Rolling with the Rock: Life Lessons from Simon Peter
A New (and Living!) Hope
1 Peter 1:3-12
3Praise 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, 4and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, 5who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. 6In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. 7These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. 8Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, 9for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
10Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. 12It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
About 30 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, the Apostle Peter, named Simon by his mother but “Rock” by Jesus, writes a letter to believers throughout the northern half of what we’d call modern-day Turkey. His aim is to help believers stand rock-solid in their faith when faced with difficult times and even persecution.
A new birth. We are “born again,” just like Jesus told Nicodemus in John 3. Because we are born again, we are given a living hope. Biblical “hope” is a firm conviction of what is ahead. It is not wishful thinking. For Peter’s first audience, hope is essential. In this passage we learn that we can hope to hang on through the trials of life.
We can hang on because it’s almost over (Verse 6). Peter says that the period of suffering is brief, “for a little while.” A long time ago, I learned that a person can do anything for a little while. As long as there is an end in sight, almost anything can be endured. Your assignment is three months, or a year, or three years. Whenthere is promise of light at the end of the tunnel, we can gut it out. That’s the encouragement Peter gives.
We can hang on through faith (Verses 5, 8). “We believe in Him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy.”
Our faith shields us. Believers will receive divine protection and fully realized, ultimate salvation from this world and from sin and death. God actively protects us; we continue in living, active faith.
We can hang on because of the benefits (Verse 7). We grow. We are stretched. We are refined and purified.
Suffering grief in trials will come up more than once in this letter. Suffering proves our faith. Trials are valuable for drawing us close to God or pushing us away from God. Gold is refined and purified by the intense heat of fire. Peter says that even though it is purified, it is temporary. In the scope of eternity, gold is temporary, our faith is not, which makes it infinitely more valuable than gold. Refining fire is a recurring image in scripture. In Isaiah 48:10, affliction is used as a tool for refining God’s people. Zechariah 13:9 describes the end-result of the refining and purifying of God’s people—He will claim them and they will cling to Him. Our faithfulness is “proved genuine,” we are counted as the genuine article.
We can hang on because of the promise of reward (Verses 4, 9). The goal of our faith is the salvation of our souls. Inheritance. Throughout scripture, we are reminded constantly of our inheritance which comes through our new birth. It is the substance of hope. It does not diminish. It does not decay. It will not disappear.
Our salvation is a mysterious thing. Verse 12 tells that even the angels are curious about our salvation. They have an intense interest in our rescue and are continually trying to get a better perspective on our eternal state. Luke 15:10 tells us that they rejoice in heaven when even one sinner is saved.
The salvation of our souls is something that occurred in the past but is not complete until Christ’s return. It is being “worked out” now, being made complete. The goal of our faith, the target at which we aim, is salvation—deliverance, preservation.
We can hang on and praise the uniquely worthy Christ Jesus. One commentator describes this passage as “the praise of God for Salvation.” It is certainly packed full of praise for what God has done and will do through Jesus. When He is revealed and everything is over, Jesus is glorified by our faithful endurance and perseverance. He is the deliverer of God’s great mercy, and so He is worthy of praise. He is the defeater of Sin and the Grave through His death and resurrection, and so He is worthy of praise. He is the source of and the means of our new birth, and so He is worthy of our praise. He is the giver of an imperishable inheritance, and so He is worthy of praise. He is the bringer of inexpressible and glorious joy, and so He is worthy of praise.
Peter gives us something more than just a distraction as we go through a difficult world; he gives us a better focus-point. Remember what happens to Peter back in Matthew 14, to the only one of us who would ever walk on top of the water with Jesus? If all we see is the dark, swirling waters around us, we can freak out, lose hope, and start to sink. But this nearly-drowned disciple helps us to turn our eyes back to Christ, who is reaching down to deliver us from the waves. Peter’s response to his rescue (and that of the rest of the watching disciples) was to fall down and worship.
The greatest sacrifice of praise we can offer God is the sacrifice of our own lives. Are you ready to offer Him all you have today?