1 Peter 1:3-9
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2020
2020
Its the second to last Sunday of 2020. Thank goodness.
I don’t think last year, when we began this year that any of us could have predicted how this year could have went.
Our world has been turned upside by a virus.
For so many people, this year has been the worst year of their lives.
This year has been a year of isolation, a year of fear, a year of sickness, a year of financial instability, a year of family struggles, a year uncertainty. etc.
In just the past few days, even in the last week, it seems I have heard of more hurt, pain, and sorrow among people I know.
I know people, even some of you, who have lost loved ones this year.
Some of you have dealt first hand with the realities of the virus.
Some of you have taken a financial hit this year because of the economic down turn.
Some of you are dealing with a difficult diagnosis yourself or the difficult diagnosis of someone you love dearly.
And now, we arrive at Christmas time, a time of joy and peace, right?
Somehow, we are just expected to forget the troubles and trials of the world around us and celebrate.
Somehow, we are just supposed to sing Joy to the World, as if we are oblivious to the fact that our world, at the present time, seems to be void of joy, altogether.
Its been a tough year.
So I wanted to pick a passage to hopefully encourage you.
In the passage today, God through Peter gives us encouragement to have joy no matter what we may be facing.
This passage outlines well.
He reminds us of our future hope. He deals with our present trials, and he reminds us of our current ability to have joy regardless.
You should know, Peter is addressing a scattered group of believers across several different regions.
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who reside as aliens, scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure.
He addresses believers who “reside as aliens.”
This isn’t to suggest that they weren’t from these areas originally.
He is speaking of their spiritual citizenship.
As believers and citizens of heaven, this world is not our home.
There is a real spiritual condition of homesickness in this world.
We live as aliens. We long for something better. In every believer, the more we grown in Christ, the more this world becomes less and less desirable.
We know we don’t belong. We want something better.
(Africa- Flight Canceled) The next flight to where we needed to go wasn’t scheduled for a few more days. I wanted to go home. It ended up working out took a little longer, but we made it back.
The longer I was away, the more I long for home.
The world and the sin in it make for a difficult place to be.
The People Peter is addressing are homesick. They are hurting.
And he encourages them.
He tells them of our future hope (1 Peter 1:3-5)
He tells them of our future hope (1 Peter 1:3-5)
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
Peter begins by establishing for his audience the basis of their hope.
In verse 3 he speaks of our salvation, He begins with praise to the Father who has made it all happen.
It was the Father’s mercy that made our salvation possible.
Mercy is the withholding of rightful punishment that we deserve for our sin.
Its God’s mercy in salvation that allows believers to live free from the worry of God’s wrath being poured out on us.
Its God’s mercy in salvation that keeps any of us from experience eternal wrath.
And its according to His mercy that he has caused us to be born again.
In other words, he has withheld what we do deserve to give to us what we do not.
We spoke of this a few weeks ago in Ephesians 2, that God has done a work in our lives to raise us up from our state of sinfulness, to a place where now we have a living hope, and we’ve been born again into it .
And thats our hope now.
Read verse 3 again.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
Now the resurrection of Christ is our hope. Before Christ, we had no hope.
Now the resurrection of Christ is our hope of resurrection. the worse thing that can happen to us in the world is what? Death
But Death in Christ is gain according to Paul.
Our hope of raising from the dead is bound up in the fact that he raised up from the dead.
knowing that He who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and will present us with you.
So quite literally, we have a living hope and His name is Jesus.
And because he will always live, our hope will never fade away.
So we have a future hope beyond death.
But we also have been given the promise of an immeasurable inheritance.
to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you,
In Christ, through faith, there is a reservation for you in heaven, paid for by the blood of Christ, and kept by the power of God.
There are three words used to describe our inheritance in Christ.
Imperishable- meaning it will never be destroyed.
It is hard to imagine anything like this. Everything in this current world perishes. Think about the car you drove 20 years ago? Think about the car you drove ten years ago? You first got it, it was awesome, how about it now? Every gift you will receive this Christmas, will fall apart, it will wear out, but the gift we have been in Christ does not perish. Our inheritance is imperishable.
Undefiled- meaning its not impure.
Again, its hard to imagine anything like this. We live in a fallen world, where even our best things are defiled, even the best things in our world have a stain.
But he is saying here that our inheritance is not that way. Our inheritance is undefiled. There is no stain or hint of sin in what awaits us.
Every pain and struggle we face in this current world traces back to the fall of man, when sin entered into the world. This is why we have things like a virus. diseases, thorns, thistles, pain in childbearing, and even death. Because sin and the defilement of it has ravaged the world.
The world we live in is not how it was created to be. If you remember, God called it good in Genesis, so anything not good that we find in it now is a result of the defilement of sin.
But what awaits us will be undefiled.
Unfading
Our inheritance is unfading. What awaits us will not fade away.
We all experience this fading away.
As the years increase and our time in this sin ravaged world, increases, we don’t become better with age. Our minds become less sharp. Our bodies start to wear out, our joints begin to ache more and more, because our bodies fade under the weight of this sin cursed world.
But when we are raised with Christ into glory, Paul tells us in Corinthians, we will be raised incorruptible.
That’s what awaits us. That is what God has promised those who believer.
And inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.
Thats the longing hope for the believer. Those thoughts are what makes us homesick for heaven. Something better.
I don’t know about you, but I’m ready a painless future. A sinless world. I’m ready for Cancer and Covid and every other disease to be gone. I’m ready for a place with no funerals. That is precisely what Christ has promised us.
and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”
What awaits us is far better.
And because God is the One who has promised it to us. Its sure. If we believe, if we have trusted in Christ, our inheritance is sure.
Look at verse 5
who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Those who believe are protected by the power of God. And something awaits them that is far better than this world.
God will fulfill his promise on the basis of his ability and his power.
So maybe you’re discouraged this year by all the events of this year or the past few years. Maybe you feel guilty of something that happened beyond your control. Maybe you are homesick for something better. He who is faithful has promised that to you, if you believe.
Maybe there’s an empty seat that is supposed to be full this Christmas at your house. I want you to know that you can be sure, If that person trusted in Christ, their inheritance in imperishable and undefiled, because of the living hope in Christ.
Maybe a family member or you’ve been given a difficult diagnosis this Christmas. You need not fear or tremble at the thought of death. If we are trusting in Christ, our hope is living in heaven and he has promised to raise us because he has raised.
Maybe you’ve watched as your earthly valuables have been stripped away. You’ve watched what you’ve worked so hard to gain grow smaller and smaller with each passing year. There’s something better that awaits us than that.
Peter is clear here to this group of people and to us.
This passage speaks to our future hope, to remind us that true joy will not be found in this present world.
The worldly way is to eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die.
The famous saying is Carpe diem, which is latin for Seize the Day. But believers do not cling to today. We hope in what awaits us.
Kelley Strickland a few weeks before he passed away, he told me, “Pastor, I’m tired of hurting. I don’t want to leave my family, but I’m ready for something better.”
In Christ, there is something better.
We have a future hope.
But this leads Peter to his next point.
Look in verses 6-7
In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
Our present trials (1 Peter 1:6-7)
Our present trials (1 Peter 1:6-7)
Peter doesn’t pretend trials don’t exist. In fact, he assumes they do.
I don’t have to tell you trials exist. You know they do from personal experience. All of us have more experience than we would like with trials.
But Peter tells us something about our trials here.
He uses the illustration of gold.
Gold is refined and purified by fire or today the more contemporary method is to apply a mixture of nitric and hydrochloric acid.
Either way, the process is the same, pressure and intense heat is applied from outside the gold to reveal and strip away the impurities.
But its hot. 1064 degrees to be exact.
Trials are hard. Life is difficult. It says right there in the text, we have been distressed by various trials.
Many of us still carry the weight and pain of our distress, but Scripture teaches us its all for our good.
we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed;
Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
We often do not know why. We often struggle with the pain and suffering of this life.
Why did this happen?
As a pastor, I can’t tell you why your particular struggle or trial is so difficult, but what I can tell you is what God’s Word says in 2 Corinthians 4:17
For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison,
I can tell you what God’s Word says in Romans 8:28
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
I can tell you what Peter says
so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ;
Trials and testing reveal where our faith lies. In fact, it reveals whether our faith is genuine or not.
Trials and testing serve to reveal to us where our hope lies.
And one day, Peter is saying here when the trials are over, they will prove to make the joy of seeing our Savior that much better.
We all suffer, but those of us who are in Christ do not suffer without hope.
This is why we can be joyful at Christmas this year.
Look in verse 8-9
and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.
Our current joy (1 Peter 1:8-9)
Our current joy (1 Peter 1:8-9)
He’s been building up to this.
The point very quickly is that because the believer has an imperishable, undefiled, and unfading inheritance awaiting us, so also our joy should be unfading.
Our bodies will wear out, our earthly possessions may fade. Our lives and everything around us may come crashing down. For the believer, there is an ever present joy because even though lives may not be free from physical trouble, our souls are saved.
Peter says here:
But because we love Christ even having not yet seen him.
And because we believe Christ, even having not yet seen him,
OUR SOULS ARE SAVED.
We have obtained by the outcome of our faith, the salvation of our souls.
I hope that this fills you a fresh with the hope we have in Christ this Christmas.
When the trials and storms of this life rocks on your boat, Pull again and hold tight to the living hope Who is the anchor of our souls.
I love this passage because it outlines well for a sermon, but also because of how Peter describes who we are and what we have as believers.
We are a hopeful people.
We are suffering people.
We are a joyful people.
This is precisely why Christ came. He came to make his blessings flow, far as the curse is found.
Believer, be encouraged this Christmas.
We may be suffering, but on either side of our misery is hope and joy. Trust in Christ and find joy and hope there.
Unbeliever, you cannot possibly know true hope and joy apart from Christ.
The only pleasure you will find will be in this world, but you should be aware, The pleasure of this world is perishing, defiled, and fading. There is no hope there. There is eternal hope found in Christ. Hope that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.