Everyone knows the words to Amazing Grace, but have you ever stopped to think about the play on words in that second verse?

It was “grace that taught my heart to fear”, to fear God, good kind of fear… And grace my fears relieved, bad kind of fear, grace relieves those kind.

It teaches us the the right kind of fear, and takes away the wrong kind. That’s the kind of grace that lets you sing, “my chains are gone, I’ve been set free”

Well, if you have your Bibles, open them up or turn them on, and let’s go to 1 Peter, chapter 1

Last week started new series in 1 Peter, “A Sojourner’s Guide to Hope”. As we go through this book, the title of the series will make more and more sense to you.

Now we didn’t do all of the typical introductory first-sunday-in-a-new-book stuff last week, because coming off the heels of Easter I wanted to go directly to this living hope that we’ve been born into by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

But that doesn’t mean we can just leave all that introductory work undone. I’ve told you before, one of the reasons I believe expositional preaching through God’s word is vital to church life is because it allows us to be a more biblically literate people, to dig in for an extended period of time and really mine the depths of the riches of God’s word, not just skim the surface for little nuggets.

So, in that case, let’s talk about 1 Peter for a few minutes.

Intro to 1 Peter

Authorship

It’s pretty obvious from the title who the author is, but just in case there’s any confusion, the first sentence clears that up: “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ.”

People love Peter because there is something about him we can identify with.

We read about Peter’s denial of Christ during the Good Friday service, we read about his running to the tomb Easter Sunday morning, but what we didn’t touch on was Jesus’ restoration and commissioning of Peter after the resurrection.

And Peter did that, this letter is the evidence, in writing, that Peter fed the sheep, not just in his lifetime in the first century, but by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, from the first century all the way to the twenty-first century where we find ourselves today, studying this book.

Date & Location

Most scholars believe this book was written in 62-64 AD, so roughly 30 years after Jesus’ resurrection. Part of the reasoning there is that Peter is writing from Rome, he refers to it as Babylon in chapter 5. Now Paul was also under house arrest in Rome from 60-62, and he didn’t mention Peter being there in any of the letters he wrote, and Peter doesn’t mention Paul, either.

Audience

So who’s he writing to? Well, he tells us right off the bat in verse 1:

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ those chosen, living as exiles dispersed abroad in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia…

1 Peter 1:1

So he’s writing to Christians in these places he lists, which are Roman Provinces. Gotta break out the maps again at the beginning of a new series!

  1. Here is a map of the Mediterranean area during the Roman Empire. So you can see Jerusalem over at the bottom right, and where Paul is writing from in Rome is toward the top left.

  2. Here are the provinces he is writing to, Pontus & Bithynia, Cappadocia, Galatia, and Asia. So he is writing to the believers in that area.

  3. And just so you know where we’re talking about, here’s a current day map of the same area. It’s mostly Turkey. So if Peter were writing today, he would say, “To the chosen, living as exiles in Turkey…”

Elect Exiles

So Peter is writing to these believers who are living as exiles in the land… and us believers living as exiles in our land.

I told you last week that this book was written to people who were going through trials. They were being persecuted. It had started in Rome, and was spreading to the outer regions of the empire. Nero was the emperor of Rome at the time, he wanted to rebuild Rome, so he had it set on fire and then blamed this new religious sect for it, the Followers of the Way, Christians. And it worked, because people always want someone to blame.

A great persecution broke out toward Christians. When in chapter 4 he tells them, “Don’t be surprised when the fiery trial comes among you to test you, as if something unusual were happening”, it’s a metaphor that resonated, because Christians were being burned at the stake.

And so right off the bat in this letter, he calls them exiles. And that’s exactly what they are… and exactly what we are. He’s not just talking about being exiles in a physical sense, there’s a deeper spiritual meaning at play in these first words.

He comes back to the idea later on, in chapter 2, as he encourages them as “strangers and exiles”, to abstain from sinful desires that wage war against their souls.

Even though I really want to, I’m not going to preach the message on living as exiles. I’ll save most of that for chapter 2. But it is in our text for this morning, so let me just ask this: do you ever feel like you don’t belong? Like the old hymn, “I can’t feel at home in this world anymore” could be your theme song?

Be encouraged this morning: that’s a really good sign. The people of God are exiles in this world. Exiles. Strangers. Aliens. The word in the title of this series, sojourner. The King James uses the word “pilgrim”, not in the Mayflower way of course, but the actual definition of the word, “a person who journeys to a sacred place.”

Those of us who put our faith and trust in Christ, we are citizens of an entirely different Kingdom, which makes us exiles, foreign to the kingdoms of this world. It’s always been that way, and it will be that way until our King returns and conquers once and for all the kingdoms of this world.

Okay, got to leave that for chapter 2. I can’t wait to get there.

If you were writing to these brothers and sisters, what would you start with? Where would you begin your letter to them? What’s the first thing you would want them to know right out of the gate?

Here’s where Peter starts his encouragement to these suffering saints: a reminder of the new identity they’ve been given through the saving work of each member of the Trinity.

And do you know what you and I need during this time? Almost constant reminders of who we are because of Whose we are.

Who are they? Who are we? We are the “chosen, living as exiles.” That’s the way the CSB translates it, but I love the way the ESV says it even more, mainly because I am a preacher and I can’t resist good alliteration! It says, “To those who are elect exiles…”

I love that for so many reasons, besides the alliteration. There’s a balance to the tension in those words that just feels right to me.

Because being an exile isn’t normally thought of as being a good thing, is it? If someone is an exile, you feel bad for them. It usually means the land they were a part of has rejectedthem for some reason. Something bad has went down, and now they’re exiled. Or even the apostle John, in his later years he was exiled to the island of Patmos, where he wrote the book of Revelation.

So if this book to suffering saints (there’s the alliteration again, I can’t help myself!) started with to the exiles, that would be kind of depressing. But these are elect exiles. And that changes everything. Because now there is meaning to the suffering. There is a purpose behind it. There is a loving Father, a empowering Spirit, and a risen Savior behind our living as sojourners in this world, with all of its problems.

And he goes on to explain in verse 2 how that came about, what’s going on in us right now, and the purpose of it all.

Let’s read that second part of our text this morning…

…chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 1:2

Now that verse may have made some of you uncomfortable. Oh boy, here we go… the topic that everyone wants to either talk about ad naseum or avoid like the plague—no COVID-19 pun intended!

Here’s what I would ask of you this morning, especially those of you who’ve had these discussions, sometimes heated, involving words and labels and acrostics and flowers—none of which I am going to use this morning—and unfortunately, these discussions usually include a lot of straw men with a side of ad hominem and generally ungodly attitudes on both sides.

And if you have no idea what I was just talking about… count yourself blessed!

Here’s what I ask this morning: that we lay aside all of that, all our philosophical arguments and proof text verses, and we just simply look at the text and try to understand how Peter intends to encourage these struggling believers. Okay? Good.

With that out of the way, what’s the first thing that Peter wanted these believers to know, to remember during these hard times? Who God is and what He has done for them in their salvation.

He does that by pointing to each person of the Trinity and their unique parts in our salvation and we’re going to do the same.

Before we even go on, though, I just want to point this out, because it’s exactly opposite of our culture, even our church culture. In his encouragement for these believers, Peter starts with doctrine. He starts with the Trinity, with election, sanctification, justification.

We don’t tend to live in that world. We want the quick answers, pragmatic steps, 3 ways to a better marriage. We want the easy to read devotional, the 90 second inspirational video, and a pithy statement to post on Facebook.

You’ll even hear believers, even churches say it out loud sometimes, “We don’t get into doctrine and theology.”

That’s not the way the Bible does it. This is an incredibly theologically dense verse, and we’re still in the greeting. Because in tough times, you don’t need milk. You need meat.

Okay, here’s Peter’s encouragement to these exiles:

1. You were chosen by the Father.

This is the doctrine that Peter leads with. We’re literally eight words into this book, and we get to the word chosen or elect. Right out of the gate, he starts with the reality that we are not exiles by accident. We’re exiles because we’re elect.

Here’s where you can see the difference we were talking about between a book by Peter and a book written by Paul. He is practical. He doesn’t delve deeply into the theory of election as does Paul in Ephesians 1 and Romans 9. He simply states the fact that these saints have been chosen by their Father according to the foreknowledge of God.

This idea of foreknowledge is so key, and it’s so deep, and it’s so easily misunderstood in our very Western way of thinking.

We tend to think of knowledge as cold, hard facts. Math. Science. Logic. And for sure, the Father has that kind of knowledge. He is omniscient, he knows everything. He knows everything that is, and he knows everything that could possible be. Every truth that humanity has ever discovered God already knew.

That is a glorious truth. That is not what we’re talking about here.

If you want to know what a word means, one of the first things to do is see if he uses it anywhere else. Maybe the second use of the word can shed some light on the first.

Down in verse 20 Peter uses that word again, but this time it’s not talking about us, it’s talking about Jesus himself:

He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was revealed in these last times for you.

1 Peter 1:20

That verse gives us a clue as to what this foreknowledge is about. It’s not just knowledge about the future. It’s way more than that. God the Father wasn’t outside of time looking into the future, seeing God the Son coming to earth and then going, “Okay, Jesus is going to come to earth, so that’s what I’m going to chose to do.” No, he was the Lamb of God, slain before the foundations of the world. It can’t possible mean that, because it the foreknowing preceded the revealing!

This is not a cold knowledge the facts of everything that will happen, every event, every choice that will be made. Every single time you see the idea of God’s foreknowledge of his people in the New Testament, it’s always directly connected to his choosing, redeeming, saving, adopting, electing love.

If you want to get to the heart of it in English, don’t think “God foreknowing all the facts and contingencies in the universe, and out of that he chose me. Think more fore-loving, and then you’ll be closer to the meaning, and the more you meditate on it, the more it’ll become clear why this is the first thing Peter wants them to remember.

God foreknew you. Your voice. Your eyes. Your smile. Your laugh. All your little quirks, all the little idiosyncrasies that make you you. (now would not be a good time to look over at your spouse, FYI. You do some pretty weird things, too). God the Father lovingly you watched develop all those little tics, and it made him smile.

And he knew all your sin. The worst ones you can think of, and all the ones you’re completely unaware of. The ones you’ve already done, and the ones that unfortunately are still yet to come. He knew all of it, and he knew the price that would have to be paid for them.

And how about all the non-sinful things that you just hate about yourself for whatever reason. We get hung up on some of the silliest things about ourselves sometimes, don’t we?

We hate the way we look, hate the way we sound when we hear our voice… He knew all of that too.

Child of God, your heavenly Father, from eternity past, knew you, deepest parts of you, more than anyone else… and He said, “I love her. She’s mine. He’s mine.”

The awareness that you are fully known and fully loved will get you through the hardest times this world has to throw at you.

I can’t tell you how deeply I feel this point this morning. I can look out at these empty pews in here and see all your faces, and as the one called to shepherd this little flock during these trying, insecure times, if I could just give you one thing this morning, it would be the overwhelming love and security of knowing that you have been foreknown and foreloved by your heavenly Father.

There’s a reason the Spirit, through Peter, starts here. The Father foreknew us and chosen us to be his elect exiles in this world.

Does that mean you didn’t choose him? I didn’t say that, the Bible clearly teaches that we are to repent from our sin and choose to put our faith in Christ. But that’s not the text we’re in today. This verse says, “You are elect. You are chosen.” When you did that, it was because He had already done that.

You were chosen by the Father, and that makes you an exile.

2. You’re being sanctified by the Spirit.

Okay, so we get that we were known and loved by the Father from eternity past. What’s going on right now? What does living as an elect exile look like in our daily lives?

Well, Peter will give lots of very clear definitions of how that works itself out as we go through this book, but this is the thing that is beneath all those other things: the Spirit is sanctifying us.

Sanctified is a big word that means being set apart. Being made holy. Being made to look more and more like Jesus.

That is one of the primary roles of the Spirit in your life and mine. As we behold his glory, like we read earlier, he is transforming us from one degree of glory to another. And if you look back, can’t you see that’s true? Little by little, bit by bit, he’s been molding you, shaping you, knocking off your rough edges, cleaning up the sin in your life… this is the spirit’s work of sanctification in the life of believers.

And that is a non-negotiable. If you are in Christ, it’s going to happen. Look at Romans 8:29, which is in the context of Paul teaching on the Holy Spirit’s work in believers:

For those he foreknew he also predestined [there’s that connection again] to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

Romans 8:29

Brother or sister struggling with your sin this morning, hear the good news again: just as sure as the Father’s eternal love for you is the Spirit’s sanctifying work in your life. If you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, you are right now, this very instant, being sanctified. You are a work in progress, and he who began a good work in you will see it to completion.

Now, you know what that means for our relationship with this world, right? It’s going be getting weirder and more uncomfortable as we go along. Why? Because it’s getting more and more obvious day by day, year by year, that we don’t belong here. Like Jesus prayed in John 17, “they are not of the world just as I am not of the world.” As you become more and more like Jesus, you become less and less of the world. Still in, but not of. Exiles.

Have you ever met an older Christian who just seemed otherworldly to you, in the best possible sense of the word? You could just tell that they were close to God in ways that you haven’t even began to explore yet. Don’t you just love to be around people like that? You walk away going, “Lord, help me get there quicker!” I want to be like that!

And to that the Spirit says, “Yes… I’m working on it. But it’s going to take a while.” From the time you are born again, till the time you die, you’re being sanctified by the Spirit.

That is encouragement for tough times. Even when my sin seems overwhelming, when you’re repenting for what seems like the millionth time, he’s still working, he’s still moving, he’s still sanctifying you from the inside out.

So encouragement to live as exiles:

  1. You’ve been chosen by the Father.
  2. You’re being sanctified by the Spirit.

3. You’ve been sprinkled by the Son.

This hearkens back to the story in Exodus where God’s people are entering a covenant with God. Moses reads the Law to the people, and they all respond, “We will obey!” And Moses sprinkled them with blood, signaling their purification from sin and sealing them in the covenant.

Peter is using an Old Covenant picture to show the New Covenant reality for us. We have been purified from our sin. We have been brought into the New Covenant. We have been sprinkled in the blood, the precious blood of the Lamb. Our garments are spotless, they’re white as snow, because we’ve been washed by the blood of the Lamb.

Do you see how every member of the Trinity is essential in this picture? They’re Three, and yet they’re One.

Nothing’s happening except for the love of the Father. We couldn’t be adopted as his children unless someone paid the price, the shedding of blood. And we cannot be sanctified apart from the spirit’s work.

It’s a glorious mystery, one we can’t comprehend, but we celebrate nonetheless. Our Trinitarian God has saved us.

Okay, let’s land this plane. Where do we go from here?

Do you feel like an stranger/exile?

If the answer is yes, praise God. Being an exile isn’t always fun, I know, but it’s worth it. Because the Kingdom we’re from is infinitely better than the world we’re living in as strangers now.

Most of us would probably answer “Sometimes.” Sometimes I feel like an outsider in the world, sometimes I find myself feeling pretty content there.

That’s good, you’re in process. Ask the Spirit to do His sanctifying work in you. Pray that the you wouldn’t feel comfortable in a world full of evil and injustice and rebellion.

And if the answer is no, I don’t feel any of that, because I love you I’ve got to tell you the truth, that’s a reason for serious concern. James 4:4 says,

Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God.

James 4:4

Those are serious words. Citizens of one kingdom feel out of place everywhere else.

Are you overwhelmed with guilt every time you screw up?

That’s a signpost, telling you that you haven’t fully grasped the glorious truth of the Gospel yet. There’s parts where it hasn’t gotten yet.

You are unconditionally loved by a Father who knows everything single thing about you. You have the Spirit inside of you, making you more and more holy little by little. And you have been purified by the blood. Made clean.

Are you experiencing the love of the Father who knows you fully and loves you completely?

I started to say, “Have you experienced”, but we’re not talking about in the past. I’m talking right now, this week, have you felt that close connection with a heavenly Father who knows you inside out and still says, “I love you. You’re mine.”

The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ [and Father and Spirit] than we ever dared hope.

Tim Keller