CHRISTIAN IDENTITY
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2010 · 11 April 2010
“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light; 10 for you once were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”
Last week when I was praying, I found myself thanking God for the wonder of being a human, but not just any human but a people for God. We have the astonishing capacity to see and hear and feel, and then to think about all this amazing reality around us, and then to form judgments about it all.
And to know right and wrong, and good and bad, and beautiful and ugly, and then to feel profound emotions of love and hate and joy and discouragement as well as wonder and hope and gratitude, and then to reason and plan our lives in ways that achieves things.
But best of all is to use all these wonderful human capacities while knowing and loving and serving the greatest Being in the universe, our Maker and our Savior and our God. It was one of those rare moments, like a brush with eternity.
To be alive as a human being with indescribable mysteries at every turn, and to have in front of us an eternal destiny of spectacular glory or the inexpressible horror of not knowing is a weight that can either lift you up with great joy and full of glory or press you down with fear and trembling.
Whether you experience glory or horror depends in large measure on whether you know God or not and what the answers to the basic human questions are or not. Who are you? How did you get that identity? What are you here for?
Only humans ask these type of questions. Only humans kill themselves or kill others when they don't get true and satisfying answers. Not often do we find such clear answers to all three questions in such a small text this evening. Who am I? How did I get this identity? What's it for, and why am I here?
So let's go back to the beginning and listen to the Word of God and wonder and stand in awe of what He has to say about these three things. Who Are You? Keep in mind that Peter is identifying Christians.
1. Verse 9: "You are a chosen race." I know that this is a corporate identity; he's talking about the church, the true Israel. But the implication is individual, because this race is not racial. The chosen race is not black or white, yellow or brown. The chosen race is a new people from all the peoples, all the colors and cultures, who are now aliens and strangers among in the world.
See 1 Peter 2:11, "Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers . . ." What gives us our identity is not color or culture, but our being chosen. Christians are not the white race; they are the chosen race. Christians are not the black race; they are the chosen race. We are the black chosen and the white chosen and the yellow chosen and the brown chosen.
Out from all the races we have been chosen, one at a time, not on the basis of belonging to any group. That's why this amazing phrase is individually crucial for you; you are part of the "chosen race" because the race is made up of individuals who were chosen from all the races. So your first identity is that you are chosen. God chose you.
I do not know why. It was nothing in me of value above other humans. I did not earn it or merit it, or meet any conditions to get it. It happened before I was born. I stand in awe of it. I bow and accept it. I am chosen.
2. You Are Pitied. Verse 10b: ". . . you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." I choose the word "pitied" because the word for mercy in Greek here is a verb and the closest word we have in English like "mercied" is "pitied."
It's not a bad translation. When God chose us, He then saw us in our sin and guilt and condemnation and He pitied us. We are not just chosen. We are also pitied. We are the not just the objects of his choice, but the objects of his mercy.
I am chosen and I am pitied or you could say I am "graced." I am "loved." God did not just choose me and stand aloof. He chose me and then drew near in mercy to help me and saved me. My identity is fundamentally this: I get my identity not first from my actions, but from being acted upon by God with pity. I am a pitied one.
3. You Are God's Possession. This is expressed twice. Verse 9: "You are . . . a people for God's own possession." Verse 10a: "You once were not a people, but now you are the people of God."
You are chosen by God; you are pitied by God; and the effect of that mercy is that God takes you to be his own possession. Now God already owns everything. So in that sense everyone is God's possession. So this must means something special, something different.
And, of course, it does. You are God's inheritance. You are the ones He wants to spend eternity with. When God says in 2 Corinthians 6:16, "I will be their God and they will be my people [my possession]," what He means is that "I will dwell in them and walk among them."
You are God's possession because He purchased you with a high price. The price is described in Acts 20:28, “Therefore take heed to yourselves and to all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood.”
4. You Are Holy. Verse 9 says, "You are a . . . holy nation." You have been chosen and pitied and possessed by God; and therefore you are not merely part of the world anymore. You are set apart for God. You exist for God. And since God is holy, you are holy. You share his character, because he chose you, pitied you and possessed you.
You are holy. If you do not act in a holy way, you act out of character. You contradict your essence as a Christian. Sin is contrary to our union with Christ. For your identity is holiness to the Lord: you are holy.
5. You Are a Royal Priest. Verse 9: "You are a . . . royal priesthood." You are chosen by God and pitied by God and possessed by God and holy like God and royal priests to God. The point here is first that you have immediate access to God—you don't need another human priest as a mediator.
God himself provided the one Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ. You have direct access to God, through the Lord Jesus. And, second, you have an exalted, active role in God's presence. You are not chosen, pitied, possessed, and holy just to waste away your time doing nothing.
You are called now to minister in the presence of God. All your life is priestly service. You are never out of God's presence. You are never in a neutral zone. You are always in the court of the temple. And your life is either a spiritual service of worship (Romans 12:1–2), or it is out of character.
So you can see that your identity, the question, "Who are you?" leads directly to the question, "What are you here for?" Your identity leads to your destiny. You are chosen, pitied, possessed, and holy, all for a purpose, to minister as priests.
And the heart of that ministry Peter describes for us very clearly. But before we answer the question what we are here for, let's pause just a moment and answer the middle question: How did I get this identity?
Peter refers to God like this in verse 9, "Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." The light we live in is the light of our being chosen and pitied and possessed and holy and priestly. And the way we got there is that God called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
God gave us our identity by virtue of his irresistible call. I know that we were chosen by God before we were called by God. So it might look like I'm not saying it quite right. But what I mean is that the experience of walking in the light is the effect of God's sovereign call, God’s saving initiative.
And being in the light means that we have intellectual understanding and we have moral character. We not only know what is right, we can do what is right. There is truth and righteousness, knowledge and obedience.
Sometimes, especially after you have been saved for a long time, it is easy to forget what you life was like before you were saved. Before you walked in darkness and you loved darkness and your deeds were evil and you did not even know that there is light.
And God in His grace simply calls you out of darkness because of His own desire to do so. And only now do we realize how rich we are and how nothing in ourselves caused God to chose us. I hope we never forget this.
What Are You Here For? What we saw was that our identity led directly to our destiny: we are chosen, pitied, possessed, and holy all for the sake of being a royal priesthood. But Peter is more specific when he tells us the reason for our existence.
He says in verse 9b that we exist for this reason: "that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light." This is the full-time occupation of a royal priest, to make the glories of our King known.
There is a lot of discussion in our day of self-concept or self-identity. How do we view ourselves? It is an important question. And what I want you to hear this evening is that a Christian is not defined just in terms of who we are in and of ourselves.
It's defined in terms of the relationship God creates with us and the destiny He appoints for us. In other words as a Christian you cannot talk about your identity without talking about the relationship of God with you, and the purpose of God for you.
The biblical understanding of human self-identity is God-centered. Who am I? Who are you? You are a God- chosen one, a God-pitied one, a God-possessed one and a God-sanctified one. The very language of our identity in this text necessitates that God be included as the one who acts.
God made us who we are so that we might proclaim the excellency of his freedom in choosing us. The excellency of his grace in pitying us. The excellencies of his authority and power in possessing us. The excellencies of his worth and purity in making us holy.
In other words He has given us our identity in order that His identity might be proclaimed through us. God made us who we are so we could proclaim who He is. Our identity is for the sake of making known His identity. The meaning of our identity is that the excellency of God be seen in us.
It is an honor to be chosen to be an ambassador of the President of the United States and similarly it is a privilege to be chosen to be an ambassador of the living God. Instead of being afraid or hesitant if you have an opportunity to speak about God, hold you head high when you tell others about the excellencies of God.
Being a Christian should mean that we make the greatness of God known to everyone we meet. We can do it in church services with preaching and singing and praying and reading. We can do it in our small groups as we tell each other what God has been and done for us.
We can do it at work as we tell people what we love about God and why we think He is great. And we can do it in a thousand different ways of love that suit our situation and personality. And we can apply it to everyone we come in contact with.
For example, listen to this wonderful story of how Doug Nichols, the International Director of Action International Ministries, made the excellencies of God known in a tuberculosis sanitarium in India, he was a missionary with Operation Mobilization and got TB.
He was in the sanitarium for several months. He tried to give tracts and copies of the gospel of John away, but no one would take them. They didn't like him and assumed he was just a rich American.
At one point for several nights he would wake up coughing at 2 AM. He noticed a little old emaciated man trying to get out of bed. The man couldn't stand up, and began to whimper. He lay back into bed.
In the morning the stench in the ward was terrible and everyone was angry at the old man for not containing himself. The nurse who cleaned up even smacked the old man for making such a mess.
The next night the very same thing happened. Doug woke up coughing with his own terrible sickness and weakness. He saw the old man try again to get out of bed. Again he couldn't stand, and began to cry softly.
Doug got out of bed went over to the old man. The man cowered with fear. But Doug picked him up with both arms and carried him to the bathroom which was just a hole in the floor, and then brought him back. The man kissed him on the cheek as he put him down in bed.
At 4 AM another patient woke Doug with a steaming cup of tea and made motions that said he wanted a copy of the booklet, the gospel of John. Through that whole day people kept coming to him and asking for his booklets even though he could not speak their language.
This story explains that we need to declare the excellencies of God by acting them out. By showing love we can be a small example of the love of God. When we act out the excellencies of God, people will experience that love and that will give them eagerness to find out who God is.
Which is just another way of saying that our identity, who we are is for the sake of God. God made us who we are to show the world who He is. Are you showing your world, your work environment, your friends and your enemies the love of God? Only by being loving and doing good and comforting those in need can we show what God is like, Amen?