THE BAPTISM OF OUR LORD, JANUARY 12, 2025
IN God’s Eyes Text: Isaiah 43:1–7 Other Lessons: Psalm 29; Romans 6:1–11; Luke 3:15–22 Sermon Theme: Despite all that makes us feel worthless, we are valuable in God’s eyes because of Jesus’ death and resurrection.
Sermon Goal: That you are assured you are precious in God’s eyes on account of Christ. Based on a sermon in Concordia Pulpit Resources by Rev. Dr. Adam T. Filpek.
Sermon: Have you ever felt worthless? Insignificant. Incapable. Unlovable. Shrink-down-in-your-chair, bury-your-head-in-your-hands, unworthy-of-the-time-of-day kind of worthless. It is easy to feel and to see yourself as worthless, isn’t it?
You lose your job. You search and search to find another one. But it seems that no one wants to hire you. You have nothing to offer. Worthless. You go on date after date, but you never really find “the one.” Or you ask and ask people to go on a date, but no one seems to say yes. Worthless. You lose your spouse. You go through a messy separation or divorce. You feel that you have nothing to offer the opposite sex. You have no one to share your life with. Worthless. You’re diagnosed with a debilitating illness: cancer, dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis. Or simply just old age, which renders you incapable of doing the things that you normally used to do: mowing your lawn, shoveling snow, working in your shop or garage, driving, reading, feeding yourself, going to the bathroom alone, talking, walking, or seeing clearly. You feel incapable. Yes, you feel worthless.
You hear those dreadful words ring in your mind and out of your loved one’s mouth, “I am extremely disappointed in you.” And you mentally kick yourself: “Why? Why did I do that? I know better. That was a stupid thing to do. If I could just take it back. If I could just change that one sin, that one moment of weakness. That one word. That one night I lost my virginity, that one day I lost my temper, the onetime where I lied, taking the Lord’s name in vain just to save my own skin and not get caught. That one moment of pride and arrogance where I should have just bit my tongue and said nothing.” But you can’t. You can’t take it back.
And you don’t want the whole world to know what a failure you are. That you are not the student, citizen, employer, employee, friend, husband, wife, parent, grandparent, brother, sister, child, man, or woman that you know you should be. You’re not even the one you know you could be. You don’t want everybody to know that you fail God, that you fail others, and that you fail even yourself. You feel worthless. Insignificant. Incapable. Unlovable. Shrink-down-in-your-chair, bury-your-head-in-your-hands, unworthy-of-the-time-of-day, “I-a-poor-miserable-sinner” (see LSB, p 184) kind of worthless.
This is the Southern Kingdom of Judah’s reality at the start of our Old Testament Reading this morning. And despite all of God’s warning cries to them through the mouths of his prophets, Israel and Judah have reveled in their idolatry. Hence, in chapters 41 and 42, Isaiah refers to them as a “worm” (41:14) and a blind, deaf, disobedient servant (42:18–25). “I-a-poor-miserable-sinner” kind of worthless.
Yet it is to these worthless sinners, to Judah, to you, and to me that God speaks. Today, God speaks a blazing word of hope and comfort through the mouth of his prophet Isaiah. Notice how our Old Testament Reading begins. It begins with a radical shift in identity. You may very well feel and see yourself as worthless. You have been a bunch of worthless sinners. “But now thus says the Lord,” you are valuable! “You are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you” (vv 1, 4).
And what’s more, Judah’s value is also determined by the price that God willingly pays for them. In verse 4, God says, “I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.” And so he did. When God led Israel out of Egypt, he paid for them with the lives of some Egyptians. And when God led Judah out of Babylon, he paid for them with the lives of some Babylonians.
But the greatest payment that God would make for his people, for Israel and Judah, for you and for me, was when he “sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Gal 4:4–5). And there, at his baptism in the Jordan River, Jesus took your sin upon himself. He who knew no sin became sin for us so that on a hill outside of Jerusalem, the Father might give his only-begotten Son as ransom for you. Jesus willingly and graciously loved you unto death, even death upon the cross. He paid for your sins in full. Not with gold or silver but with his holy, precious blood, innocent suffering, and bitter death. You are free. It is finished. Jesus has done it all, and all that he did was for you. You are forgiven all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. There is no condemnation, no fiery judgment of God, for you who are in Christ Jesus. Do you see what kind of love the Father has lavished upon us, that we should be called sons of God (cf 1 Jn 3:1)?
And so, you are! “In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal 3:26–27). You were buried and raised with Christ in Baptism. You don’t belong to sin, death, or even the devil any longer. They have no power over you. You belong to God. In Baptism, he who created you, who formed you and numbered the hairs on your head, marked you with his cross, covered you with the robe of his righteousness, and said to you, “You are mine.”
Don’t you see, dear saints of the living God? The Good News of the Gospel is that it doesn’t matter if you feel worthless. It doesn’t matter if the world calls you worthless. It doesn’t matter what accusation the devil throws at you, or your life circumstances, the turbulent waters and the fiery trials that you endure in this vale of tears. It doesn’t matter if in your eyes you seem worthless. Because none of these things define who you truly are. Despite All That Makes Us Feel Worthless, We Are Valuable in God’s Eyes Because of Jesus’ Death and Resurrection. Your identity comes from God himself. He has given it to you. He has told you who you are. To him, “You are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you,” now and forever. In Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.