Hope Springs Eternal Series

Peter’s letter was written in hope that it would be shared and passed around and that everyone who read the letter would be inspired and encouraged to hang on in what were to be difficult times ahead … kind of like what we’re going through now with this pandemic … not sure what’s happening … living day to day … not sure how long this is going to last … will I get sick … and if I get sick will I have to be put on a respirator … will there be a respirator if I need one … will I survive this thing … and what will my life look like at the other end of this pandemic … if we ever reach the other side of this pandemic, amen?

Where do your find hope and encouragement in times like this? Peter says that the only place we should look for hope … the only place that we can expect to find meaningful and enduring hope … is if we put our hope and trust in Jesus … Period! Jesus … the only “person” to come out of death alive, amen? Jesus … the only person to face death head on and defeat it, amen? Jesus … the only person who can offer us any hope that there is something beyond this life, beyond death, amen?

Remember what I said last week about paying attention to every word in the Bible? Look closer at verse 3. Jesus doesn’t offer us just any old “hope.” Jesus doesn’t offer us the kind of hope that the world offers us, does He? He offers us a very special, unique, one-of-a-kind hope … the kind of hope that only He can give us. Have you found it yet? In verse 3, Peter says that our Lord Jesus Christ, by His great mercy, has given us a new birth into what kind of hope? Yeah! A “living hope!”

What kind of hope?

A “living hope.”

What is “living hope” and how is it different from the kind of hope that the world has to offer? Well … glad you asked. The hope that the world has to offer stops at the grave. Put your trust and faith in power … guess what? When you die, your power doesn’t go with you? Put your trust and faith in wealth … well, guess what? When you die, it stays here and someone else gets to spend your money, amen? Put your faith in “stuff” … you know what happens! You die and your stuff stays here … and, as the saying goes, you don’t see any U-Hauls in a funeral procession, amen?

The hope that the world has to offer is not a “living” hope … that hope dies when you die. But the hope that Jesus has to offer us is “living” or “eternal” hope. It never changes and it never dies because, in a manner of speaking, we never die. Our hope doesn’t stop at the grave because our lives don’t stop at the grave, amen?

Look at verses 3 and 4. Peter says that we have an “inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in Heaven for you” through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Our hope, our inheritance is imperishable … our hope is undefiled … our hope is unfading because it doesn’t stop at the grave just as Jesus didn’t stop at the grave, amen? Our inheritance is secure, it is eternal, because it is being kept in a secure and eternal place … Heaven! I can’t think of a more secure and eternal place to keep my hope, my treasure, my inheritance than Heaven, can you?