“A Living Hope” 1 Peter 1:3
Sermon by Pastor Dennis Gleason -- Palm Sunday, 2005
Columnist Herb Caen wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle: "Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a lion or a gazelle; when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."
Herb Caen.
A man by the name of Allan C. Boyer wrote this:
"I'm so depressed and I can't get any dates," the 300-pound man told his minister. "I've tried everything to lose weight."
"I think I can help," said the minister. "Be dressed and ready to go tomorrow at 8 a.m."
Next morning, a beautiful woman in a skintight exercise suit knocked on the man's door. "If you can catch me, you can have me," she said, as she took off. He huffed and puffed after her.
This routine went on every day for the next five months. The man lost 115 pounds and felt confident that he would catch the woman the next day. That morning he whipped open his front door and found a 300-pound woman in a jogging suit waiting for him. "The minister said to tell you," she began, "that if I can catch you, I can have you."
Contributed by Allan C. Boyer in Reader's Digest.
I am sure that by now you must have figured out that our message this morning has something to do with motivation and hope in the life of the believer.
Our text this morning is to be found in 1 Peter 1:3 “All honor to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is by his boundless mercy that God has given us the privilege of being born again. Now we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead.”
Peter’s words here are an outburst of praise, of hope and expectation. He is writing to believers in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia who were undergoing severe trial and great difficulty.
These are the words of one who has gone through deep waters, in the midst of which he faltered and failed to stand with his Lord, Jesus Christ. These are the words of a man who had passed through these experiences and had proved the Lord’s power to deliver.
As Peter writes these words, he was thinking of the past, of the first meeting with Jesus and what he felt when Jesus looked into his eyes and said, “You are Simon…you shall be called the Rock.” From that day on he had blundered his way on in following Jesus. He remembered the teachings of Jesus, the dreams they all had, the revelations and their aspirations as disciples of Jesus. I am sure he also remembered the shadows as they gathered around their little group of followers and the darkness that settled over them as Jesus was arrested, tried and crucified.
While we do not have the details of the meeting with Jesus following the resurrection, we do know that somewhere and at sometime Jesus appeared to Peter alone and spoke with him.
Out of that meeting with the resurrected Christ, Peter who had lost hope was born again into a new hope by the resurrection of Jesus and the result was a different man. A man who could write the words of our text as an encouragement to those who would read his letter.
This week we want to consider Peter’s experience of Christ before the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
In the beginning days of the ministry of Jesus, he was the center of attraction to all sorts of men. As time went on, there was a sifting of sorts which went on: gradually men and women who had been irresistibly drawn to Him began to withdraw from Him. We might rightly say that as he proposed the terms and conditions for following Him, people were driven away from Him.
On the day of His triumphal entry into Jerusalem, people cried out, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” Listen as I read the complete text:
(John 12:12-15) 12The next day, the news that Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem swept through the city. A huge crowd of Passover visitors 13took palm branches and went down the road to meet him. They shouted,
“Praise God!
Bless the one who comes in the name of the Lord!
Hail to the King of Israel!”
14Jesus found a young donkey and sat on it, fulfilling the prophecy that said:
15 “Don’t be afraid, people of Israel.
Look, your King is coming,
sitting on a donkey’s colt.”
They crowded around him to such an extent that those who opposed him were convinced that the “whole world has gone over to him.” They put down palm branches and their clothes to pave the way for him to enter the city in a triumphal fashion.
And yet, just a few days later, at the close of his life’s mission, not a single man stood by his side. We are told: “They all forsook him and fled.”
These words refer to his disciples. It took about two and a half years for the hostility against him to reach the point that he was alone before his enemies. The enemies are seen spreading the net to trap him in order to capture him and then they killed him.
It was in this shadow period that Peter says three things that reveal to us Peter’s experience with the Lord.
* The first is recorded in the Gospel of John (John 6:16:16-18). It is a certain hour of criticism and men were drifting away from him. Jesus asked, “Would you also go away?”
Jesus is giving them permission to go, to do so. It is as if he is saying, “If you wish to go, the way is open for you. Do you desire to go?” And Peter spoke up and said, “Lord, to whom shall we go: You have the words of eternal life.”
Peter shows us that he sees the words of Jesus to be authoritative and life-giving. He is telling us that in Jesus they have found the Prophet who was to come, for whom they had been waiting for so long. This was Peter’s first and great confession of Christ.
About three months later there is the familiar scene in Caesarea Phillipi. We find this incident in Matthew 16:13-16:
13When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?”
14“Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say Jeremiah or one of the other prophets.”
15Then he asked them, “Who do you say I am?”
16Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
There Jesus had gathered together the disciples away from the multitudes of people following them, and questioned them on what they saw as the results of his ministry. He asked them, “Who do you say I am?” Peter responds with what we call his second, great confession of the Christ: “You are Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
What is Peter’s point of view here in recognizing Jesus as Messiah? The Hebrew idea of Messiah had to do with the restoration of the Kingship. The Jews were looking for the coming of the King who would sit on the throne and administer the affairs of the Kingdom and make Israel the Kingdom of God. ‘You are the Messiah,” Peter says. He could see Jesus holding the scepter, representative of the authority of the King of Israel.
So it was that Peter sees in Jesus the Prophet men had been waiting for to come and speak to them words of ultimate authority; and he saw him as the King for whom they had been waiting, who would establish the perfect government over the affairs of men. In Jesus he had discovered the King to whom all the prophets had given witness. This meant that his heart was full of hope that the Kingdom of God and all that it meant would now be established.
Peter’s confession was that Jesus was the Messiah and the Kingdom would now be established. To which Jesus replied to Peter, “…you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” The full text of Jesus’ answer to Peter is found in verse 17-20:
17Jesus replied, “You are blessed, Simon son of John, because my Father in heaven has revealed this to you. You did not learn this from any human being. 18Now I say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and all the powers of hell will not conquer it. 19And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven. Whatever you lock on earth will be locked in heaven, and whatever you open on earth will be opened in heaven.” 20Then he sternly warned them not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.
* Within a matter of just hours, as Matthew reveals it to us, Jesus began to show his disciples the method by which he would pass into His Kingdom and he told them of the cross and the resurrection.
Peter looked at him and responded. Only this time, it was no great confession of the Christ, but a statement of anger and anguish. In effect he said, “God help you, be that far from you!
His first confession was: “You have the words of eternal life.”
Then he said, “You are the Messiah.”
Finally, Peter said: “God help you, not that, not the cross, not suffering.” Peter protests the Lord’s suggestion. And most of the Church today fails to see that the way to crowning is the way of the cross.
Every time Jesus spoke to his disciples of his coming death he also spoke of his resurrection. Jesus does not see the cross not as defeat, and himself as a victim. No, he sees the cross as it is…a victory! He is a Victor!
And Jesus looked at this man Peter and said, You have found that I am a Prophet; you have found that I am the King; and now I am going to show you how I intend to establish my Kingdom. I am going up to that city, Jerusalem, and I will be bruised there, killed and will rise again.
This is Peter’s experience before the resurrection. He rebukes Jesus because his hope has become overshadowed by what Jesus intends to do.
Peter must wonder: If he goes to Jerusalem and dies, what becomes of the words of age-abiding life?
If the Teacher dies, the words will be dead, he thinks. In that moment the shadows fell upon them. If we understand the chronology of the events that follow correctly, Peter never again came near his Lord again. From this time on, though they follow him, they do not dare ask him questions. Whenever Jesus would speak of his coming death and the resurrection to follow, they break out with the question of “Lord, who is the greatest among us?”
The disciples never stop loving Jesus, never stopped believing in Him, but they lost all hope. Hope died. And then on that fateful day, when they could bear it no longer, they all forsook him and fled. And as he hung there on that Roman cross until death came to him, the sun went out of the sky, the light faded from the horizon, and despair surged through their souls.
Peter’s conclusion is this: The Prophet was dead and therefore the teaching was impracticable; the King was dead, therefore the Kingdom was impossible.
What Peter does not see yet is that Jesus also held the prophetic office of Priest. He was Prophet, Priest and King. And when the Priest dies on the cross, He offers the ultimate sacrifice for sin. And with the sacrifice for sin made once and for all time, the Kingdom can be established. And the words of the Teacher are shown to be true and to be the authoritative Word of God in the resurrection that follows.
But listen to the words of Peter one more time: “All honor to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is by his boundless mercy that God has given us the privilege of being born again. Now we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead.”
The King James version of this verse says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who according to His great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
On the Sunday following his crucifixion and burial, we find that “certain women…came saying, that they had also seen a vision of angels, which said that he was alive.”
And one of the great silences of the New Testament has to do with the first meeting of Jesus and Peter after the resurrection. We do not know when or where it took place, but it changed the life of this man. The cross had filled him with fear. The meeting with the resurrected Christ filled his heart and life with hope.
With the coming of the first day of that week, it was the dawning of a new day in the rebirth of hope. Peter is now motivated in a new and marvelous manner to stand with this Jesus.
The light of the glory of the grace of God, who took sin into His own heart and canceled it in a mystery of pain, is shining from that cross.
* The place of death becomes a place of life and hope.
* It is the place where the words of the Prophet are shown to be true with all the authority of God the Father.
* It is a place where the Kingdom is established.
Victory is won! A new hope is ours.
And now what of you and your life in Christ?
Are you motivated by the Victory of the Cross to overcome the trials and challenges of life? Remember Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble, but have no fear for I have overcome the world.”
Are you motivated by the Victory of the Cross to hare the love of Christ with others?
Do you have this hope, this living hope that comes from the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, in the midst of the storms of life that assail you? Do you have this hope that cancels out the despair that can rob you of your joy?
You can have it…if you want it.
The power of the resurrection is available to you.
It will cost you something…you will have to walk in it.
All you have to do is avail yourself of it; believe in it and step out in faith and go on from victory unto victory in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The foundation of your hope is the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus from the dead.
Because of this you have been born again unto a new and living hope…and it should change your life today, tomorrow and forever.
It should motivate you to look forward to what Jesus has in store for you today, tomorrow and in the days to come.
And it will if you just live in it!
-Dennis Gleason
