Word of Encouragement (9/8/2021)

Pastor James
September 8, 2021

We are reflecting on Peter’s prayer in 1 Pet. 1:3-5: “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, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.” Yesterday, we took great comfort in God’s “great mercy,” which is greater than all our needs and miseries. We also talked about how God, according to His great mercy, caused us to be born again as heavenly citizens. Let’s talk a little more about this new birth.

This new birth, Peter says, is to a living hope (v. 3). The hope here is not so much our act of hoping as that which is hoped for (Goppelt, p. 83). And if this hope can be seen as an active, vibrant hope, it is because it is founded upon something that cannot disappoint. Indeed, Peter goes on to tell us that this hope is a living hope because it is given to us through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (v. 3). Do you see? Ours is a living hope because it stems from the resurrected Christ, who lives and can never be subjected to death again. What hope in this world can be called a living hope? What hope in this world is strong enough to withstand the onslaught of death and its hope-annihilating power? But because Jesus slew death through His death and resurrection, not even death can destroy this hope, this living hope in Christ. Not even the darkness of the grave can dim its brightness. Not even the seeming finality of death can put an end to our living hope in the resurrected Christ.  

But the death that Christ conquered through His resurrection is more than our natural, physical death. The death that He conquered is death as the wages of our sin. Through His death, He bore the punishment of our sins and took away our guilt as far as the east is from the west. And His resurrection demonstrates that our sins have been paid in full to the very last and least of our sins since there can be no resurrection without the full payment of sin. You see? This living hope will carry us through even the great Judgment Day. So we can sing, “O Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight, / The clouds be rolled back as a scroll, / The trump shall resound and the Lord shall descend; / ‘Even so’—it is well with my soul.” Even when Christ shall descend with the hosts of angels to judge the world, we can say it is well with our soul because Christ has borne away our sins once for all. If so, how can we not hope?

What is the hope you are clinging to these days? Why do you want it so badly? If that hope is somehow realized, would you be truly happy? For how long? Most of us know what it’s like to hope for something so badly and be let down just as badly. A hope that is in this world, or anything in this world, which perishes away, is not a living hope; it’s a dead hope, or a dying hope, and it will disappoint us. Only that hope that is anchored in something eternal and imperishable is a living hope. We have this hope when we hope in the resurrected Christ. We have been born again to this living hope. May our grip on this hope grow stronger every day so that we can shake off all the disappointments that weigh us down as we journey through this broken world.