Who are you? (2)

Who Are You

intro- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, purportedly told of a time when he climbed into a taxi cab in Paris..! . Before he could utter a word, the driver turned to him and asked, . "Where can I take you, Mr. Doyle?"

Doyle was flabbergasted..> He asked the driver if he had ever seen him before..

"No, sir," the driver responded, "I have never seen you before." . Then he explained, "This morning's paper had a story about you being on vacation in Marseilles..

This is the taxi stand where people who return from Marseilles always come to.. . Your skin color tells me you have been on vacation..

The ink-spot on your right index finger suggests to me that you are a writer..

Your clothing is very English, and not French. . Adding up all those pieces of information, I deduced that you are Sir Arthur Conan Doyle..!

"This is truly amazing!" the writer exclaimed. "You are a real-life counter-part to my fictional creation, Sherlock Holmes!" . . ."There is one other thing," the driver said..!

"What is that?"

"Your Name is on the front of your Suitcase..!!

this morning we are going to talk about Identity. I think often times we forget who we are. as a foster, soon to be adoptive parents, katy and i have had many conversations with bryson of what it means to be my son. He has decided to change his last name to Dykes, i have explained that there are many generations before him of men who have built a reputation to go with that name, and although im honored that he would choose to take it, there is a certain amount of weight that comes with it. in the same way, we are going to talk about what it looks like to take on our new identity as Christians. one other thing i need to talk about before we dive into the text is that we are going to talk a lot about God’s election or choosing of us. A couple of weeks ago Jason talked about the tension in the bible between the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man to respond to his call. Remember, we dont try to explain it away because we dont like one side or the other. We know that God is in absolute control. that there is no rogue molecule floating in the universe that God isn’t controlling. yet, the bible is abundantly clear that it is mans responsibility to respond to God’s call by repenting, or turning from, our sins, and believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. we dont say that man has no responsibility, and we dont say that man is able to choose to repent without God giving him the faith to do so. this is a tight rope that is pulled taught by both sides, and it our duty as Christians to walk it in faith, even though we will never be able to fully comprehend how it works, at least on this side of heaven.

with all of that, lets read 1 Peter 2:4-12

we are going to mostly focus on verses 9 and 10, but i do want to unpack some of the other verses first.

cornerstone- lets look at the idea of Christ as the cornerstone first. To most of us, the idea of a cornerstone is foreign and is an analogy that doesn’t really land. in the ancient world, the cornerstone would be the first one put down. the entire structural integrity of a building would depend on that cornerstone. if the stone was square, straight, and level, then the building would generally follow suit. it was the stone that all other stones were compared to. The position of cornerstone is such a prestigeous honor, that through the years, different cultures have celebrated the cornerstones of important buildings. in a temple they may make a sacrifice in honor of it. in modern times they may be engraved or have a time capsule inside. using this analogy The Holy Spirt, through the authors of scripture, prophesied that jesus would be rejected. essentially the Pharisees looked at jesus and said that he wasnt pretty enough or polished enough to be the cornerstone of the kingdom of God. They looked at this traveling rabbi from Nazareth, and discounted him. In reality though, Jesus would be a diamond cornerstone. not only is he precious, but he is unbreakable, and perfect.

the other thing to notice here is that we are chosen. chosen not because of who we are, but in spite of who we are. Deuteronomy 7:6–8 (ESV)

6 “For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. 7 It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, 8 but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

look back in 1 peter 2 vs 5. to truly grasp the hope of this statement we have to understand the cultural context. in our current political climate we hear a lot about systemic racism or systemic discrimination of groups of people. they were suffering what some claim is going on in our world today. because Nero blamed the fires on the Christians, and word of that slander spread, Christians were being discriminated against at alarming levels. however, this persecution wasn't sanctioned by the state. this is important for next week too, but the important part for you to understand right now is that the people peter was writing to were consistently being put down. so when peter comes along and reminds them that in the same way christ is a precious cornerstone, they are being made into precious stones and each and everyone of them were specifically chosen by God. this is a reminder to them and to us that to the world Jesus is a stumbling block, but to us He is the cornerstone of the holy temple that we are also stones in, and if they are offended by the cornerstone, they will also be offended by us.

destined to disobey- this is going to be tough to swallow, but the fact that it doesn't sit well with us isn't a valid reason to throw it out as true. even those who refuse to obey God are still working into the plans that he has set before the foundation of the earth. there is and will never be any one or anything that thwarts the plans of God. even in their disobedience they are still working towards Gods plans. if someone were to say, “i hate God and i will never serve him.” that person didnt somehow “beat” God by not accepting his grace and mercy. Rather, they played right in to his plans by doing what they were destined to do… disobey. some may think that i’m making a leap here, but Paul unpacks this idea to the nth degree in romans 8-11. God will harden whom he will harden and he will have mercy on whom he will have mercy. We tend to think of the question as “how is it fair that God would save some and not others,” but i would say we are asking the wrong question. we should be asking “how is it fair that God would save even 1 person, much less me?” as i said in the introduction, i dont claim to understand how all of this works. i cant tell you exactly where God’s sovereignty and mans responsibility to respond come together in this beautifully complex aspect of our salvation. however, i can say that because this is what scripture teaches, it is true.

chosen race

For whatever reason, our country has decided to further divide people among perceived race lines. We have coke telling their employees to be less white, and organizations formed for the sole purpose of stirring up hatred and causing rifts where there were none before. i think that we should be proud of the people group that God used to form us. not necessarily all of our ancestors actions, but God knew what he was doing when he made me with less melanin than other people. The reason i say perceived Race lines is that there is no such thing as the white race, the black race, the asian race, etc. There are only two races. the first is the human race. the first born. all of us came from our mothers womb and were born that first birth. The second race is the second born, or those who have been born again. and dont get me wrong we are not talking about an us against them race war, but rather an us for them. we are chosen. here is the thing about foster care, when you get a call about a kid they are asking you to take, often times the list of good is much smaller than the bad. if you are only choosing to take kids who have very few or no bad behaviors, you will never take a kid. biological children who grow up in stable homes, still have problems at times. when foster parents get a call it sounds something like “hey gabe, we have a 8 year old boy who likes to play video games and loves sports. he has been in foster care for 6 months, and is just looking for a good home. he does have a few behaviors and mental health diagnoses. he has had some issues with playing with fire, and he can be aggressive at times. he has actually been kicked out of 4 schools for violence. he has Reactive attachment disorder, adhd, depression, anxiety, he has some issues with