Matt Chandler - A Gospel Call

Hey, how y’all doing? Everybody’s all right? Is it your last Sunday? No? Okay, I’m talking to Kyle Shafer. He and his beautiful bride, Chrissy, are going to lead the worship at a church in Pittsburgh. He and his wife have served this church beautifully for a long time, so before they go, I’m going to honor him. I thought this was your last Sunday, so I was going to make a big deal. Oh, you’ll be playing… well, you can expect it then; it won’t be a surprise now. But I love you, brother, and we’ll honor you on that Sunday.

Hey, if you have your Bibles, grab them. First Peter, we’re going to walk through this line by line. I know we just read it, but I want you to see some things. Man, probably about eight or nine years ago, we loaded up our whole family on an Emirates flight to Dubai. We were heading down to Africa to do some work in Kenya. Normally, we would go through Amsterdam, but I have a friend who planted Redeemer Dubai, an amazing fellowship of saints there. So I thought, let’s fly through Dubai, hang out, and see what God’s doing through Dave, Gloria, and that crew.

We flew into Dubai; I mean, I don’t know if anybody else has been on that flight, but it’s about a 42-hour flight. We watched every movie that’s ever been made and still had a few hours left before we landed. We land on the ground during the summer, so you know it’s basically the temperature of the sun. We get out, and there’s our friend Dave waiting for us. He approaches me with little Audrey, Reed, and baby Nora and says a couple of things before we exit the airport. There are things culturally here that don’t play like they do in the States; if you do them here, there could be repercussions. Now I’m nervous: okay, what’s that?

He says, «You cannot show public affection here. You cannot hold your wife’s hand, you cannot kiss her face. There are legal ramifications for that; it is looked down upon.» I told Lauren, «See, she’s so touchy all the time; I’m always like, 'Get off me, woman! '» So I was grateful for some legal protection. When she watches this later, I’m going to be in trouble.

Then it was during Ramadan, and I don’t know if you know about Ramadan. It’s one of the holiest seasons, if not the holiest, for Muslims, who fast from sunup to sundown. When that sun goes down, it’s party time, but from sunup to sundown, they do not drink or eat; they fast and turn their faces towards Allah. So during Ramadan, you’re not allowed to eat or drink, so if you walk around with a bag of Doritos and a soda, you’ve got to honor their culture.

So I’m kind of nervous; we walk out and the kids are like, «I want a snack!» I tell them, «You want to get us killed? You don’t get a snack; you get a snack when the sun goes down!» You’re navigating this weird space, and when everybody finally went to sleep that night — and by everybody, I mean our kids — Lauren and I stayed up with Dave and Gloria, and we began to talk about life in the UAE. We began to talk about what it looks like in this environment to live out the gospel in such a way that men and women see it and are drawn to it.

What always stuck out to me and has really haunted me since that night we sat in their little apartment is that everything they do there is everything we are called to do here, and it’s everything that’s in this passage today. There is a way that you and I are meant to live the Christian life as those — if you missed last week we introduced the book of First Peter — as elect exiles, as those who know this isn’t our home. Not only is this not our home, but we’re living in a moment in history where our existence, increasingly for a growing group of people, looks like an obstacle to progress. Our sexual ethic is viewed as an obstacle; our external moral beliefs are seen as hurdles to progress. By nature of our existence, we become a problem to be solved.

The same exact thing is happening around 54 AD; they aren’t being arrested or thrown in prison or killed yet, but they are increasingly marginalized, and the culture is getting increasingly hostile towards them. We talked about this last week; I feel that a little bit. I feel odder today than I was a decade ago. My beliefs are more misrepresented than they were ten years ago; I feel like an understanding of who and what we believe is twisted and rolled out as something unrecognizable to me, who loves Jesus and knows His word.

So how are we to live in this moment as elect exiles? That’s what this passage is about. We find ourselves in a world that…