1 Peter 1:3-12
Notes
Transcript
1 Peter 1:3-12
Turn to the first chapter of 1 Peter. We started this series from 1 Peter a couple of weeks ago with an introduction. Then last week we covered the first two verses which comprise Peter’s introduction. Tonight we’ll pick up speed and cover a couple of paragraphs in which Peter talks about our hope as followers of Jesus. Certainly after last year we need some hope that things will get better and return to some kind of normalcy.
If you aren’t aware, it has become a growing trend to choose a word for the year as a theme. This word, as opposed to writing out some resolutions for the year, is supposed to guide you. As one blogger wrote, “It helps bring focus and clarity to what we want to create in our lives.”
When Susie Dent, a lexicographer for the British game show “Countdown” was asked for a word she might choose for 2021, she chose the “respair.” Respair, she said, means “the return of hope after a period of despair.” As a verb, ‘respair’ means “to have hope again.”
I think that’s a good goal for the year, to restore some hope after almost a year of despair.
In our passage tonight Peter doesn’t just talk about hope, he talks about a living hope. He says in verse 3:
1 Peter 1:3 3 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.
When I was very little one of my favorite books was “The Little Engine That Could.” You may remember this engine that was trying to make it up a big hill. As it did it kept saying to itself, “I think I can. I think I can. I think I can.” The story was used to teach children the value of optimism and hard work. The train made it up the hill, but its hope of making it was mainly based on wishful thinking. Peter says we have more than just wishful thinking, we have a living hope.
Have you ever thought of hope as being alive? God, who gave us life, also gave life to plants and animals, but can hope be alive as well?
In Luke 20 we read about the Sadducees coming to test Jesus. Because they didn’t believe in the resurrection, they asked him a question they didn’t think anyone could answer. Of course Jesus had an answer which is summed up with this comment:
Luke 20:38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.
If God is the God of the living, it would only make sense then that he would give us a living hope. Peter says our hope is rooted in the resurrection of Jesus. Because Jesus is alive and will never die, ours is a hope that will never die. That’s the kind of hope we need.
Because it is a living hope, it is able to grow and as it grows it develops and becomes stronger. Warren Wiersbe defines our living hope this way:
A “living hope” is one that has life in it and therefore can give life to us. Because it has life, it grows and becomes greater and more beautiful as time goes on. Time destroys most hopes; they fade and then die. But the passing of time only makes a Christian’s hope that much more glorious.
That means that no matter what we might face we can still have hope because it isn’t dependent on politics or medical breakthroughs, our hope based on the resurrection of Jesus. In fact, our hope makes no sense without his resurrection.
The rest of our passage builds on this hope. Peter says that because of the resurrection of Jesus we can have hope that we have:
1. A permanent inheritance
2. Divine protection
3. A developing faith
4. An inexpressible joy
5. God’s prophesies and promises
First, we have a permanent inheritance.
An inheritance is wealth that is passed down from one person to another at the time of the first person’s death. An inheritance might be a house, car, jewelry, or stock in a company. You occasionally hear about someone inheriting some stocks that were bought for a few dollars and are now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. I’m sure there are more stories we don’t hear about people inheriting stocks that were worth lots of money one day but now the company is out of business. You never know what might happen to an inheritance.
One October day a three year old took a small shinny object, dropped it in the toilet, and flushed it. The small shinny object happened to be a ring, but not just any ring, it was a valuable diamond and sapphire ring, a family heirloom that had been handed down for several generations. When the family found out what he’d done they immediately called a plumber. When the plumber came up empty handed the family called the sewage department. Crews flushed the sewer lines in the neighborhood multiple times and were about to give up when the ring was finally found six weeks later. The family’s treasure had traveled a third of mile, tumbling around corners and nearly falling into a larger sewer line where recovery would have been all but impossible. After what we assume was a very thorough cleaning, the ring is now back where it belongs.
That inheritance was almost lost forever and such it is with inheritances we receive. Receiving an inheritance can be good, but receiving a heavenly inheritance is even better because Peter says we have a living hope in an inheritance that can never get flushed down a toilet. Well, he words it a little differently.
1 Peter 1:3-4 3 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.
Peter used three terms to describe our eternal inheritance. First, he said that it can never perish. To be imperishable means that like our hope, it is can never die. Nor is our inheritance subject to destruction. It cannot be lost, stolen, broken, or ruined. To be undefiled means that it is unstained or unpolluted. It is flawless and perfect. And unfading describes a flower that doesn’t wither or die. In this context the term means that our heavenly inheritance will never lose its magnificence. It will never grow old, wear out, or disappoint us in any way, which, as I’ve already said about earthly inheritance, isn’t true. Peter says our inheritance in Jesus is safe and sound – kept in heaven for us – and once we receive it there.
Second, we have divine protection.
1 Peter 1:5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
The word salvation means to rescue or deliver. The intention is that we have been saved from something bad that we could not do on our own. In this case, we have been delivered from the death we deserve because of our sins. There are three aspects to our salvation.
We HAVE BEEN saved. That took place at our conversion when we placed our faith in Jesus, repented of our sins, and were baptized. As we read Sunday morning in Ephesians:
Ephesians 2:8-9 8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
Right now we are being saved.
1 Corinthians 1:18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
And as Peter alludes to in this verse, we SHALL BE saved when Jesus returns.
Romans 5:9-10 9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! 10 For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!
Until that day Peter says that God is protecting us. After all he’d been through he should understand God’s protection. In the upper room as Jesus warned the disciples, and in particular Peter, about how they would abandon him and Jesus told Peter how he’d prayed for him.
Luke 22:31 Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat.
Notice how Jesus refers to Peter by his given name and not the nickname he’d given to him and called him by for three years. This surely brought Peter to attention and let him know how serious this was. Satan wanted the disciples. Satan didn’t just want Judas; he wanted all of the disciples. However, Jesus said that he had been praying for them and especially for Peter.
Luke 22:32 But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.
This is a puzzling verse. It reminds me of the scene in the throne room of God in Job 1 as the devil proposed a test. God had said that Job was righteous, but the devil said it was only because God had been good to him. The devil wanted to take away God’s blessings and see Job’s reaction. The devil bet Job would curse God. While God allowed the devil to test Job, God limited his abilities. In the same way, Peter and the disciples would be tested, but the devil would be limited in what he could do to them. And he is limited in what he’s allowed to do to us. God shields us from what the devil would really like to do.
We should note that it is through our faith that we are shielded by God’s power. As you might guess, the word “shielded” is a military term that means guarded or protected. The tense of the verb reveals that we are constantly being shielded by God. We are not shielded by our own power, but by the power of God through our faith. And if our faith remains true, then God’s protection will keep us until the end of our lives or until Christ comes – whichever comes first. As Jesus told the religious leaders:
John 10:27-29 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand.
Third, we have a developing faith.
1 Peter 1:6-7 6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7 These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
Those first two parts of our hope sounded great. We have an inheritance that will only get better and our faith is being shielded by God. This next part doesn’t sound like much fun. Who wants to suffer? But Peter says the suffering only strengthens our faith, making it more valuable.
In elementary school art class we were able to make some object out of clay. I won’t bother showing you the two poorly made objects I created. We were each given a lump of clay and told we could mold the clay into whatever we wanted. I’ll just let you know that one of them was a paper weight. What can I say, I had a limited imagination. It you looked at the paper weight today it’s solid and immovable, but when I was given the clay it was quite pliable. What caused that transformation? Heat. After I’d finished expertly fashioning my lump of clay into a block of clay the art teacher put my clay into a furnace. The furnace then hardened the clay.
The trials we face refine our hearts and sanctify our spirits that our faith might mature and develop. Remember what James wrote about the hardships we face.
James 1:2-4 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.
One day a man stopped to watch some men who were doing stonework on a large church. One of them was chiseling a triangular piece of rock. “Where are you going to put that?” he asked. The workman said, “Do you see that little opening up there near the spire? Well, I’m shaping this stone down here so that it will fit in up there.”
Gordon Curley comments:
Peter reminds us that God is shaping us down here so that it will fit in up there. Through our trials God is preparing us for life and service yet to come. Nobody yet knows all that is in store for us in heaven. But this we do know, life today is a school in which God trains us for our future ministry both in this life and in eternity. This explains one reason why God allows trials into our lives.
Thankfully, as Peter reminds us in verse 6, these trials are only a little while. They don’t last forever.
Fourth, we have inexpressible joy.
It may seem odd for Peter to talk about joy after just having talked about suffering, but this is exactly when he needs to bring up the topic. We must remember that our joy in not in the circumstances we face but in the person of Jesus.
1 Peter 1:8-9 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9 for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Even though we have never seen Jesus we love and trust him. Love and trust are two critical ingredients in any meaningful relationship and Peter encourages us to keep on practicing these two qualities. The reward of love and trust in a wholesome relationship is joy. Do you have joy?
The cartoon shows a grumpy boy heading off to school with his dad reminding him: “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.” The boy replied: “I know ‘this is the day the Lord has made.’ Can’t I rejoice and be glad tonight?” It doesn’t sound like he was too joyful about going to school.
We don’t always feel joy-full, but the Bible tells us to:
1 Thessalonians 5:16 (NLT) Always be joyful.
And:
Philippians 4:4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!
And listen to these insightful words of Elton Trueblood about joy:
The Christian is joyful, not because he is blind to injustice and suffering, but because he is convinced that these, in the light of the divine sovereignty, are never ultimate. The humor of the Christian is not a way of denying the tears, but rather a way of affirming something which is deeper than tears. Yes, a few things in life are absolutely tragic, no question about it. First among them, a joyless Christian.
Although we cannot see Jesus with the physical eye, as Christians we know he is with us and that loves us. Jesus is standing with us throughout whatever trials we may face. Some, like the disciple Thomas, needed to see and touch Jesus in order to believe. But the words of Jesus still ring true.
John 20:29 Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
The early American Indians had a unique practice of training young braves. On the night of a boy’s thirteenth birthday, after learning hunting, scouting, and fishing skills, he was put to one final test. He was placed in a dense forest to spend the entire night alone. Until then, he had never been away from the security of the family and the tribe. But on this night, he was blindfolded and taken several miles away. When he took off the blindfold, he was in the middle of a thick woods and he was terrified. Every time a twig snapped; he visualized a wild animal ready to pounce.
After what seemed like an eternity dawn broke and the first rays of sunlight entered the interior of the forest. Looking around, the boy saw flowers, trees, and the outline of the path. Then, to his utter astonishment, he saw the figure of a man standing just a few feet away, armed with a bow and arrow. It was his father. He had been there all night long.
Even though we can’t see Jesus, we know he is there because he promised he would be.
Matthew 28:20b And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
And fifth, we have God’s prophesies and promises.
Last month Mary Anne bought a couple of cords for charging her phone. They came with a warranty. In order to get the warranty you have to go online and fill out a form. I didn’t think it was worth my time. First, the warranty is only good for year. It the cord is any good it’s going to last much longer than year. If doesn’t why would I want a replacement? And two, I never heard of the company. Who knows if they’ll even be around in a year to honor a warranty? And third, would I even remember it had a warranty and how to redeem it? I just threw it away.
It’s easy to make promises but it’s a lot harder to keep them. Concerning our living hope it is anchored in the prophecies and promises of God that he has been making for thousands of years. Peter says:
1 Peter 1:10-12 10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
Peter says that the living hope and the inexpressible joy that we now have in Christ is something prophets and angels have longed to understand. Imagine being one of the prophets of the Old Testament who were given prophesies about the New Covenant and the coming Messiah. Imagine knowing that the glories of the new covenant were not for you but for another time after you were dead and gone. Or imagine being angels who have a holy curiosity to understand the kind of grace they will never experience.
Why did Peter think this should be so encouraging? Because God prophesied about them so many years ago and repeatedly made promises about them, we can trust them. No matter how difficult life’s trials are, we, Christians can face them triumphantly because of the greatness of God’s mercy, and our heavenly inheritance – things the prophets of old studied, the Holy Spirit inspired, and angels long to look into. All these things were given for our benefit, and we possess their blessings, both now and forever more.
An older woman took a package to the post office to mail and was told it would cost $3.95 for fast delivery or $2.30 for slower service. “There is no hurry,” she told the clerk, “just so the package is delivered in my lifetime.” He glanced at her and said, “That will be $3.95, please.”
A woman walked up to a little old man rocking in a chair on his porch. “I couldn’t help noticing how happy you look,” she said. “What’s your secret for a long happy life?” “I smoke three packs of cigarettes a day,” he said. “I also drink a case of whiskey a week, eat fatty foods, and never exercise.” “That’s amazing,” the woman said. “How old are you?’ “Twenty-six,” he said. I guess some age us faster than others.
Two elderly couples were enjoying friendly conversation when one of the men asked the other, “Fred, how was the memory clinic you went to last month?” “Outstanding,” Fred replied. “They taught us all the latest psychological techniques – visualization, association – it made a huge difference for me.” “That’s great! What was the name of the clinic?” Fred went blank and replied, “I can’t remember.”
Our minds are perishing and our bodies are wasting away, but we have a living hope that will endure forever.