We live in this world with some hopes.
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Hope that we will have our job
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Hope that the value of the land
we have purchased, will appreciate over time
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Hope that our friends will be
there around us forever
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Hope that we will be healthy
for some more time
One person said that we live in this world
with lying hopes and dying hopes.
Either someone has given as a false hope or
some hope which dies before us or dies with us when we die.
At around AD 60, at the time of Nero, the
saints, the disciples were persecuted and they were scattered throughout the Asia minor . All their hopes of remaining in their own
place and comfort got scattered and it was then Apostle Peter wrote his first
letter to those scattered believers.
Let's turn to 1 Peter 1; 3, 4.
The believers were entering a season of
severe trial and Peter is trying to encourage them with the words of Hope and
about the inheritance that they received in the new birth.
Living Hope
“In His great mercy, he has
given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from
death”
It is a living hope, it springs up ever
fresh and clear in the Christian’s heart, giving calm peace and inner joy even
in the midst of troubles. And it dieth not; worldly hopes perish and die; they mock
us with a deluding expectation, but they end in disappointment, and leave us
sad and hopeless.
“The hope of unjust men perisheth” (Proverbs
11:7), often while they live, always when they die. But “the righteous hath
hope in his death” (Proverbs 14:32); for his hope liveth even in death.
How
this is a living hope compared to worldly hope?
The basis of our hope is our new birth is
the resurrection of Jesus Christ from death.
Jesus Christ didn’t become soil with his
death but he rose from death and he is still living.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the
basis of our living hope. Its not a vague guess. It’s a living hope. It’s not a wishful thinking but it’s a firm
conviction that we will also resurrect with Him.
In this world, we can see the promises made
by one person, it may not stand after his death. It will be gone. The promises
given by the Govt will not stand after their 5 years of rule.
But in Jesus Christ who is still living we
have hope.
His disciples lost all their hope, and who
ran away when Jesus was captured must have felt the same thing like the
worldly. But they didn’t know that it is not the end but the beginning of a
great life.
They thought their hope had ended with the
death of Jesus Christ but only till the moment they saw the resurrected Jesus
Christ.
Inheritance
“..into an inheritance that
can never perish, spoil or fade – kept in heaven for you..”
The heavenly inheritance is the ultimate end of our regeneration;
the hope of that inheritance is the present joy of the Christian life.
To those scattered people who had to leave their inheritance Apostle
Peter is talking about their heavenly inheritance.
The inheritance is sure; it is better than the
inheritance promised by others; for it is
(1) incorruptible.
All things earthly have in themselves the seeds of decay and death; but “when
this corruptible shall have put on incorruption,” the redeemed of the Lord
shall receive a kingdom that cannot be moved, where “neither moth nor rust doth
corrupt.”
(2) It is undefiled. Our inheritance in this world
or even inheritance of Israel
(3) It fadeth not away. “The grass withereth, the flower falleth away;” it is
not so in the “land that is very far off.” There
are no tendencies to corruption there, no
possibilities of defilement, not even that
fading which must pass over the
fairest things of earth.
(4)Reserved in heaven for you. The many mansions in
our Father’s house have been kept from the
beginning, and still are kept for
his elect; Satan cannot rob them of it, as he
robbed man of the earthly
paradise.
Conclusion
It may not be complete to remember the suffering
and death of our Jesus Christ alone without remembering the resurrection of
Christ. Through which we have a living hope and an inheritance which the world
cannot give. Let us thank God for his ‘great mercy’, ‘new birth’, ‘resurrection of Jesus Christ’, through which
we got the ‘living hope’ and ‘glorious inheritance’. May these thoughts make us
more grateful to our savior.
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