Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance. (NIV)
Peter, in his opening remarks of this letter, identify believers in three ways and describe two behaviors of true believers.
Identifying believers as:
• The elect. This word actually appears in verse 2 and is, in the Greek, eklektos, or the "chosen." There is great debate between some about the meaning of this word. Those who fall within the Calvinist/Reformed doctrine, believe that, before the beginning of time, God Himself chose who would believe (and, by default, who wouldn’t) and those He chose at that point will eventually become the elect. Those within the Arminian doctrine believe that God chose or predetermined a group to be elect and that all who, with their free will, chose salvation become part of that group. The fact is that while debating the two opposing positions might be interesting for some, functionally it means nothing. We are still commanded to "go into all the world" to share the good news of Jesus Christ with everyone who will listen.
That begin said, I believe that it’s important that we treat every person as a potential believer. And how is that done? To know, we should look at our Chief Example, the Lord Jesus Himself. The Lord Jesus, in all instances except one (the cleansing of the Temple), was giving, gracious, and loving. In fact, the Lord was so compelled toward those who were disenfranchised that this was said about Him:
"The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’" (Matthew 11:19 NIV).
He was publically acknowledged as a friend of tax collectors, the most corrupt individuals in the Jewish society.
As the "elect," we need to not use our position as the "saved" as a way to consider ourselves above others nor as an excuse to fail to mingle with and befriend those who are living quite differently from ourselves. We need rather to deliberately make ourselves available, with all the resources available to us, to those who are live quite differently and who are in desperate need of God’s salvation.
It is only natural that we might be repulsed from people who have chosen to not be Christians. Our first inclination might be that they are judging us (they probably are) and finding us lacking (we probably are). In those cases, our response is likely to be to pull away from those whom we feel simply don’t approve of us. That is the wrong response! We should, instead, begin to even more fervently pray for these and to look for ways to love them and to minister to them. We need to press into these relationships and to intercede that the Holy Spirit might begin to compel these lost ones to Himself. "Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?" (Luke 15:4 NIV). Doesn’t he leave . . . and go after? Those who are already in the family of God of course need our prayers and our love. But even more are those who are barreling with even faster steps towards an eternity of hell because they haven’t accepted the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. With those we need to press in. Our calling as the elect isn’t to set ourselves apart from those who aren’t saved, but rather to press in with love and prayer that they might also become the elect.
• Strangers
Peter identifies believers as strangers. The Greek word is parepidemos and is a compound word, a word created from three other words: para (from, expressing a contrary condition), epidemeo (to sojourn or to temporarily stay), and demos (a people). The overall connotation is someone who is temporarily living somewhere that is not their permanent home. This is different than an immigrant who moves from their native land to a different country or culture and, arriving there, settles in and assimilates. This is someone who is living someone temporarily and retains their own social and cultural characteristics.
"Here on earth we do not have a city that lasts forever, but we are looking for the city that we will have in the future." (Hebrews 13:14 NCV). You may have heard the song "This world is not my home; I’m just a-passin’ through." That is the culture of the believer. This isn’t our home, but merely a place where we reside while we live out this life. But soon, the Lord Jesus will come for us and take us to our permanent, eternal Home. Because of that, we need to not get attached to the things of this world. We need to be willing to drop anything at a moment’s notice if, in dropping it, we will advance the Kingdom.
• Through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit
We are identified with Christ through this "sanctifying work." It isn’t enough to simply walk down an aisle and say the sinner’s prayer. We must daily, moment by moment, surrender to the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.
What is sanctification?
The Greek word is hagiasmos and means "consecration, purification; the effect of consecration; and the sanctification of heart and life." (Strong’s G38). "Sanctification" means "to make holy" and "to free from sin." When God makes us holy, He sets us apart for His purposes. That means that in all of our activities and choices, we need to remember that we are set aside for His purposes, not for our own. We no longer belong to ourselves, but to Him for His higher and better plan.
"What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with,[a] that we should no longer be slaves to sin—because anyone who has died has been set free from sin." (Romans 6:1-7 NIV).
Sanctification, in part, is that process where the Holy Spirit compels us to lives of righteousness, part of which is our own decision to live according to His will rather than our own. And the more we are compelled toward lives of obedience, the more we realize how much we are sinners.
Four behaviors of believers:
• Obedience. As a culture, we aren’t much into obeying. We don’t want to embrace the lessons learned of a previous generation, but are convinced we must go through it ourselves in order to determine a course of action. If we don’t agree with a particular rule, we will often just ignore it or pretend that it doesn’t apply us. After all, our own priorities are much more important that obeying someone else’s arbitrary rule.
Or are they?
I direct children’s choirs. When any of my choirs perform, they perform on risers that usually don’t have security backs on them. In other words, there is the very real possibility that children can fall off if they aren’t paying attention. At the beginning of concerts, we ask parents to please not yell out for their child as the children need to pay attention to their directors and other school adults while the children are on the risers.
I always have at least two to three parents who ignore our request and yell out loudly for their child. I have no idea why the parents do this. To become the center of attention? To prove they love their child? The rule was put in place to create safety; the rule is ignored because the adults who ignore it don’t agree with it (for whatever reason).
We often do that with scripture. We will come upon a "rule" in scripture and simply ignore it because it isn’t convenient at this moment in time for us to abide by it. We divorce our spouses due to "incompatibility" ("We’re no longer in love) even though scripture tells us that there are only a very few reasons for divorce. We remarry even though scripture tells us that we can only remarry if our divorce lines up with scripture. We commit adultery because we are lonely. We get drunk, do drugs, lie, cheat, steal, watch R-rated movies, become addicts (to all kinds of things). The list goes on. We ignore what scripture says because it can’t possibly apply to us or perhaps simply because we are unwilling to give up our sin.
We aren’t obedient . . . and the world is watching! Unbelievers don’t care at all about our excuses. They only care that we don’t love the Lord enough to obey His word. "If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land" (2 Chronicles 7:14 NIV). One of the characteristics of a believer is obedience. One of the tragedies of God’s people is disobedience.
• Sprinkled with His blood. When was the last time you asked the Lord to forgive you? I’m not talking about a general "forgive my sins," but a face-to-face time where you asked the Holy Spirit to reveal your sins and then you dealt with them one by one? We are sprinkled with His blood that we might be forgiven, but the point of forgiveness includes the idea of repentance. We can’t repent unless we actually face our sin: that one, individual thing we have done that displeases Him. Yes, He will forgive our sins (over and over again) if we pray a generic prayers, but we can’t repent unless we look at ourselves in the light of His holiness and see—genuinely see—that thing that we are doing which is sinful!
If we are truly His children, adopted and chosen, then we should trust Him enough to be willing to stand in His presence and ask Him to reveal our sin to us. Not just that we are sinful, but that specific sin that we did (and probably are doing over and over again). Obedience, forgiveness, repentance. Hand in hand, this should be our lifestyle.
We are God’s chosen, but we need to walk in the acceptance of that lifestyle, understanding that with being chosen comes great responsibility. We haven’t been forgiven so that we can continue in sin. Rather, we have been forgiven that we might become the hands of Jesus to a hurting and dying world. We have been forgiven that we might join in His sufferings so that those around us might actually see Jesus! We have been forgiven because we are the world’s last chance for salvation!
© 2015 Robin L. O’Hare. All rights reserved. Permission granted for nonprofit and church groups to use this article in its entirety (including this notice). For other uses, please contact servinggodalone@yahoo.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment