Chosen

1 Peter 2:4-12

(Use the link below to read the verses.)

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Peter%202%3A4-12&version=NIV;MSG

  

What defines you? What is your identity? Is it your career or what you do such as being a parent a student or an athlete? Is it where you live? Is it some great accomplishment; or something shameful that you did? Is it a physical trait like the shape of your body or how attractive you are?

 

Whatever it is, one thing is for sure; your identity sets the course of your life. It gives direction to your attitudes, your beliefs, and your decisions.

 

In Peter’s letter, he wrote to believers that were living in a precarious time. Followers of Christ were being persecuted daily, sometimes at the cost of their lives. Peter speaks to the core of their condition… their identity. Their identity will define them because it will determine how they respond and live their lives of faith.

 

⁹ But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰ 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.     NIV

 

^9-10 But you are the ones chosen by God, chosen for the high calling of priestly work, chosen to be a holy people, God’s instruments to do his work and speak out for him, to tell others of the night-and-day difference he made for you—from nothing to something, from rejected to accepted.           MSG

 

These two translations of the same verses give you insights into who you are as a believer; into what, or who defines you.

 

You have been chosen by God to tell others about the difference that God has made in your life.

       You have been chosen not because you are holy, but to be holy through God’s mercy.

        You have been chosen to be a part of the people of God; not a lone ranger.

         You have been chosen because God has a plan and a purpose for your life.

 

You are a child of God, chosen by Him to serve and to love Him. That is your identity. That is what defines you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pale Blue Dot

Romans 10:5-17

 

 

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.”

From the book Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan

 

Carl Sagan seems to believe that all there is to life is what is here; that there is no after life; no purpose to our lives beyond right now. But the truth of the matter is that all of us are searching for meaning in our lives.

 

We try to find it through relationships; as a spouse or as a parent. We try to find it through work; reaching that next level.

 

 

 

 

We try to find it through possessions; he who has the most toys wins. We try to find it through science and reason; not unlike Carl Sagan. We try to find it through being religious; going to church and being nice.

 

 

 

The Israelites searched for meaning through the Law and their customs. Paul addressed this in today’s passage: “For they don’t understand that Christ has died to make them right with God. Instead they are trying to make themselves good enough to gain God’s favor by keeping the Jewish laws and customs, but that is not God’s way of salvation.”

 

Instead, Paul pointed to a simpler way: ^“For salvation that comes from trusting Christ—which is what we preach—is already within easy reach of each of us; in fact, it is as near as our own hearts and mouths. For if you tell others with your own mouth that Jesus Christ is your Lord and believe in your own heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

 

It is true that we live on a pale blue dot that seems pretty insignificant; “a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam”.

 

 

 

 

But the living God stepped into His creation in the person of His one and only son so that you and I might know Him and find purpose, not only in this life, but in our life to come. Amen.