Sunday 05 • 26 • 19

We're starting a new habit as a congregation where we read God's word together. So if you would, pull this out and get ready. Three, two, one, go.

In this, you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with a joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. Obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. — 1 Peter 1:6-12

Would you join me in prayer? Father, your word has power, and we pray, Father, as we open your word this morning that you would come and break up the hard places in us. Father, that you would come and have your way among us, that when we leave this place, we can say, surely we have been with the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

The Nature of Hope

You know, we humans have an interesting relationship with hope. Hope is something that we both really, really want, and it's something that can be frightening to us.

For example, in 1946, a man named Victor Frankl had just survived the Nazi concentration camps. He did a psychological study on those who had survived versus those who didn't survive the concentration camps. What he found was that everybody went through the first two stages the same. First, there was a period of shock and this overwhelming sense of "I can't believe this is happening to me." And then there's a period of "I've got to do whatever it takes to survive." And then after that, one of two things happened. Some made it and some gave up. And the difference was hope. Those who had hope survived. Those who didn't died.

A lowbrow example is the Avengers: Endgame. Many of you have seen this movie. In the film, there are two characters, Black Widow—Natasha—and Hawkeye. Hawkeye has lost his family in the last movie, The Infinity War. Black Widow comes to find him to tell him, "Hey, we think we know how to beat Thanos. We know how to conquer this." And he says to her, "Don't give me hope." I think those are powerful words because he's expressing: hope is scary. Hope is going to call for things from me that I'm not sure I'm going to give.

This morning, we're picking up this passage in First Peter where Peter is writing to people who are also in distress. He writes to people who are afraid and uncertain, facing various trials. I think he's purposely vague about what those are, but he's writing to people who need hope. He's writing to people facing hardship and pain.

When you're in a place of hardship and pain and suffering and confusion, what do you most need to hear? What do you most need? Hope. This is what Peter points them to.

If you look at verse six where we started, it says, "In this you rejoice," but what he's referring to is: in this hope. Last week, Pastor Mark did a pulpit swap with one of our daughter churches, and he talked about living hope—the hope that we have in Jesus. Now Peter is reclaiming this word hope for us.

In our time, in our language, this is how we use the word hope: wistful wishing. Maybe it'll happen, but probably not, right? We hear people say things like, "I hope things are going to work out, but we gotta live in the real world." In our language, we use the word hope to talk about wishes and good feelings, but we know probably not going to work out. We gotta be realists, right?

But when Peter uses this word hope, he means something vastly different from how we use the word hope. He is not talking about an idealistic wish or dream of what could be. He is talking about Christian hope as a living hope.

Do you have any clue what an amazing thing it is to be a Christian? I think for some of us, this is so familiar—we just do that, growing up in it. But you have no idea because for us, hope is not an it. Hope is a he. Hope is not an idea. Hope is a resurrected person. We have a living hope which is an anchor for our souls.

Today, we're going to look at this hope under four headings: a provocative hope, a hope despite circumstances, a hope despite appearances, and supernatural hope.

Provocative Hope

Let's look at verse six. What does this hope do for them as these people are facing trials?

In this hope, you rejoice. Though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials. In this, you rejoice. — 1 Peter 1:6

Rejoicing is mentioned here twice. Look at verse eight:

You rejoice with the joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory. — 1 Peter 1:8

Let me just say that's mega rejoicing with a glorified joy beyond all words. You mega rejoice with a glorified joy that is beyond all words. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't know that I mega rejoice in much of anything. I'm happy when we have a day with low humidity in Raleigh during the summer. I'm happy when the Canes win. I'm happy when I get a parking spot at the Harris Teeter on Oberlin Road. Those things I'm happy about, but mega rejoicing—that's something different.

When you see this kind of rejoicing, isn't it provocative? I mean, you see someone with really unbridled joy. Isn't it provocative? I'm probably showing my age here, but I'm a sucker for videos of army officers returning home from overseas and seeing their pets again. I just can't get enough of these videos where a marine comes down the gangplank and somebody's there with their dog, and the dog just comes unhinged. It's like, "I can't get enough licks in." The dog is trying to get up on you, jumping all over. That's mega rejoicing. That's mega rejoicing with glorified joy beyond words.

That picture right there—what that dog is doing—that's the kind of joy we have. This hope that we have, this living hope, this Jesus is a fountain of joy. A fountain, not a trickle. A fountain of joy. This is why we're praying that our worship at CTK is marked by joy. That is the only thing that's fitting with our Savior. That is the only thing fitting to a living hope.

There are lots of other kinds of emotions we should have in worship—sadness over our sin, lament over things being wrong, silence at times, reflection. But our worship should be marked with that kind of joy, that kind of unbridled mega rejoicing with a glorified joy beyond words. Isn't that equal to our Christ?

I need your help this morning. This kind of joy is what's fitting. John Calvin says, "There is not one blade of grass, not one color in the world that is not intended to make us rejoice who know him. It's all for our joy. It's all to remind us of how good he is."

Barbara Dugood says, "Joy blossoms in our hearts not as we try harder and harder to be a better Christian, but as we see more clearly the depth of our sin and understand more fully our helplessness and his merit."

Henry Nouwen says, "Joy is based on the spiritual knowledge that while the world in which we live is shrouded in darkness, God has overcome the world."

These things are true. This is what should bring provocative joy. Have you ever been walking down the sidewalk and suddenly you realize everybody is looking up and pointing? It's almost impossible for you not to look too. You have to see what they're pointing at. There's something about other people turning. You have to do that. Well, we have to do that with this joy.

I mean, it's a human thing. And I think that's provocative. That's disruptive. I think the church of Jesus Christ is not overlooked and marginalized because it's irrelevant. Is our message—the living hope of Jesus—irrelevant? No, it is the most relevant news for every human being with a pulse on the planet, isn't it? Right? Why is it overlooked and marginalized? Because there's no joy. When believers in the Lord Jesus Christ tap into the wonder of living with this kind of hope and we go, other people have to take notice. That's not a command. That's just what it means to have a living hope.

Your elders at CTK pray for you. They pray for more freedom in our worship service. We want to be a place where you're not like, "Hey, it's Presbyterian. I got to stick my hands in my..." You want to raise your hands here, you go right ahead. You need to move your body to the music—it's great music. You should be moving your body to it. You want to shout? It's okay to be a shouting church. That is reflective of the living hope that we have. So more joy in worship? Yes, please. We'd love some over here.

Peter writes to this scattered group of Christians: you mega rejoice with a glorified joy beyond words. So here's the question for you: do you?

A Hope Despite Circumstances

Second, a hope despite circumstances. Look again at verses six and seven.

In this, you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you've been grieved by various trials. — 1 Peter 1:6-7

This is fascinating. Both are present tense. They are present tense, rejoicing in hope, while present tense, they're suffering grief in all kinds of trials. They are mega rejoicing while they're being refined as by fire. All present tense. All happening at the same time. What does that mean? Peter is talking about a hope that we don't tap into most of the time. A hope that is not based on circumstances. They are facing what most people would consider to be hopeless circumstances with hope and rejoicing.

Now, these Christians are not pretending. Some of you grew up with a brand or a version of Christianity that's sort of like, "Hey, be strong, stiff upper lip, don't show emotions, don't be sad. How are things going for you today? They're great." No, they're not. You're suffering. You're struggling. These people aren't pretending. They're grieved. They aren't pretending like things are great when they're not.

Miroslav Volf, who survived the Croatian Serbian War, said this: hope does not mean dreaming ourselves into a different reality. It's not denial. And yet, they're doing something else in the midst of their suffering and pain and trials. They're not denying it. They're doing something else with it. They see it as a reality, but they do something more.

Peter counsels us. He says, we don't know the why of our trials, but we know the what for. We don't know why this pain, why now, why in this way. But we do know what God is up to in our pain, in our trials, in our circumstances.

Like a refining fire on precious metals, Peter tells us there are two things God is always up to in your sufferings. He's up to two things: to show you the reality of your faith and to purify the quality of your faith.

God uses our sufferings to prove to us—not to him—the reality of our faith.

Prove the genuineness of your faith. — 1 Peter 1:7

Not God. God knows where you stand with him. But to prove to you. To prove to you that in suffering, maybe you're losing everything else, but God is what you have. Have you ever been in that place? Where you come to the end and you're like, I don't have anything else, but I have God? That's what God is up to in our trials. He is proving the genuineness of our faith.

Second, he uses sufferings to purify the quality of your faith. Fire on precious metal. He melts gold to get the impurities out.

It perishes as tested by fire. — 1 Peter 1:7

That doesn't mean an imperishable metal stops being a metal. But what happens to gold when you heat it up? It's not hard anymore.

It becomes liquid. When it becomes liquid, the jeweler can scrape the impurities off the top and remake it, remelt it. The melting process can reform it into something else. Imperishable metals don't really melt. But what is God doing? He's purifying.

I love this image of melted gold because what does that say to us about you? About you in the midst of your sufferings today, you in the midst of your trials today, you are valuable to him. This is precious metals, valuable metals. He heats things and purifies things that are valuable to him, that he loves, that he cares for, that he prizes.

Do you know the name Kara Tippetts? She was famous for her sufferings. Married to a pastor out in Colorado, in our denomination, and she got a diagnosis of terminal breast cancer. She had a blog, but after she got this diagnosis, it just went through the roof as she talked about the sufferings, facing that, facing losing life with my kids. And in her book, The Hardest Peace, she writes this. She actually died in March 2015. But she writes:

It takes courage, humiliating courage to step aside from your own sovereignty and imagined control over all life in a world full of unbelievably beautiful bodies and able bodies, where new diet fads are fashioned every day to keep cancer away. It's hard to realize you may be living in the midst of the best story ever told.

And she's saying this about cancer. The best story ever told. That the story of breast cancer could possibly be a good story? A great story even? It would be easier to shake my fist at the test results and scream that this isn't fair. It's not the right story, but to receive and humbly receive the story that no one would ever want, and know there's goodness in the midst of its horror. That's not something I could ever do on my own strength.

You see, to hope means not that we're dreaming ourselves into another realm of existence, but that this life suffused with trials, with hardship, with pain, with suffering is being transformed. We're being transformed. This world is going to be transformed into God's new world. The reality is that your hope and my hope is indestructible. It is indestructible. Even when others look at our lives and say, that is hopeless circumstances. Who would ever do that to their child? What a horrible thing. But what we know is that God in Christ has turned His face toward us in our pain and will never turn away. We have that kind of hope.

This is why Kara could write something that only a Christian could write. If you're not a Christian here, you might think this sounds boastful. But she writes:

Cancer is a gift. Yes, I said it. I can say that cancer and suffering give the beautiful gift of perspective. It's a gift you never wanted. It's a gift wrapped in confusion and brokenness and heartbreak. It's a gift that strips you of all your other ideas of living from you completely, but it's a gift.

Only a Christian says that. That's crazy talk. But that's somebody who has a living hope.

Three Errors We Make in Pain

Now in pain, I see us making three errors. Maybe you haven't made these errors, but the people around you make them. And this is what we do—the ways that we get off the rails of understanding God in our pain.

First, we equate the testing of our faith with the failure of our faith. I see this happen all the time. When you hit hardship and circumstances that you can't handle, and you're riding this roller coaster, up and down on the waves of doubt and fear and confusion, you think, something is wrong with me. I must not be a Christian at this point. No, no, no. If you're riding those waves up and down, one day you believe this stuff, the next day you're in the gutter. One day you're like, yes, God's at work. The next day you're struggling. Guess what? You're alive. Praise God. He's at work in you.

Our faith life is not a straight arrow going up. It's not a vector. We go up and down. If some days when you're really at your best you really believe this stuff, but a lot of days you don't, congratulations. You're a living Christian with a living hope. Thank God it's not about your strength of belief. It's about Him. That's what holds you fast.

The second error I see is this: we try to find the lesson that God is trying to teach us. You know this one? This one is popular. We're like, okay, God is a divine Mr.

Remember Mr. Miyagi from Karate Kid? Mr. Miyagi takes Daniel-san and puts him through all these horrible things. He says, wash the car. Daniel-san has to wash all of his cars. Then later on, you realize he's teaching him how to block. And then he teaches him to paint the fence. He's like, you go up, you go down. He's doing this huge fence. Later on, you realize he's teaching him to block—up, down. This is what people think God is like. In our suffering, God has a secret lesson for you to learn, like a divine Mr. Miyagi. You're not going to get out of those trials until you figure it out.

Does that square with what we know of the greatest sufferers in the Bible? Go read Job. Go read the story of Joseph. Go read about Naomi in the book of Ruth. God didn't have a lesson for them to learn in their suffering, but a God to cling to. In your trials and sufferings, God does not have some secret lesson that you finally have to figure out before you can get out of it. No, he has a Jesus for you to cling to.

Third Error: Suffering as a Sign of Unconfessed Sin

Sure, you can make terrible choices that mess up your life. You can do sinful things that have horrible consequences. I don't think there's a person in this room who hasn't experienced some of that. Yet we can't draw a line between unconfessed sin and suffering. Here's why: the best person in the world with the least amount of sin suffered the greatest. Jesus. The one with the least amount of sin experienced the most amount of suffering. So it can't mean that you're suffering because of something you did all the time. God is up to so much more.

Some of you are like, well, yeah, but Jesus was perfect. So that's Jesus. He's different. But I say, why do you think that? Didn't Jesus say if they hated me, they'll hate you? A servant isn't greater than his master.

Real hope is not a denial of your circumstances. It's not that your sufferings have come because you haven't confessed enough sin. It's not a failure of your faith. It's not that you haven't learned a lesson. The reality is you have a living hope even in what others consider to be hopeless circumstances.

One of the best things happening in our church isn't actually from our church. We have a partnership in a prayer ministry with another church called Mount Pleasant. A couple months ago, one of the women there, Benita, a great prayer warrior and amazing mission leader, said something that stuck with me. She said it's like dancing in the rain. That's what life as a Christian is. Living hope in the midst of hard circumstances. Dancing in the rain.

Hope Despite Appearances

Look with me at verses eight and nine. Peter is showing us there's an anchor for your soul that's despite what you see.

Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with a hope that is inexpressible and filled with glory. — 1 Peter 1:8-9

He's saying there's something here that is despite appearances. Despite what you see, despite how you feel, despite how the evidence amassed around you that God has abandoned you or that the world is out of control or that God has disappeared, these people are saying, we found God is still there.

Hope—not the wishing away kind, but the real biblical hope—is a confidence in the unseen presence of Jesus.

I meet people all the time, and when I introduce myself as a pastor, a lot of times they tell me where they go to church. But a lot of times they tell me why they've stopped believing in God. These are some of the saddest conversations. "I used to be into that until a close friend died. I asked and asked God to do something, and he just didn't listen to me."

I can't believe in God after the trauma my family has been through. I can't believe in a god like this. Where is god? If I were god, I would never let my kids go through that. How could he let his kids go through that? If you can't see a reason for the suffering, there must not be one. That's what a lot of people are really saying. I can't see there's a reason for this, there must not be one. God must have abandoned me.

When people share those things with me, I honor them. I'm not giving them the Jesus juke in that moment. I'm like, I know. Those are honest statements. Those are hardships. Those represent real pain. I don't want to make light of that. If that's you this morning, those are understandable statements. But the person misses out on something of what hope means.

And to get this point, you're going to have to put on your big boy pants, your big girl pants right now. Here's what it means: Because Jesus is never absent.

When I was in college, I had this favorite passage in Philippians 3 that I used to pray all the time, but I could only pray the first half of it.

I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of His resurrection and participating in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so somehow attaining to the resurrection of the dead. — Philippians 3

I love that passage, the first part. I want to know Christ. Right? Yeah. I want to know Christ. Yes. I want to know Him and the power of His resurrection. Yes. And that's where I'd stop praying because the rest of it was too hard to say out loud. Listen to the rest of it. I want to know Christ, I know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings. You know, that's like the needle scratching the record noise. No. I don't want that part. Are you crazy? Paul, why are you praying to know Christ in sufferings?

See, what Peter is saying, what Paul is saying is that there is a fellowship and a love for God that grows in the midst of trials like nowhere else. A love that grows for the unseen Jesus that can only come through pain. We resist that like crazy. No, thank you. I just want my old life back, want my health back, want that relationship back, want some money back, want things back like they were. But God is up to so much more in our pain. He wants us to know Jesus more.

This is what Kara Tippett says: "My hope is not in the absence of suffering and comfort returned. My hope is in the presence of the one who promises never to leave or forsake. The one who declares nothing will be able to separate us from the love of God, nothing."

There's something unique, and don't miss this. When you hit hardship, when you hit pain, when you hit trials, and I can guarantee with a gold seal this morning that all of us are going to go through these things—I can guarantee this—that Jesus is drawing near to you. He is not abandoning you. He is present with you. There is a fellowship with him in the midst of pain and sufferings you will find nowhere else, and it is sweet. As much as we hate the rest of it, it is gold. It is gold. Hope that is despite what it appears to be, but He's right there with you.

Supernatural Hope

Finally, look at me at verses 10 through 12. These verses seem to be Peter changing the subject, but he's actually talking about the same thing. He's talking about the hope that we have, the living hope we have in Christ.

First, you stand in a privileged place in history. Now, I know that doesn't make any sense. Most Christians will say things, and we talk like this all the time. Man, I wish I'd been there with Noah. I wish I'd been there with Abraham. Wish I'd been there with David. Wish I'd been there with Ruth. I wish I'd been there with Mary Magdalene on the morning of resurrection. I wish I'd been one of his disciples. We identify those people like it would be better if I could have been an eyewitness to these things.

But he says, no. These people, generations before, they were looking. They were standing on tiptoe to try to catch a glimpse of what you know. You know there's an empty tomb. You know there's an indwelling spirit. You know there's a church of Jesus Christ. You know there's going to be new heavens and new earth. Generations before you would have given their right arm to know what you know and rejoice in what you can rejoice in. You have a privileged place in history.

And then verse 12: you also stand in a privileged place in the cosmos.

There are real messengers of God called angels, and they don't look like the ones in your Jesus Bibles as a kid. They are real, powerful, supernatural beings. And it tells us that of the whole living hope that you have and this particular vantage point that you as a human being who loves Jesus have—even the angels are jealous of you. Here's why: even angels long to look into these things. Angels are smarter than you. They see lots more than you do, but one thing they don't have is this: in-fleshness like Jesus.

There's a particular vantage point that you have as a person made in God's image, redeemed by the blood of Jesus Christ, party to His Holy Spirit. There's a particular vantage point that you have that even the angels envy. You have a supernatural hope because of these things. A supernatural hope.

How to Receive This Hope

Here's the good news. How do you get this hope? I hope some of you are asking this morning. If you're here this morning and you don't know Jesus, you don't have a living hope—you have dead hopes. I would not be kind to you if I let you leave this place without telling you that. You have wishes, you have longings and desires. None of those things are bad, but they are not a living hope. They are not a living hope. You don't have this kind of supernatural, non-circumstantial, not based on appearances, provocative hope that Jesus gives.

The only way you get this—you can't. Mean preacher trick, right? You have to be born again into this. You have to be born again into this living hope. You can't go get it. You can't good enough your way into it. You can't merit your way into it. You're never going to be a nice enough person. But you're surrounded with people just like that. And if you ask the Lord, He gives us birth into a living hope. He will do this in your life. He will plant life in you that you can never imagine and give you a living hope. In just a moment, I'm going to invite you to come and receive that.

For the rest of us, listen to this: God is able to change the most broken of lives and the weakest of Christians, and to fill the lives that overflow with incredible hope. And you don't need to be a Bible teacher or a pastor or a missionary for this to be true.

Sarah Smith of Golders Green

C. S. Lewis tells this story in a book called The Great Divorce, and it's about heaven. Someone goes on a bus ride to tour heaven and is being escorted around by an angel who's showing him stuff, seeing people. All of a sudden, there's this huge noise and this huge parade with these incredible beings, dancing, cheering, crowds. The tourist is like, what is going on? He assumes this must be some amazing missionary leader, some amazing ministry leader, some amazing pastor. He turns to the tour guide and says, is it him? Is it her? And lists all these different names. This is what the angel says:

Not at all. It's someone you'll have never heard of. Her name on Earth was Sarah Smith and she lived at Golders Green. She seems to be someone of particular importance. Yes, she is one of the great ones. You have heard that fame in this country and fame on Earth are two quite different things.

Sarah Smith of Golders Green. Never heard of her. And that's the point. It's nobody famous. Wasn't a great Bible teacher. Wasn't a Christian blogger. Wasn't someone who wrote lots of books. Not a famous pastor, not a ministry leader. This is a normal person whose life overflowed with a living hope.

God can come into the lives of so many of us that are just normal, everyday, where we sort of forgotten the beauty and power of this, and cause them to explode with life and joy and hope if we will give ourselves more fully to it. This is what Jesus wants from us most of all: open hearts to rejoice in the fullness of what He's given us.

The angel finally says this:

It's like when you throw a stone into the pool, and the concentric waves spread out further and further. Who knows where it will end? Redeemed humanity is still young, and it's hardly coming to its full strength, but already there is enough joy in the little finger of a great saint like that, such as yonder lady, to waken all dead things of the universe into life.

Man, I pray that for our church. I pray that for you—that you would be so captured by this.

But I hope that there would be more power and the joy that comes out of your little finger than all the great ones. May it be so. May God make it so.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for your power. There is no one like you. Father, we need more of you. We pray, Father, for anyone here this morning who doesn't know a living hope. Father, would you draw them to yourself this morning? Would you give them boldness to lay hold of that which is life?

And Lord, for those who know we have a living hope, but we've forgotten. Wake us up. Wake us up, Father. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.