Resurrection Hope: Our Imperishable Inheritance In Christ (1 Peter 1:3-5)
He is risen!
English Standard Version Chapter 1
3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, 4 to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, 5 who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.
Intro and Context: To “Elect Exiles”
The apostle Peter is writing to “the elect exiles“. Look at that description in verse 1. This description of followers of Jesus is giving us a sense of the tension that exists for us in all of life in the kingdom of God. We are elect. We live in the already received grace of God, chosen and called to glory beyond imagination. But we are exiles. We also live in a fallen and cursed world and body. So, we have not yet fully received the inheritance that is ours. As exiles, or sojourners in this world, this is not our home, so we daily experience suffering in body and soul as we wait. But none of the suffering diminishes God’s love or the position he has given to us by his grace.
Peter is writing this letter of encouragement to suffering Christians, calling them, and us now, to put our faith and hope in Jesus again because what he has provided for us through his life, death, and resurrection is secure and soon to be ours.
Our community needs this word because we’ve been fraught with suffering this year. Even in the short life of our church, we’ve experienced loss. We’ve heard tremendously hard news and seen things not go as expected. Many of us are in a season of waiting as the Lord has not granted us our prayers. Additionally, we’ve just come through another intense time in our city where emotions were high and the weight was heavy. Our nation is in conflict with Iran, and there is extreme political division that feels like fights are ready to erupt at any moment.
So, we need this comfort today.
This Month’s Sermon Series
In fact, we’re going to be taking the month of April to pause on the sermon on the mount and reflect on our resurrection hope that is ours in Jesus Christ. For the next four Sundays, you will hear teachings from first Peter and the second Corinthians with the aim of providing hope and comfort in this particular moment of suffering for our community.
v.3 Even When Suffering, Praise!
I love how this text begins. It begins with praise. “Blessed to be to God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”
Pastor Michael Patterson at All Peoples preached on this text not long ago. I’d encourage you to listen to his sermon some other time. But he highlighted in that sermon that praise is fitting, whether we are suffering or experiencing good in this world. Suffering often clouds our sight of God‘s goodness, and hinders praise. But even for these suffering Christians, even in your suffering now, he is unswervingly good, and always worthy of our praises. Peter wants us all to begin our day and finish our day, no matter the experience of suffering, with praise to our God.
The reason we can praise in suffering
There’s a reason we can praise in the midst of suffering.
The second half of verse three says:
“According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,”
Great Mercy
The reason God is worthy of praise in every season in every situation is because we are recipients of his great mercy! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope. The reason we praise is because of God’s mercy shown to us in Jesus Christ. God’s mercy, which is undeserved favor or blessing, caused us to be born again to a living hope. While we were sinners, God sent his son to us, a condemned people under his just wrath. God planned that his only Son would die in our place on the cross for our sins and to rise again from the dead so that we could be set free from our sins and the just death coming from them. This is great mercy!
He has caused us to be born again
He has caused us to be born again. This shows God‘s activity in our salvation. I want you to know, brother and sister, that you and I are not here because we loved God first, but rather because he first loved us. Our being born again was an act of God. While we were dead in our transgressions, Christ made us alive. Something merciful happened to you and me when we heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, and our dead hearts came to life with a cry of need and help. A dead man, who didn’t want God, but wanted sin, saw the beauty of Christ by the mercy of God and cried, “save me, Jesus, my savior, my master, my Lord.” You and I were born again, made new by the merciful act of our God.
Paul gives God praise in a similar way in Ephesians chapter 1 when he writes “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1:3-4 ESV
Christian, you were chosen in Christ by the Father before the foundation of the world to experience this mercy, this life in Jesus Christ. I love how God’s love for us even before we existed in this world was completely tied up in his Son Jesus. His love for his Son was flowing with focus to you and I.
All of God’s mercy, heavenly blessing, new birth, Paul says, is given in Christ, through our union to Jesus. Being in Christ, means that we become a new creation. Being in Christ means that all of his work for on earth is for you and me from justification, to sanctification, and all the way to resurrection and glorification.
Look back at verse 3. Peter adds, that our being born comes through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead
What I see here is an inseparable connection between our new birth and all the blessing that comes along with that and the person of Jesus Christ.
Because Jesus rose, we rise to life with him. First spiritually, we come to life. Later, physically we come to life.
Peter is borrowing Jesus’s teaching. Listen to John 5.
English Standard Version Chapter 5
24 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. 25 “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live….28 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice 29 and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.
If Jesus Christ had not gone to the Cross as a substitutionary atonement for sin and carried the wrath of God for every sin we committed, there would be no mercy for you and me, but only death. We would be raised only for judgment and eternal punishment in hell. And If Jesus had not risen from the dead, there would be no new birth to a living hope for you and me. Our life, both spiritually now, and physically later, is fully connected to Jesus.
To A Living Hope
We were born again to a living hope. Hope is something we believe to have but have not yet received. We have confidence that when someone says they will give you something, that even if you don’t have it yet, you have confidence that it will be yours because you are confident in that person.
But why does Peter call this hope a living hope? Why is it living? I believe that it is living because we’re talking about the living Savior on whom hangs all of this hope. Jesus Christ is the foundation of our hope, and because he has risen from the dead and ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of God, our hope is now secure in him.
In Ephesians chapter 2:6, Paul says that God “raised us up with [Christ] and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
I have always marveled at this idea that Paul can say that we are seated with him right now in the heavenly places. Not only has God come down and the Holy Spirit has come to make his dwelling with us, thus marking us as the temple of the Holy Spirit, but in the same manner, our union with Jesus actually plants us in a spiritual way on the throne with Jesus right now as we speak. If you have Christ in your heart by the Holy Spirit, then rejoice at this fact that you are also seated with Christ on his throne in the heavenly places.
We should be shouting praises to God like Peter. Are you beginning to see why your hope is alive. Because it is alive in the living Jesus! And it is alive in you now because you are one with him.
To An Inheritance
Inheritance is familial language. Inheritance belongs to children, the heirs of a family. And Peter says, we are born again to an inheritance.
Our union with Christ through faith provides for us a place in God’s family. Because Jesus is the unique Son of God, united to his Father for eternity, when you are joined to him through faith, you are adopted into God’s family forever.
What does it mean to be in God’s family? It means that the one who owns everything, gives you everything in Christ. It means that you get showered with every spiritual blessing imaginable and every physical blessing when he comes again. You get an inheritance beyond our imagination that is kept in heaven for us now in Christ.
What is entailed in our inheritance?
I believe our inheritance consists of many things, but I’ll list four that come to mind.
Remember Jesus words in the sermon on the mount.
Blessed are the poor and spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Our inheritance entails the inheritance of a kingdom. Peter says in chapter 2 that you are a royal priesthood. Royal or kingly priests. That makes you heirs of God and his kingdom. This entails ownership, dominion, a role as priests in the Earth as representative sons of God. Remember that this is a restored gift because Adam was given this from the beginning in the garden.
If you feel insignificant and purposeless, cling to this hope. You are a royal priesthood!
2. Blessed or the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth. Heaven will meet earth when Jesus comes again and he will give you the reward of the whole earth.
If you feel like you own nothing or that you can’t figure out how to move forward in life, hold on to this hope that everything will be given to you in the new heavens and earth.
3. Jesus said, blessed are you who mourn, for they shall be comforted. Part of this comfort will be that he will wipe away every tear. Their will be no more loss. No more crying. No more pain. Your body will be resurrected immortal and their will be no more death. Even as our Lord, who is now seated in a spiritual place with a physical body, cannot die or suffer physical pain any longer, you will no longer suffer; he will wipe every tear from our eyes.
4. Lastly, Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Most importantly, our inheritance is the Lord Jesus himself. It is our union and fellowship with our God. And they will be with him and see him face-to-face, and he will wipe every tear from their eyes, and they will be his people, and he will be their God forever and ever.
English Standard Version Chapter 21
Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. Revelation 21:3
English Standard Version Chapter 22
3 No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever. Revelation 22:3-5
This is our inheritance. We do not yet have it in fullness, and thus it is our hope as we wait in anticipation, and yet it is truly yours.
Imperishable
Verse 4 says , imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,
This inheritance is kept in heaven for you right now. Jesus said, “ I am going to prepare a place for you.” If it were not true, would I have told you? In my house are many rooms. Do you know that he has a place reserved for you? Do you know that he has a reward reserved for you? And nothing can take that away from you!
English Standard Version Chapter 10
28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. 30 I and the Father are one.”
Do you know that your name is written in the palm of his hands? Your name is written in the Lamb’s book of life so that this inheritance is as much yours in this moment as any inheritance that’s named in any earthly well.
As sure as Jesus is alive, you have this inheritance kept in heaven for you by him.
It is imperishable because Christ himself is immortal and imperishable. It is undefiled because Jesus has overcome the fall and all of the curse that goes along with it. Nothing can corrupt what Jesus keeps for you. Nothing can make it unclean or unholy or tarnished. Because it is Jesus, our living hope, and whom we have our inheritance. It is because we are one with Christ that this inheritance is imperishable, unfading, undefiled. Kept in heaven for you.
I want us to marvel at this gift of mercy given to you and me by your father through the work of Jesus, our Lord.
If Christ wasn’t raised from the dead, we would have no hope but would be the most pitied of humans on earth because we deny ourselves and our pleasure in this world and hope of this future inheritance. But Christ did raise just as he said he would three days later. He’s not dead in a tomb any longer, but is on his throne of glory, awaiting the revealing of the sons of God.
Let’s look at verse five, which says: “who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.”
Peter wants us to know that it was God’s power and mercy that caused us to be born again, and it is God’s that keeps us to the end. If you feel right now that something is keeping you from God, keeping you from these promises, keeping you from hope, there is one greater who is at work in you. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is alive and working in you to guard you until the end when you receive this inheritance.
Now there is an important prepositional phrase in this verse that we should not skip over. That is, it is through faith that God is guarding you. I’m going to spend an entire sermon on this next week showing the connection between our faith and our future glory, but for now, I want to say that your faith is the only means necessary for the reception of every good gift we’ve talked about today. Your faith in the one, Jesus Christ. Faith or belief in Jesus, that is a belief that hangs on for dear life that banks every bit of our future on him is a faith that gives birth to hope. Our faith in Jesus Christ, who is raised from the dead and seated at his right hand, gives birth to a living hope in us. When you and I believed in Jesus, something happened, where all of God‘s promises were laid out before us in the person of Jesus Christ, and it is hope because we do not now see him, but we will see him with our own eyes, and until then, we hope because he is risen and alive and well, and if he is there seated on his throne, and we are seated with him united in him in separately through our faith, then we have a shore and living hope in this coming inheritance.
Brothers and sisters, I wanted us to reflect and meditate on this sure and imperishable inheritance. We have it in Christ because of the suffering that we are enduring right now. When we suffer, we need to set our gaze on our living. Hope in Jesus Christ, the Lord. He is already accomplished for us this inheritance. All we have to do is hang onto it by faith right now in the midst of your suffering, whether physical, emotional, or spiritual. Your job is to hold fast in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. And know this: you are not alone. You are not alone because Jesus is at work and you are by the Holy Spirit to keep you and hold you firm to the end. There is a salvation coming for you. There is a body and a possession of the nations and a communion face-to-face with our God coming for you. A purpose that you feel you may not have right now is coming for you and promised to you and held for you in the person of Jesus Christ.
You have been joined to the Lord Jesus through your faith in an inseparable union so that it can be said that you were right now seated in the heavenly places with Christ, and your inheritance is sure, sealed, and secure.