Text: 1Peter 1:3-9
The other day we read these words in Bible class. They seemed so meaningful I decided to preach on them today…then read
It happens this time each year. Easter Sunday is special and filled with joy. We sing the great hymns. The church is adorned with the sight and the smell of lilies. We join our many voices to praise our risen Savior.
We leave here on a high note, but life soon catches up with us and there’s a let down. Fewer people. The lilies don’t smell so fresh and new. And for me, something far more serious. Last Sunday afternoon I was called out as police chaplain to respond to a terrible, senseless tragedy in Petaluma. I spent the day with witnesses, police officers and firemen who did a great job in a terrible time. Tomorrow I will meet with a man who witnessed the shooting. He can’t sleep. He keeps reliving the awful scene. So for me after Easter, life has brought some tough experiences.
But one very important thing hasn’t changed. Jesus is still risen. And here’s the beauty of it. It’s a light shines that through every darkness. So we still have reason to rejoice. And here the apostle Peter helps us keep that joy alive. That’s what we want to see today:
THE JOY WE HAVE IN OUR LIVING SAVIOR
i. The joy of a living hope
II. Joy in the midst of tough times
III. Joy in receiving the goal of our faith.
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, Those words are so joyous I am tempted to say Amen right now and sit down. But let’s take some nice sips of this word and savor what God says.
In his great mercy, Peter writes. What’s mercy? On whom do you have mercy? What’s their condition? You have mercy on someone in desperate need. You have mercy on someone who deserves something worse.
That was you and me: you were dead in your transgressions and sins,… Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath (Eph 2:1,3) But in his great mercy, God promised a Savior to rescue us from ourselves. And in his great mercy he sent his own Son. He sent his own Son to take our sin to the cross and suffer the punishment and death that we deserved.
And now in his great mercy, God our Father has given us a new birth into a living hope. Think about it. Children are sometimes born badly disfigured with a cleft palette. In a poor country like Mexico, that can spell a very hard life. These children face ridicule and rejection. Often they can’t get a job and are condemned to abject poverty. But there are surgeons who donate their time and skill to go down there and repair that deformity. I have to think that when they do it must seem to the parents that their child was born again.
Well God has given us a new birth. He has given us a new birth into a living hope. And what makes that hope real. What makes it alive is this. We have more than some dead and gone religious leader. We have a living Savior. In Him we have the joy of a living hope.
Peter calls our living hope an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, You’ve seen the bumper sticker on the back of some big, expensive RV. “We’re spending our kid’s inheritance. It gets a laugh, but it reminds us of something. So many things in life disappoint when the time comes to enjoy them. Not so, our living hope. Not so, the place Jesus has gone to prepare for us in heaven. It can’t shrink like our 401k. It can’t be stolen by identity thieves or wrecked by vandals. And it won’t be anything less than God has promised. No sadness, no tears, no ugly evil on a Sunday afternoon, but joy, joy in the blessed presence of the Lord.
And to help us rejoice, Peter paints us a picture of certainty. You see, twice he uses a word that means to stand guard and keep something secure. Well first he says this, this inheritance is kept in heaven for you. No one is going to mess with it there. And more than that, the Lord is guarding you until that time. Peter says it this way: through your faith in Jesus, you are shielded by God’s power. You are shielded from anyone or anything stealing you away from the Lord. That is the promise of your living Savior. What does he say? I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. Well that hand is powerful and alive. For it is the hand of your living Savior, the Son of God. He gives you this joy of a living hope.
Peter couldn’t help but notice the joy in these Christians. He writes, in this you gladly rejoice. And it wasn’t as if they were living their life in Disneyland. In this letter, Peter speaks of the painful trials they are suffering for being Christians. So here we remember something else about the joy we have in our living Savior. It’s a joy in the midst of life’s trials.
God’s people are no strangers to suffering. Jesus said, in this world, you will have trouble. We are not immune to things like cancer or heart disease or depression. And sometimes we suffer what many Christians do around the world. Persecution for following Jesus.
But even if our pain or trouble should last a lifetime, this joy is ours. It’s ours in our living Savior. For what can we know about any trouble. First, it lasts only for a time. though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. That pain, that sadness may seem unending, but in our living Savior is only a little while. When compared to our living hope it is only a little while.
Of course, when those trials come we might feel that God has forgotten us or cast us off. The moment we feel that way we need to grab hold of this. God has a good and loving purpose. One purpose is this. 7 These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
At one time, people used fire to prove the purity of gold. They turned up the heat. If it was gold it would remain. If not, it would go up in smoke.
Suffering is like that fire. It hurts but it proves our faith genuine. In fact, when it forces us to turn to God’s promises and depend on him, our faith comes out even stronger with this final result. When we see Jesus on the last day, we will praise him and honor him. We may not understand now how he works, But then we will look back at our lives and praise God for what he did through our suffering
So look at the joy we have in our living Savior. It’s ours even with tears in our eyes. For we know God’s purpose and we know where it all leads. In fact, at this very moment it is ours. The goal of our faith is now ours in our living Savior. And this too is a joy.
Think of Jesus standing outside of Lazarus’ tomb. He calls out to a man now dead for four days. Come out! And he does. He is alive. A blessed miracle!
The Holy Spirit has worked a miracle no less amazing in your heart. Think of Thomas who saw the risen Jesus and believed. We haven’t seen him. We’ve not seen his face or heard his voice. So here is the miracle. 8 Though you have not seen him, you love him; You love him because of his dying love for you. and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him You now trust he has lived and died for you.
And here’s the joy. you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Notice something here. It doesn’t say, you might receive or even you will receive. It says you are receiving. It’s like Jesus says elsewhere. He who believes…has crossed over from death to life. For our living Savior has already done it. He has already made that crown of life your own. And now it’s only a matter of time before you wear it. It’s only a matter of time before you live that life to the fullest. There is joy in knowing that, isn’t there?
Marin Luther once said: One can never speak of Easter without rising to his feet…Hearing its message and assurance is like Jacob hearing that his son Joseph was still alive after all those years. It is almost incredible. It appears too good to be true. But it is true. Wonderfully true and so enjoy what is yours in your living Savior. Amen.