Who We Are, Where We Come From, and What We Do

Today on Summit Life, J.D. Greer talks about what it means to be a Christian.

I wasn't chosen because I was more moral or more intelligent or part of the upper class. God said his grace on me when I was spiritually a prostitute. I'm not a natural saint. I'm a spiritual prostitute who's been made a saint by the gift righteousness of Christ. Happy Monday and welcome back to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor and author, J.D.

Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. We're currently in a teaching series in 1 Peter called I Am an Alien, and it's all about our identity in Christ. Pastor J.D. 's been explaining that as Christians, we're supposed to be different from the world around us. We are outsiders, and in fact, the Bible actually calls us aliens. But what does that look like, practically speaking? Pastor J.D.

answers that question today. He's talking about who we are, where we come from, and what we do as Christians. If you'd like to follow along with the transcript of each message, you can always find them free of charge at jdgreer.com.

But for now, let's get started. Here's Pastor J.D. in 1 Peter chapter 2. 1 Peter 2.9 specifically is the verse we're going to be looking at. That and the verse is right there following. The question that we're going to address today is what role the church should have or ought to have in the world. I recently read a copy of a book that my BFF, Tim Keller, is releasing in the book. He gives four different attitudes that Christians have when it comes toward culture and politics.

Here they are. Number one, he said, first of all, we've got what we call a pietistic stance right here. They're like, you know what? We're all just going to be raptured anyway, and everything is going to be burned up in the end, so our main focus really ought to be on just converting as many people as we can as fast as we can. We need to get them out of the world that's perishing and into the church. I mean, hey, what use is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic if you know it's going to sink?

I mean, you spend all the time messing around with this when you know it's going down. Just get people into the lifeboat, and that's the point. That's the pietistic stance. Second group, he comments on what he calls the conservative activist group. This group believes that the problem with our culture, the main problem with our world, is that our culture has lost its moral absolutes, its bearings. So what we need to do is recover Christian worldview in our government and in education, and we need to make our society more Christian. So we need to get, for example, prayer back in schools.

We need to get God back in the government. Jerry Falwell, Glenn Beck, both need more TV programs and that kind of stuff. That's sort of the second group. The third group that he highlights is what he calls the evangelical relevance.

Evangelical relevance. Now, these are guys that usually have a lot of piercings, a lot of tattoos. They wear sort of grunge jeans, and they say frickin' a lot, okay?

That's sort of this personality. They're like, no, no, no. The problem is that the church is too removed from culture, and when we do speak, we're always hostile to culture. We're always talking about how wicked Hollywood is and how depraved the music is. What we really ought to be doing, instead of messing around in politics and speaking up that way, what we ought to be doing instead of speaking up for the poor and the marginalized, trying to get guys like Bono to write more songs and wear Tom's shoes and that old bit, right?

Rob Bell for president. That would be this group, right? Evangelical relevance.

Here's your fourth group he highlights. It's what we call the counterculturalist group, counterculturalist. Now, this group says we really don't need to be concerned with making the world like the church at all or trying to reform the world. What we need to do is be meeting the marginalized where they are and shaping a new Christian society in the church. God's arena is not the world. God's arena is the church.

So that's where we ought to be focusing is this counterculture sort of thing in the church. All right, so here's my question. Four groups. Which one is the right one?

Careful, because it's tricky. The answer is there's truth really in all of them and all of them can find some biblical support and there's a sense in which in which none of them really capture the role that God's people are supposed to have in the world. Now, I am not going to answer that question fully today but it comes very much out of the text that we're going to talk about that begins to form how you should think about these things. This passage will give you the central framework to begin thinking about what role the people of God and the church and you ought to really have in the world. Okay? So again, don't think I'm going to answer this question fully because that would probably take a couple hour lecture of its own, but this passage gives you the essential components for you to begin to think about it the right way.

Okay? Here we go. First Peter chapter two verse nine. Peter discusses the identity of the people of God and what they're to be doing in the world as a result of their identity and he does so by giving you several different word pictures.

Several different word pictures and we're going to look at those and then what they mean for you. Alright, so verse nine. Here's our first one. But you are a, here's your first one, chosen race.

You underline stuff in your Bible, underline that or write it down. Chosen race. Every race has certain characteristics that define it correctly.

Right? I don't mean just skin color and that sort of things but cultural things. Every race has distinctions. Every culture has distinctions. This race Peter is going to show you.

This race has distinctions. How you live. What you do with your money. How you respond to people who wrong you. The joy that you have in pain.

That's going to be the subject that he's going to talk about for the next two or three chapters which we're going to study together. Alright? But here is the irony. Here is the irony. Whereas the distinctives of other races often lead to pride and division, the distinctives of the gospel do not. They lead, in fact, the opposite direction. You see, again, whatever you think makes you distinctive, you take pride in it and you look down on people who don't have it as much as you do. I'm not even saying it's bad or a bad statement. I'm just saying that we all got values. We have things that we feel like define our group and we kind of look down on those who don't have them. So everybody, see, everybody has these defining characteristics that tend to separate the good and the bad, the forward from the backward. The distinctives of the gospel, however, they don't lead to pride. They lead to humility. I give you one of my favorite verses explaining this.

I love it. You know, every one of these things that Peter says goes back to a description that God gave to Israel in the Old Testament. Every single one of these.

Alright? So the chosen race one where God talked about that to Israel was in Deuteronomy. Deuteronomy 7, God explains to Israel why he's chosen. Because they're like, oh, God, you chose us. You called us. What's, are we special? What is it about us? Why did you choose me? God says, okay, great question.

Here it is. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own treasured possession. Out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth, he chose you.

Oh, wow. Well, why did he choose us? Is it because we're awesome?

Because we're good looking? Is it because we had great skills? It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord said his love on you and chose you for you were the fewest of all the peoples. That had nothing to do with how strong you were because you actually weren't that strong. You weren't that impressive. You weren't that smart. You didn't have that much you accomplished. That's not why I chose you. Oh, I know God.

I know. Maybe even though we weren't that accomplished, maybe it's because we were so righteous. We were so, had such good morals.

Our families were so strong. That's why you chose us. God says, I asked you where you think that, but no, therefore that the Lord your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness because you are a stubborn people.

You realize what he's saying to them? You're like, hey, what was it about me that made me chosen? What caused me to be chosen? He's like, there's really nothing about you. Just wanted you to know that. That would never work, for example, on my wife.

Right? Well, you know, why did you, why did you, why did you fall in love with me? Well, it's not because you're pretty, because you're not. I mean, I don't feel that way. I'm just saying, you know, it's not because, it's not because you're smart, because I mean, you're kind of dumb.

It would never work that way. Now, now I will tell you this in the, you know, the 10, 11, 12 years that we've been in love. I do it that way, by the way, because I've been in love with her longer than she has with me. I think I have developed a love for her that goes beyond her beauty and her intelligence. I think if for some reason those were taken away, that wouldn't take away my love for her, but that's just not how it works in the beginning.

You're attracted to somebody because of some characteristic. Now, I do think I have this kind of love for my kids. In fact, my kids and I have this little exercise at night. Sometimes I'll ask them, I'll be like, you know, does daddy love you girls because you're pretty? And my oldest daughter will say no. And I will say, does daddy think you're pretty? And they'll say yes. I'll say, but is that why he loves you?

They'll say no. Does daddy love you because you're smart? No, but we are smart. And I'm like, yes, we are smart, but that's not why daddy loves you. Why does daddy love you? And my oldest daughter will say, you love us because we're your children.

I have set my love upon them. It is not something that really is as a result of their being special. That's what God's saying to them. You're a chosen race. You're not, you weren't chosen because you're special.

You're special because you're chosen. That's a whole together different ball game. That's not just a play on words. That's the essence of the gospel. In fact, in fact, in fact, he says this, look at this, verse nine, God chose us to proclaim the excellencies of, of who? Him.

That's not a hard question. See, it's right there. It's underlined.

All right. God wants us to proclaim the excellencies of him, not our excellencies. That's what other races do is they proclaim their excellencies. We're to cry in the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Then he goes on, verse 10, look at this, verse 10, once you were not a people, but now you are God's people once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. By the way, that's a quote from Hosea, the book of Hosea. Hosea had probably what I think is one of the worst assignments ever given to a man of God and a prophet in the Bible. God told him to go marry a prostitute.

And then Hosea was like, what? Come again? A prostitute? He's like, yeah, a prostitute. I want you to marry a prostitute.

No, no, no. Prophets are supposed to marry Christian chicks, godly girls. No, I want you to marry a prostitute because I want you to give everybody a picture of my relationship with my people. So Hosea goes and marries a prostitute.

She's faithful to him for two to three years and then she goes back to a life of prostitution and God tells Hosea to take her back. So what he's doing is now quoting this and applying this to the people of God saying that's where you were when God chose you. It wasn't because of beauty. It wasn't because of moral perfection. God chose you when you were ugly, deformed, spiritually a prostitute. There was nothing about you that made him set his love on you. And by the way, you didn't even choose him. He chose you. Your heart was so wicked and evil and deformed that it would never have loved God unless God wooed it first and drew us to himself. That leads not to division and pride.

That destroys division and pride. You're listening to Summit Life with J.D. Greer. For more information about this ministry, visit us online at jdgreer.com. We'll get back to today's teaching in a moment, but first I'm excited to tell you about the latest resource we are offering our faithful listeners. It's a book called Scent, Living a Life That Invites Others to Jesus by Heather and Ashley Holliman. This husband and wife duo have written an incredibly helpful book about how God is always at work around us, drawing people to himself and how he invites us to be a part of their salvation story. This book will walk you through some practical ways to be on the lookout for doors that God is opening for gospel conversations in your life, including the four best questions you can use to start a gospel conversation and so much more. We are sending a copy to any of our listeners who support the ministry of Summit Life with a gift of $35 or more right now.

You can give today by calling 866-335-5220 or visiting us online at jdgreer.com. Now let's get back to today's teaching here on Summit Life. Once again, here's Pastor J.D. I wasn't chosen because I was more moral or more intelligent or part of the upper class. God set his grace on me when I was spiritually a prostitute. I'm not a natural saint.

I'm a spiritual prostitute who's been made a saint by the gift righteousness of Christ. And so the gospel has produced the most radically diverse and inclusive community that the world has ever known. You see that in the people that Peter is writing to. Rodney Stark, one of my favorite historians, says one of the distinctive characteristics of the early church was the sheer diversity of it. In the Greco-Roman world, the rich and the poor would never mingle together, but in the church they did. In the Jewish world, the Roman world, the Romans and Jews would never mix races, but in the church they did. And that's because the Christians taught that we were all poor when Jesus came and poured himself out for us. And there's only one race, the sinful, condemned human race, and Jesus Christ the righteous who came to die for all people and was not raised as a Jew or a Greek or a rich man or a poor man or a black man or a white man or Hispanic or Asian.

He was raised as the Lord of all humanity whose blood is given for the forgiveness of all people alike. And see that produced a radically different kind of community. So people say to me, well Christianity is exclusive. I'm like every group is exclusive. Every group has defining characteristics about whether you're in or you're out. So yes, Christianity is exclusive, but it is the most radically inclusive exclusivity there has ever been. Because it has nothing to do with accomplishments or characteristics. It has to do with grace that is given to all people and all kind without measure.

Right? So they're a chosen race. Here's the second thing. A royal priesthood. You are a royal priesthood. Now let's talk about priests there for a minute. Priests represent God to people and then they represent people to God. That's the role of a priest. The Old Testament community of priests, the Jewish people, that's they stood in the place of God and they were to communicate God's words to people and reflect God to them.

That's one of the things that when we think about that role that provides a pretty healthy amount of pressure. Because I realize that a lot of times people come into here and they make up their mind about who God is based on their experiences with us. Their experiences with us. That's why we're so adamant about having the right kind of people out in the parking lot because the sermon starts in the parking lot. We want to demonstrate generosity out there. We want to take care of kids here in such a way that it puts on display the beauty of Christ. What we do with our money. How we give it away. We want all of that to be reflective of God because we represent God to people. You know I thought about this the other night when I spoke out at UNC on Wednesday night. They had a thing where those several hundred students and I was there to take questions and answer questions that people had about Christianity.

And just the pressure of something like that. Not because I felt like I didn't know the answers but realizing that I mean these students know that I'm not God but at least for this time I'm kind of representing God. And I'm like they're going to make up their mind about what God says by the way that I carry myself. And here's Jesus who who was in John 1 17 full of grace and truth. He never backed down from telling people the truth. He would say what sin was.

He'd say what right was and what wrong was. But he overflowed with such grace that he was a magnet for prostitutes and tax collectors and people who were criminals have been thrown out by society. And that's a question that we have to ask ourselves all the time. Are we really reflective of the attitude of God toward our community?

Are we generous like he is? When you got one group of people in a church who are all the same age, same race, same music preferences and styles. But that that's not reflective of who God is because God didn't create one strata of society. He created all parts of society, all parts of culture. Are we reflective of God to people? Now priests not only represented God to people, priests represented people to God.

Right? They would go before God and they would take the cases of people and they would present them to God. There's a great picture of this in the Old Testament. The priest would wear what they called an ephod which is kind of like a like a 90.

Think 90. Okay? And on that ephod they would wear 12 stones that represented the 12 tribes of Israel so that every time they went into the presence of God these people were on their heart and they were praying for them. Jesus our high priest Hebrews says now has our names written on his heart and even on his hands so that he is standing in the gap interceding for us. Okay?

That is what we now do with the communities that we live in. I'm representing people to God. God puts me in situations because I am the one who knows him. He puts me between his infinite compassion and somebody's great need and bridges the gap between those things.

You ought to do a study sometime. Go through the gospels. Count up the number of miracles that Jesus does and then count up the number of those that began not with his initiative but with somebody else's initiative.

You know what I mean by that? Like Jesus initiatives when he's walking around being like hey I'm gonna heal you bam. Somebody else's initiative is when Jesus is like going one direction and somebody gets his attention and says no no no I need you to come over here and help this. Count up the number of miracles that started that way. I know that what happens in the gospels, watch this, is that Jesus often responds to the faith of somebody who stands before him and says sir my daughter is dying and Jesus quits walking this way and starts to walk that way and goes over and heals that.

That's where you and I are placed right now. That's a concept we teach here all the time called intercessory faith. The idea that I am placed somewhere to stand between Jesus compassion and when Jesus doesn't appear to be going this direction I come up to him and I say God here's what's on my heart and I believe on behalf of this other person and I take Jesus power that way.

So that's how I want you to start reading the gospels. When you see these miracles I want you to read them as you coming up to Jesus to interrupt him and cause him to do what he and I'm putting all this in quotes all this do what he wasn't intending to do because that's what it means to be a priest is to represent people to God. One more thing on priests here because I feel like people overlook this all the time. Priest's primary responsibility though get this was not anything in relation to people their primary responsibility was something in relation to God. When God called these priests out one of the things they did is they offered sacrifices continually to God.

Their focus was loving and adoring God. This goes all the way back to the Exodus. I tell you that there are two things that we always get wrong about the Exodus. Everybody knows the Exodus story most people do the two things you always get wrong about it. The first thing is we've got this image of Moses being about a six foot five football player with a deep baritone Charlton Heston-esque voice who stands up and says God says let my people go and you're about whoa who's that you know let his people go and I told you that's wrong because first of all one thing we know about Moses we don't know much but we know that he had a speech impediment which meant he spoke with like like a stutter or a lisp where he was effeminate or something but it didn't sound like Charlton Heston you know that that would have been like God says let my people go or something like that something that did not move everyone to fear that the second thing we know is that he didn't say God says let my people go he says God says let my people go come on now so that they might worship me his whole point was I want a people that are going to be for me which means that the first thing that a priest does is it has nothing to do with people it has to do with God they offer sacrifices to God I went through the New Testament in preparation for this message and listed out all the things that the New Testament says we do as sacrifices to God I'll give you a few examples Romans 12 1 and 2 it is our bodies that we offer as sacrifices to God just because we love him not because the world has a need just because we love him the world does have a need but first and foremost it is for God here's another one Hebrews 13 16 our money Philippians 4 18 also Paul says your money is given there's a lot of motives Christians have for forgiving their money right what are some motives we have forgiving well we want to give because they're poor people who need help we want to give because there's lost people who need Jesus those are awesome motivations I don't want to dampen them at all but there's a higher motivation motivation is just it's just a sacrifice to Jesus in response to say I love you and because I'm giving this up as an offering to you Hebrews 13 15 the praise of our lips is a sacrifice to God which means that when we come in here and we lift our voices and our hands and we worship we're offering a sacrifice up to God Americans have such a this this view of worship that is so self-centered how do I feel do I feel like raising my hands the point is not how you feel the point is what he's worthy of and so we give a sacrifice of praise that is befitting the king of all the universe who died for us it's a sacrifice it's first God focused even the people we win to Jesus Romans 15 16 Paul says that the people we went to Jesus Romans 15 16 are a sacrifice of praise to God what is the motivation for what you do what's the motivation I think of the woman who came to Jesus with the alabaster flask of perfume who breaks it over Jesus feet Jesus didn't need that in fact other disciples looked at it was like what a waste you just poured out ten thousand dollars worth of perfume on the ground that could have been sold to be the poor Jesus cares about the poor we know that he gave all kinds of commands on it but in that moment he said she did the better thing because ultimately that offering was about love to me and he says wherever the gospel is preached she's going to be talked about because that's the essence of all this I called out of people for me and when they worship and they love me that just brings joy to my heart what is the motivation for what believers do why do we let me ask you this why do we go all over the world plant churches why do we give our money at christmas time so that why do we give our money at christmas time so that people can can the poor can be empowered and that the laws can be saved why yes it's compassion yes we our hearts break when we see people without Jesus and in need but there's a higher motivation and that is just a sacrifice of praise to Jesus of love it is always so encouraging and convicting to hear a call to true worship like we heard today on summit life with pastor jd krier now jd we're walking through the book of first peter which helps us understand that as christians it's okay to be a little bit different in fact we should be different from other people around us right yeah peter literally tells christians that they're not of this world they're outsiders we're not tourists here in the world but we're also not like permanent citizens here we're we're exiles we're citizens of another kingdom who are are on mission here in this kingdom in order to be able to accomplish the purposes of the king who sent us here and so you've got to learn how to live as the right kind of exile the right kind of person who sent that's one of the things i love about the resource we're offering with to go along with this series it's pairs very nicely with first peter it's a book called sent living a life that invites others to jesus it's by heather and ashley holloman who are a wife and husband team that do a lot of campus ministry i found it very helpful full of practical suggestions that regardless of your personality or what you're gifted at it'll show you what it means for you to live sent we'd love to send you this book titled sent living a life that invites others to jesus by heather and ashley holloman resources like this are just our way of saying thank you for your gift of 35 or more we're always trying to think of ways to help you grow as a disciple making disciple and this book is certainly a great step in that direction it'll teach you practical ways to share the gospel with people in your life and even walk you through ways to pray for opportunities to share the gospel to give give us a call at 866-335-5220 or you can always give online at jdgrier.com i'm molly vidovich inviting you to join us tuesday when we'll learn more about what it means to be an alien interested then don't miss it right here on summit life with jd greer today's program was produced and sponsored by jd greer ministries