Hope Eternal - Part II

Grace and Peace Fam!

Thank you again for being with us this evening - Tonight we’re continuing to work our way through the first 12 verses of 1st Peter’s 1st chapter that weighs pretty heavily on this reality of suffering in the life of the believer

Suffering as I spoke at length about last week is for Peter the connecting point for which we find ourselves united with each other, but also it is the way in which we connect to Jesus as he is as Isaiah describes him, the suffering servant

In Luke 22:37 Jesus says, “It is written: “And he was numbered with the transgressors”; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment.” - So Jesus is clearly connecting his identity as the one who comes to suffer for the sins of humanity

Isaiah, who is writing some 700 years before Jesus’ arrival says this about Jesus in 52:13-53:12 - Listen to how Peterson paraphrases Isaiah’s text for us in The Message:

“Just watch my servant blossom! Exalted, tall, head and shoulders above the crowd! But he didn’t begin that way. At first everyone was appalled. He didn’t even look human— a ruined face, disfigured past recognition. Nations all over the world will be in awe, taken aback, kings shocked into silence when they see him. For what was unheard of they’ll see with their own eyes, what was unthinkable they’ll have right before them.” Who believes what we’ve heard and seen? Who would have thought God’s saving power would look like this?

 The servant grew up before God—a scrawny seedling, a scrubby plant in a parched field. There was nothing attractive about him, nothing to cause us to take a second look. He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed. We’re all like sheep who’ve wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him.

He was beaten, he was tortured, but he didn’t say a word. Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered and like a sheep being sheared, he took it all in silence. Justice miscarried, and he was led off— and did anyone really know what was happening? He died without a thought for his own welfare, beaten bloody for the sins of my people. They buried him with the wicked, threw him in a grave with a rich man, Even though he’d never hurt a soul or said one word that wasn’t true.

Still, it’s what God had in mind all along, to crush him with pain. The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he’d see life come from it—life, life, and more life. And God’s plan will deeply prosper through him.

Out of that terrible travail of soul, he’ll see that it’s worth it and be glad he did it. Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant, will make many “righteous ones,” as he himself carries the burden of their sins. Therefore I’ll reward him extravagantly— the best of everything, the highest honors— Because he looked death in the face and didn’t flinch, because he embraced the company of the lowest. He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

God alone has the ability to forgive sin and this is precisely why the religious leaders of Jesus day were so terribly enraged by Him - Jesus comes and reveals himself as the one who comes with this exact authority and you can check Matthew 9:1-8 if you need a point of reference but there are three essential ideas from Isaiah’s prophetic word that I hope shapes the way we approach tonight’s text - First, know that Jesus comes and suffers in our place (Isaiah 53:4); Second know that the reality of one who would come to suffer was established before the world itself was created (Isaiah 53:5, 11, 12) and lastly, know that he succeeds in his suffering that he might now intercede on our behalf (Isaiah 53:12)

While for you and I these ideas might need some interpretation, for Peter these are exact realities that he himself had witnessed with his own eyes so as he writes in verses 1-5, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you. 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.”

We unpacked much of the first three verses last week but for context we know that Peter is reflecting upon himself as an Apostle to establish himself as one who writes with some sense of authority and the elect are those who in the very foreknowledge of God are a people he has called his own and while to those whom he writes are a seemingly disconnected people in various regions of the area we know that they are connected through this common experience of suffering and yet still there is glory in that suffering because the sufferings of God’s people had become the instrument in which the gospel is being spread throughout the world

In verse 2 we are called to obedience in Jesus for the sprinkling of his blood and we said that this sprinkling is the sporadic spread of substance and in this instance this is the gospel itself with global implications that becomes the very vehicle by which we are called to Hope Eternal as the grace and mercy afforded to us in Christ’s atoning work on the cross gives us a hope that endures through all of life’s sufferings - The gospel is this message of incredibly good news for us and here Peter points us to its benefits - Benefits are in essence the rewards assured to an employee as an addition to salaries or wages - In fact, we know today that an organization’s ability to offer exceptional benefits are critical to organizational success and aide in allowing employees to find enjoyment and longevity in their work and here is verse 4 Peter reminds us that in Jesus we too have benefits of the job, and yet these are benefits that you didn’t even have to work for

Know fam that within the benefits package of the believer is an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading but notice though why Peter says that this is true because he says that they are 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.” - This is of course Peter revealing to us that we can trust in the salvation being afforded to us in the person and work of Jesus because that salvation is being guarded by the very power of God and not only that because Peter says that we can be assured of this until the last time so know that your salvation is secure until Jesus himself returns for us

Look with me at verses 7 and 8 - It says, “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.” - Here fam Peter is calling those grieved by momentary trials, those who are living in this reality of immense suffering to yet still rejoice but why is this necessary, I mean how can the people who suffer in this way also find the means to rejoice in it but look at how he answers that very question because he says that this is so that the tested genuineness of your faith that is more precious than gold that perishes even though it's been tested by fire can result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

I’m sure most of us are familiar with the analogy of the way that gold is shaped into true beauty - Scripture uses this symbolism at least 50 times and we’ll see that Peter uses it to continue to reflect on the way that we are shaped by life’s sufferings - Yet I want you to know that suffering itself is not the goal but it is the means in which you and I can come to see the praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ

Fam look at verses 8 and 9, it says, “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.” - I want to be sure that you grasp the progression that Peter is teaching us here because there is this movement that goes from our love for Jesus whom we cannot see to even though we can’t see him we’ve come not only to love him but to believe in him but what’s crazy then is the result of this progression of our faith, Peter says that because we have come to love him and to believe in him we can rejoice with a joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory - This is a joy that we cannot even put words to, a joy that is indescribable that Peter says it's a joy that is filled with glory

Christopher Morgan in the book Concise Theology says that this glory is “magnificence, worth, loveliness, and grandeur of his many perfections, which he displays in his creative and redemptive acts in order to make himself known to those in his presence.” - When we look the grand scope of scripture we see this glory is  interwoven throughout all of redemptive history from the origins of humanity to the completion of cosmic reconciliation in the reality of a New Heavens and a New Earth when we get to dwell in the very presence of God - It’s through lives of faithful obedience to him that we respond to this glory, a glory that he alone receives as you and I are in this manifest glory connected with Jesus that we can in that great day, rest in this glory with him

As rich as this news of inexpressible joy is Peter is not done with this thought though because he says that the outcome of this joy that is filled with glory is the obtaining of our faith which is the salvation of our souls - So what then is Peter applying here, it is the practical reality that you and I can live in inexpressible glory filled joy even in our sufferings because we have an assurance of salvation that rests in our God alone

Look with me then at verses 10 and 11 because here Peter says, “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.” - This is a direct correlation to passages like what we spoke of earlier in Isaiah as the prophets of old look forward to the future fulfillment of a salvation that only the true messiah would bring us 

Verse 12 though says that, “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.” - So Peter says that the prophets worked not for themselves but who? He says it's you! It’s you ___, it’s you ___, it is you!

If you’ve been wondering how the Old Testament that seems to be a world so incredibly different from our own shows it’s relevance to us, know that it’s purpose is to show you and I one simple thing, a heart that longs for Christ alone, through faith alone for his glory alone - A heart that rejoices at the news of a Christ who has come and born calvary’s cross - This Peter says is good news empowered by the Holy Spirit and sent from Heaven that even the angels long to see it

Is he calling you today? Are you fed up with life on your own terms that you know it's time for change?

This week in bible study my sister Lyric asked why life persists in this way, why do we continue in sin and yesterday Wendy introduced Shadeeya and I to some friends and just like many of my students my brother mentioned the struggle with grasping the newness of life and the glorious freedom that we have been given in the gospel - Honestly this is a question that plagued me in so many ways that even though I had grown up in church and heard all this Jesus stuff for years and yet it didn’t click for me - I mean how could the God who created this world love a kid from a nowhere place like where I grew up in the midst of addictions and greed and pride with no real sense of identity so that I was so lost until I understood one simple truth that I believe all of scripture reveals - It’s because redemption is better than perfection - Believe me, I know the struggle, I know our sufferings are real, I know we need a way to escape the shame and guilt that we carry and I can tell that no matter what you’ve seen and heard from others perfection is not the answer - I am someone who has for years lived with inexplicable self consciousness wanting to be so loved and well liked by everyone so I had to hide all the ways that my life was so incredibly flawed - His redemption is so much better than our perfection - Perfection that isn’t even real…Let’s pray…