Living Hope In Present Trials

1 Peter 1: 3-12

Transcript

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, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and
unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through
faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you
rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by
various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than
gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise
and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen
him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice
with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of
your faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning the salvation, the prophets
who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired
carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was
indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent
glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you
in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the
good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels
long to look. The word of the Lord. Let's take a moment to pray. Father, as we
read your word and then as we hear it preached, we ask that you would work by
your Holy Spirit to help us to understand, help us receive. We pray that our
hearts and minds would be good soil for your word, that it would be planted,
that we would receive it, that we would be hearers who don't simply hear but
also obey and hear with faith. And Lord, we ask that you would use this time by
the power of the Holy Spirit to make us more like Christ, to grow us in
spiritual maturity. We pray for that in Jesus' name, amen. Okay, so in our
introductory sermon to 1 Peter last week, we saw that the Apostle Peter is
writing a letter of encouragement to churches who are scattered around Asia
Minor in the first century, 62, 63 AD, modern day Turkey, and he calls these
scattered Christians in those first two verses, he refers to them as elect
exiles, which means that God has chosen these people and set his love upon them
even as they experience the homesickness of living in this world that is not
their real home. And Peter writes to encourage these believers in their
suffering, and today is where that encouragement, the content of that
encouragement begins. We're calling this sermon series Hope in a World That is
Not Our Home. Hope in a World That is Not Our Home, and one of the most notable
things about the passage that John just read is that there is a future, present,
and past aspect to what Peter is saying to these churches. Our big idea this
morning is that we have living hope in present trials, and the sermon is divided
into three parts. Each section, the vantage point changes. Verses three through
five refer to future hope. Verses six through nine refer to present trials, and
verses 10 through 12 refer to past glory. I'm gonna get into future hope, verses
three through five, and we'll read this together. 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 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in
heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for
salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time. After the greeting, Peter
begins with this hymn of praise. He says, let's begin by blessing God. The first
thing that he does is to bless and praise God. This passage is actually the
substance of a song that we'll sing after the sermon. When we are weighted down
by the sufferings and trials of this life, the best thing that we can do is
begin to praise God. I know that we can hear that, and that's not probably
something you've never heard before. You can understand, well, that makes almost
just psychological sense to count your blessings and to focus on the positive
and think about what you're thankful for. Really, that's advice you could hear
almost anywhere. The tendency of these suffering Christians, just like our
tendency, would be to focus on the difficulty of their current circumstances and
the trials of living as marginalized people in a Roman culture when they are
trying to live as Christians. But Peter's not only praising God, he's telling us
we have great reasons to do so. So this is not just like practicing gratitude.
Peter goes on to explain the substance of our praise. According to his great
mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope. In the abundance of
his mercy, God in his sovereignty and grace has caused us to be born again. That
means he's given us new spiritual life from the dead, and now we have what Peter
refers to as living hope. Look at what we're seeing about what God does. We see
salvation is according to his great mercy. Salvation is initiated by God. He
causes it. Salvation means we're spiritually reborn. Before we were dead in our
sin, now we are regenerated and made alive to God. And salvation gives us an
ongoing living hope. Now, we all have hopes that could probably be more
realistically categorized as wishful thinking. There are things that we hope
will happen, but they are not really grounded in anything objective. Last night
there was a Powerball lottery drawing, and I read that the grand prize was $99
million. And even though the hypothetical winner of that would pay more than
half of it in taxes, that's still, I mean, I would be happy with just the $46
million. The problem, of course, is that the odds of winning the grand prize,
and you can see this just on the Powerball website, are over 292 million to one.
And yet, 50% of American adults play the lottery at least once a year. So tens
of millions of Americans buy tickets for this every week, but their hope is not
really based on anything. And most of them are, most hopes that are based in
more wishful thinking gradually fade away as we realize that's never going to
happen. But by contrast, Peter's saying we have a living hope. A living thing is
something that grows in strength as time goes on. And our hope is based in a
historical event that has happened, not something that we wish might one day
happen. Our hope is based, Peter says, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
the dead. The resurrection means that Jesus has triumphed over sin and death,
and it means that through faith in Christ, I've been united with him and I too
will be raised. Colossians tells us, you've been raised with Christ. And as an
encouragement to these suffering Christians, Peter reorients their hopes to the
future. So he says, you have a living hope. You've been spiritually reborn
according to the grace, mercy, sovereignty of God. And the pivotal event, the
cause for that living hope is something that has happened in the past, the
resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Because of that, we're raised with
Christ. Peter says you have this living, growing hope, and you have an
inheritance to look forward to. The scripture says, to an inheritance that is
imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you. The idea of an
inheritance is a concept that's often used of God's people in the Old Testament.
So for example, when God brought his people out of Egyptian slavery, he led them
to Canaan, the promised land. And that land was referred to as the land that the
Lord your God is giving you. The people were meant to go in and take possession
of their inheritance, take possession of the promised land. That was what God
had prepared for them. Now, an inheritance can seem great, but we probably know
this, the uncertainty of inheritances is kind of the stuff that legends are made
of. You may think, or you may have been told, you have an inheritance of some
kind to look forward to. But we probably also know this becomes a very uncertain
thing. Sometimes the person who is planning to give away the inheritance ends up
living much longer than they expect. And during that time, what they have to
give shrinks away. Sometimes family members get involved and they quarrel over
who gets what. Sometimes lawyers get involved. Sometimes the stock market
crashes. Sometimes it turns out that there's multiple wills and all sorts of
confusion ensues. Sometimes there's no will. Sometimes the person who says that
they will give secretly changes their mind. What I'm saying is this, an
inheritance is a very shadowy thing to hope for. It's not something that we
ought to put our trust in. Peter's telling these Christians they have a living
hope and that they can look forward to an inheritance. And if you said to Peter,
well it sounds like you're talking about something way off in the future. How
would you describe that inheritance? What's it going to be like? Peter might
respond, it's impossible to describe how good it's going to be. I don't even
have the language. The best that I'm able to do is tell you three things that
it's not. Here's how I would describe the inheritance. It's imperishable. That
means you cannot destroy it or ruin it. It will never die. It's undefiled.
There's nothing wrong with it. There are no blemishes. Sin will not be able to
touch it. It cannot be ruined. It cannot be touched by evil. It's undefiled. And
it's unfading. It can never grow old. It does not fade. It does not decay. That
is in absolute contrast to everything in this world where as Jesus said, moth
and rust destroy, thieves break in and steal. And if you said, okay Peter, wow
that sounds pretty good, but who is protecting this? Who's keeping an eye on
this inheritance? God himself is. Your inheritance is kept in heaven for you.
It's absolutely safe and secure. And as I said, the Israelites had an
inheritance that was earthly, the promised land, and it was ultimately taken
from them, which resulted in their exile. And now the people of God are being
referred to as strangers, sojourners, and exiles, but they also have an
inheritance to look forward to, but their inheritance is not an earthly
possession. It's a heavenly kingdom. That's the living hope that we have.
Resurrection life with God and a heavenly inheritance. And now as we get to
verses six through nine, we see that future hope gives us joy in our present
trials. Look at verses six through nine through me, which refer to our present
trials. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you
have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your
faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be
found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you
believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory,
obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. So we've dwelt
on this future hope, and Peter says, in this you rejoice. Our future and our
living hope should be the cause of present day joy. And this is true even though
we have current circumstances that we are experiencing that we would call
trials, grievous trials, even in this moment. Peter talks about being grieved by
various trials. It doesn't seem like Peter's talking about some specific event
around this time that these churches have been through. He's talking more
generally about the sadness and suffering of this life. There are a variety of
types of trials that we face as Christians, a variety of grievous things in this
life, and some of them are referred to in this letter. So for example, there may
be times that you will experience verbal persecution because of your commitment
to the authority of scripture. Peter talks in chapter three about the reviling
and slander that we'll experience. First Peter five tells us that we have an
adversary of the devil who prowls about like a roaring lion. We will experience
times of temptation and times even of spiritual darkness because of the attacks
of our adversary. There will be seasons where we may feel alienated and far from
home. We're going to experience trials by connection when those we love are
suffering. And all that is cause for grief. We'll legitimately be grieved by
these trials and suffering. And yet Peter says, in this you rejoice. So what
we're seeing is that it is normal and right for Christians to simultaneously be
experiencing grief and joy at the exact same time. And this is the tension that
Peter is describing. He says, in this you rejoice, though now for a little
while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials. It's joy and it's
grief together. If you can handle a little bit of poetry. The old English poet
William Blake put it like this. Joy and woe are woven fine, a clothing for the
soul divine. Under every grief and pine runs a joy with silken twine. It is
right, it should be so. Man was made for joy and woe. And when this we rightly
know, through the world we safely go. Peter tells us we will experience this for
a little while. But here's the thing, it won't feel like a little while for us.
If you're taking your family, if you are a dad and you've ever taken your family
on a long road trip, you know that at some point a voice is going to pipe up
from the backseat. How much longer? How long until we get there? What I've
learned is over time, most of the time it doesn't really help to be specific.
Nobody is going to feel better if you say we'll be there in five hours and 37
minutes, not counting the four bathroom stops we're still going to make. Nobody
is going to feel better if you get it real specific. So you just say, it'll be a
little while. And Peter tells us that now for a little while we will be grieved
by various trials. And you think, well how long? How long is that going to be?
How long is a little while? How long will that go on for us as Christians that
we experience joy and grief simultaneously? Well the answer is a little while,
or in other words, the rest of your life. Our earthly lives, the time before we
obtain our future inheritance, are what the Bible refers to as a little while.
So here's the important question for each of us to consider. Do you have joy?
Because I know you have grief. I know that you have been and will be tested by
various trials and suffering and that you'll have grief. That's a given. But do
you have joy? Or a different way of saying that is, is the living hope that you
have through Jesus and is your future inheritance providing you with a sense of
present day joy? Some of you probably have a tendency to pin your hopes on
present day circumstances and your happiness is strictly dependent on how those
are going. And others of us think that as Christians we live in this state of
perpetual melancholy and that there's no reason to have joy. Life is too hard.
There's too much suffering going on for that. Joy and grief are intermingled in
the Christian life. And I don't want to say this lightly or flippantly, but my
trials, your trials, none of them are so severe that they ought to exclude joy.
God intends to make his people into people of resilient joy. And Peter goes on
to say that these trials that we experience are serving a purpose. They are
testing and refining our faith so that the tested genuineness of your faith,
more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found
to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So
Peter uses this image, this illustration from the world of, I think you
pronounce it metallurgy to help these churches understand the trials that
they're going through. We refer to gold as a precious metal. But if you think
about the people that went to California in the gold rush in 1849 or you think
about the movies you've seen where people discover or pull out a gold nugget out
of a riverbed, then you'll probably recall this gold is not coming out in pure
form. People are not yanking 24-carat nuggets out of the water. A gold nugget is
not ready for the jeweler just because someone discovered it. It needs to be
purified. It needs to be refined. It needs to be sanctified. And that process,
at least at this time, was going to involve intense heat. That image of
refinement is borrowed from the Old Testament. Isaiah 48 10 says, God says to
Israel, behold, I have refined you. I have tried you in the furnace of
affliction. And just like fire and heat need to be applied to purify a precious
metal, so also Christians need to go through trials for their faith to come out
sanctified and genuine. We are like those chunks of gold, those impure nuggets.
We need to be purified for our faith to be found to be genuine at the revelation
of Jesus Christ. But that process is going to be grievous and painful. Some of
you recall the line from the old hymn, how firm a foundation, because it gets at
that idea of purification. That hymn says, when through fiery trials thy pathway
shall lie, thy grace all sufficient shall be my supply. The flame shall not hurt
thee, I only design. Thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine. The trials
that we experience serve to heighten our longing for Jesus and his return. Peter
says, though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him,
you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with
glory. Joy is not just for the future, even though now in this moment those who
follow Jesus experience grief. But even then, we can experience joy even as we
await his return. That revelation of Jesus Christ that Peter talks about, that's
referring to the last day, the day of judgment when Jesus appears, when the
books are open, when the secret of every heart is revealed. That day's coming,
but right now we look to the future and we have present joy. So in this third
section, Peter now changes his vantage point from future hope and from present
trial, and now he looks back to the past. And he starts to consider his readers'
circumstances in light of God's work in the past. Verses 10 through 12 refer to
past salvation and glory. Concerning the salvation, the prophets who prophesied
about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring
what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he
predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed
to them that they were serving not themselves, but you in the things that have
now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the
Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which the angels long to look. So now
Peter is helping his readers look back and consider their salvation. The Old
Testament prophets, men like Moses, David, Elijah, Daniel, among many others,
prophesied of the Savior who was to come. And they knew from their study of
scripture and from the illumination of the Holy Spirit that the coming Christ
would be one who would first suffer and be glorified later. They knew that the
one who was coming would suffer and they saw this suffering through their search
of the scripture. Even later on in this letter in chapter two, Peter refers to
one of those prophecies when he quotes from Isaiah 53, which prophesies of a
suffering Messiah, and he says, this suffering one is an example to you. But by
pointing this out, Peter is helping his readers see, and by extension us, that
they live now in a privileged position in God's redemptive plan. Prophets had
studied and many of them had suffered to serve not just themselves, but future
generations. These prophets were illuminated by the Holy Spirit and they
recognized that the Savior was coming not at their time, but in ours. And
furthermore, Peter says, not only do we have the fulfillment of the prophets of
long ago, but now we have these things announced to us by those who preached. In
other words, we have the fulfillment of prophets from days long past, but we
have present day preachers who announce to us the good news. And here's the
point. You might say, future hope, that's good, that's great, but I have real
problems right now that are consuming my time and my attention. And Peter might
say to us, you have a Bible. You have access to what the prophets studied and
searched out, and what they said did happen. It's already been fulfilled. And he
might say, not only that, you have preachers, people in your life at this moment
who have announced the good news to you. And that good news is so glorious that
even the angels long to look into it. So Peter's telling these suffering
Christians, don't think that you've been left alone. And please don't wallow in
self-pity. You have this great salvation announced from long ago, and it's, you
have the good news announced to you in the present. And the purpose that he's
trying to accomplish here is to show his readers that the spiritual privileges
that they enjoy now are amazing. And the world might think that these churches
are tiny, and these people are strange, their lives are insignificant, but from
the vantage point of Peter, and from the vantage point of the angels, these
Christians were living in a moment of great significance and blessing. They have
a living hope where they can look forward to the future. They can have joy in
their present day trials. And if you look back at the past, what they're
experiencing now, what they see in full clarity right now, are what the prophets
and even the angels long to experience. So Peter's acknowledging the reality of
the trials that his readers are going through. But he's not necessarily
providing them with this empathetic shoulder to lean on. Instead he's saying to
them, you've got it good. And the exhortation now becomes for us to stay
faithful. And if they're suffering, remember that Jesus gives us an example of
suffering and future glory. Jesus himself gives us that. The exhortation also
becomes live holy. The letter goes on to provide ethical encouragement in light
of the hope that we have. The upcoming passage that we'll get into next week
tells us how our living hope leads us into holy action. But for right now, be
encouraged. We have future hope even in present trials. Future hope right now,
even in present trials. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for your word. And
I pray that the hope that we have, both of the resurrection and our future
inheritance, would give us perspective and joy even in our present trials. Lord,
help us to look back, look back into our Bibles, look back at what has been
foretold, and realize the position that we live in, realize the clarity that
you've given to us. Thank you for the time and place that you've put us in. I
pray that we'd be grateful and joyful. Give us strength and perspective even in
present day trials, even in the things that grieve us, Lord. I pray that we
would be people of resilient joy and of living hope. In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen.