Identity
Jesus: Your brother.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” – 1 Peter 1:3
Having introduced the letter with a greeting & a blessing to God’s chosen people spread throughout modern day Turkey. Peter then calls them & us to universally ‘bless’ or to ‘praise’ our Father in heaven. But note how the apostle describes our heavenly Father.
He is; “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” (vs3a)
Pause for a moment to consider this statement. Your and my heavenly Father is also Jesus’ heavenly Father. Here we have the mystery & the wonder of the Triune God on display again for the second time in this letter (see also vs2).
“God eternally exists as three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and each person is fully God, and there is one God.” – Wayne Grudem
God your heavenly Father is also the God-man, Jesus’ Father! Jesus defers to the Father continually as is most beautifully seen in John’s gospel. I love Jesus’ words in John 5:19; “Truly, truly, I say to you, ‘the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”
Having walked with Jesus, observed Jesus, Peter is clear that Jesus the Messiah related to God as His Father. He heard Jesus speak of the Father, he witnessed Jesus’ prayer life continually taking time to be with the Father to wait on the Father & saw Jesus’ total obedience to the Father’s will, especially in the garden of Gethsemane.
Having just marvelled at the wonder of the salvation of those he is writing to (vs1-2), Peter calls these believers in Jesus to praise God the Father, the One who sent their Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ so that they might be born again.
It was the Father’s plan to save them. We know that Peter and the believers just after Jesus’ death & resurrection believed that everything of Jesus’ life was the plan of God the Father’s since they prayed;
for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. – Acts 4:27-28
The apostle knew that God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, was the One to be praised for the plan of salvation because He was the One whom Jesus was obeying & therefore our being saved was ultimately His plan, so He is worthy of our praise & thanks.
All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is by his great mercy that we have been born again – 1 Peter 1:3a – NLT
I will come back to the wonder of salvation & the mercy of God another day. But for today, I want to behold the wonder of the Trinity & it’s implications flowing out of 1 Peter 1:3.
Because God the Father is not just my heavenly Father, but also Jesus’ Father – that establishes a relationship between Jesus & ourselves that is simply wonderful to marvel at.
Jesus is not just our Messiah & Lord, worthy of all praise, honour & thanks. But Jesus is our ‘older brother’! Jesus is and was truly God & truly human, Jesus became like us so that He could save us from our sin through His atoning sacrifice & become our merciful & faithful High Priest representing us before God the Father.
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. 16 For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. 17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. – Hebrews 2:14-18
But note, Jesus didn’t just become human, He became our ‘brother’ – Jesus & I are related to one another because of our common relationship to God the Father. Our brother is our High Priest who mediates in the presence of the Almighty God, our Father in Heaven. He knows us, He has shared our humanity, our frailness, our suffering and so he is touched by our experiences of life & sympathises with us (Hebrews 4:14-15).
And now in this life, we are being transformed more and more into our older brother’s likeness. God the Father chose us, predestined us, foreknew us (1 Peter 1:2) so that we would be conformed to the image of God’s Son – Jesus. So that He, Jesus, would be the first of many brothers & sisters.
For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. – Romans 8:29
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! – 1 John 3:1 NIV
Jesus, is not just your Saviour, He is your brother! What a privilege to be welcomed into this family over which the Father providentially cares & loves. This is who you really are, this is your primary identity now. You are in God’s family, you belong & you are being moulded daily more and more into the likeness of your brother – Jesus. He is your empathetic High Priest who is also your brother! Amen.
Who are you? (James 1:1)
“Who are you?” I met a church planter in Calgary last year who was planting a church into an area in the city, and his practice was to go to a particular local Starbucks Coffee every day and work there striking up conversations with anyone who frequented the same Starbucks.
His favourite question as he engaged people was to ask them; “So, who are you?” He told me how most people would begin to answer by saying what they did for a living.
But he would cut them short saying; “I didn’t ask you what you DO, I asked you WHO YOU ARE?” At which point many would look quizzically and reply; “Hmmm I’m not sure how to answer that question.” He would then proceed to ask them if they wanted to explore that together with him.
So, WHO ARE YOU? What’s your primary identity?
Our world is filled with people trying to answer that question with all sorts of things ranging from culture, language, family, achievements, careers…
James, the writer of this little book we are reading and meditating on for the next month, answered that question in the following way in James 1:1;
“James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion:
Greetings.” – James 1:1 (ESV)
What a way to introduce oneself! A servant or a slave of Jesus, as some translations say, this was James’ primary identity. Is this how you think of yourself? Is this what defines you more than any other thing?
Paul like James uses this phrase “slave of Jesus” to introduce himself to the Roman believers (Romans 1:1). And in 2 Corinthians 5:14-15 we read of the reason in the heart of Paul as to why he, like James identifies himself in this way;
“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” ( 2 Corinthians 5:14-15)
The Christ Follower is one for whom Jesus died, SO THAT they would ‘no longer live for themselves but for Him’ who died for them. When we believe in Jesus, we don’t add Jesus to the mix of all we do. No, when we put our faith in Jesus, He revolutionises our whole lives and transforms our identity!
When we put our faith in Jesus, we get a new identity; we are new creations (2 Corinthians 5:16) whose purpose is now totally orientated around serving God, pleasing God (2 Corinthians 5:9). We are those who have been re-defined by our faith in Jesus; He is our new master, our Lord. We exist to serve His purposes on the planet with our one precious life He has given to us.
Spend a moment thinking about the question; “Who are you?” If you are a Christ Follower, I urge you to ask Jesus to help you see that being a “servant of Jesus” is your identity just like James and Paul and millions of others. And as that truth about your identity becomes clear it will lead you to another question which we can ask every day; “Lord Jesus, what do you want me to do for You today?”
As Jesus speaks to you, obey Him and watch as Jesus leads you into serving Him and others in remarkable ways, knowing that He is faithful and that He will reward those who live their lives in this way.
Two words that matter 