Inside Out! Identity: Living in Truth

Inside Out! Revealing What’s Real – Sermon Notes             Pastor Brad Myers

Identity – Living in Truth!                                 October 5, 2025

New Series: Inside Out: Revealing What’s Real

• All About Living in Truth!

Introduction:

• Everybody in our world today is chasing truth. You hear it everywhere:

• • “Live your truth.”
  • “Speak your truth.”
  • “Find your truth.”

The Problem:

• If your truth and my truth don’t match, then truth isn’t truth at all.

• It’s Opinion. Opinions can’t change you; only truth can!

Today: Identity – Living in Truth!

• Identity: “Who You Are”
• Truth: “What is Real”

The truth you believe shapes your identity and determines how you live.

Two Types of Truth:

• World’s & God’s

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Series: Inside Out – answers this question

Does the truth on the outside determine your identity on the inside; or does the truth on the inside determine your identity on the outside?

Jump to John 17: High Priestly Prayer of Jesus. 

• Loaded with theology
• Theology: Two Greek words:
  • Theos = God
  • Logos = Study
  • Theology = “the study of God.”

John 17: 1-19 (NLT)

• Jesus teaching about salvation: it’s relational and present-now.
• Jesus teaching about Himself: Shows His divinity, preexistence, and mission.
• Teaching about the church: Defines what the church should look like in the world.
• Jesus teaching on His mission: Jesus links the unity of believers to the world believing in Him.
• Entire Prayer: Teaching all through the Holy Spirit: sanctification, truth, and unity.

John 17:17 (NLT)

• Greek alētheia: reality as God defines it, not as humans perceive it.

Jesus defines God’s Word not merely as “truth” but as the definition of truth.

John 17:17: Ontological Truth

• What’s real
• What’s right

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Ontological: Greek Ontos (being, existence).

• Ontological truth means things are true because they are real in God’s creation, exactly as He wanted them.

Practical Meaning: Ontological is the very essence of what something is and not just how it appears, feels, or functions.

Why Apostle Paul says,

Romans 12:2 (NIV)

• Greek for World: aiōn
• Means the current era or world system:
• Literally: “spirit of the age” or “the mindset or culture of a current generation”

Revised

“Do not conform to the mindset or culture of a current generation…”

• Other words:  Don’t let the spirit of the age shape your thinking.
• Don’t be deceived by the current culture’s patterns, lies, values, and trends. Instead, be reshaped by God’s renewing truth……….Today, we are living in the collision of these two truths.

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Why Isaiah said…

Isaiah 40:8 (NIV)

Two Truths: World’s or God’s

• You get to decide which is real!

• Relative Truth: Worldly Truth

• Definition: Depends on the individual, culture, or moment.
• What’s true for me might not be true for you.
• Built on 3 principles.
  • Feelings → “If it feels right, it must be right.”
  • Culture → “If society approves it, it must be acceptable.”
  • Trends → “What was wrong yesterday is normal today.”

• Problem: Unstable: changes with time, place, and perspective.

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Examples

• Many years ago, slavery was once considered truthful- normal.

• 50-years ago, culture told us:
  • Gender was seen as biological fact.
  • Marriage was only between a man and a woman.
  • Traditional family values were core!
• Today, parts of our culture says:
  • Gender is self-defined.
  • So, marriage is whatever you feel it is.
  • Family can be anything you desire.

Tomorrow? Who knows. Because….

The world’s “truth” keeps shifting with trends, politics, and feelings. Culture tells us “be whatever you feel,” but feelings can’t be a foundation.

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Judges 21:25 (NIV)

• After Joshua’s conquest of the promised land and before monarchy.
• Israel was to be a theocracy: God as their King.
• Sums up all of Judges
• Relative truth: confusion, chaos, instability.

• Absolute Truth: God’s Truth

• It;a Immutable

• Latin immutabilis = “unchangeable.”
• Means: God can’t change: Nature, character, purposes, or promises.

Malachi 3:6 (NLT)

• Who He is today is who He has always been, and who He will always be.
• Unchanging: 3 core areas
  • God’s Nature: God is holy and perfect; He cannot contradict Himself.
  • God’s Character: Hebrews 6:18: Impossible for God to lie
  • His Word: John 17:17 – God’s Word is truth”

God’s truth doesn’t change with culture.

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Hebrews 13:8 (NIV)

Absolute truth gives us stability in a world of shifting opinions. It anchors our identity and secures our eternity.

God’s truth defines your identity, while the world’s truth redefines it.

Your Truth Impacts Your Identity

If your truth shifts, so does your identity!

World says: “Define yourself.”

God says: “I already defined you.

Genesis 1:27 (NIV)

• “Image”: Imago Dei: Latin meaning “image of God.”
• Christian theology: human created to reflect God’s nature

What it Means:

• Dignity-Worth: Every person, regardless of status, race, ability, or background, carries inherent value because they reflect God. 
• Relational Capacity: Humans can relate to God and to one another – we’re not “just a being.” You have endless capacity!
• Stewardship / Representation: Humans are meant to steward, rule, cultivate, and exercise authority under God. 
• Moral, intellectual, and spiritual capacities: While not everything in us is “God,” certain gifts (reason, conscience, creativity, will) reflect God’s image. 

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Overview:

• Your identity is not a mistake or accident.
• Your value is secure. Not determined by performance or approval, but by the fact that you bear God’s image.

Your identity is tied to representing God. Living out your identity means reflecting God’s character, loving others, and walking in holiness from the inside out!

The world says, “you discover your identity.” The Bible says “you receive your identity.” One is self-authored, the other God-authored.

Here’s the battle between the world’s lies and God’s truth!

Identity built on lies will collapse; identity built on truth will stand.

God’s truth defines your identity, while the world’s truth redefines it.

Who are we today church and what do we stand for?

Corporate Declaration (All Together):

“I am who God says I am. My identity is in His truth. I will not bow to the lies of the current culture. I commit to live in God’s truth from the inside out!”