THE POWER OF A LIVING HOPE!

THE POWER OF HOPE

(1 Peter 1:3-9)

Intro: Back in the days of sailing ships a young sailor went to sea for the first time. The ship encountered a heavy storm in the North Atlantic. The sailor was commanded to go aloft and trim the sails. As the young sailor started to climb, he made a mistake and looked down. The roll of the ship combined with the tossing of the waves made for a frightening experience. The young man started to lose his balance. At that moment, an older expereinced sailor below shouted, "Look up, son! Look up!" The young sailor looked up and regained his balance.

We Christians have a “living hope”, but we can often lose sight of that hope by losing sight of Jesus. As Peter shows us, our “living hope” is intimately connected to Him. Our hope is maintained only as we “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith”(Heb 12:2)

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:

Peter writing around 30 years after the death and resurrection of our Jesus Christ.

Writing to encourage the beleaguered Christians of Asia Minor. Who were being abused by overbearing employers(2:18), threatened by unbelieving spouses (3:1, 6), and ridiculed by skeptical neighbors and associates (4:14).

The future looked bleak, On the horizon loomed the possibility of a much more violent form of persecution (4:12-18).

THE KEY QUESTION: The question that arises at such times of great difficulty is this: “How can we cope? How can we know the power of this “living hope” in times of great stress and anxiety not just to endure the evil day, but to be joyful and to fill our lives with the fruits of righteousness (Phil. 1:11). How, when your life is tough, when your job, or your marriage, or your health, or other things are getting you down, how can overcome and be filled with peace and joy?

The answer of course is that it is utterly impossible without Christ’s help! It is only though Him that we “can do all things”(Phil 4). It is only as His resurrection power is at work within me that I can “run the race” that is set before me!(Phil 3)

That is why I want to emphasize again that our “living hope” is in an unbreakable chain with the “Jesus Christ”! It is only in Him that we can overcome!

SO IN ORDER TO REALLY BENEFIT FROM THIS “LIVING HOPE” WE NEED TO CONSIDER HOW “JESUS CHRIST” GIVES IT TO US:

What is this "living hope":

How does it arise in our heart?

Why is it called a “new birth into a living hope”?

How does it empower us to love?

What is this "living hope?"

Not “I HOPE SO”:

The New Testament idea of hope is very different from our normal thinking about hope. I may say: I hope Newcastle win the Premiership, but that hope is hardly one I’d stake my life on! That’s how we often think about hope, as something we desire for the future but which we are uncertain of attaining.

It’s a matter of COMPLETE CONFIDENCE: 1v13

The coming of Christ is a matter of complete confidence for all the writers in the NT. So the command, "Hope fully," means be intensely desirous and fully confident that Jesus Christ is coming again with grace for his people.

Another example would be Hebrews 6:11 where it says, "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.

It’s LIVING:

The opposite of a "living hope" would be a "dead hope," and that calls to mind a similar phrase in James, "dead faith." "Faith without works is dead" (2:26). 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 produces changes in life. This is what "living' means 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 power to produce changes in how we live.

How does this hope arise in our hearts?

One part of the answer is given here in v3, another part is given in vs 23-25.

In v 3, Peter says, we have “new birth into 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 2000 years later. Vs 23-25 help fill the gap: “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, "All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands for ever." And this is the word that was preached to you.

Connecting the historical resurrection of Jesus and my life 2000 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 Cor. 15:3-4).

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. If the Pharisees and scribes had been able to produce the body of Jesus on Pentecost, Peter could have preached till he was blue in the face and no one would have been born anew unto a living hope. 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 Cor. 15:5-7). Christian hope arises in the heart through hearing a credible testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

But two further questions arise: How does a credible testimony to Jesus' resurrection produce hope in our heart? And: Why is this called a new birth? It happens in basically two ways.

(i), 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: 1 September 2002, Trinity URC Hall.

But how do I know his presence bodes well for me? How do I know it is a hopeful presence? The answer to this is the second way….

(ii). His resurrection gives me hope.

1 Pet 3:18 : "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 the efficacy of 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 2000-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.

3. Why is the begetting of this hope called a new birth?

"By his great mercy we have been born anew unto a living hope."

Have you ever asked the question: What makes you you? What is the essence of your unique personhood? What is that root from which the flower of your individuality grows?

I think if you probe deeply you will find that it is not your actions or thoughts or ideas. It is your desires.

We are most basically what we crave. Ideas and principles will be brought in afterwards to justify our appetites and passions. The primal thing is your yearning and longing. Your individuality is determined by what you hanker for.

If that is true, then a radical change in our desires and longings will mean a radical change in our personhood.

Something new comes into being and that is what Jesus and John and Paul and Peter call the new birth or regeneration.

The reason Peter says we are "born anew to a living hope" is because when we cease to pin our hope (our desires and longings) on things that are in the world, and instead pin our hopes and desires on God, then a new person has been born.

4) How does it empower us to live?

Why do those with a “living hope” have the power to live. C/f 1 Peter 1:13-15:

13* Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed.

14* As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.

15* But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do;

Conduct conforms to passions or desires.

Formerly we were ignorant Peter says in v14, ignorant of the death and resurrection of Jesus and all the promises they contain. Accompanying this ignorance was a complex of desires.

Not knowing the glory of God and the hope he offers, through Christ you set your hope on things of the world and your conduct kept in step.

But now, you are no longer ignorant of God's grace, so hope fully in the grace coming to you at the revelation of Christ. Have a new set of desires and the holy conduct that follows from them, like fruit on a tree.

The kind of conduct that hoping in God empowers is holy love. And I want to conclude with three illustrations of how that works.

(i). Hope empowers holy love by pushing out greed and self-pity.

When we are anxious about tomorrow and something has happened to make us feel terrible about what's coming, we generally respond in one or both of two ways, which are just the opposite of love. Our subconscious may tell us: "Well, if things are going to be so bad tomorrow you may as well get the pleasure you can today. And it doesn't matter if you exploit others in the process." A mild form of this would be overeating; a more serious form would be stealing.

The other way we respond to anxiety is by self-pity or depression. And the result of this is that we are so fretful about ourselves that we have no incentive or strength to care about others.

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!" And in that way we fight the fight of faith, and drive away the greed and self-pity of hopelessness and open the gates of love. And so hope is the power for holy love.

(ii). Hope empowers love by the inevitability of imitation.

You always tend to imitate the people you admire most and desire most strongly to be around. Kids tend to dress and walk and talk like their heroes. And so do we adults, though we are less blatant about it.

A person who hopes intensely in Jesus Christ, who longs to see him and be with him, will inevitably start to think and feel and act like Jesus.

"Everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure"(1 John 3:3). Strong hope to see Jesus is a strong power for holy love.

(iii). Hope empowers holy love is by giving the

assurance of God's blessing and care which we need in order to follow through on some of his specific hard commands.

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.