07-12-09 A Holy Nation

1PE 2:9-10 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

We’ve been studying these two verses from 1^st Peter 2 for several weeks now,

and there’s a part of me

that would like to just keep digging into them

until the King returns.

There is just something about the power and clarity

with which these two verses

allow us to see the way our God really views us

that amazes me,

and confuses me,

and thrills me all at once.

Do you know what I think it is in part?

I think it’s the way in which these verses

seem to proclaim a sort of gleeful delight in us.

Everything here declares God’s joy that we are His.

How do you picture God in your mind?

What caricature of Him have you been given?

Is the God in your mind

filled with wrath,

angry at a creation gone wild,

frustrated and irritated at what He sees?

Do you know what I see

when I read these verses?

I see a God filled with joy -

a joy born out of His absolute delight

that His death on the cross for our sins

truly did accomplish what He wanted it to accomplish.

It really did reunite Himself with us,

and it did it in a way that allows us to enjoy Him

and Him to enjoy us forever.

I fix things.

I love fixing things,

and my track-record for fixing things is way up into the 90+ percentile.

I fix my boiler when it stops working,

I fix the washer and the dryer when they break,

I fix the dish washer.

I fix my printer when it breaks.

I have no training in fixing things

and I rarely know what I’m doing when I start,

but there’s just something about the challenge that draws me in.

Did you know there’s a heater in your refrigerator?

Who would have guessed?

It keeps the cooling coils frost-free by hitting them with a blast of heat occasionally,

and if that little heater goes out

you’ll think the whole compressor has gone out

because it will run all the time and never get cold.

I mention this rather strange aspect of my personality about fixing things

because whenever I’ve successfully fixed something that was broken

I get the most intense joy out of it.

For days after my success,

several times a day I’ll go back to whatever it was I fixed

and just look at it sitting there, doing what it was designed to do,

and feel this warm glow of satisfaction.

That’s what I see happening in these two verses in Peter.

God had something that was broken in the world He’d created.

It was something that mattered more to Him than anything else.

What was broken was us,

and He wanted more than anything

to fix what was broken.

It wasn’t easy to design a way to fix what was broken,

in fact, it was a horrible, pain-filled, agonizing ordeal.

But when it was all over

the result was everything He’d hoped for.

And in His own ever-present, all-knowing way

He, too, keeps running back to us

so that He can enjoy us being fixed over and over again.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

I know those words were written by God for us,

but I also think God brought those words into being

in part as a sort of in-your-face statement to Satan as well.

It’s a nice, Divine way of saying to His great enemy,

“Look! Look at what I did! Look at what fixed!

Look at what My love accomplished.

And there’s nothing you can do about it ever again.

These are now, and for all eternity MY PEOPLE,

My people who know Me and love Me,

My people who delight in Me, as I delight in them,

and who bathe in My marvelous light.”

Does that sound strange?

Can you not imagine such a dialogue taking place between God and Satan?

Do you recall those opening words in the book of Job?

JOB 1:7-8 And the Lord said to Satan, "From where do you come?" Then Satan answered the Lord and said, "From roaming about on the earth and walking around on it." And the Lord said to Satan, "Have you considered My servant Job? For there is no one like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, fearing God and turning away from evil."

That was God bragging about His servant to Satan.

Well, perhaps bragging isn’t exactly the right word,

but He clearly was taking great joy

in what was happening in Job’s life.

And I see a very similar thing happening

in these two verses here in 1^st Peter.

In these two wonderful verses

God is proclaiming His great victory which is US,

a victory over the evil that ripped us away from Him,

the evil that shredded all hope of our ever knowing Him as He really is,

or of His being able to delight in His friendship with us.

There we were, immersed in sin and without hope in the world.

EPH 2:4-7 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ ..., and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus, in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

Well, our study of these two verses

has taken us into a closer look

at what it means to be a chosen race,

and a royal priesthood.

And now this morning I want us to pick up our study

with our being a holy nation, and a people for God's own possession...

And to understand where Peter got this

we need to go back to a promise made by God to the Nation of Israel

at a critical point in their history.

In Exodus chapter 19

we have a fascinating event recorded for us.

It took place 3 months after the Israelites’ exodus from their slavery in Egypt.

It had been 3 months filled with remarkable events,

the greatest of which included the parting of the Red Sea

and the total destruction of the Egyptian army

as they attempted to pursue the fleeing Israelites.

Then, 3 months into their journey,

the nation came to the foot of Mt. Sinai

and Moses went up on the mountain to meet with God.

And here is Moses’ account of that meeting.

EXO 19:3-6 And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob and tell the sons of Israel: 'You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings, and brought you to Myself. Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words that you shall speak to the sons of Israel. "

OK, this was just a small part of the promises made by God to the Nation of Israel

as He began to form them into a nation

and establish His covenant with them.

It was a covenant based on their obedience to the moral law of God,

a covenant they could never fulfill,

a covenant designed to prepare them for the Messiah.

Does that sound strange?

Why would God us the old Law covenant

as a tool with which to prepare us for grace?

He did it because nothing creates a hunger for grace

more powerfully than trying to live on the basis of the law.

A few weeks ago I told you about a phone call I received

about 10:15 one night recently,

a phone call in which the person on the other end of the line

began the conversation by saying, “He loves me! God really, truly loves me!”

What I didn’t tell you about that conversation

was that for most of the past two years

that person had been living in agony

as he saw himself desperately trying, but always falling short

of what He believed God was demanding from him.

And it was that desperation

that created within him

the longing for some other way to find peace with himself and with His God.

All I had to do was to point him to the cross

and show him that there was something else nailed to that cross

along with the battered body of Jesus.

COL 2:13-14 And when you were dead in your transgressions ..., He made you alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our transgressions, having canceled out the certificate of debt consisting of decrees against us and which was hostile to us; and He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

Along with Jesus Christ

there was also his own personal certificate of debt

listing all the sins he would ever commit against God.

And when he brought his sins to God,

God took them all

and He personally nailed them to the cross along with His Son

and then wrote across that list in our Savior’s blood, “Debt paid in full.”

And with most of us

the first step in preparation for freedom

and the discovery of the love of our God

is a life lived under the law,

a law we can never fulfill.

GAL 3:24 Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, that we may be justified by faith.

But let me get us back to Exodus.

Part of the kindness and blessing that God offered Israel under that first covenant

was that ‘...you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.'

He was trying to create within their minds

an image of themselves and their highly prestigious role on the earth,

a role in which every member of this holy nation

possessed within themselves the ability to stand between God and their fellow human beings

and literally show them the way to God.

A kingdom of priests!

It was a promise that was never fulfilled

because the Law was powerless to lead Israel

into a submissive trust relationship with God.

In fact, it actually drove Israel into open, defiant rebellion against God.

But what I want us to see here

is that Peter reveals to us in his letter

that, well, as Paul put it, ROM 8:3 what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did...through Christ,

and what Israel could never experience on the basis of the Law,

we have now been given as a gift through Christ.

HEB 8:10 "For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel After those days, says the Lord: I will put My laws into their minds, And I will write them upon their hearts. And I will be their God, And they shall be My people.”

Peter is telling us

that through our entering into this New Covenant with God,

a Covenant based not upon our performance for Him,

but rather upon what Jesus called “...the new covenant in My blood.”(LUK 22:20),

an agreement in which we become absolutely righteous

simply by trusting that His death paid our sin debt forever,

when we entered into this New Covenant

we received not just forgiveness and acceptance from God,

but we also became the beneficiaries

of many of the unfulfilled promises made by God under the 1^st Covenant.

Because of Israel’s rebellion against God

they never saw themselves become

that kingdom of priests and a holy nation promised by God.

But through Christ

that is exactly what we have become.

Last week we looked closely at what it means for us to be

the priests of God on this earth.

And that is exactly what we are.

But we are not alone in our priesthood.

We are not isolated, trying to do what we were called to do all by ourselves.

God has also formed us into a holy nation.

And I’m not talking about America, here,

I’m talking about God’s creation of a Kingdom that never existed

prior to what happened within the human race through Christ.

I do love the way Paul said it in his opening remarks

in His letter to the Colossians.

He talked about the impact of God’s Spirit on our spirit

as we begin to discover who our God really is,

a discovery that causes us to give... ... thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. (COL 1:12)

And then the next thing he does

is to share with us part of what that inheritance includes,

and what he describes has powerful parallels

with what God was seeking to do with Israel under that 1^st Covenant.

Paul says,

COL 1:13-14 For He delivered us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

Under that first Covenant

God delivered Israel from their domain of darkness - their slavery in Egypt,

and transferred them to the Kingdom of Israel.

But, though they didn’t know it at the time,

most of all that great work of deliverance

was simply an historical picture,

a tiny, blurry photograph of what He was going to do in us and for us through Christ.

And when we took our first tentative steps of faith toward Him,

He responded to that faith

by instantly and eternally delivering us from the domain of darkness, and transferring us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins...

Now, this is not figurative language.

We are now citizens of a holy nation -

the Kingdom of Christ.

It is a Kingdom, a distinct Nation in the truest sense,

a Holy Nation ruled by an all-powerful King - Jesus Christ.

It is a Kingdom that is currently at war with the Kingdom of Darkness on this earth,

and each of us are members of the Armed Forces of our Nation.

Our King is Jesus Christ,

our General and Director of Operations is the Holy Spirit of God.

He has told us clearly why we are here,

and what we face,

and how He has equipped us for battle.

EPH 6:11-17 Put on the full armor of God, that you may be able to stand firm against the schemes of the devil. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming missiles of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Did you think that was just Bible poetry?

Far from it!

Those are the weapons with which we engage the enemy each day.

Nor are we called to a warfare we cannot win.

2CO 10:3-6 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, and we are ready to punish all disobedience, whenever your obedience is complete.

Now, I know that what I’ve just done during the past few minutes

is a dangerous thing to do.

I know all too well

how difficult it is for us to relate to Scripture

within the context of this very real life we face each day.

But there is something crucial,

something vital to our survival

taking place within this letter Peter has written to us.

He more than hinted at it in his opening sentence

when he used that word alien to describe us.

You see, he knows that our success, our effectiveness,

and the fulfillment of our God-given purpose here and now

rests upon our correctly understanding our true identity

and our unique position and role in this world.

And a major reason for his having written this letter

is to profoundly restructure the way we think about this life we live each day.

A major part of that restructuring process

is our seeing ourselves as citizens of the Holy Nation of Jesus Christ.

It is a citizenship that brings with it

both special rights

and a special calling.

Just a few of our special rights as citizens of this Holy Nation

include instant, personal, constant access to the King Himself.

In fact we literally live in His presence constantly.

Our rights include the presence of His Spirit within us,

His assurance that He has already made us adequate for the citizenship we possess,

and His commitment to work all things together for good in our lives.

And that’s just a tiny tip of all that comes with our citizenship.

But at the heart of it

is Peter’s determination to take our eyes off of this physical world around us

and open our eyes to the unseen world around us,

a world that is every bit as real as the one we can see and taste and smell,

but one that is infinitely more vital to us each day.

We are, in fact, citizens of the Holy Nation of God,

and the more we identify ourselves with that citizenship,

and understand both the rights and the responsibilities that come with that citizenship,

the more the life God has called us to live each day will make sense to us.

Now, this is not the best place for me to stop

because we need to hear what Peter says next

in order to fully appreciate who we are and what we’re doing here,

but we’ll need to save that for next week.

For now, let me just end

with those verses from Revelation that we looked at briefly last week,

verses that capture so powerfully

so much of what Peter is saying to us in these verses we’ve been studying.

REV 1:4-6 Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come; and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne; and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first-born of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us, and released us from our sins by His blood, and He has made us to be a kingdom, priests to His God and Father; to Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.