Speaker: Greg Sanders

Passage: 1 Petet 1:3-5

LIVING IN HOPE

All right, if you have your Bibles, let’s grab those. Let’s go to 1 Peter, chapter 1. Lord, as we jump in, just want to take a second, and if there were any places where you want to release your love in places maybe we didn’t administrate or pray correctly, we love that in Your goodness, You work way beyond our abilities. 

Lord, for sons and daughters in this room, we just ask that there would be an increasing awareness of Your love throughout, not just today, but in the days to come. And Lord, that even if it touches areas that it begins to expose things that are wrong beliefs and things like that, just ask that You keep us really close to Your heart. Remind us of what You’re doing. 

Holy Spirit, as we look at the Scriptures, would You lead us and guide us? Would You maybe punctuate what the Father is doing with the truth of Scripture today? We love You, we honor You. Jesus’ name, amen. 

So, in 1 Peter chapter 1, verses 3-5, I’m just going to read that for us. Then we’ll just talk through a few ideas. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again.” 

We’ve been looking at that phrase the last couple weeks. “Caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”

It’s a mouthful. Read it again. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you who are protected by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in that last time.” 

JESUS REVEALS WHO THE FATHER IS

So, I’m going to take about the next sixteen minutes, and we’re going to work through as much of this as we can. I want to remind us when we’re talking about this, we’re talking about Peter, and it’s important to know who the author is. 

And there’s a couple things I want to preface this teaching with, and that is Peter was with Jesus when Jesus taught. How many would agree with that? Because he was one of the disciples. Do you remember the story? Jesus teaches about a man with two sons, one of the sons decides to get his inheritance and go away. Called The Prodigal Story. 

Peter would have been there when Jesus taught this. And I think sometimes we don’t think about that. Why is that important? If you could reduce the entire ministry of Jesus down to one central idea, what was He trying to communicate to people on earth? His number-one concept was He was trying to reframe human understanding of the Father. He was trying to help people know who the Father really was. 

Because if we talked about this, these people were very accustomed to the idea of God, but they weren’t accustomed to the love of a Father. They weren’t accustomed to that concept, and they had kind of through religion and through Law and through all kinds of different ideas, they’d pretty much taken all the Father-heart out of faith, and it was just rules and regulation. 

So, Jesus comes in and essentially flips it on its head and says, Yes, you understand who God is, but you know nothing about Him. How many would understand that it’s important not just to know who someone is, but actually know who they are? To know who they are in name, Oh, you are so-and-so, great, but do I actually know who you are? That’s what Jesus was about. 

I think in our culture today, we’re still kind of stuck in that same spot. A lot of people are relating to God, relating to a God-concept, but they don’t really know who He is, and until we know who He is, we can’t receive from Him correctly. We can’t even live correctly. 

That’s kind of Peter’s central aim here, is to set the Church forward in their understanding of the Father first. We can’t move into the depths of His grace until we’re settled in His love, because if you’re not settled in His love, you’ll constantly be striving and trying to work your way forward. 

Peter’s entire teaching to the Church here is to flip that script and say there isn’t really any earning in this. And so, we’ve been using this as just a lens to kind of see what is Peter trying to reveal about the heart of the Father? 

LIVING HOPE

And I want to just take us into the next phrase, which is “Has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.” And I want to share this concept of the Father, just building off of where we’ve been. 

I want you to hear this about your life, not just about what the text says, because this is what Peter is really trying to communicate: that the Father has very intentional plans for you. He says to them, “He’s caused you to be born again to a living hope.” In other words, unto something. 

He’s caused you to be born again for a purpose. He has a plan for you. We’ve been given the gift of being born again so that we can have a living hope. I think it’s important for us to understand this, that we’re not just saved from sin; we’re saved unto something. 

And too often, we come into the Kingdom with a mindset of, I’m saved. We don’t ever consider, like, Okay, what for? Could I offer just a dumb statement? If He didn’t have something for us to be saved to, why’d He not just kill us when we got saved? Wouldn’t it just be easier to be translated immediately, not stuck in your sin nature? No more screw-ups, no more damage? 

You’re like, Hey, I turned my life over, instantly vacuumed to Heaven. Well, great. He doesn’t do that. Well, why would He not do that? Well, because there’s a secondary thing. There’s a plan He has for your life that’s way beyond just saving you. 

Living hope is a really interesting phrase because it’s the idea of a continually alive hope. Has anyone ever had hope die, where you stop believing for something? Has anyone ever said to a spouse or to someone you’re in a relationship with, It’s just who I am, if you don’t like it, get out? That’s a dead hope. What that says is, I have no belief I can be different. You shouldn’t either, for the record, that’s a bad statement. 

Hope is the expectation of something that is to come. Okay, so what is our living hope? Well, there’s three things I want to call out here that I think are very clearly in this text. The first thing: Peter’s wanting to remind them what Jesus did for them was real. 

You’re like, Well, duh. Really, what Jesus did for you is real. This isn’t just some academic pursuit. You’re not just believing in a God. What He did for you was He really carried your sin to a cross. He really died. He really gave His life so that your transgressions and your sins could be freed. 

What He did was He really set you free. You’re not kind of free. You’re not hoping to be free. He actually set you free. He actually embraced all of the anger of Heaven towards sin on your behalf. It was real. 

The second thing Peter teaches them is that they are to live with a hope, that His nature– and I want you to catch this, because I think this is the most important idea that we’re sitting on as a church for the last six to eight months– that His nature can clothe us in the Divine in this life. 

All too often, we believe we got saved, we came in the Kingdom, and we just can’t wait until we get there and He makes us like Him. But Peter’s entire teaching is No, no, no, no, no, the Divine nature can be on you now. You can be like Him now in this life, 

And maybe you’re having a hard time believing that. Maybe you’re like me, and your answer is, I don’t know. I see so many places it’s not. What Peter’s wanting them to understand is there’s a living hope that’s in His heart for them, and that is that they would carry His nature. 

The third thing: what is our living hope? That we’re awaiting eternity in right standing with Him. It’s a real thing. We want to know we’re going to get to the other side, and it’s not a fake. 

Paul makes a statement that I love in some of his teaching. He says, Look, if this isn’t real and we’re not telling the truth, we are cursed above all men, because we’re missing the opportunity to live for the moment, because we’re choosing to intentionally live with a discipline to be like Him. 

You’re like, Yeah, Paul, it’s in the Scriptures. Go hunt it down. If you ask me where it’s at, you go read your Bible. You need to go find it. You need to learn how to use a concordance. Just ask Google, it’ll tell you. 

We’re awaiting an eternity in right standing with Him. Think about what it’s going to be like to stand before Him. We’d be lying if there wasn’t just a tiny bit of fear in all of us that says, Is this real? I’m walking to the executioner’s block, hoping I get let go. 

Think about that for a second. I want you to think about that moment because we all act like, I’m walking with total confidence. Are you? I think I might stand there with a moment, going, Man, Lord, I still hope what I believe is real, but I know me, and I know that if You take them, if you just decide to say, Nope, your sin, it’s on you, I couldn’t deny it because it’s on me. 

And Peter’s statement to them is, No, no, I want you to know the living hope. You’re to live with this continually alive hope, that He’s really going to stand before you and say, Hey, come on. Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into your rest. 

PRACTICING THE NATURE OF CHRIST

I want to ask us a question about all of this because I think, as I’ve been studying this, this idea has become very forward. Could we consider that the Father’s dream for us, or the Father’s plan for us, is actually hidden in Jesus? 

What do I mean by that? In Jeremiah 29, God will say to Israel, I know the plans I have for you, blessing, not cursing, a future and a hope. What He says to them is, I know what’s in My heart for you. 

Okay, could it be possible that all of the Father’s plans, and, let’s say, His dreams for you, His thoughts for you, are hidden inside of the nature of Christ? Why is that important? Because we talk about the nature of Christ as if it’s an ancillary idea to salvation, as if it’s a secondary thing that some people decide they’re really going to get serious and try to carry the nature of Jesus. 

What happens if, in truth, everything that the Father wants to do in your life begins in the nature of Christ? So, to that end, us learning and practicing carrying His nature. You’re like, What do you mean practicing? It means you’re going to screw up, and you’re going to try. You’re going to have situations where you go through them, you’re like, That didn’t work. Maybe I should try a more Jesus-like approach. I’m going to try that next time. Hey, lo and behold, that worked great. 

Practicing carrying the nature of Christ is the art. How many understand monks practice a discipline? If you’ve ever rolled Jiu-Jitsu, any of you do Jiu-Jitsu, you’re practitioners? What’s that mean? It means you’re practicing the art form of Jiu-Jitsu. 

What happens if learning to carry the nature of Christ is about practicing the art form of the way of Jesus? Okay, anybody roll Jiu-Jitsu in here? Let me see your hands. Raise them up. You’re proud, you know it. They’re all the people with giant neck stuff. 

Okay, when someone tries to put a rear naked choke on you, there’s movements that you can learn to escape that. They don’t come native. What comes native is to scream. But there are discipline movements that you can practice, and as you practice those, you learn how to use them in real time. 

What happens if, in the same way in the Kingdom, there are disciplines and movements that we can learn in places of high stress that are aligned with the way of Jesus? And as we enter those high-stress situations, we learn how to practice what Jesus said, and then all of a sudden, it becomes second nature? 

It’s not our first nature because our first nature is sinful. It becomes second nature because it’s part of the new nature He gave us. 

Let me give you an example. Do you know, when Jesus says, “If someone insults, you turn the other cheek?” If they do it again, He says, “Turn the other cheek.” You’re like, I only have two cheeks. His idea is, if you really think about it conceptually, what He says is, never change your posture of being towards them and never get defensive. That’s the way of Jesus in conflict.

What does it look like to practice that? What does it look like to say, according to Jesus, I’m not allowed to get defensive in conflict? I can tell you what I think about that. I think it’s stupid. I think it’s dang near impossible. Lot of us are like, I got to take a walk. Do what you got to do to practice the way of Jesus. 

What matters, though, is learning to say, I’m trying to practice modeling what my King told me to do, and by doing that, I’m not allowing what comes out of me naturally. That is discipline. It is being a learner under discipline. That’s discipleship. So, the Father has a very, very intentional plans for you. The first one is for you to live with hope. 

OUR INHERITANCE FROM THE FATHER

The second one is to bless you with an inheritance. Peter will say, “To obtain an inheritance which is imperishable, undefiled, and will not fade away.” Love those words, “Imperishable, undefiled, will not fade away.” It’s this idea of something that is protected. It’s sure. It’s not going to erode. It’s there. It’s being held. It’s being safeguarded, reserved for you in Heaven. 

I love this word reserved, because reserved is the idea of being set aside. Now, inheritance is generally connected to birthright, is it not? It’s a familial thing. When parents die, they will leave an inheritance for their children. Proverbs says that’s a good thing, that it should be done. 

And then that is connected to the birthright. Your new birth brought an inheritance with it. I want you to just think about what it brought. What Jesus did gave you an inheritance, and primarily that inheritance is this: it gave you a promise, and it gave you access to a relationship with the Father. 

You have the promise of a relationship, and you have access to a relationship. That’s the portion now– that right now, every single one of us has the promise and the access to a relationship with the Father. 

What’s missing in that is activating that you have been given that promise. You have to activate it. You’ve been given the access. You have to activate it. But if for any reason, you’ve decided, I don’t think He wants to talk to me, you’ve bought into a lie, and you’ve made up an excuse. Because, according to Peter’s teaching, part of the living hope is you have access. 

I think Peter’s intentionally doing that because he wants them to understand that there are parts of this inheritance that they live for now and there’s parts that will come later. What we do know is birthright is not something we earn. None of us were able to earn our birthright, therefore, inheritance isn’t something we earn; it’s something that’s given. 

Does that make sense? I think that’s the gift of perspective. I think that’s what Peter’s trying to teach them is, I want you to live with perspective. There’s some things you get now as part of the inheritance. There’s some things you get later. 

Why would he do that? Because he wants them to get their eyes on the right things. If you don’t have an understanding of the future, you don’t have an understanding there’s things set aside for you in eternity, you don’t have a sense that there are things that He’s invited me to wait for. And I won’t get them yet, but I’ll get them there. 

I get some stuff now– we get a lot now– but I’ll get some stuff on the other side that’s different. I’ll get some things that He has said He’s held for me, and they’re imperishable. They’re protected. 

I can’t imagine what kind of gifts God wants to give. The cool part is we don’t actually know what that is. We know aspects of it, there’s kind of little easter eggs in Scripture about what it’s going to be about and what it could be like, but we don’t really know. What we do know is that no mind has ever conceived or been able to comprehend the fullness of what God actually wants to do. We know that’s Scripture. 

I think Peter wants to safeguard them against getting caught up in the day-to-day affairs of life and missing the right posture to live with. What posture is that? He’s pushing them towards the nature of Christ. 

He said carry the nature of Christ in this life, because on the other side, He’s got things for you. Don’t lose sight of what’s coming. When we lose sight of what’s coming, we let go of the nature of Christ, and we get stuck in the moment. We start to react in the moment. 

Could I offer a thought for you? One of the things the Lord has been dealing with me on for the last two or three years, that He has never given any of us the right to grant another human being permission to control our emotions, that we are always to remain in control of our emotions, of our person.It is to be subjected to the nature of Christ, that He has never given us permission to let someone else control our nature, only Him. 

STAYING FOCUSED ON THE END GAME

He says, “To reserve your future in Heaven.” I love this phrase, reserved in Heaven for you. That idea is to carefully manage it. It means it’s set aside. It’s not yet possessed.

And I just want to end with this idea: I believe Peter is challenging the church to say, I don’t want you to forfeit your birthright. Am I talking about salvation? No, but Paul will talk about reward. Paul will talk about a sense of being evaluated before the Lord. 

There are pictures given in Scripture: crowns and kingly authority and royal names and identities. There’s all these things that we understand that are in the heart of God that He wants to release to us. And Peter seems to be saying, I want you to stay focused and not lose sight of the end game so you can live and carry the nature of Christ all the way through, so when you stand there, you’ll get your full reward, your full inheritance. 

What I think is happening here is, I think the Lord’s inviting us to get our attention off the little distractions of everyday life and put them back on the big reward of eternity. I know eternity is a weird concept. We’re like, What is it? Are we going to stand around the Throne and sing all day long? I don’t know. I probably doubt it. 

I have a bunch of different thoughts. One of them is crazy, like, maybe Jesus looks like Optimus Prime. But just saying, there’s a lot of metallurgy in the Old Testament. Anyway, it’s a fun concept. It’s a great rabbit trail to have a cup of coffee over. Has nothing theological about it, just a fun game to chase. 

What I do know is we pretend we know a lot about stuff. We don’t. But what I do know that we know is His promise is, I have set aside things for you. I have a dream for you, I have a plan for you. Can you trust Me enough to carry My nature? Can you trust Me enough to keep your eyes on the future so you don’t forfeit it? 

Stand with me, please. I said sixteen minutes, I took seventeen minutes and nineteen seconds, I’m sorry. What a day. Fun to be just in a place the Father is trying to reach out and release love. 

I want to challenge you: when the Father’s doing things like pouring out His love, it’s probably because we don’t get it, and He wants us to have more. You’re going to, at times in that process, feel what I would call issue-y, like stuff starts cropping up, maybe volatility, maybe poor behavior. 

I want you to learn to ask this phrase: for the sake of the Kingdom, can I act like I want to act right now? And get your eyes on the future and say, You know what? For the sake of the Kingdom, I’m not doing this. For the sake of the Kingdom, I can’t go there with you. For the sake of the Kingdom, I can’t engage in this. Why? Because I just don’t want to, I don’t want to let go His nature. 

Jesus, we love You. We honor You. I love what You’re doing. Love just a sense of You that’s settled on the room already. Holy Spirit, for every place in us that needs to be elevated back into the nature You’ve given us to walk in, we give You permission to coach and to push, to invite for every place where we’ve just so lost sense of Your love, and we feel discouraged and driven. 

We just ask for You to release a grace to live in the wisdom of accepted tenderness. You love us. It’s just that simple. We love You. We want to love You more. We want to be everything You’ve dreamed of for us, everything You have planned for us. 

Lord, right now, all over this room, I want to ask that You would release dreams and plans for the future, and a sense of hope right now, in the name of Jesus. In places where there’s been discouragement, now we just release supernatural hope. 

Marriages where there’s been conflict to the point of wanting to quit, we cry out for supernatural hope. Or work situations where we just want to walk out and bail and let go of where you’ve placed us, we ask for hope to hold up, hold us in. 

We love You. We give You all the glory and all the honor. Jesus’ name, amen.