VII.
Let’s take notice of –

Once you were not a people,
       but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
       but now you have received mercy.

Let those words open this passage for you, and hear how God’s people are described.

VIII.
1 Peter 2:1-10 (New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition)

Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in scripture:

“See, I am laying in Zion a stone,
       a cornerstone chosen and precious,
and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”

This honor, then, is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe,

“The stone that the builders rejected
       has become the very head of the corner,”

and

“A stone that makes them stumble
       and a rock that makes them fall.”

They stumble because they disobey the word, as they were destined to do.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people,
       but now you are God’s people;
once you had not received mercy,
       but now you have received mercy.

IX.
How did you hear God’s people described?

What in that description do you find you can claim?

Is there any part of that description that does not describe you?

Since God’s people are “called … out of darkness into His marvelous light,” how can you approach that light more nearly?

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}