Tonight, we begin a new series of sermons, a study on 1 Peter, the text being 1 Peter 1, verses 1 and 2. We read together the first 12 verses of 1 Peter, chapter 1. And as you're turning there, I ask you also to turn, first of all, to Romans, chapter 1. Decided to read a portion of that chapter, the unsettling portion of Romans chapter 1, verses 18 through the end of chapter 1 of Romans. And then we will turn over to 1 Peter chapter 1 to read the first 12 verses there. Romans chapter 1, beginning at verse 18, as we give our attention to the reading of the Word of God. The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men. who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God, nor gave thanks to Him. But their thinking became futile, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshipped and served created things rather than the Creator who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way, the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lusts for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He gave them over to a depraved mind. to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and boastful. They invent ways of doing evil. They disobey their parents. They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, They not only continue to do these very things, but also approve of those who practice them. And turning over to 1 Peter 1, the first 12 verses. Again, the text being verses 1 and 2. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God's elect, strangers in the world, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 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. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade, kept in heaven for you who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith of greater worth than gold which perishes, even though refined by fire, may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen Him, you love Him. And even though you do not see Him now, you believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy. For you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you when they spoke of the things that have now been told to you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things. May God add His blessing to the reading and the preaching of His Word tonight. Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, if someone walked up to you and called you something like an alien, or a pilgrim, or a stranger, or called you a foreigner, what would you think about that? Most likely it wouldn't make you overly happy. Because as we understand these terms, they are not very endearing. They're certainly not compliments. Because in the context that we're talking about, an alien, or a pilgrim, or a stranger means one who does not belong. It brings with it the idea of a lack of stability. It's talking about one who is without a place. An alien or pilgrim is one who is not at home, but instead he is one who moves from place to place and only stays in one location for a temporary period of time. There's nothing permanent about a pilgrim. He is a wanderer. He does not belong. But this certainly doesn't describe most of us, does it? Now, our family, for example, during our seminary years, we were kind of like pilgrims in a sense for a period of time, moving from town to town, from church to church, going to this church for this summer intern program, and then going to this church the next summer for another summer intern program, starting at one school, finishing at another school, traveling around quite a bit, moving around over a period of a few years. But we're home, you see. This is our home. We are stable here. You see, beloved, we are not pilgrims, are we? We don't wander from place to place. In fact, many of you here have always lived in this area and all or many of your brothers and sisters live around here too. No, we're not strangers. We're not pilgrims. We're not aliens. Our feet are planted firm. We own our homes or our businesses or maybe many acres of ground. We're at home here. Even as a country, today we celebrate Independence Day. We celebrate the freedom of our homeland. Yet Peter, an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, tells you and me that if we are children of the Heavenly Father through the blood of Jesus Christ, if we are adopted into God's family and therefore are brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus Christ, If we are Christians, then we are strangers. We are pilgrims. We are aliens. Peter was preaching to a part of the church in his day that was scattered in the world as represented, as the text says, by Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. Those were made up part of the Roman Empire, today known as Turkey. And the members of the church to whom Peter preached suffered at the hands of Roman persecution. The church of that day lived in the midst of a wicked pagan world. But you see, Peter's message isn't just for the church of that day. That church represented the church in every age. Even the church today. Even you and me. And we still live among pagans today. But the question is, how are we as Christians supposed to live in a pagan world? That's the question Peter addresses in his first epistle. We can say that the theme of 1 Peter is living as Christian pilgrims among pagans. And that's what we hope to learn as we study this book together. Tonight, as we consider chapter 1, verses 1 and 2, I preach to you this Word of God, addressing God's people as privileged pilgrims. As we consider together the position of privilege, the power of privilege, and then the pronouncement of privilege. Let me remind you that we are looking at the address of Peter's letter, which of course tells us who is doing the addressing and who is being addressed. Peter says, to God's elect strangers in the world. To God's elect, I should say, comma. Strangers in the world scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia who have been chosen. Now if we look at this sentence in its proper grammatical form, we find that Peter refers to the church as strangers who have been chosen. And the Greek says literally, elect sojourners. Boys and girls, another word for sojourners, is alien. Not the kind of science fiction type alien, the little green man that comes from outer space, but alien in the sense of pilgrim or stranger or foreigner. Elect sojourners, elect pilgrims. But if you think about it, it's really no surprise that for God's people to be called sojourners, strangers, pilgrims, aliens or even foreigners. Abraham, you recall, was an alien, a foreigner. He said, when Sarah died, he said to the sons of Heth, I am a stranger and a sojourner among you. Give me a burial site among you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight. The Israelites, as they worked as slaves for Pharaoh in Egypt, were pilgrims or strangers in Egypt. And later, they were pilgrims, they were wanderers in the desert. And even after God gave them the promised land, When they turned their back on Him, He allowed them to be taken captive. So again, they were pilgrims. They were strangers in a foreign land. The fact of the matter is that Christians are not at home on this earth. Or at least we shouldn't be. Psalm 39, verse 12 says, Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear to my cry. Do not be silent at my tears, For I am a stranger with thee, a sojourner like all my fathers. And Paul tells us in Philippians 3 verse 20 that our citizenship is in heaven. We may claim citizenship here in the United States of America or in Canada or in the Netherlands. Our earthly citizenship. But our true citizenship, our spiritual citizenship is not here. But it's in heaven. This world, you see, is the kingdom of darkness with Satan, the devil, prowling around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Christians are different than the world around them. Or again, they should be. As a child of God, you talk differently. You think differently. You work differently. You recreate differently. You experience this life differently. You look at pain and suffering and death differently. You raise your children differently. You date differently. Your motives and goals for this life are different. Very simply, you live differently than the world around you. Or again, at least you should do all of these things differently. But it's so hard to be different, isn't it? We don't like to be different, do we? We like to fit in. We like to blend in. Boys and girls, we don't like to be different than our classmates or our friends, do we? Because they might notice that. They might point at us. We stick out like a sore thumb. They might make fun of us. Young people, we like to fit in with the popular crowd of the day, don't we? Because society tells us that's what makes the person. And even as adults, we like to just melt in with our surroundings, to live in our nice little subdivisions comfortably tucked in our house looking like all the neighbors. And we don't want to do anything that would make our lives uneasy because we have enough to worry about with paying our bills and providing for our families without bringing extra attention upon ourselves by being different. People notice that, you see. They notice differentness. When we lived in Kalamazoo, about an hour south of there, you would get into northern Indiana and right into very heavy Amish territory. We would go down there once in a while, whether it was summer or winter, and sure enough, the horse and buggies along the road, unbelievable. The difference in clothing. The difference in physical look. And sure, people would point. They'd want to pull out their cameras and take pictures, and they would whisper, these people are different, you see. three people notice but if you are a christian you are different it's not an option it's not a choice but it's a fact you are an alien a pilgrim a foreigner a stranger in this world and life in this world is uneasy it is uncomfortable for a child of god or at least it should be is it for you and why should this be because the world is pagan it's wicked it is anti-christian Paul says this world is the kingdom of darkness and I trust you understand we're not talking about this globe that we live on in essence we're talking about the world of wicked mankind the world of Romans chapter 1 that we read about We had the privilege this morning of worshiping at the Christ United Reformed Church in Santee. And Mike Brown preached about the very portion that we read. And made an excellent point about the fact that, you see, in sin, everything is reversed according to the creation order. God did not create the world as we read about it in the verses we read from Romans 1. It's been reversed, you see. Wicked mankind knows God and hates God and therefore suppresses the truth of God in unrighteousness and worships the creature instead of the Creator. Worships the creature that man needs to take care of instead of worshiping the Creator who takes care of man. And what was the result of that? God gave them over. You want it? You got it. You can have it. God gave mankind over to the sinful lusts of the flesh. Again, as a nation, we celebrate our freedom, our independence, don't we? As citizens of the United States of America. The congregation, let's be truthful. As believers, we are aliens even in the midst of our own country. A country that represents what we read in Romans chapter 1. Temptation is all around you and me to conform to the ways of the world. To conform the way that we think and work and talk and the other things that we mention. The world looks down on our differentness and pressures you and me to make that differentness go away. Come join us. Come be like us. Come suppress the truth of God with us, the world says. And of course, Satan can make it look so attractive, can't he? In Psalm 73, the psalmist couldn't understand why the wicked were healthy, wealthy, and wise while the righteous seemed to have everything go against them. The righteous seemed to experience Murphy's Law over and over again. If something can go wrong, it will. Until God revealed to the psalmist that the wicked were really on a slippery slope and all the good things that they seemed to enjoy would one day testify against them as they would not see, did not see, that these gifts were from the hand of the great and perfect giver. Congregation, there are two extremes with regard to this differentness that have tempted Christians in every age, Christian pilgrims. One is isolationism, we might say. And the other is accommodation. Isolation means running away from the tension of living as pilgrims among pagans. locking yourself behind your door, keeping the world locked tight outside. For example, monks living in monasteries or hermits living in caves. Maybe more of a modern day example, think back to the Branch Davidian under the spell of David Koresh in Waco, Texas. Of course, they were not locking themselves in to preserve the truth of Scripture. But yet, that kind of an idea. But you see, being different from the world does not mean separating completely from the world because this is still our Father's world, isn't it? It is still His. He's given to us this world as His people to use, to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. Accommodation, on the other hand, means surrendering to the struggle, giving in to the struggle to live as pilgrims, removing those differences and in the end to look more like the world. Compromise. We see a lot of this today, especially in the corporate church scene. Modern evangelicalism that strives to tater the church to fit the taste of mankind instead of calling mankind to adapt to the tastes and the desires of God. 1 Corinthians 1 calls the gospel foolishness and says, It's a stumbling block. The cross of Jesus Christ and the truth of the Gospel is an offense to the world. Isolationism withdraws from the world. Accommodation waters down the faith. And accommodation tries to remove the offense of the cross completely to wipe it out, while isolationism just seeks to lock that offense behind a door and keep it for ourselves. Don't be offensive then. But Peter is talking against both of these extremes. Throughout this epistle, as we've said already, he is teaching you and me how to live as pilgrims among pagans. How we are to walk this life. And as we read in verses 3-12, he tells us exactly why we ought to. Because of the beautiful privilege we have as God's people. But this is our position, to be pilgrims. She might say, wait a minute, where does that privilege really come in? We call this a privileged position. It doesn't seem like much of a privilege. Where is the privilege? Well, notice again, Peter calls them pilgrims or strangers who have been chosen. You see, they are elect strangers or pilgrims. Peter brings in and even enforces the doctrine of election here. He emphasizes that. They have been chosen by God through His electing love. You and I as believers are elect. We have been chosen by God. Now again, you might say, well hold on, this is a contradiction in terms to be an elect pilgrim. Especially the way we have defined pilgrim so far, or stranger. A pilgrim, we said, is one who is temporary. One who doesn't belong. He is without stability. He's a wanderer. He doesn't have a place to call home. He has no home. But to be elect, to be chosen, means to belong. You see? It's a privilege. It involves a status to belong. To be elect means to be owned by God. It means to have a home. It means to have a place of our own. But do you then see the beauty of this congregation? The believer's election and what that leads to, as we read in those 12 verses, the believer's election causes the antithesis with the world. That world that has been turned upside down by sin, the elect God turns right side up. Their election brings about their being different from the world as they are set apart from the world. The fact that God has elected them is the reason for their pilgrimage among pagans. God's calling and election through Jesus Christ are the reason that you and I have radically changed lives which result in a new relationship with God and an estranged relationship with the society around us. Election is the reason that we are strangers or pilgrims among pagans. Our sinful natures, the sin that remains in us against our renewed will, that sin is at home or at least wants to be at home in this world. But because God has chosen you and me, we are not at home. We are alienated in society. We live in constant tension and with a constant sense of uneasiness and constant discomfort in this world. Again, do you sense that tension? Do you feel the uneasiness? You should. Now please don't misunderstand. I'm not saying that we never enjoy a certain amount of comfort. We do. We enjoy comfort in our jobs. We enjoy comfortableness in our standards of living and in our homes and in our church family. Those are gifts of God's grace. But what I'm talking about here is when we come face to face with the world, Face to face with those who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, there can be nothing but tension, nothing but uneasiness, nothing but discomfort for the child of God because Christians are an offense to the world that hates God and therefore doesn't like you and me very much. Our citizenship is in heaven, as Paul says, and that's why we don't isolate or accommodate ourselves. We live among pagans so that our election is made visible and so that our differentness can be clearly seen and so that in the strength of the Holy Spirit we can take a stand and defend our homeland, our true homeland, from attack. And even by the will, maybe according to the will of God, be used by God to bring others, introduce others into that true homeland. Peter gives a beautiful description to the church in chapter 2, verse 9, when he says, But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. That description of the church completely contradicts or is different than the description of the world that we read in Romans 1, isn't it? What a powerful and beautiful description of you and me as a colony of heaven here on this earth. But this is only possible, brothers and sisters, because of the power of privilege. I'm not saying that we have power, but we have a privilege. We enjoy this privilege because of power. Notice the power for being a privileged pilgrim comes from the triune God. Peter now includes the doctrine of the Trinity. He is addressing the strangers or aliens 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. Peter includes the triune God, the Father, the Spirit, Jesus Christ, the Son, all three persons of the ever-blessed Trinity. The triune God is the power behind election. Apart from Him, there is no, there can be no election. And these three statements describe our privileged position of being elect. And first of all, we are elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. This all has to do with God's plan for eternity. Our Christian pilgrimage has its roots in the Father's pre-creation plan. That's right. You and I were chosen before God created the world. But we need to be careful with this because some have a wrong idea of what God's foreknowledge means. Some teach that when God laid down His plan, that He looked down through history and saw who would believe in Him and who would not. And therefore, He chose you and me based on our first choosing to believe in Him. But that's wrong. That gives you and me credit that we absolutely don't deserve, cannot deserve, and will never deserve. Indeed, God knows beforehand who will believe, but it is He who chooses beforehand who move us to believe. And as His Word clearly teaches us, God chose or elected you and me to believe in Him. As we read in Ephesians 1, verses 4 through 6, For He chose us, God chose us in Him, in Christ, before the creation of the world, to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of His glorious grace which He has freely given us in the one He loves. Congregation, our privileged position of being elect, comes not because of our choice, not at all. But we are elect because of the power of God choosing us before the foundation of the world. He chose us in eternity and He makes it a reality in history. When God looks down through history and sees you and me responding to the Gospel, He knows us to be His own because He chose us to be His own. And may that be a comfort for you and me. And notice too that Peter refers to Him as God the Father. And you know what that means? It means that we were children long before we became pilgrims. God chose us to be His children. But the power of being privileged pilgrims also involves the Holy Spirit. We are elect pilgrims through the sanctifying work of the Spirit. This is how we make progress in our pilgrim walk through this life. It's called sanctification. Is this something that we do? No way. Sanctification is the work of the Holy Spirit in us. What is sanctification? One definition says this. Sanctification is that gracious and continuous operation of the Holy Spirit by which He delivers the sinner from the pollution of sin, renews His whole nature in the image of God, and enables Him to perform good works. We might say sanctification is the Spirit of God working in you and me to put to work the new heart He has given to us with a new way of thinking, a new way of feeling, and a new way of willing, new desires, a new standard to follow. Sanctification is that process that the Holy Spirit uses to make our election real to us, first of all, but also to make it visible to the world. But it's a process. It's a lifelong process of setting you and me apart for the service of God. It's a lifelong process of making us holy. Peter reminds us that God says in the Old Testament, You shall be holy, for I, the Lord your God, am holy. The sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit separates the elect pilgrim from sin and makes that pilgrim serviceable to God. so that the pilgrim can be employed in God's service. But there's also a reason for the power of being privileged pilgrims. God the Father elects and God the Holy Spirit sanctifies unto a purpose. For a purpose. The text says, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by His blood. We are redeemed through the shed blood of Christ. And the sprinkling idea comes from Exodus 29 and Leviticus 8 where we find the Old Testament practice of special consecration by the sprinkling of blood. Aaron and his sons, you may recall, along with their priestly garments, were consecrated or set apart by the sprinkling of blood for a special task that God had for them. And today, you and I are elect, privileged pilgrims who have been consecrated, set apart. We've been justified by the grace of God and set apart by the Holy Spirit, not by the blood of bulls and goats, but by the precious blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. And we are set apart for a special task. Not of living in isolation or accommodation, but for living in obedience to Jesus Christ. We're among pagans. With the Bible, the Word of God is our manual for living. Our manual for life. And that pilgrimage isn't always easy, is it? Sometimes we stumble and fall, but praise be to our Lord Jesus Christ that our election comes in the power of the unfailing foreknowledge of God our Father whose will, whose plan will be perfectly fulfilled. It comes by the sanctifying work of not us but the Holy Spirit who will complete that which He has started. And it comes with the assurance of the shed blood of Jesus Christ that that blood is effective. That it accomplishes that which Christ came to accomplish. And sometimes as we travel on this pilgrimage, our resources may seem slim, so then we're tempted to cut back on our giving for God's kingdom. Or we're tempted to eliminate Christian school tuition in order to enjoy some of those luxuries that the world tries to convince us our needs. Or we try to grab back that time of ours that God says belongs to Him. And instead of giving it to Him, using it for our own selfish purpose. Or as young people, to compromise the Christian values we have been taught in order to enjoy the temporary pleasures of the world around us. Plain and simple to conform to the world. To the world that suppresses the truth of God in unrighteousness. But Paul says in Romans 12, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Beloved, we are not to give up because hope remains. We don't go through this life on our own or in our own strength. We are held up by the content of Peter's pronouncement, his pronouncement of privilege. The content is so beautiful. He says, grace and peace be yours in abundance. Or as another translation says, grace to you and peace be multiplied. This is God's greeting, God's salutation at the very beginning of this letter. Just as we enjoy the beginning of every worship service. These pilgrims are privileged because they already have the grace and peace of God. If they didn't, they wouldn't be pilgrims as we're talking about. But Peter's wish for them is that it continue, that it increase, that they receive it in fullest measure. This is a pronouncement of blessing. And the real beauty here, beloved, is who this pronouncement is from. This pronouncement of blessing is not just from Peter. You see, he is described in verse 1 as an apostle of Jesus Christ. He was an eyewitness to the person and work of the Savior. And therefore, Peter comes with the full authority of, in the name of the One who sent Him, the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the mouthpiece of the Lord. And Jesus Christ says to you and me as privileged pilgrims, grace and peace be yours in abundance. To hear these words from the mouth of God, beloved, gives you and me strength for the journey. Because only He is the One who gives that grace and peace. What is grace? As we considered last week, grace is that free, unmerited, undeserved favor of God with all of its proper effects. God giving to us that which we don't deserve, including pardoning for sin, healing from our sin-sick lives, assisting us and saving us. We need the grace and mercy of God to move us on in this pilgrimage, to pick us up when we stumble, to forgive us when we sin. We need God's grace to extend to others. we also need god's grace in order to have peace because you cannot have the peace of god without first having enjoyed the grace of god peace as we said last week is the result of god's mercy and grace well why do we need peace first we need peace beloved we need peace of mind when the world says you're nuts you're crazy for giving up the so-called good things and pleasures of this life in obedience to a God you cannot see. We need peace as we bump our noses against those who make it their life's goal. Because they suppress that truth, they make it their life's goal to persecute and torment those who openly love the God of their salvation. We need peace in the church to guard and protect against heresies and attacks on orthodoxy. But most of all, brothers and sisters, we need peace with God because of sin. We were aliens from God. Alienated strangers. Wanderers away from Him. But Jesus Christ has reconciled us with God. He's brought us back into favor. We are no longer aliens away from heaven. But sons and daughters of the Most High God, Jesus Christ has brought us peace with God through His blood. And we are being addressed today as elect strangers or pilgrims. We may or may not have an earthly home or earthly riches or an earthly status to speak of. But as believers, we have heavenly privileges, a heavenly home, heavenly status, heavenly riches. We have been chosen by God the Father before the foundation of the world. We have been and continue to be sanctified by the Holy Spirit who will complete that work in us until we are perfected in glory one day. And we have been consecrated by the blood of Jesus Christ to serve and obey the true and living God. Do you consider this pilgrimage a privilege? And do you look forward to the journey with great joy? You see, if you're not a pilgrim in the Lord, there's only one way to be one And that is to submit to the Lord Jesus Christ, to confess your sins before Him. Repent of them, because forgiveness is only through His blood. And the wonderful guarantee is that He says, whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. Beloved, in the strength of the Holy Spirit, don't give in to the pressures of this world and try to withdraw from the world. And don't give in to the pressure to remove our Christian distinctiveness. And don't try to remove the saving offense of the Gospel. The saving offense. You remove the offense, you remove the salvation. Instead, beloved, serve the Lord with gladness. And count it all joy to be an alien, a stranger, a foreigner, a pilgrim. and stand up, stand up for Jesus and be counted among God's privileged pilgrims. Amen. Shall we pray? Dear Heavenly Father, thank You, O Lord, once again for Your Word in this evening hour. We know, O Lord, that the world around us and all that we see and all that we sense seems to contradict that to which you have called us as your people. We pray, Father, that you would give to us the strength and the courage and the encouragement to walk as pilgrims in this land before your face and before the face of the world, standing firm on the promises of our God for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Lord. That you would keep us on that narrow path We thank you for the gifts and the comforts of your hand that we do enjoy in this life. We thank you that indeed this world is yours. We pray that you would keep us safe from the temptations of the wicked world of mankind. That we might never desire to suppress the truth of God in unrighteousness just to fit in with the crowd. That we might walk humbly yet boldly before the face of the world. That we might be seen as those indeed who are pilgrims of the heavenly homeland. Father, give to us strength. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray these things. Amen.