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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.
If you have a bible, I invite you to turn to first Peter chapter one. I'm not sure there is a more helpful book in the bible in teaching about the church and who we are as the church, what our calling is, how we're supposed to live in this world. Because of this, I actually taught on first Peter a good bit, first year as a church. As I was looking back at my old notes during that time, I ran across something I'd written seventeen years ago on first Peter chapter two in talking about the church, and then I actually gave a little state of the church address. And and I'm gonna read read you a small portion of that because I I think you'll find this encouraging.
Joel Brooks:Redeemer Community Church is a continuation of this church that we've been studying in first Peter. We have the same calling, to be a light into the world and to point people to Jesus. And next week, our church will be one year old. This is really hard to believe, But on March, a few of us gathered together at Lorne and my house for our first worship service. This was the result of a lot of prayer over the years.
Joel Brooks:Our hope was to be a church where we got back to the basics of our calling, teach the word of God rightly, have authentic community, and be a light unto Birmingham and to the world. Now, we are by no means a perfect church, but I think this past year, we have done some things well, and we do have a lot to work on. As we've laid the foundation of this church that we have tried to be very intentional in everything we do, from big things to little things, to name just a few of those things. We've put the worship band off to the side of the stage instead of the center because we want to avoid the appearance or feel of a performance. The band doesn't want to draw attention to themselves.
Joel Brooks:So when you look forward, all you will see are the lyrics to the songs that we sing. We also intentionally have some awkward moments of silence at the Redeemer as we transition between elements of the service. This is because we will not use our times of prayer as times of transition. So you're never going to close your eyes in prayer, and then open them again to suddenly find the band there on stage or having disappeared. Prayer is not the opening or closing of a curtain to change scenes.
Joel Brooks:Remember, prayer is one of the main reasons we've gathered together. We also intentionally read a lot of scripture throughout the service because we believe the word of God has to be central, for it is the sword that the spirit uses to cut open our hearts and to change us from the inside out. I I'll stop there, but as I was just reading through that, was just so thankful and encouraged that the Lord is still leading us in this way. And, it just it just made my heart so excited that we get to go through first Peter again and be reminded of what a church should look like, what it looks like for us collectively to follow Jesus. So, first Peter chapter one, I'm gonna read the first two verses.
Joel Brooks:Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father and the sanctification of the Spirit for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood. May grace and peace be multiplied to you. This is the word of the Lord. Praise to God. Pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Father, in a few weeks' time, we'll we'll look at how you describe your church as a temple being built up with living stones, and how your Holy Spirit comes and blows in that temple. And that's what we would ask that you would do in this moment. Spirit, would you come, blow in our midst, change us, make us look more like Jesus? I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore. But, Lord, may your words remain, and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So about thirty years ago, Lauren and I were preparing for our wedding. Next month will be our thirtieth anniversary. Yes.
Joel Brooks:You never you didn't believe we'd make it this far, you know. Thirty years ago, is also Kobe Bryant. This was his rookie year in the NBA. So the Spice Girls released their first single. Anybody?
Joel Brooks:Wannabe? Alright. I'm not going to sing it for you. Thirty years ago, when I look at those pictures, I mean, we were just kids. I mean, just we were just kids.
Joel Brooks:We all of life, it just seemed to be in front of us, full of hope, love for one another. Thankfully, we still have hope. We still love one another dearly, still here in Birmingham. But it was a long time ago. When Peter sits down to write this letter, it's been thirty years.
Joel Brooks:Thirty years since Jesus rose from the dead. Thirty years since he had that final conversation with Jesus where they're sitting on the shores of the Sea Of Galilee by the fire. And Jesus told him, when you get older, Peter, they're gonna dress you, and they're gonna stretch out your hands, and you're gonna be taken where you do not wanna go. Peter realizes at this point of his life that those words are about to be fulfilled. Persecution is is ramping up in the church.
Joel Brooks:Peter knows at any time he could be arrested and killed, and that could happen to any Christian. The hostilities were increasing. Now, this wasn't normal for what was happening in Rome. Normally, the the church, yes, it was receiving persecution, but it was from the Jews. Rome actually stepped in to protect Christians at times, you know.
Joel Brooks:They protected a Jewish mob from from attacking Paul. Paul, at one time, even appealed to Caesar so he could go and get a fair trial, but something changed. It all changed July. If you were a dude, I don't have to tell you what happened that day because apparently, according to TikTok, you think about Rome three or four times a day. If you are a girl here, let me mansplain this for you.
Joel Brooks:You are thinking of other things. Actually, you remember what you heard in your history class. July, that's when the fires of Rome happened, burned much of the city to the ground. Or, you know, Rome is made of really narrow streets, most of it was wooden apartments, and once the fire started for three days, they could not put it out. And so, everything was just burned.
Joel Brooks:Many historians believe that Nero himself set the fires. Most of the people did as well, and that fits in with Nero, who was the emperor at the time, fits in with his personality. He wanted to rebuild Rome, he wanted to rebuild his palace, he also was insane. And so, nobody doubted that this was something he would do, and the people began to grumble and to point their finger at Nero, and so, he needed to deflect attention away from him. He needed a scapegoat.
Joel Brooks:And he pointed at the Christians. They they were a obvious choice to be a scapegoat because people were already anti Semitic at the time. Christians, they were just seen as a bizarre new sect of Judaism. And, they were always, you know, meeting together and talking about the blood and the body of somebody, so it was rumored that they were cannibals. Also, it was rumored that Christians, they were committing all sorts of incest with one another because they're always gathering together too in each other's homes, and they call everyone brother and sister.
Joel Brooks:And so, there there was all this suspicion that was happening around the church, and so it didn't take much for for Nero to just point at those Christians, always talking about the end of the world, by the way. They're the ones who did it. And as a result, the wrath of Rome just fell on the early church. Nero, he got so bored with just the normal killing of Christians, you know, killing them by the sword or crucifying them, he actually began to invent different ways to torture them. He would roll the or cover the Christians with tar.
Joel Brooks:He would put them in cages, hang them up on poles, set them on fire, and he would use Christians as lamps to light up his garden. He would get Christians, and he would sew them up in the skins of animals, and then, sic his dogs on them to tear them limb by limb. It's just it's unimaginable horror that was happening to the early church. Could could you imagine being a Christian during this time? You have got to be utterly convinced Jesus is Lord to endure that.
Joel Brooks:You've got to be given the power of the resurrection to joyfully go to your execution. These Christians had it. But, Peter, he writes to to the church here that that was, you know, in Asia Minor, modern day Turkey, because the persecution is beginning to spread outside of Rome to them, and he is encouraging them to to hold on to the truth, stand firm in your faith, joyfully endure the suffering coming to you. Suffering is a major theme in this letter and how we're to endure it. Unlike some of the other letters in the New Testament, this letter was not written to address some theological heresy that was out there.
Joel Brooks:Instead, this letter was written to strengthen the churches who were in danger of losing their lives. He writes this letter to encourage them and to teach them how to live out the faith when they're surrounded by a people who just don't get them, don't understand them, and are growing in a hostility towards them. Now, we don't have any type of persecution like this. We're we're not at that level. But, I think we can all agree that the church as a whole or the world as a whole is still hostile towards Christianity.
Joel Brooks:And, we're certainly misunderstood. I can't remember the last time I've ever read an article in some kind of mainstream media that actually articulated what I believe as a Christian. They're always getting it wrong. There's not an understanding of the gospel or who we see each other we see ourselves as the church. And so, how are we supposed to, as a church, not just survive during a time like this, but thrive?
Joel Brooks:Be filled with joy, be a city on a hill. Well, before Peter actually tells us what we're supposed to be doing, the very first thing he says we need to know is actually who we are. We need to understand who we are before we understand what we must do. And so, that's why this very first verse, it concentrates on our identity. And he gives us an identity that's completely foreign to any of the other identities that were out there, because the identity he gives us is not based on our our political party.
Joel Brooks:That's not the flag we're holding. It's not based on what school we went to, or social standing, or our career. It's not based off of our beauty or fitness standards, what fraternity or sorority we went to. Our identity is based, first and foremost, on our relationship with the Lord. He opens this letter by calling the church the Elect Exiles of the Diaspora.
Joel Brooks:And I want us to look at each of these three terms. We're God's elect, we are exiles, and we have been dispersed or sent out by God. So let's first look at election. Don't you love it when you come across a person, and the first thing out of their mouth is they want to talk about predestination? Those people tend to be very mellow, not argumentative.
Joel Brooks:Right? There's actually nothing worse than somebody who grew up all free will, they're all about free will, and then they become a Calvinist. They are the most obnoxious people on the planet. I know because I was one. And and definitely for about a year in college, you probably didn't want to be around me because I just wanted to draw you into some philosophical debate about predestination.
Joel Brooks:It's not what Peter's doing here. And when he calls the church The Elect, that would have been a huge encouragement to them. Because you know what? They were being rejected by everyone else. And God says, you might be rejected by everyone, but you were chosen by me.
Joel Brooks:You're accepted by me. It feels pretty good to be chosen, doesn't it? I mean, remember back in elementary school when it was PE? It was time to play kickball or dodgeball, if they still allow that. You know, like, you're playing and they pick the two captains, and the captains are choosing one another, choosing the team.
Joel Brooks:It feels really good when you're chosen. It feels really bad when you're not. When somebody like, I don't know, maybe Chad Wasserman or Cyrus Armijani were picked ahead of you. It's not like you remember thirty years later. You you remember those slights.
Joel Brooks:That was the early church. They were they were being passed over for the promotions, passed over for friendships, passed over from receiving any types of honors or respect. They were the rejects of the world, and now Peter says, uh-uh. You've been chosen by the one person that matters. You've been chosen by the Lord.
Joel Brooks:And, Peter uses this term, the elect. He's obviously pulling from the Old Testament because that was the word that was used to describe Israel, but this is also a very personal word to him because Jesus elected or chose him thirty years earlier. I mean, thirty years earlier, he's just sitting in his boat, minding his own business, he's mending nets, and Jesus comes to him. He says, you follow me. And, he wasn't looking at Peter and thinking, you know, I'm going to choose you because of all the potential I see.
Joel Brooks:I mean, I look at you and your gosh, your social skills are amazing. I mean, your intellect, I've never seen anything like it. He's not thinking that. He's he's not thinking, hey, here's a guy who won't embarrass me. Here's a guy who's who's always going to do what I say.
Joel Brooks:Here's a guy who's never going to leave me or deny me. No. He chose Peter when Peter was a Simon, when he was a sinner, when he wasn't even looking for Jesus, when when he began to see who Jesus was, actually, the first thing we hear of his mouth is, depart from me. I don't want to be with you. And Jesus says, tough luck.
Joel Brooks:You're coming with me anyway, because Jesus set his affection on Peter. And, he brought him in, and he's going to make that Simon turn into a Peter. He's gonna become a rock. That's what Jesus does for us. Even when we're in our sin, Jesus chose us.
Joel Brooks:Not because there was anything special about us, not because we stood out in any way, he chose us just because he loved us and He just wanted to pull us into Himself. So, we're His elect. But, we're not only His elect, we're also His elect Exiles. To be a Christian is to be an Exile. To be a church is to be a community of exiles who are following Jesus.
Joel Brooks:This word exile here in the Greek, it's it's a word you would use to describe a foreigner, someone who's living in a land where they do not hold citizenship, they do not get to enjoy the rights or the protections of citizens. Later in chapter two, Peter is also going to call us sojourners or aliens. It's the same thing. It's it's a foreigner living in another land, but that one essentially has a green card. They're a little more protection.
Joel Brooks:But it's the same idea. To be called an exile is to be called someone who is living in a place that is not their home. Paul tells us where our home is. He says, our citizenship is in heaven. So, if you're a Christian, you pull out your spiritual passport, you know what it says, citizen of heaven.
Joel Brooks:That's our home, our city, and we're waiting for it to come to this world. But until then, we feel this kind of homesickness. Being in exile means a couple of things for us. First, it means that even though we are Christians, even though we're filled with the spirit, even though we've been given a new life, we have a peace that surpasses understanding, a joy that the world cannot take away, even though we have all of those things, we will never fully be satisfied. You need to understand this.
Joel Brooks:To be in exile means that even though the power of the resurrection is happening in our lives, and we would never go back to our old life because what we are experiencing now is infinitely better, yet it's still not everything. And, what this means is that even in the most godly friendships or the most godly marriages, there's still going to be some heartache in it. If you have children, you're still gonna experience some disappointment in being a parent, even when you love Jesus with all of your heart. And when you come in here and you worship, even when your soul is just delighting in the Lord, you're still not gonna be completely satisfied. Yeah.
Joel Brooks:There's gonna be a part of you that, like, you're still crying, Maranatha. You still want Jesus to come, and until he comes, something's missing. So so, don't be surprised when you feel that little void there. It's not because anything is wrong with you, it's actually because something is right with you. You're longing for your homeland.
Joel Brooks:You're citizens of another place, and you're longing for that place to come here. To be an exile is to live away from the place that you know and love. To be an exile means that you just feel that everything around you is foreign. And it's true because you're living in a place in which the laws of the land don't represent the values of your home, where the songs you sing don't represent the joys and the desires of your home. The people around you, they have passions, values that are different than the passions and values of your home.
Joel Brooks:You just see life differently. That's to be an exile. And, when Peter calls us the Elect Exiles of the Diaspora, he is saying that the church is just like the Jewish people in the Old Testament, who were you know, they were sent out into exile, they were dispersed over all the nations, and now there's these little Jewish communities that are all over the Roman Empire. But, instead of being punished for our sins, and that's why originally, the Jews were exiled, no, we're we're actually being sent by the Lord to live as exiles. These Jews who were in exiles though, when they were in all these foreign places, they knew they had to stick together if they wanted to keep their identity.
Joel Brooks:So they lived with one another, they were in the same neighborhoods with one another. You see that happening now when when people, the immigrants come here, they often live in the same neighborhoods. They the the whole dynamics of the neighborhood changes where the the grocery stores have their food, where where the songs that you hear as people are driving by, well, it's it's their songs because it's like a little piece of home when they are all gathered together. And the diaspora, the Jewish communities, they would actually build their synagogues this way. When you went through the doors of the synagogue, you were facing towards Jerusalem, facing towards the city that they love.
Joel Brooks:They wanted, from the moment you walked in those doors, to have your heart oriented to the homeland. Peter is saying that's the church. We're exiles together, and we come into this space in order to orient our hearts towards where our citizenship actually lies, heaven. Right now, as as you guys are gathered here together, you're facing this way, that's you're you're being oriented towards Starratt, Alabama. That's what you're facing.
Joel Brooks:If you were to go a little bit further, you'd hit Savannah, Georgia. If you were to keep going even further than that, you hit Ethiopia. But, that's your orientation as you're sitting right here. But, the goal of us gathering together as these elect exiles is for us to leave all of the pushes and the pulls that we feel outside of these walls, to come in and to reorient our hearts towards our heavenly city, to remind ourselves to live according to the values of that city because that city will come here, and we'll be home again. So we we spur one another along to keep living in light of our homeland, and we remind one another of our true citizenship.
Joel Brooks:If we don't do this, we're going to lose the culture of heaven, and we're going become just like the world. It's easy to lose our identity out there. When we when we're all alone, it's pretty easy for us to forget who we are because we're just being inundated with everything that is foreign. This past week, I've been asking myself some questions. I've been asking, have I come to resemble the culture of the world around me rather than resemble what a citizen of the heavenly city looks like?
Joel Brooks:Are there places in my life that I've actually forgotten where my home is? Are there areas in my life that I've compromised? Are there things in my life that really used to bother me, but now they don't really bother me? They used to feel so foreign to me, but now they just feel familiar. I've just kind of brought them into my life.
Joel Brooks:Are there there things that I was, you know, I or things I used to be bothered by as I was thinking through this, is I used to be bothered by violence on TV. Now, I can literally just see people's heads ripped off, not a thing. I mean, it doesn't bother me in the slightest bit. I'm fully integrated into our culture when it comes to that. Or what about, you know, graphic language or sex?
Joel Brooks:Am I bothered by those things when it's on shows now? Am I even remotely shocked by it? Or have I just come to live with it? I thought about this. Are there any guilty pleasures that I used to have that have now just become habits?
Joel Brooks:It's just part of my daily life. What about the way I pursue every comfort or luxury? I mean, that's definitely one of the idols in our culture, comfort. That in sports and that in education. Would would my neighbors and coworkers, when they when they look at me, do they see that I'm living so differently in the way that I spend my money, in the way that I'm spending my time using my energy?
Joel Brooks:Would they look at me and think, this person's a foreigner? It doesn't fit into our culture. Would would they think that, or do I buy the things that they buy? Do I pursue the things that they pursue? When actually, when you just go, check, check, check, I really don't see how you're different, other than you say you're different.
Joel Brooks:We gather together as a church to remind one another we are exiles. We're to remind another truth, the value systems of our heavenly home, and that we are citizens there. It's only when we are reminded of our citizenship in heaven that we can actually make a difference in this world. Otherwise, we'll just become just like the world. Yesterday, about a 150 of you came to our workday.
Joel Brooks:You crushed it. And, guys, you made such a huge difference. Today, you either have poison ivy, or you you can't breathe because of all the pollen. Regardless, you itch everywhere. Allergies have killed me this year for some reason.
Joel Brooks:And unless I just decide to stop breathing, there's not much I could do about it. The allergies, you know, you go out there and I take in the pollen, and as a result, I it's hard for me to breathe, my lungs get filled with mucus, my my brain turns to mush, I have a hard time even thinking about things. And that is us trying to live out our faith in the world. Every day, we're just breathing it in, breathing it in. We're not breathing in heaven, we're breathing in the culture around us that is hostile to God.
Joel Brooks:We're breathing in that idolatry. And when we breathe it in enough, it begins to cloud our thinking. We we begin to not quite feel ourselves. You can't help but be affected by it. And so, what we do is we come together and we sing and we pray and we remind one another of God's word, and that is medicine to our souls.
Joel Brooks:It it washes away that pollen. It's the it's it's us breathing clean air again. That's the church. Now, all of these things that Peter is talking about here in these first two verses, they describe the church, but they also describe his own life. He is speaking from personal experience here.
Joel Brooks:We've already looked how the Lord elected him, but the very next thing that we see here is that he's the sent one. He he's an Elect Exiles on the Deityaspora. He's sent. That's literally what the word apostle means. Apostle means sent one.
Joel Brooks:He was elected. He is then sent out to go and to declare the gospel. And then we see all of that was done by the foreknowledge of God. Remember that conversation once again, Jesus' last conversation with Peter in John 21? Remember that, that very awkward interchange there, the exchange in which Jesus asked, do you love me more than these?
Joel Brooks:And Peter said, yes. You know I love you. And Jesus said, okay. Do you love me? Peter's like, yes.
Joel Brooks:And then Peter or Jesus asked Peter again for the third time, do you love me? And we read that it grieved Peter. And then his response was this, Lord, you know everything. You know I love you. That's foreknowledge.
Joel Brooks:As Peter saying, Jesus, you had me pegged the moment you met me. You had me pegged that I would I would deny you, and I would have bet the farm that I wouldn't have done that, but you knew. You always know. You know me better than I even know myself. You know where I'm gonna succeed, and you know where I'm gonna fall.
Joel Brooks:Jesus, you know me. Peter is talking about this impersonal experience here. Jesus knows us. And all that all of that was necessary, that all the failures, the sin, the denying, those things were actually necessary for Peter's sanctification and to bring him to a point of obedience through the Spirit, which is what he talks about next. Every one of Peter's failures actually prepared him in his calling to go and to reach the world.
Joel Brooks:It's part of that sanctification because there, he finally realized, I can't follow Jesus on my own. My strength will fail me. I need the spirit to give me a new heart to follow him. That's that's what we see here. Some of you might be disappointed in realizing, hey, I wish I knew Jesus earlier.
Joel Brooks:Why did I waste so many years of my life not doing this? Just so you know, all of that was happening according to the foreknowledge of God, to bring you to a place where finally his grace would be so sweet, you can never deny it. He's gonna use all of those failures, and he's gonna sanctify them through his spirit to make you an obedient person. So so he's using all of those things. Peter tells us next, he goes, our identity as a church is not only to be sanctified by the spirit for obedience to Jesus, except that we have been sprinkled by his blood.
Joel Brooks:Boy, is this gonna be a theme in Peter. The only reason we are who we are is because of the blood of Jesus. We have no other plea. So, Peter's experience is our experience as the church. We've been chosen by God, we've been washed by His blood, filled by His Spirit, sent out into the world to live as exiles in which we can exercise obedience to Jesus in a foreign land to show them who he is.
Joel Brooks:I pray that God would deepen that understanding of who we are as his people over the next few weeks. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thank you for calling us to yourself and to be part of your church. Lord, I pray that you alone would be our identity. And the moment we leave these walls, everything is gonna be telling us to build our identity on something else.
Joel Brooks:So, Lord, remind us of where our citizenship ultimately lies. Thank you for your blood, Jesus. And we pray this in your name. Amen.