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Redeemer Community Church is located in the historic Avondale neighborhood of Birmingham, AL. Our church family exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
For more information on who we are, what we believe, or how to join us, please visit our website at rccbirmingham.org.
Alright. Good morning everyone. I am so excited to continue our series in first Peter. So you have your bible, turn with me to first Peter chapter two. We're gonna be spending our time in verses nine through 12.
Connor Coskery:This passage is also written in your worship guide. 'm gonna read this passage for us. First Peter chapter two verses nine through 12 and do listen carefully for this is God's word. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession. That you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
Connor Coskery:Once you are not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. This is the word of the Lord.
Connor Coskery:Let's pray together. Father, I thank you for gathering us this morning. There are many things that we could be doing this morning, but you have gathered these people in this place in all of history for your redemptive purposes. We have come this morning to pay attention, to hear from you, Lord. And so I pray now that the words of my mouth, the meditation of my heart would be pleasing in your sight.
Connor Coskery:Oh Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. Amen. This morning as we continue our series in first Peter, we arrive at almost the thematic center of Peter's letter. Up to this point, Peter's been spending a lot of time strengthening the believers about who they are, reminding them who they are as followers of Jesus. And before he tells them what to do, he first reminds them, hey, here's who you are.
Connor Coskery:They are elect exiles born again to a living hope, possessing an imperishable inheritance and being built into a spiritual house with Christ as the cornerstone. See unlike the Apostle Paul who wrote to specific churches about particular problems, Peter, he's writing to scattered believers across the Roman Empire. These were Christians living as minorities in a hostile culture trying to figure out how to stay faithful day after day. And the question they would face wherever they were was how do we live faithful in a world that's not our home? Now Peter's audience, they experienced this in a really tangible way.
Connor Coskery:Many of these believers were socially marginalized, culturally culturally out out of of place place, and and scattered scattered from from any any sense sense of of security security or belonging. But those circumstances made visible a spiritual reality that every Christian shares. Our ultimate citizenship, our ultimate home is not here which means the burden of Peter's original audience is ours as well. If our true home is not here and our citizenship is in heaven, then following Jesus will often place us out of step with the values and the priorities of the world around us. Therefore, we face the same question.
Connor Coskery:How do I live faithfully? How do we live faithfully in a world that is not our home? These verses, they bring together so much of what Peter has been building throughout this letter. Like Cole preached last week, we have to remember that God calls us to participation, not mere admiration. And Peter tells us that participation doesn't look like withdrawing from the world or assimilating into it.
Connor Coskery:Instead, he reminds them and he reminds us that through the resurrection of Jesus, we have become a new people with a clear mission. This passage, it continues the argument that began earlier in chapter two and what it tells us and what I want us to consider this morning is it gives us three marks of a faithful exile. As faith as exiles, this is how we are to live in a world that is not our home. According to Peter, we must remember three things. First, we must remember our identity, that we actually receive a new identity by grace and mercy.
Connor Coskery:Second is we have to remember our mission, that God has saved us in order to proclaim. And third, our conduct, that our identity and our mission should make us distinct in how we live. And the order of these points matters. My preaching professor, doctor Robert Smith junior at Beeson Divinity School, he used to remind us that the indicative always drives the imperative. The indicative always drives the imperative.
Connor Coskery:What he means by that is scripture always begins with what God has done and who we are before it tells us what we are to do. And Peter follows that same pattern here. Before he calls believers to live distinctly, he reminds them that they already belong to God. So let's begin where Peter begins with who we are. Look with me at the first part of verse nine and then also at verse 10.
Connor Coskery:Verse nine says, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession. If you look down at 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. Just before we get to these verses, Peter has described Jesus as both the cornerstone and the stumbling stone. Those who trust them and build their lives on him, Jesus is the cornerstone, but those who reject him, stumble in unbelief.
Connor Coskery:In verse nine, it begins with this contrast. After describing those who reject Christ, Peter turns to believers and he reminds them who they truly are. Peter's not conjuring up new words, he's drawing directly from a passage that they would have known well. Exodus chapter 19 where God first declared Israel as his covenant people. And he takes these same words of promise and he pronounces them again to the new people that God is forming in Christ.
Connor Coskery:I wanna walk through each of these identity markers slowly because they're so rich. Looking at verse nine, you were a chosen race. What Peter's saying here is, those who, are born again to a living hope, they are being assembled, no longer based on heritage but based on God's grace. And then in verse 10 it says, you were a mercied people. You were a people who have received mercy.
Connor Coskery:The language here in the Hebrew is active. It it it's this image of God had acted upon us with mercy. You could say that to be a christian is to be a mercied person and this is so important, know, we talk a lot about grace. Grace is the undeserved gift that God gives us that we receive. Mercy is when God withholds from us what we actually deserve.
Connor Coskery:So when we're a mercy people, this this means that we're no longer defined by our failures, shame, our past. What's most true about you is that God has shown you mercy. He goes on, you're a royal priesthood. This is both a statement of dignity and access. You're royal.
Connor Coskery:You're a son. You're a daughter of the king and with that, you have access. No longer is access to God restricted, instead as his royal chosen and mercy people, you can draw near to him with confidence. You can draw near to the throne of grace trusting, believing, knowing that he hears you. Since you're a holy nation, you're set apart, cleansed by the blood of Christ.
Connor Coskery:You are a people for his own possession. You are God's treasure. Your identity, it revolves around who God is and what he has done for you in Christ. These are amazing amazing identity marchers. These are amazing privileges that these belong to us now.
Connor Coskery:And before we talk about the implications of these, think it's important to ask, why? Why has God chosen us, declared us these things, given us these privileges? It's here I want you to notice Peter's language in verse nine. I want you to notice that Peter says, you are a chosen people, not a choice people. You're a chosen people, not a choice people.
Connor Coskery:By the word choice, I mean it as an adjective, that means desirable, high quality, superior. Think about the way that you shop for produce. If you're going to the grocery store, you're going to Pepper Place on a Saturday, and you're looking at the the peaches or the strawberries, you're naturally, you're gonna walk up and you're gonna pick the ones that look the, you know, the the brightest, the most vibrant, the freshest. You choose what's best. You're looking for the choice fruit.
Connor Coskery:But the bible tells us that God does not choose based on what appears impressive, desirable or strong. Flip your worship guide back over to the opening scripture that we read. We read from Deuteronomy chapter seven. These are Moses' words to God's people before they are to go into the promised land. Reminding them of who they are, what God has done for them and he says these words.
Connor Coskery:I'm gonna read them again. For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you are the fewest of all the peoples. But it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery from the hand of pharaoh king of Egypt.
Connor Coskery:Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations. These words, remind us, they tell us that God doesn't choose you because you're particularly impressive, worthy or serviceable to his purposes. God chooses you because he simply loves you. God chooses you because he simply loves you. This is the essence of unconditional covenant love.
Connor Coskery:Think about it like this, have you ever had someone ask you, why do you love me? Why do you love me? And it's really tempting in that moment to say, well, because of this or you know, because of what you do for me over here or because of this quality or that. But the safest love is not rooted in what we have to offer because those things can fade. And the safest love is covenant love.
Connor Coskery:It's I love you because I love you. And that is how God loves his people. That is how God loves you. You are chosen by God's covenantal, merciful, gracious love. See, we spend a lot of our time, a lot of our days trying to answer the question, who am I?
Connor Coskery:If we aren't careful, it's easy to to drift, to be swept up into the cultural current that's trying to tell us that you have to to look deep inside and find your true self or even to build our lives on our families, vocation, our hobbies, our reputation, our successes. None of these things are bad in and of themselves, the problem is they're unstable. What happens when your desires change or your family's a mess? What happens when you lose your job or you don't meet quota? What happens if your reputation takes a hit?
Connor Coskery:Your whole world begins to crumble around you. In the words of Jesus, you've built your life on sand instead of the rock and the waves come and everything goes with it. But if you are a Christian today, what is most true about you is that you are chosen. You are mercie. You are graced.
Connor Coskery:You are royal. You are holy and no matter what the world says, that is who you are. The God of the universe, he looks at you and he says, I love you because I love you. I love you because I love you. This is the the first step if we're ever going to remain faithful in exiles.
Connor Coskery:We have to remember and to rest in God's covenantal love. We have to remember that the gospel is rest, that it means that you never have to prove yourself ever ever again, but that God loves you perfectly through the finished and victorious work of Jesus. And it's it's from this identity that we are then given our mission. Look with me at the second part of verse nine. After saying, you are a chosen race, royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession.
Connor Coskery:Peter says, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. God's people exist to make God known. Once again, the order matters. Notice that who we are doesn't come from what we do. We do not proclaim in order to become God's people, we proclaim because we already are God's people.
Connor Coskery:We proclaim as the natural overflow of what God has done for us in Christ, namely calling us out of darkness and into his marvelous light. Peter's language here, he's he's echoing the prophet Isaiah who said, I will turn darkness before them into light. The things, these are the things that I do and I do not forsake them. The people whom I formed for myself that they might declare my praise. From the very beginning of time, God's mission has been to take dark, wandering and dead things and make them alive so that they would then go out into the world proclaim his marvelous works.
Connor Coskery:Peter, when he this this phrase, if we break it down, he uses a a unique word here for proclaim. It's used nowhere else in the bible. It carries this idea of publicly declaring something to others that would otherwise not be known. Declaring something to those who don't know something, if they didn't share that then they wouldn't know it. And what are we proclaiming?
Connor Coskery:The mighty and marvelous works of God. Our God given mission, this mission that we are given, it's not meant to be a burden, it's meant to be a privilege. It's not reserved for the pastors or the missionaries or the especially gifted Christians. The world doesn't know about the incredible things of God, how he takes dead things and makes them alive but we do. We know.
Connor Coskery:So this is a mission for the entire church. If you belong to Jesus, if you've given your life to Christ, then your mission is to proclaim his excellencies to the world. And this is where we can get really practical. And what it what does it look like today, here and now to proclaim the excellencies of Jesus? One of the simplest ways that we can do this is by sharing your story.
Connor Coskery:You know, every follower of Christ has a story of God bringing them from darkness to light. Your story might not be dramatic to you but God has rescued you in Christ and grace has invaded your life. Remember Paul's word to the Ephesians where he said, you were dead in your sins but God made us alive in Christ. Every single one of us has a story to share and so we should go out and share it. I think a lot of times we overthink it but let's stop overthinking it.
Connor Coskery:Let's start with who has God already placed in our life? Where has he placed us? Maybe it's a neighbor, maybe it's a coworker, maybe it's a gym friend, a running buddy or a family member. Look for opportunities to steer the conversations to the deeper things of life. I also believe that if we're gonna proclaim the excellencies of God, we have to regularly behold them ourselves.
Connor Coskery:We have to see them. We have to savor the mighty works of God and I think that this is is where why we need regular rhythms of worship, of prayer, of scripture, of community. We need spaces where we can remind one another who we are in Christ and what he has given us to do. That's why it's vital to show up here on Sunday mornings. It's vital to show up to your home group.
Connor Coskery:It's a moment to recalibrate, to remember. God's people exist to make God known and it's an incredible privilege that he has invited us in to this mission. But proclaiming, saying is only one part of our mission. If we're gonna remain faithful exiles, yes we need to speak these excellencies, but as we see in verse eleven and twelve, we also proclaim with how we live. So let's look again at verses eleven and twelve which say, beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul.
Connor Coskery:Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable so when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. The previous two verses, Peter's focused on who God's people are and now he builds on their mission and directs their focus to how they live their everyday lives. He's reminded them of their identity, he's clarified their mission and now he says, because of all this, you must embody this way of life. I do in in reading these verse, I I wanna wanna give a brief caution here. Peter's not giving us a list of rules to help us earn God's love or clean ourselves up through sheer effort.
Connor Coskery:We've just talked about who we are. But I do think it's possible to read these verses. It's a abstain from certain sins, to look honorable and do good deeds. We can read those verses and still completely miss Jesus. And this was certainly true of my own story.
Connor Coskery:I'm your classic firstborn. I love a good rule. I love to know what is expected of me. If you had known me growing up, I probably would have looked a lot like what Peter is describing here. I, you know, I stayed away from the bad stuff.
Connor Coskery:I I tried to look put together. I really wanted people to think well of me. But underneath all of that, my life was fundamentally about me. It was about my image, my performance, my reputation. It wasn't until my freshman year of college when a friend shared the gospel with me clearly that I realized that Christianity wasn't about making myself look good.
Connor Coskery:It was about Jesus rescuing me, a sinner, by grace and making me a new creation. The gospel transformed me and showed me how pursuing holiness, doing good and honorable things, it's not about me but it's the natural overflow of my changed heart. Peter's urging these Christians not merely to use their words but their lives to make the excellencies of God visible to the world so that people would be drawn not to their glory but to God's glory. We're to simplify how to live this way, what Peter's describing. He's encouraging these believers to live courageous yet compelling lives.
Connor Coskery:Courageous yet compelling. If you see we we see this breakdown that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Courageous in that the world finds us strange, even offensive at times because our values, priorities, our obedience to Christ, they cut against the grain of culture. But even as we're misunderstood, we should live our lives so beautiful and so honorable that people take notice. And Peter says that living this way actually draws people to Jesus, the day of visitation.
Connor Coskery:It isn't just a future promise but it's a present hope that our witness through the way we live can actually lead people to faith in Christ. And if we look back throughout history across time, Christians have always stood out by the way that they lived. You have two examples history, especially in the ancient church. You know, first is forgiveness. Since the beginning of Christianity, God's people have stood out as being a forgiving people.
Connor Coskery:In the face of of harsh honor shame cultures, Christians lived by a different ethic of forgiven people, forgive. That I'm gonna turn the other cheek, I'm gonna take the log out of my own eye. They also stood out by their sexual ethics. You know, in ancient cultures, the mind and the soul, those were the most important. The body, it was really just there for pleasure.
Connor Coskery:And so the Christians stood out by reserving sex for the context of marriage between a man and a woman. There's plenty of other examples of how they lived countercultural and what we see is that as they live countercultural seeking to glorify God, they grew and grew and spread rapidly. When you think about this way of living, living courageously yet compellingly, which comes most natural for you? Is it living courageously? You have no problems making your convictions known?
Connor Coskery:You know, the Jesus that you resonate with is the one who comes into the temple and he starts flipping over tables and running out the money changers? Or is it living an attractive life? You know, you're more keen on the subversive approach, anticipating that there's gonna be a time to share your beliefs like Jesus. You wanna be a friend of sinners. You wanna spend time with those who are on the outskirts of society.
Connor Coskery:You can be one of these and be and still be a little like Jesus. But Jesus, he embodied both of these simultaneously. He was never merely confrontational or merely accommodating. He held both in perfect tension. The danger is being neither.
Connor Coskery:If we're not living courageously and our lives are not compelling, then we're nothing like Jesus. We simply blended into the world. We've forgotten that we're sojourners and exiles, that this is not our home. So I want you to think for a moment. Where wherever he has placed you, what does does faithfulness, what does living courageously and compelling look like for you this week?
Connor Coskery:Not in general, specifically this week. What if you began your day with God's word before you looked at God or looked at your phone? If you spent time around me, this is one of my things and I have a friend that tells me, dare to be redundant. And so I'm just gonna keep saying it and maybe it'll be my legacy one day when someone comes up and says, oh yeah, I actually do that. What if you woke each morning and you looked at God's word before you looked at your phone?
Connor Coskery:I actually believe that it is courageous and compelling to start your day with who God says you are instead of allowing your email, your calendar, or social media have the first say. What if you named one sin, one sin that's nagging, that's pulling at you, and you treated it like an enemy at war? It's courageous and compelling to set a hard boundary, to invite accountability into your life. What if you got to know that non christian neighbor? You learned their stories, you showed up when they had a need, or you gave your time, talent, and treasures away instead of hoarding it for yourselves?
Connor Coskery:What if you endured suffering with hope instead of despair because you know that resurrection is your future? What if collectively we simply lived Paul's encouragement that he gave to the Romans to be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer? What is one way that you could embody this courageous yet compelling way of life this week? To live in such a way that the world takes notice and at the same time you live so beautifully that they say something is different about that person and I want that. The way that we live, the way that we go about our days, it matters.
Connor Coskery:But it has to be fueled from the source. It's the one thing that Peter wants us to keep remembering from the very beginning up till now, who we are in Christ because it's only when we are secure in who we are that we will have the courage to make Jesus known and the power to live distinctly wherever he has placed us. And Peter, he's taking such time in these verses leading up to this point to reinforce our identity because after that, he's gonna he's get really practical about how this plays out in our public and our private lives. When you read this letter, one thing that just becomes so clear is that to be a faithful exile, if we were going are going to remain faithful living in this place that that is not our home, remembering is just as important as doing. Remembering is just as important as doing.
Connor Coskery:Because living in a world that's not home can be disorienting. It's easy to forget who you are, why you're here, and where you're going. If you're Christian today and things feel hard and out of place, it doesn't mean something has gone wrong. It means that you belong to Jesus and this is not your home. Like c s Lewis once wrote in Mere Christianity, if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
Connor Coskery:You were made for another world and the good news is that through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, he has made you his own. You are chosen. You are mercy. You are beloved and by his spirit as he forms you into the image of Christ, he empowers you to live faithfully and honorably in this world here and today. That is who you are church.
Connor Coskery:And so I wanna encourage you as we leave this morning, I want us to be I want us to be confident in God's love. That God loves you because he loves you. I want you to be clear on your mission, that you are saved in order to proclaim and I want you to be eager to live distinctly, to live courageous and compelling lives wherever he has placed you. Amen? Let's pray.
Connor Coskery:Father, we confess that we so often forget who we are. That we try and we try and prove that we are desirable, Lord, that our good deeds should earn your love, but Lord, recalibrate, reform, give us new hearts to believe. Lord, that we are chosen, we are mercied, we are holy, not because we have done anything but because of what you have done for us in Christ. And Lord, from there, I pray that you would send us out on mission to proclaim the excellencies of Christ, to see, to savor, to say the beautiful things that God has done. And we pray that as we live to glorify you, you would draw others to yourself.
Connor Coskery:For your glory and your glory alone we pray. Amen. I