Because He Lives

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0:00today on Resurrection Sunday. It's great to worship with you, to be not by ourselves spiritually or physically today. Today is a celebration of a day that changed everything. It's not an exaggeration to say that everything changed on Resurrection Sunday long ago. Easter is not a celebration of spring coming. It's not a celebration of flowers, blooming of the cold retreating. Probably a good thing considering it's still pretty cold outside. It's not even a celebration of a great idea. It's not a celebration of an inspiring message.

0:43It is a celebration of an event in history, something that actually happened, the most important event in history. Now in today's scripture passage, God is going to speak through a man who was there, who ran to the tomb. After he heard the report of the women, he ran to the tomb when he heard that Jesus was gone. And he writes this letter about 30 years later to tell us that this past event changes everything about our expectation for the future and our experience of the present today. So turn with me, please, to 1 Peter chapter 1. Let's read from God's word today. This is the word of God. It's trustworthy. It's true. It's something that we can rely upon, build our life upon. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

2:13In 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, 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 joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Pray with me. Lord God, by your spirit, the same spirit that raised Christ from the dead, will you please bear fruit in our hearts. Help us to not just hear these words, help us to receive it from you and be changed as your word goes forth today. Lord, I pray that we would treasure Jesus more, that we would live with the living hope that you gave us through the resurrection. Jesus, will you please do this? I pray this in your name. Amen. My title today is Because He Lives. You may be familiar with that old hymn, Because He Lives. The resurrection brings us into a living hope. Now, Peter wrote this letter in 62 or 63 AD. He wrote it to Christians living in the Roman Empire in the northern part of modern-day Turkey. He wrote this letter to give them hope as they lived in a society that was more and more turned against them, opposed to their faith. Now, that word hope, we use the word hope all the time. But when Peter uses the word, when he's talking about hope connected to Jesus, when the other New Testament authors talk about hope connected to Jesus,

4:27it means something very different than how we oftentimes use the word hope. Let's talk about that. Kids, give me your attention for a second. I want you to think about Easter candy. I know it's difficult to think about Easter candy right now. Are you thinking about Easter candy? Okay. When I was a kid, sometimes I would get a chocolate bunny for Easter. I would unwrap it just like you do. If you get a chocolate bunny, I would unwrap it and I would stare and wonder should I eat the ears first? Should I eat the tail first? How do I approach this? This is a very important decision. And then you take a bite into it and sometimes you would go, oh no, it's hollow.

5:25I was hoping for a solid one. But it's hollow. Anytime after that, you might get a chocolate bunny and you think, oh, this is great, but I sure hope that it's solid. I hope it's not hollow. That kind of hope, that means that something that we want it to be true, but we're just not really sure if it's going to be true. The word wish is really what we mean, right? Kids, listen to this. If this is the only thing you take away, if you get distracted the rest of the sermon, that's fine.

6:08Just listen to this. Anytime you read the word hope in the Bible and it's talking about Jesus, it does not mean that kind of hope. Like I sure hope this wrapped bunny is solid, but I don't know if it's actually going to be. That's not what it means. That's a wish hope. That's not what the Bible means when it's talking about hope in Jesus. The kind of hope that God gives us through Jesus is more like this. Imagine a parent, kids. I'm still talking to you for a second, kids. Imagine a parent, a perfect parent. We don't have those. A perfect parent who has never lied, never broken a promise, who says to you when Easter comes, I'm going to give you a solid Easter bunny. Now you don't wonder if it's going to be hollow. They've never broken a promise before. Instead, the feeling you have is looking forward, looking forward to getting that Easter bunny, that solid chocolate Easter bunny and unwrapping it and biting in and it won't be hollow. That's what the Bible means when it talks about hope in Jesus. It's not a wish hope. It's a promise hope. Okay? It's a promise hope. Now for those grown-ups in the room who've been checking out because I've been talking to the kids who don't like things explained to them with chocolate Easter bunny analogies, here's a quote from another grown-up if it helps you. This is Paul David Tripp. Hope for the Christian is a confident expectation of a guaranteed result. That's what Peter means when he talks about a living hope. Okay? We can't go any further until we get that straight. We're not talking about hope the way we usually use the word

7:59hope. We're talking about a promise hope. Peter underlines how different this hope is by calling it a living hope. The only place in the Bible where that phrase is used. A living hope. He tells us three things that this hope changes for us. The first one's this. It changes our future. When God brings us into his family through faith, we immediately become an heir. A full-fledged heir. This new birth means a full birthright. We have an inheritance. We've done nothing to earn it.

8:39It's ours through Christ. Peter tells us this inheritance is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Kids, the takeaway from that is that the value won't ever be lost. It won't ever change. Nothing in this world is guaranteed to remain valuable. Not real estate. Not Google or Apple or Amazon stock. Not cryptocurrency. Not collectible Elvis plates or Star Wars toys that are still in their original packaging. Not printed money. Not even precious metals. But what God gives you when you're born again through him will always endure. Do you know why? Because it is kept in heaven for you.

9:32It's kept in heaven. God's got a safe deposit box. He's got the key. And no thief is ever going to break into that bank. So what is this inheritance? Well, it's not trivial. It's not a small little trinket. It's significant. But it's not boatloads of cash. The promise is not that we're going to be Scrooge McDuck diving into a big swimming pool of money. Swimming around. It's a DuckTales reference for those of you who are Generation X like me. Here's the inheritance. It's a home. It's a place with God himself. Peter heard Jesus say this at the Last Supper. In my Father's house are many rooms.

10:19If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again. And I will take you to myself. That where I am, you may be also. Church, only a living Savior can do this. If he were still in that tomb, this would be a lie. This is our inheritance. But an indestructible inheritance doesn't do us much good if we don't get there, right? If we don't get there to take hold of it. If we aren't kept safe to receive it. But the same person, the same power that keeps our inheritance secure also keeps us secure. Did you see that here? By God's power, you're being guarded through faith. Now imagine for a second that you just heard news today.

11:20That you were set to receive a fortune sometime in the future. And until you got it, you'd have a bodyguard to keep you safe. And you'd have the best doctors in the world to keep you healthy.

11:36How would you feel? How would you live? What decisions would you make? If Jesus is your Savior, Peter is giving you that news, only it's better. It's 10,000 times better than that. So it should change you today. It should change how you feel, what decisions you make, how you live your life. So many things, so many things offer us a secure and abundant future. The call of the siren is loud. Technology, medicine, government, ideology, community. They all end up unreliable and problematic. They over-promise and they under-deliver.

12:23And that's one of the reasons why we feel so anxious. We've seen so many promises broken by all those other things that offer us the future that we all want. These verses are here to remind you that Jesus came and he died and he rose again to prepare a place for you that he is giving you an inheritance. That both you and your future are on solid ground. Nothing else can be that kind of trust for your life. Now as we live our life, Peter tells us that our living hope also changes something else. It changes our hardships. The Christians receiving this letter are suffering. We don't know all the details, but we do know that persecution was on the rise in the Roman Empire. And one year after this letter was written, the great fire in Rome breaks out. Nero blames the Christians and the real intense persecution begins. So by the will of God, Peter speaks to them now before they're about to experience their most severe trial. And he speaks to us now. We aren't in the same situation as the people receiving this letter, but each one of us has our own trials, our own hardships. They grieve us. This is the nature of life in this present age.

14:00We are at the same time blessed and afflicted. Or to use the words from this passage, we are both guarded through faith and grieved by various trials. Guarded and grieved at the same time. Our constant temptation is to despair. The experience of suffering, it clouds our vision. It gets in our ears, our mind. Sometimes we can't think about anything else. We can't see a way ahead. Listen, if that's where you are this morning, I want you to know one thing, and that is you're not alone. I want you to hear this too. This word and this passage is for you. If you trust in Christ, you have a two-fold promise in this passage. First, the trials are only for a little while.

15:00Only a little while. The inheritance, remember, it's never going away. You are being kept. The inheritance is being kept. The trials, just for a little while. The second promise is this. These hardships, they reveal something glorious that's in you, that God gave you. The tested genuineness of your faith. Now, in a school, kids, think about tests when you get them in school. Tests don't give you knowledge. They reveal the knowledge that you already have, right? In a doctor's office, a stress test doesn't give you strength. It reveals the strength that your body already has. Think of a science project in school. I know some of you did this this year, where you build a bridge out of popsicles and glue and other stuff. They all might look impressive and look great, but it's not a beauty contest. The test comes when you start putting the weight on, and you figure out how strong is this bridge. That's the real test. Now, when the outcome of all these tests comes back successful, a passing grade, a good result from the doctor, your bridge is the strongest one of all of your classmates, you might think, well, I know more than I thought I did on that test, or my body is stronger than I thought it was, or man, we really designed that bridge well. But here's the difference.

16:43Our faith comes from God. Our faith comes from God. Ephesians 2 verse 8 tells us it is a gift. It's a gift from God. The tests and the trials reveal to us the strength of what God has given us.

17:03It shows us that the faith that he's given us is genuine. All other places of trust, our self-confidence, our abilities, our resources, our reputation, as time goes on, they're all revealed to be too weak to stand on. But meanwhile, the faith that we have in God and in Jesus Christ, it's proven over and over to be strong, to be durable, to be strong enough to bear us through. It's the faith that God gave us. So though the trials are painful, hardship, it shows us that God is doing a great work in us. And this work will be completed. Peter tells us it's going to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ someday. The faith in you that God put there. It is strong and it's getting stronger every day because of what you're enduring. And someday the tested genuineness will be evident to you and to everyone. And God will get praise and glory for what he has done in you. Living hope calls us out of despair. Our trials will not consume us. They will not defeat us. You have that promise. Now finally, Peter tells us that our living hope changes our emotions.

18:42Our emotions. The last part of Peter's message is about our emotional life. This might surprise you. We think, what's love got to do with it? Aren't we supposed to just trust Jesus? Say a creed? Recite some things. Why do we have to love? Look at what Peter says. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with great joy. A living hope means real emotions accompany real trust. This is vital. Church, our faith is not a creed that we recite. It's a relationship with a person. It's a relationship with a person. And it's not a person like a lawyer or an exterminator or a contractor. Those people, they provide a service for you. It doesn't matter if you love them or not. They do their job. You thank them. And you don't care about them all that much. Jesus is not a service provider. You can't say, thanks Jesus, I'll take the inheritance, but I don't really care very much for you. It doesn't work that way.

20:08True faith includes both trust and love. A real change in our affections. And that's exactly what Peter says we have. The work that God has done in us. Even though we haven't seen him, Peter is marveling at this point. He has seen Jesus, but now he's seeing, you haven't seen him, but you love him. Hallelujah for the Spirit's work in you. The work of the Spirit has stirred up love in people who haven't even seen Jesus, haven't beheld him yet. Now you might be skeptical. Maybe I haven't convinced you about all this talk about love. You mean I should care? Probably many of us have struggled with apathy over the years. Apathy is like a callus. It's created when we've just gotten rubbed the wrong way too many times. We've dared to love and we've been hurt. So apathy starts creeping in. Well, Peter could relate to that. Think about his story. He boasted about his devotion to Jesus.

21:26But then under pressure, he denied even knowing him. Jesus heard the denial and he turned and he looked at Peter. And that's when Peter broke down weeping. For a few days, Peter thought this might be the last interaction I've ever had with my Savior, with my Lord. When he looked at me and he heard me and I wept. Think about that. For a few days, Peter thought, that's the last interaction I had with him. He saw how weak I was, how much I didn't love him. But then came a miracle. He rose again.

22:09And one of the things that the resurrected Jesus does is he intentionally moves towards Peter personally, with forgiveness, with reconciliation, and restoration. He asked him, Peter, do you love me? Do you love me? Peter learned that he loved Jesus because Jesus loved him first.

22:38And now the love that he had has deepened and it's grown. Friends, listen to Jesus as he speaks to your wounded heart. He loved you first. Don't be timid about loving him back. Don't be timid. I mean, really loving him back. Telling him that, even if it makes you feel silly. When Nikki and I were dating, we were riding in my car together and a song came on. And suddenly, I felt like this song conveyed everything that I felt about her. And I really wanted her to know, just right then. So I pulled over the car. I restarted the song. I took her hand in mine and I sang it to her. She responded with polite bewilderment. I felt kind of silly, but I was glad that I had expressed how I felt. Friends, don't be content with a little bit of love for Jesus, a little bit of joy in him. You have a living hope. You have a living hope. Isn't that worth getting all emotional about? Of being expressive? Of being extravagant? Isn't it worth it? He loved you first and he loved you more. God certainly thinks it's worth getting all emotional about.

24:38Look at this duet that he wants to sing with you. This is from Zephaniah. Sing aloud, oh daughter of Zion. Yes, men and boys in the room, he's talking to you too. Sing aloud, oh daughter of Zion. Shout, oh Israel. Rejoice and exult with all your heart. Oh daughter of Jerusalem. The Lord your God is in your midst. A mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exult over you with loud singing. Keep that up there for a second, Grayson. This love song is a fruit of our living hope.

25:30He gets the first verse because he saved us. He's in your midst. He's a mighty one that will save. He gets the first verse and then he stirs up our affections and our love and our joy and he directs them to him. So open your mouth and let it out. All this is possible only through one way, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Only a living Savior can give us living hope. When you repent and you put your faith in him, you are born again as surely as he got up out of that tomb. Because he lives, he changes our hearts. He strengthens us to endure trials and he prepares a place for us even now. New creation. He has risen. Hallelujah. Let's pray. Lord God, thank you for what you did. We were dead in our trespasses. We were your enemies. And Jesus, you did all the work.

26:52You loved us before we loved you. You moved towards us with reconciling love. Jesus, will you give each one of us strength to reach out and take your hand? To not fear what will happen in our future because we know it's secure. To endure trials because we know that you are just proving genuine what is already inside of us. And help us to be expressive, to give voice to the love and the joy that you have put in us. Jesus, all we can do today is give you praise because you are alive.

27:42Thank you for the living hope we have in you. May it bear fruit in our lives. Jesus, we pray this in your name. Amen.