Well, as hopefully you have gathered by now, this is Easter Sunday.
We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus.
We focus on this theme all throughout the year.
It is the central defining foundation of hope in the Christian faith.
That's something we'll come back to in a moment.
And there are a lot of amazing things that we could say about the resurrection.
We've actually looked at this particular account in previous years,
John's account of the resurrection.
It's amazing, for instance, that the disciples had no idea that a resurrection like this was possible.
There was no idea.
It says here in John that they didn't understand the Scriptures sufficiently to even know to expect this.
For them, this was a total shock, and they were terrified.
It's amazing to note that as the Bible gives us witnesses of the resurrection,
seeking to establish the credibility of this story, we see that the first witnesses are women.
This is a culture where women were not even permitted to give legal testimony in court.
Sad to say.
There are all kinds of amazing details that we could focus on, and sometimes it's hard to choose.
But last night, for those of us who were here in the vigil, it was an amazing time.
Every corner of the room was filled, and it was just an extraordinary celebration.
But one of the themes that we really explored together was this idea that we live in a culture that is very deeply conflicted.
On the one hand, for those of you who weren't there, we talked about the fact that on the one hand,
our culture is very much entrenched in a sort of a pure materialistic atheism.
In other words, the idea that there's no gods, no miracles, no magic, no mystery, nothing.
Anything we don't understand now, we will one day understand through science and technology.
And then on the other hand, there is a deep human longing for the transcendent.
And we talked about how these two forces, as we live life buffeted by these forces,
we often feel fragmented and torn apart.
You know, we talked about examples like Maurice Sendak in his interview with Terry Gross saying,
on the one hand, I don't believe in an afterlife, and yet on the other hand,
I firmly believe I will see my deceased brother one day soon.
We're all deeply fragmented on the inside.
And we talked about how as a part of this, there's a tremendous disillusionment in the world.
A tremendous cynicism has set in.
I really, if I can be honest, cannot remember a time,
maybe since the Cold War,
where there has been more of a sense of existential dread
about the future of our country and our way of life.
I say that because I suspect it's not just me.
I hope, anyway, I'm not just being too dramatic or morose.
But I think this is something that we feel.
I mean, between ISIS and the threat of terrorism,
you know, I was going to give the example of Brussels until Lahore happened.
Today.
You know, dozens killed, hundreds wounded from a bomb blast.
Between the kind of tragicomedy of our current election.
I don't trust myself to say anything more about that.
At least not up here.
The state of the economy.
These are things that are causing an enormous amount of anxiety.
And so now that this Easter Sunday has come in this context,
as I've prayed about this,
I think that we need to look more closely at the hope that the resurrection offers.
Because as we said last night,
we live in a Holy Saturday culture
that is desperately in need of Easter Sunday hope.
And so we want to look at that hope.
And we want to do that by looking at 1 Peter.
The book of 1 Peter is wonderfully appropriate
because Peter wrote this letter to Christians
who are spread out throughout Asia Minor,
and they're living in a hostile culture.
They're living in a culture where there are very few certainties
that they will have any quality of life or life at all.
So if you sort of skip ahead in 1 Peter,
you see in chapter 2 that they're dealing with overbearing,
brutal bosses who are mistreating them.
So in their jobs, they're experiencing hardship.
In chapter 3, you see that many of them are married to unbelieving spouses,
and they're struggling in interfaith marriages.
You see in chapter 4 that they're being mocked
and persecuted by their pagan neighbors and associates.
They're being made fun of and disrespected.
And then in chapter 4, verses 12 to 18,
it looks as though much more violent persecution is imminently on the horizon.
And so all of this is happening,
and Peter's writing this letter,
and Peter begins writing this letter of hope by talking about Easter.
He says the first thing you have to understand if you want to have any hope in this world
is you have to understand Easter and what Easter means.
And so that's what we're going to look at.
We're just going to look at one verse.
We just have time to look at one verse, one aspect of this.
And it's 1 Peter 1, verse 3.
And we're going to see this under three headers.
We're going to see the foundation of our hope,
the substance of our hope,
and then the reason for our hope.
So let's pray as we prepare to open God's Word together.
Heavenly Father, first and foremost,
we pray for whatever emergency is outside.
We pray for people to be protected and kept safe and restored.
And we also, Lord, as we turn our attention to your Word,
we trust in and pray for your promise to be fulfilled,
that you speak to us through your Word.
So I pray that you would gently but firmly move me out of the way,
that you would dispel any distractions or things that might be nagging at us,
and that you would open us all to hear what you might have to say.
We pray this in your risen Son's name.
Amen.
So first of all, we want to look at the foundation of the hope that we share.
It says in verse 3,
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
according to His great mercy,
He's caused us to be born again to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
So as we said a moment ago,
the resurrection is a fact,
it's an event,
and it forms the foundation of our hope.
Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15
that Jesus, after His resurrection,
appeared to more than 500 people.
And he's saying this for a reason,
because he's writing 1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians is the oldest account that we have.
It was written,
it's the oldest book that we have in the New Testament
that was written the closest in proximity to the actual resurrection.
So Paul is writing that letter,
and he's saying this about 500 witnesses,
because many of those people were still alive.
And it's Paul's way of saying,
if you don't believe me,
go ask these people.
They're everywhere.
Go ask them and see what they say.
And in Acts chapter 26,
you have Paul before King Agrippa,
and again he says about the resurrection of Jesus,
he says to King Agrippa,
you know that these things are true.
You know that these things didn't happen in a closet.
They didn't happen in a corner somewhere.
So the debate then was not whether the resurrection happened.
The debate was only concerning,
how do we make sense of the resurrection?
It's interesting when you have so many people
who are trying to discredit Jesus and the early Christians,
never do they try to discredit the resurrection.
That's something that happened later.
It's because too many people had seen it for themselves.
So you have this public event,
this public historic fact,
and Peter makes it clear that this event
is the whole reason we have hope.
So the first point is this,
is that our foundation
is based on a public event,
a historical fact.
And the reason we're making a point of this,
you may say,
well, okay, well that,
okay, so what?
The reason this matters
is because this is one of the things
that makes Christianity unique.
We talk about,
well, why can we find hope in the Christian faith
that we can't find anywhere?
And here's one of the reasons.
All religions have some element of belief, right?
I mean, you think religion, faith, belief,
they just kind of go together.
But religious belief usually involves
adopting the values and the lifestyle
of the religious founder.
So you read their teachings
or you hear their teachings
and you like what they have to say
and so you believe in them,
meaning you adopt their values
and you begin to live in the way
that they've prescribed.
There are a lot of shoulds in religious belief.
You should be a good person.
You should not be greedy.
You should care about other people.
You should take care of the weak.
All of these things
that many religions in the world agree on
are good things.
But when Christians talk about belief,
we actually mean something different.
Christians don't, by definition,
have religious beliefs.
We have historical beliefs
that have religious implications.
You see the difference?
So this makes a huge difference
when it comes to having real hope
because facts actually offer hope
in ways that values don't.
And I think I've used this example before,
but this is kind of like the difference
between believing in the value of freedom
and believing that slavery is wrong
on the one hand
versus believing that on January 31st, 1865,
the 13th Amendment abolished slavery.
Right?
So one is a value
and one is a historic fact.
And so I'll just ask you,
which one offers more hope to you
if you're a slave?
Right?
If I come and I hear that you're a slave
and I say,
well, I really value freedom
and I really personally hope
that one day you're free
versus, hey, good news.
You're free.
You may not know it.
You may not have ever heard of this amendment.
You may not know how it all works.
But you no longer have to live like this.
You've been set free.
Which is going to offer more hope?
So Peter's not saying,
when he talks about this,
he's not saying,
hey, you should really hear Jesus' teachings.
I think they're pretty good.
And I think that they're going to help you
learn how to live better
and maybe have more success in your job
and have more success in your relationships.
And I think they're going to teach you
how to do better in your love life.
So you should really follow.
He's not saying that.
He's saying, listen, this thing happened.
Jesus rose from death.
And because of that,
he's given us an entirely new life,
an entirely new way of being.
He's ushered in a completely new way
for human beings to exist in the world.
So this is the first thing,
is that the foundation of our hope
is not a set of values or teachings.
It's not a set of principles.
It's actually a person
and an event that surrounds that person,
namely the resurrection from death.
So then what does this actually offer us?
What's the substance of our hope?
Well, again, coming back to the verse,
it says this,
according to his great mercy,
God has caused us to be born again
to a living hope.
So this is the substance.
What do we have?
What does the resurrection mean for you?
It means that you have the opportunity
to be born again to a living hope.
Now, when I say that,
if you're anything like me,
you hear the phrase born again,
and, you know, it's abrasive.
That phrase is a huge turnoff for me
and for most of us,
and it's because of the water we swim in.
Right?
I mean, when we think of the phrase born again,
we think of that as a subset of Christianity.
You know, you have your mainliners
and you have your, you know, blah, blah, blah,
and then you have your born-agains.
I mean, when I lived in Boston,
people don't even say born-again Christian up there.
They just call them born-agains.
You know, you're born-again.
And it's like one word.
And we think of this as a subset of Christianity.
To be born again is a certain kind of Christian.
And among Christians,
we think of people who are born-again
as either, you know,
we think of being born-again
as some kind of resolution we make.
Like, I kind of grew up in the church,
but now I'm getting serious.
I'm a member of a church.
I'm born again.
Or we think of it as some kind
of ecstatic religious experience.
Right?
So if somebody says,
I've been born-again,
you think,
well, that must have been amazing.
What happened?
You know,
the clouds parted
and the light
and the ecstatic vision of Jesus.
You know,
we think Damascus Road experience.
In addition,
people outside the church,
if they hear someone's a born-again,
they think of religious fundamentalism, right?
They think of religious extremism.
They think of right-wing politics.
They think of all the stuff
that goes with that.
But that's much more culture
than it is Scripture.
So how do we think about this
from a scriptural standpoint?
In August of 2010,
there was a woman named Judy Rivers.
And she went to her local bank
to open a bank account.
And as part of that,
she gave her Social Security card over
and told them the number.
And the woman entered some information
and entered more and said,
Ms. Rivers, I'm sorry.
There's been a problem.
I'll be right back.
Eventually, the branch manager comes out
and the branch manager says,
I'm sorry to say this,
there's an issue.
Your Social Security number
was deactivated in 2008
due to death.
It's pretty interesting.
Clerical error.
So it's estimated that every year,
roughly 12,200 people
are declared legally dead
from keystroke error.
So somebody just hits the wrong button
and you have no idea.
You're just going along with your day,
but you're dead.
Isn't that amazing?
Keystroke error, right?
So the Bible says
the same thing is true of us spiritually.
I mean, imagine if you're Judy Rivers
and you're going about your business,
you're living your life,
you have no idea
that anything is amiss,
but in the government's eyes,
you are legally dead.
Right?
The Bible actually says
that the same is true of us spiritually.
That you can be living life,
you can be going about your business,
you can be doing,
everything feels normal.
You may not feel anything.
You may not be aware of anything.
You know, if somebody asks you,
you're like,
my life is pretty great.
Yeah, I feel pretty good.
I feel pretty satisfied at work.
Got good friendships
and like my family
and got enough money
and things are going well.
You don't really feel
like anything is amiss.
And yet spiritually,
you can be legally dead.
This is what happens
when we ignore God
and the world that he's made.
What we're doing is
we're actually cutting ourselves off
from the source of life.
And what that means is
you can go on living physically
for a while,
but you're spiritually dead.
And then eventually,
your body catches up
as entropy sets in
and you break down
and eventually you pass away.
And again,
as we talked about last night,
while you can't feel it
and there's no guarantee
that you will feel it
and there are plenty of people
who are spiritually dead
but have no awareness of it,
I actually think
that there is a level
at which,
as we talked about
at the vigil,
that yearning
is telling us something
about our spiritual state.
There's a great book
of short stories
by a writer
named Douglas Copeland.
It's called Life After God.
And it's fascinating.
And in one place,
he's describing
the life of his friends
who live in Vancouver.
And, you know,
Vancouver's one of those places
if you've ever been there,
it's not just kind of
more of an atheistic era.
It's like a self-consciously
sort of proudly
atheistic culture.
And very secular
in parts.
And it says this.
He says,
Ours was a life
lived in paradise
and thus it rendered
any discussion
of the transcendent
pointless.
Right?
Everything's good.
We're going out at night.
We're partying.
We're having fun.
We have great jobs.
We're going 100 miles an hour.
The world is our oyster.
There's no room
to talk about
or speculate about
things like life after death
or God
or forgiveness
because life is great.
And then you go on
and it says this.
And yet,
I find myself
speaking these words
with a sense of doubt.
I think there was
a trade-off
somewhere along the line.
I think the price
we paid for our golden life
was an inability
to fully believe in love.
He goes on.
Instead,
we gained an irony
that scorched
everything it touched.
So what's he saying?
You know,
life seems great
but then I realized
that one of the things
that is set in
in my heart
is irony.
It's cynicism.
And as we said
last night,
cynicism,
if you're a disillusioned person,
cynicism can be
great insulation
against disillusionment.
You wrap it around yourself
like bubble wrap
and it can really
insulate you
from the full brunt
of a brutal,
godless world.
And yet,
because it's bubble wrap,
it not only insulates you
from the bad stuff,
it insulates you
from the good stuff.
And so what's
what's he saying here?
I can't fully experience
things like love.
I can't experience
things like joy fully
because an irony
is set in
and it scorches
everything it touches.
And he says,
and I wonder
if this irony
is the price
we paid
for the loss of God.
And then there's
a moment of honesty
later in the book.
He says,
now here's my secret.
I tell it to you
with the openness
of heart
that I doubt
I shall ever achieve again.
And so I pray
that you're in a quiet room
as you hear these words.
It's reasonably quiet
in here.
My secret
is that I need God.
I'm sick.
I can no longer
make it alone.
I need God
to help me give
because I no longer
seem to be capable
of giving.
To help me be kind
as I no longer
seem capable
of kindness.
To help me love
as I seem beyond
being able
to love.
You know,
it's interesting.
We can be completely
unaware of our
spiritual poverty
until we begin
to try to do things
like practice kindness
or love
or generosity.
And we can do it
for a time.
But sooner or later
we come face to face
with the reality.
About what?
About us.
And in verses
23 to 25
of 1 Peter chapter 1,
it says that we become
born again
when we hear
the good news
of the gospel
and we receive it.
It's what happens
when God opens
our hearts
to the truth
of the gospel.
And that is this,
that Jesus came
and He lived
and then He died
and then He rose
from death
to free us
from sin
and make us
children of God
and give us
the Spirit
which quickens us
to life.
That's an old word,
quickens.
but the Spirit
quickens us to life.
It awakens us.
I remember
when I became
a believer
at age 22
and the years
that followed that.
I remember
actually in the months
that followed
my conversion,
I remember
I would cry
all the time.
I don't think,
this is not true
for different people
who have different experiences.
For me,
I just cried a lot.
I probably cried
more in that first month
than I had cried
in the 10 previous years.
And it would be
at the oddest things.
I would just be
walking along,
walking down the sidewalk
and just break down
into tears
such that I would
have to sit down.
And I had
an older,
wiser friend,
mentor,
and I finally
confessed this
and I said,
am I having
a nervous breakdown?
And he said,
no,
this is your heart
coming to life.
You ever put your arm
over a chair back
and it falls asleep
because of a lack
of circulation
and then you take it off
and as the blood
comes back,
you have that
pens and needles feeling
and it feels
almost like you
can't stand it?
He said,
that's kind of like
what's happening
in your heart right now.
The Spirit of God
quickens us to life
and what this means
is that as verse 4 says,
we gain an inheritance
that is imperishable,
undefiled,
unfading,
kept in heaven for us
who by God's power
are being guarded
through faith
for a salvation
ready to be revealed
in the last time.
In other words,
what is this saying?
Everything we have
in this life,
it's bad news
and good news.
When you're born again,
it means this.
You realize that
everything that we have
in this life,
a lot of this stuff,
a lot of this,
is going to perish.
It's going to wither.
Right?
So in one sense,
a lot of the things
that we can be focused on,
a lot of that
is going to perish
and it's going to wither.
Right?
God's going to remake
and restore the earth.
He's going to remake
all things new,
the physical world,
but that doesn't mean
I'm going to take
my iPhone into that.
In fact,
I think I know
exactly where this belongs.
That's a different sermon.
But what he's saying
is that everything
that we have in this life
will one day be lost,
but everything we gain
through Jesus
will never be lost.
He's saying
there's an eternal inheritance.
It's not hot in here.
I want to show you something.
So imagine this.
Imagine this.
Imagine this not.
This is our life.
Here.
You know,
there's four little rings
in it, right?
This is when I was born.
This is my adolescence.
This is the good,
productive middle years.
This is old age and death.
Right?
And he's saying
all of this,
a lot of what you're
aiming for here,
a lot of what you're
focusing on here,
this is going to fade.
Right?
You know,
you're focusing really,
you know,
working really hard
to get a good education,
right?
So that you can get
a good job,
which is here.
And then you get
that good job
and you hope that
you can build up
enough retirement
so that your life
will be decent here.
And then what?
And he's saying
on the one hand
all this is going to fade.
But on the other hand,
all of this,
all of this is secure.
Saying all of this,
all of this has already
been secured for you.
It's there.
It's waiting for you.
You have to do nothing
to earn it.
You have to do nothing
to preserve it.
It's not going to fade.
It's not going to wither.
It's not going to go away.
It's just there.
And he's saying,
so where should
your priorities be?
What should you be
focusing on?
And so as we consider this,
as we consider
the reality
of this
perspective shift
and what Peter's saying here,
he's saying,
this is the kind of hope
that you have.
If you think
this is all there is,
if you think
that this is it,
if you think
that this
is all you've got
to look forward to,
then listen,
when things get bad
for you
and you're looking
at this
and you're like,
this is all there is,
what's going to happen?
It's going to crush you.
Because you're like,
this is all there is,
this is my whole life.
It better be a good one.
But if
things get good
and you only think
that this is it,
then you'll be prone
to anxiety
because why?
Because
this is all I got
and now it's good
and it better stay good.
So you get so afraid
of protecting it
and preserving it
that you can't really
even enjoy it.
But if your hope
is set on all of this,
instead of this,
then when life is hard,
what happens?
You say,
well, no matter what,
this is nothing.
It's minuscule.
I've got eternity.
And when things are good,
you know that you're
fully free to enjoy them
because you know
as good as this is,
it's nothing compared
to what will come.
And I think
if we think about that
and how it would shape
the way we live,
this is real hope.
So we know
the foundation
of our hope
is the resurrection
and we know
that the substance
of our hope
is that we're born again
to an eternal inheritance.
So the last question
remains is this,
what about
the reason
we have this
to begin with?
How do we get this
from God?
Why does God do this?
Is there anything
that we do
to ensure that God
does this for us?
How do we get
this kind of hope?
The opening of our verse
tells us,
it says,
according to God's mercy
all of this happens.
Now we won't spend
a lot of time on this.
We're running out of time,
just a few minutes left,
but we have to acknowledge
one thing.
Mercy went out of fashion
a long time ago.
Really,
mercy is a very
unpopular idea.
It hasn't been popular
for some time
and here's the reason.
The whole concept
of mercy
implies that I've done
something wrong
and I need mercy.
And that's not
a very popular idea.
Right?
Because here's the way
we think, right?
Ever since the Enlightenment,
really,
we think,
well, if there's a standard
out there
and I'm not meeting
that standard,
then the problem
is clearly
not with me.
The problem
is clearly
with the standard.
And so,
over the last couple
of centuries,
moral relativism
was our cultural attempt
to make mercy
unnecessary.
Right?
So,
we wanted to make
mercy obsolete.
So,
we did away
with any universal
standard whatsoever.
But listen,
all of that
is changing.
I don't know
if you've been reading
the articles
that have been coming out
in places like
American Spectator,
Atlantic,
Jonathan Merritt
had a great piece there,
David Brooks
in the New York Times,
basically saying
that moral relativism
is coming to an end.
It's on the decline.
David Brooks
says this,
he wrote a great article
called The Shame Culture.
He says,
and he's drawing
from Andy Crouch
and other people,
he says that a combination
of us rejecting
absolute moral standards
and the omnipresence
of social media
has led to the rise
of an entirely new
moral system.
See if you resonate
with this.
And it's not a moral system
that's based on
right and wrong.
It's a moral system
based on inclusion
and exclusion.
It's a shame culture.
So you have people
who,
you have a culture
that is in
a perpetual state
of anxiety.
Why?
Because there's
an ever-shifting
set of moral expectations.
It's not fixed,
it's not firm,
and it's determined
by the mob.
It's determined
by the masses.
And so every day
you have new sources
of moral outrage
and indignation
and causes
coming across your feed.
And people are frantically
trying to figure out
what they need to do
and what they need to say
and what they need to not say
and what they need to not do
and what groups
they need to disparage
and what people
they need to sympathize with.
And there's a constant sense of
I need to know
where the locus
of morality is
at, you know,
at 6 o'clock
on this Sunday
because I need to know
because if I fail
in some way
to align myself,
if the cause
comes through my feed
and I jump on
the wrong cause,
well then I will be shamed.
People will say,
how could you possibly
support that cause?
If I'm too slow
to jump on board,
people will say,
how could you possibly
be so apathetic?
Right?
And so there's a constant
sense of
how do I align myself
and it creates
constant anxiety.
People desperately
want to be included
and affirmed
and they desperately
fear being shamed
and shunned
by their online community.
So our culture
may have rejected
the idea of God
as the judge
of right and wrong,
but what happens
when we do that?
We've all become judges.
If you get rid
of one judge,
then you have
an innumerable
array of judges.
And right now,
the internet
is our courtroom
and people are being
sentenced every day.
So human beings
are inescapably moral,
so the real question is,
what is our standard
based on
and what hope is there
for those who fall
short of that standard?
And this is where
the mercy of God shines.
Because in our culture,
there's very little hope
for people who fall
short
of that standard.
If you say the wrong thing
or you do the wrong thing,
you can be publicly shamed
and it will haunt you
for years.
If you don't believe me,
Google the name
Justine Sacco
and read her story.
But if the God of the Bible
is the only judge
in history,
if He's the only real judge,
then that should give us
tremendous hope.
Because the God of the Bible
is the only judge
in history.
He's the only judge
in any religion out there.
He's the only God
that you'll see
anywhere in culture
who not only
establishes the standard,
but He then fulfills it.
He not only establishes
the standard,
but then He fulfills it
on our behalf.
So what this means
is that my hope
is not based on
what I've done.
It's not based on my ability
to know and to keep
that standard.
It's based on the fact
that Jesus came
and lived the life
I should have lived.
Died the death
I should have died.
Overcame death.
Destroyed that sin.
And then offered
to join with me.
And the Bible says
that when we join
with Jesus,
when we become
one with Him,
then all of that stuff
that He did,
all of the ways
that He kept
that standard
get applied to me
as well.
And because when I am in Him
and He is in me,
as the Bible says,
when we are one,
then I enjoy the benefits
of His obedience.
This union with Christ
is the fundamental hope
of Christianity.
Being a Christian
means being so joined
with Jesus
that this becomes true of us.
So our hope and faith
is not based on
what we do for God
but what He has done
for us.
And the more we understand this,
the more it actually
fills us with love
and gratitude
and the kinds of things
that motivate us
to want to live
and become more like Him.
So this is real mercy.
It's God doing
everything necessary
to make us His children
and give us new life,
eternal inheritance,
not because we deserve it
but because He is merciful.
So friends,
this is the good news
of Easter.
This is why we have
real hope.
Because its foundation
isn't our values,
our disposition,
our tendency to be hopeful.
It's based on the fact
of the resurrection
and so it's certain.
The substance of our hope
is the new life,
the new identity,
the eternal inheritance
we have through Jesus
which means everything
that matters
is already ours.
And then lastly,
all of this comes
not because we deserve it
or have earned it
but because of God's mercy.
And the primary symbol
that reassures us
of this when we forget it
is baptism.
And so in a couple of minutes,
in a little while,
we're going to actually
have some baptisms
and that's going to be
a lot of fun.
But for now,
I'm going to pray
and then we're going to
join together
and sing a song of response.
So let's pray together.
Our Father,
we thank You for this hope.
We know that this is not
something that we are
capable of generating.
It's not a force of willpower
that we create.
This hope is something
that comes from You.
So Lord,
we pray that in Your mercy,
in Your love,
You would implant this hope
in our hearts
that it would generate in us
the kind of hope
that would shape how we live
in such an anxious,
disillusioned world
that we might become,
as Your people,
beacons that point to this hope
and lead others to it.
And we pray this
in Your Son's holy name.
Amen.