Sermon 9th September 2012

Today our Curate, Gill Tayleur, continues our study series, Created to Become Like Christ, looking at the book of 1 Peter.  

LIVING HOPE 

(1 Peter 1 verses 3 - 12)

A couple had two little boys, aged 8 and 10, who were extremely mischievous. They were always getting in to trouble and their parents were getting to the end of their tether. The boys’ mother heard that the local vicar had been successful in getting some wayward children to change their ways, so she asked him if he would speak with her boys.  He agreed, but said he’d like to see them individually. So the 8 year old went to see him first, one Saturday morning, with the 10 year old lined up for later in the day. The vicar, a large man with a loud voice, sat the younger boy down and started with a question, “Where is God?” The boy’s mouth dropped, but he made no response, sitting there with his mouth hanging open, wide eyed. So the vicar repeated the question, “Where is God?” Again the boy made no attempt to answer. So the vicar raised his voice, and shook his finger, again asking, “WHERE IS GOD?” The boy screamed and bolted from the room, ran home, and into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. When his older brother found him there, he asked, “What happened?” The younger brother, gasping for breath, replied,

“We are in BIG trouble this time. God is missing – and they think WE did it!”

Does it sometimes feel as if God has gone missing?

In our Good News Bibles this section is headed up, A Living Hope, from v 3 in which Peter says, “this fills us with a living hope”. And the whole passage is about this hope, what it is

and why we have it and how we live in the reality of it. And that’s what we’re going to think about this morning. And the bigger picture of a living hope being part of our becoming more like Christ.

I know it’s only a few months since our series on Faith Hope & Love, when we looked at hope together, but I think this morning’s Bible passage throws up some slightly different ideas and questions than we had in the Spring. But as Simon Brindley did when he preached on hope in April, I draw from and highly recommend Tom Wright’s book,

Surprised by Hope. It’s quite meaty, and a very interesting and helpful read.

HOPE. These days hope is often not much more than wishful thinking. I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow. I hope I don’t catch Trevor’s cold.

But in the Bible, hope is much stronger than that. It’s a firm conviction. It’s an expectation based on something solid and reliable. It’s like the hope I might have that the P4 bus will take me to Brixton, when I’m already on it and going in the right direction! I hope it will take me there?! I’m convinced it will, I’m relying on it!

In the Bible, hope is based on God’s promises, and he is 100% reliable. Biblical hope anticipates good from God.

This is the sort of hope that Peter had in mind when he wrote this letter. If you weren’t here last week, you may not know that this letter was written by the fisherman disciple Peter

we know from the gospels, to new Christian believers scattered around what’s now Turkey, scattered because of the persecution of Christians by the Romans. To these Christian believers Peter writes about hope, about a living hope.

And as Cameron said last Sunday, Peter addressed his letter to God’s chosen people,

and what he wrote to them is applicable to us too, as God’s people today, fellow Christian believers, even in such different circumstances. We can have a living hope too. So let’s look at it together.

WHY can we have this living hope? WHAT can we hope for? And HOW can we LIVE in this hope? How can such hope be alive for us too, in 21^st century London? Why, what and how.

First then, WHY do Christians have such hope? Let’s read carefully what Peter says. From verse 3: “Because of his great mercy (that’s God the Father’s mercy) he gave us new life

by raising JC from death. This fills us with a living hope”. What fills them and us with a living hope? Christ’s resurrection and our subsequent new life!

Christ’s resurrection gives us hope because it is his victory over sin and death! They’re beaten! He is more powerful than them! And because Christ died and rose from the dead, we can be forgiven our sin and have our relationship with God mended.

That changes everything so much that it’s like starting life again, a new life of faith

following God and his son Jesus Christ. Christ himself described this change as a new birth, saying “you must be born again” to Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a very religious man, a member of the Sanhedrin, which meant he was a pillar of the community and man of the highest Jewish standing. Christ said to him, you must be born again. If it applied even to Nicodemus, it really must apply to everyone.

Whether we’ve come to faith in Christ gradually and gently, or in a more dramatic conversion experience, everyone who’s a Christian, who believes in Christ and his death & resurrection for them, has been born again, has a new relationship with God; it’s for everyone. And so every Christian can have this living hope.

As well as this new life and new relationship with God, Christ’s resurrection paved the way

for the resurrection of the whole of creation. That means us, that our earthly bodies will be resurrected one day, as Christ’s was. And it also means the whole of creation. More about that in a moment.

So, WHY do we have a living hope? Because of Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

Then secondly, WHAT do we hope FOR? Peter says, “This fills us with a living hope,

and so we look forward to possessing the rich blessings that God keeps for his people.

He keeps them for you in heaven, where they cannot decay or spoil or fade away.”

What do we hope for? We look forward to God’s rich blessings, in heaven. What are these blessings and what’s heaven?

Heaven is God’s space, where God’s authority rules and his future purposes are waiting in the wings. Whereas earth is our world, our space. The two are separate, but touching, for now. But we know from a vision we read about at the end of Revelation, that God’s holy city, God’s place, will come down from heaven to earth when Christ comes again. God’s space and ours, heaven and earth, will finally be integrated in a newly recreated earth.

God and his rule will be central. It will be perfect. And that’s what we have, to hope for and look forward to for all eternity. That’s when the ‘rich blessings’ at present being kept safe in heaven, will be merged with our earthly reality, transforming it and soaking it through with God’s presence, his love and his mercy. Living forever, in that perfect place, under God’s perfect rule of love and justice and joy, will be rich blessings indeed; it’ll be heaven!

Peter says these rich blessings cannot decay or spoil or fade away, they’re being kept safe for us. What else cannot decay or spoil or fade away? Nothing! Life is by definition transient. Nothing on earth lasts forever. We don’t, our loved ones don’t. Ultimately life is a series of losses, as we have to let go of everything and everyone sooner or later. There is nothing we can hang on to forever apart from God.

But Peter says there is something that can’t decay or spoil or fade away – something that’s truly eternal – our future in heaven with God. That’s what we hope for, in the Biblical, confident, expectant, sense. How wonderful! Life needn’t end! Something can last forever and ever!

One way it’s described in this passage, is in terms of salvation. In verse 5 Peter speaks of

the salvation which is ready to be revealed at the end of time. And in verse 9, of the salvation of your souls, the purpose of your faith.

Salvation. Scholars say this word means rescue, deliverance or healing, used to apply in at least four ways: deliverance from danger, from disease, from sin, and from God’s judgement. Being delivered or released from that lot brings healing, wholeness, well being in the deepest sense, physically, emotionally & spiritually, as we relate to God

in perfect love and obedience. That’s what salvation is, and that’s what we hope for,

in the Biblical sense. We hope for that complete deliverance, that complete well being,

that perfect relationship of love with God, in his eternal, perfect heaven – forever.Now isn’t that worth hoping for?!

And if we do, what difference will it make to now? HOW do we live in this hope?

Yes we believe in Christ’s resurrection and are living a new life in relationship with God and following Christ – so how do we have this LIVING hope? How do we live in the reality of it? What does Peter say?

First we have faith that stands up to trials and suffering. Verses 6 & 7. Peter says suffering

tests a believer’s faith, and proves it is genuine, so that it may endure. In suffering, faith is strengthened, or purified, as gold is when heated to very high temperatures and impurities rise to the surface and can be removed.

Although we know that here in this letter Peter was referring to the suffering of persecution

that his readers were going through, there are other passages in the Bible that say all sorts of suffering can refine and strengthen faith. How? By reacting to it with a determination to keep trusting in God’s goodness and presence with us through the suffering. In hard times we can learn to depend on God in a way that we don’t need to when everything’s going well.

For the last few weeks we’ve seen Olympic and Paralympic sportsmen and women

pushing their bodies to the limit. We’ve heard about the intensity of their punishing training schedules, and about pain, muscle burn, cramps and exhaustion. But such training makes their bodies stronger. Just as athletic training can push the athlete’s body

to the limits of endurance, to make it stronger, so too suffering can make us stronger in faith, not that we’d seek it.

Suffering can make our faith stronger IF we carry on believing and loving God. Verse 8 says we love and believe in God and his son Jesus Christ, even though we don’t now see him. Peter of course had seen Christ, knew him well, but we haven’t. And Peter goes on to say, “SO you rejoice with a great and glorious joy which words cannot express, because you are receiving salvation”.

Our faith in Christ and love for him can bring rejoicing, even in the midst of suffering!

Not by denying the ghastliness of the suffering we’re going through, but because we hold on to the hope that eternity in heaven will see an end to all suffering, it’ll be perfect, with God’s love justice and joy in all their fullness.

In Hebrews 12 we read that Christ endured suffering, the horrendous suffering of the cross, because of the joy of heaven that was waiting for him. Nothing we go through will ever be as bad as the cross, in its physical emotional and spiritual pain, as he took on himself

the weight of the world’s sin and pain. But in a small way, we can become more like him

in our response to the suffering we face. We can become more like Christ.

There are many examples of people holding on to a living hope, in faith, in times of suffering, and being strengthened by that hope and faith. Some particularly come to mind today, Racial Justice Sunday, as people who have suffered due to their race.

I think of slaves in the last two centuries, who wrote marvellous gospel songs and hymns

about the hope of heaven, like Steal away to Jesus, Swing Low Sweet Chariot. The hope of their eternal future strengthened them as they suffered injustice and dreadful abuse.

And some people today who suffer because of their ethnicity, their caste or religion,

find a surprising joy in the hope that comes from their faith.

But how do we react to trials and suffering? I’m sure we’ve all experienced suffering of one sort or another. Maybe the physical suffering of a chronic illness or disability, or the mental suffering of depression or acute anxiety. Or the suffering of the death of a dearly loved one, or betrayal, or separation. Or desperate financial need. Or having been forced to leave our home, or home country. Whatever we have to face, we can hold on to our hope of heaven – and on to our faith and love for God NOW. Hold on to the truth that God is good, and God is with us, NOW, whatever we’re going through. Hold on to the new life and new relationship with God that we have, thanks to Christ’s resurrection.

How marvellous that we know the truth about these things! The last verses in the passage

we’re looking at this morning point out how prophets in Old Testament times wrote about the expected Christ, but knew and understood very little about him. But in Peter’s day, and now, we are privileged to understand and grasp the truth about Christ and his resurrection, leading to the marvellous hope we now have.

So, how do we have a living hope? By holding on to faith, even in suffering, by loving Christ, by remaining joyful! Hope, faith, love, joy – as we grow in them, then surely we will be growing to be more like Christ, as we were created to be.

One final thought. In his book, Tom Wright points out another implication of the truth that

our living hope is not just a hope for after death, it’s hope for now too.

Tom Wright says, “God has brought his future, his putting-the-world-to-rights future, into the present in Jesus of Nazareth, and he wants that future to be implicated more and more in the present.” So, he goes on to say, Christians are to anticipate that future in the here and now. “Every act of love, every deed done in Christ and by the Spirit, every work of true creativity, every time justice is done, peace is made, families are healed, temptation is resisted, true freedom is sought and won – these earthly events take their place among things which anticipate the final new creation, and act as signposts of hope.”

We live in faith and love for God, because of Christ’s resurrection and his new life in us,

that gives us a LIVING HOPE, hope for now and hope for all eternity.

So let’s pray, as we sit. God our Father, we thank you for the living hope we can have because of the wonderful things you’ve done and have planned for us. May that hope strengthen us in times of suffering, and help shape us to become more like Christ. In his name, Amen.