Summary: In a world where we regularly experience "trials" (as the apostle Peter called them) we are challenged to live, really live in "living hope" because we serve a risen Savior.
"How was your week?"
"You don't want to know ... but if you do, I tell you that it was really hard."
Conversations along those lines are common, aren't they? Life is hard, and often neither you nor anyone else wants to hear about it. Most of us have enough trouble with our own stuff.
But if you do have someone continue the conversation with you, it sometimes turns into a "Yeah, that's too bad. It reminds me of what happened to me, only my situation was even worse!"
Maybe that's natural. Maybe we all want to "get it out" so someone else can share our misery.
But what if someone took the opposite course? Instead of declining to listen to your tale of woe, they made the whole conversation into a positive? Without ignoring or denying the negatives, they instead offered an alternative to the doom and gloom we often feel.
The apostle Peter did just that in our text for today.
Peter's first letter was addressed to Christians dispersed in "Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia"1 -- an area north of modern-day Turkey. But Christians were in the minority wherever they lived in those areas. In fact, most were aliens in those regions.2 Peter's letter was no doubt welcome and, as it was distributed from place to place, it encouraged these early believers.
So, Peter begins by saying. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! By his great mercy he has given us a new birth into living hope ...." Peter is not naive about the difficult situation of his readers -- indeed, he refers to their "various trials" in verse 6 -- but he reminds them that regardless of what was going on in their lives they were being blessed by God through the living Christ. "Living hope" is the term he uses: "new birth into living hope." This isn't wishful thinking on Peter's part. It is living hope because their Savior is alive. Their hope is not fragile and subject to be crushed. Jesus went through all manner of evil -- even death on the cross -- and yet Peter affirms the living Christ.
Just listen to how Peter describes this living hope. It is given through the "resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading ..." (italics added). The common thought in all of this is that these are things that cannot be changed by anything or anyone.
Many of those who heard this letter read would have been surprised to hear about an inheritance. Preacher Judith Jones notes that "As resident aliens and visiting foreigners, [the first hearers of this letter] were culturally and religiously different from the majority population. They paid taxes and contributed to the local economy, but they could not inherit property, and they were denied the legal protections that citizens enjoyed."3
And yet, Peter says God has a place for them in his family and an inheritance to look forward to that is imperishable. For many who are disenfranchised or no longer part of a family, the inheritance is almost secondary to the idea that they are included in God's family and will always be welcome there. God promises something they will likely never experience this side of the grave.
In our country today, we don't have to look far to see similar circumstances of people who have sought refuge in our towns and cities.
Peter said, "In this you rejoice, even if for a little while you have to suffer various trials." That is another way of saying their current situation may not change. Most Christians know the feeling or have had the experience of having a high moment of faith, or a high point in their walk with God. These are times of great encouragement. But sooner or later "life happens." Whether troubles come crashing down around us or arrive as a gentle nudge, something happens that brings us back to "reality."
When we find ourselves looking at our circumstances and wondering, "What went wrong?" we should take a step back and see the bigger picture. There are, of course, some needed questions: "Have I had a failure in my faith?" "Have I taken my eye off the prize?" But if these questions do not reveal any failure on our part, then it's safe to say we are just experiencing life. But whatever the case, God is with us. So, we proceed to live and walk by faith and trust that while we are experiencing "various trials," God will help us get through whatever lies ahead of us.
Peter reminds us there is a benefit to remaining faithful through these trials: "... while you may have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith -- being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire -- may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed."
Peter has more to say about suffering in this letter. In chapter 2 he encourages people to think about why they are suffering. If it is deserved for "doing wrong, what credit is that?" But he said, "when you do good and suffer for it, that is a commendable thing before God ... because Christ also suffered for you."4 In the next chapter he said more about that. "For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God's will, than to suffer for doing evil."5
In Chapter 4 Peter adds this encouragement. "But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ's sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed."6 And in the last chapter, Peter adds, "And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen and establish you."7 In each of these verses, Peter adds to his teaching from our text today. "In this you rejoice, even if you have had to suffer various trials ...."
The apostle Paul said something similar in his second letter to the Corinthians: "So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For our slight, momentary affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen, for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal. For we know that, if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."8
Although Peter spoke of his audience sharing Christ's suffering, our painful problems are not the same as the suffering of Jesus'. Nonetheless, we often find comfort as we experience trials, even of our own making, in the certainty that we serve a Savior who knows suffering.
But it is also true that sometimes we do suffer because we are Christians. In our country outright persecution because we are Christians is seldom seen. But around the world it is far more prevalent. Author Philip Yancey was invited to speak to pastors in Myanmar, which is under a brutal dictatorial regime. The inviter told Yancey that almost all those pastors had spent time in jail because of their faith. So, Yancey asked if he should talk about one of his book topics such as Where Is God When It Hurts? or Disappointment with God. "Oh, no," said the inviter, "that's not really a concern here. We assume we'll be persecuted for faith. We want you to speak on grace. We need help getting along with each other."9 Suffering for Christ was taken for granted. They wanted help to grow in how they lived their faith.
"So, how was your week?"
Regardless of how you answer that, Peter's encouragement for believers is to remember God has given us living hope and that we have reason to rejoice. As he puts it in our passage for today: "Although you have not seen him, you love him, and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy, for you are receiving the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls."
Don't we serve an incredible and gracious God? We experience, and we will experience, all of this because of God's grace. God sees us through all of life and through Jesus we have access to the God we have never seen.