1 Peter 1:3-9
We don't write letters like we used to, but there are still times when only a letter will do – bereavement, serious illness, divorce and so on.
And when you write you want to say something helpful – to strike the right tone: you don't want to make matters worse.But if you're too positive, it might come across as patronising and trite.
If you're too negative – well, what help's that?
Peter writes this letter in front of us to groups of people who are really suffering for being Xns:
- In ch 2, we hear they're being beaten up by their bosses when they've done nothing wrong.
- In ch 3, we hear that some of the women are struggling to live with unbelieving husbands.
- Ch 4 tells us that they're surrounded by people who delight in drunkenness, adultery, & idolatry. And because the Xns don't join in, they're insulted and abused.
So how do you write to people in this kind of situation?
How would you write to the church in Kazakhstan where just a fortnight ago their service was interrupted by drunk police officers & their pastor, his wife & children taken in the back of a police van?
Would you say what Peter says in v8, 'you are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith – the salvation of your souls'?
And can you say that your own faith and life are full of an inexpressible and glorious joy?!
I'd be surprised if many of us here this morning would say that our lives are like this.
So as Peter speaks of having such joy in such suffering is he being hopelessly naïve?
Well, if he was hope-less, then yes, he's being naïve.
But in fact, hope, says Peter is the source of Xn joy – a joy that non-Xns simply cannot understand let alone possess.
This means that if we are going to experience the fullness of Xn joy, we must have a genuine Xn hope. Knowing genuine Xn hope is the way to experience genuine Xn joy.
So we'll start with the genuine Xn hope.
Imagine you're a committed supporter of Tunbridge Wells FC. Your great hope is that one day, they'll play in the Premier League with Spurs.
But before that, they've got to gain promotion from the Kent League. Isthmian League 1, Isthmian Premier, Conference South, Conference Premier, League 2, League 1, Championship and finally the Premier League.
That's a minimum of 8 years – starting next year because this year they only finished 7th.
So, realistically, TWFC are never going to play in the Premier League. To think that way is hopelessly optimistic – pointlessly optimistic.
And yet as Christians we hope for nothing less than the recreation of the heavens and the earth – the removal of all evil – a perfect world.And we hope that we ourselves will have a place with the LJC in this perfectly renewed world. Isn't this just as hopelessly optimistic as the TWFC supporter's hope of becoming a premiership team?
No!
Most Xns think of their future like this:
There is a disconnect between where we are now and where we hope to be – a massive gulf between what we are now, what this world is now, and what we hope for ourselves & for the world. And as long as we think like this, our hope will lack assurance and certainty.
But in v3, Peter says, 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, and into an inheritance that can never perish spoil or fade'
When you became a Xn – assuming you did – you were reborn into a living hope; into an inheritance.
So our relationship to hope is actually more like this...
When Jesus spoke about eternal life, he said that we already possess it: Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life – John 3:36
and, I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned, he has crossed over from death to life.
In Colossians, Paul says, God has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
In Ephesians, he says that when we came to faith in Christ, 'God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace...'
So we are already with Christ, already in Christ, already in the Kingdom of God. Yes, there is much we don't yet have, but we are already heirs – and nothing and no-one can take away our inheritance. So, v4, our inheritance can never perish, spoil or fade – it is kept in heaven for you.
Your inheritance is there already, it is just waiting for you to go and collect it.
So we could picture it like this..
But how can I be sure that this is how it is and will be for me?
Have a look at v4 again – this inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who by faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
If you have received God's gift of faith in Jesus Christ, then you are shielded by the power of God himself – and no-one can break through the power of God to take away your inheritance. And so, says Peter, v6, in this you greatly rejoice.
Therefore, Peter is saying that genuine Christian hope brings glorious Christian joy.
And it's when people suffer that hope is at its most powerful. When what little you have is forcibly taken from you, you cling to what cannot be taken away – your hope, your inheritance - the LJC.
So let's read v6 in context: in this – that is, your inheritance - you greatly rejoice though now for a little while you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that you faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when JC is revealed.
The grief and trials help to prove that faith is genuine.
Over the years, my support for Spurs has been proven genuine. The last time we won the league was 1961, & the FA cup, 1991. I could have given up on Spurs. I could have switched my allegiance to one of these clubs that's been bankrolled by a foreign investor. But no. My support is genuine. Whether I will once more enjoy glory, honour and praise as a Spurs supporter is debatable, but one thing is certain, when my faith in Christ has been tested and proved genuine, I will enjoy praise, honour and glory.
Yes, it seems as if v7 is talking about us – that we will be praised and honoured for our perseverance when Jesus returns, and then we will be glorious as he is glorious.
Now if, even in the midst of trials and suffering, we can grasp the enormity of our hope, then we can rejoice.
But how much are you aware of what awaits you?
How often do you meditate on heaven?
Do you allow yourself to imagine what the Bible says heaven will be like – how you'll never have to remember your keys (or apologise profusely for taking your wife's house keys as I had to on Thursday!)
Imagine a world without money and no bankers because no-one is greedy and everyone shares generously.
Imagine a world with no hospitals, no doctors waiting rooms and no prescriptions.
A world with no police, no lawyers, no courts, no prisons.
A world where all the effects and consequences of evil have gone.
A world where work is pure delight and you love everyone equally (so it won't matter that you're reunited with friends or family because you'll love everyone equally!).
When you carry than kind of hope around with you, then you also have joy. And yet there's even more than that. Yes, hope, by definition, looks to the future. But vv8 & 9 remind us that by God's grace and through faith in Christ, we begin to receive now something of that future blessing: 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, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
So we come back to where we started.
We can be certain about the future because we've begun to experience it in the present:
- Whenever we pray to our Father in heaven, we experience something of the future blessings of knowing God as our Father.
- Whenever we read our Bibles and hear God speak to us, we experience something of what it will be like to hear God's voice in heaven.
- Meeting together as Christ's church is a foretaste of heaven (and, by the way, why it's so important to be here week by week - if we're not, then others are missing out).
- We experience the power of the Holy Spirit steadily changing us into what one day we shall full be - like Christ himself.
But all of this isn't the only reason for our hope and joy!
Remember in vv1 & 2 that our faith also rests on the authority and reliability of the apostles' testimony.
And it rests on God's election and foreknowledge.
It rests on the work of the HS who has set us apart for obedience ot JC.
And it rests on the death of Jesus which makes us God's own covenant people, his special possession.
And yet... do you really experience that inexpressible and glorious joy day by day?
If not, why not?
Well, if hope is the source of joy, then placing our hope in the wrong place will diminish our joy. And that's what we do all-too-often.
Some of us place our hope in our children or the relationship with our spouse. But neither can bear the weight of that responsibility and expectation. We cannot expect our children or our spouse to fulfil all our hopes and therefore our joy. Of course they'll let us down - they're human - just as we let others down because we're sinful and human.
Only Jesus Christ is an adequate and sufficient object of our hope. Only he will not let us down. Only the promise of inheriting all he offers can bring us glorious joy.
Meanwhile, some of us place our hopes in the latest tech, or fashion or beauty treatment.
But beauty fades, fashion is fleeting, and technology fails. None can satisfy our hopes and dreams. Only the promise of the new heavens and the new earth; of meeting the Lord Jesus Christ can satisfy our humanity. Only his amazing promises can bring us true hope and real joy.
Glorious things of you are spoken,
Zion, city of our God!
He whose word cannot be broken
formed you for his own abode.
On the rock of ages founded,
what can shake your sure repose?
With salvation’s walls surrounded,
you may smile at all your foes.
See, the streams of living waters
springing from eternal love!
Well supply your sons and daughters,
and all fear of want remove;
who can faint while such a river
ever flows their thirst to assuage?
Grace which, like the Lord, the giver,
never fails from age to age.
Round each habitation hovering,
see the cloud and fire appear
for a glory and a covering,
showing that the Lord is near.
thus they march, the pillar leading,
light by night and shade by day;
daily on the manna feeding
which he gives them when they pray.
Saviour, since of Zion’s city
I, through grace, a member am,
let the world deride or pity,
I will glory in your name.
Fading is the worlds best pleasures,
all its boasted pomp and show,
solid joys and lasting treasures
none but Zion’s children know.
John Newton
