1 Peter 1:1-2 | Elect Exiles
Let’s open the Bible now to 1 Peter. You can find it toward the end of your Bible. It’s a letter from the apostle Peter to various churches in the ancient world.
We’re starting a brand-new series through this great little book. Today, we’re going to look at just the first two verses, and I want to use those two verses, as Peter does, to introduce the letter.
Let’s read it now.
1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,
To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:
May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
We’re starting a series on 1 Peter because it unlocks a door into the wisdom of how to suffer well. And in these hard days, that’s something we all need.
Peter wrote to Christians who were suffering and were about to suffer even more. As Christians living as exiles in non-Christian world, these people needed the reminder that suffering isn’t an aberration but an expectation. And, given to God, suffering can produce gold rather than ashes.
Peter is the perfect guide for this journey. His life included great suffering. But his life also included great attempts to avoid suffering. For example, in Matthew 16, Jesus asked his disciples who people said he was. Some people said he was John the Baptist, others said Elijah, and others Jeremiah or another prophet. Then Jesus asked who his disciples say he is. Peter piped up. “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Jesus confirmed Peter’s confession, saying it was from God, and it was the confession upon which his church would be built.
Then, just after that, Jesus told his disciples he must go to Jerusalem to suffer and die. Peter didn’t like that. Surely that wasn’t the way this would go. He blurted out, “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you.” Jesus responded, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.”
Peter didn’t understand that the way to the glory of Christ was the suffering of the cross. He didn’t understand that salvation of man came from the sacrifice of Jesus. He didn’t have the proper category for glorious suffering built out in his mind. How could Jesus suffer? How could he die? The better question in this sinful, broken world is how could he not?
Jesus then turned to his disciples and said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” The cross and then the crown. Life through death. Suffering then glory. That is the Christian life.
Fast forward to the night of Jesus’ arrest. Peter famously denied Jesus three times. Why? Well, if they were doing that to Jesus, what would they do to him? Then fast forward to Peter and Paul in Galatia. Some Jews arrive for dinner, some of Peter’s friends. But they don’t want to eat with those unclean Gentiles in the church. So they separated themselves, and Peter went with them. Why? Because he didn’t want to stick his neck out for them.
Peter’s life is a great example of what it looks like to avoid suffering, even suffering for Jesus. But in the Christian life, suffering is not optional but required. Remember Paul’s words in Romans 8:17, “If [we are] children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.”
So we need to know how to suffer well.
When we come to this letter and this author about the topic of suffering well, we are hearing from a man who had to learn the lesson himself. He is a perfect guide because not only did he learn to suffer but he suffered well. He learned to look to Jesus during those hard trials, and he learned that lesson because Jesus didn’t give up on Peter. In fact, after his resurrection, on the beach at breakfast, Jesus restored him by asking him three times if he loved him—the same number of times Peter denied knowing him. After restoring him, Jesus told Peter to feed his sheep.
This letter is Peter feeding the sheep. But, like the rest of the Bible, these aren’t merely Peter’s human words. These are the words of Jesus himself. As an apostle, Jesus used Peter to feed his sheep. If Jesus could use a man like Peter for a purpose like that, can his grace not reach down into your life and do something miraculous too?
So this book is going to really help us. And as we start it off today, we see that Peter’s opening words are more than a greeting. They are insight into what he found in God in times of suffering and what we can find in him too. This book is for people who look at the prospect of suffering for Jesus and then look for the exit door, for people who want the shortcut if it’s available, who understand the reality of suffering but have no idea how to do it well. And really, that’s all of us.
So, as he begins, Peter gives insight into how God thinks about us. Peter learned these things himself, so it’s not just high-brow theology. This is in-the-pit-of-despair truth. In these two opening verses to suffering people, Peter shows at least three things we can find in God—things hard to believe in times of suffering, but vital to believe.
God deeply loves us
God hasn’t forgotten us
God is totally for us
God Deeply Loves Us
Where am I getting that? Look at verse 1. Who is Peter writing to? “To those who are elect…” We’re going to stop right there for a minute. “To those who are elect…” What does that mean?
The first important word we come to is elect. Here we have the doctrine of election, or of God’s choosing. Now, for many people this is a difficult doctrine because it tells us that God chooses some while not choosing others. Some people look at that and think, “Well, God can’t be like that.” It’s very easy to get totally caught up in God’s not-choosing and therefore becomes very easy to downplay his choosing. It becomes very easy to misplace the shock of election.
Should God choose to save anyone? That is the question. Is there anyone deserving? Is there anyone worthy? Is there anyone spotless and righteous and without sin that deserves to be in the presence of the holy God for eternity? The answer, of course, is no. The Bible says, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” We all have fallen short of the glory of God. We’ve all sinned. And not just one time, but many, many times. In fact, we were born that way.
It’s January now, so probably some of us are taking another stab at reading through the Bible. You’re probably somewhere in Genesis, because every plan starts there. And you’re probably at least through the Fall of man in the Garden and onto at least the time of Noah. Remember what God said about the world back then? Genesis 6:5, “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” God created man and put him in paradise and gave him a woman to love and care for, put him in charge of the entire world—literally had world-domination—and gave it all up for a bite of fruit, for a chance at some knowledge he didn’t have. And a few generations later, it’s so bad that, as God looks out at the world that he once called “good,” he can now only see evil continually in the heart of man. No one deserved God’s grace. Everyone was wicked.
But we read on, “Noah found favor in the eyes of God” (Gen. 6:8). Wait a minute. Was Noah better than everyone else? No, the Bible doesn’t say that. It just says Noah found favor in God’s eyes. In other words, God looked upon Noah favorably, despite his sin. Noah deserved judgment just like the rest who drowned in the flood, but God chose to save him. Noah didn’t do anything to deserve it; God gave it. And we look at that and think, “Wow. God is overwhelmingly gracious.” That’s election. That’s God choosing who he will—not because they deserve it but because he has desired to set his saving love upon some, though the entire world is only wicked and deserving of judgment.
Noah believed in God not because he decided one day to have faith but because God decided to come to Noah. God gave Noah his faith. God chose Noah, elected him out of the world to survive the flood. And he’s been doing that ever since man was created. God chooses, and that choosing isn’t a problem, it’s a point of praise. The fact that God chooses to save anyone in this evil world, any one of us evil people, for that’s what we truly are, is such an astounding act of grace that Peter actually says in verse 12 the angels long to look into it. The angels in heaven, who’ve seen God face to face, look at the gospel and cannot get over the fact that God chose to save sinners. They are still gobsmacked by the gospel.
Maybe some of us can’t sort this out in our mind. We still object to the doctrine of election because we can’t fathom anyone wanting Christ but not getting him because God didn’t choose them. But nowhere in the Bible do we see that is the case. Instead, we see the gospel go out to everyone. Anyone who wants Jesus can have him. The problem isn’t wanting Jesus and not getting him. That’s not the problem at all. The problem is in the wanting. It’s the fallen human heart that rejects him.
Now here’s why this matters to us right now. We have a very deep tendency to doubt the love of God, especially in our suffering. When our life begins to fray at the edges and the starts to bottom out and leaves us breathless, doubts creep into our mind that maybe God doesn’t love us as much as we thought. But the doctrine of God’s election tells us exactly the opposite. If he chose us, he must love us. We’re not a disappointment to him. He’s not checking the return policy. We didn’t surprise him with our sin. He overcame it on the cross of Christ and chose us to be in his family.
Peter used this word intentionally because we need to know in times of suffering that suffering is not proof God doesn’t love us. In fact, Peter will go on to show it’s proof he does love us. In 3:14, he says, “Even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed.”
“To those who are elect.” We will pick this up again in just a minute, as Peter expounds on it in verse 2, but the main point right now to grasp is that God deeply loves us, and, our second point, he hasn’t forgotten us.
God Hasn’t Forgotten Us
Look again at verse 1. Who is Peter writing to? “To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.”
So here is a group of people living in Roman provinces in what is modern-day Turkey. But beyond that, who are they? Well, some people look at that word “Dispersion” and say it must be Jewish people of the Jewish dispersion, when they were driven out of Jerusalem. But most commentators agree Peter is writing not to Jews but to Gentiles.
Now, here’s why that’s important. We’ve already talked about how Peter called them elect. By calling them elect, Peter used Old Testament language. Who was God’s elect in the Old Testament? Israel. But Gentiles are not Jews. They’re not part of the nation of Israel. Yet these people are God’s elect, his chosen people. Peter is saying that it’s not the nation of Israel but the Church of Christ that are God’s elect in this world!
Now imagine you’re living in the ancient world, as these people were. You don’t have the internet. What happens in Jerusalem isn’t live-Tweeted. You’ve heard the gospel and come to Christ and worship him alone. Yes, there is a church you are a member of but it’s the only church in town. Most people around you don’t know Jesus, don’t want to know him, and think the whole Christianity thing is ludicrous. It wouldn’t be hard to feel alone in the world, would it? It wouldn’t be hard to feel out of place, to be discouraged, to be tempted to think that though you know you’re connected to a larger group throughout the world, maybe God has forgotten you in your little corner. I mean, shouldn’t life be better than this now that you’ve been saved?
Peter addressed that by calling them exiles, for that’s what they were. This is a really important theme in the letter—one we will explore more as we go along. God’s people are pilgrims, sojourners, exiles on earth. Peter’s readers were exiles because when they came to Christ, they suddenly realized that their home was no longer their home. Their true home was in heaven with God. Their life was dramatically and forever changed, but not everyone around them believed as they did. They were exiles in their own homeland. They were exiles in their own families. They were exiles in their places of work. They were exiles in their neighborhoods. Everywhere they went, they were different because of Jesus, and people noticed. Life was not easy for them, and it was about to get harder—not just generally harder, but specifically because of their faith. Persecution was going to come, and they needed to get ready. That’s why Peter includes so much theology in this opening address. As A.W. Tozer said, “What comes into our mind when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” We better be sure we’re thinking rightly about God because it determines how we live.
In a situation like Peter’s audience, living as exiles, it’s not hard to think maybe God just forgot you. I mean, here you are away from the central hub of Jerusalem where it all started, in your little church with your little people, and life is hard. But God didn’t forget them. This letter was proof! It was his grace coming to them. His peace multiplying to them, as Peter says at the end of verse 2. Peter wrote to them, as he said in 4:19, to encourage them to endure suffering by giving themselves to God. Life is hard and full of suffering, but God is faithful and he will preserve them. Not only that, he will vindicate them in the end. As foolish as they look to the world right now, as much as they live as exiles now, it is they who will inherit the earth when Jesus returns.
Living as exiles means suffering for faith in a world that finds faith off-putting and weird. It’s not easy to live that way, is it? Maybe you know something of what that’s like. Our world isn’t much different than theirs. Peter’s original audience lived in what we could call a “pre-Christian” world, and some say we live now in a “post-Christian” world.
We live in a day very similar to Peter’s, but on a different end of the spectrum. In their day, Christianity was just starting to spread. It was not yet a mainstream religion. And the world didn’t understand them. The Christians and their insistence on Jesus as King made no sense. Their way of life made no sense. After all, who follows a crucified king? Who claims victory in a cross? What God loses to win?
Today, we live in an increasingly post-Christian world. The Christianity of our culture’s past is fading into the background of a secular age. Some things still remain, of course, but we are, especially in the American South, more Christ-haunted than Christ-filled. It’s the memory of a Christian past instead of a vital Christian life that surrounds us. We live among a vague Christianity with no set boundaries, no real call to obedience, no real religious activity. It’s a vague God-is-only-love religion where, bless your heart, all you gotta do to get to heaven is die. God isn’t holy and he’s not worthy of worship because, if he’s there at all, he’s there for us.
But increasingly the idea seems plausible that, probably, he’s not there at all. Heaven is there, because that makes us feel better about things, but it’s best not to talk too much about God, and certainly not to act as if he has real lordship over your life, requires anything from you, or wants you to live a certain way that would go against your own sense of truth.
Do you ever wonder why it’s so hard to live as a Christian in today’s world? Why you often feel so weird and out of place in your non-Christian circles? Sociologist Charles Taylor wrote a big book called “A Secular Age.” In the introduction, he says, “The shift to a [secular age]…consists, among other things, of a move from a society where belief in God is unchallenged and indeed, unproblematic, to one in which it is understood to be one option among others, and frequently not the easiest to embrace.”
In other words, in our day, Christianity is still an option, but it’s not the best one, and certainly not the easiest one. In Peter’s day, Christianity was barely even an option. In our day, it’s an option because it’s part of our cultural history, but it’s not a good option. We’ve gone from a society in which it was, as Taylor says, “virtually impossible not to believe in God, to one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is one human possibility among others.”
In our day, the possibilities are endless, and true Christianity isn’t the most attractive option to our flesh. Waiting on God doesn’t work well for impatient people. We have all kinds of fleshly gospels to choose from today, from the prosperity gospel where God wants us to be healthy and wealthy to the victim gospel where God wants to coddle us to Christian nationalism like we saw at the Capitol building on Wednesday. But to live the truly Christian life of faith in Christ alone is to live as an exile in this world. To be strangers in a strange land. It always has been, and it always will be. Embrace it.
The easy to miss encouragement of a letter like this to people like this is that the God who saves us and deeply loves us never forgets us. We may feel forgotten, but God doesn’t forget his people. We may feel alone, but we never are. We may feel at the end of our endurance, but God has more to give. Times will come when life gets hard because of our faith, when our lives fall apart and things start to get uncomfortable, and we listen to the world around us and find they don’t validate our faith, don’t respect our God, and offer a “better way.” How do we live a life of faith when things get hard because of our faith in a world in which belief in God is, as Charles Taylor said, is one option among other,s but not the easiest to embrace?
The best way is to remember that the God who remembers us. We are his people. He loves us. He hasn’t forgotten us. And, our third point, he’s totally for us.
God is Totally For Us
What we’ve been talking about so far isn’t just a feel-good pep-talk. It’s grounded in the reality that God is for us. Verse 2 shows us that.
With this verse, we’re back to election. Peter expounds on God’s total involvement in salvation. Verse 2 shows us the Father, the Spirit, and the Son all intimately involved in the salvation of his people. Look at verse 2. To those who are elect exiles…“According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.”
Now, you see all three persons of the Triune God at work here. So quick refresher on the doctrine of the Trinity. It’s massively important to get this right. The doctrine of the Trinity says there is one God in three persons. There is one God. The Father is God. The Spirit is God. The Son is God. The Father is not the Son or the Spirit. The Spirit is not the Father or the Son. The Son is not the Father or the Spirit. There are not three gods, but one Triune God. Got it? Okay, great. Moving on...Of course, this is a mind-boggling truth, but it’s important to know that our God is bigger than we are. If we can’t understand him fully, that just means we aren’t him. That’s ok. He tells us all we need to know, and in verse 2, we have so much comforting truth to take hold of—all of God is all for us.
So let’s just take it a phrase at a time.
First, “According to the foreknowledge of God the Father.” Here is God the Father’s part. The word foreknowledge takes us back to the world elect. It’s the same idea. Foreknowledge could mean only that God foresaw whom would be his elect, but it’s more than that. Look down at verse 20. Peter is talking about Jesus, and he says Jesus was “foreknown before the foundation of the world.” It’s the same word.
Commentator Tom Schriener puts it this way.
“Peter was not merely saying that God foresaw when Christ would come, though that is part of his meaning. He was also saying that God foreordained when Christ would come. Indeed, God had to plan when he would come since Christ was sent by God. Christ’s coming hardly depends on human choices. Therefore, when Peter said that believers are elect “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father,” he emphasized God’s sovereignty and initiative in salvation. Believers are elect because God the Father has set his covenantal affection upon them.”
So God the Father initiates our salvation with his divine plan of saving those whom he has chosen, his elect.
Then, secondly, “In the sanctification of the Spirit.” Here is the Holy Spirit’s part. Not only does the Father foreknow whom he will elect, but the Spirit is the source of their sanctification (Schriener). Sanctification refers to our progressive growth in Christ, our becoming like him, our transformation from one degree of glory to another.
When we became Christians, God did not say, “Great. Take it from here and I’ll see you on the other side. Just read my Bible and you’ll know what to do.” No, in fact, Jesus in John’s gospel gives us great insight into the Spirit’s role in our lives. He said God abides with us by his Holy Spirit (John 14:16), reminds us of God’s word (John 14:26), convicts us of sin (John 16:8), and guides us to the truth (John 16:13). Paul says the Spirit helps us in our weakness (Rom. 8:26-27). God dwells with us by his Spirit, sanctifying us. We are never without God. Isn’t that an amazing thought? In your deepest suffering, God is right there with you, by his Spirit, groaning in prayer too deep for words.
Third, the Son’s part. “For obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.” Here’s a two-parter. It starts with “for obedience.” Whose obedience? Well, not Jesus’s obedience, though that’s an important biblical truth, but our obedience to Jesus, our sprinkling with his blood. So it’s a two-folded encouragement. We are to obey Jesus, and we can do so because he has sprinkled us by his blood.
The sprinkling of blood points back to the Old Testament. In Exodus 24, God inaugurated his covenant with Israel with sacrifices, and the blood was sprinkled on the altar. In response, Israel promised obedience to God and his covenant. Then, Moses sprinkled the people with blood and said, “This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you.” That blood signified forgiveness and cleansing to be at peace with God. They entered the covenant through obedience and the cleansing blood sprinkled on them.
Peter picks up that Old Testament passage and applies it to God’s people now. They’ve been sprinkled by the blood. It’s through the blood of Jesus that God’s covenant with us is secured. We can obey God in our suffering because Jesus suffered and died, shed his blood to save us from our sins. These Gentile Christians are now God’s people—not because they’re part of Israel, but because they’re part of Christ’s Church. To belong to the people of God means to belong to the Son of God, to be sprinkled with his blood.
Peter is very clear: this is all God’s work. Our Christian lives are miracles of God’s grace. God elected. God determined the place and time in which they lived. God foreknew them. God sanctifies them. God shed his blood for them. God made a covenant with them to save them. Their only part is to trust and believe, and to follow God wherever he leads.
God in all his being is totally for his people. No matter what our circumstances may suggest, God is for us. He is with us. He will never leave us nor forsake us. The blood of the covenant is upon us. God’s blood is sprinkled on us. We could not be more secure. So, why not trust him, even when it’s hard?
Conclusion
Finally, let’s consider just for a minute the last phrase of verse 2. “May grace and peace be multiplied to you.”
Why does Peter tell us all this right up front? Because to those who feel the scorn of the unbelieving world, the grace and peace of God rests upon you, and you need to know that when you wake up in the morning. Not only that, his grace and peace will be multiplied to you. But it comes in a surprising way. The grace and peace of God comes through trials and suffering of this world. The furnaces of this world, in the hands of God, produce only gold.
Yes, we are exiles here. But we are elect exiles. God deeply loves us. God hasn’t forgotten us. And God is totally for us. We’re going to be okay.
Let’s pray.
