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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

Crisis of Identity - Thoughts on 1 Peter 2:9,10

We've been in a series on the general epistle written by Peter for the entire church.

And also this weekend we've been looking at the book of James.

Our students have been looking at another general epistle.

The only other general epistles are 1st, 2nd, 3rd John, So maybe we should cover those as well this weekend.

But these general epistles were meant for the entire church and lessons to be learned from them.

We only have a few moments today, but we'll look here in the book of James.

Now, as I was thinking about how to introduce this particular message today, I remember the story that I heard about a man who did not really want to go to church 1 day.

And his wife began to gently try to reason with him about why he should go to church that day.

She said, Honey, you really need to go to church.

Number 2, you'll feel better if you do go.

Number 3, you're the pastor of the church.

Now be honest with me today, have you ever felt like that, poor pastor?

I was looking forward to being here today.

But have you ever felt ambivalent about church?

Have you ever felt or have you ever heard people say, I like Jesus, But I don't like church that much.

I'm interested in God, but I don't want to go to church.

And many times that's asking for a conversation, right?

And that's really the introduction of our text today.

Because you know, in Peter's day, there were many reasons that people could have given not to go to church.

Father in heaven, Lord bless us as we look at this important subject of Christ and His church.

We've just had a prayer laying aside someone to work in that church, and we're here gathered as a church.

So bless us as we consider this in Christ's name, amen.

So in Peter's day there were many reasons maybe not to want to go to church like Noah mentioned in the children's story.

The church people were known as strangers or pilgrims.

They were tested by fire and they were rejected by men.

And the Gentiles were always speaking and it wasn't positively about them.

Every time the news came on, it was negative.

They were enduring grief, they were suffering wrongfully, they were doing good and still suffering for it.

They were being threatened and they were being defamed.

And anything that they did, even that was positive, was seen as negative.

And so if anybody would be tempted not to go to church, it would be people in Peter's day.

And if any would be tempted not to confess Christ, it would be people in Peter's day.

In fact, some scholars have said that our day is becoming more and more like Peter's day, where Christianity is no longer the ascendant dominating force in culture, and things that are being said about Christians and Christianity that sometimes are a little hard to hear.

1 author of that time said, "'Christians are no different from the rest of their nationality, language, or customs.

They live in their own countries but are sojourners.

They fulfill all their duties as citizens but they suffer as foreigners.

They find their homeland wherever they are but their homeland is not in any 1 place.

They are in the flesh but do not live according to the flesh.

They live on earth but are citizens of heaven.

They obey all the laws but they obey at a higher level and so they're ridiculed.

Everything they do that might be right is seen as wrong.

And these people, could they have been tempted to say, I don't really want to go to church that day.

Could they have been like that pastor who said, what's the use?

Could they be tempted to disavow their belief in Christ?

And that's why Peter is saying what he's saying in our text today, 1 Peter 2, verse 9 and 10.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.

Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

We can learn several things from this lesson.

Number 1, we need to remember who we are as people.

The text gave us several things to consider.

A chosen generation, it says, by the way there's genos, which means race.

We are, we've been born again, we've learned in Peter.

And by the way, 1st Peter really was a manual for newly baptized people.

They had rested their hope fully in the grace of God.

They were hoping in God based on the eternal Word of God that does not wither.

They were God's possession and they were called.

No matter how they felt, no matter what happened in their midbrain, they knew with their frontal lobes that God had called them.

How many think it's important to know who you are, especially today, as a person?

Peter was saying to the pilgrims who were tried and tested and suffering by fire, People have been tempted not to go to church.

You're a brand plucked from the burning." Now 1 of my favorite stories, of course, is the story of Peter.

Peter was a fisherman And that was his identity.

If you go to Capernaum, you can see his house even today where they think it was.

He was a successful fisherman right next to the synagogue there.

But when Jesus was dealing with Peter, he realized Peter had some identity issues.

And it's interesting to me to notice that the devil tries to raise questions about identity today and he also did back then.

And right after Jesus had gone through his own identity crisis or attack on his identity, he began to talk to Peter.

Remember how Satan had come to him and said, if you are the son of God, if you are this, questioned his identity, and Jesus had got through that by saying, look, I rest my identity on the word of God.

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Crisis of Identity - Thoughts on 1 Peter 2:9,10

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