Does God Care about my Identity: The Disciple who Jesus Loved
Identity seems to be everything right now. We choose it. We earn it. We seek its perfection. We demand affirmation of it. We fight for it – often quite passionately and even violently. How we use our identity gives us comfort, status, and power. We look to identity to save us, purify us, and complete us.
We identify by our culture, our race, our gender, our politics. We fracture our churches and identify by certain ‘types’ of Christianity.
We identify by our work, what we produce, our success, our impact.
We identify by our title, education level, prestige.
And while none of those things are inherently bad, they can become dangerous.
When the Israelites made a golden calf to worship, there was nothing wrong with the gold, just what they did with it. We too can build our identities from good things but use them in the wrong way. What’s wrong with wanting to be a doctor? A philanthropist? A pastor? Nothing. Maybe we want to be great leaders, wonderful parents, or even good Christians. Also, worthy pursuits.
But if those pursuits become WHO we are (if they become grafted to our identity and inseparable from how we spend our time and resources) then we’re in trouble.
Because the moment that identity is challenged or lost, you’ll find yourself challenged and lost. The only identity that won’t be shaken, is the one Christ promises, the one grounded in His work on the cross.
So, let’s talk about someone who gets this. Someone who erased his own identity completely so he could be known only by the work of Christ in his life. Let’s talk about ‘the disciple that Jesus loved.’
In the Gospel of John, authored by John the disciple, the author frequently refers to himself as “the Disciple Jesus Loved.” Admittedly this is funny. We laugh at the author’s need to point this out. Maybe we even judge him. “Hey bro, Jesus loved everyone. Calm down.”
He even makes sure to record that he ran faster than Peter on the way to Jesus’s empty tomb—anonymously calling himself the ‘other apostle,’ (John 20:4). Yes, ok. We get it, you’re great, John!
But humor aside, let’s consider if John is doing something more than being prideful. Maybe he knew more than we do. Maybe what he knew, can save us from ourselves and our identity crisis and help us discover who God made us to be.
Three things John knew that we should know too.
1. John knew that the most important identity he could wear was Jesus’ love.
John fully absorbed the truth that the most eternally relevant detail about him was that Jesus loved him. That was his identity. Can you say the same? Sometimes I can’t. But imagine that self-assuredness.
Who are you?
‘I am the one Jesus loved.’
What defines your life?
‘I am the one that Jesus loves.’
What have you accomplished?
‘Even if it’s nothing, I am the one Jesus loves.’
Charles Spurgeon speaks of this in his sermon from May 23, 1880:
“John took the name which he knew most accurately described him… He was thinking of how he should glorify God, and the appearance of glorifying himself did not alarm him, for he had forgotten himself in his Master...He might have called himself if he had chosen, “that disciple who beheld visions of God,” but he prefers to speak of love rather than of prophecy. In the early church we find writings concerning him, in which he is named, “that disciple who leaned on Jesus’ bosom,” and this he mentions in our text. He might have been called “that disciple who wrote one of the gospels,” or “that disciple who knew more of the very heart of Christ than any other”; but he gives the preference to love. He is not that disciple who did anything, but who received love from Jesus; and he is not that disciple who loved Jesus, but “whom Jesus loved.”
2. John knew he was still a unique, precious individual.
John has no problem distinguishing his role in the Gospel, placing himself at several key points. He could’ve done so at every miracle including the transfiguration in fact, but when it came to penning his Gospel, he knew what mattered more. It wasn’t his background, race, accomplishments, or gender.
Yes, Your culture matters, your skin color is God-given, your country and heritage are part of God’s plan for you. God created abundant diversity in nature and his people. But none of it should eclipse Jesus. Finding our identity in Christ does not mean homogeneity. But if asserting our identity through culture, nationality, skin color, or gender becomes more important than being a Christ follower, we are on the path to worshiping the creation and not the creator (Romans 1:25).
Celebrate who God made you to be, but let it be secondary to the foundationally identifying trait of being one whom Jesus loved.
3. John knew his identity served the Gospel story.
If all scripture is God-breathed and inspired, then God allowed for John to teach us something about how we identify ourselves. He allowed John to disappear in Him.
“…perhaps [John] was speaking like the apostle Paul, when Paul said, “The love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:14–15). In other words, John would be saying, “I identify myself as loved by Christ because this is the all-constraining, all-controlling reality in my life. This is why I am writing the Gospel. This is why I minister, why I live. Christ’s love for me controls me.” – John Piper
When all is said and done, what is my identity serving? Is it serving myself? Is it serving political institutions? Is it serving a culture? Or will I let it serve the Gospel? Will I refuse to be consumed by anything other than Christ’s love.
Who am I? I am the one Jesus loves. All other identifiers now serve the purpose of shining that truth to the world.
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If you’re still wanting to dig into spiritual formation and the forces that make us who we are then you may want to try listening to these podcasts:
Resources:
John Mark Comer w/ Jon Tyson on the World as a Formation Machine, the Temptation of Project Self & the Importance of Family - Live No Lies Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/live-no-lies-podcast/id1585715586?i=1000538452149
Bridgetown Church & Red Church: True Individuality is Found in Dying to Self (and Other Things You Don't Hear on the Street) - This Cultural Moment https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/this-cultural-moment/id1342868490?i=1000424203701
References:
https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/the-disciple-whom-jesus-loved/#flipbook/
https://www.desiringgod.org/interviews/who-is-the-disciple-jesus-loved