What a joy it is to be here with you, truly. We flew in from Dallas. We're from Louisiana. We flew in from Dallas and it was a great trip and we're just so pleased to be able to be here with you. Thank you for letting the snow come out to play this morning. You know, it may not be much by your standards, but for some Southerners from Louisiana, my kids thought it was the greatest thing in the world this morning. I mean, I could barely get them to eat breakfast or get dressed before they were trying to get out in the snow. So, thank you for that. Hopefully, you've gotten a chance. I've gotten to meet a lot of people. I've already been made aware that there will be a test later on names, but I'm going to tell you what. The first time I ever met my wife's family, there was about a hundred of them, and there was a test then, too. So, I've been studying. I've been working on my names. So, we'll see how I do. If you haven't met my family already, hopefully you'll get a chance to soon. This is a picture of us at our church back in Louisiana, my beautiful wife Lila. We've been married for 21 years. My daughter Vianna, sons Matthias, Ruben, and Zakiah. And while I'm making introductions, I should probably introduce you to the other lady in my life. There we go. Okay. We've been together for about 20 years, so I guess you could say it is sort of serious. But don't worry, baby. You're always number one. All right? I have served in the Air Force for the last going on 22 years, and I fly on the greatest airplane in the world. the B-52 Stratofortress. Now, you don't have to agree with me that it is the greatest airplane in the world. We can talk later and I can help explain why you're wrong in that opinion. But we'll save that for another time. Well, we've just felt so welcomed. since we've gotten here to Alaska. It's been so greatly appreciated. And we really hope to get to meet and to get to know at least a little bit everyone here while we're here for the next nine days. You know, hope is a powerful thing, isn't it? Hope can help people to persevere through situations that they thought that they could never make it through. On May 27th, 1943, Louis Zamperini's B-24 Liberator ditched in the Pacific Ocean, killing eight out of the 11 bomber crew members on impact. Three survived, and the ordeal that they went through really can only be described as hell on earth. For 47 days, they were in some small rubber rafts, adrift in the ocean, fighting hunger and thirst, exposure, sharks, and even the occasional Japanese fighter that would come by and take a pot shot at them while they floated there in the ocean. Now, I got a little In my time in water survival training in the Air Force, I got to experience just a very little bit of time in a very similar raft. One day, to be exact. And I can tell you, it would not have taken another 46 days for me to understand that that was not a good situation. One of Zamperini's... I dropped my bookmark. One of Zamperini's crewmates died. during that time on the ocean. And eventually, the other two made it to shore, only to be captured by the Japanese and taken to a prisoner of war camp where Zamperini was tortured and tormented night and day for almost two years. It's hard to imagine going through something like that, right? It's even harder to imagine maintaining hope through an experience like that. But Zamperini never gave up hope. He hoped that one day he would be saved. And he hoped that one day, hoping against hope, he would be able to go home. As we gather here together today, I wonder what are the things that we place our hope in. Maybe it's another person. Maybe it's a relationship. Maybe it's a job or an identity that we get from our work. Maybe it's a paycheck. Or maybe, and I'll be honest, this is something that I struggle with more often than I'd like to admit, I put my hope in myself. and my talents and abilities. But whatever we put our hope in, there's so many things that we can put our hope in. Some of us have come to experience and understand that all of those things can be taken away, right? None of them will stand the test of time. So today we're gonna be looking at what the apostle Peter describes as the imperishable, undefiled, and unfading hope and inheritance that we have as children of God and followers of Christ. So our text today is going to be 1 Peter. We're gonna be looking at verses three through 12. So if you'll open up with me, I'll be reading out of the ESV. That can be found on page 1014 in your Pew Bibles. 1 Peter, chapter one, verses three through 12. Our passage today has three sections that we're gonna work our way through. First, in verses three through five, the Apostle Peter is gonna call his readers to praise God the Father based on the hope and inheritance that we have in Christ. In verses six through nine, we will see that this hope, it is this hope that allows believers to persevere during times of trial, and that faith is inseparably connected to the believer's hope. In our last section, verses 10 through 12, Peter's going to tell his readers, and by extension us, about the wonder of the glorious mystery that has been revealed once and for all in the person of Jesus Christ. So if you're willing and able, please stand with me for the reading of scripture. 1 Peter chapter one, verses three through 12. 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 salvation, ready to be revealed at the last time. In 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 that perishes, 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 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. Concerning the salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. This is God's holy word. May the Spirit use it to transform us into the image of our Savior. Please be seated and let's pray. Father, what a wonderful thing it is to come together as your people, whether we're from Louisiana, Alaska, anywhere else, God, when we come together, this is your church. And Father, thank you that your Son is the head. God, for the next few minutes that we have together, we pray that we will just put aside any kind of distractions and just focus on your word, which is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. Thank you, God, for your mercy. Thank you for your goodness and faithfulness. We pray these things in your son's name by the power of your spirit, amen. So before we dive into our passage, I think it's important for us to understand a little bit of the context of 1 Peter. Now for those who are in the Bible, the Sunday school, you know, adult Sunday school, you guys have been going through 1 Peter, right? This was not coordinated between me and anyone else in the church. This was a randomly chosen passage. But I know that Dan has taken you through the context, so I'm not gonna dive too far into that. But I do just want to mention a couple things. Modern scholars have tried to cast doubt on the authorship of 1 Peter, as they have a lot of books in the New Testament. But we have great reason to believe that it was written by the Apostle Peter. Church, the church throughout its history, has affirmed that fact. And Peter is writing to a group of Jewish and Gentile Christians who are facing persecution. They're facing trials, and there are more trials to come. He's writing to Jews and Gentiles who have been dispersed from their homes through this persecution by the Roman government and the Jewish religious establishment. Most conservative experts believe that the letter was written around AD 64, which would have been right before the fire in Rome and the start of Emperor Nero's persecution of Christians. Peter's writing to encourage and strengthen his readers to prepare them for the coming trials. Now one thing to keep in mind as we're working through our passage today, verses 3 through 12 are actually one long sentence in Greek. Now I know a lot of times we think of Paul as the expert, like the master of the long sentence, right? Getting to Ephesians and different places. But apparently, Peter can write some long ones as well. Why do I mention this? Why is it important? Well, I think it's good for us to realize and remember that this is really one long thought that's building upon itself verse by verse till we get to verse 12. So in our first section, verses three through five, we're gonna see Peter tell us why God the Father is worthy of praise. why God the Father is worthy of praise. As Peter begins verse three, he calls for his readers to bless or praise the Father, and then he spends the remainder of the first three verses telling his readers why the Father is so ultimately and rightly deserving of their praise. Sorry, while I was praying, I decided it was a good idea to close my Bible. There we go, back to 1 Peter. So why should Christians praise or bless the Father? Well, Peter says here that it's because of the great mercy of God. We are to bless and praise the Father because of his great mercy. The word translated here as mercy means kindness or concern expressed toward someone in need, compassion. Pity. Clemency. In this case, specifically of God toward humanity. I don't know about you, but I think we are in pretty desperate need of God's mercy. Right? Everything that we have as Christians, everything that we are, is because of the mercy of God. When humanity spurned God's love and rebelled and ran away from him, God would have been well within his rights at that point to wipe us out. But praise his name, he didn't, right? But from eternity past, God the Father, Son, and Spirit had a plan in place for the redemption and salvation of humanity. What is the ultimate demonstration of the Father's mercy? the resurrection of his Son, Jesus. The hope that we have as believers is based entirely in our risen and living Savior, Jesus Christ. God raised his Son from the dead, and because of that, we believe that those who place their faith in God through his Son, Jesus Christ, will also one day be raised to new life. Paul tells us in Colossians 1.18 that Christ is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead. John in Revelation 1.5 says that he is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead. Christ is the ultimate faithful witness to the great mercy of God the Father. And it was that great mercy that sent Christ to die on our behalf, and that great mercy that raised him from the dead, making him the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. You know, the resurrection of Christ is the foundation of our hope. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15, if Christ has not been raised, our faith is futile and we are still in our sins. Without the resurrection of Christ by God the Father, we got nothing. But praise be to God for his great mercy that he did raise our Savior and our living hope. Now this is probably something that you've been told before, but I think it bears repeating here. When we read the word hope in the Bible, it's not what we mean when we say hope today in our culture. Right? When I'm talking to you about hope, what I mean is a desired but unsure outcome. Like many of you last month, I watched the Super Bowl. And maybe like some of you, I know at least one, Mark, I got to meet him last night, an Eagles fan, so there was at least one more of you hoping that the Chiefs were not going to win. Right? But I didn't know. I didn't know if they were gonna win or not. I hoped, but it was unsure. That's not what the Bible is talking about when it talks about hope. It's talking about a sure confidence, a certain outcome. Or in this case, a certain and sure person, Jesus. Our risen Savior alone is our hope, our assurance of the new life that we have as believers. In verse four, Peter goes on to tell his readers that not only do we have new life and a sure hope, but we also have an inheritance waiting for us in heaven. Now, we've probably all seen a movie or a television show where the scene opens on a group of people dressed in black, and the mood is somber. And somewhere in that group of people, maybe sitting behind a big desk, is someone in a suit with a sealed envelope. And in that envelope is the last will and testament that all these people have gathered to hear read. And as the lawyer opens the envelope and begins to read the last will and testament, their joy and anticipation turns to horror and disbelief because the will's been changed. The inheritance that they had put their hope in is gone, or at least it doesn't belong to them anymore. Is that the kind of inheritance that we as believers are putting our hope in? No. Let's look at what Peter has to say. Peter is going to use three separate words to describe our inheritance. Imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. The first word translated imperishable means impervious to corruption, death. or decay, it's incorruptible, immortal, nothing can ever destroy our eternal inheritance. The second word Peter uses to describe our inheritance refers to something that is undefiled and pure in a religious and moral way. Our inheritance is pure, good, and right in every way. The last word the apostle uses to describe our inheritance, translated here in the ESV as unfading, refers to something that will never lose its pristine quality or character. Nothing can ever tarnish this inheritance or cause it to fade. So Peter is telling his readers, and by extension us, that our inheritance or our salvation that we have waiting for us in heaven can never be corrupted or destroyed. It is perfectly pure and right and good in every way, and that its pristine character will never fade or change. And most importantly, our inheritance is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading because our Savior, is those things. In verse five, Paul concludes this first section of our passage by reminding his readers that because of their faith, God the Father is guarding them for a salvation that is to be revealed in the last time. So what is this salvation that Peter's referring to? Well, it's the second coming of Christ. I know when we think about salvation these days, sometimes we think of it in terms as a one-time completed event. And I fully believe in the assurance of salvation that we can have confidence that justification The act where God the Father credited to our lives, to our accounts, his son's righteousness, is a one-time event. But I also know that scripture talks about salvation as an ongoing process and a not yet complete process. We trust in God that he has justified us by his son's death on the cross. We have been saved. We are being saved by the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in our lives day by day. And then one day we will be saved as we are raised to glorious new life and we will be like and with our Savior. You know, this is kind of a side note, but as I was going through 1 Peter 1, I was really just struck by what a beautiful Trinitarian passage this is. I mean, can you guys believe that the God of the universe, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, from eternity past, have worked together for our redemption and salvation? It's incredible. In our first section, we've seen that God the Father, through Jesus Christ, has caused believers to be born again to a perfect hope and inheritance. And because of their faith in his son, God is guarding them until Christ returns. In our next section, Peter is going to explain to his readers why it is so vital that they have faith and understand their hope in Christ. So our second point here, verses six through nine, is the importance of faith during trials. In verses six and seven, Peter reminds his readers that even in the midst of trials, that they can rejoice in the hope and inheritance that they have as children of God. I think it's important to note that Peter isn't saying here that they're rejoicing because of the trials. They're not jumping up and down because, as Dan said, that they've been kicked out of their homes, that they're being persecuted, but because of their hope and inheritance, they continue can continue to rejoice and praise God even in the midst of these trials. I like what Thomas Schreiner has to say about these verses in his commentary on 1 Peter. He says, Peter added the interesting phrase, if necessary. The idea is that the sufferings believers experience are not the result of fate or impersonal forces of nature. They are the will of God for believers. the New Testament regularly sees sufferings as the road believers must travel to enter into God's kingdom. Peter's gonna double down on this idea of suffering and trials being the will of God in 1 Peter 4.19, where he says, therefore, let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful creator while doing good. Peter's readers are about to enter an intense period of suffering at the hands of the wicked emperor Nero. And it's only natural, I think, that they ask, maybe like we might even today, why is it God's will for his people to suffer? Why is it God's will that we face trials? Well, Peter anticipates and answers that question. He says, It is to test the genuineness of our faith. It's pretty easy to have faith during good and easy times, right? When everything's going along pretty well, it's another matter entirely during times of pain and suffering. Peter encourages his readers and us to persevere during times of trial because praise and glory awaits those who endure such trials at the second coming of Christ. In verses 8 and 9, Peter once again touches on the importance of faith. Back in verse 5, Peter said that we are being guarded through our faith in Christ. In verse 7, he says that the trials we face by the will of God are meant to test the genuineness of our faith. In verses 8 and 9, Peter explains that it is our faith in Christ. A faith that causes us to believe, even though we have never seen our Savior, that will ultimately lead to the salvation of our souls and that will bring us joy in this life. The Christian life isn't meant to be just a drudgery that we have to somehow figure out a way to get through until Christ comes again. No, we're to have joy, joy inexpressible at all times, good and bad. So in the first section of our text, verses three through five, we looked at the hope and the inheritance that awaits God's children. In our next section, verses six through nine, Peter explains that through faith, we can continue to have joy and endure even in the midst of suffering and trials. And in our final section of our passage today, verses 10 through 12, Peter is going to explain how blessed his readers are as New Testament saints. That the mystery hidden for the ages has finally been revealed to them in the person of Jesus Christ. Peter begins his final, the verses of this final section by saying that even the Old Testament prophets who spoke by the power of the Holy Spirit, right? Peter says in another place, you know, no prophecy came by man, but men who were carried along by the Holy Spirit. So these prophets who were filled with and led by the Holy Spirit, they didn't even fully understand what they were writing. They didn't know when the time was to come, or who the person would be who would fulfill these things. They searched and inquired carefully to understand, but ultimately they were taught that they weren't serving themselves, but us. You and I know and understand things that were a mystery even to the Old Testament prophets. So just imagine, just a second, imagine with me, if you will, what it was like to be a member of God's people in the Old Testament. It was the law of Moses, not the law of love or grace, that dictated how they were to relate to Yahweh. They didn't have unrestricted access to God. They needed imperfect human priests to act as mediators of the covenant that God had made with them at Sinai. They had forgiveness of sin, but it was obtained through the continual animal sacrifice system and death. They didn't have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. God's Spirit came on people But he also went, which is why David in Psalm 51, after his sin with Bathsheba, prayed, take not your Holy Spirit from me. Because he was afraid that the Spirit was gonna be taken away. And while they had the Torah, God's law, they didn't have the completed revelation of God. and they didn't know who God's Messiah would be or when he would come. New Testament saints, by comparison, have, by the mercy of God, an embarrassment of spiritual riches. You know, we're no longer under the law of Moses, but the law of grace. As the writer of Hebrew reminds us, we're able to approach the throne of God with boldness and confidence. We no longer need imperfect people to act as mediators between us and God, because we have the perfect mediator, Jesus Christ. We no longer need to make sacrifice for our sins because Christ, once and for all, made the perfect and final sacrifice on our behalf. And we have been sealed for eternity by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and he will never leave us. And maybe, best of all, we have the completed revelation of God through his word. We believe scripture contains all the wisdom that we need to live a life of godliness here and now. Remember how I said that this passage was one big sentence that builds on itself verse by verse? Well, it's been building to this final phrase where Peter tells his readers that the work of redemption that God has performed on our behalf, on the behalf of humanity, it is so amazing, it's so wonderful, that the angels themselves long to understand it. Please don't miss what Peter is saying here. The angels who live in the presence of God, who worship Him day and night, who were there at creation, they long to understand the mercy of God. They long to understand the depths of the riches of the mercy of God toward humanity, toward you, and toward me. They long to understand the hope that we have in Christ. Hope is a powerful thing, isn't it? Louis Zamperini survived life in a rubber raft in a Japanese prisoner of war camp because he hoped. He hoped that one day he would be saved. He hoped that one day he would get to go home. And one day, all of his dreams came true. The war was over. The Allies came in, and he was liberated. He was saved from the prisoner of war camp, and he got to go home. The problem was that Zamperini's life wasn't what he hoped it would be after he got home. He started having nightmares, horrible nightmares about the atrocities that he had suffered at the hands of his captors. And he turned to alcohol to deal with them. And Louis' wife was ready to leave him. His marriage was crumbling. His life was spiraling out of control. That is until one day when his wife met the source of true hope at a Billy Graham crusade. And though Louis fought against it and resisted and didn't want to have anything to do with what his wife was telling him, eventually he came to the end of himself. And he too, at that same crusade, found the source of true hope. It was only then that Louis learned to praise God because of his great mercy. You see, he figured out that he had put his hope in the wrong things. He wanted to be saved from a rubber raft and a prisoner of war camp. Who wouldn't? But what he really needed was forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation for his soul. He hoped against hope that one day he would get a chance to return home. But what he really needed was an eternal home with an imperishable, undefiled, and unfading inheritance waiting for him. Hope is a powerful thing. Whatever you may be placing your hope in today, a person, a relationship, a job, a paycheck, a role in your family, an identity, your own talents and abilities. If it's anything other than our great and merciful God, it is misplaced hope. It is only by finding our hope in our Savior Jesus that we can find all that we need. Salvation and eternal home with an imperishable, undefiled, and unfading inheritance. Only by placing our hope in Him can we find joy in this life and the ability to bless and praise Him even during the trials that we will inevitably face. So next week we're gonna look at the second half of 1 Peter 1, and Peter is really gonna dig into the practical implications of what these truths should lead us to do, how they should lead us to live. But I would be remiss today if I let you leave without what I believe is the main point, the main takeaway that we need to take out of this first half of 1 Peter 1. which is that as believers who have hope and an inheritance in Christ, we are to praise God for his great mercy. When we face persecution, we praise God for his great mercy, which allows us to persevere. When we're grieved by various trials, we show the genuineness of our faith by continuing to praise God for his great mercy. when life threatens to rob us of joy, as it sometimes does, remember the embarrassment of spiritual riches we have in Christ, and praise God for his great mercy. And as we long for Christ's second coming, even as the angels long to understand God's work of redemption and salvation. Praise God for his great mercy till that wonderful day when our Savior returns and we are with him in glory for eternity. Let's pray. Father, you are merciful beyond anything that we understand and definitely beyond anything that we deserve. God, thank you for your son. Thank you that your mercy sent him to die on our behalf to do what we never could and never would if we're honest with ourselves. But thank you that you raised him to new life. Thank you that he is our hope and that we have an inheritance waiting for us. Thank you for the gift of your spirit to work in our lives day by day to transform us into the beautiful image of our savior. God, as we go from this place, I pray for every man, woman, and child in here, Lord, God, that they would just continue to seek after you in an effort to experience your grace and mercy and love which you give so freely to each of us. It's in your son's name we pray by the power of your spirit, amen.