Chosen to Be Changed Pastor Nathan Weller February 3, 2018 Series: Introductions

God has given us wonderful gifts which we can experience now and will enjoy more fully in heaven

1 This letter is from Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. I am writing to God’s chosen people who are living as foreigners in the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. 2 God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and his Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed him and have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. May God give you more and more grace and peace. --1 Peter 1.1-2 (NLT)

To those who are elect exiles... --1 Peter 1.1a (ESV)

Because of Christ we have been given our salvation

You did not choose me, but I chose you... --John 15.16a (NLT)

God the Father knew you and chose you long ago, and his Spirit has made you holy. As a result, you have obeyed him and have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ --1 Peter 1.2 (NLT)

"The Reformation was a time when men went blind, staggering drunk because they had discovered, in the dusty basement of late medievalism, a whole cellarful of fifteen-hundred-year-old, two-hundred-proof grace— of bottle after bottle of pure distillate of Scripture, one sip of which would convince anyone that God saves us single-handedly. The word of the gospel—after all those centuries of trying to lift yourself into heaven by worrying about the perfection of your bootstraps—suddenly turned out to be a flat announcement that the saved were home before they started..." --Robert Capon--

Because of Christ we have been given a home

I am writing to God’s chosen people who are living as foreigners in the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. --1 Peter 1.1b (NLT)

baby places them in a new world, with a new schedule and a powerful “Exiles live in two worlds. When a couple has a baby, they remain in their old world, with the same marriage, skills, friends and interests. Yet their baby places them in a new world, with a new schedule and a powerful new interest in the eating, sleeping, crawling, and babbling of their child. They meet other parents, who become new friends and advisers. The new world of parenting will partially alienate them from their former world, since they have less in common with their childless friends, whether single or married. But the change from pagan polytheist to Christian is greater than the changes wrought by parenthood. As strangers and exiles, we will never perfectly fit in with, never fully belong to, pagan society. We feel like aliens in our own world because we are--at least partially so.” --Daniel Doriani--

kingdom made them suffer for it…. “In waves of persecution during the 1960s and 1970s, for instance, Chinese believers were fined, imprisoned, and tortured, and local regulations prohibited most religious activities. Yet despite this government oppression spiritual revival broke out that could well be the largest in history of the church. As many as fifty million believers gave their allegiance to an invisible kingdom even as the visible kingdom made them suffer for it…. ...I believe there is a word of caution for us in the apolitical nature of China’s underground church. They fervently pray for… (cont’d)

...their leaders but maintain a careful independence. We are privileged to live in a participatory democracy, but having worked in American politics for almost a decade, I have seen more than a few believers trade in their Christian birthright for a mess of earthly pottage. We must continually ask ourselves: is our first aim to change our government or to see lives in and out of government changed for Christ?” --Philip Yancey--

20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. --Philippians 3.20-21 (ESV)

1 “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. --John 14.1-3 (ESV)

Chosen to Be Changed Pastor Nathan Weller February 3, 2018 Series: Introductions