Who am I? Jesus's question to find your true identity may surprise you

One of the great questions of our age is “Who am I?” Its answer is the key to unlock every door.
Films like the original Star Wars trilogy, the Jason Bourne franchise and Captain Marvel derive much of their narrative impetus and emotional pull from the quest for the self: what is my true identity?

The assumption is that, if I find out who I really am, I will be able to embrace my true mission for life and live the life I was made for. The reason that this question exerts such a pull on us is that it is true; if we do not know who we are, we will be unable to embrace our life mission, and a strong sense of identity provides a firm foundation for making decisions and navigating our way through life.

But the Bible, as so often, comes at this universal question in a surprising, subversive way. Finding my true self is not a case of looking inside of myself, or of trying on a range of identities to see which one I think fits best.
Where our culture wagers its happiness and sense of purpose on trying to answer the question “who am I?”, Jesus takes a different approach with his disciples. Rather than teaching them to look inside or see what feels right, he asks “Who do you say I am?” (Matthew 16:15).

These two questions–“who am I?” and “who do you say I am?” describe two very different approaches to the question of identity.

One facet of a biblical approach to the question of identity is that, to find out who I am, I do not need to look inside myself but reach beyond myself to the one who made me, loved me and commands me to deny myself, take up my cross and follow him. I will never know who I truly am if I fail to see who he is.

This understanding of identity is irreducibly relational. It does not create a society of self-interpreting atoms each with their own identity, but a woven-together community of those whose identity is inextricably caught up with Christ and with each other as his family, his household, his building and his temple (Ephesians 2:19-22)
This short YouTube video explores this wonderful truth of our identity in Christ.