A New Nation

Scripture:

1Pet. 2:9    But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

¹⁰ Once you were not a people,

but now you are God’s people;

once you had not received mercy,

but now you have received mercy.

Observation:

Peter has just reminded the believers that their lives are being built upon the Cornerstone of Jesus Christ. They are living stones within God’s kingdom, and now he expounds on that understanding. These believers, whether Jew or gentile, make up the Church. The language used here is a shift from Old Testament texts referring to Israel and now they refer to the Church. 

Those who become believers and active participants in the Church are now God’s chosen people. Their entire life is reoriented from that of the world, to that of the kingdom of God. All the believers receive their royal inheritance through new birth into the family of God and now live as citizens of a new nation — a holy nation. God’s people who are set apart to live for him testify to the mighty acts of God, because he has called us from darkness into the light. 

God’s new nation grants us our citizenship and from God alone we receive our identity. We are God’s people, and he has lavished his mercy upon us. Through new birth we are welcomed into his Church. 

Application:

The invitation is for us to live life as citizens of a new nation. This is a holy nation, and is entirely foreign to the secular world surrounding. The beauty is that in the life of the church, God’s people are united together, a holy other, in the world.  

Throughout Christian history the church has swung with the pendulum of time, sometimes entirely isolating herself from the world, and at others trying to be in the world as much as possible. It seems that we learn time and again that the answer is somewhere in the middle. We are to be a holy people, and we are to be very different from the world. Some translations have used, “a peculiar people.” We don’t really like that because who wants to be viewed as being odd. 

The last few decades the church has done all that she can to become more normalized within society. The pendulum has swung, and at the same time, the church has become so engaged in the world that we have forgotten about what it means to be “peculiar.” We have chosen to put our trust in secular systems to bring about God’s desired kingdom changes in this world. I’m not saying that God can’t work in that way, but it appears that our dependence has shifted from God to the things of this world. 

A new nation is just that — entirely new and different. We are able to travel and move in the world, but but we carry our documents with us (our witness) that we are citizen’s of God’s kingdom. The ways in which we engage with fellow citizens is to be graced with holy love, even when we do not agree. We have received mercy from God and we are to show mercy to one another, while living as children of the light. 

We are all ambassadors, sharing God’s holy desires with the world. Let’s keep our focus on our citizenship in God’s holy nation, and represent her well to the world.

Prayer:

Lord, help the Church to live into her role in the way you would desire. Amen.