Proclaim His Excellencies

Exiles By Design Exile; Proclamation; Purpose 1 Peter 2:9–10

1 Peter 2:9–10 ESV

9 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. 10 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.

Week 1: Who we are

Week 2: What we are to be (full of Hope, Holy)

Week 3 (today): Who we are and in light of that what we are to do (the two are connceted)

I will give you my aim right off today: I want to remove from you and I, render obsolete, the many reasons (dare I say, excuses) for not proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ that are too often used by Christians in our culture. I already know for some of us, maybe a lot of us, this may be an uncomfortable message because it is going to press on us, I hope significantly.

And I am going to challenge us right now before we dig in, if we find ourselves not liking it, purshing back, making excuses in our minds: ask yourself ‘why’; really examine the reason if you find yourself butting up against this message because I think you will find your reasons are much more, if not entirely rooted in your own concepts and maybe a desire for self-protection, or comfort or avoidance or cultural norms and perceived cultural niceties rather than any wisdom you could glean from God’s word.

I enter into this message with great hope this morning as well as resigned acknowledgement. I HOPE to dismantle in our hearts our excuses for not opening our mouths to proclaim the gospel, but I enter into this messag resigned as well because I believe there are strongholds in some of our lives that must be broken some of us can receive and respond to this message and some of us will continue to hide behind excuses for not proclaiming the gospel.

May the Lord graciously touch some hearts here this morning. And at the very least, I hope after today all of us, when we do use excuses for not speaking of Christ, there will accompany such situations a nagging conviction from the Lord that will force us to recognize we are excusing ourselves from what he has commanded us to do. And our reasons for not speaking, though they may sound good to our cultural sensibilties are based on something other than the fear and honour of the Lord.

The example of Meryem

In his book ‘Evangelism as Exiles’, Elliot Clark shares the story of Meryem, a 17 year old student with a new faith and passion for Jesus who is living in a devout Muslim country. One day, Meryem was called into the principles office at her school because she spoke up about her faith. As a result, she was being threatened with expulsion, public shaming and the possibility of being reported to a local prosecutor on charges of “Missionary Activity”.

This was because earlier, Meryem had an interaction with her teacher who had been teaching on Christianity, telling her class that Christian’s believed in different gods, that we are guilty of the worst possible sin in Islam by worshiping Jesus and that the Christian gospels are corrupt and contradictory. Meryem to these accusations by pushing back against her teacher (a thing that was not done in that culture), explaining Christians did not believe exactly what the teacher was explaining. When challenged how she would know, Meryem revealed she knew this because she had actually read the bible and not only that but she had one with her in class. Before her teacher and 38 other students, all Muslim, Meryem defended the Christian faith, shared the unified teaching about Jesus from scripture and described how Islamic teachings were unconvincing.

When asked why she would risk sharing her faith, Meryem’s response was “she was overcome with the sense that her friends were following falsehoods.” and that “she had been ‘waiting for an opportunity’ like this for some time.”

After sharing this story in his book, Clarke points out a very astute difference between many of us (in this room and Christians in general in our culture) and Meryem, stating the following:

Put in her position I doubt we’d have assessed the situation as an opportunity from the Lord. And most likely we wouldn’t have acted on it. That’s because we increasingly define “evangelistic opportunities” as those rare instances where we perceive others to be open to the gospel. When we think we have a willing audience…we often passively wait for gospel opportunities. We submit the call of the Great Commission to the will of those ill-disposed to our message. We defer preaching to suitable situations..or we avoid awkward religious conversations altogether. - Elliot Clarke

I believe Clarke is right in his conclusion about the ‘many’ Christians in our culture and as I said, that extends to the many in this church.

Evangelism is in a state of disrepute amongst churches in North America, and it is time for us to realize the fault lies on no one but those who claim the name of Christ. The fault lies on us and we need to start owning it. We need to start owning just how severely we have punted on our responsibility of proclaiming Jesus to the world. In the conversations I have and the words I hear leave peoples lips, the sad state of evangelism and lack of conviction in this area is seen: I have heard and continue to hear countless more excuses of why someone cannot or even should not proclaim the gospel than I have heard stories of someone actually doing it. Many of them will be familiar to you, maybe you have used them:

• I can’t share the gospel in my workplace, I will lose my job

• I need to wait for the right moment, it just hasn’t come

• I’m praying for an opening, for God to give an opportunity before I share

• I haven’t found the right time

• It just didn’t feel right

When I hear these excuses, what I hear and what I hope you can see is, we are at the root of it saying: ‘if I proclaim the gospel in this situation or to that person its going to be uncomfortable for me, it may result in a consequence for me, it doesn’t feel right to me.”

I ask you, Is it not a sad state of Christian Evangelism when we are more concerned for our comfort and security then being compelled like Meryem that those around us are following falsehoods?

We worry about losing our jobs, can I tell you that I worked at IKEA, a company that is constantly on the cusp of relevancy, embracing the new morality and all that comes with it. I proclaimed the gospel to my co-workers, my manager and those who worked under me. Kate conistently proclaimed the gospel in her work place and these companies have many of the same policies the companies you work for have. And besides, did Jesus say, tell people about me, unless it may cost your something? NO, count the cost before following me becuase it will cost you something.

In some places our brothers and sisters proclaim the gospel and they could lose their lives for it, imagine the disciples, imagine Paul, using some of the excuses we use? This is a man who went to Lystra, preached the gospel, got stoned and dragged out of the city assuming he was dead, regained consciousness and the next day went and preached the gospel somewhere else.

There are two good reasons (maybe three) for not preaching the gospel that I can see in scripture and neither are the reasons we use.

First, because the Holy Spirit constrained the disciples from preaching it to certain people. An example is Paul’s missionary journey, the Holy Spirit would not allow Paul to go to Asia.

Second, because of personal safety or hardened hearts, Jesus escaped crowds at times because they were getting rowdy, the disciples left certain situatons because of negative responses to this gospel, BUT before we use this as an excuse, in all of those situations, they proclaimed the gospel first, just didn’t continue to becuase it wasnt received.

They preached it and then removed themselves if necessary, we remove ourselves before even preaching it.

Why do we do this? Why do we shirk our responsibility to preach this gospel? One of the underlyign reasons is we don’t know who we are. Peter tells us who we are in verse 9 and his description of who we are is directly tied to the mission we are given, so if we understood better who we are maybe we would respond more willingly to our mission.

We Don’t know Who We Are

Who are we? (let’s briefly consider what Peter says)

A chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.

A Chosen race - alluding to Israel, the church is God’s new chosen people, not as physical descendents from Abraham but as those who have faith in Jesus Christ. The churches corporate identity is that we are chosen, the individuals identity within this is that you were chosen, along with brothers and sisters from all over the world.

A royal priesthood - We have direct access to God, the priests would perform the duties of God. We serve royalty.

A Holy Nation - We are called to be holy as he is holy (last week). When we do not do this, we go against our identity as a holy nation.

A People for his own possession - We belong to God

2 Corinthians 6:16 ESV

16 What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

The change of identity that occured

We were in darkness (spiritually dead) and have been called into God’s marvelous light (salvation)

We were not a people, but now we are God’s people

We had not received mercy, but now we have received God’s mercy.

WHO has done this for us? GOD HAS. So then, as the one who created us, showered mercy on us and saved us, God gets to declare what we do as a result.

Why has God done this for us?

“that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you”

Proclaim (exangello) - literal rendering: “to tell out or tell forth”, “publish abroad”. The saying, ‘Preach the gospel, use words if you have to’ is more of a cop out than anything.

This rendering suggests the verbal declaration of God’s excellencies should be a high priority.

Excellencies (arete) - fame, praise, what is true

Doesn’t this fit with what we see in scripture? The disciples were always proclaiming, teaching, speaking of the truth.

Works are good, they will catch peoples attention, maybe even cause them to wonder, but they are meant to demonstrate the truth of what we proclaim verbally, that people may see ‘wow this person really believes what they proclaim, look how they live’.

Are people saved through good works?

Romans 10:13–17 ESV

13 For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” 14 How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? 15 And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!” 16 But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?” 17 So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

God has made us what we are so we can proclaim who he is.

Another story from ‘Evangelism as Exiles’

Mustafa is a 22 year old living in a Central Asian majority muslim country who came from a Muslim family, studied in a muslim theological school, but came to faith in Jesus after receiving a new testament and studying it for a year. He is part of an unreached people group, meaning there are extremely few to no Christians. One day Mustafa was leading a discipleship group with a few others and they were discussing evangelism where the group he was leading was suggesting all sorts of different considerations which must be thought about before discussing the subject of their faith before others. Mustafa remained silent for a while and then leaned forward to share wisdom. He explained that prior to talking to someone about Christ, he reset his expectations by bringing to mind passages where Jesus says what will happen to his followers.

Peter doesn’t shy away from this right in his epistle. In verse 1 Peter 2:4-5 Peter says Jesus is a living stone rejected by men and that we ourselvs are like living stones being built up as a spiritual house. The parallel is clear.

In 1 Peter 2:11 he reminds us as sojourners and exiles people will speak against us as evildoers.

In 1 Peter 2:21 he declares Christ suffered for us as an EXAMPLE so we may follow in his steps.

Brothers and sisters at some point we have to admit to ourselves that we don’t proclaim the glories of God because we are terrified to followin Christ’s example, to follow in his steps, but all this shows is we don’t understand who we are and what we are meant to be it has penetrated the deepest parts of our hearts yet.

Your Purpose is lived out in your Proclamation

Peter exhorts: You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s possession, THAT (in order that, to the purpose of) proclaiming the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his glorious light (1 Peter 2:9)

The purpose of your life is not just for your own spiritual formation in Christ and as long as you live your life that way, you will be neglecting a huge part of the purpose God had given you.

You bored? You feel things are mundane? I can tell you why.

The Sin of Doing Nothing

The traditional view of sin which God gives us in his word is that sin is not just what we commit (sins of commission), but also what we fail to do (sins of omission).

James 4:17 ESV

17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

Brothers and sisters, we know the right thing to do, we know what we have been called to do, at what point does the punting on our responsibilities become sinful?

Tasked with the proclamation of Good News

We have been tasked with the proclamation of good news, this is a privilege, we have the best news ever to declare to others. View your task through that lense, stop viewing it thorugh the lense or response and consequence (how someone will respond).

Matt Chandler - “Imagery stirs up our minds and stirs us to action in the way that informaton often can’t.

In a culture still sailing under the semblance of a theistic morality, we tend to judge ourselves by what we do instead of what we leave undone. But wars are not won on defense alone. And what glorious battlelines to excuse oneself from. Is it not our utmost privilege to participate? To watch behind fortress walls would have been enough; to blow the trumpets and attend the banners, an honor. But to be summoned in by the King himself, to be fitted in his armor, given a family to march forth with,a nd lost souls to win - how can we reist? The conqueror, the King, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, stands in the thick of the battle. Does your blood not stir to join him? - Greg Morse