God's Elect Exiles

[0:00] Our scripture readings this morning will be taken from the book of Genesis, chapter 12, verses 1-9, and 1 Peter 1-1.

[0:13] ! Genesis 12, verses 1-9. Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

[0:29] And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse.

[0:46] And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abram went as the Lord had told him, and Lot went with him. Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Haran.

[1:01] And Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered, and the people that they had acquired in Haran.

[1:12] And they set out to go to the land of Canaan. When they came to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place at Shechem, to the oak of Moray.

[1:24] At that time, the Canaanites were in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, To your offspring I will give this land. So he built there an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

[1:36] From there he moved to the hill country on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west, and Ai on the east. And there he built an altar to the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord.

[1:51] And Abram journeyed on, still going toward the Negev. 1 Peter 1, verses 1 through 2.

[2:02] Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.

[2:17] According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, and the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ, and for sprinkling with his blood, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.

[2:30] Here ends our readings. For the day. Thank you very much, David. This morning we are starting an extended sermon series in the letter of 1 Peter.

[2:54] And in the opening verse of 1 Peter, we come face to face with two uncommon descriptions of believers in Christ.

[3:07] And those two words are elect and exiles.

[3:19] And what we see is from the outset of this letter, the apostle Peter reminds his original audience, those to whom he wrote for the first time, that they were God's people, and living in a hostile world, they were God's elect exiles.

[3:47] And this dual description that the apostle Peter gives to believers forms the foundation for this letter that he writes. All that Peter says in this letter is premised upon these two descriptions of those who belong to Christ, that they are elect exiles.

[4:09] And Peter's intent was that this description was to shape them and to be to the fore of their minds as they lived life in the world.

[4:22] And what Peter says to his original audience, by extension, he says to all those who belong to Christ.

[4:35] What he says is, as you live in this world, you are God's exiles. And that means that we are supposed to live in a way that's consistent with that description.

[4:53] So what does it mean exactly to be and to live as God's exiles?

[5:05] That's the question I want to answer this morning in this sermon. But first, let's take a moment to pray and ask the Lord to help us all as we hear his word. Father, we pause this morning and we ask for your help because we need it.

[5:21] Lord, I need it. I need it to bring your word to your people faithfully. And would you help me to do that, Lord? And then, Lord, help all of us to hear attentively.

[5:31] Help us to hear in a way that is postured towards response and obedience. Lord, you know each one of us.

[5:45] You know where we are and what we need. And so would you speak to us now, we pray. In Christ's name, amen. Amen. This letter of 1 Peter was written by the Apostle Peter, one of the 12 disciples of Jesus Christ.

[6:02] And those of us who are somewhat familiar with our Bibles would know that Peter was the outspoken disciple and the one who betrayed the Lord in such a graphic way.

[6:16] But what is clear is that the Apostle Peter has certainly matured by the time he's writing this letter. He's writing this letter some 33 years later after Jesus had ascended back to heaven.

[6:31] What is very clear is that this is no longer the cowardly Peter who betrayed the Lord. But this is now Peter who is an example. Peter who knows what it is to suffer for Christ.

[6:46] And he is the one who is writing this letter. Peter was writing this letter from Rome. And he actually refers to Rome symbolically towards the end of the letter in chapter 5, verse 13, as Babylon.

[7:05] Peter was writing at the time that the ruthless Roman emperor Nero was ruling, not just Rome, but the entire Roman Empire, which included this region that he was writing this letter to the people who were located in parts of what is today modern-day Turkey.

[7:28] In fact, historians tell us that Peter himself would soon be executed at the hands of Nero. Peter's recipients to this letter were living away from Rome, but they were also experiencing the same kinds of persecutions, the same kinds of hostilities and difficulties and pressures in a world that did not appreciate the convictions they held and the way that they lived, didn't appreciate their faithfulness to Christ.

[8:07] Peter is mindful of them, and Peter writes this letter to them to remind them of realities that you easily forget when you're going through persecution, that you easily forget when pressures are pressing in on you from every side.

[8:26] Peter writes to them, And he addresses them as they truly are. He addresses them as God's elect exiles. And he reminds them how they became who they are.

[8:41] This is the first thing that Peter does. And this is so essential for understanding this letter the way Peter writes it. He starts at the beginning and tells them who they are before he calls them to live in a particular way.

[9:01] Peter's communicating, by calling them elect exiles, Peter's communicating to them two very important biblical truths. And the first is, you belong to God.

[9:16] That is what it means to be elect. And the second is, this world is not your home. And that's what it means to be an exile.

[9:28] And again, what Peter says to his original audience is true for all of us who belong to Christ. I want to consider these two important biblical truths that Peter lays out at the outset of this letter.

[9:45] And these are truths, again, that we who belong to Christ must remember. The first is, you are God's elect.

[9:57] You are God's elect. To be elect is to be chosen. That's actually the word that the New International Version of the Bible uses instead of the word elect.

[10:15] The New International Version uses the word chosen. And so Peter reminds his recipients of this letter that they are chosen by God for salvation.

[10:30] But these saints who were scattered abroad in what now makes up modern-day Turkey looked anything but God's chosen.

[10:42] First of all, they were Gentiles. And yet, by calling them God's elect exiles, Peter was intentionally using Old Testament language that formally described the Old Testament people of God, the nation of Israel, and he was attaching it to these people who had come to saving faith through Jesus Christ under the new covenant.

[11:12] And Peter's making an incredible statement. Peter is saying to them, you are God's new holy people. It doesn't matter what it looks like. It doesn't matter how you're being treated.

[11:24] You are God's holy people. He's redeemed you out of this world of sin. And you now belong to him.

[11:37] In addition to being Gentiles, Peter's audience was marginalized. They were suffering. They were persecuted in the hostile Roman Empire.

[11:50] They were being singled out and picked on for no other reason than the fact that they belonged to Christ. The people who were persecuting them would have laughed at the idea that the God of the universe chose them.

[12:09] Yet he did choose them. They were God's elect. Yes, they were Gentiles. They were not natural Jews.

[12:20] And yes, they were persecuted. And yes, they were held in low esteem. But they were God's chosen people. Indeed, they're the kind of people that God chooses.

[12:34] God's choosing is counterculture. God's choosing is quite opposite from the way we would choose. Peter tells them, you are God's elect.

[12:52] And brothers and sisters, we need to be reminded of this as well. I think most of us have lived long enough to know that the world can be very hard.

[13:04] The world can be very difficult to navigate. And sometimes, if we aren't careful, we could lose our sense of identity in the world.

[13:15] But we need to be reminded that we are God's elect. That God has chosen us. We are God's chosen people. So here's the big question.

[13:29] How did these people, whom Peter later in verse 18 describes as having been ransomed from their futile ways, inherited from their forefathers, how did they become God's elect?

[13:45] How did they come from being people in darkness, people who were lost, people who were without hope, and be God's chosen, to be God's elect?

[14:00] What Peter says in verse 2 is that it came about through the redeeming work of the triune God. That's what Peter says in verse 2.

[14:13] I want us to look at those two verses again to see how Peter writes it, to see the construction of the sentence. He writes, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ, and for the sprinkling with his blood.

[14:46] Peter says that's how you became God's elect. You became God's elect through this triune work, this redeeming work of the triune God.

[14:59] That's how you became God's elect. And so Peter discloses to them, and to us by extension who belong to Christ, three facts about the election.

[15:14] Three facts about their being chosen by God. The first thing Peter says is that they became God's elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.

[15:28] The word foreknowledge does not simply mean that God knew something in advance. That he knew something in advance, and on that basis he made a choice.

[15:40] He elected for some reason that he foresaw. God certainly knew whom he would choose because he knows everything, but that's not what the word foreknowledge means.

[15:54] The word foreknowledge means so much more than that. And it is a precious biblical word. It is a word that we encounter regularly in the Scriptures, in the New Testament in particular, and it's easy to read over it.

[16:10] Peter brings it in front of these persecuted believers to remind them of who they are and to remind them of what God did to cause them to be who they are.

[16:24] I want to take some time to help us to understand, first of all, what this word foreknowledge means.

[16:36] And to grasp it, we have to get a foundation for it from the Old Testament. And the first place I want us to look is at Genesis 4, verse 1.

[16:52] And this is what it says, Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.

[17:10] Now, we're a mixed group this morning. Our children are with us this morning, but I think all of the adults know, whether you're present or watching online, all the adults know, that when we are told that Adam knew Eve, and she conceived, it is speaking to something more than just mental knowledge.

[17:36] Here in Genesis 4, verse 1, the word knew communicates a deep, personal, intimate connection. connection. This same word for knew, in Genesis 4, verse 1, is used by God himself, with reference to Abraham, in Genesis 18, verse 19, where the Lord says this of Abraham, for I have chosen him, that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing righteousness and justice, so that the Lord may bring to Abraham what he promised him.

[18:24] Now again, here in Genesis 18, 19, the exact word that we saw in Genesis 4, 1, for knew is the same word that God uses when he talks about Abraham to say, I've chosen him.

[18:39] If you have an ESV Bible, you would notice there's a footnote to the bottom of the page, the footnote number two, and it gives the alternative translation of this word, and the word is known.

[18:52] And so we see that this word, know, in the original language, includes the idea of chosen.

[19:04] That's why the translators opted for that translation here. It communicates chosen, but it still communicates the idea of love and of affection.

[19:19] And then the third and last Old Testament reference I want to look at is in Amos 3, verse 2, where the Lord is speaking to the nation of Israel through the prophet Amos.

[19:35] And this is what he says, starting in verse 1. Hear this word that the Lord has spoken against you, O people of Israel, against the whole family that I brought up out of the land of Egypt.

[19:48] You only have I known of all the families of the earth. Therefore, I will punish you for all your iniquities.

[20:01] So in verse 2, the Lord says, You only have I known above all the other families of the earth. And here again, the word known cannot just be some mental knowledge, some mental awareness that God knew them.

[20:17] I mean, obviously, God knows all the nations of the earth in terms of his actual cognitive knowledge, his mental knowledge. This word known, again, is the identical word that we saw in Genesis 4, 1, and then also in Genesis 18, verse 19.

[20:39] And the idea, again, is still chosen, knew them. God chose them. God chose the nation of Israel above all the other nations of the world.

[20:53] And he didn't choose them because they were special. He chose them because he chose to set his sovereign love on them.

[21:06] For no reason that was in them, for no merit that was in them, it was because he made a sovereign choice to elect them above all the other nations of the earth, to choose them in that particular way.

[21:20] And so when the Lord is talking through the prophet Amos in verse 2, when he says to them that I've known you above all the other nations of the earth, God is speaking about his covenantal love for them.

[21:36] His covenantal love that he set on them. Now, I think it should be clear that when we think of Abraham, we read earlier how the Lord called Abraham, the Lord goes into a place, Ur of the Chaldeans, and they're all worshiping the moon and he calls one man out, Abraham alone.

[22:03] He doesn't call a whole bunch of people, he calls Abraham. He chooses Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldeans. God chose the nation of Israel over all the other nations.

[22:18] He chose them. And what is clear is that God took the initiative to do this. Abraham was not seeking God, he was worshiping the moon. The nation of Israel in and of themselves did not seek God.

[22:32] God sought them. They responded to God's love. Abraham responded to God's love. Israel responded to God's love. But it didn't begin with them. It began with a sovereign choice that God made.

[22:44] And he gave no reason to them as to why he did it. He did it because he sovereignly chose to do it.

[22:56] Now let's come back to this word as we find it in our text this morning, this word, foreknowledge. In the same way that God knew Adam, in the same way that God knew Eve, in terms of setting his new Israel, sorry, in terms of setting his love on them, Peter is saying to these scattered saints, God has simply set his love upon you.

[23:28] But he says it to them in an even stronger way. He uses not just that God has known you, but he says God has foreknown you. God has foreknown you.

[23:41] And he's communicated the idea that before the foundation of the world, God has set his love upon these who are his elect. Before the foundation of the world.

[23:53] Before the foundation of the world, when the world was created, when God created the world, God also created time. And so time is created, but God lives outside of time.

[24:07] And so what Peter is saying to them, he's saying, in eternity past, before there was time, God set his love upon you.

[24:17] God foreknew you. God set his love upon you in a covenantal way. Obviously, that's before you're born. Obviously, that's before there's even a thought.

[24:30] This is what the sovereign God of the universe chose to do, to elect people to himself, to bring them into relationship with himself.

[24:42] himself. But this word foreknowledge, it also communicates, it's not just so much this idea of God choosing, suspended in a vacuum, it includes the idea of predetermining to bring something to pass.

[25:01] And we see this clearly in Acts 2, verse 23, where this word, again, the same word foreknowledge is actually used, Peter uses it again on the day of Pentecost as he was preaching.

[25:16] And this is what he says in his sermon, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

[25:34] In other words, Peter is saying that the crucifixion of Jesus was according to the definite plan and the determination of God and that is why it happened.

[25:46] And Peter is making a similar point to these scattered saints to whom he writes. He is saying to them, you are elect according to God's foreknowledge, according to his predetermined will. And that is a merciful thing for God to do.

[26:04] Because without that election, without that choosing, we would all be on our way to a Christless hell.

[26:18] And so Peter says to these scattered saints, God has chosen you. And again, what he says to them is also true of us.

[26:29] What was true for those who lived in modern-day Turkey is true for those of us who have trusted Christ who live in Nassau, Bahamas. We deserve judgment. We deserved wrath.

[26:42] And yet God has graciously set his love upon us before the foundation of the world. And he elected us to be his own.

[26:52] He elected to save us. Again, not because we're good, not because we deserve it. We don't deserve it. He did it because he sovereignly chose to do it.

[27:10] We are God's elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Peter goes on to tell his original audience that they are God's elect also in the sanctification of the Spirit.

[27:31] Now here, Peter's not using the word sanctification in the general way that we understand sanctification. Sanctification means to become more and more like Christ and less sinful over time.

[27:47] That's what it means to be sanctified in the general sense. But what Peter's referring to here as he talks about us in the sanctification of the Spirit, he is talking about being set apart, being set aside for God's purposes.

[28:06] God has chosen, God has elected people and he sets them aside by the Spirit for his own purposes, for his own use. And that is only proper, that is only logical, that only makes sense.

[28:21] That if God would choose us, that he would seek to use us and he puts us aside exclusively for his use. And all of life, as we live life, we have to be mindful that we are in the Lord's service.

[28:38] We are being used for God's purposes. That's God's purpose for election. That's God's purpose for choosing. That he sets us apart unto himself.

[28:54] Again, brothers and sisters, this is true for all of us this morning. God foreordained that his people will be sanctified, that his people will be set apart from this world and live according to his purposes.

[29:13] We live in this world, but not of this world. We're separate and apart from it. I want to ask this morning for those of us who would profess to know Jesus Christ, are you consciously living this out?

[29:33] Are you consciously aware as you live day to day that you belong to Christ? God has elected you for his own purposes.

[29:44] He set you aside from this world. You are his holy possession. are you to live mindful of that?

[29:55] Not blending in, not seeking to belong to it, but to be separate and apart from it. Whether this is in our homes, living as one who's been set aside by the Lord, whether it is in our workplaces, whether it is in our schools, wherever we are, that we are the Lord's.

[30:15] and he has set us aside for his own purposes. Serving the Lord is not to make our lives better.

[30:27] I mean, that is a side benefit that comes to us. But we don't serve the Lord to get this or to get that. God is not the big Santa Claus in heaven who is supposed to do everything that we want and do all of our prayers and the mentality of Job's wife, and some of you may know it, when Job met with all of his hardship, she said to Job, are you going to keep your integrity?

[30:57] Curse God and die. And her mindset was, Job, God isn't working for you. Your children are gone. Your wealth is gone. Your health is gone. Why are you serving God?

[31:08] Curse God and die. And Job said, you speak as a foolish woman because, I'm adding this part, that's not why we serve God. We don't serve God to get bonuses in our lives.

[31:23] We serve him because it is the logical thing to do when you are aware that God in his mercy has elected you, God in his mercy has set you aside for his purposes, and we serve him because he is worthy to be served.

[31:40] And then third, Peter tells his original audience, your God's elect for obedience to Jesus Christ and with sprinkling with his blood.

[31:54] The New Testament has a variety of ways to refer to Christians, to refer to those who belong to Christ, such as being born again, or being a believer, or being called.

[32:10] But here, the Apostle Peter chooses, in addition to calling them God's elect, he chooses to refer to them in a way that we oftentimes don't like to think about.

[32:26] He says that they have been elected unto for obedience, they've been elected for obedience to Jesus Christ. for obedience to Jesus Christ.

[32:39] He talks about sprinkling of blood as well, but first he says for obedience to Jesus Christ. Brothers and sisters, obedience matters.

[32:52] Obedience to Jesus Christ matters. If we belong to God, if God has elected us and he set us apart by his spirit for his purposes, then we are to be living lives that are marked by obedience to Jesus Christ.

[33:09] A Christian is one who obeys Christ. And Peter makes this clear throughout this letter. Throughout this letter, he is going to be calling them to obedience. Every single page, he's calling to obedience again and again.

[33:24] And he says, we have been sanctified unto obedience to the Lord Jesus Christ. those of us who are professing to know Jesus Christ, our lives are to be marked by obedience to Christ and to his word.

[33:45] It's not enough for us to rely on a prayer that we prayed. It's not enough for us to rely on an experience that we had.

[33:57] Brothers and sisters, if our lives are not marked by ongoing obedience to Christ, we should be concerned. we should not be relying on a prayer we prayed or some experience that we had.

[34:12] Jesus says it this way. He says, if you love me, you will do what I say. You will keep my commandments. Belonging to Christ will be evident by a life that is patterned after obedience to him over time.

[34:37] It doesn't mean perfection, but even when we fail, there's an awareness that we should obey and there obviously should be repentance as a result.

[34:53] In verse 2, Peter also uses these words, and for sprinkling with his blood. God. And in these words, Peter's communicating a profound truth which he's going to develop as he writes this letter.

[35:08] What Peter's doing is Peter's reinforcing in the minds of these scattered and persecuted Gentile believers, believers, he's reminding them that you are God's New Testament people.

[35:25] Peter's making a point that those who have been saved by the shedding of Christ's blood are the true holy people of God.

[35:35] They are the true holy nation of God. In several places in the books of Exodus and Leviticus, we see this practice of sprinkling blood.

[35:51] For example, in Leviticus 4 and then also in Exodus 12 where we have the Passover where they would kill the lamb and sprinkle the blood on the doorposts of their house.

[36:06] And Peter's using this language, he's using this language to remind these exiles that they're God's new covenant people.

[36:18] One of the most prominent places we find this is in Exodus 24 where the people promise to obey God's word. They promise that they're going to obey the covenant and in response, they were sprinkled with blood.

[36:31] it is an indication that they've come into covenant with the Lord.

[36:43] And it's the same idea that Peter is communicating right here. He is saying that your election, your salvation, your being set apart, your coming to Christ, you are in covenant with God as his covenant people.

[37:04] Brothers and sisters, salvation is more than just a prayer to pray. And notice this is what God is doing. This is what God himself does. Before we could ever respond to him, he does this to bring us into a relationship with him.

[37:22] So Peter, at the very outside of this letter, reminds these scattered saints that they are God's elect people. And he tells them how they came to be.

[37:33] They came to be God's elect people through the saving work of the triune God, Father, Spirit, and Son.

[37:45] But not only does Peter tell them that they are God's elect, Peter also tells them that they are God's exiles. And this is my second and final point. Peter calls them to remember that this world is not their home.

[38:03] He calls them to remember that though they live in this world, they don't belong to this world. And this is a theme that we find throughout the pages of Scripture.

[38:16] The first scripture we read this morning is the call of Abraham. God calls them from what he knew, calls them from a land that he understood and God says, you're going to go to a place that I'm going to show you.

[38:31] And we see Abraham going from place to place, place to place, and he would set up tents. He wasn't building houses. He was setting up tents, indicating that his sojourn is temporary.

[38:49] And Abraham is the father of faith. He is the iconic example for all those who belong to Christ. And in a very similar way, God has called us and he's taking us on a journey that he sets, that he calls us to.

[39:04] And this world is not our home. And part of the wisdom of the Christian life is understanding how do we live in this world, engage it faithfully, how do we be faithful employees, and faithful fathers, and mothers, and neighbors, and whatever else we have to do in this world, yet being mindful, this is not my home.

[39:31] Wisdom is needed to live that way. But these believers who Peter was referring to as exiles, they were not the first.

[39:48] There were others who had gone before them. we read about them in Hebrews 11. Listen to what it says about those sojourners who went before and whose names are written in Hebrews 11.

[40:05] Starting in verse 13, the writer to the Hebrews says this, These all died in faith, having not received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.

[40:30] For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return, but as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.

[40:49] Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. Brothers and sisters, this is the theme of the Christian life.

[41:02] We are sojourners on this earth. We don't belong here. This is not home for us. And our hearts are not to be attached to anything in this world.

[41:16] Thank God for his blessings and for his gifts that he gives us to enjoy, but he didn't give them to us to set our hearts upon them. Peter intentionally called these believers scattered in modern-day Turkey exiles.

[41:42] Again, could have called them many other words that we find in the New Testament for believers. But he says you're exiles. Brothers and sisters, I want to encourage us as we work our way through this letter of 1 Peter, let us embrace this word exile as much as we embrace the word Christian, as much as we embrace the word believer.

[42:06] Let us embrace this word as we live day by day. I am in exile. This is not my home. My citizenship is from above, where one day I will see my Savior, and I will be at home.

[42:22] we need to be reminded that we are exiles, brothers and sisters, because we easily forget.

[42:35] We easily forget that we are exiles. One of the big temptations for some exiles is to assimilate, especially when they face persecution.

[42:49] In this country, we have a melting pot of nationalities, and we get to see firsthand how people who are not from this country live in this country when their home is in another place.

[43:11] And there three things in particular that identifies foreigners in our midst. And these three things will also identify us if we live in another country.

[43:24] And it's our speech, our customs, and our interests. Colossians 4, 6 says that our speech is to be gracious.

[43:40] It is to be seasoned with salt so that we might know how we ought to answer everyone. Brothers and sisters, in this cold world in which we live, our speech should identify us as exiles.

[44:01] Our speech should identify us as not belonging to this world in which we live. life. What about our customs? Do our customs distinguish us from this world around us?

[44:19] when we engage in business, when we give our word, when we make a commitment, do our customs distinguish us from what's typical in the world in which we live, where people will sign agreements with no intention of keeping them, give their word with no intention of fulfilling it, would go to an altar and say, I do, until death do us part, and that means nothing.

[45:01] Brothers and sisters, those of us who belong to Christ, our customs are to be different. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, after he was finished teaching on the Beatitudes, he says this about his disciples, he says, you are the salt of the earth, you are the light of the world, because we're different.

[45:27] And what about our interests? One of the realities for those who live away from home is that they tend to be more interested in what's happening at home than they are in the place where they reside.

[45:44] they are more aware of the news at home than they are aware of the news in the country in which they reside. We're going to be having elections sometime this year.

[46:02] And I wonder, how are our hearts engaging the coming election?

[46:17] Are we setting our hopes on who wins or who doesn't win? Are our hearts being unsettled because of the possibility of this happening or that happening?

[46:33] Brothers and sisters, if that's the case for those of us who belong to Christ, it ought not be. It ought not be. It matters not who wins in the general election coming up because God is still on the throne, whoever wins.

[46:50] And his kingdom is going to go forth whoever wins. Our interests must be the interests of the kingdom of God that we are part of.

[47:03] our passions, our passions, the things that should be near and dear to our hearts should be the things that pertain to Christ and his kingdom.

[47:15] kingdom. When we go into this world, brothers and sisters, and we listen to people and we see the lostness and the brokenness, our hearts should be affected if our interests are the interests of the kingdom of God.

[47:36] God's exiles. We are exiles in this world.

[47:48] We are God's elect exiles. And may God help us not to forget it. May God help us each day we get up to remember I am God's elect exile.

[48:08] But in this reality, the apostle Peter prays for his original audience at the end of verse two, and he prays that God's grace and peace would be multiplied to them.

[48:29] And notice the order, grace and then peace. Grace from God gives us peace with God.

[48:43] Because we're no longer his enemies. We're no longer the objects of his wrath. But grace from God not only gives us peace with God, it also gives us the peace of God.

[49:00] It gives us peace that as we live in this world, as we encounter storms, as we encounter difficulties, we can know peace in the midst of it. And that is from above.

[49:12] It's a peace that this world didn't give. It is a peace that this world cannot take away. it is easy for us to pass over very quickly these words of Peter when he says, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.

[49:34] The first thing that means is that grace and peace has been given to us. Before it can be multiplied, it has to first be given. Peter is saying, may the grace and peace that God has given to you through salvation, may the grace and peace that God has given to you by rescuing you from your sins and rescuing you from an empty life, may that be multiplied to you in an ongoing way.

[50:07] And this is to be our portion as believers, that grace and peace will be multiplied to us, as we traverse this earth, in this world, no matter what's going on around us.

[50:22] Sometimes this grace and peace is ours, in the midst of broken hearts, in the midst of disappointments, in the midst of bad health diagnoses.

[50:41] We're not exempt from the things that happen in a broken and a fallen world. We experience the same things that unbelievers do. Because we are God's elect exiles, we can benefit from this prayer.

[51:00] May grace and peace be multiplied to you. In the midst of whatever you go through, in the midst of whatever you're dealing with. May grace and peace be multiplied to us.

[51:14] Brothers and sisters, I pray that we would be humbled by this this morning, that God's grace and peace has come to us through Jesus Christ in the life that he lived and through the death that he died for sinners like us.

[51:33] to those of you this morning who do not know Jesus Christ, for the most part, you've been listening in on this sermon.

[51:46] Up to this point, really, the sermon largely was not directed towards you. You are part of the perishing world, out of which God has elected, mercifully elected, those of us who have trusted in Jesus Christ.

[52:15] You're part of a world that is perishing. You're part of a world that is under the judgment of God. You're part of a world where the Bible says you are the object of the wrath of God.

[52:32] God has to But this morning, there's a call that goes out to you. There's a call that goes out to you, and it's the call of the gospel, the call to repent and believe that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.

[52:57] God didn't come for the healthy, it came for the sick. It came for those of us who recognize that we are sinners, who recognize that we need to be rescued from our sins.

[53:18] It came for those who again and again try to turn over a new leaf, to try to change their lives, try to stop doing the things they know to be wrong, but find that it only lasts a few days or a few weeks, but it doesn't endure.

[53:37] Christ, Jesus came for such people to transform their hearts and to change their lives.

[53:51] And so I call you this morning to turn from your sin and turn to Jesus Christ, trust in Jesus Christ. His grace is greater than your greatest sin. Now if you'll come to him this morning, he invites you, he says, come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, come to me, I will give you rest.

[54:19] And what you'll find is you'll find a Savior who's quick to pardon all of your sins, whatever it is, and to adopt you as his child and hold on to you for all eternity.

[54:42] That's what's offered to you this morning in the gospel. As I call you this morning to turn to Christ, let's pray.

[54:54] Father, thank you for your saving grace, that you have elected people to yourself, that you have set them apart for your purposes, you've called them to live in obedience to your word.

[55:30] Father, thank you for the mercy and grace that many of us present have received. And oh Lord, I do pray, save the lost, whether present or listening online.

[55:43] bring them from death to life and make them your adopted sons and daughters.

[55:59] Pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Amen.