A Kingdom of People
1 Pet 2:4-5, 9-12
Intro:
While God is the centre and the focus of the Kingdom of God, it remains a Kingdom of people. And not just regular, ordinary people, and not all people everywhere, but rather a very privileged, very select, very precious, very holy, very royal people.
As I say those words, most of us automatically exclude ourselves. Our belief is that we aren’t particularly privileged, or select, or precious, or holy, or royal. It must be someone else – it must be some type of sermon trick leading us somewhere surprising. Because, we think, that certainly could not be us.
Well, it is no trick, but it does lead us somewhere surprising to those of us who excluded ourselves. But we’ll come to that in a moment…
An Old Argument:
I have a very clear memory of a time when I was a young teenager, sitting in the back seat of our car driving home from our church, and having an argument with my mom and my older brother. Someone, and I don’t recall who, used a phrase that suddenly struck me as very wrong and out of place – they said, “well, what do they expect, I’m only human…”. And with all my adolescent knowledge of, well, everything, I begged to differ. “We are not only human.” “What are you talking about? What do you think we are – aliens? Magicians?? Superheroes??? We are so only human.” “No we aren’t.” “Umm, yes, actually we are.” “Nope.” “Yup.” “NO! We are not only human – we are children of God! We are so much more than ‘only human’, we should never be satisfied with less, we should never live with less, we should never look at ourselves as anything less, THAT IS WHO WE ARE – children of the King of the Kingdom.”
Of course, looking back now I’m confident that I probably took the whole conversation completely out of context – it was most likely about someone’s unreasonable expectations of something – and I turned it into a theological argument to prove a point that struck my fancy at the moment. And the fact that my theological point was correct was overshadowed by the fact that I annoyed the rest of my family in “proving” the point, and doing so in an inappropriate context.
This morning, I think I can make the same point in a more appropriate context.
Catching Up:
This fall we’ve been talking about that most favorite topic of Jesus, and perhaps the least well understood: the Kingdom of God. When I read the teachings of Jesus with an eye to understanding what this “Kingdom of God” thing is, a consistent theme emerges: it is a Kingdom of people, who follow and obey their King, Jesus. It is not a physical Kingdom, though there are definite tangible components. It is not a kingdom for after we die, though then we will enter fully into the Kingdom of God. It is not imaginary, it is real. And it is about people.
Who Are The People?
This morning I want to look at what the Bible says about who those people are, and what that means for how we live. Let’s turn to 1 Pet 2:4-5, 9-12 (NLT).
4 You are coming to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God’s temple. He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God for great honor.
5 And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God.
9…you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.
10 “Once you had no identity as a people;
now you are God’s people.
Once you received no mercy;
now you have received God’s mercy.”
11 Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. 12 Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when he judges the world
Who Is Peter Talking To?
The first question we need to answer in looking at this passage is this: “who is Peter talking to?” That is why I included vs. 4-5, even though we are going to talk most about vs 9-12, because it establishes the audience. Who are these people? They are those who are “coming to Christ.” They are those who offer, through Jesus, “spiritual sacrifices that please God” – in other words, those who worship God. That is why we gathered here this morning, to bring our offering of worship that would, through the help of Jesus, “please God,” and I know that most of us would describe ourselves as “coming to Christ”, so we can be pretty confident that Peter is talking to us.
A Note About The Pronouns:
I want to pause here to make sure we hear this correctly: the “you” is not an individual “you”, but rather it is “us”. This is important, because we have a tendency to put all of this on each individual, private, person, when really this is about the “us”. Let’s keep that in mind as we look at who God says the people of His Kingdom actually are.
“Chosen”:
The first “descriptor” is “chosen”. I looked this up to see what the original Greek word meant, and the root word means “to make a special choice based on significant preference, often implying a strongly favorable attitude toward what is chosen.” (Louw and Nida, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament Based On Semantic Domains, entry 30.92).
So, again remembering this is a collective “us” and not an individualistic “you”, the Bible is saying that God chose us. That He, the awesome, almighty, all-powerful King, has “a significant preference… a strongly favorable attitude”, toward us. Toward us – as a church. God is excited about us! God is enthused about our church!! So much so, that He chose us and assembled us and brought us together, and He is pretty happy about it.
So how should we live? We should be excited about us too! Of course we are not perfect, of course there is room to grow and things to learn and change, but none of that changes the fact that God has chosen us, and given us a place in His Kingdom.
“Royal Priests”:
Here is another one that is hard to accept – God calls us “royal priests”. We are royalty – how about that! What makes us royal is that we have been adopted by the King – He looks upon us as His own children. When we come to God, we don’t sneak in by the back door, we don’t wait months for an appointment, we don’t go through level after level of bureaucrat – we walk straight in to the inner chamber, and God looks up and sees us and smiles a broad smile because He is welcoming His child. We are royal by virtue of our adoption, and we are priests because we stand in the presence of God and present our prayers, our worship, and our service – and God loves it.
“Holy nation, God’s own possession”:
The next two re-emphasize the last – because we are royal priests, God has made us a holy nation – not “nation” as in a political “nation”, but rather in the sense of the Kingdom of God. The word “holy” means set apart for God, exclusively for Him and not contaminated by anything else. So we are a people set aside for God, and we are God’s very own – that is the emphasis of the second part, “God’s own possession”.
A Kingdom of People:
These descriptors make it pretty clear – the Kingdom of God is a Kingdom of people. And not just regular, ordinary people, and not all people everywhere, but rather a very privileged, very select, very precious, very holy, very royal people. That is who we are – together, as a community, that is who we are.
That is pretty amazing. When you think of us as Christians, is this the way we see ourselves? Does our collective “self-image” match what Scripture tells us about who we are?
So, What?
This really must mean something, don’t you think? Peter continues: “As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.” I love how he phrases it – not as demand, not as command, not as a guilt-motivated “must”, but rather as an incredible privilege. Because of who we are, we can show others who God is. We live in the light – we know the truth – we know what it means to be adopted by God Himself, and we have the great gift of being able to pass that along to others.
Vs 11:
After a brief quote from Hosea, Peter continues in verse 11 to help us understand what this identity of ours, now as part of God’s Kingdom, means for how we live. He has worded this very carefully and specifically: “Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls.” The first part re emphasizes where our residency really lies – that in this world we are “temporary residents”, we need to see ourselves as “foreigners”, because we truly do belong to a different Kingdom. Of course Peter is not saying that we should ignore the earthly kingdom of where we live, or that we should not be involved in it, he is just reminding us to not fall into the habit of thinking that this is our home. It isn’t: God’s Kingdom is our home.
Along that thought, Peter gets more specific with a warning. “keep away from worldly desires” – why should we do that? Because they “wage war against your very souls”. Notice the emphasis: those “worldly desires” will destroy us – though they promise happiness they bring grief. Though they promise joy they bring fleeting pleasure. Though they promise significance they bring emptiness. Though they promise love they bring loneliness. And so on – I think you get the point.
The longer I am a pastor, the more I see this very thing, and the more convinced I am that our sin just robs us of life. It is not about shame or guilt, it is about taking out the garbage so that the kitchen doesn’t smell anymore. It is about cleaning the garage so we don’t trip and smash our head open on a shovel. It is about washing the dirt off our hands so that we don’t make a bigger mess when we hug our spouse or child, or grab a sandwich. “keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls”.
Conclusion:
Norman Vincent Peal (from “Power of the Plus Factor”, as reprinted at higherpraise.org) tells a story about walking through the twisted little streets of Kowloon in Hong Kong. He says, “I came upon a tattoo studio. In the window were displayed samples of the tattoos available. On the chest or arms you could have tattooed an anchor or flag or mermaid or whatever. But what struck me with force were three words that could be tattooed on one’s flesh: Born to lose. I entered the shop in astonishment and pointing to those words, asked the Chinese tattoo artist, "Does anyone really have that terrible phrase, Born to lose, tattooed on his body." He replied, "Yes, sometimes." "But," I said, "I just can’t believe that anyone in his right mind would do that." The Chinese man simply tapped his forehead and said in broken English, "Before tattoo on body, tattoo on mind."
What is tattooed on your mind about who we are as Christians? Is it that we are losers, poor wretched creatures barely lovable by God, but only after we are forgiven? And once forgiven, we are pretty useless since we keep messing things up? Do you look at the group of us who are Christians with dismay and hopelessness?
That is not how God sees us. In God’s eyes, we are His chosen. We are royalty. We are holy, and we belong to God.
My friends, let us renew our conviction to live in accordance with our citizenship in God’s Kingdom. Let us choose to turn our backs on the false, empty, promises of this kingdom and instead live like foreigners – who reject a prevailing value system of money and power and prestige and possessions – and who live instead by the rules of a much higher Kingdom. Where people matter most. Where our relationships with God and with one another take precedence over all the temporary pursuits of this world. Where pride is rejected, selfishness replaced, old hurts forgiven, and where, above all, love triumphs.
“you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession. As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.”
May God give us strength to live like it.
