Sermon Tone Analysis

I Peter 1:1-12

 

! Introduction

            I talked to Jake Kroeker this week about what it was like to be a missionary in another land.

He told me that when he was in church in Mexico he felt fully a part of the congregation and the life there, but when he did business and traveled around the country, there was always the awareness of being a foreigner.

He mentioned that the Mexican people recognize the missionary as a foreigner and expect that they will leave on furlough or go home for medical reasons as was the case for Jake.

We also realized that as a missionary, when it is time to come home, most missionaries go back to their home country.

Although they become a part of the community and try to fit in as much as they can to be effective, they are always in some sense strangers in the foreign country.

Is that not a good illustration of our situation as Christians?

This morning, we want to begin a study on the letter of I Peter which will take us through the summer.

It is addressed, in verse one, to “God’s elect, strangers in the world…” That address has a lot to do with the whole book.

As we study the letter together over the next ten weeks we will see how as God’s elect we are strangers in the world.

We will be challenged to live as God’s elect while we live in this world.

We will be encouraged that together we are the people of God in this world and we will be comforted with instructions on how to deal with the suffering which will be inevitable since we are strangers in this world.

The title I have suggested for the series is “A People Belonging To God.”

This comes from what I believe is the key verse of the book, I Peter 2:9, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

I trust that you will be encouraged and challenged as we study God’s word together.

The letter is written to Christians who were scattered about in five provinces of what is today Turkey.

Christians were not the majority in these provinces, but, were a few churches scattered about as resident aliens.

Peter identifies them as people whose kingdom is in heaven, but who lived in these regions of Asia Minor.

The word refers to “one who is merely passing through a territory, with no intention of permanent residence.”

This identification is true of us as well.

God has chosen us and through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit he has set us apart for obedience to Christ, since we have been sprinkled clean by his blood.

And so we live with this double identity - earth dwellers, but heavenly citizens, which often leaves us in a difficult place.

We are in truth, strangers in the world.

As we read I Peter, we find that there are plenty of challenges to this.

There are the challenges of fitting in a little too well and getting a little too comfortable with our life on earth.

Have you ever, on vacation or a shopping trip been tempted to blend in so that no one knows you are a Christian?

Have you ever hidden the fact in conversation from a stranger?

By the things you do, do you identify more with the world or with the things of God?

Is it your goal to know the world so you can fit in or so you can influence it for Christ?

On the other hand, there is often also the challenge of persecution and trials which make us want to leave earth for our true home in heaven.

If we don’t fit in, we will experience all kinds of trials.

Some are killed, some lose their jobs, some are teased, all of us are discouraged at times.

How do we deal with these challenges related to being strangers in the world?

As Peter begins the letter, he offers some reasons why it is so valuable to hold on to and in fact rejoice at our heavenly citizenship.

He also gives us a strategy for how we can think with hope and joy about our heavenly citizenship while we live as strangers on this earth.

!

I.             Bless God For His Great Mercy!

There is a commercial on TV about a woman rushing through an airport trying desperately to catch a plane for which she is late.

She arrives just in time and is about to board the plane when her cell phone rings.

The last picture is of her sitting on the gate talking on the phone and the plane is gone.

Catching the plane was of great value, but when the phone call came, it was of greater value and she did not mind giving up catching the plane in order to answer the phone.

We may value getting along in the world, having peace, avoiding persecution, having the things of the world and any number of other things that our neighbours who are not resident aliens have.

Yet we are willing to give them up for something that is much better.

Peter’s message to the believers is that they are to bless God because they have something that is so valuable that it is worth being a resident alien for.

Now before we think about how valuable our life in Christ is, let us just take note that there is also a strategy here.

Praising God is the strategy which we have to help us remain true to our status as strangers in the world, even when the pressure becomes great to become one with the world.

Praising God will restore our understanding of His great gift to us.

Praise lifts us up and reminds us of what is real.

So whenever we are discouraged or fearful, let us bless God.

But what is the content of our praise?

What is it that we have that makes it worth being strangers in this world?

!! A. He Gave Us New Birth Into A Living Hope

What we have is that we have been given a “new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

What kinds of hopes fill the hearts of people who are bound to this world?

We know because we are often filled with the same hopes.

We hope to be comfortable, to have peace, to live a long time, to be healthy, to have lots of friends who never abandon us, to be happy.

Earth’s citizens strive for these things and pursue them diligently.

Some seem to achieve them to a significant degree.

But at some point or other, we all begin to realize that they are dead hopes, or at least hopes that lead to a dead end.

No matter how wealthy we are, six feet under ground we are all dirt.

The best looking, most popular people are not necessarily any happier than anyone else, in fact, we sometimes hear that they are more miserable.

Sin destroys relationships between people.

Happiness is removed in a moment when tragedy strikes.

The poor suffer physically and the rich suffer from ulcers and stress.

If you live a long life, all your friends will die.

In these and other ways, citizens of earth live with hopes that are seldom fulfilled.

But, because of God’s great mercy, he has made it possible for us to be born again, not to sin, separation and death, but to a living hope.

The whole world is in bondage to sin.

Because we have a living hope, we are not.

The whole world faces eternal death.

Because we have a living hope, we do not.

The whole world is separated from God.

Because we have a living hope, we are not.

The living hope allows us, in the midst of the most hopeless situation, to walk with courage and joy.

It allows us to live in the power of an intimate relationship with the creator of the universe.

It is a living hope that is assured because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

We are not placing our confidence in a pipe dream, but in something that has been demonstrated to be real.

Jesus rose from the dead!

Because He lives, our hope lives!

This week, someone who is going through a struggle told us that her hope is expressed by the song, “Because He Lives.”

That is real and that is far more valuable than anything we have here on earth.

Why do we so often long to be part of the world.

We have something far better than anything this world offers.

Because we have something far better, we are encouraged to be faithful to our position as God’s elect who are strangers in the world.

!! B. He Gave Us An Inheritance

But the hope we possess is not only for this life, a living hope, but also contains a promise for the future which is far better than anything the world can offer.

Why do we hold tightly onto our possessions, our comforts and our desires when we have a far greater possession in heaven.

Peter encourages them and us to bless God for our inheritance.

There are three words which describe this possession.

In Greek, the words all begin with the letter “a” which is a prefix which means not.

The inheritance we anticipate will not perish, will not spoil and will not fade away.

Everything on this earth will be destroyed.

Whenever I buy a car, I always enjoy the newness of it.

But it doesn’t take very long before it has a scratch and then I have to repair it and then it gets a rust spot.

No matter how durable something is, it will all deteriorate.

In contrast, we have an inheritance which will not do that ever.

It is an inheritance which is pure.

It is free from any deformity or impairment.

It is hard for us to imagine a world without sin, but we are heirs of such a world.

I love what it says in Revelation 21:8, “But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur.”