A New Me—Union and Identity by Kyle Worley

by Rachael Adams | Feb 13, 2025 | The Love Offering Guest Blog Series

Many people don’t know who they are. Don’t believe me? Check out the best-selling books or the trending podcasts. Spend a bit of time on social media. Everywhere you look you are bound to find people shouting out: “Who am I?” If you remain unconvinced, take a sheet of paper and write “Who am I?” at the top and see if you can fill out the entire sheet of paper in the next five minutes without slipping into answering the question of who you are by describing what you do.

Identity confusion has been a persistent problem since Adam and Eve heard the lie of the serpent and thought, Yeah, maybe I should be God. It’s not a new problem, but it’s a recurring one. We are born with it nestled next to our hearts: a fundamental misunderstanding of our identity. We want to know who we are. We need to know who we are. And there are lots of voices prepared to sell us stories of identity. But which one is true? When we don’t know who we are, we are in real danger of believing lies about our identity. (pg. 83-84)

The good news is that God is inviting us into His fellowship. We need a refuge for this redemption, we need a shelter for this salvation, we need a new home. The garden, Mount Sinai, the Tabernacle, and the temple were all temporary homes that found their perfect fulfillment in Christ Jesus. And it is in Christ Jesus that we are welcomed, for good and forever, into God’s delighting fellowship.

To return to our definition of union with Christ, union with Christ is the believer’s identification, incorporation, and participation in and with the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and heavenly session of the Son of God, Jesus the Christ. To say it another way, union with Christ creates a “new me, a new we, and a new way.” In Christ Jesus, God has given us a home that rewrites our stories, redefines our identities, restores our belonging, and reshapes the way we live and move in the world.

We are not born into this world as sons and daughters of God. We are created in God’s image, and every person who has ever lived—regardless of their faith or faithlessness—is an image-bearer of God. But not every person is a child of God. Only those who take up residence in God’s perfect Son become the recipients of God’s blessed fellowship.

We are born into this world needing an identity change because we are born into this world not “in Christ,” but, “in Adam.” By nature, we are “children of wrath, like the rest of mankind” (Eph. 2:3). We are born into this world as Adam’s heirs—heirs of his sinful nature and the inheritors of God’s judgment against sin. This means we are separated from God, do not possess true knowledge of who we are, and are alienated from the family of God in Jesus. The modern confusion around identity isn’t a cultural problem, it’s a theological reality. We desperately need a change of identity. We are not right as we are by nature and we must be re-homed.

The fundamental problem of this natural identity is that we are unrighteous. We lack the righteousness required for fellowship with God and participation in His covenant love and kingdom. Without the righteousness of God, we have no standing in God’s presence and remain under God’s judgment against sin. God is gracious and holy: we must be made righteous in order to receive God’s fellowship. This righteousness cannot be earned, but it may be received by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (pg. 84-86)

Kyle Worley

About the Author:

Kyle Worley is a pastor in Texas. He hosts the Knowing Faith Podcast alongside Jen Wilkin and JT English. He is a teaching fellow and partner for Training the Church. He holds degrees in theology and philosophy from Dallas Baptist University, Redeemer Theological Seminary, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, and The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. His newest book, Home with God, will be available nationwide February 11, 2025.