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A good doctor named Jack Griffin experiments with a drug called monocaine. The results were a scientific breakthrough but also a curse. Since the experiment the good doctor has disappeared and all that remains is the Invisible Man.
The story of mankind is a story of lost identity. A sin of disobedience in the Garden, led to Cain murdering his brother, led to Lamech murdering multiple people and taking multiple wives and anything else he wanted, led to the whole world being overcome with evil… We look nothing like the good creation God created us to be.
Is there a way the identity of the invisible man can be restored?

Creature Feature 4 – The Invisible Man

Sermon Notes by Chris Fluitt

-Bumper Video
Creature Feature Title

Today we are going to talk about the The Invisible Man. Featured in a 1933 Horror movie classic.
A brilliant scientist named Jack Griffin takes his experimental drug, Monocaine, causing him to become invisible. It was quite the breakthrough, better than he could have imagined… but there was a problem. The Scientist never found a way to become visible again.
As happy as he was to obtain the power of invisibility, he was also bothered and panicked to not be able to reappear. The very thing he wanted so badly turned out to be a curse.
He would speak but no one would see him. People would be startled as he would move things around the room. He was no longer the brilliant doctor Jack Griffin… He was now the invisible man.
What the invisible man suffered from most was a Lost Identity

What would it be like to never be able to see yourself in the mirror again? Sure you would never have to come your hair again.. but, you have to imagine the feeling of isolation could get alarming. There would be no more pictures of yourself with your friends and family. Your connection with people would feel impossible… imagine never having eye contact. You are little more than a voice in a room… a ghost.. no longer merely a man.. an invisible man.
Whatever relationships Dr Griffin had where now permanently altered..
He had planned to marry a woman named flora.. but now it seemed impossible..
Whatever people thought of the good doctor now had changed..
Once a brilliant scientific mind, but now a science experiment gone wrong..
His invisibility has caused him to lose his identity.

Have you ever felt like you were not yourself? Like you had lost your identity? It isn’t a good feeling.

You are created by the creator. He didn’t just throw some cells together.
Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.(NIV)
Psalm 139:14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.(NIV)
God played an intimate role in your creation. You are knit together, fearfully and wonderfully made.. God is Father of all creation.. that makes us His children
Even when you were so small. Even at the moment of conception.. He saw you… Psalm 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,(NIV)
Even then you were not hidden from God. He saw you on earth… all the way from Heaven’s throne.
Psalm 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.(NIV)
Our unformed body… is visible to Him. This is impossible… it is supernatural… No one can see you like your Father in Heaven can see you.
And He plans your days before one of them has occurred. Some people have taken this scripture passage to be a predetermined, deterministic view of God… that He plans everything that happens in your life… I don’t see this verse this way… I see this verse as a father myself…
I remember learning I was going to be a dad. And before my son ever arrived… before he had ever lived day 1.. I was already planning out and dreaming about all the days I would have with him. We would watch football together… my wife would remind me “he might not like sports..” I would envision going to six flags and riding roller coasters.. We started a savings fund for his college education… We made meticulous plans on how we would correct him and always love him.. all of this… all these plans were made in my heart before he would ever live 1 day.
Psalm 139:17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!(NIV)
Psalm 139:18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.(NIV)
The story of God and mankind is a complicated story. I can’t really do it justice if I had days to talk.. I believe the story is complicated because of our Lost Identity
Genesis 1:27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.(NIV)
Genesis 1:31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning–the sixth day.(NIV)
God the creator gave us identity.

Made in His Image
Made “Good”

The serpent appears and the first thing he does is accuse God of lying. He question’s God’s identity as Good & Holy..
When the enemy questions God’s identity… he ultimately questions your identity.
When Adam & Eve eat of the tree they sin… and they damage their identity. They are no longer good. They are no longer sinless.
It went from 1 act of disobedience, to Cain killing his brother to Lamech saying I will kill whoever I want and do whatever I want, to the scene where the whole world is overcome by sin… Mankind had lost their identity and now everything is changed.

The Invisible Man was drawn to the idea of Hidden Crimes
Things done is secret are pretty easy to do when you are invisible. He says “An invisible man can rule the world. Nobody will see him come, nobody will see him go. He can hear every secret. He can rob, and rape, and kill!”
With the use of his invisibility he strangles people, he creates fatal car accidents, he pushes people off cliffs, he even derails a passenger train.. This Good Doctor turned invisible man has a kill count of over 100 people in a 1933 movie.. That is astonishing for it’s time.
People who have lost their identity… the identity of being created by God in His image.. the identity of being Good.. When you lose that identity you are drawn to the shadows.. the secret invisible places where no one can see you.. And it is there we do the unthinkable..
We forget that we are seen by God.
Hebrews 4:13 Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.(NIV)
There is something in the heart of culture that thinks… Doing wrong isn’t wrong… getting caught is wrong. Could it be that we are more bothered by the thought of being caught & people finding out than by the evil we do?
This is a huge red flag. If this is you in any area of your life… You are living like the invisible man.. You have lost your identity.
You need to feel sorrow because of the wrong you are doing. If you only feel bad when you get caught… well guess what. You have been caught! God knows and sees and hears every wrong you do.
Your hiding is as effective as Adam & Eve hiding in the garden. You might can hide it from others, but not from God.
If you are living in secret sin you need to make a change today. The people in your life deserve better. God deserves better. You were created for better.

This invisibility, this loss of our true self… our identity.. leads to madness. Completely unstable in every way.
The invisible man goes mad after losing his identity. The good doctor he wanted to be.. that image is a memory. For now the invisible man looks into the mirror and doesn’t see that good doctor.. His actions look nothing like the good doctor.
James writes in your Bible about a madness that comes from forgetting your identity.
James 1:23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror(NIV)
James 1:24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.(NIV)
James 1:25 But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it–he will be blessed in what he does.(NIV)
Your identity is found in the Word of God. And when you look into the word it is like looking into a mirror that reveals what you were always meant to look like. That is why you feel hopeful after the preaching of the word of God.. That is why you look into the Word of God and feel like you are loved… It reveals your true identity.

I am more than a conqueror through God’s love!
I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.
If God be for me who can be against me.
I will not fear the terror by night or the arrow by day.
No weapon formed against me will prosper.

When you look into the Word you see your true identity. You see yourself standing in power, peace, victory, joy… But when you walk away from the Word of God… You forget what you ever looked like.
When you walk away from the Word of God you become like the invisible man… forgetting your true identity… and walking in madness..
Don’t just walk out of this service today. Don’t just walk away from this message from God’s Word.

Wrappings
When you are invisible, you simply long to be seen. The invisible man wrapped himself up in bandages and clothes so that he could somehow be seen. These clothes were not his identity, but a substitution for his identity.
But the identity we are talking about is not just something you pick up along the way of life. It is not your personality.. it is so much more than your aptitudes and talents. It is not what kind of job you have, what kind of car you drive, or who you voted for in the last election.
Your true identity comes from your creator. This identity cannot be replaced. It cannot be earned.

Without this identity we wrap ourselves in other things…

Success
Importance
Religion
Whatever is around

You want to talk about madness. Sometimes we wear multiple wrappings depending on who we are around. Our identity changes situationally. When we are at work or school we have this identity.. When we are at church we have this identity.. When we are with our friends we have this identity..
That is madness.
James 1:8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.(NIV)
Is that the kind of life you really want? Then let’s stop choosing that life.. a life filled with a lot of false identities.
We need our True Identity THERE IS NO SUBSTITUTE
-MUSICIAN
God the creator gave us identity.

Made in His Image
Made “Good”

We are still made in His image.. but we are no longer good because of sin.
You might struggle at that statement. We feel good. We do what we think our good deeds. We came to Church today.. “Doesn’t that make us good?”
Good doesn’t live here anymore.. That identity is gone
Romans 7:18 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.(NIV)
Check out this interesting interation between Jesus on the young ruler.
Mark 10:17 As Jesus started on his way, a man ran up to him and fell on his knees before him. “Good teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”(NIV)
Mark 10:18 “Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good–except God alone.(NIV)
What just happened here? Is Jesus here rebuking the man for calling Him good and thereby denying His deity? ..Becuase no one is good except God. No, Jesus is not denying His deity. Rather, He is using a penetrating question to push the man to think through the implications of his own words, to understand the concept of Jesus’ goodness and, most especially, the man’s lack of goodness.
Jesus is in fact Good, because Jesus is in fact God! And the man left sorrowful because he realized that he was not good.. He had kept the law and done right things… yet He was not good.
But Jesus is good! He is the first man since Adam & Eve that we could call good! He is the Good Shepherd. He is the one who has started a Good work in You and is able to complete it. And this Jesus has come to restore your identity.

Colossians 1:15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.(NIV)
Jesus is the identity… the image of the invisible God. He reveals the Image of God! He also reveals what we should look like.
Hebrews 1:3 The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.(NIV)
He is the exact representation of God.

In John 4:29 this God made visible talks to a woman at the well. She leaves that conversation to go tell everybody… COME MEET A MAN WHO TOLD ME EVERYTHING I EVER DID…
This Jesus looked right past the wrappings of her life and told her who she really was. And he offered her LIVING WATER!

Jesus changes Peter’s identity.. Matthew 16:16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”(NIV)
Matthew 16:17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.(NIV)
Matthew 16:18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.(NIV)
Knowing Jesus’ identity will change your identity. Peter you aren’t just a dumb fisherman… you are a Rock.. you are foundational to God’s Kingdom.

It is time to stop wrapping yourself in religion… It is time to stop temporarily wrapping yourself in Christ. Stop being a Christian only part of the week… Live for Christ 24/7!
Galatians 3:26 You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus,(NIV)
Galatians 3:27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.(NIV)
Galatians 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.(NIV)
The invisible man paid for the crimes he had done. He paid with his life. He would have given anything for a new Identity. YOU CAN HAVE A NEW IDENTITY TODAY.

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