Today, we embark on a new teaching series in the book of 1 Peter. 1 Peter is actually a letter offering both encouragement and instruction by delving into the profound connection between our deepest needs and our deepest beliefs.

Over the next eleven weeks, we’ll examine 1 Peter as a guide for Christians to live with gospel-centered hope amid social pressure and persecution. How many people here want to live with a hopeful outlook on life?

Come on. Be honest. We all do.

• Turn on the news any night of the week, and it’s hopeless.
• Make one mistake and get cancelled.
• Division is more normal and easier than making it work.

I know I do. I’m jaded and pessimistic by nature.

So I want it because when we live with gospel-centered hope, our demeanors reflect the strength, humility, and power of Christ with us here and now.

Practically, what that means for those with that type of outlook is that:

• We won’t lose our lid every time milk is spilled.
• We wouldn’t go into a depressive, anti-social binge when we get bad news.
• We’d have a healthy outlet for processing trauma and drama.
• We’d rightly judge and perceive ourselves amidst all the comings and goings in life.

Wouldn’t that make life so much better? So much more as it was intended?

This past week, I’d been working on a bead project with my two year old. You know fine motor skills and stuff. But these bead kits weren’t designed for a two year old, they weren’t designed for 40 somethings either. Different story altogether.

So Clara, in two year old fashion, knocked over the bucket holding hundreds of beads onto the floor. And I’m like, okay, fine, no biggie. Can’t blame the two year old because they built the bucket wrong.

So her and I get on our hands and knees and start picking up these tiny beads and putting them back in the bucket. It’s about the journey, not the destination, right?

WRONG! It absolutely about the destination. There is no journey if there is no destination. It’s okay if the destination changes mid journey, but it’s honestly just crazy to go somewhere without knowing where you’re headed to. Sorry. I digress.

I kid you not, two minutes later, hundreds of beads are back on the floor.

Do you think I happily got back on my hands and knees to pick up these beads to laugh at this moment?

Absolutely not. And if you would and you did, you’re a better parent and person than I am. Kudos, you need to lead a life group here at Cedarbrook go see Pastor Ken at the end of the service.

I didn’t do that. You see, in that very moment this two-year-old rendered all my accomplishments and accolades for the last four decades as null and void. I’m hoppin’ mad because I had no HOPE of getting those beads off the floor again and finishing this beading project with her. And here’s the most embarrassing part. This is what God was trying to teach me. She says to me: “It’s okay daddy. We’ll just try again.”

• Gospel centered hope can see the good news in every situation and circumstance. There is good news even in the most terrible and horrible of circumstances.
• Gospel centered hope proactively engages faith to grow more like Jesus. It is not discouraged by failure, it is encouraged that the journey to the final destination isn’t over.

Throughout this letter, we’re going to witness how Christ’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension give shape to hope in our lives. I’m so excited to kick off this series with you.

We’re in 1 Peter 1:1-9.

Let’s pray.

Father in heaven, you give us a living hope in your son, Jesus Christ. May the grace and peace he bestows to us through his life, death, and resurrection be the fulfillment and encouragement we need to experience in our circumstances and situations today.

Lord, you are our God and Father. Do as you have promised, bring about goodness, justice, and mercy to our lives. Fulfill your will for us here and now in this place and in this time.

God, if there are some today who need hope, please give them the confidence they need to trust in you through every step of the trials they are facing. We pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Before talking about the context and history of the letter; I want to dive into the idea of theology.

Theology is the art and science of knowing God by his interactions with his people.

Theology, academically, philosophically, and culturally speaking, has historically been used to impose people’s own divisive and sinful views about God as if he were their own creation onto other people.

But that’s not the type of theology we do here at Cedarbrook. That’s not the theology of the Bible.

In fact, in the Bible, it’s full of stories about how broken, sinful, and utterly pathetic people can be because God interacted with those people, and they wrote what they learned and known about God as he interacted with them in their lives.

The reason I share my embarrassing, and sinful moments on stage so regularly is because when God speaks for himself, it’s sometimes a detriment to my ego, because most of the time what God says embarrasses me and/or is different than what I want or think, he spoke and interacted with me, and through it, I experienced his grace, mercy, and love. So I have hope that my embarrassment and wrongness does not define me, but makes his love for me even more apparent to all of you so as he speaks to you, you would be shaped by the hopefulness that comes from his love, grace, and mercy for you. We don’t speculate our own musings about God as if we created him. Honestly, if we did, you’d know because you wouldn’t hear a single embarrassing story about me, nor would you hear about all the ways your pastor is sinful and broken.

True theology is allowing God speak for himself through his word and us working out how we respond to what he says to us. That means when God is speaking and interacting with us, sometimes it will make us glad. But it will also sometimes make us mad.

We are not God, so he will do both as he interacts with us. And over time, as God continues to speak and meet  with us, and as we change, those things that made us mad will turn into gladness; and conversely, those things that made us glad will turn to madness. And we will wrestle with God about all those things until we meet him face to face.

Church, it’s okay to wrestle with God. He wants to wrestle with the people he loves. In fact, the name “Israel” means wrestled with God.

But in your wrestling, let God speak for himself and honor what he says whether or not it agrees with your own sensibilities, politics, agendas, or worldviews, without trying to make your opinions God’s own because he’s not always going to agree with you. And with 1 Peter, we have to do just that because these are the words of a man who wrestled with God for a lifetime and at the end said, I will honor what you said to me. In fact, we’re going to see it.

• This letter was written by the Apostle Peter while imprisoned in Rome, awaiting trial for being a Christian.
  • And the timing of the letter is real prophetic because at the time Peter writes this, the Christians in the Roman Empire were getting persecuted for their ideological incongruence to the public polytheistic religion of Rome.
    • That should sound very familiar to many of you because many of us work and go to schools where the religion or non-religion in public is polytheistic. That’s what happens when society believes there are multiple truths or no truths or truth is relative.
  • In 64AD, there was a fire in the city of Rome which left the city in utter ruins.
    • Historians speculate that Emperor Nero had set the city on fire so he could rebuild the city in his own image and with new urban planning guidelines and to get the political pull for it, he blamed the Christians, who were already unpopular because of their beliefs.
    • So this letter is out there before a full persecution is in place for Christians, so that they could place their hope in God who is already speaking to them.

Verse 1.

¹Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To those who are elect exiles of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, ² 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. (1 Peter 1:1-2 ESV)

If you have your Bibles, I want you to circle the words “elect exiles.” Make note of those words for two reasons:

1. The phrase is an oxymoron.
   1. Usually, if you’re in exile, you’re not elect.
      1. In fact, if you were elected, you would not have to live in exile.
      1. You only live in exile as an elected person, if the people who elected you also kick you out.
2. However, Peter uses the phrase “elect exiles” to call our attention to the paradox of our Christian lives.
   1. We are elected by God, but we’re living in exile from the kingdom which we really belong, God’s kingdom.
   1. In fact, we started to live in exile the moment Adam and Eve first sinned. But God, in his mercy, and love adopts us in faith and gives all of us exiles, a return ticket home, where we belong, in his presence.
   1. Heaven is our true home. It is our country.

So, if your life seems paradoxical to you because the circumstances you’re facing, the persecution you’re experiencing, or the struggles you are wrestling with, then rest assured that you have indeed been chosen by God. But your home isn’t here. It never was. And so we will struggle with what all exiles struggle with until we get home— jarring alienation. From the moment we placed our trust in Jesus Christ, and made him our lord and savior, until we are taken home to heaven, we will face jarring alienation.  

When we look at verse 2. We see something interesting. By calling Christians “elect exiles,” Peter unites two very different groups of people living in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. The gentiles who converted to Christianity, and the Jewish people who placed their trust in Jesus as their Messiah have now been blended into a single nationality. That is why the family of God is black, white, Asian, Hispanic, and everything else in between. Because nationality isn’t about race. It’s about where our home is. And our home is first and foremost with God, who created each of us in his image. We each have been individually selected by the Father; we each share in each other for the sanctification of the Holy Spirit, because we obey Jesus Christ in faith.

There’s a lot I want to say about this in terms of the trinitarian work of salvation, but you should talk about that and explore that in your life group discussions.

I want to bring to your attention the people Peter is addressing. The people of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. That is modern-day Turkey. Back in the first century, there were enough Christians there for Peter to address in a personal letter from him. But now, the latest population studies show that Christians comprise only 0.2% of the population in Turkey.

Part of what happens when you give your tithes and offerings here is supporting the work of our missionary partners working out of Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey. One of the things that he and his wife shared when they visited with us a few months back is this: God is calling people who are not connected to God. And they are making decisions of faith and are being discipled, sanctified by the Holy Spirit so they can live as radical disciples of Jesus where persecution is heavy handed.

Your giving is actually faith in action. There are people we’ve never met that are joining our spiritual family of elect exiles and their nationalities are changing to heaven, the kingdom of God. Thank you for your generosity in giving, but also, pray for our missionary partners, and the people joining our spiritual family in the middle east.

But living in faith is not just difficult abroad where there is open persecution. It’s difficult here in the DMV. Jarring alienation, isolation, uncomfortableness, that’s all normal for Christians to experience as they live out their faith here in our free country where persecution is more low-key and underhanded. If you are facing that persecution, listen to this blessing from Peter: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Point 1. God’s grace and peace are multiplied to us as we live in exile

God’s grace and peace are multiplied specifically to you, so you can be sustained until you get heaven.

We may be living in exile, but we are not without hope and we are not without a God. In fact, what we are experiencing now in terms of jarring alienation in exile is part of our heritage in faith. We come from a long line of elect exiles who God called to live in a strange land.

• God called Abraham out of the city of Ur to wander in tents in Canaan as a stranger. In fact, he introduces himself to the natives of Canaan saying, “I am an alien and a stranger among you.”
  • But look at God’s grace and peace for Abraham: from this one man, who was as good as dead, came descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as countless as sand on the seashore.
• In Egypt Israel was exploited as a workforce of undesirable aliens, despised and feared.
  • But God delivered Israel from slavery, Israel became a pilgrim people, journeyed 40 years through the wilderness and then 7 more years to settle in their own country.
• That wilderness experience became the model for understanding the life of God’s people as a pilgrimage.
  • While in exile, God met with his people, taught and tested them, led them by day and night, fed them with bread from heaven and water from the rock, and placed his tent among them.
  • His care watched over their journey till they reached their home, the place where God would dwell with them.

But, it doesn’t end when the nation of Israel settled. God’s people continued to live in exile outside of his presence and yet he blessed them with grace and peace. So at the appropriate time, God sends his one and only son, Jesus to usher people from exile to their true home.

• Jesus tells his disciples “I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.”
  • Jesus is the Way; he overcomes the world, and goes to prepare a place in his Father’s house for the people who follow him.
• Peter recognizes that Christians are not just transients, spending the night in the place of their sojourn.
  • Like the Israelite exiles addressed by Jeremiah, Christians must be ready to live in exile for months, years, and even a lifetime before they can return to their home.
• Therefore, our lifestyles matter and our witness matters as we live as foreigners in a land we don’t belong to.
• Peter knows that Jesus does not call us to flee from the world, but to experience God’s grace and peace multiplied in our lives as we engage the world and continue to trust in Jesus to take us home.

The Bible documents God’s grace and peace multiplied to his people living in exile. So, how can we experience God’s grace and peace multiplied in our lives?

Verse 3.

³ 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, ⁴ to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, ⁵ who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. (1 Peter 1:3-5 ESV)

We know God to be merciful because of the salvation we received in faith. When we trust Jesus died on the cross for our sins, and then believe that Jesus who died was also resurrected by God, the Father, then we are in the midst of experiencing God’s mercy because we become recipients of a reward we didn’t earn or deserve.

Peter calls the salvation experience a “living hope.” It’s a living hope because Jesus was brought back from the dead and is now alive. Jesus, can be our savior, lord, and king because he is presently alive and serving his people by standing in God’s presence as our mediator. If Jesus isn’t alive then he can’t intercede, and he wouldn’t be able to save. But because he is alive, we have a living hope.

So unlike fleeting hope or dead hope, or inanimate hope: money, fame, power, and so on, the living hope Jesus, and his resurrection, make our lives imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. What an amazing grace and peace we receive!

If you want hope that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading then make Jesus Lord of your lives. Give Jesus your life because he gave you his. When Jesus is truly Lord over our lives, we received the ultimate mercy from God.

In verse 5 Peter shares with us the key to receiving God’s grace and peace being multiplied to us.

FAITH! Faith is the source of our hopefulness in Christ.

The Greek epic poem, the Odyssey, is about Odysseus, king of Ithaca, on his journey home after the trojan war. The war lasted ten years. And his journey home from Troy to Ithaca, lasts another ten years. At the end of his journey, when he finally gets home, Odysseus had lost all his crewmates and he is the lone survivor.

In story, we see that Odysseus makes all his decisions based off the hope that regardless of the misfortunes that befall him, he will get home, where his tribe, family, and inheritance await.

This poem is 24 books long, you would think that by book 15 or even 20, Odysseus would give up all hope. But he doesn’t. And finally, returning from his exile, he is rewarded by reuniting with his wife and son.

In today’s world, hope is downplayed like it’s a fool’s errand. But our God operates in hope and his currency is faith. And Peter calls our attention to this theology.

Our sins, disobedience and rebellion to God’s will may have caused us to be in exile, but God’s mercy in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection makes us elect. And God continues to extend his grace and mercy so our living hope can take us home.

Verse 6.

⁶ In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, (1 Peter 1:5-6 ESV)

In verse 6 Peter encourages all of us who are in the midst of trials that

Point 2. God’s power is sufficient for us through the trials we experience

You may take issue with the words, “a little while” because you have known suffering and have been in trials for many years: abuse, grief, medical. But Peter says your suffering is nothing compared to the eternity God has guaranteed for you. Look to eternity! Don’t look only to the front of your noses and get cross eyed looking inches ahead, look to eternity.

Peter is not belittling suffering. It is very real, heavy, and discouraging, but our trials are light when we look at the living hope we have in Jesus.

Not only does our future inheritance and new identity inform how we perceive our present suffering, but suffering itself has a new purpose: it proves our faith.

In fact, Peter is saying that suffering is actually the crucible for faith because

Big Idea: Trials point us to the hope we have in Jesus’ resurrection

People who argue against the existence of a loving God always come to this point. They point to suffering as one of the primary problems for faith in God. Like, how could a good and all-powerful God allow this pain and suffering in my life and in the world?

Look at the response from God’s Word. Verse 7.

[rejoice in suffering] ⁷ so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:7 ESV)

Trials purify our faith so God’s grace and peace multiplied to us can powerfully sustain us. This is God interacting with us.

When we see it that way, then trials are part of:

Point 3. God’s plan is to sanctify us and make us holy

Like gold, we must pass through the furnace with our faith, which is the metaphoric image for trials. Our trials burn away our self-confidence and drive us to our Lord and Savior, Jesus, so that we would cling tighter and rely solely on him to take us home.

Faith that is never purified by trials isn’t really faith at all. That’s just living by sight. God’s love for you isn’t marked by the good things or the non-suffering in your life. God’s love for you is marked by how graceful and peacefully you move through the suffering and trials of your life because God is the source of your power.

Family, trials should not surprise us!

We should not fear them either!

All of us will experience trials.

Having said that, trials should not cause us to doubt God’s faithfulness toward us. Rather, we should actually be glad for them because trials when seen through the lens of the living hope, Jesus, strengthen our resolve in God’s love that will never abandon us until we are home in his presence.

Verse 8.

⁸ Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, ⁹ obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1:8-9 ESV)

Remember what I was saying about theology being about God speaking to us and wrestling with what he said in the good, bad, and mad?

Why does Peter say we love he who we don’t see?

It’s because God’s interactions with us. No matter how difficult our circumstances are, or hard the trial is going, God show us that he loves us more. We believe in Jesus because he suffered for us so God could give us a living hope in resurrecting Jesus. That type of love cannot be erased or undermined. Our salvation, the faith we hold believing that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. And the trials we face in life will make us holy and turn us into the person worthy of receiving the gift we already received.

Church, now is the time we take this to heart and live with the living hope God gives to color our speech and actions as we live as elected exiles through trials, suffering, isolation, troubles.

Let’s pray. 

Father in heaven, you give us hope. You secure for us an eternity that will not be stopped. When you resurrected your son from the dead, it guaranteed that our future will always be hopeful. I ask that as we live our lives, that the trials we face and the circumstances we find ourselves in, can strengthen what we believe about you. About how you love us. About where you want to take us. I pray that the people who have gathered today will be encouraged by their trials because they will know that you are making them stronger in faith. Give us the courage to be faithful and be in love with you as we follow you. In Jesus name. Amen.