We Know Who We Are: Beloved of God
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, May 3, 2026, the fifth Sunday of Easter. “We Know Who We Are”series.
Texts: Isaiah 43:1-4; Romans 8:14–17; 31-39
A while back a friend reached out with a question. He had seen a pastor online passionately teaching about the transformative power of God’s love. My friend asked simply, “How does God’s love really change anything? Is focusing on God’s love really the most important thing?”
I was struck by the question—and have come back to it any number of times over the past weeks as, together with many of you, I’ve grappled with loss and grief…with worry about loved ones ill or injured…with the continued assault of this corrupt administration on civil rights and constitutional law, on black and brown law-abiding citizens, on refugees and asylum seekers, on the environment itself.
What difference does the love of God make when so much feels painful and messed up? My friend asks a fair question. Because if we’re honest, “God loves you” can sound thin in the face of the world as it actually is.
But, as we begin this new series, “We Know Who We Are: A Counter-Testimony of Faith, United Methodism, and the Work of the Church,” I want to suggest that everything begins here.
Before we talk about United Methodism. Before we talk about the work of the church. Before we talk about witness or justice or discipleship or mission. Everything begins with the love of God. And if we get this wrong, everything else eventually falls apart. Let’s look at our texts for today to understand why.
Isaiah 43 is found in the section of the book often called Second Isaiah—chapters 40-55—and the context is the Babylonian Exile. Walter Brueggemann points out that throughout this section, God’s words of care and presence interrupt the despair of the people again and again. And that’s what we receive in our text today. The people are displaced and grieving countless losses. They are a people living under the crushing weight of empire. Babylon has named them defeated, forgotten, insignificant, abandoned.
But God counters with a wholly different word. A word of relationship, a word of covenant, saying, “I have called you by name. You are mine.”
The text beautifully describes God’s loving activity, moving from
creation—“I created you”—to redemption—“I redeemed you”—to naming—“I have called you by name”—to accompaniment —“When you pass through the waters…”
And notice what God does not say. God doesn’t say, “You will never pass through deep waters.” God doesn’t say, “You will never walk through fire.”
God doesn’t say, “Nothing hard will ever happen to you.” God says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.”
And then these astonishing words: “You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.” The Hebrew here is unusually intimate and tender. God loves God’s people not because they are strong or successful. Not because they have earned restoration. But because God freely chooses covenant love. Because they are precious in God’s sight…honored…loved.
Babylon—and empires across the ages—measure worth through military dominance and status and wealth and appearance and productivity. And honestly, our world still does.
We are constantly being told who we are: You are what you produce. You are what you achieve. You are your failures. You are your fears. You are your appearance. You are your politics. You are your usefulness…People carry those names around every day. And we call ourselves things we would likely never call anyone else: We tell ourselves we’re Not enough. Too much. Failure. Weak. Unseen. Disposable.
But into all of those voices comes the voice of God: “You are mine.” “You are precious.” “I love you.” This—this!—is where everything begins.
It is the beginning of our freedom and the ground of our true identity. And if we can stay connected to it, it allows us to live in the furnace of this world without losing our soul. Without becoming consumed by fear. Without surrendering to hatred of self or others. Without forgetting our own humanity or the humanity of other people. This is at the heart of what we call sacred resistance.
And sacred resistance begins in the heart of God. It is, in fact, God’s consistent stance toward the world. Out of an overflowing love desiring to be shared, God creates the world and all that is. Out of love, God seeks relationship with humankind. Out of love, God provides everything we need to live in peace, joy, and wholeness. And when we, God’s children, turn away and our love fails, God’s love remains steadfast. God resists abandoning us.
Think about that. God resists abandoning us. What a mess we the people have made and yet God resists abandoning us. We wander off. We get distracted. We cling to idols. We organize our lives around fear and power and scarcity. We wound one another. We betray one another. We fail to love. And over and over again, God refuses to check out. God chooses to stay with us. To keep calling us. To keep loving us. To keep drawing us back toward the image that is our birthright. God loves us with an everlasting, stubborn love.
In this Easter season, we remember that the power of God’s love is stronger than death. In our Baptism, we remember that God adopts us, that God’s love enfolds us into the family of God—the Beloved Clan—without our having to understand or earn that amazing grace. Throughout our lives with God, we learn that God’s love and mercy have the power to release us from the chains of guilt and despair. And our Wesleyan theology teaches us that as we open our hearts and lives to God’s love, that love fills us and overflows from us as we participate in God’s work of peace, justice, and mending in the world.
Do you see? This divine love from our good God is the model and the fuel for our counter-testimony, our sacred resistance, in this beautiful, broken world.
When you are able to stay connected to the love of God who holds you, calls you by name, forgives you, and empowers you to be your full authentic self, you will be better equipped to act in the world with sacred resistance. Because you will know first-hand what sacred resistance is really about. It’s about love.
Love that looks upon each person with a desire for their wellbeing. Love that looks upon human community with a desire for healing and peace with justice. Love that looks into all creation with a desire for mending and reverence. Love that is compassionate and merciful. Love that is stubborn and sacrificial.
This is how God loves the world. This is how God loves you. This is how God created you to love.
Everything flows from this love. Our courage flows from this love. Our resistance flows from this love. Our mercy flows from this love. Our hope flows from this love. It is our guardrail and our guide as we seek to counter the perversions of the Gospel so prevalent in our world today. Because if love is truly the first principle of the Christian life, then any version of Christianity rooted primarily in fear, cruelty, domination, exclusion, or the hunger for power has already lost its way. If our faith leads us to dehumanize people made in the image of God, something has gone terribly wrong. If our theology produces contempt more than compassion, suspicion more than mercy, condemnation more than healing, then we are no longer moving in the Spirit of Christ. The love of God revealed in Jesus consistently moves toward people—not away from them. Toward the wounded. Toward the vulnerable. Toward the outsider. Toward the sinner. Toward the suffering. That kind of love is not weak. It is the deepest power in the world. It is our strength and our comfort in the storms of life. It is our fuel as we live with freedom and power and the joy that comes with living in our truest identity. And there is nothing that will ever be able to separate us from this love.
From ancient of days this is God’s word to us: I am your God and you are my Beloved.
And Paul asks the rhetorical question whose answer he already knows:
“Who will separate us from the love of Christ?”
And then comes this breathtaking proclamation:
“I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Nothing can separate us from God’s love in Christ.
What difference does God’s love make?
Every difference in the world.
So this week, I invite you to start at the beginning and practice remembering who you are. When your inner voice starts trash-talking you, interrupt that old story with these true words: “I am God’s beloved.”
Or pray this breath prayer:
Breathing in I know I am loved…
Breathing out, I am loved…
I know I am held…
I am held…
I know I am protected…
I am safe…
God says:
“You are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you.”
And nothing in all creation can separate you from that love. And that, beloveds, makes all the difference.
Amen.
