Live as people chosen to receive mercy.

 

Sermon for Epiphany 5, February 5, 2023

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

1 Peter 2:9-12  ⁹But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, the people who are God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  ¹⁰At one time you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.  At one time you were not shown mercy, but now you have been shown mercy. ¹¹Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and temporary residents in the world, to abstain from the desires of the sinful flesh, which war against your soul.  ¹²Live an honorable life among the Gentiles so that even though they slander you as evildoers, when they observe your noble deeds, they may glorify God on the day he visits us. (EHV)

Live as people chosen to receive mercy.

Dear elect by the mercy of God,

            Imagine being chosen, yet rejected, loved but hated, possessing power but required to serve, alive but dying, free but under others’ control.  In some small way, we might feel like this at times.  Those we should be closest to may turn against us.  Dear friends and close family love us, but there is always someone just aching to threaten and abuse us for seemingly no reason.  We are alive, but we know we are on a path that leads ultimately to death and decay.  The higher up we go in our jobs the more we have to answer to others’ supervision and authority.

Really, though, the person I described in that first sentence is Jesus.  God chose Jesus to be our Rescuer from sin and death, but God’s own chosen people rejected the very One God chose to save them.  God declared His love for His only begotten Son, but many still hated Jesus while He walked this earth, and even more despise and reject Him today.  Jesus is the King of all creation to whom “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given,” (Matthew 28:18) but He reminds us that “Even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45)  Being true God, the Son of God could not die, yet He gave His life into the grave so that we might live and never die.

As you listen to the news and watch tragic events around the world, it is easy to despair of ever having true freedom, peace, or safety.  Wars and rumors of war remain a constant threat.  Evil often seems out of control.  Death is an ever present trouble.  Hatred is fomented and inflamed all around.  Christians, especially, seem to be in the devil’s crosshairs again.  In this letter, St. Peter encourages us not to be afraid or worried, or ashamed, but to Live as people chosen to receive mercy.

This morning, I would like to jump ahead to the later verses of our text and discuss, first, how we should live.  After we review Peter’s advice for that, we will review the reason why.  Peter wrote, “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and temporary residents in the world, to abstain from the desires of the sinful flesh, which war against your soul.”  First of all, understand that this world is no longer our true home.  Earth is a place we inhabit until God calls us back to our real home in heaven.  Like ambassadors for the federal government, we serve, here on earth, in the stead of our Lord.  We walk this planet not for our own pleasure, nor to somehow gain riches meriting our return home.  Rather, we each are placed in our positions to serve our Lord by helping our fellow sojourners traverse through this foreign land.

Like an ambassador to another country, we are subject to that country’s laws.  Furthermore, how we live reflects on the One we serve, who is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Master.  Peter recognizes that if we seek after the pleasures of the flesh, we are merely serving the devil from whose control Jesus gave His life on a cross to free us.  The temptations of the flesh are always with us, because we are sinful by nature since our first parents fell into sin.  Yet, we do not want our old nature to be our master anymore than we want Satan to be back in power, for if that is the road we take, it leads only to hell and eternal suffering.

We have a second mission as ambassadors for Jesus; Peter explained, “Live an honorable life among the Gentiles so that even though they slander you as evildoers, when they observe your noble deeds, they may glorify God on the day he visits us.”  Being foreigners in this world, we will often be at odds with the general population, or at least, be seen as incredibly odd if we walk with Jesus.  The holiness of our Savior seems unnatural to sinners caught in the devil’s snares. 

Consider what life would be like, though, if we lived only to serve ourselves.  We would be selfish, greedy, eager to take what belongs to others, and eager to use others to satisfy our personal whims.  That would be nothing like Jesus who lived solely to serve His Father’s will, so that He might redeem and save us.

Furthermore, as we live to honor our Lord, that noble effort will become visible to those around us, who in the end will recognize that how we live is beneficial to all.  Being obedient to God’s laws and to the commands of our Savior brings good things to light in this sin darkened world.  The light of our Savior then reflects off of us so that others may see and believe.  Therefore, we Live as people chosen to receive mercy.

Back in the days of the first Christians, the pagans grew more and more impressed that Christian men loved and honored their wives, that they loved their children, spent time with them, and valued them as gifts from God.  Cherishing and serving one’s family was recognized as good for society as a whole.  Faithfulness to king and country even in the face of persecution by the same soon came to show that Christians were a breed apart from the ordinary citizen.  Therefore, even the pagans began to recognize that God had changed Christians into better people, and God was praised.

Now that we have seen a bit of the what we should do, the question is why we should live to honor our God?  The answer is that we know what God has done for us, so that we are no longer subject to sin, death, the devil, and eternal condemnation.  Peter wrote, “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, the people who are God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”  You were chosen—chosen by God to be saved, chosen by God to be washed clean of all sin and guilt, chosen to receive His love and faithfulness, His protection, His name, and a home in His heaven where we will dwell forever in peace and joy.

God chose to call you His own people, not His slaves but members of His family who will inherit all things with Jesus who gave His life, His willing, holy service, and His sacrificial suffering and death that paid for your guilt.  Through faith in Christ Jesus, granted to you by the work of the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacrament, God made you His own dear sons, “And because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts to shout, “Abba, Father!”  So you are no longer a slave, but a son.  And if you are a son, then you are also an heir of God through Christ.” (Galatians 4:6-7)  We inherit the wealth Jesus accumulated before dying for us.  By faith, we receive His righteousness, holiness, innocence, and blessedness.  We receive recognition from God that our record of wrongs and rebellions has been wiped clean by Jesus.  We receive permanent peace, purity, and a place in God’s mansions above.

Through faith, God has made us a “royal priesthood.”  We are no longer slaves or beggars, but God has made us members of His royal house, and He has opened His ears to hear our prayers for ourselves and for those around us.  We intercede for a sinful world as our prayers to God are lifted up. 

Believers in Jesus are “a holy nation,” a people set apart to God as pure ones for Jesus’ sake.  God set us apart from this troubled world, so that we can sing His praises and tell the world about the Savior who rescued us from darkness and death. 

Like Old Testament Jonah, we can march out into this pagan world proclaiming repentance before a just but merciful God.  Like John the Baptist, we can point friend and enemy alike to Jesus as the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.  God doesn’t give us this command so that we may earn a place in His kingdom, but having installed us as His chosen friends, He invites us to share the Good News of all that Jesus has done for us and for the world, so that many more lost souls might be saved from this darkness to live forever with Him.

Dear friends, this morning I feel like I am hurrying to tell you this all.  However, we have the Good News of a Savior who came into this broken, sin-damaged world to rescue us from its darkness.  Like prisoners stuck in the bowels of a deep, dark dungeon, we once had no light, no hope, no tomorrow.  Because of sin, we were all lost and condemned creatures subject to God’s wrath.  Jesus changed that forever.

Purely out of His fatherly divine goodness and mercy, God chose to send His Son, Jesus, to live a perfectly holy life on our behalf, a life that is credited to all who believe in Jesus.  Having won forgiveness, salvation, and eternal life for all through the sacrifice of His dear Son on a cross, God chose you out of the wretched refuse of mankind to hear this Good News and believe it.  God picked you personally out of all humanity to be in a place where the Word is preached and the Sacraments are rightly administered, so that you might be given new life and a new hope in Jesus.

By God’s grace, all our sins were counted against Jesus, and He paid the ultimate price to set us free from punishment and disgrace.  By God’s grace, the Word of peace was proclaimed in our hearing.  By God’s grace, the Holy Spirit used that Gospel to bring life to souls that once were dead in sin, and He used that Good News to show us what Jesus has done to bring us life, peace, and salvation. 

Now, because our hearts were awakened to the love of God, we too have a strong desire to love God and our neighbor.  That good desire moves and motivates us to pray for our neighbor, to share Good News with whomever and wherever we can.  It moves us to remember that God loves our neighbors just as He has loved us.  It moves us to rejoice that we have the opportunity to Live as people chosen to receive mercy.  Amen.

The God of all grace, who called you into his eternal glory in Christ Jesus, will himself restore, establish, strengthen, and support you.  To him be the glory and the power forever and ever.  Amen.