New Identity

December 6

Read Isaiah 40:2-5

Pray: Almighty God— remind me of your faithfulness to me. Help me to look back and see the ways you have provided so that I can believe that you will take care of me in the future. Amen.

Hear:

I was lucky enough to preach at First UMC Sanford last Sunday. This was one of our passages, based on the Honest Advent book by Scott Erickson. What is important to know about our passage today is that the set and setting is vitally important to understand the verse so that it might be useful to us.

You see, Isaiah is written to two groups of Israel— one being a group of exiles that were stolen away off to Babylon who lived in relative wealth and another group who lived in the ruins of Jerusalem in abject poverty.

Both of these groups would have felt poor. One poor in identity, the other poor in identity, and poor in physical wealth. These two groups were in the worst of times and didn’t have any real hope. Isaiah then shows up in the lives of all of these faithful families and points them towards a hope where their identity will be secured, and so will their lives.

In our own lives, we can often find ourselves seeking out for who we are, who really truly are. Like the hearers of this message, we can sometimes feel as if our identities are tied to what we do or what we have. Our job, our home, our car— all of these good things become who we are to ourselves. But ultimately, life will remind us that the good things we have could never give us identity. Our passage today reminds us that the good things we have and the hope that we possess— both of those things come from God’s work in our lives.

Our passage today is a good reminder that whether we are in the depths of despair or at the height of luxury, we can all miss a central truth— we are most known by God. We are most seen and identified and loved by God. In our search for meaning, we must seek to remember how we have been provided for so that we can have faith we will be provided for later.

Respond:

How am I trying to be defined?

Meditation:

How have I been provided for? How will I be provided for in the future?