A Majestic Calling Series

“Majestic” Series: A Majestic Calling

1st Peter 2:9

Introduction:

By God’s grace we’re continuing with the “Majestic” series this morning. It’s a series that talks about the majestic life you have in Christ. And it focuses on the calling, the commitment, the consecration, and the completeness, of the life God has brought you into via the New Birth.

The series is based on 1st Peter 2:9…and prayerfully, it’ll help you understand more fully what you are saved to be.

Why don’t you stand with me, and let’s read that text aloud together now.

But 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 into his marvelous light.

Let’s pray together now…that our hearts will be open to what we’re going to hear in the next few minutes.

What is “salvation”? That’s the question I’d like to pose to you here at the start. I’m not looking for you to answer it for me…I just want you to think about it for a moment. “What is salvation?” If someone were to ask you that question, what would you say?

There are probably answers immediately springing to mind, like, “Salvation is a gift.” Or, “Salvation is a life transforming experience.” Maybe you thought about salvation being the way you go to heaven when you die and avoid hell. Or maybe you thought about salvation being the way you go up in the rapture.

While all those answers are true enough, none of them get to the root of what salvation really is. To understand what salvation really is, I want you to engage your imagination with me for a few moments.

Imagine that you’re living in a country that’s under the oppressive rule of a foreign power. At one time in the distant past, this dark power conquered your people…and for generations it has worked to crush your native language, culture, religion…everything that identified you as a people.

Through oppression, insinuation, and corruption, this foreign power has wrought its havoc. Everything good about your people, everything that was lovely, everything that was wonderful…every holiday, observance, and custom…

…everything that brought joy…has been either torn to pieces or corrupted to the point of being virtually unrecognizable.

The point of all this has been your complete and utter subjugation. It’s been to make you forget who your people were. It’s been to destroy your identity. And it’s largely worked.

Your language is filled with the oppressors’ words, thoughts, and spoken with the oppressors’ accent. You live like the oppressors. You observe their holidays. And what ancient customs of your people that you retain are but shreds, mingled with the customs of the oppressors.

Yet…even after all the generations of being under the heel of this dark power…there is still the faintest spark of who you really are, of who you are really supposed to be. And from time to time that spark flares up and reaches out in hope that one day you will be free…even if you’re not sure what freedom would mean.

Now imagine that…after generations of this oppression…you hear that the land has been invaded. It seems that another power has risen, and this power claims to be one of you. And as he leads his army through the land, taking town after town, village after village, he restores the ancient ways of your people.

He restores it all! The language, the culture, the religion, the customs…all of it! Town after town raises his flag and goes out to meet him, and the oppressors’ forces flee before him.

And finally he comes to your town, and it’s as if the sun is shining for the first time in a thousand years! People line the streets, waving his banner, throwing flowers in front of him! They dance and sing the good & joyful songs of your people! They shout themselves hoarse! They feast, they celebrate, and rejoice…

…and rightly so. Because after generations of foreign oppression, of darkness, and corruption, your people are finally free. You’re going to be ruled in justice by one of your own now, by one who understands you, who knows your value, by one who loves you. You are his people, and he is of your people.

You’ve been delivered.

And at its root, and its very core, that’s what “salvation” is; it’s deliverance. It’s when you are delivered from your bondage to the darkness of sin and are brought to live in the light under the loving, just, transforming rule of your rightful King, Jesus.

I. Salvation Is a Calling

But how does this salvation begin? You might think that it starts with faith, but it doesn’t. Faith is something that God has built into the human heart, and we can place that faith in anything. We can invest it wisely, or we can squander it and use it up until we have no more faith left. No…salvation doesn’t start with faith.