The First Letter of Peter- 1

Subtitle: The Chosen Foreigners of Jesus Christ

1 Peter 1:1-4. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, November 16, 2025.

We start the first letter of Peter today.  It is one of two letters written by Peter, one of the three closest apostles of Jesus.  He was an eyewitness of the transfiguration of Jesus before His resurrection.  His actual name was Shimon (Hebrew) or Simon (Greek/Latin).  However, Jesus gave him the nick name in Aramaic of Kephas (also Cephas).  John 1:42 tells us this and that Peter is the Greek translation of his Aramaic name Kephas.  Both of these names mean “rock” or “stone.”

This fisherman from the Sea of Galilee is most known as being an apostle to the Jews following the death and resurrection of Jesus.  However, we did see in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles that Peter ministered to Samaritans and Gentiles as well, especially when he traveled outside of Jerusalem.

Paul mentions in his letter to the Galatians that Peter was at Syrian Antioch for a time.  It is quite likely that Peter also visited other Gentile dominated areas in order to vouchsafe for the churches that were cropping up particularly from the ministry of Paul and others with him.

This brings to a point about the audience of this letter.  Some believe that Peter is addressing Jewish Christians and only tangentially speaks to Gentiles.  However, the letter does not make this distinction.  Peter appears to be addressing churches as predominately Gentiles.

Let’s get into the letter.

Peter’s greeting (v. 1-2)

Peter starts out by identifying himself.  He is Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ.

There is a sense in which all Christians have an apostolic calling because we are sent by Christ to take the Gospel to the world around us.  In fact, this apostolic calling should be seen upon the background of what Hebrews 3:1 tells us.  Jesus is the Apostle and High Priest of our confession.  Jesus was sent or commissioned by the Father to do a priestly duty among us. 

Yet, Apostle is used in a stricter sense throughout the New Testament.  Just as God moved upon the Old Testament prophets in order that Israel, and eventually the world, would know His will, so He worked in particular people in order to lay down a trustworthy record of what Jesus taught and did, including his death, resurrection and ascension.  They were eyewitnesses of these things.

These apostles were taught directly by Jesus and commissioned by him to lay the foundation of teaching for the church.  These basically became the requirements of any writing that was accepted as inspired by the Holy Spirit (1. Taught by Jesus, 2. Witnessed the resurrected Jesus, 3. Commissioned by Jesus to establish the Gospel in the world).

Notice that he says that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ.  It is easy to see “Christ” and forget that it is a declaration that Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One sent from God to save us.  Thus, Peter is one of the men specially sent by Jesus the Messiah in order to declare his teachings and the Good News of his work of salvation.

We should note that Revelation 21 presents the New Jerusalem as symbolically depicting the Church of Jesus.  It is a real place, but its design and setup are also symbolic.  Notice that the walls of this city, which speak of an impenetrable defense, are built upon the 12 foundations of the apostles.  This can also be interpreted as the 12 foundation stones of the apostles.  Thus, it could be picturing 12 layers of foundation, but most likely refer to 12 foundation stones placed side by side (3 to a side).

Peter then tells us who the recipients of his letter are to be.  These are not cities, but provinces of the Roman Empire.  Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia describe most of the isthmus we call Türkiye today.  These were the places where the Apostle Paul established churches during his missionary journeys.  Most likely, some of these churches were founded by churches that were founded by Paul.  Just as Peter eventually went to Antioch of Syria to see the Christians there so it is probable that he may have traveled through some of these areas.  If he did, then it would make sense to send a letter to these churches.  If he did not, then Peter did the next best thing.  He sent a letter to these churches in order to ensure that they would have solid doctrine and encouragement upon which to build the work of Christ in their cities and towns.

Peter also refers to them as “chosen.”  This is also translated as “elect.”  They have been chosen by God for salvation.  This is not in the sense that God plays favorites among humans.  Those who would humble themselves and embrace the crucified and resurrected Jesus as their savior, He chose in eternity past as the ones He would save.

Legally (if such can be said of God), He doesn’t have to save anyone, but His nature of Grace, Compassion, Slowness to Anger, Steadfast Covenant-Keeping Love, and Faithful Truth, compels Him to save those who can be saved.  Thus, the Good Samaritan does a good job of imaging God the Father.  He sees us bleeding and dying on the side of the road.  Instead of going on past us, He comes to our aid.  However, He will force no man.  If a person would rather wait for a Levitical Priest, Rabbi, anyone else but Jesus, then He will leave them be, though He may continue to appeal to them in love.

We have a choice to make.  Will we let a Samaritan heal us and save us, or will we look for another?  You can step into the ranks of the Chosen today by putting your faith in Jesus.

Peter also describes these Chosen Ones as Strangers, Pilgrims, Foreigners, Aliens, Sojourners.  Those who have been chosen from among the Gentiles and Jews, in order to follow Messiah Jesus dwell, dwell in this world as if they were foreigners to it, no matter where they live.  Before you believed in Christ, you were a local, a citizen of the place you lived, but now in Christ, you have become a foreigner, a citizen of a heavenly kingdom.  You no longer live as you used to live following the vain culture of your people.

Peter is using terminology that was connected to the patriarchs of Israel, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  In Genesis 23:3-4, Abraham asks the people of the land of Canaan for a plot of land.  “I am a stranger and a sojourner among you; give me a burial site among you that I may bury my dead out of my sight.”

Hebrews 11 emphasizes that the Patriarchs lived as foreigners in the Land of Promise awaiting the time in which God would give it over to them (Heb. 11:9-10, 15-16).  They did not take to the cities of the Canaanites, but dwelled as nomads, waiting for God’s timing.

This world is our inheritance.  Jesus said so in Matthew 5:5, “Blessed are the meek (humble) for they shall inherit the earth.”  However, we dwell as nomads within it today, Jews and Gentiles alike.  Yet, we have been chosen by God to receive it one day as an inheritance.

This brings us to the last reference in verse 1.  They are “scattered throughout” these areas.  The word behind this is where we get the idea of a diaspora, a dispersed people.  Like seeds, they will lay down their lives in death in order to bring forth life in the areas they have been planted.

In truth, both the wicked and the righteous of Israel were scattered among the nations.  It was a judgment to the wicked as their nation is destroyed and they are cast out into exile.  Yet, it was a blessing in the righteous ones.  They were broadcast like precious seed in order to be a blessing and raise up righteous fruit from among the Gentiles.  Righteous Israelites were literally scattered, but the Gentiles who join them, join the ranks of the Scattered Ones.  They will lay down their lives in death in order to bring forth the life of Christ in the lands in which they lived as foreigners!

In verse 2, Peter says that all of this was foreknown, or foreseen, by God.  By this, we speak of the need of salvation and the mechanism by which God would provide it.  He knew that we would fall into great sin and degradation.  We would need saving, but only some would embrace the salvation that God would provide.

This foreknowledge is partially the idea that God can see the future.  He didn’t actively choose to make something happen, but He knew it would.  Each of these items then could be permitted or stopped by God because He is sovereign over all things.  We should make a clear distinction between the things that God permits us to do and the things that He actively makes to happen.

Jesus came at just the right time, a time when the Law would have had a complete work upon the conscience of Israel, a time when men would rule over Israel that would kill His Anointed Son, a time when the faith of Israel would be hanging by a thread, and a time when the Gentiles would be weary of serving false gods that they had been serving.  At such a time, God sent His One and Only Son.

He foresaw how they would act and the choices that they would make.  He chose this time on purpose to accomplish His will, to provide a means for removing our sin and guilt.

God has also seen and chosen how to respond to the rejection of the Gospel of the Messiah by the nations.  We see it clearly that the politics of the nations, by in large, reject Jesus and his commands.  Even in the Christian West, we mostly see lip service to Jesus.

Thus, a day of judgment has been set by the Father.  A day has been appointed for the Son of Man, Jesus, to come on the clouds of heaven in order to put down the usurpers.  He will take up the kingdoms of the world with the saints at His side!  My friend, you want to be at his side on that day!

We are the chosen foreigners of Jesus the Messiah also by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.  The sanctifying work is the means by which He makes us holy.  This can be seen in two ways.

We are holy in that we have been set apart as belonging to Christ.  We are the people who bear His name and belong to Him.  It is like a legal status change.  This holiness of being takes place as the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us.

However, we are also holy in that the Spirit dwelling in us begins to teach us and empower us to live out the righteousness of Jesus.  This progressive holiness is a holiness of practice.  In our flesh, we fail and would be disqualified, but the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit teaches us to repent, to be cleansed by Him and to be renewed in our fervor for our Lord.

Both the Word of God and the Holy Spirit are connected to the cleansing of the believer (Ephesians 5:26; Titus 3:5).  In this world and on our own, we become more and more defiled spiritually before God.  However, the Word and the Spirit work to cleanse us and make us holy in practice.

Of course, this sanctifying work of the Spirit is why Peter then refers to obeying Jesus the Messiah.  This is not an obedience where we never fail.  Repentance is just as much a part of obeying Jesus as the other commands.  In other words, his commands have incorporated our weaknesses through repentance and forgiveness.

Peter also mentions that we are sprinkled with His blood.  This furthers the picture of a holy people.  Just as the priests were sprinkled with blood as a consecration to their ministry for God so these are cleansed and consecrated to minister on behalf of Messiah Jesus.  Essentially, Peter is recognizing these Gentile Christians as being grafted into the Holy work that God has been doing through the Patriarchs, Israel, and now the Church of Messiah.  All of these are part of the same root.

His greeting then closes with a prayer that grace and peace would be theirs in the fullest measure.

Grace is a gift from God that should cause joy to the recipient.  Peace is the restful assurance that comes from God’s Spirit dwelling within us, teaching, correcting and leading us.  It is God’s desire that we receive and rejoice in His many gifts and grace to us.  It is also His desire that we have restful assurance of His faithfulness in saving us.

Of course, if we look at the storms, we can lose our peace and joy in God’s grace.  If we are to have His grace and peace to the fullest measure as much as is possible in this life, we will need God’s help.

Praise to God for His salvation (v. 3-4)

To bless God is to praise God.  The word has the sense of speaking good things to and about Him.  In this case, Peter is praising God for His wonderful work of salvation through Jesus.

Father God is the source of the purpose and will to save us.  The Father here emphasizes the relationship between God and man, but specifically God the Father and His eternal Son, the Word.  At a point in time, the Word took on mortal flesh and receives the name Jesus, Yeshua, the Salvation of Yahweh!

To speak of the Lord Jesus Christ emphasizes three aspects of the One whom the Father used to save us.  “Lord” speaks of his authority.  He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.  None are higher than him in heaven or on earth, other than God the Father (see Colossians 1:15-20.

“Jesus” speaks to his humanity.  He was fully human and lived a life of perfect obedience to the Father.  He is the Son of Man who perfectly imaged God the Father, and thus, he obtained all that God had delegated to humanity, making salvation possible for us in the midst of it.

“Christ” emphasizes his role.  He is the One who has the Anointing of God’s Holy Spirit in such a measure (full) that He can save and deliver the worst sinner, and the most wounded of people. 

“He has caused us to be born again…”  There is a true spiritual work that happens inside of a person when they repent and put their faith in Jesus.  This is the backdrop of the discussion Jesus had with Nicodemus in John 3.  To be born again is to have a spiritual birth.  It is also thought of as being born from above (a spiritual birth that is made possible by God Himself).  You were born in an earthly manner by the will of humans, but you must be born in a spiritual manner by the will of God.

We are now alive and able to respond to the Spirit of God.  Yet, we start as spiritual babies and must grow up spiritually.

“According to His great mercy,” this new birth makes us a new creation but also has a sense of mercy in it.  “Mercy” refers to the fact that our salvation is motivated by a pity or compassion over our destitute situation.  God is pained to see us in this condition and is moved to do a work of salvation for us.  This is a tension between the purpose for which God made us and our fallen condition.  He did not make us to suffer under sin on into eternity.

Humans can lose compassion and mercy very quickly, but God is full of mercy and grace.  It is great in quantity and great in quality.  We could say that the pain of the cross was more than counter-balanced by the pain of what would be in the heart of God if He didn’t pay the price to redeem us from sin.

We don’t deserve salvation, but God is pained to see us in a state of being lost.  How can I say, “No,” to such a love?

We were born again to “a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.”  A dead hope may seem to be no hope at all, but the resurrection of Jesus changes everything.  Death suddenly is filled with hope in Him.  His resurrection from the dead assures our resurrection.  It also assures us of the fact that his sacrifice on behalf of our sins has been accepted by God the Father.

Jesus Himself becomes our hope, who is alive at the right hand of the father.  We hope in what he has done, but also in what He is going to do.  We live our life, not for the dead hopes of this world, but for the living hope of Christ Himself!

Verse 4 ends with another thing that we have been saved to receive, an inheritance.  Our inheritance is to dwell with Jesus for eternity, wherever that may be.  Our mortal frame would rather have it all now, but we receive a foretaste of what awaits us.  Our resurrection becomes the moment of fully stepping into that inheritance that God has for those who believe in Jesus.

It is an inheritance that cannot perish, corrupt or die.  It is an inheritance that cannot be defiled by sin.  It does not fade, which speaks of the glory of the inheritance.  Like Moses coming down from the mountain with face all aglow, we will stand glowing in glory alongside of Christ.  However, in contrast to the glory of Moses then, we will all participate in the unfading glory of Christ along with Moses!

This inheritance is reserved for us in the heavens (at the right hand of the Father).  No person on earth or wicked spirit of the heavens can wrest our living hope from the hands of the Father.  May God help us to rejoice in His great purpose for us, both now in our mortal frame and then in our glorified bodies!

Chosen Foreigners audio