Rejected by Men, Chosen by God: 1 Peter 1:1-2 (1 Peter Series)

            It’s never fun to be in a setting in which you feel like you don’t fit in. In some settings, no one may have any ill will toward you and they may not tell you that you don’t fit in, but you just can’t get that vibe – like me at a Jamberry party. At other times, you may not fit in because the other people don’t like you. They may resent the fact that you are there, and they might let you know about it in a variety of ways.

            The Christians who received this letter from Peter that we now call 1 Peter lived in a setting in which they didn’t quite fit in. Several important details about them made them different from the people around them, and for that reason they were facing some persecution. And so, in the very first words of his letter, the apostle Peter wanted to remind them of a very significant truth:

You may be rejected by men, but you are chosen by God.

Let’s read the apostles opening words to these persecuted believers [READ v. 1].

            Let me clarify a few details about this opening verse. First of all, the locations that Peter mentions are not cities, but rather regions of the area that is now modern-day Turkey. These regions were administrative districts of the government of the Roman Empire. You can think of it as if Peter had written, “to those who are in Kansas, Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas.” So Peter was writing to believers in a fairly large geographical area.

            Peter also writes that they are “exiles of the dispersion.” That phrase tells us that these Christians were ethnic Jews. The title “the dispersion” was a technical title that referred to Jewish people who lived outside the land of Israel. So the recipients of this letter were ethnic Jews living in predominantly Gentile areas, but nevertheless, religiously they were Christians.

            As you can imagine, that fact made them outsiders to both the Jews and the Gentiles around them. Gentiles were familiar with Jews and had come to tolerate them fairly well, but these Christians were a new movement, and many people really struggled to understand them. Records from the early church tell us that Christians were sometimes accused of cannibalism because they talked about the body and blood of Christ when they celebrated the Lord’s Supper. Some people even called them atheists because they didn’t have a physical statue of their God that you could see and touch. And of course, their moral standards were considerably out of sync with the Gentiles around them.

            In addition, these believers almost certainly would have faced rejection from their Jewish friends and relatives. The Jewish people regarded Jesus as a false teacher who was leading their brethren to betray their forefathers and the Law of Moses. So these Christians really would have been on the outs with everyone around them.

            So, before Peter goes any further, he wants to remind them that even if they are rejected by men, they are chosen by God. In the ESV translation here Peter calls them “elect,” which simply means chosen. We are in an election season in our country right now, and that simply means we are going through the process of choosing our next president out of a pool of candidates who are running for the office.

            Now if you’ve studied much theology, you know that the doctrine of election – or “predestination,” as its sometimes called – is very much a hot-button issue in the world of theology. That fact is really quite sad, because the doctrine of election in the Bible is meant to be a great comfort to believers. It should be very encouraging for us to realize that our inclusion in the family of God is no accident, but rather, it is part of the outworking of a plan that God had for us before time began.

            It’s worth noting that every variety of Christian theology agrees that believers have been chosen by God for that status. Calvinism, Arminianism, Lutheran theology, Anglican theology, Catholic theology – we all agree that Christians have been chosen by God for that status because that’s what the Bible plainly says in passages just like this.

            The disagreement and all the heat arises when we talk about what the doctrine of election means for unbelievers. If we are chosen, doesn’t that mean that unbelievers are not chosen? And if they are not chosen, how did that situation come to be? Did God simply not choose them even though he could have, or did he take some kind of factor into account when he made his choice, like knowledge about whether they would choose him during their lives? Those are the questions that generate disagreement – and in some cases, passionate disagreement for some people.

            Now at the risk of disappointing some of you, I’m not going to tackle those questions today, and that is simply because Peter doesn’t address any of those questions in this passage. He emphasizes what election means for believers, and so that needs to be our emphasis as well. In verse two, Peter goes on to talk about how the fact of our election relates to each member of the Trinity.

1. "according to the foreknowledge of God the Father…"

            We might paraphrase this by saying that the fact of our election was part of God’s plan for this world before time began. The Bible presents God’s foreknowledge as being an active thing. In other words, he knows about the future because he has planned the future. A passive foreknowledge, on the other hand, would be like if you found out about a surprise birthday party that was being planned for you. You didn’t have a hand in planning it, but nevertheless you know about it ahead of time because somehow you found out about it.

            God’s foreknowledge isn’t passive, it is active because he planned the future. It would be wrong to think, however, that the fact that God has a plan means that we are like puppets or robots who don’t have any true free will. The Bible doesn’t describe us that way, so we should not think of ourselves or others that way. The great mystery is that God’s plan for the ages was set before time began, yet it incorporates the choices that we make today and choices that we haven’t even made yet.

            But Peter’s point here is to remind his readers about the sovereignty of God. He is in control; he has a plan. Even if other people don’t want these Christians, God has chosen them to have a special role in his plan as his own children. That fact is a very comforting truth that we should remember during times of persecution. You may be rejected by men, but you are chosen by God.

2. "in the sanctification of the Spirit…"

            This phrase describes how God’s overall plan has actually come to be played out in our lives – it is through the work of the Holy Spirit to set us apart and give us the unique status of being children of God. That’s what the word “sanctification” means – to give something a special status that sets it apart from other things.

            Think of it like the fine China you may have in your home. You probably have a wide variety of dishes and serving utensils in your home, but that fine China has a special status. In fact, you probably even keep it in a special place away from all of the other dishes because of its special status.

            In our lives, the Holy Spirit has given us a special status among mankind by making us children of God. First, he drew us in and brought us to the Lord, and then he gave us new life and made us born again. Then he placed us into the body of Christ so that we are now part of God’s family. So through all of these activities of the Holy Spirit, God’s decision to choose us to be his children has actually become a reality now in our lives.

3. "for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood."

            This phrase outlines the purpose for which God chose us. He chose us so that the Holy Spirit might lead us to obey Christ’s call to repent and be forgiven, so that we might receive forgiveness through the shed blood of Christ.

            This phrase “sprinkling with his blood” would have been very significant for these ethnically Jewish Christians. They were very familiar with the Law of Moses, and they knew the history of their own people, so they knew the important message that was sent by the symbolic act of someone or something being sprinkled with the blood of a sacrifice.

            The author of Hebrews gave us a very helpful summary of this symbolism in Hebrews 9:18-22. Why don’t you turn there with me and follow along as I read these verses [READ]? We can see in these verses that sprinkling with blood was like God’s seal of approval on something, so to speak. It was a sign of God’s acceptance and commissioning for his own use.

            This declaration by Peter that they had been sprinkled with the blood of Christ would have been another moving reminder for these believers that they were approved by God and accepted by him. The Gentiles around them may have rejected them and their own Jewish brethren may have rejected them, but they had been chosen and accepted by God and commissioned for his use.

            I cannot stress to you enough how important it is for you to allow these truths to frame the way that you think about yourself at all times. When other people reject you – for any reason – their actions communicate lies about you. Their actions say, “You are not loved,” or “You are worthless.” But God says, “I chose you to be my own child before you were even born. I caused my Holy Spirit to set you apart from the crowd and make you clean from your sins through the blood of Christ, so that now you are mine, and I have a special purpose in store for you.”

            Those truths are so easy to forget when we are rejected by men, so remind yourself of this truth – you may be rejected by men, but you are chosen by God.

            Peter closes his greeting with a distinctively Christian twist on the greeting that the Jewish people had been using for hundreds of years. He writes, “May grace and peace be multiplied to you.” The typical Jewish greeting was the word shalom, which means peace. Even to this day, Jewish people continue to greet each other with wishes for peace.

            But the distinctly Christian message for this world is that there is no peace to be found without grace. Grace is perhaps of the defining idea of the Christian faith. The apostle John wrote in John 1:16 that from Christ’s fullness we have all received grace upon grace. That’s a beautiful word picture! We haven’t just received grace – we’ve been given grace that’s piled on top of more grace and still more grace until we’ve received a heaping helping of grace!

            We’ve had grace poured out on us the way that your grandma pours hot fudge over your ice cream. Parents are kinda stingy with things like hot fudge, because we know we have to pay the dental bills, and we have to deal with the fallout of a kid who’s had too much sugar. But grandma doesn’t care about that, does she? She gets to send you home after you’ve had too much sugar, so she just pours that hot fudge on there until it’s overflowing.

            That’s the way that we’ve been given grace, and that grace is multiplied to us not only when we’ve sinned, but also when we are weak and weary, and also when we face rejection from others because of our identification with Jesus Christ.

            So never forget this my friends – you may be rejected by men, but you are chosen by God! You have always been in his plans for his family, and he has made that a reality through his Holy Spirit, who has applied to your life the forgiveness that was purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ. So stand fast in the acceptance of the Lord, especially when you find yourself rejected by others for your faith.