07-19-09 A People For God’s Own Possession

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.

If you’ve been with us the past few weeks

you are probably aware that our study of 1^st Peter

has brought us to two verses I have no intention of rushing through.

They are verses that give us a clear, panoramic view of how our God views His people on this earth.

And it’s a view that,

if we see what He’s really saying to us

just sort of takes our breath away.

This rivals what happens

when you’ve been hiking for hours

seeing nothing by the undergrowth around you

and the trail a few feet in front of you.

And then, all of the sudden you reach the mountain ridge,

turn around,

and see the world stretched out before you.

I have wondered often why God loves us the way He does.

I can’t help but wonder

when I see the way the human race acts,

and the way so many people respond to Him.

I still wonder sometimes,

but the more He’s freed me to love the people He’s given me

the more I think I understand.

Nothing else in human experience

gives us a sense of purpose in life

like our relationships with the people we love.

If those relationships are strong, healthy, growing,

we have a reason for getting out of bed in the morning,

a center to our life and sense of fulfillment.

We know who we are

and why we’re here

because we find those answers to a significant degree

in lives of those we love.

And if our love relationships are not going well,

or if they are non-existent,

it doesn’t matter how much money we’ve tucked away,

or how many plaques and trophies litter our rooms,

or how many trips we take or games we play,

or what professional achievements we may have accomplished.

There’s still a void, an emptiness within us.

Now certainly our ability both to give and receive love

has been profoundly corrupted by our separation from our Creator,

but that hunger for true, deep love exchange

is still imprinted on our souls,

an imprint that is the image of God Himself.

When God said, GEN 1:26-27 "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;... And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them...,

He was giving us a crucial piece of knowledge

both about us and about Himself.

That image of God that each of us carries within us

is, most of all,

the ability to love - both the ability to love God,

and the ability to love others.

Our rebellion against our God

deeply corrupted this ability to love

by driving us into hiding both from Him and from one another,

and by turning us in on ourselves in a frantic, self-centered craving to prove our own worth in our own eyes and in the eyes of others.

But under all of the fear, and the guilt, and the shame,

at the core of our being

is a longing to be known deeply, honestly,

and to be loved in the face of that knowledge.

It is what brings both purpose and healing to our lives

in a way that nothing else can do.

I mention this because the more I understand about the way our human love relationships affect us,

the more I am able to understand

why God has chosen to do what He’s chosen to do with us,

and why He has chosen to create

this love exchange between us and Himself.

Certainly He doesn’t need us

the way we need Him or one another,

and yet, at the same time,

there is a richness to our existence

that can only come through giving and receiving love,

a richness that everything we know about our God

tells us must be at the heart of why He loves us the way He does.

When we get past all of the religious fog and misguided assumptions

that we so often bring to our interaction with Scripture,

and we see honestly what was happening between Jesus

and the people whose lives He touched during the years He was here,

what we see is Him deeply, personally, individually building a love relationship

with each of those who came to Him.

And then, when we realize that this was GOD HIMSELF

doing what He was doing,

it gives us remarkable insight into Him and why He loves.

I think there are some striking similarities

between God’s relationship with us

and my relationship with the dog who lives a few houses down from ours.

For the past year

I have been on a personal crusade

to make friends with that dog.

When he first arrived on the scene several years ago

it was clear he viewed me as the enemy.

He’s a good sized dog, all muscle,

and a bark and a growl

that lets you know he wants you nowhere near him.

I’ve never ever seen his owners showing him even the slightest attention.

They never play with him,

or pat his head,

or throw a ball for him to chase,

or play tug-of-war with an old towel.

It seems to be a strictly business arrangement -

they provide food and water

and he guards their house against intruders.

Performance and the fulfillment of duty is the measure of all things.

Each morning, whenever the weather permits,

I try to take a walk around the block

before plunging into the day's responsibilities.

And for most of the past year each time I’d pass that dog

I would do so on the opposite side of the road.

He’d growl at me, and show his teeth,

and make little movements like he was going to lunge at me.

But, even though I stayed on the opposite side of the road,

I’d slow down and talk to him,

telling him that someday we were going to be very good friends,

holding out my hand.

Gradually he got use to seeing me,

and his growls became less intense.

Then one day he finally risked getting close enough

so that he could take a quick sniff of my hand.

It took another week or two of cautious sniffs

before he would finally allow me to put my hand on his head,

and even then he didn’t quite know what to do.

Every muscle remained tense,

he didn’t wag his tail,

and he just stood there stiff and silent as I patted his head and rubbed his ears.

For the next several days he no longer growled,

and he would allow me to pat his head and rub his ears,

and he seemed less tense, less wary.

Then one morning I came down the road

and I saw him standing there, waiting for me.

As I came closer he began to walk toward me,

and as I got nearer I heard something I’d never heard before -

I heard him crying, so excited about my arrival and about our friendship

that he could hardly stand it.

Just then another dog in the neighborhood with whom I’ve been friends for years

tried to come up to me to be petted,

and my new friend suddenly charged him with a growl that even scared me.

He wanted it clearly understood

that I was private property - his private property

and no one was going to be allowed to get between us.

And now he and I are friends for life.

That’s how it is with us and our God.

We start out our lives fiercely guarding our own little territory,

determined that He will not gain access to us or intrude into our world.

If we get even the lightest scent of Him

we tense up in fear.

Having never known our God’s love

we have no idea what we’re missing,

and we assume this sense of isolation and loneliness we feel inside

is just normal, the way life is,

something to be drowned out by things, or power, or fame, or anything that makes us feel good.

But if we’ll ever risk letting Him get close enough to us

so that we can hear His voice,

we will not hear Him saying what we expect.

We will not hear the words of judgement, or condemnation we feared.

What we’ll hear

is the voice of our God

telling us things about ourselves

and about our place in His heart,

and about our place in this world

that we will churn over for a lifetime

and never fully understand.

We’ve already looked closely at some of those things He’s said to us,

telling us that we are a chosen race,

and a royal priesthood,

and a holy nation.

And now this morning

we come to Peter’s proclamation

that we are a people for God's own possession.

And the one huge, amazing thing I want to point out about that phrase

is what it tells us about our God.

There is within the phrasing of that statement

both an exclusiveness in God’s attitude toward us,

and a commitment of responsibility for us.

The closest parallel I could offer you in human relationships

is what happens between a man and a woman

when they reach that point in their friendship

where they want to get married.

There are a lot of things that happen in a human relationship through marriage,

things that cannot happen any other way.

Certainly one of those things

is the clear affirmation by both the man and the woman

that they want this relationship to be permanent - to last until death.

When Sandee and I were first married,

in the very early months of our life together

there were more than a few conversations we had with one another

that would begin with the words, “When we’re little old people...”.

“When we’re little old people

we’ll just sit together on a park bench somewhere

and enjoy the warmth of the sunshine.”

“When we’re little old people

my back will probably be so bad

you’ll have to tie my shoes for me.”

“When we’re little old people

we’ll know what one another’s thinking so well

we probably won’t have to even speak for days.”

It was a sort of game we played with one another in our early years together.

And every time we used that phrase

what we were really saying was, “As far in the future as I can see,

I see you beside me.”

It was our way affirming over and over again

that nothing ever could or ever would destroy our relationship with one another.

That’s a big part of what we’re saying to one another through the marriage commitment.

And now, 32 years later,

Sandee and I really are little old people,

and we do sit on park benches together,

and we do take care of one another one day at a time.

Marriage in God’s design brings that level of commitment,

but there’s something else involved too.

When we marry

we are saying that we want this relationship

to be absolutely and eternally exclusive.

We are saying

that in the right sort of way

we want to possess this person exclusively for ourselves.

Do you remember how those wedding vows go?

Do you remember that part that says, “...and forsaking all others I cleave to you alone until death do us part...”?

That exclusiveness,

and that faithfulness

is at the very foundation of marriage.

Now, when God wants to try to explain to us

the kind of relationship that exists between us and Himself,

do you know what is at the top of His list?

Who is the bride of Christ?

Listen to John’s description of the ultimate day of Victory both for Christ

and for His people.

REV 19:5-9 And a voice came from the throne, saying, "Give praise to our God, all you His bond-servants, you who fear Him, the small and the great." And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude and as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns. "Let us rejoice and be glad and give the glory to Him, for the marriage of the Lamb has come and His bride has made herself ready." And it was given to her to clothe herself in fine linen, bright and clean; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints. And he said to me, "Write, 'Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.'" And he said to me, "These are true words of God."

Who is the Bride of Christ?

We are, and when God looked for an illustration from our human experience

that would capture the heart of what exists between us and Him

He pointed to the marriage relationship,

a relationship in which He takes possession of us,

to guard us and protect us,

a relationship in which He gives us His name,

and then joins His Spirit to our spirit in an eternal union.

It is a relationship in which He personally takes responsibility for us,

promising us that He will never leave us, never forsake us,

and that He will be with us forever.

And this is what Peter is talking about

when he tells us that we are a people for God's own possession...

And for me there are two great wonders about this whole thing.

The first is that He really does possess us -

that He hasn’t simply called for our allegiance,

or for our commitment,

or for our submission,

but that He has literally drawn us to Himself,

and then proclaimed to all of creation

that we belong to Him.

We are now and forevermore HIS possession.

And the second great wonder about this whole thing

is that He clearly WANTS to possess us,

that He views us as His great treasure,

a treasure worth any cost.

The great wonder of the universe

is not that God chose to die for our sins,

the great wonder of the universe

is that He WANTED to die for our sins,

that He placed that level of value

on being able to have a friendship with us.

And right now some of you are not hearing what Peter is really saying

because in your mind

you are thinking, “Oh yes, that’s mostly talking about the Billy Grahams,

and the Peters, and the Pauls,

and the other really faithful, productive Christians throughout history.

I can see where God wanted to claim them as His special possession.

Please, don’t do that.

Don’t carve the heart out of what God is saying to you here.

You see, it’s you He wants to claim as His possession,

it’s you He wants as His friend,

it’s you He wants to join Himself to

and enter into a friendship with forever.

It never has been and never will be on the basis

of what He may or may not choose to do through us.

That’s His business, all of it.

He gives the gifts,

He uses them when and where it serves His purposes,

and He decides what results come from them.

And it’s certainly not on the basis

of what we may attempt to do “for Him”.

That’s nothing more than flesh-driven religious games.

Our value to Him

and His longing to call us to Himself

is rooted solely on the basis of our absolute uniqueness as His creation,

and on our willingness to respond to His love for us.

Well, from there Peter then goes on to explain our part in this whole thing,

what it is that God hopes for from us

in response to what He’s done for us.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession...

That’s what He’s done -

redeemed and recreated us,

giving us both an elevated relationship with Him,

and the highest possible place and calling in the world.

And then He goes on to tell us

how we fulfill that calling.

...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.

With whatever gifts or tools He’s given us

to whatever audience He brings us

we proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

And here again,

don’t go all religious on me.

I’m not talking about standing up in some meeting

and offering a stirring “testimony” (whatever that is...)

about what God has done in your life.

What I’m talking about here

is mostly simply living with an underlying attitude -

an attitude that says, “I am what I am by the grace of my good God.”

Once we finally get it,

once we finally see both what He’s done

and His love for us that motivated Him to do it,

and once we see the incredible wealth He has poured out on us...

once our spirits are flooded with gratitude to Him

for what He’s done in us, and for us, and through us,

that attitude will filter out into every aspect of our life

and we will proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light

in the ways that are perfectly matched to our unique personalities and callings in life.