Submission to Kings - 1 Peter 2:13-17 - June 13, 2021

These are the Sermon Notes for June 13, 2021. We are meeting in person (check out our Covid-19 Plan here) and online (facebook and youtube) every Sunday at 9:37 am. You can also watch livestream recordings at any time.

 1 Peter 2:13-17 Submission to Kings

So here we are again in 1 Peter 2, verses 13-17, page 1015 in the pew Bibles.

Last week we talked just briefly about the church’s dirty word, and honestly one of the greatest strategies for separating the church from the world with behavior. Meaning that the world will certainly see that Christians are different if they embrace this controversial, and quite honestly, super popular philosophy.

There are limits to this philosophy, there are limits to our submission and we’ll talk about that, even though that’s usually where our hearts want to start. “How far do I have to go?”

Peter breaks submission down into three categories in his first letter, submission to the government, submission to masters, and submission to spouses. This morning we are only going to focus on the first one, submission to the government.

So let’s look at our text.

13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. 15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

Let’s pray.

Jesus gave us in the Great Commandment a wonderful, simple, complicated, beautiful way to be as His disciples, a way of love. At the Last Supper He gave us an new Commandment, a new mandate, to love one another.

Oddly, we have no problem with this philosophy but still bristle at submission to authority. Don’t think they’re related?

The love that Jesus commands us to exercise is not affection, it’s not feelings, it’s to consciously choose to prefer someone over yourself, it’s to put others first, it’s to submit to serving them for their good.

So when Peter instructs us to submit to the government it is simply a practical extension of what Jesus taught us, what He commanded us to do.

John Calvin wrote, “He that fears God, loves his brethren, and embraces all mankind with becoming love, will not fail to render also to kings the honor that is due them.”

Verse 13 says to be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution.

To be subject means to submit, to obey, all our favorite things, there’s no mystery here. But what’s most important is the next phrase, “for the Lord’s sake.” 

Motivation is very important. When we submit out of compulsion, when we are almost forced to submit, it is not the same as submitting for the Lord’s sake. When we submit for the Lord’s sake it’s an act of worship, when we submit under compulsion it’s only out of fear of punishment or other negative consequences.

Martin Luther said, “Although you are free in all externals, for you are Christians, and ought not be forced by law to be subjected to a secular rule, for there is no law for the justified, yet you ought spontaneously to yield a ready and uncoerced obedience, not because necessity compels you, but that you may please God, and benefit your neighbor. Thus Christ did act, as we read in Matthew 17:24-27.”

Just so we can see exactly what Luther meant, listen to Matthew 17:24-27.

24 When they came to Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax went up to Peter and said, “Does your teacher not pay the tax?” 25 He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do kings of the earth take toll or tax? From their sons or from others?” 26 And when he said, “From others,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free. 27 However, not to give offense to them, go to the sea and cast a hook and take the first fish that comes up, and when you open its mouth you will find a shekel. Take that and give it to them for me and for yourself.”

Peter says to be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.

It’s clear here that Peter means to subject to the government for the Lord’s sake, the form of government is irrelevant whether it’s a democracy, a monarchy, or whatever, it’s our responsibility to voluntarily submit as an act of worship and obedience to our Lord Jesus.

Plenty of people throughout history have twisted this text to only apply to the authority of the church or in the church and not secular government, but it’s obvious from the plain reading of the text that that is not at all what Peter meant.

Paul wrote about this same subject in Romans 13:1-7,

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

PJ Lange wrote, “The form which power may assume, and the person who may be appointed to exercise it, may be ordinances of man; but the authority itself is from God.”

We can be confident in our freedom from obeying sinful laws and commands because we know that sinful laws and commands are not from God. But sinful laws and commands are not just mandates and regulations that we don’t like or that we feel cost us too much.

The duties of obedience ceases where God from heaven decisively forbids it. Last week I quoted Acts 5:29 as a proof text from that t-shirt that said “Obey God, Defy Tyrants.” The context of that verse shows that those who were in authority were commanding Peter and John to stop preaching in Jesus’ name. There’s no way that they should have submitted to that command, and they were willing to accept the consequences.

Think about this quote from Jacob Mombert: “Christ was crucified by the power of Rome, as He fortold He would be. Peter and Paul, as they also foreknew, were martyred by Rome; but yet they preached submission to Rome.”

Submission to every human institution, to man-made social structures, is not only an act of worship to the Lord, but it is also a testimony to the watching, and sometimes critical, world.

15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. 

Doing good, in this way, in submitting to our government, is a way to “put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.”

Let’s break this down. The phrase, put to silence is fairly straightforward but it’s much more graphic in the Greek, it literally means, “to muzzle.” Muzzles keep oxen from eating and dogs from biting. Clear enough?

Aphronon anthropon agnosian. The ignorance of foolish people, I told you Peter liked alliteration!

Often times the foolishness of ignorant people, those who are the most vocal in their criticism of the Lord and His church makes us angry, but honestly, it should move us to pity. They slander God because they are uneducated as to His love, they are unaware of His grace and goodness to them. The last thing we ought to do is to perpetuate that ignorance with our anger, instead we ought to display the love of God and our worship to Him by submitting to the authorities that HE has put in place.

16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God.

Live as people who are free, there’s a reason that we love New Hampshire so much!

But what should we live like we are free from, free from responsibility, free from accountability, free from rules and laws?

How about free from Satan, sin, ceremonial law, free from death and the grave! Our freedom must never be used as a cloak for any wickedness and sin, nor the neglect of duty towards God or our superiors.

We are free from Satan’s dominion, we are free from the Law’s condemnation, we are free from the wrath of God for our sin, we are free from the terrors of death, not free to keep on sinning especially through insubordinance and disobedience.

We may not agree with the politics or practices of those who are in power but we are still responsible to respect the position and obey the office as servants of God.

17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

Honor everyone, respect everyone, not just the chief, everybody.

Love the brotherhood, our fellow believers, siblings in Christ, don’t just feel it, demonstrate it.

Fear God, exercise profound reverence and awe, let that motivate you towards obedience.

Honor the emperor, respect those in authority because they are not there by chance, they were placed there by God.

“He that fears God, loves his brethren, and embraces all mankind with becoming love, will not fail to render also to kings the honor that is due them.”

Amen

How to Live Like an Exile - 1 Peter 2:11-17 - June 6, 2021

These are the Sermon Notes for June 6, 2021. We are meeting in person (check out our Covid-19 Plan here) and online (facebook and youtube) every Sunday at 9:37 am. You can also watch livestream recordings at any time.

 1 Peter 2:11-17 How to Live Like an Exile

Good morning! We are headed back to 1 Peter this morning, chapter two, verses 11-17, page 1015 in the pew Bibles.

If you remember back to chapter one of this letter, the Apostle Peter was writing to what he called, “the elect exiles of the dispersion,” Jewish Christians living outside of Israel and away from Jerusalem. The original audience of Peter’s letter, the original recipients were scattered throughout the provinces of Asia, mostly what is now modern day Turkey.

And though we are not them, we have a lot in common with them and can easily identify with the principles that Peter lays out for them.

Peter called them exiles because they were living away from their homeland, but the they were living away from their homeland in two senses, first they were dispersed away from Jerusalem and so they were exiles, but that was just their earthly homeland, which wasn’t really their homeland at all once they were adopted by God the Father through faith in Jesus Christ.

Everyone who comes to faith in Jesus Christ and is adopted by God the Father becomes an exile here on earth, because Heaven is now our home. And we, though the millennia and miles separate us from these First Century believers, are exiles and sojourners with them while we remain here on earth.

So let’s look at our text together.

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. 

13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. 15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

Let’s Pray.

Peter’s tender exhortation here to earth’s exiles, to the church, begins with a strong reminder that the church is not only on foreign soil but is at war.

Far too often, even among us, we forget that we are foreigners here, that nothing is permanent here on earth, and that the only true and lasting joys are in heaven, our real home. We find all sorts of ways to distract ourselves from this truth, we chase all kinds of things that seem totally harmless and allow them to cloud over and crowd out that which is truly important.

These are what Peter calls, “the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.”

He tells us to “abstain,” from them. That sounds pretty cut and dried, doesn’t it?

The word translated, “abstain,” means to be away from, a long way away, just like those believers were a long way from home, and we are a long way away from our heavenly home, we are to stay a long way away from the passions of the flesh.

I’m not sure I need to delineate exactly what constitutes a “passion of the flesh,” but it’s not as simple as we might first think, this though isn’t just about sex and sensuality, this is about anything that feeds the monster called our “self.”

Selfishness is the king of fleshly passions. “Fleshly lusts war against the soul; and their war is made up of stratagem and sleight, for they cannot hurt the soul but by itself. They promise it some contentment, and so gain its consent to serve them and undo itself; they embrace the soul that they may strangle it.” –Leighton

No wonder Peter tells us to stay far away from these passions of the flesh that promise gratification, the life of the soul, our inner self, our mind, our thoughts, our true being, our hearts, is hidden inside and is hurt and killed by these fleshly lusts.

Warren Wiersbe said, “Our battle isn’t with the people around us but with the passions within us.”

Our phones, our newsfeeds, our TVs, our perception of others opinions of us, these are all this same kind of distraction and they keep us fixated on the things that have cozied up to our hearts in order to strangle them.

But winning this war for our souls is not just about us, it’s also about those around us.

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. 

We have the word, “Gentiles,” used here, but the word is the same Greek word for, “nation,” earlier in this chapter. Peter simply means unbelievers, or unbelieving nations and peoples, the ungodly world.

Peter charges the church to keep our conduct honorable, exercising good moral character. Christians are to stand out from the unbelieving world because we have a different set of standards. Especially in our day hen wrong is praised as being right and right is decried as being hate. Our conduct must remain honorable, treating others as we would like to be treated, loving our neighbors, honoring the Lord in all we do.

The world is closely watches Christians, always on the lookout for opportunities to slander the Church and our Savior as a result, unfortunately we give them way too many opportunities to do just that. 

We must watch our walks closely! And each other’s walks as well, correcting and rebuking as necessary so that we can all maintain God honoring walks with Jesus through this life. Accountability is unpopular in every circle but it is necessary in the church family because the world is watching.

In Peter’s day the church was blamed for all sorts of things any time something went wrong. Christians were falsely accused of being revolutionaries and blamed for every natural disaster and calamity.

Tertullian said, “If the Tiber rises to the walls of the city, if the Nile does not irrigate the fields, if an earthquake takes place, if famine or pestilence arise, they cry forthwith: away with the Christians to the lions!”

Now this may not be your experience but the church has certainly been blamed for our share of calamities even in modern times.

I’m sure you’ve met as many people as I have that have had bad experiences with the church in the past or have been turned off by stories that they’ve heard and have decided to write the church off as a whole instead of dealing with individuals or with the specific groups that caused the problems or hurts.

On the other side of the coin, you may have had experiences with what Peter says about the watching world and its reaction to your good deeds, seeing your good deeds and glorifying God on the day of visitation.

Understanding the phrase, “day of visitation,” is the key to understanding whether or not you can relate to what Peter is saying here.

My first thought was that the day of visitation meant the day that Christ returns but I don’t think that’s it. In truth, the day of visitation is any day that God visits the lives of people, believers and unbelievers alike, with great difficulty or difficulties.

We’ve talked about these experiences before as God’s refining fire for Christians but for unbelievers these days of visitation are the Father’s attempt to get people’s attention and call them to Himself.

When these days of difficulties come often times our unbelieving friends come to us for help and look to us for answers because they have observed our lives and know that we have answers to their problems.

It may be convenient for people to speak evil of the church as a whole, or to blame the whole church for all time for the actions of a few misguided souls, but when it comes to individual lives and individual people, those apart from Christ will look to their Christian friends, if they have any, when life goes sideways.

I guess the best thing we can do is make sure everybody has some Christian friends that they can count on for help in times of trouble. This is perhaps the best way that we can witness to people.

So if we think about these two verses they can easily be summarized, “watch your walk, don’t be a jerk, and do good works.” Is that it? Sounds kind of nebulous to me. Just be nice and that is enough to show the world that we are different and people will see Christ in us? Haha, nope.

Peter actually gives us some very specific ways in which the church is to stand apart from the world, and it is far from a popular strategy… The Church’s dirty word… Submission.

13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. 15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

There is a lot to be said about this topic, and Peter gives the rest of this chapter and half of the next dealing with it and we’re going to be taking a closer look at it over the coming weeks.

I saw a t-shirt advertised this week with the phrase, “Honor God, Defy Tyrants,” on it by a company that claimed to speak for the Reformers, those are the guys I quote all the time, Luther, Calvin, guys like that.

The shirt had the reference Acts 5:29 at the bottom as its proof text. This is a quote from the Apostle Peter, “We must obey God rather than men.” Sounds good right? 

Only if you ignore the context of that verse in Acts as well as its context in the rest of the New Testament.

The same Peter that said, “we must obey God rather than men,” also said, “Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution…”

We are going to deal with this in depth next week but for now we can simply say that we are duty bound to obey civil authorities so that we are good citizens although we are exiles and that our duty of obedience ceases where God decisively forbids it. We are bound to the laws of man until they command us to violate the laws of God.

Submission is very unpopular because it flows in the opposite direction of selfishness and as disciples of Christ we should be shining examples of that flow that the unbelieving world will see our good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

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. 

13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. 15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.

Amen.

Peculiar People - 1 Peter 2:9-10 - May 30, 2021

These are the Sermon Notes for May 30, 2021. We are meeting in person (check out our Covid-19 Plan here) and online (facebook and youtube) every Sunday at 9:37 am. You can also watch livestream recordings at any time.

 1 Peter 2:9-10 Peculiar People

Good morning! We are continuing our work through 1 Peter this morning with chapter 2 verses 9-10, page 1014 in the pew bibles.

Last week we talked about how the church is made up of living stones, us individual believers, built upon the foundation of the confession of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord with Jesus Himself as the chief cornerstone, setting the lines of plumb and square for the Temple that He is building.

Peter also said in verse five, “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.”

And as I said last week, we are going to look a little closer at the church as a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ in this week’s text of verses 9-10.

So, let’s look at that together…

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.

Let’s pray.

So after just a quick glance at these two verses, what do you think Peter’s purpose could possibly be?

Remember that Peter is original audience was made up of exiled Jewish believers, separated from their homeland and spread out and sprinkled into other nations. And though we are not exactly the same, and certainly not in the exact same situation as them, we can identify with being sprinkled among others who are outside of our holy nation of believers and followers of Jesus Christ, and so, we can find similar encouragement from Peter’s words here in these verses.

So let’s look briefly at this list of adjectives Peter uses to describe the church and how we might identify with them and be encouraged by Peter’s message.

Peter begins by calling the church a “chosen race.” 

What is the significance of this expression?

Being a chosen race, or as some translations put it, a chosen generation, or people, chosen out of the great mass of humanity destined for salvation. Does that sound like anybody else to you? It sounds like Israel!

Exodus 19:1-6 says, On the third new moon after the people of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt, on that day they came into the wilderness of Sinai. 2 They set out from Rephidim and came into the wilderness of Sinai, and they encamped in the wilderness. There Israel encamped before the mountain, 3 while Moses went up to God. The Lord called to him out of the mountain, saying, “Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the people of Israel: 4 ‘You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. 5 Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; 6 and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”

Being the chosen race was the honor conferred on Israel but is now conferred on the church, they fell from that dignity because they rejected the Messiah while the church embraces Him by faith.

Now before we start to get all puffed up about that idea remember the words of John Calvin, “There is no other reason why the Lord counts us as His people except that He, having mercy on us, graciously adopts us.” Mercy and grace being the key ideas, mercy- not getting what we deserve, and grace, getting the good that we don’t deserve.

Paul echoes this thought in Romans 9:21,

21 Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? 22 What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, 23 in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory— 24 even us whom he has called, not from the Jews only but also from the Gentiles? 25 As indeed he says in Hosea, 

“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ ” 26 “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”

I’m sure that there are many sermons just based on this one thought, but this is not one of them…

Peter adds to the description of the church as  a chosen race, the honor of being called a “royal priesthood.”

Verse five calls the church a “holy priesthood,” a priesthood set apart and consecrated for God’s use, but now he adds the idea of that holy priesthood being a “royal priesthood.”

The church is indeed a kingdom of priests, all believers in Jesus Christ as Lord are priests that offer spiritual sacrifices to God, but what does it mean to be royal? How does a person become royal? 

It’s simple really, in order to be royal, you have to be related to the king.

Ephesians 1:4-6 says, In love 5 he predestined us for adoption to himself as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, 6 to the praise of his glorious grace…

We are a royal priesthood because we have been adopted by the Great King by faith in His Son. And as a holy and royal priesthood we can freely draw near to God sacrificing, praying, blessing, offering our bodies, our whole being as a genuine act of worship.

He sets apart a people who are by nature polluted, slaves of sin and Satan, to freedom to serve Him and draw near to Him, and worship Him, and to enjoy all the blessings of royal liberty and freedom.

There are many sermons that could be based on this one thought, but this is not one of them.

The church is a chosen race, a royal priesthood, and a holy nation.

So what does it mean to be a holy nation?

To be holy, as we’ve discussed, is to be separated and consecrated by God, it pertains to being holy in the sense of having superior moral qualities and possessing essentially divine qualities in contrast to what is merely human.

Israel was a shadow of this idea, this is what they were intended for but because of their sin and idolatry they couldn’t fulfill this role. God is not done with the nation of Israel but now the church is God’s holy nation.

When the nation of Israel was faced with the choice to remain pure and true to the Lord instead of following the idols and false gods of the pagan nations when they left Egypt and entered the Promised Land they chose poorly, they turned from the Lord to idols. Even today, people of Jewish descent have turned from the Lord to good works instead of faithfulness to God’s Word and His Messiah Jesus.

As the church, God’s Holy Nation, we must strive for holiness, we must renounce the ways of the world and the pagan nations, and we must grow in brotherly love as we are destined to lead a pure and holy life.

Peter’s use of the word, “nation” is an extension of the idea of a tribe, it the largest unit that the people of the world can be divided into that constitute a broader community. 

This is the universal church, the communion of all believers in Jesus over all the world and for all time. We are part of the wonderful, gigantic, diverse group!

The church is a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, and a people for God’s own possession…

The King James Version calls us, “a peculiar people.” Very true words, but a poor translation!

In truth, this literally means a people acquired by God through considerable effort. And His effort was considerable!

We are acquired by God by the blood of His only Son!

Paul’s charge to the Ephesian Elders in Acts 20:28 emphasized this idea. “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”

Matthew Henry wrote, “All true Christians are a chosen generation; they all make one family, a sort and species of people distinct from the common world, of another Spirit, principle, and practice, which they could never be if they were not chosen in Christ to be such, and sanctified by His Spirit.”

It is the work of God to acquire us as a people and He alone can and has accomplished it by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the sanctification of His Spirit.

We are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people acquired by God…. What for?

Have you ever stopped and wondered why God would save you, why we He send Jesus to die for you? These are important questions and they have a wonderful answer!

that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Proclaiming the excellencies, the virtues, the attributes of God connected with our being called out of darkness, with our salvation, that’s why!

This is not the work of the elite, this is not the sole work of evangelists and pastors and preachers and teachers, this is the wonderful purpose and calling for the whole community of believers! Give glory to God by telling everybody what He has done for you!

He has called you out of darkness, the sad condition of all men before Christ, ignorant of God, unrighteous, slaves to Satan and sin, under the curse and wrath of God, he has called you, by name, out of that miry pit and into His marvelous light!

He has called us into holy communion with the One who is light, He has enlightened our understanding and sanctified our wills, He has filled our consciences with peace. The nature and work of His light are marvelous because of what it does to people, it makes lost sinners children of Almighty God!

He is the only light, don’t be fooled, and don’t forget!

We have no reason to magnify ourselves above others for once we had been in the same darkness, and only by God’s grace have been brought to the light, and now we have the awesome privilege of showing that light to others.

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.

John Calvin wrote, “The meaning then is, as though he had said, ‘Moses called formerly your fathers a holy nation, a priestly kingdom, and God’s peculiar people; all these high titles do now far more justly belong to you [the church]; therefore you ought to beware lest  your unbelief should rob you of them.’”

And, “There is no other reason why the Lord counts us His people, except that He, having mercy on us, graciously adopts us.”

“Those who were not my people I will call ‘my people,’ and her who was not beloved I will call ‘beloved.’ ” 26 “And in the very place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ there they will be called ‘sons of the living God.’ ”

By faith in Jesus Christ we are adopted as God’s own children, and with God as our Father, Jesus as our Brother, how much more can we be connected than by the blood of Christ? The blood of Christ makes strangers brothers and sisters. I don’t need to know anything else about you other than you belong to Jesus to know that we are family!

…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.

Amen