Small Group
study guide

If you want to know who you are, don't look within. Look above.

Overview
This week's sermon explored one of the most pressing questions of our time: identity. The message traced how our culture has shifted from looking outside ourselves to find identity -- through community, family, and faith -- to looking inside ourselves, relying entirely on our own inner desires and feelings to define who we are. Drawing from Psalm 139, the sermon offered a third and better way: looking up to the God who created us, knows us fully, and defines us most truly.


Scripture Passage: Pslam 139 (NIV)
Psa. 139:1 O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
Psa. 139:2 You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
Psa. 139:3 You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Psa. 139:4 Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.
Psa. 139:5 You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
Psa. 139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
Psa. 139:7 Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
Psa. 139:8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
Psa. 139:9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
Psa. 139:10 even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast.
Psa. 139:11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
Psa. 139:12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
Psa. 139:13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Psa. 139:14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
Psa. 139:15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
Psa. 139:16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
Psa. 139:17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Psa. 139:18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake, I am still with you.
Psa. 139:19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God!
Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
Psa. 139:20 They speak of you with evil intent;
your adversaries misuse your name.
Psa. 139:21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD,
and abhor those who rise up against you?
Psa. 139:22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
I count them my enemies.
Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Psa. 139:24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.


Key Takeaways

• The modern concept of identity, what has been called  "expressive individualism," places the entire burden of self-definition on the individual alone -- a weight no person was designed to carry.
• Our inner desires and emotions are real, but that does not automatically make them a reliable or complete guide to who we truly are. Our hearts are far more fickle than we like to imagine.
• Our physical bodies are not incidental to our identity. They are part of how God fearfully and wonderfully made us. To locate identity entirely apart from the body is to diminish, not elevate, our humanity.
• True identity is not found by looking within or by listening to the loudest cultural voices. It is found by looking up to the One who imagined us, formed us, and loves us completely.

Discussion Questions
Opener (Use this to ease into conversation -- no wrong answers):
If someone were to ask you "Who are you?" what is the first thing that comes to your mind, and why?

Wrestling With Identity

1. The sermon described a historical shift in how people find identity -- from looking outside themselves to looking inside themselves. Where do you see this shift playing out in everyday life, in conversations, in media, or in your own experience?
2. The sermon noted that our modern concept of identity places enormous pressure on the individual to self-define without input from community, family, or faith. Have you ever felt that pressure? What did it feel like?
3. The sermon used Tim Keller's thought experiment about the Anglo-Saxon warrior to make the point that our inner desires are shaped by the world around us more than we often realize. What do you think about that idea? Does it challenge or confirm anything you have believed about self-discovery?
4. The sermon said: "Your emotions, your feelings, they're real. But that doesn't mean they're right." How do you personally navigate the difference between acknowledging your feelings and desires and letting them shape or define you? Where is that line difficult to hold?
5. Augustine is quoted as describing our condition as having "disordered loves." What does that phrase mean to you? Can you think of an example from your own life where your desires pulled you in a direction that was not actually good for you?

Digging in

1. The sermon suggested that God's all-knowing presence is either terrifying or deeply comforting, depending on how you view God. How do you tend to experience God's closeness -- as surveillance or tenderness? What has shaped that perception for you?
2. The sermon made this statement: "You might not get you, but he does." Has there been a season in your life where you felt confused about who you were or what you wanted, and you sensed God understanding you even when you did not understand yourself? What was that like?
3. The sermon argued that our physical bodies are not enemies to our true selves but are essential to who God made us to be. How does that idea push back against some of the messages our culture sends about the body?

Living It Out

1. Psalm 139 ends with David inviting God to search him, test him, and correct him -- to lead him away from the "offensive way" and toward the "way everlasting." What would it look like practically for you to pray that prayer this week and mean it?
2. The sermon closed with this line: "There is nothing more conspicuous than being fully alive -- to be the full expression of who God has created you to be." What is one area of your life where you feel you are not yet fully living as who God made you to be? What might be holding you back?

Practical Applications
This Week, Choose One:

• Read Psalm 139 slowly and use it as a personal prayer. Let David's words become your own confession that God knows you better than you know yourself.
• Audit the voices you are listening to. Make a list of the sources that most shape how you think about yourself -- social media, certain relationships, your own inner critic, cultural messages. Consider which of those voices align with what God says about you and which ones do not.
• Have a courageous conversation. Is there someone in your life -- a friend, a family member, a coworker -- who is wrestling with questions of identity? Ask God for wisdom and compassion, and take one step toward walking alongside them without an agenda to fix them.
• Memorize one verse from Psalm 139. Choose a verse that speaks most directly to something you are wrestling with and commit it to memory this week.

Closing Prayer
The sermon reminded us that David ends Psalm 139 not with a declaration but with an invitation -- asking God to search him, know him, and lead him. Close your group time by giving each person a moment to pray this sentence silently or aloud:

"God, one thing I am asking you to search in me right now is..."



This Study Guide is part of our "Conspicuous" Sermon Series.