God's Word: Our Unshakable Christian Hope

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Well, good morning, everyone. It's such a joy and a privilege for me to be with you all today.
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I bring you greetings from Third Avenue Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, where my family and I are members, and also from Strand Baptist Church in Cape Town, South Africa, where we will be members soon as we head back to South Africa.
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I mentioned it earlier in Sunday School, and I just have to mention it again. My wife and I are originally from South Africa, and it's been a joy over our time in the
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U .S., and even now as I get to travel around a bit and meet with brothers and sisters at different churches, to get to experience that when you are with Christians, you are with family.
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And our family has been a long way away for a long time back in South Africa, as we've been in the
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U .S. studying and preparing, but we sort of in a new way then get to experience what it means for Christians to come together as brothers and sisters in Christ.
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So it's a real joy and a privilege for me to be with you all today. If you would, in your
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Bibles, turn to 1 Peter 1, where we will be looking at the text together this morning.
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And as you're turning there, something else to mention.
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It is wonderful to worship the same Christ here with you this morning that we worship in Louisville and that is worshipped and adored in South Africa.
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It's the same God who is worthy of our worship. He is not a local deity.
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He is the creator and sustainer of the universe, and therefore we can go with confidence to South Africa knowing that the same gospel that is preached here is the gospel that needs to be preached there, and that we worship the same
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God together. And so it is from his word, which is the light and the truth, that we look to as we turn to 1
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Peter now. So there is a lot of hopelessness in the world, isn't there?
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You don't have to look far to see people grasping at straw to try and keep themselves upright when life gets hard.
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There is, if you don't have a solid anchor and a solid foundation, then you can fall into hopelessness quickly, or you essentially delude yourself and tell yourself that all is good and all is well.
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I think in a place like America where there is a lot of material wealth available, we can easily delude ourselves into thinking all is good and all is well.
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I don't need hope for the future because I have everything that I need now. But that is false, isn't it?
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Abraham Cowley has said, hope is the most hopeless thing of all. So in his mind, having hope for the future is empty and vain.
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He thinks he has come to terms with the fact that it is after all empty and that there is nothing really to hope for.
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And so in his mind, having hope is a fool's errand. Friedrich Nietzsche has said, hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.
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Now, there is a bumper sticker that you don't want on your car. For him, again, there is nothing really to hope for.
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There's just emptiness. There's nothing really to ground hope for the future in.
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And therefore, all that hope does for him is it gives you strength to endure more suffering, but that's pointless.
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So it just prolongs your suffering. So hope is useless. Richard Yates said, hopeless emptiness.
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Now you've said it. Plenty of people are onto the emptiness, but it takes real guts to see the hopelessness.
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Again, no belief in God, nothing ultimate, no true foundation, just emptiness.
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And the emptiness part is pretty easy and actually appealing for people to grab onto because if there's no
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God out there, there's no one that I'm responsible to, I can do whatever I like. I can live however I want to.
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And so that's fun, right? Let's go. But if that's true, then it means there's not only emptiness, there is also hopelessness.
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And that leads to despair and depression pretty quickly. And so we don't really like that part so much.
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So we like the emptiness, but the hopelessness not so much.
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But that is what it logically leads to, isn't it? Without God, who created and sustains the universe and who gives us hope for the future, all we are left with is hopelessness.
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But praise be to God that that is not, it's not only not the case for us as Christians, it's just not true.
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It's true for everyone that we don't have emptiness. We have a God who is the creator and the sustainer of the universe.
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And we do have objective, true hope. And that is what Peter writes about.
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So maybe even just as we get going, let me ask you a few questions to consider as we look at this text together.
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Do you live as if you have hope? Do you recognize that you have hope?
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And what are you hoping for? And what reason do you have to hope for whatever it is that you hope?
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Our text this morning beautifully unpacks what Christian hope looks like. So the
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Apostle Peter is writing to the Christians across the Roman Empire who are suffering.
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They're being persecuted for their faith. It seems like this probably wasn't state -sponsored, like empire -wide persecution, but it was sporadic local governments and authorities mistreating and harshly treating, committing acts of violence against Christians, neighbors giving a cold shoulder or excluding Christians from community activities and persecution of that nature around the empire for the sake of their faith because they are followers of Christ.
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And so as Peter is writing to them in the midst of their suffering, he immediately focuses their attention on Christian hope, really early on in the letter.
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It's not a false or wishful thinking type of worldly hope, but it is a true and unshakable
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Christian hope. So let's look at the text together. First Peter, we'll read the first nine verses of chapter one.
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And I'm reading from the ESV. 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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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So looking at this text together, I want us to briefly consider four things. So firstly, what is the ground for hope or the reason for hope?
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Why can we have hope as Christians? What is the basis for our hope? Secondly, the destination, looking ahead.
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What do we hope for? What do we hope will happen? What do we hope will come? Looking to the future.
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Thirdly, who may have hope? Is hope for everyone? Is there hope for everyone?
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Who may have Christian hope? And fourthly, what now? What does this mean for us now?
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Does it actually make a difference in our lives now? So firstly, the ground for hope or the reason for hope.
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Why may we have hope? And the key word here is the word through. So if we look back at the text at verse three, let's read verse three together again.
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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.
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So where does this hope come from? Why may we have hope? Well, we may have hope because Jesus Christ was raised from the dead.
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It's not grounded in vain, fingers crossed dreams with no substance. Rather, it is rooted in firm and accomplished history and reality.
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It is based on the demonstrated power of God to raise the dead. Just think about that for a second.
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You may ask, Lord, like, how can I be sure? Like, how can
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I really know that this isn't fake or that this will happen?
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Like, can I be 100 % sure? Or, you know, is there just a little bit of doubt there?
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Like, how can I know? And then the answer comes in Romans 8 -11.
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If the spirit of him who raised Jesus Christ from the dead dwells in you, he who raised
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Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.
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The one who has the power to raise the dead guarantees your hope. That's a pretty powerful guarantee.
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But it's not simply that he can and has overcome death. The text doesn't simply say he raised someone from the dead.
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It says he raised Jesus Christ from the dead. So why is that significant? Well, why did
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Jesus die? He laid down his life for a reason. In his own words, he came to give his life a ransom for many.
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2 Corinthians 5 -21 says, For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
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In short, Jesus died to pay the price for our sins so that we might be reconciled to God, so that those who were
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God's enemies, who have rebelled against him, who deserve his punishment might be forgiven so that they can have peace with him and so that they can receive salvation, so that they can have access to God, which was broken by the fall and by our sin, and so that they can become his children.
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If that is what Jesus died for, this is what he died for, then his resurrection is the vindication of what he died for.
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The fact that he was raised from the dead is the guarantee that his death was effective.
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It accomplished what he set out to do. Your sins can truly be forgiven, and the guarantee of that is the fact that Jesus was raised from the dead.
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The fact that the grave is empty, that's the guarantee. That's the guarantee. And there is an empty grave.
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In time and place, there is an empty grave. It's not just that he rose in our hearts.
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He rose physically, and therefore we can have the sure hope that so will we.
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So the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead in time and history gives us a steady, unshakable reason for hope.
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So let me ask you, what gives you reason for hope? Not just in theory, not just the question on the test, like in practice on a
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Tuesday morning, what reasons do you hold on to for having hope? Do you tell yourself,
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Jesus was raised from the dead, therefore I have hope? Let me encourage you maybe to do that.
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Just when life is hard, I take a moment, pause, and tell yourself, remind yourself, hey,
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Jesus was raised from the dead, I have hope. If you do that, you will remember that the difficulties are not ultimate, but only temporary.
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But the hope and the joy, that is ultimate, that is eternal. Paul writes in 2
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Corinthians 4, verses 16 through 18, so we do not lose heart. That's another way of saying we have hope, right?
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If you have hope, then you don't lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, so clearly there is a present struggle, there's difficulty, it's not all plain sailing.
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It's difficult. So we do not lose heart, though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.
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For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory, beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen.
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For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.
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So can you see Paul's perspective? The difficulties are real, to the point that their outer selves is wasting away.
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That's significant. But the question is, what is your perspective on that suffering?
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By comparison with eternal hope, the things that are passing can be classified as light momentary afflictions.
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Not because they are easy, but because the hope is so great. So the reason for hope is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
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Secondly, the destination. What are we hoping for? What's the object of our hope? As we look ahead, what are we looking ahead at?
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What are we looking for? And the key word in this case is the word to. So let's look at the text again.
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I'll read verses three and four. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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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.
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So if the reason for hope is because Jesus Christ was raised from the dead, then what we're hoping for is an inheritance that is imperishable and undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven.
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That is what Paul calls the eternal weight of glory in the text that we just read.
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Our text calls it an inheritance. Now, as members of God's family, as his children through faith, we are heirs according to promise, heirs of eternal life.
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An inheritance is not something you receive because you've earned it, is it? It's not something that you work for.
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It is something that comes to you based on family relationship. And we are God's children by adoption through faith in Jesus Christ.
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And therefore, eternal life comes to us as an inheritance. It is not based on your performance.
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It's not based on your action. It's not based on your merit or your worth. You have worth because you are created in God's image and you are saved by the blood of his son.
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And you receive the inheritance of eternal life through adoption as his children.
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The basis of this inheritance is what Jesus has done. It's not what we do. It is not based on you or your performance or your merit or your worthiness.
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And that is why Christian hope is so powerful because it's not dependent on you.
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It is wholly guaranteed by what is outside of you. That's why it's unshakable. I am shakable.
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I'm very shakable. But the hope is not because it's not based on who I am or what
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I have done, but on who Christ is and what he has done. On our best days and on our worst days, we have unshakable hope.
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This inheritance is described by the text as imperishable, undefiled, unfading, kept in heaven.
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It is eternal and it is secure. It is untouched by anything evil or sad or bad.
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It is wholesome and holy good forever. Praise be to God. So let me ask you, what are you hoping for?
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Are your eyes so focused on the things that are seen and temporal that you miss the things that are unseen and eternal?
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That is a challenge, isn't it? Because the things that are seen are, well, they're seen.
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They are right here. They're in front of your face. They demand your attention. And so it takes discipline to turn your eyes away from what is seen to what is unseen.
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And so that is why we must make an effort to do that. We must discipline ourselves to look to what is unseen.
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That is also why we need one another in the church to help one another keep focus and perspective. By ourselves, we can lose course.
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But if we have one another, then we can help one another to keep perspective, to keep focus, and to keep our eyes fixed on what is ahead.
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The hopelessness takes over when it starts crowding out from our vision the hope we do have.
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And notice how Peter describes Christian hope. He says, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
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So again, it's done and dusted. If you're a Christian, you have hope.
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The question is not whether or not you have hope, it's whether or not you'll remember that you have hope.
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And then whether or not you will live in light of the hope you do have, or whether or not you'll live a life ignorant of the hope you do have.
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So do you sometimes stop to consider maybe what heaven will be like? We're looking ahead at heaven.
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That is our hope. But maybe it's a bit too ethereal. It's sort of,
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I don't know, it's difficult to grasp. And so we don't really spend much time thinking about it because honestly,
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I don't actually know what I should be thinking about. It can be a challenge. But maybe, let me encourage you to think not only of heaven as a place, but also in terms of a person.
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It's not so much where and what, but rather who. If we go back to our text, starting in verse seven.
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So that the taste, the 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.
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It's about Jesus. He is coming again. Though you have not seen him, you love him.
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Though you do not 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.
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So heaven is all about being with Jesus. That's what makes it heaven. The one that you love, the one who brings joy, the one who saved your soul.
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The one through whom and for whom all things were made, who is both your king and your brother.
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Jesus saves us so that we might be with him. So think about Jesus.
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And then thirdly, who may have this hope? Is this hope just open for everyone?
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We've seen that the reason for hope is because Jesus was raised from the dead. And we've seen that what we're hoping for is eternity in his presence.
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But who is this we that has this hope? Who is included?
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If we look again, verses three through five. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again.
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Who is that us? Let's keep reading. 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 are the you who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
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It is those who are being guarded through faith. What faith? Faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.
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That is who this hope is for. It is for Christians. This is Christian hope. If you are not a
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Christian, then you don't have this hope. Then it is not yours. It is for those who have faith in Jesus that he died and was raised again for the forgiveness of their sins.
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If you don't believe this, let me ask you, what hope do you have?
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And what reason do you have to have that hope? You don't have to be like the people who embrace the emptiness of a world where they have convinced themselves that there is no
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God but then ignore the hopelessness until it is too late. Because without God, you truly are hopeless.
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And the sooner you come to terms with that fact, the better because that will force you to turn to him, to the one who can offer true hope and real hope and lasting and eternal hope.
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You also don't have to live the gutsy but sorry life of someone without hope. There is no merit in that.
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That's not worth anything. There is this conception, I think, in society that you need to stand on your own two feet.
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Like, I don't need God. I'll accept the hopelessness and hold my chin up high. Like, who's looking?
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That doesn't mean anything. That doesn't gain you anything. That's not even dealing with reality as it is because reality as it is has a
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God who calls and is worthy of your allegiance and offers salvation, eternal life, blessing, and joy.
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So turn to him. Turn to him. For those who are believers, you can take heart that it is
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God who guards you by his power through faith until the end. Again, it's not up to you and your performance and your abilities.
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It is God who guards you. And that should give us an extra measure of joy, the fact that this hope is not something that depends on us for fulfillment.
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It is God who guards and keeps us. Paul writes in Ephesians 1, verse 15 and following.
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For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints,
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I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our
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Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the spirit of wisdom and of revelation and the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your heart enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might, that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in the one to come.
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Again, the same power that raised Christ from the dead is the power of working you and the power that maintains and guarantees your hope.
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It is the power that seated Christ in the place of power above all other powers.
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That is the power that guarantees your hope and guards you and keeps you until you enter into the inheritance that you're hoping for.
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Notice again what Paul says in verse 18, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you.
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It's there, it's yours. The question again, it's not whether or not you have hope, it's whether or not you remember that you have hope, whether or not you live in light of the hope that is yours.
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So who is this hope for? This hope is for those who have put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
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So what now? What does that mean for us now? We've seen that the reason for hope is rooted in the past, it's in the fact that Jesus has been raised from the dead.
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And we've seen that what we're hoping for is future glory with him when he comes again. And this hope is for Christians.
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But what does that mean for us now? Does hope only relate to the past and the future with no real relevance for us in the present?
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What does that look like for us to live with hope now? I think we often live as if we don't have hope in the present.
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It can sometimes be difficult for that to become real for us today. Did you notice that word living in the text?
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Verse three says, according to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope.
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It's alive, it's real. It is not just something that is true, it's also something you do.
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Hope is a verb, it's an action. It's something that you take part in, you hope.
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If we look back at the text, again, verse three. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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This is the beginning of verse three. So verse one and two really is just the introduction. Peter is just greeting them.
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What's the very first thing he does? He bursts out in praise towards God. He can't contain himself.
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That is what hope does. It just results in praise to God. And then in verse six, in this you rejoice.
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Like now, you rejoice now. That's something you do now. Though now, for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.
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So even when life is hard, you can rejoice because you have hope. That's the difference that it makes in your life.
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Now, and then verse seven. So that the taste of genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tasted by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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Though you have not seen him now, we cannot see him right now, you love him.
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We love him now. It has the effect of love for Christ now. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him.
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Now, we have faith in him right now because of the hope that we have.
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And you rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. Now, we can rejoice now.
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And notice also in verse 13, just later on in the chapter, therefore, again, if you see the word therefore, you must ask what is it there for?
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And it is usually there to point you to what comes before. So he's just spoken about hope. And now, therefore, what does this lead to?
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Preparing your minds for action. You're getting ready to do something now because you have this hope.
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And being sober -minded, again, it's focusing on what your mindset should be like right now.
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You set your hope. That's a wonderful phrase, set your hope.
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This is something you actively take part in. You hope, set your hope. This is something you do.
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So take time to actually do this. Set your hope on Christ. You set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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That's the inheritance that Christians look forward to, isn't it? As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance.
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You're obedient children, it leads to obedience. But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct.
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So can you see how hope for future glory has an effect in the present? That hope for Christ's second coming, based on his accomplished work at his first coming, results in a life changed by hope in the present.
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Having hope results in a number of things we can see in this text. Firstly, you prepare your mind for action. That's something you do now.
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You're ready to do stuff. You're gonna take action. You're sober -minded, so you think rightly in accordance with God's word.
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You set your hope. Again, you actively take part in this process.
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You set your hope. And all of this leads to a changed life of obedience in the present, a life in which you have hope, even when life is hard.
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So the believer's hope of future glory, based on Christ's accomplishments in the past, leads to present joy, love, obedience, and praise.
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It affects the way that you live now. Based on what Christ has done for you, you have rock -solid, glorious hope.
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Therefore, you love him, and you obey him, and you praise him, and you have deep -rooted joy that nothing in this world can touch.
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If you feel like your love for Christ is weak, or you don't feel like praising him, or life seems hopeless, meditate on what
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Christ has done for you, both in accomplishing your salvation in the past and guaranteeing your glorious inheritance in the future.
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Let me just maybe share a word on joy. So having joy can be hard.
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It's not something you can manufacture, especially when life is hard. I mean, how does that work?
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I think it's helpful to recognize, firstly, what joy is not. Joy is not simply having an outgoing personality, someone who smiles easily and loves to talk to everyone.
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It's wonderful, it's fine, but that's not joy. That's not what
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Peter is talking about here. It's not just always smiling and looking super happy. It's not simply doing fun activities.
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It's not something, you cannot take a picture of you being joy and post that on Facebook. That's not, it doesn't translate.
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You cannot communicate it through that medium. Those things aren't obviously necessarily inherently bad things.
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Those are good things and fine. They're just not the same thing as the Christian joy that Peter is talking about.
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Rather, joy is a deep -rooted peace and comfort that comes from the ultimate assurance that it is well with my soul.
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And nothing can touch that. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
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Nothing can change the fact that he was raised from the dead. Nothing can steal away your faith that is guarded by God himself.
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Nothing can prevent Jesus from coming again to rule and glory. And therefore, even the hardships of this life cannot drop you from the peace and the comfort that comes from knowing that it is well with your soul.
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And that is why you can have Christian joy even when life is hard. So as we've seen, joy does not replace hardships.
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Joy does not depend on the absence of difficulty. That is the prosperity gospel lie that all
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Jesus cares about is your best life now with no difficulty, no hardships. That is a false gospel.
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God's love for us is not measured by our earthly health, wealth, and prosperity, but by Christ's arms outstretched on the cross.
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Amen. Joy does not replace hardship, but you can and should have joy despite hardship.
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Tears of sorrow, heartache, and grief, or pain are not the opposite of Christian joy. In fact, they're often the companion of Christian joy.
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Again, verses six and seven. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials.
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There you see it again. They go together, the joy and the trials. So that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire.
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Being tested by fire is not a pleasant experience, but that does not exclude the
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Christian joy. May be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
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The rejoicing and the trials go together. They are not mutually exclusive.
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Likewise, you may also go through a season of well -being and blessing with no clear or perceptible suffering.
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And praise God for that. Those are good gifts from his hand that we can rejoice in. But yeah, like my brother said earlier, we should be careful that those blessings don't become the ultimate focus of our lives.
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The fact that we may be comfortable and have what we need should not distract our focus from Jesus Christ and what he has done and from that which is ultimate.
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That is such a temptation for the good things to crowd out our vision in a similar way to the hard things.
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Hard things pull us away. And we tend to want to turn to God when life is hard. But we forget him a little bit when life is good.
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And so even as Christian joy is not separate from suffering and hardship, it's also not separate from blessing and well -being and the good things in life.
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Even when life is good, your ultimate joy should still be found in Jesus Christ. And your ultimate hope is still focused on his return.
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So what difference does hope make in the Christian life now? Well, the believer's hope of future glory based on Christ's accomplishments in the past allows present joy, love, obedience, and praise whether life is good or whether life is hard.
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So I want to close by just reading three short passages back to back. So the first two are from Christian songs and the last one are just from one of the most glorious passages in all of scripture in Revelation 21, describing what heaven will be like.
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Yes. You can just listen as I read along. There in the ground his body lay, light of the world by darkness slain.
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Then, bursting forth in glorious day, up from the grave he rose again.
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And as he stands in victory, sin's curse has lost its grip on me. For I am his and he is mine, both with the precious blood of Christ.
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Yes. And there's another country I've heard of long ago, most dear to them that love her, most great to them that know.
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We may not count her armies, we may not see her king. Her fortress is a faithful heart.
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Her pride is suffering. And soul by soul and silently her shining bounds increase.
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And her ways are ways of gentleness and all her paths are peace. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth.
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For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new
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Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.
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And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.
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He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their
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God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more.
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Neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore. For the former things have passed away.
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Thank you, Lord Jesus. Help us to remember and live according to the living hope we have in you.