A Word in Season: Proclaiming Praises (1 Peter 2:9–10)

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How would you describe despised and scattered wanderers on the earth?

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How would you describe God's people persecuted and dispersed? Well, Peter attempts to do just that in his first letter, and he speaks of them in this way.

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You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own special people.

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That is probably not where you might begin. It's certainly not the way the world would perceive a persecuted church, but it is

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Peter's understanding. It is his grasp of God's word concerning his people.

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The language is rich. It's loaded with Old Testament weight. It is designed to communicate a sense of gracious privilege.

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A people who are set apart by God and for God. And the emphasis that Peter wants to draw out is on the fact that this is a matchless work of grace.

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This is God's mercy toward not just undeserving, but hell deserving sinners, because once these men and women did not know

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God. He goes on to say in verse 10, you once were not a people, but are now the people of God who had not obtained mercy, but have now have obtained mercy.

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Peter has in mind the great transition that has taken place.

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Once far off, now brought in. That's Paul's language in Ephesians.

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Once without mercy, now having received mercy. Once not the people of God, now you are the people of God.

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To be his chosen generation, to be his royal priesthood, to be his holy nation, to be

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God's own special people when you were outcast and hell bound.

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It's not just the fact itself. It's the contrast that calls forth

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Peter's wonder. And so he asks, what do men and women who have received such mercies, who have enjoyed such divine favors do?

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What is their response? It's right there in verse nine. You are a chosen generation.

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You are a royal priesthood. You are a holy nation. You are God's own special people in order that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

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There's that contrast again. You were in darkness. You've been called not just into light, but into God's light, not just into God's light, but understand that that light is marvelous.

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This is what you have received. This is not what you could ever have deserved. You could not merit this.

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It is all of grace. What then ought our response to be to such mercy displayed to us through the blood of Jesus Christ as God washes away our sins, as God justifies us, that is, he declares us to be righteous in his sight on account of the righteousness of Jesus Christ put to our account.

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He draws us into his family. He constitutes us a generation, a priesthood, a nation, a people for himself.

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How do we respond to such wonders of grace? We are to proclaim the praises of God.

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It's a beautiful phrase. It's numbering out the excellencies of the

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God who has saved us. It means that we need to know him. It means that we need to study him and his works.

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It means that we need to at least begin to begin to plumb the depths of his saving operations and to trace back every stream to the fountainhead in the nature and the character of the

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God who delivers. And as we discover those things, as we learn those divine glories, as we perceive more clearly all that God is and has done in revealing himself as God and our

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God, saving us from our sins, we ought to be numbering out the excellences that we see in the

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God of our salvation. How many do you know? How much do you know?

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How deeply have you gone? How long have you gazed? How carefully have you looked?

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For what length of time have you pondered God and his saving glorious work?

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This is to be our delightful employment. And out of it comes a testimony of praise to God, both for the honor of his name in the church and for the declaration of his glory in the world, that he may draw others to himself in Christ Jesus and still have this ongoing testimony of praise in the earth.