Holy Advertisements

For God, who said, Light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ, 2 Corinthians 4.6. For you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord, Ephesians 5.8. So we're giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light, Colossians 1.12. Living advertisements to the heroic deeds of the gospel through Christ. When we become Christians, we don't just bear the name of Christ, we bear His reputation as well.

Have you thought much about that before? What people see in you will in some ways influence what they think about Jesus. Part of what it means to be a Christian, in this generation and in every generation, is to pursue holiness in ways that are counter-cultural. We need to be able to do that well.

And today, Stephen Davies is going to help us learn how. If we were to have the Lord visit us today, if the Lord himself were to stand here and with us, point out his treasures, he would not be putting up a photograph of an old Bible. He wouldn't be referring to a manuscript she from a preacher of a century ago. If the Lord were standing, if he were to come up here, he would point out something extremely valuable to him.

He would point out you. You, believer, happen to be his special collection, his special collection. Just look at how the believer and the believing church is described in 1 Peter 2 and verse 9. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession. You could render that for God's own treasured possession. Beloved, Jesus Christ would display you. In fact, one day he will, for all of eternity, display the splendid, glorified, redeemed as the objects of his glory and his grace. 1 Peter 5 verse 4. The world was telling the first century Christians that Peter's writing, to him he's writing.

It's still saying the same thing to 21st century Christians. Look, you're unwanted. You're a bunch of nobodies. No market value in you.

You're worthless. And frankly, that's because they viewed Christ then and now in the same manner. Just a few verses earlier, we discovered that the world rejected Christ, the cornerstone, verse 7. They trip over him. They stumble over him.

He gets in their way. Get out of my way, they would say, verse 8. But although the world has rejected him, you, believer, have accepted him. He is valued by you as precious, verse 4. And by his saving grace, we learn he quarried you out of the pit.

He dug you out and shaped you and attached you as a living stone to this spiritual house we call the church. Peter is effectively telling them and us, you cannot be worthless. You can't be without value. You can't be insignificant.

Why? Because we, ordinary people, have become special treasure because we belong to him. Now, let's take a closer look at how Jesus describes through Peter, you, and me, and, in general, this church.

There are four descriptive phrases. First, notice, you are a chosen race. Again, Peter, we won't rehearse all that we've learned, but he highlights the redemption of the believer who owes his salvation to the covenant-electing grace of God, which, in this text, is worth the reminder. You're not accidental. You're not random. You're chosen.

You're chosen. And for thousands of years before Peter wrote this statement, this is the language of the nation Israel, and we to this day call them God's chosen people. Well, guess what Peter says?

So are you. Now, and we study this at length, they, the nations, still are uniquely God's covenant nation. And we are awaiting what the prophets declare and the New Testament adds to that the goodness of God is going to be displayed at some point in time during the tribulation and during that period of horror and wrath. They're going to be brought to repentance by the goodness of God.

They're going to be reconstituted as a nation, and they will welcome back the one they pierced the second time he comes. And with us, they will welcome him as their Messiah, Romans 11, along with Zechariah chapter 12. But now here, Peter uses this phrase to describe the New Testament believer and church. We are his chosen race. The word race here in this phrase, maybe it's translated in your Bibles, generation, chosen generation. It's a word that refers to people who belong to a common ancestor.

It's a word referring to people who have a common origin. And we do, don't we? We do as a church. You've been born again by faith in Christ alone and inducted into the family of God because you received him, John chapter 1 and verse 12. So all of us in here who believe happen to share the same origin of the new birth, pointing back to our shared ancestor, as it were, the Lord Jesus Christ. I'm enjoying reading a little commentary on 1 Peter written by Juan Sanchez, an Hispanic pastor in Texas.

He writes this, and I thought he wrote it well. He said, Peter is informing us that the gospel has created then a new race, one race, made up of people from every tongue, tribe, social, and economic standing and cultural variety. I like the way he puts this, God has chosen the unalike and made them into one new family. And when the gospel is the only way to explain the assortment of people gathered in an auditorium, worshipping together, the glory of God is displayed.

I like that, an assortment of people. How do you explain this, by the way? How do you explain the church?

An assortment of people from all kinds of backgrounds. He explained it in the fact that we share a common ancestor. We share the same life by our union with Christ Jesus. Because of that, we have the same family name taken from the one who gave us life. And if you study, by the way, the origin of that family name, it's a term the church didn't come up with.

It was coined in the first century by combining the Greek name of the Messiah, Christos, and adding, as they would in that generation, the Latinized ending and coming up with Christiani. In Rome, people were often called by the name of leaders they adored and revered. In fact, during the days of Peter when he's writing this, you had the Augustinia. You had those that followed Augustus. You had the Herodinia, those who followed Herod. They revered him more than the normal individual might have followed or supported him. So the term Christiani was coined by the Roman citizens living in Antioch as a derogatory term for people who followed a dead man. So they viewed it. And they wanted to label them. Those who followed the man who claimed to be the Christos, the Messiah. In fact, by the time you arrive in church history, in Acts 11, where this term first appears is a designation given by unbelievers for the church, and it wasn't a compliment at all.

But 1,900 years later, we love that name, right? I was in the store a couple of days ago, and the guy by the counter recognized me, and he hollered, hey, Reverend. We got caught up there in the auto parts store. I'd met him a year ago.

First time I'd gone in there, I needed help with the battery. And he came over and was working with me, and I could tell after 15 seconds, you've been there too, haven't you? You can just tell.

You can just tell. And I'm thinking, this guy is a Christian. He'd never let his phone ring in church, for one thing, I'm sure.

He would turn it off. He's a mature believer. All of you are reaching for your phones. Please do. And I was thinking, you know, I've got to ask this guy, and I wanted to. Now, typically what I do is I'll come out with a line that's something like, where do you go to church? That's my way of moving from auto parts to, you know, justification, my faith alone in Christ. You know, we get to that point.

I don't know how you do it. But before I could ask him what church he would do, he stopped and he said to me, hey, are you a Christian? And I said, I am. And he said, oh, I am too. I said, I could tell that I knew you were. And he said, I knew you were.

And I said, I knew it first. You know, a little Christian competition going on here. So here you have this black man and this very pale white man celebrating together in the auto parts store as if we're brothers.

Why? Because we are. We are brothers and we share a common ancestor. We are members of a new race and we happen to share the same family name.

Peter goes on to tell us we're not only members of the same race. Notice he says we're royal priesthood. Now, I don't want to get too deep in the weeds here, but this would have been a puzzling expression. They would have puzzled in the early days over the offices of Jesus as both kingly and priestly because in the Old Testament you didn't combine the two. They were separate. Royalty had nothing to do with priesthood. In fact, the king that dabbled in it was in trouble, deep trouble. In fact, they would have been puzzled by Jesus, a descendant of David, through the royal line of Judah, claiming then the right of high priest which came from the tribe of Levi through Aaron.

They just weren't connected. Well, the answer simply was that Jesus Christ's priesthood was derived, appointed, assigned, according to the book of Hebrews chapters 5 and 6, not from Aaron but from Melchizedek. If you're old enough in the faith, you know he appears in Genesis chapter 14. There's not a lot said about him, but he's the combination of this royal priest and he shows up to bless Abraham. And in that, he foreshadows the blessing of the coming royal high priest. So we, in union with Christ as children of God, have inherited from Christ the right to be both royal and priest. John the apostle describes in the book of Revelation in chapter 20 and verse 6, he combines the two and he says to us, the redeemed, you shall be priests of God and will reign with Christ for 1,000 years.

We can't even begin to imagine and we haven't been given much information, but it is going to be amazingly glorious as we serve him directly face to face and reign with him. Now, Peter goes on to add another descriptive phrase to the treasure of God who are his children. Peter calls the church, notice third, a holy nation. The word nation is ethnos.

The original language gives us our word ethnic. It's a word that refers to a community of people that are held together by the same laws, the same customs, and even more importantly, the same interests. Now, remember the word holy is attached to it. That is telling, hagios, it means separated under God. We're a nation belonging separated under God, but holy very ruggedly simply means different.

And are we ever? We, the church, are a different nation than the nations around us. In fact, the church is at her worst when she is like the nations around her in interests and even laws. Most of the early believers reading this letter from Peter would have probably already disobeyed one of the twelve tables of Roman law that decreed, and I quote, deformed infants shall be killed. In other words, in order to keep the Roman bloodline as superior as they thought possible, deformed infants weren't given a chance to live. Even Seneca, the brilliant tutor of a number of Caesars who lived during the time of the apostles, defended, and abortion was rampant, but so was infanticide. We haven't gotten there yet, and I hope we never do, but he defended infanticide by writing these words, quote, We drown children who at birth are weak and abnormal. This is true in other parts of our world to this very day. Obviously, the value of human life is raised by the presence of the gospel, and in its absence, human life becomes pretty much worthless.

People are used by those that have greater power or authority. I found it interesting to discover in my study that in the latter part of the second century, a church leader by the name of Clement, he was known as Clement of Alexandria, he wrote that the Roman government and its citizens were known for saving and protecting young birds and other animals while lacking any moral regard about abandoning or aborting their own children. See, the church comes along and she's different in the way she values life. In fact, Plato argued that it should be the right of the city-state to force a woman to have an abortion to control population. Sounds like Plato and Planned Parenthood would have been great friends. The early Christians were at odds with the devaluing of human life and the elevating of animal life just as many countries today, including our own.

I've said it before, but it's a great place to repeat it. In our own country today, it's a violation. You're going to pay a fine if you knowingly crush the egg of a pre-born eaglet. You can crush a pre-born life, human life.

Listen to this. Alvin Schmitt cataloged this in his historical book, rather stunning book entitled How Christianity Changed the World. I recommend you get it sometimes.

It's been out for eight years or so. He writes this, in AD 379, church leaders publicly condemned the practice of selling aborted babies to the manufacturers of beauty cream. Listen, the Gospel doesn't just elevate the value of human life. It means that for those of you that wear Christiani on your sleeve, you're going to be at odds with your culture.

No matter what country you're in, at some point, it's going to be obvious your interests are different, your laws are different, your customs are different. Peter writes, it ought to be, don't forget you are a holy nation. By the way, would you notice in that text he doesn't say you, the church, are a successful nation. You are a wealthy nation. You are a protected nation.

No, no, none of that. He simply said, as if to say above all things, make sure you're a holy nation. He adds, we're a people for God's own possession. I like the old King James translation of this phrase. We are a peculiar people.

I think it fits a lot of us, doesn't it? You could paraphrase it, we are people of God's private possession. I like the idea of collection. We are part of his private collection.

And we happen to be in that collection. Has it ever occurred to you that you happen to be his treasure because he was willing to die for you? He didn't purchase you with a lot of money or the right connections.

Peter's already told us we were not purchased. We were not redeemed by perishable things like gold or silver, but by the costly blood of Jesus Christ. He died to make you a part of his private collection of believers. And you owe everything about your significance.

Everything of value is related to the fact that you belong to him. So the final question is pretty simple. What are we going to do about it?

I mean, if all this is true, and it is and more, what should our response be? Well, Peter answers that with a purpose statement. Notice verse 9 again in the latter part.

So that, here it is, here's the purpose statement. So that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who's called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. The verb for proclaim or declare is a compound form that only appears here in this text. It means to make widely known, to advertise.

I like that rendering. So to this way, we're to advertise, as it were, that we've been rescued from the domain of darkness and transferred to the kingdom of his beloved son. Colossians 1 13, Peter says, it used to be darkness and now it's light.

It's as if he's saying that God in his grace threw on the light switch. And when the light of the glorious gospel was shed abroad in our hearts, our eyes opened to the value of Christ, and now in union with him, we have discovered we have great value and significance. 2 Timothy chapter 1 verse 10. I found it interesting that one of the mottos of the Reformation, in fact, you're hearing a lot about that because this is the 500th year anniversary of the Reformation.

One of their catch phrases, we would call it today a motto, was in Latin, of course, ex tenebrous lux, out of darkness, light. Only God can do that. Only he can call us out of darkness.

He has to do that. He does the calling, did you notice, into his light. And what does he call that light?

Marvelous, magnificent light. He says, so we delight and desire that we're advertising having been brought from darkness to light. And what are we advertising? Ourselves?

No. We're advertising the excellencies of him. We're not sitting around talking about what a treasure we are. We're talking about him. We're bragging about him. We're exalting him.

I've got a great illustration of that, by the way. A week ago or so, my wife and I babysat two of our grandkids for two days. I'm not sure who babysat who.

Actually, my wife did all the heavy work. But our three-year-old grandson, Nicholas, you know, it was one outfit after another, dressed up like his favorite superheroes, and he had bits and pieces of little costumes. He had the mask of Spider-Man and his favorite, he had the helmet of Iron Man.

That was his favorite. Papa, this is what Iron Man can do, and he'd have me practice. You know, you do your hands like this, it kind of sends out energy rays to knock people over. And I tried on him, and it never worked.

It never knocked him down or slowed him down. But it was one superhero event after another. Now, unless you think that, you know, my three-year-old grandson is worldly, he also quoted the Ten Commandments to me in Hebrew. At least that's what it sounded like to me. But one thing was obvious to me.

In fact, it came back to my mind and rather convicting. There are times when I'm not nearly as excited about Jesus Christ as my grandson is about Iron Man. I mean, how are we doing on this advertising campaign? Should we talk about him? Should we say something about him? I don't know. It might offend somebody. It might ruin our lunch date. Listen, if the people in your sphere of influence only knew about God's heroic deeds, about what they heard from you, what would they know?

Would they be completely in the dark? At this point, Peter evidently thinks it's a good idea to remind us of some heroic deeds. First, he wants us to remember that God has miraculously included us.

Notice, verse 10, for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God. How miraculous is that? You once weren't. Now you are. How'd that happen?

Pretty heroic deed by our gracious God. You at one point didn't belong. Now you belong?

Just like that. By faith in his Son, you've received him and you've become children of God. John 1.12, Peter evidently thinks it's a good idea for us to remember who he once were that evidently deepens our resolve to be advertisements of his glory. He wants you to think about it.

Don't get buried by it. But he wants you to remember it so that you can echo the motto of the Reformation and I can remember, I was in darkness and now I'm in the light. For God, who said light shall shine out of darkness, is the one who has shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 2 Corinthians 4.6, for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Ephesians 5.8. So we're giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. Colossians 1.12. We're living advertisements to the heroic deeds of the gospel through Christ. Secondly, Peter not only reminds us that God has miraculously included us, he wants to remind us that God has miraculously pardoned us.

Notice the latter part of verse 10. You had not received mercy, but now you've received mercy. Oh? Just like that. How often we can take that for granted.

Do you remember? You were under judgment, your verdict, hopeless, but then God called you out of hopelessness and into his mercy. Mercy is that which rescues us from everything we deserve.

We are a living advertisement campaign to our world that we have been pardoned from our crimes. An old Puritan prayer put to music not too long ago says, Mighty yet merciful, how could it be the high king of heaven extends grace to me? My sins, they were many. My merits were none, but you are the mighty yet merciful. One, justice and power are held in your hand, but you stoop to shoulder the shame of man.

This holy mystery is hard to believe. Forgiveness shown by royalty. Mighty yet merciful, how could it be the high king of heaven extends grace to me? My sins were many. My merits were none, but you are the mighty yet merciful.

One. You're listening to Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. Stephen pastors a church in Cary, North Carolina, and he's the Bible teacher on this daily program. You can learn more about Wisdom for the Heart by visiting wisdomonline.org. That site is filled with valuable resources to equip and encourage you in your walk with Christ. All of the lessons are posted there in both audio and written transcripts, and you can access that free of charge. If you ever miss one of these broadcasts, you can also go online to listen. I also encourage you to install the Wisdom International app to your smartphone. Once you do, you can take the teaching you hear wherever you go.

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