EXILES: EXALTED EXILES 1 Peter 5:5-14

EXILES: EXALTED EXILES  1 Peter 5:5-14

When I was in college, I worked with an organization called Young Life.  I mentored a number of students and the only time that I had free and the time they were willing to meet was real early in the morning.  One morning, I got out of bed, my feet hit the ground at about 5:45 am.  The meeting started at 6:00 am.  This was not uncommon.  It was about a 13-minute drive to where we were meeting.  I had two minutes to get dressed...more than enough time.  My feet hit the ground, I pulled on a pair of pants, a shirt, a sweatshirt, popped in my car and drove to the cafe we were meeting at.  I walked in and we quickly got a seat because nobody else was that crazy to be there at that time.  I walked to our little booth and sat down and opened the menu.  A waitress came by and instead of asking us what our order would be, she came carrying a sock!  She didn't say anything.  She just walked up to our table, stood there and held up the sock.  I was thinking to myself that I hadn't looked at the whole menu, but I didn't know where THAT fell on the menu.  What's the deal?  She just stood there holding the sock.  She said, "When you walked in this morning, this sock fell out of your pant leg."  Don't judge me!  You've been there before.  I took off my pants the night before, all in one fell swoop because I don't want to waste time before I fell in bed.....took it all off, socks included, and the sock got pinned in the leg.  As I walked into the cafe, the sock slowly worked its way out, fell down, creating a nice thing to wipe your feet on as you walk into said cafe.  The waitress felt it necessary to come in and deliver back my sock, thank you very much, waitress.  I looked at her going I had no idea I was carrying that.  I had no idea that was attached to me.  I think the Apostle Peter, as he writes to this group of five churches---home churches, probably, in the first century---here's what he wants to do today.  He wants to walk up to them and go you're carrying this, but you don't know you are.  You're carrying this.  This is something that's attached to you, but you have absolutely no clue.  Here's the thing:  They're not alone.  The thing that Peter's going to talk to the first-century church about today is what he wants to talk to us about also.  I think there's some things that you're carrying; there's some things that I'm carrying and unless we have God-given eyes to see, I think we could easily overlook the fact that most of us in this room are carrying this.  I think Jesus' posture towards us this morning is.....I think He wants to come up and say hey, I'm not sure if you're aware that THIS is a part of your life.