Sermon Tone Analysis

*Intro*

We have come full circle since we started this series in 1 Peter.

We started with knowing our identity and will be looking at our identity again today.

This was huge, because our conduct flows out of who we perceive ourselves to be.

Identity precedes and affects your behavior.

I was reading this past week of a group of boys who were known for their delinquent behavior.

They would pick pockets, steal from shops, and commit all kinds of crimes.

They had a name for themselves: the 'throw-away' kids."

These children were abandoned downtown by their parents, and left to survive on their own.

They (correctly) viewed themselves as throwaway children, so they stole to survive.[1]

They defined themselves in this way and their conduct flowed out of who they perceived themselves to be.

God calls us to live our Christian life for Jesus Christ.

We say things like, “It’s all about Him!” and “It’s not about me.”

But the truth is we cannot truly live all for Christ until we know who He has made us to be.

It doesn’t matter if you adopt a “throw-away” kid.

Until and unless he~/she embraces the new identity he~/she has received, it doesn’t make a difference.

The “throw-away kid” will need your help to help him discover who he is.

If you are confused about that, you will be leading him astray!

You can’t take someone where you haven’t gone.

What is an ambassador?

An ambassador is one who: 1) represents his own government, 2) makes his temporary residence in a country other than his own, and 3) speaks only what the authorities from his home country tells him to speak.

In a sense, his identity is wrapped up in representing his country.

The apostle Paul writes that we are "Christ’s ambassadors" (2 Cor.

5:20).

Peter is about to start a new section in living out your hope among unbelievers.

He has been focusing on our walk with God, the Word of God, the people of God and doing the work of God.

Now before he gets into living out our hope with those who do not know the Lord, he wants to make sure we know who and whose we are.

You can try to live out your hope all you can with unbelievers, but if you don’t know who you are in Christ, you will be self-motivated, paralyzed by your own failures, consumed with the world’s pressure and eventually withdrawn and ineffective.

I am excited for what God is doing at Living Hope.

I see Him stretching us and I have been praying we are flexible because blessed are the flexible, for they shall be stretched!

We have been called here for a purpose.

I believe this purpose is to be an ambassador for Jesus Christ; to bring endless living hope of Jesus Christ to those who are dying a hopeless end.

We are not called to keep an aquarium but to be fishers of men.

But we cannot do this unless we know who we are in Him.

God calls us to be ambassadors telling others about the kingdom of Heaven, but the ambassadors must understand his role.

To represent our King well, we have to know who He is and who we are in Him.

Peter had called us planted pilgrims, if you remember and chosen and loved children, but here he is going to give us five more identity markers for the ambassador of Christ.

I’m going to reveal them in successive order.

*I.   **Four Identity Markers of the Ambassador of Christ (1 Pet.

2:9a-d, 10)*

First of all, straight from the text:

*a)   **We are a chosen race (1 Pet.

2:9a)*

Peter begins with a “but,” contrasting unbelievers in the previous verse, who in choosing not to believe in Christ, will stumble over Him in judgment.

You are first a chosen race.

We talked a lot about how God fore-knew us, which means He fore-loved us.

The theme is a favorite one of Peter’s.

I don’t understand it all.

John Piper adds, “I stand in awe of it.

I tremble with joy at it.

I bow and accept it.

I long to be faithful to its purpose.

I am chosen.”[2]

Peter is again going back to OT Israel.

Look at Ex. 19:5-6.

Now I do not fall in the camp of those who say the church has replaced Israel, but I do think the church has equal value and significance as Israel did with God in the Old Testament.

Here, Peter focuses on the fact that what defines our identity is not our ethnic race, but our redemption race.

Peter uses the word /genos/, “a term denoting race and blood relationship, and involving the idea of hereditary privilege.

It is a further reminder of the new birth (1:23), whereby Christians have been brought into the divine family and thus share in all that such a relationship means (2:4–7).”[3]

In Christ, we are no longer are defined by how we look on the outside.

When He saved us, He adopted us into His family, but went further.

He gave us His DNA when He gave us the Holy Spirit.

We do not have to be driven by what we are on the outside.

Not that race is not important to God, don’t get me wrong.

I think race is a beautiful thing that was created ultimately by God to show His creativity.

I am all about celebrating racial diversity, but we cannot be defined by it.

Race cannot be what defines us in Christ.

Ultimately the race that will survive are those who are covered by the blood of Christ and once we come to Christ, we must be ambassadors bringing all human races to the chosen race in Christ.

This is a good word for us here at an ethnic church.

Are you defined by your /race/ or cheesy pastor humor coming right now…or the /grace/ of God in Jesus Christ?

Sometimes I notice ethnic Christians bring out the race or culture card in excusing their behavior.

“Well, in our culture,” they say, “this is how we’ve done it.”

So when you tell them, “Encourage someone today verbally,” you get a response, “Well, in our culture, we don’t verbally encourage because you should already know what is expected of you.

I should not have to tell you.”

Who cares what your culture says?

What does the Bible say?

But there are situations where the issue is more of a personal preference of a culture than something unbiblical right?

It is a tough balance sometimes to respect cultural~/racial ways of thinking, yet be firm on your personal convictions about things.

But let this sink in.

So many people are wondering what group they belong in.

A lot of us struggle with are we American or are we Asian or both?

People have all kinds of names of all kinds of people.

I remember at Moody one day, most of the grad students lived in Jenkins Hall and decided one day to do a potluck dinner.

There were a lot of international students, so there was a beautiful array of food from all over the world.

After dinner, my roommate had his guitar and he started playing some worship songs.

We ended up singing “God is so good.”

Initially it was in English, but then someone started singing in Korean and someone else sang it in Cantonese and still another in Spanish and so on.

It was totally spontaneous and totally a blessing!

For a second, wow, a glimpse of Heaven!

Think about this for a second, that in eternity past, God loved us and chose us to be His ambassadors together for such a time as this.

We are part of the race that will never die.

The race of Jesus Christ!

I pray as ambassadors we breathe in Bible country and when people walk in here, let them not see an ethnic church, but a church united in love for Jesus Christ.

Let them all see we are covered in the blood of Christ.

We are a chosen race.

Let’s build on that.

Secondly,

*b)   **We are a chosen race of royal priests (1 Pet.

2:9b)*

I really could not think of better descriptions than of Peter’s here for this.

We learn here that the “spiritual house” in 1 Pet.