Transcript & Slides: Who Are You (1 Peter)

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Who Are You (1 Peter)
By David Feddes

Who are you? That’s a question every one of us has to answer. It’s a question that comes up a lot in kids’ movies. The Lion King, of course, has to confront Simba with the question: are you the person who hangs out with a stinky warthog and goofs off all day, or are you the king? What are you? Who are you?

Nowadays, a lot of people have questions of identity. There’s a lot of talk about identity politics: “I identify as this,” or “I identify as that.” And whatever I identify as determines my thoughts and my approach to nearly everything else. How do I identify? Who am I? Who are you? That’s the question that each of us needs to answer.

The apostle Peter, when he writes, tells people exactly who they are. In his introduction he says, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance” (1 Peter 1:1-2).

Peter has already told us who he is—an apostle of Jesus Christ—and we’ve reflected on what it means to be such a mighty apostle of Jesus Christ, Peter the rock. Peter doesn’t make a big deal of that; actually, I made a lot bigger deal out of it in my sermon than Peter did. He gives it one line: “I’m an apostle of Jesus Christ.” And then he moves on to declare who the people are that he’s writing to: elect exiles.

“Elect” means chosen. “Exiles” means strangers. Strangers in the diaspora. The diaspora was the scattering of the Jewish people that occurred after the fall of Jerusalem in the time of Babylon, and they were scattered all over the place. That was called the diaspora, and that’s the word Peter actually uses here, even though he’s not writing mainly to Jews. He’s writing mainly to people who are non-Jewish, but he speaks to them in terms of exiles—people who are scattered throughout the nations but are still God’s elect or chosen people.

They are people who are sanctified, which means they are set apart—they are different. And he says, “You’re obedient to Jesus Christ; you’re cleansed or washed or sprinkled by faith in his blood.” These are some of the things he says that define your identity, who you are.

Then another thing that comes out, of course, in this introduction is who God is—the most important question of all, one that we’ll deal with in a future message.

Now when Peter writes, he first of all says something also about the location—the geography of it. He’s writing to people in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. This is an area in the Roman province of Asia Minor, what today is the territory called Turkey. It’s in the area north of the Taurus Mountains. I’ll look at a map in a moment, but it’s an area that comes up in another context.

You may wonder, how did these people become Christians in the first place? If you read the book of Acts, you’ll find that the Holy Spirit prevented Paul from going into some of these places. We know he wrote a letter to the Galatians, but we also know that he was prevented from going to some of these other regions. So how did they learn the gospel?

There’s a pretty good hint early in the book of Acts. The Bible says that on the day of Pentecost there were people in Jerusalem from a lot of different places, and among those places were people from Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia. When the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples on Pentecost and they had tongues of fire on their heads, they began speaking in other languages. People heard them, and residents of these various places—including Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia—said, “We hear the Galileans declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues.” Amazed and perplexed, they asked each other, “What does this mean?” (Acts 2:7-12).

Then Peter got up and addressed the crowd. He spoke to them of the death of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as promised by the prophet Joel. Then he said, “Repent and believe, every one of you, and you’ll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off” (Acts 2:38-39). And more than three thousand people believed and were baptized that day.

Some of that crowd that was baptized came from this area of the world that Peter is now writing to in the book of 1 Peter. So when Peter’s writing, some of his spiritual children may well be there. The very first readers may have included people who were there on Pentecost, hearing Peter preach and themselves being filled with the Holy Spirit, and then going back home. They’re now hearing from Peter, whom they originally heard preach the gospel on Pentecost.

So some of the readers may well be Peter’s own spiritual children, and a lot more of the readers are likely to be Peter’s spiritual grandchildren. Because you know what happens when people filled with the Holy Spirit go back to the places they came from—they start telling other people about the gospel.

If you read Acts 16, you see that the Holy Spirit prevented Paul from going further north into Asia and going to this spot. You might say, “Why didn’t God send anybody there? What’s God got against them? Why did God send Paul over to Europe instead?” Well, the fact is, God already had some people there. God already had people from Pentecost who were spreading the gospel in that area.

So these people reading Peter’s letter are people who have either heard Peter preach in Jerusalem—very likely—or people who heard from Peter’s converts who had gone back there and told their friends and others in the areas of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, and all those regions.

When Peter writes to them a little later in this letter, he says, “There are things that you’ve been told by those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven.” Some of them had literally heard Peter preach the gospel by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven on the day the Holy Spirit was poured out. Others had the gospel preached to them by those who had scattered and heard the message. It’s a wonderful thing that some of them had heard the voice of Peter directly telling of Jesus, and others had it relayed to them by those who had heard Peter. Now they’re getting this letter from Peter himself.

If you want to know the geography of it a little better, you can see it on a map. You see Asia, Bithynia, Galatia, Pontus, Cappadocia. He probably lists them in the order that the letter carrier, Silas, would have gone—first to Pontus, then to Galatia, then to Cappadocia, then to Asia, and then to Bithynia. Originally, here’s Jerusalem, where the church got rolling on Pentecost. Up there on the top corner is Rome, where Peter is writing from. He calls it Babylon near the end of the letter. So he originally started in Jerusalem; now he’s in Rome, but he’s writing to these people who included those scattered from Pentecost and those who shared the gospel as an aftereffect of Pentecost.

So at one level, you say, “Who are Peter’s readers?” Well, that’s who they are. That’s the geography. That’s a likely explanation of how the gospel got to them in the first place—and maybe also of the connection they had with Peter over the years.

But that’s not the only reason to read 1 Peter and say, “Well, that was interesting. Nice history lesson. Now we know a little more about the geography and the history.” I don’t apologize for saying that, because sometimes people act like Christianity is this thing suspended in midair somewhere in the mist and the fog. No, it happened in real places, at real times, by real people, and it’s important to understand that.

But it’s also important to understand that when Peter’s writing to those people, he’s also writing to many readers who would come afterward. We need to know who we are: elect pilgrims in exile, chosen and predestined by the Father. He says, “chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.” That doesn’t mean that God kind of looked in advance and saw who would be worthy and then picked them. It means God set his love on them—to know them was to set his love upon them.

The Bible says Jesus was “foreknown before the foundation of the world.” That doesn’t mean that God merely knew Jesus was going to come along sometime. It means that he loved Christ before the world began. And when it says you’re chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, it means you’re chosen out of the eternal love of God the Father and given a destiny. He foreknew who you were, and he decided what you would become.

Then he set you apart by the Holy Spirit, or sanctified you. Sometimes the word sanctify can mean the way God cleans us up and makes us better persons. That’s probably not what it means in this context. It refers more to being made holy by being separated or set apart from what you were—made special for God. That’s done when the Holy Spirit gives you new birth and makes you a new person.

You’re to be followers of Jesus, obedient to Jesus. Here again, in context, it doesn’t just mean obeying all his commands, though that’s certainly important. It means obeying first of all the gospel proclamation to repent and believe. You’re chosen for obedience to Christ’s command to put your faith in him, and you’re chosen to be sprinkled by his blood, to be made right with him.

You remember in the Old Testament there’s the story where half of the blood was poured on the altar and the other half was sprinkled on the people. That meant the blood was bringing them forgiveness, and it also meant that they were being claimed as God’s special people by that blood. So when you’re sprinkled by Jesus’ blood, you’re forgiven, and you’re also marked as his special people.

Then Peter says, “Grace and peace—may that overflow, be multiplied to you, abound to you.” God’s grace and his peace—you’re the people who receive that. That’s some of what Peter says here at the beginning of his letter.

I want to keep moving in his letter to reflect on who you were—or who you would be—apart from that, and then on a whole bunch of other things Peter says throughout his letter about who you are. Who were you? The short answer is—not so much, not so hot. He speaks again and again of the problems they had prior to meeting Jesus Christ, of who they were apart from Christ. He says, “Don’t conform any longer to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance” (1 Peter 1:14). That’s not a compliment of your previous position: evil desires—bad. That’s what you wanted. You wanted bad stuff. Ignorance—you were a bunch of dunces. You didn’t know anything. You were ill-informed. That’s a pretty rude way of describing it: “evil desires when you lived in ignorance” is not high praise of who you are without Jesus Christ.

He then speaks of “the empty way of life that was handed down to you from your forefathers.” You had a way of life, and the generations before you had that same way of life, but it was empty. It was vain. It was not fulfilling. He says, “All men are like grass.” The grass withers, the flowers fade—you were perishing. You were like grass. You cut it, it turns brown. You just leave it—even if you don’t cut it, it turns brown and it’s dead by the fall. It’s gone.

So this sense of people perishing, having no eternal life without Christ—he called you “out of darkness into his wonderful light.” The light is wonderful, but the darkness was terrible. They were in darkness, which means they were in a situation of fear. You’re scared in the dark. You’re frightened, confused, you don’t know where you’re going. “The way of the wicked is like deep darkness; they do not know what makes them stumble” (Proverbs 4:19). Try running around in the dark or driving in the dark at high speed—bad things happen. These people were called out of the darkness into the light, into knowledge, into hope, into joy.

He says, “Once you were not a people.” You didn’t have a real identity because you weren’t part of God’s chosen people, or at least you didn’t know yourself to be such at that time. “But now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:10). To be “not a people” and to have no mercy from God is a terrible, terrible predicament to be in.

“You were like sheep going astray.” Sheep are dumb. I haven’t dealt much with sheep—we had a few around, and they were really dumb. Cattle are dumb, and we had more of them. They like to get out, they like to go through fences, they do all manner of stupid stuff that’s not good for them, and it’s a major job to try to get them back where they’re supposed to be. He says, “That’s what you were like. You were like sheep going astray.”

Then he really lets it fly in chapter 4 verse 3: “You spent enough time in the past doing what the pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing, and detestable idolatry” (1 Peter 4:3). And those who are still living like that think it’s really weird that you don’t anymore. That’s what Peter said. He says that’s what you were. You were party animals—quite literally. You lived like animals. You followed animal desires. You behaved like animals, and partying was the meaning of your entire life. What a sad situation to be in.

So Peter reminds them, “This is what it was like when you didn’t have Jesus in your life, when you didn’t have the Holy Spirit.” That’s who you were. But who are you? Who are you?

We don’t have time to go through all of these, but I just want to give you a sense of the big picture in Peter. We’ve already seen what he says in his introduction. Let’s look at some more of the things he says about who you are.

He says you are “redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers.” You were rescued, a price was paid, and you’ve been set free from that. He says, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope” (1 Peter 1:3). Later on he says that you’ve been born again “through the living and enduring word of God” (1 Peter 1:23). You’re born again through the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the preaching of the gospel. You are a new person.

He says, “Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God” (1 Peter 2:16). Some of you are slaves—so what? You’re free in Christ. Live as free people. You’re under a government, and sometimes the government can be pretty harsh—well, maybe so. But you are free. You don’t identify by saying, “I’m just a peon ruled by the emperor and his governors. I’m just a slave ruled by my masters and bosses.” You say, “In Christ I am free, and my social situation is not the whole truth about me.”

He even says to slaves, “Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Peter 2:21). Slaves might be considered very lowly and unimportant, but Peter says in Christ you are the people who are going to show what Jesus is like. You’re going to follow his steps, follow his example, and from you will shine the reality and the light of Jesus Christ. What a thing to say to a bunch of slaves who were considered nobodies in the empire.

He says that you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls (1 Peter 2:25). He says, “By his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). You were sick. You were like grass; you were perishing. You have eternal life. You’ve been healed to live forever.

To women he speaks of what real beauty is. Women were often despised, but in that day as in ours, they were often evaluated by their looks. If you were rich, there were certain things you could do about your looks. Back then you could hire the best stylists, do the fancy hairdos, and invest heavily in jewelry and fine clothing. That’s still a multibillion-dollar industry today. Peter says that’s not where your main beauty is supposed to come from.

Nowadays people may compare themselves to those they see on TV—people who’ve had certain procedures to enlarge their breasts, others to reduce their hips, others to make their lips poutier, and whatever else they do to get these surgically enhanced people on TV. If you’re going to compare yourself to that all day, my advice is: have a good surgeon and somebody who’s really good with makeup and an airbrush, because otherwise—and even then—it will be very hard to compete. But Peter says if that’s what beauty is, that’s part of the fading world. If you’re just going to get into that whole scene and try to compete, good luck. But what God cares about is “the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight” (1 Peter 3:4).

In that day, husbands could be very domineering—and they still can be today. Peter says, what do you do when you’re married to a husband like that, especially one who doesn’t believe in Christ at all? Well, he may think he’s the big boss and that he’s running the whole show, but if you have the unfading beauty of that gentle and quiet spirit in the Lord, and you have the life of Christ in you, you know what might happen? You might change him without saying a word. You might win him over without words by the power of the life that you have. That again was a message of tremendous empowerment to women—to know that you are an ally of the gospel, transforming even unbelieving husbands.

He reminds husbands that if they are believing men with believing wives, those wives are heirs with them of the gracious gift of life. Again, women without rights to inherit anything, without any position in society, are declared heirs of God’s gracious gift of eternal life. So who are you? Are you the nobody who can’t inherit anything? Are you the person who has no standing—whether a slave or a woman? You can be beautiful, and you can be heirs of the gracious gift of life.

Peter says that we are to faithfully use whatever gift we’ve received to serve others—or, translated more literally, to be stewards of God’s gracious gifts. This means that if you speak, do it as one speaking the very words of God; if you serve, do it in the strength that God provides (1 Peter 4:10-11). When you’re a steward, you’re acting on behalf of the King. You are speaking the words of the King and doing the actions of the King in the strength, power, and authority of the King. That’s who you are—you’re a steward.

He says, when people pick on you, don’t get too worried about it. “If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you” (1 Peter 4:14). The Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. You need to know who you are. It is a glorious Spirit that God sends on us. You’re God’s family. When you’re going through a hard time, you might say, “Boy, this is rough. We’re getting insulted; the attacks are intensifying.” And they would get even worse for Peter’s readers, but they were already facing a lot of flack for being believers. You might think, “It would be better to give up on this Jesus thing and join with the oppressors so they’d stop picking on us.”

Peter says, “It is time for judgment to begin with the family of God” (1 Peter 4:17). You’re the family of God, and some tough things are coming your way. God is doing that to purify and strengthen your faith. But if it’s time for judgment to begin with the family of God, what’s going to happen to those who aren’t part of the family of God? “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” (1 Peter 4:18). Would you rather be in their shoes or part of the family of God?

And by the way, if you serve God faithfully, you will receive “the crown of glory that will never fade away” (1 Peter 5:4). You’re royalty, and you will be crowned as royalty. You’re part of the royal family and a child of the King.

I’m talking mainly from 1 Peter, but I’ll dip my toe very briefly into 2 Peter for a moment: “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness” because “he has made us partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:3-4). These things are staggering if you think about them—any one of them is an astonishing thing to be said about people like us.

And therefore, it sometimes just bounces off. How often do you think of yourself as reborn, free, healed, beautiful, a steward speaking the very words of God, a member of God’s family, a crowned heir, a participant in the divine nature, one who fellowships with the living God himself? If you don’t think of yourself that way, then you need to absorb yourself in this book—and in the wider book, the whole Bible of course.

If you have any confusion—if you’re going through life identifying as this or that, or getting discouraged—you need to know who you are. You need to know who you are. When you read of the great people of God, when God was moving them into his service, they often hesitated because they didn’t yet accept who they were.

He comes to Moses and says, “I’m sending you to Pharaoh.” And Moses says, “I can’t talk very well.” He comes to Jeremiah and says, “I’m going to use you to raise up nations and tear them down.” And Jeremiah says, “I’m just a kid. How am I supposed to… and I can’t talk very well.” David is told by his brothers, “You’re just a whippersnapper. What are you talking about, thinking you can go and face that giant?” But David knew who he was. He was the anointed of God, whom the prophet Samuel had anointed. So David knew he was not just another teenager—he was the anointed of God. He faced Goliath the giant as the anointed of God.

You’re not going to get very far in your Christian life until you know who you are and start taking to heart what this says about you. There are going to be a lot of messages coming at you about who you are. Which message are you going to believe?

I asked you last week, after we reflected on that mighty apostle Peter and all that God did through him, “Who are you going to believe?” There are so many people sending messages—but are you going to believe Peter, the anointed apostle of Jesus Christ, or one of them? And now, what are you going to believe about yourself? Are you going to believe who you are based on what the devil says? Based on what unbelieving people around you say? Based on what people who don’t really know the reality of gospel truth say? You’ve got to believe what God says about you.

There’s only one thing more important than that—and that’s believing what God says about himself. But after that, you’ve got to believe what God says about you.

It all comes together in chapter 2. Peter says, “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood”—that means you are kings and priests—“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. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy” (1 Peter 2:9-10).

I just beg you—I don’t have anything fancy to say—just read what is said here in the Word of God in so many different ways. I’ll get into more of this as we preach through the book, but I want you to get the big picture today. You are extraordinary. You are called and chosen and special to God. You are empowered by God, and you are meant to believe that about yourself.

It is a mistake, I believe, for Christians, when asked who they are, for the main thing to come to their mind and out of their mouth to be, “I’m a sinner,” or, “I’m only human,” or, “I’m this,” or, “I’m that.” That’s who you were. Did you get what I said on these slides? There’s a slide about who you were. That’s not the slide about who you are.

Those things still hang around, and Peter says things like Paul does—you’ve got to remember Christ died so you’d die to the old self and come alive to the new. But remember, that’s the dead self; that’s not the real you that you’re meant to be. So you’ve got to get your head on straight. You’ve got to have your head on straight believing who God has made you to be now and know who you are now. As you understand your greatness in the Lord, you also understand your current position.

You are exiles. You’re not fully at home. For help with understanding what it means to be exiles, we can look at some of the great prophets during the time of exile. The prophet Daniel lived for the Lord in a mighty way even though he was never in his hometown after his youth. He served the Lord well in the Babylonian empire and in the Persian empire.

Jeremiah, the great prophet who spoke to people headed into exile—Jerusalem had not yet fallen, and those who were in Jerusalem thought they were the favored ones, the ones who had been good. They thought the ones who had been exiled, like Daniel and the others, were the losers. But Jeremiah had a message for the exiles. He said—this was not just Jeremiah speaking; this was God speaking—“Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper” (Jeremiah 29:7).

The message is, you’re going to be there a while. You don’t want to wish bad things on the place where you’re going to be living for a while. So pray for the well-being of the city, of the society, of the culture you’re part of. But never think that’s your permanent spot, that it defines who you are. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jeremiah 29:11). He had plans for those exiles. They were meant to live in their own society and work for the well-being of that society, but their heart was always in Jerusalem, their heart was always with the city of God.

They knew that no matter where they happened to be living at the time, even if they were exiles, they were elect exiles—chosen exiles, God’s special people living in a different place for a time. The prophet Ezekiel had much the same message. So when you read those Old Testament prophets of exile, or when you read Peter himself speaking of us as elect exiles, then you begin to understand your current situation—the glory of being chosen by God, the challenge of being in exile, a stranger in a land that’s not meant to be your final home.

Elect exiles are different. You’re different from who you were. You’re different from the world’s norms, different from what the world expects you to be, and you’re different by God’s own decision. This isn’t just some accidental little thing where they’re one way and I’m another way and it just happened that way. You are different by God’s electing choice and decision.

That means, in terms of being different from who you were, let me remind you again—when I ask, “Who are you?” you guys kind of laughed when I said that question at the beginning of the sermon. Everybody knows my name. Well, do you really know who you are? Because sometimes I’ll hear people say, “Well, that’s just the way I am. You can’t expect me to be a whole lot different. It’s how it’s always been. I’m always going to be…” Oh yeah? Not if you are one of God’s elect. When you are chosen by God to be different, you become different.

When Jesus said, “You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church,” was it Peter’s place to say, “No, my name is Simon, and nothing is going to get built on me. I’m going to catch a few more fish”? You don’t have that option. Because Jesus says, “I’m going to make you a fisher of men. I’m going to build a church on this rock.” That’s who you are. And that means you’re not exactly who you were anymore. God has intervened.

And when God intervenes, everything changes. So don’t use that as an excuse—“Oh, I’m just... you know, this is who I am.” Who you are is defined by God’s choice of you, not by your blathering about yourself. Just be quiet for a minute, listen to what God says, and then you’ll get your head on straight and know who you are.

It also means that you’re different from what the world expects. You’re different from its norms, and so you’re going to run into some uncomfortable situations. You’ll be tempted to be embarrassed or intimidated. You go off to college—many people think very differently than you do. Many of your professors do. Your fellow students behave very differently than God has taught you to behave. You feel awkward. “I don’t know... what do I do with this?”

You can be intimidated. You can be embarrassed to be different—especially if people laugh at you a little bit. Well, remember, “the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you” (1 Peter 4:14), and the Bible says that “if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name” (1 Peter 4:16). Don’t be embarrassed to be a Christian. It is a glorious thing to be a Christian, even if the world doesn’t see it, even if they’re laughing at you, mocking you, or—even as in Peter’s day—throwing people to the lions, crucifying them upside down, and burning them as torches. Still, if you’re different from the world’s norms, you are better off than the perishing world.

You’re not different by accident, but because you’re God’s elect, whom he foreknew before the creation of the world. You’re different by his decision. Jesus says, “You did not choose me, but I chose you” (John 15:16). “I chose you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. If you were of the world, it would love you as its own. But you are not of the world; I have chosen you out of the world, and that explains why the world hates you” (John 15:19).

We need to study the Word of God and get these things very deeply ingrained into our minds and into our very bones, because we live in a time where you will need to dare to be different. You are not in a society—if there ever was one, certainly not now—where the society is going to prop up your faith, make you feel better about being a real Christian, reinforce what you believe about the Bible, and confirm those things. The world is going to be hostile to real Christian behavior. It’s going to be hostile to real Christian belief.

So, as Peter says, don’t be surprised when you face a trial, because you should expect that when you’re different. Just keep in mind that you’re different by God’s decision, not because you’re just an oddball or a weirdo.

So who are you? You’re God’s chosen strangers in the world—chosen and predestined by the Father, set apart by the Holy Spirit, obedient to Jesus by accepting the gospel, sprinkled by his blood, overflowing with grace and peace. That’s who you are.

So we know who Peter is. I trust, at least, I hope, you know who you are. And if you don’t yet, just read Peter a few more times. If you really want to, memorize it. It sounds like a big project, but if you memorize it... I’ve been thinking about 1 Peter for a couple of years, because whenever I jog now, I have to go through the whole book—because I hope to recite it at some point. But not only that, this stuff doesn’t get into you by being told it once or twice. You’ve got to soak in who you are in Christ.

Because if you’re soaking in God’s Word for about forty-five seconds a day and spending all the other time with your phone and your TV shows, you’re not going to know who you are. I guarantee you—you will not know who you are. But when you listen to God’s Word, then you truly find out who you are, and you’ll also find out who God is. More about that next time.

Prayer

Dear Lord, we pray that you will help us to have our blinders removed, and whatever in our hearts hesitates to receive this wonderful and glorious news of who we are in Jesus Christ, help us, Lord, to truly believe—to consider ourselves dead to sin, alive to God in Christ Jesus, a kingdom of priests to serve our God and Father. Help us, Lord, to also be able to live with the difference between us and the world—not to be intimidated, not to be frightened, not to be ashamed, but to glory in you and be glad that we bear the name of Christian, that the Spirit of glory and of God rests on us.

Lord, help each one here. You know each one’s individual challenges—the things that would keep us from knowing our real selves and living out of our true identity in you. Lord, deliver us from Satan’s lies that would cast us down. Deliver us, Lord, from being intimidated by the world’s pressures. Deliver us, too, from our old flesh—the fallen self that keeps trying to reassert itself as our true self. And instead, Lord, help us to live in you, as part of the true people of God, redeemed and born again. For Jesus’ sake, Amen.

 

Who Are You (1 Peter)
By David Feddes
Slide Contents

¹ Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, ² who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance.

Who’s who

• Who is Peter? An apostle of Jesus Christ.

• Who are you? Elect exiles, chosen, set apart, obedient and cleansed

• Who is God? Father, Son, Spirit

Pentecost listeners

Residents of… Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia… we hear [Galileans] declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?” …Then Peter addressed the crowd. (Acts 2:9-12)

Hearing the gospel

Peter’s readers: some spiritual children converted on Pentecost; many spiritual grandchildren by converts’ preaching.

… the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. (1 Peter 1:12)

Who are you?

• Elect pilgrims in exile

• Chosen and predestined by Father

• Set apart by the Holy Spirit

• Obedient to Jesus (by accepting the gospel) and sprinkled by his blood

• Overflowing with grace and peace

Who were you?

• Evil desires … ignorance (1:14)

• Empty way of life (1:18)

• All men are like grass (1:24)

• Called out of darkness (2:9)

• Not a people, no mercy (2:10)

• Sheep going astray (2:25)

• Following urges, idolatry (4:3)

Who are you?

• Redeemed (1:18)                                      

• Reborn (1:3, 18)

• Free (2:16)

• In his steps (2:21)

• Healed (2:24)

• Beautiful (3:4)

• Heirs (3:7)

• Stewards (4:10)

• Spirit of glory (4:14)

• God’s family (4:17)

• God’s flock (5:2)

• Royalty (5:4)

• Partakers of divine nature (2 Peter 1:4)

Royal priesthood

But you are a chosen people, a royal priest-hood, 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. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (2:9-10)

Exile attitudes

Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper… For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jeremiah 29:7, 11)

Elect exiles are different

• Different from who you were

• Different from world’s norms

• Different by God’s decision

Who are you?

• God’s chosen, strangers in the world

• Chosen and predestined by Father

• Set apart by the Holy Spirit

• Obedient to Jesus (by accepting the gospel) and sprinkled by his blood

• Overflowing with grace and peace

Who’s who

• Who is Peter? An apostle of Jesus Christ

• Who are you? Elect exiles, chosen, set apart, obedient and cleansed

• Who is God? Father, Son, Spirit