• Who are we? God’s precious people.
• Why are we? To love God and others.

Beauty and the Beast Illustration

The Beast was stuck as a Beast until…the Beauty steps on the stage. Then Beast connects with Beauty. And Beauty changes Beast. Do you hear in this story echoes of our own? Once we were outside the family of God. Then, by grace, we connected with God and his people. What emerged were new people, with new identities. Peter says much the same. “Once you were not a people; now you are God’s people.” What made the difference? “Once you received none of God’s mercy; now you have received his mercy in full” (1 Peter 2:10). The essence of our new identity is that we are God’s people. And what made the difference? Nothing but God’s mercy, available through Israel’s anointed King, Messiah Jesus. Therefore, who we are derives its shape & finds its security in whose we are. This insures that our identity is never detached from God’s identity.

Our Biblical Ancestors

We meet ancient Israel in Egypt, with an identity crisis. How would their circumstances identify them? As slaves of the tyrannical Pharaoh—slaves to be used, exploited, discarded. How would their God identify them? As his precious people. Listen to God’s commitment to them as he speaks with Moses at the burning bush. “The Lord (Yhwh) told Moses, ‘You can be sure I have seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries for deliverance from their harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering. So I have come to rescue them…’” (Exodus 3:7-8). God identifies the slaves as my people. ‘Who they are’ is governed by ‘whose they are,’ not by their circumstances, which defined them as mere slaves, worthless and expendable. But ‘whose they are’ insured their rescue, because they were valuable to the Lord and objects of his affection and protection, however things might appear.

Our situation in Christ is analogous to that of our ancestors in Egypt. What made them special? It was nothing they did, nothing they earned. Likewise with us. How is it that we stand in God’s favor, adopted as his precious children? Paul’s words to our brothers and sisters in Corinth explain this well: “Take a good look, friends, at who you were when you got called into this life. I don’t see many of ‘the brightest and the best’ among you, not many influential, not many from high-society families. Isn’t it obvious that God deliberately chose men and women that the culture overlooks and exploits and abuses, chose these ‘nobodies’ to expose the hollow pretensions of the ‘somebodies’? That makes it quite clear that none of you can get by with blowing your own horn before God. Everything that we have--right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start--comes from God by way of Jesus Christ. That’s why we have the saying, ‘If you're going to blow a horn, blow a trumpet for God’” (1 Cor 1:26-31, The Message).

If we want to discover who we are independent of our circumstances, our accomplishment or the world’s opinions, we need to find our identity among the Lord’s people. By virtue of our attachment to Jesus, we’ve been adopted into God’s family. How did this come to pass? Because Beauty loves beasts; because God is merciful to sinners…just like you and me. Is the bedrock of our identity rooted in our career? our hobbies? our family heritage? our possessions? our image? Or in our connection with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? 

During their enslavement in Egypt, God identified them as ‘my people’ (Exodus 3:7-8). Knowing our need for reminders of love, God frequently reassures us of this remarkable status. Upon their entry to the Promised Land, our forefathers learn again of their identity in relation to the God of Grace. And here, their special identity sets the stage for their response. “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands I am giving you today” (Deuteronomy 6:4-5).

Jesus in the Temple

Let’s skip ahead in the story about 1,200 years, when the trials endured are no longer Egyptian, but Roman. In Jesus’ day, the people of God were facing another crisis moment. The promises from Yhwh of justice and peace appear unfulfilled. Deliverance from adversity seems perpetually delayed. And so these ancient questions resurface: Who are we? Why are we? What are we here to do? With many first-century Israelites, identity was uncertain. As with the earlier generation in Egypt, this people of God also was oppressed, enslaved. “In this bleak situation, how can we really be God’s people?” Their vocation was unclear. They were aimless, misdirected, unsure where to go. “What is our calling, what is our purpose?” Jesus provides an answer. It is during the final week of his pre-Easter ministry. We find him in the Jerusalem Temple in discussion with Israel’s teachers and leaders. Here he is asked the ultimate question: “One of the teachers of religious law was standing there listening to the discussion. He realized that Jesus had answered well, so he asked, ‘Of all the commandments, which is the most important?’” (Mark 12:28). In other words, “Where, Jesus, should we concentrate our efforts? Lord, re-define us, re-direct us.”

How does Jesus answer? Does he offer something novel? Does he radically break with ancient Judaism? No. Rather he reaches back to the foundational days of Israel. Jesus reiterates afresh the heart of Judaism that Yhwh, Israel’s God, had voiced again and again to his people. “The most important commandment is this: ‘Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength’” (Mark 12:29, quoting Moses’ instructions recorded in Deuteronomy 6:4-5, just as the people of God were ready to enter the Promised Land). Of all that God would ask of us, this is the fountainhead from which all else springs, this is the acorn from which life emerges. Here is Life in a Nutshell.

• “Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord is one.” This first portion of the Jesus Creed shores up our identity as the people of the one God—this is whose we are.
• “And you must love…” This addresses our vocation as God’s people—this is why we are.

The Shema

In ancient Israel, this creedal prayer was called the Shema, the Hebrew word for “Hear” or better, “Heed!” with which the creed begins. This was the foundational creed of our forefathers. By the first century it had become the standard daily prayer of ancient Israel, spoken by the faithful followers of Yhwh every morning and every evening. The Shema was the first prayer a Jewish child learned and often the last word martyrs uttered. In fact, it was these very words that Jesus learned as a young Jewish boy from his faithful parents, Joseph and Mary.

One of Jesus’ aims was to bring God’s people back to the basics, to restore the heart of humanity’s relationship with God, to unclutter the mess and make the most important things central again. And so he gives this scribe, as well as you and me, Life in a Nutshell. We know life gets busy, and messy, too. Our identity can be shaken when the peripherals in which we put too much stock start to crumble. We, like our forefathers, need to find our identity again in ‘whose we are.’

Lord, re-define us—give us an identity rooted in our relationship with you.

Lord, re-direct us—give us a vocation to guide us that can infuse everything else we do.

Before Jesus recalls his people to their primary vocation of loving loyalty to God and loving service for others, he re-establishes their identity. Why? Any activity we offer for God must originate in the identity we derive from God out of which flows our response to God.

Finding Our Place among the People of God

• O Israel = the special name given by God to his adopted children, his people.
• The Lord (Yhwh) = the name of God that spoke of him as the Liberating Adopter, the one who is with us and who is for us.
• Our God, this is one of the most beautiful possessives in the Bible.  He could be our God because he first had claimed us as his people.

As part of the true, Spirit-filled Israel, the real circumcision, we Gentiles are among God’s one people. Accordingly, Jesus would have us adopt the Shema as our own. “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” We are Israel, by the Spirit, in Christ. This new identity links us to the whole people of God throughout the entire biblical narrative. OT Israel now is our family, our ancestors in the faith. Our identity is derived from our link with the one people of God throughout all time. Jesus himself explains how all those who embrace God in faith are connected in one family. “Many Gentiles will come from all over the world and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom” (Matthew 8:10-12). The one family is united across the ages around the one table that God himself sets for all of his adopted children, for the Jew first and also equally for the Gentile. (Imagine here one large banquet table with you and me sitting next to father Abraham, King David, and Isaiah the prophet).

Paul

How richly would our identity be enhanced if we were to discover our place in God’s one family. The Jewish Paul realized that the newest adopted children (Gentiles) would be impoverished without realizing their connection with their many Jewish brothers and sisters in the one family of God. He was quick to incorporate the Gentile Christians into the ancient bloodline and show them their place in the family tree. “The roots of Abraham’s native olive tree are holy; the branches will be, too….you Gentiles, who were branches from a wild olive tree, were grafted in. So now you also receive the blessing God has promised Abraham and his children, sharing in God's rich nourishment of his special olive tree” (Romans 11:16-17). The early community of faith in Corinth was predominantly Gentile. Paul knew there would be much for them to learn if they would appreciate their familial connection with God’s people of old. This would help them integrate their Corinthian story into the story of OT Israel. With this link established, the OT history becomes the Corinthian’s own history, and our own history, as well.  “Remember our history, friends, and be warned. All our ancestors were led by the providential Cloud and taken miraculously through the Red Sea… from enslaving death to salvation life… Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did… ”  (1 Corinthians 10:1-6).  Our identity is derived from our link with the people of God. The story of ancient Israel is our story. These are our ancestors. This is our heritage. This is where we should connect to discover our identity. What is true of ancient Israel can be true of us as Spirit-ual Israel

Adoption

If you were a young child, newly-adopted into a large, well-established family with a long, rich history, how might you best learn to trust and love your new father? Wouldn’t you learn volumes about his character, his values, his behavior from watching how he conducts himself with his other children and grandchildren? Indeed you would. On the other hand, if you were to detach yourself from the rest of the family and focus exclusively on how your father relates only to you, your understanding of the father would be greatly impaired and your identity as a member of this dynamic family would be significantly weakened. How foolish the child would be who restricted her views of dad to their isolated one-on-one interactions. “It’s just me and my dad.” That’s silly! She would be much better off, far more secure and far more established if she were to learn about her father from her older sisters and brothers, from her observation of her father’s care for them and their perspectives about life in the family. And the same goes for us. Learning about the history of our new family will only strengthen our sense of family identity among God’s people. This illustrates our need to jump into the OT and watch our Father interact with our older siblings.

Walking with David

One highly instructive example of this is our brother David. He began his life as a lowly shepherd, ignored by his father, despised by his older brothers. Yet he was chosen of God and anointed for the office of King. It wasn’t long after his assignment as servant to King Saul that he found himself hated and hunted by his employer. Even when he was established on the throne, his life was complicated by politics, intrigue, adultery, murder, rebellious children, insecurity, depression, betrayal, anxiety, et cet. And we think we’ve got it tough! And yet, despite these trials, David is brought by God again and again to a place of faith, compassion, prayer, and worship. One user-friendly book that instructively walks through David’s life with God is entitled Leap Over a Wall: Earthy Spirituality for Everyday Christians (San Francisco, HarperSanFrancisco, 1997). The author, Eugene Peterson, is a wise Christian man, with years of pastoral experience, who recently served as professor at Regent College, Vancouver. He is best known for his popular translation of the Bible, The Message.

Connecting with the one God

“Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” Our identity is derived from our connection with the people of God, as we have seen, but only because our identity is derived from our connection with the God of the people. “The Lord our God” is the very same God who Creates the heavens and the earth; Walks with Eve and Adam in the garden; Preserves Noah from the Flood; Calls Abram to himself; Provides Sarah the promised child; Hears the cries of Israel during their enslavement in Egypt. “The Lord our God” is the very same God who Liberates his people from captivity; Leads his children through the wilderness; Protects them from harm; Provides for their many needs; Sends them prophets, priests, kings…and on we could go. And as the Story unfolds, so do the many wonderful attributes of “The Lord our God.” One of the wonders of exploring the OT is discovering more of ‘who this God is’ that we call our own.

“The Lord is one.” The Shema says, “Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God, the Lord is one.” What do Moses and Jesus mean by “the Lord is one”? Scholars suggest two overlapping meanings. First, this means that our God is the only God, he is Lord, he alone. This one God deserves our complete devotion, and none other. More on this next week. It is the second meaning that attracts our attention today. The Lord is one, that is, the one God who chooses Israel in Egypt, is the same God who now summons their obedience as they enter the Promised Land. It is the very same God who marches as the Protagonist through the whole story. And to bring this home, the one God whom we meet on every page of Scripture is the same one who cares for us (He is one) and demands our all (He alone).

The Biblical Story

Do you need help in grasping the big picture of the entire biblical story? See our webpage on the Bible's Coherent Story for some recommended readings. Several of these books walk us through the main events in the biblical story, help orient us to the characters, the plot, and the direction of this not-yet-completed story. With this in view it is much easier to find our place in God’s unfolding drama in which he is reclaiming the world for himself.

Who are we? We are Israel in Christ, the adopted children of God, chosen and beloved, precious and adored, exposed yet embraced. We are members of the one family of the faithful throughout the pages of Scripture and throughout the history of the church. Whose are we? The Lord of ancient Israel is our God, the Lord whose story is disclosed in the biblical narrative. In discovering more of the Lord our God we will discover our identity among his people. This is especially necessary when our identity is threatened by loss of job, loss of family, loss of health, loss of independence. We derive our identity from unassailable connections, connections with the one people of God, connections with the one God of the people, connections that will not collapse with the passage of time or the change of circumstance (cf. Romans 8:37-39).

In writing to his churches, Paul often re-affirms their new identity in Christ and he does so as the basis for their new life in Christ. “It is because of whose you are that you should live accordingly.” Here is the transformation of the Beast by the hand of Beauty: “It wasn’t so long ago that you were mired in that old stagnant life of sin. You let the world, which doesn't know the first thing about living, tell you how to live. You filled your lungs with polluted unbelief, and then exhaled disobedience. We all did it, all of us doing what we felt like doing, when we felt like doing it, all of us in the same boat. It’s a wonder God didn’t lose his temper and do away with the whole lot of us. Instead, immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! Then he picked us up and set us down in highest heaven in company with Jesus, our Messiah” (Eph 2:1-6, The Message).