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. Remain standing and let's pray one more time. Father, we are a congregation filled with people who are experiencing both victories on the mountain and trials in the valley. There are people here who have cried out even this week, God, where are you? There are people here even this week who have thought life couldn't possibly get any better. And certainly there are those here today who have wondered if they'll be able to make it another day at all. We, like those who received this letter from Peter, are in desperate need of you, your mercy, your grace, and of hope. Would you give us that hope please now through the only source that can provide it, that is Christ, and he has given us and is the very word that comes to us today. Help us, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. It was 1927 when off the coast of Massachusetts, a US Coast Guard ship ran into a US military submarine and caused it to sink with the entire crew on board. The sub did not explode. Most of it was intact, and the crew was trapped, though alive inside, and rescue operations began. Divers started going down deep in the sea off the Atlantic coast, trying to figure out a way to get this crew out. One of the divers had made it down fairly deep where the sub was, and he began looking for ways in, and as he circled the sub, he began to hear the faint taps on the shell of the submarine. Thinking that it might be Morse code, he placed his ear onto the sub and began to make out the faint taps of Morse code. He translated the message slowly, under pressure, literal, and figurative, certainly. Deep in the water and deep in trouble, he hears. Is there any hope? It was one of the remaining six crew members, low on oxygen, wondering, is anybody up there? Is anybody thinking of me? Is anybody coming to rescue us? Will anyone be able to find a way to get us out? I wonder if you and I have ever felt that way, where we are trapped in a trial or we'll feel sunk under the weight or the pressure or the burdens in this life, and we're wondering, is there any hope? God, where are you? Is there a strategy or a purpose here? Is there something on the other side of this? Is anybody thinking about me in the midst of peril? Well, the audience that Peter wrote this letter to certainly felt that way. They were hated by the culture around them, mistreated by government, they were sold out by even family and friends, they were displaced from their own homes, persecuted for what they believed, killed, stripped of their earthly dignity. It seemed like the devil was really winning. And they certainly were wondering, is there any hope? All hell had seemingly been let loose on their lives and been allowed to be let loose on their lives. And so Peter wrote to answer that great question. And here and now today, we certainly ask, is there any hope? There is an answer. And that is what our text will provide for us today. The proposition that I offer you during this message is simple. It is this, look to your heavenly hope when it seems like all hell is breaking loose on earth. In verse three, Peter starts off by saying, blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And maybe in your translation, you've been fortunate enough to see there is an exclamation point that a translator put in there for you. That's a good thing and that's a literal thing. This is a very abrupt statement. It's injecting praise into the midst of a very perilous situation. It's exactly like a cell phone going off right now in the middle of the service. This happened recently here. A cell phone just went off in the middle of a very heavy sermon as we were going through the book of Titus and the subject matter was about women and the home and how things interact and we're all feeling a little heavy as marriage gets put under the microscope and everyone's just deathly silent. You could hear a pin drop and then a cell phone just goes off. That's the idea that I got when I was studying this passage and I'm thinking through. They must have been hiding in their homes, the streets busy with action in a pagan culture all around them, and Christians are sitting there wondering, are Roman soldiers gonna burst through the door at any minute? Are their children gonna be sold into slavery as either sex slaves or servants in the emperor's courts? Is a wife gonna get taken away from her husband and she couldn't even be protected? Every fear that a man would have saying all that I've worked for and all that I love and want to protect and have been called to could be taken away by anyone. I wonder if they're reading Peter's letter in somber silence, darkness, potentially the light of a candle burning at the table, and they read, and it's like a cell phone going off in a quiet church. Praise God, Peter says. Blessed be God. You're thinking, what? In the midst of this, you're telling me praise God? that Peter disrupts the downer. And this is more than just some kind of 2019 platitude, like, hey, chin up. It's gonna be okay. I'm gonna be there for you, man. And that's great, right? We should be there for each other. But how many of you know that you can offer the kindest words, the warmest hallmark greetings, but everything you could say is powerless unless you help people focus on what? A person, Christ. That's what Peter's doing here. And so the first, if you will, signature of hope in our passage, and I'll give you four of them, is this, remember that God bailed you out of spiritual bankruptcy. And the reason why we know that Peter is saying that is because after he says, praise God, he says, according to his great mercy, he's caused us to be born again. Remember where you've come from. When you're in the midst of trial and hopelessness, wondering is there any hope, the answer to your question could also be yes, look back to when you were once hopeless and Christ came in and gave you hope. Remember your salvation. Why in the world would Peter Give a group of people going through so much such a simple truth, it's because people in great pain need to be given greater perspective. And there is no greater perspective for the Christian than to be pointed to the one who is the very perspective, who is the definition of hope. People who are aware of how great a sinner they are tend to be the best at praising God for the great savior that he is. And if you're a Bible circling note taker, you may want to circle the word mercy there in this verse. Mercy is an important word here. He says, according to his great mercy. See, the devil is probably the best there is at throwing pity parties. And I would argue that he's the best at inviting us to them, isn't he? Causing us to feel sorry for ourselves. I would call this martyr syndrome. It's when we're going through a hard time and we say what? Nobody has it this bad. If they would just walk a mile in my shoes, Our situation is the worst. Now, you may be going through a hard time and I would affirm that you may be going through one of the worst situations that people around could go through. But no matter where you are in the spectrum of peril and of trial, what is the one constant truth that we as Christians need to be pointed back to? That our hope is in Christ. And we are helped when we are told to remember what God has done for us in our salvation. Mercy is a perspective tester. If you want, if you will, a maturity test of your faith today, you just simply have to ask, how do I view God's mercy in the midst of trial? Do I sit like one with martyr syndrome saying, where are you? You owe me. You said the abundant life. You said good things. You said joy. You said peace. This doesn't look like that right now. You owe me. See, mercy. is undeserved, mercy doesn't reek of entitlement, and you and I, though it is painful and can be difficult at times, we need a sobering shot of perspective, if you will, right in the arm, where God says, hey, remember, I've been there before, and I'm going to be there again. How you view mercy is vital. And church family, I would ask, in the midst of the trials that you go through, are you taking the challenge wholeheartedly to relish in God's mercy no matter what you're facing? Are you willing to let your maturity be put to the test? Now I don't say that with the intention of guilting you or shaming you, I want more for you, nothing from you, and one of the hallmarks of growth is to admit I'm just not where I'd really like to be when it comes to dealing with hard times. God, will you help me? And he will. God offers heaven out of a life that may seem like hell. He mercifully chose to take a moral, adulterous, abusing, aborting, insulting, thieving, cheating, lying, cutthroating sinners like you and I, and he decided and chose, because of his mercy undeserved, to transform us. So you tell me, is there any hope? In the midst of whatever may come, is there any hope? The answer is yes, and a signature of hope is to remember what God has done for you. Number two, another signature of hope in the midst of hopeless times is to look forward to what everyone else fears. Peter does this. by saying that God has caused us to be born again and we're born again to a living hope. And how many of you know that talking about death makes people really uncomfortable? Anybody else got, you know, family or friends like me, when you bring up certain things about death or your children at a Thanksgiving dinner, at a holiday party, say something like, you know, mommy, daddy, where did the doggy go when it died? And the grandparents or the aunts or uncles or whoever at the table, you know the ones that are kind of pseudo-quasi-Christians or they're holiday Christians or maybe not Christians at all, and what do they all say? Oh, sweetie, little Fluffy's in heaven. You'll see him again one day. Right? Or things get more serious and people get cancer or they get sick and what do we do? We write songs like the country song by Tim McGraw, you know, live like you were dying and now we're bull riding and plane jumping and parachuting and we're just gonna live it up, right? Rocky mountain climbing. We had a full country set for worship today. We might as well keep it going. And we're just trying to come to grips with something that is so uncomfortable because for so many people, the end of this life is the end of all hope. But a signature of Christian hope is to look forward to what everyone else fears. Recently, I was watching a documentary, and it was all about designer DNA. They've come up with a way to basically help your children have what you didn't. So if you're short, they'll give your kids height. And if you couldn't hit home runs, they'll make sure Johnny Jr. puts them 450 feet over the fence. And if you want a kid to ace the SAT, well, you just need this designer DNA. In fact, it gets really kind of slippery, though, too, is they've started to be able to manipulate eye color, hair color, skin color, and what starts to happen? Oh, we start to reveal all our prejudices and people start thinking, well, you know what, I guess I could give my kid the future I never had. Designer DNA. They're talking about trying to extend life to 120, 130, 150. Elon Musk will tell you you can go live on Mars, right? This world has gone crazy. All to do what? Extend the inevitable. Give me a better life. Make me better looking, give me brighter eyes, give me darker hair, give me better hops, whatever you want. This world will say, come get it. Of course, we're all not unfamiliar with the kind of Botox culture, right? As though we're gonna reverse the aging process, anti-aging creams, and oil of Olay commercials, and everybody's trying to do the same thing. Reverse the inevitable. It's like trying to run up an icy hill. You are gonna keep on going down. But you go on trying. And pastors, we run into weird stuff when we're studying sometimes, and I ran into one this week. I wasn't trying. The Alcor Life Extension Foundation is right here in Scottsdale. You know what they'll do? They'll freeze your corpse after you're legally dead. and you can sign a little contract. So when, again, whether it's one of these billionaires or Bill Gates Foundation or Elon Musk or whoever comes up with the technology to heal all diseases and make your life amazing and get your body thawed and you to live, you get to come back. Just what we need, more you again. Your great, great, great grandkids enjoying their life, and you show up at the door. I mean, what this world will go through. Because they don't wanna die. Now I understand that we mourn, and the Bible says to mourn with those who mourn, and we should be hurting and broken over the loss of those we love, but are we as Christians without hope? Are we as Christians supposed to fear death in the way that the world fears death? Absolutely not. Look forward to what this world and everyone else fears. You've been born again to a living hope through what in verse three? The resurrection of Jesus Christ. Peter's not speaking in merely earthly terms. He's speaking in eternal or heavenly ones. If your God is alive, your faith is alive. If your faith is alive, your hope is alive. I was at a church before being at Redeemer as a pastor, and this has been the greatest transition of our lives. We're so thankful. We feel like we're at home every week here. And our last church had a very young demographic. And let me tell you a prayer we used to pray. We used to pray for old people. I'm serious. We used to pray for seasoned saints. You know, the crown of wisdom, the gray-haired ones that Proverbs talks about. The silver sneakers. You know why? Because they're smarter. They've put in some mileage on the road of life. They know a little something about marriage. They know a little something about parenting. They know a little something about making mistakes, about doing things the right way, about hard work. We need more seasoned saints, and we used to pray for them, and we started getting them, so we started a baby boomer growth group, life group thing, we started all this, because we knew we needed wisdom, because we were young, invincible, and we were gonna live forever. We needed a shot of perspective. and it often comes from those who have aged, because why? You're closer to heaven. Wayne Grudem captures this thought so beautifully, and really what Peter is pointing to here, the perspective of the end. He says, Grudem, this hope is eager. This living hope is confident expectation of the life to come, which Peter will describe in more detail in the next verse. It's living. Peter indicates that it grows and increases in strength year by year. If such a growing hope is expected to be the result of being born again, then perhaps the degree to which believers have an intense and confident expectation of the life to come is one useful measure of our progress and spiritual maturity. It is not surprising then that such a hope is particularly evident in many older Christians in the church as they approach death. We need some seasoned saint perspective, no matter how old we are. That's a signature of hope, to look forward to what is coming. To begin to take stock of the way we've lived and how we've loved. And all of the hope is wrapped up in one thing, Peter is saying, the resurrection of Christ. How many of you know that probably as much as, or just more than, the doctrine of the resurrection, if you will, is under assault almost as much or if not more than the inerrancy and reliability of the very Bible itself. How many would you hear that and know that? The resurrection is always under assault. There's always some new documentary where they're trying to disprove that Jesus was even real. I was watching a debate recently though that showed me the exact opposite I was just enjoying myself and looked up a William Lane Craig debate, who's an apologist from Biola University. He's debating a scholar from UCI. If you're familiar with the University of California system of education, Berkeley, UCLA, all the academy credentials and the intellectuals, they really pride themselves on being able to debunk Christianity. And so here comes this debate with a scholar from UCI and William Lane Craig, and it's all about the resurrection. And I thought it was interesting. You and I may not need a lot of evidence to believe the resurrection, right? Some of you would say, I don't need a bunch of evidence. I just believe. I know what he's done for me, right? Faith is enough. But some people need evidence. And so William Lane Craig begins to unpack just five. He talks about more, but five. And it was that Jesus was buried in a tomb. Historically, we know that. Jesus was a real person, and his burial in a literal physical tomb was attested to by independent sources who were not in cahoots at all, and so we know that there was a Jesus guy buried in a tomb. He goes on to explain that the tomb was discovered empty. Whether someone stole the body, whether some other issue happened, historically we know from independent sources that are attesting it without bias that the tomb was discovered empty there on that day. Third, Another evidence for the resurrection being reliable and real is that women were chosen as the choice heralds, the testifiers of Christ's resurrection, which, if you know anything about the early church and early culture, was a crazy idea if you were trying to make up a story about a guy raising from the dead. Women were not taken seriously. Both in Roman culture and in Judaism, there were kind of sayings like praise God or thank God and answered prayer that you weren't born a woman. They demeaned women, they abused women. They considered women to be the lowest on the totem pole. In fact, some men in that culture, and in Roman culture for sure, they had their wife that would have the babies and take care of the children, almost like a stay-at-home maid, and then they had other women that they enjoyed as mistresses. They lived separate lives, compartmentalizing all of it. Women were the last choice if you were gonna make up a resurrection story. They wouldn't be taken seriously, but Jesus decided that he would do that. Another thing he explains is that the disciples' testimony serves as evidence of a real resurrection, because who in their right mind makes up a religion that's gonna get you killed right after you tell people about it? Nobody in their right mind. And then to have other independent sources and men like Paul come along and others and then ignite disciples in the early church like Polycarp and Josephus and others to start a wave of revival where everyone's gonna die for this guy that apparently falsely rose from the dead is absolutely ludicrous. And the fifth one that independent sources attest to post-resurrection appearances. Meaning there weren't a couple of guys in a room saying hey, Let's say he appeared to 500 people. Let's say he walked around for 40 days. Independent sources are saying we saw him. So this scholar from UCI says, you know, I affirm all of that. I've read history, I've read archeology, I've looked into the science of it, the historicity of it, and you know what? I agree. I cannot deny the premises that Jesus Christ was a real guy, he was buried in a tomb, and he raised or was seen after the resurrection outside of that tomb. So you think, well, did he get saved? Was there this revival? Is UCI gonna turn into a Christian university? Woo-hoo, here we go! No. This scholar gets up and says, I agree with the premise. that has been laid before you, and here is my hypothesis. By the way, this guy's a PhD, so hold on tight. He says that Jesus had an evil twin who stole the body and then went and appeared to everyone and started a religion. That's a debate at a school that rivals Berkeley and Harvard and Stanford. That's the length that someone will go to to say, you've proven it, but my hypothesis is that he had an evil twin. Brothers and sisters, the resurrection is a fact historically, but how many of you know in the depths of your heart and in your soul, the transformative work of God's power in your life, that it is a fact through your faith? You've experienced the power of the resurrection. Peter points to that fact. That is why there's no fear in death. That's why there's no guilt in life. That's why we sing, this is the power of Christ in me. From life's first cry to final death, Jesus commands my destiny. Third, another signature of hope, is that you can count on the greatest return on or for your repentance. You can count on the greatest return on your repentance. He writes, you've been born again to a living hope, and it's to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, and kept in heaven for you. Now this may not be a big deal to you, but it would have been a very big deal to Peter's audience. See, they would have been losing everything. And to be told that there's something people can't take from you is a very powerful truth. How many of you remember 2008, the crash? I have a dear friend who lost so much, he's gonna work well through retirement to try to make it all back because he literally came down to nothing, lost annuities, lost his investments, lost his 401K. Investment advisors will tell you to diversify your portfolio to ensure that you get maximum return on your investment. You watch enough HGTV and they'll tell you to do shiplap and tile everywhere, right? To capitalize on your investment or property brothers or what have you. You know, redo the yard. Get the best out of your money, and pretty soon, on Black Friday, or whatever you wanna call it, just crazy day, and don't act like you don't wait in the line at Best Buy at three in the morning, everybody will go and try to, what? Save a buck. Make the most of their investment. There's nothing wrong with couponing. We've done it and do it. Save your money. Invest well, but understand. that if you wanna get the biggest bang for your buck, so to speak, out of this life, if you want a real investment strategy that is fool-proof and even earth-proof, invest your soul in the kingdom of God. Christ is the greatest investment strategy, if you will, a guarantee that this world cannot compare to. It's the guarantee of life, of heaven, of an inheritance, of glory to come. Yes, he is the greatest treasure, but how many of you know that he's gonna welcome you into his heaven, and it will be about him, no doubt, and he'll also say, enter into the joy of your rest. Come and enjoy the fruits of whose labor, yours or his? His. There's a joy, an inheritance, a relishing in being a child of God. So put all your stock in Christ. Peter is basically saying this, if you want to put this in 2019 terms, you're the king's kid. You're the king's kid. How many of you have been left in inheritance before, and you maybe walk into a hospital room, and the last will and testimony, or you walk into even a lawyer's office. Some of us get in uncomfortable situations, and siblings are fighting, and ex-spouses are fighting, and somebody wants daddy's old guns, and somebody else wants the old books, and everyone begins to fight over what has been left on this earth, right? and some of us get a little outside of our Christian walk and we start fighting for things that are perishing because our parents and loved ones and grandparents mean a lot to us. Well, If you've ever felt the pain of loss in those moments, trying to fight for something that you know belongs to you as a rightful heir, how much joy can you and I have and hope knowing that our Father in heaven has laid up an inheritance and nothing, not even the devil, can show up at the divine legal office, if you will, and say that's mine. Christ says no, they're mine. That's the joy of an inheritance. You're a kid covered by the king. It doesn't matter if you're 85 years old or you're 12 years old. You're a child of the most high God. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. He created the heavens and the earth. He will one day return and restore all things and you will be the primary benefactor of his will. What a joy. What hope. Yes, life is hard. Yes, you're gonna go through things and question and sometimes even doubt your faith and say, God, where are you? God, I'm crumbling. God, the air is getting a little hard to breathe here. I'm looking for you. I need you. And he's saying, I'm here. It's a signature of hope that you can have a return on your repentance. If you've repented and put your faith in Christ, he is with you. And finally, The fourth signature of hope is that you must know that God's promises always keep you covered. in the midst of trial. Peter says in verse five, you, continuing on, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. God is protecting your salvation, your inheritance in heaven, the promises that he made to you to finish the work that he began in your life when you first trusted in him by faith. This is the doctrine of eternal security. that nothing can snatch you out of his hand. People say, you know, do you believe in once saved, always saved? Sure, if you stay saved. Absolutely. We see enough evidence in the New Testament where Jesus says there'll be people who say, oh Lord, Lord, I didn't know you, you were a professor but not a possessor. You didn't really have me and I didn't have you. And John later writes that there'll be those that go out from among us. They were really never of us. Sure, there'll be people that look saved but really weren't saved, and that's another sermon for another time, and we've preached that before. But here and now, honestly, if you've put faith in Christ, no matter the doubts that come, no matter the trials and peril that come, you can rest your head on the pillow at night knowing that no matter what you're going through, God's got you. You're his. He'll keep his promises. And the enemy specializes in kind of cheap shots and lies, telling you you're not secure. This is going to turn out badly. I don't really think God is here right now. He's been doing that since the beginning in Genesis chapters two and three. And he goes and tells Eve, you know, kind of did God really say? And in various ways today, he may do the same. Using certain voices and certain people to question, what kind of God lets you go through that? Are you sure this Christianity thing is a sure bet? I can get you other coping mechanisms that feel a whole lot better. You don't have to listen to the preacher tell you that God's got this. I got some things you can actually feel and touch and know and see literally with your eyes. They'll make you feel a whole lot better a whole lot quicker. Lie after lie after lie, but the Christian knows I am covered. Just recently, one of my children, my oldest, decided to do something very selfless. It was not commanded of him. I was very proud of him. It was a wonderful, wonderful moment of independent, selfless service for his younger brother. My oldest son decided that he would help to start a bath for young Timothy. Well, couple of problems. First, three point sermon on how to run a bath. Number one, you don't run baths in the sink. Number two, never buy a home that doesn't have a safety drain on a sink that the children in your house use. And number three, Never be napping as a family on a Sunday afternoon while a five-year-old is running a bath in a sink with no safety drain on it. Point number four, make sure you have house insurance. We're not doing any home visits right now because if you came over, you would be breathing in construction dust. because, you know, the rains came down and the floods came up, right? And we awoke to what was a swamp upstairs and a rainforest downstairs. And so the roof in the garage opened like the heavens and the water came down. and we got the greatest upgrade you could get in Arizona, we turned the garage into a swimming pool. And I was sure glad that, like a good neighbor, State Farm was there. We were reminded why being guarded by house insurance is helpful. How much more peace and security, joy and relief, even rest can we as believers have knowing that God's got you covered? When the rains of life come and when the floorboards start to crack and when you're knee deep in everything under the sun and when it seems like all hell is breaking loose, heaven is there. God's got you. You're covered. And you can know that it may take some time and there may be some cleanup and there may be some catastrophe and there might be some tension and some challenges, even some tears and some recourse or even rebuke. But God will restore what's been broken. He will restore what has been lost. And Peter says in verse five, that he's done this all for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. He's not using broad timelines here, he's talking about a specific time. A time in history to come. Eternity future. that God will show you and prove to you that his promises come true. You will stand in glory and you'll begin to watch the tape of your life play on the jumbotron of heaven, if you will, and you'll just begin to weep and see that God was always there. The promise is not that he'll take you out of the trial, is it? The promise is that he'll carry you through the trial. And the apostle John gets the most beautiful glimpse of this. As such a fitting way to close our time together in Revelation 21 verses one through five. John with a vision of heaven. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more. Neither shall there be mourning or crying or pain any more. The former things have passed away, but he who is seated on the throne said, behold, I am making all things new. The question that we ask, is there any hope? In Christ there is hope.