32. The Plan of Service
The Plan of Service
Second, light upon the plan of service, “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who hath called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1 Peter 2:9). The first part of that ninth verse is explained by 1 Peter 2:10. Let us read the first half of verse nine and then the tenth verse: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people … which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.” You can see that the mercy of God in Christ is what changes our whole character, and through that mercy have we become what is spoken of in the former part of the ninth verse, a chosen generation, that we should show forth the praise or the excellencies of Him who hath called us out of darkness into His marvelous light.
Notice the word “that ye should show forth.” It is a very emphatic word. It is found, I think, nowhere else in the Greek in the New Testament. It means this, to proclaim to those who stand without what you have learned within. You remember that the Greeks had two words to describe the temple. There was one word which they used for the whole precincts of the temple, the tabernacle and the courts where the people gathered, but they had a special word which they used of the Holy of Holies, and that place was where only the priests could enter. The idea in Peter’s mind is this: God’s plan for the priests—and I use the word in the Scriptural sense, which is the only proper sense in which to use it, that every believer is a priest—is not that he should stay inside the Holy of Holies always, just simply enjoying what he hears and what he sees, but that he is to go outside to the people who are without and tell to them what he has learned and what he has seen in the sacred place.
Salvation, which is ours by the mercy of God through the atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ, is not a selfish prerogative, but it is a sacred privilege to be used in all its meaning and power in a true service which reaches the world in its darkness and its despair. Never let us forget that the world takes its idea of God from those who claim to be of the family of God. Therefore we have been saved by grace and filled with the Spirit of God to be the mirrors of God, to be the reflectors of the Lord Jesus Christ, of His life.
I think our salvation is faulty if we ever forget that. The world hears of Jesus (it never heard so much of Jesus as it is hearing today), but it sees you and me. What does it see? We have been redeemed in order that we might show forth, that we might go outside and tell to the people the excellencies, the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. What is it seeing in you and in me? Does it see that we are the chosen people of God and that God has not made a wrong choice of us? Does it see that we are a royal priesthood, that there is something royal in us, royal in our bearing, royal in our disposition, that there is a strain of royalty in our character? Does it see in us a holy nature, and that our holiness is practical? Does it see that we are the peculiar people of God? Not odd people, but people who have been bought by Him, for Him, separated unto Him, set apart for His service? This is what they ought to see. To accomplish this great thing is the purpose of the cross, and that is the light the cross throws upon the plan of service for each one of us, that God gives us nothing for ourselves, it is only for others; and it is only as we pass it on to others that we know the value of it for ourselves.