Posts tagged Dispersion

1 Peter was written to a church in turmoil over persecution. People were coming to Christ and facing extreme pressure because of that decision. This happens today in places like the Middle East where converts to Christianity can be stoned to death if they don’t renounce their faith and turn back to Islam. Imagine the church that you go to loosing members weekly not to sin or to moving, but to arrest and execution. I imagine that in many of the congregations we attend that would not go over well and probably lead to violence on behalf of the congregation. However what if you didn’t have the hope of attack, voting, or protesting? What if you simply had no hope but to wait. Where is your hope? Well of course your hope would be in Jesus Christ, and that is where Peter starts.

Elect Exiles

I am sure that when people came to Christ they didn’t start out thinking, “Well my family will hate me, my boss will fire me, my spouse will leave me, my boss will fire me, and I might get arrested or beat up in the streets.” While they might have had an inclination of the understanding of the persecution they faced, those kinds of realities are always hard to understand unless you are in the middle of them. In 1 Peter 1:1-2 Peter looks at why they are suffering and what it means to be a Christian. The first place that Peter goes is the faithfulness of salvation that God gives to the church and the spreading of the church through the world. God has called all believers to be believers, and it is his plan to spread us out, through persecution at times.

Foreknowledge of God the Father

Believe it or not when you were saved you did not surprise God. God knew that you were going to be saved. Not only did God know that you were going to be saved, but he orchestrated events so that you would be saved by grace. This is helpful to remember because even in the hardest times in our lives we know that God has ordained all these things to help us grow closer to him.

In the Sanctification of the Spirit

Not only did God save us and know that he was going to, he is still with us. Sanctification is the idea that God is with us, refining us to be more like him. The Spirit of God is with us in hope and truth. The Spirit guides us as we grow in faith. The Spirit is also with us when we experience persecution and pain because we are in Christ.

For the obedience of Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood

We are saved according the foreknowledge of God and we walk with the Spirit in hope and truth, growing in holiness, which is obedience to Christ. The blood of Christ is sprinkled upon us, giving us righteousness. Of course this is not a literal sprinkling of blood. It is the sprinkling of the sacrifice of Christ. In Matthew 26:26-29 Jesus tells his disciples that the wine they were drinking was representative of his blood which is poured out for them. The way that we are saved according to the foreknowledge of God, the sanctification of the Spirit, to the obedience of Christ through the sacrifice of Christ.

May grace and peace be multiplied to you

Because we have been saved according to the foreknowledge of God, and are being sanctified by the Spirit, to the obedience of Christ through the sacrifice of Christ, we can cling to grace and peace in any circumstance.