A living hope

It must be a nightmare of a job to be Prime Minister. Everybody expects you to fix everything.

Apparently, Gordon Brown recently received a letter from an 11-year old girl, telling him she was worried that she might not get work when she left school. His answer was like this: you are 11 years old, so try not to worry too much. Forget about the future and enjoy your life. But, of course, the problem is we can’t help thinking about the future. I can enjoy my life now but what about tomorrow — where is it all going? Peter says to his readers, when you believed in Jesus Christ and the resurrection, living hope came into your life.

Praise God, you have a certain future, vv.3-5

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.

Praise God. He is worthy of being thanked just because he has given us new life by giving us a future.

Please notice in verse 3 where this has come from: his great mercy. Is this for the elite group? Is this for the ones who haven’t been divorced, the ones who don’t have a past of abuse, the ones who didn’t come from broken homes and so on? No. This is all because he has taken pity on us.

When you think about it, this word ‘inheritance’ itself makes the same point. Of all the money that has ever come to you I guess a big proportion of it is money you worked for. But some of you also have money, maybe quite a lot of money that you did not work for. A relative died, a rich uncle perhaps, and they left you an inheritance. You hadn’t earned it, it was simply provided for you. Peter is saying here, what is waiting for you isn’t a wage, or a salary or a reward, it’s an inheritance.

This inheritance, in verse 4, can never perish, spoil or fade, it is kept in heaven for you. It is imperishable: it doesn’t die or disappear. It is undefiled: nothing can pollute it. It is unfading: it doesn’t wear out over time. It is permanent, stored up for you in heaven.

Okay, you may ask, but what if I can’t make it? It’s great to say there is a future but I am not there yet. What if I never get there? Verse 5 answers this: ‘you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power’. When you are under attack, when you are full of worries perhaps, or distractions, when the temptations are strong, you need to remember that you are guarded by God as you trust in him. Here is the invisible wall around you. Here is the protection you can’t see but you know it is real. Praise God, you have a certain future.

Trust God, your trials test your faith, vv.6,7

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 honour when Jesus Christ is revealed.

If this future is real, then thinking about it should bring you happiness. As we understand these things and we sing about them in our hymns in church I hope that your hearts are lifting. But there may be on your mind, some sadnesses that you just can’t lay aside. Peter knows what this is like, so writes about the grief you may have to suffer in all kinds of trials. Here is no wishful thinking about the Christian life; the trials are real and the grief is real.

Later Peter mentions some of these trials. For example, 2.18-20 talks about slaves working for unfair and violent owners, the extreme version of having a problem with your boss. Later, in 3.1-6, he writes to people who are married to non-Christian husbands, with the tensions and pressures that can bring. Again, in 4.3-5, he writes to people who have problems with non-Christian acquaintances. You have come to Christ, quite recently perhaps, and your friends go out clubbing. You used to go with them but won’t go any more. Your friends may make fun of you, heaping abuse on you because you won’t join with them. It’s a pressure Peter understands.

He also calls on us to trust God because these problems have a purpose. Verse 7 makes two points. First, if you trust God you have got something priceless. Gold, the experts say, keeps its value as an investment; nevertheless there will come a day when it is worthless. Your faith, by contrast, is of eternal value.

His second point is this: gold itself needs to be purified. As I understand it, this is done by heating it until all the impurities burn off. The trials that come in your life play the same role as this heating process. When things are going badly wrong in your life, your faith is being refined. As one writer put it, ‘the difficulties of life burn away our self-confidence and drive us to the Saviour.’ Trials test your faith so trust God, trust God.

Genuine faith is a wonderful thing and it will bring a great return in the day of the Lord. Look again at verse 7, this time the last part. When your faith is proved genuine that will result in praise and glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. All the commentators agree that it will result in praise for you; glory for you; honour for you. Incredible. Here is the Lord of all creation appearing as he really is. The instinct of everyone who sees him will be to fall flat on their faces in terror. Then he will say, I praise you, I give you glory. Be honoured in my presence because your faith was real. When the tests came you did not fall away but you kept trusting God through the hard times.

Notice in verse 6 how the timing works: for a little while - not, in other words, for very long. So you say, my trials are going to last the rest of my life; my physical condition that causes me pain, my family that cause me anxiety and stress, that’s for the rest of my life. Peter says yes, but that’s not long. Jesus Christ is ready to be revealed (end of verse 7), unveiled. It is just like the opening of the new civic building with its plaque in the wall. The plaque is ready, the dignitaries are gathered and it is simply a question of pulling the curtain. The picture is that Jesus Christ is present now but unseen. Everything is ready for him to appear. It could happen any moment. Trust God as for a short while your faith is tested by your trials.

Rejoice in God, you love Christ, vv.8,9

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.

If you are able to trust God in the hard times, then you also love Christ — even now, before the curtain is drawn back.

Note how love and trust belong together. Trust in Christ is not like buying a ticket to heaven which you can put in your pocket and just produce on the last day when you stand in the presence of God. It is a relationship, a relationship of love to cultivate every day. And this brings inexpressible joy (verse 8) that you can’t explain. It is also a glorious joy: literally a glorified joy or a joy that anticipates the glory to come.

Now glory is a word the Bible normally uses for our future only. Here, however, our present experience is referred to as glorious joy. Peter is saying to us, when your trust in Jesus makes you glad, that joy is a taste of heaven now. This is not something that makes sense in the terms of this world. It is something from the world above which has come into your heart as you know and love and trust Jesus Christ.

Notice also the flipside of this: as subjectively we share in a foretaste of heaven’s own joy, so objectively God is already giving to us our final destiny of rescue and life. Rejoice in God, you love Christ.

Because, Christian reader, you have a wonderful hope stored up for you, Peter’s advice is the exact opposite of Gordon Brown’s: concentrate on the future, learn to trust God through the hard times, learn to love Jesus and this will be your joy.

Tom Forryan,
pastor, Derby Road Baptist Church, Watford

1 Peter 1.3-9 explained and applied

Rejoice in God, you love Christ, vv.8,9

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