A People for Our Isolation
October 2, 2022
Preached by David McHale
Scripture Reading
1 Peter 2:4-10
4 As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, 5 you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 6 For it stands in Scripture:
“Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone,
a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
7 So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,
“The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone,”
8 and
“A stone of stumbling,
and a rock of offense.”
They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.
9 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. 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.
We are walking through a series on the church. So far, we have seen the grand story of God’s plan to redeem the world through Jesus Christ and how we are personally caught up into that story. Last week, Ben helped us see Jesus Christ as the King over all things and the supreme Head of the church. This morning we continue with asking the question:
What is the church and why does it matter?
I wonder what you think of the church. Maybe you delight in the church – it has been a safe haven for you, a place of rest and transformation. But I wonder if some of you are bored with the church. Maybe church means a Sunday morning stale obligation or just an avenue to earn God’s love – so it ends up making you tired. Maybe the church is the place where you have sustained your deepest wounds. Maybe you look at the church across our country and you are grieved, angry or apathetic because she looks a lot like the world.
The church was meant to be different – set apart from the world. The word in the bible for that is “holy.” Peter calls the church a “holy nation.”
So why is it that it seems like the church as the same problems as the world – the same leadership abuses, the same broken friendships, the same disillusionment, the same divorce rates, the same sexual ethic, the same divisiveness, the same individualism, the same empty promises of health and wealth.
Why is it that some Christians find their non-Christian friends to be more interested and invested in their lives than their church community? Why is that for both those inside and outside the church, the church has been, not a beacon of good news, but one that wounds, one that mongers fear and despair in the world? Why is it that the church tends to either remain a pious enclave detached from the darkness of the world or an army who wages war with the world throughcondemnation and despair?
Why? In short, because the church has forgotten who she is. The church has drifted from her true and glorious identity. It is our natural default to live with spiritual amnesia – both personally and corporately. In 1 Peter 2, Peter declares to the church her identity as the people of God. He declares to you, Community Evangelical Free Church, who you are in Jesus Christ.
Who are we? We are a chosen people, a treasured people, and a changed people sent into the world with good news of great joy, news that has the power to light up the darkness.
1. We are a chosen people.
In v. 9 of 1 Peter 2, Peter reminds the church of her identity using four titles. He says, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession…” This is who we are as the body of Christ. Peter is borrowing language from the Old Testament here. Ben has already read for us one of the passages that uses this language in Exodus 19. We see very similar language in Deuteronomy 7. The people of God are being called to remember who they are. Hear these words from 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.”
The Israelites were stuck in slavery to Pharaoh, the power-hungry, controlling, narcissistic leader of Egypt at the time. They had no hope of freedom or prospect of things getting any better. They were an unimpressive people, weak, small, and forgettable. But the Lord set his heart on them – for no other reason than his own choice, his past promises, and his heart to redeem. There was nothing in the Israelites that caused his love or empowered his mighty hand, but when God sets his will to do something, consider it done – so it was with their deliverance. All they had to do was bank their lives on his word and wait for his rescue.
Peter is applying the story of what God did for His people in the Exodus to what Christ has done for us through his death and resurrection. Do you see what happened back then? Well, that is what has happened to you all. Though there was nothing in you that prompted him to deliver you from your darkness, in Jesus Christ, he set has heart on you. He has chosen you. He has set his will to free you from the back-breaking burdens of the idols you have loved. All we must do is receive his rescue by faith and give thanks.
And he has not chosen you in a vacuum. You have been chosen into a people. Peter says, “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.” We are a “chosen race…a holy nation.” What does it mean that we are a race and a nation? It means that we are literally a new kind of people – a new species of human being, with a new history, a new present, and a new future. The Church is a new ethnicity in the world, one that is most fundamentally defined by what God has done for us.
I served at a ministry in NH devoted to welcoming and walking with men and women from the addicted community in New England. I remember a very special moment. I was sitting with one of our men – he had come out of some of the worst kind of addiction, had lived on the streets, in bondage. And at our ministry, we often played a lot of really cheesy group games. I was standing next to this man and we were watching the game. And I looked over and he was tearful. I inquired. And he just said, “I’m just glad to be here.” And I knew that he didn’t just mean being there right then, but he was glad to be alive, to be a part of a community that loved him. The Lord had saved his life and welcomed him into God’s people where he was loved. He knew he had not deserved it. He was humbled by grace. He had been chosen – and his heart melted with quiet gratitude.
You may not have ever lived on the streets on the brink of death, but that is your story! In Jesus, you have been rescued from death. And in Him, you are no longer bound to the guilt and shame of your past, the wrongs you walk in today, even the wrong you have done on your way to church this morning or in your home last night – all of it has been swallowed by the gracious heart of God. Church, remember who you are. Remember where you came from. Give thanks for He has called you out of the darkness of sin and death into the marvelous light of His gaze.
2. We are a treasured people.
A little over a year ago, our daughter was born. She is a delight to my wife and I. We are grateful to be a part of raising a new human being in the world? But she is more than just a human being, right? She is more than just a little girl. She is even more than just a daughter. She is our daughter. And to her I am not just a father, but I am her father. In some ways, we belong to one another. She is mine and I am hers. And it makes me glad. Now, you may not have children, but all of us have a mother and a father. They are not just another man or woman, they are your parents – as are your siblings – as are your friends. They are special to you, set part from everyone else and you are set apart from everyone else to them. Our identity is in large part defined by those we love, those to whom we belong.
The story of the people of God is something similar. In 1 Peter 2, Peter is reminding us that not only have we been chosen and set apart as a new people, we are also “a people for his own possession”. Once again, Peter is borrowing language from Exodus 19 and Deuteronomy 7. The people of God were reminded in Deuteronomy 7:6, “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.”
God owns everything! In Psalm 50, the Lord declares, “every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is mine” (Ps. 50:10-11). Everything belongs to God. The little mayfly that my one-year-old daughter became transfixed by for well over an hour belongs to God. The sun, moon, and stars belong to God. His people belong to him – but his people are special. They are a treasured possession of his.
To be chosen by God is to belong to God. God says to his people, “I will be your God and you shall be my people.” We have a new identity, a new name in Jesus Christ. We are his. And maybe more scandalously, He is ours. He has given himself to us in Christ. We are no longer condemned but cherished by God. Therefore, Peter can call the church a “royal priesthood.” We have been redeemed in such a way that, like a priest, we have access to the presence of God – but we do not need to sacrifice lambs and goats. We need only approach the throne of grace with empty hands washed in the blood of Christ. We are his beloved, no longer slaves, but royal sons and daughters.
If in Christ, we belong to God, then we also all belong to one another. The apostle Paul says in Romans 12, “we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another” (Rom. 12:5). To be a Christian is to belong to the body, the whole body, and in some way, each part. This is what it means to belong in the people of God. In Christ, you are not just an acquaintance or even a friend. You are more than that. You are my brother or sister. And I am your brother. We are loved by the same Lord and graced by the same God. We are unified and held together in his hands.
In Christ, you are no longer alone. When you are grieving, you are not alone. When you are stuck in sin, you are not alone. When you are exhausted and burdened, you are not alone. Don’t try to go it alone but turn to the Lord by turning to God’s people. Find a home in the church. And help others do the same! Welcome one another as God has welcomed you (Rom. 15:7).
Remember who you are. We remember who’s you are – together we belong to the same Lord who has purchased us by grace, that he might have us as his own and make us new.
3. We are a changed people.
As the people of God, we have been chosen for a purpose. Church, you have been purchased that you might “proclaim the excellencies of him who called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.” If you are a Christian, you are a preacher. We proclaim what we love, what we consider worth sharing. Just look at a person’s Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram feed and you will see what they love. The love of Jesus has created in us a new love. We have a new joy and delight, a new song to sing – a song of good news to a world of bad news.
We have been cherished by the Lord of all. We have been called out of the shadows of sin and death. We are forgiven. Our guilt has been taken away. The grave has no hold on us because our Savior descended into its darkness and rose again in marvelous light – light that he shines upon us and through us into the world. As the church, we proclaim the excellencies of the King who become a servant, the Shepherd who become a lamb, the Savior who is the preeminent example of grace and welcome, the truly Holy One who invites anyone into his grace, anyone who would fall at his feet and call him Lord.
Are we known as a good news kind of people – not just with our words, but by the way we live? The church does more than just proclaim the excellencies of Jesus; we portray it. We declare it and demonstrate it. As we do so, we give the world flesh and blood examples of the character of our Savior. We have been made holy by grace and we called to be holy by grace. Peter speaks to this in verses 11-12. Hear his words:
11 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. 12 Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
The church’s conduct before a watching world says something about Jesus. Peter calls the church to walk honorably so that even when we are slandered or hated, they may yet be wooed by our holy character. The church should bear the character of Christ – in his holiness, humility, grace, perseverance, integrity, and in his joy.
As people who have received radical grace, we ought to be a people of radical gratitude, humbled by God’s grace given to us. As people who have been forgiven, we ought to be a people who forgive in abundance and are eager to bear with the weakness of others. As those who belong to one another, we should be able to disagree in a way that different from the world. Because we belong to one another, we can hold onto one another in the tension of conflict because we are bound by something greater than our own opinions. When we disagree like that, we can actually learn something from someone who thinks differently than we do. And we can walk away better for it.
The cherishing heart of God for us in Christ ought to create in us a delight to serve, protect, and provide for one another. The welcoming heart of Jesus ought to create a radical inclusivity in which differences are not barriers to fellowship. Is your community of church friends open to welcoming others that are different from you? On a Sunday morning, do you only talk to your friends, paying no mind to that person who is sitting next to you who you have never met?
The church is called to live as Christ lived – with warm welcome and dignifying love. The love of Jesus should make the church the safest place on earth. There should be safety to come into the light with our sinfulness and shame. There should be safety to lovingly challenge one another in our character and to receive accountability as it is given in love. There should be safety to talk about our broken marriages with trusted friends. There should be safety to talk to trusted friends about struggles with your sexuality – that they might sit with you as you pursue truth and the strength to walk in purity.
The gospel changes everything about us. It makes us look like Christ. It makes us look attractive, beautiful, in such a way that magnifies the beauty of Jesus. How do we become a community like this? We remember who we are. We are a chosen people, a treasured people, and a changed people sent into the world with good news of great joy, news that has the power light up the darkness.
Family Discussion Questions
What do you think of when you hear the word “church”? What is the Church? What is a church?
What is it like to be chosen? What does it mean to be chosen by God?
What does it mean to belong to God and his people?
How does God change us by grace? How have you been changed by him or seen others changed by him?
