What Is Your Identity in Christ? A Look at Colossians 3
Pastor Keith Roberson started with a show of hands at New River Church: how many of you have ever put on a costume? A Halloween night, a school play, a costume party — almost every hand in the room went up. And for a night, it’s fun. You get dressed up, you pretend to be somebody else, everybody laughs.
But run the experiment forward. What if you had to do it every day? What if every single morning you had to put on an identity and spend the whole day pretending to be someone you are not? It stops being the fun party pretty fast. It becomes exhausting. Then it becomes a burden. Eventually it just wears you out.
That, Keith said, is exactly the picture Colossians 3 wants us to see — because an enormous number of us are living in a costume. In this message from the SUPREME series — a walk through Colossians on the supremacy of Jesus and the supremacy of a life hidden in him — Keith opened one of the most freeing chapters in the Bible: who you actually are now that you’re in Christ, and how to finally take the costume off.
What this sermon is about
The thesis is the kind of thing that sounds simple until you realize how few of us live it: in Christ, you have been fundamentally changed and given a brand-new identity. Not improved. Not patched. Changed. The text says you’ve been raised with Christ and your life is now hidden with him.
Which means the daily project of pretending — measuring up, dressing up, performing for acceptance — is over. The question the sermon asks is whether you’ll believe it and live from it.
Raised with Christ: you don’t have to pretend anymore
Colossians 3 opens with a staggering claim: “You have been raised with Christ… your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Ephesians says the same thing — not just raised with him, but seated with him in heavenly places. This is who you are now. The old you goes away, and what forms out of that is a brand-new life.
“No more trying or pretending to be someone that you’re not. No more trying to measure up. He has measured you up. No more trying to be righteous. He has given you righteousness.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
But every one of us feels the pull in the other direction — the sense that I still have to do this and accomplish that in order to be okay. Okay with the people around me, and okay with God. And Keith named that pull for what it is: the very essence of sin. Sin, at its core, is trying to be someone I am not — living on my own terms, my own abilities, my own steam. It’s the pain of dressing yourself up on the regular to be acceptable to God and to each other, and it never, ever works.
Romans 10:3 — “For, being ignorant of the righteousness of God, and seeking to establish their own, they did not submit to God’s righteousness.”
We spin our wheels trying to be good, to be right, to be seen, to be accepted. And this text says: lay down the trying and the self-creating, and instead receive a gift. Not your rightness — his righteousness. Your life is hidden with him now, and what you have comes from him.
Righteousness isn’t a well-ironed shirt
Here Keith paused on a word church people think they already understand. When most of us hear “righteousness,” we picture something really clean and really crisp — a perfectly ironed shirt, every wrinkle out, no messiness anywhere. But that’s not the Bible’s narrative of the word at all.
“Righteousness is not about your perfection. Righteousness is about your relating… The opposite of righteousness isn’t immorality. The opposite of righteousness is rejection.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
Righteousness is relational. It’s a word that means to be right with someone — to be received, to have favor, to be welcomed and brought in. Which means its opposite isn’t a moral failing; it’s being left on the outside. Unseen. Not brought in. That’s what we once were — rejected, alone, on the outside. And Jesus came into our messiness and said: you don’t have to be on the outside. You can have my rightness with the Father. I give it to you. By faith, every broken thing about you was cast into the outer darkness, and you are now hidden in him.
Keith found the feeling everybody knows: showing up to an event dressed wrong. You walk in and instantly realize you didn’t get the memo, and it’s excruciating — it’s the whole reason we text each other “what are you wearing?” before we leave the house. Nobody wants to be the one on the outside. And the scripture is saying that in Christ, you never, ever have to show up exposed and alone again. You get to be accepted, covered, made right with the Holy One of the ages. That’s the new identity — and he’s inviting us to walk in the fullness of it.
How you put the old self to death: say it out loud
So what about the old costume? Colossians 3:5 and following lists it plainly — sexual immorality, impurity, evil desire, covetousness (which is just idolatry), anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, lying. Keith was honest that everyone in the room would identify with something on that list — as a piece of the past, a present struggle, or a future temptation. This is what humanity does when we’re clamoring for control and seeking life in broken ways. The text calls it our old clothing — the way we used to show up to life — and says to put it to death. Or as Keith put it, you don’t have to show up to the world this way anymore. It’s like showing up to a black-tie affair in your cargo jorts. Put it off. This isn’t who you are.
But here’s the catch: you can’t fix that list. You don’t have enough power in your human hands to make it go away. Trying harder is just more pretending. So what do you actually do when the old way tries to grab you by the throat and drag you back into an identity that isn’t yours anymore? Keith’s answer was three short sentences: Don’t pretend. Don’t hide. Tell the truth.
“You want to know how you put something to death? You just say it out loud. And you say it to God, and we get to say it to someone who loves us and is for us.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
When the gossip about a coworker feels delicious, when jealousy over someone’s promotion festers, when the little white lies polish your image — the way out is exposure, not management. Bring it forward. “Lord, I want to be seen. I do want to belong. I do want to matter. But I keep showing up with this thing that’s broken.” That’s why we love the Psalms: David keeps saying “I’m a mess, God… oh, but your unfailing love lasts forever.”
1 John 1:9 — “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
James 5:16 — “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
This is why Keith pushed the room past private spirituality: find friends — plural — who will be a safe place for you and love you enough to call you up. That’s why community exists. It’s a scary, vulnerable thing, but it’s how scripture moves from a beautiful idea in the clouds to something real and pulsing through your veins. And when we bring it before the Lord, Jesus says: brother, sister, son, daughter — your life is hidden with me, and I cover you, and I receive you again. What an exchange we get to make, literally every day. And then you’ll blow it, because you’re human — Keith included himself — and you come back and make the exchange again.
“Let”: putting on the new self
Then comes the wardrobe change. “Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved” — and Keith made the room slow down on that phrase, because it’s what God is saying about you — “compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, patience… and above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.”
Here’s the problem with treating that as a to-do list: how exactly do you manufacture compassion? If a pastor simply orders you to be more compassionate, you walk out feeling guilty and annoyed, and nothing changes.
“How do you create compassion? How do you do it? You can’t. But your life is hidden with Christ, and he has endless amounts of compassion and kindness and humility. We don’t have it. He has all of it, and he’s just ready to give it away.” — Pastor Keith Roberson
God isn’t aiming at the outside — changing the outside is easy. He’s going for the inside, and inside-out transformation comes with a process and a timeline we wouldn’t choose. Which is why Keith called verse 15’s first word the most amazing word in the passage: “Let.” Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. “Let” means a partnership — God having access and permission to come and have his way. From the text, Keith pulled out the core habits of the new identity:
- Let peace cover you. You can’t create peace by managing circumstances; you open your hands and receive it.
- Let the word sink in deep. We don’t open the Bible to score reading points for the day. We open it to let it have its way.
- Let faithful friends scuff you. (Keith admitted this was his own translation.) Flattering friends tell you your hair looks great; faithful friends are willing to say “hey, those jorts don’t work on you” — and “it feels like something’s broken; how can I pray for you?”
- Let songs arise. Singing together on Sundays matters more than we think, and it shouldn’t stop in the parking lot — sing in the car, in the house, everywhere else.
- Let gratefulness remind you of his goodness. Whatever you’re still waiting on, God has still been so good to you.
The service closed the way the text deserves: the whole church came forward, held the communion elements together, confessed what’s been broken, and received — not their own righteousness, but his.
What this means for your week in Franklin
If you take this sermon seriously, four things change about this week.
- Retire one costume. Name the place where you perform hardest — work, marriage, church, online — and consciously stop dressing up there this week. You’ve been measured up already. Walk in as the person Christ has made you.
- Say the thing out loud. Pick the item from the Colossians 3 list that has the strongest grip on you and tell the truth about it — to God first, and then to one safe friend. That’s not weakness. According to this sermon, it’s literally how you put something to death.
- Practice “let” once a day. Peace, the word, songs, gratefulness — pick one each day and open your hands instead of gritting your teeth. Transformation is received, not manufactured.
- Be a faithful friend, not a flattering one. Someone near you needs more than “your hair looks great.” Love them enough to ask the real question — and be safe enough that they can answer it honestly.
Watch the full message
The full sermon — “A Supreme Identity” from the SUPREME series in Colossians — is in the video above. We post a new message every Sunday from New River Church in Franklin, TN. Browse our message library for more from the SUPREME series and other recent teaching.
Coming Sunday at New River Church in Franklin, TN
If this message resonated and you’d like to experience worship and community in person, we’d love to have you with us. New River Church meets Sundays at 9:00 AM and 10:45 AM at 1153 Lewisburg Pike in Franklin, TN 37064 — just minutes from downtown Franklin and easy to reach from across Williamson County, Brentwood, and Spring Hill.
You don’t need to dress up. You don’t need a good voice. You don’t need to know much about church or the Bible to come. We’re a community of ordinary people walking through ordinary life, trying to do it together with Jesus at the center. Whether you’ve been a Christian for forty years or you’ve never set foot in a church, you are welcome here.
If you’re new to the area or new to faith, our First Time Guest page walks through everything you need to know before your first visit: parking, what to expect on Sunday morning, what your kids will experience in River Kids, and how to find us when you arrive.
If you’re looking for deeper community beyond Sunday morning, our Community Groups meet across Franklin and the surrounding area throughout the week. Groups are where Sunday morning faith becomes Tuesday afternoon real life.
Whatever you’re carrying right now, you don’t have to carry it alone. There’s a place for you at New River Church in Franklin, Tennessee. Come as you are.
Watch more sermons: newriverfranklin.com/messages Plan your visit: newriverfranklin.com/firsttimeguest Find a group: newriverfranklin.com/groups
📍 New River Church | 1153 Lewisburg Pike, Franklin, TN 37064 | Sundays 9:00 AM & 10:45 AM
