Hope for Hopeless Days
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Good morning and welcome to Dishman Baptist Church. He is Risen! What a blessing it is to be together with you this morning and to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ together. Please take your Bibles and turn in them with me to 1 Peter, 1 Peter 1. If you don’t have a Bible please just raise your hand and someone will bring one to you. Our passage for this morning will be found on page 1075 of that Bible.
I never would have thought that the words civil war and America would have been connected during my life time - at least not outside the walls of academia and even there with reference to the events of 1860-65. Surely not something that could happen in the present. Certainly not something that could happen within a century of the victories won during the second world war and then after that during the cold war.
Yet now as we look around at the world we live in, the vast disparities in opportunity, economic status, ethnic divisions, ideological divisions and the environment is ripe. In fact if you walk out on the street this morning the one thing that you would probably get whole hearted agreement on is that the world is not getting better or safer. Even coming out of the recent mask mandates there has been no celebration of the return of “normal”. Instead people just walk around like a bunch of Bergens - almost seeming to sleepwalk through life. We are currently at a 40 year high in inflation and gas prices, although falling now, remain high. Violence continues to pepper the social media feeds and news outlets. And that is only within America. Looking around the world it seems possible that another world war could take place. On top of that we still have the lingering affects of a global pandemic and the world does not seem to be in a good place.
This seems to be the nature of the human condition. In the late 19th century a French painter by the name of Paul Gauguin painted a painting and in it posed three questions that sum up the essence of the human condition - Where do we come from? What are we? and Where are we going? The world this morning has no answer to these questions. In fact - the best the world can come up with is that we come from an accidental combining of random molecules, that we are little better than animals and that we aren’t going anywhere. Now that truly is hopeless.
Peter wrote this letter that we’re going to look in to today to an audience in the first century that also knew the seeming hopelessness of the human condition. Scattered from their homes, spread all over the world, persecuted or at the least ridiculed for their odd beliefs at every turn these people knew the struggle of maintaining hope in the world around them.
We are much the same today. As we look around at all the conditions that I’ve noted a moment ago, the only reasonable reaction is to lose hope and to settle into a matter of fact lifestyle that just tries to get from one day to the next. Politicians have failed. World systems have failed. Society has failed. In fact it all seems rather hopeless. And it would be - if this were the end all, be all of life. If there were nothing beyond this, nothing beyond this moment, it would be. In fact if this is all there is we are really wasting our time here.
But intuitively we know that there is something beyond this. We know that there is something more. Peter’s point in writing to his audience in the first century was to address two things with them - the first was to help them understand and be equipped to weather the suffering that would find them in this world. The second was to provide them the hope that would equip them - and that is the same hope that we can find in our lives this morning. We’re going to read 1 Peter 1:1-9 but spend most of our time this morning focused in on verses 3-5. Please follow along with me in your Bibles as I read.
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ: To those chosen, living as exiles dispersed abroad in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, chosen
according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient and to be sprinkled with the blood of Jesus Christ. May grace and peace be multiplied to you.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you.
You are being guarded by God’s power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
You rejoice in this, even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials
so that the proven character of your faith—more valuable than gold which, though perishable, is refined by fire—may result in praise, glory, and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Though you have not seen him, you love him; though not seeing him now, you believe in him, and you rejoice with inexpressible and glorious joy,
because you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Just some brief background on this letter before we get in to what the particular verses we’re going to look at this morning mean for us. As I just said Peter addresses this letter to those residing in a part of the Roman Empire that is now a part of modern day Turkey. Peter is writing to mainly Gentile Christians at a time when persecution of the church is increasingly becoming likely. If Peter wrote this letter sometime between AD 62 and AD 64 both he and Paul have been imprisoned by the Roman Empire and Nero is just about to blame Christians for the burning of Rome. The tide of public sentiment throughout the Empire, never exactly favorable towards Christians to begin with, is about to turn openly hostile. There are some interesting parallels between our day and the day in which Peter is writing. The Christians were about to be blamed for something they were not involved with and, in our modern context, we see the church being made a scapegoat for the such things as the Capitol riots and Christian nationalism - which is not true Christianity.
Peter addresses the letter to the chosen, living as exiles. We should recognize that those who have placed their faith in Christ are a part of the same chosen and while we may not have been expelled from our homes or scattered across the physical world, we are exiles here as our citizenship is in Heaven and this place is only a temporary home. This is an important realization because it factors in to Peter’s reasons for the hope that he is delivering to his audience.
Peter highlights three factors regarding their status as the chosen - they were chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. This is not to say that God foreknew those who would choose Him and then on that basis selected them but rather that God sovereignly chose those who would be His people as Paul writes from before the foundation of the world. He writes that this is through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit meaning that it is the work of the Spirit to bring life into the spiritually dead heart through regeneration and then to continue to work within the new believer to bring about maturity. We are brought in to the community of the chosen through the shed blood of Christ - as Peter refers to it here as being sprinkled with the blood of Christ - as His sacrifice makes an atonement for our sins removing from us the penalties that we have incurred and instead conferring upon us Christ’s righteous standing before God.
Peter will later tell his readers the full purpose of his letter. In 1 Peter 5:12 he writes 1 Peter 5:12 “Through Silvanus, a faithful brother (as I consider him), I have written to you briefly in order to encourage you and to testify that this is the true grace of God. Stand firm in it!” The purpose of his letter is to encourage them to testify to God’s grace and to stand firm in this grace as the tides of persecution and suffering rise around them. As he embarks on this purpose in chapter one his first determination is to give them hope by revealing three things - the source of hope, the characteristics of their hope and the security of their hope.
How do you give someone hope? I read a few articles on this in preparation for this morning - even one from Reno Forklift Company and their seven ways to provide hope for the national month of hope. Did you know that April is the national month of hope? I didn’t. But thankfully the Reno Forklift Company informed me of that. Another article defined giving hope this way: “To give someone hope is to unveil the sheet of darkness and turn their face towards the bright glimmer of light. It is balm for the soul.” That is an amazing definition - because at the heart of it is what Peter does here. He takes his readers eyes off of their current situation and turns them upward. The secret to giving someone hope is to take their eyes off of the situation in which they find themselves and turn their eyes somewhere else. No one who has hit rock bottom or who is in a hopeless state looks around and says what nice accommodations there are. What a nice dungeon they’ve found themselves in. No one, well not many people, in the midst of suffering think to themselves “well it could be much worse”. No. They want the suffering to end and so to focus their eyes on the conditions in which they find themselves really doesn’t provide much hope. In fact they would be right in saying “Well thank you very much. I didn’t think I could feel much worse about my status but you just proved me wrong.”
But what does Peter do here - he focuses their eyes upward. He, in the most complete and perfect way, unveils the sheet of darkness that surrounds his readers, and that may surround some of us today, and turns their face not simply toward a glimmer of light but to the Creator of light Himself. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father - in fact what Peter writes here literally is simply Bless the God and Father. Eulogetos from which we get our word eulogy means “being worthy of praise or commendation.” Blessing God is a common expression found in the early Jewish traditions. Psalm 66:8 says “Bless our God, you peoples; let the sound of his praise be heard.” Psalm 68:26 “Bless God in the assemblies; bless the Lord from the fountain of Israel.” and Psalm 104:1 “My soul, bless the Lord! Lord my God, you are very great; you are clothed with majesty and splendor.” speak of blessing the Lord. Two other times in the New Testament a book opens with such a blessing. Ephesians 1:3 “Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ.” and 2 Corinthians 1:3 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort.” In each of these there is a break from the traditional Jewish phraseology with a distinctively Christian theme. Blessing God not just as God but with the further clarification that He is the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ.
This is not to say that there is any lessening of the deity of Christ here - throughout His earthly ministry Christ referred to God as His Father. In fact it was this very proclivity of Christ’s that caused so much trouble for Him with the Pharisees and ultimately led to His crucifixion. You will remember the charge that was brought against Christ the He had claimed to be the Son of God John 19:7 ““We have a law,” the Jews replied to him, “and according to that law he ought to die, because he made himself the Son of God.”” In doing this Peter is making two claims. First he is making a claim to Christ’s deity. Notice how he refers to Christ - as the Lord Jesus Christ. He names all three of Christ’s titles. Lord is the word kurios and it is most commonly used to refer to God in the Old Testament as the sovereign ruler of all creation. Applying the name to Christ here establishes that the Father and the Son are one in the same, sharing the same essence and the same position as sovereign Ruler over all things. Jesus is the name given by the angel as the incarnate Son. Joseph is told to call His name Jesus at Christ’s birth. In Hebrew the name Jesus means Yahweh saves. And finally his title as Christ points to His position as the Messiah, the promised seed that would crush Satan’s head and would provide redemption for God’s people. No rather than lessening or calling in to question the deity of Christ, Peter is extolling it.
Peter doesn’t simply name the source of hope - although that should be sufficient - he goes even further to expose the reason why God is the source of our hope. He writes “because of His great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” Mercy is one of the foundational attributes through which God’s abounding love for His people is revealed. The word for mercy here is the same word that in the Old Testament is hesed which speaks of God’s gracious mercy and is closely associated with the holiness of God. It is the word that is used in the second commandment where God promises to show mercy to a thousand generations of those who love Him and keep His commandments. It denotes God’s kindness and forbearance toward those who sin against Him. And it is this kindness that gives new birth to those who are spiritually dead.
I was asked a question not long ago regarding the salvation of a believer and, if we were chosen before the foundation of the world as Ephesians says would we not be saved at birth. That is a simplistic phrasing of the question but I think we have our answer here in this passage. Peter writes that He has given us new birth. I like the way the NASB translates this verse better 1 Peter 1:3
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
God caused us to be born again. Everyone is born in sin and under the just condemnation and wrath of God. There has to be a moment where those chosen by God are born again into the new life that has been promised. Here Peter says that the cause of that new birth is God - not a choice made by the person to believe but that God causes you to believe. In referring to the new birth, Peter is referring back to what Jesus taught Nicodemus during that clandestine evening meeting they had in John 3 where Jesus tells Nicodemus that unless he is born both of water and of spirit that he will never enter into the Kingdom of God. This is also the same meeting in which Jesus told Nicodemus John 3:16 “For God loved the world in this way: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” God causes that belief to happen within our hearts and we must respond to it. This doesn’t lessen or alter the glory of God in the act of salvation one bit - rather it magnifies it.
Peter now further clarifies why we should have hope saying that this living hope is through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. In fact if there were no resurrection then there is no reason for hope. Paul tells the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 15:13-17 “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation is in vain, and so is your faith. Moreover, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified wrongly about God that he raised up Christ—whom he did not raise up, if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” and then in verse 19 he says 1 Corinthians 15:19
If we have put our hope in Christ for this life only, we should be pitied more than anyone.
If there is nothing after this, if this life is all there is and the resurrection never happened then we are to be pitied more than anyone. Yet we know that the resurrection did happen and that by His resurrection Christ accomplished all things for our forgiveness and salvation. Alistair Begg said this “By His resurrection Jesus declares that sin has been dealt with, death is dead and that Christ has conquered.” That is why Peter can tell his readers to have hope, that they in fact have a living hope, based not on empty promises or futile things but on a person. Titus calls Jesus our blessed hope in Titus 2:11-14 “For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous, and godly way in the present age, while we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. He gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to cleanse for himself a people for his own possession, eager to do good works.” And not only do they have a hope but that they have the promise of an inheritance. This hearkens back as well to the Old Testament idea and the promise given to Abraham that his descendents would inherit the land after having spent a time under bondage in Egypt. Their great hope upon leaving Egypt was that they would be brought to the promised land and that they would inherit the land. But unlike the promise given to Israel, we are given a promise that our inheritance is imperishable, undefiled and unfading.
Anyone who has been around a refrigerator, especially if that refrigerator is owned by a bachelor, knows about the limits of perishable goods. One of the great concerns of our modern age is that the earth is perishing. Everything is dying. Even as we sit here each of our bodies is one moment closer to death and decay. Everything has an expiration date - except the promise of salvation offered by Christ’s resurrection. Even the term imperishable, in a general sense, implies freedom from death and decay. While our physical bodies may die and decay in the ground we have the hope of a bodily resurrection provided through Christ and the promise that while the physical may break down and perish, the spiritual body never will.
Can we look at the world and not see the defiling of our society? Yet the promise that is delivered to us is of a hope that is undefiled - that cannot be unclean or made morally impure. The promise given to us through Christ’s resurrection is that we are actually made pure through His sacrifice and that we can look forward to a completely pure existence with Him.
And this promise doesn’t have an expiration date. In addition to decaying everything is fading. The things I could do ten years ago I can’t do today due to the natural fading of time and the effects that time has on my body. But the promise of Christ, the promise of our new birth is that it is unfading that it will never be affected by time that it is eternal.
Why is this promise imperishable, undefiled and unfading? Because of where it is kept. Peter writes that this promise is kept in Heaven for us. Jesus said to store up treasures for yourself in Heaven where thieves can’t break in and steal and moth and rust destroy. The NASB translates this verse as an inheritance that is reserved in Heaven for you. Reserved in this sense means guarded or watched over. Not only with this promised inheritance not decay or be corrupted or fade in any manner but it cannot be taken away from you because it is secured for you in Heaven by God’s power. No power of hell, no scheme of man can ever pluck me from His hand. Paul writes it this way Romans 8:38-39 “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Now all of this hope has two applications for us this morning. I have said that there are two races - those who are believers and those who are unbelievers and so there are two separate ways to react to this hope.
First those who are unbelievers this doesn’t really seem hopeful at all. If you’re here or you’re watching online and you are an unbeliever you may be saying “Chris that’s not very hopeful at all. I mean I don’t believe in Jesus and so you haven’t given me much more hope than I started out with and now I can’t get back the last 30 minutes or so of my life - they’re gone forever.” But my friend there is hope here for you. You see the hope for you is that you have heard this message, that you are capable of hearing this message. The hope for you is found in five short words at the beginning of this - because of His great mercy. You see it is because of His mercy that you are able to hear this message. It is because of His great mercy that He has not delivered to you, or to any of us, the just penalty for your sins and poured out His wrath on you as you deserve. And, dare I say, that it is because of His great mercy that you are even able to react as you are if you’re feeling like this isn’t very hopeful for you. You see if the Holy Spirit were not at work in you as you hear this message you wouldn’t be moved into a state of hopelessness rather you would remain calloused to this message and uncaring about your position. Even the fact that this might concern you, that you recognize that you don’t have hope is a sign of the Spirit’s work in your heart this morning. Paul wrote to the Ephesians that Ephesians 2:12 “At that time you were without Christ, excluded from the citizenship of Israel, and foreigners to the covenants of promise, without hope and without God in the world.” That they had no hope - but the beauty of that sentence is right at the beginning - at that time. Meaning that their condition has now changed and this morning your’s can too. Respond in faith to the call of the Holy Spirit and receive the promised hope of the resurrection through the new birth in your life. Romans 10:9 “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Confess your sins to Him this morning and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead and you can be saved.
Now for those who are already believers - recognize the hope that we have and glory in it. Recognize that this inheritance is imperishable, undefiled and unfading. That nothing you can do or think will change it because it is not secured by or dependent on you. It is secured by the precious blood of Jesus Christ that was shed on the cross for you. It is secured by the sure truth of the resurrection that we celebrate today with the sure knowledge that He did indeed walk out of that tomb. And that the glorious truth of that is what we can rest our hope in this morning. Not for this life or for this world - note quickly what Peter says next…1 Peter 1:6 “You rejoice in this, even though now for a short time, if necessary, you suffer grief in various trials”. We will suffer trials in this life. Jesus promised suffering for those who believe. This inheritance and hope is not for your best life now, it is for you best life to come in eternity with Him.