A Chosen People

1 Peter 2:9-10

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The text for our devotion today is taken from 1 Peter chapter 2 verses 9 and 10.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.
Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. (1 Peter 2:9-10)

When I was in college I had a history professor that started the first day of class by saying this:

As we begin this course I want you to know that I believe Christianity is the major cause of all the problems in the world today.

After I heard that I looked at my Christian friend across the room, and he looked at me, with a blank stare like “well, what did we do” or “where did this come from?” Felt like we were living on another planet.

The text in front of us describes us and Peter goes on to talk about the Christians in this world are like foreigners and strangers in this world. Now that we have come to faith in Christ, by the Holy Spirit, Peter says that it’s as if we are strangers living in a foreign land. Listen again to how God describes you as a Christian and notice how one-sided the work is.

You are a chosen people. Okay, God did the choosing. You are a royal priesthood. He’s the one that’s made us, given this this status of royalty. You are a holy nation. We know we’re not holy, but because of Christ we’re holy. You have obtained mercy. God has given that to us in His grace. He has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

I love that oftentimes at baptisms when a child is baptized the pastor will make the sign of the cross on the child’s for head and on the breast to signify that they’ve now been transferred out of the kingdom of darkness from the devil into the kingdom of light through the gift of faith. St Paul says you were once darkness. Now you are light in the Lord.

And so Christians in this world are living for the home in heaven that our Savior has come to give to us. And because of that heavenly citizenship we will now be targeted by the world. The world is going to be hostile against us and our faith and just in the last 10, 15 years there’s been an intensity ratcheted up against Christians as well.

And we shouldn’t think that just because we grew up maybe in a nice Christian home we’ve had a lot of Christian education or know a lot about the Bible that we’re immune to these temptations and difficulties. Listen to what a writer by the name of Gene Veith writes.

The church may shrink to a faithful remnant, but the church of Jesus Christ cannot be overcome by the gates of hell, much less by a culture.

It’s important for us to remember who we belong to. We belong to the Son of God. God himself who has power over death and the grave. Power over the devil. And by faith in Him we have this eternal home waiting for us.

When I was a little boy my mom had a little booklet that she would keep by her nightstand and it was just titled Heaven and you could tell by looking at it she read it frequently. And she told me that she liked to read it off and just a reminder when she’d go to bed at night. That that’s really where she belonged. Think what we possess by this wonderful faith in our Savior. Let’s have a prayer as we close.

Lord God our Heavenly Father, we thank you for calling us out of the sin of darkness into the marvelous light of your grace through faith in our Savior. Preserve us in this faith and help us to fight the good fight of faith in this world that we may someday stand in your presence in the kingdom of light. We ask you in our Savior’s name, amen.