Okay, if you would, turn to the book of 1 Peter with me. We are still going to be working our way through 1 Peter 1, verse 1. 1 Peter 1, verse 1. Last time, we took a look at our author, Peter, the apostle of Jesus Christ. We also took a look at some of the sub themes of the book of Peter, but also the main theme, which is suffering. Tonight, we're gonna continue with our introduction, taking a look at the audience of 1 Peter. 1 Peter 1.1. to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Again, tonight we're gonna be taking a look at Peter's audience, the elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. The idea of connection today is everywhere, and I'm not talking about internet connection or Wi-Fi connection or cable connection. That is relevant, given our technological society that we live in. That's not the kind of connection I'm talking about. I'm talking about relational connection or relational connectivity. We say to one another all the time, we need to connect, meaning we need to catch up. I need to see what's going on with you. What have you been up to? In a romantic sense, we might say that we connect, that we have chemistry, that she gets me, that he completes me. In a more forensic sense, or talking logistics, we might connect to talk about details of a program, for instance. Every other Monday, Gary and I, we connect to talk about the Men's Bible Study. We evaluate the prior week's study, and we talk about details for the next study. Who's going to teach, what are we going to teach on, etc. Children, you understand what I'm talking about when I say connect, believe it or not, too. This is the type of thing that happens maybe when you're doing an activity with your parents or with your siblings. Maybe it's ice skating or mountain biking or American Heritage Girls or Calvin Cadets. Maybe it's gardening or dancing or reading or cooking or watching a vet show on TV. Yes, that's a reference to my family. We also, in Presbyterianism, we talk about connectional thinking, meaning that each part of the church is responsible for the well-being or the good of other parts, so that the church as a whole is built up in goodness, love, and good works. We also talk about connecting historically. Ancestry.com is a good frame of reference for this. Through Ancestry.com, we might seek to connect with our ancestors of the past, our relatives who have passed away. And obviously, we're not talking about connecting with some sort of psychic spiritual medium where we try to summon up the spirits of our ancestors and connect them with our spirits and try to tell the future, ask them how the past was. We're usually saying, who were they? What were they like? What was it like for them when they were alive? And tonight, that's what we're going to seek to do. We're going to seek to connect, so to speak, with our spiritual ancestors of the past, the early church as we find it in the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. And we're going to seek to connect with this audience really by asking three questions. Who were they? What was going on with them at the time? And also, why should I care? Why is that relevant for us today? So who was this audience? What was going on with them? And why should we care? And really, we have two objectives as we work our way through this. The first objective is to create an intelligible and a concise definition for who our audience is. And we also want to deepen our understanding of the connection between us and the church, us present day and the church of all ages. So we're going to come up with a working definition for our audience, and we want to try to deepen our understanding of our relationship present day to the church of all ages. And we're going to do it through taking a look at these elect exiles in the dispersion. So first, who is our audience? Who are these elect exiles in the dispersion? I think the easiest way to work through it is to use the three concrete nouns that we have before us. We know that this audience is elect, we know that they're exiles, and we know that they're of the dispersion in these various places. So taking a look at the first noun, elect. What does that mean to be elect? Well, the Greek word for elect is eclektos, which simply means chosen out or selected. Now in Reformed and Presbyterian thought and churches, we typically We can understand this word in maybe more of a, almost a cold or a deadly dogmatic way. Maybe we use it as sort of a, unfortunately, a tool or a weapon to win a theological argument. We say, no, God doesn't save everybody. God only saves a certain few. He only saves his elect. Well, that's very true. He does only save as elect. But if you look at this word in its context within the book of 1 Peter, you think about it in the context of the New Testament as a whole, and then the Old Testament, the term elect is a lot more than that. The term elect denotes spiritual life, it denotes intimacy with God, and it also can denote a warm assurance or reassurance as well. So spiritual life, intimacy, and a warm reassurance. In 1 Peter 2, verses 4 and 9, for instance, Peter talks about the elect as living stones who are rejected by men, but precious to God. He talks about the elect as living stones who are being built up into a spiritual house, or those who are a people for his own possession. So rejected by men, but precious to God, denoting intimacy. Living stones that are built up into a spiritual house, denoting spiritual life. And a holy people for his own possession, intimacy, closeness. From a larger New Testament or a broader New Testament perspective, about 50% of the instances in the New Testament where this word eclektos is used, it's used in an eschatological sense or end times. We're talking about the end times or the last times. And what's the crowning achievement? What's the crowning thing that we long and we hope for in the end times? The return of Christ. The return of Christ for what? Certainly to judge. Christ judged. But he's also coming for the elect. What's another idea for the elect, or another term for the elect? In the New Testament, the elect is referred to as bride. The bride of Christ. 2 John speaks of the elect as the elect lady. So in a very positive sense, when we're talking about the Bride of Christ, we're talking about those who Christ has set His affections on, and has given Himself for, and given Himself to. There's warmth in that. There's life in that. There's intimacy in that. From an Old Testament perspective, this idea of election, I'm just going to quote directly out of the book Ezekiel, chapter 16, When speaking of His elect and to His elect, God says this, So you were rejected. You were rejected. And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you, in your blood live. I said to you, in your blood live. This is God speaking to his elect. I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed and your hair had grown, yet you were naked and bare. When I passed by you again and saw you behold, you were at the age for love. And I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord, and you became mine. Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil." Intimacy. I would encourage you to go home, if you can, and read the rest of the chapter. It's a beautiful, beautiful chapter. So we have spiritual life, we have intimacy, and we also have a warm assurance. Now, Peter uses the term here, elect. He doesn't just say exiles of the dispersion. He says the elect exiles of the dispersion. Why would he say that? Well, I would answer that with understanding or remembering or recalling what the main theme is in 1 Peter. Last time we talked about the main theme being suffering. for the sake of the gospel or sharing in the sufferings of Christ. Assuming that is the case, why would election, this understanding of election, be helpful for an audience who is facing suffering? It's helpful because when we're in times of suffering, when we're in times of need and extreme anxiety, we need to know that everything is going to be okay. Oftentimes, that comes through people who we know care for us, who we know love us, who we know are going to be there for us. A few months ago, as many of you know, Julie had a major surgery and there was a lot of anxiety leading up to that surgery, a lot of unsureness, a lot of unsureness about the procedure itself, about the recovery time, about what was going to happen, who's going to take care of things. And Julie insisted all along the way that I be there. Why me? Why me? Because I'm her husband. But what does that mean? That means out of all the women on the face of this planet, I chose to set my affections on my wife. I chose her for better or for worse. She was mine. She knows that and she wanted me there for reassurance. Now certainly I'm not God and certainly I cannot comfort her soul in the way that God can comfort her soul. But that's an idea. That's a picture of what we're talking about. When we're anxious, when we're facing suffering, whether it's real or imagined, whether it's present or future, We want to know that everything is going to be okay. David Helm, a commentator on First Peter, says it this way. The term elect is meant to encourage the church. It is meant to remind the people of God of his great love. It is not a term to be waved in front of those who don't yet know God. It should be used to bring comfort for those in the faith. Peter intended to assure his early dispersed readers of God's steadfast love. So we said at the outset that one of our objectives was to try to create a working definition for who our audience is. And with this word, elect, we're going to start off our working definition by saying that our audience are those beloved and chosen of God who were in need of comfort and assurance. Those beloved and chosen of God who were in need of comfort and assurance. Next, we know that our audience are exiles. The Greek word here is peripodamos. I think I said that correctly. Peripodamos. It's used other places in the book of 1 Peter, in chapter 1, verse 17. Chapter 2, verses 11 and 12. Peter speaks of it in the context of waging a war against one's soul or the passions of the flesh. He's encouraging the audience to keep their conduct among the Gentiles honorable. He says, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. He urges them to conduct themselves with fear, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. The point is this, is that a lot of the activity that Peter is talking about here in the context in which exiles is used, it's spiritual activity. Spiritual activity, passions of the flesh, war against your soul, conduct, good deeds, futile ways inherited from your forefathers. These are spiritual activities. Elsewhere in the New Testament, Hebrews chapter 11, speaking of Abraham says this, for he, Abraham, was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. This is Abraham on earth looking forward to the city who's designer and builder in God. It goes on to say in verse 13 that these, meaning all of the saints of the Old Testament, this is Hebrews chapter 11, referring to the hall of fame of faith. These died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. So the Old Testament saints knew that this earth wasn't their home, knew that they were strangers and exiles here from a spiritual perspective, but their home spiritually was yet to come, their home in heaven. From an Old Testament perspective, the idea of being an exile or exileship is largely thought of in the context of the great Babylonian exile. So, when God became impatient with His people, I'm sorry, when God lost patience with His people because of their persistent disobedience, He gave them over to their enemies, the Babylonians, and they were exiled into the land of Babylon to return later under Ezra and Nehemiah in forgiveness to Jerusalem. 1 Chronicles 9.1 summarizes the event this way. It says, Now what I'm getting at here is that 1 Chronicles 9.1 is saying that there was a breach of faith, and consequently there was this exile. I'm saying that that breach of faith is very important. That breach of faith was a spiritual activity for which the people of God were then exiled. So it's a spiritual activity that we're talking about. And what are we saying in summary? We're simply saying that the exile that Peter is talking about here is a spiritual one. It's a spiritual one. It's not as easy as if the audience here were just physically displaced to different locations and all of the implicit consequences that would come with that, although that may be true, but that's not the emphasis here. The emphasis here is that these are spiritual exiles. Daniel Doriani puts it this way or summarizes it this way. Peter wants believers to realize that we never fully belong in this world. Strangers have no permanent residence. Aliens cannot hold positions of power and rarely enjoy full privileges. This is essential to a Christian's identity. So concluding with exiles and referring back to our working definition of who the audience is, our audience are those who were spiritual aliens within their culture. So our definition of our audience thus far reads, those beloved and chosen of God in need of comfort and assurance, right, referring back to their election, who were spiritual aliens within their culture. those beloved and chosen of God in need of comfort and assurance who were spiritual aliens within their culture. Next, we know the audience was of the dispersion in these various places, these various locations. Now, the Greek word there for dispersion is diaspora, which is a scattering abroad of seed, parenthetically, by the sower. Now, historically, there's a lot of debate back and forth as to what this dispersion is. There are those who would argue that this is referring to those exiles during the Babylonian exiles that stayed in these foreign lands and really never returned under Ezra and Nehemiah back into the land of Judah, Israel, Jerusalem. So they stayed and somewhere in the process they were converted to Christianity. There are others who would argue that the audience is primarily Gentile and not Jewish. Some of these reasons come from verses like 1 Peter 1, verse 18, and chapter 4, verses 3 and 4, where the audience is spoken of in terms of a conversion from pagan ways. So they were Gentiles and they converted from the pagan ways that were known amongst the Gentiles. The popular opinion seems to be that this is largely a Gentile audience. I'm going to offer my opinion, which is worth next to nothing, and you can talk to Pastor Aaron and Pastor Bob to see if this is right, but I'm going to try to keep it very simple and just go with what we can say, what we can say maybe a little bit more definitively. I think it's a mixture of both. I think there are themes in the book of 1 Peter that are Jewish in nature. There's a lot of references to the Old Testament. There's some themes around priesthood and holiness. Those are really driven home by Peter, which I think would be very natural to understand for a Jewish audience. But I would also say at the same time, those previous verses that I cited, through which some folks would argue that for a Gentile persuasion, I would say that that's relevant as well. I don't see how you squeeze those verses into being relevant to a Jewish audience. I also believe that the word itself doesn't necessarily refer to an event, but more so an activity, or a state, or an idea. If you look at the way that the Septuagint uses this word, it uses it to refer to ideas of scattering, winnowing, banishment, or even disgrace, but it doesn't necessarily refer specifically to concrete times, concrete places, concrete contexts. It's more of an idea. In addition, there's a universality to this letter, meaning that Peter's not just writing to the church at Rome, or the church at Corinth, or the church at Galatia. He's writing to churches that are spread through multiple geographic areas, areas that are multicultural for all intensive purposes, which would increase the likelihood that because of the multiculturalism, there would also be multicultural converts, so both Jews and Gentiles. Again, that is my very, very elementary opinion, I would say consult either one of the pastors, if that doesn't make any sense to you. What we can say absolutely definitively is that this is a scattering of God's people. Peter is talking to God's people here who are scattered abroad, and that does become somewhat significant, and we'll talk about that when we look at what's going on with the audience, okay? So, in terms of our working definition, we have this. With the dispersion, we conclude our working definition of the audience. Our audience of 1 Peter are those beloved and chosen of God, in need of comfort and assurance, who were spiritual aliens within their culture, and scattered throughout various geographical locations. Those beloved and chosen of God in need of comfort and assurance who were spiritual aliens within their culture and scattered throughout various geographical locations. That's who our audience is. So we took care of the who, now what about the what? What's going on with the audience? Well, we know from the text that the audience is dealing with suffering in some way. The idea of suffering is mentioned 16 times in the book of 1 Peter. 16 times in 5 chapters. That's more than any other book in the New Testament, including the Gospels, which obviously record the crucifixion of our Lord. 2nd to 1st Peter is Matthew, which has 28 chapters, and Hebrews, which has 13 chapters, and suffering is only brought up there 7 times. So it's very, very clear that the idea of suffering is present. So we know that the audience is dealing with suffering in some way, shape, or form. However, historically there's some debate over the type and the time. So what type of suffering are they going through? And is this suffering present day? So as Peter writes the letter, and as they receive the letter, is it present suffering? Or is it some sort of future suffering, some suffering that may be on the horizon? There may be signs pointing to some sort of impending suffering. Now, most scholars tend to believe that this is some sort of maybe more vague suffering as opposed to an organized, systematic, or governmental-type suffering. All of these areas were governed by Rome at the time, who were not particularly, at this point in time, friendly towards Christians. So was there some sort of systematic or organized persecution that was led by Rome itself? That doesn't really seem to be the case. it seems to be a little bit more of a general public disdain. So the idea that Christianity is not a large, well-accepted religion in these various areas, it's not culturally acceptable, and so the Christians may be feeling some pressure because of that. It certainly doesn't seem to be very organized, systematic, instituted by the government. 1 Peter 1, 6, and 7 talk about these being various kinds of testing, so there's not a specific type of testing. There were some who were being cursed. 1 Peter 3.16 says, when you are slandered. So it almost seems as if Peter's preparing them for something, and that would be consistent with language in other areas where he talks about preparing your minds for action. So there's some sort of maybe proactive direction that Peter's giving to the saints here. In terms of the cultural circumstance, what kind of culture were these saints living in? Well, from the perspective of government, they were living under Roman rule, as I said. It was varied, meaning some of the provinces could be under direct Roman rule. Some, a little bit more, may be ruled by a delegated authority. We know that Nero was the emperor at the time of the writing of the epistle, and we know generally that Nero was not a good man, that he was a wicked ruler. Nero was murderous, he was a thief, he was full of sexual debauchery. Nero burned down a good portion of the city to make room for a giant golden palace, and then he blamed that burning of the city on Christians. He turned around to the public, expressed a false sense of empathy, somehow getting the public to believe that he was really sorry for what happened to their houses, and then he promised to rebuild their houses out of the imperial purse, but he got his palace. Punishment for Christians included, obviously, crucifixion, but legend has it, or reliable historical legend has it, that Nero lined the Roman road, so roads in and out of the city, with crucified Christians that he would light on fire during the night, so the roads in and out of Rome were literally lit by Christians who were burning, crucified Christians who were burning. Nero was incredibly sexually immoral as well. He sought incestuous relationships. He had two of his servants castrated and converted into women. He married them publicly and made a spectacle out of it. In all of this, what was, if interesting, is even the right word, but the crime for the Christians at the time, or the alleged crime of the Christians, was not that they necessarily, allegedly burnt a city down. or that they necessarily even disagreed with the immoral practices that were going on, but they were accused of being haters, haters of the people and the culture. So in other words, it would look like because they disagreed or they hated the culture and the practice of the culture in which they lived, they lit the city on fire. They were haters. That was the allegation against Christians. From a religious perspective, it was clearly polytheistic. The culture was Hellenistic, which accepted Greek, and it accepted a lot, a variety of gods, a pantheon of gods. What was also interesting is that they had what was very dominant at the time was imperial religion, emperor worship. The biggest buildings and the biggest structures and the biggest temples in a lot of these areas were dedicated to emperor worship. This was their political messiah. This was the one who was going to save the society and take care of the people, and it was expected that you bow down to this imperial religion. So, in summary, our audience may have been facing some societal and impending governmental pressure to adhere to and approve of certain immoral acts and bow the knee to a political messiah. Does any of this sound familiar in principle to anyone? I want to say raise your hands, but I'm not going to do that. But does some of this sound familiar? Being called a hater because you disagree with some of the immorality that's going on in the culture. maybe being called apathetic or careless, if you don't give the sense that your future depends on who gets picked in the next election, what candidate is going to get selected. And somehow my well-being, both temporal and eternal, depends on that. Maybe from a more realistic, that was realistic, but a practical perspective, what about from your job? Do you find it difficult to concur with human resource policies regarding sexual orientation? So we have this whole big gender identity debate going on right now. And we find it an issue of conscience maybe to bow to some policies within various companies that require management to support this type of behavior. This has happened. I have a very close friend of mine who was terminated because of that. I already said from a societal or political perspective, we don't seem to give off the air that we're not despairingly exercised over political issues or political messiahs. Putting a little bit different spin on it, maybe we're fearful to give the gospel to those who are struggling with sexual orientation, struggling with gender identity issues. We don't know what to think. We may be struggling with keeping them at arm's length, but maybe we're also struggling with giving them the gospel, showing them their sin, because we're going to be retaliated against. And that's an understandable struggle. Believe me, I wrestle with that inside of my own soul. We don't want to give them the gospel in a way of gentleness, respect, and boldness because of the consequences that we might face. All the while, their souls continue to march towards hell. Maybe that's the kind of struggle that we face. So we got the who and we've got the what. Why should we care? Why should we care? Why do we care about what this audience was going through at the time? I think the simple answer is our God is our king. When he writes it down, we bow the knee and we pay attention. But he's also our father. He writes all of Scripture is God breathed, 2 Timothy, all Scripture, including who wrote the book and who it was written to and what it's about. All Scripture is God breathed. Romans, all scripture is also written for our comfort. This is our Father who's breathing these words out. He wants us to pay attention, understand, and be comforted by it. It is significant that we understand who these people were, who these saints were. There's also a circumstantial connection that we have here. I'm going to make the assumption that some of you could resonate with some of the things that I said. Fearing what's going on in our culture right now, understanding some of the feelings that I was expressing, being able to relate, and making the assumption that perhaps our audience was going through some of that as well. We're able to connect in that circumstance of suffering, whether it's present or whether it's pending. But what are we suffering for? Well, we're suffering, you could say, for our faith. We're nervous, we're suffering because of what it is that we believe. But who do we believe in? We believe in Christ. It's not just an abstract faith. It's not just that I can identify with you because I've walked through the same things. We can identify because Christ is our connection. Christ is the connection not only between us in this audience, he's our connection from Adam all the way up through the last elect child of God that will die in the future. Christ connects us. In him we live and move and have our being. Acts 17, 28. In who? I'm sorry. Who lives and moves and has their being? The church of all ages. He is our joy and our strength. Psalm 28, 7. Who? Who? Whose joy and strength? The church of all ages. He is our joy and our song. Psalm 118, 14. Psalm 43, 4. Who's joy in song? The church of all ages. By the way, the Psalms unify the thoughts and feelings unique to God's people of all ages through our union with Christ. Not just ours as individuals, but ours as a church as a whole are sung and felt immensely through the book of Psalms. That's not my opinion. That's Louis Burkhoff. So if you disagree, you got to take it up with him. All right. I want to say to those of you who may be here that if you do not understand the comfort of this Savior, if you do not understand the warmth that He brings, if you don't find yourself that you are an elect exile of the dispersion present day, I urge you to come to Christ. I urge you to come to Christ. Perhaps in your heart you find yourself struggling with some of these same sexual issues that we're talking about. You find yourself having bowed too much of your heart to a political messiah, put too much hope in a man to save you in some way, shape, or form. Maybe that's you and maybe that's not fulfilling. I urge you, I urge you and compel you You can't change your way. You can't become less of an idol worshipper of man. You can't become less sexually immoral. You have to, in a broken way, give your sin to Jesus Christ and take upon yourself His righteousness. He walked in a perfectly sexually moral way. He never bowed the knee to anybody but God and God alone. And He offers that righteousness to you. Accept Him by faith. Many of us sitting here are believers and many of us may be struggling, including myself, with the very same things that I've been mentioning throughout this sermon. We love Jesus. We know he loves us, but we find ourselves struggling. We find ourselves afraid, afraid to give of ourselves, give the gospel to those who are on their way to hell because of such sins as these. Jesus never said that about us. He was in heaven, perfect comfort. But his heart was the heart of the fathers, which sought to give itself, sought to give himself, and in fact did give himself for our sakes. He told us the truth so that we would not go to hell. We would not be alienated. And I'm not talking about a fiery place where you burn a lot. I'm talking about alienation from the love of an eternal God who would take care of you forever. Jesus did not give that excuse. Now understand that we can't be that in our own strength. But we can turn to him. We can repent. We can say to him, Father, forgive me. For I have a difficulty suffering for the sake of the gospel, as your Son did for me." And He will give you that righteousness. He will remind you of that righteousness. He's gracious and He will empower you. As He, for those who were here last sermon, remember the end result for Peter in the last sermon? Did he just stay in guilt? No. Christ sought him out. John chapter 20. He restored him. He pressed him to a true repentance. And he empowered him for gospel ministry. Sorry about that. That's technology right there. I urge you tonight to come to Christ, to return to Christ. I come with you. Come and be joined and strengthened in the one who will lead us to and who is himself our heavenly Jerusalem. Let us pray. Father in heaven, we thank you that you condescended to us what amazing love we who are by nature wicked sinners fearful people bold to proclaim but in practice we fall how gracious are you to look upon us and love us we do pray father that we would be given we would be strengthened in your power, that our hearts would be pleased to be ruled by you, so that we may go and tell the watching world about Jesus, that we would give of ourself in any way, shape, or form, that we would be willing to take on insults, that we would be willing to take on false thoughts and false accusations, for the good of your people and for the good of this world. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.