Tonight we looked again at 1 Peter 2:9-10, verses which firmly secure our identity as the people of God above everything else. This identity is firmly rooted in the Bible, which tells the story of how God chose one man (Abram) to belong to Him and to be the means of blessing the whole world (see Gen 12:1-3). Our links with him are explored in Rom 4:11-18 when he is described as ‘the father of all who believe.’
We see God’s dealings with His people throughout the Old Testament, through the miraculous son of promise (Isaac) and his descendants, including Joseph, who was able to help God’s people during a time of famine. When Joseph’s role in history was forgotten, the people of God ended up as slaves under Egyptian rule, but God again worked on their behalf through Moses and Aaron, the ten plagues and finally, the Passover (see the book of Exodus.) The primary purpose, it seems, of the people of God is to worship and honour God (see Ex 8:1). We were made to worship; Peter reminds us that we are a chosen people ‘that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.’ (1 Pet 2:9)
The deliverance of Israel through the parting of the Red Sea (Exodus 14), which became a defining moment for God’s people in the Old Testament, is followed by a song of praise (Ex 15). Louie Giglio defines worship as ‘our response, both personal and corporate, to God for who He is and for what He has done, expressed in the things we say and the way we live.’ We worship God for who He is and for what He has done; we worship God because He has called us out of darkness into light. Peter says, ‘Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.’ (1 Pet 2:10) Our job now, so to speak, is to declare aloud, to ‘publish’, the news of what God has done: ‘He has done this for you so you can tell others how God has called you out of darkness into His great light.’ (1 Pet 2:9, NLV) Worship is expressed in the things we say – so it matters that we pray, that we sing, that we verbalise what we feel about God and speak about Him to other people – but it matters also how we live as this holy nation, reflecting God’s nature, showing love, kindness, grace and mercy to others. We join a long line in history of people who have seen and experienced God’s goodness and power in our lives and our identity is firmly embedded in God. Now we tell others about who He is and what He has done so that they too may experience God’s glory and become His people too.
