In this passage we read about “God’s elect” (NIV) or “elect exiles” (ESV). Election and predestination are often equated as one and the same, but while the two are similar, there is a distinction. Predestination refers to all that God has ordained. For instance, it was predestined that Judas would betray Jesus and that Jesus would be tried by Pilate and put to death. But our election was also predestined. Our election as God’s people is a subset – a part of – predestination.

 

We also see in this passage that each person in the Trinity has an active a part in our salvation. This knowledge gives us joy and confidence in our salvation, for its success is accomplished by our triune God. Seeing the work of Christ, in harmony with the Father and the Holy Spirit, also gives us reason for joyful praise and obedient living. With that in mind, we read from 1 Peter 1:1-9…

 

Scripture reading: 1 Peter 1:1-9

Text: 1 Peter 1:1-2

 

Have you ever felt really alone, even when you are in a large crowd of people? Maybe you are caught in traffic, one person in a car, stuck in a traffic jam that goes for miles. Or maybe you've gone downtown for an appointment. There are so many people, and you are just one person in the sea of humanity. The person who you will see at the appointment might know you, but all these others, rushing about their business don't know you and you don't know them. You might feel as though you are a stranger in the world.

 

And if you feel that way sometimes, it is because you are! As Peter wrote this letter, inspired by the Holy Spirit, he addresses us, in the older translation of the NIV (1984), as “strangers in the world.” The ESV uses a more literal translation than the NIV. The ESV describes the first century readers of this letter as “elect exiles of the Dispersion.” The Dispersion refers to the way the Jewish people were dispersed among the nations of the world. But in this context, Peter is addressing Gentiles, and acknowledging that as Christians we are scattered around the world and strangers to it.

 

We are exiles, or strangers, in the sense that we do not fit in with the world’s values and we do not live up to their expectations. Our real home is in heaven. The word translated “stranger” in the NIV and “exile” in the ESV carries the same concept as the Hebrew word describing Abraham. In Genesis 23:4 Abraham says, “I am a sojourner and foreigner among you…”  We, like him, are looking forward to our real home in heaven, to “the city having foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb. 11:10). And as such, we are strangers in this world, exiles from our true eternal home.

 

But although we are strangers in a hostile world, God’s word, here in the opening verses of 1 Peter, gives us great encouragement. God’s word reminds us that we are thoroughly known by God, for we are his elect, who have been chosen “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.”

 

There is a popular view of election which teaches that God the Father looked down through the “tunnel of time” to see who would believe in his Son and who would reject his Son. If God the Father, looking through the tunnel time, saw that someone would believe in Christ, then he would write that name in the book of life and that person would be one of God’s elect, predestined to be saved based on God’s foreknowledge of what that person would do – that he or she would believe in Christ.

 

That view sounds nice to human ears because it puts God on our level and gives us a simple explanation for the sometimes hard to understand concept of predestination and election. However, that popular view is wrong for many reasons, including that, first, if God looked through “the tunnel of time” to see who would believe in his Son, he would see that everyone – every single person who has ever lived, except for Jesus – has failed to earn the designation as “God’s elect”. Romans 3:10 puts it so clearly: “There is no one righteous, no not one.” “…For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23).

 

Given our own choice, apart from God’s enabling grace, we would choose the same path as Adam and Eve. We would follow the serpent rather than the Savior. The only reason any of us believes in Jesus Christ with saving faith is because God, in grace, has given us the gift of faith. Ephesians 2:8-9: “For it is by grace you have been saved through faith, and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast.” Our predestination as God’s elect is not based on any goodness in us. It is not based on foreseen faith. As Jesus said in John 15:16, “You did not choose me, but I chose you.”

 

Not only does that common view of God’s foreknowledge – that he knew who would believe in him as he looked through the tunnel of time fail from a theological viewpoint, but it also fails linguistically. The word “know” is a special and meaningful word in the Bible. The Bible uses the word “know” in a different sense than we do today. To know someone, in biblical language, means to love them. That is why the old King James Version translates Genesis 4:1 as “Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain...”  He didn’t just know her in the intellectual sense as we use the word today, rather he had an intimate love for her – a love that is meant to reflect the love Christ has for the true church, his bride. (Eph. 4:31, 32)

 

Our election is based on God’s choice and it is eternal love. When God says that he “foreknows” us, he is saying that he has an eternal love for us. That is why it is all of grace.  Ephesians 1:3-6 puts it beautifully: “...Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.”

 

It is that truth which we sing in that grand hymn on election:

 

I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew

He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me.

It was not I that found, O Savior true;

No, I was found of Thee.

     

The next time you feel all alone in a crowd, when you realize you are a stranger in the world and that the world holds hostility toward you, remember the eternal love of God for his own. Rejoice that for his own good pleasure he chose to redeem you, and to redeem me, from all our sins, all of grace, through no merit of our own. His love for us is truly unconditional and eternal.

 

 

As God’s people, as God’s elect, verse 2 tells us that we are sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In order to sanctify us, that is, to give us spiritual growth, the Holy Spirit first must give us a new birth. He regenerates us so that we are born again, literally “born from above”, as Jesus explained to Nicodemus in John 3.

 

The Holy Spirit works through the word which he inspired the authors of Scripture to write. By doing so, he gives us eyes to see the biblical truth that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And he brings that picture of universal sin home to the heart of the elect with great conviction, so that we recognize our need for salvation.

 

In that process, the Holy Spirit pierces us with the Word.  Hebrews 4:12, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Until we have been cut and convicted by the Word of God, as the Holy Spirit brings it home to our heart, we will not see our need to have saving faith in Christ alone for salvation from our sin.

 

As the Holy Spirit convicts us and regenerates us, giving us birth from above so that we are born again spiritually, he gives us a new heart. From the heart we confess our sin and from the heart we believe in the cleansing power of Jesus Christ to forgive us and to redeem us (Rom. 10:9-11). Without that initial work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, none of us would be saved. It is proof of our election and predestination that we have responded with faith as the Holy Spirit has worked in our lives.

 

But just as parents nurture the children that God has given to them, and seek to shape and mold their children – for their children's good, even though it doesn’t always seem that way to the children – so too the Holy Spirit continually works upon us. And that work of the Holy Spirit involves, by necessity, a painful work of shaping and molding.

 

We are sinners, crooked in every way imaginable. As Jeremiah 17:9 puts it, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?”  So as the Holy Spirit shapes and molds sinners after the likeness of their sinless Savior, pain is involved.

 

As we will see in verses 6 and 7, our faithful God uses the trials, suffering, and griefs of our lives in that molding process. And as he does so, our faith is strengthened – even though it may flicker at times, it yet is strengthened and endures. This, too, is part of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit within us.

 

 

The purpose of the Holy Spirit’s sanctifying work is not to hurt us, but rather to shape us in such a way that we may be increasingly obedient to Jesus Christ. Verse 2 goes on to speak about the sanctifying work of the Spirit, and gives the purpose for our sanctification, “for obedience to Jesus Christ…”

 

The person who is not sanctified by the Holy Spirit cannot obey Christ. Without the Holy Spirit they cannot believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and “without faith it is impossible to please God, for anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him” (Heb. 11:6). In the words of 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.” (I Cor. 2:14)

 

But when, by the Holy Spirit’s regenerating power, we have that gift of faith, then we find great joy in obedience. Obedience to Christ becomes the goal of our life, as we express our gratitude for his shed blood by obedience to his commands. As Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

     

For those who love the Lord there is great joy in obedience. Obedience is both the test and the proof of God's election: “By their fruits,” Jesus said, “you will know them.” (Matt. 7:20) And again, he said, “Each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush.” (Luke 6:44)

 

By contrast, disobedience always brings sorrow. Peter, of all people, knew the sorrow of disobedience. When Jesus was on trial, Peter denied ever knowing the Lord. He denied knowing Jesus three times with curses. And then the rooster crowed, just as Jesus had foretold, and Peter went out and wept bitterly. That is how it is for believers when they disobey; our disobedience is accompanied with bitter grief.

 

But when by God's grace, and the Holy Spirit's sanctifying power, we have a measure of obedience to the word of God, then there is great joy. We seek to be obedient because we love the Lord and take to heart his words, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

  

 

Verse 2 not only speaks about obedience to Jesus Christ but also about the “sprinkling with his blood”. The phrase takes us back to Calvary and focuses us on the greatest sacrifice ever made: Christ Jesus offering himself as the propitiation – the atonement – for sinners by shedding his blood on the cross, and there taking the full curse of all the sins of God’s elect upon himself, thus appeasing the righteous and proper wrath of our triune God against sin.

 

By the shed blood of Jesus we have full assurance of forgiveness and salvation, even though our sanctification is never complete in this life. That is part of God’s grace to us. And then the grace of God, as well as the peace of God, is multiplied in the life of his elect.

 

The closing phrase of verse 2 in the NIV is rendered: “Grace and peace be yours in abundance.” The ESV gives the more literal translation, “May grace and peace be multiplied to you.”

 

You young children among us know the power of multiplication. You can take two numbers, for example two fives, and add them together and you have 10. But when you multiply those two fives you have 25. If you add 25 + 25 you have 50, but if you multiply 25 x 25 you have 625.

 

Anything that is multiplied will grow rapidly. And that applies to God’s grace and peace. God's grace and peace multiply rapidly, which is a great blessing to those of us who are God’s elect, strangers in the world. In the words of John 1:16, “For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace.”

 

 

How then are we to respond? In addition to enduring in our faith, two responses that are brought up repeatedly in this letter are praise and obedience. Do you know the love of your heavenly Father? Have you experienced his tender care for you, the provision of daily bread and innumerable other blessings as he guides and protects you?  Then praise him!

 

Do you know the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in your life? Do you find joy in immersing yourself in the word that he inspired the writers of Scripture to write? Are you thankful for the conviction that brings repentance? Are you thankful for the new birth, a new heart, to have saving faith in Jesus for forgiveness? Then praise him!

   

Do you know the power of the blood of Jesus, the power to cleanse us from every sin? Do you know the love of the Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich in the glory of heaven he became poor and suffered and died for sinners? Do you realize that he not only forgives God’s elect but imputes his perfect righteousness to each one of us who has saving faith in Christ? Then praise him!

 

And the best way to praise him is by living an obedient life. That is another theme that we will see repeatedly in this letter. Living a life of obedience is crucial because it has a two-fold blessing: it glorifies God, and by obedient living we have true joy and peace.

 

If you are God’s elect child, then you cannot sin willfully and have peace in abundance. Instead you will be filled with guilt and sorrow, much as David was filled with guilt and sorrow when he wrote about his unconfessed sin in Psalm 32:

 

 

   and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah (Psalm 32:3-5)

 

There is great biblical truth in the words of a familiar hymn:

 

When we walk with the Lord in the light of his word,
what a glory he sheds on our way!
While we do his good will, he abides with us still,
and with all who will trust and obey.

 

Refrain:
Trust and obey, for there's no other way
to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey. (John H. Sammis, 1887)

 

1 John 4:2-6 puts it into perspective: “Whoever says ‘I know him’ but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked.”

___

 

We are just passing through this earth. Our real home is in heaven. We are exiles here. People look at us as though we were strange; we don't fit in with others in the world. As Peter points out in 1 Peter 4:4, “…They are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you…”

 

Yet in such a world, we have grace and peace multiplied to us. As God’s elect, we experience the eternal love of the Father, the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit and the power of forgiveness through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. We remain, sadly, sinners in this life; yet, joyfully, we are sinners saved by grace.

 

May those truths greatly encourage each one of us who are exiles, strangers in the world, looking forward to our true home, “The city having foundations, whose architect and builder is God” (Heb 11:10). Amen.

 

Bulletin outline:

 

    Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

 

 

 

                               Scripture reading: 1 Peter 1:1-9

                                        Text: 1 Peter 1:1-2

 

I.  God’s elect, strangers in the world, are thoroughly known by God.

     We are:

     1) Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father (2a)

 

 

 

 

     2) Sanctified by the Holy Spirit (2b), who gives new birth (John 3:3)

 

 

 

 

     3) Equipped to obey Christ, having been cleansed by His blood (2c)

 

 

 

 

     4) Recipients of the multiplication of His grace and peace (2d)

 

 

 

 

II. The response of God’s elect: Praise (3), enduring faith (7) and

     obedience (2)