What We Treasure is Our Identity

Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house, and Peter was following at a distance. And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “The man also was with him.” But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” And he went out and wept bitterly. - Luke 22: 54-62

Peter’s denial of Christ happened the very same day he passionately told Jesus that he was ready to follow Him to both prison and death. Yet Jesus knew Peter would do this and told Him so (Luke 22:33-34). After Peter had come all this way following Jesus and being counseled by Him as they traveled with the other disciples on a great missionary journey, he denied three times the man who had done nothing but good for him- the same man who was about to suffer and die for him so that he could have eternal life. When Peter hid and denied his faith in Christ, it was not only noticed by the world (those who questioned him) but also by God Himself. Who we identify ourselves to be affects both the world and our relationship with God.

We should not underestimate the importance of our identity as children of God. As the late pastor and Christian author A.W. Towzer once said, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Our identity shapes how we see God, the world, and ourselves. Peter was known by others to be a follower of Christ because they had seen him with Jesus and the other disciples. Peter considered himself to be a follower of Christ because he left everything to join Him, trusting that Christ was all he needed (Luke 5:10-11). Being a follower of Christ, he declared that he would follow Christ to the end.

The Root of Our Identity

Yet what does the trial in this passage say about Peter? He acts like a child of God until he is challenged with possible persecution, revealing another identity he was trying to treasure in his heart. He still wanted to be part of the world because he feared man more than God, even after being guided under the hand of Jesus Christ, God Himself in human flesh (John 1:14; Philippians 2:7). How often are we like Peter, believing our identity is rooted simply in whatever makes us most comfortable, whatever is most convenient and safe for us? Is the Christian life simply a matter of going to church on Sundays or wearing shirts that have bible verses on them so that we can feel better about calling ourselves Christians as we “let loose” and try to blend in with what is popular and less “awkward”? No. Christ died so that “those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised” (2 Corinthians 5:15). When we trust that Christ is the only salvation and way of life, God takes away our old heart of stone and gives us a new heart of flesh, softened to hear Him and love Him (Ezekiel 36:26). By changing our heart, He changes our identity to be His adopted sons and daughters (Romans 8:14-17). So what we do is not a result of trying to keep one foot in salvation and another foot in the world, or trying to please both man and God (Galatians 1:10). What we do as children of God should come from entirely new desires and motivations of our hearts - the evidence that God Himself is at work in us.

How Can We Live as Children of God?

Perhaps you have heard all of this before and still find yourself struggling with wanting to please the people around you rather than God, or trying to push the boundaries of blending in and making everyone feel comfortable while still being able to call yourself a Christian. This was a great battle for me for most of my life (though it is, no doubt, still a constant temptation). What must we do to live not as fearful beings but as those who live for the One who overcame the world and death itself (John 16:33)? When the rich man in the tenth chapter of Mark asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”, Jesus did not say that the man had to master the ten commandments. In fact, when the rich man said that he had kept all the ten commandments, Jesus said that he lacked “one thing: go, sell all that you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” However, the man did not listen to Christ's instruction because he had great possessions (Mark 10:17-22). He wanted both eternal life and his wealth, but he was missing the point. The great treasure in heaven is not simply living forever. The great treasure is Christ Himself - the One who loved us as we despised Him and died for us while we did nothing in return. If you do not love Christ, then picturing a never ending life of being free from sin and being in the presence of God will not sound like paradise. In his book Desiring God, Pastor and theologian John Piper says that “Surely the reward we long for is the glory of God Himself and the perfected companionships of Christ (Hebrews 2:10; 3:6; 10:34; 11:26; 12:22-24; 13:5). We will sell everything to have the treasure of Christ Himself” (Piper 71). By treasuring Christ above all things, we can live for Him. We must store up love in our hearts for Christ, our righteous God, our only Savior and most faithful Friend, and only then will we desire that our identity is found in Him.

How We Can Treasure Him More

To try treasuring Christ above all things would be vain if we leaned on our own strength and determination to do so. We must rely on Him more to help us love Him more, and we know this because the only reason we love Him is because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). In the passage from Luke, Peter was reminded that Christ was the greatest Treasure of all when Christ turned to look at him after the rooster crowed. He wept because he knew what he had done. How convicting it is when our sins are revealed to the very people we sinned against. Christ did not have to say any words, but Peter was loved by Christ even after denying Him. When we treasure Him, we think more about what He sees in us than the world because we are reminded that “the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). He knows about everything we treasure in our heart, every motivation, every desire, and every thought. But He does not leave us without any guidance. He has given us His word as a sword to help us discern what is true and just, to identify the light and darkness in the world, so by the power of the Holy Spirit working within us, we can treasure Him more by growing in our understanding of Him (Hebrews 4:12; Romans 5:5).

If you believe that Christ is who He declared Himself to be as revealed to us through the Bible, trust that He is worthy of being treasured above all else. Pray that you would grow in love for Him, and read the words that He has so graciously given to us so that we can know how to live as children of God in a world full of temptations to embrace the deceitful comfort of darkness. We do not need to fear what mankind can do to us when God is on our side (Psalm 118:6). What we treasure shapes our identity, that is, how we see ourselves and who we actually are. Treasure Him - you will find no greater Friend (John 15:13-15).

Works Cited

Piper, John. Desiring God. Multnomah Publishers, 1986.

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