What is your identity?

Romans 6: ¹What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? ²By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ³Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.

 ⁵For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷For one who has died has been set free from sin. ⁸Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. ¹¹So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

 ¹²Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.¹³ Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. ¹⁴For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

Our identity, as baptized Christians, is intrinsically bound up in Jesus.  St. Paul outlines pretty clearly what happens when one is baptized.  They are tied into the death and resurrection of Christ.  A tough concept to gather without question, although Luther's Small and Large Catechisms do a pretty good job.  It is a concept that is foreign to a world that is all about building up the self.  It is also a foreign concept to American Christianity and religious thought that has us gaining our way in.  Some would even mistakenly interpret the Apostle's words to mean that our sin no longer exists as that, sin.  Grace can never abound by sin, because that would be a way to earn our way, so to speak.  Nor can grace ever abound because we are "good" or have earned favor in God's eyes for our works.  Grace can and will always abound because of the One who earned it Himself, Jesus Christ.  

In the darkest moments of our lives, for whatever reason we are there, there is no more comforting a concept then that no matter how wretched I am when God looks at me He does not see my sin but He sees Christ's righteousness.  Martin Luther has a great quote that brings light to all this and really speaks to the power of what God accomplished on the cross through the Son.  Luther said, "So when the devil throws your sins in your face and declares that you deserve death and hell, tell him this: "I admit that I deserve death and hell, what of it? For I know One who suffered and made satisfaction on my behalf. His name is Jesus Christ, Son of God, and where He is there I shall be also!"

Where Christ is, there we shall be also.  This does not mean, as St. Paul writes, that we sin so that grace my abound but that in our struggles and our toils and our hardships we rejoice ever more knowing that Satan has no power over us.  Sin and death are things of non consequence because Jesus has conquered them.  And in our baptismal identity we are right there with Him.  The more alone you feel the more you should know that God is there.  Jesus Christ made satisfaction on our behalf and no matter how ugly we perceive ourselves to be when God looks at us He sees nothing but pure beauty because we belong to Christ.  

To a broken world of hopelessness and despair there is no greater hope to bring to them.  It is a hope that goes above and beyond political mantras of hope and extends itself to offer a real answer to fallen humanity.  Life may be tough and cruel but God did not just fix things and leave the arena.  He remains with us the entire way.  That is a message that will ring true forever, and it is certainly a message the broken hearted yearn to hear.