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[Silence] [MUSIC] [Music] Amen. That's all for Amen.

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As we come to our period of prayer and meditation, I'd like for you to join hands with the person that's seated next to you, rebound head and close our eyes. Gracious God, open us up, we pray, that our hearts may be open to receive your word, and that your word may be truly declared this day, and that having received your word, that

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each of us will be a channel of your grace and love. Amen. I want to read again the first few words of the first epistle of Peter. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to the strangers scattered throughout Contract, Galatia,

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Cappadocia, Asia, Bosnia, we elect according to the full knowledge of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit and to obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. grace unto you, and peace be multiplied." Our main focus in this message is upon those first words, "Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

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to the strangers scattered throughout Carthage, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bosnia." And the subject of the message, "Apostles to the Exiles." Apostles to the Exiles. The word "apostle" means "saint."

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An exile is one who is away from home. An exile is a stranger, a pilgrim. In a sense, every one of us is an exile. We are all exiles.

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This world is not our home. We are exiled from Eden. This letter, which is written by Peter, written by one who is an apostle of the Lord,

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Peter still remembers the day when he heard the voice of Jesus calling him from the wild, restless sea. He had the reputation of being the big fisherman who labored on the Sea of Galilee. But the Lord called him to be a fisher of men.

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He spent three years in the school of the Master. On graduation day, he receives his commission. Jesus says, "As the Father has sent me, so send I you." The charge that the Apostle receives is asked by the Master, "Do you love me?"

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And he answers yes, and he is commanded to feed the sheep. Again, he has asked, "Do you love me?" and he says yes, and he is commanded to feed the lambs. Of course, when you look in upon Peter, it seems that he has a special mission for the house of Israel. He is spending a great deal of his time as a leader of the Jewish people.

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He's a leader of the Judaizing wing of the Christian church. In a special way, he fulfills the commission, that part of the commission, that has to do with going to the lost feet of the house of Israel. But now we see him after he has broadened his ministry to include the Gentiles,

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for the same one who was sent to the lost house of Israel is also sent to those who are outside the circle of the Jewish people. Jewish people he sent to the Gentiles. And after many years of labor in the service of his Lord, he writes this letter which is addressed to exiles of the dispirited, to strangers who are scattered in Pontus, in

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Galatia and Cappadocia and Bosnia and Asia Minor. These five provinces, if you will, correspond to what is known as Asia Minor. Now there were Jewish exiles. We understand quite well how the Jewish people were scattered Now they were persecuted and now they were scattered from place to place.

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And certainly there were Jewish members of the churches that were located in Asia Minor. But there were also Gentile members of the churches. And this word which Peter addresses to the church includes both Jews and Gentiles. And that is the message that we have as we look in to the meaning of this epistle, an

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apostles to the churchguides. The church gathers as we are gathered here now. We gather, but we gather to settle. We gather here for a few moments from time to time each week, and We worship and we receive a word and we are exalted, we are sanctified, our senses are moved. But then we shatter.

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And our homes, our various neighborhoods, and our jobs, they are shattered for the rest of the week. And it is important that we understand really the situation that we are in as the people of God. We are strangers. And one would think that the Apostle Peter would just be concerned about the Jewish people.

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You know that prayer where the man prays and he says, "Lord, bless me and my house and my wife and my son Joe and his wife, thusfore no more. Keep us free from sin. For Christ's sake, amen."

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In fact, the Jewish people had sort of limited their evangelical work which then became signs of those who were members of the Jewish race. But when Peter really recognizes, when he experiences the meaning of the resurrection, He acknowledges that the gospel of Jesus Christ is for all.

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And so we see him later as he writes this epistle, many years have passed, and he writes to those who are in exile. scattered throughout Asia Minor. And in many ways, an exile is one who is away from home.

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All of us are away from where we'd like to be. None of us has really reached the point in life. We have not really reached the point in our existence that is destined for us. We are all away from where we ought to be.

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We are exiled. God made Adam and placed him in the paradise of Eden, and he was in a state of innocence, but we know the story of how Adam and Eve came,

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and how they were driven out of the garden, and we have all identified with that experience, And we are exiled from Eden. We are away from paradise. We are away from home. And there are many ways in which we experience the existence of an exile.

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The girl gets pregnant and she is told that she disgraces the family. She's disgraced the family and she's given into exile. The door that was once open is shut. You see, an exile is one who is away from home sometimes and fears that he or she cannot go home.

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Several years ago when we were in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to attend the Republic World Alliance in 1960, He was a man there who had been an outstanding businessman in Dallas. He had been a wheeler dealer. And his dealing and dealing had caught up with him, and he had to leave.

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And so rather than face judgment here in America, he went to Brazil and became an exile. And he was, at that time, he was doing quite well. But the spirit of an exile is not always pleasant. We are pilgrims, we are strangers, we are traveling through a barren land.

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We are exiles. We have not yet attained unto the fullness of the righteousness of God. We are exiled. It does not yet appear what we shall be.

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We are exiled. We are not where we are going. We are on our way somewhere. We are exiled. As that spiritual titbit, I have heard of a city called Heaven.

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and I started to make it my home. Sometimes I'm tossed and driven, sometimes I'm almost gone, but I've heard of a city called Heaven, and I started to make it my home."

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That's the language of an exile. So here are these exiles. They are scattered throughout Asia Minor. And the exiles of our time are scattered.

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They're not all members of our race, they're members of every race. They're not all members of our church family, they are members of many churches. They may not even belong to our branch of Chisholmden. They may live in the apartment next door, or they may live in the house down the street,

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or they may live across the sea, but they are exiled. that God has a word for exile. God has a word for the stranger, for the alien,

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for the sojourner, for the pilgrim. We're having an experience in this country where we are concerned about the influx

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of the undocumented persons that are coming into our country from our neighbor, Mexico, how that number is increasing year by year, and we certainly feel the effects of it here in the state of Texas, but the whole nation feels the effects of this large influx of of the Hispanic people who come to this country,

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who are strangers within our borders. And recently we have been concerned about the number of Haitians, our black brothers and sisters,

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who are, as a country in the Western hemisphere, this is in fact, Haiti is said to be one of the poorest countries in the world. And we've been reading about the experiences

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that they suffered in Miami, how the doors seem to be shut to these people who are strangers, who are exiles, who've left their native land,

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seeking to have a better life in our country. Now sometimes people don't care about strangers. And that's when people are wondering, they say, "Well, they don't want to see the haters come here. They don't want to see Hispanic people come here." They say, "Well, we're having a hard enough time having jobs ourselves, and this will jeopardize our future."

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And many times, people are really concerned about strangers, but as the people of God, we are a perfect exchange. We have a missionary responsibility. Our lives have to leap out beyond ourselves. We ought to be concerned about people as we just asked them.

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We ought to be concerned about those other than just our race, other than just our nation. We are responsible for all the people. And that's why Peter writes this one, it's just nothing. "A castle to be exiled to strangers, to a scabbard throughout Asia Minor."

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And he writes it, that they may know that we are not alone. In other words, it was to advise. You know, sometimes when we're in a struggle, sometimes we feel that we are all alone. That I'm a poor, struggling, fool, traveling in this world alone, and I know my life and the situation down there.

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But what did I tell them to understand? That this message is to advise that we are not alone in this struggle. But there are others that we are a fellowship, we are exiles. And you see we may struggle against problems that may seem difficult,

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and we may think that we can't solve them within our lifetime, but we struggle together. We struggle against tremendous pressures, yet we are not alone. There are footprints of fellow strugglers.

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You see, the exile in Jesus Christ has a vital support system. You know, when you're in a strange place, it's difficult many times to get adjusted when you're in a strange place. I was in Kansas City the other week, and it was just difficult to get adjusted.

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The bed, even though that hotel cost some $70 a night, the bed didn't sleep as good as my bed at home. And most of the time the food isn't good to you as the food you get at home. You get food, but you get food, so you're on your way from home. And you go away from home, but you certainly glad to get back home.

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Food, food. So where we are, food, there's no food here in this world. and we are fools of that are in a mission by Jesus Christ. And so what we have is a word of exhortation and encouragement

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that is designed to fortify us for daily living in a secular society. In other words, we see a good when we're together, when we sing and God praises and we listen to the choir and we're gathered within the hallowed walls of the church and we're all together praising God, but how come there's no one demanding?

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When we're out on our jobs and someone is ridiculing the Christian faith, someone is speaking uncannily about those who really believe in Jesus Christ, and we have to face a system where we must encounter hostility. We're living in a time when we are experiencing a resurgence of quite systemic racism.

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Kirk Clark Hines had a demonstration here the other day. And many of the battles that some of us fought were over. You're finding out that they're still alive to be fought. You're witnessing unemployment percentages increasing.

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And there's a disproportionate rate of black teenagers who are unable to get a job. Well, that was two fifty years ago. Things haven't changed that much.

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And so in a sense, we know as a people, we know as a race what it means to be exiled. And we know as a Christian, we know when we try to do the right thing. Sometimes it's in your home. Sometimes it's on your job.

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Sometimes it's just in our day-to-day experience. We know what it is when we seek to live a good life with our strangers, your children. But what we have here is a support system. You know, when you're facing strange situations, when you're facing strange temptations,

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what you really need is a support system. Whatever you are going to say to her, man, and find yourself taking all kinds of unfamiliar situations that you never knew, it's a surprise to her. You never knew a surprise to her. I can remember when I heard his daughter went away to college.

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She was only 17 years of age, and that's not unusual. But she was going away to Boston to school. And some of my close friends said to me, now, do you know where to get your grandma?

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She's just 17, and she's going way up there to Boston, 2,000 miles away from home. And you know what the different environment is there. And they said, she'll be all by her own.

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How's she going to be able to make it? I said, well, we've had her for 17 years. But we haven't been able to get her to understand to have some things in those 17 years that live too lately.

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So what you really need is a support system. You need, we all need something that's built in. We all need something in our heart of hearts that we're gonna have to stand up for everything around us is coming.

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We need a support system. when we are working in our most unbearable situations, and when we find ourselves up against things that we don't see how we're really going to make it.

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We need to have a support system. We need to have something that we're not better able than that to live the Christ-like life, even though we are exiled. And Peter knew what it was to have a support system.

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He knew what it was to be able to stand. The story goes that even in his last days, that when the church was being persecuted, that he was on his way out of Rome. He was going to escape the persecution, if possible.

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But when he was on his way out of the city of Rome, that he met Jesus. And he looked at Jesus and he said, "Lord, where are you going?" And he said, "Well, I'm going into the city to be crucified again." And they said that Peter turned around and went back into the city and was crucified.

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And he said, "I don't want to be crucified like Jesus." And they said, "I'd like to be crucified like Jesus, but let me be crucified with my head down to me." But it was to have a support system. But you see, Jesus is our support system. He can make us feel at home when we're in a strange place.

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He's our support system. He's with us in all of the places, from power and love and persistence. He's our support system. He's our support system. He is our strong support in the midst of trembling foundations. Be thy strength, be thy shield, be thy hope, be thy aid. Those who are accustomed to the exile, he sends us to give a message of hope, a message of strength,

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to those who are passing through this wilderness on their way to the promised land. is the class we admire. We invite you to come. We invite you to accept the invitation which is extended by Jesus Christ, to accept the salvation which is provided by his sacrifice on Father's Day. Those of us that are open, we invite you to accept it, to join in the

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(eerie music) (gentle music) (soft music) (gentle music)

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[Music] (gentle music) (soft music) [Music]

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♪ In my dreams ♪ ♪ I'm on your way ♪ ♪ Take me by the hand ♪ ♪ I'm on your way ♪

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♪ In my dreams ♪ [Music] [Music] [Music]

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[Music] [Music] (choral music) ♪ In the light of the day ♪

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♪ In the light of the day ♪ ♪ I'll make my way ♪ ♪ Through the foggy night ♪ ♪ Through the foggy night ♪

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