Sermon Tone Analysis

1 Peter 1:3-7

MPT: Peter writes to encourage Christians that in, through and despite trails, God keeps them, sustain them towards the hope of glory.

MPS: We have a living hope in Christ Jesus, sustained by God the Father, which encourages us on until the end where we will find our voices among the Saints, praising our Saviour.

What is our greatest hope?

As humans we have many hopes.

We hope that it won’t rain.

We hope that we will get that job promotion.

We have a faint hope that one day we can go travelling to some exotic location.

These hopes are fickle, wavering hopes that may or may not come to pass and will eventually die out.

What Peter gives us here and what he arms these believers with is a living hope.

A hope that is sure and steadfast, unwavering in the face of adversity.

This is a hope born out of a deep joy in Peter.

Peter writes as one who has seen the life-changing effects of Jesus who has been raised from the dead.

Peter has stood face to face with hopelessness as the rooster crowed for the third time, proclaiming to him his own faithlessness.

For Peter the death of Christ was a bitter blow.

For, in the time of His Lord’s greatest need, he could only tremble in fear.

Yet, that morning of the resurrection, with the words of the women from the tomb ringing in his ears, “he is not there, for he has risen!”

Peter saw with his own eyes and left in wonder,marvelling at these things.

Peter himself knew the effect of the risen saviour, when, though Peter forgot Christ in His hour of need, Christ did not forget Peter in his hour of need.

Coming to Peter privately before anyone else, Peter knew and understood the mercy of God as he spoke with His Lord and Saviour.

He knew the tender mercy of Christ as He was left with the charge to feed Christ’s sheep.

Peter’s hope was reborn, no longer hope in his own achievements and steadfastness, but a hope resting upon His saviour.

It is because of this hope that Peter declares, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

For a hope found in the living God is a living hope resulting in praise and glory to God alone.

Out of this experience of Peter’s that he exhorts the Christians he is writing to, to stand firm in the face of adversity.

For, they will one day soon face much opposition.

Fear was arising among them; they knew the noose was tightening.

Peter knows what this is like.

We may also know what this is like.

We may be tempted to deny Christ as Peter has done.

Or to run from adversity as those in the Dispersion may be tempted to do.

In the face of these things, Peter exhorts us to stand firm in the living hope that is ours.

We will look at why we must hold fast to this living hope under three headings.

God’s Salvation of Us.

God’s Sustaining of Us

God’s Refining of Us.

That is, God’s Salvation of us, God’s sustaining of us, and God’s refining of us.

God’s Salvation of Us (Vs 3)

Beginning in vs 3, let’s look at God’s salvation of us as a reason to hold fast to a living hope

Read vs 3.

Head

What then is the basis for this living hope that Peter calls us to cling to?

It is the mercy displayed towards us in the death, burial, and most importantly, the resurrection of our lord and saviour Jesus Christ.

This living hope is completely unlike any feeble, fleeting hope we could ever have.

We rejoice in it and cling to it not just because Christ lives, but because, in Him, we also live.

Peter says that we have been born again.

This is the phrase that once confused Nicodemus.

How can one be born again?

How can a man be born when he is old?

Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb?

It is not by our will, nor the will of any other man, but the will of God that this would happen.

By the mercy of God, He declares to us in this passage that we are His and He is ours for by the working of His Spirit we have been made a new creation.

This new creation happens “through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.”

In being raised from the dead and ascending to heaven, Christ has now sent the spirit who dwells within each one of us.

The renewal of creation has begun first in Christ who is “the first-fruits” and then with us.

We were born of natural descent into sin, only fit for death; but now, by the mercy of God through the resurrection of Christ, we have now been born of Spiritual descent, fit only for life in all its abundance with our God.

Heart

This should be a source of great comfort to us.

Our hope is based in the living triune God.

Our salvation is not of ourselves, it is completely of the work of God.

As such, it is safe, secure, and strong in Him.

Just as God is forever unchanging, so too our salvation is forever unchanging.

We look back to the work of Christ on the cross, we know that we have been presently saved by the working of the Spirit and we look forward to that day when Christ will bring to completion all that has been started in us.

If you do not know this peace and hope, Christ says to you, “Come.”

“Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.”

(Rev 22:17).

You too can have a joyful hope for the future with God.

God’s Sustaining of Us

Read vs 4-5 with me.

Peter gives a second reason that we should take comfort in our living hope.

For very simply, this living hope is sure because it is God who sustains.

It is God who sustains.

I once heard a critique of common evangelical evangelism.

Evangelism that I’m sure we’ve all heard and perhaps even participated in.

The critique was that the style of evangelism that seems to be so popular is a law-gospel-law evangelism.

That is, we tell people they are sinners, then we tell them that because of this they need to repent and believe the Gospel, then, once they have become Christians, we just lay the law back on them.

The only time the Gospel is preached is at the time of conversion.

The rest is up to us and our good works.

But how much good works?

What kind?

How much do I have to do to make sure that my salvation is secure?

This is a hope built upon the instability of our works.

Peter provides a Gospel-Centred biblical alternative to this.

Notice where the emphasis is of his encouragement to these Christians and to us.

We have a living hope because we have been born again to an inheritance… kept in heaven for you.

And that we are by God’s power being guarded through faith.

Just as we can have a joyful surety of hope because the origin of our salvation is in the working of God, we can also have a joyful surety of hope because the sustenance of our salvation is not of ourselves either, it is from God.

This is not a law-gospel-law way of doing life, this is a Gospel sustained, joyful living in the realities of God for us.

Notice how Peter talks of our inheritance.

There are a few things worthy to be pointed out here.

Firstly, an inheritance is inherently a gift.

By its very nature, it is not something earned but something gifted.

What is this inheritance?

This inheritance is God Himself.

“Whom have I in Heaven but you?

And there is nothing on earth that I desire beside you,” Says the Psalmist.

We may find ourselves envious of those who come into a lot of money.

Whose families have built up a way that their financial security seems set from birth.

Yet, this security is temporal.

The stability is only of this world where moth and rust destroy.