BY ROBERT MILLER
John 1:45–46
Most of us know what it feels like to be labeled. Sometimes it happens early in life. “He’s not very academic.” “She’s shy.” “That kid will never amount to much.” Other times it comes later — after a mistake, a failure, a season we wish we could forget. Labels have a way of sticking, even when they aren’t fair or true.
In John chapter 1, Philip excitedly tells Nathanael that they’ve found the Messiah — Jesus of Nazareth. Nathanael’s response is honest, blunt and a little sarcastic: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Nazareth wasn’t known for greatness. It was small. Insignificant. Nowhere special. In other words, it already had a label.
And Jesus wore it.
He was known as “Jesus of Nazareth.” The carpenter’s son. From the wrong place. No royal pedigree. No impressive credentials. If people were filling out resumes, His would have been easy to dismiss. Yet that’s exactly where God chose to enter the world. Jesus didn’t deny the label — He redeemed it. Instead of spending His life trying to prove everyone wrong, He lived with such truth, authority, compassion and grace that the label lost its power. And that’s good news for us. Because many of us carry labels that were never meant to define us. “Divorced.” “Addict.” “Failure.” “Troublemaker.” “Not enough.” Labels given by people who saw only part of our story — or one chapter they didn’t like.
The beauty of the gospel is that Jesus understands what it means to be underestimated. He knows what it’s like to be written off before being fully known. And He invites us into something better. When Nathanael finally meets Jesus, everything changes. Jesus sees him — not as a stereotype, not as a skeptic — but as a man of integrity and potential. One encounter replaces a lifetime of assumptions. That’s what Jesus still does.
He doesn’t erase our past, but He refuses to let it have the final word. He doesn’t deny where we’ve been, but He refuses to let it determine where we’re going. The world may label us by our mistakes, our upbringing, our zip code or our worst day—but Jesus offers a new name:
“Child of God.”
“Forgiven.”
“Loved.”
“Redeemed.”
Or simply: His.
There’s something deeply freeing about that. When we stop striving to live up to everyone else’s expectations and instead rest in who we belong to, purpose begins to take shape. Fulfillment isn’t found in proving people wrong — it’s found in knowing who we are in Christ.
Nazareth didn’t look impressive. Neither did a cross. And yet God did His greatest work through both. If you’ve ever felt dismissed, underestimated or defined by a label you didn’t choose, take heart. Jesus came from a place no one expected much from — and changed the world. And if you belong to Him, that’s the only label that truly matters.
