Before we look at our passage this evening, I just want to thank you for praying for me over the last couple of weeks. A little bit of report: the first week I was in Lafayette, Indiana, teaching a seminary course on pastoral care, flew home on Friday, and flew out again on Saturday to spend Sunday at College Church in Wheaton. It was a wonderful Sunday there. Sunday evening was what they call "Sunday Celebration." It was outside, a community event, 650 people were there, probably 150 unbelievers, so it was a wonderful opportunity to preach the Gospel to people who hadn't heard it.
A Report From Lafayette
And then, last week at the General Assembly of PCA where I was able to speak several times, so thank you for your prayers for me. I'd like you to do this with me, I'd like you to turn back to your 'Order of Worship.' I want us to read, once more, the words that are in the bold which we will be considering this evening. I don't think you can read these words enough. Take them home; cut them out; glue them to your refrigerator because we are want to forget. Let's read those again, verses 9 & 10: 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.
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. If someone would ask you what you thought were the greatest dangers to your Christian experience, what would you answer? If someone would ask you what you thought were the greatest threats to Christianity, what would be your response? If someone would ask you what is the most significant attack against the Church of Jesus Christ, what would you answer? It's very easy for us to think that the threats - the most significant dangerous threats - to the church are those threats outside of the church.
Maybe you would answer: the rise of functional atheism in America, where more and more people are convinced there is no reason whatsoever to need to believe in God. Maybe you would say: the gross materialism of Western culture that says life is all about physical things and physical experiences; he who has the most, the biggest pile of stuff, wins. Maybe you would say: it's the rampant immorality of Western culture where anything seems to be okay anymore. And you can barely go out in the street or look at your computer or read a magazine or listen to a song or watch television without having your morals assaulted.
Well, that all seems plausible, but I'm deeply persuaded that Peter is onto something here: that the greatest threats to the church are not found outside of the church. The greatest dangers to your walk with God are much more subtle and much more personal than that. In fact, I would argue, as Peter seems to argue again and again in this wonderful little letter, that the greatest danger is actually found (you'll probably be offended at this, but I'm going to say it) within your own heart. And Peter addresses again and again two dangers; really one danger with a particular expression.
First is the danger of 'identity amnesia' - that in the press of life in the fallen world, in the press of family, in the press of education, in the press of career, in the press of friendships, in the press of all the things you do that keep your life so frenetic and busy, you would forget who you are. I mean, who you are in Christ. That you would forget that you haven't just been forgiven, but that you've been given a brand-new identity, an identity that should change everything you think about who you are and what you are to be doing.
And the danger of that is that 'identity amnesia' always leads to 'identity replacement.' If you're not getting your identity vertically the way that God designed for it to be gotten, then you will get it horizontally. You will turn your education into an identity - education is a very important experience; it's an experience, not an identity. You will turn your marriage into an identity and try to turn your spouse into your own personal Messiah (in case you hadn't figured out, that won't work). You'll turn parenting into an identity, and parents fall into sort of 'lostness' when their last child leaves the home because they've been getting something out of those children that they're not supposed to get.
We can even turn up problems into identities. Someone will say, "I'm depressed," as if it's an identity. I don't want to denigrate that profound human experience, but it's not an identity; it's an experience, and if you turn it into an identity, it will hurt you. And so Peter keeps returning, he keeps hammering this issue again and again as he's talking to people who are suffering. Often in suffering, as you're facing things that you didn't expect, things that are painful and difficult, your concentration on that experience causes you to forget who you are.
The Danger of Individualism
But there's another danger related to this, and it's particularly present in the Western culture church. It's the danger of 'individualism.' It's the danger of turning Christianity into some kind of individual, private pursuit, to turn Christianity into a 'Jesus and me' religion. That's not the religion of the New Testament. You have been called to a collective faith, a faith that's all about relationships. Paul uses terms like 'body,' 'temple,' 'family,' to remind us that our walk with God is in fact a collective, a community project.
You were not hardwired by grace to do this thing on your own. You're called to be part of the people of God, and your health and your usefulness will be connected, not just to you understanding that, but to you living that out. I mean, think of this room this evening, if you would for a moment. We've come from different places around this region, different experiences this week, different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. And it would be tempting to think that this room is sort of like the main room of a restaurant or a department store or a grocery store where people from different locations come from sort of individual interests, and they happen to be in a room together to get what they want out of that moment, and then they melt back into their private lives, but they don't have any necessary connection to one another.
Are you hearing me? That's not what this is. You are, whether you recognize it or not, whether you live like this or not, you are intimately, by grace, by divine purpose, connected to everybody in this room. And you are not just an individualistic consumer here to get your thing for you, glad that you get it, and you leave and go back to your privatized life. In Western culture, we have big boundaries between our private lives and our public persona. It's possible to be part of the body of Christ and live in no vibrant connection to the people around you; that's not New Testament Christianity.
It's possible to even be part of a small group and live unknown to the people who are near you; that's not New Testament Christianity. And so Peter, as he talks about identity, he can't talk about identity in any other way than in a collective way. Look at the terms here. Holy person? No! "Holy nation ... royal priesthood ... chosen race ... people for his own possession." I would ask you before we unpack those little phrases: are you living privatized Christianity? Do you live out, do you embrace, your connectedness to your brothers and sisters in Christ?
Do you understand we are called to be effective collectively in this world, and that your growth in grace, and your effectiveness as an instrument of grace is entirely attached to living out that relational, that body, that family, that nation kind of faith? Who knows you? Whom do you work with together to be more effective for Christ? Do you have a consumerist sort-of-view of Tenth Church? Do you buy into unbiblical independence, unbiblical self-sufficiency? Peter is obviously pastoring well here, and he's concerned that people in suffering will sink into an individualistic self-focus (often happens in times of suffering) and forget who they have been called to be by the grace of Christ.
First phrase: "You are a chosen race." Quite apart from your own ability, quite apart from your own achievement, you have been chosen by the grace of God to be part of a new spiritual race. I think that Peter uses that term 'race' because one of the most fundamental forms of identity to a human being is racial identity. And so he's saying, "This is how thorough this new identity is - it's as if you have been given a new race!" Oh, he's not talking about the color of your skin; he's talking about what's happened to your heart, and you now are part of a group of people who, by grace, are alive to God.
You're different and you're different together! Amazing. When you think of who you are, what do you think? When you assign identity to yourself, what is the identity that you assign to you? And there's a way in which everything else, the next three phrases, really define what this chosen race is about. But let me say this: what 'chosen race' means is that the great Creator, the sovereign God, the King of kings, and Lord of lords has chosen to place His eternal love on you. Wow. That is an amazing thing.
Jesus Loves Me
God loves me. God loves me. I was tempted at his point to have us sing, "Jesus Loves Me." Sing it to yourself. "Jesus loves me! Jesus loves me! Jesus loves me!" I'm part of a company of people that God has chosen to place His love on. Wow. "A royal priesthood." Now each one of these phrases gives us a little bit of a nuance of what it means to be this chosen race. They're not four different identities; they're vistas - they're perspectives on this one identity. 'Royal priest' means a priest to the King, in service of the King.
But what is it that 'priesthood' connotes? This is incredible again: it depicts access to the very presence of God. Now you should never grow used to that. For thousands of years, the people of God were not able to enter the presence of God. It was shut off to them. Where the Shekinah glory dwelled, only the priests could go. And when Jesus was crucified, the veil was rent, now by the cross, opening to us who are redeemed by the cross, direct access to God. You can, at any moment, walk into the presence of God!
You live in the presence of Almighty God! And God says, "Come, call me your Father. Bring your needs to me, and know that I will never turn you away." Jesus said, "Though all men forsake me, I am not alone for my heavenly Father is with me." Access to God. But there's calling in this as well. What is it that the priests did? The priests made sacrifices, and so we're called to a life of sacrifice, a life where we willingly offer up our gifts, and our possessions, and our strength, and our energy, and our resources, and our relationships, our situations, and locations for the service of the God who is our King.
It means your life should be a life of sacrifice, not using your life the way you would want to use it. And so, you live sacrificially in your university; you want to offer up even your education to God. Somehow, some way, that experience would be used for His purpose. You offer your home up to God as a sacrifice to Him that somehow, some way, that dwelling place would be used for His purpose. You offer up your friendships to Him with the hope that somehow, some way, your friendships could be used for His purpose.
You offer up your children to God, realizing that they don't belong to you. You're not attempting to turn your children into your little clones, there for your reputation and your happiness (if you're doing that, you're already very frustrated because it doesn't work!) But you realize they belong to God; if somehow, some way, I could impart, by God's grace, faith into my children, I offer my children to the Lord; they're His. I offer my money to the Lord. I don't think when I give on Sunday that I'm giving of mine to the Lord; it all belongs to Him.
When you put money in the offering plate, you're giving to God what already belongs to God; it's His. Now that's very, very different than the sort of modern evangelical view of the Christian life where I live my life and I try to stay within God's boundaries, but I step out of my life in moments of active service for Him. No - you're His priests; you've been called to a daily life of sacrifice. "A holy nation." Again, a reinforcement of this identity. We've been separated out by God to be His special people, and Peter's arguing that this identity is now deeper to us than race; it's deeper to us than gender; it's deeper to us than language; it's deeper to us than ethnicity; it's deeper to us than culture; it's deeper to us than social class.
We are no longer divided by those normal divisions that separate people, because we have been given a new collective identity that levels the playing field that makes all of us the same. No matter what language you speak, no matter what location you're in, no matter what your ethnicity is, no matter what your race is - if I am in Christ and you are in Christ, we are one! Do you live that out, or do you still matriculate inside of comfortable cultural circles? The people you feel comfortable with look, speak, think, and act an awful lot like you.
You see, that denies the Gospel. It's not a very good preparation for Heaven, where God will finally gather people of every nation and every tongue as one before Him. "A people for God's own possession." It's hard to capture in a few moments the power of these words, but God has willingly reached out and taken you as His own and drawn you close to His heart. And He's wrapped His arms of grace around you and said, "You're mine! You're mine! You're mine! You're mine! You're mine! You're mine!" "You may never experience human success, but you're mine.
You Are Mine
You may be living in a broken body that restricts your physical existence on this world, but you're mine. You may be living in situations of trouble because you live in a fallen world, but you're mine. You may not be surrounded by an affirming group of friends, but you're mine. You may not have a string of accomplishments behind you, but you're mine; you're mine; you're mine. I have taken you as my own. You're mine." When you're facing the unexpected, this is the identity that you need to preach to yourself: I'm part of that chosen race.
I'm part of that royal priesthood. I'm part of that holy nation. I am God's possession! And live out of that identity. You're always living out of some kind of identity. In those moments where you're facing difficulty, where you are facing the unexpected, when you're suffering - what is it that you tell you about you? Well, if you understand your identity, then you'll get your mission; this is what's next. "That (purpose statement) you might proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light."
God has given you an identity, this glorious identity that we've looked at, and He's called you to a mission that you would proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. There is, in that phrase, a course on evangelism. Here's the first thing. We don't proclaim an ideology. We don't first proclaim a theology. We don't first preach the glory of Tenth Church. We don't proclaim programs or ideas. We are called to point again and again to the glory of a person who is our Savior.
We don't offer the world a system of redemption; we offer the world a Redeemer! And Peter says the way you point to His excellencies is by telling your story. Tell the story any time you can of how this Redeemer called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Talk about how, in His sovereignty, He led your story. In His power, He helped you to see even though you were blind. In His grace, He made you aware of your need and your sin. In His mercy, He forgave you. In His power, He now protects and delivers you.
Root the Gospel in a living story that is your ow - you have stories to tell! And as you tell the story, what Peter says is: make God the chief character in your story. His excellent sovereignty! His excellent wisdom! His excellent power! His excellent grace! His excellent love! His excellent mercy! Are you timid, afraid to point to the glory of a God who has placed His grace on you? Would you rather experience the glory of temporary human acceptance over pointing to the glory of the God who's radically altered everything about your life?
I love what John Leonard said when he was talking about evangelism at our urban ministry conference. He said, "Often people say what you do is you act normal for a while, and then you surprise people with the fact that you're a Christian." It's the "sneak-up-with-Jesus" approach. He says, "What I do is I immediately tell them I'm a pastor. I immediately tell them I'm a Christian. I tell the story and then I surprise them that I'm normal. And they're expecting me to be weird and they begin to say, 'This is a wise man.
This is a loving man. This is a good man. This man has things about him that I would love to have in my life.'" Now there's not a person in this room that doesn't have opportunity. Now, Peter would say calling isn't a choice - you've been called. He has separated you together so that we together would be effective, and here's what's amazing about this: we're not all in the same place. Isn't that great? And so as we go out of this place, we sprinkle ourselves all over this region. That means, to use senior George Bush language, a 1000 points of light - the Gospel all over the place, as we're pointing to the excellencies of our Lord.
Once You Were Not a People
Now here's the final thing in the passage. If you're going to live out your amazing identity, and if you're going to be part of that mission that you've been called to, you just have to remember: "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." I want to end this way - maybe the single most significant danger of the Christian experience is the danger of forgetting. You forget who you are - sin becomes immediately more seductive and easier to do.
You forget who you are - self-sufficiency becomes easier. You forget who you are - individualism becomes easier. You forget who you are - Sunday morning consumerist Christianity becomes easier. You forget who you are - evangelical Christian pacifism becomes easier (I mean by that that you don't feel the need to be part of what God is doing). You forget who you are, and Christianity quits living in the interior of your life; it lives on the borders of your life and becomes formalistic and empty and God dishonoring.
Now I think there are literally thousands of modern evangelical believers who live there. Their faith is most vibrant in formal settings. Their faith is most vibrant in programs and scheduled ministries. But in the interior of their life, there is massive contradiction. And because of that, we're less the army than we've been called to be. Do these truths live in the interior of your life, the most private moments of your life? University student, does the Gospel form the way you interact with a professor, the way you interact with fellow students?
Husband, does the Gospel form the way you speak and relate to your wife? Wife, does the Gospel form the way you relate to your husband? Does the Gospel form what you are willing to look at on the computer? Does the Gospel form how you respond when something unexpected and distasteful happens to you? Does the Gospel form the way you move through sickness? Does the Gospel form the way you respond to your children, even in those moments when you're tired, and exhausted, and you don't want to deal with another sin of another little one?
Does the Gospel form how you respond to a pastor or elder when you think they haven't responded to you in the way that a pastor or elder should? Does the Gospel form the hopes and dreams for your life? Does the Gospel form the way you think about your money and your possessions? Is your life driven and shaped by the Gospel because you remember once you were not a people, but now you're the people of God; once you did not receive mercy, but now you've have received mercy, and mercy has changed the ballgame?
Or, are you pretty good at forgetting? I want you to look back at page 5. We're going to read again, because our hearts need that. Follow as I read; read with me please: 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. 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. Let's pray: Lord, we would confess to you that, in the press of life, we can be so incredibly forgetful; and in our forgetting, we can lose sense of who we are and lose sense of what we've been call to; and as we lose sense of those things, things that are not important become way too important, and we live in fear, and discouragement, and timidity, and doubt, and we're ineffective, and unproductive.
And, Lord, I pray that You would cause us to remember and to celebrate and to act in the courage and hope and mission of the Gospel--Living no longer for our glory, but living the life that points to Your glory, wherever you have placed us, and whatever relationships, and whatever circumstances. In Jesus's name we pray, Amen.
