Pastor Nate begins our study through the New Testament Book of 1 Peter.
[00:00:00] I want you to imagine, if you can, the ancient civilization of northern Turkey.
[00:00:10] Greek culture in that time and the Roman Empire from their positions just across the Aegean Sea in Europe
[00:00:21] have begun to heavily influence your community.
[00:00:26] Roman roads, taxation and military are ever present.
[00:00:31] And so is Greek thought. Everyone in your community, there in northern Turkey as you use your imagination today,
[00:00:40] everyone's gone along with Greek and Roman way of life.
[00:00:44] And times seem to be, in one sense, improving.
[00:00:48] The age is heading in a specific direction and you are caught up in its wave.
[00:00:55] Then one day, with no announcement, a messenger arrives to your small town.
[00:01:01] He's not there to trade like nearly all the other travelers who pass through.
[00:01:06] Instead he has news to proclaim.
[00:01:09] It isn't a decree from Caesar that he's there to proclaim though.
[00:01:13] It's about a man named Jesus.
[00:01:17] Jesus is God, he says.
[00:01:20] And he became one of us the preacher declares to you.
[00:01:26] Then he died as a substitute for you, rose on the third day.
[00:01:30] And as this glorious gospel is declared to you, you find yourself agreeing and believing and wanting this Jesus.
[00:01:39] His spirit then fills you and now your life is changed.
[00:01:44] Now you find yourself part of a new community within your larger community.
[00:01:50] You and the other Christians in your town gather together as one on Sundays and in smaller settings throughout the week.
[00:01:58] As you all study scripture and worship the God who wrote them, you relearn everything that you thought you knew.
[00:02:05] Soon you realize that your views and your lifestyle are incongruent with the Roman and Greek way that you'd previously adopted.
[00:02:14] And you're not the only one to begin to realize that you're different, so do the people in your town.
[00:02:21] They suspect that you don't think like them and they certainly can see that you don't live like them.
[00:02:28] People in your community have always represented all sides of thought, but you and the other Christians have embraced something different than everybody else a third way.
[00:02:39] Jesus is your King, he's worthy of your worship.
[00:02:44] And he asks you to both love others and to tell them about him.
[00:02:50] But pretty soon you start noticing in your town that the fact that you're different is leading the majority to turn against you.
[00:03:00] Their rejection of you and your other fellow Christians isn't catastrophic at first, but it's subtle as they start to turn their backs on you.
[00:03:10] You worry that you might be physically harmed one day because of your Christianity,
[00:03:15] mainly because they're willing to say such angry and hateful words about you and your Lord.
[00:03:22] Now, you can't tell where all this venom is coming from.
[00:03:25] You've tried very hard to love your community and contribute to your community, but the animosity is growing.
[00:03:34] You feel confused as to what to do.
[00:03:37] And the Roman Senate and Emperor seem unconcerned with your small minority.
[00:03:43] And any concern they do show seems to indicate that they might blame you for their failures.
[00:03:52] So you and others in your community start to worry.
[00:03:57] Will we lose our sources of income?
[00:03:59] Will we be roundly rejected from public discourse?
[00:04:03] Will this ridicule turn into laws that call for our persecution?
[00:04:08] Will we be harmed?
[00:04:10] And if any of this happens to us, how should we live?
[00:04:16] Just as your questions and the pressure hit a fever pitch, a new messenger arrives in town.
[00:04:25] He's a Christian and his name is Sylvainus and he's come from Rome.
[00:04:30] Now you know that there's Christians in Rome, so you wonder how they're dealing with the rising opposition to the faith in the mother of all cities.
[00:04:38] How are they handling increasing hostility and blame from culture?
[00:04:43] Are they fighting back?
[00:04:45] Are they retreating to the countryside?
[00:04:48] Are they conforming to the demands of the citizenry?
[00:04:52] Well Sylvainus proceeds to tell you that he has a letter for you from no less than Peter,
[00:04:59] a letter designed to show you how to live when society rejects you.
[00:05:04] Now you can't believe it.
[00:05:06] Peter, you of course know the name.
[00:05:09] He was Jesus' top apostle, the leader of the twelve, the first preacher, the day the church was born
[00:05:15] and the one with the keys to unlock the gospel to the Gentile world.
[00:05:19] And that's exactly what Peter did.
[00:05:21] Ten years after Jesus died and rose, lived again, Peter died to his preferences
[00:05:27] and spoke the words of life to a small group of Gentiles on Israel's northern coast.
[00:05:34] And when they believed the spirit fell, everyone saw it and soon it was confirmed.
[00:05:39] The gospel news is for the whole world.
[00:05:42] That's how the gospel eventually got to you in your little town in northern Turkey.
[00:05:48] And now Peter has written to you and other Christians along the trade route
[00:05:54] of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bethany.
[00:05:58] So the next morning it's Sunday
[00:06:01] and you gather with all the other Christians in your church
[00:06:06] after some prayer and singing to God, Sylvainus stands up
[00:06:12] with a papyrus scroll in his hand.
[00:06:15] He unfurls it, he prays and he begins to read.
[00:06:21] And this is what it says in the first two verses.
[00:06:24] Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ
[00:06:28] to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bethany.
[00:06:36] According to the foreknowledge of God the Father
[00:06:39] in the sanctification of the spirit
[00:06:42] for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood
[00:06:46] may grace and peace be multiplied to you.
[00:06:51] Now the first thing that I want you to notice from this brief little introduction
[00:06:56] is the author of our letter.
[00:06:59] As I've said Peter was the first apostle
[00:07:01] but in this letter I want you to think of him as the first exile, the first exile.
[00:07:07] You see by this time Peter had abandoned the comforts
[00:07:12] and confines of Jerusalem for the city of Rome.
[00:07:16] Jerusalem for Peter was familiar.
[00:07:19] Rome was unknown.
[00:07:21] Jerusalem was filled with people from the same cultural background.
[00:07:25] Rome was filled with every nation and tribe and tone.
[00:07:30] Jerusalem's morals were similar to Christianity's morals.
[00:07:34] In fact Christianity's morals stemmed from Jerusalem's Judaistic morals
[00:07:41] but Rome's morals were upside down and non-existent.
[00:07:46] In Jerusalem Peter had influence.
[00:07:49] So many people in Jerusalem had come to Jesus as a result of the apostles ministry
[00:07:54] but in Rome Peter was without power or status of any kind
[00:08:00] and Peter felt the strangeness of his new town.
[00:08:04] When he ends this letter in chapter 5 verse 13 he calls Rome Babylon.
[00:08:10] This is his way of referencing a time in Israel's history
[00:08:14] when they were carried away as exiles to the country of Babylon.
[00:08:20] Life was so different there and godlessness abounded in that city.
[00:08:26] How in the world could they live in Babylon?
[00:08:31] Now to help those ancient Old Testament exiles God sent a prophet named Jeremiah.
[00:08:38] He told the people of Israel to submit to the life of exile
[00:08:43] by building houses, planting gardens, marrying, establishing families.
[00:08:49] Right there in Babylon.
[00:08:51] He even said Jeremiah 29 verse 7,
[00:08:54] seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile
[00:08:59] and pray to the Lord on its behalf for in its welfare you find your welfare.
[00:09:07] Jeremiah then went on to warn God's people about false prophets
[00:09:11] who would tell them to escape their exile.
[00:09:15] These liars would convince God's people
[00:09:17] that God didn't want his kids living in such conditions.
[00:09:21] But Jeremiah told them God wanted them to submit to exile until God rescued them.
[00:09:28] For he said, I know the plans I have for you.
[00:09:32] Jeremiah 29 verse 11 declares the Lord
[00:09:35] plans for welfare and not for evil to give you a future and a hope.
[00:09:41] And I read these words from Jeremiah
[00:09:43] because Peter seems to have styled his whole letter after Jeremiah's ministry.
[00:09:49] All through his correspondence,
[00:09:51] Peter will encourage the church and encourage us to endure periods of exile well in Christ's name.
[00:10:00] First we will discover in the first chunk of the letter
[00:10:04] that he will tell us about the joy of the exile calling.
[00:10:08] We belong to Jesus.
[00:10:10] We have a great salvation.
[00:10:12] So we rejoice even in suffering for his name.
[00:10:15] Second, in the second chunk of the letter,
[00:10:18] Peter will tell us of the life of exile
[00:10:21] describing how we must live in these exilic conditions.
[00:10:26] He'll urge us to abstain from sin,
[00:10:29] submit to authority and do work and family for God's glory.
[00:10:33] In the third section of this letter,
[00:10:36] Peter will talk to us about the pain of exile.
[00:10:40] Everyone suffers, but Peter tells us believers suffer for righteousness.
[00:10:46] If we hear the ridicule or feel the fists of those hostile to Christ,
[00:10:51] we have to endure.
[00:10:53] And finally fourth,
[00:10:55] Peter will close the letter by describing the community,
[00:11:00] the church that the exiled believers must build.
[00:11:04] The church is our new home, our new society in a sense,
[00:11:08] and we must press into it all the more as rejection increases.
[00:11:12] The idea of doing the Christian life alone
[00:11:16] becomes even more impossible for exiled believers.
[00:11:20] Okay, but Peter was game for this exilic brand of Christianity
[00:11:27] because Jesus had risen from the dead.
[00:11:29] You know, it changed everything for Peter.
[00:11:32] His failures and shortcomings were turned into channels for God's grace.
[00:11:36] And he'd been restored for a purpose
[00:11:40] because Jesus rose, Peter had to reach the people that he's ministering to.
[00:11:48] So after 10 years of ministry in Jerusalem,
[00:11:51] Peter packed up his family and ministered in various Roman provinces.
[00:11:56] Jesus foretold that Peter's ministry would end with a martyr's death,
[00:12:01] so Peter had a decision.
[00:12:03] He could run and hide, or he could run right into the danger.
[00:12:07] And he chose the latter because if Christ had risen,
[00:12:11] Peter knew that he also would rise.
[00:12:14] Death would really ultimately only hasten Peter's ultimate victory.
[00:12:19] So Peter went out and made the good news the focus of his life.
[00:12:24] He made good on the new name that Jesus had given him.
[00:12:27] His birth name was Simon,
[00:12:29] but Jesus did what God had done to all the saints,
[00:12:33] or many saints of old and renamed his man.
[00:12:35] Peter means rock because Peter confessed foundational truths
[00:12:40] and became a foundational man who did foundational things for the church.
[00:12:46] Now Peter referred to himself in this letter as an apostle of Jesus Christ.
[00:12:52] You know, when Paul said at the beginning of his letters that he was an apostle,
[00:12:57] it often indicated he'd have to defend his position or correct his audience.
[00:13:02] But when Peter said it, no one argued.
[00:13:05] Everybody knew that Peter was an apostle.
[00:13:08] If Peter's not an apostle, no one's an apostle.
[00:13:10] He held this special position that Jesus reserved for him
[00:13:15] and was faithful to be an authoritative witness and author of the truth.
[00:13:22] Like the Old Testament prophets,
[00:13:24] these men would speak words that shaped civilizations.
[00:13:28] But as an apostle, Peter was exile number one.
[00:13:33] He knew what it was to be outcast from society because of Jesus.
[00:13:37] You could say he learned about being rejected from both the right and the left
[00:13:42] because of his belief in Christ.
[00:13:44] The right, fashioned by Judaism,
[00:13:47] did not like the grace and forgiveness for all nations that Peter preached.
[00:13:52] And the left, formed by much of Roman society,
[00:13:56] did not like the restrictive morality that Peter taught.
[00:14:00] And neither liked to think of Jesus as Lord.
[00:14:04] And for that, Peter is exile number one in this letter.
[00:14:10] But the second thing I want you to see in these introductory verses is the recipients.
[00:14:17] Peter called them the elect exiles of the dispersion there in verse one.
[00:14:23] And it's an area that we know of as Northern Turkey today.
[00:14:28] Now, the title is a very Jewish title because in the Old Testament
[00:14:32] when the Assyrians and Babylonians attacked Israel,
[00:14:36] they were dispersed and they became known as the diaspora.
[00:14:41] They had been scattered throughout the world.
[00:14:44] So Peter takes that title and he lays it firmly on the Jewish and Gentile church
[00:14:50] of that region and era.
[00:14:52] We know that he's writing to a predominantly Gentile church
[00:14:55] because of the way that he'll describe their lives before Christ later on in this letter.
[00:15:01] They'd live sensuously, they'd followed their passions and their old life.
[00:15:05] They'd partied hard and toxicating themselves
[00:15:08] and engaging in the kinds of acts that alcohol emboldens.
[00:15:12] Peter said that these Christians had been ransom from feudal ways
[00:15:16] that the previous generations had taught them to live in and now they'd become God's people.
[00:15:22] All this is evidence that these were mostly Gentile people.
[00:15:26] You'd not read those kind of descriptions about Jewish converts.
[00:15:30] This helps us know, brothers and sisters, what made this original group into exiles.
[00:15:36] It's what makes us exiles today.
[00:15:39] First, they believed things that made them exiles
[00:15:42] and second, they lived in a way that made them exiles.
[00:15:46] Both their beliefs and their lifestyles were looked down upon by the larger society
[00:15:53] so they became exiles.
[00:15:56] Now you might be wondering about the kind of marginalization
[00:16:00] that these Christians that Peter wrote to were experiencing
[00:16:05] and you might even be wondering with a little bit of suspicion.
[00:16:08] It's common for us in Western churches today to make comments about how
[00:16:14] the persecution that they felt or that so many brothers and sisters in Christ
[00:16:18] throughout the world are feeling today is nothing compared to
[00:16:22] the societal pressure that we are experiencing in the West.
[00:16:26] We're not experiencing physical persecution, which is so much worse
[00:16:30] than name-calling or public ridicule.
[00:16:34] And we might suspect entering into the book of 1 Peter
[00:16:38] that these believers had it far worse than we have it today.
[00:16:44] You see, Western churches often don't have persecution physically,
[00:16:51] partly because of our history.
[00:16:53] We've often been tied to governments and states and civilizations.
[00:16:58] Sometimes we have political influence in history.
[00:17:01] Sometimes we ruled over monarchs.
[00:17:04] But what happened in many of those societies is that nominal Christianity
[00:17:10] was encouraged to spread.
[00:17:12] Many people were Christian in name only.
[00:17:15] But though the church had influence in these Western societies,
[00:17:19] secularism has now taken the lead.
[00:17:22] Still since so many identify as Christian in name,
[00:17:25] Christianity grips onto a semi-favored status.
[00:17:30] The evidence demonstrates that many who say they are Christian
[00:17:33] in the West are not Christian.
[00:17:35] Many who say they are Christians also say they don't believe the gospel.
[00:17:40] They don't believe in God.
[00:17:42] They don't even attend, let alone belong to a local church of any kind.
[00:17:46] No, the number of people who believe the gospel hold the cardinal doctrines
[00:17:51] of Christianity and actually act like Christians,
[00:17:54] as the Bible describes them, are a very small number.
[00:17:59] But in places like in the West, because of the historical relationship
[00:18:04] we've had with the church, persecution is not yet physical in nature.
[00:18:09] You see, Christians in many nations are beaten and economically disadvantaged
[00:18:14] because of their faith, but this hasn't happened broadly yet
[00:18:17] in the Western world.
[00:18:19] So we might be tempted to tune out first Peter
[00:18:22] because they certainly must have had a level of persecution
[00:18:27] so much more severe than ours.
[00:18:30] But I would say not so fast.
[00:18:32] The hostility that's described all throughout this letter
[00:18:35] is, listen to me now, verbal slander and malicious accusations.
[00:18:42] Look at 1 Peter 2 verse 12.
[00:18:44] It says, keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable
[00:18:47] so that when they speak against you as evil doers,
[00:18:51] they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
[00:18:55] 1 Peter 2 15, for this is the will of God that by doing good
[00:18:59] you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.
[00:19:03] So it's something spoken that will be put to silence.
[00:19:06] 1 Peter 3 verse 9, do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling.
[00:19:13] 1 Peter 3 16, have a good conscience so that when you are slandered,
[00:19:19] those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame.
[00:19:24] Now hearing those descriptions should make us realize that we are
[00:19:28] right now entering into the kind of territory that Peter thought
[00:19:32] his readers were in.
[00:19:35] And recently I heard a story of a Christian man who was on his company's
[00:19:40] softball team and he had a great time with everybody on the team,
[00:19:43] lots of friends.
[00:19:45] And everybody knew that he was a believer.
[00:19:48] But one night he hopped onto Facebook and he was horrified to watch
[00:19:52] most of his teammates berating Christians and ridiculing the Christian
[00:19:57] faith as little more than belief in fairies and goblins.
[00:20:01] And of course you could go online and find millions of similar cases
[00:20:07] and examples.
[00:20:09] This brand of ridicule by the way, the verbal kind of ridicule
[00:20:13] has always been around against the church.
[00:20:17] You know it's difficult to know precisely what people were saying
[00:20:20] about these original Christians.
[00:20:23] There is some interesting evidence that archaeology has unearthed.
[00:20:28] In ancient Rome in the second century, carved into plaster on the side of a
[00:20:34] building is a picture, Roman graffiti.
[00:20:39] It's a crude drawing of a man with a donkey's head dying on a cross.
[00:20:46] Below the man is another man lifting up his hand looking as if he's
[00:20:51] worshiping this figure on the cross.
[00:20:55] And the caption that somebody wrote almost 2,000 years ago is
[00:21:00] Alex Somenos worships his God.
[00:21:04] It's ridiculing Christians, ridiculing believers for their faith.
[00:21:09] It probably even had a little hashtag to circulate around ancient Rome.
[00:21:14] But Peter, what he wanted to do was comfort his audience.
[00:21:18] And that's what this letter is going to do.
[00:21:20] Comfort believers who are beginning to realize that they are
[00:21:24] exiles because of and for their faith.
[00:21:27] And I hope that you're beginning to realize that this audience
[00:21:31] that Peter's writing to includes you and me.
[00:21:34] All through the letter he'll encourage us with the truth about
[00:21:38] who we are and he'll allude to our identity even in this brief
[00:21:43] introduction.
[00:21:44] Now the overarching encouragement Peter gives comes from his
[00:21:48] description of these exiles in the very first sentence.
[00:21:51] Look again at verse one, he calls them elect.
[00:21:54] To be elect means that we are recipients of God's grace.
[00:21:58] Those that God has called to his love.
[00:22:02] He has prompted us to trust him and we have received his call.
[00:22:07] Now this is not a theme that's meant to spin you out or
[00:22:11] shake your faith.
[00:22:13] It's not meant to be taken out of context and placed into a
[00:22:16] sterile or unfeeling theological system.
[00:22:19] No way.
[00:22:20] Being elect, that doctrine is meant to bring celebration from
[00:22:26] the Christian heart.
[00:22:27] God chose Adam, God chose Noah, God chose Abraham,
[00:22:30] God chose Israel and if you're in Christ, God chose you.
[00:22:36] And Peter wanted his readers to celebrate how the entire
[00:22:40] triune God had chosen them.
[00:22:43] He did this by alluding to the Father and the Spirit and the
[00:22:46] Son in the second verse that we read today.
[00:22:48] What did the Father do?
[00:22:50] Well he said in verse two, he elected us according to the
[00:22:53] foreknowledge of God the Father.
[00:22:55] I don't think this means that God knew that we would
[00:22:58] choose him so he chose us first.
[00:23:02] I suspect what it means is that he knows, he knows
[00:23:05] us, he knows his plans and we are part of those plans.
[00:23:09] These suffering believers would have celebrated that the
[00:23:12] Father knew them and his plans for them.
[00:23:16] What did the Spirit do?
[00:23:18] Well Peter tells us in verse two that the Spirit sets us
[00:23:21] apart for sanctification.
[00:23:24] This word often refers to the process of spiritual growth
[00:23:28] during the Christian life.
[00:23:30] But it is used here to describe the act of setting us
[00:23:33] apart to God at the point of salvation.
[00:23:37] When these beleaguered Christians trusted Christ,
[00:23:40] the Spirit set them apart for God.
[00:23:43] Like a special dish used for a special purpose.
[00:23:47] You know I'm thinking of my daily favorite coffee mug that
[00:23:50] I like to use.
[00:23:52] God when he set us apart set us aside for a special
[00:23:56] purpose and this comforts us during times of persecution.
[00:24:01] But what did the Son do?
[00:24:04] Well it says in verse two that the Son chose us for
[00:24:07] obedience to him and for the sprinkling of his blood.
[00:24:11] This means we're chosen by God to receive the gospel of
[00:24:14] Christ, obey the King who is Christ and declare the
[00:24:18] gospel of his blood to the world.
[00:24:21] These early believers would have been encouraged to know
[00:24:23] that their trials were not in vain.
[00:24:26] God had a mission for them to engage in that was
[00:24:29] based on all that they'd received about Jesus.
[00:24:33] And all this talk from Peter about our identity in God
[00:24:37] is meant to encourage us.
[00:24:39] If we feel alien to our world, at least we know God
[00:24:44] accepts us.
[00:24:47] If we feel we have fewer opportunities to root down
[00:24:50] in culture because of our faith, at least we know
[00:24:53] we have roots in God.
[00:24:56] And if we feel like we aren't given a place or purpose
[00:24:59] by society, at least we know that God has given us
[00:25:03] his gospel and a mission to proclaim it.
[00:25:07] You see these original hearers would have been greatly
[00:25:10] encouraged to know that despite all their trials
[00:25:13] and rejection and the difficulty of being a
[00:25:16] Christian in their world at that time they
[00:25:19] belonged to God.
[00:25:22] This is important.
[00:25:24] I don't know if you remember the first time you ever
[00:25:26] rode a roller coaster that went upside down,
[00:25:29] but I can remember the first time it was at the
[00:25:31] Santa Clara's Great America.
[00:25:33] My dad and I rode the demon together.
[00:25:36] I was probably like seven or eight years old.
[00:25:39] And I remember being terrified.
[00:25:41] I didn't understand physics and how I'd be pinned
[00:25:44] in my seat because of the velocity at which
[00:25:47] we were traveling as we made that loop.
[00:25:49] I thought there was a good chance I might fall out
[00:25:51] of the roller coaster, but once we got in to that
[00:25:54] little car and they strapped me in and put that
[00:25:58] harness around me and brought down that shoulder
[00:26:01] restraint, I knew that I was firmly connected
[00:26:05] to the car and I trusted that that car was
[00:26:08] firmly connected to the track.
[00:26:11] In a similar way if believers understand how
[00:26:15] firmly attached we are to God then we'll
[00:26:19] be strengthened and calm when persecution hits.
[00:26:22] The ride might be rough, but we are secure in him.
[00:26:27] All right let me wrap up this introductory teaching
[00:26:30] on 1st Peter by looking at one last thing.
[00:26:34] I want to show you the theme that I've chosen
[00:26:37] for our study of 1st Peter.
[00:26:39] I'm calling this series The Grace of Exile.
[00:26:44] And I've taken this from a little verse at the
[00:26:47] very end of the letter.
[00:26:49] Paul, Peter, excuse me concluded this letter by
[00:26:52] saying in chapter 5 verse 12, I've written briefly
[00:26:56] to you exhorting and declaring that this is the
[00:26:59] true grace of God, stand firm in it.
[00:27:04] So what that means is that Peter saw everything
[00:27:07] that he wrote in this letter as an exhortation
[00:27:11] and a declaration of the true grace of God.
[00:27:17] You know if you take time to read this letter
[00:27:19] and I'd encourage you, you should read this letter
[00:27:21] this week, it's five chapters long.
[00:27:24] It'll take you 15 to 20 minutes to just read it
[00:27:28] in one sitting.
[00:27:29] What you'll discover is that it's a description
[00:27:33] of the life of exile.
[00:27:35] Hard ships abound, ridicule exists,
[00:27:38] decisions to live unlike everyone else are present
[00:27:43] and through it all, though it's a life on the fringes,
[00:27:47] life as a religious minority, Peter said in conclusion
[00:27:52] that it's a life full of God's true grace.
[00:27:58] Now this might be confusing to us because grace
[00:28:01] means favor and when living on the margins of society
[00:28:05] rather than at the center of it,
[00:28:08] it's hard to feel like we're favored by God
[00:28:11] and I think Peter wants us to get excited
[00:28:14] about the possibilities that come
[00:28:17] with being in the vast minority.
[00:28:21] The scales of dead religion and nominal Christianity fall off
[00:28:27] because there's no good reason for people
[00:28:29] to pretend to be Christian.
[00:28:32] What's left is a pure, holier, more vibrant church.
[00:28:37] It might be smaller, but at least it's not dead.
[00:28:41] You see a live is grace, a live is fun,
[00:28:45] a live is a blessing and I think this is a shift
[00:28:50] that this book, first Peter can help us make.
[00:28:54] Like I said earlier, it's been a long time
[00:28:56] since the true church, not just the church in name
[00:29:02] but the true church, real believers,
[00:29:04] it's been a long time since we've been the majority in the West
[00:29:08] though we still often struggle to believe it.
[00:29:11] But we've got a shift, we've got a shift in our hearts
[00:29:13] from maintenance to mission, from settling to sojourning,
[00:29:19] from accepted to alien.
[00:29:22] I think it's the only way forward
[00:29:24] and I think Peter wants us to sense an excitement,
[00:29:28] to feel excitement about that possibility.
[00:29:32] But this shift is hard.
[00:29:34] You know it's tempting to try to dominate the culture
[00:29:36] as a Christian majority,
[00:29:39] but it's exciting to learn to live and engage culture
[00:29:42] as a Christian minority.
[00:29:45] I believe we are where these exiles who received this letter
[00:29:49] were at by and large.
[00:29:52] I mean this is California after all, we are exiles.
[00:29:57] All that said, let me conclude by stating some goals
[00:30:01] that I think we can reasonably have
[00:30:04] for our study of 1 Peter.
[00:30:06] You know why would I study a book of the Bible?
[00:30:08] Why would I want to learn a certain passage of Scripture?
[00:30:12] So let's think about this for this book
[00:30:15] because Lord willing I'm going to take my time
[00:30:17] going through this book.
[00:30:19] It's very dense, I think there's something like
[00:30:21] 60 or 70 exhortations scattered throughout the book.
[00:30:24] It's a very exhortive kind of book
[00:30:26] and each one kind of deserves its own meditation.
[00:30:29] So it's an easy book to take slowly.
[00:30:32] And here are four things, there's many things I hope happen
[00:30:35] during our time looking at this book
[00:30:37] but let me give you four things I hope to have happen
[00:30:39] as we study 1 Peter together.
[00:30:42] Number one, my hope is that we would learn to rejoice
[00:30:46] so much in what we have in Christ
[00:30:49] that we would never compromise to get what we can of the world.
[00:30:54] You know one of the greatest protections
[00:30:57] against theological or lifestyle error
[00:31:00] is being fully and completely satisfied
[00:31:04] in and with Jesus.
[00:31:07] And Peter is going to totally take that tone
[00:31:10] right out of the gate starting with our study next week.
[00:31:13] Number two, my prayer is that we would learn better
[00:31:17] how to bless our community with the gospel.
[00:31:20] That we'd learn better how to bless our community
[00:31:23] with the gospel.
[00:31:24] And what I mean by that is that the days of people
[00:31:27] coming to church gatherings when searching for something
[00:31:32] are really largely over.
[00:31:35] You know people with a church background
[00:31:38] maybe who've run from God previously
[00:31:40] they might wander back into our public gatherings.
[00:31:44] You know maybe their parents raised them to be believers
[00:31:47] but they rebelled for a season.
[00:31:49] They might come to a church gathering
[00:31:51] and search for something.
[00:31:53] But that group is actually getting smaller statistically
[00:31:57] every single year.
[00:31:59] We have to think a little bit more according to the Luke 14-23
[00:32:03] phrase of going out into the highways and the hedges
[00:32:07] with the gospel.
[00:32:09] And so I'm hoping and praying that as we wrestle
[00:32:12] with 1 Peter we'll see some fresh ways
[00:32:15] to be bringing the gospel to the community
[00:32:18] rather than just kind of hoping that the community comes
[00:32:21] to us to hear the gospel.
[00:32:25] My third prayer is that we would discover fresh
[00:32:28] biblical ways to build up our gospel community,
[00:32:32] the church, so that we can lean into each other
[00:32:35] during the difficult strain of social rejection.
[00:32:40] You know one antidote to rejection from the community
[00:32:43] is the acceptance of Jesus' community.
[00:32:47] And I think we're moving well past the days
[00:32:50] of attending church twice a month
[00:32:53] as like our total pushback against the pressures
[00:32:58] that are on us from society.
[00:33:00] I think we need a lot more.
[00:33:02] We really need each other, we need the word.
[00:33:05] So I hope that this book 1 Peter
[00:33:07] brings us up biblical strategies that we can cultivate
[00:33:10] as a church in the years to come
[00:33:12] that will help us cultivate a stronger
[00:33:14] and healthier gospel centered church community.
[00:33:18] And then number four to wrap this up today,
[00:33:21] my prayer is that as we study this book,
[00:33:23] those of us in our church family
[00:33:26] who feel the strongest sense of social exclusion
[00:33:31] because of their belief in Jesus
[00:33:33] would be comforted by the life that Peter describes.
[00:33:39] You know for example, this is just one group,
[00:33:41] I think of those of you that are serving
[00:33:43] and studying on university campuses.
[00:33:47] You know there's a strong intolerance
[00:33:49] of the Christian faith on many campuses
[00:33:52] and in many classrooms.
[00:33:54] So I pray that this book 1 Peter
[00:33:56] will give you the encouragement that you need,
[00:33:59] first of all, but also will give you
[00:34:01] the wisdom and discernment that you need
[00:34:04] to help you navigate your setting.
[00:34:07] And there are of course many similar environments,
[00:34:10] some major, some minor, some physical,
[00:34:12] you know some corporate, your job,
[00:34:14] some digital, just the digital space.
[00:34:17] And I hope that this book will help you
[00:34:19] learn to navigate all of them well as a Christian.
[00:34:23] So I hope you can tell that I'm very excited
[00:34:26] to get into the book of 1 Peter together
[00:34:30] because as Peter said in his opening verse,
[00:34:33] I believe that we are the elect exiles
[00:34:37] dispersed and scattered in this community,
[00:34:41] the Monterey Peninsula and beyond for a purpose.
[00:34:46] And I hope and pray that 1 Peter
[00:34:48] helps us dial in, connect to that purpose really well.