Who He Says We Are
Hi! If we haven’t met yet, my name is Leah. I’ve been living in Bowling Green, Kentucky, for the past 8 years, first for college, where I got my degree in English Creative Writing and Religious Studies, and then to be in the mission field full-time at Christian Student Fellowship and Western Kentucky University, serving college students and pointing them into the arms of Jesus. Now, I’m not here to talk about CSF, though I would love to talk about it another time if you’re interested or have questions, but I do want to say that I’m passionate about bringing Jesus to college students because 2 out of 3 of those who grew up in church fall away from the faith during this time in their lives, and that doesn’t even take into account the ones who didn’t grow up in church. And this is sad because, as you hopefully know, the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, changes everything. He gives us hope where there was no hope. He brings joy where there was only sorrow. He makes broken things come together to be whole. He makes all things new. Even us.
2 Corinthians 5:17 says “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” The word translated “new” in this verse is the word kainós, which means “something just made which is unlike anything else in existence.” In Christ, we are made an entirely new creation, just as God created the heavens and the earth originally—He made them out of nothing, and so He does with us. He does not merely clean up our old selves; He makes an entirely new self. It doesn’t matter what we were before, it doesn’t matter who we were before; God has done something new.
So then, who are we? The Bible paints an entirely different picture than what the world tells us. The world heaps so many different labels and identities on us, telling us we’re perfect the way we are, we’re in charge of our own lives and destinies, we make our own purpose based on what makes us feel good or look good, and we aren’t much more than our achievements, our status, our money, our popularity, our appearance—you name it.
But the Bible says you are a sinner in need of a Savior. God has a plan and that plan includes you. You were designed for a purpose that your Creator gives you. And you are so much more than whatever you have in this world. God knew you before he knit you together in your mother’s womb. God says, “You are precious and honored in my sight, and [...] I love you” (Isaiah 43:4). Did you know that God straight up said “I love you” in the Bible? When I read it the first time, I was flabbergasted. No way this big God—the One who flooded the earth, the One who sent plagues, the One who said to Job, “who do you think you are?” this God—would stoop down to my level and say He loves me. Sure, it says elsewhere that He loves me. “For God so loved the world” and all that. But it hit me differently when I read in Isaiah 43, “This is what the Lord says, ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are Mine.’” And just a few verses later, He says what I read before: “You are precious and honored in my sight, and [...] I love you.”
I could go on and on and ON about who God says you are. I looked it up to see if I could find a list online, and boy, did I. It was almost 5 pages long, written in like font size 10. So today, I wanted to focus on just 3 things that are found in the book of Jude.
Jude verses 1 & 2, the greeting of this letter, say this: “To those who have been called, who are loved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: Mercy, peace and love be yours in abundance.”
It says “called,” “loved,” and “kept.” We are called, loved, and kept. I think that just about sums it up. Notice the nuances of time in this triplet: we “HAVE BEEN called” (in the past); “ARE loved” (in the present); and “kept FOR” (the future). If that doesn’t truly cover all the bases, I don’t know what does.
Let’s start with “called.” This one is the most complicated, definition-wise. It’s full of connotations and references to a ton of different biblical concepts. I think it pretty well gets summed up like this: We have been called BY Christ TO Christ FOR Christ. When Jude says “to those who have been called” he knows it is loaded up with all of these concepts: called to belong to Jesus, called to be His holy people, called for His purposes. We do not belong anymore to Satan, his domain of darkness, the world, or to sin. We belong to the Savior—crucified, resurrected, seen, ascended and seated in eternal glory at the Father’s right hand. Called out of darkness into marvelous light. Called BY Christ who made a way. Called TO Christ to belong to Him, to fulfill His purposes for our lives. And called FOR Christ to be His holy people.
And we aren’t just called randomly, by the pick of the litter or whatnot; we are called because He loves us. We were loved then and we are loved now. In the same way a mother loves her child, so God loves us. God loves us so much that He sent His Son to die for us, just so we could be together. But He didn’t stay dead; on the third day, He was raised, defeating death, making a way for us when there wasn’t one. Just like Jesus, we were once dead in sin, but now we are alive. All because He loves us. I can’t tell you how much God loves you because I don’t understand it. I can only pray for you what Paul prayed for the Ephesians: “I pray that you may have power to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—so that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.”
And because He loves us, He makes us some promises that we can cling to. He says we are kept. There are two main ways the word “kept” or similar words are used in the Bible, and they’re when we’re doing the keeping and when God is doing the keeping. When we do the keeping, we keep the faith, we keep or fix our eyes on Jesus. But this use describes God’s faithfulness to us TO KEEP US FOR CHRIST. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be PRESERVED (kept) complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Or John 17:11 when Jesus prayed, “Holy Father, keep them in your name…” We are set aside for something greater, something that’s still coming. One of my favorite books of the Bible is Revelation. No, I don’t understand it all or know what it all means, but I find myself dwelling in the last few chapters, where it describes what God has for us.
Revelation 21:1-7 says this: “Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ Then he said, ‘Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.’ He said to me: ‘It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. [...]’”
That’s what we’re kept for. For the way things are supposed to be and will be again. This is what we were called for because He loves us. And He promises to keep us in His love, to save us for the restoration of God and His people.
That’s how Jude starts his letter. If you go on to read the rest of the letter, it’s pretty scary. My Bible translators titled the next section “The Sin and Doom of Ungodly People,” which is spooky, if not terrifying. And Jude tells the people to persevere in the face of false teachers and adversities, reminding them in the last few verses that God is “able to keep you from stumbling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy” (Jude 24). He is the only one who can bring us into His glory—and He does it with great joy. Because He loves us.
I have one more thing for us to notice, so bear with me. The verse we’ve been focusing on, the “called, loved, and kept” one, is the first one, how Jude begins his letter. He addresses them for who they are: CALLED, LOVED, and KEPT. This was not “stock” intros for writing letters to Christians. Jude wanted to frame their mind right away so that they would hear his instructions the way they should. In other words, they needed to be reminded of WHO they were in Christ BEFORE they lived for Christ.
The New Testament always emphasizes seeing God correctly and ourselves correctly first and out of that then living correctly. We must see WHO we are to know HOW we should live. “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.” That’s Ephesians 5:8. See the formula?! Now you ARE light (who you are) therefore LIVE as light (how you act). It’s not about changing our behavior so that we can be called, loved, and kept. No. We already are called, loved, and kept. So act like it.
The more we study the word of God, the more we discover who we are in Christ. It’s not a rule book. It’s a love letter. This love letter says: You live in a broken world, ruled by darkness. But I am your God and I love you, and I have called you out of that darkness, and I am saving you, keeping you, for the day when I make all things new. Let me tell you who I am and all I have done for you so that you can live as you were designed to, both now and forever.
God has done a new thing. He makes us new. And because of that, we get to live with Him for all eternity. Isn’t that good news? That’s what I’m sharing with college students. And that’s what’s true for you as well. You are so much more than what this world says. And what God says about us must be the truth because He made us; He knows us best. Scholars and pastors and lots of other Christians call this our “identity in Christ.” This world says to be true to ourselves. But if we are who God says we are, then isn’t being true to ourselves going to align with our identity, and thus with the Bible? And you don’t have to just believe me. Read it for yourself! Look for God, and He will tell you all you need to know about who you are.
Thank you.
