Have you ever traveled somewhere and felt like you didn’t belong? It wasn’t just the place but the people made you know, “You ain’t from around here.” The people shared a different history from you, different priorities, different values, different loyalties. Folks just didn’t do life like you were used to.

Or maybe it wasn’t that you traveled, but that you stayed put while the culture shifted over time. Society around you no longer shared your priorities, your values, your loyalties. The people might’ve even grown to despise your history. It leaves you feeling like a foreigner, even though you’re in the same house.

First Peter is a letter written to Christians who are foreigners—he’ll call them “exiles” to start the letter. Later, he calls them “sojourners.” These Christians sense they don’t belong, they’re out of place. Even more, the culture makes them aware of their foreignness by treating them as objects of disdain.

You see, these Christians share a different history than the culture around them, a history that stretches back to God’s word in the Scriptures. That history makes them a bit odd to the culture around them. Also, Jesus Christ is their Lord. Jesus has changed their priorities, their values, their loyalties, such that they do life differently now.

The culture doesn’t like it—so much so that the culture makes them suffer. A word Peter repeats in this letter is “suffering.” These Christians are suffering for righteousness’ sake. They are suffering for doing good. They are suffering because they follow in Jesus’ footsteps. And if he’s not using the word suffer, he’s describing it: “various trials,” “enduring sorrow,” “being maligned,” “fiery trial,” “Satan prowling like a lion, seeking someone to devour.” All for their loyalty to Jesus.

When you suffer like that, you need help to keep going. When society says, “You don’t belong here,” and then pressures you with all sorts of threats, slander, malignment, you can begin to question things: “Maybe I do need to fit in more? Maybe I should adjust loyalty to Jesus so as not to offend? Maybe the culture’s way of doing things is more effective than the Christian message?”

Peter writes this letter to say, “Don’t start thinking that way.” Instead, you need to stand firm in the grace of God. That’s how Peter summarizes the main point of his letter in 5:12. “I have written briefly to you,” he says, “exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it.”

Sojourners, suffering, standing firm—those are keys to unlock this letter’s purpose. When you put the pieces together, here’s why Peter writes: to help sojourners stand firm in God’s grace when suffering in Jesus’ footsteps. That’s why Peter writes. Everything in this letter serves that purpose. Let’s see how Peter’s opening words might help you stand firm in God’s grace when suffering in Jesus’ footsteps. Verse 1

¹ Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, ² according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Our New Testament has twenty-seven books. Of those, twenty-one are letters. These ancient letters begin much like our formal letters. They start by naming the author, then naming the recipients, followed by a greeting. That’s what we find in the opening words of 1 Peter; and it’ll shape the structure of today’s message.

The Author and Letter’s Authority

So, let’s start by looking at the author and the letter’s authority. We’ve met Peter before. In the Gospel of Matthew, we got a good look at Peter. A fisherman by trade. But one of the first to whom Jesus said, “Follow me.” Peter belonged to the initial Twelve disciples. He was at Jesus’ side always and usually the first to speak or ask questions. It was Peter who first acknowledged Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God.

But Peter was also misguided at times. He had good intentions, but often missed what Jesus’ kingdom was about. Sometimes Jesus exposed him as a man of little faith. Peter also failed Jesus. At the hour he should’ve come through most, Peter denied Jesus three times. He swore he didn’t even know Jesus. We observe in Peter what we often observe in ourselves—an inconsistent faith. Bold one day, cowardly the next. Filled with truth one day, speaking like a fool the next.

But that didn’t mean Jesus was done with Peter. The way God works his plan across history—he uses broken people. After his resurrection, Jesus restored Peter and gave him a special role in the building of his church.

Let that encourage you. Just because you’ve failed Jesus—perhaps even in some big ways—it doesn’t mean he’s done with you. Like Peter, you too can return to Jesus and be used in mighty ways to strengthen his people. He uses the broken, the weak, the feeble. He uses those who have failed him—and that’s all of us. Jesus can mature you, like he did Peter. Keep returning to Jesus and see what ways he might use you to impart his grace to others.

But one way we won’t be like Peter is that Jesus appointed Peter as an apostle. Peter calls himself “an apostle of Jesus Christ.” Sometimes “apostle” simply describes a “sent out one.” But here it describes a special office. Acts 1:21 shows how the apostles were men who had been with Jesus from the beginning, “from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up.” They witnessed his life, death, and resurrection. Of course, things get more interesting when we think about the apostle Paul. Paul did come later. But even Paul refers to himself as one “untimely born.” Even Paul checks his gospel with that of Peter, James, and John who’d been with Jesus from the beginning.

But at the heart of apostleship was seeing the resurrected Jesus and being authorized by Jesus as foundational teachers to the church. The office is unique and unrepeatable. If you hear anyone claiming to be an apostle today, run away. They are claiming an authority Jesus has not entrusted to them. But Peter has been given such authority, which means the words in his letter carry the authority of the risen Jesus.

Beloved, how might that help you stand firm in the grace of God? In a culture that’s often crooked and deceptive, we need the authoritative word of Jesus to keep us straight and discerning. When the world is trying to force us to identify with all its various beliefs and movements and ideologies; when we’re dazed and confused about which way is up or down, we need God to keep us grounded in what’s true about his grace and what’s true about ourselves. Jesus Christ inspired these words for your good. From every command like “keep your tongue from evil” to every word of comfort like “the God of all grace…will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you”—all of them are spoken with the power and authority of Jesus Christ.

The Recipients and their Remarkable Identity

What does the risen Lord Jesus say about us? What are some of the first things he wants us to know about him and his saving work in our lives? Well, let’s find out as we look next at the recipients and their remarkable identity. He says, “To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.” On the screen is a map of these regions. The area is now the country of Turkey. Peter was writing to Christians spread across these regions. How they got there is hard to say.

Some have said these must’ve been converts from the day of Pentecost in Acts 2:9-11. They heard the gospel in Jerusalem and then made their way back home, now finding themselves unwelcome. Others have suggested a displacement under the Emperor Claudius to colonize Asia Minor. Acts 18:2 mentions Claudius doing such things.[i]

But however they got there, what made them “exiles” wasn’t ultimately their historical situation; it was their heavenly identity. No matter where they lived, their belongingness to the Lord made them foreigners to the world around them. That’s why later he’ll say things like: “Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles, abstain from the passions of the flesh” (1 Pet 2:11). Or after describing what pagans like to do—living in all sorts of sensuality and drunkenness and idolatry—he says, “with respect to this, they are surprised when you don’t join them…and they malign you” (1 Pet 4:4).

Morally speaking, they are exiles. In that sense, we too are exiles. We don’t belong to the world’s flood of immorality. We live by different values, different priorities, different loyalties—and that makes us foreigners, like people who don’t belong. So, while a historical situation might’ve led to their exile, it becomes a fitting metaphor to explain what any Christian is. We’re foreigners to the rest of the world.

If you wanted some Old Testament parallels, we’re more like Abraham when he was a sojourner in Canaan. Or we’re like Daniel in Babylon, when he was under all sorts of pressure to give up his faith. In fact, when Peter closes this letter in 5:13, he refers to Rome metaphorically as “Babylon.” Peter uses Old Testament images (“exiles,” “Babylon,” “dispersion”) to help the church see her history more clearly. The people of God have been in circumstances like this before; and like them, we too must learn what obedience looks like in a culture to which we don’t belong anymore.

Beloved, I’ve spoken to several of you who feel like you don’t belong. At family events, people distance themselves from you or make you feel unwelcome due to your commitment to the truth. At work, your coworkers ostracize you or treat you like a foreigner, because you don’t participate in their crude humor. At school, perhaps teachers and students present things to make your Christian worldview look narrow-minded. Or maybe your Christian convictions have also left you feeling politically homeless.

Don’t be discouraged by feeling like you don’t belong. Truth is, you don’t. You’re an exile to this world. As a Christian, it’s normal to feel like we don’t belong.

But why don’t we belong to that worldly culture anymore? On our own, we’d feel pretty at home with the culture and how it does things. Why don’t we look like the rest of the world any longer? Why is it that our values, our loyalties have so radically changed? Because God, in his grace, did a remarkable saving work.

That’s where we head next with Peter’s word, “elect.” “To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion.” “Elect” can sometimes mean a temporary call to office—like when Saul is elected to be king (1 Sam 10:24). It can also refer to God separating Israel under his covenant nationally. But here “elect” speaks to a special work where God chooses people for eternal salvation.

Peter will use the same word again in 2:9. Some stumble over the message about Jesus as they were destined to do. But the church doesn’t stumble over Christ in unbelief. Why? Because, he says, “you are a chosen race [i.e., an elect people].” You’re not elect because you believe; you believe because you are elect. That’s why you’re different—God’s choice. We encountered the same sense of this word in Matthew 22:14, “many are called, but few are chosen.” Paul uses it in Ephesians 1:4, God “chose/elected us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world.”

Peter stresses that same gracious initiative in verse 2. Yes, you live in a world where, socially speaking, you don’t belong. You’re an unwanted foreigner to society. But that doesn’t mean you belong to no one. God has made you his own. God chose you. You belong to the God of the universe. There’s no greater sense of belonging.

But more than that. This means all three persons of the Godhead work for your salvation. Notice how verse 2 includes three more clauses that modify your election. Father, Spirit, and Son all perform a unified work related to election. For starters, he shows that our elect status is “according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.”

One of the key attributes of God is that he knows all things. In Isaiah, it sets him apart from the false gods of the nations. The true God knows the end from the beginning. His perfect knowledge guarantees all his purpose will come to pass. This aspect of God’s foreknowledge becomes clear in Acts 2:23, when it says that Jesus was delivered up “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.”

But is that all Peter means? Is he simply saying that God has an intellectual awareness of what you would become? Or is this knowledge more personal? One clue that it’s more personal is the word “Father.” Your elect status is tied to him knowing you in a way he doesn’t chose to know the rest of the world. He chooses to know you like a good Father knows and is committed to his child.

Another clue comes in verse 20. Peter says that we were ransomed with the precious blood of Christ; and Christ “was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you.” It wasn’t only the work God foreknew; he also foreknew Christ personally as the one to redeem you. He foreknew you in the same way he foreknew Christ, even before Creation.

In context, then, God’s foreknowledge here means more than just having information about you beforehand. It speaks to God’s fatherly love and eternal commitment to make you his own. Your elect status isn’t based on God foreseeing your faith or good works; it’s based on his initiative to know you and commit himself savingly to you. If you’re a Christian, that happened not first because of anything you initiated but because of everything your Father initiated and planned.

Then, as the Father’s foreknown plan unfolds in history, the Holy Spirit plays the role of sanctifying God’s elect. Peter brings that up next: “to those who are elect… according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in/by the sanctification of the Spirit.”

For those newer to Christianity, you might be wondering what’s meant by “God the Father” and now “the Spirit.” Are there two gods? Is this another part of god? No to both. What you’re seeing is how God reveals himself as Trinity. There is one God. But he reveals himself in three persons—Father, Son, and Spirit. It’s not that he becomes Father, Son, or Spirit, depending on the action. But that he is always acting as one God in three persons. It’s just that across Scripture we find this pattern where “certain works are specially associated with [Father, Son, or Spirit] based on the way certain works show their personal properties.”[ii] In this case, a personal property of the Spirit is that he proceeds from Father and Son. So, a work like sanctification is usually associated with the Spirit, as it shows him applying the works of Father and Son to us.

That’s a little note on the Trinity—and if you think I just solved the mystery of our triune God, I didn’t. I only stated it. Back to the main point, though. The Father elects us before history. The Spirit then sanctifies God’s elect in history. “Sanctification” means to make someone holy. Sometimes it refers to the process by which we become more and more holy. Here it refers to what we are positionally, how we are set apart for God.

The idea stems from the way holiness language appears in the Old Testament. God himself is holy. Morally and majestically, he’s set apart from the world. But if God was to use someone or something, they/it had to be holy as well. They had to be set apart as exclusively for God. It didn’t matter if it was a priest or a shovel—to serve in the presence of God, everything had to be made holy.

Peter is saying that part of the Spirit’s work is taking God’s elect and making them holy. The world will tend to view you as an unwanted foreigner. But hear what Jesus is saying: to God, you are holy. He set you apart to serve in his presence. That’s part of what makes you so foreign to the world—your holiness. You’ve been sanctified, consecrated. Morally speaking, you’ve been set apart from the world.

That’ll be important to remember when Peter says things later like, “don’t be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy” (1 Pet 1:14). The Holy Spirit has set you apart as something special to God, as someone he wants to use to help others enjoy his holy presence.

Which leads to one more idea Peter develops. Your election has a goal. You can see it there in verse 2: “for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood.” In Greek those aren’t separate ideas, but two aspects of one thing: “for obedience and sprinkling.” Interesting how Peter pairs the two—obedience with sprinkling.

It recalls another place in Scripture where those two things come together—Exodus 24. God’s people are at the base of Mount Sinai. And God is going to establish a covenant with the people. Moses takes the book of God’s law and reads it in the hearing of the people. And they say, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.” Moses then takes the animal’s blood and sprinkles the people and says, “Behold, the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you…”

Peter is saying that one of the goals of our election is a covenant relationship with the Lord. But it’s a much better covenant than the one at Sinai. God made a covenant with his people at Sinai; and the people swore to obey. But read the rest of Israel’s story, and you will find how that old covenant was powerless to produce the obedience required. Not so under the covenant sprinkled with Jesus’ blood.

Under Jesus’ blood, we find true forgiveness, not the threat of judgment. Under Jesus’ blood, we find his perfect obedience credited to our account. Under Jesus’ blood, we find a heart made new sprinkled clean from its guilt. Under Jesus’ blood, we find a new obedience empowered by the Holy Spirit.

We have been elected unto that goal. We have not been elected unto some vague spirituality; we have been elected unto obedience to Jesus. We have been set apart for that new covenant obedience under the sprinkled blood of Jesus. And the rest of 1 Peter will show us what that obedience looks like. Practically speaking, it looks like abstaining from passions of the flesh, keeping our conduct honorable among the Gentiles, loving one another, being submissive to authorities, doing good in the face of suffering. But before he gets to any of that, God tells us what he’s already done.

We often want to say, “Just tell me what to do.” God says, “Let’s start with what I’ve already done. Before the foundation of the world I knew you, I loved you. When the time came, I then set you apart for me and made you holy. I put you into a covenant relationship with my Son such that everything you need, he will provide.” That’s where this letter begins—reminding us of our remarkable identity, reminding us of the true grace of God, that we might stand firm in it.

Beloved, your identity is based on what God says you are, not what the world says you are. Your identity is rooted in what God has done in your life, not in what society thinks of you. In the world’s estimation, you’re nothing but an odd foreigner whose lifestyle is out of place. But in God’s plan, you are chosen, set apart, and sprinkled with precious blood. Don’t lose sight of that remarkable identity when the world maligns you, when the world rejects you.

Rejection is something nobody likes. Rejection is something we’re all prone to fear, especially when it’s people who are close to us. A parent, a child, a sibling, an old friend from collage—it pains us to think how they might reject us if we tell them the truth. Or maybe we fear rejection by a person of significant influence—maybe those who have say on whether we get promoted. Or maybe we fear being rejected by the team at work. Truth is, people will reject us for following Jesus. After all, that’s what happened to Jesus. 2:4 says that Jesus was “rejected by men.”

But it also says, “in the sight of God he was chosen and precious.” Rejected by the world but chosen by God. As a Christian, that’s what you are too: rejected by the world but chosen by God. Knowing that you’re chosen by God gives you courage to face rejection from the world. People may stop loving you, but God will never stop loving you. Your Father’s love stretches back to eternity past, saves in the present, and will give you all you need for the future. We might be exiles, but we are by no means lacking.

The Greeting and God’s Grace

Finally, let’s close with the letter’s greeting and God’s grace. End of verse 2, “May grace and peace be multiplied to you.” Most first-century letters opened with a simple word, “Greetings!”—much like we find in James 1:1. But Peter transforms the customary greeting with “grace and peace.” In Scripture, grace has to do with God’s unmerited favor toward sinners at Christ’s expense. Peace—also in Scripture—has to do with the presence of God blessing the world with his perfect rule.

By including grace and peace, Peter’s doing more than saying, “Hello!” In his “Hello!” he welcomes us into the story of God’s grace in Jesus to establish peace. In and through the contents of his letter, Peter is hopeful that God’s grace and peace would be multiplied to his readers. Everything we need to stand firm—Peter is confident that God will multiply it to those who read his letter and put these words into practice. The NASB translates it like this: “may grace and peace be yours to the fullest measure.”

Just think, brothers and sisters, there’s more grace to be had by reading this letter. There’s more peace to be had. I wonder what grace and peace might be multiplied to us as we begin to study this letter. Are you a sojourner barely hanging on, needing something to keep you standing firm in the grace of God? Are you a foreigner, exhausted by the constant pressure of our culture to recant your faith? Are you struggling to follow in Jesus’ footsteps, knowing what it’ll cost?

Then pray that God’s grace and peace be multiplied to you as we meditate on these words. God the Trinity is more than able to give you all you need. Just look at what he’s done already in verses 1-2! Ask that he would help us understand the true grace of God and then give us all we need to stand firm in it. Peter was confident that God would do it for these Christians; and we can take heart that he can do the same work in us. A lot has changed in the world since Peter wrote these words. But God hasn’t changed, and he stands ready to give us his grace and peace.

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[i] Karen H. Jobes, 1 Peter, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker 2005), 27-41.

[ii] Scott R. Swain, The Trinity: An Introduction (Wheaton: Crossway, 2020), 110-13.