How am I Holy or Elect if I'm an Exile? (1 Peter 1.1-21) 08/09/26
Sermon Manuscript
Intro:
“How did we get here?” Is one of the most powerful and impactful questions in any story. There are so many narrative tropes in movies, tv, and books that are built around this question and the moments that it creates. Because asking this question is what moves a character from simply being subjected to the story, to actually stepping back and observing the story. It takes them from merely experiencing the story passively, to potentially having the ability to impact the future of the story. It’s where things start to make sense, possibly for the first time. “How did we get here” is a powerful question.
How many times has the story of a Disney or Pixar movie been totally reinterpreted by a flashback that provides some radical unexpected insight that explains why things are the way that they are? This trope works partly because the story you are a part of really does explain the situation you are in, and partly because sometimes, incredible breakthroughs and transformations really can happen by realizing that the story you thought you were in is not actually the whole story, or even the truest story. Sometimes, there really is something else that explains and reframes and reinterprets the present moment in such a way that it opens up new possibilities you could never have imagined.
But also, there’s an even more popular version of this trope… And that is the preteen fiction version. The preteen fiction version is when you’re the main character and your life is going terribly but then, at some point, you find out that you’re actually a wizard, or a superhero, or a princess, or the chosen one, or whatever and the life you thought you were living isn’t nearly as true as the life you were actually made for. It’s not merely a flashback that explains or reframes things, it’s a new reality that fundamentally changes everything.
1 Peter 1 is like the original version of this. It is the “you’re a wizard, harry” moment for gentile Christians. As we see from Peter’s descriptions of the audience in the book, these are people who have never seen Jesus, but they have hoped in him. People who were previously not a people, but now are God’s people. Those who had never received mercy before, but now have found mercy in Christ. People who were far off and unclean and are now being brought near and made priests. These are Christians who, by this time, are familiar with the stories of the Jewish Scriptures but see them as just that… Jewish Scriptures.
Peter is saying, “you don’t get it… That story has always been about the redemption that has now been revealed to you.” You haven’t just been brought into the outer courts as a gentile, you have been brought into the very presence of God as a priest. And this is not a new or unexpected thing - this has been the plan the whole time. You have just recently discovered it. God has known about you from forever. Before there was ever such a thing as a jew or a gentile, God had already planned to redeem you. Imagine that. Peter’s come a long way from being hesitant to share the gospel with a gentile in Acts 10. He’s got the idea now. Peter is now saying to these gentile Christians, not only is your true identity more special and valuable than you ever thought possible… but also there is a story that doesn’t just explain how we got into all this mess around us - it even gives it purpose.
The hard part is that this message is, at face value, totally incompatible with the every day life of gentiles in 1st century Asia minor. They were suffering under heavy Roman persecution at this time. Life was hard. They were a part of a brand new religion that was considered by other gentiles to be a tiny sect of an already small and weird religion called Judaism. And according to the Jews, they were heretics! Christians in this day were not popular people. Hated by the Jews for not being Jewish enough, hated by the gentiles for being too Jewish, and in reality being more Jewish than the Jews but more free than the gentiles.
The point is - this reality that Peter is talking about - this status of being elected, called into a kingdom of royal priests, and set free from the darkness and futility of the world their fathers and grandfathers grew up in… this is not what real life feels like on Tuesday at 3pm. Maybe you can relate. Maybe you know what it’s like to show up here on Sunday and be told that you’re a beloved son and daughter of God and destined for an eternity of happiness in heaven, but then you walk out those doors and real life hits you like a truck. And maybe you know that we are called to be holy before God but your sin is still consuming you. And maybe you get that every blessing in the heavenly places is yours in Christ but also heavenly blessings don’t always pay earthly bills. Maybe you hear the message that you’re part of a kingdom of priests and the family of God but then you go home and can’t help wondering why you feel so… very… alone.
Those are fair questions, and Peter opens the book by laying a theological foundation for answering them. He sets up the framework here, and then proceeds to build out the house around it for the next 5 chapters for the express purpose of answering questions like that. Questions like, “how did I get here?” And “How am I supposed to be holy or elect if I’m an exile?” And as silly as it sounds, until we feel at least a little bit like Harry hearing from Hagrid that he’s actually a wizard, an heir to a fortune, and called to live a supernatural life in an otherworldly community, I don’t think we’ve really got what Peter is trying to say here. So let’s get into it. The message of 1st Peter is that we are elected to holiness in exile. That’s our three points as well - Elected, to Holiness, in Exile.
Point 1: Elected
Listen, every few months when it comes up in the text, a bunch of y’all find out you’re attending a calvinist Reformed church and that’s a bit of a shock. Let me just go ahead and get that out of the way at the beginning of the semester. But also, let me say even more clearly, that you are a part of a church that loves you and is glad you are here whether you agree with those ideas or not. But here’s what I really mean by all that, and why it’s coming up here… Being Reformed or holding to the Doctrines of Grace just means you believe God is radically and intimately involved in every part of your life, that he’s never been surprised, and that his plans and purposes have never failed. And this message is all over 1st Peter. Let me show you.
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of athe Dispersion in Pontus… according to bthe foreknowledge of God the Father, cin the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and dfor sprinkling with his blood
Ok, so, Christians, you are “elect.” That means “chosen.” Same word as in Matthew when Jesus says “many are called, few are ‘chosen.’” Or speaking to his disciples, “Did I not choose you, the 12.” So Peter says to his readers, you are “chosen.” Then he adds 3 modifiers to that: 1) according to, 2) “in”, and 3) “for.” In other words, you are chosen in at least these three senses. You are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God. God did not arbitrarily choose you, he intentionally chose you. He did not cover his face and go “eenie meenie minie mo” he said “I want that one.”
Second, you were chosen in the sanctification of the Spirit. The greek word there does mean “in”, but it’s technically “in and/or by”. Like saying something is “in transit” or “in process.” It’s not just “inside of”, it’s literally “by means of.” You were chosen by the means of sanctification, and the text says the sanctification is “from the Spirit.” The Spirit is the source of the sanctification, not you. Even if you participate by way of response, he is still the source and initiator of it. Meaning he chose you by sanctifying you in a way that caused you to respond to him in obedience. He set you apart, long before you ever responded to him. And if you can believe it, it actually gets clearer. Because the third modifier that explains how we are chosen is “for” or “unto” obedience. So the first two told us how we were chosen, this one tells us what we were chosen unto. What he set us apart for. Our chosenness has directionality - we were chosen to obedience to Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood.
You can’t say that being chosen in sanctification means our obedience is the basis of our being chosen, when it then specifically says our obedience is the result of our being chosen. Obedience is what we were chosen unto not what we were chosen for. That’d be like saying “yeah I picked these eggs out of the fridge because they were an omelette." No, you picked them because they were eggs, and you picked them for the purpose of becoming an omelette . Peter says we are chosen to be obedient, not chosen because we were obedient. Peter actually makes it clear in verse 14 that you are now obedient children, and therefore should not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance - when you were not obedient. So again, the obedience is a new thing. It’s what you were chosen to become, not the basis of your being chosen.
If this feels like a tough pill to swallow I get it. Because Him choosing you means he didn’t choose others. And that’s a hard thing to get your mind around. But listen… We knew that was part of the story already. From the moment the words “grace” and “mercy” entered the equation, we knew we were not talking about something that was owed to anybody. We are talking about something nobody deserves. It’s not unfair that they didn’t get chosen, it’s unfair that you did. But praise God, he’s not fair, he’s full of mercy. And because he isn’t fair, you and I are chosen for a life that is so far beyond our wildest dreams that it reinterprets and reframes everything that hurts right now.
But often we stop short on that at this point. We often think that the gospel merely reframes the difficulty of this life simply by categorizing it as temporary. It’s now no longer the last thing we will experience, but it is still just something to be endured. Our lives here then become, effectively, meaningless. This is just a rest stop. It doesn’t really matter. But as we will see, that is emphatically not the message of 1st Peter. Because we aren’t just elected to go to heaven. We are elected to holiness in Exile.
Point 2: To Holiness
We already looked at this briefly in the last point, but our election, our chosenness, has directionality. It is aimed at something. And that something is holiness. And I get it, at first glance, being chosen to be holy does not sound as cool as being chosen to go to Hogwarts. But in reality, there is more hope and freedom here than I think any of us imagine at first. The problem with understanding this idea of being chosen for holiness is that these days nobody has any idea what holiness means. We almost never use this word in a positive sense when referring to people. It’s maybe good if we are talking about God, but it’s sarcastic at best if we are talking about people. To call someone “holy” feels either like a gross overstatement or a sarcastic exaggeration. He or she might be “holier than thou,” but not actually holy in a meaningful way.
And I think part of where we went wrong on this is that idea I mentioned before, that we think of holiness as something we have to maintain in order to earn salvation from God. If that is true, then anyone who is holy has a reason to boast over those who are less holy. It’s something that makes them better than others. I know any good protestant probably balks at that idea - we should know that holiness isn’t something we do to earn our salvation. But here’s a test to see if you still kinda believe it. You probably still think holiness is only good for earning a place in heaven if… you feel like it’s no longer important once heaven is guaranteed. If holiness is less important once heaven is guaranteed, then we must still see it as something that’s only good for getting us into heaven. But that’s not what Peter thinks holiness is for. Peter’s argumentation is clear, our inheritance - our salvation, is:
imperishable, undefiled, and lunfading, mkept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded nthrough faith for a salvation oready to be revealed in the last time
So, your inheritance in Christ is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Your disobedience has not damaged it. Your sin has not killed it, because it is imperishable. It is not growing old or decaying while it sits in heaven waiting for you. And you are being guarded for it by God’s power through faith. So even your faith is not from you - it is the power of God in you that is guarding you for salvation. Your faith is the mechanism that God is using, by his power and not yours, to guard you and keep you in Christ until that salvation is fully revealed in the last day. This is why Peter started out by saying we are chosen by means of the sanctification that comes from the Spirit - your holiness comes from the Holy Spirit - not you. Which means it is dependant upon his work in and through you, not your ability to white knuckle it. “When my faith my fail, he will hold me fast. He will not let my soul be lost, his promises shall last. Bought by him at such a cost, he will hold me fast.” You can sing that because it’s written right here.
Let me tell you why this is such good news. In the Old Testament, when the Law of God was given to Moses, it was phrased in a remarkable and wonderful way. Both in Greek and in English, the phrasing works. And in verse 16, Peter quotes a summary of it here, from Leviticus 11:44: “You shall be holy for I am holy.” “You shall.” What a wonderful way to say that… because it means “you should.” You “should” be holy, for God is holy.” You’re like “I know, that’s the law.” But the whole gospel is smuggled into that little word, “shall.” Because yes, it means “should.” But it also means “will.” It is true, you should be holy. But it is also true that you will be Holy, because He is holy. According to this text, He is in you, and He has set you apart, by His power, according to His foreknowledge, by means of the work of His Spirit, to become holy, like He is. You will be holy because He is holy.
The whole gospel is hidden and foreshadowed in the law. Because it is written, “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” And because He has chosen you for this purpose, this will be true of you. It is an inevitability. It is your inheritance. This reality is kept safe and imperishable for you by God’s power working through your faith to make you holy.
Listen. I don’t know what you have done, but I know at least some of it is bad. Because people do bad things. Not just small mistakes, and not just accidents. We have all done really, genuinely bad things. It’s in our broken nature. And part of what hurts about having a nature that is broken but not destroyed, is that we retain enough of the innate image and knowledge of God to know that what we have done is not right. And so we feel shame. We were broken enough to reach for the fruit but not too broken to reach for the fig leaves and hide ourselves after.
And in Christ, God has brought us back into the presence of the God we spent our whole lives hiding from. And in His presence, where we have every reason to expect wrath and punishment, instead he says in Christ, “I have chosen him. I have chosen her. They will be holy, because I am holy.” Your future holiness is not contingent upon how your story has gone up to this point, it is solely and utterly dependent on the holiness of the Spirit of God at work in you, and therefore it will happen. One day you will sin for the last time. You will fail for the last time. And from that point on, for the rest of eternity, you will only ever walk in righteousness, and you will rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.
Point 3: In Exile
But believe it or not that’s still not enough. Remember, the holiness we are called to is not only for then, it’s also for now. It will be perfected then, it will be permanent and complete then, but it starts now. It’s a promise for then, but it’s also a possibility for now. And more than that, it already has a purpose now. Even though the purpose isn’t earning salvation. There is already a far better purpose to our holiness now.
Peter calls his audience elect exiles. Members of the Dispersion. And a lot of people think that he is referring to Jewish people who were exiled from Rome between AD 41 and AD 53. But that’s highly unlikely for more reasons than I have time to get into here. Suffice it to say that expulsion from Rome was a fairly narrow event that would have been over well before the time this book was written. And throughout his book, as I demonstrated earlier, he is clearly referring to an audience that is primarily gentile. As he says in chapter 2, “formerly you were not a people, now you are God’s people.” As chapter 4 says, now you have been “ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers,” no longer “living in the passions of your former ignorance.”
So he’s using an analogy. He’s telling them they are exiles, living in the dispersion… meaning they are people who are living in a foreign land that is not their own. What better way to encapsulate his message to these gentile Christians? He’s saying, “I know you were born here, but this is no longer where you are from.” And at the same time he says this, he makes repeatedly and abundantly clear that their exile is not a punishment - they are sprinkled by the blood of Christ. They have been born again to a living hope. They call God Father. They have an inheritance.Chapter 3 says Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God.” In other words, exile is their location, not their relation. They are living as exiles from the perspective of their earthly experience, but before God they are a chosen people, a holy nation, priests set apart for worship.
But he wants them to have this mindset of living as if they are exiles. Meaning living as if they are not a part of the people they are located in. As if their home is elsewhere. And he makes it clear that this condition is not a punishment, but he also makes it clear that it’s not an accident either. They are elect exiles. According to the foreknowledge of God, kept by the power of God through faith, set apart for holiness in their exile. Peter is saying, in no uncertain terms, that two things are true: God wants you here, and he wants you holy. Why?
Verse 6. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by pvarious trials, 7 so that qthe tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes rthough it is tested by sfire—may be found to result in tpraise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 8
This is why you are here. This is your mission. This is what you were chosen for. You were put here, called and empowered by God to be holy in the midst of a place that is not your home, grieved by various trials, so that your faith may be shown to be as valuable as it is. Don’t get this twisted, it’s not testing to see if your faith is real. It’s testing to show that it is real in a way that will result in praise, and glory, and honor. “So that the tested genuineness of your faith may result in glory…” Not “to test your faith and see if it deserves…” He is not testing to see if you are a son or daughter - remember, your inheritance is already secure - kept in heaven for you, imperishable until the last day. Your sanctification is being accomplished by the power of the Spirit of God himself. He is not trying to find out if it’s working, he is trying to show everyone that it is. He’s not testing to find out, he’s testing to prove.
And the best way for that to happen is for your holiness to shine in a place where there is no other possible explanation for it. If God’s people are only holy in the promised land, then they aren’t really holy they are just comfortable. Peter’s point is that you can take the chosen out of the holy land but you can’t take the holiness out of the chosen ones. You are hand picked by God to be holy - not just some day, but right now. Not only when it’s easy, but especially and specifically when it is not. Not to earn your salvation, to demonstrate it.
Conclusion:
The last question this raises is, “who would want this job?” Who would want to be selected to go and live a holy life in a world that cannot understand it, will hate you for it, and will constantly try and tempt you away from it. Why us? Why couldn’t we have been born under David’s rule, in the promised land, in sight of the temple, when all the festivals and the celebrations and the sacrifices made holiness feel attainable and normal? Why did we get the short end of the redemptive historical stick and get chosen for a life of exile?
And Peter has two shocking things to say about that. First, he says, the prophets who came before you, who lived in those “glory days,” they were all searching and inquiring carefully about this specific grace that you are now walking in. They longed to see what you are now seeing. More than anything, they wanted to know how and when it was going to happen. And when they asked God about it, they were told that their work, their very lives, were serving us. The gospel that we have heard, that we are now walking in, their whole lives were lived in service to that story. We are living in that moment in the movie where everything looks chaotic and impossible and you’re probably wondering how we got here. But it’s all been leading up to this. And despite how painful our lived experience may have been up to this point, there is a bigger, greater story that is more true than the things we have endured. More true even than our sin.
And I know it doesn’t look or feel glorious right now. But Peter says this crazy thing here… He says the Angels, who live in perpetual glory, are longing to look into this gospel that we are now walking in. Do you understand that even in the most painful moments of your life on this earth, the Angels who live in a glory you can’t even imagine would trade places with you in a second? They see it all, and they don’t just think the hope of the gospel is pretty good, they long to look into it.
What I’m saying is, the smaller your perspective, the worse the story feels. But the prophets and the angels who have been blessed with a little bit broader perspective on the story - on our story, think we are living in the pinnacle of it all right now. The glory, and the praise, and the honor that comes from having your faith and your holiness put to the test and be proven genuine will not just be worth it, they will be the sort of thing you’d choose over any other life if you could see it all.
Benediction: To those who are elect exiles of athe Dispersion… according to bthe foreknowledge of God the Father, cin the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and dfor sprinkling with his blood: May egrace and fpeace be multiplied to you.
