Peter writes to Christians who are suffering persecution, and
they are soon to experience the full force of the wrath of Nero. He
will lash out at them in fury. Does he therefore begin with tears fo
despair? Not at all. He begins with a triumphant doxology: “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” Circumstances cannot
crush his confidence in Christ. He refers to Christ 4 times in the
first 3 verses. His hope is not in religion but in a person. His hope is
not a dead clump of clay that will dissolve in the rains of
persecution. It is a solid rock that will stand secure even in the flood
of persecution. That is why he begins like a volcano as he erupts
with a fiery flow of gratitude to God.
We can learn from Peter that if we begin with God and His grace
rather than with the gutter and our gripes, we can face even hellish
persecution with heavenly praise. The secret of a heavenly hope is to
begin above the clouds where you know the sun is shining. Then
you can come down and face the problems of life, but if you begin
with the problems, you get bogged down and never see above the
clouds. You cannot rise above them because of the weight of your
trials, and hope begins to fade. Hope is like the mainspring of a
watch. When it goes, the watch ceases to fulfill its purpose, and if
hope is lost, so is the purpose and meaning of life. Hope is a
necessity and not a luxury. We want to examine Peter’s message in
these opening verses to see what the reasons are for having such
hope, and what the results can be if we rely on those reasons.
I. THE REASONS FOR OUR HOPE. v. 2-3
Peter says we are to be ready at all times to give a reason for
our hope. All of the reasons for our having hope are found in God
and not in ourselves. It is God’s love that prompts; His grace that
provides, and His power that perfects. The reason no great
philosophy has satisfied the hearts of men is because they all begin
with man and work up to God, but Scripture begins with God and
works down to man. The only reason for having any hope at all is
because of the salvation plan of God. The whole Godhead was
active on our behalf even before we existed. According to His
foreknowledge He elected us to salvation. Jesus purchased our
redemption on the cross, and the Holy Spirit applied that
redemption and sanctifies us.
You may ask how you know you are one of the elect. All who
come are the elect, for no one who comes shall be cast out. If one
does not come they are condemned, and so not one of the elect. For
those who do come, their hope is based on the fact that God has
already accomplished all that is necessary for their salvation. When
George Nixon Briggs was governor of Massachusetts he had 3
friends of his who visited the Holy Land. They climbed Golgatha,
and they cut off a stick to use as a cane and brought it back to
present to Governor Briggs. They said, “We wanted you to know
that when we stood on Calvary we thought of you.” He assured
them of gratitude, and then he added, “But I am still more thankful,
gentleman, that there was another one who thought of me there.” He
rested his hope on the finished work of Christ.
The hands of Christ are very frail,
For they were broken by a nail,
But only they reach heaven at last
Whom those frail, broken hands, hold fast.
We see in verse 3 that the strongest reason for our hope is in the
resurrection. The cross without a living Savior could not produce a
living hope. The resurrection is not a fanciful fiction or a fantastic
fable, but it is the fundamental fact of the Gospel. It is the Rock on
which our hope rests. Without it we would be like the heathen who
have no hope. That is what Paul said in I Cor. 15, for he said that if
Christ is not risen then our faith is in vain.
A king once planned a terrible torture of his enemy. He had
the man arrested and put in a room with 9 windows on one side.
The man thought this was not so bad, but at midnight he was
awaken with the blare of a trumpet, and he heard a crashing noise.
In the morning he discovered only 8 windows. When the same thing
happened the next night, and the next day there were only 7
windows, the terrifying truth stuck him. He was in a room with a
moving wall operated by clock work. Each night it advanced one
ninth of the way to the other wall. On the ninth day at midnight he
would be crushed between the walls. This is a picture of those who
have no hope. Paul describes the man who does not believe in the
resurrection as being in just such a condition.
Peter knew this from his own experience. He made one last
desperate attempt to rescue Jesus in Gethsemane, but Jesus rebuked
him and surrendered. Peter’s hope began to fade rapidly, and soon
after he denied he ever knew Christ. After the crucifixion Peter
tried to forget the whole thing and went back to fishing. His hopes
had been shattered. But if you go to the book of Acts, you see this
same Peter preaching to thousands on the day of Pentecost. You see
him boldly going before the Sanhedrin and proclaiming that this
same Jesus whom they crucified is alive. Every sermon he preached
stressed the resurrection, for that was the basis for a lively hope. It
was the fact and power of the resurrection that drove the early
church to turn the world upside down. It is by faith in the
resurrected Lord that we are born again into a lively hope. If we
believe in our hearts that God raised Jesus from the dead, that
becomes the foundation for being saved and having a lively hope.
II. THE RESULTS OF OUR HOPE. v. 5-8
Hope is built on the past, but it looks forward to the future,
and it influences the present. Hope enables us to face the future
without fear, but to also experience the blessings of the future in the
now and here. Hope reaches out into the age to come and brings
back into the present the blessings of eternity. When a person comes
home from work and smells the supper cooking they already begin
to experience some of the values of the meal to come. So those whose
hope is in Christ already experience some of the blessings of the
world to come. One of those blessings is the confidence that God
will not suffer us to be tempted above what we are able to stand. We
rejoice even in trials, and praise Him who is able to keep us from
falling, and to present us faultless before the presence of His glory
with exceeding joy.
We are kept by the power of God through faith. Kept is a
military word that means to be guarded. It is the word used when
the governor of Damascus “Kept the city with a garrison.” Faith is
the bugle that calls forth the troops to surround the fort. We see the
paradox of hope and joy in the midst of heaviness and trials. We
will be persecuted, but we are to rejoice and be glad for our reward
in heaven. We will have tribulation, but we are to be of good cheer
for Jesus has overcome the world. Paul says in II Cor. 6:10, “As
sorrowful yet always rejoicing.” This is not double talk, but is the
confidence and courage we can have because of our faith and hope
in Christ.
We know that suffering is only for a season, but our salvation
is forever. Our trials are only a parenthesis in the flow of life’s
sentence. Persecution even unto death is only a colon for which you
pause shortly, and then hasten on to continue the eloquent sentence
of eternal life. Heaviness of heart will test the health of our hope.
Persecution has always strengthened the hope of those who faith is
firmly fixed in Jesus Christ. Testing is good for us, for it drives
away the superficial. When life is too easy it can lead us to put our
hope in things. Luther said affliction was the best book in his
library. God help us to beware of making comfort the goal of our
life. A little heaviness may do us good, for it reveals to us what our
hope really is. If we turn to Christ in our trials we will have hope
and hope can turn our lamentations into laughter and our sorrows
into songs. We can have happiness in the midst of heaviness when
we have hope of final victory in Christ.
The proof of our hope is, do we continue to hope even in the
fires of affliction. When Christ appears will we be standing
steadfast and showing the world our confidence in Him, or will we
be running like chicken little for fear that more of the sky will fall on
us? Peter encourages us to consider our trials just a passing thing,
and even if the whole sky should fall it could do no more than purify
us if we stand fast. In verse 8 he says that our hope in Christ should
produce in us such a joy that it cannot be expressed. The deepest
and richest experiences of life cannot be expressed. If we attempt it,
it comes out superficial. Someone said, “True joy is a solid, grave
thing, which dwells more in the heart than in the face.” We might
add also, and on the lips. Sometimes silence is the most eloquent
way to express our joy. This is especially so in times of trial. To try
and express your joy in Christ when you are suffering affliction will
almost always sound superficial.
Then Peter deals with our future inheritance. The hope for an
incorruptible inheritance in heaven is a powerful factor in the
Christian life. The Christians who have done most in history have
been those who looked beyond history. Our hope in Christ gives us
a wider perspective so that we see things with eternities values in
view. C. S. Lewis said, “It is since Christians have largely ceased to
think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.
Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and
you will get neither.” Animals can be content to live only in the
present, but for man to be happy he must have three things:
Something to do, something to love and something to look forward
to. The third is lacking in the hearts of most people outside of
Christ. There are men of strong disposition who by grit and sheer
will power make it through the stormy sea of life without loss of
hope, but when they reach the harbor of death there ship sinks
anyway, and all was in vain. Prov. 11:7 says, “When the wicked
dies, his hope perishes.”
Workmen discovered a dungeon beneath an old castle in
Scotland, and when they entered the dark and damp cell they saw
scratched on the wall, “No hope, no hope.” This is never the cry of
the Christian, for his hope is eternal, and it does not fade away even
in a dungeon. Ever since Paul and Silas were in the dungeon there
have been songs in the night coming from the tongues of those whose
hope is in Jesus Christ. Our inheritance in Christ is both
permanent and pure. The beauty of the earth fades away. The
colored leaves that thrill the eye are soon faded and dry. They are
soon only good for the fire, but we look for an inheritance where the
beauty and delight never fades, and nothing can defile.
There is no more pain or crying,
There is no more death or dying,
As for sorrow and for sighing,
These shall flee away.
In verse 9 Peter tells of the ultimate end of our faith, which is
the salvation of our soul. Faith and hope are the two rudders by
which God guides our ship of grace down the river of His redeeming
love to the sea of salvation. If anyone is not on that ship now, make
haste to get aboard for the tickets are free, and all are welcome. The
only request the Captain of our salvation makes is that you confess
your sins, except His death on your behalf and commit your life to
Him. In Him alone is there a hope that can take you through all of
life’s trials with joy and assurance of eternal life.
