Several years ago, Health and Human Services sent a letter to a resident of Greenville County, South Carolina. The letter said, “Your food stamps will be stopped, effective March, because we received notice that you passed away. May God bless you. You may reapply if your circumstances change.” (S. Bowen Matthews, Wilmington, Delaware. Leadership, Vol. 17, no.3; www.PreachingToday.com)
I don’t think that’s going to happen, but it DID happen to a man 2,000 years ago, and His resurrection had a profound impact on the world. In fact, His resurrection can change you and your world today! If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to 1 Peter 1, 1 Peter 1, where we see how Christ’s resurrection can change your world today.
1 Peter 1:1-2 Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood: Grace and peace be yours in abundance. (ESV)
The Apostle Peter is writing to a group of believers who found themselves to be “exiles scattered” throughout all of Asia Minor, in what is now Northern Turkey.
The Greek word for “scattered” (in verse 1) was used in Bible days of the Jews who were separated from their homeland. Here, Peter uses it of Christians who found themselves scattered from their own homes in places that were strange to them. You see, the Roman government under Nero had just started to persecute Christians, and many of them had fled for their lives.
Even so, there is hope for them, AND there is hope for you who sometimes feel like strangers in a world hell-bent for self-destruction.
1 Peter 1:3 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... (ESV)
The resurrection of Christ gives us a “living hope” in the midst of difficult times. That means it is a sure hope, a certain hope, a life-changing hope.
Three years ago (March 30, 2018), George Weigel wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal, where he talks about the profound impact that hope had on the ancient world. He writes:
There is no accounting for the rise of Christianity without weighing the revolutionary effect on those nobodies of what they called “the Resurrection.” They encountered one whom they embraced as the Risen Lord, whom they first knew as the itinerant Jewish rabbi, Jesus of Nazareth, and who died an agonizing and shameful death on a Roman cross outside Jerusalem.
That first generation answered the question of why they were Christians with a straightforward answer: because Jesus was raised from the dead… As they worked that out, their thinking about a lot of things changed profoundly.
The article mentions some of the positive outcomes brought to the ancient world through Christianity:
• A new dignity given to woman in contrast to the classical culture.
• A self-denying healthcare provided to plague sufferers.
• A focus on family health and growth.
• A remarkable change in worship from the Sabbath to Sunday
• A willingness to embrace death as martyrs—because they knew that death did not have the final word in the human story. &
• Living as if they knew the outcome of history itself.
Weigel suggests that it's only through, what he calls “the Easter Effect,” that these changes make sense. The social changes that followed Good Friday occur only if they actually believed in the resurrection of Jesus. (George Weigel, “The Easter Effect and How it Changed the World,” The Wall Street Journal, 3-30-18; www.PreachingToday.com)
The resurrection of Jesus is a LIVING hope, a hope that actually makes a real difference! So live your life with confidence, and...
BE SURE.
Be certain of a glorious future no matter how bad things get today.
The resurrection of Christ is a sure and certain fact of history. His empty tomb and his post resurrection appearances together form two irrefutable pieces of evidence for the resurrection of Christ. If the disciples stole Jesus’ body, as the Jewish leaders first claimed, then there is no way to explain His appearances to hundreds of people over a 40-day period after He died, many of which refused to give up their faith in the resurrection even in the face of persecution and death. On the other hand, if Jesus’ followers were hallucinating when they claimed to have seen Him, then all somebody had to do was go to the tomb and show them Jesus’ body. The only explanation that fits both pieces of evidence is the fact that Jesus did indeed rise from the dead. It is an irrefutable fact of history.
I like the way Peter Larson once put it. He said, “Despite our efforts to keep him out, God intrudes. The life of Jesus is bracketed by two impossibilities: a virgin's womb and an empty tomb. Jesus entered our world through a door marked ‘No Entrance’ and left through a door marked ‘No Exit.’” (Peter Larson, Prism, Jan/Feb 2001; www.PreachingToday.com)
Think about it. People say that a virgin birth is impossible. There is no possible way to enter into life that way, and yet that’s how Jesus came into this world. In the same way, people say there is no exit from the grave, and yet Jesus literally walked through that door as well.
Dear friends, sometimes you may think there is no exit from your problems, but if Jesus found an exit from death, then He can certainly help you find an exit from whatever problems you are facing today.
As the songwriter put it, “Because He lives, I CAN face tomorrow…”
So put your faith in Christ and be sure. Be certain of a glorious future no matter how bad things are today.
Specifically, be sure of your permanent possession in heaven. Through faith in Christ, God has given you new birth into “a living hope…”
1 Peter 1:4 ...and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you... (ESV)
Notice, our inheritance can never perish – It lasts forever. It can never spoil – lit., it is pure or untainted. And it can never fade – Its beauty will never be diminished.
How many of you can remember your first car? I remember mine. It was a brand new, blue Toyota Corolla, deluxe model, with stripes down the side and air conditioning on the inside. Now, back in those days, air-conditioning was optional – it didn’t come with most cars, but my car had it! My parents gave the car to me as a gift when I was getting ready to graduate from college. Do you know: I washed that thing every week? It was a beautiful car.
Then came 12 years of use and half a dozen accidents in those 12 years. By the time I traded it in, there were scratches in the paint, the door on the driver’s side was rusting out, there was a big dent in the hood, and the right fender was bashed in. My beautiful car was turning into a pile of junk.
And that’s the way it is with all of our earthly possessions. They don’t last; they get spoiled; and their beauty fades. But that will never happen with our heavenly possession. It is an indestructible inheritance. Christ rose from the dead, so be sure of your permanent possession in heaven.
More than that, be sure of your secure salvation. Be certain that God will protect your soul from now until eternity.
1 Peter 1:5 ...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. (ESV)
The word for “shielded” is a military term, which refers to a garrison of soldiers designed to protect a city from enemy forces. You see, when we put our trust in Christ, God puts up a garrison or a stronghold of power within to protect our souls until our ultimate salvation is revealed. Nothing can get through that garrison to take you away from God’s love. Nothing can get through that garrison to take your salvation away – not Satan, not demons, not sickness, not even death! You are protected by God’s power, not your own.
For if it was up to you to keep our own salvation, then you would lose it every time, because you are just not strong enough. None of us are!
Peter, the man who wrote these very words, understood his need for God’s power to protect him. On the eve before Jesus’ crucifixion, Peter had boasted that he would never forsake or deny his Lord. He was strong. He was able to follow the Lord to death, or so he thought. But that very night, when a little servant girl suspected that he was one of Jesus’ followers, he denied knowing Jesus, not once, not twice, but three times.
His own strength had failed him, but not God’s. The resurrected Christ restored Peter to service, and Peter went on to boldly lead the church in God’s power. That’s what the resurrected Christ can do for you, as well!
Timothy Johnson, pastor of Church of the Redeemer in Bowie, Maryland, talks about a time he was getting ready to fly out of the Baltimore Washington International (BWI) airport. Along with everyone else, he went through security screening, where a security screener asked him to step back as the screener inspected his carry-on bag. As the screener poked, unloaded things, unzipped pockets, and felt the linings of Pastor Tim’s bag, Tim noticed the ring on the screener’s right hand—a silver ring with a cross on it. Tim mentioned it.
Then, as the screener continued searching Tim’s bag, he said something like this: “Yeah, the ring. It means I'm a follower of Jesus. You know, in my job, one of the things we worry about is dynamite. But do you know where that word comes from? It's from the Greek word dunamis, which means 'power.' As a Christian, I know that all of the power belongs to God. That's why he sent Jesus. So while I'm doing my job, I know that he is doing his job. That's where I put all of my trust. It all belongs to him, and he's here with us.”
Then he said, “Well, Mr. Johnson, have a great trip” before moving on to the next person. (Timothy Johnson, Bowie, Maryland; www.PreachingToday.com)
That security screener trusted the Christ to protect him, which made him a bold witness for Christ. You do the same. Trust the resurrected Christ with your life. Depend on Him who died for you and rose again. Call upon Him and ask Him to save you from your sins. Then like Peter, like Pastor Tim, and like many millions of people around the world, you’ll be able to serve the Lord with confidence.
Jesus Christ is risen from the dead! So be SURE of a glorious future no matter how bad things get today. Then...
BE GLAD even during the hard times.
Rejoice even in times of pain. Celebrate even in times of grief.
1 Peter 1:6 In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. (ESV)
Since you have the living hope of a glorious future, you rejoice even though you are grieved by all kinds of trials.
That was Jerry Sittser’s experience when he lost three generations of his family in one blinding moment. At the time, Jerry was a professor at Whitworth University in Spokane, Washington.
He, his wife, Lynda, their four children, and his mother, Grace, had been to a Native American powwow in Idaho. As they were returning home, a car with a drunk driver going 85 miles an hour swerved and crashed into them head-on. In an instant Sittser lost his mother, his wife, and their youngest daughter.
In A Grace Disguised, Sittser describes with searing honesty what it was like to be a single father, a teacher, a counselor to others while he himself was a man bereft and torn, slipping into a black hole of oblivion and often simply wanting out.
One night he had a kind of “waking dream.” The sun was setting, and he was frantically chasing after it toward the west, hoping to catch it and bring it back. But it was a losing race. Soon the sun was gone, and he “felt a vast darkness closing in.”
Shortly after this, his sister Diane told him that the quickest way to reach the sun is not to go west but instead to head east, to move fully “into the darkness until one comes to the sunrise.”
It was a counterintuitive insight that helped Sittser find a road to recovery. He wrote, “I discovered in that moment that I had the power to choose the direction my life would head... I decided from that point on to walk into the darkness rather than try to outrun it, to let my experience of loss take me on a journey wherever it would lead, and to allow myself to be transformed by my suffering rather than to think I could somehow avoid it.” (Leighton Ford, The Attentive Life, Multnomah, 2008, p. 162; www.PreachingToday.com)
In dependence upon Christ, you too can allow yourself to be transformed by your suffering. You too can come to the sunrise again even as you walk into the darkness. When your hope is in the Lord, you can rejoice no matter what life throws your way. Jesus is risen, so be glad even in times of pain.
Then be glad, because of the PRAISE that will come. Rejoice, because of the glory your refined faith will produce. That’s the promise in verse 7. Look at it.
1 Peter 1:7 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. (ESV)
Trials come only to prove your faith genuine, so much so that in the end you will praise the Lord for what He has done in your life through those trials.
In his book, Life before Death, Ian Leitch, a Scottish preacher, talks about three luxury ocean liners, the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth, and the QE2. He says, “When they built [these ocean liners], they did not test them in dry dock. They didn't leave them in dry dock and get big hoses on them to see if they would leak. They got those ships out into the open ocean to put them through sea trials. These trials were not intended to sink the ship. These trials were to prove that the ship was seaworthy. (Ian Leitch, Life Before Death! A Restored, Regenerated, and Renewed Life, Green Acres Press, 2007; www.PreachingToday. com)
In the same way, God sends trials your way, not to sink you, but to prove that your faith is real!
That’s what happened to Andrew Brunson, a Christian pastor from North Carolina, who spent 20 years in Turkey. He had a quiet ministry there until 2016, when after a failed military coup, the government arrested him along with journalists, activists, military officers, and others. The Turkish government labeled Brunson a spy.
Brunson was held for more than a year without charges. He spent nearly two years in prison, often enduring long trial sessions. At one point, it looked like he could spend years or even decades in Turkish prisons. Finally, after pressure from the Trump administration, Brunson was released from prison and returned to the United States.
In a recent Wheaton College chapel talk (March 8, 2019), Brunson candidly said that he did not feel God’s overwhelming presence during his stay in prison. Instead, he experienced something even deeper. Brunson said, “[After a few days in prison], I completely lost the sense of God’s presence. God was silent. And he remained silent for two years.”
When he was finally brought to trial, things were even worse. He says:
There are some who go into the valley of testing and some do not make it out… I was broken. I lay there alone in my solitary cell, I had great fear, terrible grief, and I was weeping. And the thought kept going through my mind, Where are you God? Why are you so far away? And I opened my mouth as I wept aloud, and I was surprised at what I heard coming out of my mouth. I heard, “I love you Jesus. I love you Jesus. I love you Jesus.” I thought here is my victory. Even if you’re silent, I love you. Even if you let my enemy harm me, I love you. (YouTube, Wheaton College Chapel, 3-8-19, www.youtube.com/watch?v= 0pQaj1L05CE; www.PreachingToday.com)
Brunson’s faith was real, able to withstand great trial.
Warren Wiersbe once said: A realist is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been purified. A skeptic is an idealist who has gone through the fire and been burned. (CT Classics, www.christianitytoday.com, 10-26-06)
If your faith is in anything else but Christ, you will be burned by your trials. But if your faith is in Christ, those trials will only purify your faith.
So be glad even in times of pain. Be glad because of the praise that will come.
And be glad because the purpose of your faith is being realized. Rejoice because your trials are right now bringing you to the goal of your faith, which is your ultimate salvation.
1 Peter 1:8-9 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 are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (ESV)
Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is being…certain of what we do not see.” You don’t see Jesus, but you love Him and we are extremely joyful. That’s true faith, my friends, and because of that faith, you are right now in the process of obtaining the goal of your faith. The verb in verse 9 is in the present tense. That means it is a present, continuous reality in the life of every believer. You are right now in the process of obtaining the goal of your faith, which is total and complete deliverance from all sin.
Dr. David Osborn at Denver Seminary says, “Too often we try to use God to change our circumstances, while He is using our circumstances to change us” (Compass, April 2003; www.PreachingToda.com). God is right now in the process of making you like Christ.
Think of the process of refining maple syrup. Maple trees are tapped with buckets hung under the taps, and out drips a sap which is thin and clear, like water. On a good day, 50 trees will yield 30 - 40 gallons of sap, but it is essentially useless at this point with only a hint of sweetness.
But as the buckets fill, they are emptied into large bins that sit over an open fire. The sap comes to a slow boil; and as it boils, its water content is reduced and its sugars are concentrated. Hours later, it has developed a rich flavor and golden-brown color, but it must be strained several times to remove impurities before being reheated, bottled, and graded for quality. In the end, those 30-40 gallons of sap are reduced to one gallon of pure, delicious maple syrup, which is far better than the cheap, imitation, colored sugar-water that passes for maple syrup in the grocery store.
So it is when you come to faith in Christ. You start like raw, unfinished sap, which could have been tossed aside as worthless. But God knew what he could make of you. He sought and found you, and his skillful hands are transforming you into something precious, sweet and useful. The long and often painful refining process brings forth a pure, genuine disciple easily distinguished from cheap imitations. (Michele Straubel, Red Lake, Minnesota; www.PreachingToday.com)
So be glad even in times of pain. Be glad because of the praise that will come. Be glad because the purpose of your faith is being realized.
And be glad because of the privilege that is yours through faith in Christ. Rejoice because of the grace you have received in Him.
1 Peter 1:10-12 Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace 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 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. (ESV)
In essence these verses are saying, “You have it better than the prophets and the angels.” They longed to see and experience the grace you are experiencing today as believers in the resurrected Christ.
Jesus is alive, my friends, so be sure and be glad. Be sure of a glorious future and be glad even in times of grief today.
In those times, don’t look to the world; look to the Lord, because “the world offers promises full of emptiness, but [Our resurrected Lord] offers emptiness full of promise – empty cross, empty tomb, empty grave-clothes… all full of promise.” (Carolyn Arends, What's So Good About Good Friday? Kyria.com, 4-10-09; www.PreachingToday.com)
