1 Pet

1 Pet. 2:9-10

3/9/2008

“That You May Proclaim”

There was (and still is) a religious, philosophical movement called deism. As the name indicates, which is derived from the Latin word deus, they believe in some sort of god. But this god is nothing more than “a universal creative force greater than that demonstrated by mankind” (World Union of Deists). Notice how their definition of god is confined to the “creative” aspect. We can understand why their teaching is often summarized in the analogy of a clock maker. God made this universe with all the mechanism necessary to self-perpetuate, wound it up and let it go. And that’s the extent and end of God’s involvement! This universe, therefore, is a self-contained, independent entity, even from God! The deist god does not interact with the world in any way anymore.

The deist god is clearly not our God of the Bible. The God of the Bible did not create the world as a one-time fling, only to abandon it right away. God is not a fickle child, who moves from one toy to another. God does all things according to the counsel of His infinite wisdom--deliberately, purposefully and resolutely. We may not always understand why He does what He does. But we can be assured that everything He does has a reason and purpose, which is perfectly consonant with His divine character. There is no such thing as a meaningless act of God, nor can there be any. For God “works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Eph. 1:11). This universe has a divinely ordained purpose. Mankind has a divinely ordained purpose. Your life has a divinely ordained purpose.

This purpose cannot be separated from God or unrelated to God. For God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end (Rev. 21:6). He fills all in all (Eph. 1:23). All things exist for Him and by Him (Heb. 2:10) and in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). As the Psalmist sang, “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me” (Ps. 139:7-10)! God is intimately involved in all the affairs of the world and of the nations and even of every individual. Not even a sparrow falls to the ground apart from God. Even the hairs of our head are all numbered by Him (Matt. 10:29-30). Our life cannot be a meaningless blip in the impersonal, chancy, evolutionary process.

So then, the fact that we are alive at this very moment and are gathered at this very place is not a matter of chance or indifference. When we wake up in the morning to live another day, it is not just a deistic, natural, biological, automatic process working itself out. There is a purpose, a divine purpose, in all things, from the biggest to the smallest events in our cosmos. Why are we alive today? Why are we here? Why do we have what we have and why do we lack what we lack? Why do we know the people we know and why do we have the kind of relationships we have with them? Why do we have the kind of challenges and problems we have and why do things happen to us the way they do? Peter is clear in his answer: "that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him, who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light" (v. 9). My desire today, which I believe is God’s own desire for you, is to convince you that a life fully devoted to proclaim the excellencies of God is the best and greatest life possible for any human being.

This is consonant with the clear theme of the Bible. As we heard in today’s call to worship, God made us His people for Himself that we might declare His praise (Isa. 43:20-21). We also read in Eph. 2:4-7 that God saved us by grace “so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” We read again and again in Eph. 1 that God did all that He did for our salvation “to the praise of His glory”.

Some may have a problem with this kind of thinking. If someone were to do a good deed for others only to show off his generosity, how would we feel about his good work? Not so positive. A good deed should be altruistic, unselfish and selfless. But this principle, which is true for man, does not apply to God. God is not ashamed to declare that everything He does is for His own glory. For example, we read in Ezek. 36: 22-23, “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes.” None of us, if we had any sense, would say, “I am doing this for you so other people can respect me and love me or I can win some humanitarian award.” No company, when donating to a charity, would say in its grant letter, “We are doing this for tax purposes and a public relations stunt.” Then why would God be so explicit about His greatest concern being His own glory? How can God be so thoroughly self-seeking and not be embarrassed? Because God is the ultimate, absolute Good. As such, He must, He is morally obligated, to seek His glory above all things!

This is not hard to understand, is it? Even in our democratic society, we know that the life and security of the President is more important than the life of a secret service agent. No one will view the President as selfish and cowardly for escaping while the agents get in the line of fire. If so, how much truer it must be for God, who is infinitely more valuable than any creature? But, of course, it is not as though God needed our protection and sacrifice! Who can protect the almighty God? What can our sacrifice possible give to Him what He already does not possess as the Creator and Possessor of all things? In fact, what do we have that we did not receive from Him?

Rather, see how God chose to glorify His name--by calling us out of darkness into His marvelous light and saving us! It is ultimately for the sake of His holy name that He acts! Yet the result of His act is not only His glory but also our salvation! Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! Oh, the magnitude of the riches of His goodness and grace toward us! As the almighty God will never fail to glorify His name, so He will never fail to save us and accomplish all of His good and gracious will toward us! His glory is bound up with our salvation because His gracious covenant with us.

In fact, so generous, so magnificent, so sacrificial, is His saving work that we need to be reminded of the simple fact that our salvation is ultimately not for us but for God’s glory! After all, how did God call us out of darkness into His marvelous light? It was not as though He could simply call us out of darkness as He called light out of darkness at the first creation! For the darkness that enclosed us was the darkness of sin and death. Creation required God’s almighty power. Our redemption, our new creation, requires more than His almighty power--the ransom, the payment, the punishment, the penalty for our sin, which we ourselves could never pay. So when He decided to save us even from the foundation of the world, He knew exactly what price He had to pay for His decision: the sacrifice of His only begotten Son. The eternal Light had to walk into the darkness of sin and death to take the place of His people and be swallowed up whole by that hideous, gruesome darkness. How should that kind of sacrifice be viewed? When He took off his outer garments, tied a towel around His waist, knelt down before His disciples and washed His their feet; when He willingly went all the way to the cross, bearing our shame, our guilt and our punishment and ultimately our death, how can we even begin to think that all this was for His glory? Isn’t it supposed to be the other way round--the servant working hard for the master? How could the Son of God humble Himself so much for mere creatures, and sinners at that?

So we do need to be reminded that even our salvation is ultimately for God’s own glory. We need this reminder all the more because God gave and sacrificed so much for us in our salvation! But all glory and honor must go to God for His amazing grace, not to us. For the sacrifice God made for us was not for the worthy but for the least deserving, not for the righteous but for the sinful: “For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:7-8). When loved with such an amazing love, we should feel greatly humbled and deeply thankful. And it is by our humble gratitude that we honor the One, who loved us with so great a love. Such is the life we are called to live. Since we live, move and have our being in God, so we ought to live, move and do all things for the glory of God. This is all the more the case in our salvation: as we are called, justified, adopted, sanctified and glorified unto eternal salvation by God’s grace in Jesus Christ, so we ought to breathe, speak, move and do all that we do unto the praise of His glorious grace!

Is this arrangement somehow offensive to man’s dignity? Of course, playing second fiddle to someone else is not a position that people are generally envious about. In our society, you have got to be the man. If you are cast in a supporting role, that’s OK as long as you get the opportunity to get noticed and have your own show someday. I am not saying that all ambitions are bad. There is nothing really wrong with trying to be the best until we are so taken up by our ambition that we sacrifice even more important things on our climb to the summit. But there is one ambition that is always bad and evil: not wanting to play second fiddle even to God. This attitude is nothing less than wholly satanic because that is why Satan rebelled against God. Though a mere creature, he didn’t want to serve God, who made him. He wanted to be the master of his life, the pioneer of his own destiny. He did not want anyone, even God, to tell him what is good and not good, what is true and not true. He didn’t want anyone, even God, to dictate what he should and should not do. He wanted to think up his thoughts and believe what his heart desired. He wanted to say whatever was in his mind and do whatever he felt like without anyone looking over his shoulders. He wanted to live his life his way! He wanted to be free of God. So he tried to overthrow God and His reign. He attempted to free himself from what he perceived to be an unbearable yoke of humiliation--God’s sovereign lordship.

So he yielded his spirit to his blind ambition and decided to be the master of his own destiny. It could have tasted so sweet and felt so thrilling to make that decision, just like what an idle daydreaming feels like. But however good or real it may feel for a moment, a delusion is still a delusion--that temporary thrill will burst in a rude awakening, that elation will come crashing down. And how hard Satan crashed, all the way from the heights of heaven down to the pit of hell, from a position of nobility to that of ignominy, from the realm of radiant glory to the damp, dark dungeon of humiliation. Oh, what price he had to pay for his senseless rebellion! And for what? Did he become a master of his own destiny? Is he no longer under the sovereign rule of God? He may be allowed, for the time being, to roam about the world like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. But can he do anything outside the pale of God’s absolute reign? Cast out of heaven, does he now reign as its prince? No. Hell is not his kingdom but his prison, where he must suffer the torment of God’s eternal punishment.

Is Satan the archetypal tragic hero? No--tragic he may be but heroic he is not. The concept of tragic hero works only in the context of fickle, capricious and at times vicious gods. There is indeed something heroic about standing up against the nonsensical fate determined by some fickle gods, even if the fatal outcome cannot be avoided! But for someone to be heroic, he must be on the side of what is true and good and right. There is nothing heroic about bashing one’s head against the rock to break it with one’s head. And there is nothing heroic about Satan rebelling against God, who is the Way and the Truth and the Life, the Giver of every good gift, the Fountain of all blessings, whose throne is founded upon righteousness and justice. There is nothing heroic about a fish trying to be free of water and that is what Satan attempted to do.

In Jesus Christ, we have been called out of darkness into God’s marvelous light. We have been delivered from that self-destructive, hell-bound pursuit of Satan to the godly, deeply satisfying, heaven-bound pursuit of God’s glory. What is Peter telling us about this life God has given to us? Simply put, it is a life wholly devoted to boasting about God and His excellencies!

We all boast about something. We may not do so aloud but we all do in our hearts. And we boast about all kinds of things: our accomplishments, our family pedigree, our possessions, our education, our intelligence, our looks, the places we have been to, the people we know and even the sports teams that we root for and the good bargains we found on the internet! We boast about everything. We can almost say that what we are most proud of in our hearts, what we most loudly boast about reflects our value system. We can even say that the value of our soul depends on what we truly boast about. Not everything we boast about is of equal value. Some people boast and we shake our heads in disbelief because they glory in their shame. Others have nobler ideals. But what are all these things that we boast about compared to God and His incomparable excellencies?

Some boast in their looks and flaunt it everywhere. But what happens to their confidence and self-worth when the freshness of their youth must yield to the gray and the deep wrinkles of the old age? Some boast in their possessions but what happens when the flirtatious fortune abandons them for others? Some have accomplished nobler things, well deserving of others’ praise. But do these things give you the bragging rights? No. If it is true that “where boasting ends, there dignity begins”, then it is equally true that “where boasting begins, there dignity ends.” But even if we heed to the advice, “The less people speak of their greatness the more we think of it,” what happens? People may praise us but we know how fleeting and fickle are the praises of people!

Then can there be a greater privilege than to have something worthwhile to boast about, which is genuinely worthy of our boasting, which elevates our mind and ennobles our soul and satisfies our spirit to the deepest degree and which, when we boast of it, does not put down others but invites and calls them to share in the same privilege and joy! And that is what we have in Jesus Christ when we proclaim the excellencies of our God, who called us out of darkness into His marvelous light!

Here consider the importance of the relationship between us and what we boast about. Just because we boast about a noble thing does not mean that we ourselves are noble. A sports fan can boast about his team’s dramatic victory. He may be all proud and happy. And he even acts as though he were better than the others because his team won! But is it his victory? Is he the champion? But think about your boasting about God. Think about what are the excellencies of God that Peter is talking about? In this particular context, he is speaking of God’s redeeming grace--God calling us out of darkness into His marvelous light. Note: His marvelous light. God did not just give us something good. He gave us Himself by bringing us into an intimate relationship with Himself. God made us “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that [we] may proclaim the excellencies of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light.” Do you see what God made us to be? When we proclaim the excellencies of God, are not doing it as a critic, approving the performance of a musician or an actor. No, we praise Him as a His chosen race, His royal priesthood, His holy nation, a people for His own possession! The excellencies we proclaim are those of our King, our God, our Lord and our heavenly Father! When we glory in God, we don’t look foolish like a sport fan acting like he is the professional athlete because his team won! There is a genuine bond between us and our God, enabling us to share in the glory of His excellencies. In fact, we are the very demonstration of His excellencies!

Think about what else do we learn about the privilege of boasting about God? Peter says that the reason that we ought to proclaim God’s excellencies is because we are now His people, receiving His mercy, though we were once not a people and not loved. What these words allude to is unmistakable. In Hosea God convicted Israel’s unfaithfulness by naming Hosea’s children by his wayward wife, Gomer, as Lo-ammi (“Not My People”) and as Lo-ruhamah (“No Mercy”). But God in His grace promised that someday they would be once again called His people and receive His mercy. Now, Peter applies these words to the church of Jesus Christ! In fact, in these two short verses, Peter applies the many titles that have been attributed to Israel to the church! This was God’s plan all along! When God spoke these words to Israel 27, 28 centuries ago, God actually had us in mind! Who were we? Gentiles in the flesh, separate from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus, we, who were once not God’s people, have been made God’s special people; we, who had not received mercy, have received mercy! Indeed, we are now “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession”! What Israel was to be but miserably failed to be, we are now in Christ Jesus!

What is it that should motivate us to proclaim God’s excellencies? We were once not His people but now we are. Once we had not received His mercy but now we have! What makes this such a wonderful blessing? Because there is nothing more tragic and miserable than not to be God’s people, not to be loved by God. When one is not loved by God, he is not in some neutral state. God’s sovereign authority is so absolute and so pervasive that one cannot remain indifferent or neutral with regard to God. When one is not loved by God, he is under the wrath of God. When one does not belong to the people of God, he belongs to the enemy of God. For God is the Alpha and the Omega. This is true especially for human beings, who are made in the image of God. Just like the sunflower was made to lift up its face toward the sun and bask in the warmth of the sunshine, we are born to have communion with God and bask in His love. Just like the horse is born to run (so the foal, as soon as it is born strives to get up and run), so we are created--and redeemed!--to proclaim the excellencies of God!

Consider the force of this statement in the light of the fact that it is far better for us to be with Christ in heaven (Phil. 1:23). Why is God leaving us here in this world? The ultimate purpose is for us to proclaim the excellencies of God! That is why we are alive. That is why we are here. That is why we have what we have. That is why we know the people we do. That is why go through what we go through. Whatever we do, wherever we are, whomever we meet, our greatest concern should be to proclaim how good God is and how satisfying it is to commune with Him. We are to do it when we experience loss by rejoicing in our heavenly inheritance that cannot be lost; when we enjoy abundance by humbling ourselves and not forgetting how temporal worldly treasures are! Everything in our life has a purpose: exaltation of our God! When we do this, we experience the glory and joy of heaven. For what constitutes our joy and happiness in heaven? Isn’t it proclaiming and praising God for His glory through all eternity? And God has ordained that, as we proclaim God’s glory in this world, those who are lost can be won back to God to the praise of His glorious grace! Let us proclaim the excellencies of our God with great joy and delight! Let us boast about God in that we do and say and think!