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First Presbyterian Church of Inglewood
100 North Hillcrest Ave
Inglewood, California 90301
Telephone numbers: (310) 677-5133
Fax (310) 330-8342
Electronic mail: PRESBYTS@SBCGLOBAL.NET
Sunday, April 3, 2005
Rev. Dr. Harold E Kidd
THE PURPOSE DRIVEN LIFE
"But you
are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to
God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness
into his wonderful light." 1 Peter 2:9
(NIV)
I want to preach this
morning, as the Holy Spirit shall guide on the subject of The Purpose Driven Life. The KJV in citing these same verses reads
almost similar except for one phrase. "But you are a chosen people, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that you should show forth
the praises of him who hath called you our darkness into his marvelous light.
The verse that is before us
comes from a letter written by the Apostle Peter. Peter was writing to a church
enduring much suffering. Peter was probably in Rome when the great persecution
began under Emperor Nero. Throughout the Roman Empire, Christians were being
tortured and killed for their faith, and the church in Jerusalem was being
scattered throughout the Mediterranean world. Rome had determined to rid the
empire of those who would not bow to Caesar … the “Christ-ones.”
So the purpose of the letter
is to offer strength and encouragement to those who were suffering because of
their faith in Jesus. Peter reminds them that trials can be used by God to
refine their faith. That they should believe in spite of their circumstances.
That in spite of their suffering their lives had purpose and meaning. Amen.
Peter wrote to these believers in order to strengthen their faith. Amen. And
like these early believers, some of us this morning may be going through a bad
time. But no matter how difficult the place of transition or trial we may be
in, God wants us not simply to go through it but to grow from it. The victory
is not simply in surviving; it is in being strengthened. If you give it to God,
suffering can produce a greater clarity of purpose and meaning for the living
of our days. Amen.
Suffering wears many faces
-- physical abuse, mental anguish, disease, social ostracism, to name a few.
The temptation in all suffering is that it may cause us to want to give up, to
turn back, to surrender, or to give in, to become bitter or resentful.
Peter knew suffering first
hand. He had been beaten, jailed. In traveling with Jesus he spent many a
lonely day and week away from his own wife and family. He saw one of his best
fishing buddies, James the brother of John, martyred. He lived with the
remembrance of having denied his Lord. He would ultimately be crucified, like
Jesus. Tradition has it that feeling himself unworthy to die in the same manner
as his Lord, Peter requested to be crucified upside down. Though he suffered a
lot, Peter, the one who denied Jesus, remained loyal to Jesus to the end of his
life. Peter's life had purpose and meaning. Beyond just a carefree and
trouble-free existence.
He was a disciple of the
Lord. He became a rock in the early church. He was a defender of the Faith. He
died that we today might have the message of this precious Gospel concerning
Jesus. His life stood for something, someone who was greater than himself. He
started out as a fisherman but ended up as a fisher of men. Hallelujah!
One of the ways in which God
is constantly seeking to strengthen and encourage us is in reminding us of who
we are and whose we are. In verse 9 Peter uses a series of phrases which are a
summary of who and whose we are in Jesus Christ. "You are a chosen people,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, a people belonging to
God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness
into his wonderful light."
Peter was steeped in Old
Testament theology. Amen. And all of these phrases are great descriptions of
the people of Israel. Amen. And the great promises, which God made to His
people Israel, are being fulfilled in the church, which is the New Israel, the
Israel of God. Every one of these titles is full of meaning
Peter calls the people to
whom he is writing the elect, God's chosen people. The outstanding thing
about this passage is that Peter takes words and conceptions which had
originally applied only to the Jews, the Chosen Nation, and applies them to
Gentiles, of which we are. There was a time when it was possible to speak of
Israel as the Chosen People, to the exclusion of all other nations.
But the nation of Israel
failed in the purposes of God, for, when God sent his Son into the world, they
rejected Jesus and crucified Him. When Jesus spoke the Parable of the Wicked
Husbandmen -- I encourage you to read it for yourself – he himself
said (Mk. 12:9; Luke 20:16) that the inheritance of Israel was to be taken from
them and given to others. This is the basis of a great New Testament teaching,
that the Christian Church is now the New Israel, the Israel of God (1
Corinthians 3:11; Galatians 6:16).
Once it had been said that
God loved only Israel, of all nations upon the earth. But now the mercy, the
privileges, and the grace of God have gone out to all the earth through Jesus,
to all men, to all women, to all nationalities, to all the peoples of the
earth, and out of every tribe, out of every tongue, out of every continent, God
has chosen a New Israel.
All the privileges which
once belonged to Israel exclusively now belong to the Church. Somebody ought to
say amen.
You are a
Chosen People. I looked up this word chosen in Webster's dictionary, and it
gave a wonderful description of what it means to be chosen. To be chosen means
to be picked out by preference. To be selected. As when you’re shopping for
that new dress or suit, and among the countless number of dresses or suits,
blouses, shirts, or pants you had to select from, you chose the very one you
are wearing this morning.
It frequently happens that
the value of something exists in the fact that someone has owned it. Some very
ordinary items can take on great value because of who has owned it. People will
pay thousands of dollars to buy a suit once owned by Elvis Presley, or an
original painting by a Pablo Picasso. Just a walk through the Smithsonian
Institute, and you will find artifacts once belonging to Presidents and First
Ladies -- bedroom sets, someone's favorite walking stick, pens, books -- which
are only of value because they were once owned by someone now considered
important as it relates to American History. It’s not the item, but its
ownership, which gives it its worth.
Well, in a very similar way,
our value is precious because of Who now owns us. We may be very ordinary
people, but we acquired a new value and dignity and greatness because we now
belong to God. Our value now lies in the fact that we are God's property. The
title Chosen People stresses God's loving initiative in bringing us to himself.
Amen.
To better understand the
significance of our having been chosen by God, I went through my concordance to
see how many references I could find in relationship to God having chosen us.
Amen.
Back in Deuteronomy 14:2,
when God was establishing the Hebrews into a nation, fulfilling in them the
covenant promises He had made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, He reminded the
Hebrews, "You are a holy people to the Lord your God. Out of all the
peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured
possession."
In John 15:16 Jesus said to
his disciples, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you
to go and bear fruit -- fruit that will last." Jesus made the first choice
-- to love and to die for us. He made the choice to invite us to live with him
forever. We make the next choice -- to accept or reject his offer. But without
the Lord having made the first choice, we would have no choice. Chosen. We did not choose Him, but He
first chose us. Hallelujah! In 2 Thessalonians 2:13 Paul reminds the church,
"But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord,
because from the beginning God chose you to be saved through the sanctifying
work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth." Salvation begins and ends with God. We can
do nothing to be saved by our own merit.
By human nature we often
base our self-esteem and our worth on our
accomplishments. But our
being chosen of God has nothing to do
with our jobs, our successes, our accumulated wealth, or the knowledge we have
acquired. Our value comes from being chosen by God, not from what we have
achieved or possess. We have value and worth, not because of what we do but
because of what God has done. He chose
us. Hallelujah!
Surely there can be no
greater compliment and privilege in all the world than to be chosen by God. The
Greek word eklektos is used to
describe anything that is specifically chosen -- hand picked, chosen with a
particular purpose in mind. So we have the honor of having been specifically
chosen by God. God never chooses for idleness, but
God always chooses for
service. The honor which God has given to the church is the honor of being used
in and for his service. The fact that we have been chosen means that the honor
and the work of God have been delivered into our hands. It was precisely here
that the Jews failed; they failed to be a light to the other nations. It is for
this reason that Peter reminded the church, "We are a chosen people, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation", and concludes by saying, "That you
may declare the praises of Him Who
called you out of darkness into His wonderful
light." We have been chosen with a purpose.
Let me flip the script and
take a page directly from Rick Warren's The
Purpose Driven Life. You are not an accident. While there are illegitimate
parents, there are no illegitimate children. Many children come into this world
unplanned and unwanted. But in Jesus Christ, God's purposes took into account
for human sin and error.
How many of you can testify
this morning that God never does anything by accident or by mistake. You are
not an accident. God has a reason for every thing and person He creates. Every
plant and every animal was planned by God, and every person was designed with a
purpose in mind. God said in His word to Jeremiah, "Before you were in
your mother’s womb, I knew you."
Your birth was no accident.
Your life is no fluke of nature. You may or may not agree with the parents God
gave you, but it was all a part of His plan for your life. God prescribed every
single detail of your body. Jesus said the Father even knows the very number of
the hairs on our head. He deliberately
chose our race, the color of our skin, our hair texture, and every feature. He
determined the natural talents we each would have and the uniqueness of our
personalities. God made you to be you. Hallelujah. You were Chosen. Elect of
God. A treasured Possession.
Some of you may say, that's
putting too much credit on God. But David knew that God made me. Hallelujah.
"You created my inmost being; You
knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and
wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was
not hidden from You when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven
together in the depths of the earth, Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the
days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to
be." Amen.
Even while he was out there
in the fields shepherding his father's sheep, David's life had purpose. Amen.
His life had meaning. Amen. He was praising God, worshiping God long before he
got to be a king. Amen.
You see, the Christian faith
says every life has a purpose. Every life has value. Amen. We can discover our
true identity and purpose only through a relationship with Jesus Christ. If you
want to know what your purpose is, you've got to start with the One who made
you, you've got to start with the One who gave you the talents and uniqueness
that you have. Amen. Regardless of the circumstances of one’s
birth or who our parents are/were or where and how one was raised, God had a
plan in creating us. Knowing that God
has a plan and purpose for your life can turn your life around. Amen. (Atlanta courtroom killer)
And this reality that we
have been chosen with a purpose is especially important in a day and time in
which people are becoming known by their social-security number, a statistic.
It’s important in a day in which many suffer from low self-esteem for a variety
of reasons. When people are being devalued, marginalized, and seen in many
arenas of our world as little more than disposable commodities. We have
immeasurable value because we were chosen by God!
He created us out of His
love. He created us to have fellowship with Himself. He created us to declare
His love for all humanity. And the thing about purpose is that our purpose in
life continues to grow and take on new meaning as we move through the various
seasons of life. Why? Because God is
not through with us yet.
No matter what you might be
going through this morning, no matter what the trial, no matter how chaotic
things might appear to be for the moment, no matter what the test, what kind of
suffering the Lord has allowed to come your way, no matter what the devil might
be throwing at you this morning … remember that you are chosen of God. Elect from all the peoples of the earth. A
Holy People, a Treasured Possession.
Remember that He's called you out of spiritual darkness in order that He
might use you to declare his marvelous light.