The Father’s Chosen Rejects

Today we’re getting back to the thing we like to do best with our time together, which is to open up a book of the Bible and to make eye contact with every word and phrase and sentence of it, to dig into a book, make it our aim to understand it to the bottom and believe everything we find there with everything we’ve got.

One thing that means is that from time to time we find ourselves doing something that most people won’t do very often, which is to spend 45 minutes talking about two sentences. If you’ve never done that before, welcome… We’re not that cool.

The sentences in question this morning are the first two in the book of 1 Peter. Let’s read them together, 1 Peter 1:1–2,

“Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood:

May grace and peace be multiplied to you.”

-1 Peter 1:1–2