Finding our True Identity

Introduction

Brothers and sisters, have you ever had your identity shaken? A new student looks out on a sea of strange faces in a school cafeteria, for the first time, wondering where he should sit, which group should he join, wondering how he will be received.

A mother walks down the familiar hallways of her home and is shaken to her core when she passes her daughter’s empty bedroom. Her daughter just started her first semester of college. Now the mother wonders what lies ahead — not just for her daughter but for herself left all alone.

An older man groans in his sick bed. He had just began retirement. Now he has been felled by chronic illness that leaves him lethargic, with nothing to show for his days. He feels worthless.

A young man is on a bus heading for his home town. He hasn’t been there for two years, since he had been arrested and put in Prison. He had done his time. However, as he approaches his home town he is filled with apprehension; afraid that those in his home town will never let him get past his mistakes, wondering if he is really just now beginning his sentence.

Friends, just like those in our illustration, who have had their identity shaken to its core. In our focus scripture we find the nation of Israel in the same condition. The prophecy of the prophet Isaiah had come true and the people of Israel have found themselves pulled from their homes and taken to the far away country of Babylon. Everything they had identified with, everything that defined them was taken from them. Please turn in your Bibles to () and lets us read a message of God to a people who are trying to find their true identity.

Proclamation of the Word

Isaiah 43:1–7 ESV

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Isaiah 43:1–7 ESV

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Isaiah 43:

Connection to the Word

Brothers and sisters, sometimes life can beat us down so much that we have lost all hope. We find ourselves; like a plane shot from the sky spiraling out of control. No matter our age we can find ourselves asking these questions: Who am I? Where do I belong? What makes me worthy of saving? in other words what is my true identity? God in his wisdom, hearing these questions from the captive people of Israel, gave them a word of encouragement and hope and we hear those words in our focus scripture today.

Before our our focus scripture today (), god had words of judgement for the people of Israel. He could see how they had placed all their hope; and identified with all the wrong things. So he gave the people words that would remind them of who God is but more importantly who they are.

We are reminded that we also place our hope; seek to find our identity, in the wrong things: In the roles we play, in our work, in our peer groups, in our accomplishments, in our acquisitions. Ultimately, we know that none of these things can deliver what we really need. We have talked about this before. Those who have been identified by our society as the successful, we often see are the most miserable. We know in our heart of hearts that this world will never be able to provide what we really need.

War Orphan

Today in the Word, November 8, 1997

Inge Kraus doesn't know who she really is; she only knows that people call her by that name. She was just four years old in April, 1945, when Russian troops attacked Konigsberg, the capital of what was then East Prussia. Inge remembers a strong man lifting her onto a wagon filled with people as Soviet artillery rained down upon the city she knew as home. She survived but was separated from her family and placed in an orphanage in Germany. Inge recently attended a gathering of war exiles from her city, tearfully hoping that someone might recognize her. After all the years Inge was seeking to find her true identity.

Isaiah 43:1 ESV

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

Isaiah 43:3–4 ESV

For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.

Think about it. put yourselves in the shoes of Inge Kraus. What difference do you think it would have made in Inge's life if someone at that gathering would had looked at her and said “Ingre, I am your father, I know that we were separated when the conquerors came, but I had never stopped searching for you. I came here today looking for you just as you were looking for me.”

God told the exiles from Israel the he created them, not only that; he created the nation of Israel. Do not be afraid I am your redeemer, I named you and you are mine, I love you! Wow!

Think about it! We have an entire nation of people who have been taken from their nation. They were exiles in Babylon. They must have felt as if they were a tiny, miserable, and insignificant band of uprooted men and women standing on the fringes of a huge hostile empire.

Orientation: Living out the Word

Brothers and sisters as we are beginning a new year, in may ways our heads are still spinning from the holidays. For many of us we were unable to escape our situations and circumstances over the holiday’s. Life did not let up and continued to beat us down. If you were blessed enough to escape over the holiday’s you are now face to face with the reality that there is only one way you can go from the top of a mountain and that is down. We too, are in need of encouragement and hope as many of the things, and traditions we identify with and put our hope have let us down.

In the Christian Calendar today, is what we call “The Baptism of the Lord” Sunday. You may wonder what our scripture may have to do with the baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ.

in the Christian Calendar is what we call “The Baptism of the Lord” Sunday.

Isaiah 43:5–7 ESV

Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you. I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

As we read the remaining part of our focus scripture we see where God has always identified Himself as Israel’s redeemer. As we see God reminding Israel to remember who He is, their God, their Creator, their Redeemer, and that they are His people. He is reminding them of their true identity.

Though our focus scripture was written directly to Israel. There is a universality to this scripture, that ultimately points the Christian to the baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ where he finally embraced his true identity as the transcendent, creating God, who wrapped Himself in flesh to rescue and redeem the world.

(ESV)

21 Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were opened, 22 and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form, like a dove; and a voice came from heaven, “You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased.”

Through our own baptism we understand that God marks us and claims us as God’s children. In the waters of baptism, God seals God’s love for us, no matter what we have done and what might happen. In the waters of our baptism, God gives evidence of what God says to Jesus “You are Mine.” Just as God reminded the exiled people of Israel.

Brothers and sisters, as we remember the baptism of our Lord, remember your own baptism. Dwell on how you identify as a Child of God, and what that really means. With this knowledge of who we are, let it ultimately change the perception of who you are and enable you to live as a Child of God.

Let me close with this quote from C.S. Lewis.

Closing

“Your real, new self (which is Christ's and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. ...... The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

Proclamation

― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Connection

Orientation

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