Our Living Hope

Introduction:

My wife’s grandmother lived next to us for many years. She was like a grandmother to me as well and we used to love walking next door.

One of the ways she loved to show love to us was to cook for us. We wanted to make her feel that her love was received, so of course we ate what she cooked.

It didn’t hurt any that she was an incredible cook. In fact, we learned to drop some hints for her along the way. We would be coming back home from vacations and we didn’t want to have to cook when we got hope. We knew that she would want to hear all about our trips and so we would make a strategic call to let her know around what time we would be home. Of course the food would be ready just when we were planning on getting home, so we might as well stay and eat.

When she got towards the end of her life, we realized that there was a problem. She was one of these people that could cook so well, she didn’t need any recipes. Great for her, but we needed to get these recipes written down so we could keep the legacy going.

Some of them we were able to get pretty close, but there are some that unfortunately were lost when she went home to be with the Lord.

It’s important for us to preserve precious and priceless memories. But what is even more important is that we preserve the legacy of faith that we have inherited from the Lord.

Today, we are going to look at the living hope we have in the resurrected Jesus.

I know that you have heard a lot about the resurrection if you have been to Holy Week services, or if you went to a Good Friday service, or if you came to the Sunrise service and stayed through Sunday School. We even talked about it at our Easter Egg hunt.

That’s because the resurrection of Jesus is our living hope. It is the reason we have to keep going every day.

Look with me in your Bibles to 1 Peter 1.

1 Peter 1:3–9 ESV

3 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, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 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. 8 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, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Pray

Now, Peter wrote to a bunch of people who needed some hope. They were exiles for their faith in Christ and had been dispersed throughout the Roman empire.

They were persecuted and oppressed, but Peter wanted them to know that they had a hope. Just like the Disciples felt like their world was over when Jesus was crucified until that Resurrection Sunday morning came and they heard the good news that Jesus was alive!

As we look at these verses, I want to show you three things about our living hope.

1. A Great Mercy Has Been Given (v.3)

1 Peter 1:3 ESV

3 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,

Mercy Given

Mercy is given when you don’t get what was coming to you

Mercy means pity or compassion

We don’t realize what we deserve. We deserve death and Hell because of our sin.

However, the Bible says in Ephesians 2,

Ephesians 2:4–5 ESV

4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—

We were born again to a living hope. Our faith is a living one, not a dying one.

We may die. We may be oppressed like these people that Peter was writing to. We may feel the attacks of the enemy in this world, but we have hope because we have mercy from God.

Sometimes God’s mercy can come in unlikely ways. It might be the death of a believer.

The Bible says, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” That’s because they are coming home to be with Him.

The resurrection permeates all of Christianity. Without it we have nothing but a dead religion. With it we having a living hope.

If Jesus had stayed in the grave, we would have no hope, but because He rose again, we have a living hope.

2. A Great Inheritance Has Been Secured (v.4-7)

1 Peter 1:4–7 ESV

4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. 6 In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 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.

What happens with an inheritance?

People don’t get one

Craziest inheritances people have gotten. Here are a few

Walnut of Luck

A Million-Dollar Home for a Dog: A Maltese named Bella Mia inherited a mansion and trust fund, living a life of luxury

Random Beneficiaries: A Portuguese aristocrat left his fortune to 70 strangers chosen from a phone directory.

How about people who gain a great inheritance but spend all of it or squander it.

God is keeping our inheritance in trust in Heaven for us. You could say we are kind of like trust fund babies.

That means he is keeping us faithful to Him. He will keep our faith in Him if it is genuine.

I never heard of anyone who was trying to survive a plane that was crashing taking off their parachute on the way down.

He died to secure us

Illustration

Some of the biggest fish ever caught were the ones that didn’t get into the boat. Let that sink in for a minute. The angler didn’t set the hook properly and the fish got off. While it gave a good fight for a short time, it didn’t matter in the end because there was no photo opp and no fish to show off.

When God goes fishing for men, He doesn’t lose us off the line. He metaphorically sets the hook and gets us all the way into the boat.

He does this by giving us the Holy Spirit when we are saved.

The word here for guarded is a word that can be translated as being guarded or kept captive. Isn’t it ironic that they tried to guard Jesus’ tomb and keep Him captive in the grave to no avail. However, this is not a phrase describing God as keeping us captive like we are some kidnapped person. You can have someone inside a home being guarded to keep them in or you can have someone inside a home to keep someone out. God is keeping out our unbelief and keeping us in the home where we are safe and sound.

Bad guys in the neighborhood. We keep our kids inside for their own good, no matter whether they want to or not and in the end they are thankful for the safety we provided them.

In the same way, God guards our great inheritance that awaits us at our own resurrection.

3. A Great Joy Has Been Expressed (v.8-9)

1 Peter 1:8–9 ESV

8 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, 9 obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

-Imagine for a moment that you have just received a brand new car. I don’t know who these people are in the commercials that just walk out of the front door of their homes and have their hands over their wife or husbands eyes and then make the big reveal that there is a new car sitting in the driveway. My wife would kill me!

However, let’s imagine that you are one of these people. I doubt you would say, “Wow! Thanks!” and just turn and walk back in.

You would have a smile on your face and you would get a little giddy inside. You might even express yourself like the people on the show “The Price is Right” and start jumping up and down in a fit of emotion.

Why is it then that we tend to worship God without any emotion? God has given us the eternal salvation of our souls by the shed blood of His Son, Jesus. You would think we would shout and praise and lift our hands and be a little excited about it, wouldn’t you?

Some of you might be giving new meaning to the term “inexpressible joy.” That phrase doesn’t mean we don’t try to express our joy, it means we can never fully express it. Put another way, it means we will spend all of eternity trying to fully demonstrate our worship of God and the joy of our salvation.

That leaves us with the result of this passage. In verse 3 and in verses 7-8, we are brought back to the theme of worship. The reason we gather to celebrate on Resurrection Sunday is because God has secured our salvation and saved our souls

Conclusion A lot of preachers can get really anxious on Resurrection Sunday. There have been a lot of shenanigans this week on social media with invites and such. There is an extreme amount of pressure that the environment must be welcoming, the praise team top notch, and the sermon a home run. Everything is supposed to be perfect so that some lost person that comes to church might decide to stay.

Here’s the truth. Every Sunday we should give our best. Every Sunday we should be welcoming and inviting and come to hear the word of God declared. But if God is the One who secured your salvation, and God is the One who is drawing the saved to Himself, God is the One who will keep us and He has given us every reason to worship Him so that we don’t need any extra gimmicks or help to have a reason to praise Him.

I hope that this morning you have not found it difficult to praise the Lord. Every Sunday is Resurrection Sunday because of what Christ did for us. Every day we have a reason to praise Him and rejoice with joy inexpressible. We ought to wake up every day and try to make sure we find some way to worship the Lord.