"WHAT'S IN A NAME?"
Genesis 11:3-4; Jeremiah 1:4-5; 1 John 3:1-3
Murray Street Baptist Church
February 19, 2012
Scouting Church Parade
Do you know what that is? What is it? A can of chicken noodle soup? How do you know it's a can of chicken noodle soup? Because it says right on it. Are you sure it's a can of chicken noodle soup? Should we open it up and be sure? Baloo will you open this up for us with a helper? Is it chicken noodle soup? What is it? It's not chicken noodle soup; it's red - I think it might be vegetable. You see, labels can lie, and labels can be wrong sometimes. I know it says right on there "chicken noodle, made with fresh pasta," but that label is wrong - that's not what's in the can.
We are all born without names usually; our parents get to know us after we're born and they give us a name that they like. Maybe we're named after someone - a favourite uncle or a favourite grandparent or a movie star or a singer, but the naming and labelling doesn't stop there. All through our life we pick up names. Maybe we pick up a nickname along the way, or maybe in school we got into a little bit of trouble and we pick up a name "brat"; or maybe we get labelled as somebody who won't pay attention or somebody is labelled as "really mature." All of our life we pick up names as labels - and some of them are true, and some of them are wrong, like the chicken soup label on the can. It just wasn't true!
And sometimes we can even try to seek out our own labels, like that Scripture in Genesis. We want to be famous; we want to make a name for ourselves, and do something really awesome that people will always say our name and know who we are. Those people decided they were going to build a city so big and a tower so high that it would reach all the way to God, and "we'll make a name for ourselves if we build that tower all the way to God - we'll be famous." That's what they tried to do; they wanted to be important.
You see, I don't think, though, that God knows us by our names and our labels. I don't think he knows us by the ones that our parents gave us and I don't think he knows us by the ones that our friends and our teachers and everybody else gave us. He doesn't know us by these names and labels that we've picked up during our life. God doesn't love you because of the labels you've been given or the name you have. You were born because he loves you, because he wanted you to exist, and because he made you exactly the way you are because he had something special planned for you.
In Jeremiah it says, "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you." The "I" is God. Before you were born God set you apart. God loved the idea of you so much - the idea of you - you didn't even exist yet. There's an old saying that your grandparents use sometime, "You weren't even a glimmer in your mother's eye" before God set you apart. The idea of you excited him so much that he named you before you were born. There's another verse in the Bible that says, "Before I was born, the Lord called me. From my mother's womb he has spoken my name." God was so excited for every one of us to exist, for every one of us to come into the word that he formed us and he set us apart and he named us before we were even born. In the same chapter it goes on to say, "See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands." He was so eager to know you, so eager for you to come into the world, that even before you were born he had written your name on his palm so that he would know who you were and never forget you, and so you would always be close to him.
Why? Why was God so excited to meet us? Why was God so excited for us to be born and come into the world? Well that same chapter says this: "And now the Lord says, he who formed me in the womb to be his servant." That's the answer: God was so excited to meet all of us he couldn't wait for us to be born for our parents to give us a name - no, he wanted to give us a name that set us apart, and to form us and name us, and so excited to meet us so that we could be his "servant," to serve God, to help God. To help God - the God who made this chair, and the carpet, the whole world, the God who made you, the God who made school buses, and i-pads, and antelopes, and mushrooms, and hot peppers, and forks, and can openers, and mushroom soup. God made all those things - but he needed you to be his helper, and was so excited for you to be born, that he named you in advance and wrote your name on his hand, so that you would be his helper, and so that you would play some special place in the world. There was something that God needed done that he needed you to do, and only you. That's why you're important. That's why God was so excited for you to be born before "you were even a glimmer in your mother's eye."
The Bible is filled with people that God needed, and they all had names and labels too. Because they are there in the Bible doesn't mean that they didn't have friends who called them names. It doesn't mean that they didn't have reputations that they carried around. You have heard of Moses; he was kind of an important guy in the Bible. God really needed somebody to go to Pharaoh (think of Pharaoh as the king and the president and the boss and all that rolled into one). God needed somebody to go to Pharaoh and beg for him to let his people go free - and God chose Moses. And Moses was standing there and said, "You know God, I don't think I'm the right guy. I can't talk in public. I speak with faltering lips." Moses was a stutterer. Moses went over to that desk and he grabbed a blank piece of paper and he wrote in a big red marker, "Stutterer" and put it on his chest and he said, "See, I'm labelled. My label says 'stutterer.' I can't go to Pharaoh. This is my label. This is me. I can't do that job." And do you think that God looked at the label, and said, "Okay Moses, you're labelled stutterer, I can't use you." No - God ignored the label, and he said, "No, Moses, you go with your brother Aaron and talk to Pharaoh." And God sent Moses and Aaron with all the power to work plagues and miracles, and finally Pharaoh and his own people listened to him.
If God had just looked at that label, looked at that "stutterer" label, the story would have been very different, maybe never even been told at all. God doesn't look at the labels. God looks at the special person that he created for some special purpose, and we're all those special people, and he's got special purposes for every single one of us. God created us exactly as he hoped we would be, even before we were born - exactly how he needed us for whatever purpose he's got planned for us. Whether we're tall or short, or yellow or purple, or strong or weak, or artsy or athletic, or nerdy or cool, or girls or boys, or bullies or brown-nosers, or slow learners or fast learners, or hyperactive or slow as molasses, or up all night or sleep all day, God made us exactly the way that we are, for some special reason that only he knows about. And one day he'll let us in on the glimpse too.
The Bible is filled with people who had a name, but God had a special purpose for them, and he said, "Your name means nothing to me. I'm going to change it because I need you." The was a man called Abram. God needed a man to found an entire civilization and God said, "Abram, I need you, but I need you in a really special way, to do a really big job, so I'm going to change your name. You're no longer going to be called Abram; you're now going to be called Abraham." The name Abram meant nothing to God; God had a special name for him and a special purpose.
There was a woman called Sarai, and she was old, and God needed for her to have a child. That was God's special purpose for her, but she was old; she can't have a child at her age. And God said, "Sarai, I need you to have a child. I have a special purpose for you; I have a special name for you. From now on your name will be Sarah." The name she'd been given before didn't matter; God had a special name just for her.
There was another man named Jacob. God needed Jacob to do a special thing - to found an entire civilization. Thing of Jacob as your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, and if he didn't do some special job the rest of us wouldn't be here. So God needed Jacob to do a really important job. And he said, "Jacob, this job is so important that I'm going to give you a new name to do it. That old name that you were given, wipe it away. You are now named Israel."
And God has a special name for us; it goes along with our special purpose; we were created just for it. So what's our name? What's this name that God gave us, this name that God was excited for us to have that he gave it to us before we were even born, this name that he couldn't wait for. He formed us and he set us aside and he made us perfect - tall and kind of funny looking with a weird double cowlick and a strange shaped tongue and ears that wiggle or ears that don't. What's the name that God gave that person? Well the answer is in 1John 3:1, "See what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called a child of God." That's what we are: child of God. Not brat, not geek, not responsible, not leader, not boring, not old, not liar, not nerd - but child of God! We are not our job; we're not the names our parents called us; we're not the names our friends call us in the schoolyard; we're not the names that we even give ourselves - oh I can't do that, I'm too lazy, I'm too tired, I'm not smart enough. We're not any of those things. Who are we? We are a "child of God," that's who we are - that is the name that God gave us. The rest of that is just names, but we're more than just names.
Look at the person beside you. Maybe this morning they took one of those little labels and maybe they jotted down at some point one of the labels or names that they've been given. I want you to look at the person beside you and if they've got one of those stickers on them I want you to take it off and I want you to say, "You're a child of God." And even if they don't have a label on them I want you to turn to the person beside you and say, "You are a child of God." What does it mean to be a child of God? John tells us it means that love is "lavished" upon us. It's not a word we use very much. It's used six times in the entire Bible. It doesn't say "what great love the Father has for us," or "oh what a lot of love the Father wants to give to us." No, it says, "what great love the Father lavishes upon us." Lavish means things like unstinted, extravagant, improvident, generous, open-handed, wasteful, reckless impatience, over-emotionalism, exaggeration, heap, pour, waste, squander. God has so much love for us that it's not wasting to give it to us - he's got enough to lavish upon us - not because we're brats or get up early, not because we're tall or short, not because we're boys or girls - because we're children of God.
You are more than any name that any person has ever called you. You are more than any label any person has ever stuck on you. You are a child of God, set aside and formed and named before you were even born. He was excited to know every one of us, for some special purpose. You are children of God.