Jesus's Sojourning Praising People
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
READ 1 Peter 2:9–12
Last week our brother Joshua taught us out of 1 Peter 2:4-8. Peter describes how the church is built on Jesus as the new temple. Christ is the cornerstone on which we as Christians, individually and corporately, are built.
Today’s text continues the ideas that Joshua taught to us last week and keeps building on them. The underlying theme of our text is an explanation of who we are in Christ and, again, how we are to live. Peter’s pastoral concern here is to equip us to live as citizens of the Kingdom of Heaven who are currently sojourners and exiles in a hostile world.
I’ve broken our text out into three main points for those of you who are taking notes:
People of God (9-10)
Sojourners in Combat (11)
Ambassadors for Christ (12)
1. People of God (9-10)
1. People of God (9-10)
1 Peter 2:9–10 (ESV)
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
Verse 9 is a repackaging of Exodus 19:5-6 and Isaiah 43:20-21. Peter sandwiches the passage from Exodus in between the two verses from Isaiah.
Verse 10 is from Hosea 1-2.
First,
Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”
At Sinai, God makes a covenant with Israel that they shall be his people. And we know from Paul that not everyone born of the Jewish race was truly OF Israel; only the believers were. Here, Peter applies this promise to these believers living under the New Covenant, and says that they shall be God’s people.
Although Peter is writing primarily to the Jewish population in the diaspora (that’s just the name for the scattered Jewish community living outside the land of Israel) in and around modern-day Turkey we can also safely assume there are Gentile believers among them too that he’s addressing. He’s not reminding them that they’re Israelites and that Israel is God’s people. No, Jesus Christ has come; the gospel is for all nations now, and all who come to Jesus Christ are God’s people.
And you are a royal priesthood.
Royal priesthood, you say? Joshua talked about this point last week. Christian, there is only one mediator between God and Man, and that is our Lord Jesus Christ, who is our great high priest. Because we are united to him, we too are priests; we have direct access to God without any need of other mediators.
You are a holy nation. You are not part of the world. You are separated from it—sojourners and exiles, as we will see in a moment. The kingdom you belong to is God’s heavenly kingdom.
Now,
Isaiah 43:20–21 (ESV)
I [God] give water in the wilderness,
rivers in the desert,
to give drink to my chosen people,
the people whom I formed for myself
that they might declare my praise.
Peter takes this statement and applies it to these believers he’s writing to as well. They are God’s chosen people; the people he formed for himself so that they would declare his praise.
Then, he cites Hosea. In the book of Hosea, God tells Hosea the prophet to name one of his children “No Mercy” and the other “Not My People.” (Do not comment, just read)
Hosea 2:23 (ESV)
And I will have mercy on No Mercy,
and I will say to Not My People, ‘You are my people’;
and he shall say, ‘You are my God.’ ”
NAMES HAVE PURPOSE.
You know the Johnny Cash song “Boy Named Sue?”
But the meanest thing that my daddy ever did
Was before he left, he went and named me Sue
So obviously he had a terrible life, and when he finally meets his father as a grown man he’s furious at him and they have an epic brawl. And after the fight, his father grins,
And he said, "Son, this world is rough
And if a man's gonna make it, he's gotta be tough
I knew I wouldn't be there to help you along
So I give you that name, and I said goodbye
And I knew you'd have to get tough or die
It's that name that helped to make you strong"
His father named him Sue to help make him strong.
God tells Hosea to name his children “No Mercy” and “Not My People.” Sue might have had it easier as a kid.
God tells Hosea to give his children these names to represent who they are in themselves.
And what’s the point? God has MERCY on No Mercy! God says “YOU ARE MY PEOPLE” to Not My People!
This is clear: There’s nothing in No Mercy or Not My People that causes God to have mercy or make him his people. God does it on his own, because HE is merciful!
God had mercy on you and called you to himself from your former state of darkness to into his marvelous light. Once, you had no mercy. But now, you have received God’s mercy, as a free gift of grace. Once, you were not God’s people. Now, you are God’s people. You are members of a new race, the family of God, brothers and sisters through your union with Christ, and Jesus Christ is the firstborn among you. You belong to the Lord now.
And why is all this important? There are many reasons, but Peter gives one here: God has done all this for you, so now you are able to—it is possible for you—to proclaim the excellencies of God.
As we enter our second and third point, we are going to look at what proclaiming the excellencies of God looks like.
And that brings us to our second point:
2. Sojourners in Combat (11)
2. Sojourners in Combat (11)
Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
Peter told us the truth of our situation; now he tells us what to do with it. Let’s pause briefly on the first few words of this verse, because we might be tempted to skip them as unimportant to the main point.
Beloved, I urge you.
Who is speaking? Peter. There’s a lot packed into that “I” there.
This illustration works best for the Marines, but if you’ve been around Marines long enough you should get it too.
Let’s say all the Marines of 7th Marine Regiment are sitting in the base theater waiting to be addressed. One of the Public Works Division guys, with his bright yellow reflective work vest on, walks up to the podium, taps twice on the microphone, and then says, “Ripper”
(That’s 7th’s callsign. It sounds cool until you realize how much cooler Coyote is)
So the PWD guy says, “Ripper, you’re Marines, and since you’re Marines I urge you to go to the field to train more.”
OK.
Now let’s say all the Marines of 7th Marine Regiment are sitting in that same base theater waiting to be addressed. Major General Watson—the Division CG—walks up to the podium, taps twice on the microphone, and then says, “Ripper, you’re Marines, and since you’re Marines I urge you to go train in the field more.”
AYE SIR.
“I.” This charge is grounded in Peter’s apostolic authority. Pay attention.
Now look what he calls you. “Beloved.” This charge is grounded in his love for you. You are beloved. I’m speaking to you, Peter says, because I value and love you, Christian; you are precious to me, therefore I wish what is best for you.
Now look at who he says you are. You are sojourners and exiles. You are a temporary resident, a sojourner, an exile in this world who is absent from your true home—the new heavens and the new earth. Your king is God; the prince of the world’s inhabitants is Satan.
This world is not your home! Just like the direct recipients of this epistle are mainly exiles and sojourners outside the Promised Land, we are all exiles and sojourners waiting for fullness of the kingdom of God to be made manifest in the new heavens and the new earth.
Sojourner, you are in combat as long as you are alive on this earth. The passions of the flesh wage continuous war against your soul. Peter pleads with you and says that it’s urgent you abstain from them. Abstaining doesn’t just mean not doing something.
“I choose to abstain from being in the Los Angeles police force today.” That’s not abstaining!
Abstaining means you’re choosing not to do something deliberately. There’s effort involved. It’s denying yourself something that seems desirable at the moment.
Sin has consequences. Two weeks ago we looked at how it always destroys. Sometimes its effects are dramatic in our lives. We sin, and we suffer greatly as a result. We can easily look at the suffering we incur from our great sins and recognize the sin as sin.
Perhaps a more subtle consequence of sins is becoming comfortable in them because in the moment they seem enjoyable and we don’t recognize that they’re taking our eyes off Jesus. The thought of the passions of the flesh waging continuous war against our souls sounds flashy. But all too often the sins that wage war against us are much more subtle than a direct assault.
Homer’s Odyssey tells the story of Odysseus, who is also a sojourner and an exile trying to return home from Ithaca to Troy. He faces danger after danger and setback after setback along the way, but he doggedly keeps trying to make his way home to his kingdom, his wife, and his son.
Some of the dangers he faces are obviously dangerous—like Scylla and Charibdis, the six-headed monster and the whirlpool on either side of a narrow strait he had to sail through. Or perhaps the sirens, who sang such an alluring song that anyone who heard them would throw himself into the sea and drown while trying to swim to them. Some sins are like that: their dangers and consequences are obvious and immediate.
But have you ever heard about the Lotus Eaters? Odysseus and his men land on a pleasant little island to rest and refit. When some of his men go off to forage they meet the inhabitants of the island, who offer them the lotus fruit that grows on their island to eat. The lotus makes them so complacent that they lose sight of the whole reason they’re there, and are perfectly content to just sit down where they are and eat more lotus! They don’t even bother to go back and tell the others about the lotus. They just sit down in seeming contentment and will remain there forever.
Fortunately, Odysseus recognizes the danger, and forces them back onto the ship and makes his escape to continue his journey home.
In our continuous war against the passions of the flesh, complacency kills.
Let’s look at Paul’s take on this same topic, from
The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
We war against the desires of the flesh by abstaining from them, by making no provision for them, by refusing to gratify the desires of the flesh—all through putting on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Christian, we don’t just turn away from something. There’s always something we turn to. Whenever we cast off the works of darkness, we put on the armor of light. Whenever we put on the armor of light, we cast of the works of darkness.
So let’s apply this. One of the neighbors was throwing out a rug; we grabbed it to see if we liked it. It wasn’t a color that worked in our house, so we rolled it up and put it in the garage. The other day when I was exercising all the kids were in the garage, so I rolled out the rug and said that it was my exercise space. Nobody was allowed on it or to touch it. At one point, one of the kids got close to the edge of the rug and jokingly asked, “Is this too close?”
All too often we view sin this way. Our question isn’t, “will this help me glorify and enjoy God?” but we ask, “how close to sin can I get before it becomes sin?”
If that’s the question you’re asking, you’ve got sin wrong. You’d never ask “How many lead paint chips can I eat before I get sick? How many is too many? Maybe I can just lick them instead?” Put off the works of darkness; abstain from the desires of the flesh, which wage war against your soul; put on the Lord Jesus Christ.
This brings us to our final point.
3. Ambassadors for Christ (12)
3. Ambassadors for Christ (12)
Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
Abstaining from the passions of the flesh is good for us. This is a call to abstain from evil.
Keeping our conduct among unbelievers honorable is good for them and brings glory to God. This is a call to do good works; to bear fruit in keeping with repentance.
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
We’ve examined the fact that you are sojourners and exiles, citizens of God’s kingdom.
Gentiles are the citizens of this world. They’re the unbelievers. And as I said earlier, the prince of this world is Satan.
In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
Because of this, they’re going to see you, they’re going to speak against you, and they’re going to call you evildoers.
The bestselling book in the world is the Bible. The second bestselling book of all time is the Pilgrim’s Progress. If you haven’t read it, take and read.
In the Pilgrim’s Progress, as Christian walks to the Celestial City with Faithful, they have to pass through a town named Vanity; and in this town a fair runs all year round called Vanity Fair. It’s called this because the town is lighter than vanity, and because everything in it, everything that’s bought, everything that’s sold, everything that comes there is vanity; and Beelzebub runs it.
When Christian and Faithful make their way through Vanity Fair, the citizens become more and more agitated by them and think they’re barbarians.
The first reason is because they don’t dress like everyone else. Isn’t that interesting? Christians who dress differently. There’s a spicy topic.
Also, they don’t speak like everyone else. They’re Christians; the words they speak with their lips of Christ are unintelligible to everyone around them.
But the thing that upset the citizens of Vanity Fair the most was this: they abstained from the passions of the flesh; they refused to purchase or enjoy any of the vain things in the fair.
The people of Vanity Fair start shouting at them, and throwing things at them, and eventually break out into a riot.
They’re hauled before the judge of the town, Mr. Hate-good They’re accused of being enemies of the things that go on in Vanity Fair, and if you aren’t reading closely you’ll miss something in the charges laid against them: Someone who was watching them left Vanity Fair and set off on the road to the Celestial City.
The jury of Vanity Fair finds Christian and Faithful guilty of not following the gods of the world; and after torturing Faithful, martyr him by burning him alive.
And John Bunyan, the dreamer narrating his dream, says that he saw Faithful carried by a chariot into the clouds with the sound of a trumpet, to the Celestial City.
But God, who rules over all things, and who has the power of their rage in his own hand, providentially causes Christian to escape, and go his way.
And, if you’re familiar with the story, you know that Christian doesn’t go alone. Remember the charge brought by the judge in Vanity Fair? Someone left the fair because of them. He is named Hopeful, because he made hopeful by Christian and Faithful’s witness in their words, behavior, and suffering at the fair, and he is Christian’s faithful friend to the very end.
John 16:2–4 (ESV)
They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.
Because they do not know God, they call good evil and evil good. And as they do evil, they think they are doing good!
It’s Pride month, in case you hadn’t noticed.
Our culture has become utterly convinced of the goodness of evil and the evilness of good. If you’ve been watching the news for the past few years, you’ll have noticed that one of the consequences of Pride and all that it entails is that government pressure is being brought to bear on Christian adoption agencies for the sin of believing that a married, two-parent home with a father and a mother is the environment God intended children to be raised in. The message that’s been sent in more than one state is that it is better for the adoption agency to shut down than to continue hurting gay adults and children by not homing the children with the gay adults.
By and large, the majority of people don’t think they’re doing something wicked. They think they’re doing something good, and that the Christians are the ones who are wicked! They think they are serving their god—in this case, the pagan god Pride, when they are persecuting you.
What is our response? Let’s look to 1 Peter 2:9 “Proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” How do we do that? By 1 Peter 2:12 “Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable.”
Our mission is to proclaim: We speak of God’s excellencies. What are excellencies, you ask? Great question. Excellencies are showing forth power characterized by excellence; a wonderful act, a powerful deed, or a wonderful deed. It’s what God has done for us; how he has brought his power to bear in our lives.
Remember from two weeks back, when we looked at verse 3? If indeed you have tasted that the Lord is Good?
When Peter speaks of tasting, he’s not describing a complicated concept. Tasting is nothing other than experiencing the power of God through the Holy Spirit. We experience this power when the Holy Spirit takes God’s promises given to us in His Word, and makes them ours.
He brings us from darkness to light. He makes us his people.
Our mission is to proclaim: We also proclaim the wonderful works of God in our lives through our conduct.
We are being conformed to Christ, so we act like Christ. We do not conform ourselves to this world.
William Gurnall, in his great work “The Christian in Complete Armor,” has a brief discussion on the consequences of not being conformed to this world. I’ve modernized it, but Gurnall essentially says, “Many lose heaven, because they are ashamed to look foolish on the way. Some will mock you; others will persecute you to death, simply because as a Christian you will not believe what they believe or do what they do. It is a great honor to a Christian, yes, to Christianity itself, when all that your enemies can accuse you of is not doing what they do.”
On the judgment day, what’s going to happen is that everything is going to be revealed for what it truly is. When the good deeds you did in this life are revealed for the good deeds they are, even the unbelievers will recognize them—and glorify God, the fountain of your strength to work in love, because of them. Just as every knee shall bow and every tongue shall confess that Jesus is Lord, everyone who saw the deeds of Jesus’s people will glorify God because of the works they saw!
In the case of some, like Hopeful, they will glorify God for those deeds as one his children, from among His people, because through the witness of Jesus’s people they came to him. So, this morning, I ask you: Have you stopped by the wayside in Vanity Fair to taste of its hollow emptiness, or are you a Pilgrim, making your way by the grace of God to the gates of your true home, the Celestial City?
Conclusion
Conclusion
So, brothers and sisters.
You are the sojourning people of God, by his mercy, who he gathers to himself to proclaim his excellencies.
You proclaim his excellencies by abstaining from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.
You proclaim his excellencies by walking in Christlike manner among the citizens of this world, who will persecute you in this life, and glorify God because of you on the day of judgment.
Let us pray.