The Resurrection, A Living Hope

The Resurrection as the Central Event of Scripture

Well, gang, to you all, thank you for joining in. You turn in your Bibles, if you have them in front of you, to 1 Peter 1 of 1 Peter, and this morning, verses three through five. So 1 Peter 1, verses three through five.

Let me read these to you as we begin. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.

So the Apostle Peter begins this letter with a benediction, a doxology, if you will, a speaking of good things about a person, about this person who is God the Father, and he is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So blessed be him, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the reason for this blessing comes right away in this verse. What is it? He has caused us to be born again. And he tells us also the means, the way, what God used to confer this blessing upon us, and that is his great mercy.

The motive behind it, his great mercy, and the means he used to accomplish this rebirth, this new life, this living hope is this, the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. The resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I pray that we will all put our focus upon that this morning. That we'll think about the mercy of God in raising Jesus from the dead in order to give us new life. And for you who are listening, I thank you for joining in with us.

And I pray that as we go through these few verses in the time that we have together, that you will see not just the meaning of the resurrection, but the fact of the resurrection and the new life, the conversion, the rebirthing that is promised by this resurrection that, Lord willing, we will make a bit more clear to you this morning.

You see, the resurrection is the central event of the entire Bible. Our Bibles have four gospels. They are historical records, each by their own author of the life of Jesus Christ. And each one of them takes a little bit different tack or emphasis in presenting Jesus Christ to us.

But they all seem to slow down when we get to this one central event, the central event of Jesus's life, the central event of the entire Bible, which would make sense because Jesus is the central person of the Bible.

They all slow down and take their time and really ponder this one great event in all the things that Jesus did, is the resurrection of Christ from the dead. And so it seems good for us to also, with them, slow down to, for a day, set aside the worries of the day, which, as we know, these days are many, and to ponder together this one grand theme, the resurrection of the dead, the resurrection of the dead led by the author and finisher of our faith, who is Jesus Christ.

In fact, the New Testament makes this, the resurrection, the central point of Jesus's life, and in fact, the entire Bible, Old and New Testament alike. You'd be amazed how often, when you're pondering a mystery, something you can't quite figure out in the Old Testament, how, if you look to the New Testament and take the resurrection, as documented in the gospels and explained in the epistles or in the letters that the apostles wrote, how it all comes together and the resurrection explains so much, the central event of the scriptures, the central event of our life.

Soon after the empty tomb, which I just read about a few minutes ago from Luke chapter 24, some 2 ,000 years ago, the church began to meet on the first day of the week because of this, because of the resurrection.

The Resurrection as God's Confirmation and the Mercy Behind Salvation

What was the resurrection? Before we dig into our verses, I just wanna explain what the resurrection was, and we could spend a lot of time on this, and we're only gonna make a brief explanation here, but the resurrection was God's stamp of approval.

He signified by the resurrection that Jesus Christ's suffering on the cross was full and complete. Christ suffered the full penalty due to you and to me for your sins. Romans chapter four, verse 25 explains this to us a bit.

It says there that Christ was delivered for our transgressions. That is, he was crucified by the Romans and then on the cross, he was punished by God for what we, we, not he, but we have done. And then he goes on and says, and was raised, was resurrected for our justification, and justification means to be declared not guilty before the law of God.

So where Christ said from the cross, it is finished, the resurrection is God's confirming answer. So I want us to gather our thoughts on first Peter chapter one, verse three through five, around three ideas, which is a cause, an effect, and a means.

It sounds kind of dry and it sounds kind of academic, but as you will see, it is really not a dry academic thing. The cause, the cause brings about an effect and the effect is accomplished through a means.

Excuse me. The cause of all this is God's mercy for sinners. The effect that he brings about is to be born again to a living hope. And the means by which this is accomplished is the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead.

So I wanna ask, and put this question forward immediately, why would God bother to save anyone? I mean, what is the cause of this? What is the cause that would make God want to bother to save anyone, to give new life to anyone?

Well, the answer is right here in first Peter. Blessed be the God and father of the Lord Jesus Christ, according to his great mercy. The apostle Paul echoes this in Titus chapter three, verse five, where he writes that he, meaning God, saved us not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy.

As that great hymn says, "'Tis mercy all, immense and free.". And the Psalms remind us again and again to give thanks to the Lord for his good, for his mercy endures forever. Forever. So what's God's motive in saving sinners?

Why would he bother to do this? It's mercy. Mercy. If grace is giving to us what we do not deserve, mercy is withholding what we do deserve. By the one, by grace, we receive what is not due to us. Ephesians chapter two, verse eight says, by grace you have been saved.

By grace. And by the other, by mercy, we do not get what we so richly do deserve. Ephesians chapter two, verse four says, but God being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, even when we were dead in trespass and sin, as some Bible versions would have it, God did something.

God did something that is not deserved by us, and God did something that took away from us what we do deserve. He made us alive together with Christ. So these two qualities, grace and mercy, they combine in God without any confusion.

The Lord never has to wrestle as you or I might have to wrestle to figure out if he needs to exhibit mercy in this one case or grace in another. God declared himself to Moses and said, the Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious.

Mercy and grace combined together in perfect harmony. The Psalm says that in him steadfast love, which is often translated as mercy and faithfulness meet. Righteousness and peace kiss together. So what is mercy?

Mercy is something that by its very nature is not required. We read in Romans chapter 11, verse six, but if salvation is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise grace would no longer be grace.

We might even say, if mercy is something we can require, it is not mercy, it is obligation. So mercy, God shows mercy to sinners. And it's a humbling thing to admit that you need mercy. Convicted criminals after their lawyer has employed everything he can to get them off, once convicted, what can they do?

They can only throw themselves as we put it on the mercy of the court and hope for a minimal sentence. You know, even in a little league for the little kids, they have what is called the mercy rule. That's when one team is behind by 10 runs in the fourth inning, that coach, the coach that is behind by so many early in the game, he can concede the game.

He can give the victory to the other team. Mercy is the plea of someone who has no other recourse. For example, the law that convicted criminal might be able to be sentenced to 25 years incarceration.

And he would say, please judge, I throw myself on your mercy, make it 10. The little league rule allows young athletes to not have their worst outing rubbed in their faces. And their coach admits the need for mercy.

And once he does that and it's accepted, the torture ends. But we need mercy. We need mercy before God, because we are born children of wrath and deserving of condemnation. Following our own nature, we ignored him, we insulted him.

We rebelled in every way we could think of against him. And from where did all this come? It came from our nature. Even as it is God's nature to show mercy, it is our nature to show sin. The thing about mercy is you have to admit your need of it.

In the biblical context, it comes in the context of confession of guilt, guilt exposed by God's law. Most of us know much of the 10 commandments. For example, you shall honor your father and your mother.

You shall not steal, you shall not lie, you shall not covet and so forth. And this doesn't even touch on how Jesus elevates all this in the Sermon on the Mount. And then there's the sinful nature, the sinful nature that knew God's righteous requirements, but willingly ignored them.

And added to all this then is the terror of knowing that you are rightfully convicted and properly sentenced by the God who gave the law. So what does all this expose in us? Well, it exposes sinful nature, it exposes the insults that we've given to God.

It exposes that we willingly ignored what he so freely showed us in the right way. It brings us to repentance, to repentance, to realize your desperate position before the judge of all the earth, to admit that you have sinned and are deserving of his justice.

Because what we deserve is justice, not mercy. Repentance is your sorrow for sin. Repentance is your casting all your hope for acquittal on his mercy. Repentance comes when you realize that God's law is true and that he has shown you, oh man, what is good and what he requires of you.

And you've willingly following your own fleshly, as we call it nature, ignored it. Repentance is your sorrow for sin, casting your hope for acquittal on only this, on the mercy rule, on his mercy. There's no vain exercise on your part.

It is a plea to God whose store of mercy is a deep well. It is a well without end. It is a well that is always brimming full and it is a well that never runs dry. I'd like us to think for a moment about how great is this mercy?

How deep is this mercy? The apostle Peter, in the verses we read, according to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again, his great mercy. How great? It's as great or as deep as is your sin compared to how high and holy is God's righteousness.

As holy as he is compared to how holy we are not. Now, one person's sin might be more entrenched than another's. That guy's sin might be more commonly engaged than yours and her sin over there, she's sitting over in that other place, she might be more depraved than you are.

But you see the difference we're looking for is not the difference between sinners, sinners compared to sinners, but sinners compared to God. And that distance is immeasurable. That distance is infinite.

From the finest, holiest, nicest, most humble person humanity ever made, compared to the upper reaches of heaven, where God abides, that leaves that wonderful, holy, humble person just as desperate and just as destitute before God as the worst of any of us.

You see, any sin is sin, and it is a sin, it is a blight against the honor of him against whom we sin. So God's honor, God's holiness, God's righteousness, all of God's attributes are limitless and perfect.

And so also then is the insult that sin is to him. I think this is what Peter had in mind when he said, according to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again. Great mercy, a mercy that can bridge the gap between wanton sinners and a holy God, between willing insults and sin against him and his perfection.

That's the distance that needs to be bridged. That's the gap that has to be solved. And there's only one way to do that. That's God's great mercy. So we bless God for giving us something that we could not have devised, we could not have imagined, we have no way of accomplishing.

We bless God because in his great mercy, this unbounded mercy, he gave us this wonderful blessing of rebirth. All this by the cause of his great mercy, withholding from sinners what they rightly deserve.

So that's the cause. In his mercy, he gave his own son to die for our sins. There has to be an intended effect. God doesn't work for nothing, most especially would not give his only begotten son to die on the cross for our sins if he didn't have something intended by it, an effect he intended.

New Birth, Regeneration, and the Living Hope

The cause is his mercy. Let's see what Peter says about the effect. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again. So born again, rebirthed. In one of Jesus's best known statements, he said to a Jewish leader named Nicodemus, you must be born again.

Now Nicodemus immediately asked him if, well, should I go back into my mother's womb and be born again and do this whole thing all over again? Well, of course not. That's not at all what the Lord Jesus meant.

Without a supernatural rebirth by the working of God's spirit, it cannot be done. No amount of effort, no striving for holiness, no disciplined compliance with God's law can get this thing done. Jesus even said in exactly this context, with man, this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.

You see, with God, the leopard's spots can be changed. With God, the sinner's heart can be converted. With God, the sinner can be given new life and all because of his great mercy, which brings us about.

How does he do this? How would he accomplish this thing? If we're born this way, and as we like to say, in Adam, all have sinned, we inherit from Adam the sinful nature that began in the garden when they took of the fruit, the only forbidden thing and all that God had made and brought sin into the world.

And all who followed after Adam have the sin nature of Adam and are guilty of the sin that Adam actually committed. So how does he change such a heart as that that is born in trespass and sin, as I read earlier from Ephesians 2 .4?

Well, he removes from us what the prophet Ezekiel calls a heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh, a heart that is soft to the things of God, a heart that pumps real life into a body, spiritual life, the life of God.

Ezekiel goes on to say that this surgery comes by the working of God's spirit. It was very similar to going back to John 3, where we're speaking about Nicodemus and Jesus in that famous conversation they had.

Jesus tells Nicodemus, the wind blows where it wishes and you hear it sound, and you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the spirit. The spirit of God who goes where he goes according to the will of God, applying this mercy by changing, by removing dead hearts and replacing them with living ones.

This effect brought about by his mercy leads to something even more. He's caused us to be born again to a living hope, a new heart pumping real life that brings a living hope, born again, rebirth, remade, recreated.

All these words would apply to this and all that to bring us to this other aspect of this being born again, which is to have this living hope. What's a living hope? It's the opposite of a dead hope. It is a hope that is based on fact, upon the historical fact of the resurrection of Jesus Christ bathed in truth, bathed in the truth of the scripture because God, it is impossible for him to lie.

It is a hope that also springs forward to the promises that it brings. Many, perhaps most people are of the opinion that death is the end. When you die, it's over. You're annihilated. It's just done. There's no more consciousness.

There's no more existence. It's over. Except it's not over. Not according to the Bible, which is God's word, which is truth. Not according to our faith and not according to that glimmer of the image of God in you that understands eternity.

The scripture says that God has planted eternity in the hearts of men. In other words, you know that there's something beyond this life. It's not over when you breathe your last breath. Mankind, and this means man, woman and child is invested with what we call a soul.

A soul, that's what differentiates you from animals. I recently watched a documentary about the discovery of genes. And genes and then DNA and then RNA and then chromosomes and all the rest of it. It was a fascinating show.

And it was amazing for me to watch these brilliant, these curious men and women who spent their lives digging into the mysteries of life itself. And they demonstrated how when you analyze the differences in DNA between all sorts of living creatures, different species, how small the difference in this basic building block of life actually can be species to species.

When I saw this, I thought immediately that this confirms our Bibles in just at least a couple of ways. First, the Bible says that we're fearfully and wonderfully made. Your DNA might be only slightly different from, for example, a walrus, but it is different.

And that teeny, tiny, teensy weensy difference might be slight, but the difference it makes is huge. And I think that only proves how fearfully and wonderfully God made all living things. But second, and I think more important is the soul.

Now, Peter doesn't use this word, but it's implied in what he wrote, that God has caused us to be born again, this rebirth, this new life, this new heart that beats from the life of God himself, who shows, who by his spirit renews the spirit, which means the soul of man.

Genesis chapter two, verse seven, we read that God breathed new life into Adam and Adam became a living creature. And the word behind creature is the Hebrew word nefesh, which is the word for soul. Adam became a living soul, a living being.

The soul is what makes you different. The soul is that aspect of your existence that not only differentiates you from all other life, will also live forever. And this is how rebirth is a living hope. It is a living hope because of the soul.

All living creatures are alive, that's obvious, but only man has a soul and a soul lives forever. And so does your hope. If your hope is a living soul, if your hope is a living hope, because it corresponds to your living soul.

The living hope from God is what sustains us, no matter the situation. It is a hope that gives now what it promises for the future. Peter writes at the end of what we read earlier, that by God's power, we are being guarded through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

We're through everything, being guarded by God, even something like COVID -19, this global pandemic that has disrupted all our lives, that has brought this untold suffering, economic chaos, empty cupboards, loss of jobs, churches unable to meet.

Through it all, God's people are guarded by him for the day when the Lord Jesus Christ returns and brings us home. And this too is our living hope, a hope that sustains us in the here and now because God is guarding us, and a hope that sustains us because we know that when Jesus Christ comes, he will collect his redeemed.

He will collect the people of faith and bring them back to himself. Now being guarded by God now, being preserved by him, doesn't mean that we're somehow supernaturally immune to COVID -19 or any other disease.

What it does mean is that the Christian's hope is not in the vaccine that scientists are working towards, but we pray for their success. Nor is our hope in masks and social distancing, but we pray for success there too.

Our hope is in the promise of salvation, certified by the faith God has given and confirmed in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. It is a living hope because it comes from the living God who raised Christ from the dead.

And Christ being raised from the dead, no more will death have any grip on him or those who follow after him. So the cause of this living hope is God's great mercy. And the effect it brings about is this living hope, this new birth.

The Resurrection of Jesus Christ and the Two Kinds of Resurrection

And I wanna speak finally about the means by which God brings to effect what he by his mercy has caused. What is the means? What is the way? What is the method he used? What's the resurrection? Look again at first Peter.

He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. By means of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God brings to effect what he by his mercy caused.

Jesus Christ is our great God and savior. By his resurrection, he has birthed the bonds of even death and he lives forever. Romans chapter six, verse nine says, we know that Christ being raised from the dead will never die again.

Death no longer has dominion over him. And Paul goes on to demonstrate that no longer does it have dominion over those whose faith is in him. Those who have repented of their sin and thrown themselves on the mercy of God and by faith apprehended the truth of the resurrection that Jesus Christ died for your sins and was raised on the third day as it has no dominion over him, so also over them who believe this gospel message.

I need to say something here to all of us. The resurrection is not for Christians only. Everyone will actually be resurrected. In John chapter five, Jesus says that he will call everyone out of the grave.

But there are two kinds of resurrections he speaks of. He speaks there of a resurrection to life and a resurrection to condemnation. See, one day your body and mine, everyone's will be reunited to the soul.

And on that day, the body will share this quality with the soul, it will live on forever. Now, Jesus in one place spoke of the body and soul being destroyed in hell forever. For those who do not repent, for those who do not believe this gospel, for those who ignore God's mercy and as it were, throw it back to him.

He spoke of fearing him, that is God, who can destroy body and soul in hell forever. Not all at once and annihilated as you may have been taught, body, your physical aspect as it is now, raised up from the grave, united to your immortal soul.

And so this conscious living being that you become once again, body and soul in everlasting consciousness, suffering torment for sins, which have seen no satisfaction before God. Or better said, a God whose satisfaction you have rejected.

The apostle Paul writes that we are born by nature, children of wrath, dead in trespass and sins. But God who is rich in mercy because of the great love with which he loved us, made us alive together with Christ.

You see, these are the two kinds of resurrection that we can anticipate. A resurrection to condemnation for those who reject God's great mercy and those who have come to Christ, who have repented of their sin, who've thrown themselves to God's mercy as shown in Christ Jesus and the cross.

On the cross, where Jesus endured the wrath for your sin. On the cross, where God poured out on him, on Jesus as he hung there on the cross, helpless on the cross and took the penalty of body and soul being destroyed forever.

The penalty that we deserve. For you or for me, the punishment could never end because we all have sinned. We owe God this satisfaction, a satisfaction that corresponds to his very person. But Jesus Christ, who as a man lived perfectly before God, the Bible says tempted in all ways as we are, yet without sin, when God looked to him, there was found no cause to punish him.

He punished Jesus for the sins of those he carried with him to the cross, to those who are of faith, to those who believe in him and have repented of those sins for which he suffered. Bible says, all have sinned.

So in Christ, by faith in Christ, all who have that faith in him are made alive. Not all without distinction, but all whose trust, whose hope, whose faith is in him. Do you have this rebirth? You have this living hope?

It is yours by what I've been saying, by faith in Jesus Christ. He is the assurance of these things. He is the assurance that is sealed in his blood and affirmed by the resurrection from the dead. As Christ rose from the dead, after having made what we call propitiation for your sins, and propitiation is just a fancy word for satisfaction, paid the penalty, paid the price, where God said, this is the penalty for those sins of this one.

Christ Jesus said, here is the payment in full in my blood. Christ having made propitiation for your sins by the sacrifice of himself, so too do we then rise from the dead. Not by works which we have done, not by anything you or I might do or avoid doing, but according to his mercy.

Mercy showered down on the one whose faith is in what Jesus Christ did on the cross, believing that he died for your sins and that God raised him up again on the third day. See, the beauty of this verse, these few verses in 1 Peter 1, verses three through five, is it's so compact and it's so clear, and it puts forth this gospel message in such easy and memorable terms.

God shows mercy to repentant sinners. Now there is one though, to whom no mercy was shown. There is one who prayed and prayed and prayed to not be punished. And this one prayed with a purity of heart and an intensity of spirit so great that as he prayed, his sweat became as drops of blood.

I speak, of course, of Jesus Christ at the Garden of Gethsemane, praying to God to remove from him the cross that would come to him the next day. He prayed that this cup would be removed and he prayed and he prayed and he prayed.

Three times he went back to God and said, if it be possible, take this cup away. We might say that he was pleading for mercy, and yet the cross was not taken away. And finally, Jesus Christ said, but not my will, but yours be done.

Christ knew that on the cross, God his father would, far from showing him mercy, excuse me, would make him who knew no sin to be sin for us. Second Corinthians chapter five, verse 21. That God made him who knew no sin.

God the father made him Christ the son who never sinned to be our sin. Instead of showing him mercy, he made him sin. Instead of showing him mercy, he punished him as if he had sinned all the sins for which he paid, though he had committed none of them.

Instead of showing him mercy, he punished him, if you will believe this message, in your place. Instead of showing Christ Jesus mercy, he gave him the punishment by which you, if you will repent of your sins and put your faith and your hope and your trust in Christ and believe that he died for your sins and God raised him up on the third day, you will have the mercy from God that Jesus Christ didn't.

The mercy, Peter says, is ours, comes because no mercy was given to Jesus. Will you believe this? Will you confess yourself a sinner whose only hope is God's great mercy available by, available only by faith in his son, Jesus?

His death in your place, his death in your place and for your sins? Believe that he died for your sins and that God raised him up on the third day and the promise of God, that great merciful God, God who shows mercy is that you will be saved.

You'll be reborn to a new and to a living hope in Christ Jesus, our Lord. I pray that all would repent and come to new life and know this new life in him. God bless you all, amen.