Hope: 5-D - [1 Peter 1:3-5]

I do love the Word of God because that's precisely how I became in love with Christ, it's through His Word. I remember when there was a transitional point in my life and God was softening my heart for the Gospel.

By different things I saw in people's lives, those people who were trying to teach the Gospel to me, I thought in my head, I will go home and I will try to be like them. And it didn't work. It didn't work until about six months later, a friend, my coach became my close friend and he took me after each basketball practice through the book of Galatians.

And that's exactly when I understood what the Gospel is and who Jesus Christ is and why am I in need of a Savior. So I do love the Word of God and so today I would like to ask you a question. What would you say to someone who is being treated unfairly at his work, for example?

Or what would you say to someone who was fired from work because of his commitment to Jesus Christ? What would you say to someone who cannot find work or is facing financial difficulties or someone who has a spouse who is not a Christian and is making their life miserable?

Or what would you say to someone who had a good friend and this friend is friend no more and slanders him behind his back? Or someone whose problems in life just seem to multiply to the point where they are overwhelmed or someone maybe who is even facing death?

What would you say? What would we say? Well, I want to take you to the first letter of Peter, first epistle of Peter. We're going to be reading verses 3 to 5 and as you see verse 3, this is what Peter says.

Peter says, Blessed be the God. Or in other words, he says, Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. And in a way, I don't know, but don't you get upset maybe sometimes when you're having a really difficult day or a really difficult time, you're struggling with different trials and difficulties, you're going through some hard times and someone walks into the room bursting and shouting, Praise the Lord!

Don't you get upset then? You feel like, well, if you had just known what I'm going through, maybe you wouldn't be saying that. But this is exactly what Peter is saying. As he writes his letter, he says, Blessed be the God.

Praise the Lord. And when he writes his epistle, he writes to Christians who experienced such trials. Some of the ones that I mentioned in the beginning. In the first letter of Peter, we know that Christian slaves, for example, were being mistreated, treated unfairly by their masters even though they had done nothing wrong.

You can see that in chapter 2. We also see that Christian wives were probably mistreated by their unbelieving husbands. You can see that in chapter 3. Some of the believers had just lost their old friends who were now slandering them, possibly in chapter 2.

Also 3, verse 16 and 17. Chapter 4, verse 4 and 13, 14. Many of those Christians were threatened and some were even facing martyrdom, death. Chapter 3, verse 14. Chapter 4, verse 12. Peter knew about their problems.

He knew about their trials. The letter is written to the exiles, people who were facing persecution, all kinds of difficult things in life. So he knew about all of that. And even though they had not done anything wrong, they were facing the difficulties because they were pretty much, the only reason was because they were trying to live faithfully their Christian lives.

So he knows all of that. And what does he say? How does he start his epistle? He says, Blessed be the God. Praise the Lord. How can you say such a thing in such difficult circumstances? Blessed be the God.

Well, this phrase comes from Jewish prayers. It is rooted in the Old Testament. It normally functions as an expression of praise and thanksgiving, usually followed by a specific name or title of God that God is to be praised for, blessed, and specific reasons for praise.

That's the phrase. That's the functioning of the phrase. And Peter, he doesn't start his epistle like that just because it's a nice way to start an epistle. I believe he starts, he opens his letter in such a way because he wants to begin with joy and gladness, with the perspective of God being praiseworthy, especially in the midst of difficult times that they were going through.

This passage, I have to tell you, has a special place in my heart. Recently, probably in the last at least six months, because I don't think I'm an exceptionally suffering person, but we've been going through some exceptional difficulties that we have never gone before.

So when I read this passage and I see Peter's words, praise the Lord, blessed be God, I want to know why. I want to know what is it about God that Peter can say in the midst of difficulties and trials, he can say with joy and gladness, praise be to God, blessed be the God.

It's a similar phrase to what we find in Paul's language in the letter of Ephesians. In verse 3 of chapter 1, Paul has the same wording. He says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places.

And who is this God that is to be praised? Well, Peter says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So who is this God that is to be praised? Well, Peter makes it clear that this God to whom praise is addressed is now known as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In other words, this God has made himself known primarily through Jesus Christ. In other words, Christians should not and must not think of God apart from Jesus Christ. I believe that's why this phrase is phrased like this.

Praise be to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. This is how the Father God revealed himself and this is how he is to be known, is through the person of Jesus Christ. And he says, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Well, to prevent anyone from thinking that since this is God and Father of Jesus, then Jesus must not be God, yes? Because that's how this is phrased. This is God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Well, Peter adds this unique title to Jesus.

He says, Our Lord. And in the Greek Septuagint, the translation of the Old Testament, Lord was used to translate the divine name Yahweh, which we heard this morning actually already. The Lord was used to translate the divine name Yahweh.

And the fact that Christians now address Jesus as the Lord indicates that Jesus is to be given the same esteem and recognition as they would normally give to Yahweh. He is the Sovereign One. He is the Ruler of all.

Peter says it in chapter 3, verse 22. In the same letter, This Jesus Christ who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him. So we have this opening, this joyful and glad opening.

Praised be the God, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And we move on. In the midst of hardships. Praise God. Why? Well, this is a one long sentence, verses 3 to 12 in Greek. It's one long sentence.

And the nominating theme of this sentence is that God is to be praised. It's very simple. And verses 3 to 5, we find that the topic that Peter talks about is this. So blessed be 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. And he starts developing this idea of this hope that we were born into through this new life that we have been given according to his great mercy.

So he develops this idea of this hope. Praise be to God. Even in the midst of hardships, in the midst of trials, when you look at life and maybe, maybe there's a time in your life that comes when you look around, you see all the evil that's around, and you just get tired.

And you're just thinking, how long, oh Lord? And you just get tired. And there are just some difficulties and trials. Well, Peter says, praise be to God still. And one of the reasons I'm going to give you, Peter says, is this hope.

This living hope that he caused us to be born again to. He caused us, according to his great mercy, to be born to this hope, this living hope. So I want to talk to you about this hope. And I want to call it Hope 5D.

You know, today when you go to a cinema, now it's popular to watch movies in 3D, right? They give you special glasses, and you see a movie in 3D, it's supposed to be better than in 2D. You're supposed to see things even clearer.

Whatever. And then I just met with a friend before I came to the States, and he was showing me pictures of their baby in the mother's womb, done with the Ultrasound 4D. It's supposed to show you, it's pretty unique, because you can see, I mean, really, you can see the face of the child.

It's really like, it was recorded with a camera from the inside. It's amazing. So today, we're going to put glasses of Scripture, and we're going to look at Hope 5D. Not 3D, not 4D, it's going to be 5D.

I mean, we're going to break the stage of technology, and we're going to do 5D today. And we're going to see five dimensions of hope. Of hope, of this hope, that Peter looks at those people, these dear Christians, to his heart, and he sees their hardships, their difficulties, and he says, I want you to know that God is praiseworthy.

May God be blessed. May He be praised, because according to His great mercy, He caused us to be born again to this hope. And I want to tell you about this hope. The hope that you have in the midst of all kinds of situations, this hope, the 5D, Hope 5D, five dimensions of Christian hope that should make us glorify God, that will make us glorify God, even in the midst, or especially in the midst of trials.

So we're going to look at verses 3 to 5. And as William Garnell, Puritan Golden Treasury, he says, Hope fills the afflicted soul with such inward joy and consolation that it can laugh while tears are in the eye and sigh and sing all in a breath.

So let's look at first dimension. This hope that Peter is trying to present is an undeserved hope. It's an undeserved hope. Verse 3. He says, According to His great mercy, God's great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to hope, to this living hope.

This is an undeserved hope. At least three things we see in this one phrase, this little sentence here. Let's go backwards. So this hope, Peter says, comes from the fact of new birth, from the fact of new life that you have been given, from the fact that you were born again.

That's what he says if we go backwards. So this hope comes from the fact of being born again and this new birth is the act of God. It's totally what God has done. This is His act. He causes it. He initiates it.

He is the one that saves. He is the one that causes new birth and then He does it out of His great mercy. If we move backwards, that's what we see, right? That's what we see in this verse. The language is so clear, so clearly presents us as totally incapable and undeserving and God acts of giving us a new birth into this new kind of hope, this new kind of life out of which flows this new kind of hope.

The focus here is totally and fully on God's ability to produce life. It's not on us. It didn't come from us. It's not our ability. It's He, according to His great mercy, that caused us to be born again to this hope.

No one else takes any credit. It's totally undeserved hope. He does it absolutely out of His great mercy, Peter says. You and I deserve judgment and wrath. We are born sinners. We live as sinners. But God is God of mercy and grace and He grants life to those who are opposed to Him and He does it out of His great mercy.

In Ephesians 2, verses 4 to 5, or even earlier, Paul writes, and you, from chapter 2, verse 1, Ephesians, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

But God, being rich in mercy, according to His great mercy, in the wording of Peter, but here being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ by grace you have been saved.

And we know that. We know there is no one righteous. There is no one who seeks after God. We are all dead in our trespasses and sins. And we are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we're sinners.

I think R .C. Sproul likes to say it that way. That's our nature. When we think about it, there is nothing easier for a man to do than to sin. There is nothing easier. It comes naturally. It comes easy.

We have more problems with ourselves than with anything in this world. I mean, we try to blame problems on everything else, but we are the biggest problem. We are selves. So there's nothing else that we have more problems with than ourselves.

And education cannot change it. Social conditions cannot change it. Money cannot change it and will not change it. It is who we are. We are dead. We are sinful. We are guilty before God. We are hopeless before God.

That is the condition of man. So in Peter, in his warning, he says, this God, according to His great mercy, caused us to be born again to this hope. He says, this is a reason. This is a reason to praise God.

Because you see, by yourself, you are hopeless. Your condition is dead. And you are your own enemy. And you are your own problem. And there is no solution for you. Nothing in this world will solve the problem.

But God, in His mercy, He caused you to be born again to this hope. This is a totally undeserved hope. This is a gift. This is a gift of God. If your salvation depends on your own goodness, it's not secure to say at least and to expect that you will get into heaven because of your own goodness, is to face eternity with false hope.

But this is not a hope that Peter talks about. It's not a false hope. It's a false hope not based on our own goodness, but on the mercy of God. So if you're a Christian, whatever problems you face, you can praise God, because by His mercy, you have received the greatest gift.

Whatever the difficulties in your life are, you have received the greatest gift already. And your greatest problem has been solved already. So whatever is taking place, once you understand your condition, once you understand that you're not a good person, and you don't deserve anything from this life, if there is anything that you deserve, it's the judgment of God.

And once you understand your condition, and you understand that this life and this earth, sinful is going to be judged by God, and you don't deserve anything, when you understand that it is by God's great mercy that you have been caused to be born again.

I mean, what else do you need? I mean, what else do you need to actually say, praise God? I mean, this is a reason enough to praise God that this is an undeserved hope. So Peter starts with this subtle reminder.

In a way, he says, Hey, look, God has given you a new birth, out of which comes this new hope. Therefore, the biggest problem of your life has already been solved. You might go through trials and difficulties, but the best gift, the best thing, has already been given to you.

New life from God, by His mercy, out of which comes this new hope. Keep running. Keep running the race and keep praising God. So God is to be praised because of His merciful act of giving us new birth to a living hope.

And that is if you were born again, of course, if you believe that Jesus Christ is Lord and that God raised Him from the dead, if you repent from your sins and believe. In Titus chapter 3, similar idea.

He saved us, 3 verses 5 to 7. He saved us not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ, our Savior.

Okay, second dimension of this hope. It is an undeserved hope. This is a reason to praise God, even in the midst of trials. It is a reason. It's the greatest reason because He has given us life and He should have left us hopeless as we were.

He didn't have, He was not obligated to anything to us. He should have left us dead in trespasses and pour out His judgment on us. This is a reason to praise God. But a second dimension of hope is that it is a living hope.

So He caused us to be born again to the living hope. The living hope. Living must be a favorite word of Peter, at least in his first epistle. He says there's a living hope, but also a living word in chapter 123.

Living stone, chapter 2, verse 4. We are the living stones, chapter 2, verse 5. And of course, here again, there's a living hope for those who, according to God's great mercy, were born again. Living, according to Schreiner, Zag, and most other commentators, is best understood as real, certain, sure, firm, able to survive, genuine, opposed to being deceptive, vain, false, and empty.

So this is the kind of hope that we have in Christ. It's a living hope. It's a hope that never dies. It's not a dead hope, it's not a vain, it's not an empty hope. It's a sure hope. It's a hope for sure.

Here, hope of the ungodly, we have to realize, always dies. Whatever the ungodly can hope in and hope for, it will always die. It will either die during their lifetime, but it will for sure die when they die.

It will for sure die. So it always dies. It's not the case with the Christian hope. Human hope mocks and scoffs you with its sophisticated promises, but it often ends with disappointment, leaving you sad and empty.

I remember one time, me and my wife, we were walking through a big city of Poland, Gdańsk, walking by a hospital, and there was a man standing in front of the hospital, smoking cigarettes. So we knew he's not going anywhere.

He looked like one of the patients who came out to take a break. So we stopped and started conversing with him and sharing the gospel with him. He started to tell us about all kinds of illness that he's been going through and how he hoped for actually getting better once he gets to the hospital.

Once he got to the hospital, things got even worse because they found things that he didn't even know were wrong with him. So it was just getting worse and worse and worse. And as the conversation was developing, we asked him some questions.

Is he suffering? And he said, not really. Not really because they give me pills and they give me stuff and they can make it pretty painless for me. But there was one thing that we realized that day with my wife when we walked away from this man.

As much as the modern medicine is capable of, in a way, making man's death painless, it is fully incapable of helping people die victoriously. It can help people die painlessly, but it is incapable of helping people die victoriously.

This man was miserable. He did not have any hope. His hope turned into hopelessness. But it's not the kind of hope that is a Christian hope. It's a living hope. It's not an empty, it's not a vain hope.

It's a hope that never dies. It's a sure hope. It's a certain hope. And we're going to look further what is the content of this hope. But it is a living hope. In Polish, we have a saying. I don't know if you have anything similar in English.

I was going to ask before this sermon, but I forgot. We say, hope is a mother of fools. Do you have anything similar? I don't know. But in Poland, it's a common saying. Hope is a mother of fools. In other words, only fools put hope in things.

Probably comes from the history of Polish nation, where we hoped for different things and different nations standing behind us and protecting us. But it always ended up in Poland, kind of being attacked from both sides.

And maybe it comes from the history. So we say, only fools put hope in things. But I would say, foolish hope is a mother of fools. Not a Christian hope. It's not a foolish hope. It's a living hope. It's a different kind of hope.

In Hebrews 10, verses 19 -21, we read,. What is the curtain? Well, the author of Hebrews says,. In verse 23, the author of Hebrews says,. In other words, with confidence. It's a sure hope. So those who were persecuted in Asia Minor were not to be overcome by troubles.

They were to look to future with sure confidence, with sure hope that immeasurable blessings await them. Third dimension. It's not only undeserved hope that is a gift. It's not only a living hope in contrast to the dead hope of this world.

But it's also well-grounded hope. It's a well-grounded hope. We continue, verse 3. So he calls us to be born again to this living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. So Peter says, this hope, this living hope, this new hope is rooted in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It is rooted in a historical and powerful event in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, there's this long passage about Paul trying to tell us what would take place if there was no resurrection.

If there was no resurrection, then Christ was not raised from the dead. And if Christ was not raised from the dead, then what? Well, I'll read to you, verses 17 through 20. He says,. And if Christ had not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.

And if Christ has not been raised, then those who also have fallen asleep in Christ, they actually have perished. And if Christ has not been raised, then if in Christ we hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

Verse 20. Again, this wonderful biblical word, small. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. Therefore, if we go backwards, therefore your faith is not futile. And those who have fallen asleep, they have not perished.

Therefore, in this life, you are not to be considered miserable, but almost in the wording, you are to be envied because of the hope you have in Christ who has been raised from the dead. You see, Peter was an eyewitness of the risen Lord.

In Peter's experience of the risen Christ, we see how Peter doubts his kind of depression, maybe even before. You remember that time when he denied his Lord three times? Before he said, I will never do it.

Then he did it. So we see how his doubts, his depression and sadness over the crucifixion turned into a living hope, vital, strong and growing hope. When did that happen? When he saw the resurrected Christ.

He was an eyewitness of the resurrected Christ. The world's hope often fades and grows weaker over time. The living hope grows stronger as the day of its realization comes closer. It's like boiling an egg and boiling potato.

I think a Christian hope, the hope that we can praise God for, that we were born into through the new life that He caused according to His great mercy, causes our hope to be like boiling an egg and not like boiling a potato.

What I mean by that is that when you put an egg in the boiling water, it's going to get harder. It's going to get stronger. When you put a potato in the boiling water, it's going to get softer. It's going to get softer and weaker.

That's a Christian hope. Christian hope is like boiling an egg. As the situations around you are boiling much stronger and it's getting hot around, when your hope is fixed on Christ, I mean, it's going to get stronger.

As that day, that day comes closer, your hope is going to get stronger. It's a well-grounded hope. It's grounded in this powerful event of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Peter wants you to know that no matter how great your problems, you can praise God because a living hope rests on the fact of the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Praise God in all circumstances for the undeserved new life of hope, living hope, hope grounded in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Number four, number four. It's a rich hope. It's a rich hope. Verse four.

So this hope, Peter continues, this hope that we were born again to, to a living hope, he develops this thought. He says, to an inheritance. This hope, this is the inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.

It's a rich hope. It's a rich hope. Peter moves on to describe this hope farther as an inheritance. In the Old Testament, this word was referring to Israel's promised land. In Numbers 26, in Joshua 11, 23, the land that was to be given to Israel as a gift to be her possession.

That's what the word means in the Old Testament. Here, however, the inheritance is used to describe the future aspect of salvation. Salvation has a past aspect. You know that it's the time of justification, being made righteous in Christ, our sins forgiven at the time of when we were born again by the great mercy of God.

But salvation has its present aspect as well. It's the aspect of sanctification, this new life that God causes in us through Jesus Christ. But salvation most often is referred to in the Bible, and here in Peter, as this future aspect, as this hope that we're expecting, this inheritance, this rich hope, this rich inheritance that we're going to inherit in the future, the fulfillment of the salvation, in a way.

This future aspect of salvation. It's like a sum total of everything that God promises to us in salvation. In Revelation 21, for example, we see a brief content of this inheritance as He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

There will be no more death. There will be no more pain. God and man will dwell together. Everything will be made new. There will be new heavens and new earth. The river of life will flow from the throne of God.

There will be no more darkness. The eternal light of the lamp will fill everything. And as David writes in one of his psalms, Psalm 16, verses 5 and 6, Lord alone is my portion and my cup. And the greatest thing, it's not a thing, but the greatest thing we're going to inherit when we get there, is going to be Christ Himself.

He's our portion and He's our cup, and being in the presence of Christ. That's why Peter describes this inheritance, this rich inheritance, as imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Imperishable means free from death, free from decay.

Human inheritance, normally either you die before you get the inheritance, so you never get it, or the inheritance might die before you die. So you might get the inheritance, but it's a material inheritance, and you lose it, it will die, someone will steal it.

So either way, either you die before the inheritance, or the inheritance will die before you. It's not the case with this hope. It's a rich hope. This is an imperishable, free from death, decay. It's also undefiled.

This word means free from impurity, free from uncleanness of any kind. Here on this earth, sin has left its mark on everything. Sin has left its mark on our relationships, on our marriages, on the way we spend money, on politics, on conversations, on everything.

Peter says, not there. There will be no mark of sin. This is an undefiled hope. It will be clean, it will be pure, undefiled, and it's also going to be unfading. This inheritance that we're looking towards is unfading, which means free from expiry date.

It's free from... I mean, time is not going to kill it. There's no best before date on it. There's no expiry date. It's unfading. As one theologian summarizes it, untouched by death, unstained by evil, unimpaired by time.

So it is a rich hope of a truly rich inheritance. Is there anything better? The best life is waiting for us. It's awaiting us. But you may be thinking, or someone may be thinking, it's all nice that it's all in heaven.

It's right there. This is the inheritance that we're going to inherit. It's the future hope of heaven. That's nice, but what if I don't make it there? What if I don't make it? What if I fail to get where the inheritance is?

Well, dimension number five. It's a secure hope. 4B and verse 5. 4B and 5. So this inheritance is 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.

It is a secure hope. Each part of this verse, 4B and 5, each part uniquely points to the security of this hope, this inheritance. I hope you see it. First, he says it's kept in heaven for you. It's a military term.

It literally means it's shielded. It's guarded. It's kept. It's a military term. In 2 Corinthians 11 .32, the same word is used where Paul says, At Damascus, the governor under king Artaeus was guarding the city of Damascus in order to seize me.

He was guarding the city with his army. This is the word. It's being kept. It's being shielded. It is guarded. It is guarded in heaven. And it's guarded by God's power. Verse 5. Who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

By God's power. By God's dunamis. By God's strength. By His ability. Not your ability. Not my ability. His ability. As John MacArthur said it, If you could lose your salvation, you would. But it's kept in heaven by God's power.

It is kept not by mere earthly army. It is the very power of God. How is this power revealed? How is this power functioning to keep us? Well, through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

By God's power are being guarded through faith. It is revealed through faith. We receive God's salvation and live the Christian life through faith. It's not by anything we do. It's not by anything you do.

It's by what God does in us, for us, through faith. By definition, that's what faith is. Faith takes place when you put your trust not in what you can do, but in what someone else or something else can do for you.

That's faith. Faith is not so much about doing anything. Faith itself is not so much about doing anything. Faith itself is more about forsaking everything that so far, until this point, you trusted in yourself to do something for you.

That's faith. Faith is leaving that behind you, dropping it, and putting your trust in something else. And God protects us. He keeps this inheritance in heaven by His power through faith. Peter says it is God's power through faith that secures the final salvation, the inheritance, the hope.

And, of course, believer must exercise continuing faith. That's the wording of this verse. The believer must exercise continuing faith. It is the faith that is a guarantee of this inheritance. Peter is not showing faith to be some kind of isolated single act.

He's not showing faith that it's one single act that took place some day in the past. You made a decision. You raised your hand. You fill out a form. You showed faith back then, and that's enough. That's not what he's saying.

It's a continuing faith that is a guarantee of this inheritance. Receiving the inheritance is dependent upon this faith. But let me read what Schreiner says in his commentary. He explains,. There is no final salvation apart from continued faith, and thus faith is a condition for obtaining the eschatological inheritance.

But God's power protects us because His power is the means by which our faith is sustained. This passage is written to encourage believers with the truth that God will preserve their faith through sufferings.