Seeds for 04/30/2024 - 1 Peter 2:9b
Scripture:
But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, 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.
Observation:
There’s a reason why the people of God are chosen, “a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession.” The sense of calling is almost embedded throughout the terms. We can hear it most clearly in “royal priesthood,” and even in “holy nation.”
The phrase “royal priesthood” carries a job description. “Holy nation” implies the sense of a higher purpose.
The significant thing about Peter describing the church this way is that it continues to treat the community of people whose commonality is found in a confession of Jesus as Savior and Lord as if they have the bonds of ethnicity or nationality. Historically, this is what binds humans together beyond family kinship groups. Yet the Christian Gospel insists that it doesn’t require a family lineage to be considered a “royal priesthood.” A common ethnic bond or cultural heritage is not necessitated in order to understand oneself as a “chosen people.” Quite radically, they don’t even need to be a nation-state to be “a holy nation” unto the Lord!
They are bonded together—despite all their cultural, ethnic, national, and status differences—into a community through the Gospel. And this community has a purpose: “that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light.” Our common experience of salvation in Jesus is the foundation for our calling. We bear witness to the grace of God who has shed the light of the Gospel into our darkness. We declare the praises of our awesome and amazing God!
There’s a wonderful passage in Psalm 107 that captures this well:
1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
his love endures forever.2 Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—
those he redeemed from the hand of the foe,
3 those he gathered from the lands,
from east and west, from north and south.4 Some wandered in desert wastelands,
finding no way to a city where they could settle.
5 They were hungry and thirsty,
and their lives ebbed away.
6 Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
and he delivered them from their distress.
7 He led them by a straight way
to a city where they could settle.
8 Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love
and his wonderful deeds for mankind,
9 for he satisfies the thirsty
and fills the hungry with good things.
“Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story…” That’s our purpose. Praise Him and tell the story of the good things He has done for us!
Application:
What is the story of God’s grace in your life?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, keep us remembering your redeeming grace and receive our praise as we declare our love and trust in you. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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