Living As A Sojourner/Exile

Scripture: 1 Peter 2:1-12 (cf. verses 9-12)

Theme: Sojourners

How are we to live today in an ever-changing world? Simon Peter helps us find some answers to that question.

INTRO:

Grace and peace this morning in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!

Home.

That very simple little word can mean so many different things to so many different people.

Family. Safety. Comfort. Rest. Stability. Nest. Sanctuary.

We all know that a home is more than a physical structure. It’s more than just someplace that has four walls, a ceiling, and a floor. It’s more than this place that we own, we are still paying for or we are renting.

There is something very wonderful about having a place that we can call home.

In our passage this morning, the majority of those who were reading Simon Peter’s letter had recently moved from one part of the Roman Empire to another part of the Roman Empire.

+Some had been released from military service and were finding a new home.

+Some had been bought as slaves and of course had to adjust to new living conditions.

+Some had moved to find a better place to live for their families.

+Some had been forced to move because of their faith in Christ Jesus.

Bible Scholars tell us that Simon Peter wrote this letter around 65 – 68 AD. That would have been around the time of Rome’s Great Fire. We now konw that it was Emperor Nero that initiated that fire with the intention of clearing out an area of the city where he wanted to build his new palace and gardens.

What he hadn’t planned to do was to cause so much carnage. Of the 14 districts that existed at the time in Rome, three districts were destroyed with another seven districts severely scorched.

Nero desperately needed to do some damage control. He needed to shift the blame of the fire onto someone else before people began to realize that he had been the cause of the inferno.

Nero chose the Early Church. He promoted the idea that the fire had been started by the Christians. After all, they had talked about bringing the fire of the Holy Spirit to Rome to transform Rome, so it wasn’t a big stretch to blame the Christians for the all the devastation.

A lot of the people Simon Peter was writing to were those that had been forced to leave or willingly chose to leave Rome because of their faith. After all, who would want to live near a group of people that could bring that kind of fire down on a community. Plus, many of those who had decided to stay behind had been arrested, tortured and some had even been burned to death (see Fox’s Book of Martyrs).

Simon Peter himself was arrested and put in prison. He had lost his home and in the end was put to death by Emperor Nero for believing in Jesus and preaching that Jesus was the true Son of God, the Savior of the World and the King of Kings.

So, what we read this morning is a letter from a man who was being persecuted to different groups of people who had been forced to relocate and were living under an impending threat of persecution.

Simon wanted to share some words of comfort and encouragement. He wanted to remind his readers that it really didn’t matter where they had to make their new home. One place would be just as good as another.

Now, why would he say that – why would Simon say that one place was just as good as another?

Simon Peter wanted them to focus on their true identity and their true home. They were as he says in our passage this morning:

‘You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation – a people of light – God’s people.’

At the same time, he tells them while you are here on this earth – you will be exiles, foreigners or as some translations put it sojourners.

Now, what does he mean when he says all that in verse 11?

Let’s take a moment and rest there and see what we can discover.

I. As Christians – as followers of Jesus - we are exiles, foreigners, and sojourners.

How?

Why should we see ourselves as exiles, foreigners, and sojourners?

Because Jesus tells us that this world is not our permanent home.

+Yes, we were born here.

+Yes, this earth is where we have lived.

+Yes, we will die here unless of course the option to live on Mars ever becomes a reality, then it will be possible that some humans will live and die on Mars or perhaps even on Jupiter’s moon Titan. But as of right now and for the foreseeable future we can all plan on being born, living, and dying here on this Earth.