2003 UBF Mid-Atlantic Summer Bible Conference Wilson College, Chambersburg, PA
1 Peter 2:9
“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
Tonight, we will study one word from St. Peter’s letter to the early Christians living in Asia Minor. They had many problems to cope with. But Peter saw they were in imminent danger of being melted into the culture of the surrounding people. The same danger is lurking even in the Christian-dominated nations of our days. Last month there was a one-week ecumenical event in Berlin, the capital of Germany with several hundred thousand Catholics and Protestants. One of the main speakers was the Dalai Lama. In the press, his words received the greatest attention. To many people, Christianity is just a religion, one option among many. They choose their ideas and values from all kinds of different sources. Other Christians have become church hoppers. They want to choose a church that meets all their needs and desires. They do not know that Jesus is the only way to the Father in heaven. We should not be choosy people. The Bible says that we are chosen people. We were chosen by God for his purpose, not ours. May God help us to know and accept that we are a chosen people, chosen by God to be a blessing for the whole world.
First, we are a chosen people. As we heard on Thursday night, God chose one man, Abraham, to be a source of blessing for all peoples on earth. In order to fulfill his promise to Abraham and to carry out his world salvation plan, God led Abraham’s descendents to Egypt where they grew into a large number, the people of Israel. The Israelites were suppressed by the Egyptians and became slaves. But God was with them and brought them out of Egypt with his mighty hand and his outstretched arm. God summoned them at Mount Sinai to give them a constitution as a nation. The preamble of their constitution was Exodus 19:5-6a: “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” At first, the Israelites were very happy and thankful to be the chosen people of God because he had just brought them out of the slavery in Egypt. They were proud of being the chosen people of God. They believed that God would destroy before them the Canaanite people who worshipped all kinds of horrible idols.
Just as God had promised, he brought the Israelites into Canaan, a land flowing with milk and honey. They tasted the wonderful blessings of God – cities they had not built, trees and vineyards they had not planted, fields they had not sown. It was like paradise. And they were free; no overseer told them what to do. The Israelites really enjoyed God’s rich blessings. But then they became complacent and rejected God’s purpose for their lives. They were like the tenants of Jesus’ parable in Mark 12,1-12. The owner of the vineyard (God) created a perfect, fruitful environment. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants seized him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. When the owner sent other servants, the tenants even killed them. Finally, he sent his one and only son, whom he loved, to them. Did the tenants respect the owner’s son? No, they rejected him and killed him to keep the fruit of the vineyard all to themselves. That is exactly what the Israelites did when they rejected God’s purpose for them. They rejected Jesus and killed him. As a consequence they lost the privilege of being God’s chosen people. From then on, God began to choose himself another people out of all nations on earth.
The first of this new chosen people was Peter. Peter was a fisherman. His highest dream might have been to be elected president of the fishermen’s union. Then one day Jesus approached him. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will make you fishers of men.” (Mark 1:17) From that day on, Peter followed Jesus’ footsteps until he became one of the greatest teachers in world history. St. Peter, the early Christians, you, and I are all a chosen people. Jesus chose us from among tens of thousands of students when He spoke to us through one-to-one Bible study. Dirk Nowitzki was very grateful when he was chosen into the NBA all-star team. But one day he will be too old or too weak to be chosen again. It is a great honor to be chosen into a high school or college team. It is a great honor to be chosen to run for a Senate chair or for the presidential office. Still, the greatest honor is to be chosen by the almighty and loving God.
Shepherd Shannon Smith used to think that his life was meaningless. But God found him and chose him to be God’s workmanship to do many good works in Christ Jesus. Some 20 years ago, I was sitting in the entry office of my dorm doing phone service. I received many calls for all the other students in the dorm. Yet I never received a call for me, because I was selfish like Levi, the tax collector. But that night, I was called through Jesus’ servants. Through one-to-one Bible study, God chose me to be the first intern shepherd in Germany. According to John 15:16, Jesus said to me: “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.” Since Jesus has chosen me He has changed my inner person and blessed my life and made it fruitful. Yes, it is true, we are a chosen people of God. We are chosen to bear fruit that will last.
Second, we are a royal priesthood. Why “royal”? We are royals because we are born into the family of our Lord and King Jesus Christ. Why “priesthood”? A priest is a shepherd and prayer servant. A priest brings God to men and men to God. As priests, we must kneel down and pray for the students on our campus. We must study God’s word deeply and practice it in our own lives. Then we must go and help students to receive and accept ONE WORD of God in their hearts so that they will be won over for God. We are a royal priesthood. Being a medical doctor or being a professor is a noble obligation and highly respectable. But there is no profession in the world as noble and respectable as being a royal priesthood.
One classmate of our son Peter, named Christian, did not go to school for 8 weeks because of his inner fear of being beaten up. During this time, Missionary Wynelle went to Christian’s house almost every day and spent many hours trying to convince him to go back to school. On the one hand, he really wanted to go; on the other hand, he just couldn’t do it. He was completely paralyzed by fear. One morning I went there to help him. I persuaded, pulled, pushed and carried him to my car, which took 2 hours. Getting him out of the car took another hour. Getting him onto the schoolyard took an hour more, and it only worked when Peter came to help. In the end, Christian attended one lesson that day and didn’t come the day after. But much prayer and CBF Bible study in Cologne finally helped him overcome his inner fear. Presently, Christian is the most faithful Bible student in Dusseldorf. And he wants to be a shepherd, like Hirte Volker Keller.
Our Korean missionaries suffer a lot on the frontline of world mission. Not many people recognize them as missionaries. Sometimes they may consider themselves only as strangers in a foreign country on the bottom of society. But they are a royal priesthood. They are at the top of God’s society. Missionary Daniel Park works in a Korean company near Dusseldorf. But because he was hired in Germany, not in Korea, he receives lower pay and less respect than his younger colleagues, even though he works many unpaid extra hours and speaks German fluently while they don’t know the “ABC”. So, why should Missionary Daniel waste even more energy on Dusseldorf students who seem to be totally uninterested in Bible study? It is because God has chosen him for a good purpose. He renewed his decision to serve as a one-to-one Bible teacher and goes fishing every week. He is a royal priesthood, noble and highly respectable. Your campus and my campus need many royal priests like him. Then God can change the course of our nation and make it a priestly nation for the glory of God and for the salvation of men.
Third, we are a holy nation. A people belonging to God is a holy nation. All of us have sinned before God when we lived according to the evil desires we had when we lived in ignorance (1:14). We seemed to be free. But we were slaves to sin. We could not please God. In God’s eyes, we were not a people (2:10). But God had mercy on us and sent Jesus to die on the cross for our sins and transgressions. Jesus took our guilt and shame. Jesus took our sins away. “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” (2:24) By Jesus’ wounds we are healed. By Jesus’ wounds we are made holy. The grace of Jesus was too precious for the prophet Isaiah even to see in a vision. So he cried, “Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? .... Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Is. 53:1,4-5) Isaiah could not fathom that God who is holy, holy, holy must assume the body of sinful mankind and suffer and die for our sins. But that is exactly what God has done for us.
As Christians we must know that God is holy. We also must know that God commands us to live holy lives: “Be holy, because I am holy.” (1:16) This command is so important; it is repeated many times in the Bible. How can we live a holy life in this sinful, pleasure-seeking world? How can we live a holy life when everybody else strives for fun, instant gain, honor, power, and money? As a matter of fact, we make many mistakes and slide back into old habits. When we look at ourselves or when we look at the sinful world, we cannot live a holy life. When Jay, Tommy, Faith, Sarah B., Sarah Oh, Bill, Rebekah or Masi look at themselves, they cannot live a holy life. No, we must turn our eyes on Jesus. We are a holy nation not because of a blameless lifestyle. We are a holy nation because of the holy blood of Jesus that was shed for our sins. We are a holy nation because in Jesus we belong to God, not to the world. We are a holy nation because we have a holy desire to know Jesus more and more and more and more. We are a holy nation because we want to imitate Jesus in our everyday lives. Holy nation people have Jesus in their hearts and minds, and they fix their eyes on Jesus alone.
St. Peter used to bear a grudge in his heart because he constantly felt as if James and John were about to snatch away his leadership position. Because of this grudge surely he would have died of stomach cancer. But when he accepted the blood of Jesus for the forgiveness of his own terrible sin, his heart was changed. He could be one in heart and mind with John. They prayed together. They went fishing together. They helped spiritually and physically crippled people together. God used their coworking as a holy nation to increase the fellowship of the believers by thousands. By the same token, when we repent of our sins from our deep hearts and fix our eyes on Jesus alone, we can cowork well for the glory of God. Then God can bear much fruit in our ministry. Then our campus will turn into a holy ground, filled with holy children of God.
Look at verse 9 again. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” St. Peter did not say, “you will be....” or, “you may be....” He clearly says that we “are” a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. This is our present situation, no matter what other people think about us. It is very important that each of us knows who she or he is. A person, who doesn’t know who she or he is in Christ Jesus, is vulnerable to all kinds of attacks from Satan.
4. To declare the praises of God. Now that we really know we are a chosen people of God, what shall we do? Verse 9b says, “you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” God has chosen us to declare his praises. Once we were in darkness. We didn’t know whom or what we should live for. So we lived a self-seeking life, a life that didn’t honor God as the Almighty Creator. God created us for his glory. Our basic duty as God’s creation is to give glory and praises to God. When a student does not fulfill his basic duty to study well, he will soon be kicked out of college. But what did God do when we didn’t live according to our basic duty? God came to us and called us out of our spiritual darkness into his wonderful light. God chose us to reveal his glory in and through our lives. Here, St. Peter emphasizes that each of us should have a personal testimony of how God called him or her out of darkness into the wonderful light of Jesus. And we must share our testimony publicly, just as our life testimony speakers did last night.
What is the grace of God in your life? Isn’t it worth talking about? Some people want to wait with their testimony until they make an experience like Saul on the way to Damascus. But God doesn’t want you to get involved in a severe accident. That only hurts your body. It doesn’t naturally help your soul. You must be thankful for what God has already done for you in Jesus. God has ALREADY called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. God has ALREADY chosen you to be a royal priesthood and a holy nation. We must not complain about what we feel may be lacking in us. We must be thankful and start sharing the praises of God with the fellowship of believers, first, and then, soon after, with others.
In God, each of you is very special. In God, each of you is like a whole nation. Once Jesus helped a sinful Samaritan woman realize that he is the Christ. She had avoided the public because of her sinful lifestyle. But when she came to know Jesus, she ran into town and said to all the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?” (John 4:29) She had been bold in her sin. Now she was a bold witness to Jesus. When Jesus saw this, he said to his disciples, “Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” (John 4:35) To Jesus, the change in one Samaritan woman’s heart was like the change of a nation – a wide, wide field ripe for harvest. When one person is changed in China, then China is a holy nation to Jesus. When one person is changed in Guatemala, then Guatemala is a holy nation to Jesus. When one person is changed in Dusseldorf, then Dusseldorf is a holy nation to Jesus.
Let us read the key verse again: “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” Today we learned that we are a chosen people. We did not choose God, but he chose us. May God help us to hold on to the one-sided grace of God so that our words and our lives will display the glory of God.