AN ELECT PEOPLE

Evening Star, Issue 21090, 30 April 1932, Page 4

AN ELECT PEOPLE

Sermon preached in St. Clair MetLm clist Church by the Rev. G. E. Brown

But yc are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that ye may show forth tho excellencies of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light.—Peter ii., 9.

Tho epistle is the product of a crisis in the experience of the early Christian church. Surrounded by persecution and a growing official hostility, they felt the difficulties of being followers of Jesus Christ. They were a people with their backs against the wall; the first (lush of enthusiasm had died away; they had now settled down into tho difficult work of world evangelisation.

It was no time for argument, nor yet was there such need for eloquent phrases, Ratncr, they were being called to tho quiet, deft' ’.o work of a living witness; and it was to encourage them in this that these words wore written. As Paul put it, they were to be living witnesses, written on tables of flesh. “Ye arc our epistle, written in our hearts, known and read of all men; being made manifest that ye are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in tables that are hearts of flesh.”

And so tho apostle, fully acquainted with their difficulties, urges them to hold fast to their faith, to keep their witness clear, for God had called them to bo a peculiar people unto Himself. The terms by which the stragglings are designated are those which had been highly prized and jealously guarded by the house of Israel. You are, cries the apostle, an elect race. Hero wo meet a favourite term of Isaiah, who speaks of Israel as “ My chosen, ‘the people that I formed for myself.” Earlier in tho history of the people it had been written: “ Only the Lord had a delight in thy fathers to love them, and He chose their seed after them, even you above all peoples, as at this day.” Are wo disheartened in the struggle of life P Does our faith at times suffer eclipse? Do the difficulties of every-day duties with their monotony and heaviness weigh us down? We are to remember our place in God’s Kingdom; we are an elect race, His delight and concern. But our writer carries his thought a little higher. These poor, persecuted Christians are a royal priesthood, a holy nation, priests of royal standing, priests who are kings. Brave words to send to such a people; fitted indeed_f or a people of whom tho ancient writer says; “And ye shall bo unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation ”; but surely hardly fitting for such as these. But a perusal of the New Testament writings.'only serves to deepen tho conviction that this is to what the people of God arc called. “ And He made us to bo a kingdom, to be priests unto His God and Father.” Peter thinks of Christ’s followers as a people of high lineage. Perhaps ho had in his mind those saviours of his country, tho Maccabees, whose heroism won for them an undying name. Though hunted, and deemed quarry for any hating tho Christian faith, yet actually the Christian belonfKl to a kingly race. Notice now the upward trend of the apostle’s thought. The Christian is described as a member of an elect race; he belongs to a royal priesthood, a holy nation; now he is described as God’s own possession, or as the Authorised Version has it, Christians are a peculiar people. Here, again, we are faced with terms familiar to the Israelites of old. “ For thou are an holy people unto the Lord thy God; the Lord thy God hath chosen thee to he a peculiar people unto Himself, above all the peoples that are upon the face of the earth.” Paul, in writing to his Homan friends, calls Christ’s people “Heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ.” . .

It is because of these glorious privileges that these hunted people are to continue to show forth the excellencies of Him Who called us out of darkness into His marvellous light. But how show it? What means are at the disposal of these people to prove their high lineage? First, by obedience to constituted authority. This docs not rule out’ “ direct ac' on,” nor does it suggest the rdootion of that meekness' of "spirit allied in the popular thought with servility. Bather, tho call is to follow the spirit of our Master, who, when He was reviled, reviled not again, and yet in His determined opposition to evil of every kind stood firm as a rock. Truth cannot be enthroned through the agency of force, which is actually tho last resort of acknowleged defeat, nor by ethods which carry the seeds of C traction, but by a constructive policy which sees beyond the present apparent defeat to the ultimate victory, which looks beyond the cross to the open tomb, and in so doing puts to silence the ignorance of foolish men.

Still further. In the realm of personal influence, willingness to cooperate in the name of Christ, glad and wholehearted service for our fellows. in the forgetting of self in tho spirit of love the Christian must be proved true to this heritage. “ Love envieth not, is not puffed up, thinketh no evil,” Paul reminds us; and in this most difficult service must the spirit of our Master be seen. The cry is raised that to-day the church is almost without influence in the realm of industry and politics; but, urges Peter, if wo but remember our high heritage and seek to live according to it, the excellencies of Christ in every realm of life will not only be seen but also acknowledged. In the domestic circle tho relationship of tho Christian wife to the unbelieving husband, and of the Christian husband to the unbelieving wife, the following of Christ calls forth the spirit of chivalry, blameless living, and quiet, reverent following of Christ. Neither is to live down to the unbeliefs of tho other, nor is there to be an ovr insistence upon rights, but by blameless living to win the other to God. What a difference the heeding of such words could make in the attitude of many to-d ! In this day of lax moral codes, of spiritual restlessness, with its constant dom d for thrills, such words as these of Peter come with refreshing vigour. Called to be God pointers! The spires of our churches, pointing skywards, are a visible reminder of these urgings of the apostle. A writer in a British religious _ paper tells how day by lay he made his way to a huge structure in course of_ erection. He was keenly interested hi the working of the crane, lifting its loads from tho pavement below to the roof of tho building. And at the close of the day the arm of the crane was drawn in until it pointed upwards, at rest. So is the call to us as members of an elect race, a holy priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession. Through all the toil and turmoil of life wo must show forth the excellencies of Him who called us out of darkness into His marvellous light; even though persecuted, hunted, misunderstood, wo

must Hi our burdens, but through them al'point with our lives to Him. “ Who tcr.dily endured all that hostility f/m sinful men, so as to keep your bfi'ts from fainting and failing.’!