notice that David's reflection doesn't seem so terribly positive anymore. As he's contemplating God's grandness, he goes from "Wow, God is huge, God is grand" to "Oh wow, I can't get away from you. I want to get away from you, and I can't."
David can't escape God. And he realizes that is genuinely disconcerting. No matter where he goes, God is there. God is everywhere, and everywhen David could possibly try to escape Him, God is already there. He's in the places David wouldn't go or couldn't go. He is everywhere.
For some of us, the constant presence of God is a comfort—"He's always with me. His hand is always guiding me." But when you start to think about how intimately God knows you, when you marry those truths together—that He knows every facet of you, the good parts and the bad parts, the parts you hate, the parts you hide, the parts you cover up—all of a sudden that same truth can switch from comfort to, if we're honest, something dreadful.
God really knows you, and He's with you all the time.
He knows what you do in darkness. He knows the thoughts, the hurts, the struggles, the sins, the parts of you that you fight so desperately to keep hidden from the world, hidden from yourself. God knows them just as well as He knows you.
And beyond that, hear this: He is with you while you actively participate in the deeds of darkness and destruction.
That's intense.
The darkness cannot hide your sin, beloved. The dark is as day to God. He knows the sins you run to in secret—and He's there while you run to them.
Beyond this, He knows the dark times when you buy into the lies about yourself and your identity. He's there while you contemplate those things. When you struggle with hating yourself, when you believe the lies of this world about yourself, when you are at your absolute lowest in darkness—whatever that means for your particular story—beloved, God sees it.
And beloved, God is present.
I've got to be honest: I get David's response here. I don't like that there are places I go in my heart, in my head, in my sin that I hate, that I wish weren't there, that I wish God didn't know about me, much less anyone else. It's painful to think of Him knowing this, much less being with me in the midst of that darknessin my life. Oh my gosh, that's awful.
I think some of us need to sit in that truth today. That's you. The thought of God being with you in darkness gets your shame on overdrive.
I would encourage you: Your God does not meet you with shame. That's not how God works. He doesn't meet you with condemnation. The Lord meets you with grace, beloved.
God fully knows you and fully sees you, but He fully loves you. He fully loves you, deeply and powerfully.
The reaction is perfectly normal—"I don't want anyone to know that about me, much less God." But you need not worry. God knows you and He is with you. And that knowledge and that intimacy doesn't lead Him to judgment. It leads Him to sympathy, to compassion, to love, and to self-sacrifice on the cross—for you and for me.
That is how God responds in His love to our sin.
Third Movement: God Made You (Verses 13-18)
For it was you who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I will praise you because I have been remarkably and wondrously made. Your works are wondrous, and I know this very well. My bones were not hidden from you when I was made in secret, when I was formed in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw me when I was formless; all my days were written in your book and planned before a single one of them began. God, how precious your thoughts are to me, how vast their sum is! If I counted them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I wake up, I am still with you.
As you consider God's knowledge and God's presence, the truth of the matter is that all of that makes sense. It makes sense that God would know you so well, that God would be with you even in your failures, in your darkness.
It makes sense because He made you.
Of course He knows you. Of course He's with you. Of course He cares for you. He knows you like a master builder knows a project that he poured his heart and soul into.
If you've ever been to my house, I've got this terrible old coffee table in the middle of my living room. My kids have broken it. It's got holes in it. It's got chunks missing. But I love that coffee table because I made it when Kim and I were first married. We didn't have kids yet, but we did have a garage, and I got really into woodworking for a short time. I wanted to learn how to build stuff.
I tried building lots of things, and none of them survived because I didn't know what I was doing. Most of them had to be burned immediately upon completion. But the only thing I ever really built that actually came together well is this coffee table. I made it out of a friend's old cedar deck that I had helped him tear down.
At this point, that table in its current form is about 15 years old. I love it. I love my coffee table. I made it. I think it's cool.
But I can also tell you every single little thing wrong with it. I can tell you the part where I messed up a measurement. I can tell you the part where I had to add extra screws. I can tell you the section that is glued together because it broke after I built it. I can tell you all the weak parts, all the parts I messed up, because I was intimately involved with making this thing. And now I've lived with it in my house for almost 15 years.
Praise be to God that He is a better builder than I am.
I made this table out of scraps on a whim, and I messed up a whole lot. But God is the perfect master Creator who designed every detail of you, beloved.
And notice—this text is referring specifically to your body. That's the thing David chooses to zone in on here.
Beloved, God put specific attention and effort into making you and making your body.
He thought of you. He designed you. The parts of you that you love about yourself—God designed them. The parts of you that you hate about yourself—God designed them. God delights in them.
The text uses this image of a weaver making a garment, talking about God forming you together in your mother's womb. Have any of you sat and watched someone knit? It's amazing. They create all these wonderful things just while sitting, talking, or watching TV. It's so cool to see.
But the text goes beyond this and states that God had you in mind and designed you down to your very bones before you were even in the womb. Before that part even happened, He'd already thought through the different facets of you.
But that's not even enough. Our God goes beyond this and says before you ever existed, He saw you and had designed your life, beginning to end. He considered every moment you would live. He considered every day you would wake, every fear you would have, every accomplishment you would come to, every strength where you would have victory, every weakness where you would fail. He considered every moment, beginning to end.
This is how intimately and how intentionally God was involved in bringing about your specific life.
That's intense.
The Image of God in Your Body
In Genesis 1 and 2, we read about God's original design for creation. And there's this beautiful bit of poetry right when God makes humanity. Genesis 1:27 says:
So God created man in his own image; he created them in the image of God; he created them male and female.
You have to remember this in the midst of all the physicality of creation—stars and planets, oceans and islands, birds and reptiles. When it talks about the creation of man, it's incredibly physical. God scoops up clay and dirt and forms it and breathes into our lungs to set us apart from the rest of creation.
Everything else in that narrative comes into being through the word of God—straight from God's mind into reality. But people come into being in that story through God's hands, through His mind, through His breath, through His action.
It's a reminder that your body is a part of God's good design. It's a part of how He thought of you. It's a part of God's image stamped in you.
Your physicality is a part of God's good and original design. It's beloved. It's beautiful. It's precious. It is good. It's good that God made you embodied.
Beloved, your body speaks to your identity.
When We Struggle with Our Bodies
Many of us struggle with that truth. We struggle with it. We think, "Surely the good things God put in us, the image God put in us—that's in our soul, our spirit. Surely that's what it is." Because we don't like things about our bodies.
We don't like the way the genetic lottery worked out for us—the shape of certain things, our predisposition to metabolism, how easily our body holds weight, what illnesses we're more prone to, how we look compared to other people. We have all these things about our bodies that we don't like.
Whether that looks like self-hatred, whether that looks like negative self-talk, whether that looks like body shame—fill in the blank. That includes mental illnesses that drag people down, things as intense as body and gender dysmorphia. Those are real, painful experiences.
Hear this: I'm not ignoring or downplaying any of this, because I know those are real experiences.
But I want you to hear this today: Regardless of your experiences of your body, positive and negative, you live, you breathe, because the God of the universe delighted to make you as you are.
Don't mishear me. Yes, the curse is real, and it affects all of us. There are disabilities of all sorts that are real, that mess us up, that affect our bodies, that make living in this embodied physical universe difficult. Aging and illness are real, and they affect our bodies and make living in this physical universe difficult.
But beloved, in spite of all of that, the deep core, bedrock, abiding truth of your physicality is not the ways the curse has harmed it. Not the ways our culture has formed the way you think of it.
The bedrock reality of your physicality is that you are fearfully and wonderfully made.
God did not use leftovers or scraps when He designed you. He didn't. He lovingly designed you and sustains you—you as you are right now, with all the things about your body that will be repaired and different in heaven. There are a whole bunch of things in your body right now that won't be there in eternity, where God will restore and redeem what the curse has broken.
Yes, of course, the curse has affected us all. But that is not the core truth of your physicality.
None of that takes away from what a precious treasure you—physical, embodied you—actually are, beloved. That's the truth of the creation: that you# Continuing the Sermon Manuscript...
are precious, that you are valuable, that you are a treasure to God.
You Can Trust What Your Body Tells You About Yourself
And here's where I'm going to say something that is biblically simple but culturally difficult:
You can look to your body as it is right now, and you can accurately learn about who you are.
Not completely and totally, because you're not just a body. But that is part of you. It's part of your identity. And you can look to your body as a trustworthy source to learn about who you are and where you exist in this world.
This piece of bone and meat is God's custom design for you, and it bears His image. And even though the curse distorts that message, you can learn about God's good design for you in your physical self.
You have the body, you have the sex, you have the physical ability, you have the hand-eye coordination, you have—we could go down the list. Not to say that the reality of the curse can't distort this, but generally speaking, you can trust what you learn about yourself from your body.
You were made to engage this world physically. You can move. You can affect the world around you. You can explore. You can use your strength to protect. You can build a family. You can work and make the world a better place. All of these things come from your wonderful body that God made for you.
All that is a gift. All that's worth engaging. And hear this: All of it is worth taking care of.
That's a conviction on my own part as well. Your body is a gift from the Lord. It's precious. It's worth engaging. It's worth learning about. It's worth trusting. It's worth taking care of.
David's Response Shifts from Fear to Worship
God is so beyond our understanding. He truly is awesome. He truly is vast.
In the beginning of our text, David responded to God's knowledge with this sort of mixture of reverence and discomfort. He seems like he wants to get away from God, but he figures out he can't.
And now, however, as David considers the intimacy with which his God knows him—His knowledge and His presence—as this third movement comes together, all of a sudden his response is joy. It's worship.
God knows me. The thoughts of God are precious. The presence of God when I wake is a comfort.
God is so good to us like this, guys. This is what is so engaging about accepting the truth of God's design for your physical self. When we understand and accept God's design of our physical selves, and we see the limitations we have next to His grandness, and we understand the relationship of the passionate, loving, self-sacrificial, all-powerful Creator next to us broken and flawed embodied creatures—it takes that truth from a shame-hiding, scary, disconcerting truth to a powerful, worshipful comfort.
Which, by the way, makes our transition to the last chunk of the text all the stranger.
Fourth Movement: Nothing Between Us and God (Verses 19-24)
God, if only you would kill the wicked—you bloodthirsty men, stay away from me—who invoke you deceitfully. Your enemies swear by you falsely. Lord, don't I hate those who hate you, and detest those who rebel against you? I hate them with extreme hatred; I consider them my enemies. Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my concerns. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the everlasting way.
That took a turn. "Extreme hatred." That took an intense turn.
Even though the fourth movement is probably the weirdest one for us as modern Western readers, I don't want you to miss what God has for you here. So let me put this section in a little bit of context and then jump through it pretty quickly.
You have to remember: David is not a modern Western person. He's an ancient Near Eastern warlord. That's who he is. He ran a mercenary company for most of his adult life. This is a pretty intense dude.
And this is David's impassioned way of expressing that he wants to be fully aligned with God and separated from the enemies of God. He wants there to be nothing in between himself and God.
The language here is super intense, but this is an ancient warrior king's way of crying out for deep intimacy.
Rather than dismiss this part because of its violent imagery, take a moment with me and let it be what it is. David is trying to separate himself from God's enemies so that he can be deeply connected to God.
When we do that, we see that something has shifted for David. No longer does the knowledge and presence of God push him away. Now he longs to embrace this God and have relationship with Him. He wants to draw as near as possible.
There's something about accepting his embodiment and his relationship to God that is so immense that it has changed the equation for David.
What he's basically saying here is that David's desire is to have nothing in between them. Anything that might draw him away, anything that might separate him from God—get rid of it.
Before, he was going, "How can I get away?" Now he's going, "Anything that might come in between us, get rid of it."
I think a better way to see this section is not necessarily as David standing in judgment against sinners—remember, David is a sinner—but rather David being against the kind of rebelliousness that draws sinners to stand against God. David wants no part of this and invites God to check his heart because he really does want intimacy with God.
And so ultimately, the text lands with David asking God to do again what He has already done: "Search me and know me."
I think that's really beautiful. We see this progression of David considering who God is and what He does, and he moves from fear and shame to worship and intimacy.
It's beautiful.
So What Do We Do with This?
What does that mean for us? What do we do with this text besides simply read it and go, "Amen"?
We Long to Be Known and Loved
I think first we have to see in this text the inherent human desire to be connected and loved. That is part of our identity. It's part of what we see in this text.
We as humans long for deep connection on a bone level.
And there's a reason for this. You are made in the image of God. That means we're made for community. God is triune—He's three in one. To be made like Him is to be made as a communal creature.
The irony here is that while our souls long to be known and loved, while we live in this sort of exchange of love and relationship, we can't fully get there. We can't fully experience that in this world, because sin separates us. We long for it, but we can't fully get there.
At the end of the day, God is so beyond us. He knows you in ways you literally don't understand. And you can't know Him the same way. He's too grand for you. Scripture calls Him "the invisible God." This is a creative way of reminding us that God is so beyond human comprehension, so complex, you can't fully grasp Him.
And this isn't just an intellectual problem. God is too holy for your sin. You can't fully be in the presence of God because you would straight up be destroyed. Sin can't be in the presence of God's holiness.
Jesus Makes a Way
So bring that back to Psalm 139. The text opens and closes with this invitation for the speaker to be searched and known by God. And the strange thing about this request is—because of God's nature, He's already done this. God has already searched you. God already knows you. This is simply a fact of who He is.
But you have to remember: the nature of community is reciprocal. If God is to know us so intimately, we want to know Him intimately as well. If there is love and relationship and community, it must go both ways.
But as we just talked about, because of your sin, you can't.
And this is why the gospel is so important, because Jesus makes a way for God to be known.
John 1:18 says:
No one has ever seen God. The one and only Son, who is himself God and is at the Father's side—he has revealed him.
Beloved, Jesus reveals the Father. Jesus gives us access to truly know, in our limited ability, the holy and righteous God.
And this means the gospel opens the door to do what you were built for.
Coming back to your identity, who you are: You are a creature who's meant to be known and loved by God. And Jesus opens a way for you to actually do that.
You Are Made for More
Many of us live under the mistaken assumption that this world and our present circumstances, our current dreams—that those define meaning and purpose for our lives. But the reality is, beloved, that simply isn't true.
The dreams you have—they're awesome. I'm glad you have them. But you are more than that.
You were built specifically, set apart from all creation. You are not a spirit like the angels. You are not an animal like the creatures. You are a human. You are an embodied soul—body and spirit—like God. Made with a will. Made with hopes. You're made with longings deep within your DNA.
And they aren't for a career. You weren't made with your very DNA crying out for more money. You weren't made with a soul that longs daily for more sex or a great family, or less anxiety, or a dream vacation, or a bigger house.
You are so much more than that.
You're a human being. So much more than that. You are like the Creator God, made especially by Him, made especially for Him, designed to long to connect with Him, to love Him and be loved by Him.
And beloved, Jesus makes a way for you to do that.
He's with you always, regardless of your circumstances. Today, God is with you. His hand is upon you as you come and as you go. He sees you. He knows you.
And because of Jesus, you can know Him, and you can do the very thing you were made for.
Closing Prayer
Let us pray together:
Lord Jesus, we thank You that You have made us fearfully and wonderfully. We thank You that every part of us—even our physical bodies—bear Your image and speak to Your good design.
We confess that we often struggle to accept the bodies You've given us. We struggle with comparison, with shame, with the lies our culture tells us about who we should be and how we should look.
But today, help us to rest in this truth: that You knit us together in our mother's womb, that You designed every detail of us with intention and love, and that our bodies are precious gifts from You.
Help us to care for these bodies well. Help us to see them as You see them—as sacred vessels that bear Your image.
And most of all, help us to remember that we were made for deep relationship with You. That in Christ, we can be fully known and fully loved. That through Jesus, the distance between us and You has been bridged, and we can know You and be known by You.
We love You, Lord. We trust You. Thank You for making us exactly as we are.
In Jesus' name we pray,
Amen.
This sermon is part 1 of the "Who Am I?" series exploring biblical teaching on identity through the lens of body, mind, and spirit. Next week we'll explore the theology of the mind and how God has designed us to think, reason, and process our world. For more resources on faith, identity, and Christian living, visit our website or connect with our community. email us at hello@ifcstl.com or call/text us at 636-431-4708
Study Questions:
What stood out to you most from this message? What challenged you?
David's response to God's knowledge shifts from fear to worship. Why do you think intimacy with God can feel both comforting and disconcerting?
How does our culture's view of the body differ from the biblical view presented in Psalm 139?
What does it mean practically to "trust what your body tells you about yourself"? How might this truth be countercultural?
In what ways do you struggle to accept your physical body as a gift from God? What lies do you believe about your body?
How does understanding that "you don't have a body—you ARE a body" change the way you think about yourself?
The sermon mentioned that "you were made to be fully known and fully loved by God." How does Jesus make this possible? How does this truth impact your daily life?
What is one practical way you can care for your body this week as an act of worship and gratitude to God?
For Further Study:
Genesis 1:26-27 (The creation of humanity in God's image)
Psalm 8 (What is mankind that You are mindful of them?)
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 (Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit)
Ephesians 2:10 (We are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus)
Philippians 3:20-21 (Our citizenship is in heaven, and we await a Savior who will transform our bodies)
May you walk in the confidence that you are fearfully and wonderfully made, fully known, and fully loved by the God who created you.
