Elim Family Worship Centre

June 29, 2009 Get it Together

1.???? chosen

2? according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.

They were known as 'The Dispersion', the remnants of the exile imposed upon the Jews by the conquering Assyrians and Babylonians. They were still an identifiable people, but fractured and scattered. That state can be generalized to include all humanity, and also personalized to apply to any one of us. We know that we are chosen, we have a destiny, and we know that fact has implications. We need to get it together, but how?

When we are out of joint with our true purpose, we are inwardly broken. Our true purpose is found in God, our Creator. Our relationship with Him has been fractured by the deliberately broken love covenant God had with Adam. His name means 'man', and his actions affected us all by introducing 'sin' and its resulting divorce from God into the human stream. The dissolved union with God has killed our spirit bond, and broken our souls. We were created for the purpose of partnership with God. The wilful choice to go it alone has taken us out of that destiny. Something has to heal the fractures, and gather the scattered pieces of our life and personality. Peter now summarizes that amazing grace process.

First, we are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. While we may feel lost and alone, like a loving father, God has kept track of His children. He knows us intimately. He knows where we are. It is not just knowledge, but in fact foreknowledge. Most of us know by experience that significant life changing events are usually unplanned, sudden and at times cataclysmic. They catch us by surprise. To God nothing is unexpected. We should note also that foreknowledge of an event is not the same as being predestined to it. God did not predestine our tragedies, but He does not waste them either. We are chosen for purpose, not for calamity. Nevertheless calamities happen.

The next encouraging fact is that we are chosen 'by the sanctifying work of the Spirit'. The fact that He is working on us is evidence that God has His eye on us. He works on us through our conscience, imparting to us a sense of right and wrong. Most things in our life involving choices have that moral c
omponent. This phrase also encourages us with the fact that God's criteria for choosing us resides in the work of the Holy Spirit to clean up our act, not in our own resolution to change. The word sanctification also has the meaning of 'setting apart'. So it is the work of the Holy Spirit to pick us out of the crowd and the randomness of life and into our destined place in God's created purpose for us. He is restoring the partnership.

Then, we are chosen 'to obey Christ', the Anointed One. This is our part of the deal, and it is not a deal breaker! Through the Holy Spirit, when we are joined to Christ, we are 'one spirit with Him'. That fact affects our whole person. We have the mind of Christ, we share His feelings, and His zeal and determination. That partnership is the key to becoming a whole person. As we align ourselves with the 'Anointed One' and His anointing on us, all the pieces of our life and personality come together. We still have the freedom to make a choice, but the love of Christ is a strong force for living in agreement. Obedience to the love creates no conflict.

Finally, to inherit our true destiny, we must be transformed into our true selves. We are chosen to be sprinkled with the blood, that is, to become a blood relative with Jesus. We are chosen as sons, not just servants. Our hearts are sprinkled with the blood of Jesus. That means our conscience is cleansed so that there is no more remembrance of sin. The DNA of Christ is in the blood, which means our nature is changed at the very core.

Peter's final blessing in this verse is for us as well. 'May grace and peace be yours to the fullest measure'. The wondrous process that transforms us and launches us into God's destiny is a special gift carefully designed just for each one of us personally. The 'shalom' peace that it brings is well-being of soul in every dimension of life. It is of a multiplying nature, reproducing like a seed whenever it is distributed to others.

When we enter the transformational process, we become transformational agents.

Lost in the Crowd

1 ?? Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen

Peter was writing to Jews, a people who had the deep inner
sense that they were chosen, yet here they were scattered among the Gentiles. 'Gentile'? were the non-Jewish people who were not in covenant with God, and so alienated from Him, and strangers to His promises. Now, ironically, the Jews were the outsiders among the 'outsider'?. Through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Peter was also writing to you and me. Inside all human beings God has created a longing for eternity. Like Peter's audience we too have a sense that our present state is temporary, that somehow we have been alienated from our true destiny. God is hidden from us, and we are hiding from Him.? This state is now our identifying characteristic, much as being an exile defined Peter’s audience. The crowd can be a safe place to hide, but also a lonely place where the soul is displaced and homeless.

Peter was the perfect choice of messenger. When he was known as Simon, he too was lost in the crowd, a sinner by his own confession, a Jew yet not a keeper of the law, - until he met Jesus, and had an identity change. Peter was his 'called out' name, his Christian name, his name as an apostle. From the anonymity of a Galilean fisherman, Peter was chosen commissioned and sent out as a special envoy to other displaced people. His mission: call them out too.

Hundreds of years before, the Jewish nation had abandoned their covenant relationship with God, and so became vulnerable to the world dominating dynamics that empowered the empires of Assyria and Babylon. Circumstances, unexpected events, conflicts had dislodged the Jewish dispersion from where they belonged. They had learned to adapt, but never really to fit into their new places. They were not here by choice, but rather exiled. Without a relationship with God, we too by nature are exiled from our true destiny driven by the powers that be or by random events, or by poor choices.

Peter's message strikes a responsive chord. It is a call to our true destiny. You are chosen. You are not lost to God's eye. Just as Peter, the messenger was proof that God had not forgotten His people, Holy Spirit orchestrated messages come in many forms to those He has His eye on. His choice is not altered by geography or circumstances. In fact His choice of you predates all those conditions that put you where you are. Chosen, searched out in a faraway place, singled out from the crowd, lost but now found. That is the message of the gospel to Jew and gentile alike and to you and me personally.

(Text from Peter) 'Did you get my message? Please forward to friend'?