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| Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. |
| —1 Peter 2:9 |
Have you ever felt that you didn’t really belong? For just a moment, imagine that you find yourself in the middle of a crowd of people. Perhaps you have arrived to attend some social gathering. Everyone in the room seems to know someone else with whom they can have a friendly conversation. As you look around, you really don’t see anyone that you know. You sort of stand in a corner of the room watching others have a good time and feel that you really don’t belong.
That kind of scenario has happened to me many times over the years. Even when I may know some of the people in the room, I often feel that I don’t really belong there. That’s the problem the Apostle Peter tried to address in the Scripture verse at the beginning of this blog post.
Some of the Christians to whom Peter addressed his letter seemed to have an identity crisis. Most of them were Jews who had embraced the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This was a whole new experience for them. Heretofore they had lived under the constraints of the Law. Now they lived under the mercy, grace, and love of God through His Son, Jesus. Others reading Peter’s letter were Gentiles who previously had worshipped other gods, or none at all, and now were grafted into the vine of David through the suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus.
I think you can understand why these folks may have felt that they had an identity crisis. Those who had been Jews no longer belonged to their previous fellowship of Jews. And, those who had been Gentiles were now profoundly different than their fellow Gentiles who did not believe. So, Peter has written to assure them that they definitely do belong. They belong to God through Christ.
In the Scripture verse that immediately precedes the one at the beginning of this blog post, Peter writes:
But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
And, as he continues, Peter declares:
Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
How fortunate you and I are that we, too, belong to God. While once we were “not a people,” through the Lord Jesus Christ, God has irresistibly drawn us into His mercy, grace, and love. Now, we are a people—the people of God.
