We hope that you enjoy this teaching from Christ Church.
This material is copyrighted and no unauthorized duplication,
redistribution, or any other use of any part is permitted without prior consent from Christ Church.
Please consider donating to this work in the San Francisco Bay Area online at ChristChurchEastBay.org.
I'll be reading today's scripture lesson from the first letter of Peter,
chapter 1, verses 1 to 5, and 23 to 25, and chapter 5, verses 12 to 14.
Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God's elect, exile scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus,
Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father
through the sanctifying work of the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood.
Grace and peace be yours in abundance.
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade.
This inheritance is kept in heaven for you,
who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.
For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable,
through the living and enduring word of God.
For all people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers, and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.
With the help of Silas, whom I regard as a faithful brother, I have written to you briefly,
encouraging you and testifying that this is the true grace of God.
Stand fast in it.
She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark.
Greet one another with a kiss of love.
Peace to all of you who are in Christ.
This is the word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
Good morning, Christ Church.
As we gathered together last Sunday, we introduced the themes of this great letter of 1 Peter,
and we looked at those first two verses.
And today, I want you to notice the way that this Christian, one of the first Christians,
and this great apostle of Jesus Christ, notice how he speaks as he begins this letter.
He says in verse 3,
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Peter can barely start talking.
He can hardly get past his introduction, and he's just bursting forth in praise at the beginning of this letter.
And in this, he's doing what all the early Christians did.
The moment he mentions the triune God, the moment he says the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
he's like a little child on Christmas morning who can hardly contain herself.
He says, Praise be, glory be, thanks be to God.
And this is characteristic of the early church, and it's been characteristic in all the periods of reformation and revival and renewal in the church.
There's just this sense of joy, this sense of praise that comes bursting forth from God's people.
And Peter, to remind you, he's writing to these Christian exiles and foreigners who are living in, quote unquote, Babylon,
who are suffering many trials, suffering a lot of grief and difficulty because they're following the way of Jesus.
And he's writing to them saying, Here is something that you can greatly rejoice in.
Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And what is Peter responding to?
What's causing him to just burst forth in praise and worship and adoration and thanksgiving?
It says in verse 3, Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
He's rejoicing in the great mercy of God.
He's rejoicing in this God who has mercifully given us these three glorious gifts.
And that's what we want to explore today, these great gifts from this merciful God.
And what Peter is telling us is that Christianity, biblical Christianity, historic Christianity,
rejoices in a living hope, a new birth, and an eternal inheritance.
Christianity, Christianity rejoices in a living hope.
First of all, Christianity rejoices in a living hope.
Again, this is what he says,
In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is vital and central and foundational to the Christian faith.
In fact, there's no Christianity apart from the resurrection of Jesus.
And as we think back to those events at that time, we remember that Peter himself, Peter who's writing this letter,
Peter disowned Jesus three times.
And in that moment, when he was disowning and denying Jesus, he called down curses on himself and he said,
I don't even know this man.
I don't even know who you're talking about.
And in that moment, we're told in the gospel that he broke down and he wept.
And he was utterly downcast in misery and sorrow.
And then shortly thereafter, Jesus died on the cross.
And in that moment, Peter's hopes came to an end.
Peter was stuck in his failure.
Peter was condemned in his guilt and his shame and his fear of what is it going to be like now to stand before the judgment of God.
And so what was it that relieved Peter of his misery?
What came in to Peter's life to give him relief from his great failure and his great condemnation?
Well, it was this, that on Easter Sunday morning, Peter himself went and saw the empty tomb.
And he heard the message from that tomb that he's not here, he's risen.
And Peter later on that day, he went and he saw Jesus that night.
On Easter Sunday night, he heard Jesus and he touched Jesus.
And he ate with the resurrected and living Jesus.
And this happened over the course of those next 40 days until Jesus' ascension into heaven.
In fact, we're told in the gospel of John, this great story at the end of John's gospel, that last chapter, chapter 21,
Jesus asked Peter three times,
Do you love me?
And in that moment, he's restoring Peter for his threefold denials.
And he's saying to Peter, feed my sheep.
Feed my sheep.
So what was it that transformed Peter?
How did hope come alive for Peter?
Well, he had these encounters with the living Lord.
And what was it that happened to Peter then when the Holy Spirit came,
when the Holy Spirit was poured out at Pentecost?
Peter, he gave the first Christian sermon in Jerusalem.
And here's just a little portion of what he said in that sermon to this gathering of Jewish people.
He said,
God raised Jesus Christ from the dead,
freeing him from the agony of death because it was impossible for death to keep its hold on him.
God raised this Jesus to life,
and we are all witnesses of it.
Exalted to the right hand of God,
he, Jesus,
has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit
and has poured out what you now see and hear.
What is Peter saying?
Well, he's saying that if Jesus has been raised to this new sort of bodily life,
this new sort of transphysical life,
then we can have the confidence that this crucified man is actually now the living Lord
and that he now occupies the highest place in the cosmos,
that he's exalted to the throne of God the Father himself
and that he is even now pouring out the Holy Spirit upon his church
as his people are praying for the Holy Spirit.
What Peter's saying is that the resurrected Jesus is alive
and he's active in our lives even now.
He's not just a figure of the past,
he's our living contemporary.
He's the living focus of our lives.
He's the living reality of our worship and our fellowship and our mission.
The historic Jesus is the contemporary Christ,
and he's filling his disciples with this electrifying intensity
of his resurrection power.
Now, that's how Peter preaches to Jewish people,
but what about when he's not with Jewish people?
How does he preach?
What does he say to non-Jewish Greco-Roman pagans?
Virtuous pagans, but pagans.
Well, we're told that when he goes to the Gentile centurion of the Roman army,
his name's Cornelius,
and he goes to his family, his extended family, his whole household,
probably a hundred different people of all his employees
and the folks who are related to him,
and here's what Peter says in that message in Acts chapter 10.
He says,
They killed Jesus by hanging him on a cross,
but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen.
He was not seen by all the people,
but by witnesses whom God had already chosen,
by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify
that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead,
and all the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him
receives forgiveness of sins through his name.
Again, what Peter's saying is that even now,
Jesus is alive and Jesus is active,
and he is the one who's orchestrating the preaching of the gospel.
He's the one who's enabling people to believe.
He's the one who's doling out the forgiveness of sins,
and he is the one, Peter says,
who will judge the living and the dead
as the one whom God has appointed to that awesome task,
and that all people, all the people that have ever lived
and all the people you've ever met
are going to stand before this Jesus
and look at him in the eyes
and given accounting to him as the judge of all the earth.
Christians are people who believe objectively
that Jesus has been bodily raised from the dead,
and we're people who experience subjectively
that Jesus is among us,
giving us his life and his power.
And this is why he says in verse 3,
in his great mercy he has given us new birth
into a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Peter is encouraging these Christian exiles and foreigners
who are experiencing a very hard time.
They're suffering great trials
because they're being faithful to the ways of Jesus
in their culture,
and what Peter is saying to them
is that your hope is not a dead hope.
Your hope is not a lifeless hope.
Your hope is a lively and a living hope.
It's not shadowy.
It's not uncertain.
It's not nebulous or indefinite.
Your hope is as vibrant as Jesus Christ,
the resurrected Jesus,
is full of life and power.
And this, my friends,
is not mere optimism or cheerfulness.
This is not the power of positive thinking
that minimizes our problems
and our difficulties and our trials.
No, what Peter is saying
is that however badly you are treated
because of the way of Jesus,
what's more true than all of that
is that you have a living hope to sustain you,
is that you have a living hope
that can enable you to endure,
that you have a living hope
that enables you to live as more than conquerors,
a living hope in which you share
in the triumph and the victory of Jesus himself.
And again, this does not negate
any of our negative experiences.
This does not mean that we will not continue
to feel all those basic human emotions
of sadness and anxiety and all the rest,
but what Peter is saying is that
there's just a deeper and a wider reality
that we've all come to live in.
That this Jesus, the Lord Jesus,
who was crucified on Friday,
came out of his grave on Sunday.
And Peter says,
that is what is gripping me.
That's what is moving me and thrilling me
and making me cry out,
blessed be the God
and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
blessed because Jesus didn't remain in his grave.
Jesus was brought out from his tomb
and he conquered over death.
And if Jesus is not dead,
Peter implies,
then he went through sin
and he went through death
and he went through hell
back into that eternal realm of glory
from whence he came to us.
He vanquished sin
and he conquered death
and he triumphed over hell
and he's gone victoriously
through all of those things
for us
to the other side
where he rules
and he reigns in glory
as the King of Kings
and the Lord of Lords.
This, Peter says,
is our living hope.
Our living hope is not a thing
that can be dashed
and lead to disappointment.
Our living hope is a person
who is indestructible
and who can deliver, therefore,
on all of his promises.
In most churches,
that's where you say amen.
Amen.
If you're here exploring Christianity
and you have questions
about the resurrection,
as we said on Easter Sunday,
there's a lot of wonderful,
rich resources for you
to examine the evidence of this.
And I'd point today to a book.
Unfortunately, I gave out all my copies
in this Easter season,
but Rebecca McLaughlin
has a great short little book
called Is Easter Unbelievable?
Four Questions Everyone Should Ask
About the Resurrection Story.
And if that's you
and you're exploring that,
I commend that little book to you.
Is Easter Unbelievable?
But if you're a Christian
and Jesus is your living hope,
I guess my question for you is,
what is your plan
to spend time
with your living hope this week?
How will you listen to
what your living hope
has to say to you
through his word?
How are you going to talk to
and respond to your living hope
about all the concerns
of your life this week?
Christianity rejoices
in a living hope.
But Christianity not only rejoices
in this living hope,
Christianity rejoices also
in a new birth.
Christianity rejoices
in a new birth.
What Peter's saying
is that we have a living hope
not only because Jesus lives,
but because by God's great mercy
we also live.
We sang about this
just a little bit ago.
That God has not only given
new life to the resurrected Jesus,
but he's given new life to us.
Again, Peter says,
in his great mercy,
verse three,
in his great mercy
he's given us new birth.
And then down in verse 23
he says,
for you have been born again
not of perishable seed,
but of imperishable
through the living
and enduring word of God.
Some of you might say,
oh dear,
is this one of those churches
where we're going to talk
about being born again?
I thought that was just
for certain types of people
with big time troubles,
not us educated,
put together folks.
I thought that was just
for certain kinds of churches,
certain kinds of Christians
who need sort of an emotional,
cathartic experience,
not for us.
But I think for many Christians
and especially among our friends
and neighbors here in the East Bay,
there's a lot of discomfort with
and even confusion by
this language of the new birth
and being born again.
So I just want to ask the questions,
what is the ancient biblical meaning
of this word?
Anaganeo.
What does that mean?
And why is the New Testament
saturated with this doctrine
that's so central and vital
to the Christian faith?
What does it mean to be begotten again
or born again?
What does it mean to experience
the new birth?
I think the best way
to talk about this
is to go to the Gospel of John,
chapter three.
It's a famous story.
It's a man named Nicodemus.
And he comes to Jesus
as a rabbi in Israel.
He's a member of the Sanhedrin,
which basically means he's a senator.
He's successful.
He's wealthy.
He's a pillar of his community.
He knows the scriptures.
He adheres to the law of God.
He's a paragon of moral excellence
and religious observance.
This is basically as good a person
as you can think of,
as good a person
as you could hope to find.
And he comes and he's humble
before Jesus.
He's open to Jesus.
He wants to learn from Jesus.
And how does Jesus respond
to Nicodemus in John three?
Jesus says,
Very truly I tell you,
no one can see the kingdom of God
unless they're born again
or born from above.
Nicodemus said,
How can someone be born
when they are old?
Surely they cannot enter
a second time
into their mother's womb
to be born.
He's astonished
by what Jesus has just said to him.
And Jesus answered,
He said,
Very truly I tell you,
no one can enter
the kingdom of God
unless they are born
of water and the Spirit.
You should not be surprised
at my saying
you must be born again.
Jesus does not say
to this great man,
You know what you need?
You need to be topped off
a little bit.
What you need is
to be supplemented here
and improved there.
And what we need
is just to kind of
complete you, Nicodemus.
No, he says to Nicodemus,
You've got to start over.
None of the good
that you've done
or none of the good
that you might be able to do
counts at all.
You've got to begin again
as a spiritual baby.
And this is so important
because many people
think that Christianity
is about putting your faith
in Jesus and his death
and his resurrection
so that you can be forgiven
of your sins.
And that's true enough.
But what happens next?
When you're forgiven
of your sins,
what do you do then?
Are you just left
to struggle
and to sweat
and to fight
and to try to live
a good life?
Are you left then
to just kind of
in your own resources
follow Jesus' example
and live according
to the Ten Commandments
and live according
to this high ethical standard
in the Sermon on the Mount?
If you've ever tried
to do that
just on the basis
of being forgiven,
you know that it's impossible.
You cannot do it.
If you try that
in your own power,
you're going to fail miserably
and be utterly hopeless.
Why is that?
Because we need a new life.
We need a new identity.
We need a new outlook
and a new power
if we're going to live
the Christian life.
Jesus does not tell Nicodemus
what you really need
is to be forgiven.
That's true.
But what he says
to Nicodemus is
you need to be regenerated
with a new birth,
a new beginning
so that you can live
an entirely new
and different kind of life.
And this is what
the Apostle Paul is saying
in 2 Corinthians 5, 17.
He says,
therefore if anyone
is in Christ,
you're a new creation.
The old has passed away.
Behold,
the new has come.
Why is it necessary
to be born again
as a new creation?
Why is it necessary
to be born again
into this new life?
Well,
Peter says in verse 23,
for you've been born again
not of perishable seed
but of imperishable
through the living
and enduring
word of God.
What he's saying there
is that in your first birth,
that was from
a perishable seed.
Meaning that the seed
of your parents
had sin and death in it.
It was a corruptible seed.
It was a poison seed
because of the first Adam
and Eve
and all the way down
there was a taint
of evil
and something was off
in it.
And so what is needed
for this new birth,
this second birth,
he says,
is the implanting
of a different kind
of seed.
An imperishable seed.
An incorruptible seed.
And what Peter's saying
is that when God
puts his divine life
in you,
when God puts his abundant
and eternal life
into you,
you become a new person.
A person that's
completely different
than the person
you were before.
You become,
as Peter will say
in his next letter,
you become a partaker
of the divine nature.
And that means
that you have
a new heart
and you have
a new mind,
a new will
and a new conscience.
A new outlook
and a new identity
and a new power,
a new being
because you have
the life of God
in your soul.
Now I want to think
about this for a moment
from a particular
vantage point
and that is to
think for a second
about all the
baby boom
that's been happening
at Christ Church.
It's been somewhat
prolific in this past year.
Here's all our
not yet one-year-olds
in this church
is Isabella,
Robin,
Meredith,
Suri,
Shiru,
Teddy,
Neri,
Samuel,
and Ethan.
And we've even had
like three kids
just recently move away,
three babies,
but we have
replacements coming.
Two more
are on the way
in May and July.
And that's almost
like one baby
per month
that's being cranked
out here at Christ Church.
So we can,
if you pray for anyone,
pray for their mothers
today.
But for each
of these babies,
their birth
was a definite event
in their lives
that is going to have
ongoing consequences
for them.
And it doesn't really
matter when they
were born.
You know,
if they were born
at night
in the winter
or the morning
in the summer.
It doesn't really
matter how they
were born,
natural birth,
C-section.
It doesn't matter
where they were born,
at home
or in the hospital
or in the car
from the home
to the hospital.
What really matters
for each one
of these babies
is that they
were born,
that they have
new life.
And this is the same
in the second birth
or the new birth.
It doesn't matter
how you were born.
Whether it happened
for you fast
or slow.
Whether for you
it was subtle
or quite dramatic.
What happens,
what really matters
is that this new birth
took place
in your life.
And it has ongoing
consequences for you.
And in the same way,
you know,
none of these births
is something
that we,
you know,
go and congratulate
the child,
like,
way to go.
It's not something
that the baby did.
Right?
No one gives
themselves birth.
It happens to you.
And someone did it
for you,
which is why
all of you
should go call
your mom
and tell her
how much you love
her today.
And it's the same
way in the second birth.
In the new birth,
nobody can create
their own life.
Nobody can bring
something out of
nothing but God.
And this is what
James says
in his great letter
in James chapter 1
verse 18.
He says,
God the Father
chose to give us birth.
You didn't choose that.
God the Father
chose to give us birth
through the word
of truth
that we might be
kind of first fruits
of all he created.
So what I'm trying
to tell you today
is that a Christian
is a person
who's been born
not one time
but two times.
And so my question
is,
have you experienced
the new birth?
And if you haven't
experienced it
but you want to,
ask God for his mercy.
In his great mercy,
Peter says,
he has given us
new birth.
Ask him
to mercifully put
his divine life
into your soul
today.
Because your greatest
need is to know
God as your Father
and to know him
as a child of God
so that you can
call on him
and be blessed
by him.
And if you have
received the new birth,
then again,
I want to ask you
what is it going
to look like
this week
to begin your day
saying,
Abba Father.
Abba Father
who gave me birth.
Holy is your name.
Heavenly Father,
thank you for giving me
new birth
and new life
into your kingdom.
I want your
heavenly kingdom
to come into the earth
through me today.
Lord,
Abba Father,
let your life
flow through me today.
Christianity rejoices
in a living hope.
And Christianity
also rejoices
in a new birth.
And finally,
I want to end
by talking about
how Christianity
rejoices in an
eternal inheritance.
Christianity rejoices
in an eternal
inheritance.
What does this new
birth and this
being born again
lead to?
It's just the beginning.
But what does it
lead to?
He says in verse 3,
in his great mercy
he has given us
new birth
into a living hope
through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ
from the dead.
And here it is,
into an inheritance
that can never perish,
spoil, or fade.
This inheritance
is kept in heaven
for you
who through faith
are shielded
by God's power
until the coming
of the salvation
that is ready
to be revealed
in the last time.
What Peter's
talking about here
is not about life
after death
with God in heaven
as great as that
is going to be.
What Peter's
talking about here
is the God
who made the world
as a perfect paradise.
And this God
who's not going
to be satisfied
until all of his creation
has been fully
and beautifully restored.
He's talking about
how the Lord
is going to renew
his whole creation
and he's going to destroy
everything that's evil,
everything that's sinful,
everything that's stained
and ugly
and foul
in that creation.
and instead
he's going to establish
the kingdom of God
fully and finally
and forever
on the earth.
What Peter's describing
is a coming new birth
not just of individual people
but a new birth
of the whole universe.
A new birth
of the universe
that's going to include
the resurrection
of our bodies
where we are going
to be delivered
from all the vestiges
of illness
and of weakness
and of sin
and of shame
and we like Jesus
are going to have
a glorious body.
That's your inheritance.
That's the coming salvation
that's ready
to be revealed
at the last time.
And what Peter's saying
is that this same power
that's going to renew
the whole world
at the end of history
is the same power
that comes into your life now
through faith in Jesus Christ.
Christ.
And how do you know
that that power of God
has come into you?
How do you know
that you have the new birth
and the living hope?
He says ask yourself
this very simple question.
What am I looking forward to
as my inheritance?
What am I looking forward to
as my inheritance?
Am I looking forward
to things that are going
to perish
or spoil
or fade?
Am I looking to things
that are going to be subject
to disappointment
and disorder
and darkness
and depression
and disease
and death?
Peter is telling us
that we need
an inheritance
that's impervious
to all of these
inevitabilities
in this world.
And Peter's saying
I want you to look
for a moment
dear friends
at an inheritance
that you did not earn
and that you cannot lose.
He says
there's a salvation
for you
that's finished
and it's perfect
and it's unchangeable
and it's being kept
by God
for you.
And what he's doing
is he's encouraging
these Christian exiles
these Christian foreigners
living in
quote unquote
Babylon
who are suffering
grief
in all kinds
of difficult trials.
People who literally
have been displaced
from their homes
because of Jesus.
People who have lost
their inheritances
because they're following
the way of Jesus
and what he's telling them
is that this world
and your life
in this world
as important as it is
is not your true home.
It's not your true inheritance.
We are living
and we are waiting
for the new creation
to come.
And what's so great
about your inheritance
Peter says
is that it can never
perish or spoil
or fade.
It's imperishable
meaning that it's free
from death and decay
that would ruin it.
It's undefiled
meaning that it's free
from evil and sin
and impurity
that would spoil it.
It's unfading
meaning that it's free
from the ravages
of time
that would make it faint
and feeble
and ultimately to fail.
You know many people
think that the gospel
is if I just try
to be good
then maybe someday
something good
will happen to me
God will be good
to me and bless me
but friends
the gospel is so much
more sure than that.
The gospel says
that because of Jesus
and what he's done
on my behalf
not only am I accepted
by God now
but there's a salvation
that's being kept
for me in a way
that's utterly safe
and secure
in a way that's
untouched by death
and unstained by evil
and unimpaired
by time
a salvation for me
that is guaranteed
and not only
is our inheritance
and our salvation
kept by God
but Peter says
we ourselves
are being kept
by God
even now
shielded
guarded
by his power
until the day
when we inherit
our great salvation.
so friends
have you been born again
into this living hope
and this great inheritance
this great salvation?
Have you been born again
out of this
lifeless hope
and perishable inheritance
and unreliable salvation
that this world offers to you?
the gospel says
that God
has an inheritance
that's waiting
for me
that I'm going to receive it
from him
and I'm going to be raised up
to see his face
and I'm going to be like him
and I'm going to have
a glorified body
in a renewed earth
and living in a realm
that's incorruptible
and I'm going to reign
with him forever.
Have you been born again
into that inheritance?
Have you experienced
this new birth
into a living hope?
An imperishable inheritance?
A secure salvation
that Jesus has won for you?
And if you say
yes I have
then the right thing
to say today
the right way
to feel today
is praise be
to God
the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ
praise him
for his great
mercy toward us
in the name of the Father
Son and Holy Spirit
Amen.