Well, coming home from vacation is never fun, but the, once the
drive starts, all I can really think about is, is getting home.
We drive when we go on vacation, and oftentimes we're going out to California
to visit family and, uh, we drive because flying, it would cost us some of our five
kids to be able to, to afford to fly.
So we drive.
And, and the drive out is, is never as bad as the drive back because why?
Because you're looking forward to vacation.
In fact, you kind of feel like you're on vacation when you go on the drive out,
on the drive back though, uh, you're really just focused on getting home.
You're focused on safely navigating the roads, the path, the map,
as it's laying it out before you and, uh, you're not sidetracked
by the, the giant ball of yarn.
And, and stop here and see the thing.
You've seen those billboards, I assume out in the middle of West
Texas, in the middle of nowhere.
It's like, stop at this gas station.
And then you do, and it's closed and you can't see the thing.
You're not doing any of that because you're focused on the goal.
You're mindful that you're not home and you're thinking to yourself just about
getting home and you think about your bed and you think about, you know, your
pantry and you think about, uh, just being able to sit down on your couch
and watch TV or whatever it may be, and you're just looking forward to being home.
There's a difference that we're gonna talk about this morning between
being on vacation and being in exile.
The book of one Peter is gonna talk a lot about being in exile.
Yeah, and there's a difference between being in exile and being on vacation.
Just ask for example, when you get to heaven, the apostle John, Hey John,
what was it like on the aisle of Papuss?
Did you get drinks with the little umbrellas on the island there?
He's gonna laugh at you.
Is he's gonna be like, are you kidding me?
I was in exile there, or talk to Daniel, he aniah ra Misha say,
Hey, how was exile in Babylon?
What was that like?
Was it, did you enjoy that?
And they're gonna say, well, did you not hear the story of the fiery furnace
in, in all of that, the lion's den?
It wasn't necessarily fun to be an exile or more recent history.
I guess you could talk to Napoleon.
I, I don't know if we'll see Napoleon in heaven or not, but if you got a
chance to talk to talk to Napoleon, Napoleon would probably tell you
there's a difference between being on his throne and being in exile.
In other words, exile is not a place that we like to be.
If we had the choice, we wouldn't necessarily want to be in exile.
And yet Peter's gonna say that's the mentality that we as a church need
to have, is that we are a church, not on vacation, but a church in exile.
And it's strange for us because we're only two years in as a church, and,
and yet for me, my concern is not that we are developing a vacation
mentality, but that the threat exists and, and the threat exists.
I think it's unique for us as well because of the culture that we find ourselves in.
I mean, it's, it's relatively easy to be a believer where we find ourselves,
it's comfortable for us to live here.
After all, we go to church literally in a town called Prosper, right?
It's comfortable for us and there's elements of exile that we feel on a
keenly in, in on a, a regular basis.
And we feel in a, in a keen way.
For example, the fact that this is a cafeteria, not a, a worship center,
that, that we don't have a 24 7 facility.
So we're still setting up and tearing down.
We know that we're not quote unquote, at home in our church, and yet if
we're not careful, we might drift into being a church on vacation
instead of a church in exile.
As we get into our passage in just a moment here, uh, that's the main
reason why we're studying one.
Peter, you may wonder to yourself, okay, there's a lot of different
books that we could have chosen to study, and yet we landed in one Peter.
And I don't know if you've ever wondered why, or maybe you just implicitly trust
the pastor and you're like, well, this is just what the pastor wanted to study.
Uh, but it goes deeper than that.
There was thoughtfulness behind it.
There's intentionality behind it, and really it boils down to this idea.
That we wanna be a church in exile, not a church on vacation.
But what does it look like for those things?
What does it look like for us to be a church on vacation?
Well, it may look like some of these things, and you'll notice not all of
these descriptions are necessarily bad things in and of themselves.
But a church on vacation is content with its size.
You know what?
I, we're, we're good right now.
It feels good.
The, the mass, the body weight is good in here.
I feel like I, I'm able to, to know other people and see my
friends on, on Sunday morning.
Uh, we're we're, we're just good.
We can stay where we're at.
A church on vacation maybe.
Yeah.
Doctrinally sound that that's a good thing.
Church on vacation's, affluent and comfortable.
Again, I, I don't know that those things are necessarily wrong so long
as we steward them in the right way.
A church on vacation is content with saying, Hey, we baptized
a, a handful of people last year and that, okay, that's a win.
A church on vacation is maybe preaching deep, and that's good.
We're, we're, we're comfortable with deep, good, solid sound preaching.
Church on vacation is gonna connect in community.
We're part of community groups.
We're not just showing up on Sunday morning, but we're
gonna spend time together.
But a church on vacation also is a church with Instagram families.
And what I mean by that is a church that is a bunch of families
that dress up on Sunday morning and play like everything's great.
Whereas the rest of the week, everything is anything but great.
In other words, we're not honest with each other about our struggles.
We're not honest with each other about our, our hurting marriage.
We're not honest with each other about having kids that are rebellious.
We put everything together and put on our, our, our, our masks, our
facades, and we show up at Sunday morning like everything's good.
Church on vacation is gonna pray, but only because we have
to, because we're supposed to.
'cause maybe we feel guilty if we don't church on vacation
is gonna read the Bible again.
Same reasons because we have to, because we supposed to, because
we're gonna feel guilty if we don't.
The church on vacation is nervous about these other religions like Hinduism and
Islam that's encroaching on our territory.
The church on vacation is nostalgic for the past.
The church on vacation feels secure for now because we've
got a conservative president.
And again, I, I'm not saying this is where we are, my fear is
that this is where we may drift.
And you say, well, some of those things aren't necessarily bad and,
and I would agree and readily admit, yeah, some of those things aren't
necessarily bad in and of themselves.
Some of those things are good.
The problem comes though, when those good things start to
breed, complacency among us.
And start to take us off mission, to take us off course, to cause us to
wanna sit down in the the lounge chairs by the pool with our drinks, with the
umbrellas in them and think, well, we'll just wait here until Jesus comes back.
Rather than being the church on vacation, we wanna be the
church that's ready to get home.
We wanna be the church in exile.
We don't want to just ride things out and not rock the boat until Jesus comes back.
We want to be on mission, we want to be following that map.
We want to be like that drive home.
We wanna be going, okay, what's next?
And how do I get home and let me stay the course?
And what is the course?
So what does the church in exile look like?
Well, the church in Exile may look like this.
The church in Exile is, is passionate for growth because we realize that
part of the reason why we're still here waiting for Jesus to come back
is that there's a mission at hand.
There's more lost souls to be saved.
And until the last soul is saved, then we're not gonna see
Jesus come back for his bride.
And so we are a church in exile that says, I wanna get home.
Well, one of the ways that we can get home is by being passionate
for growth along those lines.
The church in exile is gonna be inviting people to church, like
I was talking about earlier.
We're gonna be taking those cards and handing 'em out, putting them up on
the bulletin bar boards in the, the community centers, asking people at
the the restaurants we go to, Hey, is there a place I can leave this?
We'd love to invite some people to our church.
The church in exile is on mission in our neighborhoods.
We're trying to reach the lost people around us, seeing that
we're not there by accident.
But God put you in your house, in your apartment because he's got people living
around you that he needs you to go out and wants you to go out and be his
mouthpiece to share the gospel with them.
The church in Exile is gonna be doing that Church in exile, is gonna be sharing
the gospel, making that their goal.
Hey, weekly I wanna share the gospel with someone.
I wanna tell the gospel to somebody new every single week.
The church in exile is gonna be baptizing dozens.
And I'd like to even say more than that every single year because we're
gonna see people saved and we're gonna see people coming forward going, Hey,
I'm, I'm ready to publicly declare my allegiance and faith in Jesus the church
in exile, like the church on vacation.
Yeah.
Still having deep preaching, connecting in community.
Again, those aren't bad things.
Those are good things.
We need those.
But the church in exile is gonna not necessarily have the Instagram
families, but you know what the church in Exile is gonna have, it's gonna have
healing and strengthening families.
Families that are willing to come forward and say, Hey, we need help
seeking counseling, seeking people to strengthen them and bolster them.
The church in exile is gonna have confessing and repenting from sin.
We're not gonna harbor sin.
We're not gonna hide sin and pretend like it's no big deal.
But we're gonna have relationships with other believers where we're gonna say,
Hey, man, we want to be living lives of godliness, ready for the return of Christ.
Along those lines of church and exile is pursuing godliness.
Church in exile is gonna be praying, not just out of duty,
but because of desperation.
Because we think, man, I God, we have to do this.
We want to pray because we need God to move.
We need God to work.
We need God to be behind all of these other things.
The church in exile is gonna be reading the Word because
that's our lifeline to him.
That church in exile is gonna be memorizing scripture so that we can stand
firm against the attacks of the enemy.
Church in exile is gonna possess this holy discontent.
Uh, that, that's not a grumbling discontent, but a holy discontent
that says, you know what?
I, I, I don't wanna rest on the accomplishments that we've had in the
past, but I wanna keep moving forward.
Pressing on with the Apostle Paul in Philippians, chapter three, striving
forward to the, the prize of the upward call of God and Christ Jesus.
The church in exiles ready to face changing political scenes.
The church in exile is aware that we're not home.
The church in exile is a good steward of our culture and our comfort.
The church in exile is watching for signs at the times, and really
the church in exile is ready for Jesus to come back at any minute.
That's the church I want us to be.
That's the church we, we need to be.
I believe that's the church.
That's the biblical paradigm for what the church should be, and first Peter
is gonna cast that vision for us.
And so why First Peter?
Because I, I feel like we are in some ways, out a fork in the road where we
could choose to say, okay, Lord, you're, you're doing some good things here.
It's comfortable.
We, we, we we're great, grateful for the facility and everything else.
You're growing the church.
We'll just kind of ride it out.
Or we could say, you know what, Lord, let's go here we are,
send us, we wanna be used.
We wanna be not the church on vacation, but the church in exile.
One Peter, as we study it together, church has the opportunity to transform this
place because it has the opportunity and the potential to transform the way we
look at ourselves and the world around us.
Some of the passages along those lines that we're gonna encounter are passages
like these one Peter 2 11, 1 Peter two 11.
Peter's gonna tell us, beloved, I urge you as notice the language
here, Sojourner and Exiles.
Those that aren't at home.
In other words, to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which
wage war against your soul.
Peter's gonna confront us with the idea that, man, we as a church are our church,
not just in exile, but behind enemy lines.
We have a, a war to fight.
We have a battle to fight, and that's against the flesh and against the
passions that are waging war against us.
Or one Peter two nine, Peter's gonna say this, 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 and into his marvelous light.
See, the church in exile needs to understand that, that God has
called us out of the kingdom of darkness, where once we were at home.
And now we still live in that kingdom.
This world though, we now are part of the kingdom of light, so now we
are exiled because now we are part of the kingdom of light and our job is
to proclaim the excellencies of him.
Who did that for us?
Or one Peter?
2 21.
One Peter 2 21.
Four.
To this you have been called because Christ also suffered for
you, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his steps.
Y'all first Peter's gonna step on the toes of the idol of comfort for us.
First, Peter's gonna remind us that to follow Jesus is to follow
Jesus in his suffering too, and that that's part of what it looks
like to be a church in exile.
Our first Peter, chapter four, verse seven, Peter writes, the
end of all things is at hand.
Therefore, be self controlled and sober minded for the sake of your prayers.
Uh, Peter's gonna remind us that, that this is, as John would put
it, and first John, the last hour.
Whereas Peter put it, the end is at hand.
The return of Christ is imminent, and we need to be ready for that, and that's
gonna show up in how we live our lives.
One.
Peter's also going to help us learn to live in exile, uh, like in verse
eight and nine of, of chapter five, when he reminds us of the enemy
that is prowling around Verse eight.
Be sober minded.
Be watchful.
Your adversary the devil.
P prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour,
resist him firm in your faith.
See, Peter's gonna confront us with these realities of what it looks
like to be the church in exile.
In some ways, he's going to afflict us in our comfort.
In other words, to remind us it's not about being on vacation.
We're not home yet.
We've gotta get home.
But then Peter's also gonna comfort us as the church in exile too with passages like
we'll look at next week in one Peter one, three through five, when he says that we
have been born again to a living hope in verse three, verse four, to an inheritance
that's imperishable and undefiled and unfading kept in heaven for you.
Who by God's power, are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready
to be revealed in the last time.
Peter's gonna remind us what home is gonna be like and the fact that we've got a
living hope that's secure for us as we are in exile or chapter one verses 23 through
25, he's gonna remind us that we have been born again, not of perishable seed,
but of imperishable seed to a living.
Hope that is right.
He's gonna remind us that though the grass withers and the flower falls, verse 25,
the word of the Lord remains forever.
And that word is the good news that was preached to you, the gospel.
This is gonna remind us of your security because you have been born not of
imperishable seed, or not a perishable seed, rather, but of imperishable seed.
So he's gonna comfort us in exile.
Verse 19 of chapter four.
He's gonna tell us this.
He's gonna say, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust
their souls to a faithful creator.
He's gonna remind us that we can do that as we walk through exile.
He's gonna tell us in one Peter five, seven that we can cast our anxieties
on the Lord because he cares for us.
He's gonna tell us in one Peter five 10 that God is going to restore us, confirm
us, strengthen us, and establish us.
And so the, the book of one Peter is going to cast the vision for what
it looks like for us to be a church in exile, not a church on vacation.
And two years in, we are still kind of in our nascency.
We are still trying to figure things out.
We are still trying to, to get up and get going, and there's a lot that's,
that's to be encouraged about by that.
But man, there's a very real danger that if we're not pursuing the call that God
has for this church, that we can fall and grow complacent and become that church
on vacation and completely lose our efficacy as we seek to be a bright and
brilliant lampstand in this community.
And so that's why first Peter.
But there's another passage that sets the table for us about what
it means to be a church in exile.
And it's the passage before us this morning, take your Bibles open up to one
Peter, chapter one, and we're gonna be in, in verses one and two, verses one and two.
And what this passage is gonna remind us is this, that our identity as elect
exiles, our identity as those that are not on vacation, but in exile.
Our identity in Christ means that this world is not our home.
That this world is not our home.
And the passage before us is gonna inform us about where
that identity has come from.
One Peter one, one says this, Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ.
Now, what is an apostle?
An apostle is one who was an eyewitness of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ,
an eyewitness of the resurrected Christ.
All right?
That's why today we don't have apostles.
That's why today, that's not an office in the church because the, the apostles,
as they're known in the scripture, the 12 apostles were those that were
eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ.
And so as we read this and Peter says.
That he's an an apostle.
We need to understand that that is a, a role that is imbued with the
authority of Christ and the commissioning of Christ that Peter was sent.
That's what it means to be an apostle.
The A sent one and he sent with the message of the resurrected Christ,
Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ.
And he says this to those though.
Here's his audience, those who are elect exiles in the dispersion in
Pontus, Galatia Cap Asia, and Bethia.
So we believe that the author of One Peter is Peter and, and
that, again, seems pretty obvious.
It's titled that he says it's him, but not everybody does believe that.
And the reason not everybody believes that has to do with where Peter wrote to.
And so the, the region up there with those red boxes, those are the five
cities, the five regions that Peter list in first Peter chapter one,
verse one, that's modern day Turkey.
This was known as Asia Minor at the time.
If you look down where it says Acts one, eight, right to the left
of that is Judea and Jerusalem.
So that's where everything went down with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus.
That's where Jesus descended back to heaven and said in Acts
one, eight, that you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and
Samaria into the ends of the earth.
And so the reason some people question Petrin Authorship is
because Peter, we know from church history is gonna die under noonan
persecution in AD 64 thereabouts.
So by, at the latest 68 ad, Peter is no longer with us, Peter is, has
died, he's been executed for his fate.
And so the argument is that Christianity would not have had time to naturally
spread through evangelism and the gospel going out through, through evangelists
and missionary journeys from Jerusalem all the way up into those five areas by the
time that Peter dies in in the sixties ad.
So the argument is, if we're gonna say that, that that's how those regions
were reached with the gospel, that it must have been reached later on.
And Peter couldn't have written a letter.
And so people postulate that somebody wrote it pseudonymously, in other words,
under a false name, claiming to be Peter, even though it wasn't Peter that wrote it.
They say it was probably written eighties or nineties ad.
Now we've got problems with that.
Number one, the problem is if this is written by somebody claiming to Peter,
who's not Peter, then we've got a, a, a book that lies in our Bibles, even
if it was with good intentions, even if the author wrote that, so that the,
the good content of the book would be imbued with the apostolic authority.
So we've got a problem there.
We've also got a problem because the one that is the, the bearer of the letter,
if we look here, uh, towards the end, by Sylvanus a faithful brother, I regard him.
I've written briefly to you, the one carrying the letter.
He would've been complicit in the lie as well, because he would've
been purveying this to these other churches saying, Hey, this is from
Peter, when it wasn't from Peter.
But then more than that, we have a problem because we don't have to agree
with the assessment here that it would've taken so long to get the gospel there.
And here's why you didn't know that you were in for a church history
lesson this morning, but you're gonna get one crash course real fast.
Emperor Claudius, everybody remembers Emperor Claudius.
I'm sure I didn't this, this week either.
So if you're a Roman history buff, then great.
If not, then join the the, the rest of us.
Emperor Claudius reigned from 41 to 54 ad okay?
41 to 54 ad.
And during that time, he colonized those five areas that you see there on the map.
Those five boxes, those areas that Peter addresses the letter to, Pontus,
Galatia, capita, Asia, and Bethia.
He colonized those.
And the way that the Roman emperors would go about colonizing a territory
is that they would look at the population in Rome and the surrounding
areas there, they would look for the less desirable people there.
People like Christians, right?
And they would tell them, Hey, you are gonna be sent out and you're gonna be the
new populace of these colonies that we're creating out in these these territories.
And so it is very possible that we can't say with absolute certainty that
when Claudius repopulated these five areas, he did so with believers, either
converted Jews or believing Gentiles.
And so with that, it would've had a rapid expansion of the gospel
up into this region known as.
Asia minor, modern day Turkey in these five areas, and it would've
allowed Peter to write this letter to them as an established church
or as established churches before his death in the mid sixties ad.
Okay.
You're going.
Did we really need all of that information?
Yes.
Why?
Because of his introduction here, number one, because we
wanna be able to trust the book.
Who wrote it?
Well, we can be sure and and confident that Peter wrote this.
And number two, because it matters because of how he addresses
the people as elect exiles.
Were they exiles, in other words, literally or metaphorically?
Well, we know eventually, and later in the book, he's gonna get to this as a metaphor
for how we live the Christian life.
We already read that passage earlier as Sojourners and exiles
abstain from the fleshy lust, which wage war against your soul.
So, so we know already that he's gonna use it metaphorically, but I think the
reason why Peter uses that and chooses that as a metaphor is because they
were also literal exiles because they had been driven away from their homes.
They had been repopulated up in these areas, or they had
been driven out by persecution.
And so Peter is using their historical context in order to drive home
a, per a, a, a principle, a truth about their spiritual realities.
We're gonna have to work a little bit harder than they did.
To understand that we too are exiles, exiles.
Some of you have moved here from other places and you feel that perhaps a
little bit more tangibly for others of you, this has been home your whole life.
And so to, to embrace the mentality of an exile is something that's radically
different, and yet that's who we need to be 'cause we are spiritual exiles.
In fact, that's why Peter uses the other word he uses here, which is the pink
elephant in the room that everybody's waiting for me to get to that word elect.
Elect exiles.
That tells us that Peter meant that this was not just a physical
reality, but a spiritual reality.
And that's the reality that applies to all of us as well.
And so verse two is we get into it is gonna help us understand what it means
to be elect and, and that's a word I understand is gonna make people squirm.
Some of you are squirm squirming 'cause you're giddy with excitement.
You're card carrying five point Calvinists and you're like, all right, finally, here
comes a good solid message on election.
All these are are squirming because you're like, I have been beaten over the
head by the five point Calvinists with the doctrine of election, and I've been
wounded by people that have been less than gracious about the doctrine of election.
And so you're nervous and uncomfortable about it.
I wanna talk to both of us this morning.
Three things that I'd like you to admit or like all of us to agree on at the outset.
And then we'll get into verse two.
Number one, the doctrine is biblical.
It's there, right?
Peter writes to the elect exiles.
And so we have to then look at that word and and understand what does it mean?
And that's what our text is gonna unpack for us actually.
So it's, it's biblical.
It's there in the Bible.
It's not a made up word.
John Calvin didn't make up the word.
It's there 'cause God wants it to be there.
It's part of the doctrine that we have to agree with.
Second is we need to all admit and understand that we don't
know who is and who's not elect.
And that is a grace of God.
It's a mercy of God.
Can you imagine how miserable it would be to know of your loved
ones who aren't following Jesus?
Who is and who's not elect that would crush us?
None of us know.
Then the third thing is to the person that's out there going, well, what
if I'm not, listen, you don't have to figure that out to believe in Jesus.
It's not a prerequisite to know whether or not you are elect to come to faith.
We're gonna talk about why in this verse, verse two, but
before we get there, what is it?
What is election?
What does this word, this term mean?
Here's my working definition of it.
It's mine.
If you don't like it, then that's okay.
I'm, I'm okay with that.
It's imperfect, I'm sure, but this is my best shot at it.
Election is first God's work.
It's, it's his work.
He's the one acting, and it's devoid of human interference or influence.
Devoid meaning without, so it's God's work.
Devoid of or free from our interference or influence in which before creation.
Okay, so this is timeframe.
This is before any of us were born.
This is before he said, let there be light.
This is before creation, in which before creation, he freely chose
or elected some for salvation.
He freely chose again, freely devoid of any outside influence acting upon him.
He freely chose some for salvation.
Finally, who would otherwise be unwilling and unable to choose
him, who would otherwise be unwilling and unable to choose him?
That, I feel like is the, the biblical understanding of what it is to talk
about the doctrine of election.
But this morning, y'all, I I, I want to take this word back and out of the ivory
towers and the spiritual elitist, I also want to take it back from the libel and
slander of those who don't necessarily understand it biblically and show us
that this doctrine isn't something that we need to fear, but something that can
be a great source of comfort for us.
No matter where you are this morning, this doctrine can be a
great source of comfort for us.
And verse two is gonna help us understand why.
And so what is, what does it mean?
What is it to be a part of God's elect?
Verse two.
Well, lemme get a running start in this.
Peter says this, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion.
And then he goes on in verse two and says this, according to the foreknowledge of
God the father, in the sanctification of the Spirit and in obedience or
for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood, the elect elect
exiles according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, and the sanctification
of the spirit, and for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his.
Let's start with the first one here.
You're gonna notice there's a Trin Trinitarian formula here in verse two.
You've got the father, the spirit, and the son all involved
in the process of election.
The first part of it though, the first component of election is this, the,
the foreknowledge of God the father.
That word foreknowledge can mean two things, two approaches
to the word foreknowledge.
The first is this.
People will say foreknowledge is foresight, meaning that God looked
down the corridors of time and he saw those who would freely of
themselves choose to believe in Jesus.
And those are the ones that he made the elect.
That's one option.
Option two is foreknowledge, is determinative.
Foreknowledge is determinative.
That is that God chose the elect in accordance with his def definite
purpose and plan, and determined that they would one day choose him.
So do you see the difference there?
And in the one hand, God elects based on what he knows, people
will freely choose to do.
On the other hand, God elects based on his foreknowledge, which
is determinative and declarative about what people will choose to do.
It's that second one that I think fits with the biblical template.
Acts 2 23.
Acts 2 23 as Peter's preaching.
Same author there.
Peter's preaching this, he uses the same word.
He says this, Jesus delivered up according to and notice the, the parallel
terms here He uses according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.
So he's pointing to the crucifixion of Jesus, saying that it was
in accordance with the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.
That God had set it in place, that this would happen.
Uh, there's a, a doctrine that we hold to known as what's called total depravity.
Total depravity.
And, and that doctrine argues this, that in our unsaved states or condition that
a person is incapable of and unwilling to respond to or seek God on their own, that
without God's intervention, which we're gonna talk about more in point number two.
That a person is unable to respond to, unwilling, to respond
to or seek God on their own.
So what that means is, is that if we're going to look at foreknowledge
as foresight, if God were to look down the corridors of time to see
who would freely choose them on their own and of their own accord, that
the answer would be, uh, no one.
Because no one does seek God on their own.
We will get to our responsibility in all this in the third point, but because we
do have a responsibility, but for now, I want us if, if you're in the room and
you're in Christ, I want you to remember back to that moment when you decided to
put your trust in Jesus for the first time, for the forgiveness of sins,
and to realize that that decision was according to the foreign knowledge of God
before any of us was, was or were born.
Our points this morning are gonna look a little bit different.
Normally we have imperative points.
These are gonna be indicative because they're gonna help us understand
our identity as part of the elect exiles, if you're in Christ.
And so our first point this morning, along those lines is your identity
in Christ was point number one.
Determined by the Father.
Determined by the father.
And I know this again, is a, a, a difficult, it's a difficult
doctrine and it ruffles feathers.
But I want you to know that I believe it, not because of the writings of
some reformers or anything else, but be I believe it because I believe
it's what the Bible teaches us.
We studied John not too long ago, and you'll remember back perhaps in John
when Jesus says that no one can come to him unless the father draws them
or this In Acts chapter 13 verse 48, acts chapter 1348, Luke records that as many
were as were appointed to eternal life.
Believed.
Notice that qualifier that Luke gives as many as were appointed to
eternal life believed appointed to.
Then there's the unbreakable chain here in Romans eight verses 29 through 30.
Where the apostle Paul says this, for those whom he for knew, he also
predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might
be the first born among many brothers and those whom, and here's the, the
chain that's connected back to God's foreknowledge, those whom he predestined,
he also called, and those whom he called, he also justified, and those
whom he justified, he also glorified.
And so look at the chain and see the connection back to God's foreknowledge
that those whom God for knew he predestined, he called he justified,
and he will glorify and recognizes well that the actor on all of that is God.
God is the one that predestines.
God is the one that calls.
God is the one that justifies, and God is the one that glorifies.
And so your identity in Christ was determined by the Father
according to his foreknowledge.
Now to be fair, there are verses that do speak of human responsibility as well.
Paul, who wrote Romans eight, also said in Romans 10, that, and if you confess
with your mouth and believe in your heart that Jesus' Lord and God raised
him from the dead, then you'll be saved.
So there's human responsibility, and like I said, we're gonna get to the
human responsibility part of all of this.
And even Jesus in, in John's gospel said this, he said, I am
the resurrection in the life.
Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet he shall live.
So there is a, a, a human responsibility component to this as
well, and I'm not gonna deny that.
And, and the Bible doesn't deny that.
The Bible clearly teaches that too.
And so, how do we resolve this tension?
Well, the answer is, we, we don't.
There have been plenty of books written trying to resolve the tension, and instead
what we need to do is, is understand that the Bible teaches both of these in
parallel with one another and, and rather than resolving the tension, I, I think
what I want us to see, at least in this first point is that this, my conviction is
that though we are responsible to believe, we are unable to believe apart from the
determined foreknowledge of the father.
Because Peter says to the elect, exiles, according to the foreknowledge of God the
Father, your identity as an elect exile was determined by the father, an eternity
past according to his foreknowledge.
That should be a comforting thought for you, and here's why.
As we find it difficult to navigate this world as spiritual exiles.
We can do.
So knowing that the path that we're navigating was laid out for us to walk
by God, part of his foreknowledge.
Again, if I can go back to the, the, the car ride home.
When we get in the car, we open up our maps app and we type
it in what our destination.
It's like you're gonna get there in 20 hours.
Awesome.
And that's gonna lay out this, this, this course.
But what inevitably happens along the way, you run into an adjustment.
Faster route available, click here, and you're trying to click it
and it's not working, and then it disappears and it's like, sorry, you're
stuck on the, the, the slow route.
You're never gonna get home, ever.
Or you watch that red line begin to show up in the distance on your
maps app, and you're going, oh, man.
And it just grows and you're watching your arrival time.
Get later and later and later and later, and you're going, where's
George Jetson with the flying cars?
Why aren't, why aren't they here yet?
My childhood lied to me.
Why?
Because the route that's laid out by the Maps app is not in
accordance with divine foreknowledge.
Duh.
It's according to ai foreknowledge, divine foreknowledge is so much better.
The map of your life has been laid out by God from beginning to end.
The God who exists outside of time has ordained it for you to walk.
The race that you're running, according to Hebrews is one that he has set before you.
And you can have confidence that God who for knew your past, for knew your
present, and has fore known your future and he's not going anywhere, which really
does lead us to our comforting thought.
For this one, I hope for a comforting thought, which he, with each of
these God for knew your past, your present, and your future.
You can be comforted by God's foreknowledge of you because he for knew
your past, your present, and your future.
And you can have great confidence that nothing is gonna befall you.
That wasn't first part of his definite plan for your life.
And the way you're gonna navigate that is what leads us into
our second point this morning.
So point number one, your identity in Christ is determined by the Father.
Uh, but the next phrase in our, uh, Trinity formula, Trinitarian formula,
here is this one in the sanctification of the spirit to the elect exiles
in the sanctification of the spirit.
Let's talk about the word sanctification for just a minute.
There's three different types of sanctification that we
might be talking about here.
There is what's known as positional sanctification, right?
Positional sanctification is where at the moment of conversion,
you are made righteous, holy.
You are declared to be holy in God's sight.
It's parallel with the concept of justification.
That is a, a, a work that begins at the, the point of conversion, and
it is a completed work in your life.
As a Christian, you have been positionally sanctified, past
tense If you are in Christ.
Then there's another P with sanctification, progressive
sanctification, and that's where most of us in the room, in fact,
if you're in Christ, all of us in this room find ourselves presently.
That is, we are being progressively sanctified, progressively made
more like Jesus, made more holy.
Okay?
That's the life of the believer.
And then there's a final P with sanctification, which is perfect
sanctification, and that is when we are in the presence of God the Father,
when we are like Jesus, when we are given our glorified bodies, and we
are no longer in any way tainted by sin in the brokenness, in the the
fallen human nature that we have.
Okay, so you've got positional sanctification, progressive
sanctification, and you've got perfect sanctification.
And so when Peter writes in the sanctification of the
spirit about the elect exiles, which one is he talking about?
And the answer is yes, all of them.
But I think the emphasis is on the first one because he's
talking about the, the, the, the.
Germination of the, the culmination of the, the words are just failing
left and right here, he's talking about the beginning of our state
as, as those who are elect.
And so it's, it's the, the work of the spirit at the beginning
of our walk with Christ.
And it's, it's referred to in this way.
It's another word that we talk about in the church called regeneration.
Regeneration.
Okay.
And, and that's the work of the spirit, whereby the spirit
causes us to be born again.
That's Jesus.
In John chapter three with Nicodemus, where Jesus is talking to Nicodemus
and he, he's saying, look, a man must be born again, and Nicodemus
is struggling to understand what he means, and Jesus then says this.
He says, you know, the wind blows where it wishes and you hear it
sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.
So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit, born of the spirit, to be
regenerated, to be given new birth.
That is the work of the spirit that takes place at the moment of conversion.
We are caused to be born again.
So in other words, in the foreknowledge of God, things were
settled in eternity past for you.
But it is the spirit who applies the implications of God's
foreknowledge to your present state.
We can put it this way.
Your identity in Christ was rot by the spirit.
Rot by the spirit.
This is how a spiritually dead person can find spiritual life.
Uh, we drive by it.
When we pull into the parking lot here, I don't know if you've ever noticed
it, but right across the street from the school, there's a, a, a cemetery
to try to share the gospel with someone without the spirit's work is like
going into that cemetery and standing over a grave and saying, Hey, wake up.
Wake up.
Get outta the grave.
Let's go.
It's not gonna happen.
What can a dead person do?
Not a trick question.
Church, what can a dead person do?
Nothing.
And so in Ephesians, when Paul says that we were dead in our trespasses
and sins, what is Paul implying that spiritually we are able to do about that?
Nothing hence the need for the spirit.
The spirit is the one that comes in imparts life.
The spirit gives life because all of us born in Adam are born with a sin,
nature, incapable of doing anything.
To overcome that, we need an alien righteousness.
We need new birth and and, and really, even in order to believe we need first
the spirit who cause us to be born again, that we might believe, and
that's what God does for the elect.
So what does it mean?
What does it look like to be part of the elect?
Who are the elect?
Well, the elect are those that are elect according to the foreknowledge
of God and those that are elect because the spirit has sanctified us.
The spirit has positionally made us righteous, and he does that
through the work of regeneration causing us to be born again, giving
us life, opening the blind eyes.
Second Corinthians chapter four, that we might see and that we might then believe.
But the good news is here's the spirit who regenerates us.
Doesn't stop there.
What does he do after he regenerates us?
He indwells us, and he's the one that progressively sanctifies us that middle
state of sanctification until what?
Until the very end when he delivers us to the father.
And so part of being.
God's elect means that you have the spirit dwelling within you that whole way.
Our comforting thought point number two is this, the Spirit re who
regenerates you and dwells you and delivers you to the Father, the spirit
that regenerates you and dwells you and then delivers you to the Father.
So yes, you're an exile and yes, this world isn't your home.
But you have the spirit who sanctifies you, living in you,
and you are not left alone.
Alright?
These first two points are centered on God's role in our election, but this
third point, like I said, is gonna show us that we aren't simply passive
spectators in all of this either.
So second, our, our spiritual identity, our identity in Christ is
elect exiles, just wr by the spirit.
But then look at the final phrase.
The final part of the Trinitarian formula is this, we are elect exiles for obedience
to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood, for obedience to Jesus Christ.
Let's talk about that phrase.
What's clear is the obedience in view is our obedience.
What's not clear is what obedience right.
And there's a couple options there.
This could be the obedience of godliness, of sanctification, of growing in
Christ's likeness, and Peter is gonna talk about that in the book to be sure.
But in this particular instance, with the context being about our
election, I think the obedience, here's a different kind of obedience.
It's the obedience that Paul mentions in Romans one, five when he says,
through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about this phrase
here, the obedience of faith for the sake of his name among the nations.
Once the spirit regenerates us, now we have new life within us and we
are able to then obey the Father.
And what is the first act of obedience for every single believer?
Faith, the first act of obedience for every single believer regenerated by the
spirit so that we have the ability now as living spiritual beings to exercise faith.
The first act of obedience is faith in Christ.
That faith is then met with the sprinkling of his blood.
It's covenant language that he uses here, and we don't have time to go there.
But if you went to Hebrews chapter nine, verses 18 through 22, Hebrews nine 18
through 22, talks about Jesus as the high priest who goes in not with the blood
of bulls and goats, but with his own blood to purify us and to sprinkle us so
that we would be clenched from our sins.
And so we bring our faith after the spirit has regenerated us.
We bring our faith and and we are met with the sprinkling blood, the cleansing blood
of Jesus, the forgiveness of our sins.
This is the transaction of the gospel, and this is the transaction of the gospel
wherein we receive the righteousness of Jesus and he takes our sin from us.
And this is what it is to have our election actualized.
And so our final point this morning, along that lines is this, your identity in
Christ is actualized by faith in the sun.
It's actualized by faith in the son,
and so our identity was determined by the father and rot by the spirit.
But it's actualized, it's, it's made tangible for us.
It's realized through us putting our faith in the son, and this is why I said that
we have a part to play in all of this.
You're an exile and a sojourner because you repent from your
sins and you trust Jesus Christ.
With the forgiveness of your sins.
And this is again, that apparent paradox in the Bible where God is
entirely sovereign over our identities as elect exiles, and we are entirely
responsible for whether or not we choose to obey the gospel by putting our
trust in Jesus as our Lord and Savior.
And that's a paradox that we're not called to resolve, but to hold intention.
No one is part of the elect, apart from deciding to put their trust in
Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and yet no one will put their trust in
Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.
Apart from being part of God's elect, I know the temptation to get
all twisted up internally over all of this, even wondering whether or
not we're elect and how we could know that, and is it even worth it?
Because if I'm not elect, I'll never believe, and can I just suggest an
alternative this morning that perhaps we've made it too complicated.
If you're here this morning and you are feeling the tug, the the pull to
put your trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then the call on you
this morning is to believe the gospel,
to have the faith to obey him.
You're not gonna get a pre-qualified letter in the mail telling you
that you're part of God's elect.
So believe
the Holy Spirit's not gonna come up and tap you on the shoulder
and say, Hey, you're one of his.
If you talked to anybody else in the room this morning, it didn't work that way.
They didn't wake up one morning, go look in the mirror and expect
to find bedhead, only to see a, a halo glowing above their heads.
Instead, they all heard the call, Hey, repent from your sins and believe in
Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
And they felt within a desire to do that, and they put their trust in
Jesus Christ as of Lord and Savior.
Can I encourage you this morning if that's you, let's do that and leave
the sovereign parts of God to work out
church.
If, if you're here this morning and you're saying, well, then why,
why do we even have to bother with going about evangelizing people?
If you're pastor telling us all about the elect, the, the, the answer is
because the, the way that they're election is actualized is when they
put their faith in Jesus Christ.
And God has called us to be his mouthpiece, to go out and
call people to do just that.
I mentioned earlier this morning, none of us know who the elect are.
There's not a Christian that's ever walked the face of the earth.
That's got a radar for election, election detection.
That doesn't exist.
So I'll sometimes say let's, let's believe like a Calvinist,
but witness like an Armenian.
Anyone can come to faith in Jesus from our point of view.
Let's let God work out the election side, but election is actualized when
you put your faith in Jesus Christ.
And so here's the comforting thought here from our point of view, you
have a part to play in whether or not you're part of the elect
in some ways.
Church, from our perspective this morning, in a very real
sense, the balls in your court.
The gospel is this, though we are sinners, separated and alienated from
a holy God, and though we can never do enough good works to earn the forgiveness
of that holy God, he has given us Jesus Christ to die on the cross for
those sins so that we can be forgiven.
And he saw that Jesus would be raised from the dead.
So that we can live with him forever.
And the call this morning to you is this belief.
Trust that, trust that, again, you're not gonna get a pre-qualified
letter in the mail or a tap from the Holy Spirit on the shoulder.
Trust that
there's no elite mystic vision or experience that you need to have.
Trust that.
If you desire that this morning, please don't let the way a, another Christian
or pastor has upset you by hammering only one side of this equation.
Keep you from the open arms of the Father this morning.
You have a part to play in whether or not you're an elect.
Exile for the rest of us.
What a great reminder that we don't know who is and who's not,
and we get to go out and say, Hey.
Will you believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins?
Will you believe in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of of sins?
It's what gives us the comfort and hope that we should and can view our time
in exile, not just simply as a mission to be rescued, but as a rescue mission.
Two types of churches.
Vacation, exile.
I'll be honest, vacation's way easier, exile's, way better.
Way better.
I'm excited for this series because I'm excited to see what
God's gonna do in this body.
The end of vacation's never fun, but on that drive home, again, all I can think
about is I just can't wait to get home.
Church, we are on the drive home.
Hopefully, as we are looking forward to being home, we stay focused
on the path, the route, the map.
That God has for us to get there.
Will you stand with me and we'll pray together?