ANXIETY OR IDENTITY?

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Read 1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26.

1. Transition and new growth can bring about change.

2. Change can make us grow anxious

3. Read Luke 2:41-52.

4. Mary is anxiously searching for Jesus.
   • The term used for anxiety has to do with real pain
   • Mary takes it personally – “Why are you doing this to us?”
   • Contrast Mary’s statement – “We have been anxiously searching!” She feels pain. “Why have you done this to us?” But for Jesus there is no cause for alarm. He responds with a wisdom that is the same sort of wisdom that amazes the rabbis.

5. Jesus’ reply: Why have you been searching for me (at all)?
   • Why have you been searching for me? Where else would he be? What else would he be doing?
   • Don’t you know that I had to be ...
     • NIV says “In my father’s house”
     • KJV says “About my father’s business”
     • It is really both of these and much more - - It is about identity and reason for being
     • “The things of my father”
   • Jesus is defined by the things of his father - his very reason for being and identity is shaped by doing the things of his father. [Note the intensive impact of this phrase.]
   • Jesus is dedicated because he knows who he is. He knows whose he is.

We have a choice: we can grow anxious or we can grow into our identity.

Read Colossians 3:12-17.

What gives us our identity? Are we defined by the things of Christ just as he is defined by the things of his Father?

Chris Benjamin

West-Ark Church of Christ, Fort Smith, AR
Morning Sermon, 31 December 2006

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