Week 2 Video

They blend in. But a sleeper agent who stays dormant too long can start to believe they belong. The disguise becomes their identity. The mission fades. Live under cover too long, and you don't just have to worry about getting caught. You can also forget who you are. Have you ever thought of yourself as a sleeper agent? First Peter is all about our identity. What is your identity? Which kingdom do you serve? The Christians Peter originally wrote to were sleeper agents, scattered, suspected. To most Romans they were nobodies. For the most part Christians weren't really wealthy. They lived ordinary lives, paying taxes, working jobs, raising children. But they did not serve the emperor. They served a different king. To others in Rome Christians were a suspicious group. The name Christian began as the kind of label Rome used to pin on political factions. Oh, you're Christian. That meant something in Rome. And it means something for us today too. Peter tells Christians to ground our identity in a person and his promises, and not borrow from the world, and not from the labels of our past. First Peter chapter 1 verse 18 says, "You were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors." Peter's phrase here is striking. The empty way of life handed down from your ancestors. In his world identity wasn't chosen. It was inherited. Your gods, your trade, your place in the order were all given to you. They weren't negotiable. And Peter pushes against this idea. We are redeemed from the world's empty way of life. For first century people the idea that you are not your family, you are not your culture, you are not your history. That was unthinkable, unimaginable even. Peter doesn't call the old way of life evil. He just calls it empty, unable to deliver what it promises. The identity that culture hands you could be respectable. It could be comfortable. And it could still be the wrong story. Why? Because it was built on the wrong foundation. Peter says our identity in Christ is better because God is the foundation. And our identity was bought by a staggering price, the resurrection of Jesus. We're set free from an empty life by the most valuable resource in the history of the cosmos, the shed blood of Christ. Becoming a Christian isn't bolting religion onto your old self. It's discovering the old self was a costume and then stepping into who you actually are. So strip away the cover the world assigns us. And then what's left? Who are we? Peter hands us a second file. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful life. 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. A chosen people. We aren't random. We are chosen. A royal priesthood. You belong to the king and have direct access. And the Old Testament priesthood between God and people. Now that's us. We represent God to the world. Now every believer is part of the priesthood. We all serve the king. A holy nation. We are holy because God is holy. Our citizenship is in heaven. Holiness means set apartness. As Christians, we are different on purpose. When our speech attitudes, entertainment, and actions look no different from everyone else's, holiness might be missing. God's special possession. We are God's treasure. He reached down and he lifted us up, ransomed us, bought us. The second file doesn't erase the empire's file. It overrules it. Chosen. Royal. Holy. Mind. Peter then calls fellow believers living stones with Jesus as our cornerstone. Christianity is not a solo sport. We are stones building into something bigger. A new family. A new family means a new name. Peter calls the church a brotherhood. A worldwide family of siblings that cuts across every border. The church is not a building. It's not an optional gathering for people who just happen to enjoy it. The church becomes a new family. - We all wear labels, we didn't choose. The brand we perform online, the worst thing we ever did. The danger isn't only that they hurt. It's that we organize our whole lives around them. We either defend our identity or run from our labels. Instead of just a new label, Peter offers Christians a new source. God calls us chosen. It is not connected to our performance and it can never be canceled by our failures. For me, when I wake up in the morning, my first thoughts are rarely. I am a beloved child of God. It's more likely a to-do list and the thing we said wrong yesterday. Learning to live from the declaration

instead of the feeling has been the slow work of years. It's important to remember that you don't feel your way into the truth. You act on the truth until your feelings catch up. A new identity and a new family sounds great. But most things, these people felt ordinary. They felt tired. Their identity and the person in the mirror didn't match. - Every one of us in our core human identity is the image of God. But all of us live out of alignment with that identity. If we were living in alignment, then there would be a kind of glory or honor that goes along with living who we are, being who God made us to be. But because we live according to lies and we're out of alignment with that true identity, there is a loss of glory. There's a loss of the honor that should be there for human beings, but often isn't. Because we end up, instead of representing God, we end up trying to represent ourselves or climb the ladder or gain glory for ourselves instead of deflecting the glory to God. - The world is fighting to rewrite identities. But only God gets to say who you really are. The world keeps a file on you. Your failures, your successes, your reviews, your worst moments. God keeps a different record.

Before you had done anything to earn it or to lose it, only God has the authority to define you. A new identity doesn't become true when you finally feel it. It was true and it is true. You grow into it by believing it. A sleeper agent's craft is holding on to a true identity while living in a hostile environment. But every sleeper agent has a mission. Peter affirms our identity in Christ and he tells us the mission. That you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. God didn't call us out of darkness to keep quiet. He called us out of darkness to pull others out. Our identity is not only rescued, we are sent. We all know what darkness feels like. We all know what the futile ways of the world are. And we all know how hard it is to work and to achieve an identity instead of freely receiving an identity. Peter tells us who we are in Jesus because God has called us to go to the ones who are still stuck behind enemy lines and our instructions are simple. Proclaim him. Proclaim Jesus.