THE LIVING HOPE
1 Peter 1: 3 – 5
Sermon by:
Rev. M. Vlietstra
PUBLISHED BY
PUBLICATIONS COMMITTEE
OF THE
FREE REFORMED CHURCHES OF NORTH AMERICA.
(April 1994)
LITURGY:
Votum
Psalter 420: 2, 6
Law of God
Psalter 68: 2, 3
Scripture Reading: 1 Peter 1: 1 – 12
Text: 1 Peter 1: 3 – 5
Congregational Prayer
Offerings
Psalter 203
Sermon
Psalter 27: 4, 5
Thanksgiving Prayer
Psalter 96: 2, 3, 4
Doxology: Psalter 308: 1 .
Congregation,
Hope revives! What an important element hope is in our life! How can we live without it? When we are young, don’t we hope for a long life? When we are ill, don’t we hope for recovery? When a student has to write an exam, doesn’t he hope for a good result?
I could give you many more examples. Don’t we all hope? We hope for all sorts of things. Yes, we also hope to enter heaven when our time is there. Doesn’t hope help us to live? It gives us expectation. What is life when nothing is hoped for anymore? Where nothing is looked forward to any longer? Without hope, life is so dull and dreary that you could hardly call it life.
Hope revives! It is true. But what is real hope? What is real life? What is the biblical hope and the true life?
When the apostle Paul in Ephesians 2 addresses the believing gentiles he writes in verse 1: “And you hath He (that is God) quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” And then in verse 12: “That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world”.
Without Christ and therefore without hope. Without God and therefore without hope. Before their conversion, the believers in Ephesus also had their hopes, just like all of us now have our hopes. But when we say that we are hoping for something, we usually mean that we are not quite sure about it.
I am young and I don’t know if I will become old, but I hope so! I am ill and I don’t know whether I will get better, but I hope so! I have to write my exam, I don’t know whether I shall pass, but I hope so! I hope to get converted sometime, but I don’t know if I will.
Dear congregation, do you realize that such hope doesn’t really mean anything? That it is a hope without any good ground, without a foundation? A hope without substance.
Only the biblical hope truly revives. That is the living hope. That is the hope of the righteous, which is not in vain.
In our text we speak about
The Living Hope,
We shall pay attention to:
the course
the character
the object of the living hope.
When the apostle writes this letter he is residing in the metropolis Rome with all her ungodliness. He therefore calls this city Babylon (Chapter 5: 14). He sends this letter to the Christians in Asia Minor, whom he calls “the strangers”. Strangers in the diaspora. They are strangers here on earth because they have their citizenship, their inheritance, in heaven. They are strangers in the diaspora, but though scattered throughout all nations, they still compose a separate people, with the heavenly Jerusalem for their capital.
Peter probably wrote this letter shortly before the persecution under the cruel Caesar Nero began. The purpose of this letter was to revive the hope of the Christians in the middle of persecutions.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”. This is how the apostle introduces our text. What caused him to sing the praise of the God and Father of our Jesus Christ.”
Well, first of all, it was the remembrance of the mercy of God that he himself had been privileged to experience in such a rich measure.
Peter refers to the abundant mercy of God. Who will ever be able to fathom how abundant God’s mercy is? It is an overflowing mercy.
It is like a river that overflows its banks and swamps the surrounding area.
In Genesis 2 we read of four rivers that watered the garden of Eden.
But after mans dreadful fall into sin, a fifth river as it were sprang forth, the river of God’s mercy.
The waters of this river have been fully poured out on Golgotha. From there the waters stream to all sides. All like Peter, may bathe in that river and be cleansed from all sin. Then they glory with Peter: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again”.
Begotten us again. We could also say to be born again. Like the word that the Lord Jesus once spoke to Nicodemus, “Verily, verily I say unto you, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot see the kingdom”.
No, it could not be any different. For by our first birth we belong to the guilty generation of fallen Adam. We are all one with our father Adam.
His guilt is our guilt. His sin our sin.
What an awful realty this is for man who was created in God’s image.
He enters this life with a polluted soul and in his foolishness he daily increases his guilt. But, oh amazing grace, when the river of God’s mercy flows over such a polluted sinner’s soul, then the miracle takes place, the unestimable miracle of the new birth.
That blessing had also been bestowed on Peter. He was an object of abundant mercy. He too can speak of a new birth, by which he became united with the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. By that new birth, he became a new creature in Christ Jesus. Old things are passed away, behold it is all new. In Christ he is translated into the heavenly kingdom. That is where his citizenship is now.
The first Adam is of the earth, earthly. The Second Adam is the Lord of heaven. Whoever has drunk from the living water that flows from the Rock, Christ, experiences that in Him a fountain is opened springing up into eternal life. This new life causes the new born sinner to go on from strength to strength.
A new creature! Renewed in heart and life! All became new, and that is solely God’s work. When a person is born it is a miracle of God. When a person is reborn it is also a miracle of God, Who worked the new birth by his Spirit. Therefore: Blessed be God, who has begotten us again!
God is the Source of the new life and also the Fountain of everything that flows forth from this new life. He is the Fountain of the renewed will, the new desire, the new thought patterns and the new walk of life of the born again sinner. God is also the Fountain of the new hope!
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Who has begotten us again unto a lively hope!
To a lively hope! What does the apostle mean by that. What kind of hope is that? What is the character of this living hope? This is our second point.
An old legend tells about a tree that sprouted long ago from the earth and the flowers could heal all the wounds of those that found her. That flower is the flower of hope.
Man always knew that a life without hope could hardly be called life. Hope! Oh what does man not hope for? It is to be feared that man hopes for many things that soon fall away and disappoint. We saw already that the heathens also hope. But the apostle adds immediately that they are without God and without Christ and therefore without hope in the world. For only that hope which is founded and built on the living Christ will not be in vain.
That hope will never perish, not even in death, for it is a living hope. This hope has life in itself. The living God works it and rouses it, while it is founded on the living Christ.
A lively hope! What an un- searchable miracle it is that this hope can be known and enjoyed. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
The resurrection of Christ. Peter places this as a bright, rich pearl in the middle of his song of praise. The Lord is risen indeed.
Shouldn’t this Easter message stir all of God’s children, the whole church of Christ, with an affection of melting amazement and fill the soul with jubilant thanksgiving?
The wages of sin is death. In olden days the soldiers received from the king, in whose service they willingly entered, the agreed wages. In the same way, we also willingly entered into the service of sin and so we receive the agreed wages, namely death!
Wasn’t that the bargain? For in the day that thou eatest from the forbidden tree thou shalt surely die!
That is the reason why we are all subject to death by nature. By our own guilt we became subject to death and we shall never be able to free ourselves anymore. Do you know what the essence of death really is? It is being without God, without the Fountain of life. But Christ, though He never knew sin nor did any sin, voluntarily placed Himself in the ranks of the army of sinners. The wages of sin were paid out to Him, death, with all its terror and dismay.
Golgotha! There we hear the Saviour groan in hellish agony, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” But with that “My God”, He wrestled through the depth of death to the blessed height of: “It is finished”. He perfectly satisfied the curse of God’s law of love and put it away. He completely bore and carried away the curse of the law. He fully satisfied God’s justice that demanded our death.
Then He gave up His Spirit after committing it into the hands of His Father. He died!
He was buried! But the work is accomplished perfectly. God is satisfied.
Then it must become Easter. Death cannot hold Him captive any longer. On Easter morning the Father wakes Him up. My dear Son: It is enough now! Come out of the grave! The debt is paid for I have nothing to demand any more. The Son arises from the grave in His own strength for He is God, robed with power.
He arises as the Living One, Who brought forth life and immortality. He purchased life. A life that has left death behind and can’t be touched by it forever.
He did this for His elect bride, His church. Now He can say to her: “I live and thou shalt live. He that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live”.
He gives His sheep eternal life and they shall not perish in all eternity. No one shall be able to pluck them out of His hands. Out of His hands that were once pierced on Golgotha.
Do we now see that the living hope that is founded on the living Christ will not be in vain? Do we understand now that this living hope is so very sure?
In our introduction we remarked that when we talk about hope, there is a certain element of un-certainty in it. We hope something, but we don’t know the outcome. It could happen, or not. I hope so, but I am not sure.
But it is not like that with the living hope! Just like faith, it is build on a sure foundation. Peter confessed: we believe and are sure. This biblical hope is an expression of certainty.
The living hope is a sure expectation. That’s the essence of true hope. The biblical hope is the same as the biblical faith. The only difference is that hope is directed toward the future. To hope is believing with an eye to the future. The living hope is a sure expectation, a joyful anticipation.
Sad to say, this living hope is not always exercised by God’s children. There is still so much unbelief and little faith, so also that living hope is not always so lively. But when faith and hope are exercised, then there is certainty and assurance. Hope is founded on and lives out of the living Christ.
What unspeakable wealth this is for all who are begotten again unto this lively hope.
The life here on earth is full of trouble and difficulties. But the living hope says: Why should I be afraid? Jesus lives!
The struggle against satan, the world and our own flesh is great. Our whole life is one continual fight against those three arch enemies. But the living hope says: Why should I be afraid? Jesus lives and in Him I am already more than a conqueror.
But isn’t death still the king of terrors who will once lay his chill hand on me? Yes, but the living hope says: Why should I be afraid? Jesus lives, and He also conquered death. Therefore: death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? Those that suffer and die with Him will also be raised with Him for His resurrection from the dead is for us a certain pledge of our own blessed resurrection. Because He lives, there is also this living hope.
What is the object of this living hope? This is our third point.
Well, the object of this living hope is an inheritance. An inheritance. But where does that inheritance come from and for who is it? Maybe the answer is going to be disappointing to you. It all depends on what your hopes and wishes are. No, it is not an inheritance of gold and silver or of other earthly treasures. A living hope could not be for perishable things could it? No. It is a heavenly inheritance and therefore incorruptible, reserved in heaven for you, the text says. There the moth and rust do not corrupt, and thieves do not break through nor steal. The inheritance is kept safely there!
This inheritance is also undefiled and has not a single disadvantage. With an earthly inheritance, it is usually quite different. But this inheritance is undefiled and neither can it be corrupted. It is bought by blood, but not by your or my blood. The precious blood of Christ was the price whereby it was obtained.
This inheritance is so beautiful and it always remains so. It does not fade like flowers do. This inheritance fadeth not away. It shines in imperishable beauty and eternal excellence. It is hard to imagine and impossible to express what it will be like to receive that full inheritance.
Let it suffice us to say that it is and remains forever and that all God’s children, however great or small they may be, will once come into full possession of it. If we may belong to these heirs we can never lose it anymore because it is reserved for us in heaven.