The Word: 1 Peter 2:9-10

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light; for you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

In these verses, the Apostle Peter explains two realities for the Church: Who they are and why they exist. In other words, what it means to be the people of God and why God has made us His people. In describing who the Church is, he says they are chosen, royal, holy, and God’s. Much of this language has roots in Israel’s identity in the Old Testament (Exodus 19; Isaiah 43:20ff; Deuteronomy 7:6). Peter is helping Christians, both Jew and Gentile, understand that they are God’s chosen, set apart for His service and to be His people. This privilege is theirs by grace alone (v. 10). The truths about the church’s identity here are rich, but the focus of this post is on the second point: the Church’s mission.

After describing who the Church is, Peter then explains why they exist: “so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light.” As Christians we exist for one purpose: to proclaim. We have a message, we have an announcement to make to the world around us, and our task is to make that announcement wherever we are, whatever we do. This is what we are supposed to do; Peter says this is what we have been chosen and set apart for!

Next, the focus of our message is stated: God. In our proclamation, Peter says we are here to proclaim the excellencies of God. The word “excellencies” refers to God’s character, and specifically in this context, His goodness and grace towards the Church for all the blessings of salvation He has bestowed on them. God is worthy of praise because of who He is. Even in the face of humanity’s sinfulness and rebellion towards Him, God has been abundantly merciful and generous toward us simply because that is who He is. In our proclamation, God is our focus.

Finally, we have the content that we are to proclaim about God who is our focus: the salvation He has provided. The ultimate demonstration of God’s goodness and grace is the sending and coming of the Son, Jesus Christ, as a man to die for the redemption of sinners (1 Peter 2:4-6; 21-25). In His goodness and mercy in Christ, God has brought the Church out of darkness, which represents sin, death, and hopelessness, and brought them into His light, which is righteousness, life, and hope. This salvation, this deliverance, this spiritual renewal that God has accomplished on our behalf is to be the content of our proclamation.

To summarize, the Church has a mission, and that mission is to proclaim the praiseworthy character of God which is demonstrated in the salvation He has accomplished and provided for the Church in Jesus Christ. This mission is why we are here; this is our purpose as Christians.

The Confrontation:

First, this passage sheds light on what the purpose, focus, and content of evangelism and missions ought to be. If a survey was taken on why we should do evangelism, the fear is that the primary answer would be, “Because there are lost people.” This response is not bad; yet the reason for the fear is because “there are lost people,” as good as this motive may be, demonstrates a misplaced purpose in missions and evangelism. As Peter describes the mission of the Church, he said that the primary purpose is to make God’s praiseworthy character known. Of course, through making God known, lost people will come to faith in Christ and be saved, but the reason the focus cannot be primarily on the lost is because our mission is to proclaim God regardless of how people respond.

To illustrate: Under the “lost focused” approach, if everyone on earth came to faith in Christ and nobody was lost anymore (and just assuming no babies being born for the sake of the illustration), the Church could say, “Mission accomplished,” and retire on missions and evangelism. On the other hand, under the “God focused” approach, even if everyone came to faith, or nobody ever came to faith again, the mission does not end for the Church on earth. The reason for this unceasing mission is because evangelism and missions are about God’s glory, which is eternal and does not have a ceasing point, so the mission is an eternal mission. In fact, the Church’s mission here on earth is one that continues into eternity, because even once all things are made new, the Church will still be proclaiming His excellencies in glory. Therefore, the Church can always go and tell; wherever we are, whatever we do, we proclaim His glory no matter how it is received by the world around us.

Another important application in light of our purpose, focus, and content is our approach to evangelism. Often, evangelistic models focus more on personal testimony than objective Gospel truths. In other words, our approach in sharing our faith can often be us-focused and not God-focused. Certainly, the goal in sharing our personal testimony is to communicate how the Gospel has changed us and to tell of God’s praiseworthy character as it has been revealed in our own lives. However, in our gospel proclamation, we must be sure to actually proclaim the gospel, and to ground our subjective experience in the objective reality of God’s Word which reveals who He is and what He has done.

At the end of the day, no matter how much we believe Jesus has changed our lives, if the gospel was not true and did not happen, then our personal testimony has no meaning. Jesus is not true because we feel like He is, or because we want Him to be true. He is true because He is true. As we do evangelism and missions, we must demonstrate the truth of who Jesus is. If our basis for believing in Jesus is anything other than being convinced that He actually is who the Bible reveals Him to be, then Christianity is really no different than false religions. No matter how good, strong, or powerful of a story we may have, if the reality of Jesus is not the center of it, our story loses its foundation and thus loses its meaning. Therefore, the Word of God, specifically Christ, must be central in our evangelism, so that even if our story was questionable to our hearers, He is not.

In conclusion, may we be faithful to the mission God has given us and go forth with the proper purpose, focus, and content in our evangelism and missions!