Who are God's People

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

• When we were children, my sister and I used to complain that we were mistreated.
• We always had to pick up toys at other peoples’ homes…
• “You’re not someone else’s kid.  You’re my kid.”
• Eventually, we noticed different treatment b/c we were our parents’ kids
• Our actions of picking up the toys or cleaning up after ourselves did not entitle us to be our parents’ children.
• What we did or didn’t do did not establish or affect our standing as Bill and Lori’s kids.
• Like it or not, we were already Bill and Lori’s kids.
• Our limited, childlike understanding may have sometimes made us wish we were someone else’s, but that never could have happened.
• All parents can also relate to this: no amount of frustration is going to suddenly make you abandon your child and put him up for sale.
• Likewise—Your actions do not make you God’s either.
• Nothing we can physically do or not do can/will change our standing as God’s ppl.
• The Bible makes this abundantly clear.
• We already know this.
• One thing defines us as God’s people. – What is it?

Faith has always made God’s people God’s people.

• Abraham
• Gen 12.1-4 –multiple implications for the questions we’ll be asking [w3]
• What matters now is Abraham’s response—“Reckoned as righteousness” Gen 16.6
• Christians today
• Eph 2.8-9 (NIV)
• “Controversy in the Greater Mediterranean Christian Convention”
• Acts 15.10-11 – their answer was theologically consistent
• This would be works-based salvation (and this has never defined God’s people).
• Legalism
• Over-reliance on the Law to accomplish something it was never intended to accomplish
• Define “Law” for practical purposed as “doing, works, etc.”
• Rom 3.20, 21
• Whether we accept/believe this or not, we still often talk/think like we don’t.
• “just trying to do enough to get to Heaven”
• “hope I’m good enough”
• “I can never forgive myself for what I’ve done.”
• [We think and view the world as if the grand summary of our actions defines who we are.  But, we already have identity as God’s people.]

What the Law was really for.

• The Law did have a purpose.
• So do our actions today. 
• They do matter.
• How Israel behaved and how we conduct ourselves has a profound impact on us as people.
• But how?
• Did not make Israel God’s. 
• We’ve already covered that.
• Dt 10.12-13 [nasb]
• Who is Moses talking to? –God’s ppl.
• Already called out of Egypt. 
• Already delivered from Pharaoh.
• They were already defined as the ones God has plucked and gives special treatment to
• They were already God’s. 
• We are already our parents.
• Dt 11.8-9a, 13-15
• MY POINT – Many conditionals (“if/then”) in Dt.
• Do not link to eternal salvation, but to temporal (immediate, here-and-now, in this life) blessing (i.e.: Dt 11.22-23, 26-28)
• NT
• Jn 15.7-11

This Law—that no one else had—made Israel different.

• While Faith defines who we are, our actions distinguish from everyone else.
• In the same way, our good works and loving actions must make us different.
• Being different is evidence of salvation received.
• Jn 14.21
• Do they really, though?
• How many ppl look at us—the church, Christians—and see the exact same actions they see in themselves?
• We must be different. (look, smell, feel, etc.)
• Ppl should not be surprised to find out we’re Xns.
• How you act says something about who you belong to and how you feel about that relationship.
• Christ—“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
• For Israel, expectations and requirements were laid out before them.
• This made being different easy—“Do This.  You Will Be Different.  Guaranteed.”
• Moral requirements placed on Israel as they marched into alien territory raised the ethical bar very high.
• Dt 4.5-8
• Peppered throughout Dt are calls to be different.
• Dt 7.6 – “God has chosen you.”
• For us today, the expectations are no different. – Be different.
• Eph 4.17 – 19, v. 20 (but you…)
• “live such good lives…” –(1 Peter 2.12)
• Whether we’re reading Moses in Dt 4 or Peter writing millennia later:
• The bar is still just as high b/c God is just as sovereign
• Not possible to read OT and not see that God expects to be involved in every area of His people’s lives
• NT Xns should never feel that they’re held to a lower standard
• God still works to accomplish His purposes through His people
• So, dream with me for just a minute.
• How do you think the world would really be if believers acted like they believed this stuff?
• If coworkers, neighbors, friends actually got something different from what they were expecting from us?

So, follow God’s commands and do the right thing because of your faith.

• Behave differently because you are different.
• 2 Sam 7.23-24