1 Peter - 2022

Please take a seat. And if you have a Bible, please open it up to 1 Peter chapter 1. The words will be up on the screen if you haven't got a bible. But if you have 1, please please open it up.

And we're going to be reading from chapter 1 versus 1 to 12. Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ to God's elect exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontas, Galatia, Capadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God, the Father, through the sanctifying work 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. In all this, you greatly rejoice. Though now for a little while, you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire, may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him And even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy for you're receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace of that was to come to you, searched intently And with the greatest care trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told to you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things. Morning to you. Let me encourage you about the media fast and the the wonderful hog roast or the vegetarian option to that because it really really is you you might be thinking, oh, you know, should I do it?

Do it. Do it. And we don't just meet, you know, not just sort of 1 evening. It's every evening. We meet together, eat together just for an hour and a half, read the scripture, pray.

And it's it's an amazing way if you're if you're new to the church to get to know lots of people because we do it in various areas and different times, but it's also just brilliant for for getting to know people, but also just just a brilliant thing to have a relief from the world's input all the time. Having a bit of relief there. Follow help us now as we look at this an amazing few verses in this letter to 1 Peter. Thank you that over the years, this has blessed people, brought people to you, challenged, changed people. What an amazing book this is, please, by your spirit now, speak to our hearts and our minds in Jesus' name.

The ancient Italian poet Dante has these words in his famous poem inferno over over over the gates of hell. Abandon all hope, ye who enter in. It's his most famous line. I mean, it's strange to have you that is your most famous line, but it's his most famous line. Abandon all hope, ye who enter in to enter into hell, he's saying in his poem, is a place of absolutely no hope.

In fact, he has a a little bit more detail over the gates of hell. This is how it goes. Through me you pass into the city of Woe through me you pass into eternal pain, through me among the people lost forever. Abandon all hope, ye who enter in. The French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre.

He wrote a play about hell called no exit. And 1 of the descriptions of hell is really interesting. He said, hell is you are your life. Nothing else. You are your life nothing else.

Now at first, that might sound, you know, pretty good, but it actually isn't because there's no hope. There's no hope for growth, there's no hope for change, There's no hope for you becoming a better person. There's no hope for repentance of what you've done in your life. You are your life and you're nothing else and you stay the same and you never change and there's no hope of changing. The English we're going all around the world here.

We've had an Italian. We've had a French philosopher. The English writer Jonathan Swift He wrote gulliver's travels and 1 of the places it's a fictional travel journal and 1 of the places that gulliver travel to is a place called lugnag, which is just an interesting land. And there's a in that land, there are people that are immortal. They don't die.

They're called the Strewerl brogue people. The Strewerl brogueer, probably pronouncing it wrong. They don't die they continue to live forever but they're constantly aging. They get to the age of 80 and that's their life over with. And they carry on just losing their sight, losing their hearing, losing their mental faculties.

They're basically dead men walking. They've had their life, and they have nothing else. They're spending what they had. They have nothing else and there is no hope for anything else. Victor Franco, the Austrian born Jewish philosopher and psychiatrist and survivor of the holocaust and survivor of a concentration camp wrote about prisoners in the concentration camp that gave up hope.

Listen to listen to him. The prisoner who had lost faith in the future, that's to give up hope, His future was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold He let himself decline and become subject to mental and physical decay. Usually, this happened quite suddenly in the form of crisis, the symptoms of which were familiar to the experience camp inmate. Usually, it began with the prisoner refusing 1 morning to get dressed and washed and go on parade grounds.

No entreaties no amount of blows, no threats, had any effect. He just lay there hardly moving. In this crisis if this crisis was brought on by illness, he refused to go to the sick bay or do anything to help himself. He simply gave up There he remained lying in his own excretor and nothing bothered him anymore. Abandoned hope.

No hope. No hope for the future. He lies in his own excretor. The dictionary definition defines hope like this, a desire accompanied with expectations or belief in fulfillment. Or to desire with expectations of attainment or to expect with confidence.

Now I think it's obvious what I'm trying to say here in all of those quotes is that expectation is utterly important in life and in your life. Hope isn't sort of merely a nice little option to jump some hurdles in life. It is absolutely, according to Victor Frankl, essential for survival. Without hope is hell. Without hope you're a shurabhug.

So it's vital that we have hope. Hope is so necessary and everybody says this nowadays. Simply because of the whole COVID thing, people are talking about mental illness and all of that sort of stuff, and they're they're showing that people often have not not any hope and so they give up hope and and it's causing all kinds of problems. It really is essential for our well-being. Because it it looks to the future.

It gives us reason for living. It it it gives us purpose for our actions and our and our choices and it adds focus and commitment to our lives and to other people. How often are the words hopeless written in a suicide note? How often? Hopeless.

Take away hope and our world is reduced to something between depression and despair. To abandon hope is hell. So what do we do? We fill our lives up with little hopes. We have multiple songs trying to encourage young people to dream a dream.

We we wanna have hope because we know it keeps us going. Believe It'll get better. Dream your dream, and we have lots of little hopes, desires, accompanied by expectations. And because they're quite small, if they fail, well at least they've stayed off hell because when you have hope you're not in hell. So these little hopes although they often fail us at least they're doing something in life and staying off hell, And so therefore if they fail us we move on to more hopes and the re replaced them and we become like the gamblers that are always hoping for a win.

And they might have little wins along the way. Which is encouraging them to put more and more money on whatever it is they gambling on. Over the years, if you look at the average life of someone in this country, those hopes and dreams and desires, they They come and go, some are fulfilled, but none of them fully fill us. They're too small for that, but we replace them with other dreams. They change over the years.

Hopes about getting a girlfriend or passing exams or getting that job or a pay rise or houses or relationships They turn over the years into hopes about my health and hopefully there's a cure. And my recovery and a better retirement home. People, what I'm saying is need hope. We want hope We want a good future. We desire a good future.

And many of us have great optimism that we'll actually make it through alright. Even so history says, we won't. You've only got to look at the past of human of human beings and all of their hopes end in death. Why do we why do we think that down the track for us it's gonna be better? When death is looming up.

Why do we think when you go into a retirement home that we won't be there with the sicknesses and traumas and Fading memories and fading potentials. Why do why do we hope that it will be better for us because it won't history tells us that it won't. And yet we need hope As humans, we need hope to survive, but we're so let down by our hopes. And death is the killer, isn't it? Abandon all hope.

Ye who enters here. Now, that's depressing, isn't it? Should we sing and go home? Open the bible and something different happens. This is why this book is so amazing.

Open the bible and there's birth given to a real substantive certain hope You see, I may say this and this is true. I hope to go on holiday to France in the summer. Anybody else hoping for that? I hope to go on holiday to France in the summer, but implicit in that statement is a question mark. I hope to go on holiday to France in the summer, well, COVID restrictions might come back in.

Illness might hit me. Financial problems. They may scupper my hopes. The hopes that I have for the future are always really built on uncertainty. They're largely wishful thinking.

They're largely dreaming dreams. They always have a question mark on them. But in the bible, there is a hope that is altogether different There is a hope without the question mark attached to it. There is a certain sure hope that the bible talks about. Open the bible and suddenly there's something called a living hope.

And that is what we see. In 1 Peter. Let me show you the source of this living hope to show you how firm the foundation of this hope is. And this is my first point the the source of the hope. Look at verse 3 of chapter 1.

Praise me 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. The source of this living hope. Look look at Peter. I mean, I don't know whether you really we can read these words and just sort of skip over them too quickly.

I mean, praise be to the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. I mean, he he's he's not standing at the gate of hell with all hope hope sort of sucked out of his miserable soul. Is he? He's he's alive. This writer is alive with praise.

He's overflowing with thankfulness. Now remember, this letter as we saw last week is talking to people that are suffering and in pain like he is. And yet, there's this word. Praise. It's the same word as blessed, you might translate it that.

Blessed. It's a word that's only ever used of God and Jesus in the bible. Bless, praise. There is 1 to bless because he gives us so much blessing. There is something to really go on about that's bigger than ourselves.

I'm not at the gates of hell with hopes sucked out. I am looking above and praising, praising, glory and honor and blessing and power be under his name. That's the word. Praise. There's something within me that is pouring out with gladness.

And of course if you read the book of Revelation, you'll know that that's an eternal song that we'll be singing. We can go on forever about this 1. It's so glorious. There's no hope sucked out here. There is so much living hope that it's praise and glory and honor and power.

Be unto him. This isn't a man who's barely holding on to life. He's not a Strewlbrooke. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Father of the 1 who has come to seek and to save us, the father of the 1 who who who's the father of the plan to bring us life.

This is not a than God. This is not an unknown God. This is not an uncaring God. This is the father sending his beloved son to bring us a living, sure certain. Hope.

Hope without a question mark on it. Just look at what the Father God does through Jesus Christ our lord. Look look at verse 3 again. Praise me 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 in his great mercy.

He has given us a living hope. This is the source of hope. That that word mercy is compassion, pity. Look, here is a God and he's utterly mindful of you and your situation. He sees our hopeless situation and he doesn't walk past.

He doesn't turn aside. He doesn't turn a blind eye. He doesn't say it's your fault you're in a hopeless situation. He doesn't say well, you turn from me, you made your bed, you lie in it. He doesn't say you know, you got yourself into this mess, you get yourself out of it.

He doesn't say you would go to hell. It has great mercy. This is a God of great mercy upon you. I mean Peter's already said in his opening greeting. I mean, these are the amazing words.

He says he says grace and peace be yours in abundance. So we've got this grace and peace in abundance and then this great mercy. This is a wow moment. This is Peter going, Praise, be to the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. Get the song going, lads.

Blessing and honor glory and basket it going for all eternity because praise be to this 1. In his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, a hope a living hope, a hope that is alive, a hope that is in the purposes and plans of immerscival kind God. He has given it to us. It's not something we achieve. It's not something some kind of moralism.

It's not like if we live up to this standard then God might give it to us because that is hopeless. We'll never live up to his standard. It's nothing to do with us. It's mercy given given to us. This living hope comes from God.

There is a amazing graphic illustration in in Ezekiel an old testament book about this. It is actually fantastic. Chapter 16 of Ezekiel. You've got a picture of a child that's just been aborted and left. It's a hopeless child.

Let me read the words. It's very graphic. On the day you were born, your cord was not cut. You were not washed with water to make you clean nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in clothes, no 1 looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you, no 1. Rather you were thrown out into the open field For on the day you were born you were despised.

See the hopelessness of that little baby? Minutes left. Hours at the most. But listen. Then I passed by.

I saw you kicking about in your blood. And as you lay there in your blood, I said, live. Live. It's an illustration. It's a picture of God's great mercy to people in a hopeless situation.

This graphic, It's powerful. It's there in the scripture. In his great mercy, he has given us new birth. I said live. Into a living hope.

I said live through the resurrection. Of Jesus Christ from the dead. This living hope is grounded on the concrete history of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. That's not some vague speculation. Look into it.

If you're someone that's not a believer, then look into the resurrection of Jesus. Look into it. And you'll find that this is a historical event. It happened. It's not some vague speculation from religious people or some philosopher.

It's not something that it would be nice if. It's not 1 of those sentimental comments that people make at funerals because they don't know what to say. Our hope is pinned on the physical, his historical resurrection of Jesus from the dead. If you want to prove Christianity wrong says Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 in the bible, then prove the resurrection didn't happen because our hope is then hopeless if it didn't happen. In fact there's no hope in the world.

If someone hasn't broken through death on that first Easter morning. He broke through death. He rose again. So that death can no longer hold its victims into hopeless eternity. He's the 1 that bust through the grave, bust through hell.

Death has lost its sting says the Bible. Gloriously. It's not wishful thinking because Jesus has paved the way for us and those of us who put our hand in the hand of Jesus who led the way over the river through death, through the grave, then he will bring us into this new world There's all together glorious as we'll see in just a moment. This is a living hope established on a past historical event and a living hope for the future. Look at first 3 praise me 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 from the dead. The Christians whole future. Is on the resurrection of Jesus busting through the grave, saving us from a cursed world. So that we can face death and not abandon all ye who enter here, but actually come into the new world. Just just move on at the risk of nicking this from whoever's gonna preach these verses.

Look at chapter 1 verse 23. Chapter 1 of 1 Peter. Just look on a bit. Here's Peter still banging on about this point. We're gonna we're gonna go over these verses again next week as well because there's so much in it.

For you have been born again, there's the new life You've been born again not of perishable seed, but of imperishable. So you're born in this world, This seed is gonna perish. We're all gonna die. But you've been born again, not of perishable seed but imperishable through the living and enduring word of God. That's where you are if you're a Christian.

But then he just reminds us, he goes back to this hopeless situation. That we've been rescued from. He goes back to the child on, you know, kicking in its own blood. Look, all people are like grass. And all their glory is like the flowers of the field.

All all the glory, all the money, the houses, the good looks, all their glory is like flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall. There's no hope. If that's just what you are. I mean listen to a quote.

This is a quote from a gravestone at the same time that Peter was writing this letter. Yeah? From the same area from from Peter was writing this letter. This is from a gravestone. Says this.

The sun will rise and set, but it is eternal darkness for me. The grass withers and the flowers fall. Go back a couple of hundred years from when Peter wrote this letter and go back to the philosopher Aristotle. This is what he said. Death is the most terrifying thing for it is the end.

Wizz forward from Peter to the twentieth century. To 1 of the great philosophers that we have a lot of time for today, although most people wouldn't know that. The the humanist Bert from Russell. This is what Bertram Russell said in face of death. He says, there is darkness without and when I die, there is darkness within.

There is no splendor, no vastness anywhere, only triviality for a moment and then nothing. The grass withers and the flowers fade. But look, you're looking at verse 23. Let me read it again. For you have been born again not of perishable seed but of imperishable through the living and enduring word of God.

For all manner like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field, the fields wither, and the flowers fall. What's the next word? But, the butts of the bible. This is 1 of the great butts of the bible. Yeah?

Can you say it? It's pathetic. The grass withers, the flowers fall But but the word of the Lord in Jews forever, and this is the word that was preached to you. Praise God, Peter saying in verse 3. Praise God for this hope.

Praise God that God has established this hope. The source of the hope is God. The source of the hope is his mercy. He's established that hope through the resurrect from the dead of the Lord Jesus Christ. Without Christ, humans have no hope.

Who are you going to put your hope in when you face death? Just the next nurse that's gonna come along and might revitalize you for a bit longer, the next pill, another few drugs. Someone who's gonna have a defibrillator to put over your heart to try to bring you back. Or Jesus who died and rose again. There's a hymn, I should have had it.

We have a hope that is steadfast and certain, gone through the curtain and touching the throne. It's wonderful words because it's steadfast and certain the hope and it's already gone through and the whole image there and I have no time to go into it. Is gone into the presence of God and touching the throne of God. We have a hope that is steadfast and certain that has gone right to presence of the living God and that's Jesus. So do you see the source of this living hope.

It's not you. It's not you trying to build yourself up. It's not you trying to dream a dream. It's not you having lots of little hopes that have, you know, this what we have in our life, but there's this massive, living hope that will settle you as I'll show you in a minute. Here's my second point.

The object of the living hope, a certain future for you. We've got a living hope, but the object is a certain future. Look at verse 4, and into an inheritance that can never Perish, spoil, or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith that's shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is already to be received in the last time. So what we've done here is we've moved from the hope that we have, the foundation of the hope is God and Christ, to the object.

And you see 3 things here. An inheritance, first 4, we have an inheritance. Now, if you were an old testament scholar or a reader of the Old Testament or in Peter's Day a Jew, you know the inheritance is talking about a physical land. It's a physical land. So it was the promised land in the Old Testament.

Now this is This is a physical land, but better than the old testament because it's in heaven. So it's something physical, tangible, real. That's the inheritance. You're going to a physical place, but it's in heaven. That's the first part.

Then there's a coming salvation. Did you see it there in verse 5, a coming salvation. And then if you move on to verse 7 and 8, There's the seeing of the 1 that you love. This is the hope and it's also tied up into 1 thing. And Peter sort of separated it out, but it's it's all bundled up, and I'll show you next week.

It's a bit like a cake with different layers. It's 1 cake, but it's It's, you know, when you buy into it, you have your cream and you I'm using my illustration for next week. But, you know, and you jam and you have sponge, you buy into it, and you know they're all I mean, they all mingles together and that's what you've got here. You've got this inheritance of coming salvation, the seeing of the 1 you love. This living hope through faith, through trusting in Christ.

It looks through death and what does this living hope see? Beyond death, beyond suffering, beyond all of the pains of this world. It sees an inheritance, a land of physical place in heaven. And then what does it see? It sees salvation.

What's that? Rescue from this world. Rescue from this cursed world, rescue from suffering, rescue from decay, rescue from hopelessness, rescued from missed potentials, rescued from selfishness, rescued from sin, rescued from lies, rescued from violence, rescued from satan. We have an inheritance. We have a salvation.

From this world that at its best is cursed. Everything fails in this world. Death rules in this world. We have an inheritance and we have a salvation, but then we have a face to face with the 1 we love. Look at verse 7, second half of verse 7, to 9.

He says it may result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. He's still banging on about those words. Though you have not seen him, that's Jesus, you love him. Do you love Jesus? You haven't seen him?

And even though you do not see him now, you believe in him, and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. I mean, Seeing Jesus face to face in other parts of the bible is like a great wedding supper. It's like the party of the universe. That that you're unashamed to go to and you've you know, in fact you're ashamed if you don't go to. It's not illegal to go to this.

Jesus has opened away for you. It's a wonderful, glorious thing and it's all wrapped up in us. Seeing Jesus revealed. This is our hope. Now I hope you got it.

There's a lot of stuff here I know. This brothers and sisters, if you're a Christian, this is a there's a day of salvation rescued from all of the pain and persecution and trouble and suffering and confusion and all of the stuff of this world rescued from it, receiving an inheritance real place, seeing our lord. Face to face. And this is a certain, secure hope. Look at verse 4.

Look at all the words he uses. And into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. This inheritance is kept for you. It can never perish. No 1 can destroy it, It doesn't run out.

It doesn't grow old. It doesn't shrivel. Never spoils. It never goes off, never degenerates, never goes moldy, isn't polluted, never fades. Doesn't lose its color.

It's not like flowers of this world that are here and fade. This doesn't fade. This flower blooms and blooms and blooms. It's kept in heaven for you. God is keeping this inheritance, this salvation, this revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When you see him face to face, This is a wow, this is a praise moment, this is the glory, and honor, and praise, be unto you, moment. It's all kept for you and not only is it kept for you, you are kept for it. Look at verse 5. Who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last times. So it's shielded, garrisoned.

Goded. God perseveres and preserves his inheritance. Through our faith, by preserving our faith. Nothing is left to chance in other words. This isn't a vague hope.

Nothing is left to chance. Faith or trust that's all faith means and hope go together. If you have no trust in what I've just said, you'll have very little hope You'll have to screw in lots of things in your life to stop you thinking about your death. If you lack hope, it's probably because you have very little trust in what we've just seen. So it's important, and we'll come on to this more next week.

It's important for God to strengthen your faith to prove it genuine, to grow your faith. Then you'll have hope. Look at verse 6 and 7. Hopefully, you see what I mean. In all this, you greatly rejoice.

Though now for a little while, you may have to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. You're gonna suffer in this world. You can rejoice in this hope You can even rejoice in the suffering. Now look look what he says. Verse 7, why has this come?

These have come what the sufferings and trials in your life have come so that the the proven genuineness of your faith of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire. Your faith, your trust in the fact that God has given you mercy, and Jesus on the resurrection has risen from the dead and secured this hope. Your faith in that is so important. You're trusting that. To get you through this life is so important.

That God's going to refine it like you do gold and get out all the impurities. Like you heat up gold to get the impurities out. He's going to send trials, give you trials. Because God is garrisoning and shielding your faith by making it pure. God is at work guarding you through the testing and trials.

God is at work guarding your faith, by refining your face. It's like going to the gym. If you wanna if you wanna get muscles, you have to go through the pain. You have to stretch. You have to go through the comfort zone.

If you want to get fit, you have to run and you keep running and you go through the wall and pain. That's what it is. So God is so protecting you. He's giving you trials to make your faith genuine and strong so that you see the future is certain. And the future is certain.

And your trials are testing to see whether you are genuine. And to make you look away from this world and the hopes of this world to the hope of eternity. If you have a bible, turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verses 16 to 18. Well, I haven't put it up. It's better for us to turn in the bible than just allow things to go up on screens, to be quite honest with you.

We get lazy. And we need to look at the scripture ourselves. So 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 16. Listen to Paul. Therefore, we do not lose heart.

Though outwardly, we are wasting away Yet inwardly, we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles, and if you know what Paul went through, that's extraordinary, you would say that. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us and he eternal glory that far outweighs them all. All of the troubles are outweighed by the glory to come. That's the hope.

Yeah? So we fix our eyes on what or not what is seen, that's this world. But on what is unseen. Since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. Do you see what Peter is saying?

I hope you're with me. God so wants you to see the unseen that he's prepared to test your faith, send trials. Difficulties, temptations. So let me finish. What are your hopes?

Are they so so sort of insubstantial that they keep you going, they keep Hell at bay, they just keep you going, but you're pretending because you've never faced the last hurdle, which is death. That's never been sorted. So we fill up our lives with the next thing until we get into retirement home and I hope the nurse comes now. Or have we faced that last 1? What are your hopes?

Are they just fading flowers of this world? You see, the trouble is, We need and we thrive on hope. And if it's only little fading flower hopes, here 1 minute and gone the next. You'll never feel secure. You're never standing on a rock.

You're always looking for more. You're never satisfied. You're never really filled. Life is always slightly a worry. It's a bit like swimming in the ocean and then someone turns on the jaws music.

There's suddenly there underneath, and there's anxiety and worry and it comes out. How has COVID tested your faith? Because it has, isn't it? All around the country, pastors are talking about their congregations and how it's tested some. Then we come back together and you just see what lands and you're surprised.

Some people's face has not been genuine. Just it wasn't genuine. Don't know what it was, but it wasn't genuine. They've gone. And others' faith was very small and they're still just completely anxious in this world.

Now I know anxiety and those things come through lots of reasons and there are lots of reasons, but this is at least 1 of the big ones How's COVID tested your faith? You're still going for the resurrection of Jesus? Still loving him? Is there praise in your life? We come back to joy and the lack of joy next week.

It's all there. When we know this stuff, Peter is saying, there will be pressures and difficulties in life and he doesn't belittle them, but there is a joy There's joy and praise. There is absolutely rigorous Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ. That's not some little standard phrase that Christians come out with. That's like a bubbling over.

Is that in your life? And maybe it isn't in your life because There's little trust, little faith, little looking at our inheritance. Anxiety comes through trying to source our own hope. We just can't do it. Only little ones.

Trying to be our own savior. We're not. We die. All the disappointments in life hit us More than they should. This is a temporary life.

But he's saying, when you understand that verse. I mean, just look at it. It's extraordinary. Praise be, he says. 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 the dead, an inheritance that never spoils or perishes fails. Brothers and sisters, is there joy in your heart? Do you see the the difference between the world and this hope? Do you see that?

Do you? Let's pray that we do. Because it will give us meaning and make us survive. Father, thank you for speaking to us through your words. Thank you that you offer us such a radically different future and hope to what this the rest of the world can offer.

Thank you that in the Lord Jesus Christ, we have a living hope, because he has gone through death himself And if we are in him, then we too will go through death and be raised to new life. That will never spoil perish or fade. Father, would you set our eyes on that? Though we can't see it with our earthly eyes, give us spiritualize that we might look up and see the certainty of the hope that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for what we've heard today.

Conict us, please, where we are putting our hope in small, fleeting things. That will only disappoint us, reveal the the shakiness of them to us. We thank you in in a sense that COVID has has revealed the shakiness of many things that we were putting our hope in. Instead, help us to look to Christ who is the firm, solid foundation. The only 1 upon which we can stand with any hope at all.

And father, praise be to you for the hope that we have. Though we were just a child on the floor covered in our own blood, undeserving of anything It was right that we would be despised. You looked at us, and you loved us, and you said to us live. What an amazing thing, father. Praise be to you.

Would you stir up praise in our hearts for you? We pray. And we pray that this word would work in us. Those who are suffering among us now, would we have heard what you just said to us? But even our sufferings, you are using, you are dignifying, you are redeeming to to to prove a genuine faith within us.

And as we see that faith in us, our hope is made more certain. And we fix our eyes more certainly on the Lord Jesus. So thank you father for all these things. Help us to remember them to work them into our lives. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.