To God's elect, strangers in the world, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance. Amen. (1 Peter 1:1-2)

Heavenly Father, we know by bitter experience that the world is no friend to us. It leads us down a worthless, deadly path away from you. It continually calls to us with its lustful pleasures, its earthly treasures, its many false gods. Through the Holy Spirit strengthen our love for Christ and his blessings, so that the world will not be able to gain control of our hearts and fill us with love for material and sinful things. Amen.

An organization in Montana offered a bounty of five thousand dollars for every wolf captured alive. Two hunters named Sam and Jed decided to head for the hills to make some money capturing wolves. Day and night they scoured the mountains and forests searching for their valuable prey. Exhausted after three days of hunting without any success, they both fell asleep. During the night, Sam suddenly woke up to find that he and Jed were surrounded by a pack of fifty wolves, with flaming red eyes and bared teeth, snarling at the two hunters and preparing to pounce. Sam nudged Jed and said, "Hey, wake up! We’re gonna be rich!"

Sometimes when we are surrounded by what appears to be many difficulties, we may in fact be surrounded by many opportunities. The Chinese symbol for the word "crisis" actually combines the words "danger" and "opportunity." When a crisis occurs, we can choose to be frightened and cowardly, or strong and courageous. It’s all a matter of perspective.

Having a purpose in life gives us that perspective. Until a person finds a purpose he drifts like a ship without a rudder or staggers through life without any destination. Those wolf hunters had a purpose and it gave them perspective. What is your purpose in life? While we, as Christians, may have varied reasons for working and living there is an overarching purpose for which we all need to live. Our purpose is to live our lives for Christ. He lived his life for us. Now we are called to live for him. And as we live for him we rejoice.

The ancient name for this third Sunday of Easter is "Jubilate" – "Rejoice!" Christ Jesus was chosen, slain, resurrected, glorified, and revealed to the world, and those who believe in him share in his victory and hope of glory. Peter urges Christians to let their hope empower them to new living – living with a purpose. Today, Peter reminds you that you are living for a great purpose. Christ’s sacrifice gives your life purpose in this world. Our sacrifice proves we are purposely different from the world.

You and I know that as Americans we are very conscious of our country’s origins and of its reverence for personal freedom. Our patriot fathers died for that freedom. The hunger for freedom today, though, as become a caricature of itself. People today long to be free not only from dictatorial tyranny but from any restraint whatsoever. "No one tells me what to do! I’m my own boss! I’ll decide what’s right for me!" Those are the familiar cries of many Americans today. Those cries have left us in this country with no absolute morals, no supreme ethics, and no decisive laws. Instead we are left with shifting opinions, public polls, and no one who takes responsibility for his or her actions anymore. This lust for independence is really a form of slavery to sin and Satan.

Peter says that God, our Father, judges us impartially. He shows no favoritism. We cannot fool him or bribe him. We cannot flatter him into ignoring the facts of our sin. We cannot follow a religion of lips but not of life.

So, without apology, God calls us to be different from everybody else in this world. But not only be different, God calls us to also live differently, with a different, greater purpose in life. We are to distance ourselves away from the hell-bent attitudes of the society around us. God, without apology, does not want his children to get too comfortable among people who tolerate and promote gossip, cursing, divorce, living together outside of marriage, drunkenness, and the entire realm of self-gratification. It is no shame to be different!

Peter gives us a stirring motivational appeal for holy and reverent living: "For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God."

Peter urges us as Christians living in the year 2005 to remember the staggering price that our Savior paid to claim us as his own. The "inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade" could not possibly be bought with gold or silver. Gold cannot cancel guilt. God was angry at our sin. He was furious. Sin outrages our holy God.

God instituted the entire Old Testament sacrificial system to teach his people, by sheer force of repetition and bloody spectacle, that sin brings guilt and guilt demands blood. Sin outrages God. Blood, not coins, bought release from God’s righteous anger. The blood of Christ is indeed precious, not only because it flows from the precious Savior’s heart, but because it bought people who were precious to him. Christ presented himself to the hideous cross without blemish or defect, so that his Father might then declare hideous sinners to be without blemish or defect. We are different. We belong to Christ. He paid the price with his blood. He saved our lives and our souls.

The price Jesus paid for our redemption was terrible indeed. When we think of extreme suffering he endured to purchase our freedom from sin’s penalty, our hearts should overflow with love for him. An orphaned boy was living with his grandmother when their house caught fire. The grandmother, trying to get upstairs to rescue the boy, perished in the flames. The boy’s cries for help were finally answered by a man who climbed an iron drainpipe and came back down with the boy hanging tightly to his neck. He gave the man to the crowd below who were waiting for the fire department and paramedics to arrive. Then the anonymous man left without anyone getting his name.

Several weeks later, a public hearing was held to determine who would receive custody of the child. A farmer, a teacher, and the town’s wealthiest citizen all gave reasons why they felt they should be chosen to give the boy a home. But as they talked, the boy’s eyes remained focused on the floor. Then a stranger walked to the front and slowly took his hand from his pockets, revealing severe burn scars on them. As the crowd gasped at the ugliness of his hands, the boy ran into the man’s arms, threw his arms around his neck, and cried with joy. This was the man who had saved his life. His hands had been burned when he climbed the hot pipe. The judge immediately gave custody of the boy to this man, the rescuer. Those scarred hands had settled the issue.

Many voices are calling for our attention. Among them is the One whose nail-pierced hands remind us that he has rescued us from sin and its deadly consequences. Our love and devotion belongs to him. He is our Redeemer. He is our Rescuer. Because of Christ’s seeking and saving lost sinners like ourselves, now we have a great purpose to our life. We are to live for Christ as his blood-bought children. Christ’s sacrifice moves us to sacrifice for him. Our sacrifice proves that we are purposely different from the world.

Peter reminds us that Christ was chosen to be our Redeemer and Rescuer since before the creation of the world. "He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake." I have trouble knowing day-to-day what my plans are. Yet, God had our salvation planned before the creation of the world. Christ was chosen, slain, raised, glorified, and now revealed. It staggers the imagination that God could have known and planned the lives of his people, billions of them, in the eons before Eden. God determined in advance, in eternity, that his Son would be born as a man so that he could die as man. Imagine! Our salvation was securely arranged from all eternity.

He did this to rescue us from the worthless, hopeless, empty way of life our world provides. Again, Peter reminds us, "you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers." The way of this world is worthless and futile. These words spoke to many different people in many different cultures. For the Greeks this meant worshiping gods that were just as corrupt, power-hungry, jealous, vindictive, and violent as humans – just much more powerful. It meant a stoicism that grimly endured life’s miseries out of a sense of duty. It meant an Epicureanism that lived for appetite and pleasure. Emptiness! For the Jew it meant following rituals and sacrifices and fasting that led to nothing. It meant following man-made laws for saving themselves that could only lead to boasting or despair. Worthless!

These words also speak to us today. A young woman teacher with obvious liberal tendencies explained to her class of small children that she was an atheist. She then asked her class if they were atheists, too. Not really knowing what atheism was, but wanting to be like their teacher, their hands exploded into the air. There was, however, one exception. A beautiful girl named Lucy had not gone along with the crowd. The teacher asked her why she decided to be different. "Because I’m not an atheist," Lucy said. The teacher asked, "Then what are you?" "I’m a Christian." The teacher was a little perturbed by that, her face was slightly red. She asked Lucy why she was a Christian. "Well, my mom is a Christian, and my dad is a Christian, so I am a Christian." This really angered the teacher. "That’s no reason," she said loudly. "What if your mom was a moron, and your dad was a moron. What would you be then?" Lucy paused and smiled and said, "Then, I’d be an atheist."

Like Lucy, we are not to go along with the crowd, joining in the worthless way of atheism (no god) or pluralism (many gods) or materialism (money is god). Christ has bought us from that worthless, hopeless way of life. He has given us new hope through his resurrection from the dead. Now we are to live differently from the world.

Peter says that we are to conduct ourselves as strangers for a time. We are to live as travelers, living out of our suitcases. When we go on a family camping trip for a week, we don’t take along the mattresses and box springs, our DVD collection, our entertainment center, our power tools or good china set. We are travelers. We are packing lightly. We are moving around. We are living in tents. We take just the essentials with us. Peter is telling us that we are not to settle down and get too comfortable in this world. It is a real temptation for Christians to set their hearts on what they can see – earthly values, material things, and approval of other people. It is a lifelong struggle to learn that everything visible is perishable and that only what we cannot see has lasting value. Christians need to remember that they live in tents; the mansions lie ahead. We are not home yet.

Living differently may mean lots of sacrifices. Peter and John were beaten and commanded never to preach in Christ’s name again, but they did. Paul was beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, and imprisoned, but he continued to preach Christ crucified. And today it is our turn. God is calling us to take up the challenge and find the joy of sacrificial living. Living a Christian life, doing mission work, supporting a Christian church and school takes sacrifices. Christian living is costly. It takes up a great deal of our time and money. It is frustrating. It is difficult. It is personal. It takes a lot of effort. But it is so worth it.

Christ is calling us to go against the grain of the world. We are to buck the system and go out on a limb. If Columbus had stayed home, the world might still be flat. Old Noah took a lot of ridicule for building his great ark, but after forty days and forty nights, he was looking pretty smart. If we are going to prove we are different, we can’t just follow the world like a bunch of sheep. We’ve got to listen to God’s Word. We have to live that Word.

This is the time to remember the wolf hunters in the beginning of the sermon and say: "I’m not going to die. I’m going to be rich!" This is a time for you to go to work. It is not a time of defeat but a time of opportunity. It is a time to give up our emptiness and receive God’s fullness. It is a time to sacrifice in return for Christ’s sacrifice. It is a time to be different, wonderfully different – for we have a different God, and through him a new and different origin, a different destination, and a different purpose to life. It is a time to live your life with a purpose. Amen.

"For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God." Amen. (1 Peter 1:23)