Sermon Tone Analysis

*“Christian Identity”*

*2 Peter 2:1-10*

* *

~*Intro – Some people loathe change.

They much prefer routine, habit, tradition comfortability and stability.

Others like to change just to break up the monotony.

Some change for escape.

But whether you generally view change as good or bad, if you are a believer in Jesus Christ, it is truly a change you have to appreciate.

No longer are you sons or daughters of disobedience, children of wrath, or alienated from God.

Our text here says that we are given a new identity.

And this identity changes everything!

I want to show you that in this case, change is good, it is required, and it is continual.

This morning we want to look at three changes that take place in the life of the believer.

We look at our *Changed Identity, Changed Behavior, and Changed Purpose.

*

In our passage this morning, Peter will use several illustrations to communicate who we are as believers in Christ.

And what I want you to see through all these images is, first and foremost, that we are part of something big!

This is not some meager existence.

We are not just isolated individuals struggling to survive in this world.

This is not randomness.

This is God’s plan for us that originated from before the creation of the world.

But at the same time, don’t think too highly of yourself.

Realize that your significance comes from Jesus Christ.

Treasure your relationship with him as a result.

Turn in your Bibles with me to 1 Peter 2. And we will read the verse 10 verses as we get underway this morning.

The first illustration regarding our identity that Peter uses comes in verse 5.

It is that of a building.

He speaks of believers as living stones in a spiritual house.

And alas we are already familiar with this sort of language.

In our study of Ephesians, Paul also used building metaphors to illustrate the body of Christ.

In chapter 2, he says that we are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.

In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.

In 1 Corinthians 3 we are God’s building.

And in Hebrews 3.7 we are also God’s house.

Throughout our time on this earth, we are the stones that are joined together with the saints that have preceded us and the ones to follow that comprise this spiritual house.

The text tells us that the foundation of this house is Jesus Christ.

He is the reason and the cause of the existence of the house.

But we will speak more on that later.

Next, Peter refers to the church as a holy priesthood in verse 5 and a royal priesthood in verse 9.

This should naturally conjure up imagery from our Old Testament Scriptures.

We know from our study of ancient Israel that God determined that they would set apart certain people to offer up sacrifices to God.

The same is true here.

However, Peter states that we are to offer spiritual sacrifices in place of physical ones.

We know that the ultimate sacrifice for sin has already been paid.

Hebrews 9.25-26 tells us “Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, *26* for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world.

But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.”

Now what is required of us is the sacrifice of our lives.

We have been called from our worship of self and the world to now offer ourselves in sacrifice to our God.

Romans 12.1 Paul writes, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.”

And then in verse 2, Paul urges us to not be conformed to the world but to be transformed by the renewing of our mind.

In that sense, it further confirms the idea of our holy calling – to be set apart for His work and His glory.

Notice also Peter indicates that we are to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

They are only acceptable through Jesus Christ.

If we have not trusted in Him, any other sacrifice we offer is unacceptable.

It is not God-glorifying.

I think the adjectives from Paul and Peter are in some sense redundant.

The only acceptable sacrifice is both a living /and/ spiritual sacrifice.

We become spiritual and living only through Jesus Christ.

Do you follow me?

Well, we continue to go back to Ephesians 2 because it communicates clearly and succinctly what happens at our conversion.

The first 3 verses of chapter 2 indicate our condition before salvation – dead in sin, following the course of the world and Satan, living according to our fleshly nature.

But then God did something.

HE made us alive with Christ.

We have gone from death to life.

But we also become spiritual at conversion.

We are indwelt by the Holy Spirit.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:21-22, “And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, *22* and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.”

In 1 Corinthians 6, Paul rebukes the church because of their continuing sexual immorality.

He reminds them that because of their faith in Christ, their bodies have become the temple (or dwelling place) of the Holy Spirit.

And in Romans 8, Paul writes, “*9*You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.

Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

*10* But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

*11* If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

So life and the spiritual nature are given through the Spirit of God himself.

Another way that we offer spiritual sacrifice is through our lips – like we have already done this morning.

Hebrews 13:15 says, “Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.”

As a church, may we never cease to acknowledge HIS name in this place!

We are also considered a royal priesthood.

This indicates that all that we offer is in service to the King of Kings.

The quote that is in your bulletin sums it up nicely when Jobes writes, “The kingdom of God is composed of believers who must think of themselves as holy with respect to the world, set apart for purity and a purpose demanded by God.

This is the priesthood that serves the King of the universe”.

Not only are we a holy /priesthood, /Peter indicates that we are a holy nation.

And I believe he reiterates this by saying that we are also a people for his own possession.

Are you beginning to sense a theme to this letter?

Right from the outset, Peter addresses his readers as exiles, aliens, sojourners who are to be distinct from this world’s system.

In chapter 1 also is a call to holiness – which means to be set apart.

We are called to be holy as God is holy.

And we know that as we are faithful in this, we look much different than those that do not know Jesus Christ.

In fact, the believers that Peter is addressing were being persecuted because of their faith.

In the same way that God called out the nation of Israel to be his chosen people, so has he called out those who are believers in Christ.

In Deuteronomy 7:6, Moses records God’s words to Israel: ““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.”

God then reminds them that it had nothing to do with their qualities, but by his choice alone.

And so does Peter here.

We are a chosen nation.

We discussed briefly that, as Christians, we were ransomed, or redeemed, from our past by the blood of Christ. 1 Corinthians 6 says that we are no longer our own.

We were bought with a price.

Thus we are to glorify God in your body.

Colossians 3 says that we have died, our lives are hidden with Christ in God.

Jesus repeatedly called us to deny ourselves and live for him.

Now we serve a new Master.

We are a people for God’s possession and use.