How do you respond if someone asks, “Just who are you”? How would you respond if someone were to ask that about us as a church? 1 Peter 2:9-10 gives a good answer.
You are God’s people. You are his people because he chose you. Hosea had warned Judah that because of their sins they were becoming Lo Ammi (not my people), Hosea 1:9. That sin culminated in the rejection of the Cornerstone, 1 Peter 2:4,8. Hosea foretold the coming Day of the Lord, in which the people would become Ammi (my people) once again, Hosea 2:23. Peter tells you that you have become God’s people, God’s “folk,” in Jesus Christ. But the idea of the people of God is older than Hosea. In a real sense you can trace it back to the Garden of Eden. It becomes explicit in the promise to Abraham, that the Lord will make him into a great nation. That unfolds as the Lord delivers his descendants, a slave people, from Egypt, and covenants with them at Sinai to be their God and they to be his people. As we will see next week, in the New Testament this people takes on a new form, it is called the church, and it is connected directly to the Messiah promised in the Old Testament, the Lord Jesus Christ. The term “church” ecclesia, [from which we get our word, ecclesiastic], can mean any assembly, Acts 19:41, but refers to the body of believers, both on the local and broader levels, Acts 8:1; 2:41; 4:4; 6:7; 8:3—note the geographic breadth of Saul’s persecution. Church applies to God’s people on the local, regional, national, and even universal level. It’s roots lie in the Old Testament assembly (qahal) of God’s people in his presence, Numbers 14:5; see Exodus 19. You have come to the heavenly assembly, Hebrews 12:22-24. You belong to God because he has chosen you, Ephesians 1:3-6; Isaiah 43:10,20,21; 44:1,2. Continue reading “Who Are We? God’s People”