Our Scripture lesson today is from the 2nd chapter of I Peter.  “So put away all malice and all guile and insincerity and envy and all slander.  Like new born babes, long for the pure Spiritual milk that by it you may grow up to salvation, for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.  Come to him to that living stone rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious.  And like living stones, be yourself built into a spiritual house.  Be a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.  For it stands written in scripture, behold I am laying in - a stone, a corner stone chosen and precious.  And he who believes in Him will not be put to shame.  To you therefore you believe, He, Jesus, is precious.  But for those who do not believe, the very stone which the builders rejected has become the head of the corner and a stone that will make men stumble, a rock that will make them fall.  For they stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.  But you, listen to this, but you, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a Holy nation.  God’s own people that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Once you were no people, but now you’re God’s people.  Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.”  That’s the word of the Lord.  Let us pray.

God of the covenant, the old covenant and the new covenant, take the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts and make them acceptable in your sight, for you are our strength and our Redeemer.  Amen.

There’s some people who are special in our life, even though we do not know them personally, even though we’ve never met them.  Thomas Murton is such a person for me.  I doubt if there’s been a person that I’ve read with greater appreciation and prophet than Tom Murton.  He was a Trappist Monk who lived out his life in the monastery of Gethsemane, Kentucky.  And I think as much as any other person in this Century, was an interpreter and a champion of the Christian faith and way.  On one occasion he asked himself, “Who am I?” And then he answered, poignantly, “I am myself.”  I am myself, a word spoken by God.  There’s nothing more important than that.  To know who you are. 

Identity, it is the crucial personal issue.  Likewise, it is the crucial issue for the church, because I believe that the failure of the church in every age can be traced to a loss of identity.  We forget who we are.  We become so preoccupied with minor functions and lesser matters, that our primary being and function are forgotten.  Peter has a great word for us here, you are a chosen race, he says.  A royal priesthood, a Holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  Now I want you to get the setting of that word in mind, because it will assist you in probing the deep significance of this scripture lesson.  Peter was writing Christians who were facing slander and persecution.  They were Christians in exile.  And this was circular letter to be passed from group to group.  It is as though some minister or some bishop would write a letter to the churches in Memphis, and on this day ChristChurch would read it, on next Sunday or tomorrow night another church would read it, and on another evening another and another until all the churches in the area had read the message.  And that’s what was happening. 

The letter’s purpose was to fortify these Christians and enable them to stand fast in their Christian commitment.  This is an added word from Peter, once you were no people, but now you’re God’s people.   Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.  These Christians knew what Peter was talking about.  Once they had been no people - mere units in a medley of nations that could all be classed as heathen.  Among them were some small pockets of Jews, they understood also, they had been no people.  Now they, having been proudly and falsely self-sufficient, knew the mercy and the grace of God and they had become the recipients of God’s grace.  This entire passage of Peter that I’ve read this morning is rooted in the Old Testament concept of the covenant.  Now you can’t understand the Old Testament.  In fact, you can’t understand the Bible unless you understand the covenant.  The people of God were those people with whom God had made a covenant.  And the text of our message today, this particular verse of Peter, can be seen as the fulfillment of Hosea rendering of God’s promise which we read in our earlier scripture lesson, when Hosea has God saying, I will have mercy upon those who had not obtained mercy and I will say to those who are not my people, thou art my people, and they will say, thou are my God. 

So to plum the depth and meaning of this great passage, I want to ask three questions this morning.  Who are we?  What is our function?  And, where is the source of our power? 

I. Who Are We?

First, who are we as Christians as the church?  We need to get this straight my friends, because we’ve been experiencing an identity crisis in the church for the past 20 or 30 years that has paralyzed us, leaving us as a people almost impotent.  Who are we?  Listen to Peter as he quotes Hosea almost verbatim, ‘Once you were no people, but now you’re God’s people.  Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.’    And since Peter is so rooted in scripture in the Old Testament, he begins to apply title after title after title upon this no people who have been loved into redemptive being by God himself.  He calls them a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a Holy nation, God’s own people.  Now all these phrases are the great descriptions in the Old Testament of the people of Israel. 

Now I want you to get this, because it’s very significant.  The promise which God made to Israel, the covenant of relationship is now fulfilled in the New Testament Church and in the Christian church today.  Now get that, and remember that when you hear these TV preachers and radio preachers talking to you about what the meaning of modern Israel is.  Do you realize what this means for you and me?  We, the church.  We are the new Israel.  Not that nation that’s being established in the Holy land.  We are the new Israel.  We are the covenant community. 

Have you been following the newspaper account of the Yahmit  settlement of Jews in the Sinai?  It has been a dramatic story of a nation remaining faithful to its agreement to return the Sinai back to Egypt as a part of the previous peace negotiations.  But more dramatic than that, is the picture of the tenacity and commitment and steel will of the settlers in Yahmit who see themselves as God’s people occupying the land they regard as Biblical Israel.  Now I don’t agree with the position they’ve taken or the way they’ve lived out their commitment, but I tell you - their understanding of who they are and what they are called to, warms my blood and causes my heart to beat faster.  Would God that our self -understand and identity as Christians was so pronounced.  Would God that we had such clarity of commitment and mission with in the church of Jesus Christ.  Who are we as Christians, the Church?  We are a chosen race, and I say that without stuttering.  We are a chosen people.  Chosen by God.  We have been called into redemptive being by God himself.  Think about it. Think about it and tremble.  God’s own people.  That’s who we are.

II. What Is Our Function?

Now if that’s who we are, what is our function?  That’s the second question, and Peter answers that in our scripture lesson as well.  Peter is so excited about what he has to say and what he wants to put down on paper that he almost stumbles over himself lest he miss it.  Listen, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a Holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.  All one sentence.  Our identity and purpose is in that one sentence.  Our identity, God’s own people.  Our function, to declare the wonderful deeds.  We are witnesses.  The function of the Christian is gathered up in one of the most signaled doctrines of Protestantism, the priesthood of all believers.  It is our most talked about and our least practiced doctrine.  All of us are priests.  Every person here today who claims to be a Christian is a priest.  And what is the function of a priest.  It is twofold.  First, we speak to the people for God.  Now that’s our primary task.  Everyone of us is a priest and we have the opportunity and the responsibility of speaking to the people for God. 

Let me illustrate.  Last summer, I preached at the Ocean Grove Count meeting.  That’s one of the most notable count meeting centers in America.  It’s located on the beautiful New Jersey Atlantic coast, and it has been designated as God’s square mile.  Now I don’t know whether that’s a facetious designation or not, but all over the place up there in that section of New Jersey you find these bumper stickers on cars which say, Ocean Grove God’s Square Mile.   Between 8 and 10 thousand people live in that square mile year round.  But many more flood in during the summer months.  It’s a quaint place in many ways, beautiful old Victorian houses, colorful tints that are brought out only during the summer times, old hotels with indescribable charm, creaking stairways and balconies open to ocean breeze, no air conditioning, but a constant breeze flowing in from the far corners of the earth.  It’s one of my favorite spots.  Jeri and I went a couple of days early, preceding my preaching engagement to get a little rest.  On Saturday afternoon, we were strolling around when we came upon a park, what I call a postage stamp park - not very big, quiet, cool, big beautiful oak trees with squirrels scampering all around and a few children playing kickball over in a corner.  And on a bench in the middle of the park, a big man smoking a cigar.  We greeted him as we passed, just a casual, how are you.  We didn’t expect his answer. In fact, we almost missed it.  That’s usually the case isn’t it?  We don’t expect a person to answer us when we ask them how they are. 

Thank God for the spirit making us alert that day.  The fella mumbled something about not being well, not many words and half joking, but miraculously we picked up on it and we stopped to visit.  Ah how the spirit works when we are responsive.  Within minutes, strangers were sharing deeply and intimately.  He told us the story of his wife, ravaged with cancer, in their retirement home only a block away, dying but not knowing it because he didn’t have the courage to give her the doctor’s prognosis.  A big strong man with no inner resources to face his crisis.  He trembled with fear and tears rolled down his face.  He apologized as though he shouldn’t cry in the presence of strangers. He was as terrified of the future as a little child is of the dark night alone.  He said he had nobody to talk to.  Nobody with whom to share.  Now that struck me as being strange, very strange.  There we were in God’s square mile, supposedly thousands of Christians around, but he thought he had no one with whom to share.  How ironic.  Jeri and I became his priests that day.  We witnessed to him, shared God’s good news of love and care with him, and my wife, the hugger in the family, embraced him.  And we had prayer together right there in the middle of the park.  Squirrels continued to scamper around, barking in their play.  Children squealed joyously in their game of kickball.  But a divine transaction took place on that park bench. 

I preached to 4 or 5 thousand people the next morning, the most people I’ve ever preached to on any one occasion.  But you know, I don’t remember too much about preaching to thousands of people - yet my memory is still alive, vibrantly alive with that priesting experience in the park.  I spoke to a man for God, and he heard and was helped.  That’s who we are.  That’s who each one of you is, a priest.  And that’s the expression of our function, to speak to the people for God.  How long has it been since you did that?  Do you see yourself functioning in that fashion?  Listen, there are some people who may not be spoken to for God, unless you are the one who speaks to them. 

The second primary expression of our function as priests is to speak to God for the people.  Not only do we speak to the people for God, we speak to God for the people.  And that’s our ministry of prayer and intercession.  And that’s the rhythm of our lives, speaking to the people for God and speaking to God for the people.  Again, let me share a personal experience.  I hope you don’t get tired of my sharing personal experiences.  It is my contention that the gospel is not real in our lives until it becomes personal, so that’s an aside.  The gospel is not real in our lives until it becomes personal.  We were about take off from the Tampa airport.  I was returning to Nashville and had to fly by way of Atlanta.  Now you know that in the South you can hardly go any place without going through Atlanta.  If you’re going to Heaven, you’ve got to go through Atlanta.  I told him it might be true if you’re going in the other direction.  Well, as we taxied out from the Tampa airport, I looked out the window and I was enthralled over the sunset.  It was ablaze of glory. 

And I want to make a little confession.  I need to tell you that when I fly, and for the past 10 or 12 years I’ve been flying a great deal, if it’s possible, I always take the first seat in the tourist section of the airplane.  Now I do that for two reasons.  First of all, I do a lot of work when I travel and so I have to work on airplanes and there’s more space in that particular seat to spread your books out and your portfolio and your writing materials and that sort of thing.  And there’s more room for your feet as well. 

But the second reason that I select that seat is that if the plane is not crowded, then the flight attendants always sit there as well for the take off and landing.  Sure enough, sure enough on that day, one of the flight attendants sat down beside me as we taxied out.  She buckled her seatbelt for the takeoff and for what was to be the only rest she would get for the next couple of hours.  I spoke to her, she smiled and responded with a brief greeting as she began to peruse the current issue of Cosmopolitan.  I called her attention to the sunset, but I knew she wasn’t interested in talking to me.  Cosmopolitan already had her attention.  So she gave only a polite glance out the window.  A few minutes later though we were over TampaBay, having circled out from the airport to make our straightaway to Atlanta.  I’m telling you, I have never seen a more dazzling sunset.  It was the most magnificent sunset I have ever seen.  Rather than a solid blaze, there were shafts of red and gold and orange and yellow and an almost purple, and these brilliant shades of color were muted now and then by swift moving cloud veils.  It was something out of the world, and I couldn’t contain myself.  I almost grabbed her arm and exclaimed, look at the sunset. 

Well, she peaked unenthused out the window and returned to Cosmopolitan.  I’m not a very timid fella, but I became timid at that point.  But as she rose from her seat to begin her duties, I ventured a kind of apologetic, “I guess you get used to it, flying all the time.” 

“Yes,” she said.  “It’s like any other job, you get used to it and it’s tiring.”  She left to do her job and, and it struck me rather powerfully, that’s it not all glamour, being an airline stewardess.  We think it is.  We see those dramatic, colorful exciting advertisements in travel magazines, and we think about how marvelous it would be to fly off to those exotic places around the world, but it’s not all glamour being a stewardess, flying all the time.  In fact, its tedious and tough - serving drinks, giving out pillows, entertaining children, serving food, collecting dirty dishes, dealing with boisterous men whose had too much to drink, always having to smile, always ready to meet the needs of any person or any emergency. 

And I was moved as I thought about that, to pray for that young woman.  Now I don’t want you to think I’m overly religious or overly pious and I don’t always pray for airline stewardesses, but that day I was moved to pray for that young woman.  That doesn’t always happen this way and I want you to know that.  But it happens just enough, just enough, to make us know the power of it, and to experience the joy of it.  The stewardess had to take her seat again about 5 minutes out of Atlanta, and I tell you she was a different person.  I don’t understand it.  I can’t tell you how it happened, only that it happened, and I believe my praying had something to do with it.  She wanted to talk, and in those brief minutes as we landed in Atlanta, she told me that she would be finishing her flight in Atlanta and would drive to visit Birmingham, where she would probably see her father alive for the last time, because just before she had taken off from Tampa, she had received a telephone call from her family telling her that her father was on his death bed. 

No wonder she was not interested in the sunset.  I shared my love and concern - God’s love and concern and another divine transaction took place, like that one that had taken place on the park bench at Ocean Grove.  Because I exercised my priesthood.  I spoke to God for that young lady and miraculously I was given the opportunity to speak to that young lady for God.  I can’t even begin to imagine, and I have a powerful imagination, I can’t even begin to imagine what would happen if I and other no people who have become God’s people would become more intentional and sensitive about who they are and what their function is.  Not only to speak to the people for God, but to speak to God for the people.  Now that spirit of intercession is present in this Church, and that’s one of the things that excites me so much about this Church.  But it needs to permeate the entire Church.  There’s no question in my mind - no congregation, no congregation ever rises to the zenith of its power until it becomes a praying congregation.  And no individual Christian ever rises to his or full, his or her full potential, until they daily baptize themselves in the spirit of prayer.

Now if you’re feeling inadequate about all this, unworthy of such a calling, to be a priest, to speak to the people for God and to God for the people - unable within your own resources to respond to that - that’s okay.  You’re in good company.  That’s the way it ought to be, and that brings me to the last question.  Where is our power?  Did you hear the story of that fellow who owned a 10-story office building?  About 10:00 one morning a great furor arose outside his door and very soon 5 or 6 of his staff burst into his office that a great calamity had taken place - the elevator was stuck between the 5th and the 6th floor and there was a passenger trapped on the elevator and the passenger was frantic.  They scurried around to do what they needed to do to go and rescue the fellow.  And very soon the owner of the building was on the 5th floor calling through the elevator shaft to the trapped passenger saying, “don’t worry about it.  Everything is going to be alright.  We’ll have you out of there in no time.  We’ve already called the elevator mechanic.”  There was a deep quiet and a cracking voice from inside the elevator as the trapped passenger responded, “I am the elevator mechanic.” 

If, if, if we seek to go it in our own power, if we seek to go it in our own power, we are that impotent.  But Peter instructs again.  Listen to him from our scripture.  Like new born babes, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation, for you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.  Come to Christ, the living stone, and be yourselves built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices, and to you therefore who believe, Jesus is precious. Jesus Christ, the living stone, is the source of our power and guidance.  To those who believe he is precious, he builds us up into a spiritual house.