Sermon details
- Scripture
- 1 Peter 1:3-12
- Speaker
- Mike McKinley
- Date
- 13 April 2025
- Length
- 53 minutes
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Present suffering, future glory, deep joy
What is a real joy for me to be here with you all this morning. So thank you for the privilege of bringing God's word to you. I bring you greetings from your brothers and sisters at Sterling Park Baptist Church up in Northern Virginia. We have been praying for you all in anticipation of my time with you and I've been following from a distance and I'm just really grateful all the Lord is doing here at Jefferson Park. It is always a little bit strange to be at a different church on Sunday morning. So don't get me wrong. I'm thrilled to be here. But I've been at the same church for about 20 years. And so with a few exceptions, every Sunday feels pretty much the same. I have the same seat in the same front row. And everything there just feels like home. It just makes it feel like it's the right place to be on a Sunday morning. There's something special, I think, about being somewhere where you just feel like you belong. I enjoy traveling. I enjoy meeting new people, seeing new places, but it is great to feel like you're at home. It can be awful to feel like you don't belong somewhere. If you've ever been homesick, for example, you know that that's a terrible, terrible feeling. As I mentioned earlier when I was up here with Keith, Karen and I, my wife, we are at the sort of dropping kids off for college stage of parenting. And so we've gotten pretty good at dislodging them, sort of kicking them out into strange environments, and then dealing with the inevitable homesickness that follows. You can probably pick up a time in your mind where you just felt like you didn't belong, like you were homesick. For me, it's when I travel to other countries. I just got back from spending some time in India, and I really enjoyed my time. But there's just something about an extended trip where you don't speak the language, you don't really know what the signs all say on the roads. Even that sense of just not being sure like how things work culturally, worried that you might accidentally give offense by some unintentional gesture. You don't know what's acceptable, what's expected, what's considered rude in different settings. You know, not being able to get like a 24-ounce cup of like piping hot coffee, right? Have you ever ordered coffee in a foreign country? It's a horrible, horrible thing, right? They might bring you an Americano, which is just their version of what they think coffee should taste like, or sometimes they bring you this tiny little porcelain cup with like three drops of coffee in it, and they expect you to drink that for like an hour, right? makes me long for home. The feeling of familiarity, I can't wait. When I've been traveling for a long time, one of my favorite things is waking up in the morning and going to my coffee pot and getting the coffee the way that I like it and pouring it into my mug because it just feels right. It feels comfortable. At home, I know how everything operates. I don't have to think about it. I know how to negotiate life. I'm surrounded by people I love, people that love me. It feels right. The letter of 1 Peter was written to people who didn't feel at home, people who were struggling with a kind of homesickness, even though most of them would have been living in the town where they grew up. Peter was an apostle, one of the leaders of the early church. He was one of Jesus's closest friends, so he saw pretty much everything that happened with Jesus's life, his ministry, his death, and his resurrection. And at the beginning of Peter's first letter, we see something important about his audience, about the people that he was writing to. So if you look there at the very beginning of 1 Peter, in verse 1, it says,
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.
" So this morning, we're going to be looking at a letter that was written to people that Peter refers to there in verse 1 as exiles. Later on, if you look in chapter two, he refers to them as sojourners. Now he's not talking about literal exiles. He's not writing to people who've been forced out of their homeland and forbidden to return. No, he's talking instead about the common experience of Christians in this world. An experience of living in a place that in a very real way isn't home. As you read along in 1 Peter, you see that the Christians to whom Peter is writing, they were being mocked for their faith. Their old friends were rejecting them because they'd put their trust in Christ. It seems that they were being questioned in a hostile way about their beliefs. In short, their new faith in Christ meant they didn't fit in anymore. They were no longer accepted. They were no longer comfortable. They no longer belonged. If you're a Christian, maybe you felt that way before yourself. Maybe you haven't experienced outright hostility and violence because you're a Christian, though certainly our brothers and sisters around the world do. But perhaps you've just experienced a low-grade sense that this isn't where you belong, a sense of homesickness, that you don't fit in here. Maybe since you've become a Christian, you don't fit into your family the way that you used to. Maybe it's made things difficult in your marriage. Maybe you find it hard to make friends at work or in your neighborhood or at school because you don't want to participate in the gossip or tell the dirty jokes. Maybe you even find yourself being passed over for promotions. or not getting the job altogether because you have a different set of priorities than your co-workers. I think all of that can combine to make us feel homesick, to make us feel like, in Peter's words, exiles and sojourners, like this place isn't our home. Peter's readers were certainly homesick. You could say that they were made for heaven. They didn't belong to this world because they were made for a different one. They were made to live for God. And so our passage for this morning reminds us and shows us how Peter is going to encourage homesick Christians and how we can take courage as we wait in this world. So if you look there in the verses that we've read, here's what I want us to walk away with this morning. So I'll front load in case you've only got a five-minute attention span. Here's everything I want you to get out of this passage this morning. Ready? Because we have a hope of future glory, We can have joy now despite our suffering. That's what I think Peter is trying to communicate to the church in this section of his letter. Because we have a hope of future glory, we can have joy now despite our suffering. That's what I'd like to do is just unpack that sentence, that idea. First, I want to think about our present suffering. And then second, the hope of future glory. And then finally, let's look together and see how that gives us great joy. So present suffering, future glory, deep joy. So first, let's look at present suffering. I think we find that in verses 6 to 7. If you look there, Peter says,
in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it's tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
So there in verse six, Peter wants to talk to his recipients about the different ways that they are suffering for their faith. He says there in verse six that they're experiencing various trials. I think it's encouraging that Peter writes in such a general way. What he's gonna say here applies to all trials. So at this point in history, roughly mid-60s AD, there's no sort of large-scale persecution of Christians that we know about. Instead, what these Christians were most likely experiencing were just a lot of various trials. difficulties, large and small, that followers of Christ have experienced and will experience. And so that means that Peter's words here, they can apply directly to us as we, as Christians, endure all sorts of trials. The word that Peter uses there for trial, it has a pretty large range of meaning. We see it in other places in the Bible. This word is used to describe sort of verbal and physical abuse. It's used to describe a process of putting something to the test, to determine whether or not it's genuine. This word's used other places in the Bible to describe a difficult situation that imposes a financial hardship. And it's also used to describe temptation to sin. So in Matthew's gospel, the attacks and the temptations of Satan are described using this same word for trials. And so Christian, maybe you're experiencing various trials yourself this morning. Maybe you're going through health difficulties, or maybe financial problems have come knocking. Maybe you're experiencing intense temptation to sin, or perhaps a season of anxiety, or depression, or despair has set in. Maybe you're exhausted by difficult family relationships, and maybe you find yourself being excluded because of your faith. Well, if your life is characterized by any or many of those things, or it has been at some point, or it will be at some point, then Peter is talking to you here in verse six, when he talks about your various trials. And look at what Peter says to the church about them. He makes two points about these difficulties. He has two things to show us about these various trials. First, God is in control of them. Look there in verse six.
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In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials.
" So these difficulties that Peter's readers were enduring, these troubles that perhaps are even grieving you today, Peter says that they happen because they're necessary. He doesn't say it explicitly, but it's pretty clear that his meaning here is that they're necessary because God thinks they're necessary. That God thinks they're necessary in order to accomplish his good and loving purpose in our lives. Trials don't come to us by accident. Trials aren't random. No, instead, in God's sovereign love, they are necessary. The second thing Peter says is that God has a purpose in these difficulties. Look there in verse 7. Peter uses a term for refining metal. He says,
so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold, that perishes though it's tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
Perhaps you see the picture there that Peter is using, this idea that faith must be tested to prove its genuineness. It's an image of metal being refined. Right, if you take a chunk of metal out of the ground, it will not likely be 100% pure. It's going to have foreign debris. It's going to have all kinds of impurities in it. And the only way to get the impurities out of that solid chunk of metal is to heat it up until it's liquid. At that point, the dross, the impurities, will float to the surface, and a metal worker can skim them off the top. The result of that heat is a purer piece of metal, a much stronger piece of metal even. And Peter's saying here that difficulties, various trials, have a similar effect in our lives. As the heat and the pressure of suffering is applied to our lives, impurities begin to float to the surface. Isn't that your experience, Christian? As you experience trials and difficulties, you begin to see sinful patterns of anxiety or anger. You begin to see long cherished idols, things that you thought you absolutely needed in order to be happy. You might look back on a season of difficulty and trial and say, I didn't, I didn't realize that was in me. I didn't realize I'd made such an idol of my job, or my reputation, or my comfort, or my friends, or my kids, or my health. But now that those things were threatened, I see how I've responded. My family just went through a season of intense difficulty in a whole host of different ways. And it was amazing to see how things just sort of bubbled up in me. Things came to the surface that I didn't really know were there. I don't know about you. When everything's going my way, I'm a very happy person. I'm very easy to get along with. I'm not irritable. I'm not anxious. I'm not angry. I've never learned anything from getting my way. But when trials come, That's when you begin to see things that God would address and would remove, would skim off from your life to make you purer and harder, stronger. God shows you those things. He leads you to repent of those things. He leads you to ultimately trust in him more completely. You see how Peter's words here. They address really the two major temptations that we have when we're suffering through various trials, right? When things go badly, when you're in a season of trial, and in my experience, it always seems to be a season, right? These things, they never feel like they're just one-offs, like, oh, that was bad, but it's over now, and now I don't have to ever think about it again. No, it feels like these things come and they linger and they stay, and it's only a bit later that you look back and you go, I think it's over? When you're in those seasons of trial, you're tempted in two ways. You're tempted to believe that God is not in control. We're tempted to think that somehow we have slipped out of God's notice, that we have escaped his care, that he's forgotten about us. And we're also tempted to think that our suffering is meaningless. that there's no purpose in it, that we're just adrift on a sea of bad things happening to us. And you put those two beliefs together and you have a recipe for despair. If you think that God doesn't care, that he's not in control, well, You're going to have a really difficult time trusting Him and following Him and having joy in times of trial. And so Peter comes alongside his readers here and says, God finds it necessary that you should endure this trial. Your heavenly Father, who loves you so much that He didn't even withhold His own beloved Son, but gave Him up freely for you for your salvation, that Father He knows this is happening. This trial has even come from his loving hand. He has a good and a gracious purpose in this trial, no matter how painful. And look, it may be easy to recognize that sort of intellectually, right? I can understand that God will use trials in my life to make me more like Jesus, even to spread the gospel, but when trouble comes, When you get that phone call in the middle of the night and your life gets turned upside down, when that doctor's report comes back and you realize nothing's ever going to be the same, that's when it's hard to remember these things. And you know what? What I've seen in my own life and in the lives of others is that in those times, these truths are things you have to use as a weapon. You can't be passive. You can't sit back and just sort of let your heart preach to you all your fear and anxiety. No, you need to use these twin truths, that your loving Heavenly Father is in control and that He has a good and gracious purpose. You have to use those things as a sword to sort of cut back the tendrils of despair as they try to grow around your heart. It's not my normal experience that when trials come, it's easy to just shrug your shoulders and say, oh well, God's in control, I'll be fine. No, this is a truth that you have to use. You have to keep preaching it to yourself because you know it's true, even if you don't feel like it's true. You have to fight for joy in times of trial with these two truths, that God is in control and that he has a good and loving purpose. And friends, this is one of the ways you serve one another as a church family. When one of you is being grieved by various trials, As a church family, as the body of Christ, you bear one another's burdens. You taste the salt of one another's tears and you come along and you remind one another of these truths when someone can't hear it, when they can't feel it, when they can't understand it. You come alongside your brother or your sister in trials and you pray with them and you remind them, your Heavenly Father knows. He loves you. If you're being grieved, if necessary, by this trial, remember that he's got a good plan, right? We don't allow false thinking. We don't allow fear and despair to overwhelm one another. Following Jesus does not mean you'll have no problems. Nowhere in scripture are we encouraged to think that God's highest goal is my personal comfort and ease and happiness. No, our hope is that God in his love has a much better plan, that he'll use trials and difficulties to shape us and refine us and to accomplish his purpose. There may be no more famous verse in the Bible to that end than Romans 8, 28. So my guess is that if you're a Christian, if you've been in church for a while, you've probably had a difficult situation and maybe some well-meaning brother or sister has come alongside you with Romans 8, 28, and that's a great verse to go to in times of trial.
We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.
It's a precious promise that God will work together all things for our good, all things including various trials. You see there God's sovereignty, right? Paul believes the same thing about God's control in times of trial that Peter does, that God is working all of this together, right? That nothing is outside of his control. Everything is serving God's ultimate purpose and plan. And it's a good purpose and plan, right? He's working all things together for good. Well, what is that ultimate good that God is working towards? It's verse 29. It's Romans 8, 29, one that we oftentimes forget, right? Romans 8, 28, and we think, okay, God's working everything together for good. So I lost this job, but I'm going to get a better one, right? My kid didn't get into this college. He's going to get into a better one, right? We think, okay, the good is good as I define it in terms of me getting what I want. But Paul tells us what the good is there in verse 29. He says,
for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
Christian, God has no greater good for you. There is no greater good that you should be conformed to the image of his son so that you might be the firstborn among many brothers. God will use trials in your life for good. He is sovereign over them, and the good that he'll use them for is the greatest good possible, and that is to make you more like Jesus, to conform you to his image. Okay, so let's move on then and look at the second thing that we're going to consider, and that is future glory. Remember what we're looking at this morning. Because we have a hope of future glory, we can have joy now despite our suffering. So we thought a little bit about suffering. Let's look and see what we mean by future glory. So in this passage, Peter is sliding back and forth between a couple of perspectives. In the sort of foreground, he has the suffering, the trials that his readers are experiencing. But out on the horizon, he sees a future glory that will make this present suffering worthwhile. So look there in verses three to five.
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he 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.
So in verse 3, Peter begins with a word of praise to God for his great mercy. He says, according to God's mercy, he's caused us to be born again. So that's an image that the Lord Jesus famously uses in John chapter 3, this idea of being born again. It's a description of what it means to experience the grace of God. There in John chapter 3, Jesus said that if we would enter into the kingdom of heaven, we must be born again. And he explains there, he's talking about not a second physical birth, as if you'd come out of your mother's womb a second time, but Jesus says there, he's talking about a spiritual birth. Jesus says in order to be his disciple, in order to experience his salvation, the Holy Spirit has to make you alive spiritually. He has to cause you to be born again. When we're born, We are physically alive, but spiritually dead. The Bible says that's the condition of every human being at birth. We are spiritually dead in the sense that we don't know God. We love ourselves. We love our sin. We can't know God. We can't please God. And honestly, we don't want to. But according to God's great mercy, Peter says here in verse 3, he caused us to be born again. That's just what we were celebrating at baptism a few minutes ago. And weren't those testimonies amazing? God, in his great mercy, caused those two women and every one of us that knows the Lord Jesus as their Savior to be born again. We were dead in our sins. He came, and in his mercy, he gave us spiritual life. If you look down there in verse 9, Peter uses a different idea to describe the same reality. He calls it the salvation of our souls. That's what God's done for us in Christ by his great mercy. Even though in our sin and rebellion, we had acted as his enemies, God the Father sent his Son to save us. The eternal Son of God took on human flesh. Jesus lived a life of perfect obedience to his heavenly father, the life that you and I should have lived. And on the cross, he gave up his life in the place of his people, dying as a sacrifice for their sins, taking on himself all the punishment, all of the guilt, all of the shame of anyone who would ever trust in him. Jesus rose from the dead in victory over sin and death. Peter mentions it there, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead in verse 3. And so Jesus is alive now. He's in heaven. He's able to offer forgiveness and eternal life to anyone who will turn from their sins and trust in him. This is the salvation that Peter talks about there in verse 9, the salvation of your souls. Verse 10, concerning this salvation. Salvation, that's a helpful word. It implies danger, right? If I'm sitting on the beach reading a book, I don't need a lifeguard to save me, right? I'm not in any danger. No, it's when I'm out there swimming and the riptide pulls me under, right? That's when I need salvation. That's when I need someone to come and rescue me. And so every human being is in great spiritual danger. That's what that word salvation tells us. It shows us we are all spiritually condemned and dead. We are pulled under by the current of our sin and desperately needing to be saved. And here, Peter says in verse three, through God's great mercy, he's provided for our salvation. He has saved us through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Friend, if you haven't experienced that salvation yet, if you haven't turned from your sin and put your trust in Jesus, then don't delay. Jesus is alive and he offers salvation. He will save anyone who will turn and trust in him. In his great mercy, God has provided salvation. If you can feel something of your guilt, if you can see something of the spiritual danger that you're in, as someone who has opposed God and ignored God, then you can make this the day that your soul is saved, rescued. Simply turn to Christ in faith. You see there in verse 3, the results of this salvation in our lives. What happens when we're born again by the powerful, powerful work of God's Spirit? Peter says there in verse 3 that we're born again to a living hope. We're born again so that we might have a living hope. And we have a confident expectation. That's what that word hope implies. Something is going to happen in the future. Peter says it's a living hope. It's a vibrant hope. It's a going thing. And the object of that hope there, the thing that we're hoping for, in verse 4, Peter says, is an inheritance. You've been born again to a living hope, to an inheritance. Now, you understand how someone who hopes an inheritance looks forward to what they're going to receive. Let's say you're broke. As I mentioned, we've just had three kids in college at once. So this hits very close to home for me. You're just making ends meet. You're living paycheck to paycheck. Maybe you're not even making it all the way to payday. So you've got debt. You're falling behind on your payments. And there's no real way out of the spiral. That's a depressing, upsetting place to be. Let's say that in that difficult place, you've been promised an inheritance. Let's say that a wealthy relative has promised, look, in my will, I'm going to leave you $30 million. You put a lot of hope in that inheritance, right? As you dealt with the difficulties of your current financial situation, that $30 million would be on your mind a lot, right? the problems of this moment, that doctor's bill that you can't cover this month? Well, it's not going to bother you in quite the same way, because you know that this story, wherever it goes now, this story ends with you getting $30 million. And that $30 million is going to take care of all of your problems. Well, Peter says, if you've been born again according to the mercy of God, if you are in Christ, you've got an inheritance coming to you. And get this. And listen, if you get this, it will change everything. The inheritance that's been promised to you is way better than $30 million. That's not just preacher speak. That's the truth. Your inheritance there, Peter says in verse four, is in heaven. there at the end of the verse. If the Old Testament talked about the inheritance that the people of Israel would receive in the land of Canaan, the New Testament talks about the inheritance that believers have in the eternal city of God. Christian, your inheritance is a share of the heavenly kingdom. It's your heavenly reward that's given to you by a gracious and merciful God. When Christ returns and all things come to a conclusion, when in the words of there in verse five, your salvation is revealed, when it's brought to its point of completion, sort of in the last time, you'll take possession of this inheritance. What is this inheritance then? Well, it's nothing less than life in a perfect world. Life in a world where everything is beautiful and everything flourishes. The believer's inheritance is life in the presence of God, where we will see his face and be renewed. Think about it. When we take possession of this inheritance in the last time, so when Jesus comes back and our salvation is revealed, and Jesus ushers in a world made new, there will be no sickness, no sorrow, no sin, none of the problems, none of the various trials that plague you today will make it into that world. you'll take possession of an inheritance in the last time and all will be made right and holy. When you take possession of that inheritance in the last time, every longing that can't be satisfied here on earth is gonna be met and filled with the goodness and glory of God. To take possession of this inheritance in the last time is to have all of life's trials and tears and temptations permanently wiped away. I think for a second, get in your mind's eye, So I'm going to give you permission to daydream for a second, but I'm going to make you come back. Think about the most wonderful, the most awe-inspiring, breathtaking place that you've ever been. Maybe it's the ocean. I'm a beach guy. So for me, it's a beautiful beach, crystal blue water. Maybe it's Niagara Falls, Grand Canyon. My wife was born at 10,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains, so for her it's at the top of one of those 14ers in Colorado. Just think about the most beautiful place you've ever seen. Think about the most wonderful piece of art that you've ever beheld. If you've ever seen something that was just such a masterpiece that it took your breath away with the very power of its beauty. Think about the most powerful music you've ever experienced. Or the most exciting sporting event you've ever seen. Or the most captivating piece of theater. Think about those things. The most beautiful place, the most wonderful art, the most exciting sporting event, the best music. Think about how those things, they take you to a place beyond yourself. That's why they're so special. They make you sense the reality of something far more awesome than your daily life. OK, now just realize for a second that those things are just a tiny derivative splinter of the beauty and the power and the glory of the one who created them. The inheritance that God has prepared for his people will be far more, far better than the most skillful poet could ever describe, the best musician could ever point us to, the best artist could ever capture. There's so much we don't know about what this inheritance is going to be like. There are a lot of questions that we can't answer about life in eternity from this side. We don't know exactly what it would be like to live forever in a new heavens and a new earth when Jesus returns. But you can be confident that there is nothing you could buy with $30 million that would begin to tempt you to trade it for that inheritance. Peter says there in verse 4, this inheritance is kept for you. That means it's secure. It's in a safe deposit box at the impregnable First Bank of New Jerusalem, right? No thief can break in and steal it. No market fluctuation can diminish it. It's being kept for you, protected, guarded for you. Peter says there in verse 4, it's imperishable. It's not subject to decay. Gold and silver, they endure, but they don't endure forever. They can be destroyed. Not your inheritance. Peter says it's undefiled. It's pure, unalloyed. When we receive this inheritance, we never have to worry about the pollution of sin again. Isn't that the great tragedy, one of the great tragedies of life on this earth? Even the very best things, the best moments, the best experiences, they're still tinged by sin. I still find myself irritable, even in the most wonderful moments, even when I'm getting what I want. I told you earlier I'm a great guy. I'm actually not. Even when I get what I want, I'm sometimes still in a bad mood. It's not going to be like that, because this is an undefiled inheritance. It'll never be tinged, it'll never be ruined by sin. Peter says there, it's unfading. Don't you think, well, yeah, but I'm going to get used to it, right? Like, it's not going to be as exciting to me. I mean, eternity is a long time. No, Peter says it's unfading. It will never seem less glorious to you. You'll never grow tired of it. You'll never have buyer's remorse. It'll never lose its luster. You'll never have a second thought about whether you made the right decision in following Christ. That's a pretty amazing inheritance, isn't it? That's a pretty amazing salvation that we have according to God's mercy. Brothers and sisters, can you see what a privilege we have? Can you see how amazing the blessings of Christ are? It's sad how easily we are swept up in the cares of this world. It's sad to me how easily money, power, possessions, entertainment grabs hold of my heart, becomes the object of my hope, at least until God sends trials that loosen their grip on my heart. But can you see what we have in Christ? There in verse 12, Peter says that the Old Testament prophets, so I think Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, all those heroes of the faith, they were actually serving us. They were searching, verse 10, carefully inquiring, just to try and get a sliver of an understanding about the salvation that God was gonna bring about through the suffering and the resurrection of Jesus, as he says there in verse 11. Those Old Testament heroes, those prophets, lived their whole lives just longing to see a tiny bit of what you and I might be tempted to take for granted, this amazing salvation that we have in God's mercy. Even the angels right now are longing to look into these things and understand more about them. They are delighting in God's plan as it unfolds so they can delight in the glory of God, what he's doing in your life and in the life of this congregation. That's some hope we have. That is some inheritance. And that brings us then to our last point. Remember, because we have a hope of future glory, we can have joy now despite our suffering. So we talked a little bit about present suffering. We've talked about the hope of future glory, this unfading, undefiled, unperishable inheritance that we have. Let's pull it all together now. How do we live in light of these twin realities? How do we live in light of our trials and our inheritance? Peter says we live with joy. Joy, now. Look at verse 6. Despite their difficulties, despite the persecution and discomfort that characterized their lives as exiles in this world, the Christians that were reading Peter's letter were marked by rejoicing. They were grieved. by various trials, but they had joy. Notice Peter doesn't command them to have joy. He simply observes that they do. He assumes that Christians live with joy because they have Christ. He says there in verse six, these trials come for a little while. And listen, if you're in the middle of a season of suffering, Maybe you're in the middle of suffering that shows no signs of abating. That can be a maddening thing to read. Really, Peter? A little while? It's been 10 years. It's been 20 years. I see no signs of this abating. It's going to be like this my entire life. And you say, for a little while? I think with all compassion and all tenderness, I think Peter would say to you, yes, a little while. In light of our eternal inheritance, yes, even decades of suffering will eventually give way to unending glory, unending comfort. There will come a time when the things that grieve you right now They belong to the category of former things, things that have passed away, according to Revelation 21.4. I think that's why the Apostle Paul, who spent most of his adult life getting beaten within an inch of his life, left for dead, shipwrecked, thrown in prison, I think this is why Paul could talk about these light and momentary afflictions. He says in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, when you've had a sniff of this eternal perspective, when your hope is located there, You see things here on earth a little bit differently. Look there in verse eight. If there's a more exalted picture of what it means to live as a Christian, I don't know what it is. He says there,
though you've not seen him, you love him. Though you do not see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.
Now, like us, Peter's audience, they hadn't seen Jesus with their own eyes. They didn't have the advantage that Peter had, right? Peter got to know Jesus personally. He saw him teach. He saw him heal. He saw him die. He saw him risen from the dead. But Peter knows that this church, even though they hadn't seen Jesus, they love him. I'm struck by just how simple, how beautiful a statement that is, how clear it is. We make being a Christian into a lot of things, and oftentimes they're good things, but here it is at its essence. We love him. When we're born again to a living hope, the result is that we're given eyes and ears and hearts to love the Lord Jesus. We love him because we read the gospel accounts of his life and we see that he's wise and compassionate and strong and loving. We love him because he gave himself up for us. He took the shame and the suffering and the guilt that our sins deserved. We don't primarily love the things that he did. We don't primarily love the things that he gives us. We love him. We don't love him like you might love and admire a hero from history. Right, no, our love for Jesus is for someone who is alive right now, risen from the dead, as Peter reminds us there in verse three. We don't have to cast our love for Jesus back across the millennia. We love him right now. If you are a follower of Christ, take time this week to meditate on that statement. You haven't seen Jesus. You will, but you haven't. But you love him. Is that statement true of you? If we watched your life, if we had access to your thoughts, a transcript of your words, if we could somehow plot your affections and your loves on a graph, if we look at the way that you obey his commands or don't obey his commands, would we conclude this person loves Jesus? This love is something that can be grown, it can be cultivated. That's, again, one of the reasons that Jesus' people come together for worship, right? You come together to cultivate and to grow in your love for Jesus. That's happened for me already this morning, as we've sung together praises, as hearing those testimonies of the mercy of God shown to our sisters in Christ, as we pray together, right, as we consider the Word, As we praise our Savior, as we contemplate the beauty of His character, as we think about His mercy, His tenderness, His righteousness, His suffering for us, the glory of His resurrection, the gift of His Spirit, I find my love for Jesus is stoked. It grows. Fresh oxygen is blown on the fires of my love for Jesus every Sunday as I gather with other Christians. in your private time of worship, as you read the Bible, as you pray, as you sing, do so with an eye, not towards just learning more of the Bible, though that's a good thing to do, right? Do those things with an eye towards seeing Jesus more clearly so that you might love him even more. I think this is a hallmark of Christian maturity. You haven't seen him, but you love him. There are believers who don't know a lick of systematic theology. They don't know a word of Greek. They're not paying attention to any of the important theological squabbles that are going on on the internet. But if you talk to them for five minutes, you know they love Jesus. You know that he's what they think about all day, that they can't wait to see him. They can't wait to be with him. became pastor at the church that I served 25 years ago. I inherited there a few elderly saints, seven of them to be exact. One of them was named Nancy Higgs. So she's gone to be with the Lord. She's enjoying her inheritance. I can't wait to see her someday. And I remember Nancy had been walking with the Lord for some 60 years by the time some dumb 29-year-old kid became her pastor. And so I attempted to pastor someone who knew Jesus way, way better than I did. And Nancy was not formally educated. She didn't have probably one-tenth of the theological education that I had been given. But I remember Nancy for one thing, and that is her love for Jesus. The first Sunday, or the first year that I was pastor there, we had a Good Friday service, and the church wasn't accustomed to having those Good Friday services. And I just, I preached about Jesus hanging in the dark on the cross. That was sort of my text. It's an amazing... It's an amazing truth. It wasn't an amazing sermon by really any measure, but just thinking about what does it mean? What's the imagery of the darkness mean in the Bible, in the Old Testament? What does it mean that Jesus hung in the dark for us? And so I remember after Easter service, Nancy came up to me, and she had tears in her eyes, and she said, that Good Friday service? I was like, yeah. She's like, that thing about Jesus in the dark? I was like, yeah. She's like, I didn't know that. She's like, I'd never thought about that. I was like, oh, well, you know, glad it was helpful. She started weeping. She said,
I'm so glad I learned that about Jesus before I go to be with him because it makes me love him even more
, right? She hadn't seen him, but she loves him. That's Christian maturity, right? That's the product of the Spirit's work in the life of a woman over the course of decades. She loved Jesus. You haven't seen him, but you love him. Peter doesn't even stop there. He keeps going in verse 8. He says,
you haven't seen him, but you believe in him.
That word believe, it's the word for faith, it's a verb instead of a noun. Peter's saying, you have faith in him. And that's an important idea. This idea of faith or to believe, it's far more than just intellectual assent. It's far more than saying, yes, I think these things happened in the past. It's more than just even an expectation that something's going to happen in the future. Right? Think about it. I believe that George Washington was the first president of the United States. I didn't see him. I believe that about him. I believe that next winter it will snow in Canada. I probably won't see it with my own eyes. I think I'm on solid footing in that belief. Those are things that I believe that don't matter at all to the way that I live my life. And neither one of those beliefs really captures the essence of what the Bible means when it talks about faith. When Peter says here, you believe, he's not saying you believe certain things about Jesus. Or, you believe Jesus did certain things. It's more than that. He says, you believe in him. He's talking about trust, reliance, hope.
Though you do not now see him, you believe in him.
It's pushing all your chips into the middle. It's putting all your eggs, to use an Easter time picture. All your Easter eggs, right? All the eggs are in his basket. All of your hopes. All of your confidence is located in Jesus. It's the faith that you exercised when you sat down in your seat today. You believed in that seat. You believed in it so completely that you didn't have a backup plan. If that seat didn't hold you, you were going through to the floor. You were going down. In the same way, faith is putting all of your trust, all of your spiritual weight on Jesus. Can you see how? Can you see how personal, how intimate a thing it is to be a Christian? Here in verse 8, it is all about knowing Jesus, trusting him, loving him. So despite their trials, these believers, they had inexpressible joy there in verse 8.
You believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible.
Think about it. It's inexpressible joy. How great is that? Because Peter is actively being inspired by the Holy Spirit. And the only thing he can come up with is that this is inexpressible. It's too much for his words, and it's too much for our words. Christian, our lives should be characterized by a living hope. like a hope that is like a live power line, that's full of juice, it's sparkling, it's buzzing, it's pregnant with power. Our hope is a living hope because it's hope in Jesus and he's alive. It's hope that's tethered into him. We have hope of future glory. And so we can have joy now despite our suffering. If you have a $30 million inheritance coming, you'd think about your money problems differently. You'd worry less. You'd be more patient. You'd endure troubles, financial difficulties, more gracefully. How much more for those of us who have an inheritance in heaven? We live now as exiles and sojourners, and life is painful at times. That sense of homesickness feels like it's going to overwhelm us at times. But if you're in Christ, you will get home one day. And when you get home there is an inheritance being kept for you. When you get home you will see Jesus. And that hope, that hope for the future, that informs how we live today. It's enough for us to have joy now. Let's pray together. Our Heavenly Father we rejoice in the good news that you love us that you are in control of the various trials that we experience, and that you have a good plan, that you use them to refine us and to make us more like Jesus. Lord Jesus, we do love you. And we rejoice with inexpressible joy as we think about the inheritance that's being kept for us. the inheritance that you have secured for us by your death and your resurrection and your ascension into heaven. Holy Spirit, would you come? I pray for my brothers and sisters. We pray for this church. We pray for all of our lives. And we ask that you would help us that our lives would be, in fact, characterized by great love for the Lord Jesus, that you would help us to locate our hope in him. and in the inheritance that we've been promised. And we pray that you would help us to be those who testify to the greatness of our Savior by the inexpressible joy that we have even in trials. And we pray these things in his name. Amen.
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