Identity Traps: The Need for Significance

It seems like everyone in the culture is talking about identity these days. Identity is, at its core, a sense of self that distinguishes us from the people around us and gives clarity to our place in this world. It turns out that a sense of self is meaningful when it meets three, deep-seated, underlying needs for significance, security, and satisfaction. God created us to find those deep identity needs met in a childlike relationship with himself, but our orphan hearts tend to look to people, power, and possessions instead, to our detriment. In these talks, we explore the stories of nine different characters in the Bible, who each tried to build their identities in all the wrong places, and then discovered the kind of wholeness that only God can provide. In considering their lives, we begin to discover the identity traps we fall into, and the identity Christ offers us that changes everything.  

This is part one in a three-part series on 'Identity Traps: Nine Ways We Lose Ourselves, and How Jesus Makes Us Whole'.

In this talk, we explore our underlying need for significance through the stories of Joseph, Jacob, and Zacchaeus, who each tried to build their identity in the wrong places. In considering their lives, we begin to discover the identity traps we fall into, and the identity Christ offers us that changes everything.