Who Are You?

June 02, 2019
Pastor Clint Ziemer

Audio of the sermon preached on June 2, 2019, at Cable Community Church, Sherrard, IL

Episode Notes

Who Are You?


1 Peter 2:4-8


A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don’t know where I am."


The woman below replied, "You’re in a hot air balloon hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You’re between 40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude." 


"You must be an engineer," said the balloonist. "I am," replied the woman, "How did you know?"


"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is, technically correct, but I’ve no idea what to make of your information, and the fact is I’m still lost. Frankly, you’ve not been much help at all. If anything, you’ve delayed my trip."


The woman below responded, "You must be in Management." "I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?" 


"Well," said the woman, "you don’t know where you are or where you’re going. You have risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you’ve no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it’s my fault.”


Who are you? Are you Engineering, or Management, or maybe something else?  It’s important that we know who we are.


We have reached the end of a three part series from 1st Peter on Growing in Christ.  So far,  we have seen how we should all desire to set aside what is bad for spiritual growth and desire what is pure - like a baby longs for milk that it may grow, and that God interested not solely in our PERSONAL spiritual growth, but He also wants us to grow together as His Church.  Today…


In the text from 1 Peter 2:9-10,  we will see that…

You (who believe) are chosen

To proclaim praise about

God’s Mercy

  1. Body
    1. You (who believe) are chosen
      1. “But you” — marks a difference between those disobedient ones who were just mentioned. 
      2. You are…
        1. a chosen generation, - He picked you!
        2. a royal priesthood, - to be like Him!
          1. Turn to someone near you and tell them, “You’re royalty.”
          2. In his book Leaving Home, Garrison Keillor tells a fictional story about a family from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota. Grace Tollefson married Alex Campbell back in the 1930s, a man who turned out to be a ne'er-do-well. They had three kids – Earl, Marlys, and Walter. One day Alex left Grace. Penniless, she was forced to move back home to live off the kindness of folks there, enduring the relentless “I-told-you-so's” of her mother. It was humiliating.
          3. But one day they got a letter from a man in Philadelphia doing research on Scottish nobility. He asked who their ancestors were so he could look it up. Grace wrote the man back, and a few days later another letter came in the mail. Though the envelope was addressed to Mrs. Grace Campbell, the letter was addressed to “Your Royal Highness.” In the letter the man wrote: “Today is the happiest day of my life as I greet my one true Sovereign Queen.” He went on to say that their branch of the Campbell family was first in the line of succession of the House of Steward, the Royal Family of Scotland. Keillor writes:  [The line on the chart led] right straight to them: Earl, Marlys, and Walter. The Royal Family of Scotland living in Lake Wobegon in a green mobile home, furniture donated by the Lutheran church.
          4. They were astounded beyond words. Disbelieving at first, afraid to put their weight on something so beautiful, afraid it was too good to be true, and then it took hold – this was grace, pure grace that God offered them. Not their will but His. Grace. Here they were in their same dismal place but everything had changed. They were different people. Their surroundings were the same, but they were different.
          5. Years later, the youngest son, Walter, finds out the whole business was a fraud. But he never tells his mother or siblings, because thinking you are royalty, whether anyone else knows it or not, changes a person. At the end of the story, Grace is much older, and she says to her son:
          6. Oh, Walter, what would I do without you? You're so strong. You're so good to me. You're a prince, you know. They can put a crown on a dog and call it a prince, but you are a prince through and through. They may not know it now, but they'll know it soon. Next year we'll be in Edinburgh with the bands playing and the flags flying and the crowds cheering.
          7. Listen, as we gather for worship on Sunday mornings, we are among unrecognized royalty. Only this is no fraud! God Himself tells us so here in verse 9, “You are royalty.”
        3. a holy nation, - and to be different from the world!
        4. His own special people — (literally; a peculiar people.)
      3. According to Matthew Henry, we “are the people of his acquisition, choice, care, and delight.”
      4. Peter is using the wonderful descriptions that were originally applied to Israel to portray the position we enjoy as believers in Christ 
        1. Exodus 19:5-6 — Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’
      5. As the church, we do not replace Israel as God’s people. Rather, we have been “grafted in” to His family through Christ 
        1. Rom. 11:17 And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and [a]fatness of the olive tree
        2. Just as Israel was called to be a blessing to the nations (Gen. 28:14), we are, too. We are chosen, royal, and holy people who have the opportunity to represent Him to a lost and dying world.
        3. We must know who we are because we are who we are so that we can proclaim praise…
    2. To proclaim praise about 
      1. proclaim the praises. 
        1. “Proclaim,” an unusual word found in no other place in the NT, 
        2. means to tell forth, to tell something not otherwise known. 
        3. “Praises” are excellencies, virtues, eminent qualities.  "The praises" often means his "self-declarations" or his manifestations to humankind. 
        4. So then the church is to advertise the noble acts of God in history and thus make him known.
      2. out of darkness into his marvelous light. During the Passover celebration some Jewish people described their deliverance from Egypt as a call “from darkness into great light.”
      3. So what has God done for you that you might proclaim?
      4. Remember that all of us were rejected from God’s kingdom and yet, through Christ we’ve been included. 
      5. We were clinker bricks but now - as we learned last time - now we are living stones.
        1. Clinker bricks are bricks that didn’t make it. For some reason or another, they come out of the kiln misshapen or deformed. 
        2. There is a church building in New York State that is intentionally built of clinker bricks. Apparently, the congregation wanted to send a message, so they build the building of imperfect, rejected bricks. 
        3. The message is that we are all clinker bricks, we are all sinners, we are all imperfect people, but through Christ we are living stones being fit together in his church.
      6. And so, we learn who we are in Christ so that we can proclaim the praises about God’s Mercy.


    1. God’s Mercy
      1. What does your life proclaim about the mercy of God?
        1. R. C. Sproul tells the story of when he was a college professor. At the start of the semester, the class of about 150 students had three papers due, let’s say, at noon on October 1st, November 1st, and December 1st. The penalty for a late paper was a zero grade.
        2. At noon on October 1st, 140 students strolled in and put their papers on his desk. Sproul asked the 10 students whose papers were late, "Where are your papers?”
        3. "Oh, Professor Sproul," they pleaded, "we have had so much work, and we are having such a hard time adjusting to college. Please give us an extension.”
        4. "Okay," said Dr. Sproul, "but the next time your papers are late, you will receive a zero grade. Agreed?”
        5. "Yes," they all replied.
        6. At noon on November 1st, 125 students strolled in and put their papers on his desk. Sproul asked the 25 students whose papers were late, "Where are your papers?”
        7. "Oh, Professor Sproul, we had mid-terms, and we just did not get time to write the papers. Please give us an extension.”
        8. "Okay," said Dr. Sproul, "but this is your final warning. The next time your papers are late, you will receive a zero grade. Understand?”
        9. "Yes," they all replied.
        10. At noon on December 1st, 100 students strolled in and put their papers on his desk. Sproul asked the 50 students whose papers were late, "Where are your papers?”
        11. "Oh, Professor Sproul, don’t sweat it! Don’t worry about it! We’ll get the paper to you in a day or two!”
        12. "Each of you will get a one letter grade reduction!" said Dr. Sproul. Enraged, the students shouted, "That’s not fair!”
        13. "Oh, you want me to be fair!" said Sproul, "I will be fair. I said that if your papers were not on my desk by noon today, you would receive a zero grade. Since they are not here, I will be fair and just, and you will receive a zero grade.”
        14. What Sproul was illustrating is that as the professor setting the rules, he had the prerogative to extend mercy to whom he wanted to extend mercy. He did so the first two times the papers were late, and that extension of mercy was not inconsistent.
        15. But then the students presumed upon Sproul’s mercy. They thought that there would be no penalties for their failure to perform according to the instructions. So, when they asked for justice (by saying "That’s not fair!"), they received the full penalty for their failure to perform.
      2. According In the OT, the prophet Hosea promised that Israel, though remaining outside of God’s blessings for a long period of time, would eventually come under God’s mercy. God’s dealing with Israel was a pattern, a foreshadowing for His dealings with the believers under the New Covenant.  We previously were outside God’s covenant, but have been brought under the mercy of God by faith in Christ.
        1. (cf. Eph. 2:4–13). But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands— that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
  1. Conclusion
    1. Speaking of those far off being brought near… The Washington post ran a story years ago about a secretary in Washington-her name was Peggy. She was born in Ghana and moved to the United States. 
      1. She received a phone call one day at 4 AM from a relative in Ghana. The news was unbelievable. The 90-year-old King had just died-and after a long process, the town elders had decided that Peggy would be called the new King. She would be the heir to the throne. 
      2. She went through many months of sleepless nights trying to decide whether she would accept the throne or not. She kept asking, why me? She said the turning point occurred one morning as she drove to work... When she thought... You can’t escape this. It’s yours. You have been chosen. So she accepted. 
      3. The article ended with these words... When she steps off the airplane in Ghana-at that moment, she will be royalty. 
      4. What about you?  Do you know who you are?
    2. I'm reminded of another story of a visit by the president of the United States to a nursing home. The president entered the facility with his entourage and was received with delight by the elderly residents. As he went from person to person in the living area, he noticed a woman in a wheelchair who seemed rather disinterested. Months of campaigning for election had taught him how to "work the room," and he did not want to offend someone who might be around to vote in the next race. He approached her, smiled, patted her shoulder, and gently squeezed her frail hand. She smiled back but said nothing. "Do you know who I am?" the president asked. "No," she replied, "but if you'll ask the lady at the nurses' station over there, she'll tell you.”
    3. Do you know who you are? If you ask Jesus he will tell you. As believers in him we are accepted, valued, capable, and forgiven. You are chosen in Christ to proclaim God’s mercy.  What more could we want?

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