The Fruit of Worldliness

Dedicated To The Men of God Who Preach the Word of God As It Is To Men As They Are

"Preach The Word"

The Glory of a New Service

I Peter 2. 9,10

THE Glory of a new Start, and the Glory of a new
Society, are made effective in the Glory of a New
Service. It means much to us that God makes His
people the instruments of His purpose in history and
in the world. He seems to condition Himself by the
things that we can do. One of his notable servants
felt that he was not essential to anything ; God could do
His work through a straw as well as through a man .
We cannot limit the Holy One of Israel, but that does
not appear to be the way in which He works. When He
wanted something done, some message communicated,
He asked in the hearing of Isaiah, `Whom shall I send ,
and who will go for us?' It was Isaiah's privilege to
say, `Here am I, send me .' Men are God's method and
God's means.

The verses before us set a fourfold function for ou r
consideration. `Ye are a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, that you
should show forth the praises of Him who hath called
you out of darkness into His marvellous light .' All this
to a humble folk, exiles, strangers scattered .

' But One who knew how unexpectedly things often
46 turn out said, `The first shall be last and the last first.'
God puts His treasure in very earthen vessels . Paul's
word becomes true : `Now therefore ye are no more
strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the
saints and of the household of God .'

I. A Chosen Generation
The new estate is very marked. You were formerly
no people, but now you are the people of God. You
formerly had not obtained mercy, but now you have
obtained mercy. You were previously in darkness ,
now you dwell in His marvellous light. Privilege is
piled on privilege, until the rank of His people is set
above the rank of kings; but they are not set to wear
purple and dwell in palaces, they are set to wear white
and to walk with God.

The titles here conferred are borrowed from the Old
Testament in which Peter was well versed . `You are a
chosen generation, an elect race .' The choice and calling
of Israel are mentioned by Isaiah . `This people have I
formed for Myself, they shall show forth My praise '
(Isa. 43. 21). The words are as true of the Church of
Christ . This is not a human institution . Its people are
His called-out ones . God in Christ has taken the
initiative : `You have not chosen Me, but I have chosen
you and ordained you .' The relationship is sealed in
Christ's prayer. We catch the words hungrily as if we
were overhearing what it is life eternal to know : `Thine
they were and Thou gayest them Me .'

His people are a gift between the Father and the Son .
He claims His own—this people—and this ; this person
and this, `have I set apart for Myself .' When Wilfred
Grenfell wondered what he should do with his life, h e
asked his mother. She told him to go and ask God, and
wait for an answer. When he returned he told her that
the appointment was Labrador ! Just to have one' s
choice made plain, and to have it so clearly ratified,
sets one's life in high places and makes the locality
where our lot is cast holy ground.

II. A Royal Priesthood
A Royal Priesthood is an additional function, another
part of the whole calling of God . The Christian dispensation
knows nothing of a priesthood ordained t o
offer sacrifice or to pronounce absolution from guilt .
The priesthood of the Old Testament is superseded in
Christ, the one eternal High Priest who offered the
perfect sacrifice of Himself, and once for all . He is the one
Priest, the one Sacrifice, the one Absolver of all our sin .
Every Christian is a priest ordained to offer up spiritual
sacrifice, the personal gift of himself. It is this that
the Apostle Paul seeks to win : `I beseech you therefore
by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies ,
a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your
reasonable service .' It is the offering of one's complete
personality. `From the beginning God had all there
was of me,' is the language of one who dared to be all
that he felt God wanted him to be. Against that dedication
he suffered none to speak . To offer one's life is a
priestly act, to make intercession is priestly, to preach
the Gospel is priestly, to live for God and man is priestly .
Wide is the range of Christian opportunity.

Matthew Arnold paid this tribute to Wordsworth :
`He was a priest to us all of the wonder and bloom of
the world, which we saw with his eyes and were glad .'
He meant that Wordsworth's poetry opened the eyes of
others to beautiful things ; he interpreted the meaning
of Nature so that others could see it and rejoice in it .
To be a priest to others of the wonder and beauty and
grace of Jesus Christ is the Christian's high calling .
A Holy Nation. That is a high calling for a people.
God is great enough to plan a nation's life and to choose vocation.

They were His very own for one extraordinary
purpose, unshared by any other. And this is a pattern
dedication . Every nation has its distinctive place in the
history and service of the world.

But nations like men may miss their place . Nations
like men may rob others of their birthright, may exploit
the weakness of the weak, and victimize the illiterate and
the poor. When God unwinds the fabric of the world' s
life, and takes it thread from thread, every nation will
have its history unfolded, and the secrets of men will be
known for what they are .
its vocation . He plans on a great scale . The prophet
Isaiah impresses us with the apparent insignificance of
nations : `Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and
are counted as the small dust of the balance' (Isa . 40.
15). That corrects the impression that nations are too
big for God's direction and control . So great is His
power, so perfect His understanding, so wise His planning ,
that whole nations come within the scope of His intention .
What nation has ever made God its trust, or His will
its way of life? It can happen, and every consenting life
can help to make it- happen. It was profound insight
and prophetic passion that inspired the poet on the day
of a great public celebration in London, when he feared
that God was not sufficiently in public recognition and
remembrance, to write, `God of our fathers, known of
old, Be with us yet, lest we forget, lest we forget .'

III. A Peculiar People
The next title is this, A Peculiar People (Exod. 19.
6). A people of a special possession. All peoples are
His people, but He had for Israel a very distinctive
vocation. They were His very own for one extraordinary
purpose, unshared by any other. And this is a pattern
dedication . Every nation has its distinctive place in the
history and service of the world.

Sermon From Dr. John Macbeath