Sermons

From Creation to Redemption

In the beginning, God's Word went forth: "Let there be light" (Gen 1:3). The Spirit of God hovering over the face of the deep joined Himself to that Word with explosive, creative effect. And the universe was born.  As it was with creation, so it is now with redemption--God's new creation in Christ (2 Cor 4:6). God's Word is preached and, when it is accompanied by the power of His Spirit, man is born again. Sinners are saved and saints are strengthened, all by His grace and all for His glory (cf. Gal 3:1-6; Act 20:32). May God be pleased to use these sermons in your life to this end!

Subscribe to Mercy Hill's podcast to stay up to date with our latest sermons and listen while on the go.

back to list

How Jesus' Resurrection Gives Us Hope

Date:3/31/13

Passage: 1 Peter 1:3-5

Speaker: Steve Fuller

How Jesus’ Resurrection Gives Us Hope

1 Peter 1:3-5

Today is Easter Sunday.  Today millions of people all around the world are celebrating Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.

And the reason people are celebrating is because Jesus’ resurrection solves our biggest problem.  We have lots of problems – racism, poverty, sex-trafficking, disease, oppression.  But as big as those problems are – there’s one problem that towers over all others.  And Jesus’ resurrection solves it.

 So what is this problem?  And how does Jesus’ resurrection solve it?  To answer that let’s turn to 1 Peter chapter one.  If you need a Bible, go ahead and raise your hand and we will bring one to you.  1 Peter 1 is on page 1014 in the Bibles we are passing out.

Here’s some background on 1 Peter.  This is a letter written at around the year 65 AD by Peter, who was a fisherman who became a follower of Jesus.  He was an eyewitness of Jesus’ life and ministry.  He saw Jesus heal a man who was completely blind.  He saw Jesus multiply five loaves and two fish into enough food to feed 5,000.  He saw Jesus turn 180 gallons of water into the best wine.  He saw Jesus dying on the Cross.  And – He saw Jesus risen from the dead.

 Peter became a leader in the early church, and 1 Peter is a letter he wrote to encourage believers who were suffering for their faith.  And look at what he says in ch.1 vv.3-5 --

3             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,

4             to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,

5             who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

I said that Jesus’ resurrection solves our biggest problem.  So what is our biggest problem?  To see that read v.3 again

3             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,

So this is what God does for us.  God can cause us to be born again to a living hope.  Which means that apart from God’s work, apart from Jesus’ resurrection, we don’t have a living hope.

Now why not?  Think about hope.  We all live by hope.  What gives your life meaning today is the hope you have for the future.  If you could look inside the heart of every person here – you would see hope for tomorrow –

  • maybe it’s Easter lunch today
  • or watching the Giants opening game tomorrow
  • or a vacation in the Bahamas. 
  • or a comfortable retirement. 
  • or raising successful children. 
  • or a certain net worth. 

So we all live by hope.  What gives your life meaning today is the hope you have for tomorrow.

But there’s a problem.  We are all going to die.  And death destroys hope.  So how did this happen?  How is it that we all live by hope – but we all face death which destroys our hope?  How did this happen?

How many of you watched the first episode of “The Bible”?  Remember how Adam and Eve sinned against God?  That’s what we’ve all done.  God created us, and gave us life and a beautiful world – but Adam and Eve and all of us refused to bend the knee before our Creator.  We refused to thank Him for life, we refused to honor Him as God, we refused to trust and obey Him.

So we have all sinned against God.  Now God is slow to anger and full of love.  But each of us has turned from God so much that God had to punish us – He had to bring His curse upon us.  And part of God’s curse is death.  So because of our sin, we all face death and God’s judgment forever.

So do you see the problem?  We all live by hope.  What gives your life meaning today is the hope you have for tomorrow.  But we all face death which destroys our hope.

That’s why throughout the centuries poets and writers have longed for freedom from death. 

Goethe, the German playwright, said this –

Everlasting!  -- for the end would mean despair.  No – no end!  No end!

Can you feel that despair?

And the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said this –

Joy wants eternity – wants deep, deep eternity.

Can you feel that longing?

And the American rock group Kansas sang this –

Now don't hang on

Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky

It slips away

And all your money won't another minute buy
Dust in the wind

All we are is dust in the wind

Feel the hopelessness?

So our biggest problem is that we don’t have a living hope.  We don’t have a hope that lasts beyond death.  Because death and God’s judgment destroys our hope.

 But here in 1 Peter we don’t just see our problem, we also see what God does about our problem.  So let’s ask -- what does God do about this?  To answer that, read v.3 again --

3             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,

Notice first of all that phrase “according to his great mercy.”  All of us rightly faced death and God’s judgment.  But God has mercy.  No, not just mercy – great mercy.  Think of it – the God who created this universe, the God who created you – has great mercy.  He loves mercy.

 

And so what does God do in His great mercy?  He causes us to be born again to a living hope.  What’s a living hope?  It’s a hope that death cannot destroy.  It’s a hope that conquers death.  It’s a hope that overcomes death. 

So what is this living hope?  The author gives us a clue in vv.4-5 --

4             [we are born again] to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you,

5             who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

So this living hope involves an inheritance.  And this inheritance is like no earthly inheritance, because it is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.  In other words – it will last forever.  Death can’t destroy it. 

But still – what is it?  I kept reading to see if I could find more clues.  And look at what I found in v.13 --  

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

So our living hope is the revelation of Jesus Christ.  It’s the fact that at the end of history Jesus Christ will be revealed to all of us.  See, the purpose of everything is to display how great God is – and God has displayed His greatness through Jesus Christ.

So if you have trusted Jesus Christ and been forgiven for your sins – then seeing Him will bring you great grace – great joy – great pleasure.  Forever.

Think about what this will be like.  Imagine what it would feel like to see Jesus Christ -- 

  • Who had so much love that even though He was fully God He was willing to become a man so he could save us.
  • Whose power enabled a completely paralyzed man to walk.
  • Whose sovereign authority turned a gale-force storm into complete calm.
  • Whose compassion raised a widow’s only son from the dead. 
  • Whose mercy moved Him to suffer and die on the Cross to pay our sins.

Imagine that you lived in Yosemite Valley, but ever since you got there it was filled with fog.  You’d go outside – but all you could see was cold, gray, fog.  Day after day.  Week after week.  Year after year. 

But now think of how amazing it would be if one day a wind blew that fog away and for the first time you saw El Capitan and Half Dome and Vernal Falls and Cathedral Rock.

At the end of history, God is going to blow away the fog and those who trust Jesus Christ will see Him.  His majesty, His royalty, His beauty, His love will fill us with joy forever.

That’s our living hope.  And it is a living hope because death can’t destroy it.  It is an inheritance that will last forever.

But how can God do that?  We’ve sinned against Him.  We face death and His judgment forever.  So if we face death and judgment, how can God give us living hope?  To see the answer read v.3 again –

3             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,

If we face death and judgment, how can God give us living hope?  There’s only one way – through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

If we are going to have a living hope, our guilt needs to be paid for by another, and death’s power needs to be broken by another.  And so in great love Jesus, God the Son, became a man.  He took on a human body so He could be punished and die in our place.  And He lived a perfectly sinless life before God.  And He told us that He would be punished on the Cross to pay for our sins – and that He would then rise from the dead.

So, just as Jesus said – He was scourged, beaten, nailed to a Cross, and died.  Jesus died.  And he was buried in a tomb.  Dead.

So the question was – would he rise from the dead?  If he didn’t rise from the dead – that would mean all he taught about paying for our sins would not be true.  If he didn’t rise from the dead – that would show that all of us are going to die and face God’s judgment.

So what happened?  On Sunday morning, Jesus Christ rose from the dead.  He rose from the dead – showing that all our guilt had been paid for, and showing that death’s power had been broken.

So how do we get in on that?  Read v.3 again –

3             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,

We get in on that by being born-again.  What does that mean?  I mean, we were all born once.  So why do we need to be born again?  Here’s why.  Remember that we’ve all refused to bend the knee before God.  That’s what the Bible calls sin, and sin kills our ability to trust God, know God, love God, worship God. 

Just like cirrhosis kills your liver, so sin kills your spiritual life.  So if there’s going to be any spiritual life in us – it has to be born in us again.  And that’s exactly what God does.

This is the best news in the world.  Because some of you are thinking – I have no faith in Jesus Christ.  I have no desire for God.  And it’s true – you don’t – because sin killed your spiritual life.

But the good news is that in great mercy God can cause you to be born-again.  It’s like sin took your heart which was created to know and love God – and it killed that heart.  So that heart is dead. 

But God can reach down from heaven with His power and birth a new heart in you.  He can create in you a brand new heart which trusts Jesus Christ, which loves Jesus Christ.  And the moment that happens all your sins will be forgiven – you will be assured of eternal life -- and you will be filled with living hope.

So one last question --

How can I be born-again to this living hope?

It’s not by trying to be good.  You can try as hard as you want, but trying won’t birth a new heart in you.

So what can you do?  It’s beautifully simple.

  • Turn to Jesus Christ just as you are. 
  • Admit that you have sinned and deserve God’s judgment.
  • Thank Jesus for dying on the Cross and rising from the dead.
  • Tell Jesus you want to turn from sin and trust Him, love Him, worship Him.
  • Ask Jesus to save you, strengthen your faith, forgive you.
  • Look to Him and trust Him, rely on Him, depend on Him.

You will feel a new heart being birthed in you.  You will feel the guilt of your sin lift from you.  You will feel the forgiving love of God poured upon you.  You will taste the joy of seeing Jesus – and you will be filled with living hope.

So do that now.