The Are you a resident or an alien in the place where you currently live? As Christians, all of us are resident aliens in this world regardless of the passport we hold or how long we've lived in one place

And today on Truth for Life will discover how we reveal our true citizenship

Alistair Begg is teaching from First Peter,

but he begins with a helpful cross-reference.

Philippians 3 and

3 and verse 20 and Paul is writing and he's distinguishing between those who are the enemies of the cross of Christ and those

whose lives have been changed by Jesus. And he says of them, their destiny is destruction,

their God is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame, their mind

is on earthly things. But he says, our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a savior from there the Lord Jesus Christ.

And this notion of citizenship being something that is not simply earthly in its configuration, but rather is heavenly,

is at the very foundation of what Peter is writing here in the second half of this first chapter.

As believers in the Lord Jesus Christ,

he is reminding us, as he does with his use of the word

stranger, which he uses again incidentally, in the 11th verse of chapter 2.

He says, dear friends, I urge you as aliens and strangers in the world.

Peter wants to make it perfectly clear for us that we are only temporary

residents. We won't be staying here forever. It may be that we stay for longer than some others. We may only be here for a

short time, even if we live three score years and ten and a wee bit more, still life

is very brief and Peter says I want you to realize

that your citizenship is in another place and your gaze should be focused there.

Now it's very, very important to us,

and we'll see this as we go through this letter,

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