Pilgrims in a Fallen World: Who is Your King? I Peter 1:1,2

 

Pilgrims in a Fallen World: Who is Your King?

I Peter 1:1,2

Introduction: The reports of death and suffering in Haiti, and news of violence during the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan this week have been heart breaking. And Christians are not exempt from suffering, in certain places they can even be targets of hatred. We should not be surprised, right? After all, Jesus said "In the world you will have tribulation..." He said "Do not be surprised if the world hates you, it hated me first." We live in a fallen world. That is why Jesus came. I have a card in my office from David Jeremiah’s ministry. It has a reflection on John 14:1-3 on the back, let’s read those words of Jesus:

"Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me.  ² "In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.  ³ "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.”

On the other side the card says simply, “Keep calm, carry on!” That is a good word in these uncertain days!  It would be easy to get cynical, angry, or even to despair. Calm down, trust God! We are not home yet. We need to pray for the persecuted church. And we need to live by faith, with a sure hope in eternity. Though we don’t know what tomorrow holds, we know Who holds tomorrow!  As we learned in Jonah, God is good, all the time, He does all things well, even when we don’t understand!

       I am calling this new series on First Peter: Pilgrims in a fallen world. Peter will use terms like “pilgrims,” “exiles,” and “sojourners” to describe the believers to whom he is writing. If you have lived as a resident-alien for a time in another country you have a sense of the idea. You are a resident, you live there for a while, but you are not home yet. As missionaries, we were temporary residents of Brazil… The believers Peter writes to are described as resident aliens scattered about Asia Minor, in the world, but not of the world. They are citizens of Heaven, created for eternity. But they were still in this world of thorns and thistles. Peter will remind them, and us, we are here for a purpose.

     The question for each of us today is: Who is your King? Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, but the question is will we submit to His Lordship? Bill Bright used the illustration of a throne in our heart: do we insist that we are our own master? Or do we submit to Jesus, giving Him his rightful place as Lord of our life? Is Jesus your King?

The BIG Idea: If we realize who God is, and who we are, we will live by faith, in submission to His rule, remembering that we are foreigners and exiles in the world.

I. Because Jesus is our King, He has authority to send us! The writer identifies himself…

       Peter... Think about who is writing this letter.  Peter. He is certainly one of the more prominent and colorful characters among the disciples. Peter was one of the twelve, he walked with Jesus for three years. He was an eyewitness to the crucifixion and the resurrection!  He was a leader among leaders. He wasn’t perfect. A couple of times, he even tried to correct Jesus!  When I think of Peter my mind goes to the night of Jesus’ arrest, when first, Peter took a sword and cut off the ear of the High Priest’s servant who had come with the others to take Jesus. Jesus told Peter to put his sword away, and like the other disciples, as Jesus was seized, he ran. He did follow, along with John, from a distance. You know the story, that night, three times, he did what he said he would never do, he denied Jesus. You might think about Peter running to the tomb on Easter morning, or, after the resurrection, being restored gently by the master, “Peter, do you love me?” “Feed my sheep.” I think about the transformation after the resurrection, especially after Pentecost.  Peter stood up in front of the Temple and preached Christ. Threats, arrests, even beatings didn’t change anything. Jesus had conquered death and as long as he had life Peter would continue to proclaim Jesus as Messiah and Savior.        Remember how he got his name? He was born Simon bar Jonah, but Jesus gave him a new name. It was that scene in Matthew 16:15-18. Peter confessed,

"You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  ¹⁷ And Jesus answered him, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.  ¹⁸ And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

People have different ideas about what Jesus was saying here, but I believe that the key idea is that Peter was among those who had received revelation from the Father. So, Jesus is talking about building His church on this truth that a few were chosen by God to receive and share His revelation. That is part of what is in view in the title “apostle.”

      “...an Apostle...” The title referred to one sent with a mission, as an authorized representative, with authority to represent the Sender.  In Hebrew the parallel term was Shaliach, a “sent one,” but always with the idea of being commissioned by the sender as his representative.  When we went on the mission-field we gave limited “power of attorney” to the treasurer of our mission. He could sign checks for us, file our taxes, represent us in financial matters.  The shaliach or apostolos was more than that however.  It was like being an ambassador, the representative of one nation before another government.  He spoke for the president and for the people.  The apostles were commissioned by Jesus Himself to bring His authoritative Word to the world.

       “...of Jesus Christ...” Remember Jesus was given His name as a testimony of what He would do: save His people from their sins. And we are so familiar with the word “Christ” that it is easy to forget it’s meaning: Messiah, Anointed One (i.e. King!).  As Paul does at the beginning of several of his letters, Peter identifies himself as an apostle ­of Jesus Christ. This was the uniqueness of the apostolic office.  After the resurrection and ascension of Jesus, in the foundational period of the church, they were called to be His representatives, His ambassadors. An unlikely plan. God’s ways are above our ways. Jesus has chosen, in this age, to work through the testimony of believers. Could He send angels with flaming swords to proclaim His truth?  Or, could God Himself speak in a roar from heaven and say that Jesus is Savior, put your trust in Him alone?  Of course. But God chose another path. He chose to use His people to bring the Gospel to the world.

       In the first century, before the documents that became our New Testament were completed, the Apostles had authority to speak in His name and to bring authoritative teaching, showing that Jesus is the Messiah, the promised One, the fulfillment of the hope of the OT Scriptures, while teaching Christians how to live. Paul said the church is,

...built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone,  ²¹ in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord.  ²² In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.  (Eph 2:19-22).

Do you see the picture Paul paints in that passage?  Jesus Himself the cornerstone, but in some sense the apostles and prophets of the NT age had a foundational ministry upon which the church would be built. That might call to mind what Jesus said to Peter after his confession of faith that Jesus is the Christ, The Son of God: “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church...”  The Father had given Peter revelation, and the apostles and prophets were the conduits of God’s revelation to the church during its foundational period. They brought the Word of Christ with unique authority as His authorized representatives. We are not apostles, but we are sent. As we bring the Christ centered truth of the Bible to the world, as we share the “Good News” with our friends and neighbors, He has sent us as well.  He said, “All authority is given to me in heaven and on earth, go therefore and make disciples...”  If we realize whose we are we will live in submission to His rule, and remember we are foreigners and exiles in the world.

II. We belong to Him because of His love for us, not our love for Him.

       Peter is writing to “pilgrims,” the ESV translates elect exiles – This particular term, “pilgrims,” only occurs three times in the NT, twice in I Peter, and once in Hebrews.  The Hebrews passages comes in that great chapter 11, following the “Hall of Faith” list,

 “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 pilgrims [exiles] on the earth...” (Heb 11:13). 

They were not “at home” in the world. That is true of us. We are here, in the world, but we are not of the world. We hold residency in this land, we may have legal rights, but we are not home, we are citizens of heaven.  In recent years there has been a lot of talk about citizenship, and about exiles and aliens. It might be helpful to us to remember that we who are believers in Jesus are pilgrims, “elect exiles of the dispersion.”  The word “dispersion” is used of a farmer sowing seeds. It is most frequently used metaphorically to describe the Jewish exiles who were displaced from the land, and “dispersed” among the nations.  We’ll see that Peter is using that word broadly here, and that his audience includes both Jewish and gentile believers.  We read in 1 Pet 2:10, “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.” That language is typically applied to gentile believers.  Peter is using “exiles” in the same way here. The phrase “...of the dispersion...” then is referring to the believers, Jew and Gentile, who are scattered, like seeds, among the nations.

         “...according to the foreknowledge of God the Father...”  This word, prognosis, literally means “fore-knowledge,” to know before we experience it in time.  In popular thinking people sometimes suggest that God “knows beforehand” who will believe. That is certainly true, He is omniscient after all, but is that the full significance of the term? Let’s look at a few other passages...

Acts 2:23 “...this Jesus, delivered up according to [or, “by means of”] the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”

God’s plan and His foreknowledge are both causal here, the means by which Jesus is delivered up. To really get at the sense of the meaning of the word, it is helpful to think about the simple form of the noun gnosis when it refers to the knowledge of God. When God is the subject, the ideas “know,” “choose,” and “love” are closely connected.  Remember in the context the recipients are called “elect” or “chosen of God.”

Romans 8:29 “For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.”

This is clearly more than simple objective knowledge about a person. It is “knowing” in a more intimate and immediate sense.  

Romans 11:2 “God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew...”

What does it mean that God “foreknew” the Jews?  Look at Deuteronomy 7:6-8,

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.

Likewise, the word is used to describe the Father’s “foreknowledge” of the Son...

1 Peter 1:20 “He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for your sake...”

What a striking example of the word “foreknow”!  It was not like the Father doubting or monitoring if the Son would stand the test, or even just knowing beforehand that He would do so.  The point is that the Father knew and loved the Son from eternity past.

       In our passage, I Peter 1:1,2, the recipients of the letter are “elect... according to the foreknowledge of God the Father...”  I think that must be referring to the truth that God chose us, He knew us and loved us from before the foundation of the world.  We do nothing and did nothing to earn our salvation.  As Paul said, …of HIM you are in Christ Jesus... That is grace, the unmerited favor of God.  John described how that was demonstrated when he said in 1 John 4:10,   “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” And so, we are not our own, we are bought with a price. And if we realize whose we are, we will live in submission to His rule, remembering we are foreigners and exiles in the world.

III. As our Sovereign King, the Triune God, set us apart on purpose, for a purpose.

       Notice how Peter, in this greeting, ties together the Triune God: Father, Son, and Spirit, as the One choosing and saving, on purpose, for a purpose. He mentioned already that these pilgrims (and us!) were chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, now he speaks about the Spirit and the Son.

            “...in the sanctification of the Spirit...” Like the word “salvation,” “sanctification” can refer to God’s work in setting us apart in the past, in the present, or in the future. There is the idea of the progressive transformation that God works in us.  It is also true that the moment we believe we are positionally “set apart” but the ongoing work of changing us to be more like Jesus will continue all our life, until we receive our glorified body. Now, none of us is perfect! We all fall short. We are all a work in progress.  Be patient, God isn’t finished with me yet! One day we will see him, and we will be like him, without the presence of sin. It seems here the next phrases clarify the sense here...

       “...for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ...”  God chose us on purpose, for a purpose. In Exodus we read about Moses sprinkling the people with the blood of the sacrifice, and then going up on the mountain to receive the tablets from God (Ex 24:9).   The blood of the OT sacrifices couldn’t take away sin, it couldn’t “sanctify those who were unclean.”  That would require the blood of the Lamb.  We are not our own, we were bought with a price.  If we realize God chose us, we will live in submission to His rule, and remember we are foreigners and exiles in the world.

IV. He chose us to bless us, and to make us a blessing. Peter uses the words that became a familiar Christian greeting, “Grace to you and peace...”  But it is clear that from the pen of an apostle this meant much more than simply “Greetings!”

       “...grace to you...” The Greeks used a similar sounding word, “rejoice” as a common greeting. The greeting became a blessing as Peter (as did Paul) spoke of God’s “grace,” His unmerited favor. The grace of God that brings salvation is a blessing that is beyond what we could imagine. God “lavished” his grace upon us. One writer suggests that “grace” signifies “God’s love in action in Jesus Christ on behalf of sinners.” I would add the qualifier, “God’s extravagant love in action... etc.”  He reconciled us to himself, he gave us new life, and what’s more, He made us his sons and daughters!

       “...and peace be multiplied...” “Peace” was more than a hope for an absence of conflict. As a Jewish greeting, it would call to mind the idea of shalom, which was life as God intended it for his people, in relationship with God and experiencing his presence and blessing. It’s part of what Jesus had in mind when He said “I am come that you might have life, and that you might have it more abundantly...” (Jn 10:10b). At the heart of the idea is knowing that we have peace with God, and that we have the peace of God. 

What is God saying to me in this passage? If we realize whose we are, we will live in submission to His rule, and remember we are foreigners and exiles in the world.

What would God have me to do in response to this passage? If we know Him, and submit to Him as our Savior and Lord, our heart will be moved to obey Him. The political climate is so divided and antagonistic it can become exhausting. The world seems to be in turmoil. But we know the King, the Creator and Sustainer of the universe, and He knows us! Stay calm. Carry on. Trust Him. Remember, He is Lord! One day every knee will bow, and every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father!  

       If we love Him, let us obey Him. He said “...you will be my witnesses...” and “Go, make disciples...” We have a mission, it’s the Missio Dei, we have a part in the mission of God. And so, we are to bring the gospel to those around us, those in our “sphere of influence.”  We too have been scattered like seed, not haphazardly, but intentionally. Have you made a list of people around you that need Jesus, or maybe some who are saved, but need to get back into church? We are not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, and all the more as we see that day drawing near.  Write down the names of those people in your sphere of influence, and commit to praying for them daily. Ask God to give you opportunities to speak, to give a reason for the hope that is in you. So, we bring the gospel to people. We can also bring people to hear the gospel.  Next Sunday would be a great opportunity to do that!    AMEN.