In verse 14, believers are given many different names in Scripture. Each one connotes some blessed truth or reveals a particular blessing belonging to God's own. In Titus chapter 2 verse 14, we find one of those words. Now the translation that I have before me tonight, the New American Standard Version, actually gives it a little softer translation. The King James Version gives it a different thrust.
Speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ, it says, who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself, here's the name, a peculiar people, or a people for His own possession, zealous for good works or good deeds. Then over to 2 Peter chapter 2 and verse 9, where we have the same situation.
He says, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, or a people for God's own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. It is this name in the King James, peculiar people, or a people of God's own possession that I want us to examine. Peculiar people, of course, has some connotation with it itself.
And I suppose that you might think there are some of God's people that come closer to that description than others. But in fact, the New American Standard Version does do justice to what that word actually means. The word here in 1 Peter 2, 9 is in noun form. It's a word that means to do or to make around. It is a word that implies purchase or acquisition. If you are going to buy an article in the store, you put your hand around it and take it. That's the thought here.
It is to make around or to do around something. Back in Titus chapter 2, verse 14, it's an adjective. It's a little different word, which basically means the same thing. There it means to be around. And it might be illustrated with a dot representing you and me with a circle drawn around it, showing that the dot has a circumference, that there is something around that. A perimeter has been established. And it implies that we have been encircled of God, each one of us, as believers.
And that encirclement implies some very interesting devotional thoughts. In the first place, it indicates that we are His purchased possession. This is said more clearly back in Ephesians chapter 1 and verse 14. And I invite you to turn there as we talk about this truth and this thought, that as God's peculiar people, we are a purchased possession.
Ephesians 1 verse 14. In speaking about the Holy Spirit, He says, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory. He speaks here of the redemption of God's own possession. That word redemption implying a purchase price. Here it's speaking about the consummation of our redemption.
We have been redeemed, but there is an aspect of our redemption that is yet to be fulfilled, and that is when Christ comes to receive us to Himself. It is the redemption of our body, as we have studied in Romans chapter 8. It is that time when He will come back into the atmosphere of the world. And what is termed the rapture will call out His own to be with Himself. He will take to Himself His bride. The apostle speaks of that here as the redemption of God's own possession.
This is the same Greek word here as in 1 Peter 2, 9. That which has been acquired, that which has had something put around it so that it is now in a peculiar and special sense the property of another. Of course the price of our redemption is clear even here in this context where He speaks about the precious blood of Christ, which is the redemption price for us in verse 7. He says in Him we have redemption through His blood.
We sing about that, we talk about that, we pray about that, and yet I confess perhaps along with you that too little do I really meditate on that truth to understand what the price was that I might be redeemed. The price paid by God Himself that we might become His purchased possession is the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, not the blood flowing in His veins, but the blood as it was shed, as it was sacrificed on our behalf. Peter reminds us that it is precious blood that was shed for us.
He says we were not redeemed by silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. In Revelation 5 we have in advance the words to a hymn that we are going to sing someday. So you might as well get these words down now. I don't know if we will be singing them in English or not, but it will help if you memorize them I suppose in English. He looks ahead here into time when we are gathered before the throne of God in heaven.
This is after the rapture has taken place. The twenty-four elders here in these chapters would seem to symbolically represent the Church of Jesus Christ. We are pictured here as falling down before the Lamb. He says in verse 9, And they sang a new song, saying, Worthy art thou to take the Book and to break its seals. That Book, by the way, is the title Deed to the earth, the right to reign over the earth.
There is a search throughout heaven as to who can take that Deed, who has the authority and the right to take it in His hand and claim for God the earth once again, the earth which has been usurped by Satan. And there is only one in all of heaven who is found worthy to take that Deed to the earth and to enforce the rule of God and to open those seals up. Those seals, by the way, in their opening, pour out the beginning of the judgments in the time of the tribulation.
Read about it in Revelation chapter 7 and 8 and so on. The Lamb takes that scroll in His hand and we say, Worthy art thou to take the Book and to break its seals, for thou wast slain or sacrificed, and didst purchase for God with thy blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation. There will be representatives from around the world present on that day. And that is why Gordon and Cindy are going to Peru.
And that is why others are serving Christ in various parts of the world, learning languages, translating the scriptures, establishing local churches, building up seminaries where nationals are trained and sent back into the homeland to evangelize and establish other churches. That is why the work goes on around the world, because out there God has a people.
We are out there to preach the gospel that those who have been purchased by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ from every tribe and tongue and people and nation may one day stand with Him as we shall stand with Him. The fact that we have been purchased suggests to us that we are servants or slaves, for it is slaves who are purchased, not slaves who are coerced into serving Jesus Christ, but slaves who voluntarily and willingly, as glad slaves do we give ourselves to our beloved Master.
We recognize that we have been bought with a price, and therefore we must glorify God in our bodies. Are you glorifying God in your body? Are you living like the purchased possession that you are as a believer in Jesus Christ? Not only are we a purchased possession, but according to 1 Peter 2, 7, we are a precious possession. That verse says in the translation I have before me, this precious value then is for you who believe.
Kenneth Wiest, who for a number of years was a Greek teacher at Moody Bible Institute, in one of his books has this helpful paragraph regarding this statement in 1 Peter 2, 7. The Greek has it, he says, unto you who believe is the preciousness. That is, the preciousness of Jesus is imparted to us. He becomes our preciousness in the eyes of the Father as He becomes our righteousness before the law. The Son dwells in the bosom of the Father, closest to the Father's affections.
Marvelous grace, says Wiest, that we sinners, saved by grace, are brought into that favored place, closest to the Father's affections. The Father loves us as much as He loves His only begotten Son. What a pillow on which to rest our weary hearts when going through a testing time. So just as He is precious to us, so are we precious to Him. We have been made precious to God because we are in Christ and therefore as He in the bosom of the Father.
That preciousness is the preciousness of a bride to her bridegroom. And for that matter in reverse, the preciousness of the bridegroom to the bride. That very wonderful love, that affection, that desire expresses this preciousness that we are to Christ as He is to us. And that is why the Apostle uses the metaphor the bride and bridegroom when describing our relationship to our Lord in Ephesians chapter 5.
And he uses words there like reverence, nourish, cherish, these words connoting that preciousness. So not only are we as a peculiar people a purchased possession, but we are also a precious possession. And now turn back with me again to Ephesians chapter 1 as we see a third truth or devotional thought regarding the fact that we are a peculiar people, a people of God's own possession. It is this, that we are a preserved possession.
Now this bridges into what we talked about this morning in the conclusion of Romans chapter 8. But let's talk about it some more. It's a wonderful truth. We are a preserved possession. In verse 13 of Ephesians 1 he says, in Him you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance. You and I have been sealed into Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit.
This word for seal is the same word that is used in the gospels for the sealing of the tomb of Jesus Christ. What that seal of the Roman government was to secure was His body, to be sure that no one would dare to take that body out of the grave. It was under the protection of the Roman government, and if anyone were to steal that body, the wrath of Rome would be upon him. It was a means of securing His body. Of course it didn't do a lot of good, did it?
Because God raised Him from the dead, and the Roman government couldn't do a whole lot about it. But the same idea of the seal to secure and to protect and to preserve is the thought that is found here. Having trusted Jesus Christ, we were then at that same time sealed or preserved in Jesus Christ. You may remember our brief series in Jude. Jude begins his book by telling us that we are preserved for Jesus Christ.
As the Apostle Paul comes to the end of his life and his ministry, he writes to his beloved son Timothy, and he reminds him that we, as he the Apostle, are preserved for His heavenly kingdom. In 1 Thessalonians 5, 23, he says that we are preserved holy, h-o-l-y, and holy, w-h-o-l-l-y, that is, in body, soul, and spirit, all of us in total are preserved, kept under that time when Jesus Christ will come. There is no doubt about our full salvation.
Once God has begun a work in you, He will not quit until that day that He has completed that work, Philippians 1.6, and that day will be the day when Jesus Christ will call us out to Himself. We are preserved unto that day. It really makes no difference whether we are post-trib, mid-trib, or pro-trib, or if we are pre-trib. The fact is that when Jesus Christ comes again, we are preserved unto that day when He shall come.
Now, of course, those who are mid-trib and post-trib are going to learn the truth that we are pre-trib on that day. No matter what they believe now, the truth is the same. We are preserved to that day and kept for Jesus Christ. Not only are we a purchased possession and a precious possession and a preserved possession, but finally we are a protected possession. 1 Corinthians 10 is the focus of my thought as I talk about our protection.
Here I am thinking about our protection in trial and temptation. He says in verse 12, Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. Take heed of what? Take heed of the warning of ancient Israel as he spoke in these previous verses. For they fell in the time of trial. But he says in verse 13, No temptation has overtaken you, but such as is common to men. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able.
But with the temptation will provide the way of escape also that you may be able to endure it. God does not tempt us with evil, but God does allow us to pass through tests. Frequently Satan will use those same occasions to bring us a temptation to evil. So either way you want to read this, it makes really no difference.
We are a protected possession because when the test comes upon us, God guarantees you and me that that test, or if we look at it from the standpoint of Satan using it as a temptation to evil, that test will not be more than we are able to bear. God protects us just as He protected Job by that hedge that He put about him. God said, well the test can go this far, and then later He said, well it can go this far, but that's the limit. You and I are protected by God.
He is with us in the time of trial. He does not leave us alone to see how we are going to do, but He passes with us into that fiery trial, there to be sure that however much we are stretched, it is not to the point that we have to break. Now we may, if we don't take the way of escape, and that does not necessarily mean that God is going to suddenly relieve us from the trial, it also may mean that He will strengthen us through the trial.
Remember in Isaiah He said, when you pass through the water and the fire, I will be with you. He doesn't always choose to take us out of the middle of it, but He is there to protect us to be sure that it does not go to the point that we have to break, we have to give in, we have to yield. This is wonderfully illustrated back in Genesis 14. You may want to look back there with me.
An interesting chapter included in the Word of God here only because of an experience of Abram and Lot, his nephew, a man who as a carnal believer, a worldly man, though saved, got into a lot of trouble. This is one of those times when he got into trouble because the people he was living with were attacked and all of them were taken away captive. Abram got his forces together and went after them so that he might deliver his nephew Lot.
He defeated those who had taken them captive and brought them back. It says in verse 17, then after his return from the defeat of Kedah Leomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him, that is Abram, at the valley of Sheva, that is the king's valley. So there is this meeting. The king of Sodom is coming out to meet Abram. His purpose in coming is to offer unto Abram the spoils of the battle.
He is naturally grateful for what Abram has done in delivering many of his subjects, his citizens, from those enemies. And so he comes out in order to give to Abram a gift, as it were, for that. Well, as he approaches, it says in verse 18, there is another figure who comes. Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. Now he was a priest of God most high.
It would seem in that day that there was in the area of Salem, Jerusalem, as we know it today, a colony of people who worshiped the true God. There in the midst of the pagan idolatry of Canaan, there were some who knew God. And their leader, Melchizedek, whose name means king of righteousness, came out to Abram before the king of Sodom got there with his offer. What did he do? Well, he brought out bread and wine. He brought out refreshment that Abram might be strengthened.
And it says that he blessed him and said, blessed be Abram of God most high, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God most high who has delivered your enemies into your hand. And he, now this is Abram, gave him, Melchizedek, a tenth of all. He tithed to him. This by the way is the only record we have of Abram giving a tithe. He gave him a tithe of all, probably all the spoils, perhaps all that he had, whichever it was an offering unto God given to this man, Melchizedek.
Now some believe that Melchizedek was in fact a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus Christ, and that may be. Personally, I rather take it that he was a literal historical figure, a man, but certainly a type of Jesus Christ, as the writer of Hebrews tells us. After this encounter with Melchizedek, it says in verse 21, the king of Sodom said to Abram, Give the people to me, and take the goods for yourself.
Abram said to the king of Sodom, I have sworn to the Lord God most high, possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take a thread, or a sandal thong, or anything that is yours, lest you should say I have made Abram rich. I will take nothing except what the young men have eaten, and the share of the men who went with me, anor eshkol and mammory, let them take their share. The king of Sodom came with a very subtle temptation for Abram.
If Abram had taken those spoils, then it would have been an occasion for this pagan king to say, I am the one who has enriched Abram. And Abram would have become, as it were, a vassal to this man, or he would have become indebted to him, in some way obligated to him, and Abram would have none of that. He saw the compromise to his testimony that that would bring, and so he refused the temptation and explained to the man why.
Now the point I am making is this in the illustration, that in the midst of that test, at that time of trial, just as the temptation was coming, this one Melchizedek came and strengthened Abram so that he was ready for that temptation, was alert to it, and did not fall.
And so it is, my friend, when the king of Sodom comes to you and subtly tempts you in some way to compromise yourself, that the Lord Jesus Christ, the true King of Salem, the King of Righteousness, is there with you to strengthen you, to protect you in that time, so that you do not have to yield in that time of test and temptation. His grace is made sufficient for you, even in your time of weakness. He is able to keep you from falling.
So we are His peculiar people, His own special possession, acquired, purchased, precious, preserved and protected. Are you living in the light of who you are? Are you experiencing the victory over temptation in your own life? Are you on your knees before your God daily thanking Him for the security, for the purchase price? Are you yielding up yourself to Him daily as His slave, His glad, His willing slave, saying, Lord, today what are my orders? Today who do I talk to? Today who do I bless?
Today how can I express Your love to someone? Today Lord, who would You touch through me? We are a purchased possession. We are not our own. That we may glorify Him in our body. And may that be our daily realization and our practice. I'd like for us to turn in our hymnals now and sing verses 1 and 4 of number 70. And it may be this evening that you are burdened about something in your walk with God. You would like someone to pray with you.
There is some spiritual commitment you want to make public. Perhaps tonight you want to become one of the Lord's own. You may. If you will call upon the name of the Lord, you shall be saved. And you too will become a peculiar person, a special possession belonging to the Lord.