We ended right here by drawing attention in 1 Peter 1:1–2 that this phrase, “elect exiles” here is modified by four prepositional phrases: “according to the foreknowledge of God” and “in the sanctification of the Spirit” and “for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.” So that’s where we are. We’re at number three.

The Cause, Means, and Goal

What does it mean that we are exiles and elect “according to foreknowledge”? So its cause goes way back in eternity. We are exiles elect by means of the sanctifying work of the Spirit. You don’t just choose to make yourself an exile. The Holy Spirit conforms you, makes you a saint — sanctification and a saint is a holy one set apart for God, and therefore the culture around is not his home. Rather, heaven is his home. Christ is his home, the way of Jesus, the Calvary road is his home.

And now “for.” So cause, means, goal. And we talked about that kind of thinking. Not the only kind of thinking in the world or in the Bible, but a biblical kind of thinking. Build it into your brain. If you don’t think that way, add that. And so here we are at the goal. I personally thrive on finding causes of things, means of things, goals of things. That’s the way I live. That’s why I just ooze.

I need a cause. What made me do that? What is the point of the earthquake? I got to have an answer. What’s this about? How did it happen? Where’s it going? What’s the redemptive-historical line drawn out in Nepal, and these images falling flat on their faces? What is going on here? So I think this way. I commend it to you to think this way along with other ways of thinking.

The Goal Is Obedience to Jesus Christ

So here we are. “For obedience to Jesus Christ.” The reason you are an elect exile, talking to believers, is for unto obedience to Jesus. That’s pretty clear. It’s the next phrase that’s less clear. You were chosen by God odd to obey Jesus and thus be out of step with the culture and in step with the heavenly kingdom where your name is written and your citizenship is — you’re in exile in step with Jesus. Jesus is King. Obama’s not king. You’re whatever is not king. (I’m so “informed.”) He’s not king. He or she is not king. (Those think provincial Americans.)

“For obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood” (1 Peter 1:2). Why did he add that? That is so strange. “For sprinkling with his blood.” So now you’re reading along, how would you answer that? You would look in the context as close as you can to find something parallel or similar and see if light is shed back on it. So here’s what I saw. Let’s get down to 1 Peter 1:17–19. “For obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.” So you are an elect — exile for sprinkling with his blood.

Knowledge Informs Conduct During Exile

Let’s read this and see if light comes. “Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile” (1 Peter 1:17). We’ll come back to that fear issue. “Knowing you were ransom” (1 Peter 1:18). So conduct yourselves a certain way. So that would be obedience to Jesus. You say it various ways. Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing something.

So, knowing something will help you conduct yourself. Knowing what? “Knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers.” So you were ransom from these futile ways. So you’re not going those ways anymore. You were going with obedience to Jesus. These old ways. No more. You were ransom from those ways, “not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Peter 1:18–19).

That was very helpful for me. Because what I see now is, “Okay, in Peter’s mind, the shedding of the blood — Jesus’s shedding of the blood is a payment — a ransom that’s more valuable than silver or gold. It’s perfect. It don’t have any blemish or spot.” And the focus here is not on forgiveness, which is absolutely crucial, but that’s not the focus here, right? What’s the focus of the blood function here?

Ransomed from Futile Ways

I was walking along some ways called “futile ways inherited from my father’s.” I’m walking along some futile ways. So some of you, lots of you have inherited ways from your parents that are futile. They’re just dead end streets. They were all off in the way they lived their lives. And you grew up in that home and you’re walking with those priorities and those bents and you’re walking and Jesus dies with an infinitely valuable price and purchases you, ransoms you from those ways.

You are set free, not just from the guilt of sin, but from paths of sin by blood. Which then, if you go back to those two right there, in 1 Peter 1:1–2: “You are an elect exile for obedience.” That is, for the effect of the blood. Obedience to Jesus. Freedom from the old ways. Ransom paid. And you see how Peter’s thinking about sprinkling here? The sprinkling of the blood upon my life — we know from other texts — cleanses me from guilt. It takes away the wrath of God. It makes me home with the Father.

Peter’s going to talk about that big time in 1 Peter 2. But here he’s thinking these people that are scattered throughout the Roman Empire have all of them come out of pagan homes. This is first generation, right? They’ve all. Every new Christian come out of a pagan home. So if you came out of a pagan home, you’re that. This is for you. So for pagan home, they’ve got all these ways that are a dead end street. They’re futile. They’re empty. And what is his thought for the remedy for that?

Blood. Blood was shed. And we’ll try to dig into the dynamic of how does that psychologically work? But for right now, it seems pretty plain to me that “for obedience to Jesus” and “for sprinkling” are saying the same thing. And the second half is simply saying how that obedience was accomplished. Ransom from disobedience. Ransom from former ways with blood.

So that’s my take on those three. One, two, three prepositional phrases used to define “elect exiles.” So the whole Trinity is involved: Father, Spirit, Jesus Christ in your becoming an exile and walking according to foreknowledge and by the sanctifying work of the Spirit and for obedience.

Awaken Joy

Now I wish we could just stop and say questions, but here we go. We are making progress. We are on the next paragraph. First Peter 1:3–5, let’s just read it through:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Now just show you what comes next. “In this you rejoice” (1 Peter 1:6). So this is a good break. So in this you rejoice. What? So we’re going to spend a little while on what? So this, all of this right here: “in that you rejoice.” So, joy in the Christian life comes from knowing that. In that you rejoice.

If you don’t even know any of that exists, you can’t have that kind of joy. And reading 1 Peter 1:3–5 is intended by Peter, by God through Peter, that that would awaken joy. And this joy, joy of whatever this is in this letter, massively important for how you live as exiles. Just think back on sprinkled by the blood for the sake of obedience that you might be out of step of the culture, in step with Jesus Christ through a new joy.

Conduct Flows from Joy

The old pattern of life was driven by a “I love, love this world, this way, all the values that Vancouver brings to the world. All the material values, I love it.” And that guides your conduct. And when that joy and that value goes down and Jesus goes up, and in this you rejoice, so does the conduct change.

This is relevant to how you live your life. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” I think I commented last night. When you think about such things as we have in this paragraph, do you worship? Peter does. Peter begins with worship. He could have just started by stating facts. God calls you to be born again. Start the facts. Give me the facts.

But he didn’t. He started with, “Blessed be God. Well-spoken of, honored, glorified, loved, treasured be God.” And if that doesn’t happen along the way in your Bible reading, the Bible’s not having its full effect on you. We should be worshipful readers of the Bible. Just like Peter was a worshipful writer of the Bible. And so back to the question, what is the role of the Holy Spirit in Bible reading? To awaken that.

So when I get down and start my devotions, “I’m praying, Holy Spirit come and cause me to see such things and feel such things are here that I will be spontaneously a worshiping man.” That’s the role of the Holy Spirit. To bring that blessed out of your heart: “Blessed be the God and Father.”

There’s just so many Christians for whom the Christian life is just, “Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Or tell me what not to do and I won’t do it.” And this dimension is this thing. It’s so sad. It’s so sad. And I just am so thankful Norm that whoever you or somebody set it up so that we sang first last night, sang first this morning. I love to speak into that. Because that’s the ground and the goal. And if I do my work right here, the means of reaching the goal of Scripture, namely you are great. “How great is our God!”

That’s the goal. Not just “We got the doctrine right? He’s great. Pass that final exam in systematic theology. God is great. God is robed in majesty. God got a belt of truth on. I remember those three. Now, let’s go play Ultimate Frisbee.” But rather, he’s robed in majesty on your face. Lift your voice. So don’t miss the fact that biblical authors worship as well as teach, and they thus model for us what they want to happen in our lives.

Great Mercy

“According to his great mercy, he caused us to be born again” (1 Peter 1:3). God caused us to be born again. All Christians are born again. You can be born again and have never heard of that phrase. So you might hear the gospel that Christ died for sinners, that he rose again, that he destroyed Satan in hell. All who believe in this. He will forgive your sins. He will indwell you by his spirit. He will remove the wrath of God. He will give you an everlasting life. And I didn’t even use the term born again. And you might at that moment be born again.

So don’t fret that you might’ve grown up in a church where you weren’t taught the new birth. That’s not the issue. The issue is, has it happened? So now that you’re seeing it, you should have, “Did that happen to me? What would it mean? How would I even know?”

Because all Christians are born again, according to Peter here. He’s just talking to believers, the elect exiles of the dispersion. And God has caused us all to be born again. And I would linger there and ask myself, “Well, what should I get from that?” And I wrote down, “It is a great mercy,” which means I and you did not deserve it at all. We are walking beneficiaries of mercy. If you are alive in Christ right now, that’s mercy. You can’t boast in that. I’m born again. Here’s a person working down at Starbucks that may not be born again.

Should I feel any pride in that? No, his great mercy, you didn’t deserve to be born again. He didn’t look for any redeeming qualities in you. You were dead. You had to be born. You had to come alive. And so the new birth rightly understood as coming from mercy is deeply humbling. We should tremble that we are utterly dependent upon mercy.

Spiritual Deadness and Dependence

Second implication, we were not alive. My mom tells me that I was converted when I was six. I have zero memory of this. Fort Lauderdale, Florida, knelt down with her, prayed to confess my sins, acknowledge Jesus as my Savior and receive him. She narrates this to me. I mean, she’s in heaven now. But she narrated this to me and I said, “Oh, I’m glad that happened because I have no memory of it at all.” So today I don’t base any of my hope on a remembered conversion.

Well, how do you even understand your conversion then? I understand my conversion from what I see in the Bible. The Bible says, “John Piper, because today he loves God, trust Jesus, loves his word, fights his sin, cries out for mercy is a Christian,” and therefore I’ve been born again. Which means at age five I was dead, and at age six I came alive.

You don’t need to remember your birth. In fact, none of you remembers your birth. But you were born and the evidence that you were born is that you’re sitting there breathing. Not because you have a birth certificate in your wallet. So this is crucial that you theologically interpret who you are. Who am I? I was dead. Non-existent as a spiritual being. My spirit was dead. It had no life. It was indifferent to spiritual things. Impervious. You touched it. It didn’t move with regard to godly things. And then it was alive.

It was alive. The Bible came alive. Jesus came alive. Hope came alive. Everything about Christianity started to have sweetness and interest. What happened? You’re alive. You’re born a second time. A new person has come into being and you didn’t do this, and it is owing to great mercy from God. You didn’t do it. God did it. You didn’t cause your first birth. You didn’t cause your second birth. God caused it.

Now, there’s not a word here about your participation in that, right? There’s nothing here about faith or there’s nothing here about the word of God coming to you. But there will be. This is an amazing thing about 1 Peter. So here he’s just stressing some things about the new birth. In 1 Peter 1:22–25, he’s going at new birth again and a whole new crop of facts are put on it, like word of God and gospel and purified heart. So let’s just leave that for the time being.