Joy of a Living Hope :: 1 Peter 1:3-9

Can you imagine what life would be like without hope? 

It’s good to have hope. We all need more hope. 

Researchers have discovered that you are three times more likely to live LONGER THAN eight years after a heart attack if you consider yourself to be a HOPEFUL person. If you’re a pessimist ... I should warn you that 21 of 25 of the hopeless died within eight years of their first heart attack. 

It’s good to have hope. We all need more hope.

According to one psychologist, hope reduces feelings of helplessness, boosts happiness, reduces stress, and improves our quality of life. Students with high levels of hope are more likely to succeed at school, more likely to have high-quality friendships, and less likely to suffer anxiety and depression. Hope improves your immune system, reduces stress, reduces joint pain. Hope is the voice inside that says, “Yes, I can.” 

It’s good to have hope. We all need more hope. 

So ... what is hope? 

Technically, hope is an optimistic state of mind that is based on an expectation of positive outcomes with respect to events and circumstances. As a verb, its definitions include: “expect with confidence” and “cherish a desire with anticipation.” 

But hope is so much more. 

There are times in our lives our hopes vary. They rise. They fall. They wax. They wane. We find ourselves with high hopes and low hopes ... living hopes and dying hopes. 

In the midst of trials, hope can be fleeting. Hope that has no grounding is often swept away by discouragement, despair, disease, disaster, disappointment, disobedience, depression ... distance from God. In the struggle with conscience ... the feeling of sin ... the wrath of God ... plus death and hell ...  hopelessness exerts a powerful control over our lives, making hope a fleeting thing.

We need a better hope.

Aristotle didn’t think too highly of hope. He called hope a dream of a waking man. I think the keyword for what he was trying to express is dream. Dreams are wispy, and provide no basis for hope.

Dr. Leon Seltzer, a clinical psychologist, must have come out of the Aristotle school of hope. I read an article he wrote for Psychology Today in which he warns that hope can be an inherently biased ideal that can hamper our preparations for life, encouraging you to forfeit. Hope, he says, can become a tool of self-deception. 

“Go ahead and hope,” he writes, “but do it judiciously.”

I still think it’s good to have hope. We all need true hope.

I wonder if Dr. Seltzer has ever read Peter’s first letter to the diaspora in Asia Minor, that is to the sojourners, the wandering Christians in what we call today modern Turkey. They struggled with hope because they lived in uncertain times. 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, we are living in uncertain times today, aren’t we? It might seem that hope is hard to come by. Our lives have all been turned upside down. Our hope for bringing life back to normal is taking a beating. Our world has been shut down. As I wrote this, it was being reported that 20 million Americans have lost their jobs. There are small businesses all over America that will never be able to open again. And Missouri has a shelter-in-place order until early May.

The pandemic that is causing all of this still hasn’t hit its peak in the United States. Are Americans losing hope this will ever end ... especially with news that COVID-19 may become a seasonal virus like the flu? Will we have to shut down every year?

Let’s hope not. We need higher hopes.

Some of us ... actually, I bet ... most of us, don’t know what day of the week it is any more. I know I don’t. It’s been more than a month since we worshipped together. As someone asked me this past week, Is this what it’s like not to be a Christian? To not know? To have a waning hope? I don’t remember.

Everything seems so uncertain today. We’ve lost our rhythm. And the longer this goes, the weaker our hope seems to become. Never in our wildest imaginations did any of us think we would ever stop worshipping together ... that we wouldn’t be able to receive the Lord’s Supper frequently. 

In the struggle with our conscience, the feeling of sin, the wrath of God, death, hell and all other terrors exert a powerful control over our lives. 

So thank God that today, our lectionary has brought us to Saint Peter’s first epistle. For the next six of the next seven weeks, we’ll get to hear magnificent readings from 1 Peter, which has aptly been called the epistle of hope. Is there a sermon series a brewing here? I don’t know. 

We all need more hope. So listen once more to Peter. 

Praiseworthy is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his great mercy, caused us to be born from above to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead into an inheritance uncorruptible and unstained and unfading ... an inheritance that is reserved in heaven for you ... you who by the power of God are being shielded through faith into a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Brothers and sisters in Christ, sound the trumpet. Pull out all the stops on the organ. Sing an Alleluia with Peter and all the saints. We have not just hope. We have not a plain meaningless empty hope. We don’t have an unfading hope. We have an incorruptible hope. A hope that is unstained. We have a hope of praise and glory and honor. We have a living hope, a hope that is being protected in heaven, shielded from the powers of sin, death, the devil, and our world. 

Jesus Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!

He is our hope. It’s good to have hope in him.

Our future is not what it used to be. It is not what it may seem to be. We have every reason to be as joyful as our Psalmist of the day ... who beckons us to Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord from the heavens. Praise him from the heights. Praise the Lord from the earth, praise him from the deep, praise the Lord from the mountains, and from the hills! He has raised up a horn for all of his people, praise for all of his saints. 

Jesus Christ has been raised from the dead! Alleluia! As John reminded us in our Gospel reading, we have seen him, and touched him. He is no longer dead. That is the basis of our hope.

In this truth, this one truth, living hope arises within you because it shows us that God is a God of mercy, abounding in steadfast love. He is a God of faithfulness and hope and love, and all of this is your inheritance. It is his priceless treasure given to you. Alleluia!

If you rest your hope in anything on the earth, it will fade away. But the hope we have in Jesus won’t. It won’t because He is risen, risen indeed. Alleluia.

Jesus is giving you reason to have an eternal hope that lives. Jesus has overcome our dying hope by dying for us on the cross. More than that, through his resurrection ... and the baptism with which he baptized you with ... he has transferred you from the dominion of darkness into his kingdom of light, where we receive our inheritance which is incorruptible and unstained and unfading. To those who believe in Jesus, this joy is yours, and through it you will find a sure and certain hope. 

We all need more of this hope.

The certainty of our hope isn’t based on our feelings, like those on earth which fade away so often and so quickly. Christian hope rests on God’s work and mercy. And as if I need to remind you again today, God has had mercy on you. Jesus Christ was given to die for you, and for his sake God forgives you all our sins. 

There, on the cross, Christ put to death all the dying hopes of this world. There, on the cross, he took your sin to his grave. There, out of the grave, Jesus burst forth into new life, thus providing you with a living hope that sin and death no longer have power over you. 

He is risen! He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

If you listen closely, you can actually hear this song in the apostle Peter’s words. These first verses of Peter’s letter burst forth with this inexpressible joy and hope. It is truly praiseworthy, uncorruptible, unstained, unfading joy. 

Jesus is not dead! He is alive! And you who have been baptized live and move and have your being in this revelation, too.

He is risen! He is risen, Indeed! Alleluia!

The Christians to whom Peter first wrote these words were going through dangerous and difficult times ... not unlike yours. They were strangers in their land, foreigners, sojourners. As the news of death surrounded them, they were longing for life in heaven, just like you. So Peter reminds them of the reason to hope, even in the midst of trials. 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, don’t fear these trials you are facing today. Through the various trials God is purifying you, making you more precious than gold. You can be sure of it because 

IN THE MIDST OF TRIALS, CHRIST’S RESURRECTION GIVES US THE CERTAINTY OF FAITH, JOY, AND HOPE

Rest your faith, joy, and hope in this news Peter is proclaiming: Jesus has lived for you, died for you, risen from the dead for you, ascended into heaven for you, and has promised to come again for you to deliver to you your eternal reward. 

This hope is real because though you have not seen him, you love him, and even though you don’t see him now, you believe in him. This is the reason you are filled with the inexpressible and glorious joy of knowing Jesus, of what he has done for you in his life, death, and resurrection. The salvation of your souls is complete.