Today, we continue our series called “A Church That Pleases God,” and I want to tell you that Father’s Day could not be a more fitting opportunity for the message God has laid on my heart. What we are going to talk about this morning goes right to the heart of what it means to be a child of God, to know whose you are, and to live from that knowledge rather than pressing toward it.

Before we jump into our text, let me remind you of where we have been. We began with awe, the foundation of everything, the posture of a heart that sees God clearly and responds with reverence and hunger. Then we talked about obedience, the loving response to God’s voice, the fruit of a faith that has decided that his ways are good and that his will is worth following. And last week, we talked about faith, confidence in God’s character and his promises, the kind of faith that acts on his word, holds steady in the waiting, and speaks life into every situation it faces.

Today, we are going to talk about identity, and I want to suggest that this is the message that makes everything else make sense. Because here is the truth: you cannot sustain awe, obedience, and faith over the long haul if you do not know who you are. You will eventually run dry. You will eventually run out of willpower. You will eventually run out of resolve and zeal for the Lord unless your life is rooted in something deeper than effort, something more stable than emotion, something more durable than your best intentions.

The theme of this message is this: identity in Christ is the foundation of a life that pleases God. And I want to take a moment to go down with you to the Jordan River because I believe this is one of the most important scenes in all of the gospel narrative, not just for what it tells us about Jesus, but for what it tells us about how God the Father relates to his children.

Jesus came to be baptized by John, and when he came up out of the water, something happened that the whole crowd witnessed.

"As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment, heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, 'This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased'" (Matthew 3:16-17).

Before Jesus had preached a single sermon, healed a single sick person, fed a multitude, or raised the dead, before he had gone to the cross or done any of the things we associate with the ministry and mission of Christ, the Father spoke over him from heaven and said,

“This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).

This is what I want you to notice: identity before ministry, belonging before performance, and the Father’s declaration before the Son’s accomplishment. That is the pattern before us today and for every child of God who has been born again by the Spirit and adopted into the family of the Everlasting Father.

Today, we are going to discover that a church that pleases God is one that walks in its identity. And the first thing I want you to see is that identity begins with the Father’s voice, and this is where Father’s Day intersects so beautifully and powerfully with the truth of Scripture.

One of the most significant things a father can do for his children is tell them who they are. Not just what they do or what they are capable of, but who they are at their core. That matters because a father’s voice carries a weight that few other voices do, and the words a father speaks over his children, whether affirming, absent, or wounding, shape our understanding of ourselves in ways that follow us for the rest of our lives.

And what is true in the natural is even truer in the spiritual. Your heavenly father has spoken over you, and what he has said about you is truer than anything your circumstances say, truer than anything your past says, truer than anything the enemy whispers to you in your weakest moments. He has called you his child.

He has called you “A chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.” He has called you a new creation, redeemed, forgiven, loved, and accepted, so that “you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).

For that reason, the apostle John declares:

"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God" (1 John 3:1).

Notice the word lavished, not rationed, not distributed sparingly to those who have qualified for it. The Holy Spirit said it was lavished, poured out, given abundantly and without reservation. That is the Father’s love for you, and it is the starting point of your identity. Not the world’s voice. Not the enemy’s voice. Not the voice of your own insecurities, your past failures, or the people who have spoken wounding words over you. The Father’s voice! And what the Father says about you is the truest thing ever said.

If you are here today and had a father who spoke life over you, give thanks to God for that gift, because not everyone has experienced it. And if you had a father whose voice wounded rather than healed, I want you to know that your Heavenly Father is speaking something different over you right now, and his voice has the final word.

I tell you this not just for motivational statements to get you through a hard week, but as declarations of identity spoken by the one who created you, redeemed you, and knows you completely. And when you build your life on those declarations rather than on the opinions of people or the verdict of your own insecurities, you become genuinely hard to shake, because your foundation is not what you have done or what others think of you. Your foundation is what the Father has said, and he does not take it back.

The second thing I want you to see is that your identity comes before obedience. This single truth has the power to completely transform how you approach the Christian life.

Look again at that moment at the Jordan River. Heaven opened, and the Father spoke blessings, affirmation, and delight over Jesus before his ministry began. He didn’t say, “Go and do these things to gain my approval.” He didn’t say, “Show yourself faithful, and then I will tell you that you are my Son.” First, he said,

"This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased" (Matthew 3:17).

And then Jesus went and began his ministry. His identity came first, obedience second. So the declaration from Heaven preceded the demonstration on earth.

This is the order that grace establishes, and it is the order that legalism always turns upside down. Because legalism says, “If you obey well enough, you will earn the right to be called a child of God.” But grace says, “You are already a child of God; now live like it.” Legalism says, “Your obedience determines your identity.” Grace says, “Your identity determines your obedience.” The difference between those two approaches is not just theological; it is the difference between an exhausting life of striving and a life of joyful service.

The apostle Paul makes this crystal clear in his letter to the Galatians, where he writes to people being pressured by religious teachers to add works and law-keeping to their faith as the basis for their standing before God. He says you do not understand what happened to you when you came to Christ. You did not become a better servant; you became a child.

"So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir" (Galatians 4:7).

In other words, as an heir, you didn’t earn an inheritance; you were given one. That means everything else flows from that position, including your obedience, faith, and worship, because we don’t obey to become children of God; we obey because we already are.

Think about how a child imitates his father, watching the way his father works, how he responds under pressure, and how he treats his mother. Without being told, that little boy begins to do the same things because he is his father’s son and something in him wants to be like the one he belongs to. That is exactly what Paul is describing when he writes to the Ephesians:

"Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children, and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God" (Ephesians 5:1-2).

As dearly loved children, you imitate God, and the motivation for imitation is the relationship. You imitate God not because you are trying to earn his approval but because you are his dearly loved child, and that relationship naturally shapes your behavior, your values, your priorities, and the way you treat the people around you. That’s why a church that pleases God is a church that obeys from identity, not for identity.

The third thing I want you to see is that identity gives strength in the face of temptation, and this is one of the most practical and important things I can share with you this morning.

Immediately after the baptism of Jesus, the Father spoke over him, and the Spirit descended upon him. Matthew tells us:

“Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1).

And I want you to notice how the temptation began. The enemy did not open with a theological argument or a philosophical challenge. He opened with an attack on Jesus’ identity. He said,

"If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread" (Matthew 4:3).

Now, the Father had just said, “This is my Son, whom I love.” And the enemy immediately says, “If you are the Son,” because the first scheme of our adversary is always an attack on identity.

You see, he understands something we sometimes forget, namely that a person who knows who they are is extraordinarily difficult to deceive and defeat. But a person who is uncertain about their identity is vulnerable to every lie, every temptation, and every scheme the enemy can devise. This is why the enemy works so hard to undermine your sense of identity in Christ.

He comes to you whispering that you are not good enough, not forgiven enough, not loved enough, and not worthy of what God has called you to. He uses your past failures, your present struggles, and the opinions of those who have hurt you to steal your identity. But he is building a case on principles that are fundamentally false and on an identity rooted in what you have done rather than in what Christ has done for you.

I want you to notice that the way Jesus defeated those temptations is the same way you and I can defeat them, by knowing the word of God and who it says you are. Every time the enemy came at Jesus with an “if,” Jesus answered with “it is written.” He did not argue the premise; he declared the truth. That truth was rooted in the character and the Word of his Father. When you know who you are, the enemy’s lies have nowhere to land.

That’s why the apostle Paul said,

"Be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes" (Ephesians 6:10-11).

In other words, you put it on because you have already established yourself in God. You are strong in the Lord, not in yourself, not in your performance, not in your track record, but strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. And so you can only stand against the devil’s schemes when you know whose you are, because the armor belongs to the Lord, not to you, and you have access to it only as his child. And the Bible says to us in Romans chapter 8:

"The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children" (Romans 8:16).

And so it is the Holy Spirit who makes that identity real in you, not merely as a doctrine you believe, but as a truth you live from. The Spirit takes what Christ has done and makes it living and active in your inner man, so that when the enemy comes with his schemes and accusations, you are not scrambling to remember what you believe. You are standing in what you know, from the inside out, because the Spirit himself has already borne witness to it in your spirit.

And again, the apostle Paul tells us,

"For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, Abba, Father" (Romans 8:15).

Not some formal religious language, not “Our Father in Heaven,” but “Abba, Father” is the language of a child who knows they are loved and has no fear of approaching their Father.

This is the language of a Father who, "While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and, filled with compassion, ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him" (Luke 15:20).

This is not a distant judge waiting to condemn, but one who ran down the road to meet him and called for a celebration. "For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found" (Luke 15:24).

You have received the Spirit of sonship, so when the enemy attacks your identity, the Holy Spirit moves within the depths of your spirit and bears witness to the truth of who you are in Christ. That witness is more reliable than any feeling, more stable than any circumstance, and more powerful than the enemy’s accusations.

And so, when the enemy’s lies have been silenced, our confidence and identity are affirmed in the depth of our spirit. The declaration that we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, is affirmed and established. You are not an accident or a disappointment. You are not defined by your failures, your fears, or the lies the enemy has whispered over you. You are God’s workmanship, his masterpiece, created with intention and purpose for works he has prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10).

The enemy attacks your identity because he knows that a person settled in who they are in Christ is someone he cannot stop. That is exactly why God declares who you are. You are unstoppable. Before the world's foundation, God looked across time and chose you.

The apostle Peter captures this so powerfully when he writes:

“You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).

Chosen. Royal. Holy. Belonging to God. That is who God says you are. Not who the world says you are, not who your past says you are, and not who the enemy whispers to you in your darkest moments. God has spoken over your life, called you out of darkness, and his word does not return void.

So let me bring all of this together this morning. Your identity begins with the Father’s voice, and he has already spoken over you everything you need to hear. In other words, your identity comes before obedience, so you are not striving to earn a position. You already hold it. You are a child of God, an heir of God, and a co-heir with Christ. And your identity in him gives you strength in the face of temptation, because when you know who you are, the enemy’s lies have nothing to grab onto.

If you are a father in this room today, I want to speak this over you because one of the most powerful things you will ever do for your children is help them know who they are, not just in the natural, but in the supernatural, in the spiritual realm. Speak life over them, declare God’s purposes over them, and let them hear from you that they are loved, chosen, and created for a purpose greater than they can imagine. The voice of a father carries more weight than almost any other voice in a child’s life, and what you say over your children today will be planted in them for decades to come.

And to every person in this room who has never fully received the Father’s declaration over your life, who has been living from a wound, a lie, or a deficit rather than from the fullness of what God says about you, today is a good day to let that change. You are his child. He loves you. He is pleased with you in Christ. And everything he has called you to flows from that one unshakable truth.

There may be some of you here today, or someone watching online, and you are here in this moment because God is drawing you to himself. Right now, in this moment, you are one prayer away from becoming a follower of Jesus and a child of God. If you know that you have sinned and you need his forgiveness, you need his grace, and you want to know the Father’s love, I invite you to step away from what was and step toward Jesus. Ask him to forgive you and change you, and tell him you want to follow him. When you do, he will hear your prayer, forgive your sin, and make you brand-new.

Graphics, notes, and commentary from LifeChurch, Ministry Pass, PC Study Bible, Preaching Library, and Sermon Central. Scripture from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.