Chosen to Serve

Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honourable so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. Thank you. And our text is verse nine of this chapter. But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.

Congregation, I think you are probably aware that today's a day of thanksgiving for the life of Charlie Kirk, a Christian who was martyred in the United States because of his stand for Christ in the political arena. And we have seen a tremendous outpouring of grief over the death of Charlie Kirk, and I think the Lord is using this to make people look again at what reality is, what truth stands for, because that's what Charlie stood for. He stood for truth, especially in the political world, and he stood for truth because he followed Christ who said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Now Charlie's enemies and detractors, and he has many, they denounce him for many things, but one of the most central things is they say he shouldn't bring Christianity into politics.

Oh, yes. Charlie did bring Christianity into politics, and he brought Christ into politics because that was his worldview. And let's face it, everybody in politics brings their worldview into it. Whether you're a Muslim or non-Christian or you hold to some other faith or you are an atheist, you bring your worldview into your politics. And we see that especially with those who hold to a woke worldview today and how they try and press their worldview into politics for all of us.

Now what is important is not that, well, it is important that we bring Christianity into politics, but what is also important is that we do not link politics and the church. We strongly believe in a separation between state and church, and that's not the same as saying that Christ cannot be in politics. The political system that was so dear to Charlie, that's the Republic of America where he was working, that, of course, was born out of Christianity. It's a political system that was encouraged through a study of scripture. It was, in fact, one of the fruits of the Reformation along with education for all and the sciences.

We also see that the Reformation brought republicanism and democracy to the world. Now if you think, well, you're biased in your viewpoint, let me quote you somebody who is impartial on this issue because he's a Jewish scholar who works at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. His name is Daniel Elazar, and he writes, the road to modern democracy began with the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century, particularly among those exponents of reformed Protestantism who developed a theology and politics that set the Western world back on the road to popular self-government, emphasizing liberty and equality. Now why is it that reformed theology gave birth to this democratic system that so many of us hold dear? It was because the reformed theologians developed something we know as federal theology or perhaps better known as covenant theology, which emphasized the priesthood of all believers.

And crucial to this understanding was our text from this morning in 1 Peter 2:9, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light. Now during the Reformation, this text was used a lot to oppose false leadership. For example, in the church, the claim that you could only expound the Bible and preach the word of God if you were ordained by the church as a priest. And with that, the idea that you could not find salvation without the help of a priest who could bring you the sacraments. The reformers said, no.

We are all priests, and we can all come to God. And they opposed this kind of teaching of a special priesthood. And they also opposed the idea in the state that there were a special race of people who had royal blood. Blue blood flowed through their veins, and this gave them the divine right to rule. And if you weren't a descendant of one of these people and had that royal blood, you couldn't become a king. You weren't allowed to rule, and those who ruled did so by right of God.

Again, the reformers said there is no such biblical teaching. God appoints those who rule, and He appoints those who have ability, and He, in fact, allows us to help in electing those who will rule us. Now our text that we read in Peter is in fact an echo of a text we find in the Old Testament in Exodus 19:5-6. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations, you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

Now remember, God spoke this to an Israel that had just been freed from slavery in Egypt, and they had just found their own freedom to set up a new nation before God. And we see that God deals with people, especially by way of covenants. And chief here are the covenants that God made with Adam, Abraham, and Christ. Although there are many more in scripture, you can find them there. But these three that I mentioned were very special as covenant representatives.

They represented other people in the covenant, and they are known as covenant heads. So Adam represented the whole of humanity when he, in the covenant of works, failed to do what God required, and hence, we all fell into sin with Adam. Abraham is pictured as the head of all those who believe, who are saved by faith. Because just as Abraham believed and it was counted to him as righteous, so it is for all his children and spiritual children. And, of course, Christ is remembered as the head of the covenant of grace and that He died and gave His life so that we may be cleansed from our sins purely by grace. Now if you want to see how that works, read Romans 5.

I thought it was gonna come up, but in Romans 5, you are reminded how there were two important covenant heads, Adam and Christ. And it says there, even as in Adam we all sinned as his children, so in Christ, those who are His children are all made alive because Christ kept the commandment for us. And so as covenant heads, we see how both Adam and Christ affect all of those they represented so that even as the evil Adam did affected all of us, so the good that Christ has done affects all of His children so that we can live a holy life before God. Now the Reformation recognized the importance of these covenants, and I think we saw that a few Sundays ago where we saw that this was one of the strong points of reformed theology, our covenant theology, which is also called federal theology because it comes from the Latin word foedus, which means covenant or a pact, a treaty, a promise.

Probably a good word today would be the word contract, and it's a word we don't use a lot in theology anymore. But you know where we use it? In politics. So we talk about a federal government, and we are a federation of states that have covenanted together to be one nation. That's why we are called a federal state.

It's based on a covenant. And here we see that in a federal government, the head of the state represents us all, and so the decisions he makes affect all of us. The money he borrows, we have to repay because he stands in our place. That's federal government. But where does that idea for federal government come from?

Straight out of the Reformation because reformed scholars recognized covenants as a pattern not just for religious, but also for social and political life. Thus, it was recognized that marriage was a covenant whereby the husband promised to take care of the wife and the family, and he, as a covenant head, took responsibility for them. Churches were set up by the covenantal system whereby office bearers were chosen, and the congregation covenanted to obey these leaders, and they represented them at classis and at synods. And so we have the Presbyterian system come out of this thinking. The doctrine of the priesthood of all believers recognized that it didn't take some special sacrament like holy orders to make you a leader of God's people, but that it was the gifting of the Holy Spirit that we can recognize in each other that makes us suitable as candidates to lead God's church.

And, of course, we have a good example of that in the book of Acts in chapter six where they decide to choose some deacons to help in the work of the church. What was the basis of their choice? Well, of course, they had to be good Christian people, an example, but they had to be gifted for that work. And so in our election of office bearers, that's always the question we must ask. First of all, do they give a good example of Christian life?

But secondly, do they have those gifts and the wisdom that allow them to lead us as deacons or as elders or a pastor in the church? Now this system then of government through leaders we elect who represent us at other bodies, like we call it classis, some call it a presbytery, who represent us at synods and so on, the same system was then taken into politics, and that became what we know as the republican type of government. A federal representational structure became the model for the new republics. We find that in many Protestant states, now men were chosen according to their giftedness to lead the nations. And even where Protestant nations continued with kings as rulers, it was no longer said that's because they have a special kind of blood or a divine right, but it was seen as a social contract, a covenant.

And there was a man named Hobbes who wrote extensively about that, that the king is king because he promises he will do what's good for us, and we promise in turn to serve him. And so we see that indeed this Jewish scholar was right that reformed theology was used to reintroduce, or I should say, democracy into the world. But a democracy under God. A democracy that recognized that God gives us special people with gifts who can lead us in the situation we are in. And I'm not sure that democracy can work outside of a Christian context, where there is not that leaven of Christianity to keep people in mind of what democracy is all about.

Because where people reject God, they no longer recognize that there are people who have divine gifts to lead us. And so they don't ask, oh, is this man gifted? Instead, they say, what does he promise us? And what does he promise us? Oh, she promised us very low taxes and lots of social security.

Yeah. I'll vote for her. Without asking the question, is that wise? It doesn't seem to come into it. Because, again, without a god, people do not base their decisions on truth, but they defer back to feelings. I feel this is good.

And truth falls by the way. Now after this long kind of introduction, let us return to our text, and I want you to note that there are five expressions used here in 1 Peter 2:9. Five expressions that identify us, and the first one is that we are a chosen race. It's important that we recognize we're not elected as individuals or take him or I'll take her and so on.

No. God works through communities, and that's why we bring our children before the Lord in baptism. But it also means that those whom God has chosen are our family. They are our brothers and sisters in Christ. The word race here is actually the word genos from which we get the word genetic.

It's like we're genetically linked to them as if we had the same father. And, of course, we have the same father, spiritual father in Abraham, the father of believers. And, of course, beyond that, God, our heavenly Father. Now the New Testament identifies Christians as a family, as brothers and sisters. Listen to Ephesians 3:14.

For this reason, I kneel before the Father from whom His whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. And it's important that we recognize that in our dealing with fellow Christians. Our Christian family cuts right across denominational, racial, national, ethnic, political divides. We have brothers and sisters everywhere, and it's important that we recognize them and don't push them away because they have another label in nationality or in denomination. And this means that we must deal with them as brothers and sisters, supporting them, helping them, caring for them, especially when they have problems, where there's poverty, where there's disaster.

And it was great to see this project to give boxes of gifts to these children because these children are our family or perhaps not yet our family, but we hope they will be as they too will join the family of Christ. And at all times, we must pray for them, which leads us to the second expression that we are a royal priesthood. And, of course, one of the jobs of a priest is to pray for people, to intercede for them, that God would take care of their needs, both physical and spiritual. And this is a responsibility we don't just have towards our fellow Christians, our brothers and sisters in Christ. This is a responsibility we have for the whole world, believers and unbelievers.

When both Paul and Peter tell us that we have to pray for our leaders, whether it's Caesar or our prime minister or a president. We know that Caesar wasn't a Christian, was he? And many presidents and prime ministers are not, but we are to intercede for them and pray that God will lead them to make the right decisions and to do what is right. As priests, we are also there to remind people of God's will. It was the task of the priest to read the law before the people every so often to remind them of what God required.

And we are there to remind people of what God requires in our lives. He wants us to tell them about the need for truth because God is truth. Now one of Charlie Kirk's strongest points, I think, was the fact that he sought to bring God's truth before the people, and he spoke out on issues like life and sexuality and gender and stewardship and truth, pointing people, this is what God requires. And that has nothing to do with politics as such. That has to do with the very core of our lives, how we must orient ourselves towards God.

And people need to know this because if they're not aware of what God requires and that they fall short of this, then they are not aware of their need for Christ. And one of the things I admire about Charlie is how he always brought it back to people's need for Christ, to have Him as their Saviour. And this is what we too are required to do as God's priests, that we talk to these people, remind them of God's will, and that we intercede for them when they don't know Christ, that they may come to know Christ, and when they know Christ, to intercede for them when they sin. It's interesting that other martyrs like Christ Himself and Stephen, among the last words they said is, Lord, don't hold this sin against those who have hurt me. I think Charlie would have echoed those words.

We are not just priests, but royal priests, and that reminds us that we are there to encourage people to be obedient to our King, and that leads us to our next expression here in that text that we are a holy nation. Our true identity, our national identity lies in the kingdom. It is not of this world. I find it very useful because people often ask me, where are you from? And I don't know if they're talking about my accent or where my nationality lies or where I've done my work, where I now live, which are all different areas, but I can always say I belong to God's kingdom.

That's the one certainty I have in life. But we are reminded that this is a kingdom not of this world. It's a kingdom that recognizes the Creator of the world as the Sovereign of this world, and it recognizes that He is the one who sets the rules. And so no worldly society has ever come close to reaching these ideals of the kingdom of God. But what we do see is in societies where there's a large Christian presence, we see that they have a leavening effect just like leaven on a lump of dough.

It begins to penetrate it all. And so as Christians do, we can make a difference to society and help democracy work the way it should work and bring about the reforms that are needed. Sadly, today, we see that the Christian leavening effect is not as strong as it has been. There was a time when our society identified as Christian. That has long gone. And with it, some of the blessings have gone that we used to have.

Our society has come to a place where it's no longer God who decides what's right, where people say, we will decide what is right and wrong. Brings us back to what happened in the Garden of Eden, doesn't it, when Satan tempted Eve. You take of this fruit, you can be the one to decide what is good and evil. But we see that our society has relaxed laws on blasphemy of God, but did you know that there's a proposal now to bring in a crime for blasphemy against Islam? Parents can be jailed when they hurt children in discipline, but a mother who has an abortion gets off as if nothing has happened.

Scientific research is stifled by the funding being channelled to certain ends, and even publications will sometimes be closed to new insights or traditional insights that people no longer want to hear because people want science to teach what they believe. Education is no longer centred so much on true knowledge as it is on propaganda, holding the right views. And as Christians, we have to oppose these trends and point people back to the truth and value of God's kingdom. And that's why we need Christians in all disciplines. And young people, if you're thinking, where should I go when I finish my schooling?

Find an area where we need Christian influence and where God has gifted you. Because we, as Christians, are a holy nation, and it's our influence that will help the nations in the world. We are set apart for service of God and Christ, and our text refers to that as we are a people belonging to God. I think there's a version that says we are a peculiar people, but that's probably not something people want to be called today. It's no longer politically correct to say you're peculiar.

But what it actually refers to is a Hebrew word called am, and am is a word used for the covenant people of God, people who are set aside, never used for anyone else but God's covenant people, and that is what is brought forward here. We are a special people because God chose us to serve Him, to serve each other, and to serve His creation. That's our threefold task as a kingdom of priests, to serve God, each other, and creation. Now we see the teaching of our text presented in Lord's Day 12, which we used this morning, and it pointed out that even as Christ was anointed to be a Prophet, Priest, and King, so we who bear the name Christian, that's Christ with an ending, we also are anointed through our baptism, and we are also anointed to these tasks. A prophetic task because we are to proclaim God's glory to the nations.

We must tell all people the reason for the hope that is within us. We read in 1 Peter 3:15. And we must make sure that all our neighbours know what God requires of them. And then as priests, we must intercede for people, both Christian and non-Christian. We have to pray for them, both Christians and non-Christians, to help them to know Christ fully where they are Christians or to come to know Him if they are not yet Christians.

We are to warn sinners of the judgment to come and the need for repentance. And we are also ruling with Christ. The catechism points out that this is in one way a future event when we will rule with Christ, but there's also a sense where already we are promoting God's rule as kingdom citizens, and we should use the voice that we have in society to make sure that it does not enact bad laws. We must respond to those requirements for signatures to say that we are for or against certain acts of parliament because these can be very influential in designing the direction of our society. Let's use our voice to promote godly candidates in politics and let the world know that we are Christians.

Be open and forthright like Charlie. Yes. We believe this because we believe in God. He is the one who sets the rules. We are Christians because we love and we follow Christ.

Our Prophet who leads us into God's truth, our Priest who has offered the perfect sacrifice for our redemption, and our King who rules over us and will return to reclaim creation for Himself. Amen. Let us pray. Our Lord God and our Father, we thank You for Your wonderful promises to Your people. We thank You for the covenant that we have in Christ that we can be counted as righteous and counted as children of Abraham because we believe.

And, Father, we pray that as believing Christians, we may give testimony to that fact to the people around us. We pray that we may also be concerned about the state of our nation. We pray for it, Lord. We pray for good leadership, and we pray that You will help us to remind people of what You require so that they too may turn to Christ as they realize that He alone can keep Your law for us. So, Father, be with us in the week ahead.

We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.