The world is such a power. It is always threatening to drunken you so that you get out of touch with reality.

Or you'll think it's reality. The world thinks it's reality.

How do you keep your identity as a child of the king when the world is pushing a competing

reality that undermines Christ's authority? John Piper answers this pressing question from

1 Peter 1, 1 and 2 on this episode of Light and Truth. The sermon was originally preached

at Bethlehem Baptist Church on September 19, 1993.

Last week we saw from the 1st verse in chapter 1 that we Christians are aliens on the earth.

Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who reside as aliens, exiles, sojourners.

Our first citizenship is not the United States of America. Our first citizenship is in heaven.

Our first and primary constitution is not the constitution of the United States with its

Bill of Rights. Our constitution is the Bible which is over the constitution of the United States

and judges it. Our king is Jesus Christ and he stands over in judgment and qualification,

all other human leaders. Our cravings are cravings not for the things of the world. Our cravings

are cravings for the kingdom, cravings for God and for the spirit and for power and for gifts

and for joy and hope and peace in him. Something very radical has happened to make us aliens

or exiles on this earth. Peter says in verse 3 here of chapter 1, God has caused you to be born

again unto a living hope. So you don't have the same hopes that the world has anymore. You are

made an alien here because something radically supernatural happened inside to give you new hopes

and new cravings and new yearnings and new desires so that now as you walk through the world

its desires, its priorities, its values, its language feels alien. It just feels strange. The

way Paul described this radical thing that's happened inside is this, you have died and your life

is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears you will appear, the real you

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