Grasshoppers and Image Bearers
Chris Holm | MAY 10, 2026
Series: The Whole Story
Categories: Identity in Christ, Hearing God’s Voice, Prayer
Sermon summary
Most of us are living from a story about ourselves that was written by someone other than God. This week we looked at the gap between the false self, the identity we absorbed from our wounds, our failures, and the people around us, and the true self, the one God had in mind when he formed us.
Psalm 139 gives us the foundation. God knitted us together with the same deliberate care a weaver gives to the loom. He was present in the formation. He knew what he was making. He liked what he was making. The ancient world said humans were disposable labor. Psalm 139 says you were known before you were formed.
We traced this pattern through Scripture. The Israelites at the edge of the promised land called themselves grasshoppers, and that became their ceiling. A man named Salim carried a false identity as a failure and a disappointment until he brought it honestly to God and received a true name instead. Jacob wrestled through the night and had to say his own name, the deceiver, before he was given a new one.
The honest middle comes before the new identity. You bring the real thing. God speaks the true thing.
We closed with three questions to bring to God: What is the most important thing you want me to know right now? Where am I not living in truth? And what do you call me?
You cannot give away what you do not have. Letting God name you is not indulgent. It is generous.