Reclaiming Your identity: It's All About Hope

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Sunday, October 11, 2009

There are two things that I want you to walk away with this morning so, if you miss everything else, there are just two points that I want you to remember.

The first one is you are completely incompetent. The second one is you’re really strange. So I want to have a warm welcome to the strange and incompetent people down in the Family Life Center. Good to have you with us this morning. Now that I’ve lavished you with compliments, you can’t wait for the rest of the message, can you?

Really, I want you to walk away this morning, I will have done my job if you walk out of here this morning saying, “You know what, I am completely incompetent and I am strange,” and, more than that, I want you to think that’s a good thing. In fact, I want you to derive a lot of hope from the fact that you’re incompetent and that you’re strange.

This morning, we get into the book of 1 Peter. It’s a great book. It’s a short book but it’s so applicable to our world today because the audience that Peter was writing to, the society, the world they lived in, there are so many parallels to the world and the society that we live in here today. So this morning, we’re going to sort of take an overlook, there’s an overarching theme that goes throughout the book. In fact, it even goes throughout all of scripture and so we need to lay down the foundation this morning so we can then build upon it for the next three weeks.

You see, Peter was writing to the early Christians, so the early church. And he wanted them to know their identity in Christ. If you will, he wanted them to claim their identity in Christ. My prayer is, over the next four weeks, we reclaim our identity in Christ.

When we start looking at our identity, that is, what is it that defines us as a person? And Peter says there are two very important things that define us, that sort of signify our identity that we have in Christ. It’s right here in 1 Peter 1:1 if you brought your bibles, you can take a look at it, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,” and here it is, the two things, first, “to God’s elect,” that’s number one and “strangers in this world,” that’s number two. So he says, “To God’s elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.” So the first thing is we are God’s elect or we are chosen. Now the interesting thing here is that’s the same word. In Greek, it’s the same word where it says translated “elect” and where it’s translated “chosen.” I think it’s rather unfortunate that the translators put it as elect because that conjures up all kinds of election-type things. So does that mean out of the Trinity, if you get two out of three, you’re in? No, it’s not an election. It means that God has chosen you.

He sort of expands upon that in Chapter 2. If you look at Chapter 2, Verse 9, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God.” He’s hammering home the point that God has chosen you to be His people. He conjures up images from the Old Testament. He says, “You’re a royal priesthood.” He says, “You’re a holy nation. You’ve been set apart by God. God has chosen you to be His own.”

Now we need to take a small tangent here because that whole idea of choice, that’s big in our world today. We are into choices, choices about anything and everything. We’ve come to expect that we have a choice. And so, in our world of choice, we may believe, and many do, that we choose how to define ourselves, that by the choices we make, not by somebody else’s choices but by our choices, that’s how we get our identity. And it makes sense because we are so overwhelmed with choices in, I would guess, every aspect of our life.

From something as simple as going to the grocery store, walk down the cereal aisle. What do you have? A hundred different types of cereal you can choose from. Choice. What is the number one question that’s asked about 3:00 every afternoon? Come on. What’s for supper? Because we have a choice. In some parts of the world, it’s not “What’s for supper,” it’s “Will we have supper?” But not for us, not in this blessed land. It’s “What’s for supper,” because we have lots of choices.

How about the music you listen to? You can listen to AM, talk radio, you can listen to FM. If you have satellite, you have about a gazillion stations you can listen to. If you don’t like the idea of somebody else choosing what they’re going to play over the airwaves, that’s okay. Pop in a CD of your favorite artist and you can listen to whoever you want to. You don’t like the song order, you say, that’s on the CD, no problem. You pull out your I-Pod, you create a play list so that you decide, you choose what songs and in what order. Do you understand what I’m saying? We have almost unlimited choices in just about every aspect of our life. And it filters into every aspect, even our religious life and our spiritual life.

You’ve heard me say before that there is a spiritual revival happening in our land and there is. There’s a resurgence in spirituality but it’s not a resurgence in going to the traditional churches. No, no, no, no. We choose our spirituality. We take a little bit from this religion, a little bit from that religion, a little bit over here and we combine it together and we’ve come up with our belief system, the ones that we’ve chosen. Don’t believe me? As soon as you get home, go online, take the survey and then, after the survey, go to beliefnet.com. You like how I slipped that in there? Beliefnet.com. And on one of the pull-down menus, you will see the Belief-O-Matic. I’m not kidding. Does no one else find that funny? It’s not even made by Ronko. The Belief-O-Matic. When I first clicked on it, I thought Billy Mays was going to come back from the grave, “Tired of looking for your eternal destiny? Thanks to modern science, Belief-O-Matic is here.” They’re serious. They’re absolutely serious. You click on it. You answer 20 questions and they will tell you what your religion is based on what you believe. And it has a little note on there. It says, “If you don’t score 100% in any one religion, that’s okay. Just take a look at the first top five or so and decide which one is best for you.” That’s choice. We have a choice in everything so, if it’s not somebody else choosing for us, we choose.

So, therefore, we believe that it’s our choice of what our identity is. We will choose how we define ourselves. Maybe it’s by the choice of career. Maybe it’s by the choice of our relationships, the choice of where we live. But our choices will define ourselves. There’s just one huge problem. We don’t have a really good track record of making great choices. If you go all the way back to the first choice that human beings made, it wasn’t a stellar choice. Adam and Eve are in the garden and God says, “This is what I want you to do,” but they have a choice and they don’t choose wisely. And they pick the fruit and they eat it. Sin is ushered in and we’re still living in the mess.

How many choices have you made that you regret? And how many of those choices that you regret would not have been God’s choice? We don’t have a great track record of making good choices. That’s why Peter says to his audience and to us, “It’s not about you choosing. It’s God choosing you. God chose you to be His people. God chose you to be His royal priesthood, His holy nation.”

Now it’s hard for us to wrap our mind around how God makes choices because God does not choose the way you and I would choose. If we were choosing someone to accomplish something, we had a purpose in mind, then we would look for somebody who had the best qualifications, that had the best chance of success of accomplishing it. God is almost the opposite of that. He chooses those who are completely incapable of doing what He’s asking them to do.

Case in point. We’re going to go back to Genesis 18, if you want to flip there. So Genesis 18, the first occurrence of the word “chosen,” so this is the Hebrew equivalent of the Greek word that we just looked at in Peter. And it says this, “I have chosen Abraham so that he will direct his children and his household after him to keep the way of the Lord by doing what is right and just.” God has chosen this man, Abraham, to establish for himself a nation and this nation is how He’s going to roll out His plan of salvation for all of mankind and, from this people, will come the Deliverer, the Messiah, who we know as the Son of God, Jesus Christ. It doesn’t get much bigger than this, the task that He’s going to lay on Abraham to accomplish.

So what are Abraham’s qualifications for this job? Well, let’s see. His dad was an idol-worshipping nomad who never made it to his final destination. The wife that he chooses, Sarah, is incapable of having children, even though they’re supposed to build a great nation from that. Abraham and Sarah, when Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 and God says, “No, you really are going to have children,” both fall down laughing at God. That’s his qualifications. And yet, God builds this mighty nation and Abraham becomes the father of our faith.

Moses. Moses, convicted murderer, flees out of Egypt. God says, “I want you to go back to Egypt. I want you to get my people and bring them out.” Moses objects. He says, “You must be kidding me, God. I’m not qualified for this. I don’t speak well. I stutter. I get nervous in front of crowds.” God says, “It’s not about you. It’s not about your qualifications.” God leads the entire people out of Egypt.

One more, how about King David? King David God chooses to be the one who is to expand the borders and to put the nation of Israel on the map. David is the youngest son of Jesse. He’s a puny little kid. He has absolutely no experience in battle, completely, completely unqualified to be king. God says, “That’s my king.” And through David, He establishes His kingdom.

My point is when God chooses, He doesn’t use our standards. We would never, ever choose someone who is completely incompetent to do what we’re asking him to do. But that’s what God does. I think Paul explained it the best when he wrote his letter to the Church of Corinth 1:22, “But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things in this world, the despised things, the things that are not to nullify the things that are, so that no one can boast before Him. It is because of Him that you are in Christ Jesus.” God chooses the foolish. God chooses the weak. He chooses the lowly to prove the point that it’s not about you, it’s about God. It’s not about your qualifications. It’s about what God will do through you. So that there is no doubt who gets the glory and the honor.

The supreme example of that? It comes in Luke 23, “The people stood watching and the rulers even sneered.” We’re talking about Jesus hanging on the cross. “They said, ‘He saved others. Let Him save Himself if He is the Christ of God, the chosen one.’” You see, for the rulers back then, Jesus couldn’t be the chosen one of God because the chosen one of God should be some omnipotent ruler. The chosen one of God should be some strong warrior. He should be a royalty in king’s clothes, not a bloody man hanging on a cross. That can’t be the chosen one of God.

God chooses the foolish things, the weak things, the lowly things. So God chooses to nail His Son to a cross to let Him die an agonizing death to pay for all of your sins to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt it has nothing to do with you. It has everything to do with God.

Now God says, “I’ve chosen you.” What does that mean when God says, “You are my chosen people?” It’s a Grace statement, pure, simple grace. You can’t qualify for it. No pressure, no worry. There’s no amount that you can do. There’s nothing you can make up for that, all of a sudden, qualifies you for God to call you His people. It is simply motivated out of His love. It’s a pure grace statement when God says, “You are my chosen people. You’re my royal priesthood. You’re the holy nation I’ve set aside.” And when God chooses someone, there’s always a plan. God always has a purpose that He wants to accomplish and God always, always accomplishes those purposes. So your identity is that God chose you to be His people and God has a point to your life and He has a purpose in your life. That’s your identity in Christ.

The second part of your identity in Christ comes again in 1Peter 1:1, “To God’s elect, strangers in the world scattered throughout Pontus,” and the rest of the places or in Verse 17, “Live your lives as strangers here in reverent fear.” Pop over to Chapter 2:11, “Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and strangers in the world,” God says that we are strangers in this world, not strange as in odd, weird but strangers, meaning we don’t belong here. We belong someplace else. He says we’re aliens, not “Whoo, loo, ooo” aliens, no. More like resident aliens. In other words, you have your home country but you’ve been displaced and so now you’re living in a country that’s not your country. It’s not your home. You live and you operate there but you long to go home.

This is a theme again that runs throughout all of the bible. We don’t have time to get into it but just briefly. Briefly, Abraham? Abraham had to leave his country and to live as a resident alien of what would become the Promise Land. Jacob and his family had to leave the Promise Land and live as resident aliens in Egypt. When the kingdom was established and Israel was established, they were invaded by armies and they were taken off to places like Babylon and they lived and operated in Babylon but they longed to come home. This whole idea that we are strangers in this land, that we are resident aliens, we have to live and operate here but we don’t belong here. This isn’t our home. That’s part of your identity. You don’t belong here. You’re strange. You’re strangers, resident aliens, longing for your permanent home.

Your identity in Christ is that God chose you. Grace statement. With a purpose. And that you’re a resident alien waiting to go home. And that identity in Christ should bring you a lot of hope. We’re in a world that needs hope. Hope is the belief for a positive outcome to a set of circumstances or a situation. And hope is powerful. If you have hope in your heart, you can live through anything. You can get through the darkest of days. If you believe that eventually, it’s going to end, if you have this hope and knowledge that yes, it will all turn out for the best, if you could see a light at the end of the tunnel and no, it’s not a train, if you have that kind of hope, you can go through the darkest of days. You can go through the worst situation in your life if you have hope. If you don’t have hope, you don’t have anything. You’re lost. If you don’t believe in a positive outcome, that you’re just going to keep doing the same thing again and again and it won’t matter, there’s no hope.

I think we live in a world that doesn’t have a lot of hope. We mask it, we put on our smiley faces but I think we live in a world that doesn’t see a lot of hope because we don’t see a lot of things changing. We don’t see it work for the better. The tie-in, once again, to Peter’s time is outstanding because they didn’t have any hope back then either. In fact, through an archeological dig, they pulled up this tombstone and the tombstone says, “Here lies Thynisius of Tarsus. He lived 60 years old and never married and wished that his father hadn’t either.” Not the president of the optimist club. The guy had no hope. He had no hope.

I have to believe some of you don’t have hope right now. Maybe you’re dealing with medical issues. Maybe it’s for you or it’s for someone you love and you keep doing the treatments, you keep trying but things don’t change. It’s just the same ol’, same ol’ every time. You don’t have any hope.

Some of you have lost your jobs. You’re tired of putting in resumes. You’re tired of checking the e-mail and having no response. And you’re losing hope because things don’t change.

Some of you are struggling in a relationship and things just aren’t getting better and you’re not making any headway. And you ask yourself, “Why should I try anymore?” You don’t have any hope.

Your identity in Christ gives you hope. Your identity as being chosen by God gives you hope. You see, it gives you hope because it’s a grace statement. God says, “You are my chosen people. That’s something I do, not something you do.” So when you say to yourself, “You know what, I don’t have the energy to get up the next day. I don’t have the strength or the stamina to put in yet another resume.” “I just don’t want to face the treatment one more time.” God says, “That’s okay, because it’s not about you. It’s about me.” God says, “It’s not about your strength. It’s about my strength.” It’s not about your courage, it’s not about your stamina. God says it’s about His strength and His stamina. Being chosen by God, grace statement, says it’s not about you. It’s about God.

And whenever God makes a choice, so if God has chosen you, there’s a point to it, there’s a purpose. God has a purpose for your life whether you can see it right now, it doesn’t matter. That doesn’t affect God’s purpose for your life. And we know that God accomplishes His purposes and we know whenever God makes a choice, eventually it always, always results in blessings and benefits to us. So you can have hope because there’s a purpose to your life.

We worship a God who says, “I can even take evil and use it for good.” A God who says, “I can take the worst situation you’re in right now, turn it around and use it for good.” That should bring you hope. God can turn it around. He has a purpose in mind.

You should find hope in the fact that you’re not alone. Others have walked down this path with you. Peter writes to the churches. He doesn’t write to one church but he lists all the churches, why? It’s intentional, to let them know, “You’re not alone. There are other Christians out there who are strangers in this land. And they’re walking with you.”

Many years ago, I used to go with the youth group down to the National Youth Gatherings and we’d be there with 30,000-35,000 teenagers and if there was one consistent comment that always came from the teens, it was, “I had no idea there were so many of us.” I had no idea. You’re not alone. That should bring you hope.

It should bring you hope that this isn’t as good as it gets. There’s something better. There’s something out there for us waiting. We’re just strangers and resident aliens here and we’re living our life but there’s something better. There’s something more. That doesn’t mean we just bide our time until we die. No, what that means is we have limited time. So we have to get busy. If God has a purpose for our life, if there’s a point, something He wants to get accomplished, we have limited time because we’re not going to stay here that long because God is calling us home. In fact, Jesus said, “I’m going to prepare a place for you and, when it’s ready,” He says, “I’m coming back so you can come with me.” Jesus right now is preparing our permanent home and, when it’s ready, He’s coming back for us. We have limited time so it’s time for us to get busy and to discover what it is that God wants to accomplish in our life. That should bring you hope that this isn’t as good as it gets. No, there’s something far greater out there that’s waiting for us. Because this isn’t home. Home is waiting. That should bring you hope.

Your identity in Christ should bring you hope, to know that God chose you to be His people. Grace statement. He has a purpose for your life. Right now, you’re just resident aliens. You’re just waiting until God calls you home.

So I find a lot of hope in the fact that I’m completely incompetent. That means I can’t do it, God’s going to do it. And I’m strange, not that I’m odd or weird, well, some of you might think that, but I’m a resident alien and my true home’s waiting for me. It brings me hope. I hope it does for you, too. Amen.

Copyright 2009 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church