Have you noticed division and immaturity within the body of Christ? When God’s people don’t act right, it’s because they don’t know who they are. In this message, the first of this sermon series, Pastor Jamie Nunnally will help you know your true identity.
 
Your identity is who you think you are. 
Identity theft leads to an identity crisis. 
1. Your identity decides your activity, and your activity decides your destiny.
Who you think you are determines what you'll do. 
2. How you see yourself determines how you treat yourself. How you treat yourself teaches others how to treat you. 
 
During this series, we’re going to look at 4 different “fingerprints” that determine our identity:
 I am a child of God
I am unconditionally loved
I am in Christ
I have purpose
 
You are a Child of God
1. You have a Heavenly Father.
Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.”
Image = resemblance (look like), likeness = nature (act like). 
You were created to look like God and act like God, but not everyone is God’s child.
John 1:12-13 
 
Jesus referred to God as His Father.  One of the names  He called His Father was Abba – Aramaic for “daddy." 
Romans 8:15-16 
God is not only Jesus’ Abba, but your Abba. 
You may not have had a physical father in your home, you can have a heavenly Father in your heart.
 
2. You have been adopted.
Ephesians 1:4-5 “Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5 God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure.
1 Peter 2:9 
 
3. You have an inheritance.
Galatians 4:7 “Now you are no longer a slave but God’s own child. And since you are his child, God has made you his heir.”
Romans 8:17 
If we want the benefits of being God's child, we must also be willing to do the hard work of being inGod's family. 
 
“If you want to judge how well a person understands Christianity, find out how much he makes of the thought of being God's child, and having God as his Father. If this is not the thought that prompts and controls his worship and prayers and his whole outlook on life, it means that he does not understand Christianity very well at all.”  - J.I. Packer, “Knowing God” 
 
Do you believe that you’re a child of God?