"You Are Not Your Own Definition" Sermon by Rev Clement Ong

Añadido: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Good morning church. Morning.

[00:00:03]>> Morning. And I greet those as well joining us on live stream. We hope that you are well and we look forward uh for sure to the day that we will all be gathered uh right here on site together in worship.

[00:00:17]I want to bring us back over the past few weeks. Over the past few weeks where we've been journeying through the letter of James together. And I hope that James has been challenging you or challenging us actually as a church to put our faith forward in our daily living, in how we speak, how we respond under pressure, how we treat people, and whether or not our faith can actually be seen in the way we live. In many ways, James is asking us, what does it mean to live the light? What does it mean for us to live the light? And I was and as I was preparing for this weekend, I thought there is something important that we must not lose along the way. That before the church can faithfully shine the light of Christ, the church must persevere to see Christ clearly to behold Jesus.

[00:01:14]Because when our vision of Jesus slowly becomes smaller, everything else from our disciplehip to our corporate worship will slowly become heavier as well.

[00:01:25]Heavier in terms of efforts, heavier in terms of burden.

[00:01:32]And I think that connects to one of the realities of our generation even as I was preparing this sermon that we are living in a time today very preoccupied with identity. And that is what I want to talk about this morning. Identity.

[00:01:50]People are asking questions today with a certain level of urgency. Who am I really? What gives me worth? Who gets to define who I am? What am I still valuable if I fail or or become irrelevant or that I am no longer noticed?

[00:02:10]I'm not sure if you are at this places.

[00:02:14]And perhaps for the first time in our shared history across four generations, we now have endless tools of constructing versions of ourselves. I'm talking about social media presence and profiles, personal branding, corporate resumeumés, every part of life can become a part of identity. I once saw a uh IG profile.

[00:02:41]The branding is the person's toes.

[00:02:46]That is part of identity apparently.

[00:02:51]But there is also a silent you know what I call a very tiring effect on people because many people today feel that pressure not only then to live life but to constantly have to hold a certain version of themselves. Isn't it a certain version of themselves to hold together that they have to constantly explain or to present themselves. So I want to suggest for us this morning that it is because we were never designed to carry the full weight of self-defin apart from who we are in God.

[00:03:33]We were never meant to carry the full weight of self definition apart from who we are in God.

[00:03:43]Bla1 Pascal, a French philosopher and writer, puts it this way.

[00:03:49]And what else does this craving and this helplessness proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness of which all that now remains is the empty print and traced.

[00:04:04]This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there. Where the helped he cannot find in those that are though none can help. Since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object.

[00:04:26]In other words, by God himself.

[00:04:31]To paraphrase, there is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of each man that cannot be satisfied by anything that is created in this world, but only by God the creator made known through Jesus Christ our Lord. And and I thought that is where our text today matters. And we'll be looking at Colossians Colossians chapter 1 13 sorry to 23 because before Paul talks about anything about Christian living or about church life he first helps the church to recover clarity about who Jesus Christ is.

[00:05:16]And I believe it is because how we see Christ will eventually shape how we see ourselves, right? How we behold Jesus is how we are becoming Christlike.

[00:05:29]And it will eventually shape how we see ourselves, how we see others, and how we live in the world today. And so if you have your Bibles with you, we can turn with me to Colossians chapter 1 15.

[00:05:42]I have the verses in front and I thought we can read uh this morning's passage together. Shall we? Ready? One, two, three. The son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invincible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities.

[00:06:11]All things have been created through [snorts] him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together.

[00:06:22]And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead. So that in everything he might have the supremacy.

[00:06:36]For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether things on earth or things in heaven by making peace through his blood shed on the cross.

[00:06:55]Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation.

[00:07:17]If you continue in your faith, establish and firm and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven and of which I Paul have become a servant. This is the word of the Lord.

[00:07:40]>> Thanks be to God.

[00:07:41]>> Thanks be to God indeed. In a nutshell, Paul shows us three things about Christ in these verses. Christ before all things, Christ sustaining all things, and Christ reconciling all things. And he does this because the Colossian church was slowly being tempted to believe that Jesus was not enough on his own. They needed something more. They needed to supplement him more spirituality, more experiences, more fullness perhaps elsewhere.

[00:08:16]But Paul will not allow the church to reduce Christ in any way.

[00:08:25]And so the big idea for us to consider today even as we work through or walk through this passage is this. The one who holds the universe together is the same one who bled to hold us together with God.

[00:08:44]Cosmic Christ and reconciling Christ is one and the same.

[00:08:54]Let's dive in.

[00:08:56]verse 15, Paul begins with these words, the son is the image of the invisible God.

[00:09:04]And I believe Paul starts here very intentionally because before he says anything about disciplehip or holiness or identity, he first brings the church back to Christ himself. The Greek word for immature is which is the root word for the English word icon actually. And it means more than just resemblance.

[00:09:25]Paul is saying that in Jesus Christ, the invisible God has been made fully visible.

[00:09:34]The author of Hebrews declared the same truth.

[00:09:37]Hebrews chapter 1:3, "The the sun is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, exact manifestation, fullness. Simply put, if you want to know who God is and how he's liked, how God responds to sinners, how God handles power, how God loves, look to Jesus.

[00:10:04]Jesus reveals the Godhead in his fullness.

[00:10:11]There is no historical God or God of the new covenant. They are one and the same.

[00:10:19]And I think some of us do struggle with that because like what is shown in the next slide, sometimes we carry this distorted images or imaginations about God. We imagine God as constantly uh uh disappointed for some of us or even distant, harsh, impossible to please that God that sits or siteth on the throne. But Paul points us to Christ.

[00:10:50]Look to Jesus. Eating with sinners, touching lepers, welcoming children, weeping with the griefing, washing feet, moving towards the cross.

[00:11:06]He is who God is like. And this matters for our understanding of identity because modern culture often tells us right look within yourself to discover who you are. But Christianity begins from a very different starting point.

[00:11:25]Christianity begins by looking at Christ.

[00:11:30]By looking at Christ.

[00:11:34]Now to be clear, our experiences matters. It does. Our stories, our pains in life, they are real and they do shape us very deeply. But they were never meant and hear me. They were never meant to be the final authority over who we are. Only God has that authority. Amen.

[00:12:06]I feel that has to sink in a little bit more because sometimes we allow our hurts to define the next action that we're going to do, the next decisions that we have to make.

[00:12:21]Sometimes we let disappointment haunt [snorts] us for years.

[00:12:26]Sometimes these become an authority shaping our actions, our decisions.

[00:12:36]No, only God has that authority and God should have that final authority over who we are.

[00:12:50]Augustine of Hippo famously wrote in his confessions and I quote, "You have made us for yourself, oh Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

[00:13:05]Perhaps that restlessness shows up in in more ways that we realize in a form of, you know, being compared constantly or that sense of anxiety rising up needing constant affirmation for some of us. And beneath all that is a deeper hunger that we are trying to build identity without remaining connected to the one who made us.

[00:13:34]But Paul says look to Christ. Because Jesus not only reveals who God is, he also reveals what humanity is always meant to become.

[00:13:46]Life that our God has created for us to experience. not less human. We have free will and that is the better this way.

[00:13:59]But what I'm referring to is being fully alive.

[00:14:06]Being fully alive in communion with God.

[00:14:10]My friends, you are not your own definition.

[00:14:15]The self was never designed to carry the full burden of defining oneself apart from God. Our life only makes sense when they are placed back into the hands of the one who created us. Amen. Now let us turn to each other and say you are not your own definition.

[00:14:35]>> You are not your own definition.

[00:14:40]And that is the sermon title uh for us this morning. Uh even as we continue to walk through this passage.

[00:14:48]Yeah. Are you still with me?

[00:14:50]>> Yes. Yeah. The morning 8 a.m. right?

[00:14:52]Some of them did feedback. Yeah. It feels a little bit like Bible study.

[00:14:58]But let's do that, shall we? Yeah.

[00:15:01]We continue. Yeah. Verse 18, part B. The firstborn over all creation.

[00:15:08]It belabels me to bring up or to even go through this point very carefully because this phrase has sometimes been misunderstood because it can sound like what like Paul is saying that Jesus was created. Yeah. But that is not Paul's point at all. When Paul uses the word firstborn, he was talking about status and authority.

[00:15:30]Now in the Old Testament, firstborn could refer to rank and honor rather than just birth order. again, huh?

[00:15:38]Firstborn could refer to rank and honor rather than birth than just birth order.

[00:15:47]Where how do we understand this pastor?

[00:15:52]A psalmist Psalms 89:27 says of David, I will appoint him to be my firstborn, the most exalted of the kings of the earth.

[00:16:06]Now we know David was not literally the firstborn of his family but he was given the highest status. So when Paul says that Christ is the firstborn over all creation, he's saying that Jesus stands supreme over everything that exists. Not part of creation but Lord over creation.

[00:16:29]And we can see Paul immediately expands this truth of Christ's supremacy in verse 16. For in him all things were created. Things on heaven, on earth, visible, invisible, whether thrones, powers, rulers, authorities, all things have been created through him and for him.

[00:16:48]Nothing sits outside of the lordship of Jesus Christ. Nothing.

[00:16:56]Jesus who reveals the God in his fullness is above every rival identity that this world seeks to create to consume us and sadly for some of us to suffocate us.

[00:17:13]But Christ is above all.

[00:17:17]New Testament scholar Anti Wright wrote this in his commentary for this passage and he says this Jesus is not simply a religious leader offering one more spiritual path.

[00:17:33]He is the one through whom the whole cosmos holds together and towards whom it is directed.

[00:17:43]And I think this is where the passage can continue to anchor into our lives more deeply, more personally because whether we realize it or not all of us are building identity around something.

[00:17:55]Sometimes it is obvious and of course there are respectable identity.

[00:18:02]But for some of us we were building around perhaps our last achievement hoping towards the next. Perhaps some of us are struggling with the sense of being needed, competent, always being strong for everybody else.

[00:18:24]And that is why my friends identity issues is never just psychological issues. No, they are more than often spiritual as well.

[00:18:36]They can become idols.

[00:18:40]They can become idols because whatever sits at the center of our identity will slowly begin to shape our lives, isn't it? Yeah. Our decisions, our ambition, and even our disciplehip.

[00:18:59]You know, if you think about it, idols rarely begin uh as very obvious thing.

[00:19:06]I mean, idols can begin with a good thing.

[00:19:10]family, purpose, careers, even ministry.

[00:19:17]But somewhere along the way, good things slowly become ultimate things.

[00:19:24]And then when identity is built on success, then failure can can feel very unbearable because we know not peace no longer with God.

[00:19:36]And when identity is built on approval, then criticism or or feedback becomes crushing.

[00:19:45]For we are no longer teachable.

[00:19:50]When identity is built on being spiritually strong, then somehow being vulnerable and weak feels very threatening.

[00:20:00]Like somehow pastors you have to be strong because you are lifting up the faith of the church.

[00:20:14]I don't know. I would love to look to someone to lift me up in my seasons as well.

[00:20:22]I do.

[00:20:27]When identity is at the center of whatever we are building, whatever we are building, sitting at the at the center of our identity, it begins to form us.

[00:20:42]And this is where Paul points us back to Christ. Verse 17, he is before all things and in him all things hold together.

[00:20:55]I love this.

[00:20:57]Paul reminds me that Jesus Christ is not distant from creation, he is actively sustaining it. Every breath, every moment, every unseen detail of life itself, he is sustaining it.

[00:21:14]Back to the author of Hebrews chapter 1 echoes the same truth. The son is sustaining all things by his powerful word. Which means the universe isn't just simply running on its own.

[00:21:29]It's running on the law of God's creation. Creation is being upheld by God, by Christ even right now.

[00:21:41]And that is more than often the cosmic Christ as some commentaries will call it that we would fail to anchor because it is easier to anchor the reconciling Christ isn't it the call of ministry of reconciliation how God how Christ reconcile us back to the father yeah but then isn't that limited No, Christ was present when he created or when the world was created.

[00:22:23]So if Christ is the one holding all things together, what happens when we try to hold ourselves apart from him?

[00:22:34]And I believe this is why many of us today can feel tired in ways that are difficult to explain. That tiring effect of having to constantly keep up, remain relevant, manage expectation. And perhaps beneath all of this is that pressure that no one sees. That if I stop holding everything together, what will happen?

[00:22:58]What will happen?

[00:23:03]And that is perhaps one of the compelling illusions of of modern life.

[00:23:08]The illusion that we are self sustaining.

[00:23:13]I don't know about you, but I do it. We quietly tell ourselves, I can manage.

[00:23:20]I can manage. I can manage.

[00:23:23]I can manage. until until life exposes our limits. Perhaps through a medical diagnosis, death of a loved ones, perhaps a disappointment, a season of burnout, a family struggle, and suddenly we realize that we're fragile.

[00:23:47]And I wonder if this is partly why anxiety feels so widespread these days. You know, whether is it a Gen Z thing or this modern generation, we are carrying so much pressure to be enough. Not just strong enough to be enough, to be successful enough, to be stable enough, to be secure enough.

[00:24:15]It is exhausting to try to build a self that constantly needs to prove its own worth.

[00:24:23]But my friends, the gospel is saying something very differently this morning.

[00:24:29]Christianity is not just simply offering help for our lives. The gospel reminds us that we were never meant to become our own center in the first place.

[00:24:44]The gospel is reminding us that we were never meant to become our own center in the first place.

[00:24:52]John Kelvin puts it this way that man is never sufficiently touched and affected by the awareness of his lowly state until he has compared himself with God's majesty.

[00:25:10]Success, my friends, cannot sustain the soul. Approval cannot sustain the soul.

[00:25:17]Only Jesus can.

[00:25:22]Because Christianity does not say hold yourself together better. It says Jesus alone holds all things together. And that is the greater truth, my friends.

[00:25:34]The one that holds the universe together is the same one who bled, who reconciled us to God and is holding us together with our father in heaven. And that includes you who might be feeling anxious today. You might be tired in your journey of life, carrying perhaps disappointments.

[00:26:00]I want to say to you this morning, the one that is sustaining galaxies walked towards the cross for you.

[00:26:11]The one that is holding creation together entered human suffering to reconcile sinners to God.

[00:26:21]And this is where as we move along with the passage, Paul moves from creation to reconciliation in the next few verses.

[00:26:29]From Christ holding the universe together to Christ bringing sinners back to God. Verse 18. And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn once again from among the dead.

[00:26:47]Back in verse 15, he said Christ is the firstborn over all creation. Now in verse 18, he uses the same word again, the firstborn from among the dead. Now Paul is saying that the same Lord who is supreme over the first creation is also supreme over the new creation that reconciliation bring. He does not simply just sustain the old world. He inaugurates the new one through his resurrection.

[00:27:19]My friends, there is new life because the Lord of creation is also the Lord of recreation.

[00:27:26]The one who is making everything new is the one that has made everything and that includes you and that includes me.

[00:27:41]And Paul continues in the next few verses, for God was pleased to have all of his fullness dwell in him then and through him to reconcile to himself all things whether things on earth or things in heaven by making peace through his blood shed on the cross. All the fullness of God. Once again, all the fullness of God. The Colossian heresy or philosophy uh if you want to read it in from uh Colossians chapter 2 was telling the church that spiritual fullness was not just available in Jesus alone.

[00:28:19]You needed and I quote from Colossians 2, human traditions and elemental spiritual forces of this world to reach the real thing to reach that place where you can experience the fullness of God.

[00:28:38]Paul takes their language here and redirects it entirely. The fullness is not scattered among many places for Paul. It is not waiting at the end of a spiritual ladder that we need to climb.

[00:28:51]The fullness of God dwells in Christ.

[00:28:55]All of it permanently. And if we think about it, we are tempted in our own ways to supplement Jesus. Isn't it? We add to it what we hope to achieve through perhaps uh uh in ways and means something that we have to do to feel more Christian or to be more saved. the approval of others, our sense of control.

[00:29:18]All of this that leads to perhaps a carefully curated identity. And slowly, my friends, Jesus will become one source among many rather than one in whom all fullness dwells. Paul wants us to see that the human problem is deeper than we often emit, deeper than insecurity, deeper than confusion.

[00:29:46]Perhaps one way to understand the alienation in verse 21 that Paul was talking about is this. You know, sometimes relationship do not break all at once. For example, the family the the family WhatsApp group chat, it can still be active. Photos can still be shared. People can still send emojis to respond. But underneath it, perhaps you are at a place where something is not right because hurt is not addressed or disappointment is not spoken out loud.

[00:30:23]Something is not right. And that even with a one group chat, distance can still be formed. Technically, everyone is still connected, isn't it? Through the one group chat. But relationally, relationally, something has been fractured.

[00:30:45]Well, sin is more like that than we realize. It's not about breaking rules.

[00:30:50]Not just about breaking rules, but a relational rupture with God himself.

[00:30:59]And unless we understand what has been broken, we will never we will never come to understand the beauty of reconciliation.

[00:31:11]Friends, the gospel presents a God that moves towards alienated people.

[00:31:18]But now he has he has reconciled you by Christ through death to present you holy in his sight without blemish and free from accusation.

[00:31:32]Holy in his sight without blemish. Free from accusation.

[00:31:39]I want to let these words sink in because these words are not just inspirational words by an inspirational speaker.

[00:31:47]Paul is not describing who you might become if you try hard enough. These are words that has that is declared over you by the act of Jesus.

[00:32:02]He has been spoken over you in the body of his son through the blood of the cross.

[00:32:08]Right now, even as you continue to profess Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, even as we sing the truth of God on a weekly basis, these words are spoken over you, holy in his sight.

[00:32:26]You are without blemish. You are free from accusation.

[00:32:33]It is not you might be holy eventually if you sort yourself out.

[00:32:38]Not you could be free from accusation someday when you finally get it all together. No, it is finished and he has been poured out for each and every one of you.

[00:32:52]And I wonder how many of us have never really let those words sink in and be an anchor in your life because some of us have been listening to perhaps other voices for so long. voices that perhaps tell you that you're not enough.

[00:33:10]You need to be more.

[00:33:19]Henry Nolan once wrote in his book, The Life of a Beloved, the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity or power, but self rejection.

[00:33:35]Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us beloved.

[00:33:43]Being beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence. That is what Paul is doing in verse 22. That definitive voice. You are not your own definition.

[00:33:56]You are his. And God has already spoken his word over you this morning. If you're wondering, pastor, what is the next step?

[00:34:06]That you receive this truth. That you spend time allowing this truth to anchor in your life, to sense the assurance of salvation and to be released from what this world is trying to define of you.

[00:34:30]Reconciliation begins with God. Not because humanity climbed upward towards him, but because Christ came down towards us. Amen. Christ came down towards us. When we surrender ourselves to Christ, we do not become less human.

[00:34:47]No, we become more fully alive as the people God created us to be. And that is the kind of people, my friends, that I pray that our families, our loved ones, this community can witness Christlikeness in his fullness.

[00:35:10]I want to invite the worship team to come forward as I close with Paul's exaltation in verse 23. Just to finish, what and some s scholars say what could be a hymn that Paul was putting together to draw all men to God.

[00:35:32]Verse 23, if you continue in your faith, establish and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. That phrase do not move is a good reminder and it is my prayer for all of us because if you think about it, people do not usually wake up one day deciding to reject who Jesus is. The grace and love that we once receive. No, it's a slow fade.

[00:36:07]As [music] Christ slowly becomes less and less central in our lives, other voices will become louder.

[00:36:18]And that was something that I shared with the young adults recently.

[00:36:25]Louder and louder voice will become louder.

[00:36:31]other things begin shaping our hearts more deeply than we realize.

[00:36:37]One of the quiet dangers of our generation is that people is not that people completely reject Christ. It is that Jesus slowly becomes smaller, smaller in our work here in this place, smaller in our imagination.

[00:36:54]and that he becomes just useful, just another prayer that we take out when we need it, no longer central.

[00:37:08]I'm going to close with this story that I recently uh came to know and it is from the the writer that uh the quote that I was uh reading out from Henry Nolan.

[00:37:23]Henry Nolan held teaching positions at the best of universities, Notradam, Yale, Harvard. He wrote many, many books and by any measure our culture uses to define a successful life, Henry no one had arrived.

[00:37:41]And yet, by his own account, he spent most of his adult life in the grip of selfrejection.

[00:37:49]The achievements did not satisfy In 1985, no one left Harvard and moved to a community center, a community center in Toronto for people with intellectual disabilities. His daily work would include bathing them, dressing them, feeding people who would never read his book actually or will ever know how famous he is.

[00:38:19]It was there, stripped of every identity marker the world uses to measure a person that Henry Nolan said, he began to hear the voice he had been searching for his entire life. He traced it back to the baptism of Jesus. That moment in the gospel of Matthew chapter 3 when a voice from heaven said this is my beloved son with whom I am well pleased.

[00:38:49]Henry no one wrote [music] in it in this book you are the beloved. that the world tells you many lies about who you are.

[00:38:57]And you simply have to be realistic enough to remind yourself of this. That every time you feel hurt, offended, or rejected, you have to dare to say to yourself, "These feelings, strong as they may be, are not telling me the truth about myself." The truth, even though I cannot feel it right now, is that I am the chosen child of God.

[00:39:21]Precious in God's eyes.

[00:39:24]called the beloved from all eternity and hell safe in an everlasting embrace.

[00:39:37]The invitation today and this morning, my friends, is not to throw everything aside or more importantly to try harder to hold yourself together. No, the invitation is to come back to Christ.

[00:39:53]Back to the one who reveals the [music] Godhead in all of his fullness. Back to the one who already holds all things together.

[00:40:02]And I pray that through the many, many things that we do here in this church that you will encounter him in his fullness.

[00:40:14]Can I invite all of us to stand if you are able?

[00:40:22]If you are able, because we're going to spend some time just being in the presence of God because what I want to do next, I want to speak these words over you as well, my friends.

[00:40:49]that you are holy in his sight, that you are without blemish, my friends, that you are free from accusations.

[00:41:12]Let us pray.

[00:41:19]Oh Lord, we thank you for your word for us this morning.

[00:41:31]Forgive us Lord for the ways in which we have quietly reduced [music] you perhaps in a time that we are managing or in the space that we have reduced you into perhaps someone who are just supporting us on the side lines instead of being the one in our lives through whom all things hold together.

[00:42:02]Oh Lord, forgive us for building our identities perhaps on things that cannot truly sustain [music] us.

[00:42:10]And for every weary soul, oh Lord, in our midst that might have been entrenched, every anxious thoughts, every persons that are carrying precious Lord that they were never meant to carry alone, Lord, draw them back again to you.

[00:42:36]Fill our hearts, oh Lord, and teach us once again what it means to behold you.

[00:42:42]Not just as part of our lives, but as Lord over all things.

[00:42:49]And as a church, help us, Lord, to live the light by making Christ visible again to each other here in your house, in our worship, in our disciplehip, in our love for each other, and extending out that love to this community that you have called us to love and to serve. Indeed, may Christ be magnified in us, Lord. Once again, even as we love and [snorts] grow together, as a faith community, as a church family, in Jesus name we pray.

[00:43:34]Amen. Amen. Let us respond with this song.