Dan Herold | 1 Peter 1:3-9 | April 3, 2016
(Sermon begins at 22:10)
What scares you? Maybe its heights, maybe snakes or spiders, maybe you are afraid of scary movies, or the possibility of war, or an outbreak of disease—or any number of other things. How do you handle your fear? Have you developed ways to control or repress it? If so, what happens when something triggers that fear? If you have a fear like that chances are at some time or another in your life it has caused some degree of difficulty for you.
There are some people whose fears severely affect their lifestyle. Some people are afflicted with such severe social anxiety that they hardly interact with other people. Some people are so afraid of disease that they stockpile medicines and refuse to leave their homes for fear of contracting some disease. Others are so afraid of a complete economic collapse and they spend their days preparing for that situation.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was something that could eliminate all fear? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was a way to calm those fears and live peacefully? Well, this hopefully won’t come as a shock to you, but there is! There is a way to live a life free of fear and that is to live in Jesus Christ, your Savior who rose from the dead to give you peace. In 1 Peter we hear all about the reason for Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and how it affects us as Christians.
This morning we are going to look at Peter’s words as he explains that by Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, we have been given peace.
Let’s look once more at what it is that Peter says we have received…
”In God’s great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you…”
He has given us new birth, living hope, and an inheritance that is being guarded for us. That right there goes a long way to quieting some of our fears, doesn’t it?
He has given us new birth…none of our past mistakes count against us! Even though we might still be aware of our sins, God has taken them away! He washed them away with the blood of Christ which he willingly shed on the cross so that we could be given a new life.
And living hope! What an awesome blessing that is. Jesus defeated death for us! He isn’t dead, the angel opened his tomb to show us that Jesus wasn’t in there, but that he rose from the dead just like he told us he would! We don’t have to fear death, because it doesn’t have any power over us. We still might be worried about how we will die—if it will be long and drawn out or painful—but we never need to worry about death because Jesus rose from the dead to give us peace. He rose to give us peace from the fears that naturally attack us, but by his resurrection we have been set free to live in peace.
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And we can live securely in that peace because our inheritance is being guarded for us. We don’t have to worry about our inheritance, our salvation, wearing out or being used up because God is guarding it for us in heaven. Heaven is like a perfectly conditioned museum vault. When you go to a museum lots of exhibits are in cases or behind glass in order to control the temperature and humidity so that the item on exhibit doesn’t deteriorate as quickly. As long as we place our trust in God and lean fully on him to be the one who provides and protects our salvation we never have to be afraid that our salvation will spoil or fade away. Our Lord has done amazing things for us and one of the main purposes for the things that he does is to give us—his beloved children—peace…peace which we wouldn’t be able to find on our own.
Still, though, because we are sinful creatures and will be subject to Satan’s attacks as long as we are in this world, sometimes fear creeps back in. One of the things that can cause fear to re-enter our lives is when we face trials and hardships, or as Peter puts it,
“…now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.”
When we suffer we are tempted to blame God or at least to question him. We are tempted to question whether he really is watching over us and protecting us or if he even exists at all.
But that’s the conclusion Satan wants us to jump to. He wants us to act irrationally. He wants fear to motivate so that we doubt God’s promises. So when you suffer hardships, and you most certainly will in this life, rather than fall into Satan’s trap and give in to fear, remember how Peter explains the purpose for our trials and hardships. He says,
“These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”
When you suffer some hardship in this life, whether it’s persecution for your faith or being subject to some sort of psychological fear, it isn’t because God has abandoned you. He allowed this trial to come into your life for a reason. He allowed it to come into your life to refine you and your faith like fire refines gold because your soul is even more precious to God than gold. He wants to refine you so that your faith can be proved to be genuine.
One of the common tests among old time miners when they came across gold was to bite it. True gold was soft enough that you would leave marks in it when you bit it. And if it wasn’t true gold you would know by the feel. God knows you…he knows your strengths and your weaknesses and he knows that there are things that tempt you and that you struggle with. What Peter is telling us is that sometimes God uses hardships to refine us…to lead us back to the cross, to the empty tomb, to our real source of peace. And in doing that he removes temptations from our lives by showing us how much better his way is. How much better it is to trust in the Lord, on the one who can quiet all our fears.
One last word of peace that Peter shares with us in these verses today is found just in how he talks to us. He doesn’t write these words to scold us or correct us as though we had done something wrong or been ignorant of how God works. He writes to encourage us. He writes to us knowing that the life of a Christian is a life of constant struggle and constant ups and downs. Peter is writing to Christians whom he knows love their Lord… he says,
“Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
You are receiving just what your Savior won for you. Jesus Christ rose from the dead to give you peace. Heavenly peace for eternity which is being stored and guarded for you in heaven, and also peace which you live in right now as your Savior calms your fears and refines your precious soul. In a few minutes you’ll have the opportunity to come to the Lord’s table and receive the visible and tangible body and blood of your risen Savior along with his forgiveness. Let him be the one who quiets all your fears. Let him give you the peace that he has won for you. Let him love you and be your comfort.
AMEN.