Resurrection Sunday 2024 1 Peter 1:3-5 Living Hope
Good morning! I’d like to personally welcome you all as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. I’d like to especially welcome those of you who are visiting with us, or are here for the first time.
This morning we are going to examine a passage of Scripture found in 1 Peter 1:3-5, and that’s on page 1014 in the Bibles you will find in the pews.
Let’s pray.
This morning we are going to consider together the concept of hope.
You may remember the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, “So now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Well, maybe love is the greatest of the three but faith and hope are no slouch.
In our day we often confuse hope with a wish.
It works something like this: I hope it warms up soon so this snow will melt… I hope it doesn’t get too hot this summer… I hope this humidity breaks and it cools off soon… I hope we have snow for Christmas… I hope it warms up soon so this snow will melt…
I am a born and bred New Englander. And I continue to live here in New England because I need something to complain about at all times and the weather here in New Hampshire gives me that opportunity.
The weather is a vicious cycle of dying hope, a constant source of discouragement.
Our text for this morning is not like that, it speaks of a living hope for our encouragement. Let’s look at it together.
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
If Peter’s intent in writing this letter was to encourage the church and I can’t think of a more fitting text than this to accomplish that work. If you’re in the business of designing inspirational coffee mugs and calendars this should absolutely be a go-to text for you.
I’d like to look at this short passage one piece at a time.
Peter begins with worship. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
First, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ is the One to be praised, He is worthy of praise. That is what the word means.
Secondly, He is both the God of Jesus Christ and the Father of Jesus Christ. He is God to Jesus in His humanity, and He is Father to Jesus in His divinity, and He is worthy of praise.
How different would our conversations be if they all started out in this way!
Let’s look at the next phrase, according to His great mercy He has caused us to be born again…
“According to His great mercy,”
This is the expression of the Father’s great kindness to us in our need. Mercy has to do with compassion and pity on the miserable.
God the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ caused us to be born again according to His great mercy, not that we deserved it or earned any good will from Him. This statement is a reminder that in our sinfulness we did not deserve to be born again but God showed great kindness to us in our great need and so He caused us to be born again.
There is even encouragement in the word, “us!” That’s the church, not the building but the people, the family.
Rat Stedman said, “That is the great good news of Easter to me, that I am not left alone to face the problems of life without help.”
That’s help from the Father, help from Jesus, help from the Holy Spirit, and help from His Church.
Even the phrase, “born again,” is a great encouragement to us. It is a reminder that we have been changed from one thing to a completely different kind of thing.
Peter is remembering Jesus’ words to Nicodemus in John chapter 3, “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
What we were before was what Paul called in Ephesians 2:3, “children of wrath,” but according to God’s great mercy he caused us to be born again and now we are what 2 Corinthians 5:17 calls, “a new creation.”
But He didn’t just cause us to be born again and then left to figure life out on our own or to cling to the empty and dying hopes of the world, left hoping that the weather will get better, According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope…
A living hope is a hope that is the opposite of the hopes of this dying world that simply seeks to make this life better for itself but still ends in death. More stuff, a better house, a nicer car, more money, more respect at work or in the community, it’s all like making beds in a burning house, there’s no real hope there.
Living hope has life in itself, it gives life, and has life as its object and its source. That life is eternal life that is only available to us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Our hope is living because Jesus is living!
The living hope that God the Father has caused us to be born again into is not just hope for this life. A life of faith in Jesus is not just so we can have some crutch to lean on to get us through hard times with a dying, worldly hope that things will eventually get better.
Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 15:19, If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people to be most pitied.
Jesus did not die on the cross and rise from the grave simply to make this life better for us, He didn’t do all that to make us better people. Jesus died and rose again to give us a living hope beyond this world and this life.
According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
I don’t know what kind of inheritance you have waiting for you here on earth, whether it’s houses or lands or money, or what you hope to leave behind to your children or grandchildren, but the inheritance that is kept in heaven for us who have faith in the Lord Jesus is not subject to the same forces as those things.
Houses, lands, money, and property is all temporary, it won’t last forever no matter how good a care you take of it. The stuff of this earth is all tainted by sin and its effects. Just as a valuable classic car will eventually rust way to nothing so will all these other earthly things but the inheritance that is kept in heaven is unfading.
JP Lange wrote, “While here below in the strange country of our pilgrimage all possessions are insecure, the inheritance above is in the surest custody, for it is in the almighty hand of God. As it has been designed and prepared for believers from everlasting, so it is perpetually kept; and believers, on the other hand, are kept for it, so that they can in no way lose it.”
That’s what Peter means when he says, [an inheritance] kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Our inheritance is kept by God in heaven, it is not subject to decay and death, it is untainted by sin and its effects, and it will forever retain its wonderful character. And the same God that keeps it, keeps us.
We are guarded by God’s power, shielded, protected by the garrison of faith.
“Faith is the means in which salvation is procured and constantly kept up, acknowledging Jesus as Messiah and confidently surrendering to Him.”
It’s been said that, “It is God’s power that saves us from our enemies, and it is His patience that saves us from ourselves.”
So we are guarded by God’s power through faith, but what does it mean to be guarded for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time? Aren’t we already saved through faith in Jesus Christ?
Yes, we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. There is no second salvation, there is only the completion of our salvation.
What Peter means by “the last time” is the return of Christ when this time will end, the age of the church will become the never-ending age of the Kingdom of God. Sin and death and the grave will be destroyed as will Satan and his demons. And we will take possession of our inheritance in God’s eternal kingdom.
Martin Luther wrote, “The inheritance to which you are ordained, has been acquired long since and prepared from the beginning of the world, but lies as yet concealed, covered and sealed; but in a short time, it will be opened in a moment and disclosed, so that we may see it.”
For those of you who have faith in Jesus Christ you can rejoice in hope of the inheritance kept in heaven for you! You can rejoice knowing that you are born again into that living hope because of God’s great mercy.
But for those of you who do not have faith in Jesus, who are not yet born again, who do not have that living hope, you can, right now, in this very moment!
Simply ask God the Father for forgiveness, even silently in your own heart, commit to Him to turn away from your sin, and trust Jesus. Be born again through faith in Jesus to a living hope!
Amen.
