Living in Hope!

Lifestyle Christianity Series

1 Peter 1:3-9

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,.”

What do you say to Christians under pressure?

Peter was writing to people who were being abused by their employers and slaveholders (2:18), threatened by unbelieving spouses (3:1, 6), and “insulted for the name of Christ” (4:14).

On the horizon loomed the possibility of a much more violent persecution (4:12–18).

Peter speaking to this anti-Christian society reminds them that they are possessors of a “living hope” that can sustain them through their trials and pressures.

You and I might be facing similar types of pressures ourselves and we face the same dilemma of how to cope with the stress of all of these life pressures, how do we face them? BY BEING FILLED WITH OUR “LIVING HOPE”!:

This living hope allows us to rise up when life is threatened, the job is tough, the marriage on the line; things appear to be spiralling out of control. We can face it all by saying, I have hope!

When George Bush Sr served as VP representing the U.S. at the funeral of former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Bush was deeply moved by a silent protest carried out by Brezhnev's widow. She stood motionless by the coffin until seconds before it was closed. Then, just as the soldiers touched the lid, Brezhnev's wife performed an act of great courage and hope, a gesture that must surely rank as one of the most profound acts of civil disobedience ever committed: She reached down and made the sign of the cross on her husband's chest. There in the citadel of secular, atheistic power, the wife of the man who had run it all hoped that her husband was wrong. She hoped that there was another life, and that that life was best represented by Jesus who died on the cross, and that the same Jesus might yet have mercy on her husband.

What Is Living Hope?

The New Testament idea of hope is very different from our normal thinking about hope.

I hope that Newcastle may avoid relegation! I don't know that they will but I hope so. In this sense my hope is a desire for some future thing which I am uncertain of!

That is not the way Peter, or the rest of the New Testament, thinks about hope. When Peter says in 1:13, "Hope fully in the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ," he does not mean we should desire it and be uncertain of it. The coming of Christ is a matter of complete confidence for all the writers in the New Testament.

So the command, "Hope fully," means desire and be fully confident that Jesus Christ is coming again for his people. As the writer to Hebrew Christians says in Hebrews 6:11 "We desire each one of you to show the same earnestness in realizing the full assurance of hope to the end."

So we can define hope, in the New Testament sense, as full assurance, or strong confidence that God is going to do good to us in the future.

The opposite of a "living hope" would be a "dead hope," which calls to mind a similar phrase in James 2, namely, "dead faith." "Faith without works is dead" (2:26),

James says. That is, faith is barren, fruitless, unproductive (2:20). So "living faith" and, by analogy, "living hope" would be fertile, fruitful, productive hope.

Living hope is hope that has power and gives momentum to produce changes in life. (Just as a football team with renewed confidence has momentum to start winning games and beleiving!)

This is why the HOPE is "living' just like in Hebrews 4:12, where it says, "The word of God is living and effective."

So Christian hope is a strong confidence in God which has the power to produce changes in how we live.

II. How Does Hope Live in Our Hearts?

By new birth! - v3; "We are born anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."

That is, our hope arises from being born anew, and this new birth comes in some sense through Jesus' resurrection.

There is a big gap between the resurrection of Jesus and my new birth 2,000 years later.

Vs 23–25 help fill the gap. Peter says, "You have been born anew not of perishable seed but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God; for all flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord abides forever. That word is the good news which was preached to you."

Connecting the historical resurrection of Jesus and my life 2,000 years later is the Word of God, namely, the gospel.

The gospel is the message, preached in the power of the Holy Spirit, "that Jesus Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, and that he rose again on the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3–4).

B. v23 “through the living and abiding word, the news of Jesus' death and resurrection.

And how these two means work together is not hard to understand. The resurrection of Jesus does not produce hope without our hearing about it. Before it can beget hope in our heart, we have to get the news.

But the other way around is true too. Words by themselves don't produce hope. There has to be some assurance that they are true. We have to have some evidence that Jesus really did rise from the dead.

That's why Paul, when he defined the gospel in 1 Corinthians 15:4, went on to say that after his resurrection Jesus "appeared to Cephas, then the twelve. Then he appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep" (1 Corinthians 15:5–7).

Christian hope arises in the heart through hearing a credible testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

The 2,000-year-old resurrection reaches my heart and produces hope in basically two ways.

First, the testimony that Jesus rose from the dead is a declaration to me that Jesus Christ is alive, never to die again, and therefore is here right now.

Second - His resurrection gives me hope. If Jesus was raised from the dead, exalted to the right hand of the father, and is coming as king to judge the living and the dead, then I have good reason to believe that what he said about his death is true. And what he said was that he died for me (John 15:13) and that he ransomed me for God (Mark 10:45).

The way Peter puts it in 3:18 is this: "Christ also died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God."

The resurrection of Jesus certifies to me, his death for my sins. As Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:17, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins."

But if Christ has been raised, then all my sins are forgiven if I cast myself on him. And if all my sins are forgiven, then God is not against me but for me. "And if God is for me, then who can be against me?"

He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies; who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus who died, yes who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. (Romans 8:31–34)

That's how a 2,000-year-old resurrection reaches my heart and begets hope:

It certifies to me that because Jesus bore my sins on the cross, God is for me and not against me; and it declares that this Jesus who loved me and gave himself for me is alive and present and caring at every moment of my life. Thank you, Jesus!

III. This Hope works itself out in Loving Kindness!

Peter seems to suggest that the tougher the times, the greater the need to live a life of love for others. Listen to what he writes: Having purified your souls, by your obedience to the truth for a sincere love of the brothers, love one another earnestly from the heart. (1:22)

Beloved, I beseech you as aliens and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh that wage war against your soul. Maintain good conduct among the Gentiles, so that in case they speak against you as wrongdoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. (2:11, 12)

Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps. He committed no sin; no guile was found on his lips. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he trusted to him who judges justly. (2:21–23)

Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary, bless; for to this you have been called, that you may obtain a blessing. For "He that would love life and see good days, let him keep his tongue from evil and his lips from speaking guile; let him turn away from evil and do right; let him seek peace and pursue it." (3:9–11)

Above all hold unfailing your love for one another, since love covers a multitude of sins. (4:8)

There is no slackening in the summons to live like Jesus, even when life is really tough. Peter doesn't lighten our load by saying we don't have to live like Jesus in hard times.

The power with which Peter aims to equip these beleaguered saints is the power of hope.

If they, or we, are going to love like Jesus loved, even in times of great stress and worry, then they must be filled with "living hope." Notice1 Peter 1:13–15: Gird up your minds, be sober, set your hope fully upon the grace that is coming to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

The kind of conduct that hoping in God empowers is holy love.

Let your hope push out greed and self-pity.

We do not need to be anxious about tomorrow and something has happened to make us feel terrible about what's coming or indulge in self-pity.

Against such anxiety we have to throw the forces of hope. We must gird up our minds and be sober and hope fully in God who said in 1 Peter 5:7, "Cast all your anxieties on me because I care for you."

We must argue with our soul and say, "Soul, Jesus Christ died for my sins, it has been certified to me by his resurrection. God is not against me but for me. Why are you downcast, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God!"

Let your hope empower you by giving you the assurance of God's blessing and care.

There is only one basic reason why we disobey the commands of Jesus: it's because we don't have confidence that obeying will bring more blessing than disobeying. We do not hope fully in God's promise. What did he promise?

Peter passes on his teaching like this: "Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary bless, for to this you have been called that you may obtain a blessing. He who would love life and see good days . . . let him turn away from evil and do good."

You will always be better off to obey than to disobey, even if it costs you your life. "Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or lands for my sake and the gospel's, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this time . . . with persecutions and in the age to come eternal life" (Mark 10:29–30).

The only way to have the power to follow Christ in the costly way of love is to be filled with hope, with strong confidence, that if we lose our life doing his will, we will find it again and be richly rewarded.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy has begotten us anew to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.