Elect Exiles & Resident Aliens

REFLECTION QUOTES

“This is the way with the Holy Scriptures: when you think you have learnt everything in them, you must needs start at the beginning.”

~Martin Luther (1483-1546), famed German reformer

“All sorts of people are fond of repeating the Christian statement that ‘God is love.’ But they seem not to notice that the words ‘God is love’ have no real meaning unless God contains at least two persons. Love is something that one person has for another person. If God was a single person, then before the world was made, He was not love.”

~C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), Oxford scholar

“Bring me a worm that can comprehend a man, and then I will show you a man that can comprehend the Triune God.”

~John Wesley (1703-1791), Anglican clergyman and founder of the Methodists

“From the Word of God I gather that damnation is all of man, from top to bottom, and salvation is all of grace, from first to last. He that perishes chooses to perish; but he that is saved is saved because God has chosen to save him.

“In the very beginning, when this great universe lay in the mind of God, like unborn forests in the acorn cup…. [W]hen there was nothing save God alone—even then, in that loneliness of Deity, and in that deep quiet and profundity, His bowels moved with love for His chosen. Their names were written on His heart, and then were they dear to His soul.”

“Fate is blind; providence has eyes.”

~Charles Spurgeon (1834-1892), famed London preacher

“It was the whole Trinity, which at the beginning of creation said, ‘Let us make man’. It was the whole Trinity again, which at the beginning of the Gospel seemed to say, ‘Let us save man’.”

~J. C. Ryle (1816-1900), Anglican bishop of Liverpool, England

SERMON PASSAGE

1 Peter 1:1-2 (NASB)

1 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen 2 according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.

1 Peter 5:12-14 (NASB)
12 Through Silvanus, our faithful brother (for so I regard him), I have written to you briefly, exhorting and testifying that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it! 13 She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you greetings, and so does my son, Mark. 14 Greet one another with a kiss of love.

Peace be to you all who are in Christ.