Latest / The Daily Word / July 23 – Living As Foreigners and Exiles
Transcript
- Cory: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good wee hours of the night. Whenever you are joining us, welcome to the Daily Word Podcast from Lakeshore Christian Fellowship. My name is Corey, and it is my privilege to pastor Arkitauba Campus. And I'm excited to be sitting down with you for another Daily Word episode. Today is July the 23rd, and today we are looking at First Peter chapter two for our devotion. And Peter's letter, his audience is mostly made up of Gentiles who have accepted Jesus. And as a result, they are suffering persecution. Now Peter's writing to them to strengthen and encourage them in the middle of their hardship. And today in chapter two, at the beginning of this chapter, Peter is speaking to his audience about their identity as followers of Christ. And it's actually in verse nine that we find one of the most beautiful passages in all of Scripture about who you and I truly are now that we've accepted Jesus. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness and into His wonderful life. This is the truth of who you and I are. We're not lowly scroungers shuffling through the the dust and the mud of the spiritual world. No, we we're a royal priesthood, a set-apart nation that God considers to be his special possession. This is the beautiful reality that you and I get to live in. And even if we don't recognize it on a daily basis, now Peter. continues by drawing a clear line that while this is the reality of who you and I are today, we weren't this this holy nation, we weren't this royal priesthood always. Verse 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. And with that in mind, let's continue to verse 11, where we're going to camp out for the rest of this devotion. Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul. Now, Peter here talks about living as foreigners and as exiles. Like we literally are living as followers of Jesus in a land that is not our own. And we're called to live the way people live in lands that aren't their their own. And and I mean this isn't like something that you and I aren't completely and totally unfamiliar with. Like we have people living here in America that this is not where they came from. They came from different nations with different cultures and and they preserve their culture and they don't just assimilate and start dressing and acting and living like Americans. No, they are from where they are. they are who they are and they carry their culture as part of their identity, even in America. Like I I live in Fort Mill. We have a decent sized Indian population here in Fort Mill. And you'll see them often out and about walking through the road, going to shops, going to stores, dressed in in full like Indian saris. They they they dress like they would in their homeland. They're preserving their culture. And that is how you and I are actually called to live in this world. We're called to preserve and carry our kingdom, our identity as being part of a holy nation. We're called to carry that into the world, even if sometimes it makes us stand out. See, most Christian Americans, we try kind of hard to actually blend into the culture and look as much as the world. as we can, but that's not what Peter's audience is calling them to do. He he's calling them to live like foreigners, to live like exiles, people who have been transplanted from one culture to another. And that means sometimes they're gonna stick out. We are going to stick out. And and here's what's important that we recognize if foreigners and exiles aren't deliberate to do those things that make them stick out and carry their culture with them into a new land, that new land will quash their culture right out of them. But for you and I, it's not just the culture of our kingdom that that The world wants to to squish out of us. It's actually our our holiness. We live in a world that is actively opposed to the kingdom we're now a part of, and it uses sinful desires to wage war against us in the hopes that we will give up what sets us apart and assimilate into the culture instead of carrying the kingdom with us. Now, all this. All this is hard, sticking out is hard, resisting sinful temptation and and lurings, all that is challenging. And and I mean it's supposed to be in some ways, remember it like Peter is writing his letter right now to to a group of believers who are facing persecution for doing exactly what he's talking about. But this is the call of God on our lives to live in. the world, but not be of the world. And despite how hard it is when we do this well, and we truly live as representatives of God's kingdom, which He founded on love and sacrifice, we will get to see what Peter speaks about in verse twelve, where he says, Live such good lives among the pagans That though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day He visits us. No, we don't have time to get into the fact that our culture s calls all of our Christian values wrong and celebrates all the wrong things as if it's right. We don't have time to unpack that, but but They may call us wicked and they may call us evil for holding to Christian values. But what Peter's saying here is we are going to live lives that disprove them and show them wrong by carrying the kingdom with us and living good lives. So so I guess in terms of practical application for today's devotion, we can all ask ourselves a question: what What aspect of kingdom life, of kingdom culture is the Lord calling me to focus on making sure that I am carrying into my life, into the world, to be seen by those around me today? What is that thing? Let's pray. Father, I thank you that you are with us, that you truly have translated us from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of your love. I thank you, Lord, that we are no longer citizens of this world, but we are citizens of your kingdom. We just reside here. This is just Or we make our temporary home. But I thank you, Lord, that our home, our true home, is with you. And one day we will get to exalt and relish in your kingdom and being with you. But Lord, I thank you that you would help us and grace us to carry your kingdom into the world around us in a way that shows people who you are and makes them receptive to you. your gospel. We thank you for the work that you are doing. We thank you for the work of your Holy Spirit in us and through us. And we thank you, Jesus, because you are just so, so good. We love you, Jesus. Amen.