A Living Hope Is An Always Hope

We will not be in Zephaniah 3:14-20 this morning, but instead we will be in 1 Peter 1:3-12.

Today is such a strange day in the life of our church. We celebrated and honored Jim and Ginger. We are thankful for them, we see the impact they have had upon Calvary, and we are excited for them on this next part of their walk with Christ. We are excited for their family and grandchildren. But we also grieve. They will be missed.

And on Friday we had the funeral for Roy Bradford. A faithful messenger, one who was like a watchman who gives hope and brings good news. His impact on Calvary and this community has also been far reaching. We grieve his loss as well. It will leave a void.

But it’s not a day with unmitigated sadness and loss. We have had a baptism. We’ll have a business meeting where we read the names of new members joining. We have new ministry going on.

We also will have at our meeting the personnel team making a recommendation concerning our children’s ministry, putting even more effort and resources towards seeing that ministry thrive.

We’ll talk about how to allocate funds from the missions house. Where a man that I never met, donated his home, and is now touching a generation that he never saw.

And so it’s kind of a strange emotional day. And you might be a guest here and thinking—I don’t know any of these people, and I don’t know what you’re even talking about.

And that’s what makes all of this so strange and interesting and beautiful. We enter stories at different points.

Do you remember the story of Rip Van Winkle?

It is set before the Revolutionary War in the 18th Century. Rip is kind of a lazy guy with a nagging wife. One day as she is nagging away at him he wanders up the mountains with his dog. He meets up with some fun-loving chaps and he ends up having a little too much whiskey. When he wakes up his gun is rotted and rusty, his beard has grown a foot long, and his dog is nowhere to be found. He soon discovers that much more than his beard, gun, and dog have changed.

The whole world it seems has changed to him. He gets in trouble for saying he is a loyal subject of King George, they are calling some other guy (what turns out to be his son) by his own name, his wife has died and most of his friends have died in the war as well. His GPS unit would still read the same location but somehow his very home has changed underneath him. He is, it appears, living as a stranger in his own hometown.

Some of you might be feeling a bit like Rip Van Winkle this morning. And grieving that. It feels like just yesterday that you had a spouse by your side, you were in this church (or maybe this body but the church at a different location) kids roaming around, the world made a different kind of sense.

Or you had a different job, different relationships, in a different place in your life, a different kind of hope for the days ahead.

But there is something else about that Rip Van Winkle story, all of the people around him they didn’t know that life was different…it was just life. That’s just how things were. They didn’t know the other world.

And that’s some of us here today. What that does is it makes some people feel like they’re living in exile and others just call it home.

It’s something like this which happened to the believers which Peter wrote to. Their GPS unit still read the same—but when they came to know Jesus—this changed everything. They viewed things differently. They became exiles in their own community.

Lord willing, in a few weeks we will be starting a series on Daniel. We’re going to really dive into what it’s like living as an exile. But for now, I want us to see the one thing which unites us…whether you’re here and feel a bit like those in Ezra—who stood at the ribbon cutting ceremony and said, “this isn’t as big as it once was—and you kind of mourned the changes and such” or maybe you’re not that and you’re saying, I’m excited about this new day…there is one thing which unites us…one big word that stands over this passage we are going to read…see if you can spot it.

1 Peter 1:3–12 ESV

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 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 this 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.

Hope. But not just any hope. It is a living hope. Not a past hope that you’re still living off of. Not a future hope that you’re looking forward to. No, it is a LIVING HOPE. A hope that is alive and real and active every single moment.

That’s what Peter is doing here to these exiles. They aren’t just “exiles” they are elect exiles…they are selected sojourners.

If you are in Christ you have every reason to hope. Not hope later. Hope now. Let’s look a bit more at this hope…Peter uses several words here to describe what we have.

He moves from the word hope—living hope—into inheritance.

I love how Peter adds layers to this inheritance. As a sojourner everything around you is crumbling. You are living a body that is fading. You live in a world that is perishing. People die. Dogs die. Plants die. Mosquitoes die. It’s a perishing world. You live in a world where it doesn’t really matter if the steak you eat is from Ruth’s Criss steakhouse or it’s a faux steak from steak and shake. You leave that thing out on your counter for a week and it’s going to spoil. It’s going to get maggots.

Everything under the sun can be described by these words, “perishing, defiled, and fading”. That’s really what Solomon found in Ecclesiastes. Everything under the sun—if viewed as the end all be all—is meaningless. It doesn’t last. Throw yourself into money and acquire a ton of wealth—you have no idea what your kids will do with it. Give yourself to knowledge—it dies with you. Give yourself to selfish power—people don’t realize you even existed in 200 years…much less do they serve you. Your world is perishing, defiled, and fading”.

And so if this is your best life now then it’s a maggot infested best life now. Thankfully this is not how we describe our inheritance. Notice the words that Peter uses, “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading”. Those are words that can describe God Himself. Your McDonalds spoils. Your new car loses its luster. Your new house loses its beauty. But not this inheritance. It never loses its luster, it never fades, it never diminishes in beauty, it never spoils.

He then makes this even more amazing. We live in a world of great insecurity. You assume that you have a job on Monday. You assume that you will be able to walk Monday. And chances are you will. But there will some Monday were you won’t. It’s a reality in this world that we really have no idea if these things “under the sun” are things that we will be able to keep. We like to think that we can but at the end of the day you don’t really get to decide when/if you get cancer. You can work really hard at your job but there are always things outside your control. You can do a great job of saving money and building yourself a wonderful house but at the end of the day you don’t get to decide if/when your house burns to the ground.

But that insecurity is not something that marks this inheritance. It is “kept in heaven for you”. Wow, kept in heaven for you. Kept by who?

By God Himself. That’s the point that he makes in verse 5. The unfailing God keeps this inheritance. He keeps us from falling. He keeps us from disqualifying ourselves.

But then we’re brought back to the muck and mire of every day in verse 6. We’re brought back into the world of the exile...”though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.

“Though now for a little while”, does not mean 15 minutes or a couple years. It means that in comparison to the eternal weight of glory our suffering is “light and momentary” it is only a “little while” compared to eternity. Our view from eternity helps us to see that suffering is only a temporary necessity but will one day be swallowed up in the victory of Christ.

I say a “temporary necessity” because of what Peter says in verse 6. “If Necessary”. The idea is not that suffering kind of “just happens” but that the sufferings that believers experience are actually the will of God for believers. Suffering isn’t just done by an impersonal force it is something that God uses to accomplish his purposes.

Peter is not really defending this claim or trying to explain evil and suffering and so we might be following a rabbit trail and getting away from the intention of the text to do so.

Sufferings reveal whether faith is authentic. Things are tested in the fire. Two things are happening here in this imagery of comparing authentic faith to gold. First, we see that just as gold is tested by fire so is faith. When you put gold into the fire it does not reduce it to ashes. When you put gold into the fire it removes the impurities. And so when our faith is put through the fire that which is authentic in our faith will remain but the impurities of our faith will be torn away. Our idols will lose their luster in the furnace of suffering.

Listen to these words from Randy Alcorn:

Evil and suffering have a way of exposing our inadequate theology. When affliction comes, a weak or nominal Christian often discovers that his faith doesn’t account for it or prepare him for it. His faith has been in his church, denomination, or family tradition, or in his own religious ideas—but not in Christ. As he faces evil and suffering, he may, in fact, lose his faith.

But that is actually a good thing; any faith that leaves us unprepared for suffering is a false faith that deserves to be abandoned. Genuine faith will be tested by suffering; false faith will be lost—the sooner, the better.

The first thing, then, that we see from this imagery of Peter is that suffering purifies and displays the authenticity of faith. But there is something else that he is doing with this imagery as well. Notice that he says, “the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes...” Gold perishes. Your authentic faith is more precious than gold.

And when it is ran through the kiln of suffering it comes out the other end, “found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Gold will not stand on that day but authentic faith will and it will result in praise, glory, and honor. And there is a very real sense in which this praise, glory, and honor which is attributed to God is also shared in by the believer.

When will this happen? At the revelation of Jesus Christ. Here notice what God is doing through this text. He is again giving us a view from the grandstands. He is saying, “sometimes it doesn’t make much sense while you are in the middle of suffering living life on the sidelines.” But then he walks you up the flights of stairs and sits you in the upper-deck and says, “Look at that”. Isn’t that beautiful.

He takes us to the second coming of Christ where our hope is found. Where Christ will be seen by all. And here we see that the believers that Peter is writing to are very much in common with us. They, like us, had never seen the historical Jesus. And yet, even in the midst of viewing life from the sidelines (though you don’t see him) you love him. And even now—in the midst of suffering—living on the sidelines—you rejoice with a joy that is inexpressible.

v.10-12…This is what hope does as well…this is the result of hope. He looks at the OT saints and wants them to see that they labored for us. They had hope…and so they proclaimed about a kingdom they would never see while alive.

Touching a generation you’ll never see. Being all-in on children’s ministry and youth ministry is a way of proclaiming hope. It’s a way of saying—the gospel is going to be around, Christ’s church will be laboring and thriving and proclaiming, He will be King even when I’m gone. And so it’s believing that and investing in that.

Impacting a generation you’ll never see. That’s how hope motivates us.

I want to close with this quote from Paul Tripp...

No matter what you struggle with now, no matter how successful or stuck you see yourself to be, no matter how young or how old you are in your faith, no matter if you are a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, if you are Christ’s child there is hope for you! It is not based on who you are or what you know. Your hope is Jesus! He lives in you and, because of that, you have a reason to celebrate each new day. You no longer live, but Christ lives in you! We welcome you to a lifestyle of celebrating just what that means.

Maybe today is a day of grieving. Remember the Scripture…grieve as those who have hope. Grieve knowing that death doesn’t get the last word. Moving communities doesn’t get the last word. Our story is written with gospel ink. Good news is infused into every moment.

Or maybe it is filled with joy. This joy springs out of the hope that we have in the gospel.

Perhaps you don’t have either. You need Christ.

Maybe you need Christ...

Join up with us....we’re going to see some amazing things happen in the coming days. You want to be part of that?