Brave Identity
A sermon by Jonathan Tremaine Thomas
This sermon was originally preached on February 16, 2020 at Destiny Church in St. Louis.
Brave Identity
Transcribed
Pastor Intro of JT
Pastor Jim Stern: Well this is the first weekend that I have ever out-dressed JT.
(laughs from audience)
Pastor Jim Stern: How many of you love this guy, man? JT, we’re so glad you and Mollie are here. So, before JT starts to preach this morning I just kind of wanted to bring everybody into the loop. In April, the beginning of April, JT is going to be transitioning out of his role as our youth and young adult pastor so that he can full-time really begin to develop Civil Righteousness and work on the ground in Ferguson (Missouri). And we just talked to all the students about this a week or two ago, and we wanted to make sure that the whole church family knew that this transition had begun. He still has a couple of months to walk out, but JT and Mollie, they’re going to stay on our team, JT is still going to be a teaching pastor here in this house, still living in St. Louis rocking and rolling for Jesus. But this was kind of the plan, four years ago, I mean you had it in your heart to do student work for four years.
Jonathon Thomas: Yeah.
Pastor Jim Stern: And now here we are four years later and it’s like it’s time to take that next step.
JT: Absolutely, it’s been such an amazing, amazing place for us, for Mollie and Mira and myself to land in a family. And you know, God brings us into pruning seasons because of growth, and so we’re in a pruning season where God is just kind of shearing off some avenues where our focus has been so we can be more faithful and more fruitful. And I’m just excited, I believe our youth are my heroes, they really are, we have some amazing deep-rooted arrows that God is going to launch and do amazing things with. So, I’m going to move out of the way for them to go to another level as well.
Pastor Jim Stern: That’s good. So, what we want to do today before JT begins to preach is, we wanted to pray just a grace over the transition, right, because we’re going to be walking this out of the next 60 days. So, if you could let’s pray together, if you want to you could stretch out your hand as just a show of support. Lord we love JT and Mollie and Mira, and we’re just thrilled with what God has done in their life over the last several years. We’re thankful just for the fact that they’re connected here and growing here. Lord we pray for the grace of God over them in this transition. I pray you do miraculous things; you bring some things online that aren’t even online yet, you just surprise them with your goodness. And Lord we’re excited about what the future holds for these guys in Jesus’ name. Amen. Welcome JT as he preaches!
(audience applauds)
JT Thomas Preaches
JT: It’s 1866. Our nation is quaking from its shakening. Civil War comes forth just after the second great awakening. Breaking the shell of dead religion, Holy Ghost brought conviction, stoking fires of abolition birthing societies of manumission. “Let the slave go free!” became the refrain of the white preacher, like William Wilberforce, Elijah Lovejoy, and Lyman Beecher. You know, the father of Harriet Beecher Stowe. She wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a best-selling novel that prophesied slavery must go. Fictional, it was based on the real life of a man I cannot fail to mention, a fugitive slave from Maryland, a reverend, apostle, Josiah Henson.
Illiterate he opened up the book and said, “Father, teach me! Unlock the scroll and fill my soul so I can preach thee!” He made it to Canada. Together with others he bought 300 acres of land. He built a church, he built a school and houses with his own hands. He built furniture, shipped it around the world, and then, discipled in army and sonship, they were not mere men. Oh, the revelation they carried warrants I say it again, “We’re so much more than slaves, we are not mere men!”
Brave identity. It produces a brave faith. That’s why I start today by unpacking my ancestral slaves’ faith. Not just because it’s February, you know the month of Black history, but because we’ve come here to plumb the depths of the great mystery, Jesus himself. You know the sovereign who reigns, the one who sustained Harriet Tubman as she conducted the freedom train, led by visions and dreams. She traversed through swamps and streams, time and again going back again to tear slavery at its seams. All for love. The captives, they followed her in lines, Valentines, no roses, they called her Moses, no platform no poses, time and again God brings us in a season that exposes, or that expose us, or in whom or what we trust. Perhaps like Rosa, the moment she refused to move from the front of the bus, when it’s time to behave or it’s time to be brave, will we have fear of men or will we trust in the truth that God can do it?
You see, I got great, great greats in the great cloud as my witness, they got a great great stake in my now, they’re heavily invested in my business, you see we have come over a way that with tears has been watered. We have come treading our path through the blood of the slaughter, sons and daughters, brave faith was the recipe, through tears and fears my mothers fought for my destiny. Church. As the first black pastor among mostly white faces she saw that I would need brave identity just to navigate these spaces. Now I have a confidence that almost cannot be measured, I am no longer a slave as I hear my Father say my name: Treasure.
You are a treasured possession. “You are a treasured possession.” Deuteronomy 7:6-7 says, “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God.” And as you’re looking at the screen when you see something in bold, I want you to say it with me. “For the Lord God has—
Audience: Chosen.
JT: No, say it with some fire in your belly. “The Lord God has—”
Audience: (louder) Chosen.
JT: “You to be a—”
Audience: People.
JT: “For His—”
Audience: Treasured possession.
JT: “Out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth, it was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord—”
Audience: Set his love on you.
JT: “And—”
Audience: Chose you.
JT: “For you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because—”
Audience: The Lord loves.
JT: “You, and is—”
Audience: Keeping his oath.
JT: “That He swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and—”
Audience: Redeemed.
JT: Oh, say it like you were redeemed this morning
Audience: (louder) Redeemed.
JT: “Redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of pharaoh king of Egypt.” You see He’s keeping His word. It says He’s keeping His oath. And that means that you can trust and rely upon God. Come on, give him a hand clap of praise this morning. You can trust and rely upon God. People used to ask my grandmother “How you doing?” they used to ask my dad “How you doing, John Thomas how you doing?” and he’d say “I’m trusting and relying on God.” And for some of us that’s just a nice little religious phrase, but when you walk through some fires, and you needed to meet the God who brings you out when you say “How you doing,” “Well I’m not doing that great because life is hard, but God is good, I’m trusting and relying on him.” Deuteronomy 7. It encourages, it says, “Know therefore that, the Lord your God is God.” That’s the first thing we’ve got to know. “Well Lord, I don’t understand why I’m going through what I’m going through, I don’t understand why, why this, where that, when that,” and He says “No no no.” First of all, know that the God is God. He’s not a man, He’s not like a man, He doesn’t lie like a man, He is God all by himself, He can do what He wants how He wants to do it. God is God. And then it says, “Know that He is the—"
Audience: Faithful God.
JT: Oh, y’all have to open your mouth even in the back of the balcony, “Know that He is the—”
Audience: (louder) Faithful God.
JT: “That He is the Faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love Him and teach His commandments to a thousand generations,” there is not one word that God spoke to your mama, your grandmama, your great grandmama, your great great great great that will fall to the ground, because He keeps His word to a thousand generations. Will God do it in your life? You might not see it, God spoken something to you this morning, and you haven’t seen the fruit, you’ve been praying for ten years, you don’t understand that God might have you pray on that thing for a hundred years because a thousand years from now He’s gonna fulfill it through your offspring. Nah, y’all gotta understand, God is after a prevailing faith, we serve a covenant-keeping God, who promises our yes and amen throughout the generations. So, this life that you live right now is not about you. That’s tough, that hurts because we want it to be about us. But it’s about you, and it’s not about you. It’s about you, and it’s about those who went before you and those who are coming after you.
So, identity, confidence, and boldness are established through three things. Encounter, intimacy, and obedience. Identity, confidence, and boldness are established through encounter, intimacy, and obedience. We see in Deuteronomy 11, where God says “You shall keep every commandment”—say it with me—“You shall, therefore, keep every commandment which I command you today, that you may be strong and go in and possess the land which you cross over to possess.” When we are in intimacy with God, we have an encounter with Him that settles the issue of our identity, it settles the doubts in our hearts, and then He says “In His presence, this is who you are, now here is what I want you to do, step out and go do this.” See you have confidence, you can encounter an identity in that place, and then you have the confidence to do what God says to do, you’re gonna be obedient even if people around you don’t understand what you’re doing. “Well why would you sell your house and move to Africa, that doesn’t make any sense, you’ve got a great job, you’ve got a six-figure salary, you’re doing this,” your confidence can be shaken right? “Well maybe this is unwise.” No, when you follow His commandments, keep every commandment that I command you, do not lose heart in front of man, you have confidence. It gives you boldness.
So, He always ties the assignment in our identity to a possession. He always ties the founding of our identity to an assignment. And in Deuteronomy 11, He says “Go in and possess the land,” then right after it in verse 23 He says “Then the Lord will drive out all these nations or ethnic groups or ethnicities before you, and you will dispossess nations greater and mightier than you.” Wait a second—so there’s a possession and a divine brave possession that’s also followed and married with the act of dispossessing. Now what do I mean? Well, we move from brave identity, we move from identity to a promise in God. And we see that the Hebrews have been enslaved and God has brought them out, with a strong arm and a mighty hand He brought them out of Egypt. God brings them out, and they get to the edge of the wilderness that they’ve been in forever, and they’re right here looking over at Canaan. And God says “Moses, send spies into the land to spy it out. Check out the land, take a census, do an audit, see what enemies we have there, see where we’re gonna settle, all these different things. So, they round up a bunch of men from every tribe and they go in and they spy out the land. Now this is interesting. They spy out the land, and they come back with this report in Numbers 13:28. They go, “Moses, it’s exactly like you said, the promise we’ve been holding on to all these years, the promised land is beautiful, it’s overflowing with milk and honey, BUT the people who live there are powerful. The cities are fortified, they’re large, we even saw the descendants of Enoch there.” That’s the Nephilim, those are actual physical giants. And it says, “We look like grasshoppers in their eyes!” And Caleb, they’re quaking, they’re in fear, they’re talking themselves out of going out into the land because it looks too daunting, and Caleb stands up and he says, “Silence. We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.” And they responded, “Well we just can’t, they’re stronger than us,” and then all of Israel loses heart. “Oh no, why did you bring us out of Egypt only to kill us? Why did you sustain us for forty years in the desert, only to bring us here? There’s no way we can beat these Nephilim!”
And God’s like, “You know what, I’m tired of your grumbling and complaining, how is it I can do all these things, I can sustain you for forty years, supernatural plowed by day fire by night, I’m bringing water out of the rocks, I’m doing all these different things to sustain you, and you’re sitting here acting like I can’t help you defeat a little ten-foot giant.” And God says “You know what? I’m done with y’all. Moses and Caleb, Caleb I like your spirit, Moses you’re a good man, I’m gonna make a great nation out of you and I’m killing everybody else.” Moses goes before the Lord and says “No no no no,” he becomes an intercessor, he says “God, my people are stupid. Please, please, Lord please don’t do this for the sake of your name spare them, or else all the nations will say that you were the God who brought us out of Egypt but were not strong enough to deliver us from the hands of the Amalekites and the Hittites,” and so God says “Okay, you’re right, you’re right, my name is pretty great. For the sake of my name—not for their sake, but for my namesake—I’m gonna spare them. But,” He says, “All of the men who went out as spies in the land and brought back an ill report and are not in faith, they will not enter into the possession.” You’ve gotta understand, God will give you a promise in your life, and then there will be a giant standing there contending. God did not promise that you would not have trouble, He promised that in this world you would have trouble, but not to lose heart, “For I have overcome the world” says the Lord. God never said, “Well here’s the promise but the promise will come without a fight.” See God is not after some weak back, broke back, lily-livered, Christians, He wants you to have a spine, who knows how to stand on the word of God. So, Caleb had a different spirit. And the bottom line is if God has promised something to you and told you to do something, and you can sit down and calculate and strategize and come out with a clear way to do it in your own strength then it wasn’t God in the first place. If you’re out here doing something and there are no giants to be slayed in doing it, it’s not God, it’s you. See full obedience in the act of brave possession, everybody say brave possession—
Audience: Brave possession.
JT: Unlock supernatural empowerment to do the impossible. Full obedience in the act of brave possession unlocks supernatural empowerment to do what is impossible with man. So, we have to have a contending spirit. Some of you walk in here week after week, and you’ve been beat up. I know I do sometimes. And it’s because there’s a contender, there’s a giant standing in front of you, and it’s assaulting and insulting your understanding of who God is, the brave identity of who God is, and the brave identity of who you are. It’s kind of like these UFC fights where you see fighters facing off, and you see them right here in each other’s face, and they’re staring at each other it’s the face off, it’s time to go toe-to-toe, and blow for blow, and you’ll see these things get a little out of hand when somebody’s like right here in your face, and they spit, or they go “I’m gonna rip you apart, you ain’t nothing man, you ain’t got nothing on me, you’re gonna die, I’m ready to die, are you ready to die?”
(laughs from audience)
JT: And there’s like an enemy—how many of you have ever heard the enemy—when you wake up tomorrow morning, maybe you heard it this morning, “Aw, do I have to go to church? Do I really need to go? Maybe I can just sleep in, what’s gonna be different about church today? God’s gonna touch the person next to me but he’s not gonna touch me. Well God can’t fix this, and God can’t fix me. I go and I do the altar call, and I keep struggling, I keep failing,” and that’s the voice of the contender, contending against you, right in your face yelling at you, but God says it’s time for you to have a brave identity. And so because we believe the opposite voice, we believe other than and less than who God says we are, we cower under the weight of the enemy of our souls. Now it’s interesting, I didn’t read this definition but there’s a definition of contend, it says “to struggle, to surmount a difficulty or danger, similar to cope with, face, grapple with, take on, pit oneself against, resist and withstand.” But see we get on the offense when we begin to do number two, the number two definition which is “Search something as a position in an argument,” there’s an argument against your family, there’s an argument against your life, there’s an argument against our city, there’s an argument against our nation, but God is looking for somebody like a Moses, who will become an intercessor and stand before God and insert another argument, insert a different position, insert a truth of who God says and what God says about the situation. Oh, I wish I had one witness in the house today. You see God is looking for us, to maintain, hold claim, argue, profess, affirm, avow, insist, somebody say insist—
Audience: Insist.
JT: To insist the truth of God in our lives and our situation. A contending spirit of prayer. A contending faith. A bold faith. I would dare say a brave faith. Somebody say brave faith.
Audience: Brave faith.
JT: In the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15, we see that this son has really deserted his inheritance, he’s believed the arguments of the one who contends against his soul, his life, his inheritance, and so he leaves his father’s house and he’s so jacked up and messed up he tries the world and all the things that the world has to offer him, and he realizes, “You know what, it’s not so glorious on this side. The grass is not greener. I’m dead out here, I’ve forsaken everything, I’ve lost my inheritance, I’ve walked away from God, I’ve walked away from my family, I’ve disappointed so many people and I want to go back, but I’m not even worth being a son anymore. I don’t even expect my father to receive me as a son. In fact, I just wanna be on the property on the ground, I’ll be a servant, not a son.” And so, he rehearses, he writes a script and he rehearses it, and he says “You know what? I’m going to go to my dad and say, ‘Father, I’m not worthy of being your son, just let me be a servant.’” But it says right here in verse 20, he arose. First of all, the prodigal son arose. He did what we would call in our series, “rise.” The prodigal son was walking in the filth of the gutter. He was crawling in the dust. He was in a low place. But if you want to get out, you’ve got to rise. Some of us have been walking in that low place, under the weight of our failures, under the weight of our disappointments, under the weight of our struggles, under the weight of all these different things. And God says, “Get up!”
Audience: (applauds)
JT: Get up! Get up, rise up! It says he arose. And he came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him. And he felt compassion. His father saw him from a long way, his father’s sleepless nights he’s looking, “Son, where is my son? God I cannot sleep until my son returns. Oh God, that you would bring my son back!” His son had no idea that from a long way off his father had been watching the road, every shadow that passes by, “Maybe that’s my son. There you are! Is that him? No that’s not him.” He’s desperate for his son to come home. And he sees his son coming down the road. And his father saw him and felt compassion. And he ran, I bet this man, this old man, he’s tripping over himself saying “That’s my son!” He’s running after his son. And he embraces him, and he kisses him. And the son said to him, “Father, I’ve sinned, against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Quickly. Bring the best robe.” Everybody say “the best robe.”
Audience: Best robe.
JT: “And put it on him. And put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate.” You see, there’s a wardrobe to having a brave identity. You see, when you’ve been sleeping on the streets, when you’ve been slaving in the fields, when you’ve gotten hot and sweaty living in your earthly identity, living as a slave to this world, living without affirmation of the Father’s love, your clothes get nasty. But when you return to the Father, he says “I have a robe for you.” He says, “I want to clothe you in righteousness.” You see, Isaiah 61 says “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord. My soul shall exalt in my God, for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation.” How many of you have a new garment this morning?
Audience: (cheers)
JT: How many of you are not dressed in what you used to be dressed in? How many of you aren’t stinking like the club that night? You don’t smell like the drugs you used to be addicted to. You don’t smell like the alcohol that used to have a hold on you. You don’t walk the sexually immoral lifestyle you used to walk in. Oh, I wish I had a praise in the house today!
Audience: (cheers loudly)
JT: God has a garment for you. The Father has a robe for you. He’s saying change your clothes this morning. I’ve called you my son. I’ve called you my daughter. He’s covered me with—what does it say in bold?
Audience: Robes of righteousness.
JT: “He has covered me with the robe of righteousness. As a bridegroom decks himself like a priest, with a beautiful headdress. As a bride adorns herself with jewels.” And then he says, “Go ahead and give him a ring.” Now, this is not any kind of ring, this is a signet ring. A signet ring is what you use when you are signing and sealing an authoritative document, today it would be equivalent to a notary public when you’re doing a business transaction. But in Genesis 41, it says pharaoh removed his signet ring from his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand. Clothed him, there we go again, he changed his clothes, clothed him with fine linen garments, and placed a gold chain around his neck. In Esther, we see that the king removes his signet ring that he had recovered from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai and Esther to put them in charge of Haman’s estate. In Esther we see him say “You may write in the king’s name whatever pleases you concerning the Jews and seal it with the royal signet ring.” A document written in the king’s name and sealed with the royal signet ring cannot be revoked. Hold on, you got to understand. I was trying to multitask, change clothes and preach at the same time. Come on, give me a round of applause for that. Lord Jesus. I was going through a rough wilderness with God, how many of you know that God prepares his messengers and the people he uses in the wilderness?
Audience: Amen.
JT: I was going through a wilderness when God gave me a robe. Many of you might remember the story of my prophetic robe, I won’t go into all of it, but God gave me a robe. Then I led one of my friends who was living in a sexually confused lifestyle, a man who was just in complete bondage in terms of his own identity, and he had struggled for many many years, and what happened was he came to visit me, and he had decided that he was an atheist. He decided he was an atheist. Now I’m in full-time ministry on staff at a local church, so he spent four days going to prayer meetings with me, going to meetings as I was leading services and all this kind of stuff, and I just said, “That’s okay.” About two days in he said, “Man, can I get saved now?” I was like “Nah bro, you ain’t ready yet.” He was like “What?” A day later, “JT I think I’m ready now. Can I get saved?” “Nah, not time yet.” It’s the last night right before he’s leaving, he’s flying back to Atlanta the next morning, and we watch a movie. I think this is how old it was, I’m dating myself but “The Bourne Identity” had just come out. Wow, I didn’t even think about the fact that that was prophetic, “Bourne Identity.”
Audience: (applauds)
JT: So, we’re watching “The Bourne Identity,” and middle of the movie, he interrupts me, and he goes “JT! I can’t take it anymore; can I get saved now?” And I said, “Now you’re ready.” Right there in the middle of movie, we went at it, and he got delivered from some things right there. He got saved. Filled with the holy spirit. And then, he goes back to Atlanta, he’s one of the most artistic and creative guys I’ve ever met in my life. And a few months later this comes in the mail. These are rings. He created these by hand, and it has my name, Jonathon Tremaine Thomas, and a scripture that says “Bless the Lord oh my soul, you are very great, you are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a garment stretching out the heavens like a tent, He makes His messengers winds and His ministers a flaming fire.” Each one of these rings light up, I don’t know if you can see it. But this is like a signet ring. And he sent me this, and the Lord said, “I’m robing you. I’m putting a ring on your finger. And now I’m going to give you new shoes. I’m going to give you a new assignment.” And this morning, I believe that God wants to give you new shoes. I believe there are some of you who have been walking in yesterday’s identity, and you’ve not been able to come out of it. You’ve not been in sin, some of you, some of you have, real talk. But others of you, you’ve been grieving because you don’t feel the anointing you used to feel. You don’t feel grace for the assignment that you used to have on your life because the grace has left because you’re wearing an old garment, and God says, “It’s time to put on a new robe.” Some of you don’t have boldness or confidence because you haven’t walked in obedience, and others of you, you’re not walking in obedience because you’re clinging to the last year’s season. You can’t hear God’s voice for today, because it doesn’t make sense to you. But this morning, God wants to robe you with a new robe. You see, in the ring of the contending the fighters come out with a robe on, and they’re ready to fight. But they take the robes off and enter the ring, that’s how the world does it but God says “If you want to enter the ring and walk in a brave identity and possess the land and defeat the giants, I don’t need you to take the robe off, I need you to put the robe on.
Audience: (applauds)
JT: Get clothed in your identity. Get clothed in righteousness. God wants to give you a signet ring. You see when you’ve got the signet ring, pharaoh gave the ring to Joseph, and because he wore the ring now, whatever Joseph said it was as if pharaoh himself said it. Whatever Joseph did, all he had to do was put his ring on it, put the seal of pharaoh on it, and the ring had authority over the land. The ring is the authority of God that He wants to put in your hands to accomplish what he’s called you to do.
Audience: (applauds)
JT: Some of you have on the robe, but you don’t have the authority yet. God says, “Put on the ring.” Some of you have on the robe and the ring but you don’t have the shoes, and this is what the shoes are. It says in Ephesians 16, “As shoes for your feet, put on the readiness”—someone say readiness—
Audience: Readiness.
JT: “Given by the gospel of peace.” So, you got to understand what you’re walking through right now in bare feet is making you ready. The trial that you’re walking through, the thing that God is asking you to become, brave end to put on your brave identity, the things that you’re walking through right now are making you ready. It says, “Having the preparation of the gospel of peace.” That means if I have a brave identity, I have peace in the middle of my storm. I have good news when everything around me is bad news. You see, that’s what my great great great great great grandmother and them knew. They knew, that when everything around them, as crocodiles and pit vipers and all these things were yapping at them, and slave drivers were hunting them down, like cattle, they said “If I can just get to the land of promise. I have peace because I am no longer a slave, I am a son, I am a daughter. You don’t owe me; you say you own me, but you do not own me. I belong to Jesus; he is just he is faithful he is covenant keeping.” There’s an old song that I’m going to invite you to sing with me that we used to sing in the old church. And it’s about not growing weary. I’m gonna sing it over you, and then while the song is playing over the speakers, I want you to stand if you’re saying, “God, I need a robe today. God I wanna cast off the cowardice. Lord I want to know who you say that I am and what you say about me. I believe there’s an assignment God for my life,” and you’re saying, “God put a robe and a ring on me. Set your seal of love on me.” His banner over you is love, He is preparing a table for you in the presence of your enemies, you are a chosen and treasured possession, in fact that scripture, “You are a treasured possession,” was a direct word to the Hebrew people, it was a direct word to Israel, they were first, then us, the Gentile nations, but God has grafted us in to every promise he made to them. You now have access to that promise.
Audience: (applauds)
JT: If you’re tired this morning, your faith is tired, your relationships are tired, your marriages are tired, this is why marriage is so important. He says, “I am the God who keeps an oath to a thousand generations.” God says “I am a covenant keeping God. When times get hard and you pull out, I’m not pulling out on you, because I keep my word. I am faithful. If you’re in this room this morning and you’re saying, “I need a covenant keeping faith, I need a supernatural empowerment to help me sustain and persevere,” I want you to stand up this morning.