“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, 4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, 5 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. ”
I imagine that you are here, in part, to commemorate history. Hundreds of years ago in Palestine, Jesus of Nazareth was executed and three days later he came back from the dead. Now, the Romans were quite capable of killing people. Anyone who imagines that Jesus merely resuscitated in that tomb doesn’t understand Roman efficiency. Jesus was, without doubt, dead. Three days later he was, without a doubt, alive again.
Now resurrection was as surprising in that day as it would be today. Don’t think that the ancients were gullible people who believed Jesus rose from the dead because they thought that sort of thing happened every day. They didn’t think it could happen, which is why they were shocked when it did happen.
The explosive spread of Christianity didn’t occur because people were gullible. The explosive spread of Christianity occurred, in part, because the event this day commemorates occurred. Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected from the dead. That was as revolutionary then as it is today.
But I imagine that you aren’t here merely to commemorate this event. I imagine that you are here because you believe this historical event has something to do with you.
We rarely commemorate days in a meaningful way unless we believe they have something to do with us. Widows of men who died in war commemorate Memorial Day in a very pointed way because it has to do with them. We should all seek to understand the importance of Memorial Day because as citizens it has to do with all of us. We all benefited from their sacrifice.
People who were actively involved in the civil rights movement or who know the benefit of that movement rightly commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The less you recognize how Dr. King’s work benefited this whole country, the less that day will mean to you; the more you recognize how Dr. King’s work benefited this country, the more that day will mean to you.
The more you know what Jesus’ resurrection has to do with you, the more this day will mean to you. In our Scripture this morning Peter tells you what Jesus’ resurrection means for his disciples.
The resurrection of Jesus centuries ago offers new birth and life after death to disciples today. That is the claim of this sermon: The resurrection of Jesus centuries ago offers new birth and life after death to disciples today.
We will see this in four points. First: praise the Father for new birth. Second: praise the Father for resurrection hope. Third: praise the Father for resurrection inheritance. Fourth: praise the Father for faith until the final resurrection. In the first part of verse 3, we will focus on new birth. In the second part of verse 3, we will focus on resurrection hope; in verse 4, we will focus on resurrection inheritance; in verse 5, we will focus on the way in which God sustains faith until the final resurrection.
First: praise the Father for new birth. Peter begins his explanation of the resurrection with passion – passion grown out of truth. You don’t generate passion for any commemoration by just telling people they should be excited about it. You don’t generate passion for Memorial Day by just telling people they should be excited about Memorial Day. You generate passion for Memorial Day by telling people what veterans have done for them. You tell them about the blood that was shed to keep their freedoms. You tell them that blood will most likely still need to be shed to secure these freedoms.
Peter doesn’t whip up passion by telling people to get excited about the resurrection. He tells them the truth about the resurrection and he tells them what that truth has to do with them. He tells them about new birth. He tells them about the hope they can have. He tells them about the inheritance that can be theirs. He tells them about the perseverance that will be given. He calls for passion by giving them reasons to be passionate about the Father. That’s why he can say, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!”
You can’t command passion. Passion comes as a result of appropriating truth. You will be passionate about Memorial Day when you recognize not only the sacrifices that have occurred but what those sacrifices have to do with you. You will be passionate about the resurrection of Jesus when you recognize not only it happened but that it has something remarkable to offer you. Don’t try to whip up passion for today in yourself or anyone else. Seize the truth Peter teaches with both hands and passion will follow. Teach these truths and those who seize them for themselves will become passionate.
Peter gave these first century Christians reasons for passion. These are the reasons to “Praise the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!” As verse 3 puts it, the church is right to call the world to that praise today and every Sunday that marks the resurrection, but the world needs to know why they should praise the Father. They need to know what Jesus’ resurrection could mean for them.
Peter told these first century disciples that the resurrection of Jesus was and is God’s way of giving new birth. Look at 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.”
The new birth is a central doctrine of the New Covenant. It is a crucial truth of Jesus teaching. The new birth is what every man, woman, and child most desperately needs. Jesus told Nicodemus, “truly I tell you, no man can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again.” This new birth gives a new heart, which if you know yourself, you know that was or is your most desperate need. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”
Jesus saw the situation clearly. The problem wasn’t so much that people had become bad, although they had; rather, their problem was that they were dead. They were the dry bones Ezekiel spoke about and they needed God’s Spirit, His breath, to bring them to life. “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”
Ravi Zacharias gets the resurrection right when he says, “Jesus Christ did not come into this world to make bad people good. He came into this world to make dead people live.”
Paul said the same thing. He told the Romans, “just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.” The Catechism agrees; it says that Christ’s resurrection benefits us because, “by his power we too are already now resurrected to a new life.” You must be born again but you can only be born again because Jesus died and rose again.
Jesus took your old way of life upon himself on the cross; when he was buried, it was buried. Your sin was done away with not simply because you are sorry for it but because it was killed and buried with Jesus. Jesus rose to new life and your sin was left behind. He offers you his resurrected life. That is part of being born again.
Jesus was raised again. You are born again.
It is no mistake that the very day he resurrected, he breathed his Spirit upon his disciples; “Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord… I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.” Are you alive like that? Jesus’ resurrection is the reason why.
Peter gives two descriptions of this new life and these make up our next two points. You can think of points two and three as a subpoint of the new birth. Peter tells us that this new birth brings a living hope. That is our second point: praise the Father for resurrected hope.
We live by hope. The men and women of our culture and of this world are largely in a hopeless situation. Take Christ and the promises of Scripture out of your life equation for a moment; what confidence do you have for anything after death? What confidence do you have for any meaning in this life – most modern thinkers believe that life is meaningless and hopeless. That’s the situation of literally millions of your fellow citizens. They agree with Camus, “life is meaningless, but worth living, provided you recognize it’s meaningless.” They think that you give life whatever meaning you choose because it is inherently meaningless. These poor people exult in their hopelessness.
Many of our societal ills are just a manifestation of that. If there is no reason for hope, why not drink? Why not do drugs? If there is no meaning to anything, then why not be promiscuous?
That was the case in Peter’s day too. He lived in a culture much like our own, but Peter believed that hope was a reasonable option; he believed that life had meaning; he didn’t believe that because he was a sentimental man who stuck his head in the sand; he told his readers his reason—for hope. “In [the Father’s] great mercy He has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”
Peter, like Christianity, found hope in the facts—the facts of history. Christ had risen. Peter knew it happened because he saw Jesus after his resurrection. He saw him consistently for forty days. Peter went to his death because he maintained that Christ rose from the dead. The resurrection gave Peter hope.
Peter reasoned that since Jesus was alive, hope was alive. Peter reasoned that Jesus who looked out for his best interest from the day they met would continue to look out for his best interest now that he was alive again. Peter would have agreed with Bill Gaither, “because he lives, I can face tomorrow; because he lives all fear is gone; because I know he holds the future and life is worth the living just because he lives.”
So many of us are currently separated from the love of those who have died, but nothing can separate us from the love of Jesus because he isn’t dead. He is alive. “Christian hope is ever-living because Christ… is ever-living,” said Karen Jobes.
The world of Peter’s day had no hope because they had no reason to think there was anything beyond death. The world of Peter’s day had no hope because they had no reason to think that today was anything but meaningless. You can see why this news about Jesus’ resurrection was called good news. You can see why people who became convinced of it lived very different lives from the men and women around them. I hope that you have become convinced of it. I hope you are living a very different life from the hopelessness around us.
I hope you have hope. I also hope you have an inheritance. That is our third point: praise the Father for resurrected inheritance.
If you are born again, you have an inheritance waiting for you. We see that in verses 3-4, “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—kept in heaven for you.”
When we, in this culture, think of inheritance, we think of wealth that passes on from one generation to the next. When these readers thought of inheritance, they thought of land. The inheritance of God’s people was the Promised Land. God promised Abraham, “I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’” Leviticus repeats that and so does the book of Numbers, Deuteronomy; it is all over the place in the book of Joshua; it is in Judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, 1 and 2 Chronicles; we could keep going; if you said ‘inheritance’ to Peter’s readers they would have thought, ‘Promised Land,’ just like if I said ‘land of the free, home of the brave,’ you would think, ‘America.’
Peter’s readers had lost this inheritance. These Christians were persecuted out of the Promised Land. That is why Peter calls them, “God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia.” They followed the King of the Jews and so the Jews forced them out. They had to flee their homes. They left their farms and businesses behind. They were exiled from the land promised to Abraham just like in the Babylonian exile, but they had lost it because they loved Jesus.
Peter told them that Jesus had something better for them—“an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you,” as verse 4 puts it.
Even if they remained in the land, what they enjoyed would still fade.
The same is true for anything in this life. If you are looking for your inheritance from God in this life, you will be disappointed. If you are looking for all the promises in this life, you will be disappointed. Listen to Hebrews, “They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth… they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them.”
The resurrection of Jesus is the confirmation of that city. Jesus promised, “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” Only someone who is alive could do that.
Don’t believe that promise just because it sounds nice. Believe that promise because Jesus resurrected to keep it. If you are born again, believe that promise because you will see the kingdom of God and its glories will never perish, spoil, and fade. In fact, you being born again is a confirmation that the creation will be born again. Your new birth is a living parable of what will happen to all things. Jesus’ resurrection is confirmation of that your new birth is real and that there is a kingdom after death and that there is a King after death.
Be confident in your inheritance. Be confident that something that can never perish, spoil, or fade is yours. Be confident today that everything around you will perish, spoil, or fade.
Remember your inheritance. If you knew that eight million dollars was waiting for you two years from this date, you could put up with a lot of difficulties until that day arrived. Since have an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade waiting for you, put up with the difficulties until that day arrives.
Nothing can take your inheritance or your hope away from you. We see that in our final point: praise the Father for faith until the final resurrection.
How do you maintain this hope Peter spoke of as you live in a culture that has no hope? How do you maintain joy in your inheritance in a culture that pushes you towards immediate gratification?
Well, you have yet another reason to praise God because Peter says that, “through faith,” you, “are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”
The world doesn’t want you to enjoy hope that it doesn’t have. It will mock your hope, but God’s power shields your hope. The flesh doesn’t want you to find satisfaction in the inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade; it screams for all satisfaction now, but God’s power shields your satisfaction. Satan doesn’t want you believe that your new birth will last. He wants you think of the Holy Spirit’s influence upon you as yet another one of your misguided attempts to change. He wants you to despair of your salvation, but Peter tells you that God’s power shields your new life; through faith,” you, “are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”
You have hope. You have an inheritance. You have been born again but you still live in a fallen, messed up world with a laundry list of sorrows that you know all too well.
Peter knew that and so he reminded these Christians that it was God’s power and not their own willpower which would sustain them day after day until the last day.
Peter pointed his readers to the final resurrection, the last day; he called it, “the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” That is when you claim your inheritance. That is when you see the object of your hope.
Days of commemoration point not only backwards but forwards. Memorial Day points not only backwards to the men and women who have died but it also points forward to the day when swords are beat into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks. Easter not only points backwards to Jesus’ resurrection from the grave; it also points forward to the final resurrection.
The power that rose Jesus from the dead is the same strength of power that will keep you alive to grace until that final day. That is, “his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead,” as Paul put it.
The Spirit brought you to new life. He will keep you alive. “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”
What we commemorate today is not a wish. It is not merely a sign of new life. It is not merely a sign that love is stronger than death. It is not merely a confirmation of the sense that we have that there must be something beyond the grave.
It is the promise of specific truths made by the Father of Jesus which you can appropriate as your own. You can be born again. You can be born again to a life of hope. You can be born again into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade. You can be utterly confident that you will enjoy all this and much more forever not because of your own willpower but because of God’s power.
If you believe that, today is no mere commemoration for you. You aren’t only here to commemorate. You are here to worship. You are here to celebrate what Jesus’ resurrection has done for you, to sing victory songs to him for what he has done for you, and to publicly express that he is your reason for living because he has made you alive. He has given you hope. He has given life after death and since he lives no one will take it away from you. Amen.