Twin Hopes of Assurance

okay um when i come back up on the screen again well even if i don't come back on here i go here

i go uh i'm going to read the bible now and then we'll we'll spend a few minutes just um thinking

about one peter chapter one and i just can't help thinking that at this time it's just lovely to

hear about jesus total commitment to us and our salvation secure there's nothing else much secure

in this world at least it feels like nothing else much secure in the world this week but our

salvation is just as secure as it was last week last year last century and we can never hear enough

of that especially that time so this time so thanks alex now i'm going to read from one peter chapter

one uh the first nine verses and then we'll spend a few minutes just uh thinking through some of those

things so hopefully um you've got your bibles open uh maybe you can they said yesterday there might be

some complication with having um electronic devices and zoom open so you might have to go back and use

an old-fashioned uh word bible like like i do anyway here we go so verse one of chapter one of one peter

peter an apostle of jesus christ to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in pontus galatia

cappadocia asia and bithynia according to the foreknowledge of god the father in the sanctification

of the spirit for obedience to jesus christ and for sprinkling with his blood may grace and peace be

multiplied to you 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 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 in this

you rejoice though now for a little while if necessary you have been grieved by various trials

so the tested genuineness of your faith more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire

may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of jesus christ

though you have not seen him you love him though you do not see him now you believe him

and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory obtaining the outcome of your faith

the salvation of your souls

well rob's already said uh summed it all up hasn't he what a week what a week it's been just imagine

something as microscopically small as a virus totally disrupting interrupting our life if not changing it

forever forever that great thing that we've all talked about over the years that australian way of

life socially we've moved from being party central as a nation to being a nation in nervous isolation

economic talk of economic growth has moved to talk of economic recession and even depression

pretty bleak our health system that a week ago most of us would have thought

would have been able to deal with any eventuality is now threatened with being overwhelmed

the aussie spirit so-called aussie spirit of looking after your mate

well that's fast becoming a look after yourself type attitude isn't it hoarding panic buying

and then as rob's already mentioned our church family now for the first time ever being forced to meet

online trying to be together while being separate now it's already been mentioned a few times that as

always change creates fear we've heard a few of them this morning it's fear of the unfamiliar

fear of loss of relationships and growing aloneness fear of losing your job fear of ability to provide for

your family fear of losing your retirement nest egg as you see the stock market collapse fears even of

contracting covered 19 fear of death I mean the fear is the list of fears goes on and on and on but

you know what my biggest fear has been this week doing what I'm doing now speaking online I'm not so much

worried about covered 19 I thought actually come Friday night that might have been a really good option

rather than preaching online but here I am so fierce they're very real fears they'll be very specific

to each of us but regardless of what they are each of them impacts on our faith in the present

and impact on our hope for the future and you see that one up in the the quotation up in the screen

so one I saw this week if we view ourselves as besieged victims who need to go into hiding

then we will cultivate fear and hoarding if we view ourselves as a community working hard to protect

the most vulnerable among us then that will have its own outcome so our hope mindset really impacts the

way we act and think everybody needs some sort of hope for the future we're shaped by our hopes mindset

which drives us to list the things we believe we need to be secure and that happens from when we

wake in the morning we express our hopes mindsets so let me ask you there's a hopes mindset up on the

screen happy new year that's a that's a form of hope let me ask you this morning what was the first

thing you hoped for when you woke up this morning perhaps like me you just hoped that all this would go

away and we'd get back to life as normal as life as we know it or perhaps it was that my me and my

loved ones would be healthy that my home and possessions and wealth might survive that I might still be able to

get that lifestyle that I've worked for all my life and which now seems to be perhaps slipping away

our hopes mindset will shape the way we speak and it will shape the what we invest our time and energy

and resources in put simply we throw ourselves into doing things that we believe will make our hope a

reality and coming up in the script at the moment there's a couple of more quotations about that

we're hearing these sort of hopes on the tv news every day at one extreme there's a form of despair

hopelessness driving panic pushing people to get what they want regardless of others

at the other extreme then there's the bland optimism of positive thinking

we've heard it so many times you know we will get through this crisis we will come out the other side

stronger and better than ever and there are numerous options in between those two extremes

but whatever option you go for we need hope wherever you sit on that spectrum we need hope

and here's the really important thing the object of our hope is the thing that's really critical

if the person or thing we invest our hopes into fails to deliver then we're going to crash and burn

big time we'll be consumed with fear we'll be consumed with disappointment we'll be consumed with

frustration because our hopes are tantalizing they're there but we can't quite get a hold of them

we can't make them secure so let's turn to uh peter's letter and see that real hope is inseparably tied

to relationship with jesus so i'm going to read uh the first few verses when they come up on the screen here

here we go um peter an apostle of jesus christ to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in

pontus calesia cappadocia aesia and bithynia according to the foreknowledge of god the father

in the sanctification of the spirit for obedience to jesus christ and for sprinkling with his blood

may grace and peace be multiplied to you now that's the context in which peter's going to tell us

about our living hope and it's a really important context to remember he's writing to christians

that are scattered all over the roman empire they're living like refugees or exiles in days of severe

persecution incredible insecurity for them these are christians who have been marginalized

isolated or even cut off from their families and cut off from local village life simply because

they've become christians we can feel their fear fear for themselves fear for their families we can

feel their sense of isolation their sense of dislocation their pain their suffering they become refugees

in their own land things look familiar and yet they're so unfamiliar not unlike i think i've been

feeling this week everything that's comfortable and familiar is there but it's not there

we sense their longing longing like refugees to know that somebody cares that they're valued as people

they want to have a home they want to have security they want to know that a better life is ahead

given the awfulness of their current predicament

it's that context that peter reminds the christians that we have a living hope not just wishful thinking

not just positive thinking it's a hope which is ours by right of birth it is our inheritance

it cannot be stripped away from us as as alex said in his children's talks as christians we're united

with christ not only in his death but in his resurrection because he is raised to a new secure

life with the father in heaven we can be absolutely certain that we also will be raised to this secure

life in heaven we haven't actually got there to experience it in in its fullness yet but we are tied into it now

by virtue of being tied into christ because christ is living we have living hope it's that simple

in and through relationship with him now peter goes on then to spell out the twin truths that underpin

that that real living hope that security for the future the first is in verse four

oh thanks so we'll get that up on the screen in a sec um our inheritance is kept in heaven for us

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 unfading and kept in heaven for you now i've used this illustration before but

children when children leave home parents often present them things that they've collected over the

years things that the parents have kept because they know jolly well if they give them to the kids

uh they would have been lost they would have mutilated so the parents keep them the kids can't

get their hands on them and so they're there to be presented at the right moment well in the same way

our heavenly father has our security our salvation our future stored up in heaven for us we can't get our

hands on it therefore we can't mess it up and that's surely what we'd do if it was down to us

but it's kept for us ready to go and able to do everything that christ promised it's tamper proof

the second truth then is uh we are kept by the father so you see the twin truth our salvation is kept for us

and then the other side of the coin is we are kept by the father so that we will might eventually

enjoy our inheritance verse five continuing on the sentence who by god's power are being guarded through

for a salvation ready to be revealed thank you in the last time why can i be confident why can you be

confident as a christian you will persevere and you will ultimately make it home to heaven

answer because god preserves you god will preserve you he's promised to preserve you

for the inheritance that he's already set aside for you he's already storing for you

and he's going to bring the two of them together uh in at some point in time in the future we can't

see the full security we have now and sometimes doubt it we can't see the the beauty of what we have in

its fullness and so we sometimes doubt it but one day jesus will come back he will take us to be with

him in heaven where we will experience in full what he has stored up for us and which we can only now

appreciate through faith now friends that means our hopes mindset as christians is not in how we can

mold our lives by our own resources

it is not wishful thinking it is not bland optimism of positive thinking

our confidence now and into the future is based on christ's death and resurrection in the past

there's not a chance we will miss out on what god intends us to have because both sides are in god's hands

however there's another wonderful truth that's that's brilliant so far but there's another wonderful

truth in these verses and that is living hope massively transforms our perspective on suffering

now uh peter doesn't just present this truth the twin truths of hope in a vacuum he means us to

connect them into real life and here's the connection into real life that these twin truths massively

transforms our perspective on suffering let me just read these verses again to you they're up in your

screen now in this you rejoice that is in this truth twin truths of salvation though now for a little

while if necessary you have been grieved by various trials so the tested genuineness of your faith

more precious than gold that perishes though is tested by fire may be found to result in praise and glory

and honor at the revelation of jesus christ though you have not seen him you love him though you do not

see him now you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory

obtaining the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls notice that in verse 6 it is in living

in this living hope you rejoice the same thing again in verse 8 you rejoice get this you rejoice with

inexpressible joy filled with glory now what does that mean well it's i think it's probably too big for me to

actually completely expand and exhaust but let me let me just try this on you because i think this is

this is really helpful what it means is this when i live confidently in the light of those twin truths

that my salvation is kept for me and i'm kept for my salvation when i live confidently in light of this

then i reflect christ's glory how do you do that both as i display how christ himself

has changed me from the inside out it's not normal to hope in somebody outside yourself

but also as i happily walk the path of suffering which jesus also worked

those two things are a form of inexpressible joy i know in whatever situation the lord makes me walk

into and leads me into the truth of my salvation remains unshaken and as i walk into the path of

suffering to my ultimate glory in heaven then i'm simply following the path that jesus has walked

before me and and as his disciple has asked me to follow

there's the source of inexpressible joy things might be falling apart all around us

there might be incredible physical taxation but that pathway cannot be broken we will not slip off the

pathway we will not be barged off the pathway we will be led home to that inexpressible joy and beauty

of being with jesus forever

so suffering therefore moves from something that we need to fear

as the text tells us to something which is an opportunity for us imagine that that's a big call to say that

suffering is an opportunity for god's people what's it the opportunity for it's an opportunity to trust jesus more

to grow more like him to be more joyful to be more thankful for to the lord for his goodness to us in jesus

now this is a really really important one to think through especially where we are at the minute as a

church and where we are as a society where we are globally

see most people including many many christians think that suffering in and of itself is bad

and that should be avoided

they would say things like suffering and happiness or joy are incompatible

and that god wants us to be happy therefore we should

minimize or or do everything we can to avoid any sort of suffering

others have a more stoic you know a stiff upper lip mentality towards suffering

they think suffering is just an opportunity for the likes of me to prove my mettle to prove my character

to show people what i'm made of

and so the idea there is that you just tough it out

you you you you have a stiff upper lip and you just put your head down and shoulder it

and and you just say well okay people will see what i'm made of

i'll come out this other side of this

you know that that thing i said about

um australians you know we will get through this

we will come out the other side we'll be better for it

well that's a form of approach to suffering but it's not a gospel shaped approach to suffering

the hope there is in strength of my own character

to deal with whatever life throws at me

it might be a real hope but it's not a gospel hope

peter speaks of the reality of suffering in a very positive way

which trusts increasingly in who we are and what we can do in jesus

and not who we are and what we can do in ourselves

rejoice with joy inexpressible filled with glory

means moving into and through our suffering

knowing that jesus is ahead of us shaping us through it and leaving us home

so my friends this inheritance this new and living hope is not just a theory

to live by i would say to you it's a truth to die by

if that becomes necessary

over the last few years i myself have been uh trying to learn to crave this

inexpressible joy and suffering

by trying to find a gospel place in suffering

that is what by a gospel place i mean recognizing in whatever suffering

i'm i'm experiencing at that moment that i can say to myself

this is where jesus wants me to be this is the best place for me

to develop my trust in jesus to be exposed to my own sinful life trust

and therefore this is the place where i can be

even in the midst of suffering free to learn the lessons he wants me to learn

and free still to have a mind to others before myself

so here's the big question that i wrap up this morning

big question is do we do you have a living hope in the face of covered 19

because if your living hope doesn't help you address covered 19

with confidence i'm not talking about being foolhardy

i'm talking about being confident then you don't have the living hope

that is rightfully yours to be understood and lived

out as a christian

and the answer to your question as you answer me

do you have a hope a living hope for covered 19

the answer whether it's yes or no will be very clear and obvious

as you daily express your hopes mindset

so here's how it works if all we have is this world

and the things of this world health wealth comfort

then there's no alternative you will become increasingly fearful

you'll become increasingly self-interested

and self-protective

you'll become increasingly angry frustrated

that the good things of this life that you've worked so hard for

are now being stripped away by some microscopic virus

that's random

but if on the other hand our real hope

our real security our real home is in heaven

and if our joy is to be like jesus and follow his pathway of suffering

to heaven

then we like him will be free to be selfless

in times of danger

and we'll actually grow

in this time of uncertainty

and fear

we'll actually mature

in this tough time

whether it be three weeks

three months

or indeed three years

and you know what

throughout history

that's what christians have been known for

they've had such a hope

a living hope in christ

that they've been the ones

who've run into danger

to care for other people

even to the point of sacrificing their own lives

and countless thousands have done that

wouldn't it be great

no matter what happens here in newcastle

if we as believers of this church

became known as people who are running into danger

keen to help others

not foolhardy

not ignoring those basic things of hygiene

that we can do to protect ourselves

but nevertheless

not being driven by fear

not being driven by self-protection

not being driven by self-interest

but moving towards people

and showing people

in practical ways

that we have a hope

that's far beyond

health and wealth

and prosperity in this life

but there's another line

and I'll finish on this then

we can also perhaps

begin to think this morning

that this pandemic

is already starting to expose

the roots

we find so easy

to put down into this world

when there's nothing to challenge us

when there's nothing to expose

our true securities

and that happens

it happens to us all

every day

those roots

go deeper

and deeper

and deeper

and sometimes we're not even aware of them

until they're exposed

and challenged

you see that's what Satan's job is

he'll trick us

into believing

that we have here

in this

that what we have here

in this world

is better

than having God

and so the roots go down

and he'll show us

all the shiny things

the world offers

for security

and as we salivate over them

the roots get deeper

we choose the bigger house

the luxury holiday

the career

getting married

having children

pursuing my dream

and whatever form that comes in

and it comes in myriad forms

and the roots get deeper

and deeper

my friends

as we start this

stage of our church life

online

can I encourage you

can I encourage you

to encourage one another

not to put down roots

not to accept

substitute hope

in this world

because

if you invest your hope

in this world

you'll be mightily disappointed

let's help one another

expose these roots

where they exist

this past week

Alice and I

have just been talking about

the impact

of the stock market collapse

on our

superannuation

now as we come

towards the age of

retirement

I don't like the word

and I'm going to redeploy

but nevertheless

you understand what I'm saying

and it's really been

a challenge to us

to say well

where is our security

what impact is it going to have

to read those figures

and say you know

upwards of 40%

of our superannuation

that we were looking forward

to enjoying last week

40% of it's now gone

and perhaps more to go

with no prospect

of it coming back

in less than 8, 10, 12 years

these sort of thoughts

expose our securities

don't they

expose the roots

that we need to dig up

and we need to cut off

so our connection

to Jesus

might be the true root

the true sense

of abiding

that takes us forward

well

this has been

a big thing for me

I'm only starting

to relax a little bit now

if it's been a bit

wooden and artificial

I will try and improve

over the weeks

thank you very much

for listening

and may God

go with you this week

thank yoular

thank you

a big deal

I'll be back and plucked

if he's going to come

here

to get us

what we're you're going to do