Elect Exiles

wives, be subject to your husbands.

Why? For this is how the holy women hope. Chapter 3, verse 8,

all of you have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love.

Why? Verse nine,

for to this you were called.

Chapter three, verse 13, if harmed when doing good, suffering for righteousness' sake, honor Christ. Why? For it is better to suffer for what is good. And verse 18,

for Christ suffered once for all.

There's just a little bit of a sample of the message of Peter. He's going to give us very high callings. And it is going to grounded in what God has willed or what God has declared or more specifically what Christ has done for us. One of the most significant ones, you are to be holy as God is holy. Why? Because you've been purchased by the precious blood of Christ. Over and over again, I hope as we are seeking to be elect exiles, to know what that means, to experience that according to God's will, we would have that message washed over us. So as we look at this text, this short text, I was warned, we were warned on Wednesday night that sometimes the shorter the text, the longer the sermon. We'll see if that's true. Who God is and what he said about us. who God is and what he has said about us. Well, the first thing we see here is the one God who elects. The one God who elects. The key word in this section is elect. We're elect exiles. And much of what follows is qualifying what that means, where they are, they're dispersed, but the elect exiles. Who God is, he's the one God who elects his church. But we could actually go further, we could see how Peter expands that. The one God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Verse two, the God who elects us, that's why we are the elect,

according to the foreknowledge of the Father and the sanctification of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ.

Well, the whole idea of calling the church elect, that's drawing back to what God has already done. And one of the important things about Peter is he's constantly gonna be using Old Testament illustrations and allusions and references. Peter, as he gives us verse two, I believe is consciously aware as a believer of all that God revealed in the Old Testament of Deuteronomy 6.4. A key verse for all the Old Testament.

Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God, the Lord is one.

That is an assumed beginning point for Peter. He is a monotheist of the Israelite tradition, of the Israelite faith that God has revealed. I believe Peter fully understands himself to be continuing on from all the Old Testament has taught us. Well, we know this and we'll see it in a few weeks because in verses 10 to 12, he's actually saying everything those prophets wrote of in the past, they were writing it for us. In everything those Old Testament prophets said about the one God who will long to be worshiped, he is still fully believing that there is only one God who's to be worshiped. But he gives us these three names. Father, Son, and Spirit. Now, we need to realize how startling it is that Peter gives that declaration about God without any explanation or any apology. It's already been taught in the church. He assumes his audience understands exactly who this one God is, who is Father, Son, Holy Spirit. This is not Peter's own invention. This certainly is not some invention of a later council. This is what God has revealed. How would Peter get such a notion? It's the only source of who God is. It's God himself. The one God has clearly revealed that he's also Father, Son, Now, you might be like me right now and you're thinking, that doesn't fit into a math equation. Exactly. The God who created us, the God who created all the things we know on this earth, the God who created who we are and the way we think, He is greater than who we are or greater than anything we could possibly imagine. He's nothing like us. We receive from him that he is God alone, one God, Father, Son, and Spirit. Later on, the church will confess this one God as a trinity, one nature, three persons, the triune God. But what I want you to see is how Peter just lays it out there. It actually appears almost like a creedal formula they were already aware of. A simple declaration that Father, Son, Holy Spirit are all participating in what only God does. God elects. You see, we fully confess Father, Son, Holy Spirit to be fully God. All God, one God. Because they all three do what only God can do. God alone can create out of nothing. God alone can save sinners. God alone can reveal himself. God alone receives worship. And we know throughout scripture, the Father, Son, Holy Spirit participate together inseparably, doing only what God does as the one God. Now if you look at this, we are God's elect. That one God, he elects a people. And we saw this in 2 John a few weeks ago. John wrote to the elect lady, that is a church. As we think about the one God who elects, there's a double click here on verse two. What does it mean for God to elect? Well, God elects according to the foreknowledge of the Father. God elects in sanctification of the Spirit. God elects for obedience and sprinkling of the blood. The three persons are all working together to do that one election. We have to make sure we understand the persons are distinct. The Father does not shed his blood. Only Jesus Christ became incarnate. Only the Son became incarnate, and Jesus Christ sheds his blood. And yet at the same time, the Father and Son are both electing. Now, if your head's spinning a little bit on the Trinity and you're wanting to know more, that is what we're doing tomorrow or, yeah, tomorrow night at the seminary class. We will be looking at the Holy Spirit in light of the Trinity, six o'clock. All three persons participate fully in our election. Let's talk about this word elect a little bit more. It's challenging. God elects? God chooses? The idea of predestination is tied here to the word election, foreknowledge, predestination. What does this mean? I wanna make sure we understand God's electing is tied to God's love. They're different concepts, different ideas, different actions, but they must be understood side by side. See, God elects people before the foundation of the world. God loves sinners while we're still sinners. God elects with the intent that we would be transformed, and God loves us so that he would actually change us and transform us. The election has the before we ever existed, before we ever sinned, before the foundation of the world. God loves us now. God's love is really the performing of what he has already decided to do. Now that might feel abstract, but this is why it's important for the churches Peter's writing to. This is why it's important for us as a church today. The churches Peter's writing to, they're in the midst of all kinds of turmoil, Uncertainty, persecution, fear. They're in a place where because of their beliefs, their behavior, the way they're worshiping, the way they're living as exiles, they're worried, they're anxious, they're fearful. But God, but God, apart from all the circumstances that bother you, but God, apart from everything you know about you, but God, apart from everything you've experienced and understand, chose you. Outside of everything that worries us, God has committed himself to you. Before you even existed, God determined you would be saved. This is important because we have a hard time looking past our nose. It's important because the circumstances of life can be so pressing in, it causes all kinds of fears and doubts. And here, there's an insight from God himself. Even while you're a sinner, God loves you beyond your own experience. Even before you existed, God elected you. It's a love and a salvation that is sure, steadfast, and movable. You need this surety, Christian. You need this confidence that God, despite anything about you or what you've done or what you will do, determined he would love you. Now that does not meet our criteria for what we think love is supposed to be, because love is supposed to be this romantic thing where I love you because of all these things about you. The most amazing thing about God is he loves us. because he loves us. This doctrine of election is meant to be humbling. It shows us the power and sovereignty of God. If you've been a Christian for any number of years or days or minutes, you should have already been frustrated by how sinful you are. And that's why God's election is so assuring. He chose you. He still loves you. The doctrine of election is supposed to be encouraging. It's the truth that he willed it, therefore it is done, it is finished, it is accomplished. Of all the things that are out of our control, it helps us when our hearts are stirred with all the worries of the world. God has declared it. And it also should encourage us in a way that it gives us courage. To be a witness. This is the message that God has given that helps his people hear about who he is and how to be saved. If your desire is to be a faithful witness to your co-workers, your family, your peers, it is not dependent upon your power of persuasion. It's dependent upon God's power to save as you're seeking to simply be faithful with the gospel. One of the most intriguing passages that demonstrate this is Acts 18. Paul was told to not fear, go back into that city, keep preaching. Why? God said, I still have people there. I have elected people that when they hear, they'll believe. Keep preaching so that my people will hear my gospel. Verse two, God's election, God elects according to the foreknowledge of the Father in the sanctification of the Spirit for obedience to the sprinkling of blood. Let's walk through how all three persons are involved, participating fully in that election. We're elect according to God, the Father's foreknowledge. Now, the Father is listed first. That doesn't mean he's more God than the other two. He's listed first in the sense of, he has a priority of position among the three. He's the father of the son. He's also, too often we think he's the most distant member. No, here he's the initiating person of the Trinity. The father forenew. Now, this is a pre-knowledge. He has a, it's a word we get prognosis from. forelooking knowledge, it's a foresight, but it's not merely intellectual. The word no has with it a sense of intimate personal knowledge. We can look over to 1 Peter 1.20, Jesus was foreknown, the only begotten son, an intimate relationship, he was foreknown. This foreknowledge is a personal commitment to those whom he would elect. The Father has already committed himself to adopt foreknowing everyone who is elect. So God elects according to the Father's foreknowledge and in the sanctification of the Spirit. Now, this one's kind of fun. The word holy and sanctify are from the same root. Really, if we had this word and we might want to invent it, the Holy Spirit holifies you. The Spirit of God, the Holy God, the Holy Spirit of God, He sets you apart. He makes you, He moves you. That doesn't mean all sin's gone. It doesn't mean you'll never have to wrestle with sin again, but it really is a holification. It's a setting apart from this world and a setting apart to God. The third person of the Trinity is sent by the Father through the Son. The Son has accomplished our perfect salvation to give us peace, and then the Son sends the Spirit from the Father who sets us apart when he indwells us. Those whom the Father foreknew, the Holy Spirit sets apart. We have special stuff that is set apart. We understand the concept of holiness. There's holy space, there's holy things that are precious to us. When you're saved, when the Holy Spirit moves you, he's setting you apart as God's special people, a chosen people, a beloved people. It's important to understand the Holy Spirit moves you into the position of being holy. That's very important as we remember, as we look forward to the command, be holy in your conduct. The command there isn't get holy enough. The command is live up to what God has done for you. Significant difference. It isn't be holy so you would be chosen. It's not be holy so God would love you and care for you. No, it's be holy because you've been made holy by the precious blood of Christ, by the internal work of the Holy Spirit, by the sealing work of the Holy Spirit. We're set apart, not abstractly, but for that relationship, for the purpose of worship, for the glory of God. What a good work, the God who elects us Father foreknows us, the Holy Spirit sanctifies us, holifies us. I hope that catches on. This last phrase is a little tricky. Your ESV reads,

for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling of his blood.

the more straightforward, just right off from the Greek would be something more like, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. That's clunky, but I kind of like the awkwardness of it. I understand what the translators are doing, and I think it's helpful for the obedience to Jesus Christ, because that is true, and for the sprinkling with his blood, but it's actually obedience and sprinkling go together. Just like from Numbers 24 that we read earlier, the people of God heard the gracious word of God, the law, and they agreed to be obedient, and God set them apart with a sprinkling of the blood. Here, those who have been washed by the precious blood of Christ, because they've been set apart by the Spirit, because they were foreknown by the Father, they're set apart for obedience. We're set apart to follow Christ. We need to be clear that forgiveness is a free gift of grace received by faith. We need to be very clear, the sprinkling of the blood that washes you of your guilt is received only by faith. And we also must be clear, those who have received that forgiveness are now forgiven for obedience to Jesus Christ. Who is God? He's Father, Son, and spirit. What is he like? He chooses you. He turns towards his rebellious creation. He chooses a people to know, to set apart for himself, to purchase with his blood, to call to obedience. Believer understand the importance of how he opens his letter. All of God, has completed your entire salvation, and he will see it to the end. This is the rock and the surety we need as we get into the call to suffer like Christ has suffered. If you're not a believer, these concepts are difficult. We like to think of this thing called free will, and this is quite a monkey wrench for a free will ideology. You could get into that question that spirals into oblivion of how do I know if I'm elect? Here's what we know this morning. You're here and you just heard the only words of God that can save you. The gospel of Jesus Christ. God knew we had no hope apart from his saving power. God the Father sent his son to become like us in every way, except for sin, and he lived that perfect life we refuse to live, and he died as if a sinner, so that when we believe in him, our sin is counted as paid for fully, we're forgiven, and we receive his righteousness, and then we receive the Holy Spirit that sanctifies us. God is so ordained that you could hear that gospel this morning. Question for you, do you wanna know that God? Do you want to know the God who would love you like this? Do you wanna be known by the God who would love you like this? Another question, do you feel the burden of your sin that is uncontrollable? Do you feel the guilt of the sin that you cannot wash away? The pressing question isn't are you elect? The pressing question is, will you believe in the gospel that alone can forgive you? Will you believe in the gospel that alone will invite you into that loving relationship? The pressing matter today for you is believe in Jesus Christ. That's the only question. Will you believe in the only salvation of God? So who is God? The one who elects, he's Father, Son, Holy Spirit, all three operating inseparably together for us as a church. Now, who are we? Well, that really comes to the key two words in verse one from Peter, the apostle, to those who are elect exiles. Elect exiles dispersed in these different cities forming different churches. These two truths, I hope we keep letting the word of God massage into our minds and hearts so that we understand what it means to be elect to exiles. God has elected, loved, chosen, called you. You belong to God. The beginning of wisdom as a church is to know who we are because of who God is and what he's done for us and what he's said to us. And what Peter leads in, we're elect. This is assuming a whole, again, Old Testament understanding. See, Abraham was elect by God. He was a pagan worshiper and God chose to speak to him and call him away from his pagan family to his promised land so that he would be the father of many who believe. The whole Old Testament is God electing a people to himself, a seed who would become a nation. There was nothing about Israel that made them especially desirous. God did not say, let me go and be a beauty pageant judge and figure out which of these nations commits the least amount of human sacrifice or has the greatest army or the wisest teachers. Now Israel's elect, they only existed because God declared it so. Israel was elect As a people, only because of God. They only had a land because of God. They only became a nation because of God. You see, church, we're a lot. We were not a people, now we are a people. We once did not have mercy, we now have mercy. We'll look at this more in chapter two, verses nine and 10, as we consider we now, Jews and Gentiles from all different places and kinds of people, we're a new kind of holy nation in a kingdom of priests. What's important is that we were once all following our own way. We were once on the broad path of darkness, destruction, despair. but thanks be to God, he chose to save us. He chose to begin a good work in us and he will finish it. He chose while his creation was rebelling against him to send his own son into that rebellion to suffer at their own hands to save us. This is how determined God is in his election. Understand who we are as those who've received God's blessing because of his power. The other word, elect, exiles. We've been elect, we've been loved, known, sanctified, purchased for obedience, exiles. This also has an Old Testament background. In church we have to understand this one is oddly comforting. A brief history of Israel. Israel was a small family that went into Egypt because God desired for them to not only get past the famine, but in Egypt, they multiply. They became a mighty people. They became a numerous people, so numerous that Pharaoh then says, they're bigger than us. We should make sure we keep them at bay. He enslaved them. The people of God then cry out to God, and he hears them, and he frees them from Egypt. He makes them a nation. They then wander in the wilderness because they cannot be obedient, but then God brings them into the land he originally promised to Abraham, and the land he promised to Moses, the land he promised to all of Israel. And here's what's supposed to happen. God calls them to be his nation, gives them his law, and they're supposed to go into that land, and they're supposed to worship God alone. God's what? But Israel, whenever they get into God's land after being freed, they refuse to worship God alone. They refuse to worship God His way. They continue to want idols and to go after other gods. And so God sends them into captivity. He allows nations to take them out of His land into other lands. This is called the exile. because God's people are removed from God's land. The exile is oddly comforting because it's one of the great tragedies we see in scripture of how sinful we are, of how we presume upon God's grace as God's creatures. The exile is God taking his covenant people out of his land and putting them as exiles elsewhere. It wasn't a comforting experience for Israel. It was an act of discipline. It was to correct them from their idol worship. But for us, there's an odd comfort in that. We're the elect exiles. The church is now made up of Jews, Gentiles, barbarians, Scythians, northerners, southerners, hillbillies, city slickers, suburban soccer moms and country boys who can survive. All elect. All purchased. All set apart. from all different kinds of places. But now you belong somewhere else. You belong in the presence of God. You belong in Zion. But here you are in Charlottesville. So you're in exile because you're not yet where you truly belong in the direct face-to-face, intimate, personal relationship with God. We're exiles because you're still here. There's all kinds of complication with this. But we're exiles. We're supposed to be strangers here, aliens, because this is no longer where we belong. We have a heavenly citizenship. As we think about this, we have a number of young adults who, for the first time, are planning an extended time away with their parents. This is not a sleepover. You have a new bed, a new roommate, new schedule, new responsibility. It's right that some would feel homesick. Because you're in a strange place. The hope I give you is that we'll begin to feel normal, and we hope as a church we can help you feel a full regularity of care and love. But that feeling of, I'm no longer under the protection and care of regularity with my family, I'm in a new place. That sense of homesickness starts to get a little bit of what it means to be an exile. I've recently realized that I experience homesickness when I travel for missions. I love the adventure, I love the idea of going somewhere else. It's not the new room, the new bed, it's, I'm not with my people. I need my wife and my kids with me. I feel like an exile when I'm away on a mission trip with brothers and sisters that are my heavenly brothers and sisters, and I feel called to do that work, but I'm not with my people. As God designed it, there's a sense of a, there's a strangeness about it that I don't like. Christian, we're supposed to be exiles. We should be afraid of being so friendly in this world because that probably means we're not truly following Christ as closely as we want. There's a warning as I think about what it means to be an exile. Is there too much casualness in our faith? If we don't feel that exile, it could be either we're not fighting sin and making it strange to us in the way we want and should, or they're not helping others. My wife recently confessed what this exile should feel like in a simple text. We were on a conference call with a dear friend for two hours hearing just painful, update, a painful update on all the things that has been going wrong and she texted me at some point throughout it. Come Lord Jesus. That's... Come Lord Jesus. Thank you, Mitch. That should be the regular confession of an exile. You don't feel at home. Come Lord Jesus. Well trained church, well trained. Longing for a home. You were designed for this earth. We were formed for the earth. We're fit for this earth. We're supposed to build deep roots and have stable lives and those things are good and right. But to do that, we have a constant vision of who God is, and the ultimate desire is that we would be with Him. His election is saving power. The way we really live as elect exiles is by living according to His holiness, seeking to know Him more in obedience to His holiness. We stop having the patterns and the priorities that make us step for step in this world. No, we start following Jesus by denying ourselves, carrying a cross and following him. Too many Christians want to be exiled just by acting weird. No, it's by simple being obedient. The way to experience living as an elect exile is by pursuing the holy God with a holy life. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. To know what it means to be in elect exile means you know the holy God and you're seeking to know him who's made his holy standards so that you are living by his holiness. Deny yourself. Carry your cross. Follow him. As we walk in this world as strangers, we deny sin. We want sin to be a stranger. And Fred, that's what's gonna make you a better witness. Gospel living expects faithfulness. And the family, the work, and government, let's just be very clear about that. We're gonna get to that as Peter applies that later. But as we think about the application, I wanna first begin with what Peter's gonna say in 2 Peter. Make your election sure. That's a fun declaration. That's 2 Peter 1, 10-11. Make your election sure. There's a number of ways you can make your election sure. The most significant from 1 Peter is know who God is, know what he has said, know what it means for him to make these declarations about you. But if we go to 2 Peter, his immediate command is practice godliness, which is what 1 Peter's gonna get into. Practice what lines up with obedience. Practice the holy living of the holy God. And again, this isn't I want to be better so God will love me more. No, it's God has made you holy. Live up to that holiness. God's love has washed you of your sin and destroyed the power of sin. Now walk in a new way to know God more. believer, to be an elect exile, to make your election sure, is to practice the godliness of what he's commanded. There's some who might feel like the whole world is against you, and that is the feeling of the elect exiles Peter's writing to. But we have to see holy living is the foundational point of what living as elect exiles means. It's not watching the news and complaining about how horrible things, how horrible everything has become. It's not sitting back in some isolation and wishing for what used to be or what will be better. It's not living in fear or anger. It's pursuing faithfulness by God's grace. Elect exiles, we have to practice godliness with one another. so that we all grow up together in Christ and are able to be faithful. Holiness towards God should define this exile feeling. If you feel like an exile, the solution cannot be everything around me needs to get better. I feel like an exile because the world seems like it's going I feel like an exile because what I used to know in this world by God's coming grace is no longer here. To live as an exile, elect of God, means I am following Christ, seeking to know him and to make him known. Us living as elect exiles has nothing to do with if I hope or need this world to be better in some way. because God has already declared we're his elect. God has already determined what we'll be. Our calling is to follow him. Here's one other way to experience this full reality. You should feel like an elect exile because you're not under the direct rule of your king. Jesus, who is perfectly righteous, is your true king. He's not distant. God is with us. Christ's rule is ever-present and ever-powerful, but you are not under the direct rule of your true king, and that is one of the ways we would feel that elect to exile. And the goal there, the desire there, is to want to know what it means to live as a citizen of his kingdom, the heavenly citizenship. Another way in which we could think about what it means to feel and experience what it means to be in elect to exile is in your prayer life. An exile prays, right? When you feel lonely, when you feel out of place, when you feel like a stranger, when you feel distant, we pray. If we're too comfortable in this world, we're not praying. Prayer is one of the ways we experience and draw ourselves out of an unhelpful kind of exile. If you're not praying, are you truly seeking to live a holy life in this unholy world? If we're not praying, we're too busy in this world. This is the beauty of prayer. Where we belong is with God. Prayer is the way we enter into that presence regularly by the Holy Spirit who lives within us. in the name of the Son who's at the right hand of the Father and the Father who's welcoming us. Christian, one of the most practical things we can do to really know who this God is as Father, Son, and Spirit who's elected us, that is not an abstract declaration. The Father welcomes us into his love. The Father welcomes us into his presence because the Son has died for us and is at his right hand. The Holy Spirit allows us to go up to that Father in the name of the Son. If you're in elect exile, prayer is the power of God to give you the perseverance you need. Prayer is the power of God to help us care for each other. The beauty of it is he hears us. He listens to us. Will we respond by drawing near to him? Will you pray with me? Father, we thank you that you are not a distant God. And while we have sought to create distance from you, we thank you, Father, that you pursue us with your love. You've willed our salvation. You've sent your son to purchase us and call us back to you. You've given us your Holy Spirit so that we are holy. Lord, as a church, help us to draw near with all confidence so that we might persevere in this world, so that we might know you so that we can make you known. Help us to see that glorious invitation. to come near to you where we belong. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.