Living Hope | 1 Peter 1:1-5

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You're listening to audio from Faith Church Indie. If you'd like more information about our church, ministry, and upcoming events, you can find it at faithchurchindie.com. Now, here's the teaching. Emeritus, returned to full time for a season, and it's my privilege this morning to begin walking with you through this New Testament letter of 1 Peter.

Some of you might be wondering, where is everyone today? Well, I can tell you a little bit of the answer to that. Some of them are just away because it's Labor Day weekend. A bunch of them were in first service today than we normally see in second service, so we should have maybe cordoned it off a bit and got you in the middle, but I'll try to look this way and this way and not lose you entirely.

But we're working on a preaching rotation for the fall that's still under development, but I will let you know that next week we'll have Nicholas Piotrowski of Indianapolis Theological Seminary back with us, and he's always a blessing. I'll also tell you we don't plan to do cut for time podcast in the near term because we're going to cut it for time, just due to staff limitations and time limitations. But when I preach, I welcome your questions, and feel free to send those to me, and I hope we can take time to interact.

Well, I'm starting today with a reference to the British scholar, pastor, and former Anglican Bishop of Durham, N.T. Wright. N.T. does not stand for New Testament, though it could because he's definitely a New Testament scholar of renown, but N.T. stands for Nicholas Thomas Wright, another Nicholas and another Tom, so you get us both weeks. But on the N.T. Wright podcast recently, Ask N.T. Wright Anything podcast a few days ago, a troubled woman wrote in the question.

She said, I love crime stories. I love crime novels. And she was confessing that her interest in and passion for and time invested in crime novels was far more than her investment in Scripture and in seeking God.

And that troubled her, so she asked for help, rightly concerned. Well, Tom Wright, with his amazing pastoral guidance, said, and I paraphrase, well, that's not all bad that you like crime novels because the Bible is a crime novel. No, not a novel, but a crime story, a crime history.

Let me read from his words, his rationale here. Quote, certain people I know who are heavily into crime novels, it's because they have a passion for justice. They know the world is out of joint, and they want to be able to believe that it can be put back into joint.

And ultimately, that's what crime novels are doing, saying, here's this complicated problem. Now, here's a wise person, maybe a detective or someone like that, who will help us get to the bottom of it. And actually, that is telling the story of Scripture through the medium of modern fiction.

And so many great plays and great narratives and great novels are ways of expressing the pain and horror of the world or the puzzle and difficulties of the world. That is so true. That is so true.

And so many examples, but I think, first of all, of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities or Victor Hugo's Les Mis, but on and on and on. In my homeschool experience, a British literature class got me to reading a lot of those older novels, and indeed, that theme is there in virtually all of them. But Wright is right about the Bible being a crime story.

The Bible is one massive crime story. Do you know the trajectory of that crime story? It's the greatest crime story of all time. The crime took place initially in the Garden of Eden, resulting in an expulsion and death penalty, and the death penalty for the guilty.

But then the ring of criminals expanded to every person on the planet, including you and you and me. The criminals were obvious, but the solution to the crime was not ultimately finding, convicting, and punishing the guilty, but a plan to redeem the guilty, even raising from the dead those who'd already received the death penalty and restoring them to the garden. No, not that garden, but another garden, the Garden City of the New Jerusalem.

And that, my friends, is the whole Bible from beginning to end. So, I urge you to spend more time reading that crime story from Scripture, and the others can help illustrate it, but there's nothing better than this one. First Peter's an important part of that story.

We're in book 60 of the 66 books of the story, how the crime is resolved, even to the vindication of the guilty. And this is not to say that there's no judgment. There is.

There is. Those who reject the pardon, those who reject the saving grace of God will be eternally judged, but the good news we're looking at today, that there is salvation for all those who receive God's grace. So, this letter begins with a declaration of God's glorious, amazing, saving grace poured out on rebels like you and me.

Look at verse 3. 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. Born again to a living hope.

Is that good news or what? And so, that becomes the theme of not only the series title, but the series title, but also this sermon's title, Living Hope. Now, this does not mean that we live in a trouble-free world without suffering. Suffering, in fact, is the backdrop to 1 Peter, to this living hope.

And next week, Dr. Piotrowski will take us into verses 6 and following, though now for a little while you've been grieved by various trials, and you might say, well, what's that about? Well, I'm not going to tell you. You can come back next week and get that from Nicholas Piotrowski, but it's okay to read ahead. It's okay to explore.

In fact, my challenge to you this week is to read 1 Peter from beginning to end. How many hours will that take? About a sixth of an hour. About 10 minutes.

Maybe 15 if you read slowly. 30 if you stop and meditate a bit. It's very short.

In fact, I challenge us to read through 1 Peter from beginning to end each week for the next several weeks as we go through this series so that we can really begin to see it coming together, not just broken up into the individual texts for sermons. Well, in this world of uncertainty with dangers all around, even from within, this letter is a powerful declaration of hope, living hope in Jesus Christ. So let's jump in.

In terms of structure, this is a very typical first century letter in the Greco-Roman world. Very much the same structure of Paul's letters, John, Jude, James. 1 John's a little different, but pretty much the same.

It begins with the name of the writer, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ. Do you know him? Well, go back and read the Gospel of Mark. Peter's that outspoken disciple who ultimately denied Jesus, but was then restored and became the first public spokesman of the Gospel.

And then the recipients. Who got the letter? Well, we did, but the first recipients, to those who were elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. You know where those places are? They're all in modern day Turkey.

We can identify these areas there, outlying areas of the Roman Empire. But who are the elect exiles of the dispersion? A lot of ink's been spilled on that question. In fact, I just read a commentary that gives 25 pages to that question alone.

I won't share all what I learned from that, but maybe just a couple of points. Who was it? Who were they? Maybe some of the large population of the Jewish diaspora who had lived there a long time, going back hundreds of years. Maybe Pentecost pilgrims of Acts 2, where actually the places Pontus and Cappadocia are mentioned.

People from there came to Jerusalem for Pentecost that year, just 50 days after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and they heard the Gospel there. Maybe exiles from Rome to those places. Both Jew and Gentile, as there were many, many cycles of foreigners being expelled from Rome for various reasons, even sending out colonists and homesteaders.

I thought that was 19th century America, but no, they had homesteaders to strengthen Roman ties in outlying areas. Maybe probably some of each of these categories, but very likely hidden or double meaning in Peter's choice of words. Perhaps literal exile, some of the Jewish diaspora, but however they got there, these exiles were foreigners in that place, non-citizens, much like any immigrant population, like Abraham, a stranger and sojourner among you, Genesis 23, 4, but by God's grace were elected, were chosen by God.

No great future in this world, in the Roman Empire or up to the present time in the United States of America. But as Karen Job says, chosen by God and fully entitled to the promises and inheritance of his kingdom. We don't fit very well here, but as Paul says, our citizenship is in heaven, and from there we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

That's my COVID verse from six years ago, and I'm sticking with it. I can't hardly pray without using that text. Peter's purpose in writing is revealed at the end of the book, the letter, 1 Peter 5, 12.

I've written briefly to you, exhorting and declaring that this is the true grace of God. This is the true grace of God, stand firm in it. So, if I could state this sermon in one sentence, this would be my stab at it.

I would say in this insecure world, we have the gospel of Jesus Christ in which we stand secure as our living hope. Well, I've given a longer introduction than usual as part of introducing a whole series, so let's break it down into three statements. The first one's going to be a little bit longer, and then they're going to gradually get shorter as we go through to the third.

Number one, our living hope is established in our relationship with the triune God. Look at verses one and two. 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.

Now, from here, we can say this is not primarily, it's certainly not starting as a letter of good advice, though it will develop many practical application points as we go through it. But it's primarily about an essential relationship with God, and you can't have a relationship with God unless you know God, unless you know who God is. Do you see the Trinitarian clarity here? The foreknowledge of God the Father, the sanctification of the Spirit, obedience to Jesus Christ.

Now, some like to argue that the whole concept of the Trinity and the Christian theology as we have it today, you know, that was invented hundreds of years later by Christians in the fourth century at the Council of Nicaea in ancient Bithynia. Oh, that's interesting, Bithynia, that's one of the areas that these exiles are who are receiving this letter. So yeah, just invented maybe three or four hundred years later.

What's this about? What's Peter saying right here? And numerous other passages in the New Testament. Here's the Trinity, the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. One of the things about faith kids, and Ruth gave you a warning, our ministry to children is that our second hour of faith kids starting, do you start again next Sunday with that? Learning the new city catechism.

The kids aren't too young to learn this. So what's our problem? If I had this plan better, I'd have you kids come up and help me preach, but I didn't plan better, so I guess we'll just leave it as it is. But here's the first three questions.

Number one, what is our only hope in life and death? That we are not our own, we belong to God. What is God? God is the creator of everyone and everything. Number three, third question in the catechism.

How many persons are there in God? There are three persons in one God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Just basic theology. Our kids are getting it, we better get it too.

That's how Peter starts his letter. We are chosen by God with these three statements developing it. You have the list of the recipients in the middle there, but you have to bring that back to the word chosen.

Chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. Chosen in the sanctification of the Spirit. Chosen for obedience to Jesus Christ.

Salvation, that is, our relationship with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is not our doing, but it's God's doing. Three aspects of salvation rooted in each person of the Trinity. Chosen, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father.

Now foreknowledge is a bit of a tricky word, particularly in English. It's not just knowing ahead of time, because you can see what's coming down the road. You know the future perfectly as God does.

That's not what it's talking about here, but rather foreknowing in the sense of a personal relationship. Ephesians 1, 3, and 4, the God of our Father, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. So when did you come into existence? A long time after that.

Before the foundation of the world, you were chosen in Him. So it's telling us we didn't choose God. I didn't choose God.

You didn't choose God. God chose us. Now, that puts us right in the middle of theological debate between Calvinist Presbyterians and Reformed, and there are various groups on one side, and Arminian Methodists, and various groups on the other side, various denominational strands, Baptists are kind of some on one side, some on the other of that, trying to sort out the truth of God's sovereignty and human responsibility.

Now, I'm not going to solve that problem for you today. I'm still working on it myself. There's diversity of thought in our own church, and certainly in our movement of the Evangelical Free Church, and I'm good with that.

As I said, I'm still learning and sorting it out in my own mind, whatever there is left of my mind, but we should be able to agree, I hope, no matter how we sort that all out, that we aren't saved because we chose God. We're dead in our sins. We can't choose God.

We didn't choose God, but God the Father chose us. Then, chosen in the sanctification of the Spirit. Now, you might wonder, why does Peter put the work of the Spirit before the reference to Jesus? That seems out of order.

It's supposed to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Now, he's got Father, Holy Spirit, and Son. Well, the role of the Holy Spirit in our salvation is quite diverse, but it has to start with conviction of sin by the Spirit and giving us faith to believe in Jesus.

Martin Luther said, By my own understanding or strength, I cannot believe in Jesus my Lord or come to Him. Karen Jobes adds, The electing purpose of God is made real by the faith of believers, but that faith itself is a completely gracious act of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit who first stirs in the heart a reaching toward God, quickens one's understanding of the Gospel, convicts of sin, reassures a pardon, and transforms the character by His fruit of virtue.

See, the Holy Spirit is involved from before all the way through. And then to complete this Trinitarian work of our salvation, Peter writes, Chosen for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with His blood. Now, this reference to obedience and sprinkling of blood refers to the time of Moses and the covenant that God made with Israel.

This is Exodus 24. When the book of the covenant was read, the people promised to obey God. Exodus 24, 3. And all the people answered with one voice and said, All the words that the Lord has spoken, we will do.

They are in. They are locked. They are ready to go.

They're going to do everything God ever told them to do. We're going to obey. Exodus 24, 8. Moses took the blood and threw it on the people.

It's a little different with the sacrifice. God took the blood and threw it on the people and said, Behold the blood of the covenant that the Lord has made with you in accordance with these words. The problem is they promised to obey.

They didn't obey. It required the new covenant made possible by the blood, not of bulls, but the blood of Jesus to change hearts, to truly obey. And Peter expresses this with different language than Paul, but the same meaning.

There's no salvation apart from obedience to the spirit's call to believe in Jesus, whose blood was given, whose life was taken, who died as the penalty for our sin. And then the transforming work of the spirit who moves us to believe in Jesus, empowers us to obey him. So that's our first point.

Our living hope is established in our relationship with the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And now secondly, our living hope is rooted in what the Bible calls the new birth. Still very much Trinitarian.

Verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy has caused us to be born again. Father and Son, mentioned again in this verse, but the Holy Spirit, I assure you, is not missing.

It is his mercy, one of the primary attributes of God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It's his mercy coming right out of Exodus 34. These are not all New Testament concepts.

These are Old Testament concepts brought forward and fulfilled. The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious. And then it begins to spell out what that looks like, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.

That's how merciful God is. But then it ends with this troubling line, but who will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. So there's this tension between God's justice, which must be upheld and God's mercy, which is also his character.

Someone has to pay for the crime. Justice has to be upheld. And so God's justice and God's mercy coming together are illustrated in the Old Testament animal sacrifice, but they can only meet truly meet and be resolved at the cross of Jesus.

It says he took the punishment of sin upon himself. I love the picture and language of Psalm 8510 that says steadfast love and faithfulness meet. It seems pretty compatible, but then the next line is righteousness and justice, same concept and righteousness and justice and peace kiss each other.

How can that be? Or the 19th century hymn resurrected by the Gettys says it this way, grace and love like mighty rivers poured incessant from above heavens, peace and perfect justice kissed a guilty world in love. Our salvation is centered on the son who makes it possible for us to connect to God by taking the curse, the punishment upon himself, the curse of sin so that justice is satisfied and that we can be saved. And so that tension between God's justice and God's mercy is resolved, not in the law, but on the cross and verified as effective in the resurrection, a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

No hope apart from Jesus and what he did there is Jesus himself said, as we recently focused on John 14, six, no one comes to the father except through me. But what happens within us as God does this work of salvation? Look at verse three again, according to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again. You know that language, don't you? Goes back to Jesus meeting with Nicodemus late one night and he said to him, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

What's that mean? Peter uses the term twice in this chapter, born again to a living hope, verse three and verse 23, since you've been born again. Well, please understand born again. Christians is not some special category of Christians.

Born again refers to all true believers. If you're a believer in Jesus, you're born again. If you're not born again, you're not a, you're not a Christian.

But this concept of the new birth fulfills the prophecy of Jeremiah 31, where the prophet says, the days are coming when I will make a new covenant. I'll put my law within them and I will write it on their hearts. Ezekiel 36 picks up the same theme and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit.

I'll put within you. I'll remove the heart of stone, hard, resistant toward God. I'll remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

And I'll put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes. It's a spiritual heart transplant. That's the new birth.

A heart that can respond to God and feel again. God does that. Titus three, four to seven.

One of the best summaries of this, when the goodness and loving kindness of God, our Savior appeared, he saved us not by works, not of works because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his mercy, by the washing of regeneration, same root word, the new birth and renewal of the Holy Spirit. Let me poured out on us richly in Christ, our Savior, so that being justified by grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Transformed to a living hope rooted in the new birth.

And then that letter to Titus leads us on into the next, next piece. But first, just summary our living hope is established in our relationship with the triune God, father, son, and spirit. And then our living hope is rooted in the new birth, the transformation of our hearts.

And number three, our living hope comes with an eternal inheritance. I want to unpack this in detail, but I want you to see it and rejoice in it. Verse three, born again to a living hope versus four and five to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you who by God's power are being guarded through faith for salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time.

Our salvation has past, present and future realities to it. We often think of salvation is that moment when we first put our faith in Christ. And that's a very important moment, even if you don't know exactly when it was and that's okay.

Are you trusting in Christ today as savior? That's the critical issue. But in my own experience, here's, here's the way I'd explain it. I was saved at age 11 when I received Christ.

That's a past event. It took place in an instant. I received justification by faith in Jesus Christ.

Since then, I am being saved. In this sense, I'm not fully saved yet. It's a process.

I'm being saved. Going on now 64 and a half years with some setbacks along the way, that is growing in faith and obedience, gaining understanding of scripture, seeing the priority of worship alone. Yes, through the week and with the body of Christ.

The critical importance of the church honoring the bride of Christ by being fully involved with her so that you can experience corporate worship and God glorifying personal growth within the body of Christ. And then going out with effective ministry to the world. So I'm still being saved.

It's a process of transformation day by day, not complete yet. That's the ongoing process of sanctification. But there's one more glorious step.

And that is, I will be saved in the future. And that's what versus four and five are about a guaranteed inheritance that comes with this last stage of my salvation, sometimes called glorification. Look at the details.

Two things. It's future. Kept in heaven for you.

Ready to be revealed at the last time. Colossians three 24, you will receive the inheritance as your reward. Now there's a lot of extra things could be said about this.

There's other scripture passages for the Corinthians, seem to include some sense of loss and reward for faithfulness in terms of what happens along the way. Romans eight 23, though we wait eagerly for adoption as sons. There's a sense in which we are already adopted.

There's a sense in which the full adoption is not yet complete. That is the redemption of our bodies. Our bodies sure aren't saved yet.

Look in the mirror. There's the evidence, the arthritis, the diabetes, the cancer, the heart disease, all those things indicate we're not saved yet.

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