1 Peter 1:1-2

Introduction

1 Peter is written as Instruction manual for the Christian experience in a world that isn’t how its supposed to be

If you want to know what 1 Peter is about it is this ….Lessons on living as exiles

the original audience were churches in 5 Roman provinces Emporer Claudius established in modern day Turkey

What brings the reality of this letter home is that these believers were scattered there when Claudius began a reign of terror against Christians

They had lost everything

Following Christ in a lost culture looked to make things worse not better

It was bad…and Peter saw Nero take power and knew it was going to get worse

The culture we face has been moving followers of Jesus to the outskirts of the public square

this letter is written to true followers of Christ who are experiencing that following Jesus doesn’t mean your best life now

It means taking up heavy crosses everyday…and a culture that wants to make them heavier

How are we supposed to be the christians we need to be today with the culture what it is

He starts it off with an important first step

Remember Who You Are In Christ Because Things Are Coming That Will Make You Doubt

1 Peter 1:1–2 “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ: To those chosen, living as exiles dispersed abroad in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia…

Peter begins his letter by focusing on the gospel rather than the pain of the Christians to whom he is writing.

He does this because the gospel is glorious, and only this glory can bring true and lasting comfort.

that word glory in the bible means weight

Paul is starting with the Gospels weight so we remember it

Because things will happen in your life as a Christian that will look and feel to outweigh it

1 Peter I. A Greeting to the Christian Diaspora of Asia Minor (1:1–2)

The Christians of Asia Minor were facing troubling times. Because of their faith in Christ, they were being persecuted through social ostracism. Slander and malicious talk undermined their relationships with friends and family, threatened their honor in the community, and possibly jeopardized their livelihood.

1 Peter I. A Greeting to the Christian Diaspora of Asia Minor (1:1–2)

The issues of how to maintain a thriving faith in these circumstances and how to respond to such unjust treatment pressed upon them. they needed help to know

So do i

1 Peter I. A Greeting to the Christian Diaspora of Asia Minor (1:1–2)

Peter writes specifically to give these Christians hope, consolation, and encouragement by explaining their identity in Christ and how even suffering is an integral part of that identity.

He is saying from the start he knows through his own failings what makes faith last and what doesn’t

what is in his name in verse 1 is his testimony

Part of that testimony was the immaturity of his faith early on that saw suffering as a failing christian life not a growing one

Suffering is not a sign of a failing faith

I have heard it said that “Jesus suffered SO THAT we wouldn’t have too” …..horrifically wrong

the pages of the Bible, and the very life of Jesus, show us that suffering is not only inevitable for all but is, in God’s wisdom, the necessary path to the good and beautiful life. To experience the freedom and rest Jesus promises to give us (John 10:10), we must pass through the crucible of suffering.

 God’s way to the new life always passes through crucifixion of our lives and everything in us that wants to live opposed to Christ

The weight of what HE wanted Jesus to be outweighed the beauty of who Christ already was for him

If you simply rely on a one time experience of saving and don’t care about the transformation you will be lost when the feelings of Exile come

But if you remember the Story you are in everyday….that you are chosen already…it begins to change everything

What we remember is the Gospel epic we are in

The Gospel story is NOT that we are saved and given an pat on the back and a good luck out there champ

The Story is that we are saved to learn to live as free people so that one day soon we are the type of people who can live in paradise with Him

The Gospel tells the end of the story

Knowing the end changes everything about the now

That is what Peter wants us to grab hold of…not to see the pain as outweighing the gospel hope you have

The saving of Christ through the Gospel gurantees the end of the story is for you

You to have that in your soul because things are going to happen in this life that make you doubt if things will ever be better

The culture around you will look to be winning a war against what you believe and you will doubt God is big enough to win

Karen Jobes says This letter’s relevance for us today is due to its presentation of how the gospel of Jesus Christ is the foundational principle by which the Christian life is lived out within the larger unbelieving society

This is the point of the letter

Every letter has a purpose statement

Peters comes in chapter 5…1 Peter 5:12 “….. this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it!”

Stand firm in this truth and it won’t let you down in the end

Stand firm in who you are that this world is not your home and all of it is passing away

Who are we in a world that isn’t our home?

He says we are 2 things…Chosen and Exiles

In the very opening sentence of his letter, Peter introduces a concept of your identity that is based first on relationship to God and then on relationship to the world

Chosen by God and because of that …..

Made exiles in a world that rages against Him

Chosen-

What should leave us in awe is the fact that he didn’t say you made the mess now clean it up

he didn’t wash his hands of us when he had every right too

Instead before time began he had a redemptive plan to save all who would repent and believe

True followers of Jesus are chosen by God not because of anything we could ever do…but simply because he set his affections on you before he even made you

2. Exiles-

But we are to remember we are exiles in a world that isn’t our home because we are his

He is making a statement that made the jewish leaders want him dead

He just called them the same as believing Israel when they were dispersed through exile like babylonian captivity

So why does Peter use this Old Testament language of dispersion, exile, and Babylon?

Because he wants his readers to see that, like Israel in Babylonian exile, Christians now live in the world they once belonged to as “exiles” (1:1) and as “sojourners” (2:11). We do not belong here, and we are not to; we are just passing through.

This world where you are called weird and don’t fit in is not home

The word he uses was used in the first century to designate someone who did not hold citizenship in the place where he resided and was viewed as a foreigner.

The lack of citizenship implied that such people did not enjoy all the rights and privileges of citizens.

Moreover, as foreigners, they were not expected to hold the values and practice the customs of their host culture.

And it made them weird and cost them at work and at church and with family and with neighbors

Sound familiar

Because of such differences in culture, foreigners were often looked upon suspiciously as potentially subversive to the established social order, an attitude not unfamiliar even today

Juan Sanchez says here: Our identification with Christ is what makes us strangers in this world. Jesus himself had told Peter, “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you … I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:18–19).

Exiles … sojourners … hated … those are strong terms. We are foreigners in a hostile land, a people presently living in exile, away from our homeland and dispersed throughout the world.

But dispersed to tell the Gospel story to the people and places we are scattered

I was talking with an older missionary burnt out from ministry when i lived in Africa

He said why are you still here these countries will never change

I said I am not here to change a countries politics I am here to see my friends saved

I was there to see new creation in peoples lives as i was able

Look at part a of verse 2….

God is Still In The Creation Business

1 Peter 1:2 a “chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.

Genesis says at day one of creation 3 people were active

The father pouring out His love of the Son in initiating the overflow of that love into creation

The Son accomplishing the tangible creation

The Spirit vivifying and accomplishing the perfection of what was made

What is cool here is that the same 3 are still creating

It is who he is

and from the opening we see he is saying something scandalous about what God is creating

The Message of 1 Peter 2. He Greets Them as the True People of God

scattered in the world, but chosen by the Father, sanctified by the Spirit and cleansed by the sprinkling of Christ’s blood.

Feel the drama in that description

The Message of 1 Peter 2. He Greets Them as the True People of God

Peter is writing primarily to Gentiles, to those who had no part in the people of God, but who followed the ‘empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers’ (1:18). They had lived to the full the Gentile life of ‘debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and awful idolatry’ (4:3). Peter, a pious Jew, would regard pagan Gentiles with scorn and loathing as a good jew

The Message of 1 Peter 2. He Greets Them as the True People of God

yet ….This is the apostle who writes to Gentiles living in Asia Minor (now Turkey) and greets them as God’s chosen and holy people! What could cause such an about-face on the part of this very Jewish guy?

The Message of 1 Peter 2. He Greets Them as the True People of God

The answer, of course, is Jesus. Peter came to a new understanding of what it meant to belong to the people of God: it meant to belong to the Messiah, the Son of God.

the church is given language that was resereved for Israel

God has been creating a people for His own possession and the church is grafted into what has always been

Not a nation state of Israel

The believing Israel that was always on the outside of Jewish culture

Romans 4:3 “For what does the Scripture say? Abraham believed (had faith) God, and it was credited to him for righteousness.”

faith alone in Jesus alone is what makes you God’s chosen people

Galatians 3:7 “You know, then, that those who have faith, these are Abraham’s sons.”

Grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone….by new creation done by God alone

Not geneology or being Jewish

God has been creating a people saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone from the garden to today

The First Epistle of Peter Part I: Greeting (1:1–2)

God’s Spirit reached into our lives if that is you and made us holy, a chosen people of God in the same way the Spirit breathed life into dead adam when he first came alive

He is still in the creation business of new life from death to life

look at the genesis language foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.

Your bible is the epic of new creation being accomplished in the most scandalous way

Salvation of our doomed souls was God’s idea

It was plan A and there was no plan B because he can’t be stopped

Saving is from God’s heart and the plan to save you was already in action before he created a thing in Genesis

that is the point Peter wants us to know

God moved all of History to bring Jesus

that forms the ultimate foundation for the hope and encouragement that Peter is about to offer.

If God moved all of human history to bring us our savior He is still moving every detail to get you home to Him

Look at your life

Things just so happened

You just so happened to join a book club and met someone who introduced you to this place and people

If God cares so much about your little details you can have sure confidence he knows what he is doing to make all things new in the life to come

the world is not falling apart it is falling into place to get us home

Peter wants us to live with an awareness and sensitivity in our everyday to God’s working for your eternal good

How good are we at that?

So here is how we are to operate in it

The Countercultural Way To Peace

1 Peter 1:2b May grace and peace be multiplied to you.”

1 Peter C. The Greeting (1:2d)

the greeting is not merely a wish, nor even a prayer, but “a declaration of God’s blessing to those who are in Christ,” which presents in miniature the whole message of Peter’s letter

Because of the superior weight of the gospel on the scales of your suffering

And Because God is moving every detail toward new creation….then have 2 things and be about 2 things

The Grace of the Gospel says God’s plan is indesctructible…because as Hebrews says Jesus is not in an indestructible body

that grace is why we have hope

Peter once believed that if Jesus looked to lose then hope would be gone

The Message of 1 Peter 1. He Greets Them with Blessing

Peter wanted to fight the night Jesus was arrested because he feared that the death of Jesus would end all hope of victory, all hope of the Messiah’s peace. But the death of Jesus had done the opposite. It had accomplished the salvation of God’s Anointed. Now Peter, the apostle of the risen Lord, can pronounce peace; the peace that comes, not by the sword, but by the cross

It is the upside down way Jesus won our salvation

And that means in the upside down kingdom grace and peace are ours in upside down ways

Everything the Gospel creates is a redemptive reversal because the Gospel was the ultimate redemptive reversal

Adam fell in the garden of Eden so in a garden Jesus was faithfull

We were cursed with thorns and thistles so a crown of thorns crowned the King as He killed the curse

Adam’s eating brought in death and in eating the Lords supper we remember what gave us life

Apparent weakness won…not military might

grace and peace are ours in upside down ways

Redemptive reversals are what God is all about

We want the blessings of Christs upside down victory but don’t want to live upside down lives to live it out

Jesus told us this is the way to Grace and Peace

Luke 6

Christian Standard Bible Chapter 6

20 Then looking up at his disciples, he said:

Blessed are you who are poor,

because the kingdom of God is yours.

21 Blessed are you who are hungry now,

because you will be filled.

Blessed are you who weep now,

because you will laugh.

22 Blessed are you when people hate you,

when they exclude you, insult you,

and slander your name as evil

because of the Son of Man.

Why is that blessed?

Why even today as this stuff happens to me and things are said about me and my family should i feel blessed?

Because I am identifying with Jesus and that means I am His and if I am His then everything i could ever long for is mine

Peter once drew a sword to keep Jesus from the cross because of its defeat and shame

But this changed him

In the end when he was crucified on a cross under Nero he asked to be crucified upside down because he didn’t deserve to die like Jesus

Every hero of the faith you could ever have got this

Jim Elliot famously said befiore he was martyred in south america- “He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose”

The quotes like that echo through church history from our heros

Peter would echo the words of Elliot

Grace and Peace are yours if you are willing to walk the upside down way to them

“He is no fool who gives up what He cannot keep to gain what he can never lose”

Lets Pray