A Special People

Series in 1Peter – Part 2 “A SPECIAL PEOPLE”

Morning Service: Reformed Faith Mission (23/02/2014)

1 Peter 1: Greeting

¹              Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia,

²              according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

1 Peter 5: 12

Final Greetings

¹²   By Silvanus, a faithful brother as I regard him, I have written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it.

¹³   She who is at Babylon, who is likewise chosen, sends you greetings, and so does Mark, my son.

¹⁴            Greet one another with the kiss of love. Peace to all of you who are in Christ.

Remember who you are

1.      You are the elect – chosen by God

2.      You are exiles

3.      The tension of living as God’s elect in exile

Remember whose you are

1.      You belong to God the Father

2.      You belong to God the Spirit

3.      You belong to God the Son

  

1.    You are the elect – chosen by God

·         Peter has been personally selected and chosen by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Mark 3:13 And he went up on the mountain and called to him those whom he desired, and they came to him

·         He wants us to understand that we have also been personally chosen by God for Christ. We were also “those whom he desired”. You are God’s special people!

·         “Grace and peace” – Peter wants us to be assured of God’s protection for those He has chosen.

·         It could be that Peter was remembering the teaching Jesus gave them in Mark13 about the tribulation. God will shorten the days for the sake of the elect. For your sake!

Mark 13:19-20 ¹⁹         For in those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation that God created until now, and never will be.

²⁰            And if the Lord had not cut short the days, no human being would be saved. But for the sake of the elect, whom he chose, he shortened the days.

·         Amidst all the trials and suffering that believers will go through before Christ Return, we can have assurance that the elect will be protected and kept by God

John6:39

³⁹            And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day.

⁴⁰            For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day."

  

·         The apostle Paul confirms what Peter is saying:

Eph1:3-6

³              Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places,

⁴              even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love [those whom he desired with affection]

⁵              he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will,

⁶              to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved.

When we understand that we are God’s special people, chosen by God for Christ. We can join the church in Revelation 22:20 and shout: “…Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”

2.    You are exiles

·         In chapter 5, Peter ends of the letter by referring to Babylon.

·         In Peter’s day the city of Babylon was long destroyed hundreds of years ago.

·         He is using an Old Testament example to teach us about our own situation as God’s people in a foreign land.

·         In the book of Daniel we read that the people of God were exiles in Babylon.

·         They had to live in a hostile environment where they were pressured to conform to the surrounding pagan culture.

·         Daniel was thrown in a lion’s den because he refused to stop praying to his God. Dan 6:7

·         Shadrack, Meshech and Abednego was thrown in the fire for refusing to worship the king of Babylon Dan 3:15

Peter is saying that we are exiles in a modern day Babylon.

·         Just like the Israelites who were exiled in Babylon did not regard Babylon as their home, so we need to understand that this world is not our home.

·         We are living in a hostile environment that is not our true home.

·         We read in Heb. 11 that our promises are from afar and that we need to acknowledge that we are strangers and exiles on the earth.

Hebrews 11:13 These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

·         Like Daniel, shadrack, Mesheck and Abednego in Babylon, we are not to give allegiance to the surrounding culture.

·         We are not to be like the world or to love the things of the world.

Romans 12: 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

1John 2:15-17 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

¹⁶            For all that is in the world---the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions---is not from the Father but is from the world.

¹⁷            And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

 ·         Peter wants us to recognize who we are in relation to the world. We are elect exiles!

4    The tension of living as God’s elect in exile

When we bring ‘elect’ and ‘exiles’ together there is a tension.

Elect – Properly, to pick out; to select from among two or more, that which is preferred.

Exile – Banishment; the state of being expelled from one's native country or place of residence by authority, and forbid to return, either for a limited time or for perpetuity. Gen 3

Dispersion – The state of being scattered, or separated into remote parts;

It is important to understand that you are exiles.

·         You have been banished, expelled from your home country.

·         You’ve been driven out of your native country, but only for a little while.

·         You are exiles not just because of a corrupt worldly system, but also because of inherent sin.

·         You are still in this world with the devil against you, the lusts of the world against you and your own inherent sin against you.

·         Where you live now is hostile country. You are behind enemy lines!

·         Your suffering is directly linked to the fact that you belong to an enemy King

It is important to understand that you are the elect.

·         You have been chosen, picked out from among others.

·         You are the called, the justified, the glorified. Rom 8: 30

·         You have eternal life and no one can pluck you from Jesus hands

Joh 10:27  My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

Joh 10:28  I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

Joh 10:29  My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

It is important to understand that God is in charge of the dispersion.

·         God decided where you would be scattered

·         He determined where you would live.

·         … in Pontus, Galatia, Bellville, Strandfontein, etc.

Acts 17: 26 And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27  that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,

1Peter1:2 

²              according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Remember whose you are

1.    You belong to God the Father

·         How is it that you as a sinner, borne out of sinful parents can have a better inheritance?

·         If you were borne out of a sinful family and the wages of sin is death then your inheritance should be Death!

·         Praise be to God who has by His Spirit given us new birth and placed us in Christ!

·         We belong to God the Father.

·         Because God is our Father we have an imperishable, undefiled, and unfading inheritance that is kept for us in heaven. 1Pet 1: 4

Rom 8:17  and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

“according to the foreknowledge of God the Father”

·         The phrase indicates that God was the Author of the Plan of Salvation.

·         This relates to the fact that God has from the very beginning decided to choose them.

·         He has chosen His people to life and has given them to His Son to redeem and save.

2.    You belong to God the Spirit

“…in the sanctification of the Spirit”

What is sanctification?

It isthe work of the Holy Spirit bringing the whole nature more and more under the influences of the newgracious principles implanted in the soul in regeneration. - Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary 

·         In other words... It is the process by which believers grow in holiness

·         The Holy Spirit gives life to those whom God has chosen before time began and continues to grow the believer in righteousness.

·         Therefore if there is no growth, there is no Spirit, and no Spirit means no salvation.

Rom 8: 9-11 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.  10But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If 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.

·         But you who have been chosen of God have been born of the Spirit.

·         The Spirit is committed to the sanctification of every born-again believer!

John 3 :5-7 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  7Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’

·         It was by the Holy Spirit that you heard the gospel.

·         It was the Spirit that opened your ears to hear the word of God.

·         The Spirit gave you faith to believe the gospel

·         The Spirit brought you to repentance

·         The Spirit leads you into all truth

·         The Spirit teaches you to pray

·         Those who belong to God are led by the Spirit

·         It is the Spirit of God that convicts you of sin

·         It is the Spirit that helps you overcome sin

·         It is the Spirit that helps you discipline your life through the study of the word and prayer.

·         The Spirit of God is with you always and is in you and working through you.

·         You belong to the Holy Spirit!

3.    You belong to God the Son

“…for obedience to Jesus Christ”

You belong to Jesus Christ.

Joh 6:37  All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

Joh 17:6  "I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.

  

The reason for the work of God the Father and God the Spirit is to bring people to obedience to Christ.

Peter uses different words to describe the believer.

·         He uses the words, born again (v3, 23); believing Christ (1:8, 2:7) or being called (1:5)

·         But the main term he uses is the word Obedience (1:2, 14, 22, 2:8, 3:1)

·         Someone becomes a Christian when they obey Christ or obey the word of God.

·         Obedience is an ongoing process in the Christian’s life, but to belong to Christ means to submit under Him as your Lord.

  

“…for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood”

In Exodus 24:1-8 We read about the confirmation of the covenant God made with Israel after he led them out of Egypt.

Those who were led out of Egypt responded in obedience to the Covenant and were sprinkled with the blood of the sacrifice and the glory of God descended on Mount Sinai (Ex 24: 15-18).

Peter teaches us that those whom God has chosen will through the sanctifying work of the Spirit respond in obedience to Christ.

·         The blood signifies that we have been forgiven and cleansed from sin. Heb 9:22

·         We have been passed over from Judgment (death) to Life. Ex 12:13

·         We have been separated for a special covenant with God. Ex 24:1-8

Although we’ve been led out of Egypt… we are still pilgrims moving through hostile territory until we reach the Promise Land.

But we are not left as orphans…

We belong to God our Father. Chosen by Him.

We belong to God the Spirit. Sanctified and kept by Him.

We belong to Christ. To live in obedience for His glory as His Special Bride.

Joh 14:18  "I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.