1 Peter 1 | Elect and in Exile
Elect and in Exile | 1 Peter 1
There is something that happens when ancient history becomes suddenly, personally real. At Redemption Gilbert, we are stepping into a new series through the letter of 1 Peter, and from the very first verses, Peter is doing something pastorally urgent. He is writing to people who are suffering, confused, and trying to make sense of what it means to follow Jesus in a world that does not share their values. The questions they were asking are not that different from the ones we carry into a Sunday morning: Is there hope for me? Why does faithfulness cost so much? Where do I actually belong?
Peter's answer comes in two words that feel ancient but carry enormous weight: elect and exile.
You Have Been Chosen for Something
Peter opens his letter by rooting his readers in the full story of who God is and what he has done. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Chosen by the Father, set apart by the Spirit, cleansed by the blood of Jesus. For a first-century reader, this language would have landed immediately. It echoed the story of Exodus, of a people carried on eagle's wings, brought into covenant, set apart not for their own comfort but for God's purposes in the world.
To be elect, Peter is saying, is not primarily about being chosen for heaven. It is about being chosen for mission. Exodus 19 puts it plainly: a kingdom of priests, a holy nation, showing the world how beautiful God is.
The church does not have a mission. God's mission has a church. He is already at work in the world before we even notice it, in the grief of a stranger at a coffee shop, in a conversation that opens unexpectedly, in the quiet stirring of a heart that does not yet have words for what it is feeling. To be elect is to be someone God sends into those moments, not to perform or impress, but to participate in what he is already doing.
When the world looks at your life and at this community gathered on a Sunday morning, they are meant to see a preview of something coming. A glimpse of the kingdom. A life ordered by different values, under a different king. Not perfectly. But genuinely.
You Do Not Belong to This World as It Is
The second word Peter uses is exile. And for comfortable, settled Christians, it is the harder of the two to receive.
If election says you belong to God, exile says you do not belong to the world as it currently exists. The tension you feel trying to live faithfully, the friction between what culture celebrates and what Jesus calls you to, the sense that something is always slightly off: that is not a problem to be solved. It is part of the calling.
Peter is writing to people who know what it means to be on the margins. Small communities, socially scorned, navigating an empire whose story left no room for a crucified and risen king. Rome was not just a government. It was a totalizing narrative, embedded into every festival, every guild, every public space. You could not opt out without being noticed. And these Christians were quietly, stubbornly refusing to go along.
The word exile in scripture means foreigner, stranger, refugee. Peter is not calling his readers to retreat from the world. He points them back to Jeremiah 29, where God tells his exiled people to build houses, plant gardens, seek the peace of the city they have been sent to. Engage. Invest. Seek its good. But do not fall in love with it as if it is your final home.
The image that helps is an airport. You are in between. You have been transferred, through faith in Jesus, out of one kingdom and into another. But the new world is not fully here yet. So you are in this in between place, and the warning is simply this: do not fall in love with airport food. Do not anchor your deepest hopes and security to something you are passing through.
The Oldest Problem, and the Only Way Home
Exile is not just a metaphor. It is the oldest problem in the scriptures. In the garden, humanity was at home with God. When they turned away, they were sent out. And every person since has carried that homesickness, that deep sense underneath the distractions that the soul is not where it belongs.
The gospel is the invitation to come home. Through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, God has made a way back into his presence. And what the Bible promises is not escape from the world but a new creation, when all things are flooded with God's life and love, no more grief, no more death, and finally home.
That is the story Peter is writing from. And it is the story he is inviting these scattered, suffering churches, and us, to live inside of.
Personal Reflection
Most of us are more comfortable in this world than we realize. The question is not whether we feel tension, but whether we are paying attention to what that tension is telling us.
Sit with these:
Where have you settled into patterns or comforts that belong to the world rather than to the kingdom? What would it look like to hold those things more loosely?
Is there someone in your life right now where God might already be at work, waiting for you to show up and lean in rather than move on?
Spiritual Practice: This week, before you move through your normal routine, pause and ask: where is God already at work around me today? Then pay attention. The mission is often as close as the next conversation.
Go Deeper
We are just getting started in this letter and there is much more ahead. Watch the full sermon in the Redemption Gilbert Sermon Library or on YouTube. If you want to explore these questions alongside others, our community groups are a great next step.