1 Peter 2:8b-10
A People for Praise

Have you ever noticed how Jewish people project a certain identity? All you have to do is rent Fiddler on the Roof to find out what I'm talking about. They still think of themselves as God's chosen people.

3500 years later they still think of themselves as the people who came out of Egypt and wandered the desert for 40 years

3000 years later they still remember David the King and the established, almost perfect Kingdom of Israel under his reign.

And 2000 years after he came, they're still waiting for the Messiah.

That's your identity, not theirs!

God has taken that unique identity as a race, a priesthood, a nation, and a people—as those chosen of God.... He has taken that identity and given it to you, whether Jew or Gentile, who believe in the one whom God sent and do not rely on your own abilities or understanding.

Today's sermon has one purpose: to overwhelm you with that identity so that you sing the praises of the one who saved you.

1. God has appointed some to reject Christ (8b)
   This isn't the main point of the text, but the dark backdrop against which the glorious light of God's election shines forth.
   1. Some "stumble" at Christ, refusing to believe
      1. God has chosen Christ, but they reject him (7)
         1. And thus they reject themselves as being God's chosen people, even if they come from the nation to which that name attached.
         2. Only Christ is chosen and we must be chosen in him or not at all.
      2. They reject him by disobeying the word
         1. This is the opposite of the "obedience of faith" of which Paul speaks
         2. It is the disobedience of unbelief
         3. God lays Jesus Christ as the living cornerstone of a living temple and says, "believe in him and you won't be put to shame" i.e. condemned at the day of judgment (6)
         4. But they refuse, saying
            1. I'd rather trust in my special relation to God as a racial Jew
            2. I'd rather trust in my good works
            3. I'd rather trust in a vague idea that God will be good to me if I'm not a murderer or something truly vile. But you are truly vile in God's sight.
   2. God appointed them to that rejection.
      1. God has not been thwarted in his plans to save his people
      2. The ones he appointed to reject Christ have done so.
      3. This means exactly what you think it does: before they ever rejected Christ, God rejected them and thus appointed them to reject Christ.
      4. To Unbeliever: So you say Aha! I can't help it! Doesn't the next phrase say that God appointed me to reject Christ? I'm only doing God's will.
      5. As though God hasn't got the right to do with you as he pleases and you are entirely at his mercy.
      6. Quit kidding around when eternal life and everlasting hell and damnation are at stake!
      7. Come! Believe in Christ now! Why will you attempt to approach the judgment seat of Christ without believing in him? What will all your cleverness and excuses do for you in that day?
      8. Here it is, the word of God. It can make you alive for salvation. Hear it!
      9. Here he is, the chosen one of God. Do not reject him any longer but repent of your sin of relying on yourself and come rely on him. His blood can make you clean.

TRANSITION: All this is the setup. Peter mentions that God has chosen them for stumbling so you will know what he's chosen you for. It is glorious.

1. But He has chosen you as a people to praise him (9a)
   1. You are a chosen generation
      1. Chosen race might work better here.
         1. It's meant to be a shocker
         2. Normally we think of the Jews as the chosen race, even if they've rejected Christ.
         3. Don't let anyone steal your identity! You, you ragtag bunch of Gentiles redeemed from other nations, you are the one chosen race of God.
      2. Peter begins to quote Isaiah 43.20,21, which speaks to Israel as a chosen race. He interrupts that in a moment to quote Exodus 19:5,6 and then combines both quotes for a grand finale "a people for God's possession that you may praise him"
      3. When the Jews prided themselves in having Abraham for their father, Jesus said that God could raise up children to Abraham from "these stone."
      4. Well, look at you! Living stones of the race of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
      5. Membership in this race is not by birth but by rebirth through faith
      6. All the special status that Israel enjoyed in the OT now belongs to you
         1. The signs and wonders of the plagues of Egypt and the Exodus are the means by which God declare them to be his chosen race
         2. That was only a warmup act for the true redemption: the incarnation, death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and sitting down of Jesus Christ.
         3. All the sweet and tender words of God to Israel come to you.
         4. And all the warnings as well, lest you grow proud and say, "My own hand has accomplished this."
   2. A royal priesthood and a holy nation
      1. Really the same concept and so I'll treat them together.
         1. God puts them together in Ex 19.6 so that neither the national nor the sacerdotal (priestly) will be thought of without the other. It's the combination.
         2. So Peter quotes it that way.
      2. Here's the context of Ex. 19:5,6 "You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself. 5'Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. 6'And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."
         1. Yet even after all that, Israel failed to do as required
         2. So the new covenant (which saved those who believed in the OT as well as you) comes to you on surer ground. Christ has kept the covenant and therefore you are a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.
      3. God has just given you a single national identity with believers in Uganda and all of Africa, China, Europe, Asia, the Middle East, South America, Mexico and the rest of North America.
         1. This is your fundamental identity.
         2. Being an American is nothing compared to this.
         3. You have more in common with them than with any unbelieving American neighbor.
      4. And God has made you royalty, blue blood, those who reign with Christ.
         1. It is essential that Peter give this identity to his readers now
         2. He's about to address the whole question of persecution of the church. So they must first know that their identity is not as the downtrodden, spit upon, losers of the world.
      5. And that royalty has priestly functions
         1. You offer the sacrifices of praise (5 and 9b)
         2. You've been set apart for a holy purpose to God
      6. You've been made a kingdom and priests (Rev 5.10) in fulfillment of a prophecy made 3500 years ago to the chosen race.
      7. BTW, isn't it obvious, then, that the political and the priestly elements of OT Israel were never meant to be distinguished but are gloriously intertwined?
         1. Why should we think that Israel's civil law is meant to tell American civil government how to run? That's setting our sights way too low.
         2. That civil law—gloriously intertwined with the ceremonial—is not the inheritance of any earthly government; it is your inheritance in Christ the Priestly King.
            1. Just as you are in one bundle a priestly kingdom and a royal nation
            2. So Christ is a kingly priest and a priestly king, (as Hebrews says, like Melchizedek, King of Salem, Priest of God Most High)
         3. And just as the exodus from Egypt prefigured the perfect redemption from sin in Christ Jesus, so that shadowy civil/ceremonial law prefigured the perfect royal priesthood and priestly rule of Christ over his people.
         4. I plead with you to entertain this thought for just one moment
            1. You look at the ceremonial law for types and shadows of Christ the Priest to discover how he gloriously saves you.
            2. Then, please, look at the "civil" law for types and shadows of Christ the King to find out how he gloriously rules over you. (If the civil law has any application to earthly civil government, surely that is quite secondary to this application.)
            3. To put it in modern terms: You can't separate Christ as Savior from Christ as Lord.

CONCLUSION TO PART 1: We're out of time but in the middle of Peter's thought. For this week, take with you the awe of knowing that God has chosen you and made you into a chosen race, a royal priesthood and a holy nation not because of anything you did, but because he loved and chose you. Let this be your stamp of uniqueness. Let it distinguish you from the world as you set about the king's priestly business.

3. A people for God's possession

3. To proclaim the praises of Him who made you what you are (9b,10)
   1. That you may proclaim his praises
   2. Who called you out of darkness into light
   3. Once you were not a people
   4. Once you had not obtained mercy

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