Baptized. Beloved. Belonging.

Our Christian identity comes through God’s grace rather than human achievement, performance, or labels. Being baptized, evidences God’s “prevenient grace” and his initial claim on a person’s life, which is a divine initiative that precedes any human performance, merit, or even the ability to understand. Secondly, recognizing oneself as beloved establishes the core truth that God’s love and delight are given freely before any mission or service begins, providing the spiritual armor necessary to face life’s difficulties. Finally, to belong to Christ means being marked as his own together, with the church, where “sanctifying grace” transforms believers into the body of Christ for the world, leading us to lives of forgiveness, service, and holiness, Collectively, these three movements ensure that the believer is claimed, loved, and sent by God to fulfill his mission.

Preacher:  Alan Swartz 
Congregations:  Ebenezer UMC and Black Creek UMC 
Occasion:  The Baptism of the Lord 
Date:  January 11, 2026 
Scriptures:  Isaiah 42:1-9; Psalm 29; Acts 10:34-43; Matthew 3:13-17

1. Introduction: We Are Different from the World

Who are we? That’s the question that is before us at our baptism. We live in a world that is obsessed with answering that question through achievement, performance, and labels. We are defined by what we accomplish, how well we compete, and the categories we place on ourselves and others—labels that too often dehumanize, destroy, and tear down. Now, there is nothing inherently wrong with working hard or performing to the best of our ability. The problem arises when those things become the ultimate purpose of our lives, for when they are, they will never truly satisfy.The good news of the gospel offers a radically different starting point. It does not begin with what we do, but with what God has done. It anchors our identity not in our striving, but in God’s grace. The entire Christian life, from its beginning to its end, can be summarized in three simple, powerful statements that we will explore today. They are the deepest truths about who you are in the eyes of God: You are baptized. You are beloved. You belong to Christ. These three truths name our identity, our assurance, and our mission in the world.

2. You Are Baptized

The first pillar of our identity is that we are baptized. This is not our achievement; it is God’s claim upon our lives. We understand baptism not as an ordinance but as a sacrament. The central difference is a matter of timing in relation to a person’s profession of faith. Many churches see baptism as an ordinance—something you do after you have accepted Jesus, a command to be obeyed in response to faith. We see it as a sacrament—a means by which God conveys his grace, something that can happen  before  you ever make a profession of faith. This is what we call “prevenient grace,” the grace of God that goes before any decision we make, touching our lives and reaching for us long before we ever think to reach back. Baptism is God’s first word of grace to us, a divine initiative that marks us with a promise that precedes our performance. This is why we baptize infants and those who, for any reason, cannot make a profession of faith for themselves. We do this to declare a profound theological truth: God’s action is not dependent on our ability, our understanding, or our righteousness.

• Think of a helpless infant. An infant is completely unable to make a decision or take care of itself. Have you ever seen a baby change his or her own diaper? No. I wish I had, but no. An infant cannot comprehend the love being poured out upon it, yet it experiences that love in the arms that hold it and the hands that care for it. In the same way, in baptism, God pours out his grace upon a child who has done nothing to earn it and understands nothing of what is happening. The grace is real nonetheless.
• Consider my wife’s sister, Patsy. She grew up in a wonderful Baptist church, but because she was mentally challenged, she was never baptized. She could never make the kind of profession of faith that tradition considered necessary. In our tradition, we would have baptized her without hesitation, because baptism is not about the clarity of our confession, but about the strength of God’s claim. It is about what God does for us, not what we can do for God. Baptism gives us a new story. In its waters, we are plunged into Christ’s death and raised into his new life and his victory over the grave. Our old identities—fear, shame, failure—do not get the last word. God does. It doesn’t matter how many times we stumble and fall; the grace of God is there to pick us up and help us move on. When you forget who you are, when the world tries to label you with your failures, remember your baptism and be thankful.

3. You Are Beloved

The second foundational truth is that you are beloved. This identity is given to us before any action or mission on our part. We see the pattern in Jesus’s own baptism. He came to the Jordan River to be baptized by his cousin, John. John was flabbergasted, protesting, “I should be baptized by you.” But Jesus insisted, explaining it was “to fulfill all righteousness,” to demonstrate to his body—to those who will gather as his people—what it is to be children of God. And at the climax of that moment, as Jesus came up from the water, the heavens opened, the Holy Spirit descended upon him, and a voice from heaven declared, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Before Jesus preached a single sermon, healed a single person, or performed a single miracle, the Father named him “beloved.” 

This is the core of our Christian identity: love precedes mission. This naming does not just promise a life of ease; it provides the strength for the life of faith. The very next thing that happened after Jesus’s baptism was that the Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness to be tempted. The power we receive in baptism, the assurance that we are beloved, equips us for our own wilderness moments. It is the armor for the struggles of the Christian life. When we are baptized, that same voice speaks over us: “You are my beloved.” God’s delight in us is not earned; it is given freely. Far too many Christians live as though God merely tolerates them, as if his acceptance is conditional on their performance. The gospel insists this is not true. God delights in you. His arms were stretched wide on the cross not in judgment, but in an embrace meant for all of humanity. Our weaknesses and failures should not push us away from God; to the contrary, they should push us ever deeper into his embrace. We can rest in the truth that it is God who carries us, who embraces us, because we are his beloved. This security, this unshakable knowledge that we are loved, frees us to live out the third truth of our identity: we belong.

4. You Belong

Finally, you belong. This is not the belonging of possession, as if we are a thing that God owns. It is the belonging of a covenant relationship. To belong to Christ is to be joined to his body, his people, and his mission in the world. We are marked by Christ as his own. In the movie  Toy Story, the character Buzz Lightyear falls into a crisis when he sees a commercial and realizes there are thousands of identical toys just like him. He feels utterly insignificant, just one of many. But his friend Woody tells him to look at the bottom of his foot. There, written in marker, is the name “Andy.” That mark gave him a unique identity. He didn’t just belong on a store shelf; he belonged to Andy. In baptism, we are marked in a similar way. God writes his name on us, and we belong to him. To belong to Christ is to be joined to his body, the Church. This is why it makes little sense for a person who claims to be a Christian to remain unaffiliated with a church. The Church is the physical manifestation of Christ at work in the world today. This truth is beautifully captured in the prayer we say over the communion elements: “By your Holy Spirit, may these gifts of bread and wine be for us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ.” As John Wesley said, “There’s no holiness except social holiness.” The Christian life is not meant to be lived in isolation; it is lived out in relationship, in community, and in mission together. Belonging to Christ shapes our entire vocation and leads us to live differently from the rest of the world. This is the work of “sanctifying grace,” the lifelong process through which the Holy Spirit forms the character of Christ in us. Because we belong to him:

• We are people who forgive.
• We are people who serve.
• We are people who resist evil.
• We are people who pursue holiness.

We are joined to his body so that we may be for the world the body of Christ.

5. Conclusion: Claimed, Loved, and Sent

These three foundational truths—baptized, beloved, belonging—name our identity, our assurance, and our mission. They tell us who we are, how God sees us, and what we are for.

• Our baptism  tells us  who we are .
• Our belovedness  tells us  how God sees us.
• Our belonging  tells us  whose we are and what we are for.

The Christian life is lived in these three movements: we are claimed, we are loved, and we are sent.

Today, let us remember our baptism. Let us live from the deep and unshakable truth of our belovedness. And let us recommit ourselves to belonging to Christ and to his people, the Church. For those of you here who have not yet been baptized, know that God’s grace is already at work in your life, reaching for you. The same God who named Jesus “beloved” at the Jordan River desires to speak that same name over you. 

+ In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.