11-26-2024

 Good Morning All,

        1 Peter 2:10, “Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”

    A couple of nights ago, I was watching an old western.  It had John Wayne and Dean Martin in it.  John Wayne is a sheriff trying to keep a bad guy in jail while the bad guy’s family/gang is trying to free him.  He gives Dean Martin a badge and tells him he is the new deputy.  When Dean Martin balks, John Wayne opens the door of the jail and tells everyone “this is my new deputy.”  When he turns to Dean Martin, he tells him, “Mister, you are now.”  Once he wasn’t the deputy but now, he is.

    We experience change often in our lives.  Once you were single, now you are married.  Once you were a child and now you are an adult.  When these changes occur, we are different.  You act, think, and behave differently when you become married or a parent or a house owner or whatever it is.  Once that change occurs you are different from what you were before to what you are afterwards.  This is what our verse for this morning is about.

    Once you were not people.  At one time we were just a bunch of individuals wandering around lost.  Now we are God’s people.  This is a source of great comfort.  This particular phrase may not mean as much to us as it did in earlier times.  At the time that this was written and for a number of centuries following, most people were viewed as property.  You belonged to the king or the prince of the territory.  So, for a time you might be King Bill’s people and then you are Prince John’s people and then there is a war, and you are King Xavier’s people.  If the war was long enough you were nobody’s people.  This was the worst because you had no one who would protect you.  The roving bands of thieves and thugs could attack you all they wanted, and you had no one to protect you from them.   

    This is how we see unbelievers as ones who have no king; no one who protects them.  They live in a place of lawlessness where everyone is a victim, and everyone is a target.  When we are not a people, we are just left alone with no help and no support.  The devil, the world and our sinful nature can do whatever they want to terrorize us.  We had no hope.

    But now we are God’s people.  Jesus came to reconcile us back to God.  In Baptism, God claims us as his own.  God declares us to his children, his people.  Now we don’t have to face the terrors of this life alone; we have someone we can call upon.  We can call upon the Lord to be our refuge, our security, and our hope.  Now that we are God’s own, we have mercy, his undeserved love.  Now we are different; we are God’s chosen children redeemed by the blood of Jesus and secure in the knowledge of our salvation with him.  We no longer have to fear the devil; we have the triumphant Savior as our king.

Gracious Lord and King, you lovingly make us your people and guard and protect us.  We ask that you send your Spirit of comfort to those who do not know of you great love and that you would bring them to faith.  Be with those who experience the pains of this life and reassure them of your great mercy.  In your precious name we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret