1 Peter 1:3-9

Praise 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, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.  These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.  Though 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, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (New International Version)

One of my favorite comic strips is “Peanuts.”  I remember in one strip, Linus and Lucy are watching TV.  Lucy says to Linus, “Go get me a glass of water.”  Linus looks up and says, “Why should I do anything for you?  You never do anything for me.”  So Lucy promises, “On your 75th birthday I’ll bake you a cake.”  Linus gets up and heads for the kitchen, saying, “Life is more pleasant when you have something to look forward to.”

Hope is important, it is crucial.  Hope keeps us going; it gives us life and courage and energy.  Lyle E. Schaller, a church growth expert, said that if we want churches to grow then we have to offer people hope.  He wrote,

Perhaps the most common characteristic of churches that are attracting increasing numbers of people today is not where the minister is on the theological spectrum or the denominational affiliation, but on what people hear and feel during the worship experience.  This is a note of hope … The one them that is common to churches that are attracting more people is the theme of hope. 

People certainly ought to find hope in the Christian faith and in the Christian church!  That hope is what gets us through the difficult times in life.  It is what makes us keep on keeping on.  Hope is what gives life meaning and purpose.  And it is a hope of what is to come that is the most basic Christian hope.  C. S. Lewis defined hope as “a continual looking forward to the eternal world.”

This note of hope is dominant in the first chapter of 1 Peter.  And it is a note of hope that is spoken to a church in dire circumstances.  Peter wrote this letter from Rome around the year 64, at the beginning of the persecution of Christians under Roman emperor Nero.  Eventually Peter became a victim of that persecution himself.  Tradition says that Peter was put to death in 67, crucified upside down.  Peter saw what was coming and he wrote to warn Christians that there would be trials and suffering ahead of them.  And he wrote to remind them of their reasons for hope.

Peter gave these early Christians four reasons that they could have hope. 

First, Christians have hope because we have experienced a new birth.  Christians find our salvation through the mercy of God, and it is in the experience of being born again.  We become dead to sin and alive to God, with a fresh beginning.  We experience a new kind of life when we decide to follow Jesus, and that new life may mean radical change.  We are born again, not for this life on earth, but for the wonderful expectation of a life to come.  That expectation is based on the conviction that God will keep his promise to raise us to life, even as Jesus was raised from the dead.

Second, Christians have hope because we have an inheritance.  This inheritance can never perish, never spoil, never fade.  That is because it is an inheritance kept for us in heaven.  And nothing can ever take that inheritance away from us.  It has been prepared, it is being reserved; it is absolutely certain and we can count on it.  Adam Hamilton is fond of reminding his congregation of a conversation he had with a parishioner who asked him if he really believed in the resurrection and life after death in heaven.  Adam answered, “I don’t just believe it; I’m counting on it.”  No matter what harm may come to us in this life, that inheritance waits for us and is being kept safe for us by God.

Third, Christians have hope because we are being protected by the power of God through faith.  The Greek word “protect” or “shield” is a military word.  It means that God stands sentinel over us always.  Even when we cannot see God, God is there keeping watch over us.  We are being protected by God until the coming of our final salvation.  And knowing what is ahead of us gives us joy now.  It is a deep and spiritual joy that will remain unchanged by whatever happens to us in this life.  In comparison to the joy that is to come, the trials on earth last for only a little while.

Finally, Christians have hope because our trials make us stronger in faith.  God does watch over us, but God does not prevent troubles and sorrows from happening to us.  Instead, God enables us to face them and to get through them, with God’s help.  These trials test us and they test our faith.  But we face them not only in our own strength, but in the strength of God.  That is how we can overcome them.

Christians can face anything, can stand anything that comes along, because we have something to look forward to.  At the end of it all, there is life with God.  The trials and troubles here and now are not the end; beyond all that, there is the glory, and in the hope of glory we can endure anything.  We know that when we get through these trying times, we will receive the object of our hope and our faith – our salvation.

Hope is powerful, faith is powerful, in helping us cope with the challenges in life.  Hope enables those who suffer to endure, and even to overcome physical and emotional suffering.  Beverly Zink-Sawyer reminds us that we can see the healing and sustaining power of hope in the African American spirituals.  She writes,

Enslaved people who were suffering severe physical, mental, and emotional abuse transcended their misery by means of hope in a God who, they believed, had not abandoned them.  Their visions of a sweet chariot that would swing low to carry them home, a balm in Gilead that would make the wounded whole, and a Savior who knew the trouble they had seen gave them strength to endure the unendurable … The words and melodies of the spirituals echo through the years and across racial boundaries, demonstrating an expression of profound faith in the midst of profound suffering.

John Maxwell tells about a small town in Maine that was on the site of a proposed new hydroelectric plant.  A dam was to be built across the river and the town would end up under water.  When the project was announced, people were given months to arrange their affairs and relocate.  During those months, a curious thing happened to the town.  No buildings or roads or sidewalks were repaired.  Day by day, the town got shabbier and shabbier.  Long before the water came, the town looked abandoned even though the people had not yet moved away.  One citizen said, “When there is no faith in the future, there is no power in the present.”  As Christians, we have faith in the future, we have hope; and that hope gives us power.

We are going through trials and troubles right now in the midst of a pandemic.  Our lives have been turned upside down in just a few weeks.  We are learning the true meaning of “essential” activities and products.  We have hunkered down (in Southern speak) and stayed home.  We have been separated from friends and loved ones by social distancing and communicate by phone or text or social media.  We have heard unbearable stories of loss and suffering and making do.  But we have also heard stories of hope and courage and self-sacrifice.  We have seen heroes among us:  nurses working long hours with few resources; delivery drivers making sure that we get food and other supplies; first responders making trip after trip after trip to pick up the sick and get them to the hospital; children creating pictures on the sidewalk with chalk to thank the mail carriers; restaurants providing free food to medical personnel; celebrities performing free online concerts; churches finding new ways to communicate and stay in touch.

We have hope.  We have faith.  Things will get better, in this life and in the next.  Our hope is not limited to this world; it is a hope that is based in the next.  And so we carry on.

I would like to close with a paraphrase of 1 Peter 1, written by Leslie Brandt:

Another way to test whether or not our faith is genuine is to see whether we can be thankful in the midst of trying circumstances.  Some of us suffer much in the course of our lives.  All of us are continually exposed to temptations and tribulations that are more than we can endure.  What we must understand is that God is able to use even these things, the apparently unfortunate happenings that hound us, to accomplish his purposes in and through us.

We need only consult our memory banks to confirm how even the tragedies that shafted us in the past have made significant contributions to our lives and made us more lovingly sensitive to the sorrows and pains that befall others.  The key to strength and courage, the ability to endure, and the grace to find beauty and joy even within the crucible experiences of our lives is faith.  And faith is demonstrated and expressed when we dare to be thankful, to shout God’s praises, even in the middle of our problems and pressures.

It is probable that we will be forcefully separated from many people and things that are precious to us, and this separation will involve sorrow and pain.  The blessings and gifts that are eternally valid, however, will never be taken from us.  The gift of God’s Son, the eternal hope renewed in his resurrection, the presence of his Spirit, the salvation which is already ours – these gifts are ours forever and ought to fill our lives with perpetual praise.

It is important, then, whatever happens to us in our world, that our hope be focused firmly upon God and that our lives be involved in his eternal objectives.  He is truly our Father, and we are at all times to be his obedient children and servants.  He paid the price of our redemption and adoption. We belong to him; we are his possessions.

May our faith, tested constantly by the hot fires of adversity, be enlarged and increased.  May our love be made more honest and generous.  And may it be our determination to please God and serve our fellow persons regardless of the cost or consequences to our lives.

I say, “Amen!”