You Are Not Home Yet: Introduction to 1st Peter

 

You Are Not Home Yet: What It Means to Live as a Pilgrim in This World

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Do you ever feel like you don't quite belong here? Like something about this world just doesn't fit? This past Sunday, I began a new study through the letters of First and Second Peter — and right from the very first verse, Peter gives us a framework for understanding that feeling that I believe will change the way you see your everyday life.

The Book in Your Hands Is Not Ordinary

Before we dive into what Peter says, I want to start where I always try to start: with the nature of the book itself.

What you and I hold in our hands when we open the Bible is not simply a book about God. It is the very words of God. Second Timothy 3:16–17 tells us that "all Scripture is God-breathed." God breathed these words into human authors — forty men across centuries — and what they wrote is His special revelation to us.

General revelation — creation — can tell us that God exists and that He is powerful and wonderful. But how would we ever know God personally if He had not written to us? That's why I encourage you to open your Bible not just on Sundays, but every single day. When you do, you are reading a letter from the God of the universe addressed directly to you.

Who Was Peter, and Why Should We Listen to Him?

Peter opens his letter with a simple but loaded greeting: "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ." That single phrase establishes both his identity and his authority to speak into our lives.

His original name was Simon. But when Jesus first met him — recorded in John 1:40–42 — He looked at Simon and said, "You shall be called Cephas" (which in both Aramaic and Greek means rock or stone). Jesus saw something in Simon that Simon couldn't yet see in himself.

Later, in Matthew 16:13–18, Jesus explained the significance of that name. When Peter declared, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God," Jesus responded: "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it."

Peter's authority as an apostle rests on three things the Bible establishes clearly: he was a disciple of Jesus from the very beginning (Matthew 4:18–20), he was an eyewitness to the resurrected Jesus (Luke 24:34), and he was personally commissioned by the risen Christ to preach the gospel (John 21:15–17). When Jesus asked him, "Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?" and then said "Feed My lambs" — that was a divine appointment. That's the voice behind this letter.

You Are a Pilgrim — And That's the Point

Here's where it gets personal. Peter addresses his letter "to the pilgrims of the dispersion" — and depending on your Bible translation, you might see the words sojourners, exiles, or even aliens. All of these words are pointing to the same reality: you and I are temporary residents of this earth.

Peter is writing to Christians who have been scattered across the Roman Empire — across Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. They are living in cities and nations that are not their permanent home. And Peter is saying: live like it.

There's a fascinating parallel in the book of Esther. In Esther 3:8, Haman brings a charge against the Jewish people to the king: "There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the people in all the provinces of your kingdom. Their laws are different from all other peoples, and they do not keep the king's laws." The only charge against them? They lived differently. They operated under a higher law.

That should be the charge against us, too.

As I've been reflecting on this all week, I keep coming back to the question: Does my life look different enough that someone would notice? At work, at the ball fields, in the grocery store — are we living as people who belong to another kingdom?

How We Became Part of the Chosen

Peter goes on to say in verse two that these pilgrims are "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."

If you are a born-again believer, three things have happened in your life. First, the Holy Spirit has sanctified you — He convicted you of sin and drew you toward salvation. You didn't just wake up one day and decide to be a better person. The Spirit of God was at work in you. Second, you responded in obedience — you believed the truth of the gospel, that you are a sinner in need of a Savior. And third, the blood of Jesus Christ has been sprinkled over you as the full payment for your sin. Hebrews 9 tells us that Jesus, once and for all, entered in and offered His blood as the permanent covering for our sin.

That is the foundation of who we are as believers. And it is the foundation of everything Peter is going to teach us over the coming weeks.

Living Like You Don't Belong Here

My hope for all of us as we begin this journey through First Peter is this: that we would recover a sense of holy homesickness. Not despair about this world, but a deep awareness that we are passing through — that we have been scattered into our neighborhoods, our workplaces, and our communities on purpose, as witnesses for the kingdom of God.

Acts 17 tells us that God has appointed a time and a place for each of us. You are not where you are by accident. You are there as a representative of another kingdom.

So let me ask you this week: How are you living as a pilgrim? Is there something about your life that looks different — that draws people to ask why?

I'd love for you to watch the full message from Sunday if you missed it, and I hope you'll join us as we continue through this incredible letter together.