1 Peter 1:1-2 (The Identity Of A Christian)

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Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon. We pray that as we declare the

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Word of God that you would be encouraged, strengthened in your faith, and that you would catch a greater vision of who

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Christ is. May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word, and may the Lord be with you.

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You may be wondering why we're not in John, and that is a good question. The reason that we're not in John today is because I really felt like that it would be broken up if we did that.

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So we spent essentially four or five weeks in John 1 through 16.

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Three of those weeks we're using John 11, 1 through 16 as a launching pad into Good Friday and Palm Sunday and Easter.

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And if we returned to John this week, it would be for one week. Next week I will not be preaching, and then the week after we will come back to it.

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So I felt like it would be a little fractured if we did that. So I started thinking to myself, what would God want us to be thinking about coming out of Easter that we could look at and examine together today?

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And it really started to strike me that coming out of Easter, the first disciples 2 ,000 years ago would have been wondering, what does it mean to even be a

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Christian? I was asking myself, what kinds of things were they thinking about around this time in their life?

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Jesus has risen from the dead and he's appeared to them in the upper room. About eight days later he's appeared to Thomas.

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After that, he appears to more than 500 people. Then he ascends to heaven and he says,

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I'm gonna leave you, but I'm not gonna leave you abandoned because I'm gonna give you the Holy Spirit who's gonna come, but I want you to wait in the upper room until that Holy Spirit comes.

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And every day of their life, I'm sure they were probably like, did he come yet? I mean,

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I don't know. So they're asking themselves the question, what does it mean to be a

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Christian? That's how Christianity began, with a risen Christ, an ascended

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Christ, and an indwelling of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. And eventually when the

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Holy Spirit did come, these men would turn the world upside down. They would preach the gospel in Judea, Jerusalem, Samaria, and to the ends of the

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Roman Empire, and they would crumble the Roman Empire through the preaching of the gospel.

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They didn't raise a single weapon, they didn't raise a single sword, and the whole Roman Empire fell and bows the knee to Jesus.

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Now the Roman Empire no longer exists, but the kingdom of Jesus is still here by the preaching of the gospel.

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Now, it wasn't pretty every single moment of the New Testament. The very fact that we have a

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New Testament showcases that things were not always exactly the way that they should have went. From the earliest days as the apostles were preaching in Jerusalem, and Judea, and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth, there were

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Christians who were gathering in little churches, and there were apostles who were established by Jesus to do four different things, essentially.

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Number one, they were to found local churches, they were to plant churches, just like the Shepherd's Church has been planted.

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Paul and others went all throughout the Roman Empire planting churches. What is the next thing that they do?

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They establish the first generation of leaders who would raise up leader after leader. For 2 ,000 years, we've had elders in the church, deacons in the church, with the elders raising up leaders of new churches.

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So they established that sort of foundation for the church. They founded churches on true doctrine in the gospel.

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But one of the most important things they did, and the reason why apostles do not exist today, is that they wrote Scripture.

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When there were problems in the early church, they wrote books about it. That's why we have all the books of the

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New Testament, because there were things going on. Even the books where Paul is in a really good mood, and he's celebrating the things that they're doing, like Philippians, he's still writing to encourage them because of an issue, like in Philippians 4, where there's these two women who are fighting.

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That's probably the most positive book in the New Testament, and there's still drama. We have the

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New Testament, because we're imperfect, broken people who need to be reminded of the gospel, and that is what

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I want us to do today. I want us to remind ourselves, what does it mean to be a

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Christian? Basics, right? Because we can never actually graduate away from the basics.

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If you look at a football team or a basketball team that's forgotten what the basics are, they're destroyed on the field or on the court.

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We have to constantly be reminded of what does it mean to be a

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Christian, and I think there's no better place to do that than in 1 Peter 1, 1 through 2.

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So if you will, turn with me there. We're going to camp out in those two verses. There could be actually seven sermons preached on these two verses.

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These verses are dense. They're amazing. They're like a good piece of beef jerky or biltong, if you've had that experience.

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You just chew on them, and they're just amazing. We'll read these verses, we'll pray, and then we will examine them together.

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Let's read. To those who reside as aliens scattered throughout

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Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who were chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the

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Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ, to be sprinkled with his blood, may grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.

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Let's pray. Lord, I pray as we examine this passage today, that we would remember what it means to be a

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Christian. Lord, I pray that if anyone ever asks us, as Peter says in another chapter, for the hope that we have, that we would be able to describe what it means to be a

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Christian. What it means that we are called by Christ. What it means that we have our faith and trust in Christ.

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What are the implications of that? Lord, I also pray that we would examine our own lives against this passage.

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Because as I see it, these are seven non -negotiable, undisputed things that must be true of the

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Christian. So Lord, I pray that even as we today are learning, being reminded, remembering what this means, that Lord, we would also, if repentance is necessary, we would repent.

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And we would turn again to you the fount of our salvation. It's in Christ's name

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I pray. Amen. These are likely the very first words that Peter has written.

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Now, Peter had a copyist who was writing for him, but these are likely the first words that Peter authors in the

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New Testament. According to the date of this work, it probably predates the Gospel of Mark.

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And if you are not aware, Peter is the eyewitness testimony that undergirds the

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Gospel of Mark. Mark went to Peter, got the information for his gospel, and wrote. So Peter, in a sense, is the author of the

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Gospel of Mark, even though Mark is the one who hand wrote it out. But this epistle likely predates that, and maybe by just a couple of years.

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This is probably the first thing that Peter authored, the first thing that Peter said, which means that it's probably fairly important.

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Everything that Peter has said in the in the Gospel of Mark, and in first and second Peter, are important.

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But you generally start off with the thing that really matters to you. And you generally close with the thing that really matters to you.

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So these are some of the most important words that we could consider this morning. And they're going to teach us exactly what it means to be a believer in Christ.

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Now, a little bit of background on Peter. Peter had worked in Jerusalem, which Jesus had told him to do.

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Peter actually became an important figure in the early church in Jerusalem. That is until persecution caused

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Peter to leave the city. Around the 50s and the 60s, you have Nero and his sort of thing going on.

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You had the Jews and the high priest who were intensely persecuting the Christians who were in the city of Jerusalem.

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James, Jesus' brother, is murdered during this time. And Peter has to flee the city of Jerusalem because of persecution.

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Peter actually ends up dying in the city of Rome, crucified upside down, because he said that he was not worthy to die in the same death of his

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Lord. So instead of being crucified right side up, he chose to be crucified upside down. We know that men like Paul went and planted churches in the

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Roman Empire, and by this letter we can see that Peter has done sort of the same thing. He's speaking to churches in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia.

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Even though they don't have their own individual letter, this letter is meant to be circulated among them.

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The towns were actually listed in perfect order so that it looks almost like a mailman's route, where he would travel from one city to the next, and it creates this sort of loop where mail would be delivered.

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So at a minimum, five or six copies of this letter would have been written out, and it would have been delivered, hand -delivered to each of these churches around the late 50s, early 60s.

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This letter was an encouragement to the exiles, and by exiles I mean a mixed audience of both

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Jews and Greeks who were called to be Christians by Christ, needing to be reminded in very hostile situations what it meant to be a

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Christian. The same is true for us today. 2 ,000 years later, we still need that reminder.

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Now, this passage is going to lay out seven aspects of what it means to be a Christian. Seven fundamental qualities, and I'm just going to tell them to you up front, and we're going to go through each and every one of them.

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The sermon is front -loaded, so if the first two take a really long time, don't worry. We're going to fly through the next five.

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I'm just kidding. Here's the seven things. A Christian is one who is chosen by God, cleansed by the

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Son, changed by the Spirit, called into obedience, consecrated as citizens of his kingdom, commissioned to the nations, and conferred with God's blessings.

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That's all C's. I just want you to notice that took a long time. Let's begin.

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What does it mean to be a Christian? First and foremost, we're called by the Father. Peter says it this way, to those who reside as aliens scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God.

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Now, we've covered this a lot actually at this church. I'm thankful for that, but I want us to remember our decision was not for God.

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It was God's decision for us that made us a Christian. We didn't choose God. We didn't raise our hand.

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We didn't make a pledge. We didn't fill out a card. We didn't sow a seed. We didn't send in money. We didn't go to an altar call. We didn't do any of that.

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God is the one who saves us. This is not a synergistic salvation where God is cooperating with us.

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This is not a transactional salvation where God looks down. He says, Oh, Kendall raised his hand.

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He's a Christian now. God is the one who did the work. A Christian is one who is chosen by God, and it's all throughout the

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Bible. You have many people look at the doctrines of grace or what we call Calvinism or what we call election or predestination.

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You can use all those terms and say that's from the pit of hell. Well, if it is, then it's the Bible. We didn't choose

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God. God chose us. It's all over the scriptures. I'll give you just a few examples. John 15 16, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit and that your fruit would remain so that whatever you ask of the

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Father in my name he may give you. We're not the choosing party in our salvation.

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God is the one who chose us. Look at John 6 44. It says no one can come to me.

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No one. That's not a technical term where we have wiggle room.

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No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up on the last day.

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You can't come to Jesus without God drawing you and you can't stay in Jesus unless Christ resurrects you.

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Your entire salvation from beginning to end is entirely dependent upon the work of the triune God. John 10 28, and I will give eternal life to them and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

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It doesn't say your prayer will give eternal life to you. It says I will give eternal life to them and they will never perish and no one can snatch them out of my hand.

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This is as biblical of a doctrine, a robust of a doctrine as we can possibly imagine.

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But maybe you say, Kendall, you just quoted three examples from John. Maybe John is just a little wonky.

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Well, if you believe that you should repent because the Bible is the Word of God, but Matthew says, many are called, few are chosen.

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He says at the end of his gospel, Paul says this in 1st Thessalonians 1 2 through 4, We give thanks to God always for you, making mention of you in our prayers, constantly bearing in mind your work of faith and your labor of love and your steadfastness of hope in the

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Lord Jesus in the presence of our God and Father, knowing, brethren beloved by God, his choice for you.

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Paul is saying that they cannot stop thanking God for you because what is happening in you is not explained by you.

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You don't have that ability. You don't have that power. You don't have that devotion. You have been so radically changed that the only explanation is that God has chosen you and changed you.

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The only thing that can explain what is going on in you, Paul is saying, the only reason why we're praising

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God for you is because of what God has done in you. He has chosen you.

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To the same congregation, 2nd Thessalonians 2 13, he says, We should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the

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Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the

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Spirit and faith in the truth. What does he mean by the by beginning? Does he mean that God chose you for salvation from the beginning when you did something?

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When you did some work? No. He's saying that God's foreknowledge, which means that he knew beforehand, predates you.

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It predates the moment you became a Christian. It predates the moment that you were born. God knew how,

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God knew when, and God knew why he was going to raise you to faith in Christ, and it predates you.

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It predates your grandparents. It predates modernity. It predates the

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Reformation. It predates the Middle Ages, the early church, the empty tomb.

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He chose you to be in Christ before he chose Israel to be his chosen nation.

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He chose you before he called Abraham. He chose you before he flooded the earth.

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He chose you before he created atoms and neutrons and electrons and quarks, subatomic particles.

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We know that because of Ephesians 1, 3 through 4, where it says, Blessed be the

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God, that means happy is God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless to him.

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You, if you are a Christian, were chosen before time and space began.

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It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. At some point you were walking down the road, spiritually speaking, and a

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Greyhound bus intersected with you called Salvation, and when you woke up you realized, gosh,

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I'm a Christian, and the Bible says that that's always been the case of you. You just didn't know it. It's like you woke up out of a coma, and you're like, huh, how'd

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I get here? By the eternal plan, by the time we figured out that we were

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Christians, by the time we started labeling ourselves Christians, that work had been in place for millennia after millennia after millennia, stretching all the way back into the halls of eternity.

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So let's ask the question, what does it mean to be a Christian? If your answer begins with I, you've not got it.

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But if your answer begins with he, then you've got it. He is the one who chose us in him before the foundation of the world.

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Now, a possible follow -up question, if someone's asking you, what does it mean to be a Christian, and you say to them, it means that I've been chosen by God to be a believer.

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It was not my work, it was his work, then maybe a possible follow -up question is they would say, well, how can any of us know who have been chosen?

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Because if it's God's choice, I assume that God knows what he's doing, and if God knows what he's doing, he knows who's going to be a

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Christian. So how can you or I, as people who had work from outside of us done inside of us, how can we know whether or not we're a

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Christian? And how can you know whether or not your neighbor is a Christian? Are there any identifiable marks?

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Is there any evidences that would let us know that yes, we are a believer in Jesus, and no, that person who is leading people astray is not?

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Peter gives us a second point on what does it mean to be a Christian. We're chosen, but we're also cleansed by the

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Son. We're cleansed by the Son. This is what Peter says, Christians who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the

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Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood.

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Now, I'm dealing with these a little bit out of order. Peter is like me. He's the one who runs out onto the lake a little bit impetuous.

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I'm just kidding. I'm putting these in logical order instead of the order that that Peter gives them.

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I'm putting them in what's called an order of salvation. I'm putting the very first thing first, and then I'm following it that way.

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So there will be a little bit out of order to this, but don't worry, all of this is going to tie together. The second thing that God has done is he's cleansed us by the work of Jesus Christ.

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Now that is a covenantal term, and you have to understand what Peter is saying here.

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And you may think, Kendall, covenantal terms are for dorks and nerds like you. I get it, but you have to understand this if you want to understand what

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Jesus has done for you. You have to understand this because it's so important.

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In the Old Testament, blood was a highly significant thing. Blood is all over the place, especially in the book of Leviticus.

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Blood is the one that purifies you. Blood is the thing that washes you, cleanses you, and expiates you as a sinner.

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Blood is what is shed for the forgiveness of sin. If you remember in the Bible, it says, without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.

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Blood was what was shed at the Passover, when God rescues and redeems Israel out of the land of Egypt.

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He tells them to slaughter a lamb and to paint the blood on the doorpost so that when the angel of death comes, he will pass over the blood, and they will be saved by the blood of the lamb.

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Blood is important. Blood is what is sprinkled on the altar. When Moses is entering the people into a covenant with God, blood is what is sprinkled on the altar.

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In Exodus 24, but I think one of the things that's on the forefront of Peter's mind is another passage in Exodus 24.

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Exodus 24, 3 through 8. This is the moment where Israel is entered into the covenant of God, and it is involving blood sprinkled on them, purifying them, and as we see what is happening here, we'll understand what this means for Christ and why

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Peter thinks this is so important. If you remember, the people of Israel had fled Egypt and ran to Sinai.

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Moses was considered to be their mediator, so he's going to go up on top of the mountain. He's going to mediate a covenant between them and God.

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That's Exodus 20, like we talked about before. Exodus 20 is where God gives them the

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Ten Commandments, which is the first table of the law. Exodus 21, 22, and 23, he gives them additional laws that he wants them to follow.

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All of this is covenantal terms. God is making a covenant with the people of Israel.

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He's saying, I will be your God, and I will dwell with you, and I will make you a unique and a special people, but because I'm holy, you must be holy.

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In order for you to be holy, you have to obey the law. So he's giving them these laws, these festivals, these feasts, these sacrifices, the temple, the tabernacle, the priest.

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He's given them all of that to help them be holy so that they can live in the presence of God.

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And the people, after this law is given to them, the Ten Commandments, and after Exodus 21, 2, and 23, the people say that they agree, that they want to be in fellowship with this

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God. So they enter into a covenant, and the first thing that Moses does when God and Israel enters into a covenant is he sprinkles them with blood.

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Let's look at what it says in Exodus 24, 3 through 8. Then Moses came down from the mountain of Sinai, and he recounted to the people all the words of the

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Lord. That's Exodus 20 through 23. And all of the ordinances, and all of the people answered with one voice and said, all of the words which the

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Lord has spoken we will do. They're agreeing to the covenant. Then Moses wrote down all the words of the

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Lord. Then he rose early in the morning, and he built an altar at the foot of the mountain with 12 pillars for the 12 tribes of Israel, and he sent young men of the sons of Israel.

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And they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed young bulls as peace offerings to the Lord. And then

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Moses took half of the blood and put it in the basins. And the other half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar.

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So Moses is saying, before we can offer sacrifices to this God, we have to have a consecrated altar, a purified altar, a cleansed altar.

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And the blood is what cleanses the altar. Now look what he does next. Because a sacrifice can't be offered by itself.

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It has to be offered by a consecrated, purified, cleansed people. So this is how the passage continues.

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Then he took the book of the covenant, and he read it in the hearing of the people, second time they've heard it.

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And they said, all that the Lord has spoken, we will do, and we will be obedient.

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So Moses took the blood that he had put into the basins, and he sprinkled it onto the people.

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And he said, behold, the blood of the covenant, which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all of these words.

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I want you to see what's happening here. God has drawn up a contract to be

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God for Israel. And he has presented to them the terms and the stipulations of this contract.

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And they've agreed to keep the terms and the stipulations of this contract. And in order to bring them into God's presence, they have to be purified by blood.

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If you want to have a relationship with a thrice holy God, you have to be holy. And God accounts as holy the sprinkling of that blood.

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In a sense, God cuts them into the covenant through the sacrifice of the animal.

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Every covenant, if you remember, God cuts his people into. Adam, how did he get into the covenant with God?

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God slayed an animal and clothed him in the skins of it. Abraham, how did he get cut into the covenant? Through circumcision,

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Abraham in his own body bore the mark of the covenant, he was cut in. People of Israel, how did they get cut into the covenant?

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The animal died, its blood was shed, sprinkled onto them, so that by the blood of another, they would be purified.

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This is exactly what Peter is saying happened to us. He's saying that the

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Old Testament is a shadow of what Jesus came to do in the Old Testament. It was the blood of a goat or a lamb or a bull, but Jesus is the one whose blood was shed covenantally for us.

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What he is saying is that Jesus Christ came and drew to a conclusion that old covenant with all of its temples and priests and sacrifices, and God administered a new covenant in Jesus Christ through the sprinkling of his blood.

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So that you and I, if we are Christians, we've not only been chosen by God the Father in eternity, but when

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Jesus died on the cross and shed his blood for our sin, that his blood was sprinkled, his blood was applied, his blood was spiritually and covenantally painted over the doorpost of our heart so that we now have been purified by the blood of Christ.

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Do you see how all of that Old Testament stuff is coming to bear in this passage? Hebrews, the book, is a book that in the

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New Testament many people avoid because it's so saturated with Old Testament imagery, but he gets it.

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He gets how Jesus's sprinkled blood is what purifies us and brings us in a relationship with God.

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This is what Hebrews says in chapter 9, 11 through 15. But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, he entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation, and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through his own blood.

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He entered the holy place once and for all, having obtained eternal redemption.

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For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of heifers, sprinkling those who have been defiled, sanctify the cleansing of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal

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Spirit offered himself without blemish, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living

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God? For this reason, he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that since a death has taken place for the redemption of our transgressions that were committed under the first covenant, those who have been called may receive the promise of eternal inheritance.

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Do you see what Jesus has done? He came and he replaced the old high priest. He came and replaced the old sacrifice.

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He had a better blood that offers a better redemption, and he applied that blood to his elect 2 ,000 years ago.

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Romans even says that we were crucified with Christ in his death. That means even though we live 2 ,000 years later, covenantally speaking, spiritually speaking, you and I were crucified with Christ.

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We were on the cross with him. We were in the grave with him, and we resurrected with Christ as well, covenantally speaking.

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His blood is what cleanses us. His blood is what accomplishes our redemption.

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So when 1 Peter 1, 1 through 2 says, those who reside as aliens scattered throughout

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Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia who were chosen according to the foreknowledge of Christ by the sanctifying work of the

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Spirit to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood, he's not saying that you were standing at the foot of the cross and some of Jesus's blood dripped on you.

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He's saying you were a thousand miles away. You didn't even know who Jesus was, and God in his kindness and in his grace applied

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Jesus's blood to you. And how much more even us today who are 2 ,000 years removed and 7 ,000 miles or so from Israel by the

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Lord's tender mercy and kindness have had his blood applied to us for the cleansing and for the remission of our sins.

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That's the second aspect of what it means to be a Christian. We were chosen by God in eternity and we were cleansed by Christ at Calvary.

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We were chosen by God in eternity and we were cleansed by Jesus Christ at Calvary.

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The third aspect is that Jesus didn't purchase us for nothing. He purchased us so that we would be changed by the

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Holy Spirit of God. This is what Peter says. Those who reside as aliens scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, who were chosen according to the foreknowledge of God by the sanctifying work of the

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Spirit. He's not only talking about election and justification or predestination and atonement, he's talking about a process that God has undertaken to take you and I through that will bring us from chosen and cleansed people to holy people changed by the power of the

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Holy Spirit. Now, I want to just take a moment and a second just to make this clear. Even though Christ has cleansed us on the cross, you and I still struggle with sin.

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Paul says in Romans 7, I do the things that I don't want to do and I don't do the things that I do want to do. What I want you to understand about this is that God has chosen you,

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God has applied Jesus's blood to you, and you have been legally declared righteous even though you still struggle with your sin.

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In the same way that if you're married and you're a husband and you are a terrible husband, your behavior doesn't nullify the fact that you're a husband.

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You're called to grow in your relationship with your wife so that you can be a better husband. Christ or God the

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Father has called us to be a Christian. Christ has paid for that on the cross so that we can be a

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Christian. Now, whether or not we will be an obedient Christian is the work of the Holy Spirit through a process that's called sanctification.

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Let me give you an example. Imagine there was a derelict orphan who was roaming the streets, who was stealing, and who was accosting good citizens of a kingdom, and all of a sudden there was a king, a very rich and a very dignified king, who was riding through his kingdom and he saw this orphan, and he saw the malice that was in his heart, and he saw the pain, and he saw the coldness, and that king was stirred in his affections for that orphan.

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And he went back to his palace and he told his son, he said, son, I want you to go and I want you to pay the price for his adoption at the local courts.

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And then he sent out messengers to go find the orphan, to tell the orphan that you've been claimed, you've been adopted, bring them into my house.

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And when the orphan came into his house, he was still, even though he had been adopted, he still acted, and thought, and behaved like an orphan.

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So the great king put his most trusted servant over this orphan to prepare him, to teach him how to act like the king, to teach him how to act like his beloved son, so that over time that orphan was being crafted into the likeness of his own son.

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That orphan was given a seat at the table with his own son. That is what salvation is like for you and I.

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God the Father has chosen us in his kindness. He sent his son to pay for us. He sent ambassadors out to preach the good news that we've been brought into the kingdom.

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And by the power of the Holy Spirit, he's making us new. He's changing us.

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He's shaping us, convicting us. The Bible has got so much to say about the ministry of the

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Holy Spirit. Look at just a sample. We've been made new by the Spirit. We've been made a member of Jesus's body,

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Romans 8, 9. We've been reborn by the Spirit, John 3, 5 through 6. We've been made a child of God by the

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Spirit, Galatians 4, 6. We've been assured that God loves us by the power of the Spirit, Romans 5, 5.

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We get God's grace and God's love and God's power for mission all by the Spirit of Christ. God's peace we get by the

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Spirit of Christ. A desire to praise God by the Spirit of Christ. We've been gifted by the Spirit to serve the church by the

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Spirit, equipped by the Spirit to produce the fruit of the Spirit, given new affections and passions and desires by the

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Spirit, baptized by the Spirit, regenerated by the Spirit, sanctified by the Spirit and transformed by the

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Spirit. The Spirit has an entire holistic goal for your life and it's to make you new.

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He's not going to accept the shoddy construction job that you have given him.

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He's going to come in and make all things new over the course of your life and perfectly in eternity.

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So much more could be said about the Spirit, but that's the third aspect. We've been chosen, we've been cleansed, and we are called to change by the power of the

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Spirit. The fourth aspect of what a Christian is, according to Peter, is we've been called to obedience.

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We've been called to obedience. I've met so many Christians in my life who say, functionally, now that I'm a

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Christian, everything is all settled, I don't have to obey, I'm going to do whatever I want. I've met so many

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Christians who when you challenge them to say, you know, maybe you shouldn't be watching that, maybe you shouldn't be acting like that, or maybe such -and -such, they say, well,

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Jesus loves me just as I am. To say that is to admit that Jesus has no plan to change you, no plan to sanctify you, and no plan for your obedience.

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But God says, Jesus himself says, if you love me, you will obey my commands.

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The inverse of that is, if you do not obey my commands, perhaps it is because you don't love me.

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Peter says it like this, to those who reside as aliens scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, you're going to be able to say all of these by memory when we're done.

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I'm saying it over and over because we need to remember. Who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the

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Father by the sanctifying work of the Spirit to obey Jesus Christ.

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God has not only chosen you, and then after that he's not only cleansed you, and then after that he's not only changing you, he has called you to something, and that is obedience to Jesus.

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Look at what Matthew 28 says, and Jesus came up and spoke to them saying, all authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth, go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the

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Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you, and lo,

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I am with you always. This passage alone could get 15 sermons. But what

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I want you to see is the first thing Jesus tells his disciples after he's raised from the dead is that you are going to go out into the world and make disciples of all the nations.

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If you're a Christian, you're called to be a disciple. If you're a disciple, you're called to be baptized into the covenant community of God, and if you've been baptized into that community, you are called to obey.

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Jesus says that you will be taught how to obey. Being a disciple is not learning mental, cognitive, theological data, although that is good.

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Being a disciple is being taught how to obey Jesus Christ and obey everything that he commanded.

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So the question is, how do I do that? Start in Matthew chapter 1 verse 1, and you go to Matthew chapter 2 verse 1, and then you go to Matthew chapter 3, and you take a highlighter and you highlight everything

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Jesus commanded, and you put that on a list, and you hang that on your refrigerator, or you put that in your phone, and you say,

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I'm a disciple of Jesus. I want to learn how to obey everything my Lord and Savior commanded. And when you've mastered that, when you've got all the commands of Christ, then you understand that in Luke chapter 24,

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Jesus says that all the Bible is written about me. So now, widen your scope a little bit and include

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Paul, and include Psalms, and Proverbs, and include Genesis through Revelation, and learn how to obey.

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Learn how to submit your life to the Scriptures. You are not called to lackadaisical, half -hearted obedience to Jesus.

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You're made for more. When I tell you that you're made to obey, I'm not putting a weight on you.

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I'm telling you about freedom. You have been made to obey Jesus, and when you obey Jesus, it will change your life, and it will give you more than it would ever take from you.

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You will never sacrifice for God more than God gives back to you. Never. Yes, in this world, we have many problems, but fear not.

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He has overcome the world. When you obey Jesus, you get more out of it than you give.

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It is true. All these truths are transferable.

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Now, I want you to remember something real quick, because I've heard a lot of people, when I preach this type of message, will come up to me and say, that sounds a lot like legalism.

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Let me tell you what legalism is. Let me dispel that myth once and for all. Legalism is trying to obey

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God to be accepted by God. You can't do that. That's not your job. He chose you. He cleansed you.

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He changed you. Then after that, after that, then you obey. You are not obeying

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Him to get Him to save you. That's not your choice. God is the one who's the author of salvation.

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If you were saved, you obey out of gratitude for all that God has done. You obey out of love.

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He rescued you. He saved you. You were at the precipice of the cliff, ready to fall over the edge, and He grabbed you and He saved you.

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Obedience for someone who has given everything to you is not a sacrifice.

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It's an act of love. It's an act of love. The next element of what it means to be a

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Christian is that we've been made new citizens of a new kingdom. Peter says, to those who reside as aliens, to any of the kids in the room, that's it's not space creatures.

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Although if you think about it, our home is in another planet, the New Jerusalem, the new heavens, the new earth, where we live with Jesus forever.

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I'm just saying, when Peter says that we're aliens, what he's saying is that this world's not our home.

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This world's not our home. You may have a home. I hope you do. You may have an address.

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You may have a car. You may have clothing and possessions, but these things are not yours. You own them temporarily.

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Your home is with Christ in heaven. Look at what Paul says in Philippians 3, 20 through 21.

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This would save so many of us so much heartache if we just understood that this world is not our home.

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He says, for our citizenship is in heaven. You know, he's writing to a Roman colony in Philippians, a colony where citizenship actually mattered, a colony where citizenship meant that you couldn't have a false trial and that you had rights and status, and he's saying that's worthless.

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It's worthless because your citizenship is in heaven from which we eagerly await for a

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Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Did you know that Philippi was a city where Caesar would sometimes come?

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It was a military outpost, actually, and the soldiers would wait for Caesar to come and they would throw grand parties as Caesar would walk up to the city gates and he would come through the city.

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Paul's saying that's worthless. We don't wait for Caesar to come. We wait for the Lord Jesus Christ to come.

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When Paul and when the Gospels and when the New Testament says Christ is Lord, they are making an inherently political statement.

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They're saying Caesar is not Lord, but Jesus Christ, and we wait for him and our citizenship is for him.

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So you might be called to a country. You might be called to a state. You might be called to a place, but that place does not own you.

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Christ owns you and you're citizens of his kingdom. That means that we don't have fear over our careers.

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We don't have fear over our promotions, our money, our savings, our retirement, our fame, our influence, our relationships, our family.

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We don't have fear over any of that. They've been given to us to steward, but they're not ours.

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Our kids are not ours. Our money is not ours. Our possessions are not ours. The kingdom of Jesus Christ is ours because Jesus Christ saved us and brought us in.

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Think about it like this. I was in seminary with a wonderful godly man from like the bush region of Africa.

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I don't even know where that's at, but somewhere in the middle. His accent was awful. I couldn't understand a word that he was saying.

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His culture was amazing, but very different than ours. Shannon and I went over to his house and ate, and he used ingredients from America, but made it taste like something

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I've never tasted in my life, that everything about this man was different than me. That is what it's supposed to look like for us as Christians.

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We're citizens of another country. That means we're supposed to look different than Americans, Europeans, Africans, Asians, Australians.

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We're supposed to look different than the places that this world calls home. We're supposed to look like we're citizens of heaven, and our desires are to expand his kingdom, advance his gospel, and call others to be members of this glorious kingdom as well.

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Which leads us to our fifth aspect. I told you it was going to go fast once we got past two. We've been commissioned to the nations.

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Peter says, to those who resign as aliens, this world is not your home. Scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Capernaum, Asia, Bithynia, he's saying that even though this world is not your home, you've been scattered to it.

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You've been scattered to the nations. I think by the simple fact that he uses the term scattered, that Pontus, Galatia, Capernaum, Asia, and Bithynia were not these people's home.

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They had been scattered. Why were they scattered? Persecutions probably caused them to leave

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Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and other places. The mission of God caused them to scatter.

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They saw these regions as strategic to plant churches in, so they moved there. They needed to preach the gospel and establish churches, so they moved there.

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You see, many of us think about life very differently than they did in the New Testament. Many of us,

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I'm one of them, are looking up properties in Montana on Zillow because we're like,

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I can't take Massachusetts another day. I can't take New Hampshire.

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I can't take Vermont. I can't take Maine. I can't take this God -forsaken region. These people didn't think that way.

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They moved into the worst parts. They moved with a purpose to share the gospel of Christ.

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They weren't praying that, Lord, I hope I get that job in Wyoming right outside the

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Teton Mountains, and I'll live by myself as an introvert with my family all the long day.

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Not that I've ever thought that before. What he's telling them is you've been scattered for a purpose.

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You're where you're at for a purpose. There's lost people here. Our goal is not to move away from here.

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Our goal is to preach the gospel here. Our goal is to see revival happen in New England here.

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If all of us run away, which is tempting, but if all of us run away, the gospel presence in New England is gone.

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One of the most strategic parts of this country, New England, the gospel presence is gone.

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I think we're here for a purpose. I think this church is here for a purpose. I think that we're called where we've been scattered to do ministry and mission.

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Now, that doesn't mean you can't move. I'm not guilt tripping you in that way. But I am saying while you're here, let's do it intentionally.

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Let's do it deliberately. Let's preach the gospel where we've been scattered. We, the people of God, have been chosen, cleansed, called, changed, made citizens, and commissioned to the nations.

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There's one final aspect of what it means to be a Christian. I'm going to read the verse in its entirety.

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To those who reside as aliens scattered through Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God by the sanctifying work of the

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Spirit to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with his blood, may grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.

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Do you remember when I said earlier that if you give to the Lord, you will never give more than he will give back to you? Grace and peace will be yours in the fullest measure.

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He doesn't say grace and peace will be yours in the scarcest measure, and he doesn't say grace and peace will be yours in a limited measure.

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He said in the fullest measure, these things will be yours. You will get grace, both past, present, and future.

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Grace to forgive you of all the things you did do, grace to forgive you of the things you're doing, and grace to forgive you of all the things you will do that will deliver you home to the throne of Jesus safely.

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You've got unlimited grace because of what Christ did on the cross. Peace. The word peace in the

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Bible means wholeness, fullness, security. It means that you have there's no war, there's no there's nothing broken in you.

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Did you know that those things are yours in Jesus? Peace? That Jesus is he didn't die so that you could continue to live broken?

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That he didn't die so that you can continue to live with anxiety and depression? Yes, those things are clinical, but he says that his peace that surpasses understanding is yours in Jesus Christ in full.

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How often do we think about that? How often do we pray and say, Lord, your word says that peace is mine in full.

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Can I please feel that today? Can I please have that today? How many times do we sit on the couch in our dysfunction and we say things will never change?

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I think we sit there a lot of times because we like it. We sit in our hurts, we sit in our pain, we sit in our bitterness for years and decades.

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How many here are holding on to something that you've been holding on for one second longer than you should have?

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Maybe it's been 10 years longer than you should have. You're holding on to a hurt. You're holding on to a pain.

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You're holding on to a betrayal. You're holding on to something that is robbing your joy in Christ.

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My encouragement to you is to let it go, to lay it at the foot of the cross, because you, my dear friend, have been chosen by God the

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Father to be His child. You've been bought and paid for by Jesus Christ at the cross, cleansed of all your transgressions.

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You've been changed by the Spirit. You don't have to live according to the old man anymore, the old sinful ways anymore.

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You've been called to obey Him. You've been consecrated as a citizen of His kingdom.

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You've been commissioned to the nations, and you've been given every spiritual blessing that could ever be yours in Jesus Christ.

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You do not have to sit in your hurt, in your pain, in your dysfunction. You are a Christian, and the world will look at you and they will say, how in the world does that person not get upset whenever bad things happen to them?

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Whenever they get that diagnosis of cancer, how are they not freaking out? Whenever they're betrayed, whenever they're fired because of their faith, whenever any bad thing happens to you, the world is going to look at you and they're going to say, dear

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Lord, how is it possible? And you are going to say, because of Jesus Christ, because I am

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His child, and these seven things are true for me. Let's pray. Lord, I pray.

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Lord, I pray. I pray for us, your people. Lord, I pray that we wouldn't accept less than what

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You've given us. Lord, I pray that we wouldn't accept more pain, more hurt, more bitterness, more frustration, more anger.

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Lord, I pray that we wouldn't accept more of those things when those things are actually robbing us of the things that You've actually given us.

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Lord, I pray for every single person in this room that by the power of Your Spirit, we would repent of whatever is clogging us up and that we would experience the fullness of grace and peace in Christ.

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Lord, I pray that as we go to the nations, as we tell the gospel to our friends and our family and our loved ones, as we lead family worship in our home with our children, as we do the things

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You've called us to do, Lord, I pray that the world would see the grace of God and the peace of God in the people of God.