What Does It Mean To Be God's People? - Ask the Pastor

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This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Gary Hashley, Tim Hebbert and Brad Kilthau.

Brad Kilthau
Our question today is one that's very extensive and we'll try to get through it as quick as we can. There's a lot of subject matter to cover, but the question is, "Often 1 Peter 2:9-10 is quoted in the church about who we are as believers in Christ. But being chosen or called a Royal priesthood or a holy nation or His own special people is really hard to comprehend for some of us. And so could you guys explain a little bit of the meanings of those titles?" So I'm gonna just take the first one if you don't mind and then I'll let you guys take the other ones. Maybe mine's a little easier, I don't know. But when we get into verse nine of 1 Peter chapter two, the apostle Peter identifies the church, that is believers, as a chosen race. And as I was looking at this in the context of scripture, of course, when you go back to chapter one, verse two, Peter already told us that we are the elect, according to the foreknowledge of God, the father. When you start bringing up the subject, obviously of being the elect, that's a very controversial subject. And it has a lot of problems within the church and there's a lot of divisiveness, but I think if we look at it in light of what Peter already wrote in 1 Peter chapter two, when he said "We are the elect, according to the foreknowledge of God, the father," that clears up a whole lot of things. That means that before God created the world, that he chose us in accordance with His omniscient knowledge, which includes all of our free choices. And when I look at this, I know there's those who stand on one rail as compared to the other rail, free choice or God's sovereignty. I don't see that in the Bible, I see both rails running to heaven as has been shared in some of the commentaries that I've read in past years. And what I see it as is, really it means that God doesn't violate our free will, even though He is sovereign, even though His will is going to be done perfectly, He doesn't violate our free will. He doesn't force anyone into His heaven, kicking and screaming, not wanting to go. We do know that God didn't create us as robots, He doesn't wind us up and we walk around as a programmed robot and loving Him. In fact, I love what C.S. Lewis said some years ago, he said, "Without choice, you cannot have true love." And I think that's something we have to always keep in mind when we think about the sovereignty of God, and also our free choice is, if there's ever gonna be real love, there always has to be choice. And we know that even in our own personal relationships, there can't be true love between a husband and wife, unless there's a choice to love one another in that relationship. But then on the other side of things, we know that God is in the eternal now. That means that He's not limited to time, He's not limited chronologically like we are. I know for myself, I can't even operate unless things are chronologically put into order. And I think this is one of the problems that we come up to with this debate, is that many people wanna make God think like us. They try to make God limited, they try to make God finite, they try to make God in a box. And that is not our God, our God is eternal, our God is infinite, our God is necessary, and our God is the first cause. We have to remember that God's above space, time and material universe that we live in, He's not bound by it. And therefore in His order to determine who's elect and His omniscient knowledge of our free choice, they run together. In fact, some of the commenters that you'll study on these passages of scripture will tell us that those two are coextensive. In other words, God's sovereignty does not outreach our free choice, they run together. There's not one more powerful in the way God does things over the other. So since God has transcended again over time, space and material, universe, He's not limited to the ways we are. In time and chronologically again, He exists in eternal now that means that God can look into the future just in the same accuracy as we can look in the past. In fact, I love what Norman Geisler wrote in his book that I read just recently, called Free But Chosen. And he talks about how often he'd be out, giving lectures and there would be a football game at home, and he wanted to watch the game, but he couldn't get home to watch it. So his wife would record the game and then he would go home and watch the game, the film. And what he said is, "Of course the game would always end up the same way on the film. I mean, you could watch it over and over and over again, the play, the players, the referee calls, everything was always the same. It was fixed, you couldn't change it. But the day they played that game, the players all had a choice in which way they ran, what play they ran as the game was played." And I think we can look at the same way of our life, is we are players in the game of life. We have a free choice, even though God has His will determined of what's gonna happen in the future. But I think we have to keep in mind the consequences of our choice, understanding that you and I, we will always absolutely be held responsible for our choices. Our choice of accepting the Lord or rejecting the Lord, that is determining our eternal destination. God has always projected Himself before all men that He exists. As we know in Romans one and two, and God has always shared that He is there. And if man would reach out and pursue that light, God will give more light until eventually it accumulates to that gospel, bringing that person to the knowledge and understanding of our lost condition and our need for Christ. It's not a case of if we see God or not, the Bible tells us all man sees God, but the Bible also tells us it's man's choice to accept or to reject Him. So I guess what I'm saying is we are responsible for our decision to accept or reject the Lord. But at the same time, God has in His foreknowledge accepted us according to the choice, obviously that we've made to accept or reject Him too. So the chosen race, yeah. We either choose God or we suppress the truth and walk away from Him. So that's one of the ways I would try to, in a nutshell, try to quickly explain why we are called a chosen race. And so Tim, I'm gonna hand off the next one to you a Royal priesthood.

Tim Hebbert
You know, guys, I think this is a passage of scripture that all Christians need to read more than once, maybe once a week, remind ourselves of who He's called us to be in Him. So when Peter's writing this letter and he refers to the church as God's chosen, as a Royal priesthood. For the Jews anyway, he's hearkening back to something that they would've understood from scripture, all the way back in Exodus, 19th chapter. Moses has led them out of Egypt, two months into the journey they make a stop at Mount Sinai, and it says this, "Exactly two months---." This is chapter 19 verse one of Exodus, "Exactly two months after the Israelites left Egypt, they arrived in the wilderness of Sinai after breaking camp in Rephidim. They came to the wilderness of Sinai and set up camp at the base of Mount Sinai, then Moses climbed the mountain to appear before God. The Lord called to him from the mountain and said, 'Give these instructions to the family of Jacob, announce it to the descendants of Israel. You have seen what I did to the Egyptians. You know how I carried you on Eagles wings and brought you to myself. Now, if you'll obey me, keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth, for all the earth belongs to me.

Tim Hebbert
And you will be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation. This is the message you must give to the people of Israel." God's intent for His children, that He delivered from Egypt is that they just wouldn't be a band of followers, but that they would be king priests, Royal priesthood that would declare to the world who God was. They were to be the on earth, living example of what happens when you follow the king of the universe, they struggled to do that. And so what Peter's telling us, I think in this passage is, "Okay, we're the new Israel, that's our calling now. That calling that he gave the nation of Israel so long ago, he's calling on his church now to take up that mantle, to be my Royal priesthood, to be the king priest, if you will, here on earth, declaring to the world who I am. And whenever I read this passage, I think of growing up as a kid, when my dad was leading song service at church, that was back before worship teams, right. We'd do a couple of hymns and invariably, his favorite chorus was Child of the King, oh yes, oh yes I'm a child of the King. And this is the phrase he loved the best, "His Royal blood now, flows through my veins." And I think we forget that we get worn down in the day to day minutia of life. And yes, we love Jesus, yes we're following in as best we can, but we forget He's calling to a higher purpose. He's called us to live a Royal life, just like He did. And that's what I get from that. but I'm gonna turn it over to Gary, cause he's gonna talk a little bit about, what does it mean to be a holy nation?

Gary Hashley
You know, there's a lot of confusion today over the role of Israel, the descendants of Abraham through Isaac and Jacob and Jacob's 12 sons. And today the church, which is comprised of yes, descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, who've put their personal faith in Jesus Christ, as their savior, and those of us who aren't Jewish. I remember on the way home from church one Sunday after hearing this term circumcision and uncircumcision in a sermon, you know, I asked my dad what all that meant. And he says, "Well, if you're uncircumcised, it's referring to you as a Gentile." What's a Gentile? How do you know if you're a Gentile? He said, "If you're not a Jew, you are one. If you're not a Jew, you are a Gentile." And so what this isn't saying as I look through the entirety of scripture, it's not saying that we, as the church today have totally replaced Israel in God's purposes, in God's plan, in God's prophetic realities because you know, we are not Israel. Though we are still a chosen people, we are still a holy nation. Kenneth West does great work with Greek, and I don't know a lot of Greek, but I love to know guys who do know Greek. And Kenneth West says the word nation is the translation of a Greek word, meaning quote, "A multitude of people of the same nature." It doesn't mean that we're of a nationality as a nation, as the Jewish people are a nation, but that we have this commonality in Jesus Christ. We have this new nature in Jesus Christ as His followers. The word holy means set apart, set apart for His service. And so let me quote, Matthew Henry who says, "All Christians, wheresoever they be, composed one holy nation. They are one nation collected under one head agreeing in the same manners and customs and governed by the same laws. And they are a holy nation because they are consecrated and devoted to God renewed and sanctified by His holy spirit." So it doesn't matter what nation we belong to physically, as in whether we are of the United States or we are of Bolivia, or we are of Brazil, or we are of Russia, or we are of China. We are a special people to God, and we're special people, not because of the land we live in or the boundaries of our country, but because we are all followers of Jesus. As we used to sing as children, "Red and yellow, black and white, they're precious in His sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world." And as His children, through faith in Jesus, no matter the color of our skin, no matter where our ethnic background goes, we are His people. We're a holy people, but we're set apart for Him. And I love what Warren Wiersbe says, because in the old king James, it says we're a peculiar people. And I remember as a young person, peculiar was not something you wanted to be, because we think of strange, we think of weird. But Warren Wiersbe said it so well he said, "It doesn't mean odd, it means refreshingly different. That there's something about us that when the world looks, it's refreshingly different." And if we read a little farther, Peter in verse 12, just a couple verses later says, "Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evil doers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation." Peter says, "We are chosen, a chosen people, a chosen race, a Royal priesthood, a holy nation." And the whole purpose of that in God's scheme of things is to have a way to glorify Himself through people who are refreshingly different. And if the world wants to look for something to complain about, something to pick at us about, all they can find is we live a wonderfully different lifestyle that is respectful and kind, and honorable and ethical. And that just like with Daniel, when said, "They went to look for some reason to accuse Daniel, the only thing they could find was he prayed a lot." And so they worked against him because he prayed a lot. So what a joy to be a part, no matter where we live on the planet, as followers of Jesus. We are God's nation. Does He still have a plan for Israel nationally? Yes, He does. I believe fully. We didn't replace Israel in that sense, but we are His people in a very special way.